Taking the wait out of Kuwait

       

            Kuwait is an oil-rich emirate, tucked up in the north-western corner of the Gulf.  Its immediate neighbours are Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran.  One factor that distinguishes it from other Gulf states is that Yasser Arafat founded Fatah there in 1959, and it became home to a large Palestinian diaspora.  Before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 1991, some 400,000 Palestinians lived in Kuwait, amounting to 20 percent of its total population.  Subsequent deportation and emigration has reduced that figure to 70,000 at the most. 

Even so, a 2021 study by the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African studies concluded, largely because of its remaining Palestinian population, that “Kuwait does not seem ripe for decision on the highly sensitive issue of normalization.”

The Palestinian question has been a key issue in Kuwait for the past 60 years.  But as 2022 dawned, different voices began to emerge within the country. On January 17 Kuwaiti writer and poet Nejoud Al-Yagout published a long article calling for Kuwait to join other Gulf states in fostering coexistence with Israel and the Jewish people.   “There is no justified reason for the prejudice against Jews,” she wrote.  “And there is no other time but now to wake up from this stupor of separation… Let’s take the wait out of Kuwait.”

She proceeded: “One can continue to support Palestine without hating Jews. Many Palestinians themselves coexist with Jews. And many Jews support Palestine. One can embrace Jews without having a political agenda… It is our responsibility, each one of us, to become ambassadors of humanity, beyond our belief systems, beyond our political inclinations.”

A few days later the Kuwait-based newspaper, the Arab Times, called openly for normalization and breaking away from the Palestinian leadership.  “Normalize,” ran the headline.  “Let insulters fend for themselves.”

In the accompanying editorial, Ahmed Al-Jarallah, editor-in-chief of the Arab Times, explained that Kuwait, along with the other Gulf States, had continued to support the Palestinian cause despite a long series of provocations by the Palestinian leadership. Among other matters he lists their support of Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, of Colonel Gaddafi in his attacks on the Gulf states, and of the Iranian-bolstered Houthis. He objects to their condemnation of the leaders and governments of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries because they did not mourn the assassination of “the head of the terrorist snake Qassem Soleimani.”

“Enough is enough!” Al-Jarallah ended. “The camel’s back has been broken from the burden of grief we endure due to the ingratitude of the Palestinians. They have been encouraging terrorism against us, issuing calls to kill us…All the Gulf states should normalize relations with Israel due to the fact that peace with this most advanced country is the right thing to do. Let the foolish fend for themselves.”

Kuwait went to the polls on 29 September to elect a new parliament. The previous parliament, dissolved in June just six months after its 4-year term began, had become embroiled in months of political feuding with the government.  Under the Kuwaiti system it is the Emir who both appoints the government and can dissolve the parliament. 

            However things are changing in Kuwait.  Last year the Emir, Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, issued an amnesty for political opponents who were on trial under various charges.  Then, just before the poll, the country’s prime minister, Crown Prince Sheikh Meshal, the Emir’s son, speaking apparently on behalf of the Emir and the royal leadership, pledged not to meddle: “We will not interfere in the people’s choices for their representatives, nor will we interfere with the choices of the next National Assembly in choosing its speaker or its committees.”  He added: “Parliament will be the master of its decisions and we will not be supporting one faction at the expense of another. We will stand at the same distance from everyone.”

         

This election was perhaps the most inclusive in Kuwait’s history. Although Kuwait was the first country in the Gulf region to establish an elected parliament in 1963, and women won the right to vote in 2005, there had been only one woman MP, Safa al-Hashem. In December 2020 she lost her seat. In this election 22 women were among the 305 candidates competing for the 50 elected seats in the National Assembly, and two women were elected.

These steps by Kuwait toward a more liberal system of government and more open society could also be seen as a move toward the pragmatic policies adopted by its fellow Gulf states, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain, on normalizing relations with Israel.  Kuwait’s electorate, though, may be a few steps behind its leadership.  The election resulted in considerable gains by Islamist parties, and the new parliament might seek to obstruct the government if it decided to pursue its liberalization policies.

What of the future?  The Kuwaiti Emir has taken more than a leaf from the book of his Saudi neighbor, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), whose ambitious Vision 2030 plan to transform the Saudi economy is well under way. Giving himself an extra five years to achieve his objectives, the Emir published his “Kuwait Vision 2035 – New Kuwait” in 2017, a year after MBS.   

Kuwait's 2035 vision aims to transform Kuwait into a regional and international financial and trade hub.  With its economy led by the private sector, it will promote competition and production efficiency.  A supporting institutional body will concentrate on cultivating a business friendly environment, especially attractive to investors.  Without spelling it out, it seems obvious that the Emir’s vision would slot perfectly into a policy of normalization with Israel in line with that of the UAE and Bahrain.  Kuwait will surely connect up the dots well before 2035.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 19 October 2022, and in Jerusalem Post online under the title "What is the future of Kuwait?":

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-719963 

Published in Eurasia Review, 30 October 2022:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/28102022-taking-the-wait-out-of-kuwait-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 30 October 2022:

https://mpc-journal.org/taking-the-wait-out-of-kuwait/

Published in Jewish Business News, 28 October 2022:
https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2022/10/28/taking-the-wait-out-of-kuwait/

The Ayatollahs cannot control their Gen-Z

This article appears in the Jerusalem Post, 11 October 2022

           The Washington-based Pew Research Center, founded in 1996, has made its name by investigating the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world.  Part of its early work involved studying the last generational cohort before the millennium.  It named them the Millennials, which it defined as anyone born between 1981 and 1996.  The subsequent generation – that is, people born between 1997 and 2012 – have become known as Generation Z, or more simply Gen-Z.

   On September 13 Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman from a Kurdish family, was with her brother in Tehran when she was arrested by Iran’s infamous “morality police” for what was claimed to be “improper” hijab.  Mahsa, who also went by the Kurdish name Jhina, was taken to the Vozara Detention Centre, where she collapsed.  Three days later she died. According to media reports, she had been beaten on the head with a baton, and her head had been banged against a vehicle. The authorities stated that she died of natural causes.

Mahsa’s death sparked nationwide protests.  Thousands took to the streets in cities across the country, including in Tehran, Isfahan, Karaj, Mashhad, Rasht, Saqqes and Sanandaj.  Security forces responded with live ammunition, pellet guns and tear gas. By October 6 the civilian death toll was reported to have risen to at least 133, and the authorities – shaken by global media reports of brutality perpetrated by the police – had taken to arresting journalists.  The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) published on its website a list of 35 arrested up to October 6.

Widespread anti-regime protests have erupted more than once in the 43 years since Iran’s Islamic Revolution, but there is a fundamental difference between previous waves of demonstrations and what is happening today.  In the current nationwide riots a prominent role is being played by the Iran’s Generation Z, also known as Zoomers. According to the ultra-conservative Javan Daily, a paper affiliated to Iran’s IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps), “93% of the protesters” are no older than 25 which, it observes, marks the rise of a “new generation of rioters in the country.”

Iran’s Zoomers are seen within the country as extremely skeptical about the world. They are believed to have no interest in politics, religion, customs, and traditions.  What they do have is much greater access to information and the outside world than their parents and grandparents.  Online social media has given them a platform to voice their concerns, and the courage to speak out. 

The old-established Washington-based Middle East Institute recently undertook an analysis of Iran’s Gen-Z population.  It concluded that this generation tends to question authority, does not believe in the red lines drawn by society or the regime, and is unwilling to take anything for granted, including religion and the country’s laws and regulations.  Gen-Z’s mass reaction to what they perceived as the state-sponsored killing of one of their own, 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, was not their first clash with authority. In 2014 tens of thousands showed up to attend the funeral ceremony for Morteza Pashaei, a famous young pop star. Never before had there been a massive ceremony for a music icon who would be considered a threat to Islamic values. Over the years there have been other mass gatherings of the young that were dispersed by the police and involved arrests and criminal charges.

That today’s nationwide protest is being led by Gen-Z young people should have come as no surprise to the authorities.  Over the last few years there has been a succession of warnings issued by academic bodies and researchers.

In December 2017 the sociologist Saeed Razavi Faqih published a paper about Iran’s Gen-Z.  “This new generation has completely different demands, trends, and views,” he wrote, “and basically shares no common language with the managers and officials of the country’s administration.”  Just wait until they realize their political clout, he warned.  They will “transform everything.”

In the early months of 2018 Iran faced its most widespread and sustained wave of public protests in a decade, fostered by long-standing grievances. A study conducted by the state-backed Office of Cultural Studies investigated, and concluded that in addition to the usual “political, economic and social dissatisfaction,” the Islamic Republic now faced a new problem: the “deep generational gap.”

A more recent warning of this sort came in 2019, when Sobhe Sadegh, the weekly publication of the IRGC, described Gen-Z as a possible threat to the Republic’s values that will be difficult to control.  As the writers put it, “their governance will not be as easy as with previous generations.”

Casting around for a scapegoat, Iran first stepped up its military operations against Iraq-based Iranian Kurdish opposition groups. Three sets of drone and missile attacks targeted their party bases in northern Iraq, killing at least nine.  Then Iran turned to the support that Kurdish exiles have given to the protesters, and alleged that the demonstrations were entirely organized by foreign elements.  Iranian Kurdish exiles say their role has been small.

Older generations of Iranians who failed to achieve long-fought-for political and social freedoms during the past four decades are now expressing public admiration for their children and young people. It is echoed around the Iranian diaspora. Iran's exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi, son of the late Shah, has hailed the protests as the right way to victory.  He is heading a government-in-exile dedicated to bringing genuine democracy to the nation, once the regime is overthrown.

The latest protests have allowed the millions of Iranians living in exile to dream of a different future.  On September 24 and 25 thousands of Iranians in Los Angeles — home to the largest diaspora community of Iranians in the world — as well as in 159 cities across the globe gathered in support of the anti-regime movement. 

The Iranian leadership has sought to blame outside agitators for the protests inside the country, but it is young Iranians – the nation’s Gen-Z – who are leading the demonstrations and putting their lives on the line.  They are demonstrating to the world that the nation’s youth is coming into its own, that they care nothing for the crazed dreams of world domination cherished by the old men who lead them, and that they seek a way of life in line with what is enjoyed by young people all over the 21st century world.  How long can their dreams be quashed? The Iranian regime cannot throttle the hopes of its own people forever.

Published in the Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Post online as "Gen Z are standing up to Iran's regime", 11 October 2022

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-719328

Published in Eurasia Review, 24 October 2022:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/23102022-iran-the-ayatollahs-cannot-control-their-gen-z-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal. 24 October 2022:

https://mpc-journal.org/the-ayatollahs-cannot-control-their-gen-z/

Published in Jewish Business News, 21 October 2022:

https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2022/10/21/the-ayatollahs-cannot-control-their-gen-z/

Under consideration: moving the British embassy to Jerusalem

  This article appears in the Jerusalem Post, 6 October 2022

Liz Truss, the new British prime minister, has come into office vowing to sweep away the entrenched, outworn attitudes that persist in parts of what is otherwise an admirable Civil Service.  One area she is focused on is the Treasury, which she regards as wholly out of sympathy with her radical approach to tackling the severe economic problems that face the UK.  Another sclerotic area she has in her sights is the Foreign Office.

   On September 22 the media outlet Politico reported a Downing Street spokesman saying that, at the recent UN General Assembly meeting in New York, Truss told her Israeli counterpart, Yair Lapid, that she had ordered a review of the current location of the British embassy.

This has not come out of the blue.  During the course of the leadership contest in the summer, Truss told the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) that, while recognizing the “importance and sensitivity” of the issue, she would have the UK’s decision to stay put in Tel Aviv looked at again.

Shock, horror in the hidebound Foreign Office and diplomatic circles generally.  No less than ten former UK diplomats came together to oppose the idea in classic British style – a letter to The Times.  Preceded by a catalogue of stock sitting-on-the-fence observations, the letter ended: “Two states is British government policy; until that policy is realized, the embassy should stay put.”

In fact two states is also US government policy, but that did not deter the Trump administration from acknowledging reality and re-siting the US embassy in Israel’s capital city.  President Joe Biden has not reversed that decision. nor does he seem minded to do so.

          The UK’s foot-dragging on this issue stems from its long-standing, and continuing, refusal actually to acknowledge that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital, which it was from the moment of the State’s foundation. 

Global opinion is in a terrible muddle about the status of Jerusalem.  In the original 1947 two-state Partition Plan for Palestine, Jerusalem was designated to be a “corpus separatum under a special international regime” administered by the UN. The idea that Jerusalem could be separately governed under UN supervision has long been abandoned.  Yet the UN as a whole, like the EU, still clings to the idea that Jerusalem is somehow not part of the State of Israel.   The UK goes along with this.  As recently as 2016, British Foreign Office briefing documents were still referring to Jerusalem as a corpus separatum.

These days the UN and the EU hold that “Jerusalem is a final status issue for which a comprehensive, just and lasting solution must be achieved through negotiations between the two parties.”  In short, they hold that the exact status of Jerusalem in international law is yet to be determined.  

Yet the UN Security Council, in its Resolution 2334 passed in 2016, seems to override this.  It declares that the status of Jerusalem and the West Bank is as it had been on 4 June 1967 – that is, on the day before the Six Day War – referring three times to “Palestinian territories including East Jerusalem.”  Ignored is the fact that in 1967 they were not Palestinian territories; they were territories that had been captured by the Jordanian army in 1948 and illegally annexed by Jordan.  The EU, echoing the UN position, officially refuses to “recognize any changes to the pre-1967 borders, including in Jerusalem, other than those agreed by both sides.” 

So the UN and the EU assert that Jerusalem is a final status issue to be determined through negotiation, and in the same breath maintain that East Jerusalem is part of Palestinian territories.  They recognize no changes to the pre-Six Day War boundaries (the EU calls them “borders”, which they never were), except that they do not acknowledge that West Jerusalem was part of Israel at the time.

Their position defies logic.  Either the status of Jerusalem is still to be determined, or the part that used to be occupied by Jordan is declared to be Palestinian and the issue is closed.  Moreover if East Jerusalem is Palestinian, then at least West Jerusalem is Israeli – a position acknowledged by both the US and Russia, together with a clutch of other states, including the Czech Republic and Ukraine.  In December 2021, that is before Russia’s invasion, Ukraine’s ambassador to Israel, Yevgen Korniychuk, said his country recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s “one and only capital.” His promise to open a branch of its embassy in the city in 2022 during a projected visit by President Volodymyr Zelensky is, obviously, on hold.

The UK position on Jerusalem is provided in a standard response by the British embassy to public queries.  Its first sentence almost boasts that Britain has not shifted its views since April 1950.  At that time, it says, the UK unreservedly recognized the State of Israel de jure, “but it withheld recognition of sovereignty over Jerusalem pending a final determination of its status. The UK recognizes Israel’s de facto authority over West Jerusalem, but, in line with UN Security Council Resolution 242 (1967) and subsequent UNSC resolutions, regards East Jerusalem as under Israeli occupation.

“A final determination of the status of Jerusalem should be sought as part of a negotiated settlement…It must ensure Jerusalem is a shared capital of the Israeli and Palestinian states… The UK disagrees with the United States' decision to move its embassy to Jerusalem and recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital before a final status agreement.”

Up till now the UK response has concluded: “The British Embassy to Israel is based in Tel Aviv and there are no plans to move it before, or in the absence of, such a settlement.” 

          During the leadership contest, Truss declared war on outworn thinking in the Civil Service, declaring she was “prepared to break eggs” in taking on establishment orthodoxy.  That final sentence in the British embassy’s standard response may one day need to be amended.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem Post on-line, 6 October 2022:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-718983

Published in Eurasia Review, 18 October 2022:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/14102022-under-consideration-moving-the-british-embassy-to-jerusalem-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 18 October 2022:

https://mpc-journal.org/under-consideration-moving-the-british-embassy-to-jerusalem/

Published in Jewish Business News, 14 October 2022:

https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2022/10/14/under-consideration-moving-the-british-embassy-to-jerusalem/

Starving the terrorists of cash

 

             It was as far back as October 2021 that Israel accused six Palestinian civil society groups of funneling donor aid to militants, in particular the PLFP (the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) , and consequently designated them terrorist organizations.  On August 18 Israel's defence minister, Benny Gantz, repeated Israel's claim that the designated NGOs operated undercover to serve the PFLP. maintaining that "they also assist in raising funds for the terrorist organization via a variety of methods that include forgery and fraud."

            The next day Israel’s security forces closed down seven Palestinian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) operating in the West Bank. The reason given was that those particular NGOs had been diverting to the PLFP charitable funding provided to them for their own use.  The PLFP is designated a terrorist organization by Israel, but also by the US, the EU, Japan, Canada and Australia.  The UN immediately condemned the closures as “totally arbitrary”.

Justification for this can be traced back to a document published by the Israeli government in February 2019 titled: “Terrorists in Suits”.  It presented dozens of examples of ties between NGO activists who delegitimize Israel, and the PFLP and Hamas. The ideological connection between them is that all reject the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish and democratic state, and oppose any normalization between Israel and its neighbours. The report, which lists in detail the ties between the various bodies, also found that many of these NGOs were led or staffed by members and operatives of known terrorist organizations.

In designating the six NGOs as terrorist-linked, the Israeli defence ministry said that they had “received large sums of money from European countries and international organizations, using a variety of forgery and deceit," and that the money had been passed to the PFLP to support its activities.  "Those organizations present themselves as acting for humanitarian purposes,” it said. ”However, they serve as a cover for the 'Popular Front' promotion and financing." 

“Terrorists in Suits” is not the only exposé of this connection between non-governmental and terrorist organizations.  In November 2021 the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), a research body associated with Tel Aviv University, published an 11,000-word academic research paper. It analyzed the extent to which the EU, as well as individual European nations, consistently pour millions into the coffers of certain Palestinian NGOs nominally concerned with economic development, peace and human rights.  The recipients, however, are “substantial political and economic actors, and are among the leaders of intense soft power conflict, voicing repeated allegations of fundamental Israeli wrong-doing and encouraging anti-Israel campaigns through boycotts and lawfare.” 

            The document summarizes its conclusions as: “The EU and West European governments provide funding and access (particularly to media and international institutions such as the UN and ICC), in return for political services from the carefully selected Palestinian NGOs. This is evidenced by a detailed examination of repeated and overlapping grants and contracts from numerous European funding frameworks to the same group of recipients, including some linked to the PFLP terror organization.”

Israel's defense ministry said: "Those organizations present themselves as acting for humanitarian purposes; however, they serve as a cover for the 'Popular Front' promotion and financing."  Reuters reported that an official with the PFLP did not actually deny its ties to the six NGOs designated by Israel, but said they maintain relations with civil society organizations across the West Bank and Gaza.

          Predictably Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said the "decision is an alarming escalation that threatens to shut down the work of Palestine's most prominent civil society organizations."  The UN Human Rights Office in the Palestinian territories said “Israeli authorities have not presented to the United Nations any credible evidence to justify these declarations"

A clue to the comparative dearth of hard and fast evidence in support of Israel’s action lies in a document issued on January 6, 2022 by Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel.  It reproduces a letter received from the Legal Advisor’s Office of the Israel Defense Forces, which includes the following:

“The core of the declarations is based on classified, crosschecked and reliable intelligence that indicates that your clients operate on behalf of the terrorist organization, the "Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine" and are essentially arms of the terrorist organization, which cannot be revealed for fear of threatening national security.”

In short the security forces maintain that the evidence they hold about the connections between the designated Palestinian NGOs and the PFLP is classified, and to reveal it would  endanger national security.

The resultant situation is stalemate.  Without chapter and verse to support the Israeli contention, the NGOs concerned, the UN and the nations and organizations that fund them will continue to assert that closing them down is arbitrary and unjustified. Indeed no less than nine EU countries have said they will continue working with the groups, citing a lack of evidence for the Israeli accusations.  All Israel can do is keep reiterating that it has incontrovertible evidence that links the designated NGOs with covert financial and other support for the PLFP and related terrorist entities, while steadfastly refusing to reveal classified information.  Meanwhile it has cut off the flow of finance to the PLFP from this source, defying the  objectors in order to avoid compromising national security. 

        There is a glimmer of hope in the impasse.  Although the EU announced in June that it would resume funding for two of the designated Palestinian NGOs, it has agreed in July to resume meetings of the EU-Israel Association Council.  This confirms the new Middle East diplomatic reality, namely that political and economic relations are no longer dependent on the Israel-Palestinian dispute. The EU-Israel Association Agreement, which came into force in 2000, is intended to develop “mutual understanding and solidarity” and “convergence of positions on international issues”. 

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 21 September 2022:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-717553

Published in Eurasia Review, 9 October 2022:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/08102022-starving-the-terrorists-of-cash-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 9 October 2022:

https://mpc-journal.org/starving-the-terrorists-of-cash/

Published in Jewish Business News, 7 October 2022:
https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2022/10/07/starving-the-terrorists-of-cash/