The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan must surely renounce the Abraham Accords with Israel because of the occupation state's ongoing atrocities against the Palestinians and violations of their legitimate rights. The normalisation deals were cobbled together in September 2020 by Jared Kushner, the son in-law and former advisor of the then US President Donald Trump. The accords were signed initially by Israel, the UAE and Bahrain to normalise relations; Morocco and Sudan then followed suit.

Israeli atrocities against the Palestinians, notwithstanding the signing of the Abraham Accords, have intensified pressure on these four Arab states to renounce normalisation with Israel. The attack on Muslim worshippers inside Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem last week angered many around the world. Images on social media showed Israeli police beating Muslim worshippers viciously inside the mosque. This triggered yet another round of violence in the region with Israeli forces bombing several Hamas installations in the Gaza Strip in apparent response to rockets fired at the occupation state from both Lebanon and Gaza. Meanwhile, Israel has continued to kill Palestinians, arrest hundreds of Palestinians and demolish Palestinian homes.

Polls in Israel suggest that most Israelis, including those on what remains of the political left, support security incursions and the killing of Palestinians. They view such acts as part and parcel of their country's security narrative.  According to the Israel Democracy Institute , 53 percent of Israelis have expressed support for the extrajudicial killings of alleged Palestinian attackers, even after their arrest and when they "no longer pose a threat".

Former Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who is touted as being left-of-centre and "a dove" in Israeli politics ended his tenure with a similar onslaught against Palestinians as part of his election campaign in 2022. Notwithstanding the Lapid-authorised violence against the Palestinians, he lost to Benjamin Netanyahu.

"Israeli elections are often preceded by violence and the bombardment of occupied territories in Palestine by the Israeli forces," explained Ahmad Vall, a scholar of Israeli-Palestine politics based in Qatar. "Killing Palestinians in the name of fighting terrorism has therefore become a commonplace in Israeli politics; it has the support of both the left and right of the political spectrum."

Importantly, the latest attacks against the Palestinians are surely a deliberate move to divert attention away from the mass protests in Tel Aviv against the extreme far-right coalition government led by Benjamin Netanyahu. Desperate to remain in power in order to avoid being sent to prison, Netanyahu wants to overhaul the judicial system in the country to give politicians control over the Supreme Court. The prime minister has been indicted for fraud, breach of trust and bribery. He and his family have apparently received gifts including luxury cigars, champagne and jewellery from wealthy individuals, estimated to be worth more than 700,000 shekels ($200,000), in exchange for financial or personal favours.

Netanyahu entered a coalition with several extreme far-right political parties in Israel, forming what is described as the most extreme government in Israel's history of extreme governments. Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) is an extreme far-right party led by Itamar Ben-Gvir. As Minister of National Security, he has authority over the police in Israel and the occupied West Bank. Ben-Gvir was once convicted of incitement to racism and supporting a terrorist organisation. Avi Maoz is the leader of Noam party, also part of Netanyahu's coalition. Maoz has called for Jerusalem's Gay Pride event to be banned; disapproved of equal opportunities for women in the military; and wants to limit Jewish migration to Israel to those defined as Jews according to strict religious law.

The push for judicial overhaul in Israel, if successful, could help Netanyahu to circumvent the possibility of going to prison. At the same time, it could also assist the far right to fulfil its objective of religious extremism and an overtly anti-Arab agenda in Israel.

What do the plans mean for the Israeli left? The judicial overhaul will limit the power of the Supreme Court and give the government a majority on the committee that appoints judges. This means that minorities in Israel, particularly the LGBQT+ communities, could see their rights curtailed. Christians deemed to be proselytising in Israel could be imprisoned.  A draft Bill to be considered by parliament includes the penalty of a year in prison for soliciting someone to convert to Christianity, while the punishment would be two years in prison if the would-be convert is a minor.

The events of the past couple of weeks, especially the violence inside Al-Aqsa Mosque, bring into question the integrity of the UAE and the other Abraham Accords states that have normalised relations with Israel regardless of the ongoing violations of international law and Palestinian rights. Some argue that the normalisation deals have emboldened Israel to oppress the Palestinians even more than before, giving the settler-colonial state complete freedom to do whatever it wants in the occupied territories. The Abraham Accords are thus yet another betrayal of the people of occupied Palestine and their legitimate struggle. Hopefully, the events of the past week will serve as a warning for other Arab nations not to endorse the Abraham Accords nor otherwise normalise relations with Israel.

Palestinian artist, Abrar Sabbah, who received appreciation for her drawing against the provocative cartoon of the French Charlie Hebdo magazine mocking the earthquake disaster in Turkiye, stated she wanted to convey a message of support for Turkiye.

French magazine, Charlie Hebdo, has sparked outrage with a cartoon it published mocking Turkiye after two deadly earthquakes hit the country on Monday.

"Earthquake in Turkiye" was written in the top right corner of the cartoon. "(Didn't) even need to send tanks", it says at the bottom.

Sabbah, a 26-year-old Palestinian cartoonist, illustrator and graphic designer, edited Charlie Hebdo's cartoon in a video she posted on her social media account with a caption commenting: "Hey, immoral Charlie Hebdo. You wouldn't draw like that. This is how you would draw it! We will stand up again. The people will rise again!"

Sabbah, who is a graduate of Turkiye, received thousands of likes in a short time and circulated the internet.

Victims should not be mocked

Sabbah, who speaks fluent Turkish and preferred to explain her thoughts to Anadoluin Turkish, said, "I saw the cartoon made by Charlie Hebdo in these difficult times we live in. Of course, like millions of people, I was angry and could not remain silent. In my opinion, this cannot be a cartoon. Caricature is a satirical work. But people who suffer should not be mocked."

"Many people's rights are violated," she said, adding that she illustrated in her video what many people wanted to say.

"At the same time, I wanted to send the message that Turkiye is a very strong country, and the Turkish people are very strong people who do not give up. I hope this message reached well," she said. "Our most powerful weapon is the pen. By writing or drawing, this way we can send a more lasting message. I wanted the message in response to Charlie Hebdo's cartoon to be in a language they understand."

"I got lots of positive feedback. I have received many support messages on my personal account. For example, 'We couldn't make our voices heard, you told us what we couldn't say' or 'You gave us morale when we were in great pain and depressed.'," she said.

Painful disaster

The young Palestinian woman, who lived in Turkiye for six years to study at university, said she felt as much pain as a Turk feels.

"May Allah help both peoples in Turkiye and Syria. I felt as if my own family had been harmed," she said.

She went on to say that the desperation she felt made her redraw the cartoon of Charlie Hebdo.

"I made this drawing thinking about what I can do myself and how I can contribute. I tried to come up with a cartoon using my talent. I hope this misdirected (Charlie Hebdo) cartoon has been corrected," she said.

Turkiye will rise again

Expressing that the Turkish people value Jerusalem and Palestine as much as the Palestinians, Sabbah said, "This (Palestine cause) is the cause of all of us, of course, but the interest and feelings of our Turkish brothers in Palestine are more evident."

Sabbah noted that she constantly follows the speeches or works of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Turkish ministers regarding Palestine or Turkiye, which convey a message that "We are one nation. The only difference between us may be language."

"I hope we will survive this painful disaster. Turkiye will rise again. The Turkish people are very powerful," she asserted.

Studying in Turkey

Sabbah, who came to Turkiye for undergraduate education in 2016, learned the Turkish language at Ankara University, Turkish Language Education Research and Application Centre (TOMER).

Sabbah graduated in 2021 from Selcuk University, Faculty of Communication, Department of Journalism in Konya, where she started after language education.

She was the first in the department and the third in the faculty.

Sabbah, who lives in the city of Akka, part of the historical Palestinian lands and located within the borders of today's Israel, speaks Turkish, English and Hebrew, in addition to her mother tongue, Arabic.

Palestinian Abrar Sabbah stated that she is trying to use the languages ​​she speaks to convey accurate information to the international public about the disaster in Turkiye.

"I am trying to convey our rights issues using these languages. I am trying to translate the news (from the earthquake area) as much as possible so that more people are aware of this disaster," she added.

(This article was first published by the Middle East Monitor, London)

It  was 1998, and President Laurent-Désiré Kabila was getting desperate. He had been in power for only a year, after overthrowing Zaire’s longtime dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, with the help of Rwanda and Uganda.

But his East African allies had turned against him, and were supporting rebel militias that were closing in on the capital, Kinshasa. He needed help. So he looked to the Southern African regional bloc for assistance. Troops from Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe answered the call and, by August 1998, the Second Congo War had begun. 

The conflict lasted for a decade and drew in nine African countries and 25 armed groups. By its end, in 2003, an estimated 350 000 people had been killed in the fighting, and more than five million had died in resulting humanitarian crises.

Nearly two decades later, the country, which was renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is on the brink of another war. The Kinshasa government is at an impasse with a rebel group, the March 23 Movement (M23), which seized territories in the east and advanced towards the regional capital, Goma.

The group is allegedly receiving financial and military support from Rwanda, which is also accused of profiting from the region’s reserves of rare metals such as cobalt and coltan. Rwanda denies providing any such support, or dealing in any conflict minerals.

Congolese troops have been powerless to halt the rebel advances. A longstanding United Nations peacekeeping mission, Monusco, is active in the area but has no mandate to go on the offensive. It includes soldiers and police from more than 20 countries, including large contingents from South Africa, Morocco, Tanzania and Malawi.

Now it is DRC President Félix Tshisekedi’s turn to get desperate. He is looking east, to the East African Community, which has promised to intervene militarily if no peaceful solution can be found. Troops from Kenya have started arriving in the country, with more promised from Burundi and Tanzania.

Peace talks are underway in Nairobi, with the presidents of Burundi, the DRC, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda in attendance virtually.

M23, which appears to be respecting a ceasefire called for by these leaders but refusing their call to withdraw from held territories, is largely absent from the talks. 

If the talks don’t work out, Kenya’s President William Ruto has promised to send nearly 1 000 Kenyan soldiers into action to “enforce peace”.

This will not be as easy as he makes it sound.

Clever Gunyani* was a Zim-babwean soldier in the DRC as part of the intervention force in the late 1990s. 

“Kenya has chosen a difficult war,” he said. “The eastern front is a jungle and it rains almost every day. It is damp and wet. Imagine trying to drive an armoured vehicle in the mud — you just can’t. The equipment is useless. Aerial bombardment is impossible even with infrared.”

Gunyani said the harsh conditions mean the battle is as mental as it is physical, and unprepared soldiers are at risk of a breakdown. “We ended up keeping to our lines and declaring a ceasefire. It is useless to waste bullets on invisible targets.”

Davestone Nyoni*, also a Zimbabwean soldier, spent three years in the eastern DRC. He said he would go back if he had to. “God forbid, but if Zimbabwe is attacked today, we will need support from other nations, alliances have always existed. Of course, other interests are at play, like economics, for example. We went to war so that Zimbabweans could trade with the Congolese and vice versa.”

Nyoni warned: “If the force lacks discipline, the soldiers will end up being merchants and couriers of ill-gotten wealth.”

In Zimbabwe’s case, the enormous cost of the military intervention nearly bankrupted the country. To fund the fighting, which cost an estimated $1 million a day, the government began to print money that it did not have — a major contributing factor to the hyperinflation which destroyed the economy in 2008.

But some Zimbabweans were profiting, or profiteering, from the war. As an incentive to intervene, Kabila had dangled mining concessions and profit-sharing deals to Zimbabwe’s politically connected elite.

“It provided all sorts of off-budget income-generation for elements of the ruling party, and also the commercial interests of the military,” said Piers Pigou, the International Crisis Group’s senior consultant for Southern Africa. 

This allowed the ruling Zanu-PF to shore up its own power, even amid economic devastation, and contributed to an increasing militarisation of the state.

Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa played a key role in overseeing these deals: as minister of justice, he visited the DRC’s Kasaï region to check in on Zimbabwe’s business interests, according to a United Nations report into how the Second Congo War was financed.

The stakes are even higher this time around. 

As well as vast reserves of gold and copper, the earth under the DRC contains more than half of the world’s cobalt and coltan, minerals that are vital to almost all renewable energy technologies such as electric cars and batteries. Together these untapped reserves are worth an estimated $24 trillion.

Kenya has made no secret of its economic interests in the country. Nelson Koech, the chair of the Kenyan parliament’s foreign relations committee, put it bluntly in an interview with The East African. 

He said: “Through this deployment, Kenya will also secure its vital interests including Kenyan businesses like banks operating in the DRC, numerous Kenyan business people in the country, bilateral trade with the DRC, and use of the Mombasa port by the DRC among others.” 

But the economic calculus of war is never quite so simple, and Kenya may not have anticipated all the costs. “War is a very expensive affair. It has ramifications on the economy of any nation which decides or is brave enough to intervene,” said Prolific Mataruse, a political science lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe. 

He warned Kenya that military interventions can have unintended consequences, and that these are “hard to budget for”.

Zimbabwe, after all, is still paying the price.

* Names have been changed to protect the identity of sources.  

This article first appeared in The Continent, the pan-African weekly newspaper produced in partnership with the Mail & Guardian. 

One of the political challenges in Qatar is that most of the population is left behind when the royal family forges ahead with socio-political modernisation. Unlike in most countries where change is often driven by civil society, in Qatar it is the royal family which has that role. Hence, the Gulf State has found itself caught between pleasing foreign football fans and the West on one hand, and possible domestic unrest on the other with regard to the arrangement made for the FIFA World Cup.

Since winning its bid to host the tournament in December 2010, Qatar has faced almost continual criticism, with many people doubting its capabilities for hosting it successfully. Four main issues have been dominating such criticism. Given its mean temperatures, could the state host a tournament traditionally held in the summer? Some of the highest recorded temperatures in the world are found in Qatar; just a few months before it won the bid, the temperature reached 50.4 degrees Celsius. No wonder it was decided to move the tournament to November-December, a move which demonstrated FIFA's willingness to take the World Cup around the world, no matter what the difficulties might be. It also gave the hosts extra time to get the infrastructure finished.

Moreover, Qatar is accused of widespread abuses of labour rights and subjecting low-income migrant workers to inhumane living and dangerous working conditions. The reality is that workers' rights need to be reformed across the region, not only in Qatar. Several labour laws in the country have been amended, and violations incur severe penalties. Despite its stated commitment, though, the government in Doha failed to implement and enforce reforms, enabling abusive practices to resurface, and the worst elements of the kafala (sponsorship-based) employment system to continue, for example.

 Qatar is also accused of bribery, even though it insists that it won the bid to host the World Cup "fair and square" and followed the rules and regulations. The British media and some regional countries have been in the forefront in peddling these accusations.  The British media has published a number of articles accusing Qatar of misconduct and irregularities in its bid. Since winning the bid, British newspapers the Guardian, the Times, the Daily Express, the Sun, the Daily Mail, the Telegraph and Metro UK have mentioned Qatar approximately 1,735 times in their headlines. Forty per cent of the articles about Qatar have been about the World Cup. Significantly, none of these publications is known to be particularly favourable towards Muslims and the Muslim world.

According to a published analysis, the top five most common topics in all of the articles about Qatar are workers' and human rights, the 2017 Gulf Crisis, bribery and aviation. Notwithstanding Qatar's reassurances and justifications, some in Europe remain sceptical and have gone so far as to call for a boycott of the tournament.

"The reasons given for boycotting the World Cup do not add up," said Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohamed Bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani. "There is a lot of hypocrisy in these attacks, which ignore all that we have achieved."

There have also been concerns about the applications of Qatar's strict laws, culture and traditions during the tournament. It has insisted that it remains committed to welcoming and protecting all fans who will be visiting the country to watch the matches. Similarly, the government "expects those who will be visiting to be sensitive of the country's certain cultures and norms." According to Yasir Al-Jamal, the Deputy General Secretary of Qatar's 2022 Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, "Everyone has their beliefs and cultures. We welcome and respect that. All we ask is that other people do the same for us."

There are a few things to point out in support of Qatar. First and foremost is that it won the bid to host the tournament within the "normal practices and culture of FIFA"; it followed the rules of engagement prevalent in that environment. Furthermore, the Middle East, like Africa, has a huge following and support for football. The decision to take the tournament to the region was the right one. Qatar made resources available to realise that ambition. The authorities in Doha said from the beginning that, "This World Cup is for the Arab World, not only for Qatar." To that end, for example, passenger aircraft will for the first time fly between Israel's Ben Gurion Airport to take supporters to the World Cup, including not only Israelis but also Palestinians. This is despite Israel and Qatar having no diplomatic relations.

Finally, Qataris are generally very conservative people. As such, the government has had to tread very careful as it continues to push the boundaries, especially the younger royals who are driving the modernisation campaign in Qatar. It can be argued that the enemies of Qatar both within and beyond the country would have found fuel for their dissatisfaction of the ruling family if certain concessions had been made, including the public sale and consumption of alcohol. The last minute ban of alcohol sales within stadiums was critical, otherwise it would have invited a huge backlash against the royal family. As Qatar prepares to make a bid to host a future Olympic Games, such decisions have to be made with due consideration for the readiness not only of the infrastructure, but also the country's citizens.

The South African government is hosting peace talks to end the Tigray conflict, with delegates from the Ethiopia government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) arriving here this week.  

The talks are facilitated by former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, the former deputy president of South Africa, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, and former Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta.

Obasanjo is an experienced statesman who has led peace efforts in Africa in the past, including talks between Darfur’s rebels and the Sudanese government. Mlambo-Ngcuka, as executive director of United Nations Women, brings international experience to these talks. Kenyatta is not new to peace talks either, having been involved in talks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 

These talks, hosted on behalf of the African Union, will entrench President Cyril Ramaphosa’s status as a leading statesman on the continent. He led discussions with the World Health Organisation and international financial institutions during the Covid-19 pandemic as the chairperson of the AU. And Ramaphosa has championed efforts towards a just transition to sustainable and clean energy.

The talks commenced in Pretoria on 24 October and are set to last till 30 October.

What led to the conflict in Tigray?

When Ahmed Abiy was elected Ethiopia’s prime minister in 2018, he freed thousands of political prisoners and loosened restrictions on the media.  He also undertook to deal with past and present perpetrators of corruption. And he signed a peace deal with President Isaias Afwerki of Eritrea ending more than decade-long conflict between the two countries. 

The Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which dominated politics inside the Ethiopian People Revolutionary Democratic Front, a political coalition which governed Ethiopia until the election of Abiy, was accused and implicated in corruption and human rights violations. Fearing possible persecution, they retreated to Mekelle in the Tigray region.  

At the time Debretsion Gebremichael, chairperson of the TPLF, accused Abiy of “conducting ethnic profiling in the name of fighting corruption”. The TPLF entrenched itself in Tigray, establishing and reinforcing an armed force against the government. Tensions between the TPLF and the government reached a new level in November 2020. The federal government instructed that elections, which were due to take place in Tigray, be postponed because of Covid-19.  

The Tigray regional state went ahead with the elections, defying the instructions of the federal government. According to the chairperson of the Tigrayan Electoral Commission, competing parties ran for the acquisition of 152 seats in the regional parliament. The TPLF won 98.2%, taking all seats in the regional parliament in Tigray.   

What followed were sporadic acts undermining the federal government’s authority.  It was the attack on the installations of the Ethiopian National Defence Forces’ Northern Command headquarters in Mekelle and other bases in Tigray by forces loyal to TPLF that exacerbated matters.

Since the start of this war on 4 November 2022, thousands have been killed and millions displaced in Tigray and neighbouring provinces. Human rights organisations estimate that more than 400 000 people are facing famine and two million people have been displaced in Tigray.  Senior political analyst Louw Nel, of consulting firm NKC African Economics, estimates that the war in Tigray has cost the country $2.5-billion.  

Negotiations

The aims of the peace talks in South Africa are to build trust between the parties and to draft a framework for future discussions. The cessation of hostilities while negotiations continue will be a priority. The negotiators will also want guarantees of safe passage of aid and food to territories affected by the war. They will also facilitate residence in South Africa for key negotiators from both sides of this conflict.

The Ethiopian government enters these peace talks emboldened. Over the past couple of months, the Ethiopian army has made serious gains in Tigray. The TPLF, once a dominating force in the Ethiopian People Revolutionary Democratic Front, was forced to enter these peace talks. The TPLF armed forces are currently cornered in their stronghold in Mekelle. 

Given the reality on the ground in this civil war, the government is unlikely to give in easily to the demands of the TPLF when negotiations intensify.  

It is likely that the government will insist on the disarmament of the TPLF and an end to armed resistance. The government will also demand new elections. The TPLF will probably push for a general amnesty for its leaders and fighters. 

(This article was first published by Mail and Guardian in South Africa)