LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS
BULLETIN
February 08/17
Compiled
& Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
The
Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
http://www.eliasbejjaninews.com/newsbulletins17/english.february08.17.htm
News Bulletin
Achieves Since 2006
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Bible Quotations For Today
The Son of
Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many
You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great
ones are tyrants over them
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 20/20-28/:"Then the
mother of the sons of Zebedee came to him with her sons, and kneeling before
him, she asked a favour of him. And he said to her, ‘What do you want?’ She
said to him, ‘Declare that these two sons of mine will sit, one at your right
hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.’ But Jesus answered, ‘You do not
know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to
drink?’ They said to him, ‘We are able.’He said to
them, ‘You will indeed drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my
left, this is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been
prepared by my Father.’When the ten heard it, they
were angry with the two brothers. But Jesus called them to him and said, ‘You
know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones
are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be
great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you
must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve,
and to give his life a ransom for many.’"
Have nothing to do with stupid
and senseless controversies; you know that they breed quarrels.
The Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kindly to everyone, an apt
teacher, patient, correcting opponents with gentleness
Second Letter to Timothy 02/14-26/:"Remind them of this, and warn them
before God that they are to avoid wrangling over words, which does no good but
only ruins those who are listening. Do your best to present yourself to God as
one approved by him, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly explaining
the word of truth. Avoid profane chatter, for it will lead people into more and
more impiety, and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have
swerved from the truth by claiming that the resurrection has already taken
place. They are upsetting the faith of some. But God’s firm foundation stands,
bearing this inscription: ‘The Lord knows those who are his’, and, ‘Let
everyone who calls on the name of the Lord turn away from wickedness.’In
a large house there are utensils not only of gold and silver but also of wood
and clay, some for special use, some for ordinary. All who cleanse themselves
of the things I have mentioned will become special utensils, dedicated and
useful to the owner of the house, ready for every good work.Shun
youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with
those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Have nothing to do with stupid
and senseless controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord’s
servant must not be quarrelsome but kindly to everyone, an apt teacher,
patient, correcting opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant that they
will repent and come to know the truth, and that they may escape from the snare
of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.
Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis
& editorials from miscellaneous sources published on February 07-08/17
Amnesty: As many as 13,000 hanged in Syria prison since 2011/AP/February
07/17
Walid Phares, Trump
Campaign Foreign Policy Advisor, Rehired as Fox National Security
Expert/Rebecca Bynuml/Family Security
Matters/February 07/17
The Trump-Trudeau Tryst/Thomas Quiggin/Gatestone
Institute/February 07/017
Trump’s decisions, operation Decisive Storm to end mullahs’ dream/Jerry
Maher/Al Arabiya/February 07/17
The game of safe zone in Syria/Abdulrahman al-Rashed/Al Arabiya/February 07/17
Will Le Pen be the new French President/Randa Takieddine/Al Arabiya/February
07/17
Post truth phenomenon and separating news from facts/Essayid
Weld Ebah/Al Arabiya/February
07/17
The pros and cons of expat remittance taxes in Saudi Arabia/Dr. Mohamed A. Ramady/Al Arabiya/February 07/17
France's New Islamist Guillotine/The Trial of Georges Bensoussan/Denis
MacEoin/Gatestone Institute/February 07/017
Israel's So-Called Poverty Problem/OECD Poverty Lines Do Not Define
Poverty/Malcolm Lowe/Gatestone Institute/February
07/017
For Iranian Americans, Trump has complicated an already tricky trip to
motherland
Sarah Parvini/Los Angeles Times/February 06/17
Titles For Latest Lebanese Related News published on February 07-08/17
Saudi-Lebanon ties become better with new ambassador
Active Saudi Comeback to Lebanon
Bassil Dubs 'Shameful' the Failure to Endorse New
Vote Law
Bassil signs with his Gabonese counterpart agreement
over systematic diplomatic deliberation
Ter Sarkisian Urges Aoun, Hariri to Maintain 'Consensual' Ties
Report: Pre-Emptive Security Operations Foil Beirut Attack Plot
Twinning Declared between ISF and Police Service of Northern Ireland
Lebanese Man Arrested in U.S.-Based Gun Smuggling Scheme
World Bank Gives Lebanon $200 Million to Upgrade Roads
Mustaqbal Urges Timely Polls under 'New, Consensual
Law'
Aoun Hits Back at Jumblat
over Call for Abolishing Sectarianism
Aoun: Problem lies in transgression of laws
Makari adjourns cabinet questioning session
1 Dead, 3 Hurt in Zgharta Town Family Clash
Adwan: Cabinet Must Dedicate Meetings to Discuss
Election Law
Islamic State 'Emir' Killed in Arsal
Mikati, Sabhan hold talks
Italian Deputy FM meets Lebanese ministers
Jumblatt, Egyptian Ambassador hold talks
Bassil, tackles ties with President of Equatorial Guinea
Riachy: We are preparing workshop of laws at ministry
Fenianos, Iraqi counterpart take up cooperation
prospects
Israeli enemy gunboat violates regional waters
Geagea receive condolences on his late Mother Mary
Bukhari visits Red Cross headquarters in Beirut
Ajib revokes request to free Bahij
Abu Hamze
Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin For
Miscellaneous Reports And News published on February 07-08/17
President Trump Not Welcome in UK Parliament, Speaker of the House Says
At least 20 dead in bomb blast outside Afghan Supreme Court
Settler homes on private Palestinian land legalized
Air strikes hit Syria’s rebel-held Idlib city, 15
dead
Syria Opposition Demands International Observers in Regime Jails
Louvre attack suspect speaks to investigators
Khamenei tells Trump 'no enemy can paralyze' Iran
Florida man jailed for 30 years for mosque fire
Canadian woman found guilty of hiding six baby burials
Settler homes on private Palestinian land legalized
Rona Ambrose’s yacht vacation keeps Conservatives mum on Liberal ethics
Sarkozy to Face Trial over 2012 Campaign Financing
Abbas Calls Israeli Settler Law an 'Attack against
Our People'
Egypt Says It Backs Trump's Media Criticism
Links From Jihad Watch Site for on February 07-08/17
Trump
says media doesn’t report terror attacks, media responds with outrage and fury
House
Committee members compromised by rogue IT staff: Abid,
Imran and Jamal Awan
Robert
Spencer: Democrat Leaders Protest Trump’s Determination to Fight Jihad
Canada’s
Trudeau sets up “war room” to monitor not jihad terrorists, but Donald Trump
Ohio
State University course highlights how Muslims helped build America
Toronto:
BLM protestors claim Quebec Muslims were murdered “because Islam challenges
white supremacy violence”
What
motivates female jihad-martyrdom suicide bombers?
Germany:
Muslim disrupts church funeral, “I come in name of Prophet, to proclaim message
of Allah to infidels”
Mohajer vs. Greenfield on Trump’s Travel Restrictions — on
The Glazov Gang
Hugh
Fitzgerald: “I’m a Muslim — Ask Me Anything,” Answers 30-38
Toronto
Muslim speaker: “We must celebrate our way of life…until their way of life
dissipates under our feet”
Latest Lebanese Related News
published on February 07-08/17
Saudi-Lebanon ties become better with new ambassador
Reuters/February 6, 2017/Aoun sought to mend relations with Saudi Arabia's
monarch
Saudi Arabia will appoint a new ambassador to Lebanon, encourage the return of
Saudi tourists and increase flights there by Saudi airlines, the Lebanese
president's office said, in a sign of improved bilateral ties.
Active Saudi Comeback to
Asharq Al-Awsat/ February 7, 2017/Beirut – The visit of Saudi State
Minister for Arab Gulf Affairs, Thamer al-Sabhan to
After meeting with Aoun, Sabhan
confirmed on Monday that his visit to
Bassil Dubs 'Shameful' the Failure to Endorse New Vote Law
Naharnet/February 07/17/Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil criticized as
“shameful” the political parties failure to agree on a new election law for the
upcoming parliamentary polls, stressing that the sought vote system must
reinforce unity among the Lebanese, the National News Agency reported on
Tuesday. “It is such a shame that we, the Lebanese, have defeated the Israeli
enemy and terrorism, while we fail to agree on an electoral law,” Bassil told the Lebanese Diaspora in
Bassil signs with his Gabonese counterpart agreement over
systematic diplomatic deliberation
Tue 07 Feb 2017/NNA - Foreign Affairs Minister Gibran Bassil
on Tuesday signed with his Gabonese counterpart Pacome
Moubelet-Boubeya an agreement relevant to systematic
diplomatic deliberation that includes consultations over improving bilateral
ties.
Minister Bassil hoped heightening the level of
commercial and economic exchange between both countries, thanking the Gabonese
authorities for their support to
Ter Sarkisian Urges Aoun, Hariri to Maintain 'Consensual' Ties
Naharnet/February 07/17/MP Serge Ter Sarkisian voiced calls on
Tuesday upon President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister
Saad Hariri to “safeguard their joint visions” for
Lebanon and to “preserve their consensual views” in light of the debate between
political parties over an electoral law for the upcoming parliamentary polls. “I
call upon the President and PM to complete their common vision and to maintain
consensual positions,” said the MP in an interview with VDL (93.3). The MP
ruled out any political setback in light of the “prevailing atmosphere of democracy.”Reports have claimed recently that disputes over
the new electoral law could harm the political harmony between Aoun and Hariri. The political parties have intensified
their efforts recently in a bid to agree on a new electoral law before the
expiry of the deadlines. The country has not organized parliamentary elections
since 2009 and the legislature has instead twice extended its own mandate. The
last polls were held under an amended version of the 1960 electoral law and the
next vote is scheduled for May. On the other hand, Ter
Sarkisian stressed the need that
Report: Pre-Emptive Security Operations
Foil
Naharnet/February 07/17/The General Security
Directorate was able to thwart an Islamic State group terror scheme,
that had plans to target
Twinning Declared between ISF and Police
Service of Northern Ireland
Naharnet/February 07/17/Within the framework of the
£13million Memorandum of Understanding signed in June 2016 between the British
embassy in Beirut and Lebanon's Ministry of Interior, a twinning ceremony was
held Tuesday at the Internal Security Forces’ headquarters between the Police
Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and the Lebanese Internal Security Forces.The strategic twinning between the two police forces
aims at strengthening areas of public order, human rights, and coordination and
tasking, scenario based training and strategic planning, a British embassy
statement said. British Ambassador to Lebanon Hugo Shorter was accompanied by
PSNI Deputy Chief Constable Drew Harris and they were welcomed by the ISF chief
Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Basbous and the Head of Aramoun Academy Gen. Ahmed Hajjar.
They were joined at the ceremony by Interior Minister Nouhad
al-Mashnouq, Head of ISF Mobile Forces Gen. Fadi Hashem, Head of Police of
Beirut Gen. Mohammed Ayoubi, ISF Inspector General
Joseph Kallas, and Chief of Staff Gen. Naim Chammas. The Police Service
of Northern Ireland is a force recognized internationally for “excellent work
in the fields of community policing, counter terrorism and public order
policing,” the embassy said in its statement. “The visit by DCC Harris will
build on the relationships between PSNI and senior officers in the ISF and
allow DCC Harris to tour a number of ISF facilities,” it added. After the
twinning, Ambassador Shorter said “today marks yet another major step in our
strong strategic relationship with the Internal Security Forces.”“The
Police Service of Northern Ireland have bravely undergone deep reform to become
a world leading police force that regularly provides advice to partners around
the world on subjects such as public order, community policing and human
rights. I am very proud that we are able to introduce a strong friend and
mentor to the ISF as it embarks on its own journey of reform, in turn the PSNI
will benefit from the lessons learnt by the ISF in policing in such a complex
social and security environment,” added Shorter. The PSNI was formed on
November 4, 2001 after decades of sectarian troubles between Republican Catholics
seeking independence and Protestant Loyalists seeking to remain part of the
United Kingdom.The predecessor to the PSNI was the
Royal Ulster Constabulary, a predominantly Protestant organization. As part of
the peace building process it was agreed that a new police force, representing
both Catholics and Protestants in equal numbers, was required.
Lebanese Man Arrested in U.S.-Based Gun
Smuggling Scheme
Associated Press/Naharnet/February 07/17/A
Lebanese man has been arrested in the
World Bank Gives Lebanon $200 Million to
Upgrade Roads
Associated Press/Naharnet/February 07/17/The World
Bank said Tuesday it has earmarked $200 million for repairing Lebanon's unsafe
roads, signaling a resumption of international aid
months after the election of a president following two and a half years of
political vacuum in the country. The international lender said in a statement
that the funds will be used to repair around 500 kilometers
of roads in the first phase of a broader government plan "to revamp the
country's crumbling road sector."It said the
Roads and Employment Project was approved Monday by its board of directors. Ferid Belhaj, the World Bank's
Middle East director, said the project would "help
Mustaqbal Urges Timely Polls under 'New, Consensual Law'
Naharnet/February 07/17/Al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc
on Tuesday stressed “the importance of holding the parliamentary elections on
time and without any delay, according to a new law that allows consensus among
the various parties in line with the constitution and the Taef
Accord.” In a statement issued after its weekly meeting, the bloc also noted
that “the developments and changes in the region and the world at several
political, security and economic levels require all the main political leaders
to be aware of the possible dangerous repercussions on the situations in Lebanon.”“Everyone must be vigilant and keen on holding
onto wisdom, equanimity, sobriety and flexibility, in order to reach solutions
to the ongoing and impending problems,” Mustaqbal
urged. It also called for “strengthening national unity, enhancing stability
and supporting the success of the new phase that
Aoun Hits Back at Jumblat over
Call for Abolishing Sectarianism
Naharnet/February 07/17/President Michel Aoun on Tuesday announced that he will press for
“alleviating sectarianism and its repercussions without affecting Lebanon's
rich diversity and pluralism.”“Some parties'
overbidding in their remarks about the abolition of sectarianism does not
practically lead to its abolition,” Aoun said, in an
apparent response to Jumblat's latest stance. The
president also called for “respecting competent individuals in every religious
community,” noting that “political affiliation should not be the exclusive
criterion for choosing the representatives of each sect in state institutions.”Jumblat had on Sunday noted that all the
proposed electoral law formats that contain proportional representation are not
compatible with the 1989 Taef Accord, calling for
elections “under a revised version of the 1960 law.”“We
can find an amended format of the 1960 law, or else let us immediately seek the
implementation of the Taef Accord, which we can
implement fully or gradually while taking into consideration the country's
circumstances,” the PSP leader urged. “Taef Accord
stipulated new electoral districts and administrative governorates and the
creation of a senate in which all sects and confessions would be represented
after the abolition of political sectarianism in the parliament's structure,” Jumblat reminded. “Political sectarianism can be abolished
while keeping some norms, specifically the election of a Christian president
for the republic. When we abolish political sectarianism we can mull the
implementation of proportional representation, which was not mentioned in the Taef Accord,” the PSP leader explained.
Aoun: Problem lies in transgression of laws
Tue 07 Feb 2017/NNA - President of the Republic, Michel Aoun, said on Tuesday that the problem was not the absence
of legal documents but the transgression of laws and their non-implementation.
President Aoun called for work in order to consecrate
the cultural piers that would contribute in the exit from tight sectarian
frameworks towards citizenship.Aoun confirmed that he
would push for the alleviation of sectarian brunt and its repercussions without
minimizing the wealth of
Makari adjourns cabinet questioning session
Tue 07 Feb 2017/NNA - Parliament Speaker Deputy Farid
Makari ended the cabinet questioning session which
was held today (Tuesday) at about 1:30 p.m. without announcing any new date for
the upcoming session. Makari pointed out that
"parliament speaker Nabih Berri
and the Parliament Bureau committee will decide the date of the next session.
1 Dead, 3 Hurt in
Naharnet/February 07/17/One person was killed and
three others were wounded in a clash between members of the al-Arnaout family in the Zgharta
district town of
Adwan: Cabinet Must Dedicate Meetings to Discuss Election
Law
Naharnet/February 07/17/Lebanese Forces MP George Adwan said on Tuesday that the cabinet must schedule
sessions strictly dedicated to discussing a new electoral law for the looming
parliamentary polls. “The cabinet must hold successive meetings where
discussions strictly focus on finding a new electoral law,” said Adwan after an adjourned parliament session that was
scheduled for questioning the cabinet. “We insist on having the elections held
on time and that a new law is endorsed,” he added. “We have to cooperate to
pass a vote law that supports and consolidates the mountain reconciliation,” he
said. The political parties have intensified their efforts in recent days in a
bid to agree on a new electoral law before the expiry of the deadlines. While
al-Mustaqbal Movemnet has
rejected that the electoral law be fully based on proportional representation,
arguing that Hizbullah's arms would prevent serious
competition in the party's strongholds, Druze leader MP Walid
Jumblat has totally rejected proportional
representation, even within a hybrid law, warning that it would “marginalize”
the minority Druze community. Hizbullah, Mustaqbal, the Free Patriotic Movement, AMAL Movement and
the Lebanese Forces are meanwhile discussing several formats of a so-called
hybrid electoral law that mixes proportional representation with the
winner-takes-all system. The country has not organized parliamentary elections
since 2009 and the legislature has instead twice extended its own mandate. The
last polls were held under an amended version of the 1960 electoral law and the
next vote is scheduled for May.
Islamic State 'Emir' Killed in Arsal
Naharnet/February 07/17/Islamic State 'emir', Ahmed
Wahid al-Abed, was killed in a bomb explosion in the southeastern
town of
Mikati, Sabhan hold talks
Tue 07 Feb 2017/NNA - Former Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, met on Tuesday night at his residence with Thamer Al-Sabhan, Minister of
State for Arab Gulf Affairs. Both sides discussed bilateral ties between
Italian Deputy FM meets Lebanese ministers
Tue 07 Feb 2017/NNA - "Italian Deputy Foreign Minister, Vincenzo Amendola, started on
Monday series of official meetings with Lebanese officials, the Italian embassy
said in a statement on Tuesday. Amendola met with
Social Affairs Minister, Pierre Abou Assi. He reiterated his support for the international
cooperation in the Italian Foreign Ministry to face refugees' crisis. Amendola visited this morning (Tuesday) the Minister of
Energy and Water, Cesar Abi Khalil,
showing
Jumblatt, Egyptian Ambassador hold talks
Tue 07 Feb 2017/NNA - PSP leader, Deputy Walid Jumblatt met on Tuesday night at his residence in
Clemenceau with the Egyptian Ambassador to Lebanon, Nazih
al Najjari, in the presence of MPs Ghazi Aridi and Akram Shehayeb.
Bassil, tackles ties with President of
Tue 07 Feb 2017/NNA - Foreign and Expatriates Minister, Gebran
Bassil, met on Tuesday with the President of the
Riachy: We are preparing workshop of laws at ministry
Tue 07 Feb 2017/NNA - Information Minister, Melhem Riachy, said on Tuesday night "the Ministry of
Information is organizing workshop of laws and there is serious discussion in
the preparation of draft laws for the exemption of customs to provide some of
the funds and the costs to the written press." The minister added that his
ministry is also setting a draft law to transform "the Information
Ministry to the Ministry of dialogue and communication." Riachy's remarks came during a dinner at Mhanna restaurant held by the Media Graduates Association
to honor the minister and in the presence of the
Information Ministry's General Director, Hassan Falha
and others. Riachy indicated "There is a project
to develop the syndicate editors to include editors in all media outlets and to
ensure the assets of contracting, provide synergy fund and retirement."
Fenianos, Iraqi counterpart take up cooperation prospects
Tue 07 Feb 2017/NNA - Public Works and Transportation Minister, Youssef Fenianos, met on Tuesday
evening with his Iraqi counterpart, Kazem Al-Hamami, on top of a delegation, whereby they discussed
cooperation prospects at the air and sea transportation levels.
Iraqi Ambassador to
Israeli enemy gunboat violates regional
waters
Tue 07 Feb 2017/NNA - Army Command - Guidance Directorate issued the
following communiqué: "On Tuesday, a hostile Israeli gunboat violated the
Lebanese regional waters off Ras Al-Nakoura between 11;33 for a distance of 555 m. for 42
minutes. The violation has been followed up in coordination with the
UNIFIL."
Geagea receive condolences on his late Mother Mary
Tue 07 Feb 2017/NNA - Lebanese Forces (LF) leader Samir
Geagea received scores of phone calls offering
condolences on the passing away of his Mother Mary Habib
Geagea, notably from President of the Republic,
General Michel Aoun, Prime Minister, Saad Hariri, and Maronite
Patriarch Cardinal Boutros Rahi. Diplomatic, religious,
media, and army dignitaries also contacted for the same purpose LF leader Geagea. Similar cables of condolences also poured at Meerab notably from National Defense
Minister Yaacoub Sarraf,
former Iraqi PM Iyad Allawi,
and Mrs. Nazek Hariri. On the other hand, Geagea received at Meerab State
Minister for Planning Affairs Michel Pharoun, Land
Movement Head Talal Dweihi,
and Mr Michel Mkattaf.
Bukhari visits Red Cross headquarters in
Tue 07 Feb 2017/NNA - Saudi Embassy Acting Charge d'Affaire
Walid bin Abdullah Bukhari
visited on Tuesday the headquarters of the Lebanese Red Cross in
Ajib revokes request to free Bahij
Abu Hamze
Tue 07 Feb 2017/NNA - Beirut Investigative Judge, Farid
Ajib, revoked on Tuesday a request to free Bahij Abu Hamze due to the fact
that investigative procedures concerning MP Walid Jumblatt's charges against Hamze
have not been finalized, NNA field reporter said.
Latest LCCC Bulletin For
Miscellaneous Reports And News published on February 07-08/17
Amnesty: As many as 13,000 hanged in Syria prison since 2011
SARAH EL DEEB/BEIRUT (AP) February 07/17/— Syrian authorities have
killed as many as 13,000 people — possibly more — since the start of the 2011
uprising in mass hangings at a prison north of Damascus known to detainees as
"the slaughterhouse," Amnesty International said on Tuesday. In a new
report covering the period from 2011 to 2015, Amnesty said 20-50 people were
hanged each week at Saydnaya Prison in killings
authorized by senior Syrian officials, including deputies of President Bashar Assad, and carried out by military police.
The report referred to the killings as a "calculated campaign of
extrajudicial execution."Amnesty has recorded at
least 35 different methods of torture in
"The horrors depicted in this report reveal a hidden, monstrous campaign,
authorized at the highest levels of the Syrian government, aimed at crushing
any form of dissent within the Syrian population," Maalouf
said. While the most recent data is from 2015, Maalouf
said there is no reason to believe the practice has stopped since then, with
thousands more probably killed. "These executions take place after a sham
trial that lasts over a minute or two minutes, but they are authorized by the
highest levels of authority," including the Grand Mufti, a top religious
authority in Syria, and the defense minister, she
said. Syrian government officials rarely comment on allegations of torture and
mass killings. In the past, they have denied reports of massacres documented by
international human rights groups, describing them as propaganda.
The chilling accounts in Tuesday's report came from interviews with 31 former
detainees and over 50 other officials and experts, including former guards and
judges.
According to the findings, detainees were told they would be transferred to
civilian detention centers but were taken instead to another building in the
facility and hanged. "They walked in the 'train,' so they had their heads
down and were trying to catch the shirt of the person in front of them. The
first time I saw them, I was horrified. They were being taken to the
slaughterhouse," Hamid, a former detainee, told
Amnesty. Another former detainee, Omar Alshogre, told
The Associated Press the guards would come to his cell, sometimes three times a
week, and call out detainees by name. Alshogre said a
torture session would begin before midnight in nearby chambers that he could
hear. "Then the sound would stop, and we would hear a big vehicle come and
take them away," said Alshogre, who spent nine
months in Saydnaya. Now 21, he lives in
Speaking in an interview from
The body often would be left behind, or there would be a pool of blood in the
cell for other prisoners to clean up.
"We can tell from the sound of the prisoner as he dies behind us. He dies
a meter away. I don't see anything, but I see with my ears," said Alshogre, who at age 17 moved among nearly 10 detention
facilities in
Alshogre survived nine months in the prison, paying
his way out in 2015 — a common practice. He suffered from tuberculosis and his
weight fell to 35 kilograms (77 pounds).
Two cousins detained with him in western
Still, Alshogre said nothing could have prepared him
for Saydnaya. At one point, Alshogre
was called out by his guards "for execution," he said. He was brought
before a military trial and told not to raise his gaze at the judge, who asked
him how many soldiers he had killed.
When he said none, the judge spared him. Death in Saydnaya
was always present, "like the air," Alshogre
said. Once when he was deprived of food for two days, a cellmate handed him his
food ration — and died days later. "This is someone who gave me his
life," he said. Another cellmate died of diarrhea,
also common in the prison. "Death is the simplest thing. It was the most
hoped for because it would have spared us a lot: hunger, thirst, fear, pain,
cold, thinking," he added. "Thinking was so hard. It could also
kill," said Alshogre, who keeps a photo of one
of his tormentors on the wall of his home.
President Trump Not Welcome in UK
Parliament, Speaker of the House Says
LORA MOFTAH,Good Morning America /February 07/17
The speaker of the British House of Commons was greeted with cheers today after
he announced his opposition to President Trump addressing Parliament during his
state visit to the U.K. Speaker John Bercow pointed
to Trump’s recent executive order barring citizens from seven Muslim-majority
nation from travelling to the U.S. as part of the reason he could not support a
Trump address.
"I would not wish to issue an invitation to President Trump to speak in
the Royal Gallery," Bercow said during a session
of Parliament, citing the body’s "opposition to
racism and to sexism and our support for equality before the law and an
independent judiciary."
Prime Minister Theresa May invited Trump to make a state visit during her
meeting with the leader in
A petition calling for the invitation to be rescinded garnered 1.8 million
signatures and is now set to be debated in Parliament later this month.
Thousands of demonstrators flooded the streets of
Speaking before Parliament is considered a great honor
for foreign leaders visiting
Bercow underscored the significance of such an
address during his comments to Parliament, saying, "an
address by a foreign leader to both houses of Parliament is not an automatic
right, it’s an earned honor."
He acknowledged that he, as speaker of the House of Commons, was not the only
politician to have a say in whether Trump would be invited but that the
imposition of the migrant ban meant that he is now "strongly opposed to an
address by President Trump in Westminster Hall."In
Parliament, his remarks were followed by a round of applause and cheers from
many of the members present in the chamber, including Dennis Skinner, who rose
to respond, "Further to that point of order, two words: Well done."
But some have criticized the speaker for the statements, most notably Nigel Farage, the former leader of the right-wing U.K.
Independence Party and a prominent British Trump ally.
"For Speaker Bercow to uphold our finest
parliamentary traditions, he should be neutral," Farage
tweeted today.
At least 20 dead in bomb blast outside
Afghan Supreme Court
Reuters Tuesday, 7 February 2017/At least 20 people were killed on Tuesday in a
bomb blast outside the Supreme Court in the center of Afghanistan’s capital,
Kabul, government officials said, in what appeared to be the latest in a series
of attacks on the judiciary.
The Ministry of Public Health said at least 20 people were killed and 38
injured people were taken to city hospitals. There was no immediate claim of
responsibility for the attack, in which police said an apparent suicide bomber
targeted Supreme Court employees leaving their offices at the end of the
working day. “When I heard a bang I rushed toward the Supreme Court’s parking
lot to find my brother who works there,” said a witness, Dad Khuda, adding he had found his brother alive.
“Unfortunately, several people were killed and wounded.”
Reuters witnesses at the scene reported blood stains
on the street and numerous ambulances leaving the area. Last month, Taliban
bombers killed more than 30 people and wounded about 70 in twin blasts in a
crowded area of the city during the afternoon rush hour.
The Taliban, fighting to oust foreign forces and bring down the US-backed
government, claimed responsibility for the Jan. 10 attack. Afghan government
forces control no more than two-thirds of national territory, and have
struggled to contain the Taliban insurgency since the bulk of NATO soldiers
withdrew at the end of 2014.
Settler homes on private Palestinian land
legalized
Reuters,
The legislation has been condemned by Palestinians as a blow to their hopes of
statehood. But its passage may only be largely symbolic as it contravenes
Israeli Supreme Court rulings on property rights.
Political sources have said Netanyahu privately opposes the bill over concerns
it could provide grounds for prosecution by the International Criminal Court in
“Black flag”
Hanan Ashrawi, a
senior member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the main Palestinian
political umbrella body, said in a statement that the law gave settlers a green
light to “embark on a land grab”. “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his
extremist, racist coalition government are deliberately breaking the law and
destroying the very foundations of the two-state solution and the chances for
peace and stability,” Ashrawi said. The UN
Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay
Mladenov said in a statement that the law “will have
far reaching legal consequences for
Air strikes hit Syria’s rebel-held Idlib city, 15 dead
Reuters,
Syria Opposition Demands International
Observers in Regime Jails
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/February
07/17/Syria's opposition on Tuesday demanded international observers be allowed
access to regime-run detention centers, after an Amnesty International
investigation into mass hangings at a notorious government prison.
The damning report details the gruesome weekly ritual of group executions
at Saydnaya prison that have left up to 13,000 people
dead over five years. In a statement on Tuesday, the opposition National
Coalition called for "immediately allowing international observers
unobstructed access to detention centers and the immediate, unconditional
release of all detainees. "The report must be
transferred to the International Criminal Court, which will guarantee that
those responsible for these war crimes and crimes against humanity will be held
accountable," the Istanbul-based group said.Amnesty
accused Syria's government of a "policy of extermination" by
repeatedly torturing detainees, withholding food, water and medical care, and
carrying out extrajudicial killings. The report comes just two weeks before a
new round of talks is due to take place in
Louvre attack suspect speaks to
investigators
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English Tuesday, 7 February
2017/The Egyptian suspect in the attack on soldiers outside the Louvre museum
in
Khamenei tells Trump 'no enemy can paralyze' Iran
By Agencies Tuesday, 7 February 2017/Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dismissed US President Donald Trump's warning to
Tehran to stop its missile tests, and called on Iranians to respond to Trump's
"threats" on Friday's anniversary of the 1979 revolution. "No
enemy can paralyze the Iranian nation," Khamenei
was quoted as saying by his website in a meeting with military commanders in
Florida man jailed for 30 years for mosque fire
By Reuters, Miami Tuesday, 7 February 2017
A Florida man pleaded no contest and was sentenced on Monday to 30 years in
prison for setting fire last year to the mosque where Orlando
nightclub shooter Omar Mateen once worshipped, court
officials said. Joseph Schreiber, 32, caused more than $100,000 in damage to
the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce, which he set ablaze on Sept. 11, 2016, the
15th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, authorities said. The crime also
coincided with the Muslim holy day of Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of Sacrifice. No one was hurt, but the
fire forced the congregation to relocate prayer services as it seeks a new
home. Schreiber told police after his arrest in September that his attack on
the mosque had nothing to do with Mateen, Assistant
State Attorney Steve Gosnell said in an interview on
Monday. A lawyer for Schreiber could not be immediately reached after Monday’s
court hearing in St. Lucie County. The mosque was
close to the apartment Mateen shared with his wife
before he killed 49 people and wounded dozens more at a gay nightclub in
Canadian woman found guilty of hiding six baby burials
AFP, Montreal Tuesday, 7 February 2017/A Canadian woman was found guilty Monday
of intentionally hiding in a storage locker the remains of six babies to whom
she gave birth. The 42-year-old
Settler homes on private Palestinian land legalized
Reuters,
The legislation has been condemned by Palestinians as a blow to their hopes of
statehood. But its passage may only be largely symbolic as it contravenes
Israeli Supreme Court rulings on property rights.
Political sources have said Netanyahu privately opposes the bill over concerns
it could provide grounds for prosecution by the International Criminal Court in
“Black flag”
Hanan Ashrawi, a senior
member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the main Palestinian political
umbrella body, said in a statement that the law gave settlers a green light to
“embark on a land grab”. “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his extremist,
racist coalition government are deliberately breaking the law and destroying
the very foundations of the two-state solution and the chances for peace and
stability,” Ashrawi said. The UN Special Coordinator
for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov said in a statement that the law “will have far
reaching legal consequences for
Rona Ambrose’s yacht vacation keeps
Conservatives mum on Liberal ethics
Laura Stone/OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail/Published Monday, Feb. 06, 2017
The Conservatives on Monday abruptly put an end to questions about the Liberal
government’s ethical woes after it was revealed interim leader Rona Ambrose
vacationed in the Caribbean on a billionaire’s yacht at the same time she was
blasting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for his own lavish holiday.
Ms. Ambrose and her caucus have been harsh critics of Mr. Trudeau for
vacationing with his family and Liberal friends over the holidays on a private
island in the
“Justin Trudeau knew what he did was against the law. All he had to do
was say no, but he couldn’t resist the billionaire lifestyle,” Ms. Ambrose
tweeted on Jan. 12.
Read more: Rona Ambrose vacationed on billionaire’s yacht amid Trudeau
trip scandal
Margaret Wente: Justin Trudeau's out of touch
with the 99 per cent
Opinion: Ethics and the Aga Khan: The PMO needs a rear-view mirror
But it turns out Ms. Ambrose was embracing that same billionaire
lifestyle – possibly in that very moment.
Ms. Ambrose’s spokesman, Mike Storeshaw,
confirmed a report first published by news website iPolitics
last week that the acting leader and her partner, J.P. Veitch,
vacationed on energy mogul Murray Edwards’s yacht around the islands of St. Barths and
Mr. Storeshaw said Ms. Ambrose travelled
between Jan. 3 and 14, but only checked in with the Office of the Ethics
Commissioner on Jan. 12 – six days after Mr. Trudeau’s trip was first revealed
by the National Post, and on the same day she sent her “billionaire lifestyle”
tweet. Ms. Ambrose also tweeted a copy of Conservative
MP Blaine Calkins’s letter to the Ethics Commissioner on Jan. 11.
“Ms. Ambrose has followed all rules that apply to her with respect to her
holiday, and was open and transparent with the Conflict of Interest and Ethics
Commissioner, unlike the Prime Minister,” Mr. Storeshaw
said.
“Ms. Ambrose paid for a flight on a charter to the holiday destination
along with a number of friends, none of whom are public office holders.”
The Ethics Commissioner’s office confirmed no inquiry into Ms. Ambrose’s
trip has been launched.
NDP MP Nathan Cullen said Monday that working Canadians are going to have
a hard time identifying with either party.
“So the sanctimonious and angry tweets of the
Conservative leader … to the Liberal leader was from one billionaire’s
yacht to another billionaire’s island. Must be tough being Liberal and
Conservative leaders, because maybe it was billionaire envy,” he said.
“If you’re going to throw stones, make sure you’re not standing in a
perfect glass house.”
As recently as Friday, Conservative House Leader Candice Bergen was
criticizing the Liberals for having “a lot of money for vacations on private
islands.”
Conservative MPs on Monday defended Ms. Ambrose, even as none seemed
aware she was on a billionaire’s yacht as she was criticizing Mr. Trudeau.
“Nope,” Conservative MP Tony Clement said when asked if he knew of Ms.
Ambrose’s vacation. “I didn’t have that conversation with her, as to where she
decided to take her holiday,” Conservative MP Michael Cooper said.
Mr. Edwards, who is also co-owner of the Calgary Flames, is ranked as the
30th richest person in
With a report from The Canadian Press
Sarkozy to Face Trial over 2012 Campaign Financing
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/February
07/17/Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy is to
face trial on charges of illegally financing his failed 2012 re-election bid,
causing more trouble for the country's rightwing Republicans party. The
prosecution claims Sarkozy spent nearly double the
legal limit of 22.5 million euros ($24 million) on
his lavish campaign, using false billing from a public relations firm called Bygmalion.A legal source said Tuesday that one of two
investigating magistrates in charge of the case, Serge Tournaire,
had decided on February 3 that the case should go to trial. Sarkozy's
lawyer announced plans to appeal the decision. Bygmalion
charged 15.2 million euros in campaign events to Sarkozy's rightwing party -- which at the time was called
the UMP, but has since been renamed the Republicans -- instead of billing the
president's campaign. The affair came to light in 2014 but investigators have
yet to determine who ordered the fraud. Sarkozy, who
failed in a presidential comeback bid last year, told investigators last year
he knew nothing about the billing and put the responsibility squarely on Bygmalion and the UMP. Only one other president -- Jacques
Chirac -- has been tried in
Failed comeback
The son of a Hungarian immigrant father, Sarkozy was nicknamed the "bling-bling"
president for his flashy displays of wealth. His trial will focus on whether he
himself caused the over-spending in 2012 by demanding that additional rallies
be organised towards the end of his campaign, even though they were bound to
blow the budget. The judicial source said he was accused of having ignored two
warnings from advisors in March and April 2012 about his spending, which came
to "at least 42.8 million euros".The
divisive 62-year-old rightwinger faces up to a year
in a prison and a fine of 3,750 euros if convicted.
He could yet be spared trial, however, given that the second investigating
magistrate in the case disagreed that Sarkozy be put
in the dock. Thirteen other people will be tried alongside him on charges
ranging from fraud to illegal campaign financing, including Bygmalion's
management and Jerome Lavrilleux, deputy manager of Sarkozy's lavish 2012 campaign. Lavrilleux
and Bygmalion executives have acknowledged the
existence of fraud and false accounting.
Mass rallies
While the so-called Bygmalion
case is the most pressing, Sarkozy has been fighting
legal problems on several fronts. He is charged with corruption and influence
peddling for allegedly offering to help a judge swing a plum retirement job in
return from secret information about another case. He has also been accused by
former members of Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi's regime of accepting millions in cash towards his
first presidential campaign in 2007 from Kadhafi --
claims he has vehemently denied. After retiring from politics following his
2012 defeat by the Socialist Party's Francois Hollande,
he returned to take the helm of the Republicans and sought the party's
presidential nod in this year's election. In a surprise result, he was
eliminated in November in the first round of a primary contest, trailing the
eventual winner, Fillon, and another ex-premier Alain
Juppe.
Abbas Calls Israeli Settler Law an 'Attack against Our
People'
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/February
07/17/Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday called a new Israeli law legalizing dozens
of Jewish outposts built on private Palestinian land an "attack against
our people."
Egypt Says It Backs Trump's Media
Criticism
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/February
07/17/Egypt on Tuesday applauded U.S. President Donald Trump's claims that
Western media outlets have deliberately not reported on "terrorist"
attacks. Trump accused the media on Monday of disregarding attacks by radical
jihadists, in a provocative statement for which he provided no evidence. In
Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis
& editorials from miscellaneous sources published on February 07-08/17
Walid Phares, Trump Campaign
Foreign Policy Advisor, Rehired as Fox National Security Expert
Rebecca Bynuml/Family Security
Matters/February 07/17
Fox News has re-hired Dr. Walid Phares
for his tenth year with the network as its "National Security and Foreign
Policy Expert" after having served as a foreign policy advisor to
President Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign.
In March 2016, Fox News Terrorism and Middle East Analyst and Congressional
advisor, Dr. Phares was named by Presidential
candidate Donald Trump as one of his foreign policy advisors along with another
five distinguished experts. Since then, Phares
assumed two missions:
One task performed by Dr. Phares over the previous
year was to meet with diplomats, ambassadors, ministers and foreign dignitaries
from many countries around the world to explain the Trump foreign policy
agenda, in particular on salient issues such as Russian relations, the Iran
Deal, North Korea, NATO, and the evolution of the wars in the Middle East. Dr. Phares engaged diplomats and foreign officials and
responded to their many questions regarding the conflicts in
In Europe, Dr. Phares met with leaders from countries
from Eastern, Central and
Among the most important issues discussed by Dr. Phares
were the strategies to defeat ISIS, the policies towards mass migrants, the
crises in North Africa, solutions to the wars in Syria, Yemen and Iraq, and here
at home, the terrorist attacks in San Bernardino and Orlando.
During the campaign, Phares elaborated on three
important policy issues:
1. Safe zones in
2. Regional coalitions
3. Vetting immigrants and refugees
A second task performed by Dr. Phares
over the past year, was to meet and be interviewed by the foreign press,
including European, Russian, Asian, Latin American, African and Arab media
outlets. Knowing that a majority of the media worldwide had an unfavorable attitude toward candidate Trump, Phares engaged a large multitude of correspondents,
journalists and television crews from around the world in order to clarify
Trump's platform and policy speeches. Phares'
interviews were published and aired from
Dr. Phares also assisted in a third task, that of
guiding the largest coalition of Americans from
As a foreign policy advisor, Dr. Phares also
participated in briefings with senior campaign officials and provided insights
and advice regarding President Trump's speeches on national security and
foreign policy during the campaign.
After the Inauguration, Dr. Phares signed a new
contract to begin his tenth year with Fox News which includes a wider scope for
covering the assessment of conflicts worldwide. It should be noted that the
former Foreign Policy Advisor was said to have been considered for a position
in the Administration, but only by media accounts. As a citizen, Phares is always ready to serve the President if called
upon, but as one of the leading experts in the nation, his knowledge and
analytical ability are also badly needed by the public, as debates on national
security are raging.
Every day is an important day in the public conversation and Walid Phares is a vital player in
the national security debate. His role at Fox News is needed now more than
ever.
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/walid-phares-trump-campaign-foreign-policy-advisor-rehired-as-fox-national-security-expert?f=must_reads
The Trump-Trudeau Tryst
Thomas Quiggin/Gatestone Institute/February 07/017
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9905/trump-trudeau-islamists
It had been reported prior to 2015 that the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-e-Islami front groups would use the Liberal Party of
Canada as a vehicle for political entryism.
The article also noted the roles of ISNA Canada and ICNA Canada in these
efforts. A number of Canadian Members of Parliament have Islamist connections,
advocate for sharia law or, in the case of Cabinet
Minister Maryam Monsef,
states that "Sharia fascinates me :)"
President Trump may be meeting with Prime Minister Trudeau of
The January 29, 2017 shooting at a
South of here, a series of reports suggest that President Trump may use
executive authority to list the Muslim Brotherhood and some of its front groups
in the
Trudeau and the Islamist Front Groups
Prior to the Canadian election of November 2015, it had been reported that the
Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-e-Islami front groups
would use the Liberal Party of Canada as a vehicle for political Entryism. The article also noted the roles of ISNA Canada
and ICNA Canada in these efforts. A number of Canadian Members of Parliament
have Islamist connections, advocate for sharia law
or, in the case of Cabinet Minister Maryam Monsef states that "Sharia
fascinates me :)"
In December of 2015, Prime Minister Trudeau sent a video message to the
"Reviving the Islamic Spirit" conference in which he stressed
"our shared beliefs." This, despite the fact the conference is
sponsored by and has been attended by a virtual who-is-who list of Muslim
Brotherhood front group members over several years. The same conference also
featured Linda Sarsour who is currently leading a
number of US demonstrations against President Trump and has ties to a variety
of Islamist groups. Many members of her family have a long history with HAMAS –
another Muslim Brotherhood spin-off organization. Prime Minister Trudeau had
also appeared as a member of Parliament at the Reviving
the Islamic Spirit Conference in 2012.
Member of Parliament Justin Trudeau also gave a speech at the ISNA mosque in
In 2016 Prime Minister Trudeau chose not to observe any official 9/11 memorial
ceremony to honour the Canadians who died that day. However, the very next day,
he attended the Ottawa Main Mosque which has multiple links to extremism.
(Image source: Rebel.media screenshot)
Prime Minister Trudeau and his Public Safety minister also appeared to have
stumbled into making claims about "hate crimes against mosques" when
there is no evidence to suggest a hate crime actually occurred.
Cross border terrorism has a long and complex history
between
Hezbollah has used
Then there was Ahmed Ressam in 1999. His intent was
to depart
Senators
Senator Clinton and Senator McCain have made repeated statements that some of
the 911 terrorists entered he
The shooting at the
The terrorist murder of Warrant Office Vincent in 2014.
The attack on the National War Memorial and the Parliament
with the killing of Corporal Cirillo, also in 2014.
The attack on the Canadian Forces Recruiting Centre in Toronto in 2016 and the
attempted suicide bombing by Arron Driver, in which
the bomb's detonator and the RCMP killed him in a taxi near London Ontario in
2016.
Additionally, many Canadians, including a number of Muslim Student Association
alumni have died overseas as suicide bombers,
US Canada Relations
US/Canada relations may hit a bumpy patch, especially given that Canada
continues to act as host for a variety of Muslim Brotherhood front groups while
taking no visible political action against them.
* Tom Quiggin, a court qualified expert on terrorism
and practical intelligence, is based in
© 2017 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The
articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of
Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced,
copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone
Institute.
Trump’s decisions, operation Decisive
Storm to end mullahs’ dream
Jerry Maher/Al Arabiya/February 07/17
Those who fiercely oppose US President Donald Trump’s statements these days are
the Iranian lobby, which has influenced the former Obama administration, and
its allies affiliated to the lobby and terrorist projects across the world.
Trump’s recent tweets about Iran confused the latter as it is unaware what
these stances will lead do and whether these tweets are nothing but mere
statements or will they lead to military decisions and operations to confront
Iran’s intervention in Syria, Yemen and Iraq and its provocation of countries
in the region, particularly the Arab Gulf which the Trump administration views
as a strategic ally. The Trump administration is also obliged to support the
Gulf in confronting
Terror designs
The aim of these shrines, however, are to strengthen sectarian affiliations and
collect money to fund terrorist plans for the vali-e-faqih
who aims to fulfill the dream of his predecessor Khomeini and raise the flag of
Iran in Arab capitals, mainly Damascus, Sanaa,
Baghdad and others. Now that Obama’s term has ended, we look forward to a
better future with the new American administration, which according to
information I have attained from figures who are close
to it, is working hard to limit
Sectarian militias
After Iran and its allies have caused the death of tens of thousands of
Syrians, Yemenis and Iraqis, there is now an American administration that is
strict in its decisions to confront the expansion of the regime and its
sectarian militias in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen and to protect the stability of
Bahrain and Gulf countries which suffer from Iran’s attempts to support
terrorism and nurture plans that contribute to igniting sectarian struggle in
the region. All these ambitions are being confronted by the Decisive Storm
Operation, which King Salman bin Abdulaziz
launched to confront
This article is also available in Arabic.
**Jerry Maher is a journalist based in
The game of safe zone in Syria
Abdulrahman al-Rashed/Al Arabiya/February 07/17
It seems the Syrian people no longer have a say in what happens to them despite
the several conferences held to discuss their situation and the solutions
proposed. UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura has all by himself decided who represents
opposition organizations. The Russians wrote
Varying positions
There are different positions with regard to the safe
zones, just as the case is with any other affair related to
Millions of Syrian refugees have become a topic which governments throw in each
others’ court, especially after US President Donald Trump surprised everyone by
adopting the idea of establishing safe zones for refugees inside Syria
Lebanon has, for the first time, adopted a stance that opposes Damascus as
President Michel Aoun said he supports Trump’s call
to establish safe zones inside Syria and called for returning the refugees in
Lebanon to Syria. Aoun also called for placing these
safe zones under the Syrian regime’s supervision.
Grandi, who is supposed to be the most concerned
about housing the millions of refugees in exile, returned from
His point of view is not completely wrong as protecting these safe zones and
sponsoring them is almost impossible but at the same time he is forgetful of
the fact that millions of refugees do not only suffer from the absence of
security but they also suffer from hunger and cold and absence of refuge.
No perfect solution
There is no perfect solution. Despite that, the
proposed safe zones are good enough to halt the influx of refugees and to stop
the sectarian cleansing operation which has been the adopted policy through
exporting the Syrian problem to the world instead of limiting it to be only the
regime’s problem. Millions of the displaced Syrians were a gain to terrorist
organizations as they recruited angry men who were willing to fight under any
slogan. Terrorist groups used these people in terrorist operations against
friendly and neutral countries, and it also used them against their enemies and
against Syrian organizations while fighting mad and absurd wars. This is the
outcome of the policy of displacement which the Syrian people have being
subjected to during the past seven years. Refugees have now become a major
cause and they may lead the path to a peace project, which has become urgent.
Syrian refugees have become the most important cause in the world and they may
be the key to stop massacres and displacement.
This article was first published in Asharq Al-Awsat on February 07 2017.
Will Le Pen be the new French
President?
Randa Takieddine/Al Arabiya/February 07/17
The possibility of Marine Le Pen being elected as
President of France is no longer ruled out. Although she is the first woman to
run for presidency, the popularity decline of the Republican right-wing party’s
candidate, Francois Fillon, can pave the way for her.
Fillon is now dealing with the allegations against
his wife Penelope, or what is now being referred to as the Penelope Gate. The
press slammed hard after learning that his wife who worked as his assistant in
the Parliament got a high wage that amounted to 800,000 euros
for her eight years of service. The possibility of Le Pen becoming the new
French President is no longer out of question for several reasons. Donald
Trump’s travel ban from seven Muslims-majority countries may appeal to the
voters of the far-right in
Francois Fillon has focused his campaign on the
so-called challenge posed by Islam in
Alain Juppé, who lost the candidacy of the Republican
Party to Francois Fillon, is characterized by
moderation, and a good knowledge of the Arab and Muslim world and the diversity
of the French communities. His rivals gave him the nickname Ali Juppé to keep the voters away, as if moderation toward
Islam is a sin.
The question remains whether it is possible for history to repeat itself as the
world has changed and a large section has gone hostile against Islam and
immigration
Demonstration effect
This phenomenon will probably enable Marine Le Pen to
win the presidency just as it happened in the case of Trump in the
Macron says he doesn’t belong to the left or the right wing, and that he is a
liberal. He represents the youth and comes from the Rothschild & Cie Bank background. He served as minister of economy,
industry and digital affairs in the second Valls
government in August 2014. He later resigned following deep irreconcilable
difference with Valls and nobody truly knows Macron’s
position on Islam. Nevertheless, it is safe to say that he is not an extremist.
Speculating the winner of the French Presidential election is still very
difficult. Le Pen is expected to visit
Le Pen launched a campaign this weekend, promising her voters that under her
leadership France will control its borders and its own currency. She aspires to
break free from the Eurozone. Opinion polls have been
speculating on Le Pen’s victory in the first round on April 23, but say that
she will lose in the second round on the 29th against Macron, if Fillon withdrew from the race.
However, if polls are proven wrong again, Le Pen can reach the Elysee. Everything is possible after Trump’s election and
people have begun to rise in their own way. The question remains whether it is
possible for history to repeat itself as the world has changed and a large
section has gone hostile against Islam and immigration.
**This article is also available in Arabic.
Post truth phenomenon and separating news
from facts
Essayid Weld Ebah/Al Arabiya/February 07/17
The German parliament is debating proposed new legislation to counter the
proliferation of misinformation - or fake news - in social media.
Simultaneously - and for the same aim - the French authority is considering
introducing a watchdog mechanism for controlling these websites, while the
British House of Commons is discussing a similar initiative. These collective
initiatives came as fingers point to social media facilitating rigging
elections by spreading fake news which, in one way or another, influence the
public opinion who became indifferent toward serious media. Recently a new
glossary of media terminologies has emerged and widely circulated such as “fake
news”, “alternative facts”, and “post truth”. The first idiom became widely
used after US President Trump denounced the mass media, in his first press
conference after his election - singling out CNN and Buzzfeed
in particular. In fact, the phenomenon is the focal point of media and social
studies chiefly to analyze the political rhetoric and its influence on election
campaigns. Some surveys claim to have proved that candidates for the last
The disintegration of parties has paved the way for the unleashed populist
leaders, they are the emerging figures now in most of the democratic nations
Frame of reference
However, fake news or post-truth are not new political trends considering that
Plat, during the democratic Greek era - believed that the Justice criteria
based on truth and reason cannot be created in a political system that makes
the public debate a framework of reference and resolutions, considering that
such a society would be dominated by the “sophist”, the eloquent and the
rhetoric, which is the commons persuasive tools. It is the critiques directed
by radical assessment theories to the current democratic parliamentarians being
founded on “complicity industry” through the media, which may seem free, while
it creates awareness and guides it. However, what seems new is the collapse of
public communication methods constituted by modern democracies. There are three
major modules: the political party being the tactical and organizational
structure for a political action the newspaper, which is the media source for
debate and guarding beliefs and programs, the elected institution which
represents the party and source of decisions. The disintegration of parties has
paved the way for the unleashed populist leaders, they
are the emerging figures now in most of the democratic nations. The ebbing of
traditional media opened the doors for the uncensored and unverified social
media that reflects passions and emotions rather than the established views and
opinions. Moreover, the erosion of the systems undermined the voters’ ability
to influence crucial decisions that determine their future. In a distinct
article entitled “truth and politics”, which dates back to the beginning of the
sixties of the last century, German-American philosopher Hannah Arendt said the
chances of factual truth surviving the onslaught of power were very slim. What
prevents photos, stories, and hypothetical events from becoming a viable
substitute for reality and events, he added.
This article is also available in Arabic.
The pros and cons of expat remittance
taxes in Saudi Arabia
Dr. Mohamed A. Ramady/Al Arabiya/February
07/17
A collective sigh of relief was felt by Saudi-based expatriates following yet
another announcement that there were no plans to impose a new tax on foreign
workers’ remittances. The Saudi Ministry of Finance statement was clear:
This denial stems from the deliberations of some members of the Saudi Shoura or Consultative Council last month. The Council said
it was considering imposing a tax of up to six percent on expatriate
remittances in the first year and gradually decrease to 2 percent from the
fifth year onward. Following the Ministry of Finance denial, the Shoura Council withdrew its own proposal, with 86 members
opposing the tax and 33 in favor.
Once again the seeming root was cause was to try and stem some of the outward
remittance capital flow from the Kingdom, despite some evidence that these have
begun to fall back. According to Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA)
official data, remittance outflows from expatriates in
In order to assuage the fears of foreign companies who are being encouraged to
invest in the Kingdom’s ambitious Vision 2030 program through FDI inflows, the
Ministry of Finance said on its Twitter account that the country supports the
free movement of capital to and from the kingdom in line with international
standards.
The fluctuating fortunes of oil revenues are a fact of life that the Gulf
countries have now to live with, whether there is an OPEC and non- OPEC agreement
in place or not to maintain some firmer level of prices
Value-added tax
The feeling of joy will be short-lived, however, as Saudi Arabia and other GCC
countries mull a range of new value added taxes on so called “sin products”
like tobacco and fizzy drinks and possibly extend these to other categories on
both nationals and expatriates, as well as reducing subsidies and raising
prices on utility charges in an effort to balance their budgets.
Other measures include imposing fees for government related services,
especially on expatriates and the 2017 Saudi budget unveiled a host of such
measures whereby starting from July 2017 a fee of SAR 100 will be paid on a
monthly basis, for every dependent or sponsored person rising to SR200 in 2018,
SR300 and SR400 per month in 2019 and 2020.
The kingdom expects to generate nearly SR44 billion in
revenue from this tax. The move, along with imposition of an increased
annual scale of fees on the number of foreign workers employed by Saudi
companies, is ostensibly aimed at incentivizing Saudi companies to hire
locally.
The fluctuating fortunes of oil revenues are a fact of life that the Gulf
countries have now to live with, whether there is an OPEC and non- OPEC
agreement in place or not to maintain some firmer level of prices.
Bastion of tax-free work
As such, the time when the Gulf remains a bastion of tax-free work and low fees
and charges will be gone and the introduction of taxes will become the norm
rather than the exception, despite yet another denial from the Saudi Ministry
of Finance that the Kingdom was considering imposing an expatriate income tax.
Governments across the world have the sovereign right and do impose a raft of
taxes on their citizens, and it is also the right of the Gulf countries to do
the same. The Benjamin Franklin saying that death and taxes are the only
certainty in life is an apt one, but how equitable it is and the method of
application, whether progressive rate of taxes as income goes higher or a flat
rate are key questions for taxation to be widely accepted by society and make
them willing tax paying citizens.
In the Gulf, with its unique representation system and Consultative Councils,
there is now a more definite move toward societal inclusiveness and
transparency and these are now enshrined in all the various Vision and
As for expatriates, assuring them that part of their remittance taxes and fee
charges are going towards their health and dependents schooling will go a long
way in reducing the current level of uncertainties, as many are considering
sending their dependents back home, thus reducing local consumption of goods
and services, or seeking alternative methods of remittance transfers, all
unintended consequences of the introduction of such taxes, fees and charges.
This brings us back to yet another famous saying attributed to Colbert, that “the art of taxation consists in so plucking
the goose as to obtain the largest amount of feathers with the least amount of
hissing.”
France's New Islamist Guillotine/The
Trial of Georges Bensoussan
Denis MacEoin/Gatestone Institute/February 07/017
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9895/france-islamist-guillotine
It is not racist to accuse Muslims of wrongdoing;
Islam is a religio-political system, not a race. This
conflation of two very different things already causes endless confusion and
miscarriages of justice. Such scattershot accusations fail to make a
distinction between genuine hatred for Muslims and fair and balanced criticism
of some of their behavior and their religion.
"Anti-racism... an instrument of intellectual terrorism has become today
the greatest channel of the new anti-Semitism". — Georges Bensoussan.
The CCIF's charge of "Islamophobia"
is almost certainly built, not so much about Arabs but about perceptions of a
refusal by Muslim immigrants from
"To say that one drinks in anti-Semitism from one's mother's milk means
that it is transmitted culturally. I have not spoken of a transmission through
blood, which implies a genetic transmission. And I maintain that in some Arab
families in
"This visceral anti-Semitism proven by the Fondapol
survey by Dominique Reynié last year cannot remain
under a cover of silence. Conducted in 2014 among 1,580 French respondents, of
whom one third were Muslim, the survey found that they were two times and even
three times more anti-Jewish than French people as a whole". — Georges Bensoussan.
Why should this be surprising? Anti-Jewish feelings in Muslim countries and
elsewhere are deeply embedded, with roots in the Qur'an, the Hadith, Islamic law-books, and general social attitudes
from the 7th century onwards.
If Bensoussan is convicted, the CCIF and other
organisations like it will start further prosecutions of other innocent people
and succeed in shutting down debate about what is the greatest single threat to
the stability not only of
The French historian and philosopher Georges Bensoussan
is best known for his studies of matters relating to the Jewish world, on
topics such as the Holocaust, anti-Semitism, Zionism, and the fate of the
hundreds of thousands of Jews expelled from Arab countries after the
declaration of Israel's independence in 1948 and the signal defeat of Arab
armies which invaded the new state between then and 1949. He himself was born
in
After a doctorate in history from the University of Paris I in 1981, Bensoussan became director of a journal for Holocaust
history (Revue d'histoire de la Shoah)
and went on to develop a training service for Holocaust education. Over the
years, he has published several well-researched books on the Holocaust,
Zionism, and related topics. Juifs en pays arabes: Le grand déracinement
1850-1975 (2012) covers the too-little known history of the way in which nearly
a million Jews in Arab countries were reduced in fewer than thirty years to
about 5,000. His intellectual and political history of Zionism, Une histoire intellectuelle et politique du sionisme 1860-1940 (2002), counters the modern use of the
term Zionist as a pejorative.
Given these credentials as a leading opponent of
The charge against Bensoussan was brought by the Collectif contre l'Islamophobie en France (CCIF)[1]
an Islamic activist organization that seeks to defend Muslims from perceived
attacks ("Islamophobia") in the secular
system of the country. Such scattershot accusations fail to make a distinction
between genuine hatred for Muslims and fair and balanced criticism of some of
their behavior and their religion. Leading the
accusation in court was a hijab-wearing woman, Lila Cherif, in charge of the CCIF's
legal team. On the public gallery sat an assemblage of anti-racist
organizations: SOS-Racisme, a much criticized French
and international group, the prestigious Ligue Internationale Contre le Racisme et l'Antisémitisme
(LICRA), the anti-Israel and anti-Semitic Mouvement contre racisme et pour l'amitié entre les peoples (MRAP) – which is part of the
Platform of French NGOs for Palestine that supports trying to destroy Israel
economically – and the anti-Israel League of Human Rights (Ligue
des droits de l'homme).
Nowadays, there are several principal international definitions of
anti-Semitism – the US State Department's "Working Definition" of
Anti-Semitism, the original EU Monitoring Centre's "Working
Definition", and the most widely recognized International Holocaust
Remembrance Alliance's Definition. All three definitions include anti-Israel
speech, writing and actions as fully anti-Semitic, and it is on this basis that
some of these self-styled anti-racist groups may be described as anti-Semitic.
In that context, their presence in the public gallery may have much to do with
antagonism to Bensoussan's work in claiming
anti-Semitism in his writings.
According to Raphaëlle Bacqué,
in Le Monde on January 26, the specific charge
against Bensoussan is based on a couple of statements
he made in 2015 during a radio broadcast in an episode of Répliques,
a much-respected program that discusses current affairs, often linked to new
publications by those interviewed. The first statement was as follows (author's
translation):
"Today, we find ourselves at the heart of the French nation in the
presence of another people, who take a backwards view of a certain number of
the democratic values which we have carried. There will be no integration so
long as we cannot rid ourselves of the atavistic anti-Semitism which is hidden
like a secret."
He then went on to say:
"An Algerian sociologist, Smaïn Laacher, with great courage, has just said in a film
broadcast on France 3: 'It is a shame that, in order to maintain this taboo, to
know that in Arab families in France – and everyone knows this but nobody wants
to say it – anti-Semitism is sucked in with a mother's milk.'"
Days later, Laacher, a lecturer at the
But that is not what Bensoussan had said. He had not
mentioned blood, just transmission through a mother's milk.
Underneath Laacher's response, however, a commenter
named Aimelle turned Laacher's
remarks upside down, writing as follows:
Fallacious? Really?
Here is a record (including the "ums" and the repetitions of what M. Laacher said in the documentary (at the 56th minute):
"It is a monumental hypocrisy not to see that this anti-Semitism is in the
beginning domestic, and quite evidently, is without doubt reinforced, hardened,
legitimated, almost naturalized with various distinctions um... externally. He
will find it at home and will sense no radical lack of continuity between home
and the external environment. Because the external environment,
is, in reality, the most often [experienced]. It is to be found in what are
termed the ghettos, it feels as though it is in the
air one breathes, it is not at all strange. And it is difficult to escape from
it in those places, particularly when you find it in yourself."
Certainly, he does not say "sucked in with a mother's milk" – an
expression which, in French, is a metaphor employed to define something one
acquires "in the atmosphere", "in the language", "on
the tongue". But the idea is much the same.
Bensoussan argued that "sucked from a mother's
milk" and "transmitted through blood" are not the same. His
argument was based on Laacher's own statements in
that television documentary. Why Laacher reacted so
fiercely to Bensoussan's use of his own argument that
Arab culture fosters anti-Semitism, so far as to deny he had ever said anything
like that, is not easy to determine. Was it simply because he did not want to
be associated with views that might so easily have been interpreted (as they
were in Bensoussan's case) as racist in nature? In an
interview with Alexandre Devecchio
for Le Figaro, published on the day his trial opened, Bensoussan
argued that anti-racism has been turned into an instrument that may be used to
silence "the majority of the French people". He speaks of
"delinquent anti-racism" ("l'antiracisme
dévoyé"), and goes on to cite Elizabeth Badinter, an academic and, according to Jane Kramer writing
in The New Yorker, France's "most influential intellectual", who has
spoken of "collaboration through anti-racism", using
"collaboration" in the French 1940s sense of collaboration with the
enemy.
He himself says this illuminates that
"anti-racism, this legitimate struggle, has been progressively made a
delinquent as the religion of anti-racism, indeed an instrument of intellectual
terrorism has become today the greatest channel of the new anti-Semitism".
To make things more difficult for Bensoussan, the
charge of "racism" was tangled up by the CCIF, who added to it a
charge of being an "Islamophobe". This,
ironically, is quite unrelated to the Laaser
complaint, which is based on Arabs, not necessarily Muslims. But for Muslim
activists, it is possible to attack on both fronts,
conflating race and religion.
Because, as Bensoussan states, anti-racism is a form
of religiosity in France (and indeed in other Western countries), using that
charge serves effectively to intensify public outrage against any questioning
of Islam within important sectors in a country with growing sensitivities about
race-crime on the one hand and fear of Islamic terrorism exemplified by the
attacks in Paris and Nice.
The CCIF's charge of "Islamophobia"
is almost certainly not so much about Arabs but about perceptions of a refusal
by Muslim immigrants from
Bensoussan has written two books on this subject: Les
Territoires perdus de la République (2002) and Une France soumise: Les voix du refus (2017) ("Lost Territories of the Republic"
and "A Submissive France: The Voices of Refusal")
In a long analytical interview with Caroline Valentin
concerning Bensoussan's most recent book, Mathieu
Bock-Côté (writing in Le journal de Montréal) summed
up the issue:
"France is the principal theatre of the Islamist offensive in Europe. In
saying that, we are not only thinking of the attacks which have marked the last
two years, but of the creation on French territory of a veritable
counter-society which does not speak its name and dissociates itself more and
more from the nation. The desertion of the elites, criticism of French
identity, cultural and physical insecurity, the increase of unreasonable
compromises in schools and hospitals: it is in order to analyze and denounce
this sloppiness that this book has appeared just now."
It is no secret that those who create this "counter-society" and
disaffiliation from the French nation state are disproportionately Muslims – in
this case mostly Muslims from
Polling in 2015... showed that more than 55% of the
general public agreed that there was a fundamental clash between Islam and the
values of British society, while 46% of British Muslims felt that being a
Muslim in
Bensoussan's argument that Muslim communities
contribute to the development of a society within society clearly attracted the
attention of the CCIF, which introduced the notion that he is both a racist and
an "Islamophobe". This opinion was
reinforced when the lawyer for the CCIF instrumentalized
anti-Semitism as a further means of defaming Bensoussan,
saying that "What seems to us inadmissible is to attribute anti-Semitism
to all the members of a group. That is essentialism." Essentialism here
means defining an entire community with a single "essential"
characteristic. To this, Bensoussan makes his
strongest defence against that charge:
"To say that one drinks in anti-Semitism from one's mother's milk means
that it is transmitted culturally. I have not spoken of a transmission through
blood, which implies a genetic transmission. And I maintain that in some Arab
families in
French historian Georges Bensoussan has defended
remarks he made about anti-Semitism among French Muslims, saying: "To say
that one drinks in anti-Semitism from one's mother's milk means that it is
transmitted culturally. I have not spoken of a transmission through blood,
which implies a genetic transmission. And I maintain that in some Arab families
in
Bensoussan's claim of culturally-transmitted
anti-Semitism in Muslim and Arab communities is strongly backed by two
important polls. The Anti-Defamation League's (ADL) Global 100 report on
anti-Semitism worldwide gave figures for anti-Semitic attitudes in 16 Arab
states, plus
These figures are bolstered by a 2011 Pew Global survey, which shows low
figures for positive attitudes to Jews in Arab and Muslim countries: Turkey 4%,
Egypt and Jordan with 2% and so on in two other Muslim states: Indonesia (the
world's largest Muslim population) at 9% and Pakistan at 2%. That shows three
Muslim countries – i.e. non-Arab states – with high levels of anti-Semitism.
That in itself shows that this has nothing to do with genetics, but relates to
culture, specifically Islamic culture.
Bensoussan himself has also drawn attention to a 2014
survey carried out in
"This visceral anti-Semitism proven by the Fondapol
survey by Dominique Reynié last year cannot remain
under a cover of silence. Conducted in 2014 among 1,580 French respondents, of
whom one third were Muslim, the survey found that they were two times and even
three times more anti-Jewish than French people as a whole."
Why should this be surprising? Anti-Jewish feelings in Muslim countries and
elsewhere are deeply embedded, with roots in the Qur'an, the hadith, Islamic law-books, and general social attitudes
from the 7th century onwards.[2]
Bensoussan has summed the matter up as follows:
"I am speaking about a cultural notion, not genetic. To confuse milk and
blood is bad faith or stupidity. Yes, in some Arab families in
The verdict in the Bensoussan case will not be
delivered until early March. But whether he is found guilty or innocent, he has
already joined a long and growing list of Western thinkers and politicians who
have been put on trial and sometimes convicted for outspoken criticism of Islam
or criticism of some Muslim behavior, Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, "Gregorius
Nekschot", Lars Hedegaard,
Michael Smith, Geert Wilders and others.
If Bensoussan is convicted, the CCIF and other
organisations like it will start further prosecutions of other innocent people
and possibly succeed in shutting down debate about what is the greatest single
threat to the stability not only of
It could scarcely be more grotesque to find that a man who stands up to the
rampant anti-Semitism within the Muslim community is twisted into the shape of
a racist and purportedly an "Islamophobe".
** Denis MacEoin (PhD,
[1] For a well-documented and highly critical evaluation of the Collectif in French, see here.
[2] For a broad survey, see Andrew Bostom, The Legacy
of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn
History,
© 2017 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The
articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of
Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced,
copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone
Institute.
Israel's So-Called Poverty Problem/OECD
Poverty Lines Do Not Define Poverty
Malcolm Lowe/Gatestone Institute/February 07/017
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9894/israel-poverty
According to the OECD definition of the "poverty line," you can make
everyone fabulously rich while keeping them all as poor as before. But you can
eliminate poverty by reducing them all to starvation levels.
Assume that large differences between OECD countries in alleged "child
poverty" may, nevertheless, have some significance. The consequence of
this assumption, however, is that
It was a real achievement to raise the employment rate of single mothers from
66% to 81%. To insist that nothing has changed because the same proportion of
such families remains below the so-called poverty line
is both wrongheaded and could discourage attempts to improve the situation
further.
It is sometimes thought to be paradoxical that
There are, of course, poor families in
This absurd discrepancy is revealed in a little Wikipedia article on
"Measuring Poverty," where we are told: "The main poverty line
used in the OECD and the European Union is a relative poverty measure based on
'economic distance,' a level of income usually set at 60% of the median
household income."
To be exact, the OECD sets the level at 50%. In one place, its website states:
"The poverty rate is the ratio of the number of people (in a given age
group) whose income falls below the poverty line; taken as half the median
household income of the total population."
By the "median household income" is meant the level of income such
that half of households are above that level, and the other half below it. (In
another place, as we shall see, the OECD website offers two distinct
definitions of the poverty rate, of which this is the second.)
The OECD website does, however, immediately go on to note that "two
countries with the same poverty rates may differ in terms of the relative
income-level of the poor." Now, if one cannot give two countries the same
rating on the income-level of the poor even when they have the same OECD
poverty rate, how can any comparison of poverty rates between countries tell us
anything about which countries suffer more or less from poverty? Yet the OECD
does make such comparisons, year by year, as if it were telling us something
important about actual poverty.
Approaches to "Eliminating Poverty"
In an online PDF file updated to August 2016, the OECD offers two distinct
versions of child poverty. One is the "child income poverty rate,"
defined as "the proportion of children (0-to-17 year olds) with an equivalised post-tax-and-transfer income of less than 50%
of the national annual median equivalised
post-tax-and-transfer income." The other is the "poverty rates in
households with children and a working-age head by type of household and
household employment status." The definition of the latter is long and
intricate, but basically it boils down to 50% of a median reached by a
comparison of families-having-children, instead of the direct comparison
between individual children upon which the "child income poverty
rate" is based. (The intricacies come from the need to group families by
type according to the number of adults and the number in jobs.) Indignation
over "the proportion of children living in families below the poverty
line" refers to the second definition. The document in question goes on to
note that in any specific country the one or the other definition may yield a
higher figure for "child poverty." Those differences, however, will
not affect what we shall point out next.
Given either OECD definition of the "poverty line," let us consider
two theoretically possible approaches to eliminating poverty in
The second theoretically possible approach is to lower everyone's income to the
point that one half of Israeli children (first definition) or Israeli
households by type (second definition) have an income of 1.01 shekels a year
and the other half have 0.99 shekels a year. You would
think that this would plunge everyone into utter poverty. But no: according to
the OECD definition there is now no poverty at all because the median
child/household income is one shekel a year and no child/household falls below
50% of that.
According to either OECD definition of the "poverty line," therefore,
you can make everyone fabulously rich while keeping them all as poor as before.
But you can eliminate poverty by reducing them all to starvation levels.
What particularly agitates readers of OECD poverty
reports, as we noted, are statements about "the proportion of children
living in families below the poverty line." That is, reports based on the
OECD's second measure of child poverty. Also in this regard, various
alternative approaches can be envisaged.
The usual approach is to tax the rich in order to provide children's allowances
that benefit children in poor families. This may be the moral thing to do and
it may bring greater happiness to many poor children. Only it may also do
nothing to reduce the number of children under the thus-defined poverty line.
What if it encourages the poor to have more children while discouraging the
rich from doing that? Then, in both regards, the number of children under the
poverty line will increase. If the aim is to reduce that number, it may
possibly be achieved by doing the opposite: taxing the poor to the point that
they are scared of having children in the first place,
and giving the money raised to the rich, enabling them to afford more children.
Indeed, given the second OECD measure of poverty, the one that compares
families-with-children, there is even a sure and foolproof way of totally
eliminating poverty in OECD terms. It is to confiscate all the children of the
poor and oblige the rich to adopt them all. Once all children have been placed
by an authoritarian government in households above the median household income
by type of family, not a single child will live in a household falling under
the poverty line. Even so, there may still be many children in actual poverty.
This is because parents that were comfortably off
while they had just one or two children may be financially challenged when they
are saddled with more. The OECD will report that the phenomenon of children
living in poverty has vanished, but in reality it is still there and has merely
been made officially invisible.
That paradox arises with the OECD's second definition. Whether a similar
paradox infects the first definition, we leave as an exercise for the
inquisitive reader.
Interestingly,
This brings us back to the Wikipedia article mentioned earlier, which goes on
to state:
"The
This definition is obviously free of the paradoxes that afflict the OECD
definitions. So why has the OECD not adapted the
Even the
Inter-Country Comparisons
The OECD website offers another PDF file entitled "Five Family
Facts," which gives five statistics for all OECD countries in 2009,
including Israel. Thus the file seems to have been compiled immediately after
One of those five facts is variously called the "child poverty rate"
(presumably the "child income poverty rate" mentioned above) or the
"percentage of children living in poverty." As we have seen, to
paraphrase the former phrase as the latter phrase is slipshod and misleading.
The "child income poverty rate" is a relative measure used by the
OECD, whereas the "percentage of children living in poverty" is an
absolute measure that the
Under "
But Israel is absolutely in a class on its own in another respect: "The
fertility rate in
Add to this the fact that the OECD document repeatedly
notes that a fertility rate of 2.1 is required to maintain a constant
population. Apart from
In the previous section, we pointed out that OECD figures about "child
poverty" may have little to do with actual poverty. The approach in this
section was: Assume that large differences between OECD countries in alleged
"child poverty" may, nevertheless, have some significance. The
consequence of this assumption, however, is that
OECD figures about "child poverty" may have little to do with actual
poverty. But even assuming that large differences between OECD countries in
alleged "child poverty" may, nevertheless, have some significance, it means that
Annual Ritual
Every December,
Realizing that its annual poverty reports have no lasting impact, the National
Insurance Institute resorted to issuing reports twice a year instead. The
result is merely that the phenomenon of instant uproar followed by instant
apathy now occurs twice as often. We do not know whether the economic wise men
in government ministries understand what we wrote above, but treat it as
esoteric knowledge to be kept secret, or whether they are simply frustrated by
years of vain attempts to produce a major change in the official figures.
In fact, the National Insurance Institute does much excellent work on
researching actual poverty and on devising means to help poor families.
It was a real achievement to raise the employment rate of single mothers from
66% to 81% between 2002 and 2015. To insist that nothing has changed because
the same proportion of such families remains below the
so-called poverty line is both wrongheaded and could discourage attempts to
improve the situation further.
According to OECD figures for late 2016,
For people in general, just to be in work instead of out of work is beneficial
even on the same household income level. On the one hand, they are contributing
to their society instead of living off it. On the other, being in work
encourages self-esteem, multiplies social contacts, and makes the individual
concerned more attractive to a future employer offering higher wages than
members of the longtime unemployed.
It is sometimes thought to be paradoxical that
*Malcolm Lowe is a Welsh scholar specialized in Greek Philosophy, the New
Testament and Christian-Jewish Relations. He has been familiar with Israeli
reality since 1970.
© 2017 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The
articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of
Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced,
copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone
Institute.
For Iranian Americans, Trump has
complicated an already tricky trip to motherland
By Sarah ParviniContact Reporter/Los Angeles Times/February
06/17
Traveling back to
Each visit after immigrating to the
But trips to Iran, like the one he took in December, were the only way he could
see his mother, now widowed, and help her secure a visa to the U.S.
“I’ll see what I missed in the face of my mother and my grandmother. How old
they’ve gotten, and how I missed those creases and the layers of skin over skin
on their faces,” Edalat, 42, said. “It bombards you
on a daily basis when you’re there.”
For many Iranian immigrants and their families, the 7,500-mile journey between
The
Still, the community’s roots, culture and family are in
Now, on the heels of President Trump’s executive order, many Iranian immigrants
are wondering how feasible it will be to continue the tradition. Trump’s action
blocks citizens from
A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order against Trump’s immigration
restrictions on Friday, and signaled that the order
applies to cases across the country. The Department of Homeland Security
suspended "any and all actions" related to the ban in response, but
the White House has said it will ask for an emergency stay of the judge's
order.
Also Friday, Trump imposed sanctions on
The sanctions, on 13 people and 12 companies, came a day after he put
Edalat worries he won’t see his family for months.
His mother had planned to visit the family in West Hills this month. The
chemical engineer doesn’t know whether he should tell her to stay in
“She is devastated,” he said. “The damage is already done...you’re accusing a
65-year-old woman who hasn’t hurt an insect in her life of being a threat to
the national security of this country.”
The ban is particularly dispiriting because it comes just one year after the
implementation of the Iran nuclear deal, said Saman Djabbari, a first-generation American whose parents moved
to Los Angeles from Iran.
“There was such hope with that. It seems like there was one giant step forward
and two giant steps backward,” Djabbari, 30, said.
“There was all this progress made. That thaw, who knows what
happens with it now? Is it just frozen over again?”
His uncle still lives in
“Last time I went there I was 15 years old and the Iranian government for some
reason had this idea that I never left the country,” he said. “So that entire trip, my mom and her brother had to produce all
this evidence that I was living in the States the whole time. I could
have gotten stuck over there.”
Experts note that existing vetting policies were already rigorous.
“Could we do more? Yeah, we could send out FBI agents,” said Niels Frenzen, an expert in
immigration and refugee law at USC. “When money isn’t an issue, one can always
do more.”
Still, the ban is “illogical” and “confusing,” Frenzen
added.
“It is stopping people who have been vetted,” he said. “The country selection
process is a political decision and has nothing to do as far as I can tell with
national security.”
Mahsa Pashaei left
Pashaei, a student at UCLA, said her mother planned
to travel to
“All these decisions are on hold,” Pashaei said in
Farsi. “My family is worried we will never see each other again.”
The 25-year-old said she feels caught between two countries.
“Neither accepts you,” she said. “Each moment, you wonder ‘If something
happens, which country would want to help me? Which way do I reach out?’ That’s
its own horror.”
It took 14 months for Edalat’s mother to get through
the vetting process, which included criminal background checks, flights to the
U.S. Embassy in
His wife Samah’s aunt received a visa and planned to
visit in March. The aunt, 70, traveled twice to the embassy in
“I’ve been on the phone with my mother, and she says my aunt has been crying
over this,” Samah Edalat
said as she fed their daughter, Nava, in the kitchen.
“You want to revoke this privilege -- and I agree it is a privilege for
noncitizens -- at least be accountable,” her husband added. “People spent money, they invested their emotions and their time.”
Edalat’s mother paid for the family’s plane tickets
during their December visit. With two children, he and his wife couldn’t spare
$5,000 to fly to
With the ban in place, he doesn’t know when he will see his loved ones, or
visit a country where a song or bite of food can cause a flood of memories.
“I met my nephew for the first time this trip. I’m not going to be there when
he’s 10, or 5, or 6,” Edalat said. “Year after year,
my mother’s birthday, my brother’s birthday, my nephew’s birthday. All of these
things are missing.”
“They come back haunting you, all of these sacrifices you’re making.”
sarah.parvini@latimes.com
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