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      Saudi Seeks to Replace UAE and Qatar

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      Saudi Arabia has stepped up efforts to outflank the United Arab Emirates and Qatar as the commercial, cultural and/or geostrategic hub in the Gulf. The Saudis recently expanded their challenge to the smaller Gulf states by seeking to position Saudi Arabia as the region’s foremost sports destination, once Qatar has had its moment in the sun with the 2022 FIFA World Cup. The kingdom seeks to secure a stake in the management of regional ports and terminals, which have so far been dominated by the UAE and, to a lesser extent, Qatar.

      The kingdom kicked off its effort to cement its position as the Middle East’s behemoth earlier this year. In February, Saudi Arabia announced it would cease doing business by 2024 with international companies whose regional headquarters were not based in the country. 

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      The UAE ranks 16th on the World Bank’s 2020 Ease of Doing Business Index as opposed to Saudi Arabia at number 62. As a result, freewheeling Dubai has long been the preferred regional headquarters of international firms. The Saudi move “clearly targets the” United Arab Emirates and “challenges the status of Dubai,” said a UAE-based banker.

      Saudi Arabia is a latecomer to the port control game, which is dominated by Dubai’s DP World. That company operates 82 marine and inland terminals in more than 40 countries, including Djibouti, Somaliland, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and Cyprus. The kingdom’s expansion into port and terminal management appears to be less driven by geostrategic considerations. Instead, Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Gateway Terminal (RSGT), backed by the Public Investment Fund (PIF), the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, said it was targeting ports that would service vital Saudi imports, such as those related to food security.

      In January, PIF and China’s Cosco Shipping Ports each bought a 20% stake in RSGT. The Chinese investment fits into Beijing’s larger Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which involves the acquisition of stakes in ports and terminals in Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Oman and Djibouti, where China has a military base.

      Jens Floe, the chief executive officer of RSGT, said the company planned to invest in at least three international ports in the next five years. He said each investment would be up to $500 million. “We have a focus on ports in Sudan and Egypt. They weren’t picked for that reason, but they happen to be significant countries for Saudi Arabia’s food security strategy,” Floe said.

      Saudi Sports

      Saudi Arabia’s increased focus on sports, including a possible bid to host the 2030 World Cup, serves multiple goals. First, it offers Saudi youth, who account for more than half of the kingdom’s population, a leisure and entertainment opportunity. Second, it boosts Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s burgeoning development of a leisure and entertainment industry. The Saudis believe this could allow the kingdom to polish its image tarnished by human rights abuse, including the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, and challenge Qatar’s position as the face of Middle Eastern sports.

      Embed from Getty Images

      A recent report by Grant Liberty, a London-based human rights group that focuses on Saudi Arabia and China, estimated that Riyadh has invested $1.5 billion in the hosting of multiple sporting events. These include the final games of Italy and Spain’s top football leagues, Formula 1 races, boxing, wrestling and snooker matches, and golf tournaments. So far, Qatar is the Middle East’s leader in the hosting of sporting events, followed by the UAE.

      According to Grant Liberty, further bids for events worth $800 million have failed. This did not include an unsuccessful $600-million offer to replace Qatar’s beIN Sports as the Middle Eastern broadcaster of the UEFA Champions League. Saudi Arabia reportedly continues to ban beIN from airing in the kingdom, despite the lifting of the Saudi-Emirati-led diplomatic and economic boycott of Qatar in January.

      Oil Exports

      Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 plan to diversify and streamline the Saudi economy and ween it off dependency on oil exports “has set the creation of professional sports and a sports industry as one of its goals,” said Fahad Nazer, spokesperson for the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Washington. “The kingdom is proud to host and support various athletic and sporting events which not only introduce Saudis to new sports and renowned international athletes but also showcase the kingdom’s landmarks and the welcoming nature of its people to the world.”

      The increased focus on sports comes as Saudi Arabia appears to be backing away from its intention to reduce the centrality of energy exports for its economy. Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, the crown prince’s brother, recently ridiculed an International Energy Agency (IEA) report, saying “there is no need for investment in new fossil fuel supply” as “the sequel of the La La Land movie.” He went on to ask, “Why should I take [the report] seriously?”

      Putting its money where its mouth is, Saudi Arabia intends to increase its oil production capacity from 12 million to more than 13 million barrels a day. This is based on the assumption that global efforts to replace fossil fuel with cleaner energy sources will spark sharp reductions in American and Russian production. The Saudis believe that demand in Asia for fossil fuels will continue to rise even if it drops in the West. Other Gulf producers, including the UAE and Qatar, are following a similar strategy.

      “Saudi Arabia is no longer an oil country, it’s an energy-producing country … a very competitive energy country. We are low cost in producing oil, low cost in producing gas, and low cost in producing renewables and will definitely be the least-cost producer of hydrogen,” Prince Abdulaziz said. He appeared to be suggesting that the kingdom’s doubling down on oil was part of a strategy that aims to ensure that Saudi Arabia is a player in all conventional and non-conventional aspects of energy. By implication, he was saying that diversification was likely to broaden Saudi Arabia’s energy offering, rather than significantly reduce its dependence on energy exports.

      “Sports, entertainment, tourism and mining alongside other industries envisioned in Vision 2030 are valuable expansions of the Saudi economy that serve multiple economic and non-economic purposes,” said a Saudi analyst. “It’s becoming evident, however, that energy is likely to remain the real name of the game.”

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      Global Solidarity Brings Hope to Palestinians After Decades of Oppression

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      If there is one thing Palestinians are known for, it is that we are extremely patriotic. We decorate our homes with Palestinian merchandise and paintings, we continue to dress in traditional patterns, and even though many of us have never even seen Palestine, we continue to identify ourselves as Palestinians. There is even a well-known joke about how Palestinians always have to bring up the fact that they are Palestinian in any setting or conversation. But the underlying reason behind that is our need to prove to the world that we exist.

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      Palestinians all over the world have been struggling and calling for the same things for over 70 years while not only being ignored, but invalidated. However, for the first time ever, there is a trace of hope. Palestinians — and their supporters — have used many terms to describe the conditions they have been living in under the Israeli occupation, including apartheid, genocide and ethnic cleansing, among others. While those inside Palestine have been trying to show the world the truth and sub-par living conditions, those of us outside are trying to shed light on our family history and lack of right to return to our own land.

      Nevertheless, for once, we are seeing notable progress. Now, with the latest developments in the Occupied Palestinian Territories with the evictions in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, the attacks on Al-Aqsa Mosque and Gaza and the assaults on peaceful protesters, one cannot look at all the footage on social media and the news and continue to believe that the Zionist state of Israel is not ethnically cleansing Palestinians.

      Shifting Narrative

      For years, Palestinians all over the globe felt like they were alone in this fight to shed light on their plight with no success or extremely slow progress. We have been fighting more battles than anyone knows. Above all, we have been tackling those who spin the narrative to make it look like the oppressors are the victims, which is emotionally and mentally draining. Twitter user Jehad Abusalim says, “One of the worst things about experiencing this pain is that Palestinians need to mourn but also are expected to educate the world from scratch, every time, and make the case for why they must be treated like humans.”

      One of the most dominant arguments against Palestinians and their supporters is the anti-Semitism argument. For years, celebrities, leaders and individuals have avoided discussing the crisis in Palestine for fear of being labeled as an anti-Semite. Yet another battle that we have been fighting is the burden of having to explain to the world how criticism of Israel does not make someone anti-Semitic.

      Embed from Getty Images

      But now, with the help of social media, the narrative is shifting. People are differentiating between Zionism and Judaism. It is no longer a taboo to call out the injustices happening to Palestinians. We no longer feel alone in this fight because Palestine is seen as less of a political cause and more of a humanitarian one. Showing support and standing in solidarity with the Palestinians is becoming normalized because the truth is being exposed. For once, Palestinians are hopeful. We feel change coming.

      Several changes have already taken place. Besides the worldwide protests with hundreds of thousands taking to the streets to spread awareness on the many issues in the occupied territories, a few examples of such change is the number of celebrities with millions of followers who are speaking out against the Zionist state. Political leaders, especially in the US, Israel’s strongest ally, are calling for change and sanctions. Senator Bernie Sanders submitted a resolution to limit the sale of American weapons to Israel. Dockworkers in Italy have refused to load arms for Israel, some governments have stood firm in their response to Israel, and many people are boycotting Israeli products and companies that financially support the Israeli military.

      The biggest and most prominent proof that Palestinian voices are being heard is different social media platforms attempting to censor and silence supporters of the Palestinian cause so that Israel remains in control of the narrative. But this time, it is not working. Israel has lost control.

      Despite the major progress in raising awareness of the Palestinian plight, there continues to be excessive pressure on influential people to change the narrative, “tone down the rhetoric” and even apologize for standing with the Palestinians. Some, such as actor Mark Ruffalo, have caved but other influential people, such as writer Shaun King and model Bella Hadid, continue to stand strong.

      Keep the Momentum

      Now that Palestinians are hopeful, this is our time to turn our hope into reality. We are calling on everyone who wants to support our cause to boycott companies that support the Israeli apartheid regime and put pressure on their representatives and leaders for political change. But most importantly, we want everyone to continue making noise and keep the momentum going. Although Israel has agreed to a ceasefire in Gaza, as Palestinians have experienced in the past, this is only a cover-up for other crimes against Palestinians in an attempt to kill the buzz.

      Our biggest concern is that the conversation will die down and Palestinians will go back to living under the status quo, which remains unjust. After all, if one were really on the right side of history, they would not try to cover up their crimes.

      There is a beautiful quote being shared on social media that reads: “The only thing Israel failed to consider when they expelled 750,000 Palestinians 73 years ago was their grandchildren — now from all over the world — coming back to defend their rights.” So, why are Palestinians more patriotic than any other group of people? We believe that our existence is resistance, so we are doing everything in our power to highlight our existence and resist crimes committed against us. Palestinians have always been courageous fighters, saying: “It’s free Palestine until Palestine is free.” And we will never give up on that fight.

      *[This article is submitted on behalf of the authors by the Hamad bin Khalifa University (HBKU) Communications Directorate. The views expressed are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the university’s official stance.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      Anthony Blinken’s Sales Pitch

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      After his meeting with the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, during his visit to Israel following last month’s ceasefire, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken explained his goals: “As I told the president, I’m here to underscore the commitment of the United States to rebuilding the relationship with the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian people, a relationship built on mutual respect and also a shared conviction that Palestinians and Israelis alike deserve equal measures of security, freedom, opportunity and dignity.”

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      Blinken praised Egypt’s role in brokering the truce. According to Al Jazeera, Blinken believes Egypt can play a “vital” role in making it possible for Palestinians and Israelis to “live in safety and security to enjoy equal measures of freedom, opportunity and dignity.” One wonders about Egypt’s own commitment to freedom, opportunity and dignity, but Blinken apparently sees those three words as having some sort of magical effect, masking the blemishes of both of his trusted partners, Israel and Egypt.

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Freedom, opportunity and dignity:

      An example of the rhetorical ploy that aligns three incontestably noble ideals to create the belief that the only imaginable outcome of the policies or initiatives a politician is proposing will be resoundingly positive

      Contextual Note

      Adepts of the art of rhetoric have given the trope linking three ideas a technical name: tricolon. The association of three positive notions has the effect of persuading an audience of the gravitas of the speaker’s intentions. Tricolons also make for excellent motivational slogans. Julius Caesar left no doubt about his conquest of Gaul when he wrote “veni, vidi, vici.” The French revolutionaries made clear their noble intentions in the formulation “liberté, égalité, fraternité,” a historically enduring slogan, if ever there was one. 

      Thomas Jefferson, inspired by John Locke’s celebration of “life, liberty and property,” left an indelible trace in Americans’ historical memory when he summarized the basic rights of a people as “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

      Embed from Getty Images

      Curiously, Blinken’s trio of meritorious wishes can be traced back to the title of a book published in 1942 by Samuel Crowther. The full title of the book is “Time to Inquire: How Can We Restore the Freedom, Opportunity, and Dignity of the Average Man?” The only commentary on Crowther’s book visible after a thorough web search appears in the catalog of the Library of Congress. It contains a single sentence: “Questions the general social, political, and economic values as they exist in the United States today, particularly the ‘internationalist complex,’ to which he attributes our being in the war.” 

      In other words, Crowther appears to be one of the last of the generation of isolationists who dominated US thinking about foreign policy between the two world wars. Did Blinken read his book? Does the secretary of state’s thinking in any way reflect the isolationist ideology that shamefully retreated into the background after the rise of the US empire in the wake of World War II? More likely, his adoption of the three words in Crowther’s title is a coincidence. But that’s what great marketing minds do. When they see an inspiring idea for a slogan, whatever the source, they seize it and turn it into a slogan.

      Does that mean we should think of Anthony Blinken as the secretary of international marketing rather than his official title of secretary of state? In some very real sense, a secretary of state can be defined as the head of international marketing for the US brand. And no one can doubt that the US has always been focused on selling its brand. 

      In one version of his sales pitch, Blinken adds a fourth word to introduce — and, in a certain sense, encompass — his trinity of virtues. To President Abbas, Blinken cited the importance of “equal measures of security, freedom, opportunity and dignity.” He cites “security” as the condition sine qua non that must be put in place to permit the flowering of “freedom, opportunity and dignity.” Modern states, such as the US and Israel, insist on putting security first. It is, after all, thanks to the existence of a security state — largely regulated, monitored and even enforced by the intelligence community — that the wonders associated with the prosperous American and Israeli way of life emerge. Both countries have produced an enviable military-industrial complex.

      Blinken’s trio of words defines the ideal toward which any modern society must aspire. Combining the three terms creates a compelling argument. Freedom, of course, points to the free market, the right of every individual to compete with everyone else in their quest to make it to the top. Opportunity means that there are no legal obstacles to the downtrodden in their quest to become equals of the wealthy and powerful. Everyone has a shot at winning the race. The only real obstacles are other peoples’ wealth and power. But that is precisely what makes the struggle so satisfying for the winners, knowing that they have overcome such formidable obstacles. 

      And what about dignity? The French tricolon puts liberty and equality first, both of which serve to establish an abstract legal principle denying an official social status to privilege. This leaves fraternity as a random choice of sentiment for a liberated people. Fraternity has no status in the law and may never truly exist in a competitive society. 

      Blinken’s first two terms — freedom and opportunity — describe the modern capitalist economy. It allows people to aspire to dignity while instituting a social and economic system that empowers the successful few to deny dignity to the many whose lives, thanks to their liberty, remains precarious. Without precarity, the noble ambition to achieve dignity would not exist. In other words, what the secretary of international marketing is selling is quite simply the American ideology.

      Historical Note

      Winston Churchill was a consummate rhetorician. In a wartime speech he famously intoned, “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.” He added a fourth term to what was already a proverbial tricolon. The gravity of a world war justified adding this extra item. Subsequent generations reduced Churchill’s four-term litany to the more classical tricolon in the idiom, “blood, sweat and tears.” That trio of words became not just a part of standard modern English vocabulary but also the name of a legendary rock group. 

      It is worth pointing out that just as Blinken may have consciously or unconsciously borrowed his tricolon from Samuel Crowther, Churchill’s inspiration can be traced to the 17th-century poet, John Donne, who in his long poem, “Anatomy of the World,” wrote:

      “Thou know’st how dry a cinder this world is.

      And learn’st thus much by our anatomy,

      That ’tis in vain to dew, or mollify

      It with thy tears, or sweat, or blood: nothing

      Is worth our travail, grief, or perishing,

      But those rich joys, which did possess her heart.”

      Luke most literary men and women of his time, Donne understood the power of the tricolon. In two successive lines he offers a pair of tricolons. Donne’s contemporary, William Shakespeare, took it one step further when Ophelia, speaking admiringly of Hamlet, mentions “The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword.” Shakespeare aligns two tricolons in a single pentameter line.

      It is refreshing to note that a modern politician like Anthony Blinken has a feel for classical rhetoric, mobilizing the traditional literary devices to conduct his sophisticated political marketing. It reassuringly contrasts with Donald Trump’s jarring populist rhetoric that relies not on balanced phrases, clever verbal alignments and persuasive touches, but instead on provocative innuendos and insults, hyperboles (“great,” “huge,” “amazing,” “tremendous,” “terrific,” “phenomenal”) and on an insistence that the audience “believe me” or “trust me,” even when what he says is clearly unbelievable and he himself comes across as totally untrustworthy.

      Despite their stylistic differences, what Blinken and former President Donald Trump have in common is a commitment to “Make American Ideology Great Again” in the eyes of a world that has begun not only to doubt its legitimacy but to fear the consequences of the policies carried out in its name. Blinken’s (as well as President Joe Biden’s) tone is more soothing, or at least less upsetting, whereas Trump’s has more political impact. But the message they convey is similarly superficial and unrealistic. Both translate as a pretext for domination in a hypercompetitive world.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Understanding Racism in All Its Forms

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      Twenty years ago, Amnesty International’s “Racism and the Administration of Justice” report warned that “unchecked racism can lead to tragedy on a massive scale.” Last week, as we remembered George Floyd and pondered over the meaning of his death a year ago, another aspect of unchecked racism resurfaced. On May 21, just as a cautious ceasefire was beginning thousands of miles away between Israel and Hamas, Joseph Borgen, a Jewish man reportedly on his way to a pro-Israel rally in Manhattan, was attacked by demonstrators attending a pro-Palestine rally, one of whom has since been charged with a hate crime.

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      The day after the attack, Borgen was interviewed by CNN anchor Don Lemon, where he said that he wanted to understand what made those who attacked him “act the way they did.” Prejudice, of course, comes in all shapes and sizes, all colors and cultures — as does violence. But the linchpin to unpacking the absurdity of this attack, of Muslim-on-Jew hate or Jew-on-Muslim hate, is understanding anti-Semitism and, through the drivers of that phenomenon, Islamophobia.

      Familiarity Breeds Contempt

      This attack, despicable as it was, should not surprise us given our understanding — or lack of it — of anti-Semitism, described as that “very light sleeper,” so easy to awaken. Such attacks are privileged acts of hate because the attackers consider their own particular cause to be exceptional and thus far from racist. Whether you are Jewish or Muslim, Arab or Israeli, the internet is a particularly convenient place to find vindication for what you think is the “truth.” 

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      What we encounter online is a cacophony of privileged hatreds. Jeremy Rosen wrote in his blog recently that, “In the age of social media and mass communication, so many people only believe one propagandist side of the argument and make no effort to hear another point of view.” He writes of how this saddens him in the same way that jihadism has given Islam a bad name “when it is only the most primitive, insecure, and misled who think that way.” But as he rightly states, “these are the tools of the prejudiced.”

      When otherwise peaceful demonstrations manifest themselves in brutal attacks by individuals, verbal or physical, on a perceived “other,” it is racism, pure and simple. But when the perpetrators of such acts are themselves from minority communities, it kowtows to only one agenda — that of white supremacy — which has no sympathy with any of them. The murder of George Floyd and the ensuing public awakening among so many diverse communities — of color, of faith, of culture, of economic disparity, of difference — should be a cue for communities everywhere to reexamine their own attitudes and get their priorities right.

      In relation to Jews and Muslims, a navel-gazing complacency has largely ignored the bigger picture, which is the fight against systemic, institutional or structural racism. The murder of George Floyd and the subsequent Black Lives Matter protests have reminded the world that all people of good conscience should be focused on this type of discrimination. However, the Middle East question continues to revolve around, perhaps fatalistically, over the relationship between Arabs and Israelis, Muslims and Jews, to the detriment of those communities themselves as well as that greater struggle for minorities — combating discrimination and all forms of racism within the societies they actually inhabit.

      Common Ground

      Can Jews and Muslims find common ground from the example of what the killing of George Floyd has taught us? It isn’t as though they have not had opportunities to focus on a more nuanced understanding of each “other.” Attempts in the past to do so have covered art, music, academic enquiry and dialogue. The British composer Roxanna Panufnik’s work, “Abraham,” for instance, is a beautiful musical example of bridge-building between religions that share the essential belief in one God.

      In 2008, “The Call for Peace, Dialogue and Understanding between Muslims and Jews,” an open letter with 40 Muslim signatories, highlighted how, “although many … only know of Muslim-Jewish relations through the prism of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there needs to be an awareness of other positive encounters at different stages of our history.”

      In 2004, I co-convened a remarkable initiative called Alif-Aleph with Dr. Richard Stone, a former chair of the UK-based Runnymede Commission on Islamophobia. The manifesto of that initiative remains relevant and ought to be revived in the context of George Floyd’s wider legacy. The initiative ambitiously aimed to create a new golden age in which Muslims and Jews in the diaspora would spread the example of working together to other communities, building on their mutually positive contributions to society. Living side by side in the West is a new situation that provides new opportunities.

      In practice, the initiative explored a unified purpose in addressing racism. Underlining it was “a common experience of having to address hostilities that derive from mistaken stereotypes of our religions and our cultures, leading to Islamophobia and Antisemitism.” It declared that those who wish to promote negative stereotypes of Muslims and Jews as people who hate each other will be recognized as extremists, because “What the world needs are Harmonisers, not Polarisers.”

      Violently attacking and verbally abusing an innocent person because of how you perceive a particular truth makes you anathema to that truth, makes you a hypocrite, a hater and a racist. It makes you as unjust as those you are trying to expose.

      So what made the attackers “act the way they did”? Don Lemon probably answered that question on his show when he earlier told fellow CNN host Chris Cuomo that “the issue is for people to understand their own implicit bias and racism. … There are different cultures in different places but that doesn’t change … what racism is.” That is the lesson the jury heard when convicting the racist killer of George Floyd. That is the lesson Jews and Muslims, Arabs and Israelis must hear in their own search for a meaningful resolution of what divides them.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Biggest Threat to Democracy in Israel Comes From Within

      by

      Dear Mr. Netanyahu, 

      What’s the end goal? 

      Many in the Jewish diaspora feel we should never publicly criticize Israeli state actions regarding the country’s defense. I disagree. I’m writing this to call for a change of heart before it’s too late. My fear is that anti-Semitic attacks in the diaspora will continue to rise while one of the biggest long-term threats to the democratic state of Israel grows from within.  

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      I grew up in London, in an Ashkenazi Jewish family where the horrors of persecution lived on through the generations. My bubbeh (grandma), like your zayde (grandad), was born in Poland. She ran from the pogroms and was agoraphobic until the day she died. Mum didn’t know what happened to our family living in Berlin in the 1930s. From a young age, I was taught the horrors of anti-Semitism, including the Holocaust. For many years, it was drummed into me that you stay in your group because, when push comes to shove, no one but Jews helps Jews.  

      Defensive Violence

      As a child in the 1970s, I joined Habonim-Dror, a Zionist youth organization that encouraged Jewish kids in 20 countries to live on a kibbutz in adulthood. I was taught to love the idea of the socialist community where the means of production and property were shared equally among members. I was sold a colonial dream of the muscular sun-tanned Sabra working the land to turn desert into lush agricultural land.   

      My group leaders framed Israeli violence as purely defensive. War training games in the dark, at camp, were exciting. We were woken in the middle of the night to “attack” the other group in a thrilling game of chase in which no one got hurt. The endgame as kids was hot chocolate by the campfire. It was fun as an idealistic teenager to design utopian communities on a Sunday afternoon, to learn about the children’s houses on kibbutzim, depicted like an Enid Blyton novel with midnight feasts and limited interference from parents. We spent hours creating songs and improvising skits that a couple of my youth leaders turned into the successful television show, “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”  

      Embed from Getty Images

      I spent a year in Israel at 18, following the path that my Zionist youth movement had encouraged me to take since I was nine years old. Though I loved meeting loads of people from around the world, the parochial realities of living on a kibbutz didn’t match the hype.  

      It was 1982. Israel invaded Lebanon in the misguided belief that it would enhance the security of Israeli’ citizens. My boyfriend on the kibbutz was called up to fight. We stood amidst a million Israeli citizens in Tel Aviv, protesting. I can still picture standing in a huge demonstration among Israelis’ placards with Hitler on one side and Sharon on the other. At 6 a.m. the following morning, my boyfriend left to participate in a war he didn’t believe in. This unedifying war killed thousands of innocent civilians. It seeded the birth of Hezbollah.  

      Don’t get me wrong, Mr. Netanyahu, I also fear Hamas and Hezbollah firing rockets on my family across Israel. They’ve made their anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic goals clear. The following excerpt from Hamas’s charter is worth repeating: “The Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realization of Allah’s promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said: ‘The day of judgment will not come until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jews will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say ‘O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”

      While this stance may make negotiation feel like a futile tool today, political compromise between Palestinian and Israeli leaders is the only route to peace. What’s your strategy to prevent the ongoing substantive conflict over land from continuing to escalate as an intractable holy war? Israel’s actions fuel recruitment to this ideology. Support for Hamas is increasing, even from those who are usually adamantly against what they stand for. 

      Screaming at Each Other

      I watch in horror as Palestinian gangs attack Jews as Jewish gangs attack Arabs, both marching in the streets with placards screaming death to the other. The Zionist dream sold to me didn’t mention endless evictions of Palestinian families from their homes or police trampling over prayer mats during Ramadan. I was taught that Israel’s control of Jerusalem was in the interests of religious tolerance. But you know that’s not what many hard-line Jewish settlers want. One of the biggest threats to human rights and democratic, Western values of Israel might come from within.

      Successive Israeli prime ministers have tolerated the extremes of Jewish fundamentalism. You, Mr. Netanyahu, were even prepared to go into coalition with an openly racist Jewish party to hold on to political power. In essence, Jewish racism is no different from anti-Semitism. As the chair of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance stated recently, “We strongly condemn the antisemitic violence and hate speech that has taken place in response to the recent escalation of violence in the Middle East. While freedoms of speech and protest are essential pillars of all democracies, nothing can justify hate speech.” That’s right: Nothing justifies hate speech in Israel either.  

      Mr. Netanyahu, you were quick to urge French Jews to come to Israel after the deadly anti-Semitic attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris. Do you bear any responsibility for the rise of violent antisemitic attacks in the diaspora now?   

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      In Israel’s version of proportional representation, a political party only needs to secure 3.25% of the vote to achieve representation in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. The consequence of this in a highly fractured society is a politic where the tail too often wags the dog in political decision-making. Disinterested in the state of Israel in its inception, Jewish religious fundamentalists have grown and organized politically.

      Only 13% of Israel’s Haredi ultra-orthodox boys take school exams that guide university entrance, rendering their belief systems devoid of secular education. Their political representatives are guiding government policy that drives settlements on occupied land, thereby preventing a two-state solution that many of them don’t want. Israel’s Haredi community grows at three times the rate of the rest of the Israeli Jewish population and twice the rate of the entire population. Forming a stable government has been impossible, with four elections in two years, and a fifth looming. Could the incoming Israeli prime minister use his political capital to take an honest look at Israel’s political system toward further electoral reform? 

      I hope that the next Israeli government will hear the Arab and Jewish voices in the Knesset seeking peace. Approximately 21% of the Israeli population are Arab or Druze, the majority of whom identify as Sunni Muslims. Perhaps there’s something to learn from New Zealand. Indigenous Māori comprise about 17% of the population; seats in Parliament are reserved exclusively for Māori in proportion to the percentage of the population. 

      Dehumanizing the Other

      For now, we have a ceasefire. It worries me that you may have ramped up the violence in your own political and personal interests. There was a range of political and military response options to Hamas firing rockets into Israel, given the effectiveness of the Iron Dome as a protective shield. One could forgive the cynic for wondering whether part of your strategy is images of blown-up buildings underpinning the next election campaign to harness the fear and anger of Israeli citizens.  

      Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas appears to have little influence or control in the West Bank, and Hamas has successfully exploited the horror in Gaza to win the hearts and minds of the world. They are willing to sacrifice the lives of civilians in Gaza because they think that the ends justify the means. From where I sit, the Israeli state did a great job of helping them by the extreme nature of your retaliation, not to mention your settlement policies and conditions in Gaza.

      The world watched the Israeli army destroy the building that housed the Associated Press and other media organizations. Even if some of the current Hamas leadership were killed and the infrastructure for attack on Israel destroyed, the Israeli state also demonstrated its willingness to sacrifice other people’s children as collateral damage. Surely our history has taught us the importance of not dehumanizing the “other.” Increasing the numbers of traumatized extremists eager to take the place of the leaders killed today looks like a disastrous strategy long term. When will we learn that violence won’t end this war?

      In Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s words, “Military cemeteries in every corner of the world are silent testimony to the failure of national leaders to sanctify human life.” You know that Rabin, a warrior turned peacemaker, was assassinated by an individual Jewish extremist in Tel Aviv in 1995 in opposition to the Oslo Peace Accords. The extremist ultranationalist views of the perpetrator are far more visible under your watch than Rabin’s legacy and search for peace.  

      Embed from Getty Images

      Emboldened by President Donald Trump, your government has tried to remove resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict from the domestic political agenda. Palestinian leadership remains divided and weak. Jewish fundamentalism has flourished in its bubble of righteousness. You have ignored peaceful protests while Palestinians are evicted from their homes. You have condoned expansion of illegal settlements on occupied land, and you’ve invested much more in Jewish communities than Arab ones, within the legal bounds of the state. What options do Palestinians have? Yitzhak Rabin’s words again resonate today: “No Arab ruler will consider the peace process seriously so long as he is able to toy with the idea of achieving more by the way of violence.”  

      The vacuum of visible wise leadership on all sides is dispiriting. The China-Iran Strategic Partnership is likely to secure Tehran’s funding of Hezbollah for years to come. The challenge is for moderate Israeli and Palestinian leaders to build the political capital to compromise over legitimate needs and conflicting rights to land and resources. Perhaps some young Mizrahi Jews (descended from North Africa, Central and West Asia) and Israeli Arabs and Druze serving in the Knesset will help to bridge the gaps.

      Perhaps Israelis and Palestinians will reinvigorate the peace movement as they circle the wall of the Old City of Jerusalem in the peace chain. Perhaps more peacemakers will also emerge in the Palestinian and Jewish diasporas. They’ll need wisdom and charisma, skilled international facilitation and ongoing economic development.  

      Options to establish a Palestinian state are already on the table. Both sides have tried to compromise before. But as you well know, ramped-up fear and anger are powerful. Cynicism and hopelessness among moderate Israelis and Palestinians, alongside the determination and political power of Jewish and Islamist fundamentalists, is alarming.  

      We’re all relieved to see a ceasefire. Nevertheless, your decisions have not only killed innocent civilians, but also traumatized the next generation so that they are more likely to find refuge in ultra-nationalism and religious fundamentalism. Neither will solve this conflict. Thoughtful people, religious and secular together, hopefully will.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Arrest of Migrant Activist Puts Qatar in the Spotlight

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      Amnesty International recently called for the authorities to reveal the whereabouts of Malcolm Bidali, a Kenyan national who worked as a security guard in Qatar. According to Amnesty, he was “forcibly disappeared since 4 May, when he was taken from his labour accommodation for questioning by the state security service.”

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      Bidali, who blogs under the name Noah, has been a critic of the treatment of migrant workers in Qatar, a small Gulf state that is hosting the 2022 FIFA World Cup. “A week before his arrest, Bidali gave a presentation to a large group of civil society organizations and trade unions about his experience of working in Qatar,” Amnesty noted.

      Migrant Workers in Qatar

      For Qatar, his story draws unwelcome attention to the treatment of migrant workers in the run-up to the World Cup. The Qataris had won praise for scrapping the notorious kafala sponsor system, which ties workers to their employers with terms similar to those of indentured laborers or, as some critics say, to slavery.

      In August 2020, the government announced reforms that included a minimum wage. The changes to labor law were hailed as a landmark in a region with an appalling record of mistreatment of migrant workers. Had the amendments been fully implemented, the conditions for migrant workers would have improved significantly. But more than a year and a half after the reforms were introduced, it is clear that little has changed for many migrants in Qatar.

      An Al Jazeera investigation in March 2021 revealed that “the majority of those interviewed experienced delays in the process as well as threats, harassment and exploitation by the sponsor, with some of the workers ending up in prison and eventually deported.” The report cited the case of a migrant from the Philippines who worked at a food stall. When she told her boss she wanted to leave and get a new job, she faced threats and harassment. Her ID was canceled and she had a court case brought against her, none of which should have happened with the new laws in place. “I thought the new laws were there to help us. All I did was try and seek a better job. I don’t think I’ve committed a crime to be facing these problems,” she said.

      Writing About Rights

      Bidali’s problems arose as a result of his blogs, which challenge the rosy narrative projected by the government. In a post titled, “Minimum Wage, Maximum Adjustment,” he writes:

      “‘Peanuts.’ That’s the first thing that comes to Simon’s mind when I ask him about the changes to the minimum wage. A security guard from Kenya, toiling in Msheireb Downtown Doha, a slave to the elements for the better part of 12 hours a day. He earns [in a month] QR1250 (USD340). Paid a recruitment agent QR4400 (USD1200) to get the job, and spent a further QR1100 on related expenses. ‘There’s no difference for us (security guards). What they should have done is stipulate the specifics, like working hours, working conditions… things like that. When you take away the food and housing allowance, compensation for the work we do isn’t considered at all. We work so hard. Long commutes, long hours on-site, sweating like crazy with this heat, stress, fatigue… we don’t even eat properly.’”

      Bidali writes the following in a blog titled, “The Privilege of a Normal Life”:

      “Qatar, like all [Gulf Cooperation Council] countries, makes it virtually impossible for the spouses and partners of low-income migrant workers to accompany them for the duration of their contract. Over an extended period of time devoid of affection and intimacy, desire manifests, ever so intense. The situation isn’t made any easier when you look around and all you see are other couples of privileged nationalities, strolling side by side, holding hands, or having a meal together, enjoying each other’s company. After a magical day or night out, they retreat to their homes, where they enjoy the luxury of privacy.”

      In other blogs, he writes of the crowded and unsanitary dormitories that workers, despite some improvements, are still forced to endure.

      Amnesty told Arab Digest that since his arrest, the migrant rights activist has been allowed one short phone call to his mother. He said to her he is being held in solitary confinement, which Amnesty described as “incredibly worrying.” He is being held in an unknown place, and there are fears that he may be subjected to torture.

      Claims by Qatari Authorities

      The treatment of Bidali by Qatari authorities stands in stark contrast to their claims of change in the Gulf state. In 2020, Yousuf Mohamed Al Othman Fakhroo, the labor minister, said Qatar is “committed to creating a modern and dynamic labour market.” He added that the reforms “mark a major milestone in this journey and will benefit workers, employers and the nation alike.” That thought was echoed at the time by the general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), Sharan Burrow, who described the changes as “a new dawn for migrant workers.” Both the ITUC and FIFA, world football’s governing body, had pushed hard for the reforms, using the World Cup as leverage.

      Last week, Amnesty provided Arab Digest with the following statement:

      “Three weeks after his arrest, we still have very little information on Malcolm Bidali’s fate. Despite our appeals and those of Malcolm’s mother, the government has continued to refuse to disclose his whereabouts or to explain the real reason for the ongoing detention of this courageous activist who risked his own safety to try to improve life for all migrant workers in the country. … If he is detained solely on the basis of his legitimate human rights work he must be released immediately and unconditionally, and at an absolute minimum he should be granted access to a lawyer. Such practice by the Qatar authorities sends a clear signal that it will not tolerate migrant workers speaking out and claiming their rights, and can spread fear amongst activists and other workers.”

      The ITUC and FIFA have not commented publicly on the detention and disappearance of Malcolm Bidali. For weeks, the government had only confirmed his arrest and that he was being investigated for “violating Qatar’s security laws and regulations.” He has since been “charged with receiving payment to spread disinformation in the country,” Al Jazeera reports.

      *[This article was originally published by Arab Digest, a partner organization of Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Rebalancing the Power Asymmetry Between Israel and Palestine

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      Shortly after the International Criminal Court announced its decision to investigate Israel for war crimes committed in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Tel Aviv continued its annexation of East Jerusalem through forced expulsions in the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. The residents protesting their eviction were met with excessive force from the Israeli military, including the storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, the third holiest site in Islam, in the midst of the holy month of Ramadan, and attacking peaceful worshippers. Hamas, a Palestinian faction that controls Gaza, reacted by launching thousands of rockets into Israel, approximately 90% of which were intercepted by the Israeli Iron Dome defense system.

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      In retaliation, Israel launched hundreds of airstrikes on Gaza, killing over 200 Palestinians, including 65 children. On May 14, an airstrike leveled a Gaza tower block housing media organizations, among them Al-Jazeera and Associated Press. This attack on press freedom caused an uproar around the world, including in the United States. A week later, Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire brokered by Egypt. Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories continues.

      The Power Imbalance

      This series of events demonstrates the power imbalance between Israel and Palestine. This asymmetry is a result of decades of British and US support — political, economic and military — for the Zionist settler-colonial project. Over the decades, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has, in essence, consisted of Israel carrying out ethnic cleansing against Palestinians and being met with resistance. The latest bout of fighting emphasizes Washington’s tendency to justify Israel’s behavior while perpetuating the false narrative that Palestinian violence is terrorism. As such, there is an urgent need to rebalance the equation to protect Palestinian rights and lives through changing the narrative, supporting Israeli civil society and ending US weapons sales to Israel.

      Embed from Getty Images

      US leaders typically bring up the legitimacy of armed violence only when violence is being perpetrated by Palestinians. For instance, instead of condemning Israel’s bombing of civilian areas, President Joe Biden, like all of his predecessors, claimed that Israel has a right to self-defense. Although he did call for a ceasefire, Biden’s words fall flat. First, the US has repeatedly blocked UN Security Council resolutions calling for a ceasefire. Second, on May 5, Biden went on to approve a whopping $735-million sale of precision-guided weapons to Israel. Third, the ceasefire brokered by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Egypt does not address the core issues of Palestinian statehood and Israeli occupation. Rather, it manages armed violence in the short term, promising to rebuild the same Gaza that was destroyed by US weapons.

      Emboldened by Israel’s actions and the context of impunity, some Israeli settlers in the occupied territories have formed mobs to sporadically attack Palestinians in the streets. With ethnic clashes engulfing the country, the Israeli settlers will get to have their day in a civil court while Palestinians are subject to Israeli military courts. In fact, Israel has arrested over 1,550 demonstrators since May 9, many of whom are children. Among those detained, over 70% are Arab citizens of Israel. This disproportionality exemplifies the impunity of Jewish Israeli citizens vis-à-vis Palestinians and highlights the power imbalance inherent in Israel’s judicial system.

      Palestinians, often armed only with rocks, are commonly condemned as terrorists by Israel. Yet a nuclear Israel, backed by the most powerful country in the world, is always justified in its self-defense. Hamas is a security threat to Israel, but the damage it inflicts is usually contained to the few rockets that manage to get through the Iron Dome. Furthermore, conflating Palestinians, especially Gazans, with Hamas is a dangerous assumption that has a direct cost for Palestinian lives.

      As part of this power asymmetry between Israel and Palestine, Tel Aviv has long controlled the narrative around the conflict, resulting in a paradigm in which any criticism of Israel is perceived as anti-Semitism. This makes legitimate dialogue and policy reevaluation challenging. However, the narrative is slowly changing thanks to long-standing Palestinian activism.

      Peace Beyond Borders

      How can the power imbalance be offset and peace achieved? A simple answer would be ending the illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories, restoring the 1967 borders and respecting the rights of Palestinians. Short of this, there are three additional steps that can go a long way in improving the facts on the ground for Palestinians.

      First, human rights activists, and especially journalists, have a moral responsibility to counter the narrative that opposing Israeli apartheid is anti-Semitic, that Tel Aviv’s actions are justified in the name of self-defense, and that Palestinian resistance is terrorism. Thanks to social media, Palestinian activists have slowly shifted this narrative, with many leaders and protesters around the world denouncing Israel’s actions and advocating for Palestinian rights.

      Second, Israeli citizens themselves must recognize the atrocities upon which their state was built. Human rights groups within Israel, such as B’Tselem, voice concern and attempt to raise awareness, but it is up to ordinary citizens to decide if ethnically cleansing Palestinians is the right way to build a nation. Israelis committed to a democracy built around values of liberty, equality and reciprocity have a responsibility to oppose their government’s policy, including the targeting of NGOs that promote Palestinian rights.

      Third, the US must halt weapons sales to Israel and push for the protection of Palestinian rights. Currently, Israel receives $3.8 billion in military aid from the US annually and is equipped with high-technology defense systems such as the Iron Dome.

      In a marked shift of mood, US congress members are standing up for Palestinian rights. For instance, Rashida Tlaib (herself a Palestinian-American), Ilhan Omar, Cori Bush and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have condemned Israel’s use of armed force against civilians, as well as its annexation policy. On April 15, these representatives co-sponsored Betty McCollum’s bill defending the human rights of Palestinian children and families living under occupation. Senator Bernie Sanders also introduced a bill to block a weapons sale recently approved by President Biden.

      These are positive steps toward rebalancing the power dynamic between Israel and Palestine, but without a comprehensive shift of the narrative to more accurately reflect the complex reality on the ground, correcting decades of asymmetry will be hard to achieve.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of Young Professionals in Foreign Policy.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Can the US Really Rally Other Nations?

      by

      On May 25, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken appeared alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an effusive demonstration of love and mutual admiration. The show the two men put on in the aftermath of a shaky ceasefire looked like a private celebration of a threefold victory for Israel thanks to its aggressive show of force. The rockets from Gaza have stopped; Israel is still in control; the US will stand by Netanyahu, thick or thin.

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      What has emerged from Blinken’s visit for Americans is a “mission accomplished” feeling. The US will now be able to write the entire event off as insignificant and return to their normal activities. These include arguing about how much not to spend on infrastructure, discovering the truth about UFOs or getting vaccinated so that people can start partying again as summer approaches. Hamas has been disarmed. The disaster in the Holy Land has been avoided.

      The problem for any serious observer is that their comforting discourse is in total dissonance with the historical context. The media across the globe have noticed that for the Biden administration, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a low priority, an unwanted distraction from the real business of the hour: creating a positive image for the recently elected president, young in the office (a mere 125 days) but old in years and inevitably stale in his thinking.

      Embed from Getty Images

      What does all this tell us about President Joe Biden’s policy with regard to Israeli-Palestinian relations? Some have hinted that, under pressure from progressives and some centrist Democrats, the Biden administration might consider modifying its ever-forgiving relationship with Israel by, for the first time, imposing conditions on the generous military aid the US provides year after year. No trace of that pressure appeared in Blinken’s discourse. Instead, the policy he hints at sounds like an anemic version of the Trump-Kushner peace plan. Biden talks about achieving stability by encouraging trade and investment. This essentially means the US will release enough cash for the rebuilding required for the Palestinians to function minimally within the Israeli economy.

      In his meeting with Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, Blinken evoked a gift of $360 million, not quite half of the appropriation of $735 million in supplementary military aid to Israel the Biden administration requested earlier this month and which some Democrats in Congress are currently contesting. Despite meetings with leaders in Egypt and Jordan, there is no indication that Washington may seek to address the historical causes of a never-ending series of conflicts. That will be left to others. Blinken summed up his intention in these words: “The United States will work to rally international support.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Rally:

      Incite a group of people and, in extreme cases, a mob to back or participate in a project that may or may not be in their interest but which reflects the goals and interests of the one who incites

      Contextual Note

      The style section of The New York Times features an article about a high school student named Adrian in California who, on May 17, produced a flyer to invite kids from his school to an open beach party for his 17th birthday. A friend spread the invitation to Snapchat and TikTok, whose “For You” algorithm turned it into a national event. Thousands of people responded and arranged to travel to Huntington Beach to be part of the event. The response ballooned uncontrollably, leading the two young friends to seek a willing commercial partner and turn it into an organized, paying event in Los Angeles, simply to avoid being accused of provoking a riot. It ended with a fracas on the beach, clashes with the police and hundreds of unhappy customers when no party materialized in Los Angeles. It did, however, instantly turn Adrian into an internet influencer.

      Adrian now understands what it means to rally his contemporaries and indeed how easy it is to do it with the right plan. The Biden-Blinken plan to rally international support not only seems more modest and vague than Adrian’s, but it is far less likely to succeed. Blinken’s promise contains the principal themes of the discredited Trump-Kushner plan, without the ambition. The countries he appears to be rallying are either part of last year’s Abraham Accords initiated by Donald Trump or sympathetic to its goals. They essentially consist of Israel’s neighbors to the south: the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt.

      The Trump-Kushner plans rallied these nations around the idea of collaborating with Israel to create a prosperous business zone in the Middle East. It promised to turn the Occupied Palestinian Territories into a prosperous tourist attraction, allowing it to participate in the kind of glitzy commercial culture that has triumphed in Dubai and provided a model for Neom, Saudi Arabia’s futuristic city in the desert. Jared Kushner and friends imagined that Gaza could become one giant beach resort like Waikiki, Acapulco or Cancun.

      Historical Note

      This may be what was at the back of Antony Blinken’s mind when he proposed to “promote economic stability and progress in the West Bank and Gaza, more opportunity, to strengthen the private sector, expand trade and investment, all of which are essential to growing opportunity across the board.” The underlying logic is the same as the Trump-Kushner peace plan, once touted as the “deal of the century,” a game-changer destined to transform the economy of the Middle East, consolidate an objective alliance between Israel and Saudi Arabia and isolate Iran. For historical and cultural reasons that should have been obvious to anyone familiar with the region, no one apart from the ruling class of those Middle Eastern countries took the plan seriously. Even they did so mainly out of diplomatic politeness toward Donald Trump and deference to the always redoubtable economic and military might of the US.

      The difference between the Trump-Kushner plan and Blinken’s vague proposal is that in the first case, the cash would be counted in billions. Most of it would have been provided by the Saudis, allowing them to gain cultural control over the Palestinians. The Palestinians would inevitably be beholden to the Israeli-Saudi alliance’s money and technology on the simple condition that they humbly accept their supporting role in an economy designed to further the interests of the ruling class in the US, Israel and the Arabian Peninsula. The Palestinians, with or without an identifiable state, would have their role in the neo-liberal economy assured, ensuring peace on earth forever after.

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      Blinken appears to have accepted the collaborative vision that Jared Kushner imagined, but in stating it, he unwittingly reveals its fundamental flaw. “Asking the international community, asking all of us to help rebuild Gaza only makes sense if there is confidence that what is rebuilt is not lost again because Hamas decides to launch more rocket attacks in the future,” Blinken said. The US has never reconciled the contradiction that comes from the fact that Hamas, which it classifies as a terrorist organization, came to power in a legitimate democratic election in 2006. Some might judge that the US, with a history of sending its mighty military into different regions of the world on false pretexts and prolonging its assaults on other populations for decades, could also be classified as a terrorist organization despite its democratically elected government.

      There is something chilling when Blinken evokes the idea “that what is rebuilt is not lost again because Hamas decides to launch more rocket attacks in the future.” He is telling the Palestinians that if they choose to react to any perceived injustice and repression with the limited weapons at their disposal, they should expect everything that is built or “rebuilt” to come toppling down on their heads once again. This is a threat, not a peace proposal. It is a cynical affirmation of might over right. It is also an explicit denial of democracy and respect for the outcome of democratic elections.

      The test of Biden’s ability to influence events in the Middle East will come very soon with the result of the Vienna talks concerning the United States’ eventual return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear deal with Iran. Benjamin Netanyahu is using the occasion to put pressure on the US to abandon the talks. Joe Biden promised during the 2020 election campaign to return to the JCPOA. If the US fails to do so, some will see it as a sign of Israel’s continued power to dictate US foreign policy.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More