How will corruption charges affect Netanyahu’s political future?

Even if new centre-right coalition takes reins of power, prime minister’s anti-Palestinian policies will continue

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is running for reelection this year (AFP)

amin Netanyahu is running for reelection this year (AFP)

Richard Silverstein-28 February 2019 

Israeli Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit has announced that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be indicted, pending a hearing, as part of three corruption cases.

“You have hurt the image of public service and public faith in it,” Mandelblit toldNetanyahu in his decision. “You acted in a conflict of interests, you abused your authority while taking into account other considerations that relate to your personal interests and the interests of your family. You corrupted public servants working under you.”

The announcement comes just 40 days before a national election in which the Israeli leader was expected to compete for an unprecedented fifth term. Netanyahu’s Likud party had attempted a last-minute ploy to suppress the indictment through an appeal to the Supreme Court, which was rejected.

Falling in the polls

Though the election campaign began with Likud in a commanding lead, matters have taken a turn for the worse. Former Israeli army chief of staff Benny Gantz formed a new party, Resilience, and then merged it with Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid. They called their new centre-right coalition Blue and White, and it has taken off, according to recent polls.

Even before the indictments, Israeli voters were giving a slight lead to the Gantz-Lapid union; it is likely to grow even larger with Netanyahu facing prosecution.

The police and state prosecutor have been investigating the prime minister for several years on four different sets of charges, known as Cases 1000, 2000, 3000 and 4000. The first involves gifts worth $280,000 from billionaires including Hollywood producer and former Mossad spy Arnon Milchan and Australian businessman James Packer. Each allegedly requested intervention with residency or visa requests and in return showered the Israeli leader and his wife with fine Cuban cigars, pink champagne and stays at luxury hotels.

Will his Likud followers and the other parties in his coalition stand by him, or will they smell blood in the water and force him to resign?

In Case 2000, Netanyahu allegedly asked for positive coverage from Yedioth Ahronoth publisher Arnon Mozes in exchange for policies that would weaken competition from Sheldon Adelson’s free newspaper, Israel Hayom.

Case 4000 involves Israel’s leading telecommunications company, Bezeq, which also owned the country’s leading online news portal, Walla. Netanyahu allegedly promised to facilitate a merger deal in return for favourable coverage.

So what happens now? Will Netanyahu attempt to rally his troops and retain his party leadership? Will his Likud followers and the other parties in his coalition stand by him, or will they smell blood in the water and force him to resign? Could that happen before the election?

Fear and loathing

Though Netanyahu, like US President Donald Trump, instills a combination of fear and loathing in his followers and members of his coalition government, politicians are, above all, survivalists. If they perceive ever-diminishing returns from continuing their allegiance to Netanyahu, they will turn to an unblemished figure, such as Gideon Saar, to lead them.

Whether or not Netanyahu resigns before the election, his coalition looks to be in a perilous predicament. A recent Times of Israel poll found that Israelis may turn to the Blue and White coalition in increasing numbers: 44 seats to Likud’s 25. This would put the former easily in a position to form a new governing coalition.

Polls have shown Netanyahu’s Likud party is at risk of losing Knesset seats (AFP)

If Likud forces Netanyahu’s resignation, it could help the party’s chances. Unless the prime minister, a seasoned street fighter and political survivor, pulls a rabbit from his hat, his career may soon be over.

But would that change anything? Even if a new centre-right coalition takes the reins of power, will there be any changes on the issue of Palestine, or on the continuing tensions along Israel’s borders with Lebanon and Syria?

To answer that question, it’s worth noting that two of the three leading figures in Blue and White are former Israeli army chiefs of staff. They didn’t earn their reputations by seeking compromise with Palestinians.  

In fact, the video Gantz produced to launch his campaign featured drone footagedocumenting the Dresden-like ruins of Gaza caused by Israel’s 2014 offensive, under Gantz’s command. The former chief of staff reportedly used the video footage without the permission of its Gaza-based owner, entirely characteristic of Israel’s overall treatment of Palestinians.

Trump’s ‘deal of the century’

The last former Israeli army chief of staff who seriously advocated for peace with Palestinians, Yitzhak Rabin, was assassinated by a settler extremist. His killing led to Netanyahu’s first election victory, and except for a decade-long interval, he’s ruled ever since. That lesson isn’t lost on someone like Gantz.

Trump has infamously called his efforts to negotiate peace in the Middle East the “deal of the century”. His son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has been on a grand tour of the region, with stops in the Gulf, Israel and Turkey. The trip is a prelude to the much-anticipated rollout of the peace plan, which will likely fail to impress those it seeks to entice.

Trump, Netanyahu and the pro-Israel monster

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Instead of resolving political disputes or recognising national rights, it will reportedly seek to subsume the entire process into a financial negotiation. According to a report in the New York Times, while the White House has not released details of the economic component, “analysts who have followed its development said that they had been told it will involve investing about $25bn in the West Bank and Gaza over 10 years and another $40bn in Egypt, Jordan and perhaps Lebanon, depending on their performance meeting certain goals”. 

In return, Arab parties would, presumably, be expected to relinquish any claims on Israel, including the resettlement of Palestinian refugees in their midst.

A commercial transaction

When he was in Israel, Kushner made this fairy-tale-like statement, revealing his poor grasp of this conflict: “The political plan, which is very detailed, is really about establishing borders and resolving final status issues.

"The goal of resolving these borders is really to eliminate the borders. If you can eliminate borders and have peace and less fear of terror, you could have freer flow of goods, freer flow of people and that would create a lot more opportunities.”

This sounds more like hocus-pocus than international diplomacy. How can you “establish a border” that somehow eliminates borders and miraculously creates a financial windfall for all? There is no recognition here that neither trade nor freedom of movement are the key, or even among the most critical, sticking points in the conflict. Those, of course, are political and national rights.

The failure of the Trump plan - and fail it will - lets Israel off the hook

In other words, Kushner sees the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a commercial transaction. If you funnel enough money into the deal, each side will come away with something and leave, if not happy, at least financially sated. That may be how real estate deals operate, but it’s not how Middle East politics works.

The failure of the Trump plan - and fail it will - lets Israel off the hook. In the absence of any serious political negotiations, Israel maintains the status quo. There will be little pressure to take any initiative, since Israel can point to the US plan and say that it tried and failed.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

This article is available in French on Middle East Eye French edition.

Despite Setbacks, Trump’s Blunt Diplomacy Could Eventually Work

He's had one of the worst weeks as president. But his crude blend of threats and flattery could eventually pay off with North Korea and China.

A banner showing U.S President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un shaking hands next to the words "Welcome to Vietnam" in Hanoi on Feb. 25. (Carl Court/Getty Images) 

 

BY MICHAEL HIRSH

 | MARCH 1, 2019, 3:29 PM
Even for a historically unpopular U.S. president, this was a very bad week.
Between Michael Cohen’s devastating testimony—and the equally dire threats of worse to come—and Donald Trump’s abrupt departure from Hanoi with no deal with North Korea in hand, dump-on-Trump memes have flourished riotously in the Washington media hothouse.

The told-you-so response to Trump’s faltering North Korea diplomacy was especially pronounced. The dispute between Pyongyang and Washington over what went wrong in Hanoi “underscored the risk of leader-to-leader diplomacy: When it fails, there are few places to go, no higher-up to step in and cut a compromise that saves the deal,” David Sanger of the New York Times wrote. The risk now, pundits said, is that the North Koreans will escalate further, even if they don’t immediately resume testing. The door to further provocation was already open, noted Richard Johnson, a nuclear fuel expert at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, because there had been nothing in the earlier Singapore declaration about freezing fissile material production. “As we speak they’re probably producing plutonium and highly enriched uranium,” he said earlier in the week.

As usual, everyone is very likely speaking too soon. The North Koreans may have left Hanoi in a huff, but what followed was Pyongyang’s remarkable—indeed unprecedented—effort to pursue some follow-up diplomacy in the Western media. Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui told reporters that Trump’s explanation for the breakdown had been inaccurate, puzzling North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. U.S. officials later conceded that when the president said North Korea had asked for a “lifting of all sanctions,” he was only referring to those imposed since March 2016, and Pyongyang appeared somewhat appeased. As The Associated Press’s ace Pyongyang watcher Eric Talmadge put it, a day after the summit ended: “In a much softer tone than the officials at the late-night news conference, the North’s state-run media … indicated that the North was looking ahead to more talks.”

According to a senior U.S. official involved in the negotiations: “We need to let the dust settle a little bit, but as I said, the North Korean press reports of their version of the summit that came out … suggests to me that like us there’s still ample opportunity to talk.”

Which makes one think: Perhaps Trump’s unusual blend of flattery and force can succeed in the end—and not just with North Korea, but China as well. After a yearlong trade war, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Thursday that Washington and Beijing are working on a 150-page trade agreement—one that could occasion a summit meeting between Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping as early as March.

Let’s face it: for better or worse, Trump has changed the way American diplomacy functions. Diplomacy is usually a genteel game, and the polite people who practice it are generally not very good at making threats. Indeed, long before President Donald Trump arrived on the scene, even some U.S. diplomats used to complain that when it came to leveraging America’s enormous postwar power, one hand rarely knew what the other was doing. Typically the officials who negotiate America’s trade agreements—the ones who throw open U.S. markets—don’t know what’s going on with the people who negotiate military-to-military deals, and vice versa.

“The U.S. government maintains no central ledger in which bilateral relationships are tracked,” Suzanne Nossel, a Foreign Policy columnist and savvy former aide to Richard Holbrooke—one of the few U.S. diplomats who did make a practice of bluntly combining economic and military threats—wrote in a 2001 essay for the National Interest. “There is no place to turn to find out what the United States has done for a particular country lately, or what a country may want or fear.”

But from the start of his presidency, Trump has made clear in his crude way that he, at least, is keeping a ledger. On it, he is tabulating in his own way his estimate of U.S. economic and military power versus that of various other countries. And judging from the way he has talked to both allies such as the Europeans and adversaries such as the North Koreans, he wants everyone to know that he’s going to leverage America’s military and economic dominance to the hilt. The U.S. president has often done this in the crudest manner imaginable—his worst side was on embarrassing display on Wednesday when his former lawyer Michael Cohen called him a “con man” and a “cheat” in dramatic Capitol Hill testimony. But what if it works?

Bullies, after all, don’t always get their comeuppance, as in the movies. Sometimes they win.
In the case of China, Trump has upset the Beltway pundits by launching a full-scale assault on the delicate calculus that for decades has driven U.S.-China relations and made officials in Washington reluctant to confront Beijing too aggressively. China, after all, is still one of America’s biggest creditors, and many experts believe every effort must be made to keep it part of the international system.

But Trump has mounted a trade war that has damaged the U.S. economy—especially for farmers, a key Trump constituency. Ultra-hawks such as National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have persistently painted China as a hostile strategic adversary in ways that—under the rule of an increasingly dictatorial and hostile Xi Jinping—could easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Trump himself has spent months boasting that he’s going to force Xi into concessions because “China’s not doing well now. And it puts us in a very strong position. We are doing very well,” as he told reporters last month.

It sounded like more typical Trump bravado at the time, but it was, in substance, true: China’s economy, especially its indebted corporate sector, is hurting, with a further slowdown expected—one that the Chinese Communist Party fears could undermine its authority. The U.S. economy, meanwhile, continues to show strong growth that is expected to persist at least into next year. And last Sunday, Trump tweeted that “the U.S. has made substantial progress in our trade talks with China on important structural issues including intellectual property protection, technology transfer, agriculture, services, currency, and many other issues.”

The details remain unknown, and Trump can be expected to hype any new China trade deal as the best ever negotiated—much as he did his “new NAFTA,” the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement that added only a few extras into the old NAFTA—when in truth it likely grants many concessions to Beijing on long-festering issues such as tech transfer protections and state-subsidized unfair trade. Some experts mainly expect a Chinese pledge to buy a lot more U.S. goods, knowing that Trump appears to view the U.S. trade deficit like a corporate loss.

“I can see a package of big buys coming, not over the next year but spread over the next 10 years, that gets you over a trillion dollars” pledged, said William Reinsch, a China trade expert and former senior Commerce Department official. “Which I suspect is always what Trump wanted to see. I don’t think he cares all that much about intellectual property.”

With North Korea, Trump is trying something that no other U.S. president has, a combination of sometimes excessive flattery backed by unprecedented threat. At the summit in Hanoi that began Wednesday, Trump began by renewing his flattery fest with Kim—coyly waving a Vietnamese flag at Kim in yet another attempt to convince him, as Trump sought to do in Singapore last year, that North Korea can be at once rich, secure, and communist. But some people have already forgotten what may well have brought Kim to the table during that high-tension time in 2017 when Trump was deriding Kim as “Little Rocket Man,” and the North Korean leader was calling Trump a “mentally deranged U.S. dotard.” That was Trump’s pledge before a shocked United Nations General Assembly in 2017 to “totally destroy” North Korea if it didn’t stop developing a nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile threat to U.S. shores, and his seemingly casual remark a month earlier, while vacationing at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, that “North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States” or it “will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.”

Some experts fear that Trump, who is eager to orchestrate the big deals he’s been promising the American people for two years, may give up too much to Kim—for example, the promise of a peace treaty—in exchange for too little. All that appears to be on offer from the North Koreans—apart from a broad commitment to denuclearize “the peninsula”—have been vague promises to dismantle all uranium enrichment and plutonium reactors and open all sites to international inspection. Trump somewhat cavalierly remarked earlier this week that he’s “not in a rush” and “as long as there’s no testing, we’re happy,” further annoying some nuclear experts who fear he is being played by Pyongyang. Most are in agreement that without a far more detailed North Korean accounting of its nuclear and missile facilities, future negotiations will fail.

“One of the big frustrations is we don’t know where they make things, how much they make, what kind of weapons they have,” said David Albright, a physicist who runs the nonprofit Institute for Science and International Security. “Is it 10 or 50 [bombs]? We need some of that out of this summit—the lay of the land, what needs to be denuclearized.”

Even so, some North Korea nuclear experts, such as Siegfried Hecker, the former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and one of the nation’s preeminent authorities on Pyongyang’s nuclear program, are not all that displeased with Trump’s gradual approach. They agree somewhat that the gravest danger remains a nuclear-armed missile—which, without further testing, North Korea is unlikely to perfect. “The impact the no testing has had so far on significantly slowing the North’s nuclear program has not been appreciated,” Hecker told Foreign Policy.

The Nuclear Threat Initiative’s Johnson said that as long as Pyongyang is not testing a missile re-entry vehicle—which U.S. officials believe it is not—Trump has a point in saying there’s no rush.

 “I’m somewhat pleased by that comment,” he said, noting that U.S. negotiator Stephen Biegun has apparently muted Bolton and other hawks by laying out a phased approach. “Earlier folks were arguing we have to do it all in a year or no doing it at all. Put in boxes and crates and fly it off to Tennessee. That was never going to happen.”

Matthew Bunn, a nuclear expert at Harvard University, added: “It’s clear that we’re in way better place than we were in 2017.”

The days and weeks ahead will tell how much better. And things could get a lot uglier, especially with Trump throwing trans-Atlantic relations into doubt by treating longtime U.S. allies such as France and Germany much as he’s treated China, dunning them for money.

But at the moment the 45th president’s unconventional approach to international relations cannot be entirely discounted.

 

Michael Hirsh is a senior correspondent at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @michaelphirsh

Pak PM Shows True Qualities Of Statesman While Others Are Barking Up The Wrong Tree

"In our desire for peace, I announce that tomorrow, and as a first step to open negotiations, Pakistan will be releasing the Indian Air Force officer in our custody," PM Khan

 

A joint session of Parliament was held on Thursday to discuss rising tension with India in the wake of the Pulwama attack and subsequent airstrikes by both countries.

Prime Minister Imran Khan, who was the first to speak, thanked the opposition for standing by the government "at a time when Pakistan is facing an external threat".

Talking about the ongoing tensions between Pakistan and India, the prime minister said that despite his government's multiple overtures of peace, the response from New Delhi had not been encouraging.

"We realised that it was because of upcoming elections in India," he said and added that the government decided to wait until the polls in India were over before making another offer for talks. However, he disclosed, he had "feared they (India) would do something".

He told the Parliament that after an Indian aircraft violated Pakistan's airspace in the wee hours of Tuesday, he had a meeting with Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa where it was decided that Pakistan will not respond straightaway.

"We realised that Pakistani people might get upset that we did not respond, but we (army chief and premier) decided that since we did not know if there were any casualties, in case of an immediate response there will be escalation."

"The only purpose of our strike was to demonstrate our capability and will," said PM Khan while addressing the House. "We did not want to inflict any casualty on India as we wanted to act in a responsible manner."

The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) on Wednesday — a day after India violated the Line of Control (LoC) — undertook strikes across the LoC from Pakistani airspace. PAF shot down two Indian aircraft inside Pakistani airspace, with one aircraft falling inside Azad Jammu and Kashmir. One Indian pilot was arrested by troops on ground, the Army's media wing had said.

 

PM Khan said he tried to call Indian PM Narendra Modi on the phone yesterday because "escalation is neither in our interest nor in India's".

"Do not take this confrontation further," the premier said, addressing the Indian leadership. He warned that whatever action New Delhi decides to take in the future, Pakistan will be "forced to retaliate" to it.

He lauded the Pakistani media's coverage of events over the past three days, saying that the reporting was "responsible" and "mature".

"But it was upsetting to see the warmongering done by the Indian media," the premier said. "It's because our media has seen the dead bodies and bloodshed that results from terrorism. If [the Indian] media had seen what our journalists have witnessed over the past 17 years, they would not have created this war hysteria."

Khan said instead of pointing fingers towards Pakistan, the people of India should introspect as to what great extent the people of Indian-occupied Kashmir have been oppressed that they now stand ready to even lose their lives in their struggle for freedom.

The premier, before Leader of the Opposition Shahbaz Sharif started his address, announced that the captured Indian pilot will be released tomorrow [Friday] as a gesture of peace.

"In our desire for peace, I announce that tomorrow, and as a first step to open negotiations, Pakistan will be releasing the Indian Air Force officer in our custody," PM Khan said, adding that Pakistan's efforts for de-escalation should not be construed as a "weakness".

 

The gesture was greeted with near unanimous support in the parliament.

 

A day earlier, the top political leadership of the country was given an in-camera briefing at Parliament House.

Opposition parties expressed satisfaction over the briefing mainly conducted by Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa and Director General of Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor.

An official handout issued by the National Assembly Secretariat had said: “The forum unanimously expressed that they stand united against any aggression against Pakistan and will support the government and its institutions unconditionally.”

 

It said the participants also “expressed hope that those who want peace and stability will prevail as war is not an option but a failure of policy”.

Palestine in Pictures: February 2019

Palestinians take cover after Israeli forces fire tear gas toward protesters during Great March of Return demonstrations east of Gaza City on 1 February.

 Mohammed ZaanounActiveStills

1 March 2019

Israeli occupation forces killed four Palestinian children and one adult during the month of February.

A sixth Palestinian, Ahmad Ghazi Abbas Abu Jabal, 30, died on 3 February from wounds sustained during protests along Gaza’s boundary with Israel the previous month.

The four children killed during the month were all injured by Israeli fire against Palestinians protesting along Gaza’s boundary with Israel during Great March of Return demonstrations.

Hasan Iyad Abd al-Fattah Shalabi, 13, was shot in the chest and killed during protests east of Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on 8 February.

That same day, Hamza Muhammad Rushdi Ishtaiwi, 17, was fatally shot in the neck during protests east of Gaza City.

Hasan Nabil Ahmad Nofal, 16, died after he was struck in the head with an Israeli-fired tear gas canister during protests east of Bureij in central Gaza on 12 February.

Yusif Said Hussein al-Dayeh, 14, was shot in the chest and killed during protests east of Gaza City on 22 February.

A 21-year-old man in the West Bank, Abdallah Faisal Tawalbeh, was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers at al-Jalameh checkpoint near Jenin on 4 February.

Crimes against humanity

Sixteen Palestinians – seven of them children – have been killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank and Gaza so far this year.

Nine of those killed were fatally injured during Great March of Return protests. A UN commission of inquiry stated in late February that Israel’s use of military force against unarmed demonstrators in Gaza – resulting in the killing of 190 Palestinians and the wounding by live fire of nearly 8,000 more – may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Two Palestinians – Yasir Hamid Ishtayeh and Faris Baroud – died in Israeli detention during the month of February.

Tunnel deaths

Three Palestinians died inside Gaza tunnels during the month.

Gaza’s interior ministry stated that Abd al-Hamid al-Akar, a 39-year-old police officer, and Subhi Abu Qarushain, 28, died after Egypt pumped poison gas into a tunnel while the two men were attempting to rescue three workers who had called for help.

Ibrahim Hamdan Qudeih, a 24-year-old member of the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, died of a heart attack while working inside a “resistance tunnel” in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.

Also during the month of February a Palestinian man was arrested and charged with the rape and murder of Ori Ansbacher, a 19-year-old Israeli woman.

Palestinian factions have repudiated Israel’s secret police claims of a nationalist motive for the woman’s killing. A senior official with the Fatah faction, imprisoned by Israel, told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz: “If an Arab girl had been there, he would have done the same thing. There is nothing nationalist in his acts.”

Palestinians protest against Israel’s blockade at the Gaza City sea port on 5 February.Ashraf AmraAPA images

A trash dump between the West Bank villages of Azzoun and Jayyous, 8 February. Without any solid waste management, Palestinian residents have disposed of their trash at open dumpsites. Palestinians in the West Bank also grapple with illegal dumping of Israeli waste, including toxins and chemicals.Anne PaqActiveStills

Palestinians relax in Wadi Qana, near Deir Istiya, West Bank, on 8 February. Wadi Qana has been declared a natural park by the Israeli authorities, preventing Palestinian owners from managing their land. The valley is surrounded by settlements and is a popular place for both Palestinians and Israelis. Anne PaqActiveStills

Construction cranes tower over Barkan settlement industrial zone, near Salfit in the West Bank, 8 February.Anne PaqActiveStills

Ahmad Obeidat, a Palestinian resident of Jerusalem, demolishes part of his home in the Jabal al-Mukaber neighborhood of the city on 9 February. Obeidat was forced to either arrange for the demolition of his home himself, or pay for the demolition by the Jerusalem municipality, which rarely issues building permits to Palestinians as part of its efforts to push them out of the city.Afif AmeraWAFA/APA images

A Palestinian sits at a cafe next to Israel’s wall built inside Bethlehem, West Bank, 11 February.Anne PaqActiveStills

The rubble of the Abu al-Hija family home which was destroyed by Israeli forces the night before in al-Walaja village, 11 February. The demolition displaced seven Palestinians, including two children. Israel routinely demolishes homes in al-Walaja, which is mostly built in Area C, the 60 percent of the West Bank under full Israeli military rule.Anne PaqActiveStills

Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas meets with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz in Riyadh on 12 February.Thaer GanaimAPA images

A Palestinian man argues with Israeli forces as they guard bulldozers demolishing a water network on Palestinian land near Yatta village, south of the West Bank city of Hebron, on 13 February. Israeli authorities regularly demolish basic infrastructure built by Palestinians living in Area C, the 60 percent of the West Bank under full Israeli military control. Wisam HashlamounAPA images

Nizam Muna, 41, works at his upholstery shop in the West Bank city of Nablus on 13 February. Muna has been in the sewing and upholstery profession for 33 years.Shadi Jarar’ahAPA images

Palestinians protest during Great March of Return demonstrations east of Gaza City on 15 February.

Dawoud Abo AlkasAPA images

A paramedic treats a Palestinian protester injured by tear gas fired by Israeli forces during Great March of Return protests east of Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, 15 February.

Ramez HabboubAPA images

Palestinians protest on the beach along Gaza’s northern boundary with Israel, across from Kibbutz Zikim, on 19 February as part of the Great Marc of Return series of demonstrations.

Ashraf AmraAPA images

The family of Yusif al-Dayeh, 14, shot in the chest and killed by Israeli forces during Great March of Return protests the previous day, mourn during the boy’s funeral in Gaza City on 23 February.

Ashraf AmraAPA images

Palestinians call for the resignation of Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas during a protest in Gaza City on 24 February.

 Ashraf AmraAPA images

Hayat al-Kilani, 81, prepares traditional salted cheese at her home in the West Bank city of Jenin, 25 February.

 Shadi Jarar’ahAPA images

Palestinian protesters calling themselves the “night confusion units” near the central Gaza Strip’s boundary with Israel on 12 February. Hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza have joined night protests, during which they set tires on fire and chant slogans through loudspeakers while marching towards the boundary with Israel.

 Ashraf AmraAPA images

Mariam Haj Ali, 86, makes trays and baskets by weaving natural fibers at her home in the village of Jamain near the West Bank city of Nablus,27February.

 Shadi Jarar’ahAPA images

Khalida Jarrar, a leftist Palestinian lawmaker, is greeted in the West Bank city of Ramallah following her release from Israeli prison, where she was held without charge or trial for 20 months.

Ahmad ArouriAPA images

Government pays out £33m in dispute over ‘secretive’ Brexit contracts

Michael Crick-1 Mar 2019Political Correspondent

In normal times, being responsible for one multi-million pound mishap might be enough to end a ministerial career.

But these aren’t normal times and the fact that Chris Grayling managed to amass two hugely costly disasters in one day simply resulted in the customary backing of Downing Street.

Concern over food safety as US seeks greater access to UK markets

US sets out aims for post-Brexit trade deal amid fears about chicken and beef standards
 The Trump administration is seeking to eliminate or reduce barriers for US agricultural products. Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images

Lisa O'Carroll- @lisaocarroll-Fri 1 Mar 2019

The US has outlined its objectives for a post-Brexit trade deal with the UK, demanding greater access to the food markets where products such as chlorinated chicken or hormone-fed beef are banned under EU rules.

The US laid out its aims for a trade deal to cut tariff and non-tariff barriers for US industrial and agricultural goods and reduce regulatory differences.

The Trump administration is seeking to eliminate or reduce barriers for US agricultural products and secure duty-free access for industrial goods.

The outline requirements were published [pdf] by the office of the US trade representative (USTR), headed by Robert Lighthizer, as required by Congress. The office said it was seeking “comprehensive market access for US agricultural goods in the UK”.

It was also looking to remove “unwarranted barriers” related to “sanitary and phytosanitary”
standards in the farm industry, something that would put it at loggerheads with the UK environment secretary, Michael Gove, who has repeatedly said British food standards will remain the same if not be better than they currently are.

The US has long considered EU rules on food a barrier to trade and has said fears that its food is unsafe to eat because of differences in production rules – including use of pesticides, chlorine and hormones – were unjustified.

The National Farmers’ Union (NFU) said it was not surprised that the US would be pushing for a trade deal that accepted its production standards and practices.

The NFU president, Minette Batters, said: “It is imperative that any future trade deals, including a possible deal with the USA, do not allow the imports of food produced to lower standards than those required of British farmers.

“British people value and demand the high standards of animal welfare, environmental protection and food safety that our own farmers adhere to. These world-leading standards must not be sacrificed in the pursuit of reaching rushed trade deals.”

While the outline objectives are merely the opening gambit in trade talks, they indicate the many hurdles to the quick deal promised by Brexiters.

The Eurosceptic Jacob Rees-Mogg told Sky News the publication of the outline objectives was a “positive first step” to a deal with the US which would be “good for UK consumers as it would open markets to greater competition”.

He said: “It is encouraging that the US wants to move quickly and has made the first move before we have left.”

A change in food standards after Brexit would have ramifications for an open border in Ireland as it would fuel fears that banned goods could seep into the food chain through cross-border production of meat and dairy products.

Apart from differences of regulation in relation to the use of chlorine to wash chicken and the use of hormones in the rearing of cattle, US officials have also recently spoken about barriers in pork production.

Gove has held firm on his position that the UK would not compromise on food standards. He has in the past expressed concern about antibiotics used for livestock and bee-harming pesticides,
neonicotinoids, used on grain that goes into breakfast cereals and other consumer foods.

The US is also seeking commitments from the UK to establish “state-of-the-art” rules to ensure cross-border data flows and not to impose customs duties on digital products.

It wants guarantees on currency as well, with rules to “ensure that the UK avoids manipulating exchange rates in order to prevent effective balance of payments adjustment or to gain an unfair competitive advantage”.

A Department for International Trade spokesperson said: “Negotiating an ambitious free-trade agreement with the US that maintains our high standards for businesses, workers and consumers is a priority.

“So we welcome the US government publishing their objectives, which demonstrates their commitment to beginning talks as soon as possible.

“As part of our open and transparent approach to negotiations, we will publish our own negotiating objectives in due course.”

Bostic: Markets may doubt Fed's inflation commitment

FILE PHOTO: President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Raphael W. Bostic speaks at a European Financial Forum event in Dublin, Ireland February 13, 2019. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne

MARCH 1, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Markets may be losing faith about the Fed’s commitment to meeting its 2 percent inflation target, given years of operating below that threshold, Atlanta Federal Reserve bank president Raphael Bostic said on Friday.

“I am worried that the market may not take us seriously that the 2 percent target has symmetry to it,” meaning that the Fed would be as willing to allow inflation to run above target as to stay below it, Bostic said at a conference of the National Association of Business Economics.

“We have been below 2 percent for quite a while. There are some who are thinking it is because the markets don’t believe that if we ever go to two percent that we would let it go over, so that 2 percent effectively becomes a ceiling.”

The Fed is in the early stages of reviewing how it talks about and manages its inflation goal in particular.

 

Price dynamics are considered to be heavily influenced by public psychology and expectations, making it important that investors and households believe that if policymakers promise to hit a target, they will do so. Otherwise investment and spending decisions will be made as if inflation will always lag, a battle of perceptions that has arguably left Japan stuck with low inflation despite massive efforts to lift it.

The Fed set an explicit inflation target of 2 percent in 2012, and since then has routinely missed it — sometimes narrowly, but all the same on such a consistent basis that Bostic and others are worried it is eroding the Fed’s credibility.

Maintaining credibility is one reason the Fed launched a broad “framework” review to see if there are ways to set an inflation goal that might be more effectively and consistently achieved — such as expressing 2 percent inflation as an average to be met over time, not as a single “target.”

The discussion will likely take months or more to complete and any changes even longer, given the political and other sensitive issues involved, including what would likely be an extensive public education campaign.

In a separate discussion, the Fed’s former head of financial stability Nellie Liang said any changes to the inflation framework would have to account for the possible financial sector risks of using lower-than-expected interest rates to move inflation higher.

“It will raise questions about if it is going to lead to higher asset valuations or a less resilient financial system,” said Liang, who recently withdrew as a nominee to be on the Fed’s Board of Governors. “There will need to be a discussion of, are there other tools?” to address those issues.

Reporting by Howard Schneider; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama

India’s Media Is War-Crazy

Journalism is taking a back seat to jingoism.

Indian television journalist Arnab Goswami in 2017. (Sujit Jaiswal/AFP/Getty Images/Foreign Policy illustration)

BY VAISHNAVI CHANDRASHEKHAR

 | MARCH 1, 2019, 1:48 PM

If India and Pakistan ever resolve their conflict, it won’t be thanks to the Indian media.

Ever since a suicide attack in Pulwama, Kashmir, killed more than 40 paramilitary Indian soldiers on Feb. 14, India’s television news networks have been baying for blood, as have ordinary citizens on social media. The attack was carried out by a suicide bomber from the Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist group, which India blames Pakistan for harboring and sponsoring.

“We want revenge, not condemnation. … It is time for blood, the enemy’s blood,” thunderedArnab Goswami, a famously aggressive news anchor, the day after the attack. Even the wife of one of the slain soldiers, Mita Santra, was attacked online when she questioned the failure to prevent the attack and advocated peaceful dialogue with Pakistan. Some called her a coward. Others suggested she didn’t love her husband.

Yet the retired generals and diplomats commenting on the issue have been nowhere near as bellicose—proving that it’s usually those with no experience of war who are most enthusiastic about it. It’s been a long time since India actually fought a full-on war, instead of dealing with insurgencies and terrorist strikes, and the lack of experience seems to have left a generation of Indians with dangerously misplaced ideas about the glories of battle and victory.

Those responses were of a piece with the armchair jingoism that routinely takes over public discourse in India, stoking tension while obscuring larger issues of military intelligence, strategy, and resources. Across the border in Pakistan, similar dynamics are playing out. But it’s India that has the military whip hand—and where jingoism could prove exceptionally dangerous.

For the last two weeks, hashtags like #AvengePulwama and #surgicalstrike2—the latter referring to the last skirmish between the two countries in 2016—have dominated social media feeds in India, crescendoing as the two sides’ air forces skirmished this week. Television news anchors were not far behind with their competitive beating of the war drum—one even donned army fatigues and brandished a toy gun—and their labeling of more temperate voices as “anti-national.” In India, that phrase is often used to question someone’s patriotism or allegiance, especially targeting leftists or peace activists. One commentator on Twitter suggested that those who didn’t support the Indian government’s moves were “traitors.”

Absent from this is any sense of skin in the game, as the widow Mita Santra was quick to point out.
 As in the United States and other countries without conscription, the percentage of Indians who have served in the armed forces is small and among the elite is even smaller, especially as the economy has boomed in recent decades. Today’s pugnacious social media warriors and TV news anchors have seen devastating acts of terrorism in their lifetime, but few of them are of an age to remember the country’s last real wars with Pakistan: the 22-day skirmish in 1965, which cost 11,500 casualties, and the 1971 war that led to the creation of Bangladesh.

Apart from the loss of life, those conflicts had very real effects on everyday life and commerce even in the rest of the country. In 1965 there was rationing in southern India, far from the borders with Pakistan. During both wars there were blackouts and curfews, sirens and drills, as newspaper reports from the time show. “Underneath that boyish bravado, we were all terribly frightened,” writes one Indian who was a schoolboy at the time of the ’71 war.

High emotion after a terrorist attack is understandable, especially on the free-for-all public sphere of social media. And the anger is not unjustified: Pakistan’s sheltering of terrorist groups is an enormous problem for India. But unrestrained rhetoric can have dangerous consequences: Kashmiris in other parts of the country have been facing threats, for one. The rhetoric also put pressure on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s already hawkish government to retaliate in some way, especially with elections around the corner.

Especially alarming has been the way in which Indian news media, especially television, contributed to that pressure, trading journalistic responsibility for tabloid hysterics. High-profile journalists ditched any pretense of objectivity, tweeting their support of India’s retaliatory strike. One TV news anchor, Gaurav Sawant, tweeted that India should “Strike again & again.”

Meanwhile, independent fact-checking groups have struggled to keep pace with the spate of fake videos and images doing the rounds. (This is not the first time Indian television news has behaved irresponsibly—during the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, channels live broadcast commandos in action, endangering the operation.)

The high media drama has been equaled only by the depressing dearth of reliable information. India’s retaliatory attack was first communicated in a briefing by a senior official who shared few details and took no questions. Yet unconfirmed details, presumably leaked by so-called highly placed sources, poured out all day from the networks and even newspapers, including casualty numbers that varied anywhere from 300 to 600. A Reuters report from the ground in Pakistan now suggests the Indian attack on Balakot did not do much damage. As one media commentator noted, journalists were too willing to “reproduce unverified, contradictory and speculative information” that suited the government. Anchors and pundits seemed too excited by the conflict to question the establishment.

Here are some of the questions that much of the Indian media failed to ask in the past fortnight:
Where are the pictures of the strike on Balakot? Who exactly was taken out? Was Pakistan prepared for the airstrike, as some reports have suggested? What is the retaliatory strategy at work? Was it appropriate for the prime minister to address a campaign rally the day after the strike? And how did over 40 soldiers die in the Feb. 14 suicide bombing: Was there a failure of intelligence or communication?

Cheering for war, the Indian media left the important questions to a young soldier’s widow.

Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar is a journalist based in Mumbai.