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Israel and Hamas on the brink of war
After a year of relative calm, clashes between Israel and Hamas erupted Monday, putting the two sides on the brink of full-blown war.
Flare-ups between the Israeli military and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip seem to be cyclical. But there are a few developments that make this latest round of tit-for-tat strikes somewhat atypical.
What's different this time?
Targeting Israel's hubs. In the past, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) militants in Gaza have restricted rocket fire mostly to southern Israel. On Monday, however, they upped the ante, firing dozens of rockets into the heart of Jerusalem. In response, Israel's army launched a broad military campaign in the Gaza Strip, killing several Hamas and PIJ commanders.
Then on Tuesday night, in an unprecedented move, Hamas and PIJ fired hundreds of rockets into Tel Aviv and central Israel, sending millions running for cover in bomb shelters, and prompting Israel to shutter its international airport. So far, 43 Palestinians, including 13 children, have been killed in Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip, while at least six Israelis have been killed and dozens more injured.
Outside players.
Gulf states. This is the biggest Israeli-Palestinian escalation since 2014, when conflict lasted for 50 days. But this time, clashes come just months after Israel has signed normalization agreements with Arab states, including the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco. While the UAE — which has welcomed thousands of Israeli tourists in recent months as a result of normalization — has called on Israel to stop the violence and respect "the Holy al-Aqsa Mosque," for now its government has shown no willingness to play an active role in brokering negotiations.
A test for Biden. Recent events also pose a conundrum for US President Joe Biden, a longtime "friend" of Israel who is also focused on placating the progressive wing of his party, which is more supportive than other US lawmakers of Palestinian rights.
Progressive Democrats like Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Elizabeth Warren have called on Biden to intervene in the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, which Biden has made clear isn't a top foreign-policy priority. Moreover, Biden likely doesn't want to do — or say —anything that will provoke the Israelis as his administration tries to revive the Iran nuclear deal, which the Israeli government opposes. But now that the situation is escalating so quickly, Washington may be compelled to get more involved.
The backstory.
Elections matter. Hamas warned last month that it would wreak havoc if the Palestinian Authority (PA), which governs in the West Bank, cancelled this month's parliamentary vote, the first Palestinian elections since 2006. Nonetheless, PA President Mahmoud Abbas, fearing a massive electoral loss to Hamas, proceeded to postpone the vote indefinitely. Hamas is fuming.
This follows mass unrest in Jerusalem in recent weeks. A high-profile court case over the potential eviction of several Palestinian families from East Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood fueled riots and clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police. Jerusalem-based police courted more trouble when they blocked access to a plaza in Jerusalem's Old City that serves as a town-square for Arab residents during Ramadan. Tensions peaked when Israeli police used heavy-handed tactics to crack down on Palestinians protesting at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
Hamas, casting itself as the real "protector" of Jerusalem to garner political support, used the violence in Jerusalem as a pretext to launch a barrage of rockets into Israel. Hamas does have a solid base of support given that 37 percent of Palestinians said recently that "armed struggle" is the best way to end the occupation, compared to 36 percent who favored negotiations. In striking Jerusalem, "Hamas is trying to embarrass and punish Abbas for cancelling parliamentary polls that it was slated to benefit from," says Moran Stern, an academic at Georgetown University.
Arab-Israeli communities are fired up. For Israel, however, the longer-term danger comes from within its own Arab-Israeli sector, which constitutes approximately 20 percent of the total Israeli population. In recent weeks, Arab communities inside Israel have taken a more active role in protests, which have turned unprecedentedly violent. (A state of emergency has now been declared in the integrated Arab-Jewish city of Lod.) This development startled many politicians who tout co-existence between Israeli Arabs and Jews as a model for broader Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Asked about this development, Moran Stern said: "As tensions rose in Sheikh Jarrah, Hamas has been trying to mobilize Arab communities, especially in East Jerusalem. It also hoped to mobilize supporters in the West Bank, President Abbas's stronghold. It seems the initial plan was to fuel events in those areas while keeping a safe distance so as not to give Israel an excuse to attack its assets in Gaza directly." But Stern notes that as things escalated, this has obviously changed. "The willingness of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad to escalate by launching massive rocket attacks all the way to Tel Aviv surprised intelligence analysts." Still, Hamas' approach seems to have worked: Arab-Israelis are now angry and activated.
Next steps. Still mired in political chaos, Israel does not have a functioning government to lead the way, while President Abbas has also been missing in action in recent days. Meanwhile, both Israel and Hamas are now upping their rhetoric. The risk of an escalation of deadly violence continues to rise.
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Will Palestinians get to vote?
The last time Palestinians went to the polls was in 2006, after Mahmoud Abbas replaced longtime Fatah stalwart Yasser Arafat as president of the Palestinian Authority.But factional infighting between Fatah and Hamas (designated a terror group by the US and EU) brought the Palestinians to the "brink of civil war," Abbas said at the time. Discord over power, ideology and vision led to a bloody battle that saw Fatah expelled to the West Bank in 2007, where it has ruled ever since, while Hamas maintains power in the overcrowded Gaza Strip.
Now, some 15 years later, Palestinians are set to vote in legislative elections next month. But intra-Palestinian cracks are again surfacing, suggesting that the long-anticipated vote could be scrapped. If Abbas' Fatah faction decides not to hold the vote, which has been delayed since 2010, the implications could be calamitous.
What's at stake? Abbas — who at 85 has led the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority for 16 years — does not want to give up his job or his party's grip on the West Bank. But Abbas' electoral prospects have been undermined in recent months by breakaway Fatah factions, particularly the one headed by jailed militant Marwan Barghouti, who is extremely popular with Palestinian voters. (In a recent poll, 28 percent of voters said they would vote for Barghouti's list, compared to just 22 percent for Abbas' once-dominant Fatah.)
Importantly, the carving up of support among Fatah-associated candidates would give a massive boost to Hamas, which, according to polls, would get 27 percent of votes across the West Bank and Gaza, to become the biggest party in parliament. Meanwhile, 57 percent of Palestinians in both areas say they would support a joint Fatah-Hamas list. For now, however, that option seems extremely unlikely given how acrimonious the relationship is.
Abbas is testing the waters. Fearful of political defeat, Abbas, who has a close albeit testy working relationship with Israel's security apparatus, is testing his options. In recent days, he has said that the upcoming polls might be delayed for an unspecified period of time, because Israel is not giving Palestinians in East Jerusalem enough access to voting booths. (The 1993 Oslo Accords stipulate that some Palestinians can vote at designated Jerusalem post offices; most will have to vote in the West Bank. Abbas and his loyalists say this will disenfranchise East-Jerusalem based voters.)
But critics say that Abbas is manufacturing a political crisis and using Israel's failure to formally facilitate the voting process as a pretext to annul the vote to avoid defeat.
What do Palestinian voters want? Surveys show that the top four priorities for Palestinian voters are the unification of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, boosting the economy, tackling corruption and removing the blockade of Gaza. Abbas knows that he is extremely unpopular, and that his government is oft-associated with cronyism and graft (some 84 percent of Palestinians in both enclaves say that PA institutions are corrupt). While voters don't think that Hamas will do a better job of improving their economic prospects, they do trust the militant group (more than the PA) to tackle endemic corruption.
Igniting Hamas' wrath. Sending a flurry of rockets into Israel in recent days, an emboldened Hamas made it clear to both the PA and Israeli leadership that there would be serious consequences if next month's vote were to be scrapped. Gazan sources also told a Lebanese outlet that relevant players should prepare for an uptick in violence if the polls don't go ahead.
Israel's position. It's still unclear, however, what Israel's official position is on the vote, and how much power it has to affect internal Palestinian politicking anyway. But this is all taking place against the backdrop of a violence-filled week in Jerusalem, where Arab residents — angry at restrictions placed on access to the Old City during Ramadan — beat ultra-Orthodox Jews and uploaded videos of the attacks to TikTok. In response, right-wing Jewish extremist groups marched through the city chanting "Death to Arabs." While recent nights were quieter, the situation is combustible, with many fearing that the clashes, so far confined to Jerusalem, could spread to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank — and even elsewhere in the Muslim world, given the symbolic status of Jerusalem.
Looking ahead. International and regional heavyweights like the EU and Egypt are lobbying Israel to facilitate mass voting throughout East Jerusalem. But it seems like Abbas, not wanting to relinquish power, may have already made up his mind to shut down the vote and roll the dice.
Visitors look at Chinese Air Force fighter jets at a military base in Hangzhou.
What We’re Watching: China targets Taiwan, Palestinian election heats up, Russia-Ukraine border tensions
Chinese jets swarm Taiwan: This week, multiple Chinese warplanes penetrated Taiwan's airspace. While Beijing does this quite often to flex its muscles, this time the jets took a different route, and one even got close to the Japanese island of Yonaguni, located less than 70 miles (113 kilometers) north of Taiwan. The maneuvers have been interpreted by experts as a direct warning from the Chinese to Japan not to overplay its hand. (It's worth noting that Tokyo could get dragged into a US conflict with China over Taiwan because, like Taiwan, it has a mutual defense treaty with the US.) More broadly, the flight patterns also indicate that China could surround Taiwan on three sides in an eventual invasion, cutting off the territory from US and Japanese military support. All this comes as the Biden administration has expressed serious concern (paywall) that Beijing is indeed planning to invade Taiwan in the very near term. With US-China relations getting hot, more rumblings over an invasion of Taiwan will surely turn the temperature even higher.
Palestinians' election shake-up: Next month, the Palestinian Authority will hold its first elections since 2006 — and things have started to get very interesting. Palestinian militant Marwan Barghouti, a longtime PA member who is serving multiple life sentences for murdering Israelis, plans to challenge longtime leader Mahmoud Abbas for the presidency. Abbas — who at 85 has led the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority for 16 years and postponed elections in the past for fear of losing — is now facing formidable opposition from two former Fatah veterans: Barghouti, who is extremely popular with Palestinian voters, and Mahmoud Dahlan, a former PA security chief who was exiled after a fierce dispute with the current leadership (Dahlan has been banned from running, but says he will persevere). While Barghouti is doing well in the polls, analysts say that his split with Abbas could help the rival Hamas militant group, which rules the Gaza Strip with an iron fist. Legislative elections are currently scheduled for May 22 and presidential polls for July 31. When elections were last held, a PA-Hamas dispute turned bloody, resulting in an enduring split in Palestinian leadership. What will happen this time?
Russian troops on Ukraine's doorstep: As fighting surged between Russian-backed separatists and government forces in eastern Ukraine this week, Moscow deployed several thousand of its own troops to the Ukrainian border, raising fears that the low-level conflict could get much uglier. The uptick in violence leaves a ceasefire from last summer in tatters. It's now been seven years since Ukrainian protesters ousted a pro-Moscow president, leading Russia to annex Crimea and foment a civil war that brought pro-Moscow separatists to power in two Ukrainian provinces along the Russian border. Peace talks between the two sides have repeatedly broken down over the question of who should do what first: Ukraine wants control over its border, while Russia wants Kyiv to devolve significant power to the separatists and legitimize them with elections. The Russians say their recent troop movements are nothing to worry about and no one else's business, but the Pentagon now considers the uptick in violence an "imminent crisis."What We're Watching: China charges Aussie journo, Palestinian election talks, WHO debunks COVID myths
Australian journalist charged in China: Australian journalist Cheng Lei was detained last August in China for allegedly passing state secrets to foreign actors. Now, the reporter — who worked for Chinese state broadcaster CGTN when she was arrested — has been formally charged with a national security crime, though Beijing has unsurprisingly remained mum on the details. Her family (including two young children in Melbourne) say that Lei is innocent, while the Australian government has pleaded with Beijing to ensure due process. But Canberra's ability to lobby for Lei's release is surely hampered by its increasingly fraught relations with Beijing: Australia has criticized Beijing's meddling in Australia's internal government affairs, its spying activities, and called for a probe into China's alleged COVID coverup — prompting China to hit back with a series of devastating tariffs on Australian goods. The Chinese government has also targeted Australian journalists, and the last two Aussie reporters in mainland China recently fled at Canberra's urging. For now, Lei remains behind bars. Is the Australian government powerless to respond?
Palestinian election summit: Palestinian leaders kicked off a two-day summit in Cairo to discuss upcoming legislative (May 22) and presidential (July 31) elections, the first time Palestinians will head to the polls in 15 years. The Egyptian-brokered talks between longtime Palestinian foes — Fatah, which governs the occupied West Bank, and Hamas, the militant group that holds power in the Gaza Strip — aim to iron out procedural arrangements for the upcoming votes, including whose security forces will guard polling stations and which judicial body will resolve disputes. Palestinians have not held elections since 2006, when Hamas — designated a terror group by the US and the EU — won by a significant margin, leading to a shaky unity government and bloody power battle that saw Hamas seize control of the Strip. Fatah was eventually relegated to the West Bank, where President Mahmoud Abbas has since led a 15-year "emergency government." We're watching to see whether the polls will even take place at all, since previous elections have been scheduled only to be later rejected by those at the top.
WHO ends COVID probe in China: Wrapping up a hard-fought visit to investigate the origins of the coronavirus, a team of World Health Organization experts announced Tuesday that it's "extremely unlikely" that COVID leaked from a lab. That initial conclusion poured cold water on the conspiracy theory — promoted at the onset of the pandemic by former US President Donald Trump — that the virus was either engineered by or accidentally released from a Chinese lab, a claim most scientists have long dismissed. The WHO team said it is "most likely" the virus was transmitted to humans from an animal at a wet market, but possible it came from a different source, like from imported frozen food products, for instance. WHO says their probe is ongoing, but the inconclusive findings so far are surely a relief for Beijing, which has often pushed unscientific alternative theories that the coronavirus did not originate in China. We'll be keeping an eye on whether the full investigation comes out with any definitive findings, and if other countries will even trust the probe given perceptions of the WHO being too cozy with China.