Middle East round-up: Syria rejoins the Arab League
Syria returns to the Arab League, Israel bombs Gaza with airstrikes and it is almost time for the Turkish elections. Here is your overview of our coverage, written by Abubakr Al-Shamahi, Middle East and North Africa Editor of Al Jazeera Digital.
Prisons full of dissidents, hundreds of thousands dead and millions of refugees. Despite all that, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will again sit with his co-leaders at the main table at the Arab League summit in Riyadh later this month. That the Arab League embraced al-Assad again, despite 12 years of war against his own people, came as no surprise. Syria’s return to regional favor has been on the cards for months, with early normalizers, such as the UAE, passing the baton of acceptance to Saudi Arabia, whose foreign minister was recently in Damascus.
Arab League member states have agreed to welcome Syria back into the organization on Sunday. The country was suspended more than a decade ago as punishment for the brutal crackdown on the Syrian opposition that dared to rise up against al-Assad in 2011. But realpolitik, like al-Assad, has emerged victorious for now. With a weak opposition in control of only a small part of Syria, and a reshuffling of the regional order after Saudi Arabia restored things with Iran, the feeling in Arab capitals that freezing al-Assad was not a goal had more.
[READ: Syria’s return to the Arab League leaves opposition dismayed]
Will the rest of the Arab League get something in return? Justice is clearly a non-starter, so the focus instead seems to be on, well, Captagon, an amphetamine-like drug mass-produced in Syria that has exploded in popularity in the Gulf. At a meeting in Amman on May 1, Damascus said it will crack down on Captagon smuggling. And then on Monday, a day after Syria was welcomed back into the Arab League, a Jordanian airstrike reportedly killed a suspected Syrian drug smuggler and his family in southern Syria. Hmm, quid pro quo?
Israel bombs Gaza again
The death of a Palestinian hunger striker, Khader Adnan, in an Israeli prison last week sparked a brief exchange of rockets from the Gaza Strip and Israeli airstrikes on the besieged area. A regionally brokered ceasefire quickly came into effect, but it was suddenly broken in the early hours of Tuesday morning by a spate of Israeli airstrikes that killed three top Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) leaders and ten others. All citizens. Including children.
This was the beginning of what Israel has called Operation Shield and Arrow. Factions in Gaza finally fired rockets at Israel on Wednesday, but the vast majority have been intercepted by Israel’s missile defense system. Israel, for its part, continued to shell Gaza, where 27 people had been killed at the time of writing, the majority civilians.
The specter of war has therefore returned to Gaza, brought home in a shocking way during a live broadcast by Al Jazeera’s Youmna El Sayed, when the horizon suddenly lit up with rockets launched from all over Gaza.
Israel, which launched the attacks against the PIJ, now appears to be trying to de-escalate. And yet, at the same time, there are indications that the Israelis are unwilling to reassure that the killing of PIJ leaders will soon stop. Some analysts believe that this latest attack on Gaza has essentially been more of a political gamble than a military operation: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to face growing opposition at home, where members of the far right within his cabinet have stepped up pressure to keep Gaza under control. to fall. . The bet has been that Hamas will not take the bait and fight back, sparking a much more extensive conflict – a calculated risk that could lead to much more death and destruction if Netanyahu miscalculated.
Still no justice for Shireen Abu Akleh
Exactly one year ago, our colleague Shireen Abu Akleh, Al Jazeera’s longtime Palestinian correspondent, was assassinated by Israeli forces while reporting in the occupied West Bank.
Apart from eyewitness accounts and detailed research, even the Israelis have admitted that it was very likely that one of their soldiers killed Shireen. But the reality is that we are no closer to justice. Al Jazeera filed a case with the International Criminal Court in December, but we are no closer to a prosecution. According to some, the ICC does not seem to have much interest in moving the investigation forward, choosing instead to focus on Ukraine and Russia.
Whatever that says about the ICC and its pursuit of justice, Shireen’s memory will live on in Al Jazeera, across the region and around the world. A journalist who did her job and was killed for it.
It is almost time for the Turkish elections
As we approach electoral D-Day, Sunday, May 14, temperatures are rising in Turkey, with reported attacks on both opposition and government politicians. We’ve rolled out more of our coverage as Turkey plans to vote in some of the most sweeping presidential and parliamentary elections in decades.
[READ: Don’t take our votes for granted, warn Kurdish voters in Turkey]
As President Recep Tayyip Erdogan faces his biggest test yet, here’s a guide to the vote.
By this time next week, we should have the parliamentary results and those of the presidential election (or at least the first round). Watch this space.
And now something else
Stand-up comedy is booming in popularity around the world and Syria is now joining in. Members of Styria, heralded as the country’s first stand-up comedy troupe, perform in Damascus every week to tell jokes about the situation in the country. Well, not all kinds. In Bashar al-Assad’s Syria, politics is still a red line.
Short
Sudanese doctors targeted by threats, smear campaigns | Six dead after attack near synagogue on the Tunisian island of Djerba | EU Delegation to Israel cancels Europe Day event due to planned presence of far-right minister | More Iranian actresses summoned for not wearing hijab | Top Biden aide discusses peace efforts in Yemen with the MBS | Court of Iraq pronounces death sentence on murderer of prominent academic | Israel Hands Over Jordanian Member of Parliament Accused of Arms Smuggling | Three months after earthquakes, Syrians still fear collapses | Will Ethiopia and Eritrea be dragged into the war in Sudan? | Iran executes two Koran burners, a Swedish-Iranian dual national and the ‘sultan of cocaine’ | US congressman introduces bill to limit aid to Israel | HRW: Academic detained by Egyptian authorities at risk of death | Biden urged halting US aid to Tunisia over authoritarian turn | Egyptian ex-MP plans presidential bid, says relatives arrested |
Quote of the week
“[The Rapid Support Forces] told [a warehouse security guard] to go get a gun and help themselves… they said guns are widely available, they told him [Sudan] is the land of arms.” | Nadir el-Gadi, a Sudanese pharmaceutical supplier, recalls how one of the guards in his warehouse tried to get the RSF to stop looters, but was met with indifference. El-Gadi also had his home and business raided by the paramilitary RSF, which is currently battling the country’s military despite ongoing ceasefire talks in Saudi Arabia.