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Nuova mossa di Trump: Gerusalemme capitale di Israele.

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La decisione del Presidente degli Stati Uniti, Trump, di riconoscere Gerusalemme come capitale di Israele e di trasferirvi l’ambasciata americana da Tel Aviv ha fatto notizia in tutto il mondo. Tra le principali reazioni troviamo naturalmente quelle della zona interessata, da Israele all’Autorità Palestinese, da Hamas alla Turchia, con interventi anche di esponenti delle Nazioni Unite, dell’Unione Europea e dei principali Paesi europei. Nonostante gli avvertimenti vari, da Macron a Erdogan, Trump, lontano da ogni consenso, ha dimostrato ancora una volta che è fedele  ai suoi interessi.

Gerusalemme è una ferita aperta. Un labirinto dal quale nessuno è riuscito a trovare un’uscita. 70 anni fa, l’accordo di spartizione della Palestina aveva collocato temporaneamente la città sotto l’amministrazione internazionale. Ma presto la parte occidentale era stata occupata da Israele e dopo la guerra dei sei giorni, nel giungo del 1967, anche quella orientale (la parte che i palestinesi considerano loro capitale). In questo nido, Trump ha giocato con il fuoco. Sapendo che tutte le ambasciate  hanno sede a Tel Aviv, ha permesso che la sua intenzione di trasferire l’ambasciata trapelasse e ha persino allertato le delegazioni USA sulle possibilità di proteste. Con il suo silenzio, come quando ha ritirato il suo paese dagli Accordi sul clima di Parigi, ha fatto sì che la tensione raggiungesse il culmine. Il risultato è stato che in tutto il Medio Oriente e in Europa le pressioni si sono moltiplicate per costringerlo ad un cambiamento di rotta, mentre lui con tutte le luci puntate addosso, si accomodava sul barile di polvere da sparo per meditare. È il suo modo di fare politica. 

La decisione è stata già comunicata  al leader palestinese, Mahmud Abbas, e al re giordano Abdullah II con un giro di telefonate. La sua intenzione è quella di riconoscere la “realtà storica” di Gerusalemme e spostare l’ambasciata il prima possibile. Il cambiamento di sede era già stato deciso dal Congresso nel 1995, ma per motivi di sicurezza nazionale era stato sospeso da tutti i presidenti precedenti a Trump. La Casa Bianca sostiene comunque che il trasferimento per quanto desiderato richiederà anni, a causa dei permessi e per questioni di sicurezza. In ogni caso, il riconoscimento di Gerusalemme, con il suo enorme onere simbolico, significa gettare benzina sul fuoco. Non solo Trump pone fine a quella tregua internazionale ormai decennale, ma riafferma la sua fede filo-israeliana, che tanti voti gli ha portato durante la campagna elettorale, e avverte i palestinesi che il suo obiettivo è quello di aprire  un nuovo ciclo in cui la soluzione a due stati non è necessaria.

Il primo ministro israeliano, Benjamin Netanyahu, ha qualificato come atto storico la decisione di Trump e ha invitato gli altri paesi a fare la stessa cosa, affermando di essere profondamente grato al presidente americano per la scelta fatta e che qualsiasi accordo di pace nella zona deve tenere conto di Gerusalemme come capitale di Israele. L’indignazione cresce nella zona interessata e in Europa. Una nuova tempesta  che è stata accolta  con costernazione in un’area devastata da decenni si sangue e fuoco. Il leader palestinese, Mahmud Abbas, ha dichiarato in un intervento televisivo che Gerusalemme è la capitale storica  dello Stato Palestinese, puntando il dito contro la decisione americana e rifiutando qualsiasi mediazione nelle negoziazioni con Israele.   Hamas, che controlla la Striscia di Gaza, ha già minacciato una nuova intifada, secondo cui la decisione di Trump “apre le porte all’inferno”, etichettandola come un’aggressione contro il popolo palestinese. L’OLP (l’Organizzazione Palestinese di Liberazione) ha definito la misura come “il bacio della morte” per la pace. In Turchia, il presidente Recep Tayyip Erdogan ha manifestato la sua contrarietà, minacciando la chiusura di rapporti diplomatici con Israele, definendo la questione come una linea rossa per il mondo musulmano. In modo meno bellicoso, ma sempre indignata è stata la reazione dell’Organizzazione  della Cooperazione Islamica, che riunisce i paesi musulmani, dichiarando che il trasferimento significherebbe ignorare l’occupazione di Gerusalemme Est come territorio palestinese. Dall’Europa sono arrivati dichiarazioni da Macron, secondo cui la scelta di Trump va contro le risoluzioni dell’ONU, e dall’Alto Rappresentante UE Mogherini che ha espresso preoccupazione  per le conseguenze della mossa del presidente statunitense.

Tuttavia, secondo alcuni analisti, la mossa di Trump, per quanto spregiudicata, è meditata. I paesi arabi protesteranno formalmente, ma esistono interessi più grandi che non possono essere compromessi. Soprattutto sul fronte di Riyad, il legame tra USA e Arabia Saudita è indirizzato nell’opposizione all’ascesa dell’Iran, una battaglia condivisa con lo stesso Israele, e per essere forti su questa lotta al potere degli ayatollah, i sauditi hanno bisogno del supporto statunitense. Naturalmente fra i motivi di questa decisione bisogna citare la chiara strategia di spostare l’attenzione dell’opinione pubblica verso la politica internazionale, cercando di distoglierla dallo scandalo del Russiagate con le sue ultime novità (possibile coinvolgimento del consigliere capo e genero di Trump, Jared Kushner). Non da ultimo il chiaro furore ideologico, ereditato anche da presidenze passate, secondo cui Israele è il bene assoluto.

Di Mario Savina

North Korea missile detected by THAAD, program progressing faster than expected: South

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North Korea’s missile program is progressing faster than expected, South Korea’s defense minister said on Tuesday, after the UN Security Council demanded the North halt all nuclear and ballistic missile tests and condemned Sunday’s test-launch. Han Min-koo told South Korea’s parliament the test-launch had been detected by the controversial U.S. THAAD anti-missile system, whose deployment in the South has infuriated China. The reclusive North, which has defied all calls to rein in its weapons programs, even from its lone major ally, China, said the missile test was a legitimate defense against U.S. hostility.

Egypt's Sisi receives invite to upcoming Riyadh Trump summit.

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Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has received a personal message from Saudi King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz inviting him to participate in an upcoming summit involving Arab leaders and US President Donald Trump, Egypt’s presidential office said on Saturday. Al-Sisi didn’t confirmed explicitly his presence at the meeting which will be held on May, 21; however he expressed thanks for the invitation.  Arab leaders set to take place in the summit include the heads of state of Jordan, Algeria, and Niger; Yemen, Morocco, Turkey, Pakistan, Iraq, and Tunisia leaders have been also invited to join the meeting.  During the Riyadh summit the US President is set to discuss matters of regional significance including: how to counter the threat posed by the Islamic State group, ongoing conflicts in Syria and Yemen, and maritime shipping threats in the Red Sea

Trump’s Announcement of the Kurdish-Centric Plan to Take Raqqa

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On May 9th, the Trump administration made public its plan to provide the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) with substantial heavy weaponry. The announcement signals Washington’s decision to rely on the SDF, which is dominated by the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), for the operation to liberate Raqqa from Islamic State (ISIS) control. Ankara’s reaction to this decision, as it was to the Obama administration’s similar conclusion, will be vociferous. Turkey views, with a good deal of justification, the PYD as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) affiliate in Syria. The PKK has been fighting the Turkish state for most of last 33 years. Your humble columnist dearly wishes he could be a fly on the wall listening to the upcoming meeting between Trump and Erdogan on May 16th. Mr. Trump nonetheless made the only right, and only real, choice for an administration that promised to defeat ISIS in both Iraq and Syria. Going with Turkey for the Raqqa operation would have been a terrible choice. The Turks were never willing to send much of their army to Raqqa, their Free Syrian Army (FSA) proxies are not as good or proven fighters as the Kurds, the Turkish-aligned FSA are less numerous than the SDF/PYD, and in many cases they seem about as Islamist as ISIS. Turkish forces and their proxies would also have been fighting the Kurds all along the way to Raqqa. Naturally some policy elites in Washington appear intent on second guessing Mr. Trump’s decision on the matter. James Jeffrey, former U.S. ambassador to Turkey and Iraq, argues in an April 10 Foreign Policy Magazine piece that the U.S. should have gone with Turkey on the Raqqa operation. Although this columnist has not seen any evidence for Mr. Jeffrey’s contention that local tribes want a Turkish role in the liberation of Raqqa, the rest of his argument deserves some scrutiny. Jeffrey argues that by focusing on the short-term tactical goal of destroying ISIS, the Americans are forgetting the more important strategic contest (which he likes to a “great game” of chess) going on in the area: Efforts by Turkey, Israel and other Arab Sunni states to push back against Iranian and Russian attempts to overthrow the regional order in the Levant. Jeffrey’s then goes on to draw a misleadingly simple tradeoff, where Washington can either 1) Fight ISIS without Turkey and let Iran and Russia win the larger game; or 2) Join Turkey against the Iranian-Russian attempt at hegemony in the Levant.  Mr. Jeffrey, like many American and Turkish policy makers, appears unable to see more than a two-dimensional game of chess. He works hard to argue that Turkey is an American ally while the PKK (and its Syrian PYD sister) are proxies of Iran, Assad and Russia. Things are a lot more complicated than that. Sometimes the PKK and these actors cooperate, while at other times they fight each other. To understand what the Iranians’ and Russians’ three-dimensional chess game looks like, in contrast, one need only ask how Iran, which Jeffrey himself acknowledges to be much less economically and militarily powerful than Turkey, enjoys so much leverage and influence outside its borders? Russia as well, with an economy the size of Australia’s, seems to punch in a foreign influence weight class far beyond its real size and power. The answer has to do with both Iran and Russia’s complex policies of supporting and working with various actors internationally, adroitly applying patronage and cooperation to maximum effect. Iraqis, for instance, know very well how Iran supports myriad groups in that country including various Shiite parties competing with one another, some Kurdish political parties and even Sunni Arab parties. When Iran thus wants to get something done in Iraq, it has a lot of often mutually hostile groups it can turn to. If something occurs in Iraq that Iran opposes (such as the 2012 no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Maliki), it can use its influence to overthrow the whole process. If the Americans, either by shrewd design or by accident, are to play a similarly high level of three-dimensional strategic chess in the Levant, they might well start with more support for the PYD at the same time that they remain NATO allies with Turkey. This seems especially wise given Turkey’s own ties with Jihadi groups in Syria and elsewhere (Jeffrey conveniently ignores the question of replacing ISIS with Jabhat al Nusra or Ahrar al Shams, which would hardly offer much of an improvement from the American point of view). In such a game, why couldn’t the U.S. support the PYD against ISIS and simultaneously oppose Iran? A simple rhetorical flourish might even do the trick: While leaders in Washington have repeatedly stated that American weapons given to the SDF/PYD must not end up in PKK hands or be used against Turkey, they never said anything about such weapons finding their way to the PKK’s Iranian branch, the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK). PJAK, of course, has been fighting a guerrilla war against the government in Tehran since 2004. This way, Ankara gets to keep supporting Hamas, Jabhat al Nusra (al Qaeda in Syria) and other American friends, while Washington can pursue its own Kurdish friendships outside of Turkey, and both can still pretend to be the best of friends at NATO summits — just like Turkey and Iran pretend to be friends at the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

 

Trump announces trip to Saudi Arabia, Israel and Vatican.

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Since taking his office, US officials of President Department have announced the first trip in foreign countries of Trump will be in Saudi Arabia, in order to keep his propaganda about specific topics, such as “counter Iran and Terrorism”. Trip to Saudi Arabia will be in late May and it will convene a summit in Jeddah, of which Trump will take part. The reason why Trump has decided to start this journey from Saudi Arabia is because he wants to show the future engagement of USA in countering terrorism and Iran, even because the Saudi allies have felt abandoned under the predecessor, Barack Obama. This meeting in May will be useful to reinforce partnership between those two states, in several aspects: countering and defeating terrorism, but also an economic partnership.

 

North Korea says US bomber flights push peninsula to brink of nuclear war.

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North Korea accused the United States on Tuesday of pushing the Korean peninsula to the brink of nuclear war after a pair of strategic U.S. bombers flew training drills with the South Korean and Japanese air forces in another show of strength. The two supersonic B-1B Lancer bombers were deployed amid rising tensions over North Korea’s pursuit of its nuclear and missile programmes in defiance of U.N. sanctions and pressure from the United States. The flight of the two bombers on Monday came as U.S. President Donald Trump said he would be “honoured” to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in the right circumstances, and as his CIA director landed in South Korea for talks.

Israel, Palestinians battle for votes over Jerusalem resolution at UNESCO.

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Israel is battling to prevent a public-relations victory for the Palestinians at the UNESCO. Executive Board in Paris, which is expected to disavow Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem on Independence Day. Such a vote would provide Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas a boost when he meets with US President Donald Trump at the White House just one day later.The resolution’s text stated: “Any action taken by Israel, the occupying power, to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration on the city of Jerusalem are illegal and therefore null and void and have no validity whatsoever”. This week in Paris, according to diplomatic sources, European diplomats, led by Germany, met with Arab state representatives to amend the text even further so that EU states could either abstain or support the document. The Palestinians are playing a game with the Europeans and others by trying to use UN language that refers to east Jerusalem and, “in their own political determinations, they mean the whole of Jerusalem”, Baker said.Israel’s struggle for votes at UNESCO has put it at odds with Germany, which last year opposed a resolution on Jerusalem but this year is expected to either abstain or support the text.

 

South Korea says U.S. reaffirms it will pay THAAD costs; Trump calls Asia allies.

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South Korea said the United States had reaffirmed it would shoulder the cost of deploying the THAAD anti-missile system, days after President Donald Trump said Seoul should pay for the $1-billion battery designed to defend against North Korea. In a telephone call on Sunday, Trump’s national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, reassured his South Korean counterpart, Kim Kwan-jin, that the U.S. alliance with South Korea was its top priority in the Asia-Pacific region, the South’s presidential office said. The conversation followed another North Korean missile test-launch on Saturday which Washington and Seoul said was unsuccessful, but which drew widespread international condemnation.

China welcomes U.S. saying it is open to talks on North Korea.

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China on Thursday welcomed an apparently softer tone by the United States on the North Korean nuclear and missile crisis but stressed its opposition to a U.S. missile defence system being deployed in South Korea. Separately, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called on North Korea and other countries on Thursday to avoid behaviour or rhetoric that could increase tensions around Pyongyang’s nuclear programme. Speaking at a news conference in Moscow after talks, the two leaders said they had agreed to cooperate closely to try to help defuse tensions around North Korea.

United States pushes for more sanctions, diplomacy over North Korea threats.

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The Donald Trump administration is seeking to step up sanctions and pressure as its key drivers to tackle North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, while engaging the regime through diplomacy, top US officials said Wednesday.  Following a two-month review, the administration is said to have recently settled on its North Korea policy, dubbed “maximum pressure and engagement”. Trump hosted a rare closed-door briefing for all 100 senators at the White House, after which Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats issued a joint statement, vowing efforts to boost pressure on Pyongyang.

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