But strong-arm tactics, no matter how justified, had fallen out of favor. Turkey eventually seized nearly 40% of the island and set up the self-styled Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), but the world has never accepted its legitimacy. It has been recognized by no international organization and no country other than Turkey itself.

 Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

So for most of the past 45 years, the issue has been one of those many unresolved political problems that the world seems content to view with a blind eye, like Russia's seizure of Crimea in 2014.  But the discovery around 2010 of vast reserves of liquefied natural gas (LNG) off the coasts of Israel and Cyprus was bound to bring equally vast consequences in its train.

Among the first, and perhaps the least anticipated, has been the creation of a new geopolitical entity in the eastern Mediterranean – a tripartite alliance of Greece, Cyprus, and Israel that promises to bring both stability to the region, and the prospect of enormous technological, economic, and environmental advances.

The next, and even more surprising development, was the foundation in January 2019 of the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum (EMGF) by a consortium consisting of Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, Israel, Italy, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority. Energy ministers from each met in Cairo in July 2019 to discuss how to accelerate the development of the region's vast gas resources and to increase cooperation.

Turkey is not a signatory to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and does not recognize the government of Cyprus, so it has been drilling for some years in waters internationally recognized as being part of Cyprus's maritime waters.  Accordingly, it was not invited to participate in the new forum.

The EU has repeatedly said it considers Turkey's drilling offshore Cyprus as illegal and, together with the US, has warned Turkey to halt its operations. In July, the EU suspended all EU-Turkey high-level dialogue and asked the European Investment Bank to review its lending activities in Turkey. In November 2019, the EU imposed new sanctions on Turkey, saying they would be lifted as soon as Turkey ceased its unauthorized drilling operations.

Turkey is driven by a sort of illegal logic.  Having seized and occupied northern Cyprus, it is now claiming a share in the vast oil and liquefied natural gas bonanza that has unexpectedly appeared off the coastline of its unrecognized Republic.

On Dec. 15, Turkey racked up tension in the region by sending a military drone to Cyprus to protect its two ships drilling for oil and gas. Reacting to the immediate objections from the EU, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan threatened to close two key US bases on Turkish soil – Incirlik, from where American jets target Islamic State targets, and Kurecik, home to a NATO radar station.

In adopting an obviously aggressive stance, Erdoğan is reacting to the US threat of sanctions over Turkey's purchase of Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missiles.  He is also angry about recent votes in Congress recognizing the 1915 mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as genocide. Erdoğan is also making a pre-emptive strike against Washington's plans to establish a security organization in the eastern Mediterranean based on the cooperation of countries like Greece, Cyprus, Israel, and Jordan – a project to be discussed at the trilateral summit between Greece, Cyprus, and Israel scheduled for Dec. 19 and 20.

Meanwhile, the vast potential of the oil and gas reserves in the Energy Triangle is beginning to be realized. Israel is to start pipeline exports to Egypt before the end of 2019, while Cyprus has also reached a provisional deal to pipe gas to Egypt from its Aphrodite field. A key infrastructure project in the region is the EastMed pipeline, planned for completion by 2025.

With the political backing of Cyprus, Greece, Israel, and Italy this ambitious 2,100-kilometer (1,300 mile) pipeline is designed to link the offshore gas resources of both Cyprus and Israel to Greece and Italy.  Turkey's frustration at being excluded from these highly lucrative enterprises is understandable, but it is not likely to win a share by way of a maverick effort directed against the combined will of the rest of the world.

The post Turkey racks up tension in the eastern Med appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

The wood, hidden from view by these burgeoning trees, is the fact that it is Israel's current electoral system that has landed the country in this mess. The way governments are elected is in urgent need of reconsideration and reform.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

What are its obvious weaknesses? To anyone nurtured in the bosom of US or UK democracy, the most obvious problem is that Israeli general elections do not return a majority party but require weeks of intensive backroom negotiations before a government can be formed and that sometimes these negotiations fail to deliver. Having failed twice, what assurance is there that a third general election would yield a different outcome?

Israel's system presupposes that all governments will be coalitions. But no immutable law states that democratic governments must be coalitions. The normal result of general elections in the UK and the US is that one or another of the two main parties is returned to power with a working majority and subsequently form a government. Neither require weeks of sometimes unsavory wheeling and dealing following elections.

When the Israeli electorate goes to the polls, they are asked to choose the one party among the many competing – sometimes 30 or more – with whose policies they most agree. The number of seats that each party gains in the Knesset is almost exactly proportional to the number of votes the party obtains in the general election. That is a democratic plus.

The downside is that inevitably the nation's vote is fractured. No one party can emerge as the outright winner. Hence the backroom trading and bargaining. Concessions are demanded by the smaller parties in return for their support. The policies finally agreed between the cobbled-together majority can be far from the policies any elector voted for.

A considerable additional weakness in the current arrangements is the total lack of personal engagement between members of the Knesset and the people. MKs gain their seats because of their position on their party lists. In the US, citizens know who the two senators representing their state are, just as they know by name the individual who represents their constituency in Congress.

The UK is divided into 650 constituencies, each of which returns one member of Parliament (MP) in a first-past-the-post voting system. Once elected that MP is deemed to represent all the voters in the constituency, and any of them with a problem would look to "their" MP for help. Every voter, therefore, has a direct personal link with an MP, whether that MP is a backbencher or a minister – even the prime minister.

The main disadvantage of first-past-the-post is that seats in parliament do not match the national voting pattern. Candidates can and do win a seat having gained far less than 50% of the votes in their constituency. The system produces large majorities but a democratic deficit.

Proposals to reform Israel's electoral system by combining the constituency concept with proportionality have been put forward on several occasions. The last attempt, in 1988, proposed that Israel be divided into 60 constituencies, each of which would elect one MK, while another 60 would be elected by the current system. We would all vote for both a candidate and a list. The proposal foundered.

Back in 2005, President Moshe Katsav set up a commission to examine constitutional issues including the electoral system. It met regularly for more than a year, and it too finally favored a combined system although with a different constituency structure. The commission's recommendations, like earlier attempts at electoral reform, were not followed up. Nor indeed were subsequent efforts, like those of Professor Menahem Ben-Sasson in 2006.

This is a nettle that must be grasped. The dire events of 2019 point in no other direction. Electoral reform simply must be a major element in the political program of Israel's next government, whenever it is formed.

The post Time for electoral reform appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Many believe that Hezbollah, deemed a terrorist organization by large parts of the world, had created a "state within a state" inside Lebanon. Many believe that the Lebanese state and Hezbollah are in effect indistinguishable.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

In theory, Lebanon should be a template for a future peaceful Middle East. It is the only Middle East country which, by its very constitution, shares power equally between Sunni and Shiite Muslims and Christians. Theory, however, has had to bow to practical reality. Lebanon has been highly unstable for much of its existence, and its unique constitution has tended to exacerbate, rather than eliminate, sectarian conflict.

How complete is Hezbollah's takeover of the state of Lebanon? As regards the economy, Hezbollah has large investments in the Lebanese banking sector and in a wide range of businesses. On the political front, it is stronger than ever.

The country went to the polls in May 2018. The elections saw the Hezbollah-led political alliance win just over half of the parliamentary seats. A major factor in Hezbollah's popularity – especially among Lebanon's Shiite population – is the vast network of social services, funded by Iran, that it runs, providing healthcare, education, finance, welfare, and communications. It has virtually taken over the state's function in many areas. The bodies providing the social provision are used to disseminate Hezbollah's ideology and strengthen its position within Lebanese society.

The government that was eventually formed some nine months after the poll reflected the dominant position attained by Hezbollah and its allies. The organization was allocated three ministries, while the Finance Ministry went to a Hezbollah ally. Might is right in Lebanon, and Hezbollah dominates within the government because it is backed by the financial and military sponsorship of Iran. Corruption in official circles and exploitation of the population are both endemic.

The distinguished commentator on Middle East affairs, Jonathan Spyer, recently analyzed the extent to which Hezbollah, acting as a proxy for Iran, has swallowed up the Lebanese state. The shell of the state has been left intact, he pointed out, both to serve as a protective camouflage and to carry out those aspects of administration in which Hezbollah and Iran have no interest. As a result, he concludes, it is impossible today in key areas of Lebanese life to determine exactly where the official state begins and Hezbollah's shadow state ends.

Lebanon's March 14 Alliance is a coalition of politicians opposed to the Syrian regime and to Hezbollah. March 14, 2005, was the launch date of the Cedar Revolution, a protest movement triggered by the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri earlier that year. The demonstrations were directed against Bashar Assad, President of Syria, suspected from the first of being behind the murder, and his Iranian-supported allies in Lebanon, Hezbollah, widely believed to have carried out the deed.

The echoes of Rafik Hariri's cold-blooded slaughter have continued to reverberate through Lebanese politics.  Hariri had been demanding that Hezbollah disband its militia and direct its thousands of fighters to join Lebanon's conventional armed forces, a demand that leading opinion-formers in Lebanon continue to make.  With Hezbollah fighting to support Assad, while a large segment of Lebanese opinion is in favor of toppling him, the conflict has inflamed sectarian tensions.

Many Lebanese, even those of Shiite persuasion, resent the fact that Hezbollah is, at the behest of Iran, fighting Muslims in a neighboring country – activities far from the purpose for which the organization was founded. They resent the mounting death toll of Lebanese fighters.

Mass unrest has shaken Lebanon before – it had its share of "Arab Spring" upheavals in 2011 – but for the first time protests are just as evident in the south of Lebanon, an area tightly controlled politically by Hezbollah, as in the rest of the country.

That Lebanon's masses may be rebelling against the stranglehold that Hezbollah has exerted on the country is, perhaps, the most hopeful aspect of the current situation.

The post Hezbollah has become Lebanon's main problem appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

On the one hand Syrian president Bashar Assad could most certainly not be sending troops to support the Kurds without the clear agreement of Russia.  In fact, some commentators describe the arrangement as a "Russian-brokered deal."  So Russia's President Vladimir Putin must be looking with equanimity at the prospect of Syrian government forces coming into direct conflict with Turkish ground troops.

On the other hand on October 10 Russia joined the US in blocking a UN Security Council resolution calling on Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to cease military action and withdraw from Syrian territory – and Putin has indicated that he will exercise his veto on any future anti-Turkish motions as well.  So Putin is apparently both against Turkey's incursion into Syrian territory and against stopping it.

Media commentators are equally at sea over the Kurdish-Syrian arrangement.  Several see the deal as a move forced by events on a reluctant Kurdish administration and believe, with the Daily Telegraph's Raf Sanchez, that "the deal appeared to strike a death knell for Kurdish hopes of maintaining autonomy from Damascus in their own semistate in northeast Syria."

But Assad's Syrian administration is not at permanent loggerheads with the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), the political wing of the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). On July 27, 2018, in response to an invitation from the Syrian government, a delegation of the SDC arrived in Damascus to hold direct talks, while the day before it traveled to the Syrian capital, it announced that Kurdish forces were ready to join any military operation by government forces in the northern governorate of Idlib aimed at retaking the Kurdish area of Afrin (Afrin was captured by Turkish-backed troops in March 2018, as part of a drive by Erdogan to prevent the Kurds from dominating Turkey's southern land border).

Northeastern Syria is under Kurdish administration.  Known as Rojava, the area covers some 25% of what used to be sovereign Syria.  There is, therefore, a pragmatic political rationale for both Assad and the SDC to seek an accommodation.  In bringing Rojava under Syrian government administration, Assad, who now controls some 70 percent of old Syria, would effectively be regaining some 95% of pre-civil war Syrian territory.

As for the Kurdish administration in Rojava – known since 2012 as the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (DFNS) – they are not seeking independence, but a degree of autonomy.  They perfectly understand that if Assad decides to grant it, a huge chunk of territory would be placed under some form of government control, but anticipate that it would be akin to the arrangement in Iraq where an autonomous Kurdistan operates in alliance with the government.

As for Erdogan, he maintains that the YPG group, which dominates the Kurdish Peshmerga military force, is indistinguishable from the PKK, a Turkey-based terrorist group in support of Kurdish autonomy or independence, and indeed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan and the PKK leadership have publicly recognized the YPG as part of the PKK structure.

But media commentators seem to ignore the fact that back in the 2000s, when Erdogan led his AKP party to victory in the general election and formed his first government, an accommodation was actually reached with the PKK.

As the Kurdish language began to be used in broadcasting, education and the print media, the PKK softened their demands for a state of their own in favor of equal rights and autonomy.

A deal including an end to violence on the part of the PKK was actually announced in 2013.  The whole accommodation came to a violent end in July 2015 when the leader of the HDP, a legitimate Kurdish political party, refused to back Erdoğan's plans to convert the Turkish presidency into the sort of autocracy it has since become.

So there is a precedent for an accommodation with the PKK.  In the words of Sir Peter Westmacott, one-time British ambassador to Turkey: "The aims of the PKK have evolved over the years. If they could now renounce the use of violence as part of an understanding with the Turkish government that the reform process of the early years of the Erdoğan government will resume, everyone could emerge a winner."

The building blocks for an acceptable outcome of the current chaos lie all around.

The post What moves Putin, Assad, Erdogan and the Kurds? appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

The UN body set up to assist them – the United Nations Relief and Works Agency – began its work in May 1950. While the General Assembly resolution establishing UNRWA called for the alleviation of distress among the Palestine refugees, it also stated that "constructive measures should be undertaken at an early date with a view to the termination of international assistance for relief." In other words, the new refugee agency's mission was intended to be temporary.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

By 2018, the "temporary" UNRWA had been transformed into a bloated international bureaucracy with a staff of 30,000 and an annual budget of around $1.2 billion. As for the number of Palestinians registered by UNRWA as refugees, that had mushroomed to 5.6 million as a result of its decision to bestow refugee status upon "descendants of Palestine refugees" in perpetuity – children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The growth in UNWRA's client base was therefore exponential year on year, justifying an ever-expanding staff and an ever-increasing budget.

It was at this point that US President Donald Trump decided enough was enough. He slashed US funding from $364 million to $60 million and announced that, from 2019, US funding would cease. "The United States will no longer commit further funding to this irredeemably flawed operation," stated the US State Department.

While the main UN agency dealing with refugees – the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees – concentrates on resettling them, facilitating their voluntary repatriation or their local integration and resettlement, UNRWA maintains millions of people in their refugee status decade after decade, expandimg the numbers year on year.

Organizations secure in the knowledge of an ever-expanding client base, thus justifying continuous growth and an ever-increasing budget, provide ripe ground for malfeasance and internal corruption. So it has apparently proved in the case of UNRWA.

On July 20, 2019, it suddenly emerged that seven months previously, a 10-page confidential internal report, with input from dozens of current and former UNRWA staff, had been sent to UN Secretary General António Guterres. According to the Agence France-Presse news agency, the report alleged that UNWRA's commissioner general, Pierre Krähenbühl, and other top officials, had been guilty of a range of abuses including "sexual misconduct, nepotism, retaliation, discrimination and other abuses of authority, for personal gain, to suppress legitimate dissent, and to otherwise achieve their personal objectives."

The Al Jazeera media network claims to have obtained a copy of the ethics office report from a source close to UNRWA, who said that much of it focuses on allegations surrounding the conduct of Krähenbühl, citing a range of corrupt and unprofessional activities.

Shortly after the details of the report became known, the Netherlands and Switzerland suspended their funding of UNRWA. They were followed in August 2019 by the government of New Zealand.

UNRWA's mandate from the General Assembly, which comes up for renewal every three years, was renewed during the session of the UN General Assembly that came to end on September 30, 2019. Nothing has emerged in the media to suggest that Guterres' investigation into the ethics report came up in the discussions.

Speaking during the 42nd session of the UN Human Rights Council on September 23, 2019, former UNRWA general counsel James Lindsay declared that the agency's major structural problem is its unique definition of who qualifies as a refugee. This differs fundamentally from the definition used by the UNHCR, which is responsible for all other refugees around the world. By not demanding that UNRWA adopt this definition," says Lindsay, "the General Assembly has elevated politics over morality."

Also speaking on September 23, former Knesset member Einat Wilf said that the Palestinians had "hijacked" UNRWA after refusing to accept the outcome of the 1948 war that led to the creation of the State of Israel. "In their mind," she said, "the State of Israel is temporary. If they view Israel as temporary, they will never sign an agreement that will bring peace. They will wait it out."

All in all, the Palestinian refugee story is one of heartless exploitation of Arabs by Arabs – the callous manipulation of powerless victims for political ends, with little regard for their welfare or human rights. Whatever the result of the inquiry into the UNRWA ethics report, this inhumanity must be brought out into the open, the UNRWA farce of "refugee status" in perpetuity must be ended, and steps must be taken to allow people and their families who may have lived in a country for 50 years or more to settle and become full citizens.

The post UNRWA under scrutiny appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

But just before the last stand, tens of thousands of ISIS supporters, almost all of them women with their children, fled the battleground. Kurdish officials directed them to a camp for displaced persons set up some 220 kilometers (140 miles) to the north at Al-Hol. And there they have remained, a mixture of Syrians, Iraqis, and foreigners from around the world who had been attracted to the extreme Islamist concepts espoused by ISIS.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

At the end of September 2019, the population of the Al-Hol encampment stood at just under 70,000. Living conditions are appalling. The tents were freezing cold in the winter and have been swelteringly hot this summer, with temperatures rising as high as 50° Celsius (122° Fahrenheit). In the early months, latrine facilities were primitive, much of the water was contaminated and medical care was limited. As a result, child deaths soared. In the nine months to August 31, 2019, 406 deaths were registered in the camp, of which 313 were children under the age of 5.

Some relief is being provided by relevant UN organizations. For example, UNICEF and its partners are now trucking in nearly 2 million liters (530,000 gallons) of water every day, and have installed tanks, showers, latrines, and water purification units. But the gap between the funding required and the funding provided by relief organizations is currently more than $25 million. It is likely to grow because the prospects of shipping out the inhabitants and closing the Al-Hol camp are negligible.

The Kurdish authorities overseeing the camp have pleaded for the non-Syrians to be allowed to return to their own countries, but only a few states – including Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan – have repatriated their citizens on a large scale. Western governments have refused to take back any except a few young children.

On September 3, 2019, The New York Times reported fights between camp residents, some women attacking or threatening others with knives and hammers. Twice, in June and July, women stabbed the Kurdish guards who were escorting them, sending the camp into lockdown

On September 30, The Daily Telegraph reported that a female ISIS supporter was killed and seven others injured during an exchange of gunfire over a secret Sharia court set up in Al-Hol. A group of female ISIS supporters ordered several other women in the foreigners' section to be flogged for refusing to attend an informal Quranic studies class. Kurdish guards intervened and opened fire after one of the ISIS members pulled out a pistol that had reportedly been smuggled into the camp.

Former Syria adviser to the Pentagon Jasmine El-Gamal described the situation at Al-Hol as "a full-blown security threat." For the leaders of ISIS, however, Al-Hol represents a golden opportunity. It is a hub from which regrouping of the organization as a whole is already underway.

"We started to notice that the new arrivals were very well organized," says director Mahmoud Karo. "They organized their own moral police. They are structured."

Beneath a cloak of secrecy, the radical women inhabitants have continued to enforce the draconian laws of the former so-called caliphate. The police women's allegiance to ISIS, punishing those suspected of wavering in their support.

A Pentagon report in August warned that a drawdown of the US military presence in the area has allowed "ISIS ideology to spread 'uncontested' in the camp."

Growing extremism in Al-Hol runs parallel to signs of ISIS resurgence elsewhere in the region. ISIS attacks in northwestern Iraq, just over the Syrian border, are becoming more frequent.

At Al-Hol, ISIS is masterminding its resurgence while the rest of the world turns a blind eye. With only a few exceptions, the governments concerned have dumped the problem into the lap of the Kurds. While finding minimal resources to ease the humanitarian problems of housing 70,000 women and children, they persistently ignore the equally pressing security issues that are fomenting inside the camp.

On both humanitarian and security grounds, Al-Hol is a problem demanding the world's immediate attention.

The post Is ISIS regrouping at Al-Hol? appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Constitutional experts beg to differ. Most maintain that Jordan is an autocracy in which authoritarian power is exercised by the king through legal manipulation, described by the Journal of Democracy as "selective economic reforms, new civil society regulations, and hollow pluralism initiatives." In fact, the king is the country's ultimate authority in respect of all three branches of government – executive, legislative, and judicial. He appoints the prime minister and chooses the cabinet. The judges are appointed and dismissed by royal decree. Political parties were legalized in 1992 provided they acknowledge the legitimacy of the monarchy.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

These democratically dubious constitutional arrangements do not, however, affect the popularity of the monarchy, and there is no demand within Jordan for constitutional change. However, the usual consequences of autocratic rule – corruption, unemployment, poverty, high taxes, rising food prices, and poor government services – regularly result in outbursts of popular protest. Over the course of 2019, the scale and depth of Jordan's economic problems have been unprecedented, and massive public demonstrations have been the result.

In May and June, the public took to the streets in great numbers to protest increased taxes and soaring prices. The rebellion was nationwide, uniting all sectors of Jordanian society. In response, King Abdullah dismissed the government, froze prices, and appointed a new prime minister, Omar al-Razzaz, whom he ordered to produce reforms.

This pattern – public protest followed by promised government action – is normal for Jordan, but this time the old nostrum did not work. The government's promises carried no weight with Jordan's teachers, who organized mass strikes on September 5 and 8. The capital, Amman, was plunged into chaos as thousands of teachers from across the country, wearing white caps and carrying placards, paraded through the streets demanding better working conditions and a 50% salary increase that they said had been promised by the government five years ago. At the time of writing, the 100,000 teachers remain on strike and 1.4 million pupils and students are locked out of their classrooms.

Jordan's domestic situation is parlous. The economy is close to breaking point. Public debt stands at $39.9 billion, nearly equal to the country's economic output, while unemployment is running at close to 20%. Meanwhile the Israel-Palestine issue looms. On June 22, 2019, the White House unexpectedly released the economic component of its peace plan. "Peace to Prosperity: A New Vision for the Palestinian People" set out in considerable detail a scenario under which, with a huge input of funding into the region, prospects for the Palestinians would be immeasurably transformed for the better. The plan covered all aspects of Palestinian life from education and health care to taxes, roads, and railways.

The US presented this leg of its ultimate deal in a workshop held in Bahrain which Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas urged the Arab world to boycott. Abdullah, a close ally of the US, ignored his plea and sent a delegation.

Although Jordan's message was that no cash offers could replace a political solution, reports from inside Jordan indicate that some officials believe the country could – and should – profit from any plan that promises billions in economic aid. In June 2019, a prominent MP, Fawaz al-Zubi, said Jordanians should be open-minded about anything they could gain from the deal.

About what the plan might portend politically, there are only fears. Rumors abound in Jordanian official circles that Trump's deal will include proposals potentially disastrous for the country, and that Jordan will be pushed toward accepting them in exchange for the economic aid that Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries have traditionally provided. They believe that the Palestinians – or at least their regional supporters – might be bought off with the promise of a bright economic future and, in the process, Palestinian statehood would be buried, and with it, hopes of removing at least some of Jordan's Palestinian citizens and refugees.

"Don't meet trouble halfway" is a wise adage. Perhaps a jittery Jordan should take note, await the forthcoming peace deal with equanimity, and regard it, when it does finally arrive, as a challenge and an opportunity.

The post Trump's peace deal – anything in it for Jordan? appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

The years 2013 to 2019 were a momentous period in modern history. In leading us through the ever-changing situation, Frantzman provides much more than a recital of the facts. He explains them. Because he was present himself at various times in the war zones and killing fields, his account is leavened throughout with personal experiences of how the shifting pattern of events impacted on people caught up in them. Nor does he desist from pointing out the various failures of the West during the long struggle to defeat the self-styled caliphate set up by the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

Nothing moves Frantzman more than his personal witness of the horrific genocide that ISIS perpetrated on the Yazidi people in and around Sinjar in 2014. He arrived in the region very shortly after the slaughter. "To come face to face with genocide is unimaginable," he writes, describing how he visited a mass grave and found bones sticking out of the ground, a skull with a bullet hole in it, women's hair matted and twisted between rocks, clothes, and blindfolds lying on the surface. The sight moved him to righteous anger.

"No international investigators are here," he writes. "No NGOs are working here to protect the human remains. The world was silent again. These lives could have been saved. … How could the Western powers with all their technology, all their drones, their EU Parliament and councils of human rights and international criminal courts, do nothing?"

Nearly six years later, he saw new photos from Sinjar. "The city was still in ruins. On Mount Sinjar, people still lived in tents and huts. … Survivors were still picking through rubble." The International Commission on Missing Persons was apparently trying to document the remains in the mass graves, but the grave in one photo was not cordoned off or protected from the elements. There were more than 200 mass graves in Iraq. Of the handful so far discovered in Syria, one near Raqqa contained an estimated 3,500 bodies.

As Frantzman leads us through the sequence of events that slowly but surely squeezed ISIS out of the vast areas of Iraq and Syria that it had originally conquered, he provides an informed commentary on their impact. He embraces issues ranging from the effect on Europe of the influx of refugees from the Middle East, to the success of the Kurds' peshmerga fighters against ISIS, the subsequent boost to their independence aspirations, followed by the efforts by Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to remove what he saw as a Kurdish threat to his regime.

Frantzman brings to light the temporary battlefield alliances that were formed and disintegrated as the US-led coalition slowly crushed ISIS, and also with more profound changes in political thinking in the region, for example how Iran's growing influence encouraged Saudi Arabia and the UAE to look increasingly toward Israel as an ally, and how it changed the strategic thinking of Jordan and Egypt.

In considering whether the post-ISIS era would simply replicate the worst days of al-Qaida terrorism under Osama bin Laden, he is not wholly pessimistic. He sees hope in the rise of a younger generation of Middle East leaders that came of age in the 1980s or 1990s, in an era of US hegemony, taking over from leaders who had run the region since the colonial era. "With the Saddam Husseins, Mubaraks, Gaddafis, and Salehs out of the way," he writes, "there may be a new way forward."

The basis for Frantzman's qualified optimism lies in his belief that the whole ISIS episode was a unique phenomenon – a one-off. In his words: "It appears that the power of ISIS was sui generis. A group like this will not appear again. This was the apogee of Islamist extremism and jihadist groups."

"After ISIS" is a comprehensive, insightful, thought-provoking account of how an exceptionally ruthless and brutal organization succeeded in capturing the imagination of scores of thousands of Muslims the world over, how it rose to control large parts of Syria and Iraq and rule over millions, and how finally it was defeated. For anyone wishing to understand how this all came about and what might follow, "After ISIS" is essential reading.

The post Book review: 'After ISIS' appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

On which matter it should be remembered that when Qatar was awarded that prize, it stated that Israeli players would be allowed to compete – and indeed in March 2019 Israel's national anthem was played in Qatar after an Israeli athlete won a gold medal at the Artistic Gymnastics World Cup. But will there be any Israelis present in Qatar's stunning new stadium in 2022 to cheer their team on? That is still unclear. So far Israeli citizens have been unable to apply for visas to visit Qatar.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

The nongovernmental organization StandWithUs has formally petitioned FIFA to ensure that the Qatari government will allow Israeli citizens to receive entry visas into the country to attend the 2022 World Cup. FIFA's code of ethics specifically prohibits banning people based upon their country of origin.

Qatar, possibly the wealthiest nation in the world, persists in going its own sweet way, unfettered by diplomatic norms. Take its relationship with Israel. Since the 1990s, Qatar has both built ties with Israel and severed them, not once but several times. In 1996 Qatar allowed Israel to open a trade office in the capital, Doha. For four years, Qatar was the only Gulf Cooperation Council country to have normalized relations with Israel.

In November 2000, though, following the Second Intifada, Saudi Arabia and Iran threatened to boycott a summit being organized by the Organization of the Islamic Conference unless Qatar broke off relations with Israel. Qatar succumbed, and closed the Israeli trade office.

Just a month later, former Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami and a Qatari official met secretly in Geneva and contacts were resumed. Over the next few years, then-Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni were among the high profile Israelis to visit Qatar, and then-Defense Minister Ehud Barak met with former Qatari prime minister in Switzerland. In 2006, Israel supported Qatar's bid to become a member of the UN Security Council, a major step in Qatar's rise as a regional peace broker.

Although Qatar severed trade relations with Israel after the 2008-2009 Gaza conflict, Operation Cast Lead, it twice sought to restore them. It offered to allow the Israeli mission in Doha to be reinstated, provided Israel allowed Qatar to send building materials and money to Gaza to help rehabilitate the infrastructure. Israel refused on the grounds that Qatari supplies could be used by Hamas for military purposes against Israel.

Qatar took matters into its own hands. In 2012 it set up a Gaza Reconstruction Committee, which pledged to invest more than $400 million in humanitarian and infrastructure projects in the Strip over the following six years. It has lived up to its word. It has constructed the Bin Khalifa residential city, encompassing 116 buildings, and more than 2,000 apartments, the Palace of Justice, several sports facilities and stadiums, a reservoir, more than 40 kilometers (25 miles) of roadway, a hospital and rehabilitation center, and several other housing complexes. The GRC works in tandem with other multilateral and international reconstruction groups. All projects go through a rigorous planning and approval process with the Israeli government.

On September 10, 2019, as the six-year funding project reached its end, Mohammed al-Emadi, chairman of the GRC, spoke on Al Jazeera TV, claiming that Qatar has been instrumental in ensuring calm on the Gaza-Israeli border, "despite the occasional flare-up of violence."

Whatever its rationale, Israel has raised no public objection to Qatar pouring millions of dollars into Gaza. "Life is full of contradictions and strange things," was how Brig. Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, former head of research for Israel's Military Intelligence Directorate, described the situation.

An even stranger thing is the fact that, for more than two years, Qatar has been under a siege initiated and operated by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt,

Qatar's strategy of backing Islamists while also offering itself as a key US ally had long infuriated its neighbors. Back in January 2014, Gulf states suddenly pressured Qatar to sign an agreement undertaking not to support extremist groups and not to interfere in the affairs of other states. When the Qatari government flatly refused to comply, they broke off diplomatic relations. Qatar's 33-year-old emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, had been in power for less than a year and was unable to withstand the pressure. A few months later, the Qataris signed an undertaking known as the Riyadh agreement.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain clearly gained a very different impression of what had been agreed than the Qataris. Expecting Qatar to curtail its support for extreme Islamism, they were soon to find that it had no intention of meeting their expectations. Finally, their patience exhausted, the Gulf states and Egypt took drastic action. On 5 June 2017, without any sort of warning, they broke off diplomatic relations with Qatar and, suspending all land, air and sea traffic, imposed a trade blockade.

With most trade routes closed off, Qatar has been sustained by continuous shiploads of food and other goods from Iran and Turkey. But its vast global export market for liquefied natural gas has been maintained. As a result, the country has weathered the blockade and seems able to sustain itself indefinitely. In fact, in 2018, Qatar's economy showed one of the fastest growth rates in the region. Its gross domestic product grew by 2.2% and is expected to maintain that growth into 2020.

So Qatar continues on its capricious way regardless. Recently it has been wooing US Jewish American leading figures by way of meetings with the emir and funded trips to the Gulf state. These overtures, to which some distinguished individuals have succumbed, sit uneasily alongside Israel's fragile, developing, and vitally important relationship with the Sunni Arab world that initiated the blockade of Qatar in the first place.

Winston Churchill once described Russia as "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma". Qatar is close to meriting the same epithet.

The post The maverick state of Qatar appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Any such development is now moribund.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

We are within days of marking the 18th anniversary of the worst-ever terrorist attack on the United States – the events of September 11, 2001. It was quickly established that responsibility for the onslaught lay with the al-Qaida movement, but the US was convinced that the Taliban was sheltering its mastermind, Osama bin Laden. As a result, on October 7, 2001, a US-led coalition invaded Afghanistan and America embarked on its longest war. It has claimed the lives of more than 4,000 American military and civilian personnel.

Despite the additional troops sent to Afghanistan from time to time, the Taliban actually gained ground. According to a December 2018 Congressional Research Service report, the "insurgents are now in control of or contesting more territory today than at any point since 2001."

Coming into office in January 2017, US President Donald Trump promised a quick win against the Taliban followed by the withdrawal of American troops. Later that year he changed tack, announcing an increase in troop levels to 14,000. What he did not disclose was that this was a first step in a strategy aimed at opening negotiations with the Taliban to try to reach a deal.

In December 2018, the Taliban announced that they would meet with American negotiators. On February 25, 2019, peace talks began, with the co-founder of the Taliban, Abdul Ghani Barada, at the table. They got off to a good start.

Agreement was reached on a draft peace deal involving the withdrawal of US and international troops from Afghanistan, matched by an undertaking by the Taliban to prohibit other jihadi groups operating within the country.

Deadlock soon followed. Among other stumbling blocks was the Taliban's refusal to negotiate with the Afghan government, which they regarded as a US puppet regime. But on September 2, 2019, Zalmay Khalilzad, head of the US negotiating team, revealed in a TV interview details of the long-awaited deal. The Taliban would guarantee that Afghanistan would never again be used as a base for militant groups seeking to attack the US and its allies, in exchange for the withdrawal of 5,400 of the 14,000 US troops. A pullout of the remaining forces would depend on conditions, including a ceasefire and the start of peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban.

US officials said they had received a commitment from the Taliban that it would respect the country's democratic constitution – one of the few tangible legacies of the allied intervention. But with the Taliban still engaged in military activity affecting Afghan civilians, public support for a deal is tempered by a great deal of skepticism. Many fear that it could see hard-won rights and freedoms eroded. The memory lingers of the strict religious laws imposed on the population and the brutal treatment of women when the Taliban ruled large areas from 1996 to 2001. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, in common with much of Afghan public opinion, knows that It would be an unmitigated disaster for Afghanistan if the outcome of any peace agreement was a resumption of the Taliban's tyrannical rule.

So it came as a complete surprise, not to say shock, to learn from a tweet issued by Trump late on Saturday night (EST) that a secret meeting between the president and Taliban leaders, with Ghani also present, had been planned for this weekend, to take place at Camp David. Right throughout the formal peace discussions, the Taliban had maintained their armed insurgency, concluding that this policy had, if anything, strengthened their negotiating position.

They had clearly decided to pursue the same tactics with respect to the unprecedented invitation to the United States. On September 5 a suicide car bomb exploded in the Afghan capital, Kabul, killing at least 10 Afghan civilians and two soldiers, one of them a US paratrooper. The Taliban claimed responsibility.

This time, they miscalculated badly. On learning of the death of Sgt. 1st Class Elis Angel Barreto Ortiz, Trump canceled the meeting and called off peace talks entirely.

Justified as it is, this move smacks of Trump's "Art of the Deal" tactic – to maintain the initiative and keep the other side on tenterhooks. For Trump to achieve his aim of withdrawing from Afghanistan, negotiations will have to be resumed sooner or later.

The post Is Trump-Taliban deal dead in the water? appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.