What struck me in their report is how unhappy the Middle East is. The only Middle Eastern country in the top twenty is Kuwait (for the first time in this cycle). Kuwait has oil wealth and is a compact country with lots of social interaction. The high score may reflect Kuwait’s lively labor movement. That sort of movement isn’t allowed in the other Gulf States. The United Arab Emirates came in at 22, and Saudi Arabia at 28.

These countries are all very wealthy and their people are very social and connected to clans and other group identities, including religious congregations.

But everyone else in the Middle East is way down the list.

As usual, Gallup found that the very happiest countries were Scandinavian lands shaped by social democratic policies. It turns out that a government safety net of the sort the Republican Party wants to get rid of actually is key to making people happy.

Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden take the top four spots. Israel, which also has a Labor socialist founding framework, is fifth. The Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland and Luxembourg fill out the top nine.

The Gallup researchers believe that a few major considerations affect well-being or happiness. They note, “Social interactions of all kinds … add to happiness, in addition to their effects flowing through increases in social support and reductions in loneliness.” My brief experience of being in Australia suggests to me that they are indeed very social and likely not very lonely on the whole. Positive emotions also equate to well-being and are much more important in determining it than negative emotions. The positive emotions include joy, gratitude, serenity, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, awe, and altruism, among others.

Benevolence, doing good to others, also adds to well-being. Interestingly, the Gallup researchers find that benevolence increased in COVID and its aftermath across the board.

They also factor in GDP per capita, that is, how poor or wealthy people are.

Gallup Video: “2024 World Happiness Report; Gallup CEO Jon Clifton”

Bahrain comes in at 62, which shows that oil wealth isn’t everything. It is deeply divided between a Sunni elite and a Shiite majority population, and that sectarian tension likely explains why it isn’t as happy as Kuwait. Kuwait is between a sixth and a third Shiite and also has a Sunni elite, but the Shiites are relatively well treated and the Emir depends on them to offset the power of Sunni fundamentalists. So it isn’t just sectarian difference that affects happiness but the way in which the rulers deal with it.

Libya, which is more or less a failed state after the people rose up to overthrow dictator Moammar Gaddafi, nevertheless comes in at 66. There is some oil wealth when the militias allow its export, and despite the east-west political divide, people are able to live full lives in cities like Benghazi and Tripoli. Maybe the overhang of getting rid of a hated dictator is still a source of happiness for them.

Algeria, a dictatorship and oil state, is 85. The petroleum wealth is not as great as in the Gulf by any means, and is monopolized by the country’s elite.

Iraq, an oil state, is 92. Like Bahrain, it suffers from ethnic and sectarian divides. It is something of a failed state after the American overthrow of its government.

Iran, another oil state, is 100. Its petroleum sales are interfered with by the US except with regard to China, so its income is much more limited than other Gulf oil states. The government is dictatorial and young people seem impatient with its attempt to regiment their lives, as witnessed in the recent anti-veiling protests.

The State of Palestine is 103, which is actually not bad given that they are deeply unhappy with being occupied by Israel. This ranking certainly plummeted after the current Israeli total war on Gaza began.

Morocco is 107. It is relatively poor, in fact poorer than some countries that rank themselves much lower on the happiness scale.

Tunisia is one of the wealthier countries in Africa and much better off than Morocco, but it comes in at 115. In the past few years all the democratic gains made during and after the Arab Spring have been reversed by horrid dictator Qais Saied. People seem to be pretty unhappy at now living in a seedy police state.

Jordan is both poor and undemocratic, and is ranked 125.

Egypt is desperately poor and its government since 2014 has been a military junta in business suits that brooks not the slightest dissent. It is 127. The hopes of the Arab Spring are now ashes.

Yemen is 133. One of the poorest countries in the world, it suffered from being attacked by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates from 2015 until 2021. So it is war torn and poverty-stricken.

Lebanon ranks almost at the bottom at 142. Its economy is better than Yemen’s but its government is hopelessly corrupt and its negligence caused the country’s major port to be blown up, plunging the country into economic crisis. It is wracked by sectarianism. If hope is a major positive emotion that leads to feelings of happiness, it is in short supply there.

Some countries are too much of a basket case to be included, like Syria, where I expect people are pretty miserable after the civil war. Likewise Sudan, which is now in civil strife and where hundreds of thousands may starve.

Poverty, dictatorship, disappointment in political setbacks, and sectarianism all seem to play a part in making the Middle East miserable. The role of the United States in supporting the dictatorships in Egypt and elsewhere, or in supporting wars, has been sinister and certainly has added significantly to the misery. For no group in the region is this more true than for the Palestinians.

However, Blinken was also asked about his recent meeting with the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the possibility of normalisation of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Blinken said (as quoted by the US Department of State): “But with regard specifically to normalization, the crown prince reiterated Saudi Arabia’s strong interest in pursuing that. But he also made clear what he had said to me before, which is that in order to do that two things are required: an end to the conflict in Gaza and a clear, credible, time-bound path to the establishment of a Palestinian state.”

In other words, the Saudis are strongly in favour of normalisation but, in addition to ending the conflict in Gaza, they believe that there should be a “clear, credible, time-bound path to the establishment of a Palestinian state.” This paints a fairly rosy and optimistic picture of Israel-Saudi negotiations and the prospects for normalisation of relations.

Shortly after that press conference, the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement which puts the record straight and which seems to contradict the main thrust of what Blinken said. The difference between what Blinken said and what the statement of the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs stresses is stark and revealing.

There has been a “clear, credible, time-bound path to the establishment of a Palestinian state” for the past 30 years, called the Oslo Accords. However, despite that process, which has been as long as a piece of string, the Israelis and especially Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu have opposed it and prevented its implementation.

What the Saudis are clearly saying is that they are not happy with a similar process, but want to go back to the Saudi Plan for the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, as well as a reference to the Palestinian refugee problem and the right of the Palestinians to return to their occupied land.

That plan was adopted unanimously by all the members of the Arab League in 2002 at their summit in Beirut. Subsequently, it was also approved by all 57 states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (formerly known as the Organisation of Islamic Conference) at a summit meeting that was held in Riyadh, including Iran which was represented by President Mahmud Ahmadinezhad. The Palestinian Authority led by Yasser Arafat immediately embraced the plan.

In 2015, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also expressed tentative support for the Initiative, but in 2018 he rejected it as a basis for future negotiations with the Palestinians. In his infamous speech at the United Nations’ General Assembly on 22 September 2023 in New York, he held a map of “The New Middle East”, with Palestine completely wiped out. The elimination of Palestinian territories from the map of the Middle East angered the Palestinians and was one of the reasons that led to the 7^th October attack by Hamas militants on Israel. Since the start of the Gaza war, Netanyahu has emphatically opposed the establishment of a Palestinian state and has even said that it will reoccupy Gaza for the foreseeable future.

The statement by the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs clearly shows that the Saudis are not happy with Israeli policies and that there will be no prospect of normalizing relations with Israel under the current circumstances.

It states: “The Kingdom has communicated its firm position to the U.S. administration that there will be no diplomatic relations with Israel unless an independent Palestinian state is recognised on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital, and that the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip stops and all the Israeli occupation forces withdraw from the Gaza Strip. The Kingdom reiterates its call to the permanent members of the UN Security Council that have not yet recognized the Palestinian state, to expedite the recognition of the Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, so that the Palestinian people can obtain their legitimate rights and so that a comprehensive and just peace is achieved for all.”    

Video: “Saudi Arabia: No Israel ties without recognition of Palestinian state” | Latest English News | WION

Abraham Accords

Towards the end of the Trump Administration (between August 2020 and January 2021), a series of agreements were reached between the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan and Israel to normalise their relations, which came to be known as the Abraham Accords. The ceremonies were held with great fanfare on the Truman Balcony of the White House, hosted by President Trump, flanked by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, in order to give the impression that they represented major and historic peace agreements. It should be stressed that at least the first three countries on the list were not at war with Israel and in fact had covert cordial relations with her.

A close examination of the Abraham Accords shows that they were a series of cynical moves to bribe some Arab regimes to normalise relations with Israel by bypassing the Palestinians. Israel’s long-term plan to isolate and bypass the Palestinians by reaching agreements with Arab regimes outside the immediate neighbourhood was enthusiastically championed by Pompeo and Kushner, and behind them by Netanyahu.

The UAE wanted to buy some advanced US weapons, including F-35 fighter jets. They were promised that they would be able to buy them if they normalised relations with Israel. After doing so, the United States reneged because Congress opposed the sale of those sophisticated weapons to the UAE. Once the UAE decided to normalise relations with Israel, little Bahrain also decided to follow suit.

In 1993, Sudan was first added to the list of states that sponsored terrorism, but the overthrow of President Al-Bashir in April 2019 improved relations between Sudan and the United States and in December 2019 the two countries announced their intention to exchange ambassadors. Sudan’s Ambassador to the United States presented his credentials in September 2020.

US government promised to remove Sudan from the State Sponsor of Terrorism (SST) list if the Sudanese government agreed to normalise relations with Israel. Sudan agreed, and on 14 December 2000 the US Government removed Sudan from the SST list, just in time for Sudan to normalise her relations with Israel and to join the Abraham Accords. Of course, after the breakout of the latest civil war in Sudan between various army factions, the situation has gone from bad to worse.

There has been a long-lasting conflict between Morocco and the Polisario Front, backed by Algeria, about the ownership of the Western Sahara. Large parts of Western Sahara were controlled by the Moroccan Government and known as the Southern Provinces, whereas some 20% of the Western Sahara was controlled by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), the Polisario state with limited international recognition.

The United Nations officially considers Morocco and the Polisario Front as the main parties to the conflict and has called on them to reach a negotiated settlement. The Obama administration disassociated itself from the Moroccan autonomy plan in 2009 and put the option of an independent Western Sahara on the table. Clearly, the issue had to be settled by the UN negotiation through consultation with both sides. However, Trump unilaterally and illegally gifted the Sahara to Morocco if she normalised relations with Israel.

Then it was the turn of Saudi Arabia, which came under enormous pressure to normalise relations with Israel but, even before the events of 7^th October, Saudi Arabia refused to join the Abraham Accords without the acceptance of the two-state solution by Israel. The latest statement by the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs shows that Saudi normalisation of relations with Israel is dead in the water, at least for the time being.

Of course, genuine peace between Israel and the Arab states would be very Welcome, provided that it brought with it positive gains for both sides and was not at the expense of the Palestinians.

Instead of rejecting those phony agreements and pushing for some real and lasting solutions to the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Biden Administration supported those agreements and even pressured Saudi Arabia to join them. The realization of total US support, created a feeling of impunity among the Israeli right-wing government and was responsible for excessive demands by Netanyahu’s latest extreme right government, which contributed to the disastrous terrorist attack on 7^th October and Israel’s indiscriminate war and genocide in Gaza.

Given the events of the past four months and the collective punishment that Israeli government has inflicted on Gaza and the West Bank, it would be highly unlikely that any Arab government would dare to normalise relations with Israel due to their fear of their own populations.

A Statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding the discussions between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United States of America on the Arab-Israeli peace process:

Israel’s Defense Minister called the Palestinians of Gaza “human animals” when he announced a “complete siege” of Gaza after the horrid Hamas terrorist attack of October 7.

Galant’s willingness to destroy most of the homes in northern Gaza and to displace over a million people, leaving them cold, hungry, thirsty and increasingly victims of disease, surely was enhanced by his conviction that he is dealing with animals rather than human beings. Some might defend him, saying that he only called Hamas “human animals.” But if that were true, why is he treating all Palestinians in Gaza worse than dogs?

The Nazi dehumanization of Jews is notorious. They called them rats, lice, cockroaches, foxes, vultures

Such language proliferates in times of tension and war. The impulse to it should be resisted by ethical persons, and even just by normal non-psychopathic human beings.

Prominent New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman, alas, fell victim to the seductions of such language in his Friday column. He openly said that he approaches the Middle East at times from the perspective of the Warner Brothers’ Animal Planet channel.

Friedman actually wants a two-state solution and so wants something for Palestinians more than what they now have, and he is hated by the Israeli far right (which is increasingly the Israeli mainstream) for these stances. So it is unfortunate that he deployed the language of insects for Iran and Hamas members. He might defend himself by pointing out that he called the United States an “old lion” of which no one in the region is afraid any more, or that he caricatured Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu as a lemur. But in his column, the old lion and the lemur are not depicted as vicious or disgusting.

The Majority Report with Sam Seder Video: “Journalist Gives Heartbreaking Report From Gaza As Explosions Ring Out Around Her”

The three-time Pulitzer prize-winner compares Iran to a parasitoid wasp that lays its eggs in caterpillars. He says that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps is like the wasp, and the caterpillars are Lebanon’s Hezbollah, the Iraqi Shiite militias, and Yemen’s Helpers of God (Houthis).

How does this language add to understanding? If he is saying that Iran has fostered Shiite militias in nearby countries on the model of its Revolutionary Guards, this is true.

But why would Lebanese be interested in Iranian training, weapons and monetary support?

In 1947-1948 Zionist militias ethnically cleansed over half of Palestinians, expelling them from their homes and farms and forcing some of them to Lebanon, where they dwelled in camps. As a liberal Zionist, I presume that Friedman applauds this ethnic cleansing, though the liberal part of the equation makes him sympathetic to Palestinians getting a state on 22% of the land of the British Mandate of Palestine, all of which was promised to the Palestinians by the British White Paper of 1939.

By the 1970s some of the younger generation were radicalized and formed armed bands to strike across the border into Israel. Many lived in south Lebanon among the Shiite population there. In 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon, ostensibly to deal with the Palestinian attacks but actually to reshape Lebanese politics and install a far right wing Christian puppet government. The 1982 invasion left about 50,000 Lebanese and Palestinian civilians dead. Then the Israelis occupied about 10% of Lebanese soil for 18 years, subjecting the southern, largely Shiite population to their military rule in alliance with an artificially created Christian militia. Some Shiites, determined to resist the latest Israeli land-grab, formed Hezbollah in 1984 and began a long struggle to get the Israelis back out of their country. By 2000, they had succeeded.

No one in Lebanon, however, trusted the Israelis to cease attempting to dominate Lebanon, and so the rest of the Lebanese appointed Hezbollah as the border guards of the south.

Israel created Hezbollah by its occupation of Lebanon and its attempt to control it.

So Iranian influence in southern Lebanon is not a “natural” phenomenon of “injecting eggs.” It is a political alliance by the poor and the weak seeking a patron to help protect them from a serial predator.

If the Israelis had permitted a Palestinian state to emerge in the West Bank and Gaza, the Palestinians in Lebanon would have moved there. They told me so enthusiastically when I interviewed them in 2008. Then the whole history of Israel interventions in Lebanon would have been obviated and perhaps Hezbollah would never have been formed.

Likewise, several of the Iraqi Shiite militias were formed in response to the US occupation of that country for which Friedman was among the foremost cheerleaders. When the US occupation led to the formation of ISIL (ISIS, Daesh), the Shiite militias were the only force that could take it on in 2014-2015, and the US gave them air support at Amerli and Tikrit.

Had Bush, with Friedman cheering him on, not invaded Iraq, any Shiite militias in that country would be small and covert, as they were in the 1990s.

Then the Houthis in Yemen are rural Zaydi Shiites who reacted against Saudi dominance of their country and their region. The Saudis were trying to convert them to Wahhabism and were buying the Yemeni government to allow them to extend their influence. The Zaydis minded, and some in the north rebelled.

Mr. Friedman told us that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, who bombed Yemen for seven years, further radicalizing the Houthis and driving them into Iran’s arms, is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Then he compared Hamas to a trap-door spider because it took hostages.

But we all know how the Palestinians in Gaza turned to Hamas and in what conditions the Israelis have kept the Palestinians of Gaza — virtually as prisoners in a concentration camp. 70% of the families in Gaza are refugees from southern Israel, from which the Zionists expelled them.

So the biggest problem with Friedman’s glib column isn’t even its racism. It is the illusion of explanation created by the use of insects as metaphors for human beings. By sidestepping imperialism, settler colonialism, and capitalist exploitation, by ignoring social class and history, Friedman can skate away with his facile sociobiology, having elucidated nothing, having understood nothing . . .

and having sidestepped the ways in which his own commitments, to liberal Zionism, exploitative forms of leveling capitalism, and to American imperialism in places like Iraq, created the mess he now dismisses as a nature documentary.

Barcelona (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – The war in Ukraine is being fought at two different levels. The first one is the military confrontation, where developments are measured in numbers of casualties, kill ratios, and square kilometers changing hands from one belligerent to the other. The second level of the conflict is economic, and here the key aspects are GDP growth, the value of foreign assets seized or companies under sanctions, and the prices of gas and oil. Needless to say, both levels are deeply interconnected. However, for the purpose of this review, it might be useful to look at them separately at first.

The military situation in Ukraine can be best described as one of stalemate when looking at the conflict maps. Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, General Valery Zaluzhny, admitted as much on November 2023, when he said that “there will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough.” During 2023, the frontline barely moved and, on the few occasions it did, the changes came at the cost of enormous human losses. The battle of Bakhmut, which continues around the city after Bakhmut itself was taken by Russian troops following almost seven months of fighting, is paradigmatic of these dynamics.

If the war is slightly tilting in any direction, the current situation would suggest it is in Russia’s favor. Some analysts point out that, while the conflict maps show stability, Ukraine might be slowly exhausting its limited supplies of soldiers, weapons, and ammunition. The recent struggles in both Washington and Brussels to approve supplies for the Ukrainian armed forces lend further credibility to this thesis.

On the economic front of the war, which has pitted Russia against Ukraine and its Western supporters, it is similarly difficult to reach any definitive conclusion on who is coming out on top. What is clear is that neither the West nor Russia achieved their maximalist goals in the economic struggle. Russia did not financially collapse in the face of incremental Western sanctions and Europe had less trouble than expected to surmount last winter’s energy crisis despite Moscow’s resort to cutting gas supplies.

This economic dimension of the war, which in recently published books has received less attention than the military and political dynamics of the conflict, sits at the core of “Economic War: Ukraine and the Global Conflict between Russia and the West”, authored by political risk analyst and consultant Maximilian Hess. Hess does not look for winners or losers in the current economic war but provides a broad context to understand what is at stake on the economic front. Hess devotes half of his book to the prelude of the current military and economic war, covering the period that followed Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the establishment of two Russia-supported separatist republics in the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Maximilian Hess, Economic War: Ukraine and the Global Conflict between Russia and the West. London: Hurst, 2023. Click Here.

After the pro-Russian Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych was toppled in the context of the Euromaidan protests in 2014, his successor Petro Poroshenko took a more pro-European course. Changes in geopolitical orientation notwithstanding, corruption continued to be rife. As Hess notes, “the revolution and subsequent conflict recast the networks of Ukraine’s politicians and oligarchs” but “failed to break the system that enabled them to rotate in and out of business and politics.”[1] Meanwhile, the Obama administration imposed sanctions on Russia for its expansionist behavior but Western European countries limited their extent. In 2017, the Trump administration would also tone down US sanctions.

Germany, with its heavy reliance on cheap Russian gas for industries and households, was the main European proponent of retaining economic ties with Russia after the annexation of Crimea. Hess is very critical of Germany’s political leaders during that period. He argues that Berlin pursued economic interdependence but failed to realize “Putin did not oversee a democracy or have to answer to economic pressures from his own business community” after Putin disciplined unruly oligarchs.[2] With the benefit of hindsight, it is obvious that Europe’s energy dependency on Russia was an enormous mistake.

Even so, countries like Germany were probably not betting so much on the liberal ideal of trade driving cooperation in the political realm but rather on the high loss of revenue Russia would suffer if it stopped selling gas to Europe. After all, the Soviet Union had been a reliable provider of gas to West Germany during the Cold War. Back in 2019, German economist Michael Wohlgemuth argued that Moscow was more dependent on its gas exports to Germany than Germany was on Russian deliveries. This certainly did not stop Putin from attacking Ukraine, but the numbers supported Wohlgemuth’s analysis. In 2021, Russia exported 203 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas via pipeline. Among these exports, almost 146 billion cubic meters (bcm) were going to EU customers and around half of this volume, to Germany.

Hess explains that, although the sanctions imposed on Russia in the wake of the annexation of Crimea had very limited effects, the Kremlin’s reaction to them “asserted firmer control over Russia’s economy and increasingly sought to undermine the West’s influence both at home and abroad.”[3] As part of these efforts to increase its global geoeconomic power, Russia looked to Latin America (especially Venezuela), Africa and Asia.

But the most important partnership was arguably the one established with Saudi Arabia, the only oil exporter bigger than Russia. Riyadh and Moscow had engaged in an oil price war during the oil glut at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, by 2022 Putin had secured an alliance with the Saudi leader Mohammad bin Salman to reduce oil production and ensure higher and more stable oil prices. Thus, Putin felt that Russia’s energy flank “was secure ahead of the all-out economic war that would ensue when its forces attacked”, explains Hess.[4] Russia’s total gas exports fell around 50 percent in 2022, and a further 25 percent in 2023. Although gas prices in 2022 reached historical heights and helped Russia offset the effects of the loss in export volume, in 2023 the prices returned to levels similar to those in 2019 or 2020. It has been oil, not gas, that has sustained Russia throughout the war.

Since the invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has often been selling its oil at a discount price. The reasons behind this are the limited number of countries willing to buy Russian oil and the oil price cap imposed by the G-7 and the European Union. The oil price cap prohibits G-7 or EU-based finance companies from providing services to Russian oil companies selling their oil above $60 a barrel. Still, China and India, the latter moving in 2022 from barely buying Russian oil to being the second largest importer after Beijing, have kept Russia’s oil exports afloat.   

Hess identifies some key weaknesses in Russia’s position in the economic war against the West. Moscow underestimated the willingness of the EU to stop buying Russian oil and introduce major reductions in its gas imports. Also important, Russia has suffered greatly from the power of the dollar, which allows US sanctions to have a much greater impact than the US share of the global economy would allow. Too often missing in Hess’ “Economic War”, however, is the fact that the West’s economic war against Russia is not supposed to be an end in itself but a means to achieve political results, which so far have been lacking.

A political success would arguably mean either a significant weakening of Russia’s war effort or forcing Moscow to negotiate an end to the war on favorable terms for Ukraine. In one example among many, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen announced in December 2022, when the oil price cap on Russia was introduced, that “the decision will hit Russia’s revenues even harder and reduce its ability to wage war in Ukraine.”

Hess fails to engage with literature that adopts a critical approach towards the effectiveness of sanctions. To understand why sanctions on Russia have had only modest effects on the country’s war capabilities, it useful to search elsewhere. Nicholas Mulder, the author of “The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War”, explained in an op-ed that “both the deterrent and the compellent effect of US sanctions have fallen dramatically amid rampant overuse.” Writing about the current sanctions against Russia, Mulder has noted that “the lure of cheap raw materials from Russia is spurring sanctions avoidance on a previously unseen scale.”

The use of economic sanctions in modern times, from post-revolutionary Cuba to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, has consistently impoverished civilian populations but has a poor record in forcing policy changes. Sanctions, as seen in the case of Iran, have also incentivized circumvention tools that are certainly suboptimal but keep sanctioned regimes going, especially when the state has a reliable coercive apparatus to deal with protests over decreasing living standards. Sanctioned states also tend to cooperate with each other. Iran, with a long experience in dealing with sanctions, has provided drones and drone components to Russia for its use against Ukraine.

Hess concludes his book by noting that “Russia cannot win the economic war with the tools at its disposal. The West, however, could still lose it.”[5] The important question, nonetheless, is whether Russia needs to win the economic war to achieve military successes in Ukraine, or, at least, to prevent Ukraine from recovering territory. Everything seems to indicate that not losing the economic war is more than enough for Russia to fulfill limited military objectives and could even be sufficient to make major advances if external material support for Ukraine decreases. Soon before the EU passed the 12^th package of sanctions against Russia in December 2023, the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) published a report on the effects of the oil price cap on Russia. The report noted that “the impact of the price cap has been limited due to inadequate monitoring and enforcement.” It added that “the sanctions have not reduced the Kremlin’s resolve for war.”

Hess’ “Economic War” offers the lay reader an accessible but detailed account of the economic war between Russia and the West. The book is particularly valuable for its long-time approach, which allows Hess to carefully explore connections between the post-2014 and post-2022 contexts. “Economic War”, however, would have benefited from a stronger focus on the close relation between the economic war and the political/military war and a more skeptical approach to the power of sanctions to alter state behavior.

[1] Maximilian Hess, Economic War: Ukraine and the Global Conflict between Russia and the West (London: Hurst & Co., 2023), p. 20.

[2] Ibid., p. 62.

[3] Ibid., p. 2.

[4] Ibid., p. 127.

[5] Ibid., p. 201.

Exploring the Qur’an and the Bible with Gabriel Said Reynolds: “Juan Cole: Infidel or Pagan? Understanding Kufr (كفر) in the Qur’an | Muhammad the Prophet of Peace ”

Juan Cole, here. This is what I wrote on the subject at IC when my article first appeared:

My new article is out in The Journal of the American Oriental Society about the meaning of the root k-f-r in the Qur’an, the Muslim scripture. We’ve all grown up hearing about the Qur’an’s condemnation of “infidels” or “unbelievers,” but I think that this is for the most part a mistranslation. I argue that the root does not mean “infidel” but “pagan” or “polytheist” (and I think with the connotation of hostile, impious and morally corrupt pagan). In fact, I think the Arabic may be a translation of the Latin paganus. The latter had connotations of “hick” or “rustic” but also of “polytheist” and the same is true in Qur’anic Arabic.

Juan Cole, “Infidel or Paganus? The Polysemy of kafara in the Quran,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, 140, 3:(2020): 615-635:

I also find that the noun kāfir is never applied in the Qur’an to Jews and Christians in an unmodified way. The noun implies “pagan” or “scoundrel” or “ingrate.”

The Qur’an considers Jews and Christians to be monotheists or submitters to the one God (muslimun). This is the antonym of “pagan.” In The Cow 2:62, the Qur’an promises paradise to righteous Jews, Christians and other monotheists alongside the followers of Muhammad.

I write in the article, “A key attribute of the [pagan] kāfir, as we have seen, is that such a person is damned to hell. Dominion 67:6 reads: “And for those who denied (kafarū bi-) their Lord, there awaits the torment of hell, and a wretched destination!” In contrast, in speaking of Jews and Christians we find in The Spider 29: “Debate the scriptural communities only in the best of ways, except for those who do wrong. Say ‘We believe in the revelation sent down to us, and the revelation sent down to you; our God and your God is one, and to him we have submitted’.””

It is common in the contemporary Muslim world to refer to all non-Muslims as kuffār or unbelievers, but I believe this is contrary to the usage of the Qur’an itself.

I think virtually all Qur’an translations err in consistently translating kafir as “infidel” or “unbeliever” or “disbeliever,” since this rendering implies a larger group than just pagans.

I made some of these arguments very briefly in my book on the Prophet Muhammad, but since it is a rip-roaring historical narrative I could not stop and do word philosophy at length:

In the article, I also explore how the verb kafara can be used of anybody. It means to commit impiety, blasphemy, immorality, etc. It is like the verb “to sin.” Monotheists can commit impiety as a one-off or occasional act, but that does not cause them to be characterized as among the group of pagans or kafirun. Even Muhammad’s own followers can commit this sin, as I explain:

“The verb kafara, however, is more fluid and is sometime applied to monotheists. The Family of Imran 3:167 complains about those of Muḥammad’s believers who declined to go out to defend the city (later commentators say the verse concerned the battle of Uḥud in 625): “They were told, ‘Come, fight in the path of God, or at least take a defensive position’. They replied, ‘If we knew how to fight, we would have followed you’. That day, they were closer to kufr than to faith, inasmuch as they said with their lips what was not in their hearts. God knows best what they are concealing.” The deverbal noun kufr here clearly means hypocrisy or dishonesty rather than disbelief.

Here are a few excerpts from the article, which I have modified slightly in an attempt to make them a bit more readable. The original is technical and written for specialists, but I think the findings are accessible and very important. Obviously, scholars should consult the full text for footnotes and for the larger argument about how the noun and verb could diverge from one another (and there really are two distinct verbs, only one of which means “to disbelieve” in a straightforward and consistent way).

—–
From Juan Cole, “Infidel or Paganus? The Polysemy of kafara in the Quran,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, 140, 3:(2020): 615-635:

The active participle kāfir . . . cannot be assumed necessarily to mean “rejecter of something” or “infidel.” Rather, it has a wide range of meanings that can be discerned contextually. In Iron 57:20 the broken plural refers to rustic farmers: “Know that the life of this nether world is a game, a sport, a trinket, a mutual boast among yourselves and a multiplication of your wealth and children. It resembles rain whose resultant vegetation pleases the peasants (kuffār), but then it withers and you see it yellowing into chaff.” As al-Khalīl mentioned [in his early dictionary], kafr means village, reinforcing the rural connotation of the root. It may be that a secondary meaning of polytheist or adherent of traditional religion emerged because the population in the countryside was more likely than its urban counterpart to have clung to the old gods and resisted accepting monotheism.

The root is also clearly associated in the Quran with polytheism. Al-Kāfirūn 109:1–6 opens with: “Say: kāfirūna! I do not worship what you worship. Nor are you worshipping what I worship. Nor am I worshipping what you have worshipped. Nor are you worshipping what I worship. To you your religion and to me my religion.” There is an admission that the pagans have a religion, but it is simply castigated as a false one, which makes translating kāfir as “infidel” seem odd. That the dispute was over Muḥammad’s monotheism versus Arabian polytheism is demonstrated by Ṣād 38:4–5, which says . . . “They marvel that a warner came to them from among them, and the [pagans] kāfirūna said, ‘This is a lying sorcerer. Has he made the gods into only one God? That is an astonishing thing’.” This and many other verses demonstrate that the Quran came out at least in part of a milieu where there were adherents of traditional religion . . .

The sense of “to worship the gods” for k-f-r is underlined in The Cow 2:257: “God is the patron of those who believe, bringing them out of darkness into the light. And those who kafarū, their patrons are Ṭāghūt, who bring them out of the light into darkness.” Ṭāghūt is a loan from [Ethiopian] Geʿez that means “new or alien god” or “idol,” and, interestingly, is treated as a plural in this quranic verse, corresponding to numerous patrons. Belief in polytheistic religion is not, properly speaking, disbelief but the wrong sort of belief, from the point of view of the Quran. It is not a charge of atheism. Not only are such believers committed polytheists but they are also militant: “Those who believed fight in the path of God, and the pagans (al-ladhīna kafarū) fight in the path of Ṭāghūt, so fight the associates of Satan, for the guile of Satan is feeble” (al-Nisāʾ 4:76) . . .

Elsewhere, it is admitted that they [the pagans] are believers in their own tradition; when they question the eschatological opening or grand success, the verse reads: “Say: On the Day of the Opening, the faith (īmānuhum) of those who kafarū will not benefit them, nor will they be granted a respite” (al-Sajda 32:29). Since it is allowed that they have faith, they are not unbelievers strictly speaking and translating this phrase as “the faith of the infidels will not benefit them” would be self-contradictory. While they are not accused of disbelieving, they are, however, liars and wrongdoers, dishonest and workers of evil (cf. The Women 4:167–68). As well as labeling them “wrongdoers” (sing. ẓālim), they are “morally dissolute” (fāsiqūna) for responding incorrectly to God’s proverbs (The Cow 2:26). Along the same lines, it is said of Muḥammad’s monotheistic followers: “God has caused you to love faith, rendering it beautiful in your hearts, and he has caused you to abhor impiety (kufr) and ungodly behavior (fusūq) and rebellion” (al-Ḥujurāt 49:7).

“Rebel” is one meaning of the root k-f-r. In the story of how Lucifer fell (The Cow 2:34) it is reported: “And when we said to the angels, ‘Bow down to Adam’, they prostrated them- selves, save the Devil; he refused, and grew haughty, and so he became one of the rebellious (kāfirīna).” The active participle here does not involve disbelief but disobedience. The Devil (Iblīs, Gk diabolos) is not accused of rejecting the existence or oneness of God but of refusing the divine order to bow down to the first human being. Indeed, in 2:30 the angels are depicted as arguing with God that creating Adam would lead to turmoil, and the implication is that Satan parted ways with God not because he disbelieved but because he had a positive if misguided motive -— he differed with him on the wisdom of opening Pandora’s box . . .

kufr is equated with impiety, which Grecophone Christians in their polemics against the pagans called asebeia. Likewise, in Prohibition 66:10 God had made the wives of Noah and Lot an object lesson for those who kafarū because of these women’s preference for pagan society over their husbands. The reason given in 2 Pet 2:6 for the calamity that befell the people of Sodom and Gomorrah is that they lived impious lives (asebesin), which seems roughly the meaning of kufr in Q 66:10.

BLASPHEMY

A controversial passage in The Cow 2:102 provides a further sense of the verb. The Quran condemns those in the era of Solomon who followed demons… that taught magic. It goes out of its way to underline that Solomon himself did not commit kufr, even though in late antique folk tradition he was held to be able to control sprites and demons. The demons were guilty of putting otherwise inoffensive teachings to evil purposes, turning them into black magic, so that they kafarū (A. J. Arberry translates this as “disbelieved”). Of what, however, did this act consist? It does not appear to have been a denial of anything, but rather was a blasphemous activity. The humans were eager to have the teaching of the two angels of Babylon, Hārūt and Mārūt, which they then desecrated by turning it into dark arts so as to separate spouses from one another. The demons’ instruction harmed people rather than benefited them, and turning to the occult deprived these individuals of any portion of heaven.

Hārūt and Mārūt are two of the Zoroastrian celestial spirits, Haurvatāt and Ameretāt. These emanations of the supreme deity, Ahura Mazda, symbolize wholeness and immortality. For instance, in the Younger Avesta, Yasht 19.95–96, the last days during which the world will be renovated are described thus: “Evil thought will be overcome, good thought will overcome it . . . The celestial spirits Integrity (Haurvatāt) and Immortality (Ameretāt) will defeat the demons of Hunger (Shud) and Thirst (Tarshna).” The two celestial spirits associated with nemeses among the demons symbolizing bodily human cravings like hunger and thirst may have inspired the Quran’s motif that devils misused their teachings to satisfy lust. Moreover, Ameretāt is associated with plants, fertility, and the tree of life. The Quran could be projecting into the time of Solomon a contemporary set of Zoroastrian ideas. The retrofitting of this motif to the time of the Hebrew monarch may in turn have come about because of the association in late antiquity of Solomon with mastery of the sprites or demons, which is reflected in quranic passages.

In late antique Greek Christian authors, black magic was associated with blasphemy (which originally meant slandering [God]). In his “Homily 10 on 2 Timothy,” John Chrysostom (ca. 349–407 CE) wrote, “Let us then so live that the name of God be not blasphemed (blasphēmíesthai).” Among the many examples he gave of Christians blaspheming in failing to live up to their ideals were “your auguries, your omens, your superstitious observances . . . your incantations, your magic (mageías) arts.”

What if we translated The Cow 2:101 this way?

“They followed what the demons recited over the realm of Solomon. Solomon himself was not a blasphemer, but the demons were blasphemers, teaching the people magic and what was revealed to the two archangels of Babylon, Haurvatāt and Ameretāt. But these two had been careful not to teach anyone without warning them, ‘We are a potential disturbance of faith (fitna), so do not fall into blasphemy.’ From them they learned how they might divide a man and his wife [. . .].”

Here is a condemnation of warlocks and witches who engage in what is seen as necromancy, which apparently enables those who covet married persons to cast spells to separate them from their spouses. They are instructed by demons who pervert and misuse the teachings of divinely inspired Zoroastrian angels.
Later Muslim commentators on this text are divided over its meaning. Some saw the anecdote as concerning fallen angels. Others defended the angels as having been sinless, and held that while they performed licit miracles, the demons turned their teachings to the purposes of thaumaturgy. As I read the text, the teaching of the angels itself is not being condemned here. Solomon, the verse says, bore no blame for his mastery of the spirits. The Zoroastrian celestial spirits are spoken of with reverence, called angels rather than demons, and are depicted as having been given inspiration (unzila) by God. The angels act responsibly inasmuch as they give disciples an explicit warning that learning their esoteric teachings could tempt humans, if they are not careful, to the dark side. (Zoroastrianism is listed in Pilgrimage 22:17 with the monotheistic religions and distinguished from paganism.)

The Quran shows positive attitudes throughout to Christians and The Cow 2:62 admits Christians to heaven (“Those who believed, and the Jews, and the Christians, and the Sabians, and whoever has believed in God and the Last Day and performed good works, they shall have their reward with their Lord”). To underline the difference, the Quran shows God pledging to Jesus regarding future Christians in The Family of Imran 3:55: “God said, ‘Jesus, I will take you to me and will raise you to me and I will purify you of those who kafarū and will render those who follow you superior to those who kafarū until the judgment day’.” Likely it is distinguishing between the old pagan Romans, who had persecuted Jesus and his faithful, and the Christians themselves. There will always be, the Quran vows, a difference between followers of Jesus and the kāfirūn. This and other passages suggest to me that the deverbal noun kāfir is never used tout court for Jews and Christians.

[Takeaway: kafir as a noun is never used in the Qur’an to refer to Christians and Jews, only to pagans or rebels or blasphemers or the morally dissolute.]

In the Medinan period, the Quran uses the verb kafara when it begins speaking of an antagonistic group from among the other monotheists: “Neither those who kafarū from among the people of the Book, nor the polytheists (mushrikūna) themselves, desire that good from your lord descend upon you” (The Cow 2:105). Some groups from among the biblical communities had allied politically with the militant pagans. A hypernym — for instance, “tree”—is lexically superordinate to hyponyms, another set of nouns or phrases under its rubric (e.g., “juniper” and “acacia”). Here the phrase “people of the Book” functions as a phrasal hypernym, which is lexically superordinate to the hyponym “Those who kafarū from among the people of the Book.” Logically speaking, the need to identify this subset of believers in the Bible as those who kafarū proves that kāfir does not ordinarily refer to Jews and Christians. That is, if all Jews and Christians were always kāfirūn, it would be redundant to identify this group “from among the people of the Book” as “those who kafarū.” Moreover, if all Jews and Christians were always kāfirūn, it would make nonsense of God’s pledge to Jesus (Āl ʿImrām 3:55) that he “will render those who follow you superior to those who kafarū until the judgment day.” Christians are not kāfirūn under ordinary circumstances, just as they are not doomed to hell under ordinary circumstances. Still, just as they can commit mortal sins and so depart from righteousness into perdition, so they can throw in with bellicose polytheists against Muḥammad and his cause, and likewise join the damned . . .

PAGANUS

It is suggestive that kāfir maps so closely onto the Latin paganus as it was used in late antiquity. Remus points to an imperial decree of 416 CE (16.10.21) that excludes from government service “those who are polluted by the profane error or crime of pagan rites, that is, gentiles (qui profano pagani ritus errore seu crimine polluntur, hoc est gentiles).” This principle was reaffirmed by Justinian (r. 527–565) in his Code (1.5.19), which body of law applied to Arabic speakers in the empire in Muḥammad’s own era. The Table 5:103 likewise denounces the pagan rites of sacrifice to idols practiced by those who kafarū and al-Jumʿa 62:2 speaks of “purifying” gentiles (ummiyūna) implying that paganism had polluted them.

The two words share a number of other meanings and connotations -— rural, polytheist, opponent, persecutor, enemy, blasphemer, potential convert, and interlocutor. K-f-r may at least in some instances be a loanshift from the Latin paganus. Whatever the etymology of the term paganus, by the late fourth century it had come to mean both “rustic” and “adherent of the old Roman religion.” It was often used satirically, to class the remaining pagan aristocracy with unlettered peasants.

Centuries of Roman rule had made Arabic speakers familiar with Latin vocabulary. The word for “path” in the phrase “straight path” of piety in the Quran, ṣirāṭ, is a loan from the Latin via strata or paved avenue.72 One route for Latin influence was the Arab mounted foederati who served as an auxiliary to the Roman army in Bostra and elsewhere, since Latin remained the language of the military. Another way Latin may have proved influential was through law, inasmuch as fourth- and fifth-century imperial decrees and even some of the sixth-century Code of Justinian were still issued in Latin as well as Greek in the sixth century.

I have argued that kāfir in the Quran for the most part does not mean “unbeliever” or “infidel.” In most of our examples, a lack of belief is not at stake. Rather, kāfir is a polysemous term that has a wide range of meanings, including “peasant,” “pagan,” “libertine,” “rebel,” and “blasphemer.” These are discernible if we look at the parallelisms, synonyms, and antonyms with which quranic verses surround this noun. I understand the impulse of translators to use “unbeliever” for kāfir, and, of course, the term sometimes does mean just that. Moreover, the condemnations of pagan belief and practice, while often made with other terms, could be seen to imply unbelief at some meta level. I argue, however, that limiting the meaning of the root so severely causes us to miss a rich set of other connotations that give us a rounder idea of the Quran’s intent…

I have suggested that the bilingual lives of many Arabic speakers in and on the fringes of the Roman empire over hundreds of years (Arabic-Aramaic and Arabic-Greek) contributed to this polysemy, through the phenomenon of the loanshift. The Latin paganus, which came to have the connotation both of “rustic” and “polytheist” in the fifth and sixth centuries, may well lie behind Iran 57:20, which refers to kuffār as peasants happy to see rain and greenery. At the same time, the quranic term is clearly also used to refer to polytheists. Ṣād 38:5 reports of the kāfirūn that they rejected the notion that the many gods could merge into only one, while The Cow 2:257 says that those who kafarū had taken the deity or idol Ṭāghūt for their patron instead of God. The Family of Imran 3:151 menaces these pagans with hellfire for having made God part of a pantheon (ashrakū). While it is not impossible that Arabic independently invented a connection between farmers and polytheists, Occam’s razor would suggest that we instead posit that Arabic was influenced by late antique Roman Christian usage, which was embedded in imperial laws applying to Arabophone citizens of the empire. In any case, far from being deniers or nihilists, the pagans are admitted to believe in their own religion (dīn) and to have faith (īmānuhum) in it. It is simply a false religion. Kafara thus has a positive valence that “to disbelieve” does not capture, even if the latter is not ultimately an incorrect characterization of the quranic view of the pagans.

However, contrary to the Emirati claim, Palestinians believe leverage would never come with normalization, but rather, it would only come by rejecting any engagement until the Palestinian state is concrete. Furthermore, Palestinians feared that “if [normalizations are] not conditioned on significant Israeli steps toward enabling the creation of a Palestinian state, [these kinds of normalization] debilitate the Palestinian national project.”

Guzansky and Heistein were also cautious about the Emiratis’ ability to influence the Israeli state. They warned that if it becomes clear that the UAE fails to change Israeli behavior over Palestine, this can hinder further normalization with other states. Guzansky and Heistein stated Should Israel and the UAE engage in a public spat on anything relating to the Palestinian issue, that would likely discourage those Arab or Muslim states weighing the prospect of normalization from moving ahead if it becomes apparent that these agreements are unable to influence Israeli policy in that regard.

Three years since normalization: When will leverage arrive?<  UAE, the Arab Group & China on Gaza Humanitarian Corridor Resolution | United Nations

Since the UAE and Israel have normalized relations, many symbolic and concrete steps have been taken between the two parties that are evidence of warm relations, from appointing ambassadors to direct flights. However, three years of normalization did not prove much leverage when it came to Emirati influence over Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. As much as it is evidence of the October conflict in which Israel responded disproportionately by claiming over 5,000 Palestinians’ lives, the UAE could not play a significant role in influencing Israel in previous Israeli aggression either. This was the case during Israeli aggression in Sheikh Jarrah

Looking back three years after normalization, Qatar increased its leverage more than the UAE, not because it increased its relations with Israel; instead, it became almost the most significant actor in the Arab world, which has relatively warm ties with Hamas. Qatar’s engagement with Hamas and its close relations with the US gave Doha an intermediary role between Hamas, Israel, and the US. On the other hand, the UAE not only recognized Hamas as a terrorist organization but also questioned the authority of the leader of the Palestinian Authority, as it no secret< that the UAE supports Mohammad Dahlan over Mahmoud Abbas. Furthermore, despite Egypt and Jordan having normalized their relations much earlier in 1979 and 1994, respectively, they never had publicly warm relations like the UAE. Therefore, not only did Israel-UAE normalization have much influence over the Israeli side, but the Emirates also lost even further credibility with the Palestinian side. Even with the normalization, the UAE could have balanced the relations better by upgrading its relations with different stakeholders in Palestine.  

What now? Will Saudi Arabia normalize with Israel?<  
The recent event showed, one more time, that none of the Muslim/Arab majority states have much leverage over Israel when it comes to ceasing the tension and decreasing the violence against Palestinians. Not only the UAE and other Arab countries, which normalized in post-2020, but also countries such as Turkey, whose relations go back to the founding years of Israel, Egypt, and Jordan, which have decades of recognition and are significant actors for Israeli security, have limited influence, especially in the last few years. Therefore, if these normalizations serve as an example, it would be naive to think that Saudi normalization will have a different fate.  

It was reported that Saudi Arabia and Israel were in the normalization process when Hamas’s surprise attack occurred on October 7. Saudi Arabia softened its condition from an independent state for Palestinians in 2002 to “a good life for the Palestinians” in 2023, an interpretation that the Israeli occupation is no longer a deal-breaker.

The Biden administration is keen to finalize the deal to kill two birds with one stone. The first bird is US domestic politics. Biden wants a diplomatic achievement that will beat the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco’s normalization with Israel, which was masterminded by Biden’s predecessor and, most likely, his rival in the upcoming presidential election, Donald Trump. The international bird is to make Chinese-brokered Riyadh-Tehran normalization less relevant as the Israel-Saudi alliance might create a stronger anti-Iranian bloc.

However, Saudi Arabia should consider what the UAE has earned and lost domestically and internationally before inking any agreement. Also, even though both states have similar authoritarianism, Saudi Arabia should be more aware of such normalization’s domestic and global reactions. Contrary to the UAE, Saudi Arabia claims leadership for the Islamic world as it hosts the two holiest sites for Muslims and also due to the state’s founding ideology. However, the latter has been eroded in recent years. Therefore, the Saudi Arabian leadership should consider these conditions before committing to any deal.

Yemen’s Houthi movement launched missiles and drones at Israel on Oct. 31, 2023 – provoking fears of a dangerous escalation of the Middle East conflict.

With the militia – which controls part of the Arabian Peninsula state – vowing further attacks, Israel countered by sending missile boats to the Red Sea. They join U.S. warships already deployed in the area.

The Conversation U.S. turned to Mahad Darar, a Yemeni politics expert at Colorado State University, to explain what is behind the Houthis’ involvement in the war – and how it could risk not only widening the conflict but reigniting hostilities in Yemen itself.

Who are the Houthis?

The Houthi group, also known as Ansar Allah, is an armed militia of the Zaydi Shia sect in Yemen. They ousted Yemen’s transitional government led by Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi in a 2014 coup and have since been engaged in a bloody civil war with the ousted administration, which is backed by Saudi Arabia. A truce has stemmed fighting in the country, with the Houthis currently in control of most of northern Yemen.

Why did the Houthis attack Israel?

In the first analysis, one can argue that the Houthis are part of a broader regional alliance with Iran. As such, the attack on Israel can be seen as showcasing both the Houthis’ – and Iran’s – military capabilities to both local and regional audiences. Indeed, some analysts argue that the reason Tehran supplied the Houthis with long-range missiles was so it could pose a threat to both Israel and also Tehran’s rival in the region: Saudi Arabia.

However, although it may seem that the Houthis are acting as an Iranian proxy, the main reason the militia launched the attack could be to gain domestic support. Houthi leadership may be trying to present the group as the dominant force in Yemen willing to challenge Israel – a country that is generally unpopular in the Arab world.

This approach helps the Houthis outmaneuver local rivals and unite the Yemeni public behind the cause of Palestinian liberation. It also allows the militia to carve out a unique stance in the region, setting them apart from Arab governments that have so far been unwilling to take strong action against Israel – such as severing ties in the case of more Israel-friendly states, such as United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and others.

In particular, the Houthis will want to present a different face to the Arab world than Saudi Arabia, which had been looking to normalize ties with Israel. Saudi Arabia, it should be added, is the main backer of the internationally recognized Yemeni government – one of the Houthis’ main opponents in the civil war.

It is also important to note that there appears to be growing popular discontent in Arab countries over the perceived weak stance of their governments toward Israel. But due to the authoritarian nature of many of these regimes, public opinion has little influence on policy.

This does not, of course, change the fact that the Houthis themselves run a theocratic regime with no democratic values.

Plus, launching a missile or a couple of drones is relatively cheap for the Houthis, especially considering the benefits they might gain from the action.

How could the Houthi attack affect the Israel-Hamas conflict?

Some analysts have suggested that an attack by the Houthis heightens the chances of overwhelming Israel’s defense systems, if it forms part of a
coordinated effort involving
Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

But this idea falls short for two reasons:

First, the Houthis likely have fewer ballistic missiles than Hezbollah and Hamas and realistically stand little chance of inflicting much damage on Israel. Moreover, they will be mindful of keeping these missiles for their own use in the ongoing civil war in Yemen – which poses a more immediate threat to the group than Israel does.

The threat from the Houthis toward Israel is far smaller than both Hezbollah and Hamas, whose fighters can cross a land border to enter Israel.

Second, the imprecision of the Houthi missiles means that any attack also poses a risk to countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, as these projectiles could land in their territories and cause damage. In fact, drones reportedly launched by the Houthis have already caused explosions after erroneously crashing in Egypt.

Could the Houthi attack affect US thinking on the conflict?

There is a scenario in which the Houthi attacks may benefit Israel. The strike plays into a narrative that Israel is facing a multi-front war sponsored by Iran, potentially escalating tensions between Iran and both Israel and the United States.

And this could bolster the arguments of hawks within the U.S. foreign policy establishment who are pushing the U.S. toward a more confrontational stance against Iran.

On the flip side, any perceived threat from the Houthis gives Iran more of a negotiation card in the wider context of regional disputes such as over Tehran’s nuclear program. Iran will be keen to position itself as a country with an array of proxies, capable of wreaking havoc in the region should it wish.

Could the attack be Iran’s bidding?

Houthi actions primarily serve their own interests rather than those of Iran.

And unlike Iranian-backed groups in Iraq and Syria – which have recently attacked U.S. troops – the Houthis have not targeted U.S. forces in the region. If the Houthis were truly in the same basket as other Iranian proxies, I believe they would have targeted the nearest U.S. stationed base, which is Djibouti.

Reuters: “Yemen’s Houthis wade into Israel-Hamas war”

But Houthi leadership will be mindful that such an attack would not only be unpopular among the Yemeni population but also would potentially come at a high cost to themselves.

Unlike Hezbollah and Hamas, which are focused on resisting Israeli occupation, the Houthis are primarily concerned with local issues within Yemen. Historically, member of the Zaydi Shia sect have managed Yemen’s issues without foreign support, going back hundreds of years before they were overthrown in 1962.

That said, the Houthis haven’t shied away from appearing aligned with Iran of late, mainly because they rely heavily on Iranian supplies of weapons.

What could this mean for the Yemen civil war?

Negotiations between Houthis, Saudis and the Saudi-led coalition backing the Yemeni government forces are at a delicate point.

Recently, it was reported that the Houthis killed four Saudi soldiers just days after Saudi Arabia shot down a missile from the Houthis that was headed for Israel.

In the latest Houthi attack, the missiles passed through Saudi territory uninterrupted before being shot down by Israel. It is unclear whether this is an indication that the Saudis heeded the Houthis’ warning, which is potentially why they didn’t shoot down the latest missiles. To know more about the true state of Saudi-Houthi negotiations, there needs to be greater evidence, such as increased clashes between the Saudis and Houthis, or even a direct attack by the Houthis on Saudi Arabia.

But if Houthi missile attacks escalate in the coming days, it could put Saudi Arabia in a difficult spot. At that point, the Saudis would face a difficult choice. They could allow the Houthis’ missiles to continue passing through their land or they could try to shoot them down. But that would risk jeopardizing diplomatic efforts with both the Houthis and Iran. And that, I feel, seems very unlikely.

Mahad Darar, Ph.D. Student of Political Science, Colorado State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

(The Conversation) – Saudi Arabia and Israel had seemingly been edging closer to a landmark deal to normalize their diplomatic relations – and then the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, happened.

Since then, thousands have died in Gaza and in Israel. And fears of the conflict spreading across the region form the backdrop to frenzied diplomacy across the region, including a visit to Israel by U.S. President Joe Biden on Oct. 18.

It also threatens to undermine a key pillar of Saudi Arabia’s foreign and domestic agenda: the “de-risking” of the region. With Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman set on implementing “Vision 2030” – an ambitious economic, social and cultural program – and developing the kingdom as a destination for tourism and investment, a renewal of regional instability is the last thing the crown prince needs.

De-escalating tensions

Certainly, the escalating violence in the Middle East presents a challenge to the shift toward de-escalation of tensions across much of the broader region in recent years.

This has included the signing of the Abraham Accords in 2020, which established diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco. But it goes further, including multiple-state treaties that have healed rifts across the Gulf, culminating in the signing of a deal in March 2023 to restore Saudi-Iranian relations.

Regardless of whether Hamas fighters or the Israeli leaders ever put on trial before international tribunals, all indications are that the IDF is poised to enter Gaza after its heavy bombardment and the destruction of its remaining buildings and infrastructure. The death of hundreds of innocent Palestinians, a number that will be in the thousands, should IDF proceed with its planned invasion.

The Lebanese Hezbollah’s exchange of fire with Israeli forces along the border has raised the prospect of a wider regional war. Prospects for a Syrian entry into the war increase, should LH enter the war to protect Hamas and the Gazans from an Israeli onslaught. The United States has ordered two aircraft carrier fleets in the Eastern Mediterranean. The White House claims its beefed-up naval presence in the region is a deterrence to Iran and the LH to avert an expanded war, as Iran has warned of the possibility of such a wider regional warfare.

Subsequently, how the Iranian government will act in either instigating anti-Israeli operations by a host of trained militias in the region or directly injecting itself into the conflict remains a matter of speculation. In such a scenario, the United States forces in Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere in the region can become a target of opportunity and the political life for Arab allies of the United States will become exceedingly difficult, with real threats of political instability in the conservative Arab monarchies.

A key to avoiding further escalation and the expansion of the conflict may rest in the hands of Saudi Arabia and OPEC+. Today, Saudi Arabia is the undisputed oil producer and exporter of OPEC and has already, in conjunction with Russia, cut back on oil production to boost global oil prices, collecting more revenues and effectively helping with Russia’s war efforts. As The Wall Street Journal reported, the OPEC+ (Saudi Arabia and Russia) raked in billions of dollars in extra oil revenues in recent months (October 2022-23), despite pumping fewer barrels, after their production cuts sent crude prices soaring. The 1973 October or Yom Kippur War witnessed the first such successful Arab states’ use of oil as a weapon to convince the United States and its European supporters of Israel to stop and give diplomacy a chance.

A combination of assertive Arab leaders, a tight global oil market, and limited but respectable military performance by the Arab armies led to the disengagement of Egyptian and Israeli armies, the exchange of prisoners, and, with the U.S. leadership, the Camp David Accord in 1979. However, in the following months and years, the Arab states failed to secure the creation of a Palestinian State and pursued a policy of ‘cold peace’ with Israel. The United States also failed to implement UNSC resolution 338 which reiterated the 1967 UNSC resolution 242, calling for an exchange of occupied territories for peace. Subsequently, all efforts since the 1980s, including OSLO I, OSLO II, and the creation of a self-governing Palestinian entity in the occupied West Bank have led to no permanent peace.

The American-Israeli efforts in the past forty-three years have boiled down to nothing but efforts to ‘manage’ and not ‘resolve’ the conflict. Not only the creation of an independent Palestinian state has not been realized, but the Arab states have also not regained their lost territories—the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Golan Heights, and Gaza! A more assertive Arab state’s leadership can prove instrumental to avert an inevitable avenge killing of innocent Palestinian people if the United States allows the Israeli army to enter Gaza.  

The United States need not repeat its mistakes in responding to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The avenge killing and unnecessary, baseless wars have not made the United States any stronger or legitimate in the international community. Conversely, popular opinion of the United States in the Middle East today remains critical and is seen as a culprit in the miseries inflicted upon peoples in the region. Thus, the 2022 Arab Public Opinion survey in 14 countries (Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Tunisia) based on 33,300 face-to-face interviews indicates that 84.3% of Arab population oppose the recognition of the state of Israel, and 59% considers Israel (38%) and the United States (21%) as the greatest threat to Arab countries. Similarly, people interviewed consider Israel (74%), and the US (62%) as international players whose policies threaten security and stability in the Middle East.  

Muhammad Bin Salman has already made a cold peace with the Islamic Republic of Iran and tacitly expressed an interest in a deal to recognize Israel in return for a U.S. security guarantee and a close nuclear cooperation with the United States. Saudi Arabia’s recent closer cooperation and exchanges with China also shows its pragmatic foreign policy engagement that recognizes the rise of China and an increasingly multipolar world, with complex and overlapping policy issue areas. A stronger, balanced, and assertive Saudi foreign policy can best serve its people and regional political stability and prosperity.

The ill-fated intervention in Yemen’s internal war and years of hostility at containing the supposed ‘Iranian threat’ has only led to more wasteful arms purchases and political conflict with its traditional allies (the United Arab Emirates and Qatar). The political competition among Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, and Iran only deprives these countries of great economic and investment opportunities in the service of development and regional cooperation.  

The Saudi leadership can succeed in pressuring the United States and Israel to avert a Gaza onslaught, given the tight energy market, Russia’s prowess in the oil market and the ongoing war in Ukraine, China’s inroads into the Middle East, the quiet down situation in Yemen, a rapprochement with Iran, and the opportunity to lift itself as a leading Arab country helping the Palestinian cause. Time is of the essence if the MBS wishes to turn the tragedy of war and human suffering into an opportunity. It can go far in rehabilitating his image and acceptability as a leader. Let us see if the region and the world can avoid another human calamity before it is too late.