Report Says Israel, Some Arab States Discussing Military Alliance

The rioters behind the Sunday night attack in Bagdad were angry over a tweet deemed as insulting to Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the most influential Shia cleric in Iraq.

According to Iran’s official IRNA news agency, the protesters called the KDP offices a "center of sedition" and demanded their closure. Some of them were holding photos of Sistani.

The KDP, the ruling party in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region of northern Iraq, condemned the tweet posted on the official account of Nayif Kurdistani, a man allegedly affiliated to it, and said that the party respects all religious groups and "honorable clerics."

Following the uproar caused by the tweet, Kurdistani apologized and deleted the post, saying later his Twitter account had been hacked and that he is not responsible for its controversial content.

A source in the Kurdistan Region’s Interior Ministry told local media that Kurdistani was arrested over the tweet the authorities considered as "offensive" to the Iraqi Supreme Religious Authority.

This is not the first time that KDP offices are set on fire in Baghdad.

In October 2020, supporters of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) – or Hashd al-Shaabi – set ablaze the party’s headquarters in Karrada district after a Kurdish former minister called for the expulsion of the Iran-backed paramilitary force from Baghdad’s Green Zone.

Tehran has been accused of directly interfering in Iraq’s internal affairs, including elections, for at least 20 years. 

Iran’s Fars news agency affiliated with IRGC splashed a headline on its website Monday morning saying Hezbollah congratulated the “martyrdom” operation in Israel that killed two police officers.

Fars quoted the Hezbollah as saying that the terror attack was “the most important and expressive answer to the treasonous meetings of some Arab countries with the leaders of the Zionist regime – countries that have chosen normalization.”

The original Hezbollah statement was carried by Al Mayadeen TV, a media close to the Lebanese militant organization.

Two Arab gunmen believed to be affiliated with the Islamic State group opened fire on people and police officers in central Israel, killing two policemen. They were shot dead by undercover officers who were nearby.

Top diplomats from four Arab countries arrived in Israel on Sunday to hold a landmark meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on regional issues, particularly to discuss the Biden Administration plan to finalize a nuclear deal with Iran.

Although Israel and its Arab allies in the region are concerned about the US plan to lift sanctions on Iran, the most contentious issue now has become Washington’s apparent intention to somehow placate Iran’s most controversial demand to remove the Revolutionary Guard from its list of terrorist organizations.

Although the meeting of diplomats in Israel on Monday might not change the decision of the Biden Administration to compromise on the issue of the IRGC, any sign of cooperation between Arab states and Israel is seen as a threat to Iran’s influence in the Middle East.

Iran officially has not commented on the gathering in Israel, perhaps because it does not want to create complications just before a deal with the United States. But Hezbollah is a proxy organization of the IRGC and feels it can praise the terror attack in Israel without a backlash against Tehran.

An interesting point is that the assailants are believed to be affiliated with the Islamic State group that Iran prides itself for having fought against in Iraq and Syria, but when it comes to the killing of Israelis the attack by IS becomes an act of “martyrdom.”

Mehr news agency in Tehran, another hardliner website, also called the attackers martyrs and announced, “the death and wounding of several Zionists.”

Other Iranian websites, not affiliated with the IRGC, largely ignored the news of the attack, but interestingly, Tasnim News, another affiliate also did not cover the incident. The official government news website IRNA was also silent about the attack.

The news came hours after Bennett, who has been vaccinated against the coronavirus and received a booster dose, visited the scene of a shooting in the Israeli city of Hadera, where two Arab gunmen killed two police officers before being shot dead.

"This morning, the prime minister will conduct an assessment ... of last night's attack," Bennett's office added in a statement.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken will test for COVID-19 on Monday after having met Bennett in Jerusalem the previous day, a State Department spokesperson said.

"Upon learning of Prime Minister Bennett's positive test result, we determined that only Secretary Blinken is considered a close contact. He will follow all CDC guidance, including by masking and undergoing appropriate testing," spokesperson Ned Price said.

Bennet is in Israel for a two-day visit to attend a landmark meeting with allied Arab countries and Israel. The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt and Morocco, the so-called Abraham Accords counties, and Israel will discuss regional issues and US nuclear talks with Iran.

Morocco’s Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita and Bahraini FM Abdulatif Al Zayani arrived in Israel Sunday evening to attend a six-way regional meeting to discuss “advancing regional security” especially against the Iranian threat.

Emirati Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan touched down at Nevatim Air Base in southern Israel ahead of the start of the Negev Summit this evening.

According to the participants, the meetings so far have been “very warm including embraces and friendly conversation.”

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Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu praises the arrival of several Arab ministers ahead of the Negev Summit, saying, “It’s a direct result of the Abraham Accords we brought… the strengthening of the Abraham Accords is a good thing for peace, it’s good for Israel.”

He said he believes Blinken is “making a big mistake” on Iran, adding “Iran without a nuclear agreement is a poor country, an isolated county, a country that has no international legitimacy and no immunity from a military option… Iran with a nuclear agreement becomes a rich country with hundreds of billions of dollars which they’ll use for terror and aggression.”

The top diplomats are holding discussions and meeting on Sunday and Monday.
Leaders of Egypt, Israel and the United Arab Emirates also met on March 22 in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Minister Bahram Einollahi said on Sunday that manufacturers will no longer receive cheap dollars from the government to import raw materials, meaning they should buy dollars at a fivefold higher rate on the exchange market.

The public relations manager prof the ministry said, however, that the change hasn’t been finalized yet and the supply of medicine with cheap dollars is still going on.

Social media users say such a decision would be “an obvious and deliberate act of mass murder!”

Earlier in March, Iran’s parliament decided to scrap an annual subsidy of up to $15 billion for essential food and medicines, despite warnings of more inflationand hardship, but there were speculations that the government would make an exception for medicine.

The idea to eliminate the subsidy emerged after hardliner president Ebrahim Raisi (Raeesi) assumed office in August and could count on backing from conservatives and ultra-conservatives in control of Iran’s parliament.

The subsidy was introduced in April 2018 when former US president Donald Trump signaled his intention to withdraw from the Obama-era nuclear agreement with Iran known as JCPOA, and Iran’s national currency began to nosedive. Prices for imported goods skyrocketed and the government decided to provide cheap dollars to importers of essential goods to keep prices low.