Fdd's overnight brief

Syria

Syrian media said one soldier was killed and three injured in Israeli airstrikes outside the capital Damascus on Wednesday morning. – Times of Israel 

Many Syrians forced from their homes by their country’s brutal, decade-old war are now shocked to discover that their family farms have been taken over by regime loyalists and cronies. – Agence France-Presse

The Russian military said three of its troops were wounded Tuesday in an attack by militants in northwestern Syria. – Ynet

An Army canine earned rare military honors this month after discovering a cache of explosives in Syria while deployed as part of the U.S.-led mission to defeat the Islamic State. – Military.com

Israel

Jonathan Pollard, a former U.S. Navy analyst who served 30 years in prison for spying on behalf of Israel, landed in Tel Aviv early Wednesday with his wife, ending a tense chapter between the two countries and adding to the list of departing gestures from the Trump administration to the Jewish state. – Washington Post

An array of Palestinian militant groups launched rockets into the Mediterranean Sea off the Gaza Strip on Tuesday at the start of what they called their first-ever joint exercise, which Israeli media described as a show of force organised by Iran. – Reuters

Israel opposes any return to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, contrary to the impression recent statements may have made, a senior Prime Minister’s Office official told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday. – Jerusalem Post

Outgoing U.S. Vice President Mike Pence has cancelled his planned farewell visit to Israel that was scheduled for next month before President-elect Joe Biden is to take office. – Ynet

Palestinian residents from East Jerusalem have filed a petition with Israel’s High Court, demanding that the arm of the Israeli government responsible for property left behind after the 1947 war recognize their rights as tenants, and cease secretly cooperating with settlers’ organizations. – Haaretz

The UN General Assembly approved 17 pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli resolutions in December, as part of what has become an annual end of the year ritual by the 193-member body, where the Palestinians have an automatic majority of support. – Jerusalem Post

The cabinet authorized Israel’s membership in the new East Mediterranean Gas Forum (EMGF) on Tuesday, after resolving a dispute between ministers on the matter. – Jerusalem Post

The United States sold the ambassador’s residence in Israel for more than $67 million in July, according to an official Israeli record of the sale that shines new light on a transaction that has been shrouded in secrecy. […]The sale helped to cement Trump’s controversial decision to relocate the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to contested Jerusalem in 2018 and to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. – Associated Press

Editorial: This shouldn’t be happening in Israel in 2020. But it is indicative of the lawlessness that is plaguing the Arab sector in Israel society and the inability or lack of effort by the Israel Police to get to the root of the problem. Arab leaders claim the police have long turned a blind eye to the crime-riddled cities, towns and neighborhoods where gangs rule and where illegal weapons run rampant. – Jerusalem Post 

Gedaliah Afterman and Theresa Hoffman write: As tensions between the superpowers intensify, Israel and other middle powers stuck between the United States and China should tread carefully. Israel should base its decisions and policies on a much deeper understanding of China’s global and regional aspirations, policies, and the situation on the ground. – Haaretz

Arabian Peninsula

The US state department has approved the sale of $290m in bombs to Saudi Arabia as part of a flurry of arms deals with Middle Eastern dictatorships in the last weeks of the Trump administration. – The Guardian

Yemeni men, women and children filled a hall earlier this month in rebel-held Sanaa, laughing and clapping as actors took to the stage with comic relief for their war-wracked country. Yemen’s conflict has sparked the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, the UN says, and the Arab world’s poorest country has also been hit hard by the novel coronavirus. – Agence France-Presse

One of the most interesting US foreign policy developments in the last decade has been the slow shift from a policy of close cooperation with Riyadh, to one that is more critical and may become almost hostile to Saudi Arabia. Only in rare instances, historically, do countries that enjoyed a long close relationship shift so quickly. – Jerusalem Post

Middle East & North Africa

An Egyptian court on Tuesday convicted a former student at an elite university of sexual misconduct charges and sentenced him to three years in prison, the first conviction in a case that has fueled the #MeToo movement in the Arab world’s most populous country. – New York Times

Iran will resume normal gas flows to Iraq on Wednesday after reaching an agreement with Iraq on Tuesday over unpaid bills, a spokesman for Iraq’s electricity ministry said. – Reuters 

Judy Maltz writes: Morocco’s hesitant approach to renewing ties with Israel – at least in comparison to the demonstrative enthusiasm of the countries that signed the Abraham Accords – can also be explained by the country’s special relationship with the Palestinians. One of the first steps King Mohammed VI took after the dramatic announcement by Trump was to call the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas – two weeks before he bothered to pick up the phone to Netanyahu on the matter – in an attempt to calm him. – Haaretz

China

A Chinese court on Wednesday handed down prison sentences to 10 young Hong Kongers caught at sea while attempting to flee the crackdown in their city, sending a warning shot to other pro-democracy protesters hoping to escape arrest. – Washington Post

Beijing is seeking to shrink Jack Ma’s technology and financial empire and potentially take a larger stake in his businesses, according to Chinese officials and government advisers familiar with the matter, as regulators zero in on the billionaire in a campaign to strengthen oversight of an increasingly influential tech sphere. – Wall Street Journal

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo demanded Chinese Communist Party release Chinese citizen journalist Zhang Zhan, who was sentenced to four years in prison this week for her reporting on the ground in Wuhan amid the coronavirus outbreak in early 2020. – Washington Examiner

Editorial: So, again: What is China trying to hide? As we have noted previously, an independent and credible investigation of the origins of the virus is absolutely essential to properly prepare for and prevent a future pandemic. The prosecution of Ms. Zhang raises grave doubts about whether China can be trusted to produce an open and honest investigation. Instead of putting her in jail, China should release her and thank her for the courage to do what the cowards in the party-state would not. – Washington Post

Editorial: Officials barred journalists and foreign observers from attending Ms. Zhang’s trial and sentencing. Beijing hopes the West is too distracted to pay attention, but Secretary of State Mike Pompeo condemned this “sham prosecution and conviction” on Tuesday. Western journalists who endorse Communist Party attempts to intimidate Western critics can learn from Ms. Zhang’s brave example. – Wall Street Journal

Joseph Bosco writes: Neither the Trump nor Biden administrations is likely to accept Beijing’s latest rule-by-law gambit against Taiwanese opposing unification, so any request to send a Taiwanese person in America to China for prosecution inevitably would trigger a new arena for Sino-U.S. confrontation and retaliation. – The Hill 

Andrew Taffer writes: In addition to deterring Chinese aggression and maintaining its strategic position in the region, the United States is still trying to shape China into a rule-abiding and system-sustaining member of the international community. In other words, it continues to seek to shape China into a “responsible stakeholder,” just as Robert Zoellick famously called for 15 years ago. Thus, those that suggest the responsible-stakeholder approach is “dead” overstate just how much has changed for a wide swath of Washington. – Foreign Policy 

Tom Rogan writes: Why is the EU happy to betray its own supposedly sacred values? Well, because this trade deal will offer European businesses increased access to Chinese markets and the prospect of tens of billions of dollars in new Chinese investments into Europe. China views the deal as a top priority for its own reasons. It knows that the agreement will further divide the EU from the United States, thus encouraging America’s allies to adopt an appeasement stance toward Beijing’s South China Sea imperialism, intellectual property theft, and human rights policies. – Washington Examiner

Asia

A Japanese-led group said it would extend nearly $1.8 billion in loans to build a coal-fired power plant in Vietnam, bucking criticism about the project’s impact on climate goals. – Wall Street Journal

The U.S. government’s planned $332 million sale of an exclusive property in Hong Kong was thrown into doubt by the Chinese government, which has determined the transaction needs its consent and approval. – Wall Street Journal

The two youngest of the 12 Hong Kong activists detained in mainland China over an illegal border crossing will not be charged, a district prosecutor in the city of Shenzhen said on Wednesday. – Reuters

Singapore authorities arrested a man on his return to the city-state on Wednesday after he was jailed for spying for China in the United States, saying they would investigate whether he posed a security risk. – Reuters

Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense has confirmed that on December 20, 2020 the Shandong, the first aircraft carrier built domestically on the Chinese mainland, had set out, with its formation, for the South China Sea, sailing south via the Taiwan Strait that day. – Middle East Media Research Institute 

The Chinese Navy, formally known as the PLAN (People’s Liberation Army Navy), conducted a live-fire exercise several days ago over the South China Sea utilizing a newly expanded naval base. – USNI News

China will hold a 10-day military exercise in the South China Sea, just off the southern Chinese Coast, in the waters surrounding Hainan. – Reuters

Zhuoran Li writes: A multilateral organization like Quad is not useless. It provides a forum for members to address their shared concerns and put pressure on Beijing jointly. Furthermore, communication opens additional bilateral cooperation opportunities among members. However, a NATO-like alliance is unlikely to emerge anytime soon. – The National Interest

Europe

Russia is stepping up work on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline before the U.S. tightens sanctions against the controversial project designed to feed more natural gas into Germany. – Bloomberg

China and the EU appear to have resolved their differences over protecting labour rights in China and are set to sign a long-delayed investment agreement on Wednesday likely to make the economies of the two blocs more interdependent. – The Guardian

EU leaders signed their post-Brexit trade deal with Britain and dispatched it to London on an RAF jet Wednesday, setting their seal on a drawn-out divorce just hours before the UK brings its half-century European experiment to an end. – Agence France-Presse

Britain will be able to trade with its European neighbours and keep control of its laws and destiny, Prime Minister Boris Johnson will say on Wednesday before lawmakers vote on the Brexit deal he clinched at the eleventh hour. – Reuters 

Editorial: Whether it is reduced to a rump of England and Wales, Britain’s greatly reduced ties to the rest of Europe will make it a weaker and less valuable strategic partner of the United States. Perhaps the greater national sovereignty of which Mr. Johnson boasts will compensate for those losses. More likely, as the practical effects of Brexit sink in in the coming months, the percentage of Britons who conclude the break was a mistake — already a majority, according to polls — will continue to grow.- Washington Post

Jedidiah Royal writes: America’s best chance of meeting its national security interests lies in its willingness to demonstrate that the United States is, above all else, reliable. If Biden allows this to be his starting point on January 20, he will strengthen the hand of those who want to reinvest in the transatlantic alliance, and the European debate will eventually subside. America’s reliability should never have been up for debate in the first place. – War on the Rocks

The Americas

State Department officials have drawn up a proposal to designate Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism, a final-hour foreign policy move that would complicate plans by the incoming Biden administration to relax increased American pressure on Havana. – New York Times

When the United States and Canada agreed in March to close their border to asylum seekers at unauthorized entry points, Canadian officials said they had received assurances from their U.S. counterparts that the people they turned back wouldn’t be deported. […]At least eight others, including Nduwimana, are being held at a federal detention facility in Batavia, N.Y., many with final removal orders. – Washington Post

Amid Venezuela’s worst-ever economic crisis, which is widely blamed on corruption and mismanagement by President Nicolás Maduro’s socialist regime, more than 5 million Venezuelans have fled the country. The exodus began in 2014 and, since then, about 2 million Venezuelans have settled in neighboring Colombia, with smaller numbers moving to Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Chile and elsewhere in Latin America. – NPR 

Cybersecurity

Corellium, a security research firm sued by Apple, has won a major legal victory against the iPhone maker. – Washington Post

Senate Republicans are mounting a last-minute attempt to try to permit lawsuits against Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites for the way they police their platforms, hoping that an urgent debate over congressional coronavirus aid might offer them an opening to deal a new blow to Silicon Valley. – Washington Post

One of the oldest and most well-known iPhone suppliers has been accused of using forced Muslim labor in its factories, according to documents uncovered by a human rights group, adding new scrutiny to Apple’s human rights record in China. – Washington Post

The bombing outside an AT&T facility in downtown Nashville on Christmas triggered a cascade of technological failures that disrupted daily life and imperiled emergency services, offering a sobering reminder of the fragility of the nation’s critical communications systems, according to national security experts. – Washington Post 

In a letter Tuesday to Intel Chairman Omar Ishrak, Third Point Chief Executive Daniel Loeb said Intel’s woes could threaten the U.S. tech industry and urged the chip maker to consider alternatives, including selling some of its acquisitions and splitting its design and manufacturing operations—a move that would end Intel’s long-held status as America’s leading integrated semiconductor maker. – Wall Street Journal

State attorneys general said in a lawsuit earlier this month that a 2018 business agreement between two digital advertising giants, Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google, was an illegal price-fixing deal. Lawmakers are calling for further investigation. The companies say it was above board. The Wall Street Journal viewed part of a recent unredacted draft version of the lawsuit, which elaborates on allegations in the redacted complaint filed in a Texas federal district court. – Wall Street Journal

Stephen Silver writes: After downtown Nashville was rocked at around 6:30 a.m. on Christmas morning by a mysterious explosion of an RV, the FBI announced that it was investigating whether the explosion was connected in any way to paranoia about 5G technology. – The National Interest

Long War

Indonesia has banned the controversial but politically influential hardline group the Islamic Defender’s Front, the country’s chief security minister announced on Wednesday. – Reuters

The UK’s Ministry of Defence says that over a six-year period, British troops helped train more than 120,000 Iraqi and Kurdish soldiers. The interpreters were helping British advisers who had been deployed to one of the coalition’s major bases to provide training for Iraqi special forces. But sometimes they would do far more than just translate, Ahmed says. He told me that if the British soldiers were concerned about the safety of the camp, the interpreter would do reconnaissance around the perimeter of the camp to check out any danger. – BBC 

Mozambican forces clashed with suspected Islamist insurgents who staged their closest attack yet to a Total SE liquefied natural gas project since Islamic State began claiming responsibility for violence in the region last year, according to three people familiar with the matter. – Bloomberg 

Non-profit humanitarian agency World Vision United States improperly transacted with the Islamic Relief Agency (ISRA) in 2014 with approval from the Obama administration, sending government funds to an organization that had been sanctioned over its ties to terrorism, according to a new report. – National Review