When Humza Yousaf took his oath of allegiance in Scottish parliament in 2016, he wore a gold embroidered sherwani – a traditional South Asian jacket – and a kilt.
“I, Humza Yousaf, swear with honesty and a true heart,” he proudly said in Urdu, “that I will always be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, so help me God.”
He is now expected to make history by becoming the first non-White head of the Scottish government, following his election as leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) on Monday.
The triumph of British-born Yousaf, whose family trace their ancestry to Pakistan, is just the latest reflection of how times have changed as people of South Asian descent occupy leadership roles in the British, Scottish and Irish parliaments.
Yousaf, 37, joins British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, a Hindu, who secured the role last October and whose Indian parents came to the UK from East Africa in the 1960s.
And across the Irish Sea is the Republic of Ireland’s Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, whose father is an Indian-born doctor.
India and Pakistan were once the jewel of a British empire that stretched so far across the globe it was often said the sun would never set on it. But 75 years since the end of the British Raj, many commentators have remarked at how history has come full circle.
Sunder Katwala, director of think tank British Future, called Yousaf “the history maker” in a post on Twitter.
“The Empire strikes back,” quipped Jelina Berlow-Rahman, a human rights lawyer in Scotland, on the social media platform. “Historic moment for British politics.”
Yousaf’s father was born in the Pakistani city of Mian Channu, in the country’s sprawling Punjab province that borders India. His mother was born in Nairobi, Kenya, also to a family from Punjabi descent.
Both migrated to Scotland in the 1960s.
Since 1999, Scotland has had a devolved government, meaning many, but not all, decisions are made at the SNP-led Scottish Parliament in Holyrood, Edinburgh.
In a 2018 interview with Scotland’s Holyrood newspaper, Yousaf explained in detail how his mother’s family faced racial discrimination in the East African city for being seen as taking away jobs from the local population. The hardship reached a breaking point when his grandmother was attacked with an axe, he said. She survived, but the family had had enough.
“It was time to get away and again, it made sense because there was a British call for people from the Commonwealth to come and take on industrial jobs,” Yousaf said.
Born in Glasgow in 1985, Yousaf was one of two ethnic minority pupilsto attend his elementary school.
Destined by family expectations to be either an accountant, a doctor or a lawyer, Yousaf recalled the “scariest” moment was when he broke the mold by telling his parents about his desire to venture into politics.
“My dad, who really had so much foresight, said that we were living at a time when we [in our community] needed more representation and we didn’t really have anything,” he told Holyrood.
Yousaf joined the SNP while he was a student at the University of Glasgow and rose through the ranks of the party, becoming a member of parliament in 2011 – the first Muslim and non-White cabinet minister to serve in the Scottish Government.
He has often noted that his own background is an example of Scotland’s socially liberal and ethnically diverse landscape, even referring to himself as coming from a “bhangra and bagpipes” heritage.
Bhangra is the traditional folk music of the Punjab while bagpipes are the quintessential instrument of Scotland.
Yousaf’s party victory was confirmed after a six-week campaign where he and two other candidates squared off against each other.
On Tuesday, the Scottish Parliament will vote to elect the country’s sixth first minister, a position Yousaf is expected to claim as the head of the party with the most lawmakers.
He takes over a party with an overriding objective to end Scotland’s three-centuries-long union with England – something his predecessor Nicola Sturgeon wasn’t able to achieve after the British government repeatedly blocked a way to a fresh vote on independence.
“We will be the generation that delivers independence for Scotland,” he said in a victory speech. “Where there are divisions to heal, we must do so quickly because we have a job to do.”
News of Yousaf’s victory dominated headlines in Pakistan, with messages and swirling on social media about the historic moment. It comes as most of the 270 million strong population observes Ramadan – Islam’s holiest month, where communities come together to fast, pray and reflect.
Noor Ahmed, from the Citizen’s Archive of Pakistan, a non-profit organization dedicated to cultural and historic preservation, described the journey Yousaf has taken as a “Pakistani story that is moving and aspirational, and will be lauded locally.”
“Humza Yousaf’s appointment is part of a wider movement taking shape globally that previously was acknowledged only informally – that members of the Pakistani diaspora have long played a vital role in global history,” she told CNN.
When Sunak similarly made history by becoming Britain’s first Prime Minister of Indian descent, many in the South Asian nation were quick to congratulate him – with some media channels even claiming him as their own.
Just under 10% of the United Kingdom’s population are of South Asian descent, according to government statistics.
The leader of Scotland’s main opposition, Anas Sarwar, is also the child of Pakistani immigrants. Britain’s Home Secretary Suella Braverman also has Indian roots, while London mayor Sadiq Khan was born to a working-class Pakistani immigrant family.
But while political representation of minorities in Britain has improved, racism is far from vanquished. Yousaf’s victory was greeted with racist comments on social media by members of the far right.
Others have noted that Sunak and Yousaf were also both selected by their parties and have yet to face a general election.
The Indian subcontinent won independence from the British empire in August 1947 and the bloody Partition that followed hastily divided the former colony along religious lines – sending Muslims to the newly formed nation of Pakistan, and Hindus and Sikhs to newly independent India.
An estimated 15 million people were uprooted and between 500,000 and 2 million died in the exodus, according to scholars. It remains etched into the memories of many who experienced it, and their descendents.
Observers have been quick to point out the irony that Yousaf, a Muslim of Pakistani origin, will go against Sunak, a Hindu of Indian origin, to deliver his promise of Scottish independence.
In 2014, Scotland voted against independence by 55%. Two years later, Britain voted to leave the European Union when a majority of Scots wanted to stay, setting the country on a path it hadn’t agreed to and re-energizing the fight for independence.
Last November, Britain’s Supreme Court ruled that Scotland’s government cannot unilaterally hold a second referendum on whether to secede from the UK – a blow to independence campaigners battling against Westminster’s pro-union establishment.
Shortly after winning, Yousaf tweeted about the messages coming in.
“From Punjab to Pollok, people from across the world and here at home have been offering me their good wishes,” he wrote.
But in the meantime he said he had a more pressing immediate task.
“For now, after a long day I have promised a very sleepy three year old I will be telling her tonight’s bed time story.”
The prime minister announced he would delay the second and third votes on the remaining legislation until after the Jewish Passover holiday from April 5-13, “to give time for a real chance for a real debate.”
Netanyahu nonetheless insisted that the overhaul was necessary. And while he may be trying to buy himself time, it is unclear if his deferment of the vote will silence the huge protests and mass strikes paralyzing the country, experts say.
Gideon Rahat, a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute and a member of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said the protests may either tail off or resume at a later date following the announcement, but that the demonstrators are nonetheless “ready” for the reform, and can return to the streets at any moment.
“The protesters now have the infrastructure to take protests out (to the streets) within minutes,” Rahat told CNN, noting that it is not just one protest movement but tens of groups, some of whom may decide to continue to rally despite the deferment.
“The infrastructure is there, and if there will be a need, there will be a comeback (to the streets),” he said.
Former head of the Israeli Intelligence Directorate and managing director of the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), Major General Tamir Hayman said that postponing the vote until after the Passover holiday will not end anger on the streets.
“The protests will continue unless Netanyahu will note publicly that he was mistaken when leading that reform, and (that) he is holding all future motivations to renew the judicial reform,” Hayman told CNN. “This is the only scenario where we will see a complete stop of all the demonstrations.”
If, however, Netanyahu uses the pause to conduct proper negotiations with all parties, and eventually presents a moderated reform bill that is approved by the opposition, then “maybe, in that case, at the end state, after Independence Day, we will see a remission in the protests,” Hayman said, referring to Israel’s national day on April 25/26.
During his speech, Netanyahu also reiterated his criticism of the refusal by some reservists to train or serve in the military in protest at the planned changes. The prime minister had earlier fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over his opposition to the planned overhaul.
“The state of Israel cannot continue with people who refuse to serve in the army,” he the prime minister said. “Refusing is the end of our country.”
Hayman, from the INSS, said the protests may pose a security threat as some within the military begin to divide into camps for and against the judicial overhaul.
While it is has not yet happened, said Hayman, the mass movement could cause “the gaps, the rifts inside the (IDF) units … to widen and deepen.”
Some of the military members Netanyahu is referring to are also serving in very critical units, said Rahat. But since they are mostly volunteers who do so “because they love their country,” Netanyahu must “regain their trust” to bring them back to their posts.
“This is a problem of legitimacy; this is a problem of trust,” Rahat said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday his controversial plans to weaken the judiciary will be delayed after widespread strikes and protests drove the country to a standstill.
Netanyahu said he would delay the second and third votes on the remaining legislation until after the Knesset’s Passover recess in April “to give time for a real chance for a real debate.”
Netanyahu added that he is “aware of the tensions” and is “listening to the people.”
“Out of the responsibility to the nation, I decided to delay … the vote, in order to give time for discussion,” he added.
But he insisted that the overhaul was necessary, and reiterated criticism of refusal to train or serve in the military in protest at the planned changes.
“Refusing is the end of our country,” he said.
Reacting to Netanyahu’s announcement, Arnon Bar-David, the leader of the Histadrut labor union, announced that a planned general strike would now be called off.
“The general strike stops from this moment,” Bar-David told CNN affiliate Channel 13, although he warned Netanyahu against reviving the legislation.
“If the prime minister returns to aggressive legislation he’ll find us facing him. Legislation without consent will be met with a general strike.”
The original proposals would have amounted to the most sweeping overhaul of the Israeli legal system since the country’s founding. The most significant changes would allow a simple majority in the Knesset to overturn Supreme Court rulings; the Netanyahu government also sought to change the way judges are selected, and remove government ministries’ independent legal advisers, whose opinions are binding.
But months of sustained protests over the plans drew global attention and rocked the country. The political crisis deepened on Sunday when Netanyahu’s office announced the firing of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in a one-line statement, after he became the first member of the cabinet to call for a pause to the controversial plans.
In the hours that followed, Israeli society ground to a halt as anger at the bill mounted. Netanyahu was also condemned by his opponents and a host of former Israeli prime ministers.
“We’ve never been closer to falling apart. Our national security is at risk, our economy is crumbling, our foreign relations are at their lowest point ever, we don’t know what to say to our children about their future in this country. We have been taken hostage by a bunch of extremists with no brakes and no boundaries,” former Prime Minister Yair Lapid said at the Knesset.
As he fought to push ahead with his effort last week, Netanyahu’s government also passed a law making it harder to oust prime ministers that was condemned by critics as a self-preservation tactic.
By a 61-to-47 final vote, the Knesset approved the bill that states that only the prime minister himself or the cabinet, with a two-thirds majority, can declare the leader unfit. The cabinet vote would then need to be ratified by a super majority in the parliament.
Netanyahu, who is the first sitting Israeli prime minister to appear in court as a defendant, is on trial for charges of fraud, breach of trust and bribery. He denies any wrongdoing.
Minister Yoav Gallant on Saturday spoke out against the prime minister’s plan to overhaul the country’s judicial system.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dismissed Defence Minister Yoav Gallant a day after Gallant spoke out against the country’s planned judicial reforms, Netanyahu’s office said on Sunday.
Netanyahu’s office did not provide further details.
Gallant, a senior member of Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud Party, became the first to break ranks late on Saturday by calling for the legislation to overhaul Israel’s judicial system to be frozen.
Netanyahu’s government is pushing ahead for a parliamentary vote this week on a centrepiece of the overhaul – a law that would give the extreme-right governing coalition the final say over all judicial appointments.
A vote on the law to give government politicians more influence in appointing judges could take place as early as Monday.
Gallant cited the turmoil in the ranks of the military over the plan. But it was unclear whether others would follow him.
The proposal has triggered weeks of massive protests, with tens of thousands of demonstrators taking to the streets joined by military and business leaders, who have spoken out against the proposal.
The news comes as an Israeli good governance group on Sunday asked the country’s Supreme Court to punish Netanyahu for allegedly violating a conflict of interest agreement meant to prevent him from dealing with the country’s judiciary while he is on trial for corruption.
The request by the Movement for Quality Government in Israel intensifies a brewing showdown between Netanyahu’s government and the judiciary that it is trying to overhaul.
JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military said two soldiers were wounded, one severely, Saturday evening in a drive-by shooting in the occupied West Bank, the latest in months-long violence between Israel and the Palestinians.
The attack was the third to take place in the Palestinian town of Hawara in less than a month. One soldier was seriously wounded and the second was in moderate condition, the military said. A manhunt was launched as forces sealed roads leading to Hawara.
The armed wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the second largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization, has claimed responsibility for the attack, and Hamas, the militant group ruling the Gaza Strip, praised it.
“The resistance in the West Bank can surprise the occupation every time and the occupation cannot enjoy safety,” Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said.
Violence has surged in recent months in the West Bank and east Jerusalem amid near-daily Israeli arrest raids in Palestinian-controlled areas and a string of Palestinian attacks.
U.S.-backed regional efforts to defuse tensions have led to the meeting of Israeli and Palestinian officials in Jordan and Egypt respectively, where parties hoped to prevent a further escalation during the holy fasting month of Ramadan.
On Feb. 27, when Israeli and Palestinian officials met in Jordan’s Aqaba, a Palestinian gunman shot and killed two Israelis in Hawara. Another shooting attack in Hawara took place as the parties met again in Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh, wounding two Israelis.
Eighty-six Palestinians have been killed by Israeli or settler fire this year, according to an Associated Press tally. Palestinian attacks have killed 15 Israelis in the same period.
Israel says most of those killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and people not involved in the confrontations have also been killed.
Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek those territories for their future independent state.
President Joe Biden on Saturday notified Congress of his decision to authorize an airstrike in Syria this week against what the US said were Iranian-affiliated facilities.
The US airstrike came after a suspected Iranian drone struck a facility housing US personnel in the country, killing an American contractor and wounding five US service members.
The strikes, Biden said in his letter to Congress, were made, “in order to protect and defend the safety of our personnel, to degrade and disrupt the ongoing series of attacks against the United States and our partners, and to deter the Islamic Republic of Iran and Iran backed militia groups from conducting or supporting further attacks on United States personnel and facilities.”
The president added that the US strikes “were conducted in a manner intended to establish deterrence, limit the risk of escalation, and avoid civilian casualties.”
Saturday’s notification is a routine part of the War Powers Act, which requires the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of military actions. The letter was sent to both House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Pro Tempore of the Senate, Sen. Patty Murray.
The strikes are likely to increase tensions with Iran, with which the proxy groups are aligned, though Tehran isn’t always involved in directing attacks that they conduct.
The US has already sanctioned Tehran for providing attack drones to Russia to use in the war in Ukraine. And on Thursday, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley reiterated US concerns that Iran has the potential to produce enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon in less than two weeks and manufacture one within months.
Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, the Pentagon spokesman, emphasized to reporters Friday that the US is not seeking conflict with Iran, but said the strikes “were intended to send a very clear message that we will take the protection of our personnel seriously and that we will respond quickly and decisively if they’re threatened.”
For months hundreds of thousands of Israelis have been taking to the streets across the country to regularly protest far-reaching changes to the Israel’s legal system some say threaten the country’s democratic foundations.
At its core, the judicial overhaul would give the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, and therefore the parties in power, more control over Israel’s judiciary.
From how judges are selected, to what laws the Supreme Court can rule on, to even giving parliament power to overturn Supreme Court decisions, the changes would be the most significant shakeups to Israel’s judiciary since its founding in 1948.
The proposed reforms do not come out of nowhere.
Figures from across the political spectrum have in the past called for changes to Israel’s judiciary.
Israel has no written constitution, only a set of quasi-constitutional basic laws, making the Supreme Court even more powerful. But Israel also has no check on the power of the Knesset other than the Supreme Court.
Here’s what you need to know.
The judicial overhaul is a package of bills, all of which need to pass three votes in the Knesset before they become law.
One of the most important elements for the Netanyahu government is the bill that changes the makeup of the nine-member committee that selects judges, in order to give the government a majority of the seats on the committee.
Netanyahu and his supporters argue that the Supreme Court has become an insular, elitist group that does not represent the Israeli people. They argue the Supreme Court has overstepped its role, getting into issues it should not rule on.
Defending his plans, the prime minister has pointed to countries like the United States, where politicians control which federal judges are appointed and approved.
Another significant element of the changes is known as the override clause, which would give the Israeli parliament the power to pass laws previously ruled invalid by the court, essentially overriding Supreme Court decisions.
Supporters say the Supreme Court should not interfere in the will of the people, who vote the politicians into power.
“We go to the polls, vote, and time after time, people we did not elect decide for us,” Justice Minister Yariv Levin said while unveiling the reforms at the beginning of January.
Although several bills could affect Netanyahu it is the one about declaring a prime minister “unfit for office” that has the biggest implication for the Israeli prime minister.
Critics say Netanyahu is pushing the overhaul forward because of his own ongoing corruption trial, where he faces charges of fraud, bribery and breach of trust. He denies any wrongdoing.
That bill is largely seen by opposition leaders as a way to protect Netanyahu from being declared unfit for office as a result of the trial.
As part of a deal with the court to serve as a prime minister despite being on trial, Netanyahu accepted a conflict of interest declaration. The Attorney General determined that the declaration meant Netanyahu could not be involved in the policy-making of the judicial overhaul. A petition is currently in front of the Israeli Supreme Court to declare Netanyahu unfit for office on the grounds he has violated that conflict of interest declaration and the attorney general has written an open letter to Netanyahu saying he is in breach of the deal and the law.
Critics also argue that if the government has a greater say in which judges are appointed, Netanyahu’s allies will appoint judges they know will rule in Netanyahu’s favor.
Netanyahu, it should be said, has completely denied this and has claimed his trial is “unraveling” on its own.
In the past, Netanyahu has publicly expressed strong support for an independent judiciary. Asked why he’s supporting such an overhaul despite those public proclamations, Netanyahu told CNN’s Jake Tapper: “I haven’t changed my view. I think we need a strong, independent judiciary. But an independent judiciary doesn’t mean an unbridled judiciary, which is what has happened here, I mean, over the last 25 years.”
Weakening the judicial branch could limit both Israelis and Palestinians in seeking the court’s defense of their rights if they believe they are compromised by the government.
Palestinians in the occupied West Bank could be affected, and of course Palestinian citizens of Israel or those who hold residency cards would be directly affected. Israel’s Supreme Court has no influence on what happens in Gaza, which is ruled by the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Critics of the changes worry that if the politicians have more control, the rights of minorities in Israel, especially Palestinians living in Israel, would be impacted.
Last year, for example, the court halted the evictions of Palestinian families in the flashpoint neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem, where Jewish groups have claimed ownership of land the families have lived on for decades.
At the same time, Palestinian activists have argued that the high court has further entrenched Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, having never considered the legality of Israeli settlements there, even though they’re considered illegal by most of the international community.
The high court has also been the subject of complaints from Israel’s far right and settlers, who say it isbiased against settlers; they have condemned the court’s involvement in approving the eviction of settlers from Gaza and the Northern West Bank in 2005.
The overhaul has caused concern across Israel’s financial, business, security and academic sectors.
Critics say the overhaul goes too far, and will completely destroy the only avenue available to provide checks and balances to the Israeli legislative branch.
They warn it will harm the independence of the Israeli judiciary, and will hurt rights not enshrined in Israel’s quasi-constitutional basic laws, like minority rights and freedom of expression.
According to polling released in February by the Israel Democracy Institute, only a minority of Israelis support the reforms. The vast majority – 72% – want a compromise to be reached and, even then, 66% think the Supreme Court should have the power to strike down lawa and 63% of Israelis think the current method of appointing judges should stay as it is.
Members of the typically apolitical high-tech sector have also spoken out against the reforms. Assaf Rappaport, CEO of cybersecurity firm Wiz, has said the firm won’t be moving any of the $300 million capital it recently raised to Israel because of the unrest over the overhaul.
Israel’s Central Bank Governor Amir Yaron told CNN’s Richard Quest that the reforms are too “hasty” and risk harming the economy.
Several former Mossad chiefs have also spoken out against the reforms, warning division over the issue is harming Israeli security. Hundreds of reservists in Israel’s army have warned they will not answer the call to serve if the reforms pass, saying they believe Israel will no longer be a full democracy under the changes.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said the government’s legislation was “misguided, brutal and undermines our democratic foundations,” and warned Israel was potentially on the brink of a “civil war.” Although the Israeli presidency is largely a ceremonial role, Herzog has been actively speaking with all parties calling for negotiations.
And on the international front, Israel’s allies, including the United States, have also expressed concern about the overhaul.
According to the White House, US President Joe Biden told Netanyahu in a mid-March phone call “democratic societies are strengthened by genuine checks and balances, and that fundamental changes should be pursued with the broadest possible base of popular support.”
Protest organizers say they plan to intensify their demonstrations until the legislation is halted. But the government says it received a mandate from voters to pass the reform when it was elected last November.
But in mid-March, the coalition government softened its plans for the first time, announcing that it had amended the bill that would reform the committee that selects judges. Instead of having the vast majority of the appointed seats on the committee, the government-appointed members would have a one-seat majority.
On March 23, even after his own defense minister nearly gave a speech calling for the legislation to be halted out of concern for how it would affect Israeli national security, Netanyahu vowed to keep advancing the reforms.
He called for opposition politicians to meet with him to negotiate, something they have said they will only do if the legislative process is halted.
Complicating matters further, should the bills pass parliament the Supreme Court must then potentially decide on laws curbing its own power. This raises the possibility of a constitutional standoff. Would the Supreme Court strike down the laws, and if so, how would the government respond?
A United Nations independent commission of inquiry has held a second series of public hearings as part of its mandate to investigate human rights violations in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
The five-day hearings in Geneva, which ended on Friday, focused on the shrinking space for civil society and on attacks against human rights defenders, activists, lawyers and journalists.
Among those who gave their testimonies to the Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, were the colleagues and relatives of slain Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.
The 51-year-old veteran TV reporter was killed by Israeli forces on May 11, 2022, while covering a military raid in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin.
“Independent investigations have concluded that the gunfire aimed at Abu Akleh and other reporters came from Israeli soldiers and that the journalists were deliberately targeted despite wearing distinctive press signs on their vests,” Walid Omary, Al Jazeera Arabic’s Jerusalem bureau chief, told the commission in his deposition.
“The deliberate attack targeting journalists during conflict constitutes a war crime,” he said.
‘Very disturbing’
Miloon Kothari, one of the three members appointed to serve in the commission of inquiry, told Al Jazeera that the evidence presented during the hearings was “very disturbing”.
“There has been an escalation in the closure of the civil society space both by the Israeli authorities and the Palestinian authorities and de facto authority in Gaza,” Kothari told Al Jazeera.
“We are in the process of compiling all this information, which will be presented to the Human Rights Council in June this year.”
The Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, was set up in the wake of the 11-day Israeli bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip in May 2021 that killed at least 250 Palestinians. At least 13 people were killed in Israel in rocket attacks from Gaza.
Through a resolution adopted in a May 27, 2021 session, the Human Rights Council decided to “urgently establish an ongoing, independent, international commission of inquiry” to investigate abuses in the occupied Palestinian territory as well as – for the first time – in Israel, from April 13, 2021, onwards.
The resolution further requested the commission of inquiry to “investigate all underlying root causes of recurrent tensions, instability and protraction of conflict, including systematic discrimination and repression based on national, ethnic, racial or religious identity”.
The commission has an open-ended mandate to report to the Human Rights Council and to the General Assembly on an annual basis from June 2022 and September 2022, respectively.
It held a first series of public hearings from November 7 to 11, 2022, focusing on the closure orders and “terrorism” designation of a number of Palestinian human rights organisations, as well as the killing of Abu Akleh. At the time, Israel had called the hearings “sham trials” and accused the inquiry of an “anti-Israel” agenda.
The commission has previously said it regretted “the lack of cooperation on the part of Israel, along with its refusal to allow entry into Israel and to permit access to the Occupied Palestinian Territory”.
Kothari, an international law expert who served as the UN special rapporteur on adequate housing with the Human Rights Council, said the evidence collected by the commission would be made available “to all judicial bodies”. He added that last year it submitted a report to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and that it was expecting a verdict on “the legality of occupation”.
“We also asked the ICJ to lay out what the responsibilities of third states are,” Kothari said.
Navi Pillay, chair of the commission, said on Tuesday that the occupation had been identified as the “root cause” of the human rights violations. She added that its nature was clearly “permanent” rather than temporary and that negotiations were “just a pretence”.
Issa Amro, a Palestinian human rights defender who testified in the hearings, said his work and that of others like him aimed to “show the world what is happening”.
“Palestinians deserve full rights; we deserve justice, equality and we will not compromise on our basic human rights,” he said.
“We will not give up, but we need the international community to give us support and protection,” he added.
The US conducted an airstrike in Syria against what it said were Iranian-affiliated facilities after a suspected Iranian drone on Thursday struck a facility housing US personnel in the country, killing an American contractor and wounding five US service members.
The contractor was an American citizen, a spokesman for US Central Command confirmed, and an additional US contractor was also wounded in the strike. An official familiar with the matter told CNN that the injured service members are all in stable condition.
“The intelligence community assess the UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) to be of Iranian origin,” the Pentagon said.
In response to the strike, President Joe Biden authorized a precision airstrike “in eastern Syria against facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC),” Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in the statement.
The US, according to the Pentagon statement, “took proportionate and deliberate action intended to limit the risk of escalation and minimize casualties.”
“As President Biden has made clear, we will take all necessary measures to defend our people and will always respond at a time and place of our choosing,” Austin said. “No group will strike our troops with impunity.”
The strikes are likely to increase tensions with Iran, with which the proxy groups are aligned, though Tehran isn’t always involved in directing attacks that they conduct. The US has already sanctioned Tehran for providing attack drones to Russia to use in the war in Ukraine. And on Thursday, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley reiterated US concerns that Iran has the potential to produce enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon in less than two weeks and manufacture one within months.
The drone intentionally crashed into its target, the official said. The infrastructure that was targeted in the US response was not directly related to the suspected Iranian drone itself, the official said, but was instead targeted by the US because it was known to be supporting Iranian proxy groups in the country with munitions and intelligence.
The number of casualties from the US airstrike is still being determined, the official said.
The commander of US Central Command, Gen. Erik Kurilla, said the US could carry out additional strikes if there were more attacks. “We are postured for scalable options in the face of any additional Iranian attacks,” Kurilla said in a statement Thursday evening.
The US maintains approximately 900 troops in Syria.
Kurilla said earlier Thursday that Iranian proxies had carried out drone attacks or rocket attacks against US forces in the Middle East 78 times since the beginning of 2021, an average of nearly one attack every 10 days.
“What Iran does to hide its hand is they use Iranian proxies,” Kurilla told a House Armed Services Committee hearing earlier in the day. “That’s either UAVs or rockets to be able to attack our forces in either Iraq or Syria.”
Asked if such attacks were considered an act of war, Kurilla said, “They are being done by the Iranian proxies is what I would tell you.”
The Biden administration has carried out airstrikes against militias affiliated with Iran on multiple occasions following previous attacks on US facilities in the region.
In February 2021, Biden’s first known military action was to carry out strikes against Iranian-backed militias after rocket attacks on US troops in Iraq. And in August, the US struck a group of bunkers used for ammunition storage and logistics support by Iranian proxies in Syria, after rockets landed near another US facility.
Milley visited US troops in Syria earlier this month, marking the first time he has visited as the top US general. Milley visited troops in northeast Syria who are there as part of the ongoing campaign to defeat ISIS, a mission the US carries out with its partners in the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.
But Milley’s visit also focused on the safety of US troops, his spokesman had said, and he inspected for protection measures in Syria.
Two weeks before Milley’s visit, US and coalition forces at Green Village in Syria came under rocket attack. No US or coalition troops were injured in that attack, but it underscored the threat emanating from adversaries in the region, often in the form of Iranian-backed proxies or militias.
Just two days before the rocket attack, four US troops and one working dog were injured in a helicopter raid against a senior ISIS leader in northeast Syria.
This story has been updated with additional details.
In this episode of “Intelligence Matters,” host Michael Morell speaks with former senior U.S. ambassador and Middle East envoy Dennis Ross about growing instability in the Middle East, including tensions between Israel and Palestine, controversial judicial reforms in Israel and consistent advancements in Iran’s nuclear program. Ross, now counselor and a distinguished fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, offers suggestions for a clearer and more muscular U.S. policy vis-a-vis Iran and weighs the implications of a possible unilateral military strike on its nuclear facilities by Israel.
Highlights:
On Iran advancing its nuclear program: “They’re doing it because they don’t see it as being risky. They want to put themselves in a position where, if they wanted to go for nuclear weapon, they’re poised to be able to do that. It’s true none of what you’ve just described and I’ve added to means that they are weaponizing. But as you said, there is also no legitimate civilian purpose for enriching to the levels that they’re enriching to now.”
U.S. articulating consequences for Iran: “Unless we convince them that something has changed, they’re going to continue down this path. And my fear is we will end up seeing a war that may start with the Israelis striking the Iranians, but quickly becomes a regional conflict. And that’s the last thing we need right now.”
Unrealized possibilities in the Middle East: “So this is a region characterized by a lot of potential conflict that can be worrisome. But also there is a sense of possibility. The Abraham Accords reflected a change in the region. And when I’m asked the question, ‘How do the Abraham Accords change the region,’ I say the question is a good question, but it’s the wrong one: ‘How did the region change so the Abraham Accords became possible?’”
MICHAEL MORELL: Dennis, welcome to Intelligence Matters. You’ve been on our show before, and it’s very nice to have you back.
DENNIS ROSS: Mike, always a pleasure to be with you. Thank you.
MICHAEL MORELL: You’re welcome.
Dennis, as you know, I want to talk about Iran, particularly the Iranian nuclear program, but I want to ask you a couple of questions before we dive into that.
The first one is the current ongoing fighting between the Palestinians and the Israelis. What’s causing that? Are we heading toward or are we already in a third intifada? How are you thinking about that?
DENNIS ROSS: Well, I’m worried about it because I think there is a very different dynamic at play right now. Several different factors we need to take into account.
Number one, on the Palestinian side, the Palestinian Authority is deteriorating. It has very little credibility with its own public. It is dysfunctional when it comes to governance. It is highly corrupt. And you have a Palestinian population in the West Bank where more than 80% would like to see Mahmoud Abbas retire or leave. And a very strong majority is almost inclined to see the Palestinian Authority go away, which speaks volumes because this is the first time the Palestinians have actually had a kind of governing body. And yet it is so discredited that it becomes harder and harder for those who represent the security forces to actually act on its behalf against those who might be carrying out or planning acts of terror.
But it’s, ironically, it’s not just the issue of going and arresting those who might be carrying out acts of terror. It’s also there’s almost no law and order in the West Bank right now. So all Palestinians in the sense who live there are suffering from that. And we have in addition to just the dysfunction and the corruption of the PA and its loss of legitimacy, we have a generation of Palestinians who don’t remember the second intifada and the terrible cost to the Palestinians of the second intifada.
The second intifada took place basically from the fall of 2000. But really, it didn’t start until closer to the summer of 2001 and effectively went until 2005. 1,100 Israelis were killed. Close to 4,000 Palestinians were killed. The Palestinian economy to this day has not gotten back to what it was prior to the second intifada. So that memory is very strong with most of the Palestinian public. But it’s not strong, it certainly isn’t something that’s even apparent with a younger population. And it’s that younger population that is mostly responsible for carrying out acts of terror that really began about a year ago in Israel.
What adds to this younger population sort of being in a different place is they have access to weapons that they just didn’t have access to before. Guns are plentiful and social media plays a different role now. Groups like the Lion’s Den, which are essentially in Nablus, these are people mostly between the ages of 18 and 26. They are lionized on social media for their readiness to to go and and fight the Israelis, their readiness to sort of stand up to the Israelis. So the more they’re made into heroes, the more they have a sense of identity.
And what adds to this? If this wasn’t enough, you have to be 27 to get a work permit, if you’re a Palestinian. to work in Israel. 160,000 Palestinians every day work in Israel or work in the Israeli settlements, it provides one third of the GDP of the West Bank and the Palestinian Authority.
In answer to your question, are we on the brink of a third intifada? My answer is no, because the broader Palestinian public is not joining in on this, partly because, A, they remember what happened, but B, they also have these jobs which they’re not prepared to give up.
That said, there is this dynamic where, because there’s a kind of heroic sense of resisting the Israelis. And also because they’re well armed. The Israelis, Mike, as you know, they used to frequently go in and make arrests of those that they identified as about to be a ticking bomb or recruiting others who could be threats. They usually succeeded in terms of making arrests. Right now, there’s a resistance and there are firefights. They end up not arresting these guys, but killing them. And inevitably bystanders get killed. And that adds to the broader anger of the Palestinian public, but it also further weakens the Palestinian Authority.
So it’s a really combustible mixture of things. So even if you don’t have a third intifada, the dynamic that is producing violence is one that is very hard to control at this point.
MICHAEL MORELL: So just two follow up questions. One is the Palestinian security forces were always a strength of the Palestinian authorities. Have they been degraded? That’s the first question.
And the second question is for those Palestinians who say they want the Palestinian Authority to go away, what do they want to replace it with?
DENNIS ROSS: The answer to the former is that the Palestinian Authority security forces are weakening as well because they’re only being paid about 80% of their salaries. The numbers are decreasing.
Ironically, many are going to work in Israel where they can make dramatically more than they could. So you have a declining force. You have a force that is reluctant to go into certain areas. They are fearful that if they do go into certain areas, they’ll face resistance not only from those they’re going into arrest, but from the Palestinians, you know, basically in the neighborhoods that they go into, who will resist them as well. And you have this together with an Israeli government that has people like Itamar Ben-Gvir and now is a national security minister and the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who in the past would have been on the fringes of Israeli society. The combination of all this is what I think is is making this really so difficult.
In answer to those who want the Palestinian Authority to go away, what do they want to replace it with? Honestly, I think increasingly they think about, Look, let the Israelis stay. We’ll have one state. They think over time our numbers will allow us to take it over. In the meantime, at least, you know, we can get jobs in Israel. I once asked a a 30-year-old Palestinian what did she most want? And she said, ‘I’d like a job in Israel. I’d like to be able to drink beer and go to the beach.’ And her view was Palestinian Authority isn’t going to provide that.
On the other hand, if you have a vacuum there, I think Hamas has the greatest potential to take over and that’s going to leave everybody worse off. Palestinians, first and foremost.
MICHAEL MORELL: Second question before we get to Iran, is your reaction to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s attempt to change the role of the Israeli judiciary?
DENNIS ROSS: I think it’s fair to describe it less as a reform process and more as an overhaul process. One of the things, as you know, Mike, oftentimes when we were facing calls for international investigations into acts that the Israelis had carried out either in the West Bank or in response to to acts of terror, we could always fall back on something that was completely believable. Israel has a very credible, legitimate, independent judiciary. And we could say with no qualification that Israel will be launching its own investigation. Additionally, will conduct an investigation that we know will be credible.
Now, if you carry out the kind of reform as it’s being suggested, you basically will take away the reality of the independence of the judiciary. Many of the provisions of the reform, to call them anti-democratic, is really not right. For example, having the judges selection committee be run by political people. Obviously, that’s what goes on here. Justice Roberts can say we don’t have Republican and Democratic judges, but it sure looks like we do. Administrations appoint judges that reflect their philosophies. So you can’t say that it’s anti-democratic. Having legal advisers in the ministries be answerable and selected by the minister. That’s what we have here. Again, you might say it’s better not to have it, but we have that here.
But when it comes to having the override of the Supreme Court with a narrow majority of 61 out of 120, then you’re talking about majoritarian rule, then you’re talking about what is no longer a separation of powers. This in Israel is a parliamentary system, which means the executive already controls the parliament. It is there, the majority coalition there, they select the Prime Minister. So the only brake on the executive and legislative branch is the judiciary. And if you allow the judiciary to override the Supreme Court with a narrow majority, well then you’ve lost the ability to ensure an independent judiciary. You’ve lost the ability to protect minority rights.
I will tell you, I do expect the area where the government is likely to compromise is on that one. It is less likely to compromise on the political selection of judges. They want out of their nine people on the judges selection committee and out of the nine, they want to make 6 to 9 governmental appointees. They might compromise that on one, they might go down to five of the nine, but they don’t want to give up a majority on the judges selection committee. And again, that doesn’t look particularly undemocratic if you’re sitting here in Washington, DC.
But on the other hand, if you’re in Israel and you’ve always had judges selected primarily by by jurists who are not political, you can see why in Israel that might be pretty strongly resisted. And we’re seeing that.
MICHAEL MORELL: But it really sounds like that third one is the one that really matters, right?
DENNIS ROSS: I think so, because I think that’s if you do away with separation of powers and you do away with an independent judiciary, then you’re setting the stage for majoritarian rule. And you’re doing great damage to our ability to be protective of the Israelis in international forum.
And I just think, you know, there’s something else. The US-Israeli relationship has been built on shared values. And when suddenly it looks like you’re dispensing with those shared values, that can have consequences.
MICHAEL MORELL: So we’re now we’re going to make a slight transition toward Iran here. Dennis, your reaction to the Saudi-Iranian normalization and what it means for the region?
DENNIS ROSS: You know, I don’t overreact to it. The Saudis and the Iranians, for their own reasons, saw some benefit in terms of restoring diplomatic relations. From the Saudi standpoint, I know that for the last two years at least, they’ve had a dialogue with the Iranians and the consistent condition that they held out on for restoring diplomatic relations, reopening an embassy was that the Iranians basically stop the Houthis or ensure the Houthis will stop firing rockets and drones and cruise missiles into Saudi Arabia. They wanted to see an end to the conflict or at least a cease fire that would be enduring. And it was a non Iranian responsiveness on that, that from the Saudi standpoint, continued to have them say, ‘Okay, we’ll keep talking, but this is what has to happen.’
Now, the Chinese came in and this is one of the things that the the Iranians agreed to. The question becomes, why now? Why now? After having not agreed to it before? And I say the why now is a function of a couple of things.
One, the Iranians want to get out from political isolation in the region. And having this agreement with the Saudis certainly opens up possibilities to, I think, again, given how much their economy has been suffering because of sanctions, I think they’re hoping this may open the door to economic relations with the Saudis and maybe others.
I’m not sure how far that one can go, because the Saudis probably still respect sanctions that we impose. But I do think what you have is the two sides had a mutual interest and that’s why they acted on it.
Now, I would add one other point on the Saudi side. You go back to 2019 when Abqaiq, their most important oil processing facility, was attacked by the Iranians directly, not through proxies, even though they didn’t admit it. We know they attacked it directly. And I think this had a profound effect on the Saudis at that time. The Trump administration really didn’t do anything in response. It made the Saudis quite cognizant of how vulnerable they could be.
Both the Trump administration and the Biden administration, from their standpoint, was not in a position or was was unwilling to do what they felt was necessary to either protect them from such attacks or to be able to deter such attacks. And so I think they’ve had in mind for some time it was worth doing this. But again, they wanted to ensure they didn’t just concede to the Iranians without getting the Iranians to commit to at least acting to restrain the Houthis coming out of Yemen. So I think that kind of explains why now and why both sides wanted to do it. And the Chinese provided the platform for this.
It does put the Chinese in a kind of interesting position because if one or both sides don’t live up to what they’ve said, one or both will then look to the Chinese. As you know, the Chinese have rarely, if ever, played a real mediating role where you assume responsibility. So it’ll be interesting to see what happens if, in fact, this is not implemented.
By the way, just one last thought. I don’t see the fundamentals between the two having changed. Iran still wants to dominate the region. The Saudis aren’t going to acquiesce to that. The Saudis would like a kind of secure environment in which to pursue their national transformation agenda. The Iranians may want a bit of a respite themselves, but as I said, the fundamentals haven’t changed. And so the the realities that underpin the relations between the two, those haven’t changed either.
MICHAEL MORELL: Okay, Dennis, let’s turn to the Iranian nuclear program. And what I’d like to kind of unpack here is how far the Iranians have pushed the envelope, why they are doing that, what the Israelis might be thinking about with regard to this and what we should be thinking about and what we should be doing about it.
And maybe the place to start is, let me for a moment play my former role in this room and put some facts on the table and then ask you to react to them. So with regard to the uranium enrichment program: the IAEA says Iran has enriched uranium to 84%, just short of the 90% that’s considered weapons grade. They’re not stockpiling uranium enriched to that amount, they just did it once.
It sounds to me like they’re experimenting with near weapons grade enrichment. They’ve increased enrichment levels at its deep underground facility at Fordow to 60%. They’re stockpiling uranium enriched to 20% and 60%. And given the size of both of those stockpiles, if Iran chose to do so, they could have enough weapons grade uranium for one weapon in a week and enough for four weapons in a little less than a month.
Iran’s also produced a sphere of uranium and metal enriched to 60%. And as you know, a sphere of uranium metal enriched to 90% is literally what’s at the heart, what’s at the center of a nuclear weapon. So let me start by asking you: Did I miss anything here in terms of how far the Iranians have pushed the enrichment program? And then why do you think they’re doing this at this moment in time?
DENNIS ROSS: I’d say no, you did not miss anything. The only thing I would add to your summary is that by the end of this year, going just on their current pace, they could easily have about ten bombs’ worth of enriched material to at least 60%. They have 16 cascades right now that are enriching to 60% of six advanced centrifuges.
So what we’re looking at, and this gets to the second part of your question, why they’re doing this, fundamentally, they’re doing it because they don’t see it as being risky. They want to put themselves in a position where, if they wanted to go for nuclear weapon, they’re poised to be able to do that. It’s true none of what you’ve just described and I’ve added to means that they are weaponizing. But as you said, there is also no legitimate civilian purpose for enriching to the levels that they’re enriching to now.
And the fact that they’re also fabricating uranium metal again is something that you wouldn’t be doing unless you really had a weapon in mind. So it doesn’t guarantee that they’ll go for a weapon, but they’re putting themselves in a position where that is increasingly an option available to them.
Now, as I said, they don’t see any great risk in doing this. And my fear is that the Israelis look at this and say, ‘What’s the point where it becomes too late for us to do something about it?’ Because they’re not just enriching. The other thing they’re doing is they’re hardening all of their sites in their nuclear infrastructure, meaning these become harder and harder to destroy.
Mike, you’ll remember we used to have Ehud Barak, when he was a defense minister, come and talk to us about the zone of immunity. And what he meant by that was that there will come a point where the combination of hardening of their sites and the scope of their program will be such that an Israeli military strike would be rendered pretty much ineffective. So as the Israelis contemplate the Iranians moving closer and closer to that site, that reality there, the prospect of them acting militarily will go up, I think, very dramatically.
So we’re looking at, from my standpoint, to then get to the last part of your question, what do we need to do to change the Iranian calculus? And I start with the fact that they have to have a reason to fear that what they’re doing is too risky as they measure risk. They have to have a reason to understand that they’re going to drive us to act militarily and in a way that would destroy their entire nuclear infrastructure, which they’ve spent 40 years investing in.
Now the question is, what is it we would have to do to convince them of that? Because today they don’t believe we’ll act militarily against them. And I have sort of four suggestions. The first is we have to change our declaratory policy. We have, for a long time, since when you and I were both back in the administrations, we said all options are on the table. The problem with all options being on the table, it’s been set for so long that it has an impact on nobody, least of all the Iranians. So I think we need to change that.
I think we need to make it clear while we continue to favor diplomacy as a way to resolve the challenge of their nuclear program, they need to understand, since they demonstrate no interest in diplomacy, they’re putting us in a position where we increasingly will have to act and they need to understand they are jeopardizing their entire nuclear infrastructure.
I think that would if we said that, they would believe that we are beginning to prepare our own public and maybe the international community for the possibility of actually using force against their program. So that’s number one.
Number two, you need to underpin the words with some behaviors that make those words seem credible. So I’d like to see us conduct exercises in the region, joint and multilateral, where we are rehearsing air to ground attacks against hardened targets. And at the same time, because I believe if the Israelis were to strike the Iranians, my belief is that the Iranians would probably retaliate against the Saudis because they would want to demonstrate that they’re not the only ones who are going to pay a price for this.
Now, here again, we should be running exercises that demonstrate that with the Saudis, the Emiratis and others and the Israelis, we are also planning to blunt what might be retaliatory strikes by the Iranians, either retaliatory strikes or initial strikes by the Iranians. They need to see we’re both preparing for such for for reinforcing our words about being prepared to act against their nuclear infrastructure, but also positioning ourselves to protect our allies in the region, our friends in the region from what the Iranians might do in response. So that’s the second thing.
The third thing, I think that the Iranians today not only believe that we won’t act militarily, but we’ll stop the Israelis from doing it. And one way to to counteract that impression is to provide the Israelis some things that they need if they were going to carry out an effective strike – for example, they have no forward basing. The hardening of the Iranian targets means they have to hit these targets multiple times and actually in the same spot. And that means that they need better refueling capabilities for their aircraft.
Now, they have bought four. KC-46s from Boeing, but the first one right now isn’t to be delivered until the end of 2025. I would say if the Biden administration were to push the Israelis to first in the queue, that would send a very interesting message that not only are we not about to restrain the Israelis, but we would be prepared to support them. I think that would be a very important message to be sending the Iranians.
I would also provide the Israelis some munitions that they don’t have that could be more effective against the hardened targets than the munitions they currently have here. Again, sending the message we’re prepared to support them, not restrain them.
And the last thing I think the Iranians need to see that we do something that they completely don’t expect. That’s out of the ordinary. You know, in the last month – we have a small presence, as you know, Mike, very well, a small presence in Syria. And it’s there to ensure that ISIS doesn’t reemerge. And twice in the last month, they have been hit, attacked by Iranian Shia militia proxies. We didn’t retaliate. I would like to see us retaliate, but in a way that is disproportionate to this.
I mean, look, I would take a page from the Israeli book. The Israelis do all sorts of things that they don’t admit. I would be willing to, in the middle of the night, hit some of the training camps where these militias are trained, armed, you know, funded and the like. And these are actually in Iran itself. I wouldn’t admit it because I don’t want to put the Iranians in a position where they have no choice but to respond. But I want them to get the message that something has changed.
Unless we convince them that something has changed, they’re going to continue down this path. And my fear is we will end up seeing a war that may start with the Israelis striking the Iranians, but quickly becomes a regional conflict. And that’s the last thing we need right now.
MICHAEL MORELL: And is your expectation that if they felt the pressure you’re talking about, if they really believed that we were going to take military action, that we were going to go along with the Israelis and support them, that we would bring them back to the negotiating table? Is that the idea?
DENNIS ROSS: It is. I view it sort of as twofold. One is deterrence. I want to start by getting them to realize they need to stop what they’re doing, because first of all, if they stop what they’re doing, it doesn’t solve the problem, but it reduces the urgency of the prospect of actually a conflict erupting. Because I think we’re on a slippery slope right now.
Now, in terms of timing, the other thing it does is it gives them an incentive to look for a diplomatic way out. And right now, they don’t seem to have much of an interest in that. And at the same time, they don’t seem to have much of a fear.
MICHAEL MORELL: Is it your sense that they don’t think the Israelis would act on their own? And it sounds like what you’re saying is they’re wrong about that calculation.
DENNIS ROSS: I think they are wrong about that. I think they believe that we will stop them. Now, one of the reasons I think they believe that is because pretty much effectively, if you go back to 2011, 2012, we did. Now, the times were different then. At that time, you did have Benjamin Netanyahu was also still the prime minister. But the difference was the entire security establishment in Israel was against acting.
Today, notwithstanding all the turmoil in Israel that has been triggered by this move to change the judiciary, you know, there is a consensus when it comes to Iran and Iran’s nuclear capability that this constitutes an existential threat to Israel. And the military establishment and Mossad are in a different place than they were back then.
First of all, they’ve become increasingly convinced that right now, unless something different is done, there is no diplomatic way out of this. And that means that they become more and more likely to feel they have no choice but to act militarily. So I do think it’s different from them.
But I think the fact that we stopped them at that time and there’s been so much that was revealed about that time that the Iranians undoubtedly saw that. And I think they still view us as having a kind of ability to affect Israel in a way that probably exceeds the reality of what we can do to affect Israel.
MICHAEL MORELL: So, Dennis, this is probably the hardest question, right? Is the Biden administration – you know these guys very well. I know these guys very well. We’re friends with these people. Why aren’t they following your advice?
DENNIS ROSS: I think a couple of factors explain it, although I see some initial moves in the direction of what I’ve been talking about. But I think the main inhibitor is Ukraine, Russia, and China and Taiwan. And the sense that these are the big threats and especially as it relates to Ukraine, we don’t need to see another major conflict in the Middle East. And so I think there’s a worry that the more active we become, the more likely we make that conflict.
I’m suggesting exactly the opposite, that if you really don’t want to be distracted, you need to focus very heavily on deterrence right now because it looks like we’ve lost that deterrent.
That’s why, the question you asked, why are the Iranians doing this? Because they don’t see a consequence. They don’t see a risk in proceeding. What is the good news? The administration has now run two exercises, unprecedented exercises in the Middle East, one involving 7,000 personnel, U.S. and Israeli, unprecedented in terms of the scope of the number of aircraft involved.
It didn’t involve so much air to ground in terms of hitting targets, meaning hitting hardened targets. But it was geared towards suppression of air defenses, which would obviously be part of anything you would do.
Since that exercise in the last week even, we’ve done some refueling exercises with the Israelis. So these two moves I think are important.
There was a meeting a week ago of a high-level group with the U.S. and the Israelis talking about Iran. And here again, my sense of what was discussed there suggested the administration is moving now. There are things I think it needs to do beyond what they’ve done so far, which, again, I think we the declaratory policy needs to change. And I think even some of the provisions to the Israelis that I suggested would send a message.
But also when you don’t retaliate against Shia militia proxies, it still sends a message that we’re restrained and the Iranians, so long as they perceive us to be restrained, they’re not really going to change the way they think about the risks that they’re running. They need to know they’re making military strikes against them more and more likely. And today they’re not. They’re not at that point.
But I guess what I’m saying is I see some of the moves of the administration giving us some possibility. And I hope that they will see this is actually not a distraction from Ukraine. It’s a way to ensure that you’re not distracted because you end up with a regional conflict, which, by the way, could easily drive oil prices up to $200 a barrel. The last thing the administration needs.
MICHAEL MORELL: There’s another factor here, too, right? Which is just as Chinese President Xi is watching how Ukraine plays out and how the West ends up in Ukraine or not. Or to Russia or not with regard to Ukraine. Same is true of Iran. Right? He’s watching that. He’s watching us not react to Shia militia attacks. He’s watching us not respond to what the Iranians are doing with the nuclear program so we can deal with the Iranian problem and help send a powerful message to the Chinese at the same time.
DENNIS ROSS: I couldn’t agree more. I think the Russians, the Chinese and the Iranians need to see behaviors that cross some thresholds on our part. It will certainly affect not only the Iranian calculus, but for sure I think it will affect the Chinese calculus as well.
MICHAEL MORELL: So is there some Middle East fatigue here, too, on top of it all? Or not. Is that overstated?
DENNIS ROSS: Well, I think it may be overstated.
I mean, look, what we have in the Middle East right now or have been two basic alignments, and it’s between, I think, the Iranians and the states that they basically control. I like to say about Iran, you know, their main exports are drones, missiles and failed states. And you have arrayed against that Sunni Arab states, not all of them, but Sunni Arab states, especially the Gulf states that want to build these resilient modern societies. And they’ve created this connection with Israel.
Now, that’s the kind of structure of the situation, the reconciliation between the Saudis and the Iranians, as I said I think it’s about defusing tensions. I don’t think it’s going to go away. But to the extent to which it each side has a stake in implementing it, at least in the near term, I think it does reduce the risk of that conflict.
I am worried that we’re going to see greater conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians because of the dynamic we discussed earlier in the show. And I am a little bit worried about in Nasrallah and Hezbollah, you know, the Israelis suffered a terror bombing which was carried out or at least a bomb was planted, an IED was planted by someone sent by Hezbollah into Israel. It has wounded one Israeli. The Israelis were able, I think, to arrest the guy who did it and the Israeli who helped him, an Israeli Arab who helped him.
But Nasrallah, you know, this is – and then there are five others who came in through a tunnel that the Israelis also arrested.
Nasrallah has been very careful about not provoking the Israelis suddenly to take a step like this, even if it’s deniable, even if it claimed they didn’t do it, it suggests a lowering of his risk threshold. He looks a little less risk averse. And one of the reasons he was as risk averse as he was is because, you know, the really the perilous state of the realities within Lebanon, where 80% of the public are completely impoverished. So I think there are these uncertainties that can produce other conflicts. And I think we have to be mindful of them.
But we also have these other elements, including Arab states, that see a future in having ties with Israel. That creates a sense of, I think, possibility. So this is a region characterized by a lot of potential conflict that can be worrisome. But also there is a sense of possibility. The Abraham Accords reflected a change in the region. And when I’m asked the question, ‘How do the Abraham Accords change the region,’ I say the question is a good question, but it’s the wrong one: How did the region change so the Abraham Accords became possible? And Arab states saw, not just in the security area, but when it comes to water, when it comes to food, when it comes to health, they see the Israelis helping in all these areas, plus cyber. And so, that need isn’t going to go away. And so that gives you something, I think, to work with and build on.
MICHAEL MORELL: And last question, Dennis. If the Iranians stood up and said, ‘We want to go back to the negotiating table,’ do you think it would be politically possible for the United States to return to talks?
I’m thinking given Iranian support for Russia’s war effort in Ukraine, given human rights issues back in Iran, given the fact that the Iranians are trying to assassinate a former Trump administration official to get revenge for the killing of Qassem Suleimani, given all of that, do you think it’s politically possible to sit down and talk to them?
DENNIS ROSS: I think there’s a difference between talking to them and reaching agreements where they would get tremendous sanctions relief that would extend into the tens of billions, even hundreds of billions of dollars. The latter is going to be hard to explain unless you produce something that is dramatically better than the JCPOA. And the Iranians, you know, didn’t exactly rush back into the JCPOA. So are they really willing to do that at this stage? And could the administration sell an agreement? I think they could rationalize talking to him and saying, look, we’re trying to affect things.
But I do think you put your finger on it. Very difficult to rationalize, suddenly providing billions to them. There were these talks the Iranians are putting out that there’s this deal on exchange of prisoners. The problem is the administration says, no, there’s no such deal. I think Iranians are trying to build pressure on the administration, given the Americans who are being held hostage there. I think the administration is not rushing to this because it understands getting people back who are in prison right now, who shouldn’t be in prison and paying what amounts to a huge ransom for it, it’s a pretty hard sell.
MICHAEL MORELL: Dennis, thank you so much for joining us. You are so well informed on this region. And you put a lot of you put a lot of light on what’s going on. Thank you for joining us.
DENNIS ROSS: Mike, always a pleasure to be with you. Thank you.
Sanctions target firms and individuals accused of buying drone parts on behalf of the Iranian government.
The United States has announced its latest round of sanctions against Iranian drone and missile production, this time focusing on firms and individuals who allegedly procured equipment for Tehran’s drone programme.
In a statement on Tuesday, the US Department of the Treasury said the targeted “procurement network” operates on behalf of Iran’s Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL), which oversees firms involved in developing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and ballistic missiles.
The latest sanctions came as US officials continued to accuse Iran of supplying Russia with drones for its invasion of Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022. The European Union has also targeted Iran’s drone industry with sanctions.
“Iran’s well-documented proliferation of UAVs and conventional weapons to its proxies continues to undermine both regional security and global stability,” Brian Nelson, the undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence at the US Treasury, said in a statement.
“The United States will continue to expose foreign procurement networks in any jurisdiction that supports Iran’s military industrial complex.”
Those named in Tuesday’s sanctions include the Iran-based Defense Technology and Science Research Center, its procurement firm Farazan Industrial Engineering Inc and two other firms, along with purchasing agents from the companies.
Among the equipment acquired by the network were “European-origin engines” for unmanned aerial vehicles, the statement said.
As a result of the sanctions, the targeted entities will be denied access to any US property or financial assets held in the country. US companies will also be prevented from doing business with those identified.
Most recently, in early March, the US Treasury sanctioned a network of Chinese companies for procuring equipment that supported Iran’s drone programme.
In January, Washington also sanctioned seven people in leadership positions within Iranian companies that produce drones.
“Iran must cease its support for Russia’s unprovoked war of aggression in Ukraine, and we will continue to use every tool at our disposal to disrupt and delay these transfers and impose costs on actors engaged in this activity,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in the statement at the time.
The US has further accused Tehran of violating international law by failing to gain approval from the United Nations Security Council for drone sales.
In February, US defence officials released an analysis that sought to prove that Iranian drones were being used in Ukraine by Russia.
For its part, Iran has maintained a defiant stance on the issue, saying that international criticism of its drone programme is rooted in concerns that it would become a competitor in global arms sales.
Nevertheless, Tehran said it has not provided drones to Russia for use in Ukraine beyond “a “limited number” of the aerial explosives given to Moscow prior to the invasion.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A 72-year-old American imprisoned more than a year in Saudi Arabia over tweets critical of the Saudi crown prince was back with family members in Riyadh on Tuesday, but it remained unclear whether the kingdom would drop a travel ban to allow him to return home to Florida.
Saudi Arabia on Monday freed Saad Almadi, a dual U.S.-Saudi citizen who had been a retiree living in Florida until Saudis detained him when he arrived for a 2021 family visit to the kingdom. Saudi courts subsequently sentenced Almadi to 19 years in prison over his years of past posts on social media.
A State Department spokesman, Vedant Patel, on Tuesday welcomed the news of Almadi’s release, but would not comment on the ban Saudi Arabia had imposed earlier to keep the Florida man from returning home after he finished his prison sentence for the tweets. “Each country is going to have its own sovereign laws and each case is different, so I’m not going to speak about this,” Patel said.
Almadi is now at home with family members who live in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, said his son, Ibrahim Almadi. Saudi officials dropped all charges against the elder Almadi, Ibrahim Almadi and advocates familiar with the case said.
The Florida man’s imprisonment over tweets had been one of several alleged human rights abuses that had soured relations between Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and President Joe Biden. That included Saudi officials’ killing of a U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside a Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018, and prison sentences and travel bans that Saudi Arabia under the crown prince’s tenure has given Saudi rights advocates and perceived rivals and critics of the powerful crown prince.
Both Prince Mohammed and the Biden administration recently have taken steps toward restoring better relations. The two countries are partners in a decades-old security arrangement in which the U.S. provides security for Saudi Arabia and the oil-rich kingdom keeps global markets supplied with oil.
Saudi Arabia had sentenced Almadi last year to 16 years in prison, saying his critical tweets about how the kingdom was being governed amounted to terrorist acts against it.
As U.S. officials worked to win his release, and after Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia last summer in an attempt to improve relations with the oil-rich nation, a Saudi appeals court tacked an additional three years on to his sentence.
Ibrahim Almadi had campaigned hard and publicly for his father’s freedom. The son had pushed the Biden administration to formally declare his father as wrongfully detained by the kingdom, and had accused U.S. officials of holding back on criticism in the case in the interest of mending relations with the oil giant.
“Now we have to fight travel ban,” he added.
Saudi Arabia did not acknowledge Almadi’s release. However, the kingdom routinely pardons prisoners ahead of the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which could begin as soon as Tuesday night.
A retired project manager in the United States, Almadi was arrested in 2021 when he arrived for what was to have been a two-week visit to see family in the kingdom. Once in custody, he was confronted by Saudi authorities with tweets he had posted over several years from his home in Florida, his son says.
Almadi’s tweets included one noting Prince Salman’s consolidation of power in the kingdom and another that spoke of Khashoggi’s killing. U.S. intelligence officials earlier concluded the crown prince authorized the hit team that killed Khashoggi inside a Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
“We are relieved that Saad Almadi has been released, but he should have never spent a day behind bars for innocuous tweets,” said Abdullah Alaoudh, Saudi director for the Freedom Initiative, a U.S.-based group that advocates for those it considers unjustly detained in the Middle East.
Alaoudh urged the U.S. to continue to press for the release of all rights advocates and others detained in Saudi Arabia.
Freedom Initiative says at least four U.S. citizens and one legal permanent resident already were detained in Saudi Arabia under travel bans, and that at least one other older U.S. citizen remains imprisoned. Many of the travel bans targeted dual citizens advocating for greater rights in the kingdom, such as Saudi women’s right to drive.
Ibrahim Almadi said his father had lost extensive weight in prison and that his health had worsened drastically.
——
Jon Gambrell contributed from Dubai and AP Diplomatic Writer Matthew Lee from Washington.
Doha, Qatar – For taxi driver Mohammad Siyad, watching his favourite cricketers in the flesh was a dream come true.
Siyad was among nearly 7,000 fans who gathered at the Asian Town Cricket Stadium on Monday to watch the final of the Legends League Cricket (LLC) Twenty20 tournament that featured former greats like Shahid Afridi, Jaques Kallis, Ross Taylor and Misbah ul-Haq.
“I had never imagined I would be seeing so many legends in person,” the Sri Lankan national told Al Jazeera at the stadium in a working-class neighbourhood outside the Qatari capital, Doha.
The 10-day tournament, the second of its kind after the inaugural version in Oman last year, featured three teams – the India Maharajas, the Asia Lions and the World Giants, featuring cricketers from the rest of the world.
Fans at the Asian Town Cricket Stadium outside Doha [Nadim Asrar/Al Jazeera]
The event, where retired cricketing legends come back to play competitive cricket, also brought plenty of cheer and triggered old memories for the nearly 1.3 million cricket-crazy South Asian diaspora in the Gulf state.
“I have grown seeing these men play on TV. To see them in flesh and blood now is so very exciting,” said Siyad as he waved a Sri Lankan flag.
Title clash
The Sri Lankans had a lot to cheer about during the final between the Asia Lions – led by the iconic Pakistani cricketer Afridi – and the World Giants, with Australia’s Shane Watson as its captain.
Batting first, the Giants, pummelled by some sharp bowling by Pakistan’s Abdul Razzak and Afridi, managed to post just 147 – a modest target in a T20 game.
Sri Lankan openers gave an impressive start to the Asian Lions’ chase [Nadim Asrar/Al Jazeera]
In reply, Sri Lanka’s opening pair of Upul Tharanga and Tillakaratne Dilshan delivered a treat for the spectators, hitting the opposition bowlers – led by the likes of Australian paceman Brett Lee – all over the ground.
Construction worker Subhash Nishantha, 47, could not contain his excitement as he ran across the aisle holding two tiny plastic Sri Lankan flags.
“I am here to enjoy,” he said.
Sri Lankan national Subhash Nishantha enjoying the final match [Nadim Asrar/Al Jazeera]
Tharanga and Dilshan ended up scoring 115 for the opening wicket, both scoring half-centuries in the process and making the chase a breeze for the Lions on the way to the title.
“I last played international cricket in 2015, so it has been a while,” said Tharanga as he was declared the “Legend of the Tournament” for scoring the most runs. He hit three 50s in the four games he played.
Most Pakistanis in the crowd wanted to watch their hero Afridi bat. While his team’s authority on the field meant Afridi was not needed with the bat, loud cheers of “Lala, lala” – as the cricketer is fondly called in Pakistan – greeted him on the field in the first innings.
He would often wave back with a smile.
“I hope to come back next year. Before that, I need some more training,” he said after the game.
The missing ‘Maharajas’
Twenty20 cricket is where the “gentleman’s game” meets the market. India, with a population of 1.3 billion, is the game’s biggest market. It was no surprise, therefore, that India influenced the way the game was played at the Asian Town Cricket Stadium.
The latest songs from the Indian film industry punctuated every over – sometimes every ball – or when a boundary was hit or a batter was dismissed.
A group of fans – dressed in all yellow – from the southern Indian state of Kerala played drums throughout the game, adding to the cheer despite the absence of Indian cricketers on the field.
The Qatar Manjappada group performing during the game [Nadim Asrar/Al Jazeera]
On Saturday, the India Maharajas were eliminated from the event by the Asia Lions, despite captain Gautam Gambhir leading from the front and some stunning catches by Mohammad Kaif, who, at 46, still defies gravity by his fitness.
Khursheed Mohammad Zahiruddin, a truck driver in Qatar, said while he missed his favourite team, he was there for the love of the game.
“Maybe they will return next year,” the 35-year-old told Al Jazeera.
Monday marked 20 years since the U.S.-led ground invasion of Iraq began. CBS News’ Charlie D’Agata joined John Dickerson on “Prime Time” to discuss what has changed in the country in the two decades since the war started.
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Yemeni government and Houthis say more than 800 prisoners will be exchanged in total, after UN-mediated talks.
The two sides in Yemen’s conflict say they have agreed to exchange detainees after talks in Switzerland facilitated by the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The head of the Yemeni government delegation said on Monday about 880 detainees would be exchanged.
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi group said it would release 181 detainees, including 15 Saudis and three Sudanese, in exchange for 706 prisoners from the government, according to statements on Twitter by the head of the Houthis’ prisoner affairs committee Abdul Qader al-Murtada and the group’s chief negotiator Mohammed Abdulsalam.
The UN and ICRC did not immediately confirm that a deal had been reached.
Saudi Arabia has also not commented on the statements by the Houthi officials.
There is hope that a deal could facilitate broader efforts to end the conflict, which have been helped by the resumption of ties between Iran and Saudi Arabia this month.
UN special envoy Hans Grundberg told the UN Security Council last week that there were intense diplomatic efforts at different levels to end the fighting.
The exchange of about 15,000 conflict-related detainees has been under discussion as a key confidence-building measure under a December 2018 UN-mediated deal known as the Stockholm Agreement.
Under that deal, the sides agreed “to release all prisoners, detainees, missing persons, arbitrarily detained and forcibly disappeared persons, and those under house arrest”, held in connection with the conflict, “without any exceptions or conditions”.
But progress has been slow. A few exchanges, including in 2022 and 2020, have been coordinated by the ICRC, alongside smaller deals directly between the warring parties.
A Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemen in 2015 after the Iran-allied Houthis overthrew the government from the capital, Sanaa, in 2014.
The conflict has created one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters.
A UN-brokered truce last April has largely held, despite expiring in October without the parties agreeing to extend it.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s bazaars are packed ahead of the Persian New Year next week, but there’s little holiday cheer as customers survey the soaring prices of meat and holiday treats, wondering if they can afford either. Others are there to sell goods on the sidewalks to make ends meet.
Crippling Western sanctions, on top of decades of economic mismanagement, have plunged the country into a severe crisis. Iran’s currency, the rial, recently dropped to a record low, essentially wiping out people’s life savings and making even some basic goods unaffordable.
Months of anti-government protests failed to unseat the ruling clerics and prompted a violent crackdown that further dashed hopes of any return to the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, which lifted sanctions in exchange for restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program.
As they bid farewell to a trying year, Iranians have little expectation that the next will be better.
“People are out on streets, they are shopping, but nobody is happy in their hearts,” said Azar, a 58-year-old housewife. “I have nothing to do (with politics) but I can perceive this feeling completely. I understand this when looking at the faces of our kids, our young people.”
She and other Iranians gave their first names only out of fear of retribution.
Reza used to work as a day laborer but had to stop because of an injury. Now the 33-year-old sells clothes on the sidewalk. “I became a vendor out of frustration,” he said. “I work in hot and cold weather outdoors because I have to.”
“This year, the market is not good at all,” he said. “We were hoping the final days of the year would be better.”
The rial plunged to an all-time low of 600,000 to the dollar last month, down from 32,000 to the dollar when the nuclear agreement was signed.
Then-President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the agreement in 2018 and restored heavy sanctions, including on Iran’s vital oil industry. Iran responded by openly exceeding the deal’s restrictions on uranium enrichment and is now closer than ever to being able to build a nuclear weapon if it chooses to do so.
Its decision to supply armed drones for Russia’s war on Ukraine, and Iran’s crackdown on protests, sparked by the death of a young woman in the custody of morality police in September, has further estranged it from the West. Talks on restoring the 2015 deal hit an impasse last summer.
A strange wave of suspected poisonings in girls’ schools across the country has added to the sense of crisis. Nearly four months after the first incidents were reported, it remains unclear who might be behind them or even what chemical — if any — was used. Iranian officials have suggested that at least some of the reported incidents are the result of mass hysteria.
A Chinese-brokered agreement last week to restore diplomatic relations with regional rival Saudi Arabia led to hopes for a broader rapprochement with wealthy Arab states in the Persian Gulf that have long viewed Iran with suspicion. But the deal is unlikely to provide any immediate relief from Iran’s economic woes.
Iranian officials acknowledge an inflation rate of between 40% and 50%, but some economists believe the real rate is even higher. That makes nuts, candy and other staples for the New Year holiday, known as Nowruz, unaffordable for the growing ranks of low-income Iranians.
Iranian authorities have blamed the crisis on the war in Ukraine, global inflation and a “currency war” waged by the country’s enemies.
But Iran’s financial crisis began long before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and it isn’t just the sanctions that are dragging the economy down.
Iran’s clerically-overseen government and its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard have long had an outsized role in the economy, squeezing out the private sector and hindering growth. The country is heavily dependent on oil exports, reduced to a trickle by the sanctions.
“The prices of everything have gone up multiple times, even goods that have nothing to do with the dollar,” Azar, the housewife, said. “Many people can’t really afford this, they are in trouble.”
Mahnaz, a retired civil servant, said the fall in the local currency has slashed the pensions that he and others rely on.
“Do people gather and celebrate? Everyone has to stay home, they have nothing to spend and they can’t go anywhere. In the past we would travel but now we can’t any longer. Because we don’t have money,” he said.
“What can you do with $73 a month?” he asked. “What can I do? Can I even buy chicken and meat?”
Last year’s polls saw opposition members clinch 28 out of 50 seats, giving them a parliamentary majority.
Kuwait’s Constitutional Court has ruled that last September’s parliamentary election, in which the opposition made gains, was void and that the previous assembly must be reinstated.
The move on Sunday comes at a time of renewed friction between the elected parliament and government and follows the reappointment this month of the country’s prime minister, whose government had resigned in January in the standoff with parliament.
Last year, Kuwait’s crown prince dissolved parliament and called early polls in an effort to end prolonged domestic political feuding that has hindered fiscal reform.
The September polls – the most inclusive in a decade – saw opposition members clinch 28 out of 50 seats, giving them a parliamentary majority. The vote marked a victory for opposition figures, many of whom had stayed out of elections in the past decade over what they alleged was meddling by the executive authorities over parliament.
However, Justice Mohammad bin Naji on Sunday said the court had declared the dissolution of parliament as void and had annulled the early elections held in September.
“The constitutional authority of the dissolved parliament shall be restored as of the date of this ruling,” he told the court session attended by reporters.
‘Invalidity of the electoral process’
Lawyer Nawaf Al-Yassin said the ruling followed several electoral appeals.
“The appeals relate to the invalidity of the electoral process, the decrees calling for elections, and the decree dissolving the previous National Assembly,” he told AFP news agency.
Kuwait, an OPEC oil producer, bans political parties but has given its legislature more influence than similar bodies in other Gulf monarchies.
خطاب سمو ولي العهد في ٢٢-٦-٢٠٢٢ والنطق السامي لسموه في ١٨-١٠-٢٠٢٢ أكد وبوضوح بأن اجراءات الحل والانتخابات تمت وفق القوانين والاجراءات الدستورية وحكم المحكمة اليوم يثبت بأن جميعها كانت خاطئة لذلك يجب محاسبة من قام بإبداء الرأي القانوني .. الكويت لا تستحق هذه المهازل
Translation: The address by his highness the crown prince on June 22, 2022, and by his spokesperson on October 18, 2022, said clearly that the dissolution and elections happened in accordance with the law and constitutional procedures. Today’s court ruling shows that all of them were wrong. Therefore, it is necessary to hold accountable the person who provided the legal counsel … Kuwait does not deserve such farces.
Frequent political bickering has often led to cabinet reshuffles and dissolutions of parliament, hampering investment and reforms aimed at reducing the country’s heavy reliance on oil revenue.
A lawmaker from the dissolved assembly, Abdullah Al-Turaiji, welcomed the move as “correcting the government’s mistake in dealing with parliament”.
Political stability in Kuwait has traditionally depended on cooperation between the government and parliament.
While Kuwait’s leadership has responded to some opposition demands, including the pardoning of political dissidents, key reform proposals such as a public debt law continue to face legislative gridlock.
At least four Palestinians were killed on Thursday and 23 others injured after an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) operation in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian Authority Health Ministry. At least five of the injured are in critical condition, the health ministry added.
In a statement the Israeli security forces said they “neutralized two operatives of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organization who are suspected of significant terrorist activity.”
A third person “was neutralized after he tried to attack the fighters with an iron crowbar,” the statement continued.
“During the operation, the forces fired at armed men who fired at them, injuries were detected. Also, violent disturbances developed during which suspects threw stones at the forces.”
Hamas announced in a statement that two of the Palestinians killed in Jenin were its members.
“The cowardly assassination of two leaders of the resistance will not go unpunished. The occupation have tried us before, knows for sure that our response is coming, and that the march of the resistance continues until liberation,” the Hamas statement read.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, said in a statement following the raid: “These continuous Israeli aggressive actions confirm that Israel is not at all interested in calming the situation and preventing its eruption, contrary to all international efforts seeking to prevent escalation during the (upcoming) holy month of Ramadan.” He also called for “practical measures on the ground by the US administration to stop the unilateral Israeli measures, and to provide international protection for our people.”
The violence marks the latest round in what has become a brutal cycle of violence between Israelis and Palestinians. A total of 88 Palestinians have been killed since the beginning of this year, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said, a number that includes militants and civilians. Since the beginning of the year, 13 Israeli civilians and one security officer have been killed in what Israeli officials say were Palestinian attacks.
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday swiftly rejected a compromise proposal aimed at resolving a standoff over his plans to overhaul the country’s legal system, deepening the crisis over a program that has roiled the country and drawn international criticism.
The country’s figurehead president, Isaac Herzog, presented the compromise in a nationally televised address.
Herzog, whose ceremonial role is meant to serve as a national unifier and moral compass, unveiled the proposal after more than two months of mass protests against Netanyahu’s plan. He said he had been consulting with a broad cross section of the country and suggested that Israel’s survival depends on reaching a compromise.
“Anyone who thinks that a real civil war, of human life, is a line that we will not reach has no idea,” Herzog said. “The abyss,” he warned, “is within touching distance.”
But Netanyahu quickly turned it down. “Unfortunately, the things the president presented were not agreed to by the coalition representatives,” Netanyahu said at Israel’s main international airport before departing to Germany. “And central elements of the proposal he offered just perpetuate the current situation and don’t bring the necessary balance between the branches. That is the unfortunate truth.”
Netanyahu’s plan would allow parliament to overturn Supreme Court decisions and give his parliamentary coalition the final say over all judicial appointments.
Netanyahu’s allies say the plan is needed to curb what they claim are excessive powers of unelected judges. Their opponents say it would destroy the country’s system of checks and balances by concentrating power in the hands of Netanyahu and his ruling coalition. They also say Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption charges, has a conflict of interest.
Herzog’s proposal offered incentives to both sides. Parliament would not be able to overturn Supreme Court rulings. But judges would not be allowed to overturn major legislation known as “Basic Laws,” which serve as a sort of constitution. Basic Laws, however, would require a parliamentary supermajority, instead of a simple majority, to pass.
Judicial appointments would be made by a committee comprised of coalition and opposition lawmakers, judges and public representatives. Appointments would require a broad consensus, and no single party would wield a veto.
“This is not the president’s draft. It is the draft of the nation,” Herzog said. “There is no side that wins, no side that loses.”
Merav Michaeli, leader of the opposition Labor party, welcomed the proposal and said Netanyahu’s rejection shows he “is not for legal reform but for judicial overthrow.”
Netanyahu’s proposal has sparked weeks of mass protests by tens of thousands of Israelis, drawn criticism from business leaders, economists and legal experts. Military reservists have threatened to stop reporting for duty if it passes. Even some of Israel’s closest allies, including the U.S., have urged caution.
Earlier on Wednesday, a senior delegation of Jewish-American leaders paid a flash visit to Israel to urge leaders to find a compromise. The arrival of some 30 leaders from the Jewish Federations of North America marked a rare foray by the American Jewish community into domestic Israeli affairs and reflected concerns that the turmoil inside Israel could spill over to Jewish communities overseas.
Eric Fingerhut, the president and chief executive of the Jewish Federations, said the 24-hour visit, coming at short notice, illustrated the “grave concern and worry” the Israeli debate has raised among American Jews.
The Federations said the visit was the first time “in recent history” that it has sent such a delegation to discuss Israeli policy with Israeli leaders.
Fingerhut said his group was unable to meet with Netanyahu, but held talks with senior members of Netanyahu’s coalition, opposition leaders and Herzog. He said his group’s message to all sides was to find a compromise and calm the deeply polarized atmosphere.
American Jews tend to hold liberal political positions and identify with liberal streams of Judaism that have struggled for recognition in Israel. An array of Jewish groups have raised concerns that minority rights and religious pluralism could be weakened by the overhaul.
The Jewish Federations of North America represent over 400 Jewish communities across the U.S. and Canada. It raises and distributes more than $2 billion a year to support Jewish communities and vulnerable populations domestically, in Israel and worldwide, making it the largest Jewish philanthropic organization in North America.
With a grandiose diplomatic flourish China brokered a rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, in the process upending US calculus in the Gulf and beyond.
While the United States has angered its Gulf allies by apparently dithering over morality, curbing arms supplies and chilling relations, Saudi Arabia’s King-in-waiting Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, has found a kindred spirit in China’s leader Xi Jinping.
Both are bold, assertive, willing to take risks and seemingly share unsated ambition.
Friday’s announcement that Riyadh and Tehran had renewed diplomatic ties was unexpected, but it shouldn’t have been. It is the logical accumulation of America’s diplomatic limitations and China’s growing quest to shape the world in its orbit.
Beijing’s claim that “China pursues no selfish interest whatsoever in the Middle East,” rings hollow. It buys more oil from Saudi Arabia than any other country in the world.
Xi needs energy to grow China’s economy, ensure stability at home and fuel its rise as a global power.
His other main supplier, Russia, is at war, its supplies therefore in question. By de-escalating tensions between Saudi and Iran, Xi is not only shoring up his energy alternatives but, in a climate of growing tension with the US, also heading off potential curbs on his access to Gulf oil.
Xi’s motivation appears fueled by wider interests, but even so the US State Department welcomed the surprise move, spokesman Ned Price saying, “we support anything that would serve to deescalate tensions in the region, and potentially help to prevent conflict.”
Iran has buy-in because China has economic leverage. In 2021 the pair signed a trade deal reportedly worth up to $400 billion of Chinese investment over 25 years, in exchange for a steady supply of Iranian oil.
Tehran is isolated by international sanctions and Beijing is providing a glimmer of financial relief.
And, in the words of Iran’s Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei last year, there’s also the hope of more to come as he sees geopolitical power shifting east.
“Asia will become the center of knowledge, the center of economics, as well as the center of political power, and the center of military power,” Khamenei said.
Saudi has buy-in because war with Iran would wreck its economy and ruin MBS’s play for regional dominance. His bold visions for the country’s post fossil-fuel future and domestic stability depend on inwardly investing robust oil and gas revenues.
It may sound simple, but the fact the US couldn’t pull it off speaks to the complexities and nuance of everything that’s been brewing over the past two decades.
America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have burned through a good part of its diplomatic capital in the Middle East.
Many in the Gulf see the development of the war in Ukraine as an unnecessary and dangerous American adventure, and some of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s territorial claims over Ukraine not without merit.
What the global West sees as a fight for democratic values lacks resonance among the Gulf autocracies, and the conflict doesn’t consume them in the same way as it does leaders in European capitals.
Saudi Arabia, and MBS in particular, have become particularly frustrated with America’s flip-flop diplomacy: dialling back relations over the Crown Prince’s role in the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi (which MBS denies); then calling on him to cut oil production swiftly followed by requests to increase it.
These inconsistencies have led the Saudis to hew policy to their national interests and less to America’s needs.
During his visit to Saudi last July, US President Joe Biden said: “We will not walk away and leave a vacuum to be filled by China, Russia, or Iran.” It seems now that the others are walking away from him.
On Beijing’s part, China’s Gulf intervention signals its own needs, and the opportunity to act arrived in a single serving.
Xi helped himself because he can. The Chinese leader is a risk taker.
His abrupt ending of austere Covid-19 pandemic restrictions at home is just one example, but this is a more complex roll of the dice.
Mediation in the Middle East can be a poisoned chalice, but as big as the potential gains are for China, the wider implications for the regional, and even global order, are quantifiably bigger and will resonate for years.
Yet harbingers of this shake-up and the scale of its impact have been in plain sight for months. Xi’s high-profile, red-carpet reception in Riyadh last December for his first overseas visit after abandoning his domestic “zero-Covid” policy stirred the waters.
During that trip Saudi and Chinese officials signed scores of deals worth tens of billions of dollars.
China’s Foreign Ministry trumpeted Xi’s visit, paying particular attention to one particular infrastructure project: “China will deepen industrial and infrastructure cooperation with Saudi Arabia (and) advance the development of the China-Saudi Arabia (Jizan) Industrial Park.”
The Jizan project, part of China’s belt and road initiative, heralds huge investment around the ancient Red Sea port, currently Saudi’s third largest.
Jizan lies close to the border with Yemen, the scene of a bloody civil war and proxy battle between Riyadh and Tehran since 2014, sparking what the United Nations has described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
Significantly since Xi’s visit, episodic attacks by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels on Jizan have abated.
There are other effects too: the plans to upscale Jizan’s container handling puts Saudi in greater competition with the UAE’s container ports and potentially strains another regional rivalry, as MBS drives to become the dominant regional power, usurping UAE’s role as regional hub for global businesses.
Xi will have an interest seeing both Saudi Arabia and the UAE prosper, but Saudi is by far the bigger partner with higher potential global economic heft and, importantly, massive religious clout in the Islamic world.
Where the UAE and Saudi align strongly is eschewing direct conflict with Tehran.
A deadly drone attack in Abu Dhabi late last year was claimed by the Houthis, before the rebels quickly rescinded it. But no one publicly blamed the Houthis’ sponsors in Tehran.
A once shaky ceasefire in Yemen now also seems to be moving toward peace talks, perhaps yet another indication of the potential of China’s influence in the region.
Beijing is acutely aware of what a continued war over the Persian Gulf could cost its commercial interests – another reason why a Saudi/Iran rapprochement makes sense to Xi.
Iran blames Saudi for stoking the massive street protests through its towns and cities since September.
Saudi denies that accusation, but when Iran moved drones and long-range missiles close to its Gulf coast and Saudi, Riyadh called on its friends to ask Tehran to de-escalate. Russia and China did, the threat dissipated.
Tehran, despite US diplomatic efforts, is also closing in on nuclear weapons capability and Saudi’s MBS is on record saying he’ll ensure parity, “if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible.”
Late last week US officials said Saudi was seeking US security guarantees and help developing a civilian nuclear program as part of a deal to normalize relations with Israel, an avowed enemy of Iran’s Ayatollahs.
Indeed, when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Israel late January, concerned over a rising Palestinian death toll in a violent year in the region, potential settlement expansions and controversial changes to Israel’s judiciary Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to Blinken about “expanding the circle of peace,” and improving relations with Arab neighbours, including Saudi Arabia.
But as Saudi seems to shift closer to Tehran, Netanyahu’s mission just got harder. While both Saudi and Israel strongly oppose a nuclear-armed Iran, only Netanyahu seems ready to confront Tehran.
“My policy is to do everything within Israel’s power to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons,” the Israeli leader told Blinken.
Riyadh favors diplomacy. As recently as last week the Saudi foreign minister said: “It’s absolutely critical … that we find and an alternative pathway to ensuring an (Iranian) civilian nuclear program.”
By improving ties with Tehran, he said, “we can make it quite clear to the Iranians that this is not just a concerns of distant countries but it’s also a concern of its neighbors.”
For years this is what America did, such as brokering the Iran nuclear deal, or JCPOA, in 2015.
Xi backed that deal, the Saudis didn’t want it, Iran never trusted it, Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump’s withdrawal confirmed Iran’s fears and sealed its fate, despite the ongoing proximity talks to get American diplomats seated at the table again.
Iran has raced ahead in the meantime, massively over-running the bounds of the JCPOA limits on uranium enrichment and producing almost weapons-grade material.
What’s worse for Washington is that Trump’s JCPOA withdrawal legacy tainted international perceptions of US commitment, continuity and diplomacy. All these circumstances perhaps signaled to Xi that his time to seize the lead on global diplomacy was coming.
Yet the Chinese leader seems to accept what Netanyahu won’t and what US diplomacy is unable to prevent: that sooner, rather than later, Iran will have a nuclear weapon. As such, Xi may be fostering Saudi-Iran rapprochement as a hedge against that day.
So Netanyahu looks increasingly isolated and the Israeli leader, already under huge domestic pressure from spiking tensions with Palestinians and huge Israeli protests over his proposed judicial reforms, now faces a massive re-think on regional security.
The working assumption of American diplomatic regional primacy is broken, and Netanyahu’s biggest ally is now not as hegemonic as he needs. But by how much is still far from clear.
It’s not a knockout, but a gut blow, to Washington. How Xi calculates the situation isn’t clear either. The US is not finished, far from it, but it is diminished, and both powers are coexisting in a different way now.
Earlier this month, the Chinese leader made unusually direct comments accusing the US of leading a campaign against China and causing serious domestic woes.
“Western countries led by the United States have contained and suppressed us in an all-round way, which has brought unprecedented severe challenges to our development,” Xi told a group of government advisers representing private businesses on the sidelines of an annual legislative meeting in Beijing.
Meanwhile, Biden has defined the future US-China relationship as “competition not confrontation,” and he has built his foreign policy around the tenets of standing up for democracy.
It is striking that neither Xi, nor Khamenei, nor MBS are troubled by the moral dilemmas that circumscribe Biden. This is the big challenge the US president warned about, and now it’s here. An alternative world order, irrespective of what happens in Ukraine.
