Israel will gain if CANZUK succeeds

This article appears in the Jerusalem Report, dated 26 December 2022 

                                                            The CANZUK symbol

CANZUK is an acronym not yet widely recognized, although it is becoming increasingly familiar in government and diplomatic circles.  It is formed from the initial letters of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom – and it emerged following a bout of vigorous activity by a body founded in Canada in 2014 called the Commonwealth Freedom of Movement Organization (CFMO).

CFMO was formed to expand the historical connections between the citizens of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, by creating a sort of travel-free alliance between them. The big CFMO idea was to use mutual travel agreements and visa-free initiatives as a way of encouraging the British, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand governments to strengthen and expand economic, political, trade, investment, military and diplomatic relationships.

In 2015 the CFMO was transformed into CANZUK International by its founder, James Skinner, and when the UK voted in 2016 to leave the European Union, thus freeing itself to enter into new international alliances not previously possible, CANZUK began to achieve greater prominence. 

Eminent British historian Professor Andrew Roberts believes that the CANZUK countries should form "a new federation based upon free trade, free movement of peoples, mutual defense, and a limited but effective confederal political structure.” He points out that were CANZUK to become a union, “it would immediately become one of the global great powers alongside America, the EU and China. It would be easily the largest country on the planet, have a combined population of 129 million, the third biggest economy and the third biggest defence budget.”

In favour of the argument, he points out that the CANZUK countries already have a common head of state in the British monarch, a majority language, legal systems based on Magna Cara and the common law, the Westminster parliamentary tradition, and a long history of working together. What they lack is geographical proximity which, Roberts points out,  is becoming less and less important in the modern world.

In a poll commissioned by a UK think tank in February 2022, people in Britain were asked for their views on 35 countries.  The results are quoted by the CANZUK organization as proof of the sound basis and viability of their campaign.  Australia topped the poll with a 59% favorability rating.  It was closely followed by Canada and New Zealand, which came joint second at 58%.  The British people view these three countries more favorably than any others.

Suppose the third major political force as envisaged by Professor Roberts were indeed to emerge on the world stage, what might its attitude be toward Israel? Judging by Israel’s current relationship with the countries involved, the connection would certainly be considerably warmer than the wary and arms-length association between Israel and the EU, stronger though that has become in recent years.  It would be boosted by thriving Jewish communities in all four CANZUK nations.

Israel’s relationship with Canada is particularly strong. The Canadian-Jewish community, which numbers around 350,000, serves as a bridge between the two nations. Nearly 90,000 Canadians, many with family in Israel, travel to the country every year.  Former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper often reiterated that “Israel has no greater friend than Canada.” It was during his visit to Israel in January 2014, that the Canada-Israeli Strategic Partnership was signed, reaffirming the close and special friendship that underpins Canada-Israel relations.

Israel is an important economic partner for Canada in the Middle East and North Africa. It was in 1997 that the two countries signed the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement (CIFTA).  Since then bilateral trade has more than tripled, totalling more than $1.6 billion in 2020.

On Israel’s Independence Day 2022, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau said: “Our two countries have shared more than 70 years as friends, allies, and close partners… We will continue to oppose efforts to isolate Israel in international fora, and we will continue to stand against any attacks on the values we share.  On this day, we celebrate the deep people-to-people ties and shared values that unite our two countries.”

A vibrant Australian-Jewish community, which numbers about 91,000, is an important element of Australia's relationship with Israel, which has been warm and close ever since its founding.  Australia has the distinction of being the first country to vote in favor of the 1947 UN partition resolution. Remaining totally consistent with the terms of that resolution, Australia has been, and remains, a long-standing supporter of a negotiated, two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian issue, as indeed is Canada, New Zealand and the UK.

Meanwhile Australia is deepening bilateral cooperation with Israel. One notable development was when Australia chose Tel Aviv as the site of one of just five designated global Australian "Landing Pads" for innovation entrepreneurship. Two-way trade is flourishing. In 2019-20 it amounted to approximately $1.3 billion.

          The total population of New Zealand is some 5 million. In the 2018 New Zealand Census, 5,274 people identified themselves as of the Jewish religion. However in their "Jewish Lives in New Zealand", published in 2012, authors Leonard Bell and Diana Morrow claim that, including non-practicing Jews, there are more than 20,000 Jewish people in New Zealand.

          Jews played a prominent part in the founding of New Zealand, and in 1873 Julius Vogel was elected prime minister. He was knighted two years later. One hundred and thirty-five years later, in November 2008, John Key, whose mother was a Jewish immigrant from Austria, became New Zealand’s 38th prime minister.

          In between, Jews had risen to eminence in a whole variety of fields. And yet Israel’s relations with New Zealand are not as strong as with the other CANZUK countries. In December 2016 a major diplomatic spat followed New Zealand’s co-sponsorship of UN Security Council Resolution 2334 criticizing Israeli settlements. That has since been resolved, and Israel’s ambassador in Wellington, Ran Yaacoby, has been fostering economic ties between the two countries, including collaborative efforts and joint ventures in the areas of hi-tech, innovation agriculture and medical technology.

Israel’s relations with the UK were particularly close during David Cameron’s premiership, and have grown even stronger since Brexit. Despite some difficult trading conditions, UK-Israel bilateral trade has mushroomed.  In the year ending March 31, 2022 total trade in goods and services between the UK and Israel stood at £5.4 billion ($6.5 billion), an increase on 2021 of 19%.

Israel’s coalition government made special efforts to boost collaboration with the UK.  President Isaac Herzog, prime minister Naftali Bennett, and foreign minister Yair Lapid all visited Britain in 2021 and held the friendliest of exchanges with UK prime minister Boris Johnson, and his new foreign secretary Liz Truss.

"British-Israeli relations have entered a golden era” trumpeted a headline in the UK’s prestigious Jewish Chronicle a week or so after Lapid had left.  The article, by Jake Wallis Simons its editor, went on to claim that British officials and parliamentarians were “falling over each other in their love for the Jewish state.”  The exchanges have resulted in negotiations, currently in full swing, for a new “innovation focused” UK-Israel Free Trade Agreement, aimed at creating new opportunities for tech firms and professional services in both countries. 

            In September 2020, British MP Paul Bristow registered an All-Party Parliamentary Group on CANZUK.  Composed of six Conservative and two Labour MPs, its official purpose is, among other things, “to encourage interest in the political concept of CANZUK [and] promote CANZUK among UK parliamentarians.”

 Speaking on July 19, 2022 in the House of Commons debate on the Australia-UK Free Trade Agreement, Bristow declared that the deal with Australia was “just the start”.  He asked the junior trade minister whether he would commit himself to a multilateral trade agreement between all four CANZUK countries as soon as possible.  In a classic parliamentary response the minister agreed that the Australia-UK Free Trade Agreement was indeed only a start, rattled off a list of recent UK trade deals with a series of countries, and omitted to commit the government to a multilateral trade agreement with the CANZUK nations.

As Professor Roberts demonstrates, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK conjoined in a formal CANZUK union or federation would be a new, strong entity on the world scene.  It seems clear that if or when it emerges, CANZUK would be very favorably disposed toward Israel, while Israel would be in a position to benefit substantially should it come into being.  There is every reason for Israel to offer support to the individuals and organizations striving to make the CANZUK project a reality.

 

Iran in a ferment

 This article is published in the Jerusalem Post, 12 December 2022

          Iran is in a state of disruption unprecedented in the 43 years since the Islamic revolution, led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, substituted a religious oligarchy for the 2,500 year-old Persian monarchy.  The nation has erupted in anti-regime protests more than once in the past 43 years, but there is a fundamental difference between previous waves of demonstrations and what is happening today. According to the ultra-conservative Javan Daily, a paper affiliated to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), “93% of the protesters” are no older than 25 which, it observes, marks the rise of a “new generation of rioters in the country.” Another difference is that women have played a leading role this time.

On September 13, 2022 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.  Her nominal offense was that she was wearing her hijab “improperly”.  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, her head had been banged against a vehicle and she had been beaten on the head with a baton. The authorities stated that she died of natural causes.

Inspired by their young women, the Iranian nation erupted in protest. Thousands took to the streets in cities across the country.  Very soon the demonstrations had spread to all 31 of the country's provinces.  At first they were directed against the severe dress code imposed on women and enforced by the morality police.  But soon the protesters began targeting the regime itself and the Supreme Leader, and posters with the slogan “Death to the Dictator” began appearing. Security forces responded with pellet guns and tear gas, and finally live ammunition.

Soon it became impossible to conceal the fact that people were being shot dead on the streets.  On December 3 the state security council of the Iranian interior ministry issued a statement, giving the total number of people killed as 200.  It described those shot as members of the security forces, people involved in terrorist acts, those killed by foreign-affiliated groups but falsely described as having been killed by the state, rioters and “armed anti-revolutionary elements who were members of secessionist groups”.

Iran’s establishment, hitherto watertight on state security issues, started to fracture.  Amir Ali Hajizadeh, a top general in the IRGC, went public to say that more than 300 people had been “martyred and killed” during the unrest.  A number of foreign-based rights organizations declared that his figure was an under-estimate, and put the death toll at more than 400. On December 8 the BBC quoted a Human Rights Activists' News Agency (HRANA) assessment of those so far killed by the security forces as 475.

December 8 was also the day of Iran’s first execution of a citizen for participating in the current unrest. Mohsen Shekari was hanged, after being found guilty by a Revolutionary Court of fighting and drawing a weapon. Death sentences have been handed down to at least 10 other people, arrested during the protests.

"I'm absolutely horrified, shocked, and outraged at Mohsen Shekari's execution," said Javaid Rehman, UN Special Rapporteur in a radio broadcast, adding that there was evidence that Shekari had been tortured, and that he had been denied access to a lawyer.  “A show trial without any due process,” was how one activist put it.

The extent of the frustration experienced by huge swaths of the Iranian people has been brought home to Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a particularly personal way.

His niece, Farideh Moradkhani, a well-known rights activist opposed to the Iranian regime, was arrested on November 23.  Two days later, in a video statement shared by her brother, she called on people around the world to urge their governments to cut ties with the Iranian regime.

 “Be with us,” she urged, “and tell your governments to stop supporting this murderous and child-killing regime…Now, in this critical moment in history, all humanity is observing that the Iranian people, with empty hands, with exemplary courage and bravery are fighting the evil forces.”

Then on December 6, Badri Hosseini Khamenei, the Supreme Leader’s sister, published an open letter castigating her brother’s actions.

“The regime of the Islamic Republic,” she wrote, “…has brought nothing but suffering and oppression to Iran and Iranians.  I hope to see the victory of the people and the overthrow of this tyranny ruling Iran soon…I oppose my brother’s actions,” she continued, “and I express my sympathy with all mothers mourning the crimes of the regime, from the time of Khomeini to the current era of the despotic caliphate of Ali Khamenei.”

Badri Khamenei included criticism of the way her daughter had been arrested.  If this was the way Khamenei’s police treated his own niece, “it is clear that they will inflict thousands of times more violence on the oppressed sons and daughters of others."

With members of his own family denouncing his leadership and his regime, Khamenei must be feeling both anger and humiliation.  There was widespread speculation last week that the regime was offering the public the considerable concession of disbanding the notorious morality police. The Iranian attorney general, Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, appeared to imply that the country's morality police might be a thing of the past.  He said enigmatically: "The morality police had nothing to do with the judiciary and have been shut down from where they were set up."  Iran watchers are still scratching their heads about his exact meaning.

Meanwhile Iran remains a seething cauldron of opposition to the regime, which is being met by increasing levels of suppression.  Will the anger and resentment eventually boil over into outright revolution?  Many believe the regime is sufficiently grounded to contain and outlive the current wave of protest.  Others hope that this is the beginning of the end for Iran’s Islamic republic. 

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 12 December 2022:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-724611

Published in Eurasia Review, 23 December 2022:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/23122022-iran-in-a-ferment-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 23 December 2022:

https://mpc-journal.org/iran-in-a-ferment/

Published in Jewish Business News, 23 December 2022:

https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2022/12/23/iran-is-in-uproar/

China consolidates its grip on the Middle East

This article appears in the Jerusalem Post, 7 December 2022 

China’s President Xi Jinping has flown to Saudi Arabia to host a Chinese-Arab summit there on December 9.  The visit had been on the stocks for some time.  Xi was first invited to Riyadh back in March.  The long delay – during which Xi succeeded in consolidating his long-term future as China’s president –gave the Saudis time to prepare a spectacular welcome intended to reinforce the image of China as a firm ally of Saudi Arabia, and consolidate the excellent ties that already existed between Beijing and Riyadh. 

            The extravagant welcome prepared for the Chinese leader, which included the hoisting of thousands of Chinese banners, was in stark contrast to the low key reception granted US President Joe Biden in June.  Given Biden’s often expressed refusal to exonerate Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) from responsibility for the brutal murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, relations between the two countries remained strained throughout the president’s visit.

   As for the state visit by Xi, invitations to attend the Chinese-Arab summit went out to leaders throughout the Middle East and North Africa. The Chinese delegation signed dozens of agreements and memoranda of understanding with Gulf nations and other Arab states covering a variety of areas including energy, security and investments.

The US regards China as its prime competitor for influence and profit in the Middle East.  In 2017 Saudi King Salman signed a $65 billion-worth of memoranda of understanding with China.  The two countries immediately began implementing agreements in sectors such as petrochemicals and high technology.  Today China is Saudi Arabia’s largest trading partner worldwide, while Saudi Arabia is China’s largest trading partner in the region.

The ambitious Saudi Vision 2030 development program, designed to transform the kingdom into a modern thrusting industrialized nation no longer dependent on oil revenues, has provided Chinese construction firms with the major opportunity of developing Saudi infrastructure.  During his stay XI visited the planned megacity of Neom on the western Saudi coast, a key element of MBS’s Vision 2030.

China has a thriving relationship also with the United Arab Emirates (UAE). It is the UAE’s largest trading partner, and an essential component of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). 

            Introduced in 2013, and heavily promoted subsequently by President Xi, the BRI is his blueprint for China’s eventual political and economic dominance.  The “belt” refers to reinvigorating the historic Silk Road trade route connecting East and West, while the “road” relates to constructing a 21st century Maritime Silk Road. 

Belt and Road is the centrepiece of Xi’s foreign policy. It involves China investing roughly $150 billion a year in the 68 countries across Asia, Africa and the Middle East that have signed up to the scheme.  Some describe BRI as one of the largest infrastructure and investment projects in history, covering 65 percent of the world’s population; others consider it a plan for Chinese world domination through the creation of a China-centered global trading network.

Egypt features in Chinese strategic thinking.  As China’s commercial activities in the Middle East mushroomed, it grew increasingly concerned with transit through the Suez Canal.  As a result it has invested billions of dollars in Egypt, and Chinese firms are helping construct Egypt’s new administrative capital in the desert outside Cairo. They are also developing a Red Sea port and industrial zone in Ain Sokhna.  

Then there is Israel which, of course, will not be participating in the Chinese-Arab summit, although it is a key element in China’s overall Middle East policy.  Israeli-Chinese relations have been excellent for decades – sometimes too close for US comfort.  Finally Washington put a definitive end to Israeli cooperation on military technology with US roots.  Instead, Israel developed close commercial relationships with China in areas like advanced technology and infrastructure. Today Chinese firms are deeply engaged in Israeli infrastructure, building tunnels for light rail, expanding port facilities in Ashdod and Haifa, and striking agreements to operate the ports for 25 years. There is also talk of a China-Israel Free Trade Agreement in the offing.  Over the twenty years from 2001, annual bilateral trade between Israel and China has increased from $1.07 billion to $22.8 billion in 2021. This close collaboration remains unpalatable to some in the US Senate.

The US and the UK regard China’s expanding global influence as of great concern.  In November 2020 the US Secretary of State’s office published a 72-page document called: “The Elements of the China Challenge”.  Amid seven examples of what the authors call China’s “quest for preeminence in world affairs”, they cite the Belt and Road initiative.  The idea, they believe, is to expand foreign markets for Chinese companies, thus drawing nations, and particularly their political and economic elites, into Beijing’s geopolitical orbit. Sometimes BRI projects involve 50- to 100-year relationships that confer power long-term to China over key parts of the host country’s infrastructure.

On December 1, 2020, in his first public address since becoming chief of MI6, Britain’s secret intelligence service made famous in the James Bond films, Richard Moore declared that China was the agency’s “single greatest priority”. 

He cited Beijing’s large-scale espionage activities in the UK, but also China’s carefully coordinated plan to lure poor countries into what Moore termed “debt and data traps”, a policy designed to consolidate Chinese influence across the globe. Causing even greater concern is the threat from China’s cyber warfare. Addressing the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado on July 21, 2022, Moore declared that China was now MI6’s top intelligence priority, surpassing counter-terrorism.

 With his leadership role now firmly secured, Xi clearly feels empowered to continue developing his long-term strategy aimed at ensuring eventual Chinese political and economic dominance on the world stage.  He doubtless regarded the Chinese-Arab summit as a key building block in that enterprise. 

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 7 December 2022:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-724212

Published in Eurasia Review, 16 December 2022:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/16122022-china-consolidates-its-grip-on-the-middle-east-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 20 December 2022:

https://mpc-journal.org/china-consolidates-its-grip-on-the-middle-east/

Published in Jewish Business News, 16 December 2022:

https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2022/12/16/china-consolidates-its-grip-on-the-middle-east/