March
143, 2023
A
group of Iranian teen girls are being sought by police for posting a TiKTok
video of themselves dancing to a Selena Gomez song
The
video, being widely shared online, shows five teen girls dancing without
headscarves in front of tower blocks in western Tehran to the song "Calm
Down" by Selena Gomez and Nigerian singer Rema.
The
song was released last Wednesday, March 8, which was International Women’s Day.
Iranian-Canadian
journalist Maziar Bahari said the video would be considered ordinary in most
cities around the world but in Iran, "it’s an act of defiance."
"I
wonder if @heisrema knows that his song #CalmDown is the backgrop of an
incredibly courageous act of defiance by young Iranian women?" tweeted
Nahayat Tizhoosh, a Canadian journalist. "It started when 5 girls danced
to his music in @shahrak_ekbatan- risking persecution by a regime that has
murdered women for simply protesting."
An
Ekbatan Twitter account which posts events in the neighborhood, warned on
Friday that girls faced possible arrest and detention.
The
account said Iranian security forces were reviewing CCTV footage at the tower
block to identify the girls and were questioning the guards.
The
neighborhood has been an epicenter of protests in recent months, sparked by the
death of Mahsa Amini. The 22-year-old Iranian woman died on Sept. 22, 2022
while in police custody, following her arrest for not wearing her headscarf
properly.
Meanwhile,
hundreds of young Iranian girls attending different schools have become
overpowered by what are believed to be noxious fumes wafting into their
classrooms.
Officials
in Iran’s theocracy initially dismissed the reports, but later described them
as intentional attacks involving some 30 schools, with some speculating they
could be aimed at trying to close schools for girls in this country of over 80
million people.
As Saudis sidle up to Iran, some see US apathy, Israeli political chaos to blame
March
13, 2023
In
July of last year, days before US President Joe Biden touched down in Israel
before flying to Saudi Arabia, then-opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu
stepped up to the cameras in the Knesset to make the case for his return to
power.
Among
other things, his argument rested on the idea that only he could follow up on
the 2020 Abraham Accords and expand Israel’s diplomatic footprint in the
region.
“I
intend to bring full peace agreements with Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries,”
he declared.
On
Friday, two months after Netanyahu set up shop again in his old office, Saudi
Arabia made headlines around the world as it concluded a major agreement with a
Middle Eastern power.
But
the country Riyadh signed a pact with was not Israel. Instead, Saudi Arabia
reached understandings with Israel’s archenemy, Iran — the very country Israel
expects to form an Arab-Israeli coalition against.
Predictably,
Netanyahu and Opposition Leader Yair Lapid — his predecessor — grabbed the
opportunity to pin the blame on each other.
Lapid
called it “a complete failure” for Israel. “This is what happens when you are
focused on the judicial madness instead of doing the work against Iran and
strengthening ties with US,” he said, referring to the government’s push to
overhaul the courts.
Lapid’s
partner in the previous government, Naftali Bennett, got in the act as well:
“Countries in the world and region see Israel divided with a non-functional
government, focused on serial self-destruction. And then those countries chose
a side.”
On
Friday, a senior official in Netanyahu’s entourage in Rome blamed the
Saudi-Iranian rapprochement on “American and Israeli weakness” projected under
the Biden administration and the Bennett-Lapid government.
Bipartisan
betrayal
Perceived
American weakness was almost certainly a factor in the move, but it didn’t
emanate only from the Biden White House.
A
leading Saudi journalist found the seeds of Saudi-Iranian détente going back to
Barak Obama’s administration, writing that “Washington and the West have not
been serious about the region’s security since concluding the Iranian nuclear
agreement in 2015.”
His
successor Donald Trump, though well-received in the Gulf, further eroded Saudi
trust. He chose not to strike Iran in response to the September 2019 drone and
missile attack on a key Saudi oil processing facility. Once Riyadh understood
there would be no American retaliation, it reached out to Iran, understanding
it had to avoid a conflict it would not fight on its own.
But
Trump also developed a close personal relationship with Gulf leaders, including
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler.
Biden
is a different story entirely.
“We
[are] going to in fact make them pay the price, and make them in fact the
pariah that they are,” Biden said while campaigning for president. “There’s
very little social redeeming value… in the present government in Saudi Arabia.”
Shortly
after taking office in January 2021, the 46th US president took some steps
toward fulfilling his promise. He released to the public an intelligence report
that pointed the finger at Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (also known
as MBS) for directly authorizing the killing of Saudi journalist and Washington
Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Biden also scaled back US support for the
Saudi-led air campaign in Yemen amid revulsion over civilian casualties, and
took the Iran-backed Houthis off the US terror list.
“You
didn’t have to be a diplomat or intelligence official to notice the
deterioration in Saudi-US ties,” said Meir Ben-Shabbat, who served as national
security adviser under Netanyahu and Bennett.
While
he stopped well short of turning Saudi Arabia into a pariah, even meeting MBS
in Jeddah following the Israel jaunt and seemingly shelving a planned review of
the US-Saudi relationship, intense friction between the countries remained,
helping push Riyadh and Tehran closer together.
“There’s
little doubt in my mind that this failure is directly traceable to the Biden
administration’s misguided strategy toward the region,” said John Hannah,
Senior Fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America and former
national security advisor to US Vice President Dick Cheney.
“If
Washington hadn’t spent the better part of two years implementing policies that
by and large had the predictable effect of shattering MBS’s confidence and
trust in America’s reliability as his foremost strategic partner,” he
continued, “I’m doubtful that last week’s events in Beijing would have played
out quite the way they did.”
Moran
Zaga, an expert on the Gulf region at Mitvim – The Israeli Institute for
Regional Foreign Policies, concurred, saying it was clear from the beginning of
the Biden administration “that there is a personal, ethical and also diplomatic
disconnect with the Saudis.”
“The
Americans effectively pushed the Saudis to do this,” she added. “What options
did they have left?”
They
might have had little choice but to talk to Tehran, but the decision to bring
in China as a mediator was seen by some as a swipe at the US. Iran and Saudi
Arabia have been meeting for years in Iraq and Jordan, and had no pressing
reason to fly to Beijing to talk.
While
many experts see China’s inclusion as an alarming indication of America being
replaced in the region, the Saudis are unlikely to close the door on the US
yet.
That
is because Riyadh may still rely on the US-wide military presence in the
region, which with dozens of bases and thousands of personnel is still far
beyond what the Chinese have in the Gulf. By turning to China for talks, the
Saudis may be trying to remind the Americans of their historic security
alliance with the kingdom while signaling unhappiness with recent developments.
“It’s
a finger in the eyes of the Americans,” an Israeli official told The Times of
Israel.
Reality
check
The
other side of the accusations flying around from both sides of the political
spectrum — that the Saudi-Iran détente is a result of Israeli policy — is a
more complex question.
“It’s
not an Israeli failure,” argued Alex Grinberg, an Iran expert at the Jerusalem
Institute for Security and Strategy think tank. “It has nothing to do with
Israel.”
Ben-Shabbat,
who now heads the Institute for Zionist Strategies, wouldn’t say whether either
of his former bosses was to blame. “Instead of giving out grades, I’d say that
this is a development that heightens the challenges the US and its allies face
in the Middle East.”
However,
other experts saw a direct connection to the policies of the current
government.
“With
all the chaos in Israel right now, they have abandoned any expectation that
Netanyahu might launch an attack on Iran’s nuclear program,” said an Israeli
expert who asked to remain anonymous. “At least with Lapid, they thought he
might have something to prove.”
Even
if the Riyadh-Tehran détente isn’t a reaction to any particular Israeli policy,
it should cause some serious rethinking in Jerusalem.
“It’s
a reality check,” offered a European diplomat. “The Israelis are surprised only
because the Israelis aren’t paying attention.”
The
deal is a reminder that Israel is fairly limited in what it can offer. On its
own, Israel can provide intelligence and advanced weapons, but only Iran can
give the Saudis the regional stability they desire with the US disengaged.
And
while Israel is giving those prizes quietly to MBS, there is no reason for him
to open himself up to domestic backlash by signing an open agreement with
Israel.
The
current climate in Israel isn’t making an expansion of ties especially
attractive to Gulf states. Violence between Israelis and Palestinians is
rising, and Netanyahu’s far-right partners seem to have a fairly long leash.
The
bitter battles over the judicial reform also turn off the Gulf rulers, who
prefer predictability and stability above all.
“When
Saudi Arabia and the UAE look at Israel now, they say nothing very good is
going to come out of this in the near future,” said Joshua Krasna, director of
Center for Emerging Energy Politics in the Middle East.
“If
the Israelis are being eaten up by themselves, then I think that plays into the
Saudi perception that we don’t have to like the Iranians, but we have to make
sure we’re not high up on their list.”
Increasing
Emirati reticence toward Israel should also be a wake-up call. Support for the
Abraham Accords is declining in Abu Dhabi, Netanyahu’s invite there is
suspended, the Negev Summit is on hold and the UAE is reportedly freezing
weapons purchases “until Netanyahu controls his government.”
Krasna
said that recent conversations with Emirati experts revealed a fundamental
misreading of the emirates’ motivation on the part of Israel.
“They
said the Israelis never understood us,” he recounted. “They told me, ‘Israel
thought the reason we went in is because we didn’t care about the Palestinians.
We thought we could help the Palestinians more by engaging than by not
engaging.'”
The
Palestinian issue is even more important to the Saudi leadership. Senior
officials have said repeatedly in recent months that there will be no
normalization with Israel without a deal for a Palestinian state, in addition
to their demands from the US.
Meanwhile,
as the political fight escalates in the Knesset and on Israel’s streets,
Netanyahu can forget about expanding the Abraham Accords.
“At
this moment we are farther from normalization with the Saudis than we were a
few months ago,” Krasna lamented. “I don’t think the Saudis would be interested
in giving the current government in Israel that kind of prize.”
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