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Monday, December 14, 2020

12/14 Links Pt1: Plans being finalized for dramatic 1st visit by Netanyahu and Rivlin to Bahrain and UAE; Israel crosses grim threshold as COVID deaths top 3,000

From Ian:

Plans being finalized for dramatic 1st visit by Netanyahu and Rivlin to Bahrain and UAE
After a week of reporting from the United Arab Emirates, I am now in Bahrain, covering the rapidly warming relations between Israel and these Gulf countries since the signing of the Abraham Accords on Sept. 15.

Today, I can report that Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa spoke by telephone with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin.

Officially, Rivlin called to congratulate the Bahraini monarch ahead of “National Day,” marking the 49th year of the Gulf country’s independence from the British empire. Celebrations begin here on Wednesday and go through Thursday, with all national offices and most work places closed.

However, ALL ARAB NEWS can report that based on conversations with Israeli, U.S. and Gulf Arab sources, plans are being arranged for a dramatic first state visit by senior Israeli leaders to Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

Rivlin has been invited to visit Bahrain, and has invited Bahraini leaders to visit Jerusalem. The same is true with the UAE.

Netanyahu has also been invited to visit both countries.

It is not yet clear whether both Rivlin and Netanyahu would travel together, or whether the trips will be separate.

ALL ARAB NEWS can report that Netanyahu has requested that none of his Cabinet ministers travel to either Gulf country prior to his own visit.

I would not rule out a December visit by at least Netanyahu or Rivlin, but January is also a possibility.

National Day in the UAE was Dec. 2.

Bahrain’s National Day commemorates the day that the first emir — King Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa — ascended to the throne in 1961. Independence was formally gained from the British on Aug. 15, 1961.

These holidays slowed down the planning somewhat.

It will be a huge story in the region for either or both Israeli leaders to make their first state visits to the Gulf states.


JCPA: The Temple Mount in Jerusalem: From Religious Conflict to Religious Normalization
A first look at the new and different Muslim tourism expected to reach Israel following the peace treaties with the UAE and Bahrain.

The controversy that has been dividing the Muslim world for years around visits to “occupied” Jerusalem and how the normalization agreements re-shuffled the cards in this Muslim domestic debate.

What do rabbis think of Muslim tourism to what is also Jews’ holiest site?

Expectations and the potential – what did Muslim tourism look like before the peace accords, and what would it look like after them?

How should Israel prepare for the Muslim wave of tourism in order to create a success story and prevent the Palestinians from disrupting this unprecedented tourism?
US special envoy: UAE, Bahrain shine a light on world during Hanukkah
Jews are receiving a warm welcome in the United Arab Emirates, US Deputy Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism Ellie Cohanim said Monday. She recently spoke to members of the local community and Jews and Israelis who have come from all over the world to Dubai. “When you work on combating antisemitism you spend so much time fighting the darkness and this is all about shining the light and it is a model society for the region and the world,” she says.

“The amount of coexistence you see in the Emirates and the religious pluralism and tolerance you see walking the streets of the UAE is profound. The warm welcome Jews are receiving here is incredible and a historic moment for all of us to observe.” This is a sentiment many have echoed over the last two weeks as Jews and Israelis have been welcomed in the UAE in the wake of the Abraham Accords. Cohanim’s trip to the UAE was a long time coming during a difficult year with COVID travel restrictions. As part of the office led by Elan Carr, the Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Antisemitism, Cohanim focuses on antisemitism in the Middle East, North Africa and Latin America.

She is well-placed for this work because her family was forced to flee Iran after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. She speaks with passion about the changes that are happening now in the region and which have led to a new opening and tolerance for Jews. She met with Rabbi Elie Abadie who recently moved to Dubai to serve as the community’s rabbi. Abadie, who was born in Beirut, is a scholar and expert who is an example of the international aspect of the Jewish community of the UAE.

In contrast to Bahrain where there has been an organized Jewish community since 1860, much of the Jewish life and embrace of Hanukkah celebrations in the UAE is new. She also met Ross Kriel of the Jewish Community of the Emirates and Rabbi Levi Duchman of the Jewish Community of the UAE, the leading heads of the Jewish communities there.


Jpost Editorial: Normalized Israel-Morocco ties bring years of secret ties in the open
Thursday’s announcement goes a long way toward erasing that perception. From now on, thanks primarily to the Trump administrations paradigm shift in how to foster Arab-Israeli relations, Israeli-Moroccan ties will be open and robust. Which does not mean that there will not be disagreements – there will be, primarily over the Palestinian issue and Jerusalem.

But bringing the relations out into the sunlight removes the stigma from those relations, and – as a result – goes a long way toward removing a stigma from Israel as well. And that is critical, because peace can only prosper when people across the Muslim world do not see Israel as evil. The Palestinians also understand this, which is why they are so fervently opposed to Arab and Muslim countries normalizing ties with Israel. They wanted to use this card as leverage against Israel, ensuring that it would never get its longed-for recognition and would retain its stigma status until it gave the Palestinians exactly what they demanded.

By going the way of the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan, Morocco is signaling to other countries that still may be sitting on the fence – from important countries like Saudi Arabia and Indonesia, to less significant ones like Djibouti and Niger – that there is no sin in dealing with the Jewish state. On the contrary, that there are definite benefits to be had.

And this is where the Trump administration has been so helpful. The Arab world did not just suddenly realize that Israel has much to offer in terms of technology, agricultural expertise, water management and cybersecurity. This is not new. Nor is it new that Israel and the Sunni Arab countries share the same threat assessment regarding Iran. That was as true a decade ago, as it is today.

Why then, wasn’t all that enough to cement ties in the past? Because only recently did Washington enter the picture and show a willingness to give things that the Arab countries wanted in order to foster ties with Israel.

The UAE wants F35s? Make peace with Israel and you’ll get them. Sudan wants off the terror list? Make peace with Israel and Washington will see what it can do. Morocco wants sovereignty over Western Sahara? Formalize ties with Jerusalem and the US will recognize that sovereignty.

What is strikingly new about Israel’s recent agreements with the Arab states is that they were less the result of Israel’s negotiations and more because of US contacts with them.
Normalization of Relations between Morocco and Israel
Jared Kushner, Senior Advisor to the President
"Morocco will establish full diplomatic relations and resume official contacts with Israel. They will grant overflights and direct flights to and from Israel for all Israelis. They'll reopen the liaison offices in Rabat and Tel Aviv immediately, with the intention to open the embassies in the near future. They'll be promoting economic cooperation between Israeli and Moroccan companies."

"We're seeing that a lot of countries want to keep this progress going. This has been held back for so long by old thinking and by a stalled process, and we finally had a breakthrough four months ago....The more people can have interaction with each other, the less the extremists and the jihadists have to justify the terrible things they do in the name and the perversion of the Islamic faith."

"We've done a different kind of diplomacy than had been done in the decades before. But through this effort, we're achieving different results and ones that are being universally appreciated by all the parties, both in the region and throughout the world." (U.S. Embassy in Israel)
U.S. Middle East Policy In The Next Four Years
Although President-elect Biden has said he wants to return to the Iran nuclear deal that President Obama negotiated and the prospect of the Iranian Presidential election in June may prompt calls to aid the “Iranian moderates,” it would be a mistake to rush back into the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreed in 2015. First, it would prompt a likely clash not just with Senate Republicans, but many Senate Democrats like Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Senator Robert Menendez and Senator Ben Cardin as well, while distracting from Biden’s likely primary focus which is containing the COVID-19 pandemic and restarting the damaged U.S. economy. Second, Iran is massively out of compliance according to the most recent report of the IAEA, and it would take some time to bring Iran back into compliance. In addition, the Iranian nuclear archive that Israel captured and brought out of Iran has cast the past military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear work into very sharp relief. A better course would be to consult with U.S. allies on how to use the undoubted leverage bequeathed by the Trump Administration’s maximum pressure campaign of sanctions to reach a better agreement that would permanently close off Iran’s paths to a nuclear weapon and limit its ballistic missile program. The Administration would also be wise to capitalize on the ongoing strategic realignment in the region that has begun to be formalized in the normalization agreements between the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Israel as well as the less formal Israeli-Saudi ties. The U.S. can build on this to strengthen regional states’ ability to contain Iranian aggression with U.S. military assistance and arms sales.

The U.S. will face an enormous set of alliance management challenges in that regard. Turkey is a NATO ally but has purchased the S-400 air and missile defense (AMD) system from Russia which makes it subject to U.S. sanctions under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). President Trump has refrained from imposing the sanctions, but the mere prospect of a Biden Administration coming into office and imposing those sanctions against the backdrop of Turkey’s deepening economic crisis has prompted the Turkish government to begin making more accommodating noises with regard to the S-400. This points the way forward in managing the U.S.-Turkish relationship. Rather than treating Turkey as an ally that is too big to fail in the hope that by so doing it will encourage Turkey to act like an ally, Washington will need to be more ruthlessly transactional about the relationship. Russia (which has interests that both conflict and converge with Turkey) has actually successfully managed the Moscow-Ankara relationship in precisely this manner.

Managing relations with traditional U.S. partners in the region including the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Israel will present enormous challenges for the Biden team. There will clearly be voices that will want to punish Saudi Arabia for the killing of Jamal Khashoggi and pressure the KSA over the humanitarian nightmare that has attended the Saudi-Emirati intervention in Yemen. The human rights violations of the al-Sisi regime in Egypt will also be an inviting target for many in the incoming Administration as will Bibi Netanyahu in Israel. The incoming administration would be well advised to resist these temptations. Reasserting traditional U.S. values in the region (as advocated above) does not mean coming down on these partner governments like a proverbial ton of bricks, but rather pushing for greater rule of law, basic human freedoms, and good governance while continuing to work closely on the security issues where the U.S. and all three countries share common interests. It is a delicate balancing act to be sure, but it is what would best serve U.S. and regional interests in the long run.

Finally, if there is one thing that the Trump Administration has demonstrated conclusively it is that the world will not end if the Palestinian issue is treated with benign neglect. The Trump Peace Plan, as Doug Feith and Lewis Libby have argued, was less an effort to produce a peace than one that lays the basis for an agreement in the future when Palestinian leaders have decided to become a nation and not a cause. It is probably too much to hope that the Biden Administration would leave well enough alone, but it would be well served if it did just that.
US Officially Removes Sudan From Terrorism List, After Israel Normalization Deal
A US decision to remove Sudan from a list of state sponsors of terrorism came into effect on Monday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, ending a designation in place since 1993 that has weighed on the Sudanese economy and curbed financial assistance.

The delisting provides a boost to transitional authorities that took over after the ouster of former President Omar al-Bashir last year and are grappling with a deep economic crisis.

A 45-day US congressional review period followed President Donald Trump’s announcement that he would end the listing, days before he announced that Israel and Sudan intend to normalize relations.

“This achievement was made possible by the efforts of Sudan‘s civilian-led transitional government to chart a bold new course away from the legacy of the Bashir regime and, in particular, to meet the statutory and policy criteria for rescission,” Pompeo said in a statement issued in Washington.

Pompeo said the move represented a fundamental change for bilateral ties towards greater cooperation.

The US Embassy in Khartoum had earlier announced Sudan‘s imminent official removal from the terrorism list.

Sudan had been engaged in talks with the US for months, and paid a negotiated $335 million settlement to victims of attacks on US embassies in East Africa who had won much larger sums against Sudan in court.

A process to restore Sudan‘s sovereign immunity and release the settlement money has been stalled in Congress.


Israeli airlines plan daily flights to Morocco
Israeli airline El Al is planning to operate at least one daily flight to Morocco, Israeli business daily Globes reported on Friday.

The report came a day after U.S. President Donald Trump announced that the North African country had agreed to establish full diplomatic relations with Israel.

Until now, Israelis have had to travel to Morocco on special visas via indirect flights.

“The company welcomes the historic announcement and will begin preparing for direct flights to Casablanca subject to obtaining all the required approvals from the various authorities,” the airline said in a statement. “The company has been checking out the economic feasibility and operational implementation of operating direct flights to Morocco, which are expected to be very popular with Israeli customers.”

Israir airlines CEO Uri Sirkis was quoted by Globes as saying that Israir is also preparing to operate flights on the route and estimates that in 2021 there could be as many as 150,000 Israeli tourists visiting Morocco. He said that at present, at least 30,000 Israeli tourists were visiting Morocco annually.

A third Israeli airline, Arkia, said it was also looking to operate flights to Morocco.
First Israeli hospital to provide medical services in Dubai
Dubai-based Al Tadawi Healthcare Group has forged a partnership with Israel’s Sheba Medical Centre to provide a new range of advanced healthcare services. The joint venture will see Sheba Medical Center becoming the first hospital from Israel to provide medical services in Dubai.

As part of the partnership, the Al Tadawi Healthcare Group will collaborate with the Israeli hospital to offer both on-site and remote telemedicine treatments and consultations.

The joint venture will be activated in January 2021 when Dubai’s state-of-the-art Al Tadawi Medical Center will launch a diabetes clinic offering preliminary diagnostic consultations through face-to-face meetings with visiting doctors from Sheba Medical Center that will be followed up with daily remote monitoring through telemedicine technology. Sheba and Al Tadawi will later expand the range of medical services they offer, and the medical center will be transformed into a fully functional hospital.

Yoel Har-Even, Director of Sheba International said: “Sheba Medical Center, the largest hospital in Israel, ranked by Newsweek magazine as one of the Top 10 Best Hospitals in the World, has forged a partnership, which we believe will serve as a model for cooperation between Israeli medical professionals and their counterparts in the UAE and GCC region.”


Israel crosses grim threshold as COVID deaths top 3,000
Since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, 3,003 Israelis have died of the virus, the Health Ministry reported, Monday.

Of the 50,641 people who tested for the coronavirus, Sunday, 1,707 were found to be carrying the virus, for an positivity rate of 3.4%. There are currently 17,691 confirmed active cases in Israel, 353 of which are serious. Of those in serious condition, 100 are on ventilators.

Israel received the first shipment of pharmaceutical firm Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine last week and also has ordered 6 million doses of Moderna's vaccine, in addition to developing its own, called BriLife. Israel plans to begin rolling out its vaccination program on Dec. 27.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Health Minister Yuli Edelstein paid a visit on Sunday to the Maccabi healthcare provider coronavirus vaccination facility in Tel Aviv.

"The ability of the country's healthcare providers to carry out the mission shows us that we will apparently be able to bring forward optimally vaccinating the population of Israel, in my opinion, the best in the world," said Netanyahu, according to a statement from his office.

"Moreover, of course, we welcome the fact that the American regulatory agency, the Food and Drug Administration, has approved the Pfizer vaccine. We are beginning the end of the pandemic," he added.

But until that time, he stressed, "I ask that the rules be strictly followed. There is no reason that we should pay with casualties, with tragedies, and with severe cases beyond the necessary minimum. We see what is happening in the world, the huge tragedies in the US, Germany, Russia, and other parts of Europe. Israel can exit this better. I ask for your cooperation. What I can tell you today is that we are on the way to bringing forward the vaccinations."
Netanyahu enters quarantine for third time after contact with virus carrier
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will enter quarantine until Friday after meeting a person who was later confirmed to be a carrier of coronavirus, his office said Monday afternoon.

Netanyahu underwent virus tests on Sunday and Monday and came out negative for the virus, the statement added.

This is the third time that Netanyahu has been forced into quarantine since the start of the pandemic over exposure to sick staff members.

In recent days, the prime minister has said he would like to become the first Israeli to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, which could happen next week.
Israeli Ventilation System Could Give COVID-19 the ‘Smart’ Treatment
An Israeli startup’s groundbreaking innovation may provide a much-needed remedy to the shortage of ventilators and the overwhelming of staff in COVID-19 wards.

“Yehonatan Medical, in collaboration with professor Ori Efrati, director of the Pediatric Pulmonary Unit at the Sheba Medical Center at Tel HaShomer, devised a state-of-the-art, first-of-its-kind ventilation system that can treat between three and five patients simultaneously. That means more patients treated by fewer ICU staff,” the company said in a statement.

“Conventional ventilators, aside from being very costly, are limited in that they can only be used with one patient at a time,” explained Efrati. “Their capacity factor and programming functions were designed for single-patient use, and there is also the danger of cross-contamination.”

According to Efrati, director of the Pediatric Pulmonary Unit at Sheba Medical Center, “we were able to use the relatively simple and inexpensive BipaP non-invasive ventilation machine as the basis for the Advanced Ventilation Technology.” He added that “thanks to the high-power output and built-in disinfecting mechanism, the new system can safely treat three to five patients simultaneously.”

Efrati declared the new development a “tremendous breakthrough is nothing less than a game changer.”
Hackers, Possibly Iranians, Hit Israeli Shipping Companies; Shipment of Covid-19 Vaccines to Israel Delayed
Israeli officials involved in the storage and distribution of vaccines against the coronavirus received an update on Sunday evening that the flight scheduled to arrive on Tuesday from Belgium with the next vaccine shipment from Brussels has been postponed to an unknown date, News12 reported. In response, the Israeli Health Ministry said the first shipment has only been postponed by a day and there is no cause for panic.

In what is perhaps an unrelated report by Calcalist, a massive cyber attack last weekend, on some 40 Israeli companies, mostly shipping and logistics companies, whose details were published Sunday morning, may be the work of hackers on an Iranian mission or who work with Iranian cyber elements.

Amital Data, which provides software to Israeli shipping and logistic companies, appears to have been hit first, and the attack spread from there to around 20 of Amital’s clients. An additional 15-20 companies not connected to Amital were also attacked. Among the companies that were hit were Israel’s very large international logistics firms. There is a concern that Israel’s supply chain might have been affected, according to the Calcalist report.

Potentially strategic information from the companies was also stolen, but no ransom has been demanded, which is why it is suspected that this was a strategic attack and not a financial attack by hackers.

The hackers used the Pay2Key ransomware which in the past was used mainly against Israeli companies and by Iranian hacker groups. Hackers tweeted on Sunday that they managed to infiltrate the systems of the Habana Labs startup, which was recently acquired by Intel.


Israel-Hamas prisoner swap proposal outrageous, Defense c’tee chair says
Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Zvi Hauser (Derech Eretz) railed against a proposed deal exchanging Israeli captives in Gaza for Hamas terrorists in Israeli prisons on Monday.

“Due to my job, I have seen all the details and I must say clearly: This is an outrageous deal… that will allow hundreds of terrorists to return to terrorist activity,” Hauser said.

The MK’s remarks came amid reports that the government has been negotiating with Hamas to release the bodies of Shaul Oron and Hadar Goldin, two soldiers assumed killed in 2014’s Operation Protective Edge, as well as two living civilians, Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed.

Israel offered to provide Gaza with significant aid in fighting the coronavirus pandemic, including vaccines, but it must go together with progress towards releasing the Israeli captives, The Jerusalem Post's sister publication Maariv reported over the weekend.

Israel relayed its message via Egypt, and refused to release terrorists who killed Israelis.

Hamas spokesman Hazen Qassem denied that there was any progress on the issue of a possible prisoner swap with Israel. The reports on this matter, he said, are related to "Israeli electioneering."


Abbas seeks Qatar’s support for international peace conference
In the context of his effort to improve Palestinian relations with the Arab countries, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas began a two-day visit to Qatar, where he met on Monday with the country’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.

Abbas’s visit, the first since November 2019, comes in the aftermath of the normalization agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco.

Qatar’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani earlier this month ruled out the possibility that his country would normalize its relations with Israel. “Right now, I don’t see that the normalization of Qatar and Israel is going to add value to the Palestinian people,” he said.

During the meeting with Abbas, the Qatari emir affirmed his country’s “firm position on the Palestinian issue and its support for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, with East Jerusalem as its capital, in accordance with international legitimacy resolutions, the two-state solution and the Arab Peace Initiative,” the Qatar News Agency reported.

Endorsed by the Arab League in 2002, the Arab Peace Initiative offers normalization of relations by the Arab world with Israel, in return for a full Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines and the establishment of a Palestinian state.
PMW: Abbas’ advisor: A “war crime” for Jews to place a Hanukkah candelabra at Jewish/Muslim religious site
Abbas’ advisor about the Cave of the Patriarchs: “The Ibrahimi Mosque is a pure Islamic heritage”

Abbas’ advisor: “Placing of a Jewish religious so-called ‘Hanukkah menorah’ on the roof of the Ibrahimi Mosque… [is] an additional ‘war crime’”

Abbas’ advisor: Israel commits “crimes… that desecrate our Islamic holy sites in Hebron”

PA’s Supreme Fatwa Council: “The placing of a Hanukkah menorah [at] the Ibrahimi Mosque (i.e., the Cave of the Patriarchs)… is a blatant violation, a true provocation of the Muslims’ sensibilities, and an… attempt to erase the Islamic history in service of the goal to Judaize the Ibrahimi Mosque and create a fake Jewish character for it”

EOZ Nov 19th: A Chanukah menorah is a "war crime" according to Abbas advisor


PreOccupiedTerritory: Palestinians Expect Trump Campaign To Hijack UN Institutions, NGOs Now That Legal Options Spent (satire)
Proponents of a cause lost to events decades ago, but who have stubbornly clung to the impossibility of seeing their genocidal vision come true, have eyed the failed reelection effort of the outgoing American president with understanding, judging that, like them, he will react as they have to the closure of all legal and feasible avenues to the realization of aims by coopting international institutions, progressive causes, and various levers of diplomacy to attempt to bring about the desired outcome, by violent means if at all possible.

Palestinian leaders and activists, along with other supporters of the Palestinian cause, expressed their expectation Monday that in the aftermath of President Trump exhausting his legal options to overturn the results of last month’s election, he will now embark on the same political path that their movement began to chart in 1948, when seven Arab armies plus bands of Palestinian Arab irregulars attempted and failed to crush the nascent Jewish state, followed by more than seven decades of refusal to accept that Israel is here to stay and has cemented itself in reality to that point that only in the most outrageous fantasy can it be destroyed. Those leaders and their supporters now anticipate that the Palestinian model will serve Trump and his loyal followers well in what Palestinians see as the only viable course of action open to those who have failed: embark on a delusional campaign to undermine the legitimacy of political reality, bolstering that campaign with terrorism and obstinate rejection of any alternatives.

“I suspect we’ll see a Make America Great Again Liberation Organization spring up any day now,” predicted Nabil Sha’ath a former aide to the late Palestinian arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat, longtime chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization. “Russia will bankroll it and offer support in international institutions. Give it a few years and I think the United Nations will grant the MAGALO observer status in its membership and dub it the sole legitimate representative of the American people.”


Biden may stay out of JCPOA for now, leverage US sanctions
Although president-elect Joe Biden's foreign policy team has publicly said that the new administration would seek to re-enter the Iran nuclear deal and make it "longer and better," according to new information obtained by Israel Hayom, several advisers to the future president have been pushing for a new approach that favors embracing some of President Donald Trump's "maximum pressure" policy components.

Israel Hayom has learned that among some of Biden's advisers, there is a belief that adopting a conciliatory tone toward Iran would be counterproductive.

According to some officials in Biden's orbit, it would be a mistake to squander the gains of the outgoing administration by turning back the clock in one fell swoop and returning to the Iran deal along the terms set by the official document, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action from 2015.

Instead, they call for using the tough US sanctions that have been imposed over the past several years as leverage against Iran so that it agrees to amend the nuclear deal, essentially adopting the strategy pursued by Trump, who has hoped the crippling sanctions would convince Iran to agree to add restrictions on its missile program and other aspects that were all but left out of the JCPOA, such as its regional aggression.

The conventional wisdom is that Biden will eventually opt to strike a balance between the two approaches: He would stay out of the deal in the immediate future but would also extend various good-will gestures that could entice Tehran to change the deal.
Iran’s Missile Program Is Non-Negotiable, Says Rouhani
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Monday that Tehran’s missile program was non-negotiable and that US President-elect Joe Biden was “well aware of it.”

Biden’s victory has raised the possibility that Washington could rejoin a deal Iran reached with world powers in 2015, and he appears to see a return as a prelude to wider talks on Iran’s nuclear work, its ballistic missiles and regional activities.

But Tehran has ruled out halting its missile program or changing its regional policy, and instead has demanded a change in US policy, including the lifting of sanctions and compensation for the economic damage caused during the US withdrawal from the nuclear accord.

“The Americans were trying for months to add the missile issue (to the nuclear talks) and this was rejected…. And Mr. Biden knows this well,” Rouhani told a televised news conference.
Explosion caused by ‘external source’ hits ship off Saudi Red Sea port of Jiddah
An oil tanker off Saudi Arabia’s port city of Jiddah suffered an explosion early Monday after being hit by “an external source,” a shipping company said, suggesting another vessel has come under attack off the kingdom amid its yearslong war in Yemen.

The Singapore-flagged BW Rhine saw all 22 sailors on board escape without injury, the BW Group said in a statement. The company warned it was possible some oil leaked out from the site of the blast.

Saudi Arabia did not immediately acknowledge the blast, which struck off a crucial port and distribution center for its oil trade. However, it comes after a mine attack last month that damaged a tanker off Saudi Arabia that authorities blamed on Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

The United Kingdom Marine Trade Operations, an organization under Britain’s royal navy, urged ships in the area to exercise caution and said investigations were ongoing.

Dryad Global, a maritime intelligence firm, also reported the blast. No one immediately offered a cause.


US formally blames Iran in abduction, presumed death of ex-FBI agent
The Trump administration for the first time on Monday formally blamed Iran for the presumed death of retired FBI agent Robert Levinson, publicly identifying two Iranian intelligence officers believed responsible for his abduction.

Levinson disappeared in Iran under mysterious circumstances more than a decade ago, and though US diplomats and investigators have long said they thought he was taken by Iranian government agents, Monday’s announcement in the final weeks of the Trump administration was the most definitive assignment of blame to date.

Besides blaming two high-ranking intelligence officers by name, US officials said the Iranian regime sanctioned the plot that led to Levinson’s abduction and lied for years about its involvement in his disappearance through disinformation campaigns aimed at covering up the government’s role.

The announcement comes nine months after US officials revealed that they had concluded that Levinson “may have passed some time ago” though they did not disclose at the time the information that led them to that assessment.
Europe-Iran business forum postponed amid outcry over journalist’s execution
Organizers have postponed a major forum on business between Iran and Europe due to begin Monday in the wake of an outcry over the execution at the weekend of journalist and opposition figure Ruhollah Zam.

The three-day Europe-Iran Business Forum had been due to kick off with keynote remarks by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, followed by a panel with EU ambassadors.

But the holding of the event caused controversy coming two days after the execution of Zam, who ran a social media channel popular during 2017 protests.

The hashtag #BoycottEuropeIranBusinessForum trended on Twitter and several activists spoke out against the online event taking place.

“The organizing committee of the Europe-Iran Business Forum has decided to take the exceptional step of postponing the conference,” the organizers said in a statement late Sunday.

“The European and Iranian business communities continue to see significant potential and value in commercial exchanges,” they added, expressing hope the conference would take place in the near future.



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