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      in UK Politics

      Britain urges UN to respond to ‘destabilising actions’ by Iran following tanker incidents

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      Britain has urged the United Nations to respond to “destabilising actions and lack of respect for international law” by Iran following a series of incidents involving tankers in the Persian gulf.Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab on Wednesday morning wrote to security council president T. S. Tirumurti, amid news of a possible hijacking off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, reportedly on the ship the Asphalt Princess. It comes after a Briton and Romanian were killed in a separate drone attack on the Mercer Street tanker off the coast of Oman, which the UK, US and Israel blame on Tehran.As the latest incident unfolded UK chief of the defence staff General Sir Nick Carter said had Iran made a “big mistake” by allegedly targeting a tanker last week.He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “What we need to be doing, fundamentally, is calling out Iran for its very reckless behaviour.”They made a big mistake on the attack they did against the Mercer Street vessel last week because, of course, that has very much internationalised the state of play in the Gulf.”He added: “Ultimately, we have got to restore deterrence because it is behaviour like that which leads to escalation, and that could very easily lead to miscalculation and that would be very disastrous for all the peoples of the Gulf and the international community.”The Royal Navy reported on Wednesday morning that boarders had left the the Panama-flagged asphalt tanker Asphalt Princess, which was believed to have been seized off the coast of the United Arab Emirates.Three maritime security forces had told Reuters on Tuesday that the Asphalt Princess tanker had been seized by suspected Iranian-backed forces, which Iran denies. Analysts however told The Independent that the latest incident could have been related to “small-time” smuggling rather than a major international incident.The AIS tracking status of the tanker was “underway using engine” early on Wednesday, according to Refinitiv ship tracking data.The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, a Royal Navy agency, said what it had described on Tuesday as a potential hijack incident was now “complete” and the vessel involved was safe.The agency gave no further details in a warning notice based on a third-party source, and did not name the vessel involved. Shipping authority Lloyd’s List and maritime intelligence firm Dryad Global had both identified the hijacked vessel as Panama-flagged asphalt tanker Asphalt Princess.The incident took place in an area in the Arabian Sea leading to the Strait of Hormuz, the conduit for about one-fifth of the world’s sea-borne oil exports.Satellite-tracking data for the Asphalt Princess had shown it slowly heading toward Iranian waters off the port of Jask early on Wednesday, before it stopped and changed course back toward Oman.The Independent has contacted the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office for more information.Tehran’s relationship with western powers has deteriorated in the years since Donald Trump pulled out of the 2015 treaty that sought to limit Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Commercial shipping around the Persian Gulf has increasingly been caught in the crosshairs.Alicia Kearns, a Conservative MP who sits on parliament’s foreign affairs committee told The Independent of the latest incident: “Whether it was Iranian proxies or the Iranian military, the Gulf of Oman remains a treacherous stretch of water for commercial shipping companies. This will only become worse as deteriorating relations between Iran and other nations leave Iran feeling more aggrieved and warranted in escalating incidents like this, as well as limpet mine attacks. “It’s a reasonable assumption that the armed group were Iranian proxies or Revolutionary Guard, because Iran not only has a history of maritime piracy, and then denying outright their actions, but the Asphalt Princess has been detained by Iranian forces on multiple occasions in the past, and the owners previously had another ship targeted as well.”Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a prominent and well-connected Emirati political analyst told The Independent that the UAE had no interest in flared tensions in the strategic waterway and would be looking for ways to de-escalate after the recent incidents. “This should be of concern to the international community which should step up but the UAE doesn’t want an increase in tension or hostilities – it does not want escalation at the moment,” he said. “The thinking here is the UAE does not want to be dragged into any unnecessary confrontation with Iran. We do not want that to happen period. That said, everyone has a direct interest in the safety and security of this very fragile water way.”Yoruk Isik, an Istanbul-based maritime expert and non-resident scholar at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, who has been following the Asphalt Princess said he thought it was more likely related to small-time Iranian oil smuggling than a major international incident. “The company that owns the Asphalt Princes – is Prime Tankers LLC (of the UAE) – it operates a fleet of middle age to older ships and most of the ships have gaps in their Automatic Identification System (AIS) tracking that makes us suspicious that they are hiding small time smuggling, perhaps Iranian.” “We don’t know for sure but they are a prime suspect in Iranian oil smuggling – it is the second time their ships have been involved in something like this. As you can see from the MT Riah incident in 2019” – a refernec to the seizure of Panama-flagged tanker whose 12-man Indian crew were detained by the Iranian coastguard in 2019. “The ownership is for sure Prime Tankers LLC – this is the second time they have been involved in an incident . This company has no linkage to Israel whatsoever.”He said that although the alleged hijacking incident was taking place at the same time as a series of attacks on tankers and soaring tensions between Iran, the US and Israel this was likely “an exception”. Isik said it was likely tied to “rogue elements of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps not necessarily operating on behalf of Iran” that were trying to settle a commercial dispute.  “Maybe someone didn’t get paid and so they boarded the ship,” he said, adding that he was certain the ship was Iranian only because at the beginning of the incident it changed course towards Iran, which he said would not be possible if it was private or pirate operation. Additional reporting by agencies More

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      in World Politics

      Austerity for the Poor and Prosperity for the Rich

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      There has been a growing interest in social protection policies in the Arab region dating back to the 1990s. Yet the impact of such measures has not been empirically and independently assessed. Evidence shows that, even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the poor have been getting poorer and the number of vulnerable groups and people living below the poverty line is increasing.

      Poverty rates have risen throughout a decade of turmoil. This started with the Arab Spring in 2010-11 and intensified when the pandemic began in 2020. The situation is worse in Arab countries where there is ongoing conflict, economic hardship or political crises. These indicators of rising poverty mean the effectiveness of the social protection policies in the region must be placed under critical examination.

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      The Arab Mashreq is a case in point. This region, which consists of Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and, in some definitions, Egypt, has been marred by prolonged conflict, economic turmoil and political upheaval. In response to the crises, there has been an added focus on people’s resilience mechanisms to cope with the socioeconomic uncertainty.

      From Economic Reforms to the COVID Crisis

      Since 2015, many Arab governments have introduced financial and economic reform policies, supported by the International Monetary Fund. However, in the absence of effective social protection policies, these changes led to a sharp increase in inflation. This exacerbated the hardship of the poor, caused negative repercussions for people’s living conditions and led to further structural social stratification. The negative impact on the poor was accompanied by a political narrative of austerity for a better future. Simultaneously, generous policies were introduced for the upper class.

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      The policy response in Mashreq countries to the pandemic was not an exception from this inequality paradigm. The poor have been excluded in the design of policy responses. The fragile health sectors and the coverage gap of medical insurance generated an association between appropriate recovery and the upper class. Accordingly, access to quality care was exclusively for the rich. On the other hand, the poor had to rely on public health, which is often underfunded, understaffed and lacks sufficient resources.

      In addition, government support in the form of loans and financial subsidies to recover from the economic fallout of the pandemic was directed exclusively at big businesses. This led to the shutdown of many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and caused unemployment to rise in all Mashreq countries.

      Moreover, refugees and internally displaced people were left behind in the policy response. Instead of prioritizing their needs as vulnerable people, they faced restrictions on moving out from overcrowded camps due to the lockdown measures, which exacerbated their plight. In particular, they suffered from a lack of access to health services and malnutrition.

      Resilience Mechanisms

      In the Mashreq, people have used different coping and resilience mechanisms throughout the pandemic. Yet defining what appears to be the relatively simple concept of resilience is complex. Resilience is a term that has been applied to research and practice in nearly every possible area of life and academia — from science to sociology, psychology, nursing and medicine to business and ecology. The theoretical definition of resilience is “one’s ability to bounce back or recover from adversity.” Research on coping with poverty emphasizes the importance of resilience mechanisms to be considered in the design, development and implementation of social protection policies for the prevention of risks associated with irrational resilience mechanisms.

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      Some resilience mechanisms in Arab Mashreq countries are constructive. For instance, there has been a rise in transnational family support, including remittances, and a revival in the agricultural sector due to food shortages. Dual-earner households have also increased as more women are joining the labor force. Yet the majority of reported resilience mechanisms are destructive. Seven areas are particularly important.

      First, reports show increasing numbers of children who have ab­stained from going to school or dropped out altogether, often due to rampant poverty. In recent years, economic reform policies have included a sharp reduction of fuel, electricity and water subsidies. This has led to higher living costs. In response, children have been forced to work to earn money and contribute to the family income. The pandemic has made the situation even bleaker with the new educational setup, as not everyone has access to computers or the internet. The lack of technological infrastructure has meant the poor are excluded from the online classes introduced by lockdowns.  

      Second, even before the pandemic, leftover or used food markets emerged in countries such as Jordan and Egypt. At these places, the poor can buy food at reduced prices. These markets, which sell scraps of food, have become increasingly common in areas with people on low incomes. Often, the remains of meals from restaurants and hotels are offered to families at a discounted rate, with many food items unpackaged and no information as to where or when they were made. Some customers have said that no matter the quality, they are in need of the low prices as they cannot afford to buy other food products.

      Third, the cut in subsidies and rising food prices have not only affected the poor. Many middle-class people cannot afford quality food due to the increase in prices and their depleted family savings. This has been exacerbated by economic hardship and the pandemic. This is particularly the case in Lebanon, where the lira (or pound) has lost most of its value, leading to higher costs of living. Lebanese people are reportedly cutting out meat from their diets or skipping meals. In Iraq, throughout the COVID-19 crisis, people have been forced to sell their furniture and personal items, just for the sake of buying food. Many Iraqis have lost jobs and the country lacks social protection measures.  

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      Fourth, in response to the rising prices of medicine in the region, people have turned to traditional medicine and herbal remedies instead. For instance, due to the loss of more than 90% of the Lebanese pound’s value, there has been a shortage of essential medicines. The catalyst behind this was the ongoing national economic crisis in Lebanon and the state measures on lifting subsidies on medicine. Pharmacies often lack basic medications for blood pressure and even painkillers and antibiotics.

      Fifth, to cope with poverty, mothers are joining the informal sector in order to have dual-earner families. Daughters have also joined the workforce. But the problem is that this sector is not covered by any social protection schemes, which means that families struggled during the height of lockdowns to curb the spread of COVID-19.

      Sixth, the unprecedented rise in food prices has led some of the poor to buy their daily needs of food products via the postpaid system, or the so-called popular “note.” This system, known as shokok, is based on mutual trust between grocery store owners and residents in poor areas. As part of shokok, a shop owner archives either daily or weekly the merchant records of customer withdrawals on a note before collecting the cash at the end of each month.

      Seventh, the United Nations and several media outlets have reported increased rates of crimes, drug abuse, robberies and rising cases of suicide as some people struggle to cope with poverty and hardship.

      In light of these resilience mechanisms, social protection systems have to be rethought in Arab Mashreq countries. When left behind, most vulnerable people generate their own forms of resilience, which might be destructive. To a major extent, the policy response is designed for the poor to fund the rich. However, the unmet needs of the poor are not only affecting their wellbeing negatively, but it will also impact the state in the long term.

      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

      Expect an Uneven Rebound in MENA and Central Asia

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      Projections, no matter how well-grounded in analytics, are a messy business. Three years ago, COVID-19 was unheard of and then-US President Donald Trump’s politics caused uncertainty in international relations, with democracy in retreat across the world. Despite the best-informed prognostications, predictions failed to capture cross-border variables such as immigration and civil conflict that have yet to play out in rearranging local and regional economic prospects.

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      No region is more complex in terms of confusing signals than the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Central Asia. This is the subject of the latest report by the International Monetary Fund titled, “Regional Economic Outlook: Arising from the Pandemic: Building Forward Better.”

      What is clear from a review of the data is that 2020 was an outlier in terms of trend lines earlier in the decade, skewed by the COVID-19 pandemic, erosion of oil prices, diminished domestic economic activity, reduced remittances and other factors that have yet to be brought into an orderly predictive model. Even the IMF had to recalibrate its 2020 report upward for several countries based on rising oil exports, while decreasing marks were given countries slow to vaccinate against COVID-19 and that rely on service-oriented sectors.

      Mixed Outlook

      The numbers indicate a mixed picture, ranging from Oman growing at 7.2% and the West Bank at 6.9%, to Lebanon receiving no projection and Sudan at the bottom of the range with a 1.13% real GDP growth rate. Yet, so much can impact those numbers, from Oman’s heavy debt burden to continuing turmoil in intra-Palestinian and Palestinian-Israeli affairs.

      The good news is that real GDP is expected to grow by 4% in 2021, up from the projection last October of 3.2%. Much of the lift has come from two factors: a more optimistic trend line for the oil producers and the rate of vaccinations in countries that will promote business recovery.

      Embed from Getty Images

      As CNBC pointed out, Jihad Azour, director of the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia department, noted that recovery will be “divergent between countries and uneven between different parts of the population.” Key variables include the extent of vaccine rollout, recovery of tourism and government policies to promote recovery and growth.

      In oil-producing countries, real GDP is projected to increase from 2.7% in 2021 to 3.8% in 2022, with a 5.8% rise in the region’s sector driven by Libya’s return to global markets. Conversely, non-oil producers saw their growth rate estimates reduced from 2.7% to 2.3%. In fact, Georgia, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia, which are highly dependent on tourism, have been downgraded in light of continuing COVID-19 issues such as vaccination rollout and coverage.

      As the IMF report summary notes, “The outlook will vary significantly across countries, depending on the pandemic’s path, vaccine rollouts, underlying fragilities, exposure to tourism and contact-intensive sectors, and policy space and actions.” From Mauritania to Afghanistan, one can select data that supports or undercuts the projected growth rates. For example, in general, Central Asia countries as a group seem to be poised for stronger results than others. Meanwhile, Arab countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council face greater uncertainty, from resolving debt issues to unforeseen consequences of negotiations with Iran.

      So, how will these projects fare given a pending civil war in Afghanistan and the possible deterioration of oil prices and debt financing by countries such as Bahrain and Oman? Highlighting this latter concern, the report goes on to say that public “gross financing needs in most emerging markets in the region are expected to remain elevated in 2021-22, with downside risks in the event of tighter global financial conditions and/or if fiscal consolidation is delayed due to weaker-than-expected recovery.”

      An Opportunity

      Calling for greater regional and international cooperation to complement “strong domestic policies” focused on the need “to build forward better and accelerate the creation of more inclusive, resilient, sustainable, and green economies,” the IMF is calling on the countries to see a post-pandemic phase as an opportunity. This would involve implementing policies that promote recovery, sustain public health practices that focus on sustainable solutions, and balance “the need for debt sustainability and financial resilience.”

      There is great uncertainty assigning these projections without more conclusive data on the impact of the pandemic, the stress on public finance and credit available to the private sector, and overall economic recovery across borders that relies on factors such as the weather, oil demand, external political shocks and international monetary flows. The IMF report is a very helpful bellwether for setting parameters for ongoing analyses and discussions.

      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 UK Politics

      ‘Devastating blow’: UK to cut aid to Syria by one-third

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      Dominic Raab has announced that the UK will cut aid to Syria by one-third, telling a United Nations donor conference that the government would pledge only £205m to help the country this year, down from the £300m promised in 2020.The UK ultimately gave £400m to Syria last year, meaning that, if no further funds are forthcoming from Whitehall, the decrease will actually be closer to 50 per cent.Mr Raab acknowledged that the Middle Eastern state and its neighbours were under even greater pressure because of the coronavirus pandemic but said Britain had paid out £3.5bn in support of Syrian refugees since 2012 and had had to revise its own priorities in light of Covid-19.The US, EU and Germany are customarily the biggest donors to the country and likewise beset by the impact of the virus on their economies, but none of the three announced cuts to their contributions, with Mr Raab’s Berlin counterpart, Heiko Maas, pledging £480m and the same again in 2022.Under Bashar al-Assad’s leadership, an estimated 90 per cent of the Syrian population are now living in poverty, according to the humanitarian organisation Syria Relief, with 12.4m people suffering from food insecurity and 12.2m lacking regular access to clean water.Read more:Mr Assad faces a presidential election this year that few of the speakers at the UN conference were optimistic would be conducted fairly.“For 10 years, Syrians have endured death, destruction, displacement and deprivation and things are getting worse, not better,” UN secretary general Antonio Guterres said at the video summit, making an appeal for generosity as the body sought to pull together £7.3bn to help the country and its refugees dispersed in Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan.Mr Raab’s announcement provoked a negative response from international aid agencies at home and abroad.“Cutting funding by almost a third is a devastating blow to the millions of Syrians who fled their homes and had their lives torn apart by 10 years of conflict,” said Oxfam’s head of policy and advocacy, Sam Nadel.“While the violence may have subsided, millions of people are still struggling to survive within Syria and across the region. Aid is needed now more than ever as the pandemic, rising food prices and failing economies have made their lives even more difficult.” More

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      in UK Politics

      ‘Utter hypocrisy’: Iran’s foreign minister attacks Boris Johnson over nuclear weapons plan

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      It was an opportunity to pounce, and Iran’s outspoken foreign minister seized it. The United Kingdom has announced it is set to remove Cold War-era limits on its stockpiles of nuclear weapons, even as it is demanding that the Islamic Republic constrain its own atomic programme.Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif accused prime minister Boris Johnson of “utter hypocrisy” for announcing plans to increase Britain’s arsenal of weapons of mass destruction while chastising Tehran for its decades-long attempt to master nuclear technology.Mr Johnson told British MPs on Tuesday that the government is planning to reverse a planned reduction of its nuclear weapon stockpile. Under the new proposal, Britain will increase its number of warheads to 260. It had previously agreed to reduce the number to 180.In a note posted to his Twitter feed and tagging Mr Johnson, Mr Zarif mocked the British leader for saying he was “concerned about Iran developing a viable nuclear weapon” on the very same day as announcing that “his country will increase its stockpile of nukes”.He added: “Unlike the UK and allies, Iran believes nukes and all WMDs are barbaric and must be eradicated.”Iranian state television widely covered Mr Zarif’s remarks, which came before Russia also denounced London’s decision on Wednesday. Both China’s and Russia’s official media have focused on the UK’s plan to up its nuclear arsenal, describing it as hypocritical.“Citizens are demanding that Boris Johnson look under his feet, fight against the coronavirus and street crime,” state-guided NTV’s London correspondent Liza Gerson said in a broadcast, referring to the murder of Sarah Everard. “People are demanding safe streets and lamps in parks in London, not warheads in Scotland.”The UK decision comes at a particular tense moment in the arena of global arms control.Iran is currently locked in a diplomatic statemate with the United States and the so-called E3 – the UK, Germany and France – over an attempt to re-establish the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the 2015 nuclear deal forged by Tehran and world powers but abandoned by the Trump administration in 2018.After abiding by the terms of the agreement for a year, even as the US upped crushing sanctions, Iran began to expand its nuclear programme beyond the strict limits set by the JCPOA. The new administration of president Joe Biden has said it would like to restore the terms of the nuclear deal, but insists that Iran first roll back its production and stockpile of enriched uranium that could be used as fissile material for a bomb.Iran insists that its nuclear programme is meant for peaceful civilian purposes only, though arms-control experts and intelligence professionals believe Iran is at least aiming to achieve nuclear weapons capability, if not the bomb.On Monday, Reuters reported that the United Nations nuclear watchdog had confirmed Iran had begun feeding uranium gas into a second advanced device that can more efficiently produce fissile material than the ones permitted under the JCPOA.Iran has insisted the US first remove sanctions, since it was Washington that first breached the deal. On Wednesday, a senior official in Iranian president Hassan Rouhani’s government confirmed that Tehran had received indirect communications from Washington regarding a possible return to the JCPOA. More

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      in UK Politics

      Syria civil war: UK imposes sanctions on key Assad allies after ‘decade of brutality’

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      The UK has imposed sanctions on six allies of Syria’s ruler Bashar Assad a decade after the country’s brutal civil war began.The asset freezes and travel bans are a response to the Assad regime’s “wholesale assault” on the Syrian people, foreign secretary Dominic Raab said, as the country marks 10 years of conflict.“The Assad regime has subjected the Syrian people to a decade of brutality for the temerity of demanding peaceful reform,” said Mr Raab. “Today, we are holding six more individuals from the regime to account for their wholesale assault on the very citizens they should be protecting.”Those sanctioned include foreign minister Faisal Miqdad, presidential adviser Luna al-Shibl, and financier Yassar Ibrahim – who the Foreign Office claimed acts as a front for Assad’s hold on the Syrian economy.Businessman Muhammad Bara’ al-Qatirji and military officers major general Malik Aliaa and major general Zaid Salah will also be hit by the asset freezes and travel bans.It marks the first measures taken in relation to Syria under the UK’s new, autonomous sanctions regime, which came into force following the end of the Brexit transition period. The British government has joined allies in the UN Security Council in pushing the regime to engage in peace talks in Geneva and release those held in arbitrary detention.Monday marks the 10th anniversary of the peaceful protests against Assad’s government, which erupted in March 2011 and touched off a popular uprising that quickly turned into a full-blown civil war.Despite a decade of fighting and a broken country, Assad remains firmly in power, having been propped up by Russia and Iran.Syria is economically devastated and divided. An al-Qaida-linked group dominates the northwestern Idlib province, with Turkey-backed rebels controlling small stretches along the Turkish border.US-backed Syrian Kurdish forces hold around a quarter of the country in the north-east, while the Assad regime controls the rest. More

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      in Elections

      The Israeli Feminist Trying to Save Liberal Zionism

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyThe Israeli Feminist Trying to Save Liberal ZionismCan Merav Michaeli rescue Israel’s Labor Party?Opinion ColumnistMarch 5, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETCredit…Peter Rigaud/laif, via ReduxWhen Merav Michaeli, a pathbreaking feminist, was elected head of Israel’s Labor Party in January, some people offered her condolences. Labor was once Israel’s governing party, the home of many of the country’s iconic leaders: David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, Yitzhak Rabin. It ruled continuously from Israel’s founding in 1948 until 1977, and then a few more times after that.But since the second Palestinian intifada in 2000, which for many Israelis discredited the country’s peace camp, the Israeli left has collapsed. Because of its politicians’ inability to form a stable government, the country is about to hold its fourth elections in two years, and in January polls showed that, for the first time, Labor might fail to meet the threshold to win any seats at all in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. For a party that once seemed to define Israel itself — especially to liberal diaspora Jews — it’s been an almost inconceivable fall.There’s a phenomenon in business and politics called the glass cliff, in which organizations in crisis turn to female leaders. That seems to be how Michaeli, a former journalist who once gave a talk titled “Cancel Marriage” at an Israeli TEDx conference, became Labor’s leader.“Welcome to the Worst Job in Israeli Politics, Merav Michaeli,” said a headline in the left-leaning Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Her victory, wrote Anshel Pfeffer, doesn’t “so much reflect Michaeli’s popularity — she ran against six virtually unknown candidates — but the fact that no other politician wants to be remembered as the leader under whose watch Labor failed to get into the Knesset altogether.”But after Michaeli won, something unexpected happened. Labor’s poll numbers ticked up, and it’s now expected to capture six or seven seats when the country votes on March 23.“She’s the best thing that’s happened to Labor in recent years,” Dahlia Scheindlin, a pollster and political analyst in Israel, told me. She described Michaeli, a former journalist once known for her campaign to make Hebrew, a highly gendered language, more gender inclusive, as “avant-garde.” Scheindlin added, “She has a backbone, and she’s not just blowing in the wind.”Labor’s last leader, Amir Peretz, was the opposite. In 2019, he swore he would never join a government led by Benjamin Netanyahu, shaving his famous mustache so Israelis could better “read his lips” on the matter. The next year, he went back on his pledge, bringing Labor into Netanyahu’s unity government.Even as her party joined the ruling coalition, Michaeli insisted on remaining part of the opposition, making her, as The Times of Israel wrote, “a bizarre sort of one-woman opposition to the coalition from within.” Once in charge, she pulled Labor out of the government. The party’s improving fortunes suggest that taking a stand against Netanyahu has paid off.Now, six or seven seats still isn’t much, given Labor’s former dominance. (Netanyahu’s Likud currently holds 36 seats, followed by 33 seats for the centrist Blue and White party.) A party led by an avant-garde figure might seem, almost by definition, to have limited mainstream appeal. But after rescuing Labor from oblivion, Michaeli is convinced she can restore it. “I am here because this is my project — to turn it back into a ruling party,” Michaeli told me.Merav Michaeli, Labor’s new leader, says there is still a constituency for the two-state solution in Israel.Credit…Sebastian Scheiner/Associated PressI first met Michaeli in 2009, when she was still a journalist. As she remembers it, it was at a party in New York before the first convention of J Street, the liberal pro-Israel group. At the time, she said, Israelis knew only two kinds of American Jews — those with right-wing views on Israel, and those who were indifferent. She wrote a newspaper column about progressive American Jews who cared about Israel’s future. Her editor, she said, told her that she had no idea what she was talking about, and never ran it.J Street would eventually turn into a force in the Democratic Party. But as Israel’s occupation of the Palestinians has grown ever more entrenched, many progressive Jews, myself included, have become skeptical about the future of liberal Zionism. I’d love to believe that Michaeli could do what she’s promising, creating a socially democratic Israel committed to a just resolution of the Palestinian conflict. But I see plenty of reason for doubt.Right now, Israeli politics is mostly a contest between different right-wing factions. Seeking to cling to power, Netanyahu, on trial for corruption, has struck a vote-sharing deal with the Religious Zionist Party, which includes what The Times of Israel called “Israel’s most extremist and openly racist Jewish political movement,” Otzma Yehudit. (One of Otzma Yehudit’s leaders, the paper reports, holds an annual “commemoration party” at the grave of Baruch Goldstein, who massacred 29 Palestinians in 1994.)Netanyahu’s main rival, Gideon Saar, was once his protégé, and is in some ways even more conservative. And unlike in America, young people in Israel are to the right of older generations; according to data from the Israel Democracy Institute, 69.9 percent of Jewish Israelis ages 18 to 24 describe themselves as right-wing. It’s hard to see where support for a liberal revival could come from.But Michaeli argues that, as in the United States — where liberal economic policies are often popular even with self-described conservatives — there is a gap between people’s issue preferences and their political identity.“There is actually a majority in Israel that wants what we are offering,” she said. “People want socially democratic positions on the economy and society. People want a welfare state. People want pluralism, they want equality.”She’s convinced that there remains a large constituency for a two-state solution, at least in principle. “Of course there is a huge majority that does not believe it is achievable,” she said.That’s true not only in Israel, and not only on the right. The inexorable growth of Israel’s occupation, and the increasing power of those in Israel calling for outright annexation of Palestinian lands, can make it hard to believe that a two-state solution is still viable. If it isn’t, neither is Israeli democracy, unless and until the country is prepared to give equal rights to the Palestinians it rules. For years, it’s been a truism to say that Israel is approaching the point where it can be Jewish or democratic, but not both. It’s possible that, as much as liberal Zionists don’t want to admit it, that point has been crossed.So I asked Michaeli why American Jews committed to liberal democracy should still feel connected to Israel. She grew vehement, saying that the experience of living under Donald Trump should redouble our empathy for Israel’s embattled progressives.Michaeli’s first four years in the Knesset coincided with Barack Obama’s second term. “I spent those four years being attacked by liberal American Jews for failing to replace Netanyahu, failing to be an effective opposition,” she said. She grew deeply frustrated trying to explain the near impossibility of constraining a demagogue.“And then when Donald Trump was elected, I was devastated, but at the same time, I said to my friends, ‘Welcome to our lives,’” she said. “Now you will understand us better, because you felt the same — it’s the way your life changes. All of the sudden your president becomes your life, and your jaw drops 10 times a day, and you experience how a scandal happens every 10 minutes and everybody becomes numb, and you run out of words to express how horrible things are.” With Trump, she said, “I thought that my American liberal friends will at last understand what we have been up against all this time.”Instead, Michaeli feels that some liberal American Jews are giving up on their Israeli peers. “Don’t you get that we need you and you need us?” she asked. “You need us, because as long as Israel, which used to be a true democracy, and is half of the Jewish people, is under such threat, you need us to get over this as much as we need you to be able to strengthen your democracy.”She insists, however hard it is to imagine now, that a two-state solution is still within reach. “It has to happen,” said Michaeli. “I’m convinced that it will, eventually.”“Really?” I asked.“Yeah, of course,” she said. “Listen, I brought Labor back almost from the dead.”The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      in UK Politics

      UK urged not to cut life-saving aid to Yemen

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      The UK government has been warned against cutting aid to Yemen, amid fears tens of millions of pounds will be slashed from Britain’s contribution to humanitarian relief efforts.Millions of people in the war-torn country will go hungry this year and hundreds of thousands are already facing famine, the UN says.Ahead of a UN donor conference on Monday, at which secretary-general Antonio Guterres will ask the world for $3.85bn (£2.76bn) in aid for Yemen, former Tory minister Andrew Mitchell said UK funding might fall by as much as half from 2020 levels, when £214m was sent.Mr Mitchell said reducing help for Yemen would have dire consequences and damage Britain’s global standing, given its backing for Saudi Arabia’s coalition, which is battling Houthi rebels there in a conflict that has caused widespread civilian casualties.
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