Excerpts: Palestinian protest in Bethlehem. OPEC will not cut oil
production.IS captures Jordanian pilot. ABBAS threatens UNSC re Israel ties.
Impact of U.S.-led Syria strikes December 24, 2014

+++SOURCE: Al Arabiya News 24 Dec.’14:”Palestinian Santas protest in
Bethlehem,”, Staff Writer
SUBJECT: Palestinian protest in Bethlehem
EX CERPTS:Palestinian protesters festively dressed as Santa Claus have
marched Tuesday[23 Dec.] in Bethlehem, a day before the beginning of
Christmas celebrations in the West Bank city revered as the birthplace of
Jesus, official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported. ……………………

Around 50,000 Palestinian Christians, including 17,000 Catholics, live among
four million Muslims in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and in Gaza.

+++SOURCE: Saudi Gazette 24 Dec.’14:”OPEC won’t cut output even at $20 a
barrel claims Naimi”, Agence France Presse
SUBJECT:OPEC will not cut oil production
QUOTE:”Saudi Arabia:’it is unfair to respect it(OPEC) to reduce output if
non-members do not do so’ “
FULL TEXT:RIYADH — The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)
will not cut oil production even if the price drops to $20 a barrel and it
is unfair to expect it to reduce output if non-members do not do so, Saudi
Arabia said.

“Whether it goes down to $20 a barrel, $40, $50, $60, it is irrelevant,” Ali
Al-Naimi, Saudi Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, said in an
interview with the Middle East Economic Survey (MEES), an industry weekly.

In unusually detailed comments, Naimi defended a decision by OPEC, whose
lead producer is Saudi Arabia, last month to maintain a production ceiling
of 30 million barrels per day.

The decision sent global crude prices tumbling, worsening a price drop that
has seen them fall by around 50 percent since June.

Saudi Arabia has traditionally acted to balance demand and supply in the
global oil market because it is the only country with substantial spare
production capacity, according to the International Monetary Fund.

The Kingdom pumps about 9.6 million barrels per day but Naimi said it is
“crooked logic” to expect his country to cut and then lose business to other
major producers outside OPEC.

The increasingly competitive global oil market has seen daily United States
oil output rise by more than 40 percent since 2006, but at a production cost
which can be three or four times that of extracting Middle Eastern oil.

“Is it reasonable for a highly efficient producer to reduce output, while
the producer of poor efficiency continues to produce?” Naimi asked during
the interview conducted with MEES on Sunday.

“If I reduce, what happens to my market share? The price will go up and the
Russians, the Brazilians, US shale oil producers will take my share.”

He added it is “unfair” for OPEC to reduce output because it is not the
world’s major oil producer.

“We produce less than 40 percent of global output. We are the most efficient
producer. It is unbelievable after the analysis we carried out for us to
cut,” he told MEES.

OPEC tried to seek market stability through a common front between members
and non-members “but there was no way,” he said.

In Asian trade on Tuesday[23 Dec.] prices nudged higher on hopes of improved
economic figures from the United States.

US benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude for February delivery gained 64
cents to $55.90 while Brent crude for February was up 33 cents to $60.44 in
afternoon trade.

Prices were above $100 a barrel earlier this year, a level which Naimi said
“we may not” see again.

Repeating comments he has made elsewhere, Naimi told MEES that oil prices
will, however, improve. “The timing is difficult to know,” he said, but
international oil companies have reduced their future capital expenditures,
“which means there is no exploration”.

That, in turn, signals they will not have additional production, he added.

The minister said OPEC was not surprised by the extent of the price drop.

“No, we knew the price would go down because there are investors and
speculators whose job it is to push it up or down to make money,” he said. —
AFP


+++SOURCE:Naharnet (Lebanon) 24 Dec.’14:”IS Captures Jordanian Pilot after
Plane Downed over Syria”, Agence France Presse
SUBJECT: IS captures Jordanian pilot
FULL TEXT:The Islamic State group captured a Jordanian pilot on Wednesday
[24 DEec.]after his warplane from the U.S.-led coalition was reportedly shot
down while on a mission against the jihadists over northern Syria.

A senior Jordanian military official confirmed the pilot was seized, saying
his plane went down in Syria's Raqa region, a militant stronghold, early on
Wednesday[2224 Dec.].

"The pilot was taken hostage by the IS terrorist organization," official
news agency Petra quoted the official as saying.

Jordan did not say why the plane went down, but both the jihadists and a
monitoring group said it was shot with an anti-aircraft missile.

If confirmed, it would be the first coalition warplane shot down since air
strikes on IS began in Syria in September.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group,
said its sources in Syria confirmed IS had captured the pilot "after
shooting his plane down with an anti-aircraft missile near Raqa city."

Coalition warplanes have carried out regular strikes around Raqa, which IS
has used as the headquarters for its self-declared "caliphate" after seizing
control of large parts of Syria and Iraq.

The IS branch in Raqa published photographs on jihadist websites purporting
to show its fighters holding the captured pilot.

One showed the pilot, wearing only a white shirt, being carried from a body
of water by four men. Another showed him on land, surrounded by about a
dozen armed men.

A photograph was also released of the pilot's military identification card,
showing his name as Maaz al-Kassasbeh, his birth date as May 29, 1988, and
his rank of first lieutenant.

The jihadists claimed to have shot down the warplane with a heat-seeking
missile.

The pilot's father Youssef was quoted by Jordanian news website Saraya as
saying the family had been informed by the air force of his capture.

He said the military promised it was "working to save his life" and that
Jordan's ruler, King Abdullah II, was following events.

Jordan is among a number of countries that have joined the U.S.-led alliance
carrying out air strikes against IS.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Bahrain are taking part
in the air strikes in Syria alongside the United States.

Australia, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France and The Netherlands
have joined the raids in Iraq.

The Sunni extremist IS has committed widespread atrocities in areas under
its control, including mass executions of captured soldiers and public
beheadings of hostages including Western journalists and aid workers.

In Iraq a suicide bomber on Wednesday[24 Dec.] attacked Sunni fighters
opposed to IS as they gathered to receive salaries south of Baghdad, killing
at least 26 people, officials said.

The coalition first launched strikes against IS in August in Iraq, where the
jihadists overran the country's Sunni heartland weeks earlier in a major
offensive.

Iraqi security forces, backed by the strikes, have launched a
counter-offensive to retake some areas but have been facing stiff resistance
from the entrenched IS militants.

Some local Sunni militia have joined the fight against IS and Wednesday's[24
Dec.] attack near a military base in the Madain area targeted Sunni fighters
known as Sahwa.

The attack also wounded at least 56 people, officials said. It was unclear
how many of the victims were Sahwa fighters.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but suicide
bombings are a tactic almost exclusively employed by Sunni extremists in
Iraq, including IS.

The Sahwa, or "Awakening" in Arabic, date back to the height of the U.S.-led
war in Iraq, when Sunni tribesmen joined forces with the Americans to battle
insurgents including IS's predecessor organization, the Islamic State of
Iraq.

The Sahwa were key to sharply reducing violence, but when Iraq's government
took over responsibility for their salaries they were sometimes paid late or
not at all.

Iraqi security forces have clawed back some ground from IS but major areas,
especially north and west of Baghdad, remain outside government control.


+++SOURCE: Jordan Times 24 Dec.’14:”Abbas says to cut ties with Israel if
U.N. move fails” , Agence France Presse
SUBJECT:Abbas threatens UNSC re Israel ties
QUOTE:”Abbas warned on Tuesday [23 Dec,]that his administration would ‘no
longer deal’ with Israel if a United Nations Security Council resolution
calling for a final peace deal fails”
FULL TEXT:ALGIERS — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warned on Tuesday
[23 Dec.]that his administration would "no longer deal" with Israel if a
United Nations Security Council resolution calling for a final peace deal
fails.

"If the Arab-Palestinian initiative submitted to the Security Council to put
an end to [Israeli] occupation doesn't pass, we will be forced to take the
necessary political and legal decisions," Abbas was quoted as saying by the
Algerian APS news agency.

"If it fails, we will no longer deal with the Israeli government, which will
then be forced to assume its responsibilities as an occupier," he added.

The Palestinian draft resolution sets a 12-month deadline for wrapping up
negotiations on a final peace settlement and the end of 2017 as the
timeframe for completing an Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian territories.

A final peace deal would pave the way to the creation of a Palestinian state
with Jerusalem as a shared capital, according to the text.

Speculation has been mounting since the death in December of a Palestinian
official who was struck by an Israeli soldier that the Palestinian Authority
could suspend security coordination with Israel in the West Bank if the
resolution fails to pass.

"We are determined to regain the rights of our people, including the right
of return [for refugees] and the freedom of all Palestinian prisoners held
in Israeli jails," Abbas said.

The Palestinian president met his Algerian counterpart Abdelaziz Bouteflika
on Monday during a three-day official visit.


+++SOURCE: Jordan Times 24 Dec.’14: “More than 1,100 jihadists killed in
U.S.-led Syria strikes –monitor”, Agence France Presse

SUBJECT: Impact of U.S.-led Syria strikes

FULL TEXT:BEIRUT — US-led air strikes in Syria have killed more than 1,000
jihadists in the past three months, nearly all of them from the Islamic
State group, a monitoring group said Tuesday[23 Dec.].

"At least 1,171 have been killed in the Arab and international air strikes
(since September 23), including 1,119 jihadists of the Islamic State group
and Al Nusra Front," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which
relies on a network of activists and medics across the war-ravaged country
for its information.

Among the dead were 1,046 members of IS, which has seized large chunks of
Iraq and Syria and is the main target of the air campaign.

Seventy-two of those killed were members of Al Qaeda's branch in Syria, Al
Nusra Front, while another was a jihadist prisoner whose affiliation was
unknown, an observatory statement said.

The remaining 52 were civilians.

IS has declared a "caliphate" in the parts of Iraq and Syria that it has
overrun, and its militants have been accused of widespread atrocities,
including beheading Western hostages.

On another front, the observatory reported the deaths of 29 civilians in
regime air raids across Syria on Tuesday[23 Dec,].

Among them were nine children, it said.

Syria's war began as a peaceful pro-democracy revolt. It later morphed into
a brutal civil war after the regime unleashed a massive crackdown against
dissent.

=============
Sue Lerner - Associate, IMRA