RUTHFULLY YOURS

President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s official capital and his announcement that he would move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to that city has not only sparked outrage in the Middle East, but also in Europe.

One European leader who has condemned Trump’s announcement is Angela Merkel, the German chancellor. Although you’d expect her to tread extremely carefully when talking about the Jewish nation-state — considering her country’s horrible record regarding the treatment of Jews — nothing could be further from the truth.

“The federal government doesn’t understand this decision because the status of Jerusalem must be negotiated within the framework of the two-state solution,” the Bundeskanzlerin said through her spokesman Steffen Seiber. That is why, she adds, the German government does not support Trump’s decision.

Her foreign secretary, Sigmar Gabriel, agrees with Merkel’s position. “I believe that it carries the risk that an already difficult situation in the Middle East and in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians will escalate even further,” he added to Merkel’s statement. He also complained that Trump’s announcement supposedly ignores the Palestinians’ interests and marks a 180-degree turn of the previous U.S. policy. “And that worries us,” Gabriel said. “We hope that this concern can be taken away, but this turnaround is already a big problem.”

“We all know the far-reaching impact this move would have,” Gabriel added. “Germany’s position on this issue remains unchanged: A solution to the Jerusalem problem can only be found through direct negotiations between both parties. Everything which worsens the crisis is counterproductive.”

Of course, both Merkel and Gabriel forgot to mention that the Palestinians haven’t given “peace a chance” for decades — not even when Israel was willing to make serious concessions when the United States still considered Tel Aviv Israel’s capital. It’s difficult to imagine what more they could do to undermine the peace process than purposefully blowing them up time and again.

“Whatever Israel wants, we in Ghana will go by that, because that is essentially an internal decision”

While the Trump administration has been hit with a barrage of warnings that is stands to throw the Middle East into chaos if it recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the possible move has garnered support among Israel’s allies in Africa.

In interviews with i24NEWS on Tuesday, parliamentary leaders from Tanzania and Ghana visiting Israel to celebrate their collaboration as part of the “Power Africa” initiative, expressed support for an American policy shift on the holy city.

Speaker of the National Assembly of Tanzania, Job Ndugai, began his interview by emphasizing the importance of being in Jerusalem, where the Israeli parliament sits, and later expressed his outright support of Israel’s capital as an appropriate place for foreign embassies.

“It is a very commendable decision to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. I believe it will be followed suit by several African countries, Tanzania included, to move said quarters from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, because we believe where the parliament is — I am a speaker of parliament — then the government should be there and embassies should be there too.”

When asked about the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the speaker of Ghana’s parliament Aaron Mike Oquaye also affirmed that country’s support for Israel on the issue, saying, “whatever Israel wants, we in Ghana will go by that, because that is essentially an internal decision.”

Israel annexed Jerusalem after its victory in the 1967 Six Day War, and sees the city as its undivided capital. However the Palestinians covet the Arab-majority eastern parts of the city as the capital of their hoped-for future state.

When questioned on appeals from the Palestinian Authority and their supporters to disavow support for Israel, the senior Tanzanian MP said, “we see no harm in having relations with Israel, actually we see very many benefits in having been closer and closer with Israel.”

His views where echoed by Oquaye, who said that the West African state, one of West Africa’s rising economies, strongly supports of Israel and is keen to deepen economic relations, as there was “not much [economic] cooperation” in the past.

President Trump honored a campaign pledge on Wednesday when he recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The decision is hardly the radical policy departure that critics claim, and Mr. Trump accompanied it with an embrace of the two-state solution for Palestine that Presidents of both parties have long supported.

Congress recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in 1995 in a bill President Clinton declined to veto. Other Presidents have agreed in principle, and even campaigned on it, but in office they used a waiver to put off any formal recognition or move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. The difference is that Mr. Trump apparently meant what he said as a candidate.

Mr. Trump called his decision on Wednesday “a recognition of reality,” and he’s right. Israel’s parliament, Supreme Court and the president and prime minister’s residences are housed in Jerusalem, and U.S. Presidents and Secretaries of State meet their Israeli counterparts there.

Yet official U.S. policy is that both Israel and the Palestinians must agree on the future status of Jerusalem, since the Palestinians claim the city as their capital too. President Trump isn’t taking sides on that issue. The White House proclamation acknowledges that “Jerusalem is a highly-sensitive issue” and doesn’t distinguish between West Jerusalem, which houses Israel’s government, and East Jerusalem, which Israel has administered since the 1967 Six Day War.

Mr. Trump combined his Embassy move with renewed intent to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, and he doesn’t rule out a Palestinian state as part of the solution. Administration officials reiterated that intention Wednesday, saying progress is being made behind the scenes. Color us skeptical given the long history of failure, but the U.S. is trying.

One way the Palestinian Authority could signal a new seriousness would be to stop paying the families of Palestinians who kill innocent Israelis. The House passed the Taylor Force Act Tuesday, which would reduce U.S. aid to the Palestinians until they renounce pay-for-slay payments. A Senate vote may follow this month.

Arab leaders denounced the Embassy move, but we wonder how long the fury will last. The Sunni Arabs also confront the threats of Islamic terrorism and Iranian imperialism, and the Palestinians are a third order concern. If the movement of an American Embassy that was signaled more than 20 years ago is enough to scuttle peace talks, then maybe the basis for peace doesn’t yet exist.

In one audio recording, Erdogan was heard ordering his son to get rid of all the cash he kept at home; and his son, after trying for several hours, tells him there are still millions left. Erdogan denied the authenticity of the evidence and claimed this was a coup d’état against his elected administration. He then purged all prosecutors and police officers investigating the charges.

Zarrab’s testimony as a witness, as well as documents displayed at trial “would show that this conspiracy to launder money for Iran was not a rogue operation. It would show the Turkish government at its very highest level understood what was going on — and approved of it.” — Nate Schenkkan, Freedom House, USA.

“Former and current opposition figures already face prosecution and threats should they help publicize corruption allegations against Erdogan. The potential conviction of Turkish government officials plays to Erdogan’s growing anti-Western rhetoric. It serves as further evidence, for Erdogan and his supporters, that the West will not tolerate promising, strong leaders who pursue independent foreign policies. This perception feeds popular narratives that Islamists in Turkey and elsewhere hold about Western or American policies in the region. It also resonates well with extremely high levels of popular anti-Americanism in Turkey.” — A. Kadir Yildirim, research scholar, Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.

“He has a strong paranoid orientation. He is ready for retaliation and, not without reason, sees himself as surrounded by enemies. But he ignores his role in creating those enemies, and righteously threatens his targets. The conspiracy theories he spins are not merely for popular consumption in the Arab world, but genuinely reflect his paranoid mindset. He is convinced that the United States, Israel and Iran have been in league for the purpose of eliminating him, and finds a persuasive chain of evidence for this conclusion.”

— Explaining Saddam Hussein: A Psychological Profile, by Dr. Jerrold M. Post, presented to the House Armed Services Committee, December 1990.

In the text above replace the words “in the Arab world” with “Turkey,” and delete the word “Iran” in the preceding line, and one will get a short paragraph “Explaining Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan: A Psychological Profile.” A number of high-profile investigations developing on American soil are threatening Erdogan’s legitimacy while Turkey’s strongman resorts to the tactic he knows best: spin global conspiracy theories to influence voter behavior in a country the where average schooling is a mere 6.5 years.

A poll conducted this summer found that 29% of French Muslims found Sharia to be more important to them than French laws. It also found that 67% of Muslims want their children to study Arabic, and 56% think it should be taught in public schools.

A 2016 UK poll showed that 43% of British Muslims “believed that parts of the Islamic legal system should replace British law while only 22 per cent opposed the idea”. Another poll from 2016 found that 23% of all Muslims supported the introduction of sharia law in some areas of Britain, 39% agreed that “wives should always obey their husbands,” and 52% of all British Muslims believe that homosexuality should be illegal.

French President Emmanuel Macron blamed France, not Islam, for the increased radicalization, which he said should lead France to “question itself.” According to Macron, then, the parallel Islamic societies of France, have nothing to do with Islam. They are the fault of the French republic. Did the French republic impose sharia and the subjugation of women in the suburbs, described by one female survivor as “hell”? Was the French republic behind the recent distribution of leaflets stipulating “if you meet a Jew, kill him”?

A French intellectual, Christian Moliner, recently suggested that France should establish a Muslim state-within-a-state that adheres to sharia law, inside the borders of France, to avoid a civil war. Warning against refusing to deal with the problems of Islamism in Europe because of political correctness, he stated:

“Out of the fear of appearing Islamophobic, to satisfy this bustling fringe of Muslims, governments are ready to accept the spread of radical practices throughout the country…. [some] territories are outside the control of the Republic. The police can come only in force and for limited durations… We can never convert the 30% of Muslims who demand the introduction of sharia law to the merits of our democracy and secularism. We are now allowing segregation to take place that does not say its name.”

Moliner’s solution?

“… Establish a dual system of law in France… one territory, one government, but two peoples: the French with the usual laws and Muslims with Qur’anic status (but only for those who choose it)… The latter will have the right to vote… but they will apply Sharia in everyday life, to regulate matrimonial laws (which will legalize polygamy) and inheritance… They will no longer apply to French judges for disputes between Muslims… conflicts between Christians and believers will remain the responsibility of ordinary courts…”

Moliner’s proposal represents a total surrender to political Islam and is of course outrageous, especially considering that Muslims only comprise a little more than five percent of the French population. What he suggests, however, merely formalizes the status quo that already exists — and not only in France — even if it abandons reform-minded Muslims and eventually, with their collapsing demography, the non-Muslims there.

This is a wonderful column on the clarity of vision of the late Conor Cruise O’Brien who wrote “The Siege” a superb book on Israel’s history and mandate. rsk

It might be best to begin by saying how I came to be interested in the 1986 visit to South Africa of Conor Cruise O’Brien, the great Irish statesman, diplomat, writer and public intellectual. I was born on Merseyside but my father was later transferred to Durban by his employers, so I finished my schooling there and then attended the University of Natal, where I was heavily involved in anti-apartheid activities. A Rhodes Scholarship took me to Oxford just before the Security Police came to detain me. I was to stay in Oxford for many years as student and teacher, well aware that it would be unsafe to return to South Africa. I finally did so in 1978 and thereafter returned frequently to teach and to write about the evolving situation for The Times and Sunday Times. Ultimately I left Oxford in 1995 to return to South Africa where I ran the Helen Suzman Foundation. I have ended up living in Cape Town. Throughout these many years I have heard countless friends and colleagues discuss “the Conor Cruise O’Brien affair”, which was quite a landmark in South Africa, particularly for liberals. This always intrigued me, for I had got to know Conor a little through his son, Donal. The account which follows depends heavily on the oral testimonies of eye-witnesses.

Conor visited South Africa on a number of occasions and was considerably interested in its politics which he, among many others, compared with both Israel and Northern Ireland. During several of these visits he gave lectures at the University of Cape Town (UCT) — generally regarded as the country’s premier university — and these were sufficiently well received for him to be invited by Dr David Welsh to return as a Visiting Professor to the university’s political science department in 1986.

This was, however, the era of the academic boycott of South Africa called by the Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM). The boycott was continuously controversial with those (like Conor) who felt there should never be any impediment to the free movement of people and ideas. Over time the AAM, which was always controlled by the African National Congress (ANC) and often by the South African Communist Party, had succeeded in getting apartheid branded by the UN General Assembly as a “crime against humanity”, a fact which served to heighten the AAM’s sense of self-righteousness. In turn, of course, the political atmosphere both within South Africa and outside was charged by the increasing tide of revolutionary protest led by the United Democratic Front (UDF), which acted as a surrogate for the banned ANC. On the English-speaking university campuses, student feeling had become increasingly shrill, a development much strengthened by the decision to open these universities to students of all races.

One of the key pillars of the apartheid regime had been the Separate Universities Act of 1959, which forbade racial integration at tertiary education level. This was a tremendous blow to the liberal English-speaking universities — Witswatersrand (Wits), Natal, Rhodes and UCT, which all fought and protested strongly against the new Act. Thereafter black students were consigned to (inferior) “tribal colleges” within the so-called “black homelands”. Inevitably, political dissent spread from the black campuses into black schools, finally resulting in the explosion of the Soweto riots of 1976 which then spread right round the country. This in turn created a climate of continuous unrest in the nation’s black schools. The exiled ANC naturally seized on this new opportunity and extensive political mobilisation took place within these schools under the (educationally disastrous) slogan of “Liberation now, education later”. In practice this meant continuous school boycotts, stay-aways and protests and the enrolment of many schoolchildren as full-time political activists. The result was a steep decline in the standard of these “Bantu Education” schools, leading to a so-called “lost generation” of schoolchildren whose school lives were punctuated by continual and often violent clashes with authority.

The seas are roiling once again in the Middle East. Saad Hariri resigned as Lebanon’s prime minister, citing an assassination plot against him organized by his former government coalition partner, Hezbollah. “Wherever Iran settles,” he said in a television address, “it sows discord, devastation and destruction, proven by its interference in the internal affairs of Arab countries.”

It is noteworthy that Mr. Hariri delivered his remarks from Saudi Arabia. Lebanon’s president Michel Aoun, a long-time tool of Damascus, said he will not accept Hariri’s resignation unless he returns to Beirut and hands it over in person – certainly a strange course of action.

The Lebanese Army claims it is not aware of any assassination plot – hardly a credible statement when Hezbollah controls the Army and independent sources indicated Hezbollah killed Hariri’s father in 2005. On one matter there isn’t dispute: Hariri was not able to assert his authority in office; albeit he had to know the Iranian backed terrorist organization would not afford him the opportunity to use his limited powers.

Although it appears as if Hariri is doing Saudi Arabian bidding, he is actually exposing the Lebanese government for what it is – the subject of a hostile takeover by Tehran. The mask of credibility has been removed. Iran’s conquest and de facto annexation is complete.

Do these events presage a war between Saudi princes? Will Saudi leaders feel war is inevitable? Hariri needs Saudi support. Without it, he is swimming in the Mediterranean by himself. By contrast, Hezbollah merely waits for orders from Iran.

The fear is that self-interest might drive the Sunni factions to war, a war that will have profound effects on the region. Saudi Crown Prince bin Salman described the Houthi missile flying over Riyadh as an “act of war.” Moreover, the war in Yemen promoted by Iran may spill across the border into Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia ordered its citizen to leave Lebanon escalating this bewildering crisis. It also escalated its condemnation of Hezbollah declaring Lebanon had effectively declared war on Saudi Arabia.