Arabs will take time to understand Naftali Bennett

After more than a decade under Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel has a new prime minister, Naftali Bennett. Netanyahu’s years in power have been extremely significant for country’s relations with the Arab world. Most notably, with the aid of former US president Donald Trump, Netanyahu signed normalization agreements with four Arab and African countries.

Bennett, head of the right-wing Yamina Party, has been a part of Israel’s political system for 15 years, but his regional and international presence has been relatively minor. Now, the Arab world, which has complicated relations with Israel, is crafting its image of Israel’s new premier.

The Qatari-based media giant Al Jazeera published an article about Bennett shortly after he was sworn in, calling him “Netanyahu’s student.” The article took note of that fact that Bennett is the first prime minister to come from what Al Jazeera called “the hard-line religious right,” and said that he is “one of the strongest opponents to the founding of a Palestinian state.

The Saudi-financed Al-Arabiya news website notably does not mention Bennett’s position on the Palestinian-Israel conflict. In an article that can almost be called flattering, Al-Arabiya tells of the new premier’s success in business, his background in Israel’s elite military forces and his various political exploits in recent years.

Oraib Al Rantawi, Founder and Director General of the Al-Quds Center for Political Studies in Amman, told The Media Line, in light of the recent political upheaval, “First of all I think there is a deep feeling of relief, among most of the Arab countries – especially in Palestine and Jordan – at seeing Netanyahu depart.”

In terms of how Bennett is viewed in the Arab world, Rantawi said, what matters is his approach to the Palestinian-Israel conflict. He’s in the far-right camp.” Bennett, he adds, is seen as opposing the two-state solution and a Palestinian state, as well as supporting Jewish settlements in the West Bank. This, and statements perceived as hawkish in the past, have built his image as a hard-line leader in Arab eyes, which Rantawi calls a cause for pessimism.

At the same time Bennett is seen as a weak leader, lacking the international status and personal charisma to rival Netanyahu, Rantawi says. 

“He has no charismatic personality, no connection with the international scene – this will make it easier to counter the Israeli narrative, especially in the US decision-making institutions. We don’t think that Bennett can fill the vacuum of Netanyahu or succeed in establishing strong influence in many international capitals. Not only in Washington and European countries, but also with Russia,” he said.

 “Some countries... are not happy to see Netanyahu depart the scene, especially the Emiratis, and the Saudis to a certain extent,” he also said. “For them, Netanyahu, together with Donald Trump, was a strong ally” regionally and, most notably, against a mutual enemy, Iran. Others such as the Jordanians and the Palestinians often termed ‘The Resistance Axis’ – Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas, are happy.”

Many Arab voices in the media are saying that Bennett and his partners will be a continuation of the same policies because Netanyahu’s legacies will outlast his presence as prime minister.

The new government notably includes an Arab Israeli minister from the left-wing Meretz Party and an Arab-Israeli party, the Islamist Ra’am (United Arab List) Party, headed by Mansour Abbas. While this may be seen as something that would help ease relations between the Jewish state and its Arab neighbors, Rantawi believes it will have little to no influence.

Iran to host ECO Clean Energy Center

Iranian Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian has announced the readiness of Islamic Republic for hosting Center for Clean Energy of Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO).

Speaking at the ECO’s 4th ministerial meeting on Thursday, Ardakanian stated that the Iranian Energy Ministry has several programs for the development of energy exchange with the countries of the region on the agenda so that the country's geopolitical capacity can be maximally used in global energy markets.

He further suggested that ECO should establish a regional energy corridor to promote cooperation, exchange of knowledge and experience, and use the capacities and potentials of the countries in the region.

Creating such a corridor can lead to the expansion of energy exchanges for a sustainable energy supply, and will also promote the development of various power plants, especially renewable ones, to supply the energy needs of the region, Ardakanian said.

The official noted that the ECO region enjoys rich human and natural resources, energy reserves, capable private sectors, and privileged advantages of regional connectivity.

He said that sustainable energy supply and exchanging electricity can guarantee the security of countries and provide them with sustainable economic income.

“This can be made possible by connecting the electricity grids of neighboring countries, and this "cross-border connection of power grids" can not only pave the way for the transmission of electricity to neighboring countries, but also improve the reliability and resilience of the region’s power grids,” he stressed.

Ardakanian also underlined the significant potentials of the Iranian renewable market for foreign investors, and said, “Having great renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, biomass, and geothermal, Iran is offering long-term contracts for guaranteed purchase of electricity at incentive rates, so the country’s renewable energy market, with its high potentials, is a very attractive market for foreign investors.”

The official put the country’s installed renewable capacity at 877 megawatts (MW), saying that all of the country’s renewable power plants have been constructed and established using the private sector investment.

“Over 160 companies are currently active in the field of renewable energies in the country,” Ardakanian said.

Exit of US troops from Bagram: Symbolic and strategic victory for Taliban

“The closure of Bagram Airbase is a major symbolic and strategic victory for Taliban,” said Bill Roggio, senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

 “If Taliban is able to take control of the base, it will serve as anti-US propaganda fodder for years to come,” said Roggio who is also editor of the foundation’s Long War Journal.

It would also be a military windfall.

The departure of US troops is rife with symbolism. Not least, it’s the second time that an invader of Afghanistan has come and gone through Bagram.

The Soviet Union built the airfield in the 1950s. When it invaded Afghanistan in 1979 to back a communist government, it turned it into its main base from which it would defend its occupation of the country. For 10 years, the Soviets fought the US-backed mujahedeen, dubbed freedom fighters by President Ronald Reagan, who saw them as a front-line force in one of the last Cold War battles.

The Soviet Union negotiated its withdrawal in 1989. Three years later, the pro-Moscow government collapsed, and the mujahedeen took power, only to turn their weapons on each other and kill thousands of civilians. That turmoil brought to power the Taliban who overran Kabul in 1996.

When the US and NATO captured Bagram in 2001, they found it in ruins, a collection of crumbling buildings, gouged by rockets and shells, most of its perimeter fence wrecked. It had been abandoned after being battered in the battles between the Taliban and rival mujahedeen warlords fleeing to their northern enclaves.

After dislodging the Taliban from Kabul, the US-led coalition began working with their warlord allies to rebuild Bagram, first with temporary structures that then turned permanent. Its growth was explosive, eventually swallowing up roughly 30 square miles.

For nearly 20 years, Bagram Airfield was the heart of military power of United States in Afghanistan, a sprawling mini-city behind fences and blast walls just an hour’s drive north of Kabul. Initially, it was a symbol of the US drive to avenge the 9/11 attacks, then of its struggle for a way through the ensuing war with the Taliban.

In just a matter of days, the last US soldiers will depart Bagram. They are leaving what probably everyone connected to the base, whether American or Afghan, considers a mixed legacy.

“Bagram grew into such a massive military installation that, as with few other bases in Afghanistan and even Iraq, it came to symbolize and epitomize the phrase ‘mission creep’,” said Andrew Watkins, Afghanistan senior analyst for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group.

US Central Command said last week that it’s well past 50% done packing up Bagram, and the rest is going fast. US officials have said the entire pullout of the troops will most likely be completely finished by 4th July 2021. The Afghan military will then take over Bagram as part of its continuing fight against the Taliban — and against what many in the country fear will be a new eruption of chaos.

The enormous base has two runways. The most recent, at 12,000 feet long, was built in 2006 at a cost of $96 million. There are 110 revetments, which are basically parking spots for aircraft, protected by blast walls. GlobalSecurity, a security think tank, says Bagram includes three large hangars, a control tower and numerous support buildings. The base has a 50-bed hospital with a trauma bay, three operating theaters and a modern dental clinic. There are also fitness centers and fast food restaurants. Another section houses a prison, notorious and feared among Afghans.

Jonathan Schroden, of the US-based research and analysis organization CNA, estimates that well over 100,000 people spent significant time at Bagram over the past two decades. “Bagram formed a foundation for the wartime experience of a large fraction of US military members and contractors who served in Afghanistan,” said Schroden, director of CNA’s Center for Stability and Development.

For Afghans in Bagram district, a region of more than 100 villages supported by orchards and farming fields, the base has been a major supplier of employment. The US withdrawal affects nearly every household, said Darwaish Raufi, District Governor.

The Americans have been giving the Afghan military some weaponry and other material. Anything that they are not taking, they are either destroying or selling to scrap dealers around Bagram. US officials say they must ensure nothing usable can ever fall into Taliban hands.

Last week, the U.S. Central Command said it had junked 14,790 pieces of equipment and sent 763 C-17 aircraft loaded with material out of Afghanistan. Bagram villagers say they hear explosions from inside the base, apparently the Americans destroying buildings and material.

 “There’s something sadly symbolic about how the US has gone about leaving Bagram. The decision to take so much away and destroy so much of what is left speaks to the US urgency to get out quickly,” said Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program at the US-based Wilson Center.

“It’s not the kindest parting gift for Afghans, including those taking over the base,” he said.

Inevitably, comparisons to the former Soviet Union have arisen.

Retired Afghan Gen. Saifullah Safi, who worked alongside US forces at Bagram, said the Soviets left all their equipment when they withdrew. They “didn’t take much with them, just the vehicles they needed to transport their soldiers back to Russia,” he said.

The prison in the base was handed over to the Afghans in 2012, and they will continue to operate it. In the early years of the war, for many Afghans, Bagram became synonymous with fear, next only to Guantanamo Bay. Parents would threaten their crying children with the prison.

In the early years of the invasion, Afghans often disappeared for months without any reports of their whereabouts until the International Red Committee of the Red Cross located them in Bagram. Some returned home with tales of torture.

“When someone mentions even the word Bagram I hear the screams of pain from the prison,” said Zabihullah, who spent six years in Bagram, accused of belonging to the faction of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a warlord designated a terrorist by the US. At the time of his arrest it was an offense to belong to Hekmatyar’s party.

Zabihullah, who goes by one name, was released in 2020, four years after President Ashraf Ghani signed a peace deal with Hekmatyar.

Roggio says the status of the prison is a “major concern,” noting that many of its prisoners are known Taliban leaders or members of militant groups, including al-Qaida and the Islamic State group. It’s believed about 7,000 prisoners are still in the prison.

“If the base falls and the prison is overrun, these detainees can bolster the ranks of these terror groups,” Roggio said.

Britain selling weapons to human rights abusers

Reportedly, Britain has sold arms and military equipment to two-thirds of countries slammed for their dire record on human rights and civil liberties.

Between 2011 and 2020, Britain licensed £16.8 billion of arms to 39 countries castigated by Freedom House, a US government-funded human rights group, for their poor record on political and human rights, according to British daily newspaper The Guardian.

The London-based Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) also found that during the same period, £11.8 billion of arms had been authorized by the British government to countries on the Foreign Office’s own list of repressive regimes.

The British Department for International Trade has also identified nine countries, including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt, as “core markets” for arms exports. The countries have been widely criticized for human rights abuses.

“Right now, British-made weapons are playing a devastating role in Yemen and around the world. The arms sales that are being pushed today could be used in atrocities and abuses for years to come,” said Andrew Smith of the CAAT.

“Wherever there is oppression and conflict there will always be arms companies trying to profit from it, and complicit governments helping them to do so,” Smith said.

Saudi Arabia and its regional allies, emboldened by Western powers’ weapons and support, launched a deadly military campaign against Yemen in March 2015 to reinstall the former Riyadh-friendly Yemeni President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi.

The war – which they claimed would last only a few weeks but is still ongoing – has led to the death of hundreds of thousands of civilians, including women and children, and destroyed much of Yemen’s infrastructure.

Throughout the campaign, the British government kept up arms sales to Saudi Arabia despite widespread reports that the weapons are being used against civilians.

Britain has sold combat aircraft, helicopters, drones, grenades, bombs and missiles to Riyadh, with most weapons licensed via the opaque and secretive Open License system.

According to Sarah Waldron of the CAAT, “British-made weapons have been central to a bombardment that has destroyed schools, hospitals and homes and created the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.”

“Many of these sales are going to despots, dictatorships and human rights abusing regimes. They haven’t happened by accident. None of these arms sales would have been possible without the direct support of Boris Johnson and his colleagues,” Smith added.

Back in February, Oxfam, an international charity organization, warned that British arms sales to Saudi Arabia could prolong the war in Yemen.

The UK is “ramping up its support for the brutal Saudi-led war by increasing arms sales and refueling equipment that facilitate airstrikes,” said Sam Nadel, head of policy and advocacy at Oxfam.

Mounting protests against Mahmoud Abbas

According to AP, thousands of Palestinians have taken to the streets in recent days to protest against President Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority, whose security forces and supporters have violently dispersed them.

The demonstrations were sparked by the death of an outspoken critic of the PA in the custody of security forces last week, but the grievances run much deeper. Abbas’ popularity plunged after he called off the first elections in 15 years in April and was sidelined by the Gaza war in May. The PA has long been seen as rife with corruption and intolerant of dissent.

The Palestinian Authority is one of the last manifestations of the peace process, which has been dormant for more than a decade, and is seen by Israel, the United States and the European Union as a key partner in promoting stability.

The PA was established in the 1990s through interim peace agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, which still represents the cause internationally. It was seen as a state-in-waiting and was granted limited autonomy in parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Israel and the PLO held several rounds of peace talks throughout the 1990s and 2000s. The Palestinians, negotiating from a position of weakness, sought an independent state in east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, territories Israel seized in the 1967 war. They were never able to reach an agreement, and there have been no substantive talks since 2009.

The Islamic militant group Hamas seized power in Gaza in 2007, a year after winning a landslide victory in Palestinian elections. That confined Abbas’ authority to parts of the West Bank. Several attempts at Palestinian reconciliation over the years have failed.

While the PA has ministries, security forces and the trappings of a state, its authority is limited to major population centers that amount to around 40% of the West Bank. Israel has overarching authority and controls access to the PA-run territories, which Palestinians routinely compare to the Black-ruled Bantustans established by apartheid South Africa.

The increasingly authoritarian PA is dominated by Abbas’ secular Fatah party, which is led by a small circle of men in their 60s and 70s. The 85-year-old Abbas, whose four-year presidential term expired in 2009, leads the PA, the PLO and Fatah.

The PA leadership, which enjoys special privileges for cooperating with Israel, is widely seen by the Palestinians as corrupt and self-serving. Its policy of coordinating security with Israel to go after Hamas and other mutual foes is extremely unpopular. Protesters at the Al-Aqsa mosque on Friday accused the PA of being collaborators, a charge that amounts to treason.

Last week, security forces raided a home in the occupied West Bank to arrest Nizar Banat, who had repeatedly criticized the PA in online posts. His family says they beat him with batons before dragging him away. The PA says it has launched an investigation into his death, which ignited the latest protests.

Banat was a candidate in the parliamentary elections that Abbas called off in April when it looked like his fractured Fatah would suffer an embarrassing defeat to Hamas. During the Gaza war that erupted shortly thereafter, Hamas was widely seen as fighting for Palestinian rights and defending Jerusalem while the PA did nothing.

Despite his unpopularity, Abbas can count on the support of powerful friends, with Israel, the United States and Western donors deeply invested in the PA’s survival. The PA also pays the salaries of tens of thousands of Palestinian civil servants who would otherwise struggle to find work.

By administering major population centers, the PA reduces the financial and security burden of Israel’s 54-year military occupation of the West Bank. It also helps preserve the idea of an eventual two-state solution, even as Israel expands Jewish settlements and consolidates its control over the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

The EU has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the PA over the years, and the US and other nations have trained and equipped its security forces. The Biden administration has said it hopes to strengthen the PA and work with it to rebuild Gaza — where it has no power.

Israel, the US and the EU all prefer the unelected PA to Hamas — which they consider a terrorist group — or to the chaos that could ensue from the PA’s collapse. They are committed to working with the PA to manage the conflict and reduce tensions until some future time when the peace process can be revived.

But after weeks of unrest in Jerusalem, a war in Gaza and now street violence in the West Bank, that approach seems increasingly fraught.

Takeaways from meeting between Israeli Foreign Minister and US Secretary of State

Israel and the United States should not air their disagreements publicly but instead should discuss them directly, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said Sunday at the start of a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Rome.

“Israel has some serious reservations about the Iran nuclear deal being put together in Vienna,” he said. “We believe the way to discuss those disagreements is through direct and professional conversations, not in press conferences.”

Jerusalem and Washington share the same goals, and disagreements between them are about how to achieve them, Lapid said.

Lapid also thanked Blinken for US support for normalization between Israel and Arab states.

“I look forward to working with you to widen the circle of peace in our region,” he said. “That is the best way to bring stability and prosperity to the Middle East.”

Other issues Lapid on the agenda for his meeting with Blinken were: strengthening our ability to defend ourselves, working to minimize conflict between us and the Palestinians, while making life better for Israelis and Palestinians alike.

Blinken agreed with Lapid that the US-Israel relationship is “based... on a set of shared values and shared interests.” US President Joe Biden “feels very, very strongly about... a deep, enduring, abiding commitment on the part of the United States to Israel’s security,” he said.

Blinken put the reconstruction of Gaza at the top of the agenda for his meeting with Lapid.

“The work, I hope, can be done to, as you say, offer a more hopeful future for everyone, Palestinians and Israelis alike, with equal measures of opportunity and dignity,” he said, repeating a phrase Biden administration officials used throughout Operation Guardian of the Walls last month.

Blinken used the phrase “the Abraham Accords” – contrary to criticism of the Biden administration that it had refused to use the Trump-era branding – and said they “strongly support this, and hopefully there’ll be other participants.”

Blinken said, “I think we’ve also discovered, or perhaps rediscovered, that as important as they are, as vital as they are, they are not a substitute for engaging on the issues between Israelis and Palestinians that need to be resolved.”

Is FATAF being used by global powers to pressurize Pakistan?

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) announced on Friday that Pakistan had largely complied with 26 of the 27 items on the action plan agreed to in June 2018, but the country will continue to remain on the ‘increased monitoring list’ even after it addresses the sole remaining item.

The global financial watchdog slapped a new list of six action items on Pakistan which it said were identified by its regional partner, the Asia Pacific Group (APG), in 2019.

FATA President Dr. Marcus Pleyer said that for Pakistan to be delisted, it will have to largely address all items on the new action plan in addition to the only remaining item on the original plan.

The FATF decision to keep Pakistan on its grey list, in spite of this country’s substantial progress on the original action plan, has disappointed many. The over whelming perception is that FATF is being used by global powers as a political tool to put pressure on countries like Pakistan.

There are examples where the global watchdog delisted other jurisdictions under its enhanced monitoring even though they had done far less than Islamabad to tighten their controls over flows of illicit money.

The FATF President has said clearly that the country will remain on the list as long as it does not address the single remaining action (related to the investigation and prosecution of senior leaders and commanders of UN-designated terror groups) as well as the items on a parallel action plan handed out by the watchdog’s regional partner, the Asia Pacific Group, in 2019.

A number of senior journalists, politicians and activists expressed surprise on the FATF decision and also raised doubts on the integrity of the financial watchdog.

Senior journalist Mubashir Zaidi questioned what the point of keeping Pakistan on the ‘grey list’ was when it had already implemented 26 of the 27 action plan items given by the FATF.

Jamaat-i-Islami Central Vice President Mian Aslam sniffed a global conspiracy behind the FATF decision and asked the Pakistan to not surrender its freedom.

Analyst Jan Achakzai also condemned the decision of the FATF, calling the body a “tool weaponized against Pakistan”.

Senior journalist Zarrar Khuhro also cast doubt on the FATF’s integrity, saying it was "a tool of geopolitical pressure".

The official Twitter account of former President Pervez Musharraf said FATF was being used to blackmail Pakistan.

Another user said the FATF’s credibility was on the line for ignoring Pakistan’s commitment and compliance with the task force targets.

Pakistan has been on the FATF’s grey list for deficiencies in its counter-terror financing and anti-money laundering regimes since June 2018.

Until the last assessment, Pakistan was found deficient in acting against organizations allegedly linked to terror groups listed by the UN Security Council, prosecuting and convicting banned individuals and tackling smuggling of narcotics and precious stones.