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Tuesday, April 06, 2021

04/06 Links Pt1: Strained Saudi-US ties will likely bring Gulf kingdom closer to Israel; Sudan Repeals Law Mandating Boycott of Israel; Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Starts Direct Passenger Flights to Israel

From Ian:

Strained Saudi-US ties will likely bring Gulf kingdom closer to Israel
This will, on the one hand, bring Saudi Arabia closer to Israel, he added, since Riyadh will not feel that it can trust Washington as much. On the other hand, the lack of U.S. backing and ongoing U.S. pressure will cause Saudi Arabia to be cautious about doing this publicly.

These developments “encourage the Iranians to increase their daring with negative consequences for regional stability. However, the Iranians have prioritized the goal of reaching a nuclear agreement at the moment. After that, everything will be open,” said Zisser.

‘Aim to achieve a greater balance of power in the Middle East’

Professor Benny Miller, an expert on international relations from the School of Political Sciences at the University of Haifa, told JNS that the Biden administration will show “much greater sensitivity to the Saudi human-rights violations than [former President Donald] Trump, and to some extent, will go beyond Obama in ending U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen.”

However, he added, “the commitment of the U.S. security umbrella in relation to external threats—Iran—will persist.”

The Saudis, in turn, “will have an incentive to ‘compensate’ for their human-rights violations by upgrading their relations with Israel,” continued Miller. “At the same time, this issue [the normalization of Israeli-Saudi ties], even if welcomed by Biden, will not have the high urgency it had under Trump before the 2020 elections.”

In terms of regional security, “while Trump tried to create a ‘hegemonic’ alliance of Israelis and Arabs vis-à-vis a much weakened Iran, Biden—like Obama, in this sense—will aim to achieve a greater balance of power in the Middle East between the Israel-Arab alliance vs. Iran, but this also heavily depends on the Iranian response,” assessed Miller. “If Iran continues to endorse a hardline and aggressiveness, Biden will give more support to the Israel-Arab alliance.”

“The key objective of the administration will be to stabilize the region,” he added, “so as to enable a gradual U.S. disengagement from the region militarily, and so that the U.S. will be able to focus on its foreign policy issue—the competition with China.”


Report: Sudan Repeals Law Mandating Boycott of Israel
The Sudanese government has decided to repeal its law that mandates boycotting Israel, six months after it reached a normalization agreement with the Jewish state.

Israeli daily Maariv reported that the decision was announced by the Sudanese government Tuesday.

Israel and Sudan officially normalized relations on Oct. 23, 2020, following up on the decision by the UAE and Bahrain to sign the Abraham Accords the month before. To facilitate the deal, the US removed Sudan from its list of state sponsors of terrorism. Sudan also paid reparations to US terror victims in the amount of $335 million.

Sudan’s boycott law was originally enacted in 1958, and applied to all diplomatic, economic, and trade relations with the Jewish state.

Israeli journalist Barak Ravid tweeted that all but one of Sudan’s cabinet ministers voted in favor of repealing the law, but that it must now receive further governmental approval, including from Sudan’s parliament.

The decision follows close contacts between Israel and Sudan, who consulted on the precise wording of their agreement to begin full diplomatic relations — a major part of which was Israel’s desire to see the boycott law repealed.


Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Starts Direct Passenger Flights to Israel
Abu Dhabi state carrier Etihad Airways began direct commercial passenger flights from the United Arab Emirates capital to Tel Aviv in Israel — the latest direct air link between the two countries that established diplomatic relations last year.

UAE Ambassador to Israel Mohamed Al Khaja and Israel’s head of mission to the UAE Eitan Na’eh were on the inaugural flight.

“As our countries recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, we have much to look forward to in commercial, diplomatic, technological, health, and tourism exchanges,” Khaja was quoted as saying by UAE state news agency WAM.

Etihad said it would initially offer two weekly flights between Tel Aviv and Abu Dhabi, which has placed Israel on its green list of countries, meaning visitors do not need to quarantine due to the coronavirus.

Other UAE and Israeli airlines have launched direct flights.

The Gulf Arab state has become a popular destinations for Israeli tourists even as the coronavirus pandemic continues to disrupt travel globally.


US ducks question on whether east Jerusalem is Palestinian capital
US State Department spokesman Ned Price on Monday ducked a question about whether the Biden administration considers east Jerusalem the capital of a future Palestinian state.

At a State Department briefing in Washington, he refused to comment about whether the United States would restore funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestinian refugees.

Price clarified that no high-level talks had occurred between US officials and the Palestinian Authority since President Joe Biden took office on January 20.

Biden has been cagey about some of his positions vis-à-vis the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But he offered some clarification last week when the US published its 2020 Country Reports on Human Rights, in which it affirmed the Trump administration’s 2017 declaration that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital.

The report did not say whether east Jerusalem is the capital of a future Palestinian state, even though the Biden administration has been clear that it supports a two-state resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Skeptical President Invites Netanyahu to Form Next Israeli Government
A skeptical president invited Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday to form a new government, after another inconclusive election deepened political stalemate in Israel.

The country’s longest-serving leader, in power consecutively since 2009, now faces the tough challenge of enlisting enough allies for a governing coalition.

Under law, Netanyahu will have 28 days to do so, with the possibility of a two-week extension before President Reuven Rivlin picks another candidate or asks parliament to choose one. Continued deadlock could ultimately result in a new election.

Announcing on television his choice of Netanyahu, Rivlin cast doubt on his prospects for success and on whether any other prospective candidate could complete the task.

“To my great regret, I have the impression that none of the candidates, at this stage, has a real chance of putting together a government, one that would win a confidence vote in parliament,” Rivlin said.

He noted that he was legally bound to make the nomination nonetheless.
IDF thwarts suspected attempted ramming in West Bank
The IDF thwarted a suspected attempted ramming attack in the Palestinian town of Bir Nabala in the West Bank on Monday night, according to the IDF Spokesperson's Unit.

Sources in the IDF stated on Tuesday morning that it is still to early to say with certainty that the incident was terrorism, but that the lives of soldiers had been in danger before the shots were fired, according to Maariv, The Jerusalem Post's sister publication.

The suspected attempted attack took place after soldiers set up a surprise checkpoint in the town. They noticed a vehicle that stopped at the checkpoint and suddenly accelerated towards another group of soldiers. The soldiers fired at the vehicle and no Israelis were injured.

According to Palestinian media, the Palestinian driver, Osama Mansour, was killed. His wife, who was in the car with him, was injured in the incident; her condition is stable.

The Palestinian Wafa news agency claimed that the IDF threw a sound grenade at the car when they neared the checkpoint, causing Mansour to speed up after which he was shot. Clashes broke out in the towns of Bir Nabala and Al-Jib between Palestinians and Israeli security forces on Monday night, according to Wafa.

Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem responded to the incident on Tuesday, calling it a "new crime committed by the occupation."


JPost Editorial: Jordan: Israel keeps a close eye on its eastern neighbor - opinion
Moreover, it acts as a buffer zone. Without Jordan, there would be no real separation between Israel and the threats emanating from Iraq and even further afield. It also helps keep the Palestinian Authority in check.

Despite the cold peace, there is a solid security relationship based on mutual interests. This is particularly true now, as Israel develops stronger relations with the Gulf states.

The recent incident concerning the current crown prince, Hussein Bin Abdullah, demonstrates this. When Israel did not allow him to visit al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount with his own security detail last month, the prince canceled the visit. Jordan then barred a flight by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over its air space to make what would have been his first official visit to the United Arab Emirates. Without flying over Jordan, the journey would have taken hours longer and Netanyahu canceled the visit.

Netanyahu then reportedly retaliated and tried to ban flights between Jordan and Israel. This was no small matter since free travel was one of the elements included in the 1994 peace treaty between the two countries.

Developing a stronger peace with the Gulf countries under the Abraham Accords in no way negates the need for a good relationship with Jordan. On the contrary, it shows the importance of Jordan in the regional scheme of things.

Similarly, any future peace agreement with the Palestinians (however distant prospects currently seem) will depend on having a good relationship with a strong Jordan, which also borders the Palestinian Authority areas and has a majority Palestinian population. Jordan’s custodial status over Muslim and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem also gives it a special role.

Israel and Jordan are on the same side on many crucial issues. Neither country should be taking this relationship for granted.
MEMRI: Jordan's Prince Hamzah Bin Hussein Is Caught Between Accusations That He Was Planning A Coup And Ongoing Regime Attempts To Marginalize Him
Introduction

Over the weekend, Jordanian authorities arrested a number of top establishment officials and royal family members, among them King 'Abdullah's cousin Al-Sharif Hassan bin Zaid, and the former head of the royal court and former treasury secretary Basem Awadallah.[1] According to The Washington Post, the arrests were aimed at thwarting a coup attempt against the king, in which the king's half brother Prince Hamzah bin Hussein was involved. According to the Post and other reports on social media, the prince has been placed under house arrest and others arrested include close associates such as the head of his office, the administrator of his palace, and his security guards.[2]

On the night of April 3, 2021, through his attorney, Prince Hamzah released a video clip in which he stated that he was under house arrest and unable to communicate with the rest of the world because he had attended meetings in which the government and the king had been disparaged. He denied the accusations against him, and criticized the rampant corruption in the kingdom and how it was impinging on freedom, underlining that "even to criticize a small aspect of a policy leads to arrest and abuse by the security services."[3] In an audio recording released via social media on April 4, he stressed that he did not intend to abide by the restrictions placed on him.[4]

Even before the release of Prince Hamza's video, the chairman of Jordan's Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Yousuf Ahmed Al-Hunaiti – who had been tasked with carrying out the measures against Prince Hamzah and his associates – denied that Prince Hamzah had been arrested but hinted at displeasure regarding his political involvement, stating: "He has been required to stop his moves and activities, which are being exploited in order to harm Jordan's security and stability."[5]

At an April 4 press conference that he convened, Jordanian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ayman Al-Safadi revealed additional details about the alleged coup attempt. Stating that a comprehensive investigation of Prince Hamzah's and other individuals' activity aimed at harming state security and stability had been underway for some time, he added that there had been monitoring of contacts between them and foreign elements about deciding on an appropriate time to undermine Jordanian state security.

He also said that people close to the prince had conveyed messages to foreign elements, including "the so-called overseas opposition," who were enlisted to undermine Jordan's security and to distort facts. Prince Hamzah had acted with leading members of society in an attempt to incite them to harm national security, he said, adding that a short time after the Prince had been warned to stop these activities he had attempted to escalate the situation. He stated further that the Jordanian security apparatuses had been monitoring contacts between Prince Hamzah's wife and an individual with connections to foreign security apparatuses which included a suggestion to provide her with an airplane to leave Jordan for a foreign country.[6]

Despite the Jordanian establishment's attempts to lend credibility to its narrative – i.e. that Prince Hamzah had been planning a coup – it appears that this narrative is not actually true, since besides the prince's security team, no members of the military or top security elements were among those arrested.[7] It cannot be ruled out that these are also attempts to silence him and to harm his great popularity among various elements in Jordanian society. These elements include the tribes and protest elements, both inside and outside Jordan.
Jordan Regains Control over Temple Mount Waqf, Sacks PA Members
The Waqf, a.ka. Council of Endowments and Islamic Affairs and Holy Places in Al-Quds Al-Sharif, held its first session on Monday, after being “reconfigured” by the Presidency of the Jordanian Council of Ministers, according to the Jordan-based Husna FM radio station.

The Israeli Har HaBait website reported on Tuesday (דרמה: ירדן משתלטת מחדש על מועצת הוואקף ומסלקת את הפלסטינים) that just two years after Jordan had taken the dramatic step of loosening its grip on the Temple Mount by placing local representatives on the Waqf Council, it is once again changing direction, adding Jordanian members to the charity group that controls the Temple Mount, removing PA Arabs, increasing the size of the council (from 18 to 23) – a move that makes it weaker, and transforming the Waqf from a local council governing the sanctuary into a Jordanian-government entity.

“The council discussed topics related to the affairs of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Islamic endowments, and arrangements for the blessed month of Ramadan, and took the appropriate decisions,” the Jordanian radio station reported.

According to Har HaBait, citing Safa News and Husna FM, the two key members to be ousted were Hatem Abdel Qader, a leader of the Fatah movement, and Mazen Sinokrot, a former PA economy minister and a Jerusalem businessman whose company makes Israeli-inspired snacks (Bamba).
PMW: PA lies: Palestinians welcomed Jews escaping the Nazis, but Jews “betrayed” them
Official PA TV is currently broadcasting a program called From the Israeli Archive, which discusses history based on parts of an Israeli ‎documentary series from 1981, Pillar of Fire. Palestinian Media Watch has documented that the PA’s program misinterprets - and at times even mistranslates ‎‎- the original narration so it presents a Palestinian and even an antisemitic perspective.

In a new episode, the PA correctly describes the incitement used by the Nazis to create hatred toward the Jews, such as “Jews are like rats” and “spread diseases, rob the wealth of Germany,” however distorts the Nazi genocide of Jews as merely “the expulsion of the Jews.”

In a description similar to Aesop’s tale The Farmer and the Snake, which teaches that kindness to evil will be met by betrayal, the PA TV narrator claims the Arabs gave the Jews escaping the Nazis “fresh water to drink and fed them oranges,” but were deceived as the Jews “betrayed the hand that was extended to help them”:
Official PA TV host: “How was the expulsion (i.e., the Nazi genocide) of the Jews carried out? German [Nazi] Minister of Propaganda Goebbels, together with Hitler, disseminated that the Jews are like rats: They spread diseases, rob the wealth of Germany, and must be expelled... They reached the land of Palestine hungry, sick, lacking everything, infected with typhus and malaria. We gave them fresh water to drink and fed them oranges, and they betrayed the hand that was extended to help them.”

[Official PA TV, From the Israeli Archive, Feb. 2, 2021]

This portrayal of a generous welcome is a complete distortion of history. In fact, while Jews were fleeing Europe following the rise of the Nazi party in 1933, Arabs regularly attacked and killed Jews in British Palestine, climaxing in an intensive Arab terror campaign from 1936-1939. The Arab terror convinced Britain to cut off almost all Jewish immigration in May 1939 – the infamous British White Paper – in spite of protests such as Liberal British MP James Rothschild who warned in parliament that "for the majority of the Jews who go to Palestine it is a question of migration or of physical extinction." [House of Commons Debates, Volume 347 column 1984] In fact, the British White Paper, brought on by Arab pressure was a death sentence for vast numbers of European Jews.


PA: Immigrant Jews escaping Europe were “a colonialist project wanting to kill the Palestinians”



US Taxpayer Money Going to Terrorists
The memo, however, does not specifically say that the renewed US funding would be conditioned on ending the Palestinians' "pay-to-slay" program. Instead, the Biden administration is only seeking a "commitment" from the Palestinian leadership to end the stipends.

It is likely that PA President Mahmoud Abbas may make such a "commitment" to the Biden administration. In reality, however, Abbas has announced over the past few years that he would never stop the payments to the imprisoned terrorists and the families of the "martyrs."

In the world of Abbas and the Palestinians, any Palestinian who is killed while carrying out a terror attack against Jews is a martyr and hero.

"We will not deduct or suspend the allowances. Even if we are left with one penny, we will spend it on the families of the prisoners and martyrs. We consider the martyrs and prisoners as our stars." — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Wafa.ps

The Palestinian leadership is now hoping that the Biden administration will turn a blind eye to the "pay-for-slay' program and allow them to continue funding terrorists and their families.

The Palestinians are letting the world know that the payments to the terrorists will absolutely continue, just not through the banks. The Palestinians are trying to make it look as if this is a problem related only to the method of payment, and not the fact that the money is going to reward terrorists for murdering, or attempting to murder, Jews.

It is clear that any Palestinian "commitment" to cease rewarding terrorists will not be worth the paper it is written on. Abbas and his henchmen are telling the Biden administration one thing in English and their people the opposite in Arabic. They have no intention whatsoever of stopping the blood-soaked payments. In order to ensure that they continue, the Palestinian leadership are funneling the terror funds through the Palestinian post offices.

If and when the Biden administration resumes financial aid to Abbas, those who will resume collecting US taxpayer dollars are the terrorists.
Released Arab Israeli who killed IDF soldier gets hero’s welcome in hometown
Hundreds of residents of the Arab Israeli city of Baqa al-Gharbiyye held a welcoming ceremony Monday for a resident who was released from prison after serving 35 years for the murder of an Israeli soldier in 1984.

Rushdi Hamdan Abu Mukh was a member of the terror cell that killed Moshe Tamam. The other members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine cell were all also Arab Israeli citizens, and all were given life sentences.

Video posted on social media showed Abu Mukh being given a hero’s welcome and paraded through a main street in the city. No Arab Israeli lawmakers were reported as attending Abu Mukh’s arrival in the city, though on hand was former MK Ibrahim Sarsour, a former leader of the Ra’am party, which is seeking to join a ruling coalition in the wake on last month’s elections.

Abu Mukh thanked those who came out to welcome him, saying “I waited for this day after difficult years,” Ynet reported. “The residents moved me.”

The Tamam family has appealed to both Interior Minister Aryeh Deri and Public Security Minister Amir Ohana with a demand that Abu Mukh’s citizenship be revoked.

Deri consulted with security officials to learn their position on the matter, as is required in any case of revoking citizenship, but Interior Ministry said officials are opposed to the idea, according to the Ynet news site. Deri reportedly plans to call an urgent meeting to further discuss the matter.

“As a family, today our hearts are broken,” Tamam’s niece Ortal Tamam told Ynet. “To see the murderer of my uncle released as a hero, received with adoration and return to his life in a community close to my family home is heartbreaking.”


Raymond Ibrahim: Indoctrinated in Hate: 'This Is the Start of the New Caliphate'
Hate-filled indoctrination and training in violence is not limited to the "schools" of ISIS or Boko Haram. Public schools all around the Muslim world share elements of this indoctrination. Most recently, a March 2021 study exposed how the school curriculum of Turkey — for decades one of the Muslim world's most secular nations — is also increasingly full of jihadi propaganda.

"The Turkish curriculum has been significantly radicalized in recent years. Jihad war is introduced as a central value; martyrdom in battle is glorified.... Concepts such as "Turkish World Domination" ... are emphasized. The curriculum adopts an anti-American stance and displays sympathy toward the motivations of ISIS and Al-Qaeda.... Christians and Jews are characterized as infidels instead of People of the Book.... The curriculum demonizes Zionism and verges on anti-Semitic..." — "The Erdog?an Revolution in the Turkish Curriculum Textbooks," IMPACT-se, March 2021.

What will happen in a few decades when all these boys — those raised on absolute hate and violence and those raised on absolute tolerance and nonviolence — become the world's decision-makers?
Emboldened Iran Steamrolls Its Neighbors
While the U.S. is scheduled to enter indirect talks with Iran on Tuesday in Vienna, the Biden–Harris administration is learning, at least for the fourth time this year, that peace with Iran is elusive. While the U.S. stated that it was open to direct talks when in Vienna, Iran rejected the idea. The U.S. has restated its openness to intermediate steps, but Iran has rejected “step-by-step negotiations.”

Previously, after reports that the U.S. would offer partial sanctions relief in exchange for ceasing advanced centrifuge work and stopping enriching uranium up to 20 percent, Iran demanded a lift of all sanctions. And a couple of months ago, Team USA offered to partially unfreeze Iranian assets in exchange for Iran ceasing to enrich uranium up to 20 percent. Instead, Iran demanded a lift of all sanctions.

All this good-faith effort has brought only greater destruction from Iran. Since January, Iran has intensified its attacks against Israel and Saudi Arabia, expelled the remnants of the ancient Jewish community of Yemen, and signed a strategic alliance with China. Iran Intensifies Attacks Against Israel

Since the start of the Biden–Harris administration, Iran has been stepping up its “grey zone” warfare attacks on Israel. Iran struck an Israeli container ship with a missile in the Gulf of Oman in late March. Iran struck an Israeli-owned cargo ship by what was believed to be a limpet mine in the Gulf of Oman in February. The ship then docked in the UAE, Israel’s new bestie, for repairs. These attacks may be in response to Israel’s attacks on Iranian ships sending illicit weapons and oil to Syria, and/or the assassination of senior Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in 2020, for which Iran blames Israel. It was also recently discovered that a Shia terrorist cell sponsored by Iran was responsible for the attack on Israel’s embassy in New Delhi in January. A Syrian-owned ship spilled over 1,000 tons of Iranian oil onto Israel’s shores in February, and Israeli government officials are debating whether this was done negligently or maliciously.
Biden State Department Makes Iran’s Body Count Disappear in Time for Talks
In his first address to the State Department in early February, President Biden ambitiously described the need for U.S. leadership to counter what he termed, “this new moment of advancing authoritarianism” around the world.

Most political scientists agree that authoritarian states are primarily concerned with the quelling of domestic opposition and attempts to short-circuit the political process within a state, especially using harsh means, to maintain the status quo.

By that standard, Iran’s theocracy is certainly authoritarian. From the time Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his Islamist backers seized power in Iran in 1979, the regime has existed through maintaining a reign of terror over its citizens.

And yet, even while decrying “advancing authoritarianism,” the Biden administration engages in a diplomatic tango with the mullahs who lead the Islamic Republic. Tomorrow, the United States and Iran will resume talks in Vienna, in what diplomats described as, “the most extensive effort to shore up the accord since President Biden took office in January.”

Clearly, for this administration, the definition of “authoritarian” is flexible; it seems to disappear when it is ideologically convenient. Unfortunately for its citizens, Iran’s record of actual authoritarian behavior has existed for more than four decades without disappearing.

Iran’s human-rights violations include: routine, arbitrary, or unlawful killings and arrests; torture and other cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment or punishment; forced confessions often gained through torture; airing of forced confessions on national media; unfair trials with no semblance of due process; sexual abuse; disappearing of individuals; repression of civil liberties, including press freedom, Internet freedom, academic freedom, and freedom of peaceful assembly; and discrimination against women, girls, the LGBT community, and ethnic and religious minorities.
FDD: Iran’s Mischief in Morocco Is a Problem
Moroccan intelligence services arrested a fifty-seven-year-old Lebanese national upon his entry to the country on Jan. 6. Little is known of him, except that he is a Hezbollah member who was caught carrying multiple European passports and identity cards, some of which had been reported stolen.

Officials speaking to the author on condition of anonymity indicated he entered Morocco under the name of Ibrahim Youssef, yet no such person appears in the Lebanese population registry with the same date of birth. The man the Moroccans nabbed was traveling with multiple aliases.

Hezbollah and Iran have a growing track record of document forgery in recent years. In 2014, a Hezbollah External Security Organization agent, Mohammad Amadar, was arrested in Peru on suspicion he was plotting a terror attack in Lima. He had entered the country with a forged passport from the West African nation of Sierra Leone.

In 2019, Argentinian authorities arrested two Iranians who had entered the country with forged Israeli passports. The Iranians claimed to be regime opponents. The Argentinians thought otherwise. And the forged (and stolen) passport suppliers, who Argentinian intelligence sources indicate were in Spain, were tied to Iran. A few months later, two more Iranians with forged passports were arrested in Ecuador.

What was a Hezbollah operative with forged documents doing in Morocco? Is he, too, linked to the forgery network that helps Iran and Hezbollah run ratlines from the Middle East all the way to Latin America and back? Was he a client who was possibly delivering forged documents to others? Was he entering Morocco, like Amadar in Peru, to plot an attack?



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