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      in US Politics

      Trump's south lawn rally fails to evoke usual adulation from stony-faced reporters

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      After turning the south lawn into a convention stage last month, Donald Trump held a surprise press conference-cum-campaign event on Monday at the White House’s front door – where Jackie Kennedy wore black on the day of JFK’s funeral, and where the Obamas greeted their successors on inauguration day.On a glorious late summer’s day, Trump’s vantage point behind a presidential lectern at the north portico afforded him a view of former president Andrew Jackson’s statue in Lafayette Square and, beyond that, the newly minted Black Lives Matter Plaza. Give him a second term in November, and perhaps he’ll install a golden escalator like the one he descended in at Trump Tower to launch his first campaign.Despite the lofty surroundings, the president dropped all pretense of rising above the political hurly-burly. Over 46 minutes, he branded his Democratic presidential election rival, Joe Biden, “stupid”, falsely accused Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris of peddling anti-vaccination conspiracy theories, and unleashed a torrent of half-truths and non-truths.But unlike the loyalists on the south lawn for the convention speech, or the devotees who gather at Trump’s increasingly frequent airport-hangar rallies, there was a stony silence from mask-wearing reporters sitting under columns, ornate carvings and a giant lamp on the White House driveway.The perennial salesman, Trump wanted to use Labor Day to boast about economic recovery. The numbers are “terrific”, he said. “We are in the midst of the fastest economic recovery in US history,” he claimed. Some 10.6m jobs had been added since May, he said, though he did not acknowledge nearly half the jobs lost in the pandemic had still not returned.Of the recovery, he said: “We have V-shape. It’s probably a super-V.” No mention of the more than 100,000 small businesses that shut down or the unemployment benefits that had expired for millions of Americans. As for his claim about the pandemic – “We are an absolute leader, in every way” – well, no one can dispute that America has the highest caseload (more than 6.2m) or the highest death toll (more than 189,000) in the world.Biden and Harris “should immediately apologise for the reckless anti-vaccine rhetoric that they are talking right now, talking about ‘endangering lives’”, Trump charged, after Harris said she would rely on the decisions of public health officials and medical experts for news on a Covid-19 vaccine rather than the president.“It undermines science, and what happens is all of a sudden you’ll have this incredible vaccine and because of that fake rhetoric, it’s a political rhetoric, that’s all that is, just for politics,” Trump said.He added later: “The numbers are looking unbelievably strong, unbelievably good. So now they’re saying, ‘Wow, Trump’s pulled this off, OK, let’s disparage the vaccine.’ That’s so bad for this country. That’s so bad for the world to even say that, and that’s what they’re saying.”Yes, the man who said the coronavirus would “just disappear”, suggested injecting bleach as a cure and dismissed the climate crisis as a hoax accused his opponents of undermining science. Perhaps Neil deGrasse Tyson should moderate the first presidential debate later this month.Despite the White House trappings, this was a campaign event in disguise. Biden and the “radical socialist Democrats would immediately collapse the economy”, Trump warned darkly. “You’ll have a crash the likes of which you’ve never seen before.”Biden wants to demolish the energy industry, he went on ever more fancifully, and will cause more electricity blackouts in California. “He wants to have things lit up with wind.”There was also a long diatribe about trade. China, he said, “took advantage of stupid people. Stupid people. And Biden’s a stupid person. You know that, you’re not gonna write it, but you know that … If Biden wins, China will own this country.”After more than 20 minutes of darkness, doom and fearmongering, the president said, rather unconvincingly, “Happy Labor Day, everybody!” and then took questions, trying and failing to get the first reporter to remove his mask (“If you don’t take it off, you’re very muffled”).Naturally, Trump was asked about the Atlantic magazine’s report that he had disparaged dead soldiers as “losers” and suckers”. Though several former Trump administration officials have said the report chimes with their knowledge, the president described it as a “totally made-up story” and demanded: “Who would say a thing like that? Only an animal would say a thing like that.”Trump also claimed that he was “taking the high road” by not meeting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer to discuss a coronavirus stimulus package. “I don’t need to meet with them to be turned down,” he said.“They don’t want to make a deal because they think if the country does as badly as possible … that’s good for the Democrats. I am taking the high road. I’m taking the high road by not seeing them.”Then someone lit the blue touchpaper by asking about the Russia investigation. “They spied on my campaign, and that includes Biden and Obama!” Trump fumed, suddenly animated by the conspiracy theory. “If we did what they did, you would have many people in jail right now.”And when asked if he would support an investigation into allegations against Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, the president added: “Yeah, if something can be proven that he did something wrong, always. They’ve been looking at me for four years, they found nothing.“Four years, think of it. For four years. From the day I came down the escalator, I’ve been under investigation by sleaze. And they found nothing. They found nothing. A friend of mine said you have to be the most innocent, honorable man to ever hold the office of president.”Trump also spared some venom for Harris, insisting that “she will never be president, although I have to be careful because Obama used to say that about me, so I have to be a little bit careful. But you have to look at her a little bit more closely because obviously Joe’s not doing too well.”Polling, however, shows Biden continuing to enjoy a steady lead on Trump. Standing at the front door of the White House two months before election day, the president sounded like a desperate man, as if firing a machine-gun in all directions like Al Pacino’s Tony Montana under siege at his luxury mansion in Scarface. The election might go the same way. More

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      in World Politics

      The Tangled Maps of Greece and Turkey

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      A person sitting at a café in the small town of Kaş, on Turkey’s southern coast, where the Taurus Mountains drop precipitously into the Mediterranean, would look out upon a blue bay and a small island. If they asked the waiter, he would tell them that the island — almost unbelievably — is in another country.

      That island is Kastellorizo. It is Greek. It is far from being the only Greek island that sits close to the Turkish mainland, but it’s perhaps the most striking, since it is 78 miles from its nearest Greek neighbor, the island of Rhodes, and fully 354 miles from the capital, Athens. Indeed, landlocked Ankara, the Turkish capital in the center of Anatolia, is nearer.

      Who Owns the Sea?

      Nation-states are the oddity of the modern age. To people in the era of empires, today’s borders would seem extraordinarily restrictive. For centuries, Kastellorizo interacted freely with the mainland, which lies one mile away. Now it exists as a surreal outpost adrift in the Mediterranean. This tiny, quiet island is central to the latest crisis between Greece and Turkey — an argument over gas exploration rights and who owns where on the seafloor in the eastern Mediterranean. It has led to collisions between Greek and Turkish vessels, and even a confrontation in Libyan waters between Turkish and French frigates in June.

      Discovery of Natural Gas Exposes Turkey’s Political Rifts

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      The clash with France is part of a wider confrontation in which France has become a vocal ally of forces in the eastern Mediterranean seen as broadly anti-Islamist. This includes European Union members Greece and Cyprus, as well as Israel, Egypt and the forces of renegade General Khalifa Haftar in Libya, a figure from the Gaddafi regime. All these alliances put France at odds with Turkey, which has emerged as the most vocal and perhaps the most powerful force for political Islam in the region. The alliance with Greece has helped to reignite much older hostilities between Greece and Turkey, feeding into dangerous older narratives.

      The argument surrounding territorial waters is as artificial as the nation states that have given rise to it. The intricacies of maritime law hang around the question of whether the far-flung isles of Greece can claim exclusive economic zones (EEZs) on the seabed around them — in effect, that they have a continental shelf that Greece can claim, a mile off the Turkish coast.

      Such claims create a collision course with Turkey, given the unusual situation of the two geographic territories. The result of the 1919-23 Turkish War of Independence was the establishment of a Turkish state on the landmass of Asia Minor, but to the exclusion of almost every island in the Aegean and Mediterranean seas lying off its shore. The peculiarity of this scenario is evident to anyone who has visited the popular tourist regions of the Turkish coast and the eastern Greek isles. The two are intimate neighbors, far more alike than they are to their respective hinterlands, let alone their distant national capitals.

      Arrival of Nationalism

      Nationalism — since its arrival from Western Europe — has been calamitous for the wider region in which Greece and Turkey lie. It has brought chaos to the Arab world, to the Balkans and to Cyprus. Even today, it still informs the aspirations of the Kurdish people to add yet another state to a region of instability and ethnic tension.

      On the face of it, Greece and Turkey appear to be two comparative success stories of the era of nation states in this region. They have been relatively stable, centralized states for much of the 20th century, despite the recurrence of military intervention in politics. Yet Greece and Turkey are also examples of the failure of the nation-state model in their very nature. Both espouse a virulent ethnic nationalism. Both are rooted in an ancient tribal exceptionalism, layered with later religious identities.

      Like the wider region, this nationalism has required that what was a patchwork of ethnicities, indeed a form of multiculturalism — or, at least, co-habitation — was systematically uprooted, most brutally in the state-sanctioned ethnic cleansing of the early 20th century. State-sanctioned ethnic violence is nothing new to the region. It happened to the Sephardic Jews of Greece in the 1940s (themselves previously cleansed from Christian Spain after the retreat of the Moors), it has happened in the Balkans in the past few decades, and it happened in Greece and Turkey in 1923.

      That was the year of the Treaty of Lausanne, which stipulated the transfer of populations between the two states based upon religious affiliation: Greek Orthodox to Greece, Muslims to Turkey. In many cases, this papered over cultural and ethnic complexities that were far from the clear-cut distinctions that Greek and Turkish nationalists believed inherent in their respective nation-state projects. This history, and the very human and very personal tragedy of it, has embedded an antipathy towards the “other” in the body politic of both states to the present day.

      It is this reality that makes questions surrounding continental shelves, exclusive economic zones and rights to resources that lie under the sea so intractable. It was hard enough and bloody enough to divide the land of this region between the warring parties, often leading to strange and unnatural results like the sad fate of the little isle of Kastellorizo — severed from the mainland it gazes upon with every sunrise. To attempt the division of the waters as well is likely to lead to yet another hard and bloody outcome.

      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

      Mohammed bin Salman’s Shaky Legacy in a Troubled Saudi Kingdom

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      Una Galani is the associate editor of Reuters’ Breakingviews division, which the news agency describes as “the world’s leading source of agenda-setting financial insight.” Last week, Breakingviews published her review of the book “Blood and Oil” by Wall Street Journal reporters Bradley Hope and Justin Scheck.

      The book tells the story of the rise to power of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. It focuses on his audacious game plan for remodeling the Saudi economy. While presenting MBS, as the crown prince is commonly known, as a reformer ready to break with tradition, the authors reveal the darker side of his character and weigh the significant risks this entails for his own future and that of Saudi Arabia. 

      What Iran Can Learn From Saudi Arabia

      READ MORE

      Galani seems to go one step beyond the authors’ critical judgment when, in the title of her article, she refers to Mohammed bin Salman as “Saudi Arabia’s sharpest prince.” The epithet appears justified at least in the comparative sense that previous Saudi leaders had a reputation for being seriously dull and plodding. By way of contrast, “sharp” may seem appropriate as a description of MBS. Or perhaps Galani was thinking of the well-sharpened cutting edge of the bone saw that MBS allegedly provided to the hit squad that was sent to Istanbul to dismember journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018.

      Galani writes that “it’s tempting to see [Mohammed bin Salman’s] ruthlessness as a broom to the kingdom’s problems, even as admirable,” but she avoids the temptation and entertains no illusions about his errors and failures. She lists the obvious ones: “a war in Yemen, the role of his close confidantes in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the blockade of Qatar, and the effective kidnapping of Saad Hariri, who was Lebanon’s prime minister at the time.” Galani then highlights the fatal character flaw that explains those human disasters, explaining that “the prince’s inability to tolerate dissent and black-and-white view of the world may lie at the root of his multiple misadventures.”

      Here is today’s 3D definition:

      Misadventures:

      A serious and even dreadful crime committed by someone with money and power, just as the misadventure of a citizen with neither money nor power (especially if black) will be deemed a crime worthy of incarceration  

      Contextual Note

      Galani was undoubtedly being ironic when she characterized Mohammed bin Salman’s crimes and brazen assaults on people, nations, colleagues, family and journalists as “misadventures,” to say nothing of human rights advocates who have no place in Saudi society. At another point, she mentions his “adventures in power.” Her image of the crown prince is clearly that of a hyperreal antihero, not far from that of a cartoon character.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Galani rightly reserves her judgment of Mohammed bin Salman’s place in history, which she nevertheless predicts will be a “highly disruptive legacy.” At the same time, she points to his failure to achieve his primary non-controversial goal, when she observes that he “hasn’t secured the inward investment needed to underwrite his economic transformation plans.” The simple truth is that Saudi Arabia today finds itself in a deep crisis aggravated by the coronavirus pandemic.

      The image of MBS that emerges from Galani’s review and Hope and Schenck’s book contrasts singularly with the points made last week in an article on Fair Observer by award-winning Iranian journalist Kourosh Ziabari. Seeking to develop a contrast between Saudi successes and Iranian failures, Ziabari believes that “the future Saudi king has undoubtedly scored significant gains both domestically and internationally.”

      Ziabari doesn’t call MBS “sharp,” but he deems him “a strong social reformer.” He cites the “notable steps the crown prince has taken to socially liberalize a conservative country.” He mentions in passing but seriously minimizes the “misadventures” Galani ironically mentions. 

      To justify Mohammed bin Salman as a model to be emulated, Ziabari cites a statistic from May 2018, months before the assassination of Khashoggi. As he recounts it, “more than 90% of young people in Saudi Arabia between the ages of 18 and 24 endorse the crown prince’s leadership.” In terms of journalistic accuracy, Ziabari should have written “endorsed” in the past tense. He may be unaware that the level of “trust” in MBS has since seriously deteriorated throughout the region as a recent Pew poll shows (even if the poll did not sample Saudi Arabia, for the obvious reason that it would not have been allowed to conduct its survey in the kingdom). Recent events have undoubtedly shaken the confidence of a lot of young Saudis.

      Had Ziabari been interested in more recently observed trends, he might have noticed one expert’s assessment in May: “The erosion of the social contract between the rulers and the ruled will lead to serious problems, especially in a tribal society.” The expert in question, Colin Clarke of the Soufan Center think tank, described MBS in these terms: “He’s not the sophisticated operator that he portrays himself to be. He’s less like a businessman or politician and more like a gangster.”

      Historical Note

      Most people acknowledge that 2020 has become a watershed moment in history. The year 2019 now appears to represent an unrecoverable past and 2021 an utterly unpredictable future. This is true everywhere in the world, even in a despotic kingdom ruled with an iron hand by an authoritarian prince with the capacity to imprison or execute at will members of his own family. And yet, Kourosh Ziabari relies on testimony from what now appears to be the distant past to highlight the success of Mohammed bin Salman.

      He approvingly reports that “The New York Times has described the measures [MBS] introduced as ‘Saudi Arabia’s Arab Spring.’” He fails to point out two important facts: that the article was posted in November 2017 — nearly a year before the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi — and, more tellingly, that the author of that article was the comically unreliable, ever mistaken Thomas Friedman, a celebrity writer who still seems to believe the world is flat because US technology and the economic culture associated with it has become the universal parasite of state economies.

      To justify Mohammed bin Salman’s image as a reformist, Ziabari offers several quotes, all of which predate not just the current health and economic crisis, but also the Khashoggi affair. On the basis of those by now ancient remarks, he concludes that MBS has “introduced reforms that are meaningful and important in a troubled region riddled with conflict and the absence of democracy.”

      Skipping forward, he cites as proof of progress the recent decision of the supreme court to abolish flogging, as reported by the BBC. But he neglects to cite the damning conclusion in the same article: “But waves of arrests of every type of dissident under the king and the crown prince – including of women’s rights campaigners – undercut this claim, our reporter says.” 

      Ziabari’s real focus is on Iran, not Mohammed bin Salman. His wish for radical change in Iran makes perfect sense. But suggesting that the model MBS provides might be, as he claims, a “benchmark” would seem to be wishful thinking if not dangerous folly. As a point of comparison, it is historically accurate to call Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler modernizing reformers with ambitious programs, who were adored by a majority of their people. But no one today would treat them as role models.

      Concerning Iran, Ziabari is right to hope for a development that might “put an end to decades of hostility with the US and the West.” But, isn’t that exactly what had begun to take place when Barack Obama pushed through the Iran nuclear deal in 2015, which MBS opposed and US President Donald Trump canceled at the first opportunity?

      More realistically, Una Galani offers this assessment: “One positive for [MBS] is that it’s unclear how much of a difference the Khashoggi affair has really made. Investors were quick to mingle again with the prince, albeit somewhat more in private, but still with the hope of extracting funds.”

      Galani recognizes that it’s all about the decisions people with money make, not about the wise policies of political leaders. Ziabari seems to agree when he remarks that Mohammed bin Salman “has a favorable public image in the eyes of Western political and business elites.” Still, success with people who control piles of money should not turn him into a role model.

      *[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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      in World Politics

      What Can the Gulf States Learn from the Belarus Crisis?

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      It might come as a surprise that the Gulf states have more than a passing interest in events in Belarus. Beyond growing economic ties, the political drama provides valuable lessons for the region’s monarchies and their efforts to maintain standards of living for their citizens without compromising power and influence. The Belarus crisis also offers useful pointers for Gulf states in their dealings with Russia.

      Over the past three decades, Belarusian domestic politics has been defined by its predictability. Despite the emergence of opposition candidates around election time, President Alexander Lukashenko’s grip on power was such that there was only one outcome. Yet, as with so much of 2020, life as Belarusians know it has been turned on its head.

      Big Blow for a Stable Dictatorship: Major Protests Hit Belarus

      READ MORE

      While the veracity of past elections has been called into question, a mixture of political complacency and COVID-19-related turmoil has breathed new life into Belarus’ opposition movement. Beyond disputing Lukashenko’s winning margin in July’s poll, hundreds of thousands of ordinary Belarusians have taken to the streets calling for change. Mostly born after the collapse of the Soviet Union, this generation does not regard the stability offered by Lukashenko as an asset. As they see it, state control of Belarus’ economy and society is incompatible with their aspirations.

      Lukashenko’s response to what has effectively become a matter of life and death for his regime has fluctuated between incoherency and heavy-handedness. The president’s disappearance from the public gaze at the start of the unrest, coupled with the disproportionate use of force against demonstrators, suggests that he did not seriously consider the possibility of mass protests. Continued police brutality and opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya’s flight into exile make it difficult to use “external forces” as justification for the crackdown.

      “Family” Comes First

      Much like Belarus, the Gulf states have relatively young populations, particularly Saudi Arabia, where over two-thirds of citizens are under the age of 35. Many have benefited from access to higher education systems that have grown exponentially since the early 2000s, both in terms of state and private universities. With this in mind, the region’s political elites can use the lack of meaningful opportunities for so many Belarusians to underscore the importance of their development plans and national visions.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Designed to meet the specific needs of Gulf countries, these strategies nevertheless have several objectives in common. In an effort to counter faltering prices and technological obsolescence, the region is attempting to diversify its dependence on oil and gas revenues by facilitating high-knowledge-content jobs in different industrial sectors. Doing so also requires the greater incorporation of indigenous populations into national workforces at the expense of expatriate workers. In this respect, Kuwait’s plans to drastically reduce its migrant population offers a glimpse into the future shape of the Gulf’s workplaces. While never explicitly mentioned in strategic documents, the Gulf states anticipate that encouraging their own populations’ development will offset opportunities for the type of political dissent that’s currently gripping Belarus and which rocked Bahrain almost a decade ago.

      The Gulf’s rulers have no appetite for an Arab Spring 2.0, a scenario that some warn is a distinct possibility thanks to COVID-19. Accordingly, local development opportunities will continue to be encouraged during these chastened times. When it comes to wider political participation, Kuwait will remain something of an outlier for the foreseeable future.

      The Gulf states’ responses to COVID-19 also merit consideration. Once dismissed by Lukashenko as an ailment that can be treated with saunas and vodka, Belarus was among the last in Europe to enact lockdown measures. While it remains to be seen what impact ongoing protests will have on infection rates, a spike in cases could be used by Gulf states to justify their no-nonsense approaches to tackling the virus. Qatar, for example, was one of the first to completely lock down all but the most essential public services. The country’s return to normal rests on the public’s strict compliance with a four-phase reopening plan.

      Don’t Annoy Next Door

      International reaction to the political crisis in Belarus has so far been muted, with presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and China’s Xi Jinping leading the congratulations for Lukashenko’s re-election. For its part, the European Union’s response has been cautiously led by the likes of Lithuania and Poland. Their approach reflects two important points. First, the protests are highly internalized and not about pivoting Belarus further East or West. Second, direct support for the opposition risks a Ukraine-type scenario whereby Moscow directly intervenes to safeguard its interests.

      Point two is of particular relevance to the Gulf states, whose economic ties with one of Russia’s closest allies continue to grow. Cooperation between Belarus and the United Arab Emirates is a case in point. According to government statistics, the volume of trade between both countries amounted to $121 million in 2019, up from $89.6 million the previous year. Minsk has also made overtures to Oman regarding joint manufacturing opportunities and the re-export of products to neighboring markets.

      Saudi Arabia undoubtedly has the most to lose from antagonizing Russia in its own backyard. Last April, the kingdom sold 80,000 tons of crude oil to Belarus. This purchase, first of its kind, not only reflects Minsk’s determination to lessen its reliance on Russian supplies, but also happened against the backdrop of faltering demand and an oil price war between Moscow and Riyadh. Since then, both sides have brokered a fragile peace designed in part to ensure that OPEC+ members respect industry-saving production cuts.

      Accordingly, the “softly, softly” approach currently being employed by the EU’s eastern flank provides a blueprint for how the Gulf states should continue to manage their responses to the Belarus crisis. Not only does it offer the best chance of maintaining economic relations irrespective of the final outcome, but it also keeps regional oil supplies in still uncharted waters at a time of great uncertainty in global markets. Antagonizing Russia with even the most tacit support for Belarus is, put simply, too risky a proposition.

      Belarus’ unfolding crisis is ultimately about replacing an unmovable political leader and system that have dominated the country for decades. In a region defined by its own version of long-term political stability, a similar scenario among Gulf states is unpalatable. Fortunately, the region still has resources at its disposal to prevent this from happening and protect much-needed economic victories in new markets. While always important, the Gulf’s indigenous populations are increasingly being reconfigured as the most essential features of the region’s future prosperity and stability.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of Gulf State Analytics.]

      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

      The UAE and Israel: Not So Big a Deal

      by

      The Abraham Accord is a grand title well in keeping with the Trump presidency’s taste for overstatement and misdirection. But the expectation that other Arab states would fall into line with the United Arab Emirates and quickly normalize relations with Israel has fallen well short of the mark. Jared Kushner’s shortcomings as a self-appointed diplomat extraordinaire solving one of the world’s most intractable conflicts were on full display in an interview he gave to The National after arriving in Abu Dhabi aboard El Al flight 971, the first-ever commercial flight to a Gulf state from Israel.

      The president’s son-in-law called the deal an “historic breakthrough” that augured well for peace. Already sensing, perhaps, that the expected avalanche of Arab states moving to normalize relations was not happening as anticipated he nonetheless enthused: “So, not just in the Middle East, are now countries who weren’t thinking of normalising relations with Israel, thinking of forming a relationship and doing things they wouldn’t have thought to do a couple of weeks ago.”

      Israel and the UAE: The Myth of Normalizing Abnormalities

      READ MORE

      Kushner also claimed: “There’s a lot of envy in the region that the United Arab Emirates took this step and we now have access to Israeli agriculture technology, security business. The opportunity in tourism. And so a lot of people would like to follow that now.”

      Friends of Convenience

      Parsing those two statements, does Kushner really think that it was only “a couple of weeks ago” that MENA countries were thinking of their relations with Israel? And does he think that describing those who have not immediately jumped aboard as displaying “a lot of envy” is the way to get them to do so? Kushner displays arrogance, ignorance and the patronizing attitude with which the Trump White House views Arabs: easily exploitable as malleable friends of convenience and eager purchasers of weapons.

      US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had already come away empty-handed from Bahrain and Oman, two Gulf Cooperation Council states that were expected, given the precarious shape of their finances, to follow immediately in the footsteps of the UAE. He also struck out in Sudan. The Saudis had allowed the El Al flight to cross their territory — another first — but despite Kushner meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on his way back from Abu Dhabi, they were not rushing to join the historic breakthrough either.

      Indeed, abandoning the Palestinians so utterly on a thin promise from Benjamin Netanyahu to suspend (note: not end) West Bank annexation is proving too distasteful for many Arab leaders to stomach, even though  some of them have been prepared privately to go along with Kushner’s concoction of a so-called deal of the century designed to give the Israelis virtually everything they want while denying the Palestinians a viable, territorially contiguous and independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

      Part of the deal with the Emiratis was supposed to be the delivery of F-35 fighter jets, long sought after by Mohammed bin Zayed, the Abu Dhabi crown prince, deputy supreme commander of the armed forces and de facto UAE ruler. Much to his chagrin, Israel invoked what is known as its qualitative military edge (QME). The QME is designed to ensure that whatever weaponry the US sells to Arab states, none of it will challenge Israel’s military supremacy. The Israelis have two combat-ready squadrons of F-35s.

      And while Kushner and Israel made much of the deal signifying a common front against the Iranian threat, it is a simple fact that despite sanctions, the UAE, and Dubai in particular, do a lot of business with the Islamic Republic of Iran and has done so for decades. Trump’s “maximum pressure” tactics have not altered in any significant way that hard reality.

      Big Gestures

      Amongst other big gestures, Kushner and the Israelis hope to bring Mohammed bin Zayed to Washington in September to sign the deal and to celebrate what he sees — and Trump will claim — as history in the making. With the election heading into its final weeks, it will be sold as a diplomatic triumph for the president, intended to appeal to his evangelical base, hence the overblown title. Whether the Abu Dhabi crown prince will go along with such a blatant electioneering ploy remains to be seen.

      The deal does deserve to be acknowledged as significant if only because a third Arab state, an increasingly powerful and influential one, joins Egypt and Jordan in recognizing Israel. That is a breakthrough. Where Kushner has stumbled is in trying to hype it and sell it as something other than what it is. The Emiratis and the Israelis have been doing business for many years, but it has been done sub rosa. Normalization acknowledges that situation. And at a time when COVID-19 is laying waste to the global economy, it does herald economic benefits for both countries with deals in defense, medicine, agriculture, tourism and technology being mooted.

      Mohammed bin Zayed, though smarting at the nixing of the F-35 deal, can still lay claim to gaining much-added influence and stature in Washington, a situation that is not likely to change should Joe Biden win the presidency. For Benjamin Netanyahu, the wins are less clear cut. The settler movement, already outraged at his failure to deliver on annexation by July 1, may decide that what they see as his latest and largest betrayal — the suspension of West Bank annexation — is sufficient grounds to bring him down and force another election, one that, should he lose, will make him ever more vulnerable to a court case that could lead to conviction and jail for Israel’s longest-serving prime minister.

      *[Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that Mauritania recognized Israel, whereas it froze diplomatic relations in 2009.]

      *[This article was originally published by Arab Digest.]

      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 US Politics

      Joe Biden if president will push allies like Australia to do more on climate, adviser says

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      Joe Biden will not pull any punches with allies including Australia in seeking to build international momentum for stronger action on the climate crisis, an adviser to the US presidential candidate has said.If elected in November, Biden will hold heavy emitters such as China accountable for doing more “but he’s also going to push our friends to do more as well”, according to Jake Sullivan, who was the national security adviser to Biden when he was vice-president and is now in the candidate’s inner circle.In a wide-ranging podcast interview with the Sydney-based Lowy Institute, Sullivan also signalled that Biden would work closely with Australia and other regional allies in responding to the challenges posed by the rise of China.While Australia’s prime minister, Scott Morrison, is likely to welcome the pledge of US coordination with allies on regional security issues, there may be unease in government ranks about the potential for tough conversations about Australia’s climate policies.The Coalition government has resisted calls to embrace a target of net-zero emissions by 2050 and it proposes to use Kyoto carryover credits to meet Australia’s 2030 emission reductions pledge. Some Coalition backbenchers still openly dispute climate science.Sullivan said climate change would be a big priority for Biden, both in domestic policy – with climate and clean energy issues placed at the heart of his economic recovery visions – and in foreign policy, where he would do more than just reverse Donald Trump’s decision to abandon the Paris agreement.“He has said right out of the gate, we’re not just rejoining Paris – we are going to rally the nations of the world to get everyone to up their game, to elevate their ambition, to do more,” Sullivan told the Lowy Institute.“And in that regard he will hold countries like China accountable for doing more but he’s also going to push our friends to do more as well and to step up and fulfil their responsibilities to what is fundamentally a global problem, that every country needs to be participating in and contributing to.”Sullivan said there was “no reason it has to get awkward” for countries like Australia.“The vice-president is not going to come to play games around that issue if he’s fortunate enough to be elected. He’ll lay it out in the way only Joe Biden can do – just plain and straight, down the line, respectful – but he’s not going to pull any punches on it.”Sullivan made the remarks in an interview with Michael Fullilove, the executive director of the Lowy Institute, who told Guardian Australia last month that climate was likely to “come roaring back as an issue in US foreign policy under a Biden administration” and that it “may be harder to say no to a Biden administration”.Biden has vowed to put the US on “an irreversible path to achieve net-zero emissions, economy-wide” by 2050, and to rally the rest of the world to meet the climate threat – indicating that he would “fully integrate climate change” into US foreign policy and national security strategies, as well as its approach to trade.The economist Ross Garnaut has also speculated that a Biden win could lead to Australia being placed “in the naughty corner” on climate policy.More broadly, Sullivan said Biden would be “eager to develop a really strong relationship” with Morrison – who has formed close working ties with Trump, even though the Australian government has emphasised points of difference from time to time.Sullivan said Biden had a deep respect for Australia and its contributions to US security and the history of the alliance between the two countries.Biden and Morrison were likely to “get off to a strong start” because the former vice-president saw Australia as the kind of partner that was central to a finding successful strategies when faced with a range of issues in a fast-changing world.Sullivan said Biden put like-minded democratic allies at the heart of his foreign policy, because he believed that was the platform upon which the US could most effectively deal with great power competition and transnational challenges.“Allies are going to have pride of place in the hierarchy of priorities in a Biden administration foreign policy,” Sullivan said. He said allies including Australia, Japan, South Korea and Nato were important not just on regional issues but more broadly.“And yes, the rise of China is at or near the top of the list of big global challenges that we all have to be working effectively together on.” More

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      Saudi king tells Trump he wants a fair and permanent solution for Palestinians

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      Saudi Arabia’s King Salman has told Donald Trump that the kingdom is eager to achieve a fair and permanent solution to the Palestinian issue, which he said was the main starting point of the kingdom’s proposed Arab Peace Initiative, the state news agency reported.The leaders spoke by phone following a historic US-brokered accord last month under which the United Arab Emirates agreed to become the third Arab state to normalise ties with Israel, after Egypt and Jordan.King Salman told Trump he appreciated US efforts to support peace and that Saudi Arabia wanted to see a fair and permanent solution to the Palestinian issue based on the Arab peace initiative proposed by the kingdom in 2002.Under the proposal, Arab nations have offered Israel normalised ties in return for a statehood deal with the Palestinians and full Israeli withdrawal from territory captured in the 1967 Middle East war.Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam and site of its holiest shrines, does not recognise Israel.However, this month the kingdom said it would allow flights between UAE and Israel, including by Israeli airliners, to use its airspace.White House adviser and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner has said he hoped another Arab country normalised ties with within months.No other Arab state has said so far it is considering following the UAE.King Salman’s son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and Kushner discussed the need for the Palestinians and the Israelis to resume negotiations and reach a lasting peace after Kushner visited the UAE last month.The UAE-Israel deal was met by overwhelming Palestinian opposition.This story was amended after a correction was issued by Reuters More