World Jewish Congres Analysis claims, a secret connection between Muhammad Dahlan and the Saudi royal family

The ongoing rivalry between PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas and his young challenger Mohammad Dahlan is an open secret on the Palestinian street. What may, however, come as a surprise, is the involvement of Saudi Arabia in the internal Palestinian struggle for power.

By Pinhas Inbari

Recently, the kingdom has dramatically decreased its subsidies to the Palestinian Authority. Furthermore, Abbas is almost never invited to visit any of the Gulf Emirates or Saudi Arabia. Dahlan, on the other hand, is known to have a home base in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as well as a special relationship with Prince Bandar bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia.

Why have Saudi Arabia and the UAE chosen to ally themselves with Dahlan instead of the Muqata'a in Ramallah? An analysis published last weekend in the London-based newspaper 'al-Quds al-Arabi' concluded that Israel and Saudi Arabia share the sense of urgency about the Iranian nuclear threat and may secretly work together to face their joint regional challenge. The article further claims that Iran is set to focus on subversion activity in the Arabian Peninsula in order to tilt the balance against the Sunni countries in the Middle East and shape the result of the Arab Spring in favor of the Shia against the Sunna. 

Accordingly, it is likely that the Saudis and the Gulf States are siding with Dahlan because they perceive the Palestinian problem as irrelevant and distracting in the context of the real priorities and challenges they face, preferring to cooperate with Israel against Iran rather than with Ramallah and Gaza against Israel.

The Saudis’ support of Dahlan serves as a signal to Ramallah to give due respect to the challenges and concerns of their fellow Arabs instead of promoting its own agenda above all else.  Additionally, both Israel and Saudi Arabia are worried that in the event that President Obama is reelected in November, he will focus on the resolution of the Palestinian problem instead of tackling Iran.

The government in Riyadh has been carefully reading articles published in Washington by former US defense officials, including Stratfor CEO George Friedman and former CIA operative Robert Baer, which suggested that the United States may choose Iran as its Middle Eastern ally over other countries in the region. In addition, America’s perceived weakness in deterring Iranian actions in the Gulf -  inability to react to the threats to shut down the Hormuz Straits and President Ahmadinejad’s provocative visit to the disputed Island of Abu Musa - triggered speculations in the Gulf that Iran is about to announce a Persian Gulf Province that would include Bahrain. In fact, only a few days ago Iran launched a seminar in Bushehr to reinforce its legal and historical claims on its side of the Persian Gulf and the Straits of Hormuz.

Another reason behind Saudi Arabia’s support of Dahlan is the development of an alliance between Hamas and Iran. Saudi efforts to reconcile Fatah and Hamas – the so-called Mecca Accords – were an attempt to sever the ties between Hamas and the regime in Tehran. The failure of the Accord resulted in Hamas’ becoming a de facto satellite of Iran. When reports spread that Hamas politburo leader Khaled Mash'al chose the patronage of the Muslim Brotherhood over Iran, the Saudis issued a highly muted reaction, as Hamas has lost its credibility further to the failure of the agreement.

The Saudis were further angered by Hamas’ leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, who promised the Iranians to turn a blind eye to the phenomenon of Sunnis converting to Shia in Gaza. In light of the failure of the Mecca Accords and Gaza’s friendship with Iran, Riyadh did not welcome the recent Fatah-Hamas reconciliation efforts sponsored by Qatar.

Instead, the Saudis distanced themselves even further from Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas’ leadership. As such, Hamas and Fatah’ enemy – Dahlan, gained higher status with the Emiratis and the Saudis almost by default.

Major UK food retailer boycotts 4 Israeli companies

Britain's fifth-largest food retailer, the Co-operative Group, announced over the weekend that it would stop doing business with four Israeli companies accounting for £ 350,000 worth of trade over the companies ties to and operations in the West Bank.

The four companies the the Co-op is severing ties with are Agrexco, Arava Export Growers, Adafresh and Mehadrin, according to a statement. Going forward, the statement added, "we will additionally no longer engage with any supplier of produce known to be sourcing from the Israeli settlements."

The food retailer clarified that the "position is not a boycott of Israeli businesses, and we continue to have supply agreements with some [20] Israeli suppliers that do not source from the settlements."I t added that it  will "continue to actively work to increase trade links with Palestinian businesses."

Israeli helicopters get missile shield

Israel's military plans to arm its helicopter fleet with a protective system against shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles it says are in the hands of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.

The system, known as Fliker and developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, fires an interceptor at an incoming SAM and is designed to minimize debris to avoid
shrapnel hitting the aircraft.

The rotating system "is designed to serve as the second layer of defense for helicopters and will be activated when automatic flares fail to divert an incoming missile," The Jerusalem Post reported Friday.

The unveiling of the system, which recently successfully underwent testing, is the latest in a string of new weapons the Israeli military has announced amid growing concerns that a new regional conflict is simmering.

This war, with Iran, Syria and their proxies Hezbollah and Hamas in Lebanon and Gaza the likely adversaries, is expected to focus largely on a sustained missile and rocket bombardment of the Jewish state on an unprecedented scale.

Israel's principal response would be airstrikes by its 227 ground-attack F-15 and F-16 jets, built by Boeing and Lockheed Martin, and its 80-plus attack helicopters, including 48 Boeing AH-64A/D Apaches and 33 Bell AH1-E/F Cobras.

Israel also has some 200 transport helicopters, including 73 twin-engine Sikorsky Black Hawk craft of various designations.

Israel has the Middle East's most formidable air force and has long maintained aerial supremacy over its Arab neighbors and Iran.

But Hezbollah, which is reputed to have in excess of 42,000 surface-to-surface missiles and rockets that can be unleashed on the Jewish state, is now reported to have an array of Russian-built SAMs. These weapons, supplied by Iran and Syria, could challenge Israel's mastery of the skies over Lebanon for the first time.

The Jerusalem Post recently reported that Shiite guerrillas, who have underground missile depots across their heartland in the Bekaa Valley of northeastern Lebanon along the Syrian border, now possess the SA-8, a Russian mobile SAM system with an estimated range of around 20 miles.

Hamas is believed to have received SAMs from Iran, as well as an unknown number of Soviet-era weapons plundered from Libya during and after its civil war in 2011.

Israel says it has spotted some of the 480 shoulder-fired Russian Igla-S 9K-338 SAMS, which NATO calls the SA-24 Grinch, that Western counter-terrorism officials say are missing from Libya.

The SA-24, built by Russia's KBM design bureau at Kolomna, outside Moscow, is one of the most potent surface-to-air missiles in service these days.

It's effective up to 19,000 feet and is resistant to most electronic countermeasures.

However, Israeli AH-54 gunships operating over Gaza were reported to have been able to defeat SA-24s sold to Iran and apparently passed on to the Palestinians in Gaza, as well as Hezbollah.

The Israelis haven't commented on these reports.

The Israeli air force, equipped largely with U.S.-made aircraft and weapons systems, is capable of countering the SA-8 with electronic jamming systems and precision-guided munitions.

It displayed these capabilities Sept. 6, 2007, when seven F-15I Boeing Raam fighters destroyed a suspected nuclear reactor being built by North Korea in Syria at Deir al-Zor 80 miles from the Iraqi border.

The warplanes in Operation Orchard were able to evade Syrian air defenses during the nighttime raid because an electronic warfare aircraft accompanying them blinded Syrian radars and missiles defenses.

However, if Hezbollah has SA-8s in sufficient numbers to hurl multiple missiles at Israeli aircraft it could impede airstrikes aimed at destroying surface-to-surface missile storage and launch sites that would likely be heavily defended.

In the first 36 hours of the 2006 war, Israeli warplanes destroyed most of Hezbollah's long-range missiles before they could be used but they were unable to stop a non-stop 34-day barrage on northern Israel that lasted until the final moments of the conflict.

With enough SA-8s, and the large quantity of Russian shoulder-fired SAMs Hezbollah is believed to have received from Syria over the last two years, the battle-hardened guerrillas could blunt Israeli air operations for a time to a degree not seen since the invading Egyptians drove off Israeli jets in the opening days of the 1973 war.

 U.P.I.

Obama lifts ban on $192 million aid support to PA

Washington - US President Barack Obama has lifted a ban on financial aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA), stating that the aid was "important to the security interests of the United States".

The US Congress froze a $192 million aid package to the PA and released only $40 million after its president, Mahmoud Abbas, defied US pressure and sought to attain UN endorsement of Palestinian statehood last September.

All but stateless, Palestinian man with dementia waits in hospital for travel documents

By Becky Schlikerman, Chicago Tribune reporter

April 29, 2012

For nearly a year, Wasef Ibrahim has been living at Rush University Medical Center — a man without a country that will claim him.

The undocumented immigrant says he wants to leave the U.S., and relatives in the Middle East say they want to welcome him home.

Instead the Palestinian man is stuck in a Chicago hospital, caught in the complexities of immigration policy and Middle East politics. As a result, Rush is left paying for his care at a cost of more than $300,000 so far, the hospital said.

Though he suffers dementia and needs supervision with basic tasks, the 64-year-old is healthy enough to leave the hospital, but Rush can't release him without a custodian ready to help.

A daughter living in the southwest suburbs said she can't care for her father, but relatives in the Middle East have said they will.

Hospital officials have tried for almost a year to reunite Ibrahim with his family abroad, but the process has been fruitless. To date, no country has issued him a passport.

"Mr. Ibrahim is caught up in some sort of political wrangle," said Joe Gonzales, a consultant to Rush who has been working to obtain Ibrahim's documents.

Because of his condition, it is unclear whether Ibrahim fully understands his circumstances, though his caretakers said he frequently asks about returning to his home overseas.

"My blood becomes refreshed," Ibrahim said of returning to the Middle East one day.

Ibrahim immigrated to the U.S. from Atara, a mountainous village in the West Bank, more than 20 years ago on documents that have since been misplaced and expired, family said.

Ibrahim at one point had a temporary Jordanian passport, but that has been expired for decades. Over the years, the governments of Jordan, Israel and other Middle Eastern countries have supplied some Palestinians with travel documents, but in many cases no country offered citizenship. Many Palestinians are considered stateless.

Experts said no one formally tracks how many Palestinians are stuck in the U.S. Though Ibrahim has not been ordered deported, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement statistics obtained by the Tribune offer a glimpse into the larger problem of foreign nationals stuck in the U.S. From late 2008 through spring 2012, nearly 17,000 immigrants ordered deported have been released from detention because their purported countries of origin failed to issue travel documents, records show.

"If the U.S. government can't even convince these various consulates to issue passports … it must be infinitely harder for private entities to get that done," said Polly J. Price, a professor of immigration and citizenship law at Emory University in Atlanta.

Chicago attorney Reem Odeh said she has represented dozens of Palestinians caught in the bureaucracy of multiple governments.

"For millions of Palestinians there is just no way home," said Odeh, an American-born Palestinian. "Most of them remain stateless or refugees."

Ibrahim, who also uses the last name Abu Rejaleh in some legal documents, came to the U.S. in 1989 to see his oldest daughter get married, family said. He overstayed a temporary visa and made a living working in convenience stores on Chicago's South Side, he said.

Nearly 10 years later, he married a customer he met while working at a store in the Back of the Yards neighborhood, but he never looked into becoming a legal resident, said his now ex-wife.

"I don't think it was important to him," said Gladys Jenkins, 34, who was married to Ibrahim for about five years until their 2003 divorce.

The lack of documents didn't pose problems for Ibrahim until last year, when he was admitted to Holy Cross Hospital with weakness in his legs, according to court records.

Palestinian government cracks down on critics

The Associated Press

JERUSALEM -- The government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has moved to silence critics, raising new concerns about freedom of expression in the West Bank.

Abbas' communications minister, Mashour Abu Daqa, said late Thursday that the attorney general's office ordered several websites shut down over the past six months. The sites belong
to an Abbas rival, former Gaza strongman Mohammed Dahlan.

Security forces have also arrested four journalists and an anti-corruption activist who have criticized Abbas and other Palestinian officials on Facebook. The Abbas government has also sued two of the journalists and the activist on charges they defamed the president and other senior officials.

Palestinian media in the West Bank are for the most part official or sympathetic to the Palestinian Authority, forcing West Bankers to voice their dissenting opinions on Facebook. But the government fears Facebook's power because of the role it has played in energizing revolts that have toppled long-entrenched regimes in the Arab world.

The West Bank crackdown has been criticized within the Palestinian Authority and in Washington, too.

"We are concerned about any uses of technology that would restrict access to information," U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Thursday. "We've had these concerns in other parts of the world, and we wouldn't want to see the PA going in the direction that some of those regimes have gone in."

Abu Daqa, the communications minister, said the shutdown of the websites was "bad for the image of the Palestinian Authority in the modern world."

He also predicted it would ultimately be ineffective because the websites could continue to reach readers by switching to other domains in a cat-and-mouse game with authorities. Abu Daqa is leaving his post, reportedly for personal reasons.

The man behind the websites, Dahlan, has been feuding with Abbas for the past year, calling him a weak leader and accusing him of allowing his sons to profit financially from his rule. Abbas took away Dahlan's bodyguards and expelled him from the Fatah Party, which the president heads.

Dahlan, who has since left the Palestinian territories, has been widely blamed for the militant Hamas group's violent takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007, when he was security chief there. He has also been accused of illegally enriching himself through corruption.