Israel, and its neighbors

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.investigativeproject.org/8298/new-realities-in-africa-open-diplomatic

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.jerusalem-herald.com/single-post/2020/03/03/Beware-Of-A-Palestinian-State-The-Kuwaiti-Lesson

[Crafty_Dog]

http://carolineglick.com/israel-and-the-demise-of-the-global-village/

[Crafty_Dog]

   Could Iran's New Spy Satellite Trigger an Israel-Iran War?
by Michael Peck
Uncommon Defense
May 5, 2020
https://www.meforum.org/60839/could-irans-new-satellite-trigger-an-israel-iran-war

[Crafty_Dog]

https://israelunwired.com/chinese-ambassador-found-dead/

https://americanmilitarynews.com/2020/05/chinas-ambassador-to-israel-found-dead-in-tel-aviv-home/?utm_campaign=DailyEmails&utm_source=AM_Email&utm_medium=email&mc_cid=b0ae89d831

[Crafty_Dog]

Sovereignty Is an Important Step towards Palestinian Defeat
by Nave Dromi
JNS
May 27, 2020
https://www.meforum.org/61005/sovereignty-important-step-towards-palestinian-defeat

[Crafty_Dog]

Israel's Annexation Plans Will Leave It in Need of New Allies
5 MINS READ
Jun 26, 2020 | 10:00 GMT
A picture shows the Israeli settlement of Mitzpe Kramim in the West Bank on June 18, 2020.
A picture shows the Israeli settlement of Mitzpe Kramim in the West Bank on June 18, 2020.

(MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP via Getty Images)

Israel's impending annexations in the West Bank will not spark immediate international backlash, but growing pro-Palestine sentiment in the United States and Europe will ultimately leave it politically and economically isolated in the long term. This will lead Israel to seek increased partnerships with countries whose citizens and politicians are less invested in the prospect of a Palestinian state, such as Russia and China, though doing so will come at the risk of further stoking U.S. ire.

Israel will most likely annex some major settlements in the West Bank on July 1, which the United States will acquiesce. 

Israel's emergency unity government, which was formed in April in light of the COVID-19 crisis, hinges on a pledge made by the country's major political factions to begin the annexation process outlined in the White House's Middle East peace plan. The plan, which was unveiled in January, envisions a final settlement between Israel and the Palestinian Territories in which large parts of the current West Bank remain under permanent Israeli control, including the strategic Jordan River Valley. And since then, the United States and Israel have been cooperating on a mapping project to implement that vision.

The United States has signaled some displeasure with the annexation strategy's pace and scope, but not with annexation itself. This has manifested in mild U.S. pressure to adjust how much West Bank territory Israel will seize starting July 1, though Washington has yet to threaten any significant diplomatic, economic or military action.

Europe, for its part, will voice its diplomatic opposition to annexation, but the bloc's consensus-based policy-making process will make sanctions and other major penalties difficult to pass.

The European Union and the United Kingdom are both diplomatically opposed to annexation but have not signaled interest in a major isolation or punitive sanctions campaign.

But while the veto power held by pro-Israel EU states such as Czechia and Hungary will limit the European Union's ability to impose significant bloc-wide sanctions against Israel, Brussels may move to suspend its research and trade agreements with Israel that don't require consensus votes, as well as block future deals. 

Demographic trends in the United States and Europe, however, favor increased opposition to annexation in the long term, which will eventually entrench a Palestinian state as a political goal in these Western societies. 

Changing political forces in Europe and the United Kingdom have made it clear major parts of the continent oppose annexation. On June 24, for example, over 1,000 European lawmakers signed a petition advocating against annexation. 

In the United States, the Democratic Party will also feel pressure from the progressive side of its base to penalize Israel for blocking Palestinian statehood if Democrats take control of additional branches of the U.S. government. Such a shift in U.S. policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could come as early as January 2021, should former Vice President and Democratic candidate Joe Biden — who has criticized Israel's current annexation process as a “huge mistake" — win the November presidential election.

As political opposition to annexation builds in the West, Israel will pivot toward China, India and Russia for economic and political partnerships.

China, Russia and India have less historical interest in a Palestinian state and weak domestic political opposition to annexations. As a result, they will be free to continue to build up relations with Israel even after annexation and the weakening prospect of a Palestinian state.   

Because of their economic and military importance, Israel will seek enhanced partnerships with these three countries, including new technology and trade deals, to offset losses from the declining relationships with Europe and the United States,
But pivots to China and Russia will likely produce even more pushback from the United States, which will especially hinder Israel's ability to grow its more lucrative relationship with Beijing.


Washington will likely view Israeli attempts to build up economic relations with China as a potential national security threat, and will thus likely pressure Israel to reduce or even eliminate such ties with Beijing.

Israeli moves to cozy up with Russia will also result in increased scrutiny if they appear to contravene American interests. Russia and Israel's sometimes conflicting interests in Syria and Iran, however, will limit the scope of any new ties between them.

As political opposition to annexation builds in the U.S. and Europe, Israel will seek to expand its ties with countries less invested in Palestinian statehood, such as China and Russia.

Israel will still be able to continue to improve relations with nearby Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, but at a slower pace, as their Arab populations adjust to the reality of annexation.

GCC states have all signaled diplomatic opposition to annexation. But some states, such as the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman, have small enough populations with a receding interest in a Palestinian state that their governments will be able to largely keep their outreaches to Israel on track, if not always public.

Saudi Arabia has a larger population with a strong interest in a Palestinian state, and will thus need to allow its citizens more time to adjust to the reality of annexation, slowing the pace of enhanced Saudi-Israeli relations. Cooperation not in the public eye, however, will still be possible thanks to Riyadh's control of local media and its ability to frame Saudi-Israeli ties in a manner that does not engender major domestic blowback.

As they shift focus to Palestinians' status post-annexation, citizens across the Arab Gulf will increasingly call for GCC-Israeli relations to be hinged on the political rights of Palestinians under Israeli control, rather than for Palestinian statehood. 

[Crafty_Dog]

Amid Spiking COVID-19 Cases, Israel Slows Its Annexation Push
2 MINS READ
Jul 2, 2020 | 15:49 GMT
Israel is slowing, but not yet stopping, its annexation plans in the face of a COVID-19 resurgence and possible future changes to its relationship with the United States, forestalling Palestinian unrest and international backlash. The acceleration of these two trends — further COVID-19 infections and U.S. President Donald Trump's sliding approval ratings — could upend the annexation process by convincing Israel to shrink its scope or even commit to a long-term delay.

After signing a unity government deal in April, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to begin annexing large parts of the West Bank on July 1.
But on June 28, Israel's defense minister and future prime minister, Benny Gantz, said that the July 1 annexation date was "not sacred," suggesting he would oppose immediate border changes. Gantz also cited the country's COVID-19 outbreak as the government's current priority, with new waves of infections appearing across the country.
As July 1 came, Israel announced no annexations, and sources close to Netanyahu indicated that the government would wait for further negotiations with the United States to make territorial changes.
Israel's government appears to be delaying the annexations until it at least has a new round of COVID-19 lockdowns under control, the enforcement of which will require significant investments in political capital and security forces. Since annexation is likely to incur backlash from Palestinians, it seems the government has decided that COVID-19 is currently a better use of its legitimacy and resources.

Israel is also increasingly uncertain it will have the long-term backing of the United States, and is looking for avenues to minimize the annexation's potential damage to its U.S. relationship should President Trump lose power in November's election. Amid a surge of social unrest, job losses, and COVID-19 cases in the United States, Trump's approval ratings have continued to fall in recent weeks, and his main challenger, Joe Biden, is strongly opposed to annexation. In light of this threat, the Israelis are emphasizing the joint mapping process that the two countries are working on for the future borders, which is designed to create obstacles for policy changes under a post-Trump presidency by attaching the legitimacy of border changes to the United States.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.meforum.org/61345/hezbollah-complicated-strategic-calculus

[Crafty_Dog]

   
    The Ups and Downs of Turkish-Israeli Relations
By: Hilal Khashan
Sept. 9, 2020

In 1949, Turkey recognized the state of Israel, becoming the first Muslim country to exchange diplomatic missions with it. Since then, their relations have gone through many highs and lows. In 2004, the American Jewish Congress gave then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan its Profile of Courage award because of his positive attitude toward Israel and the world’s Jewry. Ten years later, it asked him to return it because of his virulent criticism of Israel – which he “gladly” did. Turkish-Israeli relations are once again at a low point, following clashes over the Palestinian issue among other things. But it’s unlikely they will stay that way; both countries are in need of regional allies, and their economic and security interests will outweigh any diplomatic disputes or gestures of disapproval.

The Honeymoon Phase

The relationship between the state of Israel and Turkey extends back decades. In 1957, the two countries established secret intelligence and security relations in response to the Soviet Union’s penetration into the Middle East to supply Egypt and Syria with military hardware and technical assistance. A year later, Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion met secretly with his Turkish counterpart and formed the Peripheral Pact, an alliance devoted to military and intelligence cooperation and containing communism.

However, they have also been at odds at various points throughout their relationship. In 1956, Turkey downgraded its diplomatic mission to Israel after Israel participated in the Anglo-French invasion of Egypt. Ankara did so again in 1980 when the Israeli parliament voted to annex the Golan Heights. Turkey voted in favor of U.N. Resolution 3379 that equated Zionism with racism in 1975 and allowed the Palestine Liberation Organization to open an office in Ankara in 1979. Indeed, though the Turks never questioned Israel’s right to exist, the Palestinian issue has been a persistent roadblock to improving ties between the two countries.

But after the signing of the Oslo Accords between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in Washington in 1993, Turkey and Israel went through a diplomatic honeymoon phase. The Palestinian Authority was formed shortly thereafter, in 1994, and Turkish Prime Minister Tansu Ciller, who led the secular True Path Party, visited Gaza and promised to support the Palestinians in any way she could, including by helping to build an airport, a harbor, housing and other infrastructure projects.

The honeymoon lasted a decade and in addition to improved economic and tourism ties included security partnership and technology transfers that helped strengthen the Turkish military. Contrary to expectations, Turkish-Israeli relations actually strengthened after Necmettin Erbakan, who led the Islamist Refah Party, became prime minister in 1996. During his brief time in office, Turkey agreed to allow Israeli air force pilots to train in Turkish air space.

Deteriorating Relations

Their relationship began to change in 2003 when Recep Tayyip Erdogan became prime minister. After Israel assassinated Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Erdogan described his killing as state terrorism. And in September 2007, the Israeli air force flew over Turkish air space during a mission to destroy an illicit Syrian nuclear reactor northeast of Damascus, thwarting Turkey’s efforts to make peace between Syria and Israel.

In 2008, Erdogan walked out of a World Economic Forum summit in Davos to protest Israel’s Operation Cast Lead against Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement. And in 2009, he blocked the Israeli air force from participating in the Anatolian Eagle exercises because of Israel’s offensive in Gaza that year, causing the drills to be canceled.

Relations bottomed out in 2010, when Israeli commandoes killed 10 Turkish activists aboard the Mavi Marmara as the ship tried to break the blockade against Gaza. After Israel refused to apologize for the incident, Turkey expelled the Israeli ambassador to Ankara.

Still, the two countries continued to cooperate on several fronts. In 2012, Israel repaired five Israeli-built Heron unmanned aerial vehicles and returned them to Turkey. Turkey used them to manufacture its own Bayraktar drones, which were used in Libya and Syria. That same year, Erdogan dispatched a high-level representative to meet with Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in an effort to revive diplomatic relations. In 2013, Israel’s Elta Systems agreed, after U.S. prodding, to deliver to the Turkish air force airborne electronic systems to fit on four Boeing-737s as a confidence-building measure to lay to rest the Mavi Marmara flotilla affair. Then, in 2016, U.S. President Barack Obama helped broker a rapprochement as the two countries restored diplomatic relations and returned their ambassadors to their posts.

But the warming of relations did not last long. Turkey again expelled the Israeli ambassador in response to Israel’s killing of 290 Palestinian demonstrators demanding an end to the blockade of Gaza in 2018. After openly admitting to intelligence sharing for 24 years, Turkey refused to publicize its intelligence meetings with Israel. It has continued to wield influence among dozens of Palestinian groups inside Israel’s green line, including Jerusalem, through financial aid and other types of support.

Every time Israel attacks Gaza and inflicts significant casualties, Erdogan labels it state terrorism. He has repeatedly warned that he will not allow Israel to annex parts of the West Bank. But his threats ring hollow. It would be militarily unwise and politically impossible for Turkey to stop Israel from moving into the Palestinian territories. Indeed, his threats are mostly rhetorical and don’t extend much beyond recalling ambassadors and decreasing diplomatic missions. The two countries continue to share economic interests that have always risen above their political disagreements. In fact, despite their frayed relationship, the value of their trade increased from $4.7 billion in 2015 to $6.1 billion in 2019.

The two countries also continue to coordinate on security matters, as adversarial countries often do to prevent further deterioration of relations. The last known meeting between the Turkish and Israeli intelligence chiefs occurred in Washington in January. Both countries share concerns over the presence of Iran and its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, in Syria. In fact, Israel Defense Forces followed with great interest the Turkish army’s defeat of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan unit in Idlib last February.

Rebuilding the Relationship

Following the Arab uprisings, Erdogan believed that political change would sweep the region and bolster Turkey’s regional position. But the counterrevolutions dashed his hopes for regional supremacy and turned many Arab states against Ankara. Israel, however, is still eager to restore close ties with Turkey, which it believes can help counter the Iranian threat. Ankara’s growing ties in Central Asia and its promotion of pan-Turkism complicate Tehran’s ability to expand into these former Soviet republics where Russian, Chinese and American influences are paramount.

Erdogan was highly critical of the recent Israeli-Emirati peace agreement, but he’s unlikely to make any retaliatory moves. The deal includes a powerful component on the structure of the region’s future economy, and Turkey does not want to be excluded. Its chances of joining the European Union are slim, and its exclusion from the unfolding economy of the Middle East would ruin its prospects for economic development. Although a 2020 Israeli intelligence report included Turkey in the list of countries and organizations that pose a threat to Israel’s national security, Israeli decision-makers tend to view Erdogan’s fiery rhetoric as strategically insignificant, more of an aggravation than a real threat. Israel is keen on maintaining an open channel of communication with Turkey, irrespective of what Erdogan says.

Among Turkey’s biggest concerns over Israel is its cooperation with Egypt, Greece and Cyprus in the Eastern Mediterranean. The exclusive economic zone that Turkey recently declared in the Eastern Mediterranean technically overlaps with shipping routes used for 99 percent of Israel’s foreign trade. But there is potential for cooperation between the two countries in this area. Israel isn’t opposed to signing a maritime agreement with Turkey to ease tensions in the region; it actually declined to endorse a joint declaration in May signed by the foreign ministers of France, Egypt, Greece, Cyprus and the UAE denouncing Turkish provocation in the Eastern Mediterranean. And considering its dire economic state and need for natural resources, Turkey would likely also be open to maintaining good working relations with Israel (and, by extension, Washington).
 
(click to enlarge)

The litmus test of improving Turkish-Israeli relations is the resumption of their diplomatic relations at the ambassador level. Turkey, which is now isolated from much of the Middle East and Europe, has a compelling reason to restore ties. Israel, which has forged strong relations with all of Ankara’s adversaries, likewise is looking for more allies in the region. In reference to Necmettin Erbakan’s ascension to the role of prime minister in the 1990s, Israeli President Shimon Peres said, “Governments may change, but basic interests remain.” These two countries don’t need to agree on everything, but what they have in common exceeds what separates them.

[Crafty_Dog]

For Israel, a New U.S. President Could Mean a Renewed Anti-Iran Push
6 MINS READ
Sep 29, 2020 | 10:00 GMT
An illustration shows the flags of Israel and Iran painted on a cracked wall.
An illustration shows the flags of Israel and Iran painted on a cracked wall.
(icedmocha/Shutterstock.com)
A victory by U.S. presidential candidate Joe Biden in November could prompt Israel to escalate its attacks against Iran in both current and new theaters across the Middle East in order to derail a potential U.S. return to diplomacy with Israel’s regional archnemesis. Before the U.S. election, Israel is unlikely to significantly alter its current strategy of recurrent, opportunistic strikes against Iranian forces in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, since Tehran’s nuclear program is not yet showing signs of the imminent development of a nuclear weapon. Increased attacks against Iran in the coming weeks would also risk jeopardizing the electoral prospects of Israel’s close U.S. ally, President Donald Trump, who is trying to use his reputation as a regional peace broker to bolster his chances of reelection in November. Moreover, Israel’s current “shadow war” with Iran, fought through proxy theaters and covertly within Iran itself, can continue to allow Israel to degrade Iranian regional capabilities without increasing the risk of regional conflict. The potential for a Biden win in November, however, could change this calculus by opening the door for a less hawkish U.S. posture toward Iran.

Iran’s nuclear program is progressing, but not quickly enough to alarm Israel. The International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspectors have said that Iran is enriching uranium only to 4.5 percent. While the level of these stocks has increased, the enrichment level is lower than the 20 percent enrichment level that triggered Israel to seriously consider a direct strike on Iran in 2012. It is unclear how fast Iran could develop a nuclear weapon, but it would likely require sustained enrichment at 90 percent, which international inspectors (and potentially Western and Israeli intelligence agencies) would detect.
Israel does not want to undercut Trump’s campaign strategy of using normalization deals, such as Israel’s new U.S.-brokered agreements with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, to promote himself as a regional peacemaker to war-weary American voters. Trump has also been drawing down forces in Iraq and Afghanistan as part of this political strategy.
Under its current anti-Iran campaign, Israel has continued to carry out strikes, both covert and overt, on Iranian targets regionally. On Sept. 10, Israeli warplanes struck an alleged Iranian missile facility outside of the Syrian city of Aleppo. Israeli agents were also widely believed to be behind the July 2 sabotage attack against Iran’s Natanz enrichment site, which potentially set back Iran’s nuclear program by damaging a centrifuge assembly workshop.
Biden’s statements on Iran suggest his administration would scale back Trump’s aggressive anti-Iran strategy, raising the potential for reduced sanctions, resumed humanitarian aid and, most importantly for Israel, the beginning of negotiations for a new nuclear deal. As president, Biden could readily reverse the tough sanctions Trump has imposed, including the most recent ones passed on Sept. 21, in an attempt to restart negotiations with Tehran. A Biden administration would also be less likely to tolerate regionwide Israeli strikes that could jeopardize such negotiations, particularly in sensitive countries such as Iraq where the United States is directly competing for influence with Iran.

In a CNN op-ed published on September 13, Biden wrote that as president, he would use the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) as a starting point to renew negotiations with Iran, as well as would loosen sanctions on humanitarian aid to Iran during the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Sept. 21, the Trump administration signaled its intent to continue to unilaterally enforce the U.N. arms embargo by sanctioning over two dozen people and entities associated with Iran’s arms industry. Biden’s campaign, by contrast, has stated they would move away from this unilateral method to pressure Iran’s regional behavior, and would instead begin to reengage international partners that have opposed Trump’s maximum pressure sanctions strategy.
The Trump administration has not criticized Israeli military actions against Iran, including even the controversial Israeli strikes on Iraq in July 2019. Under Biden, the White House is not guaranteed to give such diplomatic and military leeway for Israeli strikes.
Israeli Military Action
Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz opposed a 2012 proposition to directly attack Iran, in part because of opposition from the then-administration of President Barack Obama. Israeli law requires the agreement of senior ministers in the country’s security cabinet to carry out military action, granting Gantz significant leverage over a direct strike on Tehran’s nuclear program.

Past policy suggests that Israel would position itself to undermine any potential diplomatic progress between a future Biden administration and Iran. This could include a more hawkish airstrike strategy and intense lobbying in the United States, as well as an escalated covert campaign that could renew assassinations or attacks on vital infrastructure in Iran.

Israel could increase the overall pace of attacks against Iranian forces, as well as go after targets previously avoided for fear of escalation (particularly in Syria and Lebanon). Israel could also potentially add new theaters, such as the Red Sea or Yemen, to its airstrike campaign, in addition to increasing activity in its current theaters of Lebanon, Syria and Iraq.

Israel may escalate its covert campaign both inside Iran and in regional proxy theaters. This could include a repeat of its 2010-2012 assassination campaign against Iranian scientists, and/or an expansion of covert operations in other proxy theaters such as Yemen, where the Iran-aligned Houthis remain entrenched.

Despite changing political and demographic conditions weakening its relationship with the U.S. Democratic Party, Israel still has notable bipartisan support in Congress, and its lobbying efforts could thus slow negotiations or create legislative obstacles to another new Iranian nuclear deal. In 2015, Israeli lobbying in Washington helped create a bipartisan U.S. coalition against the JCPOA brokered by former President Barack Obama’s administration. As a result, the Senate never ratified the nuclear deal as a formal treaty, which later allowed Trump to unilaterally withdraw from the agreement without Congressional oversight.

In addition to degrading Iranian forces across the region, this more hawkish Israeli strategy could help undercut a Washington-Tehran rapprochement by provoking Iranian retaliation. Israeli military action against Iran could spark an Iranian nationalist backlash, increasing support for hardliners in Iran’s presidential election coming in June 2021. These hardliners are less likely to renegotiate a new deal with the United States without a substantial change in America’s Iran policy, potentially creating greater diplomatic daylight between the two before negotiations could seriously begin.

Such actions, however, are not guaranteed to provoke Iran, and would risk undermining Israel’s relationship with a new Biden administration. Escalated military action against Tehran could be seen negatively by a potential Biden administration trying to negotiate a reduction in hostilities, risking backlash from Israel’s key American allies.

[Crafty_Dog]

Abandoned by Old Allies, Palestinian Leaders Turn to Turkey -- and Each Other
4 MINS READ
Oct 1, 2020 | 10:00 GMT

A masked Hamas militant mans a machine gun in the back of a pickup truck in the Palestinian city of Rafah, located in the southern Gaza Strip, on Oct. 17, 2019. The yellow flags of the Palestinian party Fatah can also be seen in the background.
A masked Hamas militant mans a machine gun in the back of a pickup truck in the Palestinian city of Rafah, located in the southern Gaza Strip, on Oct. 17, 2019. The yellow flags of the Palestinian party Fatah can also be seen in the background.

(SAID KHATIB/AFP via Getty Images)

What Happened

A Turkey-brokered agreement to hold the first Palestinian elections in 15 years suggests a new appetite for cooperation between the territories’ staunch political rivals, along with a new mediating role for Ankara, in light of warming Israeli-Arab Gulf relations. On Sept. 23-24, high-level representatives from Palestinian parties Fatah and Hamas met in Istanbul for a two-day discussion hosted by Turkey’s foreign ministry. After the meeting, a Hamas spokesperson announced that the two parties — which have been engaged in more than a decade of infighting — had agreed to begin planning elections within six months.

Hamas’s surprise electoral victory in 2006 risked jeopardizing the political dominance Fatah had carefully built over years. Since then, the two sides have been locked in a fierce political battle, with controversy over when and how to hold the territories’ next round of elections at the core.

Why It Matters

Israel’s new peace deals with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have augmented both Hamas and Fatah’s shared sense of abandonment by the traditional patrons of Palestinian statehood. Despite their intense political rivalry, both parties are deeply concerned about the territories’ dwindling diplomatic and financial support from neighboring Arab Gulf states who have traditionally been important Palestinian allies. This has created a rare space for a compromise between Hamas and Fatah to avoid further isolation from the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and potentially others, as they normalize their ties with Israel.

The Palestinian finance ministry says it has not received financial aid from any Arab Gulf country since March 2020.
The level of overall foreign aid the Palestinian Authority has received has also decreased by 50 percent since the beginning of 2020, due in part to the United States’ move to cut off all aid to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip beginning in February 2019.

Turkey, meanwhile, is capitalizing on the shifting regional dynamics created by the normalization deals to bolster its own credentials as a champion of the Palestinian cause. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates once played a strong role in mediating between Hamas and Fatah, but in recent years, these have reduced their involvement in Palestinian political affairs. This has, in turn, left a vacuum of influence that Ankara is now seeking to fill, as evidenced by its role in hosting the recent talks that yielded an election agreement. The Turkish government will continue seeking to host future rounds of reconciliation talks between Fatah and Hamas as it tries to increase its political leverage with the Palestinians and popularity in the broader Muslim world, in which Palestinian statehood has long been a galvanizing cause.

What to Watch For

Long-awaited elections. Elections are not guaranteed, as Hamas has said the two parties still need to finalize a concrete deal. But the fact that the Istanbul meeting has started the conversation — breaking one of the most stagnant impasses between the two parties — has opened the door for the territories’ first ballot in more than a decade.

Additional breakthroughs between Fatah and Hamas. Both parties remain divided on a strategic roadmap to a Palestinian state, but the tentative agreement on elections has proven that compromise is possible. With Turkey’s help, improved goodwill between Fatah and Hamas may pave the way for more progress on other difficult decisions regarding leadership and policy.
The next generation of Palestinian leaders. Ongoing negotiations on elections between Fatah and Hamas will yield clues about who from each party is best positioned for long-term leadership of the Palestinian Authority.

Continued clashes over Israel. Hamas’ greater embrace of violence as a tool to retaliate against Israel and build popular legitimacy remains its largest differentiator from Fatah, who instead prefers peaceful negotiations with Israel to establish Palestinian statehood. Hamas and the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority have expressed similar fears about Israel’s annexation push in the West Bank and apparent disregard of Palestinian concerns. But the two parties will continue to clash over how to best respond to such Israeli threats.

===============================

Arrest Sheds New Light on Joint Hizballah/Quds Force Terror Unit
by Yaakov Lappin
Special to IPT News
October 1, 2020
https://www.investigativeproject.org/8574/arrest-sheds-new-light-on-joint-hizballah-quds
 

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16622/saudi-arabia-fed-up-palestinians

[Crafty_Dog]

Where Will Israel’s Increasingly Right-Wing Youth Take Its Foreign Policy?
Ryan Bohl
Ryan Bohl
Middle East and North Africa Analyst, Stratfor
6 MINS READ
Dec 4, 2020 | 21:38 GMT


(MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP via Getty Images)
HIGHLIGHTS

Israel's youth population is pushing the country decidedly to the political right. As the transition to this age cohort unfolds, the question of which Israeli nationalist party will be in charge comes to the fore. Will they be incrementally expansionist, security-minded, economically-focused types of parties like Likud? Or will they be more ideologically committed to the cause of annexing settlements types of parties like Yamina? Or will they be religiously-focused, culturally conservative, increasingly demographically muscular types of parties like the ultra-Orthodox party Shas? The predominance of one of these three types will have consequences for Israel's regional security posture, on occasion bringing it in line with some new allies in the Gulf while reaffirming enmity with Iran and Turkey....

Israel's youth population is pushing the country decidedly to the political right. As the transition to this age cohort unfolds, the question of which Israeli nationalist party will be in charge comes to the fore. Will they be incrementally expansionist, security-minded, economically-focused types of parties like Likud? Or will they be more ideologically committed to the cause of annexing settlements types of parties like Yamina? Or will they be religiously-focused, culturally conservative, increasingly demographically muscular types of parties like the ultra-Orthodox party Shas? The predominance of one of these three types will have consequences for Israel's regional security posture, on occasion bringing it in line with some new allies in the Gulf while reaffirming enmity with Iran and Turkey.

Who Are Israel's Young Nationalists?

Unlike many other democracies, Israel's youth vote is nationalist, comprising the base of right-wing nationalist parties like Likud and of settler-friendly parties like Yamina and the ultra-Orthodox parties like Shas. During Israel's interminable series of elections in 2019-20, the country's largely nationalist youth cohort gave an advantage to Netanyahu versus the centrism of his opponent, Benny Gantz. These Israeli Millennials and Gen Zers, born mostly after 1980, came of age in an era of intractable conflict, where peace was often restored through military deterrence rather than diplomacy and where economic pressures and rising religious feeling made West Bank settlements seem proper despite an unending chorus of international condemnation.


Some of them are the grandchildren of the country's original, often center-left, founders. But many are also the descendants of post-Soviet Jewish immigrants who infused Israel with new right-wing political and social traditions. They represent the fruit of a baby boom of the ultra-Orthodox, a group that has gone from 5% of Israeli's population in 1990 to around 12% today. They agree on broad aspects of Israel, like its Jewish identity, its need for peace through strength, a desire for close cooperation with the United States, and a willingness to brush past international norms when seen as in Israel's interest.

Natural Israeli Regional Allies, and Enemies

Many states are experiencing nationalist surges, increasing the role of traditional culture in everyday life, seeking greater defense independence and capability, and shedding their adherence to the post-World War II order when it suits them. For Israel in particular, it has also meant a drift toward militarily hawkish policies against rivals like Iran and its proxies, expansion and territorial annexation at home, and a desire to find ways to lessen Israel's exposure to international institutions and pressures that might try to shift its behavior.


It has regional allies in its pursuit of some of those goals, namely, pushing back Iranian power and deemphasizing the global human rights, legal institutions and international traditions that can constrain a state's policies. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt to differing extents have similar goals, and it is that commonality that is helping drive the present normalization of Arab ties with Israel. As Israel drifts further to the right, these relationships seem likely to solidify, with economic and social ties growing between these countries cementing their bonds. As they reinterpret their national interests, these newfound allies will also see less of a threat from Israel's drift toward a one-state solution as the Palestinian issue — once an ideological mainstay of Arab states — is demoted below new national imperatives like Iran, economic diversification and defense independence.

But Iran and, to a lesser extent, Turkey will remain rivals. While they are swinging toward nationalism, too, their nationalist ideology includes an anti-Israel component. Iran has shown no sign it will move away from its virulently anti-Israeli platform. Though it has a treaty with Israel, Turkey is also drifting toward a Turkish-Islamist nationalism that views Israel with hostility, and which provides quick political points when invoked by the ruling party.
 
Closer to home, however, are the Palestinians. Israeli nationalists tacitly are moving toward a one-state solution to the Palestinian issue. As Israeli settlements grow, and annexations — whether de jure or de facto — carve up the West Bank, questions over what will become of Palestinians living in rump enclaves will grow. There are various solutions, ranging from wholesale annexations and nationalization of Palestinians that might upend Israel's internal demographics and politics to potential autonomous zones that would assuage Israeli security fears while preventing Palestinians from entering Israel's voter rolls.
 
The impact on Israel's rightward drift in its relationships with Europe and the United States is less certain. In these Western allies, rising tides of largely left-wing youth voters do show some demographic muscle and political interest in reinforcing the postwar global norms and human rights concerns Israel's right-wing sometimes butts up against. Even now, this left-wing cohort is seeking to shape the incoming Biden Cabinet, where human rights will likely take a higher priority than under U.S. President Donald Trump. But at the same time, Europe and the United States have less and less interest in micromanaging the Middle East; recurrent attempts to find a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians have befuddled president after president, and the matter does not appear to be a high priority for the incoming White House.
 
And unlike in the 1990s and 2000s, when the United States was able to implement unilateral strategies in the Middle East, Israel has ways to counteract some of that pressure. It can expand its economic and security relationships with its new Gulf Arab allies, themselves concerned they might feel U.S. pressure to change policies. But it can also go farther afield, to Russia and China, which after decades of military and economic growth can increasingly offer real offsets to America's still considerable economic and defense influence in Israel. The mere threat of that pivot, whether to Moscow or Beijing or both, might be enough to thwart some U.S. attempts to reshape Israeli policies.

Meanwhile, there is much Israeli's three right-wing strands disagree on. For example, the ultra-Orthodox show little sign they are willing to abandon cherished principles and join Israel Defense Forces, even as their youth numbers swell. This alarms the other factions, which worry such principles will undermine the effectiveness of Israel's military over time. Meanwhile, more ideological settlers wish not merely to bend international norms but to break them and to move for formal annexation, while more center-right parties don't want to risk ties with the outside world with such sudden brash behavior.


With the right-wing likely to be a more and more dominant force in Israel, right-wing coalitions and their prime ministers will give form to how these ideologies impact Israel's regional behavior. Some prime ministers will be elected on hawkish but essentially conservative platforms, taking risks in pursuit of principle when it suits them politically and diplomatically, like Netanyahu has made a political career of. Others might be more like Naftali Bennett of Yamina, who has signaled he would pursue expanded settlements and annexations in spite of the diplomatic and potential security backlash. What therefore may end up defining Israeli behavior the most as it turns to the right is not so much the external pressure of allies, but rather the dynamic among right-wing factions.

[Crafty_Dog]

Israel’s Next Election Will Be a Battle of Hawkish Policies
4 MINS READ
Dec 9, 2020 | 22:07 GMT
HIGHLIGHTS

The imminent end of Israel’s unity government will prompt more pledges of aggressive West Bank annexations and hawkish foreign policies by pinning the country’s right-wing factions against each other in what will be a highly contentious election season. The unity government between the Blue and White party and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party will not last much longer, with the latter now pushing through a bill that would dissolve the Knesset and call new elections. On Dec. 9, the second-in-command of Netanyahu’s party, Gideon Sa’ar, also announced he would be leaving Lukid to run for prime minister under a new party he had formed called New Hope. Sa’ar’s move to directly challenge Netanyahu has further shaken up Israel’s right-wing political scene ahead of what’s likely to be a highly contentious election season, where Netanyahu’s right-wing rivals will have all the more incentive to capitalize on popular discontent with his...

The imminent end of Israel’s unity government will prompt more pledges of aggressive West Bank annexations and hawkish foreign policies by pinning the country’s right-wing factions against each other in what will be a highly contentious election season. The unity government between the Blue and White party and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party will not last much longer, with the latter now pushing through a bill that would dissolve the Knesset and call new elections. On Dec. 9, the second-in-command of Netanyahu’s party, Gideon Sa’ar, also announced he would be leaving Lukid to run for prime minister under a new party he had formed called New Hope. Sa’ar’s move to directly challenge Netanyahu has further shaken up Israel’s right-wing political scene ahead of what’s likely to be a highly contentious election season, where Netanyahu’s right-wing rivals will have all the more incentive to capitalize on popular discontent with his management of the COVID-19 pandemic and corruption charges, as well as his foreign policy weaknesses when it comes to Iran and the Gaza Strip.

Beyond the COVID-19 crisis, there is little else keeping Israel’s unity government from falling apart. The government was formed in April 2020 just as the first wave of COVID-19 infections reached Israel. The government’s mandate included a national lockdown to curb the spread of the virus, along with a power-sharing deal to end the country’s political paralysis. Under that deal, Gantz was slated to replace Netanyahu as prime minister in November 2021. But to avoid that transfer of power, Netanyahu and his Likud party have since been attempting to undermine confidence in the unity government through various means. This most recently included sparking a heated debate over the timeline of the country’s next budget, which eventually compelled Gantz and his Blue and White party to push to dissolve the Knesset.

Netanyahu is concerned that losing the premiership would expose him to the criminal charges he faces in at least three corruption cases. He is also concerned that turning power over to Gantz will mean the end of Netanyahu’s political career, some Israeli prime ministers never returned to power after leaving the post.

Israel’s budget debate is centered on whether it should encompass one or two years of expenses. A two-year budget would make it more difficult for Netanyahu to dissolve the Knesset to prevent Gantz from taking over in 2021, which is why Gantz has pushed for a one-year budget.

Sa’ar’s entry into the field will propel right-wing promises that could affect Israel’s foreign policies in the West Bank, Iran and Gaza. Sa’ar is a nationalist who has favored settlements and annexations in the past, and his path to unseating Netanyahu runs through Likud nationalists disenchanted with the prime minister’s leadership. To ensure those former votes don’t go to Sa’ar’s New Hope party, Likud will be tempted to ramp up its annexation promises, as well as adopt more hawkish foreign policies to boost Netanyahu’s national security credentials. This could signal future shifts in Israel’s regional behavior by increasing the political influence of Israeli settlers in the West Bank, as well as Iran and Gaza hawks, in foreign policy discussions.

In the run-up to the April 2020 election, Netanyahu promised to begin annexing more territory on July 1. But he has since held off on fulfilling that pledge in order to pave the way for normalization with the United Arab Emirates. This delay has angered Netanyahu’s settler supporters, prompting some to shift their allegiance to Likud’s rival right-wing party, Yamina.

Right-wing Israelis have largely hailed Netanyahu’s aggressive anti-Iran strategy, which it has been able to conduct without fear of U.S. pushback over the past four years thanks to President Donald Trump’s similarly hawkish approach to Tehran. But Netanyahu’s right-wing rivals are now arguing he will be unable no to deliver the same level of strategic security coordination with the United States after Trump leaves office in January, given Netanyahu’s much less friendly relationship with U.S. President-elect Joe Biden.
Nationalists are also critical of Netanyahu’s record of unstable aid-for-peace truces with Hamas, pushing instead for a strategy that relies more on military deterrence to secure the Gaza Strip.

[Crafty_Dog]

As the Road to Statehood Narrows, What’s Next for the Palestinian Cause?
6 MINS READ
Dec 22, 2020 | 10:00 GMT

HIGHLIGHTS

The Palestinians are facing the increasingly likely prospect of Israel imposing a one-state solution at a time when the world is preoccupied with other regional priorities. Iran’s threatening behavior, as well as the growing trend of Israeli-Arab normalization, has placed Palestinian statehood on the backburner over the past year, creating space for an ever-more nationalistic Israel to enact policies with a freer hand. As the next decade unfolds, the Palestinians will be forced to choose between either shifting focus to their nationalization inside Israel, or adopting a wait-and-see approach in the hopes that their cause regains its former importance. Settling for anything less than statehood, however, will risk spurring another surge of militancy and unrest. But depending on the stabilization of the region’s geopolitical climate will also risk leaving the Palestinians’ political future to fate. ...

The Palestinians are facing the increasingly likely prospect of Israel imposing a one-state solution at a time when the world is preoccupied with other regional priorities. Iran’s threatening behavior, as well as the growing trend of Israeli-Arab normalization, has placed Palestinian statehood on the backburner over the past year, creating space for an ever-more nationalistic Israel to enact policies with a freer hand. As the next decade unfolds, the Palestinians will be forced to choose between either shifting focus to their nationalization inside Israel, or adopting a wait-and-see approach in the hopes that their cause regains its former importance. Settling for anything less than statehood, however, will risk spurring another surge of militancy and unrest. But depending on the stabilization of the region’s geopolitical climate will also risk leaving the Palestinians’ political future to fate.

A Year of Setbacks

The tumultuous past year has caused the Palestinian cause to slide down to the bottom of regional priorities. In January, a near-miss regional war between the United States and Iran highlighted how the Middle East’s geopolitics now hinged on Tehran, not Ramallah. That same month, the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump also unveiled its “vision for peace” plan, which enabled Israeli expansionism. Then, in the latter half of the year, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan all inked normalization pacts with Israel without requiring the promise of Palestinian statehood as a precondition. Even the election of a less overtly Israel-friendly U.S. administration in November has offered little solace for Palestinians, as U.S. President-elect Joe Biden has yet to signal he’ll pressure Israel to reverse its Trump-era territorial gains.

And there is little sign the trends that have usurped the Palestinian cause will change. Public opinion polls show that Arab Gulf citizens are losing interest in the issue. The Europeans, meanwhile, have proven unwilling to go beyond symbolic pushback against Israeli strategies. And no other great power — including Turkey, Russia and China — appears ready to step up on against Israeli encroachment in the Palestinian territories.

Reckoning With the One-State Trend

Given this dwindling support for statehood, the Palestinians will be less able to rely on outside powers to pressure Israeli policies. As it stands, Israel is pursuing a strategy likely to produce a one-state solution. Successive right-wing Israeli governments will continue to expand settlements via further formal or informal annexations. And these deepening networks of Israeli-controlled highways and settlements will, in turn, increasingly leave Palestinian towns and cities cut off from one another.

The question, then, is how Palestinians will react. Young Palestinians might be more open to a one-state solution, particularly as it appears a more viable option that would allow them to access Israel’s economy and travel opportunities. Some of them are more secular-minded and internationalist than their parents and grandparents, and therefore less attached to the Islamist and nationalist ideals that helped fuel the generations of struggle against the Israelis. Others will have grown up against the backdrop of multiple failed uprisings and decades of protests and unrest that have failed to reverse Israel’s control.

As the years go on and as the national project seems less viable, the next generation of Palestinians might be more willing to push for nationalization as one of their last remaining options. Yet they will come up against hard blocks among both Palestinian leaders and right-wing Israeli political parties. Palestinian factions such as Hamas will not readily abandon their principles or the privileges that come with leading the Palestinian cause. Regardless of how popular the one-state solution becomes with the Palestinian public, these factions are likely to dig in their heels against nationalization, as it would also likely also mean the end of their existence as independent political and militant forces. Moreover, Israel’s right-wing, buttressed by its own nationalist youth, will not readily accept the nationalization of the Palestinian territories either for fear of damaging their political and economic influence. Indeed, if Palestinians were fully nationalized, Israel would immediately lose its Jewish majority. And declining birthrates among secular Jewish Israelis suggest that in such a binational state, Arabs would only become an increasingly larger percentage of the Israeli population, threatening Israel’s future Jewish character.

Facing pushback to nationalization both at home and in Israel, Palestinians will become increasingly frustrated, which could raise the risk for more uprisings. But unlike the intifadas of the 1980s and 2000s, which came with a sense of heightened international sympathy for the Palestinian cause, future violent uprisings will have less international backing, particularly in the Arab world. They will also come up against an Israeli military and security apparatus that has built walls, installed widespread surveillance and upgraded their anti-insurgency tactics since the last intifada in 2000. Any new uprising is thus unlikely to move the needle on Palestinian statehood.

Waiting for a Better Day

With no viable way to push for nationalization, and with unrest unlikely to shift Israel away from further expansion, Palestinians may be relegated to the position of bystanders — watching as conditions are imposed on them by the Israelis, and awaiting for international and regional conditions to improve so that their cause may one day regain its prior global prominence.

If the region’s geopolitical climate begins to stabilize amid, for example, another nuclear deal or other comprehensive agreement with Iran, the Palestinians may again have allies to pressure Israel to resolve the conflict. Arab Gulf states, for one, could leverage their newly normalized economic and security relations with Israel to lobby on behalf of the Palestinians in the future. The United States, with its own liberal demographic drift slowly pulling it ideologically away from Israel, might also prioritize the Palestinian issue again. By helping quell the European Union’s concerns about refugees and terrorism, a more stable Middle East may also make Brussels more willing to risk its security ties with Israel to push for change in the Palestinian territories. Indeed, the Palestinians may someday be able to once again use diplomacy to settle their final status. But with so much in the region and world uncertain, so too will remain the territories’ political future.

[Crafty_Dog]

How Israel is Adapting to the Growing Threat of Terror Armies
by Yaakov Lappin
Special to IPT News
January 5, 2021

https://www.investigativeproject.org/8690/how-israel-is-adapting-to-the-growing-threat

[Crafty_Dog]

second

HIGHLIGHTS

After a year of severe economic and political instability, Lebanon is edging closer toward a full-blown crisis that could overwhelm even the most entrenched members of its ruling elite, raising the specter of widespread unrest or another civil war. Little about Lebanon is tenable, with its economy in shambles, its national budget unsustainable, its infrastructure in disrepair, and its security at constant threat from extremists, regional conflicts and internal unrest. But with no checks on their power, Lebanon’s various political factions are still finding ways to ritualize this dysfunction, scrambling to stay one step ahead of a disaster that upends their place in power -- and with it, the remaining threads keeping the country from coming apart at the seams. ...

After a year of severe economic and political instability, Lebanon is edging closer toward a full-blown crisis that could overwhelm even the most entrenched members of its ruling elite, raising the specter of widespread unrest or another civil war. Little about Lebanon is tenable, with its economy in shambles, its national budget unsustainable, its infrastructure in disrepair, and its security at constant threat from extremists, regional conflicts and internal unrest. But with no checks on their power, Lebanon’s various political factions are still finding ways to ritualize this dysfunction, scrambling to stay one step ahead of a disaster that upends their place in power — and with it, the remaining threads keeping the country from coming apart at the seams.

Unchecked Corruption Breeds Dysfunction

At the core of Lebanon’s woes is the fact that there remain little checks on government corruption. The judiciary, executive and legislature are all held by establishment factions and leaders who have little incentive to change the system. Despite years of international demands and advice, they have budged very little on the necessary spending and governance reforms needed to earn international aid. Even the investigation into the disastrous Beirut port explosion in August 2020, as well as the Dec. 10 indictment of former Prime Minister Hassan Diab for his government’s involvement in the gross negligence that led to the blast, appear unlikely to upend Lebanon’s political system.

A System Born Of Civil War

Lebanon’s system of governance is geared toward solving the security dilemma created by its sectarian past, with its constitution, security forces and legal system organized around preventing another civil war. In exchange for laying aside their arms, Lebanon’s political parties and factions — both sectarian and ideological — agree that the state is a machine to dole out jobs, services and funds for supporters. A faction that controls a ministry can influence the way it spends its budget. The Iran-backed militant group and political party, Hezbollah, for example, has used its control of Lebanon’s health ministry to provide preferential services for its supporters. Even lower down in government, factions that hold mayoral posts or municipal positions can influence spending to reward allies and punish enemies.

Even abroad, the country’s key allies are uninterested in applying the kind of pressure that might force a real shift in sectarian behavior. After the Beirut port blast, France postured as if it might take a more notable role in addressing Lebanon’s internal disorder. But Paris has since instead deferred to its traditional strategic approach that prioritizes Lebanon’s stability via negotiated, incremental change. French goals continue to prize holding onto its former influence over the country, which still runs through sectarian parties like the Sunni-dominated Future Movement party.

Under President Donald Trump, the United States has lumped Lebanon into its anti-Iran campaign, sanctioning Hezbollah-linked banks and institutions. But instead of forcing positive change, this increased financial pressure from Washington has only accelerated Lebanon’s economic deterioration, with the country’s political system still intact.

The other traditional foreign influences in Lebanon have also, for different reasons, given up on using the country as a direct proxy theater for their regional advantage. Saudi Arabia and Iran have both taken their proxy conflicts elsewhere in the region — namely Iraq and Yemen. And Syria, consumed by its civil war, has few resources left over to interfere in Lebanon’s internal dynamics. Having fought the stalemated 2006 war with Hezbollah, Israel has little interest in repeating that expensive history. For Israel, rocking the boat in Lebanon could also jeopardize its ongoing negotiations with Beirut over a maritime border that could stabilize Israel’s access to sizable energy reserves in the Mediterranean. Iran, for its part, has little reason to upend the sectarian system that has allowed it to entrench Hezbollah as a proxy against Israel. Tehran, however, may start to intervene if Lebanon’s economic and social instability begins to directly threaten Hezbollah’s influence. But for now, Lebanon’s dysfunction remains largely an internal matter.

Potential Avenues for Change

With the international community unwilling to help, the most likely drivers to break Lebanon’s political impasse appear to be domestic. This could include grassroots outrage that is able to break the sects by producing new parties and leaders through avenues like university elections, local and municipal elections, and even potentially splits within existing factions sitting in parliament. New factions within sects could counterbalance some of the existing establishment, forcing them into positions of compromise. However, such grassroots political challenges would likely require a high turnout from opposition voters in a national election, which isn’t scheduled to happen until at least 2022. And while there are clear signs of high anger with establishment parties, Lebanon has historically struggled to introduce viable new factions within its sectarian system. In 2016, for example, the Beirut Madinati, a new political movement, won a sizable turnout in Beirut’s municipal election but still failed to secure any council seats.

Another potential vector of change could come from the establishment itself. But Lebanon’s political elite is unlikely to change their ways until their physical and economic security is directly threatened. If Lebanon remains on its current path, the trickle of Lebonese refugees now making their way for Europe may become more of a surge, as Lebanon’s humanitarian and social situation degrades further and produces even deeper anger. Such a refugee wave could spur European countries — in particular, France — to take action against Lebanon’s government that forces its leaders on a path to reform. Decaying economic prospects could also radicalize Lebanese youth who might engage in more sustained and violent protests, raising the risk of clashes with security forces and political authorities that could spiral into a security crisis. If severe, such a security crisis could compel establishment figures to seek reform as a means to restore stability — but it could also upend the balance of power between Lebanon’s myriad of political and religious groups that has kept the country from tipping into another civil war.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16948/palestinians-victims-syria

[Crafty_Dog]

The Fate of Israeli-Arab Normalization Under Biden
4 MINS READ
Jan 21, 2021 | 21:59 GMT
 
 
 
Highlights

The Biden administration is not signaling a strong interest in normalization, nor is it philosophically as likely to utilize the transactional means that helped its predecessor facilitate deals with countries like Sudan and Morocco. Trump’s uniquely close relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to largely drive U.S. decisions made on Israel's behalf over the past four years. Biden, however, is unlikely to continue Trump’s strong pro-Israel policies. Biden has also shown more interest in other regional affairs that will limit his administration’s bandwidth to address Israel’s normalization status.  ...

Without former U.S. President Donald Trump’s avid support for Israel’s diplomatic recognition in the Muslim world, the onus of new normalization deals will likely fall to Israel itself, which will either slow the normalization process down or shift its focus to more covert or specific relations. On Jan. 20, U.S. President Joe Biden assumed power, bringing with him numerous personnel and policy shifts, including in U.S.-Israeli relations. 

In recent months, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco have all signed U.S.-brokered normalization agreements with Isreal, which the United States calls “the Abraham Accords.”

Biden’s new Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, has expressed support for the overall Abraham Accords. But during his confirmation hearings on Jan. 19, he also suggested that other regional issues would take priority over normalization.

No clear appointments from the Biden administration appear ready to replace the team led by former President Trump’s son-in-law and special advisor, Jared Kushner, that spearheaded normalization efforts.

The Biden administration is not signaling a strong interest in normalization, nor is it philosophically as likely to utilize the transactional means that helped its predecessor facilitate deals with countries like Sudan and Morocco. Trump’s uniquely close relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to largely drive U.S. decisions made on Israel's behalf over the past four years. Biden, however, is unlikely to continue Trump’s strong pro-Israel policies. Biden has also shown more interest in other regional affairs that will limit his administration’s bandwidth to address Israel’s normalization status. 

Normalization is not mentioned in Biden’s official foreign policy agenda. Nuclear negotiations with Iran, however, are. The Biden administration’s Middle East priorities also include reframing relations with Turkey to address behavior Washington sees as controversial, as well as addressing broader human rights concerns in the region.

During his 2020 campaign, Biden pledged to oppose further Israeli annexations of Palestinian territory in the West Bank. He also promised to restore diplomatic and aid ties with the Palestinian Authority that the Trump administration had restricted.

In exchange for normalization, the Trump administration helped remove Sudan’s U.S. designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, which had limited the Northeast African country’s ability to receive aid and attract foreign investment for the past 27 years. The White House also recognized Morocco’s control of the disputed Western Sahara territory in exchange for Rabat formalizing its ties with Israel.

With Biden unlikely to strongly advocate for the Abraham Accords, the normalization process will change to localized considerations, driven more by incentives Israel can offer as well as mutual strategic interests. Israel will retain influence over U.S. arms sales to Arab countries. This means Israel could offer countries like Saudi Arabia the prospect of Israel lobbying on Riyadh’s behalf for future U.S. arms sales to the kingdom in exchange for normalization. Israel's technology sector, higher education faculties, intelligence capabilities and defense equipment will also continue to pull countries toward normalization, especially those with mutual economic challenges and/or defense threats. Now that there is weaker U.S. pressure to join the Abraham Accords, Muslim countries where domestic opinion remains opposed to diplomatic ties with Israel will likely focus on siloing their Israeli relations into specific trade, technology, defense or intelligence transactions.

The United Arab Emirates was able to ink a last-minute arms purchase on Jan. 20 for American F-35 combat aircraft and Reaper drones. This was largely made possible by Israel’s move to drop its so-called Qualitative Military Edge (QME) policy, which opposes advanced arms sales to even friendly Arab Gulf states for fear of the arms falling into the wrong hands, as part of its normalization deal with Abu Dhabi.

With Saudi King Salman’s opposition to normalization without a Palestinian state, Saudi Arabia has chosen to engage in covert intelligence ties as a substitute for overt diplomatic and defense ties. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has also reportedly held covert meetings with Netanyahu. Without U.S. pressure, this is unlikely to change.

Before Trump’s term ended, Indonesia was also reportedly nearing a U.S.-brokered normalization deal that involved up to $2 billion in U.S. aid to Jakarta. But future progress on that deal is now uncertain under Biden. Indonesia purchased Israeli defense equipment in the 1970s, but substantial opposition among Indonesian Islamists has proved to be an obstacle to further deepening the country’s relations with Isreal.

[ccp]

https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2021/01/25/israel-opens-embassy-in-uae/

 

From what we read it does sound like Jared deserves major credit for this

instead the Left will try to destroy his life going forward

[Crafty_Dog]

I confess to a visceral dislike of his aura, and think he often gave President Trump bad advice on domestic matters, but I must confess he pleasantly surprised me with his Middle East work.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1eOrumBkCs

[Crafty_Dog]

Amid Political Chaos, Israel’s Ultra-Orthodox Parties Mull Uniting With Islamists

undefined and Middle East and North Africa Analyst
Ryan Bohl
Middle East and North Africa Analyst, Stratfor
6 MIN READApr 13, 2021 | 20:41 GMT




Israel’s chaotic political climate is making an alliance between the Jewish and Islamic right, which seemed impossible only a few years ago, increasingly plausible — so long as pragmatic heads prevail. Dominated by the ultra-Orthodox, Israel’s religious right is murmuring that perhaps it’s time to make common cause with the Islamist factions that make up the country’s other major religious movement, in the hopes that a united front could help both sides keep their long-held special privileges and fend off challenges from Israel’s secular community. On April 2, Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, the spiritual leader of the United Torah Judaism party, released a statement saying that “cooperation with those who respect religion and Jewish tradition is better than those who persecute religion.” This was in reference to a potential government deal between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s religious-dominated coalition and Ra’am, the Muslim Brotherhood-derived Israeli Islamist party, with secular parties as “those who persecute religion.” If this alliance materializes, it would heighten tensions between secular and religious sectors of Israel’s society, undermine the prospects of a Palestinian state and impact how Israel normalizes relations with its Arab Gulf neighbors.

A Once-Unthinkable Alliance

For the ultra-Orthodox, the long-term political direction of the country presents a challenge. Though they are increasing their share of Israel’s population, this very success has alienated them from other parts of society, which are concerned about how their exemptions from service in the Israeli Defense Forces might affect the country’s military readiness. There are also growing fears ultra-Orthodox schools are not preparing an ever-larger share of Israel’s citizenry for working and living in the 21st century, a criticism sharpened by the level of state spending allotted for such religious schools. For the past decade, ultra-Orthodox parties have been able to protect these exemptions through a coalition under  Netanyahu. But Netanyahu’s rule is unraveling, and secularists like Avigdor Lieberman have made it clear they won’t serve in future right-wing governments that protect the ultra-Orthodox. Adding to this tension has been the behavior of Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Haredi community during the COVID-19 pandemic, as many Haredi towns and neighborhoods flouted restrictions and subsequently became hotspots for the virus.

As the ultra-Orthodox’s ranks of allies grow thin, Israel’s Islamists in the Ra’am party are embracing pragmatism after decades of intransigence. While Ra’am is taking advantage of the moment of uncertainty caused by Netanyahu’s determination to stay in power, this is unlikely to be the last time it is able to play a kingmaking role, as Israel’s growing political fragmentation could increasingly favor small swing parties like Ra’am while deep splits form between secular right-wingers and religious ones.


But this alliance would be underpinned by more than just pragmatic politics, as Ra’am and the ultra-Orthodox do have some common interests. As religious parties, both are threatened by the secularists who have traditionally dominated Israel, and who use their influence in schools, courts and media to undermine the religious scruples they both hold sacred. Israel’s Islamist and ultra-Orthodox communities also agree on some big ideas, like trying to diminish LGBTQ roles in Israel and preserving traditional roles for women, while both want to maintain their exemption from the IDF (like Haredis, Arab Israelis are also not required to serve).

There are still obstacles to such an alliance, but they are not insurmountable. The most important one is that Islamism and Zionism contain contradictions that would need to be ignored or resolved for a political relationship to function. In addition, Ra’am still believes in a Palestinian state while the ultra-Orthodox generally do not, though this disagreement is steadily becoming moot as Israel expands settlements and the international community loses interest in shepherding a Palestinian state into existence. Israel’s other right-wing parties will try to win back the ultra-Orthodox to rebuild the government, especially if the Netanyahu era ends. But those efforts will face the same problems that have plagued Netanyahu, as the ultra-Orthodox’s exemptions are simply not sustainable for many Israelis, even right-leaning ones.

A United Religious Right?

If such an alliance can form, it would have notable implications for Israel’s politics, domestic stability and international relations. An Islamist-Haredi alliance would create a new political bloc that could swing coalitions in its favor and win concessions for their communities. That could leave their exemptions from the IDF and education in place, with the national security and economic impacts of those exemptions to be reckoned with another day. They could also press to undercut LGBTQ rights in Israel, or at the very least slow the expansion of those rights (which could create friction with the United States and European Union). It would also heighten tensions between secular and religious Israelis, sparking protests, clashes and unrest. That tension could help cement the relationship between the Islamists and the ultra-Orthodox as it drives them together in the face of mutual domestic rivals.

A more united religious right would also help cement Israel’s expansionism into the West Bank, as Israeli Islamists weaken Israeli Arab opposition to settlements and provide an alternative political path for Palestinian rights. This would take Israel in the direction of a single state that would expand political and social roles for Arabs and would not predicate itself on an increasingly untenable Palestinian state. Coalition governments could be made with fewer concessions to what remains to the Israeli left, which still favors a Palestinian state. Opposition to Israeli expansionism could even weaken among Palestinians, particularly if they see Israeli Islamists gain concessions within Israel. This would make it apparent that Palestinian rights are better secured through Israel’s democracy than with a two-state solution, especially given the long-standing corruption and political paralysis of the Palestinian Authority that has undermined the national project’s legitimacy.

Finally, a more united religious right could change Israel’s relations with Arab Gulf states and its normalization push, chilling ties with some countries while encouraging growth with others. The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have made it point to limit the growth of Islamists in places like Egypt, concerned that Islamist revolutionary sentiment could spread to their countries. Indeed, Qatar’s closeness with the Muslim Brotherhood was a major driving force behind Abu Dhabi and Riyadh’s 2017-2021 blockade. Should Israeli Islamists work their way into Israeli governments, these Arab Gulf states will have to either limit the growth of their relationships with Israel or learn to more pragmatically accept Islamism as a cost of doing business. Other countries, like Qatar and Kuwait, might actually be encouraged to explore deeper relations with Israel, given their existing closeness to political Islam.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/watch-chaos-explodes-jerusalem-after-jewish-settler-groups-chant-death-arabs-during?utm_campaign=&utm_content=Zerohedge%3A+The+Durden+Dispatch&utm_medium=email&utm_source=zh_newsletter

[Crafty_Dog]

   
The State of the Israeli-Gaza Conflict
Gaza is militarily isolated, and the rhetorical support it used to get from the Arab world is no longer a given.
By: George Friedman

The origins of the modern Arab-Israeli conflict are pretty well known. Gaza, the narrow strip of land running to the Sinai Peninsula, was originally part of the Palestinian mandate, a British-administered area. After the establishment of Israel, a war broke out with neighboring Arab countries. Egypt mounted an assault into the Negev Desert that was defeated by the Israelis, save for the thrust up the coast toward Tel Aviv. This was ultimately blocked by Israel, but the Egyptians were not routed. That became Gaza.

Gaza became a rallying cry for Arabs in the Middle East, who, along with the Soviet Union, supported the Palestinian cause. But after the Soviet Union fell, Moscow lost interest, and support for the Palestinian cause declined as Gaza became a unique Palestinian entity, holding and administering a Palestinian territory.

Today, Gaza is a heavily populated and extremely poor area. It is dominated by two political factions, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, that work together. From Gaza’s point of view, it is the last organized, territorial resistance to Israel.

It does not have a conventional military capable of engaging Israeli troops on the ground, but it does have facilities for storing lots of short-range rockets able to strike a limited area around its borders. It also has a number of longer-range missiles able to reach Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. These missiles, along with the know-how to make rockets, were provided by Iran. As Arab support for the Palestinians declined, Iran filled the void. Relatedly, Iran controls a large number of rockets and missiles in Syria, as well as a very large establishment in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon – all of which constitutes part of Iran’s arc of influence into the Mediterranean.

Israel is engaged in a battle to eliminate the Iranian threat in Syria but has not tried to eliminate the threat in Lebanon; the size and distance and possible retaliatory force poses too much of a challenge. It has also refused to act decisively against Gaza, which should not be regarded simply as an Iranian puppet but as an independent actor.

And so, Iran aside, Israel is concerned about Gaza for two reasons. The first is the possibility of it waging an extended missile campaign against Israel’s heartland: the triangle of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa. Second, it is concerned about guerrilla attacks potentially launched from Gaza. Israel therefore periodically launches attacks against Gaza that are meant to disrupt its military capabilities rather than to occupy the strip itself.

Gaza, the final redoubt of the Palestinians, is concerned primarily with survival. Only then can it force Israel to reach some sort of accommodation with the Palestinians and with Hamas. One way to force Israel into accommodation is to pose a significant threat. Hence the missiles. This creates a political-military conundrum for Gaza. It must survive, but merely surviving does not give it any kind of leverage.

Israel has no interest in accommodating Gaza, since accommodation would leave Gaza capable of acquiring missiles and thus threaten Israel's heartland. Israel is therefore content with the status quo, but if it had its druthers, it would prefer to occupy Gaza and disperse its citizens.

Undertaking such a broad attack is a military challenge. From the standpoint of an armored/infantry operation, Gaza is not small. It is extremely urban and densely packed. Enemy forces can be widely placed in buildings and, being familiar with the area, can engage, withdraw and redeploy relatively easily. Gazans have sophisticated anti-tank weapons, putting tanks and armored personnel at risk, along with the infantry. All the while, Gazans may elect to fire missiles at the Israeli heartland. While Israel would likely defeat the Gazans, the price could be far greater than Israel is willing to pay. Therefore, Gazans tend to attack with relatively short-range rockets, and Israel with rockets launched from aircraft, coupled with small-scale special operations targeted at specific targets – leadership, weapons, factories – with fast entrance and exit by the troops.

There’s a notable difference in this week’s fighting. Normally, other Arab countries issue hostile statements against Israel, but so far they have been relatively quiet. To the contrary, the Saudi ambassador to the U.N. condemned Gaza’s missile barrage against Israeli citizens. Elsewhere, a well-known preacher in the United Arab Emirates named Waseem Yousef tweeted outright support of Israel’s actions. Plenty in the Arab world took issue with both statements, of course, but the fact that they were allowed to be made by their respective governments indicates a significant shift in Arab sentiment toward events in Gaza.

At the moment, Gaza is militarily isolated, and the rhetorical support it used to get from the Arab world is no longer a given. This creates psychological questions, and psychology is essential to warfare. The Israelis are threatening to destroy Gaza’s leadership and to change the reality of Gaza. Ultimately, this requires occupation to work. The Israeli response must appear disproportionate, and the lack of automatic support disheartening. It did not expect, I think, that the Abraham Accords would somehow lead to a break in the pro forma gestures of support. Israel's threatening to launch a major ground offensive is likely forcing Arab governments to reassess their positions.

If the psychological shock doesn’t change the military approach, then nothing changes. Gazans have nowhere to go. Israel is afraid of settlement that leaves Gaza autonomous, and Gaza still has support from Iran, which is itself under pressure. The Israelis are casualty adverse, and urban fighting generates casualties. An extended air attack with the most precise missiles available will still yield massive civilian casualties. Gaza is worth some bad press to Israel, but not that much.

As the conflict evolves, there are two things to watch for: missiles targeting Tel Aviv, and Israeli infantry and armor penetrating into Gaza. Protecting Tel Aviv gives Israel, with more military capability, more urgency. Hamas knows as much.

[Crafty_Dog]

Hamas's Missile Threat to Israel
by Guermantes Lailari
IPT News
May 13, 2021

https://www.investigativeproject.org/8854/hamas-missile-threat-to-israel

[ccp]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/05/13/faq-hamas-missiles/

[ccp]

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2021/05/14/idf-launches-brilliant-and-devastating-attack-on-huddled-hamas-terrorists-n2589448

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17372/turning-point-in-gaza

[DougMacG]

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/tyler-o-neil/2021/05/15/the-hamas-rocket-attacks-are-based-on-a-lie-n1447193

[Crafty_Dog]

"Hamas Achieved Nothing but Ruining Gaza"
by Yaakov Lappin
IPT News
May 18, 2021

https://www.investigativeproject.org/8857/hamas-achieved-nothing-but-ruining-gaza

[ccp]

but Biden and of course takes credit
and the media happy to assist

even Sec of S tate Blinken gives away the truth:

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2021/05/21/did-biden-just-try-to-take-credit-for-ceasefire-n2589811

I suppose he will get a Nobel prize given to Democrats de jour

I am trying to think back to the last time we had a Democrat President that was not a serial liar and BS non artist
Don't remember Johnson or Kennedy well enough.....

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.foxnews.com/world/how-has-hamas-created-a-rocket-arsenal-israel?fbclid=IwAR1MrCO5lYIku_Y9BPVRlTQrj-s6olMi_XFXZ4-bnBi1gqsFsfT99JVOvz4

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.facebook.com/Dr.Gad.Saad/videos/1157954008050189/

[Crafty_Dog]

June 17, 2021
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The Curse of Sectarianism in Lebanon
The country’s economic and political problems are rooted in its sectarian divides.
By: Hilal Khashan
In October 2019, a spate of protests erupted over the Lebanese government’s plan to impose a daily 20-cent charge on calls made through WhatsApp. The demonstrations abated a few months later when the COVID-19 pandemic began, but sporadic and low-key outbursts have flared up ever since.

The anger over the proposed tax was intertwined with long-standing frustration over government corruption and misconduct. Indeed, in Lebanon, these problems are as old as the state itself, but the level of corruption hasn’t always been this bad. After gaining independence in 1943, the country’s sectarian leaders established an oligarchical political system that granted the people freedom of expression, though it concentrated power in the elite. Despite its inherent limitations, the system was effective enough to give Lebanon the pretense of democracy and established it as the only democratic country in the Arab world. But in the 1990s, a new oligarchical class comprising people from lower socio-economic backgrounds rose to power and in the process exploited public funds to expand their own wealth. They established an uneasy power troika between Sunni, Shiite and Maronite leaders and disbanded Lebanon’s historical concept of national accommodation. They also resorted to excessive borrowing to cover deficit spending and fraudulent public works.

By the end of 2019, Lebanon was bankrupt. People lost their life savings after banks lent their deposits to the central bank, which transferred its profits to foreign bank accounts. It’s a steep fall from grace for a country once celebrated as the Switzerland of the east and whose capital, Beirut, was the Paris of the Arab world.

Ineffective Civil Society

To understand the reasons behind Lebanon’s downfall, one needs to understand its sectarian political system. This system has allowed sectarian leaders to escape accountability in order to protect the country’s fragile unity. Civil society, including Lebanon’s 1,300 nongovernmental organizations as well as other interest groups, was supposed to be a moderating force, but it has failed to limit the destructive influence of sectarianism. These groups, which include labor unions, journalist organizations and medical associations, specialize in a wide range of social issues. But instead of holding those in power accountable, they have been co-opted by them.

Lebanon's Political Structure

(click to enlarge)

Most voluntary associations owe their existence to foreign financial support. They evade government monetary controls, lack transparency and suffer from the same corruption that plagues Lebanon’s political system. After last year’s massive port explosion in Beirut, foreign aid poured into Lebanon. Many donors, especially from Western countries, channeled donations to local NGOs, lacking faith in the government’s ability to dispense the assistance to people in need. But much of the aid ended up for sale at market prices in supermarkets, drug stores and elsewhere.

Local NGOs that spearheaded the ensuing protests demanded the ouster of political leaders but took no issue with Lebanon’s sectarian system. The NGOs attributed Lebanon’s economic and political woes to corrupt politicians, not an unworkable political system. They paid little attention to the self-serving sectarian political cartel that dominates all three branches of government.

Lebanon’s civil society has therefore been unable to effect any real change. Though civil society groups increasingly attract members and audiences from a wide spectrum of society, they have failed to pressure the government to adopt, let alone implement, policies to address critical social issues that affect people’s daily lives. (For example, sanitation and garbage disposal are increasingly areas of concern. Existing landfills are overburdened, and garbage is often disposed of in open spaces or dumped in rivers or the sea.) In the 2018 general election, a candidate with a background in civil society won a seat in parliament but resigned two years later after realizing that she could not deliver on her campaign promises.

Sectarian Divide

The Lebanese see themselves as unique among the Arabs. They pride themselves on their strong business and service skills and on the success they have achieved as immigrants in foreign countries. But despite this sense of Lebanese exceptionalism, the Lebanese have failed to foster a sense of national solidarity and a political community that cuts across religious and sectarian lines.

Most Lebanese people discover their national identity when communicating with foreigners, but they often view their fellow Lebanese from other sects as outsiders. In the 20th century, economic development was concentrated in Beirut, a predominantly Sunni city on the coast, and Mount Lebanon, which is mainly Maronite Christian. But the people of the coast and the mountains shared little in common ideologically despite their proximity, and the rest of the country remained on the fringes, increasingly isolated and dominated by medieval-style feudal leaders. The sectarian division fueled a sense of alienation and susceptibility to violence and radicalism.

Lebanon's Distribution of Religious Groups

(click to enlarge)

Another problem related to the sectarian divide is clientelism, a legacy of the feudal system. It’s a form of political control whereby members of the ruling elite preside over a sectarian constituency and provide it with essential services, such as education, medical care and employment. The relationship between client and patron is uneven, as the former owes complete and unquestioned loyalty to the latter. This practice is common among political parties. The late Kamal Jumblatt, the scion of a feudal Druze family, established the Progressive Socialist Party in 1949 to expand his base of popular support. In 1974, the Shiite-dominated Amal Movement was formed as the Movement of the Dispossessed to unseat the sect’s feudal leaders who treated the peasants like serfs.

When parliamentary elections resumed in 1992 after Lebanon’s 15-year civil war, Amal and another Shiite-dominated party, Hezbollah, formed a joint electoral list. They maintained their close cooperation in the five subsequent legislative elections, carrying all Shiite seats without a single loss. In turn, Shiites depend almost entirely on the Amal-Hezbollah coalition to provide them with a range of services including food, health care and education. Some Shiites joined the protests in 2019, but Amal and Hezbollah quickly clamped down on the demonstrations and, simultaneously, expanded their material provisions to discourage further revolt.

Other sects use similar tactics to keep their bases loyal. Cash payments, food rations and jobs, especially in the public sector, are standard incentives in exchange for political loyalty and votes. Several politicians, including Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri, have bribed voters with COVID-19 vaccines ahead of next year’s parliamentary elections. The Lebanese Forces party, a Maronite rival of President Michel Aoun’s party, has appealed for donations from its wealthy supporters abroad. The government, meanwhile, remains idle, unable to address the economic crisis that has put more than 80 percent of people below the poverty line. Clientelism has contributed to the crisis. Lebanon’s public sector employs 320,000 people – twice the number of employees needed for a country its size – and cost the treasury $8 billion in 2019.

Elusive Citizenship

The European student movement of the 1960s had a tremendous impact on Lebanese college students and rising secular trends. New social movements sought to break loose from the tight grip of sectarian leaders, who saw the mere emergence of these movements during a period of regional and domestic turmoil as a threat. The elite’s apprehension soared as demands for secularism grew especially among the youth.

The civil war that began in 1975 derailed the rise of secularism and reignited primordial allegiances. More than 120,000 people perished in the war. Thousands more went missing and hundreds of thousands left the country or were internally displaced. To prevent another war from breaking out, many Lebanese people wanted to unite the country’s myriad sects. But Syria’s 29-year hegemony over Lebanon (1976-2005) gave Hezbollah ultimate control over the state under the pretense of preventing Israeli occupation. Thus, the Lebanese missed the opportunity to reform their political system after 15 years of bloody civil war. The country is currently facing its worst economic crisis ever. It would be unfortunate if it doesn’t learn the lessons from this situation to construct a new political system.

[Crafty_Dog]

Hezbollah Will Likely Block Israeli Aid, Deepening Lebanon’s Woes
3 MIN READJul 6, 2021 | 19:30 GMT





Demonstrators burn tires in Lebanon's capital of Beirut on June 26, 2021, in protest of the country’s ongoing economical and political crisis.
Demonstrators burn tires in Lebanon's capital of Beirut on June 26, 2021, in protest of the country’s ongoing economical and political crisis.

(ANWAR AMRO/AFP via Getty Images)

Hezbollah will block Israel’s recent offer of humanitarian aid for fear of weakening its domestic support, as well as promoting favor toward further Israeli normalization — a policy shift that neither the Shiite militant group nor its backer Iran can ideologically accept. On July 6, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said Israel formally offered Lebanon humanitarian aid through the U.N. peacekeeping force based in Lebanon. While it wasn’t clear what specific type of aid would be included in the offer, Lebanon is grappling with an economic crisis that has made gas, food, medicine and other basic necessities increasingly scarce. The offer came as Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Hassan Diab, called for urgent humanitarian aid from the international community, warning that the country could suffer a “social explosion” without new support.

Hezbollah, however, also has no other viable options for new sources of aid to supplement its traditional patronage system, which the militant group relies on to maintain loyalty in Lebanon’s Shiite community. Hezbollah has traditionally used a combination of arms and patronage to maintain its position in Lebanon. But patronage is drying up amid spending cuts and a lack of new international aid, as well as demands for sweeping structural reforms from Lebanon’s foreign donors. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has called for Lebanon to accept oil shipments from Iran to ease its energy shortage, though doing so would violate U.S. sanctions and potentially economically isolate Beirut further. Israeli forces could also readily sabotage Iranian vessels going to Lebanon as part of Israel’s ongoing shadow war with Iran across the region. Moreover, international aid from the United States, Europe and Arab Gulf states remains contingent on deeper structural reforms of the sectarian system that would weaken Hezbollah’s domestic position.

As Lebanon’s economic crisis worsens, Hezbollah will thus increasingly have to rely on force to retain influence, weakening the country’s already frail security situation. As the fallout from Lebanon’s financial collapse, Hezbollah will be less able to provide its Shiite community — which was already one of the poorest sects in the country before the current crisis began in late 2019 — with economic and humanitarian support. As a result, some Shiite may grow more emboldened to criticize Hezbollah's role in the sectarian system that has left Lebanon economically isolated. But with a secure land route to Iran through Syria and Iraq, Hezbollah’s arsenals remain well-supplied, leaving the militant group able to project power domestically against such dissidents.

[ccp]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/03/politics/andrew-cuomo-new-york-report/index.html

sure as day turns to night
Israel will respond

watch for the BDS crowd to make a stink when they do

[Crafty_Dog]

For Israel, Attacking Lebanon Risks Triggering a Multi-Front Conflict
Aug 5, 2021 | 21:27 GMT





Smoke billows above towns in southern Lebanon on Aug. 4, 2021, after being hit by Israeli airstrikes.
Smoke billows above towns in southern Lebanon on Aug. 4, 2021, after being hit by Israeli airstrikes.

(MAHMOUD ZAYYAT/AFP via Getty Images)

Israel’s attempt to deter rocket fire from Lebanon risks triggering a greater conflict with Beruit and Hezbollah on its northern border, while also inspiring Gaza militants to resume attacks on its southern border. Israel launched airstrikes on southern Lebanon on the night of Aug. 4, targeting the launch sites from which rockets had been fired at northern Israel the day prior. Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said the attack was “meant to send a message” to a Palestinian faction in Lebanon that he believed launched the recent rocket strikes against Israel. Gantz also cautioned that Israel “could do much more,” but hoped it wouldn’t come to that. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) warned Lebanon to avoid “further attempts to harm Israeli civilians” as well. ...

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/lebanons-economy-quickly-collapsing-amid-hyperinflation-power-outages_3939156.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-08-09&mktids=3ca0ebf0d7581c4e571985b5d8f82de1&est=Z%2FNWj5TszVSlxdtrZxhdL0Uwol2l9kGTLoiO1Z%2FJOpZG17YIIwxBEmTiNn%2F70EKNOtm5

[Crafty_Dog]

August 12, 2021
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Hezbollah’s Moment of Truth
As the country’s economic crisis worsens, anger toward the group is mounting.
By: Hilal Khashan

Lebanon is facing its worst economic crisis since its founding. The Lebanese pound has collapsed, the central bank’s dollar reserves are depleted, and inflation is soaring. With more than 80 percent of the population now living in poverty, the country will need decades to recover.

For Hezbollah, one of Lebanon’s biggest Shiite political parties, the economic crisis also presents a political dilemma. The rate of poverty among Shiites exceeds that of the country as a whole. In addition, Hezbollah’s own resources have been severely depleted due to U.S. sanctions and the financial constraints of its main foreign backer, Iran. This has all but erased its ability to sustain poor Shiites as the crisis unfolds.

Thus, Hezbollah is at a crossroads. The group’s traditional base of supporters is growing wary of its loyalty to Tehran, especially considering its inability to resolve the economic crisis. Its followers also question its alliance with the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), a party many have accused of deliberately blocking an end to the country’s political stalemate. As the social tension in the country rises, Shiites have begun to voice their opposition to the group and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

Unnatural Alliance

In 2006, Hezbollah signed a memorandum of understanding with the FPM, a Christian political party led by Michel Aoun. Aoun wanted Hezbollah’s support in achieving his aspiration of becoming president and, in exchange, would help usher the group into the political mainstream. A decade later, Aoun became president, while Hezbollah emerged as Lebanon’s predominant political actor. In 2020, however, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Gebran Bassil, Aoun’s son-in-law and leader of the FPM, under the Global Magnitsky Act on corruption grounds. But Bassil, who has presidential aspirations of his own, believes that the sanctions were actually a result of his alliance with Hezbollah.

Sharing little in common with the group – Aoun and Bassil are staunch proponents of Lebanese Christian nationalism, while Nasrallah supports Iran’s Islamic revolution ideals and its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – Bassil’s pact with Hezbollah was merely transactional. He rejects the presence of weapons outside the Lebanese army and believes that Hezbollah’s military wing will eventually have to be dismantled. He lacks trust in the group, which is also allied with the Amal Movement, a Shiite rival of the FPM.

The sanctions, and their impact on his political career, prompted Bassil to publicly criticize Hezbollah. Meanwhile, the Lebanese public is also growing increasingly frustrated with the group’s actions. Hezbollah stores its military hardware throughout the country, even in residential areas. It has even stockpiled some munitions among the civilian population in a region of southern Lebanon monitored by the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon – an area in which Hezbollah is not supposed to be present. Its violation of the 2006 cease-fire agreement occasionally triggers skirmishes with the U.N. peacekeepers.

Last week, Hezbollah fired a dozen Katyusha rockets from a Druze village on the disputed Shebaa Farms area, which straddles the borders of Lebanon, Israel and Syria. When the villagers seized the rocket launcher and apprehended its crew, the Lebanese army returned the launcher to Hezbollah and set the men free, while the Ministry of Foreign Affairs lodged a complaint with the U.N. against Israel. Nasrallah justified the attack, saying Katyushas don't have the range to reach Shebaa Farms from Shiite villages. The unprecedented incident has broken the fear of challenging Hezbollah’s use of civilians as human shields and is likely to elicit a backlash from Shiite villagers wary of the consequences of provoking Israel. Had the Druze villagers not apprehended Hezbollah’s men who fired the rockets, the group would likely have blamed the incident on Palestinian militants or a clandestine organization, as it has on many previous occasions.

Lebanon's Distribution of Religious Groups
(click to enlarge)

In 2006, Hezbollah fired a salvo of rockets into northern Israel from a Sunni village, inviting an Israeli reprisal strike that killed 23 villagers. After the hostilities, Hezbollah activists hung posters of Nasrallah on the village’s walls, sparking clashes among the residents. Hezbollah has also been blamed for last year’s devastating Beirut port explosion, which killed 217 people, damaged a large swath of the city and displaced 300,000 residents. It unsafely stored thousands of tons of ammonium nitrate for use by the Syrian regime in a warehouse near densely populated residential quarters. But one year into the investigation, the case has gone nowhere because Hezbollah has prevented a judge overseeing the case from revoking immunity for politicians, Cabinet members and parliamentary deputies who knew about the explosive shipment at the port. Nasrallah even suggested that Israel might be behind the explosion, asserting that the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Israel always try to blame Hezbollah for anything that goes wrong in Lebanon.

Nasrallah is making increasingly outlandish statements. In a speech five years ago, he described Sunnis as foreign lackeys and Gulf rulers as inept and lazy, before retracting his comments. In 2017, after former U.S. President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, Nasrallah said the decision would lead to Israel’s demise. On Hezbollah’s involvement in the Syrian war, he said that whoever defeated the Islamic State and al-Nusra could easily beat the Israel Defense Forces.

Hezbollah’s military intervention in Syria, in support of Bashar Assad’s fight against Sunni insurgents, soured Lebanese Shiites’ relations with Gulf countries. It led to the imposition of travel restrictions on Lebanese Shiites, many of whom lost jobs or opportunities to seek employment in the Gulf’s lucrative labor market. Hezbollah says it has lost 2,000 fighters in the Syrian war, but observers believe the actual number is much higher. Hezbollah officials argue that the intervention prevented radical Sunni groups from infiltrating Lebanon, a rationalization that worked until the country’s financial crisis erupted in 2019.

Looking Ahead

Hezbollah is desperately trying to contain the anger and frustration of its Shiite base by, for example, issuing digital food ration cards, which offer needy Lebanese a 40 percent discount from market prices. But considering the soaring cost of staple goods, the cards have limited value. It’s also stockpiling medicine imported from Iran and modest fuel supplies to keep vital facilities running. (Contrary to Nasrallah’s claims, Hezbollah can’t procure fuel from Iran due to Israel’s warning that it would prevent the fuel from reaching Lebanon by ship or truck via Iraq and Syria.)

Despite its claims otherwise, Hezbollah isn’t interested in fighting corruption. It wants to avoid compromising its strategic alliance with the Amal Movement, whose leader is a primary beneficiary of Lebanon’s confessional political system, in which top political offices are assigned to certain sectarian groups. But Shiites are growing frustrated with Hezbollah’s empty rhetoric on corruption, as well as its claim to being at the forefront of resisting Israeli occupation.

Any criticism directed its way won’t be tolerated. Its militants have arrested and tortured many Shiite youths who participated in protests and coerced them into rescinding their criticism of Hezbollah and Nasrallah. By 2020, they subdued the protests for the most part, though anger over the economic situation persists.

Lebanon’s economic collapse is rapidly eroding Hezbollah’s popular legitimacy. Nasrallah is unwilling to help resolve the political stalemate, fearing it might raise issues about Hezbollah’s military wing and ideological affinity with Iran. As the level of poverty increases with no end in sight, the likelihood of civil strife also rises, and its early manifestations are becoming clear. Nasrallah’s anti-Israel statements ceased to impress impoverished Shiites who, like other Lebanese, are struggling to make ends meet. Yet, Hezbollah is too ideologically rigid to transform into a genuine political party and accept the concept of a civil state.

A referral is the best compliment.
Feel free to forward this email to friends and colleague

[Crafty_Dog]

Solid partnership. The foreign ministers of Cyprus, Greece and Israel met in Jerusalem on Friday to reaffirm their alliance, which began as a counter to Turkish claims to exploration rights in the eastern Mediterranean. The three ministers expressed concern over several regional developments, including the rise in extremism stretching from North Africa to Afghanistan and, in a veiled reference to Turkey, attempts to revive old empires.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18010/biden-administration-israel

[Crafty_Dog]

January 6, 2022
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What Hezbollah Really Wants
The group’s focus has evolved since its early days.
By: Hilal Khashan

Last week, Hezbollah repatriated an Israeli Bedouin who had defected to Lebanon and said he wanted to become a Hezbollah fighter. The group’s decision to return the man, who Lebanese investigators determined was not an Israeli spy, to Israel might sound baffling. But to understand the move, we need to look at Hezbollah’s history and evolution from a religiously motivated institution to a serious but destabilizing and opportunistic political actor.

What Is Hezbollah?

Hezbollah describes itself as a faith-based, Islamic jihadist movement. It says its key objectives include defending Lebanon against “probable Israeli aggression” and establishing an Islamic republic similar to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s Islamic state in Iran. Hezbollah’s 1985 Open Letter – essentially, the group’s manifesto – unambiguously stated that if the people freely chose the form of governance they hoped to see in Lebanon, they would find no alternative to Iran’s Islamic model. But in 1987, it launched jihad against the Israeli occupation of south Lebanon instead of pursuing the more difficult task of creating a utopian state.

Whereas Sunnis perceive jihad as waging war against the infidel to expand Islam’s domain, Shiites understand it as a means of fighting injustice within Islam. For them, injustice began in the early years of Islam when the Prophet Muhammad’s close companions, viewed by Shiites as hypocrites, barred his cousin Imam Ali’s succession to the leadership of the Islamic community. The crisis split Muslims, eventually leading to the rise of the Sunni-Shiite divide, warranting jihad against the Sunni hypocrites.

Distribution of Shiite and Sunni Muslims
(click to enlarge)

Khomeini introduced the concept of political jihad when he called for war against the forces of global arrogance – i.e., the U.S. and Israel. The 1953 CIA-planned Iranian coup to reinstate the shah was a blow to Iranians’ national pride and led to widespread anti-Americanism. Khomeini also chose to fight against Zionism because he wanted to export his revolution throughout the Middle East and believed that taking an anti-Israeli stance would appeal to Arabs. Unlike jihad against hypocrites that assumed a permanent religious dimension, political jihad is transient, potentially leading to cooperation between Shiites and the West.

Hezbollah mobilized Lebanese Shiite society through a comprehensive socialization system encompassing culture, education, health care, media, economic activity, and care for wounded fighters and families of the fallen. Hezbollah encourages its followers to enroll in military training in Lebanon and Iran – which helped the group bond with its constituency. Becoming a Hezbollah member, however, is a rigorous process requiring the fulfillment of stringent prerequisites. Hezbollah members must come from Twelver Imami Shiite families, not proselytism, and must subscribe to Khomeini’s religious doctrine. They must believe that Iran’s supreme leader will decide whether to grant them entrance into heaven. The group rejects applicants who are independent-minded and critical thinkers.

But since 2000, when Israel withdrew from south Lebanon, Hezbollah has shifted its focus. It has shown little interest in fighting the Israel Defense Forces and is instead focused on Lebanon itself, where it has a clear advantage against local militias and unmotivated Lebanese army forces. It has also spent much time and resources doing Iran’s bidding, though Hezbollah fighters did not perform well against Syrian rebels until the Russians joined the battle in 2015. Their guerrilla warfare tactics in south Lebanon – namely, planting roadside bombs and firing rockets – were unsuccessful in Syria. They did not know how to maneuver on the battlefield and feared close-range combat with al-Nusra and Islamic State fighters.

Hezbollah ultimately sustained heavy casualties in Syria. Two years ago, the group’s elite al-Radwan units were pummeled by the Turkish army in the Syrian province of Idlib. The Israeli command followed the battle and was impressed with how easily the Turks defeated Hezbollah, which is now in no position to engage in another conflict with the IDF.

New Role

Even before Israel left Lebanon, Hezbollah began to search for local allies to prepare for its growing role in domestic affairs. Membership in Hezbollah requires compliance with a strict set of preconditions that can be met only by religious Shiites, but in 1997, the group formed its Resistance Brigades unit, whose membership is open to all young Lebanese men without regard to their political or religious affiliation. The idea was inspired by a group of young Christians who offered their condolences after the death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s son in a battle with the Israelis and expressed interest in becoming Hezbollah fighters.

But the group has been much less interested in recruiting Christians than Sunnis or even Druze in the Resistance Brigades. In fact, the salaries offered to Sunnis are 50 percent higher than those given to members of other sects. Sunnis are the most critical sect to Hezbollah because of the high number of intermarriages. Sunnis also live primarily in urban areas and constitute the largest religious group in Beirut. No political movement can influence national politics without establishing itself in the capital. Sidon, a port city that Hezbollah must go through to reach Beirut, the southern suburbs and the Beqaa Valley (its link to Syria), is also predominantly Sunni.

Lebanon's Distribution of Religious Groups
(click to enlarge)

According to estimates, there are 50,000 militiamen in the brigades. Their primary duties include preventing the rise of anti-Hezbollah armed groups, preventing obstruction of highway traffic and doing Hezbollah’s dirty work. Most Sunnis, Druze and Shiites in Hezbollah’s allied Amal Movement view the Resistance Brigades – which usually attract the uneducated, unemployed, ex-convicts and fugitives – as intruders lacking political legitimacy and social acceptance.

When Lebanon held its first post-civil war parliamentary elections in 1992, Hezbollah and the Amal Movement ran joint candidates, winning most seats allocated to Shiites under the confessional political system. But Hezbollah’s reputation as a terrorist organization blocked its active political involvement. The international community had not forgotten its attacks on U.S. Marines and French military headquarters in Beirut in 1983, or its capture of several Western hostages and killing of others. Hezbollah released the last remaining U.S. hostage only a few months before the 1992 election.

Hezbollah’s focus on domestic affairs transcended sectarian rivalries. The group tried to rehabilitate its image as a national liberation movement. It even showed leniency toward Christian collaborators with Israel. But it failed to convince many Western countries that it had transformed into a peaceful movement. Its role in assassinating former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005 confirmed the widespread belief that Hezbollah was incapable of reform. In 2008, its forces invaded west Beirut and subdued the Sunni community. It justified its actions by claiming they were necessary to safeguard the “Islamic resistance” against local agents of the “Saudi-U.S. conspiracy.”

Hezbollah has also obstructed an investigation into the 2020 Beirut port explosion, asserting that the judge in the case is politicized and biased. The group succeeded in ousting the previous judge, claiming he had no authority to interrogate Cabinet members and parliamentary deputies. Nasrallah understands that if the judge decided to indict them, they would confess that the explosives belonged to Hezbollah and were meant to be used in Syria. Its position on the port explosion, which caused incalculable destruction in Beirut and killed more than 200 people, including many Shiite port laborers, negates one of its core founding principles: to champion social justice and defend the disadvantaged and oppressed.

Hezbollah has evolved from its modest beginnings in the early 1980s to become Lebanon’s dominant political actor and destabilizing force. It ruined the country’s relations with its Arab neighbors, the preferred destination for Lebanese workers. The Lebanese political system has collapsed, and the people have grown impoverished amid skyrocketing inflation. The Gulf countries, infuriated by Hezbollah’s meddling in their affairs, have abandoned Lebanon. Yet, Nasrallah still feels he has moved forward in meeting his objective of creating an Islamic state in Lebanon

[Crafty_Dog]

Herzog’s visit to Ankara eases deep freeze in Israeli-Turkish relationship

BY BURHAN OZBILICI AND SUZAN FRASER ASSOCIATED PRESS ANKARA, TURKEY | In a meeting that could shake up the pecking order across the Middle East, Turkey and Israel agreed on Wednesday to rebuild their relationship despite their differences, as Israel’s President Isaac Herzog became the first Israeli leader to visit Turkey in 14 years.

Appearing before cameras following talks with Mr. Herzog, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described Israeli president’s visit as “historic” and “a turning point” in Turkish-Israeli relations. He said Turkey was ready to cooperate with Israel in the energy sector, adding that the Turkish foreign and energy ministers would soon visit Israel for more talks on increased cooperation.

“Our common goal is to revitalize political dialogue between our countries based on common interests and respect for mutual sensitivities,” Mr. Erdogan said.

Mr. Herzog said his visit constitutes a “very important moment” in relations, allowing the countries to “build bridges essential to us all.”

Both leaders conceded however, that differences remain — not least on the issue of the Palestinians.

“We expressed the importance we attach to reducing tensions in the region and preserving the vision of a two-state solution,” Mr. Erdogan said. “I underlined the importance we attach to the historical status of Jerusalem and the preservation of the religious identity and sanctity of Masjid Aqsa,” the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s historic Old City.

Israel captured east Jerusalem with its Jewish, Christian and Muslim holy sites — the emotional ground zero of the more than century-long conflict — in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it in a move unrecognized by most of the international community. The Palestinians seek east Jerusalem as capital of a future state along with the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Israelis and Palestinians have not held substantive peace negotiations to reach a two-state solution to the confl ict in over a decade.

Mr. Herzog said: “We must agree in advance that we will not agree on everything, that is the nature of relations with a past as rich as ours. But the disagreements we will aspire to resolve with mutual respect and openness, through the proper mechanisms and systems, with a view to a shared future.”

Turkey and Israel once were close allies, but the relationship frayed under Mr. Erdogan, who is an outspoken critic of Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians. Israel also has been angered by Mr. Erdogan’s embrace of Hamas, the militant group that controls the Gaza Strip. Israel considers Hamas a terrorist group.

The countries withdrew their respective ambassadors in 2010 after Israeli forces stormed a Gaza-bound flotilla carrying humanitarian aid for Palestinians that broke an Israeli blockade. The incident resulted in the deaths of nine Turkish activists.

Relations deteriorated further in 2018 when Turkey, angered by the U.S. moving its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, once more recalled its ambassador, prompting Israel to respond in kind. The two countries have not reappointed their ambassadors.

The steps toward a rapprochement with Israel come as Turkey, beset by economic troubles, has been trying to end its international isolation by normalizing ties with several countries in the Mideast, including Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Earlier, Mr. Herzog arrived at the Turkish presidential palace in the capital, Ankara, escorted by a Turkish mounted color guard. Mr. Erdogan and a military honor guard greeted him as a band played the Israeli anthem for the first time since 2008.

In Istanbul, a group of about 150 people, mostly members of pro-Islamist groups, protested the Israeli president’s visit, chanting anti-Israeli slogans and holding banners calling him a “killer.” The protesters included members of the Turkish Islamic relief group IHH, which organized the Gaza-bound flotilla that broke the Israeli blockade in 2010

[Crafty_Dog]

What to Watch For as Israel Enters Another Political Crisis
Following a key defection from the ruling coalition, Israel's right-wing opposition will use Jewish identity politics to peel off the final vote needed to force new elections, which could spur violence by emboldening radical groups. On April 6, Idit Silman — a lawmaker from Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's right-wing pro-settler Yamina party — defected to former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's opposition Likud party after she was reportedly promised the position of health minister if Netanyahu returns to power. Silman's departure has left Bennett's coalition without a legislative majority in the 120-seat Knesset, which is now split 60-60 between the government and the opposition. Bennett has held meetings with other Yamina lawmakers and coalition leaders to try to prevent any additional defections, which would collapse his government and trigger new elections in Israel for the fifth time in four years. But unless Bennett finds support from opposition lawmakers, his coalition will remain unable to pass legislation, portending further political paralysis.

The political crisis caused by Silman's defection could last until Dec. 31, which is the deadline for the Knesset to pass the 2023 budget. According to Israeli law, if the Knesset fails to pass the budget before then (which requires a simple majority of at least 61 votes), early elections must take place. Bennett's coalition had originally aimed to vote on the 2023 budget next month, but Silman's recent defection now makes this very difficult.
Bennett's so-called ''change government'' was formed in June 2021 and brings together settlers, nationalists, Islamists, leftists and centrists. This ideological diversity has since severely handicapped the coalition's cohesion and ability to pass legislation. Members from Bennett's own Yamina party have proven especially troublesome, with Yamina legislator Amichai Chikli refusing to vote to form the coalition last year because he opposed the inclusion of centrists and left-wing parties.
The opposition only needs to secure one more defection to dissolve the Knesset and trigger fresh elections. Several members of Israel's coalition government could defect in the coming days, including disaffected Yamina members, as well as members of the right-wing New Hope party and the centrist Blue and White party. Some right-wing members of Bennett's coalition dislike having to work with left-wing Meretz and the Islamist Ra'am party, but have supported the coalition because of mutual disdain for Netanyahu, who repeatedly broke promises and made political enemies among his own right-wing partners during his 12-year tenure as prime minister. But Netanyahu might be able to convince one or more lawmakers from parties in the ruling coalition to join the opposition by offering lucrative ministry posts in his prospective next government, which seemed to do the trick in winning over Silman. Anger over their policies not being passed, or simply the belief that an evenly split government is unsustainable and the country would be better served with fresh elections, could also prompt a member of the government to go rogue and defect on their own accord.

Wholesale defections of the right-wing parties like Yisrael Beitenu and New Hope are possible but less likely. Their leaders have strong rivalries with Netanyahu and would be unlikely to be rewarded with the top posts they currently hold in another Netanyahu-led government.
Bennett may be able to find support on a case-by-case basis among lawmakers hesitant about Netanyahu's return to politics, which would enable the current Israeli government to remain in power — albeit in a constantly fragile position. There remains some discontent within the opposition for Netanyahu's leadership that could complicate his return to power. Netanyahu is currently on trial for corruption charges; a conviction might bar him from politics or drive down his popularity and politically affect Likud. He also promised to annex portions of the West Bank in 2020 but then failed to follow through, angering settlers and nationalists. One of these disgruntled settler or nationalist lawmakers might join with the Bennett government on certain items; rogue Yamina lawmaker Amichai Chikli might do the same. However, this would probably mean that the Bennett government would need to make concessions to the right that could alienate Meretz and Ra'am, like expanding settlements in the West Bank or promising Jewish identity policies.

The Netanyahu-led opposition will heavily emphasize Jewish identity politics to peel off another lawmaker, but in doing so, could embolden nationalist far-right groups to carry out violence against Palestinians, Israeli Arabs, and government officials. Part of Silman's rationale for leaving the coalition was that she felt the government did not emphasize Jewish identity well enough compared with Netanyahu's Likud party, which has long positioned itself as a champion of Israel's Jewish nationalism. Similar perceptions may lure other Yamina or New Hope Knesset members to join Likud. But as the opposition attempts to discredit the government as failing to uphold Jewish nationalist values, it could cause fringe radicals — like the Khanists of Otzma Yehudi — to carry out provocative marches, demonstrations and even riots against Palestinians, Arabs and members of the government. This would raise the specter of a wider security crisis as Bennett's coalition is already under public pressure to halt a surge of terror attacks inside Israel, and radical far-right groups might conclude that more violence would be enough to cause defections among wavering right-wingers in the Knesset.

[G M]

https://twitter.com/naftalibennett/status/1514661060011245571?cxt=HHwWhoCy0bCNlIUqAAAA

I saw them open for Nine Inch Nails at Red Rocks in 96'.

[Crafty_Dog]

Al Jazeera Anchors Continue Tradition of Praising Terrorist Attacks
by Hany Ghoraba
IPT News
April 26, 2022

https://www.investigativeproject.org/9166/al-jazeera-anchors-continue-tradition-of-praising

[Crafty_Dog]

Cyclical Violence Is Laying the Groundwork for an Israeli-Palestinian Unity State
undefined and Stratfor Middle East and North Africa Analyst at RANE
Ryan Bohl
Stratfor Middle East and North Africa Analyst at RANE, Stratfor
9 MIN READMay 3, 2022 | 18:37 GMT





Palestinians run for cover during clashes with Israeli security forces near the Israeli settlement of Beit El in the occupied West Bank on April 11, 2022.
Palestinians run for cover during clashes with Israeli security forces near the Israeli settlement of Beit El in the occupied West Bank on April 11, 2022.

(ABBAS MOMANI/AFP via Getty Images)

Israelis and Palestinians are embroiled in yet another cycle of violence. This latest round, however, is more part of a long-term trend that is seeing Israel unintentionally build its own path toward a unity state that integrates at least some of the Palestinian territories. Though many steps still need to be taken before this scenario plays out, the formation of such a state — which the international community, led by the United States and Europe, could very well impose — is becoming increasingly likely amid Israel's continued settlement expansions in the West Bank, along with Israeli and Palestinian disinterest in a peace process.

An Unstable Rhythm
Right now, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is paralyzed and looks set to stay that way. Israelis and Palestinians are both avoiding new talks, and no country on the international stage appears to have either the will or means to jump-start them. Instead, Israel is steadily expanding its settlements in the West Bank, and Palestinians are reacting to this expansion through protests, strikes and occasional violence. This violence subsequently provokes Israeli crackdowns, which either buy time until the next round of violence or escalate into direct conflict before de-escalating and restarting the cycle. What remains of the Oslo accords that began the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in 1993 are tattered in the wind behind these events; there is no strategic change in the balance of power between Israel and the Palestinian Territories, nor have Israel or the United States pushed to restart the peace process.

The international community, meanwhile, treats the simmering conflict as if it's frozen, with actors maneuvering around it. For example, the United States has not even appointed a special envoy to oversee the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which has slipped toward the bottom of U.S. diplomatic priorities. And although the U.N. Human Rights Council recently accused Israel of apartheid, the label remains a symbolic measure that has no material effect. Additionally, parts of the Arab world, led by the United Arab Emirates, have normalized relations with Israel. Even the once-confrontational Turkey is now warming to Israel as Ankara tries to rebuild regional ties. Finally, the most recent bout of violence has produced diplomatic concern but little concrete action that would suggest the international community is about to make another push for peace. There are no summits planned, sanctions threatened, or even rumors of slow-cooking peace plans.

Even the local actors seem uninterested in negotiations. Israel's political spectrum is dominated by right-wing factions that favor settlement expansion and, eventually, the annexation of part or all of the West Bank, while leaving the Gaza Strip isolated. There is no credible Israeli coalition that could emerge to push for a new peace process, so even fresh elections would likely yield a similar, right-wing-dominated Knesset rather than another government like that led by Yitzhak Rabin, an Israeli prime minister who was assassinated in 1995 over his desire for peace with the Palestinian Territories. Instead, Israel is slowly inching toward expanded settlements in the West Bank without publicly acknowledging the effect of such settlements on the peace process in which Israel is still nominally engaged.

The Palestinians themselves are also divided and distracted. The Palestinian Authority (PA), which governs the West Bank, is focused on managing the looming succession crisis that will follow the death of 87-year-old President Mahmoud Abbas, while also trying to keep the West Bank's pandemic-battered economy functioning. The PA's approach to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is the bare minimum, as it tries to prevent a major uprising while carrying out a half-hearted diplomatic campaign for international recognition. The PA has no realistic counters to settlement expansion, nor ways to convince the international community or Israel to seriously restart peace talks.

Then there are Hamas, which governs Gaza, and the Gazan militants, who have been corralled into the Gaza Strip. The groups have largely acquiesced that the best they can do is slowly challenge the PA for leadership of the Palestinian cause, while using the threat of their rockets to force Israel to ease the 16-year-old blockade. This is a far cry from achieving the goals of Hamas' charter, which still wants to replace Israel with an Islamist state.

But as organized actors avoid the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the lack of a clear resolution to the conflict produces grassroots radicalization. Palestinians and increasingly far-right Israelis scuffle in East Jerusalem and around settlements in the West Bank, fighting a deadly, low-level partisan war without much central leadership. These skirmishes are the most unstable element of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the moment and have the potential to spark wars. Indeed, Palestinian activists trying to stop Israeli evictions of Arab residents in East Jerusalem began the chain of events that led to the Gaza War in 2021. But regardless of how many times low-level conflict sparks wider violence, the series of events and outcome of those events have so far been the same: Israel strikes Gaza, Hamas fires rockets, and, after a time of fighting, the two eventually agree to cease hostilities and restore humanitarian aid.

Why the Status Quo Cannot Last
In the long run, this cycle of violence and cease-fire deals is unsustainable. The PA can only accept so many new Israeli settlements before it faces a popular backlash strong enough to collapse it. And Hamas can only pick so many fights to win bare-bones humanitarian aid before its own popular legitimacy crashes. Israel, for its part, can also only quell backlash to settlement expansion so many times before the Palestinian public becomes too radical to de-escalate. And the international community can only ignore the problem for so long before Israeli-Palestinian tensions erupt into a full-scale war; even during last year's Gaza War, the United States was forced to engage in rapid phone diplomacy to de-escalate tensions in the hopes of avoiding such a greater military conflict.

But the next Gaza War won't mean a sudden restart of peace talks. The main outside actors — the United States, the Arab states and Europe — will again seek to de-escalate the conflict and return to the status quo. But in doing so, they will enable the very conditions that will cause the next war and, more importantly, enable Israel to continue slowly expanding settlements in the West Bank. Eventually, Israel's hold on the region will be so entrenched that actual annexation is a fact on the ground, if not an outright legal designation. And if Israel does annex part of the Palestinian territories, it will mean the end of the two-state process and possibly the end of the PA, which could be reduced to an Israeli-armed proxy force rather than a Palestinian state in waiting. Gaza would likely be left aside — isolated by Israel and Egypt, and treated as a geopolitical no-man's-land to be managed but never firmly solved.

If annexation (whether de jure or de facto) does happen, 2.9 million Palestinians in the West Bank would be left permanently stateless, controlled by the Israeli military and whatever is left of the PA. It would not be the exact same as South Africa's apartheid regime, under which different racial groups were legally mandated to live separately. But some voters in the United States and Europe, especially those who are already skeptical of if not outright hostile to Israel, may still see the seizure of Palestinian territory as inherently discriminatory against the Arab populations living there. As this ethnically-charged narrative takes hold, the politics of declining international support for Israel, which are already under demographic pressure as younger voters grow more skeptical of Israeli policies, would accelerate. And with the two-state solution buried, another alternative might start to gain prominence.

This possible alternative is a unity state that integrates parts or all of the Palestinian territories and Israel. The partial scenario would see Israel annex the West Bank's land and citizens. The estimated 2.9 million Palestinians living there would become full voting citizens, and while that would dramatically alter Israel's demographics, it would not by itself overturn the country's Jewish majority (there are around 6.8 million Jews in Israel and 1.8 million non-Jews, mostly Palestinian Arabs). With such a greater Arab political voice in the Knesset, Israel would be much less likely to carry out new displacement policies in the annexed West Bank, and land ownership would likely be frozen from that point on.

The unity state scenario would probably exclude Gaza since its 2 million residents would tip Israel's demographic balance away from Jewish citizens. Additionally, if Hamas or another Islamist militant political party could organize the full Palestinian vote, the annexation of Gaza might result in elections that begin to dismantle Israel. Even those in the United States and Europe who are critical of Israel's annexations are unlikely to favor that outcome, given Israel's special place as a homeland for Jewish people.

The partial unity state would appeal to the international community for several reasons:

It would sidestep the issue of Gaza, which will likely remain ruled by Hamas or some other militant faction for years to come.
It would dismantle the PA, which has not been effective in setting up the conditions for an eventual Palestinian state.
It would be most in line with the values of the principal international actors (namely the United States and Europe) by preserving Israel's democratic character, while also putting Arab Palestinians firmly inside a state in which they already have political representation.
It would build on the growing political influence of Arabs already living in Israel (the Islamist Ra'am party made history last year by becoming the first Arab party to join an Israeli government in decades).
But such a unity state would come up against strong domestic opposition inside Israel; based on the April 2021 election results, no Israeli government can be elected on the platform of adding millions of Arab voters to the rolls. Instead, the international community would likely have to use the United States and Europe's substantial economic and military leverage over Israel to force a government to accept such an influx of new voters.

Such a Western consensus would take time and probably more violence between Israelis and Palestinians before taking hold. In the United States, the Democratic Party and especially the pro-Israel Republican Party would each need to reshape their views of Israel's security — a process that would likely take several elections to come to pass. In Europe, where many governments are sensitive to their own histories of anti-Semitism, this process would take even longer, and policy shifts to pressure Israel into forming a partial unity state may only come after the United States takes such a stance.

The political narrative around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, however, is nonetheless changing. The biggest event that could halt this trend is the restart of the two-state solution, though based on current factors, that remains unlikely.

[G M]

The deep insights of Kamala Harris combined with the verbal skills of someone who is not Kamala Harris.

You should ask Stratfor for a refund.

Cyclical Violence Is Laying the Groundwork for an Israeli-Palestinian Unity State
undefined and Stratfor Middle East and North Africa Analyst at RANE
Ryan Bohl
Stratfor Middle East and North Africa Analyst at RANE, Stratfor
9 MIN READMay 3, 2022 | 18:37 GMT





Palestinians run for cover during clashes with Israeli security forces near the Israeli settlement of Beit El in the occupied West Bank on April 11, 2022.
Palestinians run for cover during clashes with Israeli security forces near the Israeli settlement of Beit El in the occupied West Bank on April 11, 2022.

(ABBAS MOMANI/AFP via Getty Images)

Israelis and Palestinians are embroiled in yet another cycle of violence. This latest round, however, is more part of a long-term trend that is seeing Israel unintentionally build its own path toward a unity state that integrates at least some of the Palestinian territories. Though many steps still need to be taken before this scenario plays out, the formation of such a state — which the international community, led by the United States and Europe, could very well impose — is becoming increasingly likely amid Israel's continued settlement expansions in the West Bank, along with Israeli and Palestinian disinterest in a peace process.

An Unstable Rhythm
Right now, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is paralyzed and looks set to stay that way. Israelis and Palestinians are both avoiding new talks, and no country on the international stage appears to have either the will or means to jump-start them. Instead, Israel is steadily expanding its settlements in the West Bank, and Palestinians are reacting to this expansion through protests, strikes and occasional violence. This violence subsequently provokes Israeli crackdowns, which either buy time until the next round of violence or escalate into direct conflict before de-escalating and restarting the cycle. What remains of the Oslo accords that began the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in 1993 are tattered in the wind behind these events; there is no strategic change in the balance of power between Israel and the Palestinian Territories, nor have Israel or the United States pushed to restart the peace process.

The international community, meanwhile, treats the simmering conflict as if it's frozen, with actors maneuvering around it. For example, the United States has not even appointed a special envoy to oversee the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which has slipped toward the bottom of U.S. diplomatic priorities. And although the U.N. Human Rights Council recently accused Israel of apartheid, the label remains a symbolic measure that has no material effect. Additionally, parts of the Arab world, led by the United Arab Emirates, have normalized relations with Israel. Even the once-confrontational Turkey is now warming to Israel as Ankara tries to rebuild regional ties. Finally, the most recent bout of violence has produced diplomatic concern but little concrete action that would suggest the international community is about to make another push for peace. There are no summits planned, sanctions threatened, or even rumors of slow-cooking peace plans.

Even the local actors seem uninterested in negotiations. Israel's political spectrum is dominated by right-wing factions that favor settlement expansion and, eventually, the annexation of part or all of the West Bank, while leaving the Gaza Strip isolated. There is no credible Israeli coalition that could emerge to push for a new peace process, so even fresh elections would likely yield a similar, right-wing-dominated Knesset rather than another government like that led by Yitzhak Rabin, an Israeli prime minister who was assassinated in 1995 over his desire for peace with the Palestinian Territories. Instead, Israel is slowly inching toward expanded settlements in the West Bank without publicly acknowledging the effect of such settlements on the peace process in which Israel is still nominally engaged.

The Palestinians themselves are also divided and distracted. The Palestinian Authority (PA), which governs the West Bank, is focused on managing the looming succession crisis that will follow the death of 87-year-old President Mahmoud Abbas, while also trying to keep the West Bank's pandemic-battered economy functioning. The PA's approach to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is the bare minimum, as it tries to prevent a major uprising while carrying out a half-hearted diplomatic campaign for international recognition. The PA has no realistic counters to settlement expansion, nor ways to convince the international community or Israel to seriously restart peace talks.

Then there are Hamas, which governs Gaza, and the Gazan militants, who have been corralled into the Gaza Strip. The groups have largely acquiesced that the best they can do is slowly challenge the PA for leadership of the Palestinian cause, while using the threat of their rockets to force Israel to ease the 16-year-old blockade. This is a far cry from achieving the goals of Hamas' charter, which still wants to replace Israel with an Islamist state.

But as organized actors avoid the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the lack of a clear resolution to the conflict produces grassroots radicalization. Palestinians and increasingly far-right Israelis scuffle in East Jerusalem and around settlements in the West Bank, fighting a deadly, low-level partisan war without much central leadership. These skirmishes are the most unstable element of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the moment and have the potential to spark wars. Indeed, Palestinian activists trying to stop Israeli evictions of Arab residents in East Jerusalem began the chain of events that led to the Gaza War in 2021. But regardless of how many times low-level conflict sparks wider violence, the series of events and outcome of those events have so far been the same: Israel strikes Gaza, Hamas fires rockets, and, after a time of fighting, the two eventually agree to cease hostilities and restore humanitarian aid.

Why the Status Quo Cannot Last
In the long run, this cycle of violence and cease-fire deals is unsustainable. The PA can only accept so many new Israeli settlements before it faces a popular backlash strong enough to collapse it. And Hamas can only pick so many fights to win bare-bones humanitarian aid before its own popular legitimacy crashes. Israel, for its part, can also only quell backlash to settlement expansion so many times before the Palestinian public becomes too radical to de-escalate. And the international community can only ignore the problem for so long before Israeli-Palestinian tensions erupt into a full-scale war; even during last year's Gaza War, the United States was forced to engage in rapid phone diplomacy to de-escalate tensions in the hopes of avoiding such a greater military conflict.

But the next Gaza War won't mean a sudden restart of peace talks. The main outside actors — the United States, the Arab states and Europe — will again seek to de-escalate the conflict and return to the status quo. But in doing so, they will enable the very conditions that will cause the next war and, more importantly, enable Israel to continue slowly expanding settlements in the West Bank. Eventually, Israel's hold on the region will be so entrenched that actual annexation is a fact on the ground, if not an outright legal designation. And if Israel does annex part of the Palestinian territories, it will mean the end of the two-state process and possibly the end of the PA, which could be reduced to an Israeli-armed proxy force rather than a Palestinian state in waiting. Gaza would likely be left aside — isolated by Israel and Egypt, and treated as a geopolitical no-man's-land to be managed but never firmly solved.

If annexation (whether de jure or de facto) does happen, 2.9 million Palestinians in the West Bank would be left permanently stateless, controlled by the Israeli military and whatever is left of the PA. It would not be the exact same as South Africa's apartheid regime, under which different racial groups were legally mandated to live separately. But some voters in the United States and Europe, especially those who are already skeptical of if not outright hostile to Israel, may still see the seizure of Palestinian territory as inherently discriminatory against the Arab populations living there. As this ethnically-charged narrative takes hold, the politics of declining international support for Israel, which are already under demographic pressure as younger voters grow more skeptical of Israeli policies, would accelerate. And with the two-state solution buried, another alternative might start to gain prominence.

This possible alternative is a unity state that integrates parts or all of the Palestinian territories and Israel. The partial scenario would see Israel annex the West Bank's land and citizens. The estimated 2.9 million Palestinians living there would become full voting citizens, and while that would dramatically alter Israel's demographics, it would not by itself overturn the country's Jewish majority (there are around 6.8 million Jews in Israel and 1.8 million non-Jews, mostly Palestinian Arabs). With such a greater Arab political voice in the Knesset, Israel would be much less likely to carry out new displacement policies in the annexed West Bank, and land ownership would likely be frozen from that point on.

The unity state scenario would probably exclude Gaza since its 2 million residents would tip Israel's demographic balance away from Jewish citizens. Additionally, if Hamas or another Islamist militant political party could organize the full Palestinian vote, the annexation of Gaza might result in elections that begin to dismantle Israel. Even those in the United States and Europe who are critical of Israel's annexations are unlikely to favor that outcome, given Israel's special place as a homeland for Jewish people.

The partial unity state would appeal to the international community for several reasons:

It would sidestep the issue of Gaza, which will likely remain ruled by Hamas or some other militant faction for years to come.
It would dismantle the PA, which has not been effective in setting up the conditions for an eventual Palestinian state.
It would be most in line with the values of the principal international actors (namely the United States and Europe) by preserving Israel's democratic character, while also putting Arab Palestinians firmly inside a state in which they already have political representation.
It would build on the growing political influence of Arabs already living in Israel (the Islamist Ra'am party made history last year by becoming the first Arab party to join an Israeli government in decades).
But such a unity state would come up against strong domestic opposition inside Israel; based on the April 2021 election results, no Israeli government can be elected on the platform of adding millions of Arab voters to the rolls. Instead, the international community would likely have to use the United States and Europe's substantial economic and military leverage over Israel to force a government to accept such an influx of new voters.

Such a Western consensus would take time and probably more violence between Israelis and Palestinians before taking hold. In the United States, the Democratic Party and especially the pro-Israel Republican Party would each need to reshape their views of Israel's security — a process that would likely take several elections to come to pass. In Europe, where many governments are sensitive to their own histories of anti-Semitism, this process would take even longer, and policy shifts to pressure Israel into forming a partial unity state may only come after the United States takes such a stance.

The political narrative around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, however, is nonetheless changing. The biggest event that could halt this trend is the restart of the two-state solution, though based on current factors, that remains unlikely.