Does normalization justify Biden’s return to the UNHRC?

 

          Comparatively speaking, the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is still in its infancy.  Set up only fifteen years ago by the UN General Assembly, it had one over-riding purpose – to rectify the egregious faults of its predecessor body, the UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR).  The Commission had been a working body of the United Nations virtually from its foundation in 1946, but over its 60 years of existence it had accrued a raft of objectionable practices which finally made the organization totally unacceptable to many governments, and eventually to the UN itself.

Among its more unseemly usages was to include among its members representatives of states with records of flagrant human rights violations and, moreover, to elect such people from time to time to chair the Commission − representatives of countries like Zimbabwe, Algeria, Syria, Libya, Vietnam and China. These individuals, by opposing resolutions which condemned human rights violations, in effect sustained and promoted despotism and repression.  Finally the Commission seemed to have turned its purpose on its head, and far from identifying and eliminating violations of human rights, in many cases supported, if not actively encouraged, them.

For example, the Commission turned a blind eye towards violations of the UN charter committed by member states. When issues such as the stoning of women, honour killings, modern slavery, mutilations, and the death penalty for apostasy were raised during the 60th Session of the UNCHR in 2004, officials from certain Muslim-majority states rejected any criticism as “interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state."  The Commission meekly gave way, and abstained from pursuing the issues.

The other face of this overt political bias – and a major cause of criticism of the Commission − was its compliance with being used as a UN-backed platform from which selective targets could be condemned and vilified.  The chief victim was Israel.  An analysis in 2003 revealed that the UNCHR had devoted no less than 33 per cent of its country-specific resolutions to condemning Israel in one way or another. 

All this finally became too much even for the UN General Assembly, which in 2006 voted overwhelmingly to disband the old Commission and to set up a shining new United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in its place.

How has the body been doing?

It is perhaps, significant, that UNHRC is UNCHR with just one letter transposed.  In short, you can barely see the difference.  For example, in its first six years – that is, from the time of its foundation in 2006 until 2012 − the Council published nine reports on Syria’s mass killings of its own citizens, and three on the terrorist-supporting repressive régime in Iran.  It published nothing on China, which was far removed from granting its billion citizens basic human rights.  Yet in those six years it published no less than 48 reports condemning Israel.

More than this, the Council voted on June 18, 2007 to include, as a permanent feature of each of its three annual sessions, a review of alleged human rights abuses by Israel − a resolution sponsored by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). This Item 7, the only standing item directed at a specific country, has become a permanent feature of the UNHRC agenda, and as a result the Council has so far targeted Israel with 90 condemnatory resolutions, more than the rest of the world combined.

Which countries’ representatives sit in judgment on Israel’s human rights record? The  UNHRC’s current membership includes China, Russia, Cuba, Libya, Somalia, Pakistan and Venezuela. It almost goes without saying that in its recent 2018 session the Council passed no resolutions on human rights violations by − for example − China, Cuba, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Qatar, or Venezuela, about each of which there is much to say. 

US president George W Bush gave the UNHRC a year before deciding not to join.  The White House spokesman at the time said that the Council “has thus far not proved itself to be a credible body in the mission that it has been charged with.  There has been a nearly singular focus on issues related to Israel, for example, to the exclusion of examining issues of real concern to the international system, whether that’s Cuba or Burma or in North Korea.”

Less than two months after entering office in 2009, Barack Obama had the US join the body, on the grounds that by “working from within, we can make the Council a more effective forum to promote and protect human rights.”

In 2018, under president Donald Trump, the US withdrew.  “When the Human Rights Council treats Israel worse than North Korea, Iran and Syria,” said former ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, “it is the Council itself that is foolish and unworthy of its name.”

On February 8, 2021 US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that the US was returning to the UNHRC as an observer.  His justification for doing so: the UNHRC is flawed and needs reform, “but walking away won’t fix it. The best way to improve the Council, so it can achieve its potential, is through robust and principled US leadership. Under Biden we are re-engaging and ready to lead.”

It seems obvious that the skewed and disproportionate emphasis on Israel over the years, by both the UNHRC and its predecessor body, has reflected their pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel membership. The OIC (Organization of Islamic Cooperation) ‒ the body which sponsored the vexatious Item 7 directed against Israel ‒ has consistently enjoyed a significant bloc of members on the 47-nation Council, as well as additional support from other states who support the Palestinian cause.

However, history has not stood still since Trump walked away from the UNHRC.  Partly as a result of his own efforts, a new spirit of normalization is sweeping across the Middle East.  Arab States have signed up to the Abraham Accords, and other Muslim states have expressed varying degrees of interest in engaging with Israel in pragmatic arrangements that disconnect economic development from the Israel-Palestine dispute.  In short, support for the Palestinian cause is no longer synonymous with condemning Israel at every opportunity.

It is possible, indeed likely, that this change of atmosphere will be reflected within the UNHRC.  It may prove the key that unlocks reform of that deeply flawed organization.  The Biden administration may have acted at precisely the right moment.

Published in the Eurasia Review, 12 February 2021:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/12022021-does-normalization-justify-bidens-return-to-the-unhrc-oped/

Published in the Jewish Business News, 12 February 2021:
https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2021/02/12/does-normalization-justify-bidens-return-to-the-unhrc/

Are the Taliban to be trusted?

       This article appears in the Jerusalem Post today, 18 February 2021:  

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/are-the-taliban-to-be-trusted-opinion-659307

          How have the Taliban, a known hardline Islamist group, come to be a significant world power, negotiating with the United States over the head of the Afghan government? One reason is that over half of Afghanistan is under their direct control.

          Following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, it did not take Washington long to establish that responsibility for the onslaught lay with the al-Qaeda movement.  US intelligence was soon convinced that its master-mind, Osama bin Laden, was being sheltered by the extremist Islamist group, the Taliban, which at that time controlled most of Afghanistan. As a result, within a few weeks a US-led coalition invaded.

          Who are the Taliban?

          The group emerged following a 10-year occupation of the country by the Soviet Union. The USSR had invaded in 1979 in an attempt to keep Afghanistan within its sphere of influence, but a decade of guerilla warfare conducted by Sunni extremists eventually led to Soviet troops withdrawing in February 1989.

          A year or so later a new hardline Sunni Islamist group calling themselves Taliban (“students” in the Pashto language), began to emerge. They swiftly became a formidable military machine, advancing inexorably across the country. Towards the end of 1996 they captured the Afghan capital, Kabul, overthrowing the regime of President Burhanuddin Rabbani.

          Initial support from some of the population quickly faded as the Taliban imposed hardline Islamist practices, such as amputations for those found guilty of theft, and public executions of adulterers. Men were required to grow beards, and women had to wear the all-covering burka. Television, music and cinema were banned, and girls aged 10 and over were forbidden to attend school. Meanwhile, they continued to wage their two-handed war – against the Afghan government on the one hand, and against the US presence in the country on the other.

          From the moment US President Donald Trump took office in 2017, he pledged to put an end to the conflict and bring the American forces back home. It took two years of secret back-channel negotiations before peace talks began on February 25, 2019. Abdul Ghani Barada, the co-founder of the Taliban, was at the table.

          The talks, which took place in Qatar, appeared successful. Agreement was quickly reached on a draft peace deal involving the withdrawal of US and international troops from Afghanistan, matched by an undertaking by the Taliban to prohibit other jihadist groups operating within the country. This extraordinary arrangement between the world’s leading power and a hardline extremist Islamist movement, was headed: “Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan between the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognized by the United States as a state and is known as the Taliban and the United States of America.”

          This Doha deal was greeted with optimism by President Trump. "I really believe the Taliban wants to do something to show we're not all wasting time," he said.

         However the agreement was far from watertight, and months of wrangling followed. In particular disputed presidential elections in Afghanistan left two claimants for the presidency. A visit by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in March 2020 failed to resolve the dispute. On his way home Pompeo stopped off in Qatar to meet Taliban negotiators, later declaring that he was confident the Taliban were keeping their side of the deal. A Taliban spokesman said that Pompeo had assured them that a withdrawal of American forces "will continue in accordance with the declared timetable."

          That, after all, had been Trump’s aim from the start – an ambition rendered ever more urgent as the US presidential election drew nearer. With less than a week remaining of the Trump presidency, the US military met its goal of reducing the number of soldiers in Afghanistan to about 2,500.

          Newly-elected President Joe Biden and his administration are none too happy with Trump’s deal. In their first week in office they announced that the US intends to review the agreement, in order to check that the Taliban is “living up to its commitments to cut ties with terrorist groups, to reduce violence in Afghanistan, and to engage in meaningful negotiations with the Afghan government and other stakeholders.”

          John Kirby, Pentagon chief spokesman, went further. On January 29 he told reporters: "The Taliban are not meeting their commitments to reduce violence and reduce their ties to al-Qaeda.”

          Washington’s reservations are based on a five-page memo issued on January 4 by the US Treasury asserting that al-Qaeda remains a potent force embedded within, and protected by, the Taliban. It also said that senior figures of the Haqqani Network faction of the Taliban, known for its links to Pakistan and its high profile attacks, “have discussed forming a new joint unit of armed fighters in cooperation with and funded by al-Qaeda” to support the effort to overthrow the government of president Ashraf Ghani.

Trump’s administration hammered out the Doha deal with the Taliban by negotiating over the head of the Afghan government, while ensuring that the Taliban accepted the obligation to conduct “intra-Afghan” negotiations with it.  Biden’s team, on the other hand, are dealing with Ghani and his ministers.  Brand new US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told his Afghan counterpart in a phone call on January 22 that the new administration will "review" the Doha deal. Just installed secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said on January 27 that the administration wanted to take a detailed look to "understand exactly what is in the agreement" before deciding how to proceed.

These statements have raised hope in Ghani's beleaguered government that Biden will rethink a deal which many in Kabul see as giving too much away to the Taliban.  Reshaping the deal, though, is almost certainly an aspiration too far.  The most Ghani can realistically hope for is a determination by the Biden administration to enforce the Taliban’s compliance.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 18 February 2021:

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/are-the-taliban-to-be-trusted-opinion-659307

Published in the Jewish Business News, 5 February 2021:
https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2021/02/05/are-the-taliban-to-be-trusted/

Published in the Eurasia Review, 5 February 2021:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/05022021-are-the-taliban-to-be-trusted-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 8 February 2021:

https://mpc-journal.org/blog/2021/02/08/are-the-taliban-to-be-trusted/

Normalization - the new norm in the Middle East

          Over the course of a few months the well-established link between supporting the Palestinian cause and opposing normalization with Israel has been severed.  All four of the Arab states that have so far signed up to the Abraham Accords ‒ the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco ‒ have vowed continued support for Palestinian aspirations while pursuing normalization of relations with Israel.

Once upon a time “normalization” (“tatbia” in Arabic) was the worst term of abuse available to hardline supporters of the Palestinian cause.  It branded any form of joint activity between Palestinians and Israelis a form of treachery.  So embedded in Palestinian thinking was it, that normalization became an indictable offense under Palestinian Authority (PA) legislation. Merely allowing four Israeli neighbors to attend his son’s wedding cost one Palestinian his job in the education ministry and his position as council chief of his West Bank village.

Under the definition promulgated by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, any attempt to normalize relations between Palestinians and Israelis meant undermining the armed struggle.  Any action, it said, “that is not based on a resistance framework serves to normalize relations,” and so any form of cooperation or dialogue with Israelis had to be viewed as collaboration with the enemy. In short, it was incumbent on all Palestinians to oppose normalization, implying that all had to support continual conflict. 

This world-view explains the violent reaction of PA president Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian leadership to the announcement in August 2020 of the first Abraham Accord ‒ the normalization of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). 

 “The Palestinian leadership rejects the actions of the Emirati government,” thundered PA spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh on Palestine TV, “considering it a betrayal of the Palestinian people…”  Recalling its UAE ambassador in protest, the PA demanded that the UAE “immediately retract” and, certain that it would receive the backing of Arab states in its condemnation of the UAE’s action, requested an immediate emergency meeting of the Arab League.

The Arab League, however, was in no hurry to discuss the issue.  The idea of an emergency session was rejected, and the PA were told to wait for the next scheduled regular meeting of the League which was a month away, in mid-September.  When the matter did finally reach the floor, PA foreign minister Riyad al-Maliki opened by demanding a complete rejection of the normalization deal.

“This meeting must release a decision rejecting this step,” said al-Maliki.  “Otherwise, we will be seen as giving it our blessing, or conspiring with it, or attempting to cover it up.”

Given that several Arab states such as Egypt and Bahrain had already indicated their support for the deal, al-Maliki’s suggestion seemed unlikely to succeed.  Nor did it, and the meeting rejected the PA resolution.

A month later, when Bahrain joined its Gulf neighbor in its own normalization deal with Israel, the PA made similar noises.  The agreement was “a stab in the back of the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian people”, said Ahmad Majdalani, the PA’s social affairs minister.  This protest, too, failed to arouse the enthusiasm, or the support, of the Arab world.  It was becoming obvious, even to hardliners within the PA leadership, that the idea of normalizing relations with Israel was sweeping all before it.  

PA president Mahmoud Abbas must have realized that normalization had become the flavour of the month, and that the PA’s violent reaction had achieved nothing.  Accordingly he changed tack, and has embarked on an attempt to repair relations with Arab nations and win the goodwill of the Biden administration.  

So when Sudan and later Morocco subscribed to the Abraham Accords, the PA offered no reaction at all.  On November 17, 2020 the PA suddenly announced that it was restoring suspended relations with Israel and resuming security coordination on the West Bank. It also resumed accepting the tax revenues which the Israeli government collects on its behalf, although Israel continues to deduct the so-called “Martyr’s Fund” (the “pay to slay” sums the PA passes to the families of activists).  Two days later, the PA returned its ambassadors to the UAE and Bahrain.  The ground had been cut from beneath the BDS movement’s feet.

Meanwhile the normalization momentum had spread beyond the Arab-Israel arena to relations between Arab states themselves.  On January 5, 2021 Gulf leaders signed the Al-Ula Declaration, ending a three year estrangement.

Qatar’s wayward policies, especially its support for Islamist groups, had long infuriated neighboring Arab states. Back in January 2014 Gulf states suddenly pressured Qatar to sign an agreement undertaking to stop supporting extremist groups, not to interfere in the affairs of other Gulf states, and to cooperate on regional issues. The undertaking was known as the Riyadh agreement.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain clearly took away a very different view of what had been agreed than the Qataris. They believed that Qatar had agreed to remove, or at least reduce, the appearance of Islamists on Al Jazeera and other Qatari media, and especially to eliminate the constant Muslim Brotherhood-based criticism of Egypt’s government and its president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi.

They soon discovered that Qatar had no intention of meeting their expectations. Their patience exhausted, the Gulf states and Egypt took drastic action.  On June 5, 2017, they broke off diplomatic relations with Qatar, suspended all land, air and sea traffic, and virtually imposed a trade blockade.

Qatar was under siege for more than three years, sustained by continuous imports of food and other goods from Iran and Turkey, and the export of liquefied natural gas.  It was the Trump regime in its dying days that fostered the move by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt to normalize relations with Qatar. 

In announcing the reconciliation, Saudi’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman emphasized that it reflected growing concern at the threats posed to the region by Iran.  It also reflects a growing realization in the Middle East that the way to peace and prosperity for the region lies not in perpetual conflict, but in friendship and cooperation between states – in other words, normalization.

Published in the Eurasia Review, 30 January 2021:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/30012021-normalization-the-new-norm-in-the-middle-east-oped/

Published in the Jewish Business News, 29 January 2021:

https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2021/01/29/normalization-%e2%80%92-the-new-norm-in-the-middle-east/

Published in the MPC Journal, 31 January 2021:
https://mpc-journal.org/blog/2021/01/31/normalisation-%e2%80%92-the-new-norm-in-the-middle-east/

Abbas and Biden – a workable partnership?

           Joe Biden knows as much about the background to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute as anyone, and more than most.  Over the eight years 2008–2016 that the Obama-Biden team headed the US administration, there were two major efforts to restart the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and Biden was heavily engaged in both.  In setting them up, Washington got very close to Arab leaders in general, and Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas in particular.  

        Washington during the Obama years advocated the two-state solution, considered Israel’s borders to be the 1948 armistice boundaries, regarded settlement activity in the West Bank as illegal, and was equivocal about Jerusalem, refusing to implement the law requiring the US to site its embassy there.  There is little doubt that Abbas and the PA leadership will attempt to build on that old relationship, and are hoping that Biden will pick up where he left off, thus blocking any attempt to implement Donald Trump’s “Deal of the Century”. 

During his time as US vice-president, Biden made countless trips to Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and was well aware that Abbas’s term as PA president, due to expire in January 2009, was being extended time and again.  Abbas is doubtless hoping that his attempt to hold elections for the Palestinian legislature and presidency later this year will win brownie points with the new US president.

Coming into office, Barak Obama was a devout believer in the gospel of the time ‒ that the key cause of disharmony in the Middle East was the Israel-Palestinian dispute.  Solve that, the doctrine maintained, and peace would follow as the night the day.  Determined to build bridges with the Muslim world Obama, within days of taking office, appointed George Mitchell his “special envoy to the Middle East”, and charged him explicitly to seek a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace.  Step one, in accordance with the creed of the time, was obviously to broker peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. 

Mitchell, negotiating very skilfully with all the parties concerned, obtained the Arab League’s blessing to open negotiations, and persuaded Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to obtain the Knesset’s agreement to a 10-month freeze on all construction in the West Bank.  By early March 2010 a new peace initiative seemed a done deal. On March 10, 2010 vice-president Joe Biden flew to the Middle East to inaugurate the first phase.

Then everything went wrong.  Virtually as Biden emerged from the plane, Israel’s Interior Minister, Eli Yishai, leader of the Shas party, authorized final approval of a scheme to construct 1600 new housing units in what Washington considered an illegal settlement.  The Obama administration was outraged.  The move was seen as an insult not only to the vice-president, but to the US itself. 

It was all eventually smoothed over, but to no effect.  The 2010 peace initiative eventually ran into the ground.  Abbas delayed coming to the table for direct talks month after month, until the 10-month building freeze drew to a close. He then demanded an extension of the freeze as the price of continuing to talk - but achieving Knesset approval to an extension was beyond even the political skills of Netanyahu.

 It took three years before the Obama White House was able to renew its attempt to get the parties round the negotiating table.  Biden was pretty fully involved in that effort as well.

This time the task was placed in the hands of US Secretary of State John Kerry.  Kerry was notably vigorous and enthusiastic in tackling his formidable task.  On the last day of April 2013, Kerry and Joe Biden hosted an Arab League delegation to obtain cover for the new effort. History records that this initiative, like its predecessor, quickly ran into the sands.  It lasted barely the optimistic nine months that the negotiating teams had allowed.

Abbas, apparently appreciating that there can be no simple return to the Obama era, is signalling a change of direction.  He can see that the PA’s violent reaction to the Abraham Accords and Arab-Israel normalization produced precisely no effect and, changing tack, has embarked on an attempt to mend relations with Arab nations and win the goodwill of the Biden administration.

On November 17, 2020 the PA suddenly announced that it was restoring suspended relations with Israel and resuming security coordination on the West Bank. It also resumed accepting the tax revenues which the Israeli government collects on its behalf.  

Two days later, the PA returned its ambassadors to the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain (they had been recalled in protest at the normalization with Israel).  Then, when first Sudan and later Morocco subscribed to the Abraham Accords, the PA offered no reaction at all.  Abbas doubtless calculates that the normalization process seems likely to continue whether the Palestinians like it or not, and if the PA were to withdraw its ambassadors from every Arab state that signs up, it would risk its isolation deepening even further.

Meanwhile, ahead of the transition to a new US administration, Jordan, Egypt and the PA are apparently preparing the ground for a common stand on resolving the Palestine-Israel issue. A trilateral meeting in Cairo on December 19 involving the foreign ministers of the three countries resulted in a joint statement calling for the resumption of peace negotiations.

 PA foreign minister Riyad al-Maliki said that the PA is ready to cooperate with the new US president to achieve a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, on territory captured by Israel during the 1967 war. He added that coordination with Cairo and Amman would establish a “starting point” in dealing with the incoming Biden administration in Washington.  Al-Maliki urged Israel to return to the negotiating table for peace talks based on the two-state solution.  Significantly, perhaps, during a conversation with King Abdullah in November, president-elect Joe Biden reaffirmed his support for the two-state solution.

            Can Abbas, backed by Jordan and Egypt, forge an effective working relationship with the new US president?  These early gestures have not gone unnoticed in Washington.  On January 26 US envoy Richard Mills told the UN Security Council that the Biden administration will be "renewing US relations with the Palestinian leadership."  On January 27, a PA official is reported as "deeply satisfied" with the announcement. 

Published in the Eurasia Review, 23 January 2021:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/23012021-abbas-and-biden-a-workable-partnership-oped/

Published in the Jewish Business News, 22 January 2021: 

https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2021/01/22/abbas-and-biden-a-workable-partnership/

Published in the MPC Journal, 24 January 2021:

https://mpc-journal.org/blog/2021/01/24/abbas-and-biden-a-workable-partnership/

Palestinian healthcare and Israel's responsibility

This letter, published in the London Daily Telegraph on 21 January, is in response to one from Sir Nicholas Soames and Sir Alan Duncan.  They maintained that Israel's moral advantage in achieving such a high rate of vaccination "collides horribly with its further conduct."  They asserted that "Israel declines to administer this lifesaver to Palestinians living in their own country, despite its legal obligation to do so as the occupying power."

Sir,

Palestinians living in East Jerusalem have Israeli ID and, as residents, belong to Israel’s health system.  They naturally come within Israel’s Covid vaccination programme.  The same is true of all Israeli citizens, including the millions of Arab Israelis who reside in Israel and those Israelis who choose to live in the West Bank.

In the West Bank the sole source of legal authority is the 1993-5 Oslo Accords, agreed by Israel and the Palestinians. The Palestinian side assumed full responsibilities in healthcare, including vaccinations, for its citizens in the West Bank and Gaza. 

As Covid-19 vaccines became available, a Palestinian Authority official told the media that the authority did not expect Israel to sell it vaccine, or to purchase it on its behalf.  With the WHO’s help, the PA negotiated a deal by which Palestinians will soon receive nearly four million doses of Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine.  It will also receive the AstraZeneca vaccine in February.

Neville Teller

Turkey talks with forked tongue

Published in the Jerusalem Post, Sunday 17 January 2021:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/turkey-speaks-with-a-forked-tongue-towards-israel-and-the-west-655694

Normalization is in the air.  In the past few weeks Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced not only that he would like to have better relations with Israel, but that he is working with France on a roadmap to normalize the bonds between them.

Regretfully, neither statement can be taken at its face value.  Given what Erdogan has long demonstrated to be his political priorities, both must be viewed as part of a broader strategy designed to strengthen Turkey’s standing with the upcoming US president Joe Biden, and to counter Israel’s growing cooperation with the Arab world and weaken its ties to Greece and Cyprus. 

As for the French initiative, France and Turkey have been at odds, diplomatically speaking, for a long time ‒ even before Erdogan failed to condemn the murderous Islamist attack on France’s satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, back in 2015.  Relations were certainly not improved in October 2020, when Charlie Hebdo printed a cartoon on its front cover mocking Erdogan himself, provoking a furious response from Ankara. 

France has consistently opposed Turkey’s aggressive policies.  It strongly condemned Turkey’s 2019 offensive into north-east Syria against the Syrian Kurds and the seizure of territory, opposed Turkey’s more recent incursions into Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh, and led a push for EU sanctions on Turkey for illegally exploring for gas and oil in Cyprus’s waters. 

On January 7, 2021, Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said: “Turkey is not categorically against France, but France has been against Turkey categorically since Operation Peace Spring (Turkey’s incursion into Kurdish territory in Syria).”

But he went on to say that he had had a very constructive phone conversation with his French counterpart, Jean-Yves Le Drian, “and we agreed that we should work on a roadmap to normalize relations.” 

On the eve of the US presidency of Joe Biden, Erdogan may well have calculated that it was not in Turkey’s interest to be in open conflict with a NATO ally, while it would certainly suit his book to neutralize a persistent opponent within the EU.  Whether he would be prepared to moderate his position on any of the issues to which France objects is debatable.

Erdogan’s tentative offer to Israel of an olive branch equally lacks conviction.

In recent years Erdogan has taken every opportunity to hurl insults, condemnations and dire warnings at Israel.  When Israel accused Turkey of giving passports to a dozen Hamas members in August 2020, Turkey maintained that Hamas is a legitimate political movement that was elected democratically.  It omitted any mention of Hamas’s bloody coup d’état that forced the Palestinian Authority from Gaza in 2007 and installed a regime that proceeded to rain thousands of rockets indiscriminately on civilian Israelis and their families.

Ignoring the fact that Israel found itself in possession of vast tracts of territory in 1967 having defended itself against the combined armies of Egypt, Jordan and Syria, Erdogan consistently accuses Israel of illegally seizing and occupying Palestinian land.  He seems unaware of the old saying: “Those in glasshouses shouldn’t throw stones.”  In 1974 Turkey invaded northern Cyprus, seized nearly 40 percent of the island, and set up the self-styled Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus ‒ an entity recognized by no international organization and no country other than Turkey itself.

          Turkey is not a signatory to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and does not recognize the government of Cyprus or its maritime border agreements with Egypt, Israel or Lebanon.  Driven by a bizarre sort of logic Turkey, having seized and occupied northern Cyprus, is now claiming a share in the vast oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) bonanza that has unexpectedly appeared off the coastline of its unrecognized Republic.  Consequently Turkey has been drilling for some years in waters internationally recognized as being part of Cyprus’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).  Turkey does, of course, have a Mediterranean coastline, but it runs to the north of Cyprus, while the gas reserves are in the so-called Energy Triangle south and east of the island.

The pipeline agreement between Greece, Israel and Cyprus is Erdogan’s bugbear.  At one time there was talk of an Israeli-Turkish pipeline to convey LNG to Europe.  That fell by the wayside in the course of the rocky relationship instigated by Erdogan, but he clings to the hope of becoming a conduit for natural gas to Europe. The maritime deal that Turkey agreed with Libya’s UN-recognized government in November would see the two countries carve out a joint Turkish-Libyan EEZ across the Mediterranean. That deal, as well as Erdogan’s talk of a reconciliation with Israel, aims to disrupt or undermine Israel’s three-way partnership with Greece and Cyprus.

In an attempt to get on a good footing with the incoming US president, Joe Biden, Erdogan has just appointed Ufuk Ulutas as ambassador to Israel.  Strongly supportive of the Palestinian cause, Ulutus has been despatched to Israel to speak peace “with forked tongue”.  He will no doubt do his best to counter the genuine normalization under way between Israel and the Arab world ‒ a process that, even now, is beginning to show positive results for all involved.

It was in November 2020 that the journal Al-Monitor reported that developments at home and abroad were forcing Erdogan to seek new ways to deliver Turkey from its economic morass and political isolation in the West.  He has begun instituting financial and economic reforms, and has announced that his administration is working on a new “human rights action plan” in order, as he put it, to be more in step with the changing circumstances of today’s world.  His normalization overtures may be part of his new strategy, but in the light of his past actions and present posturings on the world stage, he cannot be surprised if his motives are viewed by the world at large with suspicion, if not downright disbelief.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, Sunday 17 January 2021, and in the on-line edition: 
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/turkey-speaks-with-a-forked-tongue-towards-israel-and-the-west-655694

Published in The Jewish Business News, 15 January 2021:
https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2021/01/15/turkey-talks-with-forked-tongue/

Published in the Eurasia Review, 17 January 2021:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/17012021-turkey-talks-with-forked-tongue-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 15 January 2021:

https://mpc-journal.org/blog/2021/01/15/turkey-talks-with-forked-tongue/

Normalization and the turmoil in Yemen

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 10 January 2021, and in the Jerusalem Post on-line as: "Israel-Arab normalization to have impact on Yemen war":

              In this new era of Israeli-Arab normalization, Israel has an even more direct interest than it always had in the outcome of the decades-long civil conflict in Yemen. Two of the main players on the ground are Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).  The UAE is an original signatory of the Abraham Accords and, if the grapevine is to be believed, Saudi Arabia is an imminent prospect.

   At the start of 2020 the unhappy war-torn state of Yemen was split four ways.  Not only were rival governments – one backed by the Saudi-UAE coalition, the other by the Iranian-supported Houthis – fighting for control of the country as a whole, but South Yemen had seceded from the north and declared self-rule. To further complicate the situation, the south Yemen separatists were supported by the UAE ‒ which was odd, because the UAE was also battling the Houthis on behalf of Yemen’s government led by President Abdrabbu Mansur Hadi, which condemned the separatist move as "catastrophic and dangerous".

Israel has never involved itself directly in the conflict, but those elements of the media none too friendly toward Israel maintain that it has been providing logistical support for the coalition established by Saudi in 2015 to counter the Houthis’ effort to take over the country. 

The Middle East Monitor also maintains that when Houthi forces seized the Saudi Arabian embassy in the capital Sanaa, documents were discovered revealing US intentions to establish a military base on Yemen’s Perim Island near the Bab El-Mandab Strait, "to protect [America's] interests and ensure the security of Israel".  The Bab El-Mandab Strait is the narrow gateway out of the Red Sea into the Gulf of Aden, and in fact the strategically important island was wrested from the Houthis in 2015 and has remained under the control of the coalition ever since.  Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE view the Strait as of key strategic importance in ensuring access to the Indian ocean and beyond.  All consider it vital to prevent the Strait falling into the hands of Iran’s proxy, the Houthis.

South Yemen’s unilateral declaration of independence did not come out of the blue.  For more than 20 years the People's Republic of Southern Yemen was an independent Marxist–Leninist one-party state, supported by the Soviet Union.  Relations between the two Yemens deteriorated, and in 1972 they took up arms against each other. In 1990, with the collapse of the Soviet Union imminent, South Yemen united with the north to form the Unified Republic of Yemen. Ali Abdallah Saleh, who had been president of North Yemen since 1978, was proclaimed president.

It was an uneasy marriage.  After only four years, the south tried to break away again.   A short civil war ended with the south being overrun by northern troops.

Saleh became a victim of the so-called Arab Spring of 2011. He gave up the keys of office to Hadi with a very bad grace, and 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 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.

The unconventional Saleh-Houthi partnership came to an abrupt end on December 2, 2017, when Saleh went on television to declare that he was ready to enter into dialogue with the Saudi-led coalition. This volte-face was to end in tragedy. On December 4, Saleh's house in Sana'a was besieged by Houthi fighters. Attempting to escape, he was killed.

Once ignited, the yearning for self-determination is not easily extinguished.  South Yemen’s aspirations for a return to autonomy remained strong.  In 2017-18 south Yemen leaders tried again.  Hadi had re-located his internationally recognized government to Aden.  But Aden is the focal point of south Yemen, and Aden’s governor was a strong supporter of the southern separatists. When Hadi sacked him, he promptly joined the rebels and helped set up the Southern Transitional Council (STC), a body designed to administer Yemen’s southern provinces. 

 The UAE could not continue to run with the fox while hunting with the hounds – supposedly supporting Hadi in re-establishing the national government of Yemen, while at the same time supported the STC in seeking to establish South Yemen as a separate state.  In September 2019, following substantial military gains by the southern separatists with UAE support, Saudi Arabia put its foot down.  The two sides negotiated.  On October 25, they announced a power-sharing agreement, which was signed in Riyadh on November 5. 

It was on the basis of that agreement that a power sharing government was formed a year later, on December 18, 2020.   It contained 24 ministers selected on equal basis between northern and southern provinces and included five ministers from the STC.

Sworn in on December 26 in Riyadh, four days later most of the new cabinet, including the prime minister, boarded a plane to fly to Aden.  A large crowd gathered to greet them.  As the passengers began to disembark, massive explosions were heard followed by gunfire emanating from armored vehicles. At least 25 people were killed and 110 others injured.  Most of the casualties were civilians, including airport staff.  Although no group has claimed responsibility, the coalition later said it had shot down an explosive-laden Houthi drone that was targeting the presidential palace. 

That incident was closely followed by another. On New Year’s Day a projectile exploded at a wedding held in the port city of Hodeidah, 160 miles north of the Bab El-Mandab Strait.  Five women were killed and seven wounded.  A UN representative called it “an odious crime committed by the Houthis against civilians”.

As long as Iran’s malevolent involvement persists, no end seems in sight to Yemen’s civil conflict.  A determination to frustrate Iran’s aspiration to dominate the Middle East is one element uniting Israel and the Arab signatories to the Abraham Accords.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 10 January 2021, and in the Jerusalem Post on-line as: "Israel-Arab normalization to have impact on Yemen war":

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/israel-arab-normalization-to-have-impact-on-yemen-war-opinion-654858

Published in the Eurasia Review, 8 January 2021
https://www.eurasiareview.com/08012021-normalization-and-the-turmoil-in-yemen-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 8 January 2021:

https://mpc-journal.org/blog/2021/01/08/normalisation-and-the-turmoil-in-yemen/

Published in the Jewish Business News, 8 January 2021:
https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2021/01/08/normalization-and-the-turmoil-in-yemen/ 

Britain agonizes over its new Holocaust memorial

     Proposed design for Britain's new Holocaust memorial and Learning Centre 

         In 2014 the UK government proposed, and in 2015 parliament as a whole approved, the idea of a new National Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre. 

From early on the project faced a veritable storm of dissent, rarely about the concept itself, but about the selected location and later about the approved design.  Despite these widespread objections the government submitted its planning application to the City of Westminster, the local authority responsible for the chosen site.  But complaints grew to such proportions that in November 2019 the application was “called in” by then housing minister, Esther McVey – in other words the government, as it was entitled to do under planning legislation, took over responsibility for the project.  

In order to provide a forum where all objections could be aired, considered and evaluated, McVey’s boss, Secretary of State Robert Jenrick, set up a public inquiry under the chairmanship of an independent planning inspector, David Morgan.   

Before the Inquiry commenced on October 6, 2020, the odour of antisemitism had begun to pervade the scene. Jenrick is married to Michal, the Israeli daughter of Holocaust survivors, and their children are being brought up as Jewish. The London Historic Parks and Gardens Trust, claiming there had been a conflict of interest in the government’s handling of the planning application for the memorial, legally challenged Jenrick.  However he had already recused himself from any decisions relating to the memorial.  The final ruling on its location and design, following the report of the Inquiry chairman, will be taken by McVey’s successor as housing minister, Christopher Pincher.

On October 5 the High Court ruled that Jenrick had acted properly in regard to the planning application.

Meanwhile Jenrick revealed that he had been subjected to “antisemitic smears” over his role in the proposal, and was living under police protection following threats to “kill his family” and “burn his house down”. 

“The fact that I have been subjected to these smears,” he said, “and my family to antisemitic abuse and death threats, only shows the paramount importance of the memorial.”

To put the present situation into context, the UK already has five significant Holocaust centers serving the public.  Three are sited in London. 

The first public memorial in Britain dedicated to victims of the Holocaust was opened in Hyde Park, in the heart of London’s West End, in 1983.  Conceived as a garden of boulders surrounded by white-stemmed birch trees, the largest boulder is inscribed with text from the Book of Lamentations:  "For these I weep. Streams of tears flow from my eyes because of the destruction of my people."  A service of remembrance is held at the site every year. 

The long-established Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide, situated close to the University of London, is essentially a literary and academic resource.  The most recent memorial is a brand new and impressive Holocaust Learning Centre opened in 2020 within the Imperial War Museum (IWM).

In addition to these London-based hubs, the county of Nottinghamshire, in the heart of England, houses the Beth Shalom National Holocaust Centre and Museum, while further north the town of Huddersfield boasts its very own Holocaust Exhibition and Learning Centre. 

It was back in 2014 that David Cameron, then Britain’s prime minister, set up a cross-party Holocaust Commission tasked with deciding what more Britain needed to do to ensure that the memory of the Holocaust was preserved, and that the lessons it teaches are never forgotten. 

The Commission sent out a national call for evidence and, in light of the opinions it had received, issued its report and recommendations on January 27, 2015.  They were instantly accepted in full by the government and endorsed by the Opposition.

            The Commission proposed that a striking and prominent new National Memorial should be built in central London in order to make a bold statement about the importance Britain places on preserving the memory of the Holocaust, and stand as a permanent affirmation of the values of British society.  Moreover, a world-class Learning Centre should be placed alongside the memorial ‒ a must-see destination using the latest technology to engage and inspire vast numbers of visitors.

            In addition to conveying the enormity of the Holocaust and its impact, reflecting the centrality to Nazi objectives of the destruction of European Jewry, the memorial and learning centre should also represent the fate of all other victims of Nazi persecutions ‒ Roma, disabled people, Slavs, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, and all the political opponents of the Nazi regime.

In accepting the Commission’s proposals, Cameron said: “Today we stand together... in remembrance of those who were murdered in the darkest hour of human history… united in our resolve to fight prejudice and discrimination in all its forms.”

To help the government carry the project forward, it set up a UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation (UKHMF) composed of eminent establishment figures including the Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis. The Foundation quickly embarked on a dual search – for a suitable location and a winning design.

As regards a site for the new memorial, the UKHMF committee based their search on the Commission’s recommendation that it should be in “central London”.  It was for this reason that they rejected an offer from the Imperial War Museum to expand its own Holocaust Learning Centre, then in the planning stage, into the National Memorial.  The IWM, although only a mile from the Houses of Parliament, is situated south of the river Thames and is not generally perceived to be in central London. After considering more than fifty possible settings, the Foundation settled on Victoria Tower Gardens, a small public park to the south of the Palace of Westminster which houses Britain’s parliament.

It was a decision that immediately gave rise to a storm of protest based on a wide range of objections.  Despite being assailed from all sides, the UKHMF stuck to its guns and invited architectural firms to submit designs sited in the Gardens.

The international competition attracted 92 entries.  The winning team, announced by the 13-panel jury In October 2017, was led by the British-Ghanaian architect Sir David Adjaye. Its design features 23 large bronze fin structures, the gaps between the fins representing the 22 countries where the Holocaust destroyed Jewish communities. Each acts as a separate path down to a hall leading into the Learning Center.

The public Inquiry, held on 16 days between October 6 and November 13, 2020, was designed to provide a platform for every organization, group or individual with an interest in the memorial.  Residents in the area served by the Victoria Tower Gardens felt that the memorial would eat up too much of the limited green space – an objection echoed by the Royal Parks and by Westminster Council itself. 

           The Holocaust Memorial Inquiry was conducted on-line.  Chairman David Morgan is on the extreme right.

The gardens house three other memorials.  Some felt that the one commemorating the victims of slavery would be “engulfed”.  The gardens also contain a children’s playground.  This facility, too, it was claimed, would be downgraded and damaged.  In a written submission, Lord Carlile, a former independent reviewer of terror laws, warned that a Holocaust memorial next to parliament would create a target for terrorists. He told the BBC that he had a strong interest in the issue. “Many of my close relatives were exterminated in the Holocaust. My half-sister’s mother was murdered in Auschwitz. I am absolutely determined that this should be remembered properly. I just feel that this isn’t the right place for it.”

In September 2018 the UKHMF hosted a public exhibition featuring the winning design in its agreed location.  A further flood of comment followed. As a result alterations and modifications were made, and the revised design was submitted to Westminster Council on 29 April 2019.   Westminster took the new design on board, and continued with the consultation it had opened with the public.

In August 2019 Westminster City Council wrote to the UKHMF warning that the memorial was “heading towards an unfavourable recommendation” by its planners. In response the Foundation claimed that “excessive weight” was being given to the number of objections raised, an accusation robustly rejected by the council.  Even so, in February 2020 Westminster City Council's planning committee did vote unanimously to reject the government’s planning application, saying it contravened planning rules on size, design and location.

Now Westminster’s responsibility in the matter has been taken over by the government.  On the inspector chosen to head its public inquiry, David Morgan, was placed the onerous task of hearing all points of view concerning the location and the design of the memorial, assessing their merits in the light of the criteria already laid down by Commission, and making recommendations to assist the government in its final decision.  His report has to be presented to the Secretary of State on or before 30 April 2021.

Since the criteria set out in the Holocaust Commission’s report of January 2015 were accepted in full and approved by parliament, there can be no doubt that Britain will eventually have a new National Holocaust Memorial.  Equally set in stone is that it must be “striking and prominent”, and “prominently located in Central London”.  In addition the Memorial must be co-located with a world-class Learning Centre which is to be a “must-see destination using the latest technology to engage and inspire vast numbers of visitors.” 

The big question still to be resolved is whether the Adjaye team’s design set in the Victoria Tower Gardens is to be given the go-ahead, or whether the whole project is to be shunted back to square one.


Published in the Jerusalem Report, issue dated 11 Jan 2021, and available for subscribers at:
https://www.jpost.com/jerusalem-report/the-uk-agonizes-over-its-new-holocaust-memorial-653732

Israel seeks reconciliation with Turkey

 
            Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been expressing his desire for a reconciliation with Israel ‒ clearly a ploy designed to achieve wider regional, if not global, objectives.  His nominal desire, however, is matched by a genuine wish on Israel’s part for better relations with Turkey.  The problem is Erdogan himself.  If it wasn’t for him, relations between Israel and Turkey could return to the glory days before he began his climb to power.  Unfortunately, for well over a decade Turkey’s leader, first as prime minister then as president, has sought to reverse the policy of Turkish secularization initiated by his renowned predecessor, Kemal Ataturk, and enhance his credentials in the Muslim world by adopting an increasingly anti-Israel stance. 

It was not always so. Once. the three non-Arab states in the Middle East ‒ Iran, Turkey and Israel ‒ stood side by side. Back in March 1949 Turkey was the first Muslim majority country to recognize the State of Israel; a year later Iran followed suit.

Following Turkish recognition, cooperation between Turkey and Israel flourished, particularly in the military, strategic, and diplomatic spheres. Trade and tourism boomed, the Israel Air Force practised manoeuvres in Turkish airspace, and Israeli technicians modernized Turkish combat jets. There were also plans for high-tech cooperation and water sharing.

When Erdoqan became prime minister of Turkey in 2003, he initially maintained a "business as usual" approach, and indeed paid an official visit to Israel in 2005. However his sympathies, shaped by his Muslim Brotherhood background, very quickly resulted in his realigning Turkish policy in favour of an Islamist pro-Arab stance. Relations with Israel deteriorated rapidly, reaching their nadir in the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident, when an attempt, backed by the Turkish government, to break Israel's naval blockade of Gaza led to an armed encounter on the high seas resulting in the deaths of nine Turkish nationals.

In recent years Erdogan has taken every opportunity to hurl insults, condemnations and dire warnings at Israel.  He consistently accuses Israel of illegally seizing and occupying Palestinian land, blissfully oblivious to the old saying: “Those in glasshouses shouldn’t throw stones.”  In 1974 Turkey invaded northern Cyprus, seized nearly 40 percent of the island, and set up the self-styled Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus ‒ an entity recognized by no international organization and no country other than Turkey itself. 

Turkey is not a signatory to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and does not recognize the government of Cyprus, its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), its maritime border agreements with Egypt, Israel or Lebanon, or the licenses that Cyprus has awarded to foreign energy companies.  Driven by a bizarre sort of logic Turkey, having seized and occupied northern Cyprus, is now claiming a share in the vast oil and liquefied natural gas bonanza that has unexpectedly appeared off the coastline of its unrecognized Republic.  Having positioned itself outside the international agreements, Turkey has been drilling for some years in waters internationally recognized as being part of Cyprus’s EEZ.  Turkey does, of course, have a Mediterranean coastline, but it runs to the north of Cyprus, while the gas reserves are in the so-called Energy Triangle south and east of the island.

Erdogan’s purpose is to disrupt or undermine the pipeline agreement between Greece, Israel and Cyprus.  The EU has repeatedly said it considers Turkey’s drilling offshore Cyprus as illegal and, together with the US, has warned Turkey to halt its operations.  In November 2019 the EU imposed new sanctions on Turkey, saying they would be lifted as soon as Turkey ceased its unauthorized drilling operations. Erdogan of course did nothing of the kind, but sent a military drone to Cyprus to protect his two ships drilling for oil and gas.  The drone was destroyed on its first mission.

Since then Erdogan has made a point of welcoming leaders of Hamas, considered a terrorist organization by many, and according them all the courtesy due to representatives of sovereign states.  This is the same Erdogan who labels the Kurdish political parties seeking independence as terrorists, invades their autonomous region and bombs Kurdish citizens. 

Despite languishing political relations, commercial dealings between Turkey and Israel have continued to flourish.  They achieved more than $5 billion in bilateral trade in 2019, and business and government leaders on both sides predict continuing growth.  This is indeed a solid basis on which start a genuine process of improving relations.

In an attempt to get on a good footing with the incoming US president, Joe Biden, Erdogan has just appointed Ufuk Ulutas as ambassador to Israel. 

Ulutas is an alumnus, among other academic institutions, of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.  Strongly supportive of the Palestinian cause, in his writings he lays all the problems of the region at Israel’s door. Writing in 2010, he speaks of Turkey and Israel having inherently “divergent regional views” – an opinion clearly at variance with historical fact. Turkish-Israeli relations would continue to fluctuate, he says, “without Israel’s willingness to deal decisively with the key issues of peace in the Middle East, such as the settlements, status of Jerusalem, and Lebanese and Syrian tracks, and most urgently, the improvement of humanitarian conditions in Gaza.”

It has been demonstrated more than once that great peace initiatives can be sponsored by hardline right-wing politicians.  Ulutus has been despatched to Israel as part of an obvious political manoeuvre by Erdogan to lure Israel into a course that would place the Abraham Accords in jeopardy.  The wily Turkish leader may have ignored, or discounted, the well-established principle of unintended consequences.  Ulutus is no career diplomat.  He may begin by speaking peace “with forked tongue” to his Israeli counterparts in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem.  But how might the exercise end?


Published in the Jewish Business News, 1 January 2021: https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2021/01/01/israel-seeks-reconciliation-with-turkey/

Published in the Eurasia Review, 2 January 2021
https://www.eurasiareview.com/02012021-israel-seeks-reconciliation-with-turkey-oped/