The April 20 deal to form a unity government in Israel between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his rival, Benny Gantz, may bring some stability to Israel’s highly fractured politics but is likely to put a nail in the coffin of a two-state solution as Israeli annexation of settlements in the West Bank will most likely proceed in July as part of this deal.

In a surprise move, Gantz, head of the Blue and White party, reneged on his promise not to join a government with Netanyahu at the helm and decided to do just that. Gantz’s decision not only led his partners in Blue and White to bolt from his party (Gantz’s faction has now been reduced to 19 out of 33 Blue and White members who won Knesset seats), but has also given a green light to Netanyahu and his right-wing allies to proceed with annexation after having insisted that he be given veto power over such policies.

The unity deal allows Netanyahu to remain prime minister until October 2021 at which point Gantz will take over that post. In the interim, Gantz would become defence minister, while his Blue and White ally, Gabi Ashkenazi, becomes foreign minister.

In addition, Gantz’s faction will also have the justice, media, cultural and economic portfolios, while Netanyahu’s faction will have the finance, health, public security, construction and housing, transportation and education portfolios.

Because Netanyahu’s right-wing allies are angry that so many prominent cabinet positions are being allotted to Gantz’s faction, the Israeli leader agreed to create even more cabinet portfolios — 34 in total — the largest in Israel’s history, to accommodate them. Although the unity deal including these cabinet portfolios will have to be enacted by the Knesset, there are likely enough votes for all of this to be approved soon.

It appears that one of the reasons why the right-wing parties went along with this agreement is because Gantz caved on the issue of annexation of settlements, which has long been a goal of these parties as well as Netanyahu’s Likud.  The unity agreement stated that, beginning on July 1, Netanyahu will be allowed to bring the issue of “extending sovereignty” (essentially meaning annexation) to the West Bank for discussion in the cabinet and a vote in the Knesset.

If there was any doubt over what he signed up for, Gantz issued a statement that said, “from July, the presiding prime minister will be allowed to bring President Trump’s statement with regard to the realisation of Israeli sovereignty to government and Parliament, following due process.”

Significantly, the unity deal allows only this issue — annexation — to be brought up during the first six months of the unity government outside of coronavirus-related legislation.

Gantz has been sharply criticised by his former allies as well as the Israeli peace camp for “being played” by Netanyahu. Although Gantz was able to secure prominent cabinet positions for his faction and himself, his deal with Netanyahu not only gives the Israeli leader another chance to remain prime minister and possibly try to seek an immunity with a corruption trial hanging over his head but also makes a two-state solution virtually impossible, as annexation of settlements could encompass about 30% of the West Bank.

Netanyahu and his right-wing allies want to seize this moment because the stars have all aligned for them.

US President Donald Trump’s “Peace to Prosperity” plan, unveiled on January 28, endorses annexation, and the beginning of July, when the Israeli government plans to move ahead with cabinet and Knesset approval of it, coincides with the intensification of the US presidential election campaign.

Trump reiterated his charge a few days ago that the Democrats are the “anti-Israel” party, and more of such rhetoric is expected.

Moreover, given the uncertainty of Trump’s re-election in November, the summer is the opportune time, from Netanyahu’s perspective, to start the annexation process, while the Trump team is still in place.

Indicative of this support, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on April 22 said “we’re glad there’s now a fully formed government” in Israel, and underscored that annexation “is an Israeli decision,” but “we’ll work closely with them.”

As David Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy has written, Pompeo’s statement “suggests that the Trump administration will be a partner rather than an obstacle in this regard and will not block Israeli application of sovereignty.”

While Trump will tout this stance in an effort to solidify political support from Christian evangelicals and conservative elements of the American Jewish community, liberal American Jews have taken a different position.

In early April, 140 American Jewish leaders sent an open letter to Gantz and Ashkenazi, coordinated by the pro-peace Israeli Policy Forum, calling on them to “remain steadfast” in opposing annexation in any unity government.

That Gantz did not do so has not lessened this opposition to annexation, which gives Biden, the presumptive Democratic Party presidential nominee, political cover to criticise both Trump and the Netanyahu-led government on this issue.

This is all the more reason, in Netanyahu’s mind, to proceed with annexation in July and present it as a fait accompli, knowing that Biden, even with his strong pro-Israeli record, is opposed to the Trump plan, especially the annexation clauses.

Gregory Aftandilian is a lecturer at the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University and is a former U.S. State Department Middle East analyst.

Copyright ©2020 The Arab Weekly — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 28 April 2020

Word Count: 870

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What’s the point of Donald Trump’s new immigration ban? Just like his decision to ban Muslims from entering the US three years ago, Trump’s new, temporary immigration restriction lacks both sense and sensibility.

The US president cast his April 21 announcement as a jobs-protection measure, meant to “help unemployed Americans be first in line for jobs as America reopens.” It was a pointless statement meant to explain a pointless action.

The 2017 Muslim ban was ridiculous because no extremist from any of the seven countries on Trump’s list had carried out a fatal attack in the United States in 40 years; the 9/11 hijackers did not come from the banned countries – Somalia, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan or Yemen – and refugees had not killed a single person in a terrorist attack in the US since the 1980 Refugee Act.

Trump’s new, temporary ban on immigration is ridiculous because the coronavirus outbreak has already led the State Department to put most consular services on hold around the world. Immigration to the US is neither occurring nor likely to occur any time soon with all visas and asylum claims, in effect, suspended. Refugee admissions have been suspended since March 19 after the United Nations and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), an inter-governmental organisation, temporarily halted refugee travel. The US is not processing refugee arrivals and won’t do so until May 15 at the earliest. So, Trump’s new immigration suspension is meant for an already suspended system.

Add to that the discordant note struck by the Trump White House, which recently unveiled guidelines to help states across America decide on loosening lockdowns and reopening their economies. The new immigration suspension sends a contrary message. Trump has exempted foreign seasonal guest workers — fruit and vegetable pickers — one of the largest sources of immigration at the moment. With 26 million Americans filing for unemployment benefits in the past few weeks, wouldn’t it make sense for some of them to be drafted in to do the other jobs that are available and need doing?

The US president’s intentions are unclear, the motivation much less so. It’s not only Democrats who discern “xenophobic scapegoating” of foreigners in Trump’s new restrictions on immigration. Long-serving senators belonging to Trump’s Republican Party are also casting doubt on the logic and rationale for pausing legal immigration to the United States. Hours after Trump made his announcement, Chuck Grassley, the senior Republican senator from Iowa, noted: “We’ve been a welcoming nation and we need people.”

That isn’t the message Trump has sent in the five years he has been on the political stage. Just as with the 2016 election, it’s obvious his re-election campaign strategy will deploy tried and tested malevolent tools that trigger and weaponise racial and religious resentment of minorities, migrants and Muslims.

The strategy is increasingly obvious. Ahead of the holy month of Ramadan, Trump retweeted a comment by a conservative author asking if mosques in the United States would be subject to the same social distancing restrictions during Ramadan as churches during Easter. The suggestion seemed to be that Muslim places of worship generally receive better treatment than Christian ones at the hands of local governments and the law enforcement authorities. But Trump was unrepentant about his promotion of a specious and inflammatory idea. Asked by a reporter about his retweet, Trump offered a rambling response that was clear on only one point. “Because they go after Christian churches but they don’t tend to go after mosques. And I don’t want them to go after mosques! But I do want to see what their event is…the Christian faith is treated much differently than it was, and I think it’s treated very unfairly.”

No evidence has been presented in support of the claim. It sits oddly with the reality. There have been attempts to block mosque-building in places as disparate as New York City and Murfreesboro, Tennessee; mosque surveillance and Trump originally rose to political fame on his startling 2015 promise to literally ban all Muslims from entering the United States.

Pitching mosques into the febrile atmosphere of a world shut down by a pandemic merely feeds grievance politics, possibly taking it to dangerous heights. The new immigration suspension, too, is yet another brick in Trump’s promised wall between an exclusivist idea of America and everyone else.

Rashmee Roshan Lall is a regular columnist for The Arab Weekly. She blogs at www.rashmee.com and is on Twitter @rashmeerl

Copyright ©2020 The Arab Weekly — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 27 April 2020

Word Count: 719

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BEIT MERY, Lebanon — The coronavirus pandemic, which forced a lockdown of nearly all enterprises — except food stores — in Lebanon, has aggravated the country’s severe financial crisis that has resulted in job losses, salary cuts and food price hikes.

Lebanon has declared a COVID-19-related medical state of emergency, which included closing Beirut-Rafik Hariri International Airport, most public institutions and private companies as it looks to rein in the virus outbreak that has claimed 21 lives and infected more than 640 people in the country.

In the absence of a functional state, the Lebanese were already helping each other as they have done many times in wars and crises.

Private initiatives have multiplied to help the most impoverished parts of society, including donating money and distributing food, clothes and medical supplies to those who can no longer afford it.

Scenes of seniors stranded in the streets in a family-oriented society such as Lebanon’s prompted social activist Yara Bou Aoun to concentrate her efforts on the homeless elderly. With other volunteers she arranged a home for them in an old stone house with a garden in the village of Beit Mery in Mount Lebanon that she dubbed “Beit Jdoudna” — “Our Grandfather’s Home.”

“The idea came to me from the elderly whom I have been assisting through my Lifeline association. Every time I asked one of them where you want to stay, he would reply, ‘I’d love to be at home.’ They did not want to stay in shelters or convents,” Bou Aoun said.

“These people had difficult circumstances and downturns in their life or were abandoned by their families. They have the right to a decent and respectable life in their old days. So I decided that we have to make a home for them where they can live as a family,” she said.

Established a year ago, Beit Jdoudna is home for 12 men who had lived on the street, under bridges, in public parks or derelict shelters without doors and windows.

“This is their home now where they are free to do whatever they please without restrictions or rules. It is nice to see them living together like a family, caring for each other and spending time together,” Bou Aoun said.

Backed by donors, volunteers and the village community, Bou Aoun was ensured a decent and comfortable dwelling that is equipped with internet access, television, telephone and furniture.

“People donated everything, beds, carpets, couches, kitchen equipment, et cetera. It was such a great show of solidarity,” Bou Aoun said.

The elders can also enjoy their time “at home” with leisure activities such as farming, drawing, card games, crossword puzzles and books.

Maroun, 81, went to Beit Jdoudna seven months ago after staying for years in a rundown shelter. He became homeless after his stepdaughter-in-law kicked him out.

“Here I feel that I am not in a shelter but in my own home, where I found a new family, and here I am free to go in and out as I please,” he said. “We are well taken care of and they even prepare for us food that we like. It is a blessing after being homeless.”

Khaled Lhaybe, 70, lived for a year in a public garden before he found Beit Jdoudna two months ago. He is a builder by profession, divorced and abandoned by his children.

While he could not find work for years, he collected plastic bottles and tins from rubbish for recycling.

“I used to make 10,000-15,000 Lebanese pounds ($6.60-$9.95) a day to help me survive. In the garden, there were snakes and rats that sometimes ate my provisions,” he said. “Here I have a bed, food and medication. I am still trying to find any work just to keep me busy.”

Bou Aoun, whose home for elderly men is fully funded from donations, is seeking to develop a project for women called “Beit Siti” (“My Grandma’s Home”).

She said she hopes similar homes would be established in all regions of Lebanon “because loneliness is the worst thing that can happen to old people and no elderly should remain homeless.”

The economic crisis in Lebanon that fuelled an anti-government protest movement since October has caused a surge of help by rallying public attention to people’s suffering.

Stores have offered discounts and set up boxes for donations of clothes or money. Television ads urged Lebanese to pack bags of donations instead of suitcases for travel. Another urged Lebanese in the diaspora to return with “medicines, clothes and goodies” to give because “Lebanon needs help.”

The efforts are in part driven by the famed entrepreneurial spirit that helped Lebanese get through numerous previous crises, including a 15-year civil war and several wars with Israel that wrecked the infrastructure and economy.

“We only have each other,” proclaims one campaign hashtag, a snub of the political class and the state.

Samar Kadi is the Arab Weekly society and travel section editor.

Copyright ©2020 The Arab Weekly — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 23 April 2020

Word Count: 807

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In the weeks since the World Health Organisation declared a pandemic, it’s become clear that the outbreak of disease can paralyse national economies but not the flight of desperate people across the Mediterranean to apparent safety. How else to explain the fact that migrants are still travelling from Libya towards Europe? In the last week or so, more than 500 migrants left Libya for Europe, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). On April 12, the Italian government had, perforce, to quarantine a ship-load of migrants at sea.

The good thing is it didn’t try to send them back. The way things are going right now, “no state wants to rescue” migrants, according to the German non-profit Sea Watch. Libya, Italy and Malta have all shut their borders citing the pandemic. Last week, Libya refused entry to about 280 returning migrants. IOM initially said Libyan ports appeared to have closed altogether. But later, the UN Refugee Agency’s special envoy for the central Mediterranean Vincent Cochetel clarified that “Libya’s Directorate for Combating Illegal Migration does not seem able or prepared to take more detainees.” Under the terms of a deal between Italy and Libya’s UN-backed government, signed in 2017 and renewed last November, the Libyan coastguard is meant to stop migrant boats heading for Europe and return their passengers to Libya. But the pandemic seems to have thrown all of that into doubt.

So what rights, if any, do refugees have during a once-in-a-century pandemic? The first point to note is that refugees and asylum-seekers are recognised under international law. Although unprecedented times require unprecedented measures, it’s reasonable to say that migrants of all sorts should at least be entitled to just and humane treatment. In this context, there is no more shining example than Portugal. Earlier this month, Portugal granted full citizenship rights, through June 30, to all refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants with pending applications for residency certificates. This will allow them to access healthcare, a government spokesperson explained. The decision stands as one of the more heartwarming instances of pragmatic humanism in the age of the coronavirus.

Elsewhere, not so much. The exceptional circumstances of a pandemic have justifiably prompted border closures and travel restrictions, but it’s all too clear that several countries are simply using the coronavirus outbreak to push the same restrictionist policies they pursued before. It was on March 1, before a single coronavirus case was recorded in Hungary, that it suspended the right to claim asylum in the country, claiming there was a connection between the disease and illegal migration.

Landlocked Hungary has the luxury of self-isolation afforded by its geography, but not island nations like Malta. On April 13, Malta’s foreign minister and home minister jointly wrote to the European Union’s (EU) High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell to demand “imminent and substantial” humanitarian assistance for Libya to deal with “the rapidly deteriorating migration situation in the Mediterranean during this testing hour.”

Malta’s argument was stark. Unless the EU launches a humanitarian mission for Libya with at least 100 million euros “today and not tomorrow,” there may be little or no “incentive” for migrants to stay put in Libya rather than making for European soil. Accordingly, the Maltese ministers wrote, the EU should “boost the empowerment of the Libyan Coast Guard in enhancing the control of its borders, as well as concretely ensuring that Libya represents a safe port for the disembarkation of migrants.”

The issue will be discussed at an emergency EU meeting. But a second tangential point may be harder to confront. With the pandemic triggering the worst economic downturn since the 1930s’ Great Depression, poor countries face the prospect of debt crises and political turmoil. This, in turn, could prompt massive outflows of migrants towards the rich world, especially Europe. As Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, recently noted: “Trouble travels. It doesn’t stay in one place.”

The implications are dire for conflict-scarred countries like Libya. In the Maltese letter to EU High Representative Borrell, the ministers described Libya as “a complex landscape plagued with difficulties across conflict, health, humanitarian and migration dimensions, all of which are snowballing at this very moment.” The COVID-19 crisis, they added, is “leaving its mark in Libya and is weakening an already fragile health system.” More than 650,000 people wait to “leave Libyan shores for Europe,” they warned.

In the circumstances, an EU humanitarian package might serve as a band aid but not much more.

Rashmee Roshan Lall is a regular columnist for The Arab Weekly. She blogs at www.rashmee.com and is on Twitter @rashmeerl

Copyright ©2020 The Arab Weekly — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 20 April 2020

Word Count: 748

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WASHINGTON — COVID-19 has triggered fears of food shortages across the Arab region. Distributors and experts now warn that the pandemic is creating significant disruptions in global food networks and inflation in food prices, to which Levant countries are more vulnerable than other Arab states.

A slowdown in shipping, movement restrictions and border closures are impeding the production and transport of food products at the global level. Thousands of containers are now left stranded across ports and airports, as ships and aeroplanes remain grounded because of strict lockdowns and confinement measures imposed by international governments. Fewer ships and fewer flights make food exports more expensive and complicated, warns Hani Bohsali, president of the Syndicate of Importers of Foodstuffs, Consumer Products and Drinks, which represents around 50 importers in Lebanon.

The pandemic has limited the number of ground employees working in transit areas. Fewer containers mean that shipments now need to be consolidated before they are sent to their destination, explains a freight forwarder speaking on condition of anonymity. Clearance procedures are also taking more time, with fewer employees working and greater delays in obtaining shipping papers, necessary for processing merchandise.

“Confinement measures are leading to labour shortage in the food industry,” says Michel Maalouf, a fast moving consumer good (FMCG) consultant based in Saudi Arabia. Restrictions on movement and borders closure could also have repercussions on crop harvests as fruits and vegetables are now left to rot.

With countries worrying more about food security, governments are increasingly adopting protectionist measures, which could have grave repercussions on food supply levels. “Romania has banned grain exports, while Russia has limited wheat exports and Serbia, sunflower oil,” underlines Maalouf.

Such disruptions are already translating in higher food prices. In a recent article, Reuters reported surges in wheat futures, adding that the benchmark Thai white rice prices had already hit their highest level in eight years.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) warned in a report released late in March that a protracted pandemic crisis could quickly put a strain on food supply chains, involving farmers, agricultural inputs, processing plants, shipping, retailers and more.

Making the disruption of the food supply chain worse is the lack of visibility food traders are facing in terms of the infection timeline, points out Maalouf. “No one can predict when the pandemic will end,” underlines the FMCG expert.

“Food is a matter of national security and countries are now making sure they have sufficient reserves. India has enough rice for the next 18 months, while China’s reserves can cover its needs for two to four years,” says Maalouf.

Countries in the Arab world are unequally prepared to face food shortages. The United Arab Emirates has approved a law organising strategic stocks of food commodities in emergencies. It has enough reserves for three months but can also count on the massive stockpiles of the Jebel Ali port. Saudi Arabia has banned sales promotions on food staples including rice and vegetable oil indefinitely. The Kingdom has nonetheless achieved high levels of sufficiency in many agricultural products, with 60% self-sufficiency in poultry, 60% in vegetables, 109% in milk and dairy products and 55% in seafood products.

Levant countries are nonetheless more vulnerable to disruptions, as they are plagued by collapsing economies, conflict and corruption. For Maalouf, Jordan is possibly vulnerable in the mid-future, as it is highly reliant on imported food items. Lebanon is in far worse shape, as a financial collapse and dollar shortages complicate food imports there. Alia Abbas, general director at the Lebanese Ministry of Economy and Trade, underlines that the country has three to four months of basic staples and that the government is negotiating grain purchases from other countries. Iraq conversely has a margin of manoeuvre as it disposes of large agricultural land. Trading economics estimated that food products represented less than 8% of the country’s total imports in 2014. Syria’s divided political geography could also hinder the movement of grains from east to west.  Oppression, competition and discrimination among the Syrian population could undermine access to food.

Day by day, the coronavirus appears to aggravate food insecurity in the Levant region, already challenged by failing economies and conflict.

Mona Alami is a French-Lebanese analyst and a fellow at the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East of the Atlantic Council. She lives in Beirut.

Copyright ©2020 The Arab Weekly — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 20 April 2020

Word Count: 696

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Turkey’s opposition cries foul, over and over again, to no avail these days. Despite its attempts in parliament, the ruling AKP and its ally, extreme-nationalist MHP stood firm in their defence of the release of some 90,000 inmates, mostly common criminals, while keeping about 50,000 political prisoners behind bars.

Sheer populism is behind the stance of the AKP and MHP. Both of these two parties’ motive is to appease their own voter base. Political prisoners are part of the opposition that Turkish rulers are resolved to crush and silence. They see the political prisoners as deserving to stay locked up.

Soon, after the bill passes, these detainees will also be also deprived from reading the opposition newspaper.

But there is more brewing beneath the cunning calculations. As the fog of the COVID-19 pandemic thickens in Turkey, authorities are manipulating the data. COVID-19 deaths are being listed as caused by other sicknesses, such as pneumonia, according to the independent Turkish Medical Association (TTB). The union’s internal network believes the daily death figures may be running higher than two-digit levels.

No surprise. In Turkey, the management of any crisis — or disaster — has always taken second seat to cover ups.  This is happening even more so now that the AKP is doing all it can to control the flow of information.

There is even more. In the midst of social mistrust and despair, it was revealed that the Erdogan regime had discreetly added a draft provision into an omnibus bill aimed at establishing massive restrictions on the flow of information and freedom of speech in social media.

According to Reuters, the government “will require foreign social media companies with high internet traffic to appoint a representative in the country to address concerns raised by authorities over content on their platforms. Companies that do not comply with the new measure could face the prospect of having their bandwidth halved within 30 days by court order, and then slashed by 95% if they hold out another 30 days.”

The move follows an intense crackdown on social media during the rise of the pandemic. The Interior Ministry has been keeping busy trying “to restore order” in the dynamic internet domain: In the past two weeks, nearly 4,000 social media accounts were  monitored, leading to police raids on the homes of more than 600 “suspects” and detention of 229 citizens for “provocative” posts.

Twitter figures show that Turkey is one of the top two countries in the world where related court orders were issued in the first half of last year.

The draft bill is to be discussed and voted in the coming days. Given the domination of AKP-MHP alliance in Parliament, it is expected that it will tighten the noose further on the free word, as if the current censorship regime was not enough.

The intent is to intensify the pressure on the social media giants — Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Skype, Zoom, Instagram and even WhatsApp. Companies will need to meet demands from authorities about content within three days, then compile and notify officials of all removed or blocked content within a three-month period, according to the draft law.

That’s not all, as the companies will also have to store data that include the identity of users within the country.

If they don’t abide by the rules, companies will be fined with up to 1 million lira ($148,000) for each violation, while those who do not register the removed or blocked content or do not store data in Turkey will be fined up to 5 million lira ($736,000), the reports say.

“It’s beyond comprehension,” said Ozgur Ozel, an MP of the main opposition party, the CHP. “In these outbreak times, no other government manipulates its people. It is sheer opportunism which tells us about its paranoia.”

The government’s intent is to force the social media giants to appoint representatives in Turkey. If they don’t, up to 95 % of their content will be blocked. It will mean a massive throttling of the traffic, putting the companies in a critical situation. If they do, they will be serving an Orwellian regime and censoring the free flow of views and data. What’s worse is that any appeals process is at best protracted in Turkey. The Supreme Court’s decisions in these cases take years.

Critics raise their voices, as does the political opposition. But they fall on deaf ears since 95% of Turkish media do not report their views. This and the global turmoil offer the Erdogan regime, it seems, another “divine gift” delivered on a golden plate to further cement a Central Asian style authoritarian rule of which “digital policing” is a vital component.

Yavuz Baydar is a senior Turkish columnist, and news analyst. A founding member of the Platform for Independent Journalism (P24) in Istanbul, he has been reporting on Turkey and monitoring media issues since 1980. A European Press Prize Laureate in 2014, he is also the winner of Germany’s ‘Journalistenpreis’ in 2018.

Copyright ©2020 The Arab Weekly — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 15 April 2020

Word Count: 775

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It is sobering to think that the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) held its first meeting on COVID-19 only on April 9, nearly a month after a pandemic was officially declared by the World Health Organisation (WHO). That the world’s most powerful multilateral instrument has been ineffective so far, despite a global crisis of unprecedented magnitude, underlines the true state of affairs today: we live in a leaderless world.

Never mind the United Nations, this is the first global crisis in more than 50 years where no country is looking towards the US for leadership.

If there’s anything that’s needed in a global pandemic it is a vaccine and leadership. A vaccine is not expected for at least a year, but what about leadership?

Trump-led America is an empire in decline and it can do little to help itself or anyone else. In the end, it will matter little whether Donald Trump is a symptom or the cause of America’s loss of moral clarity, executive efficiency and the will to lead. What may be clear with the hindsight of history is that when the US elected Trump its 45th president, it was sealing its fate as a waning power with neither the ability nor the authority to lead the world.

America’s abdication of the leadership role it solidly assumed for nearly 80 years has been startlingly complete in the pandemic. Not only has the Trump administration stymied any chance of strong collective action from the Group of Seven industrialised countries, it did the same for the G20 and even for something so anodyne as a UN Security Council joint resolution on the pandemic. It’s all part of the Trump administration’s propaganda battle to force China to take responsibility for the viral outbreak.

That the US thinks it more important to wage this particular war with China, while the world fights a pandemic, is further evidence it is unfit and unwilling to even participate in, let alone lead, a joint global collaborative vision and programme to deal with massive economic and political upheaval. While a ceasefire has been called by the Saudi-led coalition fighting the five-year war in Yemen, and rebel groups from Columbia to Cameroon have laid down their arms in response to the gravity of the global situation, America’s president continues to pick petty fights at home and abroad.

The hubris of the Trump administration’s vision is apparent from its request to Congress in recent weeks — while the pandemic rages — for billions of dollars to develop a Pacific Deterrence Initiative that would signal a broader shift in security focus away from the Middle East and towards China and Russia.

Henry Kissinger, former US secretary of state and one of the giants of America’s years of global pre-eminence, recently wrote that “no country, not even the US, can in a purely national effort overcome the virus.” And he suggested the US undertake “a major effort in three domains.” He listed these efforts as follows: Shoring up global resilience to infectious disease, striving to heal the wounds to the world economy and safeguarding the principles of the liberal world order.

It sounds like an eminently sensible plan — if there were someone, anyone, to lead it. The UN would be a suitable candidate for the job, first by passing a declaration similar to the one six years ago during the Ebola outbreak, that the coronavirus pandemic represents a threat to peace and security. Such a designation carries the force of international law and would allow for collective effort as well as a nodal organisational point.

The UNSC’s paralysis over the coronavirus until now has clearly shaken many countries, so much so that the ambassadors of Ghana, Indonesia, Liechtenstein, Norway, Singapore and Switzerland sought a UN General Assembly resolution on a strong and unified response to the pandemic. The 193-member body subsequently called for “international cooperation” and “multilateralism” in this extraordinary moment in history. Then, Tunisia, which has a non-permanent seat on the UNSC, put forward a resolution expressing concern about the outbreak, supporting UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s appeal for a global ceasefire to all armed conflicts and for the UN to declare the pandemic “a threat to humanity.”

It’s obvious that the gap in enlightened global leadership and shared resolve is uniting the world in a remarkable way. But it may not be enough to fill the void.

 

Rashmee Roshan Lall is a regular columnist for The Arab Weekly. She blogs at www.rashmee.com and is on Twitter @rashmeerl

Copyright ©2020 The Arab Weekly — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 14 April 2020

Word Count: 726

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”This is a total eclipse of sound reason,” tweeted Emrah Altindis, commenting on the measures taken in Turkey to deal with the coronavirus outbreak. Altindis, a Turkish-American assistant professor of biology at Boston College, has been fiercely warning the Turks about the “viral tsunami” that is fast approaching Turkey.

”With great sadness, I must tell you,” he added, “from next week, the daily loss (in Turkey) will exceed 100 per day. The number of cases, which is [currently] about 18,000, will rise to between 32,000-36,000.”

Altindis points out another interesting phenomenon in Turkey, which is different from some other highly infected countries. According to his findings, the number of deaths in Italy of people under the age of 60 stood at only 1.7% and 4.59% in Spain. However, 20% of those who have been killed by the virus in Turkey were under the age of 60.

In terms of reaching the approaching peak, Dr Alpay Azap, a member of the Health Ministry’s Coronavirus Scientific Advisory Board, agrees with Altindis. He expects the epidemic to reach its zenith in 4-6 weeks.

How is the Erdogan government handling the crisis? The steps and decisions taken, so far, have only added to the confusion and mistrust. While in a state of despair it struggles to keep the wheels of the economy turning. The authorities show no sign of allowing any moves for solidarity or public charity nor do they show any sign of reconsidering releasing political prisoners from overloaded prisons.

The patterns of official behaviour expose Turkey’s well-known hard-line reflexes at play. When President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to the loud protest of opposition parties, recently asked people to send money to an official IBAN account, mayors of Istanbul and Ankara, both representing the opposition bloc, felt encouraged to start fundraising to deal with the catastrophe. But one day later, they were greeted with a stern countermove to block them. “Non-state entities will not be allowed to handle the affairs of the state,” said Erdogan, reminding everyone of the extremely centralised structure he has been busy building over the past six years.

Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu is in a desperate situation and he knows it. According to global statistics, coronavirus is spreading in Turkey faster than anywhere else and 60% of cases, according to Health Minister Fahrettin Koca, are in Istanbul, which has a population of around 16 million. The central government’s half-measures are leaving large segments of the population in Turkey to move around freely and defiance of travel restrictions is high. As of March 4, nearly 15% of Istanbulites were out and about.

“This means more than 2 million people (are still going out), and this is very frightening. It’s as much as the population of a prominent city in Europe,” İmamoglu said. Even more worrisome, the under-pressure mayor revealed that he had made several attempts to reach Erdogan but received no response.

Ignoring all the calls from various segments of society to treat the whole nation without discrimination and act in a unifying manner to face the crisis, Erdogan’s mind is, obviously, elsewhere. His statements signal that he is much more concerned about the “second wave,” namely the socioeconomic consequences of the pandemic, at a stage where the Turkish economy is cracking already under the current conjuncture. The Turkish lira is tumbling, small businesses are closed, exports are falling, tourism (about 13% of the economy) seems lost, but Erdogan remains opposed to a lockdown, determined to keep some industrial sectors open.

“Erdogan’s statements give the impression that he sees this pandemic not only as a serious crisis but also as an opportunity for Turkish manufacturers. The hope is that, after the Chinese shutdown, European producers, which depend on Chinese companies for a range of semi-finished products, may consider Turkey as an alternative supplier in the longer term,” commented Bulent Gokay, professor of International Relations at Keele University in the UK, writing for the blog site The Conversation. “That’s why the government is still allowing millions of workers to go to factories, mines and construction sites despite the huge health risk.”

At this stage, it is difficult to predict what the possible social consequences of the pandemic in Turkey will be. Unlike many other governments, it became clear that Erdogan’s government had not much to offer to the unemployed and dismissed the elderly and poor segments of society. The financial resources of the state are utterly strained, limiting Ankara’s room for manoeuvre. Whether or not social unrest is brewing on the horizon is very hard to tell. It depends on the level of mismanagement of, or tardy responses to, the crisis.

Gokay may have a point. “During the next few months, it’s expected that Turkey, alongside South Africa and Argentina, could be sliding towards insolvency and debt default. After that, everything depends on how this crisis progresses and how long it will take to end,” he concluded.

Yavuz Baydar is a senior Turkish columnist, and news analyst. A founding member of the Platform for Independent Journalism (P24) in Istanbul, he has been reporting on Turkey and monitoring media issues since 1980. A European Press Prize Laureate in 2014, he is also the winner of Germany’s ‘Journalistenpreis’ in 2018.

Copyright ©2020 The Arab Weekly — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 07 April 2020

Word Count: 815

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News of a US intelligence report alleging Chinese fabrications about the coronavirus outbreak came in, coincidentally, the very week that marked the 17th anniversary of the American seizure of Baghdad International Airport.

The intelligence report on China and the pandemic was handed to the White House at the end of March. It was on April 4, 2003 that the United States took control of Baghdad airport, just a few miles from the centre of the Iraqi capital. The timing of the US report is unfortunate.

The allegation that China intentionally concealed the extent of the domestic outbreak is clearly meant to buttress attempts by American politicians to make a moral case that Beijing pay damages. What it actually does is revive memories of the false prospectus for the US-led invasion of Iraq.

The United States has not been held to account for its false public justification for invading a sovereign nation without provocation. It has not acknowledged moral responsibility for the millions of casualties inflicted by the war, the bloody sectarian civil strife that was subsequently triggered in Iraq and the destruction of basic infrastructure in the country. It has not compensated the Iraqi people, although it’s hard to even begin to tally the cost of decades of bloodshed, chaos and tragedy.

According to a 2019 estimate, the death toll from 16 years of US military intervention in Iraq stands at 2.4 million. How do you put a price on that?

In any case, if China were to be sued over the coronavirus pandemic, then the US should be sued over Iraq — and the case against the United States would be the stronger.

The Chinese government is protected by the doctrine of sovereign immunity and its obfuscations in the early days of the coronavirus outbreak do not constitute sufficient grounds for a waiver. But the legal precedent set by the post-Second World War Nuremberg trials is strong. During the tribunals, prosecutors successfully argued that the Nazi leadership was liable for crimes of aggression and crimes against humanity by invading sovereign nations without provocation.

In 2004, then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called the Iraq invasion “illegal.” In 2009, Benjamin Ferencz, one of the American prosecutors at Nuremberg, wrote that “a good argument could be made that the US invasion of Iraq was unlawful.” In 2010, the Dutch parliament called it a breach of international law. It was the first independent legal assessment of the decision to invade.

All of the above is worth remembering at this point of time. US President Donald Trump, his administration and members of his Republican Party refer to Covid-19 as the “Chinese virus” or the “Wuhan virus.” They have been dropping dark hints about the reparations due from China. A Republican congresswoman and a Republican senator have introduced resolutions in the House and Senate respectively, calling for an international investigation into the Chinese Communist Party’s alleged cover-up of the early spread of the coronavirus and for China to pay back all affected nations.

But as Yale law Professor Stephen Carter recently noted, sovereign immunity is a “broad” doctrine, an act of reciprocity. The US 1976 Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) maintains that shared global understanding, with one US federal court saying FSIA is intended “to protect foreign sovereigns from the burdens of litigation, including the cost and aggravation of discovery.” It was only in 2016 that the United States passed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), which allows US citizens to sue foreign governments for terrorist acts such as 9/11 on American soil. President Barack Obama had vetoed it, warning that JASTA could expose American companies, troops and officials to lawsuits in other countries but Congress overrode him.

Obama’s warning assumes new importance now that the US administration seems keen to blame and shame China for the high costs of its behaviour. It’s entirely likely that this will renew the focus on the illegality of the Iraq invasion and its terrible toll. In December 2016, the US Ninth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals heard the only case ever filed in the United States that questioned the legality of the Iraq war. The court affirmed immunity for the executive branch, no matter the scale of the crime.

But then on October 9, Trump tweeted that the United States “went to war under a false & now disproven premise” and that “millions of people have died on the other side.” Trump’s fulminations were the first such admission by a sitting US president. The tweet could be seen as official acceptance by the US government that the Iraq war was wrong and resulted in mass murder. It may not necessarily result in a viable prosecution of the US government. However, it does highlight a key difference between America’s war in Iraq and China’s actions after the coronavirus outbreak. The pandemic is something that is referred to in law as an act of God. War is an act of man.

Rashmee Roshan Lall is a regular columnist for The Arab Weekly. She blogs at www.rashmee.com and is on Twitter @rashmeerl

Copyright ©2020 The Arab Weekly — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 06 April 2020

Word Count: 822

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The deadly coronavirus does not discriminate. It will attack anyone, regardless of socio-economic background, nationality or religion.

The virus, first detected in China late last year, has spread around the world faster than many expected. Doctors, scientists and research specialists in viruses have been trying to establish a pattern. The virus seems most serious for the elderly and people with underlying health conditions, including those whose immune system are weakened by age or illness. However, it also affects young and healthy people.

It does not matter if a potential victim prays in a mosque, church or another sacred place, all are vulnerable.

Scientists have established that crowds contribute to the spread of the coronavirus because it can be transmitted from one person to another with relative ease. With that in mind, authorities should look closely at upcoming religious holidays that typically attract large numbers of people in relatively small places.

As unpopular as directives postponing or cancelling religious festivals, pilgrimages and processions that typically attract tens of thousands, are, the outcome would be far more beneficial than allowing the gatherings to take place and having to deal with a huge surge in deaths and increase in number of people infected with the novel coronavirus

Iran, which has been particularly hard hit by the virus, has sites in the country that are sacred to Shias. So do other countries in the region.

The Shia site of Karbala, visited annually by an average of 8 million pilgrims in central Iraq, is the grave of Hussain ibn Ali, as well as those of martyrs of the battle of Karbala in 680.

More than 1 million people visit the city each year for Ashura, which this year falls on August 28-29. The Ashura processions draw huge crowds in Tehran, Karbala and Nabatiyeh in southern Lebanon. Men of all ages utter religious chants while striking their bodies with a sharp knife or machete until they draw blood that flows over a white cloth.

In Syria, the Sayyidah Zaynab Mosque is in the southern suburbs of Damascus. Twelver Shia Muslim tradition holds that the mosque contains the grave of Zaynab, daughter of Imam Ali and Fatima, and daughter of the Prophet Mohammad. (Sunni Muslims and Ismaili Shia place Zaynab’s tomb in the mosque of the same name in Cairo.)

The mosque in Syria became a popular destination of mass pilgrimage by Twelver Shia Muslims beginning in the 1980s. The height of the pilgrimage season normally occurs in the summer.

Allowing Shia pilgrims to visit holy sites and parade through the streets of the city in large processions, as they traditionally do, would result in the death of many.

The problem cuts across sectarian lines. Ramadan, the holy month of Islam when people fast from dawn to dusk, begins April 23. If there is no strong public awareness, it is likely to draw Muslims, Shias and Sunnis, to mosques, streets, coffee shops and family gatherings, even if quarantine measures remain in effect. Ramadan should not be an excuse to flaunt confinement orders.

Salafists and other hard-line Islamists have challenged governments’ restrictions, including mosque closures. They tried to invest in the religiosity and fatalism of segments of the population. Widely circulated fatwas insist that those who die because of an epidemic are considered martyrs.

Ultra conservatives ignore the fact that preservation of human life is considered by most mainstream Muslim scholars as the first priority of the faith. Religion should help contain the virus not spread it.

There can be no excuse for governments and populations not acting prudently. There is a dire need to replace the destructive narratives of zealots with sound health education so the danger of the virus can be understood by the populace. The time to act is now because later will be too late.

Governments should draw on the lessons about the cost of unbridled religious gatherings in the time of the coronavirus.

The issue is not exclusively reserved for Muslim pilgrims. In the southern United States, some preachers refused to abide by orders to stay at home but rather welcomed their congregations, saying that God would provide on the protection they need. Eventually, police shut down the services.

In Eastern France, the Evangelical church’s mass gatherings are suspected to be at the source of many of France’s virus spread. It was also the case in South Korea.

Governments ignoring on dangerous Shia or Christian religious processions and similar gatherings will have but themselves to blame. Religion is not the culprit. People are.

Claude Salhani is a regular columnist for The Arab Weekly.

Copyright ©2020 The Arab Weekly — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 02 April 2020

Word Count: 750

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