Lebanon's future

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 19 November 2024

          No doubt Israel would ideally like to see Hezbollah completely removed as a military presence in Lebanon, and its dominance within the nation’s political life ended. Neither seems fully achievable in the present circumstances.

          Hezbollah is a significant presence within Lebanon. Its military strength and capabilities are larger and more powerful than Lebanon’s armed forces. It draws popular support from its vast network of schools, clinics, youth programs, and other social services.

          Financed partly by Iran, it is also funded by sympathetic Lebanese business interests, by the business enterprises that it runs itself, and via the financial institutions that launder the money it earns from organized criminal activities, including narcotics trafficking and counterfeiting European currency.

          Politically, also, it is a force to be reckoned with. The group has participated in Lebanese elections since 1992. It entered the cabinet for the first time in 2005 and has held seats in each Lebanese government since. The situation in which current government is an interim one, and the country lacks a president, is very largely, though not entirely, the result of Hezbollah manipulation. Although Israeli policymakers want to clip Hezbollah’s political wings, they know better than to become entangled in the arcane complexities of Lebanon’s political system.

          In any case, there is every sign that the Lebanese themselves are becoming disillusioned with Hezbollah. An Arab Barometer survey published in September found that 70% of the Lebanese population does not trust Hezbollah, and the 30% who do are almost entirely Shi’ite citizens. Only 9% of Sunnis and Druze, and just 6% of Christians have any trust in Hezbollah.

          The best that Israel can hope for in the short term is to push Hezbollah’s armed forces far enough from the border to allow the displaced Israeli families of the North to return to their homes.

          Lebanon's Litani river runs north to south through the country, then takes a sharp turn toward the Mediterranean sea. Hezbollah operates from the territory between the river and Israel’s northern border, known as the Blue Line. Varying in width between 6 and 28 km., it also houses 10,000 UNIFIL troops engaged in ineffective attempts to control an openly defiant Hezbollah.

          A word about the Blue Line: Since Lebanon never signed a peace treaty with Israel after the Arab-Israeli war of 1948, no international border separating them has ever been agreed. In 2000, however, a demarcation line was drawn by the UN to confirm Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon following the 1978 and 1982 conflicts.

          Along certain sections, UNIFIL has marked the position of the line on the ground with blue barrels – more than 270 of them – giving rise to the “Blue Line” designation.

Stretching for about 120 km. from the Mediterranean coast in the west up to the Golan Heights in the east, it has been serving as a de facto border.

         On October 30, Lebanon’s MTV website reported that intensive ceasefire talks had been taking place led by Amos Hochstein, US President Joe Biden’s special envoy to Lebanon.

As a result, the website claimed, Hezbollah had agreed to move all its weapons to north of the Litani and establish a demilitarized zone in the area south of the river.

          It also claimed that Hezbollah was no longer insisting on being directly connected to events in Gaza. The group’s late leader, Hassan Nasrallah, had insisted that Hezbollah’s assault on Israel was in support of Hamas, and that a ceasefire in Lebanon would be tied to a ceasefire in Gaza.

          Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri is reported to have insisted that the terms of UN Resolution 1701 must be the basis of any agreement: “It’s out of the question to change the wording of UN Resolution 1701 even by one word,” he said. Hochstein has been traveling between Lebanon and Israel seeking an agreement that abides by the resolution.

          Adopted unanimously in 2006, UN Security Council Resolution 1701 notably does not mention Hezbollah. It refers directly only to the two UN member states, Lebanon and Israel, maintaining the fiction that Lebanon is in a position to control rogue militias operating within its sovereign territory. In the UN’s fantasy world, the Lebanese government can order Hezbollah to stop attacking Israel and enforce its order.

          So the resolution calls for all armed groups in Lebanon to be disarmed, maintaining that the only armed force in the country must be that of the Lebanese state. As for an agreed border between Israel and Lebanon, the resolution says that ultimately it is up to the states concerned to determine its exact path but that in the interim the Blue Line must be respected. UNIFIL was charged with ensuring compliance.

          That, of course, was where the well-intentioned resolution failed. Like the Lebanese government, UNIFIL found itself impotent against the rampant Hezbollah military machine. Starting on October 8, 2023, Hezbollah started firing missiles indiscriminately into Israel. With tens of thousands of residents being evacuated from their homes, the least Israel could do was to try to deter Hezbollah by meeting fire with fire.

          At the same time, Israel began effectively weakening both Hezbollah and Hamas by eliminating its leaders, destroying its command and control centers, and depleting its manpower. Now, with the whole of Hezbollah’s senior command structure, including its long-time leader Nasrallah, removed, the organization may well be prepared to negotiate a deal.

          Hochstein must have been heartened to receive a call from president-elect Donald Trump on November 8. Israeli media, quoting a Lebanese MTV channel report, said Trump told him: “Go and finish your work and make a deal with Lebanon.”

          On November 11, the media reported that Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer had flown to the US for talks with senior White House officials regarding a Hezbollah-Israel ceasefire deal.

Washington officials had already confirmed that there had been progress in the Hochstein-led discussions. “The chances are increasing for a settlement in Lebanon,” they told Ynet.

          Then on November 13, The Washington Post reported that Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, had been told by one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s close aides that Israel is intent on finalizing a ceasefire deal in Lebanon. The idea is to provide an early foreign policy win to the president-elect as he assumes office. Two days later, sure enough, Reuters reported that the US ambassador to Lebanon, Lisa Johnson, had submitted a draft truce proposal to Lebanon’s speaker Berri.

          As the saying goes: “Half a loaf is better than no bread.” If the half-loaf includes an end to Hezbollah’s missiles and its troops being removed to north of the Litani river, then it is a compromise worth accepting.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem Post online titled: "How will Hezbollah factor into Lebanon's future?", 19 November 2024:

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-829692

Behind the Iran-Israel conflict

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 12 November 2024 

However many charges of aggression, mass murder and worse the Iranian regime chooses to level against Israel, there is no disguising the fact that it is Iran that seeks to destroy Israel, not the other way around. 

On April 13, 2024 Iran – which essentially means the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – committed a major strategic blunder.  Israel’s audacious attack on the Iranian diplomatic compound in Damascus on April 1, 2024 had taken out seven Iranian military advisers, including Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior commander in the élite Quds Force of the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps).  Such an operation would normally have provoked Iranian ire and an armed response on northern Israel from Hezbollah.  Not on this occasion.  Instead the incident was used as the trigger for a fundamental shift in Iranian policy which has led to negative consequences for Iran. They are still to be fully worked through and may, in the final analysis, prove existential.   

  

         For 45 years – namely, since its foundation in 1979 – the Iranian regime had pursued its self-imposed mission of encompassing the destruction of Israel and its people through funding, arming and supporting organizations, groups and militias prepared to attack the Jewish state. At some point in the period leading up to April 13 Khamenei decided that the time had arrived to change tack. It must have been intense analysis and calculation by his advisers that led him to break the principle that had guided Iran’s foreign strategy for so long, and finally launch Iran’s very first direct onslaught on Israel.

  How must the figuring have gone?  “Israel has never been weaker.  It is bogged down in its war in Gaza.  It hasn’t succeeded in eliminating Hamas or recovering its remaining hostages.  It is being condemned on all sides for vast numbers of civilian deaths. Hezbollah is attacking it daily on its northern border.  Houthi missiles are getting through its defenses. It is the subject of an investigation by the International Court of Justice on a charge of genocide.  Imagine the effect of a direct Iranian attack.  Think of bombs falling on Israeli cities.  Think of Israelis in their hundreds slaughtered and injured.  Israel will be humbled.  The Abraham Accords will disintegrate, and any hope of their extension will be snuffed out.” 

Khamenei’s military advisers must have convinced him that a massive fleet of kamikaze UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) would overwhelm Israel’s defenses, and at least some 50% of the missiles would get through. The aerial assault involved hundreds of drones, cruise and ballistic missiles.  

In the event Khamenei’s anticipated military and propaganda triumph turned into a humiliation.  What Iran’s military strategists perhaps failed to take into account was the united support of Israel’s allies, and Iran's own unpopularity in the Arab world (Iranians may be Muslim, but they are not Arabs).  They surely did not count on Jordan and Saudi Arabia helping to block Iran's UAVs from reaching Israel, nor that the UK and France would join the US in backing Israel's Iron Dome in shooting down the Iranian missiles. 

Their subsequent failure was to underestimate both the chutzpah and effectiveness of Israel’s security and armed forces. Following the aerial assault of April 13, the Iranians were taken by surprise time and again. Within a week Israel had responded with airstrikes on Iranian military sites in Syria and Iran itself, while against a background of continuing tit-for-tat skirmishes, Israel pursued its hunt for the Hamas leaders responsible for the barbaric attack of October 7, and the Hezbollah leaders who supported them.

The targeted elimination of Mohammed Deif, head of Hamas’s military wing, on July 13 was followed by the even more telling retribution visited on Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas’s political wing.  In an especial humiliation for the regime, he was killed in the heart of Iran’s capital, Tehran, by an explosion in his guesthouse, on July 31. 

Then came September 17-18, when hand-held communication devices, such as pagers and walkie-talkies, manufactured specifically for Hezbollah and distributed widely to its operatives, were detonated remotely.  At least 42 fatalities and over 3,000 injuries, the vast majority of them Hezbollah operatives, was the result.  Though Israel made no claim, the world assumed it was responsible.

Albert Einstein is reputed to have said: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.”  Whatever Khamenei's thinking – perhaps he believed his first aerial assault on Israel had been under-powered – he opted for a second, bigger and more focused attempt.  He decided to use some 200 advanced Fattah-1 and Kheibar Shekan missiles, and to target military and intelligence locations. 

In the event this second Iranian attack, launched on October 1, was only marginally more damaging than the first. Once again most missiles were intercepted by Israeli and US defense systems, including support from US naval vessels stationed nearby. 

How and when Israel would retaliate became the subject of intense media speculation. The theorizing was temporarily suspended when Iran’s prize collaborator, the head of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, was shot dead by the IDF on October 16.

While welcoming the news as “a good day for Israel, for the United States, and for the world,” US President Joe Biden made it clear that he did not want Israel to target Iran’s nuclear and oil installations for fear of triggering all-out war.  

When it came, Israel’s response, delivered on October 25, respected his wish and consisted of heavy air strikes on Iranian military targets in Syria and on Hezbollah’s military infrastructure. 

So Israel and Iran are undoubtedly in conflict, if not formally at war.  Anyone who cares to look into the matter can see why no truce can be meaningful. 

The objective of the Iranian regime, from its foundation in 1979, has been to acquire as much power and influence as possible in order to achieve the key objectives laid down by the regime’s original Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. He affirmed repeatedly that the very purpose of his revolution was to destroy Western-style democracy and its way of life, and to impose Shia Islam on the whole world.  He identified the United States and Israel as his prime targets, but included what was then the USSR.

“We wish to cause the corrupt roots of Zionism, Capitalism and Communism to wither throughout the world,” said Khomeini.  “We wish, as does God almighty, to destroy the systems which are based on these three foundations, and to promote the Islamic order of the Prophet.”  By this he meant his strict Shia interpretation of Islam, for elsewhere he had declared that the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, situated in the heart of Sunni Saudi Arabia, were in the hands of “a band of heretics”.

These objectives have driven the regime ever since, and continue to be its raison d’être.  

“We shall export our revolution to the whole world,” declared Khomeini. “Until the cry 'There is no god but Allah' resounds over the whole world, there will be struggle.”

In short, Iran’s leaders want to destroy the world as we know it. They want to achieve political dominance in the Middle East, overthrow Western-style democracy of which America is the prime exponent, wipe out the state of Israel, and impose Shia Islam across the globe. 

 Whether the West wishes to acknowledge it or not, in combatting Iran, Israel is fighting for the free world as a whole. 

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and in the Jerusalem Post online titled: "How Iran's attacks on Israel backfired, escalating regional conflict", 12 Nov 2024:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-828654

BRICS is no friend of Israel

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 4 November 2024

From October 22 to 24, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, as host of the 2024 BRICS summit, welcomed 36 world leaders to Russia .  This conference marked the first gathering of the BRICS group after its expansion to include, alongside the original five members (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), four new members: Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).  Other countries attended as partners or aspiring new members.  The expanded body brings together countries representing approximately 41% of the global population and 24% of the global GDP. 

BRICS aims to promote cooperation among major emerging economies and increase their economic and political influence. Its primary purpose is to provide an alternative to Western-led institutions like the G7 economic grouping.  It seeks to reduce reliance on the US dollar in international trade. The group's aims conform precisely to Putin’s domestic and international aspirations, which he does not seek to conceal.   At an open meeting on October 22, 2022 he said:  ““The unipolar world is being relegated into the past…The West is unable to rule humanity single-handedly, and the majority of nations no longer want to put up with this…. A future world arrangement is taking shape before our eyes.”

   BRICS is the perfect instrument for assisting Putin reach his goal.

   Given the inclusion of Iran and South Africa in its membership, the viscerally anti-Israel stance it has adopted is not, perhaps, surprising.  The summit was held in the Russian city of Kazan, so the statement issued on its conclusion is titled the Kazan Declaration. In it, the BRICS leaders devote 8 of its 35 paragraphs to denouncing Israel in one way or another.

   In paragraph 30, for example, without any reference to the horrifying events of October 7, 2023, or even one mention of the word Hamas, they express “grave concern” at the escalation of violence in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, which they ascribe to “the Israeli military offensive, which led to mass killing and injury of civilians, forced displacement and widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure.”  They call for an immediate ceasefire and the release of all hostages and detainees “from both sides”, drawing no distinction between civilians illegally seized, and people imprisoned for their crimes.

Providing no evidence to support the charge, they denounce “Israeli attacks against humanitarian operations”.  Unsurprisingly they approve of the provisional measures of the International Court of Justice in “the legal proceedings instituted by South Africa against Israel.” They call for a two-state solution based on what they term the “borders of June 1967,” and for the State of Palestine to be granted full membership in the United Nations.

In paragraph 31 the Declaration turns to Lebanon.  Here BRICS members, without once mentioning Hezbollah or making any reference to its ceaseless bombardment of northern Israel starting on October 8, 2023, “condemn the loss of civilian lives and the immense damage to civilian infrastructure resulting from attacks by Israel in residential areas in Lebanon and call for immediate cessation of military acts.”  

They move on to condemn, among other things, what they term “the premeditated terrorist act of detonating handheld communication devices in Beirut on 17 September 2024,” which, they claim, “resulted in the loss of life and injury of dozens of civilians.” They make no mention of the fact that the devices in question had been issued only to Hezbollah members and certain other VIPs like Iran's ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani.

The Kazan Declaration makes it clear that BRICS turns a blind eye toward terrorist activity aimed at eliminating Israel and its people, and has nothing but unreserved condemnation for the steps Israel takes to defend itself.

 The summit was undoubtedly a personal triumph for Putin.  Ostracized and sanctioned by the West, here he was able to straddle the world stage, host to a large gathering of global leaders.  At Kazan Putin demonstrated that he has been rehabilitated personally by a large section of the world, and that an alternative to Western dominance is a real possibility. The topics discussed included how emerging economies could cooperate more fully across a variety of fields. In addition it set the ball rolling on one of Putin’s pet projects – a new international payments system that would undercut the dominance of the US dollar.

The magazine Newsweek believes that the overarching ambition of BRICS leaders such as Putin and China's President XI Jinping is to accelerate and bolster the shift away from America as the sole superpower, and toward a multipolar world that counterbalances the US and its Western allies.

It points out that the Russian economy has managed to readjust following the sanctions imposed after its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.  It has done so with the help of its key partner China, aided also by Iranian weapons supplied for use in Ukraine. Putin is now seeking to expand trade with India through a strategic partnership, particularly in the areas of energy resources and defense.

“These partnerships,” says Newsweek, “are Putin's multipolar vision in practice, undermining the US-led West's ability to exercise its power and enforce its desired global norms through sanctions and other economic and diplomatic levers at its disposal.”  His overall aim is to dismantle the US-led transatlantic and global order so that Russia can exercise greater power regionally and internationally

Allied to the bid by BRICS for economic, financial and political independence from the West is a rejection of the principle, staunchly upheld by the US and most of the free world, that Israel has the right to defend itself against the genocidal and illegal terrorism of Iran and its axis of evil.  In fact, with Iran and South Africa as leading members, it is doubtful if BRICS as an organization regards Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and the Iranian-supported militias in Iraq and Syria as terrorist bodies at all. It is this myopia that underlies its root and branch condemnation of Israel.

  However Israel need not submit to being blackened and isolated.  A closer look at the list of BRICS members reveals the presence of  Abraham Accord partner, the UAE, while hovering in the wings, invited to join but as yet uncertain, is Saudi Arabia.  Other countries enjoying good relations with Israel, such as Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Belarus, are also possible new members.  Putin himself has a nuanced attitude toward Israel – a position that could be affected by the result of the forthcoming US presidential election. 

Self-interest could well override any demand by Iran, South Africa or Turkey (another possible new member) for a permanent anti-Israel stance.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem Post online titled: "BRICS is no friend of Israel amid Putin's strategic vision", 4 November2024:

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-827388

Published in Eurasia Review titled: "BRICS suits Putin but is no friend of Israel", 8 Nov 2024:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/08112024-brics-suits-putin-but-is-no-friend-of-israel-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 13 Nov 2024:

https://mpc-journal.org/brics-suits-putin-but-it-is-no-friend-of-israel/

Compromised UNRWA should be dissolved

 This letter appears in the Daily Telegraph today, 30 October 2024

Sir

     The services that the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) supplies in Gaza are undoubtedly vital, but they should not be provided by UNRWA, a deeply compromised organization (“UNRWA banned from operating within Israel”, report, October 29).

      Around the time the state of Israel came into being, some 750,000 non-Jews left their homes – some from fear of forthcoming conflict, some as a result of fierce exchanges.  After the armistice, the UN set up UNRWA to assist them.  It  began work in May 1950.  Seven months later the UN set up the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), excluding Palestinian refugees from its remit.  Ever since, Palestinians have been treated differently by the UN – to their disadvantage.

       The 1949 UN resolution that established UNRWA said: “Constructive measures should be undertaken at an early date with a view to the termination of international assistance for relief.”  In other words, the new agency’s mission was intended to be temporary, as the refugees under its wing were resettled.  But resettlement never occurred. UNRWA totally ignored this key aspect of its remit.

      On the contrary, UNRWA’s policy was to perpetuate the Palestinians’ refugee status.  It decided to regard as refugees all the “descendants of Palestine refugees” in perpetuity. 

      The number of Palestinians in camps registered by UNRWA as refugees has therefore ballooned from around 750,000 in 1950 to 5.9 million in 2023.  Its expanding client base is, of course, used by the “temporary” UNRWA to justify its transformation into an international bureaucracy with a staff in excess of 30,000 and an annual budget of around $1.6 billion. 

     While UNHCR concentrates on resettling refugees so they can rebuild their lives, UNRWA has converted nearly six million people into permanent charity-dependent clients.

     UNRWA should be dissolved, and its functions absorbed by UNHCR

Neville Teller

Published in the Daily Telegraph, 30 October 2024, titled: "The UN in Gaza":
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2024/10/29/experience-shows-nhs-cant-be-trusted-use-funds-efficiently/

The post-Sinwar scenario

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 28 October 2024

On October 21 two Hamas sources revealed to the media that the idea of appointing a leader to succeed Yahyar Sinwar, assassinated on October 16,  had been ruled out, at least for the present.  The Hamas leadership, operating at arm’s length from Gaza in the gulf state of Qatar, had decided that the organization would be run, at least until March 2025, by the 5-man committee set up in August after the assassination of political leader Ismail Haniyeh. 

The committee, based in Doha, Qatar’s capital city, is comprised of Khalil al-Hayya, Khaled Mashaal, Zaher Jabareen, Mohammed Darwish and the political bureau’s secretary, whose identity remains anonymous for security reasons.

The internal dynamic of the Hamas organization had certainly been severely shaken, yet an informed source, well acquainted with its inner workings, struck an interesting note.  Interviewed by the Associated Press, Sadeq Abu Amer, head of the Turkey-based think tank Palestinian Dialogue Group, believed that the removal of Sinwar, whom he dubbed “one of the most prominent hawks within the movement,” was likely to lead to “the advancement of a trend or direction that can be described as dove[-like]”.  He indicated that with Sinwar out of the picture a hostage-prisoner exchange deal had become practical politics.

            Abu Amer was quick to discount any suggestion that Sinwar’s brother, Mohammed, if he is still alive, could replace him as overall leader of Hamas.  “Mohammed Sinwar is the head of the field battle,” he said, “but he will not be Sinwar’s heir as head of the political bureau.”

Although somewhat off the mark, as it has turned out, he believed that Hamas’s Qatar-based political leaders might decide to elect one of their number to head the organization.  He identified the two front runners as al-Hayya and Khaled Mashaal. 

Al-Hayya, aged 63, was Sinwar’s deputy and headed the Hamas delegation in cease-fire negotiations. In a media interview in April 2024, al-Hayya said Hamas was willing to agree a truce of at least five years with Israel, and that if an independent Palestinian state were created along 1967 borders, the group would dissolve its military wing and become a purely political party.

Mashaal, aged 68, served as the group’s political leader from 1996 to 2017.  Subject of an assassination attempt back in 1997, he now supports the forces opposed to President Bashar al Assad in the 13-year-old civil war still raging in Syria.  Consequently he is not on good terms with Iran, or indeed with Hezbollah.  He has good relations with Turkey and Qatar.

Jabareen, once sentenced to a 35-year prison sentence for the deaths of two Israeli police officers at the Temple Mount, was released on a prisoner exchange.  He headed the 2023 resumption of suicide bombings within Israel.  Mohammed Darwish, also known as Abu Omar Hassan, has been chairman of the Hamas Shura Council since October 2023.

            First reactions to the news of Yahya Sinwar’s death on October 16 reflected hope in many quarters that a ceasefire in Gaza and the return of the hostages was now but a short step away. 

Such immediate expectations seemed to be quickly doused.  The first public statement after Sinwar’s death, made by his Qatar-based deputy al-Hayya, was that there will be no hostage release without “the end of the aggression… and the withdrawal from Gaza.” 

   Israel’s position immediately after Sinwar’s death was nuanced.  The first reaction of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was that the war was not over.   “Evil has suffered a heavy blow,” he said, “ but the task before us is not yet complete.”

Yet in a message issued via the media, Netanyahu offered Hamas terrorists free passage out of the Gaza Strip in exchange for the release of hostages.  Anyone who laid down his arms and returned hostages, said Netanyahu, would be allowed to leave Gaza.

Could this formula provide the basis for a final hostage return deal?  Possibly – provided  Hamas’s new Qatar-based leadership committee is indeed that degree more pragmatic (more “dove-like” as Abu Amer put it) than its hawkish erstwhile leader.   A reassessment of Hamas’s situation and prospects might persuade the leadership that re-siting the organization outside the Gaza Strip might be the most effective way to recoup and recover.  Given the huge losses in manpower that Hamas has already sustained, it is certainly preferable to continue fighting inside Gaza to the last man.

This scenario, if played out, would not sit well with the aspirations of US President Joe Biden, presidential candidate Kamala Harris, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and the many other western leaders who are so free with advice about how Israel should act.  The accepted international view has been that Israel should de-escalate on all fronts. negotiate a hostage-prisoner swap in Gaza involving an Israeli ceasefire, stop its attacks on Hezbollah strongholds in Beirut and the rest of Lebanon, and respond only minimally to Iran’s massive missile launch on Israel of October 1.  In the event Israel's response, though far from minimal, was effectively targeted.

Netanyahu’s policy of slowly but surely eliminating the leadership of the Iran-supported terror armies in Gaza, Lebanon and the rest of the axis of evil, while depleting their manpower and wearing them down, is clearly working.  The West’s continuous advocacy of unenforceable ceasefires, peace deals and de-escalation would never have succeeded.   Against jihadist enemies dedicated to its annihilation, any such appeasement by Israel would have served only to guarantee the continuation of the multi-directional existential threat.

In the strictly limited area of the war in Gaza, however, Sinwar’s disappearance may have opened up a chink of hope.  Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar is reported to have visited Cairo on October 20 to discuss a possible revival of hostage deal negotiations. Two days later US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Israel, where he reiterated his view that Israel should seek to exploit the advantage gained by Sinwar’s assassination and press on with negotiating a hostage deal.  Netanyahu is reported to have concurred.  Blinken went on to Egypt, where reports suggest that discussions included the future administration and rebuilding of Gaza, involving the establishment of an international force to oversee the process.

According to an October 19 report in the Wall Street Journal, Sinwar told Hamas negotiators in Qatar that if he were killed, Israel would offer concessions.  On this, if on nothing else, he was apparently not wrong.  On October 21, media reports indicate, Israel’s TV Channel 12 claimed that Israel had recently indicated to the US that it was ready to make concessions previously not considered feasible.  What such concessions might involve was not mentioned, but they could be based on Netanyahu’s free passage offer. If the report is true, their success might turn on how flexible Hamas’s reconstituted leadership might choose to be in the post-Sinwar era.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem Post online titled: "A post-Sinwar scenario: What's next for Hamas and Israel now?", 28 Oct 2024:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-826351

Published in the Eurasia Review, 1 November 2024:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/01112024-the-post-sinwar-scenario-oped/#google_vignette

Published in the MPC Journal, 3 November 2024:

https://mpc-journal.org/the-post-sinwar-scenario/

Israel stands firm

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 21 October 2024 

Bombarded by missiles from its foes and advice from its friends, Israel has learned to stand firm against both.  Of the two, well-meaning advice, easy to promulgate from the safety of the US, the UK and the capitals of Europe, is the more insidious. 

After all, Israel’s anti-ballistic missile systems, though not one hundred per cent effective, do offer the nation a fair degree of protection.  But apparently humane and virtuous calls to “react proportionately”, “negotiate a ceasefire” and “stop firing in civilian areas” put Israel in the dock in the eyes of the world, charged with over-stepping the mark.

The elimination of Yahya Sinwar on October 17 has, if anything, accelerated the process.  Already US president Joe Biden, presidential candidate Kamala Harris, and figures like UK prime minister Keir Starmer are calling for what amounts to a unilateral Israeli ceasefire, together with an unenforceable demand that Hamas release the remaining hostages.  Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reaction to Sinwar’s death was “the war is not over”. 

The purveyors of well-intentioned advice to Israel seem to ignore the oft-stated intention of Iran and its satellites in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq to eliminate the Jewish state and its people.  Israel’s friends often appear to discount the fact that the nation has been fighting for its very existence from the moment it was established, and that the fight is far from won.  And they either fail to appreciate, or simply do not believe, that Iran has the West and its democratic way of life in its sights just as much as Israel, and that in battling the Iranian octopus Israel is fighting for the West as much as for its own continued existence. 

This lack of perspective has marked much of Biden’s reaction to the rapidly deteriorating situation in the Middle East.  Biden had grown increasingly frustrated as Netanyahu appeared to brush off his advice and reject his attempts at reducing the prospect of escalation. Until October 9, when a phone call was arranged between him and Netanyahu, the two leaders had not spoken for 49 days.  

Word is that Biden was angered at Israel’s failure to provide advance warning of either the exploding pager operation (for which Israel has never claimed responsibility), or the assassination of Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah.  On October 1, 2024, Iran launched 200 ballistic missiles at Israeli targets, and Biden was determined not to be left in the dark about how Netanyahu planned to respond – hence their 30-minute telephone conversation.

Washington has remained tight-lipped about what they said to each other. Vice President Kamala Harris joined the call, but in a TV interview afterwards refused to provide any details, describing it as “classified”.   The most she would say was “It was an important call.”

 One visitor to the White House at the time of the conversation was Irish Taoiseach Simon Harris, in Washington to mark 100 years of US-Ireland diplomatic ties.

He told reporters that Biden “left me in no doubt” that his call with Netanyahu was “a conversation of substance and of depth, in terms of actions that Israel needs to take, in terms of aid, humanitarian aid, in terms of bringing about a ceasefire,” presumably in Gaza.

 Reported by CNN, “actions that Israel needs to take” is a direct quote by Harris, and it betrays the mindset of those who regard Israel as an ally but fail to appreciate that Israel’s best interests as perceived from Washington or London are different, sometimes radically so, from the view from Jerusalem.  A valid question is, who is better able to assess Israel’s best interests – well-meaning friends or Israel itself?

On October 8 the journal Commentary turned the issue of Biden’s frustration with Israel on its head.  His problem, the magazine pointed out, was not Israel’s defiance. It was Iran’s .

Israel resisted going into Gaza, it said, until Hamas got tired of waiting and invaded Israel instead. Nor did Israel go into Lebanon until, by way of Hezbollah’s missile campaign, Iran made clear that it would be the only way to return displaced Israelis to their homes in the north.  Iran-backed attacks, the journal said, have continued also from Iraq and Yemen, as well as from Iran itself.

“Nobody has been asking Biden or Harris why the Iranians don’t listen to them,” the journal commented, going on to observe that Qatar doesn’t follow US advice, nor does Egypt, Turkey or the Palestinian Authority. We only seem to ask about US influence, says Commentary, in connection with “the one country under assault and surrounded by genocidal enemies: Israel.”

On October 15 news broke of a letter from Washington, dated two days previously,  stating that if Israel did not significantly increase humanitarian aid to Gaza within the following thirty days, some unpleasant, though unspecified, action would follow.  The thirty days encompass the date of the forthcoming US presidential election, and whether the letter is in any way related to that momentous event is anybody’s guess.

            The prestigious British journal The Spectator carried an article on October 4 headlined: “”Why Israel was right to ignore international advice”.  It begins by setting down the picture of recent evens in the Middle East as purveyed to the UK public.

     “If you follow most of the British media,” says the author, Douglas Murray, “you may well think that the past year involves the following events: Israel attacked Hamas, Israel invaded Lebanon, Israel bombed Yemen. Oh and someone left a bomb in a room in Tehran that killed the peaceful Palestinian leader Ismail Haniyeh.

“Of course,” he continues, “all this is an absolute inversion of the truth. Hamas invaded Israel, so Israel attacked Hamas. Hezbollah has spent the past year sending thousands of rockets into Israel, so Israel has responded by destroying Hezbollah. The Houthis in Yemen — now so beloved of demonstrators in the UK — sent missiles and drones hundreds of miles to attack Israel, so Israel bombed the Houthis’ arms stores in Yemen. And Hamas leader Haniyeh…never brought the Palestinian people anything but misery.”

     As Murray  observes: “ All this time the governments in Britain and America have given the Israelis advice which mercifully they did not listen to. Earlier this year, Kamala Harris warned that the IDF shouldn’t go into Hamas’s Gaza stronghold in Rafah.  Fortunately the Israelis did not listen to Kamala’s beginners’ guide to Rafah. They went into the Hamas stronghold, continued to search for the hostages, continued to kill Hamas’s leadership and continued to destroy the rocket and other ammunition stores that Hamas has built up for 18 years.”

The nub of Murray’s argument is: “The wisdom of the international community is that ceasefires are always desirable, that negotiated settlements are always to be desired, and that violence is never the answer. As so often, these wise international voices have no idea what they are talking about.  Israel’s enemies have spent the past year trying to destroy it, as they have so many times before. But it is they who have gone to the dust, with the regime in Tehran the only thing that is, for the time being, still standing…Sometimes you need war to make peace. Sometimes there is a price to pay for trying to finish the work of Adolf Hitler.”

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Why Israel ignores international advice and focuses on its survival", 21 Oct 2024

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-825363

 

 

           

UNIFIL – as ineffective as ever

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 14 October 2024

            “The force has repeatedly failed its mission and squandered its credibility” – that is the uncompromising verdict on UNIFIL in the Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s paper of August 24, 2024.

The supreme irony of the situation lies in the very title of the body – the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon.  Never was an organization less interim than UNIFIL.  Today, 46 years after it was established by the UN Security Council, it is still in place.  Originally a 4,500-strong peacekeeping mission, it now comprises some 10,000 troops drawn from up to 50 countries.  And, irony on irony, the one thing the interim force has failed to do throughout its 46 years is keep the peace.

          A glance at the map of Lebanon shows the Litani river running north to south down the country, and then taking a sharp right-hand turn toward the Mediterranean.  The territory lying between the river and the Lebanon-Israel border to its south, varying in width between 6 and 28 km, is where the numerous UNIFIL bases are located.

Expelled from Jordan in 1970, the PLO under Yasser Arafat settled itself in Lebanon.  It took control of the southern region, turned it into a militarized zone, and used it as a base for attacking Israel.  On March 11, 1978 a PLO group landed by sea near Tel Aviv and hijacked a bus on the Coastal Highway. They then went on a shooting rampage, killing 38 Israeli civilians, including 13 children, and wounding over 70 others.  Three days later Israel invaded Lebanon in an effort to push the PLO back over the Litani and away from its northern border.

In response the UN Security Council (UNSC) called on Israel to withdraw, and set up UNIFIL.  Its remit was to confirm Israel’s withdrawal, restore peace and security, and assist Lebanon’s government regain effective authority in the south – a rather difficult aspiration, since Lebanon was then three years into its long-running civil war – a power struggle between Shia and Sunni Muslims, Christians and Palestinians.

 Following the arrival of UNIFIL, Israeli withdrew from most of the territory it had occupied. It left its Christian militia allies, the South Lebanon Army (SLA), in control of a strip of territory well south of the Litani river, in which they established a "security zone".  This they maintained until Israel’s full withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000.

Despite the presence of UNIFIL, which seemed incapable of exercising any sort of control, the PLO quickly reestablished itself south of the Litani, and continued launching cross-border attacks and rocket fire into northern Israel. In response, Israel conducted air raids and artillery strikes on Palestinian positions.  

Then, on June 3, 1982 in the center of London, a breakaway Palestinian terrorist group attempted to assassinate the Israeli ambassador to the UK, Shlomo Argov.  He was critically injured, and was in a coma for three months.  The incident was sufficient to trigger a large-scale military operation against the PLO, undertaken in coordination with Lebanese Christian militias.

          Israeli troops crossed the Lebanese border, advanced up the country and soon reached Beirut. Once there they captured PLO headquarters and ordered the PLO out of the country. 

The departure of the PLO did not, unfortunately, mean that UNIFIL could be disbanded.  For it was in that same year, 1982, that Hezbollah was founded, with the active support of Iran and its IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps).  Its prime declared purpose was to remove Israel, and all other foreign entities, from Lebanese soil. 

          UNIFIL’s mandate did not directly include confronting non-state militias – a factor that has doubtless contributed to UNFILF’s ineffectiveness over the years. Hezbollah, on the other hand, while never formally engaging with UNIFIL, has consistently obstructed or interfered with its activities. Ever since 2020, Hezbollah has been establishing and strengthening its military footprint in the heart of UNIFIL’s area of operations. Worse, in June 2007, a car bomb killed six UNIFIL members and wounded two others. In December 2022, five Hezbollah-linked militants were charged with conspiracy and murder in a shooting attack that killed an Irish UNIFIL peacekeeper and injured three others.

          On July 12, 2006, Hezbollah operatives ambushed an IDF patrol along the Israel-Lebanon border, killing eight soldiers and kidnapping two others. Israel responded with precision air strikes on Hezbollah assets, prompting the launch over the next month of some 4,000 Katyusha rockets targeting northern Israeli cities.

Passed in August 2006, UNSC Resolution 1701 ended the hostilities, expanded UNIFIL, required Lebanon to assert its sovereignty in the south, forbade the rearming of terrorist groups, and required the “unconditional release” of the kidnapped soldiers — whose bodies Hezbollah only returned as part of a 2008 prisoner exchange with Israel.

UNIFIL was either incapable or unwilling to exercise its expanded powers.  As a result its presence in ever-increasing numbers has done nothing to prevent Hezbollah taking over the whole of south Lebanon, and allowing it to become the world’s most heavily armed non-state actor, with much of its arsenal concentrated in UNIFIL’s area of operations.

UNIFIL’s mandate has to be renewed on an annual basis. During a visit to Israel in late November 2023, Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto called for a “thorough re-evaluation” of UNIFIL’s mission,

citing cross-border attacks on Israel by Hezbollah as an indication that it was not working as intended. The “rules of engagement need to change,” he said.  Nevertheless in August UNFIL’s mandate was again renewed with no significant changes beyond a renewed emphasis on the need for coordination between UNIFIL and the Lebanese government.  Once again Hezbollah did not feature in the resolution.

There are some 10,000 UNIFIL troops deployed across southern Lebanon.  They have done virtually nothing to control the persistent bombardment of Israel over the past year, or to fulfil their remit to push Hezbollah north of the Litani. Since Hamas attacked Israel from Gaza on October 7, 2023, up to 80,000 residents of northern Israel have had to evacuate their homes.  There could therefore have been little surprise in UNIFIL headquarters when, on September 30, the IDF notified the force commander of their intention to undertake limited ground incursions into Lebanon.  

Jean-Pierre Lacroix, the UN undersecretary-general for peace operations, told reporters that UNIFIL will remain in its positions in south Lebanon despite Israel’s request that it vacates some areas before it launched its ground operation against Hezbollah. 

          By staying put all UNIFIL is doing is to expose its troops to possible collateral death or injury, and indeed two peacekeepers were injured when IDF fire damaged a UNIFIL observation post on October 9.   

In short, having failed notably over decades to fulfil its peacekeeping mission, UNIFIL  now has units scattered across a battlefield, and has turned into a positive liability.  As Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the people of Lebanon in his TV talk on October 8, a peaceful future for Lebanon depends on freeing themselves from the burden of Hezbollah.   For Lebanon once again to enjoy peace and a positive future, Israel’s effort to overcome Hezbollah needs to succeed.  

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and Jerusalem Post online titled: "UNIFIL is ineffective and fails to fulfill its peacekeeping mission", 14 October 2024:

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-824433

Published in Eurasia Review, 18 October 2024:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/18102024-unifil-as-ineffective-as-ever-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 21 October 2024

https://mpc-journal.org/unifil-as-ineffective-as-ever/

             

Al-Sisi’s winning streak

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 8 October 2024

Egypt’s 69-year-old president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, enters the post-Nasrallah era on a high.  Not only did he succeed in pulling his nation from the brink of financial collapse earlier in the year, but he has managed to achieve a new strategic partnership with the EU and also place his country in pole position in the delicate US-led Gaza ceasefire negotiations.

The one cloud on his horizon is the devastation wrought by the Houthis on Egypt’s income from the Suez Canal. The Houthis’ continuous attacks on shipping in the south of the Red Sea has led many commercial shipping lines to avoid the Suez Canal and take the long Atlantic route to and from Asia and the Far East. In July 2024 the Suez Canal Authority posted a $2 billion loss of income, year on year.  The situation is an added incentive for Egypt to facilitate a ceasefire in Gaza as speedily as possible.           

The year started well for al-Sisi. Having won the presidential election held in December 2023 on a reported 89.6% of the vote, he was inaugurated for another term on April 2, his tenure assured until 2030.  An even longer period in office is not out of the question; it only requires Egypt’s constitution to be amended in the interim.

 When al-Sisi assumed the presidency in 2014, having ousted his Muslim Brotherhood predecessor, the Egyptian constitution mirrored that of the US – namely, the presidential term of office was four years, and no president could serve more than two terms.  In 2019 al-Sisi persuaded parliament to approve amendments to the constitution that extended the presidential term from four to six years and to prolong to 2024 his second term in office, due to end in 2022.

The two years leading up to the presidential election witnessed what has been termed the worst economic crisis in Egypt’s history.  The turn of the year 2024 marked a turn in al-Sisi’s fortunes.   The first few months saw him negotiating a succession of loans, grants and deals totaling more than $50 billion, clearing the nation’s dollar shortage and eliminating any immediate risk of default.  

The first of these deals, signed in February 2024, was with a consortium based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that agreed to pay $35 billion to develop 40,000 acres of virgin land on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast, known as Ras El Hekma, into a luxury tourist destination together with a financial center and a free zone. 

 An $8 billion bailout from the IMF (International Monetary Fund) had been on the stocks since December 2022, held up while the IMF’s onerous terms and conditions were hammered out and agreed.   In March Egypt finally signed up to it.  The deal was dependent on al-Sisi imposing a tranche of austerity measures on the nation, a revaluation of the currency, a new exchange rate regime, and fiscal policy restraint. 

Two weeks later the World Bank guaranteed additional financial support to Egypt amounting to $6 billion, while the EU signed an agreement to provide a further $8 billion.  This EU grant was widely believed to incorporate a payment for Egypt’s help in stemming the flow of illegal immigrants into Europe, a fair proportion of them Egyptians.

The deal with the EU was announced in June, during a visit to Cairo by an EU delegation led by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

          Emphasizing the aim of boosting EU-Egyptian cooperation in renewable energy, trade, and security, and with not a word about illegal immigration, both sides agreed that the deal lifted the EU’s relationship with Egypt to a “strategic partnership”.  The four-year arrangement will see European money directed to support Egypt’s public finances and improve the country’s business environment.

These deals not only boost Egypt’s financial and economic situation, they amount to an endorsement of ea-Sisi’s presidency and a positive decision to ignore what many call his reckless financial mis-management and widespread human rights abuses. 

Al-Sisi’s personal standing has been further boosted by the prominent position Egypt is taking in the extended negotiations, led by the US and with the involvement of Qatar, around achieving a ceasefire in the Gaza conflict and the return of the hostages still held by Hamas. His value as an honest broker is enhanced by the balance he achieves between his strong support for the Palestinian cause while not wavering in his adherence to Egypt’s 45-year-old peace treaty with Israel. 

The extent of Egypt’s increased influence on the world stage became public early in September, when US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, waived the human rights conditions attached to US military financing of Egypt, and allowed the full amount of $1.3 billion to go through – a so far unprecedented step. 

          As regards the Gaza ceasefire negotiations, Egypt has a direct interest in Netanyahu’s recent insistence on retaining an Israeli presence in the Philadelphi corridor, the border between Egypt and Gaza.  The IDF took over the nine-mile stretch in May.  Despite numerous anti-tunnel efforts on both sides, including flooding on the Egyptian side and Israeli airstrikes, cross-border smuggling via underground routes persisted.  Al-Sisi, mindful of long-standing Egypt-Israel cooperation on security issues, would not protest too loudly at a temporary Israeli presence in the Corridor.   

Al-Sisi’s successes and enhanced status over 2024 no doubt serve to justify, in his own mind, his decision to stick with the vast prestige projects he has pursued even during the worst of times.  His government has lavished resources on grandiose infrastructure projects including the extension of the Suez Canal, a billion dollar cement factory built by the military, the Rod El Farag suspension bridge, claimed to be the largest in the world, and of course the $58 billion New Administrative Capital being constructed in the desert 30 miles east of Cairo.

Already boasting the tallest tower in Africa and the biggest cathedral in the Middle East, the city is slowly but surely coming to life.  More than 1,500 families had moved in by March; by the end of 2024 that could have risen to 10,000. Government ministries are relocating to the new city, and tens of thousands of government employees are now working there.  Parliament has started directing its meetings from the city, and banks and businesses are beginning to move their headquarters there.

Eventually, according to Khaled Abbas, chairman of the Administrative Capital for Urban Development (ACUD), “the whole country will be managed from within the new capital.”

Despite difficult domestic issues still to be addressed, this past year has seen Egypt’s president emerge as a figure of global significance.    

Published in the Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Post on-line titled: "Egyptian President Sisi is on a winning streak", 8 October 2024:
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-823621