Will Gaza ceasefire end Hezbollah attacks?

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 22 July 2024

The possibility of full-scale conflict in northern Israel hangs like a dark cloud over the nation.  If, as Shakespeare has it, the dogs of war are indeed let slip, the armory of sophisticated Iranian-supplied weapons held by Hezbollah could inflict massive damage across the country. Equally, if forced into war, the IDF could decimate Hezbollah’s armed forces while Lebanon and its people, already enduring privation and distress, would inevitably suffer further unnecessary misery.

There are, however, reasons to believe that Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, does not want a full-scale war with Israel.  The country’s economy and its people are under extraordinary pressure.  A nationwide poll conducted by Arab Barometer between February and April 2024 showed that around 80% of citizens find accessing food supplies, to say nothing of its cost, a problem.  Many run out of food before they can afford to buy more.  The provision of water, internet access and health care are patchy, while 92% of respondents to the poll reported constant electricity outages.

  Two further findings from the Arab Barometer survey explain reluctance on Nasrallah’s part for a new all-out war with Israel. 

   Hezbollah as a political party garnered only 12% support nationally. If the 39% Shiite support is removed from the findings, then it emerges that no other segment of Lebanese society offered more than 1% support for Hezbollah as a political party

   Regarding the Gaza war, the Lebanese people are strongly pro-Palestinian, yet they believe that the Biden administration should prioritize economic development in the Middle East over the Palestinian issue. The pollsters believe this finding underscores just how desperate circumstances in Lebanon have become.

Although Hezbollah is virtually a self-functioning state within the state of Lebanon, weaponized and funded to the hilt by Iran, its forces are nevertheless composed of young Lebanese men with mothers, wives and sweethearts. Hezbollah’s eight-year military support of Syria’s president, Bashar Assad, which cost the lives of hundreds of young Lebanese fighters, is still resented. Up to 1250 Lebanese soldiers were killed in Syria between 2011 and 2019, when Hezbollah finally withdrew. Most Lebanese can see only death and destruction resulting from an unsought and unwanted war with Israel undertaken at the behest of the non-Arab entity, Iran. 

 This lack of political trust in Hezbollah outside the Shiite community translates into sustained criticism for waging a war against Israel without consulting other factions.  Even the Qatar-based Al Jazeera  acknowledges, in a report on July 3, that “some people in Lebanon, particularly from the Christian community, are very unhappy with Hezbollah.”

Samir Geagea and Sami Gemayel, Christian politicians who head the Lebanese Forces and Kataeb parties respectively, blame Hezbollah for dragging Lebanon into an avoidable “‘war of attrition” and drawing Israeli attacks to Lebanese soil.

“Many Christian leaders are opposed to Hezbollah’s decision to open a front against Israel,” a Lebanon analyst told Al Jazeera, adding that an additional intent may be “to show that not all of Lebanon is behind Hezbollah in hopes of perhaps sparing their areas the worst of a war with Israel.”

 It is against this background that on July 10 Nasrallah issued a new and surprising policy statement.  He announced that he was making Hezbollah’s future cross-border interchanges with Israel dependent on the success or otherwise of the Gaza ceasefire negotiations.

 “Hamas is negotiating…on behalf of the whole axis of resistance,” declared Nasrallah. “Whatever Hamas accepts, everyone accepts…If there is a ceasefire in Gaza then our front will also cease fire without discussion, irrespective of any other agreement or mechanisms or negotiations."

Nasrallah’s remarks came days after he met with a Hamas delegation headed by its foreign relations chief, Khalil al-Hayya.  On July 14, following Israel’s attempt to assassinate the Hamas military commander, Mohammed Deif, some commentators assumed that Hamas would pull out of the current round of negotiations.  Not so, perhaps because the leadership realizes that opportunities to escape from the Gaza Strip are rapidly diminishing.  Having already signaled that it would drop its insistence on a “complete” ceasefire as a condition for starting truce negotiations, Hamas remains engaged.

Should a deal emerge, that is when Nasrallah’s new policy might come into effect. “That is a commitment,” he said recently during a televised address, “because [we are] a support front, and we have been clear [about this] from the start.”

In short, Nasrallah’s position now is that the increase in cross-border military activity since October 7 is not the precursor to an all-out conflict with Israel, but action in support of Hamas.  It is certainly true that in his much-trumpeted speech on November 3, 2023 Nasrallah, while predictably praising Hamas’s October 7 invasion of Israel, was at pains to emphasize that it had been a purely Palestinian enterprise. He asserted, whatever the truth of the matter, that neither Iran nor Hezbollah had had any part in planning or carrying out the operation, and that in present circumstances neither found it expedient to support Hamas by opening full-scale hostilities against Israel.  He wanted the subsequent conflict to remain Palestinian.

His latest pronouncement is consistent with this position, but it also reveals his lack of appetite for embarking on an all-out conflict with Israel.  It is to be hoped that Israel will, without swallowing Nasrallah’s words whole, take some account of them.  A few days before Nasrallah spoke, defense minister Yoav Gallant was in northern Israel, and what he said was uncompromising.

Gallant saw no obvious relationship between Israel’s military operations in Gaza and in Lebanon.  They are “two separate sectors”, he said.  He rejected any attempt to connect a hostage deal in the south to the on-going conflict along the Lebanese border.  To solve the latter a separate deal between Hezbollah and Israel would, he thought, be necessary.

“Even if there is a ceasefire [in Gaza],” he said, “here we continue to fight.” He further asserted that “we are ready for anything, but we are prepared for the fact that if they come to attack us, or if they try to harm us, or if they do not allow us to return our citizens safely to their homes – we will act.”

What Gallant may not yet have considered, however, is what Israel’s reaction would be if Hezbollah, on the conclusion of a ceasefire in Gaza, suddenly ceased all military activity aimed against northern Israel.  That is surely an eventuality worth pondering.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and in the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Lebanese civilians will not forgive Hezbollah if they don't cease fire during a ceasefire", 22 July 2024:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-811297

UK's election: the Gaza vote

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 16 July 2024

In spite of Labour’s landslide success in the recent UK general election, analysis of the results reveals two surprising facts.  First, despite appearances, there was no surge of popular support for Labour, rather a rejection of the 14-year-old Conservative administration; and secondly the results were affected fundamentally by a new political force.        

            Traditionally, general elections in Britain turn on domestic issues.  The economy and health are usually to the forefront of voters’ minds, together with the record of the incumbent government.  This time around, though, a foreign war taking place 3000 miles away was more important than all the usual domestic concerns for one bloc of ethnic minority voters.  

            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 has placed a caucus of rabidly anti-Israel MPs in the new House of Commons.  They have effectively become the sixth largest party in parliament, equal with Reform.

   The Muslim Vote was set up in May by an activist named Abubakr Nanabawa.  It was a response to the Labour Party’s initial decision to support Israel’s right of defense against the pogrom carried out by Hamas.  An alliance of 23 activist organizations, its aim was to unseat those MPs not sufficiently hostile to Israel, particularly Labour party members.

The new body was conceived as a political outlet for those opposed to Labour’s hesitancy is advocating a ceasefire, and announced its intention to create a list of approved candidates for Muslims to vote for in the general election.  Its candidates would stand in opposition to Labour and demand immediate recognition of Palestine as a state and the banning of all arms sales to Israel.

            This new pro-Palestinian bloc of MPs, all of whom have beaten their Labour opponents to win their seats, is headed by Jeremy Corbyn, one-time leader of the Labour party who, in 2019, presided over their greatest electoral defeat since 1935.  He was suspended from the party by its new leader, Keir Starmer, in 2020 for antisemitic attitudes and remarks, so he stood as an independent in the constituency of Islington North, which he has represented since 1983.  He trounced his Labour opponent, winning 49% of the votes compared to Labour’s 34%. 

            The other four pro-Palestine MPs were elected in areas with among the highest proportion of Muslim voters in the UK.  They range from Blackburn, where 47% of voters are Muslim to Leicester South, where it is 35%.  One of Labour’s biggest shocks on election night was when the party’s shadow Treasury minister, Jonathan Ashworth, lost his Leicester South seat by around 1,000 votes to Shockat Adam.

 “This is for Gaza!” declared Adam, as he made his victory speech.

In Birmingham Ayoub Khan’s victory over Labour was by a paper-thin 507 votes.

Following the October 7 massacre, Khan posted a video on TikTok claiming he had a “problem with the credibility” of some of the accounts of what took place.  At the time he was a local government councilor in Birmingham.  His then party, the Liberal Democrats, later announced that he had been cleared of wrongdoing, had “apologized and deleted the post” in question, and “agreed to undergo anti-Semitism training.”

But Khan subsequently said he had not approved the statement and did not intend to take the anti-Semitism training course. He went on to quit the party and run as an independent candidate in the election.

In Blackburn, Adnan Hussain overturned a previous Labour majority of over 10,000 to win the seat by 132 votes   Hussain posted an online statement to voters: “I promise to make your concerns against the injustice being inflicted against the people of Gaza be heard in the places where our so-called representatives failed.”

In Dewsbury independent candidate Iqbal Mohamed crushed his Labour opponent by winning 41% of the vote against her 22%. Video of Mohamed speaking at a recent rally shows him encouraging children to boycott Israel: “Go home, find every brand and every product that has been supporting Israel and Zionism from the beginning of time and throw it away, throw it away…That is the least we can do.”

This loss of seats that Labour might reasonably have expected to win tells only a part of the story.  More than a few Labour figures, including some now in ministerial positions, squeezed past the winning post by the skin of their teeth.

For example Wes Streeting, now the minister of health, won back his seat by just 528 votes over British-Palestinian Leanne Mohamad.

And Jess Phillips, a prominent member of the party, saw her previous 13,000 majority truncated to just 693.  When she tried to give a victory speech after the declaration, she was booed and jeered by pro-Palestinian activists, including chants of “shame on you” and “free Palestine”.  She responded by condemning the intimidation her campaign had faced, and said the election has been “the worst I have ever stood in.”

At his own count, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer saw his previous majority of nearly 23,000 cut in half.  He won handsomely, but it was the pro-Gaza activist, Andrew Feinstein, who came second.  Feinstein, the son of a Holocaust survivor, is a South African and was once an ANC member of the National Assembly under Nelson Mandela.  He completed his studies in California and then the University of Cambridge in 1990.  He was a strong supporter of the UK Labour party under Jeremy Corbyn, but has described Starmer as “inauthentic”.

 With 412 MPs out of a total of 650, Starmer for the next five years is theoretically in a position to win each and every issue put to a vote in the House of Commons, and to win it overwhelmingly.  Yet the five Muslim Vote MPs could seriously disrupt the main thrust of the government’s intentions if they managed to gather support for anti-Israel action from the body of Labour MPs – and this is not outside the bounds of possibility. 

Despite Starmer’s largely successful efforts to disempower the hard left within his party so as to make it electable after the Corbyn years, a sizeable rump of pro-Corbynites remains.  Israel, Gaza, a ceasefire, the two-state solution, recognizing Palestine, international arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister and minister of defense, the judgment of the International Court of Justice on the accusation against Israel of genocide – all these issues may see the government’s view challenged by the Muslim Vote five, and then supported by an unassessable number of Labour MPs.  There may be trouble ahead.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and in the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Despite landslide victory, there may be trouble ahead for UK government", 16 July 2024:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-810444

Published in Eurasia Review titled: "Britain's election:  the Gaza connection", 19 July 2024:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/19072024-britains-election-the-gaza-connection-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 22 July 2023:

https://mpc-journal.org/uks-election-the-gaza-vote/

Will Labour pursue Britain's ICC challenge?

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 8 July 2024:

          It was on May 20, 2024 that Karim Khan KC, a British jurist and chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), applied to the court to issue international arrest warrants against three Hamas leaders and also against Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defense minister Yoav Gallant.

          On June 10, Britain’s then-Conservative government, acting as a so-called "amicus curiae” (or friend of the court), asked to submit some observations to the ICC regarding prosecutor Khan’s request for arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant.

          On June 27 the ICC authorized the UK to submit written observations regarding the Court’s jurisdiction over Israeli nationals within the context of the Oslo Accords. Other interested parties could also submit observations until July 12, 2024.

          Since that ICC order, a general election in the UK has swept the Conservatives from power, and the nation is now ruled by a Labour government with an overwhelming majority. The question must arise as to whether Britain will continue to press its previously held legal opinions on the ICC.

          Shortly after Kahn had applied for his arrest warrants, Andrew Mitchell, deputy foreign secretary in the UK’s previous administration, told members of parliament:  “As we have said from the outset, we do not think that the ICC has jurisdiction in this case. The UK has not recognized Palestine as a state, and Israel is not a state party to the Rome statute.”

          At the time Labour neither endorsed nor rejected this position, but on June 23 David Lammy, now Britain's foreign minister, said: “Labour would comply with an ICC arrest order for Netanyahu” should one be issued.

          On June 28 The Guardian, a left-wing UK newspaper regarded as markedly anti-Israel and close to the Labour party, reported: “The decision to allow the UK to submit arguments in the case has caused concern among some international law experts that Britain’s intervention is politically motivated and an attempt to reopen legal issues many argue have previously been settled.”

          This report could possibly be the precursor to a decision by the new Labour government to withdraw the legal objections the UK intended to lodge with the ICC concerning the issue of international arrest warrants against Israel’s prime minister and defense minister.

          What is the legal case the UK wished to submit to the ICC?

          It specifically aims to address “whether the Court can exercise jurisdiction over Israeli nationals in circumstances where Palestine cannot exercise criminal jurisdiction over Israeli nationals pursuant to the Oslo Accords.”

          In its submission, the UK intended to refer to a 2021 decision by the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber which specifically left open this particular point, stating that it would consider it, should it ever arise in the future.

          The Guardian says that a former ICC official familiar with the 2021 case has said the jurisdictional issues had been resolved and, if challenged, would be “dead on arrival”. It quotes one legal expert who claims “it would beggar belief” if the judges decided that Palestine, an ICC member state, “could not ask the court to address atrocities committed on its territories because of a moribund Oslo peace process”. Another believes the UK’s attempt to challenge ICC jurisdiction using the Oslo accords was “deeply troubling and unjust”.

          More to the point, perhaps, was the comment by Clive Baldwin, a senior legal adviser at Human Rights Watch:

 “The next government will need to immediately decide if it supports the ICC’s essential role in bringing accountability and defending the rule of law for all.”

          The application to be placed before the ICC by Britain turns on a rather abstruse legal issue. It has nothing to say about the grounds quoted by the ICC’s chief prosecutor for applying for arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant in the first place. If the ICC judges eventually determine that they have the jurisdiction to do so, the validity of Kahn’s application will also have to be determined.

          Kahn’s warrant application, with its implication of an equivalence between the crimes of Hamas and Israel’s defensive response, and the supporting arguments for the application in respect of Netanyahu and Gallant, raised instant objections across the world including from US president Joe Biden.

          “The ICC prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous,” he said. There was “no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas”.

          It was the Hamas-inspired term “collective punishment” that Khan used in his application, stating as a fact that Israel indulged in “collective punishment of the civilian population”. This is an unproven subjective conclusion, emanating from Hamas’s anti-Israel publicity office, and assiduously disseminated to the world’s media. Khan substantiates it by accusing Israel of “deliberately” starving the Gaza population, “wilfully” causing them great suffering, serious injury and death, and “intentionally” directing attacks against them, murdering and persecuting them.

          Khan simply makes these assertions without offering any proof that the actions he lists were deliberately, wilfully or intentionally directed against Gazan civilians by Israel – mainly because there is none. There is, on the other hand, considerable evidence that they were nothing of the sort, and that Israel took extensive steps to mitigate and minimize the effect on civilians of its anti-Hamas actions. Kahn sidesteps the fact that the reason civilians were in the crossfire was because Hamas – not Israel – put them there, embedding its fighters, its weaponry, and its command centers in the heart of the civilian population, both above and below ground. Hamas had ensured that Israel could not possibly attack it without incurring highly regrettable civilian casualties and deaths. But pursue, attack and punish the perpetrators of the horrific pogrom of October 7 it was the bounden duty of Israel to do in defence of its citizens.

          Khan accuses Israel of starving Gaza’s civilians, of attacking those queuing for food and of obstructing delivery of humanitarian aid. He says Israel has imposed a total siege over Gaza that involved "completely closing the three border crossing points… for extended periods”. There has been no “total siege”. Since the beginning of the war, according to Israeli statistics, well over 18,000 trucks have crossed from Israel into Gaza carrying, inter alia, some 400,000 tons of food and over 23,000 tons of medical supplies.

          In fact it is Hamas that has been obstructing the delivery of aid and stealing civilian supplies for its own use or selling them on the black market at inflated prices. According to an analyst at the Washington Institute, Hamas is estimated to have made some $500 million from this. When Israel has opened fire around the aid trucks, it has been against Hamas terrorists trying to steal their cargo.

          Whether or not the new UK government pursues the legal argument initiated by its predecessor, the ICC judges will have to consider the validity of Khan’s case against Netanyahu and Gallant. It is only to be hoped that on this occasion non-politicised commonsense will prevail.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem Post online as "Will Labour continue Britain's Conservative party-led ICC challenge?", 8 July 2024:

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-809297

Published in Eurasia Review, 12 July 2024:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/12072024-will-labour-pursue-britains-icc-challenge-oped/#google_vignette

Published in the MPC Journal, 14 July 2024:

https://mpc-journal.org/will-labour-pursue-britains-icc-challenge/

The Iran-Hezbollah game plan

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 1 July 2024

            Ever since October 7, egged on by Iran, Hezbollah has been escalating its cross-border clashes with Israel, while its leader Hassan Nasrallah has been stepping up his blood-curdling rhetoric, predicting Armageddon if Israel were to launch all-out war.  Yet the truth is that Iran-Hezbollah would like nothing better.  They have sound strategic reasons for not initiating formal armed conflict. So their tactic has been to ramp up the provocation, daring Israel to strike back and trigger war.

            Iran learned a lesson from its abortive attempt at overwhelming Israel’s defenses on April 13.  In its first-ever direct aerial assault, it sent some 170 drones, over 30 cruise missiles, and more than 120 ballistic missiles the 1,000 kilometers toward Israel.  The Iranian leadership no doubt expected a massive military and propaganda triumph. 

 In the event  the operation was a miserable failure.  To supplement Israel’s Iron Dome defense, America and Britain sent jet fighters to help shoot down the missiles.  At the same time Jordan refused to allow Iran to use its air space for the operation, while several Gulf States, among them Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, passed on intelligence about Iran's plans.  As a result about 99% of the aerial armada never reached Israel, and Iran learned that not only the West, but much of the Middle East disliked and distrusted it.

Fearing wholesale lack of support if any formal Hezbollah-Israel conflict were seen as Iran-instigated, Iran-Hezbollah has, in the words of the English poet, Alexander Pope, been “willing to wound and yet afraid to strike.” 

On June 18 the Israel Defense Forces announced that a plan for an offensive to push Hezbollah further back from the border had been approved, but that a diplomatic solution was still the preferred option.  The next day Nasrallah gave a televised address lasting more than an hour. 

 In previous wars with Israel, he said, Hezbollah had only hoped to be able to strike Israel’s Meron air base.  Now, he claimed, the whole of Israel was within its range.

"And it won’t be random bombardment,” he threatened. “Every drone will have a target. Every missile will have a target."

Boasting that Hezbollah had a large stockpile of drones, a “surplus of fighters” and unspecified “new weapons” that would be unveiled in due course, he said Hezbollah was manufacturing military weaponry in Lebanon and, despite Israel’s attacks on weapon-carrying convoys in Syria, had continued to receive weapons from Iran.

This, at least, was confirmed by the UK’s Daily Telegraph which, on June 23, reported that weapons are being flown from Iran into Lebanon and stored at Beirut’s main airport. 

The Telegraph based its report on whistleblowers at the airport who claim to have observed a marked increase in the arrival of weapons and also the presence of more Hezbollah commanders on the ground.  The whistleblowers claim the operation has been escalating since the intensification of cross-border conflict between Hezbollah and Israel post-October 7.

The report claimed that currently the cache of stored weapons includes Iranian-made Falaq unguided artillery rockets, Fateh-110 short-range missiles, road-mobile ballistic missiles and M-600 missiles with ranges of 150 to 200 miles. Also at the airport it is claimed that there are AT-14 Kornets, laser-guided anti-tank guided missiles (ATGM), huge quantities of Burkan short-range ballistic missiles and explosive RDX, a toxic white powder also known as cyclonite or hexogen.

The allegations will raise fears within Lebanon that, in the event of war, the Rafic Hariri airport, just four miles from the city center, could become a major military target.

Staff at the airport claim that Wafiq Safa, Hezbollah’s second in command and the head of its security apparatus, has become a notoriously conspicuous figure at the airport.

“Wafiq Safa is always showing up at customs,” one whistleblower claimed. Workers collaborating with Hezbollah, he says, “walk around like peacocks” with new watches and smartphones, and drive new cars. “A lot of money [is] being passed under the table.”

Ghassan Hasbani, the former deputy prime minister and an MP for the Lebanese Forces party, said Hezbollah’s control of the airport has long been a concern for Lebanon, and more so if it becomes a potential military target in a conflict with Israel.

 “Weapons being transported from Iran to Hezbollah across border entry points,” he said, ”…endangers both the Lebanese population and the non Lebanese travelling through and living in the country.”

Taking action, he said, is all but impossible without international intervention to implement relevant UN resolutions. “The entrenchment of Hezbollah is everywhere, not only in the airport but in the port, the judiciary, it’s across society. The public administration now is largely hijacked by Hezbollah…”

Ali Hamieh, Lebanon’s transport minister, said the allegations were “ridiculous” and invited journalists and ambassadors to view the airport. 

Hamieh, who was nominated to the government by Hezbollah, in fact exemplifies the straits to which the once independent sovereign state of Lebanon has been reduced. Hezbollah has acquired an iron grip on the levers of power and, in the process, reduced the nation to penury and political deadlock.

Lebanon has been without a president since October 2022, every possible nominee blocked by Hezbollah and its political allies.  Moreover, compounded by widespread government corruption, the country is experiencing the worst financial crisis in its history.  After prime minister Najib Mikati announced in March 2020 that Lebanon would default on its Eurobond debt, the Lebanese currency began to plummet, leading to hyperinflation. In April 2023, Lebanese inflation hit a high at almost 270%.  It has taken a year to bring the level down to something like 52%, which still means unsustainable price increases for ordinary citizens, many of whom have become virtual paupers.

A further destabilizing factor is the huge refugee burden imposed on the country by the civil conflict in Syria.   Lebanon maintains one of the largest refugee populations per capita in the world – more than 1.5 million, many of them Syrian.

Yet Lebanon, overwhelmed as it is with domestic problems, is faced with the prospect of being dragged into Iran-Hezbollah’s ideological conflict with Israel, and potentially suffer bombardment, destruction, casualties and deaths.  The people of Lebanon resented their sons being recruited by Hezbollah and sent to Syria to support its president, Basha al-Assad, in his fight against his democratic opponents.  How much more would they oppose a call by Nasrallah to take up arms against Israel.  Which is why Nasrallah refrains from taking the decisive step, and would much prefer to point to Israel as the instigator of conflict.

Published in the Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Iran is playing a proxy war with Hezbollah, Lebanese civilians will pay the price", 1 July 2024

:https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-808423

UK’s Labour pledges to recognize Palestine

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 18 June 2024

  Britain is in the throes of a general election.  The nation goes to the polls on July 4.  All the indications are that the Labour party will sweep the board with a resounding win, and that its leader, Sir Keir Starmer, will be Britain’s next prime minister.

   On June 13 the party published the manifesto on which it is fighting the election.  Amid a plethora of domestic and international policy commitments, the manifesto turns briefly to the Middle East.  "Palestinian statehood,” it declares, “is the inalienable right of the Palestinian people. It is not in the gift of any neighbour” [in other words, Israel], “and is also essential to the long-term security of Israel.”

  The manifesto commits a future Labour government to recognizing a Palestinian state “as a contribution to a renewed peace process which results in a two-state solution, with a safe and secure Israel alongside a viable and sovereign Palestinian state.”

   Appalled by the Hamas attack of October 7, Starmer stood shoulder-to-shoulder with UK prime minister Rishi Sunak, US president Joe Biden, and most Western political leaders, in proclaiming Israel’s right to defend itself.  His stance was not acceptable to two entities he faces on his own political terrain.  One is the powerful hard-left element within his party that, since taking over as leader from Jeremy Corbyn, he has managed to disempower and partially subdue.  The other is the strong Muslim presence in some Labour-held constituencies.

    Labour’s pro-Palestine component began to assert itself on October 7 itself, with scattered voices approving the Hamas attack.  The collateral civilian deaths and casualties arising from the IDF campaign was enough for the party’s support for Israel to begin to slide.  For a few weeks the official Labour line was to call for humanitarian pauses in the fighting, a position that was not anti-Israel enough for some, and prompted Labour resignations in councils and from its parliamentary front bench.  Finally, on February 24, Labour policy officially changed to a call for “an immediate humanitarian ceasefire”.  

   Then came the first test of electoral opinion in the UK since October 7.  On May 2, 2024 local elections took place across the country to select councillors, mayors and other local government representatives.  The results, no doubt to Starmer’s dismay, indicated that Labour’s position on the Israel-Hamas war had dented its support in Muslim areas

  The BBC analyzed 58 local council areas where more than 20% of the residents identify as Muslim. It found that Labour's share of the vote had slipped by 21% on 2021, the last time most seats were contested.

Ali Milani, chair of Labour Muslim Network, said Labour's positioning on Gaza "is going to have a serious electoral consequence.  If I was a Labour MP in Bradford or Birmingham or Leicester or parts of London or Manchester [strong Muslim areas],  I would be seriously concerned.”

This is the background to the recognition pledge contained in the Labour party manifesto.

The composition of British society is changing fast.  In 2011 some 2.7 million UK citizens  identified as “Muslim”, making up 4.9% of the total population.  By 2021 overall numbers of self-identifying Muslims had reached 3.9 million, forming some 6.5% of the UK total   That is a constituency that Labour clearly believes cannot be ignored electorally, especially those areas where Muslims congregate to form a majority of the local population,

   By comparison the total number of people self-identifying as Jews in the UK in 2021 was about 270,000, making up some 0.42% of the total population. 

    The stark figures do not, of course, tell the whole story as regards political clout.  As in any society, British Jews punch well above their weight in the many and varied fields they engage in, while all political and social organizations formally abhor antisemitism or any form of discrimination based on ethnic, racial or religious grounds.

   The main difficulty with statements about Middle East affairs from concerned, but uninvolved, parties is the lack of flesh on the bones of advice.  For example, no one who has recognized Palestine as a sovereign state is able to define its borders, while advocates of the two-state solution when speaking of borders usually refer vaguely to the situation just prior to the Six Day War.

On June 5, 1967 the whole of the West Bank and east Jerusalem was controlled by Jordan, while Gaza was part of Egypt’s Sinai region.  This position had remained unchanged since the Israeli, Jordanian and  Egyptian armies stopped fighting during the course of 1949.  Then, for nigh on twenty years, Jordan and Egypt retained control of the land they had conquered after attacking Israel in 1948, yet neither separately nor together did they make any move to establish a Palestinian state.

In the Six Day War Israel reconquered these areas, as well as a great deal more.  Once in Israel’s hands, the West Bank and Gaza somehow morphed into “occupied Palestinian land” (which no-one previously claimed them to be; indeed West Bank Arabs remained Jordanian citizens until 1988).  The idea of an Arab Palestine has since become a political reality.

Labour’s recognition pledge takes no account of the fact that the Palestinian leadership is currently divided between the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas, that Palestinian opinion heavily favors Hamas, that the PA as a whole, as well  as its leader, President Mahmoud Abbas, are regarded as corrupt and are deeply unpopular.

On the other hand, the argument that eventually recognizing a Palestinian state would somehow be to reward Hamas for its bloodthirsty attack of October 7 does not hold water.  The two-state solution is the last thing Hamas desires.  If it were ever established, it would represent a bitter blow to Hamas’s fundamental purpose – to eliminate Israel altogether.  As far as Hamas, and its  fundamentalist supporters are concerned, establishing two states would be like a red rag to a bull.  The fight to eliminate Israel would continue unabated.   

Unlike the recent moves by Ireland, Spain, Norway and Slovenia which recognized the non-existent Palestinian state outright, the Labour commitment to recognizing a Palestinian state is nuanced.  It will occur as part of a peace process, and as such echoes the position outlined in January by Lord Cameron, the UK foreign secretary.  Palestinian statehood should be part of a process, he declared, and recognition would come at what has been described as “an appropriate time in peace talks”. 

By adopting this more considered position, Starmer is certainly risking alienating both his left wing and his Muslim constituency.  It is a fine line he is treading.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Keir Starmer is treading a fine line in pledging recognition of a Palestinian state", 18 June 2024:

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-806620

Published in Eurasia Review, 29 June 2024:

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-806620

https://www.eurasiareview.com/29062024-uks-labour-pledges-to-recognize-palestine-oped/#:~:text=The%20manifesto%20commits%20a%20future,viable%20and%20sovereign%20Palestinian%20state.%E2%80%9D

Publlshed in the MPC Journal, 30 June 2024:

https://mpc-journal.org/uks-labour-pledges-to-recognize-palestine/

Say “Pimm’s” - and you conjure up an English summer

This article appears in the Jerusalem Post Weekend Magazine, 14 June 2024

            Strange to relate – strange, that is, to anyone born and raised in the UK – the name  “Pimm’s” means zilch to many Americans. To Brits the world over Pimm’s is absolutely synonymous with the English summer.  Its only rival as a favourite summertime treat is strawberries and cream, which reaches its frenzied zenith of popularity at the Wimbledon tennis tournament in June.

            What is Pimm’s?  It is an alcohol-based fruit drink that keeps the English summer social season afloat.  From the Royal Ascot races to Wimbledon, from Henley Royal Regatta to Cowes week, from the Chelsea Flower Show to the Glyndebourne opera, Pimm’s is always on tap, and always being downed by the bucketful. 

            Back in 1823 James Pimm was a fishmonger who opened an Oyster House in South London.  He conceived the idea of selling, alongside his oysters, a drink to aid digestion.  So he concocted a gin-based liqueur infused with various herbs, spices and quinine.  This he bottled and labelled “Pimm’s No 1 Cup”.

            Using his liqueur as the base, he then devised a delicious beverage, topping it up with sparkling lemonade, and piling chopped up summer fruits on top.  And that in essence is what Pimm’s No 1 is today.  A mainstream current recipe specifies one part of Pimm’s to three parts of sparkling lemonade, topped with slices of orange, strawberry and cucumber together with a sprig of mint.

            Over the two centuries since it first saw the light of day, the original gin-based Pimm’s has seen the birth of six variants.  Only two – Cups 3 and 6 – remain in production in addition to Pimm’s No 1.

            Pimm’s Nos 2, 4, and 5 hit the market in the  1930s and left it in 1970.  To produce them the original recipe was altered by replacing the gin with, respectively, Scotch whisky, dark rum and rye whisky.  Pimm’s No 3, which replaces the gin with brandy, has been introduced and withdrawn several times but, now dubbed Pimm’s Winter Cup, it has its fervent admirers and is currently available.

Pimm’s No 6 Cup is a vodka-based variant which has had a chequered career, but it is now back by popular demand.  The less said about Pimm’s No 7 (a tequila-based variant) the better.

            What is the sensual experience of actually imbibing a glass of Pimm’s? 

            To start with, it is an episode to be savoured.  You can’t down it in one.  You have a tall glass of sparkling liquor in front of you, with slices of fruit and cucumber floating on top and a sprig of mint adorning one side.  A few ice cubes are usual, though (it being England) not obligatory. Too much ice can deaden the taste.  Often ice-cold lemonade straight from the fridge will produce the result.

The first sip fills the mouth with a light alcoholic beverage, gently infused with herbs and spices, the taste absolutely delicious from having been filtered through fresh fruit.   As you sip your way through, you see the level of sliced orange, strawberry and cucumber slowly sinking in the glass.  With your last swallow comes the climax of your Pimm’s encounter.  Your final experience is to slide those delectable alcohol-imbued fruits from the glass and chew your way through them.  Whether the whole event takes five minutes or half an hour, it is a unique experience, and unlikely to be forgotten.

            At home on a sun-drenched afternoon, people will usually make up a jug of Pimm’s and take it out to the garden to keep their guests well topped up.  A standard recipe for a jugful is 200 ml of Pimm’s to 600 ml of lemonade, with plenty of fruit, cucumbers and mint to shovel in on top.

            Finally, for the avoidance of all doubt, I must add that Pimm’s is totally unrelated to that other famous sparkling British alcoholic drink, Buck‘s Fizz.

Buck's Fizz is an alcoholic cocktail made of about two parts champagne (sometimes some other sparkling wine)  to one part orange juice.

The drink is named after  London's Buck's Club, where it is said to have first been served in 1921 by a barman named Malachi "Pat" McGarry.  McGarry features in the works of P G Wodehouse as the barman of the Drone’s Club.  The original Buck's Club recipe is said to contain additional ingredients known only to the club's bartenders.

Buck's Fizz is often drunk at Christmas and on New Year’s eve.  It has no relationship at all to Pimm’s.  Pimm’s time is summertime.  Cheers!

Will Hamas be dislodged from Gaza?

  Published in the Jerusalem Post, 11 June 2024

             It now seems clear that on October 7 Hamas, no doubt urged on by Iran, bit off a good deal more than it could chew.

Its leaders in Gaza (Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif), together with its leaders-in-exile living in luxury in Qatar (Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Meshaal), may have been led by Iran to expect a widespread uprising of the Arab world in support of their massive killing spree in Israel. They may have envisaged their invasion advancing into the country supported by uprisings in the West Bank, an invasion by Hezbollah in the north, perhaps joined by Syrian troops up in the Golan, irregular Jordanian fighters in the east and even Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood militias from the west.  Perhaps Iran already had in mind, and promised them, a crushing blow on Israel by launching a direct aerial attack, reversing its long-standing policy of using only proxies in its anti-Israel operations.

This scenario, mouth-wateringly tempting for Hamas, simply failed to materialize.  Action of some sort did manifest itself, but on nothing like the scale or with the coordination that would have been politically or militarily meaningful.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, informed  of Hamas’s plans only half an hour before the attack began on October 7, soon dissociated himself from the assault. 

All the same, since October 7 Hezbollah’s continuous skirmishes over the Israel-Lebanon border have been stepped up, and some 60,000 Israelis have been evacuated from their homes, and are still unable to return.  On June 4 Reuters reported that large swaths of northern Israel were engulfed by wild fires set off by rockets launched by Hezbollah. It’s far from an invasion, but it needs to be quelled.

   Immediately after October 7 the Houthi rebels, ensconced in areas of west Yemen, declared war on Israel.  Then, responding to a call by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, they initiated a program of harassing international shipping in the Red Sea.  On May 29 the official Iranian news agency confirmed that Iran has supplied the Houthis with Ghadr rockets, described as Iran’s first anti-ship ballistic missiles. 

In response American and British fighter jets and US ships have hit a wide range of underground facilities, missile launchers, command and control sites, a Houthi vessel and other facilities.   The  Houthis cannot long sustain all-out combat with combined US-UK forces.

Meanwhile on April 13 Iran decided to ratchet up Hamas’s flagging effort by launching a first-ever direct aerial assault on Israel.  Around midnight it sent some 170 drones, over 30 cruise missiles, and more than 120 ballistic missiles the 1,000 kilometers toward Israel.  The Iranian leadership no doubt expected a massive military and propaganda  triumph.  In the event  the operation was a miserable failure.  To supplement Israel’s Iron Dome defense, America and Britain sent jet fighters to help shoot down the missiles.  At the same time, surprisingly, Jordan refused to allow Iran to use its air space for the operation, while several Gulf States, among them Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, passed on intelligence about Iran's plans.  As a result about 99% of the aerial armada never reached Israel. 

By June 1 reality must surely have begun to dawn on both Iran and its proxies.  They were, in the time-honored phrase, on a hiding to nothing.  Like the sorcerer’s apprentice. Hamas had conjured up a situation way beyond what it had expected or could control.  All but four of its 24 battalions had been dismantled, and the four remaining battalions, “completely operational” according to the IDF, are in the southern city of Rafah, and are now in the IDF’s sights.

            So the announcement by US President Joe Biden on June 1 of a ceasefire proposal that could lead to the end of the war must – whatever the public posturings may indicate –be under serious consideration by Hamas.   The four-and-a-half page plan had been sent to Hamas for review the previous day. 

            Biden said the plan encompassed three phases.  The first, which would last for six weeks, would include a "full and complete" ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from "all populated areas" of Gaza and the "release of a number of hostages including women, the elderly, the wounded in exchange for release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners."

Biden added that in this phase, Palestinian civilians will return to their homes, while humanitarian assistance will increase to 600 trucks carrying aid into Gaza every day.

For Hamas a guaranteed breathing space of six weeks would come as a welcome relief, especially since Israel would be withdrawing from populated areas at the same time. However also built into the first phase is the obligation for Israel and Hamas to undertake talks designed to get to the next stage of the proposal. 

The possibility of the talks stalling has been built into the plan.

"The proposal,” said Biden, “says…the ceasefire will still continue for as long as negotiations continue," adding that the US, Qatar and Egypt will ensure that talks continue during this period until "all agreements are reached" to start the second phase.

 Of course, Hamas could decide to stick with the “temporary“ ceasefire indefinitely.  But if they did, they would forego the second phase, which would see Israeli forces withdraw completely from Gaza accompanied by the release of all remaining hostages who are alive.

"As long as Hamas lives up to its commitments,” said Biden, the temporary ceasefire would become the permanent cessation of hostilities.

n the third phase, said Biden "a major reconstruction plan for Gaza would commence,” and the remains of hostages who have been killed would be returned to their families.

In the deal to rebuild Gaza, Arab nations and the international community will participate in a "manner that does not allow Hamas to re-arm," said Biden, or as he put it earlier: “without Hamas in power.”  That suits Biden as much as it does Israel, for he knows that Hamas will have no truck with the two-state solution that he espouses so fervently. 

Hamas initially said that it viewed the proposal "positively", but by June 4 the media were reporting that Hamas was apparently stalling.

Doubtless the Hamas leaders have their own “day after” aspirations.  They may reconcile themselves to losing the governance of Gaza, but probably envisage basing themselves elsewhere and continuing the fight from there.  It is morally certain they have no intention of abandoning their core objective of overthrowing Israel and eliminating the Jewish presence from the Middle East. 

Published in the Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Post online titled: "A Day After possibility: will the IDF dislodge Hamas from Gaza?", 11June 2024:

www.jpost.com/opinion/article-805759

Disempowering Hamas

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 3 June 2024

             “The day after” is the current buzz phrase in political circles. It refers to the period immediately after Hamas has been well and truly dislodged from the governance of the Gaza Strip.  While ideas abound as to what could or should take over, it is true to say that absolutely no steps seem to have been taken to realize any of them.

            On Friday, May 31 US President Joe Biden took the initiative.

   “It’s time for this war to end,” he announced, “and for ‘the day after’ to begin.”

   He proceeded to outline what he termed “an approved Israeli proposal” made up of three phases which would lead to a return of all the hostages, alive and dead, a “cessation of hostilities permanently” and, on “the day after”, the rebuilding of Gaza without Hamas in power.

The office of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed that he had “authorized negotiators to present proposals for the return of hostages held in Gaza.”

            Meanwhile the date draws ever closer for Netanyahu to avert, or to accept, minister Benny Gantz’s threat to resign from the coalition government over the lack of decision.

   It was on May 18 that Gantz told a press conference he wanted Netanyahu, by June 8 at the latest, to commit to an agreed vision for what would follow the Gaza conflict.  It would include stipulating how the territory would be administered, and by whom, the day after the war with Hamas was declared over.  

Gantz wanted the war cabinet to draw up a six-point plan, and if his expectations are not met, he said, he will withdraw his centrist party with its 12 Knesset seats from the government.  His exit would not topple the coalition – it would be left with 64 out of 120 Knesset seats – but would shake it severely, perhaps to extinction.

On May 30, pre-empting his own ultimatum, Gantz’s National Unity Party, in collaboration with other opposition parties, submitted a bill in the Knesset to dissolve parliament.  If passed, this would mean a general election within months.

Not generally known is that on May 15, the day before Gantz’s announcement, defense minister Yoav Gallant had demanded clarity on post-war plans, insisting that Netanyahu abandon any military reoccupation of Gaza – a concept the prime minister had said might be necessary for an unspecified period after the war.

For Netanyahu to renounce totally the idea of any Israeli presence in Gaza on “the day after” would almost certainly alienate ultra-nationalist parties that have gone so far as to call for Gaza to be annexed and settled. They are also unlikely to endorse Biden’s new initiative.   However losing them from the coalition would not, as was once thought, be the coup de grace for Netanyahu’s government.  On June 1, in the light of Biden’s announcement, opposition leader Yair Lapid vowed to back Netanyahu if he proceeds with a ceasefire and exchange deal.

The problem with Gantz’s “day after” vision is that no Arab state, individually or collectively, has yet produced any plan or strategy to manage the fallout from the war, to participate in any “day after” administration of Gaza, or to support Palestinian statehood.  Arab states in general, and the Abraham Accord states in particular, have had to tread a precarious path since October 7.  Arab popular opinion is overwhelmingly supportive of Hamas and opposed to Israel’s incursion into Gaza, and Arab governments, though content enough to see Iran and its allies under fire, have been careful to avoid endorsing Israel’s military campaign.

The prestigious UK think tank, Chatham House, believes that regional Arab states should work together in support of Palestinians.  “The time for states to act is now,” they write.

They explain that so far these Arab states have relied on the US-led efforts at brokering a ceasefire-focused plan, and have accordingly refused to discuss “day after” reconstruction or political or security scenarios.

“Those states,” says Chatham House, “…refuse to bankroll reconstruction efforts without guarantees that Israel will not initiate further bombing cycles.”  Clearly believing that Hamas in some form is likely to still be in existence after the war, “only with a ceasefire in hand,” they say, “will they [the Arab states] begin considerations of their part in the complex political settlement process. This strategy, however, is fraught with risks that could delay any potential prospect of peace – including further deferring the broader vision of regional integration that had included Israel…Investment in “the day after” must begin today.”

The US shares this view. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told a Senate committee hearing last week:  "It is imperative not only that the conflict in Gaza ends as soon as possible, but that Israel comes forward with a clear plan for how Gaza is going to be governed, secured, redeveloped,"  Without that, he said, Israel would face unacceptable options: long-term military occupation and insurgency, the return of Hamas, or anarchy and lawlessness.

The US is pressuring Arab states to agree an international force that could establish security in Gaza in the short term. The US would not put its own troops on the ground, but wants countries including Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Bahrain and the UAE to do so instead.

The fly in that ointment is that these countries have made clear they would take part only if the West recognized the state of Palestine, that there was an agreed pathway to a two-state solution, and they came at the invitation of some kind of Palestinian leadership. That could only mean the Palestinian Authority in some form or other, and Netanyahu has ruled the PA out as a partner in any sort of “day after” strategy.

One Arab diplomat is quoted by the BBC as saying:  "The day after cannot be separated from the political process.  It must be part of a comprehensive package. No-one will put one foot on the ground unless there is a political process."

Some Arab states feel – reversing the commonly-held view – that normalizing diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia may be key to getting Israel's agreement to a wider political settlement. There is discussion, too, about what role Turkey could play, using its leverage over Hamas to agree some kind of post-war deal. 

         But the idea of Hamas having any say at all about the future of Gaza runs totally counter to the political consensus within Israel. Until Hamas has been completely disempowered, both militarily and politically, and removed forever from playing any role in the administration of the Gaza Strip, there can be no “day after”.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and in the Jerusalem Post online as: "There is no 'day after' until Hamas is gone, 3 June 2024:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-804714

Published in Eurasia Review, 7 June 2024:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/07062024-disempowering-hamas-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 11 June 2024:

https://mpc-journal.org/disempowering-hamas/