Abbas Disappoints, Again, With UN Speech: New Age Islam's Selection, 24 September 2016
New Age Islam Edit Bureau
24 September 2016
• Abbas Disappoints, Again, With UN Speech
By Daoud Kuttab
• Could A Centrist Politician Be Israel's Next PM?
By Mazal Mualem
• Push for Iraq’s Mosul Faces Myriad Challenges
By W.G. Dunlop
• Two Years after the Coup: What’s up with the Houthis
By Dr. Theodore Karasik
• Is This How Hezbollah Serves Michel Aoun?
By Nayla Tueni
Com Piled By New Age Islam Edit Bureau
-----
Abbas Disappoints, Again, With UN Speech
By Daoud Kuttab
September 23, 2016
In the week before President Mahmoud Abbas’ speech to the UN General Assembly on Sept. 22, a number of Palestinians were shot and killed or injured by Israeli soldiers. On Sept. 20, Hazem Kawasmi, a Palestinian activist, made a profoundly insightful statement on his Facebook page: “We are neither in an intifada nor are we involved in civil disobedience. We have no idea where we are going.”
Kawasmi, who works with the Arab World Democracy & Electoral Monitor, told Al-Monitor that unlike the two previous intifadas, at present there is no clarity in vision. “Palestinians are not happy with the situation, because there is no vision or strategy toward liberation while the Palestinian Authority appears to be able to coexist with the current conditions on the ground.”
In his UN speech, Abbas did not reference violent acts of resistance or the possibility of a nonviolent protest movement coupled with an international boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign. He did, however, try to connect the past with the future by talking about the 100-year-old Balfour Declaration, the 71-year-old UN partition plan and the nearly half a century of Israeli occupation.
Abbas mentioned “Israel” 38 times, talked about “peace” 20 times, used the word “occupation” 15 times, “denounced terrorism” 6 times, spoke of Jerusalem five times, referred to illegal “settlements” five times and called for the rights of “refugees” once.
Nowhere in the speech of the Palestinian leader was there any hint of a grand strategy for Palestinian liberation. Abbas talked about the need for reconciliation and national unity, offered a peaceful and neighborly future between an independent Palestinian state and Israel, but said very little about the mechanism that Palestinians need to adopt to reach the elusive liberation that they desire.
The distance between New York and the occupied Palestinian territories is huge both in terms of geography and political relationships. What is voted on or discussed in the UN General Assembly rarely has any direct influence on Palestinians in Nablus or Hebron.
Perhaps the occupation is Israel's Achilles’ heel, as it was one of the issues US President Barack Obama touched on directly in his General Assembly speech. Israel would be better off if “it didn’t permanently occupy and settle Palestinian land,” Obama told Israelis and world leaders Sept. 21.
Continued dependency on diplomacy and expectations that Western countries will pressure Israel to attend an international conference and concede to the acceptance of a free Palestine seems to be the all that Abbas expects from his current trip to the United Nations. About the French initiative to convene an international peace conference, he said Palestinians and others are hopeful “that such a conference will lead to the establishment of a mechanism and defined time frame for an end to the occupation.”
Abbas' over-dependency on diplomacy appears to be the result of the pomp and other trappings of the presidency that he and his team have constructed around political life in Palestine. Diplomacy has become the exclusive path to liberation simply because it allows for the leadership’s political survival. Diplomacy without any means of applying pressure on Israel, however, is unlikely to produce results at the negotiating table.
Of course, it is impossible for President Abbas and his team to support any kind of violent resistance, including “low tech” violence, such as using knives and car ramming. If they did indicate serious support for violent acts of resistance, they would end up jailed or deported by Israel. That they are not condemning such acts is being used by Israel to attack them.
Nonviolent acts of resistance, however, have at times been endorsed by the leadership, with reservations. Both Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal have publicly called for mass popular resistance, but neither has done anything to support nonviolent protest. More important, in the absence of a national strategy that Palestinians can unify behind, such ideas amount to nothing more than lip service. The Palestinian leadership has even thwarted the worldwide boycott efforts by Palestinians and their supporters by failing to get fully behind them.
During the funeral of South African leader Nelson Mandela in 2013, Abbas was confronted on the boycott issue. He insisted that his government approved of the boycott of settlement products but not the boycott of the State of Israel. Such talk shows the lack of a consistent Palestinian position on nonviolent campaigns, such as the BDS movement. The Israelis are sufficiently worried about BDS to the point of shifting resources and manpower to fight it internationally, but the Palestinian leadership remains silent about it. Some Palestinian officials, among them Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) Executive Committee, have expressed their support, but Abbas has yet to publicly endorse it.
The absence of a credible, unified Palestinian strategy for liberation has seriously eroded support for Abbas as well as all the established Palestinian factions. While part of the problem is the ongoing split between the two main movements, Fatah and Hamas, the problem goes much deeper.
Kawasmi's short post on Facebook reflects the thinking of most Palestinians in regard to the lack of leadership, unity and a credible national strategy for liberation. The weakened support for the organized movements, including those in the PLO, is largely because they have dropped the term “liberation” from their political program.
Source: al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/09/palestinian-president-abbas-national-liberation-strategy.html
-----
Could A Centrist Politician Be Israel's Next PM?
By Mazal Mualem
September 23, 2016
At the beginning of August, a comprehensive study on changes and trends in Israeli public opinion was prepared for Yesh Atid Chairman Yair Lapid by his American strategic adviser, Mark Mellman. Mellman is the one who created Lapid’s successful strategy in the 2013 elections, thus attracting 19 mandates to his party. In the current study, Mellman was asked to produce findings that would sharpen Lapid’s strategic line in a way that would transform him into the only alternative to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and right-wing rule.
While conducting his research, Mellman predicted Lapid’s giant leap in the polls and the transformation of his party to the largest one in the polls. This prediction was indeed confirmed later in a poll by Channel 2, published on Sept. 6. In addition, Mellman’s assessment was that Lapid has even greater potential than that.
According to Mellman’s segmentations, about 53% of the Jewish Israeli public is in the political centre, or on the right and left margins of the centre. This is a tremendous pool of votes that can achieve about 40 mandates. Go to the political centre, Mellman advised Lapid; aim for it, because that’s your route to the premiership. Mellman also pointed out the Israeli public’s rising distaste of the horse-trading politics that is identified with Netanyahu.
Lapid, an obedient campaign soldier, is now working hard to brand himself as the leader of the Israeli political center. He’s neither left nor right; he’s in the middle, in a giant supermarket of opinions and hues that includes religious Jews, secular Jews, settlers and left-wingers, too — each of them can find something there with which they can identify.
These numbers pointing to an enormous repository of votes in the political center are not new. We recall the mythological “center party’’ headed by retired Gen. Yitzhak Mordechai and the late Gen. Amnon Lipkin-Shahak that was founded in 1999 in order to bring down Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in his first term of office. The new party soared high in the polls to about 30 mandates, but then crashed in the elections to merely six seats.
In all of Israel’s political history, Kadima is the only party that succeeded in transforming the centre dream into a reality. But even this instance had a painful ending. The political explosion generated by late Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at the end of 2005 when he split up the Likud was meteoric and promising. Sharon, prime minister at the time, succeeded in connecting strong left-wing forces to him headed by former President Shimon Peres, the man who never stopped trying to advance the two-state dream. After the disengagement from the Gaza Strip and North Samaria at the end of 2005, Sharon planned additional painful, publicly speaking, diplomatic moves in the West Bank.
A few days after the dramatic announcement regarding Kadima’s political birth, Peres joined the party and it rose to almost 40 mandates in the polls. It seemed to have the potential for even further growth. Of course, Sharon’s leadership skills explained a large part of the party’s success, so when the prime minister collapsed due to a stroke and Ehud Olmert replaced Sharon in the prime minister’s chair, some of the votes evaporated.
The Kadima Party garnered only 29 mandates in the 2006 elections, but that was still viewed as a big achievement, and Kadima continued to be the ruling party. Then, Olmert’s criminal entanglements and internal party conflicts served to deliver the final deathblow to Kadima in its last 2015 elections (in which it did not run).
However, the potential of votes in the Israeli center has not disappeared. It is still alive and kicking, waiting for someone to realize its potential in the coming elections.
While the trend in the political centre in 2006 was a lean to the left, 2016 sees a slight right-wing orientation. Lapid is aware of this, and he acts accordingly. Lapid does talk about a diplomatic solution, but with great caution. He does not wave the flag of partitioning the land as did Olmert in 2006 with the Convergence Plan. Instead, Lapid’s Seven-Point Plan that he presented on Sept. 18 — a plan derived from Mellman’s research — is a diplomatic agenda that includes regional cooperation with countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Gulf emirates.
This week, Lapid discovered that he is not alone in the playing field. Haaretz political commentator Yossi Verter revealed news of a meeting held in New York between former Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Zionist Camp co-leader Tzipi Livni (former foreign minister for the Kadima Party).
Barak and Livni met at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting that took place on the fringes of the 71st session of the UN General Assembly. They discussed various political scenarios; both of them are worried and envious of Lapid’s meteoric rise, feeling that the time is ripe to bring down Netanyahu.
The two of them are trying to understand how Lapid, a former journalist, is so successful at sweeping the centrist public off its feet. Recently, Livni has been trying to organize open primaries in the left-center bloc to choose the person who will lead the bloc, but she is not getting much support from the people involved. Lapid has already made it clear that he’s not in the running. In a radio interview on Aug. 11, he made it clear that Yesh Atid will not run with the left.
Barak is trying to jump-start a political comeback. In recent weeks, he has taken it upon himself to be the prime minister’s security-issues challenger. But Livni and also Barak, together or separately, are viewed as has-been politicians — though under certain circumstances they may still be attractive to the public. Lapid’s associates maintain that he has no intention of joining up with Barak or Livni and that the tete-a-tete between the two in New York holds no significance for him.
However, it is reasonable to think that a large centrist party (like Yesh Atid) that joins forces with Livni and Barak from the left, former Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and Finance Minister and head of the Kulanu Party Moshe Kahlon from the right, and former generals like Gabi Ashkenazi and Benny Gantz could carry away the Israeli public that, according to the polls, is fed up with Netanyahu. These are the 53% that Mellman pinpointed in his research.
The big, intriguing question is, Will forces in the centre (and from its left and right) succeed in maximizing their potential this time around? Much depends on Lapid and his capabilities as head of the largest party in the bloc to combine forces with parts of the right and also with parts of the left, such as the Zionist Camp. Much also depends on Ya’alon; it is still unclear whether he will found his own party or remain in the Likud, and whether he would agree to be No. 2 under Lapid.
Source: al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/09/ehud-barak-tzipi-livni-yair-lapid-center-right-kadima.html
-----
Push for Iraq’s Mosul Faces Myriad Challenges
By W.G. Dunlop
24 September 2016
Iraq has promised to recapture Mosul by year’s end and US top brass have hinted an operation could start next month, but the offensive to retake the militant bastion faces serious challenges.
Mosul, Iraq’s second city, is the ultimate prize in the country’s war against the Daesh group, which seized it and swathes of other territory in 2014. But before Iraqi forces can enter and retake the city, there are an array of complex military, political and humanitarian challenges to surmount, meaning that even if the operation begins next month, it is likely to take weeks or months to complete.
In the battle for Mosul, there will be “formidable challenges at all levels, one of the most important of them coordination between military units taking part in the battle,” said Iraqi security analyst Jassim Hanoon.
The drive will involve Iraqi soldiers and police, pro-government paramilitaries and Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, forces that in some cases have not operated together before and do not have unified command structures.
Senior US officers have spurred much of the recent speculation on when the final push for the city will start, while Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi has said he wants to maintain surprise.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joe Dunford said that Iraqi forces will be ready for the push by “early October,” while Gen. Joe Votel, the head of the US Central Command, said the city can be retaken by year’s end.
But there are still serious humanitarian challenges to be addressed, with the UN saying that: “Humanitarian agencies are racing against the clock to prepare for the humanitarian impact of the military campaign.”
Once the push is launched, a coalition of heterogeneous and sometimes rival Iraqi forces will have to fight through Daesh defences, in some cases over distances of dozens of km from their current positions, to reach the city. Then, if Iraqi strategy for Mosul follows that used in previous operations, they will seek to surround and seal off the city prior to an assault.
Following reports of a possible mustard agent attack on US troops south of Mosul on Tuesday and confirmed chemical weapons attacks on Kurdish forces in the past, there are also concerns that Daesh might resort to such tactics in its defense of the city. US-led coalition warplanes last week destroyed a factory near Mosul suspected of being used by Daesh to make chemical weapons. But chemical weapons attacks have so far resulted in limited casualties, and Daesh’s bombs and bullets are much deadlier weapons.
Kurdish forces will play a major role in the operation and they are not under Abadi’s command, meaning that a decision by the Kurdish regional government is also needed. That will require an agreement, or at least some initial understanding, between Baghdad and the Kurds on a post-Mosul division of territory.
The Kurds want to maintain control of a number of areas that are also claimed by Baghdad. The role of paramilitary forces known as the Hashed Al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization), which are dominated by Iran-backed Shiite militias, must also be decided.
These forces are ostensibly under Abadi’s control, but in practice the most powerful groups operate with a great deal of autonomy and with input from Tehran. Their entry into Sunni Arab Mosul is opposed by Sunni politicians.
Source: arabnews.com/node/988901/columns
----
Two Years after the Coup: What’s up with the Houthis
By Dr. Theodore Karasik
23 September 2016
Two years ago the Houthi’s launched their most recent uprising in what is called the 21 September Revolution, which ousted Yemeni President Abd Rabbuah Mansur Hadi last year. Since Hadi fled to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia amid Houthi advances on Aden, Yemen’s chaos has continued unabated.
The Houthis and Saleh’s General People’s Congress (GPC) hold most of Yemen’s northern half, while forces working for the exiled government share control of the rest of the country with tribes. At least 10,000 people have been killed in Yemen’s 18-month-old civil war.
Several important factors explain why the Houthis are continuing to fight.
First, Houthi intransigence is killing the UN-sponsored talks to try to end 18 months of fighting in the southern Arabian Peninsula state. The negotiations between the sides collapsed in failure this month.
The talks ended abruptly after the Houthis and Saleh’s General People’s Congress (GPC) announced the formation of a ten-member governing council on August 6, ignoring a warning from UN Yemen Envoy Ould Cheikh Ahmed that such a move would violate UN Security Council resolutions on how to solve the conflict. Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir stated that the Iran-backed Al Houthi militants would not be allowed to take over Yemen.
Houthis and forces loyal to ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh intensified attacks into the southern Najran province. Houthi militias fired rockets targeting Saudi positions in Najran city in southern Saudi Arabia on August 16, killing at least seven civilians. The casualties included four Saudi nationals and three foreign nationals. Houthi forces fired a ballistic missile toward Najran city two days earlier on August 14, killing at least six people.
Second, is the Houthi relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran. After the Houthi coup Iran stepped up support to Sana with supplies including missile parts and maintenance. A GCC official stated “Iran resupplies the Houthis on a regular basis despite attempts to block Tehran’s activity.”
The Assab Naval Base, used by the Kingdom and its allies, is critical in blockading the Houthi-held ports on the Red Sea and preventing Iran from resupplying the rebels. Clearly, this maritime solution is not 100 percent effective and thus more exposure of this network is necessary.
The recent wave of missile attacks against Saudi targets in the kingdom’s southern territory illustrates Tehran’s potential to maintain the Houthi forces’ means to bog the Saudis down on their southern border
Operation Decisive Storm
Of course, Saudi Arabia’s campaign against the Houthis and their allies has been ongoing since March 2015 when the Kingdom launched Operation Decisive Storm followed by the ongoing Operation Restore Hope. This multinational coalition led by Riyadh is making progress against the Houthis and their capital of Sana.
Military operations, combined with humanitarian aid to besieged parts of the country, is being used to achieve tactical and charitable goals. A notable achievement by the Kingdom and its allies was Operation Golden Arrow in August 2015, when pro-Hadi forces retook the strategic southern city of Aden from the Houthis.
Third, the Houthis are allowing al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and ISIS to thrive in Yemen by creating more chaos. While AQAP is engaged in fighting against the Houthis, ISIS is continuing to attack Yemen’s security forces and their recruits. A suicide car bombing targeting young army recruits in Aden killed some 71 people on August 29. ISIS took credit for the attack.
In addition, AQAP and ISIS are escalating their attacks in recent months, notably in the southern port city of Aden. The Houthi rebels and their allies are in the way of making progress against these extremist groups. There is no doubt, thanks to the Houthis, that AQAP and ISIS are trying to position themselves as the Sunni resistance to the Houthi rebel movement.
A key question is when will President Hadi return to power and what will the internationally-recognized Yemeni president’s GCC backers do to improve the prospects for his return to power? Having usurped de facto control of the capital last January, the longer the Houthis maintain their grip on Sana, the movement is putting forward a powerful message to their domestic and international foes that continued military bombardment will fail to eject their fighters from the country’s main northern city.
The Houthi delegation visit to Baghdad late last month for meetings with Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim Jaafari and Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq Cleric Ammar al-Hakim is part of a wider, alarming campaign for finding regional support.
In addition, by continuing to arm the Houthis, Iran communicates to Riyadh that the Islamic Republic is capable of empowering its Shi’ite/Zaidi allies on the kingdom’s borders, threatening Saudi Arabia’s national interests, and consolidating its influence in Arab lands.
The recent wave of missile attacks against Saudi targets in the kingdom’s southern territory illustrates Tehran’s potential to maintain the Houthi forces’ means to bog the Saudis down on their southern border at a time when the Iranians are determined to distract Riyadh from the crises in Iraq and Syria in which the Islamic Republic’s stakes are actually much higher than they are in Yemen.
As the fluid, complicated and multifaceted conflict in Yemen continues to rage on the second anniversary of the Houthi’s successful uprising, it is worth questioning the Houthis’ agenda moving forward: Is Ansar Allah (the movement’s dominant militia) fighting to establish a Zaidi proto-state in northern Yemen along the Saudi border? Although appearing to be highly unrealistic, do the Houthis have a vision of one day ruling all of the war-torn country?
Regardless, until the Houthis lay down their arms and make concessions which they have not yet been willing to make based on offers from their adversaries; Saudi Arabia will continue its campaign in Yemen.
Source: english.alarabiya.net/en/views/2016/09/23/Two-years-after-the-coup-What-s-up-with-the-Houthis.html
----
Is This How Hezbollah Serves Michel Aoun?
By Nayla Tueni
23 September 2016
If we believe in Lebanon as a democracy, we accept that Christian leader Michel Aoun becomes president if he is elected by a majority in parliament. Democracy obliges us to accept results no matter what they are. It means we must congratulate the new president, give him a chance to implement his plan, and help him whenever possible because Lebanon - like all countries - needs a president and the regulation of institutions’ work.
However, in Lebanon we live a different reality that does not resemble democracy at all. The era of Syrian tutelage, which long controlled the presidency, seems to go on as Hezbollah has inherited its role and is telling the world and the Lebanese people: “Either elect Aoun or there will be no president.”
Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Naim Qassem reiterated this stance on Sunday: “He who wants to elect a president only has one path to take, and it leads to… Aoun. Superpowers, regional countries, the UN Security Council and the Arab League can’t alter this path. They’ve tried to do so for more than two years now, and haven’t achieved anything… The region’s developments, whether negative or positive, can’t change this path.”
If Hezbollah really wants Aoun as president, it should negotiate to help achieve this goal instead of taking to platforms and defying everyone
Helping or Hindering?
I do not know if Hezbollah thinks it is serving Aoun with this provocative and snobbish approach - which does not take anyone inside or outside Lebanon into consideration - or whether it is adopting a policy of burning him by increasing others’ intransigence, so it eventually tells him: “We did what we were supposed to do but couldn’t achieve any results.”
If Hezbollah really wants Aoun as president, it should negotiate to help achieve this goal instead of taking to platforms and defying everyone. It has even lost those who could have met it halfway. It must also soften its sharp rhetoric against Arab countries. It must not hail insults and threats against them, then ask them not to object to its presidential candidate.
Hezbollah is harming Aoun and his history of struggle and domestic and foreign relations, and pushing others to reject him. If it manages to present him as a candidate by defying everyone, not via consensus, this establishes an era where Aoun’s failures almost precede his successes. Why does he accept all this? Is he not aware of what the “me or nobody else” approach means in the history of people and their countries?
Source: english.alarabiya.net/en/views/2016/09/23/Is-this-how-Hezbollah-serves-Michel-Aoun-.html
URL: https://newageislam.com/middle-east-press/abbas-disappoints,-again,-with-un/d/108655