NAZARETH // Israel secretly staged a training exercise last week to test its ability to quell any civil unrest that might result from a peace deal that calls for the forcible transfer of many Arab citizens, the Israeli media has reported.
The drill was intended to test the readiness of the civil defence units, police, army and prison service to contain large-scale riots by Israel's Arab minority in response to such a deal.
The transfer scenario echoes a proposal by Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's far-right foreign minister, for what he has called a "population exchange". Mr Lieberman proposes land swaps that would force many of Israel's 1.3 million Arab citizens into a future Palestinian state in return for annexation into Israel of most of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The scheme has been widely criticised as a violation of international law.
He outlined his proposal to the United Nations General Assembly last month. Although Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, said he was not consulted about the speech, he did not admonish Mr Lieberman. The training exercise has fuelled fears among Israel's Arab minority that the government might be hoping to pressure Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), to agree to land and population swaps as part of US-sponsored peace negotiations, which have stalled.
Dov Chenin, a member of the Israeli parliament representing the joint Jewish-Arab Communist Party, called Tuesday in a speech in the chamber for more details of the exercise from the government, although officials offered no immediate response. Mr Chenin said the drill was a sign Israel was heading in an "extremely dangerous direction". "A few years ago, only the extreme right-wing parties talked about transferring Arab citizens, but now we see that even the security forces are preparing concrete plans for carrying out such a scenario."
Mr Netanyahu demanded this week that the Palestinians recognise Israel as a Jewish state before further progress was possible - a move seen by the Arab minority as a threat to its status inside Israel. A US State Department spokesman referred to recognition as "a core demand" and said it had Washington's support. Haneen Zoubi, an Arab member of parliament, said the exercise was designed to send "very clear messages" to the Arab minority and Mr Abbas' negotiators.
"Netanyahu is letting us know that we are not part of his vision of Israel's future as a Jewish state and that, if we try to resist his plans, our protests will be greeted with violent repression," she said.
"He also wants the Palestinian negotiators to understand his minimum requirements for an agreement. He is not interested in justice for the Palestinians or in creating a viable state,” she added.
Details of the five-day drill were reported last weekend on the Voice of Israel radio station by Carmela Menashe, one of Israel’s most respected military correspondents.
The exercise envisioned extensive disturbances by Israel’s Arab citizens, one-fifth of the population, as security forces prepared to enforce border changes that would forcibly relocate many to a new Palestinian state, according to her report.
In the operation, code-named Warp and Weft, the security services established a large detention centre in the Galilee region between Nazareth and Tiberias to cope with an “unprecedented” number of arrests of Arab citizens.
The drill anticipated a rapid takeover of the West Bank by Hamas following the signing of the peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority. In the exercise, the security forces had to handle the firing of hundreds of rockets into Israel, terrorist attacks, prison riots and breakouts.
As Mr Chenin raised his concerns, Mr Lieberman opened a new front in his attacks on Israel’s Arab citizens, following his repeated statements questioning their loyalty to the state. While hosting the Finnish foreign minister on Tuesday, he accused groups of Arab citizens of plotting to secede from the state under orders from the Palestinians in the occupied territories.
“The Palestinians will try, through various groups among Israeli Arabs, to overturn the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state and will work to create different autonomous areas within the state,” he said.
Aluf Benn, a senior columnist for the Haaretz newspaper, wrote yesterday that Mr Netanyahu was “hiding behind” Mr Lieberman and that the prime minister was the “true instigator” of the wave of anti-Arab policies and laws the government was promoting.
On Sunday the cabinet approved a bill that would demand a loyalty oath from non-Jews seeking citizenship.
In the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, Ahmed Tibi, an Arab MP, accused Mr Netanyahu of being behind "a gradual ethnic-cleansing scheme – removing as many Arabs as possible while creating a Jewish, homogenous Israel".
Opinion polls among Israel’s Arab minority have repeatedly shown strong opposition to any plan to revoke their citizenship or force them into a Palestinian state.
The Association of Civil Rights in Israel, the country’s largest human-rights group, wrote to Mr Netanyahu this week calling the media reports “alarming” and demanding assurances that there were no plans for “population transfer”.
It added that the impression was being created that “an issue which is completely illegitimate – the forced revocation of the citizenship of some of the country’s Arab citizens – is perceived by the government as a reasonable and even likely possibility”.
Some observers have speculated that the police minister, Yitzhak Aharonovitch, who is a member of Mr Lieberman’s Yisraeli Beiteinu Party, may have been the driving force behind the exercise.
However, Mr Chenin said such an extensive drill involving so many different branches of the security forces could not have been carried out without the involvement of other government ministers, including Ehud Barak, the defence minister.
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
All%20We%20Imagine%20as%20Light
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirector%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EPayal%20Kapadia%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarring%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Kani%20Kusruti%2C%20Divya%20Prabha%2C%20Chhaya%20Kadam%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%204%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
The five pillars of Islam
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
THE%20SWIMMERS
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Williams at Wimbledon
Venus Williams - 5 titles (2000, 2001, 2005, 2007 and 2008)
Serena Williams - 7 titles (2002, 2003, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2015 and 2016)
Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
ICC Awards for 2021
MEN
Cricketer of the Year – Shaheen Afridi (Pakistan)
T20 Cricketer of the Year – Mohammad Rizwan (Pakistan)
ODI Cricketer of the Year – Babar Azam (Pakistan)
Test Cricketer of the Year – Joe Root (England)
WOMEN
Cricketer of the Year – Smriti Mandhana (India)
ODI Cricketer of the Year – Lizelle Lee (South Africa)
T20 Cricketer of the Year – Tammy Beaumont (England)
The biog
Favourite hobby: I love to sing but I don’t get to sing as much nowadays sadly.
Favourite book: Anything by Sidney Sheldon.
Favourite movie: The Exorcist 2. It is a big thing in our family to sit around together and watch horror movies, I love watching them.
Favourite holiday destination: The favourite place I have been to is Florence, it is a beautiful city. My dream though has always been to visit Cyprus, I really want to go there.
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
TOURNAMENT INFO
Fixtures
Sunday January 5 - Oman v UAE
Monday January 6 - UAE v Namibia
Wednesday January 8 - Oman v Namibia
Thursday January 9 - Oman v UAE
Saturday January 11 - UAE v Namibia
Sunday January 12 – Oman v Namibia
UAE squad
Ahmed Raza (captain), Rohan Mustafa, Mohammed Usman, CP Rizwan, Waheed Ahmed, Zawar Farid, Darius D’Silva, Karthik Meiyappan, Jonathan Figy, Vriitya Aravind, Zahoor Khan, Junaid Siddique, Basil Hameed, Chirag Suri
more from Janine di Giovanni
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
Multitasking pays off for money goals
Tackling money goals one at a time cost financial literacy expert Barbara O'Neill at least $1 million.
That's how much Ms O'Neill, a distinguished professor at Rutgers University in the US, figures she lost by starting saving for retirement only after she had created an emergency fund, bought a car with cash and purchased a home.
"I tell students that eventually, 30 years later, I hit the million-dollar mark, but I could've had $2 million," Ms O'Neill says.
Too often, financial experts say, people want to attack their money goals one at a time: "As soon as I pay off my credit card debt, then I'll start saving for a home," or, "As soon as I pay off my student loan debt, then I'll start saving for retirement"."
People do not realise how costly the words "as soon as" can be. Paying off debt is a worthy goal, but it should not come at the expense of other goals, particularly saving for retirement. The sooner money is contributed, the longer it can benefit from compounded returns. Compounded returns are when your investment gains earn their own gains, which can dramatically increase your balances over time.
"By putting off saving for the future, you are really inhibiting yourself from benefiting from that wonderful magic," says Kimberly Zimmerman Rand , an accredited financial counsellor and principal at Dragonfly Financial Solutions in Boston. "If you can start saving today ... you are going to have a lot more five years from now than if you decide to pay off debt for three years and start saving in year four."
Total eligible population
About 57.5 million people
51.1 million received a jab
6.4 million have not
Where are the unvaccinated?
England 11%
Scotland 9%
Wales 10%
Northern Ireland 14%
Yahya Al Ghassani's bio
Date of birth: April 18, 1998
Playing position: Winger
Clubs: 2015-2017 – Al Ahli Dubai; March-June 2018 – Paris FC; August – Al Wahda