Israeli Prime Minister promises direct flights to Saudi Arabia

Israeli Prime, Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised to launch direct flights to Saudi Arabia if he is victorious in Tuesday’s elections. “I’m going to bring you direct flights from Tel Aviv to Mecca,” Netanyahu said in an interview with Channel 13 on Saturday night. 

Speculation had always been high in the last year of the Trump administration that such ties would come to fruition under the rubric of the Abraham Accords, in which Israel established normalized relations with four Arab states.

But normalized ties with Saudi Arabia never materialized. Saudi Arabia has granted Israel flyover rights, something it had denied to the Jewish state in the past.

In his Channel 13 interview, Netanyahu touted those four agreements and promised that four more deals would be finalized. It was a pledge that he made last week as well.

He brushed aside criticism with respect to the failed and ultimately canceled meeting with the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

Netanyahu had been scheduled to fly to the United Arab Emirates for the meeting, but first it was canceled because of a diplomatic snafu with Jordan. As a result of the fiasco, Amman would not let an Emirati plane leave Amman for Tel Aviv to collect Netanyahu for the visit.

The UAE rejected an attempt to reschedule the visit, explaining that they did not want to be part of Netanyahu’s reelection campaign.

When pressed by Hasson about whether ties with the UAE were problematic, Netanyahu said, “Our relations with the UAE are very strong” and pointed to the UAE pledge to invest NIS 40 billion in Israel.

Netanyahu in his Channel 13 interview also touted his close ties with both US President Joe Biden, who he has known for over three decades, and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The relationship with Putin, he said, was particularly important when it came to ensuring Israel Air Force’s ability to operate aerially in Syria, so that it could attack Iranian-related targets and prevent Tehran from entrenching itself in that country.

When asked about the impact of the US-Russian tensions on his relations with both countries, he said that he knew how to stay the course in both cases.

Trade between Iran and SCO members exceeds US$23 billion

The value of trade between Iran and the members of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) rose to US$23.165 billion during the first 11 months of the current Iranian calendar year. This was disclosed by Ruhollah Latifi, spokesman of the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration (IRICA) announced.

Iran has cross-border trade with 11 key member states and observer states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization that include China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Mongolia, Pakistan, India, Afghanistan and Belarus. Among these the largest volume of trade was with China amounting to US$15.518 billion, the IRICA spokesman stated.

He put Iran’s export to the SCO members at 33.339 million tons valued at US$11.173 billion during the period under review. Out of this the highest amount of export has been to China, amounting to US$6.724 billion and the lowest was to Mongolia, amounting to US$412,809.

Iran’s imports from the member countries weighing 8.408 million tons was worth US$11.991 billion Latifi said, adding the highest amount of imports was from China (US$8.793 billion), and the lowest was from Mongolia (US$2.448 million).

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is a Eurasian political, economic and security alliance. Its creation was announced on 15th June 2001 in Shanghai, China by the leaders of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The SCO Charter was signed in June 2002 and became effective on 19th September 2003.

Long ten years of Syrian crisis

As Syrians mark the 10-year anniversary of the 2011 uprising, it is event that the crisis is far from over. After a decade of conflict that has been supported and proliferated by super powers, Syria is devastated. At least half a million are dead, over 100,000 are missing and 12.5 million — over half the population — are displaced.

With an economy crippled by years of war, over 90% of Syrians now live below the poverty line. More than half of Syria’s basic infrastructure has been destroyed or rendered unusable and reconstruction remains a distant fantasy.

Though, the nationwide hostilities appears to have subsided, Syria remains plagued by multiple conflicts — each driven by its own unique local dynamics.

Areas recaptured by Syrian regime in 2018, are now the most impoverished and violent, evident from more than 400 attacks recorded in Daraa Governorate in 2020. Though, ISIS’s territorial caliphate has been defeated in March 2019, the group is now undertaking a methodical resurgence across Syria’s central desert.

ISIS attacks have consistently increased in scale, scope, and potency since early 2020. Though, cease-fires remain largely in place in the northwest and northeast, a single spark could swiftly precipitate crippling violence. And above all of this, Israeli aircraft continue to confront a persistent Iranian campaign to convert its military gains in Syria.

This is only a glimpse of the true scale of destruction, chaos, violence, and human suffering that a decade of conflict has caused in Syria. The international community has failed in Syria, abandoning the country and its people to a level of violence and suffering not seen in decades.

In the early years, the response was indifference, indecision, and contradiction. The response mostly remained focused on tackling symptom of Syria’s crisis, but catalyzing emergence of new conflict. The efforts failed in removing the root cause of Syria’s crisis.

If there was one diplomatic line that has been repeated most often on Syria, “There is no military solution to the Syrian crisis.” The crisis is not a self-contained local dispute. In fact, the crisis has transformed the world in profoundly negative ways like no other conflict has done in decades

There is demand that the United States should try to resolve the crisis, but the super power does have the solution. Four years under President Donald Trump has debased American leverage. UN Special Envoy has rightly stressed that a new multilateral format is needed. Without the highest level of diplomatic investment, failure is again a guarantee.

Portraying Iran a threat for United States is Israel’s biggest scam

It is evident that since Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, United States has kept the country under sanctions that is: 1) small, 2) half the world away, 3) has never attacked United States, 4) does not have nuclear weapons and 5) whose contribution to regional instability doesn’t look any worse than that of Israel or Saudi Arabia.

It is in Israel’s interest to portray Iran a threat to United States and the world. Keeping the US engaged in Israel’s proxy war with Iran keeps the attention on a supposedly dire threat, instead Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians. On top of all it serves Benjamin Netanyahu in his effort to stay in power and out of jail by coining one enemy after another and keeping the US presidents under his influence.

Israel’s supporters in the US Congress keep on playing the mantra. Lately, Senators Bob Menendez and Lindsey Graham have sent Joe Biden a letter containing the astounding claim, “Outside of its nuclear program, Iran continues to pose a threat to the US and international security.” The Israel lobby group AIPAC tweeted on Wednesday, Iran’s determination to further destabilize the Middle East, develop nuclear weapons and build ballistic missiles brings the world closer to war.

Wendy Sherman, Biden’s choice for Deputy Secretary of State helped negotiated the Iran deal, or JCPOA, but Menendez said, “Returning to the JCPOA without concrete steps to address Iran’s other dangerous and destabilizing activities will be insufficient.”

The Iran deal was a signal accomplishment of the Obama administration in setting the United States on the path toward amicable relationship with Iran. It took years for Obama to build the deal; it has been destroyed not only by Donald Trump and his late patron Sheldon Adelson, but by a bunch of Democrats.

Even if Biden gets back into the deal, as all hope, it is going to take many months or years and a lot of political capital to make it a reality. It is also evident that liberal bunch of Israel lobby is working hard on Biden’s behalf, but they can’t get unanimity inside the Democratic Party. The AIPAC implants are campaigning against the Iran deal.

The only thing to be said about all the efforts to destroy the deal is that they originate from the Israel lobby. Because it was such a “strong deal,” there was only one nation on earth that opposed it, Israel, Obama had said that in a famous speech when he was trying to seal the deal in summer 2015. But the President also said it would be an abrogation of my constitutional duty as American president to take Israel’s side.

The pity is that the US media and political system fall again and again fall of Israel’s scam. Recently, “60 Minutes” aired a segment highlighting Iranian-backed attacks on American troops in Iraq as a grave insult to the US honor. They did this without ever questioning the US presence in Iran’s neighbor, let alone NATO-led criminal attack on Iraq.

It is amazing that Netanyahu was able to address a joint session of Congress in opposition to the Iran deal back in 2015, while many Democrats were in the attendance. As Obama said, foreign policy touching on Israel was taken as a domestic issue, when the Israeli government is opposed to something; people in the US take notice.

Netanyahu is able to make such demands because as Ben Rhodes, Obama’s former foreign policy aide, explained recently, Israeli lobbyists are deeply involved in policymaking. Ten to twenty American Jews who invariably took the Israeli government’s position came in and out of the White House all the time, Rhodes said.

While Congress people parroted an Israeli script on the latest radioactive isotopes found in the Parchin military facility, and when the deal actually got close, they warned Rhodes that AIPAC was going to cancel their fundraisers. Political money was at the heart of the influence.

When Benjamin Netanyahu said in Hebrew 20 years ago that he didn’t worry about the peace process because “America is a thing you can move very easily,” he was talking about the power of the Israel lobby.

The United States was easily played, at the highest level. When Obama clashed with Netanyahu not over Iran but the creation of a Palestinian state, Democrats in Congress bailed on Obama, and Rhodes wrote in his memoir, “I was given a list of leading Jewish donors to call to reassure them of Obama’s pro-Israel bona fides.”

Now Rhodes tells us that he feels “shame” that the Obama administration “pretended” that Netanyahu supported the creation of a Palestinian state, which he never did, because it was politically dangerous to alienate the rightwing Israeli Prime Minister.

The good news is that the Israel lobby is split and liberal Zionist organizations such as J Street and Americans for Peace Now have vigorously supported the Iran deal and are trying to give Joe Biden some of the Jewish political capital he needs to take on Menendez.

But Israel is setting the terms for the US foreign policy… Just as it did when it needed Israel as battleship in the Middle East against the Soviet Union… Just as it did when the cold war ended and United Staes needed the only democracy in the Middle East in its war against “radical Islam”… There’s always some geopolitical agenda that Israel is advancing. Israel gets to determine the narrative.

Palestinians are the biggest victims of the Iran shell game. For nearly 75 years the world has been promising them self-determination in their own land, and the US has made sure that that would not happen, while Israel takes more and more of the country for expansion.

Netanyahu dragging Mossad into politics

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, ahead of yet another election, seems to be following every trick in the book. It has been reported that he would like to have Mossad Director Yossi Cohen continue in some governmental capacity after his term ends this summer. Rumors persist that Netanyahu would like to see the spy chief join his political party.

This would be highly unusual, even though there is a history of former generals and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) chiefs entering politics, since Mossad chiefs are supposed to have a cooling-off period. 

In response to the reported announcement by Netanyahu, Cohen released an even stranger statement, denying any political affiliation with the prime minister or his Likud Party. 

Netanyahu has worked to erode many aspects of Israeli democracy over his nearly 12 consecutive years in power, centralizing power at the Prime Minister’s Office and taking away key decisions from the Foreign and Defense ministries. He conducts many policies himself, seemingly without even consulting others in his coalition. 

Cohen has been a phenomenal head of Mossad. He has been praised by those who know him and the organization he is currently leading. He is said to have a good relationship with the prime minister, unlike some former intelligence heads such as Meir Dagan, who slammed Netanyahu repeatedly in 2016.

In August 2019, reports emerged that Netanyahu viewed Cohen or former ambassador to the US Ron Dermer as “fit to lead Israel” after he leaves office. Netanyahu has often heralded the credentials of the Mossad over the last years, lauding it for bringing out the secret nuclear archive from Iran and helping in the nation’s battle against the novel coronavirus. 

However, it is not clear whether releasing this information has helped Israel or the Mossad, or helped Netanyahu’s political fortunes. Politicizing the organization or even releasing information that may improve Netanyahu’s political standing is a dangerous and toxic mix of national security and politics.

The attempt to use the new relations with the United Arab Emirates has continued unabated, to the point of harming relations with Jordan and embarrassing Israel. Normally state visits are planned well in advance and have a large entourage. In Israel, Netanyahu does things without even consulting his foreign and defense ministers, as though it were a one-man, not even one-party, state.

Remembering Halabja chemical carnage of 16th March 1988 by Iraqi dictator Saddam

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has criticized duality of Western policies towards Middle East and West Asia. He condemned them for supplying chemical weapons to former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, which Saddam used against Kurdish people in northern Iraq on 16th March 1988.

“16th March 2021 is the 33rd anniversary of the chemical carnage in Halabja. Some care not to remember those who provided Saddam with the deadly chemicals, which killed over 5,000 innocent civilians. Still, want to talk about ‘malign regional behavior’, the Iranian foreign minister said in a tweet.

The tweet came in under heightened tensions between Iran and the West over the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The United States withdrew from the JCPOA in May 2018 under Donald Trump. Now Joe Biden says that reviving the nuclear deal is not enough and that other issues such as Iran’s influence in the region and its defensive missile program must be included in any future talks, something that Iran firmly rejects.  

The West claims that Iran’s influence in the region is malign, but Iran officials say it’s the United States that pursues malign behavior in the region. 

In March 2019, Zarif had said the Iranian and Kurdish brothers in Iraq will never forget the Halabja and Sardasht chemical attacks. “First they denied it happened—then they blamed Iran. When it was clear it was their own ally, using their own chemical weapons, they were silent. The West may like to forget about horrors of Halabja and Sardasht—31 years ago today—but neither we nor our Kurdish brethren, ever will,” Zarif tweeted at the time. 

On March 16, 1988, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein ordered his air force to attack Halabja in northern Iraq with chemical bombs, using nerve agents such as VX and mustard gas to kill thousands of innocent civilians. The attack killed between 3,200 and 5,000 people and injured 7,000 to 10,000, most of them civilians.

The Halabja attack was part of the Al-Anfal Campaign in northern Iraq. The attack has been recognized as a distinct event of genocide conducted against the Kurdish people by the Saddam. The Iraqi High Criminal Court recognized the Halabja massacre as an act of genocide on March 1, 2010.

In March 2020, Iran’s Consul General in Sulaymaniyah, Mehdi Shoushtari, said that the Iraqi Baath regime’s chemical attack on the Kurdish city of Halabja in northern Iraq was a “big anti-human tragedy.”

“Undoubtedly, this criminal incident against the innocent people of Halabja by a criminal regime through using chemical weapons manufactured by certain Western countries, which make claims about defending human rights, was one of the biggest anti-human tragedies,” he said in a message to Halabja Governor Azad Tofigh.

Shoushtari also said, “The Islamic Republic of Iran fulfilled its Islamic and humanitarian duty in this respect and supported the people of Halabja. These supports continued in different periods of time during history such as fighting terrorism and extremism.”

Widening breach between Israel and Jordan

Israeli ties with Jordan have not been good for a long time. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and King Abdullah do not publicly meet and do not publicly speak. It looks as if Israel’s relations with its neighbor are non-existent; there is barely any trade, tourism, or diplomatic cooperation.

The reasons behind the tension vary. There is the Palestinian issue and lack of progress on the peace track, which the King seems to blame on Netanyahu. There is continued settlement construction which the King blames on Netanyahu. There are other issues like Jordanian concern that the Hashemite Kingdom is losing its hold over al-Aqsa Mosque as well as the way Netanyahu gave a hero’s welcome to an Israeli security guard who shot and killed two Jordanians in Amman in 2017.

The origins of the latest round can be found last Wednesday when Jordanian Crown Prince Hussein bin Abdullah had planned to visit al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount following coordination with Israel on his security. However, the prince arrived at the Israeli border with more armed guards than had been agreed on, Israeli sources said. The additional guards were not permitted to enter Israel and Hussein canceled his visit.

As a result – and possibly in response – Jordan canceled the permission it had given Israel for Netanyahu’s plane to pass through its airspace on its way to the United Arab Emirates where he was supposed to meet on Thursday with the UAE leader and Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.

As a result, Netanyahu had to cancel what was supposed to have been a historic first visit to the UAE. It was the fourth time the visit was canceled or postponed, not exactly a positive sign when it comes to building new relations between the two countries.

Israel’s decision to prevent a large number of armed Jordanians from entering the Temple Mount was likely done to try and preserve an image of Israeli sovereignty over the holy site. In response, and due to the insult, the Jordanians banned Netanyahu’s plane for the same reason, if you don’t let us into your sovereign territory, we won’t let you into our sovereign territory.

All of this is bad for Israel, bad for Jordan and bad for the region. One of the pillars of stability for Israel over the last few decades has been the fact that it does not face a conventional military threat from the East due to the peace it has with Jordan. As a result, Israel has been able to focus its military where it really needs to – from Gaza in the South to Hezbollah and Syria in the North.

Jordan has also gained from its peace with Israel. It improved its relations with the United States, began to purchase American military hardware and reaps benefits from the close military relationship between Jerusalem and Amman.

For too long, the peace between Israel and Jordan has been cold. It has existed almost exclusively on a government-to-government level with very little public expression or people-to-people exchange.

Normalization between Israel and the UAE shows what is possible but also the type of investment that is needed to make it work. Israel and Jordan need to set aside their differences and reestablish common ground. They will not agree on everything, but working together will be more beneficial for the two countries.