Why Yemen?

Hat-tip to my buddy with the PhD:

Several years ago, the Saudi paper “al-Watan” was reporting that Iran had been shipping arms to the Zaydi Hawthis, and training Hawthis at Quds Force camps in Eritrea, just across the Red Sea.  Why would Iran be so brazen?

Reasons for Iran to stir the Shi`I pot in Arabia:

  1. Leveraging “persecution” of Shi`is into regional geopolitical influence for Tehran-Qom
  2. Appealing to, and exploiting, historical connections with Shi`is of Yemen and greater Arabia
  3. Undermining and de-legitimizing the Saudi government
  4. Strengthening its strategic position on both sides of the Red Sea
  5. Strengthening its anti-Israel Islamic front
  6. Searching for allies wherever they can be found. 

Current Zaydi calls for the reestablishment of the Imamate, as well as cooperation with Iran, seem largely to be a result of their disenfranchisement by Sunni authorities in Sana`a, and their perception of being trapped between the anvil of the Saudi Wahhabis to the north and the ever-encroaching hammer of AQAP from the south.

 

Conventional wisdom right now has it that Yemen’s “Hero Imamate” is being used by the Iranian ayatollahs’ “Martyr Imamate.”  But perhaps it is the other way around.  The Zaydis have a historical legacy of ruling much of the country, and they do have legitimate complaints about Sunni repression.  Had the US put any pressure on the Sana`a rulers to acknowledge Hawthi-Zaydi grievances in recent years, they may not have been receptive to Iranian Shi`i blandishments.  But that Imam has left the well.  Now the US needs to find a way to prevent Yemen from fracturing while simultaneously giving the Zaydis their historical and political due.  Maybe, in the process, we can take advantage of the Zaydi hatred of AQAP.   And perhaps a bit of pressure on the Wahhabi fundamentalists in Riyadh and their new King, Salman, could be a good thing, as well.

Saudi ‘Decisive Storm’ waged to save Yemen

Saudi Arabia waged early Thursday “Operation Decisive Storm” against the Houthi coup in Yemen and in support of legitimate President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

A Saudi air campaign was launched overnight which has already resulted in the elimination of several Houthi leaders.

Yemen air space is currently under full control of the Saudi Royal Air Force.

As the operation continues, a coalition of all GCC countries, barring Oman, is taking part in the campaign, including Sudan, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan and Pakistan.

Saudi Arabia has deployed 100 fighter jets, 150,000 soldiers and other navy units, Al Arabiya News Channel reported.

Meanwhile, Yemen shut its major seaports on Thursday while Saudi Arabia halted flights to seven airports south of the Kingdom, Reuters news agency reported.     

Infographic: The ‘Decisive Storm’ coalition

(Design by Farwa Rizwan/ Al Arabiya News)

White House backs campaign

The White House has voiced support for the campaign against the Houthis. Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador to Washington Adel al-Jubeir announced the kingdom had launched a military operation involving air strikes in Yemen against Houthi fighters who have tightened their grip on the southern city of Aden where Hadi had taken refuge.

WATCH: Ambassador al-Jubeir: ‘Having Yemen fail cannot be an option’

Jubeir told reporters that a 10-country coalition had joined in the military campaign in a bid “to protect and defend the legitimate government” of Hadi.

“We will do whatever it takes in order to protect the legitimate government of Yemen from falling,” Jubeir said.

The U.S. has said it is coordinating closely with Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Ambassador to the United States Adel Al-Jubeir. (Reuters)

“President Obama has authorized the provision of logistical and intelligence support to GCC-led military operations,” National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said in a statement, referring to the Gulf Cooperation Council.

The Saudi-led military coalition declared Yemen’s airspace as a “restricted area” after King Salman bin Abdulaziz ordered the airstrikes on the Iran-backed Houthi militia on Thursday at 12 a.m. Riyadh time.

Yemeni forces and loyalists to Hadi have already managed to take control of Aden airport from Houthi militias, Al Arabiya News Channel reported citing sources.

Hadi, who has remained in Aden, is in high spirits after the launch of the operation against the Houthi rebel group opposed to his rule, an aide said.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry condemend the operation on Thursday and demanded an immediate halt what it described as “military aggression,” semi-Official Fars news agency reported.

‘Repel Houthi aggression’

Saudi Defense Minister Prince Mohammed bin Salman had warned Ahmed Ali Abdullah Saleh, the son of Yemen’s former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, against advancing toward Aden.

A member of the Saudi security forces stands guard as other demonstrate their skills during a military exercise in Arar, near Saudi Arabia’s northern border with Iraq March 18, 2015. (File: Reuters)

The Houthis had joined forces with the loyalists of former President Saleh in their offensive to take control of Yemen.

Operation ‘Decisive Storm’ to continue

Yemeni Foreign Minister Riad Yassine told Al Arabiya News Channel that the operations would continue until the Houthis agreed to join peace talks and backtrack on all measures taken since their occupation of the capital Sanaa last September.

“We do not recognize any of what happened after September 21,” Yassine told Al Arabiya News, saying the military operation would help the southern Yemenis “regain confidence.”

Demonstrations reportedly broke out in Yemen’s Hadramout and Aden in support of the Saudi airstrikes on the Houthi militia.

The military operation came shortly after Arab Gulf states, barring Oman, announced that they have decided to “repel Houthi aggression” in neighboring Yemen, following a request from Hadi.

In a joint statement Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait said they “decided to repel Houthi militias, al-Qaeda and ISIS [Islamic State of Iraq and Syria] in the country.”

The Gulf states warned that the Houthi coup in Yemen represented a “major threat” to the region’s stability.

The Gulf states also accused the Iranian-backed militia of conducting military drills on the border of Saudi Arabia with “heavy weapons.”

In an apparent reference to Iran, the Gulf statement said the “Houthi militia is backed by regional powers in order for it to be their base of influence.”

The Gulf states said they had monitored the situation and the Houthi coup in Yemen with “great pain” and accused the Shiite militia of failing to respond to warnings from the United Nations Security Council as well as the GCC.

The statement stressed that the Arab states had sought over the previous period to restore stability in Yemen, noting the last initiative to host peace talks under the auspices of the GCC.

Call for U.N. action

In a letter sent the U.N. Security Council seen by Al Arabiya News, Hadi requested “immediate support for the legitimate authority with all means and necessary measures to protect Yemen, and repel the aggression of the Houthi militia that is expected at any time on the city of Aden and the province of Taiz, Marib, al-Jouf [and] an-Baidah.”

In his letter Hadi said such support was also needed to control “the missile capability that was looted” by the Houthi militias.

Hadi also told the Council that he had requested from the Arab Gulf states and the Arab League “immediate support with all means and necessary measures, including the military intervention to protect Yemen and its people from the ongoing Houthi aggression.”

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has halted flights at seven airports near the Yemeni border, the civil aviation department said.

“The General Authority of Civil Aviation of Saudi Arabia announced a temporary suspension of international and domestic flights to and from airports in the south of the kingdom,” from dawn on Thursday, the department said in a statement.

 

WH Ignoring the Expanding Global Shia Crescent?

Iran and the ‘Shia Crescent’

Although the exact posturing and organization of the “Shia Crescent” is debated, there is no doubt a clear network exists of partners associated with Iran (Shia and non-Shia) who openly seek to undermine U.S. interests, and operate globally with increasing zeal and reach. Iran has long vowed, supported and operated alongside these partners like Lebanon’s Hezbollah, using a variety of soft and hard power.

Hezbollah Rockets

From Latin America, to Iraq and Afghanistan, to Bahrain and even Mexico, observers of current events will find the Shia Crescent at work. This term “Shia Crescent” is not an indictment against the moderate Shia believers who renounce radicalism, but it is a stark acknowledgment of the reality that Iran has co-opted many Shia communities, their grievances and legitimate concerns, and continues to orient them toward a radical agenda of confrontation, armed violence, and subversive activities penetrating legitimate political processes as well as criminal enterprises.

The following points are salient:

  1. Tehran’s Objective. Iran has a very clear agenda to use non-state soldiers to undermine Western interests and spread Iranian influence. Iranian constitutional law, high leadership declarations, military organization and posture, and a host of operations of its Quds forces in Iraq and the region and globally, provide overwhelming evidence of this fact. The link between state and non-state soldiers is thus important for our study.
  2. The nuclear threat. If Iran ever obtains nuclear weapons it will not have to use them to be effective. The mere threat of using them will check or checkmate an opponent by thrusting the fight to the level of non-state soldiers (Low Intensity Conflict) where Iran excels. This may prove to be the most important aspect of obtaining nuclear weapons. That said, many experts are convinced that Iran could and would use nuclear weapons.
  3. A Wide and Popular Appeal. Non-state soldiers surface in the Middle East under Iranian patronage and support even though these groups may not be Shia. The fact is Iran has developed an extraordinary ability to capture, partner with, and motivate disaffected young and middle-aged citizens, and partner with disaffected groups like Hamas, which are Sunni in belief. This wide appeal will continue to foster an environment where non-state soldiers thrive.
  4. Bottom up Strategy. The non-state soldiers under the Shia Crescent have aptly exploited the social and culture terrain by creating a social network offering jobs, emergency aid, religious identification and organization, and inspiration. Hezbollah has used this strategy, and developed a militant social movement into a political one, even though it vowed not to form a political party in Lebanon and participate in the parliamentary politics.
  5. Deadly strikes. Non-state soldiers working in this system have accomplished deadly attacks on US and partner personnel and assets. Beyond Iraq and Afghanistan, where Iranian influence and use of non-state soldiers are open and aggressive, we find high profile terrorist attacks like the Khobar Towers, where the regional Hezbollah conducted a major attack on a facility housing US and Saudi personnel.
  6. Geo-politics of the Shia Crescent. In context, it should be understood that the Shia Crescent emanating from Iran seeks to sweep through the Middle East, thrusting through Iraq, Syria, and extending into the Levant and Palestine.

Yet, Iran has a remarkable ability to “leap frog,” or move beyond a regional theater and operate globally. Despite Western efforts to contain Iranian influence and its use of proxies in the Middle East, Iran continues to support the development of hostile forces beyond this region.

The involvement of non-state soldiers in the Shia Crescent will remain a major challenge to U.S. security in the foreseeable future. Understanding these dynamics is essential.

Exploitation and Sanctions Violations

The sanctions on Iran are already falling apart

The Obama administration insists that the November 2013 interim nuclear deal with Iran gave Tehran’s economy only limited sanctions relief and that it can respond to Iranian misbehavior by snapping back sanctions at any time in.

Iran’s economic windfall, however, goes well beyond the monthly cash transfers and temporary easing on trade stipulated in the Joint Plan of Action, or JPOA.

Not only has the JPOA halted Iran’s slide into economic disaster, but the benefits the deal has prompted are a fraction of the dividends the Islamic Republic is set to reap the day a final agreement is reached.

These gains are only partly due to sanctions relief: Iran’s improved position also results from lax sanctions implementation by its neighbors, reluctance by European authorities to discourage their own economies from trading with the Islamic Republic, and Tehran’s fine-tuning of its talent for bypassing sanctions.

As a result, the interim nuclear deal looks increasingly like a slow-motion funeral procession for the sanctions regime.

Overwhelming evidence suggests Iran has successfully overcome banking sanctions to manage overseas payments. For example, email correspondence between a European manufacturer and an Iranian banking official, leaked last year to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, helpfully details how to bypass banking sanctions.

Seven Iranian banks not under EU sanctions can be used to process payments, but in the email, the Iranian banking official admits that European correspondent banks, out of zealous overreach, might refuse incoming funds.

To overcome this problem, he offers three alternative methods of payments: avoiding reliance on Letters of Credit by paying directly into suppliers’ accounts in Europe; using Iranian subsidiaries in Turkey and Dubai for payment and delivery of goods; and using a European company’s subsidiary branch in friendly countries like China, India, South Korea, and potentially Russia to handle sales and payments.

DubaiReutersDubai: Iran sanctions-busting central.

Such payment mechanisms work because they obfuscate the final destination of goods — namely Iran — and rely on banking institutions and Iranian front companies overseas to act as intermediaries for payment and shipment between Iran and Europe.

A recent Reuters article revealed that Iran not only knows how to process overseas payments. It has also regained access to foreign currency.

Tehran was able to repatriate $1 billion in cash through Dubai by relying on local money-exchange houses and moving the cash in hand luggage carried by businessmen flying on commercial flights. Moreover, an Iranian MP has publicly accused Iran’s Central Bank of sending cash suitcases of UAE dirhams outside Iran to buy dollars.

Further evidence points to cash moving out of Iran to enable illicit procurement. According to a Georgia-based Iranian businessman who spoke to us on condition of anonymity, couriers from Iran routinely fly to Tbilisi with cash suitcases (both FlyVista, a low-cost Georgian carrier, and Iran’s ATA air have scheduled Tehran-Tbilisi flights). With no limits on declared financial instruments brought into Georgia, Iran is able to bring foreign currency back into its borders through Dubai and transfer it to Georgia to finance procurement and trade.

Iran is able to run rings around the sanctions regime because of lax implementation of EU and US sanctions in the Islamic Republic’s “near abroad.” From the Persian Gulf through Turkey and the South Caucasus, Iran can rely on its neighbors to allow bilateral trade with Tehran to flow unimpeded. Turkey, for example, is home to more than 3,000 Iranian companies, including US-sanctioned Bank Mellat.

Ankara has cited the JPOA as the basis for loosening restrictions on Iranian banking, and in any case, none of Iran’s neighbors has fully signed on to EU and US sanctions. The interim deal and a looming final agreement are vindicating their approach: having kept their doors half-open to Iran’s business, its neighbors will be the first to gain from the demise of the sanctions regime.

Iran nuclearREUTERS/Brian SnyderU.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (L) holds a negotiation meeting with Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (R) over Iran’s nuclear programme, in Lausanne March 18, 2015.

Direct trade is also getting a push from the new psychological environment that the interim deal has created. Few in Europe believe the sanctions will remain, and many are exploring future commercial opportunities. In the meanwhile, Europe’s bilateral trade with Iran is climbing back to pre-sanctions levels — further evidence that banking sanctions are no longer effective.

According to Iran’s Press TV, last month the French automaker Peugeot finalized a deal with Iran Khodro, the Islamic Republic’s largest car manufacturer, to launch a new joint venture. This is the latest in a long string of European trading overtures to Tehran, reflected in a steep increase in European exports there. The German-Iranian chamber of commerce has reported a 36%-increase in Germany’s exports to the country for 2014 and Iranian figures show an 18% uptick in exports across Europe.

The Obama administration may still believe it is able to snap sanctions back at any time if Iran cheats on its commitments under a final agreement. Developments thus far under the interim deal suggest otherwise.

 

Obama Snubs Europe in Favor of Russia

In recent days, Barack Obama has been cozy with the president of Afghanistan, Ghani granted him the favor of extending the deployments of troops in the Afghan theater. Ashraf Ghani is visiting the White House and giving a speech to Congress that is full of gratitude for the United States commitment to the country.

This raises Obama’s reputation in dealing with foreign affairs, but does it really? When applied to matters in the Middle East, the Far East and Europe, his attention to nurturing those relationships continue to dive.

The NATO General Secretary, Jens Stoltenberg is in town for 3 days to deal with the crisis in Ukraine that is spilling over to Europe, the Baltic States and Ukraine. Obama has no time to meet with him, zero. The question is why?

President Barack Obama has yet to meet with the new head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and won’t see Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg this week, even though he is in Washington for three days.  Stoltenberg’s office requested a meeting with Obama well in advance of the visit, but never heard anything from the White House, two sources close to the NATO chief told me.

The leaders of almost all the other 28 NATO member countries have made time for Stoltenberg since he took over the world’s largest military alliance in October. Stoltenberg, twice the prime minister of Norway, met Monday with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Ottawa to discuss the threat of the Islamic State and the crisis in Ukraine, two issues near the top of Obama’s agenda.
Kurt Volker, who served as the U.S. permanent representative to NATO under both President George W. Bush and Obama, said the president broke a long tradition.  “The Bush administration held a firm line that if the NATO secretary general came to town, he would be seen by the president … so as not to diminish his stature or authority,” he told me.

America’s commitment to defend its NATO allies is its biggest treaty obligation, said Volker, adding that European security is at its most perilous moment since the Cold War. Russia has moved troops and weapons into eastern Ukraine, annexed Crimea, placed nuclear-capable missiles in striking distance of NATO allies, flown strategic-bomber mock runs in the North Atlantic, practiced attack approaches on the U.K. and Sweden, and this week threatened to aim nuclear missiles at Denmark’s warships.
“It is hard for me to believe that the president of the United States has not found the time to meet with the current secretary general of NATO given the magnitude of what this implies, and the responsibilities of his office,” Volker said.

Bernadette Meehan, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, declined to say why Obama didn’t respond to Stoltenberg’s request. “We don’t have any meetings to announce at this time,” she told me in a statement. Sources told me that Stoltenberg was able to arrange a last-minute meeting with Defense Secretary Ashton Carter.
According to White House press releases, Obama didn’t exactly have a packed schedule. On Tuesday, he held important meetings and a press conference with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani at the White House (Ghani will meet with Stoltenberg while they are both in town). But the only event on Obama’s public schedule for Wednesday is a short speech to kick off a meeting related to the Affordable Care Act. On Thursday, he will head to Alabama to give a speech about the economy.

Stoltenberg is in town primarily for the NATO Transformation Seminar, a once-a-year strategic brainstorming session that brings together NATO’s leadership with experts and top officials from the host country. The event is organized by the Allied Command Transformation in Norfolk, Virginia, and the Atlantic Council.

“The focus of this year’s seminar is to think through how best to update NATO’s strategy given real threats in the east and the south, against the backdrop of a dramatically changing world,” said Damon Wilson, a former NSC senior director for Europe who is now with the Atlantic Council. “The practical focus is to begin developing the road map to the next NATO summit, which will take place in Warsaw in July 2016, a summit which will presumably be the capstone and last summit for the Obama administration.”

Last year, the seminar was hosted in Paris, and then-NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen got a separate bilateral meeting with President Francois Hollande of France.

Last Friday, at the German Marshall Fund Brussels Forum, Stoltenberg talked about the importance of close coordination inside NATO in order to first confront Russian aggression and then eventually move toward a stable relationship with Moscow.

“The only way we can have the confidence to engage with Russia,” he said, “is to have the confidence and the strength which is provided by strong collective defense, the NATO alliance.”

Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski told the Brussels Forum that there has been a worrisome lag between NATO’s promises of more defensive equipment for Poland and what has actually arrived, a blow to the alliance’s credibility. “It’s very important and necessary for everyone to have the conviction, including the potential aggressor to have this conviction, that NATO is truly determined to execute contingency plans,” he said.

The White House missed a perfect opportunity to reinforce that message this week in snubbing Stoltenberg. It fits into a narrative pushed by Obama critics that he would rather meet with problematic leaders such as Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who will get an Oval Office meeting next month, than firm allies. The message Russian President Vladimir Putin will take away is that the White House-NATO relationship is rocky, and he will be right.

*** Putin is taking full advantage of this neglect and the means by which it plays out does not have a positive result. When it comes to Ukraine, we are bound by a long standing agreement to support and protect the country, to date that has not happened. Ukraine is working to increase the size of its forces against continued Russian aggression. Obama has refused to tend to the relationship with Poland. As a gesture, we have deployed 4 A-10’s to Poland. Even the country of Georgia is at risk of Russian juggernaut.

MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that a recent Russian military exercise has marked the beginning of a series of such drills this year, a show of force that comes amid a bitter strain with the West over Ukraine.

Reflecting the tensions, U.S. and other NATO forces staged maneuvers in the Baltics, and a convoy of U.S. troops has driven through eastern Europe in a bid to reassure the allies.

Last week’s Russian maneuvers that spread from the Arctic to the Black Sea involved 80,000 troops, about 100 navy ships and more than 220 aircraft.

Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to Putin Tuesday that the maneuvers were aimed at checking the readiness of the newly formed group of forces in the Arctic, as well as the military’s capability to quickly field troops to several theaters of operations.

“I proceed from the assumption that this was just the start of efforts to train the armed forces,” Putin said.

As part of the drills, the state-of-the art Iskander missiles were deployed to Russia’s westernmost exclave of Kaliningrad bordering NATO members Poland and Lithuania, and long-range, nuclear-capable Tu-22M3 bombers were sent to Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula Russia annexed from Ukraine a year ago.

 

The move was intended to demonstrate Russia’s readiness to raise the ante amid a bitter strain in relations with the West, but for now the Kremlin apparently has stopped short of making the deployment permanent.

Shoigu reported to Putin that all troops involved in the maneuvers have returned to their home bases.

Asked specifically if the Iskander missiles also had returned to their location, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov referred to Shoigu’s statement in comments carried by Russian news agencies.

Even though the latest maneuvers ended last week, the Russian military continued their training.

NATO said it scrambled Danish and Italian jets based in Lithuania early Tuesday to escort four Russian military jets flying with their transponders switched off in international airspace over the Baltic Sea. The alliance said the Russian planes were heading to Kaliningrad.

Child Soldiers Being Trained to Fight Israel

Israel was granted land, of their own for their own. Since that time, Arabs, Islamists and Palestinians have been demanding land back as their own. Israel completely evacuated land called Gaza and turned it over. Jerusalem is divided, portions of the West Bank are off limits to Israelis, then there is the Golan Heights. How much more is to be given up?

The White House on Monday bluntly warned Israel that its “occupation of Palestinian land” must end, dismissing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s efforts to take back controversial campaign pledges.

In unusually tough language that underscores the fracture in relations between Washington and Israel, AFP reported, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said “an occupation that has lasted for almost 50 years must end.”

McDonough criticized Netanyahu’s pre-election pledge to block the creation of a Palestinian state and he questioned Netanyahu’s efforts to undo the damage.

“We cannot simply pretend that those comments were never made, or that they don’t raise questions about the Prime Minister’s commitment to achieving peace through direct negotiations,” he said.

“The Palestinian people must have the right to live in and govern themselves in their own sovereign state,” he added.

McDonough is one of President Barack Obama’s closest advisors, and his speech to the liberal pro-Israel lobby group J Street was followed closely in Washington.

Netanyahu’s pledge deepened a long-running disagreement with Obama but his top aide said, the row was not based on “personal pique.”

“America’s commitment to a two-state solution is fundamental to US foreign policy,” McDonough said. “It’s been the goal of both Republican and Democratic presidents, and it remains our goal today.”

The White House and the United Nations have expressed countless times, giving up more land is their immediate demand.

When considering the work of the United Nations, consider the stupid-ness of the United Nations, especially UNRWA.

Not only is Hamas training children but they are recruiting teenagers as well. Video here.

Israeli Group’s documentary accuses Hamas of Training Child Soldiers

A new documentary that shows senior Hamas figures in Gaza unabashedly discussing the training of child soldiers and glorifying suicide bombers at military-style youth camps will be Exhibit A for an Israeli group at a United Nations forum in Geneva Wednesday, where it plans to make the case that the world body’s relief arm is being used by terrorists.

The 11-minute documentary, called “Children’s Army of Hamas” and produced by the Israel-based Center for Near East Policy Research (CNEPR), in association with the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, is aimed at showing the UN that Hamas is breaking international laws, including those barring the training of child soldiers even as it works with the United Nations Relief Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East.

“You are the generation that is being trained to fight – although you are young. You are being trained for jihad [holy war],” senior Hamas official Khala al-Hayya is seen telling young children at a Hamas military training camp.

In another scene, Hamas Interior Minister Fathi Hamad refers to the indoctrination of children and appears to acknowledge they are being trained to do battle.

“We are strengthening their religious awareness and inducing solidarity with their country. This solidifies their jihad, and their commitment to being a warrior, a curse to Israel,” Hamad declares.

According to its own 2014 figures, UNRWA received a budget of $1.32 billion from international donors, of which $409 million was donated by the U.S. alone. It runs 245 schools in Gaza, more than one-third of which were impacted in last summer’s fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, according to UNRWA spokesperson Christopher Gunness. Given that Hamas is in charge of Gaza, and UNRWA’s website makes clear that “Schoolchildren in UNRWA schools follow the host authorities’ curricula and textbooks,” the film suggests that the very group training children in military camps may also be dictating what they are taught in schools.

“You are being trained for jihad.”- Khala al-Hayya, senior Hamas official, talking to kids in Gaza

“Hamas’ relationship with UNRWA is good, very good,” states Ismail Radwan, Hamas’ minister of religious affairs. “The Hamas charter is part of the program we teach – insurrection, faith and education. We’re preparing to liberate Palestine.”

Gunness denied that UN-run schools play a role in training child soldiers.

“I am not aware of any reports of UNRWA schools being used by Hamas to do training courses,” Gunness told FoxNews.com. “Our education system is entirely independent and we have a completely different schooling system. There is no question of Hamas approving anything… We’re educating children after [last summer’s] conflict where hundreds of thousands were displaced. One thing that distinguishes us is that we teach human rights curriculum grades 1 through to 9.”

 

On Sunday, one UNRWA school in Khan Younis in Gaza was re-opened and 1,100 students returned to class, partly as a result of Noble Peace Prize-winner Malala Yousafzai – the Pakistani teenager and child education campaigner who was shot in the head by the Taliban for wanting to go to school – donating her $50,000 award to help fund a swift restoration of the damaged building. Rich Arab nations have pledged more than $5 billion to rebuild Gaza, but thus far only a tiny fraction of the money promised has actually been received.

“Since 2003, UNRWA schoolteachers and workers unions have been in the control of Hamas,” David Bedein, producer of the documentary alleges. “Only Canada has cut back on its donations as a result of the evidence of Hamas’ control. Even if Hamas is the dominant force in Gaza, UNRWA has to operate under the rules and regulations of donors. Countries such as the US, Canada, Australia, the UK, and even the EU, do not allow funds to go to a social service agency where Hamas is on staff.”

“If UNRWA’s money was coming from Qatar or Iran it would be very difficult to talk about the moral responsibility of the donor nations, but many of the donor nations are western democracies,” Bedein concludes.

The documentary shows children as young as five or six being indoctrinated by Hamas. “We train children to use all types of weapons; machine guns, anti-aircraft [guns], tunnel training, in guerilla warfare, to fight the enemy with Allah’s help,” one masked military trainer explains.

“We are being trained to be mujahideen [warriors] to fight the evil Israeli presence,” one boy, aged around 13, proudly says. “They conquered our land and defiled our holy sites. We’ll liberate it all with Allah’s mighty help.”

At the end of the training camp top Hamas leader and former Gazan Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh addresses the children. “This generation is prepared to liberate the land. It will be victorious; it will fulfil the right of return, our independence. Beware! Beware! Jews beware!” Haniyeh cries. “This generation is not afraid to confront you in your centers. This is the generation of the stones. This is the generation of the missiles! This is the generation of the tunnels! This is the generation of the suicide bombers!”

The film is expected to give the UN pause for thought at they consider Hamas’ terrorist organization status and its exploitation of child soldiers. For the avoidance of doubt, and in case anyone wondered if Hamas is preparing to embark on a new direction, Hamas’ Deputy Foreign Minister Ghazi Hamad clarifies, “The principles of Hamas have not changed since its inception. The principles of militancy remain as a way to end the Israeli conquest… We enforce a militant culture in Palestinian society.”

 

Spying Explains Obama Against Israel

Israel spying on the Iran talks is the only sensible and reasonable thing to do to protect a country when allies like the United States fail them.

 

When the leader of the United States has taken power with exclusivity bypassing all checks and balances the results are often nasty. Barack Obama has a history of exempting a doctrine of a cohesive government. The article below reminds me of when several selection members of both houses of Congress knew long in advance of the bin Ladin raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan. They originally received this information from Leon Panetta and never said a word. This operation was held closed for months.

Obama refuses to include Congress in the negotiations process on the Iranian nuclear program and this had led to several behind the curtain actions, meetings, phone calls, intercepts and just plain spying. What is worse is when other global leaders are brought into the growing disputes then sadly the United States under Barack Obama suffers additional hits to its reputation.

This matter between the White House and Israel is defining itself as THE legacy that is Barack Obama. This is getting more pathetic daily.

Israel Spied on Iran Talks

Ally’s snooping upset White House because information was used to lobby Congress to try to sink a deal

By Adam Entous

Soon after the U.S. and other major powers entered negotiations last year to curtail Iran’s nuclear program, senior White House officials learned Israel was spying on the closed-door talks.

The spying operation was part of a broader campaign by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to penetrate the negotiations and then help build a case against the emerging terms of the deal, current and former U.S. officials said. In addition to eavesdropping, Israel acquired information from confidential U.S. briefings, informants and diplomatic contacts in Europe, the officials said.

The espionage didn’t upset the White House as much as Israel’s sharing of inside information with U.S. lawmakers and others to drain support from a high-stakes deal intended to limit Iran’s nuclear program, current and former officials said.

“It is one thing for the U.S. and Israel to spy on each other. It is another thing for Israel to steal U.S. secrets and play them back to U.S. legislators to undermine U.S. diplomacy,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on the matter.

The U.S. and Israel, longtime allies who routinely swap information on security threats, sometimes operate behind the scenes like spy-versus-spy rivals. The White House has largely tolerated Israeli snooping on U.S. policy makers—a posture Israel takes when the tables are turned.

The White House discovered the operation, in fact, when U.S. intelligence agencies spying on Israel intercepted communications among Israeli officials that carried details the U.S. believed could have come only from access to the confidential talks, officials briefed on the matter said.

Israeli officials denied spying directly on U.S. negotiators and said they received their information through other means, including close surveillance of Iranian leaders receiving the latest U.S. and European offers. European officials, particularly the French, also have been more transparent with Israel about the closed-door discussions than the Americans, Israeli and U.S. officials said.

Mr. Netanyahu and Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer early this year saw a rapidly closing window to increase pressure on Mr. Obama before a key deadline at the end of March, Israeli officials said.

Using levers of political influence unique to Israel, Messrs. Netanyahu and Dermer calculated that a lobbying campaign in Congress before an announcement was made would improve the chances of killing or reshaping any deal. They knew the intervention would damage relations with the White House, Israeli officials said, but decided that was an acceptable cost.

The campaign may not have worked as well as hoped, Israeli officials now say, because it ended up alienating many congressional Democrats whose support Israel was counting on to block a deal.

Obama administration officials, departing from their usual description of the unbreakable bond between the U.S. and Israel, have voiced sharp criticism of Messrs. Netanyahu and Dermer to describe how the relationship has changed.

“People feel personally sold out,” a senior administration official said. “That’s where the Israelis really better be careful because a lot of these people will not only be around for this administration but possibly the next one as well.”

This account of the Israeli campaign is based on interviews with more than a dozen current and former U.S. and Israeli diplomats, intelligence officials, policy makers and lawmakers.

Weakened ties

Distrust between Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Obama had been growing for years but worsened when Mr. Obama launched secret talks with Iran in 2012. The president didn’t tell Mr. Netanyahu because of concerns about leaks, helping set the stage for the current standoff, according to current and former U.S. and Israeli officials.

U.S. officials said Israel has long topped the list of countries that aggressively spy on the U.S., along with China, Russia and France. The U.S. expends more counterintelligence resources fending off Israeli spy operations than any other close ally, U.S. officials said.

A senior official in the prime minister’s office said Monday: “These allegations are utterly false. The state of Israel does not conduct espionage against the United States or Israel’s other allies. The false allegations are clearly intended to undermine the strong ties between the United States and Israel and the security and intelligence relationship we share.”

Current and former Israeli officials said their intelligence agencies scaled back their targeting of U.S. officials after the jailing nearly 30 years ago of American Jonathan Pollard for passing secrets to Israel.

While U.S. officials may not be direct targets, current and former officials said, Israeli intelligence agencies sweep up communications between U.S. officials and parties targeted by the Israelis, including Iran.

Americans shouldn’t be surprised, said a person familiar with the Israeli practice, since U.S. intelligence agencies helped the Israelis build a system to listen in on high-level Iranian communications.

As secret talks with Iran progressed into 2013, U.S. intelligence agencies monitored Israel’s communications to see if the country knew of the negotiations. Mr. Obama didn’t tell Mr. Netanyahu until September 2013.

Israeli officials, who said they had already learned about the talks through their own channels, told their U.S. counterparts they were upset about being excluded. “ ‘Did the administration really believe we wouldn’t find out?’ ” Israeli officials said, according to a former U.S. official.

The episode cemented Mr. Netanyahu’s concern that Mr. Obama was bent on clinching a deal with Iran whether or not it served Israel’s best interests, Israeli officials said. Obama administration officials said the president was committed to preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

Mr. Dermer started lobbying U.S. lawmakers just before the U.S. and other powers signed an interim agreement with Iran in November 2013. Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Dermer went to Congress after seeing they had little influence on the White House.

Before the interim deal was made public, Mr. Dermer gave lawmakers Israel’s analysis: The U.S. offer would dramatically undermine economic sanctions on Iran, according to congressional officials who took part.

After learning about the briefings, the White House dispatched senior officials to counter Mr. Dermer. The officials told lawmakers that Israel’s analysis exaggerated the sanctions relief by as much as 10 times, meeting participants said.

When the next round of negotiations with Iran started in Switzerland last year, U.S. counterintelligence agents told members of the U.S. negotiating team that Israel would likely try to penetrate their communications, a senior Obama administration official said.

The U.S. routinely shares information with its European counterparts and others to coordinate negotiating positions. While U.S. intelligence officials believe secured U.S. communications are relatively safe from the Israelis, they say European communications are vulnerable.

Mr. Netanyahu and his top advisers received confidential updates on the Geneva talks from Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman and other U.S. officials, who knew at the time that Israeli intelligence was working to fill in any gaps.

The White House eventually curtailed the briefings, U.S. officials said, withholding sensitive information for fear of leaks.

Current and former Israeli officials said their intelligence agencies can get much of the information they seek by targeting Iranians and others in the region who are communicating with countries in the talks.

In November, the Israelis learned the contents of a proposed deal offered by the U.S. but ultimately rejected by Iran, U.S. and Israeli officials said. Israeli officials told their U.S. counterparts the terms offered insufficient protections.

U.S. officials urged the Israelis to give the negotiations a chance. But Mr. Netanyahu’s top advisers concluded the emerging deal was unacceptable. The White House was making too many concessions, Israeli officials said, while the Iranians were holding firm.

Obama administration officials reject that view, saying Israel was making impossible demands that Iran would never accept. “The president has made clear time and again that no deal is better than a bad deal,” a senior administration official said.

In January, Mr. Netanyahu told the White House his government intended to oppose the Iran deal but didn’t explain how, U.S. and Israeli officials said.

On Jan. 21, House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) announced Mr. Netanyahu would address a joint meeting of Congress. That same day, Mr. Dermer and other Israeli officials visited Capitol Hill to brief lawmakers and aides, seeking a bipartisan coalition large enough to block or amend any deal.

Most Republicans were already prepared to challenge the White House on the negotiations, so Mr. Dermer focused on Democrats. “This deal is bad,” he said in one briefing, according to participants.

A spokesman for the Israeli embassy in Washington, Aaron Sagui, said Mr. Dermer didn’t launch a special campaign on Jan 21. Mr. Dermer, the spokesperson said, has “consistently briefed both Republican and Democrats, senators and congressmen, on Israel’s concerns regarding the Iran negotiations for over a year.”

Mr. Dermer and other Israeli officials over the following weeks gave lawmakers and their aides information the White House was trying to keep secret, including how the emerging deal could allow Iran to operate around 6,500 centrifuges, devices used to process nuclear material, said congressional officials who attended the briefings.

The Israeli officials told lawmakers that Iran would also be permitted to deploy advanced IR-4 centrifuges that could process fuel on a larger scale, meeting participants and administration officials said. Israeli officials said such fuel, which under the emerging deal would be intended for energy plants, could be used to one day build nuclear bombs.

The information in the briefings, Israeli officials said, was widely known among the countries participating in the negotiations.

When asked in February during one briefing where Israel got its inside information, the Israeli officials said their sources included the French and British governments, as well as their own intelligence, according to people there.

“Ambassador Dermer never shared confidential intelligence information with members of Congress,” Mr. Sagui said. “His briefings did not include specific details from the negotiations, including the length of the agreement or the number of centrifuges Iran would be able to keep.”

Current and former U.S. officials confirmed that the number and type of centrifuges cited in the briefings were part of the discussions. But they said the briefings were misleading because Israeli officials didn’t disclose concessions asked of Iran. Those included giving up stockpiles of nuclear material, as well as modifying the advanced centrifuges to slow output, these officials said.

The administration didn’t brief lawmakers on the centrifuge numbers and other details at the time because the information was classified and the details were still in flux, current and former U.S. officials said.

Unexpected reaction

The congressional briefings and Mr. Netanyahu’s decision to address a joint meeting of Congress on the emerging deal sparked a backlash among many Democratic lawmakers, congressional aides said.

On Feb. 3, Mr. Dermer huddled with Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, who said he told Mr. Dermer it was a breach of protocol for Mr. Netanyahu to accept an invitation from Mr. Boehner without going through the White House.

Mr. Manchin said he told Mr. Dermer he would attend the prime minister’s speech to Congress, but he was noncommittal about supporting any move by Congress to block a deal.

Mr. Dermer spent the following day doing damage control with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, congressional aides said.

Two days later, Mr. Dermer met with Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the SenateIntelligence Committee, at her Washington, D.C., home. He pressed for her support because he knew that she, too, was angry about Mr. Netanyahu’s planned appearance.

Ms. Feinstein said afterward she would oppose legislation allowing Congress to vote down an agreement.

Congressional aides and Israeli officials now say Israel’s coalition in Congress is short the votes needed to pass legislation that could overcome a presidential veto, although that could change. In response, Israeli officials said, Mr. Netanyahu was pursuing other ways to pressure the White House.

This week, Mr. Netanyahu sent a delegation to France, which has been more closely aligned with Israel on the nuclear talks and which could throw obstacles in Mr. Obama’s way before a deal is signed. The Obama administration, meanwhile, is stepping up its outreach to Paris to blunt the Israeli push.

“If you’re wondering whether something serious has shifted here, the answer is yes,” a senior U.S. official said. “These things leave scars.”