US President Joe Biden this week hosts Israeli President Isaac Herzog. The purpose of the visit and speech to Congress is to celebrate Israel's 75th anniversary. However, the absence of a formal invitation to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu until just before the trip added policy dimensions. The optics of shunning Netanyahu signaled to Israel that Netanyahu, who prides himself on accessing American political culture, is some sort of persona non grata. So why was Netanyahu shunned, until he wasn't?

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The administration's Middle East team, which includes the most unsympathetic staffers (Samantha Powers, Maher Bitar, Hady Amr and the now-suspended Robert Malley) ever to manage that area, believes that the popularity of the United States and Biden in Israel can be leveraged to politically damage Netanyahu, who already is limping as a result of upheaval surrounding legal reform. Moreover, throwing Netanyahu reeling on his heels was a way to neutralize his obstructing America's gallop towards a new nuclear deal with Iran. The Middle East team was also determined to hold up progress on advancing Israeli-Saudi peace not only to further isolate Netanyahu and deny him any appearance of victory but to block his work with the Saudis to derail the US attempt to come to terms with Iran.

As such, the administration had no interest in throwing the prime minister a lifeline or calming tensions. In fact, it was interested in exacerbating them. It even floated a trial balloon, which Netanyahu's opposition seized upon with great focus, in the form of an editorial by Thomas Friedman in The New York Times arguing that the United States is reassessing (read downgrading) US-Israeli relations. As such, the administration hoped honoring Israel's premier would politically defeat Netanyahu on his own turf.

Another reason for cropping Herzog's visit as an ersatz for Netanyahu's was the bitter experiences of the Biden team, most of whom are veterans of Obama's administration, whenever Netanyahu brought his case to American soil previously. The administration's hesitation stems not only from the 2015 Netanyahu visit – when Netanyahu appealed directly to Congress and the American people against the emerging nuclear deal with Iran – but from earlier visits when Netanyahu displayed a unique ability to connect with both American conservatives and pro-Israeli liberals. The language and imagery of his speeches and press interviews evoked deeply held ideas that American leaders themselves struggle at times to masterfully express. This posed a direct challenge to former President Barack Obama, who himself was a master of imagery. Not only did the Israeli leader know how to play on Obama's turf, terms and constituency, but he did so well. In fact, the reaction in Congress and the media suggested that the prime minister bested the political master.

Biden clearly is not the political master Obama was. His political appeal is neither ideas nor imagery, but commonality. If it was difficult for Obama to parry Netanyahu on American turf, the Biden team knows it could become no contest.

Given how dearly the Biden team held isolating Netanyahu and focusing blame for US-Israeli tensions solely on him, a visit by Netanyahu – connecting directly with the American people, being feted in Congress and filling the airwaves – could be disastrous for the US administration's strategy. When The Wall Street Journal, which is read by a far larger and more influential audience than Friedman, ran a staff editorial answering Friedman and blasting the Biden administration for its hostility towards Israel, it aroused the US administration's anxiety in relation to a successful, popular visit by Netanyahu; it would completely undermine its strategy to load full blame on deteriorating relations on him alone.

And yet, on the eve of Herzog's visit, Biden invited Netanyahu. Why?

First, Biden may disagree with Israel's prime minister, but he is generally not seen as harboring an animus against Israel. Whenever he connects directly with Netanyahu, they seem to get along, which is why Biden's Middle East team was so determined to keep them from talking.

Second, regarding Iran, it became increasingly unlikely that there is much daylight between Netanyahu and Herzog. In fact, Netanyahu sent the administration via Herzog a strong message: no Israeli support for the emerging nuclear deal and no more promises of "no surprises." Read: Israel reserves the right to strike Iran without advance warning. This ranks among the most unnerving of scenarios for an administration whose essence is anchored on deterring Israel from acting and instead deferring to US diplomacy. Engagement with Netanyahu suddenly became essential to maintaining enough leverage to reel the Israeli prime minister back, although that ship may have already sailed.

Third, Israel's presidency is ceremonial. Herzog adeptly used his office to help navigate the internal upheaval over reform, but he cannot allow himself to be reduced to an instrument in the US administration's campaign to discredit Netanyahu internally. The administration's aspirations to do so represent a serious threat to distort Israel's governmental structure, and it is inconceivable that the Israeli president would allow himself successfully to become a party to this. Given this, it became also unlikely that Biden still viewed this as a productive path to isolating Netanyahu.

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Fourth, the administration is losing its domestic footing on Iran. The removal and investigation of its voice on Iran – Malley – has snowballed into calls for transparency and public debate on American policy not only among conservatives but liberals as well. Biden, not Netanyahu, appears more on the defensive.

Finally, the outbursts of the progressive caucus, which represents a third of congressional democrats, against Israel and their collective boycott of Herzog's speech forced liberal Democrats to recoil, flock towards and express support for Israel. The US administration regards a Netanyahu visit as politically dangerous, but ostracizing the prime minister proved even more damaging.

In other words, the context of Herzog's visit shifted. The administration's attempt to isolate Netanyahu yielded to expressions by conservatives and centrist liberals alike – the latter of which Biden cannot ignore – to reaffirm the specialness and strength of relations.

Taken together, Herzog's visit appeared that it was less likely to isolate Netanyahu than threaten to isolate the US administration on its Iran and Israel policies. Potentially facing a setback on its own turf, even absent to a visit by Netanyahu, the US administration encountered the stark lesson of politics: Beware the law of unintended consequences. Simply, continued branding the scarlet letter on Netanyahu had become a greater liability for the Biden administration than engaging him.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Much ink will be consumed in the coming days and weeks analyzing the terms of the new deal over Iran's nuclear program brokered by Russia. As dispiriting as these valuable analyses will be – and they will be, if they are accurate – it is important to understand in regional terms the magnitude of the geostrategic collapse that our acceptance of this deal in the Middle East will cause.

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We Americans profoundly believe in the universal nature of our concept of freedom, and thus tend to give short shrift to the influence of culture and civilization on the political mentality of states. In the Middle East, alongside the physical remains of ancient civilizations, are the remains of their cultures underlying the region's politics.

The political imagery of many Islamic cultures emanates from their nomadic, tribal and clan origins. While that may, in some cases, overlay an older urban culture, the penetration of Arab influence via Islam still shapes their politics.

Even in ancient times, the greatest Arab tribes filled the lattices of power between the great urban civilizations, rather than function as an empire in themselves. Indeed, the rise of the Umayyads and the Abbasids as independent Arab empires actually was a rather short-lived ahistorical anomaly. Baghdad fell by 965 to the Persians Buyids. As such, this tribal soul, rather than the ethos of urban empire and the strategic behavior that this soul engenders, is easily visible in current Arab politics.

To understand the current situation, it helps to consider the case of revenge-killing in tribal and clan dynamics. Americans whose descent originated north of Hadrian's Wall and who study their heritage are more familiar with this, and are indeed quite proud of their history and the values it implies.

But, for the purpose of understanding what the Iran deal means in regional terms, one must consider first the dynamics of hostile relations among tribes. Specifically, a cycle of revenge and counter-revenge among tribes for a murder ends when a tribe signals that it lifting its protective status over one of its members. This means that he is fair game and can be murdered with impunity – and the cycle is thus broken.

This tribal essence is intertwined with early Islamic history and ties directly to the Prophet Muhammad. One cannot dissociate Islam from its historical origins or Arab roots. Muhammad, whose message threatened the powerful tribal aristocracy of Mecca, could live in Mecca safely, as long as his powerful uncle, Abu Talib, the leader of the immensely powerful Banu Hashim clan, extended his protection over him after his parents died. However, the moment that Abu Talib lifted that protection, Muhammad was essentially served a death warrant. He was fair game; his life was forfeited; and he had to flee to Medina.

In this context, the United States is not really understood as a nation, but more as the most powerful clan on earth, the clan of clans. Think of us in that context as being the Banu Amrika, the "children" or tribe of Americans.

We, the Banu Amrika, are seen by other weaker clans as the patron of an allied league. The region's clans and tribes align with us and pledge their fealty in exchange for enjoying our power and the umbrella of protection that comes with it.

Similarly, the Israelis are not seen in Western terms of parliamentary democracy, but as the Banu Israil, and Prime Minister Bennett is viewed as the tribal leader of the Jews.

As such, in tribal terms, our concessions to and agreement with Iran, whose open goal is the annihilation of our local allied tribes – the Banu Saud (Saudi Arabia), Banu Maktoum (United Arab Emirates), Banu al-Khalifa (Bahrain) and the Banu Israil (Israel) – means that we lift our umbrella of protection over them.

Their lives are forfeited, and anyone, internal or external, who wants to kill them is now released to do so without fear of revenge. The Saudis, Emiratis and Israelis are now alone and marked with a death warrant issued by their own strong horse. Worse, we have essentially anointed Iran as the new regional power to which all must bend the knee.

As such, the Arabs in the region are reacting uncharacteristically bluntly, sharply and acerbically, not out of pique, but out of survival. They must immediately find a new strong horse, a new patron, or they are dead. China stands out, and making peace with Russia to call off its dogs is essential. But they must first scramble, follow the American precedent and bend their knees to Tehran, as well. They have no choice but to grovel to their enemies or die because to continue to hope for the United States is the path of certain death.

Israel, of course, is a Western country, and such a construct is not inherent to its understanding of itself. This may work internally (though it's dubious since it implies a different political framework with its own Arabs), but it cannot work strategically in its position and relations with the region. Israel may have an urban soul and a Western outlook, but it lives in the region and must understand that it, too, now is seen as a tribe marked for death by its patron.

So Israel is at a crossroads. It has three paths: It can accept its elimination; it can scramble like its Arab kin to grovel in front of Russia and China; or it can leverage its raw power to emerge as the region's strongest tribe to become a strong horse itself. The second path will fail in violence – Israel's fate is tied to the West inherently – leaving Israel only the choice of the first (accept death) or third (establish itself as a great regional power) paths.

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For the moment, Arab tribes have only the choice of the first or second paths, which means that they face death, since, as in the case of Israel, the second path will eventually fail and leave only the other path.

But if Israel chooses the third path and emerges as the strong horse, then it opens for the Arabs a new path for survival with Israel's becoming their new protective strong horse – but only if Israel chooses the third path. It can only get close to its Arab neighbors if it is useful for their survival. This means that Israel must act to prove it is the strong horse.

It is tempting to compare the faltering of the United States's regional stature to the collapse of the British and French positions in the late 1950s and 1960s. That collapse indeed was catastrophic. It exposed the region to Soviet penetration and triggered a new age of indigenously inspired radical challenges to traditional leaderships (the long-term effects of which we continue to suffer).

And yet, even that cataclysm will pale in comparison to the current collapse of the U.S.'s position, since the British and French retreat six decades ago seamlessly transitioned into the parallel rise of American power, which, to a large extent, compensated for its negative effects.

The American retreat has no global force to replace it, other than our adversaries, China or Russia. Regionally, perhaps Israel can fill the void left by the U.S. and buffer the impending collapse of American power. Hopefully, it can help our jilted allies survive, preserve some of our regional interests, check our regional adversaries and prevent our global opponents from seizing full control of the region.

But while Israel is powerful, it is not a global superpower. It cannot replace the regaining of our senses. But the damage now being done will be the work of generations to repair. Let's hope that the enterprise soon begins.

Dr. David Wurmser is director of the Center for Security Policy's Project on Global Antisemitism and the US-Israel Relationship. A former US Navy Reserve intelligence officer, he has extensive national security experience working for the State Department, the Pentagon, Vice President Dick Cheney, and the National Security Council.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Over the last week, there have been increasing signs that Hamas may be preparing to re-initiate hostilities, starting along the border at a trickle, and then more as they go along. These signs should be taken seriously since the underlying tectonic forces that in part led to the last war are still in place.

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And yet, in this particular situation, there is a new dimension that can further fuel the choice towards escalation by Hamas, as well as for the panoply of other actors that previously played a contributing role in detonating the region last month. It is likely that Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, the Joint Arab List in Israel, and Iran and Turkey outside Israel all have a strong common interest in sabotaging the new Israeli government taking shape.

This is most easily done via escalation, particularly because of the above-mentioned forces being threatened by Mansour Abbas and his United Arab List party (Ra'am). It is possible that even Jordan might harbor hostility, not because incoming Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is seen as a symbol of the settler movement, but because it cannot comfortably accept the success of Mansour Abbas.

Why? What does Mansour Abbas represent?

To answer, one must examine what he is not. He is not a dreamy peace processor. Nor is he given to grand theories of regional cooperation or of some contractual permanent change that would demand an alteration of his basic system of Islamic beliefs. No such leader would or could survive in any Arab society.

The cultural root of Arab society is nomadic, and tribal traditions that even predate Islam are as important as religious dogma. Any civilization anchored to a nomadic soul views its survival through the personal capability and following of the leadership of the tribe, which is really a quite different matter from our image of tribes shaped by Hollywood in Westerns.

Families – clans -- are part of the Middle Eastern tribe, a discussion of which is beyond the scope of this essay. Suffice it to say, though, that institutions in such societies are not envisioned as "trusts," as they are in urban societies of the West, but are embodiments of the tribal leader, who in turn is not a custodian of a permanent institution or "office," but constitutes its very essence.

When Muhammad died, Abu Baqr was named the Caliph, but the tribes revolted. This was not because they opposed him, but because they had no institutional loyalty to the Caliphate. Abu Baqr had to personally renegotiate the terms of loyalty with every tribe, each of which would continue in revolt until he did. Indeed, the relationship between the leader and his "tribe" of followers is a very personal affair.

Contrast this with the concept of leader and institution in the West. While any leader in the West owes those in society who helped him rise to the top, the office he assumes and the institution that he heads have their own existence as a possession of all the people of the community. A United States president, while obviously trying to realize policies that deliver for his supporters, is bound to talk about being the president of all Americans.

He loses his personal validity the moment he tries to limit the office or institution to the narrow purview of clan or tribal head. There are even strict laws against such favoritism in US politics.

Not so in the Middle East; the inverse is true. A leader who does not pursue the interests of his tribe has betrayed its members' personal trust in him, costing him his claim to loyalty and following, and thus his personal validity.

In short, the mission or purpose of the tribal leader is primarily to deliver the survival and welfare of the clans in his tribe. In urban Mideast settings, traditional tribes, or the identity of having come from a tribe, still exist and are important, but are weaker.

Still, one's tribal origins in the Middle East are part of one's soul. Moreover, the patterns of politics and the nature of leadership remain baked into the culture, despite its having been urbanized, and are understood in those terms.

In the Middle East, the prime minister of Israel is seen as much in personal terms, as the leader of the Jewish "tribe," as he is understood in the West to be the custodian of the institution of the Israeli state. The US president is seen in such terms as well, and is expected to act as required along those lines.

When Israelis or Americans speak in grandiose theoretical terms about the global order or regional peace, it's simply confusing to Middle Easterners. What tribal leader would talk about regional structures of conflict resolution and "interests of the international community" as standing above the interests of the tribes they represent? What tribal leader in his right mind would give in to expectations that he cede his tribal authority voluntarily?

Since survival as a community is the basic aim in a harsh environment, the legitimacy of one's tribal leadership is based on how well he protects and provides for the tribe. Each tribe member understands that his survival and welfare are derivative of the tribe, so his purpose is to help his tribe survive, and in turn, he exists under the tribe's protection. If some member wants to be individualistic, he can do so as a dead person.

The tribal leader, thus, to provide for and protect his tribe, must always be on the lookout for the "strong horse" to which he attaches his tribe and to which he links their fate. The wrong choice, or some "principled" choice, represents a fundamental failure and abdication of authority. So the basis of all leadership and politics is seeking and signing with the rising power.

As such a "tribal" leader, Mansour Abbas has made the choice – to some extent similar to that made by the tribal leaders of Abu Ghosh in 1948 – to tether his tribe to Israel,  which he sees as the strongest horse. It is the same choice that the United Arab Emirates has made, based on the expectation of Israel's being and remaining a rising power.

The other Arab leaders in this picture all hedge or think that Israel will not prevail. They follow in the footsteps of so many Arab leaders before them, who climbed over the precipice into the abyss by viewing Nazism, Communism, China, Saddam's Iraq, Iran, Turkey or ISIS and Al-Qaida as the rising and prevailing powers. So they, as these previous Arab leaders have done, attach themselves to any movement against Israel and the United States.

As long as the US and Israel understand that they are viewed in the Middle East as the leaders of their "tribes," they can navigate the region successfully, garnering power and following along the way. But when America and Israel try to be above it all and think like detached academics or political utopians who believe in conflict resolution or pacifism – or, worse, engage in self-denigrating or conciliatory actions, as they've often done before and as Washington is now asking again of its ally in Jerusalem – both countries will lose all value as "strong horses."

Both become toxic and are to be fled from as fast as possible, leaving them alone and under attack, even by those who just a moment ago were their "best friends" – particularly, in fact, by those newfound "best friends" because they, more than anybody, have to dissociate themselves from their catastrophic misreading of the identity of the strong horse.

Mansour Abbas is essentially now a "tribal" leader of a substantial group of Arabs, esoterically the Negev Arabs, most of whom are Bedouin. As such, he relates to Israel as the strong horse with which it is in his tribe's best interest to align, assuming Israel understands and accepts its role as the strong horse. In this way, it's quite possible that he sees Bennett's pedigree as a hardliner and graduate of the Israel Defense Forces General Staff commando unit not as offensive, but as advantageous.

His participation in the incoming Israeli government thus means several things for the other Arabs.

1

He bartered his support for the Israeli strong horse in exchange for the genuine empowerment of an Arab party – something the Joint Arab List leadership has forfeited for decades by championing the Palestinian flag over the Israeli one and serving consistently as apologists for the violence and rejection of the state of Israel that this represents.

In some ways, his fate is tied and dependent on his gamble, namely on his bet on Israel's success and remaining strong. He is thus the domestic Arab opposite of the local Arab followers of the external rejection front led by Syria, Iran, the PLO, Turkey and others (in practice even Qatar) – namely Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the PLO's many factions, including PA leader Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction, some members of whom have even wound up in exile in the capitals of their preferred external "strong horses."

All these rejectionist forces, within and outside of Israel, have staked the credibility of their leadership over their "tribes" and clans on Israel's weakness, temptation to conciliation and peace processes, which it is assumed will lead to Israel's retreat and ultimate demise. In contrast, Mansour Abbas can roughly be considered the internal Israeli Arab equivalent of the UAE, which signed the Abraham Accords. While his informing dogma may still not, and likely never will, accept the genuine legitimacy of the Jewish state, the "tribal" leader he represents –and his irreducible need to deliver protection for his followers – drives him to reconcile and seek the fulfillment of his community's interests through some sort of reconciliation and accommodation with Israel.

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In the process, he has rendered himself the mortal enemy of these rival "tribes" and their leadership, namely those whose primary allegiance is to the various shades of the rejectionist front. This is a fight to the death, so they will do anything to tear him down. Just as Iran and Turkey view the Abraham Accords as a mortal strategic threat, so, too, will they view him.

2

The outside forces of the rejectionist front – which ultimately include the PLO, as well, despite the fiction clung to by Western elites of its moderation – have been forced to surrender their monopoly. With agony, they watch their rival, Mansour Abbas, leverage his access to Israeli power to deliver to his followers what they cannot.

He, like the UAE externally, annulled their veto over any movement towards reconciliation with Israel. Jews and Arabs, this time internally rather than regionally, could find formulas to work together when their interests converge, even without having to first solve the "Palestinian issue" over which the rejectionist front held a veto.

The other Abbas, Mahmoud Abbas, head of the PA and PLO, once again had his rudimentary persona and purpose rejected. So, apart from his having a new rival (Mansour Abbas) for the street from which he largely already is humiliatingly rejected, he also suddenly finds himself, his movement and the balloon of the PA's importance as "the indispensable factor" punctured.  Mansour Abbas threatens Mahmoud Abbas as much as the Abraham Accords did.

3

Hamas, Iran and Turkey invested immensely in creating the sort of fundamental breakdown of law and order that was expressed through the Arab uprising instigated during the recent war between Israel and Hamas. For the first time since 1948, the internal fabric of Israeli society was ripped, and the very real danger of an Arab-Jewish communal civil war threatened, within a single month.

Now, only a few weeks later,  the leader of Yamina, a party whose platform stands to the right of the outgoing Israeli government, embraced and invited Mansour Abbas into the inner circle of Israeli power structures. Symbolically, Hamas's greatest achievement of the war has been challenged, eroded and potentially burst as suddenly as it exploded last month. Hamas has been humiliated by Mansour Abbas.

4

Palestinians in Gaza, Judea and Samaria have increasingly looked with envy at the ability of Israelis to be free and express themselves. While still uneasy about accepting the image of political chaos as potentially an expression and form of strength rather than weakness, the Palestinians are growing more attractive to Israeli society when it's juxtaposed with the suppression, corruption and brutality of their own. This rightly unnerves and poses a threat to their rulers' legitimacy. It may also threaten other regional leaders since Mansour Abbas and Israel have managed to deliver the only genuinely democratic path to the enfranchisement of Arabs in the Middle East, which neither the Arab Spring nor any other fashionable Arab ideological movement of the last century accomplished.

5

Iran and Turkey invested heavily, in effort and coin, in creating a new Palestinian-Arab leadership that echoes and furthers their regional power ambitions. And then along comes Mansour Abbas out of nowhere and grabs the standard of leadership over Israel's Arab citizens, especially but not exclusively the Bedouin. Another balloon bursts, and the vast resources spent by Iran, Turkey and Qatar go up in flames.

6

Mansour Abbas also places in a potentially precarious position Jordanian King Abdullah II, who's spent the last decade making a series of grave mistakes. Foremost among these has been his allowing himself to be defined so consistently as the cheerleader for the Palestinian camp that's he's become its shadow. But he isn't a Palestinian.

He may be a descendent of the Prophet Muhammad, and thus a pan-Arab and pan-Islamic leader, but he also is essentially the current head of the Hejazi Bedouin tribes from which he hails. As such, he gained little real following among the Palestinians and forfeited the following of the Hejazi Bedouin, whom he offended. These are the tribes that traditionally form the core of the Hashemite Kingdom and without whose support the state of Jordan loses its raison d'etre.

Abdullah's misplaced attention was exemplified in 2017, when he intervened, mostly unhelpfully, in the unrest on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. This was following a terrorist attack, launched from within the compound, in which two Israel Police officers were killed. At the same time, the Hawaitat tribe, which had been loyal to the Hashemite family since the Arab Revolt in World War I a century ago, threatened to withdraw its loyalty over for Abdullah's prosecution of two of the tribe's members for a terrorist attack on American soldiers. Abdullah chose to focus on the Palestinian crisis rather than on his own regime-threatening one.

In short, the Jordanian king has been so busy entangling himself with the PLO-based Palestinian movement, and so focused on becoming, for Western consumption, Mahmoud Abbas's champion, that he forgot he was the tribal head of the Hejazi Bedouin, the core of his state.

He has been acting like a man without a tribe. This ultimately is what underlies the dangerous rift between himself and Prince Hamza, who clearly had powerful supporters among the Hejazi tribes.

Across the African Rift Valley in the Negev in southern Israel, Mansour Abbas established his leadership most by championing the cause of the Bedouin tribes. Their concerns and issues formed the unsurrenderable core of the demands that he made when negotiating his entry into the Israeli government. He delivered. So, in some ways, he is the de facto tribal leader of the Negev Arab Bedouin tribes.

Despite the harshness and difficulty of traversing the African Rift Valley, there is effectively no border dividing the Hejazi tribes from the Bedouin of the Negev. Historically – indeed, going all the way back to the ancient Nabateans – the tribal allegiances of today's southern Jordan and Israel ran up and down from the north in Ma'an to the south in the Hejaz, but equally from the east in Ma'an to the West in Beersheba.

It is unclear how solid the tribal connections are now, long after 1948, but the rise of a de facto champion of the Negev Bedouin must register on the tribal radar of the Hejazi, who have been left dangerously abandoned and orphaned by the Palestinian-focused, British-groomed Jordanian king – someone who still fits more comfortably in the meeting halls of Davos than in a tent near Aqaba.

To note, when a tribal member or group is abandoned in Arab society, his or its life or existence is forfeited. When the Prophet Muhammad fled Mecca to Medina – since his uncle had to surrender his protection – it was understood by both Muhammad and the Meccan establishment as tantamount to a death sentence. One can only imagine what the Hejazi tribes today feel as they sense their abandonment by King Abdullah for his Palestinian allies. They are seeking a champion, and the Saudis – who preside over those same Hejazi tribes on their side of the border – anxiously look at King Abdallah's failure and probably hope that he tribes find a new patron, perhaps one attached to a strong horse-like Israel.

So, it is possible that Mansour Abbas, as the most prominent champion right now of Bedouin interests, threatens even King Abdullah. Emirati and Saudi fears over the unhinged status of the Hejazi tribes – which, abandoned and drifting, could easily wander to a new patron hostile to Riyadh or Abu Dhabi, such as Turkey – could be somewhat allayed by the success of Mansour Abbas among the Bedouin Arabs.

The drift of the Negev Arabs was dangerously pinning close to Hamas and other regional malefactors, particularly Turkey whose nemeses are Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. It is dubious that Abdullah is shrewd enough at this point to realize this, but eventually could see this as a threat.

In other words, the success of Mansour Abbas represents a catastrophe for powerful interests everywhere. It is to be expected, then, that interested parties, all of whom have the power to act, will in fact work to sabotage him at all costs, the quickest route being an escalation to violence or war.

 Reprinted with permission from JNS.org

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President Joe Biden on Thursday evening claimed credit for brokering a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, saying: "I want to also thank the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, our national security adviser, and everyone on our team for their incredible efforts to bring this about, this outcome that we're about to see." There is no doubt that the president is to be granted his due by the media and his allies, but it may well be that he will soon come to wish he hadn't attached so much of his reputation to it. Indeed, the ceasefire may enable Hamas not only to assert its dominance over the Palestinian Authority, but also to threaten and potentially even unravel the Jordan-Israeli peace treaty using the issue of Jerusalem.

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Jordan already felt the heat as the war was ending. Just before the ceasefire took effect, the King of Jordan's court released a tweet that noted that King Abdullah II had received a phone call from Vice President Kamala Harris, and the two "affirm the need to continue all efforts to stop the Israeli escalations in East #Jerusalem and the aggression on Gaza." It is dubious that Harris used such loaded language to describe Israeli moves, but the king tends to weigh in in inflated terms on Palestinian issues because he believes he can co-opt them and thus neutralize the threat they can pose. But the statement issued by the King of Jordan following his call with Harris is very troubling because this is not something that can be co-opted, defanged and domesticated.

At the end of the ceasefire, Hamas issued the claim that Israel had yielded on Jerusalem issues and surrendered both the Temple Mount and Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. It would be a grave mistake to simply dismiss this as face-saving rhetoric. Indeed, we, Jordan and Israel are walking into an extremely dangerous trap on Jerusalem which Hamas has laid in the framework of this ceasefire.

Israel denies it ever agreed to such a devastating concession, and yet, it does not matter whether Hamas is telling the truth. The fact is, since the rioting escalated to the Temple Mount surrounding the Muslim holiday of Laylat al-Qadr two weeks ago, the Israeli government has barred any Jew from setting foot on the Temple Mount. It did so as a temporary tactical move to calm unnecessary tensions. However, the war is now over, which means in the coming days, Israel will have to make a decision as to whether it will lift that ban. If it does lift the ban, Jews will again be able to go to the Temple Mount, at which point Hamas will ensure that there will be violence so that it maintains and emphasizes its control of events.

That event will represent an immediate escalation, and Jordan will be unable to take a neutral position given the cul-de-sac into which it has rhetorically maneuvered itself. The resulting violence which Hamas will instigate now that it has such immense currency on the Palestinian street will not only threaten the survival of the Palestinian Authority, but it could even reverberate enough to destabilize the Hashemite monarchy in Jordan.

On the other hand, if Israel buckles to avoid escalation and continues to bar Jews from the Temple Mount after the ceasefire, then it creates a de facto new status quo that cannot be reversed and will quickly become permanent. This would give Hamas a devastating victory over not only Israel but over the Jewish people, ripping a hole into the soul of the nation. The political power Hamas would gain from this would make it at any rate master of both the PA and Jordan, which so unwisely laid down a stake on this issue rather than try to ride it out with as low a profile as possible.

The historical record of this particular king with regard to his ability to escape this trap is not encouraging since he has thus far displayed neither the political nor geopolitical skills to navigate previous crises elegantly without threatening the stability of his throne. As such, there is little hope that he could outsmart Hamas and help the United States or Israel regain control over the situation, or even whether he has the agility to survive.

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In short, Hamas has positioned itself in a win-win position over all its enemies, presenting the world with the final verdict in this 11-day war and positioning itself to gut Judaism and threaten both Jordan and the PA

We will see shortly whether Israel lifts the prohibition and a Jew ascends the Mount. If so, then we have a crisis in which Jordan, because of its imprudent intervention, will be forced to react with such intensity that it may cause the peace treaty to falter materially. If on the other hand, the ban is not immediately lifted, then Hamas has successfully changed the status quo to ban Jews, leaving Jordan and PA leader Mahmoud Abbas fatally weak.

This ceasefire is fraught with great peril, and the president should be careful not to attach too much of his or the United States' reputation and stature to it. It may indeed turn out to be a historical turning point, but not a positive one.

Featured on JNS.org, this article was first published by the Center for Security Policy.

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Early videos, detected by Stephen Bryen, show from some distance a large, broad-based, and deeply thick black cloud rising over what is said to be the Zergan power plant.

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In a second, close-up video, the fire appears to be focused in a small area, with thin, light-brown smoke.

Like the previous events in Iran, the videos appear more to raise than to quell questions. The two fires seem to be of different size, the smoke is of a different color, and the latter is again a tightly cropped segment. The latter clearly shows some sort of transformer burning and fire crews dousing it, but in the periphery of the shot, destruction and burn marks can be seen continuing and possibly stretching back to somewhere behind the camera.

The plant pictured in this Ahvaz event is reported to be the Zergan Gas Turbine Power Plant, and publicly at least, there is no information available that this site has any nuclear or missile affiliations. The Darkhovin nuclear facility, which is sensitive and of great concern as a possible nuclear weapons site, is in the vicinity of Ahvaz, but not adjacent to this power plant. There is no evidence at this point that it has suffered an unfortunate event.

On the night of the first of this series of "accidents," less noticed than the major event at the Khojir missile site 70 kilometers (44 miles) southwest of Tehran, was an event that happened in distant Shiraz but has never been explained. That night, at about the same time Khojir was attacked, the Shiraz power plant suffered a massive explosion and fire, which plunged Shiraz into a complete power outage.

Later in the day, the Iranian government admitted that the Karun petrochemical plant in the city of Mahshahr, just south of Ahvaz, had suffered a major chlorine leak, which resulted in 70 workers there being hospitalized, at least one of whom is in critical condition. Images of the greenish-yellow gases being emitted are available.

There is no direct link between the explosions and fires in the Zergan Gas Turbine Power Plant and the Karun petrochemical plant since they are some distance from each other, but it can also not be ruled out that they may be related events, including the possibility that the power outages may have triggered the chlorine gas leak.

Chlorine gas does release a yellowish-green cloud, and thus the Iranian images are consistent with such an accident. But there are other gases that also can release a cloud with such a color, some of which would be consistent with the conversion of uranium hexafluoride or uranium tetrafluoride (UF6 or UF4) into or out of U3O8, which is the preferred storage state of uranium. There is no way to know whether the Iranians are telling the truth that this was chlorine, but in this particular aspect, their reporting would at least be consistent with the images which emerged. In short, there is no evidence that raises doubts about their story.

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These incidents at Ahvaz came exactly two days after the Natanz incident, which was exactly two days after the incident in Tehran's Tarjish Square Sina Athar clinic, which in turn was exactly two days after the events in Khojir and Shiraz.

Again, as with all previous events, the corruption of the Iranian regime has generated such deep incompetence that horrible accidents are becoming commonplace in Iran. But the steady stream of two-days-apart events raises serious doubts that mere coincidence is to blame.

Moreover, the parallels between the Shiraz and Ahvaz power plant incidents are noteworthy. Unlike Khojir and Natanz, neither are known sites of any military significance. However, it would be reasonable to assume that inducing a vast power outage could be tactically essential if opposition groups or special forces required access to sensitive facilities in a given area. In other words, these power plants may not have been the primary targets, in attacks about which we currently know nothing.

There is also the possibility that this is a piggy-back attack. Iranian opposition groups have always been strong and active in the Ahvaz province. Seeing what is transpiring across the country in other sites, they could have chosen this moment to conduct a copy-cat attack.

One thing is clear, in a country where the population deeply suspects its official news services, conspiracy theories will abound. Regardless of what has actually happened in these several events, the perception popularly is that the regime is under attack. Few will accept these as all coincidental accidents.

Moreover, the climate of corruption leading to incompetence is a huge problem bedeviling the Iranian regime. When the incompetence leads to perceived impotence, the regime faces a potentially fatal upheaval. Even if the last event was a piggy-back attack, indeed, even if it were a genuine accident, the regime is endangered by a reputation for incompetent impotence.

This article was first published by the Center for Security Policy.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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