Middle East and North Africa

Israel

Are Israel and Iran Headed for All-Out War?
The killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and targeted assassination of a Hezbollah military official in Beirut bring Israel and Iran, through its proxies, closer to war.

Expert Brief by Steven A. Cook Jul 31, 2024

What Is Hamas?
The Palestinian militant group struggled to govern the Gaza Strip before launching a surprise attack on Israel in 2023. Now facing Israel’s military campaign to destroy it, Hamas’s future is in doubt, as is Gaza’s.

Backgrounder by Kali Robinson Oct 17, 2024

How Much of a Threat Does Hamas Still Pose to Israel?
Israel has made eliminating the threat from the Gaza-based militant group a central war aim, but it’s not entirely clear at what point that condition will be met.  

Expert Brief by Bruce Hoffman Jun 14, 2024

Why Israel Wants to Draft the Ultra-Orthodox Into the Military
As Israel fights its war in the Gaza Strip, changes to a decades-old draft exemption for its fastest-growing demographic group threaten to fracture Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition and exacerbate the country’s internal rifts.

In Brief by Simone Lipkind Jul 31, 2024

U.S. Aid to Israel in Four Charts
Israel has long been the leading recipient of U.S. foreign aid, including military assistance. That aid has come under heightened scrutiny amid Israel’s conflicts with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran.

Article by Jonathan Masters and Will Merrow Nov 13, 2024

  • Israel
    UN Quiz: Who’s the Prime Minister of Israel?
    Despite the criticism of the UN’s Goldstone Report, including by Goldstone himself, the UN seems determined to do it again. Goldstone investigated "Operation Cast Lead," the war between Israel and Hamas in December 2008 and January 2009, or more precisely he ignored Hamas and investigated Israel. Now the UN Human Rights Council has appointed a commission to investigate the current conflict, and once again Israel alone is to be the target. There will be no investigation of the rocket and mortars fired at Israel by Hamas, nothing about the purpose of the terror tunnels dug by Hamas into Israel, nothing about human shields, nothing even about Hamas’s use of UN facilities as storage sites and launching pads. This kind of investigation requires the right leader, and the UN appears to have found him: a Canadian law professor named William Schabas. No nonsense about objectivity here: Schabas is on record denouncing Israel repeatedly, as UN Watch has documented. But it gets worse: he is also on record as saying that Prime Minister Netanyahu should be "in the dock" for the crimes Israel committed during Operation Cast Lead. Minor problem: Netanyahu was not in government at the time; Ehud Olmert was prime minister then. Such small details do not apparently trouble Schabas: what’s the difference, prosecute one Israeli or another. His own intense hostility to Netanyahu, also documented by UN Watch, may have led to this little mistake--which shows not only hostility to Israel and Netanyahu but a cavalier attitude toward the facts. All in all, he’s exactly what the UN Human Rights Council is looking for. Canada’s foreign minister John Baird had it right when he tweeted "UN Human Rights Council continues to be a sham for advancing human rights; today’s ann’t for members of its Gaza inquiry reveals its agenda."      
    Blog Post by Elliott Abrams August 13, 2014 Pressure Points
  • Middle East and North Africa
    Yasser Arafat International Airport
    To those unfamiliar with the term, "Yasser Arafat International Airport" must seem like the punch line to some joke about international terrorism. Yet it existed in Gaza, briefly, and President Clinton and Hillary Clinton visited there in 1998 to stand next to Arafat and cut the ribbon opening the facility. These were the years when Clinton viewed Arafat as the key to peace, and invited him to the White House 13 times - more than any other foreign visitor. The airport was destroyed by Israel in 2001 as part of the reaction to the intifada that Arafat launched after he refused Israel’s offer and rebuffed Clinton’s efforts at Camp David. One of the most dangerous, and most absurd, Hamas demands right now is that this airport be reopened. I well recall the Palestinian Authority’s requests to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in 2005 that this airport be put back in service. Forget it, she told the Palestinian leadership: countries such as the United States, Switzerland, and the UK have great problems maintaining airport security. No one is going to trust you to maintain security at an international airport. Now that was a conversation with the PA leadership, who were pledged to stop and to fight terrorism. Today the demand for an airfield comes from an international terrorist group, Hamas. If this ludicrous demand were met, Hamas would have the honor of being the first terrorist group with its own airport. Not only Israel but every country should reject this demand out of hand. It should not be on the table for serious discussion. But let’s give credit where it is due. If there were going to be an airport in Gaza, under the control of terrorists, what better name could there possibly be than Yasser Arafat International?
    Blog Post by Elliott Abrams August 8, 2014 Pressure Points
  • Israel
    The Gaza Numbers Game: 18% and 14%
    Here are a few numbers about Gaza that are not widely known. 18% of the rockets fired by Hamas (by IDF calculations), which is to say about 600 rockets, were fired from schools, hospitals, mosques, and cemeteries. 14% of the rockets fired by Hamas actually fell inside Gaza. That’s more than 450 rockets, and before Israel is blamed for every bit of damage done inside Gaza by rocket fire a calculation must be made of the damage inflicted by Hamas itself. A final number to add: 10.  Ten is the number of electricity generators Israel has sent into Gaza as of today. It is also repairing the electricity lines into Gaza, for most of the power to Gaza comes from Israel rather than Egypt. As the attacks on Israel for the humanitarian situation inside Gaza pick up speed, all these numbers should be kept in mind.
    Blog Post by Elliott Abrams August 6, 2014 Pressure Points
  • Israel
    Hamas’s War for Cash
    Nowadays most of the press takes for granted the demands for a "Marshall Plan" for Gaza, rehabilitation of Gaza, and payment of salaries for civil servants. The humanitarian needs of the people of Gaza are very great, but take another look: it seems this war was started by Hamas because it was short of cash. It’s well known that Iran’s payments to Hamas were diminished or eliminated when Hamas -which is Sunni- sided with the Sunni rebels in Syria against Iran’s ally, the Assad regime, It is also clear that the Egyptian army has taken serious actions to close down the vast network of smuggling tunnels from Gaza into Sinai, which Hamas taxed to produce much of its income. The result was a fiscal disaster for Hamas, visible in the fact that it has been unable to pay salaries to its people. There are a remarkable 43,000 people on the Hamas payroll in Gaza, of whom about 13,000 are men under arms. So what did Hamas do to change this situation? First it tried to get the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah to pay the salaries, by entering into a sort of non-party or "technocratic" government with the Fatah party in the PA. This failed: the PA, which is paying its own civil servants in Gaza, refused to take on the additional burden. So Hamas turned to war. That such a war would be a disaster for the people of Gaza, would surely result in hundreds of dead and thousands of wounded, would destroy many homes and public facilities, must have been clear to the Hamas leadership. They had spent years planting their rockets and tunnels in and under hospitals, schools, and homes, which predictably would be hit during the war. No matter. That was a price the people of Gaza would have to pay. And then would come the payments to Hamas. The goal of the war was to shake things up, to get Hamas out of its fiscal crisis, by getting the world, the "international community," to get money moving. Perhaps Qatar would agree to pay those salaries. Perhaps the United States would pressure Egypt and Israel to open more passages more hours, and without undue inspections of what was going through. Perhaps the Americans and the EU and the wealthy Arab oil producers would go for as "Marshall Plan" for Gaza, sending hundreds of millions of dollars. And all the while, Hamas would remain in charge. As Guy Bechor pointed out in Gplanet, it’s as if all the Marshall Plan funding directed at Germany had been sent with the Nazi Party still in charge in Berlin rather than after the destruction of the Nazi regime and while American troops were stationed in Germany. It remains to be seen, of course, how well Hamas’s bet will pay off for Hamas. The price paid by the people of Gaza is enormous, but that was part of Hamas’s goal: no destruction, no reconstruction money to skim. The basic situation remains: every citizen of Gaza is a Hamas hostage. That is not an argument against reconstruction, but it is a reminder that the rules we and other donors set will determine whether most of the money assists people in need, or assists Hamas.  One has to doubt, if experience is a guide, that there will be much stomach among donors to set up stiffer procedures so that UNRWA schools do not again become rocket depots; so that the Hamas command center under the Shifa Hospital is destroyed; so that the dual use items that may enter Gaza are tracked from entry to use and diversion of goods like cement is prevented. But given the Egyptian, Saudi, and Emirati attitude toward Hamas, maybe this time it could be different; maybe tough American leadership could with Arab support demand that Hamas lose its bet. Maybe, that is, it is possible to help the people of Gaza without enriching the terrorists who use them as cannon fodder.  That should certainly be a key goal of the United States when the "reconstruction of Gaza" hits the international agenda.
    Blog Post by Elliott Abrams August 5, 2014 Pressure Points
  • Israel
    The Israel-Gaza Crisis: Three Things to Know
    The violence in Gaza is likely to continue until a third party brokers a deal that allows both Israel and Hamas to claim successes as a result of the bloodshed, says CFR’s Robert Danin.
    Explainer Video with Robert Danin August 4, 2014
  • Israel
    Weekend Reading: Israel’s Left Wing, Islamist Rivalries, and Instability in Libya
    Orit Bashkin examines the role of the radical Israeli left. Ali Mamouri, writing for Al-Monitor, explores why the Islamic State and other fundamentalist Salafi groups refuse to support Hamas. Filmmaker Rachel Beth Anderson reports on the growing instability in Libya.
    Blog Post by Steven A. Cook August 1, 2014 From the Potomac to the Euphrates
  • Iran
    The Gaza War and the Feeble PA
    The Gaza war took a new turn today, when Hamas violated a cease-fire in order to kill and capture IDF soldiers. The reasonable conclusion to draw is that Hamas’s agreement to the cease-fire was a ruse, meant to give them this opportunity. That action has several effects beyond destroying the cease-fire itself and prolonging the war. It certainly solidifies Israeli public backing for the war, which was extremely high anyway. The nature of the enemy is made even clearer. The contemptible nature of so much of the criticism of Israel around the world is also made clearer, coming from voices that appear indifferent to the nature and conduct of Hamas, to Israeli deaths, and to the deaths of Arabs anywhere else—in Syria, for example—as long as Jews are not responsible for those deaths and if there’s no opportunity to criticize Israel. This war will come to an end, as all wars do. It is part of what has been and will be a long war against Hamas and other Islamic terrorist groups, and I wrote about that at length in The Weekly Standard this week. But how does this war end? It will end with pledges from many parties to help the people of Gaza and rebuild Gaza, but not allow Hamas to rebuild. That will be a neat trick. The problem of course is that Hamas will still be ruling Gaza, so how will it be possible to assure that money and materials do not get diverted to rebuilding Hamas militarily? And how will it be possible to prevent Hamas from rebuilding politically, especially if the economic situation in Gaza is improving? People have lots of ideas about this and some are even useful. Israel and Egypt will be manning border posts and will be able to inspect the people and goods that are moving. The Palestinian Authority will perhaps man the Palestinian side of those posts. There are suggestions of an international force inside Gaza to prevent diversion of cement to building more tunnels. One can bet on a few things: that lots of aid will reach Gaza, that Hamas will steal or divert a good piece of it, and that no outside force will push back against Hamas very hard. That would be dangerous, after all, and no Swedish policeman or Dutch customs agent is going to risk his life to stop a bit of cement from going off course. So why doesn’t Israel just conquer Gaza and take it back from Hamas, as some Israeli leaders are urging, and run everything? The prime minister and defense minister have resisted that path, and rightly so in my view. Does Israel really want to run Gaza for years, and station thousands of troops there permanently once again?  Asking that question leads to another: why can’t someone other than Hamas rule Gaza? What happened to the Palestinian Authority, which ruled before the Hamas coup in 2007? Those who favor a complete Israeli takeover say Israel would crush Hamas and then turn the place over to the PA. It won’t work, due to the feebleness of the PA. In the last few years the PA in the West Bank has been growing weaker, not stronger. The Fatah Party, which is the heart of the PA, is as corrupt and unpopular as ever. The men who ran it when they lost the election to Hamas in 2006 and lost Gaza in 2007 are still in power—just eight years older. The PA security forces, which collapsed in 2007, were built up a bit after that through American efforts, but are again in decline, more and more politicized and inert. Corruption is rife. Some achievements of past years, such as a decent independent court system, are being eroded steadily by Fatah corruption. So the PA remains too weak to beat Hamas militarily—or politically. That is a huge problem and it’s one of the reasons there will be no good outcome to this war. There’s plenty of blame to go around, to U.S. policy and Israeli policy and above all to the incompetence and corruption of PA officials. But realism requires that we avoid the mirage that the PA will defeat Hamas or “take over Gaza” after an Israeli conquest. Hamas has managed to capture the banner of “resistance” to Israel. Of course its form of resistance is terrorism and the population is its cannon fodder. Briefly a few years ago the PA under Salam Fayyad bid fair to grab the banner back, when Fayyad argued that building a state was the best, and the only real, form of “resistance.” That might have worked as a potent weapon against Hamas’s nihilism. But Fayyad did not get the support he deserved from Israel, the United States, wealthy Arab governments—nor of course from corrupt Fatah, PLO,  and PA officials--to make that project succeed. So what’s the good solution? There is no good solution, no quick remedy, no magic wand. Israel is in for a long struggle, and at least some of the Arab states in the region recognize this and recognize that they and Israel are on the same side against Sunni and Shia radicalism—against Hamas and other Sunni terrorist groups including ISIS, and against Iran and its proxy Hezbollah. That’s why they were so shocked and angered when Sec. Kerry appeared to enhance the roles of Turkey and Qatar, which are on the other side in those struggles. There are some steps worth taking, to be sure. Israel should enhance its anti-tunnel technology programs and seek a remedy as good as Iron Dome is against rockets. It should seek the closest security cooperation it can get with the PA, and act to strengthen the West Bank economy. The United States and other Western nations, and responsible Arab states, should do what we can to strengthen the PA security forces and push hard (since we are the aid donors to the PA) against corruption and for decent governance. But these steps are no “solution.” Islamic terrorism is a plague now throughout the region, and Hamas is the localized version of that plague. The struggle against it will be long and hard, with plenty of ugly and difficult scenes on television. It seems clear that Israelis have the stomach for that fight, beause their existsnce is at stake. What they seek from their closest friends and allies is understanding and support, in place of distancing and unfair criticism. The basis for an effective U.S. policy is to think about who is on the other side in this fight, about the Arabs and Israelis on our side against the terrorists, and about the actions that will be needed to win.    
    Blog Post by Elliott Abrams August 1, 2014 Pressure Points
  • United States
    This Week: Israel-Hamas Fighting Intensifies and Islamists capture Benghazi
    Significant Developments Israel-Hamas. The Israeli government ordered the call up of 16,000 additional reserve soldiers today in the fourth week of Hamas-Israeli fighting in Gaza. A joint Fatah-Hamas delegation reportedly arrived in Cairo this morning to discuss possible cease-fire agreements with Egyptian officials. A small Israeli delegation arrived in Cairo yesterday for similar discussions. So far, some 1,360 Palestinians and 59 Israelis have died as a result of Hamas-Israel fighting which shows no sign of abating. For more on the Obama administration and the Gaza crisis, see the U.S. Foreign Policy section below. Libya. Ansar al-Sharia, Libya’s Islamist militia group, announced that it had captured Benghazi last night and declared an “Islamic Emirate” there. Khalifa Hiftar, the former army general who earlier this year launched a campaign to clear the city of Islamist militants, denied the claims. A coalition of Islamist fighters and rebel militiamen seized the Libyan army’s main base in Benghazi on Tuesday, following a fight that killed at least 30 and led Libyan special forces to flee the camp. Militias fighting for control of Tripoli’s airport yesterday agreed to a two-hour ceasefire to allow firefighters to quell the growing blaze at a nearby fuel depot. Two fuel tankers at the depot had been hit over the weekend. French, British, German, and American nationals were evacuated from Libya this week while thousands of Libyans fled to neighboring Tunisia amid the intensified fighting. U.S. Foreign Policy Israel. The White House today condemned the recent shelling of a UN school in Gaza, calling it "totally unacceptable and totally indefensible." White House officials said that there was little doubt that Israeli artillery had hit the United Nations school in Gaza that killed 16 Palestinians and injured many more. The United States also condemned those responsible for hiding weapons in UN facilities in Gaza. President Barack Obama called Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday and, according to the White House readout of the call, “made clear the strategic imperative of instituting an immediate, unconditional humanitarian ceasefire that ends hostilities now and leads to a permanent cessation of hostilities based on the November 2012 ceasefire agreement.” The call also followed strong U.S.-Israeli recriminations over Secretary of State Kerry’s draft peace proposal last week. Meanwhile, the Pentagon confirmed that the U.S. Defense Department resupplied Israel’s stock of ammunition from its War Reserve Stockpile in Israel. On Sunday, the United States backed a UN Security Council presidential statement calling for an “immediate and unconditional cease-fire.” Syria. Moner Mohammad Abusalha, the American who carried out a suicide bombing in Syria in May, returned to the United States after training with the al-Qaeda affiliate, al-Nusra Front, the New York Times reported today. A video released on Monday by al-Nusra shows Abusalha declaring “You think that you killed Osama bin Laden. You did nothing. You sent him to [heaven].” U.S. and European officials expressed concern about the training and possible return home of thousands of their radicalized citizens from Syria. Human Rights Watch accused the Syrian regime yesterday of continuing to indiscriminately target civilians with high explosive barrel bombs. In February, the UN Security Council passed a resolution in February ordering all parties to halt the use of such explosives. Meanwhile, the Islamic Front claimed responsibility for bombings in Aleppo tunnels on Tuesday night that killed at least 13 government soldiers. While We Were Looking Elsewhere Iraq. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced plans yesterday to allocate $858 million to aid Iraqi citizens internally displaced by the offensive waged by the Islamic State. Pentagon officials yesterday confirmed approval of a $700 million deal to send an additional 5,000 Hellfire missiles to Iraq to help the government fight the insurgency. Meanwhile, Maliki’s own party, Dawa, began discussions on possible alternative ministers on Sunday, after issuing a statement on Saturday urging politicians not to cling to their offices. Yemen. Protests broke out in Yemen yesterday following the government’s announcement of a decision to raise fuel prices. The move to ease energy related government subsidies came in response to IMF pressure in loan discussions. Yemen reportedly spent about $3 billion on energy subsidies last year, nearly a third of state revenue. Tunisia. Defense Ministry officials confirmed yesterday the resignation of General Mohammed Salah al-Hamedi, commander of the army’s land forces. Hamedi submitted his resignation on July 23, less than a week after two attacks by militants on army checkpoints, which killed 15 soldiers. The Tunisian military has been fighting al-Qaeda linked militants in the country for months.
    Blog Post by Robert Danin July 31, 2014 Middle East Matters
  • Israel
    Salvaging Abbas
    This article was originally published here on TimesOfIsrael.com on Tuesday, July 29, 2014. Almost from the start of the conflict in the Gaza Strip, the commentariat has been seized with the idea of “empowering [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud] Abbas” as the only way out of the recurrent violence between Israel and Hamas. The discovery of this idea in Washington (and Jerusalem for that matter) is rather odd, not because it does not make sense, but rather because the idea is so reasonable and obvious that one wonders why — ten years after he became the Palestinian leader — it took so long to recognize it. Almost from the moment of Yasser Arafat’s death, Egypt sent high-level emissaries to the United States, warning that the new Palestinian president needed help lest he gradually cede the political arena to Hamas. He did not get it then and now it is likely too late to salvage Abbas. The only ways the Palestinian president has been able to keep his opponents at bay are through a corrupt patronage network, which ties West Bankers to the Palestinian Authority, and an American and Canadian trained security force that keeps Hamas down. He desperately needs both because Abbas has largely lost what is arguably the most important battle with his adversaries — the one over narratives. The Palestinian leader, who emerged after the death and destruction of the second intifada, surveyed the wreckage and asked how Palestinians had advanced their cause through violence. He counseled that suicide bombings and other kinds of attacks on Israelis did quite the opposite from their intended goal, compelling the Israelis to counter violence with violence and dig in deeper on Palestinian land. Continue reading here...
    Blog Post by Steven A. Cook July 29, 2014 From the Potomac to the Euphrates
  • Israel
    Weekend Reading: Gaza
    Eitan Chitayat on being under fire in Tel Aviv. Rami Almeghari on being under fire in Gaza. Gaza and the Israeli coast from outer space.
    Blog Post by Steven A. Cook July 25, 2014 From the Potomac to the Euphrates
  • United States
    This Week: Hamas-Israel Fighting Escalates and Iraq’s New President
    Significant Developments Gaza-Israel. Secretary of State John Kerry has drafted a new cease-fire proposal which has been presented to Israel and Hamas. Kerry, due to leave Cairo on Friday for Washington, is reportedly waiting to hear Hamas political chief Khaled Meshaal’s response to the proposal from the Qatari and Turkish foreign ministers. While Kerry and UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon have been shuttling around the Middle East in search of a cease-fire, the prospects for an immediate halt to the fighting in Gaza do not appear imminent. Kerry returned to Cairo yesterday evening after meeting with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah. Following Kerry’s departure, the Israeli security cabinet met to discuss the possibility of expanding the ground operation in Gaza. Ban Ki-moon, while in Israel, called for an immediate end to the hostilities on both sides. Meanwhile, Meshaal said today that Hamas would only agree to a cease-fire if Israel were to end its siege on Gaza. Abbas gave a speech on Tuesday supporting Hamas’s cease-fire demands, an apparent move from his earlier support for an Egyptian cease-fire proposal that was rejected by Hamas. Ban also condemned an Israeli attack on an UNRWA school and shelter in Gaza today which killed 15 and wounded 200 others, including UN staff. The IDF said that its soldiers were fired at from the school prior to their attack on it. During a special session of the UN Human Rights Council yesterday, Chief Navi Pillay criticized the conduct of Hamas and Israel in the recent fighting. The council voted to establish a commission of inquiry into alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza. The death toll has exceeded 770 on the Palestinian side, with 32 Israeli military fatalities. Meanwhile, the Federal Aviation Administration last night announced the end of to a 48-hour ban on flights to Tel Aviv that was strongly opposed by Israeli officials. Iraq. The parliament in Baghdad elected Fouad Massoum, co-founder of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, president of Iraq today after the five main Kurdish blocs settled on a presidential candidate late last night. According to the constitution, Iraqi lawmakers now have fifteen days to select a new prime minister. Violence continued today as 17 Iraqis were killed in two suicide bombings in Baghdad and a separate attack on a prison bus en route to the capital killed 61—nine policemen and 52 prisoners. Meanwhile, thousands of Christians fled Mosul this week as jihadists confiscated homes and took over churches. The exodus comes after ISIS called for the execution of Mosul’s Christians if they refused to convert to Islam or pay a religious tax. Many Christians have found refuge in Kurdish-controlled Irbil. UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon, speaking at a news conference in Baghdad today, expressed concern over Iraq’s “existential threat” and urged politicians to form an inclusive government. Ban then met with Iraq’s top Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, in Najaf. The visit to Iraq is the latest in the secretary general’s regional tour: earlier this week, Ban traveled to Egypt and Israel, and is slated to continue on to Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. U.S. Foreign Policy Iraq. In a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing yesterday, Brett McGurk, deputy assistant secretary of state, said that the Islamic State is a “full-blown army,” not just a terrorist organization, and that it is worse than al-Qaeda.Pentagon officials said that the number of U.S. military personnel on the ground in Iraq has increased to 825, including 90 advisors who are assessing the capabilities of Iraqi forces. Iran. The P5+1 countries and Iran announced early Saturday that negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program will be extended for four additional months. The extension was announced one day before the original July 20 negotiating deadline. With the extension, Iran is expected to gain access to $2.8 billion in assets previously frozen in the United States. However, Secretary of State John Kerry said that sanctions against oil sales and other major sources of income will not be lifted. The new deadline for completion of a comprehensive agreement is November 24. While We Were Looking Elsewhere Syria. Fighting intensified in Damascus this week. On Tuesday, eastern Damascus witnessed the worst clashes in months between rebels and pro-regime forces, one day after rebels began to push ISIS militants out of southern Damascus in an effort to expel them from their strongholds. Seven hundred Syrians were killed over a 48-hour period last week in clashes between ISIS militants and pro-government forces in what the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights called the deadliest fighting in Syria since the civil war began in 2011. Libya. The Higher National Elections Commission announced Monday the results of Libya’s June parliamentary elections, indicating a dip in support for the country’s Islamist forces. Meanwhile, nine people were killed in Benghazi yesterday evening in clashes between Islamist militants and government forces, capping a week of some of the fiercest fighting in Benghazi and Tripoli since 2011. The fighting around the Tripoli airport damaged a fuel tanker yesterday in a development expected to exacerbate fuel shortages in the city. Kuwait. In its latest move to quell dissent, Kuwait’s cabinet announced Monday its decision to strip five opposition figures of their citizenship. The figures include the owner of a pro-opposition newspaper and satellite channel, and a former lawmaker and member of the opposition along with three members of his family. The move comes weeks after thousands of people took to the street to protest a court decision to hold prominent opposition leader and former parliament member Musallam al-Barrak for questioning for insulting the judiciary. Tunisia. Tunisian Prime Minister Mehdi Jomaa’s office announced Sunday its decision to shut down all mosques in the country not under control of the government authorities. The move came after alleged mosque celebrations following the killing of fourteen soldiers last week. Saudi Arabia. Regulatory officials announced Tuesday that Saudi Arabia will open its $530 billion stock market toforeign investors in 2015. The move is designed to attract investment for a large scale infrastructure and employment initiative designed to benefit Saudi citizens.
    Blog Post by Robert Danin July 24, 2014 Middle East Matters
  • Middle East and North Africa
    Gaza: the EU’s Split Personality and America’s Failed UN Human Rights Council Experiment
    In the course of the Gaza war, several key European leaders have made tough, sensible statements supporting Israel’s right to defend itself and demanding a cease fire that does not give in to Hamas demands. Chancellor Merkel said Germany “stand[s] by the side of Israel" and noted that the weapons used by Hamas were of “a completely new quality.” French President Hollande said Israel had the right to use "all the necessary measures" to protect itself from rockets and missiles. Britain’s new Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said “Everybody in the UK and the west is appalled by the scenes coming out of Gaza but every country has the right to defend itself against attack.” But that is only half the story. Not one of those three countries could bring itself to vote against a foul and vicious resolution in the UN Human Rights Council this week. Every single European country that is a Council member abstained: Austria, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Romania and the United Kingdom. The resolution included this language: Noting the systematic failure by Israel to carry out genuine investigations in an impartial, independent, prompt and effective way, as required by international law, on violence and offences carried out against Palestinians by the occupying forces and settlers and to establish judicial accountability over its military actions in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, Deploring the massive Israeli military operations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, since 13 June 2014, which have involved disproportionate and indiscriminate attacks and resulted in grave violations of the human rights of the Palestinian civilian population, including through the most recent Israeli military assault on the occupied Gaza Strip, the latest in a series of military aggressions by Israel, Condemns in the strongest terms the widespread, systematic and gross violations of international human rights and fundamental freedoms arising from the Israeli military operations carried out in the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 13 June 2014, particularly the latest Israeli military assault in the occupied Gaza Strip, by air, land and sea, which has involved disproportionate and indiscriminate attacks, Calls for an immediate cessation of Israeli military assaults throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and an end to attacks against all civilians, including Israeli civilians; Decides to urgently dispatch an independent, international commission of inquiry, to be appointed by the President of the Human Rights Council, to investigate all violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, in the context of the military operations conducted since 13 June 2014.... Well, you get the idea: this is a biased, one-sided, mendacious resolution. The word "Hamas" is not mentioned. The firing of thousands of rockets into Israel is not mentioned. The massive system of attack tunnels through which Hamas terrorists have entered Israel is not mentioned. The fact that Hamas hides weapons in U.N. schools is not mentioned. So Western democracies should not have abstained; they should have called this resolution the offensive and useless piece of work that it is. They apparently tried to "improve" the text so that they could vote for it, but when that failed they chickened out. Having worked in those UN precincts for many years, it seems obvious to me that one reason the EU can so rarely persuade the Arab group to amend its drafts enough to be acceptable is that the Arabs know the EU will never oppose them. It should be obvious that only a series of "No" votes will move the Arabs, but the EU does not dare. Instead it takes a position where moral clarity is absent and the UN Human Rights Council becomes as biased and as worthless as its predecessor, the UN Human Rights Commission, which was finally shut down in 2006. It should be clear that the Council is no better. In 2008, the Bush administration abandoned observer status at the Council, with the State Department spokesman accurately calling it "pathetic" and "almost solely focused on bashing Israel." Unfortunately the Obama administration quickly joined up again in 2009, with the excuse that American participation would so obviously change things. Call it an experiment. Has it worked? In this vote on the Gaza resolution,  the United States was again completely isolated in voting "No." The Council has since its creation in 2007 passed 50 resolutions against Israel, almost exactly the same number it has passed about every other human rights issue in every other country in the entire world, so it is no improvement on its predecessor. The United States erred in joining up in 2009, and the returns are in. The experiment failed. Until the Council stops its biased and one-sided actions, and stops throwing fuel on the flames in the Middle East, we should disengage. Council members such as China, Cuba, and Russia (yes, all three are amazingly enough members of the Human Rights Council!) will not recognize moral clarity, but very many Americans will.  
    Blog Post by Elliott Abrams July 24, 2014 Pressure Points
  • Israel
    The Last Great Myth About Egypt
    This article was originally published here on ForeignPolicy.com on Monday, July 21, 2014. In the 1970s, Henry Kissinger fell in love with Anwar Sadat. To Kissinger, the Egyptian president "had the wisdom and courage of the statesman and occasionally the insight of the prophet." It was from this romance that a set of ideas about Egypt became inculcated in American Middle East policy: Egypt would be a bulwark against the Soviet Union, a base from which U.S. forces would launch in the event of a crisis in the Persian Gulf, and a mediator between Arabs -- especially the Palestinians -- and Israelis. Of these, only the last remains relevant to contemporary U.S. policy. It is, however, nothing more than a myth that American officials and analysts tell each other. Kissinger’s hagiography of Sadat notwithstanding, the Egyptians have never been the effective, impartial negotiators that Americans expect them to be. As Israel’s "Operation Protective Edge" nears its second week, with hundreds of lives lost, what are the Egyptians up to? They’re doing pretty much what they always do -- looking out for themselves. For all the dramatic changes in Egypt since Hosni Mubarak’s fall, the Egyptian military and intelligence services view Gaza in much the same way they have for the better part of the previous decade or more. They want to keep the Palestinians, especially Hamas, in a box, prevent the conflict from destabilizing the Sinai Peninsula, ensure that the Gaza Strip remains principally an Israeli responsibility, and exclude other regional players from a role in Gaza. Continue reading here...
    Blog Post by Steven A. Cook July 22, 2014 From the Potomac to the Euphrates
  • Middle East and North Africa
    Gaza: More Negotiations
    With Ban ki-Moon and John Kerry arriving in Cairo today, there will be lots of talk about a cease-fire deal. It is important that the United States keep Egypt in the forefront, and keep using the term "cease-fire." As to Egypt, it is not only that the Egyptian government shares our own view of Hamas as a terrorist group whose influence and military capabilities must be fought. That alone is a reason for the United States to want Egypt, not Qatar or Turkey, to be central. It is also that Egypt has genuine national security interests at stake here because it is a neighbor to Gaza. Terrorist activities in Gaza and Sinai matter to Egypt in a way that they do not to Qatar or Turkey. Any agreement that improves Hamas’s chances of importing more weaponry harms Egypt’s security, and the Egyptians have a right to a say in this. The term "cease-fire" is important because it means that the fighting should stop, now, without giving Hamas the gains it seeks for its murderous actions. Hamas does not want a cease-fire, but rather all sorts of gains to its economic and political situation. It wants its men released from Israeli prisons, passages from Gaza to Egypt and Israel opened, limits on its political activities in the West Bank ended, a larger fishing zone, and other advantages. Obviously Israel will oppose giving Hamas such gains, and so will Egypt, and it seems likely that Qatar and Turkey will favor giving Hamas what it seeks. It is worth examining whether the movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza can be improved--in a way that does not permit Hamas to move its fighters and terrorists more easily nor import weaponry. That would require a Palestinian Authority role in the passages, which would be a good thing for Gazans and a bad one for Hamas, and also require Egyptian and Israeli roles. It may be impossible to work out, and previous efforts have failed. The United States tried to work this out in 2005, after Israel left Gaza, by negotiating what we called the "Agreement on Movement and Access." It set forth elaborate rules and procedures on how trucks and people could move, be inspected, and so on--but it was a dead letter from the start. The main problem is, of course, Hamas’s obvious desire to keep smuggling terrorists and weapons in and out, and Israel’s (and now Egypt’s) need to ensure that this does not occur. Still, goods and people do move in and out of Gaza every day, so it’s worthwhile seeing if the procedures can be safely improved--and safely means without giving Hamas any role or improving its smuggling opportunities. Nor should any changes be agreed in a way that allows Hamas to take credit. They should come a bit after the cease-fire, and be credited to Israel, Egypt, and the PA. The best thing Secretary Kerry can do this weekend is tell Qatar and Turkey that the United States supports Israel and Egypt, and we want a quick, plain, and simple cease-fire--with no gains for Hamas. The terrorist group cannot be permitted to improve its situation by putting millions of Palestinians and Israelis at risk, hiding behind mosques and hospitals and schools, shooting thousands of rockets at civilians, and causing day after day of death and destruction.  
    Blog Post by Elliott Abrams July 19, 2014 Pressure Points
  • Israel
    The Kerry-Qatar Axis
    Sympathy and support for Hamas are much lower in the Arab world than in past Israeli-Hamas conflicts--except in Qatar, whose government has a special relationship with Hamas. Indeed Hamas’s political leader Khaled Meshal spends most of his time in Qatar’s capital, Doha. Qatar has poured money into Hamas-ruled Gaza. So what’s the American position on the negotiation of a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas? Do we want Egypt, with its hostility to the terrorist group and desire to weaken it, to be the negotiator, or Qatar? The answer should be obvious: we want Egypt to play this role, because Egypt will push Hamas harder, show it less sympathy, and try  to ensure that it emerges from the war without any gains. But that has not been the American position. Secretary of State Kerry has happily kept the Qataris in the loop from the start, as if whether they or the Egyptians play the key role is a matter of indifference to us. Israeli and Egyptian officials have noticed and have been at a loss to understand his position. "What is Kerry doing?" has been the tone of the comments. The United States should be insisting that Egypt, with its long border with Israel and its border with Gaza, must be the mediator. "What is Kerry doing?" is, on this point, a fair question. We should be trying to marginalize the Qatari role, not preserve it or enhance it.
    Blog Post by Elliott Abrams July 18, 2014 Pressure Points