Hamas in Lebanon

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 26 February 2024

Hamas seems intent on building up a fighting force inside Lebanon. 

Early last December news emerged of a large-scale recruitment drive by Hamas in and around the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.  Dubbed “The Al-Aqsa Flood”  – in line with the name given to the October 7 massacre – the recruitment program was aimed at young men aged between 17 and 20.  There are 12 UNRWA refugee camps in Lebanon, housing some half-million Palestinian refugees as defined by UNRWA – namely a hugely inflated number of patrilineal descendants of the Palestinians originally displaced during the 1948 Arab-Israel conflict. 

   Evidence of Hamas activity within Lebanon came to light on November 21, when an Israeli drone struck a four-man Hamas squad in the Lebanese village of Chaatiyeh.  All four were killed in the strike, including Khalil Kharaz, Hamas’s deputy commander in Lebanon.

Opinion is divided as to whether this new Hamas initiative is in opposition to Iranian/Hezbollah interests – an attempt to seize the initiative and ramp up the anti-Israel conflict –  or in support of them.  A third possibility is that Hamas, in anticipation of military annihilation in Gaza, is preparing to use Lebanon as a new base for continuing its fight against Israel. 

That is the fear among mainstream Lebanese leaders and political parties.  Many denounced Hamas when it put out its recruitment call on December 4, accusing it of violating their country’s national sovereignty.  Wasn’t it enough that Hezbollah had established a political and military grip on the weakened and impoverished nation, without Hamas elbowing its way in?  After all, Lebanon, on its knees economically speaking, was already supporting two military machines – its own national army and the even stronger Hezbollah militia. A third loose cannon, as it were, is the last thing Lebanon needs.

Opposition was particularly strong from Lebanon’s Christian community, among whom the painful memory of Lebanon’s 15-year-long bloody civil war persists.  One of the key causes of that conflict was that Palestinian terrorists linked to Yasser Arafat’s Fatah organization had been operating with virtually complete freedom in southern Lebanon, launching attack after attack on northern Israel. This gave rise to the region’s nickname of “Fatahland”.  Lebanese Christians now fear the creation of what they are calling “Hamasland.” 

If Hamas succeeds in its recruitment drive, the question may well arise as to whether it will operate as an independent militia.  Any attempt at effective collaboration with Hezbollah would bring into play an inescapable difficulty that militates against harmonious terrorist relations.  Hezbollah is a Shia Muslim organization while Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, is inescapably Sunni.  Separated by the full length of Israel – with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon – the intrinsic Islamic clash of traditions could be ignored.  That is scarcely possible were the two forces to attempt operating side by side, each regarding the other as infidels, apostates and heretics.

For example, all was far from sweetness and light when fierce intra-Palestinian fighting broke out last August and September in Lebanon’s Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp, near Sidon.  The clashes, which lasted for three months, were triggered by the attempted assassination of Fatah leader, Mahmoud Khalil.  Sixty-eight people were killed in the conflict, which was finally brought to an end through the intervention of the speaker of Lebanon’s parliament, Nabih Berri. He spoke with both Fatah and Hamas leaders, and arranged a truce.  Quoting this incident, Lebanese officials have been pressuring Hezbollah not to let Hamas gain military ascendancy inside the refugee camps.

Both Hamas and Fatah have a foothold within Lebanon, and Hamas’s latest recruitment drive is certainly partly aimed at achieving dominance over its Fatah rival.  It has two other constituencies to win round – the dominant Hezbollah organization, and the large Sunni sector of Lebanese society.  While Hamas does not have Fatah’s long-term connection with Lebanon, since October 7 it has, according to Mohanad Hage Ali of  the Carnegie Middle East Center, “gained popularity specifically among Sunnis in Lebanon.”

The leading Hamas personality is Abu Obeida, the so-called “masked  spokesman” for Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades.  He invariably appears in public with his whole face and head enrobed in a red keffiyeh and only his eyes visible.  His real name is unknown.  He came to prominence in 2006, when he announced the capture of the Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, later exchanged for 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.

In late October, exploiting its new-found popularity, Hamas organized a large protest in downtown Beirut. Thousands of people were bussed in from around the country to take part as green Hamas flags filled Martyr’s Square. While much of the crowd was Palestinian, many Lebanese were also present.

Emboldened,, Hamas has since launched military operations from Lebanon – like the 16 rockets fired by the Qassam Brigades targeting the northern Israeli city of Nahariya and the southern outskirts of Haifa.  Israel said that it had identified about 30 launches from Lebanon.

 “The IDF is responding with artillery fire toward the origin of the launches,” the IDF posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Many in Lebanon were convinced that the Hamas recruitment drive would not have been possible without the positive approval, and possible collaboration, of Hezbollah.  How deep that collaboration runs is the subject of speculation.  Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, will be aware that Hamas is trying to use its moment in the spotlight, allied to the unhappy conditions in the refugee camps, to expand its influence in Lebanon.  He may also believe, with some analysts, that with its recruitment drive Hamas is initiating a longer-term aim –  forming a new young cadre of supporters, deeply imbued with Hamas’s beliefs and objectives, to carry on its anti-Israel crusade from Lebanese territory.  Nasrallah, acting in accordance with Iran’s own longer-term strategy, will view any such intention with suspicion.

        It is perhaps this disparity in influence that Hamas is intent on redressing, as it strengthens its position inside Lebanon and seeks to make it a second military front from which to continue its struggle against Israel’s very existence.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem Post online titled:"Hamas in Lebanon is fighting to eliminate Israel", 26 February 2024:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-788814

Netanyahu’s total victory

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 19 February 2024  

            The term “total victory” has been on prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s lips a great deal recently. It has about it the ring of the phrase adopted by Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill at Casablanca in the middle of World War Two – “unconditional surrender” – implying that the Allies would be content with nothing less than the complete and utter defeat of the Nazi enemy.  There would be no armistice, no haggling over the terms of a cessation of hostilities.  Unconditional surrender became the ultimate war aim of the Allies.

Total victory could be described as Netanyahu’s ultimate war aim.  It implies both the complete elimination of Hamas as a fighting force and the liberation of all the hostages held by them.  The military defeat of Hamas would mean also the end of its control of the Gaza Strip.  How Gaza is to be administered and its reconstruction put in hand are urgent problems that will require attention and cooperative international action as soon as the Hamas military machine is no more.

            Netanyahu used the term “total victory” several times on February 8 in response to the most recent hostage-for-ceasefire offer by Hamas.  Back in November negotiations conducted with the help of intermediaries produced a pause in the fighting in Gaza and the freeing of 105 hostages held by Hamas, matched by the release of 240 Palestinians imprisoned in Israel. Ever since there has been a constant to-and-fro of further negotiations in an attempt to reach a another deal acceptable to both Hamas and Israel.

Hamas’s aim has been to secure Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza and the release of all Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.  Israel is seeking the liberation of all the hostages held by Hamas in return for as short a pause in the fighting as possible, to prevent Hamas regrouping and reversing Israel’s gains in the Strip.

Talks in Paris involving intelligence chiefs from Israel, the US and Egypt, together with the prime minister of Qatar, resulted on January 30 in new proposals for a ceasefire and release of hostages.  Hamas said it was studying them.

A senior Hamas official then told Reuters news agency that the proposal involved a three-stage truce, during which the group would first release remaining civilians among hostages it captured on October 7, then soldiers, and finally the bodies of hostages that were killed.  Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh left his luxurious home in Doha to fly to Cairo to discuss them.

While the people of Gaza have undergone untold misery following Hamas’s horrendous actions on October 7, the leaders of Hamas have been enjoying sumptuous lifestyles in Qatar. 

          Between them Ismail Haniyeh, Moussa Abu Marzuk and Khaled Mashal are estimated by the New York Post to be worth a staggering $11 billion, accumulated heaven knows how.

          The discussions in Cairo resulted in a counter-offer from Hamas, made public on February 7. Using the same three-stage formula but spread over 135 days, Hamas proposed in the first 45 days a temporary halt to military operations and the repositioning of Israeli forces outside populated areas. On its part Hamas would release Israeli civilian women and children together with elderly and sick hostages in return for the release of Palestinian women, children, elderly and sick from Israeli jails.

The second 45 days would see Israeli forces withdraw outside the Gaza Strip and Hamas release all Israeli male civilian and military hostages in exchange for other Palestinian prisoners. 

In the third 45 days the exchange of bodies and remains from both sides would see the virtual end to the conflict.  Israel would have withdrawn from Gaza, and all the hostages would have been released.

Netanyahu’s reaction?  Total rejection.  Dubbing the proposals “delusional”, he renewed his pledge to destroy Hamas.  To a media conference he said that total victory in Gaza was within reach and that there was no alternative for Israel but to bring about the collapse of Hamas.  He insisted that total victory against Hamas was the only solution to the Gaza war. "Continued military pressure,” he said, “is a necessary condition for the release of the hostages." Is he right?  Or is he, as a tranche of Israeli opinion holds in a somewhat ungenerous interpretation of his motives, mainly interested in the personal and political advantages he derives from spinning out the war scenario for as long as possible?

US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, was less clear-cut in his reaction.  At a late-night press conference in a Tel Aviv hotel, he suggested forging a truce agreement was not a lost cause.

"There are clearly nonstarters in what (Hamas has) put forward," he said, without specifying what the nonstarters were.  "But we also see space in what came back to pursue negotiations, to see if we can get to an agreement. That's what we intend to do."

One obvious non-starter is that at the end of the Hamas-proposed process, Hamas would be left in control of a Gaza Strip from which the IDF had withdrawn completely, and would be totally free to rebuild its military infrastructure and resume its relentless campaign aimed at destroying Israel and killing Jews.  Another, from Washington’s point of view, is that Hamas is fundamentally and inflexibly opposed to the two-state solution, that article of faith so cherished by the UN, US, EU, UK and much of world opinion.

And here is the great dilemma, for a negotiated ceasefire does have an appeal to those concerned above all for the fate of Israel’s hostages still in Hamas’s hands, and it commends itself also to the great swath of world opinion concerned above all for the protection of the Gazan civilian population. 

It is a prospect, however, unlikely to commend itself to Netanyahu, who perceives the long-term implications for Israel – a reversal to the failed policies of the past, with Hamas, Israel’s implacable enemy, reinstalled in power a hand’s breadth away from Israeli citizens, and the whole nation in range of ever more sophisticated missiles and rockets.  Netanyahu attempts to square the circle by arguing that the best hope of liberating the hostages lies not in deals that allow Hamas to regain its control of Gaza, but in maintaining Israel’s military pressure until the complete defeat of Hamas – in other words, total victory. 

Published in the Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Post online titled: "What does 'total victory' look like for Netanyahu in the war with Hamas?", 19 February 2024:

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-787638

UNRWA chief should resign

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 13 February 2024

          One-time US President Harry S Truman kept a slogan on his desk: “The buck stops here”. The idea was to remind himself daily that, as the nation’s leader, he intended to take ultimate responsibility for what happened under his watch. There would be no “passing the buck”, no denying responsibility or laying the blame elsewhere..

          This is the principle at one time observed pretty universally by any chief executive. Heads of organizations took it for granted that they were responsible for its actions. Standards may have slipped somewhat in recent years, but it is still generally accepted that when organisations act reprehensibly, their leader is ultimately responsible for its failures, and relinquishes his or her post.

          The furore that has erupted around the United Nations Relief and Works Agency is not the first time that UNRWA has been charged with scandalous conduct, but it is undoubtedly the worst. The organisation is tarred with offences so heinous that they almost beggar description. Yet we have heard not a peep from its commissioner-general, Philippe Lazzarini, suggesting that he is shouldering any kind of responsibility, let alone considering his position.

          Based upon what must be pretty convincing intelligence provided by Israel, at least 14 countries have stopped funding UNRWA for the time being. Details of Israel’s intelligence dossier were disseminated in the media on January 30. They provide information indicating that, incredibly, 12 people employed by UNRWA participated personally in the massacre of 1200 people and the capture of some 240 hostages that took place in Israel on October 7.

          The dossier lists the names and jobs of all 12 allegedly involved in Hamas’s attack, and the specific allegations against them. It details how six of the UNRWA staff inside Israel on the day of the attack were tracked through their phones. Others were wiretapped and, during a series of calls, were heard discussing their involvement in the attack.

          It describes ten of the 12 as members of Hamas, and another as affiliated to Islamic Jihad. It names a school counselor from Khan Younis as allegedly conspiring with his son to abduct a woman from Israel, and identifies an Arabic teacher employed by UNRWA as a Hamas militant commander who allegedly took part in the murderous attack on Kibbutz Be’eri. A social worker in the Nuseirat refugee camp is accused of helping Hamas bring the body of a dead Israeli soldier into Gaza, and of coordinating vehicles for the terror group during the October 7 attack and handing out ammunition to its gunmen. The New York Times, which also had access to the intelligence dossier, reported that three of those monitored by Israeli intelligence received text messages on October 7 ordering them to report to muster points, while another UNRWA employee was ordered to bring rocket-propelled grenades stored inside his home.

          But the scandal runs much deeper. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the dossier says that about 10 percent of UNRWA’s 13,000 staff in Gaza have ties to Islamist groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

On January 28 the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres said he was horrified by the allegations and that nine of the 12 employees identified as being involved with Hamas had been sacked. One was dead, he added, and the identities of the other two were being clarified.  While the UN investigates, so far at least 14 countries, among them the US, the UK, Germany, Australia, Italy, Canada, Finland, the Netherlands and Japan have not responded to pleas from Lazzarini and Guterres to resume their payments to UNRWA.

A senior Israeli government official told the Wall Street Journal: “UNRWA’s problem is not just ‘a few bad apples’ involved in the October 7 massacre. The institution as a whole is a haven for Hamas’s radical ideology.”

Around the time the State of Israel came into being, something over half the non-Jewish population of what was called “Palestine” at the time, some 750,000 people, left their homes – some on advice, some from fear of the forthcoming conflict, some during the fierce exchanges.

After the armistice the UN set up a body to assist them – UNRWA.  It  began its work in May 1950, seven months ahead of the establishment by the UN of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).  Ever since, Palestinian refugees have been treated differently from all the other refugees in the world.  One reason is that from the start UNRWA totally ignored a key aspect of its remit.

The 1949 UN General Assembly resolution that established UNRWA called for the alleviation of distress among Palestine refugees and stated, crucially, that: “constructive measures should be undertaken at an early date with a view to the termination of international assistance for relief.”  In other words, the new agency’s mission was intended to be temporary as the refugees under its wing were resettled.

         By 2024 the “temporary” UNRWA had been transformed into a bloated international bureaucracy with a staff in excess of 30,000 and an annual budget of around $2.2 billion.  As for the number of Palestinians registered by UNRWA as refugees, that had mushroomed from around 750,000 to 5.9 million as a result of its decision to bestow refugee status in perpetuity upon “descendants of Palestine refugees”– children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.  The growth in UNWRA’s client base was therefore exponential year on year, justifying an ever-expanding staff and an ever-increasing budget.  No resettlement policy was instituted, and the temporary refugee camps became permanent. 

While the main UN agency dealing with refugees – UNHCR – concentrates on resettling them, facilitating their voluntary repatriation or their local integration and resettlement, UNRWA maintains an ever-expanding client base of millions in their refugee status decade after decade.  

“We have been warning for years,” said Israel Katz, Israel’s Foreign Minister: “UNRWA perpetuates the refugee issue, obstructs peace, and serves as a civilian arm of Hamas in Gaza.”

That final charge is substantiated by a recent in-depth investigation into UNRWA’s educational program.  According to the report by IMPACT-se, issued in November 2023, educational textbooks used by UNRWA continue to glorify terrorism, encourage martyrdom, demonize Israelis, and incite antisemitism, despite promises to remove such content.

The report identified 133 UNRWA educators and staff found to promote hate and violence on social media, and an additional 82 UNRWA teachers and other staff involved in drafting, supervising, approving, printing, and distributing hateful content to students.

When the organization you are leading is found to have been infiltrated by a terrorist organization, to have become its instrument of propaganda, to have actually been used as a base for a most horrific massacre of innocent civilians, then the honorable course is to take responsibility for the failures.  UNRWA’s commissioner-general, Philippe Lazzarini, should resign.

Published in the Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Post online as "UNRWA chief should resign. He let Hamas infiltrate his organization." 13 February 2024:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-786528

The Palestinians don't want a two-state solution

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 7 February 2024

  

          On January 29, out of the blue, Britain’s foreign minister Lord Cameron declared that because Palestinians needed to see “irreversible progress to a two-state solution”, Britain and its allies would consider recognizing a Palestinian state.

          Speaking at a reception for Arab ambassadors, he said there needed to be an immediate pause in the conflict in Gaza; the release of all the hostages held by Hamas; and “most important of all is to give the Palestinian people a political horizon”.

            On the next day, the Jerusalem Post carried a story headlined: "US might recognize Palestinian state after war."  It reported that US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken had ordered the State Department to start examining the possibility of US and international recognition of a State of Palestine the day after the Gaza war ended.  One strand of opinion in the State Department, it said, apparently favors recognition of a Palestinian state as the first, rather than the last, step in a renewed peace process aimed at guaranteeing Israel’s security in a two-state solution.

            Hooked on the nostrum of a two-state solution, much of the world, including a swath of Arab opinion, subscribes to the view that it has been Israeli intransigence that has frustrated this deeply desired outcome by the Palestinians. For example Husam Zomlot, Palestinian ambassador to the UK, told the media on the following day that Cameron’s remarks about recognizing a Palestinian state were “historic”.  Pursuing the Palestinian Authority strategy of supporting the two-state ideal, inherited from its first leader, Yasser Arafat, he said:

“It is the first time a UK foreign secretary considers recognizing the State of Palestine, bilaterally and in the UN, as a contribution to a peaceful solution rather than an outcome,” he said. “If implemented, the Cameron declaration would remove Israel’s veto power over Palestinian statehood [and] would boost efforts towards a two-state outcome.” 

The plain facts tell a quite different story.  Every one of the numerous Israel-Palestinian peace negotiations over the years – each of which, as an obvious sine qua non, incorporated  recognition of Israel – has fallen at the last hurdle.  Embracing a two-state solution implies a voluntary end to the delegitimizing of Israel.  It means abandoning the key elements in the charters of the two main political Palestinian movements, Fatah and Hamas, both of which state unequivocally that the whole of what was once Mandate Palestine is Arab land, and it is the God-given duty of Palestinians to fight for its recovery.

A two-state solution means that one of the two states is Israel.  Many, perhaps most, of those who support the “Palestinian cause” believe that Palestinians are fighting for their own state alongside Israel;  many others understand clearly that “From the river to the sea” means what it says – the removal of the state of Israel.  To be blunt, while the two-state solution appeals to world opinion, it is not what majority Palestinian opinion favors.  The latest authoritative poll, undertaken in December, revealed that no less than 64% of Palestinians are opposed to a two-state solution.

Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reviled by two-state supporters as having consistently rejected Palestinian statehood.  He may oppose it at present, given current circumstances, but this was not always the case. 

Barack Obama came to the US presidency in 2009 determined to change the dynamic in US-Muslim relations for the better.  He chose Cairo as the location for a speech to be known as “A New Beginning”.  Having pledged America’s support for Israel, Obama continued: “The Palestinian people—Muslim and Christians—have suffered in pursuit of a homeland.. For more than sixty years they have endured the pain of dislocation.  So let there be no doubt, “ he continued, “the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. And America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own.”

Like Obama, Netanyahu had only recently won an election, and it was too early for a head-to-head clash. Instead Netanyahu decided to show Obama that on certain issues, with certain conditions, he was willing to bend for the greater good, although never when it came to Israel’s survival.  Ten days after Obama’s speech, Netanyahu gave an address at Bar Ilan University.

Speaking to the Palestinian people direct, he said: “the simple truth is that the root of the conflict was, and remains, the refusal to recognize the right of the Jewish people to a state of their own, in their historic homeland.

“But we must also tell the truth in its entirety,” he continued.  “Within this homeland lives a large Palestinian community. We do not want to rule over them, we do not want to govern their lives, we do not want to impose either our flag or our culture on them.  In my vision of peace, in this small land of ours, two peoples live freely, side-by-side, in amity and mutual respect.  Each will have its own flag, its own national anthem, its own government. Neither will threaten the security or survival of the other.” 

Then he added:  “I told President Obama when I was in Washington that if we could agree on the substance, then the terminology would not pose a problem. And here is the substance that I now state clearly:  If we receive this guarantee regarding demilitarization and Israel's security needs, and if the Palestinians recognize Israel as the State of the Jewish people, then we will be ready in a future peace agreement to reach a solution where a demilitarized Palestinian state exists alongside the Jewish state.“

These honeyed words fell on deaf ears.  Hamas, rooted in rejectionism, had already seized the Gaza Strip.  Their total raison d’être was and remains to eliminate Israel.  Fatah and the Palestinian Authority continued to pursue the strategy set by Yasser Arafat, which was to court world opinion by appearing to support a two-state solution while retaining the ultimate objective of ousting Israel from the Middle East.

          Nothing has changed except that since the massacre of October 7, Hamas has gained unprecedented support within the Arab world in general, and among the Palestinian populace in particular.  That means Palestinian statehood means something quite different to majority Arab opinion than it does to the ardent two-staters. In short, the two-state solution is anathema to most Arabs – a fact of life which Anthony Blinken, Lord Cameron, and all who espouse it wilfully refuse to recognize.

Published in the Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Post on line under the headline: "The two-state solution is anathema to most Arabs", 7 February 2024:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-785525

Published in Eurasia Review, 9 February 2024:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/09022024-the-palestinians-dont-want-a-two-state-solution-oped/#:~:text=To%20be%20blunt%2C%20while%20the,to%20a%20two%2Dstate%20solution.

Published in the MPC Journal, 12 February 2024:

https://mpc-journal.org/the-palestinians-dont-want-a-two-state-solution/

One way to square the two-state circle

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 30 January 2024:

            Christmas and the New Year celebrations had come and gone, and still the phone lines between US President Joe Biden and Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, remained ominously  silent.  Very nearly a full month without contact had elapsed when, on January 19, Biden picked up the White House phone and asked to speak with the Israeli prime minister.

            The call was occasioned by remarks made by Netanyahu the day before, in which he stated, perhaps more clearly than ever before, his rooted opposition to the US’s vision of the post-war future for Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied territories.  Ever since the Israel-Hamas war started Washington had made it clear that it wished to see a post-war Gaza returned to the governance of a reformed and strengthened Palestinian Authority, as a first step toward establishing a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian dispute. This vision was subsequently reiterated time and again by US officials from Secretary of State Anthony Blinken down.

            After speaking with the president, Netanyahu gave a televised news conference and said that he had made it clear that Israel "must have security control over all the territory west of the Jordan…This is a necessary condition, and it conflicts with the idea of [Palestinian] sovereignty."

            For his part Biden, in discussing the conversation later that day at a conference of US mayors in Washington, demonstrated how easy it is for two people to carry away entirely different understandings of a conversation between them.  Biden told reporters he believed that Netanyahu would support Palestinian statehood, particularly if that state was a demilitarized one.  “I think we will be able to work something out,” he told reporters.

In its formal report of the discussion, the White House said, “The president also discussed his vision for a more durable peace and security for Israel fully integrated within the region, and a two-state solution with Israel’s security guaranteed.”

Netanyahu was swift to disabuse him.  On the day following their phone conversation, he posted on X, formerly Twitter: ““I will not compromise on full Israeli security control over all the territory west of the Jordan – and this runs contrary to a Palestinian state.”

            A riposte to that last assertion is available.  It is to be found in the one message from Biden that got lost in the welter of claim and counter-claim – a quiet throwaway remark, reported in the media but not picked up: “There are a number of types of two-state solutions.”

   What can Biden have meant by that remark?

            Perhaps he had in mind the suggestion of Israel’s then President, Reuven Rivlin, in a newspaper interview on August 7, 2015.  An Israeli-Palestinian confederation, said Rivlin, might be the best means of settling the perennial Middle East conflict.  According to a recording of the interview, Rivlin also said that a future confederation could feature two parliaments and two constitutions, but only one army — the Israel Defense Forces.

            Rivlin might have been referring back to an article by Israeli elder statesman, Yossi Beilin, in the New York Times three months earlier, titled: “Confederation is the Key to Mideast Peace.”

“This idea isn’t new,” wrote Beilin. “For a brief time in the 1990s, it animated some of my earliest discussions about peace with a spokesman whom Palestinians revered, Faisal al-Husseini. But that was before the Oslo Accords of 1993…In hindsight, it is clear that we should have been looking all along at confederation – cohabitation, not divorce.”

What is a confederation?  It is a form of government in which constituent sovereign states maintain their independence while merging certain aspects of administration, such as security, defense, economic or administrative matters.  A good example is the confederation formed by the seceding states during the American Civil War.  In a federation on the other hand, such as the modern United States, the constituent parts may be fiercely independent, but they are not sovereign, and the emphasis is on the supremacy of the central government. 

The vision of achieving peace between Israel and the Palestinians through the mechanism of a confederation has its passionate supporters. Some conceive it as including Jordan which, after all, was originally within the British Mandate.  In 2018, when the Trump peace proposals were being drawn up, Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas was asked his views on the idea. He is on record as favoring a three-way confederation of Jordan, Israel and a sovereign Palestine.  The idea of 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.

       A fundamental issue militates against the classic two-state solution. Hamas is massively popular among the Palestinian population, and its central message – that the whole of what had been Mandate Palestine is rightfully the property of Palestinian Arabs – leaves little room for compromise. In the most recent poll of Palestinian opinion, no less that 64% of those questioned were opposed to a two-state solution. It would mean abandoning any hope of gaining control of the area occupied by Israel.

          It will require an Arab consensus – perhaps the Arab League, perhaps an alliance of the Abraham Accord states – to bring the Palestinian leadership to discuss an accommodation which recognizes Israel’s legitimate place in the Middle East. Given Jordan’s collaboration, a post-war conference could be dedicated to establishing a sovereign state of Palestine, but only within the framework of a new three-state confederation of Jordan, Israel and Palestine. This new legal entity – the Jordan, Israel and Palestine Confederation – could be established simultaneously with the state of Palestine.

          Dedicated to defending itself and its constituent sovereign states, it would undertake to cooperate in the fields of commerce, infrastructure and economic development. There would be no need for a sovereign Palestine to be a militarized state.  Defense of the confederation would be undertaken by the IDF in collaboration with Jordan’s military.

Such a solution, based on an Arab-wide consensus, could absorb Palestinian extremist objections, making it abundantly clear that any subsequent armed opposition, from whatever source, would be crushed by the combined defense forces of the confederation.  

A confederation could set as its objective the transformation of the region within, say, ten years, into a thriving financial, commercial and industrial hub to the benefit of all its citizens – Jordanian, Israeli and Palestinian alike. 

Published in the Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem post online, 30 January 2024:

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-784240

South Africa’s case against Israel – the world’s view

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 22 January 2024

On January 14 Euronews, the multi-lingual European TV and online news network, published a wide-ranging survey of where many of the world’s sovereign states stood as regards the accusation of genocide brought by South Africa against Israel. 

South Africa instituted the proceedings in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on December 29, 2023, and on January 11 and 12 public hearings were held at the Peace Palace in The Hague.  The charge alleges that Israel has committed, and is committing, genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, in violation of the Genocide Convention, and asks the court to order provisional measures requiring Israel to cease all military activity in the Strip.

The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was unanimously adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948.  It defined genocide as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”

South Africa's request for provisional measures to be ordered against Israel does not require the court to determine whether Israel has actually perpetuated genocide, but simply that it is "plausible" that genocide has occurred.  Of course if the court grants the provisional measure request, it would be a strong signal that it is minded to accept South Africa’s case against Israel.

The nation that has most firmly rejected South Africa’s genocide charge while proposing to do something about it is Germany.

On January 11 a spokesman for the German government announced that Germany is planning to intervene in support of Israel in the ICJ case.

“The German government firmly and explicitly rejects the accusation of genocide that has now been made against Israel before the International Court of Justice,” said spokesman Steffen Hebestreit. “This accusation has no basis whatsoever.”

He made it clear that Germany accepts special responsibility for Israel because of the Nazi genocide of Jews during World War II.  “In view of Germany’s history, crimes against humanity, and Shoah, the government is particularly committed to the UN Genocide Convention,” he said. Emphasizing Germany’s support of the ICJ, he announced that “the government intends to intervene as a third party in the main hearing.”

Under the court’s rules, if Germany files a declaration of intervention in the case, it would be able to make legal arguments on behalf of Israel.  One of the 17 judges hearing the case is Germany’s Georg Nolte.

Almost as explicit in rejecting South Africa’s genocide accusation – though not proposing to intervene actively – is the UK.  Foreign minister, Lord Cameron. said: “We don’t agree with what the South Africans are doing,”

while a spokesperson for prime minister Rishi Sunak said he believed South Africa's case was "completely unjustified and wrong," continuing: "The UK government stands by Israel's clear right to defend itself within the framework of international law."  

Visiting Israel a day before the court proceedings began, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that South Africa's allegations are “meritless" and that the case “distracts the world” from efforts to find a lasting solution to the conflict.  US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said genocide is “not a word that ought to be thrown around lightly, and we certainly don’t believe that it applies here.” The President of the ICJ and Chief Justice is Joan Donoghue, a US lawyer.

The Euronews analysis maintains that no Western country has declared support for South Africa's allegations against Israel, and that the EU also hasn't commented..  The majority of countries backing South Africa's case, it says, are from the Arab world and Africa, while in the Eurozone only Turkey has publicly stated its support.

Euronews notes that neither China nor Russia have said much about the case.  This is not, perhaps, surprising in view of the fact that both are themselves facing accusations of genocide. A case against Russia, arising from its activities in its war against Ukraine, is pending in the ICJ, and while China has not been formally charged, it has been accused of genocide against its Muslim Uyghur population.   Both nations are represented on the judges’ bench (China by Xue Hanqin, and Russia by the ICJ Vice-President Kirill Gevorgyan), and neither may feel comfortable about supporting the charge of genocide against Israel. If actions by Israel clearly falling short of the "intent" requirement of the Convention are sustained, their own countries’ interests could be at risk. 

The Muslim countries that declared support for South Africa as soon as it filed its case at the ICJ were almost all represented by the 57-member strong Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). Its statement condemned “mass genocide being perpetrated by the Israeli defense forces” and accused Israel of “indiscriminate targeting” of Gaza's civilian population.  Support also came from the Arab League and from Pakistan, Malaysia and Namibia.

Brazil, which is represented among the ICJ judges by Leonardo Nemer Caldeira Brant, has indicated that its president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, backs South Africa's case.  The Brazilian foreign ministry  said it hoped the case would get Israel to “immediately cease all acts and measures that could constitute genocide."

Other countries, while strongly supporting a cease-fire in Gaza, can see that accusing Israel of intending to destroy the Palestinian people is a step too far.  For example Ireland’s premier, Leo Varadkar – far from Israel’s best friend – has said he hoped the court would order a cease-fire in Gaza, but that the genocide case was “far from clear cut.”

Innocent civilians suffering the effects of a conflict which is none of their making naturally arouses feelings of deep compassion.  No matter that Israel’s Defense Forces (IDF) operate under strictly enforced rules of engagement restricting military action to the targeting of Hamas and its strongholds, collateral deaths and injuries are inevitable in a war situation – and even more so in the particular circumstances of the Gaza Strip, where Hamas has deliberately positioned itself in and among the population. 

But calling for a ceasefire ignores a key consequence.  Were the ICJ to order one and were Israel to comply, Hamas would be under no obligation to stop sending rockets, missiles and drones into Israel (as it is still doing); nor would it be deterred from repeating the massacre of October 7 “again and again”, as it has undertaken to do. Hamas would continue to hold 132 Israeli hostages, and Israel would be barred from trying to rescue them or effect their release.  In short, Israel would be prohibited from fulfilling its obligations under international human rights law to protect and defend its citizens.

One can only hope that South Africa’s case will fail to stand up. 

Published in the Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Post online as "The world's view: Reactions to South Africa vs Israel" , 22 January 2024:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-783122

A ceasefire in Gaza would only work one way

 This letter appears in the UK's Daily Telegraph, 16 January 2024 

SIR – South Africa has charged Israel in the International Court of Justice with genocide, and asks the court, as an interim “provisional measure”, to order a ceasefire in Gaza.

Charles Moore (Comment, January 13) says that if the court orders this and Israel refuses, it could become a pariah nation, and if it accepts, an endangered one. He leaves the consequences of the latter course to readers’ imagination.   

Were Israel to comply with an ICJ demand for a ceasefire, Hamas would be under no obligation to stop sending rockets, missiles and drones into Israel (as it is still doing); nor would it be deterred from repeating the massacre of October 7 “again and again”, as it has undertaken to do. Consequently 110,000 internally displaced Israelis, domiciled adjacent to the Israel-Gaza border, would be unable to return to their homes. Hamas would continue to hold 132 Israeli hostages, and Israel would be barred from trying to rescue them or effect their release. 

In short, Israel would be prohibited from fulfilling its obligations under international human rights law to protect and defend its citizens. One can only hope that South Africa’s case will fail to stand up. Lord Moore will be aware that Israel is pretty well inured to being a pariah state.

Neville Teller
Beit Shemesh, Israel

Hezbollah – Iran’s pawn

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 16 January 2024  

                 Iran's Supreme Leader meets the head of Hezbollah         

          A war with Israel is the last thing that Lebanon needs. The Lebanese people are in the midst of a severe economic downturn, facing soaring prices and severe shortages of food and basic commodities. Hezbollah-allied political, financial and business leaders, the source of the graft and corruption at the heart of the nation, have allowed Lebanon’s economy to deteriorate to crisis level. The nation is in a catastrophic economic situation which has lasted for years. If Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, were to initiate a full-scale conflict with Israel, he would find little support from the hard-pressed Lebanese.

          Even the continuous armed skirmishes over the Lebanon-Israel border serve little purpose beyond administering an Israeli tit for a Hezbollah tat. They achieve nothing of any value for either side. Initiated by Hezbollah at the behest of its paymaster, Iran, their true function is to fulfil Iran’s desire to cause as much trouble in the Middle East as possible.         

          Hezbollah was established in 1982 specifically to counter Israel’s invasion of  Lebanon, undertaken in response to constant attacks on Israel from Lebanese territory by Palestinian militants.  But when the subsequent Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon ended in 2000, Hezbollah’s aim was achieved.  What purpose can the constant armed interchanges have now?

One truth, long unacknowledged in the western world but the cornerstone of Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979, is that the Iranian regime is in relentless pursuit of its own agenda, namely to dominate the Middle East as a first step toward spreading the Shi’ite tradition of Islam eventually to the whole world. This was clearly spelled out by the instigator of Iran’s Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, on more than one occasion: “We shall export our revolution to the whole world. Until the cry 'There is no god but Allah' resounds over the whole world, there will be struggle.”

 As essential stages in this process, the revolutionary leaders envisaged the overthrow of Zionism (ie Israel) and of capitalism (ie the US) – a fact which one-time US President Obama, and now President Biden, have seemed peculiarly reluctant to acknowledge.  Time and again attempts at mollifying the Iranian regime have proved useless – its ultimate aim remains unaltered.  It still regards America as the Great Satan, and Israel as its smaller manifestation – both destined for obliteration.

In pursuit of their objective Iran’s leaders recognize no bounds.  They sponsor terrorist activities and deploy their puppet organizations – among others, Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen, and Hezbollah in Lebanon – to undertake them. In Lebanon Iran has nurtured, financed and equipped Hezbollah ever since 1982 to harry Israel.  UK media reported on January 12 that Iran is paying Hezbollah fighters a wage of $1300 per month.

 Lebanon’s problem as a sovereign state has been its inability to prevent the accretion of political, social and above all military power by Hezbollah over the past 40 years – a process that has left the sovereign state of  Lebanon in thrall to Hezbollah. 

In 2024 Hezbollah is virtually a state within a state, sucking the lifeblood out of Lebanon at the instigation of Iran.  It has effectively brought Lebanon’s political process to a standstill ­– since October 31, 2022 the nation has been without a president. and has hobbled along with only caretaker government ministers.  Every attempt to resolve the political difficulties has been frustrated by Hezbollah and its political allies.

As for Hezbollah’s armed forces, it is generally believed that they are larger and more powerful than the Lebanese national army.  The Hezbollah military has, after all, been in receipt of sophisticated technology from Iran for years, and has built up a formidable state-of-the-art armory directed at Israel.  The two armed forces exist side by side within the same state, and although under the previous president, Michel Aoun, there was often a degree of collaboration between them, Hezbollah steers its own course, and is not answerable to Lebanon‘s political leaders for its activities.

 Hezbollah’s last full-scale clash with Israel was brought to an end in August 2006 by UN Security Council Resolution 1701.  One main purpose of the resolution was to keep Hezbollah troops far from the Israel-Lebanon border, thus forestalling any future conflict.  In accordance with the resolution 15,000 UN international troops, operating alongside the Lebanese army, were deployed to police the Lebanon-Israel border. There are currently just over 9,500.  Known as UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon), they have been in place for the past 18 years, their authority largely ignored by Hezbollah. 

Another provision of Resolution 1701 that neither Iran nor Hezbollah had any intention of meeting was the UN’s strong demand, laid down in previous resolutions, that all armed groups in Lebanon, other than those of the Lebanese state, should be disarmed. 

On the day that Resolution 1701 passed unanimously in the UN Security Council, Hezbollah secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, said that Hezbollah would honor the call for a ceasefire provided Israel agreed to end its military actions. Resolution 1701 was approved by the Lebanese government one week after it was passed by the UN. As it did so, Nasrallah reiterated his pledge that once the Israeli offensive ceased, Hezbollah’s rocket attacks on Israel would also stop.

In practice, of course, 1701 has failed utterly to maintain stability along the Israel-Lebanon border.  Hezbollah, marching to the beat of Iran’s drum, has prevented UNIFIL from performing its mission.  It has used its militia to control the area, has deployed its forces there, has launched thousands of rockets into Israel, and has constructed tunnels under the border to enable its terror units to penetrate Israel.  Its bombardment of Israel with rockets, missiles and drones has been unceasing.  UNIFIL has proved ineffective, unwilling to confront Hezbollah head-on.  It has failed to prevent Hezbollah’s continuous activity along the border in blatant violation of 1701.

For its part, the UN has failed to insist that its UNIFIL forces actually enforce adherence with its Resolution 1701.  As a result Iran, through its Hezbollah pawn, has been empowered to disrupt regional stability, just as it has done by fortifying Hamas in Gaza and using the Houthis in Yemen to attack shipping in the Red Sea and deploy missiles directly into Saudi Arabia.  The perpetual Hezbollah-Israel skirmishes across the Lebanon border serve no-one’s purposes except those of the Iranian regime. In the end it will be necessary to tackle the organ-grinder rather than his monkey.

Published in the Jerusalem Post and in the Jerusalem Post online as "Hezbollah - a pawn in Iran's aim to obliterate Israel", 16 January 2024:

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-782309

Published in Eurasia Review, 19 January 2024:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/19012024-hezbollah-irans-pawn-oped/#:~:text=In%202024%20Hezbollah%20is%20virtually,with%20only%20caretaker%20government%20ministers.

Published in the MPC Journal, 24 Januay 2024:

https://mpc-journal.org/hezbollah-irans-pawn/

Erdogan - back to square one

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 10 January 2023

          Ever since Recep Tayyip Erdogan gained power as Turkey’s prime minister in 2003, Turco-Israeli relations have been on a see-saw, now up, now down – though more often down than up.  This is scarcely surprising since Erdogan is a deeply committed devotee of the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization whose DNA is imbued with antagonism towards Jews.  However, he is also a consummate politician, well aware of the need, from time to time, to temper his aversion to Israel with sweet words and conciliatory gestures.

            On December 27 Erdogan announced to the world that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was Adolf Hitler reborn, comparing Israel's campaign to destroy Hamas in Gaza to the systematic annihilation of the Jewish people by the Nazis.  In a speech at an event in Ankara, he demanded of an absent Netanyahu: “How are you any different from Hitler?” adding, to rapturous applause: “What Netanyahu is doing is no less than what Hitler did.”

A riposte was readily to hand.  Netanyahu resorted to the social media platform X (once Twitter), and accused Erdogan, with some justification, of carrying out "genocide against the Kurds."  Erdogan, he wrote, “is the last one to give us a lesson in morals…He holds the world record of imprisoning journalists who object to his regime."

Anyone familiar with the to and fro of interchanges between Ankara and Jerusalem would have experienced a feeling of déjà vu.  This particular exchange of insults was nothing new. In July 2028, roundly condemning Israel’s just-passed  “nation state law”, Erdogan asserted: "Hitler's spirit has re-emerged in some Israeli leaders."  Netanyahu’s response?  "Erdoğan is slaughtering Syrians and Kurds and imprisoning tens of thousands of his fellow citizens,” adding “Turkey is becoming a dark dictatorship under Erdogan.”

During his early years as prime minister, back in the early 2000s, Erdogan was careful not to promote too radical an agenda too soon. Despite his Islamist views, he made an official visit to Israel in 2005 to be feted by Israel’s then-prime minister, Ariel Sharon.  However it was not long before the previously close relations between Turkey and Israel began to sour. The turning point came in 2009 with the first conflict between Israel and Hamas, which had seized power in the Gaza strip and had been firing rockets indiscriminately into Israel.

In the annual international gathering at Davos that year, Erdogan could not restrain himself. Rounding on Israeli president Shimon Peres, Erdogan called the Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip a "crime against humanity" and "barbaric." 

Wagging his finger at Peres, he declared: "When it comes to killing, you know very well how to kill. I know very well how you hit and killed children on beaches." Then, infuriated by the moderator's refusal to allow him more time in response to Peres's emotional rebuke, he stalked off the stage.

What followed was the great barren waste of the Mavi Marmara affair.  On May 31, 2010 an encounter on the high seas between Israeli soldiers and a Turkish flotilla nominally on a humanitarian mission to Gaza, ended with nine of those on board the leading vessel, the  Mavi Marmara, losing their lives.  Erdogan manipulated the event into a rupture of Turkish-Israeli relations lasting six years. The affair was finally put to rest only in June 2016.  

When on May 14, 2018 then-US President Donald Trump formally confirmed his intention to relocate the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Erdogan declared three days of national mourning.  The next day Turkey expelled the Israeli ambassador and withdrew its ambassador in Tel Aviv.  In response, Israel expelled Turkey's consul in Jerusalem.

The next two years saw Turkey’s international standing slump to a new low.  By the autumn of 2020 Erdogan was in the process of purchasing the Russian S-400 anti-aircraft system, designed specifically to destroy aircraft like US’s state-of-the-art multi-purpose F-35 fighter.  Reasonably enough, Trump refused to allow Turkey, a member of NATO, to acquire it ejecting Erdogan from the F-35 program and imposing sanctions on Turkey.

The EU had also sanctioned Turkey.  In this case it was in reaction to Erdogan continuing to explore for gas in what is internationally recognized as Cypriot waters.   The UK, now no longer in the EU, imposed sanctions on Turkey on the same grounds.

Turkey’s relations with Egypt had been frozen solid ever since 2013, when Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsi was ousted by Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.  Erdogan expelled Egypt’s ambassador, and Sisi reciprocated.  Relations with Saudi Arabia had been overshadowed for years by the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Saudi’s consulate in Istanbul.

As for Israel, it had long been obvious that Erdogan seized every opportunity to denounce Israel in the most extravagant terms and to act against it whenever he could.  Not the least of his hostile moves was to support Hamas and to provide a base in Istanbul for senior Hamas officials, granting at least twelve of them Turkish citizenship.

In short Turkey, in pursuit of its own political priorities, had fences to mend with, inter alia, the US, the EU, the UK, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Israel.

This was the background to Erdogan’s sudden and dramatic change of tone on the international stage.  Erdogan, or his advisers, must have realized that to achieve his strategic objective of extending and stabilizing Turkey’s power base across the Middle East, a fundamental reassessment of tactics was called for.  Out of what must have been a root and branch analysis, came a plan to address the problem – Turkey would embark on a charm offensive, involving “reconciliation” or “rebooting” of relationships with one-time enemies, opponents or unfriendly states. 

Accordingly Erdogan set about making conciliatory overtures to Germany, the EU, Saudi Arabia and even Greece.  Israel, too, received indications that a rapprochement was sought and, doubtless despite misgivings, on March 9, 2022 President Herzog became the first Israeli president to visit Turkey in 15 years.

In an interview on Turkish TV at the time, Erdogan said: “This visit could open a new chapter in relations between Turkey and Israel,” adding that he was “ready to take steps in Israel’s direction in all areas.” 

The new chapter lasted about 18 months.  By October 25 he was praising Hamas as “liberators” and condemning what he described as “the Israeli regime’s unlawful and unrestrained attacks against civilians.”  In short, Erdogan had reverted to his default mode. 

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and in the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Erdogan reverts to old, inflammatory self-opinion" on 10 January 2024:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-781488

Published in Eurasia Review, 13 January 2024:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/13012024-erdogan-back-to-square-one-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 15 January 2024:

https://mpc-journal.org/erdogan-back-to-square-one/