The UAE Will Triumph Over Iran in the Next Middle Eastern War

From The National Interest, 19 Jan 2019, by Michael Rubin:

As Iranian bluster again increases, it could very well be Abu Dhabi that teaches Tehran a permanent lesson.

The eleventh annual Council on Foreign Relations’ “Preventive Priorities Survey” once again stated the obvious : 

“Conflict between the United States and Iran as well as between the United States and China constitute two of the greatest threats to peace in 2019.” 

Certainly, Washington and Tehran appear on a collision course. The risk is not that the United States will pre-emptively launch an attack on Iran—as much as the Trump administration seeks to isolate and pressure Iran, that simply is not on the table—but rather than the United States and Iran might stumble into conflict.

It has now been more than thirty years since Operation Praying Mantis , the last major direct confrontation between the U.S. and Iranian militaries. While that event—the largest surface naval engagement since World War II—left Iran severely chastened, there has now been a generation change in the Iranian military: the most junior conscripts from 1988 are now retired, and new commanders have risen through the ranks indoctrinated into the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) without any reality check to their rhetoric.

Traditionally, despite its problems with the IRGC Navy, the U.S. Navy has maintained professional, cordial relations with the regular Iranian Navy. That may now be a thing of the past; when Hossein Khanzadi replaced Habibollah Sayyari in November 2017 as head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy, Khanzadi promised to “wave the flag of our country right on the United States’ doorstep.” Alireza Tangsiri, who replaced the Ali Fadavi as head of the IRGC Navy in August 2018, remains a largely unknown quantity. Simply put, the danger that Iranian bluster or unpredictability might spark a cascade of conflict is increasing.

Then, of course, there is Hezbollah. It is hard to dismiss the threat to Israel posed by Hezbollah’s re-armament in contravention of UN Security Council Resolutions nor the recent discovery of tunnels dug under the nose of UN monitors. While Israel bloodied Hezbollah in 2006, Hezbollah’s participation in the Syrian Civil War has left it battle-hardened and more capable than most Arab armies. Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria, meanwhile, should also put to rest the notion that it is a Lebanese nationalist organization rather than a proxy answering to Iran.

As the Islamic Republic’s proxy, Hezbollah remains the tip of the spear again Israel. The situation is a powder keg: if Hezbollah can conduct operations without suffering retaliation, then Hezbollah can depict Israel as weak. If Hezbollah can draw Israel into a conflict in Lebanon, Iranian leaders see advantage. And, for Tehran, a Hezbollah barrage of rockets (or UAVs) into Israel represents a win-win situation: either they hit targets in Israel or Israel’s anti-missile defenses intercept them. Forcing Israel to activate Iron Dome, however, is no defeat, especially given the discrepancy in cost between Hezbollah rockets and Iron Dome interceptors.

Still, the Islamic Republic should not misjudge Israel. The threat of Hezbollah missiles is the main deterrent to any Israeli strike on Iran. Should Hezbollah launch them first, then such disincentive to decision-makers in Jerusalem to launch an attack diminishes. Even if Israel does not launch airstrikes against Iran, it has submarines in the northern Indian Ocean capable of launching missile strikes to paralyze Iranian command-and-control, its nuclear sites, and its military bases.

Debate over the effectiveness of any Israeli strike on Iran is where discussion of such scenarios usually end. The Middle East, however, is more than just Iran and Israel. The greatest change in Middle Eastern balance-of-power over the last decade hasn’t been with you regard to Israel or Iran, but rather the rise of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

While many journalists and Western analysts condemn Saudi Arabia for its botched intervention in Yemen, they ignore that the UAE has largely been successful: it has pushed back Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and, after much delay, UAE forces are on the verge of forcing Houthi militias out of Hodeida, the last major port the pro-Iranian group controlled. Simply put, the UAE is no longer just a lazy Gulf state showing off high-price purchases but unwilling to get its hand dirty.

But what could draw the UAE into a more direct conflict with Iran? Antagonism between the UAE and Iran dates back to before the Islamic Revolution. As the British withdrew from the Persian Gulf in 1971, Iranian troops invaded three islands even though international agreements awarded them to the UAE. Abu Musa is approximately fifty miles from the coast of Iran and forty miles from the coast of the UAE. It lies only ten miles from the Strait of Hormuz, however, and tanker traffic must pass between it and the Tunb Islands, amplifying Iranian strategic leverage. U.S. support for the Emirati claims to the islands is a bit hypocritical because the Nixon administration was willing to turn a blind eye to Iranian control given the close ties at the time between the shah and the White House. With revolutionaries in control in Tehran, however, the strategic calculus changed.

Post-revolution, Iranian authorities redoubled their presence on the islands, and Mohammad Ali Jafari, the commander of the IRGC, sometimes visits their garrisons. While the UAE has sought to negotiate from time to time and may soon again , such talks have gone nowhere.

Should Iranian behavior escalate into conflict with Israel or the United States, however, then the cost to Tehran may be the three islands. The UAE will not risk a direct fight with Iran now, but if Iran is engaged with more powerful foes, then the islands would be easy pickings. Surely, the IRGC garrisons on each would fight but, when they are cut off from resupply of ammunition, weapons, or food, even the most ideological Revolutionary Guardsmen may reconsider their willingness to fight.

The UAE would have little to fear from Iranian retaliation after the broader conflict ended. Defending the islands is easier than seizing them. While the IRGC is very good at asymmetric operations and sponsoring terror, marine landings are an entirely different skill set. The UAE of 2019 is far different than that of 1971. The fact that Abu Dhabi and Dubai hold hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars in Iranian investment is further disincentive to Tehran of launching direct operation or an anti-Emirati terror campaign. Iranian authorities are happy to fight to the last Palestinian or Lebanese, but when their own financial portfolios are at stake, their calculations change.

As Ayatollah Khomeini and an earlier generation of IRGC leaders learned ahead of Operation Praying Mantis, there can be a huge cost for confusing their own rhetoric with military reality. Any Israeli or U.S. military strike against Iranian nuclear or military sites would damage Iran’s air and naval operations for weeks or months but, from a broader strategic view, air strikes would simply kick disputes about Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile program down the road, for the technological knowledge Iran has gained over the decades cannot be lost. Any military strike targeting Iran, meanwhile, would rally Iranians around the flag and, as with Saddam Hussein’s 1980 invasion, actually save a failing revolution. 

But, as Iranian bluster again increases, it could very well be Abu Dhabi rather than Washington and Jerusalem which teaches Iran a permanent lesson, for should Iran lose Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunb islands against the backdrop of other conflict, Tehran will not soon regain them.

EAPPI: The World Council of Churches’ Training Camp for Anti-Israel Advocacy

From NGO Monitor, 14 January 2019:

Click Here for Full Report (pdf)

Executive Summary

• EAPPI, the World Council of Churches’ flagship project on Israel and the Arab-Israel conflict, has brought 1,800 volunteers to the West Bank to “witness life under occupation.” The World Council of Churches does not run similar activities in other conflict zones. By singling out Israel, EAPPI embodies antisemitism, as defined in the International Holocaust Remembrance Association’s working definition.
• Despite marketing itself as a human rights and protection program, EAPPI places significant emphasis on political advocacy before, during, and after the trip. When volunteers return to their home countries and churches, they engage in anti-Israel advocacy, such as BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) campaigns and comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa and Nazi Germany.
• Participants are selected by country-specific non-governmental organizations (NGOs) known as “National Coordinators.” The National Coordinators are also active in BDS and other delegitimization campaigns against Israel.
• EAPPI receives funding from a variety of sources, including the WCC and National Coordinators. Funding from different governments is directed to EAPPI through the National Coordinators and via UNICEF.
• EAPPI contributes to a UN “Working Group” consisting of a number of UN agencies and NGOs that collaborate on and coordinate politicized anti-Israel campaigns in the West Bank. In this capacity, EAPPI does “a lot of administrative work which is fed into UN systems.”
• EAPPI partners with a number of political NGOs in the region, including groups that support BDS campaigns against Israel and/or that accuse Israel of “war crimes.”
• The significant problems with EAPPI, as laid out in this report, should be seen in light of the antisemitism¹ and demonization that emerges from EAPPI’s parent body (World Council of Churches), partners, and affiliated staff.

Recommendations

To the donor governments – Act immediately to broadly reevaluate funding to EAPPI, in order to ensure that these funds are not misused to promote antisemitism, BDS, and lawfare, and/or to fuel the conflict. Donor governments must develop and implement transparent funding guidelines that are accountable to the public.

To the Israeli government – The Israeli government should develop a consistent, fact-based policy to deal with “delegimization” campaigns, which it defines as a strategic threat. It should engage in critical dialogue with the government donors, as well as with the churches involved with EAPPI.

To the WCC– If it desires to improve its image in Israel and with the global Jewish community, the WCC should not promote an ideology that denies Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish State and/or that discriminates against Christian supporters of Israel....

Follow this link to read the the detailed summary in full

Trump and the Jewish People

From President Trump's State-of-the-Union address, 6 Feb 2019:


...To ensure this corrupt dictatorship never acquires nuclear weapons, I withdrew the United States from the disastrous Iran nuclear deal. And last fall, we put in place the toughest sanctions ever imposed on a country.

We will not avert our eyes from a regime that chants death to America and threatens genocide against the Jewish people. We must never ignore the vile poison of anti-Semitism, or those who spread its venomous creed. With one voice, we must confront this hatred anywhere and everywhere it occurs.

Just months ago, 11 Jewish-Americans were viciously murdered in an anti-semitic attack on the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. SWAT Officer Timothy Matson raced into the gunfire and was shot seven times chasing down the killer. Timothy has just had his 12th surgery -- but he made the trip to be here with us tonight. Officer Matson: we are forever grateful for your courage in the face of evil.

Tonight, we are also joined by Pittsburgh survivor Judah Samet. He arrived at the synagogue as the massacre began. But not only did Judah narrowly escape death last fall -- more than seven decades ago, he narrowly survived the Nazi concentration camps. Today is Judah's 81st birthday. Judah says he can still remember the exact moment, nearly 75 years ago, after 10 months in a concentration camp, when he and his family were put on a train, and told they were going to another camp. Suddenly the train screeched to a halt. A soldier appeared. Judah's family braced for the worst. Then, his father cried out with joy: "It's the Americans."

A second Holocaust survivor who is here tonight, Joshua Kaufman, was a prisoner at Dachau Concentration Camp. He remembers watching through a hole in the wall of a cattle car as American soldiers rolled in with tanks. "To me," Joshua recalls, "the American soldiers were proof that God exists, and they came down from the sky."...

New Norwegian government calls for closer ties with Israel, condemns BDS

From JPost, 21 Jan 2019, by HERB KEINON:

Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg. (photo credit: REUTERS/ADNAN ABIDI)

"The Norwegian government does not see boycott of Israel as a contribution to dialogue, understanding and a peaceful development in the Middle East."

Israel’s relations with Norway, which improved significantly in 2013 with the election of a center-right government, are likely to improve even more following a reshuffling on Thursday, said Conrad Myrland, head of a pro-Israel group in the country.

The coalition government of Erna Solberg was expanded on Thursday with the addition of the small Christian-Democratic Party. Solberg was quoted as calling the formation of the government a “historic day,” since it marks the first time since 1985 that Norway would be ruled by a non-socialist majority government.

Reelected in 2017, Solberg has governed with minority governments since 2013, meaning she has needed the opposition parties to pass legislation. This will no longer be the case.

Though foreign policy was not the reason for bringing in the new party, Myrland – whose organization With Israel for Peace (Med Israel for Fred), the largest non-religious, pro-Israel organization in Norway – said the Christian Democrats now headed by a pro-Israel leader named Kjell Ingolf Ropstad have inserted some pro-Israel paragraphs in the new government guidelines.

The government guidelines call for Norway to have “a balanced attitude to the Middle East-conflict, actively support the goal of Israel and Palestine as two states within secure and international recognized borders, and support democratic development in the Middle East.”

Myrland said the paragraph is not new, and that something similar appeared in the previous government guidelines. What is new, he said, is a clause calling for the government to “lay the ground for strengthened research and development cooperation, trade, tourism and cultural exchange with Israel. The government does not see boycott of Israel as a contribution to dialogue, understanding and a peaceful development in the Middle East.”

Furthermore, the guidelines call for the government to “mark a clear critical stand against all form of antisemitism and actively work against economic contributions to terrorism, including reward of prisoners.”

In the chapter about international aid, the platform said the “government will not support organizations that encourage violence or promote hateful expressions, racism or antisemitism, specifically in the Palestinian areas.”

Myrland called these additions to the government guidelines a “further step in the right direction” toward Israel that began with Solberg’s election in 2013.

Norway has for years been a major donor to the Palestinians, and chairs the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee that is the main coordination mechanism for development assistance to them.

Will Trump's Mideast Deal Naturalize Palestinians in Arab Countries?

From NewsMax, 4 Feb 2019, by  Martin Sherman:


A picture taken on February 3, 2019, in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv shows a giant election billboard of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump shaking hands. The writing on the billboard reads in Hebrew 'Netanyahu, in another league'. 
(Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images)

In recent weeks, rumors have been swirling as to the substance of the much anticipated “deal of the century,” billed by the Trump administration as a compelling blueprint for resolving the seemingly intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has plagued the region for decades.

Shrouded in secrecy, it has long been held under wraps by the White House, allegedly waiting for an opportune moment to unveil it. In this regard, recent reports suggest that Trump may well be planning to present it publically, soon after the upcoming elections in Israel in April.

While most of the attention, and speculation, has been focused on the concessions — principally the territorial ones — that the sides will purportedly be called upon to make, there is another element, just as significant, indeed, arguably more so, that is now being alluded to as comprising a central component of the “deal.”

This is the naturalization of the Palestinian diaspora, numbering several million, resident for decades in various countries across the Arab world — particularly Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.

This development is an upshot of the Trump administration’s laudable approach to the anomalous UN entity, UNRWA (The United Nation Relief and Works). I have detailed elsewhere why UNRWA is such an egregious and injurious anomaly and what pernicious consequences result from this perverse situation. According, it will suffice here to point out that because of the unique (read “anomalous”) definition that UNRWA has for determining who is a refugee and mandate of how they are to be dealt with, the number of designated “refugees” has increased dramatically over time. This is in stark contradiction to all other groups of refugees in the world, who are under the auspices of another UN entity, the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) — and whose numbers typically decrease over time

In this matter, the U.S. administration has — despite hitherto unexplained and inexplicable Israeli reluctance — exposed the fraudulent fiasco of UNRWA. As its erstwhile biggest benefactor, the U.S. has retracted all funding from the organization. But more importantly, it has focused a glaring spotlight on the myth of the “Palestinian refugees” and the spectacularly inflated number of such alleged “refugees” — which even include those who have long acquired citizenship of some other country!

This salutary U.S. initiative has the potential to rescind the recognition of the bulk of the Palestinian diaspora as “refugees.” Thus, even if they continue to receive international aid to help ameliorate their humanitarian situation, this will not be as potential returnees to their alleged homeland in Israel.

Clearly, once the Palestinian diaspora is stripped of its fraudulent “refugee” status, the door is then open to settling them in third party countries, other than their claimed homeland, and to their naturalization as citizens of these counties — as is the case with other refugee groups in the world.

In this regard, the Trump administration has reportedly ... informed several Arab countries that he plans to disclose a citizenship plan for Palestinian refugees living in those countries.
Significantly, Palestinian sources told a London based news outlet: 

“Trump informed several Arab countries that the plan will include Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.” According to these sources: “the big surprise [is] that these countries have already agreed to naturalize Palestinian refugees.” 

Moreover, it was reported that senior U.S. officials are expected to seriously raise an American initiative with several Arab countries — including stipulation of the tools to implement it, the number of refugees, the required expenses, and the logistics demanded from hosting countries for supervising the process of “naturalization of refugees.”

It is difficult to overstate the significance of such an initiative!

For, no matter what the other elements of the “ultimate deal” are, it has the potential to remove the ominous overhang of a five million strong (and counting) Palestinian diaspora that threatens to inundate the Jewish state and nullify its ability to function as the nation-state of the Jewish people. It is therefore, an element that deserves firm support and encouragement — and should be resolutely pursued as a “stand alone” initiative — irrespective of how one envisages any prospective division of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.