Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu makes U-turn in judicial power grab

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a meeting at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem amid demonstrations after he dismissed the defense minister on March 27. (Reuters)
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Thousands of Israelis have poured into the streets across the country in a spontaneous outburst of anger after prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu abruptly fired his defense minister for challenging the Israeli leader’s judicial overhaul plan. (AP)
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Updated 28 March 2023

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu makes U-turn in judicial power grab

  • With Israel in chaos amid mass protests, he said judicial reform plans will be delayed at least until parliament reconvenes on April 30
  • Opponents said protests will continue until the plans are scrapped; meanwhile Palestinians ponder short and long-term effects of the chaos on them

RAMALLAH: Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday delayed controversial judicial reforms that have plunged Israel into chaos and that critics say are a power grab. The prime minister halted the legislation until parliament reconvenes on April 30.

“When there’s an opportunity to avoid civil war through dialogue, I, as prime minister, am taking a timeout for dialogue,” he said. Netanyahu added that he remained determined to enact the judicial reforms but called for “an attempt to achieve broad consensus.”

After the announcement, the head of Israel’s largest trade union called off a general strike that had threatened to bring Israel’s economy to a standstill. Earlier, tens of thousands of Israelis demonstrated outside the Knesset in a dramatic escalation of the mass protest movement aimed at halting the reforms.

The chaos shut down much of the country. Departing flights from the main international airport were grounded. Shopping malls and universities closed their doors, diplomats at foreign missions stopped work, and hospital medical staff offered only emergency services.

The growing resistance to Netanyahu’s plans came hours after tens of thousands of people burst onto streets around the country in a spontaneous show of anger at the prime minister’s decision to fire his defense minister, who had called for a pause to the overhaul. Chanting “the country is on fire,” they lit bonfires on Tel Aviv’s main highway, closing the road and many others throughout the country for hours.

Demonstrators gathered again on Monday outside the Knesset, turning the streets surrounding the building and the Supreme Court into a roiling sea of blue-and-white Israeli flags. Large demonstrations in Tel Aviv, Haifa and other cities drew thousands more.

“This is the last chance to stop this move into a dictatorship,” said Matityahu Sperber, 68, who joined a stream of people headed to the protest outside the Knesset. “I’m here for the fight to the end.”

Netanyahu’s U-turn appeared to ease tensions somewhat but organizers of the grassroots anti-government protest movement said a delay would not be enough.

“A temporary freeze does not suffice, and the national protests will continue to intensify until the law is rejected in the Knesset,” organizers said.

Israel’s Arab citizens have largely ignored the protests. They said Israel’s democracy is already tarnished by its military rule over the occupied West Bank and the discrimination they face inside Israel itself.

One senior Palestinian leader told Arab News: “I see our task as Palestinians being to deepen the crisis inside Israel, which means that we do not support the opposition against Netanyahu, but rather weaken both sides because they will compete over who can harm the Palestinians the most.

“The issue of reforming the judiciary is not an internal matter. Rather, its goal is to control the West Bank. They want to reform the High Court because it was a brake on their racist occupation policies against the Palestinians.”

With Israel in turmoil, Palestinians are watching and wondering how the chaos might affect them in the short and long terms. Some say the crisis has reinforced the awareness that democracy and occupation cannot coexist. Others suggest that the Israeli security services are so preoccupied with the demonstrations in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, it could to some degree loosen their iron grip on Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

There is also a belief among some that the protests will weaken Israel, ultimately to the benefit of the Palestinian people. Most believe, however, that any attacks by Palestinian resistance fighters inside Israel at this time would serve only to benefit Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition government partners, led by Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, by distracting from their political predicament.

Taysir Khaled, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Executive Committee, said the situation in Israel offers a valuable opportunity for Palestinians to adopt a fresh political approach and work to deepen Israel’s isolation, in the region and internationally, by highlighting the fact that Israeli policies of occupation, discrimination, apartheid and ethnic cleansing are incompatible with the basic values of democracy.

Though Palestinians have had limited success when pleading their cases at Israel’s Supreme Court, failing to prevent Israeli authorities from annexing more Palestinian land, should Netanyahu and his government ultimately succeed in effectively seizing control of the court, Palestinians would have no refuge at all, other than the International Court of Justice in the Hague.

Palestinian political analyst Ghassan Al-Khatib told Arab News that if the wave of Israeli protests against the government continues, it will weaken the Israeli right wing, which would serve the interests of the Palestinian people.

In the meantime, however, one of the effects of the protests has been the closure of the Allenby Bridge, the only land crossing connecting the West Bank with Jordan, as the result of a strike by Israeli customs officials. This has paralyzed commercial traffic between Palestine and Jordan and the movement of travelers to and from the West Bank.

Amid fears that Netanyahu’s government might take action in the West Bank or Gaza Strip in an attempt to provoke a Palestinian response that would unite left and right wingers be creating a security threat, analysts and experts told Arab News that they do not believe the leaders of the Israeli security services would comply with any such attempt to launch deliberately provocative attacks at this time.

Retired Col. David Hacham, a former adviser on Arab affairs to the Israeli Ministry of Defense, said that Netanyahu cannot currently launch a military campaign against the West Bank in an attempt to divert attention from his plight. If Hamas was to attack Tel Aviv and security becomes a priority, however, the differences between politicians of the left and right might be set aside, he added.

Dana Ben Shimon, a correspondent for the newspaper Israel Today, agreed with Hacham and said: “(Hezbollah leader) Hassan Nasrallah and (Hamas leader) Yahya Sinwar are looking at the current chaos in Israel and whispering, saying, ‘We will not give Netanyahu and his government the gift of attacking Israel — let them be torn apart and drown on their own.’”

Shawan Jabarin, director of Al-Haq, a human rights organization in Ramallah, told Arab News: “The Palestinians must link the crisis in Israel to the existence of the occupation, as there is no difference between right and left when it comes to the Palestinians.”

Mohammed Darawsheh, strategic director of the Givat Habiba Center and a political analyst who lives in Israel, told Arab News that Arabs in the country have not participated in the protests against the judicial reforms because “we do not trust the Supreme Court and we are not part of the patriotism of Israel to demonstrate under its flag.”

Palestinians in Israel said that the Israeli Supreme Court is relatively liberal on Arab civil issues but is still part of the deep state in terms of legitimizing racism toward Arabs and the occupation.

Darawsheh said that should the judicial reforms eventually be implemented, Arabs in Israel will be much worse off. Arab schools that teach their students about the Nakba, for example, would lose 30 percent of their funding, he said. It is also possible that Arab political parties could be banned from the Israeli parliament, and budgets for services that benefit Arab citizens could be cut and the money redirected to settlers and Orthodox Jews.

Arab leaders should organize their own parallel protests against the planned reforms, Darawsheh said, to increase the pressure on Netanyahu and his government “because giving up our rights without fighting a battle is a huge mistake.”

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Lebanon judge questions central bank chief over Munich arrest warrant

Updated 31 May 2023

Lebanon judge questions central bank chief over Munich arrest warrant

  • Salameh has been the subject of a series of judicial probes both at home and abroad
  • Lebanese judge Imad Qabalan questioned Salameh over accusations of "money laundering, fraud, embezzlement and illicit enrichment"

BEIRUT: A Lebanese judge questioned central bank chief Riad Salameh on Wednesday after Beirut received a second Interpol Red Notice targeting him, this time following an arrest warrant from Munich, a judicial official said.
Salameh has been the subject of a series of judicial probes both at home and abroad into the fortune he has amassed during some three decades in the job.
France earlier this month issued an arrest warrant for Salameh after he failed to appear for questioning in Paris.
On Wednesday, Lebanese judge Imad Qabalan questioned Salameh over accusations of “money laundering, fraud, embezzlement and illicit enrichment,” the judicial official said, requesting anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Two days earlier, Lebanon received an Interpol Red Notice pursuant to the arrest warrant issued in absentia by Munich’s public prosecutor, according to the judicial official.
Last week Qabalan had questioned Salameh, banned him from traveling, confiscated his French and Lebanese passports and released him pending investigation, after receiving the first Interpol Red Notice, issued following the French arrest warrant.
An Interpol Red Notice is not an international arrest warrant but asks authorities worldwide to provisionally detain people pending possible extradition or other legal actions.
Lebanon does not extradite its nationals but Salameh could go on trial in Lebanon if local judicial authorities decide the accusations against him are founded, an official previously told AFP.
Qabalan on Wednesday again banned Salameh from travel and released him pending investigation, the judicial official said.
He also requested Salameh’s file from the judiciary in Munich and noted that “only the Lebanese judiciary has the authority to try him,” the official added.
In March 2022, France, Germany and Luxembourg seized assets worth 120 million euros ($130 million) in a move linked to a probe into Salameh’s wealth.
In February, Lebanon charged Salameh with embezzlement, money laundering and tax evasion as part of its own investigations.
The domestic probe was opened following a request for assistance from Switzerland’s public prosecutor looking into more than $300 million in fund movements by Salameh and his brother.
Salameh, who was questioned for more than an hour on Wednesday, again “denied all charges against him” and said wealth came from private sources, the official added.
Salameh continues to serve as central bank governor. His mandate ends in July.
Activists say the travel ban helps shield him from being brought to justice abroad — and from potentially bringing down others in the entrenched political class, which is widely blamed for endemic corruption in the crisis-hit country.
His brother Raja was due to appear for questioning in France on Wednesday, but his lawyer said he was unable to attend due to medical reasons and the judge postponed the session for two months, the official added.


Qatar prime minister, Taliban chief hold secret Afghan talks

Updated 31 May 2023

Qatar prime minister, Taliban chief hold secret Afghan talks

  • The meeting signals a new willingness by Afghanistan’s rulers to discuss ways to end their global isolation
  • Qatar has no formal ties with Afghanistan, its Kabul embassy is open and represents US interests there

WASHINGTON: The Qatari prime minister held secret talks with the supreme leader of the Taliban this month on resolving tension with the international community, a source briefed on the meeting said, signaling a new willingness by Afghanistan’s rulers to discuss ways to end their isolation.

The May 12 meeting in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar between Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani and Haibatullah Akhunzada is the first the reclusive Taliban chief is known to have held with a foreign leader.

US President Joe Biden’s administration was briefed on the talks and is “coordinating on all issues discussed” by the pair, including furthering dialogue with the Taliban, said the source.

The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said other issues Sheikh Mohammed raised with Haibatullah included the need to end a Taliban bans on girls’ education and women’s employment.

The meeting represents a diplomatic success for Qatar, which has criticized Taliban restrictions on women while using long-standing ties with the Islamist movement to push for deeper engagement with Kabul by the international community.

The United States has led demands for the Taliban to end the bans on girls’ schooling and women working, including for UN agencies and humanitarian groups, to restore their freedom of movement and bring Afghans from outside Taliban ranks into government.

The source’s comments suggested that Washington supported elevating what have been unproductive lower-level talks in the hope of a breakthrough that could end the world’s only bans of their kind and ease dire humanitarian and financial crises that have left tens of millions of Afghans hungry and jobless.

The White House declined to comment on the talks. The State Department and the Qatar embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.

The Taliban did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

EDUCATION, EMPLOYMENT BANS

The restrictions on women’s schooling and work have stymied humanitarian aid and are key reasons why no country has recognized Taliban rule since they seized power in August 2021, after the Western-backed government collapsed as the last US-led international troops departed following two decades of war.

The treatment by the Taliban of women and girls could amount to a crime against humanity, according to a UN report presented in March at the Human Rights Council in Geneva. The Taliban say they respect women’s rights in line with their interpretation of Islamic law and Afghan customs.

Haibatullah, a hard-line Islamist, has shown little willingness to compromise on his edicts.

His meeting with Sheikh Mohammed, however, suggests that he is open to exploring avenues for ending Afghanistan’s isolation and boosting relief programs as the country sinks into hunger and poverty.

“It was a very positive meeting,” said the source. Haibatullah was “very interested” in continuing a dialogue with the international community.

But eventual recognition by other countries of the Taliban administration, senior members of which remain under US and international sanctions, is far from assured given their treatment of women and poor human rights record.

Sheikh Mohammed raised with Haibatullah the need to lift the bans on women’s education and employment, including the bar on them working for UN agencies and other humanitarian groups, the source said.

The Taliban administration has been promising since January written guidelines allowing aid groups to operate with female staff.

The Taliban in March 2022 barred girls from high schools and extended the ban to universities in December.

They say they will reopen secondary schools to girls when “conditions” have been met, including devising an Islamic syllabus.

ADDRESSING HUMANITARIAN CRISIS

Sheikh Mohammed and Haibatullah also discussed efforts to remedy Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis, the source said.

The United Nations says nearly three-quarters of Afghanistan’s 40 million people need help and it has warned that funding is drying up.

Sheikh Mohammed, the source said, raised with Haibatullah the “continued efforts on the ground” by the Taliban on counterterrorism, an apparent reference to Kabul’s drive to crush a Daesh affiliate.

The main ideological foe of the Taliban is based mostly in eastern Afghanistan but has targeted minorities and embassies in Kabul.

The US and its allies say the Taliban harbor members of Al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban. The Afghan Taliban deny that.

Sheikh Mohammed, who also serves as Qatar’s foreign minister, met publicly in Kandahar with Mullah Hassan Akhund, the Taliban prime minister, on the same day he met the supreme leader. He was accompanied by Qatar’s intelligence chief.

Neither side, however, revealed the talks with Haibatullah.

He almost never leaves Kandahar but has been the paramount religious, political and military leader of the Taliban since 2016, guiding the movement to victory over the Western-backed Kabul government.

Qatar allowed the militants to open a political office in Doha in 2013 and facilitated their talks with Washington that led to the 2020 deal for a withdrawal of the US-led international force that they fought for 20 years.

While the tiny Gulf monarchy has no formal diplomatic ties with Afghanistan, its Kabul embassy is open and represents US interests there.

Qatar has long pressed the international community to agree a “roadmap” of steps for the Taliban to gain recognition, arguing that isolating Afghanistan could worsen regional security.


Sudan’s military says it has suspended its participation in talks with paramilitary rival

Army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan cheers with soldiers as he visits some of their positions in Khartoum. (AFP)
Updated 31 May 2023

Sudan’s military says it has suspended its participation in talks with paramilitary rival

  • So far, there have been seven declared cease-fires in the country, all of which have been violated to some extent
  • Responding to the military’s move, the RSF said it “unconditionally backs the Saudi-US initiative”

CAIRO: Sudan’s military suspended its participation in talks with a paramilitary force it’s been battling for weeks for control of the northeastern African country, a military spokesman said Wednesday.
Brig. Nabil Abdalla, a spokesman for the Sudanese armed forces, told The Associated Press that the move is a protest against the Rapid Support Forces’ “repeated violations” of the humanitarian cease-fire, including their continued occupation of hospitals and other civilian infrastructure in the capital, Khartoum.
Sudan descended into chaos after fighting erupted in mid-April between the military, led by Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and the RSF, commanded by Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo. The fighting has killed at least 866 civilians and wounded thousands more, according to the Sudanese Doctors’ Syndicate, which tracks civilian casualties. The toll could be much higher, the medical group had previously said.
Abdalla, the spokesman, said the military wants to ensure that the terms of a US-Saudi-brokered truce “be fully implemented” before discussing further steps. He did not elaborate.
On May 21, both sides signed a cease-fire agreement allowing for the delivery of humanitarian assistance and the restoration of essential services destroyed in the clashes. They also agreed to stop the looting of residential properties and humanitarian aid, as well as the taking over of civilian infrastructure such as hospitals and power plants.
So far, there have been seven declared cease-fires in the country, all of which have been violated to some extent.
Responding to the military’s move, the RSF said it “unconditionally backs the Saudi-US initiative.”
On Tuesday, the military released footage that showed Burhan inspecting troops. The army chief warned that the military would resort to “full lethal force” if the RSF “doesn’t respond to the voice of reason.” The military’s aircrafts were also seen flying over the capital.
Residents, meanwhile, reported clashes late Tuesday in parts of Khartoum and its neighboring city of Omdurman.
Both sides traded blame for violating the cease-fire.
The military’s move came two days after the sides agreed to extend the shaky cease-fire for five more days.
In a joint statement Sunday, the US and Saudi Arabia called out both warring sides for specific breaches of a weeklong truce rather than issue another general appeal to respect agreements.
The statement said the military continued to carry out airstrikes, while the RSF was still occupying people’s homes and seizing properties. Fuel, money, aid supplies and vehicles belonging to a humanitarian convoy were stolen, with theft occurring both in areas controlled by the military and by the RSF, it added.
The fighting has caused widespread destruction in residential areas in Khartoum and its adjacent cities of Omdurman and Bahri. Residents reported storming and looting of their homes, mostly by the RSF. Many posted photos and videos of their looted homes on social media, condemning the pillaging.
The conflict has also turned Khartoum, and other urban areas into battlefields, forcing nearly 1.4 million people to flee their homes to safer areas inside Sudan or crossing into neighboring countries. Early on, foreign governments raced to evacuate their diplomats and nationals as thousands of foreign residents scrambled to get out of the African nation.


UN: Staggering 15.3 million Syrians, nearly 70% of population, need aid

Updated 31 May 2023

UN: Staggering 15.3 million Syrians, nearly 70% of population, need aid

  • 2.5 million people are at risk of losing food or cash assistance from July
  • The Syrian people “are more and more reliant on humanitarian assistance as basic services and critical infrastructure are on the brink of collapse"

UNITED NATIONS: For the first time in Syria’s 12-year war, people in every district are experiencing some degree of “humanitarian stress,” and a staggering 15.3 million — nearly 70 percent of the population — need humanitarian aid, the United Nations said Tuesday.
A UN appeal for $5.4 billion to help over 14 million people in Syria is less than 10 percent funded and the UN World Food Program has warned that without additional money, 2.5 million people are at risk of losing food or cash assistance from July.
The dire humanitarian situation, compounded by the February earthquake that devastated the rebel-held northwest, was spelled out to the Security Council by the UN humanitarian office’s operations director Edem Wosornu.
The Syrian people “are more and more reliant on humanitarian assistance as basic services and critical infrastructure are on the brink of collapse,” she said.
Wosornu urged generous pledges and the swift release of funds at a European Union hosted conference in Brussels on June 14-15. She said “Syrians need the support of the international community now more than at any time in the past 12 years.”
She said the need to maintain the delivery of humanitarian aid to the northwest is even more critical after the earthquake. She said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for a 12-month extension of the UN mandate, which expires in July, saying the assistance is “indispensable” and “a matter of life and death for millions of people” in the region.
Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia, whose country is a close ally of Syria, said Moscow shares concerns about the deteriorating humanitarian situation. But he said cross-border aid delivery “has outlived its usefulness” and “we see no reason at all to extend it.”
Nebenzia expressed concern that while cross-border aid was flowing and funded, the appeal to help millions of others in acute need in Syria is only 9 percent funded. It’s “a very odd moral imperative,” if aid “only applies to the terrorists in Idlib and it does not apply to the country as a whole.”
US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said the United States will seek a council resolution to extend aid deliveries through the three border crossings currently operating: Bab Al-Hawa, which was the single crossing Russia would allow to remain open in January, as well as Bab Al-Salam and Al Raée, which Syria’s President Bashar Assad agreed to open after the quake, which killed over 6,000 in Syria and has displaced over 330,000. Assad has agreed to keep the two additional crossings open through Aug. 13.
The US envoy accused Assad of “cynically” trying “to seize on the outpouring of international support following the earthquakes to reclaim its place on the world stage,” stressing that “merely sitting at the same table as other regional leaders does nothing to help the people of Syria.”
“If the Assad regime wants to help the Syrian people, it should act immediately and announce that it will keep the Bab Al-Salam and Al Raée crossings open through at least August 2024, or as long as it takes,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “And even if the Assad regime does the right thing, it is frankly no substitute for actions by this council, which has a responsibility to respond to the dire humanitarian needs of the Syrian people.”
Assad was welcomed back to the Arab League this month after a 12-year suspension. Geir Pedersen, the UN special envoy for Syria, told the Security Council that this meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia along with others in Moscow and Amman that included Syrian officials could create new momentum in long-stalled efforts to end the conflict.
He reiterated that new diplomatic activity “could act as a circuit breaker in the search for a political solution in Syria – if there is constructive Syria engagement, and indeed if key regional and international groups and players can work together.”


Iraq top court invalidates decisions of Kurdish parliament

Updated 30 May 2023

Iraq top court invalidates decisions of Kurdish parliament

  • Elections in Iraqi Kurdistan had been scheduled for late 2022
  • Disputes between its two main parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, forced the assembly to extend its mandate for another year

BAGHDAD: Iraq’s supreme court on Tuesday ruled as unconstitutional the extended mandate of autonomous Kurdistan’s parliament, rendering invalid votes taken by the chamber since last year.
It is the latest controversy between Iraq’s federal authorities and Kurdistan whose leaders had on Saturday denounced amendments in the federal budget affecting oil sales from the region in Iraq’s north.
Elections in Iraqi Kurdistan had been scheduled for late 2022, but disputes between its two main parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), forced the assembly to extend its mandate for another year.
Fresh elections were scheduled for November this year.
In his ruling Judge Jassem Mohammed Aboud, president of the top federal court in Baghdad, found unconstitutional the year-long extension of the chamber’s mandate.
As a result, decisions taken by the Kurdistan parliament since October 2022 “are constitutionally invalid,” Aboud said.
His ruling came after some Kurdistan opposition legislators who were upset with the mandate extension took their case to the court.
Last week, deputies in Kurdistan’s parliament came to blows after the KDP scheduled a late vote to activate the commission organizing the elections. PUK lawmakers wanted the vote postponed.
The KDP currently holds the largest bloc of 45 seats, trailed by the PUK with 21 in the 111-seat chamber.
Shivan Fazil, a researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, said the court’s ruling “is unprecedented” because it also nullifies “the government that has been sworn in” before the regional parliament.