Fdd's overnight brief

Hezbollah

The United States on Sunday welcomed Serbia’s decision to designate Hezbollah in its entirety as a terrorist organization. It called on the European Union to follow suit by making a similar declaration with regard to the group’s political arm. – Jerusalem Post

Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Hezbollah group said on Saturday it strongly condemned Bahrain’s move to normalize ties with Israel as a “great betrayal” of the Palestinian people. – Reuters

Miran Khwais writes: Despite Nasrallah’s attempts to deflect blame by turning up the decibels on threatening Israel, many more Lebanese are now dismissive of these tactics. […]What is clear is that any moves towards normalization between Lebanon and Israel, two neighboring states with decades of actual conflict and bloodshed between them, would definitively signal a new era in Arab-Israel relations, and a radically new political and economic geography for the Middle East. – Haaretz

Israel

Bahrain and Israel will normalize ties in a U.S.-brokered deal, President Trump said Friday, advancing a broader realignment in the Middle East as Israel and Gulf Arab states find common cause against Iran. – Wall Street Journal

But Israel’s back-to-back agreements to normalize ties with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, to be marked in a signing ceremony at the White House on Tuesday — and the much-buzzed-about possibility that other Arab nations could follow suit — are causing some Israelis to ask whether a deeper shift may, after years in the making, finally be underway in the Middle East. – New York Times

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu left for Washington on Sunday night as the country prepared to lock down to combat the spread of coronavirus. He left for the airport immediately after a press conference in which he announced new restrictions. – Jerusalem Post

The anger across the estate is mirrored elsewhere in Hamas Islamist-run Gaza and in the West Bank, where Palestinians fear the UAE’s move will weaken a long-standing pan-Arab call for Israeli withdrawal from occupied land and acceptance of Palestinian statehood in return for normal relations with Arab countries. – Reuters

Palestinians in Gaza burnt pictures of Israeli, U.S., Bahraini and United Arab Emirates leaders on Saturday in protest over the two Gulf countries’ moves to normalize ties with Israel. – Reuters

Editorial: As long as the Palestinian leadership rejects peace, the Palestinian people should reject their leadership. Ordinary Palestinians deserve better. They, too, deserve a chance to live in peace. It’s time to build a better future together. The Palestinians need to realize that the paradigm has changed. This is the perfect opportunity for them to reject rejectionism. – Jerusalem Post

Dennis Ross writes: It is not just the Palestinians who need to adjust their behavior or likely get left behind. Supporters of their cause need to look again at what is happening in the region. Old assumptions are like habits: They are hard to give up. But the Israeli-UAE-Bahrain breakthroughs are a reminder that the political landscape of the Middle East and the Arab-Israeli issue is changing. Time to change with it. – Washington Post

Hillel Frisch writes: For the EU, what is impartiality or the welfare of individual Palestinian inhabitants when it comes to creating the Palestinian state that will be perennially divided between a one-party fiefdom in Judea and Samaria and another one-party state in Gaza governed by fundamentalists. This is what the world really needs according to the EU – another failed state like Lebanon, and if takes a deeply skewed reporting of housing demolitions (amongst many other things) as part of demonizing Israel, the historical scapegoat – so be it. – Jerusalem Post

Lebanon

French President Emmanuel Macron has been pressing Lebanese politicians to deliver on promises to form a new government this week and haul the country out of its worst crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war, his office said on Sunday. – Reuters

Lebanon’s parliamentary speaker said his group opposed the way the prime minister-designate was forming a new cabinet and that it would not join on those terms, but that he would still cooperate to stabilise the nation in crisis, his office said. – Reuters

Several tonnes of highly explosive material found at Beirut’s port, just weeks after the same chemical was blamed for causing a massive detonation there, had been in storage for 15 years, the Lebanese president said on Friday. – Reuters

Lebanese soldiers on Saturday fired rubber bullets and live rounds in the air to disperse hundreds of protesters trying to march to the presidential palace during an anti-government demonstration. – Associated Press

Gulf States

Oman welcomes Bahrain’s decision to normalise relations with Israel and hopes it will contribute to Israeli-Palestinian peace, Oman state media said on Sunday. – Reuters

Bahraini opposition groups have said they reject a decision by the Gulf state to normalise relations with Israel, with a leading Shi’ite cleric on Sunday calling on the people of the region to resist. – Reuters

Bahrain will do its best to protect visiting Israelis from threats from the country’s Shi’ite population and from Iran, former Mossad chief Efrayim Halevy said on Monday. – Jerusalem Post

The people of the United Arab Emirates are full of “excitement and joy” about the normalization of ties with Israel, a senior UAE official told The Times of Israel on Sunday, two days before the two countries are set to sign a historic agreement in the White House. – Times of Israel

Saqr Ghobash, Speaker of Federal National Council, FNC, has welcomed the decision taken by the Kingdom of Bahrain to establish diplomatic relations with the State of Israel as an “important step” in supporting stability in the Middle East. – Gulf News

Bahrain’s move to formally establish relations with Israel could not have happened without Saudi Arabia’s green light, another step in what observers call Riyadh’s “alternative normalization” of ties with the Jewish state. – Agence France-Presse

David D. Kirkpatrick writes: So Bahrain’s announcement on Friday that it would become the fourth Arab state to normalize relations with Israel was arguably the most significant clue yet that Saudi Arabia — the heavyweight of Gulf politics — might be moving in the same direction, albeit on its own slower time scale. […]Yet although Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy, it is also a much larger country with more complicated internal power structures that its neighbors, and scholars say Prince Mohammed must worry more than other Gulf rulers about public opinion and about the views of his own family. – New York Times

Marc Schneier writes: All of these moments led up to today’s monumental announcement and it is exciting and gratifying both as a nation and for me personally. We’re seeing a shift in the Gulf that myself and others have been working toward for more than a decade and I predict that a third – either Oman or Qatar – will be next. Mazel Tov and Mabrouk to all and I’m looking forward to more Jewish tourists and businesspeople visiting Bahrain, a state that has become like a second home to me. – Jerusalem Post

Seth J. Frantzman writes: For now, that is the message. Because most of the media in the Gulf reflects the views of the countries they are based in, what is being pushed quietly from above, what is embraced and what are the concerns are all not a great secret. – Jerusalem Post

Simon Henderson writes: Washington’s influence in Bahrain is considerable, given the presence there of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet headquarters. Because of the economic benefits it brings, the facility is not contentious in local political terms. Bahrain’s diplomatic step is predictable but also brave. Even more than the UAE normalization shift, Bahrain’s future relationship with Israel will need to be protected from a range of dangers. – Washington Institute

Simon Henderson writes: Qatar itself has allowed its anarchic media to criticize the normalization agreement between the UAE and Israel, although Doha maintains discreet but close official contacts with Jerusalem, helping to reduce Israeli tensions with Hamas in Gaza by giving financial aid to Palestinian civilians and mediating ceasefires. […]The U.S. priority should be to reconstitute unity to deal with the malevolent intent of Iran. – Washington Institute

Middle East & North Africa

The treaty Israel and the United Arab Emirates will sign this week won’t fully normalize ties, but will be the start of a yearlong process that could protect the Gulf nation’s interests as it lobbies to buy the U.S.’s top warplane, according to people briefed on the pact. – Bloomberg

A deal establishing relations between Israel and Bahrain will result in direct flights between the countries, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday. – Reuters

The United Arab Emirates’ Mohamed Bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence and Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science have agreed to work together, UAE state news agency WAM said on Sunday. – Reuters

Jordan’s foreign minister Ayman Safadi said in a statement on Friday, that the necessary steps to achieve a fair and comprehensive peace in the region should come from Israel. – Reuters

The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain’s decisions to normalise relations with Israel follows a history of peace efforts between Israel, the Palestinians and their Arab allies that have failed to overcome decades of distrust and violence. – Reuters

Egypt’s president on Friday said he appreciates the “important step” of Israel and Bahrain establishing diplomatic relations. – Reuters

Israel and Morocco are set to announce direct flights as part of the next step in US efforts to facilitate normalization efforts between Israel and Arab states, according to Israeli Channel 12. – Al Arabiya

New images reveal evidence of an attack on a secretive missile facility in Syria. The photos, released by ImageSat International on Sunday, show that two structures at Al-Safirah missile factory near Aleppo were hit. – Jerusalem Post

Editorial: Bahrain’s decision would not be possible without at least the tacit approval of Saudi Arabia, which the Trump Administration has backed as part of its plan to contain Iran. A more stable Middle East with a united front of U.S. allies advances American interests by reducing the need for future interventions. – Wall Street Journal

David Ignatius writes: The decision by two wealthy Gulf countries to recognize Israel doesn’t help the shattered nations of the Middle East, such as Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Libya. And it doesn’t represent Middle East peace, whatever may be said at the White House next week. But for a region that sometimes seems to be in slow-motion collapse, it’s a building block for a better future. – Washington Post

China

China’s arrest of 12 Hong Kong pro-democracy activists, nabbed as they tried to flee the city by boat in the face of an intensifying crackdown on dissent, is fueling a new war of words between Washington and Beijing. – Wall Street Journal

Families of Hong Kong activists detained by mainland Chinese authorities last month after trying to flee the city by boat appealed for information and demanded their immediate return. – Wall Street Journal

Beijing said it has imposed restrictions on American diplomats in China to retaliate against Washington’s recent move to curb activities of Chinese diplomats in the U.S. – Wall Street Journal

The American ambassador to China, Terry Branstad, is stepping down, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Monday, after a tenure that paralleled a sharp deterioration in relations between China and the United States. – New York Times

Chinese President Xi Jinping is set to hold talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European leaders, as Beijing seeks to keep the continent from aligning more closely with the U.S. on disputes ranging from market access to human rights. – Bloomberg

China’s Defense Ministry on Sunday blasted a critical U.S. report on the country’s military ambitions, saying it is the U.S. instead that poses the biggest threat to the international order and world peace. – Associated Press

A group of bipartisan U.S. lawmakers urged Walt Disney Co DIS.N CEO Bob Chapek to explain the company’s connection with “security and propaganda” authorities of China’s Xinjiang region during the production of live-action war epic “Mulan”. – Reuters

Once billed as the diplomatic high point in China-European Union relations, a summit on Monday is likely to show how far the relationship has ebbed, with the main achievement a deal involving Irish whiskey and Pixian bean paste. – Reuters

Scott Kennedy writes: Although the vast majority of introduced bills haven’t made it to the President’s desk (and in most cases, even out of committee), Congress has had a growing effect on American China policy. Moreover, Congressional attention to China is unlikely to wane. Quite the contrary, we should expect it to continue to expand in the coming years. – Center for Strategic and International Studies

South Asia

China and India, after a meeting between their foreign ministers in Moscow, say they agreed to “disengage” their forces along their disputed Himalayan border. – Wall Street Journal

Five Indian nationals from a remote eastern state who had been detained by Chinese authorities in a region bordering Tibet were handed over to Indian authorities on Saturday, the Indian army said. – Reuters

Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Friday said it hoped China and India would find a solution as soon as possible to de-escalate renewed tensions on their disputed Himalayan border, the Interfax news agency said. – Reuters

Vinay Kaura writes: Whenever the Taliban is integrated into the Afghan governing apparatus after a final deal is signed, it will be extremely difficult for them to recognize the validity of the Durand Line for the simple reason that doing so would allow their opponents to brand them as caving in to Pakistan. None can dispute that a strong Taliban in Afghanistan suits Pakistan, but that is not the whole truth; the Taliban did not feel the need to make any concessions to Pakistan on the issue of the Durand Line when it was in power from 1996 to 2001, nor has it endorsed the Durand Line as Afghanistan’s legitimate border with Pakistan. – Middle East Institute

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: It is no longer possible to dismiss the conflict between India and China as a skirmish. The understanding reached last week between the countries’ foreign ministers points to a pause. But it does not address the underlying issues that have pushed the countries closer to serious conflict. The American historian Barbara Tuchman is often cited as observing: “War is the unfolding of miscalculations.” The next few months might prove a test case for that hypothesis. – Financial Times

Russia

Navalny, 44, was poisoned last month in Russia with a banned chemical weapon in the same group as the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok, according to a German military laboratory. – Washington Post

The ruling United Russia party looked set for an array of local election wins on Sunday, but was also on course for some setbacks as stricken Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s supporters made rare gains in city politics in Siberia. – Reuters

Berlin prosecutors said on Friday they would investigate the case of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny, who is being treated in Berlin for suspected poisoning, and hand information to Moscow – if he agreed. – Reuters

The novichok nerve agent used to poison Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was ‘harder’ than previous forms, Der Spiegel magazine reported the head of Germany’s foreign intelligence service as saying. – Reuters

A suspected assassin has reportedly been detained in connection with an attack against a Russian exile. Musa Lomaev says he survived what appears to be the latest in a string of brazen attacks, two of them fatal, against dissidents in Europe who have railed against the brutal Kremlin-backed ruler Ramzan Kadyrov. – The Daily Beast 

Russia plans to send investigators to Germany to continue the probe into the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. – The Hill

Tom Rogan writes: But where Russia sees and senses that not all the alliance’s members are ready to step up, Putin finds added reason to test it. Trump has a responsibility to keep pushing NATO members to do more for the alliance, and more often. In short, we need more exercises such as this one. But with more nations than three. – Washington Examiner

James Jay Carafano writes: It’s past time. Europe and Russia could well live peacefully side-by-side if Russia had a responsible leader. It doesn’t. Moscow is run by Putin and likely will be for the foreseeable future. Germany and Europe would be wise to insulate themselves from Putin’s worse impulses. Killing Nord Stream 2 would be the right next step. – Fox News

Africa

The land used to be a tourist magnet, a haven for elephants and lions. Now park officials in the West African nation of Burkina Faso say extremists have turned wildlife reserves into a battlefield, targeting rangers and exposing endangered animals to poachers. – Washington Post

Mali’s ruling junta pushed through a political charter on Saturday that could lead to the appointment of a soldier as interim president despite objections from the coalition that led anti-government protests before last month’s coup. – Reuters

Tonderayi Mukeredzi writes: Meanwhile, the SADC does not appear to have a coordinated response to the insurgency in Cabo Delgado. But the longer Mozambique struggles on its own, the more likely it becomes that extremism will spread beyond its borders. – Foreign Policy

Defense

Unlike the wars the nation has fought over the past two decades against terrorists and violent extremist groups, the next one — potentially against China or Russia — threaten the nation’s survival, said Gen. Timothy Ray, head of Air Force Global Strike Command. – Air Force Times

USAFE found the right balance for operating during a pandemic by giving individual wing commanders the authority to work out their own strategies on how to lessen the threat, Harrigian said. Different wings operate in different nations, he said, and some locations were in very different stages of the pandemic — particularly Italy, where Aviano Air Base is located. – Air Force Times

Six months after the nation began to lock down to slow the spread of coronavirus, Air Education and Training Command is starting to roll back some of the emergency moves it made to keep basic training working. – Air Force Times

Now, as the Air Force shifts to an era of great power competition — and, in all likelihood, reduced budgets — AFSOC is going to need to adjust again, part of a broader shift in how the Air Force operates, and to make the special warfare community more sustainable. – Air Force Times

The U.S. Navy’s aircraft carriers will be prepared to fight at extended ranges well into the future, the service’s director of air warfare said Saturday. – Defense News