NEWSWEEK
Lebanon: Hezbollah’s Potemkin Village
by Caroline Glick
August 12, 2020

…Aside from the despair, there is nothing new about the protests or the calls for Hezbollah and Iran to be chased from Lebanon. For nearly a year before the outbreak of COVID-19, millions of Lebanese protested throughout the country with the same demands. The U.S., and the world governments now lining up to fund Lebanon’s reconstruction and relief, should listen to the cries of the Lebanese people. The LAF is not the solution to Lebanon’s problems. As a front company for Lebanon, like the port, it is a façade for Hezbollah’s power. It is hard to see a happy end to Lebanon’s problems. But the first step towards rationally coping with them is for the U.S. and its allies to recognize the truth revealed last Tuesday. READ MORE

REUTERS Seismic data suggests string of blasts preceded Beirut explosion: Israeli analyst Seismological data suggests that six blasts preceded the Beirut port explosion, the last of them a combustion of fireworks that apparently set off a warehouse full of ammonium nitrate, an Israeli analyst said on Thursday. The six blasts were at 11-second intervals during the Aug. 4 incident, with the main explosion following the last by around 43 seconds, Boaz Hayoun of Israel’s Tamar Group told Reuters.