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Hezbollah’s popularity dropping sharply in Lebanon, suggests poll
Hezbollah’s popularity has dropped sharply in Lebanon – even among its core Shia supporters, a new poll has suggested.
The percentage of Shia who say they have a “very positive” opinion of Hezbollah, while still a majority, is almost 20 points lower than it was in late 2017.
“This trend almost certainly reflects increasing anger at Hezbollah’s role in the corruption, intimidation, and acute economic crisis plaguing the country, accelerated by its perceived responsibility for the devastating explosion in Beirut’s port last August,” suggested David Pollok of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in his analysis of the poll.
Hezbollah’s support among the Shia is still markedly higher than among Lebanon’s Christian and Sunni communities. Sixty-six percent of Shia voters continue to express a “very positive” opinion of Hezbollah – down from 83 percent in 2017 – while an additional 23 percent hold a “somewhat positive” opinion of it. By contrast, just 16 percent of Christians and eight percent of Sunnis now report even a “somewhat positive” view of Hezbollah, with around 60 percent of both communities holding a “very negative” view of the terror group, which is also a political party in Lebanon.
The survey also found broad support for the recent Lebanese-Israeli Mediterranean border talks – the first talks between the two countries in 30 years – with 70 percent of Sunnis, 67 percent of Christians and 51 percent of Shia labelling them a “positive development” and only 19 percent of all Lebanese expressing “strong” disagreement. By contrast, two-thirds of Christians and three-quarters of Sunni and Shia said they regard the recent normalisation agreements between Israel, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates as at least “somewhat” negative with around 40 percent of all groups saying they are “very” negative. The poll also found sharp divisions within Lebanon on the importance of the country having a good relationship with Iran.
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Ashrawi quits PLO executive in protest at PA resuming Israel links
Hanan Ashrawi, who rose to international fame when she headed the Palestinian delegation to the landmark 1991 Madrid peace talks, has reportedly resigned from the PLO’s Executive Committee.
Ashrawi is thought to have quit in protest at the decision of the Palestinian Authority to resume civilian and security coordination with Israel. Sources told the Al-Araby Al-Jadeed newspaper that Ashrawi “was angry with how the issue was handled”.
Her resignation, delivered in a letter to the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has not yet received a response. However, Abbas has reportedly told Ashrawi that he doesn't intend to accept her resignation, arguing that such a decision must be made by the Palestinian National Council, which appoints PLO Executive Committee members. The secretary-general of the PLO, Saeb Erekat, died last month and Abbas had not yet named his successor.
A member of the Palestinian Legislative Council since 1996, Ashrawi is a former PA minister of higher education and the authority’s highest-ranking female politician. The 74-year-old contracted covid-19 in October. She bitterly attacked the normalisation agreement between Israel, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates which was reached in the summer.
The PA cut off civilian and security cooperation with Israel in protest at Benjamin Netanyahu’s plans to annex West Bank settlements and the strategically important Jordan Valley. Netanyahu subsequently abandoned the plans as part of the Abraham Accords. In tandem with the resumption of civilian and security cooperation with Israel, the PA has also decided to once again begin accepting tax transfers. Under the terms of the Oslo Accords, Israel and the PA formed a customs union and Israel collects VAT, import duties and other taxes on the PA’s behalf, transferring the sums monthly. Last week, Israel released $725m in funds it had been holding. This should ease the fiscal squeeze which saw the PA slash public sector salaries by 50 percent.
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European powers rap Iran as court upholds journalist’s death sentence
Britain, France and Germany this week issued a warning to Iran after Tehran announced plans to install additional, advanced uranium-enriching centrifuges and potentially expand its nuclear programme.
The warning came as the country’s supreme court upheld a death sentence on a journalist the regime claims helped fuel unrest on social media during the widespread and violently suppressed 2017 anti-government protests.
“If Iran is serious about preserving a space for diplomacy, it must not implement these steps,” the European powers, who along with the US, China and Russia, reached the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. The Trump administration withdrew the US from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2018 and imposed sanctions on Iran. Iran, in turn, has repeatedly breached the terms of the accord.
The Reuters news agency said it has seen a confidential International Atomic Energy Agency report which said Iran plans to install three more cascades, or clusters, of advanced IR-2m centrifuges in its enrichment plant at Natanz, which was built underground apparently to withstand any aerial bombardment.
“Iran’s recent announcement to the IAEA that it intends to install an additional three cascades of advanced centrifuges at the Fuel Enrichment Plant in Natanz is contrary to the [2015 agreement] and deeply worrying,” the European states said. They also criticised a new law passed by the Iranian parliament last week which bans UN inspections of nuclear sites and seeks to expand enrichment beyond the limits set by the JCPOA.
Ruhollah Zam, a Paris-based dissident journalist, was convicted of “corruption on earth” by an Iranian court in June. He ran the Amadnews website, a popular anti-government forum which Iran says incited the 2017-18 protests against corruption, austerity and the lack of democracy. It remains unclear how Iran came to arrest Zam who had left the country after he was imprisoned in 2009.
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