Middle East Press On: Trump, Israel, Gaza, Houthis, Tehran, Hezbollah, Lebanon, Netanyahu, Turkiye and NATO: New Age Islam's Selection, 22 March 2025
By New Age Islam Edit Desk
22 Mar. 25
No to Trump's false hope: Solutions to the Gaza crisis can only come from Israel
How Benjamin Netanyahu projects power and influences US-Israel relations
Trump should reject the long-accepted Palestinian narrative on indigeneity, refugeehood
US and Israel should hit Houthis but eviscerate Tehran
How Netanyahu got his Gaza war back
Improved Lebanon-Syria ties dependent on a Hezbollah deal
Turkiye’s influence in NATO poised to increase
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No To Trump's False Hope: Solutions To The Gaza Crisis Can Only Come From Israel
By Shira Ben Sasson Furstenberg
March 22, 2025
Enlrage image
“Dreamy,” Israelis declared upon hearing US President Donald Trump’s plan to evacuate the residents of Gaza and build a renovated Riviera there. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is enthusiastic about the idea, calling it the best plan he has heard to date regarding Gaza. Trump’s call to resettle residents of the Gaza Strip elsewhere was immediately endorsed by right-wing extremists Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, who was a loyal student of Meir Kahane. Opposition leaders also contributed to the impression of a broad Israeli consensus. National Unity leader Benny Gantz stated that the “most important principle” of the president’s plan “is to transfer responsibility for the residents of Gaza from Hamas to the world.”
Public discourse is now focusing on the feasibility of the new pullout from the White House, as if anything is acceptable and anything is possible.
Along with this new moral low point, President Trump’s statement marks a turning point in Israeli political discourse. While the plan itself seems like an unworkable fantasy – a combination of political improvisation, international blindness, and real estate pretension – its impact on public discourse in Israel could be devastating. Trump’s move creates international legitimacy, even if dubious, for ideas that were previously seen as unacceptable; the fantasy becomes the new political framework of the Israeli Right. These dangers will remain with us long after Trump himself leaves office.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-846533
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How Benjamin Netanyahu Projects Power And Influences Us-Israel Relations
By Bonnie K. Goodman
March 22, 2025
On Inauguration Day 2025, Israelis clamored, lining up and down the street for a Friends of Zion event in Jerusalem, celebrating Donald Trump’s second-term swearing-in. The same red carpet welcome was given by Trump and the Republicans in control of Washington as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the newly returned-to-power president. Netanyahu’s presence in American politics is significant, and his latest visit underscores his enduring role.
Netanyahu often confronts, angers, and teases American presidents with his tactics. On February 4, 2025, Netanyahu met Trump at the White House, reinforcing Israel’s rising global influence as Trump distanced the US from traditional allies. This time, an American president extended a warm welcome to the Israeli prime minister, strengthening his standing in Israel and on the global stage. Netanyahu was the first world leader Trump met with after his inauguration. The meeting with the Republican-controlled government was going so well for Netanyahu that he extended his trip.
Inside jokes and praise characterized Netanyahu and Trump’s White House meeting, contrasting with the chilly winter weather. Netanyahu gifted Trump a golden pager, alluding to the September attacks in Lebanon, while Trump gave Netanyahu a photo of the two leaders. Netanyahu said he was “honoured… to be the first foreign leader to visit the White House in your second term. This is a testament to your friendship and support for the Jewish state and the Jewish people.” Netanyahu gushed, “You are the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House.” He used the term “daylight” to describe the difference between his relationship with Trump’s predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden, and Trump. Netanyahu’s relationship with Biden stands out among Democratic presidents. However, his relationship with Trump has not always been convivial.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-846543
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Trump Should Reject The Long-Accepted Palestinian Narrative On Indigeneity, Refugeehood
By Eric R. Mandel
March 22, 2025
According to the Palestinian narrative, Jews are not indigenous to the region but are colonial settler interlopers, squatting where they have no right to be. The actual indigenous people are the Palestinians, who can date their history back to the time of the Canaanites. Israel’s creation is the original sin, taking away their eternal land while the world has allowed an ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Palestinian people.
According to an interview in Israel Hayom with Prof. Yoav Geller, an expert on Palestinian refugees, there “is a consciousness that lives with the Palestinians and goes with them everywhere. From their perspective, leaving Gaza is another Nakba…They prefer to preserve refugee status as a weapon against Israel and reject any plan for their rehabilitation and resettlement.”
According to Samir al-Barghouti, a Palestinian writing in Al-Watan, a daily newspaper in Saudi Arabia, “Gaza was Palestinian before and after the Common Era, and it will remain Palestinian after October 7 as it was before October 6... The solution in Palestine lies in returning those expelled in 1948…to Beersheba, to Ashkelon, to Jaffa, to Lod, and to Ramla, from which they were expelled in 1948, and then you will deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.”
The Palestinian victims are, by this account, forced to pay the price for the European crime of the Holocaust by having a non-native population thrust into Islamic land. Descendants of refugees have been brainwashed to believe that the Land of Israel should be theirs when, in reality, the truth is much more complex.
Until that narrative is challenged, demanding that Israel hand over territory captured in defensive wars to create a sovereign Palestinian state, that path will only make a Hamas-stan in the West Bank as well as Gaza, while threatening the stability of Jordan, a bulwark against Islamist expansion.
Historical claims and misinformation
After Trump’s bombshell remark concerning Gaza’s future, the next logical step for President Trump is to confront the half-truths and outright falsehoods of the Palestinian narrative. It wouldn’t be out of character for him to take the initiative, to be unafraid of challenging conventions, and upend a long-standing failed paradigm.
I want the president and his secretary of state to say that the Palestinians who live in Gaza and the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) are overwhelmingly descendants of refugees of the genocidal wars they and their ancestors initiated against the Jewish state. They should not be afforded the eternal badge of honour for victimhood because if they, like the Jewish people in 1948, accepted UN General Assembly Resolution 181 calling for an Arab and a Jewish state, they too could have lived in their own state for the last 77 years. Not to mention their choice of violence over statehood over and over in 1948, 1967, 2000, 2001, and 2007, which the anti-Israel international community conveniently ignores.
Have the Palestinian Arabs, if they are to be considered on the whole – after rejecting two states for two peoples many times, electing Hamas in a fair and free election, opting for violence again and again – forfeited the right to live on the doorstep of the Jewish state?
I know quite a few Palestinians who would embrace living in peace with Israel, but they are cowed, intimidated, or worse. One in particular, who was the head of a think tank, told me he could not rise higher in the Palestinian leadership because he had never been arrested or killed a Jew.
As Lee Smith, writing in the online magazine Tablet, said, “The Arabs chose the catastrophe (Nakba); they chose war, based on the premise that they would inevitably win and exterminate the Jews. “
The Nakba, which they blame on the Jews, is their responsibility, and they should own up to it. This is not a popular opinion among Arabs, Western elites, and students on Ivy League campuses. However, attacking another people in wars of annihilation and losing should not make you the underdog and victim but the one who should bear the consequences of your own behaviour, which repeatedly included the targeting of children, women, and Americans (Taylor Force), and civilians.
Rewriting history: The two-state fallacy
1948 was not a one-off, as the Arabs attacked Israel again and again, only to be defeated in wars of Jewish survival. The idea that the Palestinians’ apologists have thrust on the West of desiring two states was always a fabrication. Jordan controlled the West Bank, and Egypt controlled Gaza for 19 years between 1948 and 67, and never was there a call for an independent Palestinian state next to Israel because the goal was the expulsion of the Jews, not compromise or accommodation. Two states became popular among Palestinians only when they decided that they would need a staged plan to eventually eradicate Israel.
Population transfers after wars historically are, unfortunately, the norm, not the exception. This occurred for the Jews of the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) pre-1948 Israel from Muslim and Arab lands where Jews lived for up to 2,500 years in numbers exceeding the population shift of Palestinian Arabs from what would become the State of Israel after 1948. It happened to Pakistanis and Indians in South Asia and to the ethnic Germans expelled from the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia after WWII.
As any objective historian knows, Jews are indigenous to the Levant with a continuous presence for over 3,000 years, including since the destruction of the Second Temple, while the great Arab migration into the region occurred with the jihad conquest from the Arabian Peninsula beginning in the 7th century.
As Jonathan Tobin of JNS (Jewish News Syndicate) wrote, Trump “has made it clear that a different solution has to be found for the Palestinians. The people who cheered the orgy of mass murder, rape, torture, kidnapping, and wanton destruction on October 7 will not be rewarded for this with more pressure on Jerusalem to do something the overwhelming majority of Israelis oppose as suicidal.”
When the Arabs and their European allies, with their shared animus toward Israel and Jews, realized that Israel was unlikely to be conquered, they transitioned to the claim that they wanted two states; but they never called for two states for two peoples. “Two states” to Palestinians means a Jewish-free state in the West Bank and Gaza and a binational state in Israel with an unlimited right of return of descendants of Palestinian Arabs, which would demographically turn Israel into another Arab state, forcing the Jews once again to die or be pushed into the Diaspora. Tellingly, Israeli Arabs (Palestinian citizens of Israel) who have full citizenship in the Jewish state are overwhelmingly against being under the thumb of an authoritarian, non-democratic Palestinian government.
I would often correct members of Congress who called for two states to change their wording, asking them to call for two states for two peoples as UN General Assembly Resolution 181 called for. A Jewish state is something the Muslim world, at best, can tolerate for a short period because of the concept of Dar al-Islam, to never accept the loss of any land that has been under Islamic rule. Bide your time, make temporary agreements, and then, when you are in a position of strength, conquer it again.
President Trump has been disparaged by the legacy media and intellectual coastal elites for suggesting that Palestinian Arabs of Gaza be given the option to leave a terrorist state that has abused, tortured, and killed any Palestinian who does not fall in line with the Muslim Brotherhood jihadists of Gaza.
International agencies have been complicit, as well as the Europeans, in not demanding accountability for the billions of dollars donated to Gaza that build one of the world‘s most complex underground terror tunnel labyrinths. Their condemnations have been overwhelmingly reserved for Israel for decades, even when Israel is responding defensively. Their sick moral equivalence, especially evident in equating kidnapped hostages who were raped and starved with the Palestinian terrorists released who killed scores of innocent Israelis, including children, is especially sickening and should make the EU and the UN personae non gratae in weighing in on the conflict. President Trump should say to them, “Thanks but no thanks for your help,” which they have used to boycott, sanction, and delegitimize Israel well before October 7.
The Trump administration acknowledges that unless Gaza is entirely free of Hamas as a military and governing entity, Gaza will return to being a terror state in short order. Rebuilding with both Hamas and the Gazan population present guarantees this inevitable existential outcome.
President Trump has come up with an out-of-the-box – and to many, an outrageous – idea. But it is one that actually deals with the problem and sets a path forward for Israel to defend itself in the future against the ever-present threat of both Sunni and Shi’ite jihadists, who often work together, like Iran and Hamas, which will return again and again because of their ideological radical desire to slaughter the Jews.
Trump’s opportunity to shift policy
A good start would be a temporary relocation of the Palestinian population of Gaza. Enemies like Iran and frenemies like Qatar and Turkey will send funds to rebuild Hamas. America needs a policy of new sticks and carrots for Qatar and Turkey to be dissuaded from supporting a jihadist enemy on the doorstep of America’s most important ally in the region. As for Iran, it will also try to repair its proxy forces, including Hamas. Only regime change combined with massive sanctions and kinetic actions against its nuclear program will stop Iran from continuing to foster hatred, misogyny, torture, repression, intimidation, and a cult of death throughout the Middle East.
What should the Trump administration do?
The administration should officially change the US position on the status of Palestinian refugees from the UNWRA definition to the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) definition, whereby descendants of refugees, now in their fifth generation, are not designated as refugees but as people who should be helped find a new home, free from terror, as citizens of another nation. That is what UNHCR facilitates for every refugee in the world and their descendants, except for Palestinians, who are used as pawns to perpetuate the never-ending war on Israel. Unfortunately, wherever the Palestinians go, they will likely radicalize and destabilize their new home as they did in Jordan in the 1970s, Lebanon in the 1980s, supporting Saddam Hussein in his invasion of Kuwait in the 1990s, and as leaders of anarchist and anti-American student movements in America post-October 7.
Secondly, US dollars must not facilitate terror. The Palestinian Authority incentivized terror with its “Pay for Slay” program, paying surviving terrorists and their families an annuity in perpetuity for terror attacks against Jewish Israelis. The more brutal the terror, the more money they paid. President Mahmoud Abbas has now claimed that the PA is ending Pay for Slay, and the families of terrorists will receive funds based on their socio-economic needs. This sounds like a program to be abused, changing the names of the agencies in charge but still under the leadership that facilitates social security for terrorists and their families. Until this vile practice of incentivizing terror is totally ended and verified, no US dollars should go to the PA. Sounds like it is right in line with DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency).
Third, there should be no US dollars used to rebuild Gaza until Hamas as a governing and military entity is verifiably removed. It may take years, but let’s not rebuild a terror state again.
Following the same playbook, rewarding and rationalizing Palestinian terror with a path to two states should be off the table until the Palestinians themselves, with the encouragement of Jordan, Egypt, and the Gulf states, take responsibility for themselves, building a transparent economic and governing administrative state that can responsibly receive funds and take care of the needs of the people, without propagating Muslim Brotherhood ideology. Just as the nascent Jewish state built institutions before its birth, Palestinians need to build the foundation for a future, creating institutions and organizations dedicated to helping the people economically before any guaranteed political horizon can be contemplated.
Victimhood and a revisionist narrative are not plans for success or peace.
As Yardena Schwartz, author of the new book Ghosts of a Holy War: The 1929 Massacre in Palestine that Ignited the Arab-Israeli Conflict, wrote in The Forward, “Considering the last century of failed efforts to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict – with every two-state solution rejected by Palestinian leaders, as far back as 1937 – President Trump’s shock to the system might be precisely what that system needs.”
Next is challenging the narrative.■
Dr. Mandel is the director of MEPIN, the Middle East Political Information Network, and senior security editor of The Jerusalem Report. He briefs members of Congress and their foreign policy aides on both sides of the aisle.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-846528
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Us And Israel Should Hit Houthis But Eviscerate Tehran
By David M. Weinberg
March 21, 2025
For 14 months, the Biden administration let the Houthis savage international shipping lanes through the Red Sea and Suez Canal and attack Israel and Saudi Arabia without sufficient response. So it is good that America is finally acting, under US President Donald Trump’s leadership, to eliminate Houthi missiles and air bases in Yemen.
More importantly, Trump said this week that he would hold Iran responsible for any attacks conducted by its Houthi proxy regime.
“Every shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon, from this point forward, as being a shot fired from the weapons and leadership of IRAN, and IRAN will be held responsible and suffer the consequences, and those consequences will be dire!” the president wrote on his Truth Social platform.
He then sent a letter (via the Emiratis) to “Supreme Leader” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of Iran with a two-month deadline for a deal to end Iran’s nuclear bomb and ballistic missile programs. US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz specified that the Islamic Republic must “hand over and give up” on all elements of its nuclear program, including missiles, weaponization, and uranium enrichment.
Iran’s response? Khamenei said that Tehran would not be bullied into talks by “excessive demands and threats” from the US. He called Trump’s offer for talks “a deception aimed at misleading public opinion.” To boot, he once again called the Holocaust a “myth” and a “fictitious event” – a theme to which he frequently, obsessively returns – something that exposes his annihilationist-toward-Israel mindset.
I find that foreign leaders and officials, even those who specialize in the Middle East, truly are not aware of the scope of Iranian muckraking and troublemaking in the region. Generally, they know that there are bad actors at play out there, from al-Qaeda and ISIS to Hezbollah, but they don’t have a comprehensive picture of Iranian belligerence and ambition.
They often wrongly assume that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, then-president Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, is still in place, shunting concerns about Tehran to the backburner. Nor do they know that this October, Obama’s “snapback” mechanism for sanctions on Iran expires, giving the Islamic Republic a “legitimate” path to a nuclear bomb.
Some North American and European leaders prefer to pretend that Israel is exaggerating the menace of Iran. Therefore, instead of investing thought and effort in confronting Iran’s tectonic threat to Middle Eastern and global stability, they focus on a range of secondary regional issues.
These range from humanitarian relief for Palestinians in Gaza to settlements in Judea and Samaria and stabilization of the new regime in Syria. In pursuit of a bit of “balance” in their foreign policies, they might even feign some interest in the fate of Israeli hostages held by Hamas.
These are important issues but a sideshow to the urgency of halting Iran’s aggressive march across the Middle East. In fact, pushing back against Tehran is the linchpin of a necessary regional reset, the fulcrum for ameliorating most flashpoints in the region.
So, for those who have not been paying sufficient attention (or, again, for those who allege that Israel is exaggerating the Iranian threat), here is a summary of the treacherous Iranian record.
Iran's overarching revolutionary ambitions
Iran does not hide its overarching revolutionary ambitions: to destroy Israel, to subdue any pro-Western states in the Middle East and dominate the region, and to export its brand of radical Islamism globally. Tehran constantly threatens Jerusalem with war and eventual destruction.
Khamenei regularly refers to the Jewish state as a “cancerous tumour” in the Middle East that must be removed and speaks of the complete liberation of Palestine (meaning the destruction of Israel) through holy jihad. Iran has sought to carve out a corridor of control – a Shi’ite land bridge – stretching from the Arabian (“Persian”) Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea, including major parts of Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, under the control of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps and its Quds Force, various Shi’ite militias, and Hezbollah.
This corridor has given Iran a broad strategic base for aggression across the region and has deterred Israel from operating against Iran.
Iran equipped Hezbollah with an arsenal of over 150,000 missiles and rockets aimed at Israel and supplied Hamas with the arms and rockets that fuelled four significant military confrontations with Israel over the past decade. Fortunately, over the past year, much has changed.
Israel has operated to significantly defang and decapitate Hezbollah. The fall of the Assad regime in Syria to Sunni forces has weakened Iran’s Shi’ite arc across the region, too. And in the wake of Hamas’s October 2023 invasion of southern Israel, the IDF has moved to destroy the terror group’s military capabilities and end its rule in Gaza, a difficult campaign that is still underway and probably won’t be completed unless and until Tehran is subdued.
Iran is fomenting subversion in Middle Eastern countries that are Western allies, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan. It is particularly focused on destabilizing the Hashemite regime in Jordan to gain access to Israel’s longest border and, from there, to penetrate Israel’s heartland.
The mullahs of Tehran are behind the radical Islamic groups in Judea and Samaria and terrorist infrastructure with tons of weaponry and cash that are fuelling violence against Israel – an infrastructure currently being exposed and destroyed by the IDF.
Iran is sponsoring terrorism against Western, Israeli, and Jewish targets around the world, including unambiguous funding, logistical support, planning, and personnel for terrorist attacks that span the globe, from Buenos Aires to Burgas. The Islamic Republic maintains an active terrorist network of proxies, agents, and sleeper cells worldwide.
Tehran is rapidly approaching full nuclear military status, with uranium enrichment and bomb-assembly facilities buried in near-impenetrable deep underground bunkers.
According to the IAEA, Iran has enriched uranium to almost-bomb-ready levels (60% and 84%, which are very close to the 90% level necessary for a nuclear weapon), with its stock of refined uranium hexafluoride growing by 92.5 kg. in the past quarter alone to 274.8 kg. By IAEA standards, this is sufficient for an estimated six nuclear weapons, with the final sprint achievable within months.
The past six US presidents all pledged that Iran would never be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon. But Obama cut a rotten, soft deal with Tehran that legitimized the nuclear program and afforded the Islamic Republic tens of billions of dollars in sanctions relief and cash aid. President Joe Biden continued on this path.
Worse still, Biden’s top military man, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, dialled back America’s commitment to stopping Tehran by saying that the US only “remains committed [to ensuring that] Iran will not have a fielded nuclear weapon.” This suggested that the Biden administration was prepared to tolerate developed nuclear weapons in the Islamic Republic’s hands, provided the weapons were not “fielded,” in other words, deployed.
Iran has developed a formidable long-range missile arsenal of great technological variability, including solid and liquid propellant ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and ICBMs. The entire Iranian ballistic missile program is in violation of United Nations Security Council prohibitions.
Tehran has fired its ballistic missiles at US troops in Iraq, at targets in Iraqi Kurdistan, and twice over the past year into Israel. Fortunately, Israeli air defences, alongside a coalition of Western forces, successfully intercepted most of the incoming Iranian missiles aimed at the Jewish state, which were not (yet) nuclear-tipped. The latest Iranian ICBM seems to be based on the North Korean BM25 missile with a range of 3,500 km., meaning it could reach deep into Europe.
Iran has provided Russia with thousands of armed attack drones for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine. Experts are concerned that, in return, Tehran will be getting sophisticated Russian military technologies such as new aerial defence systems – especially after Israel destroyed much of its Russian-supplied air defence systems (known as S-300 and S-400) in a retaliatory operation last October.
And where is all Iran’s money coming from? Well, in addition to the pay-outs from Obama and Biden, Iran’s Quds Force and Hezbollah are invested heavily in drug production and distribution (Captagon pills and more) across the Middle East and Europe and in money-laundering cryptocurrency schemes – as revealed two years ago by the Israeli Defence and Foreign Affairs ministries. And in violation of all international sanction regimes, Iran sells roughly $2 billion a month of oil to China.
This accounting is particularly important as America and Israel move closer – I hope and believe – to an essential, decisive military strike on Iran’s nuclear bomb facilities and missile bases.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-846949
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How Netanyahu Got His Gaza War Back
Osama Al-Sharif
March 21, 2025
The Gaza ceasefire that Israel has now so devastatingly shattered was only ever a political convenience for Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu: the incoming US president wanted it before taking office, and the Israeli prime minister obliged.
The fragile truce that began in January had nothing to do with halting the carnage in Gaza and little to do with bringing home Israeli captives held by Hamas, and Netanyahu was never going to honour it: as most Israelis now know, his sole concern has only ever been his own political survival.
Netanyahu has been under tremendous domestic pressure to set up an independent inquiry into the Oct. 7 attacks that would have established his culpability. Army top brass have already admitted responsibility and resigned. Close Netanyahu aides are engulfed in scandals revolving around foreign money being passed to Hamas in Gaza, allegedly with kickbacks. Nadav Argaman, head of the Shin Bet internal security service until October 2021, pointed the finger publicly at Netanyahu and threatened to divulge his darkest secrets.
Far-right cabinet minister Itamar Ben-Gvir quit over the ceasefire deal, and another extremist partner, Bezalel Smotrich, threatened to do the same if Israel embraced the second phase of the agreement that called for the end of the war and total Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Netanyahu was also rattled by direct negotiations between the US and Hamas for the handover of the one surviving American captive and the bodies of four others.
Then Netanyahu found a way to derail the talks on phase two of the truce: he proposed an extension of the first phase, whereby Hamas would release more captives without any concessions by Israel. When Hamas insisted on adherence to the original deal, Netanyahu — in a shameless act of defiance and arrogance — ordered a complete block on humanitarian aid into Gaza, followed by a wave of deadly airstrikes and further military operations on the ground: essentially a resumption of the war. The US sided with Israel and few Western countries offered any meaningful objections other than weasel words.
So Netanyahu got his war back, but this time he has wider plans: a final solution, the permanent displacement of Palestinians from Gaza.
Israel was unnerved by the Arab embrace of a multibillion-dollar plan to reconstruct Gaza, replace Hamas with a civil administration of governing technocrats, and deploy observers — all without the forced displacement of Palestinians. The plan was adopted at an emergency Arab summit in Cairo and backed by key Gulf States, including Saudi Arabia.
The Arab proposal is a riposte to Trump’s absurd plan to turn Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East” while forcibly displacing two million Palestinians to other countries. Netanyahu now sees an opportunity to scuttle the Arab plan, which has gained widespread international backing, while paying lip service to Trump’s scenario. This is not about ending the war but killing as many Palestinians as possible to trigger displacement, and there are no limits to how far Netanyahu and his handpicked generals will go to achieve that end.
Ironically, the only hope now for Gaza could come from inside Israel itself. The families of the captives know that Netanyahu could have freed their loved ones months ago, but he didn’t. They know that Hamas was willing to stick to its part of the deal — it had no other option — but that was not to Netanyahu’s liking. Now a maelstrom is brewing in Israel, led by the families of the captives but also by those who see Netanyahu bent on creating authoritarian rule and endangering Israel’s democratic foundations.
For Netanyahu, the geopolitical gains made by Israel in the past 18 months are a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to enforce its hegemony across the region: the fate of a few Israeli captives and a couple of million Palestinians is an acceptable price for such a grandiose endeavour.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2594418
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Improved Lebanon-Syria Ties Dependent On A Hezbollah Deal
Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib
March 21, 2025
A serious escalation took place on the Lebanese-Syrian border last week, when armed men entered Syria and kidnapped three soldiers. The soldiers were taken back to Lebanon and executed. One of them was reportedly stoned to death, with the attack captured on video. The interim Syrian government accused Hezbollah of being responsible. Hezbollah denied the accusations.
The Syrian army fired on Lebanon in response to the incident. The Lebanese army fired back over the border to Syria. A ceasefire was reached on Monday after two days of exchanges of fire. However, the situation remains tense and fluid. The chances are that these clashes will be repeated unless there is a comprehensive understanding between Lebanon and Syria on the border issue and an agreement between the Lebanese government and Hezbollah on their military capabilities and activities.
The situation between Lebanon and Syria is more complex than it looks. On the surface, Lebanon should accept and deal with whatever government is in place in Damascus. Nevertheless, the Lebanese deep state had strong ties to the Assad regime, which had placed Lebanon under its tutelage since the Taif Accord and had infiltrated the security apparatus. This is why the new government in Damascus is very wary of the security apparatus in Lebanon.
During the Syrian war, the Lebanese government generally had a negative view of the Syrian opposition. Members of the opposition were jailed and accused of terrorism. Defectors from Bashar Assad’s army were returned to the regime’s claws and faced a tragic fate. Hence, the mistrust is visceral.
On the sidelines of this month’s emergency Arab summit on Gaza, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun met with Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa. Various topics were discussed, including the borders between the two countries. However, the events of last week show that the relationship has not yet been streamlined. The ties between Syria and Lebanon will not be streamlined until those between the Lebanese state and Hezbollah are in order.
So far, Lebanon has committed to the ceasefire and to implementing UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which states that all militias should be disarmed and that the Lebanese army should have a monopoly over the possession of arms. Nevertheless, the Lebanese state has not reached a comprehensive agreement with Hezbollah.
It is important to note that, beyond its military capabilities, Hezbollah and its ally the Amal Movement are the sole representatives of the Shiite community in the Lebanese parliament. So, beyond being a militia, Hezbollah is also a political party. And it has comprehensive economic activities and offers social services to the Shiite community.
Today in Lebanon, the issues of Hezbollah’s arms and “muqawama” (resistance) are creating a point of contention among the different Lebanese factions. While some want to see Hezbollah disarmed once and for all to start the process of state-building, others say that the armed group is still relevant. The latter’s rationale is that the Israelis are still occupying part of Lebanon and are still violating Lebanese airspace and sovereignty to conduct airstrikes inside the country.
So far, there has been no clear agreement with the group on what its role will be in the coming period. The government does not seem to have a clear roadmap on how to deal with the group. While Aoun’s inaugural address in January and last month’s ministerial declaration both stressed the monopoly of the state in terms of the possession and use of arms, the Hezbollah issue has not been properly tackled.
The state has not gone into detail on how it intends to achieve the disarming of Hezbollah. Will it agree a timetable with the group or will it barge into every known Hezbollah location and confiscate the arms by force? This is quite a delicate issue and if it is not conducted carefully and in an orderly manner, it could lead to internal unrest.
What guarantees can the Lebanese state give to the group that, once it disarms, Israel will not go after it? What guarantee is there that it will not face the same fate as the Lebanese Forces after the end of the civil war, when it was severely weakened and the army finished it off and went after its leadership?
Also, what mechanism will be put in place to make sure that Hezbollah does not rebuild its arsenal? For now, the airport is sealed for the group, so it is still hoping to find routes via Syria. This is why the skirmishes that occurred last week are likely to be repeated unless there is a clear and comprehensive agreement between the Lebanese state and Hezbollah.
On top of that, as long as Iran wants to create disturbances in Syria, it will use Hezbollah. This is why the Lebanese state should strike an agreement with the group regarding its relations with Iran. If the Lebanese state does not want to accept a foreign proxy on its territory, it should ask the group to define its connection with Iran.
In a nutshell, unless the Lebanese state has an in-depth discussion with Hezbollah, the clashes seen last week are likely to recur. The relationship between Lebanon and Syria is directly linked to the Lebanese state’s relationship with Hezbollah.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2594415
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Turkiye’s Influence In Nato Poised To Increase
Dr. Sinem Cengiz
March 21, 2025
For the first time in its history, Turkiye will on July 1 assume command of the NATO Allied Reaction Force Amphibious Task Force Command and the Landing Force Command, marking a significant milestone for the country within the alliance. Its year-long command will oversee several critical operations aimed at bolstering NATO’s collective defence capabilities. The Turkish Defense Ministry emphasized that this leadership position is a testament to the country’s increasing role in NATO operations and its contribution to the alliance’s defence structure.
From the beginning, Turkiye’s relationship with NATO was transactional. Ankara initially sought membership in 1948 but was only offered “associate status” in 1950. It did not secure strong support for its NATO membership until it sent thousands of soldiers to fight alongside the US during the Korean War. In May 1951, Washington proposed Turkiye’s membership and, soon after, NATO backed the move and Turkiye was admitted to the alliance in 1952.
Being part of NATO is seen as a rational foreign policy move in Turkiye. During the Cold War, NATO was key to Turkiye’s defense against the Soviet threat. Being a NATO member gave Turkiye a national security identity and a voice in European defense matters, while also creating opportunities for its economic growth as a Western ally. In return, Turkiye took on the responsibility of protecting the alliance’s southern flank, serving as a strategic buffer against Soviet expansion in the Mediterranean and the Middle East. Turkiye’s cooperation was essential in NATO’s strategy to counter Soviet influence.
The symbolic fall of the Iron Curtain and the collapse of the Soviet Union raised concerns that NATO might become irrelevant and that Turkiye’s importance to its Western allies would decrease. However, that did not happen. Today, Russia remains a significant player and Turkiye’s growing ties with Moscow enhance Ankara’s strategic value to its Western allies — despite their unease over Turkish-Russian relations.
Despite being one of the longest-lasting military alliances in history, NATO is going through tough times in adapting to changes in global security. There are challenges to its unity, such as the weakening military strength of many members and the shift in the US’ focus from Europe to the Pacific. There are also differences among members in how they perceive threats, their varying interests and how to cope with the issues.
Turkiye, which has the second-largest military in the alliance after the US, also hosts NATO facilities. These facilities are significant in terms of giving NATO a timely response capability in the region. Turkiye is also one of the top-five contributors to NATO missions, participating in operations such as those in Afghanistan and Kosovo. It continues to play an important role in securing NATO’s southern flank, especially in the Mediterranean, Black Sea and broader Middle East.
However, Turkiye’s policies do not always align with those of its NATO and EU partners, particularly regarding the Middle East. While NATO and the EU prioritize expanding their influence, advancing economic interests and securing Israel, Turkiye places greater emphasis on regional peace and stability. For Ankara, fostering a stable region and having good ties with its neighbours is a higher priority than fully adhering to its Western allies’ policies. As a result, Turkiye pursues an autonomous foreign and security policy in its neighbourhood, while carefully balancing its relations with both Russia and Iran, avoiding the confrontational stance that its NATO and EU partners often adopt.
Turkiye has learned lessons from being dependent on the US and NATO and it realized the limits of this dependence during its fight against terrorism in Syria, when NATO allies imposed arms embargoes on it, irking Ankara.
Moreover, within NATO, Turkiye was not always on equal terms with its Western allies. Ankara often felt that its national interests and security concerns were secondary to those of the US and other allies. One example was when Washington continued to cooperate with the Syrian Kurds at the expense of Turkiye’s security concerns. A closer look at European policies against Turkiye in the pre-Ukraine war period would also be relevant.
Given the immense challenges facing NATO, the roadmap is clear: NATO’s European allies must collaborate with Turkiye to ensure the future of European security, while acknowledging Turkiye’s desire for autonomy in its foreign and security policy.
In the region, Turkiye is using its influence in NATO to block any new cooperation with Israel. Ankara reportedly stated that it will continue this policy until a permanent ceasefire is reached in Gaza. It has previously blocked Israel from obtaining observer status at NATO — a stance it lifted during a reconciliation process between the two countries in 2023.
As the US appears to be distancing itself from NATO, Turkiye wants to fill this void to bolster its influence. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan stated that Ankara is willing to engage in a new security accord in Europe and proposed protecting Ukraine in the event of a future ceasefire or peace agreement. In the post-Ukraine war period, NATO should focus on establishing a partnership with Ankara in the Black Sea, where Russia is the dominant actor.
Nevertheless, NATO today remains as important to Turkiye as it was in the past, while Ankara remains a crucial member of the alliance whose role no other country could replicate because of its unique geopolitical position. Turkiye is both a European and a Middle Eastern country in several aspects. This dual role presents both opportunities and challenges, particularly in balancing tensions between the West and Russia. However, Turkiye’s commitment to NATO is strong and, as such, it will host the 2026 NATO Summit.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2594412
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URL: https://www.newageislam.com/middle-east-press/trump-israel-gaza-tehran-lebanon-turkiye-/d/134943
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