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

             

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

       

The UN’s in-built anti-Israel majority

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 30 September 2024

        It has been a dispiriting time, these past few days, watching a succession of world leaders parrot to the UN General Assembly misinformation, half-truths and downright lies emanating from the propaganda machines of Iran and its proxies, and see them receive rapturous applause from the delegates. 

The speeches by Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, and prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, powerful though each was, fell largely on deaf ears, drowned out by consistent and continuous anti-Israel rhetoric from a succession of Muslim leaders and their allies. 

The UN General Assembly has 193 member states, and a significant number of them are part of the Global South, including Arab, Muslim-majority, and developing nations that have traditionally supported the Palestinian cause or taken positions critical of Israel.  Many of them, especially those with histories of colonization, see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the lens of anti-colonialism.  The millennia-long association of the Jewish people with the Holy Land, proof positive that Jews are not colonialists in their own historic homeland, has been deliberately written out of the accepted anti-Israel narrative.

It is far from the only willful misrepresentation.  When South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, addressed the Assembly, he linked his country’s application to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza to apartheid in his own country.   

“The violence the Palestinian people are being subjected to is a grim continuation of more than half a century of apartheid that has been perpetrated against Palestinians by Israel,” he said. “We South Africans know what apartheid looks like...We will not remain silent and watch as apartheid is perpetrated against others.”

He ignores the views of eminent fellow countrymen and women who utterly reject his assertion – people like Reverend Kenneth Meshoe, leader of the African Christian Democratic Party, who says that using the term in respect of Israel trivializes the suffering experienced under apartheid in South Africa. He accuses those who use apartheid in respect of Israel of distorting the truth for political purposes.  Or Mamphela Ramphele, former leader of the Agang SA political party. She argues that equating Israel’s situation with apartheid South Africa is a false equivalence. Mosioua "Terror" Lekota, the leader of the Congress of the People (COPE) party, also dismisses claims that Israel is an apartheid state (“Terror” refers to his prowess on the football field). Acknowledging the difficulties faced by some Palestinians, he asserts that these do not equate to apartheid as experienced in South Africa. 

          The address by Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was an object lesson in both hype and hypocrisy. He took the already suspect Hamas-inspired figures of those killed during the Gaza war and magnified them.

At one point he said “hundreds of thousands of children are dead and are still dying”- a ridiculous exaggeration; at another he claimed that “more than 17,000 children” had been “targeted” by Israel in Gaza, implying that the IDF had gone out in search of youngsters to kill.

What is never heard from pro-Palestinian lobbyists, and too rarely from those supporting Israel, is that the Hamas health ministry’s definition of “child” is anyone under 18 years of age. Fully-fledged soldiers aged 16 and 17 are counted as children and go toward boosting the emotive total. 

Erdogan condemned Israel’s recent 45-day suspension of Al Jazeera’s activities as an unjustifiable attack on the media.  In presenting himself as the champion of journalists, Erdogan achieved the height of hypocrisy.  He conveniently forgot that in 2016 Turkey achieved the dubious record of imprisoning more journalists in one year than any other nation, ever.  Today, reports the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), there are scores of Turkish and Kurdish journalists, indicted on charges of terrorism, awaiting trial in Turkey.

By mentioning the name "Hamas" once in his speech, Erdogan did go one better than Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas.  Erdogan claimed that Hamas had accepted a ceasefire deal.  In fact, after its “acceptance” it proposed so many changes that US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, told Hamas a month later that it was “time for the haggling to stop."

 As for Abbas, the word "Hamas" never passed his lips.  He concentrated on the regrettable, but predictable, results of the barbarous attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which he described as an explosion that “happened”. 

 Confident of his in-built majority in the General Assembly, he asked delegates to vote in favour of the July ruling of the ICJ that "Israel's... continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is illegal"  and that Israel should evacuate all its settlers from the West Bank and East Jerusalem within twelve months. Realistically, with its in-built, anti-Israel majority, the General Assembly is likely to do just that. 

Abbas ended by outlining a 12-point plan for “the day after”, which included him and the PA in charge of Gaza, and a UN-sponsored peace conference with Israel.  A little earlier in his speech he had described Israel as  “this transient State.” Now, in support of the proposal, he declared: “We recognize the State of Israel.”

In his first address to the UN General Assembly, the new president of Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian, condemned Israel’s campaign in Gaza, quoting the usual undifferentiated 41,000 figure of those killed, “mostly women and children”.  Israel’s renewed  initiative against Hezbollah he described as “desperate barbarism”.

Then, perhaps speaking for himself, but certainly not for his Supreme Leader or the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps), he declared: “We want peace for all and seek no war or quarrel with anyone.”

The words must have come as something of a shock to the hardline minders sent to accompany him into the hell of the “Great Satan”.  Their emollient president had been selected for the post only a few months before by the nation’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, who may already be regretting his choice. 

          For on his arrival in the US on September 16, Pezeshkian had held a press conference and told American reporters: "We are willing to put all our weapons aside so long as Israel is willing to do the same."  Supporters of the regime back in Tehran were aghast. A prime purpose of Iran's 1979 revolution is to overthrow Israel, the US and the West, and impose Shia law on them and the whole world. There was a media storm; the president was accused of speaking out of turn.

          Either at that point, or during his less-than-aggressive words at the General Assembly, a decision was taken.  While he was still standing on the podium, the Iranian mission to the UN announced that the president’s press conference, scheduled for the next day, had been canceled. He had apparently said more than enough.

His words to the US reporters were already in the papers, and his speech attracted only short-lived applause from the assembled delegates.  The UN General Assembly, it seems, was not prepared to countenance anyone suggesting peace with Israel, not even the representative of its supreme enemy. The UN’s in-built anti-Israel majority was as predictable as ever. 

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and in the Jerusalem Post online titled: "UN's anti-Israel majority: Misinformation and hypocrisy reign at the General Assembly", 30 Sep 2024:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-822434

Published in Eurasia Review, 5 October 2024:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/05102024-the-uns-in-built-anti-israel-majority-oped/

Published  in the MPC Journal titled "Why the UN votes against Israel", 10 Oct 2024

https://mpc-journal.org/why-the-un-votes-against-israel/ 

Turkey seeks to join BRICS

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 23 September 2024

 On September 2, Turkey was reported to be the first and only NATO member asking to join the BRICS economic group of nations.  BRICS, headed by Russia, China, Iran and South Africa, is dominated by the Russian and Chinese presidents, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.   .

One former Turkish diplomat told the news medium Newsweek that the move by Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has been driven by "accumulated frustrations" with the West and the EU.  Sinan Ulgen, head of the Istanbul-based think tank EDAM, said:  "It's a strategy to strengthen relations with non-Western powers at a time when the US hegemony is waning."

The economic grouping originally calling itself BRIC from the initials of its founding members – Brazil, Russia, India and China – was originally concerned with identifying investment opportunities for their fast-growing economies.  They held their first meeting in 2006, and soon evolved into a formal geopolitical bloc. 

In 2010 South Africa was invited to join, and this led to the change of name to BRICS.  The bloc has come to be regarded as a global alternative to the US-led G7 economic grouping – the informal body comprising seven of the world's advanced economies:  the US, the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan. The European Union is a “non-enumerated member.”

In August 2023, during its summit in Johannesburg, BRICS invited six new countries to join the group:  Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The invitation reflected BRICS’s ambition to challenge the dominance of the G7 on the world economic stage, and to strengthen ties with emerging economies.

Argentina is the only country to have formally declined the invitation.  Saudi Arabia is hesitating, might take it up at some time, but meanwhile participates in the organization's activities as an invited nation.  The other four joined on January 1, 2024.  Combined, BRICS members now encompass about 30% of the world's land surface and 45% of the global population.

Turkey's application to join puts it at odds with the rest of the NATO family, but it has been a problematic member from the very start.  Admitted in 1952, with the Cold War at its iciest, the hope was that Turkey would help protect NATO’s eastern flank from Soviet aggression.  In the event Turkey, half-in and half-out of Europe, frequently diverged from the consensus view of the alliance.  But since Erdogan came to power – first as Turkey’s prime minister, and later as President – Turkey has consistently pursued tactical and foreign policy goals at odds with the West. 

Convinced that Turkey’s place within the organization was impregnable on strategic grounds, Erdogan has persistently pursued his own agenda.  For example, even when Western countries combined to fight terror groups like al-Qaeda and Islamic State, Erdogan continued supporting the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoot extremist militias.  In Syria Turkey is continually challenging the US for supporting Kurdish forces that Erdogan views as terrorists.

Then there was the débacle over Erdogan’s bid to purchase F-35s, the latest generation of US stealth jet fighters, at the very time he was installing Russia's advanced S-400 air-defense missile system. Defying strenuous American objections and the threat of sanctions, Turkey  received the first shipment from Russia in July 2018.  

This rendered the American F-35 deal impossible.  The S-400 is specifically designed to detect and shoot down stealth fighters like the F-35.  If Turkey acquired both, the Russian specialists required to set up the S-400 system would be able to learn about the advanced technology built into the American-made fighter jets. 

So when it became perfectly apparent that Erdogan was insistent on receiving the Russian ground-to-air missile system, Washington cancelled the F-35 deal. 

The effect of Turkey’s S-400 purchase was to enhance Russia’s growing influence in the Middle East. Every subsequent NATO operation had to take into account the presence of the Russian system in Turkey – a disruptive effect on the Western alliance very much to Putin’s liking. 

Putin must also relish Turkey’s application to join BRICS - a further chapter in the Erdogan saga, centered on his belief that he can both run with the hare and hunt with the hounds.  He may feel that a by-product of his membership of BRICS will be to gain congenial support for his latest diplomatic effort – a new Islamic alliance dedicated to delegitimizing and destabilizing Israel. He now reveals the "charm offensive" he directed toward Israel in April 2022 as the realpolitik cloak it always was.  He urgently needed to improve his standing with the US at the time. 

On September 7, speaking in Istanbul, Erdogan said: “The only step that will stop Israeli arrogance, Israeli banditry, and Israeli state terrorism is the alliance of Islamic countries.”  He went on to emphasize that Turkey’s recent diplomatic moves to improve ties with Egypt and Syria were aimed at creating a “line of solidarity against the growing threat of expansionism.”  

Egypt is, of course, already a member of BRICS.  At least ten other countries are expressing interest in joining. They include a fair number of potential supporters of Turkey’s anti-Israel consortium, such as Algeria, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nigeria  and Pakistan.

Erdogan’s fear of Israeli “expansionism” probably refers in part to the Abraham Accords – the arrangements under which four Arab nations have normalized their relations with Israel without requiring a Palestinian state as a prerequisite.  The United Arab Emirates (UAE) are already a member, and Saudi Arabia, which is in advanced negotiations with the US about an Abraham Accord of its own, was invited to join the BRICS group during its summit in August 2023, but did not do so on January 1, 2024, which was the suggested date.  It is still considering the matter.

Erdogan’s current dissatisfaction with the West stems from its support for Israel's response to Hamas’s barbaric attack on Israel on October 7.  Subsequent adverse criticism by many Western nations of the collateral deaths, injuries and physical damage has done nothing to placate him. His reported response to the exploding pagers and walkie-talkie episodes are to accuse Israel of seeking to expand the Gaza war to Lebanon.

Turkey has remained equivocal about Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. 

Unlike other NATO members, it has not imposed sanctions on the Kremlin.  Rather than annoying Moscow, Erdogan has established himself as a mediator between Russia and Ukraine. He has brokered talks about grain exports from Black Sea ports and the latest prisoner swap between Moscow and Washington.

“Turkey can become a strong, prosperous, prestigious and effective country,” he said on September 1, “if it improves its relations with the East and the West simultaneously.  Any method other than this will not benefit Turkey, but will harm it.”

Warming to his theme, and sticking closely to his precarious, but well-established strategy, he continued: “We do not have to choose between the European Union and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as some people claim.  On the contrary, we have to develop our relations with both these and other organizations on a win-win basis.”

Turkey’s application to join BRICS will be discussed at a summit in Russia in October.


Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Turkey seeks to join BRICS in a strategic shift away from the West" , 23 Sep 2024:
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-821275

Bias at the BBC

 Published in the Jerusalem Post Weekend Magazine, 20 September 2024

            The flagship BBC news and comment TV programme, “Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg”,  is transmitted first thing every Sunday morning, and then is available indefinitely via the BBC iPlayer, its video on demand service.  The programme always starts with a review of the UK’s Sunday newspapers, showing their front pages and headlines.

            On Sunday morning, September 8, Kuenssberg, the BBC’s political editor, provided her viewers with a sight of every leading UK newspaper except the Sunday Telegraph.  Why was it omitted?  Perhaps because that morning the Telegraph headline read:

“BBC ‘breached guidelines 1,500 times’ over Israel-Hamas war.  Coverage was heavily biased against Israel, report into corporation’s output finds.”

   The report referred to presented an analysis of the BBC’s news coverage during a four-month period beginning October 7, 2023 – the day Hamas burst into Israel and carried out their brutal massacre of around 1,200 people, taking another 251 into Gaza as hostages.

A team of around 20 lawyers and 20 data scientists had contributed to the research, which used artificial intelligence to analyze nine million words of BBC output.

Researchers identified a total of 1,553 breaches of the BBC’s editorial guidelines, which demand impartiality, accuracy and adherence to editorial values and the public interest.

“The findings,” said the report, “reveal a deeply worrying pattern of bias and multiple breaches by the BBC of its own editorial guidelines.”

It also found that the BBC repeatedly downplayed Hamas terrorism, while presenting Israel as a militaristic and aggressive nation, and that some journalists used by the BBC in its coverage of the Israel-Gaza conflict had previously shown sympathy for Hamas and even celebrated its acts of terror

            The report bears the name of Trevor Asserson, a British-born lawyer. Founder and senior partner of an international law firm, he now runs the Israeli arm of the firm from Tel Aviv.

Asserson is no novice when it comes to analyzing the broadcast media.  Back in 2000 he was still based in the UK.  Listening to, and watching, the BBC reporting on the troubled Middle East following the first intifada and the failure of the Oslo Accords, he became increasingly incensed with what appeared to be the BBC’s obvious departure from its declared principles of impartiality.

 Asserting that the BBC’s coverage of the Middle East is “infected by an apparent widespread antipathy towards Israel,”  Asserson commissioned a series of in-depth studies to determine if the BBC’s coverage was indeed impartial or biased. 

For a seven-week period in 2001, his team recorded the bulk of the BBC’s Middle East news output on TV and radio, and for comparison they simultaneously recorded reports from a variety of other sources.  Their conclusion: the BBC was in frequent breach of its obligations under its charter and broadcasting licence to be unbiased and impartial.

Trevor Asserson’s reports, matched by vociferous Palestinian claims of pro-Israel bias in the BBC, finally led the corporation to commission an investigation and report from one of its senior journalists, Malcolm Balen.

Balen examined hundreds of hours of broadcast material, both TV and radio, analyzing the content in minute detail.  This exhaustive study resulted in a 20,000-word report which, at the end of 2004, was given highly restricted circulation within the top echelons of the BBC.  Thereafter it was treated as Top Secret and locked away. 

Widespread speculation that Balen had uncovered multiple examples of BBC bias and breaches of impartiality led to repeated legal applications for its release under the UK Freedom of Information Act.  These legal challenges were defended by the BBC at a cost of over £330,000. In 2009 the House of Lords, then the UK’s supreme court, ruled that as “a document held for journalistic purposes”, the report was explicitly excluded from the requirements of the Act.  So it remains locked away.

The BBC’s obvious anti-Israel stance in reporting the events of October 7, 2023 and its aftermath enraged one Asserson client. The final straw came a week into the war.  The BBC’s reporting of the explosion that occurred in the parking lot of the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City breached BBC Guidelines just too blatantly.  Knowing of Asserson’s work a quarter of a century ago, the client suggested he undertake a similar analysis of the BBC’s coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

The now 68-year-old Trevor Asserson took up the challenge. The Report reveals that he himself designed and ran the research program.  Work undertaken by solicitors within the firm was mostly carried out on a voluntary basis. An Israeli businessman, based in London, funded such expenses as paying external lawyers to conduct human review, and for work undertaken by data scientists who contributed to the Report.

   In reporting the Al-Ahli explosion, the BBC’s correspondent, speaking live from Gaza, said "it is hard to see what else this could be, really, given the size of the explosion, other than an Israeli airstrike or several airstrikes."  The  BBC’s Arabic service repeated this assessment, and anti-Israel protests immediate broke out both in the Arab world and the West. 

It did not take long for the truth to emerge, but by then the damage had been done.  The explosion was the result of a misfired rocket by Islamic Jihad.  In its apology, days later, the BBC still failed to make clear that the evidence showed conclusively that the explosion had not been an Israeli attack.

"I think the BBC has a deep problem of bias against Israel," Asserson is reported to have said.  "The BBC continually and consistently failed in its duty to be journalistically accurate, and also in its duty to be impartial and objective."

The hasty and unverified assertion that Israel must be responsible for the explosion at the Al-Ahli Hospital was followed by a further example a few weeks later.  On that occasion the BBC reported that IDF troops had entered Gaza’s Shifa Hospital, "targeting medical teams and Arab speakers."  This was either a wilful or an unprofessional mis-reading of an IDF release, which stated that the troops had entered the hospital "accompanied by Arabic speakers and medical teams" to assist patients. On this occasion the BBC broadcast an adequate apology.

As the vast network of tunnels criss-crossing the Gaza Strip – a system larger than the London Underground – was slowly revealed, the BBC seemed to be doing its best to undermine the IDF’s discovery of a Hamas military command post directly underneath a hospital.

Jeremy Bowen, the BBC’s International Editor, seemed to suggest that the discovery of Kalashnikov assault rifles found in the hospital basements had nothing to do with Hamas. Implying that they might be part of the hospital’s own security, he said with a smile:  "Wherever you go in the Middle East you see an awful lot of Kalashnikovs."  .

Bowen, now a senior BBC official, was singled out for criticism back in April 2009 when he was the BBC’s Middle East editor. A  series of complaints of inaccuracy and anti-Israel bias were brought against him.  On investigation the charges of bias were not sustained, but three complaints of inaccuracy were fully or partially upheld by the BBC.

The new Asserson Report devotes no less than 16 pages to demonstrating inaccuracy or anti-Israel bias in Bowen’s reporting of the Gaza conflict, and also in his recently published book “The Making of the Modern Middle East”. 

The report singles out the BBC’s Arabic service as one of the most biased of all global media outlets in its treatment of the Israel-Hamas conflict.  It identifies 11 news and comment programs featuring reporters who, it shows, have previously made public statements in support of terrorism, and specifically Hamas, without viewers being informed of this.

The report also finds that the BBC associated Israel with war crimes 121 times as against 30 for Hamas; with genocide 283 times as against 19 for Hamas; and with breaching international law 167 times as against 27 for Hamas.

It is not surprising, in light of the Report’s carefully referenced evidence, that Jewish and non-Jewish voices in the UK are calling for a full independent investigation into the BBC’s coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.  Danny Cohen, once Director of BBC Television, has said there is now an “institutional crisis” at the corporation, and called for an independent review.  The Telegraph reported that two leading Jewish groups, the Campaign Against Antisemitism and the National Jewish Assembly, have added their voices to the call, while Lord Austin, a former Labour minister, accused the BBC of “high-handed arrogance” for continually dismissing questions over its impartiality.

The Asserson Report has been submitted to the BBC’s director general, Tim Davie, and to Samir Shah, its chairman, as well as to all board members. 

This positive and hopeful approach was immediately devalued by a BBC spokesperson, who sought to question the technical competence of the research.  The corporation had “serious questions” about the report’s methodology, the spokesperson announced, particularly its heavy reliance on Artificial Intelligence to analyze impartiality, and its interpretation of the BBC’s editorial guidelines.

“However, we will consider the report carefully and respond directly to the authors once we have had time to study it in detail.”

Once the BBC was its own master, but in 2017 it was made subject to an external regulator, Ofcom (the Office of Communications).  The Conservative MP Greg Smith, shadow transport and business minister, has said: “There are now clear grounds for Ofcom  and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to use every tool they have in their arsenal to bring about greater compliance with the rules around neutrality and fair coverage in the BBC charter.”

Depending on the BBC’s response to the Asserson Report, Ofcom may indeed decide to take action designed to restore genuine impartiality within the corporation.

Published in the Jerusalem Post Weekend Magazine and online titled: "BBC bias on Israel: How did the UK broadcaster lose impartiality?", 21 Sep 2024:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-820841

Published in Eurasia Review, 20 Sep 2024:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/20092024-bias-at-the-bbc-oped/

Islamists gain in Jordan’s election

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 16 September, 2024

            Jordan went to the polls on September 10.  This parliamentary election marked two significant milestones for the nation.  It resulted in a strengthening of Islamist — and therefore anti-Israel — power within Jordan’s political arena.  And it saw the Hashemite kingdom take its first, hesitant step towards its declared intention of converting itself into a constitutional monarchy within the next decade.  

   When he took over the throne in February 1999, King Abdullah II inherited a royal autocracy.  In line with Arab rulers for centuries past, the monarch had, and still possesses, absolute powers.  He appoints and can dismiss the government, he appoints the members of the upper house of the legislature, he initiates legislation – the lower chamber is limited to approving, rejecting or amending it.

The Arab Spring, starting in 2011, witnessed popular insurrections across the Arab world and the fall of a succession of Arab leaders.  Abdullah’s reaction was to promise his people slow, but steady, movement toward a more democratic constitution for Jordan.  Ten years later there was little evidence of any change, and in April 2021 a shocking conspiracy to replace  Abdullah with his half-brother, the former Crown Prince Hamzah, was revealed.

A relative of Abdullah, together with the king’s former top confidant, were charged with devising a “criminal project” involving Prince Hamzah, once heir to the throne.  Found guilty of sedition and incitement against the crown, the men each received a jail sentence of 15 years with hard labor.  Prince Hamzah was not arrested, and Abdullah announced that the dispute with him would be resolved within the royal family.

            One result was that in June 2021 Abdullah set up a 92-member commission, headed by former Prime Minister Samir Rifai, charged with creating a plan to modernize Jordan’s elections and the laws governing political parties.   The commission decided that within a decade Jordan’s long-established royal autocracy would be converted into a constitutional monarchy.  Governments would no longer be appointed by the king, but would be formed from the nationally elected members of parliament. 

 With that decision as a ground plan, a sub-committee approved an election law that, among other things, provided for gradually increasing political party representation in parliament. This would occur over the following three elections, until finally the sort of democratic arrangement applying in the UK or Sweden would be reached.  The leader of the largest political party emerging from the election would become prime minister and form a government.

The recent election marked the first phase in the planned reform.  It allocated 30% of the 138 parliamentary seats to political parties.  Phase two is scheduled to occur in the 2028 election, when they will occupy 50%.  The process is planned to culminate in the elections in 2032, when political parties will occupy 65% of the seats.

By then, if the current results are any indication, Jordan’s parliament and possibly its government would be in the hands of Islamists.  The Islamic Action Front (IAF), a political offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, has been in the forefront of growing calls in Jordan to repeal the Jordan-Israel peace treaty.  Ever since the Hamas pogrom of October 7  demonstrators have been surrounding the Israeli embassy in Amman, demanding its closure and the repeal of the treaty.

So far these calls have been strongly resisted by the government, representing Abdullah’s view that the treaty is a bulwark against regional instability.  If Abdullah yielded even a fraction of his power to a political leader elected and mandated by popular vote, there would be a real danger of Jordan turning its back on the peace treaty.  Abdullah will be aware that copper-bottomed guarantees safeguarding his ultimate authority will have to be built into Jordan’s planned constitutional reform – if, indeed, it actually proceeds past phase one.

While there is general support for the 10-year reform process, there are opponents who are skeptical of the strength of the will for political reform.

Nedal Mansour, a human rights activist and leader in the country’s civil society movement, is reported as saying there is little reason for Jordanians to believe that change will actually happen.

“People are not convinced that there is a serious will for reform. They feel that they are buying time by talking about gradual reform…Why should we wait another 10 years? The fact is that nothing has happened in terms of reform in the past 20 years; why will the system be any different in the coming years?”

In the event, the September 10 election resulted in Jordan's leading Islamist opposition party, the IAF, winning 31 out of the 138 parliamentary seats.  The party had 10 seats in the previous parliament.  The turnout was only some 32% of the 5 million-plus eligible voters. 

Half the 11 million strong Jordanian population is of Palestinian origin, and during the election campaign the Islamists had capitalized on people’s growing anger over the continuing war in Gaza.  The IAF’s strategy may have fostered unfortunate results.

On the Sunday before the election, September 8, a truck approached the Allenby Bridge from the Jordanian side.  It stopped not far from the crossing into Israel, and video footage shows the driver walking toward the terminal, raising a weapon and firing three times.  Each shot was fatal, and he killed three Israeli civilian guards: Yohanan Shchori, Yuri Birnbaum, and Adrian Marcelo Podzamczer. 

Security personnel returned fire, and the gunman – later identified as Maher Jazi, a Jordanian – was killed.

Hamas officials did not claim responsibility for the attack, but described it as a "natural response" to the war in Gaza.  A  recent news report indicates that the joint Jordanian-Israeli investigation into the shooting is currently focused on whether the perpetrator acted alone or whether some extremist group, operating from within Jordan, has embarked on a series of terrorist attacks against Israel. 

Whatever the truth of the matter, it is clear that Jordan is currently in a febrile state, with the king and the government attempting to prevent widespread pro-Hamas sentiment from boiling over into active protests or worse.  The IAF’s formal access of increased power and influence, following the parliamentary elections, is not calculated to pour oil on the troubled waters.  Meanwhile Jordan’s constitutional and political future looks even more uncertain

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and in the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Jordan's political future looks uncertain as Islamists make gains in recent election", 16 Sep 2024:

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-820239

Published in Eurasia Review, 20 September 2024:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/20092024-islamists-gain-in-jordans-election-oped/

.Published in the MPC Journal, 23 September 2024:

https://mpc-journal.org/14482-2/

Iran’s Axis of Resistance is fundamentally unstable

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 10 September 2024

          As early as December 27, 2023, speaking to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, defense minister Yoav Gallant said: “We are in a multifront war and coming under attack from seven theaters.” He added that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were taking action on six of them.

          On July 1, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu elaborated on this to a group of visiting US leaders. Israel, he told them, is engaged in defending itself on at least seven fronts, all Iranian-inspired and supported.  He listed them:  Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, militias in Iraq, Syria and the West Bank, and Iran itself.  Iran has dubbed them the Axis of Resistance. 

Yet even though all seven look to the Iranian regime for financial and military support, and act under its guidance, to regard the Axis as anything like a unified or integrated opponent would be to misread the situation. The alliance is, in fact, inherently unstable, and therefore vulnerable. 

 In mounting its bloodthirsty incursion into Israel on October 7, 2023, Hamas certainly did not realize it was biting off more than it could chew.  Its leadership must have calculated that the organization could absorb an inevitable and massive Israeli retaliation.  They certainly never foresaw that they were dealing themselves a death blow.  In the event, Hamas’s military strength has been literally decimated by Israel’s defense forces, and whatever shape a ceasefire deal may take, Hamas will never rule in Gaza again.

 The Iranian regime became interested in Hamas in the early 1990s, when the organization broke with Yasser Arafat for signing the Oslo Accords.  It became clear that Hamas was one hundred percent rejectionist, and spurned Arafat's tactic of winning over world opinion as a preliminary to eventually ousting Israel from the Middle East.

After the first Oslo Accord a conference hosted by Iran in Tehran in support of the Palestinian cause was attended by Hamas but not by Arafat, and afterward Iran began supporting Hamas both militarily and financially.

 But Iran is the leader of the Shia Muslim world, and its founder is on record as describing the followers of the majority Sunni branch of Islam as apostates and heretics. 

Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, is Sunni heart and soul.  It is obvious that this Iran-Hamas relationship is a marriage of convenience, destined for divorce at the first suitable opportunity.  Iran will support Hamas just as long as there is something to support, and not a moment longer.

 Then Hezbollah, formed in the early 1980s shortly after Israel invaded Lebanon in order to chase the PLO out of the country. It was Israel’s presence within Lebanese territory that led a group of Shia clerics to create the organization.  The new body modeled itself on the principles established by Ayatollah Khomeini following the Iranian Revolution in 1979, and its clear purpose was to remove the Israeli presence from Lebanon.

Much water has flowed under the bridge since then.  Hezbollah has entrenched itself within the Lebanese body politic, and now forms a significant part of the country’s government.  To retain power, it has to be responsive to some degree to the opinion of the public from which its electorate is drawn.

 Polls show that the Lebanese public has no desire to be drawn into a war with Israel.  The country is at an economic low ebb, and they see no advantage, and much to be feared, in such an enterprise.  Hezbollah will find it difficult to ride roughshod over public opinion.  The tit-for-tat armed exchanges with Israel that grow ever more lethal, have turned into combat for combat’s sake.  Hezbollah’s original purpose – to remove Israel from Lebanon – has long been an anachronism.  Now Hezbollah has nothing to gain for itself, or for Lebanon, from prolonging the conflict.  Its somewhat muted retaliation on August 29 for the assassination of  its military commander Fuad Shukr indicates as much.  It wants to take over southern Lebanon.  The only way is to wind down the conflict with Israel, and get the UN to remove its UNIFIL forces from the border.

 In 2009 the Houthis in Yemen welcomed Iranian assistance in their struggle to take over control of the country from the officially recognized government.  The Iranian regime had its own reasons – it enabled them to gain a foothold on the Arabian peninsula, much to the alarm of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states.  Ever since 2015 a coalition assembled by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) has been holding the Houthis at bay.

The Houthis, who display “Death to Israel.  A curse on the Jews” on their flag, were

willing enough to put their domestic struggle to one side after October 7, and respond to Iran’s effort to attack Israel on as many fronts as possible.  The group has launched missiles and drones against Israel, as well as attacking commercial shipping. 

But all this extra-mural military activity was never on the Houthis’ agenda.  They have their own fish to fry, and it has nothing to do with Israel or the Palestinian cause.  They seek to gain control of the whole of Yemen, and they will not reman diverted from their main aim for very long. 

As for the Iranian-funded militias in Iraq, Syria and the West Bank, each indulge in harassing tactics that require Israel’s occasional armed military response.  Hamas has had an active presence in the West Bank for years, fomenting action against the Palestinian Authority which it once aimed to replace – an ambition that is now moribund.  On August 28 the IDF took successful action to root out the terrorist militias that had infiltrated the West Bank.

  As for Iran itself, the Supreme Leader and his acolytes, including the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps), rule a population seething with disaffection.  Every now and then open rebellion erupts onto the streets, in protest against the heavy-handed religious observance forced on the population, to say nothing of the privations forced on them by the heavily-sanctioned government.  The danger of a popular uprising is always present.

 On April 13, 2024,  Iran launched its first-ever direct aerial assault against Israel, involving hundreds of drones, cruise and ballistic missiles.  The anticipated military and propaganda triumph turned into a miserable failure.   Israel’s Iron Dome, American and British jet fighters, and Jordan’s refused to allow Iran to use its air space, resulted in about 99% of the aerial armada never reaching Israel.    Iran will certainly think twice, and probably more than that, before attempting a similar operation.

    Seven rather vulnerable military entities, including Iran itself, make up the much touted, but basically unstable, Axis of Resistance.  No wonder Israel’s leaders feel confident they can deal with them all – if necessary at one and the same time.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem Post online titled: "The Axis of Resistance may crumble on its own", 10 September 2024:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-819392

Published in Eurasia Review, 11 September 2024:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/13092024-irans-axis-of-resistance-is-fundamentally-unstable-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 23 September 2024:

https://mpc-journal.org/irans-axis-of-resistance-is-fundamentally-unstable/