Middle East Press On Muslim Brotherhood, Israeli-Palestinian Peace and Trump's Arms Deals to Middle East: New Age Islam's Selection, 4 January 2021
By
New Age Islam Edit Desk
4 January
2021
•
Sudan Joins Forces with Egypt to Crack Down On Muslim Brotherhood
By
George Mikhail
•
Israeli-Palestinian Peace Remains Dim Prospect After Turbulent Year
By
Yossi Mekelberg
•
Cartoon: Winds Of Change, From Arab Spring To Winter
By
Khalid Albaih
•
Afghans Dream of a Better Future after Bloody 2020
By
Ajmal Shams
•
Israel’s Right, Left Disintegrate Ahead Of March Elections
By
Ben Caspit
•
Trump Administration Pushes Last-Minute Arms Deals to Middle East
By
Jared Szuba
•
Convicted Spy Pollard Welcomed To Israel by Netanyahu
By
Rina Bassist
•
Lebanon’s Racism Is Fanning The Flames Of Violence Towards Syrian Refugees
By
Makram Rabah
------
Sudan
Joins Forces with Egypt to Crack Down On Muslim Brotherhood
By
George Mikhail
Dec 30,
2020
Egypt is
seeking to join efforts with Sudan to confront the Muslim Brotherhood and
extremist groups and ideas through several security and religious steps. In
this context, the joint training course for imams of Egypt and Sudan kicked off
in Cairo on Dec. 20 to confront extremist ideas.
Sudanese
Minister of Religious Affairs and Endowments Nasr al-Din Mufreh stressed Dec.
21 during his speech at the opening of the joint training course at Cairo’s
International Awqaf Academy for the training of imams and preachers that “the
goal of the program is to train Sudan’s imams to promote peace, prevent war,
fight extremism and work toward strengthening the principle of citizenship.”
In a Dec.
24 interview with Egyptian newspaper Akhbar Al-Youm, Mufreh said, “The reason
the training is held in Cairo is that there are many historical and
geographical commons between Egypt and Sudan, and what affects Sudan affects
Egypt, especially as far as the religious discourse is concerned.”
He added,
“The Sudanese government has pursued a policy of openness to the outside world,
but the practices of the Sudanese Islamic movement affiliated with the Muslim
Brotherhood has led to the isolation of Sudan and its government from many
countries as Sudan was added on the list of countries sponsoring terrorism.”
Egyptian
Minister of Endowments Mohamed Mokhtar Gomaa said during his speech at the
opening of the training course, “The training consists of promoting the
tolerance of Islam, as some religious groups have gone so far as to promote
extremism. They promoted a discourse whereby extremism falls within the
category of religiosity and that the more extreme the sheikhs are, the more
religious they will be.”
He noted,
“These groups do not believe in the homeland, as they think that the interest
of the group rises above anything else. Meanwhile, we believe that the
interests of the nations are an intrinsic part of the interests of the
religions.”
“The relationship
between Egypt and Sudan is characterized by cohesion and harmony, and the time
is ripe for a recovery of the strong Egyptian and Sudanese relations,” he
continued.
On Dec. 26,
Gomaa announced that he agreed with his Sudanese counterpart to launch a joint
missionary convoy between Egyptian imams and preachers in Sudan on Feb. 1- 10.
Gomaa had
visited Sudan in October to discuss with his Sudanese counterpart ways to boost
joint religious cooperation in training imams, renewing religious discourse and
confronting extremist ideas.
Sudan’s
efforts to confront the Muslim Brotherhood are not limited to the religious
side alone, as they have also touched on the security level. The Sudanese
Ministry of Interior announced Dec. 9 the withdrawal of Sudanese nationality
from 3,000 foreigners who obtained it during the rule of ousted Sudanese
President Omar al-Bashir, including members of the Brotherhood who fled Egypt
and other countries.
Egyptian
newspapers broke the news of the Sudanese Ministry of Interior’s decision amid
much fanfare.
On Dec. 18,
the Emirati Al-Ittihad newspaper reported, “Those whose Sudanese citizenship
has been revoked include leading figures from the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt,
Tunisian leader of Ennahda Movement Rashid al-Ghannouchi and members of the
Palestinian Hamas movement, among other Muslim Brotherhood figures from other
Arab countries.”
Al-Jazeera
Net, affiliated with the Qatari Al Jazeera channel that supports the Muslim
Brotherhood, published a report on Sudan’s decision to revoke the nationality
of 3,000 foreigners under the title, “Sudan withdraws nationality of thousands
of naturalized persons … Will it hand over Sisi opponents?”
The report
said the decision is the result of “strong relations between the Sudanese
Sovereignty Council and Egypt, and it comes in accordance with the Egyptian
authorities’ request to hand over some of the opponents who fled to Sudan after
2013.”
On Oct. 27,
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi met with the chairman of the Sudanese
Sovereignty Council, Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, during his visit to
Cairo.
Also in
October, Al-Arabiya news channel revealed Egyptian-Sudanese coordination
regarding the handover of Brotherhood members to Cairo, and said that “the
meetings of Burhan in Egypt focused on coordination with the Egyptian
leadership regarding the fight against terrorism.”
It added
that “Sisi and Burhan discussed handing over wanted Brotherhood members in
Sudan to Egypt during the coming period.”
Al-Taqi
Ahmed Al-Mirghani, a Sudanese journalist and editor-in-chief of El Baath El
Sudani newspaper, told Al-Monitor, “Since the ouster of Bashir’s government —
which is affiliated with the Brotherhood — Sudan has seriously begun to
confront the Brotherhood and their spread and control over the state by forming
a committee to remove them from state institutions.”
The
Sudanese authorities approved in November 2019 a law aimed at dismantling
Bashir’s regime. This law provided for dissolving and confiscating the
properties of the National Congress Party, the political arm of the Muslim
Brotherhood’s organization.
Also, the
Empowerment Removal Committee was formed in a bid to confront Muslim
Brotherhood members spread across the Sudanese state institutions. The
committee decided Dec. 10 to terminate the service of 239 advisers and
ambassadors affiliated with the Brotherhood.
Mirghani
noted, “Egypt is supporting Sudan to confront the Brotherhood attempts to
destroy the state, especially considering that the Egyptian and Sudanese people
have both managed to overthrow the Muslim Brotherhood rule.”
He added,
“Sudan has resorted to Egypt for the purpose of training Sudanese imams to deal
with the remains of extremist ideas spread by Brotherhood members, and the
Sudanese people respect the Egyptian imams because Cairo hosts Al-Azhar, the
beacon of Islam.”
Mirghani
said, “The Egyptian-Sudanese agreement to confront the Brotherhood included
pursuing and handing over all Egyptian Brotherhood members who fled to Sudan in
the wake of the fall of President Mohammed Morsi by revoking their nationality
and then handing them over to Cairo.”
He stressed
that “the coming period will witness the highest levels of coordination between
Egypt and Sudan, especially in light of the good relations between the two
countries. Sudanese security personnel will [also] be trained in Cairo to
confront the Brotherhood’s chaotic scheme.”
https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/12/egypt-sudan-train-imam-religious-muslim-brotherhood.html
------
Israeli-Palestinian
Peace Remains Dim Prospect After Turbulent Year
By
Yossi Mekelberg
December
31, 2020
As 2020
draws to a close, it is hard to think of a previous time when the Jewish
expression of hope, “There ends a year and its maledictions and a new one
begins with its blessings,” has resonated with most of humanity. Focusing on
the relations between Israel and Palestine, things started to look somewhat
more positive toward the end of the year, but mainly because, up to that point,
we had only seen a steady exacerbation of already-worsening relations in the
triangle of Israel, the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority (PA), and
Hamas-controlled Gaza.
The end of
2020 also represents the end of the Trump administration, which has had a huge,
mainly negative impact on Israeli-Palestinian affairs. The election of Joe
Biden as US president gives rise to the hope that the new leadership in
Washington will play a more constructive role in improving relations between
these neighbors, even if a comprehensive peace doesn’t seem to be on the cards.
Interactions between the Israelis and the Palestinians are heavily affected by
domestic politics in this triangle of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, and the
bilateral relations between each of the two.
The year
started with a glitzy event in the White House: The unveiling of Donald Trump’s
“vision” for peace in the Middle East. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu stood next to Trump as the US president announced a plan that was
stillborn, and one that could be argued was designed to fail, while the
Palestinians, who refused to participate in the charade, could be blamed for
its failure. It was a short-sighted approach that sided almost entirely with
the Israeli position. Even the optics of this event, with no Palestinian in
sight, left no illusion of any imminent or genuine peace negotiations. Not that
the plan was wholeheartedly supported by all Israelis, but, for the
Palestinians, it included almost everything they couldn’t agree with, including
recognition of the occupation of at least parts of the West Bank before
negotiations would even begin, and being forced to accept the diktat of their
state being defenseless and at the mercy of its more powerful neighbor. Yet,
for those more hawkish Israeli politicians, the mere mention of a Palestinian
state, regardless of the humiliating preconditions, was unacceptable, so they
too rejected the plan.
Before the
ink had dried on Trump’s plan, the world was engulfed by the coronavirus
disease (COVID-19) pandemic, which pushed the Israeli-Palestinian peace process
even further down the international agenda. The US has become the country
hardest-hit by COVID-19 — and during an election year in which deep divisions,
on race relations in particular, also surfaced in full force.
It was also
necessary for Israel, the PA in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza to divert their
attention to containing the pandemic, and here they achieved various levels of
failure. The virus, which recognizes no borders or political disputes,
highlighted that, in the small space in which both nations operate, with the
movement of populations between Israel and the Occupied Territories, a lack of
cooperation is a recipe for disaster. Sadly, though predictably, such a lack of
cooperation was evident and cases in all communities are currently soaring,
demonstrating the incompetence of the authorities in all three territories,
their inability to rise above their mutual distrust, and that their vested
interests have taken precedence over ensuring the well-being of their people.
If the
threat posed by the current pandemic diverted attention from the “normal” areas
of friction between Israel and the Palestinians, the normalization agreements
signed in the summer by Israel, first with the UAE and then with Bahrain and
Sudan, changed the calculus. With Israel’s plans to annex large parts of the
West Bank, and the US election campaign entering high gear, while the tide
began to turn against Trump, the normalization agreements were bound to impact
Israeli-Palestinian relations.
For
Netanyahu, the pledge to annex nearly third of the West Bank was merely a ploy
to attract votes from the Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank and their
supporters, rather than part of any comprehensive strategy toward future
relations with the Palestinians. However, the threat of annexation led the PA
to make good on its warning to end all cooperation with Israel and, in
particular, their security coordination, knowing that this was its most
powerful card as it sought to sway Netanyahu away from his annexation plans.
But it is doubtful whether President Mahmoud Abbas believed even for a second
that Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition would be convinced by this threat,
as he knew that, as in the case of the PA and Gaza, it is all about the
domestic politics of the survival of the elite, and not much else.
Annexation
would have made little difference on the ground, as the West Bank is already
under the complete control of Israel, which, as the occupying force, treats it
as if it has already been annexed. However, the message of a unilateral
decision by Israel with the support of the US on the future of the West Bank
would have been clear. It was the normalization agreement with the UAE that
stopped the irresponsible and damaging annexation plan, saving Israel from its
own folly.
The
Palestinian leadership, feeling abandoned, might have expressed its anger at
the normalization agreements, but stopping the Washington-blessed legalizing of
Israel’s occupation was an important condition of full diplomatic relations
between Israel and the UAE. Moreover, removing the threat of annexation,
together with the election of Biden as the next US president, has facilitated
Israel’s transfer of the more than $1 billion in taxes that it had collected on
behalf of the PA. It now seems that some thaw, mild as it is, is taking place
between the PA and Israel.
However,
the fundamentals of the relations between Israel and the Palestinians remain
the same and are not likely to change any time soon. All three leaderships — of
Israel, Fatah and Hamas — are suffering from dwindling support and trust.
Israeli politics has been hijacked by the vested interests of a prime minister
on trial for corruption, who spends most of his energy attempting to avoid
justice. Neither Palestinian leadership has received the confidence of its
voters for more than 14 years, while the question of succession is constantly
hanging over the Palestinian political system(s), resulting in near-complete
political paralysis. In the meantime, Israel is entrenching its occupation of
the West Bank and its blockade of Gaza, with no end in sight.
The
overarching aspect of relations between Israel and the Palestinians is the
Israeli occupation and blockade, which is making the lives of ordinary
Palestinians a misery. The situation in Gaza continues to deteriorate, turning
2 million Palestinians into prisoners in their own homes, while the human
rights of those in the West Bank are subject to violation at will by Israeli
security forces or Jewish settlers. As long as this continues, and settlements
are constantly expanded and the political systems in Israel and Palestine
remain in a state of flux, the vision of peaceful and just coexistence remains
as remote as ever.
-----
Yossi Mekelberg is professor of international
relations at Regent’s University London, where he is head of the International
Relations and Social Sciences Program. He is also an associate fellow of the
MENA Program at Chatham House. He is a regular contributor to the international
written and electronic media.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1785186
------
Cartoon:
Winds of Change, From Arab Spring to Winter
By
Khalid Albaih
3 Jan 2021
In 2011,
Khalid Albaih’s cartoons about the Arab Spring went viral, some even appearing
on walls from Cairo to Beirut. In this series for Al Jazeera, he revisits and
reimagines some of his work, reflecting on the difference the last decade has
made for people in the Middle East and North Africa.
A strong
wind is a force. When it blows, it can push you in a specific direction, even
as you try to stand against it. In the spring, you may be able to put up a
fight. But by the time winter comes, it gets harder and harder to resist. You
are tired, confused, and rethinking your whole journey.
But the
wind is too strong for you to stop. So, you keep walking in the direction it
pushes you. After a while, you start to go with the flow, maybe even making it
part of your way of life to just walk forward and not look back.
But every
spring, a new uprising blooms from frustration. Anger and hope arise to once
again push against the winds of the status quo.
I drew this
original cartoon at the start of the Arab Spring in 2011, as millions took to
the streets across the region. They pushed against the powerful winds of the
status quo armed with nothing but the hope that by standing united they could
challenge even the greatest forces and bring on the winds of change.
Ten years
on, the Arab world has passed through a long winter filled with disappointments
that turned to civil wars. During that time, some found other ways of
resistance, some went in a different direction, some rejoined the status quo,
some faced violence, some used violence, some now find themselves in jail
without trial, and some have not been lucky enough to make it out alive.
Still, the
winds of change keep blowing, and all we can do is keep trying to change its
course in whichever way we can.
--------
Khalid
Albaih is a Romanian-born Sudanese political cartoonist and cultural producer
currently living in Denmark.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/1/3/cartoon-winds-of-change-from-arab-spring-to-winter
-----
Afghans
Dream Of A Better Future After Bloody 2020
By
Ajmal Shams
January 03,
2021
The year
2020 was an eventful one for Afghanistan. The coronavirus disease (COVID-19)
pandemic and the US-Taliban peace deal were two notable issues. Now it is time
to reflect on how these two events affected Afghan society and what the
implications are for 2021.
The
pandemic hit the country hard, not only in terms of casualties and long spells
of suffering for large portions of the population, but also the economic
hardship that both individuals and the business community suffered due to
lockdown and the general economic decline. Education was also adversely
affected due to schools, colleges and universities being closed for long
periods. Very few private schools were able to continue their academic programs
through online platforms. At the beginning of winter, all education
institutions were closed once again amid fears of a renewed wave of the
disease.
Official
statistics provided by the World Health Organization report only about 50,000
cases in the country, with just over 2,200 deaths. However, these figures are
far from the reality on the ground. Due to extremely limited testing capacity,
the actual number of positive cases is believed to be much higher. The number
of deaths is also much greater than the figure reported. The majority of those
with symptoms refrained from visiting public hospitals due to their lack of
facilities and proper care, preferring instead to stay home or visit private
clinics. To minimize the spread of the pandemic, the government was somehow
able to enforce lockdown for several months, which partially helped in
minimizing exposure to the infection. But continuous lockdown was no longer
economically feasible and had to be ended.
In
February, the peace agreement between the US and the Taliban was signed after
months of tough negotiations between the two sides. This was just weeks before
the country started to suffer from the gradually increasing number of cases of
COVID-19. The deal was historic as it raised hopes of an end to the four
decades of conflict in Afghanistan. However, the Afghan government gave the
impression that it had been sidelined. The release of Taliban prisoners and the
start of the intra-Afghan dialogue in Qatar also happened under international
pressure and with wide public support for peace within Afghanistan. The pace of
these negotiations has been slow so far. For months, the two sides could not
even agree on the rules and procedures for the talks, which they finally agreed
in early December before taking a long break. They are planning to resume talks
this week. Meanwhile, the Afghan government demanded that future talks with the
Taliban be held inside Afghanistan. This move, however, did not attract much
national or international attention. The coming round of negotiations is
planned to be held in Doha.
Although
the US-Taliban agreement does not include a reduction in violence as part of
the deal, the major US peace envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, has been repeatedly
calling for this as a confidence-building measure. However, 2020 was one of the
bloodiest years for Afghanistan, with a devastating impact on civilians in
terms of casualties. Targeted killings and deaths from improvised explosive
devices were an almost daily occurrence. The complexity of the situation has
left ordinary Afghans vulnerable and confused regarding the future of their
country. The government’s security agencies have not risen to the occasion to
protect the lives of ordinary citizens from criminal gangs or groups with
political motives.
As for the
COVID-19 relief efforts, the public perception of the government’s use of funds
allocated for mitigating the impacts of the pandemic was not positive. It is
widely believed that aid packages did not reach those that were desperately in
need. The healthcare system was in total despair during 2020, with charges of
embezzlement and corruption. Just last week, President Ashraf Ghani removed the
public health minister due to the public’s outrage at the ministry ever since
the beginning of the pandemic.
Afghanistan
entered 2021 with a new wave of the pandemic, continuing insecurity,
uncertainty in the progress of peace talks, and high levels of poverty and
unemployment. November’s Geneva conference was something of a success for the
government, which received pledges of aid until 2024, but the conditionality of
aid flows on peace, the fight against corruption, and improved governance
remain major challenges in 2021 and the years ahead. With all the bitter
memories of past years, Afghans entered 2021 with renewed hope of a better
future.
-----
Ajmal
Shams is President of the Afghanistan Social Democratic Party and is based in
Kabul. He is a former Deputy Minister in the Afghan National Unity Government.
He tweets @ajmshams
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1786631
-----
Israel’s
Right, Left Disintegrate Ahead of March Elections
By
Ben Caspit
Dec 30,
2020
Imagine
that rather than the Eastern and Western conference champions facing off at the
NBA finals, three or four groups from each side crowd into the court, jostling
each other for space, and instead of playing basketball engage in a free for
all melee egged on from the bleachers. This, more or less, is a current
snapshot of Israel’s political arena, just over 11 weeks before a fourth round
of elections is scheduled for March 23.
In the
evening hours of Dec. 29, timed to coincide with prime time television news,
Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai announced he was forming a new political party. The
decorated former fighter pilot and war hero appeared in front of the cameras
alongside Justice Minister Avi Nissenkorn, who just minutes earlier had quit
the crumbling Blue and White Party led by Defense Minister Benny Gantz. Last
week, Knesset member Ofer Shelah announced he was forming a new party after
quitting Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party. Earlier today Foreign Minister Gabi
Ashkenazi said he will not run again within Blue and White and that he is
taking some time off from politics, perhaps to consider a new political
framework.
Gantz, who
still leads the remains of the Blue and White, delivered his own public address
shortly before Huldai, claiming that “Blue and White saved the state” by
joining Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in May and insisting
that he will run in March, too. The leftist Meretz, led by Knesset member
Nitzan Horowitz, is running on a separate ticket. Two other former army chiefs
have yet to announce their plans — former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, considered
one of the driving forces behind the ongoing anti-Netanyahu protests, and Lt.
Gen. (res.) Gadi Eizenkot, who shed his uniform two years ago and is being
courted by several parties but is said to be undecided as yet.
This is the
first times in ages that Israel’s center-left political bloc is mounting a real
challenge to the right. The right is currently fielding four separate tickets
(Netanyahu’s Likud, Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beitenu, Naftali Bennett’s
Yamina and Gideon Saar’s already popular “New Hope”), and the center-left is
also splitting up at a dizzying pace rather than uniting.
Right now,
the center-left bloc consists of the centrist Yesh Atid, Meretz,
Huldai-Nissenkorn, Ofer Shelah, Labor on life support and the dying Blue and
White. However, this constellation is an illusion, a fata morgana in the
political desert. The boundaries defining Israel’s political map have long
faded. It is no longer divided between right and left with a pragmatic center
in between. The framework that defined Israeli politics has been shattered and
there is only one issue: for or against Netanyahu. The traditional right is
evenly split between the two camps, whereas the center-left is trying to find
itself. The rapid disintegration we are witnessing on the center-left will
become a series of new mergers and acquisitions. Ofer Shelah will not run
alone. The prospects of Blue and White running separately are slim. There is
talk of a union between Meretz and Huldai or even Lapid and Huldai. Ultimately,
this side of the arena will also tap into its survival instincts.
There is
another major change happening in Israeli politics. Since its founding, the
state’s security agencies, especially the IDF, have been both a social melting
pot and an assembly line of Israel’s political leadership. Two former IDF
chiefs became prime ministers and dozens of other commanders and generals
traded in their uniforms for suits and ties, providing a natural leadership
pool for top government posts.
For years,
the unwritten rule for all prime ministers has been “never fight with your IDF
chief of staff," born of the perception that Israelis admire and even
worship those who lead the people’s army. The defense minister’s position, with
its combat trappings, was also viewed as a springboard to the prime minister’s
office.
But the
brand of the IDF chief has lost its sheen. Former IDF chief Dan Halutz says he
has stopped citing his one-time post, preferring to present himself as a former
air force chief, a position that still holds a certain untarnished cachet.
Former IDF chief Gantz is being ignominiously kicked out of politics at this
very moment, his former political ally and predecessor Ashkenazi is barricading
himself behind a wall of silence, former IDF chief and Defense Minister Moshe
Ya’alon is considered a dead political horse and Eizenkot has decided to stay
out of politics after watching his former colleagues crash.
This turn
of events is the work of Netanyahu. As a young politician, Netanyahu surrounded
himself with generals in order to bask in their glow. Chief among them was Maj.
Gen. (res.) Yitzhak Mordechai, a former front commander and defense minister.
Those days are long gone. Netanyahu has successfully made himself “Mr.
Security,” the irreplaceable guardian of the Jewish State. He no longer needs
former generals and security officials. On the contrary, he is methodically
ensuring their political elimination.
In the
upcoming elections, the fourth in less than two years, Netanyahu will face no
threat from former military candidates. Three times he has vanquished the
generals who tried to unseat him. While they did deprive him of immunity from
criminal prosecution and defended the country’s law enforcement and court
system, they failed to defeat him. This time, Netanyahu will face experienced
politicians just as cruel as he is, some such as Saar with intimate knowledge
of his ways.
https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/12/israel-benjamin-netanyahu-benny-gantz-gabi-ashkenazi.html
-----
Trump
Administration Pushes Last-Minute Arms Deals To Middle East
By
Jared Szuba
Dec 30,
2020
The Trump
administration approved major arms sales to Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Kuwait on
Tuesday in a last-minute push before President-elect Joe Biden takes office.
The US
State Department approved a proposed $290 million sale of 3,000
precision-guided GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday. The
Royal Saudi Air Force has relied on such US-made munitions for its air campaign
over Yemen. The kingdom has drawn allegations of war crimes for repeatedly
bombing civilian targets.
President-elect
Biden has promised to end US support for the Saudi-led coalition’s war against
Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
Congress
was formally notified of the sale proposal on Tuesday, a week after Bloomberg
reported that the Trump administration told lawmakers it was moving ahead on
plans to grant a license allowing Raytheon to sell 7,500 precision-guided bombs
directly to Saudi Arabia.
The
Pentagon on Tuesday also announced a $4 billion sale of eight Apache AH-64E
helicopters to Kuwait and the upgrade of 16 of the Gulf country’s existing
Apaches. Spare parts for Kuwait’s Patriot air defense missile batteries and
targeting systems for Egyptian military aircraft were also announced.
The United
Nations has called Yemen’s civil war the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophe
and said that a majority of civilian casualties in the conflict have been
caused by the Saudi-led military coalition, which includes the United Arab
Emirates.
Estimates
of the war’s civilian death toll vary, but the nongovernmental research group
ACLED has reported that more than 12,600 civilians have been killed in targeted
attacks.
UN
investigators have warned that governments arming any side in the conflict —
including Iran, which has ties to the Houthi rebels, and the United States,
United Kingdom and France, which have supported the Saudi-led coalition — may
be complicit in war crimes.
The US
military has said it has worked closely with Saudi Arabia to reduce civilian
casualties in the conflict. The United States stopped refueling Saudi coalition
planes over Yemen in 2018, but Riyadh has since continued to hit civilian
targets.
The United
States is seeking to pressure the Houthis in Yemen's civil war. The State
Department has reportedly considered labeling the Houthis a terrorist group in
recent weeks, a potential move that former US officials and rights groups have
protested, saying it would threaten to end desperately needed international
humanitarian aid to Yemen's north.
Congress
earlier this month failed to block the Trump administration’s proposal to sell
the advanced F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and armed MQ-9B drones to the United
Arab Emirates following Abu Dhabi’s recognition of Israel.
Trump
administration officials have been urging Middle Eastern leaders to sign peace
agreemens with Israel — collectively known as the Abraham Accords — that aim to
shore up cooperation to counter Iran’s regional activities. Thus far, four
countries — the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco — have agreed to normalize ties
with Israel. Saudi Arabia has so far held out.
In a separate
move, Washington’s embassy in Baghdad on Wednesday announced the United States
had transferred 30 armored Humvees to Ain al-Asad air base in order to assist
Iraqi security forces “in securing the heart of Baghdad.”
That
transfer comes ahead of the one-year anniversary of the US assassination of
Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, for which Iran and local proxy militias in
Iraq have vowed retaliation.
https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/12/trump-arms-sales-saudi-bombs.html
-----
Convicted
Spy Pollard Welcomed To Israel by Netanyahu
By Rina
Bassist
Dec 30,
2020
Jonathan
Pollard, the former US Navy analyst convicted of spying for Israel, arrived at
Ben Gurion Airport together with his wife, Esther, early this morning. Coming
out of the airplane, Pollard got on his hands and knees to kiss the tarmac in
the Jewish tradition of kissing the ground of the holy land. The Pollard couple
arrived aboard a private jet owned by US American billionaire Sheldon Adelson,
a major backer of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Awaiting
him at the tarmac, Netanyahu said, “Now you can start life anew, with freedom
and happiness. Now you are home.” Pollard responded by saying, “We are excited
to be home at last. There is no one who is more proud of this country or its
leader than we are. We hope to become productive citizens as soon as possible.”
The Office
of the Prime Minister posted on Twitter a short clip of Pollard’s arrival at
the airport, saying, “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed Jonathan and
Esther Pollard upon their arrival in Israel, early this morning. The Prime
Minister was moved to meet them on the tarmac next to the plane where they
recited the Shehecheyanu blessing (the traditional Jewish blessing for when
something new happens) together. Prime Minister Netanyahu gave Jonathan Pollard
an Israeli identity card. The Prime Minister told the Pollards that it is good
that they have come home."
President
Reuven Rivlin tweeted, “Welcome home to Jonathan and Esther Pollard!’’ Defense
Minister Benny Gantz tweeted a photo of the Pollard couple aboard the airplane,
writing in Hebrew, "Jonathan and Esther welcome home!"
Pollard — a
Jewish American — was a US Navy intelligence analyst in the mid-1980s when he
made contact with an Israeli officer in New York. He then began transferring to
Israeli contacts confidential documents and information. Pollard was arrested
in 1985 in what became a yearslong thorn in US-Israel relations. Israel had
acknowledged partly over the years some of the role it played in the Pollard
espionage affair. But it was only in 1998 that Israel admitted having paid
Pollard thousands of dollars for the information he supplied.
Since he
was sentenced, Israel made several attempts through both official and
unofficial channels for Pollard be released, but successive US administrations
always refused. He was granted symbolically Israeli citizenship in 1995. In
2002, Netanyahu (who was not prime minister at the time) visited Pollard in
prison. Eventually, Pollard was released in 2015 after serving 30 years in
prison. After his release, he remained subject to a curfew, had to wear a wrist
monitor and was prohibited from traveling abroad. In late November, the US
Parole Commission formally lifted Pollard’s parole restrictions, enabling him
to immigrate to Israel with his wife. At the time, Prime Minister Netanyahu
spoke to Pollard on the phone, expressing the hope that the couple would travel
to Israel.
https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/12/israel-us-benjamin-netanyahu-jonathan-pollard-espionage.html
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Lebanon’s
Racism Is Fanning the Flames of Violence towards Syrian Refugees
By
Makram Rabah
30 December
2020
As Lebanon
celebrated Christmas, a Syrian refugee camp in Miniyeh in the north of Lebanon
was attacked by a group of local youths who set fire to tents amid clashes with
residents. The number of violent incidents against displaced communities living
in the country has grown steadily in recent months. This has run in parallel
with the public becoming apathetic to these acts, and viewing them as normal
daily occurrences.
The
makeshift camp houses over 375 people, and the attack highlights a worrying
trend. The 1.5 million Syrian refugees based in Lebanon are increasingly
targets of intimidation and violence, on the back of the country’s disastrous
economic conditions.
Tensions
are running high. The killing of Joseph Tawk, a Lebanese national, by a Syrian
living in Bcharre, led to rioting and the eviction of the entire refugee
population of the town with over 200 Syrian families forced to look for refuge
elsewhere or else face physical harm.
This
dangerous xenophobic atmosphere isn’t helped by several politicians, including
former minister of Foreign Affairs and President Michael Aoun’s son-in-law
Gebran Bassil blaming Syrian refugees for Lebanon’s collapse.
Bassil has
consistently sought to use refugees as a fearmongering foil, and has previously
stated: “The Syrian refugee crisis is the biggest crisis threatening the
Lebanese entity.” This perception is growing among communities that were
initially supportive of the Syrian revolution to topple the Assad regime.
Bcharre is one example, but there are many others.
The voices
calling for calm are there. Miniyeh and Bcharre support Saad al-Hariri’s Future
Movement and Samir Geagea Lebanese Forces, both of which have defended and
openly demanded protection for Syrian refugees living in the country. Hariri
has declared, “that they [refugees] won’t go back to Syria as long as that
regime is in place [and] as long as I don’t have a UN green light for their
safe return, I’m not going to do anything.”
Calls for
eviction of the Syrian population, however, underscores that Lebanon’s
traditional political parties no longer hold sway over their power base on this
issue.
Local media
outlets have been complicit in fueling xenophobia by exaggerating the perceived
threat of refugees stealing jobs, while playing down violence on refugees as
simple altercations.
In many
cases the media fails, or refrains, to report on violence committed in areas
controlled by Hezbollah and their allies. The expulsion of refugees through
force in areas deemed as a security threat saw the border town of Arsal meet
this fate.
The
Lebanese state has conspired to make the refugees in Lebanon keep, and in some
cases, make worse the suffering they endured in Syria. Introducing different
measures have stripped them of their legal rights and exposed them to
persecution.
Staying
silent might be the way the Lebanese state wishes to deal with such crimes, but
the country’s people need to stop looking for excuses to justify crimes such as
the burning of the Bhanin camp – just one example among hundreds of equally
heinous acts of racism perpetrated against non-Lebanese.
The Syrian
refugee crisis is undoubtedly a major challenge for Lebanon. The racism,
violence, and expulsion of Syrian refugees by the people of Lebanon is a
different matter. Why should an already reluctant international community
invest in the country when the local population fail to treat others with
respect?
The sight of
the burning tents in the refugee camp in Miniyeh is not simply a crime against
humanity: Lebanon’s soul and moral standards have gone up in flames too.
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2020/12/30/Lebanon-s-racism-is-fanning-the-flames-of-violence-towards-Syrian-refugees-
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