AUSTRALIA/ REVIEW

VOLUME 45 No. 9 SEPTEMBER 2020

AUSTRALIA/ISRAEL & JEWISH AFFAIRS COUNCIL ISRAEL FLIES EMIRATES

The dramatic implications for the whole of the UAE- Israel normalisation deal

ISRAEL ENERGISED “ABJECT FILTH” SNAPBACK ATTACK ALMS FOR TERRORISTS? How gas production is providing the The battle to contain US move sees the Holocaust denial on UN Security Council Stopping charitable Jewish state with new diplomatic and social media....PAGE 40 debating the zombie donations from serv- strategic opportunities ...... PAGE 20 nuclear agreement ing the aims of violent with Iran...... PAGE 24 extremists ...... PAGE 28 NAME OF SECTION

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AIR – September 2020 AUSTRALIA/ISRAEL VOLUME 45 No. 9 REVIEW SEPTEMBER 2020 EDITOR’S NOTE NAME OF SECTION his AIR edition’s cover story looks at the implications of the dramatic and unexpected ON THE COVER Tannouncement on Aug. 13 of plans for the normalisation of diplomatic relations On Aug. 13, 2020, Tel Aviv City between Israel and the . Hall was lit up with the flag of Amotz Asa-El looks at why the UAE normalisation deal is so widely seen as an im- the United Arab Emirates as portant breakthrough in Israel, strategic affairs reporter Yaakov Lappin explores its im- the UAE and Israel announced plications for the wider Middle East, while Israeli columnist Haviv Rettig Gur explains they would be establishing full why the Palestinian reaction to the deal has been so vehement and what the Palestinian diplomatic ties. (Photo: AAP/ leadership is so concerned about. Oded Balilty) Also featured this month is Jack Gross’ analysis of how Israel’s transformation into a major gas exporter is having important diplomatic and security, as well as economic, consequences. Plus, noted author and academic Jonathan Spyer reviews the tellingly strange background of the terrorists responsible for the infamous 1976 Entebbe hijacking. And don’t miss: An informed look at the background and mechanics of US plans to “snapback” UN nuclear sanctions on Iran from James Carafano and two colleagues; American expert Danielle Pletka on ’s past and present curse; or Jeremy Jones’ discussion of the fight to contain Holocaust denial on social media. As always, please let us know what you think about any aspect of this edition at [email protected].

Tzvi Fleischer CONTENTS FEATURE STORIES REGULAR COLUMNS OUT OF THE FROM THE EDITORIAL CHAIRMAN BLUE COLIN RUBENSTEIN ...... PAGE 4 ...... PAGE 5 BY AMOTZ ASA-EL WORD FOR WORD The deal caught everyone SCRIBBLINGS in Israel off guard, even TZVI FLEISCHER ...... PAGE 6 though extensive commercial relations between the two coun- DECONSTRUCTION ZONE tries have been an open secret for years...... PAGE 12 DAVID MAY ...... PAGE 7 DEAL CHALLENGES MIDEAST RADICALS ASIA WATCH BY YAAKOV LAPPIN ...... PAGE 14 MICHAEL SHANNON ...... PAGE 8 AIR NEW ZEALAND BLASTS EXPOSE SHAKY FOUNDATIONS MIRIAM BELL ...... PAGE 9 BY HAVIV RETTIG GUR ...... PAGE 16 BEHIND THE NEWS...... PAGE 10 ISRAEL ENERGISED The security and diplomatic implications of Israeli gas production STRANGER THAN FICTION...... PAGE 11 BY JACK GROSS ...... PAGE 20 NOTED AND QUOTED...... PAGE 35 DEBATING A ZOMBIE AGREEMENT IN PARLIAMENT...... PAGE 36 BY JAMES CARAFANO, JAMES PHILLIPS & BRETT SCHAEFER .... PAGE 24 MEDIA MICROSCOPE LEBANON’S CURSE ALLON LEE ...... PAGE 39 BY DANIELLE PLETKA ...... PAGE 26 THE LAST WORD EHUD’S MIDEAST INSIGHTS JEREMY JONES ...... PAGE 40 BY JAMIE HYAMS ...... PAGE 27 HOW TO USE OUR INTERACTIVE EDITION IS YOUR CHARITY SUPPORTING TERROR? BY DORON GOLDBARSHT ...... PAGE 28 • Tap/click to return to the Contents page ESSAY: WHO WERE THE ENTEBBE HIJACKERS • All listed articles link to their page. How German leftists became antisemitic terrorists • Best viewed in your desktop browser or the Books (iOS) or JONATHAN SPYER ...... PAGE 31 equivalent e-book reader app in portrait mode. BY 3

AIR – September 2020 Australia/Israel Review A journal of analysis and opinion published by the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC)

Editorial Chairman

EDITORIAL Dr COLIN RUBENSTEIN AM Editor-in-Chief Dr TZVI FLEISCHER Senior Contributing Editor MORE THAN NORMALISATION JEREMY JONES AM Staff Writers ALLON LEE, JAMIE HYAMS, AHRON very supporter of peace, particularly in the turbulent Middle East, should applaud SHAPIRO, SHARYN MITTELMAN, NAOMI LEVIN, OVED LOBEL, JUDY MAYNARD, Ethe recently announced normalisation agreement between Israel and the United JACK GROSS Arab Emirates (UAE). Publishing Manager MICHAEL SHANNON The UAE takes its place as the third Arab country to open diplomatic relations with the Correspondents Jewish State, after Egypt (1979) and (1994). ISRAEL: AMOTZ ASA-EL EUROPE: DOUGLAS DAVIS However, the UAE deal, unlike those before it, grew not out of the cold, transactional NEW ZEALAND: MIRIAM BELL “land for peace” framework of UN Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 242 that followed National Editorial Board KEITH BEVILLE, RABBI RALPH the 1967 Six Day War, but a new model of “peace for peace” and shared mutual interests. GENENDE OAM, GARY HERZ, MIRIAM It is the organic product of both economic opportunity and common security concerns, LASKY, STEVE LIEBLICH, RABBI JOHN LEVI AM, Hon. HOWARD NATHAN AM, particularly vis-à-vis the threat to both countries from Iran through conventional warfare, IAN WALLER SC proxy militias and terror groups, and nuclear weapon ambitions. While the earlier treaties led to “cold” relationships focussed on security, borders and AIJAC non-hostility arrangements, with few people-to-people contacts, the UAE promises Israel National Chairman MARK LEIBLER AC a warm, hospitable peace built upon a foundation of mutual respect and shared interests NSW Chairman between historic regional neighbours. PAUL RUBENSTEIN Executive Director But it represents even more than this. Dr COLIN RUBENSTEIN AM Since 1967, generations of peace negotiators have built their careers around the Director of International & Community Affairs principle that Arab acceptance of Israel could come only after the make peace JEREMY JONES AM with Israel. They have now been proven wrong. Senior Policy Analysts AHRON SHAPIRO, JAMIE HYAMS, Over the decades, the Palestinians have repeatedly and flagrantly exploited the good ALLON LEE, NAOMI LEVIN, SHARYN faith and sympathy of their Arab neighbours, “vetoing” any normalisation as the keystone MITTELMAN Policy Analysts to a broader international campaign to question Israel’s right to exist, without regard OVED LOBEL, JUDY MAYNARD for how this rejectionism might negatively affect the interests of the Middle East’s other Associate Director of Public Affairs JOEL BURNIE nations. National Media & Public Affairs Officer The UAE’s shift toward normalisation therefore removes a major obstacle to a two- ARIEL ZOHAR state peace, while simultaneously making a case for normalisation as a better way to facili- Events Coordinator HELEN BRUSTMAN OAM tate Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking. Administration The UAE insists the normalisation deal dissuaded Israel from unilaterally extend- MELBOURNE: ROSEMARY SANDLER, RENA LANGBERG ing sovereignty to areas of the West Bank, and in doing so, served the Palestinians’ best SYDNEY: LOUISE DE MESQUITA interests by helping safeguard the two-state Israeli-Palestinian peace paradigm. Perhaps. Israel Liaison PETER ADLER But more importantly, enlightened Arab leaders now have the chance to counsel the Founding Chairmen Palestinians regarding their current counter-productive rejectionist stance, and, while ISADOR MAGID AM (OBM) ROBERT ZABLUD (OBM) advocating for Palestinian interests, also talk directly to their Israeli counterparts about what can realistically be done to meet Israel’s essential security needs in any two-state HEAD OFFICE Level 1, 22 Albert Road, peace. South Melbourne, VIC 3205, Australia Telephone: (03) 9681 6660 As UAE Deputy Foreign Minister Omar Saif Ghobash told the Israeli daily Yediot Ahro- Fax: (03) 9681 6650 Email: [email protected] not on Aug. 21, “We will not remain hostages to the internal problems of the Palestinians.” SYDNEY OFFICE Ghobash said: “If the Palestinians cannot agree on a way forward – after [our] helping 140 William Street East Sydney, NSW 2011, Australia them repeatedly over the years – we need to choose the right path for us. This way can Telephone: (02) 9360 5415 Email: [email protected] open up opportunities for the Palestinians and the and show them that there is

SUBSCRIPTIONS nothing to fear.” Please send all remittances, changes of Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made state visits to Sudan and Bahrain address and subscription inquiries to: Australia/Israel Review in late August, hoping to capitalise on the momentum created by the UAE’s move. He is Level 1, 22 Albert Road South Melbourne, VIC 3205, Australia seeking to organise a regional summit in September to include Bahrain, Oman, Morocco, ISSN No. 1442-3693 Print Post Approved – 100007869 Sudan and Chad, alongside Israel and the UAE, and hopefully encourage one or more of 4 www.aijac.org.au these countries to follow the UAE’s example.

AIR – September 2020 Discreet Israeli relations with Sunni Gulf states have of In the context of the apparent paucity of resolve by the course been something of an open secret for some time UN Security Council to address blatant Iranian violations now, and there have been many signs over recent years of of the JCPOA and Non-Proliferation Treaty, the UAE’s these ties becoming deeper and more overt. move casts in sharper relief the alliances shaping today’s

In other words, the UAE normalisation is the tip of a Middle East. There is every reason to hope it will empower EDITORIAL much wider regional iceberg of changing strategic thinking the Western-leaning Sunni Arab side via more open ties and a far-reaching re-alignment. with Israel, boosting stability, ex- At a time when the United “The UAE’s shift toward normalisation panding cooperation on defence States is committed to drawing therefore removes a major obstacle to and intelligence affairs, trade, in- down the number of troops it a two-state peace, while simultane- vestment and joint technological bases in the region, the UAE and ously making a case for normalisation development, modernisation and its Western-aligned regional allies as a better way to facilitate Israeli- the potential for increased cross- are recognising the value of part- cultural dialogue. Meanwhile, it nering more openly with Israel in Palestinian peacemaking” should weaken the rejectionist their common goal of thwarting forces determined to destabilise Iran’s expansionism. the region, especially Teheran and its Hezbollah proxy in Unfortunately, this determined diplomatic stance from Lebanon; the Assad regime; Turkey’s Islamist ruler Erdo- the regional forces of stability – which provides support to gan; and the Muslim Brotherhood. the US’ “maximum pressure” approach to Iran to renegoti- The UAE-Israel deal is a hugely positive, watershed ate the fatally flawed 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of development. Australia has welcomed the deal, but it, and Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal – is not being backed up by every other nation of goodwill, would be wise to offer the European powers. any and all possible support to this epic and potentially In the UN Security Council on Aug. 14, Europe – as profoundly promising regional reorientation. well as and China – allowed a US resolution to extend an arms embargo on Iran to fail, setting up a disastrous situation where, thanks to the JCPOA, Iran can AIJAC MOURNS DR. DANIEL freely modernise its arsenal after mid-October. MANDEL Likewise, Europe, Russia and China have signalled The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) they won’t back the US right to activate the “snapback” wishes to convey our deepest sympathy to the wife, children provision to restore international sanctions on Iran under and family of Dr Daniel Mandel, who passed away on August 14 UNSC Resolution 2231, arguing that the US forfeited that in the United States and was buried in Israel. right when it withdrew from the JCPOA in May 2018. Dr Mandel, a former associate editor of the Australia/Israel However, this argument ignores both the plain language of Review and author of H.V. Evatt and the Establishment of Israel, was Resolution 2231, and the arguments about how “snapback” a highly respected and admired former AIJAC staff member would work made by then-US President Barack Obama whose memory will long be a blessing for all who had the privi- back in 2015. lege to know him.

mistake, a treacherous act. We hope they will realise this and abandon this wrong path.” WORD Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on the Israel-UAE normalisation FOR WORD announcement (Reuters, Aug. 15).

“President Donald J. Trump, Prime Minister Benjamin Netan- “This process will lead to those sanctions coming back into ef- yahu of Israel, and Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed, Crown Prince fect 30 days from today. Our message is very, very simple: The of and Deputy Supreme Commander of the United United States will never allow the world’s largest state sponsor Arab Emirates spoke today and agreed to the full normalisa- of terrorism to freely buy and sell planes, tanks, missiles and tion of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. other kinds of conventional weapons.” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stating that the US had begun This historic diplomatic breakthrough will advance peace in the the process of trying to “snapback” UN sanctions on Iran (NPR, Aug. Middle East region and is a testament to the bold diplomacy and 20). vision of the three leaders.” Joint statement released by the White House on normalising rela- “We share the pain of the Lebanese people and sincerely reach tions between Israel and the UAE (CNN, Aug. 13). out to offer our aid at this difficult time.” Israeli President Reuven Rivlin after the massive explosion in “They [the UAE] better be mindful. They have committed a huge Beirut (CNN, Aug. 4). 5

AIR – September 2020 openly boasted of that protest on social media. The noted Palestinian affairs journalist Khaled Abu Toameh has pointed out that this demonstration was in ef- fect a warning to citizens of the UAE not to visit COLUMNS NAME OF SECTION Tzvi Fleischer or the Al-Aqsa Mosque via Israel, as opposed to entering via the West Bank. He points out that, in the past, cer- THE PALESTINIANS’ ISLAMIST tain Saudi and Bahraini visitors to the Mosque have been MESSAGING ON THE UAE DEAL expelled or even physically attacked by local Palestinians In this month’s edition, noted Israeli columnist Haviv on the basis that the people in question were engaged in Rettig Gur (pp. 16-18) makes the point that Palestinian “normalisation” with Israel. secular nationalist anti-colonialist claims against Israel are PA religious officials have been explicit that this is in- no longer resonating in the Arab world as they once did deed the message the Palestinians are now sending to UAE – yet Islamist messages still do among Muslim radicals. citizens. The PA’s Supreme Shari’ah Judge and Chairman This is why most Arab states were not strongly opposed of the Supreme Council for Shari’ah Justice Mahmoud Al- to or critical of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) decision Habbash told official PA TV, “Whoever wants to come visit to normalise relations with Israel in violation of the Arab the Al-Aqsa Mosque through the gate of Palestine: Wel- tradition of opposing normalisation until the Palestinians come, and we will rejoice over him... But whoever wants achieve their demands. And to come through the Israeli this is why it is leaders of the gate is unwanted, and he will Sunni and Shi’ite Islamist find nothing but the shoes blocs – dominated respec- of the people of Jerusalem tively by Turkey and Iran and the spit of the people of – who have most strongly Jerusalem in his face.” attacked the UAE decision. Al-Habbash also called The nominally secular the UAE deal “treason… Palestinian Authority (PA), Not just against the Palestin- led by Mahmoud Abbas, ian people. This is a denial seems to be recognising that of the heritage of Prophet Islamist themes get a stron- Muhammad,” and said, ger reaction, and has been “Normalisation means that Palestinians demonstrate against the UAE and its de facto leader, Crown employing them heavily in its Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed, at Jerusalem’s Temple Mount you agree to natural relations angry response to the UAE with your brother’s murder- deal. ers… with the enemies of Prophet Muhammad.” Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque has featured especially The PA’s Grand Mufti, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, prominently in its campaigns. The first official PA re- went even further than Al-Habbash, issuing a fatwa – a sponse to the UAE-Israel joint statement announcing plans religious ruling – that forbids Muslims who come from the to normalise relations was to declare it “treason against UAE via Israel from praying at the Al-Aqsa Mosque. He re- Jerusalem, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Palestinian cause.” portedly ruled such prayers are “forbidden” if worshippers Similarly, the deputy chair of Abbas’ movement Mah- arrive via Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport, as well as “legally moud Al-Aloul said the UAE-Israel accord “constitutes a false, religiously offensive.” knife in the back of Palestine and treason against Jerusalem As Abu Toameh wrote, “The Palestinians have often and the Al-Aqsa Mosque.” accused Israel of denying them access to their holy sites, An official spokesman of the Fatah party, Osama Al- including Al-Aqsa Mosque. Now the Palestinians are show- Qawasmi, told official PA TV on Aug. 18 that the UAE deal ing the world that they are the ones who are seeking to risked encouraging “some of the remaining states to hurry prevent Muslims who believe in peace with Israel from towards normalisation – with whom? With the Israeli en- praying at Al-Aqsa Mosque.” tity that is stealing the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the first direction At this point, this reliance on religious messaging by the for [Muslim] prayer, the second of the mosques, and the PA, in addition to more secular messaging about Arab ob- third in its sanctity for Islam.” ligations to the Palestinian cause, is mostly rhetorical. The One of the key protests organised by Fatah against question that must be asked is: Will the PA at some point the deal, in which UAE flags and pictures of UAE Crown decide that, with secular messaging now largely ineffec- Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed were trampled on and tive across most of the Middle East, it needs to genuinely burnt, took place during Friday prayers at the Temple move into one of the Islamist camps to get support? Will 6 Mount outside the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Aug. 14. Fatah it at some point seek to gain actual patronage from Iran or

AIR – September 2020 Turkey, which it has avoided up until now because both are situation today, in part, results from decades of rejection- sponsors of the PA’s main rival, the Islamist group Hamas ism by failed leaders who have openly engaged in terrorism that rules Gaza? against Israel and others, Palestinians need humanitarian I asked Khaled Abu Toameh this during a recent AIJAC assistance. However, the UN’s unconditional acceptance of webinar and he agreed it was a worrying possibility. the one-sided Palestinian narrative has served to unfairly COLUMNS NAME OF SECTION Despite a sometimes naïve perception to the contrary, malign Israel and harm prospects for peace. the PA has never actually looked at the Arab-Israel conflict The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable as a dispute over land, amenable to compromise, as I have Rights of the Palestinian People was created in 1975, in tried to demonstrate in this column over the years. How- the same session as the infamous “Zionism is Racism” ever, the embrace of Islamism can only make any prospect resolution, which vilified the movement for Jewish au- of a two-state resolution even more distant and difficult. tonomy. To this day, the Committee produces a steady Some Palestinians have noted that the UAE deal could stream of anti-Israel resolutions that the General Assembly provide opportunities for the PA leadership to finally reach rubber-stamps. a two-state agreement financed and backed by the wealthy The UN created additional bodies to assist in the Com- Arab states. If the Palestinian leadership instead react to mittee’s work. The Division for Palestinian Rights, with losing their traditional kneejerk support from the Arab an annual budget of nearly A$4 million under the Depart- world by turning to the Islamist extremist blocs, the long- ment of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, serves as the suffering Palestinian people will miss yet another such Committee’s secretariat. The UN Information System on opportunity. the Question of Palestine operates under the Division for Palestinian Rights as a pro-Palestinian propaganda arm. Tellingly, the UN has no other similar network of bodies devoted to promoting one people’s narrative. But the UN’s pervasive anti-Israel bias does not end there. In December 1968, the UN created the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the David May Human Rights of the Palestinian People, whose mandate is THE UN AND THE UAE DEAL to investigate alleged Israeli abuses. The United Arab Emirates and Israel took the historic That UN committee is reminiscent of the UN Human step of normalising diplomatic relations. But you would Rights Council’s commissions of inquiry following Israeli- never know how positive this development is for regional Palestinian conflicts. These commissions presumed Israeli peace based on the United Nations’ tepid response, which guilt and were directed to focus only on Israeli actions. focused on the Palestinians. The UN’s continued fixation Indeed, the UN Human Rights Council has a rapporteur upon the Israeli-Palestinian conflict underscores how the whose mandate exclusively calls for exposing Israeli crimes international organisation, whose mission is to promote and not Palestinian ones. Systematic bias is hard to deny, “international peace and security,” has become an overt as this flawed forum has produced about as many resolu- champion of one side of a conflict and a detractor of an- tions criticising Israel as resolutions criticising every other other side. country in the world combined. This was not the first time the UN has promoted the In recent years, the United States has begun to push Palestinian agenda to the detriment of regional peace ini- back against these biased UN bodies. Other countries are tiatives. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat shocked the Arab beginning to express concern about the UN’s Palestinian world in September 1978 when he became the first Middle bias too. Eastern leader to sign a peace agreement with Israel. Three The United Kingdom has opposed all Human Rights months later, in resolution 33/28A, the UN General As- Council resolutions presented under an agenda item sembly condemned Egypt for bypassing the UN and for dedicated to castigating Israel over the past few years [Ed. not resolving the Palestinian issue. The General Assembly Note: so too has Australia]. And, recognising the discrimina- followed up in December 1979 with resolution 34/65, tory nature of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli which again argued that regional security, somehow sub- Practices, Ukraine departed the committee in early 2020. ordinate to the Israeli-Palestinian issue, would deteriorate New possibilities are emerging in the Middle East. The with an Egyptian-Israeli deal. Both resolutions drew heav- UAE has broken the taboo of normalisation with Israel, ily from reports produced by the UN Committee on the while other countries, such as Bahrain, Oman, and Mo- Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. rocco, may soon follow. The UN should encourage this That committee is part of an infrastructure of pro-Pal- instead of promoting the false notion that Palestinian griev- estinian institutions within the UN system. To be sure, Pal- ances should supersede support for peace and security estinians deserve international support. Even while their efforts. When the UN encourages maximalist Palestinian 7

AIR – September 2020 demands, it makes regional peace less likely. System-wide Government forces have depleted the Abu Sayyaf changes are needed. Group ranks by up to 70% since last year, Gapay said. He did not give estimates of the group’s current strength, but David May is a research analyst at the Foundation for Defence of military sources place its troop levels at between 300 and COLUMNS NAME OF SECTION Democracies. The article originally appeared in the Washington 500 fighters. Examiner. © Foundation for Defence of Democracies (www.fdd. Gapay made his comments days after a senior Abu org), reprinted by permission, all rights reserved. Sayyaf commander, Abduljihad “Indang” Susukan – wanted for at least 23 cases of murder and five kidnapping cases, including of Westerners who were executed by their Abu Sayyaf captors – was taken into custody. He voluntarily surrendered to Philippine authorities after being wounded in fighting on Aug. 13. Susukan was alleged to be a contemporary of Zulki- Michael Shannon fli bin Hir, the Malaysian militant and bomb maker also GLASS HALF-FULL, HALF-EMPTY known as Marwan, who was killed by Philippine police The Philippines Armed Forces has been bolstered by commandos during a raid in January 2015. Marwan was a advice, equipment and financial assistance from the United primary suspect in the 2002 Bali bombings. States for decades in its efforts to subdue violent Islamist Susukan also became a lieutenant to Hatib Hajan Saw- militants in the archipelago nation’s southern islands. adjaan, an Abu Sayyaf militant who took over the command The current iteration of this cooperative effort has been of the Philippine branch of Islamic State after Isnilon Hapi- known as Operation Pacific Eagle – Philippines (OPE-P), lon was killed at the end of the Marawi siege in October launched in September 2017, when Philippine government 2017. Sawadjaan’s group was also blamed for twin bomb forces were battling pro-IS fighters who had taken over blasts that killed 23 people at a church in Jolo, the capital the southern city of Marawi. The US deployed military of Sulu province, in January 2019. advisers and drones to help the Philippines retake the city, With the Abu Sayyaf under pressure from security kill the top leaders of the militant siege and flush out their forces and reportedly short of cash, experts predict that an forces a month later. increase in kidnappings is likely. Five Indonesians, includ- But nearly three years later, the two forces have differ- ing a minor, are currently being held by the group, accord- ing assessments of the success of their joint mission. ing to the Indonesian Foreign Ministry, but there have been The latest report to the US Congress from the Pen- no new kidnappings since January, according to authorities. tagon said the current counter-terror offensive had not Deka Anwar, a researcher at the Jakarta-based Institute made any significant inroads against Islamic State-aligned for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC), told a recent online extremist groups. forum that there was a lull in kidnappings in 2016 and “[T]here has been little change in the capabilities, size, 2017 following large-scale operations by the Philippine financing, and operations of ISIS-EA [East Asia],” said Sean military against the militants and a series of money trans- W. O’Donnell, the US Defence Department’s acting in- fers from Islamic State to Abu Sayyaf. spector general, in the quarterly report on the US military But with those funds largely depleted, the Abu Sayyaf is aid program to Manila. increasingly targeting Indonesian shipping crews because “In general, efforts to reduce extremism in the Philip- ransom payments have been secured for their release, he pines do not appear to have made a substantial difference said, adding that about 93% of coal exports from Indone- since the launch of OPE-P. ISIS-EA and the other violent sia to the Philippines pass through Mindanao waters. The extremist groups in the Philippines that either coordinate slow-moving boats allow Abu Sayyaf militants to abduct with or share members with ISIS, have remained about the sailors. same size and strength for the last few years,” O’Donnell Ali Fauzi, a former Moro Islamic Liberation Front said, noting that the militant groups have operated in the (MILF) member and executive director of the Circle of same region for decades and that “little progress has been Peace Foundation, has a different take, telling BenarNews made” in improving the economic, social, and political that the Abu Sayyaf’s piracy has deep roots. conditions there. “Their ancestors in the Sulu Kingdom were notorious The Philippines’ military chief and other generals re- for their piracy tradition,” Ali said. “They need money, not sponded with a more upbeat assessment. Armed forces head only for their struggle but to support poor people. They Gen. Gilbert Gapay said, “WestMinCom [Western Mind- are considered Robin Hoods. They and their community anao Command] has accomplished so much as far as degrad- need each other. If they are pursued by the Philippine au- ing. Maybe we have not yet defeated [them] but we have thorities, they can blend in with the people and the people 8 degraded their capabilities, especially the Abu Sayyaf.” will protect them,” he said.

AIR – September 2020 the renowned Nazi hunter Dr Efraim Zuroff, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre’s office in Jerusalem. He said he could “state unequivocally that serving in a Waffen-SS unit on the eastern front, there is no way that Mr Huber NAME OF SECTION Miriam Bell could possibly not have been aware of the massive atroci- COLUMNS ties carried out by the SS… If we add the fact that he A CONTROVERSIAL “LEGACY” volunteered for the SS, and his comments that Hitler was This year has seen the world taking a fresh look at no- ‘very clever,’ and …‘offered [Austrians] a way out’ of the table “personalities” from the past and what they represent hardships after World War I, it’s clear that Mr. Huber was in a broader, historical context. In New Zealand, statues of an unrepentant Nazi, who doesn’t deserve any sympathy or colonial figures are being reassessed amidst discussion of recognition.” how to better address the injustices of the country’s past. For the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand’s chief exec- In addition to the colonial era, New Zealand’s post-war utive, Chris Harris, there’s no doubt that Huber was aware policies around immigration and the response of successive of what was going on in the Waffen-SS. “Even if he didn’t governments to the presence of Nazi war criminals in the participate in it, he was aware of it. For us that means that country have long been the subject of criticism from the he should not be honoured and paid homage to. Jewish community. “So we would love Mt Hutt to reconsider the renaming A recent controversy over the legacy of a post-war of that area… They can say he made a new life and so on. Austrian émigré, who died on August 9, has brought these But that wasn’t possible for the millions of victims of the issues to the fore again. Nazis who never got that chance.” Willi Huber immigrated to New Zea- The Huber controversy has also re- land in 1953. He made a name for himself ignited niggling questions about exactly on the ski-fields and is considered one of who was allowed into New Zealand after the “founding fathers” of Canterbury’s Mt World War II and the lack of a satisfactory Hutt ski area. The mountain features a government response to post-war arrivals lasting memorial to him in the form of the subsequently identified as war criminals. Huber’s Run trail, a plaque and a café. Harris says that between 40 and 46 There is more to Huber’s past than his Willi Huber (left), New Zealand skiing Nazi war criminals are known to have pioneer and unrepentant former SS migrated to New Zealand after the war. endeavours on the ski-fields, though. At member 17, Huber volunteered for the Waffen-SS, “They committed horrors, so how did where he served as a machine-gunner, earning two Iron they get in? You have to ask how was Immigration NZ as- Cross medals on the eastern front. After the war, he was sessing refugees? Were they just saying ‘oh, well you fought held as a prisoner of war for 16 months. on the other side but it’s over now so you can come in’?” Despite this, Huber has been the subject of several In fact, New Zealand was the only Anglo-Saxon country laudatory media stories, including a controversial TVNZ that chose not to attempt any legal action against alleged programme in 2017, which was heavily criticised for gloss- Nazi war criminals within its borders, a reality described ing over and minimising his Nazi past. as “an embarrassment” by Zuroff. Huber denied knowledge of any atrocities by the Holocaust & Foundation Aotearoa New Waffen-SS and never expressed any remorse for his war- Zealand co-founder Sheree Trotter says that it is difficult time activities. to explain the government’s lack of response on identified Shortly after Huber’s death, Mt. Hutt Ski Area manager war criminals – especially as it was so out-of-step with James McKenzie told the media the Huber’s Run ski trail allies. would keep his name; “He made a new life and a new start “The specific case of Willi Huber could be explained here and tried to put that behind him. We are happy to re- by a number of factors. Many New Zealanders struggle spect his legacy. The context of what he went through in the to face our own colonial past where injustices and crimes war, nobody knows for sure what people did way back then.” were perpetrated by our forebears. It’s easier to take the This comment ignited a maelstrom of criticism. Zionist view that we should just move on. That type of attitude, Federation of NZ President Rob Berg started a petition combined with lack of education and an easy-going-accept- calling for the removal of the “honouring legacy” for Huber people-at-face-value attitude, could explain how Huber from Mt Hutt, while community leaders like NZ Jewish managed to ingratiate himself into the local community.” Council spokesperson Juliet Moses wrote impassioned In both Harris and Trotter’s view, there is a great need columns asking why New Zealand was intent on honouring for more research into New Zealand’s relationship with the legacy of an unrepentant Nazi. the Holocaust, as well as education on the Holocaust, to The Holocaust and Antisemitism Foundation contacted better address these issues. 9

AIR – September 2020 BEHIND THE NEWS BEHIND THE ROCKET AND TERROR the escalation in violence towards Is- REPORT rael from Gaza over recent weeks. An After months of relative quiet, internal election for the leadership of there have been frequent rocket Hamas, both inside and outside Gaza, launches and explosive and incendiary which started a few months ago, is balloon attacks from Gaza in recent expected to conclude by early next weeks. Israel has retaliated with year. Hamas’ leader in Gaza, Yahya strikes against Hamas targets. Sinwar, is competing against current The Aug. 4 blast at Beirut’s port devastated One rocket was fired on Aug. 3, Head of the Political Bureau Ismail the city several on Aug. 16, one on Aug. 19, Haniyeh, who recently left Gaza, and went missing from the warehouse 12 on Aug. 21, one on Aug. 22, and a Qatar-based former leader Khaled prior to the August explosion. failed launch on Aug. 23. Meshaal. Israeli geophysics experts also re- Incendiary balloon terrorism has All candidates are seeking credit vealed the massive port explosion was been a very frequent occurrence over for extracting concessions, benefits preceded by six smaller explosions at recent weeks, with dozens of fires be- and money from Israel and Qatar, exactly 11-second intervals, leading ing lit daily, causing environmental and and the recent upsurge in rockets and to speculation the original source of agricultural damage in southern Israel. incendiary balloons directed at Israel the explosion may have been a cache On Aug. 22, Israeli officials ac- from Gaza is understood to be part of of Hezbollah weaponry stored at the cused Hamas of deliberately diverting these efforts. port. sewage into Israel after sewage treat- ment plants in Gaza were shut down due to restrictions on fuel imports INTRIGUING REPORTS ISRAEL OFFERED AID imposed by Israel in retaliation for the ABOUT BEIRUT PORT TO LEBANON AFTER THE balloon attacks. EXPLOSION BLAST On Aug. 26, Rabbi Shai Ohayon, The ammonium nitrate store held Shortly after the Aug. 4 Beirut 39, a father of four, was stabbed to at the Beirut port, which exploded on explosion, Israeli Defence Minister death by a Palestinian in Petah Tikva Aug. 4 killing at least 220 people, was Benny Gantz and Foreign Minister – the first death in a year of an Israeli originally carried by a ship called the Gabi Ashkenazi announced that Israel citizen as a result of Palestinian terror. Rhosus, owned by a Cypriot business- had offered Lebanon medical and hu- In the north, on July 25, the IDF man named Charalambos Manoli. manitarian aid. The UN Interim Force reported munitions had been fired from The ship, bound for Africa, docked in Lebanon (UNIFIL) confirmed that towards Israel, prompting retalia- in Beirut in 2013, reportedly due to Israel was holding advanced talks to tory strikes. On July 28, a Hezbollah leaks and technical defects, and never transfer equipment capable of detect- infiltration attempt from Lebanon was left because local authorities deemed ing missing people under collapsed thwarted. On Aug. 3, an Iran-linked ter- it unseaworthy. Its cargo was kept in buildings, as well as medical supplies. rorist cell tried to plant explosives along unsafe storage at the port until the The heads of several Israeli hospi- the security fence between Syria and explosion. tals also offered assistance, suggest- Israel. A shooting attack on IDF soldiers According to a report by Der ing UNIFIL could transfer the blast along the Lebanon border on Aug. 25, Spiegel and the Organised Crime victims to and from Israel. most likely by Hezbollah, saw Israel and Corruption Reporting Project After a lack of response from respond by shelling several Hezbollah (OCCRP), Manoli offered the Rhosus Lebanon, Israeli disaster specialists of- surveillance outposts on the Lebanese as collateral for a US$1.1 million debt fered to fly to European countries to side of the border. to a Lebanese-owned Tanzanian-regis- work in teams there in order to help tered bank, FBME, which has been ac- treat the injured. cused by the US of laundering money HAMAS POLITICS FUELS for Hezbollah. VIOLENCE The report also noted that a large HARIRI TRIBUNAL Analysts say that internal Hamas quantity of ammonium nitrate that VERDICT 10 politics is likely a major factor fueling had originally been aboard the ship The Special Tribunal for Leba-

AIR – September 2020 non, established with the backing of Reports have also revealed that ISRAELI AND the UN Security Council in 2009 to top officials from Israeli intelligence PALESTINIAN COVID-19 try, in absentia, suspects allegedly agencies have been frequent visitors NUMBERS responsible for the truck bomb that to the UAE in recent years to dis- Israel continues to endure high killed former Lebanese prime minis- cuss plans to thwart Iran’s regional morbidity during its second wave NEWS BEHIND THE ter Rafiq Hariri and dozens of others aggression. of coronavirus infections. As of Aug. in 2005, handed down its verdict on 26, there were 21,779 active cases Aug. 18. Of the four suspects – Salim in Israel with 427 serious cases, and Jalil Ayyash, Hassan Habib Merhi, GULF NUCLEAR a seven-day moving average of more Hussein Hassan Oneissi and Assad FACILITIES than 1,400 new cases per day. The Hassan Sabra – all of whom were af- According to media reports from national death toll was 859. filiated with Hezbollah, only Ayyash, early August, US intelligence has In the PA-controlled areas at that whose whereabouts are unknown, detected an undeclared facility in Saudi time, there were 7,210 active cases of was convicted. The court did not Arabia that is processing yellow cake, coronavirus, and had been 133 deaths. directly implicate either the Syrian used in uranium enrichment, and was In the week to Aug. 24, 2,653 new regime or Hezbollah of involvement allegedly built with Chinese assistance. cases were identified, compared to in the bombing, saying it lacked evi- Elsewhere in the Gulf, the UAE 2,324 the previous week. dence to do so. successfully began operating its Bara- On Aug. 25, the first cases of coro- However, Dr. Matthew Levitt, a kah Nuclear Energy Plant, the first in navirus were detected within the Gaza Hezbollah expert at the Washington the Arab world, on Aug. 1. The South Strip outside its quarantine facilities, Institute for Near East Policy, told Korea-made reactor will be fully with four people from the same fam- AIJAC, “My takeaway is that a senior monitored by the UN’s International ily testing positive. There had until Hezbollah commander has been Atomic Energy Agency. then been 109 coronavirus infections convicted by an international court among those quarantined in the Gaza with carrying out and overseeing Strip and one death. the assassination of Rafiq Hariri… They make it very, very clear that “Lebanon is famous for changing Allah’s this was not an operation that could creation. You want to puff your lips? Aug- have been carried out by… some ment your breasts? Change your face? Go renegade.” to Lebanon.” SOCIOLOGY OR Accusing the Lebanese of wide scale SOCIOPATHY? blasphemy, he said they “curse Allah and REVELATIONS ABOUT The general consensus is that the His religion, and you expect Him to PAST ISRAEL-UAE TIES tragic Beirut explosion of Aug. 4 was the give you success? This might be the main The Israel-UAE normalisation deal result of criminal negligence or worse reason for the torment you are experi- announced on Aug. 13 has led to new by those who run Lebanon. However, encing. The cursing of Allah has become revelations about the many business Qatari sociologist Abd al-Zaziz al-Khazraj as prevalent as the drinking of water.” arrangements that have already been al-Ansari apparently knows better. Helpfully, however, he had a suggested taking place covertly between the two In a video uploaded on Aug. 6, al- remedy: “Each Lebanese must go out on countries. Ansari, whose country imposes the death the street and cut out with scissors the According to the Manufactur- penalty for same-sex relations, bizarrely tongue of anyone cursing Allah… Start ers Association of Israel, about 200 said the explosion was “caused by the with that and you shall see how Allah will Israeli companies are already export- Lebanese people’s propensity towards change your situation for the better.” ing products to the UAE, particularly blasphemy, plastic surgery and sodomy.” Apparently, the stricture against medical, telecommunications and According to a translation by the “changing Allah’s creation” doesn’t apply defence equipment. The trade was Middle East Media Research Institute in this case. coordinated through subsidiaries in (MEMRI), he particularly focused the Sociologists, at least in the West, a third country, often in the US or blame on Lebanese women, stating, “85% are largely regarded as compassion- Europe. of Lebanese girls are not married. What ate observers of humanity, seeking to In addition, there has reportedly do you think they are doing? Making understand people and their relationships been significant interest from the original models with the boys? Collect- so they can help improve society. If this UAE recently in employing Israeli ing stamps? Most of them are involved in is what passes for a sociologist in Qatar, experts in cybersecurity and big data forbidden relationships.” one can only imagine what a firebrand analysis. On plastic surgery, he thundered, preacher would be like! 11

AIR – September 2020 COVER STORY NAME OF SECTION COVER STORIES FLYING EMIRATES

OUT OF THE BLUE, A NEW ALLIANCE

by Amotz Asa-El

nnounced out of the blue, the fourth Arab-Israeli Despite this dissonance, there is broad agreement in Apeace deal in 41 years seems set to be the simplest, Israel that the deal is historic, and in some ways even more happiest, and most lucrative. substantive than the deals signed with Egypt, the Palestin- Struck between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu ians and Jordan respectively in 1979, 1993, and 1994. and United Arab Emirates Crown Prince Mohammed bin Unlike Israel’s previous peace partners, the UAE is both Zayed (MBZ), and mediated by President Donald Trump, geographically distant and wealthy. the deal caught everyone in Israel off guard, even though Located in the Arabian Peninsula’s north-eastern tip, extensive commercial relations between the two countries the confederation of seven sheikhdoms is almost 2,000 have been an open secret for years. kilometres from Israel, and is halfway between Tel Aviv Publicised in a joint state- and Mumbai. Though a ment, together with Wash- member of the Arab League ington, the deal said the two since gaining independence countries “agreed to the full in 1971, the UAE has never normalisation of relations.” technically been at war with Israeli and Emirati teams are Israel, which is why the already discussing the agree- agreement signed between ment’s terms in Abu Dhabi, Jerusalem and Abu Dhabi and diplomats said the deal will formally be not a “peace will be signed at a public agreement”, but a normalisa- ceremony in Washington, Covert partners: Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu and UAE Crown tion pact. probably in September. Prince Mohammed bin Zayed managed to keep their normalisation Normalisation will ap- discussions a secret from almost everyone The Emirati move did not parently mean an exchange come without a price. Firstly, Netanyahu agreed to sus- of ambassadors, direct flights, tourism and fully open pend previous plans to apply Israeli sovereignty to parts of trade. Considering that the UAE’s per-capita GDP, at the West Bank in line with the US Trump Administration’s US$70,000, is among the world’s ten highest, and with its peace plan. Second, according to Israeli media reports, Is- sovereign wealth funds totalling more than US$1 trillion, rael agreed not to oppose Washington’s sale of its advanced the deal clearly opens up new economic horizons for both fighter jet, the F-35, to the UAE military. parties. Netanyahu has denied the F-35 report, saying Israel Having used its oil and gas wealth to build a diversified continues to oppose American sales of weapons that might economy, the UAE is now an international transportation hinder Israel’s qualitative edge over any Middle Eastern hub whose national airline, Emirates, is considered one of military. Concerning the application of sovereignty, he has the best in the world, while its financial capital, , has claimed such a move remains “on the agenda,” even though long succeeded Beirut as the Middle East’s banking centre. the Trump Administration’s Middle East envoy, Jared The deal’s first noticeable result is expected to be an in- Kushner, has said that Israel “agreed with us that they will flux of Israeli tourists. Though distant compared with Jor- not move forward [on applying sovereignty] without our dan and Egypt, Dubai is a mere three-hour flight from Ben 12 consent.” Gurion Airport, and its combination of glitzy hotels and

AIR – September 2020 affordable prices seems custom tailored for the middle- tained that normalisation of relations with Israel must income Israeli vacationers who flock to destinations like follow rather than precede an Israeli-Palestinian peace Greece, Cyprus, Turkey and Spain annually. settlement. That settlement, in its turn, would have to More substantively, the UAE’s financial sector is ex- include the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West pected to join American, European, and Far Eastern inves- Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, Israeli withdrawal from the NAME OF SECTION COVER STORIES tors who have been buying into Israel’s advanced hi-tech, Golan Heights, and “a just settlement” of the Palestinian biomed and agritech sectors since the 1990s. A harbinger refugee problem in line with UN Resolution 194 – imply- of this future emerged three days after the agreement’s an- ing a so-called “right of return” to Israel. nouncement, when the Emirati investment company Apex The Emirati move has changed this. and Israeli R&D firm Tera Group The move was welcomed signed a deal to jointly develop a by Egyptian President Abdel coronavirus testing device. Fatah al-Sisi, who called MBZ to The UAE is also expected to congratulate him on “the historic buy Israeli defence goods, the peace step,” and also tweeted his F-35 brouhaha notwithstanding. “appreciation” to the parties for With a US$23 billion defence “taking steps to bring peace in budget, and with its arch-enemy the Middle East.” Iran a mere 140 kilometres Sisi’s endorsement under- across the Persian Gulf from lines the Palestinian problem’s Dubai, the UAE has reportedly steady marginalisation amongst already been buying drones and key Arab states. However, hopes radar systems from companies that the Emirati decision would like Rafael and Israel Aerospace quickly spread to neighbouring Industries, as well as cyber- countries seem premature for warfare products from Israeli now. software makers. Saudi Foreign Minister Unlike Israel’s trade with Prince Faisal bin Farhan, speak- Egypt and Jordan, which is ing in Berlin, said his govern- dominated by long-term deals ment will establish diplomatic for Israeli natural gas (see pp. ties with Israel only after it 20-24), energy is not expected Dubai (top) and Tel Aviv: Modern, forward-looking cities that strikes a peace deal with the reflect what Israel and the UAE have in common to play much of a role in Israeli- Palestinians. Emirati trade. The UAE, with This may mean that Bahrain, the world’s seventh-largest oil reserves, doesn’t need which initially welcomed the UAE-Israel deal as “advanc- Israeli gas. Israel, for its part, today not only has its own ing the region toward peace,” might defy forecasts that it gas, but has an assortment of steady, long-term suppliers of will follow the UAE’s example. The tiny kingdom, an islet petroleum, such as Azerbaijan and Russia, on which it can of 1.6 million inhabitants 23 kilometres off Saudi Arabia’s rely. eastern coast, is effectively a political satellite of Riyadh. Trade will therefore be about finished goods, venture Another candidate to follow the UAE’s move was capital, and thousands of tourists, both Israeli vacationers Sudan, whose foreign ministry’s spokesman Haidar Badawi on the Gulf’s shores and Emirati pilgrims in Jerusalem’s Sadiq told Sky News that Khartoum and Jerusalem were mosques. engaged in a dialogue, adding that Sudan wants to make In all, Israeli-Emirati trade is expected to quickly peace with Israel and that “there is no reason for enmity to surpass US$1 billion, fueled by tourism and services, but continue.” dominated by defence. And defence is in this case about the The following day, however, Sadiq was fired by acting two countries’ shared enemy – Iran. That is why, despite its Foreign Minister Omar Qamar al-Din, who denied con- exciting economics, the deal’s most important dimension tacts with Israel and said he was “astonished” by his aide’s is diplomatic. statement. These setbacks are in addition to the open hostility with he Emirati move, driven by its Western-educated which the Emirati move was met by the Palestinian Au- Tleader’s hostility to fundamentalism, is bold because thority (PA), which called it “despicable” and “a betrayal,” of its departure from pan-Arab policy. and prompted PA President Mahmoud Abbas to recall the Since 2002, when the Arab League formally adopted PA’s ambassador from Abu Dhabi. the so-called Saudi Peace Plan, Arab governments main- Turkey toed the PA line, with its foreign ministry ac- 13

AIR – September 2020 cusing the UAE of “hypocritical behaviour” as President eral election within 20 months. However, and Blue Recep Erdogan threatened to recall Ankara’s ambassador and White must still hammer out and jointly pass a budget as well. by Dec. 31 if their coalition is to remain intact. Even so, from Israel’s viewpoint the deal is a major Netanyahu kept Blue and White’s leaders, Defence

NAME OF SECTION COVER STORIES breakthrough, which former head of Shabtai Shavit Minister Benny Gantz and Foreign Minister Gabi Ashke- said was, in some ways, even more significant than the nazi, largely in the dark about his talks with MBZ, inform- “The Emirati move, path-breaking peace with ing them about the agreement only on the day it was made Egypt. public. driven by its Western- The 81-year-old Shavit’s Netanyahu apparently wanted the popular move to be educated leader’s enthusiasm reflects senti- seen as his personal and exclusive achievement. hostility to funda- ments elsewhere in the Is- Yet recent polls suggest the peace deal offset Netan- mentalism, is bold raeli left, with which he has yahu’s declining political fortunes only marginally, with become identified during his Likud rising slightly at Bennett’s expense. because of its depar- second career as a business- If Netanyahu indeed intends to use the peace deal as a ture from pan-Arab man. In the political centre, springboard to call an early election after the December policy” opposition leader Yair Lapid deadline, he will be gambling on diplomatic optimism called the move “important” overpowering pandemic pessimism. That would be a brave and sent “blessings to Netanyahu and Trump.” throw of the dice, since voters might conclude that, even if Netanyahu alone is responsible for the new friend Israel owever, the Israeli right protested the terms of the has gained, then he is also the one responsible for the jobs Hdeal. “Netanyahu missed an opportunity that comes so many Israelis have lost. once in a hundred years,” said former defence minister Naftali Bennett, referring to the shelving of the West Bank sovereignty plans. Bennett’s position is pivotal, since his Yemina party, UAE-ISRAEL DEAL which now holds a mere six Knesset seats, had been fore- cast to treble its following at the time news of the peace CHALLENGES MIDEAST deal broke. RADICALS Netanyahu and the Likud, at the same time, had plunged from 36 to 30 seats in the polls, reflecting dismay with the government’s handling of the coronavirus pan- by Yaakov Lappin demic and the recession it caused. Meanwhile, Netanyahu has been flirting with the pos- he peace agreement between the United Arab Emir- sibility of an early election, the fourth within less than two Tates (UAE) and Israel is an important boost to the years, hoping to perhaps restore the right-wing coalition formation of a strategic Middle Eastern alliance between he headed before election results forced him into a coali- Israel and moderate Sunni states. tion with the centrist Blue and White party, and to forestall The pact takes Israel’s central role in cooperating with his agreement to turn over the premiership to Blue and Sunni Arab states out of the shadows. A boost to regional White leader Benny Gantz in October next year. stability, the peace agreement will enable expanded coop- Ultimately, legislation passed on Aug. 24 extended a eration on defence and intelligence affairs, trade, invest- legal deadline to pass a budget, thus averting a fourth gen- ment and joint technological development, and could foster a positive religious-cultural dialogue. No less importantly, it also deals a blow to two radi- PROUDLY SPONSORED BY cal Islamist forces that are determined to destabilise the region, threatening Israel and Sunni-Arab countries alike. The deal threatens these forces’ ability to control the region’s dialogue about Israel’s presence and Islam, and challenges to some extent their ability to promote a dark vision for the future. The Iranian-Shi’ite axis is the first of those radical forces that stands to lose from the agreement. Iran and its armed proxies – militant, well-armed Shi’ite militias jamesrichardson.com.au deployed across , Syria, Lebanon and Yemen – have 14 reacted vehemently to news of the pact, reflecting deep

AIR – September 2020 concern over its implications. countries in its way. Iran has repeatedly sought to destabi- The second force concerned about the agreement is the lise and set up terror networks in Bahrain. Muslim Brotherhood camp, which is led by Turkey, and in- The recognition of these common interests led the cludes Hamas, Qatar and hard-line Sunni political Islamists foreign minister of the UAE, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al across the region. Nahyan, to state in 2019 that Israel was justified in attack- NAME OF SECTION COVER STORIES Both the Iranian axis and the Muslim Brotherhood ing Iranian targets in Syria. camp are inherently threatened by the UAE-Israel pact, “Every nation has the right to defend itself, when it’s since it challenges their ideology and the justification they challenged by another nation, yes,” he said, when asked provide for their destabilising actions. about Israeli strikes. “The [Iranian] regime fears the emergence of a new international alliance that will have greater power to con- he formation of a Middle Eastern coalition of states tain its hegemonic regional aspirations, and there is a new Tthat views radical Islamist actors as severe threats urgency to the need to prove to the Iranian people that could mean enhanced coordination and the sharing of the government’s imperialist foreign policy works to their intelligence as well as defence technology. benefit,” said Doron Itzchakov, an Iran specialist from the Israel is a world leader in the development and de- Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. ployment of drones and cyber defence systems, while its Itzchakov explained that the intelligence-gathering capa- Iranian regime’s leadership is bilities on Iranian activities are “covering its embarrassment well known throughout the and apprehension with a stream region. Such assets could be of defamation and threats,” shared with the UAE – a fact including a statement by Iranian that nearby Iran will surely be Parliament Speaker Muham- displeased about. The possibil- mad Bakr Qalibaf, who called ity that a succession of other the agreement “despicable and Gulf states, such as Bahrain and a betrayal of human and Islamic Saudi Arabia, will eventually values,” and Iranian President follow the UAE’s path will also Hassan Rouhani, who warned disturb the Ayatollah’s regime the UAE’s leaders “not to open Turkish President Erdogan and Iranian President Rouhani: The and the Islamic Revolutionary their gates” to Israel. UAE-Israel deal will be a blow to the Sunni and Shi’ite Islamist Guard Corps. Israel and several Sunni blocs that Turkey and Iran lead The Muslim Brotherhood Arab states share a vision of the camp, for its part, is also vehe- threat the Iranian axis poses, a fact that has helped to push mently opposed to the agreement because it weakens its the Gulf states closer to Israel. regional position. Sunni Islamists have long accused Arab Cities and strategic sites in Saudi Arabia have come governments of seeking normalisation with Israel, and under missile fire from the Iranian-backed Houthis in instead of denying the claim, the UAE has emerged to own Yemen, which, like Hezbollah, are armed by the Iranian it, in a bold manoeuvre that pushes back against the radical Quds Force. The Houthis claimed to have fired a cruise rhetoric. missile at the UAE’s nuclear power plant in 2017 (though Hamas Political Bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh con- the UAE said no missile targeted its plant). Both Saudi demned not only the pact, but also Egypt’s support for Arabia and the UAE have been engaged in a bloody war it, describing the agreement as "a violation of Arab and with the Houthis, although the UAE withdrew its forces Islamic consensus as well as a stab in the backs of the from southern Yemen last year. Palestinian people." Several ships docked at UAE ports were sabotaged last The UAE and Turkey are rival states, and Turkey, which year in attacks widely attributed to Iranian forces, and the has become increasingly hostile to Israel and hosts Hamas Islamic Republic has repeatedly threatened the Gulf states' operatives on its soil, has threatened to suspend ties with ability to export oil. the Gulf state. The Gulf states clearly recognise that the threat posed The UAE and other Gulf countries view Turkey as part by Iran’s quest for hegemony is the same threat that is of the Muslim Brotherhood club that rejects their moder- seeking to turn Syria into a network of missile bases that ate interpretation of Islam and drive to create prosperity target Israeli cities. They see that the Iranian axis has and stability in the Middle East. already turned Lebanon into a frontline Iranian military Qatar, which is sympathetic to the Muslim Brother- attack post that threatens Israel with 130,000 projectiles, hood, but which also hedges its bets and maintains low and is active throughout the region to subvert and threaten profile unofficial ties with Israel, has been involved in a 15

AIR – September 2020 two-year diplomatic crisis with the UAE and Saudi Arabia, Moments of profound frustration can spark anger both of which accused Doha of supporting terrorism. and inspire conspiracy theories, but it’s not a conspiracy According to the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya news agency, that has the Palestinians over a barrel. It is a long-delayed Qatar has in recent days launched a massive campaign to reckoning with one of the most bitter facts of their situa- COVER STORIES NAME OF SECTION influence Arab public opinion via media channels it funds, tion: that the Arab world has always been more concerned primarily Al Jazeera, against the landmark UAE-Israel with Palestine as a symbol than with Palestinians as human agreement. beings. Ultimately, the UAE’s decision to normalise ties The vision of “colonialist” Israelis stampeding over a with Israel has alarmed Islamists, and put them on the weak, hapless Arab people was for many Arab thinkers defensive. and political leaders a stand-in for anxieties about the larger and older Arab weakness in the face of Turkish and Yaakov Lappin is a military and strategic affairs journalist and is European dominion and imperialism. Nowhere was Arab defence correspondent for the Jewish News Syndicate. His book, weakness in the modern age reified more viscerally than The Virtual Caliphate, explores the online jihadist presence. © in the slow-moving but seemingly implacable failure of the The Investigative Project on Terrorism (www.investigativeproject. Palestinian cause. org), reprinted by permission, all rights reserved. It should therefore come as no surprise, least of all to Palestinians, that the Arabs’ fervent declarations of loyalty to Palestine never translated into meaningful succour for THE PALESTINIANS AND Palestinians, whether in the West Bank and Gaza Strip or in the communities of refugees and their descendants scat- THE UAE DEAL tered throughout the region and variously denied social services, citizenship and even the right to own land by by Haviv Rettig Gur the countries in which they have resided for seven long decades. The Palestinian national movement is now at a cross- alestinian leaders worked hard developing a response roads. To be sure, the Arab world still cares about the Pto the announcement of the normalisation of ties be- Palestinians, sometimes deeply. But the Palestinian story tween Israel and the United Arab Emirates on August 13. has nevertheless shrunk from representing a broader Their options were limited. Prime Minister Moham- Arab story to a tragedy that affects only the Palestinians, mad Shtayyeh was reduced to announcing Palestine would and in the process lost its grip on Arab policymaking. The now boycott the Dubai Expo scheduled for October 2021. oil-rich Gulf states are now respected global business As Mahmoud Habbash, adviser to Palestinian Authority hubs that view the West not as an oppressor or competing President Mahmoud Abbas, complained on Aug. 17, even civilisation, but as a target for investment and a source of the Arab League and multinational Muslim organisations stability. The new threats that loom over the Arab world seem to have been struck dumb by the agreement. are regional – Iran, Turkey, Islamist factions of vari- “Is this the Arab nation?” he demanded in an interview ous sorts – or deeply local, from corruption to sectoral on Palestinian television, vowing that any Arab who visits strife. The Arab world has changed, the Palestinian narra- Israel on a pilgrimage to Al-Aqsa will be met at the holy tive has not. site with “the shoes and spit of the people of Jerusalem.” The Arab world’s “shameful” silence, he contended, “shows HANIYEH’S DEMAND we face a conspiracy with many participants.” Then, too, there is the sheer intractability of the con- flict. One doesn’t need to like Israel to appreciate that Palestinian politics, from Hamas’ rejectionism to Fatah’s With Compliments corruption, are a wrench in the works for the Palestinian cause. In a July 26 interview with Qatar’s Lusail News, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh revealed something important about the interaction between Palestinian political factions and the broader Arab world. “Parties, who we know are on the payroll of certain su- www.bricktop.com.au perpowers” – an apparent reference to wealthy Gulf states – “came to us, and offered to establish new projects in the (02) 8332 2606 Gaza Strip to the tune of perhaps US$15 billion,” he said, 16 according to a translation by MEMRI.

AIR – September 2020 Those projects included a lifting of the Israeli-Egyptian and Iran, the Palestinian condition symbolises something blockade on the beleaguered territory, an airport and a important about the standing and trajectory of the Muslim seaport. world. Their support is thus assured for the time being, “We said to them: ‘That’s great. We want an airport though only for the part of Palestinian politics raising the and a seaport, and we want to break the siege on the Gaza Islamist banner. NAME OF SECTION COVER STORIES Strip. This is a Palestinian demand, but what are we sup- posed to give in return?’” HAMAS VS. THE FRENCH The answer: “They want us to disband the military The Emirati decision to normalise relations with Israel wings of the factions, and incorporate them into the police is thus a kind of liberation from the Palestinian question. To force. Naturally, we completely rejected that offer…. We the desperate frustration of the Palestinians, the Emiratis want these things because we are entitled to them and not don’t even seem embarrassed by it. in exchange for relinquishing our political principles, our Yet in the normalisation deal lies a lesson for the Pales- resistance, or our weapons.” tinians. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, The interviewer asked, “What are your political who negotiated the agreement from the Emirati side, has principles?” demonstrated a key point about dealing with Israelis, a point the Palestinian factions, who spend surprisingly little time seriously studying how Israeli think and feel, have yet to grasp. It is so simple it can seem cartoonish: To change Israeli Jews’ behaviour, you must convince them they have something to lose. A better way to put it might be that Israelis must be made to believe they have something to gain that could compensate for all they might lose. Israelis – forgive the generalisation, there are many kinds of Israelis with all kinds of views, but the term serves for the moment to describe the very large majority of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh: We turned down a port, an airport, them – do not actually believe that Palestinian politics are an end to the Gaza blockade and US$15 billion out of rejectionist capable of offering them peace. That’s not just a convenient “principles” conceit, it’s a real, driving assumption for most Israe- Haniyeh’s reply: “We will not recognise Israel, Palestine lis when they come to think about the conflict with the must stretch from the river to the sea, the right of return Palestinians. [must be fulfilled], the prisoners must be set free, and a And it’s rooted in long and painful experience. Israeli fully sovereign Palestinian state must be established with withdrawals in recent decades have nearly all ended in Jerusalem as its capital.” waves of terrorism and violence so intense that they fun- Haniyeh did not seem to reflect seriously on what he damentally altered Israeli voting patterns. After the Second was acknowledging. It makes sense that the wealthy parts Intifada began in 2000, Israel experienced the lowest voter of the Arab world would try to buy their way free of the turnout in its history. The left hasn’t won an election since Palestinian issue, since it no longer resonates as a question 1999 because of the hundreds of terror attacks that struck of identity. Those who now seek to ally with Israel against Israeli cities in that intifada. The debate overseas about Iran or to partner with the Jewish state on commerce and Israelis and Palestinians tends to forget the bloodletting; technology are willing to shower the Palestinians with cash Israelis have not forgotten. not for the Palestinians’ welfare, but to make the political The point here isn’t just that Palestinians seem to Israe- problem they represent go away. lis to reciprocate territorial withdrawals – whether those Haniyeh’s response to that desire was a simple demand of the Oslo agreements in the 1990s or from Gaza in 2005 for Israel’s complete disappearance, a response that prob- – with massive violence. It is that Israelis no longer believe ably sounded to his would-be benefactors like a demand a withdrawal could possibly produce any other outcome that all the benefits that may accrue to Arab states from a except massive violence. relationship with Israel must be subordinated to a Palestin- While the world’s attention focuses on Mahmoud Abbas ian narrative they no longer really identify with, and to the and his commitment to security cooperation with Israel, needs of Palestinian factions they no longer respect. Israelis are more liable to notice that Abbas is in the 14th It is now mostly in Islamist religious politics that one year of a four-year term – and won’t call elections because still finds intense ideological anxieties about the Palestinian he knows he will lose them to Hamas. question. It’s no accident Hamas now finds its main patrons That is, Hamas is the future. Any political vacuum Israel in Ankara and Teheran. To the present-day leaders of Turkey leaves behind in a new withdrawal will be filled by the 17

AIR – September 2020 terror group that has already transformed Gaza into the stubborn obstacle to that independence lies in Israeli Jews’ beleaguered battleground of its ideological war. certainty, justified or not, that they have only violence and It hardly helps that Abbas’ Fatah movement has re- pain to gain from more withdrawals, and so have little to sponded to the fading of the Palestinian cause by trying to lose, relatively speaking, from refusing to do so.

COVER STORIES cleave closer to Hamas. Fatah invited Hamas to a special leadership summit following the UAE announcement. THE UAE LEFT THE PALESTINIANS That’s no accident. When the chips are down, Hamas is BEHIND the only one of the two major Palestinian factions with a Then came the Emiratis. A fascinating poll conducted meaningful story to tell about the Palestinian condition. by Direct Polls for Israel’s Channel 12 revealed the dra- Hamas views the conflict with Israel not as ethnic strife matic effect on Israeli opinion and politics that a sliver of between two peoples, but as a version of the Algerian war hope could bring. against French colonialists in the 1950s and ’60s. That was Asked explicitly whether they preferred the normalisa- a bloody war, Hamas teaches in its sermons and school- tion deal with the United Arab Emirates to Prime Minis- rooms, and the more the French bled, the faster they ter Binyamin Netanyahu’s promised extension of Israeli withdrew. It’s a powerful narrative that counsels patience sovereignty to areas of the West Bank (the Emiratis condi- and encourages especially cruel forms of terrorism against tioned the deal on stopping the “annexation”), fully 77% of Israelis. Israelis preferred the peace agreement with the UAE. Just But in clinging to the colonialist interpretation of the 16.5% favoured “annexation.” conflict, Hamas has ignored a few pertinent facts about Even among self-described right-wingers, Netanyahu’s Israeli Jews that should have made it question the wisdom constituency, the Emirati deal won handily, with a whop- of its policy of permanent belligerence. ping 64% to 28%. For example, unlike those French Algerians, Israeli If a May poll found a plurality of Israelis – 45% – in Jews have nowhere to go. That’s not a minor point. When support of extending sovereignty (with 32% opposed), the you kill the children of someone who believes they can Sunday poll revealed how weak that support really was. leave, they tend to leave. But when you target the children Just 16.5% of Israelis continued to favour “annexation” of someone who believes they have nowhere to go, the when it meant losing a normalisation deal, even if it was response tends to be the opposite. with a distant Arab state that has never threatened them. Haniyeh turned down billions in aid for Gaza and Palestinians lost a great deal on Aug. 13. They weren’t rejected a lifting of the blockade, all in the service of a “betrayed,” as some PA leaders have complained, but strategy that still insists – as he explained explicitly – that simply left behind. They didn’t lose vital allies who cared Israel can be dismantled. He does not stop to consider deeply for their cause, but one-time supporters who still the possibility that his opponent is not French, has no- vaguely support them but are tired of the intractability of where to go, and therefore that his strategy of permanent their cause. war is more likely to decimate Palestine than to hurt Palestinian leaders and activists may gall at the pros- Israel. pect, but the Emirati initiative demonstrates one thing above all: if they wish to change Israeli policy and be- NEW OPTIONS haviour, they must convincingly explain to Israelis that a The global campaign for the Palestinians likes to think withdrawal is not the catastrophe-in-waiting that so many it models itself on the campaign around South Africa or on expect. The Palestinians must give the Israelis something to the US civil rights movement. It’s a conceit that allows it, lose, or rather something to gain that might justify the risk like Haniyeh, to carefully sidestep facts that don’t fit the of abandoning some significant portion of the West Bank narrative. But the sidestepping of facts rarely delivers the highlands to – not to belabour the point – a people that desired outcome. declares itself their bitter foes. Israelis are inoculated to the boycotts and howling The Palestinians don’t have much to offer Israel, except moral indignation of foreigners not because they are braver the one thing they’ve always had and that Israelis have con- or perhaps dumber than other peoples similarly chastised sistently wanted from them: an end to the self-destructive by foreign activists, but because no boycott, however fero- Algerian war. ciously pursued, can bring more psychological pressure to If that happened, Israel’s newfound friends would likely bear than the costs Hamas vows to extract from Israel after be delighted to throw an airport, seaport and US$15 bil- a withdrawal. lion into the bargain – out of sheer relief. Whether Israelis are correct in the lessons they draw from the failures of past withdrawals is a valid question, Haviv Rettig Gur is Senior Analyst at . © but the point here is simpler: those lessons are what now Times of Israel (www.timesofisrael.com), reprinted by permission, 18 stands in the way of Palestinian independence. The most all rights reserved.

AIR – September 2020 WITH COMPLIMENTS NAME OF SECTION COVER STORIES

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AIR – September 2020 Sea. Since then, more than 840 billion cubic metres of gas Israel Energised have been found off the shores of Israel, the largest depos- its being the Tamar and Leviathan gas fields (estimated to Security and diplomatic implications of be worth more than US$132.65 billion or A$185 billion). NAME OF SECTION COVER STORIES The Leviathan gas field became operational on Dec. 31, Israeli gas production 2019. There have been other gas fields discovered through- out Israel’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the eastern Mediterranean, as well as in the EEZ of neighbouring by Jack Gross Cyprus. The benefits of Israel’s emergence as an energy producer are two-fold: helping to advance diplomatic goals he latest energy news from the Middle East marks an and improving national energy security. Timportant turning point in Israel’s energy security and Following the discovery of gas in the eastern Mediterra- diplomatic situation. nean there were many debates over whether Israel should On July 20, American energy implement an export focused company Chevron agreed to policy or if it should prioritise purchase Noble Energy, a smaller retaining supplies for domes- US-based petroleum and gas tic use. Dr. Eran Lerman, who company, for US$5 billion (A$7 served as the deputy director billion). Noble Energy is the for foreign policy and inter- operator of Israel’s largest natu- national affairs at the National ral gas field, Leviathan, and has Security Council in the Israeli other investments in the eastern Prime Minister’s Office, argued Mediterranean. Chevron’s pres- for an export-focused policy ence in Israel adds legitimacy to to maximise the benefits of the Israel’s claim to be a significant discoveries. “What drove me, energy producer and may attract Gas production in the Mediterranean is providing diplomatic and still does, was a vision of and strategic opportunites for Israel, as well as economic future investments from other ones regional integration not unlike energy companies. The deal also what ultimately transpired as the indicates that the eastern Mediterranean gas discoveries [Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum] later, and specifically are large enough for a giant like Chevron to enter into the the need to cement the common interests of Israel, Egypt, region. Jordan, Cyprus and Greece: primarily for strategic rea- Years ago, no large oil company would have dared to sons – common enemies! – but also in terms of re-defining work with Israel over fears of boycotts from oil-producing the multi-coloured East Med, rather than the volatile and Arab states. In fact, in 1957 Royal Dutch Shell stopped ex- largely hostile ‘Middle East’ as our place in the world,” porting oil to Israel after Saudi Arabia threatened to cancel Lerman said. contracts with the company if it did not. Now Chevron, A primarily export-focused policy has indeed been which has investments in a number of projects in Saudi implemented to strategically leverage Israel’s energy Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq, is investing in Israel’s energy discoveries. Newly developed energy partnerships have economy. A powerhouse like Chevron would never have strengthened existing relations with regional allies, includ- offered this deal if it feared losing business with its Arab ing Egypt, and become the foundation for new partner- partners. The Chevron deal thus offers an outlook into the ships and forums. Meanwhile, Israel’s emergence as an changing energy politics of the Middle East, and Israel’s energy producer has also enhanced regional and national role within that strategic landscape. This article will high- energy security overall. light some of the most important energy developments in the region and how Israel has leveraged its discoveries for WILL THE EASTMED PIPELINE EVER BE diplomatic and security benefits. BUILT? The European Union is watching with interest the NEW DISCOVERIES, NEW development of Israel’s eastern Mediterranean natural gas OPPORTUNITIES fields. Europe-Israel relations remain strong at an eco- For years, Israel was an energy importing country nomic level, while political relations have been mixed. surrounded by hostile, energy rich Arab nations. The Currently, many EU member states are dependent on tide began to turn in 1999 when Noble Energy and the natural gas and other fossil fuels from Russia for their Israel-based Delek Group discovered the Noa Gas field 40 energy needs, giving potential leverage over Eu- 20 kilometres off the coast of Ashkelon in the Mediterranean ropean policies. The EU imports approximately 40.1% of

AIR – September 2020 its natural gas, 29.8% of its crude oil and 42.3% of its coal EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN ENERGY from Russia. The EU also imports a considerable amount DEVELOPMENTS of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from politically unstable Another important landmark in Israel’s emergence as countries, such as Nigeria and Algeria. an energy producer is the development of a recognised

EU-Israeli energy trade could take place in two ways: regional grouping of nations in the eastern Mediterranean. NAME OF SECTION COVER STORIES through a proposed eastern Mediterranean subsea gas One of Israel’s main interests in the region has been to pipeline, known as the EastMed pipeline, or via LNG improve relations with Greece and Cyprus. Israel has long exported by tankers from Egypt. The EastMed pipeline seen the Mediterranean as an attractive region, for coali- would connect Israel’s energy sector to the European tion building and security, even before energy discoveries Union and would incorporate EU member Cyprus into provided an additional basis for such cooperation. the EU natural gas network, a longtime goal of the EU. If Indeed, regional partnerships amongst Israel, Egypt, investment is secured, the pipeline could be completed Greece, Cyprus, Jordan and Italy ultimately led to the by 2025 and would be the longest underwater pipeline in establishment of the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum the world. The cost is estimated to be over €5.2 billion (EMGF). The EMGF foundational charter was signed on (A$11.8 billion). On June 18, Israel, Cyprus and Greece Jan. 16, 2020 in Cairo, creating a platform for eastern signed an official agreement on building the pipeline. At Mediterranean gas policy discussion and coordination. The the signing, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu forum aims to develop a regional market for energy sales referred to the cooperation between the three nations as “a and coordinate the construction of infrastructure. real alliance in the eastern Mediterranean” for diplomatic, The formation of the EMGF is especially important for security, and economic affairs, and also invited other na- Israel’s diplomatic strategy. Israel has arguably never before tions to join the alliance. been integrated into a similar small, regional and multi- While the EastMed pipeline would change the geopo- lateral forum. Now, Israel is playing a central role in the litical landscape of the region, investors reportedly remain EMGF as one of the largest regional natural gas producers sceptical about the feasibility of the deal. Furthermore, the and a leader in innovation. Israel’s emergence as a vital re- Italian government, one of the project’s expected primary gional partner correlates with the improvement of its ties financers, has not signed any agreement or made any com- to Cyprus and Greece since 2016. mitment to the funding of the project. As things currently Representatives from the US and the EU were present stand, it would be difficult to envision the construction of at the signing of the EMGF. The US has requested to be a the pipeline anytime soon given its hefty price tag and lack of investors. EU commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to increase renewable energy production may also play a role in the planning of the proposed pipeline. Reaching the EU’s renewable energy goals will take large financial investments, so building a multi-billion-dollar pipeline at the same time may not seem like a viable decision. The EU has certainly made it a goal to diversify Euro- pean energy imports to release itself from dependence on Russia. However, the natural gas that Israel would be able to provide is insufficient to offer more than a marginal contribution to European domestic demands. Moreover, innovations in hydro-fracking and the growth of production in the US have brought the price of natural gas down to all-time lows. Energy expert Simon Henderson, Baker Fellow at the Washington Institute, told AIR, “I think the pipeline is unlikely to ever be built. It’s currently dependent not on government approvals, but on commercial viability. Such a pipeline costs 6 to 7 billion [US] dollars to build.” He added that, “the price of natural gas going through the pipeline is not even enough to pay for it and be profitable at the other end.” Israel’s energy discoveries will likely have larger im- pacts in other markets closer to home. 21

AIR – September 2020 tional maritime law to much of the territory claimed un- der the new Turkish-Libyan maritime agreement. If legal,

COVERNAME OF SECTION STORIES the Turkish-Libyan EEZ would give these two coun- tries exclusive rights to pre- cious eastern Mediterranean hydrocarbons and would exclude any other eastern Mediterranean nation from developing infrastructure within the EEZ’s boundary without Turkey’s permission and participation, includ- ing the EastMed pipeline. There is much turmoil in the Mediterranean at the moment because Turkey, with help from its Libyan client Turkey’s goal in creating this government, is seeking to overturn the generally accepted distribution of maritime economic zones EEZ together with its Libyan client appears to be to block permanent observer of the grouping and has joined Israel, Egypt, and Cyprus from reaching European natural as a permanent member. Israel’s strong relations with gas markets without Turkey getting a share of the profits. Greece and Cyprus also serve Israel very well in improving To combat the Turkish-Libyan EEZ, on Aug. 6, 2020, Jerusalem’s standing politically within the EU. Greece and Egypt signed an agreement delineating EEZs in These nations are linked together by a common interest the eastern Mediterranean, which would practically nullify in the exploitation of natural gas fields, security coopera- the Libyan-Turkish EEZ. On Aug. 12, the Government of tion, development of a gas market, and most importantly, Israel published a statement in support of the Greek-Egyp- opposition to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s tian agreement. aggressive behaviour in the eastern Mediterranean, the In direct response to the Greek-Egyptian EEZ, on Aug. most significant current threat to eastern Mediterranean 10, Turkish warships escorted the seismic research vessel security and energy development. Oruç Reis to a spot in the eastern Mediterranean claimed On Nov. 28, 2019, the Turkish Government and Libyan by both Greece and Turkey. The following day, Greek For- Government of National Accord (GNA) under Prime eign Minister Nikos Dendias announced that Greece would Minister Fayez al-Sarraj, which is supported by Turkey, “defend its sovereignty and its rights.” Turkish aggression signed a memorandum of understanding that established a in energy exploration and development at the expense of shared maritime EEZ that purports to create a contiguous its neighbours is raising the risk of Greco-Turkish conflict maritime boundary that completely traverses the Mediter- to the highest level it has been in decades. ranean Sea. In the charter of the EMGF, the founding mem- When creating the EEZ, the Turks ignored the exis- ber states made it clear that any eastern Mediterranean tence of the Greek island of Crete, as well as many others. country with similar goals could join the forum. While These islands give Greece a strong claim under interna- currently not a member of the EMGF, if Erdogan’s Turkey were to sign on to the members’ common goals for energy development, Turkey could be invited into the forum. However, the current geopolitical landscape signals that this likely won’t be happening any time soon.

EGYPTIAN-ISRAELI ENERGY COOPERATION Israel’s new energy supplies may have the most impact in Egyptian markets. On Jan. 15, 2020, Egypt agreed to purchase US$19.5 billion (AU$27 billion) of natural gas from the Leviathan and Tamar gas fields. The deal, noted as one of the most important Israel-Egypt agreements since Camp David in 1979, improves both bilateral relations and 22 mutual energy security.

AIR – September 2020 In the early 2000s, the Egyptians also discovered large Egyptian ties have thus never been stronger than they are offshore hydrocarbon fields and made investments in today, and energy cooperation is an important reason why. transnational pipelines, two LNG terminals, and energy infrastructure. Since then, Egypt has become one of the ENERGY-STARVED JORDAN region’s largest exporters of LNG. Historically, Jordan has experienced similar energy COVER STORIES NAME OF SECTION Egypt began exporting natural gas to Jordan in 2003 security problems to Israel. Jordan has been dependent on via the Arab Gas Pipeline. An underwater extension of the energy imports to meet domestic demand. According to pipeline that connects el-Arish, Egypt to Ashkelon, Israel the US Energy Information Administration, Jordan’s en- was completed in Feb. 2008, after Egypt agreed to sup- ergy imports meet 90% of domestic demand and make up ply Israel with 2.1 billion cubic metres of gas per year. By over 40% of the country’s annual budget. A large portion 2010, the new pipeline was supplying Israel with over 40% of Jordanian natural gas imports come from Egypt via the of its energy needs. Arab Gas Pipeline. On many occasions, natural gas supply However, following the Arab Spring in 2011, a section from Egypt has been cut off due to pipeline disruptions. of the el-Arish-Ashkelon pipeline was repeatedly blown In September 2016, Jordan’s National Electric Power up, causing temporary gas shortages in Israel. The pipeline Company (NEPCO) signed an agreement with Noble ceased operation in 2012 following further explosions and Energy to purchase US$10 billion (AU$14 billion) worth sabotage, as well as gas shortages in Egypt. It still faces of natural gas. The first pipeline was constructed in 2017 similar terror threats as the Sinai Peninsula remains a hot- around the Sodom area near the Dead Sea, aiming to bed for Islamist activity. supply private customers with gas from the Tamar field. Egypt intends using the Israeli gas it will now be A second pipeline from Beit She’an will provide NEPCO importing both for domestic use and to re-export to the with gas from the Leviathan field. Jordan received its first world as LNG. supplies of Israeli natural gas in January this year. Israel’s new energy partnership Asa-El told AIR, “Recent de- “Israel’s diplomatic achievements with Egypt is beneficial to both velopment absolutely fortifies the countries. For Egypt, Israeli natural through its natural gas discover- quiet but significant economic rela- gas is cheap, readily available, and ies are part of a larger campaign tionship between Israel and Jordan local, increasing and diversifying to normalise and improve relations as a dimension to their relation- Egypt’s gas supplies. On the other with its neighbours” ship, but until now has been mainly hand, Israel is able to export sur- about Israel supplying Jordan with plus gas and grow its energy economy. water and Israeli firms creating low-tech jobs in Jordan Throughout recent years, Egypt’s insecure energy and now a very important energy development.” infrastructure has been subject to terror threats and ex- As expected, there has been heavy pushback from the treme heat resulting in frequent blackouts. These factors, Jordanian public against the energy agreement. Publicly, coupled with one of the fastest population growth rates in Jordanians have been very critical of the energy deal, as the world, puts extreme stress on local power infrastruc- well as any cooperation with the Jewish state. However, on ture. The COVID-19 pandemic has put even more stress the ground and behind the scenes, the neighbours cooper- on Egypt’s already unstable broader economy. Israel has a ate on a number of issues and Israel is a vital partner to national interest in ensuring Egypt’s security and stability, Jordan. Simon Henderson noted that “Israeli gas provides a which in turn provides Israel with security and helps with foundation for the Jordanian economy and it is also useful Jerusalem’s drive towards regional cooperation. in diplomatic terms as it binds Israel and Jordan together.” According to leading Israeli economics reporter and AIR Israel correspondent Amotz Asa-El, “There is no doubt BORDER DISPUTES WITH LEBANON that the energy relationship between Israel and Egypt has Israeli offshore natural gas development is challenged helped pacify the bilateral relations between Jerusalem and by Hezbollah, the Iranian proxy terror group that domi- Cairo over the decades.” nates Lebanon. Egypt is preoccupied with many other security threats For decades, Lebanon and Israel have been disputing and cannot afford to risk its partnership with Israel. Egypt, an 860 square kilometre triangle of water, based on differ- Sudan and Ethiopia have been feuding over the Grand ent claims concerning the angle of the maritime boundary Ethiopian Renaissance Dam across the Nile, which could from the coast. The maritime boundary dispute gained more lead to water and nutrient shortages downstream in Egypt. significance in 2009 when major natural gas fields were dis- To the west, Egypt faces challenges posed by the patron- covered between Israel and Cyprus. The contested territory, client relationship between the GNA Libyan government which is expected to contain valuable natural gas supplies, and Turkey. Egypt needs Israel as a partner for security, in- could help jumpstart Lebanon’s devastated economy or fur- telligence, economic, and now energy cooperation. Israeli- ther expand Israel’s energy development portfolio. 23

AIR – September 2020 However, after years of little progress even with US on Aug. 13, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) became the mediation, recent reports indicate that Lebanon may today third Arab state and the first Gulf state to normalise rela- be willing to resolve the boundary dispute in line with pre- tions with Israel. The landmark peace agreement, called vious compromises proposed by the US. The devastating the Abraham Accords, has been followed by reported talks

COVERNAME OF SECTION STORIES explosion at Beirut Port on Aug. 4 left Lebanon in disarray. of peace negotiations with Bahrain, Oman, and Sudan. Thousands took to the streets to protest the deteriorat- This new development marks a milestone in a very ing living conditions in Lebanon and the corruption of the important shift in regional power dynamics, in which ruling elite. In response to the protests, Lebanese leaders most Sunni Arab states view Iran and its many proxies as a including President Michel Aoun have expressed eager- greater threat to regional and national security than Israel ness to finally put an end to the conflict. Energy discover- – which is increasingly seen as potentially a valuable ally. ies could be critical to supporting the crippled Lebanese Political developments within the Mediterranean also economy, but there could be trouble moving ahead with reflect trends taking place across the region toward rethink- exploiting these as long as the maritime boundary is ing traditional enmity with Israel and looking at mutual disputed. interests that may be shared with the Jewish state. The potential for energy cooperation, on top of security and TERROR THREATS economic benefits, is certainly an important contributor When analyzing Israeli energy policy and infrastruc- to that rethink. Israel has leveraged its energy discoveries ture, it’s imperative to mention the many terror threats to advance its standing within the eastern Mediterranean that complicate the picture. Today, nearly every inch of through the creation of the EMGF, building strong new Israel is vulnerable to rocket threats from terrorists in partnerships with Greece, Cyprus and Italy, and poten- Lebanon, Gaza or Syria, including offshore energy in- tially beyond, and helping to conceive a whole new eastern frastructure. According to Henderson, “for Israel there’s Mediterranean regional bloc of nations. In addition, new the additional complication which they don’t particularly economic partnerships with neighbours Egypt and Jordan want to talk about publicly … any such structure whether are changing historically “cold peaces” with those countries onshore or offshore is vulnerable to military action or into much more fundamental and stable partnerships. terrorist action from Gaza or the south of Lebanon. Any part of Israel is within rocket range of hostile forces. Such missiles at one point had bad accuracy, but these days they have greater accuracy.” THE UN DEBATES A Israel also faces cyber threats that could heavily disrupt ZOMBIE AGREEMENT energy production, refining and transportation. To counter this threat, Israel has invested millions of dollars in protecting vulnerable infrastructure with navy by James Carafano, James Phillips and Brett D. Schaefer vessels and private guards. Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence system has also been proven to be successful in he United Nations Security Council has been plunged intercepting projectiles over water. Tinto a momentous debate as the US Trump Adminis- tration seeks to kill the 2015 Iran nuclear deal once and CONCLUSION for all by invoking “snapback” sanctions. Israel’s diplomatic achievements through its natural Despite the US withdrawal in 2018 from the Iran gas discoveries are part of a larger campaign to normalise nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive and improve relations with its neighbours. Most recently, Plan of Action (JCPOA), and multiple violations of the agreement by Iran, the agreement remains on life support. That’s because other parties to the nuclear deal benefit from continuing the sham, and hope that the deal can be cemented in place if Democratic nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden is elected US president in November. Despite its violations, Iran values the nuclear deal be- cause it schedules elimination of UN sanctions and would legitimise its illicit nuclear program. China and Russia hope to sell arms to Iran after the UN arms embargo is lifted under the deal. Both value Iran as a destabilising, anti-Western actor in the Middle East that consumes US attention and resources. 24 The Europeans also remain wedded to the deal, partly

AIR – September 2020 in anticipation of future commercial opportunities in Iran. • Exceeding the deal’s limits on the degree of enrich- They also fear that confronting Iran on its violations would ment of uranium. lead Iran to resume its nuclear program, which wilfully • Increasing the number of centrifuges enriching ura- ignores evidence that Iran has never abandoned those nium beyond the allowed number. ambitions. • Using advanced centrifuges for enriching uranium, NAME OF SECTION These disparate interests have led the other parties to which were not approved by the agreement, at the Natanz ignore Iran’s violations and oppose US efforts to hold Iran enrichment complex in nuclear research and development accountable. This myopic view poses a threat to peace and programs. security in the Middle East, which is why the Gulf Co- • Beginning the enrichment of uranium at facilities operation Council had urged the UN Security Council to beyond its main enrichment plant at Natanz by introducing extend the arms embargo on Iran, scheduled to expire in uranium gas into the centrifuges at the fortified under- October under the nuclear deal. ground Fordow enrichment facility, which ostensibly was The unwillingness to punish Iran for its violations is an repurposed under the deal as only for research. abdication of responsibility on the part • Surpassing 130 metric tons of of the Security Council and compels heavy water at Iran’s heavy water pro- the US to force the issue. duction plant at Arak.

AN INEFFECTIVE SUNSET OF THE UN ARMS AGREEMENT EMBARGO The zombie nuclear agreement, Most immediately, the Iran nuclear which is dead but not buried, was Iran is openly violating the JCPOA nuclear agreement included a misguided con- flawed from the beginning. The deal did agreement at its main enrichment plant at cession: the expiration of the UN arms Natanz, as well as other sites more to legitimise Iran as a threshold embargo against Iran after five years. nuclear power and dismantle US and UN sanctions on Iran This sunset clause, based on the mistaken presumption that than it did to dismantle Iran’s illicit nuclear program. the nuclear agreement would lead Iran’s Islamist dictator- None of the clandestine nuclear facilities built in viola- ship to moderate its aggressive foreign policy, clearly is not tion of Iran’s nuclear non-proliferation commitments were warranted by Iran’s behaviour. permanently dismantled under the deal – only temporarily Since signing the 2015 nuclear agreement, Teheran has repurposed. escalated its military intervention in Syria, ordered Iraqi Even if Iran had abided by the terms of the nuclear deal, Shi’ite militias to attack US troops training Iraqi military the agreement’s key restrictions on Iran’s uranium enrich- forces and helping them defeat ISIS, and increased the flow ment program expire after 15 years. These “sunset clauses” of arms to Houthi rebels in Yemen and other proxies, in leave Teheran free to ramp up enrichment to an industrial violation of UN Security Council resolutions. scale and position itself for a sprint to a nuclear breakout at Yet despite Iran’s clear violations of the nuclear deal its own convenience. and its continued export of prohibited arms to multiple But Iran never intended to abide by the agreement. battlefields, the UN arms embargo is set to expire on Oct. Iran’s nuclear archive, a huge trove of official Iranian docu- 18. Washington tried but failed to extend the arms em- ments exposed in a major 2018 coup by Israel’s Mossad bargo through several resolutions at the Security Council. intelligence agency, proved that Iran never declared the full With this extension blocked, the US decided to trigger extent of its nuclear weapons program and never aban- “snapback” UN sanctions under Security Council Resolu- doned it. The Islamist regime merely restructured, down- tion 2231, which implemented the Iran nuclear agree- sized, and concealed the nuclear program. ment, as the only path for restoring the arms embargo. The nuclear archive exposed the shortcomings of the deal’s inspection requirements, the sunset clauses on major COUP DE GRACE FOR ZOMBIE NUCLEAR nuclear limitations, and the failure to address Iran’s contin- DEAL ued work on nuclear-capable ballistic and cruise missiles. The US triggering of snapback sanctions on Aug. 21 ig- The nuclear archive also indicates that Iran likely was in nited a firestorm at the UN Security Council, where many breach of its nuclear non-proliferation commitments even members insist that Washington lost its ability to invoke before it began openly violating the nuclear agreement in snapback sanctions when it withdrew from the nuclear 2019. agreement. Since then, Teheran has publicly violated many aspects However, the United States has based its snapback ef- of the nuclear agreement, including: forts on the text of UN Security Council Resolution 2231. • Surpassing the deal’s limits on in-country stockpiles Resolution 2231 is unusual in the adoption of the snap- of low enriched uranium of 300 kilograms. back process, under which any of the Security Council’s 25

AIR – September 2020 permanent members can reimpose UN sanctions sus- making of an irretrievably corrupt elite, tolerated – and pended by the deal. This is the reverse of the usual process, too often abetted – by a population that knows no other which requires positive support in the Security Council for form of governance. The Beirut port tragedy is only the actions. latest display of staggering corruption and incompetence.

NAME OF SECTION BIBLIO FILE Language in that resolution clearly identifies the United Was gross negligence behind the port disaster? Or was it a States as an Iran nuclear deal “participant state” entitled to Hezbollah bomb supply depot? initiate the snapback of sanctions regardless of whether it The world will likely never know, as Hezbollah is resist- continues to participate in the nuclear agreement. ing an international inquiry. But it is almost certain that Once Washington invoked snapback sanctions by notify- this tragedy, like the many before it, is the product of the ing the Security Council of “significant non-performance corruption, venality and incompetence that has brought of commitments” under the nuclear agreement on Aug. 21, the “Paris of the Middle East” to its knees. Indeed, at the Security Council was given 30 days to pass a resolution every twist in Lebanon’s fate, there has been a seemingly that would extend sanctions relief. If the Council fails to inexhaustible supply of feckless leaders and the various do so, or if the United States vetoes such a resolution, as foreign despots to whom they have turned for favour. All it surely will, then all UN sanctions suspended under the have conspired to destroy the nation. agreement would be reinstated. Gauzy memories of the halcyon years before Leba- September will be a month for diplomatic pyrotechnics non’s civil war broke out in 1975 are mostly false, but the at the Security Council. Parties interested in maintaining decades that followed were certainly worse. In theory, the the zombie agreement will protest. Even opponents of the national pact of 1943 that divided the spoils of leadership Iran nuclear deal have argued that the tactic would under- among Lebanon’s Christian, Sunni and Shi’ite populations mine the Security Council veto by forcing the issue. might have sustained a unique experiment in sectarian and In reality, the failure of other parties to demand Iranian religious harmony in the Middle East. In reality, it ce- compliance has made this confrontation inevitable. mented into place the patronage and corruption that have reached their apex in 21st century Lebanon. James Jay Carafano is the Vice President of the Kathryn and Quibbles over leadership and rank mismanagement of Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Lebanon’s growing Palestinian refugee population – and Policy at the Washington-based Heritage Foundation. James the attendant Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Phillips and Brett D. Schaefer are senior research fellows at the terrorists that treated the nation as their own – led first to Heritage Foundation. © Heritage Foundation (www.heritage.org), the creation of militias intended to suppress the prolifera- reprinted by permission, all rights reserved. tion of Palestinian militias; and then to the fateful moment when the then-president invited in the Syrians to keep the peace. LEBANON’S CURSE In a Faustian bargain, the likes of which Goethe could not have imagined, the nation was to become a playground for Syrian dictator Hafez al-Assad, his terrorist proteges, by Danielle Pletka and his Iranian patrons. Few remember the proliferation of Palestinian terror t is almost as if Lebanon is cursed. The horrifying groups that targeted Jews and Israel, and bickered among Iexplosion at the city’s port on Aug. 4 seems a cosmic themselves, through the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s. The PLO slap in the face, a blow when the country is at its low- was but the largest and best recognised. There was also est. The Prime Minister has quit; ditto the rest of his the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine; a dis- cabinet. The Lebanese Pound has lost 60% of its value in the last 10 months (and 80% of its black market value). The International Monetary Fund is refusing to lend the With compliments COVID-stricken economy much-needed cash because of corruption. The country is ruled, in a de facto fashion, by the ter- rorist group Hezbollah, which, apart from its manifest OMNICO faults, is now also being pressed by Iran to attack Israel. And that’s just this year. Years past whipsawed the Lebanese CORPORATION from civil war to war with Israel, terrorism and kidnap- ping, to Syrian and Iranian vassal state. TEL: (03) 9501 5588 But what this narrative leaves unstated is that much of 26 Lebanon’s fate is its own making, or at the very least, the

AIR – September 2020 gruntled offshoot, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Of course, Lebanon has mundane problems of corrup- Palestine-General Command; the Democratic Front for tion as well: the Central Bank arbitraging lending rates the Liberation of Palestine, and others whose names have to benefit a few cronies; the President and his family and faded over the years. Each treated Lebanon as an arms friends manipulating electricity prices; and the petty cro- depot, its teeming Palestinian refugee camps as operational nyism of every third world state with byzantine trappings NAME OF SECTION BIBLIO FILE headquarters, its airport as a private airfield for terrorist that might be funny were they not so sad. adventurism. There are close to 500,000 civil servants supping at In those years, alliances shifted with lightning rapid- the government trough (in a country with a population of ity. Christians begged at Assad’s feet, and when he proved 6.8 million), their costs sucking up a third of the state’s useless, at Israel’s. Others budget. The state railway office has dozens of staff, though begged world powers for not a single train has plied the nation’s rails in decades. favour, but the Marine bar- Bribery is not just widespread, it is ubiquitous: Just shy of racks bombing of 1983 and 100% of companies report they had to pay bribes to secure a succession of terrorist government contracts, and more than a third of the na- attacks on US facilities and tion’s citizens have reported bribes to police. on Americans drove all but Is all this obvious to the people of Lebanon? You the most mercenary away. bet. Does it outrage the crowds that teemed in Beirut’s Lebanese citizens are desperately trying to remake their broken Lebanese Christians streets last year, and returned once COVID fears settled? nation, but have little prospect of fled in droves, taking their Sure. Is their anger all the more intense now that much success businesses, their assets, and of their capital has been destroyed? Obviously. Will they their families. So too did throw the bums out? They’ll try. But there will just be the Palestinian managerial cadres that had shared generous other bums. remittances with their families trapped in Lebanon. But at In a dream world, it might be possible for a techno- no moment – not a one – did the various Lebanese factions cratic government to be swept in with the shockwave that that promised a better future to their followers abandon levelled Beirut on Aug. 4. In a parallel dream, perhaps the the civil war model: foreign patrons, foreign allegiance, state could again become a French protectorate, as some and corruption. have asked. In fact, what will happen is that conspiracies Presidents were murdered; prime ministers too. But will abound about the port blast; and money the interna- even the murder of Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005 tional community gathers to repair this latest wound will – for which Syria and Hezbollah were almost certainly be stolen, as so much has been stolen before. responsible – gave little respite to tiny Lebanon. There will be no peace because those who have power Yes, Hariri’s brutal assassination ended the direct Syrian in Lebanon – Iran, Hezbollah and the shadowy thieves occupation of Lebanon, but by that point the physical pres- who run the government – will not relinquish their power ence of those troops no longer mattered, for two impor- or their ill-gotten gains. And eventually, another tragedy tant reasons. The first was that everyone who could have elsewhere in the world will catch our eye and Lebanon will been influenced, bought or sold had already been, and it be forgotten. did not take Syrian strongmen on the ground to keep them in line. The second was that the civil war had bred its most Danielle Pletka is a senior fellow in foreign and defence policy disastrous spawn, which would make the Syrian occupation studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). © AEI (www. look tame in comparison: Hezbollah. aei.org), reprinted by permission, all rights reserved.

creature of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard A Corps, Hezbollah grew in the 1990s and has since taken over Lebanon lock, stock and barrel. It answers EHUD’S MIDEAST to Iran, it fights for Bashar al-Assad in Syria, it governs in Beirut, and it dominates everyone and everything in INSIGHTS Lebanon. It is as if all the worst crimes of Lebanese leaders were by Jamie Hyams concentrated in the person of Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, and his minions. They are corrupt. They are sectar- srael is blessed with incisive, insightful and entertain- ian. They kill on command, attack Israel on command, and Iing news analysts, likely the product of being the centre oppress their internal foes as if the civil war were still at its of so much news itself. However, not many of them can height. The people of Lebanon they nominally represent casually flavour an analysis of the dilemma facing the have never been anything other than an afterthought. leader of an Arab country technically at war with Israel 27

AIR – September 2020 with an anecdote about having regularly brought the man Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is frustrated with his favourite Middle Eastern delicacies during his exile in the Israel-UAE deal, but even some high-profile Palestin- France. But more about Lebanese President Michel Aoun ians have supported it. He asked for emergency meetings later. of the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Coop-

BIBLIO FILE NAME OF SECTION With that level of both access and experience, you eration, but there have been no meetings. know a discussion with Ehud Yaari will always be some- Yaari said he doubts the recent violence from Gaza will thing special, and his briefing to journalists for AIJAC on escalate, saying that the Qatari financial assistance pack- Aug. 20 was no exception. age to the Strip expires in September, so Hamas is stirring Yaari began by discussing the recent normalisation up trouble to pressure Qatar to extend it (the package has agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates since reportedly been extended and enlarged). (UAE). He explained that the deal was initiated by UAE Yaari also says it’s safe to assume that the US policy of leader Mohammed bin Zayed (MBZ), who saw an oppor- supporting Israel will remain regardless of who wins the tunity to publicly justify the move by representing himself US presidential election, as many of those advising Biden as the one who stopped Israel’s plans to apply sovereignty are from the Clinton era. However, the trend of US disen- over parts of the West Bank. gagement from the Middle East will also continue. One of MBZ’s motivations, according to Yaari, was China’s interest in the Middle East, he says, is mainly that Arab countries that make peace with Israel generally commercial for now, and Israel is now working to restrict receive modern US weapons, and being a pilot, MBZ is sales of sensitive items to China, making clear it is with the particularly interested in the F-35 combat aircraft. Yaari US first. He is very sceptical about the purported Iran-China expects the UAE will obtain these, despite Israeli public deal, given that, while Iran has been vocal about it, China opposition, but they will be a “sterilised” version compared has been silent, and he can’t see why China would risk its to those in Israel’s Air Force. achievements with Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt. And what about Michel Aoun and his recent comment ther Arab states have been slow to emulate the UAE, his country could potentially have peace with Israel? Aoun, Opartly because, as Yaari revealed, MBZ wanted to bask a Christian, is President under Lebanon’s sectarian politi- in the limelight by himself, so he gave them very little cal system, which reserves that role for Christians, but got notice. However, Yaari does expect a number of other there due to support from Hezbollah, Yaari noted. Arab states to make similar arrangements. Yaari revealed that the Patriarch of Lebanon’s Ma- As he puts it, “We are already watching a number of Arab ronite Christian Church, whom no practising Maronite leaders wearing their swimsuits, walking alongside the pool, can oppose, is now campaigning to de-link Lebanon from waiting to jump in.” He thinks the next country may be Bah- all regional conflict. Trapped between his Patriarch and rain, whose leader is very eager; Sudan; Oman, with which his political allies, and wanting his son-in-law to succeed Israel has had good relations since 1978; or Morocco, with him as President, Aoun, says Yaari, is currently paralysed. which Israel has been sharing tourists since the 1950s. Perhaps he needs another delivery from Yaari’s deli. The Saudis, he says, are interested, but will be slower, while Kuwait was the only Gulf state to take a negative stance. Turkey, he says, has become the capital of the Muslim IS YOUR CHARITABLE Brotherhood, and is in an informal alliance with Qatar, which finances its adventures, including incursions in Libya DONATION SUPPORTING and Somalia. It is “playing rough” in the eastern Mediter- TERRORISM? ranean, opposed by Greece, Cyprus, Italy and Israel, which are backed by the EU and US. The Trump Administration, however, believes Turkey is by Doron Goldbarsht needed to bring order in Syria, as it stopped Iran and Rus- sia in Idlib. Meanwhile, Yaari says, there is rapidly growing hen we hear the term ‘terrorist financing’, we tension between Russia and Iran in Syria, because Russia Wusually think of those who deliberately provide wants control in Damascus, no longer needs Iran, and is support for terrorists to prepare for attacks, undergo not wedded to Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. special training, purchase weapons or explosives, travel On other fronts, Sudan is backing the Saudis in Yemen, to planning meetings, and communicate with their and Oman, which has often been an intermediary between collaborators. Iran and the Gulf states (and between Iran and Israel), can Lone offenders and some small terrorist groups man- no longer play that role because of tensions with Saudi age to sustain their campaigns on a shoestring budget. 28 Arabia over Yemen. They have few members to train and equip, they rely on

AIR – September 2020 to have received between US$100 million and US$200 million (A$140 million to A$279 million) annually. Finally, the Colombian organisations FARC and Movimiento 19 de Abril are said to have received US$150 million (A$208

million) a year during the 1980s. NAME OF SECTION BILIO FILE

FINANCING THE HUMANITARIAN WING The “humanitarian wing” of a large terrorist organisa- tion generally provides a range of social services to the local community. This might include assistance to the poor, orphans and widows (who are often poor, orphaned or widowed due to the operations of the military wing of the Many terrorist groups have a “humanitarian wing” which seeks to turn welfare services, often financed by donations, into support for organisation), as well as educational and health care ser- the organisation’s military goals vices. Money directed to the welfare programs of the “hu- manitarian wing” of a terrorist group supports and helps simple weapons such as knives, and they are not subject perpetuate terrorism by generating loyalty and spreading to the high and indirect costs of developing and maintain- the aims and ideals of the organisation among the public ing a sizeable organisation. However, more sophisticated for which it ostensibly cares. terrorist organisations require quite substantial amounts The humanitarian wing is also a tool for recruitment to of money in order to survive and develop over longer the military wing. Teachers and religious leaders, paid for periods of time. These groups tend to operate in a way that through the humanitarian wing, champion the goals and assumes some degree of social responsibility for their sup- ideals of the organisation. Through promises of reduced porters by establishing a ‘humanitarian wing’ alongside the tuition fees or university scholarships, people are enticed ‘military wing’, which complicates identifying funding for to join the organisation and are then offered financial com- a terrorist group. pensation to commit terrorist acts. Thus, whether delib- erately or inadvertently, the humanitarian wing serves to FINANCING TERRORIST ORGANISATIONS strengthen the military wing of the organisation. The day-to-day activities of terrorist organisations To illustrate, in southern Lebanon, where the national require an arsenal. While a boxcutter and a plane ticket government maintains only a token presence, Hezbollah- can enable a terrorist attack, creating and sustaining an funded schools and hospitals serve thousands of the atmosphere of sustained fear and impeding the daily lives region’s mostly poor residents. The residents, in turn, of ordinary citizens requires a substantial cache of weapons revere the party and its still-active armed wing. In this way, and trained people to use them. Terrorist organisations are often able to access the same weapons used by military forces; for example, Hezbollah is equipped with unmanned aerial vehicles and advanced WITH COMPLIMENTS missile technology. Over the years, Hamas has fired thousands of rockets of varying types, with an average cost of US$800 (A$1,112) each. The tunnels that Hamas has dug from Gaza into Egypt and Israel are estimated to cost US$140 million (A$195 million) a year. Al-Qaeda pos- sesses anti-aircraft missiles and has even tried to build an atomic bomb, including attempting to buy a component from South Africa for US$1.5 million (A$2.09 million) in 1993. Blocking the funds required for terror-related goals is therefore crucial in combating terrorist activity. Hezbollah is thought to receive about US$700 million (A$973 million) annually in funding from Iran – but has numerous other sources of revenue as well. The estimated annual budget of Hamas is approximately US$70 mil- lion (A$97 million). Al-Qaeda is understood to receive approximately US$50 million (A$69 million) per year in foreign donations. During the war in Sri Lanka (1983- 2009), the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam are believed 29

AIR – September 2020 funding received by the humanitarian wings of Hezbollah New South Wales, those with low annual turnover, those and other terrorist organisations is inextricably bound with that were only recently established, those that are service- support for their military activities – despite the fact that oriented, and those that undertake transactions with the costs of the military bodies are often relatively small in countries with high terrorist financing risks. The main ter-

NAME OF SECTION CINE FILE comparison to the humanitarian expenditure. rorist financing threats to charities in Australia include the Terrorist organisations need money – a good deal of it diversion of legitimate funds by senior charity personnel – and charities are one way of securing it. to finance offshore terrorist activity, attempts to infiltrate charities by terrorist groups, and the use of online plat- THE ROLE OF CHARITIES IN TERRORIST forms to solicit funds for terrorist purposes. FINANCING Australia has since then significantly improved its Terrorists can misuse charities in a variety of ways. compliance with the global standard, but a few deficien- They can funnel money from a local organisation sup- cies in the regulatory regime remain. The registration of ported by charity to an overseas partner that funds terror- charities is still voluntary, although it provides access to tax ist acts. They can transport weapons in a charity’s vehicles, concessions and other benefits. Unregistered charities are or store weapons at its premises. With or without the char- generally subject to other requirements that may prevent ity’s knowledge, they can raise “It remains difficult to determine whether terrorist financing abuse;for funds in the charity’s name and example, they may be unable charitable funds are used to finance ter- use those funds for terrorist to hold assets or open a bank purposes. Alternatively, they rorism. What is clear, however, is that account. can establish a charity for a we cannot rely on an artificial distinc- Australia has identified specific ostensible purpose and tion between the various components or higher-risk charities, but it then use the charity’s funds to “wings” of a terrorist organisation” remains in the early stages finance terrorism. of reviewing the legisla- The factors that allow charities to achieve their humani- tive framework. Moreover, there are concerns that some tarian outcomes make them vulnerable to being misused smaller charities, identified as potentially high risk, are not by terrorists. Charities may have a global presence that subject to adequate monitoring. provides a framework for international operations and financial transactions. Many charities work in areas that are ow can we identify an illegitimate funds transfer prone to terrorist activity and may provide humanitarian Hinvolving a charity? Until it is spent, how do we responses in locations where there are no banks, so they know whether a donation will finance baby formula or need to deal in cash. Furthermore, they often have com- terrorism? plex financial operations and many donors, requiring them It remains difficult to determine whether charitable to deal with multiple currencies and small transactions, funds are used to finance terrorism. What is clear, however, making it difficult to identify suspicious transactions. is that we cannot rely on an artificial distinction between Australian charities have a long history of helping the the various components or “wings” of a terrorist organisa- vulnerable and disadvantaged, both at home and abroad. tion. Funds directed to the humanitarian wing contribute Our 54,000 registered charities have a combined annual to the operations of the military wing. Therefore, fund- income of over A$134 billion and assets totalling A$267 ing the humanitarian wing should be seen as an indirect billion. More than 8,000 of these charities conduct activi- method of financing the terrorist activities of the military ties outside Australia, sending A$1.5 billion in donations wing. A dollar donated to purchase baby formula could po- and grants overseas each year. Many of them operate in, or tentially allow the organisation to spend a dollar on bullets. send funds to, conflict zones and other unstable regions. Targeting sources of funding is critical when attempting Thus, charitable donations from well-intentioned Austra- to limit terrorism. The basic premise is deceptively simple: lians can end up anywhere – including in the hands of the smother the source of oxygen and a terror cell will die. humanitarian wing of a terrorist organisation. However, the sources of funding for a terrorist organisation In 2015, the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force – may be multifaceted and international. Charities are only the global standard setter for countering money laundering one of them, but they are one whose vulnerabilities Australia and terrorism financing – found that Australia’s charitable can and should address as a matter of priority. sector and its regulatory framework were not in compli- ance with global counter-terrorist financing standards. Doron Goldbarsht is a lecturer in the School of Law at Macqua- In response, Australia undertook a comprehensive risk rie University in Sydney, Australia and a member of the Optus assessment of its charity sector. It identified the features Macquarie University Cyber Security Hub. Dr. Goldbarsht is the and types of Australian charities that are likely to be at author of the new book Global Counter-Terrorist Financing 30 risk of terrorist financing: legal entities primarily based in and Soft Law: Multi-Layered Approaches (Elgar, 2020).

AIR – September 2020 Delving into the organisational background and the biographies of the Entebbe hijackers offers a fascinating ESSAY window on the tortured politics of

post-war Europe and of the Cold War, ESSAYNAME OF SECTION the nascent Palestinian national move- ment and perhaps also the unresolved Who were the Entebbe pathologies of Germany towards the hijackers? Jews. THE PFLP-EO The PFLP-EO, led by Dr. Wadie How German leftists became antisemitic terrorists Haddad, is sometimes described as an “offshoot” or “splinter” from the more well-known Popular Front for the by Jonathan Spyer Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Had- dad, a Palestinian Christian born in Safed in 1927, was a close associate of he Entebbe raid of July 4, 1976 PFLP founder . Both Tis remembered as a high point of were medical doctors and graduates counter-terror warfare in general, of the American University of Beirut. and of the Israeli contribution to that When Habash founded the PFLP fol- field in particular. The raid involved lowing the Six Day War in 1967, Had- astonishing audacity, precise and dad became the leader of its military pinpoint intelligence, great courage wing. In the subsequent years, he led and professional military skills of the a number of high-profile attacks on highest order. It remains a subject of Three of the hijackers of Air France Flight Israeli and Jordanian targets, includ- study at military institutes across the 139: (from left) Fayez Abdul-Rahim al-Jaber, ing the Dawsons’ Field hijackings of world. Wilfried Bose, Jayel al-Arja September 1970, and the hijacking of Less attention has been paid to the an plane in 1968. precise nature of the enemy that the famously, two Germans, a man and a A number of accounts sympathetic IDF’s Sayeret Matkal commandos and woman. The Palestinians, Jayel al-Arja to the PFLP claim that at some point other forces confronted that night at and Fayez Abdul-Rahim al Jaber, were in the early 1970s, Wadie Haddad was the Ugandan airport. senior PFLP operatives. The Germans, expelled from the organisation and The force that carried out the Wilfried Bose and Brigitte Kuhlmann, then continued to operate in the field hijacking of Air France Flight 139 en were members of a far-Left paramili- of international terrorism, using the route from Tel Aviv to Paris on June tary network in Germany known as name PFLP-EO. 27, 1976 represented the sharpened the Revolutionary Cells. The motives for this claim are edge of an intricate structure. In- The four were joined by six more fairly obvious. The PFLP was and cluded within this nexus were major PFLP operatives on the ground at remains an integral part of the PLO. Palestinian militant groups, German Entebbe. The four hijackers and three The PLO in turn was and is engaged radical leftist organisations and, be- of the six who joined them on the in international diplomacy and formal hind them, the logistical and material ground were killed on the night of political activity. Open association support of the USSR and a number of July 4. with an organisation that engaged in allied Arab states. The presence of two Germans the deliberate targeting of civilians The terrorist team that carried among the hijackers killed by the IDF and civil aviation, the singling out of out the hijacking was officially aligned in Operation Thunderbolt at Entebbe Jews as victims and association with with an organisation calling itself Airport is one of the best-known antisemitic German terrorists would the Popular Front for the Liberation elements of this entire episode. The not be conducive to success in these of Palestine – External Operations background to how these individuals endeavours. (PFLP-EO). This lengthy set of initials – a bookshop owner and a former No proof has ever been presented obscures as much as it reveals. educator, residents of Frankfurt am for the supposed “expulsion” of Wadie The four-person team consisted Main – came to be present at the Haddad from the PFLP. Rather, all of two Palestinian Arab men and, airport is less familiar. evidence suggests that the PFLP-EO 31

AIR – September 2020 was a conveniently deniable front for armed organisations to emerge from the PFLP itself. the remnants of the German New When Haddad died in 1978 Left in the early 1970s. The other two (reportedly as a result of a poisoning were the better-known Red Army

ESSAY by Israel’s Mossad) he was afforded a Faction (or “Baader-Meinhof group”) grand funeral by the PFLP in Baghdad and the anarchist June 2 movement. in April of that year. No mention was The Revolutionary Cells differed made of any split or division in the somewhat from the other two groups movement. The organisation’s spokes- in that they did not seek to create man, Bassam Abu Sharif, eulogised Entebbe Airport, 1976 a full-time underground cadre of Haddad as a “founding member” of of the hijacking, the PFLP was the committed activists. Rather, the RZ the PFLP. He described Haddad as recipient of aid and assistance from employed a loosely organised cell having “direct responsibility of the the Soviet Union. structure in which members contin- special operations branch in the PFLP. ued with their regular lives, while He was the leader of the special op- THE REVOLUTIONARY at the same time participating in the erations against the enemy.” CELLS activities of the group. Documents of the USSR’s Com- The KGB documents cited above This led to them being described mittee of State Security, better known note that weaponry intended for the derisively by both the German police as the KGB, secretly translated from PFLP was delivered to the Gulf of and their fellow leftists as “weekend the KGB archive by Soviet dissident Aden. This area was in the territorial revolutionaries.” The loose and de- Vladimir Bukovsky in 1992, further waters of the Peoples’ Democratic centralised nature of the movement, support the contention that any Republic of Yemen. South Yemen was however, served it well in avoiding distinction between the PFLP and a Soviet-aligned Arab state. It was the detection and dismantling by the Haddad’s organisation is bogus. hub for the USSR’s covert activity in authorities. In a document dated April 23, the Arab world. Bose, who was a friend of notori- 1974, then-KGB head Among the activities taking place ous Venezuelan terrorist Ilich Ramirez describes Haddad as “Politburo on the soil of South Sanchez (“ the member of the Popular Front for the Yemen were military “The hijacking of Air Jackal”), was a well- Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), head training programs for France Flight 139 known figure in Frank- of the PFLP’s external operations militants from a variety was the work of a furt’s left-wing scene. section.” The document is concerned He was the co-founder of organisations set to network” with Haddad’s request for assistance take part in terror and of the “Roter Stern” for the PFLP from the USSR for its paramilitary opera- (Red Star) publishing external operations, and recommends tions as part of the Soviet-financed, house, which maintained an office and a positive response. Palestinian-managed international bookshop at Holzhausen Strasse in the Further documents in the archive network. Among the individuals city. indicate that this assistance was forth- who graduated from such a training Kuhlmann, who was Bose’s girl- coming. They also describe Haddad as program at some time in 1974-1975 friend, lived at a communal house himself an agent of the Soviet intelli- were two young German supporters maintained by Roter Stern at its gence organisation: “KGB intelligence of the Palestinian cause – Wilfried offices and worked for the publish- agent W. Haddad, head of the external Bose and Brigitte Kuhlmann. ing house while studying part time at operations section of the People’s How did these two young German Frankfurt University. Liberation Front of Palestine, received leftist radicals find their way to an in- But despite the part-time nature a consignment of foreign-produced ternational terror nexus supported by and bohemian trappings of these arms and ammunition (53 subma- Soviet money and logistics? It is a long young radicals, the Revolutionary chine guns, 50 handguns including 10 way from the bookshops and cafes Cells were not merely poseurs. From fitted with silencers, 34,000 rounds of Frankfurt am Main to the training the outset, Bose, Kuhlmann and the of ammunition).” camps of South Yemen, and then to others made themselves available to So the first and important element the airport terminal at Entebbe. Palestinian terror groups for assis- to understand regarding the hijacking Bose and Kuhlmann were founding tance with infrastructure and logistics of Flight 139 is that it was undertaken members of a violent German leftist on German soil. by the PFLP, which was and remains radical organisation called the Revolu- On this basis, according to Prof. an integral part of the PLO. The sec- tionaere Zellen, or Revolutionary Cells Jeffrey Herf in his book Undeclared 32 ond point to note is that at the time (RZ). This group was one of three Wars with Israel, quoting from the tes-

AIR – September 2020 timony of Hans Joachim Klein, a later and logistical assistance, Pal- defector from the group, the Revolu- estinian nationalist organisa- tionary Cells offered accommodation tions, Arab states aligned with and logistical help to the Black Sep- the USSR, and young Euro- tember organisation (Fatah’s deniable peans motivated by a mixture ESSAY equivalent to the PFLP-EO) during of professed leftist radicalism the attack on the Israeli delegation to and barely concealed hostility the Munich Olympics in 1972. to Jews. Bose’s group directly targeted The conduct of both Israeli targets in Germany. They Wilfried Bose and, accord- attacked an Israeli travel bureau in ing to witness testimonies, in Frankfurt on August 26, 1974. On particular Brigitte Kuhlmann Family members reunite at Ben Gurion Airport after the Entebbe rescue February 8, 1976, they bombed the during the course of the offices of Israel Bonds in Berlin. hijacking was in line with the orienta- Kuhlmann and their colleagues ended The Revolutionary Cells also tion described above. Kuhlmann, the in their encounter with the IDF’s openly targeted Jewish community former educator from Hanover who General Staff Reconnaissance Unit at figures in Germany. In this, they volunteered with mentally handi- the Entebbe Airport Terminal on July were following a pattern of practical capped children in her spare time, 4, 1976. indifference toward that supposed was universally remembered for her The structure that carried out the distinction between antisemitism and particular cruelty and fury through- hijacking of Flight 139 seems rather anti-Zionism, which was their official out the course of the hijacking. distant now. The USSR has gone. The stance. According to the testimony of The hijacking famously included a Peoples’ Republic of South Yemen was Hans-Joachim Klein, the Revolution- separation of Israeli and Jewish hos- soon to follow it. The Revolution- ary Cells had placed Heinz Galinski tages from non-Israeli and non-Jewish ary Cells, starved of their funding, and Ignatz Lipinski, Jewish commu- passengers. disbanded in 1991. The PFLP remains nity leaders in Berlin and Frankfurt In this regard, it is worth noting in business in a minor way. It has long respectively, on a list of individuals to recent claims that this selection in- been eclipsed by the organisations of be assassinated. Even Nazi hunter Si- cluded only Israeli Jews. Such claims political Islam as the most active face mon Wiesenthal, according to Klein, are false. It is beyond dispute that at of Palestinian militancy. Some young was proposed by Wilfried Bose as a least 10 non-Israeli Jews were obliged Europeans are still attracted to the target for murder. by the hijackers to join the group of Palestinian issue. Few, though (in con- The Revolutionary Cells benefited 84 Israelis. It is also indisputable that trast with their Islamist comrades), from direct financial assistance from a number of Israeli dual nationals and today seem inclined to take up arms the PFLP at this time. According non-Israeli Jews succeeded through for the cause. to Klein, Wadie Haddad paid 3,000 subterfuge in joining the group that It is nevertheless worth recalling Deutschmarks per month to each was released. These two facts sug- that 44 years ago, the joint efforts member in West Germany. gest, unsurprisingly, that the hijackers of a shadowy international network A number of other countries – were unable to ascertain with forensic bringing together the resources of a Italy, the US, France, Holland and certainty the ethno-religious identity superpower, the territory of an Arab the UK among them – witnessed the of all their hostages. state, the structures of a major Pal- emergence of small armed groups But the undisputed involuntary estinian political movement and the from among the ranks of supporters presence of a number of non-Israeli beliefs and complexes of a number of of the New Left. All of these groups Jews among the hostages refutes leftist German radicals was engaged were pro-Palestinian. All supported the notion that the hijackers did not in the deliberate hunting of Israeli and Palestinian terror. None of them also target people of this description Jewish civilians worldwide. targeted institutions of the Jewish among the passengers. Such benign Can such a combination come community (or indeed of Israel) with indifference would have been entirely together again? a similar level of focus and intensity as out of character for members of their German comrades. the Revolutionary Cells, given their Dr. Jonathan Spyer is Director of the Mid- known targeting of non-Israeli Jews in dle East Centre for Reporting and Analysis THE ROAD TO ENTEBBE Germany. and a Ginsburg/Ingerman Writing Fellow The hijacking of Air France Flight In the event, almost all the hos- at the Middle East Forum. © Jerusalem 139 was thus the work of a network tages, Israeli and non-Israeli, were Post (www.jpost.com), reprinted by per- that brought together Soviet weapons rescued. The long journey of Bose, mission, all rights reserved. 33

AIR – September 2020 Trackmaster is proud to sponsor the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council. NAME OF SECTION

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WHAT A TWEET through direct negotiations. This is by the media, with a number of outlets Sky News “Kenny Report” host Australia’s current position and hardly referencing his previous criticisms of Chris Kenny (July 29) slammed the controversial. the anti-Israel Boycott, Sanctions and “inordinate amount of time” UN bod- In 2018, McCarthy opposed the Divestment (BDS) movement. ies spend “seeking to discredit” Israel, Morrison Government recognising On Aug. 13, Sky News “The Kenny and lauded Australia’s recent petition west Jerusalem as Israel’s capital – Report” host Chris Kenny applauded to the International Criminal Court which it has been since 1949 – and Cave for “staring down” the BDS (ICC) not to investigate alleged Israeli which partially followed President movement and “doing what he does war crimes at the behest of “Palestine”. Trump’s lead. best, sharing his music” with Israelis. Kenny said, “Perhaps the ICC In file footage, Cave said he toured could find injustices and atrocities Israel because he loves the “Israeli elsewhere, perhaps in Syria, Yemen or JEWISH LIVES MATTER people and to make a stand against Sudan and other nations that might be TOO anyone who tries to censor and silence more worthy of its efforts.” In the Spectator Australia magazine musicians. So in a way you could say He also disparaged an ABC produc- (Aug. 15), New Zealand Jewish Coun- that the BDS made me [come to] er’s tweet which stated that “Australia cil spokesperson Juliet Moses warned Israel.” argues China should obey international that firebrand Nation of Islam leader The Age/Sydney Morning Herald norms, but that Israel doesn’t need to.” Louis Farrakhan’s long history of anti- (Aug. 13) report said “in Decem- Kenny said, “How very typical semitic statements is being overlooked ber 2018, he condemned a cultural of the ABC view on Israel. To even by people wanting to support the boycott of Israel and said playing compare the level of human rights ac- Black Lives Matter movement. concerts in Tel Aviv with his band the countability, transparency and scrutiny Moses said, “Farrakhan publicly Bad Seeds did not signify support for on Israel, as compared to China, is calls Jews ‘termites’ and praises Hitler Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ludicrous.” as a ‘great man.’” She added his ideol- government.” Former Australian foreign minister ogy blames Jews not only for “the told Kenny the perceived sins of white people” but ICC move to investigate Israel is a says Jews are “orchestrating and profit- ALY’S FOLLY? “political stunt” that would damage the ing off it.” Network Ten’s light entertainment court’s reputation. Whilst antisemitic remarks by high news program “The Project” (Aug. profile blacks have been condemned, 5) and co-host Waleed Aly drew flak “far from being ostracised and ‘can- for the line of questioning during an UNDIPLOMATIC celled’, [Farrakhan] is embraced and interview with Beirut-based Portu- Following the AUSMIN annual promoted by celebrities and those guese photographer João Sousa on the ministerial level talks, former dip- who profess to be progressives and potential cause of the Aug. 4 Beirut lomat John McCarthy argued in the anti-racists. He sat upfront onstage at port explosion. Australian Financial Review (Aug. 3) for Aretha Franklin’s funeral alongside Bill Asked by Aly if the official explana- Canberra to determine foreign policy Clinton.” tion that poorly stored ammonium according to Australia’s national inter- Citing US civil rights leader John nitrate caused the explosion is “being ests and not at the behest of the Trump Lewis’ recent passing, she called widely accepted”, Sousa said, “ 99 per Administration. on people “to embrace his legacy”, cent of the people I’ve spoken with – McCarthy claimed “no serious which included “spurn[ing] Farrakhan and I’m talking about Lebanese people American ally, except Australia, has a because of his ‘divisive and bigoted’ exclusively – they all feel that that’s not policy on Israel-Palestine issues similar statements.” necessarily the correct explanation. So, to that of Trump’s America.” people are more likely to believe that Successive Democratic and Re- this was an attack, a military attack – publican Administrations, including A GOOD SEED possibly by Israel – than an accident.” President Trump’s, have backed a two- Musician Nick Cave’s condemna- Aly asked if it’s “because of a state formula that can only be achieved tion of cancel culture was picked up general culture of suspicion of govern- 35

AIR – September 2020 ment for example, or the geopolitics to be competing with the ABC to be of the region? Or do they have, kind more Green/Left-than-thou.” Hen- of, more specific reasons for doubting derson also critiqued the segment dur- NOTHING TO SEE HERE that explanation in this case?” ing his regular appearance on Sky News Following complaints about the

NOTED AND QUOTEDNOTED AND Sousa said, “Lebanon and Israel “The Bolt Report” (Aug. 9). segment, the producers of “The Proj- are not really on good terms. And so, On Sky News “Outsiders” (Aug. 9) ect” refused to apologise but removed there’s always this tension going on. co-host James Morrow ridiculed the a clip of the segment from the pro- People are always expecting some- show for asking a photographer the gram’s Facebook page. thing like this to happen… But I mean sorts of questions best left to qualified The Executive Council of Austra- like you said, the official version is experts, asking “does it get any sillier?” lian Jewry announced it had lodged a that it was an accident. So until proven On Aug. 7, Chris Kenny slammed formal complaint with FreeTV Austra- otherwise, I can’t say anything else.” the insinuation on a “mainstream com- lia over the segment. Commentator Gerard Henderson’s mercial television program” of Israeli “Media Watch Dog” column (Aug. 7) culpability, saying that “this is the ugly chided the show’s hosts for not asking sort of blame-shifting that fuels anti- IN THE FRAME “Sousa to provide any evidence to sup- semitism and… hatred in the Middle Hezbollah’s role in Lebanon was port his view. And no one challenged East.” Kenny interviewed former fed- highlighted in the media in a way that his Blame the Jewish State conspiracy eral Labor MP Michael Danby about it has not been since the 2006 Leba- theory. These days The Project seems “The Project” segment. non war.

Australian Jewry and the Zionist Federation of Australia webinar to farewell Israel’s Ambassador to Australia, Mark Sofer. He took up this important post in 2017 and discharged it with distinc- Foreign Minister Senator Marise Payne (Lib., NSW) Twitter tion. Under Ambassador Sofer’s leadership, there have been a – Aug. 14 – “The agreement between Israel & the UAE to nor- number of memorable visits including Israeli President Reuven malise relations and Israel’s undertaking to suspend annexation Rivlin’s visit to Australia earlier this year. Ambassador, your out- plans in the West Bank are important steps forward. Australia standing efforts have been warmly appreciated by Australia and welcomes these commitments.” by the Jewish community alike. I wish you and Sarah all the best Josh Burns (ALP, Melbourne Ports) Australian Jewish News and for your return to Israel.” – Aug. 14 – “Peace is always worth celebrating. This announce- Dr Marjorie O’Neill (ALP, Coogee NSW) – July 29 – “I express ment is an historic turning point between Israel and the UAE. my deep concern regarding the disturbing rise in antisemitism May it be the first of many in the region and it may lead to within my electorate of Coogee and beyond. Antisemitism is further opportunities and engagement for Australia in the two racism and bigotry towards Jews. It is a prejudice spanning economic hubs.” 3,000 years…This year the Executive Council of Australian Australian Greens Leader Senator Adam Bandt (Greens, Jewry (ECAJ) released its 30th annual analysis of reports of Victoria) Twitter – Aug. 14 – “Where’s Palestine in this ‘vision antisemitic violence, vandalism, harassment and intimidation in for peace’? Signing deals while ignoring a key party won’t bring Australia. Some 368 incidents were reported, many of which peace & security to Israel & Palestine. And it’s disturbing that involved face-to-face harassment and property vandalism. That Netanyahu says that despite this deal, his plans for illegal an- figure is high, considering social demographers estimate the nexation remain unchanged.” Jewish population to be 115,000, or 0.5 per cent of the Austra- Kevin Andrews (Lib., Menzies) – Aug. 26 – “Today I want to lian population…Jeremy Jones, the Director of International acknowledge one of the many ethnic and multicultural com- & Community Affairs at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs munities here in my electorate of Menzies – namely, the North Council, said: ‘If we are to successfully push back against bigotry Eastern Jewish War Memorial Centre and synagogue. For many and stop racism becoming entrenched, there are few measures decades now, the North Eastern Jewish Centre has played a vital as important as vocal and principled condemnations of these ills part in the vibrant multicultural community here in Menzies, from our political leaders…’ and I was delighted recently to be able to announce, along with “Examples [of antisemitism] include the demonisation of the assistant minister, the member for La Trobe, a community Israel, its actions blown out of rational proportion – such as the safety grant for the centre.” comparison of Israelis to Nazis – and the double standards that NSW Parliamentary Secretary to the Premier the Hon. Ga- are applied when Israel is called out for criticism while the hu- brielle Upton (Lib., Vaucluse) – Aug. 5 – “Yesterday afternoon, the man rights violations of Saudi Arabia, Iran or China are ignored. Australian Jewish community came together on an Australia/ A denial of Israel’s right to exist – a nation sanctioned by the 36 Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC), Executive Council of United Nations – is always antisemitic.”

AIR – September 2020 On SBS TV “World News” (Aug. life or the lives of their family by pre- Thomas Friedman said the United 11), CNN correspondent Ben Lewis senting an impartial report.” States is “becoming like Lebanon and said, “Hezbollah remains more power- He said it was known the port was other Middle East countries” where ful itself than the Lebanese state. It “under the control of Hezbollah. This political differences are “so deep that has a massive and rather powerful accounts for the repeated bombings our two parties now resemble reli- QUOTEDNOTED AND military presence. It has a presence of Iranian road shipments destined for gious sects in a zero-sum contest for in Parliament and of course it has its the port by the Israeli air force.” power.” own system of funding, a great deal The ammonium nitrate was not “Illiberal populists like [US Presi- of which is connected to quite a lot of moved despite many requests to do so, dent Donald] Trump”, he said, under- international crime.” he said, because emptying the deadly mine trust in institutions by telling Middle East correspondent Eric cargo would expose Hezbollah’s cache people, “‘Don’t believe the courts, Tlozek in an Aug. 9 report on ABC TV of military assets stored there. the independent civil servants or the “7pm News” said, “some cast blame for He called for “Hezbollah to hand generators; only trust me, the explosion on the Iranian-backed over its arms to the Lebanese army my words and my decisions’… This militant group Hezbollah, a dominant and let independent Lebanese politi- kind of thinking, in the extreme, is faction in Lebanese politics, like Nada cians run the country.” what destroyed Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Zgheib, who lost her nephew.” The Libya and Yemen, and is eating away at report included footage of the griev- Israel.” ing woman saying, “We will pull you HEZBOLLAH’S ENCORE Israel, like a lot of countries, is not out from the gutter. I will hang you by The spotlight on Hezbollah was sus- immune to accusations of overreach by the neck. You killed Joe, you killed all tained with the verdict handed down the executive and judiciary, and genu- the boys. We want to kill all of you.” on Aug. 18 by the Special Tribunal for inely has a uniquely powerful judiciary The report also showed Hezbollah Lebanon in the trial in absentia of four compared to most democracies. leader Hasan Nasrallah’s TV denial that Hezbollah members alleged to have Moreover, contrary to the impres- the port was used to store Hezbollah carried out the 2005 car bomb attack sions of political deadlock in Israel, weapons, rockets, guns, bombs, bul- that killed Lebanon’s former Prime there is a solid consensus in the elec- lets or nitrate. Minister Rafiq Hariri and 21 others. torate on most of the country’s key Despite three of the four defen- issues and challenges, including the dants being found not guilty and the conflicts with the Palestinians and Iran. RIFFING ON HEZBOLLAH court finding it had no direct evidence The most stinging expose of of Syrian or Hezbollah involvement, Hezbollah’s influence came in the the fact that a Hezbollah operative MISSING PIECES Australian (Aug. 12) from high profile was found guilty was prominently In the Age, a primer on the com- Lebanese-Australian leader Dr. Jamal reported. Eric Tlozek’s ABC TV “7pm plicated and conflicted history of Rifi. News” report (Aug. 19) included the Lebanese state by features editor According to Rifi, “Hezbollah- former NSW Deputy Police Com- Maher Mughrabi included discussion aligned Lebanese President Michel missioner Nick Kaldas – who led the of the interplay between the country Aoun and Hezbollah secretary-general Hariri investigation for two years – and Palestinians. Hassan Nasrallah have tried to blind- saying that “We now have definitive… Mughrabi said, “Lebanon is also a side the people with outrageous claims. evidence that a senior member of frontline state in the conflict between Among them is that the explosions Hezbollah was, in fact, involved in the Israel and the Palestinians, with Pales- were caused by a bomb or a missile assassination.” tinian attacks on Israel launched from fired, they say, by a malevolent force. On SBS TV “World News” (Aug. its territory and repeated invasions But where is the evidence? Lebanon’s 19), CNN’s Ben Wedeman told SBS and attacks by Israel, most notably in Prime Minister, Hassan Diab, declared anchor Janice Peters that Hezbollah 1978 and 1982. Palestinians who fled he would chair a local investigation to saw the result as “something of a vic- north during the Arab-Israeli war of report in five days. On the fifth day, he tory” and its supporters were celebrat- 1948 still live in refugee camps across and his government resigned. With the ing with fireworks after the verdict the country, barred from citizenship country in election mode, there will was announced. and many professions. Many Leba- be no investigation… Aoun has closed nese blame the country’s wars since down the possibility of an international 1970 on Palestinian militants in these investigation by claiming it would A POOR COMPARISON camps.” undermine Lebanese sovereignty. No In Financial Review They have reason to do so. One of Lebanese investigator would risk their (Aug. 11), NewYork Times columnist the sparks that ignited the 1975 civil 37

AIR – September 2020 war was PLO chairman Yasser Arafat having a “kind of compulsive patho- launching pad to fire tens of thousands and his thousands of armed loyalists logical desire to hate and even to kill of rockets at Israeli towns and build imposing on Lebanon what was es- Jews” which “dehumanises” them. tunnels into Israel with the aim of sentially a state within a state through Yet, since the 1880s, the rhetoric carrying out terror attacks, leading to

NOTED AND QUOTEDNOTED AND violence and intimidation after being against the political movement for several wars. expelled from Jordan in 1970 for try- Jews to return to the historic Land of And in 2015-16, Palestinian Au- ing to do the same thing there. Israel has been couched in blatantly thority incitement on the West Bank After the PLO was forced out of antisemitic rhetoric, and accompanied based on antisemitic rhetoric that Lebanon in 1982, Iran created Hezbol- by genocidal threats and actual acts of Israeli Jews were coming to destroy lah as a forward column in its cam- indiscriminate violence clearly moti- the Al-Aqsa mosque led to a spate of paign to further the Shi’ite Islamist vated by raw hatred. stabbings and car ramming attacks. revolution in the Middle East, an es- Beinart claimed that the Palestinian All this occurred during Beinart’s sential part of which includes destroy- national movement has “done some mythical 15-year period of Palestinian ing Israel. things that I consider to be indefen- restraint, yet Israeli PMs have re- Mughrabi did not include this im- sible but if you compare it… to other mained committed to negotiating with portant point. national movements… fighting to the Palestinians. get individual and national rights for In 2008, then Israeli PM Ehud their peoples, the Palestinian national Olmert’s offer of a state included all TWO PEAS IN A POD movement doesn’t look particularly of Gaza, the equivalent of 100% of the ABC Radio National “Late Night pathological. In fact… in the last 15 West Bank and shared control in Jeru- Live” host Phillip Adams and US years it’s proved considerably more salem. Current Palestinian Authority writer Peter Beinart were in furious moderate than the ANC or the IRA President Mahmoud Abbas admits he agreement that only a one-state solu- ever proved.” rejected the offer “out of hand”. tion, i.e. Israel’s demise as a Jewish The reality is that unlike other na- Current Israeli PM Binyamin Ne- state, will end the Israeli-Palestinian tional movements that have never been tanyahu has invested time and political conflict (July 22). given the chance of statehood, such as capital in futile peace talks, yet since Adams interviewed Beinart – who the Tibetans or the Kurds, Palestinian 2014 his offer to resume peace talks is not Israeli and doesn’t live in Israel leaders have spent the past 20 years without preconditions has been flatly – to discuss his recent essay arguing rejecting Israeli offers to create a state. rejected. Israelis should embrace a binational Beinart also implied that the However, in Beinart’s world, these state. Palestinian terror of the Second offers show how Israel has not offered Beinart claimed that early Zionist Intifada, which he acknowledged was the Palestinians “genuine” statehood thinkers, including Theodore Herzl, “enormously traumatic” for Israelis, since the Intifada. were not committed to a Jewish state had ended voluntarily, and said that but more interested in establishing a since then “the amount of Palestinian homeland where the Jewish people violence towards Israeli Jews has been BLIND SPOT could be rejuvenated. much, much lower” yet bemoaned Also interviewed on ABC Radio This is bunk. Herzl’s Zionist that neither the Israeli government National “Religion and Ethics Report” treatise published in 1896 was called nor Israeli Jewish public have “mov[ed] (July 29), Beinart claimed that “Israel is Der Judenstaat i.e. “The Jewish State” towards a greater willingness to em- also holding millions of Palestinians in and after the First Zionist Conference brace a genuine Palestinian State.” the West Bank and Gaza… as stateless ended in 1897 he famously wrote in The broke out in non-citizens with no voice in the gov- his diary that “at Basel, I founded the 2000 after Palestinian President Yas- ernment that dominates their lives.” Jewish state.” ser Arafat rejected Israeli offers of a Since the mid-1990s, more than Beinart blamed Israel for the two- state on more than 90% of the West 90% of Palestinians on the West Bank state resolution’s failure because it had Bank and all of Gaza. Only through and all Palestinians in Gaza have had “inexorably taken more of the West the construction of a security barrier self-rule under leaders they have Bank” and so the notion of what a Pal- and a successful combination of other picked for themselves (Jerusalem estinian state “means has been defined Israel military tactics, many of which Palestinians are eligible for Israeli down and down” and Israel’s control are still in place because of ongoing citizenship if they want it). It is only over the West Bank is now permanent. threats, did it end. the Palestinian leadership’s stubborn He also accused Israeli Jews of a Beinart also overlooked how refusal to end the conflict that has en- “conscious” attempt to present Pal- Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 sured this status quo has not developed 38 estinians to Americans and Israelis as led to Hamas using the territory as a into full independent statehood.

AIR – September 2020 Allon Lee MEDIA MICROSCOPE THE ART OF THE DEAL The Executive Council of Australian Jewry’s Alex The historic August 13 announcement that the UAE Ryvchin said that, while US and EU leaders cosied up to will establish normalised diplomatic relations with Israel Iran, Gulf States “observed that the world leader most out- appeared to receive a somewhat muted response by a spoken and fearless in opposing the Iran deal, and the only media uncertain of how to react to a peace accord not in- one who seemed to truly share their understanding of the volving the Palestinians and brokered by two figures many brutal malevolence of the Iranian mullahs, was the Israeli in the media love to hate, Donald Trump and Binyamin Prime Minister,” Australian (Aug. 15). Netanyahu. Former Middle East cor- The Australian (Aug. 15) “The Guardian Australia (Aug. 17) blasted respondent Tony Walker told editorialised that the deal has the deal, saying that ‘any rapprochement ABC News Radio (Aug. 15) proved “utterly wrong” the built on the ruins of Palestinian hopes the deal is a “very significant “doomsayers’ forecasts of a of an independent state is suspect and breakthrough obviously,” but predicted likeminded states Middle East firestorm fol- fragile...’” lowing…Trump’s 2018… will wait to see what the con- recognis[ing] Jerusalem as Isra- sequences are for the UAE. el’s capital and mov[ing] the US On Channel 7 “Sunrise” embassy [there]… Arab states are unmoved by the claptrap (Aug. 14) commentator Keith Suter listed the deal’s pros of anti-Israel campaigns such as the boycott, divestment, but predicted “peace in the Middle East is [still] a long, sanctions movement.” long way off.” Australian Foreign Editor Greg Sheridan noted, “This… Commentator Michael Friedson told ABC TV “The deal could not have come about under… the Obama World” (Aug. 17) the Palestinians are facing “another crisis White House [which] would have thought diplomatic moment” and must “decide whether to get with the pro- recognition of Israel by its neighbours was leverage to be gram or be left behind again” because “there is nothing…to withheld until Israel made further concessions.” indicate that anybody is going to… take their side.” In the Sydney Morning Herald (Aug. 16), former Austra- A hostile Observer editorial in the Guardian Australia lian ambassador to Israel Dave Sharma wrote, “the agree- (Aug. 17) blasted the deal, saying that “any rapprochement ment itself speaks to a growing recognition among the built on the ruins of Palestinian hopes of an independent Middle East’s major actors that they can no longer rely on state is suspect and fragile. This flawed deal may yet come Washington alone to keep the peace in the region.” Earlier, to be seen as a historic mistake.” Sharma said the UAE’s role as a regional transport and The Herald Sun didn’t cover the initial announcement logistics hub, means the deal is a “game changer,” ABC News whilst the Age’s reporting was limited to a New York Times Radio (Aug. 14). article (Aug. 15) which included veteran US Middle East US analyst and past AIJAC guest Michael Rubin told envoy Dennis Ross saying the UAE pushed for a deal “after “The Bolt Report” on Sky News (Aug. 18) this is the “first concluding that Netanyahu was bent on annexation” but warm peace” between an Arab state and Israel but its sig- they “had to give Trump a reason to say no.” nificance “is being downplayed out of animosity for Donald The Canberra Times (Aug. 15) welcomed the deal as a Trump.” He said Arab countries no longer want to “sacri- “step in the right direction”, but added, “nobody is shout- fice their national interests” whilst Palestinian leaders keep ing ‘peace’ yet and nor should they,” and appeared to imply rejecting peace deals. Israel is to blame for the insolubility of the Israeli-Palestin- US President Barack Obama’s Ambassador to Israel ian conflict. Daniel Shapiro was quoted in the Australian Financial Review Academic Lana Tatour told ABC TV “News” (Aug. 14) (Aug. 15) saying normalisation between Israel and the Arab the deal is “unprecedented” in “reward[ing]” Israel with full states was “a long-term, bipartisan goal” which “everyone diplomatic relations after it made “threats to illegally annex should welcome”. On Aug. 21, the paper ran Palestinian- Palestinian territory against international law.” American analyst Hussein Ibish who said the deal is part of However, an online ABC report (Aug. 17) noted the the UAE’s foreign policy vision “that emphasises religious practical and immediate benefits of the deal, with the UAE tolerance, ethnic diversity, social and cultural openness, no longer blocking direct telephone calls between the two and confident Arab engagement with the outside world.” countries. 39

AIR – September 2020 NAME OF SECTION Jeremy Jones

“ABJECT FILTH” Affairs Council joined with more than a hundred other Holocaust deniers in Australia and elsewhere have groups recently in urging Facebook to adopt the Interna- been consistently exposed as fabricators with anti-Jewish tional Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working defini- agendas, and Holocaust deniers in a number of countries tion of antisemitism and to be proactive in preventing anti- have faced sanctions and punishment for the promotion of semitic conspiracy theories – including Holocaust denial. antisemitism. The ISD report noted that another platform, Twitter, had It is nearly 20 years since a Federal Government body acted against some Holocaust denial but that a significant determined that Holocaust denial is “insulting and offen- part of the problem remained unaddressed, while YouTube sive”, is “intended to be offensive and intimidating” and is and Reddit were lauded for limiting Holocaust denial. directly aimed at denigrating Jewish people. Another report published in August, by the Global This was far from the first occasion in which Holocaust Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE), found denial had been clearly and unambiguously identified as large volumes of Holocaust denial and other antisemitic antisemitism, anti-Jewish racism, but was the first time this material on Polish language Twitter and YouTube. could be tested at the federal level in Australia. On the day the GPAHE report was issued, the Anti-Def- In a ruling in September 2000 on a complaint made to amation League (ADL) was calling on Walmart to remove the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission in from its website books which promote Holocaust revision- May 1996, Commissioner Kathleen ism and which claim Jews are “perni- McEvoy noted in Jones v Toben that cious, conniving shifty liars”. “no recognised academic or educa- The same books available on the tional institution within Australia Walmart site in August had been re- or elsewhere recognises Holocaust moved from sale by Amazon earlier denial or revisionism as genuine this year. academic research.” The online licence freely given to Holocaust deniers cannot but One might have thought that, Oradour-Sur-Glane: Massacre site desecrated with the progression of time since encourage the activities of racist the defeat of Nazism, Holocaust deniers might have been thugs and vandals, and it is no surprise that the global wave able to exploit an expected waning of interest in the subject of antisemitic activity includes manifestations where this of the Nazi Genocide. Yet in fact, what we have seen has been particular pernicious motif appears. ongoing serious research into the subject and consistent In late August, vandals daubed the word “Lie” on a overall lack of mainstream impact by the antisemites. remembrance wall in Oradour-Sur-Glane, near Limoges However, social media has proven to be fertile ground in central France, as well as crossing out the inscription for a range of racist conspiracy theories, including Holo- “Martyr Village”. caust denial. On June 10, 1944, an SS Division locked 642 Jewish A report by the think tank the Institute for Strategic people, mainly women and young children, in a church Dialogue (ISD) this August concluded that Holocaust de- there, then set it on fire, in the biggest massacre of French nial content was widely available on Facebook and that the civilians by the Nazis during World War II. social media network also had algorithms in place which Prime Minister Jean Castex said the graffiti “dirties actively promoted it. the memory of our martyrs” and Interior Minister Gerald The report “Hosting the Holohoax: A Snapshot of Holo- Darmanin denounced it as “abject filth”. caust Denial Across Social Media” found a widespread prob- Holocaust denial is not just “abject filth” but is outlawed lem not just on Facebook but on in many jurisdictions. other platforms, despite efforts by It is shameful that some online platforms have been ab- anti-racist groups to address this. rogating morality and responsibility and it is beyond time The Australia/Israel & Jewish they acted with decency.

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