EU tightens sanctions on Iran
The Cradle, Apr 22 2024
The EU agreed on Apr 22 to harden sanctions on Iran in retaliation for Tehran’s strike on Israel earlier this month. Iran exercised its right of self-defense by striking Israel after Tel Aviv bombed Iran’s consulate in Syria on Apr 1. The sanctions on Iran are designed to prevent exports of EU-made parts that are used in drones and ballistic missiles. Iran fired some 300 missiles and drones in its attack on Israel on Apr 13, damaging an airbase and intelligence collection center, despite Israel deploying missile defense systems. The European bloc previously put in place a sanctions regime targeting Iran for its support of Russia. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said:
The sanctions discussion is mostly about spare parts for drones that are still not under sanction, and ballistic missiles.
US and EU officials have previously blamed Tehran for sending Moscow Iranian-made kamikaze Shahed drones to aid Russia in its fight against Ukraine. Iran has dismissed the accusations as baseless. Though Iran manufactures most of its military hardware domestically, the Islamic Republic still requires foreign-made components for its missile program. Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg told reporters in Luxembourg prior to the EU meeting to agree on the new sanctions:
I support extending the drone sanctions against Iran factually and geographically, concerning deliveries not only to Russia but also proxies, and including ballistic missiles.
European foreign ministers also said that they would expand efforts to place IRGC on the EU list of terrorist organizations. By EU law, Iran’s IRGC would have to be prosecuted for terrorist activities to move forward with the designation. Landsbergis asked, further suggesting that the Islamic Republic is involved in supporting Russian attacks on Ukraine:
How many fronts does Iran need to open for us to get serious about sanctioning them?
Schallenberg called the talk of imposing sanctions on the IRGC a symbolic act, adding:
We just haven’t declared them terrorist organizations yet. But I believe that if the step is possible, then we should consider it.
Regarding Israel’s attack on the Iranian consulate, the EU voiced condemnation, but only by expressing concern and calling for Tel Aviv to exercise restraint. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said:
It’s not acceptable, it needs to be clarified by the Israeli government. We are very concerned about the situation and that is why we ask the Israeli government to try to avoid this regional escalation.
Majority of Israelis mistrust Gaza resettlement plans
The Cradle, Apr 22 2024
A new poll from the Israel Democracy Institute found that just a fifth of Israelis, 19%, believe that Israel should establish Jewish settlements in a conquered Gaza Strip when the current war ends, Haaretz reported on Apr 22. The number increased to 22.5% for Jewish Israelis, which the institute notes has declined by 3% since Dec 2023. Support for the building of settlements in Gaza was highest among the Haredim at 52%. For religious Zionists, 39% said they support resettlement; for self-identified traditional Jews, 28% claimed to support it; and for secular Jews, 7% said they support it, the poll found.
Shortly after Israel’s war on Gaza began in October, indications emerged suggesting the ethnic cleansing and annexation of Gaza and the rebuilding of the Gush Katif settlement bloc was a major war aim of Netanyahu’s cabinet. When asked what should be done now that most of Israel’s forces have left Gaza, 33% of Israelis said control of the besieged enclave should be transferred to an international force, 24% said that a small number of Israeli troops should continue to occupy Gaza to maintain military control, and 13% said that it should be handed over to the Palestinian Authority. Netanyahu has rejected either both the PA or an international force controlling Gaza following the war.
Among Arab Israelis, 46% said that the PA should control the Strip, 25% want an international force stationed there, and 7.5% prefer an Israeli military presence. The remaining 20.5% said they didn’t know, and just 1% supported resettling Gaza. The institute also examined the claim that Israelis are not aware of the massive destruction in Gaza caused by Israel’s unrelenting bombing campaign, which has entered its seventh month and killed over 34k people. The poll found that 87% of Israeli Jews and 68% of Israeli Arabs said that they had seen a few or many images or videos of the destruction. the poll authors said:
In other words, the claim regarding the lack of exposure in the Israeli public would seem to be ungrounded.
Ireland, Spain urge EU to review trade relations with Israel
The Cradle, Apr 22 2024
Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin called Israel’s actions in Gaza “disproportionate,” expressing criticism ahead of an EU foreign ministers council meeting on Apr 22. The Irish foreign minister said in a speech ahead of the meeting:
We believe that the response has been fully disproportionate and has also been, in our view, a breach of humanitarian law in terms of the destruction of Gaza and also in terms of the killing of civilians, innocent men, women, and children.
Martin also noted that Ireland and Spain will continue to push for a reassessment of the EU–Israel Association Agreement, which mainly focuses on trade relations with Tel Aviv. Members of the council were upset with Ireland and Spain’s call for review, and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that “the Commission has still not answered” the two European states that sent a joint letter asking for review in February. Martin said:
We anticipated that. But also the modus operandi by which a review would take place has yet to be determined. We are of the view in Ireland that humanitarian law has been breached and broken time and time again now, and that the level of civilians dying, women and children, is quite shocking.
Separately, when discussing the agenda for the meeting, Martin said:
It is imperative now that we have an immediate ceasefire, that we have the release of all hostages, and that we get moving and get the humanitarian aid flowing into Gaza as quickly as we possibly can at the scale that is required to deal with the famine situation.
He also noted that he will be traveling to Jordan and Egypt, including the Rafah border.
Spain made its voice heard as an avid critic of Israel’s actions during the nearly seven-month-long war on Gaza. Earlier in April, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez stated that Madrid would recognize Palestinian statehood and hoped that other western nations would follow suit, saying:
We have to seriously consider doing it in the first half of this year.
Spain’s foreign minister, Jose Manuel Albares, echoed the prime minister in his separate remarks for the recognition of a Palestinian state. Albares said:
If we look at the medium and long term if we don’t do something differently to how we have been acting in the last decade, we will see this spiral of violence once again. And in order to do that, we need a real and valuable Palestinian state.
Ireland, Slovenia, and Malta said they would readily recognize Palestinian statehood. Currently, only eight of the 27 EU members recognize Palestine as a state: Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Sweden, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Cyprus.
UN report demolishes Israeli propaganda campaign against UNRWA
The Cradle, Apr 22 2024
Israel has failed to provide any evidence of its claims that employees of UNRWA are members of “terrorist organizations,” according to an independent review led by former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna. In January, Israel claimed without evidence that some UNRWA staff, until then the primary conduit of humanitarian aid into the besieged and bombed Gaza Strip, were members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad and had participated in the Hamas-led attack on Israeli military bases and settlements on Oct 7, known as Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. The Israeli allegations promptly caused the US and other western nations to cut funding to UNRWA. This came amid reports from rights groups that Israel was using starvation as a weapon against the 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza. The Guardian reported on Apr 22:
The Colonna report, which was commissioned by the UN in the wake of Israeli allegations, found that UNRWA had regularly supplied Israel with lists of its employees for vetting, and that “the Israeli government has not informed UNRWA of any concerns relating to any UNRWA staff based on these staff lists since 2011.”
The Guardian added that most donor nations have resumed their funding in recent weeks. However, UK ministers had said they would wait for the Colonna report to decide whether to resume funding. The US Congress has since banned any future financial support of UNRWA. The Colonna review was drafted with the help of three Nordic research institutes and will be published later on Monday. It confirms that Israel has yet to provide any evidence of its claims. It notes:
In March, Israel made public claims that a significant number of UNRWA employees are members of terrorist organizations. However, Israel has yet to provide supporting evidence of this.
The Colonna review makes clear that UNRWA is “indispensable” to Palestinians across the region. The review says:
In the absence of a political solution between Israel and the Palestinians, UNRWA remains pivotal in providing life-saving humanitarian aid and essential social services, particularly in health and education, to Palestinian refugees in Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and the West Bank. As such, UNRWA is irreplaceable and indispensable to Palestinians’ human and economic development. In addition, many view UNRWA as a humanitarian lifeline. UNRWA has established a significant number of mechanisms and procedures to ensure compliance with the humanitarian principles, with emphasis on the principle of neutrality and that it possesses a more developed approach to neutrality than other similar UN or NGO entities.
The three Nordic research institutes (the Swedish-based Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, the Norwegian Chr Michelsen Institute, and the Danish Institute for Human Rights) sent the UN a more detailed assessment of the Israeli allegations against UNRWA. The assessment refuted Israeli claims that Palestinian children are taught antisemitic content in UNRWA-run schools, which use Palestinian Authority (PA) textbooks. The assessment says:
Three international assessments of PA textbooks in recent years have provided a nuanced picture. Two identified presence of bias and antagonistic content, but did not provide evidence of antisemitic content. The third assessment, by the [German-based] Georg Eckert Institute, studied 156 PA textbooks and identified two examples that it found to display antisemitic motifs but noted that one of them had already been removed, the other has been altered.
As The Cradle’s William Van Wagenen reported in February, Israel’s evidence-free allegations against UNRWA are part of a multi-year campaign to dismantle the agency that began before Oct 7. Israel wishes to deprive Palestinian refugees of lifesaving assistance and to eradicate the notion that they will one day return to the lands they were expelled from by Zionist militias in 1948 when the state of Israel was created.
WMDs have no place in our nuclear doctrine: Iran
The Cradle, Apr 22 2024
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said on Apr 22 that there is “no place” for nuclear weapons in its atomic energy program, coming just days after an Iranian official said the Islamic Republic may revise its nuclear strategy in light of Israeli threats. Kanaani said during a press conference in the Iranian capital on Monday:
Iran has repeatedly said its nuclear program only serves peaceful purposes. Nuclear weapons have no place in our nuclear doctrine.
On Apr 18, the commander of Iran’s Nuclear Centers Protection and Security Corps, Brig-Gen Ahmed Haq Talab, said:
If the Zionist regime wants to take action against our nuclear centers and facilities, it will face our reaction on its nuclear centers. It is possible and conceivable to revise the nuclear doctrine and policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran and to deviate from the considerations announced in the past. Its nuclear facilities are identified and the necessary information about all the targets are at our disposal. The IRGC has their hand on the trigger to fire powerful missiles to destroy specified targets. If the Zionist regime commits an act of aggression against Iran, the blow it receives from the armed forces will be remembered in history like Operation True Promise.
The statement came a few days after Iran’s drone and missile attack on Israel, which was a retaliation for the Israeli strike that destroyed Tehran’s consulate in Syria and killed several senior officials on Apr 1. Less than one day later, early on Apr 19, Iranian air defenses intercepted three drones from attacking the cities of Isfahan and Tabriz. Tehran initially said the attack was domestic and confirmed that military and nuclear facilities were safe and unharmed. While Israel did not acknowledge the attack, western media cited US officials as saying that Israeli missiles had hit Iran. Iran International published satellite images on Apr 21, which it alleged to show damage to an air defense system in Isfahan. Israeli officials told the NYT on Apr 22 that Israel “abandoned” plans for a bigger attack on Iran and limited its response in order to avoid a full-scale war with Iran. In 2003, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei issued a fatwa outlawing the production of any weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear armaments. Iran is also a part of the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, aimed at stopping the spread of nuclear weapons. Khamenei said in Jun 2023:
If it wasn’t for that, and we wanted to do it, they wouldn’t have been able to stop it, just as they haven’t been able to stop our nuclear advances and won’t be able to.
Iran, Pakistan to increase economic trade by $10b
The Cradle, Apr 22 2024
Iran and Pakistan have announced a series of economic and political deals on Apr 22 2024 following Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s two-day visit to Islamabad. Raisi is leading an Iranian delegation of economic and political officials. The Iranian president held a meeting with Pakistani Minister of Foreign Affairs Ishaq Dar and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, during which multiple deals between the two nations were signed. The Associated Press Of Pakistan reported:
Pakistan and Iran on Monday signed a total of eight accords on varying subjects to enhance cooperation in the different fields including trade, science technology, agriculture, health, culture, and judicial matters.
The memorandums of understanding signed include the establishment of the Rimdan-Gabd Joint Free/Special Zone, increasing security cooperation, judicial assistance agreements in civil and commercial matters, and cultural exchange.
The two nations also agreed on “joint efforts to eradicate terrorism” and increase the fight against organized crime. Raisi said during a press conference:
Iran and Pakistan have common positions to fight terrorism, and they are determined to fight organized crime, drugs, and insecurity. In short, supporting human rights is the focus of cooperation between Tehran and Islamabad at the bilateral, regional, and international levels. This cooperation between Islamabad and Tehran may not appeal to some, and this does not concern us, but the important thing is the continuation and promotion of cooperation.
On a financial note, Raisi announced that the two nations will increase their economic relations by $10b in the first wave. The Islamic Republic’s president said:
The level of economic and commercial relations between the two countries is not acceptable. Therefore, we decided that the level of commercial and economic relations between the two countries will increase to $10b in the initial phase.
Both the Iranian and Pakistani heads of state spoke about the situation in Gaza, on which Sharif said:
The two countries denounced this genocide with one voice. Iran has taken a strong and principled position on the Gaza Strip.
Tensions between the two nations began to spike in January following cross-border attacks against groups that both deemed to be legitimate targets. Iran targeted the Jaish al-Adl, an extremist separatist group, in Pakistan following multiple attacks by the group on Iranian nationals. Pakistan, in turn, fired “a series of highly coordinated and specifically targeted precision military strikes against terrorist hideouts in the Sistan and Baluchestan province of Iran,” according to a government statement. The stained relations did not persist, as both nations mended all diplomatic ties after two days of the skirmish. In Aug 2023, the US impeded Tehran and Islamabad’s developing ties by threatening economic sanctions on cash-strapped Pakistan over its plans to build a gas pipeline from Iran.
Erdogan in Baghdad to discuss oil, water, PKK
The Cradle, Apr 22 2024
Erdogan arrived in Baghdad on Apr 22 for bilateral talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Muhammad Shia al-Sudani. The two leaders will discuss issues including the sharing of water, the export of oil, and the Turkish war against Kurdish militants in northern Iraq. The Iraq Prime Minister Media Office wrote in a statement:
Prime Minister Muhammad Shia al-Sudani received the President of the Turkish Republic, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, at Baghdad International Airport at the beginning of his official visit to Iraq.
Farhad Alaaldin, foreign affairs adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani:
The visit comes after nearly a year of preparations by both sides tackling the longstanding issues that complicated the relationship in the past.
Iraqi and Turkish officials said more than 20 memorandums of understanding would be signed during Erdogan’s one-day visit. Monday’s visit to Iraq is Erdogan’s first in 13 years and the first since the extremist group ISIS conquered large swathes of the country, including its second-largest city, Mosul. Turkish intelligence support for ISIS during this period has been widely documented. Erdogan took advantage of the fall of Mosul to partner with Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani to export Kurdish oil from Kirkuk via Turkiye’s Ceyhan port to Israel. In Mar 2023, these oil exports were halted after being deemed illegal by an international court in Paris. The exports violated a 1973 oil pipeline agreement signed by Iraq and Turkiye. Erdogan and Sudani are anticipated to discuss the resumption of oil exports via Turkiye. In recent weeks, Iraq has worked to repair the pipeline connecting oil-rich Kirkuk to Turkiye that was damaged during the ISIS invasion in 2014. Kurdish leaders had since exported oil to Turkiye via an alternate pipeline built in 2013 with Turkish cooperation.
Erdogan began his visit Monday by inking several deals covering security cooperation against PKK militants who have long had bases in northern Iraq’s mountainous regions near the Turkish border and in Sinjar in northwest Iraq near the Syrian border. PKK militants played a crucial role in saving tens of thousands of members of the Yazidi religious minority during the ISIS invasion of Sinjar. ISIS massacred thousands of Yazidi men and took thousands of women as sex slaves. Ankara has been carrying out bombing operations against the PKK in previous years as part of its Operation Lock Claw. Iraq has complained such bombings violate its sovereignty and have killed civilians, but Baghdad has not had the leverage needed to force Turkiye to end them. Turkiye plans a new offensive on the PKK this spring. It has sought Iraqi military cooperation in the form of a joint operations room, as well as recognition by Baghdad of the PKK as a terrorist organization.
Cooperation on big economic projects is also a topic of discussion between Erdogan and Sudani. Last year, Iraq launched a $17b Development Road project to connect Asia and Europe by linking Iraq’s Grand Faw Port in Basra in the south to Turkiye in the north. Baghdad is also seeking a deal to secure a larger share of water from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which originate in Turkiye and constitute the primary sources of freshwater for drought-stricken Iraq. Turkiye has built multiple large dams in recent years that have reduced water flow that ultimately reaches Iraq. The water shortages have harmed Iraq’s agricultural production. Erdogan is set to travel to Erbil for meetings with Iraqi-Kurdish officials following the talks in Baghdad.
Syrian president confirms talks with Washington ‘from time to time’
The Cradle, Apr 22 2024
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told the Foreign Minister of the south Caucasus republic Abkhazia during an interview published on Apr 21 that Damascus holds dialogue with Washington “from time to time.” In response to a question from Abkhazian Foreign Minister Inal Ardzinba on whether there has been an opportunity for Syria to “restore dialogue with the collective west,” Assad said:
America is currently illegally occupying part of our land, financing terrorism, and supporting Israel, which also occupies our land. But we meet with them from time to time, although these meetings do not lead us to anything. But (one day) everything will change.
As part of regime change efforts against Damascus in 2011, Washington, along with Turkiye, Gulf states, and several other countries, sponsored extremist groups with the aim of overthrowing the Syrian government. With the help of Russia, Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Damascus has regained control over large swathes of Syria which were under the control of ISIS and other US-backed groups. Under the pretext of fighting ISIS, the US army occupied Syrian oilfields in the north of the country in 2015 in coordination with its Kurdish proxy, the SDF, one year after the launching of an international military coalition in Iraq and Syria.
In May 2023, a senior diplomatic official in the Arab League revealed exclusively to The Cradle that Washington and Damascus were holding secret, direct negotiations in the Omani capital of Muscat. During the talks, Syrian officials mainly pressed for the complete withdrawal of US occupation troops from the country. The diplomat added:
Secret talks took place in previous years between Damascus and Washington, but most of them were through mediators, such as the former director general of the Lebanese General Security, Abbas Ibrahim. Direct meetings also took place between the two countries, one of which was in the Syrian capital, Damascus.
However, the number of direct meetings remained limited. The secret talks in Muscat also touched on Austin Tice, a US citizen who entered Syria illegally via the Turkish border in 2012. Not long after, Tice disappeared in the territory of armed opposition groups that were fighting the Syrian government. During the Muscat talks, the source stressed:
The American envoy repeatedly confirmed that he has information that Austin Tice is alive and in a Syrian army detention center. However, the Syrian delegation insisted that it had no information about Tice, with Damascus expressing its readiness to make all possible efforts to reveal his fate.
Israeli army intel chief resigns over ‘failure to prevent’ Oct 7
The Cradle, Apr 22 2024
The head of Israel’s Military Intelligence, Maj-Gen Aharon Haliva, announced his intention to resign on Oct 22 over his responsibility for the failure to prevent Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on Oct 7. Haliva said:
The Military Intelligence Directorate, under my command, failed to warn of the terror attack carried out by Hamas. We failed in our most important mission, and as the head of the Military Intelligence Directorate, I bear full responsibility for the failure. I carry that black day with me ever since, day after day, night after night.
The Israeli army said in a statement:
Maj-Gen Aharon Haliva will terminate his duties and retire from the IDF after a replacement is appointed in an orderly and professional process.
Haliva was vacationing in the port city of Eilat on Oct 7. At 3 am that morning, he was warned about “certain signs coming from Gaza” that an attack was imminent but he did not take part in army consultations and was unavailable for phone calls, according to Hebrew media. The military intelligence chief reportedly said that had he been available, he would have concluded that Hamas was performing a drill and that the issue could have waited until the next day. Israeli media quoted him as saying:
It wouldn’t have changed the final result in any way.
Haliva is the first senior official to resign over his role in failing to stop the operation. Several reports have surfaced in recent months that say Israel neglected crucial intelligence that could have prevented Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. In late December, Yediot Ahronot reported that Israel’s Shin Bet received crucial intelligence that could have prevented the attack. According to the report, Shin Bet head Ronen Bar was present at the agency headquarters in Tel Aviv the night before Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. The report added:
The head of the Shin Bet rushed to the organization’s headquarters in Tel Aviv following signs from the Gaza Strip about something happening, and held consultations throughout the night.
According to another Israeli media report cited by Yediot Ahronot, the Shin Bet had received information from one of its undercover agents inside the Gaza Strip months before the attack saying that Hamas was planning something “major the week after Yom Kippur.” The information “was not marked as significant. The assumption was that if it was true, additional intelligence would arrive to support it, therefore, the information was not passed on to higher levels,” the newspaper wrote. On Oct 16, Bar held himself responsible for the failure to prevent Al-Aqsa Flood.
US bases fall under rocket, drone attack in northern Syria
The Cradle, Apr 22 2024
Two US military bases in northern Syria were targeted with rockets and a drone late on Apr 21. Four rockets hit the base in the US-occupied Al-Omar oilfield, and another three rockets and a drone struck the Kharab al-Jir military airport, Al-Mayadeen’s correspondent said, adding that the two attacks took place within hours of one another. In late January, following an attack that killed three US soldiers on the Jordanian–Syrian border, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI) coalition announced that it would be halting operations against US military bases in Iraq and Syria, which had been ongoing since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza. Reuters had reported that the IRI announced resuming operations against US bases in Iraq and Syria. In a statement, the Kataib Hezbollah resistance faction said:
No statement has been issued by the Islamic Resistance, Kataib Hezbollah, during the past 48 hours, and what is being reported by the media is fabricated news broadcast by Reuters, which will bear the consequences of it later.
Earlier, Kataib Hezbollah said a decision had been taken “to resume military action,” and that “what happened a little while ago is the beginning” in reference to the attack on the two US bases. The statement did not directly claim responsibility for the attack nor explicitly announce any resumption of attacks on US bases. The statement also condemned Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani’s recent trip to Washington and his meetings with Biden, part of which revolved around discussions on an eventual end to the US military’s combat mission in Iraq. Kataib Hezbollah said:
After the end of the visit, it became clear that some political parties were lying. There is no foreign intention to leave Iraq.
The attacks on the US bases came a day after a huge explosion hit Kalsu base in the city of Babel just after midnight on Saturday. Security officials announced that at least one Popular Mobilization Unit member was killed, and eight others were injured. Saturday’s attack on Iraq came about 24 hours after Israel launched a “limited response” to Iran’s retaliatory drone and missile strikes against Israel. However, an Israeli official told CNN that Tel Aviv was “not involved” in the attack on the PMU base. Washington also denied involvement.
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