What kind of future awaits Hamas after the killing of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran?

Analysis What kind of future awaits Hamas after the killing of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran?
Mourners gather during a funeral procession for Ismail Haniyeh, political leader of Hamas, who was killed during a visit to Tehran, on July 31. (AFP/Getty Image)
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Updated 07 August 2024
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What kind of future awaits Hamas after the killing of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran?

What kind of future awaits Hamas after the killing of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran?
  • Experts discuss whether the Palestinian group can retain its influence and rebuild after the killing of its political bureau chief
  • The killing of Hamas leaders may represent a tactical victory for Israel, but seems to have limited strategic value, says analyst

LONDON: It has been 14 years since Israeli agents carried out one of Mossad’s most audacious, controversial and, perhaps, pointless assassinations.

On Jan. 19, 2010, Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh, the man responsible for procuring weapons for Hamas, was murdered in a hotel bedroom in Dubai.

It was a big operation, with many moving parts, involving almost 30 Mossad operatives who entered Dubai on false passports.

It ended with Al-Mabhouh being overpowered in his room at the Al-Bustan Rotana and given a fatal dose of suxamethonium chloride, a drug used in anesthetic cocktails.




People take part in a march called by Palestinian and Lebanese youth organizations in the southern Lebanese city of Saida, on August 5, 2024, to protest against the assassination of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh. (AFP)

To avoid leaving a tell-tale needle mark, the drug was administered with a device that used ultrasound to deliver it through the skin. The drug causes paralysis and, still conscious but with his lungs unable to function, Al-Mabhouh asphyxiated to death.

The assassins put him to bed and left, using a Mossad-developed device for putting hotel-door security chains in place from the outside of the room, hoping that Al-Mabhouh’s death would be attributed to natural causes.

It might have been, but for the vigilance of Dubai’s police chief. He suspected foul play and, by having the comings and goings through Dubai airport before and after the hit analyzed, and days of hotel security-camera footage examined in detail, put together a damning portfolio of evidence.

At the time, the killing was big news. Images of two Mossad agents posing as tennis players, emerging from an elevator behind Al-Mabhouh, appeared on televisions and newspapers around the world.

Today, however, for few outside Hamas or Mossad will the name Al-Mabhouh have any resonance. Certainly, his killing failed to have any appreciable impact on the flow of arms to the group.




Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (R) meeting with Palestinian Hamas movement leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 30, 2024. (AFP)

This week, the killing of Ismail Haniyeh, chairman of the Hamas political bureau, is also big news — as was the killing on July 13 of Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif.

But soon, says Ahron Bregman, a former officer in the Israeli army and a senior teaching fellow in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, the disruption caused by their deaths to the activities and ambitions of Hamas will disappear, as the ripples caused by a small pebble thrown into a large lake quickly vanish.

“The killing of Ismail Haniyeh will not change much as far as Hamas is concerned,” said Bregman, author of “The Fifty Years War: Israel and the Arabs” and the memoir “The Spy Who Fell to Earth,” an account of his part in the exposure of an Egyptian alleged double agent.

“Hamas is more than rifles, rockets and even leaders. Hamas is an idea.

“If Israel wants to defeat it, it must offer the Palestinians a better idea — say, a Palestinian state.

“If such an idea is not put forward, then Hamas will remain in place and rebuild itself for future battles with Israel.”

KEY HAMAS FIGURES

  • Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’ Gaza leader, has just been named Ismail Haniyeh’s successor.
  • Khaled Meshaal, a founding member, has mostly operated from the relative safety of exile.
  • Khalil Al-Hayya, Doha-based deputy leader of Hamas, is said to have the backing of Iran.
  • Musa Abu Marzouk lived for 14 years in the US before becoming deputy chairman of Hamas’ political bureau.

Hamas is an Islamist militant group that spun off from the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in the late 1980s. It took over the Gaza Strip after defeating its rival political party, Fatah, in elections in 2006.

The sheer number of killings of key Hamas figures carried out by Israel over the past quarter-century, and the negligible impact of these killings on the organization’s capabilities or objectives, speaks of a policy being carried out despite a lack of success — or, perhaps, in accordance with a less obvious, and probably domestically focused agenda.

Killing high-profile Hamas targets, and perpetuating the war in the process, makes it harder for Israelis inclined toward peace to criticize or plot to remove their wartime Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Certainly, it is not difficult for Netanyahu’s critics to see the killing of Haniyeh as a deliberate tactic to derail peace talks.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani put it succinctly on X, writing: “How can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side?”




A woman walks near a billboard displaying portraits of Hamas leader Mohammed Deif (R) and Ismail Haniyeh with the slogan “assassinated” reading in Hebrew, in Tel Aviv, on August 2, 2024. (AFP)

Israel’s list of assassinations and attempted assassinations of Hamas leaders is a long one, and the killings have not always been as subtly carried out as the necessarily low-key Mossad hit on Al-Mabhouh in Dubai.

One of the first high-profile targets to be killed was Salah Shehadeh, the leader of Hamas’ military wing, who was targeted in Gaza on July 23, 2002, by an Israeli F-16 that dropped a massive bomb on his home.

Such was the cost in collateral damage — 14 others died, including Shehadeh’s wife and nine children — that 27 Israeli Air Force pilots had a fit of conscience, denouncing such attacks as “illegal and immoral” and “a direct result of the ongoing occupation which is corrupting all of Israeli society.”

The soul-searching did not last long, however. The toll of senior Hamas leaders has continued more or less unabated ever since.

Those who have been killed include Ahmed Yassin, who founded Hamas in 1987. He died 20 years ago, on March 22, 2004, in a hail of missiles fired from Israeli helicopters as he returned home from morning prayers in Gaza.

He was succeeded by Abdel Aziz Al-Rantisi, who died in similar fashion just 26 days later.




Iranians take part in a funeral procession for late Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran, on August 1, 2024. (AFP)

Ahmed Al-Jabari, second-in-command of Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades, was targeted unsuccessfully five times before succumbing in Gaza City in November 2012 to a missile fired from a drone.

This year, unsurprisingly, has been a particularly busy one in terms of Hamas assassinations carried out by Israel. Hamas deputy and Haniyeh’s right-hand man Salah Al-Arouri was killed on Jan. 7 in an airstrike in Lebanon that also claimed the lives of several other senior Hamas commanders.

On March 11, Marwan Issa, deputy commander of Al-Qassam Brigades and Hamas No. 3, died in an airstrike in Gaza.

But none of these deaths — individually or taken together — has managed to turn Hamas from its path or hamper its ability to continue doggedly pursuing its aims militarily.

Haniyeh’s death is likely to have no greater immediate impact on Hamas’ capabilities than the assassinations that have gone before, said John Jenkins, former UK ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Iraq and a Middle East expert with the Centre for Geopolitics at Cambridge University.

But it might signal a change of strategy that bodes ill for any hopes of an immediate end to conflict.




Smoke billows from burning tires behind an Israeli army vehicle in Hebron on July 31, 2024, following a demonstration by Palestinians denouncing the killing of Haniyeh. (AFP)

“In the past, decapitation hasn’t worked — not with Hamas, nor with Hezbollah, nor Iran,” he said. “Or, at least, it has disrupted rather than interrupted.”

Israel, he added, “undoubtedly knows that. But it’s also thought for two decades that ‘mowing the grass’ is the best way to manage the conflict.”

That policy of simply keeping a lid on the problem “is now over — it collapsed on Oct. 7, 2023.

“So, the game now is destruction — of Hamas’ offensive capabilities and its ability to function as a significant political actor within the occupied Palestinian territories.

“That doesn’t mean killing the idea; that’s not possible. It means killing the capability. That’s why a ceasefire is a long way off.

“Spectacular assassinations are now part of a wider strategy of dismantling tunnels, command and control functions, logistics, and so on. That’s the only context in which they make sense.”

It is, however, a very dangerous game, with the killings of Haniyeh and Deif in Tehran and Beirut condemned by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last week as “a dangerous escalation.”




Yemenis wave flags and lift placards of Hezbollah senior commander Fuad Shukr and Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh during a rally in the Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa on August 2, 2024. (AFP)

Instead of Israel rampaging around the region on a killing spree — let alone assassinating Hamas’ Qatar-based negotiators, such as Haniyeh — “all efforts should instead be leading to a ceasefire in Gaza, the release of all Israeli hostages, a massive increase of humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza and a return to calm in Lebanon and across the Blue Line,” said Guterres.

“This endless cycle,” he added, “needs to stop.”

In an interview with a British newspaper over the weekend, Amjad Iraqi, an associate fellow with Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa program, warned that Israel’s increasingly audacious killings were indeed edging the region dangerously close to a regional war.

“People are not understanding the gravity of what this is,” he told the Independent.

“There is a kind of egotistical, unstable dance that all these actors are making with missiles and with people’s lives, while trying to explain it as calibrated responses.”

Only a ceasefire could cool things down, but as things stand, “we are at a very, very dangerous point.”




Muslims pray during the final prayers for Ismail Haniyeh at his funeral in the Qatari capital Doha on August 2, 2024. (AFP)

The reality of imminent escalation, said Burcu Ozcelik, senior research fellow for Middle East security at the Royal United Services Institute, “means that the ‘day after’ and the path to statehood seems even farther away now, with all sides focusing on the military outcome of the here and now, at the expense of immense civilian suffering and a viable political solution.”

For its part, Hamas, “to project resilience and the resolve of its leadership despite the assassination of Haniyeh, is trying to pivot quickly to appoint a new political bureau chief.”

A consultative process is under way “and, until a decision is made, such as the appointment of Khaled Mashal, for example, ceasefire negotiations cannot realistically recommence.”

As it has done many times before, in other words, Hamas will quickly grow a new limb to replace one that has been amputated.

But “a more urgent obstacle to restarting talks is that Hamas cannot be authorized to re-enter a diplomatic phase until Iran declares that the regime and its proxies have sufficiently retaliated against Israel for the series of high-profile assassinations, with much speculation around when that might happen.”




Mourners offer their condolences to senior Hamas official Khaled Mashaal (L) during the funeral of Ismail Haniyeh, in the Qatari capital Doha on August 2, 2024. (AFP)

The killing of Haniyeh has, she believes, “cornered Hamas into a dilemma that will determine how the organization evolves over time.

“On the one hand, the loss of a recognizable political leader will trigger radicalization among some Hamas supporters and embolden hardliners among the military faction such as Yahya Sinwar, his brother and their inner circle.

“On the other, with Hamas fighters suffering losses inside Gaza and its military infrastructure downgraded, Hamas will be looking for a lull in the fighting to recoup and plan ahead.

“But for Hamas, this is a long game, and it is far from over — key figures inside and outside Gaza will continue to struggle to consolidate Hamas and its victory narrative and position it for a role in post-war Gaza.”




An Indonesian protester holds up a placard with the image of Ismail Haniyeh during a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Surabaya on August 6, 2024. (AFP)

Ahron Bregman agrees that the killing of Haniyeh “might lead to a regional war in which Iran and Hezbollah could become involved. If the latter happens, it will play straight into the hands of Hamas’ leader, Yahya Sinwar, whose dream has always been that his Oct. 7 attack on Israel triggers a regional war.”

The assassination will also “put on ice any hostage deal, as both leaders, Netanyahu and Sinwar, are not interested in such a deal at the moment.

“For Netanyahu, a deal could spell the end of his coalition government. As for Sinwar, he will wait to see if the assassination at the heart of Tehran, which humiliated Iran, could lead to a regional war.”




Yahia Sinwar addresses supporters during a rally in Gaza City, on April 14, 2023. (AFP)

It is true, Bregman added, that “in recent months, Israel has managed to assassinate many of the Hamas leaders. Sinwar is quite on his own now, and I’m sure he’s got very few of the old guard to consult with.

“But Hamas is bigger and larger than any leader or leaders. When this war is over, there will still be Hamas — battered, leaner, but still standing and able to send rockets into Israel.

“The assassinations are tactical victories for Israel, but there is nothing strategic in it, not even in the possible killing of Sinwar himself.”




Members of the Palestinian Joint Action Committee sit during a symbolic funeral for Ismail Haniyeh, in Beirut, on August 2, 2024. (AFP)

Ultimately, the cost of Israel’s campaign of assassinations could be borne by Israelis and Palestinians alike.

The details of the operation to kill Al-Mabhouh in Dubai in 2010 emerged in the book “Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations,” published by Israeli historian and investigative journalist Ronen Bergman in 2018.

Bergman concluded that, because Israel’s intelligence community had always “provided Israel’s leaders sooner or later with operational responses to every focused problem they were asked to solve,” that very success had “fostered the illusion among most of the nation’s leaders that covert operations could be a strategic and not just a tactical tool — that they could be used in place of real diplomacy to end the geographic, ethnic, religious, and national disputes in which Israel is mired.”

As a result, Israel’s leaders “have elevated and sanctified the tactical method of combating terror and existential threats at the expense of the true vision, statesmanship, and genuine desire to reach a political solution that is necessary for peace to be attained.”

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Israeli court jails Palestinian WAFA journalist Rasha Herzallah for six months

Israeli court jails Palestinian WAFA journalist Rasha Herzallah for six months
Updated 18 November 2024
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Israeli court jails Palestinian WAFA journalist Rasha Herzallah for six months

Israeli court jails Palestinian WAFA journalist Rasha Herzallah for six months
  • Herzallah detention extended five times before charge of “incitement on social media” was brought at Israeli Salem military court

LONDON: An Israeli military court sentenced on Sunday the Palestinian journalist Rasha Herzallah to six months in jail and issued a fine of 13,000 shekels ($3,300).  

Herzallah, 39, was working for the official Palestine News and Information Agency (WAFA) at the time of her arrest last June, when she was summoned for an investigation at the Israeli Huwwara detention center north of the occupied West Bank. 

Her detention was extended five times before a charge of “incitement on social media” was brought in court. 

She is the sister of Muhammad Herzallah, who died from his wounds in November 2023 after being shot in the head by Israeli forces during a raid of Nablus city, WAFA reported. 

Herzallah’s court hearing was held at the Israeli Salem military base near Jenin, her family told WAFA. She is expected to be released from prison on Dec. 1.  

She is among 94 Palestinian journalists currently detained in Israeli jails since Oct. 7, 2023.

WAFA reported that four female journalists, including Herzallah, Rola Hassanin, Bushra Al-Tawil, and Amal Shujaiyah, a journalism student from Birzeit University, remain in Israeli detention.


Cultural experts urge UN to shield Lebanon’s heritage

Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the village of Qlayleh on Sunday. (AFP)
Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the village of Qlayleh on Sunday. (AFP)
Updated 17 November 2024
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Cultural experts urge UN to shield Lebanon’s heritage

Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the village of Qlayleh on Sunday. (AFP)
  • Lebanon’s cultural heritage at large is being endangered by recurrent assaults on ancient cities such as Baalbek, Tyre, and Anjar, all UNESCO world heritage sites, and other historic landmarks.

BEIRUT: Hundreds of cultural professionals, including archeologists and academics, called on the UN to safeguard war-torn Lebanon’s heritage in a petition published on Sunday before a crucial UNESCO meeting.
Several Israeli strikes in recent weeks on Baalbek in the east and Tyre in the south hit close to ancient Roman ruins designated as UNESCO World Heritage sites.
The petition, signed by 300 prominent cultural figures, was sent to UNESCO chief Audrey Azoulay a day before a special session in Paris to consider listing Lebanese cultural sites under “enhanced protection.”
It urges UNESCO to protect Baalbek and other heritage sites by establishing “no-target zones” around them, deploying international observers, and enforcing measures from the 1954 Hague Convention on cultural heritage in conflict.
“Lebanon’s cultural heritage at large is being endangered by recurrent assaults on ancient cities such as Baalbek, Tyre, and Anjar, all UNESCO world heritage sites, as well as other historic landmarks,” says the petition.
It calls on influential states to push for an end to military action that destroys or damages sites, as well as adding protections or introducing sanctions.
Change Lebanon, the charity behind the petition, said signatories included museum curators, academics, archeologists, and writers in Britain, France, Italy, and the US.
Enhanced protection status gives heritage sites “high-level immunity from military attacks,” according to UNESCO.
“Criminal prosecutions and sanctions, conducted by the competent authorities, may apply in cases where individuals do not respect the enhanced protection granted to a cultural property,” it said.
In Baalbek, Israeli strikes on Nov. 6 hit near the city’s Roman temples, according to authorities, destroying a heritage house dating back to the French mandate and damaging the historic site.
The region’s governor said “a missile fell in the car park” of a 1,000-year-old temple, the closest strike since the start of the war.
The ruins host the prestigious Baalbek Festival each year, a landmark event founded in 1956 and now a fixture on the international cultural scene, featuring performances by music legends like Oum Kalthoum, Charles Aznavour and Ella Fitzgerald.

 


Lebanon says Israeli strike on central Beirut kills two

Lebanese emergency services battle a fire burns at site of Israeli strike that targeted a building in Beirut’s Mar Elias Street
Lebanese emergency services battle a fire burns at site of Israeli strike that targeted a building in Beirut’s Mar Elias Street
Updated 17 November 2024
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Lebanon says Israeli strike on central Beirut kills two

Lebanese emergency services battle a fire burns at site of Israeli strike that targeted a building in Beirut’s Mar Elias Street
  • “Israeli warplanes launched a strike on the Mar Elias area,” the official National News Agency said of a densely packed residential and shopping district

BEIRUT: Lebanon said an Israeli strike on central Beirut’s Mar Elias district killed two people, the second such raid targeting the capital Sunday after an earlier strike killed a Hezbollah official.
Israel has been heavily bombing Beirut’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, since all-out war erupted on September 23, but attacks on central Beirut have been rarer.
“Israeli warplanes launched a strike on the Mar Elias area,” the official National News Agency said of a densely packed residential and shopping district that also houses people displaced by the conflict.
The health ministry said the strike killed two people and wounded 13, raising an earlier toll of one dead and nine wounded.
AFP journalists heard the sound of explosions and then sirens amid a strong acrid smell of burning. AFP images showed a blaze at the site that firefighters were trying to extinguish.
A Lebanese security source, requesting anonymity, told AFP that the strike hit an electronics store in Mar Elias, without providing further details.
The NNA said the strike “targeted a Jamaa Islamiya center,” referring to a Sunni Muslim group allied to Palestinian militant group Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
But Jamaa Islamiya lawmaker Imad Hout told AFP that “no center or institution affiliated with the group is located in the area targeted by the strike, and no member of the group was targeted.”
Earlier Sunday, a Lebanese security source said Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif was killed in a strike on central Beirut’s Ras Al-Nabaa district.
Previous strikes claimed by Israel on Beirut’s southern suburbs have killed senior Hezbollah officials, including its leader Hassan Nasrallah in late September.
In the wake of Sunday’s strikes, the education minister said schools and higher education institutions in the Beirut area would remain closed for two days.


Netanyahu remains key obstacle to Middle East peace, says Israeli analyst

Netanyahu remains key obstacle to Middle East peace, says Israeli analyst
Updated 17 November 2024
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Netanyahu remains key obstacle to Middle East peace, says Israeli analyst

Netanyahu remains key obstacle to Middle East peace, says Israeli analyst
  • 2002 Saudi Arabia Peace Plan seen as most viable framework for resolving Israeli-Palestinian conflict, achieving normalization between Israel and Arab world, Yossi Mekelberg argues
  • He accuses Netanyahu of using wars in Gaza, Lebanon to delay his prosecution on corruption charges

Chicago, IL: Donald Trump’s re-election as US president could help bring peace between Palestinians and Israelis, but such progress would require a change in Israel’s leadership, said prominent Israeli analyst Yossi Mekelberg.

Speaking during an appearance on “The Ray Hanania Radio Show” Thursday, Mekelberg argued that while there is “wide-ranging” speculation about what the upcoming US president might do in his second term, the current Israeli administration needs to step down before peace can be achieved.

“In my opinion, Israel needs to change the government, full stop. I mean, for everyone’s sake,” said Mekelberg, who is a senior consulting fellow at the Middle East and North Africa Program at Chatham House.

Mekelberg underscored the relevance of the 2002 Saudi Arabia Peace Plan, which offers normalization with Israel in exchange for a complete withdrawal from occupied territories and a resolution to the Palestinian issue. He described it as “the most viable option to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (in such a way) that both sides are satisfied.

“When we talk about normalization and we think about the UAE or Bahrain or Morocco, it was Saudi Arabia (that was) the first to offer this to put it on the table 22 years ago,” he said.

The Saudi initiative, first proposed at the 2002 Arab League Summit in Beirut and reaffirmed in 2007, has repeatedly been rejected by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. The plan offered Israel full normalization with Arab states in exchange for a complete withdrawal from occupied territories, including the Gaza Strip, West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights.

“This has been on the table for more than 22 years. And I think this has always been the right approach,” Mekelberg argued. “We know that there were discussions about normalization over the (past) year or so before October 7th. There is no way in the world, if Israel refuses to make concessions on the Palestinian issues, that normalization will be back on the table.”

Before the outbreak of the Hamas-Israel conflict in October 2023, US-brokered normalization talks between Saudi Arabia and Israel appeared within reach. Netanyahu himself referenced this possibility during his speech at the UN General Assembly in September 2023, claiming the region was on the cusp of a “dramatic breakthrough.” However, the escalation of violence in Gaza first and Lebanon after derailed those efforts.

At the recent Riyadh summit, both Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan reiterated that normalization with Israel would not be discussed without significant progress toward establishing a two-state solution. Mekelberg said this stance reflects a broader consensus among Arab leaders that resolving the Palestinian issue is key to achieving lasting peace.

“We saw what happens when the Palestinian issue is not resolved … For some people, when you say that, the interpretation is almost like justifying what happened on October 7th. Obviously not. No one ever can justify something like this,” he noted, adding that conflicts that are left “to fester will catch you in all sorts (of ways) and will lead certain people to do all sorts of things,” leaving leaders to deal with the “fallout.”

This approach “is much worse for Israel than working toward peace in the first place,” Mekelberg said, criticizing the current Israeli narrative that dismisses Palestinian leadership as incapable of negotiation.

Mekelberg acknowledged the widespread criticism of the Palestinian Authority, which was established in the 1990s under the Oslo Accords to govern areas of the West Bank and Gaza. The Fatah-controlled body has been accused of impotence and ineffectiveness, particularly during the current crisis. As a result, Tel Aviv has dismissed the possibility of negotiating with its leaders, raising questions about who could lead Palestinian territories toward a viable peace process.

“Israel needs change on so many levels,” Mekelberg emphasized, highlighting Netanyahu’s extended tenure in power, spanning 15 years almost consecutively and additional terms between 1996 and 1999.

“(He) is longest serving (prime minister), more than David Ben Gurion, who’s founder of the country. He’s a master manipulator. He understands the Israeli political system and psyche in a way that no one knows better than him and he managed to win (the) election. The fact that he, considering what happened only a year ago, is still prime minister, is a complete and colossal failure to defend Israel.”

Netanyahu, who previously served as prime minister from 1996 to 1999 and from 2009 to 2021, returned to office in 2022 despite facing long-standing corruption charges. The indictments, filed in 2019, allege breach of trust, accepting bribes, and fraud. While he relinquished other ministerial roles, he has held onto the premiership, using his coalition with Israel’s most extreme political parties to influence the judicial system and delay his trial.

Critics argue that Netanyahu has exploited Israel’s volatile situation to postpone legal proceedings. This week, the Jerusalem District Court rejected his request for a further delay, and he is scheduled to testify on Dec. 2.

Referring to Netanyahu as a “Teflon politician” to whom no scandal seems to stick, Mekelberg questioned how long he could maintain his position. “And, I will be the first to admit, I don’t always understand what is the appeal.”

Discussing the potential impact of Trump’s re-election, Mekelberg voiced cautious optimism about the former president’s ability to broker peace. He downplayed concerns over Trump’s far-right appointees, noting that if his first term is any indication, “there will be people coming and going in this administration probably within a year.” However, he stressed that Trump’s success would hinge on major changes within Israel’s political landscape.

The Ray Hanania Radio Show is broadcast every Thursday in Michigan on WNZK AM 690 Radio at 5 p.m. on the US Arab Radio Network and is sponsored by Arab News. To listen to the full episode or past shows, visit ArabNews.com/RayRadioShow. To get more information on host Ray Hanania, visit ArabNews.com or his website at RayHanania.com.


Frankly Speaking: How do Palestinians perceive a new Trump presidency?

Frankly Speaking: How do Palestinians perceive a new Trump presidency?
Updated 17 November 2024
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Frankly Speaking: How do Palestinians perceive a new Trump presidency?

Frankly Speaking: How do Palestinians perceive a new Trump presidency?
  • Foreign minister says Palestinians are hopeful about the next US administration as there is now global momentum behind the two-state solution
  • Varsen Aghabekian Shahin tells “Franking Speaking” coalition spearheaded by Saudi Arabia to help realize statehood represents a source of hope

 

DUBAI: Although the previous administration of US President-elect Donald Trump was seen as a staunch ally of Israel, Varsen Aghabekian Shahin, Palestine’s minister of state for foreign affairs and expatriates, says Palestinians remain hopeful about his return to the White House.

In large part this is due to a perception that the international climate surrounding the issue of Palestinian statehood is fundamentally different to that which prevailed during Trump’s last administration, owed in large part to events in Gaza and the resulting wave of solidarity.

“I have to be hopeful. We have to remain hopeful,” said Aghabekian Shahin during an appearance on the Arab News current affairs program “Franking Speaking,” a week after President-elect Trump secured a powerful mandate in a deeply polarized US election race.

Her optimism, however, is tempered by the decades of frustration that Palestinians have felt under Israeli occupation. “What we have been hoping for, as always, is a Palestinian state with our sovereignty and our self-determination,” she told “Frankly Speaking” host Katie Jensen.

While Trump’s first term was marked by controversial moves such as recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and relocating the US embassy there from Tel Aviv, Aghabekian Shahin believes there remains a possibility for change.

“With the incoming president in the United States, our hope remains the same. We hope President Trump will take a more balanced approach ... and put on his agenda the rights of the Palestinians.”

Aghabekian Shahin said she hopes the incoming administration of Donald Trump takes a more balanced approach to the Palestinian question. (Brad Penner-Imagn Images)

During his last administration, Trump championed normalization agreements between Arab states and Israel under the Abraham Accords. However, Aghabekian Shahin says “peace will not be sustainable if Palestinians’ rights are not taken into consideration.”

In contrast with the period coinciding with Trump’s last administration, Aghabekian Shahin says there is now a global momentum behind Palestinian statehood, catalyzed by shifting alliances and growing public outrage over Israeli actions in Gaza.

“I think times today are different than they were a couple years ago,” said Aghabekian Shahin. 

“The ongoing genocide in Gaza, the mounting pressure and dissatisfaction all over capitals in Europe … and the coalition today led by Saudi Arabia on the materialization of the state of Palestine — these are new dimensions that cannot be ignored.”

Israel’s military campaign in Gaza came in retaliation for the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, which killed more than 1,200 and saw 250 taken hostage. The conflict in the tiny Palestinian enclave has resulted in more than 43,700 dead and 1.9 million displaced.

International criticism of the scale of destruction in Gaza has intensified over the past year, with many questioning Israel’s adherence to international law. Israeli leaders could face war crimes charges before the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.

One positive to emerge from the conflict is renewed interest in the long-dormant effort to achieve the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which envisions an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital living peacefully alongside Israel.

Lauding Saudi Arabia’s diplomatic and humanitarian efforts, Aghabekian Shahin said a new international coalition spearheaded by the Kingdom to help expedite the two-state solution represented a source of hope for Palestinians.

This ambition was given further weight by the joint summit of the Arab League and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation that took place in the Saudi capital on Nov. 11, during which the leaders of 57 Arab and Islamic countries called on Israel to negotiate an end to the decades-old conflict.

Displaced Palestinians fleeing Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip walk on the main Salah al-Din road on November 17, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)

“Saudi Arabia has been extremely important for aid and its support to the Palestinian people,” said Aghabekian Shahin. “The summit that was held in Riyadh is a very important message. Fifty-seven countries were present in the meeting, with clear decisions and a focus on ending the occupation.”

Saudi Arabia has explicitly linked the normalization of ties with Israel to progress on Palestinian statehood. Aghabekian Shahin said this position is “a very important step and something that pushes forward and brings a lot of hope to the Palestinian people.”

During the recent joint summit, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman described Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide, marking the first occasion that a Saudi official had publicly done so. Nevertheless, there are still several nations, including many of Israel’s Western allies, who have avoided using the term.

While acknowledging the scale of human suffering in Gaza, Aghabekian Shahin said the precise terminology is less important than addressing the atrocities that are taking place.

“Even if 300,000 people are killed in Gaza, God forbidding, some countries will not call it a genocide,” she said. “What is happening is a humanitarian catastrophe. ... Governments and people are more and more realizing that these atrocities cannot continue.”

Asked whether Hamas bears responsibility for triggering the carnage that has befallen Gaza, Aghabekian Shahin did not condemn the Palestinian militant group outright, focusing instead on the underlying conditions that have fueled the cycle of violence.

“Who takes the blame first and foremost is the belligerent occupation that has been suffocating Palestinian lives over seven decades,” she said. “Gazans were living in an open-air prison… When people as human beings are cornered and they don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel, then obviously violence erupts.”

Despite the grim reality of the situation and the intense animosity between the warring sides, Aghabekian Shahin underscored the importance of diplomacy and adherence to international law to resolve the conflict.

“Any violence perpetrated by any side is unacceptable,” she said. “We need to put violence aside and resort to mechanisms that will bring us closer to our liberation as per international law.”

This commitment to seeking peaceful solutions aligns with Aghabekian Shahin’s extensive background in academia, human rights advocacy, and as a veteran member of the Palestinian negotiations unit.

Before her ministerial appointment in April, she served in various roles, including as director of the Capacity and Institutional Building Project at the Office of the Palestinian President and commissioner-general of the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights.

A member of Jerusalem’s Armenian community, Aghabekian Shahin has witnessed firsthand the pressures faced by minority groups in the city. She highlights the significance of the Armenian Quarter in the Old City, which has come under growing threat by far-right Jewish settlers.

As a member of Jerusalem’s Armenian community, Aghabekian Shahin has witnessed firsthand the pressures faced by minority groups in the city. (AN Photo)

“The land in question is invaluable,” she said, referring to a bitter ongoing legal dispute between the Armenian Patriarchate and an Australian-Israeli developer to lease an area of land in the Armenian Quarter to build a luxury hotel.

“This land is part and parcel of the heritage of the Armenian people for decades in Jerusalem,” said Aghabekian Shahin. “The community has a very good team of Israeli lawyers along with international lawyers who are working on the case.”

The Armenian Quarter in Jerusalem’s Old City has long been a symbol of Armenian identity and presence in the region. Aghabekian Shahin believes its preservation is vital not just for Armenians but for Jerusalem’s multicultural heritage.  

The flight of Christian communities more broadly from Palestine and the wider Middle East is itself a bellwether of the decline of religious pluralism in the region. Aghabekian Shahin attributes this trend to the hardships of living under occupation.

“People are sick and tired of occupation,” she said. “They want a better future for their children. This better future cannot happen under occupation… With an end of occupation, there is an economic horizon and a future that people can look to.”

As Palestinians await clarity on the global stage, Aghabekian Shahin remains resolute. “What we hope for today is what we have always hoped for — a sovereign Palestinian state living in peace next to Israel.”  

The stakes are high, however, not only for Palestinians but for the broader Middle East, where peace remains elusive. Aghabekian Shahin believes the next US administration will have to address the root causes of the conflict.  

“Without justice for Palestinians, there will be no sustainable peace.”