Lebanon is in trouble

            Lebanon is in the midst of a long-standing political impasse.  It has a caretaker government and no head of state.  In addition, its economy is close to collapse, while a corrupt political class is clinging to the power and influence it has exercised for generations.  On top of all that, a financial scandal that had been simmering away for months has suddenly boiled over. A judicial delegation from France, Germany and Luxembourg are investigating accusations against the Governor of Lebanon’s central bank, Riad Salameh, who is accused of embezzling bank assets, money laundering and mismanaging public funds. On April 25, on the delegation’s third visit to the country, Lebanese judicial authorities agreed to cooperate with them.

            It was in July 2020 that a group of Lebanese lawyers launched a formal accusation against Riad Salameh and his brother Raja of allegedly defrauding the central bank of more than $300 million (over NIS 1,000,000,000).  The 72-year-old governor is accused of charging bond buyers a commission, described as a fee, and transferring the funds to a company owned by Raja which then laundered them across at least five European countries.  Both Salameh brothers deny wrongdoing.

            The European delegation had returned to Lebanon to interrogate suspects and witnesses.  On April 25 Raja, the governor’s brother, claiming to be ill, failed to attend a scheduled hearing. It was this that apparently led Lebanese judicial officials and the European delegation to agree to amalgamate their separate investigations.

Reporting the affair, Reuters say that French court documents indicate that money from Raja’s company was used to make numerous real estate purchases across Europe and the UK.  The Salameh brothers and an assistant, Marianne Houayek, have been charged with financial crimes in two separate cases in Lebanon, but have not yet been formally charged in the investigating European countries.

This financial scandal can only strengthen the persistent public accusations of corruption at the highest levels of Lebanese public life.  With Hezbollah a major force in Lebanon’s political structure, they are scarcely surprising.  For example, there continues to be no substantive progress in the inquiry into responsibility for the August 4, 2020 Beirut port explosion.  Hezbollah and Hezbollah-allied individuals were fingered early in the investigation, but have been successful so far in blocking it.

The first investigating judge, who soon had named individuals in his sights, was removed, to be replaced by judge Tarek Bitar in February 2021.  Like his predecessor, he was immediately faced with a series of legal challenges and complaints filed by some of the officials he intended to question.  As a result, the investigation was suspended in December 2021.  On January 23, 2023 Bitar attempted to restart the inquiry, and issued charges against current and former senior officials, including the public prosecutor at the Court of Cassation, Ghassan Oueidat.

On January 25, Oueidat imposed a travel ban on Bitar and charged him with “rebelling against the judiciary, and usurping power”.  In early February, Bitar postponed the hearings he had scheduled for that month, reportedly until the dispute with Oueidat was resolved. In response to these developments, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch repeated previous calls for the Human Rights Council (HRC) to establish an impartial international fact-finding mission into the port explosion.

            Meanwhile nothing is being done to tackle Lebanon’s crumbling economy.  The International Monetary Fund has offered a $3 billion bailout package, conditional on a host of structural and financial changes. But with the country lacking both a president and a fully empowered Cabinet, no progress has been made on reforms that could help remedy the situation.  Without a political solution on the horizon, the Lebanese pound continues to depreciate ­– and with it the salaries and pensions of the country’s security personnel, public sector workers and military. On March 22, hundreds of soldiers and army pensioners mounted an unprecedented protest outside the prime minister’s headquarters.

   The political impasse seems equally insoluble. Lebanon has had no effective government since Hassan Diab resigned as prime minister in August 2020, days after Beirut’s massive blast.  It has had no head of state since President Michel Aoun’s term ended on October 31, 2022.  The country is being run by way of a caretaker administration headed by Najib Mikati, Lebanon's richest man.  He was appointed prime minister by Aoun in September 2021, as the country struggled with a collapsing economy and the failure to achieve political reform.

One reason for Lebanon’s political crisis is that Hezbollah has infiltrated deep into Lebanon’s body politic and its administrative structure.  Acting at the behest of its Iranian sponsors, Hezbollah’s influence on Lebanon has been, and remains, dire. One prime example is how it involved Lebanon in the Syrian civil war in support of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Upholding Bashar al-Assad’s regime was in Iran’s interest, never in Lebanon’s, yet its young men fought and died there.

 Hezbollah is key to frustrating any agreement on Aoun’s replacement as president.  Hezbollah and the Amal Movement party, which together constitute Lebanon’s Shia base,  support politician Sleiman Frangieh. Despite Hezbollah’s best efforts on his behalf, vehement opposition from the majority of the country’s Christian, Sunni and Druze political blocs has left Frangieh short of the 65 votes required to be elected.  Frangieh, whose grandfather served as president in the 1970s, is heir to an old Lebanese Christian political dynasty and a friend of Syria’s Assad.

Lebanon is without a proper government because it is without a president.  After the parliamentary elections in May 2022, prime minister Mikati failed to form an administration that met with President Aoun’s approval, a constitutional requirement.  When Aoun’s own franchise ran out without a resolution, the existing government went into caretaker mode.

A fair number of outside interests are trying to devise ways of extricating the country from its most pressing difficulties. Yet to succeed the impetus for change and reform must come from Lebanon itself. Somehow the power and self-interest of the old establishment has to be overcome.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 2 May 2023:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-741796

Published in Eurasia Review, 9 May 2023:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/08052023-lebanon-is-in-trouble-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 10 May 2023

https://mpc-journal.org/lebanon-is-in-trouble/

Published in Jewish Business News as "Troubled Lebanon", 4 May 2023
https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2023/05/04/troubled-lebanon/

Erdogan fights to retain power

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 27 April 2023

 

Recent events have not been playing to the advantage of Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and there seems a real chance that he and his AK party may not emerge victorious from the presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for May 14. 

Erdogan certainly hopes to be re-elected, if only to preside over the celebrations marking the 100th anniversary of the Republic of Turkey, which take place later this year.  Modern Turkey came into existence on October 29, 1923 under its first president, Mustafa Kemal. His great achievement was to replace the creaky, autocratic, religion-based rule of the Ottoman past with a secular westernized form of administration.  He was later formally endowed by parliament with the title Ataturk, Father of the Turks. 

For the past twenty years the country has been ruled by Erdogan, first as prime minister and from 2014 as president.  Erdogan, a strong adherent of the Muslim Brotherhood, has spent much of his time attempting to reverse some of Ataturk’s achievement. Exhibiting authoritarian tendencies from the start, Erdogan’s rule has degenerated into something approaching autocracy – a development accelerated after the anti-government coup of July 2016, some aspects of which remain unclear.

Having jailed thousands of political opponents, journalists and leading public figures, Erdogan has also systematically restricted impartial coverage of national and international events by the media.  According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), about 90 per cent of Turkey's national media is now under government control.  In March the government refused to renew the broadcasting licence of the German media outlet Deutsche Welle.

Even so, Erdogan’s power is still subject to certain restrictions.  Much to their credit, those operating Turkey’s electoral system have succeeded in remaining largely independent of government interference.  Operating under close supervision, the electoral process in Turkey has managed to stay relatively free and fair.

Erdogan and his party have fallen in the public’s estimation for a number of reasons.  After the violent earthquakes of February 6 left millions of Turks homeless, both president and ruling party were widely criticized for their long-term failure to reform the country’s building regulations in advance of the disaster.  They were also condemned for mishandling the search and rescue efforts afterwards, while questions have been asked about how precisely the huge sums raised by a so-called earthquake tax imposed since 2002 (approximately $4.7 billion in total), have been disposed of.

Inflation in Turkey, out of control for a long time, officially stood in March at just above 50%, which is bad enough, but financial experts are saying the true rate is over 100%.   Starting in early 2021 the Turkish lira began to fall sharply in value.  By January 2022 the currency had lost 83% of its value, and the decline continued.  Over the year to February 2023, it had lost a further 40% against the American dollar. 

It has steadied in recent months, as has the rate of inflation, but the extended cost-of-living crisis has gripped all Turkish households and squeezed earnings and savings.  This is why Erdogan launched his re-election campaign with a party pledge to slash inflation to single digits and boost economic growth.

Erdogan’s main opponent in the presidential poll is Kemal Kilicdaroglu.  Unlike previous presidential elections when Erdogan faced a disunited opposition, Kilicdaroglu is fighting as a unity candidate for six opposition parties.  He also has the unofficial backing of Turkey's pro-Kurdish HDP which, because of a court case alleging links to Kurdish militants, is running for parliament under the banner of another party, the Green Left.

 Kilicdaroglu’s Nation's Alliance, also known as the Table of Six, is united in its desire to return Turkey from the presidential system created under Erdogan to one led by parliament. To change the system, they need to win 400 of Turkey's 600 MPs or, to take a proposal to a referendum, at least 360.  As for the presidential election, any candidate that can secure more than half the vote is the outright winner. Failing that, the race goes to a run-off two weeks later. In that event whichever party had won the parliamentary vote would be best placed to gain the presidency.

Kilicdaroglu’s chances of winning the election outright in the first round may have been dented by the decision of a former center-left party colleague, Muharrem Ince, to join the presidential race.  Ince runs the secular nationalist Homeland Party and has a strong presence on social media.  Young voters in particular are said to have been impressed by his dance moves on TikTok.

Pre-election polls are notoriously unreliable.  Recent surveys published online, though lacking information about the numbers polled or the methods employed, all show Kilicdaroglu leading Erdogan.  The results of a poll published on April 14 showed Kilicdaroglu with 50.3% as against Erdogan’s 43.8%.  A poll by the organization Politpro published on April 22 gave Kilicdaroglu 47.7% and Erdogan 43%.  If these figures really indicate the nation’s voting intentions, then Kilicdaroglu stands a chance of winning the presidency in the first round. 

That leaves open the question of whether, if Erdogan were to lose, he would agree to a peaceful transfer of power.  In 2019, when his party lost the municipal election in Istanbul, he insisted on a re-run, only to be shocked when the voters not only re-elected the original winner, Ekrem Imamoglu, but by a much larger margin.  Imamoglu will not be participating in the forthcoming presidential poll. Found guilty of insulting public officials, he was sentenced last December to 31 months in jail and barred from all political activity.  Yet according to a very recent report in Le Monde he is not languishing in some prison cell, but has been criss-crossing the country for weeks receiving a rapturous reception.  The paper did not divulge how he has evaded incarceration.

Public opinion polls add to the excitement, but the only votes that count are the ones at the ballot box. There are several weeks yet before the elections and, as the saying goes, a week is a very long time in politics.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and in the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Turkish Elections: Will Erdogan hold onto power?", 27 April 2023:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-741329

Published in Eurasia Review, 29 April 2023:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/29042023-erdogan-fights-to-retain-power-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 1 May 2023:

https://mpc-journal.org/erdogan-fights-to-retain-power/

Published in Jewish Business News, 29 April 2023:

https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2023/04/29/erdogan-struggles-to-maintain-control/

The Arab world prepares to readmit Assad

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 20 April 2023

 Assad visiting UAE in March 2023 is greeted by President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan

          Nothing succeeds like success. Despite every prediction to the contrary, Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, was not swept away during the Arab Spring but, with the considerable support of Russia and Iran, has clung to power.  In an utterly ruthless, no-holds-barred civil war, which included the use of deadly chemical weapons against his own people, Assad gained, and now maintains, control over some 70% of sovereign Syria.  in the process some 7 million Syrians have fled the country, while another 7 million are displaced. Even so, the Assad regime, ostracized by the Arab world since 2011 but having survived, seems to be edging its way back into acceptance. 

November 12, 2011 was the day the Arab League, appalled by the brutality of the Assad government’s reaction to the popular protests of the Arab Spring, suspended Syria’s membership and imposed sanctions. Shortly afterwards, as civil war erupted, the US and Europe added their own stringent sanctions on the Syrian government, and on companies connected to the Assad family in particular. 

Open disunity within the Arab family was not to the liking of several nation states, and efforts to rehabilitate Assad and his regime began as far back as 2018, when the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain reopened their embassies in Damascus. In 2020 Oman took the further step of becoming the first Gulf state to reinstate its ambassador to Syria. 

More recently Jordan has been taking the initiative. Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi has said he aims to find an Arab solution to the overwhelming political, military, economic and humanitarian crisis that besets Syria, but in full coordination with the UN.   The initiative aims to launch Arab efforts to engage in dialogue with the Syrian government to resolve the crisis and address its humanitarian, security, and political problems.   “Jordan will present the initiative to Arab countries,” one source is reported to have said, “which will, in turn, set their conditions for restoring diplomatic relations with Syria.”

On March 25 Qatar, which has rejected previous calls to reinstate Syria to the Arab League, announced its support for the Jordanian initiative. In close coordination with the UAE and Egypt, Jordan hopes to achieve consensus on the initiative ahead of the Arab League summit in Riyadh on May 19.

As is not unusual in politics, it was an entirely extraneous event that gave the rehabilitation process an unexpected impetus.  The deadly earthquakes of February 6, which killed some 6,000 people in Syria, provided the opportunity for a number of Arab states to re-engage with Assad while contributing disaster relief. The diplomatic floodgates opened.  The UAE took the opportunity to normalize relations with Damascus, while in the aftermath of the quake Assad received the foreign ministers of the UAE, Jordan, and Egypt on separate occasions.  On March 19, Assad paid a state visit to Abu Dhabi, the second in two years, and met with UAE’s President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. 

On April 1, Syria’s Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad arrived in Cairo to talk with his Egyptian counterpart, Sameh Shoukry, amid reports that a summit meeting between Egypt‘s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Assad was being prepared.  Sources in Jordan confirmed that a similar meeting between King Abdullah and Assad was also being considered.

A further boost toward reconciliation followed the rapprochement in March between Saudi Arabia and Iran, Assad's main backer.  Now rumors are widespread that Saudi Arabia, which once supplied arms to the rebels seeking to oust Assad, will invite him to the Arab League summit it will be hosting in May. Lifting his suspension would seal Assad’s rehabilitation in the Arab world. 

            This would not please the US, which for a dozen years has held firm to its mantra “Assad must go.”  On the other hand, some softening of its hard line has been detected of late.

In March, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Barbara Leaf, reiterated that Washington opposes any normalization of the Syrian regime without serious progress toward UN Security Council Resolution 2254, which in 2015 laid out a roadmap for a political settlement to end the crisis.  That Resolution called for negotiations between the government and those fighting it, free and fair elections, and the drafting of a new constitution.

None of that has taken place.  According to the current constitution no president may serve more than two consecutive 7-year terms.  In 2021 Assad was sworn in for his fourth term, following a presidential election procedure in which he claims to have won some 95% of the vote.

            However, Leaf went so far as to suggest that if Arab states did engage with Assad, it should involve a quid pro quo in terms of Assad moving toward Resolution 2254.  “What we are reading from what the Americans are saying,” an Arab diplomat commented, ”is ‘we are not against the initiatives you are doing …Let the Arabs try, and let us see what the results are’.” 

            Leaf was, however, skeptical of the claim by some states that re-engaging with Assad could detach Syria from Iran, whose militias helped turn the tide of the 12-year civil war in Assad’s favor.  Yet, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Arab nations in talks with Assad are offering him a deal that would restore ties between Syria and much of the Middle East while potentially curbing the influence of Iran. They are proposing aid worth billions of dollars to help rebuild Syria after the country’s 12-year civil war, and have pledged to lobby the US and European powers to lift sanctions on Assad’s government.  In exchange, Assad would engage with the Syrian political opposition, accept Arab troops to protect returning refugees, crack down on illicit drug smuggling and ask Iran to stop expanding its footprint in the nation. 

Whether Assad can be prized away from Iran is an open question. There must certainly be considerable attraction in the prospect of being accepted again within the Arab family – Iran, of course, is not an Arab nation. The question is how close toward the conditions of UN Resolution 2254 Assad feels able to move while not forfeiting his grasp on power. 

One acid test of whether real change is afoot will be whether Assad is offered a seat at the Arab League meeting scheduled for May 19, and whether he actually attends.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 20 April 2023:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-739706

Published in Eurasia Review, 25 April 2023:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/21042023-the-arab-world-prepares-to-readmit-assad-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 25 April 2023:

https://mpc-journal.org/the-arab-world-prepares-to-readmit-assad/

Published in Jewish Business News, 22 April 2023

https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2023/04/22/the-arab-world-prepares-to-readmit-assad/

How real is the Saudi-Iranian thaw?

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 10 April 2023

          Saudi Arabia and Iran have been rivals for religious and political power ever since Iran’s Islamic revolution in 1979.  Their antagonism is a visible expression of the deep chasm that divides Islam into its two main branches, Sunni and Shia.  The extremists of each side regard the other as apostates, heretics and infidels.  Even so, arms-length diplomatic relations were maintained, with a short hiatus between 1987 and 1990 instigated by Saudi Arabia, but they were decisively severed by Iran on January 2, 2016 and remained so for seven years.

            A fact rarely mentioned is that Saudi Arabia, the very epicenter of the Sunni Muslim branch of Islam, is home to more than two million Shia Muslims.  This large minority – estimated at between 10% to 15% of the total population – lives largely in the Eastern Province in the Qatif and al-Ahsa governorates. 

Saudi’s Shia minority, who frequently complained of being treated as second-class citizens, found a champion in the early 2000s in Sheikh Nimr Bagir al-Nimr, a Shia cleric.  In 2009 he began demanding that the government respect Saudi Shia rights.  He backed this by threatening to split the oil-rich Qatif and al-Ahsa regions from Saudi Arabia and unite them with Shia-majority Bahrain.

Saudi authorities responded by arresting al-Nimr and 35 others. Two years later, in 2011, Al-Nimr took a leading role in the Arab Spring uprising in Saudi Arabia.  Saudi police again arrested him during what they described as an "exchange of gunfire."  On October 15, 2014 he faced Saudi’s Specialized Criminal Court and was sentenced to death. On news of Al-Nimr’s execution along with 46 others on January 2, 2016, Iran severed diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia. 

Recently, to the surprise of many, China stepped forward as an honest broker, and its good offices resulted in an agreement between the long-standing adversaries.  On March 10, 2023 Saudi Arabia and Iran agreed to renew diplomatic relations and refrain from interfering in each other’s domestic affairs.  April 6 saw the foreign ministers of Iran and Saudi Arabia meeting in Beijing for the first formal gathering of their top diplomats in more than seven years. 

How true, deep and lasting can this reconciliation be? 

The immediate prospects are not bright.  In Yemen, even after the agreement, the Iran-backed Houthi rebels mounted an attack in the oil-rich Marib province.  Worse, ten days after the Saudi-Iran agreement the Houthis unleashed a barrage of drone and missile attacks on Saudi Arabia, targeting a liquefied natural gas plant, water desalination plant, oil facility and power station.  Over the past few years the Houthis have fired literally hundreds of missiles into the heart of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital. 

The problem that Iran poses to the civilized world stems entirely from the Islamic revolutionary regime that the nation wished on itself back in 1979.  Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini became Supreme Leader in December 1979.  His philosophy, which he set out nearly 40 years before, required the immediate imposition of strict Sharia law domestically, and a foreign policy aimed at spreading the Shi’ite interpretation of Islam across the globe by whatever means were deemed expedient. 

“We shall export our revolution to the whole world,” he declared. “Until the cry 'There is no god but Allah' resounds over the whole world, there will be struggle.”

Pursuit of this fundamental objective has involved the state – acting either directly or through proxy militant bodies – in a succession of bombings, rocket attacks, assassinations and acts of terror directed not only against Western targets, but against non-Shia Muslims as well. “To kill the infidels,” declared Khomeini, “is one of the noblest missions Allah has reserved for mankind.” 

With Islam’s two holiest cities, Mecca and Medina, within its borders, the Saudi kingdom sees itself as the leader of the Muslim world – a claim hotly contested by Iran. In 1987, when tensions reached breaking point during the Hajj, Khomeini declared that Mecca was in the hands of “a band of heretics”.  Now, in restoring diplomatic relations with Sunni leaders whom they regard as heretics, Iran's leadership may be making a pragmatic political move.  It is scarcely likely to represent a sincere beating of swords into ploughshares.

In his extensive writings on Islamic philosophy, law and ethics, Khomeini affirmed repeatedly that the foundation stone of his ideology, the very objective of his revolution, was to impose Shia Islam on the whole world. 

“We wish to cause the corrupt roots of Zionism, Capitalism and Communism to wither throughout the world,” he declared.  “We wish, as does God almighty, to destroy the systems which are based on these three foundations, and to promote the Islamic order of the Prophet.”

One wonders if communist China has noted that it is explicitly included among the targeted enemies of Iran’s Islamic revolution, that it has been pin-pointed by the regime for destruction?  China may yet find its new ally biting the hand that feeds it.

Iran’s leaders want to destroy the world as we know it.  They want to overthrow Western-style democracy of which America is the prime exponent, to wipe out the state of Israel, to eliminate communism, to impose Shia Islam first on the Muslim world, and then on the world entire, and to achieve political dominance in the Middle East. They believe that any means are justified in the struggle to achieve their aims – God-given aims, as they perceive them.  In pursuing them they are prepared to bluff, trick and cheat, and to undertake or facilitate acts of terror regardless of the deaths or injuries inflicted. 

For 44 years world leaders have been unable, or perhaps unwilling, to recognize the quintessential purposes that motivated the leader of Iran’s Islamic revolution of 1979, or to appreciate that these same objectives have driven the regime ever since and continue to do so.  Saudi leaders no doubt believe that restoring diplomatic relations is a useful political ploy, but surely appreciate that the deal is superficial and cannot begin to touch the real problems that the Iranian regime poses to the Saudi kingdom and the rest of the world. 

The Sunni Arab world recognized some time ago who its main enemy was.  The Abraham Accords are one outcome. Saudi Arabia is widely perceived as on the brink of joining the association.  Would its new reconciliation with Iran withstand the shock?

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 10 April 2023:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-738817

Published in Eurasia Review, 15 April 2023:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/14042023-how-real-is-the-saudi-iranian-thaw-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 16 April 2023:

https://mpc-journal.org/how-real-is-the-saudi-iranian-thaw/

Smotrich and Palestinians

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 4 April 2023

          The political stance, words and actions of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich are not, I admit, to my taste. Yet, without justifying them, I find two provocative incidents in which he was recently involved worthy of comment.

On Sunday, March 19, he participated in a gala evening in Paris, organized by "Israel is Forever," a French Jewish association close to the far right.   When he rose to speak, he stood behind a lectern displaying a flag depicting a greatly expanded Israel which included the occupied West Bank, Gaza, and most of Jordan.

            That alone, without taking into account what he said, sparked immediate protests across the Arab world, and a diplomatic incident between Israel and Jordan. Smotrich's spokesperson claimed that the flag was "set decoration" arranged by the conference organizers, and that Smotrich was only a guest. All the same, next day Jordan summoned the Israeli ambassador to Amman to protest Smotrich endorsing the map. Jordan's foreign ministry warned that Smotrich's actions violated the Jordanian-Israel peace treaty. Israel's foreign ministry responded by asserting that it fully recognized Jordan's territorial integrity and stood by the treaty. Later Tzachi Hanegbi, head of Israel's National Security Council, spoke with Jordan's Foreign Minister to reaffirm Israel's commitment to the treaty.

            Two wrongs do not make a right, but it is perhaps worth pointing out that leading Palestinian organizations do precisely the same, in reverse.  Examine the flags of Fatah or bodies like the Palestine Liberation Front, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine or the Islamic Jihad movement, and they all feature maps of Mandate Palestine as a solid unit, with no sign of Israel. They portray their desired outcome to the Arab-Israel dispute, namely a Palestine “from the river to the sea”. Protests in support of the legitimacy and sovereignty of the State of Israel have been notable by their absence.

            Smotrich caused outrage, also, by his remarks denying the existence of a Palestinian people.  He maintained that the idea of Palestinian nationhood was invented in the past century in response to the Zionist movement to found modern-day Israel.

“Who was the first Palestinian king?” he asked, rhetorically.  “What language do the Palestinians have?  Was there ever a Palestinian currency? Is there a Palestinian history or culture? Nothing. There is no such thing as a Palestinian people.”

   The following day US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby objected to the comments, saying they would not help to calm tensions in the region.

“We utterly object to that kind of language,” he said.  “We don’t want to see any rhetoric, any action or rhetoric – quite frankly – that can stand in the way or become an obstacle to a viable two-state solution, and language like that does.”

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, called Smotrich’s remarks “racist,” and “an attempt to falsify history.”

The term “Palestinian”, though perfectly valid and comprehensible in contemporary terms, carries with it a whiff of political controversy.  Those sensitive to it point to the 1947 UN General Assembly Resolution 181.  In proposing the partition of Palestine into two states, it describes them as “independent Arab and Jewish States”. The term “Palestinian” does not appear. In fact this is scarcely surprising since, until Israel’s Declaration of Independence, all the inhabitants of this land were Palestinians.  In the 1930s the country’s radio station was called the Palestine Broadcasting Service (PBS), while its English-language newspaper did not change its name from “The Palestine Post” to “The Jerusalem Post” until as late as 1950.

This is why people of Smotrich’s persuasion describe the current emphasis on Palestinian identity and nationalism as a recent phenomenon. The argument has some validity. Both historically and in more recent times, the Arabs living in the area were regarded both by outsiders and by their own spokespeople as without a separate or distinct identity.  

Yasser Arafat, for example, regarded as the father of the “Palestinian people”, followed a pan-Arab line. The 1964 PLO charter defined the Arab inhabitants of Palestine as “an integral part of the Arab nation”.  In 1996 Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar said: “Islamic and traditional views reject the notion of establishing an independent Palestinian state. In the past there was no independent Palestinian state…This land is the property of all Muslims.” 

In 2002 Azmi Bishara, founder of the nationalist Balad Party, which had seats in the last Knesset but not in the current one, said: “My Palestinian identity never precedes my Arab identity…. I don’t think there is a Palestinian nation, there is [only] an Arab nation…. “

Today it is clear that the concept of Palestinian nationalism, having emerged, has flourished and become a political reality.  It has in fact overtaken the views of Arab leaders, expressed only comparatively recently, which have been submerged in the tidal wave of Palestinian nationalism.  Nowadays the Palestinian leadership downplay pan-Arab nationalism and exploit what has taken its place. 

It is precisely because Smotrich and other far-right politicians refuse to recognize political realities that, perhaps to their surprise, they engender such controversy.  Extremists in any field – political, religious, social – are so convinced of the justice of their cause that they reject the very concept of compromise, and feel justified in forcing what they believe to be the only correct course on others, regardless of what others think or feel.

Steam-rollering extremist ideologies, without regard to the effect on the beliefs or aspirations of others, is not acceptable in a 21st century democracy. Persuasion is the correct way, and if persuasion fails, then acceptance of the best compromise available.  Beliefs, however strongly held, are not ipso facto self-evident or immutable.  A little humility can go a long way.

Published in the Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Post online, 4 April 2023:

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-736296

Published in Eurasia Review, 7 April 2023 under the title: "The Provocative Mr Smotrich:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/07042023-the-provocative-mr-smotrich-oped/

Cementing UK-Israel relations

 This article appears in the Jerusalem Post of 28 March, 2023

   The UK-Israel relationship has never been closer, and the four days March 21-24 were chosen to consolidate it, culminating with a visit to London by prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a meeting with his UK opposite number, Rishi Sunak. Top of the agenda was the Iranian threat.  

Just ahead of the visit, the UK announced sanctions on seven senior officials of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – five of them responsible for managing the IRGC’s investments, and two senior commanders. Still hanging fire, however, is Britain’s committed intention to designate the whole IRCG as a terrorist organization.  As far back as January 2023 the BBC reported Whitehall sources as saying it was "broadly correct" to say the government intended to proscribe the IRGC, but that many details remained to be sorted out. Action still hangs in the balance.

Although no joint statement was issued after the two leaders’ meeting, a government spokesperson summarized what they had discussed.  Foremost was "the UK and Israel's significant concern about Iran's destabilizing activity" and the risks posed by its advanced nuclear program.

Having discussed the war in Ukraine and developments in the Middle East, the statement noted, two rather more equivocal issues were raised.  While Sunak "expressed his solidarity with Israel in the face of terrorist attacks in recent months", he noted that unspecified actions risked undermining efforts toward a two-state solution.  "He encouraged all efforts to de-escalate, particularly ahead of the upcoming religious holidays."

The elephant in the room also received some attention.  Sunak is reported to have "stressed the importance of upholding the democratic values that underpin our relationship, including in the proposed judicial reforms in Israel."

The meeting was intended to consolidate the earlier meeting between Israel’s foreign minister Eli Cohen and UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly.  Cohen visited London on March 21, and together with Cleverly signed a document titled “The 2030 Roadmap for Israel-UK Bilateral Relations.” 

What is this 2030 Roadmap?  According to the British government, it contains “detailed commitments for deepening cooperation across the breadth of the Israel-UK relationship, including on trade, cyber, science and tech, research and development, security, health, climate and gender.”  It includes around £20 million (NIS 88 million) of joint funding commitments on technology and innovation.  In short, it binds the two nations together in a tight cooperative arrangement designed to optimize benefits for both.  Cleverly called it “a testament to the strength of our close and historic relationship.”

The flourishing UK-Israel trade relationship has delivered huge benefits to both economies. Now worth around an annual £7 billion (NIS 31 billion), there are more than 400 Israeli tech firms operating in the UK.  Over the past eight years Israeli investment into the UK added around £1 billion (NIS 4.5 billion) gross value to the UK economy and has created about 16,000 jobs in Britain. 

The idea of the roadmap was born in November 2021, which 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 then foreign secretary, Liz Truss, and together they signed a new “UK-Israel Strategic Partnership” agreement.   Lapid later described it as “a major moment in the relationship between the United Kingdom and Israel.”

That agreement has since been transformed into full scale negotiations for a new UK-Israel Free Trade Agreement (FTA) aimed at creating new opportunities for tech firms and professional services in both countries. 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 FTA.

“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.”  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.” 

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 benefits to Israel are equally real.  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.  The ground-breaking UK-Israel FTA, focusing on tech and innovation, is expected to be ready for signing later this year.

One issue certainly discussed between Netanyahu and Sunak was the British prime minister’s intention to visit Israel to participate in the nation’s 75th anniversary celebrations.  Back in November 2021, he reiterated his “dedication to Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people… As a proud friend of Israel I will fight very hard for the security of people in Israel, and to continue the UK’s determined efforts to end the bias against Israel.”

Regarding the Abraham Accords, which he regards as “one of the greatest achievements in the history of diplomacy in the Middle East”, he made a positive commitment so far unmatched by any other world statesman. The UK, he said, “will continue to do all it can to leverage our strong ties with other Gulf states to expand the number of signatories to the agreement and enhance the already blossoming opportunities opened up by these ground-breaking agreements.”

          The British prime minister will be welcomed to Israel as a true friend.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and in the Jerusalem Post online under the heading:"UK-Israel ties have never been closer", on 28 March 2030:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-735598

Published in Jewish Business News, 3 April 2023:
https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2023/04/03/cementing-uk-israel-relations/

Why is Iran obstructing the prisoner deal?

  

            Iranians are past masters in the art of negotiation.  Adept in hiding their real intentions and keeping their opponents in suspense, they often win the game of who blinks first. For example talks on restoring the Iran nuclear deal began in April 2021 and were prolonged time and again by Iran, until it became obvious that it was using the talks as cover while it ramped up work on its nuclear program.  After the penny dropped, US President Joe Biden was caught on camera in November 2022 saying that the nuclear deal with Iran was “dead”.

Iran is currently in the midst of a long-drawn-out negotiation with the US.  The regime is holding three Iranian American dual nationals in jail – businessmen Siamak Namazi and Emad Shargi, and Morad Tahbaz, an environmentalist.  On February 15 US State Department spokesman Ned Price said, for the umpteenth time, that they are being detained unjustly, on trumped up charges. 

Five days later his opposite number, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani, told journalists that a deal with the US involving their release, brokered by intermediaries, had been on the verge of agreement, “but then the US showed bad faith”.  Consequently Iran had broken off the discussions. 

The so far unidentified intermediaries were said, in media reports, to be the UK and Qatar, and the deal would have seen Iran free the US detainees in its custody while the US would release $7 billion (NIS 25.3 billion) of Iranian funds frozen by South Korea under US sanctions, a proviso being that the money could be used only for buying food, medicine and other humanitarian goods.

This, reports claimed, was the stage reached in the latest round of negotiations, but that in fact Iran and the US had been bargaining covertly for some time about a deal involving the lifting of some US sanctions in return for the release of prisoners charged by Iran with espionage.  A final agreement, part of the talks to restore Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal, had actually been close, but when discussions became deadlocked some months ago, attention turned to concluding the prisoner-sanctions deal separately.

Washington rejected the Iranian accusation of bad faith.  “I will not go into the details of any diplomatic efforts under way,” said Price. “As you can imagine such discussions are sensitive and highly consequential for the US nationals who have been wrongfully detained.  Iran unjustly detains citizens of the US and other countries around the world as an inexcusable tactic to gain political leverage, so for them to claim that the United States has somehow shown ‘bad faith’ in pursuing the release of our citizens is beyond the pale.”

Iran’s charge against the US may reflect growing Iranian fears that the UK, one of the Intermediaries in the delicate exchanges between Washington and Tehran, is about to declare the Iran’s IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) a terrorist organization. This has been on the cards for some time, but so far the UK government, known as a strong supporter of renewing the Iranian nuclear deal, has held off.  Britain’s position on the nuclear talks may have changed following the recent execution by Iran of a British-Iranian dual national charged with espionage.

Perhaps as a direct result of Iran breaking off the US prisoner-sanctions negotiations, on February 22 the UK’s Daily Telegraph reported that US diplomats were pressuring the UK not to declare the IRGC a terrorist organization.  The US State Department, it was claimed, is arguing that if the UK goes ahead against the IRGC, its role as intermediary in the prisoner deal would be compromised.  This seems a classic case of “Do as I say, not as I do”, since the US has itself proscribed the IRGC as a terrorist group, a step taken in April 2019 by then-President Donald Trump.

   Meanwhile, to complete the complex jigsaw puzzle, Voice of America (VoA) recently discovered that the US has 16 Iranians in prison or on supervised pretrial release charged with federal crimes. They consist of eight Iranian-American dual nationals, four Iranian citizens with US permanent residency, and four Iranian citizens with no legal status in the US.  Then on February 10 a federal court in Brooklyn sentenced another dual Iranian-US national to 30 months in prison for smuggling export-controlled technology products to end users in Iran.

Kambiz Attar Kashani pleaded guilty to charges of violating the International Economic Powers Act between 2019 and 2021 by sending hardware and software to Iran through front companies registered in the United Arab Emirates.  In a sentencing memorandum the US Department of Justice (DoJ) claimed that Kashani began providing Iran with enterprise, security and data management software as far back as 2014.

The recipient of the smuggled technology was said to be the Central Bank of Iran, which FBI Counterintelligence assistant director Alan Kohler said is linked to Hezbollah and the IRGC, both US-designated terrorist groups. By supplying such software, said the DoJ, "Kashani and his co-conspirators enabled the Iranian banking system to operate more efficiently, effectively and securely." 

Kashani’s imprisonment can only have soured even further the atmosphere around the latest US-Iranian negotiations, but the truth, according to VoA sources, is that Iranian officials are not greatly concerned with securing the freedom of these detainees.  Their prime objective is to reacquire their desperately needed resources to help relieve Iran’s dire economic situation.  To discomfort your opponent is a good negotiating tactic.  Charging America with “bad faith” and suspending the talks for a while is no more than a ploy to conceal how anxious Iran is for the release of its frozen assets.  

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 8 March 2023:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-733637

Published in Eurasia Review, 17 March 2023:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/17032023-why-is-iran-obstructing-the-prisoner-deal-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 21 March 2023:

https://mpc-journal.org/why-is-iran-obstructing-the-prisoner-deal/

Netanyahu is warned: Don’t attack Iran

  

Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) – known less formally as the UN’s nuclear watchdog – spent March 4 and 5 in Tehran as the guest of the Iranian regime.  After discussing nuclear matters with Iranian officials, he met foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, and then Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi.  

Despite abundant proof over the years of Iran’s duplicity and disregard for any agreement it might sign up to, Grossi, ever optimistic, told journallists he hoped to use his trip to “relaunch the dialogue” on Iran’s atomic work and to “reset the relationship at the highest level.”. He believed he was “paving the way for important agreements”..  He is on the record as calling for the revival of talks focused on limiting Iran’s nuclear program.

 “I hope to be able to reset, restore, reinforce that indispensable dialogue,” he has said.

The main purpose of his visit was to publicize Iran’s explanation for a discovery by the IAEA, first reported on February 19.  IAEA officials had detected particles of uranium enriched to 84 percent purity at Iran’s Fordow nuclear plant.  Uranium enriched to that level is frighteningly close to weapons grade, and international alarm bells had been ringing.

In the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and major powers, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), international sanctions against Iran were cancelled, and in exchange Iran undertook to restrict its nuclear activities.  There was always some doubt as to whether Iran ever kept strictly to the terms of the deal, and in May 2018 the US pulled out, and a few months later then-President Donald Trump reimposed sanctions.

Iran’s response was to cast aside any pretense at observing the JCPOA deal, which restricted its uranium enrichment to 4 percent and allowed none at all at the Fordow plant, built deep within a mountain. Ever since April 2021 Iran has been enriching uranium at up to 60 percent purity, and on November 22 Reuters reported that it had started doing so at the Fordow plant.

Now, following months of negotiation, the IAEA chief traveled to Tehran to receive Iran’s explanation of the uranium particles enriched to up to 84 percent purity found at its Fordow plant.  

In its response Tehran first repeated its traditional message to the world: it had no desire to acquire nuclear weapons, and no intention of doing so.  Accordingly, it denied it had made any attempt to enrich uranium beyond 60 percent purity.  It acknowledged, however, that “unintended fluctuations… may have occurred” during the enrichment process.  It did not mention that the highly enriched uranium particles had come to light only after Iran, without informing the IAEA., had substantially modified an interconnection between two centrifuge clusters engaged in enriching uranium.

It was at this point in the proceedings that Rafael Grossi turned his attention to the war in Ukraine, and his particular area of interest – Ukraine’s nuclear plant at Zaporizhzhia, the largest in Europe.  Russian forces captured it soon after the invasion a year ago, in March 2022, but it has continued to operate with its Ukranian staff. They have said Russian troops are using it as a military base and that workers are in effect held at gunpoint.  With Russia receiving increasing military backing from Iran, the plant has repeatedly come under fire, raising fears of a nuclear disaster. Each side blames the other for the shelling. The IAEA has been trying to set up a safe zone around the facility.

The volatile situation at Zaporizhzhia was clearly on Grossi’s mind when he said that any military attack on a nuclear facility was illegal.  Expanding on that statement, however, he added that the principle applied to all nuclear facilities around the world.

“I think any attack, any military attack, on a nuclear facility is [outside the law]…This is valid and applicable to every nuclear facility in the world.”

With the JCPOA in abeyance, and no restraints being applied to Iran’s nuclear development program (which Iran’s secret nuclear documents, captured by Israel in July 2018, showed to be active and advanced), Israel has not denied launching attacks on Iranian nuclear and military sites.  If Grossi intended his words to be an oblique warning to Israel’s new government, he was very quickly made aware that his meaning was abundantly clear to its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. 

At a Cabinet meeting the next day,Netanyahu asked which law forbade a nation attacking the facilities of a declared enemy that was producing nuclear weaponry designed to be used against it.  “Is Iran, which openly calls for our destruction, permitted to defend the destructive weapons that would slaughter us? Are we permitted to defend ourselves? It is clear that we are, and it is clear that we will do so.” 

With the festival of Purim on the horizon, he drew a parallel between events in the Persia of 2500 years ago and today’s Iran.  Enemies intent on destroying Jews arose in both.  They did not succeed then, said Netanyahu, and they will not succeed now.  Rafael Grossi, he said, was “a worthy gentleman who had said something unworthy.”

Despite the patent failure of international efforts to restrain Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and in the face of abundant evidence that the Iranian regime is prepared to do deals and make agreements that it has no intention of honoring, Grossi remains ever hopeful of curbing its determination to acquire a nuclear arsenal.  His dig at Israel may have been intended to smooth the path to discussions with his Iranian hosts about a renewal of the JCPOA deal, but constraining the ayatollahs' extravagant nuclear ambitions may require considerably more robust action than that - as Netanyahu more or less said, in his first ever address to the Iranian people, on March 9. 

Published iin the Jerusalem Post, 14 March 2023, and in the Jerusalem Post on-line under the title: "IAEA warned Israel: don't attack Iran"
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-734220

Published in the Eurasia Review, 25 March 2023:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/25032023-netanyahu-is-warned-dont-attack-iran-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 1 April 2023:

https://mpc-journal.org/netanyahu-is-warned-dont-attack-iran/

Where Jordan and the Palestinians part company

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 2 March 2023

On January 24, for the first time in over four years, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu  flew to Jordan to meet King Abdullah II, in an effort, no doubt, to start his new period in office with a clean slate.  He doubtless recalled the episode in 2019, toward the end of his previous term in office, when Abdullah declared to the world that relations between his country and Israel were “at an all-time low”.  Abdullah, too, may have wished to ensure no repeat of the previous public clash.

In one sense nothing much had changed.  As ever Abdullah focused, as the official Jordanian account of the meeting puts it, “on the need to respect the historical and legal status quo at the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al-Sharif and not to harm it.”

This was a covert reference to the visit by Israel’s new national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, to the Temple Mount on January 3 -­ a visit which did not breach the status quo in any way, but which led to furious condemnation from the Arab world.

Equally familiar during their meeting was Abdullah’s reiteration, for the umpteenth time, of his support for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian dispute.  He favors establishing a sovereign Palestinian state within territory captured by Israel in the Six Day War, including east Jerusalem.

On the face of it, this demand puts Jordan arm-in-arm with the Palestinian Authority (PA), both apparently seeking precisely the same from Israel.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

Jordan believes that the active involvement of the US would be vital to any attempt to resolve the Arab-Israel conflict, and that Jordan would have a key role to play.  Abdullah met US President Joe Biden in Washington on February 3 when, according to media reports, Biden “reaffirmed his strong support for a two-state solution”, and recognized Jordan’s “critical role” in maintaining regional stability.

The PA leadership has a quite different view.  They broke off diplomatic relations with the US after then-President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in late 2017 and moved the US embassy to Jerusalem in May 2018.  That chasm remains as wide as ever.  The US now has no official diplomatic offices in the Palestinian territories, and provides no consular services to Palestinians.  Equally, the Palestinians have had no diplomatic representation in the US since the closure of the PLO mission in Washington in October 2018. Palestinian leaders maintain that they would refuse to engage in any peace effort in which the US was dominant.

Explaining the position of the PA leadership, Dr Abdullah Swalha, founder and director of the Center for Israel Studies in Amman, said: “They can count on the Europeans, Japan and other countries, as well as the halls of the UN and some international human rights platforms.”

That difference between Jordan and the PA over the role of the US is exacerbated by their different positions on the two-state solution.  For the Fatah-controlled PA public advocacy of partition remains the tactical ploy originally conceived by Yasser Arafat at Oslo in 1993 – a ploy which has proved remarkably successful in winning world support for the Palestinians. 

Not long after the conclusion of Oslo 2 in 1995, Arafat held what was intended to be a secret meeting with Arab leaders in a Stockholm hotel. 

To his embarrassment, both his tactical plans and his strategic objectives were leaked to the Norwegian daily, Dagen. Among much else, he told Arab leaders that the PLO intends: “…to eliminate the state of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian state.”  The failure of the PA over the years to sign up to any of the increasingly generous partition deals subsequently tabled has demonstrated the sham that the ploy is.  

The Hamas organization regarded the Oslo Accord of 1993 as a total betrayal of the Palestinian cause, and broke with Arafat completely. On 5 September 1993, shortly after the terms were announced, Hamas issued its Leaflet 102 condemning both the agreement and the PLO leadership: “We will therefore insist on wrecking this agreement, and continue the resistance struggle and our jihad against the occupation power… Arafat’s leadership is responsible for destroying Palestinian society and sowing the seeds of discord and division among Palestinians.”

Hamas controls the Gaza Strip, which contains some 40% of the Palestinian population. It  regards Israel as an illegal occupier of Palestinian land, and its purpose is to remove Israel through armed struggle and terror, and occupy all the land “from the river to the sea”.  It rejects the tactics of the PA leadership, and has consistently opposed Abbas’s apparent advocacy, in the UN and more widely, for a two-state solution, since one of the two states would be Israel.

Jordan, together with the majority of world opinion, fails to take account of the realities of championing a two-state solution.  Nobody acknowledges that the real long-term objective of the Palestinian leadership is to gain control of all of what was Mandate Palestine, and that any PA leader signing up to a two-state deal would be regarded as a traitor to the Palestinian cause. Which is why no Palestinian leader has done so.

However, even if the PA could be induced to do so, Hamas and the 40% of the Palestinian population occupying Gaza would never come on board.  They would never recognize Israel’s right to exist in the region.  So what sort of sovereign Palestinian state could it be, shorn of half the Palestinian population?

There is an uncomfortable truth that Jordan, the US and all genuine supporters of the two-state solution must eventually face up to.  An essential prerequisite to any two-state solution would have to be the disempowerment of the Hamas organization.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 2 March 2023:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-733116

Published in Eurasia Review, 3 March 2023:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/03032023-britain-and-the-irgc-oped/

Published in Jewish Business News, 3 March 2023:

https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2023/03/03/the-story-of-britain-and-iranian-irgc/