Lebanon's dilemma

 This article appears in the Jerusalem Post of 7 April 2022

The good news is that a two-month truce between the warring parties in Yemen, brokered by the UN, went into effect on April 2.  At last there is some hope of relieving the humanitarian disaster that has overwhelmed the Yemeni people. The issues that led to the conflict, however, remain unresolved.

The bad news, from Lebanon’s point of view, is that the truce will do nothing to solve the political dilemma facing Lebanon, caught as it is between a rock and a hard place.  Its weak and vacillating government finds itself trapped between two warring and irreconcilable forces, Iran and Saudi Arabia – the one supporting the Houthis in Yemen, the other battling to defeat them.

Lebanon’s situation is exacerbated by the dire state of its economy. The Lebanese lira has lost more than 90 per cent of its pre-crisis value, and this has led to soaring inflation and widespread hardship. It is estimated that some 80 per cent of Lebanon’s population now live in poverty. Gasoline stations have run dry, medicine and many basic foods are in short supply, and critical social infrastructure is shutting down.   

In 2008 the International Monetary Fund (IMF) boosted the Lebanese economy with a massive loan. In 2020, in the face of a financial system spiralling out of control, the government again appealed to the IMF for help.  A rescue plan was approved by the majority parties in parliament.  Then a parliamentary committee, supported by the Banque du Liban and the other Lebanese banks, advocated a diametrically opposite approach, on the grounds that it was defending the interests of depositors. It was clear to the IMF that administrative reforms were needed before necessary economic measures could be implemented.

It is against this background that Lebanon’s political dilemma is being played out. Iran-backed Hezbollah is so entrenched in the country’s institutions that it would require close to a revolution to dislodge it. Moreover, the nation’s ruling cliques have been infiltrated by Hezbollah and its allies.  Lebanon’s current difficulties stem from comments made by Information Minister George Kordahi in October 2021, criticizing Saudi Arabia’s role in the conflict in Yemen.

In 2011 Yemen’s president, Ali Abdallah Saleh, a victim of the so-called Arab Spring, gave up the keys of office with a very bad grace.  He allied himself with his erstwhile enemies, the Houthis, in an attempt to maneuver his way back to power. Supported with military hardware from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the Houthis overran large tracts of the country, including the capital city, Sanaa. 

Saudi Arabia, determined to prevent Iran from extending its footprint into the Arabian peninsula, intervened in March 2015 to help beat them back.  Saudi’s Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, assembled a coalition of Arab states, obtained the diplomatic backing of the US, UK, Turkey and Pakistan, and launched a series of air strikes against the rebels. Civilian casualties were high, and Yemen degenerated into a humanitarian disaster area.  Seven years later both parties remain entrenched in various parts of Yemen.

Appearing on an Al Jazeera TV show on October 25, 2021, Kordahi was asked his views of the war in Yemen.  Mirroring the Iranian point of view, he said the Houthi rebels fighting the Saudi-led coalition were acting in self-defence. “They are defending themselves against external attacks launched for years against Yemen."

In subsequent media conferences Kordahi refused to apologize.  Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states were outraged. Saudi expelled Lebanon’s ambassador and said it was ending all imports from the country. The UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain followed suit and recalled their ambassadors.  George Kordahi resigned.

Saudi Arabia and its fellow wealthy neighbors once spent billions of dollars in aid in Lebanon, and still host a huge Lebanese diaspora. But the friendship has been strained for years by the growing influence of Hezbollah in Lebanon.  The powerful Iranian-backed Shia movement, which has come to dominate Lebanon‘s political  and economic establishment, represents a vital building block in Iran’s bid to dominate the region. Hezbollah and its allies are integrated into the ruling elites, which are mired in venality, corruption and self-interest.  Arab News warned recently that their unwillingness to put Lebanon's interests ahead of their own could destroy the nation.

A major issue uniting Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states is their determination to thwart Iran’s effort to undermine and overturn Sunni Muslim states, acquire a nuclear arsenal and dominate the Middle East.  In this they are at one with Israel, which is also the object of Iran’s visceral hatred.  The Abraham Accords, which may yet be expanded, is a sign of their common purpose.

Despite Iran’s strong influence within Lebanon through its proxy, Hezbollah, ministers have tried hard to mend fences with Saudi and the Gulf.  Very recently a green shoot has surfaced.  On March 19 Lebanese prime minister Najib Mikati visited Doha Forum in Qatar, met the Emir, Sheikh Tamim al-Thani, and discussed ties between Lebanon and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.

In a press conference later Mikati said: “Lebanon is meant to always have excellent relations with the Arab countries and the Gulf states. Lebanon is one of the founders of the Arab League and we strongly believe in such ties.”

Speaking about Lebanon’s diplomatic crisis with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, Mikati stressed: “It was a summer cloud that passed. God willing, it will entirely fade out with the visits that I will make to the Arab countries, and with the restoration of diplomatic ties between Lebanon and the Gulf states. We need these ties, especially with Saudi Arabia.”

On March 22 the Saudi ministry welcomed Mikati’s statement, and said it hoped it would “contribute to the restoration of Lebanon’s role and status on the Arab and international levels.”

It was a first step, but the way out of the forest for Lebanon is likely to be long and difficult.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 7 April 2022:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-703436

Published in Eurasia Review, 9 April 2022:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/09042022-lebanons-dilemma-oped/

Published in Jewish Business News, 8 April 2022:
https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2022/04/08/lebanons-dilemma/

Published in the MPC Journal, 9 April 2022:
https://mpc-journal.org/lebanons-dilemma/

The IRGC in Iranian politics

IRGC stands for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, a branch of the Iranian armed forces.  It was founded shortly after the Iranian revolution in 1979 specifically to consolidate the ayatollahs’ grip over post-revolutionary Iran. Starting small, it has mushroomed into an enormously powerful organization, deeply entrenched in Iran’s body politic and highly influential both at home and across the Middle East.  Forty-two years on from the revolution, the IRGC is now operating as a state within a state with its own military, economic, cultural, political and intelligence arms.

          In April 2019 then-US President Trump designated the IRGC a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO).  Officials explained that the IRGC was an “active and enthusiastic participant in acts of terror,” including the 1983 bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut in which 241 American serving people lost their lives, and the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers complex in Saudi Arabia, in which 19 US Air Force personnel were killed and 498 of many nationalities wounded.

Recently rumors emanating from Vienna, where a revitalized nuclear deal with Iran is being negotiated, suggested that President Joe Biden is considering removing the IRGC from the US’s terror blacklist.   Accounts of what the quid pro quo might be for this major concession are vague – which might explain remarks made recently by ambassador Mikhail Ulyanov, head of Russia’s delegation to the Vienna talks: “Iran got much more than it could expect, much more…This is a matter of fact.” 

The rumors were backed by former US Vice President Mike Pence, when he visited Israel recently and told prime minister Naftali Bennett and foreign minister Yair Lapid that a delisting of the IRGC as a terrorist organization was on the table.  Pence claimed that the delisting would be in return for a commitment that the IRGC would not target Americans.

          Accordingly, on March 18 Bennett and Lapid issued a joint statement deploring the idea of delisting the IRGC. They described the IRGC as: "Hezbollah in Lebanon, they are Islamic Jihad in Gaza, they are the Houthis in Yemen, they are the militias in Iraq, The IRGC is responsible for attacks on American civilians and American forces throughout the Middle East, including in the past year…They are an integral part of the brutal machine of oppression in Iran. Their hands have on them the blood of thousands of Iranians…The attempt to delist the IRGC as a terrorist organization is an insult to the victims.”

The IRGC has become a major military, political and economic force in Iran, with close ties to the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and many other senior figures including, significantly, the recently elected president, Ayatollah Ebrahim Raisi. 

The IRGC controls the Basij Resistance Force, an Islamic volunteer militia of about 100,000 men and women. The Basij are loyalists to the revolution who are often called onto the streets to use force to dispel dissent. The IRGC and Basij are active in suppressing the mass opposition protests that erupt from time to time, for example in 2009 after the disputed re-election of then President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Dozens of opposition supporters were killed and thousands detained.

With some 190,000 active personnel, the IRGC is considerably smaller than the regular military, but it is considered the dominant military force in Iran.  It operates its own armed, naval and air forces, and is behind many of the country's key military operations.

The IRGC navy is tasked with patrolling the strategically important Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway connecting the Gulf to the Indian Ocean through which 20% of the world's oil supply passes. The force's small boats have intercepted US warships that it says have approached Iran's territorial waters, and detained or diverted international shipping. Its air force is responsible for Iran's missiles. Iran is believed to have more than 10 ballistic missile systems either in its inventory or in development, and a stockpile of hundreds of missiles.

The IRGC also has a powerful presence in Iran's civilian institutions. It controls around a third of Iran's economy through a series of charitable foundations and trusts known as the bonyads, which run a considerable part of the economy.  Apart from military industries, the IRGC is active in housing development, dam and road construction, oil and gas projects, food, transportation, engineering and even educational and cultural activities.

The most prominent IRGC entity in recent years has been the Quds Force, used to implement its foreign policy goals. Considered Iran's primary instrument for cultivating terrorist groups across the Middle East, Quds actively supports Lebanon's Hezbollah movement and Palestinian Islamic Jihad with funding, training, weapons and equipment. Iran has acknowledged its role in the conflicts in Syria, where it has advised forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and armed thousands of Shia Muslim militiamen fighting alongside them, and Iraq, where it has backed a Shia-dominated paramilitary force that helped defeat IS.

Iranian president Raisi is intent on further empowering the IRGC. The ageing Supreme Leader, in dubious physical health, is seeking to ensure a hardline Islamist regime after his death. His chosen successor, it is widely believed, is Raisi.  Raisi is fully aware that if he is to become the next supreme leader, he will need the IRGC’s backing, since anti-regime sentiment is rising among the Iranian population   In expanding the power of the IRGC, Raisi will be seeking to boost his support when the time comes to select Khamenei’s successor.

The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change believes that the IRGC will be a critical element in any possible scenario for Iran’s future. Understanding the dynamics of the IRGC’s higher echelons, it asserts, is therefore of the utmost importance. Western and international policymakers must be able to read the Guard’s inner workings, it says, and the Institute has accordingly published a new model to aid understanding of the internal structures, relationships and intra-elite alliances and rivalries within the IRGC. 

“Know your enemy,” said the ancient Chinese general Sun Tzu, “and know yourself; and in a hundred battles you will never be defeated.”

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 28 March 2022:
https://www.jpost.com/international/article-702557

Published in Eurasia Review, 1 April 2022:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/01042022-the-irgc-in-iranian-politics-oped

Published in the MPC Journal, 3 April 2022:
https://mpc-journal.org/the-irgc-in-iranian-politics/

Published in Jewish Business News, 1 April 2022:
https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2022/04/01/the-irgc-in-iranian-politics/

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/

Israel in Africa

This article appears in the Jerusalem Post of 24 February 2022

 

       At present Israel is in a rather equivocal position on the African political scene.  The issue cannot be resolved until 2023.

The problem revolves around the African Union (AU), which came into existence in 2002 replacing the rather ineffective Organization of African Unity (OAU), founded in 1963.  Israel, having built up cooperative relationships with dozens of African states over the years, had been granted observer status in the OAU.  When the African Union was set up, though, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi took the lead in persuading members to deny Israel its previous observer status.  

Since then Israel has tried several times to regain its old position, its efforts consistently frustrated by a group of members led by South Africa.  Finally Israeli diplomacy triumphed.  On July 22, 2021 the Chair of the AU Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, announced that Israel would be admitted to the African Union as an observer state.

Faki’s decision, however, was not the end of the matter.  A number of members, including the Palestinians, who have enjoyed observer status in the AU for some years, objected on the grounds that the matter had not been put to the vote.  Several countries, led by South Africa and Algeria, began lobbying members in the hope of reversing the decision, and this group decided to seek a general vote at the annual AU summit in Addis Ababa in February 2022.

In a communiqué justifying his action, Faki pointed out that in granting Israel observer status he had acted entirely within the discretion granted him under the criteria establishing his office.  Moreover, he said his decision had been “taken on the basis of the recognition of Israel, and the reestablishment of diplomatic relations with Israel, by a majority greater than two-thirds of AU member states, and at the expressed request of many of those states."  In fact, only eleven AU members out of the 54 did not have full relations with Israel, and of those eleven, several enjoy various agreements or understandings with Israel.

The issue was indeed placed on the agenda of the 2022 AU summit, but the plan to persuade members to overturn Faki’s decision was frustrated when the newly elected Chair of the AU, Senegalese President Macky Sall, suspended the debate, later announcing that a special committee would be set up to deal with the issue. “It will be composed of eight heads of state and governments,” he said, “and will present its recommendations at the next summit."  Along with South Africa and Algeria, the committee will include Rwanda, Cameroon, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the next summit is scheduled for early 2023.

The foreign policy strategy most closely connected with Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, has become known as the Alliance of the Periphery. It called for Israel to develop close strategic alliances with non-Arab Muslim states in order to counteract the then united opposition of Arab states to Israel’s very existence. 

Pursuing it, successive Israeli governments achieved a working relationship with a number of nations like the newly-independent Muslim republics of Central Asia such as Kazakhstan and Tajikistan.  Relationships were forged also with African states like Ethiopia and Nigeria.

         As prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu set about applying a renewed version of the Periphery Doctrine inside continental Africa, by-passing the apparently hopeless case of South Africa.  On July 4, 2016 Netanyahu landed in Uganda on a five-day. four-country trip inside the continent, also visiting Kenya, Rwanda and Ethiopia. He was accompanied by approximately 80 businesspeople from over 50 Israeli companies to help forge new commercial ties with African companies and countries.

          In Uganda an official ceremony was held at Entebbe to mark 40 years since the daring raid by Israeli commandos to release hostages held captive by then-President Idi Amin. Netanyahu then participated in an Israel-Kenya economic forum along with businessmen from both countries, dealing with issues like agriculture, water resources, communications and security. Later the leaders of seven East African states (Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Zambia and Tanzania) sat round a table with Netanyahu to discuss how to enhance cooperation with Israel in cyber defense, energy, agriculture, trade, diplomatic and related matters. To sweeten the discussion, Netanyahu was able to put on the table a financial assistance package of 50 million shekels ($13 million), approved by the Israeli government the previous week.

The following year Netanyahu visited Liberia to address the 15-member countries of the Economic Community of West African States – the first non-African head of state to do so. He appealed for political support in return for economic aid and technical assistance in sectors such as agriculture, water resources, energy and health.  He also lobbied for African Union observer status.

More recently Israel has made inroads in North Africa too. In 2019 it re-established relations with Chad, broken off in 1972.  Faki, the AU Commission chair, comes from Chad. Israel also has normalized relations with Morocco and Sudan through the Abraham Accords.  Unfortunately the deal that secured Morocco’s acceptance of normalization with Israel created an enemy in Algeria.  Then-US President Donald Trump recognized Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara which Algeria, along with the African Union, regards as an independent state, and its people as entitled to self-determination.

Thanks to the efforts of Israeli governments over the years, and of Netanyahu as prime minister in particular, Israel has established deep, strong and effective relationships with most of the member states of the African Union.  Yet almost all, friend or foe, are also supportive of the Palestinian aim to achieve an independent, sovereign state – the two-state solution.  The Abraham Accords prove that normalization with Israel is not incompatible with supporting Palestinian aspirations.  When it comes to the vote, will the members of the AU take the same position?

Published in the Jerusalem Post and Jerusalem Post on-line, 24 February 2022

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-698404

Published in Eurasia Review, 5 March 2022

https://www.eurasiareview.com/05032022-israel-in-africa-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal. 9 March 2022:

https://mpc-journal.org/israel-in-africa/

Published in Jewish Business News, 4 March 2022

https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2022/03/04/israel-in-africa-equivocal-position/

Challenging Iran’s struggle for power in Yemen

Published in the Jerusalem Post of 16 February 2022

Ever since the Arab Spring in 2011 Yemen has been torn apart by civil conflict, an extension of internecine strife that goes back much further.  The main, but far from the only, protagonists in the current struggle are the Houthis, a fundamentalist Shia militia group heavily dependent on Iranian support, and a Saudi Arabia-led coalition of Sunni states determined to prevent Iran gaining complete control of Yemen, and thus vastly extending its power in the region. 

The battle has flowed this way and that over the past seven years, but the Houthis have gained more than they have lost.  They ‒ and that means the Iranian regime ‒ are now the de facto rulers of a broad swath of Yemen, controlling much of the commerce through which humanitarian aid flows.  The UN has made valiant efforts over the years to broker a peace deal, and from time to time the Houthis have given lip service to the idea, but none has stuck.

The militancy of the Houthis, backed as they are by Iranian military hardware, is growing – and to their shame they are making increasing use of children. 

A four-member panel of UN experts maintain in an annual report to the Security Council, circulated on January 22, that nearly 2,000 children recruited by the Houthis have died on the battlefield. They say the Houthis use summer camps and a mosque to recruit children and disseminate their ideology.

“The children are instructed to shout the Houthi slogan ‘death to America, death to Israel, curse the Jews, victory to Islam’,” say the experts. “In one camp, children as young as 7 were taught to clean weapons and evade rockets.”

The panel said it had received a list of 1,406 children recruited by the Houthis who died on the battlefield in 2020, and 562 child soldiers killed between January and May 2021.

For about a year the Houthis have been firing ballistic missiles into Saudi Arabia’s capital, Riyadh.  On January 24 they launched a missile at the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for the first time. On February 1 another was fired from Yemen as the Gulf state hosted President Isaac Herzog.   The UAE’s surface-to-air interceptors struck it down, but the US military also launched interceptor missiles in response to the attack.

Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said that the US military had used “Patriot interceptors to … [support] efforts by the armed forces of the UAE”, adding “I would say we are working quite closely with them.”

The intervention marks a welcome widening of US involvement in Yemen’s seven-year war between the Houthis and the Saudi Arabia-led military coalition, which includes the UAE.  Initially the Biden administration’s reaction to the Iranian threat, and in particular to Iran’s increasingly powerful position in Yemen via its Houthi proxy, was less than comforting to the Sunni Arab world and to Israel.  Intent on re-engaging with Iran in an attempt to renew the nuclear deal, Biden rejected the hard line adopted by Donald Trump.   The hardening of the US stance in Yemen may reflect Washington's confidence at achieving some sort of deal in the Vienna talks.

It is generally accepted that one key factor, among others, uniting Israel and the Arab signatories to the Abraham Accords is to frustrate Iran’s aspiration to dominate the Middle East.  The Iranian regime pursues this ambition unremittingly across the region, both directly by way of its own Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Syria and Iraq, and through a variety of proxies like Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, extremist groups in Iraq and the Gulf, and in Yemen by way of the Houthis. 

Saudi Arabia is attempting to deny Iran a major role in Yemen’s future. What the world’s political leaders cannot, or will not, believe is that Iran has its own agenda.  It is pursuing domination of the Middle East and supports a widespread Shi’ite terrorist network to achieve it.  The regime’s enmity toward Western democracy in general, and the US and Israel in particular, is fundamental to its purpose.  Equally unshakeable is its intention to acquire nuclear weapons. 

British born Martin Griffiths was serving as UN Special Envoy for Yemen in 2018.  He succeeded in bringing the two main protagonists to the negotiating table on December 6, 2018.  Eventually the talks were overtaken by renewed conflict, but the fact that negotiations are possible should be the template on which US policy is designed.  UN Resolution 2216, which aims to establish democracy in a federally united Yemen, should be the basis. 

          Any new effort would have to be backed by a UN peace-keeping force.  Through whatever means would be most effective – new sanctions if necessary – Iran must be deterred from supplying the Houthis with military hardware. Humanitarian aid must be given unfettered access to all parts of Yemen. A lasting political deal would of course involve the end of the Saudi-led military operation, and probably a major financial commitment by Saudi Arabia to fund the rebuilding of the country. 

          Finally the Houthis must be given the opportunity to choose. Do they wish to remain an outlawed militia permanently, or would they prefer to become a legitimate political party, able to contest parliamentary and presidential elections and participate in government? The price would be serious engagement in negotiations aimed at a peaceful transition to a political solution for a united Yemen, perhaps a form of federal constitution.

          The US-Iran nuclear deal talks in Vienna seem close to an agreement. Is Biden still wedded to his original Iran-appeasement policy, has he moved sufficiently to sponsor an initiative of this sort, or is he content to see a rampant Iran actually conquer Yemen?

Published in the Jerusalem Post and Jerusalem Post on-line, 16 February 2022:

https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-696612

Published in Eurasia Review, 19 February 2022:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/19022022-challenging-irans-struggle-for-power-in-yemen-oped/

Published in MPC Journal, 19 February 2022:

https://mpc-journal.org/challenging-irans-struggle-for-power-in-yemen/

Published in Jewish Business News, 18 February 2022:

https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2022/02/18/challenging-irans-struggle-for-power-in-yemen/

The Kurds are serving as the world's jailers

 Published in the Jerusalem Post of 11 February 2022

          It was on March 23, 2019 that the last remnant of Islamic State (IS) territory, the village of Baghuz, fell to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).  It marked the decisive defeat of the militant theocracy that had once conquered and controlled huge areas of Iraq and Syria.  Tens of thousands of IS fighters and their families were rounded up and dispatched to more than a dozen prisons and displaced persons camps scattered across Rojava, the Kurdish-occupied area of north-eastern Syria.  And there up to 72,000 of them remain, to this day. 

Most of the captives are Syrians or Iraqis, but many are foreign nationals emanating from scores of different countries, few of which are prepared to repatriate them.  It suits the world to leave the Kurds running the camps and acting as prison guards.  Food, water, essential medical supplies and other basic facilities are provided by a range of humanitarian organizations, some under UN auspices.

The SDF is dependent on foreign aid to pay for prison operations. The US has provided training, uniforms and medical supplies to SDF forces running the prisons, and in 2020 the Pentagon provided some $1 million to pay for SDF guards. In February 2021, the British government announced it would fund an expansion of Gweiran prison in the north-eastern city of Hasakah, the largest facility for IS prisoners in Kurdish-controlled Syria.

The situation is highly unsatisfactory on a number of grounds. 

The Kurds were left holding the baby, as it were, simply because the detention facilities – many of them unsuitable for housing people for long periods – were in Kurdish areas.  They have been warning the West for years that they are struggling to cope.  They simply cannot continue indefinitely caring for tens of thousands of prisoners-of-war, especially with uncertain and insufficient funding.  The Kurds think it unfair that very few countries have agreed to take back their own nationals to face justice on charges of terrorism or the like.

Moreover, for years the Kurds have warned the West that the camps remain hotbeds of jihadist activity, and that outside them IS were beginning to regroup. It was known that plans were being hatched by the IS to storm the biggest prison camps and release some of the prisoners. On January 20 it happened.  IS staged a sophisticated jailbreak attack aimed at freeing thousands of the group’s fighters locked up in Gweiran prison which holds an estimated 4,000 people from dozens of countries. 

After six days of fierce conflict, the attempt failed.  British and US special forces helped Kurdish fighters reclaim the complex, and a siege of the prison ended with hundreds of jihadists surrendering.  A week later, on February 3, IS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Qurashi was dead following a US Special Forces raid on his hideout on the Syrian-Turkish border.   Best estimates of the death toll in the attempted prison breakout was 124 IS jihadists and prisoners, and 57 SDF soldiers and civilians. At least 700 children were detained at Gweiran, an unknown number of whom were killed during the operation.

“Reports that children have been killed or injured are tragic and outrageous,” said Save the Children’s Sonia Khush. “Responsibility…lies at the door of foreign governments who have thought that they can simply abandon their child nationals in Syria… All foreign children must be repatriated – with their families – without any further delay. The international community cannot have the blood of any of these children on their hands.”

Some governments are reluctant to act because many of the boys being held are alleged to have been drafted into the so-called “Cubs of the Caliphate”, a child army used by IS leaders as cannon fodder, or as saboteurs more easily able than adults to infiltrate civilian areas. “These young people were trained by IS for suicide attacks and other military operations,” said Farhad Shami, an SDF spokesman.

The UK, among other states, have claimed that it is often difficult, if not impossible, to assemble enough proof of jihadist activity to put these boys – or indeed their mothers and fathers – on trial in their home countries.  Simply to repatriate them without the evidence to charge them with acts of terrorism would be to admit highly dangerous individuals into society.  The US, Italy, Kazakhstan, Oman and Tunisia have repatriated small numbers of jihadists, but most European and Arab countries – where the majority of IS fighters come from - have balked at taking them back.

Apart from militants, the SDF is also holding roughly 65,000 women and children in the al Hol displaced persons camp.  Nearly a quarter of them, detained in an area of the camp known as the Annex, come from some 60 countries other than Syria or Iraq.  Few governments are willing to repatriate these women, who often remain committed supporters of IS.

On January 25, Human Rights Watch spokesperson, Letta Tayler, issued a statement about IS’s attempted prison break-out. 

“Recapturing the prison,” she said, “does not resolve the indefinite detention without due process of nearly 45,000 foreign IS suspects and family members, most of them young children, in deeply degrading, often inhumane, and life-threatening conditions in prisons and locked camps in northeast Syria. The IS assault should be a wake-up call to home countries that it is long past time for them to bring their nationals home for reintegration and rehabilitation and, as appropriate, investigation and prosecution. Holding men, women, and children in these conditions is unconscionable, unlawful, and denies victims justice for IS crimes.”

 She has a point.

Published in the Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Post on-line, 11 February 2022:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-696154

Published in Eurasia Review, 12 February 2022:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/12022022-the-worlds-jailers-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 12 February 2022:

https://mpc-journal.org/the-kurds-are-serving-as-the-worlds-jailers/

Published in Jewish Business News, 11 February 2022:

https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2022/02/11/the-worlds-jailers/

Israel libelled

This letter of mine appears in the Jerusalem Post, 7 February 2022

          Defamation by written or printed words, in other words libel, is a criminal offence in the UK.  In a 280-page document published on February 1, Amnesty International, a company registered in England and Wales, stated that Israel has “established and maintained an institutionalized…system of apartheid” directed against Palestinians.

          In short, the organization has libelled the State of Israel.

          English libel law permits individuals and companies to go to court to defend their reputations against the harm caused by false and defamatory publications.        A claimant must show that they have been identified in the publication, and that the publication was defamatory.

          The State of Israel should seek the remedy of British justice against the false claim that it is an apartheid state. It should charge Amnesty International in an English court with criminal libel.

          If the government balks at taking this action, surely there are organizations and individuals able and willing to defend the State of Israel, either in court or in other ways, against this monstrous accusation.

         A 280-page document, refuting Amnesty International’s charges point by point, would be a good start.

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-695688

Algeria’s last chance saloon

This article appeared in the Jerusalem Post of 2 February 2022

          In an effort to heal the long-lasting rift between the two main Palestinian political bodies, Fatah and Hamas, Algeria’s president, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, announced on December 8, 2021 that he planned to host a meeting of Palestinian political organizations.

          A Hamas spokesman told the media that Hamas was keen to attend the conference and benefit from the Algerians who "stand at the same distance" from all the Palestinian factions.

          Preparations for the conference have gone ahead, although at the time of writing an actual date had yet to be announced. Four Palestinian bodies have been invited in addition to Fatah and Hamas, namely Islamic Jihad, PFLP (the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine), DFLP (the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine), and PFLP-GC (the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command).

          By January 17 delegations from all six had arrived in Algiers for preliminary talks with officials.

          They face a hitherto insurmountable problem, for a fault line runs straight down the middle of Palestinian politics. The problem is exemplified by the feud between Hamas and Fatah. The struggle between them is not concerned with political objectives. Both bodies aspire to restore the whole of historic Mandate Palestine to Islamic rule. Their fundamental disagreement is over the strategy for achieving their common purpose.

          The Hamas organization – a sprig of the Muslim Brotherhood – came into being in 1987, soon after the start of the first intifada masterminded by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) under its Fatah leader Yasser Arafat.

Hamas regarded the PLO in general, and Arafat in particular, with a good deal of suspicion. It strongly opposed the PLO entering peace talks with Israel, and it utterly rejected the Oslo Accord agreements of 1993 and 1995, condemning Arafat outright.

          Hamas has no truck with the two-state solution. It has opposed all the efforts by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas to gain international recognition for a state of Palestine comprising the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. Delineating a sovereign Palestine on only part of Mandate Palestine would inevitably legitimize Israel’s place on the other part.

          While this fundamental difference about the most effective route to reach their common objective lies at the heart of the Hamas-Fatah conflict, there are others. Both bodies are engaged in a battle for the hearts and minds of the Palestinian population, and Hamas makes no secret of its aspiration to replace Fatah as the governing body of the West Bank. Sometimes it chooses to acknowledge Abbas as Palestinian leader; sometimes it refuses to recognize him as PA president at all, on the grounds that his presidential mandate, granted in 2005, was for a four-year term which has long expired. Hamas has, moreover, consistently attempted to undermine his PA administration by forming militant cells in the West Bank aimed at launching attacks on Israel.

          With such fundamental differences on open display, sympathetic world leaders have attempted time and again to broker a reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah. Wikipedia lists no less than 14 attempts since 2005 to reconcile the two warring factions. All have proved unsuccessful.

          Perhaps the most hopeful was the “government of national unity” formed by agreement between Fatah and Hamas in 2014. It brought the peace negotiations then in progress between Israel and the PA to a shuddering halt.  Abbas announced the “historic reconciliation” a month before the talks were due to end, and appeared to imply that the inclusion of Hamas in a government of national unity would make no difference to the aim of achieving a sovereign state based on the two-state solution. But it was inconceivable that Hamas would sit round a cabinet table, with Abbas at its head, and agree to discuss how a sovereign Palestine might live side by side with an Israel finally recognized as a permanent presence in the region.

National unity lasted just twelve months. Nationwide Palestinian elections, promised as part of the deal, never took place.
The failure to deliver promised elections was also the issue that scuppered the most recent reconciliation effort. Then-President Trump's Israel-Palestine peace plan, launched in January 2020, met with universal disapproval on the Palestinian side. Abbas decided to coordinate the PA’s struggle against the plan with Hamas. In September 2020, Abbas held a joint press conference with Hamas leaders, confirming a new dialog aimed at reconciliation. Presidential and parliamentary elections leading to a unity government were announced for May 2021.

          Just days before they were due to take place, Abbas issued a presidential decree postponing them, claiming that his decision was due to an Israeli ban on Jerusalemites taking part in the polls. Some claimed it was because Hamas was likely to win the elections, or at least gain a substantial number of seats. Hamas condemned the postponement, and hit back with armed attacks and a bid for recognition as the true Palestinian champions.

          Against a background like this, the chances of the Algerian initiative yielding anything approaching a lasting reconciliation seem slim. Yet there is a new factor at play. The Abraham Accords demonstrate a recognition in the moderate Arab world of the benefits of normalization with Israel. A new Middle East is emerging, and the Palestinian issue is slipping down the world’s agenda. With every passing year the hopes of those who would overthrow the State of Israel recede further into the realms of fantasy.

          The Algerians have opened the doors of a last chance saloon. Can the hardline extremists within Hamas and the other Palestinian factions reconcile themselves – even with their fingers crossed and their private aspirations undimmed – to uniting with Fatah in seeking a realistic accommodation with Israel?

Published in the Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Post on-line, 2 February 2022:

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-695226

Published in Eurasia Review, 5 February 2022:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/05022022-algerias-last-chance-saloon-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 5 February 2022:

https://mpc-journal.org/algerias-last-chance-saloon/

Published in Jewish Business News, 4 February 2022:

https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2022/02/04/algerias-last-chance-saloon/