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Post by Admin on Sept 4, 2020 23:03:11 GMT
Israel scored two diplomatic gains on Friday when majority-Muslim Kosovo agreed to recognise the Jewish state and Serbia said it would move its embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. The decisions came after a White House-brokered agreement between the two Balkan arch-rivals to normalise economic relations two decades after they fought a bitter war. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said Serbia would become the first European country to transfer its embassy to Jerusalem, following Donald Trump’s recognition of the city as Israel’s capital almost three years ago. Kosovo will also set up its Israel mission in Jerusalem and in exchange earn Israel’s recognition, as it seeks to further legitimise its 2008 declaration of independence and statehood.  “I thank my friend the president of Serbia … for the decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and to transfer his embassy there,” Netanyahu said, adding that the controversial move would go ahead by July 2021. It was the second piece of big news from Washington in a month for Israel on the diplomatic front. In August, the US brokered a deal for the United Arab Emirates to normalise relations with Israel, symbolically marked on Monday by the first commercial air flight between the two countries. The agreement, expected to be signed at a White House ceremony in coming weeks, would be Israel’s first with a Gulf nation. Palestinians reacted with cynicism to the Kosovo and Serbia announcements, suggesting they were aimed at bolstering Trump’s re-election prospects in two months. “Palestine has become a victim of the electoral ambitions of President Trump, whose team would take any action, no matter how destructive for peace … to achieve his re-election” in November, tweeted Saeb Erekat, secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). “This, just like the UAE-Israel agreement, isn’t about Middle East peace.” Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, said the moves would advance peace and make Americans safer. |
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Post by Admin on Sept 9, 2020 20:41:33 GMT
President Trump's Nobel Peace Prize nomination created shock waves on social media, with conservatives hailing it and liberals railing against it on Wednesday morning.
Trump was nominated by Norwegian Parliament member Christian Tybring-Gjedde, who also serves as chairman of the Norwegian delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. Tybring-Gjedde cited the president's role in brokering a landmark normalization deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) during an interview on Fox News Wednesday morning.
“For his merit, I think he has done more trying to create peace between nations than most other Peace Prize nominees,” Tybring-Gjedde said, referring to Trump.
The nomination drew strong reactions on social media from across the political media spectrum.
President Trump has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for helping broker a peace deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, according to a report.
Christian Tybring-Gjedde, a member of the Norwegian Parliament and chairman of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, submitted the nomination, Fox News reported.
“For his merit, I think he has done more trying to create peace between nations than most other Peace Prize nominees,” Tybring-Gjedde told Fox News.
In his letter to the Nobel Committee, Tybring-Gjedde wrote that the Trump administration has played a key role in the establishment of relations between the two nations.
“As it is expected other Middle Eastern countries will follow in the footsteps of the UAE, this agreement could be a game-changer that will turn the Middle East into a region of cooperation and prosperity,” he wrote, Fox News reported.
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Post by Admin on Sept 10, 2020 20:21:22 GMT
Less than two months before the US election, President Donald Trump seems to have something to celebrate - a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize. A far-right Norwegian politician has put Mr Trump's name forward for the 2021 prize, citing the president's role in the recent peace deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. Christian Tybring-Gjedde told Fox News on Wednesday: "For his merit, I think he has done more trying to create peace between nations than most other peace prize nominees." Adding that he was not a big Trump supporter, he added. "The committee should look at the facts and judge him on the facts - not on the way he behaves sometimes."  So who gets to nominate a person? For a nomination alone, the barrier to entry is low: all nominations from heads of state or politicians serving at a national level are accepted. University professors, directors of foreign policy institutes, past recipients of a Nobel Prize and members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee are also among those deemed qualified to submit a nomination for the prize. The nominations require no invitation and as long they are entered before 1 February of the qualifying year, they will be accepted. For the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize - the winner of which has not yet been announced - there were 318 candidates. The Norwegian Nobel Committee doesn't publicly comment on its nominees, which are kept secret for 50 years. And for the second time, he has Mr Tybring-Gjedde to thank. In 2018, the right-wing politician was one of two Norwegian lawmakers to nominate Mr Trump for the same prize, then for his efforts to bring reconciliation to North and South Korea. Mr Trump did not take home the prize that year, but Mr Tybring-Gjedde, a member of the conservative Progress Party, insists the US president meets the criteria this time. Last month, Israel and the UAE reached a deal to normalise relations, with Israel agreeing to suspend its controversial plans to annex part of the occupied West Bank - announced by Mr Trump in a surprise statement. Israel opens tentative new chapter with Gulf Arabs It is just the third Israel-Arab peace deal since Israel's declaration of independence in 1948, and marks the first official diplomatic relationship between Israel and a Gulf Arab country. Palestinian leaders were reportedly caught off guard by the agreement. "This is a hard earned and well-deserved honour for this president," White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said on Wednesday. "Career politicians merely talk about the kind of results that this president has achieved on the world stage." President Trump's critics say he is a polarising figure who exploits divisions rather than trying to bring Americans together. |
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Post by Admin on Sept 16, 2020 6:34:58 GMT
Israel signed a peace treaty with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Tuesday at the White House, along with a declaration of peace with Bahrain, and for weeks analysts and policymakers have been discussing many issues surrounding these landmark events: How did they come about? Why now? Will it impact the region overall, as well as the Arab peace initiative in particular? Turkey and Iran have been most vocal regional critics of the Israel-UAE deal, along with the Palestinian leadership. But one country has largely sulked — Russia.
In response to last month’s White House announcement about the agreement between the UAE and Israel, the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry issued a fairly cool statement that mainly focused on two issues: Russia’s own importance and the centrality of the Palestinian issue. Moscow, according to the statement, “carefully” studied the announcement and wanted to highlight that Russia, a permanent UN Security member, co-sponsor of the Arab-Israeli peace process and the Quartet (which mediates Israeli-Palestinian peace process) “has always acted “from the need to achieve a comprehensive Middle East settlement.” The statement then stressed, “[T]he Palestinian problem has been and remains central in the search for peace in the Middle East.”
This reaction does not surprise. Russian President Vladimir Putin has made it his priority to restore Russia’s great power status on the global scene — as he defines it — and has done much to position Russia as a critical mediator in the Middle East in particular. But it was American, not Russian mediation that helped broker what is objectively a landmark peace agreement in the region, and this point is not lost on Moscow.
Thus, when Putin spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in late August after the peace deal was announced, the Kremlin statement also noted that Netanyahu was the one to initiate the call. With regard to the Israel-UAE agreement, the Russian side, according to the Kremlin statement, supports “a just, comprehensive and sustainable solution to the Palestinian problem and… hopes that the agreement between Israel and the UAE would contribute to strengthening stability and security in the region.”
To be sure, Putin did not criticize the deal, but contrast his measured comments with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky who congratulated Netanyahu in an earlier conversation last month, and called the deal “a historic achievement and a vivid example of the opportunities for dialogue and diplomacy that other countries can inherit." Moscow issued no such congratulations.
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Post by Admin on Sept 26, 2020 5:56:19 GMT
As the UAE and Bahrain prepared to sign a deal to normalise diplomatic relations with Israel this summer, Saudi Arabia – the regional heavyweight – was quietly urging them on.  For several months before the deals were signed at the White House, the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, had been laying out his rationale for a pact that would overturn regional policies towards a long-term foe. There were state-of-the-art fighter jets on offer, political favours with Washington to be won and bigger, better access to Donald Trump’s America, with all the connections a nakedly transactional president saw fit to muster. There was also another inducement: if Saudi Arabia’s allies came to terms with Israel first, it would give the Kingdom cover to follow. Such a move would mark a seismic shift in the region’s geopolitics, easily eclipsing Israeli accords with Egypt in 1978 and Jordan 16 years later. While a pact between Israel and Saudi Arabia is growing closer, Prince Mohammed is unlikely to give Trump what would be his biggest foreign policy achievement before the US election, according to three sources close to the royal court. Instead, the Kingdom is likely to continue its role of urging regional allies across the line – effectively in its s name. Sudan and Oman are firm favourites to strike a deal before the year is out. But the old guard of the region, Riyadh and Kuwait, are likely to bide their time and hold out for bigger prizes. |
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