Archive for January 16, 2018

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Kirstjen Nielsen Faces the Democrats

January 16, 2018

Kirstjen Nielsen Faces the Democrats, Power Line, John Hinderaker, January 16, 2018

The Democrats’ self-righteousness is disgusting. Apart from that, I find it hard to understand their strategy. (Paul has struggled to make sense of it, as well.) They have gone public with characterizations of a private negotiating session they had with the president, some of which are probably false. In doing so, they have hurt America’s standing in some countries. Their actions are deeply unpatriotic, and I cannot recall any precedent for them.

Why are they doing it, other than the fact that they are blinded by their hate for the president? Like Paul, I question whether they can plausibly believe that double-crossing the president strengthens their hand in the negotiations over various immigration-related issues. I only hope that President Trump will find opportunities to take revenge.

*************************************

Secretary of Homeland Defense Kirstjen Nielsen is testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee. It seems that just about the only thing the Democrats want to talk about is the meeting with President Trump last week that gave rise to the “s***hole” controversy. Secretary Nielsen is at least the second person to say that Trump did not use that term, yet “s***hole” has been reported more or less universally as fact.

Nielsen is doing an excellent job before the committee. Here, Pat Leahy questions her:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lADXSdZkZk

 

She had a longer colloquy with Dick Durbin, who leaked the “s***hole” claim to the press. She handled Durbin respectfully but well; the last exchange is particularly good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SinV5s4J5Jk

The Democrats’ self-righteousness is disgusting. Apart from that, I find it hard to understand their strategy. (Paul has struggled to make sense of it, as well.) They have gone public with characterizations of a private negotiating session they had with the president, some of which are probably false. In doing so, they have hurt America’s standing in some countries. Their actions are deeply unpatriotic, and I cannot recall any precedent for them.

Why are they doing it, other than the fact that they are blinded by their hate for the president? Like Paul, I question whether they can plausibly believe that double-crossing the president strengthens their hand in the negotiations over various immigration-related issues. I only hope that President Trump will find opportunities to take revenge.

Categories: Democrats vs Trump, Kirstjen Nielsen, Trump's alleged nasty language
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FULL MEASURE: January 14th 2018- The Other Wall

January 16, 2018

FULL MEASURE: January 14th 2018- The Other Wall via YouTube, January 15, 2018

The blurb beneath the video states,

There’s been a lot of talk this week about The Wall. It was one of then-candidate Trump’s first promises. Now building the wall is part of the debate on an immigration bill. Over a decade ago, Israel built a wall of its own to stop terrorist attacks. We wanted to see the so-called “separation barrier” for ourselves and find out what America can learn from a wall that works. Full Measure contributing correspondent John Huddy reports from the Israeli/West Bank border.

Categories: Israel's wall, Trump's wall
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Netanyahu’s welcome by India And PM Modi

January 16, 2018

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Somalia: Jihadis forcing civilians to hand over young children for training

January 16, 2018

Somalia: Jihadis forcing civilians to hand over young children for training, Jihad Watch, , January 16, 2018

Somalia’s Al-Qaeda linked Shabaab insurgents are increasingly threatening civilians to force them to hand over young children for “indoctrination and military training

That’s right, young children are being yanked away from their homes, parents, schools, loved ones and familiar surroundings to be trained for bloody jihad war. This includes being kept in chains as they are indoctrinated on launching future attacks on the West and on how to become jihad/martyrdom suicide bombers.

Meanwhile, most of the world’s leaders pretend to care about human rights as they remain silent in the face of the worst global atrocities committed by jihadists.

“Somalia’s Shabaab forcing civilians to hand over children: HRW”, The Citizen (thanks to The Religion of Peace), January 15, 2018:

Somalia’s Al-Qaeda linked Shabaab insurgents are increasingly threatening civilians to force them to hand over young children for “indoctrination and military training”, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Monday.

The rights watchdog said an aggressive campaign to recruit children had begun in mid-2017, with the jihadists taking reprisals against communities who refuse to cooperate.

Hundreds of children have fled their homes to avoid this fate, often alone, it said in a statement.

“Al-Shabaab’s ruthless recruitment campaign is taking rural children from their parents so they can serve this militant armed group,” said Laetitia Bader, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch.

The practice was revealed to be taking place in three districts largely under Shabaab control, in the southern Bay region.

According to HRW, Al-Shabaab has opened large Islamic religious schools since 2015 in areas under their control, bringing in younger children and pressuring teachers to teach the Shabaab curriculum in schools and avoid “foreign teachings”.

Village elders near Baidoa in southwestern Somalia told HRW that in September, Shabaab militants ordered them to hand over dozens of children between the ages of nine and 15.

“They said we needed to support their fight. They spoke to us in a very threatening manner. They also said they wanted the keys to our boreholes. They kept us for three days. We said we needed to consult with our community. They gave us 10 days,” one resident told HRW.

The community refused to hand over the children, and has since received threatening calls including death threats.

That same month residents of Burkhaba district said Shabaab fighters had forcible taken at least 50 boys and girls from two schools to a village called Bulo Fulay, reported to host a “number of religious schools and a major training facility”.

A large group of Shabaab militants returned two weeks later to another local school and threatened the teacher who refused to hand over the children, said HRW.

“They wanted 25 children ages eight to 15,” the teacher told HRW

“They didn’t say why, but we know that it’s because they want to indoctrinate them and then recruit them.”

In Berdale district — also in the Bay region — Shabaab has abducted elders who refuse to hand over children in at least four villages, said the statement.

According to HRW, hundreds of often unaccompanied children have fled their homes since the recruitment campaign began.

The watchdog said that while government had taken some steps to protect schools and students, it should work to identify recruitment drives, assist displaced children and ensure children “are not sent into harm’s way.”

The Shabaab has been fighting to overthrow successive internationally backed governments in Mogadishu since 2007….

Categories: Islamic indoctrination of children, Islamic terrorism, Islamic terrorists - recruitment, Somalia
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Report: Middle East Christians on the Eve of Destruction

January 16, 2018

by Simon Kent 16 Jan 2018 Breitbart

Source: Report: Middle East Christians on the Eve of Destruction

(When attacked, keep turning that other cheek until you deliver a roundhouse kick. – LS)

Egypt, Jordan, Syria and the Palestinian territories are amongst the most dangerous places on earth for Christians, according to a new report.

Although Christians claim the area as their Biblical heartland alongside Israel, persecution and discrimination, especially in the past 15 years, means they now constitute no more than three to four per cent per cent of the region’s population, down from 20 per cent a century ago.

Hard-line Islamic views and state-sanctioned “religio-ethnic cleansing”are the key drivers behind the Christian genocide.

Just 12 months ago, the Islamic State branch that operates in and around Egypt designated the northern African country’s Christian minority their “favorite prey” in a 20-minute propaganda video.

Now the latest report released by the British Christian charity group Open Doors, an organization that monitors ill-treated Christians worldwide, reveals Egyptian Christians in particular are found to suffer in “various ways” such as pressure to convert to Islam, severe restrictions on building places of worship and congregating, and outright violence.

Egypt’s Coptic Christian community, which comprises roughly 10 percent of the country’s population, has been the frequent target of Islamic terrorism with Coptic churches in Alexandria and Tanta both struck by suicide bombers last April, killing 49 and leaving more than 100 injured on Palm Sunday.

Last December, a squad of terrorist gunmen attacked the Mar Mina church in southern Cairo, killing between eight and ten people and wounding at least five more.

“Christians in Egypt face a barrage of discrimination and intimidation yet they refuse to give up their faith. It is hard for us…to imagine being defined by our religion every single day in every sphere of life,” Open Doors UK and Ireland CEO Lisa Pearce said in a statement.

“In Egypt, as in many other Middle Eastern countries, your religion is stated on your identity card,” she said. “This makes discrimination and persecution easy — you are overlooked for jobs, planning permits are hard to obtain and you are a target when you go to church.”

Overall, North Korea stands at the top of a list of 50 countries where at least 215 million Christians faced the most severe persecution in 2017, resulting in 3,066 deaths and 1,020 rapes mainly targeting women.

The Open Doors report follows previous warnings that Christians in the Middle East are teetering on the eve of destruction.

In 2015 a report titled Persecuted & Forgotten?, disturbing data outlined the plunging numbers of Christians in the part of the world that gave birth to the faith and made a dire prediction of what the future holds. As Breitbart Jerusalem reported, the alarming rate of decline in the Biblical heartlands means Christianity could vanish in areas it has called home for millennia unless the world steps in.

To that end,  Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has previously urged EU leaders to protect Christianity in the Middle East, or risk its destruction.

He said his country was taking the lead on extending aid to Christian minorities, and, in particular, on supporting programmes to help them return to their homelands in safety.

 

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Arab Regimes Terrified by Israel’s Freedoms

January 16, 2018

Arab Regimes Terrified by Israel’s Freedoms,  Gatestone Institute, Giulio Meotti, January 16, 2018

(Please see also, A secret Middle East alliance. Relations between Saudi Arabia and Egypt with Israel seem to have improved. — DM)

A prominent Tunisian-born French movie producer, Saïd Ben Saïd recently issued one of the frankest denunciations of anti-Semitism in the Arab world. The real culprit, he argued, was the prevalence of anti-Semitism fueled by Islamic extremists across the Middle East. Ben Saïd was forced to pull out of an Arab film festival last year because he had worked with Israelis.

A Lebanese director, Ziad Doueiri, did something even “worse”: he filmed some scenes on Israeli land!

“No one can deny the misery of the Palestinian people, but it must be admitted that the Arab world is, in its majority, antisemitic. This hatred of Jews has redoubled in intensity and depth not because of the Arab-Israeli conflict, but with the rise of a certain vision of Islam”. — Saïd Ben Saïd.

Fifty years have passed since many Arab countries were humiliated by Israel in 1967 in a war the Arabs started, with the explicit goal of destroying the Jewish State and throwing the Jews into the Mediterranean Sea. Today, Israel has solid diplomatic relations with two of these countries — Jordan to Egypt — while Saudi officials speak with their Israeli security counterparts about the Iranian threat.

But although the Middle East is engulfed in a new wave of internal destabilization, and Iran has recently experienced a new wave of protests in which people chanted “we don’t want an Islamic Republic“, the great taboo for the Arab and Muslim world is still that of cultural exchanges with the hated “Zionists”.

A prominent Tunisian-born French movie producer, Saïd Ben Saïd, after being forced to pull out of North Africa’s most prestigious film festival, recently issued one of the frankest denunciations of anti-Semitism in the Arab world. He revealed, in an op-ed for the French daily Le Monde, that an invitation to preside over the jury of the Carthage Film Festival had been rescinded because of his work with the Israeli film director, Nadav Lapid, and for having participated on a panel at the Jerusalem Film Festival earlier this year. The real culprit, Ben Saïd argued, was the prevalence of anti-Semitism fueled by Islamic extremists across the Middle East:

“No one can deny the misery of the Palestinian people, but it must be admitted that the Arab world is, in its majority, antisemitic… This hatred of Jews has redoubled in intensity and depth not because of the Arab-Israeli conflict, but with the rise of a certain vision of Islam”.

Writers, novelists, journalists, politicians, bloggers, filmmakers: there are plenty of Arab and Muslim artists who have paid a heavy price for having broken through the iron curtain that has been put around Israel.

Amin Maalouf, who has both a Lebanese and a French passport, gave an interview to an Israeli channel, i24. Perhaps he thought that having won the Goncourt Prize (France’s greatest literary recognition), having received the Legion of Honor, and being among the “Immortals” of the French Academy would have protected him. Of course it did not. Right after his interview with the television channel, requests to deprive him of his Lebanese citizenship and put him on trial began at once.

A Lebanese director, Ziad Doueiri, did something even “worse”: he filmed some scenes on Israeli land! When he returned from the Venice Film Festival, the Lebanese police were waiting for him at the airport. He was arrested, interrogated for three hours, and accused of “collaborating with Israel”.

Because Lebanese director Ziad Doueiri filmed some scenes in Israel, when he returned from the Venice Film Festival, Lebanese police arrested him at the airport, interrogated him for three hours, and accused him of “collaborating with Israel”. (Photo by Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for Palm Springs International Film Festival)

Boualem Sansal, an acclaimed Algerian writer, should have received the Prix du Roman Arabe for his book “Rue Darwin”. The jury, however, who had actually selected him, later retracted the award and cancelled it. The reason? Sansal had made a trip to Jerusalem to attend an Israeli literary festival.

The great Egyptian writer Ali Salem has seen his career destroyed forever for having visited Israel. In 1994, a few months after the Oslo Accords were signed, the famous Egyptian satirical writer traveled to Israel and wrote the book, My Drive to Israel. Theaters abandoned and boycotted his plays.

The Nobel Laureate for Literature Naguib Mahfouz was persecuted by the Islamic fundamentalists, not only for his “secular spirit”, but above all the support which, at the time, Mahfouz provided to President Anwar Sadat for having signed the Camp David “peace” treaty with Israel. In 1979, the Arab countries boycotted the publication of Mahfouz’s novels. They are still officially unavailable in some Middle Eastern countries.

The most well-known Iranian blogger, Hossein Derakhshan, ended up in jail; he was accused of “spying for Israel.” His “crime”? A visit to Israel two years earlier to “show the daily life of the Jewish people” and to expose anti-Semitic prejudices.

Even the most famous Arab poet, the Syrian Adonis, was expelled from the Arab Writers Union for having met with Israeli intellectuals in Granada during a UNESCO conference.

These Arab and Muslim regimes are terrified of Israel, a comparatively microscopic 20,000 square kilometers, compared to the 33 million square kilometers of the Arab and Muslim world. In an immense crescent that sweeps from Casablanca to Mumbai, Israel is the only free state in the region.

In Saudi Arabia, blogger Raif Badawi was imprisoned and flogged. In Jordan, the writer Nahid Hattar was murdered for “blasphemy”. In Egypt, the novelist Ahmed Naji was jailed for “obscenity”. And Iran increased the bounty for the murder of writer Salman Rushdie.

Israel is the only Middle Eastern state where journalists enjoy absolute freedom of expression and can safely challenge the military and government. It is a Jewish country where publishing houses translate Arab authors; the opposite does not happen in the Middle East. It is the only country where artists and writers are not censored or told by the state what to write, what not to write, or how to behave. This is what Arab and Muslim dictatorships fear: that their own artists might be “infected” by these “unruly” “Zionists”.

The West, where people care about pluralism and cultural freedom, needs strongly to support these Arab and Muslim writers and artists who have dared to visit Israel and become “unruly” to boot. It means betting on freedom and progress instead of on autocracies and an artificial, failed “peace”. These Arab artists are far more brave and honest of all those European pseudo-intellectuals who embrace the boycott of Israel, the only free and open country in the Middle East.

Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.

Categories: Israel and Middle East
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Hawaii and Israel 

January 16, 2018

Source: Hawaii and Israel – Opinion – Jerusalem Post

BY JPOST EDITORIAL
 JANUARY 15, 2018 20:28
The sudden feeling of fear and helplessness is familiar to Israelis who live within rocket-range of Hamas terrorists in Gaza or Hezbollah Islamists in South Lebanon.
North Korea's Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile is launched, November 2017

North Korea’s Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile is launched, November 2017. (photo credit: KCNA/ REUTERS)

The false alarm of an incoming ballistic missile that sent Hawaii into a panic this weekend underlines what happens when madmen like Kim Jong Un get their hands on immense firepower.

The sudden feeling of fear and helplessness is familiar to Israelis who live within rocket-range of Hamas terrorists in Gaza or Hezbollah Islamists in South Lebanon.

No one is completely sure what Kim is capable of doing. The man may or may not be a rational actor, which is why people took seriously warnings mistakenly sent out by an employee of the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency that indicated a ballistic missile was about to hit the islands.

There was real fear that US President Donald Trump’s ongoing attempt to strengthen American deterrence vis-a-vis Pyongyang had triggered Kim to unleash nuclear warheads.

During the 38 minutes it took for the agency to withdraw the alert, which was sent to cellphones across Hawaii Saturday morning, hundreds of thousands of people scrambled for cover.

Many of the houses on the Hawaiian Islands are made of single-ply walls and have no basement. As a result, many people gathered their families, scrambled into their cars and headed for buildings with concrete walls, all the while aware that they were racing against time.

When the word came that it was a false alarm, the relief was palpable. People hugged, cried and shook with a combination of relief and emotional drain following the initial scare. There is talk now of how tourism, Hawaii’s biggest industry, will be hurt by the incident.

Israelis have little trouble empathizing with the horror people in Hawaii must have felt when they saw the warning of an imminent ballistic missile attack. Living under threat of a ballistic attack – albeit a non-nuclear threat – is familiar to Israelis. Towns and cities close to the border with Gaza and Lebanon are most directly and consistently affected. But even more distant towns, such as Ashdod in the South or Haifa in the North, have experienced not only the fear of a potential ballistic attack, but the destruction and mayhem an actual strike would cause.

Again, Israel’s immediate threat is not nuclear but conventional. However, Iran, a regional power with nuclear ambitions, is the prime backer of Hamas and Hezbollah. The 38 minutes of drama in Hawaii is just a taste of what Israel will face should Iran manage to achieve nuclear weapon capability and provide a nuclear umbrella to its proxies on Israel’s northern and southern borders.

More pressing than a nuclear-armed Iran, however, is the recent escalation in the South. On Saturday, the IDF destroyed a Hamas attack tunnel that ran underneath the Kerem Shalom Gaza crossing. It was the third tunnel destroyed in recent months. Since Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Jerusalem there has been an uptick in violence on the West Bank, in and around Jerusalem and coming from Gaza.

According to IDF data, in December alone, 19 rocket and mortar shells were fired from the Gaza Strip at Israeli cities and towns. This is more than half of the total number of ballistic attacks on Israel from Gaza Strip in all of 2017.

Supported by Iran, Hamas is once again prioritizing terrorism over the welfare of Gaza’s residents. Instead of focusing on turning the Gaza Strip into a viable, autonomous Palestinian state at peace with Egypt and Israel, Hamas, not unlike Kim’s regime in North Korea, devotes most of its resources toward preparation for war. Inevitably, this will lead to conflict with Israel, which cannot allow its deterrence to be undermined by Hamas.

For 38 minutes on Saturday, Hawaiians were convinced that a totalitarian dictator with what appears to be only a loose grip on reality had launched ballistic missiles. Israelis living near the border with Gaza face a similar reality on a regular basis, but instead of a Korean dictator, the aggressor is a group of nihilistic Islamist terrorists. If or when war breaks out again between Israel and Hamas we hope Hawaiians, Americans and the entire peace-loving world will know which side to support.

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A secret Middle East alliance

January 16, 2018

A secret Middle East alliance, Washington Times, Herbert London, January 15, 2018

Illustration on an alliance between Irael and Saudi Arabia by Linas Garsys/The Washington Times

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

A Swiss newspaper, Basler Zeitung, reported recently that a secret alliance between Israel and Saudi Arabia aimed at restraining Iran’s imperial desire for a land mass between Tehran and the Mediterranean was moving into a new phase. While there aren’t formal diplomatic ties between the two countries, military cooperation does exist. In fact, the Saudi government sent a military delegation to Jerusalem several months ago to discuss Iran’s role as a destabilizing force in the region.

Now it appears that officials in Saudi Arabia are considering the purchase of Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, as well as the Trophy Active Protection System developed by Rafael and Israel Aerospace. Seen against a backdrop in which Riyadh rejects any official normalization with Israel, this development is quite remarkable. It also bespeaks a new-found respect for Israel and an emerging belief that in any Sunni defense condominium Israel will have a role to play.

It is instructive that neither Saudi Arabia nor Egypt was actively hostile to the address change for the American Embassy in Jerusalem. They voted to repudiate the decision in the U.N. vote on the matter, but that was the end of it. The tide of alliance building is moving in a new and unpredictable direction in the Middle East.

The Saudi stance is ostensibly related to a Palestinian-Israeli deal on a two-state solution, but the reality is that Iran is the real threat that poses the greatest danger to Riyadh. An Israel with its advanced technology has become an ally of necessity, not necessarily an ally of long-term common interests, albeit history has a way of uniting unlikely bedfellows.

A recent missile fired from Yemen to Riyadh awakened the Saudi leadership to their vulnerability. Hence, the interest in the Iron Dome. The missile — identified as Houthi fired — had all the markings and signature of an Iranian weapon. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said this was an “Iranian act of war.” Saudi Arabia has resources, but despite the military training of the crown prince, the Saudis are not yet prepared to go to war against Iran. They will build and train and purchase advanced technology, but they will not revert to war, not yet anyway.

This explains why the Iron Dome is so critical as a strategic defense. It is impossible to know if the Houthis will launch again soon. But there is every indication that will be the case. The Houthis are a mere surrogate for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. They are armed, supported and directed from Iran.

The shakeout in the Middle East will have many turns and missteps. For now, it provides an interesting opportunity for Israel. From a U.N. vote establishing the state in 1948 to the present, Israel has been surrounded by hostile nations. That may change in the years ahead.

Imponderables fill the Middle East air. Will demonstrations against the Iranian government lead to its fall? Will the crown prince’s desire to modernize Saudi Arabia and seize control of military affairs work? Will the Egyptian war in the Sinai against ISIS and al Qaeda forces be successful? Will the United States continue to be an active participant in Middle East affairs? Is Russia prepared to make continued sacrifices to secure Bashar Assad’s position in Syria? These questions and a host of others dot the landscape.

If the Saudi-Israeli alliance yields some form of regional stability, many of the issues described above disappear. That is why the alliance is the harbinger of hope and the insurance policy for the moment.

• Herbert London is president of the London Center for Policy Research.

Categories: Egypt, Iron Dome, Israel and Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel
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Bomb planted at West Bank holy site, is detonated safely

January 16, 2018

By Judah Ari Gross Today, 8:42 am The Times of Israel

Source: Bomb planted at West Bank holy site, is detonated safely

{It just never ends. – LS}

After controlled blast, some 1,000 Jewish worshipers visit Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus, as residents riot and stone their buses.

Army sappers detonated a cellphone-operated explosive device that was apparently planted by Palestinians at the entrance to the Joseph’s Tomb holy site in the city of Nablus early Tuesday morning, ahead of a visit by approximately 1,000 Jewish worshipers, the army said.

There were no injuries or significant damage caused by the controlled blast, and the pilgrimage to the shrine continued as planned, an Israel Defense Forces spokesperson said.

The 1,000 or so worshipers were escorted to Joseph’s Tomb — believed to be the burial site of the biblical patriarch — by IDF soldiers, border guards and Israel Police officers, the army said.

According to the military, as the group was leaving the area, local residents began to throw rocks at the troops and the buses, causing no injuries, but some light damage to the vehicles.

One of the rioters was arrested, the army said.

Elsewhere in the West Bank, IDF troops arrested 10 Palestinian suspects in predawn raids. Two illegally owned guns were confiscated by Israeli soldiers in the town of Silwad, northeast of Ramallah, in the central West Bank.

Pilgrimages by Israeli or foreign civilians to the Joseph’s Tomb holy site are frequent catalysts for violence. In the past, Nablus residents have attacked the groups visiting the site with rocks, Molotov cocktails and rifle fire.

As a result, those interested in visiting the site require a military escort.

The left-wing B’Tselem rights group has condemned the routine practice, saying that “Israel has preferred the interest of Jewish worshipers over the rights of the Palestinian residents, their security, their safety and their daily routine.”

In August, two Palestinians were shot and wounded by Israeli troops who were providing protection to Jewish worshipers visiting Joseph’s Tomb.

In October 2015, Palestinian rioters set fire to the holy site. It was restored and reopened a few weeks later.

 

 

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Fading Trump-Putin trust derails de-escalation zones on Syria’s borders with Israel, Jordan

January 16, 2018

Source: Fading Trump-Putin trust derails de-escalation zones on Syria’s borders with Israel, Jordan – DEBKAfile

 , , , , , 

Washington’s decision to keep US bases in northern Syria, secured by a new 30,000-strong local force, drew a strong threat from Moscow. Col. Gen. Vladimir Shamanov, chairman of the Russian State Duma Defense Committee, said, “The practices of the United States, which is leading an international coalition allegedly against Daesh, contradict the Russian interests in Syria. Russia will work in cooperation with its partners to take necessary procedures to establish stability in Syria,” he was quoted as saying by Novosti news agency on Tuesday, Jan. 16.

On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said: “There is a fear that they are pursuing a policy to cut Syria into several pieces.” On the same day, a delegation of Syrian rebel chiefs arrived in Washington to try and persuade the Americans to restore aid. The US administration suspended that aid program seven months ago, immediately after Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin talked at the July 2017 G20 summit in Munich. It was then that they agreed to establish a series of de-escalations zones in Syria to wind down the warfare, with special focus on its border regions with Israel and Jordan.
However, when in recent weeks, Trump found the Russians opening the door for Iran to deepen its military presence in Syria, he lost faith in his deal with Putin. The Syrian rebels sensed an opportunity at hand to bid for the resumption of US arms and aid. A Free Syrian Army (FSA) delegation accordingly landed in Washington this week and openly solicited the CIA to go back to its former training and aid programs.

It may be assumed that FSA chiefs had received some sign from the Trump administration that their journey was worthwhile. They may also have understood that, if Washington was willing to set up a new army in northern Syria, dominated by the Kurdish YPG militia, it would be equally amenable to reconstituting the FSA for operating on other fronts, especially against the advancing Syrian government army and its Iranian and Hizballah allies.
In a word, the situation is a far cry from Putin’s assertion at the Russian Khmeimim air base near Latakia on Dec. 11, that the war was ending with a Russian victory.  Instead of being over, the war has switched to a new stage.
In further reference to the new US plans for northern Syria, Lavrov said on Monday: “What it would mean is that vast swaths of territory along the borders of Turkey and Iraq to the east of the Euphrates River would be isolated.” He complained: “There is nothing in the UN Security Council resolutions that have been pointing to that and neither is it in our previous agreements, so we are expecting some clarification from the US.”

But the Trump administration is now busy translating its decisions into actions on the ground in Syria and has no time for diplomatic wrangling. The de-escalation zones agreed by the two leaders seven months ago are dissipating, under the pressures of Russian-Iranian movements, US counter moves and Moscow’s threats. It is now up to Israel to adapt to the new reality that Syrian border zones are no longer secure.

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