Is Israel-Palestine confederation a plausible solution?

Former Israeli and Palestinian peace negotiators have drawn up a new proposal for a two-state confederation that they hope will offer a way forward after a decade-long stalemate in Mideast peace efforts.

The plan includes several controversial proposals, and it’s not clear if it has any support among leaders on either side. But it could help shape the debate over the conflict and will be presented to a senior US official and the UN Secretary General.

The plan calls for an independent state of Palestine in most of the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, territories Israel seized in the 1967 Mideast war. Israel and Palestine would have separate governments but coordinate at a very high level on security, infrastructure and other issues that affect both populations.

The plan would allow the nearly 500,000 Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank to remain there, with large settlements near the border annexed to Israel in a one-to-one land swap.

Settlers living deep inside the West Bank would be given the option of relocating or becoming permanent residents in the state of Palestine. The same number of Palestinians, likely refugees from the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation, would be allowed to relocate to Israel as citizens of Palestine with permanent residency in Israel.

The initiative is largely based on the Geneva Accord, a detailed, comprehensive peace plan drawn up in 2003 by prominent Israelis and Palestinians, including former officials. The nearly 100-page confederation plan includes new, detailed recommendations for how to address core issues.

Yossi Beilin, a former senior Israeli official and peace negotiator who co-founded the Geneva Initiative, said that by taking the mass evacuation of settlers off the table, the plan could be more amenable to them.

Israel’s political system is dominated by the settlers and their supporters, who view the West Bank as the biblical and historical heartland of the Jewish people and an integral part of Israel.

The Palestinians view the settlements as the main obstacle to peace, and most of the international community considers them illegal. The settlers living deep inside the West Bank — who would likely end up within the borders of a future Palestinian state — are among the most radical and tend to oppose any territorial partition.

“We believe that if there is no threat of confrontations with the settlers it would be much easier for those who want to have a two-state solution,” Beilin said. The idea has been discussed before, but he said a confederation would make it more “feasible.”

Numerous other sticking points remain, including security, freedom of movement and perhaps most critically after years of violence and failed negotiations, lack of trust.

The main Palestinian figure behind the initiative is Hiba Husseini, a former legal adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team going back to 1994 who hails from a prominent Jerusalem family. Other contributors include Israeli and Palestinian professors and two retired Israeli generals.

Husseini acknowledged that the proposal regarding the settlers is “very controversial” but said the overall plan would fulfill the Palestinians’ core aspiration for a state of their own.

“It’s not going to be easy,” she added. “To achieve statehood and to achieve the desired right of self-determination that we have been working on — since 1948, really — we have to make some compromises.”

Thorny issues like the conflicting claims to Jerusalem, final borders and the fate of Palestinian refugees could be easier to address by two states in the context of a confederation, rather than the traditional approach of trying to work out all the details ahead of a final agreement.

“We’re reversing the process and starting with recognition,” Husseini said.

It’s been nearly three decades since Israeli and Palestinian leaders gathered on the White House lawn to sign the Oslo accords, launching the peace process.

Several rounds of talks over the years, punctuated by outbursts of violence, failed to yield a final agreement, and there have been no serious or substantive negotiations in more than a decade.

Israel’s current Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, is a former settler leader opposed to Palestinian statehood. Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, who is set to take over as prime minister in 2023 under a rotation agreement, supports an eventual two-state solution.

But neither is likely to be able to launch any major initiatives because they head a narrow coalition spanning the political spectrum from hardline nationalist factions to a small Arab party.

On the Palestinian side, President Mahmoud Abbas’ authority is confined to parts of the occupied West Bank, with the Islamic militant group Hamas — which doesn’t accept Israel’s existence — ruling Gaza. Abbas’ presidential term expired in 2009 and his popularity has plummeted in recent years, meaning he is unlikely to be able to make any historic compromises.

The idea of the two-state solution was to give the Palestinians an independent state, while allowing Israel to exist as a democracy with a strong Jewish majority. Israel’s continued expansion of settlements, the absence of any peace process and repeated rounds of violence, however, have greatly complicated hopes of partitioning the land.

The international community still views a two-state solution as the only realistic way to resolve the conflict.

But the ground is shifting, particularly among young Palestinians, who increasingly view the conflict as a struggle for equal rights under what they — and three prominent human rights groups — say is an apartheid regime.

Israel vehemently rejects those allegations, viewing them as an anti-Semitic attack on its right to exist. Lapid has suggested that reviving a political process with the Palestinians would help Israel resist any efforts to brand it an apartheid state in world bodies.

Next week, Beilin and Husseini will present their plan to the US Deputy Secretary of State, Wendy Sherman and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. Beilin says they have already shared drafts with Israeli and Palestinian officials.

Beilin said he sent it to people who he knew would not reject it out of hand. “Nobody rejected it. It doesn’t mean that they embrace it.”

“I didn’t send it to Hamas,” he added, joking. “I don’t know their address.”

 

Iran society set to explode due to crippling sanctions, writes The Jerusalem Post

It is known to all and sundry that Israel is using a multi-pronged strategy to malign Iran and it ruling regime. One of its favorite tools is ‘disinformation’. The conventional media, mostly owned the West also love to run anti-Iran stories.   

The Jerusalem Post has revealed a highly sensitive Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps document that asserts Iranian society is in a state of explosion because of the crippling sanctions imposed on the nation due to its nuclear program.

The US government news organization Radio Farda obtained the document from Edalat-e Ali (Ali’s Justice), the whistleblower entity that has also secured confidential documents and video footage about the torture of Iranian prisoners.

According to Radio Farda’s Golnaz Esfandiari, who authored the exclusive article, “The document covers a meeting with IRGC’s intelligence wing and quotes an official named Mohammadi saying that Iran’s “society is in a state of explosion.” Mohammadi added, “Social discontent has risen by 300% in the past year.”

Radio Farda said it could not verify the authenticity of the document beyond the sourcing of Ali’s Justice.

The official noted that several shocks in recent months have shaken public trust in the regime of President Ebrahim Raisi, who is listed as a US-sanctioned person for his role in several mass murders, including the massacre of at least 5,000 Iranian political prisoners in 1988.

Radio Farda reported[ “Mohammadi referred to soaring inflation, including hikes in the price of food items, energy, and cars. He also noted the sharp declines in stock prices.”

“The leaked document includes notes from a November 2021 task-force meeting chaired by Brig.-Gen. Hossein Nejat, a senior IRGC commander and deputy head of Sarallah, a key IRGC base that oversees security in Tehran,” the station said.

Omri Ceren, the national security adviser for US Senator Ted Cruz of Texas has tweeted, “The Biden administration is giving Iran a nuclear weapons arsenal,” with a link to a Daily Mail article that declares, “Biden removes some Iran sanctions imposed by Trump, including unfreezing US$29 billion in bank accounts overseas, in a bid to return to Obama-era deal that three negotiators have resigned over.”

In addition to officials at the meeting from the IRGC, a US-classified terrorist organization the IRGC document noted that the meeting of the Working Group On the Prevention Of A Livelihood-Based Security Crisis was attended by the Basij militia, intelligence bodies, and the Tehran Prosecutor’s Office.

The Basij militia is a volunteer force frequently used to crush demonstrations against political and economic corruption of the theocratic state.

The Jerusalem Post had reported last month that Iran’s deputy interior minister, Taghi Rostamvandi, outlined factors during a speech that could shake the foundations of the theocratic state.

The Islamic Republic News Agency, the regime-controlled news agency of the Islamic Republic of Iran, reported that Rostamvandi warned that Iranians are seeking with greater frequency fundamental changes in the country and a secular government and way of life.

Revolts against the clerical state have erupted in Iranian society since the 1979 Islamic revolution, including the widespread Green movement protests in 2009 and massive unrest in 2019. 

 

Israeli response to the US waiver for Iran

Over the weekend, the United States made stunning news giving Iran a sanctions waiver to return to the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal. Israel and critics of the JCPOA immediately took this as a bad sign of the emergence of a weaker deal, but how bad is it really?

The Iran nuclear deal that world powers are negotiating in Vienna will make it harder to stave off a nuclear Iran, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett warned at the opening of Sunday’s cabinet meeting.

“Foremost among the threats to the State of Israel is Iran,” Bennett said. “We, as the cabinet, are responsible for taking on the Iranian nuclear [threat], and are closely following what is happening in the talks in Vienna.”

Bennett said, “The agreement and what appears to be its conditions will damage the ability to take on the nuclear program.

“Whoever thinks an agreement will increase stability is wrong,” he added. “It will temporarily delay enrichment, but all of us in the region will pay a heavy, disproportionate price for it.”

According to The Jerusalem Post, it is a very clear sign that the United States is trying to close a return to the deal by mid-February when the IAEA issues its next report or by March 7, 2022, when the IAEA Board of Governors meets. These are opportunities that only come up once every three months to exercise additional pressure on the Islamic Republic.

Put simply, Washington's leverage to get the ayatollahs to return to the nuclear limits is the existing sanctions leverage. If the US starts to lift sanctions before Iran has given anything up, why should the Islamic Republic show any readiness to compromise?

This goes along with other recent signs, such as a split in the US negotiating team in which three members resigned over their view that the Biden administration's approach to the negotiations was too flexible and lenient toward Tehran.

For one, leaks to the Wall Street Journal last week indicated that those resigning were unhappy with a return to the JCPOA which would leave Iran closer to six months away from crossing the uranium enrichment threshold as opposed to the deal's original 12-month goal.

The waiver from this weekend covered the conversion of Iran’s Arak heavy water research reactor - which relates to its potential plutonium path to a nuclear weapon, delivering to it enriched uranium for its Tehran nuclear research reactor and facilitating the transfer of spent and scrap reactor fuel abroad.

None of these sanctions relief helps Iran's economy one iota. They also do not advance its nuclear program at all. Rather, all of these items were part of the JCPOA itself and were actions that either kept or maintained Iran's ability to have a civil nuclear program, while cutting it off from military options.

The truth is that the Trump administration's decision in May 2020, only a few months before the November 2020 presidential election, to cancel these sanctions waivers was bizarre. It served no purpose other than to remove an exit ramp for Iran to return to the nuclear deal if it wanted to.

Essentially, it was an attempt to preemptively sabotage the Biden administration from being able to return to the JCPOA given that Biden was leading Trump in the polls.

These items are all basically part of the machinery of how the JCPOA operates at a civil nuclear level completely within the nuclear limits.

For example, the provisions regarding the Arak reactor actually prevent Iran from advancing a plutonium path to a bomb, transferring spent and scrap reactor fuel abroad prevents Iran from using it at home, and even transferring a tiny amount of non-weaponized enriched uranium keeps Iran under the 300 kilogram and 3.67% enrichment level limits of the deal.   

Tactically, this is the Biden administration trying to show it is eager to facilitate the machinery of the JCPOA and it can box Tehran into needing to show good faith on its part, or risk being blamed for the failed negotiations.

Of course, this is not the result that the Israeli government wants , though a rising number of voices in the Israeli defense establishment want a deal if only to slow and freeze Iran's march to the 90% uranium weaponization level.

It does signal Washington's desperation for a deal and all other signs are that the new deal will be weaker than the JCPOA had been.

But of all of the recent signs pointing in this direction, this sanctions waiver was actually the least significant and the smallest concrete negative change from an Israeli government perspective.

Signs of an imminent full or partial deal would involve sanctions waivers to countries like China, India, Greece, Italy, Taiwan, Japan, Turkey and South Korea.

These were eight countries that even the Trump administration granted exemptions to from sanctions during May 2018 to May 2019.

Iran welcomes US sanctions move but terms these insufficient

The steps taken by the United States on lifting sanctions are ‘good but not enough’, Iran said following Washington’s announcement it was waiving sanctions on Iran’s civil nuclear program.

The US action came as talks to restore a 2015 deal between Tehran and world powers over its nuclear program reached an advanced stage, with the issue of sanctions relief a major issue.

“The lifting of some sanctions can, in the true sense of the word, translate into their goodwill. Americans talk about it, but it should be known that what happens on paper is good but not enough,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said, quoted by ISNA news agency.

The secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council also reflected Tehran’s view that the US move falls short.

“Real, effective and verifiable economic benefit for Iran is a necessary condition for the formation of an agreement,” Ali Shamkhani said in a tweet.

“The show of lifting sanctions is not considered a constructive effort.”

The US State Department said on Friday it was waiving sanctions on Iran’s civil nuclear program in a technical step necessary to return to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA.

Former US President, Donald Trump withdrew from the pact in 2018 and re-imposed crippling sanctions on Iran, prompting the Islamic Republic to begin pulling back from its commitments under the deal.

The waiver allows other countries and companies to participate in Iran’s civil nuclear program without triggering US sanctions on them, in the name of promoting safety and non-proliferation.

Iran’s civil program includes growing stockpiles of enriched uranium.

Amir-Abdollahian reiterated that one of the main issues in the JCPOA talks is obtaining guarantees that the US will not withdraw from the 2015 deal again.

“We seek and demand guarantees in the political, legal and economic sectors,” he said, adding “agreements have been reached in some areas”.

Iran is negotiating with Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia directly and with the US indirectly in the Vienna talks, which different parties say have reached a stage where the sides have to make important political decisions.

“Our negotiating team in the Vienna talks is seriously pursuing obtaining tangible guarantees from the West to fulfill their commitments,” said Amir-Abdollahian.

Foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said, “Iran is carefully considering any action that is in the right direction of fulfilling the obligations of the JCPOA”, Iranian media reported.

The European parties to the talks urged Iran to seize the opportunity of the US waivers.

“This should facilitate technical discussions necessary to support talks on JCPOA return in Vienna,” negotiators of Britain, France and Germany said in a joint statement on Saturday.

“We urge Iran to take quick advantage of this opportunity, because the timing of the waiver underscores the view we share with the US, we have very little time left to bring JCPOA talks to a successful conclusion.”

Iran joins Russia to end petrodollar dominance

In a commentary on February 04, 2022, The National Interest said Iran and Russia, as two countries subject to US sanctions, are seeking to undermine the petrodollar’s dominance in global finance and trade.

Following is an excerpt of the article:

During Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s recent visit to Moscow, a number of agreements with Russian oil and gas companies related to constructing petro-refineries and transferring technology and equipment were signed.

Vladimir Putin is the first Russian president to visit Iran since Josef Stalin’s visit in 1943. Since 2007, Putin has traveled to Tehran twice to attend a summit of Caspian littoral states, and in each visit, he met with Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

In 2007, Ayatollah Khamenei told Putin “A powerful Russia is in Iran’s interest,” to which Putin replied, “The interest of the Russian nation lies in a powerful and influential Iran in the international scene.”  

Prior to the 1979 Revolution, the United States had total domination over Iranian politics. After the revolution and during Saddam Hussein’s protracted war against Iran, both Washington and Moscow heavily supported Iraq’s invasion of Iran.

But, after the Iraq-Iran War, Moscow changed its policy toward Iran and sought to build a friendship while the United States and the West embraced hostility. The détente between Tehran and Moscow has had significant consequences for the region’s geopolitics. 

Both Iran and Russia “admonish the United States’ hypocrisy on human rights, terrorism, and unilateralism.”

Ayatollah Khamenei made it clear, “Tehran and Moscow must step up cooperation to isolate the United States and help stabilize the Middle East.” As a result, Tehran and Moscow have directed their policies in West Asia to isolate the United States. Tehran and Moscow’s full-blown support prevented the Assad government from collapsing, while the United States and its allies supported the war in Syria aimed at overthrowing Bashar al-Assad. 

There are numerous areas that Iran and Russia can find common ground. To elaborate further, both combat extremist groups, such as ISIS and al-Qaeda; both admonish the United States’ hypocrisy on human rights, terrorism, and unilateralism; both grapple with US sanctions and hope to topple the petrodollar’s dominance in global finance and trade. 

On the economic front, geographical proximity and transit connections are likely to strengthen trade and business between the two countries. In some ways, the North-South corridor of trade, which passes through the historic cities of the Caucasus through the Persian Gulf and India, will be restored. The Russian dream to access the warm waters of the Persian Gulf may soon materialize.  

Nevertheless, there are also divergences between Iran and Russia on some issues. For example, Russia has close ties with Israel, while Iran considers Israel an enemy. Russia also seeks to attract Turkey and Saudi Arabia away from the United States.

Kazem Jalali, Iran’s Ambassador to Russia emphasizes how President Ebrahim Raisi’s visit to Moscow is a “turning point” in relations between the two countries. “Iranians begrudge the Tsarist Russia” but “today’s Russia is different from the Tsarist Russia.”

Jalali added, “Russia is facing the West, and Putin and his close associates look positively at Raisi’s presidency.”

Today, Iran is dealing with the “White Tsar” (current Russia), which is different from “Red Tsar” (the old Russia).

In his meeting with Putin, President Raisi said, “The relations between Tehran and Moscow are on the path towards strategic ties.”

 

Iraq fails in meeting oil production quota

Iraq, second-largest producer of OPEC and one of the leading OPEC plus members is struggling to boost its oil production as much as its quota in the pact allows. 

However, with January output of 120,000 barrels per day (bpd) was lower than its production ceiling, according to data from state marketing firm SOMO, according to a Reuters report.

The figures from SOMO showed that instead of rising, oil production in Iraq dropped in January by 63,000 bpd from December 2021. This was due to insufficient storage capacity, an oil official in Iraq told Reuters.

Exports from the second-largest OPEC producer after Saudi Arabia declined in January because of bad weather, maintenance of export terminals and technical issues, the official said.

Unplanned outages and a lack of capacity to pump more led to lower or stagnant production in January at OPEC members Iraq, Iran, Angola, Congo, and Libya, a Reuters survey showed earlier this week.

Iraq and several other producers among OPEC and OPEC plus are not pumping as much quantity as the pact allow. This is tightening the market and distorting analyst assumptions about market balances.

For half a year now, OPEC plus has actually added lower volumes to the market each month than the 400,000 bpd nominal monthly increase announced in each of the OPEC plus meeting since August 2021.

At its latest monthly meeting on Wednesday, the OPEC+ group announced another 400,000 bpd increase in production for March.

While the nominal increase is modest, as in the previous seven months, many producers within the OPEC plus group are struggling to pump to their quotas, leaving an increasingly large gap between production increase on paper and actual growth in output, which leaves the market tighter than many analysts and forecasters, had anticipated just a few months ago.

Going forward, the market will be closely looking at how much of that increase OPEC plus can actually deliver, considering that half of its members have lagged in ramping up output to their quotas so far, while more producers­—with few exceptions such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE—will be struggling to raise production.

Indian Last Minute Diplomatic Boycott of Beijing Olympics

India announced a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympics on February 03, 2022 after the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) picked a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldier involved in a bloody 2020 conflict with India as a torchbearer in the Games’ torch relay. 

India’s state broadcaster also decided to not telecast the opening and the closing ceremonies of the Games as a result.

“It is indeed regrettable that the Chinese side has chosen to politicize an event like the Olympics … the Charge d’Affaires of the Embassy of India in Beijing will not be attending the opening or the closing ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics,” said Arindam Bagchi, the official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs on Thursday.

The Indian government was considering sending its top diplomat to Beijing to attend the opening of the games until this week, but then Beijing made a PLA regiment commander, Qi Fabao, a torchbearer of the games on Wednesday, irking India. Qi had been involved in a violent border clash with Indian soldiers in the Himalaya’s Galwan Valley in June 2020.

New Delhi had earlier decided to set aside its problems with China following a meeting between the foreign ministers of India, Russia, and China in November, and supported the Games that were boycotted by many countries including the United States.

This was because traditionally India doesn’t believe in politicalizing sports events and has never boycotted one since its existence, according to Srikanth Kondapalli, a professor of Chinese studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

But India was blindsided when Qi who had sustained head injuries during the Galwan clash took the flame from Wang Meng, China’s four-time Olympic short-track speed skating champion. While doing so both “made military salutes to each other,” reported Chinese state media Global Times.

“The inclusion of a PLA soldier who tried to kill Indian soldiers at Galwan in 2020 in the Olympic torch relay was a provocative act that triggered the decision to boycott,” Madhav Nalapat, strategic analyst and vice-chair of the Manipal Advanced Research Group, told The Epoch Times.

To India, Qi’s participation is a politicization of the Games because the only criteria of his selection as a torchbearer was his involvement in Galwan conflict, said Kondapalli of Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Frank Lehberger, a sinologist specializing in CCP policies and a senior fellow at the Indian think tank Usanas Foundation, told The Epoch Times that long before the Olympics started he expected China to “concoct some symbolisms” to humiliate India during the Olympics as revenge for PLA’s “humiliating defeat at Galwan Valley.”

The Galwan conflict, which took place in the Himalayan border region for eight hours on June 15, 2020, claimed the lives of 20 Indian soldiers. The hand-to-hand combat involved PLA soldiers attacking Indians with iron rods and batons wrapped in barbed wire.

After refusing to disclose its casualty count for eight months, the CCP admitted in February 2021 to losing four soldiers, when ahead of Party’s 100 anniversary, it announced military honors posthumously for them.

However, an investigative report citing findings from a group of social media researchers published by Australian media outlet The Klaxon on Wednesday said that China lost 38 soldiers, mostly drowning in the sub-zero temperature waters of the Galwan River.

The PLA soldiers honored with the “July 01 medal” in 2021 were a part of 29 CCP members honored on the occasion. The July 1 medal is a decoration bestowed by the Party’s paramount leader on those members of the CCP who make outstanding contributions to the Party in “China’s revolution, reform, and opening up” according to CGTN, the overseas arm of China’s state broadcaster.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who awarded the medals in a ceremony held in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People on June 29, 2021, said the recipients had “staunch faith.”

Global Times reported at the time that having staunch faith “is to stay true to the original aspiration and dedicate everything, even the precious life, to the cause of the Party and people.”

Lehberger said India should have understood the CCP’s character and seen this coming. “And India’s reluctance joining the boycott earlier was understood by the Chinese side as the signal that they could act in even more provocative way,” he said.

Satoru Nagao, a non-resident fellow at the Washington-based think tank Hudson Institute told The Epoch Times that only 25 countries are attending the opening ceremony and most of them are “non-democratic” countries, adding that India’s decision to diplomatically boycott the Games was “good.”

“For China, admiring its soldiers is far more important than respecting India, because India is an enemy for China. Soldiers are fighting the enemy, India. China showed that it is respecting soldiers who are fighting the enemy India,” said Nagao.

This incident is not the first time the CCP has used the Galwan conflict to send a message. Over the New Year, various Chinese state media shared videos of PLA soldiers raising a CCP’s red flag at Galwan Valley.

And on December 29, 2021 the Chinese announced “standardized” Chinese names for 15 places in Arunachal Pradesh, an Indian state on the border with Bhutan and Burma that the Chinese regime has attempted to claim and aggressively intruded upon in the past few decades.

“It shows that Chinese nationalism is directed against India,” said Kondapalli, adding that there’s a need to watch out to see if this portends more aggression towards India in the future.

China will next host the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou in eastern China’s Zhejiang Province from September 10 to 25.

Afghan future depends on inclusive government

Pakistan’s Ambassador to Tehran, Rahim Hayat Qureshi, met Vahid Jalalzadeh, Chairman of the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee of the Iranian parliament. 

Jalalzadeh said religious, historical and cultural commonalities between the two nations and good neighborliness are important factors in deepening relations between the two neighbors in various areas.

The senior legislator stressed the importance of parliamentary diplomacy to help remove obstacles to development of economic and trade relations and said, “Continuous consultation and positive and growing dialogue between government officials, military officials, and parliamentarians are a sign of the depth of friendship and brotherhood of the two nations.”

These will help “strengthen and consolidate cooperation between each other in various fields, especially in the field of economics,” he remarked.

He added that Iranian businessmen are looking to increase the level of their economic relations with Pakistan. 

“We know this is a reciprocal feeling. We expect the officials of the relevant departments to try to pave this way.” 

In another part of his remarks, the MP reiterated the important of security cooperation in border areas to counter the actions of terrorist groups, saying the terrorist groups are not aware of the very strong relations between the officials of the two countries. 

Jalalzadeh added, “In the Islamic Republic of Iran, there is a strong consensus among the country's top officials to increase interactions with neighbors, especially the friendly and brotherly country of Pakistan.”

Elsewhere in his remarks, the legislator emphasized the establishment of peace and stability in the region, especially in Afghanistan, and said that the Afghan people have been suffering from occupation and war for four decades. 

“There should be lasting stability and security, as well as formation of an inclusive government in Afghanistan. Iran and Pakistan, as two key players in Afghanistan, can work together to alleviate the suffering of the people of this country,” Jalalzadeh pointed out.

In conclusion, Jalalzadeh emphasized the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear activities and added that in the last two years, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has visited Iran's nuclear sites 15 times and confirmed the peaceful nature of nuclear activities, yet Iran is under unilateral pressure from the United States.

The US and the Zionist regime continue to claim that they are concerned over Iran's nuclear activities, he noted.

For his part, Ambassador Qureshi referred to the 70th anniversary of Pakistan's independence and said Iran was the first country to recognize Pakistan’s independence.
He also considered religious, historical and cultural affinities as important in strengthening relations between Pakistan and Iran.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Qureshi said relevant Pakistani officials are moving to establish border markets with Iran.

Pointing to the high economic potential of the two countries to develop cooperation, he said, “Agreements have been signed between the officials of the two sides, which we hope will be able to increase and strengthen the level of economic and trade exchanges more than before.”

The Pakistani envoy also stressed the important and effective position and role of Iran in resolving the crisis in Afghanistan, saying the difficult situation in Afghanistan is a matter of concern for Pakistan. 

“Establishing lasting peace and stability in Afghanistan is important for the region and neighboring countries. We hope that this will be achieved with the help of the Islamic Republic of Iran in forming an inclusive government,” he concluded. 

OPEC plus decides fate of energy market in 16 minutes

The Ministers of the OPEC plus, who met via video conference, rubber-stamped in just 16 minutes the monthly production hike by 400,000 bpd. In the shortest meeting so far in its history, OPEC+ decided on Wednesday to increase the collective production by 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) in March 2002. 

This left production plan unchanged and pushed Brent price above US$90/barrel.

Some analysts, and traders, had expected a higher production increase, considering the recent rally that has frustrated major oil-consuming nations, including the United States.

Earlier this week, Goldman Sachs had expressed the view that OPEC plus might decide to announce a larger production increase for March than the usual 400,000 bpd, keeping in view the recent oil rally to and the potential for renewed discontent from major oil importers at these high price levels.

OPEC plus confirmed the 400,000-bpd increase in record time and didn’t even plan a press conference after the meeting. 

Brent Crude prices returned to US$90 per barrel just after news of the modest production increase and the record-short meeting broke.

While the nominal increase is modest, as in the previous seven months, many producers within the OPEC+ group are struggling to pump to their quotas, leaving an increasingly large gap between production increase on paper and actual growth in output, which leaves the market tighter than many analysts and forecasters, had anticipated just a few months ago.

Going forward, the market will be closely looking at how much of that increase OPEC plus can actually deliver, considering that half of its members have lagged in ramping up output to their quotas so far, while more producers­—with few exceptions such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE—will be struggling to raise production.

According to the production table provided by OPEC, Saudi Arabia and Russia will each have a quota of 10.331 million bpd in March 2022.

The next OPEC plus meeting is scheduled for March 02, 2022.

Awami League accused of hiding its misdeeds and repressive acts

Turning down the allegation of hiring any lobbyist in the USA, BNP on Thursday categorically said it is Awami League that spent huge public money by appointing lobbyists abroad to hush up its misdeeds and repressive acts.

Addressing a press conference, BNP Standing Committee Member, Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain demanded a transparent investigation to dig out how much money of taxpayers have been spent on lobbying firms by the ruling party and its sources.

BNP Standing Committee arranged the press conference at BNP Chairperson’s Gulshan office to give the party’s formal reaction to the government’s allegation of recruiting lobbyists abroad to campaign against Bangladesh.

Mosharraf said State Minister for Foreign Affairs Md Shahriar Alam claimed that they did never appoint any lobbyist but engaged a company purely on the media front in 2015, but the evidence doesn’t support it.

On behalf of US Chapter Awami League, he said Sajeeb Wazed Joy hired Alcalde & Fay lobbyist firm in the United States on November 29, 2004 with effect from January 1, 2005.

As a signatory to the contract, the BNP leader said he (Joy) paid US$1.250 million, US$30,000 each month, to the lobbyist firm in between 2005 and 2007.

“This is a bad luck of people that this illegal repressive regime has been spending the money of oppressed people on lobbyist firms to cover up the crimes it has committed by resorting to brutal repression, killing, enforced disappearance and snatching human and democratic rights,” he said.

Mosharraf said it is necessary to present a report before people on how much money the public have been spent in the name of engaging lobbyists.

The BNP leader also presented some documents on Sajeeb Wazed Joy’s agreement with two US firms Alcade & Fay and Friedlander.

He said Joy has been working with another lobbyist firm, BGR, on a regular basis for many years. “Friedlander, another lobbyist firm, was hired in September last year for a fee of US$40,000 for a month to arrange a high-level meeting and exchange visits between the two countries. “If you go to dig worms in this regard, bigger snakes will come out.”

Earlier, State Minister for Foreign Affairs Md Shahriar Alam alleged that BNP spent at least US$ 3.75 million on lobbyists to campaign against Bangladesh, and he shared relevant documents with the media which are also available in the public domain.

He also claimed that the Awami League government never appointed any lobbyist in its last three tenures but engaged a company purely on the media front in 2015 to help the world know Bangladesh based on facts and counter-propaganda against the country and its people.

 

Abu Dhabi to invest US$10 billion in Israel

The biggest news from Israeli President Isaac Herzog's visit to the United Arab Emirates was not to do with diplomacy or defense but the huge amount Abu Dhabi plans to invest in Israel.

According to the sources privy to the details, UAE Crown Prince Mohamed bin Zayed has decided to unfreeze US$10 billion in Israeli companies that he had promised to former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The UAE's large sovereign funds will divide the investments between them, including the ADIA Fund and the Mubadala Fund, although the first fund that will enter the Israeli market is the ADG (Abu Dhabi Growth) Fund, part of the ADQ Group. This fund plans investing US$200 million in Israeli companies during the year 2022, and a similar sum each year over 10 years.

A senior source, Abu Dhabi has been waiting patiently for the Israeli political scene to stabilize before renewing the process of fulfilling bin Zayed's promise. Herzog's visit, personal, diplomatic but not political, meant that he was the right person at the right time to officially initiate the investment process.

ADG Fund Chairman Faris Mohammed Al Mazrouei met with several members of the small Israeli delegation that accompanied President Herzog. At meetings in Abu Dhabi, the Israelis and Emiratis spoke about the mechanisms for the investment and how organizations like the Manufacturers Association of Israel and the Israel Export Institute would help direct the investments.

Another important link in the chain will be Start-Up National Central, which in recent years has specialized in matching up Israeli startups with investors. Start-Up National Central CEO Avi Hasson, who traveled to the UAE as part of President Herzog's delegation, informed that the unfreezing of the US$10 billion by the UAE for investment in Israel was highly significant for both the countries. He said that the Emirati use the investment funds as a strategic tool and are expressing through the funds the importance with which they see relations with Israel.

Hasson thinks that Israel is perceived by the Emirati as a symbol of innovation and progress due to the companies located here, and therefore it represents a good investment. "This is not philanthropy or a political investment fund," he said. "The Emirati are seeking profits from their investments. We do not have a commercial agenda but extensive knowhow of the abilities in the advanced technology sector and the ability to connect Israeli companies with the precise needs of investors."

Hasson stressed there has to be a match between the Israeli ‘here and now’ approach and the slower UAE approach of first building trust through a genuine connection between the parties and only then moving forward.

Pentagon deploying 3,000 troops to allies in Europe

According to a report, the Pentagon is deploying over 3,000 troops to bolster European allies, the first such movement as the United States looks to bolster NATO’s capabilities in the region amid growing tensions between Russia and Ukraine.

“At the President’s direction and Secretary Austin’s recommendation, the Department of Defense will reposition certain Europe-based units further east, forward deploy additional US-based units to Europe, and maintain the heightened state of readiness of response forces to meet these commitments,” a senior administration official said in a statement to The Hill.

“These forces are not going to fight in Ukraine. They are not permanent moves. They respond to current conditions,” the official added.

News of the deployment was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. According to the newspaper, the troops will be deployed to Germany and Poland.

Russia has amassed upward of 100,000 troops near its border with Ukraine, and the Biden administration is now warning that a military incursion of Ukraine is imminent.

The Pentagon last month put 8,500 troops on high alert to deploy, largely to bolster NATO’s response force. However, President Biden has been clear that no US forces will be deployed directly to Ukraine.

 

Israel getting new laser defense system ready

Israel is getting itself surrounded with a defensive laser wall, with new missile interception technology, which will be ready within a year, announced Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in a speech at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv on Tuesday.

The IDF will begin using the laser interception system in the next year, first experimentally and later operationally, starting in the South.

“This will allow us, in the medium to long-term, to surround Israel with a laser wall that will defend us from missiles, rockets, UAVs and other threats that will essentially take away the strongest card our enemies have against us,” Bennett said.

The Defense Ministry successfully intercepted drones with the powerful airborne laser system installed on light aircraft in June last year. The system downed several UAVs at a range of one kilometer with a 100% success rate. The ministry intends to build a laser with a power of 100 kilowatts that will have an effective range of 20 km.

Bennett explained that today a terrorist in Gaza can launch a rocket into Israel that costs hundreds of dollars to make, while the Iron Dome battery shooting down the rocket costs tens of thousands of dollars.

“This equation doesn’t make sense,” the prime minister stated. “It allows [the terrorists] to launch more and more Kassams and for us to shed many millions on a ‘lightning strike’ and billions during a campaign. We decided to break the equation, and it will be broken in only a few years.”

At that point, Bennett said, Israel’s enemies “will invest a lot, and we will invest a little. If you can intercept a missile or rocket with an electric pulse that costs a few dollars, we are weakening the ring of fire that Iran has built on our borders.”

Israel will offer the laser technology to its regional allies that are also facing threats from Iran and its proxies, the prime minister said.

Bennett repeated his comparison of Iran to an octopus, sending its tentacles – proxies – to wreak havoc throughout the Middle East, and growing stronger all the time.

“The campaign to weaken Iran has begun,” he said. “This campaign is in all dimensions: nuclear, economic, cyber, open and secret actions, alone and in cooperation with others. The weaker Iran is, the weaker its proxies are. The hungrier the octopus is, the more its tentacles shrivel.”

Bennett expressed hope that the nuclear talks between world powers and Iran “will end without an agreement, because that agreement is bad for Israel.”

“Removing sanctions and flooding the Iranian regime with billions of dollars means more rockets, more UAVs, more terrorist cells, more cyber attacks and propaganda operations,” he said.

The prime minister pointed out that the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps and its proxies have been actively attacking the United Arab Emirates and other countries while the Vienna talks are ongoing.

“That is the definition of negotiations under fire. That’s blackmail,” he said.

Israel’s strategy to fight back against Iran will stand regardless of the results in Vienna, because “even with an agreement, we think the Iranians will continue to be the Iranians,” he added.

“If an agreement is signed and the flow of dollars is renewed, we all understand Iranian aggression will only increase in the region.”

In addition, Bennett pointed out that the sunset clauses in the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which the delegations in Vienna are seeking to revive, expires in a short time, at the end of 2030.

With US Ambassador Tom Nides in the audience, Bennett said that Washington’s interests and Jerusalem’s “do not always overlap.”

“Their interest in our region is lessening,” Bennett said of the Americans. “Their eyes are currently focused on the border of Russia and Ukraine, and in the long term, they are in a strategic conflict with China.”

There is “no longer one global policeman,” he said.

“There are no vacuums in the geopolitical arena,” Bennett stated. “Any place that is cleared is immediately taken. The United States’ place in the region can be filled – God forbid – by forces of terror and hate, and it could be filled by Israel.”

Israel’s allies in the region could be part of a “multidimensional alliance” against forces that seek to destabilize the Middle East, he said.