The Roman Colosseum will be illuminated by red lights later this month to draw attention to the persecution of Christians around the world, and especially in Syria and Iraq. On Saturday, Feb. 24, at 6 p.m. the Colosseum will be spotlighted in red, to represent the blood of Christians who have been wounded or lost their lives due to religious persecution. Simultaneously, in Syria and Iraq, prominent churches will be illuminated with red lights. In Aleppo, the St. Elijah Maronite Cathedral will be lighted, and in Mosul, the Church of St. Paul, where this past Dec. 24, the first Mass was celebrated after the city’s liberation from ISIS. The event, sponsored by Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), follows a similar initiative last year, which lit-up London’s Parliament building in red, as well as the Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Paris and the cathedral in Manila, Philippines. In 2016, the famous Trevi Fountain in Rome was lit. Alessandro Monteduro, director of ACN, told journalists Feb. 7 that the “illumination [of the Colosseum] will have two symbolic figures: Asia Bibi, the Pakistani Christian condemned to death for blasphemy and whose umpteenth judgment is expected to revoke the sentence; and Rebecca, a girl kidnapped by Boko Haram along with her two children when she was pregnant with a third.” “One of the children was killed,” he said, “she lost the baby she was carrying, and then became pregnant after one of the many brutalities she was subjected to by her captors.” Once she was freed and reunited with her husband, she decided she “could not hate those who caused her so much pain,” Monteduro said. Aid to the Church in Need released a biennial report on anti-Christian persecution Oct. 12, 2017, detailing how Christianity is “the world's most oppressed faith community,” and how anti-Christian persecution in the worst regions has reached “a new peak.” The report reviewed 13 countries, and concluded that in all but one, the situation for Christians was worse in overall terms for the period 2015-2017 than during the prior two years. “The one exception is Saudi Arabia, where the situation was already so bad it could scarcely get any worse,” the report said. China, Eritrea, Iraq, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Syria were ranked “extreme” in the scale of anti-Christian persecution. Egypt, India, and Iran were rated “high to extreme,” while Turkey was rated “moderate to high.” The Middle East is a major focus for the report. “Governments in the West and the U.N. failed to offer Christians in countries such as Iraq and Syria the emergency help they needed as genocide got underway,” the report said. “If Christian organizations and other institutions had not filled the gap, the Christian presence could already have disappeared in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East.” The exodus of Christians from Iraq has been “very severe.” Christians in the country now may number as few as 150,000, a decline from 275,000 in mid-2015. By spring 2017 there were some signs of hope, with the defeat of the Islamic State group and the return of some Christians to their homes on the Nineveh Plains. The departure of Christians from Syria has also threatened the survival of their communities in the country, including historic Christian centers like Aleppo, ACN said. Syrian Christians there suffer threats of forced conversion and extortion. One Chaldean bishop in the country estimates the Christian population to be at 500,000, down from 1.2 million before the war. Many Christians in the region fear going to official refugee camps, due to concerns about rape and other violence, according to the report. ACN also discussed the genocide committed in Syrian and Iraq by the Islamic State and other militants. While ISIS and other groups have lost their major strongholds, ACN said that many Christian groups are threatened with extinction and would likely not survive another attack. https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/colosseum-to-be-lit-red-for-persecuted-christians-42868 (c) 2018 Catholic News Agency

Mount Qasioun soars above the Damascus plain to a height of four thousand feet, a sheer escarpment that for millennia has borne witness to insurrection, invasion, siege, and annihilation. Mankind’s first, albeit legendary, murder occurred in Qasioun’s Cave of Blood, where Cain crushed his brother Abel’s skull with a stone. For many Jews, Christians, and Muslims, Abel became the original martyr, the prototype for millions who followed him into blameless death. Cafés on the summit used to afford a vista of the sprawling metropolis below, until the government banned visitors lest they act as artillery spotters for the rebels. Damascus divided in 2011 into hostile strongholds of the state and its armed opponents. Six and a half years later, the government has restored its rule to all the areas visible from Qasioun, apart from two besieged, nearly leveled, corners, one along the city’s eastern fringe and the other in a tiny pocket to the south. Occasional artillery and mortar rounds testify to the insurgents’ stubborn survival, but the rebellion no longer threatens the rule of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The postwar era has begun. “The regime stays,” one diplomat in Damascus told me. “That’s it. The time of regime change is over.” Terms such as “regime change” and “transition” have for the most part disappeared from political discourse. The government is establishing a new normal. Electricity has been restored from a few hours to twenty-four most days. Water flows from the taps, the garbage is collected, and taxi drivers moan about traffic. Brides in white chiffon sway and ululate as they ride in open convertibles to their wedding parties. Far from Damascus, only a few zones of rural Syria elude the government’s grasp: Idlib in the northwest, two areas adjoining the Jordanian and Israeli borders in the south, the Kurdish-held desert beside Iraq in the east, and a small enclave between Idlib and the Turkish border. Damascenes have begun speaking of antebellum Syria with the dreamy yearning that Scarlett O’Hara had for Tara. They reminisce about driving along a 225-mile checkpoint-free road north past Homs and Hama to Aleppo. They recall strolling, day and night, without fear of robbers. Women did not suffer harassment in the streets. There were no potholes in the roads. No one asked about your religion. Visitors arrived from all over the world to see Syria’s ancient treasures and shop in its vaulted souks. Business was good. And on and on. Government supporters and those who wished that the war had had another result share the conviction that life was better before. “I think in the first six months of 2018 there will be a new constitution for Syria,” a Syrian security source says, “but nothing will change.” Nothing? “The structure will stay the same. Rami Makhlouf and the Alawis are secure. Everything else can change, but it’s decoration.” Makhlouf, Assad’s fabulously rich first cousin, symbolizes the financial chicanery that inspired resentment and protests against the regime in 2011. “The sad thing is that corruption-wise, things are worse,” says a Syrian businessman who struggled to remain neutral throughout the war. “As a regime, if they are worried about the country, they should stop the corruption. If they stay like that, there won’t be any reconstruction. Five or ten people have 90 percent of the cake.”' Syrian malfeasance is paltry compared to that in neighboring Lebanon and Iraq, where rampant bribery and official theft have crippled the economy, and lags behind the plundering by Assad’s oil-rich patrons in Russia and Iran. But it remains a grievance. Drivers on the twenty-five-mile road between the Lebanese border and Damascus, for example, must tip soldiers a dollar at one checkpoint and two packs of Marlboros at another to avoid lengthy inspections of their cars and documents. Small sums add up, and thousands of cigarettes find their way to the black market to supplement the soldiers’ meager salaries. In society’s higher reaches, the illicit gains are greater. By evading international sanctions during the war, a new breed of entrepreneurs has enriched itself through arms deals, smuggling, and trade between government and opposition zones—including, many insist, brokering the sale of wheat and oil from areas controlled until recently by the Islamic State. Friends tell me that war profiteering has created so many nouveaux riches that they no longer recognize the clientele at the once-exclusive Aleppo Club. One can almost hear Lady Bracknell: “My dear, who are these people?” Now that its position is more stable, the government craves international legitimacy. It has asked the United Nations to switch its vast wartime program of humanitarian aid to one of development, which would entail moving money from individual victims of the war to state institutions—a move the US has so far opposed. The United Nations, one UN official explained, “gives cash for work, things like removing rubble. The cash goes to the local community in exchange for their work. It’s happening everywhere [in Syria], but not on a large scale. But there is no development aid to build hospitals, schools, etc.” Wary of the US’s veto power, the UN has so far maintained its humanitarian effort, albeit on a sharply reduced budget, as if the war were still raging rather than commit to reconstruction. The switch to development, although it would bolster the regime’s international image, would also require it to submit to oversight and transparency, which it would attempt to evade. The government, along with most of the populace, also wants the US and Europe to lift economic sanctions, arguing that they do more harm to civilians than to the senior officials they are intended to punish and encourage the corruption that accompanies sanctions-busting everywhere. Some European Union member states, most of whose ambassadors fled when the US closed its embassy in February 2012, are sending diplomats back on regular visits to discuss assisting Syria’s reconstruction with or without the UN. “We have our papers and our statements on reconstruction, but only to implement when real political transition is on the table,” one diplomat told me. Transition implies the replacement of one regime with another, but Syria’s victorious government is staying put. Even without a transition, American and other Western intelligence agencies have resumed contact with Syria’s forbidding military intelligence chief, Ali Mamlouk, seeking information on foreign jihadis to prevent their return home undetected. Idlib is especially troubling to the West, Russia, and the regime. It still holds the greatest concentration of jihadist forces, many of whom were transferred there when they agreed to surrender other areas to the army. One international aid staff member, who has worked on both sides of the battle lines, admitted that “when you group three thousand rebels in one area, they will fight each other.” A Moscow-trained security expert in Damascus believes that Assad can wait for Idlib’s fighters to destroy themselves or flee the country: “Idlib is not strategic. It has no petrol. Let it take another year.” The Turkish army has entered Idlib province, to the apparent annoyance of the government but with the approval of Russia and Iran. Its stated purpose is to control the Islamist jihadis it once armed, but Kurds fear the real goal is to prevent them from creating a contiguous Kurdish-controlled region along the Turkish border between Afrin in the west and the Iraqi border zone they hold in the east. The Kurdish YPG(Yekîneyên Parastina Gel, People’s Protection Units) militia is less hostile to the regime than the jihadis are, but it nonetheless enjoys American support in the form of air cover, special forces protectors, funding, and weaponry. The Russian-backed Syrian army and American-armed Kurds have raced to seize the Euphrates Valley and its oilfields from the jihadis. Their lines of confrontation have moved close enough for mistakes to expand the war again. Insurgents in the outlying districts are too weak and divided to unseat Assad, but they may yet sour the fruits of his triumph. US forces and bases in the Kurdish-held northeast have the potential to harass the Syrian army and undermine Iran and Russia. Taking a cue from his father during Israel’s occupation of Lebanon, Assad retains the option of sponsoring anti-Western resistance to liberate the homeland from the US and its clients, especially in Arab regions where Kurdish dominion is unwelcome. The senior Syrian official blames the US for prolonging the conflict by keeping the Syrian army out of certain areas. “It does not want the Jordanian and Iraqi borders in government hands,” the official insists. Jordan recognizes that American strategy entrenched rather than broke the “Shiite crescent” that King Abdullah predicted in 2004. Syria’s and Baghdad’s victories over the Islamic State, as well as the defeat of Iraq’s Kurds by the Iraqi army and Shiite paramilitaries, allow Iran’s influence to run across Iraq and Syria to Hezbollah’s enclaves in Lebanon. Persia, in effect, is reestablishing the direct route to the Mediterranean that the Byzantines denied it in the seventh century, checked for the moment by the US-backed Border Protection Force. But this is a precarious gain that will be expensive to sustain, especially with American bases in northeast Syria. The Iranian-backed northern arc of Shiism across Iraq and Syria to Lebanon makes Sunni monarchs in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Jordan uneasy. They see Iran displacing them in the heart of the Arab world. Iran emerged victorious in Syria over dissidents the Sunni monarchs supported, and has become a more consistent and vociferous champion of Palestinian rights than Saudi Arabia. While Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman rages against Assad, Iran, and the Shias, a Jordanian government spokesman said Jordan’s relations with Syria were “likely to take a positive turn.” King Abdullah’s bridge to Assad offers a degree of Sunni Arab amity to offset Iran. The strategy of Saudi Arabia, the jihadis’ largest financial benefactor, is less clear. It has cut arms supplies to the most extreme jihadis, conceding defeat in Syria; but it has escalated its challenge to Iran in both Yemen and Lebanon. When Saudi Arabia persuaded Lebanon’s Sunni prime minister, Saad Hariri, to resign on November 5, 2017, many Lebanese feared that Saudi Arabia was signaling its encouragement of an Israeli attack or invasion of Lebanon to destroy Hezbollah and thus deprive Iran of its most valuable foreign military asset. With Syria entering its precarious postwar period, the government and those who failed to bring it down blame each other for the devastation that they—with foreign-supplied armaments—have wrought over the past seven years. The war’s toll has been at least as high as those from the epochs of Sumerians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Mongols, Turks, or French. Fighting since 2011 has left as many as half a million dead and far more crippled, blind, limbless, or otherwise scarred in body and mind. The fratricidal struggle has forced nearly half the country’s pre-war population of 22 million out of their homes, driven five million out of the country, and left thousands of orphans. Historic monuments have vanished; the country’s wealth has been looted. Mass exodus and distrust have unraveled the social fabric. Many Syrians abroad, including the respected human rights lawyer Anwar Bounni, demand a reckoning for wartime murder, rape, and torture. Dossiers on the behavior of both the government and the insurgents, especially the Islamic State, grow thicker as evidence mounts. But the testimony is likely to remain of more use to scholars than to courts of justice, which cannot apprehend elusive jihadis and will be constrained from prosecuting government officials with whom most of the world—led by Russia, Iran, India, and China—is doing business. Someone is to blame for the country’s devastation, but neither side will take responsibility. Both bear the mark of Cain while claiming the unblemished cloak of Abel. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/03/08/syrias-new-normal/?sub_key=5a877f905c594 (c) 2018 NYBooks

What’s new? A new phase in Syria’s war augurs escalation with Israel. As the Assad regime gains the upper hand, Hizbollah probes the south west and Iran seeks to augment its partners’ military capacities, Israel has grown fearful that Syria is becoming an Iranian base. Why does it matter? “Rules of the game” that contained Israeli-Hizbollah clashes for over a decade have eroded. New rules can be established in Syria by mutual agreement or by a deadly cycle of attack and response in which everyone will lose. A broader war could be one miscalculation away. What should be done? Russia should broker understandings that bolster the de-escalation agreement distancing Iran-backed forces from Syria’s armistice line with Israel; halt Iran’s construction of precision missile facilities and its military infrastructure in Syria; and convince Israel to acquiesce in foreign forces remaining in the rest of Syria pending a deal on the country’s future. Executive Summary The Syrian war has entered a new stage with the regime of Bashar al-Assad gaining the upper hand. Israel, no longer content to remain a bystander as Damascus’s position improves, is now jockeying to reverse the deterioration of its strategic posture. In this endeavour it has formidable obstacles to overcome: the regime is more dependent than ever on Iran, which Israel regards as its most implacable state foe; other enemies, particularly Hizbollah and Iran-backed Shiite militias, are entrenched in Syria with Russia’s blessing; and the U.S., notwithstanding the Trump administration’s strident rhetoric, has done little to reverse Iran’s gains. Yet Israel’s hand is not so weak. Russia has given it room to act against Iran-linked military interests and appears to be more interested in balancing contending fighting coalitions than returning every last piece of territory to the Assad regime’s control. But if Russia wishes to eventually withdraw or draw down its forces, it will need to broker rules of the game. Russia has indicated scant interest in doing so, but if it does not, hostilities between Israel and Iran may threaten its accomplishments, particularly regime stability. Israel’s initial concern was Syria’s south west, where it is determined to prevent Hizbollah or Shiite militias from approaching the 1974 armistice line and setting up offensive infrastructure in its vicinity. Their doing so, as Israel sees it, could mean a new front against it and put Hizbollah in a position to launch attacks from an area in which its Lebanese civilian constituencies would not have to suffer Israeli counter-attacks. The Israeli army, its planners fear, would be left to exact costs in Lebanon, Damascus or Tehran, with the risk of provoking a regional war. For the moment, a “de-escalation zone” sponsored by Jordan, Russia and the U.S. is keeping Hizbollah and other militias at a distance from the armistice line. But there are signs this arrangement might not hold. Regime forces in January 2018 seized territory from a jihadist group in the zone, enabling allied militias to creep closer to the Israeli-occupied Golan. Isolated Hizbollah forces already are present in the zone and probing its edges. This deterioration could be slowed by bolstering the de-escalation agreement, an element of the 1974 separation of forces agreement between Israel and Syria. But the moment of truth will arrive when the war winds down in other theatres: will the regime make good on its vow to retake the whole country, including the south west? Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems to assume that if the regime pursues this goal in earnest, inevitably the assistance of foreign forces will follow. More broadly, Israel wants to prevent its rivals from consolidating a permanent military presence anywhere in Syria, which, it fears, would strengthen their hand in future wars as well as their influence today in Lebanon, Jordan and the Palestinian arena. Iran is of particular concern: Israel’s red lines seek to block it from establishing an airport, naval port, military base, permanent presence of militias or precision weapon production facilities for Hizbollah. Israel has already demonstrated its resolve to disrupt the construction of this sort of major military infrastructure. Russia by and large seems content to let this pattern continue and neither Iran nor Syria can stop it. Yet Israel’s strikes against militiamen will prove riskier to pursue and easier to thwart, for instance by integrating the fighters into the Syrian army or simply having them don its uniforms. Israeli officials are also concerned at the prospect of a territorial corridor controlled by Iran-linked forces stretching via Iraq into Syria and Lebanon, which arguably could facilitate the movement of fighters and materiel. This development, too, will be harder for Israel to stop, particularly in Syria’s east, since its intelligence and military capacities decrease with distance from the Golan. Only Moscow is in a position to mediate a bolstering of the de-escalation agreement. Unless it does, the rules of the Syrian game are likely to be worked out through attack and response, with risk of escalation. Attacks by Iran-backed groups over the armistice line dropped over the last couple of years, but Assad’s January 2018 seizure of adjacent territory may augur an increase. Israel too may attack, in the form of limited strikes to prevent Hizbollah from acquiring precision weapons facilities in Lebanon, which it has accused Iran of pursuing. Israel’s military establishment assesses it could do so without provoking an all-out confrontation. Perhaps, but Hizbollah has signalled that the consequences of such a strike are unpredictable. A broader war could be only a miscalculation away. Regional changes make that miscalculation more likely. An increasingly assertive U.S.-Saudi strategy, with help from Israel, is taking shape to pressure Iran militarily, economically and diplomatically. These powers have adopted an activist posture to establish the deterrence vis-à-vis Iran that they feel was lost during the Barack Obama administration. Hizbollah and Iran of course have ways to reply. Neither Hizbollah nor Israel is a pawn of its allies and both have reasons, particularly the threat to civilian populations, to avoid a major escalation. But hostilities are unlikely to remain local. In Syria’s south west, Russia appears to be the sole actor capable of mediating understandings to prevent an Iran-Israel escalation across the country. The best currently anticipated outcome would be a deal whereby Iran and its partners forego building major military infrastructure, including but not only in Syria’s south west, but retain significant influence in the country through other means. It is difficult to imagine a reversion to the pre-2011 situation, when the Syrian state, while allied with Iran, was not an arena for an open Iranian presence and military operations. For the foreseeable future, Iran will continue to be a pillar of the regime’s security. But it risks undermining its investment should it overplay its hand. Everyone stands to lose from an intensification of the Syrian war, first and foremost the Syrian people. So too do Israel and Lebanon, since an altercation between them involving Hizbollah could ignite another war across their borders and beyond. As for Damascus and its backers, a massive campaign by Israel will do enormous damage to their achievements, perhaps even destabilising the regime itself, which would sow discord between Russia and Israel. Gradually stabilising Syria would be a wiser course, and the only viable one toward an eventual settlement. I.Introduction Israel long has had a complex relationship with Syria. Under President Hafez al-Assad, the Syrian regime was a Soviet client that fought wars with Israel in 1967 and 1973, and clashed with its neighbour on numerous other occasions over the Golan Heights, the territory that divides the two countries and which Israel occupied in 1967 before relinquishing a portion after the next war. In the 1980s, as a result of the Iran-Iraq War and Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, Syria grew closer to Iran, an even more suspect partner than the Soviets from Israel’s perspective. Damascus, which had been a strategic ally of Tehran since the 1979 Islamic revolution, facilitated the development and arming of Hizbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia that has killed more Israelis since its 1982 establishment than any of Israel’s other foes. Yet, ever since the 1974 Separation of Forces Agreement formalised the end of the previous year’s October War, Syria has secured the resulting armistice line. The agreement created a UN buffer zone that ran from Mount Hermon/Jabal al-Sheikh in the north to the Yarmouk River in the south and included the town of Quneitra. Monitored by the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), an observer mission created for the purpose, the buffer lies on the Golan Heights between the Israeli-occupied part and the rest of Syria. For decades this de facto border was Israel’s quietest – including the boundaries with Jordan and Egypt, with which Israel has peace agreements. The outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011 posed an unprecedented dilemma for Israeli policymakers and security officials. Repelled by all parties to the conflict, Israel chose not to choose between the Iran-backed regime (which its officials derided as “plague”) and the fragmented and, as the war escalated, increasingly radicalised opposition (scorned as “cholera”). Israel instead kept its distance from the vortex, waiting to see who would emerge victorious. In the interim it focused on how to maintain security and stability, especially in the north of the country, with violence raging across the armistice line. This report analyses how Israel has dealt with the conundrum presented by the war in the context of the region’s changing geopolitics. It is based on field research mainly in Israel, but also in Syria, Lebanon, Russia and Iran. After explaining the evolution of Israeli policy, the report offers policy ideas for disentangling, as much as possible, the Israel-Syria from the Israel-Hizbollah conflict, for the benefit of Israelis, Syrians and Lebanese alike. II.Israeli Policy toward Syria A.Israel’s Red Lines As the war in Syria unfolded in 2011 and 2012, Israel found itself confronting two dangers: that the Assad regime would win and that it would lose. A win, especially with Iran’s backing, would fix the regime even more firmly in Tehran’s orbit. A loss would deal a painful blow to what Iran refers to as the “axis of resistance” – but Israel’s victory might be pyrrhic, if radical Islamist groups, including jihadists, seized control of Syria. This threat seemed especially big at a time when the Muslim Brotherhood was ruling Egypt and the “Arab spring” was still known as such, a challenge to the rulers of other states such as Jordan, Israel’s neighbour and partner. With no single good strategic option, the Israeli military’s northern command shaped the country’s initial response, seeking to prevent, to the extent possible, the erosion of its position. Israel announced a series of red lines designed to secure its home front and bolster adjacent states’ stability. Though its red lines sometimes overlapped with another stakeholder’s interests, Israel considered its posture neutral; outside actors, however, saw Israel as taking sides. At first there were three red lines, with a fourth added shortly thereafter. The first two pertained to Hizbollah. Israel made clear it would prevent the Shiite militia from bringing into Lebanon “game-changing” weaponry, the definition of which has shifted over time, and from building or seizing control of offensive infrastructure across the armistice line in Syria’s south west, including Syrian army bunkers and bases presently under opposition control. This red line extends to Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) advisers, other Iran-backed Shiite militias or anyone else. After the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war, Israel and Hizbollah readied themselves for the next round, reaching a relatively stable equilibrium based on mutual deterrence. Hizbollah brought Iranian arms into Lebanon through Syria; Israel interdicted the transfers only intermittently for fear of provoking an escalation. Israel tended to hesitate before striking even when the weapons were deemed significant (long-range and high-precision missiles) and the conditions ideal. When Hizbollah entered the war in Syria, however, Israel began to strike more aggressively to prevent the Shiite militia from using the fog of war to screen the acquisition of “game-changing” weaponry. Second, Israel also declared its intention to block the establishment of offensive infrastructure east of the occupied Golan, whether by Hizbollah fighters and Iranian proxies or by forces linked to al-Qaeda or the Islamic State (ISIS). Israel feared that Iran and its partner forces would entrench themselves adjacent to the armistice line, enabling the opening of a new front – one where Lebanese civilians (especially Hizbollah’s constituents) would be out of the line of fire; Israel would have insufficient justification, its officials fear, to readily reply in Lebanon.An Israeli official described the strikes in January 2015 (killing a prominent Hizbollah figure, Jihad Mughniyeh, along with several other members of the organisation and an Iranian officer) and December 2015 (killing Samir Quntar, who had been released in a 2008 prisoner exchange with Hizbollah and subsequently became a senior figure in the organisation) as the most salient instances of enforcing this red line. These strikes are just two of more than twenty Israeli responses to alleged attacks in the three years after Hizbollah’s deployment to Syria. From the onset of the fighting until Russia’s September 2015 military intervention, Israeli officials sought a buffer zone – free of any hostile forces, including Assad’s army, which they saw as an extension of Tehran’s – of about 20km; after Russia deployed, and when Iran and its allies later gained the upper hand in the war, Israeli officials began to demand a 60-km buffer, though they grudgingly came to terms with a Syrian military presence within that area. (See map in Appendix A.) Israel’s third red line was enemy fire into territory it controlled: Israel threatened to reply in every instance, regardless of the perpetrator or intent. Until September 2016, Israel’s policy was to retaliate against the regime in reaction to any and all stray fire based on the fact that it was the sovereign power. But when rebels, under pressure, began to fire into Israel to provoke a response against the regime, Israel started firing back at them as well. The fourth red line was never announced as such. In mid-2015, when a coalition of Syrian rebels moved toward Sweida and Jabal Druze on the south west border with Jordan, and Jabhat al-Nusra, then the Syrian al-Qaeda affiliate, moved northward from Quneitra, Israel cautioned Syrian rebels against attacking the Druze population of the area, particularly in the village of Hader, near the armistice line. The prime minister announced he had instructed the military “to take all the necessary actions” to protect the village’s residents. This de facto red line never attained the same prominence as the others because the risk of carnage in the village quickly faded, re-emerging only in November 2017. Israel’s leadership felt forced to commit to this course of action because it faces strong pressures from its own Druze population, who serve in the Israeli army and therefore are linked with Israel’s Jewish population in what they call a “blood pact”, which many Israeli Druze claim extends to defending their relatives in Syria. Israel also used soft power to protect its boundary. Since 2013 it has provided aid – food, clothes, blankets, baby formula and medical assistance – to the residents of a narrow band of territory within Syria east of the Israeli-occupied Golan. Control of Syrian land abutting the armistice line is split between three groups and alliances: Jaysh Khalid bin al-Walid (formerly Katibat Shuhada al-Yarmouk, the Yarmouk Martyrs’ Brigade), an ISIS affiliate, in the southern part of Quneitra governorate; Jabhat al-Nusra (now part of Hei’at Tahrir al-Sham and formerly al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate) and other opposition forces, along the central stretch of the armistice line (including the town of Quneitra); and the regime, Hizbollah and Druze allies in the governorate’s north, predominantly in Hader. Israel has focused aid provision in the vicinity of Quneitra to minimise the benefit to Jaysh Khalid and Hizbollah-friendly Druze. Some native residents remain in this central area, in addition to hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDP), especially from Daraa and Damascus, who arrived in particularly large numbers in 2014 (and more recently in late June 2017) when fighting escalated in Daraa. Thousands of the IDPs moved to tent camps adjacent to the Israeli-Syrian ceasefire line, mostly within the buffer zone, thinking the UN and proximity to Israel would offer a modicum of protection. Israel has sent some humanitarian aid to the camps, including through the operation of a field hospital on its side of the armistice line. Some aid (eg, flour for bakeries and school supplies) goes to support communities in which combatants live in order to dissuade them from firing on Israel for fear of losing the assistance, as well as to improve public opinion vis-à-vis Israel. Israeli officials vehemently deny Israel is providing military aid to jihadist groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda. B.Enter Hizbollah Israel adopted a more assertive stance in late 2012 when Hizbollah deployed in Syria, and particularly in May 2013 after the Shiite group won a key battle at al-Qusayr, a village near the Lebanese border that is strategically located near the highway connecting Damascus to Homs and the Syrian coastline. Hizbollah’s entry into the war extended Israel’s decades-old battle with the group to Syrian territory and entailed the interlocking of three hitherto separate conflicts: between Israel and Syria, between Israel and Hizbollah, and among the various parties to the Syrian civil war. In Syria, fighting for the regime’s existence, Hizbollah has easier access to arms, including missiles of greater range, power and precision. As a result, it has improved its arsenal to the point that Israel’s concept of what constitutes “game-changing” weaponry – the sort that Israel has attempted to block – has changed. Israel largely has given up on interdicting long-range missiles, of which Hizbollah now has many, and shifted to preventing the group’s acquisition of precision weaponry that would enable it to target Israel’s most sensitive locations, such as downtown Tel Aviv, Ben Gurion airport, and gas extraction and production facilities. Israeli officials are convinced that the next war with Hizbollah will exact a heavy toll on the home front, and as such Israel has defended its new red line with vigour. Since a foray on 30 January 2013, the first time in over five years that the Israeli air force carried out an attack inside Syria, Israel claims to have launched nearly 100 aerial strikes. (See chart of Israeli airstrikes in Appendix B.) Hizbollah’s deployment in Syria also created the possibility that at some point its forces would move south. When these forces did just that in coordination with the regime in February-March 2015, six months before Russia’s military intervention, Israeli officialdom decided to prevent Hizbollah and other pro-Iranian militias from seizing territory in the vicinity of the Israel-Syria armistice line, lest they dig bunkers or erect missile batteries there. Israel’s professed plan, in the event the regime’s campaign seemed likely to succeed, was to create either a no-fly zone or an IDF-controlled buffer zone 20km inside Syria. An Israeli official explained that failure to do so would badly erode his country’s strategic position and lead it into a war he said it did not want: Hizbollah will win an exchange of blows. They will fire at our civilians, scoring points for “resisting Israel” while we will be limited to pummelling fighters who can easily be replaced. It is unclear how long we’d be able to absorb this before we’d have to respond on a bigger scale. And if they strike the proverbial kindergarten, all bets are off. Before we know it, we will be looking at exacting costs directly from Beirut, Damascus or Tehran – a conflagration we’d rather avoid. But when the rebels counter-attacked and pushed northward in April-June 2015, the plans Israel had been considering became unnecessary. III.The Russians Are Coming! A.Russia to Assad’s Rescue Syrian rebels captured nearly all of Idlib governorate in the first half of 2015 and threatened to advance on Lattakia as well as southward through the Ghab plain to link up with rebel-held areas in the Hama and Homs countryside. Judging the situation critical, the Syrian regime and its Iranian ally sought and received military support from Moscow in July. To facilitate its deployment, Russia constructed an air base at Hmeimim, south-east of Lattakia on the Mediterranean. Russian forces included T-90 tanks, artillery, warships, military advisers and special forces. The next month, Russia started moving forces toward Lattakia and set up a joint operations room with Iran, Iraq and Syria, soon to be joined by Hizbollah, with the ostensible aim of fighting ISIS. On 30 September, the upper house of the Duma, Russia’s parliament, authorised military operations in Syria; the first airstrikes occurred within hours of the vote. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to Moscow on 21 September, days before the Russian intervention, to establish Israeli-Russian coordination and, subsequently, a de-confliction mechanism to prevent accidents. This mechanism comprises a hotline between IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv and Russia’s Hmeimim air base, direct communication between the Russian and Israeli deputy chiefs of staff, and regular consultations at multiple levels of the respective defence establishments. The hotline demonstrated its value almost immediately, in late November 2015, when Israel refrained from firing on a Russian airplane flying above the Golan. For its part, Moscow has yet to activate its defence systems in response to Israeli strikes. Russia’s intervention soon shifted the war in Assad’s favour, stopping the momentum of the rebels and then, in Aleppo in late 2016, decisively turning the tide. It became increasingly clear that the regime would not be defeated – and that, to the contrary, it likely would continue its attempt to regain control over the whole country. The success of Russia’s intervention put paid to Israeli officials’ hopes (already faint, during the Obama administration’s tenure) that the U.S. would back the rebels more strongly and counterbalance Russian support for the regime. Beyond changing the course of the war, the Russian intervention introduced four strategic dilemmas for Israel and constrained its options for dealing with them: It enabled Hizbollah and Iran, Israel’s most potent enemies, to expand their areas of operations and advance toward or even up to the armistice line. As Israel sees it, were Moscow to back Assad’s recapture of the south, the result would be the same: Hizbollah and Iranian forces would reach the Golan Heights and ultimately build offensive infrastructure there. It constrains Israel’s freedom of military manoeuvre. After Turkey, in November 2015, shot down a Russian military aircraft that it accused of violating its airspace, Russia deployed S-300 and S-400 air defence systems in Syria. Israel can counter the former; the latter, operated only by Russian personnel, pose a much greater challenge. “A fly can’t buzz above Syria without Russian consent nowadays”, observed an Israeli defence official. Moscow has built up its capacities more broadly in the country, suggesting plans for an extended presence that would make it part of the regional military landscape for the foreseeable future, notwithstanding its occasional professions of imminent withdrawal. It raised the possibility that the regime’s campaign to recapture the east, also backed by Russia, would open a land bridge from Iran to the Mediterranean. Though not all military analysts agree, Israel sees the strategic stakes as enormous: such a corridor could facilitate the transfer of both weapons and Iran-backed Shiite militias across state borders and enable Iran to establish a presence across a wide area with potential to threaten Israel. Seen from Israel, such a corridor would provide Tehran an affordable alternative to costly shipment by air. Were the corridor also to thicken Syrian-Iraqi-Iranian economic cooperation, the density of commercial traffic could make it harder for Israel to detect and intercept arms convoys. Russia does not seem particularly concerned by this prospect and has offered Israel no help in forestalling it. With chances growing that the regime and its allies would retake the south, Israel sought to bolster anti-regime militias as well as extend its sway over the population beyond the armistice line. As a prominent Israeli analyst said, Israel wished “to ensure public support among residents of south Syria for rebel non-aggression toward Israel and to increasingly legitimise the role of Syria’s rebels as Israel’s border guards”. In May 2016, Israel formally upgraded its efforts and the army established a Syria Liaison Unit to improve delivery of humanitarian aid under its Good Neighbour policy. In 2017, the army built a new clinic, east of the fence yet west of the UN buffer zone, making it possible for thousands to receive regular medical treatment each week without crossing the Israeli barrier on the western edge of the demilitarised zone. These investments notwithstanding, soft power could not compensate for the weakening of Israel’s strategic position. Israel’s greatest foes are better armed and trained than before, and in theory could enjoy the protection of Russian warplanes. Iran is operating in closer proximity to Israel. An Israeli foreign ministry official worried, “Syria is on its way to becoming a Russian-Iranian protectorate”. B.Israel’s Updated Red Lines These developments have forced Israel to update its red line policy. It has continued to block the transfer of advanced weapons to Hizbollah, so far with Russia’s tacit consent. Israeli officials believe that in the main they have frustrated Hizbollah’s efforts to smuggle precision weapons into Lebanon, which may explain why the movement tried to establish an arms production capacity in its home country. According to Israeli officials, Hizbollah for a time froze those efforts in light of Israeli threats,though they argue that since late 2017, Iran-backed efforts to build such workshops shifted to Syria, where Israel is reported to have struck two, and since then, in January 2018, back to Lebanon again. Israel also is unwilling to countenance the basing of Hizbollah’s advanced, long-range rockets in underground Syrian military facilities in the Qalamoun mountains, some 50km north of Damascus. Rockets in those mountains, Israel worries, would allow Hizbollah to threaten much of Israel with less concern for direct Israeli retaliation that would cause mass casualties among Lebanese civilians and damage civilian infrastructure. That war-fighting strategy might be more difficult for Israel to justify internationally if the initial strike came from a neighbouring country,and would risk drawing in the Syrian army. Israel has expressed disappointment at Russia’s stance toward Iran’s presence in Syria. After the regime’s victory in east Aleppo made clear that Assad would stay in power, the Astana negotiations in May 2017 produced an Iranian-Russian-Turkish memorandum on de-escalation zones, including in the south west. From Netanyahu’s perspective the agreement had severe shortcomings, particularly that it legitimised Iran’s and Turkey’s military involvement in Syria (by formally making them guarantors and monitors of de-escalation and, potentially, giving them a role in defeating jihadist groups) and stayed silent about Hizbollah and Iran-linked forces, effectively enabling them to maintain some presence in the south west. Israel therefore updated its red lines – signalling it would take matters into its own hands if necessary to keep Iran from establishing a permanent military presence in Syria. These red lines concerning Iran, which have not changed but have become more detailed over time, include: No Iranian seaport – Israeli shorthand for no Iranian base for maritime activities in the Mediterranean, which would enable Iranian submarines to threaten the Israeli coast as well as gas rigs, which Israel considers of strategic importance. Israel, in addition to depending on gas for domestic electricity generation, is becoming a significant exporter, including to Jordan, which has helped line up Amman behind this Israeli demand. No permanent Iranian military bases and no permanent presence of Shiite militias trained and commanded by Iran. Looking beyond the present phase of the fighting, Israel does not want Syria to become an Iranian military staging ground, a node of Iran’s “forward defence” strategy. Thousands of non-Syrian Shiite militiamen stationed permanently in Syria under IRGC command could emerge as a potent fighting force akin to Hizbollah. While Israeli officials acknowledge that insisting on their evacuation sets a high bar, fighters remaining under Iranian control and protection could complicate Israel’s operations in the event of combat. Israel is reported to have carried out at least two airstrikes in Syria upon a purported Iranian military base under construction to demonstrate its resolve. Asked about them, an Israeli defence official said: “So far, so good on the setting of new red lines, with the emphasis on ‘so far’”. No Iranian airport, to ensure the monitoring of aerial supplies of weapons, militias and troops to Syria. Iran already lands commercial airplanes in the Mezzeh air base near Damascus but Israel’s intelligence regarding the facility has enabled it to repeatedly strike missile shipments there. Israel wants to avoid the establishment of an Iranian airport, or in fact any airport at which Iran has free rein, particularly in more distant areas of Syria, where it would be harder to gather intelligence and longer bombing runs would be required. No high-precision missile factories. This stricture applies to both Lebanon and Syria. Israel believes that after Hizbollah froze its attempt to establish such capability in Lebanon, Iran has continued to pursue this capacity in Syria. Moscow believes these red lines extend beyond Israel’s legitimate security needs, and reportedly has rebuffed requests that it confront Iran on these issues. Moscow tends to see Hizbollah in a positive light, generally views Iranian political and economic interests in Syria as legitimate, and respects Syria’s sovereign decision-making, at least on certain issues. A Russian diplomat said: Israeli officials repeatedly tell us that Iran is fighting in Syria primarily because of its ultimate agenda of destroying Israel, that Iran is motivated by theology rather than state interest, and that we should create an Iran-free Syria. We want to take Israel’s interests into account, but it is impossible to take such arguments seriously. Even were Moscow more inclined toward Israel’s positions, it may lack the capacity and leverage to compel Iranian compliance with all of Israel’s demands. Even in cases where their interests diverge, securing even small concessions from Damascus and Tehran appears tough for Moscow. It is unlikely to put its credibility on the line in an uncertain attempt to achieve all of them. In particular, Russia might see benefit in the presence of at least some Iran-backed militias; their precipitous withdrawal, given the weakened state of Syria’s forces, could leave the regime exposed, thus ultimately adding to Russia’s own burdens. Syria’s south west presents a unique challenge, given the proximity of the territory to the Israeli-occupied Golan. In July 2017, the U.S., Russia and Jordan negotiated a ceasefire in south west Syria between the Syrian army and mainstream opposition forces providing for the three states to jointly operate a monitoring centre in Amman. In November 2017, Russia, the U.S. and Jordan, after lengthy negotiations, agreed to precisely delineate the territories in question, defining an opposition-controlled de-escalation zone surrounded by a 5km-wide strip, controlled by the Syrian army and with access monitored by Russian military police, into which entry by “foreign forces or foreign fighters” was forbidden. The tripartite agreement permitted continued fighting in the areas it delineated as ISIS-controlled. (See map in Appendix A.) ear what will happen in the Yarmouk valley and Beit Jinn enclaves. The November 2017 agreement delineated the two as controlled by jihadist rebels (respectively, by the ISIS-affiliate Jaysh Khalid Bin al-Walid and by Hei’at Tahrir al-Sham, alongside local insurgents), and therefore excluded from the ceasefire, subject to recapture by either Damascus or the opposition. In early January 2018, after months of intense fighting, the opposition in the Beit Jinn enclave surrendered to the regime, which now controls a triangular patch at the intersection of the Syrian, Lebanese and Israeli boundaries. This development means that foreign (including Iran-backed) fighters, per the terms of the July agreement, can now be stationed 5km from Israel’s fence. Israeli officials fear Hizbollah will capitalise on this shift to establish offensive infrastructure in the Golan Heights. Further to the south, according to some accounts, the U.S. and Jordan agreed to push rebels to attack the jihadists in the Yarmouk valley in return for Russia’s agreement to exclude Hizbollah from the area; it is unclear that the U.S. can do so if it is also terminating its support to the rebels. As with Israel’s other red lines, the operative question is less what Israel thinks of the deal and more whether Russia has the will and capacity to implement it. Given its ambiguities and the winding down of hostilities elsewhere in the country, freeing the regime and its allies to refocus their attention sooner or later on the south west, Israel and at least some Russian officials view the agreement as likely to erode before an intra-Syrian agreement over the country’s future is reached. Unless the de-escalation zone is bolstered, they are probably correct. IV.U.S. Rollback or Russian Balancing? Israel’s political echelons are pleased with what they hear about Iran from the administration of President Donald Trump. The administration’s harsh rhetoric suggests the U.S. plans to roll back what it sees as Iran’s aggressive regional expansion. Israel, which long has been clamouring for a harder line from Washington toward both Tehran and its friends in the Middle East, applauds the tough talk. It cheers the U.S. bombing of an airfield in Syria after the Assad regime’s chemical attack in Khan Sheikhoun in April 2017; the U.S. strike on regime forces near al-Tanf on 18 May 2017; the refusal to certify the Iran nuclear deal because of alleged disproportionate sanctions relief in return for Tehran’s nuclear concessions; the designation of the IRGC as a terrorist entity; new sanctions against Hizbollah; denunciations of the Huthi rebels in Yemen; and determination, in coordination with Saudi Arabia, to restore deterrence vis-à-vis Iran. Since Trump’s May 2017 visit to Riyadh, the prospect of a U.S.-backed Israeli alliance with Arab states against Iran has come to seem more realistic. Israel, however, quickly tempered its great expectations of the White House when it came to Syria. When Trump proclaimed, in his Iran policy announcement, that his administration “will work with our allies to counter the [Iranian] regime’s destabilizing activity and support for terrorist proxies in the region”, Israel hoped Syria would be among the first places where Trump would act forcefully. It was not. During the administration’s first year, it waited-and-saw whether Moscow’s sense of its own self-interest might lead it to restrain Iran in Syria. Washington showed little inclination to directly challenge Iran-aligned forces west of the Euphrates, much to Israel’s disappointment. Instead of prioritising the fight against Tehran and its allies and issuing a credible threat of force in Syria; providing rebels (notably southern ones from al-Tanf) with the resources to block the purported Iranian land bridge in the south; and strongly backing Iraqi Kurds in the wake of their independence referendum to enable them to foil a northern land bridge and otherwise keep Iran occupied, Trump, in the words of an Israeli intelligence official, opted to “pacify Russia”. Today there are some indications that this approach could change, with the administration articulating determination to combat Iran’s influence in Syria and terminate Assad’s rule. Still, Israel remains in a bind because Moscow, which seems set to stay in Syria for some time, has been a faithful if sometimes tentative partner for the regime, Hizbollah and Tehran. It has sought to balance their concerns with Israel’s and find a modus vivendi between the two sides. True, Russia has turned a blind eye to virtually all of the nearly 100 Israeli strikes over the past five years. A Russian diplomat offered a resigned assessment: “These strikes don’t contribute to stability. We say that to Israel. But nobody is an easy partner”. But benign disregard is not enough for Israel, which has little hope it can push Russia to go much further vis-à-vis Iran. Would Israel try to contain Hizbollah on its own, including by launching a pre-emptive attack to prevent the Shiite group from establishing the capacity to produce precision weapons? Israeli defence officials say the early December 2017 strike in Syria on such a workshop demonstrates their military could carry out a more comprehensive strike on comparable sites, with Russia’s tacit acquiescence and without provoking an all-out war. Even if faced with an attack on facilities in Lebanon, they believe, Hizbollah would be deterred from replying and escalating beyond a limited threshold, since the group realises that in a wider conflict its forces would be decimated. More likely, according to Israeli officialdom, is an abbreviated exchange, falling well short of war, that would leave Hizbollah without the capacity to produce precision weapons. Israel’s calculation relies on the correct calibration of its targets, its enemies’ being deterred, and on accurately reading Hizbollah and its backers. That could turn out to be risky: the movement has been signalling for months that since the Syrian conflict has become so complex, any fighting might escalate rapidly, denying Israel a limited war. Further complicating these calculations are rapid regional and global developments, which have upended the conventional rules of the game that have more or less kept the peace since 2006. Particularly significant here is differentiation between strikes in Syria and Lebanon, on one hand, and Israel’s policy of ambiguity (that is, not taking responsibility) regarding such strikes, on the other. Both principles loosened up in 2015 and 2016 as Hizbollah’s involvement in Syria deepened and Russia’s deployment gave a decisive advantage to the regime. Until January 2015, all parties largely adopted a principle of “what happens in Syria, stays in Syria”. Israel confined its aerial strikes on Hizbollah weapons convoys to Syrian territory, cognisant that the same sort of attack on Lebanese territory could lead to full war. The “keep it in Syria” rule also injected urgency into Israel’s efforts to prevent Hizbollah from entrenching itself on the Golan, since abiding by it would enable the group to fight a war of attrition against Israel from Syria with less risk of catastrophic damage to Lebanon. Similarly, regarding Syria, Israel did not take credit for strikes against Hizbollah convoys in Syria to avoid embarrassing the Assad regime and provoke a reply. The Assad regime, for its part, long refrained from firing at Israeli aircraft carrying out strikes in Syria against such convoys. Hizbollah largely has continued to live by this rule, enduring occasional strikes without reply as the cost of being able to operate in Syria. Movement leader Hassan Nasrallah’s declaration that Lebanon and Syria henceforth would constitute a single theatre has materialised on only two occasions. A leading figure in the movement explained: “We are not acting alone. We have to keep in mind and respect what the Syrian government wants”.By contrast Hizbollah considers Lebanon its home turf: any Israeli attack there, whether pre-emptive or reactive, would all but certainly occasion some form of reply. Iran seems to have adopted the same approach: after Israel struck two targets near Damascus, widely reported as Iranian, in November and December 2017, Tehran denied the strikes had occurred and, at least so far, has not responded militarily. Since March 2017, as the tide turned sharply in the direction of the regime and its allies, the erosion of the “keep it in Syria” principle quickened. Israel could not hide the first open violation of its policy of ambiguity, when its Arrow missile defence system shot down a Syrian anti-aircraft missile fired against Israeli planes attacking in Syria. Later, on several occasions, its leadership took responsibility for strikes against Hizbollah, Syrian and even Iranian sites, whether to reinforce its deterrence message or, as Netanyahu’s detractors allege, out of electoral considerations.Today Israel echoes Hizbollah’s rhetoric: in the next war, Israel will treat Lebanon and Syria as a single front. In an indication that the Syrian regime is moving in the same direction, it fired on Israeli aircraft several times this year, and in a particularly telling case, launched anti-aircraft missiles at an Israeli aircraft gathering intelligence over Lebanon in what, in Israel at least, was widely regarded as an attempt to limit Israeli freedom of action. V.Preventing the Next War With the Assad regime having gained the upper hand, the jockeying for the next stage has begun. Israeli strikes against Iranian sites in early December 2017 appear to have been opening tactical salvos. Israel reportedly launched a diplomatic salvo as well. First, Israel purportedly passed a message via a third party to Bashar al-Assad threatening him personally as well as with military intervention in the war if he aids Iran in its regional agenda. In the second message, allegedly conveyed to President Putin in late November or early December, Netanyahu is said to have claimed that to maintain Israeli red lines with respect to Iran’s military presence, Israel would be prepared to incur a cost in terms of its relations with Moscow. Neither of these threats sound particularly credible, especially if understood in maximalist terms. Israel would be taking a serious risk if it were to militarily threaten the Assad regime’s stability, say by aerially striking Assad’s palace, and it can ill afford a direct confrontation with a global superpower on its very doorstep. It is also far from certain that even if Netanyahu is willing to take risks, Israel could engineer a reality in Syria better aligned with Israel’s interests. To prevent Syria from becoming a theatre for Hizbollah-Israel and Iran-Israel wars, there are two key realms to contend with. A.Across the Armistice Line: South-west Syria The south west is now largely quiet because of the ceasefire and the focus on other parts of the country. With the Astana deal and the subsequent U.S.-Russian-Jordanian agreement, most regime and allied forces are focused elsewhere, primarily the east, north west and Damascus outskirts. Optimally this situation would endure until there is a diplomatic settlement to the entire Syrian war. Yet a diplomatic solution is still a long way off and there are reasons to suppose the de-escalation agreement might not endure that long. The Assad regime repeatedly has stated its intention to retake all of Syria. Since it is unlikely that the Syrian army would be able to take the territory by itself, it would require Hizbollah and/or militia assistance. Should this coordinated campaign come to pass, Israel has indicated it will strike to prevent hostile forces from approaching the armistice line, aerially if it can and if not with artillery. Should fighting start, regardless of who fires the first shot, it is unlikely to end quickly. Israeli planners have limited options for putting a decisive end to tit-for-tat hostilities, especially of the sort meant to cause attrition. Hizbollah would have many good targets, while Israel would have few unless it expanded the exchange into Lebanon, which would risk a major war on what many Israeli officials fear could be considered weak grounds. The costs to Hizbollah would be relatively low, since it does not have any natural constituency in this area, while Israeli strikes would antagonise the local population, which could benefit Hizbollah. A major war would be only a miscalculation away. Should pressure build in Israel for a more robust response, the government would choose among a series of bad options: target Hizbollah in Lebanon; strike Syrian targets in an effort to force Damascus or Moscow to rein in Hizbollah; or, should strain mount to levels it deems unbearable, launch an incursion into Syria to push Hizbollah back. All have the potential to trigger a wider war that drags in a variety of actors, including the Syrian government. The current lull offers a chance to preclude this scenario by reinforcing the November agreement. True, Israel already has a territorial buffer in the form of the occupied Golan Heights, the need for which has been one of Israel’s main arguments for retaining control over these lands; in essence, Israel today is demanding a new buffer denuded of foreign forces to protect its original buffer. This new buffer would extend 40km into Syrian territory roughly along the Deraa-Damascus road, even further than the exclusion zone to which the U.S., Russia and Jordan agreed (see map in Appendix A). With no practical way to eject the fighters already there, a zone of this depth is unlikely to materialise. The regime, for its part, considers any buffer on its territory unjustifiable. Yet the perpetuation of the de-escalation arrangement is the best way to stabilise Syria’s south west, which is why the regime adheres to it and should help to bolster it, its exclusion provisions notwithstanding. To do so, Moscow at the very least should not provide air cover for a regime campaign that includes Hizbollah or militias to retake these areas, and it should use its control of Syria’s airspace to prevent the Syrian army from using in the south west its remaining air assets. That in and of itself is unlikely to dissuade the regime if it is determined to move into the area, especially should the capacities or discipline of local rebel forces diminish as a result of the termination of U.S. covert assistance. Russia, as the only power with leverage on all sides, will need to broker a strengthened deal. One formula to lessen the regime’s incentive to break the deal would be for rebels to hang on to their weapons for self-defence and policing and, in return, accept the state’s legitimacy (though not explicitly the regime’s) and the return of its administrative organs (staffed, to the extent possible, with local personnel). Rebels would maintain autonomy over their own security, which would require ensuring that they have sufficient weaponry and continuing to pay their salaries, perhaps with a Gulf country stepping in for the U.S. The regime and Russia could plausibly claim that the state had restored its sovereignty. Israel would have to settle for a smaller exclusion zone than it has demanded, but this formula would offer a realistic way to keep its foes away and thus reduce the odds of a regional conflagration. Stability in the area also could facilitate a fuller return of UNDOF, an element of the 1974 Israeli-Syrian separation of forces agreement, which both Israel and Syria claim to want to restore. The formula to bolster the de-escalation resembles earlier “reconciliation” agreements, including in southern Syria, responding to efforts by Damascus and Moscow to reinforce the territorial integrity of the Syrian state, but would differ in two key respects. First, the rebels would remain in place, keep their weapons and retain sole responsibility for local security, backed by the implicit threat of Israeli force. Russian forces, possibly in cooperation with Jordan, could provide substantive monitoring. Second, the rebels have already implemented a ceasefire and most regime and allied forces are fighting far from the south-west front. This fact means that, as opposed to earlier agreements, bolstering the ceasefire would not provide a military advantage to the regime by allowing it to transfer forces elsewhere. Perhaps the most significant challenge to this arrangement would be Russia’s ability and willingness to deliver the regime and Iran should they demur and prefer to advance their military campaign. It is particularly unlikely that the two would accede to this arrangement for the southwest so long as Israel continues to strike their assets in other parts of the country – which is why any local ceasefire is unlikely to endure without a broader modus vivendi. B.Israel’s Near Abroad: Brokering a Modus Vivendi in Syria Barring the unexpected, Bashar al-Assad will remain at the helm for the foreseeable future and the country, or at least the considerable amount of it that the regime controls, will remain under the influence of Iran and its allies. The regime will continue to depend on Iran for security and control of its own territory. Tehran has already set down roots in the Syrian economy, with stakes in the oil, gas, mining, agricultural, power and communications sectors, among others. Iran’s ground presence and belief that maintaining a friendly Syria is an existential concern means it is all but inconceivable that the Iranian military could be pushed from the country as part of an eventual settlement of Syria’s war, as Israel demands. That said, it is not clear whether or how Iran plans to use this military presence. A leading Hizbollah figure suggested that Iran may in fact be seeking to protect its substantial investment in Syria by consolidating its position there, which may work as a disincentive for escalation and instead encourage a modus vivendi: Iran’s long-term objective is a stable Syria friendly to Iranian interests. The partner for that is Bashar al-Assad. It would be completely against Iran’s interest to burn this asset. An adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, made a similar point about his country’s aims in Syria, alleging: Neither Iran nor Hizbollah want to stay in Syria. We’re not as foolish as the superpowers. We don’t want permanent bases in Syria. We’re trying to help Syria strengthen itself, just like we’re doing in Iraq through the Popular Mobilisation Units. Intentions notwithstanding, the question is how to persuade Iran, and Israel, to pursue stability and prevent a new conflagration in Syria. As with south-west Syria, Russia remains best placed to broker a deal, clarifying red lines and refereeing disagreements, which it will probably need to do to achieve the basic stability necessary for protecting the regime while drawing down its presence in the country. Basic rules of the military game might include: Theatre of operations. What happens in Syria, stays in Syria and what happens outside of Syria, stays out of Syria. In particular, Iran, Israel and Hizbollah should prevent local clashes in Syria from spreading to other theatres, and from allowing clashes that may erupt elsewhere (for example Lebanon) from spreading to Syria. Military infrastructure. Most of Israel’s sensitivities concern major military infrastructure – a naval port, an airport, an IRGC base and precision missile production facilities for Hizbollah – which are relatively easy to target and whose destruction by Israeli strikes Russia has demonstrated willingness to tolerate. Indeed, it seems easier for Moscow to let Israel constrain Iran’s presence in Syria than to do the constraining itself. Moscow should be clear with Tehran that it is not going to change course but that it will help Tehran better protect many of its interests in Syria so long as it does not pursue these major military infrastructure projects. Personnel. Israel’s red lines regarding fighting forces will be much more difficult to maintain. Were Iran-backed militia forces to integrate further within Syria’s military and security structures, as some Syrian militia already reportedly have and as Tehran has called on others to do, or to simply don their uniforms, they will be harder for Israel to discern and, even if Israel has intelligence, risky to strike. Israeli officials fear that this reality could mean that integral parts of the Syrian army in effect would answer directly to Tehran. As the war subsides, the Syrian state probably will gradually exert more control, though Tehran, as it has elsewhere, likely will continue to find proxies. Russia and Iran seem to differ on this matter, with the former prioritising a centralised Syrian army and the latter seemingly keen on maintaining loyal forces. Disrupting Tehran’s network in Syria is likely to prove as difficult as elsewhere – in Lebanon and Iraq, and to a lesser degree in Yemen – and for Israel to make that a premise of a settlement is tantamount to saying there will not be one. Moscow should offer Israel its assistance to prevent the construction of the military infrastructure in Syria that it finds most threatening, the price for which is that Israel will not be able to extirpate Iran’s military presence, including those irregular forces that remain. To some in Israel, this arrangement will smack of the balancing they are trying to escape. A deep sense of mistrust toward Moscow prevails in Israeli officialdom. But Russia is not only a constraint on Israel; it also could be a resource, the only power that, as an Israeli defence official who supports engaging Russia on this question put it, “has some leverage over them” (meaning Iran and its partners), and might be able to help Israel avoid an all-out war that it does not want to fight. VI.Conclusion The Syrian civil war is still potent and there may be major battles ahead, but assuming present trends continue, the broad contours of its outcome are becoming clearer. Whether or not these contours come to define the parameters of an eventual intra-Syrian settlement, they are already defining the geography of the next Israeli-Hizbollah-Iranian war. Indeed, the uptick in Israeli strikes over the past months, especially against Iran-related targets, and more aggressive Syrian reactions, indicate that an incremental escalation already is occurring. There is still time for Russia to try to broker a set of understandings to prevent a confrontation, protecting both its investment in the regime and Syrian, Israeli and Lebanese lives. https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/eastern-mediterranean/syria/182-israel-hizbollah-and-iran-preventing-another-war-syria?utm_source=Sign+Up+to+Crisis+Group%27s+Email+Updates&utm_campaign=a032f976c9-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_02_07&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1dab8c11ea-a032f976c9-359909997 (c) 2018 International Crisis Group

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls for an end to harassment and threats against journalists in Maldives after the government tried to prevent coverage of opposition activities in the wake of a surprising supreme court decision last week and finally proclaimed a state of emergency yesterday. Media freedom has been repeatedly violated since the supreme court announced its decision in 1 February that detained opposition politicians should be freed and opposition parliamentarians should be reinstated. Journalists, above all reporters for Raajje TV, an opposition TV channel, have been the victims of police violence, especially while covering joyful opposition demonstrations. Teargas has been used indiscriminately against media personnel and one journalist, Sun Online reporter Muaviyath Anwar, said a policeman struck him with a baton when he showed him his press card. “This government must cease its grave violations of the freedom to inform,” said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk. “Amid the current political tension, it is essential that journalists should be able to do their work with complete freedom. “The proclamation of a state of emergency must not be used as grounds for press freedom violations. Instead of stigmatizing independent media, the authorities need to understand that allowing journalists to publish information of interest to the public is the best way to avoid an escalation.” Ismail Sofwan, member of the Maldives Broadcasting Commission, which polices the broadcast media, warned commercial TV stations after the supreme court decision, threatening them with closure if their reporting jeopardized “national security.” Ruling party deputy chief Abdul Raheem Abdullah meanwhile called on the security forces to immediately close Raajje TV, which has at the same time been the target of threats for several days. President Abdulla Yameen’s government has been under pressure ever since the supreme court issued its decision overturning the conviction of political prisoners and ordering the reinstatement of a dozen opposition parliamentarians who had been stripped of their mandates. The government has been trying to prevent media coverage of the ensuing turmoil, as parliament was closed and successive police chiefs were fired to prevent implementation of the supreme court decision. In an attempt to gag political prisoners, the Maldives Correctional Service has already issued a communiqué on 29 January warning that it would bring judicial proceedings against journalists and media outlets that reported statements by detainees. RSF is alarmed by the decline in freedom of information and the increase in violence against journalists in Maldives. Yameen Rasheed, an influential blogger, was stabbed to death in his home in April 2017, probably the victim of censorship because of his coverage of government corruption. There has not yet been any credible investigation into his death. Maldives is ranked 117th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2017 World Press Freedom Index. https://rsf.org/en/news/state-emergency-maldives-journalists-harassed-and-attacked (C) 2018 Reporters without Borders

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns last week’s shooting attack on the home of Abdoul Latif Diallo, the editor of the Dépêche Guinée news website, and calls for a prompt investigation by Guinea’s authorities in order to identify those responsible. Around ten shots were fired at Diallo’s home in a northern suburb of Conakry on the night of 31 January. Diallo told RSF that he had received death threats a few days before the attack and that he thought he was the target of the shots, which went through his living room. He said he was not able to identify those responsible for the shooting or the threats, but he thought they were linked to sensitive stories he recently covered. One of his recent articles was about the alleged involvement of senior members of the national gendarmerie in the murder of the head the treasury department in November 2012. One of these senior officers, Gen. Ibrahima Baldé, tried to contact Diallo in order to “negotiate,” but Diallo refused. “Any form of intimidation or threat designed to prevent journalists from doing their job is completely unacceptable,” RSF said. “The Guinean authorities much launch an investigation without delay in order to shed light on this attack and on the death threats. They have a duty to guarantee the safety of journalists, who must be able to do investigative reporting with complete freedom and without being subjected to any pressure.” Diallo filed a complaint against persons unknown but so far there has been no reaction from the police and judicial authorities or from the High Council for Communication. He said he would nonetheless “not be discouraged” and would continue his investigative reporting “despite everything.” Guinea is ranked 101st out of 180 countries in RSF's 2017 World Press Freedom Index. https://rsf.org/en/news/guinean-website-editor-threatened-shots-fired-home (c) 2018 Reporters without Borders

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the Kenyan government to stop trying to restrict media freedom and to lift the suspension of two TV channels that have been unable to broadcast for the past seven days despite a court ruling in their favour. Citizen TV, a commercial channel, and Inooro TV, a community station, were taken off the air on 31 January for defying a ban on covering opposition leader Raila Odinga’s mock inauguration as president. A week later, they are still being denied a broadcast signal, despite a high court ruling on 1 February that they should be allowed resume broadcasting provisionally pending examination of the case against them. Interior minister Fred Matiangi thinks otherwise. He has announced that they will remain off the air and has even accused some journalists of being accomplices of the National Super Alliance (NASA), the main opposition coalition. His targets include Linus Kaikai, the chairman of the Kenya Editors’ Guild and head of NTV, a commercial TV channel owned by the Nation Media Group. When armed plainclothes police took up position outside the Nation Media Group’s headquarters on 31 January, he and two colleagues remained inside all night because police sources warned them they would arrested if they left. Three days earlier, Kaikai had posted a Kenya Editors’ Guild statement on Twitter expressing alarm about the government’s growing readiness to censor the media. In all four TV channels were taken off the air on 31 January for defying President Uhuru Kenyatta’s orders not to provide live coverage of Odinga’s symbolic swearing-in as “people’s president.” Two of them, NTV and KTN, were able to resume broadcasting yesterday. “You cannot cherry-pick who the high court decision applies to,” RSF said. “All the TV channels that were deprived of their signal must be able to resume broadcasting, as the court ruled. Prolonging their suspension is a political decision that harms media independence and restricts the right to be informed, a right guaranteed in the constitution.” The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has also voiced concern about the Kenyan government’s attempts to interfere with the right to freedom of expression, including its threat to rescind the licences of the TV channels that broadcast the Odinga mock inauguration. Kenya is ranked 95th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2017 World Press Freedom Index. https://rsf.org/en/news/kenya-two-kenyan-tv-channels-silenced-past-week (c) 2018 Reporters Without Borders

After days of bombing, the Turkish military marched across the border and now tries to occupy Afrin with Jihadist mercenaries. Turkey demands the active or passive consent of states such as the USA, Russia, Germany, etc. to this attack. The next war is imminent. Afrin has been a self-governing canton for years, with one woman and one man each having equal rights in the canton administration. Afrin as part of the de facto autonomous Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (Rojava) was important in the fight against IS. IS was beaten off both in Iraq and in Syria by the active resistance of the Kurdish, Arab and Christian populations. What IS didn’t accomplish, is now going to be accomplished by the Turkish Republic: Destruction of the democratic structure in this region, where Christians, Muslims and Yazidis and others live together peacefully. Turkey wants to continue its warfare despite internal and international resistance. One can remember that the peace academics were dismissed and persecuted because they didn’t accept the bombing of the Kurdish cities in Turkey. There are many HDP and CHP members, journalists and intellectuals who have spoken out against the war. Turkey still trusts that it can start wars and carry out massacres because even the genocide against Armenians is not recognized by Turkey. The stability achieved in Afrin is being undermined because Turkey does not want a democratic structure in this region, which could be seen as a possible alternative for the people of the region. Therefore, we call on unions, democratic parties, intellectuals, academics and activists to speak out against the next war in this region. Avoid any military and political support of Turkey. Stop arm sales. To sign: halisyildirim@gmx.net Dr.Halis Yildirim / Munich - GEW member ( The Education and Science Workers' Union) Assoc. Prof. Ides Nicaise - Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences - KU Leuven Prof. em. Sabra J. Webber - The Ohio State University, Ohio, USA Dr. Mesut Keskin, University of Hildesheim, Faculty Member, Institut of Philosophy Prof. em. John Weeks - SOAS University of London Prof. Dr. Verena Krieger (Jena) Prof. Dr. Clyde R. Forsberg Jr. -American University of Central Asia, Bishkek Kyrgyzstan Full Prof. Luigi De Gennaro, PhD - , Dept. of Psychology, Univeristy of Rome Sapienza Kamuran Akın -Humboldt University PhD Candidate and Academics for Peace from Turkey Arash Dosthossein – Refugee activist – Refugee struggle for freedom, Germany Prof. Silke-Maria Weineck - German Studies and Comparative Literature, Translation Advisor, Comparative Literature, University of Michigan Narges Nasimi – Refugee activist – Refugee struggle for freedom, Germany Hasan Saglam - Ex-refugee from Turkey and artist and autor Meryem Cag, Refugee, Member of Trade Union BES (Turkey) Prof. Alan Goodman - Biological Anthropology, Hampshire Colleg Jeff McMahan - White's Professor of Moral Philosophy. Professorial Fellow, Corpus Christi College - Oxford Prof. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak - Columbia University Em.Prof.Dr. Herman De Ley - Ghent University, Belgium Serhat Yildirim - medical student Ghent University (Belgium) Dr. Ersin Asliturk - Ph.D., Instructor, Psychology and Social science, Douglas College Prof. Michael Loughlin - Fellow, England Centre for Practice Development, Canterbury Christ Church University Daniele Savi - Italy Prof. Dr. J.T.V.M. Joop de Jong - University Amsterdam Prof. Dr. Andreas Zick - Universität Bielefeld Süleyman Ates -Bundesausschuss für multikulturelle Angelegenheiten der GEW Prof. Mehmet Ugur - University of Greenwich Prof. Drucilla Cornell - Rutgers University Ludo De Brabander - representative from Vrede vzw, peace organisation in Belgium (www.vrede.be) Prof. Mine Gencel Bek -Academics for Peace Professor Toby Miller - Loughborough University London Christian Kesteloot - Division of Geography and Tourism, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, KU Leuven Andrew Crosby, researcher, Université Libre de Bruxelles Prof. James Dickins -Prof. of Arabic, University of Leeds, United Kingdom Assoc. Prof. Robin Celikates - Department Philosophy, University of Amsterdam Prof. Charles Taylor - McGill University Dr. Nil Mutluer, Humboldt university Prof. Alex Demirovic - Universität Frankfurt Prof Dr. Patrizia Nanz - Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies University of Postdam Dr. Utku Sayın - Universität Bilefeld Mehmet A. Oturan, Université Paris-Est, France. Prof. Dr. Andreas Arndt - Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Professor Malcolm J. W. Povey BA, PhD, FInstP, CPhys, CEng , Professor of Food Physics, School of Food Science and Nutrition, University of Leeds Dr. Deniz Yonucu - Leibniz-ZMO Prof. Avital Ronell - NYU Marie Scheirlinck - Belgium Bacbi Dr. Mehmet Rauf Kesici - University of Duisburg-Essen Dr. Mustafa Sener - University of Bamberg - Academics for Peace from Turkey Dr. Hakan Mercan- Germany - Academics for Peace from Turkey Prof. Dr. Markus Tiedemann - Philosophiedidaktik und für Ethik, Technische Universität Dresden Prof. Dr. Christine Hanke, Media Studies, Faculty of Languages and Literatures, University of Bayreuth Dr. Nicholas Smith - Senior lecturer (ph.d.), Department of Philosophy, School of Culture and Education - Södertörn University Prof. Frederick Neuhouser, Barnard College - Columbia University Jun.-Prof. Dr. Béatrice Hendrich - Junior-Professur für türkische Sprache und Kultur, Orientalisches Seminar der Universität zu Köln Prof. Judith Butler - University of California, Berkeley Prof. Seyla Benhabib - Professor of Political Science and Philosophy, Yale University Prof. Athena Athanasiou - Professor of Social Anthropology and Gender Studies, Panteion University, Greece Em. Prof. Aviel Verbruggen - University of Antwerp Prof. Werner Ruf - Universität Kassel Howard Winant- Distinguished Professor of Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara Prof. Bertell Ollman, Dept. of Politics, NYU - USA Prof. Dr. Nikolaus Müller-Schöll – Institut für Theater-, Film- und Medienwissenschaft, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt Prof. Dr. Sabine Hark -Zentrum für Interdisziplinäre -Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung (ZIFG), Center for Interdisciplinary Women and Gender Studies, TU Berlin Prof. Catherine Malabou - Kingston University Dr. Daniel Bendix - University of Kassel Prof Dr. Daniel Loick- Goethe-University Frankfurt Prof. Dr.em. Jan Engelen- Kath. Univ. Leuven, Belgium Kevin Rittberger - Author, Berlin Dr. Andrew Chitty, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, Department of Philosophy, University of Sussex Phd. Özgür Ünveren , University of Marburg - Academics for Peace Assoc. Prof. Engin Sustam - University of Geneva Prof. em. Prof. Sondra Hale - Anthropology and Gender Studies, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Asst. Prof. Marina Sitrin - Univeristy Binghamton Konstanze Schmitt, artist, Berlin Prof. em. Frank Roels - MD, PhD, FRMS, Universiteit Gent Sima Aprahamian Hovhannessian - Ph.D, Research Associate , Simone de Beauvoir Institute, Concordia University Prof. Dr. Hauke Brunkhorst – Europa-Universität Flensburg Prof. Thomas Hylland Eriksen - Universitetet i Oslo Dr. Frieder Vogelmann, Institute for Intercultural and International Studies, University of Bremen Asst. Prof. Ozlem Goner - Department of Sociology and Anthropology, College of Staten Island, City University of New York Prof. Dr. Gie van den Berghe – Department of Ethics, University of Ghent (Belgium) Dr. Karin Verelst, philosopher, Vrije Universiteit Brussel Prof. em. Jonathan Rosenhead, London School of Economics Prof. Dr. em. Madeline Lutjeharms - Vrije Universiteit Brussel Dr. Esmeray Yogun CNAM Paris France Dr. Dagmar Comtesse, Wiss. Mitarbeiterin, Exzellenzcluster Normative Orders, Frankfurt Dr. Nozomi Takahashi, Ghent University, Belgium Dr. Eva Meyer, author and filmmaker, Berlin Prof. Konrad Ott - CAU zu Kiel Tina Turnheim – PhD candidate, Berlin Dr. Nicola Pratt - University of Warwick, UK Assoc. Prof. Stefan Andreas Kipfer - York University Asst. Prof. Steven Klein - Political Science, University of Florida Assoc. Prof. Dr Susanne Bauer, TIK Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo Dr Les Levidow, Senior Research Fellow, Open University, UK Assoc. Prof. Ariel Salzmann - Islamic and World History, Department of History, Queen’s University Univ.-Prof. Diedrich Diederichsen, Theory, Practice, and Communication of Contemporary Art , Institute for Art History and Cultural Studies, Akademie der bildenden Künste, Wien Prof. Dr. Christoph Lumer - Professor of Moral Philosophy, University of Siena Prof. Haim Bresheeth - SOAS, London Prof. Heinz Kurz - Universität Graz Prof. Eran Schaerf, Zurich University of the Arts Dr. Candan Perry - PhD, HDR, DABCC, FCHAS Prof. Charles Larmore - Brown Universtiy Prof. em. Sherna Berger Gluck - California State University Prof. Bonnie Honig - Brown University Prof. Michael Meranze- UCLA Prof. María do Mar Castro Varela, Alice Salomon University, Berlin Dr. Hatice Pinar Senoguz - Georg-August-Universität Göttingen Prof. Patrick Williams - Literary and Cultural Studies, School of Arts & Humanities, Nottingham Trent University Prof. em. Nick Havely - English & Related Literature, University of York U Dr. Winnie Lem, International Development Studies, Trent University Prof. Dr. Michi Knecht, Universität Bremen Prof. em. Angela Davis - History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz Prof. Dr. Thomas Meier, Universität Heidelberg Prof. Werner Bonefeld, University of York Dr. Franziska Müller, University of Kassel Dr. Alper Açık, Academics for Peace Prof. Dr. Marianne Pieper, Fachbereich Sozialwissenshaften, Universität Hamburg Roberto Veneziani - Queen Mary University of London Prof. Özen Odağ - Psychology, Touro College Berlin Prof. Dr. Dr.hc.Frigga Haug - FU Berlin Prof. Dr. Dr.hc.Wolfgang Fritz Haug - FU Berlin Dr. Knut Tullius - Sozialwissenschaftler, Göttingen Prof. Dr. Elmar Altvater - FU Berlin Hauke Heumann, Schauspieler Prof. Thomas Kilpper - Faculty of Art, Music and Design, KMD, Bergen University, Norway Corinna Eleonore Trogisch, Social scientist, PhD at Leibniz University, Hannover Dr. Nurhak Polat, Bremen University, Department of Ethnology and Cultural Science Henning Bochert - Autor, Dramaturg , Berlin Ivor Stodolsky - Co-Founding Director and Curator, Artists at Risk (AR) www.artistsatrisk.org Dr. Guido Kirsten, Vertretungsprofessor, Institut für Film-, Theater- und empirische Kulturwissenschaft, Universität Mainz Andreas Siekmann, Prof. Kunsthochschule Berlin Weissensee Alice Creischer, Prof. Kunsthochschule Berlin Weissensee Prof. em. Andreas A Huyssen - Villard Professor Emeritus of German and Comparative Literature -Columbia Prof. em. Carol Delaney, Stanford University Marita Muukkonen - Curator, Helsinki Nazan Üstündağ, Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Dr. Nevra AKDEMİR, Independent Researcher, Berlin Prof. David Klein - Mathematics, California State University Northridge Çiçek Ilengiz, PhD fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development Yasmine Siblot, professeure de sociologie, Université Paris 8, France Univ.-Prof. Dr. Sabeth Buchmann - Kunstgeschichte der Moderne und Nachmoderne,Institut für Kunst- und Kulturwissenschaften, Wien Dr. Simon Teune, Technische Universität Berlin Prof. Susan Wright - Educational Anthropology, Danish School of Education, Aarhus University Assoc. Prof. Janick Schaufelbuehl - University of Lausanne Prof. Thomas E. Wartenberg - President, PLATO, Senior Research Fellow in Philosophy, Mount Holyoke College Kariane Westrheim, Professor, Department of Education, Faculty of Psychology, University of Bergen, Norway Prof. Sally Sedgwick - University of Illinois at Chicago Assoc. Prof. Norma Claire Moruzzi -University of Illinois at Chicago Prof. Sibylle Fischer, NYU Prof. Christie McDonald - Harvard Gözde Meral Sönmez - refugee Ibrahim Sönmez - refugee Prof. Ben Kiernan, A.Whitney Griswold Professor of History, Professor of International and Area Studies, Yale University María Ferrara Jiménez Barrio - performing artist, Gestalt therapist, yoga teacher - Berlin Baran Caginli, artist and researcher , Helsinki Prof. Dr. Helene Decke-Cornill -Fakultät für Erziehungswissenschaft, Universität Hamburg Prof. em. Richard A. Walker - Geography, Director, Living New Deal Project, University of California Matthias Naumann, writer & publisher, Futur II Konjunktiv, Berlin Inga Zimprich, artist, Feminist Health Care Research Group, Berlin Prof. Susan Buck-Morss, CUNY Graduate Center Prof. Michael Lambek, FRSC, Canada Research Chair, Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto Scarborough Prof. Adi Ophir, The Cogut Institute for the Humanities and the Program for Middle East Studies, Brown University Anand Pillay, University of Notre Dame, USA, and University of Leeds, UK Friederike Schneider - Akademie der Bildenden Künste Wien Prof. John Chalcraft - Middle East History and Politics, Government Department, London School of Economics and Political Science Dr. Hilmi Tezgör - University Duisburg-Essen Binna Choi, director of Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons, Utrecht, the Netherlands Prof. Beth Baron, Disting - History, City University of New York Prof. Michael Lowy, directeur de recherche émérite, CNRS Dr Stefano Ba' - PhD, MA, 'Laurea' (BA hon.), Lecturer, Institute for Childhood and Education, Leeds Trinity University Elke Heublein, entrepreneur & facilitator, educational consultant Prof. Jean-Louis Fabiani - Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, Central European University Prof. Mary Nolan - Department of History, New York University Aydın Bayad-Ph.D. Candidate, Bielefeld University Prof. Josefina Saldaña-Portillo -Department of Social & Cultural Analysis (SCA), Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS),Director, Undergraduate Studies, SCA, New York University Eske Schüters, artist Dr. Muzaffer Kaya, TU Berlin Dr Lars Peter Laamann -Senior Lecturer, History Department,Editor, Central Asiatic Journal, SOAS, University of London Prof. Elti Cattaruzza, Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Italy Prof. Dr. Sabine Hess - Geschäftsführende Direktorin, Institut für Kulturanthropologie/Europäische Ethnologie, Georg-August Universität Göttingen Prof. Dr. Christina Schües - Institute for the History of Medicine and Science Studies, University of Lübeck Ceren Türkmen, Research Assistant, Justus Liebig University, Gießen Prof. em. Jill Julius Matthews - Australian National University Prof. Dr. Eva Youkhana - The Center for Development Research (ZEF), University of Bonn Olivia Stutz, actress, Berlin Tim Schütz, MA Student, Department of Anthropology, Goethe University Frankfurt Dr. Sharo I Garip - Universität Duisburg-Essen Prof. William Raban - Film, London College of Communication Apl. Prof. Dr. Herbert Breger - Hannover, Deutschland Prof. Dr. Gertrud Koch, Freie Universität Berlin Prof. Erik Swyngedouw, MAE , Department of Geography, The University of Manchester Chris Zisis, PhD Candidate, Institute of Cult.Anthropology, Hamburg University Prof. Dr. Jörn Etzold, Ruhr-Universität Bochum Prof. Dr. Martin Schraven - Universität Bremen Samil Sarikaya - PhD student, Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Studies (IMIS), Osnabrück University Prof. em. Malcolm Sawyer - Economics, University of Leeds Richard Greeman, activist, writer and translator, Montpellier, France Dr. Henry C. Theriault – Worcester State University (USA) and President, International Association of Genocide Scholars Sönke Hallmann, Publizist, Berlin Prof. Heinz lynen von Berg- Hochschule Bremen Prof. Andrew Woolford - Department of Sociology and Criminology, University of Manitob Prof. Israel W Charny - Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide Jerusalem Buket Han - Refugee - refugee, München Önder Han - Refugee - refugee, München Prof. Steven Pinker - Harvard University Millay Hyatt - Writer and Translator Dipl. Soz.wiss. Ralf Steckert, Leibniz Universität Hannover Prof. Darrel Moellendorf - International Political Theory, Normative Orders, Philosophy, Goethe-University Frankfurt/Main Dr. des. Jana Häberlein, Basel Dr. des. Leonie Otto, Institut für Theater-, Film- und Medienwissenschaft, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt Marita Muukkonen - curator, The Helsinki International Artist Programme Elisabeth Abendroth, Sozialwissenschaftlerin Dr. Giuseppe Acconcia, University of Milan (Bocconi) Prof. Dr. Ulrike Bergermann, University of the Arts, Braunschweig Dr. Alisha M. B. Heinemann - University of Vienna, Austria Prof. Toni Negri, philosopher, Paris Assoc. Prof. Greg Albo - Department of Political Science, York University Fatoş Atali-Timmer - Center for Migration, Education and Cultural Studies (CMC), Institut für Pädagogik, Fachgruppe diversitätsbewusste Sozialpädagogik, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Prof. Dr. Eckart Förster, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore Paul Redding - Prof. Em., School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry, University of Sydney Retd. Prof. Achin Vanaik -International Relations and Global Politics, University of Delhi Michèle Adelhardt, teacher, Bruchsal Dr. Christian Martin, LMU, Munich Prof. Raphael Salkie, University of Brighton, England Prof. Dr. Alexa Färber, HafenCity University Hamburg Dr. Alessandra Mezzadri - Senior lecturer in development studies, SOAS, London Prof. Dr. Martin Vialon (Yeditepe University, now: Carl v. Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg Dr. Noémi Lévy-Aksu, Birkbeck College Prof. Michalis Spourdalakis, University of Athens Prof. Dr. Sabine Broeck, University of Bremen, Germany. Prof. i. R. Dr. Michael Hartmann Prof. Michael Harris - Department of Mathematics, Columbia Prof. Evelyn Ruppert, Goldsmiths University of London Prof. em. Carol Delaney - Stanford University Prof. Andrew Arato - Dorothy Hirshon Professor, New School for Social Research, New York Asst. Prof. Christy Petropoulou - Department of Geography, University of the Aegean Prof. Saskia Sassen - Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology, Columbia University Gennaro Avallone - Università di Salerno, Italy Prof. Dr. Gottfried Heinemann - Kassel Dr. Yasser Munif - Emerson College, Boston, USA Maria Abu El Haija - Bayreuth Kathrin Peters, Prof. Dr., Berlin University of the Arts Prof. Hamit Bozarslan, Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris Dr. Peter Birke, Universität Göttingen Prof. Dr. Nora Räthzel - Department of Sociology, Umeå University Prof. em. Dr. Tilman Borsche - Institut für Philosophie, Universität Hildesheim Prof. Chandler Davis - Mathematics, University of Toronto Prof. Rebecca Gould - Islamic World and Comparative Literature, University of Birmingham Prof. R. Radhakrishnan - Chancellor's professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of California-Irvine Dr. Dana Mills, Lecturer in Philosophy, Oxford Brookes University Dr. Tanja Ehmann, Fachhochschule Potsdam Dipl.-Übers. Eleni Andrianopulu, Universität Bielefeld Prof. Sally Haslanger, MIT Dr. Marietta Kesting - Juniorprofessorin für Medientheorie, cx centrum für interdisziplinäre studien -Akademie der Bildenden Künste München Dr. Alice von Bieberstein, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin Sinibaldo De Rosa, PhD Candidate, University of Exeter Prof. Etienne Balibar - Université de Paris-Ouest, Kingston University London Prof. Claudia Breger, Columbia University Prof. Sophie Wauquier - University of Paris 8, Academics for Peace Prof em. Catherine Belsey - English, Swansea University, UK Prof. Karen Van Dyck, Modern Greek Studies, Columbia University Dr. Tolga Tören, University of Kassel, Academics for Peace (BAK), Germany Claude Calame- Directeur d’études, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris Prof. Terry Pinkard - Georgetown University Prof. Dr. Manuela Bojadzijev - Globalisierte Kulturen an der Fakultät für Kulturwissenschaften der Leuphana Universität Lüneburg Jonas Bokelmann - PhD student, LMU München und University Iceland Debbie Bookchin, journalist, author, U.S. Kevin B. Anderson, University of California, Santa Barbara Prof. em. Prabhat Patnaik - Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi Prof. Dr. Claudia Bruns, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Marcel De Prins, trekker van de Syrië werkgroep, Belgium Prof. Dr. Cinur Ghaderi - Fachbereich Soziale Arbeit / Psychologie, Evangelische Hochschule Bochum RWL Dr. Frauke Banse, Universität Kassel Prof. em. Mike Davis - U.C. Riverside Prof. Geoff Eley - Michigan William Callison, PhD Candidate in Political Science, UC Berkeley Noelia P. Streicher, Dozentin an der Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Institut für Pädagogik / Arbeitsbereich Migration und Bildung Dr. Hanna Meissner - TU Berlin Assoc. Prof. Emmanuel Szurek - EHESS, Paris Dr. phil. Konstanze Hanitzsch - Gender- und Literaturwissenschaftlerin Assoc. Prof. Sruti Bala - Theatre Studies, University of Amsterdam Prof. August H. Nimtz - Political Science and African American and African Studies, University of Minnesota Dr. Alisa Lebow - Reader in Film Studies, University of Sussex Eva Pandulova, student at KHB, Berlin Prof. Dr. em. Birgit Mahnkopf - Hochschule für Wirtschaft und Recht Berlin Dr. des. Janine Doerry, Historian, Osnabrück Todd Gitlin - Journalism and Sociology Chair, Ph D Program in Communications, Columbia University Dr Jamie Gough - Department of Urban Studies and Planning, University of Sheffield Prof. Dr. Andrea Seier, Universität Wien Prof. Lorna Hutson - Merton Professor of English Literature, Director of CEMS, Merton College, Oxford Bill Bowring -FAcSS, School of Law, Birkbeck College, University of London Prof. Dr. Albert Scherr, Soziologe, Pädagogische Hochschule Freiburg Prof. Dr. Silja Klepp - Social Dynamics in Coastal and Marine Areas, Institute of Geography, CAU/ University of Kiel Prof. em. Joop T de Jong - MD, PhD -Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR), University of Amsterdam, Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry, Boston University School of Medicine, USA, Em Prof of Cultural and International Psychiatry VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam Jan Kordes, M.A. - Institut für Humangeographie, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt a.M. Prof. Karin Scherschel, University of applied Sciences Rhein Main Dr. Giovanni Zanotti- department of Philosophy, University of Brasilia Prof Nadje Al-Ali – Professor of Gender Studies, SOAS University of London Prof. em. Jan Fridthjof Bernt - Faculty of Law, University of Bergen Leander Meuris - Ghent University Ergun Ozgur - Leibniz-ZMO, Berlin Andreas Foitzik - Netzwerk rassismuskritische Migrationspädagogik Baden-Württemberg Karen Murray, Associate Professor, Department of Politics, York University Dr. Fanny-Michaela Reisin, ehem. Präsidentin der Internationalen Liga für Menschenrechte – FIDH Dr Paolo Cuttitta - VU University Amsterdam Prof. Norman M. Naimark, Stanford University Mario Candeias, Direktor, Institut für Gesellschaftsanalyse, Berlin em. Magali Sarfatti Larson - Temple University, Philadelphia Dr. Frank Nullmeier -Universität Bremen - SOCIUM Stephan Lessenich – LMU Michael Thompson, Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh Jane Mansbridge, Harvard University Dr Ibrahim Malazada . Lecturer at Soran University, Sociology Department, Kurdistan Region Prof. Dr. Joseph Maran – Universität Heidelberg Prof. Dr. phil. Tessa Hofmann – independent scholar of comparative genocide and Armenian studies; chair of the human rights NGO Working Group Recognition – Against Genocide, for International Understanding. Prof. Jack Amariglio, Economics, Merrimack College, USA Lorenzo Tripodi – PhD, Owner and Senior Researcher, TESSERAE Urban and social research Prof. Marie-Claire CALOZ-TSCHOPP, ex-Dir. de Programme Collège International de Philosophie (CIPh), Paris Prof. Debra Satz, Stanford university Ludo De Witte, author Dr Karen Adler, History, University of Nottingham Dr Kate Hudson, General Secretary, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, UK. Ingeborg Breines - consultant and former co-president International Peace Bureau former director UNESCO Prof. Dr. Georg Mohr - Institut für Philosophie, Universität Bremen Prof. Hamid Dabashi - Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature, Columbia Prof. Patrick Deboosere, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Kaschuba – HU Berlin Dr. Nélida Boulgourdjian (University of Buenos Aires) Jun.-Prof. Dr. Francesca Raimondi-Philosophie, Kunstakademie Düsseldorf Beth Lilach - M.A., Senior Director of Education and Community Affairs, Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center Sabine Lösing (MEP, DIE LINKE) Koen Bogaert (professor conflict- and development studies at UGENT - Belgium) Chigbo Arthur Anyaduba, PhD candidate, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada. Aris Babikian - Retired Citizenship Judge, Chair Levant Settlement Centre Wolf Göhring, Bonn Dr Othon Anastasakis – Director, South East European Studies at Oxford (SEESOX) St Antony’s College – Oxford Prof. Dr. Ulrich Bröckling - Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg Prof. Elsa Stamatopoulou - Director, Ιndigenous Peoples' Rights Program, Columbia University Yunus Özgür, Mitglied der GEW-Tarifkommission für studentische Beschäftigte – FU Berlin Irene Victoria Massimino -Lawyer, LLM, MA in Human Rights, Buenos Aires Alex Karschnia, andcompany&Co, Berlin Daniel Feierstein, National University of Tres de Febrero and University of Buenos Aires, Argentina Amy C Hudnall, Senior Lecturer depts of History and Global studies Appalachian State University, Boone, NC, coordinator for peace studies at the ASU Center for Judaic, Holocaust, and Peace studies. Maral N. Attallah - Distinguished Lecturer, Dept. of Critical Race, Gender & Sexuality Studies, Humboldt State University Dr. Vanessa Agnew - Universität Duisburg-Essen Martina Michels, Europaabgeordnete, stellv. Mitglied der parlamentarischen Delegation EU-Türkei Dr. Konstanze Kriese, Kulturwissenschaftlerin Helmut Scholz – The Left, MdeP, European Parlament Sevim Dagdelen, MdB, stellvertretende Vorsitzende der Fraktion DIE LINKE. im Bundestag Dr. Marlene Schäfers, Department of Conflict and Development Studies, Ghent University, Belgium Clinical Assist. Prof. Kathy Barker - Univ. of Washington Prof. em. Jean-Jacques Amy - School of Medicine and Pharmacy, Vrije Universiteit Brussel Gabriele Zimmer - Chair of the GUE/NGL Group in the European Parliament - Member of the European Parliament Katharina Sufryd - M.A. Bergische Universität Wuppertal Parti de Gauche (France) Corinne Morel Darleux, National secretary in charge of ecosocialism, Regional deputy (Parti de Gauche) Keko Kutlubay – Amsterdam Fatma Dikmen – Refugee - Holland Nikki Marczak, Genocide Scholar, Australian Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies Ali Mahmud Mhamad Human rights activist, writer and journalist ُerbil Iraq Prof. Naom Chomsky - Institute Professor (emeritus), MIT, Laureate Professor, U. of Arizona Greg Stanton - Genocide Watch Asst. Prof. Kasturi Chatterjee - Foundation for Liberal and Management Education (FLAME) University (Pune, India) Prof. em. Dr. Norman Paech, Universität Hamburg Prof. Dr. Frank Deppe – Marburg Srećko Horvat, philosopher (independent scholar) & DiEM25 (Democracy in Europe Movement 2025) Prof. Dr. med, Hans-Ulrich Deppe, Universität Frankfurt a.M. Lorenzo Marsili, writer, DiEM25 Assst. Prof. Mike Weaver - Leavenworth, KS Sara E. Brown, USC Shoah Foundation Hegel on purpose of the war: "but nations involved in war also acquire peace at home through making wars abroad.". Hegel Philosophy of Right § 324 Erdogan - February 2th- on Afrin and election in 2019:"This time, the outcome of the election must be such that they should regret what they are doing." https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/turkish-support-for-offensive-soars-standing-of-longtime-ally-america-tumbles/2018/02/03/0612e970-06a2-11e8-aa61-f3391373867e_story.html?utm_term=.80090068cd98 (c) 2018 Halis Yildirim

Thammakaset Company Limited should immediately drop criminal defamation charges against 14 migrant workers from Myanmar who alleged serious labor rights violations, and Thai authorities should decriminalize defamation, Fortify Rights said today. The trial is scheduled to commence in the Don Muang Magistrates Court in Bangkok tomorrow and is expected to last three days. If convicted, the workers face up to one year in prison. “Thailand should protect migrant workers and rights defenders when they speak out about abuses, and urgently decriminalize defamation,” said Amy Smith, Executive Director of Fortify Rights. “These types of cases are all too common in Thailand. They’re a mark of the high costs paid by whistleblowers and truthtellers for simply exercising their rights.” On July 7, 2016, 14 workers submitted a complaint to the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand alleging that Thammakaset Co. Ltd.—a Thai owned poultry company in Lopburi Province—violated Thailand’s Labor Protection Act by paying workers less than minimum wage, failing to pay overtime wages, and confiscating their identity documents, including passports. On October 6, 2016, Thammakaset Co. Ltd. filed a criminal defamation complaint under sections 137 and 326 of the Criminal Code against the 14 workers, alleging that their complaint to the National Human Rights Commission damaged the company’s reputation. The 14 workers—nine men and five women—are all from the Bago Region, Myanmar. Section 137 of the Criminal Code makes it a criminal offence to give “false information to any official” where it “is likely to cause injury to any person or the public,” and carries a penalty of up to six months’ imprisonment and/or a fine of up to 10,000 Thai Baht (US$293). Section 326 similarly makes it a criminal offense to “impute anything” to another person “before a third person in any manner likely to impair [their] reputation … or to expose such other person to hatred or scorn,” and carries a penalty of up to one-year imprisonment and/or a fine of up to 20,000 Thai Baht (US$588). On September 19, 2017, 87 civil society groups, businesses, and parliamentarians submitted a joint letter to Thailand’s Prime Minister urging authorities to uphold the rights to freedom of expression of workers and labor activists and ensure labor rights protections. “The government and businesses have responsibilities to respect and protect human rights, and this includes the duty to investigate alleged human rights violations,” said Amy Smith. “The authorities should end this unjust sideshow and ensure these workers receive justice.” On November 4, 2016, Thammakaset Co. Ltd. also filed a complaint against Andy Hall, a British human rights defender, alleging he committed criminal defamation and violated the Computer-Related Crimes Act 2007 (CCA) in connection with his use of social media calling for justice and adequate compensation for the 14 migrant workers. A pre-trial hearing is scheduled in the Bangkok South Criminal Court on June 4, 2018. On October 24, 2017, Thammakaset Co. Ltd. also revived theft charges against two workers—Yin Yin and Soe Yang—and Suthasinee Kaewleklai, a Project Coordinator with the Migrant Workers Rights Network (MWRN), a membership-based organization for migrant workers from Myanmar residing and working mainly in Thailand. Thammakaset Co. Ltd. filed charges in the Lopburi Provincial Court accusing the migrant workers and MWRN staff of “stealing” timecards after the workers showed their timecards to labor inspectors from the Lopburi Office of the Department Welfare and Labor Protection to substantiate their claim they were made to work excessive hours. The Lopburi Provincial Court will consider the complaint during a hearing scheduled on February 19, 2018. The right to freedom of expression is protected under Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Thailand is a state party. Under international law, restrictions on freedom of expression are permissible only when they are provided by law, proportional, and necessary to accomplish a legitimate aim. Criminal penalties for defamation, including imprisonment, constitute a disproportionate punishment that infringes on the right to freedom of expression. On May 31, 2017, Thai authorities and business entities committed to implementing the U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Among other obligations, the Guiding Principles provide that states should “protect against human rights abuse within their territory and/or jurisdiction by third parties, including business enterprises” and ensure “the legitimate and peaceful activities of human rights defenders are not obstructed.” The United Nations Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises—a group of independent experts mandated by the U.N. to promote effective and comprehensive dissemination and implementation of the Guiding Principles—will undertake its first official visit to Thailand between March and April 2018 to assess Thailand’s implementation of the Guiding Principles. The Working Group will present its findings to the Human Rights Council following the conclusion of its visit. Thammakaset Co. Ltd. should immediately drop the criminal defamation charges against 14 migrant workers and Andy Hall, and theft complaint against Yin Yin, Soe Yang, and Suthasinee Kaewleklai, Fortify Rights said. The Government of Thailand should also immediately decriminalize defamation to bring Thai law in line with international laws and standards. “As a woman and labor rights activist, I think that if Thai authorities continue to allow businesses to bring criminal prosecutions against workers, then workers will be afraid to speak up when they experience labor abuses in the future,” said Suthasinee Kaewleklai, a Project Coordinator for MWRN. “If workers cannot speak the truth, then they won’t be able to defend their human rights.” For more information, please contact: Koreeyor Manuchae, lawyer, NSP Legal Office, +66.91.838.6265 (Thai); yor.manuchae@gmail.com Sutharee Wannasiri, Thailand Human Rights Specialist, Fortify Rights (in Thailand), +66.61.545.0524 (Thai/English); Sutharee.wannasiri@fortifyrights.org; Twitter: @SuthareeW, @FortifyRights Amy Smith, Executive Director, Fortify Rights, +66.87.795.5454 (English); Amy.smith@fortifyrights.org; Twitter: @AmyAlexSmith, @FortifyRights (c) 2018 Fortify Rights International

After the BBC's Indonesia editor was expelled from the country's easternmost Papua region last weekend over a tweet, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) again urges the Indonesian authorities to allow journalists to report freely in the troubled region, which continues to be an information black hole. An Australian journalist based in Jakarta since 2006, the BBC’s Rebecca Henschke got a special permit to visit Papua with a crew to cover a military aid operation, but was arrested and expelled, shortly after arriving, on the grounds that she had “hurt the feelings” of soldiers in a tweet. Accompanied by a photo of foodstuffs, the offending tweet said: “This is the aid coming in for severely malnourished children in Papua – instant noodles, super sweet soft drinks and biscuits.” Henschke was one of several foreign journalists allowed to go to Papua to cover the military operation, aimed at relieving a malnutrition crisis exacerbated by a measles epidemic that has killed more than 70 children. Foreign journalists are not usually let into Papua, an impoverished region where separatist movements are active. “It is intolerable that foreign reporters are still banned from Papua,”said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk. “All Rebecca Henschke did was send a photo taken in the field. This arbitrary decision by the Indonesian military gives the impression that they are acting as a state within the state, especially with regard to Papua. “Must we remind President Joko Widodo of his promise to open up the region to the media? If he wants to maintain a minimum of credibility, he must give some clear evidence that he is doing this.” In his search for a strategy for restoring peace in Papua, the president (also known as “Jokowi”) said in 2015 that he would review the restrictions that in practice prevent journalists from visiting Papua. But, three years later, the media’s ability to work there seems to depend as much as ever on military approval. Defending Henschke’s expulsion, a military spokesman in Papua said her photo showed commercial food products, not the supplies brought by the military. Henschke later deleted her original tweet and posted another saying: “Adding important NOTE: Other sources say this is NOT aid but normal supplies. Huge relief effort underway here.” Because of the serious media freedom violations in its two easternmost provinces, Papua and West Papua, Indonesia is still ranked no higher than 124th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2017 World Press Freedom Index. https://rsf.org/en/news/rsfs-decries-journalists-expulsion-indonesias-papua-region (c) 2018 Reporters without Borders

(c) 2018 Dr Maung Zarni

Herewith I’ve provided news and commentary on events throughout Sudan for the past week. January/February 2018 is likely to be recorded as the moment in which popular protests and widespread anger and disgust with the National Islamic Front/National Congress Party regime had finally grown to the point where demonstrations were impossible to suppress—or the moment in which the repressive power of the regime was so conspicuous, so unrestrained and potentially deadly, that Sudanese felt they had been forced to wait for the inevitable collapse of the Sudanese economy—and the corresponding massive, chaotic, unorganized, and inevitably deadly political collapse of the regime. This is the inevitable point, in other words, in which even the most ruthless survivalism finds itself unable to pay the army or police forces, and they too may soon turn against the men who have governed as self-enriching tyrants for 29 years. Every day brings additional news portending complete economic collapse; today Radio Dabanga headlines a dispatch suggesting the Sudanese Pound will soon reach 50 to the dollar, up from the record set today of 42 Pounds to the dollar. The inflationary effects of such massive decline in value for the Pound are catastrophic, given Sudan’s dependency on imports—a dependency that is wholly a product of the disastrous economic “policies” of the National Islamic Front/National Congress Party regime over the past 29 years. Radio Dabanga, US Dollar reaches SDG 42 on Sudan’s parallel market | February 4, 2018 | KHARTOUM The Sudanese Pound (SDG) continued its rapid decline against foreign currencies, as the US Dollar price rose by two Pounds within two days on the parallel forex market. Businessmen are buying more foreign currencies or gold to retain their capital. Currency traders told Radio Dabanga on Friday that the US Dollar hit SDG 42 in Khartoum. The greenback traded for SDG 40 on Wednesday. The official indicative rate of the US Dollar, set by the Central Bank of Sudan (CBoS) at SDG 18 a week ago, has not changed. The price of gold at the markets in the Sudanese capital witnessed a major leap as well. “A gram of gold sold for SDG 1,000 ($55) last week now costs SDG 2,000,” a trader reported. [This is an extraordinary leap in value for the ultimate “hard currency,” and one that can be easily transported and exchanged so long as the security forces do not observe transactions. This 100% increase in the price of gold should be a clear signal to the international community that the economic collapse in Sudan is accelerating and that repression of the inevitable protests will grown increasingly violent and unrestrained—ER] “The value of the Pound plummeted sharply last week because more traders and businessmen began buying foreign currencies or gold to retain their capital,” he explained. In the past few years, prices of plots and houses has increased significantly as well because of the increased demand by people who wanted to secure their capital. In November last year, while the US Dollar traded at around SDG 20 on the black market, the Sudanese Finance Ministry imposed new measures to halt the plummeting Pound on the black market. A number of currency dealers were arrested and others fled abroad. [“Shooting the messenger” is the primary policy response of the NIF/NCP regime to crushing economic realities—ER] To the extent that European countries and the U.S. are engaged in various forms of rapprochement and offer economic assistance to the regime; to the extent that rich Arab states continue to provide hard currency to a regime that can’t afford even with this assistance to import sufficient food or medicine; to the extent that the African Union simply refuses to see the regime for what it is; and to the extent the UN Security Council continues to be emblematic of massive institutional failure—to the extent that all these realities prolong the agony of the people of Sudan, they have brought upon these most consequential international actors the deepest opprobrium. History will be thoroughly unforgiving. A day-by-day recording of events in Sudan for January 28 – February 4, 2018, primarily via Tweets ( @SudanReeves ) Eric Reeves‏ @sudanreeves Feb 4 The “African Union High-Level IMPLEMENTATION Panel”: and the “implementation” of what? #Mbeki’s disastrously flawed “Roadmap for Peace in #Darfur” was released in 2009—fully nine years ago! Eric Reeves‏ @sudanreeves Feb 4 The #Sudan/ese Pound is still in “free fall” against hard currencies, guaranteeing continuing catastrophic inflation. Popular unrest and demonstrations continue to be met with beatings and arrests by an increasingly desperate NIF/NCP regime: repression is its only “economic tool”: Eric Reeves‏ @sudanreeves Feb 3 There is no reason to believe the international community—including the UN and African Union—will compel the Khartoum regime to comply with the terms of this agreement about a UNAMID base in Central #Darfur. The regime has NEVER abided by ANY agreement with any international actor: Eric Reeves‏ @sudanreeves Feb 2 “‘There’s no personal freedom in Sudan,’ says rights lawyer: Tasneem El-Zaki, jailed for defending rape victims, speaks of abuses in home country,” Irish Times, Feb 2, 2018 @SorchaPollak, http://bit.ly/2BONhr3 For extensive overview of rape in Darfur see http://wp.me/p45rOG-1QG Eric Reeves‏ @sudanreeves Feb 2 #Sudan is ranked 174 out of 180 countries by Reporters Without Borders in its “Press Freedom Index”—and may soon slip even lower. The NISS has proved extremely resourceful in containing protests with violence, arrests, tear gas, & closing newspapers—but people are still protesting the regime: Eric Reeves‏ @sudanreeves Feb 2 Critically short of Forex backing, #Sudan’s currency continues to plummet in value, thus increasing inflation. The NIF/NCP regime has long responded to monetary and fiscal pressures by selling or leasing valuable farmland to non-Sudanese actors: see | http://bit.ly/2DVhRFa Eric Reeves‏ @sudanreeves Jan 30 As calls grow for a demonstration tomorrow—“Great Salvation Rally,” 3pm, Jan. 31, Shaabiya Square, Khartoum North—the economic backdrop is increasingly ominous. Extremely rapid decrease in value of the #Sudan/ese Pound signals a clear possibility of devastating “hyper-inflation”: Eric Reeves‏ @sudanreeves Jan 29 Is this the moment of truth for the people of #Sudan? Calls for “Great Salvation Rally” (3pm, January 31, 2018, Shaabiya Square, Khartoum North) have received widespread political support. But it will be ordinary Sudanese confronting an inevitable security presence—and live bullets: Eric Reeves‏ @sudanreeves Jan 28 Witnessing a grim history in the making: #Sudan news and commentary, January 2018: a month’s worth of day-by-day news, as well as commentary on events throughout Sudan, focusing on implications of the catastrophic effects of 2018 NIF/NCP regime #budget: https://wp.me/p45rOG-2ch http://sudanreeves.org/2018/02/04/a-grim-history-in-the-making-sudan-news-and-commentary-january-28-february-4-2018-eric-reeves-february-4-2018/ (c) 2018 SUDAN Research, Analysis, and Advocacy

Buried Words: A Workshop on Sexuality, Violence and Holocaust Testimonies October 11, 2018 Toronto, Canada An academic workshop presented by the Azrieli Foundation’s Holocaust Survivor Memoirs Program with the support of Sara Horowitz of York University and Anna Shternshis of the University of Toronto The one-day workshop will include three sessions: Session 1: Sexuality and violence in testimonies by girls and women Discussants: Sara Horowitz (York University), Na’ama Shik (Yad Vashem), Zoë Waxman (University of Oxford), Carson Phillips (Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre, Toronto) Session 2: Narratives of sexual violence against boys and men Discussants: Doris Bergen (University of Toronto), Tommy Curry (Texas A&M University), Debórah Dwork (Clark University), Dorota Glowacka (University of King’s College), Benjamin Baader (University of Manitoba) Session 3: Methodological challenges of using different forms of testimony to study sexual violence Discussants: Paula David (University of Toronto), Henry Greenspan (University of Michigan), Anna Shternshis (University of Toronto), Kori Street (USC Shoah Foundation), Jennifer Evans (Carleton University) For more information and to register, send your contact information and academic affiliation to stephanie@azrielifoundation.org. This workshop is open to scholars and graduate students. There will be a public event in the evening. (c) 2018 IAGS