THE MIDDLE EAST

[kmaherali]

Note: To show the changing paths of ships that regularly traverse the Red Sea, 3,461 cargo vessels recorded at entrances to the Red Sea in the last three months are shown. Shipping routes before the attacks show ship positions from Nov. 1, 2023 to Nov. 15, and positions from Jan. 1, 2024 to Jan. 15 are shown after the attacks. Source: Spire Global

It is an extraordinary detour: Hundreds of ships are avoiding the Suez Canal and sailing an extra 4,000 miles around Africa, burning fuel, inflating costs and adding 10 days of travel or more in each direction.

They are avoiding one of the world’s most important shipping routes, the Red Sea, where for months the Iranian-backed Houthi militia has attacked ships with drones and missiles from positions in Yemen.

The Houthis have said they are seeking to disrupt shipping links with Israel to force Israel to end its military campaign in Gaza. But ships connected to more than a dozen countries have been targeted, and a Houthi spokesman said this week that they consider “all American and British ships” to be enemy targets.

The turmoil has been sweeping. About 150 ships passed through the Suez Canal, which lies at the northwest end of the Red Sea, during the first two weeks of this January. That was down from over 400 at the same time last year, according to Marine Traffic, a maritime data platform. Those detours, and the Houthi attacks, have persisted despite airstrikes by the United States and its allies against the Houthis.


Houthi attack involving commercial vessels

Other Houthi attacks in the Red Sea

Three commercial

vessels were struck

in one day on Dec. 3.

U.S. and allies started launching airstrikes against the Houthis.

Armed Houthi

fighters boarded a

commerical vessel.

Four continuous

days of attacks.

Nov. 15, 2023

Dec. 1

Dec. 15

Jan. 1, 2024

Jan. 12

Jan. 15


Note: Attacks involving commercial vessels are attacks where at least one commercial ship is struck or targeted usually with drones or missiles. Data as of Jan. 20. Source: United States Central Command

Shipping companies have tripled the prices they charge to take a container from Asia to Europe, partly to cover the extra cost of sailing around Africa. Shipowners that still use the Red Sea, mainly tanker owners, face rising insurance premiums.

Container rates have not yet risen as much as they did during the coronavirus pandemic. But retailers like Ikea have warned that avoiding the Suez Canal could delay the arrival of merchandise at stores. Some car factories in Europe have had to briefly suspend operations while they wait for parts from Asia.


Cost of shipping a container from China to Northern Europe

From China to U.S. East Coast

$20,000

Prices spiked

around the

pandemic.

Houthi attacks

in the Red Sea

began.

Houthi attacks

in the Red Sea

began.

10,000

2019

2020

2021

2022

2023

2024


Source: Freightos Data

This could worsen inflation. JPMorgan Chase estimated on Thursday that worldwide consumer prices for goods would climb an extra 0.7 percent in the first half of this year if shipping disruptions continue.

Here’s what the diversion from the Red Sea looked like for a single ship, the Maersk Hong Kong. The Singapore-flagged container ship set out from Singapore to Slovenia on Nov. 15. It reached Port Said in Egypt merely 12 days later, having passed through the Red Sea and Suez Canal.

On the way back to Singapore, it arrived at Port Said again on Dec. 17. But with the Houthis then ramping up attacks, it then made a U-turn and traveled around Africa instead, only arriving back to Singapore this Friday, after a full month of sailing.

JANUARY 2024REPLAY
Red SeaCape of Good HopePacific OceanAtlantic OceanTriesteRotterdamShanghaiSingaporePort Said
MAERSK HONG KONG
Note: Data is from November 1, 2023 through January 19, 2024. Source: Spire Global

The Red Sea and Suez Canal have become increasingly important in the past two years not just for ships that take goods between Asia and Europe, but also for oil and liquified natural gas cargos.

European countries tried to stop buying fuel from Russia after its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. So Russia sharply increased the oil it ships through the Suez Canal, much of it to India, while Europe stepped up natural gas purchases from the Middle East, also through the Suez Canal. About 12 percent of the oil carried worldwide by tankers passes through the Red Sea, and almost as much of the world’s liquefied natural gas, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.


Rotterdam

EUROPE

Venice

Tokyo

Barcelona

Weihai

Istanbul

Shanghai

ASIA

SYRIA

LEBANON

IRAN

ISRAEL

IRAQ

GAZA

Strait of

Hormuz

Hong Kong

Suez Canal

Kuwait

City

AFRICA

Red Sea

Mumbai

Bangkok

YEMEN

Malaca

Strait

Gulf of

Aden

Area of Houthi

attacks

Singapore

Global density of ships

2015-2021

Arabian

Sea

Indian

Ocean

Cape of

Good Hope


Source: World Bank Note: Ship traffic density maps are based on vessel positions reported between January 2015 and February 2021 processed by the International Monetary Fund’s World Seaborne Trade monitoring system.

The Houthis have said that they are seeking to disrupt shipping links with Israel as an attempt to force Israel to end its campaign in Gaza. But ships connected to more than a dozen countries have been targeted, many of them not traveling to or from Israeli ports.

While no deaths or injuries have been confirmed from these attacks, some vessels have been damaged. A car carrier, the Galaxy Leader, was hijacked in November and taken to Yemen. Its 25-member crew of mostly Filipinos has been detained there.

The U.S. Navy has shot down many drones and missiles before they could reach their targets, preventing serious damage of commercial vessels. But it is costly for America and its allies to intercept cheap drones and inexpensive missiles with advanced fighter jets and other military hardware.

The stance of China, a maritime powerhouse, remains a major question in the Red Sea. Beijing has avoided criticizing the Houthis and has not participated in military actions against them. The Houthi attacks have delayed China’s annual surge in exports before its factories are idled next month for the Lunar New Year.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... 778d3e6de3

[kmaherali]

A Houthi supporter with a banner depicting U.S. and Israeli flags during a protest on Thursday in Sana, Yemen.Credit...Yahya Arhab/EPA, via Shutterstock

The United States and Britain on Thursday imposed sanctions on four leaders of Yemen’s Houthi militia, which has repeatedly attacked commercial ships in the Red Sea in recent weeks to pressure Israel to end its military campaign in Gaza.

The U.S. Treasury said in a statement that it believes that three of the Houthi leaders — Mohamed al-Atifi, Muhammad Fadl Abd al-Nabi and Muhammad Ali al-Qadiri — have been involved in executing the attacks in the Red Sea and in retaliating against the United States and its allies. A fourth Houthi leader — Muhammad Ahmad al-Talibi — oversees the group’s efforts to smuggle weapons, including drones and missiles provided by Iran, the Treasury said in the statement.

The United States and Britain, which carried out military strikes against several sites across Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen this week, said they would freeze assets belonging to the four leaders in their countries. The British government added in a statement that the Houthi officials would be subject to arms embargoes and travel bans.

Brian E. Nelson, the U.S. Treasury’s under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a statement that the coordinated sanctions with Britain “demonstrates our collective action to leverage all authorities to stop these attacks.”

The United States and its allies first retaliated against the Houthi attacks on Jan. 11, when it carried out military strikes against dozens of targets across Yemen. In the two weeks since, the United States and Britain have carried out nine strikes in Yemen, though American officials have repeated that they do not wish to escalate the conflict in the Middle East.

Last week, the Biden administration designated the Houthis, the de facto government in northern Yemen, as a terrorist organization but stopped short of more severe restrictions that could imperil humanitarian aid from reaching people in Yemen, who have endured famine and disease after nearly a decade of civil war.

— Gaya Gupta
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/01/25 ... hi-leaders

[kmaherali]

The Proxy Forces Iran Has Assembled Across the Middle East
A “Shiite Crescent” stretches from Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon and back down to the Gaza Strip.


Supporters of Hezbollah protesting at the Lebanese-Israeli border in 2002 against an Israeli offensive in the West Bank.Credit...James Hill for The New York Times

For decades, the Shiite Muslim ayatollahs who came to power in Iran through the 1979 Islamic Revolution have worked to build an arc of like-minded proxy forces across the Middle East.

Training and arming extremist, nonstate militia groups throughout the region have been pillars of Iran’s foreign and security policy. What the Islamic Republic calls the “Axis of Resistance,” others often describe as a “Shiite Crescent” that stretches from Yemen on the southern Arabian Peninsula through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, and back down to the Gaza Strip.

Hamas, which controls the strip and is a rare Sunni Muslim organization among mostly Shiite militants, catapulted Iran and its allies back onto the global radar on Oct. 7 with a brutal cross-border attack on Israel. In response, Israel launched a blockade and a sustained bombing campaign that has devastated Gaza, as well as preparations for a possible ground invasion, sparking rumblings about a regional conflagration.

The degree to which Iran holds direct influence over this loose regional network is murky. Here is a summary of the main proxy forces and their locations in the region.

Image
Men wearing blue uniforms and green berets line up in rigid formation.

Hezbollah soldiers took part in a parade in the town of Nabatieh in south Lebanon in 2002.Credit...James Hill for The New York Times

LEBANON

Hezbollah, Arabic for the “Party of God,” emerged in the 1980s from the chaos of Lebanon’s long civil war to become one of the most powerful forces in the region.

When Israel pulled back from most of neighboring Lebanon three years after its 1982 invasion, its army remained along a thin border strip. But the toll from constant clashes with Hezbollah forced a withdrawal in 2000. Hezbollah fought a 33-day war with Israel again in 2006, and there have been almost daily exchanges of fire since Oct. 7.

Iran is believed to have supplied Hezbollah with powerful missiles that could strike most Israeli cities, and Israel would be hard pressed to fight in both Gaza and in the north if Hezbollah launched a significant campaign. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has vowed devastating consequences for any such effort.

Aside from being a Shiite militia, however, Hezbollah is also a political party seeking popular appeal among other Lebanese sects. So despite Hezbollah’s virulent anti-Israel rhetoric, a new war would wreak havoc on a country already reeling from an unprecedented economic and infrastructure crisis and risk angering the bulk of Lebanon’s estimated 5.5 million population.

SYRIA

The ruling Assad family, members of the minority Alawite sect, a splinter off Shiism, has long bolstered its grip at home by allying itself with Iran. That alliance proved especially useful after 2011, when President Bashar al-Assad faced an antigovernment uprising and eventually a civil war with extremist Sunni Muslim forces.

Iran supplied militia troops — Israel accused it of deploying as many as 80,000 men — to buttress Syrian ground forces, while Russia provided air power. Hezbollah also dispatched fighters from Lebanon.

The 1974 cease-fire line between Israel and Syria in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights remained quiet for decades, although there have been occasional exchanges of fire since the uprising began. In recent days, Israel has launched airstrikes to respond to artillery fire from Syria, which opposition analysts said was most likely fired by Hezbollah.

Image
President Bashar al-Assad waves on a poster hanging on the facade of a blackened multistory building in Homs, Syria.

A poster for President Bashar al-Assad of Syria hanging on a destroyed shopping mall in the war-ravaged city of Homs in 2014.Credit...Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

The Assad regime has long supported radical Palestinian factions, but Hamas broke with Damascus in 2012 over the widespread arrest, torture and killing of countless Sunni Muslim insurgents. Mr. Assad is unlikely to want to open another front to help Hamas, especially since he continues to struggle to gain control over his country.

The Biden administration, meanwhile, has blamed Iran’s proxy forces in Syria and Iraq for attacks against U.S. military targets. And early on Friday, the United States, which has deployed two aircraft carrier groups to the eastern Mediterranean, announced that it had carried out two airstrikes against military facilities used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in Syria.

The air raids were meant to signal to Tehran it must rein in attacks against U.S. military facilities, U.S. officials said.

IRAQ

One unintended consequence of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 was that Iran was able to extend its influence deep inside its onetime enemy, setting up loyal militias, gaining wide political influence and reaping economic benefits.

Iraq and Iran are the two largest Middle Eastern countries with a Shiite Muslim majority, and they also emerged from the war empowered across the region in a way that unnerved their ancient sectarian rivals, the Sunni Muslims, who dominate most Arab countries.

The effort to first drive out the American forces and then the Islamic State terrorist group allowed Iran and its allies to hone the use of militias and violence to attain their goals.

After rocket and drone attacks from Iran-backed militants last week, 19 U.S. troops based in Iraq and Syria suffered traumatic brain injuries, the Pentagon said on Thursday.

Image
A man standing behind a giant gun in a street in Yemen waves one fist in the air, as other men around him mimic the gesture.

Houthi fighters in Sana, Yemen, after the Arab Spring uprising in 2015.Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

YEMEN

In the Persian Gulf, the monarchies ruling Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have accused Iran of trying to foster instability by encouraging uprisings among the Shiite majority in the tiny island nation of Bahrain and the Shiite minority concentrated along Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich eastern coast. In both countries, dissent was put down with brutal force.

Iran succeeded, however, in Yemen, where the militant Houthi Shiite movement armed by Tehran has come to dominate the country in an extended proxy war, pitting Iran against Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The movement emerged in strength after 2014 as a political and armed organization whose leadership comes from the Houthi tribe, former rulers of northern Yemen whose faith is a Shiite offshoot known as Zaidi Shiism. The movement modeled itself on Hezbollah.

The Brookings Institution estimated that the war — which has created one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in the world — costs Tehran a few million dollars per month, while it costs Riyadh $6 billion per month.

THE GAZA STRIP

Iran has long been engaged in a shadow war with Israel, its designated enemy. But the degree to which Tehran helped Hamas carry out the recent attack on Israel remains unclear. Intelligence analysts in Washington and Tel Aviv believe that Tehran at least provided the means.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and other senior Iranian officials have all applauded Hamas, and Iran has threatened to widen its habitual cat-and-mouse attacks into an actual war unless Israel halts its retaliatory attacks on Gaza.

Image
The sun is seen just above a tree line as scorched vehicles and tents remain in a field after a Hamas attack.

The remains of the music festival in Israel where Hamas opened fire on civilians on Oct. 7.Credit...Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

One goal of the bloody Hamas incursion, which killed at least 1,400 Israelis, with at least 229 more taken hostage, could well have been to disrupt a brewing peace agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which would have left Iran isolated in the region.

The death toll in Gaza, which Palestinian health officials put at more than 6,700, has sparked street protests across the Arab world, and if they escalate, they could threaten the stability of autocratic rulers in Egypt, Jordan and other states, which would serve Iran’s interests.

On Friday, Egypt’s state news media said that at least six people had been injured by two drones that flew from the southern part of the Red Sea to the north, hitting Taba and Nuwaiba, Sinai resort towns not far from Israel and Gaza.

Egypt did not specify from where they had been launched, but the United States said last week that a navy warship in the northern Red Sea had intercepted projectiles possibly launched toward Israel by Yemen’s armed Houthi militia.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/27/worl ... 778d3e6de3

[kmaherali]

Sunken Ship Carried Fertilizer That Threatens Red Sea, U.S. Says

The U.S. Central Command said the 21,000 metric tons of ammonium phosphate sulfate fertilizer presented “an environmental risk,” while the vessel posed an “impact risk.”


The fertilizer carried by the sunken Rubymar now poses an environmental risk to the area.Credit...Maxar Technologies, via Reuters

A British-owned cargo ship sank in the Red Sea about two weeks after being damaged in a missile attack by the Iran-backed Houthi militia, and the fertilizer it was carrying now posed an environmental risk, the United States military said late Saturday.

The assault last month on the vessel, the Rubymar, involved two antiship ballistic missiles launched from Yemen. The sinking appeared to be the first since the Houthis began targeting ships in an effort to put pressure on Israel to end its military siege in Gaza.

The U.S. military’s Central Command confirmed the Rubymar’s sinking in a statement on social media. It said the ship sank early Saturday while carrying a load of 21,000 metric tons of ammonium phosphate sulfate fertilizer that now presented “an environmental risk in the Red Sea.”

The ship also poses a “subsurface impact risk” to other ships moving through the area, a busy international shipping lane, the Central Command said.

The Rubymar was an “environmental disaster” even before sinking because the attack created an 18-mile oil slick, Central Command warned last month. It said that the disaster could worsen if the fertilizer were to spill into the sea.

No other details about the sinking, or the risks it posed to the environment or to commercial shipping, were immediately available on Sunday morning. The Rubymar sailed with a Belize flag. The ship’s operator, Blue Fleet Group, based in Greece, did not respond to an inquiry.

After the attack last month, the Rubymar’s 24 crew members were taken to Djibouti by a vessel operated by a French shipping company. Djibouti port officials said at the time that the crew members were from Syria, Egypt, India and the Philippines.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/03/worl ... 778d3e6de3

[Admin]

Some of the interesting links on this topic /

February 26, 2024: Israel Not Complying with World Court Order in Genocide Case

https://www.hrw.org/middle-east/north-a ... /palestine

https://www.unicef.org/emergencies/chil ... ng-support

https://www.msf.org/gaza-israel-war

[kmaherali]

As Israel’s Ties to Arab Countries Fray, a Strained Lifeline Remains

The United Arab Emirates has maintained its links to Israel throughout the war in Gaza, but the relationship, built on a U.S.-brokered deal, is under pressure as anger against Israel grows.


Members of the Jordanian Armed Forces dropping aid parcels along the Gaza coast, in cooperation with Egypt, Qatar, France and the United Arab Emirates, on Feb. 27.Credit...Jehad Shelbak/Reuters

Only a few years ago, plenty of citizens of the United Arab Emirates were willing to speak warmly about their country’s budding ties with Israel.

Israel had just established relations with the Emirates through a U.S.-brokered deal. Business groups sprung up to funnel cross-country investment. Two women, Emirati and Israeli, posed for a photograph holding hands atop a skyscraper in Dubai. American, Emirati and Israeli officials predicted that their deal, called the Abraham Accords, would spread peace across the Middle East.

But now, as Israel’s monthslong bombardment of Gaza fuels anger around the region, Emirati fans of the deal are increasingly hard to find.

An Emirati businessman who had once touted the economic ties said that he had left an Emirati-Israeli business council, and that he had nothing else to say. Some Emiratis, although frustrated with the accords, said they were afraid to speak publicly, citing their authoritarian government’s history of arresting critics. One figure who did speak out, Dubai’s deputy police chief, declared online that Arabs had “truly wanted peace” and that Israel had “proved that its intentions are evil.”

Neither the Emirates nor Israel is likely to walk away from the deal, analysts say: It remains a diplomatic lifeline for Israel while its ties to other Arab countries fray, and it has brought the Emirates billions in trade and positive public relations in Western nations. But the current trajectory of the war does not bode well for the accords or the security of the Middle East, said Mohammed Baharoon, the head of B’huth, a Dubai research center.

“This is a partnership,” he said, “and if one partner is not paying their dues, then it’s not a partnership anymore.”

Anger toward Israel and its main ally, the United States, has risen sharply in the Arab world over Israel’s bombardment and invasion of Gaza, which has killed more than 30,000 Palestinians, Gazan health officials say, and left two million others facing mass displacement, the risk of starvation and a collapsing medical system.

Image
A child walking between rubble and a white tent that bears the logo of the Emirates Red Crescent Society and says “UAE aid.”

An Emirati Red Crescent tent in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip. Officials in the United Arab Emirates have responded to the war between Israel and Hamas by focusing on aid to Gaza and calling for a cease-fire and the creation of a Palestinian state.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

For the handful of Arab leaders who maintain ties with Israel, the war has pushed them to reconsider that relationship. Jordan recalled its ambassador in November. Egyptian officials have warned that any action that sends Gazans spilling into Egypt could potentially jeopardize a decades-old treaty. And Israel’s ambassadors to Bahrain, Morocco and Egypt have largely remained in Israel since the war began on Oct. 7, after the Hamas-led attack that Israeli officials say killed about 1,200 people.

The diplomatic chill has left Israel’s Embassy and Consulate in the Emirates as its only fully functioning diplomatic mission in the Arab world. Several government-owned airlines also suspended flights, leaving the Emirates as the only country in the Middle East where people can fly directly to Israel.

Sign up for the Israel-Hamas War Briefing. The latest news about the conflict. Get it sent to your inbox.
Despite the pressure, Emirati officials say they have no intention of cutting ties.

In a written statement to The New York Times, the Emirati government highlighted how Emirati officials had used their relationship with Israel to facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid for Gazans, as well as the medical treatment of injured Gazans taken to the Emirates.

“The U.A.E. believes that diplomatic and political communications are important in difficult times such as those we are witnessing,” the government said.

In late February, Israel’s economy minister, Nir Barkat, became the first Israeli minister to visit the Emirates since Oct. 7, attending a gathering of the World Trade Organization. In an interview, he said he was “very optimistic” after meeting with Emirati officials.

“There’s a bit of sensitivity while the war is still happening,” he said, but the two countries “have aligned interests, and the Abraham Accords are extremely strategic for all of us.”

Still, even if the existence of the accords is not at stake, what the relationship will look like is far from certain, many Israelis and Emiratis said.

Image
Nir Barkat, wearing a dark suit and a red tie, sits in a white chair and gestures. Behind him is a teal wall with logos that say “13th WTO Ministerial Conference, Abu Dhabi, UAE, 2024.”

Nir Barkat, the Israeli minister of economy and industry, at the 13th World Trade Organization ministerial conference on Feb. 26 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. His attendance at the conference made him the first Israeli minister to visit the U.A.E. since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.Credit...Abdel Hadi Ramahi/Reuters

“The romantic phase of the Abraham Accords kind of faded away,” said Noa Gastfreund, an Israeli co-founder of the Tech Zone, a group that connects Emirati and Israeli tech entrepreneurs and investors. Now, she said, “we got into the realistic phase of understanding that it won’t be easy.”

Israel-Hamas War: Live Updates
Updated
March 9, 2024, 7:38 p.m. ETMarch 9, 2024
March 9, 2024
A Gaza aid ship in Cyprus awaits approval to head out with 200 tons of rice, flour and proteins.https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/03/09 ... d-proteins
The U.S. carries out a fifth airdrop in Gaza, delivering nearly 41,500 meals.https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/03/09 ... s-of-water
There are enormous logistical hurdles to delivering aid to Gaza by sea.https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/03/09 ... aza-by-sea

The accords, announced in 2020, were particularly coveted by Israel as a major step toward greater integration into the Middle East, where Arab countries had long isolated Israel over its treatment of Palestinians and control over Gaza and the West Bank.

While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and President Donald J. Trump hailed the deal as a milestone, the Emirati president, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, tempered his celebration. He emphasized that Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Trump had reached an agreement “to stop further Israeli annexation of Palestinian territories.”

Over the next few years, hundreds of thousands of Israeli tourists poured into the Emirates, and in 2022, the country reported $2.5 billion in trade with Israel. A handful of Israeli restaurants opened in Dubai; one called itself Cafe Bibi, after Mr. Netanyahu’s nickname.

But cracks soon emerged among disappointed Emiratis, watching as Jewish settlements expanded in the West Bank and Israel formed the most right-wing government in its history.

Multiple plans by Mr. Netanyahu to visit the Emirates never materialized. The accords did not expand to include countries like Oman or Qatar. And while Saudi officials have pursued talks with American officials to potentially recognize Israel, they are uninterested in joining the accords — and are demanding heavy concessions.

At a conference in September, Anwar Gargash, a senior Emirati official, said that the Israeli relationship was “going through a difficult time.”

Image
A view of Dubai’s skyline, seen from the water.

A handful of Israeli restaurants opened in Dubai after the Abraham Accords, which established formal relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, were signed in 2020. Credit...Andrea DiCenzo for The New York Times

Tensions have only worsened since the war began. Dhahi Khalfan, Dubai’s deputy police chief, has posted scathing denunciations of Israel on social media, saying that Israeli leaders “don’t deserve respect.”

“I hope for all Arab leaders to reconsider the issue of dealing with Israel,” he wrote in January — an unusually frank plea in the Emirates, where most citizens say little about politics, out of both deference and fear.

Several Emiratis declined to be interviewed about the war in Gaza or Emirati ties with Israel. One Emirati in his 20s agreed to speak on the condition that he be identified only by a middle name, Salem.

He described a growing sense of cognitive dissonance as he enjoyed a comfortable life, amid gleaming skyscrapers and specialty coffee shops, while images of death and destruction streamed out of Gaza. The relationship with Israel was demoralizing, he said, particularly because he and many Emiratis had been raised to view Palestinians as brothers whom they must protect.

He now believes the Abraham Accords were an attempt to curry favor with the Emirates’ Western allies, he said. It made him feel like his country’s values were up for sale, he said.

Emirati views toward the accords had already grown darker before the war, according to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a generally pro-Israel research organization. By November 2022, 71 percent of those surveyed in the Emirates said that the accords were having a “negative” effect on their region.

So far, Emirati officials have responded to the war by focusing on aid to Gaza, directing increasingly harsh rhetoric toward Israel, and calling for a cease-fire and the creation of a Palestinian state.

The strongest remarks from an Emirati official to date came from Lana Nusseibeh, the country’s U.N. representative, in recent testimony to the International Court of Justice. She denounced “Israel’s indiscriminate attacks on the Gaza Strip,” argued that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank was illegal and demanded consequences.

Image
People exiting a jet plane onto the runway.

Palestinians who were evacuated from the Gaza Strip arriving in Abu Dhabi in November.Credit...Karim Sahib/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

She also said, at a conference in Dubai last month, that the Emirati government was not willing to fund the reconstruction of Gaza without an “irreversible” pathway to a Palestinian state.

In an interview, Mohammed Dahlan, an influential Palestinian exile and a close adviser to the Emirati president, suggested that Arab rulers had soured on Mr. Netanyahu.

Before the war, Mr. Netanyahu and Biden administration officials had set their eyes on a larger prize than relations with the Emirates: an Israeli deal with Saudi Arabia.

That prospect now looks increasingly out of reach, scholars say.

“Israel has become a moral burden for anyone engaging with it,” a Saudi academic, Hesham Alghannam, wrote in a Saudi magazine last month. “Arabs are nearing the conclusion that while peace with Israel may still be conceivable, it is no longer desirable.”

During Mr. Barkat’s visit, an image circulated on social media of the Israeli minister and Saudi Arabia’s commerce minister exchanging business cards at an event. The Saudi government swiftly denied the meeting had been intentional.

“An unknown individual approached the minister to offer greetings and later identified himself as the minister of economy in the Israeli occupation government,” the government said in a statement.

Asked about the Saudi reaction, Mr. Barkat said, “we love to create collaboration with all peace-seeking countries in the region.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/10/worl ... 778d3e6de3

[kmaherali]

With Iran’s Strikes, Arab Countries Fear an Expanding Conflict

The Iranian attack on Israeli territory made the Middle East’s new reality undeniable: Clashes are getting harder and harder to contain.


The interior of a house near Arad, Israel, that was struck in the Iranian missile attack.Credit...Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

Arab countries, from the United Arab Emirates and Oman to Jordan and Egypt, have tried for months to tamp down the conflict between Israel and Hamas, especially after it widened to include armed groups backed by Iran and embedded deep within the Arab world. Some of them, like the Houthis, threaten Arab governments as well.

But the Iranian drone and missile attack on Israel over the weekend, which put the entire region on alert, made the new reality unavoidable: Unlike past Israeli-Palestinian conflicts, and even those involving Israel and Lebanon or Syria, this one keeps expanding.

“Part of why these wars were contained was that they were not a direct confrontation between Israel and Iran,” said Randa Slim, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Middle East Institute. “But now we are entering this era where a direct confrontation between Israel and Iran — that could drag the region into the conflict and that could drag the U.S. in — now that prospect of a regional war is going to be on the table all the time.”

For the moment, the only countervailing force is the desire of both the United States and its longtime foe Iran to avoid a widening of the conflict, said Joost Hiltermann, the International Crisis Group's program director for the Middle East and North Africa.

“I am heartened by the fact that the only ones who want a war are Israel and Hamas,” he said. “The Iranians are still talking to the Americans,” he said, referring to messages sent in recent days between the two by intermediaries including Switzerland and Oman.

The Iranian message, said Mr. Hiltermann, made clear they were looking to demonstrate their power, not expand the war. “They said, ‘There is going to be an attack, but we are going to keep it limited.’”

Image
Streams of smoke from an Israeli antimissile system being fired into the sky over Ashkelon, Israel.

An Israeli antimissile system responded to Iranian missile and drone attacks early Sunday.Credit...Amir Cohen/Reuters

Still, for citizens of Arab countries, many of whom watched scores of drones and missiles streaking across their skies on Saturday, professions of desire to avoid a wider war are a slender thread on which to hang their future. Dismay over the attack was evident in many public comments, and in private ones, too, though others celebrated it.

Officials and analysts in the region were divided over whether Iran’s attack would spur countries with longstanding ties to the United States to push for still more engagement — and security guarantees — from Washington or to distance themselves in an effort to keep themselves safe from being attacked by Iran themselves.

Most urged de-escalation in the strongest terms. The only exceptions in the Arab world were northern Yemen, whose de facto Houthi government is close to Iran, and Lebanon, home to Hezbollah, the armed group backed by the Iranians.

Oman said that it was crucial to reach an immediate cease-fire in the war between Israel and Hamas that has been raging for the past half year in the Gaza Strip. Kuwait “stressed the necessity of addressing root causes” of the region’s conflicts.

And Saudi Arabia, which has tried to cultivate relatively warm ties with Iran since the two countries re-established diplomatic relations last year, said it was “extremely concerned” about the dangerous implications of the military escalation in the region. A statement from its Foreign Ministry asked everyone involved “to exercise maximum restraint and to protect the region and its people from the dangers of war.”

Image
A crowd watching men carrying coffins.

A funeral procession in January for Houthi fighters killed in U.S.-led strikes in Yemen.Credit...Khaled Abdullah/Reuters

Even before the Hamas-led attack on Israel that set off the war in Gaza on Oct. 7, Arab countries had been adjusting their geopolitical relationships. Their concern was that they might no longer be able to count on a U.S. government increasingly focused on Asia as Iranian-backed armed groups became increasingly active.

Arab leaders’ discomfort only increased with the Israeli assault in Gaza, which the United States defended but their own citizens found abhorrent, said Renad Mansour, a senior research fellow at Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa program.

For Saudi Arabia, this meant forging a diplomatic relationship with Iran, despite their deeply held antagonisms and attacks carried out with Iranian missiles on Saudi infrastructure as recently as 2019. Saudi Arabia’s approach to Iran was facilitated by China, which has recently worked to expand its influence in the region. Many Arab countries have turned to China in pursuit of business and diplomatic ties.

Then the war in Gaza began, dragging the Gulf states, along with Egypt and Jordan, more directly into the dynamics of a conflict they have wanted desperately to avoid.

Image
Displaced Palestinians walking along a beach in Gaza as they seek to return to their homes.

Displaced Palestinians walked along a beach on Sunday as they sought to return to their homes in northern Gaza.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Now, Jordan has found itself shooting down Iranian missiles — and then being accused of defending Israel. The Israeli military assault on Gaza, often accused of being indiscriminate, has killed more than 30,000 Palestinians, more than two-thirds of them women and children. Some 1,200 people were killed in Israel in the Hamas attack.

On Sunday, Jordan’s government came under sharp criticism both at home and from neighboring Arab countries for shooting down at least one of the Iranian missiles aimed at Israel. A former Jordanian information minister, Samih al-Maaytah, defended the decision.

“Jordan’s duty is to protect its lands and citizens,” Mr. al-Maaytah said. “What Jordan did yesterday was to simply protect its airspace.”

//This is what the mood is like in Israel after Iran’s attack.https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/04/15 ... srael-mood
//Israel’s choices in responding to Iran’s attack all come with risks.https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/04/15 ... ran-attack

He also said that “Jordan’s position on this conflict is that it is between two parties over influence and interests: Iran and Israel.”

Image
Several people stand around a hunk of metallic debris.

Debris from a missile intercepted over Amman, Jordan, early Sunday.Credit...Ahmad Shoura/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

While the Gulf countries’ petroleum exports have been largely spared, the Houthi attacks on shipping routes in the Red Sea — tied to the war in Gaza — have raised costs and added to tensions.

It is unclear whether the conflict between Israel and Iran will strain further the relatively new ties between Israel and some Arab states. Since the war in Gaza began, those relations have cooled, but it seems none of the Arab governments that recently forged ties with Israel are ready to abandon them entirely.

Two of the countries that signed the Abraham accords normalizing relations with Israel in 2020 — the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain — have in some cases halted business deals or distanced themselves publicly from that country since the war in Gaza began. And Saudi Arabia, which had been exploring the possibility of diplomatic normalization with Israel, has insisted that any deal would require creating an “irreversible” pathway to a Palestinian state, an unlikely prospect in the current Israeli political climate.

That distancing is likely to continue, analysts say, but so far none have cut off relations with Israel or, in Saudi Arabia’s case, completely ruled them out.

Image
Pieces of metal from a missile on the back of a pickup truck in Israel.

Missile debris recovered outside Arad, Israel, on Sunday.Credit...Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

One reason Saudi Arabia has remained open to a future relationship with Israel is that now more than ever, the Saudis are hoping for a security guarantee from the United States in the event of an attack by Iran, said Yasmine Farouk, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington research group.

“What the Western countries under U.S. leadership have done to protect Israel yesterday is exactly what Saudi Arabia wants for itself,” Ms. Farouk said.

She added that despite Saudi Arabia’s history of enmity with Iran, the hardening of Saudi public opinion against Israel and the United States over the Gaza war is changing the calculations of Saudi leaders. Their focus is now on pushing the United States to compel Israel to end the war.

Perhaps the most striking development in the region is the growing push by some Arab countries to be part of forging diplomatic solutions to avoid having the region descend into a broader war. Arab countries held a conference in Riyadh in November to discuss how to best use their influence to stop the conflict.

Image
People, including one waving an Iranian flag, at a nighttime demonstration in Tehran.

Iranians gathered at Palestine Square in Tehran on Sunday to express support for the strike on Israel.Credit...Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times

Qatar and Oman have become ever more active behind the scenes in seeking to bring about a cease-fire in Israel and renew diplomatic efforts between Iran and the United States to prevent the outbreak of a destabilizing broader conflict.

Qatar’s close relations with Hamas, Iran and the United States have made its ministers and senior officials pivotal in shuttle diplomacy. And Oman has become a conduit for messages between the United States and Iran. In just the past few days, Washington has communicated with Tehran through messages conveyed by the Omanis as well as the Swiss, according to a senior security official in Iraq and a senior U.S. administration official in Washington, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

The new question, said Ms. Slim of the Middle East Institute, is what country can play the role of middleman and negotiator between Israel and Iran.

“The rules have changed, the red lines have changed and they need to be able to communicate,” Ms. Slim said.

Hwaida Saad and Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/15/worl ... 778d3e6de3

[kmaherali]

The anti-Iran coalition

To understand the current confrontation between Iran and Israel, it helps to think about three recent phases of Middle East geopolitics.

Phase 1: Before Oct. 7 of last year, Iran was arguably the most isolated power in the region. The Biden administration was growing closer to Saudi Arabia, Iran’s biggest rival for power. Israel, Iran’s longtime enemy, had signed a diplomatic deal during the Trump administration with Bahrain, Morocco and the U.A.E. Iran, for its part, was financing a network of extremist groups such as Hamas and the Houthis.

Together, these developments pointed to the emergence of a broad alliance — among Arab countries, Israel, the U.S. and Western Europe — to check Iranian influence and aggression.

Phase 2: Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel scrambled the situation. Israel’s massive military response focused global attention on the plight of Palestinians — a subject that tends to isolate Israel. Arab leaders condemned Israel, while the U.S. and other countries pressured Israeli leaders to reduce suffering in Gaza and devise an end to the war.

The anti-Iran coalition seemed to be fraying.

Phase 3: The latest phase began last week, as Iran prepared to fire missiles and drones at Israel in retaliation for Israel’s April 1 assassination of Iranian military commanders who work with groups like Hamas. This retaliation would become Iran’s first direct attack on Israel. And the anti-Iran coalition reassembled to repel it.

U.S. officials worked closely with Israel to intercept the missiles, as my colleague Peter Baker reported. British and French forces participated, too. Arab countries shared intelligence. Jordan went so far as to shoot down some drones itself. When President Biden commented on the attack’s failure, he did so while sitting next to the prime minister of Iraq, which is home to a missile battery the U.S. had used during the operation.

Even though Iran fired more than 300 drones and missiles at Israel, the joint response enabled Israel to avoid a single civilian death. John Kirby, a Biden aide, summarized the result as being “a stronger Israel, a weaker Iran, a more unified alliance.”

A new phase now?

The question now is how Israel will respond to Iran. Israeli officials have said they must do so to exact a price that will deter future Iranian attacks.

From Israel’s perspective, Iran is already the aggressor: Its official policy is to seek the destruction of Israel, and Iran-backed groups — like Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis — regularly attack Israelis. Israel has responded with covert assassinations of Iranian officials who lead this effort, such as the April 1 strike in Syria. After any future assassination, Israel does not want to face a new Iranian missile barrage.

Some analysts believe that Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, also has a political incentive to prolong the conflict with Iran. That fight, Shibley Telhami of the University of Maryland told The Times, serves Netanyahu’s interests as both “a distraction from the horrors of Gaza and as a way of changing the subject to an issue where he is more likely to get sympathy in the U.S. and the West.”

But a major response from Israel — one, say, that killed many Iranians — has the potential to destabilize the broad anti-Iran coalition, much as the war in Gaza has. “The point is to respond smartly, in a way that won’t undermine the opportunity for regional and international cooperation,” Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the U.S., told The Wall Street Journal.

Among the options Israel is considering: a cyberattack, targeted assassinations or a strike on an Iranian military base in another country. The Biden administration hopes that any attack will contribute to Iran’s isolation rather than Israel’s.

The threat to Arab leaders

And why are Arab leaders willing to be part of a coalition with Israel? As surprising as it may sound, many see Iran as a bigger problem than Israel, even if they don’t say so publicly. The network of extremist groups that Iran funds and arms destabilizes the region. The Houthis have attacked Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. in recent years, for instance. Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, which Egypt’s government has long loathed.

When Arab leaders worry about existential threats to their governments, Israel rarely makes the list. Iran and its network of outside groups do. “Many Arab leaders share the view that Hamas is a terrorist organization that should be destroyed,” said my colleague Michael Crowley, who covers diplomacy.

This shared view helps explain why the anti-Iran coalition came together in the first place. But it is a fragile coalition. Arab countries and Israel do not make for easy allies. When Israel is at war — in Gaza or elsewhere in the region — the alliance can come undone.

Related: This is the third recent newsletter on shifting global coalitions, which I think are crucial to understanding the news right now. You can also read about Iran’s “axis of resistance” and the emerging China-led alliance that includes Iran and Russia.

NY Times