July 4, 2024
The Israeli
government has appropriated around 23,700 hectares of land in the occupied West
Bank since the beginning of the year, the largest appropriation of land since
the Oslo Accords in 1993, according to an Israeli settlement watchdog.
“The size of the
area designated for declaration is the largest since the Oslo Accords, and the
year 2024 marks a peak in the extent of declarations of state land,” the Peace
Now organization said in a statement on Wednesday.
On June 25,
Israel declared 12,700 dunams (1,270 hectares) in the Jordan Valley as state
land.
This is in
addition to the declaration on February 29 of 2,640 dunums (264 hectares) of
land between the settlements of Ma’ale Adumim and Keidar, the declaration of
8,000 dunams (800 hectares) on March 20 in an area adjacent to the current
declaration, as well as the declaration of 170 dunams (17 hectares) near the
Herodium, the organization said.
The declaration
was signed on June 25, but only published on Wednesday, Peace Now said.
“This is the
first declaration on state lands made under the authority of Hillel Roth, the
Civilian Deputy appointed by Minister (Belazel) Smotrich to whom most of the
powers of the head of the Civil Administration were transferred,” the watchdog
said.
‘Speeding Up’
Settlements
It was done
under the management of the Settlement Administration “and intended to speed up
and increase settlement activity in the territories.”
In a recording
obtained by Peace Now from a conference, Finance Minister Belazel Smotrich said
“This is something that will change the map dramatically. (… the declarations
we will make this year) are roughly ten times the average in previous years, I
estimate that by the end of the year between 10,000 and 15,000 additional
dunams will be declared (as state lands).”
Smotrich on
Wednesday lauded the development “along with the slated approval of thousands
of settlement housing units over the next two days, saying the moves were
designed to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state,” the Times of
Israel reported.
“Building the
good country and thwarting the establishment of a Palestinian state. Mata is
meeting this morning to approve over 5,000 housing units. Israel Lives!” he
posted on X.
The declaration
of state land is one of the main methods by which the State of Israel seeks to
assert control over land in the occupied territories, Peace Now emphasized.
“Land declared
as state land is no longer considered privately owned by Palestinians in the
eyes of Israel, and they are prevented from using it,” it said.
Additionally,
Israel leases state land “exclusively” to Israelis.
‘Fight Against
Entire World’
Last week, the
Israeli Cabinet approved steps proposed by Smotrich aimed at “legalizing”
settlement outposts in the West Bank and imposing sanctions on the Palestinian
Authority.
The plan
includes measures against the Palestinian Authority, the legalization of five
settlement outposts in the West Bank, and the issuance of tenders for thousands
of new housing units in settlements.
Peace Now said
it was clear that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Smotrich “are
determined to fight against the entire world and against the interests of the
people of Israel for the benefit of a handful of settlers who receive thousands
of dunams as if there were no political conflict to resolve or war to end.”
According to
Palestinian figures, about 725,000 settlers live in 176 Jewish-only settlements
and 186 outposts in the occupied West Bank.
Under
international law, all Jewish settlements in the occupied territories are
considered illegal.
Tom Engelhardt and Juan Cole
Though I was never in the U.S.
military, my life experience has been American wars, wars, wars, and more wars.
I was born during World War II. I was in grade school when the Korean War took
place. I still have a faint memory of a photo of a gleaming American soldier’s
face from that unsettled conflict. (It might have been on the cover of LIFE
magazine.) I was a protesting youth in the disastrous Vietnam War years. And
that was just the beginning. Skipping over events like the invasions of Panama
and Grenada and the first Gulf War of the 1990s, in my years running
TomDispatch, I’ve dealt with a seemingly never-ending series of all-American
wars (which, by the way, never – no, never – turn out “successfully”). From
Afghanistan and Iraq to Africa, America’s post-9/11 war on terror proved to be
a genuine hell on Earth. If you don’t believe me, just check out the figures on
deaths, direct and indirect, from those decades of horror that the invaluable
Costs of War Project has put together.
And what lessons have been drawn
from all of that? Only that this country should pour ever more staggering sums
into a Pentagon budget that’s already larger than those of the next nine
countries combined and still rising, support military bases across the planet,
and… well, you get the idea, right?
And it never really ends, does it?
In fact, as Tomdispatch regular Juan Cole, creator of the must-read Informed
Comment website, points out today, this country could well be on the verge of –
yes! – yet another conflict from hell, this one in – would you even believe it?
– the Red Sea area. After all, almost unnoticed here, American planes have been
unsuccessfully striking at the Houthi rebels in Yemen for months now, while
American naval ships continue to patrol that sea (as the disaster in Gaza only
grows ever worse). As retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and historian Bill
Astore wrote recently at his Bracing Views substack, “How would I feel as a
Navy officer covering the flanks of Israel so that the IDF [the Israeli
military] can concentrate its forces in murderous assaults on Gaza?” How,
indeed? It’s possible that, if things go as they so often have in these years,
all too many American naval officers will indeed find out. Now, let Cole take
you into another world about which most Americans know next to nothing where,
in the months to come, we might indeed find ourselves at war. ~ Tom Engelhardt
Turning the Red Sea
Redder
Will America’s Backing
for Israel’s War in Gaza Torch the Red Sea Region Too?
In mid-June, the Associated Press
announced that the U.S. Navy had been engaged in the most intense naval combat
since the end of World War II, which surely would come as a surprise to most
Americans. This time, the fighting isn’t taking place in the Atlantic or
Pacific Oceans but in the Red Sea and the adversary is Yemen’s – yes, Yemen’s!
– Shiite party-militia, the Helpers of God (Ansar Allah), often known, thanks
to their leading clan, as the Houthis. They are supporting the Palestinians of
Gaza against the Israeli campaign of total war on that small enclave, while, in
recent months, they have faced repeated air strikes from American planes and
have responded by, among other things, attacking an American aircraft carrier
and other ships off their coast. Their weapons of choice are rockets, drones,
small boats rigged with explosives, and – a first! – anti-ship ballistic
missiles with which they have targeted Red Sea shipping. The Houthis see the
U.S. Navy as part of the Israeli war effort.
The Gate of Lamentation
In a sense, it couldn’t be more
remarkable, historically speaking. Modest numbers of Yemenis have managed to
launch a challenge to the prevailing world order, despite being poor, weak, and
brown, attributes that usually make people invisible to the American
establishment. One all-too-modern asset the Houthis have is the emergence of
micro-weaponry in our world — small drones and rockets that, at the moment,
can’t be easily wiped out even by the sophisticated armaments of the U.S. Navy.
Another is geographical. The Houthis
command the Tihamah coastal plain, the eastern littoral of the Red Sea. It
stretches from the Bab el-Mandeb Strait (the entry point to that sea from the
Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean) to the Suez Canal, which connects the
shipping in those waters to the Mediterranean, and so to Europe. The Bab
el-Mandeb, known for being treacherous to navigate even in the most peaceable
of times, is said to mean “the Gate of Lamentation,” and these days, it’s
living up to its name. Keep in mind that 10% of world seaborne trade flows
through the Suez Canal and, perhaps even more importantly, 12% of the world’s
energy supplies.
What we might call the Battle of the
Tihamah has already lasted seven months and, surprisingly enough, given the
opponents, its outcome remains in doubt. The Associated Press quotes Brian
Clark, a senior fellow at the neoconservative Hudson Institute and a former
Navy submariner, as expressing concerns that the Houthis are on the verge of
penetrating American naval defenses with their missiles, raising the
possibility that they could inflict significant damage on a U.S. destroyer or
even an aircraft carrier. Repeated American and British air strikes against
suspected Houthi weapons sites in and around the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, have so
far failed to halt the war on shipping. Even high-tech American Reaper drones
are no longer assured of dominating Middle Eastern airspace since the Houthis
have shot down four of those $30 million weapons so far.
Idling the Suez Canal
Given how little Americans generally
know about Yemen, some historical background is perhaps in order. The Houthi
movement has its roots in Zaydi Shiism, which took hold in northern Yemen in
the 890s. (Yes, the 890s, not the 1890s!). Today’s Zaydis are upset by Israeli
atrocities in Gaza. Last December, large crowds of them came out in the Zaydi
stronghold of Saadeh and other northern Yemeni towns to protest Israel’s
intensive bombing of that 25-mile strip of land. Waving Yemeni and Palestinian
flags, they pledged support against “the armies of tyranny,” shouting, “We
closed Bab el-Mandeb, O Zionist, do not approach!” and “The Yemeni response is
legitimate, and the Red Sea is forbidden!”
The Houthis have indeed struck
commercial container ships in the Red Sea, even seizing one, the Galaxy Leader
(which, believe it or not, they turned into a tourist attraction). They also
sank two cargo ships, killing three crew members. Although they maintain that
they are only hitting Israeli-owned vessels, most of their attacks have, in
fact, targeted the vessels of unrelated third parties like Greece. Their
strikes have, however, caused a major disruption in world trade.
The Houthis have also fired large
numbers of ballistic missiles at the Israeli Red Sea port of Eilat, idling it
since November. Some five percent of Israel’s imports once arrived through
Eilat. Now, such trade has been rerouted to Mediterranean ports at a distinctly
higher cost, while southern Israel’s economy has taken a big hit. Gideon
Golber, the CEO of the Port of Eilat, demanded that the United States
intervene. And Israel is anything but the only country to suffer from such
attacks. Ports such as Massawa, Port Sudan, and Berbera in the Horn of Africa
have also become ghost towns, while the traffic through the Suez Canal is now
so light that Egypt, which collects transit tolls, is suffering significant
economic damage.
In addition, those Houthi strikes,
local as they may seem, have had an impact on global supply chains. Insurance
costs have risen radically, with crushing war-risk premiums. Ocean container
ship rates surged this spring, as companies involved in the trade between Asia
and Europe have been forced to avoid the Suez Canal and instead take a far
longer route around the Cape of Good Hope and up the Atlantic coast of Africa.
Shanghai to Rotterdam rates skyrocketed from $1,452 for a 40-foot container in
July of last year to $5,270 in late May 2024.
Revolutionary Shiite Islam
The present militia commander in
Yemen, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, considers himself part of a Shiite revolutionary
tradition that goes back a long, long way. So, to truly grasp the dangers of
the moment for the U.S. Navy in the Red Sea, it makes sense, believe it or not,
to momentarily journey deep into history.
Last year, al-Houthi observed the
death in battle of the founder of his tradition, Zayd Ibn Ali, in the year 740.
His “movement, renaissance, jihad, and martyrdom,” he said, “made a great
contribution to the continuity of the authentic Islam of Muhammad… He faced
tyranny and had an impact on instituting change.”
A generation of Americans involved
in the Middle East has come to understand that there are two major branches of
Islam, the Shiites and the Sunnis. Neither is monolithic, with each branch
having several denominations. The division between the two goes back to
questions about the succession to the Prophet Muhammad (who died in 632). One
faction of early believers invested leadership in senior disciples of the
Prophet from his Quraysh clan. Over the centuries, these became the Sunnis.
Another faction, which gradually
evolved into the Shiites, favored Muhammad’s son-in-law and first cousin, Ali
ibn Abi Talib. Seeking a dynastic succession, they invested leadership in Ali’s
descendants through the Prophet’s daughter Fatimah. Most Shiites historically
acknowledge 12 Imams or leaders of the dynasty. The Zaydis, however, accepted
only five early Imams.
Unlike the Shiites of Iran and Iraq,
Yemen’s Zaydis never had ayatollahs. Nor did they curse Sunnis, with whom they
often had good relations. The Zaydi branch of Shiism in Yemen was led by court
judges or qadis, typically hailing from a caste of putative descendants of the
Prophet Muhammad, the Sayyids or Sadah, who emerged as mediators in tribal
feuds. Critics of today’s Helpers of God government in North Yemen allege that,
despite its populist rhetoric, it is dominated by a handful of clans who consider
themselves descendants of the Prophet, including the Houthis themselves.
Saudi Hegemony and the Rise of the
Houthis
Forms of Arab nationalism and a
rhetoric of anti-imperialism are anything but new in Yemen. After World War II,
with European empires weakened, a desire for independence swept the Global
South. Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt emerged as the nationalist leader
who finally kicked the British out of his country, inspiring so many others in
the region. Egyptian-backed young officers in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, staged a
coup in 1962 against a hidebound theocratic leader who had long kept the
country in a state of isolation. In the process, they drew it into a civil war
between republican nationalists and royalists. Britain, Saudi Arabia, and
Israel all backed the royalists, but some 100,000 crack Egyptian troops won the
day for the young officers before withdrawing in 1970.
In 1978, Colonel Ali Abdallah Saleh,
a politician in North Yemen, launched an internal coup within the officer corps
there and appointed himself president for life. His corrupt government,
putatively a secular Arab nationalist one, would receive billions of dollars
from the fundamentalist royalists of Saudi Arabia.
The Helpers of God party militia, or
the Houthis, arose among the Zaydi Shiites of northern Yemen in the 1990s as a
backlash against the inroads that neighboring, wealthy Wahhabi Saudi Arabia had
made. That country’s Wahhabism had arisen as a puritan reform of Sunnism in the
eighteenth century. Saleh allowed its missionaries to proselytize the Shiite
Zaydis, provoking the anger of the latter.
Under the influence of the
anti-Saudi Houthi family, Zaydi militiamen based in Saadeh in Yemen’s
hardscrabble north turned radical, coming into frequent conflict with the
Yemeni army. When the Arab Spring youth revolt overthrew Saleh in 2012, the
Houthis’ political wing sought influence in the new government. But in
September 2014, impatient with an interminable reform process aimed at drafting
a new constitution and electing a new parliament, the Houthis marched into the
capital, Sanaa, and took it over. Behind the scenes, they had allied with the
deposed president, Saleh, before his death, and the army faction still loyal to
him, which gave them access to billions of dollars in American-supplied
weaponry. By early 2015, the Houthis had expelled Saleh’s successor, Abdrabbuh
Mansur Hadi, from the capital and made an unsuccessful bid to take over all of
Yemen from Saadeh in the north to Aden in the south.
Meanwhile, their dominance of North
Yemen proved unacceptable to the Saudis and the allied United Arab Emirates
(UAE), whose secular potentate, Mohammed Bin Zayed, had long despised such
Islamic political movements. As a result, those two countries launched an air
war against the Helpers of God in the spring of 2015. The ruinous Seven Years
War that followed would displace millions and endanger even more millions with
food insecurity and disease. It failed, however, to dislodge the Helpers of God
and, by 2022, a truce was finally agreed to. Perhaps thanks to that painful
experience, the Saudis have declined to join the Americans this year in the
Battle of Tihamah. And in some fashion, the Houthis’ experience of the
intensive aerial bombing tactics of Saudi Arabia and the UAE years ago
undoubtedly left them with particular sympathy for the Palestinians under
incessant Israeli air assault in Gaza.
An Alliance of Resistance
Both the Saudis and the Emiratis saw
the Houthis as a mere cat’s paw for Iran. Although the Iranians did indeed
offer them some support, this was a distinct misreading of the relationship
between Sanaa and Tehran. At the very least, Iranian aid was dwarfed by the
billions of dollars in weaponry Washington provided to Riyadh and Abu Dhabi in
those years.
In reality, the Houthis are
homegrown Yemeni nationalists, having even attracted some Sunni tribes into
their coalition. Still, their current leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, has
clearly been influenced by aspects of Iran’s political radicalism and chants “death
to America” and “death to Israel” just the way Iran’s clerical leader Ali
Khamenei does. Like the regime in Iran, the Houthi government has no respect
for domestic human rights or dissent. Although there is no command line from
Tehran to Sanaa, the Houthis do loosely form part of Iran’s “alliance of
resistance” against Israel and the United States. However, it’s not clear that
Iran, closely allied with Russia and China and covertly exporting its
U.S.-sanctioned petroleum to China, ever wanted international shipping costs to
double, thanks to the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, something which hurts all
three of those countries.
Despite the Houthi appeal to
religious identity, it’s also mainly a movement of Arab nationalists, which
helps to explain its deep sympathy for the Sunni Palestinians as fellow Arabs.
In an interview at the beginning of June, Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi
condemned Israel for its genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza and
its targeting of the West Bank and Palestinian East Jerusalem. He similarly
denounced Washington as an imperial partner of Israel and an enabler of its
crimes, as well as a hypocrite in theoretically promoting respect for the rule
of law, while dismissing or even threatening international courts and
supporting crackdowns at American colleges and universities when their students
protested Israeli policies. He also praised the resistance of the vaguely
allied forces of Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iraq’s Shiite militias. In the
process, he vowed that however intense American (and British) air attacks on
Yemen became, he and his movement would never back down from their support of
the Palestinian people.
At the moment, the situation in the
Red Sea remains militarily muted, but it has the potential to become one of the
most dangerous in the world, rivaling those in Ukraine and Taiwan. In the
meantime, it remains a drag on the global economy, while helping to contribute
to stubborn inflation and supply-chain problems.
Significant Houthi damage to a U.S.
naval vessel at any point in the future could plunge Washington into warlike
acts that might risk direct conflict with Iran. President Joe Biden could, of
course, lower the temperature by moving far more strongly to end Israel’s total
war on Gaza, an intolerable affront to norms of international humanitarian law
that only strengthens the vigilantism of the Houthis and their like. While the
ongoing Israeli assault should be ended to prevent further death and looming mass
starvation in Gaza, it should also be ended to forestall yet another ruinous
American war in the Middle East. ~ Juan Cole
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