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Politics and Economy >Tense Middle East Situation
2024/07/14 6:00
Yachi Isaki : President of Myltos Author Follow
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In February 2024, citizens celebrate the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution in Tehran, the capital of Iran (photo: Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)
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In recent months, there has been a growing focus on Iran. On April 14th 2024, Iran launched its first direct attack on Israel in retaliation for the assassination of a senior member of the Quds Force by Israel (see “Why Israel and Iran are fighting over Gaza”).
A month later, on May 19th, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was killed in a helicopter crash. When we first heard the news, we were worried that it might have been a revenge assassination by Israel, but it was soon discovered that the cause of the accident was bad weather.
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Three hard-liners vs. one reformist
As a result, a presidential election was held in Iran on June 28th. Of the four candidates, three were so-called “hardline conservatives”, and the remaining one was a “reformist”.
In order to stand as a candidate, you have to be selected by the Guardian Council, which is made up of Islamic scholars and other figures. The inclusion of one reformist candidate was seen as a way for the current administration to claim that a democratic election had taken place.
However, in the final vote on July 5th, the reformist candidate, Masoud Pezheshkian, emerged victorious.
Mr. Pezheshkian is scheduled to take the oath of office on July 30th and officially become the President of Iran. It will be interesting to see how Iran steers its course from now on, but the majority view is that nothing dramatic will change, as the Supreme Leader of Iran is still Ayatollah Khamenei.
One of the promises made by Mr. Peshqian during the election campaign was to form friendly relations with the world in order to lift economic sanctions. However, this was conditional on “excluding Israel”.
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Why does Iran view Israel as such an enemy? The origins of this can be traced back to the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979. The Pahlavi dynasty, which came to power in 1925, was pro-American, and it received support from the United States as a bulwark against the threat of the Soviet Union's Red Army, and it proceeded to modernize its military and economy in a Westernized way.
When Israel was founded in 1948, Iran was the first of the Middle Eastern Islamic countries to establish diplomatic relations with Israel, following Turkey in 1953. Then, in 1959, El Al Israel Airlines began direct flights, connecting Tel Aviv and Tehran every day.
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Iran was one of the first countries to establish diplomatic relations with Israel.
Many Israelis visited Iran for tourism, and many Israeli companies expanded into Iran, strengthening the economic ties between the two countries. Israel's largest construction company was responsible for building a luxury hotel, airport, bridges, a naval base, and residential areas in Tehran. Many of the buildings from that time are still standing today.
On the military side, the two countries worked together on weapons development. The missile development project known as the “Flower Project” was a joint development of a new surface-to-surface missile based on the Israeli Jericho missile, and it symbolized the strong ties between the two countries.
After the outbreak of the Third Middle East War in 1967, Iran began supplying oil to Israel through a joint venture with Israel. In return, Iran received support from Israel for its agricultural and water systems.
During the 1973 oil crisis, Arab countries announced an oil embargo on Israel's supporting nations, but Iran did not go along with this.
Israeli government officials also frequently visited Iran. Among the Israeli prime ministers, Levi Eshkol made an official visit in 1966 and Golda Meir made an official visit in 1972, and many other important figures such as high-ranking military officials and the head of the Mossad also visited.
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In the past, Iran had a Jewish community of 300,000 people. This area has had a close relationship with the Jewish people since the time when it was called Persia.
More than 2,500 years ago, it was King Cyrus of the Persian Empire who freed the Jews who had been taken captive in Babylon in 538 BC.
Since then, there has been a history of Jewish communities continuing to exist in Persia and maintaining good relations. It was the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979 that severed this long history of friendship with the Jews.
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'The Underground World of Iran'
An interesting book was published in May 2024, 'The Underground World of Iran' (Kadokawa Shinsho). The author is a Japanese man named Nagamiya Soh who has lived in Iran for many years. However, he is a mysterious person whose true identity is unknown, as he uses a pseudonym.
The author is neither a scholar nor a journalist, but he is fluent in Farsi and has lived in Iran for over twenty years, living among the ordinary people of Iran. He says he was forced to use a pseudonym so that he could expose the dark side of the current Iranian regime without fear of repercussions.
As a result, the book reveals the true feelings and reality of the Iranian people, which is hard to believe at first.
I would like you to read the book for more details, but I would like to quote a few passages.
When we think of Iran, we tend to think of it as a “Middle Eastern version of North Korea”, and so we tend to think that the people of Iran are fanatical people who are completely immersed in the ideology of the regime. / However, the reality is the opposite, and in fact there are no people more aware of the problems facing their country than the people of Iran. ...The reason Iranians are not brainwashed is because they don't watch the state-run broadcasting or other domestic 'government-controlled media' at all. (page 129)
What is common to the overwhelming majority of Iranians is the perception that the Islamic Republic is a 'has-been'. This is not limited to people in the capital Tehran or large cities, but is the same in regional cities and rural areas. (page 155)
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It seems that the reality is that Iranians are quite aware of the system in their country. And the following is said about Israel, which the current Iranian government has made its sworn enemy.
Believe it or not, in the Israeli invasion of Gaza that has been going on since 2023, many Iranian citizens, especially young people, are enthusiastically supporting Israel. / Of course, the reason for this is that the Iranian government, which continues to support Palestine, is their enemy to begin with, and when you get to this point, it's not hard to think of it as an emotional argument of the “hate the priest, hate the stole” variety. However, if you think about it, Palestinians and Lebanese people are also foreigners to ordinary Iranians, even though they are Muslims. The logic that “the Iranian government should save the Iranians who are struggling to make ends meet, rather than foreigners” is perfectly reasonable. (Page 176)
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Anti-government demonstrations in 2022
The true feelings of the Iranian people, who are suffering under the impact of economic sanctions and who dislike the current government, seem to be quite different from the government's policies. It is only natural that they would appeal for the government to think about helping their own people who are suffering from poverty, rather than worrying about problems in distant lands more than 1000 kilometers away from their own country.
This book begins with the anti-government demonstrations of 2022. The demonstrations were sparked by the death of a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman named Mahsa Amini, who was arrested by the Iranian morality police for not wearing a headscarf properly.
This led to demonstrations in various places calling for the liberalization of the veil. Although the obligation for women to wear a veil has not been abolished, “the majority view is that the wave of gradual liberalization can no longer be stopped” (page 23).
Did this anti-establishment popular sentiment reflect itself in the Iranian presidential election? If so, will the current administration be affected by the movement towards liberalization from within Islam? Or is this a completely naive fantasy?
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Mr. Wakamiya believes that the following three scenarios are possible for Iranian politics over the next ten years.
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The three scenarios for the next ten years
(1) Collapse of the Islamic regime
(2) Democratization while maintaining the Islamic regime
(3) Further tightening of the Islamic regime (page 274)
The reason for the next ten years being a turning point is because the death of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, who is 85 years old, is thought to be a turning point. As this book was published before the sudden death of President Raisi, it is impossible to deny the possibility that these changes could accelerate.
Finally, I would like to introduce one episode. This is an incident that occurred at the funeral held in Vatican City in 2005 following the death of Pope John Paul II.
Among the heads of state from 80 countries in attendance, the President of Israel, Moshe Katsav, was also present. President Katsav was born in Iran and is a Jew who returned to Israel at the age of 6.
Sitting near President Katsav was Iranian President Mohammad Khatami. The two men are from the same province in Iran, Yazd, and they are said to have chatted in Persian. I wonder if they had a good chat about local matters?
For Iran, it was a big problem that the head of state of their enemy country had spoken with their head of state. The Iranian government denied this fact, but the scene of the two men smiling and talking was broadcast around the world.
As this story symbolizes, there are many Iranian Jews in Israel. The Iranian government, which has continued to support Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthi faction in Yemen behind the scenes, is unlikely to change its policy towards Israel, which it has continued for over 40 years, so easily.
Even so, I hope that the wise Iranian people will choose the path of prosperity rather than destruction in their relations with Israel in the future.
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Isaka Taniuchi President, Miltos
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Politics and Economy >Tense Middle East Situation
Israel's public opinion is divided over the ceasefire with Hamas: Will all the hostages be released, or will Hamas be destroyed...?
2024/06/12 15:00
Yachi Isaki : President of Myrtos Author Follow
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On June 8th 2024, citizens in Tel Aviv, Israel, hold a demonstration to demand the release of hostages and protest against the government. The portrait in the center is of Noah Aragami, who has returned alive. The signs read “Noah is back!” and “Let them all come back!” (Photo: 2024 Bloomberg Finance LP)
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It has been eight months since Israel entered into war as a result of Hamas' surprise attack, and in the past few days there have been two major developments: the rescue of four hostages through a military operation, and Benny Gantz's announcement that he would be leaving the war cabinet.
So far, 135 hostages have returned to Israel as a result of ground operations by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and negotiations with Hamas, but 120 people are still being held captive somewhere in Gaza.
In recent months, the IDF has been recovering the bodies of those abducted in the ground operation. The news of the recovery of four survivors came at a time when the number of people unaccounted for on the Israeli side was gradually decreasing.
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The recovery of four hostages on June 8
There is no doubt that the top priority for the Israeli people in this war is the recovery of hostages. The sense of brotherhood in Israel, a small country with a population of less than 10 million, is stronger than we can imagine.
It is the fundamental consciousness of the Jewish people, who have survived for 2,000 years as a dispersed people without land or country. (See “The Israeli teachings that drive the recapture of the ‘captives’”.)
I once spoke to a man called M, whose daughter and grandchildren living in the Gaza area had been taken hostage just after the war began. After about 50 days, the family were all returned through negotiations with Hamas. I sent a message of congratulations to M, and he immediately sent back a short reply: “We are happy, but we will continue to fight until all the remaining hostages have returned.”
The square in front of the Tel Aviv Museum is called “Hostage Square”, and every day families of hostages appeal for their release. Among them are many people whose families have returned safely, as well as people who are not related to the hostages, and they continue to support the families of the hostages so that all of them can return home as soon as possible.
The four people who were released on June 8 were Mr. Noa Alghamani (25), Mr. Almog Meir (21), Mr. Shlomi Ziv (40), and Mr. Andrei Kozlov (27), who had been detained by Hamas in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. It had been 246 days since their release. All four of them were abducted on October 7th, 2023 from the Nova Music Festival.
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Noah's cries for help as she was abducted on a motorbike were reported around the world, and many people will remember her as a symbol of Hamas' brutality. Her mother, Riola, continued to appeal for her daughter's release while fighting against her advancing cancer, sitting in a wheelchair.
This operation was named “Operation Arnon” (initially “Operation Seeds of Summer”). It was prepared over a period of about a month through the cooperation of all security agencies, including the IDF, Shabak (Israel Security Agency), and Yamam (a special anti-terrorist unit of the Israel Border Police). The four hostages were not being held in a tunnel, but in a Gaza civilian's house.
It is well known that Hamas uses Gaza civilians as “human shields”, and it has also been discovered that some of the hostages were killed in the IDF's attack. According to the testimony of Noah, who survived, he himself felt his life was in danger due to the IDF's missile attack.
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Mr. Gantz leaves the war cabinet
The operation began at 11:00 am on June 8th. Hamas launched an attack after learning that the IDF was surrounding a part of the Nuseirat refugee camp, and a fierce gun battle ensued.
The rescue team rescued Noa, who was on the first floor of the building, and then rescued the three people on the third floor. At 11:15, they were informed that “the diamonds are in our hands”. This was a report that the hostages had been protected.
The rescue itself was completed in a short time, but hundreds of armed terrorists surrounded the area and continued to attack the rescue team relentlessly, and the truck used to transport the hostages was blown up. The hostages were then led to the coast and finally taken back to Israel by an IDF air force helicopter. This was at 11:50.
One of the commanders of the Yamam was killed in the fierce gun battle with the terrorists. According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, which is affiliated with Hamas, 274 Palestinians were killed and 698 were injured.
On June 9th, the day after the news of the hostage rescue had excited the whole of Israel, Benny Gantz, who had been participating in the war cabinet, announced his resignation. Gantz had joined the war cabinet five days after the outbreak of the war, but there had always been reports of discord between him and Prime Minister Netanyahu. On this day, Gantz celebrated his 65th birthday.
“After the war broke out, we joined the emergency cabinet because we felt the need to come together as a community of destiny, rather than as political partners. However, this cabinet is putting too much emphasis on political decisions and putting off important strategic decisions.”
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Gantz harshly criticized the Netanyahu administration and proposed holding a general election.
“Unfortunately, it is Netanyahu who is preventing us from achieving a real victory. In order to achieve a real victory, I believe it would be appropriate to hold a general election this autumn, around the time that it will have been a year since the war. This is so that we can form a cabinet that has the public's confidence and face the difficult challenges that lie ahead.”
After Gantz announced his departure from the government, Israel's Channel 11 conducted a public opinion poll. The following are the percentages of responses to the question “If a general election were to be held now, which party would you vote for?” (Note: In Israel, elections are held using a proportional representation system, so people vote for parties.) The percentages have been converted into the number of seats in the Knesset.
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Two things we can learn from the Israeli public opinion poll
Figures in brackets are the names of the party leaders, and figures in square brackets are the number of changes from the same poll conducted about a week ago.
National Unity Party (Gantz) 23 seats [-4]
Likud Party (Netanyahu) 22 seats [+1]
The Future Party (Rapid) 16 seats [+2]
Our Home in Israel (Lieberman) 12 seats [±0
Shas (Deri) 10 seats [±0
Jewish Power (Bengi-Bi'r) 9 seats [±0
Labor (Golan) 7 seats [+1
Jewish Torah Union (Shapira) 7 seats [±0
Hadash-Ta'al (Tibi) 5 seats [±0
United Arab List (Abbas) 5 seats [±0
Religious Zionism (Smotrich) 4 seats [±0
The total number of seats in the Knesset is 120.
If we divide the results between the current ruling and opposition parties, the ruling party will have 52 seats (+1), and the opposition party will have 63 seats (-1) (excluding the 5 seats of the Arab-based Hadash-Ta'al party, which does not belong to either side).
With the current ruling party expected to go into opposition, ironically, Gantz's announcement of his departure from the party has resulted in his own National Unity Party losing 4 seats, while the ruling Likud Party has gained 1 seat. What is also worth noting is that support for the left-wing has recovered, albeit slightly.
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The left-wing Labor Party, which has been in power in Israel for many years as the country's largest party since its founding, led the Oslo Accords in 1993, but it has lost support from the public, who see this as a failure, and it has continued to lose seats over the past few decades.
The Labor Party currently holds only four seats, but the latest opinion poll shows that it has seven seats. If it were to form an alliance with the center-left Meretz Party, which lost seats in the last election in 2022 by falling below the threshold, it is predicted that the number of seats would increase to 10. In other words, this would be more than the number of seats held by the right-wing party of Ben-Gurion.
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Distrust of the incumbent prime minister
A parallel opinion poll was also conducted.
◆Regarding Gantz's proposal for a general election to be held within a few months
・In favor: 57
・Against: 31
・Don't know: 12
◆Regarding Gantz's departure from the government
・In favor: 52
・Against: 27
・Don't know: 21
◆Gantz says “this war will continue for several years”, and Netanyahu says “victory is near”. Who do you think is correct?
・Gantz 51
・Netanyahu 22
・Don't know 27
◆Regarding the ceasefire proposal, which includes the release of hostages and the release of Palestinian prisoners
・In favor 49
・Against 32
・Don't know 19
The last ceasefire plan was presented by US President Biden at the end of May 2024. It states that both sides would cease hostilities, gradually implement the release of hostages and the release of Palestinian prisoners, allow the residents of the northern Gaza Strip to return, and ultimately aim to achieve the complete withdrawal of IDF forces from the Gaza Strip and the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.
However, both Israel and Hamas have expressed their opposition to the plan, and it remains stalled. In an Israeli public opinion poll taken a week ago, 40% of respondents supported the proposed ceasefire, 27% were opposed, and 33% were unsure.
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However, with the news of the four hostages being rescued and Gantz leaving the government, the number of people who answered “don't know” decreased by 14 points, the number of people who supported the ceasefire proposal increased by 9 points, and the number of people who opposed it also increased by 5 points.
Since the Oslo Accords, terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists have become more frequent, and Israeli public opinion has shifted to the right. The Likud Party, led by Netanyahu, has been gaining support by joining forces with right-wing and religious parties, but now there is a swing back to the center-left, with Gantz and the Rapid Party.
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Signs of a swing back to the left
There is also a strong reaction against Prime Minister Netanyahu's corruption and judicial reform, and if elections are held this autumn, Netanyahu will probably not be able to avoid stepping down.
So, will Gantz become the next prime minister? Gantz is a former Chief of Staff of the IDF. Many of the past prime ministers, regardless of whether they were from the right or left, such as Yitzhak Rabin and Ariel Sharon, were people who had fought on the front lines of national defense. This is because the Israeli people have absolute confidence in the IDF.
Since entering politics, Gantz has served as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, as well as Speaker of the Knesset, but his ability as Prime Minister is unknown. He is certainly a strong candidate for the next Prime Minister, but there are many who say that there are many elements of uncertainty as to whether Gantz has the political strength to get through this difficult situation.
There is also dissatisfaction within the current cabinet, even from the right wing. Itamar Ben-Gvir, the Minister of National Security, has stated publicly that he will leave the government if the ceasefire plan is accepted. If Ben-Gvir leaves, the current government will fall below the majority, so Netanyahu wants to prevent this.
In other words, the chances of the current ceasefire plan being accepted are extremely low. This is even more so if the centrist Gantz leaves the party and the influence of the right wing increases.
Despite the happy news of the four hostages being rescued, a majority of the public are in favor of a general election and are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the current government. There is growing criticism that Netanyahu is trying to prolong his own political life.
Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, but its true worth is now being called into question.
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Isaki Taniuchi President of Miltos
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