Saudi Arabia-Israel deal in doldrums

According to Reuters, Saudi Arabia has put US-backed plans to normalize ties with Israel on ice due to rapid rethinking of its foreign policy priorities as war escalates between Israel and Palestinian group Hamas.

The conflict has also pushed the kingdom to engage with Iran. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman took his first phone call from Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi as Riyadh tries to prevent a broader surge in violence across the region.

There would be a delay in the US-backed talks on normalization with Israel that was a key step for the kingdom to secure what Riyadh considers the real prize of a US defence pact in exchange.

Until Iran-backed Hamas sparked a war on October 07 by launching a devastating attack on Israel, both Israeli and Saudi leaders had been saying they were moving steadily towards a deal that could have reshaped the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia, had until the latest conflict indicated it would not allow its pursuit of a US defence pact be derailed even if Israel did not offer significant concessions to the Palestinians in the their bid for statehood.

But an approach that sidelined Palestinians would risk angering Arabs around the region, as Arab news outlets broadcast images of Palestinians killed in Israeli retaliatory airstrikes.

It is believed that talks could not be continued for now and the issue of Israeli concessions for the Palestinians would need to be a bigger priority when discussions resumed.

US National Security advisor Jake Sullivan told a White House briefing this week that the normalization effort was not on hold but said the focus was on other immediate challenges.

Reportedly, Washington had pressed Riyadh to condemn the Hamas attack but said Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan pushed back.

The regional conflict has also prompted the Saudi crown prince and Iran's president to speak for the first time after a Chinese-brokered initiative prompted the Gulf rivals to re-establish diplomatic ties in April.

A Saudi statement said the crown prince told Raisi, “The kingdom is exerting maximum effort to engage with all international and regional parties to halt the ongoing escalation".

The Saudi statement said the crown prince stated the kingdom's opposition to any form of civilian targeting and the loss of innocent lives and expressed Riyadh's unwavering stance in standing up for the Palestinian cause.

Saudi Arabia has been seeking to ease tensions elsewhere in the Middle East, including seeking to end a conflict Yemen, where Riyadh has led a military coalition in a war against the Iran-aligned Houthis.

Asked about Raisi's call with the crown prince, a senior US State Department official said Washington was in constant contact with Saudi leaders.

The official said Washington was asking partners with channels to Hamas, Hezbollah - a Lebanese armed group aligned with Tehran that fought a war with Israel in 2006 to get Hamas to stand down from its attacks, to release hostages, keep Hezbollah out (and) keep Iran out of the fray."

Gulf states, including those with Israeli ties, were worried Iran could be drawn into a conflict that would affect them.

Alex Vatanka, director of the Iran Program at the Middle East Institute in Washington, said the last week showed how the Saudi and Iranian visions for the region diverged.

"The Saudis are still convinced the region, and Saudi Arabia itself, needs to shift toward regional cooperation and economic development. Iran seems to think the priority is to take the fight to the Israelis first," he said.

 

 

Biden faces little pressure to rein in Israel

Despite Israeli bombardment that has brought Gaza to the brink of a humanitarian meltdown, US President Joe Biden is facing little pressure at home to rein in Israel's military retaliation.

Biden appears to have given Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a free hand, for now, to press his war against Hamas, though a threatened ground offensive - with the likelihood of a higher civilian death toll - could force the president to rethink that approach.

As Biden vows rock-solid support for Israel, he has only faced scattered protest from the left wing of the Democratic Party over his acquiescence to Israel's tough crackdown in the crowded coastal strip.

Leading Democrats have helped him keep a lid on any intra-party dissent, seeking to project a message of unity, despite calls from a few progressives to get Israel to act with restraint to avoid massive civilian casualties as it battles Hamas.

The international outcry mounted on Friday against Israel's warning to more than a million Gaza civilians to evacuate south within 24 hours before an expected all-out assault.

In Washington, however, Biden's allies want to avoid giving Republicans an opening to accuse him of undercutting US ally Israel's military response, which could make the crisis a political liability as he seeks re-election in 2024.

Republicans have shown near-unanimity in backing whatever military action Israel decides to take after suffering the deadliest attack on its soil in decades. More than 1,000 people were killed and dozens more abducted into Gaza, including Americans.

Israeli strikes on Gaza having killed more than 1,000 people, preparations under way for a ground invasion and Israeli leaders vowing to annihilate Hamas, those voices could easily get louder in the days to come.

As Democratic leaders excoriate Hamas and pledge support for Israel, some have already injected carefully worded reminders of the need for Israel to abide by the laws of war.

"We are going to stand by Israel and make sure that we defend them and give them what they need to defend themselves," said US Representative Gregory Meeks, the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Relations Committee.

But with militants using ordinary Palestinians as human shields, he said, "we must keep these Palestinian people and their safety and livelihood in mind as we crush Hamas.”

For much of Congress as well as the American public, Israel's likening of the devastating Hamas assault to the September 11, 2001, hijacking attacks on New York and Washington has resonated widely.

US Representative Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian-American in Congress, this week issued a statement that drew criticism for saying she grieves for both Palestinian and Israeli lives lost.

In a tough message to Israel, she said the path forward must include lifting the blockade, ending the occupation, and dismantling the apartheid system that creates the suffocating, dehumanizing conditions that can lead to resistance.

Responding to a question about early criticism of Israel’s response by other liberal lawmakers who had equated the Hamas attack with past Israeli actions, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre denounced such statements as repugnant.

“Our condemnation belongs squarely with terrorists,” she told reporters on Tuesday.

On Friday, US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democratic progressive who had strongly condemned the Hamas attack, assailed Israel over its Gaza evacuation order as unacceptable, saying on the social media platform X, "We must halt this."

 

What is endgame in Gaza?

As these lines are being written, tens of thousands of IDF soldiers are stationed near Gaza, ready to enter. Israel’s security cabinet has met multiple times and made decisions that have remarkably not been shared press. It appears that the actual goals of the war remain top secret.

Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, closest to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, spoke generally about his government’s objectives in an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday, thw day he attended security cabinet meetings and was on the phone when US President Joe Biden called Netanyahu.  “We need to cripple the capacity of the terrorists,” Dermer said, without revealing too many details.

Israeli military warns Gazans to relocate south for safety. It means there has been a change in the paradigm, because if not, what is the point of risking the lives of Israel’s soldiers and the reservists who left lucrative jobs to fight for the country?

The IDF has been advised to craft a security zone around the Gaza Strip to prevent future infiltrations. The security zone would be no man’s land and would not enable additional surprises. 

It was not safe to have communities so close to the Gaza Strip that has been controlled by terrorists since the 2007 Hamas takeover. Such a security zone would obviously not stop rocket attacks, but it would give the Iron Dome missile defense system additional precious seconds to protect people. 

Israel has had security zones on its border before, including in Lebanon. A security zone on the Lebanese border can be restored.   

During the time the security zone is in place, international efforts must be made to inculcate a culture of peace in the next generation of Gazans and eliminate a culture of terrorism.

It is interesting that after betting pools were created on whether the potential agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia would be sabotaged by Israel, the Palestinians, or Biden, it ended up being Iran. Biden, of course, did his part, too.

The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that Iranian security officials helped plan Hamas’s attacks after authorizing them at a meeting in Beirut last Monday. 

The Biden administration admitted on Saturday that there was no doubt Tehran has been providing support for Hamas in the form of funding and arms, the Journal reported.

What connects these two reports is that the Biden administration has enabled Iran to receive access to billions of dollars that were frozen in South Korea. It also distributed hundreds of millions of dollars in US taxpayer funds to the Palestinians.

Internal documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon in August found that despite internal assessments that such funding could boost Hamas, the Biden administration allocated the money anyway. The internal documents included the draft of the exemption request and internal emails about the need for the Treasury Department to grant it.

“We assess there is a high-risk Hamas could potentially derive indirect, unintentional benefit from US assistance to Gaza,” the State Department wrote in a draft sanctions exemption request circulated internally in March 2021, shortly after Biden took office, according to the report. “Notwithstanding this risk, State believes it is in our national security interest to provide assistance in the West Bank and Gaza to support the foreign policy objectives.”

It must make up for this strategic error by giving full support to Israel to do everything necessary to ensure that Hamas and Islamic Jihad will never be able to attack Israel again from Gaza, Judea, or Samaria.

Finally, Biden must seek a deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia along the parameters of the Abraham Accords, with no Palestinian involvement or concessions to the corrupt Palestinian Authority or the terrorist organizations. 

Israel asks all civilians to leave Gaza City

Israel's military on Friday has asked all civilians of Gaza City, more than one million people, to relocate south within 24 hours, as it amassed tanks near the Gaza Strip ahead of an expected ground invasion.

"Now is a time for war," Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Thursday as Israeli warplanes continued pounding Gaza in retaliation for the weekend attacks by Hamas militants that killed more than 1,300 Israelis, mostly civilians.

The Israeli military said it would operate significantly in Gaza City in the coming days and civilians would only be able to return when another announcement was made.

"Civilians of Gaza City, evacuate south for your own safety and the safety of your families and distance yourself from Hamas terrorists who are using you as human shields," the military said in a statement.

"Hamas terrorists are hiding in Gaza City inside tunnels underneath houses and inside buildings populated with innocent Gazan civilians."

A Hamas official said the Gaza relocation warning was "fake propaganda" and urged citizens not to fall for it.

The United Nations said it considered it impossible for such a movement of people to take place "without devastating humanitarian consequences."

Israel's ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan described the UN's response to Israel's early warning to the residents of Gaza as shameful.

Israel has vowed to annihilate the Hamas militant group which led the attacks on Saturday.

The Israeli military said in a statement on Friday that it struck 750 military targets in northern Gaza overnight, including what it said were Hamas tunnels, military compounds, residences of senior operatives and weapons storage warehouses.

However, a ground invasion of Gaza poses serious risk with Hamas holding scores of hostages kidnapped in the assault.

The Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million people, is under siege by Israel, which has pounded Hamas targets in the enclave and killed more than 1,500 Palestinians in retaliatory attacks since the weekend incursions.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said fuel powering emergency generators at hospitals in Gaza could run out within hours and the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) warned food and fresh water were running dangerously low.

"The human misery caused by this escalation is abhorrent, and I implore the sides to reduce the suffering of civilians," ICRC regional director Fabrizio Carboni said.

The United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) said it had relocated its central operations centre and international staff to Gaza's south.

Seeking to build support for its response, Israel's government showed US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and NATO defence ministers graphic images of children and civilians they said Hamas had killed in a weekend rampage in Israel.

Cost of container shipping to Chabahar Port reduces significantly

The Director General of Sistan-Baluchestan Province Ports and Maritime Department has said that the establishment of direct shipping lines has significantly reduced the cost of container shipping to Chabahar port from various origins, Iranian Maritime News Agency (MANA) reported.

Referring to the establishment of direct container shipping lines from Chabahar Port in southeastern Iran to the ports of Nhava Sheva in India, and Taixing, Zhuhai and Qingdao in China, in collaboration with the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL), the official noted that the prices of container shipping in the mentioned routes has been significantly reduced.

As Iran's only oceanic port on the Gulf of Oman, Chabahar Port holds great significance for the country both politically and economically. The country has taken serious measures to develop this port in order to improve the country’s maritime trade.

The port consists of Shahid Kalantari and Shahid Beheshti terminals, each of which has five berth facilities. The port is located in Iran’s Sistan-Baluchestan Province and is about 120 kilometers southwest of Pakistan’s Baluchistan Province, where the China-funded Gwadar port is situated.

In May 2016, India, Iran, and Afghanistan signed a trilateral agreement for the strategically-located Chabahar port to give New Delhi access to Kabul and Central Asia.

Later, based on a separate deal with Iran, India agreed to install and operate modern loading and unloading equipment including mobile harbor cranes in Shahid Beheshti Port in Chabahar.

Under the framework of the mentioned agreement, the Indian side has been operating in Shahid Beheshti port in the form of a build–operate–transfer (BOT) contract; this is the first time that such a contract has been implemented in one of the country's ports with 100 percent foreign investment.

The first consignment of Indian equipment for the development of port activities at Chabahar port worth US$8.5 million arrived in the southeastern port in January 2021.

 

Iran offers to host OIC meeting on Palestine

Iran has officially expressed readiness to host an extraordinary meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

The Islamic Republic of Iran’s Permanent Mission in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Jeddah sent an official letter on Tuesday to the secretariat of the organization, announcing Iran’s readiness to host an emergency meeting of the foreign ministers of the organization on Palestine, the Iranian foreign ministry said.

The mission also conveyed Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian’s gratitude to OIC Secretary General Hissein Brahim Taha for exchanging views during their constructive negotiations on the developments in Palestine.

The mission officially said the Islamic Republic of Iran is fully ready to host the extraordinary ministerial meeting of the OIC.

The following is text of the official letter by Iran’s mission to the OIC:

Following the phone call on Monday, October 9, 2023, between the Honorable Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, with the Honorable Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Hissein Brahim Taha, on the beastly crimes being perpetrated by the Zionist regime against Palestinian civilians, especially in the we would like to express Amir Abdollahian’s gratitude for the opportunity provided to exchange views with the honorable secretary general and his constructive negotiations with him on the issue.

The foreign minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran expressed his deep hatred and concern about the criminal actions by the Zionist regime against the Palestinian people as vivid examples of war crimes and genocide, and announced that the Islamic Republic of Iran strongly condemns the massive military and savage moves by the Zionist regime of Israel in Palestine that have so far led to the martyrdom and injury of hundreds of children of the Palestinian nation, especially infants, kids and women.

Amir Abdollahian thanked Hissein Brahim Taha for his timely condemnation of the regime’s actions and emphasized that the apartheid and child-killing regime is responsible in this context.

He stressed that considering the high sensitivity of the case, the OIC should swiftly deal with the important matter at the highest possible level and informed the secretary general of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s full readiness to host the emergency meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Tehran, in the first agreed opportunity.

It was decided that the proposal would be submitted to the secretariat in writing.

Hereby, we would be grateful if the OIC secretariat immediately starts the necessary consultations with the member states of the organization on the proposal by the Islamic Republic of Iran’s government and announce the final result to the mission in order to advance the procedures.

World in support of Palestinians in Gaza

With the increasing wave of bombardments by Israel on Gaza that has so far cost the lives of more than 700 people, including 300 women and children, the people of different countries demonstrated in support of the residents of Gaza as well as the resistance forces and asked the international community to break their silence against the crimes of the Zionist regime. 

Turkish citizens of Diyarbakir came to the streets in a demonstration on Monday and declared their support for the people of Gaza. 

American citizens also came to the streets in San Francisco and Chicago and declared their support for the defenseless people of Gaza and condemned the Zionist criminals. 

In Philadelphia and New York, the citizens also condemned the oppression of the Zionist regime in Gaza. 

Hundreds of pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered in New York on Monday to denounce Israel and demand that the United States stop its support for the Zionist regime. 

With signs reading “Israel go to hell!” and “NYC stands with Gaza,” people of all ages stood in front of the Israeli consulate general waving Palestinian flags. 

Protesters also showed their support for Palestinians during a rally in front of the Opera House in Sydney Monday. 

On the other hand, the fans of the popular Al-Ahly team in Egypt also announced their support for Palestine and the people of Gaza by chanting the slogan "We will sacrifice our blood and soul for Palestine". 

Hundreds of British people with different backgrounds also gathered in front of the Israeli embassy in London on Monday in support of the Al-Aqsa Storm Operation and to express their solidarity with the Palestinian people. 

The event was organized by several UK groups, including Friends of Al-Aqsa, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign; Stop the War, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the Muslim Association of Britain, and the Palestinian Forum in Britain. 

Dr. Ismail Patel, founder of FOA, said, “We have gathered here in London to say Palestinians must be free, Israel must end the occupation, (and) we will stand with the Palestinians until they are free. 

“European governments and the British government must stop supporting Israel’s racist xenophobia against Palestinians.” 

Israel intensified its bombardment of the Gaza Strip on Monday, vowing to destroy the military and governing capabilities of the enclave’s Hamas rulers, as Israeli soldiers fought to dislodge Gaza resistance fighters from areas of southern Israel. 

Israeli War Minister Yoav Gallant announced that “no electricity, no food, no water, no gas” would be allowed to enter Gaza.