The US’s new non-NATO ally

“Major non-NATO Ally” (MNNA) is a US legal designation conferred on nearly 20 countries including Australia, Israel, Japan and Brazil.  On March 10, President Joe Biden formally confirmed his grant of the status to Qatar.

The MNNA designation, a powerful symbol of friendship and close collaboration, provides foreign partners of the US with a range of benefits and privileges, especially in the areas of defense, trade and security cooperation. By conferring the designation on Qatar, the Biden administration is signaling it wants an even closer relationship with the Gulf state than it already enjoys.

The actual decision was made at the end of January, during the visit to Washington of Qatar’s Sheikh, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. With Biden’s announcement, Qatar becomes the third country in the Gulf region, after Kuwait and Bahrain, to become a US major non-NATO ally.

What led to the decision?  One factor was the important role played by Qatar in the events leading to the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021.  Collaborating closely with the US, Qatar acted as mediator between the Taliban and what was left of the previous Afghan administration in assisting the evacuation of refugees.

Another consideration must be the current global concern over energy supplies and surging fuel prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Qatar is among the world’s largest producers of liquified natural gas (LNG), and could play a vital role if the flow of fossil fuels from Russia were reduced, either through the EU cutting its demand or by Russia reducing its supply.

Yet this elevation of Qatar’s status needed Washington to turn a blind eye to a range of rather dubious activities by the Gulf state.  While offering itself as a key US ally, Qatar has long pursued a strategy of backing Islamists − from Hamas in Gaza, to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, to hard-line Syrian opposition fighters.  Although the US Air Force had a base at al-Udeid, about 20 miles from Qatar’s capital, Qatar also allowed the Taliban to establish a political office in Doha.

Even before the Afghanistan debacle, Qatar had become recognized as a regional power broker because of its major role in the delicate Israel-Hamas-Palestinian situation in Gaza.  Financial aid to the tune of millions of dollars has flowed into Gaza from Qatar over the years.  Some of it was earmarked for Gazan families, reconstruction or fuel supplies and was closely audited, but much was provided with too little accountability attached.  Media reports suggest that large sums of Qatari money were simply pocketed by Hamas.

Qatar’s wayward policies, especially with regard to Islamist groups, had long infuriated its neighboring Arab states, and on 5 June 2017 Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain broke off diplomatic relations with Qatar for a second time, and virtually imposed a trade blockade.

For three-and-a-half years, largely through trade agreements with Turkey and Iran’s ayatollahs, Qatar withstood the worst that the Egypt-led alliance could inflict – and in January 2021 diplomatic relations were restored without any concessions by Qatar, which continued its contacts with Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamist interests.

The embrace of Qatar, warts and all, by the US reflects Biden’s desire to deepen economic and security ties with the Gulf state, a desire given instant substance by the announcement by Akbar Al Baker, chief executive of Qatar Airways, of a $34 billion deal to purchase planes from Boeing.  

The deal involves Qatar Airways buying the new super cargo plane from Boeing, the 777-8 freighter. Baker called it “the most significant new freighter aircraft for a generation.”  White House officials described the deal between the two companies one of the largest in Boeing’s history, supporting tens of thousands of jobs at Boeing and its affiliated companies.

Brian Deese, director of Biden’s National Economic Council, said in a tweet: “this deal boosts America’s civil aviation industry, promoting greater domestic production capacity, a healthy hybrid commercial-defense industrial base and strong supply chains, while uplifting the hundreds of small businesses that feed into Boeing’s supply chains.”

On the positive side Qatar has transformed itself into a major diplomatic player and a commercial hub, and is well on its way to becoming a cultural, sports and tourist center for the Gulf as a whole – a position likely to be consolidated when Qatar hosts the FIFA World Cup in the winter of 2022. 

Even though Qatar now joins Israel as a major non-NATO ally of the US, there seems no immediate prospect of it following its Gulf neighbors, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) or Bahrain, in concluding an Abraham Accord with Israel.  Qatar seems unable, as four other Muslim states have done, to normalize relations with Israel while at the same time maintaining its support for Palestinian aspirations.

          Sheikh al-Thani is reported as saying that Qatar would continue its “working relationship” with Israel in order to help the Palestinians, but that it seemed to him unrealistic to enter into an agreement with Israel like the UAE or Bahrain “in the absence of a real commitment to a two-state solution.”  Yet he must be aware that supporting a two-state solution is only a tactic, not a real commitment, of his Islamist friends.  Al-Thani must know that they would never agree to endorsing Israel’s legal rights in the region, since their true objective is to acquire the whole of mandate Palestine “from the river to the sea”.  

          The US will need to keep a wary eye on its newest non-NATO ally.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 22 March 2022:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-701948

Published in Eurasia Review, 26 March 2022:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/26032022-the-us-new-non-nato-ally-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 24 March 2022:

https://mpc-journal.org/the-uss-new-non-nato-ally/

Can Israel help Europe with its energy needs?

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has resulted in unprecedent unity of action by the Western world.  Acting in concert, the West has imposed the heaviest sanctions yet on Russia and its leaders.  The country has been isolated across a wide variety of fields from banking to sport, from the use of air space to the transmission of television shows. There seems complete unanimity in the West – every possible obstacle will be put in the way of Putin’s ill-advised adventurism.  He must not be allowed to succeed. 

One anomaly in this consensus sticks out like a sore thumb.  At the moment Europe is continuing to purchase Russian oil and gas in vast quantities, and Russia is continuing to receive hundreds of millions of dollars every day from European nations.  This reflects the fact that around 40 percent of Europe's energy needs are imported from Russia.  The EU is determined to reduce its dependency, and on March 8 the European Commission published plans to cut EU demand for Russian gas by two-thirds and make Europe "independent from Russian fossil fuels well before 2030".

On the same day, the US and the UK both announced that they would ban Russian oil imports in an attempt to increase the financial pressure on the Kremlin. US President Joe Biden signed an executive order blocking US imports of Russian oil, natural gas and coal, while UK Business minister Kwasi Kwarteng said Britain would “phase out” imports of Russian oil by the end of 2022 and was “exploring options” to end Russian gas imports.

In the short term the soaring price of fossil fuels makes trade even more profitable for Russia than before the crisis. At the same time, the situation gives Russian president Vladimir Putin a vital political bargaining chip.  He can hold the threat of slowing or cutting off supplies of oil and gas altogether over the EU’s head, and in certain eventualities he might consider doing so.

Germany, the European country most heavily dependent on Russian fuel supplies, is taking urgent action.  On February 27 Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced plans to build two liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals, in order to diversify supply. Natural gas is being recognized as a “transitional fuel”, an interim lower carbon source of energy for use while the world struggles to reach the optimistic targets it has set itself for reducing carbon emissions from fossil fuels.

 Europe's LNG imports hit a record high in January.  Nearly half came from the United States, second only to Russia in its reserves, but there are other potential sources of LNG, including the Middle East in general, and perhaps Israel in particular.

All the same some hard facts need to be taken into account.  The reserves of natural gas recently discovered off the coast of Israel and beyond, huge as they are, dwindle in significance when compared with those held by Russia. For example, Israel’s two primary natural gas fields off the western shore of the country are Tamar and Leviathan.  Tamar contains approximately 10.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and Leviathan, 22 trillion cubic feet.  Russia holds a total proved resource of 1,341 trillion cubic feet.  Israel and its partners Greece, Cyprus and Italy, and even its potential partner Turkey, could only ever supplement, never satisfy, Europe’s enormous appetite for energy – and that assumes establishing effective distribution methods. 

The EastMed pipeline, meant to transfer natural gas from Israeli waters to Europe via Greece and Cyprus, was announced in 2016, and several agreements have been signed between the three countries on the subject. The three states aimed to complete the €6 billion project by 2025, but no financing had been secured for it.  Progress came to a shuddering halt in January, when the Biden administration withdrew US support for the project.

No formal explanation for the change of policy was provided, but in a TV documentary Amos Hochstein, then a senior State Department energy adviser, said: “Why would we build a fossil fuel pipeline between the EastMed and Europe when our entire policy is to support new technology?…This project probably will not happen because it’s too complicated, too expensive and too late in the arch of history.”

Biden’s decision may have been influenced by a parallel, and extremely ambitious scheme, which has indeed received EU financing to the tune of $732 million – the EuroAsia interconnector, a project designed to connect the electricity networks of Cyprus and Greece as the first step in linking the power grids of Israel, Cyprus, Greece and Europe.  A 1,208 km undersea cable will create an "energy highway" ensuring a secure supply of electricity from Cypriot and Israeli gas reserves as well as from renewable energy sources. Construction is planned to begin this year, to be completed by the end of 2025 and to be commissioned in the first half of 2026.

          When British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was asked what was most likely to blow governments off course, he replied: “Events, dear boy, events”. The event that has rendered the thinking of only a couple of months back obsolescent is Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Now all options aimed at radically reducing Europe’s dependence on Russian energy are back on the table. Turkey, which has never supported the EastMed project because of Greece’s involvement, is nevertheless keen on an LNG pipeline running through Turkey to Europe.

          On February 25 former energy minister Dr Yuval Steinitz, a prime mover of the EastMed project in 2017, tweeted that the government should now give top priority to the rapid promotion of its construction. Nor are pipelines the sole method of distributing LNG. Seaborne cargoes are creating a global market, similar to oil. In 2019, alongside pipeline flows from Norway, the UK and the EU imported almost 20 per cent of its gas through LNG shipments. Israeli LNG could also find its way to European and UK markets via giant tankers.

          One way or another, there is pressure for the LNG bonanza that unexpectedly came Israel’s way a decade or so ago to come to the aid of Europe in its hour of need.

Published in the Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Post on-line, 14 March 2022:
https://www.jpost.com/international/article-701174

Published in Eurasia Review, 19 March 2022:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/19032022-can-israel-help-europe-with-its-energy-needs-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 17 March 2022:
https://mpc-journal.org/can-israel-help-europe-with-its-energy-needs/

Published in Jewish Business News, 18 March 2022:

https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2022/03/18/israel-help-europe-with-its-eastmed-pipeline/

A royal record: Queen Elizabeth's Platinum Jubilee

 This article appears in the Jerusalem Report dated 21 March 2022

Silver is universally considered the appropriate precious metal to commemorate a 25th wedding anniversary, gold a 50th, diamonds a 60th. Comparatively few are the couples who survive to celebrate 70 years of married bliss – though, as we are all living longer, perhaps they are becoming more common.  The appropriate precious metal to honour such occasions is platinum.

It was in 1897 that Queen Victoria marked her 60 years on the British throne with her Diamond Jubilee, a splendid national event. “No-one ever, I believe,” she wrote, “has met with such an ovation as was given to me, passing through those six miles of streets. The crowds were quite indescribable and their enthusiasm truly marvellous and deeply touching.”

At the time no British monarch had ever reigned longer.  Victoria lived for another four years, but on 9 September 2015 Queen Elizabeth II beat Victoria’s record, and then went on to create one of her own. The 6th of February 2022 marked the 70th anniversary of the day the Queen acceded to the throne on the death of her father, King George VI.  As a result, the year 2022 has been designated Platinum Jubilee Year – and not only in the UK, but in the Commonwealth of which Elizabeth is Head.

What is the Commonwealth?  When Elizabeth came to the throne in 1952, the Commonwealth consisted of just eight nations, all of which had once been part of the British Empire.  Today it is a voluntary association of 54 independent sovereign states with a combined population of some 2.4 billion people, almost a third of the world’s inhabitants.  Queen Elizabeth is Head of the organization, and Commonwealth leaders have decided that, in due course, her son and heir, Prince Charles, will succeed her in that role.  What unites this diverse group of nations, beyond the ties of history, language and institutions, are strong trade links and the association’s 16 core values set out in the Commonwealth Charter. 

These “Commonwealth values” commit the organization to promoting world peace, democracy, individual liberty, environmental sustainability, equality in terms of race and gender, free trade, and the fight against poverty, ignorance, and disease.

It was in 1884 that Lord Roseberry, later a British prime minister, first dubbed the British Empire “a Commonwealth of nations”, and the term “British Commonwealth” remained uncontroversial until 1947, when India achieved independence.  Although the new state became a republic, the Indian government was very keen to remain in the Commonwealth – and the Commonwealth, unwilling to lose the jewel in its crown, found no difficulty in changing the rules of the club. Henceforth “British” was to be dropped from the title of the organization, and membership did not have to be based on allegiance to the British crown. Members were to be “free and equal members of the Commonwealth of Nations, freely co-operating in the pursuit of peace, liberty and progress.”

Since then, fully independent countries from all parts of the globe have flocked to join the Commonwealth.  At first all were required to have some historic connection to the old British Empire – until two nations, with absolutely no such ties, applied to join.  Once again the Commonwealth demonstrated flexibility and further amended the rules to allow first Mozambique, and a few years later Rwanda, to become members.  Applications and expressions of interest in joining the Commonwealth continue to arrive from a wide diversity of states.

          Over the 74 years of Israel’s existence no effort has been made, nor has a viable opportunity arisen, to develop any sort of collaboration with the Commonwealth. All the same, Israel’s bitter-sweet historic connection with Britain has always seemed to point towards a special relationship. In 1953, the year of Elizabeth’s coronation, some visionary British ex-pats in Israel established an organization that flourishes to this very day – the Israel, Britain and the Commonwealth Association (IBCA). The body’s second chairman was President Isaac Herzog’s father, Chaim.  IBCA has never lobbied for Israel to join the Commonwealth – the concept has seemed politically unrealistic – but the idea has certainly been mooted in the past.

In December 2006, for example, the Jewish Journal reported: “As a former British colony, Israel is being considered for Commonwealth membership. Commonwealth officials said this week they had set up a special committee to consider membership applications by several Middle Eastern and African nations…and that those interested in applying include Israel and the Palestinian Authority, both of which exist on land ruled by a British Mandate from 1918 to 1948. An Israeli official did not deny the report, but said, ‘This issue is not on our agenda right now.’”

Perhaps full Israeli membership never will be, but the idea of forging some sort of link between Israel and the Commonwealth family of nations is not an impossible one.  It could bring benefits all round. For example, businesses in Commonwealth countries enjoy trading advantages. It is approximately 19% cheaper to export from one member to another within the Commonwealth than it would be outside. 

The advantages for Israel of some sort of formal link to the Commonwealth, perhaps a type of associate membership, would lie in the political and trade benefits that it would enjoy, but the gains would be far from one-sided.  Israel is in a position to offer a very great deal to the Commonwealth as a whole, including its developing members, by way of its advanced technologies in a whole variety of areas from cyber security and hi-tech innovations to agriculture and water conservation.

With the Middle East as a whole now reaping the benefits of normalised relations between Israel and a number of Arab states – a situation deemed utopian, even impossible, only a few short years ago – some sort of Israel-Commonwealth relationship does not seem beyond the bounds of possibility.  It would certainly give the worldwide Jubilee celebrations an unexpected dimension.

Globally, the Platinum Jubilee is to be marked by the lighting of beacons.  The ceremony will start with the igniting of a beacon in Buckingham Palace in London.  This will be followed by the lighting of over 1,500 beacons across the UK and the world.  For the first time, beacons will be lit in each of the 54 capital cities of the Commonwealth.

As far as the UK is concerned, street parties are being planned across the nation, as well as public ceremonies such as Trooping the Colour, which marks the Queen's official birthday.  To allow for a true “knees-up” (English slang for a right royal celebration), a four-day public holiday is planned for the whole of Britain.  The major Platinum Jubilee celebrations will begin on Thursday, June 2, and will continue until June 5 – a truly long weekend. How people will feel when the normal working week resumes on Monday, June 6 is anybody’s guess.

Queen Elizabeth II is perhaps the most travelled person on the planet.  She has been everywhere, and she is known, recognized and respected around the world.  It seems right and proper that the world has decided to acknowledge, and to celebrate with her, this special year in the life of the 95-year-old monarch.

France opens the way for Islamic State

This article appears in the Jerusalem Post, 6 March 2022

In what looks like a loss of will and abdication of responsibility, France’s President Macron announced on February 17 that French troops are being withdrawn from Mali, the former French colony.  Leading French newspaper Le Monde commented: “It is an inglorious outcome of an armed intervention that began in euphoria and which ends, nine years later, against a backdrop of crisis between Mali and France.”

   Macron’s justification is that relations with the military junta that took over Mali in 2020 have broken down: "We cannot remain militarily engaged alongside de facto authorities whose strategy and hidden aims we do not share."  The junta had gone back on an agreement to organize an election in February, and proposed holding power until 2025. 

Macron’s decision has profound implications not only for Mali but for the whole Sahel, the vast band of territory running coast to coast across Africa, just south of the Sahara, home to nearly 100 million people.  The zone encompasses areas in a range of countries – just how many is open to dispute – from Senegal and Mauritania in the west, to Sudan and Eritrea in the east.  Ever since the defeat of Islamic State (IS) and its caliphate in Syria, the Sahel has become a jihadist hotbed, where the fighters of extremist Islam have been assembling in ever-growing numbers, many under the black flag of IS.

For years three international forces have been trying to stem the advancing tide of Islamist extremism – one under French control, one under the UN, and the third drawn from the governments of the region.  Independently and collectively they have failed.  A total of 25,000 foreign troops are currently deployed in the Sahel region. They include about 4,300 French soldiers, the UN peacekeeping mission established in 2013, and an EU military training mission that aims to improve the Malian military’s capacity in fighting armed rebels.

The security crisis started in 2012, when an alliance of armed Islamist groups took over northern Mali.  France, the former colonial power, stepped in to stop their advance toward the capital, Bamako, which could have resulted in a total collapse of the Malian state.  For some time French troops were able to control the situation, but gradually armed jihadist groups began expanding their reach across the region. According to the UN, attacks in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso have increased fivefold since 2016.

Many Islamist groups are involved, but the two main ones are the al-Qaeda-linked JNIM (Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal-Muslimin), and the IS-affiliated ISGS (Islamic State in the Greater Sahara).  Despite repeated French airstrikes, both have expanded their reach beyond their strongholds in northern Mali to unleash bloodshed across the region. Accounts of a succession of mass atrocities and ruthless massacres of civilians in Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mauritania make for horrifying reading. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), in its account of the violence in the Sahel in 2021, reports that the two main jihadist groups – JNIM and ISGS – also turn on each other, from time to time. 

          As France’s intervention in Mali began proving ineffective, the deteriorating situation prompted action in a variety of quarters.

          In July 2017, France, Germany and the EU announced the launch of the Sahel Alliance. They were joined by a swath of European nations, a number of international banks and the UN Development Program.

          In September 2019 leaders of ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States), in recognition of the terrorist attacks sustained by a number of West African countries, announced a billion-dollar plan to help in the fight against armed groups. The financial aid was expected to run between 2020 and 2024.

A France-Sahel summit in January 2021 ended with leaders agreeing to the creation of a new structure aimed at bringing the two parties' forces together under a single command.  The idea was to facilitate joint operations and improve intelligence-sharing.  In support, France announced in early February that it was expanding its 4,500-strong military presence in the region by an additional 600 troops.  There have been other initiatives designed to bring the Islamist-inspired terror in the Sahel under control.

All this has been imperiled by Macron’s withdrawal, especially since eight members of his Alliance have decided to follow his lead. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin has not refrained from using the chaotic situation in the Sahel to his advantage, especially since European nations are so heavily involved.  According to media reports, the rogue Mali government has been using the services of the hugely controversial Russian mercenary group Wagner to shore up its position.  As a result Putin has established a foothold in central Africa, and is a prime party in chasing Macron out of what was once clearly a French sphere of influence.  None of which augurs well for Franco-Russian relations, the future of Mali or the Sahel region as a whole.

Even though the remaining allies, weakened by France’s withdrawal, have undertaken to continue fighting terrorism in the Sahel region, including in the Gulf of Guinea, there is no doubt that Macron’s withdrawal is seen by the IS as a major victory.  The French president has opened the Sahel region to further infiltration by jihadist groups and possible conquest, as in Syria and Iraq, by Islamic State.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem Post on-line as "French troops are being withdrawn from Mali", 5 March 2022

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-700400

Published in Eurasia Review:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/25022022-france-opens-the-way-for-islamic-state-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal:

https://mpc-journal.org/france-opens-the-way-for-islamic-state/

Published in Jewish Business News:

https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2022/02/25/france-opens-the-way-for-islamic-state/