NBC News
'Lost golden city of Luxor' discovered by archaeologists in Egypt
Patrick Smith and Charlene Gubash and Molly Hunter
Sat, April 10, 2021, 3:30 AM·4 min read
Zahi Hawass
A "lost golden city" in Egypt dating back 3,400 years has been revealed in what is being called the most important discovery in the country since the tomb of Tutankhamen in 1922.
The city, buried under sands near the modern-day city of Luxor for three millennia, was uncovered in September 2020 by a team led by Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass and was revealed to the world Thursday.
"This is amazing because actually we know a lot about tombs and afterlife," said Hawass while giving NBC News a tour of the site. "But now we discover a large city to tell us for the first time about the life of the people during the Golden Age."
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Image: A new archaeological discovery is seen in Luxor (Zahi Hawass Center for Egyptology / via Reuters)
Image: A new archaeological discovery is seen in Luxor (Zahi Hawass Center for Egyptology / via Reuters)
"Each piece of sand can tell us the lives of the people, how the people lived at the time, how the people lived in the time of the golden age, when Egypt ruled the world," he said.
"We spent a lot of time talking about mummies and talking about how they died, the ritual of their deaths. And this is the ritual of their lives."
The city is the largest uncovered from ancient Egypt and is only partly excavated. Artifacts including rings, scarabs and colored pottery confirmed the dating to the reign of Amenhotep III, who ruled Egypt from 1391 to 1353 B.C.
Hawass' team was searching for Tutankhamen's Mortuary Temple and was surprised to instead find a series of mud walls rising out of the sand, some about 10 feet tall and built in a zig-zag design characteristic of the period. Other archaeologists had previously searched for and failed to find the city.
Image: Archeological discoveries are seen in Luxor (Zahi Hawass Center for Egyptology / via Reuters)
Image: Archeological discoveries are seen in Luxor (Zahi Hawass Center for Egyptology / via Reuters)
With its storage houses, grinding stones, ovens and areas for meat production and everyday tools still intact, the site gives a rare glimpse into a working Egyptian city.
"The discovery of this lost city is the second most important archeological discovery since the tomb of Tutankhamen," Betsy Brian, a professor of Egyptology at Johns Hopkins University, said in the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities' news release.
Curiously, the team uncovered a buried skeleton lying with arms outstretched to his side and the remains of a rope around his knees. The ministry's statement described this as "odd" and said it would be investigated.
Image: Archeological discoveries are seen in Luxor (Zahi Hawass Center for Egyptology / via Reuters)
Image: Archeological discoveries are seen in Luxor (Zahi Hawass Center for Egyptology / via Reuters)
A vessel, containing about 22 pounds of boiled or dried meat, came with an inscription. "That Year 37, dressed meat for the third Heb Sed festival from the slaughterhouse of the stockyard of Kha made by the butcher luwy."
The Egyptian team said this statement, which names two people who lived and worked in the city, also confirms that the city was active during Amenhotep III's reign alongside his son Akhenaten, who was succeeded by Tutankhamen.
Future excavations on a cemetery and unopened tombs at the site may help to answer even more questions about the period.
Hannah Pethen, a British archaeologist and honorary fellow of the University of Liverpool, who has worked on excavations in Egypt but wasn't involved in the Luxor dig, said the discovery was a landmark in the understanding of the region.
"Everybody loves the thought of an exciting, untouched tomb, but actually this is probably more significant and more important than if it was a pharaoh's tomb," she said.
"We have a lot of tombs and we know a lot about them, but we don't have a lot of evidence about how Egyptians lived and worked in their cities."
Image: A skeletal human remain is seen in Luxor (Zahi Hawass Center for Egyptology / via Reuters)
Image: A skeletal human remain is seen in Luxor (Zahi Hawass Center for Egyptology / via Reuters)
The newly discovered city is now one of three sites from around the same period — Rameses III's temple at Medinet Habu and Amenhotep III's temple at Memnon — and the newly discovered city's key role may be in confirming that things found there were common across the empire.
"This is really the major settlement on the west bank of the Nile from this period, so it's going to be directly associated with the tombs and cemeteries there, so we're adding to our understanding of that landscape. We have tombs, temples and now we have quite a big city," Pethen said.
One of the biggest mysteries of the period is why Akhenaten and his queen, Nefertiti, abandoned their religion and kingdom in Thebes (modern-day Luxor) to build a new city, where they worshipped the sun. Some hope the lost city will provide clues, but not everyone is optimistic.
"I wouldn't put any money on it. Ahkenaten has a habit of keeping his secrets — we've had several opportunities over the last 150 years to learn more, but somehow it's never quite come off, " Pethen said.
But as Hawass put it, our understanding of the ancient world is changing all the time: "You never know what the sand of Egypt might hide."
Charlene Gubash and Molly Hunter contributed reporting from Luxor, Egypt.
https://news.yahoo.com/inside-egypts-3- ... 11063.html
THE MIDDLE EAST
Fierce Foes, Iran and Saudi Arabia Secretly Explore Defusing Tensions
Talks between the two regional powers, if successful, could start to lower the temperature on several conflicts across the Middle East.
BEIRUT, Lebanon — In a prime-time television interview four years ago, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia dismissed the idea that his kingdom could somehow find an accommodation with its archrival, Iran.
“How do we communicate?” he asked. “The mutual points that we can agree on with this regime are almost nonexistent.”
Now, Prince Mohammed is finding those points as he embarks on a diplomatic effort to defuse tensions between the two regional powers that have underpinned conflicts across the Middle East.
Last month, the chief of Saudi intelligence began secret talks with a senior Iranian security official in Baghdad to discuss several areas of contention, including the war in Yemen and Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, Iraqi and Iranian officials said.
And in a television interview this past week, Prince Mohammed cast the kingdom’s view of Iran in a new light, saying that his country objected to “certain negative behaviors” but hoped to “build a good and positive relationship with Iran that would benefit all parties.”
While concrete signs of a new understanding between Saudi Arabia and Iran have yet to emerge and could take a long time, if they happen at all, even a cooling of tempers between the adversaries could echo in countries where their rivalry fuels political feuds and armed conflicts, including Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
“With negotiations and a constructive outlook, the two important countries in the region and the Islamic world can put their differences behind them and enter a new phase of cooperation and tolerance to bring stability and peace to the region,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Saeed Khatibzadeh, said at a press briefing on Thursday in response to Prince Mohammed’s remarks.
The talks in Baghdad began against the backdrop of a wider reshuffling of relations in the Middle East as the region adjusts to changes in style and policy from President Trump to President Biden, changes that appear to have made Saudi Arabia more amenable to regional diplomacy.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/01/worl ... 778d3e6de3
Talks between the two regional powers, if successful, could start to lower the temperature on several conflicts across the Middle East.
BEIRUT, Lebanon — In a prime-time television interview four years ago, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia dismissed the idea that his kingdom could somehow find an accommodation with its archrival, Iran.
“How do we communicate?” he asked. “The mutual points that we can agree on with this regime are almost nonexistent.”
Now, Prince Mohammed is finding those points as he embarks on a diplomatic effort to defuse tensions between the two regional powers that have underpinned conflicts across the Middle East.
Last month, the chief of Saudi intelligence began secret talks with a senior Iranian security official in Baghdad to discuss several areas of contention, including the war in Yemen and Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, Iraqi and Iranian officials said.
And in a television interview this past week, Prince Mohammed cast the kingdom’s view of Iran in a new light, saying that his country objected to “certain negative behaviors” but hoped to “build a good and positive relationship with Iran that would benefit all parties.”
While concrete signs of a new understanding between Saudi Arabia and Iran have yet to emerge and could take a long time, if they happen at all, even a cooling of tempers between the adversaries could echo in countries where their rivalry fuels political feuds and armed conflicts, including Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
“With negotiations and a constructive outlook, the two important countries in the region and the Islamic world can put their differences behind them and enter a new phase of cooperation and tolerance to bring stability and peace to the region,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Saeed Khatibzadeh, said at a press briefing on Thursday in response to Prince Mohammed’s remarks.
The talks in Baghdad began against the backdrop of a wider reshuffling of relations in the Middle East as the region adjusts to changes in style and policy from President Trump to President Biden, changes that appear to have made Saudi Arabia more amenable to regional diplomacy.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/01/worl ... 778d3e6de3
Israelis, Palestinians and Their Neighbors Worry: Is This the Big One?
Let’s see, what happens when TikTok meets Palestinian grievances about right-wing Israeli land grabs in Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem? And then you add the holiest Muslim night of prayer in Jerusalem into the mix? Then toss in the most emotional Israeli holiday in Jerusalem? And a power play by Hamas to assume leadership of the Palestinian cause? And, finally, a political vacuum in which the Palestinian Authority is incapable of holding new elections and Israel is so divided it can’t stop having elections?
What happens is the explosion of violence around Jerusalem on Monday that quickly spread to the Gaza front, and has people asking: Is this the big one? Is this the start of the next Palestinian uprising?
The Israeli government, the surrounding Arab nations and the Palestinian Authority all desperately want the answer to be “no” — Israel because it would find little support from a left-leaning White House, let alone the rest of the world, for a big crackdown on Palestinians; the Arab governments because most of them want to do business with Israeli tech-makers, not get mired defending Palestinian rock-throwers; and the Palestinian leadership because it would expose just how little it controls the Palestinian street anymore.
But unlike the Intifadas that began in 1987 and 2000, when Israel had someone to call to try to turn it off, there is no Palestinian on the other end of the phone this time — or, if there is, he’s a 15-year-old on his smartphone, swiping orders and inspiration from TikTok, the video app often used by young Palestinians to challenge and encourage one another to confront Israelis.
Jack Khoury, an expert on the Arab dynamics of this conflict, put it well Monday in his analysis in Haaretz, writing that the engine of the Palestinian side of the protest “is the popular movement,” which is made up “mostly of the younger generation, which is not waiting for its political leadership — not the Palestinian Authority, nor Arab leaders in Israel or in the Gaza Strip. Over the past few days it has been reported that Hamas is trying to stoke the protest, but the Hamas leadership has no control over the events at all … and so as the Israeli government sees it, there is no one address or person to turn to in order to hold a political discussion on the situation.”
But what sparked it all? The tinder was a collision of “sacred times” and “sacred territories,” Hebrew University religious philosopher Moshe Halbertal told me, and then different actors threw matches to start a raging fire.
Specifically, this year’s Jerusalem Day — a national holiday commemorating the establishment of Israel’s control over East Jerusalem, the Old City and the Temple Mount in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, thereby unifying East and West Jerusalem — was celebrated with prayer services at the Western Wall beginning Sunday night.
This Israeli sacred date roughly coincided with Muslims’ Laylat al-Qadr, or Night of Power, which fell this year on Saturday. It is considered not only the most sacred night of Ramadan but of the whole Islamic calendar. It commemorates the night when the first verses of the Quran were revealed to the Prophet Muhammad by the Angel Gabriel and is marked by thousands of Muslims gathering at the Aqsa Mosque, near the Western Wall on the Temple Mount.
These overlapping sacred dates led to inevitable clashes in the alleyways of East Jerusalem and culminated Monday with the Israeli police raiding the Aqsa Mosque, where Palestinians had stockpiled stones. Hundreds of Palestinians were wounded while more than 20 Israeli police officers suffered injuries.
That situation was exacerbated by a long-simmering fight over what Halbertal called “sacred territory.” In brief, right-wing Israeli Jews had gotten a court order to evict six Palestinian families who are living in homes on land that was owned by Jews in East Jerusalem before the city was divided in the 1948 war. Palestinian families are fighting their eviction in court. Indeed, Israel’s Supreme Court was slated to rule Monday on whether the Palestinians could be expelled but delayed the decision because of the violence.
Palestinians argue that it is unfair that Jews can reclaim land or homes they owned in East Jerusalem before 1948 but Palestinians have no legal means to reclaim land they owned in West Jerusalem or anywhere else in Israel before 1948.
Clashes over these sacred dates and sacred spaces would be incendiary enough, but they were also fueled, as I said, by scenes on TikTok. In April, some Palestinian youths uploaded a short video of themselves assaulting an Orthodox Jew on public transportation, as a way of inspiring copycat attacks. In response, a far-right Jewish group named Lehava led a march through Jerusalem to the Damascus Gate of the Old City, chanting “Arabs, get out.”
The whole mess makes a Gordian knot look simple to untangle. But what is it all telling us?
The most obvious and important point is that a dangerously naïve consensus has emerged in Israel in recent years suggesting that Israel basically has the Palestinian conflict suppressed and those Palestinians living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are basically resigned to living under permanent Israeli control. This consensus was so powerful that in all four of Israel’s recent elections, the question of peace with the Palestinians — how to achieve it and what happens if it is ignored — was not on the agenda.
The Abraham Accords engineered by the Trump administration, normalizing relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco — while valuable in helping to stabilize the region — also reinforced the notion that the Palestinian cause is basically yesterday’s news. Today’s headlines prove the fallacy of that thinking.
By the way, the Biden administration has no interest right now in being forced to react to those headlines. It does not believe the conditions are right for any real progress on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, and the last thing it wants — when its primary focus in the region is trying to revive the nuclear deal with Iran, which is already causing huge tensions with Israel — is to get distracted by having to mediate a cease-fire between Israelis and Palestinians or blunt Iranian attempts to inflame the situation in Jerusalem.
But where do we go from here?
In part that depends on Bibi Netanyahu. Of all the crazy coincidences of this moment, maybe the craziest is that it comes in what could be Bibi’s final days as Israel’s prime minister — after more than 12 years in office. Netanyahu has an interest in seeing his rivals fail to form a new coalition to unseat him. He would like Israel to go to a fifth election — giving him a chance to hang on and maybe avoid jail if he is convicted in his current corruption trial. One way Bibi could do that is by inflaming the situation so much that his right-wing rivals have to abandon trying to topple him and declare instead that this is no time for a change in leadership.
Much also depends on what Hamas chooses to do. Hamas has failed to produce either significant economic growth in the Gaza Strip that it rules or political progress with Israel. And the fact that the Palestinian Authority just postponed planned elections, which Hamas probably would have dominated, means it is stuck.
What does Hamas tend to do when it is stuck? Fire rockets at Israel. But on Monday it did something really unusual. It fired rockets at Jerusalem to try to assume leadership of the brewing uprising there. Israel retaliated by bombing Gaza and reportedly killing at least 20 Palestinians.
Bottom line: This could all calm down in three or four days as Hamas, Israel, Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority all find it in their interests to impose their will on the street. Or not. And if it turns into another Intifada, with the street imposing its will on their leaderships, this earthquake will shake Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Egypt and the Abraham Accords.
If that happens, I suggest you download TikTok to follow it all in real time.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/11/opin ... 778d3e6de3
Let’s see, what happens when TikTok meets Palestinian grievances about right-wing Israeli land grabs in Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem? And then you add the holiest Muslim night of prayer in Jerusalem into the mix? Then toss in the most emotional Israeli holiday in Jerusalem? And a power play by Hamas to assume leadership of the Palestinian cause? And, finally, a political vacuum in which the Palestinian Authority is incapable of holding new elections and Israel is so divided it can’t stop having elections?
What happens is the explosion of violence around Jerusalem on Monday that quickly spread to the Gaza front, and has people asking: Is this the big one? Is this the start of the next Palestinian uprising?
The Israeli government, the surrounding Arab nations and the Palestinian Authority all desperately want the answer to be “no” — Israel because it would find little support from a left-leaning White House, let alone the rest of the world, for a big crackdown on Palestinians; the Arab governments because most of them want to do business with Israeli tech-makers, not get mired defending Palestinian rock-throwers; and the Palestinian leadership because it would expose just how little it controls the Palestinian street anymore.
But unlike the Intifadas that began in 1987 and 2000, when Israel had someone to call to try to turn it off, there is no Palestinian on the other end of the phone this time — or, if there is, he’s a 15-year-old on his smartphone, swiping orders and inspiration from TikTok, the video app often used by young Palestinians to challenge and encourage one another to confront Israelis.
Jack Khoury, an expert on the Arab dynamics of this conflict, put it well Monday in his analysis in Haaretz, writing that the engine of the Palestinian side of the protest “is the popular movement,” which is made up “mostly of the younger generation, which is not waiting for its political leadership — not the Palestinian Authority, nor Arab leaders in Israel or in the Gaza Strip. Over the past few days it has been reported that Hamas is trying to stoke the protest, but the Hamas leadership has no control over the events at all … and so as the Israeli government sees it, there is no one address or person to turn to in order to hold a political discussion on the situation.”
But what sparked it all? The tinder was a collision of “sacred times” and “sacred territories,” Hebrew University religious philosopher Moshe Halbertal told me, and then different actors threw matches to start a raging fire.
Specifically, this year’s Jerusalem Day — a national holiday commemorating the establishment of Israel’s control over East Jerusalem, the Old City and the Temple Mount in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, thereby unifying East and West Jerusalem — was celebrated with prayer services at the Western Wall beginning Sunday night.
This Israeli sacred date roughly coincided with Muslims’ Laylat al-Qadr, or Night of Power, which fell this year on Saturday. It is considered not only the most sacred night of Ramadan but of the whole Islamic calendar. It commemorates the night when the first verses of the Quran were revealed to the Prophet Muhammad by the Angel Gabriel and is marked by thousands of Muslims gathering at the Aqsa Mosque, near the Western Wall on the Temple Mount.
These overlapping sacred dates led to inevitable clashes in the alleyways of East Jerusalem and culminated Monday with the Israeli police raiding the Aqsa Mosque, where Palestinians had stockpiled stones. Hundreds of Palestinians were wounded while more than 20 Israeli police officers suffered injuries.
That situation was exacerbated by a long-simmering fight over what Halbertal called “sacred territory.” In brief, right-wing Israeli Jews had gotten a court order to evict six Palestinian families who are living in homes on land that was owned by Jews in East Jerusalem before the city was divided in the 1948 war. Palestinian families are fighting their eviction in court. Indeed, Israel’s Supreme Court was slated to rule Monday on whether the Palestinians could be expelled but delayed the decision because of the violence.
Palestinians argue that it is unfair that Jews can reclaim land or homes they owned in East Jerusalem before 1948 but Palestinians have no legal means to reclaim land they owned in West Jerusalem or anywhere else in Israel before 1948.
Clashes over these sacred dates and sacred spaces would be incendiary enough, but they were also fueled, as I said, by scenes on TikTok. In April, some Palestinian youths uploaded a short video of themselves assaulting an Orthodox Jew on public transportation, as a way of inspiring copycat attacks. In response, a far-right Jewish group named Lehava led a march through Jerusalem to the Damascus Gate of the Old City, chanting “Arabs, get out.”
The whole mess makes a Gordian knot look simple to untangle. But what is it all telling us?
The most obvious and important point is that a dangerously naïve consensus has emerged in Israel in recent years suggesting that Israel basically has the Palestinian conflict suppressed and those Palestinians living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are basically resigned to living under permanent Israeli control. This consensus was so powerful that in all four of Israel’s recent elections, the question of peace with the Palestinians — how to achieve it and what happens if it is ignored — was not on the agenda.
The Abraham Accords engineered by the Trump administration, normalizing relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco — while valuable in helping to stabilize the region — also reinforced the notion that the Palestinian cause is basically yesterday’s news. Today’s headlines prove the fallacy of that thinking.
By the way, the Biden administration has no interest right now in being forced to react to those headlines. It does not believe the conditions are right for any real progress on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, and the last thing it wants — when its primary focus in the region is trying to revive the nuclear deal with Iran, which is already causing huge tensions with Israel — is to get distracted by having to mediate a cease-fire between Israelis and Palestinians or blunt Iranian attempts to inflame the situation in Jerusalem.
But where do we go from here?
In part that depends on Bibi Netanyahu. Of all the crazy coincidences of this moment, maybe the craziest is that it comes in what could be Bibi’s final days as Israel’s prime minister — after more than 12 years in office. Netanyahu has an interest in seeing his rivals fail to form a new coalition to unseat him. He would like Israel to go to a fifth election — giving him a chance to hang on and maybe avoid jail if he is convicted in his current corruption trial. One way Bibi could do that is by inflaming the situation so much that his right-wing rivals have to abandon trying to topple him and declare instead that this is no time for a change in leadership.
Much also depends on what Hamas chooses to do. Hamas has failed to produce either significant economic growth in the Gaza Strip that it rules or political progress with Israel. And the fact that the Palestinian Authority just postponed planned elections, which Hamas probably would have dominated, means it is stuck.
What does Hamas tend to do when it is stuck? Fire rockets at Israel. But on Monday it did something really unusual. It fired rockets at Jerusalem to try to assume leadership of the brewing uprising there. Israel retaliated by bombing Gaza and reportedly killing at least 20 Palestinians.
Bottom line: This could all calm down in three or four days as Hamas, Israel, Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority all find it in their interests to impose their will on the street. Or not. And if it turns into another Intifada, with the street imposing its will on their leaderships, this earthquake will shake Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Egypt and the Abraham Accords.
If that happens, I suggest you download TikTok to follow it all in real time.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/11/opin ... 778d3e6de3
Arab World Condemns Israeli Violence but Takes Little Action
By saying it is defending Jerusalem, Hamas has made it harder for Arab countries not to denounce Israel. But in a changed region, the response so far has been rhetorical only.
BRUSSELS — The Arab world is unified in condemning Israeli airstrikes in Gaza and the way the Israeli police invaded Jerusalem’s Aqsa Mosque, one of Islam’s holiest sites. Governments have spoken out, protests have taken place, social media is aflame.
But by and large the condemnation is only words, not actions — at least so far. The region’s concerns have shifted since the last major Israeli incursion into Gaza in 2014, with new fears about Iran’s influence, new anxieties about popular unrest in Arab countries and a growing recognition of the reality of Israel in the Arab world.
Even those countries that normalized relations with Israel last year — the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco — have all openly criticized Israeli policies and called for support of the Palestinians and the defense of Jerusalem. The escalation of violence has put a great strain on those governments, which had argued that their closer relationship with Israel would help restrain Israeli actions aimed at the Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza.
“I have not seen any Arab state that has not expressed support for the Palestinians on a rhetorical level, and it would be very difficult for them to say anything otherwise,’’ said H.A. Hellyer, a scholar of Middle East politics at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington. “But what they do about it is very different.’’
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/14/worl ... 778d3e6de3
By saying it is defending Jerusalem, Hamas has made it harder for Arab countries not to denounce Israel. But in a changed region, the response so far has been rhetorical only.
BRUSSELS — The Arab world is unified in condemning Israeli airstrikes in Gaza and the way the Israeli police invaded Jerusalem’s Aqsa Mosque, one of Islam’s holiest sites. Governments have spoken out, protests have taken place, social media is aflame.
But by and large the condemnation is only words, not actions — at least so far. The region’s concerns have shifted since the last major Israeli incursion into Gaza in 2014, with new fears about Iran’s influence, new anxieties about popular unrest in Arab countries and a growing recognition of the reality of Israel in the Arab world.
Even those countries that normalized relations with Israel last year — the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco — have all openly criticized Israeli policies and called for support of the Palestinians and the defense of Jerusalem. The escalation of violence has put a great strain on those governments, which had argued that their closer relationship with Israel would help restrain Israeli actions aimed at the Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza.
“I have not seen any Arab state that has not expressed support for the Palestinians on a rhetorical level, and it would be very difficult for them to say anything otherwise,’’ said H.A. Hellyer, a scholar of Middle East politics at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington. “But what they do about it is very different.’’
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/14/worl ... 778d3e6de3
For Trump, Hamas and Bibi, It Is Always Jan. 6
There are many ways to understand what is happening today between Hamas and Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu of Israel, but I prefer to think about it like this: They are each having their own Jan. 6 moment.
Just as a mob was unleashed by President Donald Trump to ransack our Capitol on Jan. 6 in a last-ditch effort to overturn the election results and prevent a healing unifier from becoming president, so Bibi and Hamas each exploited or nurtured their own mobs to prevent an unprecedented national unity government from emerging in Israel — a cabinet that for the first time would have included Israeli Jews and Israeli Arab Muslims together.
Like Trump, both Bibi and Hamas have kept power by inspiring and riding waves of hostility to “the other.” They turn to this tactic anytime they are in political trouble. Indeed, they each have been the other’s most valuable partner in that tactic ever since Netanyahu was first elected prime minister in 1996 — on the back of a wave of Hamas suicide bombings.
No, Hamas and Bibi don’t talk. They don’t need to. They each understand what the other needs to stay in power and consciously or unconsciously behave in ways to ensure that they deliver it.
The latest rerun of their long-running nasty show is happening now because both were staring at an amazing breakthrough shaping up between Israeli Jews and Israel Arab Muslims — and, like the pro-Trump mob on Jan. 6, they wanted to destroy the possibility of political change before it could destroy them politically.
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/16/opin ... 778d3e6de3
*******
Israel’s Real Existential Threat
Excerpt:
Ironically, the worst interethnic violence since the 1948 War follows the most promising year in the fraught history of the Arab-Jewish relationship. The coronavirus pandemic, Israel’s first lethal crisis that wasn’t about its conflict with the Arab world, brought Arab citizens closer than ever to the mainstream. The Israeli health system is one of the most integrated areas in our society: According to government estimates about 17 percent of doctors and 24 percent of nurses are Arab. The Israeli news media’s coverage of coronavirus focused on doctors in hijabs and coexistence in the respirator wards. One story that became iconic told of an Arab nurse who recited deathbed prayers with an ultra-Orthodox Jew.
Meanwhile, Israel was in political lockdown. After four inconclusive elections in two years, Jewish Israel was stalemated. Until this year, it was a given that Arab parties don’t participate in helping to form governing coalitions. Arab politicians didn’t want to risk supporting a government at war with Gaza or Lebanon; Jewish politicians didn’t want to legitimize Arab politicians who sometimes supported terror attacks against Jews.
Arab voters, though, were demanding that their representatives become players, even if that meant downplaying a Palestinian nationalist agenda in favor of pressing local issues like rising violent crime in Arab towns. The deadlock provided an opening.
Then came the fighting in Gaza and in Israel’s streets, and the historic partnership unraveled.
Israel’s ability to fashion a common civic identity for Arabs and Jews is confounded by the security situation. Jews wonder how they can trust a minority that is culturally and emotionally aligned with their enemies, and whose politicians reject the country’s identity as a Jewish state. For Arabs, a history of government land confiscation and budgetary discrimination, as well as the seemingly endless occupation of the Palestinians, have left deep wounds and distrust. The message Arabs take from the country’s Jewish identity and symbols is that they don’t quite belong.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/opin ... 778d3e6de3
There are many ways to understand what is happening today between Hamas and Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu of Israel, but I prefer to think about it like this: They are each having their own Jan. 6 moment.
Just as a mob was unleashed by President Donald Trump to ransack our Capitol on Jan. 6 in a last-ditch effort to overturn the election results and prevent a healing unifier from becoming president, so Bibi and Hamas each exploited or nurtured their own mobs to prevent an unprecedented national unity government from emerging in Israel — a cabinet that for the first time would have included Israeli Jews and Israeli Arab Muslims together.
Like Trump, both Bibi and Hamas have kept power by inspiring and riding waves of hostility to “the other.” They turn to this tactic anytime they are in political trouble. Indeed, they each have been the other’s most valuable partner in that tactic ever since Netanyahu was first elected prime minister in 1996 — on the back of a wave of Hamas suicide bombings.
No, Hamas and Bibi don’t talk. They don’t need to. They each understand what the other needs to stay in power and consciously or unconsciously behave in ways to ensure that they deliver it.
The latest rerun of their long-running nasty show is happening now because both were staring at an amazing breakthrough shaping up between Israeli Jews and Israel Arab Muslims — and, like the pro-Trump mob on Jan. 6, they wanted to destroy the possibility of political change before it could destroy them politically.
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/16/opin ... 778d3e6de3
*******
Israel’s Real Existential Threat
Excerpt:
Ironically, the worst interethnic violence since the 1948 War follows the most promising year in the fraught history of the Arab-Jewish relationship. The coronavirus pandemic, Israel’s first lethal crisis that wasn’t about its conflict with the Arab world, brought Arab citizens closer than ever to the mainstream. The Israeli health system is one of the most integrated areas in our society: According to government estimates about 17 percent of doctors and 24 percent of nurses are Arab. The Israeli news media’s coverage of coronavirus focused on doctors in hijabs and coexistence in the respirator wards. One story that became iconic told of an Arab nurse who recited deathbed prayers with an ultra-Orthodox Jew.
Meanwhile, Israel was in political lockdown. After four inconclusive elections in two years, Jewish Israel was stalemated. Until this year, it was a given that Arab parties don’t participate in helping to form governing coalitions. Arab politicians didn’t want to risk supporting a government at war with Gaza or Lebanon; Jewish politicians didn’t want to legitimize Arab politicians who sometimes supported terror attacks against Jews.
Arab voters, though, were demanding that their representatives become players, even if that meant downplaying a Palestinian nationalist agenda in favor of pressing local issues like rising violent crime in Arab towns. The deadlock provided an opening.
Then came the fighting in Gaza and in Israel’s streets, and the historic partnership unraveled.
Israel’s ability to fashion a common civic identity for Arabs and Jews is confounded by the security situation. Jews wonder how they can trust a minority that is culturally and emotionally aligned with their enemies, and whose politicians reject the country’s identity as a Jewish state. For Arabs, a history of government land confiscation and budgetary discrimination, as well as the seemingly endless occupation of the Palestinians, have left deep wounds and distrust. The message Arabs take from the country’s Jewish identity and symbols is that they don’t quite belong.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/opin ... 778d3e6de3
Life Under Occupation:
The Misery at the Heart of the Conflict
An eviction in East Jerusalem lies at the center of a conflict that led to war between Israel and Hamas. But for millions of Palestinians, the routine indignities of occupation are part of daily life.
JERUSALEM — Muhammad Sandouka built his home in the shadow of the Temple Mount before his second son, now 15, was born.
They demolished it together, after Israeli authorities decided that razing it would improve views of the Old City for tourists.
Mr. Sandouka, 42, a countertop installer, had been at work when an inspector confronted his wife with two options: Tear the house down, or the government would not only level it but also bill the Sandoukas $10,000 for its expenses.
Such is life for Palestinians living under Israel’s occupation: always dreading the knock at the front door.
The looming removal of six Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem set off a round of protests that helped ignite the latest war between Israel and Gaza. But to the roughly three million Palestinians living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 war and has controlled through decades of failed peace talks, the story was exceptional only because it attracted an international spotlight.
For the most part, they endure the frights and indignities of the Israeli occupation in obscurity.
Even in supposedly quiet periods, when the world is not paying attention, Palestinians from all walks of life routinely experience exasperating impossibilities and petty humiliations, bureaucratic controls that force agonizing choices, and the fragility and cruelty of life under military rule, now in its second half-century.
Underneath that quiet, pressure builds.
If the eviction dispute in East Jerusalem struck a match, the occupation’s provocations ceaselessly pile up dry kindling. They are a constant and key driver of the conflict, giving Hamas an excuse to fire rockets or lone-wolf attackers grievances to channel into killings by knives or automobiles. And the provocations do not stop when the fighting ends.
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/22/us/i ... 778d3e6de3
The Misery at the Heart of the Conflict
An eviction in East Jerusalem lies at the center of a conflict that led to war between Israel and Hamas. But for millions of Palestinians, the routine indignities of occupation are part of daily life.
JERUSALEM — Muhammad Sandouka built his home in the shadow of the Temple Mount before his second son, now 15, was born.
They demolished it together, after Israeli authorities decided that razing it would improve views of the Old City for tourists.
Mr. Sandouka, 42, a countertop installer, had been at work when an inspector confronted his wife with two options: Tear the house down, or the government would not only level it but also bill the Sandoukas $10,000 for its expenses.
Such is life for Palestinians living under Israel’s occupation: always dreading the knock at the front door.
The looming removal of six Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem set off a round of protests that helped ignite the latest war between Israel and Gaza. But to the roughly three million Palestinians living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 war and has controlled through decades of failed peace talks, the story was exceptional only because it attracted an international spotlight.
For the most part, they endure the frights and indignities of the Israeli occupation in obscurity.
Even in supposedly quiet periods, when the world is not paying attention, Palestinians from all walks of life routinely experience exasperating impossibilities and petty humiliations, bureaucratic controls that force agonizing choices, and the fragility and cruelty of life under military rule, now in its second half-century.
Underneath that quiet, pressure builds.
If the eviction dispute in East Jerusalem struck a match, the occupation’s provocations ceaselessly pile up dry kindling. They are a constant and key driver of the conflict, giving Hamas an excuse to fire rockets or lone-wolf attackers grievances to channel into killings by knives or automobiles. And the provocations do not stop when the fighting ends.
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/22/us/i ... 778d3e6de3
Everyone is wrong about Israel-Palestine – here’s how the pursuit of huge gas reserves and money is fuelling the conflict
Darius Shahtahmasebi
is a New Zealand-based legal and political analyst who focuses on US foreign policy in the Middle East, Asia and Pacific region. He is fully qualified as a lawyer in two international jurisdictions.
27 May, 2021
Everyone is wrong about Israel-Palestine – here’s how the pursuit of huge gas reserves and money is fuelling the conflict
A Palestinian flag flies as the ruins of houses, which were destroyed by Israeli air strikes during the Israeli-Palestinian fighting © Reuters
There are trillions of tonnes of recoverable gas lying underneath the disputed waters off Gaza, Israel, Syria and Lebanon. And the Israelis want to make sure they alone control and profit from it.
Few topics rile people up on both sides of the political aisle more than the Israel-Palestine question. It is without doubt one of the most – if not the most – explosively divisive issues on the planet.
For example, when I have criticized Saudi Arabia’s criminal bombardment of Yemen, I have never once even contemplated fearing a backlash of people accusing me of being anti-Islamic or labelling me an Islamophobe. (Sure, Saudi nationals critical of its government’s actions may have to avoid entering into their local Saudi consulate upon invitation, but that’s for a different reason.)
Israel’s agreement of an unconditional ceasefire is actually an admission of defeat
Likewise, if I write about Indonesia’s treatment of the population of West Papua, described by some observers as equating to a “slow motion genocide,” I rarely have to worry about being accused of being anti-Indonesian, or racist or bigoted in any other way for that matter.
For those of you who don’t know, West Papua is home to one of the world’s largest gold mines known as the Grasberg Mine, which is co-owned by the American mining firm Freeport McMoRan and the Indonesian government. Curiously enough, Freeport McMoRan is Indonesia’s largest taxpayer – it provided the government with $33 billion in direct and indirect benefits from 1992 to 2004, and has given millions directly to senior military and police officers.
The real reason behind enacting what can only be described as a military dictatorship which brutalises the population of West Papua has been to preserve this literal gold mine since the rights to the mine were first given to Freeport McMoRan in 1967.
it is possible to view the Israel-Palestine conflict through the same lens with the same level of controversy as the above paragraph.
In 2000, UK oil company BG Group discovered an estimated 1.6 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas in the Gaza Marine. As noted by Anais Antreasyan in the University of California’s Journal of Palestine Studies, Israel’s continued desire to control Gaza is due to its aim of making “Palestinian access to the Marine-1 and Marine-1 gas wells impossible”, with the added goal of not only “preventing the Palestinians from exploiting their own resources” but to “integrate the gas fields off Gaza into the adjacent Israeli offshore installations.”
According to Antreasyan, this is part and parcel of a broader strategy of:
“…separating the Palestinians from their land and natural resources in order to exploit them, and, as a consequence, blocking Palestinian economic development. Despite all formal agreements to the contrary, Israel continues to manage all the natural resources nominally under the jurisdiction of the PA, from land and water to maritime and hydrocarbon resources.”
Israel barely has enough energy resources of its own to maintain its current exports. Following the discovery of the $4 billion worth of natural gas in Gaza in 2000, there were also later other monumental discoveries of gas in Syria and Lebanon, two known adversaries of the Israeli government. Israel has for some time now shown a keen eagerness to intervene in both countries (for completely unrelated reasons, I’m guessing).
Earlier this year, fresh rounds of talks had begun between Israel, the Palestinian Authority (PA), Qatar and the EU in respect of Israel’s goal of exporting Eastern Mediterranean gas to Europe. The problem has been, at least as far as the US and Israel are concerned, that Hamas has continued to present itself as a thorn in the side of these negotiations, denouncing their legitimacy entirely.
While many on both the left and right, including former US president Donald Trump, are quick to argue that the only reason the US has ventured into the Middle East was for oil and natural resources, very few seem capable of acknowledging the very same issues are also at the heart of the Middle East’s most explosive conflict.
Israel carries out the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and robs them of their homes, yet it pretends it’s the victim
This is despite a UN report, and a US Army study which was commissioned under the Obama Administration which indicated that the recent decision to proceed with a $735 million arms sale to Israel is due to Israel’s aspired domination of the East Mediterranean’s energy resources, and US tacit support for this eventuation. In fact, the 2019 UN report which until recently was unreported, concluded that “occupation has impoverished the Palestinian people, undermined their capacity to access and utilise their resources and denied them the right to move freely within their homelands.”
Occupation? Oh… that’s right. Israel is currently the military power occupying Palestinian territories. The same military power which was brutalising Palestinians at the al-Aqsa mosque while simultaneously forcibly evicting Palestiniansfrom their homes, which in turn led to Hamas’ decision to retaliate using rocket fire. But we don’t talk about that, because only Israel has the “right to defend itself.”
Except it’s the occupying power, so technically focusing on Israel’s “right” to do anything is misstating the issue. Israel doesn’t have rights – what it has is a series of obligations under international law. You know, obligations to ensure Palestinian people receive respect for their persons, religious practices, be treated humanely, be protected from violence, be provided with food and medical supplies, facilitate relief supplies, to name a few.
While pro-Zionists like to argue that anyone who pushes back against Israel’s protracted assaults on Gaza are either anti-Semitic or terrorist-apologists (or both), in an ideal world there would be no escaping these facts. If discussing these facts paints a negative picture of Israel and its actions, then so be it. And yet, in some cases, talking about these issues can quite literally get you fired.
In July 2014, journalist Nafeez Ahmed learnt this the hard way when he published an article on the Guardian website which claimed Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza during Operation Protective Edge was rooted in Israel’s desire to control Palestinian gas. The Guardian axed his blog completely shortly afterwards.
Talk about “cancel culture.” Yet somehow, I haven’t seen any conservatives complaining about “censorship” and “cancel culture” rushing to Ahmed’s defence.
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/525000-israel- ... tural-gas/
Darius Shahtahmasebi
is a New Zealand-based legal and political analyst who focuses on US foreign policy in the Middle East, Asia and Pacific region. He is fully qualified as a lawyer in two international jurisdictions.
27 May, 2021
Everyone is wrong about Israel-Palestine – here’s how the pursuit of huge gas reserves and money is fuelling the conflict
A Palestinian flag flies as the ruins of houses, which were destroyed by Israeli air strikes during the Israeli-Palestinian fighting © Reuters
There are trillions of tonnes of recoverable gas lying underneath the disputed waters off Gaza, Israel, Syria and Lebanon. And the Israelis want to make sure they alone control and profit from it.
Few topics rile people up on both sides of the political aisle more than the Israel-Palestine question. It is without doubt one of the most – if not the most – explosively divisive issues on the planet.
For example, when I have criticized Saudi Arabia’s criminal bombardment of Yemen, I have never once even contemplated fearing a backlash of people accusing me of being anti-Islamic or labelling me an Islamophobe. (Sure, Saudi nationals critical of its government’s actions may have to avoid entering into their local Saudi consulate upon invitation, but that’s for a different reason.)
Israel’s agreement of an unconditional ceasefire is actually an admission of defeat
Likewise, if I write about Indonesia’s treatment of the population of West Papua, described by some observers as equating to a “slow motion genocide,” I rarely have to worry about being accused of being anti-Indonesian, or racist or bigoted in any other way for that matter.
For those of you who don’t know, West Papua is home to one of the world’s largest gold mines known as the Grasberg Mine, which is co-owned by the American mining firm Freeport McMoRan and the Indonesian government. Curiously enough, Freeport McMoRan is Indonesia’s largest taxpayer – it provided the government with $33 billion in direct and indirect benefits from 1992 to 2004, and has given millions directly to senior military and police officers.
The real reason behind enacting what can only be described as a military dictatorship which brutalises the population of West Papua has been to preserve this literal gold mine since the rights to the mine were first given to Freeport McMoRan in 1967.
it is possible to view the Israel-Palestine conflict through the same lens with the same level of controversy as the above paragraph.
In 2000, UK oil company BG Group discovered an estimated 1.6 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas in the Gaza Marine. As noted by Anais Antreasyan in the University of California’s Journal of Palestine Studies, Israel’s continued desire to control Gaza is due to its aim of making “Palestinian access to the Marine-1 and Marine-1 gas wells impossible”, with the added goal of not only “preventing the Palestinians from exploiting their own resources” but to “integrate the gas fields off Gaza into the adjacent Israeli offshore installations.”
According to Antreasyan, this is part and parcel of a broader strategy of:
“…separating the Palestinians from their land and natural resources in order to exploit them, and, as a consequence, blocking Palestinian economic development. Despite all formal agreements to the contrary, Israel continues to manage all the natural resources nominally under the jurisdiction of the PA, from land and water to maritime and hydrocarbon resources.”
Israel barely has enough energy resources of its own to maintain its current exports. Following the discovery of the $4 billion worth of natural gas in Gaza in 2000, there were also later other monumental discoveries of gas in Syria and Lebanon, two known adversaries of the Israeli government. Israel has for some time now shown a keen eagerness to intervene in both countries (for completely unrelated reasons, I’m guessing).
Earlier this year, fresh rounds of talks had begun between Israel, the Palestinian Authority (PA), Qatar and the EU in respect of Israel’s goal of exporting Eastern Mediterranean gas to Europe. The problem has been, at least as far as the US and Israel are concerned, that Hamas has continued to present itself as a thorn in the side of these negotiations, denouncing their legitimacy entirely.
While many on both the left and right, including former US president Donald Trump, are quick to argue that the only reason the US has ventured into the Middle East was for oil and natural resources, very few seem capable of acknowledging the very same issues are also at the heart of the Middle East’s most explosive conflict.
Israel carries out the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and robs them of their homes, yet it pretends it’s the victim
This is despite a UN report, and a US Army study which was commissioned under the Obama Administration which indicated that the recent decision to proceed with a $735 million arms sale to Israel is due to Israel’s aspired domination of the East Mediterranean’s energy resources, and US tacit support for this eventuation. In fact, the 2019 UN report which until recently was unreported, concluded that “occupation has impoverished the Palestinian people, undermined their capacity to access and utilise their resources and denied them the right to move freely within their homelands.”
Occupation? Oh… that’s right. Israel is currently the military power occupying Palestinian territories. The same military power which was brutalising Palestinians at the al-Aqsa mosque while simultaneously forcibly evicting Palestiniansfrom their homes, which in turn led to Hamas’ decision to retaliate using rocket fire. But we don’t talk about that, because only Israel has the “right to defend itself.”
Except it’s the occupying power, so technically focusing on Israel’s “right” to do anything is misstating the issue. Israel doesn’t have rights – what it has is a series of obligations under international law. You know, obligations to ensure Palestinian people receive respect for their persons, religious practices, be treated humanely, be protected from violence, be provided with food and medical supplies, facilitate relief supplies, to name a few.
While pro-Zionists like to argue that anyone who pushes back against Israel’s protracted assaults on Gaza are either anti-Semitic or terrorist-apologists (or both), in an ideal world there would be no escaping these facts. If discussing these facts paints a negative picture of Israel and its actions, then so be it. And yet, in some cases, talking about these issues can quite literally get you fired.
In July 2014, journalist Nafeez Ahmed learnt this the hard way when he published an article on the Guardian website which claimed Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza during Operation Protective Edge was rooted in Israel’s desire to control Palestinian gas. The Guardian axed his blog completely shortly afterwards.
Talk about “cancel culture.” Yet somehow, I haven’t seen any conservatives complaining about “censorship” and “cancel culture” rushing to Ahmed’s defence.
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/525000-israel- ... tural-gas/
Why are Arabs so powerless?
Pervez Hoodbhoy Published May 29, 2021
FOR a terrible 11 days in May, the world watched hellfire rain upon the world’s largest open-air prison camp, otherwise known as Gaza. The dazed, bleeding survivors crawling out of the rubble of collapsed buildings have experienced this before. Everyone knows this tragedy will repeat. In faraway Arab cities, as well as here in Pakistan, people glumly watched the unhindered, televised bombing by Israeli jets. But the most they could manage was a few toothless resolutions and a few impotent slogan-chanting demonstrations trampling the Israeli flag.
What makes Israel with nine million people — between one-half and one-third of Karachi’s population — a Goliath of biblical proportions? Equally, notwithstanding their fabulous oil wealth, why are 427m Arabs the pygmies of international politics? GCC Arabs can certainly control what happens in a few miskeen countries like Pakistan; their leaders can be summoned to Riyadh at a moment’s notice and sent back with sackfuls of rice as wages of obedience. But before Israel — which has almost zero natural resources — Arab kings and sheikhs must perforce bow their heads.
Blame the West if you want and, in particular, America. Indeed, from 2000-2019 armaments supplied to Israel by the Western powers (US, UK, France, Spain, Germany) are documented at a hefty $9.6 billion. But within that 20-year period the same document shows this amount is dwarfed by arms sold by the same suppliers to Saudi Arabia ($29.3bn), UAE ($20.1bn), Egypt ($17.5bn), Iraq ($9.1bn), and Qatar ($6bn). And yet these expensive weapons will provide little protection if Israel ever chooses to attack Arab lands again. While the nine-country Saudi-led coalition has created a humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen, it is failing dismally against the rag-tag Iran-supported Houthi forces.
Israelis have long known that brain will rule over brawn, a fact that some Arab rulers are only just discovering.
Okay, so then let’s blame Palestine’s ill-fortune upon Arab disunity. There’s truth in this: Arabs are indeed bitterly divided. But when were they not? From about AD-634 to AD-750 is the only period in history when they stood together. Then, after Nasser won the Suez War against Britain, Arabs united again for a brief, euphoric moment. But this unity did nothing to avert their crushing defeat in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, that which forever changed borders. And while friends and activists for Palestine — including myself — would love to see Fatah and Hamas patch up their differences, doing so will not change things fundamentally.
The secret of Israel’s strength is not hidden in its weaponry. Instead this still-expanding and still-colonising apartheid settler state uses the same magic that enabled just a handful of 18th-century Englishmen to colonise the entire Indian subcontinent. Let’s recall that in ruling over 200m natives for 250 years, at no time did Britain have more than 50,000 white soldiers on Indian soil. Although better guns and cannons gave them an edge, in fact their real not-so-secret weapon was much bigger.
That weapon was a system of organised thought based upon a rational and secular approach to life, a modern system of justice, and a new set of social relations. This was sustained and enhanced by Enlightenment-era education that de-emphasised rote learning of the scriptures, was this-worldly and future-oriented, and which focused upon problem-solving skills using systematic, scientific thinking. Having invented modern means of communication such as railways and telegraph, a mere island in the North Sea could boast of an empire over which the sun never sets.
In a nutshell, imperialist conquests showed that brains would rule over brawn — a stark truth that got still starker with time. But where are brains produced? Obviously in the womb but it is in schools, colleges and universities where minds are shaped and sharpened. Hence, these days everyone and their uncle rush to one single conclusion: fix education and this will level the playing field, greatly diminishing or perhaps ending the inequalities of power.
Ah! That’s so much easier said than done. To have buildings and classrooms with teachers is one thing but to coax the potential out of a student is altogether different. With their vast wealth, Arab countries have built impressive university campuses with well-equipped laboratories and well-stocked libraries. They have even imported professors from America and Europe. Yet, the needle has barely flickered so far. That’s because attitudes towards learning take forever to change — and only if they are somehow forced to change.
Ditto for Pakistan which follows the Arab model as best as it can, together with abayas and jubbas. No university here has a bookshop, a centre for students that hums with open debate and discussion, or a theatre where classic movies are screened. Looking for a philosopher or a high-grade pure mathematician will be in vain. For 20 years, papers and PhDs have been churned out at a frantic rate. But I suspect that many of Pakistan’s decorated “distinguished national professors” with hundreds of research publications would be judged unfit to teach in a high-end Israeli high school for lack of scholarship.
The problem is not genetics — Arabs have a brilliant past and are probably just as smart as Ashkenazi Israelis. But the two groups have different attitudes towards success and different role models. The Ashkenazi child wants to be Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, John von Neumann, George Wald, Paul Samuelson, Gertrude Elion, Ralph Lauren, George Soros, or a thousand other such names that fill textbooks on physics, philosophy, technology, medicine, and business. Compare this with the Arab boy who wants to be Salahuddin Ayubi and the Pakistani lad who dreams of becoming Ertugrul Ghazi on horseback. He does not know about Abdus Salam, our discarded Nobelist.
We live in a cruel world which, of course, we must try our best to make less cruel and more humane. But making a socially just world requires much more than condemning the oppressors and crying with the oppressed. Instead, the weak must be made stronger. That strength does not derive from oil or nuclear bombs. Instead, it springs from the human brain, but only when that superb gift of nature is appropriately tutored and trained within a system of secular values that cherishes and rewards logical thinking, questioning and creativity.
The writer is an Islamabad-based physicist and writer.
Published in Dawn, May 29th, 2021
https://www.dawn.com/news/1626332/why-a ... -powerless
Pervez Hoodbhoy Published May 29, 2021
FOR a terrible 11 days in May, the world watched hellfire rain upon the world’s largest open-air prison camp, otherwise known as Gaza. The dazed, bleeding survivors crawling out of the rubble of collapsed buildings have experienced this before. Everyone knows this tragedy will repeat. In faraway Arab cities, as well as here in Pakistan, people glumly watched the unhindered, televised bombing by Israeli jets. But the most they could manage was a few toothless resolutions and a few impotent slogan-chanting demonstrations trampling the Israeli flag.
What makes Israel with nine million people — between one-half and one-third of Karachi’s population — a Goliath of biblical proportions? Equally, notwithstanding their fabulous oil wealth, why are 427m Arabs the pygmies of international politics? GCC Arabs can certainly control what happens in a few miskeen countries like Pakistan; their leaders can be summoned to Riyadh at a moment’s notice and sent back with sackfuls of rice as wages of obedience. But before Israel — which has almost zero natural resources — Arab kings and sheikhs must perforce bow their heads.
Blame the West if you want and, in particular, America. Indeed, from 2000-2019 armaments supplied to Israel by the Western powers (US, UK, France, Spain, Germany) are documented at a hefty $9.6 billion. But within that 20-year period the same document shows this amount is dwarfed by arms sold by the same suppliers to Saudi Arabia ($29.3bn), UAE ($20.1bn), Egypt ($17.5bn), Iraq ($9.1bn), and Qatar ($6bn). And yet these expensive weapons will provide little protection if Israel ever chooses to attack Arab lands again. While the nine-country Saudi-led coalition has created a humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen, it is failing dismally against the rag-tag Iran-supported Houthi forces.
Israelis have long known that brain will rule over brawn, a fact that some Arab rulers are only just discovering.
Okay, so then let’s blame Palestine’s ill-fortune upon Arab disunity. There’s truth in this: Arabs are indeed bitterly divided. But when were they not? From about AD-634 to AD-750 is the only period in history when they stood together. Then, after Nasser won the Suez War against Britain, Arabs united again for a brief, euphoric moment. But this unity did nothing to avert their crushing defeat in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, that which forever changed borders. And while friends and activists for Palestine — including myself — would love to see Fatah and Hamas patch up their differences, doing so will not change things fundamentally.
The secret of Israel’s strength is not hidden in its weaponry. Instead this still-expanding and still-colonising apartheid settler state uses the same magic that enabled just a handful of 18th-century Englishmen to colonise the entire Indian subcontinent. Let’s recall that in ruling over 200m natives for 250 years, at no time did Britain have more than 50,000 white soldiers on Indian soil. Although better guns and cannons gave them an edge, in fact their real not-so-secret weapon was much bigger.
That weapon was a system of organised thought based upon a rational and secular approach to life, a modern system of justice, and a new set of social relations. This was sustained and enhanced by Enlightenment-era education that de-emphasised rote learning of the scriptures, was this-worldly and future-oriented, and which focused upon problem-solving skills using systematic, scientific thinking. Having invented modern means of communication such as railways and telegraph, a mere island in the North Sea could boast of an empire over which the sun never sets.
In a nutshell, imperialist conquests showed that brains would rule over brawn — a stark truth that got still starker with time. But where are brains produced? Obviously in the womb but it is in schools, colleges and universities where minds are shaped and sharpened. Hence, these days everyone and their uncle rush to one single conclusion: fix education and this will level the playing field, greatly diminishing or perhaps ending the inequalities of power.
Ah! That’s so much easier said than done. To have buildings and classrooms with teachers is one thing but to coax the potential out of a student is altogether different. With their vast wealth, Arab countries have built impressive university campuses with well-equipped laboratories and well-stocked libraries. They have even imported professors from America and Europe. Yet, the needle has barely flickered so far. That’s because attitudes towards learning take forever to change — and only if they are somehow forced to change.
Ditto for Pakistan which follows the Arab model as best as it can, together with abayas and jubbas. No university here has a bookshop, a centre for students that hums with open debate and discussion, or a theatre where classic movies are screened. Looking for a philosopher or a high-grade pure mathematician will be in vain. For 20 years, papers and PhDs have been churned out at a frantic rate. But I suspect that many of Pakistan’s decorated “distinguished national professors” with hundreds of research publications would be judged unfit to teach in a high-end Israeli high school for lack of scholarship.
The problem is not genetics — Arabs have a brilliant past and are probably just as smart as Ashkenazi Israelis. But the two groups have different attitudes towards success and different role models. The Ashkenazi child wants to be Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, John von Neumann, George Wald, Paul Samuelson, Gertrude Elion, Ralph Lauren, George Soros, or a thousand other such names that fill textbooks on physics, philosophy, technology, medicine, and business. Compare this with the Arab boy who wants to be Salahuddin Ayubi and the Pakistani lad who dreams of becoming Ertugrul Ghazi on horseback. He does not know about Abdus Salam, our discarded Nobelist.
We live in a cruel world which, of course, we must try our best to make less cruel and more humane. But making a socially just world requires much more than condemning the oppressors and crying with the oppressed. Instead, the weak must be made stronger. That strength does not derive from oil or nuclear bombs. Instead, it springs from the human brain, but only when that superb gift of nature is appropriately tutored and trained within a system of secular values that cherishes and rewards logical thinking, questioning and creativity.
The writer is an Islamabad-based physicist and writer.
Published in Dawn, May 29th, 2021
https://www.dawn.com/news/1626332/why-a ... -powerless
Looking Beyond the Ayatollah to the Treasures of Iran
The organizers of a major London exhibition wanted to put politics aside and showcase the country’s rich 5,000-year-old culture. But politics kept getting in the way.
LONDON — The board game is roughly 4,500 years old. Shaped like a bird of prey, it has holes running down its wings and chest, where the pieces were once positioned. It’s one of a few dozen ancient objects that were set to travel from the National Museum of Iran for a spectacular exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum here. But they never came.
Other artifacts that were set to be shown — as detailed and illustrated and in the catalog for that exhibition “Epic Iran” — included a gold mask, a long-handled silver pan and a carved stone goblet. To secure the loans, the museum was in longstanding talks with the National Museum of Iran until early 2020, said Tristram Hunt, the director of the Victoria & Albert Museum, also known as the V&A.
“At a certain point, silence began to descend, and I don’t think that was internal to them” he said in an interview. “There were outside political forces.”
Ironically, the overarching purpose of “Epic Iran,” according to Hunt, was to put aside the political tensions that have dogged relations between Iran and the West since the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of an Islamic Republic.
“We want people to take a step back and understand that Iranian history didn’t begin in 1979,” he said. The point was to look beyond “the paradigm of what is called Islamic fundamentalism, and concerns around nuclear testing and visions of the ayatollah,” he added, and “understand the richness, and breadth, and depth, and complexity, and beauty of Iran.”
On display in the V&A show, which runs through Sept. 12, are an astounding array of artworks and treasures spanning 5,000 years: from the remnants of the earliest civilizations to the creations of contemporary artists living in Iran today. The full gamut of arts and crafts practiced for millenniums in Iran is illustrated with centuries-old carpets, illuminated manuscripts, miniature paintings, sculpted ornaments, court portraits and fine textiles.
The exhibition is intended as an all-encompassing feast for the eyes. Yet somehow, recent politics still manage to pervade it.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/31/arts ... iversified
The organizers of a major London exhibition wanted to put politics aside and showcase the country’s rich 5,000-year-old culture. But politics kept getting in the way.
LONDON — The board game is roughly 4,500 years old. Shaped like a bird of prey, it has holes running down its wings and chest, where the pieces were once positioned. It’s one of a few dozen ancient objects that were set to travel from the National Museum of Iran for a spectacular exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum here. But they never came.
Other artifacts that were set to be shown — as detailed and illustrated and in the catalog for that exhibition “Epic Iran” — included a gold mask, a long-handled silver pan and a carved stone goblet. To secure the loans, the museum was in longstanding talks with the National Museum of Iran until early 2020, said Tristram Hunt, the director of the Victoria & Albert Museum, also known as the V&A.
“At a certain point, silence began to descend, and I don’t think that was internal to them” he said in an interview. “There were outside political forces.”
Ironically, the overarching purpose of “Epic Iran,” according to Hunt, was to put aside the political tensions that have dogged relations between Iran and the West since the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of an Islamic Republic.
“We want people to take a step back and understand that Iranian history didn’t begin in 1979,” he said. The point was to look beyond “the paradigm of what is called Islamic fundamentalism, and concerns around nuclear testing and visions of the ayatollah,” he added, and “understand the richness, and breadth, and depth, and complexity, and beauty of Iran.”
On display in the V&A show, which runs through Sept. 12, are an astounding array of artworks and treasures spanning 5,000 years: from the remnants of the earliest civilizations to the creations of contemporary artists living in Iran today. The full gamut of arts and crafts practiced for millenniums in Iran is illustrated with centuries-old carpets, illuminated manuscripts, miniature paintings, sculpted ornaments, court portraits and fine textiles.
The exhibition is intended as an all-encompassing feast for the eyes. Yet somehow, recent politics still manage to pervade it.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/31/arts ... iversified
Nearly 200 Facebook employees say pro-Palestinian content is being unfairly removed, and demand that Zuckerberg launch an internal review
Anna Cooban
Wed, June 2, 2021, 10:00 AM
Mark
Facebook workers have asked for a review of moderation systems around pro-Palestinian content.
Nearly 200 workers signed an anonymous letter to Facebook executives, viewed by the Financial Times.
The letter calls for a task force to investigate potential bias, and for the company to hire more Palestinians.
Nearly 200 Facebook employees have signed an anonymous letter to company leadership, demanding a review of moderation systems they believe unfairly suppress content supportive of Palestinians, according to the Financial Times, which saw the letter.
Some staff have claimed that pro-Palestinian content was unfairly removed during the recent fighting in Gaza, the bloodiest fighting between Israel and the militant group Hamas that the region has seen in years. Pro-Palestinian activists accused Facebook of censoring their posts during the fighting, and flooded the company's App Store app with negative reviews.
The letter, which 174 employees signed, called for new measures to ensure pro-Palestinian content was not unfairly suppressed, a commitment to hire more Palestinian workers, and for an internal task force to "investigate and address potential biases" in Facebook's content moderation, the FT said.
Facebook, Inc. employs more than 55,000 people. The company also owns Instagram and chat app WhatsApp.
"As highlighted by employees, the press and members of Congress, and as reflected in our declining app store rating, our users and community at large feel that we are falling short on our promise to protect open expression around the situation in Palestine," the letter said, per the FT.
"We believe Facebook can and should do more to understand our users and work on rebuilding their trust."
The letter also asks for a third-party audit of the company's handling of Arab and Muslim content, and for Facebook's independent oversight board to review a post by Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. The post labeled Palestinian civilians as terrorists, the Facebook employees said.
Israel and Hamas signed a cease-fire on May 21. During the preceding 10 days, the Israeli bombardment of Gaza killed at least 232 Palestinians, including 65 children and 39 women, according to Reuters, which cited health authorities. Nearly 2,000 people in Gaza, the Hamas-controlled territory that is under an Israeli blockade, were injured, and the UN said about 58,000 were displaced.
Facebook-owned Instagram changed its algorithm last week to favor news and viral content following concerns from users that they could not see pro-Palestinian content.
"We know there were several issues that impacted people's ability to share on our apps," a Facebook company spokesperson told Insider in an emailed statement. "While we fixed them, they should never have happened in the first place and we're sorry to anyone who felt they couldn't bring attention to important events, or who believed this was a deliberate suppression of their voice.
"We design our policies to give everyone a voice while keeping them safe on our apps and we apply them equally, regardless of who is posting or what their personal beliefs are."
Read the original article on Business Insider
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/ne ... 48965.html
Anna Cooban
Wed, June 2, 2021, 10:00 AM
Mark
Facebook workers have asked for a review of moderation systems around pro-Palestinian content.
Nearly 200 workers signed an anonymous letter to Facebook executives, viewed by the Financial Times.
The letter calls for a task force to investigate potential bias, and for the company to hire more Palestinians.
Nearly 200 Facebook employees have signed an anonymous letter to company leadership, demanding a review of moderation systems they believe unfairly suppress content supportive of Palestinians, according to the Financial Times, which saw the letter.
Some staff have claimed that pro-Palestinian content was unfairly removed during the recent fighting in Gaza, the bloodiest fighting between Israel and the militant group Hamas that the region has seen in years. Pro-Palestinian activists accused Facebook of censoring their posts during the fighting, and flooded the company's App Store app with negative reviews.
The letter, which 174 employees signed, called for new measures to ensure pro-Palestinian content was not unfairly suppressed, a commitment to hire more Palestinian workers, and for an internal task force to "investigate and address potential biases" in Facebook's content moderation, the FT said.
Facebook, Inc. employs more than 55,000 people. The company also owns Instagram and chat app WhatsApp.
"As highlighted by employees, the press and members of Congress, and as reflected in our declining app store rating, our users and community at large feel that we are falling short on our promise to protect open expression around the situation in Palestine," the letter said, per the FT.
"We believe Facebook can and should do more to understand our users and work on rebuilding their trust."
The letter also asks for a third-party audit of the company's handling of Arab and Muslim content, and for Facebook's independent oversight board to review a post by Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. The post labeled Palestinian civilians as terrorists, the Facebook employees said.
Israel and Hamas signed a cease-fire on May 21. During the preceding 10 days, the Israeli bombardment of Gaza killed at least 232 Palestinians, including 65 children and 39 women, according to Reuters, which cited health authorities. Nearly 2,000 people in Gaza, the Hamas-controlled territory that is under an Israeli blockade, were injured, and the UN said about 58,000 were displaced.
Facebook-owned Instagram changed its algorithm last week to favor news and viral content following concerns from users that they could not see pro-Palestinian content.
"We know there were several issues that impacted people's ability to share on our apps," a Facebook company spokesperson told Insider in an emailed statement. "While we fixed them, they should never have happened in the first place and we're sorry to anyone who felt they couldn't bring attention to important events, or who believed this was a deliberate suppression of their voice.
"We design our policies to give everyone a voice while keeping them safe on our apps and we apply them equally, regardless of who is posting or what their personal beliefs are."
Read the original article on Business Insider
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/ne ... 48965.html
A Historic Moment for Israeli Arabs, but With a Question Mark
An Arab party’s decision to join a right-leaning Israeli government would be an important, if uncertain, step toward inclusion rather than perpetual opposition.
JERUSALEM — The agreement on a coalition that would oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after a dozen years in power and include an independent Arab party in the government for the first time blew up fault lines in Israeli politics and opened a potential new era.
If Parliament backs the eight-party coalition, it holds out the tantalizing possibility that Palestinian citizens of Israel, who account for about a fifth of the population, might play a more active role in politics, to unifying effect.
At the same time, the prospect of Naftali Bennett, a right-wing nationalist leader, becoming prime minister alarmed many Israeli Arabs.
“I have debated Bennett, and he says quite openly, ‘You are not my equal,’” said Diana Buttu, a prominent Palestinian lawyer based in Haifa. “Did I want Netanyahu out? Yes. To the extent of wanting Bennett as prime minister? No.”
The decision by a small Arab party known by its Hebrew acronym, Raam, to join the government so soon after last month’s violent clashes between Jewish and Arab mobs in Israel last month reflected a growing realization that the marginalization of Arab parties brings only paralysis and repetitive elections. It also suggested a desire among some Palestinian citizens of Israel to exert more political influence.
Fakhira Halloun, an expert in conflict resolution, said: “Usually the dominant discourse is one of perceiving Palestinians inside Israel as an internal enemy. We need to change this perception by not being always in the opposition.”
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/04/worl ... 778d3e6de3
An Arab party’s decision to join a right-leaning Israeli government would be an important, if uncertain, step toward inclusion rather than perpetual opposition.
JERUSALEM — The agreement on a coalition that would oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after a dozen years in power and include an independent Arab party in the government for the first time blew up fault lines in Israeli politics and opened a potential new era.
If Parliament backs the eight-party coalition, it holds out the tantalizing possibility that Palestinian citizens of Israel, who account for about a fifth of the population, might play a more active role in politics, to unifying effect.
At the same time, the prospect of Naftali Bennett, a right-wing nationalist leader, becoming prime minister alarmed many Israeli Arabs.
“I have debated Bennett, and he says quite openly, ‘You are not my equal,’” said Diana Buttu, a prominent Palestinian lawyer based in Haifa. “Did I want Netanyahu out? Yes. To the extent of wanting Bennett as prime minister? No.”
The decision by a small Arab party known by its Hebrew acronym, Raam, to join the government so soon after last month’s violent clashes between Jewish and Arab mobs in Israel last month reflected a growing realization that the marginalization of Arab parties brings only paralysis and repetitive elections. It also suggested a desire among some Palestinian citizens of Israel to exert more political influence.
Fakhira Halloun, an expert in conflict resolution, said: “Usually the dominant discourse is one of perceiving Palestinians inside Israel as an internal enemy. We need to change this perception by not being always in the opposition.”
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/04/worl ... 778d3e6de3
5000 Israelis achieve Emirati citizenship after amendment of law
5,000 Israelis have reportedly achieved citizenship for United Arab Emirates in the past three months after the Arab country amended the law on granting citizenship.
Citing sources, the website of Emirates Leaks revealed on Thursday a wide turnout from the Israelis under the cover of investment in the UAE, especially in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
The sources underlined that the UAE authorities allow the acquisition of citizenship for investors and entrepreneurs without the need to give up their original citizenship.
With an Emirati citizenship, the Israelis would be able to cross the Persian Gulf and Arab countries without a prior visa, according to the sources.
A former adviser to the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi has warned about the repercussions of the United Arab Emirates’ demographic change, questioning the loyalty of those who have recently obtained the UAE citizenship.
“Hundreds of those who obtained UAE citizenship recently do not speak Arabic and their children do not make the effort to learn it and have nothing to do with Islam and do not know the customs, traditions and values of the Emirates and were given the right to retain their original nationality and we do not know the extent of their loyalty to the state,” Abdulkhaleq Abdulla said via Twitter on Wednesday.
Abdulla, a professor of political science, added that the UAE’s demographic landscape in the next 50 years will be “dysfunctional” and “strange”.
— Abdulkhaleq Abdulla (@Abdulkhaleq_UAE) June 30, 2021
Earlier this year, the United Arab Emirates announced plans to grant foreigners citizenship as part of efforts to stimulate its economy amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The Persian Gulf country, which is home to Dubai and Abu Dhabi, said last November it plans to overhaul its religious laws, including loosening alcohol restrictions and allowing unmarried couples to cohabitate.
The UAE has already begun to move in the direction of dismissing its deep-rooted Islamic and Arabic values by normalizing its relations with the occupying regime of Israel – a move that was condemned across the Muslim world.
Several Arab countries, including the UAE and Bahrain, normalized their ties with Israel under US-brokered agreements last year, when former US President Donald Trump was in office.
Last month, former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said US assassination of Iran’s top anti-terror General Qassem Soleimani, a revered commander across the Muslim world, and the deal for the sale of US F-35 fighter jets to the UAE were deeply connected with the normalization deals.
The Israeli regime’s new foreign minister arrived in the UAE on Tuesday, marking the highest-level visit by an Israeli official to the Persian Gulf Arab country since the two normalized their relations.
Speaking at the inauguration of the Israeli embassy in Abu Dhabi, Yair Lapid told diplomats that it was a “historic moment”.
In acknowledgment of Benjamin Netanyahu, Lapid said the former Israeli premier was “the architect of the Abraham Accords” who “worked tirelessly to bring them about.”
However, Lapid was reportedly given a subdued reception in the UAE, as the website of the Persian Gulf Arab country’s official WAM news agency didn’t immediately carry a report on his arrival, and his counterpart, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, wasn’t at the airport to meet the Israeli foreign minister.
“Israel would like to tout this as a historic visit, but evidently the UAE wants to keep it as low profile as possible and treat it like any other visit,” Abdulla told American economic news website Bloomberg on Tuesday.
“The UAE’s relationship with Israel is there, but this isn’t the time to brag after Gaza,” he added, referring to Israel’s aggression against the Gaza Strip more than a month ago, which killed over 250 Palestinians in the besieged enclave and injured nearly 2,000 others.
http://www.taghribnews.com/en/news/5100 ... ent-of-law
5,000 Israelis have reportedly achieved citizenship for United Arab Emirates in the past three months after the Arab country amended the law on granting citizenship.
Citing sources, the website of Emirates Leaks revealed on Thursday a wide turnout from the Israelis under the cover of investment in the UAE, especially in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
The sources underlined that the UAE authorities allow the acquisition of citizenship for investors and entrepreneurs without the need to give up their original citizenship.
With an Emirati citizenship, the Israelis would be able to cross the Persian Gulf and Arab countries without a prior visa, according to the sources.
A former adviser to the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi has warned about the repercussions of the United Arab Emirates’ demographic change, questioning the loyalty of those who have recently obtained the UAE citizenship.
“Hundreds of those who obtained UAE citizenship recently do not speak Arabic and their children do not make the effort to learn it and have nothing to do with Islam and do not know the customs, traditions and values of the Emirates and were given the right to retain their original nationality and we do not know the extent of their loyalty to the state,” Abdulkhaleq Abdulla said via Twitter on Wednesday.
Abdulla, a professor of political science, added that the UAE’s demographic landscape in the next 50 years will be “dysfunctional” and “strange”.
— Abdulkhaleq Abdulla (@Abdulkhaleq_UAE) June 30, 2021
Earlier this year, the United Arab Emirates announced plans to grant foreigners citizenship as part of efforts to stimulate its economy amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The Persian Gulf country, which is home to Dubai and Abu Dhabi, said last November it plans to overhaul its religious laws, including loosening alcohol restrictions and allowing unmarried couples to cohabitate.
The UAE has already begun to move in the direction of dismissing its deep-rooted Islamic and Arabic values by normalizing its relations with the occupying regime of Israel – a move that was condemned across the Muslim world.
Several Arab countries, including the UAE and Bahrain, normalized their ties with Israel under US-brokered agreements last year, when former US President Donald Trump was in office.
Last month, former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said US assassination of Iran’s top anti-terror General Qassem Soleimani, a revered commander across the Muslim world, and the deal for the sale of US F-35 fighter jets to the UAE were deeply connected with the normalization deals.
The Israeli regime’s new foreign minister arrived in the UAE on Tuesday, marking the highest-level visit by an Israeli official to the Persian Gulf Arab country since the two normalized their relations.
Speaking at the inauguration of the Israeli embassy in Abu Dhabi, Yair Lapid told diplomats that it was a “historic moment”.
In acknowledgment of Benjamin Netanyahu, Lapid said the former Israeli premier was “the architect of the Abraham Accords” who “worked tirelessly to bring them about.”
However, Lapid was reportedly given a subdued reception in the UAE, as the website of the Persian Gulf Arab country’s official WAM news agency didn’t immediately carry a report on his arrival, and his counterpart, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, wasn’t at the airport to meet the Israeli foreign minister.
“Israel would like to tout this as a historic visit, but evidently the UAE wants to keep it as low profile as possible and treat it like any other visit,” Abdulla told American economic news website Bloomberg on Tuesday.
“The UAE’s relationship with Israel is there, but this isn’t the time to brag after Gaza,” he added, referring to Israel’s aggression against the Gaza Strip more than a month ago, which killed over 250 Palestinians in the besieged enclave and injured nearly 2,000 others.
http://www.taghribnews.com/en/news/5100 ... ent-of-law
Shops in Saudi Arabia can stay open during prayer times: local media
Reuters Published July 17, 2021
Shops in Saudi Arabia may now stay open during prayer times, a leading government-linked newspaper said on Friday, relaxing the kingdom's strict rules on closing shops and businesses for prayer five times a day.
It is the latest in a series of social and economic reforms intended to modernize the kingdom and boost the private sector's contribution to its oil-dependent economy.
The decision, taken by the Council of Saudi Chambers, will end decades where all shops had to shut for at least half an hour during five daily prayers.
“To prevent crowding, gatherings, long waiting under preventive measures to fight coronavirus and to maintain the health of shoppers, we urge shop owners and businesses to remain open through all working hours, including prayer times,” Okaz cited a circular by the official business federation.
The Saudi government's media office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, has pledged to revive a more “moderate Islam”.
He has loosened ultra-rigorous social restrictions by scaling back the role of religious morality police, permitting public concerts, lifting a ban on cinema and allowing women to drive.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1635436/shops ... ocal-media
Reuters Published July 17, 2021
Shops in Saudi Arabia may now stay open during prayer times, a leading government-linked newspaper said on Friday, relaxing the kingdom's strict rules on closing shops and businesses for prayer five times a day.
It is the latest in a series of social and economic reforms intended to modernize the kingdom and boost the private sector's contribution to its oil-dependent economy.
The decision, taken by the Council of Saudi Chambers, will end decades where all shops had to shut for at least half an hour during five daily prayers.
“To prevent crowding, gatherings, long waiting under preventive measures to fight coronavirus and to maintain the health of shoppers, we urge shop owners and businesses to remain open through all working hours, including prayer times,” Okaz cited a circular by the official business federation.
The Saudi government's media office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, has pledged to revive a more “moderate Islam”.
He has loosened ultra-rigorous social restrictions by scaling back the role of religious morality police, permitting public concerts, lifting a ban on cinema and allowing women to drive.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1635436/shops ... ocal-media
Reuters
Egypt finds ancient military vessel, Greek graves in sunken city
Remains of an ancient military vessel discovered off the coast of Alexandria
Remains of an ancient military vessel discovered in the Mediterranean sunken city of Thonis-Heracleion off the coast of Alexandria
Remains of an ancient military vessel discovered off the coast of Alexandria
Mon, July 19, 2021, 9:24 AM
CAIRO (Reuters) - Divers have discovered rare remains of a military vessel in the ancient sunken city of Thônis-Heracleion - once Egypt's largest port on the Mediterranean - and a funerary complex illustrating the presence of Greek merchants, the country said on Monday.
The city, which controlled the entrance to Egypt at the mouth of a western branch of the Nile, dominated the area for centuries before the foundation of Alexandria nearby by Alexander the Great in 331 BC.
Destroyed and sunk along with a wide area of the Nile delta by several earthquakes and tidal waves, Thônis-Heracleion was rediscovered in 2001 in Abu Qir bay near Alexandria, now Egypt's second largest city.
The military vessel, discovered by an Egyptian-French mission led by the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology (IEASM), sank when the famed temple of Amun it was mooring next to collapsed in the second century BC.
A preliminary study shows the hull of the 25-metre flat-bottomed ship, with oars and a large sail, was built in the classical tradition and also had features of Ancient Egyptian construction, Egypt's tourism and antiquities ministry said.
In another part of the city, the mission revealed the remains of a large Greek funerary area dating back to the first years of the 4th century BC, it said.
"This discovery beautifully illustrates the presence of the Greek merchants who lived in that city," the ministry said, adding that the Greeks were allowed to settle there during the late Pharaonic dynasties.
"They built their own sanctuaries close to the huge temple of Amun. Those were destroyed, simultaneously and their remains are found mixed with those of the Egyptian temple."
(Reporting by Sameh Elkhatib; writing by Mahmoud Mourad; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/eg ... 08683.html
Egypt finds ancient military vessel, Greek graves in sunken city
Remains of an ancient military vessel discovered off the coast of Alexandria
Remains of an ancient military vessel discovered in the Mediterranean sunken city of Thonis-Heracleion off the coast of Alexandria
Remains of an ancient military vessel discovered off the coast of Alexandria
Mon, July 19, 2021, 9:24 AM
CAIRO (Reuters) - Divers have discovered rare remains of a military vessel in the ancient sunken city of Thônis-Heracleion - once Egypt's largest port on the Mediterranean - and a funerary complex illustrating the presence of Greek merchants, the country said on Monday.
The city, which controlled the entrance to Egypt at the mouth of a western branch of the Nile, dominated the area for centuries before the foundation of Alexandria nearby by Alexander the Great in 331 BC.
Destroyed and sunk along with a wide area of the Nile delta by several earthquakes and tidal waves, Thônis-Heracleion was rediscovered in 2001 in Abu Qir bay near Alexandria, now Egypt's second largest city.
The military vessel, discovered by an Egyptian-French mission led by the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology (IEASM), sank when the famed temple of Amun it was mooring next to collapsed in the second century BC.
A preliminary study shows the hull of the 25-metre flat-bottomed ship, with oars and a large sail, was built in the classical tradition and also had features of Ancient Egyptian construction, Egypt's tourism and antiquities ministry said.
In another part of the city, the mission revealed the remains of a large Greek funerary area dating back to the first years of the 4th century BC, it said.
"This discovery beautifully illustrates the presence of the Greek merchants who lived in that city," the ministry said, adding that the Greeks were allowed to settle there during the late Pharaonic dynasties.
"They built their own sanctuaries close to the huge temple of Amun. Those were destroyed, simultaneously and their remains are found mixed with those of the Egyptian temple."
(Reporting by Sameh Elkhatib; writing by Mahmoud Mourad; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/eg ... 08683.html
Israel Wants to Have Its Ice Cream and Cybersecurity, Too
It is never quiet in Israel, but July brought new scrutiny. First, news broke that governments around the world have used spyware purchased from an Israeli cybersurveillance company, NSO Group, to target journalists, human rights activists and politicians. The revelations could implicate the Israeli Ministry of Defense in granting NSO permission to export hacking software that was then used by countries with authoritarian governments to suppress dissent. The scandal topped international news for days, but Israeli officials were instead preoccupied with ice cream. On July 19, Ben & Jerry’s announced it will no longer be available in the occupied Palestinian territories as of 2023. The divestment story (inaccurately characterized as a boycott) diverted attention from the role Israeli technology plays in global antidemocratic practices. Together the stories highlighted two of Israel’s defining national enterprises: high tech and perpetual military occupation.
The Israeli government’s response to the Ben & Jerry’s announcement was swift and voluble. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid insisted the move was anti-Israel and anti-Semitic. Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Gilad Erdan, appealed to governors of 35 U.S. states to activate anti-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions measures against the company.
The Israeli government portrayed itself as the victim of a hostile and unethical move on the part of the ice cream company. As if Israel itself did not partake in any immoral behavior of its own; as if home demolitions, institutionalized discrimination, land expropriation, administrative detention and shooting at unarmed Palestinian protesters were not problematic; as if an Israeli company selling highly controversial technology to authoritarian regimes were not more questionable than an ice cream company denying its pints to customers who live in certain areas.
The uniformity of official reaction in Israel to the Ben & Jerry’s decision reflects an Israeli political consensus — unlike that of the international community — that does not distinguish between Israeli territory within its internationally recognized 1948 borders and the territories it occupied in 1967.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/27/opin ... pe=Article
It is never quiet in Israel, but July brought new scrutiny. First, news broke that governments around the world have used spyware purchased from an Israeli cybersurveillance company, NSO Group, to target journalists, human rights activists and politicians. The revelations could implicate the Israeli Ministry of Defense in granting NSO permission to export hacking software that was then used by countries with authoritarian governments to suppress dissent. The scandal topped international news for days, but Israeli officials were instead preoccupied with ice cream. On July 19, Ben & Jerry’s announced it will no longer be available in the occupied Palestinian territories as of 2023. The divestment story (inaccurately characterized as a boycott) diverted attention from the role Israeli technology plays in global antidemocratic practices. Together the stories highlighted two of Israel’s defining national enterprises: high tech and perpetual military occupation.
The Israeli government’s response to the Ben & Jerry’s announcement was swift and voluble. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid insisted the move was anti-Israel and anti-Semitic. Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Gilad Erdan, appealed to governors of 35 U.S. states to activate anti-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions measures against the company.
The Israeli government portrayed itself as the victim of a hostile and unethical move on the part of the ice cream company. As if Israel itself did not partake in any immoral behavior of its own; as if home demolitions, institutionalized discrimination, land expropriation, administrative detention and shooting at unarmed Palestinian protesters were not problematic; as if an Israeli company selling highly controversial technology to authoritarian regimes were not more questionable than an ice cream company denying its pints to customers who live in certain areas.
The uniformity of official reaction in Israel to the Ben & Jerry’s decision reflects an Israeli political consensus — unlike that of the international community — that does not distinguish between Israeli territory within its internationally recognized 1948 borders and the territories it occupied in 1967.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/27/opin ... pe=Article
Collapse: Inside Lebanon’s Worst Economic Meltdown in More Than a Century
TRIPOLI, Lebanon — Rania Mustafa’s living room recalls a not-so-distant past, when the modest salary of a security guard in Lebanon could buy an air-conditioner, plush furniture and a flat-screen TV.
But as the country’s economic crisis worsened, she lost her job and watched her savings evaporate. Now, she plans to sell her furniture to pay the rent and struggles to afford food, much less electricity or a dentist to fix her 10-year-old daughter’s broken molar.
For dinner on a recent night, lit by a single cellphone, the family shared thin potato sandwiches donated by a neighbor. The girl chewed gingerly on one side of her mouth to avoid her damaged tooth.
“I have no idea how we’ll continue,” said Ms. Mustafa, 40, at home in Tripoli, Lebanon’s second-largest city, after Beirut.
Lebanon, a small Mediterranean country still haunted by a 15-year civil war that ended in 1990, is in the throes of a financial collapse that the World Bank has said could rank among the world’s worst since the mid-1800s. It is closing like a vise on families whose money has plummeted in value while the cost of nearly everything has skyrocketed.
Since fall 2019, the Lebanese pound has lost 90 percent of its value, and annual inflation in 2020 was 84.9 percent. As of June, prices of consumer goods had nearly quadrupled in the previous two years, according to government statistics. The huge explosion one year ago in the port of Beirut, which killed more than 200 people and left a large swath of the capital in shambles, only added to the desperation.
On Wednesday, Lebanon observed a day of mourning to mark the anniversary of the blast, and government offices and most businesses were closed for the occasion. Large crowds gathered around Beirut to commemorate the day and denounce their government, which has failed to determine what caused the explosion and who was responsible, much less to hold anyone accountable.
After a moment of silence on the highway overlooking the port, thousands of protesters marched toward downtown, where some fired fireworks and threw stones near the Parliament at security forces, who responded with volleys of tear gas.
The blast exacerbated the country’s economic crisis, which was long in the making, and there is little relief in sight.
Years of corruption and bad policies have left the state deeply in debt and the central bank unable to keep propping up the currency, as it had for decades, because of a drop in foreign cash flows into the country. Now, the bottom has fallen out of the economy, leaving shortages of food, fuel and medicine.
All but the wealthiest Lebanese have cut meat from their diets and wait in long lines to fuel their cars, sweating through sweltering summer nights because of extended power cuts.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/04/worl ... 778d3e6de3
TRIPOLI, Lebanon — Rania Mustafa’s living room recalls a not-so-distant past, when the modest salary of a security guard in Lebanon could buy an air-conditioner, plush furniture and a flat-screen TV.
But as the country’s economic crisis worsened, she lost her job and watched her savings evaporate. Now, she plans to sell her furniture to pay the rent and struggles to afford food, much less electricity or a dentist to fix her 10-year-old daughter’s broken molar.
For dinner on a recent night, lit by a single cellphone, the family shared thin potato sandwiches donated by a neighbor. The girl chewed gingerly on one side of her mouth to avoid her damaged tooth.
“I have no idea how we’ll continue,” said Ms. Mustafa, 40, at home in Tripoli, Lebanon’s second-largest city, after Beirut.
Lebanon, a small Mediterranean country still haunted by a 15-year civil war that ended in 1990, is in the throes of a financial collapse that the World Bank has said could rank among the world’s worst since the mid-1800s. It is closing like a vise on families whose money has plummeted in value while the cost of nearly everything has skyrocketed.
Since fall 2019, the Lebanese pound has lost 90 percent of its value, and annual inflation in 2020 was 84.9 percent. As of June, prices of consumer goods had nearly quadrupled in the previous two years, according to government statistics. The huge explosion one year ago in the port of Beirut, which killed more than 200 people and left a large swath of the capital in shambles, only added to the desperation.
On Wednesday, Lebanon observed a day of mourning to mark the anniversary of the blast, and government offices and most businesses were closed for the occasion. Large crowds gathered around Beirut to commemorate the day and denounce their government, which has failed to determine what caused the explosion and who was responsible, much less to hold anyone accountable.
After a moment of silence on the highway overlooking the port, thousands of protesters marched toward downtown, where some fired fireworks and threw stones near the Parliament at security forces, who responded with volleys of tear gas.
The blast exacerbated the country’s economic crisis, which was long in the making, and there is little relief in sight.
Years of corruption and bad policies have left the state deeply in debt and the central bank unable to keep propping up the currency, as it had for decades, because of a drop in foreign cash flows into the country. Now, the bottom has fallen out of the economy, leaving shortages of food, fuel and medicine.
All but the wealthiest Lebanese have cut meat from their diets and wait in long lines to fuel their cars, sweating through sweltering summer nights because of extended power cuts.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/04/worl ... 778d3e6de3
In Shift, Israel Quietly Allows Jewish Prayer on Temple Mount
Jewish activists say they are exercising their right to free worship at a site holy to Jews and Muslims. But the change upsets a longstanding compromise aimed at staving off conflict.
Orthodox Jews and others praying at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem on Monday. Israel has long prohibited Jews from praying there.Credit...
JERUSALEM — The Israeli government has long forbidden Jews to pray on the Temple Mount, a site sacred to Jews and Muslims, yet Rabbi Yehudah Glick made little effort to hide his prayers. In fact, he was livestreaming them.
“Oh Lord!” prayed Rabbi Glick, as he filmed himself on his phone on a recent morning. “Save my soul from false lips and deceitful tongues!”
Since Israel captured the Old City of Jerusalem from Jordan in 1967, it has maintained a fragile religious balance at the Temple Mount, the most divisive site in Jerusalem: Only Muslims can worship there, while Jews can pray at the Western Wall below.
But recently the government has quietly allowed increasing numbers of Jews to pray there, a shift that could aggravate the instability in East Jerusalem and potentially lead to religious conflict.
“It’s a sensitive place,” said Ehud Olmert, a former Israeli prime minister. “And sensitive places such as this, which have an enormous potential for explosion, need to be treated with care.”
Rabbi Glick, an American-born, right-wing former lawmaker, has been leading efforts to change the status quo for decades. He characterizes his effort as a matter of religious freedom: If Muslims can pray there, why not Jews?
“God is the master of all humanity,” he said. “And he wants every one of us to be here to worship, every one in his own style.”
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/24/worl ... 778d3e6de3
Jewish activists say they are exercising their right to free worship at a site holy to Jews and Muslims. But the change upsets a longstanding compromise aimed at staving off conflict.
Orthodox Jews and others praying at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem on Monday. Israel has long prohibited Jews from praying there.Credit...
JERUSALEM — The Israeli government has long forbidden Jews to pray on the Temple Mount, a site sacred to Jews and Muslims, yet Rabbi Yehudah Glick made little effort to hide his prayers. In fact, he was livestreaming them.
“Oh Lord!” prayed Rabbi Glick, as he filmed himself on his phone on a recent morning. “Save my soul from false lips and deceitful tongues!”
Since Israel captured the Old City of Jerusalem from Jordan in 1967, it has maintained a fragile religious balance at the Temple Mount, the most divisive site in Jerusalem: Only Muslims can worship there, while Jews can pray at the Western Wall below.
But recently the government has quietly allowed increasing numbers of Jews to pray there, a shift that could aggravate the instability in East Jerusalem and potentially lead to religious conflict.
“It’s a sensitive place,” said Ehud Olmert, a former Israeli prime minister. “And sensitive places such as this, which have an enormous potential for explosion, need to be treated with care.”
Rabbi Glick, an American-born, right-wing former lawmaker, has been leading efforts to change the status quo for decades. He characterizes his effort as a matter of religious freedom: If Muslims can pray there, why not Jews?
“God is the master of all humanity,” he said. “And he wants every one of us to be here to worship, every one in his own style.”
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https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/24/worl ... 778d3e6de3
UAE announces citizenship for investors, medical doctors, skilled professionals, scientists and talented people
The amendment to the law also includes the option to hold dual citizenship
Dubai - In a historic move, the UAE on Saturday announced major changes to the citizenship law, to allow for the naturalisation of foreign investors, doctors, scientists, artists and talented people and their families.
The decision to give people with exceptional talents and their families the Emirati citizenship aims to embrace them as members of part of the UAE society, ensure the social stability of these people in the country and boost the overall national development process.
The changes, taken upon the directives of President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, were approved by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, on Saturday.
The decision specified the categories of the people who can be granted the citizenship, under certain conditions. In addition to granting the citizenship to the families- the spouse and children of this specialised and skilled segment, the law allows for them to also keep their current citizenship, which is a major change to the previous rule that doesn’t allow for dual citizenship.
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https://gulfnews.com/uae/government/uae ... 1990919313
The amendment to the law also includes the option to hold dual citizenship
Dubai - In a historic move, the UAE on Saturday announced major changes to the citizenship law, to allow for the naturalisation of foreign investors, doctors, scientists, artists and talented people and their families.
The decision to give people with exceptional talents and their families the Emirati citizenship aims to embrace them as members of part of the UAE society, ensure the social stability of these people in the country and boost the overall national development process.
The changes, taken upon the directives of President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, were approved by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, on Saturday.
The decision specified the categories of the people who can be granted the citizenship, under certain conditions. In addition to granting the citizenship to the families- the spouse and children of this specialised and skilled segment, the law allows for them to also keep their current citizenship, which is a major change to the previous rule that doesn’t allow for dual citizenship.
More...
https://gulfnews.com/uae/government/uae ... 1990919313
Israeli Leader Travels to U.A.E., Showcasing Deepening Ties
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett traveled to Abu Dhabi on Sunday, the first such visit by an Israeli leader, with plans to meet with the Emirati prince.
JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Naftali Bennett became the first Israeli leader to make an official visit to the United Arab Emirates, after flying to Abu Dhabi on Sunday to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, the de facto Emirati leader.
The visit is the latest sign of deepening ties between Israel and parts of the Arab world, a process that accelerated in the fall of 2020 when Israel began to sign diplomatic agreements with four countries, including the United Arab Emirates, that had previously avoided formal relations with Israel because of its conflict with the Palestinians.
The meeting also highlights how those 2020 agreements — which were brokered by President Donald J. Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, Mr. Bennett’s predecessor as prime minister — have endured beyond the demise of the Trump and Netanyahu administrations.
By flying to Abu Dhabi, Mr. Bennett achieved a foreign-policy laurel that was denied to Mr. Netanyahu, who was forced to cancel three trips last winter, partly because of coronavirus restrictions and partly because Emirati leaders balked at the prospect of becoming props in his re-election campaign.
Israeli cabinet ministers have since visited the Emirates, but never a prime minister.
Shortly before takeoff, Mr. Bennett said his visit highlighted how relations between Israel and the Emirates were “excellent and extensive.” He added, “We must continue to foster and strengthen them, and build the warm peace between the two peoples.”
Prince Mohammed’s invitation to Mr. Bennett underscored the shifting priorities of Persian Gulf countries like the United Arab Emirates, for whom the threat of a nuclear Iran is now of far greater concern than an immediate resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Once a regional backwater, the Emirates has in recent decades used its oil revenues to become a major force in the Middle East, funding and providing military support to allies in Egypt, Libya, Yemen and elsewhere.
For decades, only Egypt and Jordan had formal relations with Israel, with most Arab leaders preferring to delay a détente until the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Having long maintained clandestine ties, the Emirates finally announced a formal relationship with Israel in August 2020 after Israel promised to postpone its plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank. Deals with Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan soon followed and were condemned by Palestinian leaders as a betrayal.
Since then, Emirati officials had said little about the Palestinians, with mutual fears over Iran’s nuclear program forming the bedrock of the Israel-Emirati relationship instead.
The value of trade between the Emirates and Israel has also rapidly increased: In the first seven months of 2021, bilateral trade was worth more than $600 million, according to statistics cited in September by an Israeli official — about $550 million more than during the equivalent period in 2020. Banks, universities, airlines and technology firms in the two countries have signed partnership deals, and their armies have conducted joint exercises. The Emirates also set up an investment fund, worth $10 billion, for projects in Israel.
Ties with Bahrain and Morocco have also continued to improve, but questions have been raised about the sustainability of the deal with Sudan. Little momentum has been created since Israel and Sudan formally signed a normalization deal in January, following an initial announcement in October 2020. The two countries have not exchanged ambassadors, and a recent coup in Khartoum cast doubt over the entire arrangement.
No new rapprochement has been announced since the Sudanese deal in January, despite hopes that Saudi Arabia, which has close ties with the Emirates and which shares an antipathy for Iran, would become the fifth country to join the process.
Saudi Arabia and the Emirates share many foreign policy goals but do not always act in unison; in 2019, Abu Dhabi began to pull its troops from Yemen, where they had been fighting alongside Saudi-led forces in a war against an Iran-backed militia. Earlier this year the two countries clashed over whether to increase oil production. The Emirates has also been quicker to modernize than Saudi Arabia; in one example last week, Emirati officials announced the country would change the timing of its weekends to align with the Western calendar.
Saudi officials have said that the country will not replicate the Emirati-Israeli normalization deal until the sealing of an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. Mr. Netanyahu was reported to have met in secret in November 2020 with Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, but Saudi officials denied the meeting took place.
But even in the Emirates, there are signs of caution about attracting too much attention to its relationship with Israel. Mr. Bennett’s office invited dozens of Israel-based journalists to accompany him on his flight to Abu Dhabi, but Emirati officials declined to organize a news conference for them or to host them at the prince’s palace. The journalists were later uninvited from the mission entirely, officially because of rising concerns over the new coronavirus variant.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/12/worl ... 778d3e6de3
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett traveled to Abu Dhabi on Sunday, the first such visit by an Israeli leader, with plans to meet with the Emirati prince.
JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Naftali Bennett became the first Israeli leader to make an official visit to the United Arab Emirates, after flying to Abu Dhabi on Sunday to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, the de facto Emirati leader.
The visit is the latest sign of deepening ties between Israel and parts of the Arab world, a process that accelerated in the fall of 2020 when Israel began to sign diplomatic agreements with four countries, including the United Arab Emirates, that had previously avoided formal relations with Israel because of its conflict with the Palestinians.
The meeting also highlights how those 2020 agreements — which were brokered by President Donald J. Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, Mr. Bennett’s predecessor as prime minister — have endured beyond the demise of the Trump and Netanyahu administrations.
By flying to Abu Dhabi, Mr. Bennett achieved a foreign-policy laurel that was denied to Mr. Netanyahu, who was forced to cancel three trips last winter, partly because of coronavirus restrictions and partly because Emirati leaders balked at the prospect of becoming props in his re-election campaign.
Israeli cabinet ministers have since visited the Emirates, but never a prime minister.
Shortly before takeoff, Mr. Bennett said his visit highlighted how relations between Israel and the Emirates were “excellent and extensive.” He added, “We must continue to foster and strengthen them, and build the warm peace between the two peoples.”
Prince Mohammed’s invitation to Mr. Bennett underscored the shifting priorities of Persian Gulf countries like the United Arab Emirates, for whom the threat of a nuclear Iran is now of far greater concern than an immediate resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Once a regional backwater, the Emirates has in recent decades used its oil revenues to become a major force in the Middle East, funding and providing military support to allies in Egypt, Libya, Yemen and elsewhere.
For decades, only Egypt and Jordan had formal relations with Israel, with most Arab leaders preferring to delay a détente until the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Having long maintained clandestine ties, the Emirates finally announced a formal relationship with Israel in August 2020 after Israel promised to postpone its plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank. Deals with Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan soon followed and were condemned by Palestinian leaders as a betrayal.
Since then, Emirati officials had said little about the Palestinians, with mutual fears over Iran’s nuclear program forming the bedrock of the Israel-Emirati relationship instead.
The value of trade between the Emirates and Israel has also rapidly increased: In the first seven months of 2021, bilateral trade was worth more than $600 million, according to statistics cited in September by an Israeli official — about $550 million more than during the equivalent period in 2020. Banks, universities, airlines and technology firms in the two countries have signed partnership deals, and their armies have conducted joint exercises. The Emirates also set up an investment fund, worth $10 billion, for projects in Israel.
Ties with Bahrain and Morocco have also continued to improve, but questions have been raised about the sustainability of the deal with Sudan. Little momentum has been created since Israel and Sudan formally signed a normalization deal in January, following an initial announcement in October 2020. The two countries have not exchanged ambassadors, and a recent coup in Khartoum cast doubt over the entire arrangement.
No new rapprochement has been announced since the Sudanese deal in January, despite hopes that Saudi Arabia, which has close ties with the Emirates and which shares an antipathy for Iran, would become the fifth country to join the process.
Saudi Arabia and the Emirates share many foreign policy goals but do not always act in unison; in 2019, Abu Dhabi began to pull its troops from Yemen, where they had been fighting alongside Saudi-led forces in a war against an Iran-backed militia. Earlier this year the two countries clashed over whether to increase oil production. The Emirates has also been quicker to modernize than Saudi Arabia; in one example last week, Emirati officials announced the country would change the timing of its weekends to align with the Western calendar.
Saudi officials have said that the country will not replicate the Emirati-Israeli normalization deal until the sealing of an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. Mr. Netanyahu was reported to have met in secret in November 2020 with Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, but Saudi officials denied the meeting took place.
But even in the Emirates, there are signs of caution about attracting too much attention to its relationship with Israel. Mr. Bennett’s office invited dozens of Israel-based journalists to accompany him on his flight to Abu Dhabi, but Emirati officials declined to organize a news conference for them or to host them at the prince’s palace. The journalists were later uninvited from the mission entirely, officially because of rising concerns over the new coronavirus variant.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/12/worl ... 778d3e6de3
My Son Is Not Alone. Millions of Young People Commit His Crime.
CAIRO — Standing outside the Tora prison complex, where my son is held, a mother asks me: What’s your son in for?
“Politics,” I say.
She looks surprised, not because you can be imprisoned for politics — there’s nothing strange about that in Egypt — but because most political prisoners are Islamists, and she doesn’t think I look like the mother of an Islamist. “He was one of shabab al-thawra, ” I add, the young people of the revolution.
No further explanation is needed.
Why is my son, Alaa Abd El Fattah, in prison? He is one of tens of thousands of political prisoners in Egypt. He has been there for more than seven years, across different governments, with little hope for a way out. He has stood trial many times and will be sentenced again on Monday. His crime is that, like millions of young people in Egypt and far beyond, he believed another world was possible. And he dared to try to make it happen.
Now it seems that the outside world, once so inspired by the Egyptian revolutionaries, is looking away, while democratic governments pay little more than lip service to questions of rights and justice.
Perhaps these words, Alaa’s own, best sum it up:
“We came of age with the second intifada. Took our first real steps in the world as bombs fell on Baghdad. All around us, fellow Arabs cried, ‘Over our dead bodies!’ Northern allies chanted, ‘Not in our name!’ Southern comrades sang, ‘Another world is possible.’ We understood then that the world we’d inherited was dying, and that we were not alone.”
This is from “A Portrait of the Activist Outside his Prison,” an essay he wrote in 2017 that appears in a recent collection of his writings. Now, I have to try and sketch a portrait of the activist inside his prison.
Alaa was arrested in September 2019, against the backdrop of yet another wave of political arrests. He had just finished a five-year sentence, charged with “organizing a protest.” He was rebuilding his life. He had been out for six months on probation, forced to sleep every night in his local police station, when they came for him again. Since then, he has been held in Tora Maximum Security Prison 2. (The conditions in the more draconian Tora Maximum Security Prison 1, where thousands of other prisoners are held, are far worse.)
What he has described to his lawyers and to me is harrowing: On the night he was brought to prison, he was stripped and beaten in a spectacle inmates call the “Welcome Party.” He was threatened not to report it, he told me, but he filed a complaint with the public prosecutor. He is denied any reading material of any kind. He is not allowed a radio. He is not allowed to have a watch. He is not allowed exercise time outside of his cell. He is let out of his cell only for visitations or court appearances. And yet he reports every abuse or violation he has knowledge of, tells us when he hears of missing people appearing in the prison system, filed a report that he could hear someone being tortured in the cell next to his. The officers whom he has reported continue to hold their posts and to have power over him.
Covid restrictions caused prison visits to be suspended for five months. When they were reinstated, they were reduced to one a month, for 20 minutes, with one family member. Visits are behind a glass barrier. We talk through a phone; we assume that everything we say is recorded. Recently, he has been telling me he’s having suicidal thoughts.
When he is on trial, he appears in the courtroom inside a cage. He told me through the bars that he’s going to die in prison. Earlier this year, two men, a journalist named Mohamed Ibrahim and known by his pen name Mohamed Oxygen, and the blogger Abdel Rahman Tarek, known as Moka, tried to take their own lives after spending years being held without charge in what is known as “pretrial detention.” These are just two among countless examples.
Alaa has endured two years of this slow torture, and there is no end in sight.
For most of this time, he has also been held without charge, in pretrial detention. But there has been some international pressure to end the use of these indefinite detentions, so in October he was referred to trial, in a new case, to be heard in an Emergency State Security Court. He is charged, along with Mohamed Oxygen and Mohamed al-Baqer, a human rights lawyer who was arrested while representing Alaa, with spreading false news. The judge refused to let the defense lawyers have a copy of the case file so they could not mount a defense. But we understand Alaa is on trial for retweeting a tweet about a prisoner who died after being tortured, in the same prison where Alaa is now held. Alaa and his co-defendants will be sentenced on Monday. The sentence cannot be appealed.
The pressure that the United States and Europe claim to exert on the Egyptian government to clean up its human rights act is meant only to placate certain portions of their constituents. The Egyptian authorities respond accordingly. They understand that “clean up your human rights act” actually means “we support you, but please try not to embarrass us.” So Egypt recently issued a very self-congratulatory National Human Rights Strategy. Two months later, after a meeting between the U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Sameh Shoukry, his Egyptian counterpart, the United States released a statement saying that it “welcomed the strategy” and plans to “continue the dialogue on human rights.”
Those who truly care about human rights shouldn’t be fooled by written strategies but look for actual deeds: To start, by releasing the generation being slowly murdered in prison for thinking freely and expressing themselves.
Alaa’s words in the essay I quoted above are addressed, in part, to the “Northern allies who chanted, ‘Not in our name!’ as the bombs fell on Bagdad.” People often ask me how they, living in America or Britain or the other countries of the global North, can help. I tell them to scrutinize the foreign policies of their governments as vigorously as they scrutinize domestic policies. Alaa’s answer, always, is this: Fix your own democracy. Safeguard it. There’s no better way to help.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/17/opin ... 778d3e6de3
CAIRO — Standing outside the Tora prison complex, where my son is held, a mother asks me: What’s your son in for?
“Politics,” I say.
She looks surprised, not because you can be imprisoned for politics — there’s nothing strange about that in Egypt — but because most political prisoners are Islamists, and she doesn’t think I look like the mother of an Islamist. “He was one of shabab al-thawra, ” I add, the young people of the revolution.
No further explanation is needed.
Why is my son, Alaa Abd El Fattah, in prison? He is one of tens of thousands of political prisoners in Egypt. He has been there for more than seven years, across different governments, with little hope for a way out. He has stood trial many times and will be sentenced again on Monday. His crime is that, like millions of young people in Egypt and far beyond, he believed another world was possible. And he dared to try to make it happen.
Now it seems that the outside world, once so inspired by the Egyptian revolutionaries, is looking away, while democratic governments pay little more than lip service to questions of rights and justice.
Perhaps these words, Alaa’s own, best sum it up:
“We came of age with the second intifada. Took our first real steps in the world as bombs fell on Baghdad. All around us, fellow Arabs cried, ‘Over our dead bodies!’ Northern allies chanted, ‘Not in our name!’ Southern comrades sang, ‘Another world is possible.’ We understood then that the world we’d inherited was dying, and that we were not alone.”
This is from “A Portrait of the Activist Outside his Prison,” an essay he wrote in 2017 that appears in a recent collection of his writings. Now, I have to try and sketch a portrait of the activist inside his prison.
Alaa was arrested in September 2019, against the backdrop of yet another wave of political arrests. He had just finished a five-year sentence, charged with “organizing a protest.” He was rebuilding his life. He had been out for six months on probation, forced to sleep every night in his local police station, when they came for him again. Since then, he has been held in Tora Maximum Security Prison 2. (The conditions in the more draconian Tora Maximum Security Prison 1, where thousands of other prisoners are held, are far worse.)
What he has described to his lawyers and to me is harrowing: On the night he was brought to prison, he was stripped and beaten in a spectacle inmates call the “Welcome Party.” He was threatened not to report it, he told me, but he filed a complaint with the public prosecutor. He is denied any reading material of any kind. He is not allowed a radio. He is not allowed to have a watch. He is not allowed exercise time outside of his cell. He is let out of his cell only for visitations or court appearances. And yet he reports every abuse or violation he has knowledge of, tells us when he hears of missing people appearing in the prison system, filed a report that he could hear someone being tortured in the cell next to his. The officers whom he has reported continue to hold their posts and to have power over him.
Covid restrictions caused prison visits to be suspended for five months. When they were reinstated, they were reduced to one a month, for 20 minutes, with one family member. Visits are behind a glass barrier. We talk through a phone; we assume that everything we say is recorded. Recently, he has been telling me he’s having suicidal thoughts.
When he is on trial, he appears in the courtroom inside a cage. He told me through the bars that he’s going to die in prison. Earlier this year, two men, a journalist named Mohamed Ibrahim and known by his pen name Mohamed Oxygen, and the blogger Abdel Rahman Tarek, known as Moka, tried to take their own lives after spending years being held without charge in what is known as “pretrial detention.” These are just two among countless examples.
Alaa has endured two years of this slow torture, and there is no end in sight.
For most of this time, he has also been held without charge, in pretrial detention. But there has been some international pressure to end the use of these indefinite detentions, so in October he was referred to trial, in a new case, to be heard in an Emergency State Security Court. He is charged, along with Mohamed Oxygen and Mohamed al-Baqer, a human rights lawyer who was arrested while representing Alaa, with spreading false news. The judge refused to let the defense lawyers have a copy of the case file so they could not mount a defense. But we understand Alaa is on trial for retweeting a tweet about a prisoner who died after being tortured, in the same prison where Alaa is now held. Alaa and his co-defendants will be sentenced on Monday. The sentence cannot be appealed.
The pressure that the United States and Europe claim to exert on the Egyptian government to clean up its human rights act is meant only to placate certain portions of their constituents. The Egyptian authorities respond accordingly. They understand that “clean up your human rights act” actually means “we support you, but please try not to embarrass us.” So Egypt recently issued a very self-congratulatory National Human Rights Strategy. Two months later, after a meeting between the U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Sameh Shoukry, his Egyptian counterpart, the United States released a statement saying that it “welcomed the strategy” and plans to “continue the dialogue on human rights.”
Those who truly care about human rights shouldn’t be fooled by written strategies but look for actual deeds: To start, by releasing the generation being slowly murdered in prison for thinking freely and expressing themselves.
Alaa’s words in the essay I quoted above are addressed, in part, to the “Northern allies who chanted, ‘Not in our name!’ as the bombs fell on Bagdad.” People often ask me how they, living in America or Britain or the other countries of the global North, can help. I tell them to scrutinize the foreign policies of their governments as vigorously as they scrutinize domestic policies. Alaa’s answer, always, is this: Fix your own democracy. Safeguard it. There’s no better way to help.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/17/opin ... 778d3e6de3
A New Israeli Wonderland, Where You Can Almost Forget Where You Are
An alien spaceship theme park, an Italian Renaissance-style mall, a canal with gondolas. “Nothing in Israel compares with it,” the developer says. There’s just one catch.
MAALE ADUMIM, West Bank — There is a vast indoor amusement park that resembles an alien spaceship run aground in the Judean Desert and, nearby, a luxe shopping mall rising incongruously in Italian Renaissance style in the beige hills east of Jerusalem. Its grand piazza features pricey kosher restaurants, a miniature canal with toy gondolas and an artificial sky set to a romantic twilight, even at lunchtime.
“Nothing in Israel compares with it,” declared Pnina Revach, the chief executive of the mall, which specializes in home design and has an attached boutique hotel.
There is a wrinkle.
Israeli public relations gurus are likening the growing commercial and entertainment hub, Park Israel, which opened about three months ago, to the attractions of Las Vegas, Dubai and Orlando. But as they appeal to Israelis to visit, they are vague about exactly where it is. One ad suggested simply entering the name of the mall, DCITY, into a navigation app.
The roughly 20-minute drive from central Jerusalem is a giveaway, however. As one emerges from a tunnel under the Mount of Olives, the view is dominated by the high-rise Palestinian suburbs of Al Azariya and Al Zayyem. Bedouins graze herds on the slopes. And the turnoff to the amusement park and mall lies just beyond a military base.
Like their counterparts around the world, the shiny complexes are all about making you forget where you are, and perhaps all the more so because they are not in Nevada or Florida — or even in Israel proper.
They lie instead in the hitherto drab industrial zone of a sprawling Jewish settlement, Maale Adumim, in the occupied West Bank.
The developers hope to turn a geopolitical hot spot into a hot ticket.
“Everybody stands in the middle of the piazza and says, ‘Wow!’” Ms. Revach said.
More than a half-century after Israel seized the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 war, most of the world considers the increasingly entrenched settlement project as a violation of international law. But with peace talks long stymied, the new attractions are only the latest — if perhaps the most surreal — illustration of the increasing complexity on the ground, and of the fading prospects of a resolution to the conflict by means of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.
Photos and more...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/25/worl ... 778d3e6de3
An alien spaceship theme park, an Italian Renaissance-style mall, a canal with gondolas. “Nothing in Israel compares with it,” the developer says. There’s just one catch.
MAALE ADUMIM, West Bank — There is a vast indoor amusement park that resembles an alien spaceship run aground in the Judean Desert and, nearby, a luxe shopping mall rising incongruously in Italian Renaissance style in the beige hills east of Jerusalem. Its grand piazza features pricey kosher restaurants, a miniature canal with toy gondolas and an artificial sky set to a romantic twilight, even at lunchtime.
“Nothing in Israel compares with it,” declared Pnina Revach, the chief executive of the mall, which specializes in home design and has an attached boutique hotel.
There is a wrinkle.
Israeli public relations gurus are likening the growing commercial and entertainment hub, Park Israel, which opened about three months ago, to the attractions of Las Vegas, Dubai and Orlando. But as they appeal to Israelis to visit, they are vague about exactly where it is. One ad suggested simply entering the name of the mall, DCITY, into a navigation app.
The roughly 20-minute drive from central Jerusalem is a giveaway, however. As one emerges from a tunnel under the Mount of Olives, the view is dominated by the high-rise Palestinian suburbs of Al Azariya and Al Zayyem. Bedouins graze herds on the slopes. And the turnoff to the amusement park and mall lies just beyond a military base.
Like their counterparts around the world, the shiny complexes are all about making you forget where you are, and perhaps all the more so because they are not in Nevada or Florida — or even in Israel proper.
They lie instead in the hitherto drab industrial zone of a sprawling Jewish settlement, Maale Adumim, in the occupied West Bank.
The developers hope to turn a geopolitical hot spot into a hot ticket.
“Everybody stands in the middle of the piazza and says, ‘Wow!’” Ms. Revach said.
More than a half-century after Israel seized the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 war, most of the world considers the increasingly entrenched settlement project as a violation of international law. But with peace talks long stymied, the new attractions are only the latest — if perhaps the most surreal — illustration of the increasing complexity on the ground, and of the fading prospects of a resolution to the conflict by means of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.
Photos and more...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/25/worl ... 778d3e6de3
As Other Arab States Falter, Saudi Arabia Seeks to Become a Cultural Hub
While conflicts and crises have battered Arab cultural capitals, Saudi Arabia is hosting film festivals and bankrolling new movies.
JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia — A pregnant Saudi woman, far from home, finds herself stalked by inner and outer demons. A wannabe Saudi vlogger and his friends, menaced by the internet’s insatiable appetite for content and more mysterious dangers, try to escape a dark forest. At a wedding, the mother of the bride panics when her daughter disappears with all of their guests waiting downstairs.
These were just a few of the 27 Saudi-made films premiering this month at a film festival in Jeddah, part of the conservative kingdom’s huge effort to transform itself from a cultural backwater into a cinematic powerhouse in the Middle East.
The Saudi push reflects profound shifts in the creative industries across the Arab world. Over the past century, while the name Saudi Arabia conjured little more than oil, desert and Islam, Cairo, Beirut, Damascus and Baghdad stood out as the Arab cultural beacons where blockbuster movies were made, chart-topping songs were recorded and books that got intellectuals talking hit the shelves.
But over the past decade, those legacies have been battered by conflicts, financial meltdowns and state failures. Years of war have damaged Syria’s television studios and Baghdad’s publishers. An economic collapse has left Lebanon’s art-house cinemas struggling to keep the lights on.
Egypt’s vaunted film industry, which made the country’s dialect the most widely understood Arabic, has been in artistic decline for years, and its TV shows have been hijacked by the country’s intelligence services to promote pro-government themes.
In many ways, the region’s cultural mantle is up for grabs, and Saudi Arabia is spending lavishly to seize it.
At the Red Sea International Film Festival, held on a former execution ground, Jeddah residents rubbernecked as stars like Hilary Swank and Naomi Campbell strutted down a red carpet in revealing gowns, and Saudi influencers D.J.-ed at dance parties.
All this in a country where, until a few years ago, women were not allowed to drive, cinemas were banned and aspiring filmmakers often had to dodge the religious police to shoot in public.
Photos and more...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/27/worl ... 778d3e6de3
While conflicts and crises have battered Arab cultural capitals, Saudi Arabia is hosting film festivals and bankrolling new movies.
JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia — A pregnant Saudi woman, far from home, finds herself stalked by inner and outer demons. A wannabe Saudi vlogger and his friends, menaced by the internet’s insatiable appetite for content and more mysterious dangers, try to escape a dark forest. At a wedding, the mother of the bride panics when her daughter disappears with all of their guests waiting downstairs.
These were just a few of the 27 Saudi-made films premiering this month at a film festival in Jeddah, part of the conservative kingdom’s huge effort to transform itself from a cultural backwater into a cinematic powerhouse in the Middle East.
The Saudi push reflects profound shifts in the creative industries across the Arab world. Over the past century, while the name Saudi Arabia conjured little more than oil, desert and Islam, Cairo, Beirut, Damascus and Baghdad stood out as the Arab cultural beacons where blockbuster movies were made, chart-topping songs were recorded and books that got intellectuals talking hit the shelves.
But over the past decade, those legacies have been battered by conflicts, financial meltdowns and state failures. Years of war have damaged Syria’s television studios and Baghdad’s publishers. An economic collapse has left Lebanon’s art-house cinemas struggling to keep the lights on.
Egypt’s vaunted film industry, which made the country’s dialect the most widely understood Arabic, has been in artistic decline for years, and its TV shows have been hijacked by the country’s intelligence services to promote pro-government themes.
In many ways, the region’s cultural mantle is up for grabs, and Saudi Arabia is spending lavishly to seize it.
At the Red Sea International Film Festival, held on a former execution ground, Jeddah residents rubbernecked as stars like Hilary Swank and Naomi Campbell strutted down a red carpet in revealing gowns, and Saudi influencers D.J.-ed at dance parties.
All this in a country where, until a few years ago, women were not allowed to drive, cinemas were banned and aspiring filmmakers often had to dodge the religious police to shoot in public.
Photos and more...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/27/worl ... 778d3e6de3
Israel's national library sees Arabic site traffic boom
An early Quran, that is part of the collection of the National Library of Israel, is displayed at The Hebrew University campus in Jerusalem,
Thursday, Jan. 6, 2022.
The library says the number of visitors to its Arabic website more than doubled over the course of 2021, thanks to the digitization of its Arabic manuscripts and archives and an extensive outreach program in recent years.
Sam Thrope displays an Arabic book that is part of the collection of the National Library of Israel, on The Hebrew University campus in Jerusalem, Thursday, Jan. 6, 2022. The library says the number of visitors to its Arabic website more than doubled over the course of 2021, thanks to the digitization of its Arabic manuscripts and archives and an extensive outreach program in recent years.
Israel Arabic Scripts
An early Quran, that is part of the collection of the National Library of Israel, is displayed at The Hebrew University campus in Jerusalem, Thursday, Jan. 6, 2022. The library says the number of visitors to its Arabic website more than doubled over the course of 2021, thanks to the digitization of its Arabic manuscripts and archives and an extensive outreach program in recent years.
ILAN BEN ZION
Sun, January 9, 2022, 10:35 AM
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's national library says the number of visitors to its Arabic website more than doubled last year, driven by a growing collection of digitized materials and an aggressive outreach campaign to the Arab world.
Around 650,000 users, predominantly from the Palestinian territories, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Algeria, visited the National Library of Israel's English and Arabic sites in 2021, said library spokesman Zack Rothbart.
One of the most heavily trafficked resources on the Arabic website is a newspaper archive with more than 200,000 pages of Arabic publications from Ottoman and British Mandate Palestine, said Raquel Ukeles, head of the library’s collections.
“We have been working on outreach to the Arab world, into the Arabic speaking public here in Israel for over a decade, and we have slowly built up a rich set of resources on our websites," she said. They include the digital newspaper archives, manuscripts, posters, electronic books and music, she said. They are open access, allowing scholars and curious web browsers to visit.
The Jerusalem library is home to an extensive collection of Islamic and Arabic texts, including thousands of rare books and manuscripts in Arabic, Persian and Turkish ranging from the 9th to the 20th centuries.
“We’re in the midst of a project to digitize our entire collection, to scan all of our Arabic, Persian and Turkish manuscripts,” said Samuel Thrope, curator of the library’s Islam and Middle East Collection. “Ninety-five percent of it has already been completed.”
Among the jewels in the crown of the collection are a 9th-century Quran from modern-day Iran with the earliest known example of Persian written in the Arabic script; an illuminated manuscript from 17th century India with illustrations of the life of Alexander the Great; and a 16th century Ottoman Turkish text on ophthalmology.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/is ... 43619.html
An early Quran, that is part of the collection of the National Library of Israel, is displayed at The Hebrew University campus in Jerusalem,
Thursday, Jan. 6, 2022.
The library says the number of visitors to its Arabic website more than doubled over the course of 2021, thanks to the digitization of its Arabic manuscripts and archives and an extensive outreach program in recent years.
Sam Thrope displays an Arabic book that is part of the collection of the National Library of Israel, on The Hebrew University campus in Jerusalem, Thursday, Jan. 6, 2022. The library says the number of visitors to its Arabic website more than doubled over the course of 2021, thanks to the digitization of its Arabic manuscripts and archives and an extensive outreach program in recent years.
Israel Arabic Scripts
An early Quran, that is part of the collection of the National Library of Israel, is displayed at The Hebrew University campus in Jerusalem, Thursday, Jan. 6, 2022. The library says the number of visitors to its Arabic website more than doubled over the course of 2021, thanks to the digitization of its Arabic manuscripts and archives and an extensive outreach program in recent years.
ILAN BEN ZION
Sun, January 9, 2022, 10:35 AM
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's national library says the number of visitors to its Arabic website more than doubled last year, driven by a growing collection of digitized materials and an aggressive outreach campaign to the Arab world.
Around 650,000 users, predominantly from the Palestinian territories, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Algeria, visited the National Library of Israel's English and Arabic sites in 2021, said library spokesman Zack Rothbart.
One of the most heavily trafficked resources on the Arabic website is a newspaper archive with more than 200,000 pages of Arabic publications from Ottoman and British Mandate Palestine, said Raquel Ukeles, head of the library’s collections.
“We have been working on outreach to the Arab world, into the Arabic speaking public here in Israel for over a decade, and we have slowly built up a rich set of resources on our websites," she said. They include the digital newspaper archives, manuscripts, posters, electronic books and music, she said. They are open access, allowing scholars and curious web browsers to visit.
The Jerusalem library is home to an extensive collection of Islamic and Arabic texts, including thousands of rare books and manuscripts in Arabic, Persian and Turkish ranging from the 9th to the 20th centuries.
“We’re in the midst of a project to digitize our entire collection, to scan all of our Arabic, Persian and Turkish manuscripts,” said Samuel Thrope, curator of the library’s Islam and Middle East Collection. “Ninety-five percent of it has already been completed.”
Among the jewels in the crown of the collection are a 9th-century Quran from modern-day Iran with the earliest known example of Persian written in the Arabic script; an illuminated manuscript from 17th century India with illustrations of the life of Alexander the Great; and a 16th century Ottoman Turkish text on ophthalmology.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/is ... 43619.html
As the U.S. Pulls Back From the Mideast, China Leans In
China is expanding its ties to Middle Eastern states with vast infrastructure investments and cooperation on technology and security.
BEIRUT, Lebanon — In January alone, five senior officials from oil-rich Arab monarchies visited China to discuss cooperation on energy and infrastructure. Turkey’s top diplomat vowed to stamp out “media reports targeting China” in the Turkish news media, and Iran’s foreign minister pressed for progress on $400 billion of investment that China has promised his country.
As the United States, fatigued by decades of war and upheaval in the Middle East, seeks to limit its involvement there, China is deepening its ties with both friends and foes of Washington across the region.
China is nowhere near rivaling the United States’ vast involvement in the Middle East. But states there are increasingly looking to China not just to buy their oil, but to invest in their infrastructure and cooperate on technology and security, a trend that could accelerate as the United States pulls back.
For Beijing, the recent turmoil in neighboring countries like Afghanistan and Kazakhstan has reinforced its desire to cultivate stable ties in the region. The outreach follows the American military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan after 20 years, as well as the official end of its combat mission in Iraq. That, along with the Biden administration’s frequent talk of China as its top national security priority, has left many of its partners in the Middle East believing that Washington’s attention lies elsewhere.
Beijing has welcomed the chance to extend its influence, and Arab leaders appreciate that China — which touts the virtue of “noninterference” in other countries’ affairs — won’t get involved in their domestic politics or send its military to topple unfriendly dictators. And each side can count on the other to overlook its human rights abuses.
“There is a feeling in the region that the United States is actively on the way out, and that’s an opportunity for China,” said Gedaliah Afterman, head of the Asia Policy Program at the Abba Eban Institute of International Diplomacy at Reichman University in Israel.
China’s interest in the Middle East has long been rooted in its need for oil. It buys nearly half of its crude from Arab states, with Saudi Arabia topping the list, and it is sure to need more as its economy, the world’s second largest, keeps growing.
But in recent years, China has also been investing in critical infrastructure in the region and making deals to supply countries there with telecommunications and military technology.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/01/worl ... 778d3e6de3
China is expanding its ties to Middle Eastern states with vast infrastructure investments and cooperation on technology and security.
BEIRUT, Lebanon — In January alone, five senior officials from oil-rich Arab monarchies visited China to discuss cooperation on energy and infrastructure. Turkey’s top diplomat vowed to stamp out “media reports targeting China” in the Turkish news media, and Iran’s foreign minister pressed for progress on $400 billion of investment that China has promised his country.
As the United States, fatigued by decades of war and upheaval in the Middle East, seeks to limit its involvement there, China is deepening its ties with both friends and foes of Washington across the region.
China is nowhere near rivaling the United States’ vast involvement in the Middle East. But states there are increasingly looking to China not just to buy their oil, but to invest in their infrastructure and cooperate on technology and security, a trend that could accelerate as the United States pulls back.
For Beijing, the recent turmoil in neighboring countries like Afghanistan and Kazakhstan has reinforced its desire to cultivate stable ties in the region. The outreach follows the American military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan after 20 years, as well as the official end of its combat mission in Iraq. That, along with the Biden administration’s frequent talk of China as its top national security priority, has left many of its partners in the Middle East believing that Washington’s attention lies elsewhere.
Beijing has welcomed the chance to extend its influence, and Arab leaders appreciate that China — which touts the virtue of “noninterference” in other countries’ affairs — won’t get involved in their domestic politics or send its military to topple unfriendly dictators. And each side can count on the other to overlook its human rights abuses.
“There is a feeling in the region that the United States is actively on the way out, and that’s an opportunity for China,” said Gedaliah Afterman, head of the Asia Policy Program at the Abba Eban Institute of International Diplomacy at Reichman University in Israel.
China’s interest in the Middle East has long been rooted in its need for oil. It buys nearly half of its crude from Arab states, with Saudi Arabia topping the list, and it is sure to need more as its economy, the world’s second largest, keeps growing.
But in recent years, China has also been investing in critical infrastructure in the region and making deals to supply countries there with telecommunications and military technology.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/01/worl ... 778d3e6de3
Re: THE MIDDLE EAST
Leaders of Israel, U.A.E. and Egypt Meet for Their First Summit
All three countries are navigating fraught relationships with the Biden administration amid the quickly changing geopolitical landscape precipitated by Russia’s war on Ukraine.
President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, center, hosted a summit with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed of the U.A.E., left, and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett of Israel in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, on Tuesday.Credit...UAE Ministry of Presidential Affairs
CAIRO — Egypt hosted the first summit meeting with leaders of Israel and the United Arab Emirates on Monday and Tuesday, the latest sign of a swift realignment of Middle Eastern political alliances since Israel established diplomatic relations in 2020 with several Arab countries.
Governments in all three countries were circumspect on what Israel’s prime minister, Naftali Bennett; the de facto ruler of the United Arab Emirates, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed; and Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, discussed at their meeting in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheikh.
Israel said only that they had focused on ways to strengthen the relationships among the three countries, and a spokesman for Egypt’s presidency, apparently wary of lingering domestic hostility toward Israel, described talks between the Emirati leader and the Egyptian president without even mentioning Mr. Bennett.
But the deliberately vague statements obscured an important development in the region, analysts said, as the Middle Eastern powers appeared to band together to navigate their fraught relationships with the Biden administration, amid the quickly changing geopolitical landscape precipitated by Russia’s war on Ukraine.
All three countries have faced heavy pressure from Washington to shun Russia and, in the Emirates’ case, also to supply more oil to a world trying to wean itself from Russian energy.
That arm-twisting has come as the United States pursues a renewed nuclear deal with Iran, a rival of both Israel and the U.A.E., that would lift international sanctions on Tehran in exchange for limits on its nuclear program. The Emirates and another important American ally in the region, Saudi Arabia, have complained about what they see as a lack of American support after attacks that were linked to Iran.
“It’s quite interesting to see them saying that, from now on, we are going to talk like one team,” said Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, an Emirati political analyst. “They want to send not an individual message, but a collective message, and it is both to Iran and to America. The combined forces of these major regional U.S. allies will be heard better than each one of them talking to Washington alone.”
For decades, Israel was ostracized by all but two Arab countries, Jordan and Egypt. For most Arab governments, Israel’s occupation of territories claimed by the Palestinians precluded any diplomatic entente and even in those capitals, Amman and Cairo, leaders sought to keep their relationships with Israel below the radar.
But the very public summit in Sharm el Sheikh highlighted how the advantages of greater economic ties with Israel and the shared fear of a nuclear Iran now seem to be greater immediate priorities to some Arab leaders than a quick resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Nuclear talks among the United States, five other global powers and Iran have been nearing a resolution but currently hinge on a sticky Iranian demand: that Washington stop designating the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, its powerful military force, as a terrorist organization.
Israel and Washington’s other Middle East allies have lobbied the Biden administration not to give in, saying they fear that doing so would strengthen Iran-backed groups across the region, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.
Cooperation is speeding up on other fronts as well. The meeting in Sharm el Sheikh followed Mr. Bennett’s visits to Bahrain in February and to the Emirates in December, both firsts for an Israeli prime minister.
Amid the warming Emirati-Israeli ties, the fact that Egypt hosted the summit suggests it is playing catch-up, said Nimrod Novik, an analyst at the Israel Policy Forum, a research group, and an expert on Israeli-Egyptian relations.
Cairo is less concerned about the Iran deal than the others, said H.A. Hellyer, a Middle East scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Royal United Services Institute. But it may see an opportunity to regain its historic role as a mediator.
“The Egyptians were less than happy in losing their presumed role as liaisons between Israel and the Arab world,” Mr. Novik said. “As far as Sisi is concerned, this is a marker that says: ‘We remain relevant to the emerging, new context.’”
Thanks to the Ukraine war, Egypt is also looking to step up its exports of liquefied natural gas to Europe, something it cannot accomplish without Israel, which provides much of the raw gas that Egypt processes and re-exports, said Abdelmonem Said Aly, a political analyst and writer aligned with the Egyptian government.
The Ukraine war has rocked the Middle East on several fronts, including by pushing up food prices and threatening economies across the region, making regional collaboration more urgent, he said.
Its economy shaken by the Ukraine war, Egypt hopes to attract Israeli tourists to its Red Sea resorts and to drum up Persian Gulf investment in the country. Both efforts are already seeing some success: Israel and Egypt just announced new direct flights between Israel and Sharm el Sheikh, and Emirati investors said this week that they would buy up large chunks of Egyptian banks.
Russia-Ukraine War: Key Developments
Card 1 of 4
A new diplomatic push. President Biden is heading to Brussels, where he is planning to announce new sanctions against Russia before meeting with NATO allies and the European Union. Poland said it would propose to send a NATO peacekeeping mission to Ukraine.
Russia’s shrinking force. The Pentagon said that Russia’s “combat power” in Ukraine has dipped below 90 percent of its original force. The assessment reflects the significant losses that Russian troops have suffered at the hands of Ukrainian soldiers.
On the ground. Ukrainian forces appear to have retaken ground in the northwestern suburbs of Kyiv and around the Black Sea port of Mykolaiv. In the capital, a hail of rockets landed in a residential area near the city center, causing extensive damage.
Cracking down on dissent. A Russian court sentenced the opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny, already serving a two-and-a-half-year prison term for violating parole, to an additional nine years on fraud charges. Russia also amended a draconian censorship law to expand the scope of government bodies off-limits to criticism.
Israeli media reported that Mr. Bennett’s visit was the first time that an Israeli prime minister had stayed overnight in Egypt in two decades.
Analysts said the leaders may also have discussed how to limit the risk of a flare-up in the occupied territories in the coming weeks, when the convergence of the Muslim festival of Ramadan, the Christian holiday of Easter and the Jewish Passover is likely to raise tensions.
Egypt has often mediated between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls Gaza, including during last year’s 11-day war in Gaza, which followed a period of heightened tensions around Ramadan.
“The Egyptians and the Emiratis and others are concerned about the convergence of the three holidays, and they do not want to see a reincarnation of what happened last May, or perhaps worse,” Mr. Novik said.
Mr. Hellyer said the tripartite warmth may prove to be only temporary, given the three countries’ varying interests.
The leaders also discussed another source of tension between the United States and its Arab allies: the gradual emergence of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, from his long regional isolation. Mr. al-Assad has spent a decade out in the cold because of his brutal crackdown on his own people during the Syrian civil war.
And after quiet signs over the last few years that Arab countries were willing to resume relations with the Syrian leader, he visited the Emirati capital last week.
The meeting in Egypt this week raised the question of whether the fallout from the war in Ukraine will reshape the region’s alliances in a more lasting way.
“Whether this is the basis for a lasting triumvirate is unclear,” Mr. Hellyer said. “Only time will tell.”
Merna Thomas contributed reporting from Cairo.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/22/worl ... 778d3e6de3
All three countries are navigating fraught relationships with the Biden administration amid the quickly changing geopolitical landscape precipitated by Russia’s war on Ukraine.
President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, center, hosted a summit with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed of the U.A.E., left, and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett of Israel in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, on Tuesday.Credit...UAE Ministry of Presidential Affairs
CAIRO — Egypt hosted the first summit meeting with leaders of Israel and the United Arab Emirates on Monday and Tuesday, the latest sign of a swift realignment of Middle Eastern political alliances since Israel established diplomatic relations in 2020 with several Arab countries.
Governments in all three countries were circumspect on what Israel’s prime minister, Naftali Bennett; the de facto ruler of the United Arab Emirates, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed; and Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, discussed at their meeting in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheikh.
Israel said only that they had focused on ways to strengthen the relationships among the three countries, and a spokesman for Egypt’s presidency, apparently wary of lingering domestic hostility toward Israel, described talks between the Emirati leader and the Egyptian president without even mentioning Mr. Bennett.
But the deliberately vague statements obscured an important development in the region, analysts said, as the Middle Eastern powers appeared to band together to navigate their fraught relationships with the Biden administration, amid the quickly changing geopolitical landscape precipitated by Russia’s war on Ukraine.
All three countries have faced heavy pressure from Washington to shun Russia and, in the Emirates’ case, also to supply more oil to a world trying to wean itself from Russian energy.
That arm-twisting has come as the United States pursues a renewed nuclear deal with Iran, a rival of both Israel and the U.A.E., that would lift international sanctions on Tehran in exchange for limits on its nuclear program. The Emirates and another important American ally in the region, Saudi Arabia, have complained about what they see as a lack of American support after attacks that were linked to Iran.
“It’s quite interesting to see them saying that, from now on, we are going to talk like one team,” said Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, an Emirati political analyst. “They want to send not an individual message, but a collective message, and it is both to Iran and to America. The combined forces of these major regional U.S. allies will be heard better than each one of them talking to Washington alone.”
For decades, Israel was ostracized by all but two Arab countries, Jordan and Egypt. For most Arab governments, Israel’s occupation of territories claimed by the Palestinians precluded any diplomatic entente and even in those capitals, Amman and Cairo, leaders sought to keep their relationships with Israel below the radar.
But the very public summit in Sharm el Sheikh highlighted how the advantages of greater economic ties with Israel and the shared fear of a nuclear Iran now seem to be greater immediate priorities to some Arab leaders than a quick resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Nuclear talks among the United States, five other global powers and Iran have been nearing a resolution but currently hinge on a sticky Iranian demand: that Washington stop designating the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, its powerful military force, as a terrorist organization.
Israel and Washington’s other Middle East allies have lobbied the Biden administration not to give in, saying they fear that doing so would strengthen Iran-backed groups across the region, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.
Cooperation is speeding up on other fronts as well. The meeting in Sharm el Sheikh followed Mr. Bennett’s visits to Bahrain in February and to the Emirates in December, both firsts for an Israeli prime minister.
Amid the warming Emirati-Israeli ties, the fact that Egypt hosted the summit suggests it is playing catch-up, said Nimrod Novik, an analyst at the Israel Policy Forum, a research group, and an expert on Israeli-Egyptian relations.
Cairo is less concerned about the Iran deal than the others, said H.A. Hellyer, a Middle East scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Royal United Services Institute. But it may see an opportunity to regain its historic role as a mediator.
“The Egyptians were less than happy in losing their presumed role as liaisons between Israel and the Arab world,” Mr. Novik said. “As far as Sisi is concerned, this is a marker that says: ‘We remain relevant to the emerging, new context.’”
Thanks to the Ukraine war, Egypt is also looking to step up its exports of liquefied natural gas to Europe, something it cannot accomplish without Israel, which provides much of the raw gas that Egypt processes and re-exports, said Abdelmonem Said Aly, a political analyst and writer aligned with the Egyptian government.
The Ukraine war has rocked the Middle East on several fronts, including by pushing up food prices and threatening economies across the region, making regional collaboration more urgent, he said.
Its economy shaken by the Ukraine war, Egypt hopes to attract Israeli tourists to its Red Sea resorts and to drum up Persian Gulf investment in the country. Both efforts are already seeing some success: Israel and Egypt just announced new direct flights between Israel and Sharm el Sheikh, and Emirati investors said this week that they would buy up large chunks of Egyptian banks.
Russia-Ukraine War: Key Developments
Card 1 of 4
A new diplomatic push. President Biden is heading to Brussels, where he is planning to announce new sanctions against Russia before meeting with NATO allies and the European Union. Poland said it would propose to send a NATO peacekeeping mission to Ukraine.
Russia’s shrinking force. The Pentagon said that Russia’s “combat power” in Ukraine has dipped below 90 percent of its original force. The assessment reflects the significant losses that Russian troops have suffered at the hands of Ukrainian soldiers.
On the ground. Ukrainian forces appear to have retaken ground in the northwestern suburbs of Kyiv and around the Black Sea port of Mykolaiv. In the capital, a hail of rockets landed in a residential area near the city center, causing extensive damage.
Cracking down on dissent. A Russian court sentenced the opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny, already serving a two-and-a-half-year prison term for violating parole, to an additional nine years on fraud charges. Russia also amended a draconian censorship law to expand the scope of government bodies off-limits to criticism.
Israeli media reported that Mr. Bennett’s visit was the first time that an Israeli prime minister had stayed overnight in Egypt in two decades.
Analysts said the leaders may also have discussed how to limit the risk of a flare-up in the occupied territories in the coming weeks, when the convergence of the Muslim festival of Ramadan, the Christian holiday of Easter and the Jewish Passover is likely to raise tensions.
Egypt has often mediated between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls Gaza, including during last year’s 11-day war in Gaza, which followed a period of heightened tensions around Ramadan.
“The Egyptians and the Emiratis and others are concerned about the convergence of the three holidays, and they do not want to see a reincarnation of what happened last May, or perhaps worse,” Mr. Novik said.
Mr. Hellyer said the tripartite warmth may prove to be only temporary, given the three countries’ varying interests.
The leaders also discussed another source of tension between the United States and its Arab allies: the gradual emergence of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, from his long regional isolation. Mr. al-Assad has spent a decade out in the cold because of his brutal crackdown on his own people during the Syrian civil war.
And after quiet signs over the last few years that Arab countries were willing to resume relations with the Syrian leader, he visited the Emirati capital last week.
The meeting in Egypt this week raised the question of whether the fallout from the war in Ukraine will reshape the region’s alliances in a more lasting way.
“Whether this is the basis for a lasting triumvirate is unclear,” Mr. Hellyer said. “Only time will tell.”
Merna Thomas contributed reporting from Cairo.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/22/worl ... 778d3e6de3
Re: THE MIDDLE EAST
Israel to Host 3 Arab Foreign Ministers in Historic Meeting
The gathering of top diplomats from Israel, the U.A.E., Bahrain and Morocco, as well as Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, is a sign of how quickly Middle Eastern alliances are shifting.
JERUSALEM — Israel will host a historic summit this weekend with the top diplomats from the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Bahrain, a sign of how quickly the realignment of Middle Eastern powers is accelerating as Israelis and some Arab governments find common cause not only over Iran but in navigating the new global realities created by the Ukraine war.
Unimaginable half a decade ago, the high-level meeting reflects the new political reality created when Israel sealed landmark diplomatic agreements with the U.A.E., Bahrain and Morocco in 2020. Planned for Sunday and Monday, it is set to be the first meeting with top officials from three Arab countries on Israeli soil, and highlights how Israel — which needed the United States to help broker the 2020 accords — can now become a bridge between Washington and certain Arab governments.
The groundbreaking visit will add the three foreign ministers to a very short list of high-level Arab visitors to Israel — starting with Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian president who shocked Israelis by flying to Israel in 1977 and calling for peace in an address to the Knesset, or parliament. Hosni Mubarak, Mr. Sadat’s successor, visited in 1995 to deliver a eulogy at the funeral of slain prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. King Hussein of Jordan also visited Israel several times, including for Mr. Rabin’s funeral.
The upcoming meeting will provide a forum to discuss both disagreements and shared concerns about the Ukraine war; the possibility of a new nuclear deal with Iran; and the need to avoid a surge of violence in Israel and the occupied territories next month, when three important Jewish, Muslim and Christian holidays will overlap.
The Israeli foreign minister, Yair Lapid, will host the conference, which his ministry said on Friday would bring together Antony J. Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state; Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Emirati foreign minister; Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani, the Bahraini foreign minister; and Nasser Bourita, their Moroccan counterpart. Officials haven’t disclosed where the leaders are meeting.
The planned gathering demonstrates how relations between these countries and Israel have moved far beyond symbolism, said Yoel Guzansky, a former Israeli official and an expert on the Gulf at the Institute for National Security Studies, an Israeli research group.
“In many ways, Israel is the center — the epicenter — of all kinds of developments that are taking place,” Mr. Guzansky said. “Israel is the go-between, not just between Russia and Ukraine, but apparently between some of the Arab countries and Washington.”
The meeting will take place against the backdrop of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and will give Mr. Blinken a chance to encourage Washington’s Middle East allies to align with American efforts to isolate Russia.
Like Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E. has come under heavy American pressure to raise its oil production to help reduce the world’s reliance on Russian gas. It also angered Washington by abstaining from an American-backed United Nations Security Council resolution denouncing Russia’s invasion, and also by recently welcoming President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, whose diplomatic isolation the United States is seeking to maintain.
Israel — though praised by Washington for its role in mediating between Russia and Ukraine — has also avoided sanctioning Russia or condemning it too harshly. And Morocco, which relies on grain supplies from both Russia and Ukraine and is facing a growing economic crisis, has also resisted American expectations to condemn the Russian invasion.
The meeting also comes as Western-led negotiations are trying to persuade Iran to scale back its nuclear program — an effort that Israel has criticized because it fears this will lead to a deal that does not adequately restrict Iran.
It has become increasingly clear that shared fears of a nuclear Iran — as well as shared concerns about the perceived retreat of the United States from the region, and the opportunities afforded by greater economic ties between Israel and the Arab world — now seem to be a greater priority for several Arab governments than an immediate resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“Israel is the only one that, kinetically perhaps, is taking on Iran — in Syria, in Iraq, in Lebanon, in Iran itself,” Mr. Guzansky said.
Israel was ostracized for years by all but two Arab countries, Egypt and Jordan, as much of the Arab world refused to normalize ties until the creation of a Palestinian state. But that changed in 2020, when Israel established diplomatic relations with the U.A.E. and Bahrain and re-established them with Morocco.
The need to avoid a new wave of violence between Israelis and Palestinians is nevertheless expected to be discussed at the summit, analysts said.
Tensions connected to the Muslim holy month of Ramadan escalated into an 11-day war last May between Israel and militants in Gaza, led by the Islamist group Hamas. Officials and experts fear that the rare convergence next month of Ramadan, Passover and Easter, which can easily heighten tensions, may fuel further violence.
“Yes, there is Iran, and they will talk Ukraine — but there is also Jerusalem, and the memory of May 2021,” said Nimrod Novik, a former Israeli diplomat and an analyst for the Israel Policy Forum, a U.S.-based research group. “Nobody wants May 2021 in April 2022.”
Once unthinkable, public visits by senior Israeli officials to the Gulf States and Morocco have become frequent, and even expected.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett of Israel visited the U.A.E. in December and Bahrain in February, where he met with the countries’ rulers. The trips followed several visits to the Gulf and Morocco by Israeli ministers, including Mr. Lapid, the foreign minister, and Benny Gantz, the defense minister.
Mr. Gantz signed memorandums of understanding with both his Moroccan and Bahraini counterparts, the first such defense agreements between Israel and Arab countries. The deals will make it easier for the three countries to trade arms and military equipment, and to coordinate militarily.
Trade between Israel and the U.A.E. increased roughly 20-fold in 2021, and Israel has also said it will post a military officer to Bahrain as part of a regional alliance given the task of combating piracy.
Israel’s warming ties with the Gulf have also encouraged Egypt to freshen its relationship with Israel, fearful of losing its role as a bridge between Israel and the Arab world. Egypt was the first Arab country to make peace with Israel, in 1978, and their respective militaries later developed relatively good ties — but public displays of warmth have been rare.
That has changed since 2020, as Egypt tried to play catch up.
The two countries announced a new flight route this month between the resort city of Sharm el Sheikh and Tel Aviv, in addition to an existing route between Tel Aviv and Cairo. Earlier this week, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt welcomed Mr. Bennett and the Emirati crown prince, Mohammed bin Zayed, to Sharm el Sheikh for the first trilateral meeting between leaders of the three countries.
Mr. Sisi also won praise in Israel in February by warmly greeting a visiting Israeli minister, Karine Elharrar, in front of hundreds of other Arab politicians.
But polling suggests that a majority of Arab public opinion still lags far behind the leaders’ stance, with most Arabs opposing normalized ties with Israel.
When Mr. Bennett visited Bahrain in February, small groups of protesters demonstrated against his presence, despite strict measures against public protest in the kingdom.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/25/worl ... 778d3e6de3
The gathering of top diplomats from Israel, the U.A.E., Bahrain and Morocco, as well as Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, is a sign of how quickly Middle Eastern alliances are shifting.
JERUSALEM — Israel will host a historic summit this weekend with the top diplomats from the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Bahrain, a sign of how quickly the realignment of Middle Eastern powers is accelerating as Israelis and some Arab governments find common cause not only over Iran but in navigating the new global realities created by the Ukraine war.
Unimaginable half a decade ago, the high-level meeting reflects the new political reality created when Israel sealed landmark diplomatic agreements with the U.A.E., Bahrain and Morocco in 2020. Planned for Sunday and Monday, it is set to be the first meeting with top officials from three Arab countries on Israeli soil, and highlights how Israel — which needed the United States to help broker the 2020 accords — can now become a bridge between Washington and certain Arab governments.
The groundbreaking visit will add the three foreign ministers to a very short list of high-level Arab visitors to Israel — starting with Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian president who shocked Israelis by flying to Israel in 1977 and calling for peace in an address to the Knesset, or parliament. Hosni Mubarak, Mr. Sadat’s successor, visited in 1995 to deliver a eulogy at the funeral of slain prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. King Hussein of Jordan also visited Israel several times, including for Mr. Rabin’s funeral.
The upcoming meeting will provide a forum to discuss both disagreements and shared concerns about the Ukraine war; the possibility of a new nuclear deal with Iran; and the need to avoid a surge of violence in Israel and the occupied territories next month, when three important Jewish, Muslim and Christian holidays will overlap.
The Israeli foreign minister, Yair Lapid, will host the conference, which his ministry said on Friday would bring together Antony J. Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state; Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Emirati foreign minister; Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani, the Bahraini foreign minister; and Nasser Bourita, their Moroccan counterpart. Officials haven’t disclosed where the leaders are meeting.
The planned gathering demonstrates how relations between these countries and Israel have moved far beyond symbolism, said Yoel Guzansky, a former Israeli official and an expert on the Gulf at the Institute for National Security Studies, an Israeli research group.
“In many ways, Israel is the center — the epicenter — of all kinds of developments that are taking place,” Mr. Guzansky said. “Israel is the go-between, not just between Russia and Ukraine, but apparently between some of the Arab countries and Washington.”
The meeting will take place against the backdrop of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and will give Mr. Blinken a chance to encourage Washington’s Middle East allies to align with American efforts to isolate Russia.
Like Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E. has come under heavy American pressure to raise its oil production to help reduce the world’s reliance on Russian gas. It also angered Washington by abstaining from an American-backed United Nations Security Council resolution denouncing Russia’s invasion, and also by recently welcoming President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, whose diplomatic isolation the United States is seeking to maintain.
Israel — though praised by Washington for its role in mediating between Russia and Ukraine — has also avoided sanctioning Russia or condemning it too harshly. And Morocco, which relies on grain supplies from both Russia and Ukraine and is facing a growing economic crisis, has also resisted American expectations to condemn the Russian invasion.
The meeting also comes as Western-led negotiations are trying to persuade Iran to scale back its nuclear program — an effort that Israel has criticized because it fears this will lead to a deal that does not adequately restrict Iran.
It has become increasingly clear that shared fears of a nuclear Iran — as well as shared concerns about the perceived retreat of the United States from the region, and the opportunities afforded by greater economic ties between Israel and the Arab world — now seem to be a greater priority for several Arab governments than an immediate resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“Israel is the only one that, kinetically perhaps, is taking on Iran — in Syria, in Iraq, in Lebanon, in Iran itself,” Mr. Guzansky said.
Israel was ostracized for years by all but two Arab countries, Egypt and Jordan, as much of the Arab world refused to normalize ties until the creation of a Palestinian state. But that changed in 2020, when Israel established diplomatic relations with the U.A.E. and Bahrain and re-established them with Morocco.
The need to avoid a new wave of violence between Israelis and Palestinians is nevertheless expected to be discussed at the summit, analysts said.
Tensions connected to the Muslim holy month of Ramadan escalated into an 11-day war last May between Israel and militants in Gaza, led by the Islamist group Hamas. Officials and experts fear that the rare convergence next month of Ramadan, Passover and Easter, which can easily heighten tensions, may fuel further violence.
“Yes, there is Iran, and they will talk Ukraine — but there is also Jerusalem, and the memory of May 2021,” said Nimrod Novik, a former Israeli diplomat and an analyst for the Israel Policy Forum, a U.S.-based research group. “Nobody wants May 2021 in April 2022.”
Once unthinkable, public visits by senior Israeli officials to the Gulf States and Morocco have become frequent, and even expected.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett of Israel visited the U.A.E. in December and Bahrain in February, where he met with the countries’ rulers. The trips followed several visits to the Gulf and Morocco by Israeli ministers, including Mr. Lapid, the foreign minister, and Benny Gantz, the defense minister.
Mr. Gantz signed memorandums of understanding with both his Moroccan and Bahraini counterparts, the first such defense agreements between Israel and Arab countries. The deals will make it easier for the three countries to trade arms and military equipment, and to coordinate militarily.
Trade between Israel and the U.A.E. increased roughly 20-fold in 2021, and Israel has also said it will post a military officer to Bahrain as part of a regional alliance given the task of combating piracy.
Israel’s warming ties with the Gulf have also encouraged Egypt to freshen its relationship with Israel, fearful of losing its role as a bridge between Israel and the Arab world. Egypt was the first Arab country to make peace with Israel, in 1978, and their respective militaries later developed relatively good ties — but public displays of warmth have been rare.
That has changed since 2020, as Egypt tried to play catch up.
The two countries announced a new flight route this month between the resort city of Sharm el Sheikh and Tel Aviv, in addition to an existing route between Tel Aviv and Cairo. Earlier this week, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt welcomed Mr. Bennett and the Emirati crown prince, Mohammed bin Zayed, to Sharm el Sheikh for the first trilateral meeting between leaders of the three countries.
Mr. Sisi also won praise in Israel in February by warmly greeting a visiting Israeli minister, Karine Elharrar, in front of hundreds of other Arab politicians.
But polling suggests that a majority of Arab public opinion still lags far behind the leaders’ stance, with most Arabs opposing normalized ties with Israel.
When Mr. Bennett visited Bahrain in February, small groups of protesters demonstrated against his presence, despite strict measures against public protest in the kingdom.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/25/worl ... 778d3e6de3
Re: THE MIDDLE EAST
UAE Peaceful Nuclear Energy Programme an inspiring global example: President of Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission
DUBAI, 29th March, 2022 (WAM) -- Rumina Velshi, President and CEO of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), said the UAE Peaceful Nuclear Energy Programme is an inspiring global example.
In her exclusive statement to the Emirates News Agency (WAM), Velshi said she visited the Barakah Nuclear Power Plant two years ago and witnessed the success story of the programme, which she described as an unprecedented success in terms of financial costs or adherence to timelines and plans.
She also stressed that the programme’s excellence is due to the significant efforts of the Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation (FANR), the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) and other relevant authorities. Emirati women are active and key components of the programme, including in all phases of nuclear work and in managerial positions, she noted.
The UAE’s future approach inspires the entire world, she added, commending the country’s support for international climate change efforts.
On the cooperation between the CNSC and the UAE, Velshi stressed that the country is known for its ability to form distinguished bilateral ties with its partners. The two sides have launched several joint programmes.
https://www.wam.ae/en/details/1395303034905
DUBAI, 29th March, 2022 (WAM) -- Rumina Velshi, President and CEO of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), said the UAE Peaceful Nuclear Energy Programme is an inspiring global example.
In her exclusive statement to the Emirates News Agency (WAM), Velshi said she visited the Barakah Nuclear Power Plant two years ago and witnessed the success story of the programme, which she described as an unprecedented success in terms of financial costs or adherence to timelines and plans.
She also stressed that the programme’s excellence is due to the significant efforts of the Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation (FANR), the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) and other relevant authorities. Emirati women are active and key components of the programme, including in all phases of nuclear work and in managerial positions, she noted.
The UAE’s future approach inspires the entire world, she added, commending the country’s support for international climate change efforts.
On the cooperation between the CNSC and the UAE, Velshi stressed that the country is known for its ability to form distinguished bilateral ties with its partners. The two sides have launched several joint programmes.
https://www.wam.ae/en/details/1395303034905
Jerusalem Calms After Israeli-Palestinian Clashes at Holy Site
Violence broke out at the Aqsa Mosque compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, in the morning on the first day of a rare convergence of Ramadan, Easter and Passover.
Watch video at:
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/04/15 ... ue-clashes
JERUSALEM — More than 150 people were injured on Friday at one of Jerusalem’s holiest sites after clashes erupted between Israeli riot police and Palestinians, adding to weeks of escalating tensions in Israel and the occupied West Bank and raising fears of further conflagrations in the coming days.
Palestinians threw stones at the police, who stormed parts of the mosque compound, fired sound grenades and rubber bullets and arrested more than 400 people. But by midday on Friday, the first day of a rare convergence of Ramadan, Passover and Easter, calm had returned to the Aqsa Mosque compound in the Old City, known to Jews as the Temple Mount — a complex that is sacred to both religions.
The violence followed a recent wave of Palestinian attacks on Israelis and deadly Israeli raids in the occupied West Bank. Tensions and clashes around the same compound played a central role in the buildup to an 11-day war last May between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza.
Over the past month, violence has escalated across Israel and the occupied territories with four Arab attacks that killed 14 people in Israel. That prompted the Israeli military to step up raids in the occupied West Bank that have left at least 15 Palestinians dead. Israel said that the raids were aimed at preventing and deterring further attacks, but Palestinians denounced them as a collective punishment.
Israeli security forces arresting Palestinian protestors at the Mughrabi Gate of Jerusalem’s Old City on Friday.Credit...Menahem Kahana/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The violence on Friday also threatened the already shaky Israeli government. A lawmaker from a small Islamist party that is part of the governing coalition said he might consider resigning if police activity at the Aqsa Mosque compound did not stop.
Palestinian authorities strongly condemned the storming of the compound by the Israeli police.
“The expulsion of the worshipers by force, repression and batons in preparation for the incursions of the Jewish extremists will ignite the fire of the religious war for which the Palestinians alone will not pay the price,” the Palestinian foreign ministry said in a statement.
Yair Lapid, the Israeli foreign minister, said that his country was committed to freedom of worship for people of all faiths in Jerusalem.
“Our goal is to enable peaceful prayer for believers during the Ramadan holiday,” he said in a statement. “The riots this morning on the Temple Mount are unacceptable and go against the spirit of the religions we believe in.”
One of the holiest structures in Islam, the mosque is on a site that is part of the Old City of Jerusalem, important to Christians, Jews and Muslims. The compound is administered by an Islamic trust known as the Waqf, which coordinates with the Israeli security forces present on the site.
Christians and Jews are allowed to visit the site, and Israeli officials have become increasingly lenient about Jews quietly praying on the mount during morning visiting hours Sunday-Thursday. There had been expectations for weeks that tensions would rise around the confluence of Ramadan, Passover and Easter, the first since 1991.
In recent days the police have arrested several Jewish activists who were suspected of planning to make the more visible gesture of an animal sacrifice. On Friday morning, they stopped a Jewish man carrying a goat near the mosque. The goat was confiscated.
Rumors had spread on Palestinian social media that Jewish hard-liners would breach the Aqsa Mosque this weekend, leading to calls for Palestinians to defend the area.
The confrontation on Friday began at about 5:30 a.m. and lasted for more than three hours. Tens of thousands of Muslim worshipers had gathered at the compound for dawn prayers on the second Friday of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting. Both sides said the other set off the violence.
The police said the melee at the compound began after Palestinians collected stones, wooden planks and other large objects before the Muslim dawn prayer began and also set off fireworks. Officers entered the compound only after the prayer was over and the crowds had begun to throw stones in the direction of the Western Wall below, a Jewish holy site where worshipers had also gathered to pray, according to the police.
The officers responded by firing rubber-tipped bullets, tear gas and stun grenades at the Palestinian stone throwers.
However some Palestinian witnesses gave conflicting accounts of how the troubles started. They said that the Israeli police moved deeper into the compound as the call to prayer sounded, a few minutes before the prayers began, which the Palestinians viewed as a provocation. They said the police had fired the first shot.
The police expelled many of the worshipers, in some cases shoving them and hitting them with batons, but some returned afterward.
Another video showed police officers inside the mosque, some pointing their weapons at the Palestinians sitting on the floor while another held a stash of white zip-ties in his hand. Another video showed rows of men laying on their stomachs, their hands tied behind their backs with the zip-ties.
A Palestinian prisoner’s rights group said more than 450 people were arrested by the police. They face charges of throwing stones, firing fireworks, assaulting police officers, violent fortification, violent rioting and disturbing public order, according to the police.
A few hours later, the midday Muslim prayer passed without incident.
But the fighting could have far-reaching consequences for the government of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. Mazen Ghanaim, a member of the Raam, an Islamist party that is the smallest member of the governing coalition, said he might resign from the coalition if police activity at the mosque did not stop.
Such a move would reduce the number of lawmakers loyal to the government in the 120-seat Israeli Parliament to 59, giving the opposition a wafer-thin majority, potentially allowing it to dissolve Parliament and hold new elections.
Mr. Bennett lost his majority last week after a right-wing lawmaker from his own party defected, saying that the government needed to do more to protect Israel’s Jewish identity.
The violence compounded several weeks of rising tensions across Israel and the occupied territories, in which more than 30 Israelis, Palestinians and foreigners have died in the deadliest wave of violence, outside of a full-scale war, for several years.
The escalation began on March 22, when a member of Israel’s Arab minority stabbed and rammed to death four Israelis in the south of the country. Days later, two more Arab citizens of Israel shot dead two Israeli police officers in Hadera, a northern city. All three attackers had links to the Islamic State, and were later fatally shot themselves.
More attacks followed and prompted the Israeli military to increase the intensity of its raids in the West Bank. At least 15 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since the crackdown began.
Israeli officials said that most of those Palestinians were militants who had been involved in attacks or were planning new ones. But the casualties included an unarmed woman who the Israeli Army said was shot after she failed to stop when they fired warning rounds and a rights lawyer who was caught in a shootout during an Israeli raid.
— Patrick Kingsley and Raja Abdulrahim
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/04/15 ... ue-clashes
Watch video at:
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/04/15 ... ue-clashes
JERUSALEM — More than 150 people were injured on Friday at one of Jerusalem’s holiest sites after clashes erupted between Israeli riot police and Palestinians, adding to weeks of escalating tensions in Israel and the occupied West Bank and raising fears of further conflagrations in the coming days.
Palestinians threw stones at the police, who stormed parts of the mosque compound, fired sound grenades and rubber bullets and arrested more than 400 people. But by midday on Friday, the first day of a rare convergence of Ramadan, Passover and Easter, calm had returned to the Aqsa Mosque compound in the Old City, known to Jews as the Temple Mount — a complex that is sacred to both religions.
The violence followed a recent wave of Palestinian attacks on Israelis and deadly Israeli raids in the occupied West Bank. Tensions and clashes around the same compound played a central role in the buildup to an 11-day war last May between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza.
Over the past month, violence has escalated across Israel and the occupied territories with four Arab attacks that killed 14 people in Israel. That prompted the Israeli military to step up raids in the occupied West Bank that have left at least 15 Palestinians dead. Israel said that the raids were aimed at preventing and deterring further attacks, but Palestinians denounced them as a collective punishment.
Israeli security forces arresting Palestinian protestors at the Mughrabi Gate of Jerusalem’s Old City on Friday.Credit...Menahem Kahana/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The violence on Friday also threatened the already shaky Israeli government. A lawmaker from a small Islamist party that is part of the governing coalition said he might consider resigning if police activity at the Aqsa Mosque compound did not stop.
Palestinian authorities strongly condemned the storming of the compound by the Israeli police.
“The expulsion of the worshipers by force, repression and batons in preparation for the incursions of the Jewish extremists will ignite the fire of the religious war for which the Palestinians alone will not pay the price,” the Palestinian foreign ministry said in a statement.
Yair Lapid, the Israeli foreign minister, said that his country was committed to freedom of worship for people of all faiths in Jerusalem.
“Our goal is to enable peaceful prayer for believers during the Ramadan holiday,” he said in a statement. “The riots this morning on the Temple Mount are unacceptable and go against the spirit of the religions we believe in.”
One of the holiest structures in Islam, the mosque is on a site that is part of the Old City of Jerusalem, important to Christians, Jews and Muslims. The compound is administered by an Islamic trust known as the Waqf, which coordinates with the Israeli security forces present on the site.
Christians and Jews are allowed to visit the site, and Israeli officials have become increasingly lenient about Jews quietly praying on the mount during morning visiting hours Sunday-Thursday. There had been expectations for weeks that tensions would rise around the confluence of Ramadan, Passover and Easter, the first since 1991.
In recent days the police have arrested several Jewish activists who were suspected of planning to make the more visible gesture of an animal sacrifice. On Friday morning, they stopped a Jewish man carrying a goat near the mosque. The goat was confiscated.
Rumors had spread on Palestinian social media that Jewish hard-liners would breach the Aqsa Mosque this weekend, leading to calls for Palestinians to defend the area.
The confrontation on Friday began at about 5:30 a.m. and lasted for more than three hours. Tens of thousands of Muslim worshipers had gathered at the compound for dawn prayers on the second Friday of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting. Both sides said the other set off the violence.
The police said the melee at the compound began after Palestinians collected stones, wooden planks and other large objects before the Muslim dawn prayer began and also set off fireworks. Officers entered the compound only after the prayer was over and the crowds had begun to throw stones in the direction of the Western Wall below, a Jewish holy site where worshipers had also gathered to pray, according to the police.
The officers responded by firing rubber-tipped bullets, tear gas and stun grenades at the Palestinian stone throwers.
However some Palestinian witnesses gave conflicting accounts of how the troubles started. They said that the Israeli police moved deeper into the compound as the call to prayer sounded, a few minutes before the prayers began, which the Palestinians viewed as a provocation. They said the police had fired the first shot.
The police expelled many of the worshipers, in some cases shoving them and hitting them with batons, but some returned afterward.
Another video showed police officers inside the mosque, some pointing their weapons at the Palestinians sitting on the floor while another held a stash of white zip-ties in his hand. Another video showed rows of men laying on their stomachs, their hands tied behind their backs with the zip-ties.
A Palestinian prisoner’s rights group said more than 450 people were arrested by the police. They face charges of throwing stones, firing fireworks, assaulting police officers, violent fortification, violent rioting and disturbing public order, according to the police.
A few hours later, the midday Muslim prayer passed without incident.
But the fighting could have far-reaching consequences for the government of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. Mazen Ghanaim, a member of the Raam, an Islamist party that is the smallest member of the governing coalition, said he might resign from the coalition if police activity at the mosque did not stop.
Such a move would reduce the number of lawmakers loyal to the government in the 120-seat Israeli Parliament to 59, giving the opposition a wafer-thin majority, potentially allowing it to dissolve Parliament and hold new elections.
Mr. Bennett lost his majority last week after a right-wing lawmaker from his own party defected, saying that the government needed to do more to protect Israel’s Jewish identity.
The violence compounded several weeks of rising tensions across Israel and the occupied territories, in which more than 30 Israelis, Palestinians and foreigners have died in the deadliest wave of violence, outside of a full-scale war, for several years.
The escalation began on March 22, when a member of Israel’s Arab minority stabbed and rammed to death four Israelis in the south of the country. Days later, two more Arab citizens of Israel shot dead two Israeli police officers in Hadera, a northern city. All three attackers had links to the Islamic State, and were later fatally shot themselves.
More attacks followed and prompted the Israeli military to increase the intensity of its raids in the West Bank. At least 15 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since the crackdown began.
Israeli officials said that most of those Palestinians were militants who had been involved in attacks or were planning new ones. But the casualties included an unarmed woman who the Israeli Army said was shot after she failed to stop when they fired warning rounds and a rights lawyer who was caught in a shootout during an Israeli raid.
— Patrick Kingsley and Raja Abdulrahim
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/04/15 ... ue-clashes
Rare Overlap of Holy Days Shows Jerusalem’s Promise and Problems
In its Old City, a Christian, a Jew and a Muslim marked Easter, Passover and Ramadan. To some, it’s a “symphony.” To others, a reminder of division.
JERUSALEM — On Friday morning, as clashes flared at the Aqsa Mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem, Muslims inside and outside the mosque were fasting for the 14th day of Ramadan.
A few hundred yards away, Jews were burning leavened bread, a traditional ceremony that occurs just before Passover, which formally started on Friday evening.
A few minutes to the north, Christians were beginning a procession through the Old City, holding aloft wooden crosses, retracing the route that they believe Jesus Christ took before his crucifixion.
For the first time since 1991, Passover, Easter and Ramadan were about to occur all at once — intensifying the religious synergies and tensions that have defined Jerusalem for millenniums.
To some, the overlap embodied the wonder of Jerusalem and the semblance of coexistence among its peoples.
“Jerusalem right now is a symphony of people reaching out to God,” said Barnea Selavan, a rabbi and teacher who had just finished burning his family’s remaining leavened bread.
To others, the convergence highlighted the incompatibilities and the inequities of a city where many Palestinian residents consider themselves living under occupation. Clashes broke out again on Sunday after Israeli police officers stopped Muslims from entering the Aqsa Mosque compound for several hours to allow Jews to enter for prayer.
“Jerusalem is like a salad bowl,” said Mustafa Abu Sway, a professor of Islamic thought who had just left the mosque. “You have intact tomatoes and intact cucumbers and intact lettuce leaves. You don’t have a salad.”
And to some Christians whose Easter Friday procession started earlier than usual to avoid inconveniencing Muslims heading to the mosque, the convergence of holidays underscored the sense of being a minority within a minority.
“We are like a potato mashed between everyone,” said Serene Bathish, a leader of an Arab Christian scout club, who helped organize the Easter procession. “We are between two fires.”
Far from seas and major rivers, and high up in the mountains, Jerusalem, for much of its history, held little strategic significance, militarily or commercially. Its power and relevance most often lay in the spiritual hold it had over millions of people, many of whom had never visited it and to whom it had often meant drastically different things.
For Jews, Jerusalem is their ancient capital, the seat of King David and the site of two ancient Jewish temples where they believe God’s presence dwelled. For Muslims, it was from that same site that the Prophet Muhammad rose to heaven and on which they built the compound of the Aqsa Mosque, the third-most-sacred site in Islam. For Christians, it is the city where Jesus was crucified and ascended into heaven — where Christianity was born.
The Old City was ruled by the Ottomans until 1917, the British until 1948, and Jordan until 1967, when Israel captured and later annexed it. Much of the world still considers it occupied, and Palestinians hope it will be within the capital of a future Palestinian state.
“Everybody has a Jerusalem in their head,” said Matthew Teller, the author of “Nine Quarters of Jerusalem: A New Biography of the Old City.”
“When you get there and you do actually see it for real,” he said, “it can never match up.”
As a case in point, on Thursday night, the eve of the first convergence of the three holidays since 1991 began with an intense traffic jam.
On the narrow road that circles the Old City, Christians like Ms. Bathish were heading to a service beside the Garden of Gethsemane, an olive grove full of wizened trees where tradition holds that Jesus was arrested on the night before his crucifixion. And Muslims like Professor Abu Sway were heading to the Aqsa Mosque, where tens of thousands had just broken their Ramadan fast at a communal iftar, or meal.
Around the Old City walls, built by the Ottomans who ruled Jerusalem in the 1500s, Muslim families picnicked here and there on the grass verges. They broke their fasts to a soundtrack of car horns, distant chants from the mosque and, later, faint choral melodies wafting from the basilica at Gethsemane.
In front of everyone was gridlocked traffic, surrounding this ancient city with a ring of cars and buses, the mystical encircled by the profane.
At Rabbi Selavan’s apartment in the Old City’s Jewish Quarter, the scene was a little quieter on Thursday night.
He and his wife, Shoshana, symbolically hid pieces of their last remaining leavened bread — bought from a rare Arab-run kosher bakery in the Old City — around their home, behind chairs and a garbage can and under tables. Then they set about searching for the pieces that the other had hidden.
According to Jewish teaching, Jews must not eat leavened bread during the week of Passover, which celebrates the ancient Israelites’ escape from slavery in Egypt. The Old Testament says that they escaped so quickly, they did not have time for their bread to rise.
To Rabbi Selavan, it was extraordinary to be celebrating the holiday in the city that the Israelites’ descendants eventually made their capital. In his sitting room, he keeps a small oil lamp that he found during an excavation under his home, and that he believes was used in Jerusalem during the time of King Solomon, about 3,000 years ago. It is filled with charcoal that he believes is from the charred remains of the ancient city, after it was razed by the Romans around the year 70.
“I’m in a rebuilt — partially, at least — Jerusalem,” Rabbi Selavan said. “I’m doing it where it was done.”
A half-mile away, hundreds of Christians at Gethsemane, including Ms. Bathish, began a procession from the basilica. They chanted and carried candles through the traffic jam, the quotidian again mingling with the ethereal.
“Stay on the sidewalk!” an organizer shouted in Arabic. “Not in the road!”
The procession passed a tract of church land that the Israeli authorities had recently planned to repurpose as a national park before backing down amid Christian claims of discrimination. Then it skirted the Jewish cemetery at the bottom of the Mount of Olives, before winding through a valley filled with eccentric ancient monuments — the pyramid-shaped Tomb of Zechariah, the conical-roofed Tomb of Absalom — and then up toward the Old City walls.
To Ms. Bathish, it is a privilege to celebrate Easter where it started, and to live a few yards from where Christians believe Christ died.
“But actually, we don’t get to enjoy it that much,” she said. There are an estimated 5,000 Christians left in the Old City, alongside roughly 30,000 Muslims and 5,000 Jews — and they feel squeezed between both.
Having staved off government efforts to repurpose church land near Gethsemane, church leaders are locked in an ownership dispute with a Jewish settler group over buildings on the other side of the Old City.
Fighting these legal challenges and living in a tightly policed area, all while struggling for cultural recognition, is “very tiring, time-consuming, difficult, chaotic, insecure,” Ms. Bathish said. “We’re not enjoying the whole feeling of uniqueness.”
A few hundred yards away, on the promontory where Jews and Christians hold that Abraham tried to sacrifice his son Isaac, Professor Abu Sway, the Islamic theologian, was in his element. With his wife, daughter, son-in-law and two grandchildren, he listened to a reading of the Quran.
To Jews, he was at Temple Mount, the site of a Jewish temple destroyed by the Romans. But to Muslims, this is the Aqsa Mosque compound, a 36-acre esplanade that includes the golden Dome of the Rock, a shrine marking the Prophet Muhammad’s ascent.
An imam had just read part of the Quran about the Prophet Musa, known as Moshe to Jews and Moses to Christians, and would shortly begin a chapter on Muhammad’s journey to Jerusalem.
Soaking in the moment, “it seems that I am in love,” Professor Abu Sway said. “When you enter the Aqsa Mosque,” he said, “you feel that you are blessed, that it’s something special that not many people have access to.”
But to the professor, that realization was bittersweet.
To Rabbi Selavan, the convergence of the holidays embodied the shared life of the city and proved the Israeli state’s efforts to preserve the freedom of worship. “The thinking person realizes the freedom that they have under the Israeli government to serve God in their way,” the rabbi said.
But to Professor Abu Sway, the convergence was a reminder that many Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank and Gaza are not allowed to enter Jerusalem to worship. And the violence on Friday at the mosque, between Israeli police and Palestinian stone-throwers, highlighted not coexistence, but coercion.
“There can be no coexistence,” Professor Abu Sway said, “when you have occupation.”
Photos at:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/17/worl ... iversified
JERUSALEM — On Friday morning, as clashes flared at the Aqsa Mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem, Muslims inside and outside the mosque were fasting for the 14th day of Ramadan.
A few hundred yards away, Jews were burning leavened bread, a traditional ceremony that occurs just before Passover, which formally started on Friday evening.
A few minutes to the north, Christians were beginning a procession through the Old City, holding aloft wooden crosses, retracing the route that they believe Jesus Christ took before his crucifixion.
For the first time since 1991, Passover, Easter and Ramadan were about to occur all at once — intensifying the religious synergies and tensions that have defined Jerusalem for millenniums.
To some, the overlap embodied the wonder of Jerusalem and the semblance of coexistence among its peoples.
“Jerusalem right now is a symphony of people reaching out to God,” said Barnea Selavan, a rabbi and teacher who had just finished burning his family’s remaining leavened bread.
To others, the convergence highlighted the incompatibilities and the inequities of a city where many Palestinian residents consider themselves living under occupation. Clashes broke out again on Sunday after Israeli police officers stopped Muslims from entering the Aqsa Mosque compound for several hours to allow Jews to enter for prayer.
“Jerusalem is like a salad bowl,” said Mustafa Abu Sway, a professor of Islamic thought who had just left the mosque. “You have intact tomatoes and intact cucumbers and intact lettuce leaves. You don’t have a salad.”
And to some Christians whose Easter Friday procession started earlier than usual to avoid inconveniencing Muslims heading to the mosque, the convergence of holidays underscored the sense of being a minority within a minority.
“We are like a potato mashed between everyone,” said Serene Bathish, a leader of an Arab Christian scout club, who helped organize the Easter procession. “We are between two fires.”
Far from seas and major rivers, and high up in the mountains, Jerusalem, for much of its history, held little strategic significance, militarily or commercially. Its power and relevance most often lay in the spiritual hold it had over millions of people, many of whom had never visited it and to whom it had often meant drastically different things.
For Jews, Jerusalem is their ancient capital, the seat of King David and the site of two ancient Jewish temples where they believe God’s presence dwelled. For Muslims, it was from that same site that the Prophet Muhammad rose to heaven and on which they built the compound of the Aqsa Mosque, the third-most-sacred site in Islam. For Christians, it is the city where Jesus was crucified and ascended into heaven — where Christianity was born.
The Old City was ruled by the Ottomans until 1917, the British until 1948, and Jordan until 1967, when Israel captured and later annexed it. Much of the world still considers it occupied, and Palestinians hope it will be within the capital of a future Palestinian state.
“Everybody has a Jerusalem in their head,” said Matthew Teller, the author of “Nine Quarters of Jerusalem: A New Biography of the Old City.”
“When you get there and you do actually see it for real,” he said, “it can never match up.”
As a case in point, on Thursday night, the eve of the first convergence of the three holidays since 1991 began with an intense traffic jam.
On the narrow road that circles the Old City, Christians like Ms. Bathish were heading to a service beside the Garden of Gethsemane, an olive grove full of wizened trees where tradition holds that Jesus was arrested on the night before his crucifixion. And Muslims like Professor Abu Sway were heading to the Aqsa Mosque, where tens of thousands had just broken their Ramadan fast at a communal iftar, or meal.
Around the Old City walls, built by the Ottomans who ruled Jerusalem in the 1500s, Muslim families picnicked here and there on the grass verges. They broke their fasts to a soundtrack of car horns, distant chants from the mosque and, later, faint choral melodies wafting from the basilica at Gethsemane.
In front of everyone was gridlocked traffic, surrounding this ancient city with a ring of cars and buses, the mystical encircled by the profane.
At Rabbi Selavan’s apartment in the Old City’s Jewish Quarter, the scene was a little quieter on Thursday night.
He and his wife, Shoshana, symbolically hid pieces of their last remaining leavened bread — bought from a rare Arab-run kosher bakery in the Old City — around their home, behind chairs and a garbage can and under tables. Then they set about searching for the pieces that the other had hidden.
According to Jewish teaching, Jews must not eat leavened bread during the week of Passover, which celebrates the ancient Israelites’ escape from slavery in Egypt. The Old Testament says that they escaped so quickly, they did not have time for their bread to rise.
To Rabbi Selavan, it was extraordinary to be celebrating the holiday in the city that the Israelites’ descendants eventually made their capital. In his sitting room, he keeps a small oil lamp that he found during an excavation under his home, and that he believes was used in Jerusalem during the time of King Solomon, about 3,000 years ago. It is filled with charcoal that he believes is from the charred remains of the ancient city, after it was razed by the Romans around the year 70.
“I’m in a rebuilt — partially, at least — Jerusalem,” Rabbi Selavan said. “I’m doing it where it was done.”
A half-mile away, hundreds of Christians at Gethsemane, including Ms. Bathish, began a procession from the basilica. They chanted and carried candles through the traffic jam, the quotidian again mingling with the ethereal.
“Stay on the sidewalk!” an organizer shouted in Arabic. “Not in the road!”
The procession passed a tract of church land that the Israeli authorities had recently planned to repurpose as a national park before backing down amid Christian claims of discrimination. Then it skirted the Jewish cemetery at the bottom of the Mount of Olives, before winding through a valley filled with eccentric ancient monuments — the pyramid-shaped Tomb of Zechariah, the conical-roofed Tomb of Absalom — and then up toward the Old City walls.
To Ms. Bathish, it is a privilege to celebrate Easter where it started, and to live a few yards from where Christians believe Christ died.
“But actually, we don’t get to enjoy it that much,” she said. There are an estimated 5,000 Christians left in the Old City, alongside roughly 30,000 Muslims and 5,000 Jews — and they feel squeezed between both.
Having staved off government efforts to repurpose church land near Gethsemane, church leaders are locked in an ownership dispute with a Jewish settler group over buildings on the other side of the Old City.
Fighting these legal challenges and living in a tightly policed area, all while struggling for cultural recognition, is “very tiring, time-consuming, difficult, chaotic, insecure,” Ms. Bathish said. “We’re not enjoying the whole feeling of uniqueness.”
A few hundred yards away, on the promontory where Jews and Christians hold that Abraham tried to sacrifice his son Isaac, Professor Abu Sway, the Islamic theologian, was in his element. With his wife, daughter, son-in-law and two grandchildren, he listened to a reading of the Quran.
To Jews, he was at Temple Mount, the site of a Jewish temple destroyed by the Romans. But to Muslims, this is the Aqsa Mosque compound, a 36-acre esplanade that includes the golden Dome of the Rock, a shrine marking the Prophet Muhammad’s ascent.
An imam had just read part of the Quran about the Prophet Musa, known as Moshe to Jews and Moses to Christians, and would shortly begin a chapter on Muhammad’s journey to Jerusalem.
Soaking in the moment, “it seems that I am in love,” Professor Abu Sway said. “When you enter the Aqsa Mosque,” he said, “you feel that you are blessed, that it’s something special that not many people have access to.”
But to the professor, that realization was bittersweet.
To Rabbi Selavan, the convergence of the holidays embodied the shared life of the city and proved the Israeli state’s efforts to preserve the freedom of worship. “The thinking person realizes the freedom that they have under the Israeli government to serve God in their way,” the rabbi said.
But to Professor Abu Sway, the convergence was a reminder that many Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank and Gaza are not allowed to enter Jerusalem to worship. And the violence on Friday at the mosque, between Israeli police and Palestinian stone-throwers, highlighted not coexistence, but coercion.
“There can be no coexistence,” Professor Abu Sway said, “when you have occupation.”
Photos at:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/17/worl ... iversified
During Ramadan, Palestinians Barred From Aqsa Turn to Smugglers
For Palestinian Muslims, praying at the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem is an important part of Ramadan. Those barred by Israel are finding ways to get there anyway.
JERUSALEM — Only moonlight cut through the darkness early one recent morning by the time a smuggler led Husam Misk to a ladder propped against Israel’s concrete separation barrier.
Mr. Misk, a 27-year-old dentist, said he climbed the ladder quickly but was still short of the top of the 26-foot wall. He grabbed the edge where the razor wire had been cut and hoisted himself up, pausing briefly to scan the area. No sign of any soldiers.
He grabbed the rope dangling from the other side, braced his feet against the wall and lowered himself.
About an hour later, Mr. Misk said, he walked into Al Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem just in time to catch dawn prayers. Barred from legally crossing into Jerusalem from his home in the West Bank, he was one of many Palestinians who resorted to other means to visit one of the most sacred sites in Islam during the holy month of Ramadan.
“I come out of conviction to pray and to stand in solidarity,” said Mr. Misk, sitting in the shade of a tree in the Aqsa compound on a recent afternoon. “Because Al Aqsa is the center of the struggle between us and the Israelis.”
Husam Misk, 27, at Al Aqsa Mosque, after smuggling himself into Jerusalem.Credit...Afif Amireh for The New York Times
The Israeli government, which generally bars West Bank residents from entering Jerusalem without a permit, usually eases restrictions to allow hundreds of thousands to visit Al Aqsa during Ramadan. Children up to age 12, women and men 50 and older are allowed to attend Friday Prayers there without a permit. Men aged 40 to 50 can enter with an existing permit.
But most young men and those with criminal records are turned back at official crossing points or denied entry permits. While Palestinians argue that such restrictions are discriminatory, Israeli officials, still reeling from a spate of Palestinian attacks that killed 14 people starting just before Ramadan, insist they are necessary security measures.
Many Palestinians who are denied entry — hundreds a day, those who cross say — instead climb the controversial separation barrier, walk through openings cut where the barrier is a metal fence, or hike through mountainous terrain where there are gaps in the barrier. Others make doctor’s appointments to obtain medical permits to enter Jerusalem, or bribe soldiers or Jewish settlers to get them through checkpoints, according to people who have used these methods.
Some livestream their journeys to encourage other Palestinians to follow their path.
A Palestinian man walks from an Israeli checkpoint toward his car in Bethlehem. Most young Palestinian men are turned back at official crossings or denied entry permits into Jerusalem.Credit...Samar Hazboun for The New York Times
While those interviewed who circumvented the rules said they had come to Aqsa to pray or pay homage to the historic site, Israeli officials said that unmonitored entries presented a potential security threat.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/29/worl ... 778d3e6de3
JERUSALEM — Only moonlight cut through the darkness early one recent morning by the time a smuggler led Husam Misk to a ladder propped against Israel’s concrete separation barrier.
Mr. Misk, a 27-year-old dentist, said he climbed the ladder quickly but was still short of the top of the 26-foot wall. He grabbed the edge where the razor wire had been cut and hoisted himself up, pausing briefly to scan the area. No sign of any soldiers.
He grabbed the rope dangling from the other side, braced his feet against the wall and lowered himself.
About an hour later, Mr. Misk said, he walked into Al Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem just in time to catch dawn prayers. Barred from legally crossing into Jerusalem from his home in the West Bank, he was one of many Palestinians who resorted to other means to visit one of the most sacred sites in Islam during the holy month of Ramadan.
“I come out of conviction to pray and to stand in solidarity,” said Mr. Misk, sitting in the shade of a tree in the Aqsa compound on a recent afternoon. “Because Al Aqsa is the center of the struggle between us and the Israelis.”
Husam Misk, 27, at Al Aqsa Mosque, after smuggling himself into Jerusalem.Credit...Afif Amireh for The New York Times
The Israeli government, which generally bars West Bank residents from entering Jerusalem without a permit, usually eases restrictions to allow hundreds of thousands to visit Al Aqsa during Ramadan. Children up to age 12, women and men 50 and older are allowed to attend Friday Prayers there without a permit. Men aged 40 to 50 can enter with an existing permit.
But most young men and those with criminal records are turned back at official crossing points or denied entry permits. While Palestinians argue that such restrictions are discriminatory, Israeli officials, still reeling from a spate of Palestinian attacks that killed 14 people starting just before Ramadan, insist they are necessary security measures.
Many Palestinians who are denied entry — hundreds a day, those who cross say — instead climb the controversial separation barrier, walk through openings cut where the barrier is a metal fence, or hike through mountainous terrain where there are gaps in the barrier. Others make doctor’s appointments to obtain medical permits to enter Jerusalem, or bribe soldiers or Jewish settlers to get them through checkpoints, according to people who have used these methods.
Some livestream their journeys to encourage other Palestinians to follow their path.
A Palestinian man walks from an Israeli checkpoint toward his car in Bethlehem. Most young Palestinian men are turned back at official crossings or denied entry permits into Jerusalem.Credit...Samar Hazboun for The New York Times
While those interviewed who circumvented the rules said they had come to Aqsa to pray or pay homage to the historic site, Israeli officials said that unmonitored entries presented a potential security threat.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/29/worl ... 778d3e6de3