Turkey talks with forked tongue

Published in the Jerusalem Post, Sunday 17 January 2021:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/turkey-speaks-with-a-forked-tongue-towards-israel-and-the-west-655694

Normalization is in the air.  In the past few weeks Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced not only that he would like to have better relations with Israel, but that he is working with France on a roadmap to normalize the bonds between them.

Regretfully, neither statement can be taken at its face value.  Given what Erdogan has long demonstrated to be his political priorities, both must be viewed as part of a broader strategy designed to strengthen Turkey’s standing with the upcoming US president Joe Biden, and to counter Israel’s growing cooperation with the Arab world and weaken its ties to Greece and Cyprus. 

As for the French initiative, France and Turkey have been at odds, diplomatically speaking, for a long time ‒ even before Erdogan failed to condemn the murderous Islamist attack on France’s satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, back in 2015.  Relations were certainly not improved in October 2020, when Charlie Hebdo printed a cartoon on its front cover mocking Erdogan himself, provoking a furious response from Ankara. 

France has consistently opposed Turkey’s aggressive policies.  It strongly condemned Turkey’s 2019 offensive into north-east Syria against the Syrian Kurds and the seizure of territory, opposed Turkey’s more recent incursions into Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh, and led a push for EU sanctions on Turkey for illegally exploring for gas and oil in Cyprus’s waters. 

On January 7, 2021, Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said: “Turkey is not categorically against France, but France has been against Turkey categorically since Operation Peace Spring (Turkey’s incursion into Kurdish territory in Syria).”

But he went on to say that he had had a very constructive phone conversation with his French counterpart, Jean-Yves Le Drian, “and we agreed that we should work on a roadmap to normalize relations.” 

On the eve of the US presidency of Joe Biden, Erdogan may well have calculated that it was not in Turkey’s interest to be in open conflict with a NATO ally, while it would certainly suit his book to neutralize a persistent opponent within the EU.  Whether he would be prepared to moderate his position on any of the issues to which France objects is debatable.

Erdogan’s tentative offer to Israel of an olive branch equally lacks conviction.

In recent years Erdogan has taken every opportunity to hurl insults, condemnations and dire warnings at Israel.  When Israel accused Turkey of giving passports to a dozen Hamas members in August 2020, Turkey maintained that Hamas is a legitimate political movement that was elected democratically.  It omitted any mention of Hamas’s bloody coup d’état that forced the Palestinian Authority from Gaza in 2007 and installed a regime that proceeded to rain thousands of rockets indiscriminately on civilian Israelis and their families.

Ignoring the fact that Israel found itself in possession of vast tracts of territory in 1967 having defended itself against the combined armies of Egypt, Jordan and Syria, Erdogan consistently accuses Israel of illegally seizing and occupying Palestinian land.  He seems unaware of the old saying: “Those in glasshouses shouldn’t throw stones.”  In 1974 Turkey invaded northern Cyprus, seized nearly 40 percent of the island, and set up the self-styled Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus ‒ an entity recognized by no international organization and no country other than Turkey itself.

          Turkey is not a signatory to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and does not recognize the government of Cyprus or its maritime border agreements with Egypt, Israel or Lebanon.  Driven by a bizarre sort of logic Turkey, having seized and occupied northern Cyprus, is now claiming a share in the vast oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) bonanza that has unexpectedly appeared off the coastline of its unrecognized Republic.  Consequently Turkey has been drilling for some years in waters internationally recognized as being part of Cyprus’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).  Turkey does, of course, have a Mediterranean coastline, but it runs to the north of Cyprus, while the gas reserves are in the so-called Energy Triangle south and east of the island.

The pipeline agreement between Greece, Israel and Cyprus is Erdogan’s bugbear.  At one time there was talk of an Israeli-Turkish pipeline to convey LNG to Europe.  That fell by the wayside in the course of the rocky relationship instigated by Erdogan, but he clings to the hope of becoming a conduit for natural gas to Europe. The maritime deal that Turkey agreed with Libya’s UN-recognized government in November would see the two countries carve out a joint Turkish-Libyan EEZ across the Mediterranean. That deal, as well as Erdogan’s talk of a reconciliation with Israel, aims to disrupt or undermine Israel’s three-way partnership with Greece and Cyprus.

In an attempt to get on a good footing with the incoming US president, Joe Biden, Erdogan has just appointed Ufuk Ulutas as ambassador to Israel.  Strongly supportive of the Palestinian cause, Ulutus has been despatched to Israel to speak peace “with forked tongue”.  He will no doubt do his best to counter the genuine normalization under way between Israel and the Arab world ‒ a process that, even now, is beginning to show positive results for all involved.

It was in November 2020 that the journal Al-Monitor reported that developments at home and abroad were forcing Erdogan to seek new ways to deliver Turkey from its economic morass and political isolation in the West.  He has begun instituting financial and economic reforms, and has announced that his administration is working on a new “human rights action plan” in order, as he put it, to be more in step with the changing circumstances of today’s world.  His normalization overtures may be part of his new strategy, but in the light of his past actions and present posturings on the world stage, he cannot be surprised if his motives are viewed by the world at large with suspicion, if not downright disbelief.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, Sunday 17 January 2021, and in the on-line edition: 
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/turkey-speaks-with-a-forked-tongue-towards-israel-and-the-west-655694

Published in The Jewish Business News, 15 January 2021:
https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2021/01/15/turkey-talks-with-forked-tongue/

Published in the Eurasia Review, 17 January 2021:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/17012021-turkey-talks-with-forked-tongue-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 15 January 2021:

https://mpc-journal.org/blog/2021/01/15/turkey-talks-with-forked-tongue/

Normalization and the turmoil in Yemen

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 10 January 2021, and in the Jerusalem Post on-line as: "Israel-Arab normalization to have impact on Yemen war":

              In this new era of Israeli-Arab normalization, Israel has an even more direct interest than it always had in the outcome of the decades-long civil conflict in Yemen. Two of the main players on the ground are Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).  The UAE is an original signatory of the Abraham Accords and, if the grapevine is to be believed, Saudi Arabia is an imminent prospect.

   At the start of 2020 the unhappy war-torn state of Yemen was split four ways.  Not only were rival governments – one backed by the Saudi-UAE coalition, the other by the Iranian-supported Houthis – fighting for control of the country as a whole, but South Yemen had seceded from the north and declared self-rule. To further complicate the situation, the south Yemen separatists were supported by the UAE ‒ which was odd, because the UAE was also battling the Houthis on behalf of Yemen’s government led by President Abdrabbu Mansur Hadi, which condemned the separatist move as "catastrophic and dangerous".

Israel has never involved itself directly in the conflict, but those elements of the media none too friendly toward Israel maintain that it has been providing logistical support for the coalition established by Saudi in 2015 to counter the Houthis’ effort to take over the country. 

The Middle East Monitor also maintains that when Houthi forces seized the Saudi Arabian embassy in the capital Sanaa, documents were discovered revealing US intentions to establish a military base on Yemen’s Perim Island near the Bab El-Mandab Strait, "to protect [America's] interests and ensure the security of Israel".  The Bab El-Mandab Strait is the narrow gateway out of the Red Sea into the Gulf of Aden, and in fact the strategically important island was wrested from the Houthis in 2015 and has remained under the control of the coalition ever since.  Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE view the Strait as of key strategic importance in ensuring access to the Indian ocean and beyond.  All consider it vital to prevent the Strait falling into the hands of Iran’s proxy, the Houthis.

South Yemen’s unilateral declaration of independence did not come out of the blue.  For more than 20 years the People's Republic of Southern Yemen was an independent Marxist–Leninist one-party state, supported by the Soviet Union.  Relations between the two Yemens deteriorated, and in 1972 they took up arms against each other. In 1990, with the collapse of the Soviet Union imminent, South Yemen united with the north to form the Unified Republic of Yemen. Ali Abdallah Saleh, who had been president of North Yemen since 1978, was proclaimed president.

It was an uneasy marriage.  After only four years, the south tried to break away again.   A short civil war ended with the south being overrun by northern troops.

Saleh became a victim of the so-called Arab Spring of 2011. He gave up the keys of office to Hadi with a very bad grace, and allied himself with his erstwhile enemies, the Houthis, in an attempt to maneuver his way back to power. Supported with military hardware from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the Houthis overran large tracts of the country, including the capital city, Sanaa. 

Saudi Arabia, determined to prevent Iran from extending its footprint into the Arabian peninsula, intervened in March 2015 to beat them back.  Saudi’s Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, 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.

Once ignited, the yearning for self-determination is not easily extinguished.  South Yemen’s aspirations for a return to autonomy remained strong.  In 2017-18 south Yemen leaders tried again.  Hadi had re-located his internationally recognized government to Aden.  But Aden is the focal point of south Yemen, and Aden’s governor was a strong supporter of the southern separatists. When Hadi sacked him, he promptly joined the rebels and helped set up the Southern Transitional Council (STC), a body designed to administer Yemen’s southern provinces. 

 The UAE could not continue to run with the fox while hunting with the hounds – supposedly supporting Hadi in re-establishing the national government of Yemen, while at the same time supported the STC in seeking to establish South Yemen as a separate state.  In September 2019, following substantial military gains by the southern separatists with UAE support, Saudi Arabia put its foot down.  The two sides negotiated.  On October 25, they announced a power-sharing agreement, which was signed in Riyadh on November 5. 

It was on the basis of that agreement that a power sharing government was formed a year later, on December 18, 2020.   It contained 24 ministers selected on equal basis between northern and southern provinces and included five ministers from the STC.

Sworn in on December 26 in Riyadh, four days later most of the new cabinet, including the prime minister, boarded a plane to fly to Aden.  A large crowd gathered to greet them.  As the passengers began to disembark, massive explosions were heard followed by gunfire emanating from armored vehicles. At least 25 people were killed and 110 others injured.  Most of the casualties were civilians, including airport staff.  Although no group has claimed responsibility, the coalition later said it had shot down an explosive-laden Houthi drone that was targeting the presidential palace. 

That incident was closely followed by another. On New Year’s Day a projectile exploded at a wedding held in the port city of Hodeidah, 160 miles north of the Bab El-Mandab Strait.  Five women were killed and seven wounded.  A UN representative called it “an odious crime committed by the Houthis against civilians”.

As long as Iran’s malevolent involvement persists, no end seems in sight to Yemen’s civil conflict.  A determination to frustrate Iran’s aspiration to dominate the Middle East is one element uniting Israel and the Arab signatories to the Abraham Accords.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 10 January 2021, and in the Jerusalem Post on-line as: "Israel-Arab normalization to have impact on Yemen war":

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/israel-arab-normalization-to-have-impact-on-yemen-war-opinion-654858

Published in the Eurasia Review, 8 January 2021
https://www.eurasiareview.com/08012021-normalization-and-the-turmoil-in-yemen-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 8 January 2021:

https://mpc-journal.org/blog/2021/01/08/normalisation-and-the-turmoil-in-yemen/

Published in the Jewish Business News, 8 January 2021:
https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2021/01/08/normalization-and-the-turmoil-in-yemen/ 

Britain agonizes over its new Holocaust memorial

     Proposed design for Britain's new Holocaust memorial and Learning Centre 

         In 2014 the UK government proposed, and in 2015 parliament as a whole approved, the idea of a new National Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre. 

From early on the project faced a veritable storm of dissent, rarely about the concept itself, but about the selected location and later about the approved design.  Despite these widespread objections the government submitted its planning application to the City of Westminster, the local authority responsible for the chosen site.  But complaints grew to such proportions that in November 2019 the application was “called in” by then housing minister, Esther McVey – in other words the government, as it was entitled to do under planning legislation, took over responsibility for the project.  

In order to provide a forum where all objections could be aired, considered and evaluated, McVey’s boss, Secretary of State Robert Jenrick, set up a public inquiry under the chairmanship of an independent planning inspector, David Morgan.   

Before the Inquiry commenced on October 6, 2020, the odour of antisemitism had begun to pervade the scene. Jenrick is married to Michal, the Israeli daughter of Holocaust survivors, and their children are being brought up as Jewish. The London Historic Parks and Gardens Trust, claiming there had been a conflict of interest in the government’s handling of the planning application for the memorial, legally challenged Jenrick.  However he had already recused himself from any decisions relating to the memorial.  The final ruling on its location and design, following the report of the Inquiry chairman, will be taken by McVey’s successor as housing minister, Christopher Pincher.

On October 5 the High Court ruled that Jenrick had acted properly in regard to the planning application.

Meanwhile Jenrick revealed that he had been subjected to “antisemitic smears” over his role in the proposal, and was living under police protection following threats to “kill his family” and “burn his house down”. 

“The fact that I have been subjected to these smears,” he said, “and my family to antisemitic abuse and death threats, only shows the paramount importance of the memorial.”

To put the present situation into context, the UK already has five significant Holocaust centers serving the public.  Three are sited in London. 

The first public memorial in Britain dedicated to victims of the Holocaust was opened in Hyde Park, in the heart of London’s West End, in 1983.  Conceived as a garden of boulders surrounded by white-stemmed birch trees, the largest boulder is inscribed with text from the Book of Lamentations:  "For these I weep. Streams of tears flow from my eyes because of the destruction of my people."  A service of remembrance is held at the site every year. 

The long-established Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide, situated close to the University of London, is essentially a literary and academic resource.  The most recent memorial is a brand new and impressive Holocaust Learning Centre opened in 2020 within the Imperial War Museum (IWM).

In addition to these London-based hubs, the county of Nottinghamshire, in the heart of England, houses the Beth Shalom National Holocaust Centre and Museum, while further north the town of Huddersfield boasts its very own Holocaust Exhibition and Learning Centre. 

It was back in 2014 that David Cameron, then Britain’s prime minister, set up a cross-party Holocaust Commission tasked with deciding what more Britain needed to do to ensure that the memory of the Holocaust was preserved, and that the lessons it teaches are never forgotten. 

The Commission sent out a national call for evidence and, in light of the opinions it had received, issued its report and recommendations on January 27, 2015.  They were instantly accepted in full by the government and endorsed by the Opposition.

            The Commission proposed that a striking and prominent new National Memorial should be built in central London in order to make a bold statement about the importance Britain places on preserving the memory of the Holocaust, and stand as a permanent affirmation of the values of British society.  Moreover, a world-class Learning Centre should be placed alongside the memorial ‒ a must-see destination using the latest technology to engage and inspire vast numbers of visitors.

            In addition to conveying the enormity of the Holocaust and its impact, reflecting the centrality to Nazi objectives of the destruction of European Jewry, the memorial and learning centre should also represent the fate of all other victims of Nazi persecutions ‒ Roma, disabled people, Slavs, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, and all the political opponents of the Nazi regime.

In accepting the Commission’s proposals, Cameron said: “Today we stand together... in remembrance of those who were murdered in the darkest hour of human history… united in our resolve to fight prejudice and discrimination in all its forms.”

To help the government carry the project forward, it set up a UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation (UKHMF) composed of eminent establishment figures including the Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis. The Foundation quickly embarked on a dual search – for a suitable location and a winning design.

As regards a site for the new memorial, the UKHMF committee based their search on the Commission’s recommendation that it should be in “central London”.  It was for this reason that they rejected an offer from the Imperial War Museum to expand its own Holocaust Learning Centre, then in the planning stage, into the National Memorial.  The IWM, although only a mile from the Houses of Parliament, is situated south of the river Thames and is not generally perceived to be in central London. After considering more than fifty possible settings, the Foundation settled on Victoria Tower Gardens, a small public park to the south of the Palace of Westminster which houses Britain’s parliament.

It was a decision that immediately gave rise to a storm of protest based on a wide range of objections.  Despite being assailed from all sides, the UKHMF stuck to its guns and invited architectural firms to submit designs sited in the Gardens.

The international competition attracted 92 entries.  The winning team, announced by the 13-panel jury In October 2017, was led by the British-Ghanaian architect Sir David Adjaye. Its design features 23 large bronze fin structures, the gaps between the fins representing the 22 countries where the Holocaust destroyed Jewish communities. Each acts as a separate path down to a hall leading into the Learning Center.

The public Inquiry, held on 16 days between October 6 and November 13, 2020, was designed to provide a platform for every organization, group or individual with an interest in the memorial.  Residents in the area served by the Victoria Tower Gardens felt that the memorial would eat up too much of the limited green space – an objection echoed by the Royal Parks and by Westminster Council itself. 

           The Holocaust Memorial Inquiry was conducted on-line.  Chairman David Morgan is on the extreme right.

The gardens house three other memorials.  Some felt that the one commemorating the victims of slavery would be “engulfed”.  The gardens also contain a children’s playground.  This facility, too, it was claimed, would be downgraded and damaged.  In a written submission, Lord Carlile, a former independent reviewer of terror laws, warned that a Holocaust memorial next to parliament would create a target for terrorists. He told the BBC that he had a strong interest in the issue. “Many of my close relatives were exterminated in the Holocaust. My half-sister’s mother was murdered in Auschwitz. I am absolutely determined that this should be remembered properly. I just feel that this isn’t the right place for it.”

In September 2018 the UKHMF hosted a public exhibition featuring the winning design in its agreed location.  A further flood of comment followed. As a result alterations and modifications were made, and the revised design was submitted to Westminster Council on 29 April 2019.   Westminster took the new design on board, and continued with the consultation it had opened with the public.

In August 2019 Westminster City Council wrote to the UKHMF warning that the memorial was “heading towards an unfavourable recommendation” by its planners. In response the Foundation claimed that “excessive weight” was being given to the number of objections raised, an accusation robustly rejected by the council.  Even so, in February 2020 Westminster City Council's planning committee did vote unanimously to reject the government’s planning application, saying it contravened planning rules on size, design and location.

Now Westminster’s responsibility in the matter has been taken over by the government.  On the inspector chosen to head its public inquiry, David Morgan, was placed the onerous task of hearing all points of view concerning the location and the design of the memorial, assessing their merits in the light of the criteria already laid down by Commission, and making recommendations to assist the government in its final decision.  His report has to be presented to the Secretary of State on or before 30 April 2021.

Since the criteria set out in the Holocaust Commission’s report of January 2015 were accepted in full and approved by parliament, there can be no doubt that Britain will eventually have a new National Holocaust Memorial.  Equally set in stone is that it must be “striking and prominent”, and “prominently located in Central London”.  In addition the Memorial must be co-located with a world-class Learning Centre which is to be a “must-see destination using the latest technology to engage and inspire vast numbers of visitors.” 

The big question still to be resolved is whether the Adjaye team’s design set in the Victoria Tower Gardens is to be given the go-ahead, or whether the whole project is to be shunted back to square one.


Published in the Jerusalem Report, issue dated 11 Jan 2021, and available for subscribers at:
https://www.jpost.com/jerusalem-report/the-uk-agonizes-over-its-new-holocaust-memorial-653732

Israel seeks reconciliation with Turkey

 
            Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been expressing his desire for a reconciliation with Israel ‒ clearly a ploy designed to achieve wider regional, if not global, objectives.  His nominal desire, however, is matched by a genuine wish on Israel’s part for better relations with Turkey.  The problem is Erdogan himself.  If it wasn’t for him, relations between Israel and Turkey could return to the glory days before he began his climb to power.  Unfortunately, for well over a decade Turkey’s leader, first as prime minister then as president, has sought to reverse the policy of Turkish secularization initiated by his renowned predecessor, Kemal Ataturk, and enhance his credentials in the Muslim world by adopting an increasingly anti-Israel stance. 

It was not always so. Once. the three non-Arab states in the Middle East ‒ Iran, Turkey and Israel ‒ stood side by side. Back in March 1949 Turkey was the first Muslim majority country to recognize the State of Israel; a year later Iran followed suit.

Following Turkish recognition, cooperation between Turkey and Israel flourished, particularly in the military, strategic, and diplomatic spheres. Trade and tourism boomed, the Israel Air Force practised manoeuvres in Turkish airspace, and Israeli technicians modernized Turkish combat jets. There were also plans for high-tech cooperation and water sharing.

When Erdoqan became prime minister of Turkey in 2003, he initially maintained a "business as usual" approach, and indeed paid an official visit to Israel in 2005. However his sympathies, shaped by his Muslim Brotherhood background, very quickly resulted in his realigning Turkish policy in favour of an Islamist pro-Arab stance. Relations with Israel deteriorated rapidly, reaching their nadir in the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident, when an attempt, backed by the Turkish government, to break Israel's naval blockade of Gaza led to an armed encounter on the high seas resulting in the deaths of nine Turkish nationals.

In recent years Erdogan has taken every opportunity to hurl insults, condemnations and dire warnings at Israel.  He consistently accuses Israel of illegally seizing and occupying Palestinian land, blissfully oblivious to the old saying: “Those in glasshouses shouldn’t throw stones.”  In 1974 Turkey invaded northern Cyprus, seized nearly 40 percent of the island, and set up the self-styled Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus ‒ an entity recognized by no international organization and no country other than Turkey itself. 

Turkey is not a signatory to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and does not recognize the government of Cyprus, its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), its maritime border agreements with Egypt, Israel or Lebanon, or the licenses that Cyprus has awarded to foreign energy companies.  Driven by a bizarre sort of logic Turkey, having seized and occupied northern Cyprus, is now claiming a share in the vast oil and liquefied natural gas bonanza that has unexpectedly appeared off the coastline of its unrecognized Republic.  Having positioned itself outside the international agreements, Turkey has been drilling for some years in waters internationally recognized as being part of Cyprus’s EEZ.  Turkey does, of course, have a Mediterranean coastline, but it runs to the north of Cyprus, while the gas reserves are in the so-called Energy Triangle south and east of the island.

Erdogan’s purpose is to disrupt or undermine the pipeline agreement between Greece, Israel and Cyprus.  The EU has repeatedly said it considers Turkey’s drilling offshore Cyprus as illegal and, together with the US, has warned Turkey to halt its operations.  In November 2019 the EU imposed new sanctions on Turkey, saying they would be lifted as soon as Turkey ceased its unauthorized drilling operations. Erdogan of course did nothing of the kind, but sent a military drone to Cyprus to protect his two ships drilling for oil and gas.  The drone was destroyed on its first mission.

Since then Erdogan has made a point of welcoming leaders of Hamas, considered a terrorist organization by many, and according them all the courtesy due to representatives of sovereign states.  This is the same Erdogan who labels the Kurdish political parties seeking independence as terrorists, invades their autonomous region and bombs Kurdish citizens. 

Despite languishing political relations, commercial dealings between Turkey and Israel have continued to flourish.  They achieved more than $5 billion in bilateral trade in 2019, and business and government leaders on both sides predict continuing growth.  This is indeed a solid basis on which start a genuine process of improving relations.

In an attempt to get on a good footing with the incoming US president, Joe Biden, Erdogan has just appointed Ufuk Ulutas as ambassador to Israel. 

Ulutas is an alumnus, among other academic institutions, of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.  Strongly supportive of the Palestinian cause, in his writings he lays all the problems of the region at Israel’s door. Writing in 2010, he speaks of Turkey and Israel having inherently “divergent regional views” – an opinion clearly at variance with historical fact. Turkish-Israeli relations would continue to fluctuate, he says, “without Israel’s willingness to deal decisively with the key issues of peace in the Middle East, such as the settlements, status of Jerusalem, and Lebanese and Syrian tracks, and most urgently, the improvement of humanitarian conditions in Gaza.”

It has been demonstrated more than once that great peace initiatives can be sponsored by hardline right-wing politicians.  Ulutus has been despatched to Israel as part of an obvious political manoeuvre by Erdogan to lure Israel into a course that would place the Abraham Accords in jeopardy.  The wily Turkish leader may have ignored, or discounted, the well-established principle of unintended consequences.  Ulutus is no career diplomat.  He may begin by speaking peace “with forked tongue” to his Israeli counterparts in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem.  But how might the exercise end?


Published in the Jewish Business News, 1 January 2021: https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2021/01/01/israel-seeks-reconciliation-with-turkey/

Published in the Eurasia Review, 2 January 2021
https://www.eurasiareview.com/02012021-israel-seeks-reconciliation-with-turkey-oped/

Israel's flawed electoral system

 

          Israel has still not emerged from the ridiculous political logjam of 2019-20, which saw the nation making its way to polling stations three times within 12 months. This state of affairs came about simply because Israel’s electoral system twice failed to yield a workable government at the end of the polling process.

          It seemed as though the political paralysis finally ended in May 2020 when the new government was announced. The controversial power-sharing deal called for Benjamin Netanyahu to serve as prime minister for the government’s first 18 months, to be replaced by Benny Gantz for the next 18 months. Their painfully constructed coalition deal could only come about after the country’s Supreme Court ruled it had no legal grounds to block it. But it was constructed in the first instance because the electoral system had produced a situation in which Netanyahu’s Likud and Gantz’s Blue and White parties were virtually neck and neck as regards seats.

          The deal led immediately to the dissolution of Gantz’s alliance with his main partner, Yair Lapid, since it was only achieved by Gantz reneging on his central campaign promise not to serve under Netanyahu.

           Despite the criticism, Gantz argued that teaming with Netanyahu offered the country its only way out of the prolonged stalemate and prevented Israel from being dragged once again to another costly election that would have been its fourth in just over a year. Yet here the nation is again, only seven months later, facing the prospect of yet another excursion to the polls. Why?

          One obvious reason demands to be aired – that Israel’s electoral system is simply not fit for purpose in the 2020s. Or, to be generous, that it has outlived its usefulness.

          Eminent constitutionalist, Vernon Bogdanor, has pointed out that Israel’s electoral system is not a considered structure, but a procedure hastily adopted in 1948 when the infant state was at war with its Arab neighbours. With no time or inclination to construct a new electoral model, elections to the Constituent Assembly, which became the first Knesset, were held by the same method that had been used in the pre-state period for elections to the Zionist Congress and to the elected assemblies of the Yishuv, the Jewish community of Mandatory Palestine. But, as Bogdanor points out, a system suitable for a voluntary organization is not necessarily equally suitable for a mature democracy.

          When the Israeli electorate go to the polls, they are asked to choose the one party among the many competing – usually 20 or more – with whose policies they most agree. This system has been described as “one of the purest forms of proportional rule” since the number of seats that each party in the Knesset gains is almost exactly proportional to the number of votes the party obtains in the general election.

          The downside is that inevitably the nation’s vote is fractured. With every shade of political opinion represented by Knesset seats, no one party can emerge as the outright winner. After each election, weeks are spent in backroom negotiations and deals as the party with the most votes attempts to gain sufficient support from others to command a majority in the Knesset.

          Attempts have been made from time to time to ameliorate the problem caused by too many small parties. Until 1992 a political party needed only one percent of the total votes cast to enter parliament. This was gradually raised – first to 1.5 percent, then to 2 percent, and more recently to 3.25 percent – which is still a low threshold of entry compared to similar electoral systems.

          One major discrepancy between Israel’s electoral system and that of most other Western democracies is the absence of any constituency-based element. While many nations have adopted a combination of proportional representation (PR) and the direct election of representatives, the UK’s system is virtually the complete opposite of Israel’s.

          Great Britain and Northern Ireland are divided into 650 constituencies, each of which elects one member of parliament. Any political party, provided it fulfills the necessary criteria, may put up candidates and compete in the election. The candidate who wins the most votes in each constituency is elected, regardless of how many votes were cast for other candidates. PR does not feature. The idea of substituting PR for first-past-the-post was put to the electorate in 2011 in a national referendum, and overwhelmingly rejected.

          The UK system nearly always results in one or other of the two major parties – Conservative or Labour – obtaining a clear majority. Its leader becomes prime minister and appoints all government ministers. Party lists are an unknown phenomenon. Except in rare cases, which do arise from time to time, there is no need for the leader of the winning party to negotiate with anyone about anything.

          As for elected members of parliament, each is regarded by their constituents as “their” MP, whether or not they voted for him or her. All MPs hold regular “surgeries” in their constituency where members of the public with problems can speak personally to their MP and ask for advice or help. The personal connection between MPs and their local areas is very strong. This electoral system, like all electoral systems, is far from perfect. Its main disadvantage is its failure to match the national voting pattern with seats in parliament.

          Proposals for reform in Israel’s electoral system combining the constituency concept with the proportionality of the present system have been put forward on three occasions – in 1958, 1972 and 1988. The last attempt, prepared by MK Mordechai Virshubski and signed by 43 others, offered two ideas. The more interesting proposed that 60 MKs would be elected in 60 constituencies, and 60 by the current system. In short, each elector would vote for both a candidate and a list. This bill also passed a first reading, but subsequently foundered.

          Back in 2005, President Moshe Katsav set up a Presidential Commission for the Examination of the Governmental Structure, a forum of the country's leading political scientists chaired by Hebrew University President Menahem Magidor. The commission met regularly for more than a year, and it too finally favoured a combined system, recommending that half of the Knesset should be elected directly within the country’s 17 districts, while the other half would be voted in by way of the current system.

          The commission’s recommendations, like the earlier parliamentary bills proposing electoral reform, were not followed up. Nor indeed were subsequent attempts, such as the determined effort by Professor Menahem Ben-Sasson in 2006. Then Chair of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, Ben Sasson set to work with a will. Undeterred by all the previous unsuccessful attempts, he declared: “This generation might be ready. At least I have to try”. Try he did, but his proposals were blocked by those who feared a loss of influence in any revised system.

           Despite a history replete with discouragement and failure, electoral reform in Israel is an unfinished saga. The inadequacies of the present system remain obvious. Another genuinely determined effort, supported by a consensus from within Israel’s body politic, must be made sooner or later to provide the nation with an electoral system truly worthy of it. Why not make a start?

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 27 December 2020, as: "Israel's electoral system is leaving the country stuck in a political logjam":

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/israels-electoral-system-is-leaving-the-country-stuck-in-political-logjam-653347

How far will Biden diverge from Trump?

 

          The question exercising countless minds worldwide is how much of President Donald Trump’s policies will the forthcoming Biden administration uphold?  At first glance the two men could not be further apart politically.  Closer scrutiny of the issues reveals a rather different picture.

As far as the Middle East is concerned, there is general agreement that US president-elect Joe Biden will certainly endorse the Abraham Accords. On the other hand, most Washington watchers do not expect him to maintain his predecessor’s aggressive stance towards Iran. After all, as vice-president, Biden was key in selling to Congress the Iran nuclear deal, still regarded by Barack Obama as the crowning achievement of his presidency.  Many believe that Biden will seek to negotiate a US re-entry into the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), the multi-national agreement that sealed the terms of the deal, and from which Trump withdrew in May 2018.  If he does so, there is no consensus on what he might require, or what Iran might demand, as the price of his re-engagement.   

            Trump’s policy of disengaging US armed forces from the conflicts of the Middle East is a broad strategy likely to commend itself to his successor.  The long-standing US military presence in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, and its involvement in Libya and Yemen, has often exacerbated conflict as much as contain it.  The announced Trump troop withdrawals will doubtless be popular domestically, but whether they will have a positive or a negative effect in the countries concerned is less certain. Biden may find himself having to reassess Trump’s decisions in some cases.

In one particular instance, Biden may diverge completely from Trump’s withdrawal strategy. Back in August 2014, with Obama as US president and Joe Biden his vice-president, the US formed a coalition of fourteen countries to oppose Islamic State (IS) military victories across Syria and Iraq.  Ever since, up in north-eastern Syria US troops had been supporting the valiant Kurdish Peshmerga forces who had led the attack against IS on behalf of the coalition.  The Kurds were embedded in the Syrian Democratic Forces (the SDF). which also contained militias from around the world.

On 6 October 2019 the Trump administration ordered US forces to withdraw from the region.  On October 9 the Turkish army, together with the Syrian National Army (the SNA), launched an attack on the SDF.  Erdogan had designated it a terrorist organization because of its ties to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the Turkish party agitating for Kurdish independence.  He maintained that the operation was intended to expel them from the region. Amnesty International said it had evidence of war crimes and human rights violations committed by Turkish and Turkey-backed Syrian forces.

Trump's sudden pullout of US forces in Syria was criticized by many, including former US military personnel, as a "serious betrayal of the Kurds".   Biden may well reconsider that particular issue. At the time both Democrats and Republicans in Congress opposed it.  And Biden is on record as saying “Turkey is the real problem,” and that he would tell “Erdogan that he will pay a heavy price.”

Unlike his soon-to-be predecessor in office, Biden is no admirer of strong ruthless leaders. Erdogan’s recent posturings on the world stage are not calculated to impress him.  The most provocative, perhaps, was Erdogan’s decision in 2017 to purchase the Russian S-400 anti-aircraft system, which is designed specifically to counter fighter aircraft like the US’s state-of-the-art multi-purpose F-35.  In fact, and bizarrely, Erdogan was already attempting to acquire the F-35 itself.  In short Turkey, a member of NATO, was proposing to let Russia in by the back door. 

As a result the US ejected Turkey from the F-35 programme. Erdogan’s duplicity had proved a step too far even for Trump, and Biden is not likely to oppose his latest action on this issue.  On December 14, 2020. Washington imposed sanctions against Turkey’s military acquisitions agency for having acquired the Russian S-400 system.  The sanctions were also intended to hold Turkey to account for potentially allowing Russia to infiltrate Western defense technology.

Turkey’s refusal to back away from its purchase of the Russian S-400 missile defense system left “us with no choice, ultimately,” said Christopher Ford, the assistant secretary of state for international security.

Biden is equally unlikely to favour Erdogan’s recent military interventions in Libya or in the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute, both pretty obviously regarded by him as opportunities to extend Turkish influence in the Middle East.  In both cases, in terms chillingly reminiscent of Adolf Hitler justifying his military incursions in the 1930s, Erdogan said his rationale was to protect people of Turco-Ottoman descent.  Then in mid-August 2020 he sent an oil and gas exploration vessel, escorted by warships, into what has always been regarded as Greek territorial waters, accusing Greece of trying to grab an unfair share of untapped resources. None of this is calculated to endear him to Biden or his new administration.

            Biden is a reasonable man.  Unlike Trump himself, he will not reject his predecessor’s legacy lock, stock and barrel.  As far as the Middle East is concerned, Biden will probably find himself endorsing a fair proportion of what he finds on his desk on 20 January 2021.

Published in the Eurasia Review, 25 December 2020:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/25122020-how-far-will-biden-diverge-from-trump-oped/

Published in the Jewish Business News, 25 December 2020:
https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2020/12/25/how-far-will-biden-diverge-from-trump/

The Morocco-Israel deal: what Trump conceded

 

At the heart of the Morocco-Israel normalization deal announced by US President Donald Trump on December 10, 2020 is the issue of Western Sahara.

Morocco occupies an extensive coastal strip and its hinterland in north-west Africa, starting with a stretch of Mediterranean coastline and extending down into the Atlantic for more than a thousand miles.  Western Sahara, appended to the south of Morocco, extends the coastline for a further 700 miles.

A former Spanish colony, Western Sahara has a troubled recent history.  Morocco laid claim to the area in the 1950s, but in 1966 the UN General Assembly passed a resolution asking Spain to hold a referendum of the Sahrawi population on the question of self-determination. Instead, in 1975 Spain relinquished control of the region to a joint Moroccan-Mauritanian administration.  By then, though, a flourishing Sahrawi nationalist movement called the Polisario Front had sprung into existence.  Rejecting the arrangement, and declaring the region to be the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), it launched armed resistance to the new regime.  After four years of conflict, Mauritania withdrew its claims on the territory, leaving Morocco in de facto control.

A further twelve years of conflict between Morocco and the Polisario followed, and it was only in 1991 that the insurgency ended with a UN-brokered truce and a promise by Morocco of a referendum on independence.  This has not yet taken place.  Meanwhile the African Union regards Western Sahara as an independent state, while the UN considers the Polisario Front to be the legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people, and maintains that the Sahrawis have a right to self-determination.  Western Sahara remains on the UN’s decolonization list of “non-self-governing territories”. Despite having occupied its southern neighbour for nearly fifty years, Morocco’s claims are largely unrecognized internationally.

It was into this bubbling cauldron that Donald Trump plunged on December 10.  As part of a deal under which Morocco undertook to normalize relations with Israel, the White House said the US would recognize Morocco's claim over Western Sahara.

In a phone call, Morocco’s King Mohammed VI agreed that Morocco would "resume diplomatic relations between Morocco and Israel and expand economic and cultural co-operation to advance regional stability".  As a quid pro quo, Trump "reaffirmed his support for Morocco's serious, credible, and realistic autonomy proposal as the only basis for a just and lasting solution to the dispute over the Western Sahara territory, and as such the president recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the entire Western Sahara territory."

          Under the Moroccan autonomy proposal, first mooted in 2006, the Sahrawis would run their government under Moroccan sovereignty. Morocco would control defense and foreign affairs. The plan was promoted by Morocco as a means of reducing the influence of extremist Islamist groups in the Sahel region.

At the moment the Polisario Front controls about a fifth of Western Sahara and runs the self-proclaimed SADR, which is supporte d by neighboring Algeria.  The White House statement said an “independent Sahrawi state is not a realistic option for resolving the conflict” and that “genuine autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty is the only feasible solution.”

While Morocco never formally recognized Israel, a close working relationship between the two was secretly maintained ever since Israel’s foundation in 1948, and particularly so during the reign of the late King Hassan II, autocrat though he was.  All US presidents have supported the many covert cooperative contacts between Morocco and Israel, but baulked at the international repercussions they feared might follow a formal recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara.  It took Donald Trump to convert the problem into an opportunity.  The question is, at what cost?

   US recognition certainly diminishes the hopes of the Sahrawi people, who have been seeking their independence for decades.  The UN is still mandated to oversee a referendum, but that too now seems a remote possibility.  The protracted stalemate between Morocco and the Polisario Front ultimately boils down to international recognition ‒ a new independent state cannot be established without it ‒ and the chance of that outcome seems much reduced.

            Another question hovers over this deal.  Is a future Biden administration likely to endorse or renege on it?   As president, Joe Biden is unlikely to view the development with much relish, but the balance of US interests probably lies with allowing the deal ‒ and with it US recognition of Morocco’s disputed claim to Western Sahara ‒ to stand.  As far as Sahrawi national liberation aspirations are concerned, Israeli‒Moroccan normalization has been bought at a high cost.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 14 December 2020, and in the Jerusalem Post on-line as: "What did Trump concede in the Morocco-Israel deal?" 15 December 2020:

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/what-did-trump-concede-in-the-morocco-israel-deal-opinion-652121

Published in the Eurasia Review, 18 December 2020:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/18122020-the-morocco-israel-deal-what-trump-conceded-oped/ 

Published in the Jewish Business News, 18 December 2020:

https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2020/12/18/the-morocco-israel-deal-%e2%80%92-what-trump-conceded/

 

Trump's Middle East swan song

 

            Having apparently lost the glittering prize of Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords before he leaves office, Trump has hastened to finalize an Israeli-Moroccan normalization deal, and is grasping at another possible opportunity. Back in 2017, following years of dissension, Saudi Arabia and neighbouring states severed all relations with Qatar. Could Trump bring an end to what has become known as the Gulf Crisis?  Why else would Trump’s son-in-law and special adviser, Jared Kushner, have visited the Gulf region on November 30?

            Kushner met Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh, and then travelled to Qatar on December 2 for a meeting with the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.  Following these discussions, media reports suggested that Qatar and Saudi Arabia were close to striking an agreement to end the dispute.

Qatar is a stand-alone Middle Eastern state in more ways than one − geographically, politically, economically, influentially.  Itself a small peninsula projecting into the Persian Gulf from the vast Arabian Peninsula, Qatar clearly aspires to become a major player in the region and beyond.  In pursuit of this objective, its tactics have sometimes puzzled, sometimes infuriated, its neighbours. But then, as one of the world’s wealthiest nations – and certainly number one on a per capita basis – Qatar has reckoned that it could afford the luxury of proceeding along its own preferred path, without too much concern for what others thought.

For example, Qatar’s strategy of backing Islamists − from Hamas in Gaza, to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, to hard-line Syrian opposition fighters − while also offering itself as a key US ally, was rooted in pragmatism.  Qatar wanted to extend its influence in the region by being friends with everybody. “We don’t do enemies,” Qatar’s one-time foreign minister is reported to have said, “we talk to everyone.”  And talk they certainly do, through the Qatari-owned Al Jazeera world-wide media network.

But Qatar’s wayward policies, especially with regard to Islamist groups, had long infuriated its neighbouring Arab states. Back in January 2014, when Qatar’s 33-year-old Emir, Sheikh al-Thani, had been in power for less than a year, Gulf states suddenly pressured Qatar to sign an agreement undertaking not to support extremist groups, not to interfere in the affairs of other Gulf states, and to cooperate on regional issues.

When the Qatari government flatly refused to comply, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain broke off diplomatic relations.  The inexperienced Al-Thani was unable to withstand the pressure.  In April 2014, at a meeting in Saudi Arabia, his arm was twisted, and the Qataris signed an undertaking known as the Riyadh agreement.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain clearly took away a very different view of what had been agreed than the Qataris. They expected Qatar to curtail its support for extreme Islamism, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters. They believed that Qatar had agreed to remove, or at least reduce, the appearance of Islamists on Al Jazeera and other Qatari media, and especially to eliminate the constant Muslim Brotherhood-based criticism of Egypt’s government and its president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi.

They soon discovered that Qatar had no intention of meeting their expectations. It simply continued its support of Islamist extremists intent on undermining the stability of the region. Finally, their patience exhausted, the Gulf states and Egypt took drastic action.  On June 5, 2017, without any sort of warning, they broke off diplomatic relations with Qatar, suspended all land, air and sea traffic, and virtually imposed a trade blockade.

This bombshell initiative had been preceded by Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia on 20 May for a meeting with some 50 leaders of the Arab world.  On the subject of Islamist extremism Trump had been characteristically blunt. “A better future is only possible if your nations drive out the terrorists and extremists...Drive them out of your communities. Drive them out of your holy lands. And drive them out of this Earth.”

Qatar has been under siege for more than three years.  Although most major trade routes into and out of the country have been closed off, Qatar has been sustained by continuous shiploads of food and other goods sent in by Iran and Turkey.  As for exports, Qatar is the largest global exporter of liquefied natural gas, and this has been maintained.  As a result, the country seems to have weathered the blockade and to be reasonably well placed to sustain itself indefinitely. 

According to most media comment the Trump initiative has yielded positive results.  On December 4 Qatar's foreign affairs minister, Mohammed Al-Thani, said "We are optimistic about a resolution to the Gulf crisis, but we cannot say that all problems will be solved in one day."

The New York Times sees a connection between ending the dispute and Trump’s aim of weakening the regime in Iran, which has been sustaining Qatar’s economy.  The paper reported that high among the proposed first steps, Trump is pressing Saudi Arabia to open its airspace for Qatari flights. Over the past three years Qatar has been paying millions of dollars to use Iran's airspace.

The Abraham Accords will surely be added to the credit side of Trump’s account when his years in office are eventually submitted to the judgement of history.  If his last-minute effort to resolve the Gulf Crisis yields a positive result, his reputation as a surprising and unexpected peace-maker will be further enhanced.

Published in the Jerusalem Post on-line, 13 December 2020, as

"Could Trump bring an end to what has become known as the Gulf Crisis?":

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/could-trump-bring-an-end-to-what-has-become-known-as-the-gulf-crisis-651919

Published in the Eurasia Review, 11 December 2020:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/11122020-trumps-middle-east-swan-song-oped/

Published in the Jewish Business News, 11 December 2020:
https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2020/12/11/trumps-middle-east-swan-song/