“Israel has a right and obligation to defend themselves against the threat of Hamas, while abiding by international humanitarian law and protecting civilian lives, and we remain committed to support Israel in its fight against Hamas,” a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council said. “We have done so since Oct. 7, and will continue to. There has not been a change in our policy.”

NBC News reported earlier on Sunday that at the direction of the White House, the Pentagon has been reviewing what weaponry Israel has requested that could be used as leverage. The report cited sources and said no final decisions were made.

The report added that the U.S. is considering slowing or pausing the deliveries in hopes that doing so will make the Israelis take actions such as opening humanitarian corridors to provide more aid to Palestinian civilians.

“There has been no request from the White House for DoD (Department of Defense) to slow down weapons deliveries to Israel,” a White House official said when asked about the NBC News report. “And not aware of any request to review weapons to potentially slow walk deliveries either.”

Among the weaponry the U.S. discussed using as leverage, the NBC News report added, were 155 mm artillery rounds and joint direct attack munitions (JDAMs), which are guidance kits that convert dumb bombs into precision-guided munitions.

The heavy death toll from Israel’s war in Gaza has led to much international alarm. President Joe Biden has previously referred to Israeli bombing as “indiscriminate, opens new tab” but Washington has not called for a ceasefire, saying such a measure would benefit Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which governs Gaza.

Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies. Israel’s subsequent assault on Gaza has killed more than 26,000 Palestinians, over 1% of the 2.3 million population there, according to Gaza’s health ministry. Many are feared buried in rubble.

Source: Reuters

The post US says its Israel policy unchanged after report on leveraging weapon sales appeared first on Policy Print.

Domestic abuse remains a persistent problem during Israel’s ongoing war with Hamas, and women’s groups caution that wartime stress and relaxed gun regulations aimed at pushing firearms into civilian hands may only exacerbate violence that affected more than 13,200 people in 2022, 69 percent of whom are women, according to figures collected by the Welfare and Social Affairs Ministry.

Within a week following the October 7 Hamas massacre, some 41,000 new gun permit requests were submitted, according to data presented to the Knesset’s National Security Committee.

While the Welfare Ministry registered a drop in requests for help attributed to wartime uncertainty and instability, other organizations have said they have had to up their service offering to meet increased wartime demand, in figures released ahead of Saturday’s United Nations-sponsored International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

Helpline calls placed in the nearly seven weeks since Hamas stormed Israel and triggered the current war in Gaza have risen 45%, said the director of hotline services for Na’amat, a leading Israeli organization among the two dozen or so that provide services to victims of domestic abuse.

About 70% of those nearly 200 calls Na’amat receives a month are related to domestic abuse, said Gali Brin, using a broad definition that stretches the spectrum from verbal, economic and control abuse to physical violence.

New among callers’ concerns is fear that their partners can now obtain a weapon, either through joining a newly formed community security organization or by applying for a firearms license through criteria recently loosened on October 15.

“This is a type of call that we didn’t have” before the war, Brin said. She added that while she has only received a handful of calls from women concerned about their unreported abusive partners obtaining firearms, “the fact that women start to fear it and it’s rising” indicates a worrisome trend.

The Welfare Ministry released figures on Monday that it had received 18 requests in the weeks since firearm permit criteria were relaxed to conduct a danger assessment related to weapons permits, compared to six in the entire 2022 calendar year.

These concerns were echoed by others from the about two dozen organizations that operate hotlines and shelters for battered women, men and their children in Israel.

On Tuesday, women’s groups told the Knesset State Control Committee that it was urgent to review the new firearm license regulations to prevent femicide. The meeting ended abruptly after National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who pushed for the relaxed regulations, ordered the head of his ministry’s Firearm Licensing Department to leave as part of a spat with the committee chair.

The eased regulations are not the first concern women’s groups voiced against Ben Gvir, who earlier this year delayed, and ultimately softened, legislation to permit electronic monitoring of domestic abusers.

Approved in mid-October by the Knesset’s National Security Committee, the new firearms regulations reduce service eligibility requirements for obtaining a firearm, such that men over 21 can obtain a permit if they served in a combat role for one year or finished two years of general military service. Women will be eligible if they complete a year of national service, as an alternative to military service, and if they live or work in a qualified dangerous area.

The previous regulations required full military or two years of national service for all citizen applicants, or to wait until age 27 to apply.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir poses with members of the civilian security squad in Eilat after handing them each weapons on November 15, 2023. (Itamar Ben Gvir/X)

Israel’s gun permit policy has been historically strict, and is geared towards making weapons available for community and self-defense, rather than as a civil right. The Justice Ministry recommended limiting the new eligibility requirements to a one-year emergency order, but the committee passed them as permanent changes.

Citing reports from social workers, the Welfare Ministry on Monday said that women have expressed concern that “their partners used [a gun permit application] as a threat against them, and informed them that they intended to purchase weapons.”

Na’amat’s Brin said that “many of them are families that are not known to the welfare agencies,” part of a phenomenon she called “silent abuse.”

Illustrative: Children playing in a shelter for victims of family violence, 2020. (Courtesy)

Thus, “when that [abusive] partner goes to take out a gun license, there won’t be a warning identified in the network to prevent it,” she said. As a consequence, the increased accessibility of guns “increases the chance of domestic violence by five to eight percent.”

As of late November 2023, 20 women have been murdered by partners or family members, said Shalva Weil, the director of the Israel Observatory on Femicide at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. This figure, she added, is on par with previous years.

Acknowledging the concern “among certain feminist organizations” that looser gun laws “will backfire on women,” Weil said that femicide, the “ultimate end of domestic violence,” has not increased during the war.

Two women were killed by family members since the war started, both by kitchen knives, she added, highlighting the persistent scourge of abuse extending beyond the gun issue.

Still, said Brin, “domestic violence continues” during the war.

“Whoever experienced domestic violence before the war is still dealing with this issue, in addition to all the war-related challenges like anxiety,” she added.

The Welfare Ministry indicated that, for example, social workers placed in hotels serving some of Israel’s about 100,000 civilians evacuated from frontline communities, observed “13 unusual incidents of domestic violence” in the first five weeks of the war.

Evacuees from Kibbutz Nir Oz in the lobby of a hotel in Eilat on October 17, 2023. (Aris Messinis/AFP)

In contrast to Na’amat, the Welfare Ministry said its own independent hotline saw a 30% decrease in domestic violence calls since the war began, receiving 342 in the war’s first five weeks. The ministry said it expects a spike immediately after the war.

“These days, damage to the sense of security, economic uncertainty and concern for children cause many people who are within a cycle of violence to postpone treatment for the problem,” said Eti Kisos, who heads social services for the Welfare Ministry.

Family or intimate partner violence disproportionately affects women. Of the 16,000 violent, sexual and threat-based crimes against women in 2021, 52% were perpetrated by a family member or partner, according to police file data collected by the Knesset.

Women represent 80% of domestic violence victims, according to the data.

Source : Times of Israel

The post Domestic Violence Exacerbated by Wartime, Raising Concerns Over Looser Gun Policies appeared first on Policy Print.

Washington, DC – The agreement between Israel and Hamas to pause the fighting in Gaza and release dozens of captives highlights the power of diplomacy and creates an opening to end the violence, advocates in the United States say.

But they stress that the truce is not sufficient, with many pledging to continue pressuring the administration of US President Joe Biden to pursue a long-term ceasefire.

“This is an important break in the fighting. It’s important that these families are reunified,” said Hassan El-Tayyab, legislative director for Middle East policy at the advocacy group Friends Committee on National Legislation.

“But it’s not enough. We have to continue building momentum to reach a permanent ceasefire, a return of all the hostages, unfettered aid access and a solution for peace for Israelis and Palestinians.”

The deal will see Hamas release 50 women and children held in Gaza, and Israel free 150 Palestinian women and children from its prisons. The exchange will be accompanied by a four-day pause in the fighting and an increased delivery of humanitarian aid into the besieged Palestinian territory.

The agreement, which was approved by the Israeli government late on Tuesday, is expected to go into effect on Friday. It will mark the first stop in the fighting since the war broke out.

Biden welcomes deal

Israel has pledged to continue its military campaign after the pause. But El-Tayyab stressed that “more war” is not the answer, and that there is no military solution to the crisis.

“The question is: Will we fall back to where we were for the past six weeks, with indiscriminate bombing and civilians dying and the hostages being held?” he told Al Jazeera.

“Or are we going to take a step forward towards more negotiations, an extended truce, to get everybody home and finally resolve some of the underlying issues that are creating the cycles of violence, which include the systemic oppression of Palestinians?”

President Biden welcomed the deal and thanked Qatar and Egypt for helping to broker it. He also applauded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a statement on Wednesday.

“I appreciate the commitment that Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government have made in supporting an extended pause to ensure this deal can be fully carried out and to ensure the provision of additional humanitarian assistance to alleviate the suffering of innocent Palestinian families in Gaza,” Biden said. He did not comment on the future of the conflict.

The Biden administration has been calling for “humanitarian pauses” in the war while firmly rejecting demands for a ceasefire, at least until Israel achieves its stated goal of eliminating Hamas.

A truce or a pause is a temporary halt of fighting for an agreed-upon period of time — in this case, four days. A ceasefire is an indefinite end to hostilities that often comes with a negotiated agreement between the warring parties.

Nancy Okail, president of the Center for International Policy, a US-based think tank, called the truce a “step in the right direction”.

She said the pause could be used to deliver aid to Palestinians in Gaza, push for a lasting ceasefire and ensure the safety of humanitarian workers, medics and journalists.

“This would be important not just for the immediate objective of helping secure the release of the hostages but also to save lives and stop the bloodshed,” Okail told Al Jazeera.

‘Allow the truth to come out’

More than 14,500 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its offensive in response to the October 7 Hamas attack that killed 1,200 Israelis.

Hamas also took more than 200 people captive from Israel. Thousands of Palestinians are in Israeli jails, including hundreds of children, many of whom are held in so-called administrative detention without formal charges.

The scale of the violence in Gaza has prompted many scholars and United Nations experts to warn of the risk of genocide.

The Israeli army has forcibly displaced most of the population in the north of the territory — more than one million residents — raising concerns about the possible ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, especially if they are not allowed to return to their homes.

Okail said the halt in violence should extend to the West Bank, where more than 200 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces and settlers since October 7.

If the fighting resumes, Okail also explained that she would like to see the US take a firm stance against any war crimes, including the use of collective punishment, civilian hostages and indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas.

“The Biden administration should also draw a clear red line around the use of US-supplied arms and make clear that there will be consequences if those weapons are not used in accordance with international law,” Okail added.

The White House and Pentagon have repeatedly said that they would not draw any “red lines” to restrict the Israeli operation in Gaza and how American arms are used.

Israel receives $3.8bn in US aid annually. Biden is seeking more than $14bn in additional assistance for Israel this year.

Leading rights groups like Amnesty International, however, have accused Israel of imposing apartheid on Palestinians. But the appeals for Biden to rein in Israeli abuses appear to be going unheard.

Politico reported late on Tuesday that the Biden administration is concerned that the pause “would allow journalists broader access to Gaza and the opportunity to further illuminate the devastation there and turn public opinion on Israel”.

Against that backdrop, El-Tayyab called for independent observers to assess the carnage of Gaza.

“We need to allow the truth to come out. If the truth leads the public to say: This is a war we don’t want to be a part of, then we have to let the chips fall where they may,” he told Al Jazeera.

‘No backbone whatsoever’

Rights advocates have also expressed fear that renewed bombing after the truce might target southern Gaza, which has become more densely populated since the start of the war, as families flee bombings and other attacks.

But Biden’s support for Israel is not expected to waver after the pause.

​​Juan Cole, professor of history at the University of Michigan, said Biden’s green light for the war is one of the main reasons the Israeli campaign “has gone on for this unspeakably long period”.

“My reading of the Netanyahu government is that they’re incorrigible, that nothing would stand in their way if they want to start back up the destruction,” Cole told Al Jazeera.

“And then President Biden has shown himself to have no backbone whatsoever when trying to stand up to Netanyahu.”

Cole noted that Netanyahu has been under pressure from the captives’ families to accept the deal, despite opposition from his far-right political allies. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, for instance, called the agreement “immoral”.

Despite the push in some right-wing circles for the relentless bombing to continue, Israel does not appear close to destroying Hamas. The Palestinian group continues to fight Israeli troops in northern Gaza, killing dozens of soldiers since the ground invasion began.

Hamas’s top political and military leadership remains intact as well.

It’s not clear how and if Israel can eliminate Hamas militarily and what would come after the group if it were destroyed. Hamas has controlled Gaza since 2007.

That’s why many progressive activists in the US are urging a political solution to end the violence — one that goes beyond the current deal.

Usamah Andrabi, communications director at Justice Democrats, a progressive group, called for the US to end its unconditional support for the Israeli government that “continues to openly tell us its plans to annihilate and displace the Palestinian people”.

Andrabi said the pause is a temporary but necessary reprieve from the “incessant bombing and destruction by the Israeli government”, which will allow for the release of captives.

“But we cannot let up on our demands for a permanent ceasefire,” Andrabi told Al Jazeera.

Sandra Tamari, the executive director of Adalah Justice Project, an advocacy group, echoed Andrabi’s comments. She said the halt is simply a “pause of genocide”.

“How can we settle for a pause to that kind of violence? We have to continue to push the US government to call for a complete ceasefire,” Tamari told Al Jazeera.

Source : Al Jazeera

The post ‘Important but Not Enough’: What Does Israel-Hamas Deal Mean for US Policy? appeared first on Policy Print.

The announcement of a possible “humanitarian pause” in the Gaza Strip can be considered a triumph for the small Persian Gulf nation of Qatar.

Early on Wednesday morning, the Qatari Foreign Ministry put out a statement announcing a four day “pause” during which all sides — the Israeli military, the militant Hamas group and Hezbollah’s armed wing in Lebanon — would agree to stop fighting. This would allow for the release of 50 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, in exchange for the release of around 150 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails. It would also allow desperately needed humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip.

The Hamas-held hostages would be women and children and the Palestinian prisoners released from Israeli jails would also be mainly women and minors aged under 18.  

On October 7, Hamas, which is considered a terrorist organization by the US, EU and others, launched an attack out of Gaza that killed around 1,200 Israelis and foreigners. The militant group also took an estimated 240 hostages back into the Gaza Strip. Since the attack, Israel has been bombing the around-360-square-kilometer enclave and has also prevented most water, food, fuel and medical supplies from entering.

In the past six weeks, 13,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to health officials in the Hamas-controlled territory. 

The hostage negotiations have been going on for weeks. At one stage, the Israeli government reportedly turned down a similar offer in favor of launching its ground offensive into Gaza. However, pressure has grown — from the international community, from Israel’s major ally, the US, and from the families of hostages who have demanded that their government focus on freeing their relatives.

Egypt, which signed a peace agreement with Israel in 1979 and shares a border with Israel and Gaza, has also helped in the negotiations. But it is Qatar that is seen as leading them.

After the Qatari announcement, US President Joe Biden and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken posted messages on X (formerly Twitter) thanking Egypt and Qatar for their “critical partnership” in the negotiations.

Previously even Israel’s national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi had praised Qatar’s role, writing on social media that, “Qatar’s diplomatic efforts are crucial at this time.”

But not everyone is so pleased with the small Gulf state. Some commentators said negotiators should have tried harder to secure the release of more hostages. Others argued that because Qatar has been home to Hamas’ political leadership since 2012, it was somehow complicit in Hamas’ attacks.

Qatar has regularly said it supports the “Palestinian cause.”

Foreign policy tightrope

Experts agree that Qatar is walking a fine line when it comes to its foreign policy, playing the “Switzerland of the Middle East” and keeping doors open to all comers.

“Qatar’s role is particularly sensitive because the emirate has been relying on being an intermediary for well over two decades now,” Guido Steinberg, a senior associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, told DW recently.

In the past, Qatar has also acted as an interlocutor between the international community and the Taliban in Afghanistan (who also have political offices in Doha), between the US and Iran, and even Russia and Ukraine. It also hosts the largest US military headquarters in the Middle East, al-Udeid Air Base, which played a significant role in evacuations from Afghanistan in 2021. This led to Qatar being described as “major non-NATO ally.”

The country has also already mediated between Israel and Hamas — such as during the 2014  Israel-Gaza War. Qatar froze relations with Israel in 2009 but allegedly maintains a relationship behind the scenes. In 1996, at a time when other countries in the region were firmly opposed to any ties at all with Israel, Qatar allowed the state to open a trade mission in Doha.

“Qatar has long had a pragmatic relationship where it has used financial incentives to manage and de-escalate various rounds of tensions and war between Israel and Hamas,” Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at the UK-based think tank Chatham House told DW last month. Vakil saw Qatar as “a natural go-between to secure the hostages and find entry points to de-escalate and protect people on the ground as the humanitarian issue worsens.”

Qatar operates in a kind of grey zone, Joel Simon, a US journalist and author of the 2019 book, “We Want to Negotiate: The Secret World of Kidnapping, Hostages, and Ransom,” wrote in the US weekly magazine The New Yorker last week.

“Though the country’s officials say that they are guided by humanitarian principles and a desire to reduce conflict and promote stability, they have clearly used their leverage to gain influence and visibility, a posture which they believe enhances their security in a volatile region,” he explained. Playing both sides makes Qatar a valuable ally and Qatar knows it, he concluded.

Big spender in Gaza

In the recent past, Qatar was spending an estimated $30 million (€27.4 million) a month on Gaza. But the arguments around this money are yet another example of how fraught Qatar’s role is when it comes to Palestinians and Hamas.

Some have suggested Qatari money subsidizes Hamas’ military wing and is used for nefarious purposes. Hamas has ruled the enclave since 2007 and also manages payments for the civil administration of Gaza.

Replying to Reuters queries about the Gaza money last month, a Qatari government official told the news agency that its cash was for needy families and the salaries of civil servants, including doctors and teachers, in the impoverished enclave. The UN says that 80% of Gaza Strip inhabitants were dependent on international aid even before the current crisis, due to the blockade Israel established after Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, two years after Israel withdrew from it.

Qatari money actually goes through Israel, the Qatari official explained to Reuters. It’s transferred electronically to Israel, which then passes it on to the Hamas-run Gaza authorities, and all payments are “fully coordinated with Israel, the UN and the US,” they said.

US officials note that Hamas’ fundraising system is wide, varied and intricate. Some money, including that coming from Qatar, is likely being used illegitimately, they have suggested, along with other funding, such as that from Iran, which plays a major role in supporting Hamas — as do other financial intermediaries around the world. For example, after the October 7 attack, the US sanctioned further entities it associates with funding Hamas, including an intermediary in Qatar as well as others in Sudan, Turkey and Algeria.

Will Qatar’s role change now?

Despite Qatar’s success in this round of negotiations, one outcome of the current conflict appears to be an agreement between Qatar and the US that the Gulf state will have to distance itself from Hamas further after the current conflict quiets down.

In mid-October, over 100 US politicians demanded that Qatar expel Hamas officials from the country. “The country’s links to Hamas…are simply unacceptable,” a letter addressed to the US president stated.

At the same time, the Qatari leadership has stated that it thinks further diplomacy is the answer for peace.

“The Qatari-negotiated deal between Israel and Hamas marks the first important diplomatic gain since the start of the war,” Hugh Lovatt, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, confirmed. And this is “an opportunity to wedge open space to advance a full ceasefire predicated on a wider diplomatic pathway,” he said in a statement to DW. 

But as others have pointed out, if Qatar expels Hamas officials altogether, the militant group’s representatives may well end up in another country far less disposed to help anybody out, should further diplomacy be required.

Before 2012, Hamas’ political leadership was based in Syria.

Source : DW

The post Hamas-Israel: Qatar’s Foreign Policy Balancing Act Pays Off appeared first on Policy Print.

“The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades,” asserted US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on 29 September.

“Now challenges remain, but the amount of time that I have to spend on crisis and conflict in the Middle East today compared to any of my predecessors going back to 9/11 is significantly reduced.”

Sullivan’s comments have aged horribly. Just eight days later, Hamas waged its incursion into southern Israel, triggering a brutal Israeli campaign of bombardment of Gaza. The fighting since 7 October has thus far killed more than 8,000 Palestinians in Gaza and 1,400 Israelis.

The violence has spilled into Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, and Egypt. At this point, the escalating crisis risks spreading to other parts of the Middle East, possibly entailing direct US and Iranian involvement.

Now a full-scale Israeli ground invasion of Gaza looms and Palestinians are concerned about a ‘Nakba 2.0’. Considering rhetoric coming from high-ranking Israeli officials and Tel Aviv’s plans and actions this month, such concerns are entirely valid. As usual, the US has not put any real pressure on Israel to change its destructive and destabilising behaviour.

“Looking ahead, it will be increasingly difficult to imagine the Global South taking the Biden administration’s rhetoric about human rights with anything more than a grain of salt. The hypocrisy from America is just too great”

The timing of this crisis is also particularly horrible given that President Joe Biden, who is seeking re-election next year, doesn’t want to appear to be giving Israel anything less than ironclad support.

As the world witnesses Israel’s war crimes in Gaza carried out with Washington’s blessing, the US’s capacity to be taken seriously when criticising Russia’s rogue behaviour in Ukraine has been severely, and most likely permanently, damaged.

Looking ahead, it will be increasingly difficult to imagine the Global South taking the Biden administration’s rhetoric about human rights with anything more than a grain of salt. The hypocrisy from America is just too great.

“It’s been an unseemly spectacle to see Washington and its European allies support Israel as it cuts off aid, water, and food to besieged civilians in Gaza,” Aron Lund, a fellow at Century International and a Middle East analyst, told The New Arab.

“It is exactly what these same nations denounced the Syrian regime for doing in Homs, Ghouta, Aleppo, and other places. They didn’t mince words when Russia stepped up to support Damascus and vetoed UN condemnations. Now when their own ally blocked aid and food in the same way, they couldn’t muster even mild criticism,” added Lund.

A foreign policy blunder

It is increasingly difficult to deny the major failures of Washington’s foreign policy in the Middle East. While continuing many aspects of the Trump administration’s approach to the region, the Biden administration has made expanding the scope of the Abraham Accords central to its agenda in the Arab world.

The White House naively believed it could bring Libya into a normalisation deal with Israel, which backfired disastrously.

The Biden administration has also invested massive amounts of diplomatic energy into trying to pull Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accords – something that no expert can imagine happening any time soon given ongoing developments in Israel and Palestine.

“The recent events have punched a giant hole into the paper-thin superficial Biden administration policy on the Middle East, which has deluded itself into believing that establishing close ties with apartheid Israel and dictatorships in the Middle East is some kind of recipe for stability,” Sarah Leah Whitson, the Executive Director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), told TNA.

What is being painfully demonstrated is that lasting peace and security for Israel will not come from diplomatic deals with Arab states such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which were arguably never confrontational toward Israel.

It can only come from a lasting solution to the unresolved Palestinian question. Attempts to bury the Palestinian issue based on the assumption that the Palestinian cause stopped mattering to the Arab world have proven extremely misguided.

“As with Israel, one of the assumptions of US foreign policy in the Middle East has been annihilated in the past three weeks: that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be contained, and that the region could move on,” said Dr Thomas Juneau, an associate professor at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, in an interview with TNA.

“This was predictably an unsustainable assumption, but it was one of the premises of American foreign policy under Biden (and Trump) nevertheless. There are still some positive elements to the Abraham Accords – the stabilisation of relations among Israel and key Arab states – but to be sustainable, it needs to be accompanied by genuine, not fictitious, progress on the Israeli-Palestinian front,” added Dr Juneau.

“Recent events have punched a giant hole into the paper-thin superficial Biden administration policy on the Middle East”

Arab backlash

Anger at the US is growing in the Middle East. Large scale protests in capitals from Amman to Manama, Sana‘a to Baghdad, and Rabat to Beirut speak to the widespread support that the Palestinians are receiving across the Arab world.

In response to public opinion in their own countries, Arab leaders and policymakers have had no choice but to strongly condemn Israel and express support for the Palestinian cause.

Each Arab government faces slightly different circumstances given differences in these countries’ relationships with the US and Israel. Yet, the dynamics across the region are putting pressure on all of them to speak up in defence of the Palestinians and, at least in the case of most Arab states, refrain from directly criticising Hamas.

It was notable that Saudi Arabia, which only several weeks ago was flirting with normalisation with Israel, referred to Israelis as “occupation forces” in its response to Hamas’ Operation al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October.

Despite the Abraham Accords, the UAE, in its capacity as the only Arab state currently on the UN Security Council, has been highly critical of Israel and condemned various aspects of its response to Hamas’ surprise attack. As the humanitarian suffering in Gaza worsens, it’s safe to assume that such criticisms from the UAE will increase.

However, this appears to be about safeguarding regimes from internal legitimacy crises rather than a true commitment to the well-being of the Palestinians.

“It is heartening to see that kind of a pretty united Arab response, but I think it probably has more to do with their concerns about popular unrest in their own countries and wanting to temper that than any pure or genuine concern for Palestinians,” Whitson said.

“All Arab states want Washington to be more mindful of Palestinian and Arab interests, but they’re not equally vocal about it,” explained Lund.

The failure of Biden’s Middle East foreign policy threatens to undermine US standing in the region as well as the US president’s position in the upcoming election. [Getty]

“Governments like that in Syria, which is already hostile to the United States, delight in the opportunity to denounce Washington’s support for Israeli policies,” Lund added.

“Some Arab states, including US-allied nations in the Gulf and states that normalised their ties with Israel, mainly seem to be turning up the volume on Palestine for domestic reasons, or to avoid exposing themselves to criticism from rivals.”

Lund explained how many of these Washington-friendly Arab states are not comfortable confronting the Biden administration about their problems with blind support for Israel.

“You see them criticising Israel in harsher terms than on a normal day, but they haven’t said much about the US support that enables Israel’s actions,” noted Lund.

“On the other hand, I think most realise that if this situation is going to be de-escalated somehow in the future, it’ll have to be the United States that leads the way.”

A time to reassess US foreign policy

When it comes to the White House’s approach to the Middle East, the Biden administration would be wise to change course and ask some tough questions about how we arrived here. But this is unlikely for two principal reasons, said Whitson.

First, Team Biden, “continues to calculate based on short-term interests – namely the upcoming elections – and continues to believe that [Biden’s] victory in the polls is tied to demonstrating extreme support for Israel,” which Whitson sees as a “growing miscalculation”.

Second, the “deeply held personal biases of the Biden administration, of people in the State Department who are not approaching this conflict with clear eyes, with independent thinking, with thinking that prioritises the interests of the American people,” explained Whitson.

“Rather, as Secretary Blinken amply demonstrated during his visit to Israel, their approach to Israel is driven by their own personal, familial feelings of affinity for Israel.”

Source : New Arab

The post Biden’s Foreign Policy Failure in the Middle East appeared first on Policy Print.

The EU’s foreign policy chief on Saturday expressed “regret” over the resumption of Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, emphasizing Tel Aviv’s obligation to respect international humanitarian law and the laws of war, which he described as “not only a moral obligation but also a legal one.”

“The way Israel exercises its right to self-defence matters. It’s imperative that Israel respects International Humanitarian Law and the laws of war,” Josep Borrell wrote on X.

His remarks came after the Israeli army resumed attacks on Gaza after declaring the end of a week-long humanitarian pause on Friday morning, for which Borrell expressed regret, fearing that the already high civilian death toll would rise further.

Reiterating his call for Israel to respect international law, he stressed that this is “not only a moral obligation but a legal one as well.”

He also mentioned the increasing violence in the occupied West Bank. Citing the UN figures, Borrell said 271 Palestinians have been killed by Israelis since Oct. 7.

“It’s not sufficient humanitarian pauses should be resumed, while simultaneously working towards a comprehensive political solution for all the Palestinian territories,” he added.

The Israeli army resumed bombing the Gaza Strip early Friday after ending a week-long humanitarian pause with the Palestinian resistance group Hamas.

At least 178 Palestinians have been killed and 589 injured on Friday in Israeli airstrikes, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

The humanitarian pause began on Nov. 24 as part of an agreement between Israel and Hamas to temporarily halt fighting to allow hostage swaps and aid delivery.

More than 15,000 Palestinians, mostly children and women, have been killed in Israeli attacks since Oct. 7 following a cross-border attack by Hamas.

Around 1,200 Israelis have also been killed, according to official estimates.

Source : AA

The post EU’s Foreign Policy Chief Regrets Resumption of Attack on Gaza, Urges Israel to Respect Laws of War appeared first on Policy Print.

His pathway to the presidency looks more forbidding than ever, but tanking poll numbers and a stalled campaign have not dissuaded Ron DeSantis from running foreign policy as if he was the incumbent in the White House.

Florida’s Republican governor has raised eyebrows and hackles by using state resources for a series of actions and operations since the Israel-Hamas war began that come under the purview of the federal government.

They include “evacuating” hundreds of US citizens from Israel on charter flights; exporting humanitarian aid and claiming to have procured weapons; as well as activating Florida’s militarized state guard “as needed, to respond” to an overseas conflict.

Additionally, he has summoned Florida’s legislature for an emergency session next week that will, among other issues, seek to impose more state sanctions on Iran, a key ally of Hamas, replicating measures already in place at federal level for decades.

Democrats in Florida, who have become used to their absentee governor campaigning in other states as he pursues his flailing White House run, say DeSantis has crossed a line.

“President Biden is the commander in chief of our military, not Ron DeSantis,” Nikki Fried, chair of the state’s Democratic party, said in a statement to the Miami Herald, commenting on the governor’s claim that he helped source weapons, ammunition and other military equipment for Israel, an assertion that later unraveled.

“This is a gross breach of norms and a potential violation of federal laws governing the shipment of weapons.”

In a statement to the Guardian, a state department spokesperson confirmed it “did not collaborate with the state of Florida on humanitarian and evacuation flights to and from Israel [and] the department was not notified in advance of these flights”.

Independent analysts see the behavior of DeSantis, a staunch supporter of Israel, as troublesome.

“Any time a governor tries to push a foreign policy agenda, or an agenda related to international affairs, including immigration policy, on their own, it typically infringes on the powers of the executive of the federal government,” said Matthew Dallek, professor of political management at George Washington University.

“We’ve seen this with [Governor Greg] Abbott in Texas. If the DeSantis flights to Israel were coordinated with the state department and US military, that’s one thing. If they were not, that’s much more problematic, much more of a line crossing.

“He’s a guy who gets off on crossing boundaries, being pugnacious and in your face, and in that sense there’s kind of an ugly streak to him and Trump. They both enjoy, and their political identities are wrapped up in crossing boundaries.”

DeSantis employed a familiar argument to justify Florida wading into the Middle East conflict, insisting that the administration of Joe Biden was “not doing what it takes to stand by Israel”. It echoed his citing of the president’s perceived “failures” over immigration to rationalize his sending of state law enforcement personnel to the US southern border, the preserve of the Department of Homeland Security.

Contrary to DeSantis’s statement, the federal government has been heavily involved in humanitarian operations in Israel and has run a continuous charter flight operation to repatriate US citizens since the conflict began.

The state department spokesperson said more than 6,700 seats on US government chartered transportation were made available to augment commercial flight capacity, and more than 13,500 US citizens had safely departed Israel and the West Bank.

The state department flights, which ended on Tuesday through decreased demand, have also run more smoothly than the DeSantis operation, which left 23 Americans stranded in Cyprus for several days at the start of the war.

Dallek sees some rationale for DeSantis’s stance.

“By virtue of his position as governor he has been involved in some pretty weighty issues, issues that matter to a lot of voters and a lot of Republican primary voters, in particular immigration and the Middle East,” he said.

“But this doesn’t seem like an argument that has legs for DeSantis. The many months of his campaign flailing is going to outweigh whatever he says on Israel, and most of the other GOP candidates are vying for that same space of being tough on terrorism, anti-Hamas, pro-Israel. I just don’t think there’s all that much oxygen left for him to take up on this issue.”

Transparency advocates in Florida are also critical of DeSantis over the Israel flights, questioning how $50m of taxpayers’ money reportedly handed to a contractor for open-ended charter flights has been used.

The recipient is the same contractor that ran the governor’s infamous migrant flights of mostly Venezuelan asylum seekers around the US last year, which led to a criminal investigation in Texas and was criticized by opponents as an inhumane political stunt.

The DeSantis administration withheld public records about the migrant flights for months before a judge ordered it to hand them over. The state budgeted more than $1.5m in attorneys’ fees to defend the lawsuit and Bobby Block, executive director of the Florida First Amendment Foundation, fears a similar lack of transparency will cloak the Israel flights.

“They talked about $50m, it’s not based on actual records from the state where we know exactly what’s playing out. It’s based on a budget item in emergency management,” he said.

“We don’t have absolute clarity on it because of the secrecy of the DeSantis administration. There’s a lot of people, not just journalists, who want to know what it is costing taxpayers in Florida.”

DeSantis’s press team and the Florida emergency management department point to a press release issued last week that said more than 700 Americans arrived in Florida on four flights from Israel and received resources from “several state agencies and volunteer organizations”.

Block said there seemed to be little interest is ensuring value for taxpayer dollars, noting that uncoordinated state and federal government entities competing for the same limited resources, including chartered flights, tended to push up prices.

“The way it’s being managed and promoted, it seems more political and geared towards the governor’s political aspirations than it does to a real emergency response with a state and governor working with the federal government,” he said.

Source : The Guardian

The post DeSantis Plays at Being President With His Own Israel-Hamas Foreign Policy appeared first on Policy Print.

The significant attack on Israel launched by Hamas on Saturday—dubbed “Al-Aqsa Storm” by the Palestinian militant group—is an indictment of the policies pursued by both the governments of Israel and the United States. Unrest caused by the domestic debate over judicial reform in Israel may have compromised the country’s deterrence. And US policies aimed at de-escalating tensions with Iran did nothing to halt Tehran’s coordination with Hamas, likely including support for its attack against Israel.

The drivers of the attack and the failure to deter it are manifold. The Islamic Republic of Iran’s proxy and partner network—comprised of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ)—perhaps perceived Israel as weakening from within. Unrest over Israeli judicial reforms this summer—during which reservists threatened to refuse to serve—likely reinforced Tehran’s impression that the Jewish state is collapsing. This may have in part prompted all these groups to push the envelope in recent months—in Lebanon, the West Bank, and Gaza—to realize the Iranian supreme leader’s ambition to surround Israel in a “ring of fire.”

Coordination among Iran and its allies

There was significant coordination among Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas, and PIJ throughout September 2023. Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah hosted Saleh al-Arouri, the deputy head of the Hamas politburo, and Ziyad al-Nakhalah, the secretary-general of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, on September 2. This meeting coincided with a visit from Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian to Lebanon. The commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Quds Force, Esmail Ghaani, also reportedly visited Lebanon in September. Late last month, al-Arouri, Nikhalah, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s Deputy Secretary General Jamil Mazhar also met, announcing their intention to escalate conflict with Israel. They issued a statement dubbing Israeli settlers’ demands a “declaration of war against the Palestinian people.” They also criticized the normalization process that has been underway between Israel and Saudi Arabia, calling it “a clear betrayal of the blood of the martyrs and the Arab people.”

This dialogue continued in Tehran, which hosted representatives of its Axis of Resistance factions during an International Islamic Unity Conference held October 1–3. Osama Hamdan, Hamas’s representative in Lebanon and a member of its politburo, was in Iran for the conference, as was Naim Qassem, Hezbollah’s deputy secretary general. The Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke at the conference, prophesying that Israel is dying; that the Palestinian cause “is the main issue of the Islamic world”; and warning those countries considering establishing diplomatic relations with the Jewish state that “they are betting on a losing horse.” 

Iran has been seeking to create a mutual defense pact among its proxies and partners. On Sunday, Hezbollah already shelled and rocketed Israeli positions in a show of support for Hamas and a nod to the IRGC’s ambition to establish a NATO-like formation among the Axis of Resistance. Whether this expands into a more significant northern front as Israel prepares to crush Hamas in Gaza in the coming days and weeks will be important to watch and a test of the IRGC’s eagerness to escalate. Hamas has also been moving closer to the orbit of Iran and Hezbollah. In September, Iran International TV, a Persian-language news channel headquartered in London, exposed a network led by Saeed Izadi, the head of the IRGC’s Quds Force’s Palestinian Division, which smuggled arms from Iran to Lebanon for Hamas. 

Failures of deterrence

US policy has also played a role in the current escalation. The Biden administration has been engaged in implementing a series of understandings with Tehran to keep the Iran file off the president’s desk ahead of his campaign for reelection. The publicly reported components of these informal agreements include Iran refraining from targeting US forces in Iraq and Syria, as well as steps for Tehran to slow down its accumulation of 60 percent enriched uranium and refrain from advancing its nuclear program above that level. This is apparently in exchange for Washington turning a blind eye to Iran’s illicit exports of oil to customers such as China in contravention of US sanctions.

US officials, such as National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, have been championing this record, saying on September 29 that the White House hoped to “depressurize, deescalate, and ultimately integrate the region.” He went on to state that “the Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades now.” Given this weekend’s attack on Israel, such assessments appear fanciful. Tehran and its partners are demonstrating they can simultaneously escalate in theaters which are not covered by its informal understandings with the United States even as it deescalates in others. These are adjustments in tactics, not changes in fundamental strategy by the IRGC and its militia network. Washington’s refusal to more strictly enforce sanctions against Iran misses an opportunity to further curtail Iran’s funding for its regional allies such as Hamas.

Since Hamas attacked Israel on Saturday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said the administration has “not yet seen evidence that Iran directed or was behind this particular attack.” But Iranian involvement is not binary. Tehran, through its patronage of Hamas, has created the conditions for this moment and at the very least likely had foreknowledge of and endorsed the attack. In fact, Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad told the BBC that the group had direct backing from the Islamic Republic. The US government should not shy away from holding both the attacker and its patron responsible. It will be the only way to alter the calculus in Tehran to make the costs of such support outweigh the benefits. Piecemeal sanctions alone will not do the job.

The intelligence failures leading to what many Israelis are calling their 9/11 will be examined in the weeks ahead. Local grievances in Israel and the Palestinian territories have certainly brought about the current moment and should not be understated. But both Israel and the United States should also engage in deep introspection at the policy level over their failure to deter Hamas’s brutal attack. 

Source : Atlantic Council

The post Hamas’s Attack Underscores the Need for US and Israeli Policy to Change Course appeared first on Policy Print.