Middle East Press On Israel-Emirates Peace, Iraqi Sunni Politicians And Iran: New Age Islam's Selection, 28 October 2020
By New Age Islam Edit
Desk
28 October
2020
• Israel-Emirates Peace: An Inside Look
By Ben Caspit
• Iraqi Sunni Politicians Organize A New
Political Front
By Shelly Kittleson
• Palestinian President Stacks Jerusalem Branch
With Loyalists
By Daoud Kuttab
• Lack Of Individual Responsibility Fuelling
Rise Of 21st-Century Fascism
By Dr. Theodore Karasik
• Iran And Its Priorities Of Hostility
By Tariq Al-Homayed
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Israel-Emirates Peace: An Inside Look
By Ben Caspit
Oct 27,
2020
Erel
Margalit, founder and chairman of Jerusalem Venture Partners, visits with
members of Israeli high-tech delegation the Dubai Financial Market, United Arab
Emirates, Oct. 27, 2020. Photo by KARIM SAHIB/AFP via Getty Images.
-----
Dubai is
gulping the dividends of the peace with Israel with great thirst. Business
people, investors and the top echelons of the Emirati economy are rushing to
forge promising Israeli connections, and vice versa. A four-day visit to the
emirate this week reveals the intense potential that lies in the recent outing
of Israel’s covert relations with the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
“It’s like
someone wandering in the desert for years, tired, thirsty and hungry, and
suddenly arriving at a perfect oasis,” enthused the director of a major Israeli
firm on a Dubai visit with a delegation of Israeli high-tech and cyber experts.
“And it’s not one-directional. They need us as much as we need them, there is
mutual inspiration without the typical, regrettable condescension on our part
[toward Arabs]. Dubai is not some forsaken desert principality thirsting for
Israeli technology. It’s an amazing regional hub of investment, high-tech,
industry and knowledge, a unique and influential leverage for investment and
the connection between us and them could be a profit multiplier for both
sides,” the director said on condition of anonymity.
On Oct. 26,
a group of five Israeli journalists visited the gold and spice markets of
downtown Dubai. One of them stopped suddenly and directed the attention of his
colleagues to the fact that they were in an Arab state, in a buzzing market,
loudly speaking Hebrew without trying to conceal their identity. On the
contrary.
He was
right. Israelis have toured quite a few Arab markets and countries,
including Egypt and Jordan that have
forged peace with Israel, North African states (mostly Morocco) that allow
Israeli tourists limited visits and Turkey (which while not Arab is a Muslim
state with a regime hostile to Israel). They have grown accustomed to speaking
quietly, to hide Star of David emblems under their shirts, to play down their
national identity. In Dubai, the opposite is true. Israelis can behave with
their customary loudness, walk around with their heads held high and take pride
in their origins.
Israel and
the UAE are forging a different kind of peace. A cordial peace that is growing
warmer with every passing day. The Israeli delegation that visited the Emirates
this week was led by former Labor Knesset member Erel Margalit, a high-tech and
social entrepreneur and chair of Jerusalem Venture Partners capital fund. He
and the 13 CEOs and other leading business people he brought with him were
greeted with enthusiasm. There was no need for small talk to break the ice.
Margalit and the delegation members hit the ground running. They have been
doing business in the Emirates for several years, but kept a low profile and
used various covers. The affair has now burst into the open, big time.
On Oct. 27,
Margalit met with Minister of Food Security Mariam bint Mohammed Saeed Hareb Al
Muhairi. He brought with him to the meeting the director of an Israeli firm
that is developing hummus that contains 70% protein, and the director of
another firm that has developed a sensor that triggers immediate alarms against
palm tree pests and enables their elimination before they can cause significant
damage.
Margalit
told Al-Monitor the meeting “was super exciting and inspirational. The minister
expressed her desire to do great things with us. She is a combination of
modesty, capability and ambition. The Emirates are a gateway to markets of 3
billion people and they have a tradition of phenomenal trade capacity. I was
shocked to realize the extent to which she is familiar with what we do in our
cyber centres in the Galilee and Jerusalem. There are 35,000 farmers in the UAE
for whom food-tech could be a godsend. I have no doubt that we will do great
things together. We have much to learn from them. The government here is an
integral part of entrepreneurship to an intense degree.”
“The
elephant in the room” did not come up in the Dubai meetings. No one mentioned
the shared Israeli-Emirati interest in blocking Iran’s expansion, which is of
grave concern to the Sunni Arab states. Among the delegation members was David
Meidan, a former senior Mossad official tapped to head the agency after its
leader Meir Dagan stepped down. Meidan has been doing cyber-related business in
the Gulf states for years and is one of the better known and accepted Israelis
in the region.
The
delegation also included Israeli cyberwarfare and security experts who held
intriguing meetings with their Emirati counterparts. “They are counting on us
in this field,” one of them told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. “Just
like Israel, countries here are exposed to cyberthreats from Iran and they know
that Israel has a different level of offensive and defensive cybercapacities.
They want our help in this sphere as quickly as possible.”
The next
stage in the fast-moving relationship between Israel and the UAE is the launch
of regular daily flights from Tel Aviv to Dubai, expected within a few months.
When this happens, the Emiratis will surely experience a so-called baptism by
fire, with an onslaught of Israeli tourists who have made a dubious name for
themselves around the world. Nonetheless, UAE tourism has been hit hard by the
coronavirus pandemic and is keen to welcome shopping-starved Israelis after
long months of being stuck at home.
Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also scheduled to make an official visit
to celebrate the diplomatic achievement to the hilt. Netanyahu has instructed
government ministers to avoid visits to Dubai until he himself can conduct the
historic trip and cut the ribbon.
Contrary to
many past events, this time Netanyahu has earned the credit. True, he did not
disclose to the public or his government the green light he gave the United
States to sell stealth jets to the Emirates in return for the peace deal, muted
the role of his predecessors in laying the infrastructure for the ties and
described the deal as “peace in return for peace,” despite the fact that he was
forced to set aside his dream of territorial annexation. Having said all this,
it is nonetheless a historic, exciting and sufficiently inspiring breakthrough
to crown Netanyahu’s positive legacy. Enough has already been said (and will
probably be said) about its negative aspects.
https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/10/israel-uae-dubai-benjamin-netanyahu-erel-margalit-tourism.html
-----
Iraqi Sunni Politicians Organize A New
Political Front
By Shelly Kittleson
Oct 26,
2020
Sunni
Muslim men pray over the bodies of eight Iraqis who were reportedly kidnapped
on Oct. 17 and later found shot dead, during their burial ceremony in the
Farhatiya area of the Balad region north of Baghdad in Salahuddin province, Oct
18, 2020. Photo by AFP via Getty Images.
-----
A recent
massacre of Sunni youths in central Iraq and concerns that sectarian violence
may pull the country back into dark times seem to have fostered plans for a new
sect-based political bloc and rekindled talk of an autonomous Sunni region.
The names
of those involved in the nascent bloc have raised a number of eyebrows due to
their alleged ties. Some see the move as potentially divisive for the
community.
On Oct. 23,
several sources confirmed to Al-Monitor that dozens of Sunni lawmakers were
meeting for the purpose of furthering common aims and setting up some sort of
political alliance to do so. The gatherings continued over the two following
evenings, with at least one of the politicians flying in from abroad to attend.
Some claim
that the envisioned political alliance is an attempt to exploit anger within
the Sunni community in the name of personal grievances, especially against
Sunni parliamentary speaker Mohammed al-Halbusi, and most likely aims to unseat
the speaker.
Halbusi was
a controversial choice among longstanding Sunni political leaders in many ways
from the time he was sworn in and called an “upstart” due to his young age.
Iraq’s
prime minister is chosen from the Shiite community, the parliamentary speaker
from the Sunni community and the president from among the Kurds. The
parliamentary speakership is thus the highest position a Sunni politician can
obtain in the country.
The
Baghdad-based website Nas News reported that Atheel al-Nujaifi and his brother
Osama, the head of the Salvation and Development Front and a former vice
president and parliamentary speaker, both attended the meetings that began on
Friday and continued through Sunday.
Atheel is a
former mayor of Mosul who was sentenced in absentia to three years in prison in
2018.
The Iraqi
news site quoted Osama as saying that one of the matters to be discussed was
the Oct. 17 Farhatiya massacre in Salahuddin province, where the bodies of
eight Sunni youths were found with gunshot wounds and hands tied behind their
backs, and that Halbusi was another. The meetings, according to Osama, were to
“coordinate positions,” but “it is important that we do not rush to announce an
alliance.” At least 30 parliamentarians reportedly took part in the meeting. Various
sources reported the names of some of those present.
There are a
total of 329 seats in the Iraqi Parliament, for which the last elections were
held in May 2018. The next elections are expected to take place in June 2021,
according to a timeline drawn up by Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi after he
was sworn in earlier this year.
The move to
form the new bloc was reportedly led by Ahmed al-Jabouri, a parliament member
who governed Salahuddin province from 2013 to 2014 and is more widely known as
Abu Mazen. The Sunni politician was one of four Iraqis sanctioned by the United
States on July 18, 2019, for working with Iran-based proxies operating outside
of state control.
Jabouri,
like many Iraqi politicians, has been widely accused of corruption. Earlier
this year, Reuters published an in-depth report on what it called a “proxy
battle” being waged on Iraq by Iran and said that the neighboring country was
able to wield considerable influence over Nineveh, largely due to two Sunni
politicians’ efforts, naming Jabouri and the Anbar
millionaire-turned-politician Khamis al-Khanjar.
Khanjar,
one of those who took part in the meetings, left Iraq in the 1990s and only
returned in recent years. On Dec. 6, 2019, he was sanctioned by the United
States along with three leaders of Iran-linked armed groups including Asaib Ahl
al-Haq, which was allegedly involved in the Oct. 17 massacre.
This
Al-Monitor correspondent reported frequently from the Salah al-Din governorate
during and since the fight against the Islamic State. Many of the local armed
groups in the province openly spoke about receiving support from Iran after
their attempts early on to get backing from the United States failed. The
situation is starkly different from that in Anbar, the population of which is also
predominantly Sunni.
Some of the
same men who once fought as part of the US-backed Sahwa, or Arab Awakening,
against al-Qaeda in Salahuddin over a decade ago are now instead with local
Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) that have received support from Iran.
In numerous
reporting trips to Anbar in recent years, this reporter has seen increasing
distrust of Iranian-linked and Shiite-led armed groups in general there.
One of the
local tribal PMUs operating in the strategic border area of al-Qaim, Aaly al-Furat,
was trained by the Danes at Iraq’s Ain al-Asad base in western Anbar and
equipped in part by the United States. The faction has also received support
from the prominent parliament member Mohammed al-Karbouly. Most of the fighters
in its ranks are from the Karbouly tribe, of which the lawmaker is a member.
This
reporter has interviewed the commander of the PMU several times before, during
and after the liberation operations for their native area of Western Anbar as
well as the parliamentarian.
In an interview
with him in his Baghdad home in January, Karbouly said that he had been the one
to strongly encourage Mohamed al-Halbusi to run for parliament speaker in 2018.
In response
to questions via Whatsapp, Salahuddin representative Muthanna al-Samarraie told
Al-Monitor that he refused to take part in the talks for the potential bloc,
saying, “I believe these are attempts to achieve personal aspirations that have
nothing to do with reform and are instead merely a reaction to differences of a
personal nature” and not “conflicting visions about how to manage and reform
the legislative institution as claimed.”
He added
that the gatherings “include people accused of corruption and some have more
than 200 cases against them,” mostly involving “the plundering of public
money.”
Samarraie
stressed that the political movement “reflects a much larger conflict at both
the local and the regional levels” and is “a tool in this struggle and is not
independent of external influence.”
He also
noted that although he hopes for a Sunni autonomous region “in line with the
law and the constitution,” the lawmaker lamented “the lack of a unified, clear
and solid vision on how to form such a region, how to manage it and what should
be its future.”
He added,
“I also believe that its formation on a sectarian basis will lead to more
complications in an already complex situation,” which instead needs “wise
leaders, mature mindsets, ambitious visions and sincere and constructive
wills.”
Iraq is a
Shiite-majority country with mostly Shiite populations in the southern and
central regions. Sunni-majority provinces are for the most part further west
and north and suffered particularly badly during the years of IS occupation and
from the damage wrought by the fighting to retake them.
It is
unclear for the moment whether the move to bring together several Sunni
political factions will unify or divide and distract an already fractured
sect-based part of the Iraqi political scene.
https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/10/iraq-sunni-politic-parliament-election-pmu.html
------
Palestinian President Stacks Jerusalem Branch
With Loyalists
By Daoud Kuttab
Oct 27,
2020
As the
possibility of Palestinian elections becomes more real, new and unexpected
conflicts are propping up. In addition to the expected hurdles that Israel
might put up, as well as the need for Fatah and Hamas to find common ground, an
unexpected problem has arisen.
Disagreement
over the leadership of the Jerusalem branch of Fatah blew up in late September
as the central leadership appears to have tried to railroad a list of local
leaders totally loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas, a Fatah source told
Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. The source insisted that the reason for
intervention was the desire of the Fatah leadership — especially Abbas — not to
give supporters of the renegade Fatah leader Mohammed Dahlan any foothold in
Palestine, and especially in the proposed Palestinian capital of Jerusalem.
Jamal
Muheisen, member of the Fatah Central Committee in charge of membership and
mobilization, announced on his Facebook page Sept. 30 the confirmation of the
Fatah committee that he said was selected by consensus. He said that 22
individuals nominated themselves Sept. 16 and when seven of them withdrew the
next day, the remaining 15 won unopposed by acclamation. A few days later, on
Oct. 4, Muheisen met with the newly selected committee and witnessed the
consensus on Shady Mutawar as secretary for the Jerusalem branch.
The
confirmation of the new committee on Sept. 30 and the choosing of the local
secretary triggered an angry response by many Fatah cadres who felt that their
voice was dismissed and that Ramallah gave priority to loyalty over all other
issues.
Dimitri
Diliani, a former member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, told Al-Monitor
that the disagreement about how the election process took place is entirely an
organizational issue. “The problem is between those who abide by the internal
bylaws of Fatah and those who insist on the need to organize the conference
that would select an elected council, versus those who abide by the decision of
the president [Abbas] to bypass the bylaws of the Fatah movement.”
Diliani,
who recently declared himself spokesman for the Democratic Reform Current, a
reformist wing of Fatah led by Dahlan, said the problems in the Jerusalem
branch of Fatah have to do with Dahlan. “The selection was done to ensure
absolute loyalty because they were afraid that true elections were not
guaranteed to provide them with that loyalty to the president. The leader —
Mohammed Dahlan — had nothing to do with what happened.”
Diliani
said that the problems occurred in Jerusalem because it is the only place that
the arms of the Palestinian security forces can’t reach the activists as they
can in the rest of the West Bank. Diliani was referring to the fact that Israel
prevents the Ramallah-based leadership or its security agents from publicly
working in Jerusalem. In some West Bank locations, activists have been arrested
for their opinions, activists insist.
The way
that the Jerusalem committee was selected produced angry reactions by Fatah
cadres who felt that the process was railroaded to ensure the results that were
produced. Protests took place in different locations and in different forums. A
letter was submitted to the Fatah Central Committee Oct. 2, and an anti-settler
activity took place.
Hatem Abdul
Qaderm, a former member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and a senior
Fatah leader in Jerusalem, suggested compromise solutions including suspending
the newly elected council or adding 10 members to it, but neither suggestion
worked.
Not finding
any acceptable solution, the protesting Fatah cadres decided on a series of
actions to express their opposition. They took place outside the offices of the
Fatah Mobilization and Organization office demanding that a full-fledged
conference take place according to the movement’s bylaws. The protest
activities culminated in an open hunger strike in Ramallah Oct. 24. The
protests didn’t last long as Fatah Central Committee Secretary Jibril Rajoub
visited the protest tent and assured the Jerusalemites that their problem will
be solved within 96 hours. According to the spokesman of the protesters, Yasin
Rayan, they agreed to bring down the protest tent and end the protests based on
the promises of Rajoub.
It is not
clear whether the intervention of a senior leader like Rajoub will in fact
produce the desired reversal and will allow for a full-fledged conference for
Fatah cadres to meet and select by secret vote the leadership of Fatah in
Jerusalem.
The
importance of this process, however, is not limited to Jerusalem; many are
looking at this argument to see if they can make similar demands in the way
local cadre leaders are selected. A more democratic primary process of sorts
will go a long way in ensuring that the actual general elections will be
democratic and genuinely representative of what Palestinians aspire to in the
next generation of leaders.
https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/10/fatah-jerusalem-branch-committee-abbas-dahlan-elections.html
-----
Lack Of Individual Responsibility Fuelling Rise
Of 21st-Century Fascism
By Dr. Theodore
Karasik
October 27,
2020
Fascism in
the 21st century should not be a problem, but it is because of a number of
factors: Social issues, religious divides, political venom, and a multi-year
pathogen. The US and other countries around the world are increasingly seeing
the word “fascism” used in life generally, not just in politics. Societies with
long histories of racism and misogyny are more prone to fascists being able to
organize themselves.
America is
facing an extraordinary moment. The results of next week’s presidential
election could be decided in the Supreme Court and might even lead to violence.
Meanwhile, the exploitation of social media by various actors is well
established.
In the
1930s, much of Europe’s political scene split between fascism and communism
amid the liberal internationalism and post-First World War globalism. In
Germany, Adolf Hitler used a 1933 arson attack on the German parliament to
launch legal procedures that established emergency rule, which formed the
foundation of the Nazi dictatorship. This pathway to power brought with it key
elements of fascist behavior, including division, absolute rule and political
suppression, sometimes deadly and onerous. The German example of this time
served as a model that spread globally, influencing other countries such as
Italy and Japan.
Fascism as
an affliction is based on hate. Understanding how this hate begins is
important. Some argue that there is a conceptual space regarding a mythical
homeland or future ethno-state. Cyberspace communities feature meeting places
for an array of subcultural groups, from the right but also the left.
“Alternative fact” narratives animate those who read and accept such material
as the truth. The manner in which fascism was communicated in the 20th century
is far different from how fascism is today. Fascist “lifestyle themes” are
important to recognize, as are symbols and other social markers.
Around the
world, the trends of 21st century fascism are disturbing. What we see today in
Hong Kong and Belarus is the ebb and flow of a type of fascism accelerated by
media trends and the use of urban suppression tactics. Leaders’ use of terms
such as “law and order” is appealing or dismaying on several levels. Fascists
like to use terms such as “enemy of the people” in order to draw attention to a
particular group. In the 21st century, social media quickly amplifies such
attitudes and counter-attitudes, further dividing and polarizing societies.
What is going to give? The tensions are palpable. After French President
Emmanuel Macron’s Islamist commentary in the wake of the beheading of a French
schoolteacher evoked a wave of responses and ignited a firestorm of accusations
in much of the Islamic world, there is more trouble ahead.
One key
issue is fascism’s impact on young people. People born in the 2000s are on the
road to becoming the leaders of tomorrow but the combination of fascist
tendencies and a worldwide pandemic is leading to uncertainty. The youth are
seeking their moment in the sun and it is not occurring. The virus stops much
of the activity that is required to stay away from the ideologies of hate,
fear, and power. Everyone is suddenly at risk of becoming an extremist and
ultimately a fascist. The ideas of political correctness are being criticized
for their “wokeness,” which increases the probability of continuous fascist
assaults on institutions and people. The battle over points of view is what
drives the continuous collision of warped ideas.
In the
current toxic environment, many are assailing other people based on their race
or religion. The fascist mentality relies on surveillance, spying, and
entrapment within the communities that are marked as afflicted by “extremism.”
That label runs two ways, so that the one who is accusing another of being an
extremist is himself guilty of extremism. The internet — and the dark web in
particular — offers a forum for sheer hatred for everyone. Terrorism, militia
behavior and violence are not down to color, they are human, so individual
responsibility is what is missing. Doxing, or outing fascists in this case,
exposes more ills than cures because the exposure can quickly turn the subject
into a victim. Doxing is commonplace in many societies as a form of civil or
vigilante justice.
In America,
the tensions between anti-fascists and right-wing extremist groups like Patriot
Prayer and the Proud Boys are escalating as a result of the ongoing Black Lives
Matter protests, which began following the death of George Floyd in May. The
rapid-fire nature of current events is creating an atmosphere filled with
hatred on all sides. There is also increasing confusion over what it means to
be anti-fascist. Maybe a better definition will appear next month.
------
Dr. Theodore Karasik is a senior adviser to
Gulf State Analytics in Washington, D.C. He is a former RAND Corporation Senior
Political Scientist who lived in the UAE for 10 years, focusing on security
issues.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1754991
-----
Iran And Its Priorities Of Hostility
By Tariq Al-Homayed
October 27,
2020
During the
end of the 1970s, the region was faced with two sharp contradictory models: the
Egyptian-Israeli peace, and the Khomeinist Revolution creating a “turban” state
and transforming politics in the region from the art of possible into a fatwa
of halal (permissible) and haram (forbidden.)
At that
time, the Arabs boycotted Egypt in defense of the Palestinian cause, but they
found themselves boxed in with fetters around them as the Khomeini regime
unleashed his ambitious political Islam coupled with the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan, and that was labeled then as “jihad.”
At that
time, the region was facing an Iranian revolution that claimed to be Islamic,
the resurgence of political Islam, the jihad in Afghanistan, the Iraqi-Iranian
war, and the trading with the Palestinian cause.
It was a
distinctive phase, dealing a big blow to political rationality and it continued
until the fall of Saddam’s regime, and before that, there was the wave of
international terrorism, sponsored by Tehran. But Iran did not fight Israel, in
fact, it didn’t even fire a single bullet. On the other hand, Iran invaded our
region with militias, unleashing the hateful sectarian virus.
Iran
encircled the Gulf with unnatural border issues with regard to Iraq and Yemen,
and created an outlet for itself along the Mediterranean through Hezbollah’s
weapons, and despite all that, Iran has not fired even a single direct bullet
at Israel!
But what
happened was quite the opposite. Iran was filling the void of every Israeli
withdrawal with groups and militias in Lebanon and Gaza, and trying to do in
the West Bank too. Despite all this, Iran did not fight Israel, because it does
not want to confront the enemy, but it rather used it as an excuse to expand in
the region.
The reason
for this is the Iranian conviction that this expansion would force Israel and
the West, as did former President Obama, to negotiate and divide the region.
Of course,
Iran does not want any Arab-Israeli war, because that weakens its position.
Likewise, Iran does not want any Arab-Israeli peace process, because that
amounts to the encirclement of Iran. Hence, it is in its interest to keep the
region in a state of no war and no peace that would allow it to go out and
outbid the Arab countries.
All of the
above are glaring facts and not analytical reading. The tumultuous period was
followed by the Arab Spring and the Iranian-American nuclear agreement, the straw
that broke the camel’s back. It led to a strategic shift in a region that was
confused about its real enemy, Iran, or Israel?
The answer
is clear today in positions taken by countries in the region, and not in the
analysis. As for the Palestinians, their fatal mistake was always to allow
themselves to be used as cards in the hands of Iran, Gaddafi, Saddam, and now
Erdogan and the Qatari childish ambition.
Therefore,
Iran’s options are now limited — either cooperate with Turkey to attack the
region — and this is costly — or achieving peace with Israel, which will end
the legitimacy of Tehran and its militias in the region.
And Iran
cannot stand alone. Consequently, Iran’s logical choice is to achieve an
agreement with the US, but for that, there is Israel between it and the US. In
fact, the region is changing and expanding the areas of peace and
normalization. In a nutshell, Iran does not have any easy options, which proves
that the rope of lies in our region is a long one.
https://saudigazette.com.sa/article/599613/Opinion/Voices/Iran-and-its-priorities-of-hostility
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URl: https://newageislam.com/middle-east-press/middle-east-press-israel-emirates/d/123298
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