Reports: Israeli PM flew to Saudi Arabia, met crown prince

November 23, 2020

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli media reported Monday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to Saudi Arabia for a clandestine meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, which would mark the first known encounter between senior Israeli and Saudi officials.

Hebrew-language media cited an unnamed Israeli official as saying that Netanyahu and Yossi Cohen, head of Israel's Mossad spy agency, flew to the Saudi city of Neom on Sunday, where they met with the crown prince. The prince was there for talks with visiting U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

A Gulfstream IV private jet took off just after 1740 GMT from Ben-Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv, according to data from website FlightRadar24.com. The flight traveled south along the eastern edge of the Sinai Peninsula before turning toward Neom and landing just after 1830 GMT, according to the data. The flight took off from Neom around 2150 GMT and followed the same route back to Tel Aviv.

The Israeli prime minister's office did not respond to requests for comment. Officials in Saudi Arabia did not respond to requests for comment, nor did its state-run media immediately acknowledge Netanyahu’s reported visit.

Pompeo traveled with an American press pool on his trip throughout the Mideast, but left them at the Neom airport when he went into his visit with the crown prince. While Bahrain, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates have reached deals under the Trump administration to normalize ties with Israel, Saudi Arabia so far has remained out of reach.

King Salman long has supported the Palestinians in their effort to secure an independent state. However, analysts and insiders suggest his 35-year-old son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, likely is more open to the idea of normalizing relations without major progress in the moribund peace process.

The kingdom approved the use of Saudi airspace for Israeli flights to the UAE, a decision announced the day after Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, met with Prince Mohammed in Riyadh. Bahrain normalizing ties also suggest at least a Saudi acquiescence to the idea, as the island kingdom relies on Riyadh.

Israel has long had clandestine ties to Gulf Arab states that have strengthened in recent years as they have confronted a shared threat in Iran.

Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates contributed.

Israeli delegations bask in UAE glow, even as details few

October 27, 2020

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Another plane full of Israeli business people excited about their newfound access to the United Arab Emirates touched down in Dubai this week, the latest whirlwind trip seeking to cash in on a U.S.-brokered deal to normalize relations between the countries.

But like the normalization agreement itself, inked on the White House lawn last month to great fanfare, the steady stream of statements from big-name Israeli investors and moguls descending on Dubai are ebullient, but thin on details.

“One of the things that’s most touching and exciting for any individual in Israel ... is the fact that this could be an opening to cooperation, an opening of goodwill,” Erel Margalit, founder of Jerusalem Venture Partners, a venture capital fund from the country's thriving tech scene, told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Trailed by an entourage of 14 Israeli startup executives, a slew of Israeli photographers, foreign journalists and public relations people, Margalit darted around the skyscraper-studded Dubai International Financial Center for meetings with Emirati officials, investors and entrepreneurs.

After years of conducting such deals only in the shadows, Israelis are basking in the photo ops, which presage a broader political shift in the region. But the buzz also lays bare the differences between the two countries. In the UAE, well-salaried locals who rarely mix with the country’s millions of expatriates tend to shrink from press attention. The state owns or tightly controls the local media. On Tuesday, an Emirati official accompanying the UAE’s minister of food security for talks with Margalit was visibly upset by the crush of photographers swarming around their elbow-bump in the glass-walled conference room.

Although Emiratis have long fostered behind-the-scenes ties with Israeli corporations and officials, Israel was publicly viewed as a political pariah. The sight of a tiny Israeli flag emblazoned on the delegation’s welcome sign outside the Ritz Carlton in Dubai this week still drew double takes and iPhone snapshots from most passerby.

In a reflection of the lingering sensitivities, Margalit declined to name any of the Emirati investors or potential startup partners from the week of meetings. He also said that Palestinian entrepreneurs had flown with the delegation, but did not elaborate “for their sake.” The Palestinian leadership has rejected normalization as peeling away one of their few advantages in moribund peace talks with Israel.

“In Israel sometimes people want to jump to the deal,” Margalit said. “This is what I say to my many Israeli friends, be patient because, here, it takes time to build trust." For relations to thrive, the grandeur of Israeli business goals must be matched by an awareness of the situation’s uncertainty, said Ritam Chaurey, an expert on international economics at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

“Ideally we’d expect that it’s an on and off switch,” he said. “But I expect persistent suspicions for both parties to play an important role, especially in the beginning.” Yet Margalit is undeterred, promising to build “an innovation center” in Dubai for cyber, food, medical and financial technologies, like other successful hubs he’s created in New York City and the Galilee region of Israel.

“We won’t do something small, we’ll do something outstanding with the people here," he said.

Israel normalization deal finds fury and favor in Sudan

By Mohammed Amin in Khartoum

24 October 2020

Sudan on Friday become the third Arab country to normalize ties with Israel this year, following in the footsteps of its Gulf allies the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain and creating huge splits among Sudan's political class and its people.

Announcement of the normalization came after Washington had removed Khartoum from the State Department's State Sponsors of Terrorism (SST) list, imposed under the rule of the deposed president Omar Al-Bashir.

The agreement had been sealed in a phone call between US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, and the chairman of Sudan's transitional Sovereignty Council, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, senior US officials said.

It had been speculated that Sudan could make a deal with Israel in exchange for removal from the US terror designation and the major boost for the struggling Sudanese economy from US financial aid that would follow. However, Trump on Monday had said that Khartoum's removal would take place in exchange for a $335m payment to "US terror victims and families".

In a post to Twitter, the Sovereignty Council said the SST delisting marked "a historic day for Sudan and its glorious revolution". It did not immediately comment on its diplomatic agreement with Israel. 

Netanyahu welcomed the agreement with Sudan and what he called a rapidly expanding "circle of peace" and the start of a "new era".

Anger on the streets

On the streets of Khartoum, reactions were not quite as positive. 

Nazar Ahmed, 23, a member of the revolutionary committee in the city's Elgiraif district, told Middle East Eye that the conditions laid down by the US were "humiliating to the Sudanese revolutionists and the acceptance of Sudan's government was shameful".

Meanwhile, Hiba Osman, 21, from Khartoum, told MEE: "We have to look to the countries that normalized its ties with Israel and what benefits they got. Normalization with Israel is a big illusion sold by Trump to our government."

Speaking in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, Palestine Liberation Organization official Wasel Abu Youssef said that the decision "will not shake the Palestinians' faith in their cause and in continuing their struggle".

"Sudan's joining others who normalized ties with the state of the Israeli occupation represents a new stab in the back of the Palestinian people and a betrayal of the just Palestinian cause," he said.

Khartoum, meanwhile, insisted that the deal was still provisional and needed the approval of the country's transitional parliament, led by Burhan.

Incentives for Sudan

According to a joint statement issued after a conference call between Trump, Netanyahu, Hamdok and Burhan, Israel and Sudan would focus on trade relations, led by the agricultural sector.

"The leaders agreed to the normalization of relations between Sudan and Israel and to end the state of belligerence between their nations," the statement read.

"The leaders agreed to begin economic and trade relations, with an initial focus on agriculture. The leaders also agreed that delegations would meet in the coming weeks to negotiate agreements of cooperation in those areas as well as in agriculture technology, aviation, migration issues and other areas for the benefit of the two peoples."

The statement also outlined other incentives that had been offered to Khartoum in order to encourage it to sign the deal, with a report disclosing that Washington would pay $750m to Sudan to help salvage its collapsed economy and that aid packages would be provided for two years, including fuel, wheat and medicines.

"The United States will take steps to restore Sudan's sovereign immunity and to engage its international partners to reduce Sudan's debt burdens... The United States and Israel also commit to working with their partners to support the people of Sudan in strengthening their democracy, improving food security, countering terrorism and extremism and tapping into their economic potential."

The normalization agreement sparked fury on social media in Sudan.

Omar Sidahmad, a Sudanese activist, said the deal would strengthen the military's role in politics.

"This is not normalization, but rather an increase in the military junta's grip on executive power and a complete elimination of the civil state," he wrote on Facebook.

"Down with the occupation and those who normalize relations with the occupiers," Muzan Alneed, an activist, said. 

Mohamed Mahmoud, another activist, said the announcement of the deal with Israel was "tantamount to a declaration of war on the core value of all Sudanese revolutions, namely fighting the occupiers and invaders".

Politicians and academics split

Sudan's political parties and academics have been bitterly divided over the normalization move.

The center-left Sudanese Congress Party and the Sudanese National Alliance, together with the Sudan Liberation Movement rebel group, welcomed the deal. The moderate Islamic centrist National Umma Party (NUP) and the Sudanese Communist Party strongly rejected it.

The NUP, led by former prime minister Sadiq al-Mahdi, threatened to stand against Hamdok's government, saying that "unless the government revises its position of normalization with Israel, we will withdraw our political support for it".

Sudanese scholar Suliman Baldo supported the move, saying that the Sudanese people had a right to be welcomed back into the international community.

"They have been eagerly waiting for this moment following a peaceful mass movement that ousted the brutal Bashir regime," he said. 

"The Sudanese people... suffered from the deposed regime's violent extremist actions that landed their nation on the US terror list. A democratic Sudan could be a bulwark of international peace and security in the region."

Magdi el-Gizouli, an academic at the Rift Valley Institute, strongly denounced the move.

"Khartoum has given a free gift to Trump in his election race, and it is a setback from Sudan's historical position of the 'three noes' from [the Khartoum resolution of] 1967 ['no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it']," he said.

Source: Middle East Eye.

Link: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-normalisation-deal-finds-fury-and-favour-sudan.

US, Israeli envoys fly to Bahrain to advance nascent ties

October 18, 2020

JERUSALEM (AP) — A joint American-Israeli delegation headed Sunday for Bahrain, where officials will be signing a number of bilateral agreements following an announcement last month to normalize relations.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s national security adviser, Meir Ben-Shabbat, led the delegation that flew out of Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport. Israel's commercial El Al flight 973 — a nod to the international dialing code for Bahrain — will fly through Saudi Arabia's airspace en route to Manama, where dignitaries from all three countries will speak at a ceremony after landing.

U.S., Israeli and Bahraini flags festooned the tarmac before take-off. Ben-Shabbat, one of the key Israeli officials involved in negotiations with Bahrain, said ahead of take-off that the visit will “translate plans to actions and concrete agreements" with the signing of a range of deals involving finance, investment, trade, tourism, communications, technology and agriculture.

Another Israeli official said the visit represents the official establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries with the sides expected to sign a joint statement establishing full diplomatic relations.

The decision to establish ties with Israel has outraged the Palestinians, whose leadership has blasted the Bahraini move, and a similar Emirati deal, as a betrayal and an undermining of the Arab stance that recognition of Israel should come only after Palestinians achieve an independent state of their own.

Bahraini civil society groups and opposition figures, already targeted in a yearslong crackdown on dissent, have also spoken out against normalization with Israel. As part of the deal to normalize relations, the two Gulf Arab states and Israel will eventually establish embassies and exchange ambassadors. The Israeli official said the Israeli embassy was expected to open in Bahrain in the coming months.

Similar to the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain is expected to open its embassy at some point in the city of Tel Aviv, where most foreign embassies are located because of Jerusalem's contested status. Bahraini and Israeli officials have held numerous conversations since announcing their intention to establish full ties. Sunday's face-to-face meetings, however, are seen as another step toward normalization.

The El Al flight landed at Bahrain International Airport on Sunday afternoon. The kingdom’s state-owned television channels did not carry the arrival live, nor did the state-run news agency announce the Israelis’ presence.

Meanwhile, Israel and the UAE have already signed a number of business, banking and intergovernmental agreements. Bahrain and the UAE signed the agreement to normalize relations with Israel in a ceremony at the White House on Sept. 15. Egypt and Jordan are the only other two Arab states to sign diplomatic treaties with Israel, in 1979 and 1994, respectively.

The accords made public what had been a gradual strengthening of quiet ties between Israel and several Gulf states — forged in recent years over a shared concern over regional rival Iran. Other Arab countries could follow suit, with analysts and insiders pointing to Sudan, Oman and Morocco as possibilities.

The trip to Bahrain on Sunday also came as U.N. arms embargoes on Iran expired despite American objections. Bahrain, like several other Gulf Arab nations, views Iran as the most-serious threat to its security in the Persian Gulf.

The Israeli delegation is slated to fly back to Tel Aviv later on Sunday, while the Americans will head to the UAE before flying to Israel on Tuesday. Last month, the first known commercial flight between the two countries brought a delegation of Israeli officials to Manama to discuss cooperation between Israel and Bahrain following the signing of an agreement to normalize ties.

Ukraine marks 79th anniversary of the Babi Yar massacre

September 29, 2020

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine on Tuesday marked the 79th anniversary of the Babi Yar massacre, one of the most infamous mass slaughters of World War II. Babi Yar, a ravine in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, is where nearly 34,000 Jews were killed within 48 hours in 1941 when the city was under Nazi occupation. The killing was carried out by SS troops along with local collaborators.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited the Babi Yar monument on Tuesday and took part in a ceremony commemorating the anniversary of the tragedy. “Seventy-nine years ago, a black page was inscribed in the common past of the Ukrainian and Jewish people. We bow our heads before all the victims of Babi Yar. And we have no right to forget these terrible crimes,” Zelenskiy said in a statement.

After the ceremony, Ukraine's Minister of Culture Olexandr Tkachenko and World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder signed a memorandum of understanding and cooperation between the Ukrainian government and the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center.

“The parties to the memorandum called for joint efforts of Ukrainian society, the state, the international community and organizations researching and studying the Holocaust and the tragedy of Babi Yar, aimed at preserving and restoring historical memory, so that it becomes a constant reminder of the price people pay for peace,” Zelenksiy's office said.

Philippine leader Duterte announces retirement from politics

October 02, 2021

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Saturday announced he was retiring from politics and dropping plans to run for vice president in next year’s elections when his term ends, avoiding a legal battle with opponents who question such a move.

Speaking before reporters, Duterte said many Filipinos have expressed their opposition to his vice-presidential bid in surveys and public forums. “The overwhelming sentiment of the Filipino is that I’m not qualified, and it would be a violation of the constitution,” Duterte said. “In obedience to the will of the people ... I will follow what you wish and today I announce my retirement from politics.”

The 76-year-old leader, known for his deadly anti-drugs crackdown, brash rhetoric and unorthodox political style, earlier accepted the ruling party’s nomination for him to seek the vice presidency in the May 9 elections. The decision outraged many of his opponents, who have described him as a human rights calamity in an Asian bastion of democracy.

Duterte announced his surprise withdrawal from the election after accompanying his former longtime aide, Sen. Bong Go, to register his own vice presidential candidacy with the ruling party at a Commission on Elections center.

Philippine presidents are limited by the constitution to a single six-year term and opponents had said they would question the legality of Duterte’s announced vice presidential run before the Supreme Court if he pursues his bid.

While two past presidents have run for lower elected positions after their terms ended in recent history, Duterte was the first to consider running for the vice presidency. If he pursued the candidacy and won, that could elevate him back to the presidency if the elected leader dies or is incapacitated for any reason.

Duterte's withdrawal could also pave the way for the possible presidential run of his politician daughter Sara Duterte currently serves as mayor of southern Davao city, and has been prodded by many supporters to make a bid to succeed her father. She has topped independent public opinion surveys on who should lead the country next.

But after her father initially declared that he would seek the vice presidency, Sara Duterte announced she would not run for president, saying she and her father have agreed that only one Duterte would run for a national office next year.

There was no immediate reaction from the president’s daughter, who has gone on a weeklong medical leave. Duterte took office in 2016 and immediately launched a crackdown on illegal drugs that has left more than 6,000 mostly petty suspects dead and alarmed Western governments and human rights groups. The International Criminal Court has launched an investigation of the killings but he has vowed never to cooperate with the inquiry and allow ICC investigators to enter the country.

Philippines' Duterte will 'die first' before facing ICC

September 16, 2021

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte would rather “die first” before facing an international tribunal, his spokesman said Thursday, the day after the International Criminal Court announced it would investigate allegations of crimes against humanity during his bloody war on drugs.

Duterte’s spokesman, Harry Roque, said the president was unfazed when he’d informed him late Wednesday of the court’s decision. “The president didn’t have any reaction, because from the get go, he has said that he’ll die first before he faces any international courts,” Roque told reporters.

“If there are any complaints, they should file it here in the Philippines.” The court on Wednesday said it had authorized an investigation requested by former prosecutor Fatou Bensouda into Duterte’s anti-drugs campaign, saying it could not “be seen as a legitimate law enforcement operation.”

More than 6,000 mostly poor drug suspects have been killed during the campaign, according to the government, but human rights groups say the death toll is considerably higher and should include many unsolved killings by motorcycle-riding gunmen who may have been deployed by police.

Duterte, who has cheered many of the deaths but denied condoning extrajudicial killings of drug suspects, is constitutionally prohibited from running for another term as president in elections next year. But he has announced he will run as vice president instead in a maneuver critics have said is an attempt to both maintain power and insulate himself from the ICC investigation, which has been expected.

Amnesty International's Secretary General Agnes Callamard said the ICC's announcement comes at a “pivotal time” and that “human rights should be at the center of discussions when the Philippines chooses its next leaders.”

“No one is above the law,” she said in a statement. "Duterte’s government must immediately end the cycle of killings, remove those involved from the ranks of the police and bring all those suspected of criminal responsibility to trial.”

Duterte's chief legal counsel, Salvador Panelo, alleged that the Netherlands-based international court was “being utilized as a political and propaganda apparatus" by Duterte's political opponents. “While we expect that more theatrics will be employed by the detractors of the president as election season draws near, this blatant and brazen interference and assault on our sovereignty as an independent country by the ICC is condemnable,” he said in a written statement.

In her 57-page request, a partially redacted version of which the court released to the public, Bensouda argued that Duterte's aggressive approach and bellicose rhetoric toward drug traffickers had already taken shape when he served as mayor of Davao City, before he was elected president in 2016.

“Throughout his tenure as mayor, a central force of his efforts was fighting crime and drug use, earning him the nicknames ‘The Punisher’ and ‘Duterte Harry’ for the violent manner in which he sought to combat crime," Bensouda wrote.

“On multiple occasions, Duterte publicly supported and encouraged the killing of petty criminals and drug dealers in Davao City.” She dismissed the contention by Philippine authorities that deaths in the war on drugs resulted from police acting in self defense, noting that “statements by some public officials suggest that they considered the killings an achievement and an integral component” of the campaign, and that they were encouraged by Duterte as president.

“Duterte praised the increasing number of police killings as proof of the “success” of his “war on drugs,” she argued, adding that Duterte made public statements encouraging security forces to kill drug suspects, regardless of the level of threat.

The investigation will look at killings that took place during some of the time Duterte was mayor, and during his time as president between July 1, 2016 and March 16, 2019, the date the Philippines withdrew from the court.

Panelo, the presidential legal counsel, argued that if the court wanted to investigate it should have done so while the Philippines was a member of the ICC, and that now it has no jurisdiction. Last year, the court decided not to pursue an investigation into crimes allegedly committed by China against Uyghur and other minorities there, saying it did not have jurisdiction over non-members. The United States and Russia are other notable non-members of the ICC.

But Carlos Conde, senior Philippine researcher for Human Rights Watch, said by focusing on the years that the country was still a member of the court, the ICC is well within its rights to investigate Duterte's actions.

He told reporters in Manila that Duterte's run for vice president does “not in any way afford him immunity from suit or investigation by the ICC.” "He will of course try everything in his power to frustrate the ICC from doing its job and its mandate,” Conde said.

Rising reported from Bangkok.