Middle East Press on Taliban, Israel, Gaza, US, UN, EU, Palestine and Ukraine: New Age Islam's Selection, 06 November 2024
By New Age Islam Edit Desk
06 November 2024
Qatar Is an Enabler of the Taliban’s Oppression on Their Citizens
What Is Israel’s Economic Tipping Point?
Israel Should Look Towards Mediterranean Horizon to Build Stronger Alliances with Allies -
'Enough': How We Must Stand Against Kahanism in the Israeli Knesset
No Matter Who Becomes US President, Please Help the Hostages in Gaza
The UN and Israel Share Direct Responsibility for Starvation in Gaza
In Middle East, EU Is an Economic Giant but a Political Dwarf
Israel Must Realize That Palestinian Dignity Is Nonnegotiable
Lessons of the Ukraine Crisis for the Middle East and the US
------
Qatar Is an Enabler of the Taliban’s Oppression on Their Citizens
By Ariel Admoni, Yahel Tamir
November 6, 2024
Qatar’s Foreign Ministry announced last week that an upcoming fourth round of international talks on Afghanistan is to take place in Doha. In a recent meeting in New York, the UN under-secretary-general for political and peace-building affairs met with Qatar’s permanent representative to the UN to discuss the upcoming meeting. The objectives of the talks were to integrate Taliban-ruled Afghanistan into the global community and to advance women’s rights in the country.
However, while the Taliban regime gains international recognition, women’s rights status in the country deteriorated. In the same week of the Qatari announcement, Afghan women were forbidden from praying loudly or reciting the Quran in front of other women.
This contradiction didn’t occur for the first time. As the UN wrapped up its third meeting, Kabul clothing stores were ordered to cover the faces of their mannequins. The Taliban flogged the largest number of Afghans for “immoral relations,” and the sound of women’s voices singing as well as women reading in public became a crime.
The third meeting, also hosted in Doha, the Qatari capital, served a clear purpose for the international community: to raise awareness about the dire humanitarian situation in Afghanistan and improve the situation of Afghan women. Moreover, Qatar announced its “keenness to enhance the active participation of Afghan women”.
Unsurprisingly, like the two meetings that came before it, this meeting achieved neither. Moreover, there was an international outcry due to the exclusion of Afghan women. The host, Qatar, however, achieved its goals of promoting its brand as a humanitarian-minded mediator and Doha as a world capital.
For years, the failure of diplomatic initiatives like this one has shined a light on the inevitable clash of values present at their core, leading to the perpetuation of issues like the turmoil in Afghanistan, with no resolution for women’s rights in sight. This is because events like these are promoted by the UN to create the groundwork for a diplomatic breakthrough, while the Qatari organizer’s goal remains completely different.
Qatar's interest
Qatar’s interest in hosting such events is to boost its own reputation, continue its long-held policy of non-alignment with any nation, and erase its own human rights abuses from public view. It has little interest in pressuring the Taliban, with the Qatari transportation minister just last week signing a memorandum of understanding to increase air traffic rights between Qatar and Afghanistan.
The legitimizing of the Taliban led Qatari ministers to meet with Sirajuddin Haqqani, who is on the FBI’s most wanted list. One might suggest that the continuance of the crisis is useful to Qatar because it continues to present the emirate as a crucial partner.
SINCE ITS peaceful coup in 1995, Qatar has positioned itself as a global player through a policy that has gone unchallenged by much of the international community, despite it being at their expense. The small gas-rich nation has hosted the largest US military base in the Middle East while damaging America’s reputation through the state-run broadcaster, Al Jazeera; promoted peace in the region while backing armed groups; and maintained a close relationship with Washington while being very friendly with Iran.
Despite these inconsistencies, the nation has been rewarded with American-made weapons and designated a major non-NATO ally. Russia has used Doha to mediate the release of Ukrainian children, and China has recently enhanced its ties with Sinopec signing a 27-year deal to receive four million tons of Qatari liquified natural gas annually.
France, meanwhile, agreed to have Qatari security forces help secure the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, continuing Doha’s effort to project itself as an expert in hosting and protecting major international events.
Qatar has a track record of advancing its own interests at any cost. Why, then, would anyone believe that it is not doing the same with Afghanistan-focused talks that took place in Doha?
Qatar has a much-lauded history of being a relatively neutral party in Afghanistan. In the 1990s, it did not officially recognize the Taliban but maintained useful relations with it. Since the 1970s, it has been friendly with Washington. It would make sense why some view Doha as an attractive destination for negotiations on the future of Afghanistan.
Upon closer examination, however, there is little doubt that the talks in Doha are not effective. Little progress has been made, and Qatar has little to offer in terms of neutrality to the West vis-á-vis the Taliban on the issue of women’s rights, despite its public statements to the contrary. The consequence of this has been Qatar’s success in presenting itself as a neutral messiah on Afghanistan-related issues, while the talks consistently produce little success.
This fits the familiar Qatari pattern where Doha is presented as a relevant party and leader in conflict resolution, while the rest of the world walks away at the end with little progress. America and the Taliban remain in a deadlock, while Doha’s glitz and glamor appear on television screens. The world loses and Qatar wins.
The UN Afghanistan-focused conference in Doha was never meant to solve the issue of women’s rights in Afghanistan. It was meant to advance Qatar’s image. It is about time that world leaders take notice.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-827730
---------
What Is Israel’s Economic Tipping Point?
By Sherwin Pomerantz
November 6, 2024
Along with my partners, I have operated an international business development consulting firm here for 33 years. Our client base has primarily been composed of certain US states for whom, from our base in Jerusalem, we operate as official regional trade and investment representatives in the Middle East, While our major area of activity is helping US exporters identify potential importers, distributors, and agents here in Israel and the region, we also work with Israeli companies who may be thinking of opening facilities in the United States as their businesses expand in that market.
Over the last 33 years, we have assisted dozens of companies in setting up distribution or production facilities abroad, while continuing to grow their operations in Israel. Never had we had discussions with Israeli companies about their intention to close their local operations, move to the US, and reopen their businesses there, until these past three months. For me, this rings very loud alarm bells.
Clearly the ongoing war here, the fact that qualified people have been away from the workforce on military reserve duty for 250 days or more, and the uncertain future that we face, have all been contributing factors. However, the deciding issue in all the cases we have dealt with recently has been the reluctance of foreign investors to invest money in these Israeli companies right now, given the unclear future the country faces.
Expat communities abroad
We knew, of course, that there were significant Israeli expat communities developing in Cyprus, Athens, Rome, and Lisbon, to name a few. We also knew that the community in Cyprus had become large enough that a Jewish school was being built to service those now living there with their families. And we were aware that some people here were buying second homes in Europe “just in case.” (Who could have imagined that less than 80 years after the Holocaust, Jews would look to Europe – then the “oven” of European Jewry – as a place of refuge.)
But this week, when the third company told me it was planning to close up shop, move to the US, and open their business there while maintaining an R&D staff, not here, but in Cyprus... the sirens went off big time. Allowing this to continue will potentially cause irreparable damage to what has been built here over these last 76 years.
WHO ARE the people who are leaving? Exactly the ones we don’t want to leave. They are the people who can afford to make the move financially. They are the people who have been elemental to the successful development of the Start-Up Nation. They are the ones who were at the forefront of bringing this country to the level of economic success that became the envy of the world. They are the people we cannot afford to lose.
Some may suggest we look at how many people are considering moving to Israel. Apartments in major cities today are at a premium and prices are well over NIS 3 million for anything decent – with some going for three or four times that amount. That’s nice. However, those from abroad who can afford to pay those prices are generally older people who have made their money and will not be working as part of Israel’s productive workforce. It is wonderful that with the increase in antisemitism in the West they see Israel as a place of refuge and not Europe. We welcome them “home,” but this aliyah is not a replacement for those who leave.
While those who are leaving are not being replaced with those who will substitute them in productive value of the ones who left; it is an unbalanced equation.
One wonders if there is someone, anyone, at the senior levels of government sufficiently aware of this dynamic to think about addressing it.
Is there anyone at “the top” trying to determine where the tipping point is in this long war in which we are engaged with Hamas?
In other words, when do we get to the point where when the war ends, the damage to Israel physically, economically, and socially will be so great that we will not be able to return to where we were as a country on October 6? And if there are people thinking about it, is there a plan to make sure we don’t go over the precipice into the void below?
Ours is a small company with limited reach but we are certain that what we see is but a microcosm of the magnitude of the overall problem. A government, our government, that is fixated on routing our enemies without parallel concern for the “day after,” whether in Gaza or in Israel, will be judged derelict in its duty to govern for the common good.
Henry Clay, US Secretary of State from 1825-29, once said: “Government is a trust, and the officers of the government are trustees. And both the trust and the trustees are created for the benefit of the people.” Let’s hope that our government takes this charge seriously and examines our current challenges holistically.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-827728
---------
Israel Should Look Towards Mediterranean Horizon to Build Stronger Alliances with Allies
By Ariel Harkham
November 6, 2024
Since the October 7 massacre by Hamas, Israeli threat perception has fundamentally shifted, impacting how it views national security. Israel is now reverting to a pre-1967 stance where borders require active defense and the capabilities of its neighbors are paramount, regardless of intent.
With IDF forces operating in southern Lebanon and recent Israeli airstrikes targeting Iran, Syria, and Iraq, Israel has entered a new phase of conflict, triggered by the unprecedented ballistic missile attack on October 1. As Churchill remarked after the Battle of El-Alamein in World War II: “It is not the end, it is not the beginning of the end, but it is the end of the beginning.”
Now, as Israel enters the second year of this war, it is critical for Israeli policymakers and strategists to recognize emerging threats that may not be immediately obvious. Often, it’s the unexpected “knife in the back” that proves most deadly. Looking at the broader picture, it is the eastern Mediterranean – Israel’s own backyard – that may hold the gravest threats on the horizon.
In fighting for its very survival, Israel is awakening to the reality that while it may have many friends, some make for unreliable partners. After Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu resisted international pressure and entered Rafah – where tunnels from Gaza into Egypt revealed one of the largest smuggling conduits in the world – the “cold peace” with Egypt appears far more tenuous than Israel imagined.
By providing vital supply routes that Hamas used to strengthen its terror infrastructure, Egypt exposed itself as a compromised ally, leaving a supposed ally vulnerable to genocidal jihadi attacks.
Turkey becoming an overtly hostile state
To Israel’s north, Turkey, under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s leadership for over two decades, has shifted from being a strategic ally to an overtly hostile state. Despite brief diplomatic warming in 2022 and early 2023, Erdogan has since defended Hamas and continues to provide a safe harbor for its leadership.
In September, Erdogan intensified his rhetoric by calling for an alliance of Islamic nations to counter Israel, accusing it of “expansionist threats” and “state terrorism.” Recently, Turkey submitted a UN letter with backing from 52 states, supporting an arms embargo on Israel.
Israel cannot ignore Erdogan’s hostility, his diplomatic maneuvers aimed at weakening Israel, or Turkey’s significant military advancements. This is especially true given the “Blue Homeland” doctrine, which claims Turkish rights over large areas of the eastern Mediterranean, Aegean, and Black Sea. Israeli leaders need to develop an effective strategy to deter future Turkish provocations.
The complexity deepens with Erdogan’s potential interest in aligning with Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi against Israel. Both leaders have mended ties through high-level talks since 2021, and this diplomatic rapprochement necessitates an Israeli strategy focused on maintaining a balance of power in the eastern Mediterranean to prevent a unified front. Israel cannot ignore that these two neighboring states boast the largest naval fleets in the Mediterranean, posing a tangible threat in the post-October 7 landscape.
HISTORICALLY, BRITAIN – an island reliant on vulnerable sea lanes and a high degree of trade – faced similar strategic challenges as Israel. From the 18th century to World War I, Britain crafted a balance-of-power strategy to prevent any two dominant military forces on the European continent from aligning. For Israel, a similarly nuanced policy may be essential to address the shifting dynamics in the eastern Mediterranean.
If Israel were to adopt a balance of power strategy to counter a potential Egypt-Turkey alliance, it could draw on similar principles to Britain’s approach, adapting them to the modern Middle East’s unique context. There are a number of fronts that Israel can simultaneously engage to implement such a strategy.
A balanced force strategy in the Mediterranean begins at home. Like Britain, Israel must strengthen its naval power. True deterrence requires not just advanced technology but the capacity to project power consistently, especially given Israel’s small nation status. As Stalin aptly remarked, “Quantity has a quality all its own.”
Israel should prioritize three key areas to expanding a sea denial capability: developing USV (unmanned surface vessels) and UUV (unmanned underwater vehicles) armada, significantly expanding its submarine fleet, and investing heavy in advanced and mobile mine warfare.
The second layer of this strategy would involve reinforcing alliances with other regional players in the eastern Mediterranean to balance security dynamics and deter Turkish-Egyptian adventurism. Israel’s alliance with Cyprus and Greece, strengthened over the past decade, should translate into even greater military cooperation.
For example, while Israel supports Greece’s air force modernization, it could seek to secure leasing rights for naval bases on Greek islands. Additionally, Israel could support and train the Cypriot armed forces to better resist Turkish intimidation and secure agreements to allow Israeli naval resupply.
Thirdly, Israel should leverage soft power to shape alliances and counterbalance a potential Turkish-Egyptian axis. Providing limited support to the Libyan National Army (LNA) could be strategic. Egypt backs the LNA, while Turkey supports its rivals. By aiding the LNA, Israel could gain influence over a pivotal issue between Egypt and Turkey. If Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar’s LNA were to gain power, Israel would benefit from a friendly government within the eastern Mediterranean sphere.
An important component of any Israeli balance-of-power strategy must involve soft power. Turkey’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood poses a significant threat to al-Sisi, who deposed the Brotherhood-led government of Mohamed Morsi to secure power in Cairo. By highlighting Turkey’s historical and continuing support of Islamist factions, Israel can emphasize the ideological rifts that could complicate any deepening Egyptian-Turkish relations.
It is crucial for Israeli diplomats to underscore Turkey’s growing aggression in the eastern Mediterranean, particularly over maritime boundaries and resources. Israel should also focus on expanding the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum and building on Egypt-Israel gas partnerships. Such collaborations, which enable both countries to supply Europe with natural gas, could serve as a strong counterweight to Turkish influence.
LASTLY, GIVEN the antisemitic rhetoric of Erdogan’s government and his alignment with the Iranian axis, it is high time for Israel to formally recognize the Armenian genocide. Beyond being a moral obligation, this move would be a pointed response to Erdogan’s accusations against Israel and could serve to highlight his own regime’s contradictions and historical denials.
Such a recognition would reinforce Israel’s commitment to human rights and remind Ankara that those in glass houses should not be lobbing blood libels.
As Israel faces ongoing threats from Iran and restructures its defense posture post-October 7, it must not overlook the growing risks in the eastern Mediterranean. Israel’s approach to countering an Egyptian-Turkish rapprochement should include a fortified navy, strengthened alliances with regional partners, and diplomatic measures to highlight Turkey’s destabilizing influence.
This multi-pronged strategy, centered on cooperative deterrence rather than direct confrontation, could help stabilize the region and prevent a unified front against Israel in its own backyard.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-827726
---------
'Enough': How We Must Stand Against Kahanism in the Israeli Knesset
By Gilad Kariv
November 6, 2024
The 25th Knesset and the 37th government of the State of Israel have presented us with a series of unprecedented events, decisions, and phenomena that pose a significant threat to Israeli democracy and the future of Israeli society.
The most severe of these is the entry of Kahanism into the mainstream of Israeli politics and the legitimacy this ideology is gaining among large segments in politics, even in unexpected places. For example, with a young secular woman from Tel Aviv.
Last week, Social Equality and Women’s Advancement Minister May Golan – a member of Likud, once the party that led the boycott against Meir Kahane in the Knesset – delivered one of the most embarrassing displays seen in the plenum, as she shouted and waved her arms seeking to defend the tarnished honor of Michael Ben-Ari, a declared Kahane supporter disqualified from running for the Knesset.
One can only imagine what Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, may they rest in peace, would have said if they heard her words. They are surely turning in their graves.
The dramatic shift in the attitude toward Kahanist ideology and its advocates is perhaps the most significant change Likud has undergone since it was founded and until the decay that now grips the party under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu has not only normalized Itamar Ben-Gvir and his Kahanist doctrine but has also turned them from minor players into the tone-setters of the Israeli Right. In many ways, he has facilitated and encouraged the infiltration of Kahanism into the heart of his party, opening the doors of Likud to it.
His partners in the Likud leadership, who are indulging in dreams of succession, will discover in the future that Kahanism will show them the way out of their own party.
In the past two years, Kahanism has no longer been just a phenomenon whose normalization must be fought. This racist and anti-democratic worldview has not only taken hold among certain audiences but has also been treated lightly by a much broader public, including players and institutions that should have taken a clear and uncompromising stand against it.
What is required of us today is no longer a “battle of containment” but a concentrated effort to push this dangerous phenomenon from the center of Israeli existence to the extreme and illegitimate fringes to which it belongs.
A significant part of the Israeli media is to be criticized for nurturing Ben-Gvir and normalizing his Kahanist views, as is the distorted relationship between him and some journalists and media outlets.
Another significant issue is the capitulation of key players in the National-Religious public to the currents emerging from the Lehava and Otzma Yehudit movements, and the difficulty in presenting a clear and forceful theological, educational, and communal alternative to these trends.
However, the criticism of the complete normalization of Kahanism must be directed primarily at the political system and politicians. First and foremost among those failing in their duties is, of course, Netanyahu, who paved the way for Ben-Gvir to the Knesset, to the cabinet table, and to his dramatic influence on the rule of law.
Netanyahu’s slackness regarding Ben-Gvir’s dangerous actions, such as changing the status quo on the Temple Mount, is no less severe and consequential than his failures and actions that led to the October 7 disaster, and the writing on the wall is clear.
BUT NETANYAHU is not solely responsible and to blame. Kahanism has taken a malignant hold also thanks to politicians and parties from the ostensibly liberal Center, who have been sitting on the fence or, worse, have been aligning themselves with the Right.
In the past two years, the opposition has failed in many crucial tasks – one of which is the clear and vehement opposition to the penetration of Kahanism into the political mainstream. I look today at my colleagues in liberal parties and ask how it is possible that what was a glaring red line for Likud leaders in the past is not a glaring red line for us today.
Examples of extremism we've seen only the tip of the iceberg
The calls to settle Gaza and Lebanon, support for extremist settler violence in the territories, calls for revenge and the blood lust we are exposed to, the blatant violation of the status quo on the Temple Mount, the takeover of the police, reckless distribution of weapons, attempts to subordinate the National Guard to Ben-Gvir’s command, and the complete disregard for the bloodshed in Arab communities – these are just the tip of the iceberg of the future awaiting us if we do not succeed in dismantling the legitimacy Ben-Gvir’s Kahanism has gained.
The rejection of this legitimacy requires clearly drawing a line in the political and public sand. It requires setting clear and unambiguous boundaries. That is why, at the opening of the Knesset’s winter session, my colleague MK Naama Lazimi and I announced that we would boycott every speech by Ben-Gvir.
At face value, this is a symbolic step, but we attach to it a call and demand to return to fundamental principles regarding what is legitimate and illegitimate in Israeli politics. This simple and basic step, once shared by all Zionist parties, must become the hallmark of the political forces committed to the future of Israeli democracy.
We expect our friends in the opposition to adopt it, and we hope the broader public, which filled the streets over the past two years, will join this demand from their representatives.
Our laxity has led to this dangerous change. It is time to use our feet and our voices to say: enough.
What is required of us today is no longer a “battle of containment” but a concerted effort to push this dangerous phenomenon from the center of Israeli existence to the extreme and illegitimate margins to which it belongs.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-827720
---------
No Matter Who Becomes Us President, Please Help the Hostages in Gaza
By Jpost Editorial
November 6, 2024
No matter who wins the November 5 US presidential race, the most pressing issue right now – at least from Israel’s point of view – is bringing home the 101 hostages still being held by Hamas.
Suppose there is one thing outgoing US President Joe Biden can achieve before he hands over the keys to the White House in January – securing the release of the hostages, some of whom are American citizens.
According to the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, more than half of the hostages are still living in the Gaza Strip. Besides the 97 who were taken captive alive and dead on October 7, 2023, Hamas is also believed to be holding two civilians who entered Gaza in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two soldiers killed in 2014.
A dozen people with American citizenship were abducted to Gaza. Two were freed on October 20, while two others were released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners during a ceasefire in November last year.
The IDF confirmed on September 1 that six hostages – including Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, an Israeli-American citizen whose family lives in Jerusalem – had been murdered in captivity.
Four American hostages still alive
The American Jewish Committee has named four hostages with US citizenship still believed to be alive in Gaza: Edan Alexander, 20; Omer Neutra, 23; Sagui Dekel-Chen, 36; and Keith Siegel, 65.
At a rally by the families at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv on Saturday night, Orna Neutra, the mother of Omer Neutra, who was born and raised in New York and recently marked his 23rd birthday in captivity, issued a heartfelt plea for her son and all the hostages:
“When I told President Biden about Omer’s decision to move to Israel and join the IDF, he told me that sometimes he felt we raise our kids too well. I have revisited his words many times over this year... I refuse to accept them, but I do question what happened to our humanity [and] to the moral compass of the world.
“In what world does a 23-year-old celebrate his birthday in a terror dungeon? Or, for that matter, 101 individuals – children, women, elderly?”
The US State Department signaled on Monday that Hamas had rejected an Egyptian proposal for a short-term ceasefire and hostage release deal during talks in Cairo.
According to a readout of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s call with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty, Blinken “noted that Hamas has once again refused to release even a limited number of hostages to secure a ceasefire and relief for the people of Gaza.”
Nevertheless, a diplomat involved in the negotiations stressed that all options were still on the table and that the sides were waiting for the results of the US presidential elections to determine how to respond.
Channel 12 reported on Monday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was examining a new proposal under which those holding the hostages would be offered safe passage and “several million dollars” for the release of each hostage.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum has ratcheted up its pressure on Netanyahu after it was revealed this week that Eli Feldstein, an aide to the prime minister, and four others connected to the security establishment had been arrested on suspicion of leaking classified security documents to media outlets abroad in an attempt to sabotage a hostage deal.
At the New York City Marathon on Sunday, runners dedicated their run to the hostages and wore shirts bearing the faces of hostages Naama Levy, Doron Steinbrecher, Evyatar David, Ohad Yahalomi, and Edan Alexander, all accomplished athletes who ran marathons.
Yoni Levy, Naama Levy’s father, said: “When I see Naama’s picture in the huge marathon, I feel her absence so deeply.”
The Jerusalem Post has been running photographs of the hostages on the top left of its front page every day for the past year under the headline, “Bring them home.” Time is running out.
We urge the outgoing administration to do all it can to expedite a deal before the new president takes over. It would be both Biden’s legacy and his parting gift – to Israel, the United States, and the world.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-827713
---------
The Un And Israel Share Direct Responsibility For Starvation In Gaza
By Ramona Wadi
November 5, 2024
After the Israeli Knesset passed a bill designating the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) as a terror organisation and banning the agency from operating in colonised Palestine, the occupation state’s foreign ministry formally notified the UN of its decision in tones that not only exhibited contempt, but also made it clear that colonialism pulls the strings at the international organisation.
As reports warn of looming famine in Gaza while Israel repeats its daily slaughter and carnage, the Foreign Ministry’s Director General Jacob Blitshtein wrote to the UN General Assembly, saying that Israel will cooperate in the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza “in a way that does not undermine Israel’s security.” Not only has Israel not cooperated with the delivery of humanitarian aid – politicians have implemented a starvation policy since the start of the genocide – but Israel has also undermined its own security and would not sustain itself were it not for the support it receives from the international community’s complicity.
However, the tone struck by Blitshtein was most visible in Israel’s expectations: “Israel expects the United Nations to contribute to and cooperate in this effort.”
It also testifies to the UN’s complicity with Israel’s settler-colonial genocidal existence. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres refused to consider a Plan B from Palestinians. Israel created and enforced its own Plan B upon Palestinians and the UN endorsed it by referring to Israel’s security narrative. Whatever rhetorical atonement the UN came up with, and let’s not forget the humanitarian pauses, the UN is to blame as much as Israel for the genocide in Gaza.
How can an international organisation founded by colonial powers and imperialism guarantee the safeguarding of human rights? The UN endorsed Israel’s ethnic cleansing when it recognised it as a state in 1948. It allowed Israel to widen the parameters of what constitutes acceptable violence in international law. It has even accepted Israel committing genocide and refused to intervene.
And based on the imperialist politicisation of humanitarian aid, what are the odds that the UN will not cooperate with Israel over Israel’s own definition of humanitarian aid, since Israel is now defining international law based on its own strategic interests and the UN does nothing but comply tacitly? If Israel can defend committing genocide at the UN, will the UN refuse to accept Israel’s next steps in its starvation of Palestinians? Rhetoric and bureaucracy go hand in hand, and both have a platform at the UN, as does Israel.
So, what becomes of humanitarian aid now? UNRWA was already cooperating from a compromised background, its mandate extended repeatedly because the UN was never going to allow the Palestinian refugees’ legitimate right of return to be implemented; even the wording of Resolution 194 favours Israel colonialism over the ethnically cleansed and dispossessed Palestinians.
How will Israel and the UN now play with Palestinian lives and humanitarian aid when genocide is colonialism’s strongest tool? The World Food Programme has already said that it cannot replace UNRWA in Gaza.
The UN had the most pathetic response to this. “The reaction from the UN system to the bills has been swift and unequivocal,” its website states. “As the news broke on Monday, several of the most senior UN officials, up to and including Secretary General Antonio Guterres, condemned the decision.”
These high-ranking UN officials, no doubt well-fed, are merely starving Palestinians further from their privileged position. Did their “condemnation” stop Israel’s genocide? And how will condemning the Israeli decision feed Palestinians and fend off starvation?
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20241105-the-un-and-israel-share-direct-responsibility-for-starvation-in-gaza/
---------
In Middle East, Eu Is An Economic Giant But A Political Dwarf
By Osama Al-Sharif
November 05, 2024
The EU has seen its geopolitical influence decline throughout the world in recent years, but no more so than in the Middle East, a region historically, economically and culturally closer to it than the US. The Europeans have been losing political influence for decades, especially after endorsing the US-sponsored peace accords between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel.
Exclusive US oversight of the Oslo process sidelined the EU as a block, as well as the UN and Russia, although these three entities remain members of the Quartet — in addition to the US. But Washington has made it clear that it will neutralize any meaningful role of the Quartet to avoid laying any serious pressure on its ally and proxy, Israel.
But the EU’s political influence on parties to the Israel-Palestine conflict has also declined in recent years. In this case, it suffered a fatal blow following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and the ensuing brutal Israeli war on Gaza, which is ongoing and has now stretched to Lebanon.
The Europeans, including the British after leaving the union, are divided when it comes to exerting meaningful pressure on Israel to cease its assault on Gaza. Following the Oct. 7 attacks, European leaders flocked to embrace Benjamin Netanyahu and to declare that Israel had the absolute right to defend itself against the aggressor, meaning Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
But they soon realized that Netanyahu had unleashed an indiscriminate blitz whose aim was not to decapitate Hamas, as he has claimed, but to kill civilians, destroy infrastructure and eventually drive more than 2.2 million Palestinians toward death, either by direct bombing or by starvation and disease. It became clear that Netanyahu had other plans as he waged what nongovernmental organizations, UN rapporteurs and even the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court have described as war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Still the EU has vacillated, as members like Hungary and Austria have rejected calls to bring collective punitive measures against Israel. The leading critical voice of Israeli atrocities in Gaza is foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell, who has been banned from entering Israel, Gaza and the West Bank by the far-right Israeli government because of his bold statements.
Europe exhibited such divisiveness and lack of a coherent foreign policy when three European states — Spain, Ireland and Slovenia — decided to recognize a Palestinian state in May. The UK, which is widely recognized as triggering the decades-long conflict and causing the Palestinians’ historic injustice, has made no such move. France sat on the fence on this issue as it battled the rise of the pro-Israel far right at home and the decline of its economic influence within the EU.
Germany, the EU’s economic and political powerhouse, remained loyal to its blind support of Israel and denial of its war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank. Italy and France took the step of stopping all military shipments to Israel.
But at no point was the EU able to initiate a dialogue with the Biden administration about reining in Netanyahu and preventing his doubling down on what is now clearly a crime of ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza. The EU has become dependent on Washington’s support of its policy on Ukraine, the most crucial geopolitical challenge to the bloc since its inception.
Yes, the EU and its members remain the biggest donor to UNRWA and other UN agencies working for the welfare of the Palestinians. Brussels is also the biggest financial supporter of the Palestinian Authority. However, such financial support is undercut by its inability to produce a decisive political stand that would influence the trajectory of events in the Occupied Territories.
The EU and individual member states have imposed sanctions on Jewish settler groups in the West Bank, as has the US. But that has not prevented Netanyahu’s far-right government from unleashing a settler-led wave of terror and mayhem against West Bank Palestinians.
And when South Africa brought what has become a seminal charge of genocide against Israel at the International Court of Justice, Germany and, at one point, the UK moved in to defend Israel and attempt to throw out the case, despite the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have so far been killed.
Historically, the EU has been a progressive entity when it comes to addressing the plight of the Palestinians and how the conflict should be resolved. In 1980, it issued the famous Venice Declaration, which recognized the Palestinian right to self-determination and the concept of the two-state solution based on UN Security Council resolutions.
Aside from the US’ dominant role in managing peace talks between Israel and the PA, which have been nonexistent for almost 15 years now, the EU has gone through significant internal transformations that have eroded its role in the international arena, especially the Middle East. While the EU remains the third-largest economy in the world in terms of gross domestic product, its economies have been suffering from slow or negative growth, rising inflation, immigration, both legal and illegal, too many regulations, Donald Trump’s first-term tariffs policy and pressure to increase defense spending, NATO challenges and, finally, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The last of these has depleted the EU’s resources and, together with the immigration issue, allowed the far right to make historic gains in local, national and EU-wide elections.
Euroskeptics like Hungary’s Viktor Orban and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni now want to “change” the EU from within, extracting benefits while hollowing out its real spirit of unification. The UK’s influence in the Middle East is also waning. The Gaza war has singled out the US as the only player that is capable of stopping the massacre of Palestinians and preventing a regional spillover.
But it is Israel’s pivot to becoming a rogue state — its parliament last week voted to abolish all agreements with UNRWA — that is putting the EU and its fundamental value system under pressure. The group does not influence Israel, while several state members continue to defend Netanyahu’s genocidal war. Its economic support of the Palestinians does little to change the needle as far as a political settlement is concerned.
Moreover, the rise of other global and regional powers, such as China, Russia and the Gulf states, has created new diplomatic channels and alliances, reducing Europe’s relative importance.
One should add that Europe’s responses to various other Middle Eastern crises, including the Syrian civil war and the so-called Arab Spring, have been criticized as slow and ineffective, damaging its credibility.
And unlike the US, the Europeans have a modest military presence in the Middle East, thus limiting their diplomatic options when it comes to intervening in the Israel-Palestine conflict.
While the EU as a group is still an influential economic power, it has proven to be a political dwarf when it comes to addressing geopolitical challenges, not only in the Middle East but in the Southern Mediterranean as a whole. This has been most evident in France’s failure to intervene in the Israel-Lebanon showdown, despite Paris seeing itself as a guarantor of its former colony’s stability.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2578123
----------
Israel Must Realize That Palestinian Dignity Is Nonnegotiable
By Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib
November 05, 2024
As everyone was stuck either to a TV screen or their computer watching news about the US election, I chose to watch the “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver” comedy show. This episode was not about the election, it was about the plight of Palestinians in the West Bank. What really affected me was a short video of the mayor of Hebron who refused to engage with an Israeli counterpart. He said he will only engage when the Israelis treat Palestinians as equals, not as slaves. He added that dignity is nonnegotiable
He is right. Dignity is nonnegotiable and, as long as Israel tries to subjugate the Palestinians as well as the Lebanese, it will face resistance. Israel is refusing to give Palestinians statehood and, instead, several leading figures have suggested giving them economic incentives like the ill-advised “deal of the century.”
What Israel’s supporters do not grasp is that dignity is a primal need. There is no way that the Palestinians will exchange it for anything else. There is no way that they can live with dignity while under Israeli occupation. No one lives in dignity under occupation. This is why the more they feel humiliated by occupation, the more they strike, regardless of the medium; whether that is Hamas, the Palestine Liberation Organization or any other group. The need for dignity creates these organizations.
When people look at Hamas or Hezbollah as the main problem, it is a shallow analysis. They might be a problem, but more importantly they are a problem created by a bigger problem: the grievances caused by the feeling of being humiliated.
A lady from the south of Lebanon I met last week told me that her house had been reduced to ashes by Israeli bombardments. Her family barely escaped the Israeli raid, otherwise they would have shared the fate of the house. She told me that, for her people, Hezbollah is a phase. Before Hezbollah, there was the Lebanese National Movement (Al-Harakat Al-Wataniyya), the Lebanese National Resistance Front (Jammoul), the communists, etc.
The resistance has manifested itself in many different shapes, Islamic as well as secular, national and pan-Arab. However, she told me that the common denominator is the fact that the people of the south hold on to their dignity. Again, because dignity is nonnegotiable. Israel thought that, by humiliating people by inflicting casualties and pain on them, it can pacify them. Israel is wrong
The lady also told me that the reason Israel never built settlements in south Lebanon was because they were never secure. They never felt confident enough to bring their families to live there. The soldiers lived in insecurity in south Lebanon. Ultimately, the Israelis had to leave. She told me that many members of her family had been killed by Israel over the decades. For her, they died so that she can live with dignity.
She added it is not true that Israel has no ambitions in south Lebanon. It is Galilee, which is part of what they call “Greater Israel.” She went on: “You think they don’t want the south? They do, but we did not let them because our land is more than the soil in which we plant olive trees, it is our dignity.”
Israel does not understand that the crueler it is, the more it nurtures the resistance. Even if Hezbollah and Hamas disappear, other movements will take their place. Other movements that will probably be more violent and more organized. Other movements that will learn from their predecessors’ mistakes and avoid repeating them.
Analysts see the future as bleak for Gaza and south Lebanon, but it is bleaker for Israel. This is because Israel refuses to understand that dignity is nonnegotiable. Israel might think it has defeated the Palestinians. However, it cannot be victorious unless the Palestinians admit defeat — and this is something that will never happen.
Israel does not realize that the West is starting to notice Palestinians and their need for dignity. Hence the John Oliver program I watched, which is a mainstream show. Israel has not noticed that the world has changed. The Palestinian narrative is now being heard. Israel can no longer carry out atrocities against the Palestinians and get away with it.
On the one hand, Palestinians are tenacious people who will not give up on their dignity. And on the other, they have the West slowly freeing itself from feelings of guilt and starting to see what Israel truly is. This is a bad combination for Israel. The problem is that Israel is living in the moment and not seeing the future or learning from the past.
If Israel were to look to the past, it would realize that subjugating Palestinians and humiliating them does not make them weaker. On the contrary, it makes them more determined to fight back. If it was to think of the future, it should imagine what future resistance will look like. If it understood the past and properly projected the future, Israel would come to know that dignity is nonnegotiable.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2578110
---------
Lessons Of The Ukraine Crisis For The Middle East And The Us
By Eyad Abu Shakra
November 05, 2024
It would be absurd for any political commentator to ignore the US presidential election, in which a very substantial number of voters had already cast their ballots through early voting before the official election day on Tuesday.
And after what we have seen in the Gaza Strip, it would be strange to remain silent in the face of the brazen, explicit effort to displace people in Lebanon, where, so far, most of the residents of the largest Shiite cities, towns and suburbs have been uprooted and displaced.
However, as I struggled with the dilemma on whether to comment on the US election or the tragedy in Lebanon, I happened to come across an interview with American academic, expert and political adviser Jeffrey Sachs, in which he discussed the Ukrainian crisis and its background.
One could say: “Given the importance of these two matters, is discussing anything else not a form of evasion?” The truth is, I have never shied away from expressing my opinion on the Donald Trump-Kamala Harris battle in America and I will never evade the matter, or what has happened and continues to happen in Lebanon and Gaza, in the future.
However, the significance of Sachs’ comments (he was a witness and participant in many of the developments) is that they unpack the circumstances of the Ukraine war. Firstly, he discussed the manner in which US administrations (both Republican and Democratic) handle global crises. Secondly, he provided a historical overview of how the crisis began — a crisis that has rearranged the strategic priorities of most European countries and reshaped many alliances and predictive readings of what might happen in the world.
In the interview, Sachs said that the crisis is not an attack by Vladimir Putin on Ukraine, like we are constantly being told. Rather, it erupted in February 1990, when the US secretary of state at the time, James Baker, apparently promised that NATO would not expand if Moscow agreed to the reunification of Germany — a promise that Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev accepted.
However, Washington reneged on its promise in the 1990s, when President Bill Clinton agreed to expand NATO as far as Ukraine. Indeed, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic joined NATO in 1999. Moscow ignored this step, but it began to become alarmed following the NATO-US campaign in Serbia that same year.
Nevertheless, Moscow remained silent and swallowed the issue when Putin took power. In fact, Putin initially considered European orientations, even contemplating joining NATO for a while.
Then, after 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan that followed, Washington unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 and deployed missile systems in Eastern Europe “minutes away from Moscow” — which Russia considered a direct threat to its national security, even though it had supported Washington’s “War on Terror.”
In 2003, the US invaded Iraq for entirely fabricated reasons, according to Sachs. In 2004-2005, it pushed “regime change in Ukraine” and supported Viktor Yushchenko’s rise to power. However, in 2010, Viktor Yanukovych, with Moscow’s support, won elections and took office championing “Ukrainian neutrality.” This cooled the temperature temporarily, especially since polls showed that Ukrainians did not support joining NATO, Sachs claimed in the interview.
However, Washington proceeded to work on toppling Yanukovych and pursued regime change, joining the effort to push him out of power on Feb. 22, 2014. Thus, it imposed the expansion of the alliance despite Putin’s objections and attempts to remind Washington of its promises. By the way, 10 years earlier, in 2004, NATO had admitted seven other Eastern European countries as members.
Sachs reiterated that Washington had always been keen on expanding NATO to Russia’s borders and objected to any settlement on the matter. He then listed subsequent developments that “destroyed what remained of Washington's partners’ trust,” as he put it.
In 2018, the US withdrew from the nuclear agreement it had concluded with Iran and, in 2019, it withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. “Reckless foreign policy” continued to be pursued when Putin proposed a draft security agreement to Washington in December 2021 with the aim of ending NATO expansion. Sachs says he personally contacted the White House and urged it to avoid war and engage in negotiations, but “No, there will be no war,” was the response he received. His interlocutor repeated the announcement that there would be no NATO expansion, but that is exactly what happened.
“You have no right to plant military bases wherever you want... and expect peace. We have to be reasonable and logical, and we (the Americans) stood in 1823 against the expansion of European powers in the American continent through the Monroe Doctrine.”
He concluded by saying that “the narrative around the Ukraine crisis is false … and Putin is not another Hitler … likewise, we should stop what we are doing with regard to China and Taiwan.”
Finally, to get back to the US election and the tragedies of Lebanon and Gaza, I believe that Sachs’ remarks provide crucial insights about certain highly placed interests being willing to ruin anything, demonize anyone, obliterate any issue, erase any country and invent any delusion.
The US election and the tragedies of Lebanon and Gaza are unfolding today in a world teetering on the edge of a unipolarity that openly applies double standards, disregards international institutions, ignores the rights of peoples and dismisses pluralism of identities and nationalities.
On the other hand, resentful forces are rising. They no longer see themselves as fated to defeat and surrender at the hands of an aging West that is failing to rejuvenate itself and opposes allowing others to come in and reinvigorate its societies.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2578141
----------
URL: https://newageislam.com/middle-east-press/taliban-israel-gaza-palestine-ukraine/d/133629
New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism