Ramadan.

 

 Worshippers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque

A casual observer unfamiliar with the mind-boggling complexity of our region, would probably be confused by the conflicting Palestinian-Israeli narratives.

Furthermore, images of displaced Gazans moving (mostly on foot) north and south are disconcerting to say the least, even for many people more familiar with the Near-East arena. The adage, ‘A picture is worth a thousand words,’ is especially apt in this instance.

Admittedly, sympathy for the displaced people in Gaza should take into account that many of them still support Hamas. I base this assumption on a relatively recent poll conducted by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR).

It’s difficult to assess how much of this support for Hamas stems from the incidence of casualties among innocent bystanders. Foreign news media outlets invariably cite figures supplied by Gaza’s health ministry and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). In their reporting they rarely mention that both are subservient to Hamas.

On a number of occasions, I have mentioned Colonel Richard Kemp, a retired British army officer, who claims the IDF is one of the most moral armies in the world. Kemp is often verbally attacked by critics of Israel, especially regarding the ‘innocent bystander casualties’ issue.

Responding to critics he said “Of course innocent civilians were killed. War is chaos and full of mistakes. There have been mistakes by the British, American and other forces in Afghanistan and in Iraq, many of which can be put down to human error. But mistakes are not war crimes.

More than anything, the civilian casualties were a consequence of Hamas’ way of fighting. Hamas deliberately uses civilians as human shields.” ….” The IDF has done more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.”

When foreign policy and defence experts tell Israel it does not need strategic depth, they do not take into account how small Israel is.

One often overlooked aspect of Israel’s predicament vis-à-vis its not-so-nice neighbours, was highlighted by Dr. Eric R. Mandel in an op-ed he wrote for the Jerusalem Post recently. Dr. Mandel is the director of MEPIN, the Middle East Political Information Network, senior security editor of The Jerusalem Report and a contributor to The Hill and The Jerusalem Post. He regularly briefs member of Congress and their foreign policy advisers about the Middle East.

“When foreign policy and defence experts tell Israel it does not need strategic depth, they do not take into account how small Israel is” The total area of the State of Israel is 22,145 sq.km (8,630 sq. miles), of which 21,671 sq. km is land area. Israel is some 420 km in length and about 115 km across at the widest point.

In size it’s much like New Jersey. At 7,354 square miles (19,050 km2), New Jersey is the fifth-smallest state in the union, but with close to 9.4 million residents New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the nation. Most of its problems can be dealt with by local authorities, none of them are defence-related.

Before October 7, Israel’s lack of strategic depth was considered manageable by many Israeli and American political and security experts. After that infamous Saturday morning, the importance of strategic depth has emerged as a profound vulnerability.

“The reason it is essential to grasp Israel’s size is that so many Israeli critics and advocates demanding that Israel return to the indefensible 1967 lines (Green Line, or 1949 Armistice Line) like to portray Israel as a Goliath terrorising the helpless Muslim world. 

They choose to ignore how tiny Israel is when one looks at a map – less than 1% of the land mass of the greater Middle East. Even we in America, Israel’s only true friends, underestimate Israel’s security needs due to its small size because we think of Israel as powerful and impenetrable, in part due to its multi-layered anti-missile system, Iron Dome, David’s Sling, Arrow, and Patriot missiles.

Being perceived as fighting above its weight both demographically and geographically has allowed lazy journalists to portray Israel as an invulnerable superpower persecuting its neighbors, and their readers come away with the impression that Israel can take the risks nations with a much larger land mass could. 

As proof of the international prejudice against Israel, which didn’t begin on October 7, some 69% of worldwide protests in the first week after October 7 were against Israel, even before it started its ground operation. Three months later, according to the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), there have been 7,557 protests against Israel since October 10, and only 602 protests in favour of Israel. Small nations that are hated have no margin for error.

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy is a pro-Israel American think tank based in Washington, D.C., focused on the foreign policy of the United States in the Near East.

The Washington Institute’s executive director Robert Satloff commented on the feasibility of the Biden administration’s current diplomatic plans in the region, based in part on what local officials said during his recent group trip to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, and the PA: -

“One cannot but be moved by the enormity and depth of the human tragedy, among Israelis and Palestinians alike.

In private, Arab states are rooting for Israel to destroy Hamas—one senior Arab official even said, “Israel is fighting for us in Gaza, and if it wins, it will succeed in defeating an Iranian proxy for the first time in forty years.” But Arab states are focused on their own security and their own interests and are either unwilling or unable to play much of a role in shaping the outcome in Gaza or helping fill the vacuum that will be left by the Hamas defeat they all privately say they want.

By and large, Arab states would like to roll the clock back to October 6, except on one point: they all face domestic political urgency because of mass sympathy for the Palestinians and Al Jazeera-fueled outrage against Israel, which has caused them to channel energy into producing some tangible progress on the goal of Palestinian statehood, energy that wasn’t there on October 7. It’s not readily apparent that this emerges from the people of Gaza, who surely have other things on their mind; it is a requirement of postwar diplomacy that is only connected to the war by the upsurge in popular affinity for the plight of the Palestinians.”

The countdown to Ramadan has already begun. National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir will not be permitted to bar Arab Israelis from praying at the Al-Aqsa Mosque during Ramadan, Israel’s war cabinet has ruled. This would effectively sideline Ben Gvir, who said  in mid-February that Palestinian residents of the West Bank should be barred from attending prayers at the El-Aqsa Mosque  during Ramadan. Ben Gvir is also reported to have sought to limit Arab Israeli visits.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh called on Palestinians in Jerusalem and the West Bank to march to Al-Aqsa Mosque to pray on the first day of Ramadan on March 10. If it’s a one day event maybe it will be uneventful.

Have a good weekend.

 

Beni,

 

29^th of February, 2024. 

Water.

 

      The Shafdan water treatment facility. 

By way of introducing this week’s topic I’ll begin with some apt advice from the Book of Proverbs: -

“Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth.”

Proverbs. 24:17

 

When I quoted this text several years ago, someone countered humorously adding a Yiddish saying of undetermined origin -" Rejoice not when your enemy falls, but don't rush to pick him up."                                                                                                         

Napoleon was more brutal - "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."

Iran is determined to destroy Israel, however its efforts to “wipe the Jewish state off the map” have been ineffective so far. The money wasted trying to destroy Israel could have been used to improve the wellbeing of the long- suffering Iranian people.

Last summer was the hottest on record, bringing devastating impacts to many global communities. Iran was one of many nations that faced both debilitating heat and the subsequent water stress.

While Iran’s problems received significant media attention this year, water scarcity in the country is not a new problem. For decades, corruption and poor planning have plagued Iranian water policy, with impacts falling upon its increasingly disadvantaged provinces and, ultimately, on its ethnic minorities. Poor water policy also has contributed to an increasing number of cross-border disputes.

These issues that have plagued Iranian water policy throughout its history will continue to pose challenges to its population and exacerbate its national security concerns as domestic and international tensions deepen and the climate crisis progresses.

Furthermore, analysis of the Iranian Ministry of Energy and Meteorology’s data from the past five decades indicates a concerning downward trend in rainfall patterns, portending dire consequences for Iran’s future across various sectors, including population distribution.

Iran’s predicament is further exacerbated by its classification as one of the top three nations experiencing accelerated depletion of fresh water, as outlined in a recent study published in the scientific journal Nature. Unsustainable irrigation practices and the compounding effects of climate change have precipitated a widespread decline in aquifer levels, signalling a distressing trajectory for the nation’s water security.

The convergence of climate-induced rainfall shortages, systemic mismanagement of water resources, and a lack of accountability in policy implementation has precipitated a nationwide ecological crisis. This crisis has not only led to heightened water tensions in various regions but has also sparked a wave of regional protests, often met with harsh repression by military and security forces of the regime.

As Iran grapples with the unfolding water crisis, urgent and decisive action is imperative to mitigate the impending ecological catastrophe and safeguard the nation’s vital water resources for future generations.

At this juncture I think it’s appropriate to compare Iran’s water related crises to those of its self designated arch-enemy Israel.

How did Israel, a country that is more than half desert, frequently hit with drought, and historically cursed by chronic water shortages, become a nation that now produces 20 percent more water than it needs?

Water demand from Israel’s rapidly growing population outpaced the supply and natural replenishment of potable water so much that by 2015, the gap between demand and available natural water supplies reached 1 billion cubic metres (BCM).

Recovering from such a scenario seems highly unlikely, yet Israel managed it by pioneering an unprecedented wealth of technological innovation and infrastructure to prevent the country from drying up.

Nationwide turnaround stories like this are in short supply these days given the momentum of global warming and the world’s unwillingness to scale the solutions needed to thwart its irreversible effects in time.

Some 4 billion people –– two-thirds of the global population — now experience extreme water scarcity for at least one month out of each year due to the climate crisis.

But thanks to its national prioritisation and seven decades of relentless determination, Israel has become a lifeline and source of hope for other water-deprived countries.

Israeli organisations like MASHAV, KKL-JNF, EcoPeace Middle East and the Arava Institute actively disseminate Israel’s expertise, technologies and policy strategies with neighbouring and distant communities suffering from endemic water crises.

Israel’s leadership in sustainable water management began with finding solutions to the country’s first and foremost problem: the uneven distribution of freshwater throughout the country.

The problem became acute after Israel declared its independence in 1948 as waves of new immigrants lacked sufficient water for home consumption and agriculture.

To supply the growing demand, Israel’s national water company Mekorot, began constructing the National Water Carrier.

This water transportation network was designed to pump water from the northern Lake Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) and transfer water from existing regional water projects to central and southern Israel.

But upon its completion in 1964, 80% of the water transported by this system was allocated for agriculture. By 1965, the year following the completion of the National Water Carrier, a novel drip irrigation system was devised, perfected and marketed commercially by “Netafim” in Israel and abroad.

Today, drip irrigation waters 75% of Israel’s crops, but only 5% of farms worldwide currently utilise the technology due to financial barriers.

Despite the transportive advantages of the National Water Carrier and the conservation benefits of drip irrigation, both innovations drew water solely from Israel’s very limited freshwater sources, which were being pumped faster than they could be replenished naturally.

Plus, the share of freshwater designated for agriculture still vastly outweighed the amount allocated for household usage. By the mid-80s, agriculture was using 72% of Israel’s safe water supply.

Israeli engineers realised it’s not just about conserving available freshwater but also taking advantage of water sources previously considered unusable, such as treated municipal wastewater and stormwater.

In 1985, Israel began sending treated, recycled wastewater through its National Water Carrier to agricultural communities, greatly reducing the gap between consumer demand and available water.

This is because wastewater from our sinks, showers and toilets is not dependent upon climate fluctuations or seasonal weather patterns, but rather on population growth and living standards.

By 2015, Israel had managed to treat and recycle 86% of its wastewater for agricultural operations, leading the world in wastewater reclamation. Second to Israel in that same year was Spain, recycling just 17% of its wastewater.

Utilising Israel’s tertiary treatment processes, recycled wastewater is cleaned to near drinking-quality levels before reaching crops to avoid contamination.

The goal is to recycle 95% of wastewater for agriculture by 2025, leaving that much more fresh drinking water for the communities that need it.

With a daily influx of roughly 470,000 cubic metres of raw sewage, the Shafdan treatment facility, Israel’s largest wastewater treatment facility, provides about 140 million cubic metres (MCM) of clean, reclaimed water to Negev desert farms for irrigation annually. In fact, more than 60% of agriculture in the Negev is supplied by Shafdan alone.

In 2002 the government approved the construction of new reverse osmosis plants along its Mediterranean coast. The plan was to build 5 new water-producing plants as fast as possible. The first two plants were completed and operating by 2008. By 2013 a total of four plants were turning seawater into freshwater with the fifth (but certainly not final) Ashdod plant completed in 2015.

This array of 5 drought-inspired plants wasn’t the first time desalination plants were employed in this country. Israel began employing commercial desalination plants along the Dead Sea in the 1970s, and the first reverse osmosis desalination plant opened on the Red Sea in 1970, decades before the worst droughts plagued the country. But the decision to deploy a new array of 5 plants along the Mediterranean meant the government was putting its trust in desalination technology to pull Israel out of drought affliction and toward a future without water scarcity. In an arid country bordering an abundant water source like the Mediterranean, desalination seemed to be a great fit.

Today, Israel gets a whopping 55 percent of its domestic water supply from desalinated seawater and brackish groundwater. Producing 150 million cubic metres annually, Israel’s Sorek desalination plant is the largest in the world! It alone provides 20 percent of the potable water that Israel consumes. In addition, the ‘host” of 5 large desalination plants along the Mediterranean Sea and close to 30 smaller desalination plants filter brackish groundwater throughout the country, mostly in the Negev.

To supplement (and even partially replace) the National Water Carrier, the government has begun building a new National Water System. The new system uses pipelines to connect the new desalination plants with consumers, making it possible for a large sector of Israel’s population to get its water supply from desalination technology.

While Israel’s desalination technology already produces 600 million cubic metres of water a year, more desalination plants are on the way. Given its current trajectory, experts expect that desalination plants will provide 70 percent of Israel’s drinking water by 2050. As the country moves forward as a global leader in recycled wastewater treatment and reverse-osmosis desalination, the future implications of its success are threefold.

First, Israel will need to rethink its approach to water policy. The future of the country is now characterised by water production and potential water abundance, making the new challenge a question of what do with a water surplus. Israel now finds itself considering opportunities to export water.

Second, Israel has now stepped onto the world stage as a leader in water production. The country is the first to really pioneer the concept of the developed world embracing desalination as a solution to water scarcity. Israel now serves as a model for other developed countries pursuing desalination. In fact, as part of the effort to provide drought relief in California, an Israeli company recently built the largest desalination plant in the western hemisphere just north of San Diego.

Finally, Israel’s success with desalination has introduced a potential path to peace in a region historically plagued with harsh geography and political strife in response to water shortage. Removing water scarcity as a source of conflict in the Middle East would be a total game-changer, and Israel’s steps toward doing so are certainly something to applaud.

Thanks to reverse osmosis desalination technology, one of the driest countries on Earth now produces more freshwater than it needs. Today, the Sea of Galilee is fuller, Israeli farms are flourishing, and the Negev desert communities have access to enough freshwater—a sharp contrast to their status following a decade of drought in the early 2000s. Israel now has years of desalination experience under its belt and proves a practical example of how other water-scarce regions of the world can successfully invest in desalination to combat water scarcity.

Consideration of other Israeli water production initiatives, notably the water-from-air tech company “Watergen” deserve more than a passing mention, but not now.

 

Have a good weekend.

 

Beni,

 

22^nd of February, 2024.

Cairo

 

Cairo

 The Times of Israel reported yesterday that, “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ruled out sending an Israeli delegation for further hostage negotiations in Cairo, without consulting the war’s foremost decision-making forum,”

The decision prompted outrage among representatives of the hostages’ families, and reportedly angered war cabinet members Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot of the National Unity party, who met Wednesday evening to discuss their response after being kept out of several key decisions recently.

Netanyahu’s office said no progress is possible in the hostage negotiations until Hamas changes its “delusional” position.

In a statement, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum — representing family members of most of the remaining hostages in Gaza — said it was “stunned” by the decision to “thwart” the ongoing talks, adding that “it appears that some of the members of the cabinet decided to sacrifice the lives of the hostages without admitting it.”

This decision will mark “a death sentence” for the hostages remaining in captivity, it said.

Egypt and Qatar are trying to advance the talks, and were planning to hold meetings on Thursday that avoided the main sticking point: the number of Palestinian prisoners Israel would need to release in a potential deal. Thursday’s talks were scheduled to focus on humanitarian aspects of an agreement.

The heads of the Mossad and Shin Bet, as well as Netanyahu’s diplomatic adviser, were in Cairo on Tuesday for the negotiations. A source in the Prime Minister’s Office told The Times of Israel that they were there to listen and nothing more. Those talks ended without a breakthrough.

Kan news also reported that Netanyahu had rejected a new framework proposal put together by the Mossad, Shin Bet and the IDF for a ceasefire and hostage release agreement.

“While it was In Cairo, the Israeli delegation was not given any new Hamas proposal for the release of our hostages,” said a spokesman from the prime minister’s bureau, adding that the prime minister “insists that Israel will not submit to the delusional demands of Hamas.”

Officials involved in the negotiations told the network they “understand Netanyahu’s political challenge, but this is an opportunity he can’t miss.”

Netanyahu is under pressure from his far-right coalition allies to reject what they view as an irresponsible deal with Hamas to halt the IDF’s ongoing offensive.

The families forum said that “while the negotiating team made a decision to be just passive listeners, female hostages are being raped and men are suffering abuse.” The group said that starting Thursday, it will form a “barricade” outside the Defence Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv until the prime minister and the war cabinet agree to meet with the families.

While Netanyahu has prevented the Israeli negotiating team from returning to Cairo, a Hamas delegation has seized the opportunity to meet with Egyptian and Qatari officials for the talks on Thursday.

Mediators in Egypt are said to be racing to secure a ceasefire before Israel proceeds with a planned wide-scale ground operation in Rafah.

Israel has been willing to accept talks based on the original Paris framework proposed two weeks ago, which reportedly envisions a three-phase humanitarian pause, with 35 to 40 Israeli hostages — women, men older than 60 and those with serious medical conditions — released during the first six-week phase. Israeli soldiers and the bodies of killed hostages would be released in the second and third phases, respectively.

Details regarding the later phases, as well as the number and identities of Palestinian security prisoners who would be released by Israel, were to be discussed in subsequent negotiations if the sides both agreed to the Paris proposal. Other reports presented different versions of the framework, which have not been officially published.

Quoting US and Israeli officials, the Axios news site reported late Tuesday that the key sticking point in the negotiations is the release of Palestinian prisoners, with US President Joe Biden telling Netanyahu on Sunday that while Hamas’s demands went too far, Israel could demonstrate more flexibility, and will likely have to free more Palestinians per hostage than a previous deal in November that saw 105 civilians released by Hamas.

The report also said Netanyahu told Biden that he wants a hostage deal but it must be backed by the cabinet, which includes far-right coalition partners who oppose a ceasefire.

Similarly, an article published by Deutsche Welle DW complements some of the points raised in the piece posted by The Times of Israel.

"President Biden and  his top aides are closer to a breach with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu than at any time since the Gaza War began, no longer viewing him as a productive partner who can be influenced even in private, according to several people familiar with their internal discussions.

The mounting frustration with Netanyahu has prompted some of Biden’s aides to urge him to be more publicly critical of the prime minister over his country’s military operation in Gaza, according to six people familiar with the conversations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

The president, a staunch supporter of Israel who has known Netanyahu for more than 40 years, has been largely reluctant to take his private frustrations public so far, according to the people who know him well. But he is slowly warming to the idea, they said, as Netanyahu continues to infuriate Biden officials with public humiliations and prompt rejections of basic U.S. demands.

Netanyahu has angered U.S. officials on several occasions recently. He publicly denounced a hostage deal while Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in the region trying to broker an agreement. He announced the Israeli military would be moving into the southern Gaza city of Rafah, a move U.S. officials have publicly opposed, because Rafah is packed with about 1.4 million Palestinians living in squalid conditions who fled there under Israeli orders.

Netanyahu also said Israel would not stop fighting in Gaza until it achieves ‘total victory,’ even as U.S. officials increasingly believe his stated goal of destroying Hamas is elusive.

For now, the White House has rejected calls to withhold military aid to Israel or impose conditions on it, saying that would only embolden Israel’s enemies. But some of Biden’s aides argue that criticising Netanyahu would allow him to distance himself from an unpopular leader and his scorched-earth policies while reiterating his long-standing support for Israel itself.

Biden’s private frustration with Netanyahu — which has been building for months — was evident last week when he said Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has been ‘over the top,’ his sharpest rebuke yet.

The president also spoke in far more detail about Palestinian suffering, as well as the time and energy he has expended trying to get the Israelis and Egyptians to allow more aid into the Gaza enclave. “A lot of innocent people are starving,” Biden said. “A lot of innocent people are in trouble and they’re dying. And it’s got to stop.”

Referring to Israel’s plan to launch a military campaign in Rafah the president said the city has swollen to more than four times its original size. “They’re already living in tents and not getting enough food and water and you’re saying go somewhere else, Where? How are they supposed to get there?”

This article published by Deutsche Welle is based on interviews with 19 senior US administration officials and external advisers, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Deutsche Welle is funded from federal grants taken from the federal tax revenue.

Since the reorganisation of broadcasting as a result of German reunification, Deutsche Welle has been the only remaining broadcasting corporation under federal law. 

“White House aides say publicly that there has been no change in Biden’s strategy or message.

But many of his allies contend that even a sharp rhetorical shift will have little effect unless the United States starts imposing conditions on its support for Israel.

“So long as you are supporting Netanyahu’s military operation in Gaza unconditionally, it makes absolutely no difference how much you pressure Netanyahu in your comments,” said Ben Rhodes, former president Barack Obama’s deputy national security adviser. “Fundamentally, you have to make a decision not to give Bibi carte blanche support.”

The White House has taken modest steps recently indicating its growing frustration. Biden issued a national security memorandum  aimed at ensuring that countries receiving U.S. weaponry abide by certain guidelines, including not obstructing humanitarian assistance.

Last week, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said an Israeli operation in Rafah “would be a disaster for those people, and we would not support it” — the most forceful the White House has been in opposing an Israeli military operation.

Some of the president’s aides have argued Biden can still support Israel while denouncing Netanyahu. But Biden, who aides say has a visceral attachment to the Jewish state, has tended to view the prime minister and the state of Israel as one and the same, according to several people familiar with his thinking, and has struggled with the idea of criticising a sitting prime minister, particularly during a time of war.

“I don’t think anybody can look at what the Israelis have done in Gaza and not say it’s over the top,” the official said. “This gets to the frustration with the Israelis. Have they done the work on what comes next in Gaza? No. They haven’t grappled with the really hard questions.”

Biden cares deeply about getting more humanitarian aid into Gaza, the official said, adding that it is “constantly on his mind” and he is frustrated by the obstacles Israel is putting up. “Everything is a daily struggle,” the official said.

Adding to U.S. officials’ frustration is their deep scepticism about Israel’s ability to achieve its stated goal of total military victory.

In a closed-door briefing last week, U.S. intelligence officials told lawmakers that while Israel had degraded Hamas’s military capabilities, it is not close to exterminating the group more than 100 days into its campaign, said officials familiar with the briefing, which was first reported  by the New York Times.

U.S. leaders are sceptical of Netanyahu’s claim that he has destroyed two-thirds of Hamas’s fighting regiments, and they warn that the high levels of civilian casualties are ensuring that a radicalised population will live adjacent to Israel for decades to come.

In the immediate future, U.S. officials are almost entirely focused on securing a deal that would see the release of many of the remaining 130 Israeli hostages in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and a long-term pause in the fighting.

White House officials said a temporary cease-fire would allow them to increase desperately needed humanitarian aid into Gaza. They also hope it would provide space to begin grappling with the most difficult questions ahead, including who will govern Gaza, how to pave the way for a Palestinian state and how to reform the Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the West Bank.

White House officials have increasingly concluded that Netanyahu is focused on his own political survival to the exclusion of any other goal, and is eager to position himself as standing up to Biden’s push for a two-state solution. During a news conference last month, Netanyahu publicly rebuked Biden over his support for a Palestinian state, saying an Israeli prime minister needs to be “capable of saying no to our friends.”

“Netanyahu is playing to his political base, and if he thinks it helps him to trash Biden publicly, he’ll do it,” said Frank Lowenstein, a former State Department official who helped lead Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in 2014.

One of the biggest reasons Biden has not been quicker to criticise Netanyahu, aides say, is his decades-long relationship with the prime minister. Biden often says he tells Netanyahu, “I love you, Bibi, even if I can’t stand you.”

A margin note- The US president has expressed nothing but respect in public but behind closed doors he is said to be growing tired with the Israeli leader's stance over the war in Gaza. Several foreign news outlets have mentioned leaked sources claiming that in private conversations Joe Biden has called Netanyahu an a**hole'.  

Returning to the main text: -

Biden pressed Netanyahu to “put down an offer on paper and test Hamas,” the official said. The president then spoke to Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi and Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, urging them to pressure Hamas so the two sides could get closer to an agreement.

Against that backdrop, the president and his aides were livid when Netanyahu publicly rejected the latest hostage proposal from Hamas last week — just hours after Blinken, who was in Israel for the fifth time since the war began, said it held promise.

Yesterday Netanyahu stopped the Israeli negotiators returning to Cairo.

“Surrender to the ludicrous demands of Hamas — which we’ve just heard — won’t lead to the liberation of the hostages, and it will only invite another massacre,” Netanyahu said.

However, Israeli restrictions on aid and inflammatory rhetoric from Netanyahu and his ministers cause ‘profound concerns’ in the United States.

Blinken told reporters at a news conference in Tel Aviv last week “Israelis were dehumanised in the most horrific way on October 7. The hostages have been dehumanised every day since. But that cannot be a license to dehumanise others.”

What would make Egypt open its border to Palestinians?

 Cathrin Schaer (a freelance journalist based in Berlin) posted for Deutsche Welle 

“As an Israeli military campaign causes casualties in densely crowded Rafah, near the Egyptian border, Egypt is under increasing pressure to let displaced Palestinians in.

For many Egyptians, the timing is just too suspicious.

Last week, the Israeli military said it would launch an assault on Rafah  in the southern Gaza Strip, near the Egyptian border, where more than 1 million displaced Palestinians are sheltering. There are concerns that, as more and more people are pushed up against the border, plans formulated by an Israeli think tank and leaked earlier to the media in the current conflict  are closer to becoming a reality.                                       

The Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy IZS,  released a paper saying the conflict  was  a "unique and rare opportunity to evacuate the whole Gaza Strip." As far as I am able to discern, IZS is definitely not ‘mainstream’ politically. Correct me if I’m wrong, it caters mainly for right-wing and Orthodox groups.

The reported plan is something that the Egyptian government has firmly rejected, fearing that Palestinians who leave will never be allowed back. Rights organisations have equated any such "forcible transfer" as amounting to a war crime.

At the same time, a decision will soon be made by the International Monetary Fund, or IMF, as to whether Egypt gets an extended loan — somewhere between $6 billion (€5.6 billion) and $12 billion — to prop up its badly indebted economy and its currency.

"Is this blackmail?" a recent story in online Lebanese-owned newspaper Al Modon asked  speculating that Egypt could have its international debts forgiven by the IMF's key shareholders in the US and Europe if it were to host displaced Palestinians. 

The timing and other earlier reports — including one from the Financial Times that said Israeli politicians had asked European counterparts to pressure Egypt into opening borders — seem to justify those suspicions. There's even a precedent: In 1991, the United States forgave Egypt around $10 billion of debt because it agreed to support a US-led coalition fighting Iraq.

But, in this case, that's not what is happening, Riccardo Fabiani, director of the North Africa project for the International Crisis Group NGO, told DW. "Unfortunately, this has been a rumour circulating for a while," Fabiani said. "It's been on social media and on the streets, with people saying the West was offering money to Egypt in return for hosting refugees."

But, Fabiani added, "there's a serious misunderstanding here. The IMF, the EU and, more generally, the West, are willing and prepared to give money to Egypt because they're very worried about the country's destabilisation because of the Gaza conflict."

On top of inflation and excessive national debt, Egypt has been hard hit by the decrease in tourism to the region and insecurity on the Red Sea, Fabiani said

"Basically, with 120 million people, Egypt is too big to fail," said Ashraf Hassan, a policy associate at the US-based Century International think tank.

For Egypt, such a deal doesn't add up either. I think the regime recognises there are no economic incentives that can offset the security and political peril that might come from letting Palestinians in," Hassan said. “That includes potential security risks from Palestinian militants on the Egyptian side of the border, as well as being seen to be aiding Israel in permanently displacing Gaza residents.

For now, Egypt's authoritarian government is walking a fine line between popular sentiment — the public broadly supports the Palestinian cause — and long-standing security arrangements with Israel.”

Last week, The Associated Press reported anonymous sources saying Egypt might drop a landmark Camp David peace treaty it signed with Israel in the late 1970s if a military campaign went ahead in Rafah. Egypt's foreign minister, Sameh Shoukry, has since denied this.

"It's quite clear that suspending or dropping the peace deal would be a step too far because of the geopolitical and economic implications," Fabiani said, noting that the peace deal involves not just security cooperation with Israel but also guarantees US aid. "Right now, Egypt is also negotiating a very delicate deal with the IMF and the EU for more money. So, the last thing they need is to rock the boat."

Symbolic options for Egypt to pressure Israel are more likely, he said. For example, suspending diplomatic relations or withdrawing the Egyptian ambassador from Israel.

This week's meeting between Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, offers another option.

"The meeting sends a common message," Fabiani said. "It's a way for Egypt to show the world, and in particular Israel, they are not isolated and that the breaching of Egypt's red line at Rafah is not just a problem for Egypt. It's a problem for everyone."

All of the experts DW spoke with agreed that what happens next at the Egypt-Gaza border depends mostly on Israel.

"Egyptian diplomats continue to suspect that Israel's hidden objective is to push Palestinians toward the Egyptian border," a late January briefing by the International Crisis Group said. "Palestinians might even try to enter the Sinai of their own accord if Israel's actions make Gaza uninhabitable.” 

This would be a worst-case scenario "because it won't be a negotiated solution: It will be imposed upon Egypt."

"But, at that stage, there really aren't that many choices," said Mirette Mabrouk, founding director of the Washington-based Middle East Institute's Egypt programme. "If Palestinians do come across the border, Egypt is going to take them in. They are not going to start shooting at desperate women and children."

In fact, local authorities in North Sinai have been preparing for this for months, readying emergency accommodation and medical aid in case it is needed, she told DW. The Wall Street Journal has previously reported that Egypt could potentially accommodate up to 100,000 people in the border areas if needed.

"It's not that Egypt can't assimilate them — the country already hosts millions of refugees from places like Syria and Sudan. It's that Egypt doesn't want to be party to another Nakba," Mabrouk said, referring to the estimated 700,000 Palestinians  who fled or were forced to leave before and during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, and were never allowed to return.

Egypt might well be willing to take in several thousand Palestinians as a kind of compromise, International Crisis Group's Fabiani said: "Because this wouldn't look as bad as just continuing to keep everybody out and it would also help Egypt save face with its own population, which has a lot of sympathy for the Palestinians but doesn't want to see any sort of [Nakba-style] permanent displacement."

The problem with asking anybody to forecast what happens next at Rafah is this, Mabrouk concluded: "It all depends on what the Israelis do next — and nobody is really holding them to account. Everybody else is just reacting.

I’m adding a postscript regarding additional measures the Egyptians have taken to prevent an influx of Palestinians from Gaza.   “Egypt has sent about 40 tanks and armoured personnel carriers to northeastern Sinai recently as part of a series of measures to bolster security on its border with Gaza, two Egyptian security sources said.

The deployment took place ahead of the expansion of Israeli military operations near Rafah, where much of its population has sought safety. The Egyptians fear that Palestinians could attempt to flee the offensive by trying to rush the Egyptian border.

Following the outbreak of war on October 7, Egypt constructed a concrete border wall that reaches six metres below ground and is topped with barbed wire. It has also raised earth banks and enhanced surveillance at border posts, the security sources said.”

 Yesterday my son celebrated Valentines Day with his wife I’m told it is the Feast Day of Saint Valentine; the celebration of love and affection. An additional search revealed that according to both The New York Times and History.com, the holiday's origin might stem from the ancient pagan festival of Lupercalia, which predated Christianity. Similar to the modern Valentine's Day holiday, the Roman festival was celebrated in the middle of February and involved feasting and pairing off partners. However, unlike Valentine's Day, it was a bit of a raucous celebration filled with debauchery, blood, and sacrifice.  Just the same, stick with the later version- The feast day of Saint Valentine, the celebration of love and affection. Forget about Gaza.

 

Beni,

 

15^th of February, 2024.