The Ayatollahs cannot control their Gen-Z

This article appears in the Jerusalem Post, 11 October 2022

           The Washington-based Pew Research Center, founded in 1996, has made its name by investigating the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world.  Part of its early work involved studying the last generational cohort before the millennium.  It named them the Millennials, which it defined as anyone born between 1981 and 1996.  The subsequent generation – that is, people born between 1997 and 2012 – have become known as Generation Z, or more simply Gen-Z.

   On September 13 Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman from a Kurdish family, was with her brother in Tehran when she was arrested by Iran’s infamous “morality police” for what was claimed to be “improper” hijab.  Mahsa, who also went by the Kurdish name Jhina, was taken to the Vozara Detention Centre, where she collapsed.  Three days later she died. According to media reports, she had been beaten on the head with a baton, and her head had been banged against a vehicle. The authorities stated that she died of natural causes.

Mahsa’s death sparked nationwide protests.  Thousands took to the streets in cities across the country, including in Tehran, Isfahan, Karaj, Mashhad, Rasht, Saqqes and Sanandaj.  Security forces responded with live ammunition, pellet guns and tear gas. By October 6 the civilian death toll was reported to have risen to at least 133, and the authorities – shaken by global media reports of brutality perpetrated by the police – had taken to arresting journalists.  The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) published on its website a list of 35 arrested up to October 6.

Widespread anti-regime protests have erupted more than once in the 43 years since Iran’s Islamic Revolution, but there is a fundamental difference between previous waves of demonstrations and what is happening today.  In the current nationwide riots a prominent role is being played by the Iran’s Generation Z, also known as Zoomers. According to the ultra-conservative Javan Daily, a paper affiliated to Iran’s IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps), “93% of the protesters” are no older than 25 which, it observes, marks the rise of a “new generation of rioters in the country.”

Iran’s Zoomers are seen within the country as extremely skeptical about the world. They are believed to have no interest in politics, religion, customs, and traditions.  What they do have is much greater access to information and the outside world than their parents and grandparents.  Online social media has given them a platform to voice their concerns, and the courage to speak out. 

The old-established Washington-based Middle East Institute recently undertook an analysis of Iran’s Gen-Z population.  It concluded that this generation tends to question authority, does not believe in the red lines drawn by society or the regime, and is unwilling to take anything for granted, including religion and the country’s laws and regulations.  Gen-Z’s mass reaction to what they perceived as the state-sponsored killing of one of their own, 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, was not their first clash with authority. In 2014 tens of thousands showed up to attend the funeral ceremony for Morteza Pashaei, a famous young pop star. Never before had there been a massive ceremony for a music icon who would be considered a threat to Islamic values. Over the years there have been other mass gatherings of the young that were dispersed by the police and involved arrests and criminal charges.

That today’s nationwide protest is being led by Gen-Z young people should have come as no surprise to the authorities.  Over the last few years there has been a succession of warnings issued by academic bodies and researchers.

In December 2017 the sociologist Saeed Razavi Faqih published a paper about Iran’s Gen-Z.  “This new generation has completely different demands, trends, and views,” he wrote, “and basically shares no common language with the managers and officials of the country’s administration.”  Just wait until they realize their political clout, he warned.  They will “transform everything.”

In the early months of 2018 Iran faced its most widespread and sustained wave of public protests in a decade, fostered by long-standing grievances. A study conducted by the state-backed Office of Cultural Studies investigated, and concluded that in addition to the usual “political, economic and social dissatisfaction,” the Islamic Republic now faced a new problem: the “deep generational gap.”

A more recent warning of this sort came in 2019, when Sobhe Sadegh, the weekly publication of the IRGC, described Gen-Z as a possible threat to the Republic’s values that will be difficult to control.  As the writers put it, “their governance will not be as easy as with previous generations.”

Casting around for a scapegoat, Iran first stepped up its military operations against Iraq-based Iranian Kurdish opposition groups. Three sets of drone and missile attacks targeted their party bases in northern Iraq, killing at least nine.  Then Iran turned to the support that Kurdish exiles have given to the protesters, and alleged that the demonstrations were entirely organized by foreign elements.  Iranian Kurdish exiles say their role has been small.

Older generations of Iranians who failed to achieve long-fought-for political and social freedoms during the past four decades are now expressing public admiration for their children and young people. It is echoed around the Iranian diaspora. Iran's exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi, son of the late Shah, has hailed the protests as the right way to victory.  He is heading a government-in-exile dedicated to bringing genuine democracy to the nation, once the regime is overthrown.

The latest protests have allowed the millions of Iranians living in exile to dream of a different future.  On September 24 and 25 thousands of Iranians in Los Angeles — home to the largest diaspora community of Iranians in the world — as well as in 159 cities across the globe gathered in support of the anti-regime movement. 

The Iranian leadership has sought to blame outside agitators for the protests inside the country, but it is young Iranians – the nation’s Gen-Z – who are leading the demonstrations and putting their lives on the line.  They are demonstrating to the world that the nation’s youth is coming into its own, that they care nothing for the crazed dreams of world domination cherished by the old men who lead them, and that they seek a way of life in line with what is enjoyed by young people all over the 21st century world.  How long can their dreams be quashed? The Iranian regime cannot throttle the hopes of its own people forever.

Published in the Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Post online as "Gen Z are standing up to Iran's regime", 11 October 2022

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-719328

Published in Eurasia Review, 24 October 2022:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/23102022-iran-the-ayatollahs-cannot-control-their-gen-z-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal. 24 October 2022:

https://mpc-journal.org/the-ayatollahs-cannot-control-their-gen-z/

Published in Jewish Business News, 21 October 2022:

https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2022/10/21/the-ayatollahs-cannot-control-their-gen-z/

Under consideration: moving the British embassy to Jerusalem

  This article appears in the Jerusalem Post, 6 October 2022

Liz Truss, the new British prime minister, has come into office vowing to sweep away the entrenched, outworn attitudes that persist in parts of what is otherwise an admirable Civil Service.  One area she is focused on is the Treasury, which she regards as wholly out of sympathy with her radical approach to tackling the severe economic problems that face the UK.  Another sclerotic area she has in her sights is the Foreign Office.

   On September 22 the media outlet Politico reported a Downing Street spokesman saying that, at the recent UN General Assembly meeting in New York, Truss told her Israeli counterpart, Yair Lapid, that she had ordered a review of the current location of the British embassy.

This has not come out of the blue.  During the course of the leadership contest in the summer, Truss told the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) that, while recognizing the “importance and sensitivity” of the issue, she would have the UK’s decision to stay put in Tel Aviv looked at again.

Shock, horror in the hidebound Foreign Office and diplomatic circles generally.  No less than ten former UK diplomats came together to oppose the idea in classic British style – a letter to The Times.  Preceded by a catalogue of stock sitting-on-the-fence observations, the letter ended: “Two states is British government policy; until that policy is realized, the embassy should stay put.”

In fact two states is also US government policy, but that did not deter the Trump administration from acknowledging reality and re-siting the US embassy in Israel’s capital city.  President Joe Biden has not reversed that decision. nor does he seem minded to do so.

          The UK’s foot-dragging on this issue stems from its long-standing, and continuing, refusal actually to acknowledge that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital, which it was from the moment of the State’s foundation. 

Global opinion is in a terrible muddle about the status of Jerusalem.  In the original 1947 two-state Partition Plan for Palestine, Jerusalem was designated to be a “corpus separatum under a special international regime” administered by the UN. The idea that Jerusalem could be separately governed under UN supervision has long been abandoned.  Yet the UN as a whole, like the EU, still clings to the idea that Jerusalem is somehow not part of the State of Israel.   The UK goes along with this.  As recently as 2016, British Foreign Office briefing documents were still referring to Jerusalem as a corpus separatum.

These days the UN and the EU hold that “Jerusalem is a final status issue for which a comprehensive, just and lasting solution must be achieved through negotiations between the two parties.”  In short, they hold that the exact status of Jerusalem in international law is yet to be determined.  

Yet the UN Security Council, in its Resolution 2334 passed in 2016, seems to override this.  It declares that the status of Jerusalem and the West Bank is as it had been on 4 June 1967 – that is, on the day before the Six Day War – referring three times to “Palestinian territories including East Jerusalem.”  Ignored is the fact that in 1967 they were not Palestinian territories; they were territories that had been captured by the Jordanian army in 1948 and illegally annexed by Jordan.  The EU, echoing the UN position, officially refuses to “recognize any changes to the pre-1967 borders, including in Jerusalem, other than those agreed by both sides.” 

So the UN and the EU assert that Jerusalem is a final status issue to be determined through negotiation, and in the same breath maintain that East Jerusalem is part of Palestinian territories.  They recognize no changes to the pre-Six Day War boundaries (the EU calls them “borders”, which they never were), except that they do not acknowledge that West Jerusalem was part of Israel at the time.

Their position defies logic.  Either the status of Jerusalem is still to be determined, or the part that used to be occupied by Jordan is declared to be Palestinian and the issue is closed.  Moreover if East Jerusalem is Palestinian, then at least West Jerusalem is Israeli – a position acknowledged by both the US and Russia, together with a clutch of other states, including the Czech Republic and Ukraine.  In December 2021, that is before Russia’s invasion, Ukraine’s ambassador to Israel, Yevgen Korniychuk, said his country recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s “one and only capital.” His promise to open a branch of its embassy in the city in 2022 during a projected visit by President Volodymyr Zelensky is, obviously, on hold.

The UK position on Jerusalem is provided in a standard response by the British embassy to public queries.  Its first sentence almost boasts that Britain has not shifted its views since April 1950.  At that time, it says, the UK unreservedly recognized the State of Israel de jure, “but it withheld recognition of sovereignty over Jerusalem pending a final determination of its status. The UK recognizes Israel’s de facto authority over West Jerusalem, but, in line with UN Security Council Resolution 242 (1967) and subsequent UNSC resolutions, regards East Jerusalem as under Israeli occupation.

“A final determination of the status of Jerusalem should be sought as part of a negotiated settlement…It must ensure Jerusalem is a shared capital of the Israeli and Palestinian states… The UK disagrees with the United States' decision to move its embassy to Jerusalem and recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital before a final status agreement.”

Up till now the UK response has concluded: “The British Embassy to Israel is based in Tel Aviv and there are no plans to move it before, or in the absence of, such a settlement.” 

          During the leadership contest, Truss declared war on outworn thinking in the Civil Service, declaring she was “prepared to break eggs” in taking on establishment orthodoxy.  That final sentence in the British embassy’s standard response may one day need to be amended.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem Post on-line, 6 October 2022:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-718983

Published in Eurasia Review, 18 October 2022:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/14102022-under-consideration-moving-the-british-embassy-to-jerusalem-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 18 October 2022:

https://mpc-journal.org/under-consideration-moving-the-british-embassy-to-jerusalem/

Published in Jewish Business News, 14 October 2022:

https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2022/10/14/under-consideration-moving-the-british-embassy-to-jerusalem/

Starving the terrorists of cash

 

             It was as far back as October 2021 that Israel accused six Palestinian civil society groups of funneling donor aid to militants, in particular the PLFP (the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) , and consequently designated them terrorist organizations.  On August 18 Israel's defence minister, Benny Gantz, repeated Israel's claim that the designated NGOs operated undercover to serve the PFLP. maintaining that "they also assist in raising funds for the terrorist organization via a variety of methods that include forgery and fraud."

            The next day Israel’s security forces closed down seven Palestinian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) operating in the West Bank. The reason given was that those particular NGOs had been diverting to the PLFP charitable funding provided to them for their own use.  The PLFP is designated a terrorist organization by Israel, but also by the US, the EU, Japan, Canada and Australia.  The UN immediately condemned the closures as “totally arbitrary”.

Justification for this can be traced back to a document published by the Israeli government in February 2019 titled: “Terrorists in Suits”.  It presented dozens of examples of ties between NGO activists who delegitimize Israel, and the PFLP and Hamas. The ideological connection between them is that all reject the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish and democratic state, and oppose any normalization between Israel and its neighbours. The report, which lists in detail the ties between the various bodies, also found that many of these NGOs were led or staffed by members and operatives of known terrorist organizations.

In designating the six NGOs as terrorist-linked, the Israeli defence ministry said that they had “received large sums of money from European countries and international organizations, using a variety of forgery and deceit," and that the money had been passed to the PFLP to support its activities.  "Those organizations present themselves as acting for humanitarian purposes,” it said. ”However, they serve as a cover for the 'Popular Front' promotion and financing." 

“Terrorists in Suits” is not the only exposé of this connection between non-governmental and terrorist organizations.  In November 2021 the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), a research body associated with Tel Aviv University, published an 11,000-word academic research paper. It analyzed the extent to which the EU, as well as individual European nations, consistently pour millions into the coffers of certain Palestinian NGOs nominally concerned with economic development, peace and human rights.  The recipients, however, are “substantial political and economic actors, and are among the leaders of intense soft power conflict, voicing repeated allegations of fundamental Israeli wrong-doing and encouraging anti-Israel campaigns through boycotts and lawfare.” 

            The document summarizes its conclusions as: “The EU and West European governments provide funding and access (particularly to media and international institutions such as the UN and ICC), in return for political services from the carefully selected Palestinian NGOs. This is evidenced by a detailed examination of repeated and overlapping grants and contracts from numerous European funding frameworks to the same group of recipients, including some linked to the PFLP terror organization.”

Israel's defense ministry said: "Those organizations present themselves as acting for humanitarian purposes; however, they serve as a cover for the 'Popular Front' promotion and financing."  Reuters reported that an official with the PFLP did not actually deny its ties to the six NGOs designated by Israel, but said they maintain relations with civil society organizations across the West Bank and Gaza.

          Predictably Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said the "decision is an alarming escalation that threatens to shut down the work of Palestine's most prominent civil society organizations."  The UN Human Rights Office in the Palestinian territories said “Israeli authorities have not presented to the United Nations any credible evidence to justify these declarations"

A clue to the comparative dearth of hard and fast evidence in support of Israel’s action lies in a document issued on January 6, 2022 by Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel.  It reproduces a letter received from the Legal Advisor’s Office of the Israel Defense Forces, which includes the following:

“The core of the declarations is based on classified, crosschecked and reliable intelligence that indicates that your clients operate on behalf of the terrorist organization, the "Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine" and are essentially arms of the terrorist organization, which cannot be revealed for fear of threatening national security.”

In short the security forces maintain that the evidence they hold about the connections between the designated Palestinian NGOs and the PFLP is classified, and to reveal it would  endanger national security.

The resultant situation is stalemate.  Without chapter and verse to support the Israeli contention, the NGOs concerned, the UN and the nations and organizations that fund them will continue to assert that closing them down is arbitrary and unjustified. Indeed no less than nine EU countries have said they will continue working with the groups, citing a lack of evidence for the Israeli accusations.  All Israel can do is keep reiterating that it has incontrovertible evidence that links the designated NGOs with covert financial and other support for the PLFP and related terrorist entities, while steadfastly refusing to reveal classified information.  Meanwhile it has cut off the flow of finance to the PLFP from this source, defying the  objectors in order to avoid compromising national security. 

        There is a glimmer of hope in the impasse.  Although the EU announced in June that it would resume funding for two of the designated Palestinian NGOs, it has agreed in July to resume meetings of the EU-Israel Association Council.  This confirms the new Middle East diplomatic reality, namely that political and economic relations are no longer dependent on the Israel-Palestinian dispute. The EU-Israel Association Agreement, which came into force in 2000, is intended to develop “mutual understanding and solidarity” and “convergence of positions on international issues”. 

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 21 September 2022:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-717553

Published in Eurasia Review, 9 October 2022:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/08102022-starving-the-terrorists-of-cash-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 9 October 2022:

https://mpc-journal.org/starving-the-terrorists-of-cash/

Published in Jewish Business News, 7 October 2022:
https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2022/10/07/starving-the-terrorists-of-cash/

Lebanon-Israel maritime talks still all at sea

Hezbollah’s secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, in power for 30 years, faces an acute dilemma.  On the one hand, Hezbollah cannot possibly endorse the formal negotiations now in progress between Israel and the Lebanese government, of which it is a part. On the other hand, it cannot be the one to torpedo an agreement that could rescue Lebanon from the economic problems that are almost overwhelming it.

The crisis is so severe that people have taken to staging armed bank hold-ups to recover their savings.  At least five such bank “heists” were reported on September 16, two days after a young woman stormed a central Beirut bank with fuel and a plastic gun to demand the deposits of her sister, who needed to pay for cancer treatment.  The woman made off with around $13,000 and became an instant hero on social media.  The severity of Lebanon's crisis has been widely blamed on a self-serving political elite dominated by Hezbollah, and decades of corruption.

Lebanon and Israel have been locked in US-mediated negotiations for some two years in an effort to agree on a maritime border that would determine which oil and gas resources belong to which country. The struggle is over a gas-rich area of the Mediterranean with an estimated value reaching billions of dollars.

US envoy Amos Hochstein arrived in the region in the first week of September to help overcome the issues still standing in the way of a settlement, and to try to push the parties closer to an agreement.  The three principals – the US, Israel and the Lebanese government (even though Hezbollah has a place in it) – have indicated a willingness to get a deal concluded as soon as possible, while Hezbollah itself has been ratcheting up its threats to launch a military attack on Israel’s Karish gas reserve field, to protect what it regards as Lebanon’s rights.  

            The dispute goes back to 2007, when Lebanon and Cyprus reached an agreement over the limits of their maritime borders. The southern boundary in that agreement represented Lebanon’s maritime border with Israel. Cyprus has ratified the agreement; Lebanon has not.

In 2010, Israel signed an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) agreement with Cyprus, using the coordinates within the Cyprus-Lebanon agreement as its northern boundary.  Israel lodged these coordinates with the UN in July 2011.  Lebanon refused to accept them, claiming at the time that its maritime border with Israel lies well to the south, along a boundary known as Line 23.  An official document issued by the UN in 2011 confirmed that this was Lebanon’s view, and Lebanon has made no move to amend it.  And yet Lebanon has subsequently shifted its claimed maritime boundary even further south to a position known as Line 29, and this cuts across Israel’s Karish gas reserve field.

The dispute first turned toxic in late 2017, when Lebanon signed a gas exploration and production agreement with a French-Italian-Russian consortium.  Seismic surveys showed promising results for what is known as Block 9, which extends beyond Israel’s claimed northern border into disputed waters. The French company, Total, announced that it would not start operations in Block 9 until the Israeli-Lebanese maritime dispute was resolved.

Back in June Hezbollah warned Israel against extracting gas from the Karish field, saying it was prepared to act, “including force”.  Threats and counter-threats between Hezbollah and the Israel Defense Forces continued throughout the summer and showed no signs of slackening, even when the US-brokered talks appeared to be on the verge of a positive outcome.

On September 13 the head of Lebanon's general security agency, Abbas Ibrahim, told local TV channel Al-Jadeed that the maritime border talks are close to concluding.  "We're talking about weeks - actually, days - to finish the delineation issue,” he announced. “I'm hopeful that the situation is positive."

The next day Lebanese President Michel Aoun said there had been “major progress” in the US’s mediation efforts. “Lebanon has achieved what enables it to exploit its resources in its waters.”  He added: “There are technical details that are currently being studied in order to realize Lebanon’s interest, rights and sovereignty.”

What might the “major progress” amount to?  According to Israeli and Lebanese officials, an Israeli proposal would allow Lebanon to develop gas reserves in the disputed area provided it agreed to retain Line 23, or something close to it, as the maritime Lebanon-Israel border. This would open Block 9, and its promising Gana prospect, for exploration and exploitation by Lebanon.  At the same time it would guarantee the Karish gas reserve field remaining in Israeli waters. According to one media report, Lebanese officials demanded a written version of the proposal before providing a final answer.  At the time of writing no final answer was forthcoming.

Meanwhile Israel insists that natural gas extraction from the Karish field will go ahead despite the drones launched by Hezbollah at it in July, and their blood-curdling threats.  “The hand that reaches for any of this wealth will be severed,” warned Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

An Israeli official reiterated: “We are planning on starting extraction the moment the work there finishes.” On September 8 the London-listed Energean company, licensed by Israel to extract gas from the Karish field, announced that it would begin yielding output within weeks.

Defense Minister Benny Gantz said late last month that any attack by Hezbollah on Israel’s gas assets could reignite war between the two sides.

Despite the tub-thumping, political imperatives are favoring an agreement.  Lebanon’s foreign minister, Abdallah Bouhabib, in a press interview, pointed out that Lebanon’s president, Michel Aoun, is due to step down in October, and that Israeli elections in November could see the return to power of Benjamin Netanyahu. If that happened, opined Bouhabib, “he may blow up the agreement.  Here [in Lebanon], a president with a different approach and vision may come. Therefore, the time is right for an agreement.”

Let us hope this particular ship, after a stormy passage, sails into a safe haven.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 28 September 2022:
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-718249

Published in Eurasia Review, 2 October 2022:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/02102022-lebanon-israel-maritime-talks-still-all-at-sea-oped/

Published in Jewish Business News, 30 September 2022:

https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2022/09/30/lebanon-israel-maritime-talks-still-all-at-sea/

Published in the MPC Journal, 6 October 2022:

https://mpc-journal.org/lebanon-israel-maritime-talks-still-all-at-sea/

The Truss era begins: Britain and Israel seek an ever-closer relationship

 This article appears in the edition of the Jerusalem Report dated 3 October 2022

            On September 5 Liz Truss emerged as the winner of the bruising contest she had been engaged in for leadership of the Conservative party, and thus became Britain’s new prime minister.  Liz Truss it was, as UK foreign secretary, who met Yair Lapid back in November 2021 to sign the UK-Israel agreement that heralded the negotiations for a new Free Trade Agreement.  She is on record as saying: “Israel and the UK are already closely intertwined with deep relationships in trade, security, culture and tourism. If I am elected as the next prime minister I will set about ensuring that alliance grows even closer.”

On August 6, just after Israel had responded to the rocket strike on Ashkelon by targeting launch sites in Gaza, Truss issued a statement: “The UK stands by Israel and its right to defend itself. We condemn terrorist groups firing at civilians, and violence which has resulted in casualties on both sides.  We call for a swift end to the violence.”

The deep UK-Israeli trade relationship seems to stem from Britain’s general election in 2010, which resulted in a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government headed by David Cameron.  Within a year of his taking office as prime minister, UK-Israel bilateral trade witnessed a hitherto unprecedented growth of 34 percent, and in 2011 it amounted to £3.75 billion ($6 billion).

One key component behind this explosion of business activity was the little-known UK Israel Tech Hub – a highly innovative concept born out of an agreement between Cameron and Israel’s then prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.  Launched in 2011, it was to be a proactive UK-Israel hi-tech partnership, based in the British Embassy in Tel Aviv. Nothing of the kind had ever been attempted before by the British government. 

The UK-Israel Tech Hub aimed at a win-win partnership – to provide Israel with the benefits of a close working relationship with the UK in developing its rapidly expanding technology and start-up sectors, but also to ensure that the UK market could benefit from the breadth and quality of Israeli R&D and innovation.  

Announcing the appointment of its head a little later, Cameron said: “We want to work much more closely with Israel on innovation and technology.  That’s why a year ago we launched the UK-Israel Tech Hub at our Embassy to link up with UK Israel Business, the Israeli Embassy here in London and countless talented young people in both our countries.”

What followed was years of slog, determination and entrepreneurship by scores of British and Israeli business executives and officials, and the result has been the flourishing bilateral UK-Israeli trade figures that show no sign of having peaked, or how high any peak might reach.

            The UK has been under Conservative administration for the past twelve years.  Despite some difficult trading conditions, the mushrooming of UK-Israel bilateral trade has continued.  In the year ending March 31, 2022 total trade in goods and services between the UK and Israel stood at £5.4 billion ($6.5 billion), an increase on 2021 of 19%.

   These ever-expanding trade figures reflect a UK-Israeli trade relationship in excellent shape.  In January 2019, anticipating Britain’s departure from the EU, Israel was among the first countries to sign a free trade agreement in principle with the UK (a full-scale agreement was impossible until Britain had actually left the EU).  Now the UK-Israel trade relationship covers all Britain’s major industries, but with a natural focus on the technology and services of the future.

Some 500 Israeli companies are currently operating in the UK, employing thousands of people, while a surprising number of UK companies have major operations in Israel, including Unilever, Barclays bank, pharmaceutical giants GlaxoSmithKline, and Rolls Royce. Rolls-Royce was responsible for the UK’s largest ever export deal to Israel back in 2016, when it signed a £1 billion agreement to provide Trent 1000 engines for El Al’s new fleet of Dreamliner aircraft.

The rapid expansion of UK-Israel trade over the last decade has closely followed Israel’s emergence on the world scene as a global leader in high tech. Israel is now home to the highest density of start-ups anywhere in the world.  It also houses the hubs of some of the world’s major technology powerhouses, including Google, Microsoft, Intel and Motorola.  Meanwhile Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) from the UK in Israel in 2020 was £1bn, most in financial and professional services, electronics, and Information and Communications technology.

The term “tech unicorns” is not yet in common usage, but these business entities are a real measure of the extent of hi-tech activity in any nation.  Tech unicorns are privately owned technology-based startup companies with a valuation of over $1 billion. As of August 2021, there were more than 800 unicorn companies globally, and the number was growing.  The UK boasts some 115, while Israel’s 53 secured £18.5 billion of new funding in 2021.

Israel’s coalition government was keen to build on the UK-Israel success story.  November 2021 saw visits to the UK by President Isaac Herzog, then-prime minister Naftali Bennett, and then-foreign minister Yair Lapid.  Lapid’s purpose was to launch a new initiative aimed at even closer trade relations between Israel and Britain.  He found an enthusiastic ally in the UK’s new foreign secretary, Liz Truss.

On the day after Lapid arrived, November 29, the Daily Telegraph achieved a journalistic coup – an article written jointly by the British and Israeli foreign ministers, Liz Truss and Yair Lapid.  Headed: “Together we can propel both our nations to safety and prosperity”, the piece heralded a new UK-Israel agreement, to be signed later that day, which they described as “a major step forward, transforming our close friendship into an even closer partnership by formally agreeing a new strategic plan for the next decade spanning cyber, tech, trade and defense.”  Lapid later described this UK-Israel Strategic Partnership as “a major moment in the relationship between the United Kingdom and Israel.”

That declaration has recently been transformed into full scale negotiations for a new UK-Israel Free Trade Agreement (FTA).  On July 20 Britain’s then-International Trade Secretary, Anne-Marie Trevelyan – she visited Israel early in 2022 – met with Israel’s ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely, to launch negotiations for a new “innovation focused” FTA aimed at creating new opportunities for tech firms and professional services in both countries. 

“It will seek,” states the official UK government release, “to establish a modern, revamped trading relationship between two of the world’s services superpowers.”

To accompany the formal launch of negotiations, the UK Department for International Trade issued a 40-page document explaining the strategic approach to the proposed new Free Trade Agreement.

“The UK is proud of its deep and historic relationship with Israel,” it declares.  “As open, innovative and thriving economies, the UK and Israel are close allies and strategic partners. Israel is one of the largest, most vibrant economies in the region, with which we already enjoy a strong trading relationship. But there is scope to go further, and we have a golden opportunity to do just that through a new FTA.”

It goes on to explain: “Israel’s economy is growing rapidly, with its service sector growing by 45% over the last 10 years. A new FTA will allow us to take advantage of this growth, generating ever more opportunities for UK firms to export their goods and services. Upgrading our trade deal with Israel will help unlock a stronger, more advanced partnership. The new deal will play to our strengths, reflecting the realities of trading in the 21st century and allowing us to take advantage of future innovations.”

The benefits to Israel are equally real, paralleling those outlined in the UK document.  In particular, perhaps, the proposed trade agreement for services, as well as encouraging mutual investments, will provide Israeli companies with access to UK government and public projects.

One of the major problems facing Liz Truss as she takes up the reins of the UK premiership is how to ensure continuity of gas supplies over the coming winter.  Most of Britain’s needs are met by pipeline from Norway, direct from the North Sea, and liquid natural gas (LNG) imports from Qatar.  Given the global energy crisis, experts estimate the UK could be facing a shortfall during the winter of 2022-23.  In June 2022 the EU, Israel and Egypt signed an agreement that would see Israel exporting LNG to Europe via Egyptian facilities. In view of the close relationship between Truss and Lapid, and the ever-tighter trade bonds to which both the UK and Israel are committed, perhaps Britain’s new prime minister might turn to her Israeli friend to help close the UK’s looming energy gap – and perhaps Israel might find a way to do so.

          A commitment to ever-closer ties between the UK and Israel, both in trade and more generally, was common ground between both candidates competing as the UK’s new prime minister – a post Truss is likely to hold until the next general election, scheduled for 2024.  The future beyond that is shrouded in mystery, but the ties binding the UK and Israel are particularly strong. They are not only likely to stand the test of time but, given a fair wind, to become even stronger to the benefit of both nations.

A world without the Queen

 This article is published in the Jerusalem Post Weekend Magazine, 16 September 2022

Born and raised in England, I am one of the rapidly reducing number of people who remember the world before the second Elizabethan age.  Unlike the vast majority of fellow Brits, the sound of “God Save the King” is no novelty in my ears.  In fact in my 91 years I have witnessed five monarchs on the British throne, four of them kings.  The most recent, of course, is Charles III.

   I was four years old in 1935 when my parents took me to join the crowds to see King George V and Queen Mary drive through the East End of London to celebrate their Silver Jubilee, and I remember to this day seeing them sweep by us – a full 15 seconds-worth of contact with royalty.  Then followed the disastrous year of 1936, which witnessed not only the death of King George, but the brief reign of his son as Edward VIII which ended in abdication.  Before 1936 ended, however, we had witnessed the accession of King George VI, the late Queen’s father.

   When I joined the British Army in 1950 to undertake my National Service, which was compulsory in the post-war UK, I pledged my loyalty to His Majesty, the King.  By the time I left  in 1952 the new Elizabethan age had started.  As the Queen began her reign, many remembered the extraordinary broadcast she had made back in 1947, the year she became 21.  As Princess Elizabeth, heir to the throne, she spoke to everyone in the UK and what was still the British empire but also a developing Commonwealth – a vast agglomeration of peoples spread across the globe.

   Broadcasting from Cape Town in South Africa, she spoke long and feelingly especially to “all the young men and women who were born about the same time as myself and have grown up like me in the terrible and glorious years of the Second World War.”  She asked for their support in carrying the burden she was preparing herself to bear.  

Reiterating the motto borne by many of her ancestors, “I serve”, she said: “I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong….God help me to make good my vow, and God bless all of you who are willing to share in it.”

Never was an intention more completely fulfilled.  The world witnessed a life dedicated to the service of the peoples under her rule, and to the wider world.  As decade followed decade. she was increasingly a steady, permanent presence in turbulent times.  It was her inner strength of purpose that assured people of her unshakable determination to continue serving them, no matter what.

She made no secret of the fact that the rock on which her strength of purpose was based – however out of tune with the times this may have been – was her profound religious belief as a practising Christian.  Throughout her reign, with only one exception, the Queen broadcast to the nation and the world on Christmas Day, and each and every such talk made reference to the religious significance of the occasion.  And this is why, back in 1947, she had asked God to “help me make good my vow.”

            Queen Elizabeth’s life can truly be described as one of duty done – duty as a monarch, certainly, but also, as we learned thanks to the media spotlight increasingly focused on her and the royal family over the years, duty as a mother, grandmother and great grandmother.  She died fulfilling her duty to the very end.  Two days earlier she was pictured in the media appointing a new UK prime minister.  In her death, she exemplified her life.

            I began on a personal note.  Let me conclude on one, for it chances that I came a good deal closer to the late Queen than I had done to her grandfather as a four-year-old.  One morning in 2006 I received a letter with the ominous “On Her Majesty’s Service” emblazoned across the envelope.  Certain that I had a nasty surprise awaiting me from the tax authorities, I opened it only to discover, to my utter astonishment, that the prime minister was minded to recommend me for an honour in the Queen’s forthcoming Birthday Honours List, and was I minded to accept?

             I was. So some months later my wife and I, accompanied by my son and daughter-in-law, found ourselves inside Buckingham Palace.  While they disposed themselves in the audience, I joined the queue of some hundred people also receiving an honor that day, and eventually found myself face to face with the Queen. After she had pinned the medal on my lapel, we exchanged a few words.  I discovered that she knew about and was interested in the broadcasting career that had brought me before her.  We shook hands and, stepping backwards so as not to turn my back on her, as is the etiquette, I left her, but of course those few minutes in the presence of the sovereign remain with me, and always will.

            That is precisely the feeling shared by hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of people the world over who have had some sort of contact, personal or not, with the Queen. She had a unique ability to engage with individuals and enthuse multitudes.  People like this are rare indeed.  Those of us who mourn her passing do not believe we shall see her like again.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and in the Jerusalem Post online under the title "What does a world without Queen Elizabeth look like?", 16 September 2022:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-717248

Published in the International Jerusalem Post, 16-22 September 2022.

Morocco-Israel friendship flourishes

 This article appears in the Jerusalem Post, 13 September 2022

Beach Sambo is a little-known martial art that engenders huge enthusiasm among its adherents.  This year the World Beach Sambo Championships, incorporating contests in eight weight categories, took place over August 26 to 29 on the sands of Bat Yam in Israel.  And this year Morocco’s Beach Sambo team, led by Dalil Skalli, who also heads the African Sambo Federation, travelled to Israel for the first time to compete – a situation that would have been impossible two short years ago, for Morocco had severed diplomatic relations with Israel back in 2000.

The visit of Morocco’s Sambo team, an apparently minor event in the great scheme of things, in fact symbolizes the extent to which relations between Morocco and Israel have warmed since December 2020, when Morocco signed the Abraham Accords and began the process of normalization.

This past year has seen an acceleration of the normalization process, marked by a succession of visits to Morocco by leading Israeli figures. The first ever official visit to an Arab state by Israel’s top soldier in uniform occurred on July 19.  IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi arrived for a three-day stay, during which he met with Morocco’s senior military and security officials.

Three days after he departed, Israel’s Minister for Regional Cooperation, Esawi Frej, arrived in Morocco on a mission to expand cooperation in the field of higher education.   He was accompanied by a group of seven Israeli Jewish and Arab journalists. During his time in Morocco Frej gave a number of interviews in Arabic to leading media outlets.

That same week Israel’s Justice Minister, Gideon Saar, visited Rabat. On July 26, he signed a judicial memorandum of understanding with his Moroccan opposite number, Abdellatif Ouahbi, aimed at promoting mutual understanding on judicial issues, including cooperation between the Sharia courts in both countries.  On July 27 Saar and the president of the Moroccan Football Federation, Fouzi Lekjaa, agreed to hold a friendly game between the national youth teams.  Later that day the Israeli and Moroccan national volleyball federations signed a cooperation agreement.

No sooner had Saar left than Israel’s top cop, Police Commissioner Yaakov Shabtai arrived for a first official visit to Morocco.  He was received in Rabat on August 2 by his Moroccan counterpart, Abdellatif Hammouchi. 

According to the Moroccans, the goal of the meeting was to strengthen bilateral cooperation and "lay the foundations for a partnership in the security field, serving the common interests of Morocco and Israel." Media reports claimed that the parties had agreed in principle on significant steps never been formalized between the two countries, including on extraditing criminals and the exchange of professional knowledge on security technologies and fighting crime and terrorism.

This blossoming of the Moroccan-Israeli relationship has not occurred without some negative consequences.  Relations between Morocco and its neighbor, Algeria, have historically been strained over Morocco’s claim to Western Sahara. Algeria has long supported the Sahrawis of Western Sahara who, backed by their militant body the Polisario Front, are seeking independence from Moroccan rule.

The price the US paid to secure Morocco’s signature under the Abraham Accords, announced by US President Donald Trump in December 2020, was to recognize Morocco’s claim. In doing so America was defying the UN, the African Union and most world opinion, which holds that Western Sahara’s future should be settled by a UN-supervised referendum of the Sahrawi people.  

After the normalization deal, violently opposed by the Algerian regime, its relationship with Morocco deteriorated badly.  Since mid-2021 the two countries have severed diplomatic relations, recalled their ambassadors, closed their borders, and blocked their airspaces.  Recent  Moroccan-Israeli military agreements have especially infuriated Algeria.  Its violent condemnation of them incorporated a strong antisemitic element – the same spirit that moved the Algerian government to demand that the Chief Rabbi of France, Haïm Korsia, be excluded from the delegation accompanying French President Emmanuel Macron in his recent visit to Algiers.

Algeria’s intelligence services have proved largely ineffective in their denunciations of Morocco and its sovereign, King Mohammed VI.  Mohammed, extremely popular with Moroccans both at home and abroad, has shown himself to be a progressive ruler, open to new ideas. He cherishes the historic Jewish connection to his country. In a speech on August 20 he said: “Morocco, by the grace of the Almighty, has an expatriate community of about five million people, in addition to hundreds of thousands of Moroccan Jews around the world.  Moroccans abroad are quite special in that they are deeply attached to the homeland,” and he called upon Moroccans the world over, including Jews with their roots in Morocco, to support their country of origin in whatever way they can.

Meanwhile trade between Israel and Morocco is booming. The various economic and trade cooperation agreements since normalization resulted in a 200 percent increase in Israel’s exports to Morocco in 2021 compared with 2020. Overall, trade between the two countries reached $117 million in 2021, and the target for 2022 is $250 million.

However the implications of Morooco-Israel normalization go far wider, and embrace the possibility of enhancing security and countering terrorism in the whole of north-west Africa and across the Sahal.  An important element has been the groundbreaking air defense deal in February 2020, when Morocco agreed to pay $500 million to acquire Israel Aerospace industries’ Barak air and missile defense system.

The authoritative Defense News points out that Morocco has long distinguished itself among the Islamic and African nations as a leader in counterterrorism. Properly paired with Israeli counterterrorism expertise and backed by US financial support, it believes that Morocco is uniquely positioned to oppose, and if necessary act against, terrorism in the Sahal and Francophone Africa.  Meanwhile, acting together Israel and Morocco can lead the way for a partner-led security strategy for the region as a whole.

It is regrettable that such a promising environment has been soured by several allegations of misconduct – including the sexual harassment of Moroccan women – at Israel’s Liaison office in Rabat, leading to the recall on September 6 of Israel’s ambassador, David Govrin.  Whether the allegations are sustained or disproved, this episode should surely not be allowed to disrupt the solid foundations laid in the past two years of genuine Moroccan-Israeli friendship and cooperation. 

            The visit to Israel of Morocco's chief of the Royal Armed Forces in early September confirmed the continuing strength of the Israeli-Moroccan friendship.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 13 September 2022, and in the Jerusalem Post on-line titled: "Morocco and Israel: The highs and lows of a blossoming friendship"
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-716991

Published in Eurasia Review, 24 September 2022:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/24092022-morocco-israel-friendship-flourishes-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 28 September 2022:

https://mpc-journal.org/morocco-israel-friendship-flourishes/

Iraq faces a Shia-Shia civil conflict

This article appears in the Jerusalem Post, 8 September 2022            

When Western politicians announce they are retiring, their supporters normally express regret and wish them well.  Iraq (to misquote the well-known aphorism) is a foreign country – they do things differently there.  

 When the powerful Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr announced his "final retirement" from politics on August 29, his supporters took to the streets and subjected Baghdad to its worst bout of violence in years.  Many of his followers had been holding a sit-in inside Baghdad’s Green Zone, where government offices and diplomatic missions are located.  On hearing of their leader’s decision, they scaled the gates of the Republican Palace that used to be Sadam Hussein’s powerhouse, and paraded through it, sharing the scenes on social media.

Soon afterward, sounds of live ammunition echoed round the streets as Iran-backed opponents of al-Sadr, including the security forces, descended on the protesters.  The two sides traded gunfire all night and well into the next morning, and at least 47 people were killed. 

What is not entirely clear is what was motivating al-Sadr’s supporters.  In protesting against their leader’s decision, were they trying to get him to change his mind?  After all, he had threatened to retire from politics on eight previous occasions, and relented.  Were they simply letting off steam, frustrated at the possibility of losing their leader?  Or were they expressing their resentment at the establishment that had forced al-Sadr to this extremity? 

One explanation is as follows.  Many of al-Sadr’s followers were adherents of Iraq’s Shia spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Kadhim al-Haeri.  Suddenly and surprisingly, on Sunday August 28, Al-Haeri had announced his resignation, and in doing so appealed to his followers to support Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.  But al-Sadr’s political message, Shia though he is, is to oppose the excessive influence on Iraq’s internal affairs of both Iran and the US.  Their erstwhile spiritual leader’s defection to the pro-Iranian sector may have left al-Sadr’s supporters feeling betrayed.

The violence that ensued led influential Iraqi voices to express fears that a Shia-Shia civil conflict was about to erupt, but the pessimists had reckoned without the extraordinary influence al-Sadr exercises over his followers, even though it has been demonstrated more than once.  In the event, on August 30 al-Sadr went on television and called on his supporters to withdraw “within an hour” from the Green Zone.  “I apologize to the Iraqi people,” he said.

The armed group backing him, Saray al-Salam, made no use of the hour’s grace their leader had allowed them. They left the Green Zone within minutes, bringing calm to what had turned into a battlefield. If the whole episode illustrated anything, it is the enormous power that al-Sadr exercises over the thousands who support him. 

Iraq has been in political stalemate ever since a general election was announced in July 2021.  To start with, al-Sadr decided not to participate, but he was persuaded to change his mind. In the event his party won the largest number of seats, but the rival Iran-backed Coordination Framework prevented him from forming a government of his choice with Kurdish and Sunni allies. In a conciliatory gesture he offered the Coordination Framework some government seats. They refused to be conciliated.  Al-Sadr reacted by requiring all 74 of his bloc to resign their parliamentary seats, and his supporters staged protests and sit-ins in the Green Zone.

Under Iraqi law if an MP resigns, the second-placed candidate in the election takes the empty seat. The process of filling the Sadrists’ vacated seats led to a new wave of intense controversy, but finally the pro-Iran Coordination Framework became the majority group in parliament.  It then nominated Mohammed Shia al-Sudani as prime minister.

Iran-backed groups and militias welcomed the nomination; al-Sadr and his followers rejected it out of hand. On July 27, the country’s political crisis reached boiling point and al-Sadr supporters stormed the Iraqi parliament protesting against al-Sudani’s nomination.  Once again, a tweet from al-Sadr quelled the riot instantly.

In his latest televised address al-Sadr, despite taking some responsibility for the recent flare-up, condemned the violence by his supporters but refused any compromise. He declared that he would block any attempt by the Coordination Framework to impose their nominated prime minister on the nation, or set up a functioning government without his input.

On September 3 the Coordination Framework responded. It reiterated its determination to nominate al-Sudani as Iraq’s prime minister.  Moreover according to media reports, the Framework is planning to resume parliamentary sessions following the Shia religious commemoration of Arba’een, on September 17. 

Iraq’s political stalemate stems ultimately from the constitutional arrangements put in place by the US following the overthrow of Sadam Hussein.  It is a sectarian system, loosely akin to Lebanon’s, intended to ensure that the various minority groups that make up Iraqi society are given a share in government and the administration.  The end result – as in Lebanon – has been endless political instability and dysfunction.  Which is why al-Sadr has been calling for constitutional reform.

A dedicated user of social media, in recent tweets he has called on Iraqis “to rise up to demand reform.”  The protests mounted by his supporters, even though he has himself brought them to an end, he has characterized as “a major opportunity to radically change the political regime, constitution and elections.”

          The problem is that the stage seems set for yet another armed civil conflict, with no assurance that this time it can be switched off with a click of al-Sadr’s fingers.  The disputing sides refuse negotiation and compromise.  Moreover the violence is not confined to Baghdad.  During the last uprising al-Sadr’s supporters were blocking roads and government buildings elsewhere in Iraq, including Basra in the south where general lawlessness, organized crime and tribal conflicts are a prime breeding ground for uncontrollable armed struggle.  Iraq is facing the real danger of a Shia-Shia civil war.

Published in the Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Post on-line, 8 September 2022:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-716582

Published in Eurasia Review, 17 September 2022:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/17092022-iraq-faces-a-shia-shia-civil-conflict-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 18 September 2022:

https://mpc-journal.org/iraq-faces-a-shia-shia-civil-conflict/