Israel’s war: lessons from the past

Published in the Jerusalem Report, issue dated 27 November 2023 

           Speaking in Tel Aviv towards the end of his one-day visit to the Middle East on October 18, US President Joe Biden compared Israel’s situation after Hamas’s invasion and pogrom to the US’s crisis after the attacks of 9/11. His country had “sought and got justice,” he said, but also “made mistakes.”

          A catalogue of those mistakes was laid out in uncomfortable detail by Garrett M Graf in The Atlantic journal a few years ago. Taken together, they add up to a damning indictment of US foreign policy in the years following the al-Qaeda attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. Among the errors, failures and misjudgments listed by Graf, the US-led invasion of Iraq on unverified intelligence, undertaken while the invasion of Afghanistan was still in progress, is particularly noteworthy. Many commentators believe that America’s cardinal error was to begin those operations without either a clear objective for each nation post war, or an exit plan for the invading forces.

          In short Biden, while approving Israel’s intention of destroying Hamas root and branch, was pointing to the need for a viable vision of what was to follow its success – for both Gaza and the IDF.

          Historical parallels always require special factors to be taken into account, but they do allow lessons to be learnt. Take the document issued from Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) just before the end of World War II, when victory was assured but before it was achieved. It laid out one of the major war aims of the United Nations ­– the de-Nazification of Germany. The objective? To destroy the Nazi Party, its political organizations and government agencies; to purge and re-organize the police; and to dismiss from government offices and other position of influence all active Nazis, their sympathizers and leading military figures. Very shortly after the end of the war, the program was set in train.

          Why was it done? Because Nazism, with its wild-eyed philosophy of Aryan racial superiority, its virulent antisemitism, its brutal disregard for human rights, was seen as a virus that had infected the German state and its population, and had to be eliminated.

          The programme was fraught with enormous difficulties. It was only made possible because the Allies had won total victory.

          The same applies to Gaza. Hamas is an extremist political and military organization that shares much of the Nazi philosophy. It is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose leaders in the 1930s and 1940s were actively involved in carrying through the Nazis’ ”Final Solution to the Jewish problem”. They supported and were actively involved in implementing the Holocaust.

          The Hamas charter expands on its theme of the God-approved duty of every Muslim to kill Jews for, as article 28 asserts: “The Zionist invasion of the world…[aims] at …annihilating Islam. Israel, Judaism and Jews challenge Islam and the Muslim people.”Like the perverted Nazi philosophy, this perversion of Islam needs to be countered. The essential pre-requisite for mounting a de-Hamasification program in the Gaza strip is a decisive victory by Israel. Also vitally necessary is a well-conceived, comprehensive and fully worked-out plan, ready to be put into action as soon as the moment is ripe. The object would be to dislodge the leaders and adherents of Hamas, with their malevolent anti-Jew, anti-Judaism and anti-Israel ideology, from their positions of power within Gaza. Only with Hamas out of the picture could any form of reactivated peace process become possible.

          Israeli leaders have already said that Israel has no interest in the post-war administration of Gaza. Palestinian or wider Arab input will be necessary to recruit the army of non-Hamas administrators and executives required for its reconstruction and governance. Nevertheless Israel could be party to devising a viable political strategy.

          Out-of-the-box thinking is called for. A possible answer could lie in a renewed peace process, aimed this time at establishing a new regional configuration. One possibility out of many is the idea of expanding the Abraham Accord normalization structure to encompass a Palestinian entity.

          Another is to consider establishing a new legal entity – a confederation embodying Jordan, Israel and a demilitarized Palestinian state including the Gaza Strip. A confederation is a system like the European Union, in which nation states, while retaining full sovereignty, agree to collaborate in certain spheres such as security, defence, economic development or infrastructure.

          Coming into legal existence simultaneously with the new Palestine, a confederation structure could bring Jordan, Israel and Palestine into a mini-EU dedicated to providing hi-tech security and economic growth for all its citizens. It might also conceive a pragmatic status for Jerusalem satisfactory to all parties. The Israel Defense Forces would act in collaboration with the forces of the other parties to guarantee the security of Israel and that of the confederation as a whole.

          Rid of the Hamas-inspired rejectionist agenda, a three-state confederation covering the whole of what was originally Mandate Palestine might open a hitherto unexplored path leading away from unending Israel-Palestinian discord.

Published by the Jerusalem Post online as: "Can Israel's war on Hamas be helped by lessons from the past?", 25 November, 2023:

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-773675 

Who's behind Britain's anti-Israel rallies?

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 16 November 2023

          November 11 is known in Britain as Armistice Day. A two-minute silence is observed nationally to commemorate the end of the First World War in 1918 – at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. This year it fell on a Saturday. Ever since Saturday, October 28, when a reported 100,000 pro-Palestinian supporters marched through central London, waving anti-Israel banners, chanting anti-Israel and antisemitic slogans, and calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, mass rallies – although on a smaller scale – have taken place every Saturday in London and in cities across Britain.

           Leading up to Armistice Day this year, influential voices throughout the UK, including the prime minister himself, Rishi Sunak, urged the head of the Metropolitan Police to prevent the pro-Palestinian march from taking place, but the police chief confined himself to requesting the organizers to postpone it. They refused, and he maintained that the police do not have sufficient powers under the law to ban an event that does not pose the threat of extreme violence.

In a final gesture of exasperation the then-home secretary, Suella Braverman, penned an article in The Times, deploring the failure of the Metropolitan Police chief to act, and asserting that the force has demonstrated bias in their handling of political rallies. She claimed they favored left-wing groups, citing the pro-Palestinian rallies which she called “hate marches”.

“Terrorists have been valorized,” wrote Braverman. “Israel has been demonized as Nazis, and Jews have been threatened with further massacres.”

A political storm burst around her. There was an instant demand from the Labour Party and its supporters, joined by some in her own Conservative party, for the prime minister to sack her. On November 13 Sunak announced a reshuffle of his Cabinet, and Braverman lost her job. 

On Armistice Day, the pro-Palestinian rally went ahead with some 300,000 people taking to the London streets. The marchers took more than four hours to proceed along a route starting in central London and ending at the US embassy on the south bank of the River Thames.

The antisemitic rhetoric had been toned down, if not entirely eliminated, but anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian slogans abounded, many advocating a ceasefire in the Gaza war. There are media reports that the police spotted a few pro-Hamas banner holders, and are trying to identify them. It is illegal to support the terrorist group. But the march proceeded peacefully, and few arrests were made.

A counter-protest, however, by far-right groups, did turn violent. Police battled with aggressive protesters and made more than 90 arrests.

The police and Britain’s counter-terrorism services are well aware that such protest demonstrations are a highly complex operation, requiring detailed organization ranging from assembling vast numbers of supporters and controlling the routes of marches, to the location of rallies, devising slogans to be chanted, and providing banners and placards telling the same story.

On November 7, an exclusive report in The Daily Telegraph revealed that a former Hamas chief, Muhammed Kathem Sawalha, said to have been active in Hamas as recently as 2019, is behind one of the six groups organizing the pro-Palestine protests. 

Sawalha, 62, came to Britain in the late 1990s and founded the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB). He was granted British citizenship in the early 2000s. The Daily Telegraph further discovered that, in addition to the MAB, at least two more of the groups that organized the November 11 march have links to Hamas.

On October 27, an exclusive report in The Times revealed that hostile state activity in the UK has been directly linked to the Iranian regime, including the spread of disinformation online and lodging Iranian agents in the crowds attending marches. Following that report, the police announced that Iranian agents are hijacking Britain’s pro-Palestinian rallies.
None of this should have come as a surprise. On October 19, Robin Simcox, head of the independent Counter-Extremism Commission, gave a long and thoughtful address to the highly prestigious Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).

Simcox began by endorsing Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s description of the Hamas onslaught of October 7 as a pogrom. “Hamas reveled in this bloodshed,” he said. “It was sadism.“

          He went on to say that, in the UK, support for Palestinian rights too often translates into rhetoric supportive of Hamas. “Too many in positions of prominence have praised them or their leadership; or sought to rationalize or excuse their acts of terror… The Hamas support network in the UK is entrenched.”

Simcox continued: “What is underappreciated is the scale of Iranian-backed activity in this country; and the extent to which Iran attempts to stoke extremism here.”
In March 2023, the UK government revealed that since 2022, there have been 15 credible threats by the Iranian regime to kill or kidnap British or UK-based individuals.

The Director General of MI5, Britain’s domestic counter-intelligence and security agency, has said that “Iran projects a threat to the UK directly, through its aggressive intelligence services.”

Now that the UK government has proscribed Hamas as a terrorist organization, Simcox strongly advocates that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) should be similarly proscribed because of its role in plotting violence. Despite the urging of some government ministers, Britain’s Foreign Office has opposed a ban because it claims it would cause permanent damage to diplomatic relations with Iran.

“The IRGC has operated like a terrorist organization ever since its inception, over four decades ago,” said Simcox. “And yet it is legal, at present, for the IRGC to be, for example, hosted in UK institutions.” He believes that the IRGC is operating Iran’s destabilizing policies in the UK but also worldwide.

In February 2023, acting on police advice, the independent Iran International TV closed its operation in Britain because of threats to its staff from operatives acting for the Iranian regime.

“I cannot believe it has come to this,” said Mahmood Enayat, the station’s general manager. “A foreign state has caused such a significant threat to the British public on British soil that we have to move.”

The channel will continue its output from its Washington DC site. “We refuse to be silenced by these cowardly threats,” said Enayat. “ We will continue to broadcast. We are undeterred.”

         Valiant words, and an intrepid attitude – but the truth is that, on police advice, a media outlet operating legally on British soil has succumbed to Iranian threats. That is scarcely a satisfactory position. Some in the police have called for legal clarification and enhanced powers to deal with terrorism and incitement to violence on Britain’s streets. That would seem a step in the right direction. Unmasking, charging, and expelling foreign agents masterminding illegal antisemitic activity would be another.

Published in the Jerusalem Post 16 November 2023:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-773427

Published in Eurasia Review, 17 November 2023:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/17112023-whos-behind-britains-anti-israel-rallies-oped/  

Published in the MPC Journal, 20 November 2023:

https://mpc-journal.org/whos-behind-britains-anti-israel-rallies/

Lebanon - why no second front?

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 7 November 2023

 A much-trumpeted speech on November 3 by Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was, in the event, rather less than overwhelming. 

For starters there was no sign of Nasrallah himself.  Thousands of Hezbollah fighters and supporters packed a square in the southern suburbs of Beirut to greet their leader, but their leader  wasn’t prepared to greet them.  Instead they faced a monster TV screen.  They viewed, and cheered, a videoed speech recorded in some secret location –  perhaps a bomb-proof bunker.  According to one media commentator Nasrallah himself has not been seen in public for a decade.  This address to supporters was his first since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, and expectations were high in some parts of the media that he was about to announce the opening of a second front against Israel.

However he made clear in his opening remarks that Hamas’s October 7 invasion of Israel, the subsequent massacre of 1400 civilians and the abduction of over 240 hostages – an operation which, predictably, he praised –  was a purely Palestinian enterprise.  And, he implied later in his remarks, Palestinian he wanted the subsequent conflict to remain.  He made it clear that Iran and Hezbollah had had no part in its planning or execution, and neither found it expedient in present circumstances to support Hamas by opening full-scale hostilities against Israel.  Although he made no reference to Washington’s clear warning that such a move would bring dire consequences, there is little doubt that the message had been received and understood.

So hostilities would be confined to the recent artillery and rocket exchanges across the Lebanese-Israeli border and the Iranian drone strikes against US stations in Syria and Iraq.  A second front, open warfare with Israel, was demoted to a final resort, triggered by vague, unspecified circumstances.  The speech no doubt came as a disappointment to Hamas leaders who have been pushing, covertly and openly. for active Hezbollah support.

The Lebanese people are in the midst of a familiar emotional dilemma – on the one hand sympathy with Hezbollah’s support of the Palestinian cause; on the other, intense suspicion of Hezbollah and its baggage-train of Iranian requirements in the regime’s self-interest.  For example, public opinion questioned from the start why thousands of Lebanese youth were sent off to fight in Syria under Hezbollah and Iran’s IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps), in support of the ambitions of the Iranian regime to dominate the region.  The Lebanese public, which has little love for Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad, failed to see how its own interests were being served by fighting to sustain him in power.

Hezbollah has entrenched itself deeply into Lebanese society.  It has a dominating position in the financial, economic and political fields, and itself operates a range of social support services.  It has truly become a state within a state, sustained by its own armed militia which is independent of the official Lebanese armed forces (under the presidency of Michel Aoun, a Hezbollah supporter, they did cooperate).  Indeed Hezbollah has acquired so much military power and political influence that it is very nearly ruling Lebanon on its own, especially since the country has lacked a president and an effective government for more than al year.  Moreover it serves Hezbollah’s and Iran’s interest for the stalemate to continue, and every attempt to beak the political deadlock has been thwarted by Hezbollah and its allies.

Just a few months ago the respected Washington Institute published a devastatingly frank assessment by its counterterrorism and intelligence academic expert, Matthew Levitt, concerning the deep-rooted troubles that are paralyzing Lebanon.

“Let’s be clear,” he writes, “corruption is at the heart of Lebanon’s economic and political crises. This economic and political rot is deeply entrenched and is protected by powerful political bosses across the spectrum… yet no Lebanese party presents a greater security threat to Lebanon domestically, and to its neighbors in the region, than Hezbollah – in part because Hezbollah is the de facto militant enforcer of the corrupt political system from which it and other sectarian political parties benefit.”

Levitt explained in a recent media interview that while Hezbollah can prevent government decisions that are against its interests, “it’s not held accountable for what the government does or does not do, and it’s independently able to make decisions of war and peace, life and death, for the entirely of Lebanon – without consulting either the people or the government.”  In short, it has power without responsibility, operating its own mini-administration across the nation with a great degree of impunity. 

Hezbollah is therefore little concerned with the worst economic crisis to grip the country for decades. The value of the country's currency has dropped by over 90 percent since 2019, with essential goods and services increasingly difficult to access. In addition, hours-long power outages are routine in Beirut and other cities.  Lebanon’s declining economic, political, and security conditions are rarely referred to by Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, nor does he mention the resultant demonstrations and labor strikes that are plaguing the country.  In fact demonstrations in reaction to deteriorating socio-economic conditions and perceived government mismanagement have been a regular occurrence in Lebanon since 2019.

Major economic and political reforms will be required to help reverse the crisis, unlock international financial assistance, and address protesters' demands. However, Lebanon is locked in a political stalemate which makes reform, or indeed remedial action of any significant sort, impossible. 

          Nasrallah, clearly with Iran’s concurrence, has wisely decided to hold back on any full-scale conflict with Israel, since he would need support from a people mired in economic, social and political unrest and struggling with a cost of living crisis.  The last thing they need is to be  dragged into a war on top of their other woes.  if Nasrallah tried to involve them, he might find himself facing a popular revolt.

Published in the Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Post online, 7 November 2023:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-772005

Published in Eurasia Review, 9 November 2023:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/09112023-lebanon-why-no-second-front-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 14 November 2023:

https://mpc-journal.org/lebanon-why-no-second-front/

Israel maintains its gas flow

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 31 October 2023

            From October 17-19 the Energy Intelligence Forum held a three-day conference in the heart of London.  The agenda –“to debate and shape sustainable solutions to the energy challenges of the 21st century” –added to the 5-star hotel location, attracted nearly 100 energy leaders from around the world.

   The forum was addressed on its first day by Russell Hardy, CEO (chief executive officer) of Vitol, the world's top independent energy trader.  He told the forum that despite its war with Hamas, Israel is managing to maintain a steady supply of gas both domestically and to its international customers. 

Israel’s Tamar gas field, with estimated reserves of around 315 bcm (billion cubic meters), usually meets around 70% of Israel's energy needs for power generation.  Two days after the Hamas attack on Israel, however, Chevron – a major partner in the consortium operating Tamar – was instructed by Israel’s energy ministry to shut down production.  Reports indicate that the consortium was given to understand that this would be a temporary measure, and production would be resumed when the security situation stabilized.  Tamar is located some 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) off the city of Ashdod along Israel's southern Mediterranean coast. The platform, which can been seen from the northern Gaza Strip on a clear day, is within range of rocket fire from Gaza.

Meanwhile, the energy ministry announced, “the economy’s energy needs will be supplied by alternative fuels…The electricity industry is preparing to use alternative fuels to power its stations.”  Hardy informed the forum of the situation.   Israel is managing "to backfill from some of the other fields,” he said, “so my understanding is gas is still transferring to their customers and their international customers as well, largely in an intact way.”  During his address, perhaps with something of a wink and a nudge, he remarked: “I think they probably have a little bit of spare capacity in the system.”

Three major Israel fields are currently in production – Tamar, Leviathan and Karish,  Between them they  have total estimated reserves of a trillion cubic meters.  Leviathan, Israel's largest offshore gas field, continues to operate normally.  Four more fields have already been discovered, and are awaiting exploitation – Zeus, Athena, Hermes and Kallan – which taken together amount to an estimated further 108 bcm of natural gas.  

Egypt imports Israeli gas from both the Tamar and Leviathan gas fields, located in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Israel, to help meet its domestic demand and for LNG exports from its two liquefaction plants.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) took a ess optimistic view than Israel’s energy ministry.  Its gas analyst, Gergely Molnar, speaking in a webinar on October 10, said that Tamar was a "very important" field when it came to Israel and the region's gas supply-demand balance.

"Closing the field temporarily,” he said, “can have impacts both on gas deliveries to the domestic market in Israel, but also on the country's export capability…When we are looking at the upstream sector in Egypt, we have already seen that it is struggling to keep up pace with rapidly rising domestic consumption as well as liquid natural gas ( LNG) exports. If we take out Israeli pipe gas imports from that equation, it will harm the ability of Egypt to export LNG over the coming months."

Reported data showed Egypt exporting only one LNG cargo in August and none in September due to high summer domestic gas demand.  Egyptian LNG exports so far this year have reached just less than half the total for the whole of 2022.

In June 2022, the European Commission, Israel and Egypt signed a trilateral memorandum of understanding on the supply of Israeli gas via Egypt's LNG export infrastructure to the EU.

Because Egypt’s own gas production had been declining for some time, Egypt negotiated a deal with Israel which was ratified on August 23.   Israel announced an increase in its natural gas sales to Egypt. 

Explaining the new Egypt-Israel agreement, Israel’s Energy Minister, Israel Katz, said that gas exports to Egypt, currently about 5 bcm per annum, will be increased by 3.5 bcm per annum over 11 years reaching a total annual sale of 43.5 bcm.  This additional supply from Israel will enable Egypt to continue to meet its contracted exports as well as its domestic needs

"This step will increase the state's revenue and strengthen diplomatic ties between Israel and Egypt," said Katz.

In a separate statement, the energy ministry said that prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government has authorized Katz to order a state of emergency for Israel's energy sector if deemed necessary.  Such a move, it said, would allow the government to allocate natural gas to consumers should supply shortages emerge.

Israel is expected to roughly double its gas output over the coming years, but Yogev Gardos, Israel's budget director, in a letter to the director-general of the Energy Ministry, said that exporting too much "could endanger Israel's energy security" and lead to higher electricity prices. Katz responded to the letter in a robust X or Twitter post: "Decisions on the gas sector take into account broad policy considerations, such as Israel's standing, and the one who will make the decisions is me - the minister elected by the people. Not the professional echelon."

He could afford to respond straight from the shoulder, for he already knew that Israel’s fourth offshore bidding round, launched in December 2022, had been an outstanding success.  Four groups of companies, amounting to nine companies in all, have bid to explore for additional offshore natural gas fields in Israeli waters.  With the forthcoming exploration in the pipeline, Israel’s future, both as regards satisfying its own gas needs and as a remunerative gas exporting nation, seems assured.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and in the Jerusalem Post online titled:  "How can Israel  maintaion its gas flow during the war?", 31 October 2023:

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-770897 

Hamas conceals its casualties and disguises its fighters

This letter appears in the Sunday Telegraph, 29 October 2023 

Sir

May I make two points to amplify your Editorial Comment (“The UN should not be condemning Israel”, 26 October). First, in a war enemy combatants are legitimate targets of attack, but the Hamas-provided numbers of those killed and wounded make no distinction between Hamas fighters and civilians, leaving the impression that all the casualties are civilians.

Second, Hamas fighters wear no uniform, so once Israel’s ground invasion takes place the rules of war that require attacking forces to distinguish between the enemy and innocent civilians will be stretched to breaking point. The rules surely assume that uniformed soldiers would be fighting a uniformed enemy.

Yours
Neville Teller

Beit Shemesh

Israel

Hamas and the BBC

Published in the new issue of the Jerusalem Report, dated 6 November 2023

On 12 October two British Israelis whose families are being held hostage in Gaza attended a media conference in London, an event carried by the major TV networks.  Noam Sagi and Sharon Lifschitz both have parents who were taken hostage during the Hamas attack on 7 October.

Sagi, a London-based psychotherapist who grew up in Israel, said that his mother, Ada Sagi, was taken hostage from Nir Oz kibbutz.  He said that as he spoke, “I should have been on the way to Heathrow to pick up my mum, who was coming to celebrate her 75th birthday here today in London."

Speaking direct to camera, he called on the BBC to call Hamas “for what it is”.

He was referring to the storm of controversy that began sweeping across the UK from the  moment the BBC started reporting on the Hamas atrocity on Saturday 7 October. 

The next day Britain’s Sunday Telegraph published an article by a former director of BBC Television deploring the fact that the BBC was deliberately avoiding describing those who had perpetrated the shocking slaughter as terrorists.

“Across its platforms,” he wrote, “the BBC describes the actions of ‘militants’, as if shooting children in cold blood is some part of conventional military warfare. It is nothing of the sort. It is murder, pure and simple. It is terrorism.”

Jewish groups took up the call. “The murder and massacre of innocent civilians,” declared  the Simon Wiesenthal Center, “is terrorism, straight and simple”, and the UK’s national broadcaster should describe it as such.

The BBC’s Editorial Guidelines for its journalists and news staff have a specific section on Israel and Palestine:  “care is required in the use of language that carries value judgments,” they state.  The guidelines forbid the use of the word “terrorist” in the BBC’s own reports, but permit its use when it can be attributed to an individual or organization. They advise using terms “such as ‘bomber’, ‘attacker’, ‘gunman’, ‘kidnapper’, ‘insurgent’, and ‘militant’.

            By 11 October other powerful voices had been raised in condemnation of the BBC’s policy, starting at the top.  Britain’s prime minister, Rishi Sunak, deplored the use of the word 'militants' - meaning fighting forces. “Hamas are not militants,” he said, “they are not freedom fighters. They are terrorists."

Britain's chief rabbi, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, said in a broadcast interview "I noticed that the BBC has a reluctance to use the term 'terrorist’.  If one doesn’t use the term 'terrorist', it is as if one is providing a window of opportunity for justification, and nothing can justify this."

Others have also spoken out against the BBC's coverage. Marie van der Zyl, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, has said that she complained to the BBC’s Director General, Tim Davie, about  its coverage, but the BBC refused to change its Editorial Guidelines.  Instead, the broadcaster put up one of its most senior and respected journalists, John Simpson, to explain its position.

Writing on the BBC’s webpage on 12 October, he said: “Terrorism is a loaded word which people use about an outfit they disapprove of morally. It's simply not the BBC's job to tell people who to support and who to condemn…We regularly point out that the British and other governments have condemned Hamas as a terrorist organization, but …the key point is that we don't say it in our voice…We don't take sides…That's why people in Britain and right round the world, in huge numbers, watch, read and listen to what we say, every single day.”

A few days later eminent journalist and historian, Simon Heffer, responded. 

“I  simply cannot agree with the defence he has made of the Corporation’s decision not to call Hamas “terrorists”…Parliament designated Hamas in its entirety as “a proscribed terrorist organization” in November 2021… That legitimizes calling Hamas “terrorists”…

“Simpson says that “it’s simply not the BBC’s job to tell people who to support and who to condemn.”  Describing a group using a legally defined-term that our legislators have decided to apply to it does not instruct people whom to support and whom to condemn: it simply recognizes a legal fact that is obvious to most of the BBC’s audience…”

On 12 October the Daily Telegraph devoted its leader to the subject.  “How do we describe people who, armed to the teeth, infiltrate peaceful gatherings and commit wanton slaughter of men, women and children?...Most people would have little difficulty calling this terrorism and yet the BBC refuses to do so. The Hamas gunmen who committed these atrocities are described as militants, or activists or insurgents…. There should be no moral ambiguity here. It is time for the BBC and others to call Hamas what it is: a terrorist organization.”

On 20 October the BBC appeared to yield just a fraction, but in fact it moved scarcely at all.  In future, it announced, its journalists will describe Hamas as a group “proscribed as a terror organization by the UK Government and others”.  In other words, the BBC still forbids its journalists from calling them terrorists outright.  The BBC will also refrain from invariably  describing them as “militants” though it reserves the right to do so on occasion.  A more mealy-mouthed retraction it would be difficult to imagine.  So the controversy continues.

Solidarity from the Arab-Israeli community

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 24 October 2023:

          On the afternoon of Saturday, October 7, as the full scale and brutality of Hamas’s incursion into Israel was becoming clear, Mansour Abbas, Knesset member and leader of the Islamic party Ra’am wrote to his 300,000 followers on social media. “I call on Arab citizens and all Arab and Jewish citizens to maintain restraint and behave responsibly and patiently, and to maintain law and order." Referring to the “unfortunate, tragic and reprehensible events” still in progress, he also called on the leadership of the Palestinian factions in Gaza to "release the captives in your hands. Islamic values command us not to imprison women, children and the elderly."

          A little later, when Hamas leaders began calling on Israel's Arab citizens to join the fight, Arab Knesset member Ayman Odeh responded angrily. In a media interview, he said: "Any call for militant actions and igniting a war between Arabs and Jews inside Israel is something we will not accept."

       It quickly became clear that the two Arab Israeli politicians were speaking for the vast majority of their community, not least because Arabs were also killed, abducted and injured in the Hamas raid on southern Israel and as a result of its continuous rocket barrages. A former member of the Knesset, Walid al-Hawashla, the head of relief work in the Negev area, told of 18 Bedouin killed in the region, "six because of rockets that hit their houses, and 12 who were working in agriculture in the area around Gaza on the first day of the Hamas attack."

          The news website Barron reported Alaa Abu Jamaa saying that on the morning of October 7, just as Hamas launched its assault against Israel, he was driving home to Ararat an-Naqab with breakfast for his children. As he left the car at his front door, he was hit by the blast of a rocket exploding near him, and was sent flying.

          A five-year-old boy named Yazan "was standing at the door of his house near another car,” said Jamas. “When the rocket exploded…Yazan was killed. He was blown to pieces." He said the rocket left a crater "more than three meters deep."

          The news report adds that Yazan's father Zakaria, a driver, recalled with tears that he "was in Eilat on Saturday morning when I learned of my son's death. I came back in the midst of the exchange of bombing between Hamas and Israel and saw my son in the hospital."

          The stories appearing in the press of acts of mutual aid, and simple kindness and friendship between ordinary Jews and Arabs in the face of Hamas’s assault on the nation, run completely counter to the initial reaction of Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir. Responsible for Israel’s police force, he ordered them to prepare for riots, warning that Arab-Israeli violence in cities like Lod, as occurred in 2021, was likely.

          During a visit to a police station in Sderot, Ben Gvir said he had instructed Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai to be prepared for severe inter-communal riots in mixed Jewish-Arab cities. In 2021 an IDF operation against Hamas in Gaza, code-named ‘Guardian of the Walls’, was in progress.

          “I have instructed the police commissioner to be prepared for a ‘Guardian of the Walls 2’ scenario,” he said, “… to be prepared for the infiltration of towns.”
 
          A spokesman for Ben Gvir confirmed he was referencing the possibility of Arab citizens of Israel rioting in mixed Jewish-Arab cities.

          His remarks were condemned across the political spectrum, with police sources accusing him of fearmongering. Senior government officials criticized his comments as irresponsible. Social Equality minister, Amichai Chikli, wrote: “Thus far, the Arab population has shown much solidarity and responsibility, and this is especially true for the Bedouin population in the Negev.” One police source is quoted in the Hebrew language daily Maariv as saying that Hamas has been trying to incite Arab Israelis to instigate violence, and that Ben Gvir’s words could inflame tensions.

          The Arab Israeli politicians’ remarks advocating solidarity with the rest of Israel clearly resonated with their voters. The respected news website Al Monitor reported a resident of the Galilee Jewish community of Atzmon, two of whose residents were killed in the Hamas assault, praising the support of her neighbours from the Arab town of Sakhnin.

          "Many stores ran out of water,” she said, “but we found a grocery store in Sakhnin that gave us water and refused to accept payment.” The grocer told her that since hearing about the horrors perpetrated by Hamas, he had been thinking of ways to help.

          Such sentiments were reciprocated. Awad Darawsheh, a resident of the village of Iksal, was killed while working as a paramedic at the music festival on the Gaza border. A convoy of motorcycles and ambulances operated by a Jewish company accompanied the body and brought it for burial in his home town.

          Rula Daoud, co-director of the Standing Together movement, reacted angrily to Ben-Gvir’s suggestions that the Arab community might rise up in solidarity with Hamas.

          "In our Arab society, ” he said, we are ".... building an entire [emergency and relief] system in mixed Jewish-Arab cities in order to strengthen the community in every way and prevent violence.”

          Social activist Hosam Mawasi, who volunteers with emergency aid organisations, told Al-Monitor he was not surprised by the Arab public's reaction.

          "Quite a few Arabs work with Jews on a daily basis,” he said, “and there is a full understanding that the two populations in Israel have more in common than what separates them. And therefore there are those who think about the day after the war."

          A last word from Mohammad Magadli, one of Israel’s most prominent Arab journalists. Unlike in 2021, he told the New York Times, “the Arab and Jewish societies are more aware of each other’s pain, and can understand how destructive the consequences can be if they don’t consider each other’s feelings…There is greater responsibility between the two societies.”

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and in the Jerusalem Post online as: "The Arab-Israeli community stands in solidarity against Hamas", 24 October 2023

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-769843

Published in Eurasia Review, 27 October 2023:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/27102023-solidarity-from-the-arab-israeli-community-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 30 October 2023:

https://mpc-journal.org/solidarity-from-arab-israeli-community/

Sisi seeks renewed mandate

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 18 October 2023 

             If all goes according to plan, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi will be re-confirmed in office before the end of the year, and will – heaven willing – be in power until 2030 at least.  Whether he will then retire gracefully from the political scene, only time will tell.  When he was last re-elected, in 2018, Egypt’s constitution specified that the president could serve no more than two terms, each of four years.  But constitutions can be amended.  By 2019 any president of Egypt could serve three terms, and the presidential term of office was extended to six years.

   On September 30 the Egyptian public could not avoid the launch of a three-day government-backed national conference titled “The Story of a Homeland”, broadcast in its entirety by the Extra News TV channel, which is reputed to have close links to Egyptian security agencies.  The event was staged at the Al-Massa Hotel in the prestigious New Administrative Capital, under the patronage and in the presence of the president, with the country’s leading politicians and a large number of representatives of Egyptian society in attendance.

It was toward the end of the event, during which a range of projects implemented over the past 9 years had been heavily promoted, that Sisi announced that he would be standing as a candidate in the forthcoming presidential election.  His term of office would not end officially until March 2024, but he had decided to bring the vote forward by six months. 

In the hours leading up to Sisi's announcement, correspondents reported patriotic music blaring from speakers across the capital, where convoys of buses shrink-wrapped with campaign slogans blocked major streets.  The sails of boats on the Nile were emblazoned with Sisi's photo and with slogans including "yes to stability".

The National Elections Authority has stipulated that the presidential election will be held over three days – December 10-12 ­– with the result being announced on December 18.   In the unlikely event of no candidate receiving more than 50% of the vote (in 2018 Sisi was reported to have secured 97%), a runoff would be held over January 8-10.

The qualification criteria for aspiring presidential candidates are formidable. Anyone wishing to stand must secure the backing of either 20 members of parliament or at least 25,000 members of the public drawn from 15 different governorates.  All nominations had to be registered by October 14. 

Opposition politician Ahmed al-Tantawi, acknowledged to be Sisi’s most formidable opponent, said early on that he will run, and accused security agencies of arresting some of his supporters. 

Other candidates announcing their bids include Farid Zahran, head of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party; Abdel-Sanad Yamama, head of the Wafd Party; and Gameela Ismail, head of the liberal Constitution (Dostour) Party.

Opposition parties said that individuals seeking to support anti-Sisi candidates have been obstructed from doing so. During a press conference on October 4, individuals provided details  of how they had been blocked in various ways.

          Rania el-Sheik said she had been trying to register to support Tantawi when a scuffle broke out at the notary’s office provoked, she said, by “thugs”. “In every place, public employees have pre-determined reasons [for obstructing the process]” she declared. “The system is down, the internet isn’t working, the power is cut, your ID card isn’t showing for us.”

          Tantawi’s campaign team has complained that people trying to register support for him have been blocked, and that more than 80 of his supporters have been arrested. Tantawi himself has repeatedly accused the regime of harassing and detaining his supporters, preventing them from filing nominations and tapping his phone. His campaign has been posting videos of him accompanying supporters to registry offices.

          "In the end, they won‘t be able to say 'sorry, you don't have enough nominations'," he told supporters.

          Magdy Hamdan, a Conservative Party official, said he was also blocked from submitting his endorsement at one notary’s office. When he tried to enter a second, a group of men brought in some rubbish collectors and beggars and began spraying them – and him – with water.

          Egypt’s National Election Authority has said it has investigated complaints and that such allegations are baseless. The final list of qualified candidates will be released on November 9.

          Egypt is in the midst of an economic crisis. Record inflation and a shortage of foreign currency has caused the Egyptian pound to lose more than 50% of its value against the dollar in the last 18 months. Foreign debt has soared to a record high of $165.4 billion this year, which experts say has been largely used to fund a range of megaprojects including the new $58-billionNew Administrative Capital. In consequence the country's external debt bill has tripled in the past ten years, and about half the 2023/24 budget is allocated to debt servicing.

          Prior to the crisis, roughly 30% of the population was already living below the poverty line, with an additional 30% considered vulnerable to poverty. More recently Egypt has been hit hard from the fallout from the war in Ukraine. Egypt is the world’s largest wheat importer, and has traditionally purchased most of its grain from eastern Europe.

          These are not circumstances in which any democratic government would choose to go to the country. Given the choice, most would strive to put a package of reform measures in place in the hope of improving matters. One reason why Sisi might have decided on an early election (thus depriving himself of six months in power) is that he adjudged that by March 2024 the situation is likely to have become worse rather than better, with a consequential loss of public support. On the other hand economic relief might be forthcoming from a deal with the US. Word has it that the US might waive a chunk of debt repayment in exchange for Egypt agreeing to allow a certain number of Gazan refugees into Egypt by way of the Rafah crossing.

          Given his grip on power, Sisi will certainly win his third term in office, but he knows that a long, hard, uphill struggle lies ahead.

Published in the Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Post on-line, 18 October 2023:

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-768988

Published in Eurasia Review, 20 October 2023:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/20102023-egypts-sisi-seeks-renewed-mandate-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 23 October 2023:

https://mpc-journal.org/egypts-sisi-seeks-renewed-mandate/

Yemen needs help

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 9 October 2023

          Even in the midst of a war forced upon it, Israel cannot forget that not so far way people are actually starving to death through the malign actions of the self-same enemy that bolsters Hamas - Iran. That Yemen could soon become an outpost of the Iranian empire is within the bounds of possibility. If the Houthi organization, in hoc to Iran for its military and financial support, consolidates its already considerable grip on the country, Iran’s so-called Shia Crescent will have been extended right down to the south of the Arabian peninsula. Such an outcome would represent a major political triumph for the Iranian regime, and a boost to its ambition to dominate the region.

          October 2, 2023 marked a year to the day since the Houthis, controlling a large part of Yemen including the capital, Sana’a, refused to renew a UN-sponsored truce. Painstakingly put together by UN Special Envoy Hans Grundberg, the armistice between Yemen’s internationally recognized government (IRG) and the Houthis came into effect in April 2022. Extended twice, it resulted in the longest period of stability in Yemen since the start of its civil war.

          So on October 2 that negative anniversary was marked by no less than 48 organizations, struggling inside Yemen to cope with what the UN has called “the largest humanitarian crisis in the world”, publishing a long, heartfelt plea for action from those involved, and the world, to help relieve the situation and resolve the conflict.

          Their document describes Yemen’s economy as “on the verge of collapse”. It says growing inflation, combined with the collapse of public services, especially in IRG-controlled areas, is making life “unbearable”. Since Yemen’s refineries are not operating, say the civil society bodies, “power stations are shutting down due to a lack of fuel… power outages in Aden are reaching 17 hours per day, amid soaring temperatures.”

          The UN believes the nine-year civil conflict has left 80 percent of the population – some 24 million people, including almost 13 million children – in urgent need of aid and protection. More than 14 million people in Yemen are in acute need. Starvation is widespread. UNICEF (the UN’s Children’s Fund) reports that as 2022 ended, around 2 million children under the age of 5 were experiencing starvation-induced wasting, severely in more than 500,000 cases.

          Meanwhile the Houthis and the other major player on the scene, Aidarus al-Zoubadi, head of Yemen’s breakaway Southern Transitional Council (STC), continue their ruthless pursuit of power. The Houthis are intent on defeating the IRG and gaining control of the whole of Yemen, Zubaidi and the STC are determined to establish an independent state in the south of the country.

          Zoubadi has a highly equivocal role in Yemeni politics. He is vice president of the country and therefore a member of the IRG based in Aden, but he is also the leader of the STC which advocates seceding from the IRG. Vice president though he is, Zoubadi is on record as believing that real power in Yemen now rests with the Houthis, and on September 22 he announced that he intends to negotiate with them over the creation of a separate nation state of South Yemen comprised of eight governorates in the south of the country, including Aden.

          Zoubadi’s comments came shortly after a marathon five-day round of talks between Houthi and Saudi officials in Riyadh. Houthi negotiators, together with Omani mediators, returned to Yemen on September 19. Word from the discussions was that they were negotiating a potential end to the conflict in Yemen, and that some progress was made, including a timeline for foreign troops to leave the country and a mechanism for paying public wages.

          Some sources link the progress to suggestions that the US has pressured Saudi Arabia to end the war, perhaps linking its request to the complex US-Saudi-Israel normalization negotiations currently in progress.

          An agreement would allow the UN to restart a broader political peace process involving other parties to the Yemeni conflict, including the Yemeni government and the STC.  

          Aware that the head of the IRG, Rashid al-Alami, was due to address the 78th session of the UN General Assembly in New York and that he was far from supportive of the STC, Zoubadi decided to visit New York himself. His aim: to meet as many world leaders as possible and press the case for an independent state in south Yemen. While there, he told an Associated Press reporter that the Riyadh talks between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia were still at an early stage, and that his STC was planning to participate later.

          “We are asking for the return of the southern state,” he said, “with complete sovereignty, and this will happen through beginning negotiations with the Houthis… This is the goal of our strategy...”

          On his return to Yemen, Zoubadi issued a release to the media under the auspices of the STC. Designating himself “President of the STC”, the release begins: “President Zoubadi stated: My inaugural visit to the UN General Assembly has been a deeply impactful and meaningful experience. I have had enlightening and informative dialogue with leaders from around the world. My message was the same to every person that I met: the only viable solution to the conflict is an inclusive and comprehensive political process under the UN's auspices. This process must include a mechanism for the Southern people to determine their own destiny, as is their right under international law."

          While these power games are being played out, the condition of the people of Yemen continues to deteriorate. In their appeal to the world, the 48 humanitarian bodies struggling to cope paint a heart-breaking picture of what existence has degenerated to for large numbers of the population throughout Yemen. To quote from just one section:

          “Across the country, women and children are disproportionately impacted. Women often eat least and last, giving priority to children and other family members…Girls are at increased risk of early marriage to reduce the number of family members to feed, and as a source of income. Increasingly people in Yemen are being forced to…[beg] for food and money, while children are at increased risk of child labor and begging…”

          In fact the situation is intolerable. Negotiations aimed at ending the civil conflict need to be conducted with a great deal more urgency, while Yemen undoubtedly merits an internationally backed humanitarian rescue effort.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 9 October 2023:

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-765279

Published in Eurasia Review, 15 October 2023:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/15102023-yemen-needs-help-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 16 October 2023:

https://mpc-journal.org/yemen-needs-help/

What Netanyahu did not say

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 2 October 2023  

            On September 22 Benjamin Netanyahu stepped onto the podium at the UN General Assembly in New York, and addressed a plenum that was half-empty – understandably so, since it was 9.15 am.  Word has it that the PM considered this slot preferable to the time originally scheduled for his address – the evening of the previous day, which would have been late at night in Western Europe and the middle of the night in Israel and the Middle East generally.  As it was, the prime minister’s speech appeared on Israeli TV screens at 4.15 pm  on a Friday afternoon, far from an ideal viewing time.  Yet there may well have been method in the apparent madness, for we later learned that his address had been screened live across Saudi Arabia – well after Friday prayers on a rest day, guaranteeing mass viewings.

            Saudi Arabia featured strongly in Netanyahu’s speech as he dealt at length with the mounting expectation of a normalization deal with Israel.  He was, in fact, echoing the optimistic comments made only two days earlier by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) in a rare interview with Fox News. He told his interviewer that the prospects of normalized relations with Israel were getting closer by the day. 

Not surprisingly, however, MBS reiterated the qualification that has always accompanied the Saudi position on normalization.  Calling the potential accord "the biggest historical deal since the end of the Cold War," he said it would all depend on agreements aimed at “giving the Palestinians their needs”.

This is one of several issues notably absent from Netanyahu’s address.  He included a list of the steps the Palestinians would need to take in order to achieve a genuine peace (such as stopping the spread of Jew-hatred, and reconciling themselves to the right of the Jewish people to have a state of their own in their historic homeland).  What he failed to do was to open the world’s eyes to the realities behind the universally-supported nostrum of a two-state solution. 

He did not mention the word Hamas once.  Yet up to half the Palestinian population lives in the Gaza Strip under the pernicious governance of the Hamas organization.  How could the two-state solution – the concept of a sovereign Palestine living alongside a sovereign Israel – be a practical possibility when Hamas, and those Palestinians outside Gaza who subscribe to its philosophy, regard the whole area “from the river to the sea” (that is, from the Jordan to the Mediterranean) as Arab territory to which Israel has no right?  The prime purpose of Hamas, its very raison d’être, is to eradicate Israel altogether and ensure that no Jews remain in the area. 

            The 2002 Arab Peace Plan, to which Saudi Arabia still subscribes, was conceived before Hamas was of any major significance, and well before it had seized control of Gaza and virtually kidnapped a great mass of the Palestinian people.  Netanyahu did not ask the world why so little thought has been given to the practical hurdles in the path of achieving its much advocated two-state solution.  Since Hamas would never be a signatory to such a deal, Gaza would be excluded from the arrangement. What sort of sovereign Palestine could it be, shorn of half the Palestinian population?  In short, Netanyahu could have provided world opinion with some home truths, among them that the prerequisite to achieving a genuine two-state solution is the disempowerment of Hamas.  

            Another word that did not pass Netanyahu’s lips was “apartheid” - the charge used to tar Israel by bodies like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International and a whole host of anti-Israel groups and individuals. He could have provided the world with a brief lesson on the total lack of ethnic, racial or religious discrimination of any kind within the sovereign state of Israel – and demonstrated with facts and figures the increasingly successful integration of Israel’s Arab population into the social, political and judicial structure of the state. 

            Netanyahu might also have called for some understanding of the complex administrative nightmare bequeathed to Israel by the Oslo Accords of the 1990s, that failed attempt to resolve the Israel-Palestine issue.  Although most of the 3 million Palestinians living in the West Bank are governed, either wholly or largely, by the Palestinian Authority in Areas A and B set up in the Oslo Accords, the situation for the 300,000 living in Area C under military law is far from satisfactory.  It is nothing approaching apartheid, but the whole situation does require resolution, and could be resolved within the terms of the normalization package currently being negotiated with Saudi Arabia. 

   Another matter to which Netanyahu made no reference at all is the one Israeli issue that has been dominating the world’s headlines for the past months – the matter of judicial review, and the fears aroused, both within Israel and beyond, that restricting the power of the Supreme Court to hold the whole governmental structure to account could lay the road open to a possible dictatorship.

Most people now realize that the clash of public opinion in Israel has arisen largely because, over time, the distinction between the legislative and the judicial roles within the system of governance has become increasingly blurred.  The judiciary has over time been forced, in addition to its main functions, to assume the role that belongs to the second chamber in a bi-cameral legislature – to scrutinize proposed new law and suggest improvements.

Both the US and the UK have bi-cameral legislative systems, but even so powerful voices have been declaring for some time that the judiciary has been exceeding its proper function by venturing too far into the political arena.  Last year the USA Politico journal remarked: “The Supreme Court has usurped the power of the elected branches to interpret the Constitution...It has accomplished this power grab through unfounded assertions of judicial supremacy.“  Or, as Britain’s prestigious Prospect magazine put it a while ago: “The judiciary has made a slow march to the heart of politics.“  

   So there seems to be room for modest reform of Israel’s system by devising a better balance between the democratic mandate handed to members of the Knesset by the electorate, and the powers of the judiciary to defend groups and individuals against gross infringements of their democratic rights.  Netanyahu might well have seized the opportunity of his address on the world stage to defuse this matter among the others.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and in the Jerusalem Post online under the title: "Netanyahu's speech at the UN General Assembly - what he didn't say", 2 October 2023:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-761230 

Published in Eurasia Review, 6 October 2023:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/06102023-what-netanyahu-did-not-say-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 10 October 2023:

https://mpc-journal.org/what-netanyahuh-did-not-say/