Sudan – a battlefield for rival warlords

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 29 August 2023 

          A vicious power struggle within Sudan’s military leadership has led to a nationwide civil conflict and a huge humanitarian problem.  “The situation,” UN agencies declared on August 16, “is spiraling out of control.”

Living conditions within Sudan have deteriorated to such an extent that, according to the UN, since April more than a million people have fled to neighboring countries. Chad, South Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia are only four of the adjacent states which have each accepted tens of thousands of refugees. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on August 16  that the fighting has also displaced more than 3.4 million people inside the country.  There is an acute lack of food, fuel, water, medicine, and electricity.

Following weeks of tension, fighting broke out on April 15 between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).  The direct trigger was an incident on April 12. On that day, the RSF dispatched 100 armed vehicles equipped with anti-aircraft guns and other weapons to Merowe Air Base in northern Sudan.  They claimed to have received "information that the Egyptian Air Force was sending fighter jets to the base to attack the RSF.”  The result was a standoff with the SAF, the nation’s armed forces, in the city of Merowe, and on the 15th the two militias clashed in the capital, Khartoum.

Nothing is more bitter than the falling out of old comrades. The two protagonists in the power struggle are  Army General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of the SAF, and his deputy in the military command but also leader of the RSF, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, commonly known as Hemedti,  They were once close allies.

In April 2019, the democratic revolution in Sudan led to the collapse of the 30-year-long regime of Omar al-Bashir.  In the transitional democratic government that followed, Burhan became head of the ruling Sovereignty Council, representing the military arm in the country's civilian-military collaborative administration.  He was powerful but, as he saw it, not powerful enough.

Burhan’s role, which was perfectly legitimate, was embedded in the power-sharing agreement of August 2019 between the military and the civilian element within Sudan, known as the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC), a loose coalition of civilian groups.        Under that agreement the powers concerned pledged themselves to move the country in an orderly fashion toward democracy, and to parliamentary elections in 2023. 

However, popular feeling had grown increasingly impatient with the obvious lack of progress toward any form of democracy, and with the administration’s failure to deal with the country’s severe economic problems.  On October 22, 2021 national frustration erupted in a mass protest in the capital, Khartoum, in support of civilian rule.

Together Burhan and Dagalo orchestrated a military coup and took over control of the country.  Three days later Burhan dissolved the country's civilian cabinet, arrested prime minister Abdalla Hamdok and other leading figures, and declared that the country was under military governance. 

The grab for power did not last long.  Widespread opposition ranging from the Arab League to the US Secretary of State was too great.  Burhan pulled back, reinstated Hamdok and pledged to “maintain the path of the democratic transition.”

It was not long before Burhan was challenged by his deputy in the Council of Generals, Dagalo.  Dagalo, who had spent some 20 years in the RSF, now headed the paramilitary force.  He had built it up into a powerful militia that had intervened in conflicts in Yemen and Libya.  The RSF has been accused of human rights abuses, including the massacre of more than 120 protesters in June 2019. Such a strong force outside the army was seen as a source of instability in the country, and Burhan’s plan to take over control of the RSF by merging it with the nation’s formal armed services was the main bone of contention between the two erstwhile colleagues.

Reports indicate that the fighting has reduced Khartoum to an urban battlefield. Across the city RSF forces have commandeered homes and turned them into operational bases. The army, in turn, has been firing artillery on residential areas from both the air and ground.

“The remains of many of those killed have not been collected, identified or buried,” the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has said.

What do the two protagonists say they want?  Dagalo has said, in a series of tweets, that he and the RSF are "fighting for the people of Sudan to ensure the democratic progress for which they have so long yearned".  Given the brutal track record of the RSF, many find this message hard to believe.  Burhan has said he supports the idea of returning to civilian rule, but that he will hand over power only to an elected government.  It is likely that both are also mesmerized by the lure of power, and the wealth and influence that go with it.

Meanwhile the UK, US and EU have all called for a ceasefire and talks to resolve the crisis.

Sudan, of course, is nominally one of Israel’s new Arab partners under the Abraham Accords.  Where does this chaotic state of affairs leave its normalization deal with Israel?

It was in February 2020 that Israel’s then-prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, met Burhan, head of Sudan’s Sovereignty Council, in Uganda, where they agreed to normalize the ties between the two countries.

An initial agreement on October 23, 2020 saw Sudan removed from the US government list of countries promoting terrorism, and on January 6, 2021 in a quiet ceremony in Khartoum, Sudan formally signed up to the Abraham Accords. 

Just how substantive is the Israel-Sudan normalization deal? The then military leadership under Burhan that concluded the deal with Israel was acting perfectly legitimately on behalf of the state of Sudan.  Whatever the outcome of the conflict between Burhan and Dagalo, Sudan is a nation in transition, on a rocky road to parliamentary elections intended to usher in full democratic civilian rule.  Once the conflict is brought to an end, parliamentary elections held and civilian rule restored, a democratic government could either endorse or renounce the nation’s membership of the Abraham Accords.

Which way the chips will eventually fall is anybody’s guess.

Published in the Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Post online, 29 August 2023:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-756615

Published in Eurasia Review, 2 September 2023:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/02092023-sudan-battlefield-for-rival-warlords-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 6 September 2023

https://mpc-journal.org/sudan-a-battlefield-for-rival-warlords/

Lebanon on a knife-edge

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 21 August 2023

The mandate of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) is due to expire at the end of August.  The Security Council is expected to debate the situation on the Lebanese-Israeli border shortly, and to renew UNIFIL’s mandate. As for the situation on the  border, it is best described as volatile.

In early May, a tent appeared more than 100 feet south of the Blue Line, the contentious border monitored by UNIFIL.  UN forces observed individuals repeatedly crossing from Lebanon into the contested area.  By June 17, a second tent was spotted, and UNIFIL asked the Lebanese army to remove them.  One was taken down, the other stayed.

The unstable situation along the border is kept under constant review. The Lebanese and Israelis hold a UNIFIL-chaired meeting every five to six weeks to discuss military issues, including violations along the Blue Line. The arrangements are egg-shell fragile. No media are allowed; the generals do not shake hands; the food is provided by the Italian UNIFIL contingent – and, to avoid suspicions of any sort, even the bottled water is Italian.

UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti described the scene as “two sides sitting in a very small room, on very uncomfortable chairs.”

The fact that the meetings take place regularly, and that there have been 17 years of relative stability is, to Tenenti, a sign that neither side has an appetite for conflict. “Both sides are in a way keen to solve the contentious issues,” he said, “but everyone wants to solve it in their own way.”

Meanwhile within Lebanon the Hezbollah organization continues to wield its huge military power in support of its Iranian paymasters.  With help from Iran’s IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps), Hezbollah in engaged in retrofitting old missiles with guidance systems and building new precision-guided missiles. In December 2018 Israel discovered and sealed tunnels dug from Lebanon under the Blue Line for the express purpose of carrying out attacks within Israel.

Since then Hezbollah has fired antitank missiles at an Israeli military ambulance, launched a drone at an Israeli offshore gas platform, and allowed Hamas to fire rockets at Israel from Hezbollah-controlled areas in Lebanon.

On August 9 a Hezbollah arms truck overturned on the mountainous road leading through the Christian town of Kahale in Lebanon. 

To prevent residents from seizing the truck and its contents, Hezbollah personnel on board opened fire, killing a Kahale resident and wounding another.  A shoot-out followed, and one Hezbollah member was also killed.

Just a few weeks ago the respected Washington Institute published a devastatingly frank assessment by its counterterrorism and intelligence academic expert, Matthew Levitt, concerning the deep-rooted troubles that are paralyzing Lebanon.

“Let’s be clear,” he writes, “corruption is at the heart of Lebanon’s economic and political crises. This economic and political rot is deeply entrenched and is protected by powerful political bosses across the spectrum… yet no Lebanese party presents a greater security threat to Lebanon domestically, and to its neighbors in the region, than Hezbollah – in part because Hezbollah is the de facto militant enforcer of the corrupt political system from which it and other sectarian political parties benefit.”

There could be no greater evidence of Hezbollah’s overwhelming power within the state than its success in frustrating all attempts to investigate the circumstances surrounding the devastating explosion in Beirut port in August 2020. 

Time and again when evidence emerged pointing the finger at one or other Hezbollah figure, the investigation was frustrated. Once the investigating judge was dismissed; at other times individuals summoned to appear refused to attend the court; time and again the investigation has been subject to appeals. 

It became crystal clear that the Hezbollah-supporting members of the government were deliberately thwarting the investigation. With two judges pointing the finger at certain Hezbollah-supporting ministers and officials, the suspicion must arise that leading national figures were involved in the circumstances leading to the explosion. Meanwhile the investigation has stalled, while the UN Human Rights council calls in vain for its speedy conclusion.

These circumstances mirror the enormously protracted judicial proceedings to establish the facts behind the assassination of Lebanese politician, Rafik Hariri, on February 14, 2005. 

Obfuscation, the murder of an investigator and the non-appearance of named Hezbollah witnesses resulted in the inquiry lasting 16 years, and the eventual conviction in absentia of Hezbollah operatives.

The Lebanese population is well aware of the venality at the heart of its society.  Back in November 2022 the Washington Institute commissioned a poll to assess the public’s opinion of the situation. Ninety-seven percent of respondents said the Lebanese government was doing too little in response to three key economic concerns. First, reduce the level of corruption in economic and public life. Second, meet people’s needs for an acceptable standard of living. And third, address the burden of taxes and other obligations in a fair way.

“Unfortunately,” observed Levitt, “Lebanese political bosses’ prescription for addressing such concerns is not political or economic reform, but doubling down on their respective power and patronage systems.”

   Lebanon has been without a president since Michel Aoun’s term ended on 31 October 2022, with opposing political blocks unable to agree on a compromise candidate. The presidential vacuum is compounded by the fact that Lebanon’s government remains in caretaker status.

The last attempt to set up a presidential election was on June 14.  Neither of the two candidates—Jihad Azour and Suleiman Frangieh—received sufficient votes in the first round.  To win, a candidate needs a two-thirds majority (86 votes) of the elected parliamentarians, so a quorum of 86 members of parliament is necessary for a valid ballot. On 14 June, after the first session members from Hezbollah and its allied Amal Movement withdrew, leaving parliament without the necessary quorum and preventing a second round from taking place.

Beset by venality, corruption and self-interest at every level — political, economic and social — and with no obvious means of regeneration, Lebanon teeters on the brink of collapse into chaos.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem Post online titled "Lebanon sits on a knife's edge, hovering above disaster" on 21 August 2023:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-755503

Published in Eurasia Review, 25 August 2023:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/25082023-lebanon-on-a-knife-edge-oped/?

Published in the MPC Journal, 28 August 2023:

https://mpc-journal.org/lebanon-on-a-knife-edge/

The pursuit of peace in Yemen

Yemen is in the midst of a nine-year civil conflict which has left 80 percent of the population – some 24 million people, including almost 13 million children – in urgent need of aid and protection. Acknowledged by the UN to be “ the largest humanitarian crisis in the world,” more than 14 million people in Yemen are in acute need.  Starvation is widespread.  UNICEF (the UN’s Children’s Fund) reports that as 2022 ended, around 2 million children under the age of 5 were experiencing starvation-induced wasting, severely in more than 500,000 cases.

On one level, the situation in Yemen is a product of the fault line that runs through Islam – the Sunni-Shia divide.  The main protagonists are, on the one hand, the Shia Houthi rebels supported by Shi’ite Iran and, on the other, the UN-recognized Sunni government aided on the ground by Saudi Arabia and its eight-nation Sunni Muslim coalition. 

For a fair part of the 20th century there were two Yemens, created by political events – a monarchy in the north and a republic in the south, which for a long time was a communist regime aligned with the old Soviet Union. A succession of conflicts between them resulted in 1970 in a dominant north and a subdued south, the two never fully at peace with each other.  In 1978 Ali Abdullah Saleh became president of North Yemen.  The collapse of the USSR in 1990 triggered the unification of the two Yemens as the Republic of Yemen with Saleh as president.

Saleh, autocratic and unpopular, was soon facing an ever-growing insurgency from Zaydi Shii’ites calling themselves Houthis after their charismatic leader, Hussein al Houthi.  In 2011 Saleh became a victim of the so-called Arab Spring. Mass popular protests forced him to step down in favor of his vice-president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. Saleh, hoping to regain power,  allied himself with his former enemies, the Houthis.  Strengthened by Yemeni forces still loyal to Saleh, and supported with military hardware from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the Houthis overran large tracts of the country, including the capital city, Sana’a. 

Saudi Arabia, alarmed at the prospect of Iran extending its footprint into the Arabian peninsula, intervened in March 2015 to beat back the Houthis.  Saudi’s Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), assembled a coalition of Arab states, obtained the diplomatic backing of the US, UK, Turkey and Pakistan, and launched a series of air strikes against the rebels.

The unconventional Saleh-Houthi partnership came to an abrupt end on December 2, 2017, when Saleh went on television to declare that he was ready to enter into dialogue with the Saudi-led coalition.  This volte-face was to end in tragedy. On December 4, Saleh's house in Sana'a was besieged by Houthi fighters.  Attempting to escape, he was killed.

The Houthis, emboldened, started firing ballistic missiles into Saudi Arabia. The political situation was further complicated in 2017.   

Aidarus al-Zoubaidi, a former army commander and governor of Aden, and the vice-president of the UN-recognized government of Yemen, announced that under his leadership the eight governorates in the south, including Aden, were unilaterally declaring independence.   With the strong backing of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Zoubadi established a form of governance which he called the Southern Transitional Council (STC).   

Meanwhile UN Special Envoy Hans Grundberg had been hard at work.  Painstakingly, he put together  a truce between the government and the Houthis which came into effect in April 2022.  Extended twice, it resulted in the longest period of stability in Yemen since the start of its civil war. 

Although it came to an end on October 2, and the Houthis refused to renew it, Grundberg reported in May 2023 that it was continuing to deliver benefits, such as the entry of fuel and other commercial ships via the Hudaydah port, and commercial flights to and from the capital, Sana’a.

Grundberg said that his diplomatic efforts with representatives of the government, the Houthi rebels and other players were continuing, and that he was encouraged by the positive and detailed discussions.

“There is clear determination on all sides,” he said, “to make progress towards a deal on humanitarian and economic measures, a permanent ceasefire and the resumption of a Yemeni-led political process under UN auspices.”

Although sporadic military incidents continue to occur, said Grundberg, hostility levels were significantly lower than before the truce. 

“But the fragility of the military situation, the dire state of the economy and the daily challenges facing the Yemeni people, provide us with constant reminders of why a more comprehensive agreement between the parties is so vital.”

He was adamant that Yemen’s myriad challenges required an inclusive Yemeni-led political process under UN auspices. 

The ambitions of the strongman in the south, Zoubaidi, accord only loosely with Grundberg’s hopes. In an interview with the UK’s Guardian newspaper in June Zoubaidi maintained that the west has to accept a new reality in which Yemen’s north is controlled by the Houthis, and the south is run by his separatist STC.  The planned talks on the country’s future, he said, had to be reconfigured to meet that new reality – including placing the issue of a separate southern state at the foreground of the discussions.

In short, he is attempting to cut the UN-recognized government out of the picture.

The STC, he said, would like to revert to the period between 1967 and 1990 when Yemen was divided in two with a separate socialist state in the south. Zoubaidi visited the UK recently and attempted to convince Britain’s Middle East minister, Tariq Ahmad, that he and a separate southern Yemen state were the key to unlocking peace. 

In fact what Yemen needs is a return to a unified structure, democratic elections, and an inclusive government.  The future of Yemen largely depends on the Houthis. Do they wish to remain an outlawed militia permanently, or would they prefer to become a legitimate political party, able to contest parliamentary and presidential elections and participate in government?  The same considerations apply to the STC.  Zoubadi seems to favor a two-state Yemen.  Can he be persuaded to a unified federal structure?

          In fact UN Resolution 2216 does embrace the idea of a democratic federally united Yemen.  Backed by a UN peace-keeping force, a lasting political deal would involve the end of the Saudi-led military operation, the active involvement of the Houthis, the integration of the STC, however nominally independent, into a united Yemen, and probably a major financial commitment by Saudi Arabia to fund the rebuilding of the country. Can Grundberg bring about negotiations aimed at a peaceful transition to a political solution for a united Yemen?

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem Post online as "How can peace return to Yemen?". 15 August 2023:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-754743

Published in Eurasia Review 18 August 2023:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/18082023-the-pursuit-of-peace-in-yemen-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 19 August 2023
https://mpc-journal.org/the-pursuit-of-peace-in-yemen/

What might a written constitution for Israel propose?

 Published in the Jerusalem Post weekend magazine, 11 August 2023

It has taken 75 years, and a wave of civil protest unparalleled in the history of the State of Israel, for the nation to recognize that from its very beginning it has been living with a flaw in its system of governance.  A slow-burning fuse was built into the very foundation of the state, and it has finally caused an explosion. 

Most people now realize that the clash of public opinion in Israel has arisen largely because, over time, the distinction between the legislative and the judicial roles within the system of governance has become increasingly blurred.  

Why did this occur?  Because Israel’s legislature from the foundation of the state was conceived as uni-cameral.  In other words, there was never provision for a second legislative chamber to be responsible for scrutinizing proposed legislation and suggesting amendments that would, if necessary, render new laws less "unreasonable".  Consequently the judiciary has over time been forced, in addition to its main functions, to assume the role that belongs to the second chamber in a bi-cameral legislature.  The judiciary’s primary role is to uphold the law, to interpret and amend it, to try those accused of crimes, and to defend the rights of individuals or organizations if they have been treated unlawfully. 

Israel is undoubtedly a vibrant democracy, but it lacks a written constitution.  Much comment during the past weeks of upheaval has centered on the idea that serious effort be devoted to producing one, so that the roles of the legislature and the judiciary can be clearly defined.  Britain, the main source of Israel’s common law, also lacks a written constitution. Its unwritten constitution, however, is based on over a thousand years of precedent.  Its second legislative chamber — the House of Lords – springs from the ancient feudal system headed by the nobility.  Today its main function in the UK's "Mother of Parliaments" is scrutinizing and amending proposed legislation emanating from the House of Commons.  The Senate, in the very different US system, performs something of the same function.

Israel has no such ancient precedent to draw on.  Though sophisticated judicial institutions feature in the Bible and in what we know of the ancient kingdoms of Judah and Israel, democratic institutions do not.

Suppose a constitutional committee were established charged with producing a written constitution for Israel.  It would, of course, incorporate most current institutions and much current practice, but its recommendations might well include changing Israel's legislature from uni- to bi-cameral.  Such a proposal would, of course, also have to suggest how a second legislative chamber could be established. 

Britain’s House of Lords in its present configuration is far from satisfactory.  Reforms over the years restricted, and finally abolished, the power of the Lords to overrule the will of the elected House of Commons.  Then non-hereditary peers created for their lifetime, known as life peers, were introduced. Finally in 1999 the government completed a deal with the Lords to remove most of the hereditary peers. The relevant  Act left only 92 hereditary peers in a House of Lords that numbered close to 800. These 92 were elected from among those who had a right to be members of the House of Lords as a result of their hereditary status. This arrangement was intended as a temporary holding measure until the second stage of reform was completed.

Nearly a quarter of a century has passed, and still 92 hereditary peers take their seat among over 700 appointed members.  In the  interim many a weird and wonderful proposal for reforming the House of Lords, including abolishing it altogether, has seen the light of day.

Britain’s problem stems from the fact that, even though vetted by a high-powered committee, the non-hereditary members of the House of Lords are appointed by prime ministers, either in office, or as a right when they leave office.   This is increasingly seen as an unacceptable way of determining who should serve in the nation’s legislature.

A much-touted alternative is to elect members to the second chamber, as is the case with the US Senate.  The downside to this idea is that such a  system would create a rival center of power to the House of Commons.  In any dispute each House could claim electoral legitimacy, and stalemate would result.  Proposed alternatives include devising some acceptable system of appointing suitable people to serve in the second chamber for a given period.  Regional councils charged with suggesting worthy candidates is one idea.

Perhaps this is the direction that Israel should go, if a bi-cameral legislature were agreed to be an acceptable way to proceed constitutionally.  Even so, a second legislative chamber is far from a cure-all.  Despite Britain’s bi-cameral legislature, powerful voices have been declaring for some time that the judiciary has been exceeding its proper function by venturing too far into the political arena.  Or, as Britain’s prestigious Prospect magazine put it a while ago: “The judiciary has made a slow march to the heart of politics.“

A notable example occurred in 2019, a few weeks before Brexit, when the Supreme Court ruled that Prime Minister Boris Johnson had acted unlawfully when he advised the Queen to suspend parliament, and that therefore the legislature had not been prorogued and parliament was still sitting.

Speaking from within a system where a second chamber is fulfilling its scrutinizing function, Lord Sumption, a Supreme Court judge from 2012 to 2018, believes that the British judiciary has been accruing unjustifiable powers. He holds that parliamentary scrutiny is generally perfectly adequate to protect the public interest in the area of policy‐making, and indeed is the only democratically legitimate way of doing so.

He believes that for those concerned with the proper functioning of democratic institutions, the judicial resolution of inherently political issues is difficult to defend because judges are not accountable to the public for their decisions.

In 2021 Neil Rogachevsky published a previously untranslated speech by David Ben Gurion, delivered in Israel’s first Knesset to the committee charged with drafting a constitution which never materialized.  Ben Gurion said: “I don’t think it’s possible to delegate authority to the court to decide whether the laws are kosher or not.”

These are indeed complex matters to consider, but consider them Israel must, if the nation is to resolve the issue that has split national opinion asunder.

Published in the Jerusalem Post weekend magazine, 11 August 2023:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-754336

Ephraim Mirvis – “A truly perfect gentle knight”

 Published in the Jerusalem Report, dated 21 August 2023

 

“A knight there was,” wrote Geoffrey Chaucer more than 600 years ago, describing the group of people he met on a pilgrimage to Canterbury,       

                           …”and he a worthy man,
        Who, from the moment that he first began
        To ride about the world, loved chivalry,
        Truth, honour, freedom and all courtesy….
        He was a truly perfect, gentle knight."
        

          Ephraim Mirvis, having served ten years as Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, was awarded a knighthood on January 1, 2023, in King Charles III’s first New Year’s Honours List. The citation read: “for services to the Jewish community, to interfaith relations and to education.”

The words Chaucer chose to portray his knight in The Canterbury Tales fit Sir Ephraim Mirvis like a glove.  Congregants speak of the affection and respect he inspired during his rabbinic appointments, while friends and colleagues attest to his sense of humour, his ability to prick pomposity with his power of mimicry and, in his passionate support for Tottenham Hotspurs (“the Spurs”) football team, his down-to-earth humanity.

            His determination to speak the truth fearlessly as he perceives it was demonstrated in full measure back in November 2019.  A general election was pending in the UK.  For the previous five years the opposition Labour party had been led by Jeremy Corbyn, a hard-left politician.  His support for Palestinian extremists had shocked the UK Jewish community, while charges of antisemitism within the Labour party grew so strong that in May 2019 the party itself was put under investigation by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. 

No Chief Rabbi had ever involved himself in party politics, but a couple of weeks before the election Mirvis cast convention aside. He wrote in The Times:  “The question I am now most frequently asked is: What will become of Jews and Judaism in Britain if the Labour Party forms the next government?

“We sit powerless, watching with incredulity as supporters of the Labour leadership have hounded parliamentarians, party members and even staff out of the party for facing down anti-Jewish racism… A new poison, sanctioned from the very top, has taken root in the Labour Party.

 “It is not my place to tell any person how they should vote. I regret being in this situation at all. I simply pose the question: What will the result of this election say about the moral compass of our country?  When 12 December arrives, I ask every person to vote with their conscience.  Be in no doubt, the very soul of our nation is at stake.”

Mirvis’s intervention played a significant part in ensuring Labour suffered its worst electoral defeat since 1936.

Giving a lead to public opinion, and speaking truth as he perceives it, is a hallmark of Mirvis’s approach to his public role. Three days before Mirvis’s knighthood was announced, Amir Ohana was nominated, in a 63-5 vote, as the first-ever gay Speaker of the Knesset.  As Ohana delivered his acceptance speech, certain members were photographed turning their backs on him.  Afterward one rabbi declared that those voting for Ohana were “a disgrace”, and another called Ohana “diseased”.

Israel’s Channel 13 interviewed Mirvis about Ohana’s appointment. Sir Ephraim, as he now was, was unequivocal on the issue.  Every human being is created “in the image of God,” he declared. “This is how we must look at each and everyone.”

 We all know the [halachic] prohibitions, he said, but at the same time we are forbidden to hate.  In short, he maintained that solidarity with LGBTQ+ is in line with the teachings of the Torah.

Some years earlier he had published the first-ever guide for ultra-orthodox Jewish schools to help make the lives of LGBTQ+ pupils easier.  “I wrote from a Torah point of view,” he has said, “exactly how…to guide youth in our communities from a halachic point of view in our schools.”  He added that his efforts were to help religious LGBTQ+ pupils who want to “feel part of the religious world of Judaism” without discrimination.

            Ephraim Yitzchak Mirvis was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, on September 7,1956, the son of Lionel and Freida Mirvis. His father, the rabbi of congregations in Cape Town, preached against apartheid and visited political prisoners on Robben Island. His mother was the principal of the Athione teacher training college, which was then the country's only college for training black pre-school teachers.

In 1973 he left Cape Town for Israel.  Over the next seven years he studied at a number of yeshivot and obtained his semicha (rabbinic ordination) at Machon Ariel in Jerusalem.  Along the way he qualified as a shochet, mohel and chazan – and in 1980 married Zimbabwe-born Valerie Kaplan, a former senior social worker with the UK-based Jewish Care.

In 1982 Mirvis moved to Ireland to become rabbi of Dublin’s Adelaide Road synagogue. This led three years later to his appointment as Chief Rabbi of Ireland. 

In 1991 the UK and Commonwealth acquired a new Chief Rabbi in Jonathan Sacks, who had been serving as rabbi in London’s prestigious Western Marble Arch Synagogue. In a curious example of events casting their shadow before them, Mirvis was adjuged the most suitable candidate to succeed Sacks into the rabbinic post at Marble Arch.

In May 1996, Mirvis was appointed rabbi at the Finchley United Synagogue, also known as Kinloss, in north London.  Under his leadership, the congregation became a powerhouse of educational, social, cultural and religious activity.  A major achievement was to found and direct an innovative community-based adult education programme, the Kinloss Learning Centre, which has become an educational model emulated by many other communities.  Mirvis was also the founder rabbi and honorary principal of Morasha Jewish Primary School.

The role of women in orthodox Judaism is something of a hot potato.  At Finchley Mirvis boldly grasped the issue, and began supporting the expansion of women's roles. In 2012 he appointed Britain's first orthodox female halachic adviser, Lauren Levin.  He also supported Shabbat prayer groups for orthodox women. “This is without women reading from the Torah,” he explained. “But for women to come together as a group to pray, this is a good thing."

Even after succeeding Lord Jonathan Sacks as the UK’s Chief Rabbi, Mirvis pursued his vision of greater female involvement through his Ma’ayan and Neshama programmes.  He was  installed in the post on September 1, 2013 at St John’s Wood United Synagogue in London, in the presence of Charles, then Prince of Wales. 

Incidentally it is recorded that one of Mirvis's first acts as Chief Rabbi was to tweet good wishes to Tottenham Hotspur in that afternoon’s match against Arsenal, followed half an hour later by his thanks to Prince Charles for attending.  Unfortunately for Mirvis, Tottenham lost 1-0.

Mirvis has established a genuine friendship with the British monarch. Like Charles, inclusivity is an instinctive trait of Mirvis’s personality, explaining both his pursuit of a larger role for women in the administration of orthodox Judaism and his approach to non-orthodox Jewish movements. “I made it clear on becoming Chief Rabbi,” he is reported as saying, “that I would never publicly criticise non-orthodox Jews. I have good relations with progressive groups, we speak diplomatically and effectively.”

On the same tack his pursuit of improving inter-faith relations is entirely in line with King Charles’s deep interest in supporting the many faiths now represented within the population of the UK.  For this, and a host of other reasons, the monarch clearly has a soft spot for Mirvis. 

Charles’s coronation was scheduled to take place in Westminster Abbey on Saturday, May 6, 2023.  The problem Mirvis and his wife would face in actually reaching the Abbey without using a vehicle was no sooner put to the King than he invited the couple to stay with him and Queen Camilla at Clarence House, within reasonable walking distance (I reckon I could manage it in under half an hour).  Said Mirvis: “It was a lovely gesture from the King and Queen Consort to invite us to stay. They are providing a kosher caterer and making all the Shabbat preparations.”

Sir Ephraim Mirvis is a Chief Rabbi with whom Britain and the Commonwealth can be well content – a man of principle, unafraid to speak out in favour of the things he believes are right and good.  No-one could be more worthy of elevation to knighthood.

Turkey seeks economic stability

 

          Turkey’s economy is in a bad way.  In June the budget deficit, seven times higher than a year earlier, reached 219.6 billion lira ($8.37 billion). The forecast for July shows it widening still further.

On July 16 Turkey raised the tax on gasoline, adding to the recent two percent increase to VAT (value added tax) and five percent hike to corporation tax. Aimed at tackling the budget deficit, those tax hikes will have the deleterious side-effect of stoking inflation, which stood at 38 percent in June.  Two days after the tax hike, the Turkish lira weakened to a record low of 26.6 against the dollar.

On July 17 Turkey’s newly re-elected president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, hoping to capitalize on his recent diplomatic efforts at repairing ties with the Gulf states, landed in Saudi Arabia.  He was on a mission to shore up his country’s economy through new trade deals. “This visit has two main topics” he told a news conference at an Istanbul airport before setting off,“investments and a financial dimension. We have high hopes for both.”

           Accompanied by an entourage of some 200 business people, the first stage of his three-stop tour was the Red Sea city of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.   Since the deal had already been made, it was no surprise to Erdogan that the next day Saudi agreed to boost Turkey’s struggling economy by way of a major contract.

Erdogan and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) attended the signing ceremony between the Saudi defense ministry and the Turkish defense firm Baykar. In a tweet, the company’s CEO, Haluk Bayraktar, said the deal covered the export to Saudi Arabia of the Bayraktar Akinci plus the necessary technical cooperation, and called it “the biggest defense and aviation export contract in the history of the Turkish Republic.” 

The Bayraktar Akinci is a high-altitude long-endurance unmanned combat aerial vehicle, equipped with dual artificial intelligence avionics.  It is, in other words, a highly sophisticated drone.

Saudi Arabia is acquiring it, according to its defense minister Prince Khalid bin Salman, "with the aim of enhancing the readiness of the kingdom's armed forces and bolstering its defense and manufacturing capabilities."  No doubt Saudi’s newly acquired friend, Iran, took note of this addition to Saudi's military capability, together with its Houthi proxies who have been launching missiles into Saudi Arabia from Yemen since 2017.  The deal has the added advantage of boosting MBS’s ambitious Saudi Vision 2030 plan, aimed at diversifying the kingdom's economy away from oil.

Before Erdogan moved on to the next leg of his expedition, Turkey and Saudi Arabia signed several memoranda of understanding (MoU) in sectors including energy, real estate, defense and direct investments.  Erdogan left a further clutch of signed MoU’s in his wake as he rounded off his three-country tour of the Gulf.  Turkey and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) signed deals worth $50.7 billion  – “to further cement ties between the UAE and Turkey,” as UAE finance minister Mehmet Simsek tweeted.  The agreements involve export financing, earthquake bonds, energy, defense and other sectors.

In the long-term Erdogan’s trade and financial deals in the Gulf will certainly play a part in restoring Turkey’s economic balance, but they are unlikely to have a significant effect in the short term  Which may explain Erdogan’s sudden, and certainly unexpected, U-turn on his veto on Sweden’s membership of NATO.

NATO’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, announced the decision on July 10 from Vilnius, Lithuania, where the alliance was preparing to open its annual summit. 

The deal, said Stoltenberg, was that Tukey’s president had lifted his objections to Sweden’s entry into the alliance while, in return, NATO would establish a new “special coordinator for counterterrorism.”  The comparative freedom that Sweden allows its Kurdish minority, among whom Erdogan is regarded negatively, was a major factor in Erdogan’s veto.

There was an additional dimension to the deal, said Stoltenberg.   Sweden and Turkey would continue to work bilaterally against terrorism, and Sweden would help Turkey renew its application to enter the European Union (EU), first made in 1987. 

Turkey’s accession talks stalled in 2016 over the EU's concerns about human rights violations and subverting the rule of law, Turkey would need to demonstrate significant improvements in both areas before EU membership could become practical politics.  Nevertheless, in the light of Erdogan’s evident desire to re-open its EU application, on July 20 the 27 EU foreign ministers discussed relations with Turkey.  They agreed that the bloc should re-engage with Ankara, but they did not endorse Erdogan’s call to revive its moribund membership bid.

As soon as Erdogan resumed the presidency, he made two new key appointments –Mehmet Simsek as his new finance minister, and Gaye Erkan as governor of the Central Bank, the first woman to hold that position.  Of dual Turkish and UK nationality, Simsek’s career includes a period working for Merrill Lynch, the investment and wealth management division of Bank of America.  Erkan is a dual Turkish-US citizen, and her background includes a spell with Goldman Sachs. the multinational investment and financial services bank.

The flow of foreign exchange into Turkey has been insufficient to meet the nation’s needs, and Turkey will need to find new external debt channels. Simsek and Erkan have been brought in to address precisely this issue.  The goals are to achieve strong economic output, reduce inflation, ensure looser capital restrictions, stabilize the exchange rate, and protect purchasing power.

One area that will cause few headaches to the two new brooms are Turco-Israeli economic relations. Trade between the two nations is flourishing, and indeed it continued to flourish throughout the serious political crises that have arisen between them over the past decade and more.  Now it is positively booming.

Total trade volume between Turkey and Israel in 2021 was approximately $8 billion (29 billion shekels) – the highest in the history of the two countries to that point.  But trade continued to mushroom, and the 2021 annual record was broken in the first ten months of 2022, with a total trade volume of $8.6 billion (31 billion shekels). Some 80% of that trade is represented by Turkish exports to Israel.

            This will no doubt be a cause for mutual congratulation when Erdogan eventually meets prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his projected trip to Turkey, postposed on account of health and domestic issues. 

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 8 August 2023:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-753990

Published in Eurasia Review, 11 August 2023:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/11082023-turkey-seeks-economic-stability-oped/#:~:text=Turkey's%20economy%20is%20in%20a,shows%20it%20widening%20still%20further.

Published in the MPC Journal, 12 August 2023:

https://mpc-journal.org/turkey-seeks-economic-stability/

Is PA-Hamas unity possible?

 

In Ankara on July 26 Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, hosted Palestinian Authority (PA) president, Mahmoud Abbas, and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in a “behind closed doors” meeting.  Although nominally secret, details of the discussion seem to have been leaked to local media.  Reports emerged that Hamas and the Fatah-dominated PA – at daggers drawn for decades – had agreed to hold talks aimed at reconciliation.

            “Reconciliation”, often used in this context, is a misnomer.  It implies that at one time two parties were unified, that they then split from each other but are now being brought back together.  In the case of Hamas and Fatah, nothing could be further from the truth. From its earliest days Hamas saw itself as a rival to Fatah. 

   In the Islamist world – fierce, bloody and fratricidal – many of the extremist groups are in bitter conflict with one another, sometimes along the traditional Sunni-Shia divide. The Hamas-Fatah conflict is little concerned with religious doctrine, and not at all with basic political objectives.  Both organizations are Sunni Muslim; both are pledged to restore to Islamic rule the whole of Mandate Palestine, including the area currently occupied by the state of Israel. Their fundamental disagreement is over the strategy for achieving their common purpose, and their struggle is a struggle for power within the Palestinian body politic.

Hamas is a child of the Muslim Brotherhood, which had gained a strong foothold in the Gaza Strip following the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948. The Hamas organization came into being in 1987, soon after the start of the first intifada masterminded by the Fatah leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Yasser Arafat.  

Calling itself the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas aimed to create an Islamic alternative to Arafat’s secular nationalist movement.  Its first communiqué, issued on December 14, 1987, spelled out the difference.  It asserted that Palestine is a Waqf land held in trust for all Muslims till Judgment Day, and that no part of it can be ceded to Israel or any non-Muslim entity. It called for the liberation of Palestine through “holy jihad”.

Opposed to Israel’s very existence, Hamas had no time for peace talks in any form.  It utterly rejected the first Oslo Accord agreement of 1993, appalled by the PLO’s recognition of the state of Israel.  It regarded Arafat as a traitor to the Palestinian cause.

On 5 September 1993, shortly after the Oslo terms were announced, Hamas issued its Leaflet 102 condemning both the agreement and the PLO leadership:

        “We will therefore insist on wrecking this agreement, and continue the resistance struggle and our jihad against the occupation power… The leadership of Arafat carries the responsibility for destroying Palestinian society and for sowing the seeds of discord and division among Palestinians.”

        Hamas was unimpressed by the PA’s “play it long” policy of pressing for recognition of a sovereign Palestine within the pre-Six Day War boundaries, as the first stage in a strategy ultimately designed to gain control of the whole of Mandate Palestine. This strategy was, in fact, spelled out by Arafat in a secret meeting with top Arab diplomats in Stockholm's Grand Hotel on January 30, 1996: "We Palestinians will take over everything, including all of Jerusalem," he said, adding that the PLO plans "to eliminate the State of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian State.”

        To win over world opinion to the Palestinian cause Arafat’s successor, Abbas, has given lip-service to the two state solution, but it is anathema to Hamas because it would consolidate Israel’s position on what they regard as Palestinian soil. Equally they have rejected all the efforts by Abbas to gain international recognition for a state of Palestine.  In fact rejectionism is Hamas’s uncompromising stance.  It will have no truck with any “step by step” strategy. Armed struggle is its policy.  Any temporary truce must yield positive results.

This fundamental difference about the most effective route to reach their common objective lies at the heart of the perpetual Hamas-Fatah conflict. but there are others. Both are engaged in a battle for the hearts and minds of the Palestinian population, and Hamas makes no secret of its aspiration to replace Fatah as the governing body of the West Bank. Sometimes it chooses to acknowledge Abbas as Palestinian leader; sometimes it has refused to recognize him as PA president at all, on the grounds that his presidential mandate, granted in 2005, was for a four-year term which has long expired.

Hamas has, moreover, consistently attempted to undermine his PA administration by forming militant cells in the West Bank aimed at launching attacks on Israel. In this connection it vehemently opposes the security coordination between the PA and Israel in the West Bank – Israel’s guarantee of continued PA control – which Abbas once described as “sacred”.

            To say there is a feeling of déjà vu about the announcement emanating from Ankara on July 26 is to say no more than the obvious. Wikipedia, in its on-line website “Fatah-Hamas reconciliation process”, lists no less than 15 separate efforts since 2005 to bring the two major Palestinian political groupings together.

            Wikipedia chooses 2005 as its starting date because it was Israel’s pull-out from Gaza in August 2005 that initiated the process leading to Hamas’s takeover of the Gaza Strip and its truly decisive break with Fatah. 

The Palestinian elections of 2006 rewarded Hamas with the largest share of seats.  Abbas, representing the PLO – acknowledged to be “the sole representative of the Palestinian people” – attempted to form a unity government including Hamas.  But when he asserted that his new government would be fully aligned with the requirements set out by the Quartet, Hamas pulled out.  The Quartet, set up in 2002, comprised the UN, the EU, the US and Russia, and was mandated to help mediate Middle East peace negotiations. 

          Their conditions required, among other things, recognition of Israel and a commitment to nonviolence, neither of which accorded with Hamas’s beliefs or intentions.  Hamas chose instead to seize power in the Gaza Strip by initiating an armed coup, which saw Fatah officials and fighters ejected amid gunfire, with many killed.

History shows that the chasm between the two organizations goes back to the very founding of Hamas, and that not one of the innumerable attempts to bring them together has succeeded. PA-Hamas unity would become a reality on the day that the self-styled “State of Palestine” forfeits its standing in the UN by turning jihadist, or that Hamas decides to support the two state solution and recognize that Israel has a legitimate place in the Middle East. 

Published in the Jerusalem Post, I August 2023, and in the Jerusalem Post on-line as "Is unity between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority possible?":
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-753195

Published in Eurasia Review, 6 August 2023:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/04082023-is-unity-between-hamas-and-the-palestinian-authority-possible-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 6 August 2023

https://mpc-journal.org/is-unity-between-hamas-and-the-palestinian-authority-possible/