Monday, 17 February 2025

Will Hamas evade justice?

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 17 February 2025

Regardless of how the Gaza conflict is resolved – through the ceasefire, or by way of some version of President Donald Trump’s more radical suggestions – a fundamental question has yet to be answered.  Are the remaining Hamas leaders, and those Hamas personnel who participated in the murderous outrage on October 7, 2023, to get away with their monstrous crimes or will they be brought to justice?          

On February 6 Trump signed an executive order imposing sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) and its leaders.  The order states that the ICC “has engaged in illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel,” in particular by issuing arrest warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu and former minister of defense Yoav Gallant.

Justifiable though Trump is in punishing the ICC for acting with dubious legality, it would have been equally valid for him to reprimand the court for actions that it has not taken.

 In particular the ICC seems to have no viable plan in existence, or proposed, to bring to justice those Hamas leaders who conceived, and the Hamas personnel who carried out, the slaughter of 1200 civilians and the seizure of 250 people as hostages on October 7.  The nearest to any acknowledgment that such a step is necessary was the ridiculous issue by the ICC on November 21, 2024, of an international arrest warrant against the Hamas leader Mohammed Deif, who was presumed dead at the time it was issued, and has subsequently been confirmed so.  The court was apparently unable to unearth any living Hamas figure with responsibility for the pogrom and its consequences.   

 It may be that the court has no jurisdiction over what actually took place on Israeli soil.  But in respect of planning and launching an armed incursion into Israel, and of bringing back hostages to Gaza (considered by the court to be part of the non-existent State of Palestine), they most certainly do.

  Subsequently the ICC has taken no steps of any sort to bring Hamas leaders or personnel to account.  Meanwhile, free from any threat of judicial action, Hamas has continued to function as the de facto governing body in Gaza, using its Israeli hostages, seized in clear violation of international law, as bargaining chips to recover hundreds of Palestinian prisoners from incarceration in Israel.  

There is no secret about the individuals who now lead Hamas.  Following the death of Yahya Sinwar in October 2024, Hamas is now headed by a temporary five-member council comprised of Khaled Mashaal, Khalil al-Hayya, Zaher Jabarin, and Muhammad Ismail Darwish, plus an unnamed – if not unknown – senior member.

Mashaal, who previously led Hamas from 1996 to 2017, is currently overseeing the organization's international activities. He is believed still to be based in Qatar, despite some earlier reports that he had been expelled.

Within Gaza, Mohammed Sinwar, Yahya Sinwar’s younger brother, has assumed a significant leadership role and has been actively involved in rebuilding Hamas's military capabilities.

   These leaders are guilty of war crimes, as are the bloodthirsty Hamas operatives who actually carried out the October 7 pogrom.  War crimes under the 1949 Geneva Conventions include the murder and torture of civilians, and taking hostages.  Crimes the ICC can prosecute are set out in the treaty that established the court in 1998 (the Rome Statute of the ICC).  They include taking hostages, targeting civilians, and inhumane treatment.

    The Rome Statute also lays down quite clearly the court’s purpose.  The ICC was established to prosecute individuals (not states) for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes of aggression. In addition it was charged with ensuring that serious crimes do not go unpunished.

  There is a near-universal consensus that on October 7, 2023 the Hamas organization carried into effect long-planned war crimes including the murder of civilians and taking hostages.  It is not unreasonable to ask how the ICC proposes to exercise its remit to ensure that the serious crimes committed by Hamas on that day do not go unpunished.  They have the names of the surviving leaders, and as a start they have the names of the nine staff dismissed by UNRWA  for having personally participated in the massacre of civilians and the taking and incarcerating of hostages.  

 No doubt Hamas leaders consider themselves, their organization and its operatives above international law, and feel no obligation to adhere to the rules of decency and humanity embedded in it and accepted by the civilized world.  They are wrong.  There is a positive obligation placed on the ICC to “ensure that serious crimes do not go unpunished.”  The requirement does not exclude members of terrorist-designated organizations like Hamas.

There are legal avenues open to the court to bring Hamas leaders and personnel to justice. For example, the UN Security Council (UNSC) could refer named Hamas personnel to the ICC, as it has done in past cases like Sudan and Libya. Such a move could be initiated by the US, but of course might be vetoed by other permanent members.  But would it be?  Would permanent UNSC members like Russia or China  wish to be seen supporting Hamas? This is a step the US might consider.

Another route might be a referral to the court by any ICC member state, urging an investigation specifically into Hamas, with a view to eventual prosecution. Since Palestine is recognized as a member of the ICC, the court has jurisdiction over crimes committed in its territory.  The bringing into Gaza of captured people, depriving them of their liberty, and holding them hostage for extended periods seems, on the face of it, an obvious crime of international proportions.  France, Germany, Greece and the Netherlands – to name but four of the 120 states that are members of the ICC – could refer the case of Hamas to the court.  Perhaps one of them acting alone, or perhaps several acting jointly, or maybe some other state concerned with genuine international justice, might consider doing so.

In addition the ICC Prosecutor, Karim Khan, instead of seeking some bizarre equivalence between terrorism and a democratic state’s reaction to it, could initiate an investigation into Hamas’s potential war crimes with a view to issuing arrest warrants and prosecution.  While Israel is not an ICC member, it could provide evidence and intelligence to support ICC prosecutions.

The plain fact is that, if no action is initiated from some source or other, Hamas leaders and those of its adherents who carried out monstrous crimes on October 7 will go scot-free. Admittedly the well-established anti-Israel and antisemitic element within the UN and its organs might prove too strong to recommend action aimed at bringing Hamas criminals to justice via the ICC.  Even so, international legal proceedings against Hamas remain possible in a number of ways.

Some countries like Belgium, Germany, France and the Netherlands, allow their courts to prosecute individuals for war crimes and crimes against humanity even if they were committed abroad.  Such prosecutions depend, of course, on the individuals concerned traveling to these countries and being apprehended there.  Israel undoubtedly holds a list of known and suspected persons involved in the October 7 pogrom.  That list should be made publicly available as soon as possible.

Terrorists captured by Israel could well be prosecuted under Israeli law for war crimes. As for Hamas leaders, if any were to be run to earth by Israel, they would doubtless receive the form of summary justice already meted out to a number of their partners in crime.


Published in the Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Hamas could evade justice if the ICC refuses to take action", 17 February 2025:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-842401


Monday, 10 February 2025

How Israel can boost Saudi Vision 2030

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 10 February 2023



          A symbiotic relationship between Saudi Arabia and Israel is within reach.  It could be of huge mutual benefit.

Often overlooked in discussions about a possible Abraham Accords deal with Saudi Arabia is the fact that the kingdom is more than halfway through a vastly ambitious and extremely costly redevelopment program called Saudi Vision 2030, initiated by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) in 2016.  The benefits that a normalization deal with Israel could bring to the program could be vital in helping MBS meet the goals he has set himself.

The kingdom of Saudi Arabia is less than a hundred years old. It was only in 1932 that Abdul Aziz ibn Saud emerged from many years of political and military struggle against the Ottoman empire and other local chieftains, and was able to name the area he had conquered “Saudi Arabia”, and proclaim himself its monarch. 

  It was doubtless with an eye to the eventual centenary celebrations of the monarchy and the kingdom that in April 2016 MBS launched Saudi Vision 2030, an ambitious plan to revitalize the nation state. If it succeeds, by 2032 Saudi Arabia will have been transformed from virtual total dependence on oil revenues into a modern, liberalized, thriving society, its prosperity underpinned by flourishing industrial, financial, economic and commercial sectors.

 When first announced, Saudi Vision 2030 envisaged, among hundreds of initiatives, privatizing entire sectors of the economy, cutting subsidies, courting investors at home and abroad, streamlining government services, and going public with the national oil company, Saudi Aramco, the world's largest oil producer and most profitable company.  

  This last step was achieved in 2019, when Aramco’s initial public offering (IPO) raised $29.4 billion, the largest in history,   Yet it was only 1.5% of the company that was sold to the public; the Saudi state and its sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, still own 98.5% of Aramco. 

 The most recent progress report, published in April 2024, marked the eighth anniversary of Vision 2030’s launch.  A major aim of the program is to achieve economic diversification, and by 2024 non-oil GDP was already contributing 50% to the economy, a record high.  To reduce the kingdom’s dependence on oil, Saudi Arabia is also investing heavily in renewable energy projects. The kingdom has become the fastest-growing renewables market outside China.  

The program also includes nearly 50 large-scale construction and development projects aimed at transforming the nation's infrastructure.  A cornerstone of Vision 2030 is Neom, a $500 billion futuristic city sited in the northwest of Saudi Arabia.

        Envisioned as a hub for innovation and sustainability, it aims to incorporate smart city technologies and renewable energy sources. Recent reports indicate that Neom is facing significant financial challenges, with rising costs and delays leading to concerns about the project's feasibility.  This is one obvious area where Israeli hi-tech know-how could help the development. 

The Red Sea Project is an initiative focused on developing a luxury tourist destination along Saudi Arabia's west coast. With environmental conservation built into the concept, it features resorts across an archipelago of pristine islands and inland sites.  When all phases are completed it will comprise 50 resorts offering 8,000 hotel rooms in addition to more than 1,000 residential properties.  Saudi Arabia hosts millions of Muslims each year on their Hajj pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca, but Israeli expertise in global, as opposed to Islamic, tourism could be of invaluable assistance in realizing the project.

Positioned near Riyadh, Qiddiya is envisioned as a vast entertainment city, encompassing theme parks, sports facilities, and cultural venues. It aims to become a major tourist destination, contributing to the diversification of the economy. Construction of a variety of parks, performing arts centers. sports stadiums and other projects is forging ahead, with several attractions planned to open well before 2030.   

Recently announced, the Mukaab is set to be the largest building in the world, featuring a unique cube-shaped design. It is part of the New Murabba development in Riyadh and aims to offer a mix of residential, commercial, and entertainment spaces. Construction has commenced, with the first phase expected to be completed by 2030.

Mohammed bin Salman Non-Profit City “MiSK City”, it is claimed, will be the first non-profit city of its kind in the world.  It aims to be a city focused on youth, to empower young people, develop their skills, and support young entrepreneurs.

   A Saudi normalization deal with Israel could have profound implications for Saudi Vision 2030, positively affecting economic growth, regional stability, and technological advancements. For example, Israel is a global leader in cybersecurity and artificial intelligence, while Saudi Arabia aims to be an active AI player by 2030. Collaboration in these fields could accelerate Saudi Arabia’s digital transformation.

Given Saudi Arabia's desert environment, Israeli expertise in desalination, water conservation, and desert agriculture could enhance food and water security, aligning with Vision 2030's desalination projects and sustainability goals. Saudi Arabia, its urban centers sited between Israel and the Gulf, could become a logistics hub, linking Israel to Gulf markets, particularly through Neom, the planned high-tech city near the Red Sea.

A formal Saudi-Israel relationship could open the door to increased Western and Israeli investments in Saudi Arabia, particularly in sectors like technology, cybersecurity, and renewable energy, helping the kingdom achieve even greater economic diversification. 

Just as in the case of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a normalization deal could bring Israeli tourists flooding into the country, and Israel becoming a key tourist market, helping the program’s aim of increasing tourism’s contribution to GDP to 10% by 2030.

A Saudi-Israel deal would likely be accompanied by US security guarantees and incentives, such as advanced defense systems, security guarantees, and potential support for Saudi Arabia’s civil nuclear program, boosting Vision 2030’s energy sector and reinforcing Saudi’s position as a regional power.

Saudi Arabia has historically tied normalization to the establishment of a Palestinian state. Any viable deal would need to take this position into account.  President Donald Trump's recent suggestions regarding Gaza's future have not, as yet, touched on future Palestinian autonomy, but thinking on this matter is fairly advanced by the Global Alliance for the Implementation of a Palestinian State and a Two-State Solution, a body co-chaired by Saudi foreign minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud and Norway's Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide. The alliance, launched in September 2024, has convened multiple times to advance the idea of a development program, phased over several years, leading toward Palestinian sovereignty.  The mere existence and continued activity of the alliance may be sufficient to allow the process leading to an Abraham Accord deal to proceed.

Saudi-Israeli normalization could undoubtedly help Vision 2030 reach its objectives by attracting investment, fostering technological growth, and expanding tourism.  The pace at which these benefits might accrue would inevitably depend on a variety of factors, but the potential for a Saudi-Israeli partnership of enormous mutual advantage could certainly follow the formal induction of Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accords.

Published in the Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Post online titled "Israel can help boost Saudi Vision 2030 program," 10 February 2025:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-841365  

 

Monday, 3 February 2025

Iran’s nuclear threat

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 3 February 2025

A significant topic of discussion at this year’s Davos meeting was Iran's nuclear program.  The World Economic Forum, founded in 1971, is an international organization with its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.  Its annual meeting in Davos brings together world leaders from business, politics, academia, and other sectors to discuss pressing global issues.  The 2025 meeting took place from January 20 to 24.  

            On January 22 Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) told reporters in Davos that Iran is "pressing the gas pedal" on its enrichment of uranium to near weapons grade.  Previously, said Grossi,  Iran was producing each month about 7 kg of uranium enriched to 60%.  “Now it's above 30 kg, or more than that. So I think this is a clear indication of an acceleration.”

           According to the  IAEA, about 42 kg of uranium enriched to 60%, if further enriched to 90% is enough in principle for one nuclear bomb. Grossi said Iran currently had about 200 kg of uranium enriched to up to 60%.

He said that although  it would take time to install and bring online the extra uranium-enriching centrifuges necessary to produce weapons-grade material, nevertheless the acceleration was starting to happen.

Israel and Iran clashed during the conference.  President Herzog was in Davos and. according to London-based Iran International, the independent Persian-language TV and news medium, he found himself early on in a slanging match with Javad Zarif, the Iran regime's representative.

Iran International reports that on January 21 Herzog was asked by conference interviewer Fareed Zakaria what message he had to convey to Zarif.

”I’m not sure he's involved any longer in decision-making in the Iranian leadership,” said Herzog, “even if he has a title."

Zarif, Iran’s vice-president for strategic affairs, was outraged.  The next day, participating at a round table discussion, he declared that Herzog is “a nobody in Israel”.

Herzog riposted with a public statement, which included: ”Mr. Zarif, I suggest you look in the mirror”.

 Zarif came back suggesting that the proof of Herzog’s lack of status was that the International Criminal Court (ICC) had not included him in the arrest warrants it issued against prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity.  There the personal tit-for-tat appears to have ended.

However, during his main Davos speech Herzog called Iran an "evil empire" that spends billions to finance its military allies. 

“This is the strategic issue above everything,” he said. “Iran is repeatedly investing billions, at the expense of its citizens, to create a base for terrorism… They continue to rush towards the bomb, constantly planning terrorist attacks all over the world, including in our region - especially the Revolutionary Guards [IRGC] … There is a great danger as long as this regime in Iran remains in place and continues its efforts…We believe that there should be a clear message from world leaders to Iran:  No more.”

The start of the Davos meeting coincided with Donald Trump’s inauguration as US President, and the implications of his return to power for the Iranian regime and its nuclear ambitions occupied many minds. 

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres suggested Iran must make a first step towards improving relations with countries in the region and the US, by making it clear it does not aim to develop nuclear weapons. 

Since any such a statement emanating from the Iranian regime would be a downright falsehood, most of the new Trump administration was having none of it.  The new Secretary of State Marco Rubio was quoted as saying, "I believe it is in our national security interest for the UN Security Council to snap back the sanctions that were suspended under the JCPOA"  (that is, the nuclear deal master-minded by then-President Obama in 2015 and rejected by Trump in his first term).

Similarly, Trump's choice as the new US Ambassador to the UN, Elise Stefanik, said during her Senate confirmation hearing:  "Pushing back on Iran is a top priority. It was a success during President Trump's first term.”

The new US Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, was sworn in after Davos had ended.  In his letter of congratulations, Israel’s defense minister Israel Katz hinted at potential action against Iran in the “upcoming months”.

“Iran and its partners continue to threaten... regional and global stability,” wrote Katz. “I am confident that together we can succeed, creating long-term stability and a better future for the region.”

New information about Iran’s nuclear program was revealed on February 1 by the UK’s Daily Telegraph.  The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) had passed on details of how the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) have been expanding their weapons program.

It revealed that two sites, camouflaged as communication satellite launch facilities, have been used to rush the production of nuclear warheads.  They are both under the control of the regime’s nuclear weapons arm, the SPND (Organization for Advanced Defense Research).

At the first site, known as the Shahrud missile site, about 35km from a city of the same name, SPND and IRGC Aerospace Force experts have been working on producing a nuclear warhead capable of being fitted to a Ghaem-100, solid-fueled rocket with a range of 3,000km.

Missiles with that range would allow Iran to launch nuclear strikes deep into Europe from its territory – as far as Greece. There have been at least three successful launches of the rocket, which the NCRI says “enhances the regime’s capability to deploy nuclear weapons”.

A second site, situated around 70km southeast of the city of Semnan, is being used to develop Simorgh missiles, a weapon based on the North Korean UNHA-1, an 18-metre tall rocket.

Significant portions of the site are sited underground to conceal the work from intelligence satellites capturing images of the area.  The regime has been steadily expanding the site since around 2005.

The Jerusalem Post’s senior military correspondent, Yonah Jeremy Bob, recently reported that some Israeli and US officials have been indicating that a direct attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities could be a viable possibility.  Strategists believe that, following Iran’s second missile onslaught on Israel,  Israel’s counterattack on October 26 destroyed a significant proportion of Iran’s air defenses, leaving its nuclear sites more vulnerable than they have ever been. 

Trump, however, in a recent interview with the New York Post,  refused to indicate whether he would support pre-emptive strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.  What he was quite clear about was that the Islamic Republic “can’t have a nuclear weapon.”  He was confident he can cut a deal with Iran that would stop it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.  Without exactly saying how, beyond specifying that ”you have to verify times ten,” he said “there are ways that you can make it absolutely certain.”

          As ever, Trump will do it his way.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and in the Jerusalem Post online titled: "A strike or deal? Trump will have his way regarding Iran's nuclear program", 3 February 2025:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-840354


Published in the Eurasia Review, 8 February 2025:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/08022025-irans-nuclear-threat-oped/ 

Published in the MPC Journal, 10 February 2025::
https://mpc-journal.org/irans-nuclear-threat/


Wednesday, 29 January 2025

Zionism rejected

 Published in the Jerusalem Post online, 29 January 2025

Prominent US columnist Peter Beinart justifies Hamas

Peter Beinart’s purpose in writing Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning is encapsulated in its title.  

          In a foreword, he explains to someone he describes as a “former friend” (former, because they have diverged so sharply in their views) why he rejected the idea of calling his book Being Jewish after October 7.  It was not, he writes, because he minimizes the horror of that day. He chose his title, he explains, “because I worry you don’t grapple sufficiently with the terror of the days that followed, and preceded it as well.” In short, he believes mainstream Israeli opinion is unbalanced as regards the rights and wrongs of the Gaza conflict, and his aim is to redress the perspective he sees as mistaken.

Beinart is a prominent left-wing American columnist, journalist, and political commentator. Born and raised in an Orthodox Jewish family, Beinart began as an ardent liberal Zionist but slowly moved toward an increasingly extreme left-wing position.  Finally, in July 2020 in an article in The New York Times, he renounced Zionism entirely and declared himself in favor of a unitary Arab-Jewish state in place of Israel. 

 In this new book he writes, “When I enter a synagogue I am no longer sure who will extend their hand and who will look away.” He sounds genuinely mystified, if perhaps somewhat disingenuous, when he writes: “How does someone like me, who still considers himself a Jewish loyalist, end up being cursed on the street?”

 THE ANSWER lies partly in the pages of his new book, where one of his most contentious claims is a call to reimagine Zionism. He believes the movement is at odds with democratic principles and Jewish ethics. He suggests that it perpetuates injustice by prioritizing Jewish self-determination over Palestinian rights. 

This blinkered understanding of the movement pays no regard to the absolute need for Zionism in the early-20th century as a response to millennia of statelessness and the continued persecution of the Jewish people. So urgent did the need for a Jewish homeland become that at one point Theodor Herzl and other Zionist leaders toyed with the idea of siting it in Africa, Argentina, anywhere – a short-lived diversion from Zionism’s historic purpose, perhaps, but it demonstrates that at the time the alleviation of Jewish suffering outweighed any other consideration.

In short, Beinart entirely fails to appreciate that the establishment of Israel was not a political demonstration of Jewish colonial arrogance but a lifeline for Jews fleeing constant pogroms, widespread discrimination, and finally the aftermath of the Holocaust. For many Jews, Zionism represents the affirmation of their right to exist in a hostile world and determine their own future. 

Beinart, who believes that the State of Israel should be absorbed into some democratic Arab-Jewish entity, also disregards the historical validation for Israel’s existence.  

          A Jewish homeland in the region then known as Palestine was affirmed in an unanimous vote by the League of Nations in 1922, recommended by the Peel Commission in 1937, and further endorsed by the UN in 1947. In acknowledging that it was rejected by Arab leaders, Beinart ascribes the most nefarious motives to David Ben-Gurion and the Israeli leadership at the time of the Declaration of Independence, going so far as to suggest that Israel pre-planned a mass ethnic cleansing to ensure that the State of Israel, when founded, had at least 80% Jewish population. 

 Beinart’s central thesis is that Jewish support for Israel’s military actions in Gaza is based on flawed ideas lodged within the Jewish narrative – the twin concepts of Jewish victimhood and Jewish supremacy. While Jewish history does indeed include episodes of both persecution and resilience, they are the lived experiences of a people who have faced repeated existential threats. He fails to appreciate that these experiences have a reality that far outweighs their being used as instruments to justify Israeli policies.

 He has, for example, nothing to say about the Hebron massacre in 1929, master-minded by Haj Amin al-Husseini, the then-mufti of Jerusalem. An ardent Nazi, Husseini spent much of World War II in Berlin where he liaised with Hitler about extending his Final Solution to the Middle East.  

For Beinart to dismiss the fears of Jewish communities as outdated or exaggerated undermines their lived reality. In Israel, October 7 and the random suicide bombings and civilian deaths during the two Intifadas are only too vividly remembered.  Worldwide, Jews are currently acutely aware of rising antisemitism and threats to their safety.

Beinart gives full weight to the suffering of Gazans, which is undeniable and tragic, but in writing about Israel’s actions in relation to it, he minimizes or omits the context that makes them valid. For instance, he says little about the malign role of Hamas, whose brutal pogrom and seizure of hostages on October 7 were in themselves international crimes. He even goes so far as to justify Hamas’s strategy of embedding itself within the civilian structure of the Gazan population, rejecting the claim that this is using them as human shields. 

 “Under international law,” he writes, “using civilians as human shields... doesn’t mean fighting in an area that just happens to have civilians around [which] Hamas certainly does... It fights from within Gaza’s population and thus puts civilians at risk. But that’s typical of insurgent groups.”

 Beinart is strangely silent about Hamas using hospitals, schools, and mosques as military command centers, and has nothing to say about the vast tunnel network constructed beneath Gaza that is larger than the London Underground. 

Nor does he mention the misuse of the billions of humanitarian dollars donated by nations and global organizations which Hamas used to construct it, nor the corruption that enabled Hamas leaders amass huge fortunes and live in luxury in Qatar and elsewhere.

Beinart’s moral critique of Israel would be more compelling if it acknowledged the challenges posed by an adversary that rejects Israel’s very existence and openly seeks its destruction. He says nothing about the steps the IDF took to warn civilians about forthcoming attacks. By failing to address these, and other relevant realities adequately, Beinart’s narrative places the onus of blame for the Gazan tragedy entirely on Israel.

Beinart’s family came to the States from South Africa, and in the book he compares the Palestinian experience to South African apartheid, and also to other historical struggles for justice. While rhetorically powerful, such comparisons fail to capture the unique nature of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Unlike South Africa, where a single governing entity oppressed a disenfranchised majority, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict involves two national movements with competing claims to the same land. The historical, religious, and political dimensions of this conflict make simplistic analogies unhelpful and potentially misleading.

Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza is a provocative work that raises questions about Jewish morality and identity, and the future of Jewish-Palestinian relations. However, its arguments fall short of addressing the complexities and challenges inherent in the situation. 

BEINART’S POLITICAL journey has led him to a place where everything he learned in his youth about Judaism, Zionism, and the Jewish people seems false, or at least in need of reinterpretation. He clearly feels an urgent need to reassess everything, and in his first chapter he takes this right back to the Exodus. He challenges Jewish history at every single step from that point, including the festivals. It is a long catalogue.

In his reworked vision of Jewish morality, Beinart glosses over the hard realities that have shaped the history of his people, and continue to define the struggle for peace in the Middle East. 

For readers seeking a nuanced and balanced exploration of these issues, Peter Beinart is not the author of first choice.   Being Jewish after the destruction of Gaza is a handbook filled with the skewed anti-Israel, anti-Jewish arguments that demand to be challenged by upholders of truth and justice. 


Published in the Jerusalem Post on-line, 29 January 2025:
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-839779

Monday, 27 January 2025

Nearly half the world hates Jews

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 27 January 2025

Nearly half the world hates Jews – that is the stark message that emerges from the most comprehensive survey of global public opinion on the subject ever undertaken.  Published on January 14, the results revealed that 46% of all adults in the world hold entrenched antisemitic views.

The poll, known as the Global 100 Survey, was conducted between July and November 2024 by the long-established Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in conjunction with Ipsos, the multinational market research firm, and others.  More than 58,000 adults from 103 countries and territories were surveyed, representing 94% of the global adult population.

   Launched in 2014, the Global 100 Survey has conducted only three such polls. The latest not only revealed the startling level of antisemitism across the globe.  It also showed that the proportion of adults worldwide harboring antisemitic beliefs has rocketed from 26% in 2014 to 46% by 2024.

“Antisemitism is nothing short of a global emergency,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL’s chief executive.

          “It’s clear that we need new government interventions, more education, additional safeguards on social media, and new security protocols to prevent antisemitic hate crimes...and now is the time to act.”

   The results of the latest survey are not all bad news.  Perhaps demonstrating that political and economic strength is respected, 87% of respondents do not want their country to boycott Israeli products and businesses, while more than seven in ten respondents believe their country should have diplomatic relations with Israel and would welcome Israeli tourists. Moreover, despite uncovering alarming antisemitic attitudes, the Global 100 data does show opportunities for progress, since 57% of respondents recognized – such are the inconsistencies of human nature –- that hatred toward Jews was a serious issue.

There are, however, few such crumbs of comfort among the findings.  The poll tested reaction to 11 common negative tropes about Jews. Three-quarters of respondents in the Middle East and North Africa think most of them are true; the lowest levels of belief in the tropes were in the Americas and Western Europe. 

The most extraordinary aspect of these findings are the basic mathematics.  The total world population is some 8 billion, of whom about 4 billion, the Survey reveals, hold antisemitic views.  But outside of Israel and the USA, there are only 2.3 million Jews scattered thinly across the rest of the globe.  How many of the 4 billion poll-proved antisemites have ever seen a Jew? So what is the basis for all the animosity? How meaningful is it?  Given the fickleness of public opinion, could, for example, the ceasefire in Gaza effect a massive swing in sentiment?

   As for awareness of the Holocaust, sheer ignorance could account for the depressing findings.  Some 20% of respondents knew nothing about it at all, while less than half of those questioned believed that the historical depiction of the Holocaust was true.  While only 4% overall responded that “the Holocaust is a myth,“ 17% argued that the number of Jewish deaths was “greatly exaggerated by history.”

Clearly yet to make a global impact is the historical truth that a sophisticated Western European nation deliberately mobilized its industrial and military might and its bureaucracy to undertake the mass slaughter of a whole people.  Six million men, women and children were massacred for no other reason than that they had been born.

Ignorance about Judaism, Jewish people and their story, linked to incoherent and groundless prejudice, is not a modern phenomenon.  Jewish communities have been fighting it throughout their history.  It was, for example, the antisemitism rampant in parts of early-twentieth century America that gave birth to the Anti-Defamation League which sponsors the Global 100 Survey.

   Before the First World War some Jewish communities in America faced overt antisemitic discrimination.  In 1913 Leo Frank, a Jewish-American businessman from New York, was the superintendent of the National Pencil Company in Atlanta, Georgia.  Mary Phagan was a 13-year-old employee.  In April 1913 she was found murdered and sexually violated  in the factory’s basement.

Largely on account of testimony from a janitor, Jim Conley, Frank became the prime suspect,.  Giving evidence riddled with contradictions, Conley claimed that he helped Frank move the girl’s body.

Frank was arrested and, in a prejudiced atmosphere inflamed by sensationalist media coverage, was tried, convicted and sentenced to death.   His legal team filed numerous appeals, including to the US Supreme Court, which upheld the verdict.  But Georgia’s Governor John M Slaton had serious doubts about Frank’s guilt and, in 1915, commuted his sentence to life imprisonment.

His decision infuriated the public.  The next day a mob calling itself the "Knights of Mary Phagan" stormed the prison in Milledgeville, Georgia, kidnapped Frank, transported him to Marietta, Mary Phagan's hometown, and lynched him.  This horrific event was attended by a crowd, including prominent local figures, and photographs of what happened were distributed as souvenirs.

The overt antisemitic bigotry and intolerance displayed during the trial of Leo Frank encouraged Chicago attorney Sigmund Livingston to suggest creating an organization whose mission would be "to stop the defamation of the Jewish people, and to secure justice and fair treatment to all..."  He succeeded, but in the event ADL was founded on the clear premise that the fight against one form of prejudice cannot succeed without battling prejudice in all forms.  Today ADL is a global leader in combating antisemitism, extremism and bigotry wherever it occurs.

Marina Rosenberg, the ADL’s senior vice president for international affairs, noted that even countries with lower antisemitic attitudes, like the UK, have seen “many antisemitic incidents perpetrated by an emboldened small, vocal and violent minority.”

Indeed, Britain’s Community Security Trust (CST) reported a 204% increase in antisemitic incidents from October 7, 2023, to September 30, 2024.  Universities, hospitals and synagogues also recorded huge increases in religiously motivated criminal incidents, while ever since the Hamas pogrom large pro-Palestinian protest marches have taken place through central London every Saturday.    

“Antisemitic tropes and beliefs are becoming alarmingly normalized across societies worldwide,” warned Rosenberg.  “This dangerous trend...is a wake-up call for collective action.”

A parting thought.  If nearly half the world is antisemitic, then more than half the world isn't.  That is a solid enough base on which to start the process of building knowledge and understanding of the long and often painful story of the Jewish people, and their survival against all the odds to return, finally, to their ancient homeland. Collective action against antisemitism must prioritize the message that Israel is here to stay.

Published in the Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Post online, 27 January 2025:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-839326

Published in Eurasia Review, 31 January 2025:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/31012025-nearly-half-the-world-hates-jews-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 2 February 2025:
https://mpc-journal.org/nearly-half-the-world-hates-jews/

Tuesday, 21 January 2025

The Two-State solution

 This letter appears in the Daily Telegraph today, 21 January 2025

Sir

Colonel D P Dunseath (Letters, January 20) says that Hamas exists because of the Palestinians' sense of grievance at not having a viable and independent state . But the last thing Hamas wants is a two-state solution, since one of the states would be Israel. Its aim is to eliminate Israel and create a Jew-free Palestine "from the river to the sea".

The stumbling block to peace in the region has always been rejection by Palestinian leaders of Israel's right to exist (endorsed by UN Resolution 181 in 1947). That is why the numerous peace negotiations over the years have failed. Once it is accepted that Israel is here to stay (as it has been by the Abraham Accord Arab states), a peace accommodation would easily follow.

Neville Teller
Beit Shemesh
Israel

Published in the Daily Telegraph, 21 January 2025:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2025/01/20/letters-labour-government-relationship-donald-trump/

Monday, 20 January 2025

Post-War Gaza

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 20 January 2025

As the first phase of the ceasefire and hostage handover comes into effect, media and public opinion is divided on whether we are witnessing Hamas snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. 

Very early on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that one of his war aims was to destroy Hamas.  Wounded, even disabled, Hamas may be, but it is not destroyed.  Playing the hostage card to advantage, it is imposing its demands on the deal.  Even so, one thing is reasonably certain – Hamas will never again govern Gaza.  The future of post-war Gaza will lie in other hands, but exactly what follows the permanent end of hostilities in Gaza remains to be resolved.  

Meanwhile the formidable Hamas fighting machine of October 6, 2023, armed to the teeth with state-of-the-art Iranian weaponry, is a shadow of what it was. 

On October 7 it sowed the wind, and ever since it has been reaping the whirlwind.​  Its leadership has been decimated.  ​​At least half of its original 25,000 manpower has been eliminated, and its depleted ranks have been boosted by raw, untrained recruits.​  No longer a structured militia, it ​has become a degraded terrorist guerilla force. 

The three-phase agreement hammered out in Qatar and announced on January 15 is clear on phase one. 

          It is less so on phase two, involving a second exchange of hostages and Palestinian prisoners and the withdrawal of the IDF.  As for phase three, which requires establishing  a system of governance for Gaza and the start of its reconstruction, there are as yet only aspirations. 

All interested parties in the Middle East, and the West generally, understand that agreement must be achieved before too long on a clear-cut path to the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the Gaza Strip. There is no shortage of ideas, plans, proposals, suggestions.

On December 1 the Israel Policy Forum published a comparison of four extant plans for the post-war governance of Gaza.  They emanate from Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the US’s Biden administration, and the Palestinian Authority (PA).  Egypt, the UAE and the US were joint brokers of the ceasefire and hostage release operation.  The Israel Policy Forum paper reveals in some detail their individual concepts of how Gaza is to be governed and reconstructed after the war.  The various formulae overlap to some degree, but there are also some significant differences.

Egypt favors a community support committee in Gaza to focus on transitional governance.  Using local expertise, the arrangement would have minimal international involvement, and would unite Gaza with the West Bank.  Following talks with Egyptian and Fatah officials in Cairo in early December, Hamas officially approved this plan.

The UAE’s idea is to impose international control over Gaza on a temporary basis, eventually  transferring responsibility to the PA, provided the PA fulfills two conditions: meaningful reforms, including a new prime minister; and allowing regional and international forces to assume responsibility in the short term for security and law enforcement.  Gaza would be stabilized as a first step toward a two-state outcome.  Reconstruction would be led by international donors..

 The US​ position – or rather that of the Biden administration, endorsed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken in his farewell speech on January 14 – is ​to establish hybrid international oversight ​for ​a phased transfer of control to a reformed PA.  ​The transitional mission would be managed by an executive board with Palestinian and partner representatives. The IDF would undertake a phased withdrawal in coordination with the deployment of PA security forces.  An international fund would funnel donations for Gaza’s recovery through the PA.  The ultimate aim would be to establish a two-state solution.

The incoming Trump administration has not yet revealed its hand on post-war Gaza.

The PA proposes that Gaza and the West Bank unite, as a step toward the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state on territory recaptured by Israel from Egyptian and Jordanian forces in the Six Day War, including East Jerusalem.  International donors would support reconstruction and economic development in Gaza. An international peace conference would aim to establish a sustainable two-state solution, guaranteed by Arab and international partners.

The Israel Policy Forum analyses these four plans point by point in a table which enables each to be compared with the others.

Meanwhile Reuters reports that alongside the formal ceasefire negotiations in Qatar, which were joined on January 12 by the heads of Mossad and Shin Bet, behind-the-scenes discussions have included the possibility of the UAE and the US, along with other nations, temporarily overseeing the governance, security and reconstruction of Gaza after the IDF withdraws and until a Palestinian administration is able to take over.

Post-war planning for Gaza is not confined to discussions in Qatar.  It is being carried out independently by other bodies.  For example – and to mention but a few – the UN, the World Bank, and the EU, are jointly heading a Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment process, and formulating a Conflict Recovery Framework to be implemented when conditions in Gaza permit.  

This partnership has been active since late 2023, and their draft strategy aims to rebuild Gaza as an integral part of a fully independent, contiguous, viable, and sovereign Palestinian state within a two-state solution. These operations, which have been agreed with the PA, will support the PA’s own planning for recovery and reconstruction in Gaza.

The French news medium Le Monde recently reported that a group of French experts, known as the International Coalition for Peace and Security, is suggesting that a coalition of Arab and Western states assume guardianship over Gaza while the PA reforms and renews itself. This proposal includes recognizing a Palestinian state, securing a UN Security Council resolution endorsing a two-state solution, and forming a coalition dedicated to peace and security.

Analysts at the Washington Institute have proposed establishing a Gaza Interim Administration comprising three main components: a civilian administration, a law enforcement body, and a counterterrorism force. This structure would aim to dismantle Hamas's military capabilities, prevent future attacks, and create conditions for a positive socioeconomic and political reality in Gaza.   

Certain elements are common to many of these schemes.  One is the objective of a two-state solution; another the prominence many accord to a reformed PA.  The most likely source of a viable plan for the governance and reconstruction of post-war Gaza is the group that mediated the ceasefire–hostage release discussions in Qatar.

The best indication that Hamas has lost its political clout, and that a viable plan for Gaza’s future will emerge and be implemented, is the recent posting by President Trump on his social network.  He asserted that his team “through the efforts of Special Envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, will continue to work closely with Israel and our allies to make sure that Gaza never again becomes a terrorist safe haven.”   

 

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Post-war Gaza: competing plans for governance and reconstruction", 20 January 2025
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-838242

Monday, 13 January 2025

The Kurds in Syria's future

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 13 January 2025

What is to become of the Kurds, by far Syria’s largest minority at some two million people?

The Syrian civil war, starting in 2011, brought the Kurds to the forefront of the region’s politics. In face of the all-conquering military advance of Islamic State (ISIS), Syrian government forces abandoned many Kurdish occupied areas in the north-east of the country, leaving the Kurds to administer them.  A US-led coalition, bent on defeating ISIS, allied itself with the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga militia, which proved remarkably successful.  It look less than two years to reconquer ISIS-held territory, and in the process the Kurdish occupied area of north-east Syria, known as Rojava, gained de facto autonomy.

The capture by Kurdish forces of the township of Manbij from ISIS on 12 August 2016 produced along Turkey’s southern border a swath of territory, largely controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – an alliance of Arab and Kurdish militias. This area was closely adjacent to Iraq's Kurdistan Region, the Kurdish populated area granted autonomy in Iraq’s 2005 constitution.

So, much to the distaste of Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the possibility of a united autonomous Kurdistan stretching across the northern reaches of Syria and Iraq seemed to be emerging.

Erdogan has consistently viewed the People's Protection Units (YPG), the dominant force in the SDF, as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a group widely designated as a terrorist organization.

Accordingly in 2016 Erdogan instituted Operation Euphrates Shield, capturing an area  in north Syria from Jarabulus to Al-Bab.  He followed this two years later with Operation Olive Branch during which he overran Afrin.  In 2019, after the US announced its withdrawal from parts of northern Syria, he launched Operation Peace Spring, establishing a so-called "safe zone" on the Syrian side of the Turkish-Syrian border.  He aimed to use it to resettle Syrian refugees currently in Turkey.

 Erdogan has more or less annexed all the areas he has overrun.  They are now governed by Turkey-backed local councils, use the Turkish lira as currency, and are heavily influenced by Turkish infrastructure projects, including schools, hospitals, and post offices.

Turkey, a long-time supporter of the rebel movement that overthrew the dictatorial regime of Bashar al-Assad – the HTS (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham) – now has strong political influence with its leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa.  Erdogan no doubt hopes to use it to control his perennial Kurdish problem by continuing to occupy the swaths of Syria that he has overrun.  But despite his dominant political position in post-Assad Syria, it is far from certain that he will be able to do so.

 Al-Sharaa’s intentions regarding minorities in general, and the Kurds in particular, are still very unclear.  Ever since the fall of the Assad regime al-Sharaa has presented a moderate face to the world, consistently declaring that he intends to be as inclusive as possible in establishing Syria’s new governance.  In short, he may not endorse the continued occupation by Turkey of large areas of sovereign Syria.  Moreover he has said several times that Kurds are “part of the Syrian homeland” while assuring the nation that “there will be no injustice”. 

If any ethnic group deserves justice, it is the Kurds. 

Once upon a time, many thousands of years ago, a proud and independent nation lived and thrived in its own land in the heart of the Middle East. Subject to many foreign invasions, this ethnically distinct people refused to be integrated with their various conquerors, but retained their individual culture. At the start of the First World War, their country was a small part of the Ottoman empire. In shaping the future Middle East after the war the Allied powers, especially Britain, promised to act as guarantors of this people’s freedom. That promise was subsequently broken.

Similar though this sounds to the story of the Jewish people, it is in fact the broad outline of the long, convoluted and unresolved history of the Kurds.

The Kurds – nearly 35 million strong – are the largest stateless nation in the world. Historically they inhabited a distinct geographical area flanked by mountain ranges, once referred to as Kurdistan. No such location is depicted on current maps, for the old Kurdistan now falls within the sovereign space of four separate states: Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria. Most Kurds – some 25 million – live within Turkey’s borders, there are 2 million in Syria, while within Iraq the 5 million Kurds have developed a near autonomous state. Nearly 7 million Kurds are trapped inside Iran’s extremist Shi’ite regime.

The Treaty of Sèvres, marking the fall of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War, stipulated a referendum to decide the issue of the Kurdistan homeland.  That referendum never took place, and the Sèvres treaty itself was rendered null and void in 1922 by the establishment of the Turkish Republic under Kemal Ataturk.  What followed was a new treaty, the Treaty of Lausanne, which gave control of the then Kurdistan homeland to the new republic. With a stroke of the colonial pen over 20 million Kurds were declared Turkish.       

Kurdish autonomy achieved its greatest recognition in the 2005 Iraqi constitution, which  established the Kurdistan Region as a federal entity within Iraq, with its own local government and legal framework.  The Kurds in Syria will be well aware of that.  Nor will they forget that something akin to it was actually offered to them by the Assad regime.  In March 2015 the then Syrian information minister announced that the government was considering recognizing Kurdish autonomy "within the law and constitution." 

Later, in September 2017, Syria's then foreign minister stated that Damascus would consider granting Kurds greater autonomy once ISIS was defeated. Events overtook these aspirations, and nothing of the sort materialized.  But they might provide al-Sharaa with a template for a future accommodation with the Kurds within the constitution of a unified and restored Syrian state.

Much though Erdogan might deplore the effect on Turkey’s domestic political scene, he may yet see an autonomous Kurdish region recognized within a new Syrian constitution, and even, eventually, some form of alliance between that and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. 


Published in the Jerusalem Post, and in the Jerusalem Post online titled: "What will Turkey do with Syria's Turkish population?", 13 January 2025:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-837218