The history of US support for Israel runs deep, but with a growing chorus of critics

A U.N. resolution adopted in 1947 created the Jewish state.

ByBill Hutchinson

November 24, 2023

With President Joe Biden pledging unwavering support of Israel in its fight against the Hamas terror group, he's the latest U.S. leader promising the United States' commitment -- an allegiance dating back to the Jewish state's inception 75 years ago when President Harry S. Truman became one of the first world leaders to embrace the creation of the democratic country in the Middle East.

"If you think of American history in the 20th Century and in the 21st Century, America's enemies and Israel's enemies were the same, whether it was Nazism, whether it was communism, whether it was Islamist extremism," David Makovsky, director and senior fellow on Arab-Israel relations at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a pro-Israeli American think tank in Washington, D.C., told ABC News.

Mark Mellman, president of the Democratic Majority for Israel, a U.S. organization that works to maintain and strengthen support for the U.S.-Israel alliance, said the friendship between the two countries was borne out of the United States' effort to secure allies during the Cold War.

"America wanted allies, as many as we could get, and Israel was one of them," Mellman told ABC News. "But there's also ... a long historical affinity, a belief that the Jewish people have a right to a state and a right to a homeland, in their historic homelands, which had been the homeland of the Jewish people for thousands of years. And that sort of biblical perspective, if you will, animated some Americans in this respect. But basically, we had two countries that had similar values and similar interests. Those have been the things that have really brought the United States and Israel so very close together."

Demonstrators in support of Israel gather to denounce antisemitism and call for the release of Israeli hostages, on the National Mall in Washington, Nov. 14, 2023.

Stefani Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

Mellman added, "There has always been an important level of bipartisan support for Israel. Both Democrats and Republicans have long been pro-Israel."

However, there has also been a growing chorus of critics of Biden during his tenure, most prominently among progressive Democrats, including Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who was censured by her House colleagues for using a phrase that some said endorsed wiping the state of Israel off the map -- an interpretation that Tlaib has denied.

"From the river to the sea is an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate," Tlaib said in a statement on X. "My work and advocacy is always centered in justice and dignity for all people no matter faith or ethnicity."

America's support for Israel comes as the country was attacked last month. The militant group Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and Israel retaliated with a bombing campaign and military operation in the neighboring Gaza Strip.

In Israel, at least 1,200 people have been killed and 6,900 others have been injured since the Oct. 7 attack, according to Israeli officials. In Gaza, at least 13,000 people have been killed and over 30,000 have been injured, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry. That unfolding humanitarian crisis in Gaza has complicated the U.S. relationship with Israel.

As the war rages on, the sympathy of some Americans appears to be shifting from Israel to the Palestinians in Gaza. A Quinnipiac University national poll of registered American voters released on Nov. 16 found that overall 54% said their sympathies lie more with the Israelis, down from 61% in an Oct. 17 poll. Meanwhile, 24% of American voters said they were more sympathetic to Palestinians, up from 13% in the October survey.

Among Democrats, 41% said their sympathies lie more with the Palestinians, while 34% said their sympathies lie more with the Israelis. In October, 48% said they were sympathetic to the Israelis and 22 percent said the Palestinians, according to the Quinnipiac poll.

Among American voters 18 to 34 years old, 52% of respondents in the Nov. 16 Quinnipiac poll said their sympathies lie more with the Palestinians, while 29 percent said they were sympathetic to the Israelis. The numbers indicated a sharp reversal from October when 41% said the Israelis had their sympathies and 26% said they were sympathetic to the Palestinians.

For Republicans, there is a combination of politics at play in terms of the evangelical community, which is very strongly supportive of Israel, Mellman said. Democrats, he said, are also close to Israel because they see Israel "as the only country in the Middle East that really shares our values in terms of things like freedom of expression, gay rights and an independent judiciary and rule of law and so many other things." said Mellman.

The shared values between the two countries are especially what prompted Truman to publicly support Israel within days of a resolution approved on Nov. 29, 1947, by the U.N. General Assembly creating the Jewish state, Makovsky said. Since then, every U.S. president regardless of political party has bolstered that support and belief that "Israel is like us in America in terms of commitment to pluralism, in terms of commitment to being democratic and having an independent judiciary," Makovsky said.

Over the years, American presidents have attempted to find a path to peace between Israel and its neighbors. Makovsky said he was at the White House in 1993 when President Bill Clinton got then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to shake hands with Palestinian political leader Yasser Arafat over the Oslo Accords peace agreement between their two countries.

"It would be a day that would make even the most cynical person hopeful of a better future," Makovsky said.

Israel, according to the U.S. State Department, receives $3.3 billion annually from the United States in foreign military aid.

"The reality is that military cooperation benefits the United States as well as Israel," said Mellman. "It benefits Israel by also helping to deter attacks by very strong powers like Iran, which also helps the United States to prevent wider wars."

Makovsky noted that having the backing of America, specifically militarily, has led Israel to "a great success story," helping it survive wars that broke out in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973

"When the U.S. Military aid comes, now we're seeing Arab states making peace with Israel," Makovsky said. "We saw this as an investment of peace. And indeed it worked because there were no wars between these countries since the '73 war."

US Congresswoman Tlaib thanks Americans for supporting calls for ceasefire in Gaza

US Representative Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian-American Congress member, recently joined over 1,700 Jewish individuals and allies in a national call for a ceasefire in Gaza. Tlaib shared her personal connection to the conflict, expressing her hope that one day her grandmother in Palestine would be able to freely harvest olives and figs. She emphasised that being born Palestinian should not deprive one of the right to live in peace and dignity. Tlaib said that a ceasefire is just the beginning, calling for an end to the occupation, the return of hostages, the lifting of the blockade and siege in Gaza, and ending the detainment and targeting of Palestinian children and the displacement of Palestinians. She thanked her supporters for strengthening her resolve in Congress, highlighting the diverse American voices advocating for peace and safety for all.

November 23, 2023 

Taiwan’s cat warrior to the rescue?

Hsiao Bi-khim’s impressive record might help save Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party from electoral defeat


ANTONIA FINNANE TAIPEI 24 NOVEMBER 2023 2006 WORDS

Hsiao Bi-kim during a news conference on Monday after she was nominated as vice-presidential candidate. Chiang Ying-ying/AP Photo

Last Sunday night Taiwan’s representative in Washington, Hsiao Bi-Khim, arrived back home from San Francisco. Ninety-two-year-old microchip magnate Morris Chang was on the same flight, fresh from completing his duties as Taiwan’s envoy at APEC. With all eyes on Chang, Hsiao was able to slip quietly past the gathered reporters without having to smile for the cameras. The following day she resigned from her Washington post to take on the role of running mate for vice-president Lai Ching-te, also known as William Lai, presidential candidate for the Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP, in the 2024 general election.

In an election noted for the number of male candidates promising to take on a female running mate, Hsiao was not the first woman to make an appearance in this role. In September, independent presidential candidate Terry Gou, billionaire founder of Foxconn, made headlines with his choice of running mate: actress and motivational speaker Tammy Lai, familiar to Taiwanese Netflix subscibers as the fictional presidential candidate in the series Wave Makers. Gou has withdrawn from the race but Terry and Tammy posters can still be seen on buses all over Taipei.

In contrast to Tammy Lai, Hsiao Bi-khim’s political experience is firmly grounded in Taiwanese party politics. She first came to prominence in 1999, when at the age of twenty-seven she was invited to serve as international affairs director for the DPP. Appearing on television for the first of many such interviews, she explained who she was: born in Japan in 1971 to a Taiwanese father and American mother, educated in the United States, Taiwanese in her heart. In transliterating her personal name into English, she uses the Taiwanese pronunciation, Bi-khim, not the Mandarin.

Her career unfolded within the occasionally uncomfortable embrace of the DDP. She grew up under martial law in Taiwan, before multi-party elections were a possibility, and left for the United States in 1986, the very year the DPP was founded. By the time she returned as an adult, Taiwan was in transition to democracy and the DPP was beginning to challenge the ascendancy of the ruling Kuomintang, or KMT.

Hsiao was working for DPP leader Chen Shui-bian in 2000 when he inflicted on the KMT its first crushing defeat in a general election. She surrendered her American citizenship that same year in order to qualify for public office. The following year, aged thirty, she was herself elected to the Legislative Yuan, Taiwan’s parliament. She has now spent close to quarter of a century working in political or para-political roles in or for Taiwan.

This second homecoming comes at a crucial time in the political cycle. The 2024 election is less than two months away. President Tsai Ing-wen, who brought the DPP back to power in 2016, has completed two terms of office and by the terms of the constitution is ineligible to stand again. Next May she will hand over to whoever wins the 13 January election. The DPP will be hoping that it is Lai Ching-te, and so far opinion polls have him in the lead.

Although the lead is steady, it is slim, and popular sentiment favours a change of government. If Taiwan had a two-party preferred system of voting, Lai would be staring at defeat. Last week that possibility seemed closer to realisation when the dynamic new Taiwan People’s Party, or TPP, signed an agreement with the KMT to run a unity ticket. In the lead-up to the agreement, support for Lai dropped to well below the 35 per cent “safety bar.” This marriage of convenience quickly collapsed, but with Lai’s approval ratings so low, even a victory in the presidential election would mean political chaos if a correspondingly low number of DPP legislators were to be returned.

Under these circumstances, Hsiao Bi-khim’s appearance at Lai’s side on Monday could not have been better timed. For the preceding five days, the media had been in a frenzy first over the deal between the KMT and the TPP and then over its spectacular collapse. For longer still, the potential deal and its brokers had dominated the local political news. The DPP’s loss of visibility over this period contributed to its decline in opinion polls. With the deal in shambles, the sight of the high-achieving and well-regarded Hsiao standing alongside the current vice-president should have been reassuring to more than simply DPP supporters. That has yet to show in the polls.

Disaffection with the DPP government in the electorate is attributable to Taiwan’s economic slowdown. Projected growth this year is the lowest in eight years — since Tsai Ing-wen took office, that is. Outside an enviable high-tech industry, manufacturing on the island is disappearing. Salaries are stagnant and prices are rising. The workforce is ageing. Youth unemployment is high and job security low. A young male “precariat” is flocking to alternative parties.

Adding to the malaise are sanctions by China, including bans on tourism to the island and imports of Taiwanese produce, which are slated home by critics government to the deterioration of relations with China under Tsai Ing-wen. Markets responded positively to news of the opposition unity ticket — while it persisted — last week.

If the economy were booming, other things would matter less. As it is, opposition parties have found plenty of other targets for attack: the government’s handling of Covid; corruption on the part of legislators; incidents of sexual harassment and their cover-up (not limited to the DPP but particularly damaging to it as the party in office); food safety; energy security; sleeping with the enemy; and even the shelf life of eggs.

Hsiao, who is close to the current president as well as the wannabe future one, can’t avoid being associated with the DPP’s failures, such as they are. But she has a strong record as a legislator and political campaigner, and strong ties to the south and east, important factors in a country where the capital and much of the population are in the north. She grew up in Tainan, where her father served as pastor in the Presbyterian church. Between 2012 and 2020 she was the DPP representative in Hualien, on the east coast, once a “deep blue” KMT stronghold. Hsiao is credited with weakening the KMT’s grip there in 2012 and breaking it in 2016, when she won the seat.

In the Chinese press she stands accused of serving American rather than Taiwanese interests: the expression “running dog of the Americans,” so often used in Mao’s time, has been used of her. But in a country with a favourable view of the United States, her native-level English, American heritage and strong performance as Taiwan’s representative in Washington all count in her favour. Her commitment to Taiwan is unassailable. She speaks Taiwanese as well as English and Mandarin.

True to her Presbyterian upbringing (Presbyterian being synonymous with progressivism in Taiwan), she stands for progressive politics. Taiwanese society is socially conservative and in a referendum in 2018 a majority voted against marriage reform. When the legislature nonetheless passed the reform bill, Hsiao didn’t brush over the contradiction but pointed to the responsibility of a government to all its citizens. “We need to take responsibility for the referendum last year,” she declared, “and we need to take responsibility for people who have suffered from incomplete laws or faced discrimination.”

If she is more progressive than the majority of her compatriots on social issues, Hsiao is at one with them on the issue of Taiwanese sovereignty. A majority of people in Taiwan now identify as Taiwanese rather than as hybrid Chinese–Taiwanese and hostility to China is deep-seated among DPP supporters.

It follows that China regards the DPP in general as anathema. As de facto ambassador in the United States, Hsiao was subject to vitriolic attacks in the Chinese media. News of her pending appointment as presidential running mate was criticised as portending a phenomenon of “independence on top of independence” in Taiwanese politics. Ever responsive to signals from China, the KMT called the announcement a recipe for disaster, bringing “troubles at home, perils abroad.”

It is difficult to tell how greatly China features as a factor in the minds of electors. Taiwanese have virtually no appetite for unification under the Chinese Communist Party but they have lived for a long time with the threat of forced unification hanging over their heads. It is impossible not to be struck by a certain sangfroid in the attitudes of people on the street. As they will point out, they have no means of preventing a war. While they wait for the threat either to eventuate or to evaporate, they want to be able to buy fresh eggs, see a doctor when they need to, and house their families if they have them. The birth rate in Taiwan has itself become a political issue, with rival candidates offering rival policies to get women to have more babies (KMT) or get more women to have babies (TPP).

The dangers of provocation posed by the DPP’s leaning towards independence nonetheless make cross-strait relations an obvious issue for opposition parties. Accordingly, KMT campaign posters are running the slogan “We don’t want war; peace on two shores.” Both the KMT and the TPP have promised to resurrect the Cross Straits Services Agreement in the interests both of boosting the economy and easing political tensions. This very agreement inspired a massive protest in 2014 and helped to bring down the KMT government in 2016. During the 2014 student occupation of the Legislative Yuan, Hsiao Bi-khim was one of the legislators who supported the protestors by keeping watch at the premises. But times have changed since then, as everyone knows. One of the leaders of the 2014 protest is now himself running for the TPP.

Hsiao won’t be able to avoid talking about cross-strait relations in the lead-up up to the election. At an international media conference on Thursday she had to field a barrage of questions on exactly this issue. Contrary to statements from China, however, she is not one of the independence diehards of the DPP. To the extent that Lai is regarded as leaning just a bit too far in that direction, Hsiao may help give balance to his campaign and claw back some middle ground. This would be true to her established image as a “cat warrior” who — in contrast to China’s “wolf diplomacy” — treads a delicate line between self-determination and confrontation.

Election campaigns in Taiwan are restricted by law to a period of twenty-eight days counting backwards from the eve of the election day. The pre-campaign has been rumbling on for most of this year, pending the formal registration of candidates on or before Friday 24 November. Lai Ching-te and Hsiao Bi-khim registered on Tuesday.

On Wednesday and Thursday this week it still seemed possible that the KMT and TPP would patch things up, but the chance was faint. TPP presidential candidate Ko Wen-je had said publicly that he hates three things: “mosquitoes, cockroaches, and the KMT.” Granted that he was in a bad temper, it was a difficult statement to unsay. A poll taken in the middle of the week showed, moreover, that the gap between the DPP and KMT had narrowed to less than one percentage point, reducing the KMT’s incentive to seek an alliance.

On Friday morning, all speculation ended when separate TPP and KMT tickets were announced. Ko Wen-je would team with TPP legislator Wu Hsin-yeh — a woman, as he had promised. The KMT candidate Hou Yu-ih had also said he provisionally favoured a woman as running mate, but in the end he came up with senior party figure, Jaw Shaw-kong. If the mid-week poll is right, the contest will boil down, again, to a two-party race between the DPP’s Lai-Hsiao team and the KMT’s Hou-Jaw.

Seventy-two years old, the son of a KMT soldier and an advocate of unification, Jaw could hardly provide a starker contrast to Hsiao Bi-khim. More clearly than the presidential candidates themselves, the two symbolise the different choices facing the electorate in January. •



ANTONIA FINNANE is an Honorary Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne currently resident in Taipei.

 Dramatic week in Taiwan leaves pro-US candidate as frontrunner

By Betty Hou / Bloomberg

25 Nov 2023

Ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s candidate, Vice President Lai Ching-te, and his running mate Hsiao Bi-khim.

(Nov 24): After a week of dramatic twists and turns, Taiwan’s most pro-US candidate has a clearer path to victory in next year’s presidential election, in an outcome likely to frustrate Beijing.

While the ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s candidate, Vice President Lai Ching-te, has been ahead in polls all year, a much-hyped alliance between the main opposition camps had threatened to wipe out his lead.

That unity ticket imploded when the Kuomintang’s Hou Yu-ih and the Taiwan People’s Party’s Ko Wen-je had a spectacular public falling out at a Thursday press conference. Both men filed rival bids on Friday, effectively splitting the Beijing-friendly vote hours before the deadline.

The collapse of the joint ticket is set to disappoint Chinese President Xi Jinping, whose government has blasted Lai over his stance on cross-strait relations. A government in Taipei more open to restarting talks with Beijing would minimize Xi’s need to further ratchet up pressure on Taiwan and exacerbate an already sensitive flashpoint in China’s relationship with the US.

US President Joe Biden’s government already has strong links to Taiwan’s ruling party led by Tsai Ing-wen, and has pledged US$480 million to bolster the island’s military capabilities in the face of Beijing’s increased military aggression. Another DPP government would likely be a smooth transition for his administration — especially with Hsiao Bi-khim, the island’s former envoy to the US, named as Lai’s running mate.

“This definitely releases some pressure off of Washington’s shoulders as Lai’s attitude has always been US-friendly,” said Chu Chao-hsiang, professor at the Graduate Institute of Political Science, National Taiwan Normal University. “Beijing will now increase its pressure on the Lai campaign and make sure Lai doesn’t say or do anything to test its red lines.”

China earlier this year called Lai a “troublemaker” seeking Taiwan independence, saying his comments on maintaining the peaceful status quo were a lie and that he brings the risk of war to the island.

Dramatic week

Just one week ago, it looked like Taiwan’s ruling party, which rejects China’s claim to sovereignty over the island, may lose its bid to retain the presidency in elections in January. That would have opened the door for Xi to forge stronger ties with Taiwan, which is separated from China by only 100 miles (160 kilometers) of ocean.

But a series of extraordinary events this week saw that alliance implode in public fashion. After months of on-and-off negotiations over who would lead a joint ticket between the KMT and TPP, the two camps convened at a luxury hotel in Taipei on Thursday, where they traded insults on live television for 90 minutes.

Former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou, of the KMT, sat on stage silently throughout the mud-slinging, physically refusing to take the microphone. Foxconn Technology Group founder Terry Gou — who dropped out of the presidential race on Friday after consistently polling in fourth place — said Ma hadn’t been invited to the event.

That unprecedented display of acrimony will likely be remembered as one of the most chaotic moments in Taiwan’s political history. The unflattering performances could now hurt Hou and Ko’s prospects with voters, said Niu Tse-hsun, a professor at the Chinese Culture University, who likened their unity talks to a “soap opera.”

“In my heart I understand very well that during this period, everyone expected” a unity ticket, Hou wrote in a Facebook post on Friday. “But since, in the face of public opinion and in pursuit of sincerity, we’re unable to get that kind of result, the KMT is duty-bound to continue its political mission without hesitation!”

Market reaction to the failed alliance was muted. The Taiwan dollar slipped 0.3% against the US dollar on Friday amid broad dollar gains against Asian currencies. The currency had jumped after Xi last week said Beijing has no plans for invasion of Taiwan.

While the KMT supports dialogue with Beijing under the premise the island is part of China, Taiwan’s ruling party insists talks can only go ahead as equals, a notion Xi cannot accept. That deals a blow to the Communist Party which has made closer ties with Taiwan all the way up to unification a priority.

Those tensions between the DPP and the Communist Party were on display in August 2022, when Tsai’s government welcomed then US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in Taipei. That caused ties between the world’s largest economies to crater, as Beijing responded with unprecedented military drills around the island and froze military talks with Washington.

Both the US and China have reasons to keep tensions from spiraling again in Taiwan. Xi is trying to stabilize Beijing’s geopolitical ties and boost his nation’s slowing growth. Investors have cited geopolitical turbulence as a barrier to investing in the world’s second-largest economy.

Biden is facing an election year in 2024, and will want to reduce instability and avoid any “escalation of tensions around Taiwan,” according to Huang Kwei-bo, a professor at the National Chengchi University.

“Washington now will keep a close watch on whether Lai can successfully convince both internal and external parities that he’s capable of keeping cross-strait relations stable,” he added.

Foxconn founder Terry Gou withdraws from race to be Taiwan president

REUTERS
November 24, 2023

People walk pass poster of Terry Gou, the billionaire founder of major Apple supplier Foxconn, who has collected three times the amount of signatures needed to qualify to run Taiwan's presidential elections in Taipei, Taiwan November 14, 2023.

 (Reuters Photo)

TAIPEI--Terry Gou, the billionaire founder of major Apple supplier Foxconn, on Friday withdrew from the race to be Taiwan's next president after the breakdown of opposition talks to mount a joint ticket against the ruling party.

Gou announced his bid in August, saying he wanted to unite the opposition and ensure the island did not become “the next Ukraine,” blaming the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) for taking Taiwan to the brink of war by antagonizing China, which claims the island as its own territory.

Gou, who only got the go-ahead from the election commission last week after collecting enough valid signatures to run as an independent, said in a statement he was “withdrawing his body but not his spirit”.

“STOP, RESET, RESTART,” he added, using English.

He did not specify what he would do next in the presidential campaign or who he might back - Hou Yu-ih from Taiwan's largest opposition party the Kuomintang (KMT), or former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je from the much smaller Taiwan People's Party (TPP).

“Must win! All right? Complete the change of power and change Taiwan,” Gou said.

Ko offered his thanks to Gou in a comment on Gou's Facebook page.

“We will definitely win!” Ko added.

Gou had tried to broker talks between the KMT and TPP to run together against the DPP, but those efforts imploded late Thursday after an angry showdown between leaders from the opposition parties in front of reporters and shown live on Taiwanese television channels at a conference room in a Taipei hotel.

Taiwan 2024 Election: Pro China Opposition Splits, Giving Edge To Pro-US Ruling Party

China, which has framed the election as a choice between "peace and war", believes the Pro US Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and its presidential candidates are dangerous separatists and has rebuffed offers of talks.US Taiwan Flags

Outlook Web Desk

UPDATED: 24 NOV 2023 


Taiwan's opposition parties, the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Taiwan People's Party (TPP), both advocating for closer ties with China, registered separate presidential candidates on Friday. This development, following a failed attempt to form a joint ticket, could potentially strengthen the position of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which has been resilient against Beijing's pressure.

The KMT and TPP had initially agreed to collaborate against the DPP but encountered difficulties in reaching a consensus on a united presidential ticket. The proposed "blue-white" ticket, symbolising the respective party colours, aimed to enhance their chances against the DPP. Polls indicated that a candidate backed by both parties had the best potential to challenge the DPP's candidate, Vice-President William Lai Ching-te.

Despite ongoing talks since October, the two opposition parties failed to resolve a dispute over the selection process for the joint candidate during a final round of discussions on Thursday.

The main opposition Kuomintang (KMT) is fielding Hou Yu-ih for the presidency, while Ko Wen-je will run for the smaller Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The KMT chose pro-China media personality Jaw Shaw-kong as Hou’s running mate while the TPP opted for one of its lawmakers Cynthia Wu.

The DPP, advocating for the people of Taiwan to determine their future, is fielding Vice President William Lai as its candidate, with Hsiao Bi-khim, Taipei’s former envoy in the United States, as his running mate.

China, which has framed the election as a choice between "peace and war", believes the DPP and its presidential candidates are dangerous separatists and has rebuffed offers of talks.

2024 Taiwan Election:

As Taiwan's voters gear up for the January 13th, 2024 election, the stakes are high. The DPP and KMT, the two main political entities, present opposing cross-strait strategies. The pro-unification KMT aims to ease tensions by reopening dialogue with China, asserting that both sides of the strait belong to one country.

On the other hand, the pro-independence DPP advocates for strengthening ties with the United States and its allies while bolstering military deterrence through increased defence spending and reform.

Despite the US not officially recognising Taiwan as an independent state, it opposes any forcible change in the status quo and is legally bound to assist the island in self-defence.

A victory for the DPP will do nothing to improve relations with Beijing, which regards Taiwan as a breakaway province that must be reunited with the mainland – by force if necessary.

Misunderstanding bin Laden’s 2002 “Letter to Americans”


By Paul Marshall

on November 24, 2023

PROVIDENCE


Recently TikTok has posted and highlighted Osama bin Laden’s 2002 “Letter to Americans.” This letter was originally intended to appeal to Western audiences but failed spectacularly when it was first promulgated. However, it has now drawn much attention especially from those now trying to re-interpret him in their own truncated image as a representative of anti-colonialism.

This is yet another example of “mirror-imaging” wherein many Westerners project their parochial interpretation of world events onto very different actors and interpret those other’s actions into preconceived secular categories. But bin Laden’s view of the world draws on a very different conceptual universe that can only be understood in terms of its deep religious roots.

The name usually given to bin Laden’s organization is “Al Qaeda,” but this is merely a nickname for an organization that has styled itself officially as the “World Islamic Front for Holy War against Jews and Crusaders.” The attacks perpetrated by this network have usually been accompanied by a plethora of videotapes, audiotapes, declarations, books, letters, fatwas, magazines, e-mails, and websites that present and explain its theology, its view of history and the political order, and its understanding of contemporary events, to explain and justify its actions in terms of its version of Islamic teaching, law, history, and practice.

These materials, now collected in several volumes, consistently expound a religiously shaped program that announces as its goal to unite Muslims worldwide into one people, the ummah, with one divinely sanctioned leader, a caliph, governed by a reactionary version of sharia (Islamic law), and organized to wage jihad on the rest of the world. It targets Muslim regimes in the Middle East that it regards as “apostates” from Islam, and opponents further afield, usually described as “Crusaders,” “followers of the cross,” “Jews,” or “infidels.”

Consequently, Al Qaeda’s attacks have not been confined to America or “the West.” Its members have sought to kill or silence those opposed to its version of Islam, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, on the Left or the Right, American, British, Israeli, Australian, French, Indian, Algerian, Sudanese, Indonesian, Thai, Timorese or Filipino. Most of its killings are now in West Africa, especially Nigeria, where it has contributed to deaths in the tens of thousands, whose lost Black Lives to terrorism are mostly ignored in the West.

Al Qaeda’s very own training manual begins not by recalling by American concerns such as the birth of Israel or the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan but an event little noted in America: “the fall of [the] orthodox Caliphates on March 3, 1924.” That this same event and historical period is a source of continuing grievance is shown in Osama bin Laden’s November 3, 2001, videotape–his first statement after the September 11 attacks–which similarly proclaims: “Following World War I, which ended more than 83 years ago, the whole Islamic world fell under the Crusader banner.” For bin Laden, his followers, and his imitators, a key turning points in history was the ending of the Ottoman Empire and the subsequent shattering of the Muslim ummah by Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk through his creation of modern secular Turkey and his abolition of the caliphate, the nominal leader of all Muslims.

This 2001 proclamation also declared his basic belief: “This war is fundamentally religious. . .. Those who try to cover this crystal-clear fact, which the entire world has admitted, are deceiving the Islamic nation. This war is fundamentally religious. . . . This fact is proven in the book of God Almighty and in the teachings of our messenger, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him. This war is fundamentally religious. Under no circumstances should we forget this enmity between us and the infidels. For, the enmity is based on creed.”

Also, apart from Middle East concerns, he also castigated the United Nations for its worldwide support for a purported attempt “to divide the largest country in the Islamic world. . . . This criminal, Kofi Annan [UN Secretary-General], was . . . putting pressure on the Indonesian government, telling it, you have twenty-four hours to divide and separate East Timor from Indonesia by force. The crusader Australian forces were on Indonesian shores, and, in fact, they landed to separate East Timor, which is part of the Islamic world.”

These proclamations received support among some Muslims, but clearly, they failed at convincing many in the West. Hence, for a brief time thereafter, bin Laden tried a different tactic in his “Letter to Americans,” posted on the internet in October 2002.

This was a very marked departure from his many previous statements as in this case he attempted to appeal to Westerners by submerging his clear and explicit religious agenda and instead temporarily harped on some peculiarly Western grievances. He mentioned the Kyoto accord on global warming, environmental problems, election campaign finances, and the use of nuclear weapons on Japan—matters he had consistently ignored in his numerous statements over the previous decade. He also mentioned President Clinton’s “immoral acts” in the Oval Office, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, charging interest, and using women in advertising. So far these latter “moral” matters have drawn little attention from those attempting to recruit bin Laden as a posthumous ally in an anti-imperialist agenda.

But, even in this crude attempt to play to American prejudices, he still returned to his basic religious message and, above all, condemned the U.S. Constitution for not enshrining Islamic sharia and instead allowing the American people to make their own laws. He makes a fervent appeal to Americans to repent and become Muslim: “The first thing we are calling you to is Islam.”

This was the short-lived propaganda effort that is now gaining attention from those who now want to enlist bin Laden in their own very different political agenda. It failed in 2002 but recent attention to it shows our growing historical ignorance.

This brief 2002 attempt to appeal to Western sensibilities went nowhere, and so bin Laden then reverted to reiterating his fundamental beliefs. His January 2004 message not to the West but “to the Muslim nation” emphasized that because the West “invaded our countries more than 2,500 years ago[sic],” “It is a religious-economic war. . . . Therefore, religious terms should be used when describing the ruler who does not follow God’s revelations and path and champions the infidels by extending military facilities to them or implementing the UN resolutions against Islam and Muslims. Those should be called infidels and renegades. . . . [T]he confrontation and conflict between us and them started centuries ago. The confrontation and conflict will continue because the conflict between right and falsehood will continue until Judgment Day.”

Later, at the end of 2004, he warned Iraqis not to participate in the January 30, 2005, elections because the Iraqi constitution is “a jahiliyya [pre-Islamic] constitution that is made by man,” and Muslims may elect only a leader for whom “Islam is the only source of the rulings and laws.” On similar grounds, he forbade voting in Palestinian Authority elections because “the constitution of the land is a jahili made by man,” and added the religiously loaded claim that the then Fatah candidate, and now President, Mahmoud Abbas “is a Baha’i.” Since he regards Baha’is as apostates who should be killed, this was an especially damning view of the PLO.

Bin Laden and his cohorts were indeed concerned about the United States, Israel, the Palestinians, Iraq, and Afghanistan. But they have an explicit and highly developed religious worldview and so are especially concerned about Saudi Arabia’s holy sites and the Al-Aqsa mosque, and continually point to attacks by infidels in Lebanon, Tajikistan, Burma, Kashmir, Assam, the Philippines, “Fatani,” “Ogadin,” Somalia, Eritrea, Chechnya, Bosnia, “Bokhara,” Bangladesh, Turkey, Chad, Mauritania, South Sudan, Darfur, Algeria, the Philippines, Yemen, “Tashkent,” Indonesia, and East Timor.

Religious beliefs and ideology are not the only things we need to know to understand al Qaeda’s goals and actions. But we cannot understand these unless we take their religious beliefs seriously. Yet many in the West are fixated on their more familiar categories of globalization, ethnicity, the “West,” colonialism, and Middle Eastern nationalism, and thus miss the nature of terrorists’ beliefs, strategy, tactics, justifications, and goals. Hence, to the degree that we ignore the clearly articulated nature and goals of Islamist terrorism, we consistently misunderstand the nature of our conflicts.

Paul Marshall is the Wilson Professor of Religious Freedom at Baylor University, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and the Religious Freedom Institute, and a contributing editor of Providence.

Fears of ‘Another Genocide’ in Sudan as Distracted World Focuses on Ukraine and Gaza

Reports of ethnically motivated attacks have multiplied, and aid organizations say the world isn't paying attention

Published 11/24/23 

Nikhil Kumar

Destruction in a livestock market in al-Fasher, capital of Sudan’s North Darfur state, September 1, 2023. The conflict between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has seen at least 27 localities burned down by the RSF and allied Arab militias, according to the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health.AFP via Getty Images

The warnings have come regularly — the United Nations highlights reports of “sexual violence, torture, arbitrary killings, extortion of civilians and targeting of specific ethnic groups."

The European Union says recent atrocities “are seemingly part of a wider ethnic cleansing campaign.”

Both point to the possibility of what the E.U. calls “another genocide.”

But this isn’t about the wars in Ukraine or Gaza. They are talking about Sudan.

In one of Africa’s largest countries, there has already been a genocide. And now there are fears that it’s happening again — and that the rest of the world isn’t paying attention.

Gripped by a fresh civil war that began earlier this year, the country “is no longer at the precipice of mass atrocities,” the heads of 50 humanitarian and rights groups warned in a joint appeal, “it has fallen over the edge.”

That warning came in September. The same groups say there’s been almost no global outcry.

The violence is centered in the same region that witnessed a genocide at the start of this century: Darfur, in western Sudan, where Arab militias backed by the Sudanese army attacked black African tribes in a violent conflict that broke out in 2003.

Now a group of Arab paramilitaries are once again accused of violence aimed at the same non-Arab population — in the most striking case, a house-to-house rampage earlier this month that killed more than 800 people.

“Twenty years ago, the world was shocked by the terrible atrocities and human rights violations in Darfur,” the U.N.’s top official for refugees, Filippo Grandi, warned earlier this month. “We fear a similar dynamic might be developing.”

How the current crisis began

The recent escalation is the result of a fallout between rival generals that devolved into all-out violence in April.

On one side is the country’s army chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. His rival is Lieutenant General Mohamed Hamdan, the head of what are known as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group.

The two men used to work together, in concert with a civilian-led government that followed the 2019 ouster of the country’s longtime ruler, Omar al-Bashir. The pair ultimately seized power for themselves, ousting the civilian leadership in 2021.

Their alliance lasted only two years, with tensions between the two men ultimately spilling into war between the regular army and the RSF paramilitaries.

Already, this conflict has displaced more than 4.8 million people inside the country of around 46 million; a further 1.2 million have fled to neighboring countries since the civil war began, according to the U.N.

Fears of genocide

As the war plays out, the RSF has moved to consolidate its position in the Darfur region, where it has notched a series of victories against the regular army.

And multiple accounts suggest that these conquests — the RSF is now said to be close to seizing the entire region — have come with ethnic violence on a large scale.

The RSF and its allies — smaller militias in the region — are Arab, and have been accused of targeting the non-Arab population in Darfur, the same people who suffered years of genocidal violence at the start of the century.


Earlier in November, more than 800 people were reported killed after the RSF and its allies rampaged through a town in West Darfur, killing non-Arabs in their homes, according to the Associated Press.

“They violently attacked the town,” Salah Tour, head of the Sudanese Doctor’s Union in West Darfur, told the news agency. “They went from house to house, killing and detaining people.”

It was this episode that triggered the U.N.’s warning earlier this month that a “similar dynamic” to the genocidal violence seen twenty years ago might again be unfolding in Sudan.

Before those raids, in October, the Centre for Information Resilience, a British government-backed research group, said its analysis of satellite imagery from Darfur showed signs of the deliberate torching of non-Arab villages by Arab fighters.

And in August, the UK, Norway and the U.S. issued a joint warning, citing reports that the RSF and its Arab allies had engaged in “killings based on ethnicity and widespread sexual violence.”

A distracted world

As the violence unfolds and the warnings multiply, Sudan has for the most part been absent from global headlines.

The E.U., following the killings in West Darfur, said “the international community cannot turn a blind eye on what is happening in Darfur and allow another genocide to happen in this region,” but for the most part, the world’s attention has been dominated by the war in Israel and Gaza. And before October, it was focused on Ukraine.

This even as the conflict in Sudan has made it the center of the “largest child displacement crisis in the world, with a recorded 3 million children fleeing widespread violence in search of safety, food, shelter and health care,” according to Unicef, the U.N.’s children’s agency.

Aid workers say that the world’s distraction has a profound impact; resources aren’t in the pipeline to meet the needs of the people there. Last month, the Red Cross warned that “many Sudanese residents feel angry and abandoned, as relief efforts fall short compared to the level of suffering.”

Data from the OECD showed that while global aid spending by rich countries surged in 2022—up by almost 14 per cent—the jump was due entirely to spending on Ukraine. Spending on assistance for the poorest countries, on the other hand, actually fell.

The U.N.’s own humanitarian appeal for Sudan— its call for the funds it needs to adequately address the crisis there–has drawn only about 25 percent of what’s needed.

For the humanitarian and rights groups that issued that warning in September, this points to one clear conclusion: the world has forgotten about Sudan.

Dr. Christos Christou, the head of Doctors Without Borders, said recently that global inaction on Sudan “epitomizes a catastrophic failure of humanity.” It’s a failure, he said, marked by “the dire neglect and shortcomings of international organizations in delivering an adequate response.”

Do not ignore the suffering of Sudanese women

Women are bearing the brunt of the vicious war in Sudan. The world should not look away.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
Former President of Liberia
Published On 24 Nov 2023

A Sudanese woman, who fled the conflict in el-Geneina in Sudan's Darfur region, mourns her relatives who she says were killed by the RSF, in Ourang on the outskirts of Adre, Chad, on July 25, 2023

 [File: Zohra Bensemra/Reuters]

Sudanese women have always been an inspiration to me.

When the people of Sudan took to the streets to call for the ouster of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir in 2019, women were at the forefront, leading the movement for democracy and change. It was estimated that women – who have long endured marginalisation, harassment and sexual violence in Sudan – made up as many as two-thirds of the protesters. Who can forget the viral image of the young protester Alaa Salah standing atop a car in a white toub leading a chant against the regime? After four months of demonstrations, the reign of President al-Bashir was ended.

Now, in a terrible turn of events, Sudanese women are bearing the brunt of the vicious war that began in mid-April between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). More than six million people have been displaced since the new war erupted including an estimated 105,000 women who are currently pregnant, according to the United Nations. Of the 1.2 million who have fled to neighbouring countries, nearly nine in 10 are women and children. The healthcare system in Sudan is in a perilous state – 70 to 80 percent of hospitals in conflict areas are not operational – with devastating consequences for women in need of maternal health medicines.

And sexual and gender-based violence has become an epidemic. According to the World Health Organization, more than four million women and girls are at risk of sexual violence in Sudan.

While a UN experts’ report accused both parties of violations of humanitarian and human rights law, the experts expressed alarm at the brutal and widespread use of rape and other forms of sexual violence by the RSF. Some of the reported rapes appeared to be ethnically and racially motivated, the experts said, in a frightful echo of the Darfur crisis of 20 years ago.

A Human Rights Watch report found that the RSF committed a ‘‘staggering number of rapes and other war crimes’’ during attacks on West Darfur’s capital, el-Geneina, between late April and late June 2023.

The Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa documented hundreds of cases of women who were victimised by the RSF, either forcibly disappeared while trying to flee the fighting, kidnapped for ransom, or abducted and compelled to serve as sex slaves. ”I am four months pregnant,” said a 21-year-old survivor. ”I cannot even count how many times I have been raped.”

A new UN report describes how women and girls are being abducted and held in ”inhuman, degrading slave-like condition in areas controlled by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Darfur, where they are allegedly forcibly married and held for ransom.” Sources told the UN that women and girls have been seen in chains on pick-up trucks and cars.

The accounts are almost too painful to read.

I am deeply concerned by accusations about regional powers intent on worsening the situation for Sudan’s women. In particular, I have been troubled by reports that the United Arab Emirates has been supplying arms to the RSF. A prominent analyst of the Sudan crisis has described the UAE’s material support for the RSF as ‘‘the worst kept secret going right now’.’ When asked by a journalist whether the UAE is supplying arms to the RSF, the US ambassador to the UN said, ‘‘We have called for all countries who might be engaged in this war to cease those efforts.’’ The UAE has denied the accusations. I hope the reports are wrong.

It is essential that all regional and international actors play a constructive role in bringing peace to Sudan, especially at this moment when the world’s attention is focused on other crises. They must not overlook gross human rights abuses in pursuit of selfish economic and strategic interests. The UAE is proud of its standing in the world, which it seeks to highlight by hosting the United Nations Climate Change Conference – COP28 – from November 30 until December 12 at Expo City in Dubai. But its global reputation will deserve a black mark if it fails to ensure a clean break from any association with the warring parties in Sudan. The UAE has a duty to renounce and sever any ties with the criminal forces of the RSF.

When I was given the privilege of serving as president of Liberia, I assumed responsibility for rebuilding a nation nearly destroyed by war and plunder. I saw first-hand how essential women’s empowerment was in moving a country towards reconciliation.

So it must be in Sudan. Let us – all of us – contribute to that effort.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
Former President of Liberia

OPINION

Why won’t the war in Sudan end?

November 23, 2023 

Smoke rises as clashes continue between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), in Khartoum, Sudan on May 5, 2023 

[Ahmed Satti/Anadolu Agency]

by Sameh Rashid

300 days after the outbreak of battles in Sudan between the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese state army, stopping the war is still far from the imagination. There are traditional reasons for this, including the insistence of both parties of the crisis to resolve the situation militarily and refusing to offer any valuable concessions. The very important factor is the complexity of the situation on the ground and the balance of power being closer to the balance between the two forces.

However, reading between the lines is clearer and deeper than these apparent features, as military balance means a closeness in forces and capabilities, similarity of weapons systems in quality and quantity, in addition to combat efficiency and numbers of available manpower. This has not happened, as the Sudanese army is superior in all of these elements. It has an air force armed with fighter planes and bombers, while the Rapid Support Forces do not have an air force, but they excel on the ground by controlling approximately 70 per cent of Khartoum and the surrounding areas, most of which are residential areas, not open battlefields. Therefore, air force superiority is not a decisive element or a major advantage in the violent battles centred in and around the capital.

OPINION: Sudan refugees detail second wave of ethnic purge by RSF militia

Under normal circumstances of a war between a regular army and a rebel militia, a few days of pursuit and guerrilla warfare in the streets of Khartoum are enough for the (Sudanese) army to be able to completely destroy the rebels. However, this has not happened in Sudan for over eight months, during which the battles between the two sides have not stopped. This is because the supposedly weaker party in the equation (the Rapid Support Forces) receives direct and intensive aid and support, both military and political. Hamdan Dagalo’s (Hemedti) forces obtained advanced weapons, and even developed their capabilities based on the development of battles in a way that balances the capabilities of the regular Sudanese army. For example, after the outbreak of the crisis and the outbreak of battles, it obtained anti-aircraft guns and air defence radars, which it had not possessed before. Furthermore, the communications, control and guidance systems that these forces use to coordinate their movements and transmit orders and instructions vertically and horizontally, with advanced technology and special modifications and features, are available only to a few countries, some of which are in the Middle East.

Another reason to question the continuation of the war is the unique ability of the Rapid Support Forces to compensate for losses in personnel and equipment and to obtain new quantities of weapons in the ongoing combat operations, the fronts of which change from time to time. It is as if there were open channels or corridors through which weapons, and even fighters, flow non-stop. The necessary question to understand the full picture must address the failure to impose an air and sea embargo on any irregular military shipments heading to Sudan or, at least, monitoring airports, seaports and land crossings.

From the first moment the crisis erupted, the major powers cried to each other about the need to stop the fighting, without any practical actions, or even taking a single step in this direction. Since the outbreak of the crisis, the intelligence services have certainly had a complete and accurate map showing the locations of Rapid Support Forces, their weapons’ stores, and command, direction and control sites, as well as all the official and unofficial ports and corridors through which weapons can be smuggled into Sudan.

The continuity of the war is not due only to traditional factors but is primarily linked to the fact that regional and global parties wanted the crisis to break out, in the first place, and for the war to continue for as long as possible. It may later be transformed into a permanent status and an actual division of the territory of the Sudanese State, joining the series of disintegration and collapse that has afflicted Arab countries that had previously been central and had a pivotal role in determining the fate of the region as a whole.

READ: UN food agency needs over $526m as hunger emergency looms in South Sudan

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

MODI'S CURSED TUNNEL

Efforts to rescue workers from collapsed tunnel in India to resume

24 November 2023, 09:54

India Tunnel Collapse. Picture: PA

A drilling machine is being redeployed to help reach 41 trapped people after it ran into problems on Thursday.

Rescuers racing to evacuate 41 construction workers who have been trapped in a collapsed tunnel in northern India for nearly two weeks are hoping to resume drilling on Friday after a mechanical problem a day earlier forced them to halt.

The platform of the drilling machine, which became unstable while boring through rock debris, has been fixed, Bhaskar Khulbe, a former adviser to the Prime Minister’s Office, said at the accident site.

Before they can resume drilling, rescuers are manually digging through the debris to remove pieces of metal to avoid damaging the machine, said Kirti Panwar, a government spokesperson.

Drilling was also paused on Wednesday after the boring machine hit a metal girder, causing some damage to its blades and a six-hour delay as rescuers worked to clear the obstacle.

The workers have been trapped since November 12 when a landslide in mountainous Uttarakhand state caused a portion of the 2.8-mile tunnel they were building to collapse about 650ft from the entrance.

Rescuers began drilling through the entrance of the tunnel to reach them but have been stymied by debris and technical problems.

Rescuers gather at the site of the tunnel (AP/PA)

The mountainous terrain has proved a challenge for the drilling machine, which broke down earlier as rescuers attempted to dig horizontally toward the trapped workers. The machine’s high-intensity vibrations also caused more debris to fall.

As efforts stretch into the 13th day, rescuers have drilled through 151ft and need to excavate up to 40ft more to create a passageway, Mr Panwar said.

Rescue teams are inserting and welding together pipes through which the trapped workers are to escape to freedom. About 151ft of pipes have been put in so far, he said.

Members of the National Disaster Response Force will then bring out the workers one by one on stretchers that have been fitted with wheels.

Officials earlier hoped to be ready to start bringing the workers out on Thursday but now that will not happen.

Authorities have been supplying the trapped workers with hot meals made of rice and lentils through a six-inch pipe, after days in which they survived on dry food sent through a narrower pipe. Oxygen is being supplied through a separate pipe.

Officials earlier released a video after a camera was pushed through the pipe showing the workers in their construction hats moving around the blocked tunnel while communicating with rescuers on walkie-talkies.

Most of the trapped workers are migrant labourers from across the country. Many of their families have travelled to the accident site, where they have camped out for days to get updates on the rescue and in hopes of seeing their relatives soon.

By Press Association