Israel’s public diplomacy

 Published in the Jerusalem Post of 27 October 2026, titled "Israel's 'hasbara' - a pre-election survey":

           On Sunday, July 12, a debate took place in the Knesset on a subject Israel’s parliament rarely discusses: the work of the National Public Diplomacy Directorate — in other words, Israel’s hasbara.

           The Knesset’s own account of the debate conceded that it was occurring “after years of instability”. That was the least of the fundamental, indeed institutional, problems revealed.

          Eden Bar Tal, director-general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, openly admitted to the committee that, until the end of 2024, public diplomacy had scarcely featured in the ministry’s mission. Its concerns had historically been “almost solely diplomatic”.

          Only from the end of 2025, in accordance with a permanent government resolution, did communications and public diplomacy acquire priority. “Public diplomacy,” Bar Tal declared, “is now the main role of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”

          The change in government policy was backed by a dramatic budget increase. “In previous years,” Bar Tal revealed, “public diplomacy activity amounted to 25​-​to-27 million ​shekels per year for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs throughout the world. In effect, it was zero resources. Today, the budget that was set amounts to about 1.2 billion.”

          This extraordinary turnaround is almost certainly due to the appointment in April, shortly after completing her five-year term as Israel’s ambassador to the UK, of Tzipi Hotovely as Head of Israel's National Public Diplomacy Directorate. In the few months she has held office, she has been heavily involved in rebuilding the organization she inherited, as well as actively mounting two vitally important promotional campaigns.

          She told the Knesset committee that on taking up her post she had discovered substantial organizational problems. “I want to say directly and candidly,” she said, “that I discovered great difficulties, but we are rebuilding the directorate."

          However merely reconstructing the directorate that Hotovely now heads – essential as that is – may not, in itself, create the well-functioning and effective national hasbara operation the nation desperately requires. It is the overall organizational set-up that seems problematic.

          For example, two distinct bodies within the Israeli administration are rendered in English as “Public Diplomacy Directorate.” The National Public Diplomacy Directorate, headed by Tzipi Hotovely, sits in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). Its name in Hebrew includes hasbara. The Foreign Ministry’s Public Diplomacy Department is a separate unit within that ministry. The word “National” is attached only to Hotovely’s unit.

          Her organization is charged with setting and coordinating public diplomacy policy right across government, including the Foreign Ministry, the IDF, the intelligence agencies, the police, and the Government Press Office.

          The Foreign Ministry, on the other hand, operating its own Public Diplomacy Department, conducts Israel’s diplomacy abroad, supporting Israeli embassies, managing media relations and digital outreach, and promoting cultural and scientific cooperation, and relations with Jewish communities. Moreover, as Bar Tal informed the Knesset committee, it is the Foreign Ministry that administers the principal public diplomacy budget.

          Since the two bodies operate in the same broad policy field, questions must arise about the boundaries between their respective responsibilities.

          How is this arrangement, that looks like a recipe for operational confusion and inter-departmental rivalry, meant to operate?

          The current relationship is best described as coordination rather than command. Hotovely’s National Directorate is a senior level coordinating body operating from within the PMO, while the Foreign Ministry is both a participant in that coordination and an implementing ministry with its own overseas public diplomacy apparatus.

          In practice the National Directorate convenes a national public diplomacy forum bringing together representatives from across government. The Foreign Ministry’s Public Diplomacy Department then translates policy into work carried out through embassies and consulates, such as press engagement, digital diplomacy, branding, briefings, cultural and scientific diplomacy, and responses to hostile narratives such as BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) campaigns.

          The arrangement is not necessarily dysfunctional, since national coordination and diplomatic implementation can be complementary functions. But the arrangement strikes an outside observer as fragmented and lacking a clear management structure. Is this division of labor supported by sufficiently clear lines of authority​? If not, there is the risk of duplication, competing priorities and uncertainty over accountability.

          In “rebuilding” her directorate, Hotovely will certainly have in mind the potential problems posed by the current set-up.

          Meanwhile she has not allowed the grass to grow under her feet. In September she mounted a major publicity campaign in New York ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to the UN General Assembly. Around 500 billboards and dozens of trucks with digital screens were deployed, alongside online promotion. The messaging focused on Iran's security threat, the US–Israel partnership, and the argument that Israel and the US were defending the free world.

          In October Hotovely was heavily engaged in promoting a film that countered the anti-Israel messages in the film “NAZA”, which claimed that the collateral death toll in the Israel-Hamas war was deliberate and institutionalized Israeli military policy. The film won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival.

          Hotovely presented certificates of appreciation to the creators of “NAZA – The Real Story”, a film featuring Israeli military personnel's testimony, and intended to rebut accusations concerning the Israeli military's conduct in Gaza.

          The film was available free online, and on October 14 the Algemeiner reported “it has already been viewed more than 43 million times, according to the site.”

          Eylon Levy, a former spokesperson in the National Public Diplomacy Directorate, spoke to the Knesset committee in July.

            “Regrettably,” he said, “in the past few years our enemies have been playing on an empty field. The most prestigious organizations around the world are waging a delegitimization campaign against us, aimed at persuading normative people that we deserve to be destroyed, but we aren't returning fire.”

          Hotovely is supremely well qualified for the job she has taken on. Her career has combined domestic Israeli politics, diplomacy, and public advocacy abroad, and the Israeli cabinet unanimously approved her appointment. If anyone can construct the effective hasbara operation that Israel so desperately needs, it is Tzipi Hotovely.

          Whatever the political hue of the government that emerges as a result of this week’s election, the nation would be well served if she remains in post.

Operation “Dawn of Yemen”

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 20 October 2026

Early in September the Houthis launched a rapid and unexpected offensive along Yemen’s Red Sea coast. They captured the strategically important port of Mocha and pushed south towards the Bab al-Mandeb strait, gaining roughly 150km of coastline and threatening the southern entrance to the Red Sea.

The offensive turned Bab al-Mandeb into a second maritime pressure point in Iran’s conflict with the United States. Before it, American naval and military resources could concentrate on the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s principal economic lever. The Houthi advance put the Red Sea route into play as well, giving Iran potential leverage over both of the region’s main oil-shipping corridors.

Oil prices are determined at the margin, so even when actual lost production is relatively small, the mere threat of disruption can produce a large price increase. That is exactly what happened in September.  Brent crude, the principal international benchmark price for crude oil, had averaged about $89 per barrel for most of 2026.  After the seizure of Mocha, despite there not yet being an equivalent actual loss of global oil production, it went above $110.  It now sits just below $110..

         ​   The Houthi assault was too vitally significant to go unanswered.  On October 4, the internationally recognized Yemeni government, backed by Saudi Arabia, launched a major counter-offensive.  With substantial Saudi air and naval support, government forces attacked the areas recently gained by the Houthis.​  

In its public statements the Yemeni government has emphasized that its long-term aim is national reunification. 

​Accordingly when Rashad al-Alimi, president of Yemen’s​ Presidential Leadership Council (PLC)​ ​announced the ​operation on October 5, ​he described it as an effort to restore state institutions, retake Sana’a, and defeat the Houthi movement. ​ Probably more in hope than expectation, he dubbed it "Operation Dawn of Yemen".

​         Reuters suggests that Saudi Arabia’s more immediate strategic requirement is to recover the Bab al-Mandeb area and remove the leverage the Houthis acquired in September.

         Former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Michael Ratney, put that narrower objective succinctly: “Ideally, it would be a fairly limited operation to retake coastal areas and get back to normal maritime traffic.”

The coalition’s military effort is considerable.  Its spokesman, Major General Turki al-Maliki, said that 100 fighter aircraft participated in the opening phase, and that 324 “high-value targets” had been destroyed. The coalition also announced round-the-clock support for Yemeni ground forces and air cover over Bab al-Mandeb, while naval operations have extended north to Hodeidah governorate. The coalition says it struck weapons depots and facilities storing explosive-laden boats and naval mines, and thwarted a planned attack on southern Red Sea waterways.   

          Who are these Houthis, who call their movement Ansar Allah and are perhaps the most blatantly antisemitic of all jihadist groups?  They brandish a flag inscribed with the words: “A curse on the Jews”, in addition to such slogans as “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.”

They emerged in the late 1980s from within Yemen’s Zaydi ​Shiite communities in the northern Saada region. The current conflicted state stems back to the sadly misnamed “Arab spring” uprisings of 2011. Inside Yemen they resulted in mass protests against the long dictatorial rule of its president, Ali Abdullah Saleh. 

​Saleh was forced to step down in favor of his vice-president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.  In 2015 Hadi tried to sponsor a revised constitution for Yemen that envisaged a federal system split between northerners and southerners. The Iran-backed Houthi rebels rejected it.

Although the Houthis are fundamentalist Shi​ites, Yemen’s ex-president Saleh, a Sunni Muslim, decided to collaborate with them in a bid to return to power.

It was through Saleh that the Houthis were able to gain control of most of the Yemeni military, including its air force. As a result, and supported with military hardware from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, they overran large tracts of the country, and in September 2014 captured Yemen’s capital city, Sanaa.

Subsequently they expanded their control across much of north-western Yemen.

            Saudi Arabia, alarmed at the prospect of Iran gaining a foothold on the Arabian peninsula, formed a coalition to support Hadi’s government, and intervened in March 2015 to beat back the Houthis. The internal struggle for power has continued ever since, and despite years of coalition air operations and ground fighting, the Houthis have retained their north-western power base.

A UN-brokered truce in April 2022 substantially reduced fighting.  Although it formally expired in October that year, the UN acknowledges that relative restraint ha​d continued until the present escalation.           

The Houthis’ conflict with Saudi Arabia has been both religious and political.  Zaydis opposed the spread of Saudis’ Sunni Wahhabi influence on religious grounds.  ​It was the Saudis’ political and military influence in Yemen ​that ​the Houthis resisted​.

​From 2022 Riyadh cut back substantially on its own military activity, attempt​ing a policy of support for the PLC by way of diplomacy​. Even so, it continued to fund and arm anti-Houthi forces.  ​​In the past year it ​has increasingly reasserted direct military involvement, ​culminating in its current support for ​the offensive against the Houthis.

Although the ground fighting is being conducted primarily by Saudi-backed Yemeni forces rather than Saudi troops, the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), has been a significant driver of the counter-offensive.

Following the Houthi advance toward Mocha and Bab al-Mandab in September, he personally pressed US President Donald Trump to strike them. Trump declined direct US participation, but Washington subsequently provided intelligence and targeting support.

MBS's likely strategic objectives are to restore the Red Sea security buffer by pushing the Houthis away from Bab al-Mandab and the Saudi-facing Red Sea coast.  He is probably not at one with the ​PLC ​in see​ing the conflict as another attempt to win the Yemeni civil war.

The rapid Houthi gains were a serious setback to the Saudi-backed Yemeni order. Reversing them, even partially, demonstrates that Saudi Arabia can still defend the security of its southern frontier.  

MBS's immediate strategic calculation is probably to deny the Houthis​ —​ and by extension Iran​ —​ a durable position at Bab al-Mandab, protect Saudi maritime and energy interests, restore Saudi leverage, and enter any eventual negotiation from a position​ of strength, backed now by the offer of Egyptian support.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Saudi Arabia’s offensive against the Houthis aims to secure Bab el-Mandeb", 20 October 2026:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-912142

 

Britain’s breach with Israel

Published in the new issue of the Jerusalem Report, dated 26 October 2026

            On October 1 the UK’s Daily Telegraph quoted a senior Israeli official accusing the British government of being “hell-bent on destroying a relationship that has saved countless British lives.”

Strong language.  What sequence of events could have led him to this conclusion?

Early in September Israeli intelligence warned MI5, Britain’s secret service, that an Iranian-backed attack was imminent on an air base in England used by the US Air Force.  The very next day Ed Miliband, the UK foreign secretary, announced plans to ban the import of goods from Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

   In the early hours of September 27, armed police intercepted three suspicious vans near RAF Fairford in England.  Fairford is an airbase used by the US Air Force.  Five British men in their twenties were arrested.  The men were later released on bail while the investigation continued.  Former counter-terrorism police officers have since speculated that the incident was a “hostile reconnaissance operation”, intended as a “dry-run” for a more sinister attack.

Britain’s prime minister, Andy Burnham, said there were “strong indications” that Iran had played a part in the suspected plot, and on October 1 police arrested a 27-year-old British-Iranian on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts. He too was later released on bail, and the investigation continues.

That same day, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was interviewed on Fox News.

“Do you want to hear how absurd things are there?” he said, referring to Britain. “And how far the anti-Israeli propaganda has gone?  We gave the Brits the intel, that there was going to be an attack, and it’s an Iranian-sponsored attack, and pretty much the next day they slap sanctions on us. It’s wild, the caving in. The collapse before the Islamist-Marxist alliance is very dangerous for the future of the West.”

            Netanyahu is, of course, in the run-up to a vital general election.  His political future is at stake.  He needs to project as strong and positive an image as possible.  Opposing Britain’s tougher pro-Palestinian approach gives him that opportunity.

The political situation in the UK is similarly abnormal.  Andy Burnham has been the UK’s prime minister only since July.  He was shoe-horned into office following the resignation of Sir Keir Starmer, so he has no direct mandate from the electorate.  As a new broom, he needed to gain the strong support of the Labour majority in the House of Commons.  One certain way was to announce an even more stringent pro-Palestinian policy than his hapless predecessor, who had gone so far as to recognize the non-existent state of Palestine.

            So it was that on September 8 Britain’s foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, came to the Commons to announce a “reset in our relations with Israel“, including a sweeping new sanctions regime targeting Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

This new deterioration in UK-Israeli relations stems back to October 7, 2023.          

When details of Hamas’s attack on Israel first emerged, Starmer, then leader of the opposition Labour party, stood shoulder-to-shoulder with then-UK prime minister Rishi Sunak, then-US president Joe Biden, and most Western political leaders, in proclaiming Israel’s right to defend itself. 

Unfortunately for Starmer, his moral stance was not acceptable to two entities he faced on his own political terrain.  One was the powerful hard-left element within his party; the other the strong Muslim presence in some Labour-held constituencies.

Britain’s general election in July 2024 resulted in a massive win for the Labour party.  Starmer came to power with a huge majority.  But the activities of a brand new organization calling itself The Muslim Vote cost the Labour party five seats, slashed Labour majorities in a fair number of other constituencies, and placed a caucus of rabidly anti-Israel MPs in the House of Commons.  

Traditionally, general elections in Britain turn on domestic issues.  This time though, for one bloc of ethnic minority voters a foreign war taking place 3000 miles away was more important than all the usual domestic concerns.  Any support for Israel, justified or not, is anathema to pro-Palestinian activists.   The Muslim Vote was an alliance of 23 such organisations.  Its purpose was to unseat those MPs deemed insufficiently hostile to Israel, particularly Labour party members.  

They succeeded beyond their expectations.  Once voted into parliament, the five candidates who beat their Labour opponents formed themselves into a new pro-Palestinian bloc – the Independent Alliance – headed by Jeremy Corbyn, one-time leader of the Labour party.   

Their success shook Starmer, despite his huge majority.  When in November 2024 the International Criminal Court (ICC), alleging war crimes and crimes against humanity, issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and cabinet minister Yoav Gallant, Starmer declared that the UK “respects the independence of the ICC”, and indicated that Israel’s prime minister would face arrest if he entered Britain.

A new political factor came into play in September 2025 when Zack Polanski, a charismatic young politician, won the leadership of the Green Party. 

        He rapidly repositioned the party as a much more assertive, left-wing national force. In a February by-election the Greens took a parliamentary seat from Labour, and in May won the mayoralty of the London borough of Hackney.

These successes precipitated the eventual removal of Keir Starmer as prime minister. Polanski then decided to contest Starmer’s vacated parliamentary seat, but in the by-election on October 8 he was beaten by the Labour party candidate. 

His defeat has been ascribed in no small measure to the furore created within the party and the media by the motion debated at the Green party conference on October 4 that defined Zionism as racism, advocating a single Palestinian state.  It passed, with 55.7% of those voting in favour, and is now party policy. 

Israel’s instant response was to ban Polanski from entering the country.

Although Burnham has called the Green party motion "completely wrong", his government gains domestic credit by maintaining an uncompromising stand over settlements.  Meanwhile Netanyahu gains domestic credit by depicting Britain as an unreliable ally.

An uneasy compromise has been reached over the closure – or rather the renaming – of Britain’s consulate in east Jerusalem, but the danger is that the spat could evolve into a mutually reinforcing cycle.  

The forthcoming Israeli elections may lead to a resolution.

Published by the Jerusalem Post online titled "Israel's intel protects Britain; Britain's politics punish Israel", 13 October 2026:

https://www.jpost.com/jerusalem-report/article-911506

Published by Eurasia Review, 14 October 2026:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/14102026-britains-breach-with-israel-oped/

A terror-free Turkey?

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 13 October 2026

On August 10, 2026, the Turkish parliament passed, by 467 votes in the 600-seat legislature, a law putting into effect what Ankara calls the “Terror-Free Turkey” process – a euphemism for the disbandment and disarmament of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The PKK is designated a terrorist organization not only by the Turkish government, but by the US and the EU.

The overwhelming majority by which the law passed was made possible because it was supported not only by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's AK party and its political allies, but also, perhaps surprisingly, by that long-time thorn in Erdogan’s flesh, the pro-Kurdish DEM Party.  That unusual accord between long-time political opponents sealed a compromise that had been decades in the making:  the dissolution of the PKK in exchange for unprecedented leniency for its former members.

The new law provides a mechanism for suspending certain prosecutions relating to PKK offences, and for deferring the execution of some prison sentences. Most important, it establishes a framework intended to facilitate the reintegration of eligible former PKK members into civilian life.  The Associated Press reported that the measure could potentially affect approximately 4,000 PKK members not directly involved in violent crimes.  

The new law becomes operative only after Turkish security authorities have determined that the PKK and affiliated structures have indeed ended their armed existence and surrendered the weapons and ammunition under their control.  This must then be confirmed by the National Security Council and published in the Official Gazette.

These requirements are not as oppressive as may first appear.  The ground has been well prepared, and the PKK is ready and willing to comply.

The Kurds are an ethnic group of some 30-40 million people.  They inhabit a contiguous mountainous area divided between Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria.  Most live in Turkey, where they constitute roughly one-fifth of the population.

          For decades Erdogan, together with many in the Turkish establishment, believed that granting their Kurdish citizens political autonomy could weaken the unity of the state.  Some feared it would be a first step toward an independent sovereign Kurdish state, particularly after the constitutional recognition of the autonomous Kurdistan administration in northern Iraq in 2005.

These fears were compounded during the Syrian civil war, starting in 2011.  Kurdish forces established autonomous institutions in northern Syria, creating the possibility of a Kurdish-controlled zone along much of Turkey’s southern border.  Links between the Kurdish forces in Syria and the PKK were perceived by Erdogan as a security threat.

He had already authorized military operations against PKK bases in northern Iraq.  Turkish aircraft struck them in late 2007, and this was followed by a major ground offensive in February 2008.  Subsequent PKK attacks on the Turkish military in 2011 led Erdogan to repeat air strikes against them, alongside intensified fighting in southeastern Turkey.

The current Terror-Free Turkey initiative is not the first time that Erdogan has attempted to hold out an olive branch to the PKK.  In late 2012, when still prime minister, his government began a serious negotiation process with Abdullah Ocalan, the founder of the PKK, imprisoned on Imralı island since 1999.

The initiative produced a positive result in March 2013, when Ocalan issued a message calling for a ceasefire and the withdrawal of PKK fighters from Turkey.  Armed resistance ceased for a time, but the ceasefire did not hold.

A historic moment came on February 28, 2015.  At a joint press conference involving government representatives and leaders of the HDP (the Peoples’ Democratic Party), a message from Ocalan was read out calling on the PKK to take the “strategic and historical decision” to end the armed struggle.

It looked like a genuine call to transition from armed conflict to politics.  Yet once again the ceasefire unraveled. During 2015 a series of incidents led Erdogan to resume airstrikes against PKK positions in northern Iraq.

The resulting fighting was extremely destructive.  Almost 3,000 people were killed between July 2015 and July 2017.  Overall Reuters estimates that since 1984 the conflict has killed more than 40,000 people, including combatants and civilians.

This second attempt at resolving the PKK issue is quite different, triggered by a quite unexpected event.

In October 2024 Devlet Bahceli, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and Erdogan's principal parliamentary ally, unexpectedly suggested that Ocalan be brought from prison to address parliament and call upon the PKK to dissolve itself.

The initiative was all the more startling because Bahceli had historically taken one of the hardest nationalist positions against the Kurdish political movement.  Erdogan described the development as a potentially “historic window of opportunity.”

A dramatic address by Ocalan to the Turkish parliament – akin, perhaps to that by Anwar Sadat to Israel’s Knesset in 1977 – never took place.  But there were a series of meetings between DEM politicians and Ocalan at Imrali prison, and in February 2025 Ocalan issued a crucial statement.

He called upon the PKK to abandon the armed struggle and lay down its arms, to dissolve itself and pursue the Kurdish question through democratic politics.

The important difference from 2015 is that the current process does not seek yet another ceasefire, but explicitly envisages the end of the PKK as an organization – an outcome announced in May 2025, when the PKK said its 12th Congress had decided to dissolve the organization and end its armed struggle.

In July 2025, Ocalan appeared in a rare video and said the armed struggle was over.  He called for a transition toward democratic politics and asking the Turkish parliament to establish a mechanism to oversee disarmament and the broader peace process.

The result is Turkey's August 2026 law – a legal mechanism for implementing the PKK's decision to dissolve and disarm.  But its principal provisions are conditional on verified PKK disarmament, and that step has not yet been taken. The process is at its most delicate point. 

Currently the debate is focused heavily on where and how PKK weapons are to be surrendered and who verifies the operation. Reports indicate that Turkish intelligence and security officials have been dealing with counterparts in Iraq, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and Syria over precisely these practical questions.

A terror-free Turkey is in the balance.

 

 

 

 

Gaza’s comeback kid

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 6 October 2026 

   On July 9, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas announced that parliamentary elections would be held on November 28 in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.  In my original text I wrote: "If they indeed take place, they will be the first for 20 years."  Well, of course, Abbas has now postponed them to the latter end of 2027.

The last, in 2006, were won by Hamas​.  They were followed by a violent power struggle with Fatah, culminating in Hamas​ gaining control of Gaza in 2007.  ​Ever since, the continuing popularity of Hamas with the Palestinian people has inhibited Abbas, fearful of losing power, from holding elections.  Perhaps it is the Trump peace plan for Gaza, currently being implemented by the Board of Peace and committed to disempowering Hamas, that has encouraged Abbas to try to regain some democratic credibility ​by approving new elections.

In any event, the announcement has brought Mohammed Dahlan once again to the forefront of the Palestinian political arena.

Dahlan was born in Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza in 1961. He joined Fatah's youth movement as a teenager and was repeatedly imprisoned by Israel. Following the Oslo Accords in the 1990s, Abbas appointed him head of the Palestinian Preventive Security Force in Gaza. He became so powerful that the Strip was nicknamed "Dahlanistan". 

Their relationship subsequently collapsed amid growing fears within Abbas’s camp that Dahlan was being primed by the US to succeed him.  Dahlan was expelled from Fatah in 2011 amid allegations of corruption and involvement in a plot to assassinate Yasser Arafat, allegations he denied.  He went into exile in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where he became an adviser to Mohamed bin Zayed, now UAE president.

By removing Dahlan from Palestinian politics Abbas unintentionally converted him into a regional political operator who was no longer dependent upon the PA.  Over the subsequent decade Dahlan accumulated regional connections and became an important political operator for Abu Dhabi.  He also developed relationships in Egypt and elsewhere and maintained connections with Israeli security figures. 

While living in exile in the UAE, Dahlan founded a party called Democratic Reformist Current (DRC) inside Gaza.  The DRC ​worked hard to secure a joint alliance with both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ)​, and on October 1 ​an electoral coalition was announced.  Palestinian sources say the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) could also join.

Dahlan is attempting a political re-entry via Gaza. He is not seeking to govern it personally. He seems to be trying to turn his UAE-backed Fatah dissident network into a bridge between Hamas, other Fatah breakaways, Egypt, the UAE and the US-led Gaza peace process.

He has proposed what amounts to a political formula for overcoming the Palestinian split. Rather than a contest for control of the PA, he advocates a “national partnership”. This would incorporate elections to determine political representation and office, alongside a new constitution or “national social contract” emphasizing popular legitimacy and the peaceful transfer of power.

His proposals are deliberately broad in scope. They give Hamas a say in Palestinian national decision-making; they offer a future Palestinian leadership a language of unity; and they give the UAE, Egypt and the US a Palestinian figure with Gaza roots who can speak to all the parties involved, including Israel and external sponsors.

Dahlan’s plan has not yet been endorsed by his electoral allies, but neither have they disavowed it.  His involvement places him at the center of the Palestinian political game.  He has brought himself closer than ever to a return to Palestinian political leadership.

Moreover, Dahlan seems to have taken on a mediating role – a position he could not aspire to ten years ago. He now appears to have channels of communication with Hamas and other Palestinian factions, as well as with the UAE, Egypt, Washington and parts of the Israeli security establishment. 

He will be aware that the Palestinian parliamentary elections could possibly bring to an end the transitional administrative arrangements in Gaza being overseen by the Board of Peace.

The Gaza peace plan, endorsed by the UN Security Council, envisages Gaza moving through a temporary international-backed arrangement. The Board of Peace was established to oversee that transition, while the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) was created as a Palestinian, technocratic and explicitly apolitical body to administer Gaza's civil affairs. It is intended to operate until the Palestinian Authority has completed its reform program.

The ultimate objective is therefore not an international administration of Gaza, but the reconstitution of Palestinian government, with Gaza eventually reunited politically with the West Bank.  Nobody has yet formally declared that the November elections are the mechanism by which the Board of Peace will hand Gaza to its eventual government. But Dahlan’s recent contacts with Hamas and his involvement in discussions over Gaza's reconstruction appear to fit remarkably well into this political problem.

A possible scenario could see Palestinians participate in national elections and a substantially reformed Palestinian government emerging.  Gaza and the West Bank could be brought back under one Palestinian political authority.

          In short, the election could become the mechanism through which the old Palestinian political order is replaced without the Board of Peace itself choosing its successor.  An American- or Arab-appointed Palestinian government taking power in Gaza would be vulnerable to the accusation that it was simply an externally imposed administration.  An elected Palestinian legislature producing a new government would have a much stronger claim to legitimacy.

If Dahlan succeeds in bringing Hamas, his DRC, Fatah dissidents and other Palestinian currents into a workable political arrangement, he would  inevitably become central to Gaza’s political future. The wider issue is whether Dahlan can help construct a bridge between Hamas's exit from government, international reconstruction, Palestinian elections and a reformed Palestinian Authority.

If that bridge can be built, the Board of Peace would cease to be merely an international administration imposed upon a devastated territory.  It could become the temporary scaffolding allowing a new Palestinian political system to be constructed.  Far from simply rebuilding Gaza, Dahlan could therefore play a central role in providing the Strip with a truly viable and hopeful future.

Published in the Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Mohammed Dahlan: The man who could help reshape Gaza after Hamas", 6 October 2026:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-910525

 

Jordan and the Palestinians

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 29 September 2026

On September 23, King Abdullah of Jordan addressed the UN General Assembly. He devoted much of his speech to lambasting Israel. He maintained that what he called “one of the world's longest running occupations” broke international law, and that the world had ignored it for decades.

   Of course he had nothing to say about the Jordanian monarchy’s​ unhappy relationship with the Palestinians, ​with its own history of violence, repression and unresolved grievance, nor of the several charges of flouting international law that Jordan has been accused of over the years.

In the 1948–49 war, for example, Jordan’s Arab Legion took control of the West Bank. On April 24, 1950, the Jordanian parliament approved its annexation, declaring “complete unity between the two banks of the Jordan” in a single Hashemite kingdom ruled by King Abdullah’s great-grandfather, Abdullah I. ​ Arabs resident in the West Bank became Jordanian citizens.

 The Arab League refused to recognize Jordan’s annexation.  So did the rest of the world, with the sole exception of Britain and, it has been suggested (though details remain unclear), Pakistan.

​The UN characterized Jordan’s annexation as lacking international legal validity.  International law does not recognize the acquisition of territory through the use of force as a lawful basis for acquiring sovereignty.

If Jordan flouted international law when it annexed the West Bank, it compounded its disregard for the legal niceties when it reversed its decision.

Until July 31, 1988 ​most Arabs living in the West Bank were, as a matter of Jordanian law and practice, Jordanian citizens.  On that day King Hussein, Abdullah’s father, announced that Jordan was ending its legal and administrative relationship with the territory with immediate effect.​  Under the disengagement regulations, some one million Arab​s resident in the West Bank were ​suddenly stripped of their Jordanian citizenship.​  All at once they were no longer Jordanian.      

​Human Rights Watch describes them as becoming stateless Palestinians under Israeli occupation.​  Over time their Jordanian passports were replaced with temporary Jordanian travel documents that did not confer citizenship.  

Loss of nationality had serious legal consequences.  They had no right of residence in Jordan.  Non-citizens could not vote or stand for office. They were excluded from state employment and faced serious obstacles in accessing work, education, health care and other services.

International human rights law prohibits​ the arbitrary deprivation of nationality.  Article 15(2) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality.”  

The fact that Jordan’s 1988 disengagement stripped a whole defined population of its existing nationality, without an individualized process and without a replacement nationality, makes the charge against Jordan of arbitrary illegality a powerful one.

In his speech​ to the UN, Abdullah called on world opinion to denounce Israel for Palestinian deaths.  He might also have acknowledged that Yasser Arafat once accused King Hussein, his father, of killing 25,000 Palestinians – a figure generally believed to have been wildly exaggerated for propaganda purposes.

The episode is usually called Black September, although it lasted from September 1970 until the following July, and the death toll remains disputed.  The commonly cited estimate of Palestinian deaths is in the low thousands, including both fighters and civilians.  Jordanian soldiers also died. What is not disputed is that the events of 1970–71 left a deep and bitter Palestinian-Jordanian legacy.

​After the Six-Day War​ in 1967,​ it was from Jordan that Palestinian​ fighters began mounting guerrilla operations against Israel​. ​ By 1969 ​Arafat was leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), an umbrella body in which his Fatah movement was dominant.  The organization and its constituent groups ​started functioning increasingly from within Jordan.  Armed groups established bases and checkpoints in and around cities and refugee camps ​acting as a law unto themselves, sometimes defying the police and civil authorities.

​Soon King Hussein ​ was fac​ing an armed Palestinian movement operating inside his kingdom ​ and challeng​ing the authority of the state.​ He decided to move against Arafat's​ PLO and its armed forces, the fedayeen. ​

The crisis came to a head in September 1970.  The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)​, a constituent body of the PLO,  hijacked several international passenger aircraft. Three aircraft were eventually taken to Dawson's Field near Zarqa, Jordan, where passengers were removed and the aircraft blown up before the world's television cameras – a spectacular display that humiliated the Jordanian authorities.​ 

For Hussein, the question was no longer how to restrain the fedayeen, but who governed Jordan. ​ On September 16 he declared martial law.​  The following day the Jordanian Army opened a major offensive against Palestinian positions in Amman, Zarqa, Irbid and elsewhere.​​

The operation was considerably more than a simple expulsion.  For a ​time it amounted to a civil war between the Jordanian state and heavily armed Palestinian organizations.  The fighting was intense and involved artillery, tanks and infantry.  Jordanian forces attacked PLO positions.  Palestinian fighters resisted and, in some places, effectively controlled territory.

A ceasefire ​hammered out in Cairo on September 27 ​proved totally ineffective.  ​The Palestinian militias remained entrenched and operative within Jordan.   In early 1971 Hussein resumed the campaign against the​m.  ​Finally the Jordanian Army ​succeeded in driving the fedayeen out of their remaining urban strongholds. The ​last major ​encounter took place in July 1971​, and ​organized ​Palestinian resistance in Jordan was effectively destroyed.​  Arafat and senior PLO figures​ ​fled.

​They escaped across the Jordanian-Syrian ​border​, and regrouped in Lebanon.  Thousands of Palestinian fighters were ​driven out of Jordan and followed them. ​

It had been a bloody encounter.  As well as Jordanian soldiers, thousands of Palestinians, including civilians​, had been killed. The episode produced a particularly bitter Palestinian-Jordanian legacy.  In 1971 a militant  Palestinian group, which subsequently called itself the Black September Organization, assassinated Jordan’s prime minister Wasfi al-Tal.

None of this ​unhappy history disposes of any moral or legal questions raised by the current situation, but it does complicate Abdullah’s posture of unqualified moral denunciation of Israel.

          In short, standing at the UN podium vilifying Israel, King Abdullah might have borne in mind the old adage:  “People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem Post online titled: "King Abdullah’s UN attack on Israel overlooks Jordan’s own troubled history," 29 September 2026:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-909962

Published in Eurasia Review, 5 October 2026

https://www.eurasiareview.com/05102026-jordan-and-the-palestinians-oped/

 

Israel’s electoral system: Room for improvement?

 This article appears in the forthcoming edition of the Jerusalem Report, dated 12 October 2026:

 This is an unusual moment in Israeli politics.  For the first time since 1988 the Knesset has completed its statutory four-year term (between 2019 and 2022 the nation went to the polls no less than five times).

The general election on October 27 gives Israelis the opportunity to say how, in their opinion, the nation should progress in the next four years.  They will vote for the party advocating the policies closest to their heart.  But the national mood will emerge from a highly fragmented vote. Given the number of parties competing in the election, no clear winner can emerge.   

As a result each general election is followed by weeks of negotiations, as the party with the largest mandate attempts to assemble a majority in the Knesset and form a coalition government.  

A coalition is by its very nature a compromise.  Usually the smaller parties use their prospective support to secure policy concessions or ministerial posts. The party seeking to govern may in turn press potential partners to moderate or defer some demands. As a result many electors find that the policies they originally voted for are so modified that, even if they are pursued, they are pale shadows of what they were.

In short, the policies ultimately pursued by the governing coalition may bear only a limited resemblance to the political programs that voters endorse at the ballot box. 

This is one of the democratic deficits of the present system.

Another is that the people voted into the Knesset are virtually anonymous to most Israeli electors.  Apart from the party leaders, most of the candidates on party lists are totally unknown to most voters. Once they become members of the Knesset they have no connection, and feel no obligation, toward the electors who voted them into power.

This is because Israel’s electoral system differs from that of most other Western democracies, including the US, in one vital respect – it lacks any constituency-based element.  It is, for example, radically different from that of the UK, the system favored by David Ben Gurion in the 1950s but never introduced.

Britain is divided into 650 constituencies.  Each elects one member of parliament.  Any political party may put up a candidate, but party lists are an unknown phenomenon.  The candidate who wins most votes is elected, regardless of how many votes were cast for others. In this system, known as “first past the post”, proportional representation does not feature. The idea of instituting PR was put to the UK electorate in 2011 in a national referendum, and overwhelmingly rejected.

Britain’s 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. 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.  The day after the election, the winning party takes power.

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 them 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 – undoubtedly a democratic deficit.

Ben Gurion had advocated dividing Israel into 120 single-member constituencies – but he never had a sufficiently large coalition to overcome the parties that benefited from proportional representation.

His idea was revived in June 1980 by MKs Yigael Hurvitz and Zalman Shoval, and was subsequently embodied in a bill introduced in February 1981.  It did not survive the legislative process.

Proposals for reform that combined the constituency concept with the proportionality of the present system were advanced in 1958, 1972 and 1988. The 1988 proposal, sponsored by MK Mordechai Virshubski and supported by 43 other MKs, included a model in which 60 MKs would be elected in constituencies and 60 through the current system. Under that arrangement, voters would effectively cast two votes – one for a constituency candidate and another for a party list. The bill passed a first reading but subsequently foundered.

In 2005, the President himself – Moshe Katsav – took the initiative.

He set up a commission containing the country's leading political scientists and chaired by Hebrew University President Menahem Magidor.  It met regularly for more than a year, and it too finally favored a combined system. Highlighting the lack of “clear linkage between an elected person’s performance and their chances of being reelected,” its report recommended that half of the Knesset should be elected directly in 17 regional constituencies based on Interior Ministry districts, while the other 60 would continue to be elected through the nationwide proportional 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.   Appointed Chair of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee in 2006, 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 bill, presented to the Knesset in 2008, was blocked by those who feared a loss of influence in any revised system.

Vested interest is the great enemy of change in any electoral system. For those benefitting from any current procedure, reform carries with it the danger of a loss of power. Even though there has been for many years a general recognition that Israel’s electoral system is far from perfect and that change is desirable, time and again the parties in power have declined to grasp the nettle of reform.  And so we journey on, as Shakespeare has it, “with all our imperfections”.

Israel-Saudi security links revived

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 23 September 2026

On August 7, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan signed a joint defense agreement, known as the Mecca Pact.  At its public core is a political commitment modeled in part on NATO’s Article 5 – namely an armed attack on one party is to be regarded as an attack on all.

On September 8, the Houthis launched a major wave of attacks against Saudi Arabia, striking civilian and economic sites and energy infrastructure in several southern cities. Subsequently the country has been attacked time and again by the Houthis.  Civilian and economic facilities have been struck, King Khalid air base and Aramco facilities have been targeted. 

Why have Turkey and Pakistan not rushed to Saudi’s defense?

Rather like the small print on insurance policies, the Mecca Pact seems to exclude as much as it offers.  The publicly released description of the agreement, while making much of the NATO-like commitment, does not specify an automatic military response should one of the parties be attacked.  Nor does it publicly stipulate the circumstances in which troops must be deployed.  In fact, the full text of the agreement has not been released, so important questions about its scope and implementation remain obscure.

Rather late in the day, on September 19, Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudry, chief spokesman for Pakistan’s military, is reported as saying “Pakistan fully stands with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, both diplomatically and physically…We will go to any extent.”

But the statement, whatever it meant, was too late. Given the ambiguities inherent in the Mecca Pact, and the obvious reluctance of either Pakistan or Turkey to become involved in a military operation in Yemen, it is not surprising that Saudi Arabia turned to Washington for support that subsequently connected it to Israel.  

CENTCOM is the US military command responsible for the Middle East and parts of Central and South Asia.  It directs US military operations and security partnerships in that area.

Some time during the week of September 7, at a secluded ski resort in Germany (rumored to be Garmisch-Partenkirchen), CENTCOM’s commander, Admiral Brad Cooper, hosted a conference of senior military leaders from eight countries. 

It is extraordinary, but the fact, that sitting round the same table were Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, the  IDF chief of staff, and military chiefs from Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and Egypt.  CENTCOM, functioning as an intermediary, had succeeded in connecting Israel with Arab militaries that do not have diplomatic relations with it – Saudi Arabia and Qatar, in particular. 

 According to a report by Axios, the respected digital news outlet, the central purpose of the conference was to discuss the continuing US–Israeli war with Iran, and the broader regional-security situation.  Cooper reportedly assured those present that, despite Iranian attacks on US bases, the US would retain forces in the Middle East.  He also primed the group on plans to expand maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

Zamir is said to have briefed the participants on IDF operations on several fronts.

Axios further reports, citing “a source with knowledge of the matter,” that Israel and Saudi Arabia, with CENTCOM assistance, began discussing how Israel could assist Saudi military operations against the Houthis. The possible support mentioned is ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance), on the lines of the assistance that Israel has reportedly provided to the UAE.

On September 14, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) met Cooper in Jeddah, amid the rapidly worsening Houthi offensive. The next day Reuters reported that Washington, while declining to conduct direct US strikes against the Houthis, had agreed to provide Saudi Arabia with targeted assistance.

That same day, September 15, the Jerusalem Post reported that Israel and Saudi Arabia had held CENTCOM-mediated discussions about Israeli intelligence assistance to Riyadh against the Houthis. Regional diplomatic sources had told the paper that the Saudi side was seeking intelligence that could help build a picture of Houthi deployments, and thus anticipate future operations.  

A similar report emanated from the Institute for the Study of War in a document published jointly with the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute. It commented that this prospective arrangement would: “…resemble Israel’s current intelligence support relationship with the United Arab Emirates.”

There is no doubt that the Iran war is creating an unusually powerful common-security denominator.  The countries represented in CENTCOM’s conference have very different political relationships with Israel, but they share an immediate security problem: Iran.  Iranian-aligned armed groups have acted against some of them, and are capable of threatening all.

Israel possesses substantial intelligence and surveillance capabilities concerning Iran and its regional partners.  Saudi’s cities and energy infrastructure have been struck repeatedly by Houthi missiles and drones.  CENTCOM possesses the command-and-control machinery that can connect Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Although Saudi Arabia still has no formal diplomatic relations with Israel, the emerging arrangement potentially constitutes a major step in Saudi-Israeli military normalization.  Israeli intelligence is being used to help defend Saudi Arabia against the Houthis, even without diplomatic normalization.

This arrangement gives Saudi Arabia considerable political cover.  Publicly, its relationship with Israel can remain highly constrained; operationally, cooperation can become increasingly sophisticated.

So the present position, according to media reports, is that Saudi Arabia is being offered direct targeted support by the US, while CENTCOM is mediating Saudi–Israeli discussions on intelligence assistance against the Houthis.

Saudi-Israeli collaboration is nothing new.  There is a 60-year history of covert strategic cooperation. But the Saudi-Israel connection remains as delicate as it has ever been. It is not any form of military alliance, nor has there been any change in Saudi policy on formal normalization.  In fact reports emanating from Saudi sources suggest that Riyadh, even while seeking Israel’s help against Houthi attacks, is still resisting movement on normalization.

            Meanwhile, the law of unintended consequences is in full play. While the Houthis continue their strikes on Saudi Arabia and make territorial gains in areas surrounding one of the world’s critical maritime chokepoints, the Bab el-Mandeb, they are inadvertently fostering greater military cooperation than ever before between Israel and Arab states, and both reviving and strengthening Israel’s covert security links with Saudi Arabia.

Published in the Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Saudi Arabia turns to Israel as Houthi attacks expose limits of the Mecca Pact," 23 September 2026:

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-909254

Published in Eurasia Review, 24 September 2026:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/26092026-israel-saudi-security-links-revived-oped/