Day: January 16, 2024

Call him a crook, call him a warmonger, but who other than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could boast two successful summits with both US and Russian presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, all within two weeks of the Israeli elections?

His immediate motives are clear, but there is something beyond his obviously shrewd use of diplomacy for electoral gain. There are greater strategic implications of such high-powered statesmanship.

list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4list 2 of 4list 3 of 4list 4 of 4end of list

So how did a politically challenged, corruption-ridden leader of a tiny state get the world superpowers to do his bidding and on his schedule?

The answer lies in a three-way bromance that has been blossoming for some time, and could potentially shape the Middle East for years to come.

The ‘chess master’

It all began with a meeting at Trump Tower in late September, 2016.

Netanyahu, who was in New York City for the annual UN summit, dropped in for an introductory meeting with Donald Trump, the Republican candidate in the US presidential race.

The meeting quickly turned into a “master class” in world geopolitics, according to former Trump advisor Steve Bannon. The seasoned four-term Israeli premier coached the billionaire political novice about the importance of US-Israeli relations in the shadows of the bitter realities of the Middle East.

The two hit it off. Bigly.

Netanyahu not only answered all of Trump’s questions satisfyingly, he also rationalised and systemised Trump’s random foreign policy instincts about security, immigration, terrorism, Islam, etc. – even the advantages of a border wall.

He distilled and focused it all into a simple formula: Iran, not Russia, is “our” main enemy. In fact, the Russian president is uniquely positioned to help us against the ayatollahs and radical Islam.  

According to Vicky Ward, the author of bestseller Kushner, Inc, Netanyahu is in fact the “grand chess master“, who lobbied Trump to court Putin and improve relations with Russia.

It was all music to Trump’s ears. He was already exchanging personal compliments with the Russian president to the horror of his detractors at home and in Europe. Now he was armed with a strategic doctrine that involved forging new partnerships with like-minded strongmen.

The attraction

It was an easy alliance on a personal level. Benjamin, Donald and Vladimir actually seem to like one another and are on the record praising each other. They may have different pasts and different styles, but they are made of the same fabric.

The three old white men are macho populist nationalists with a mean streak. They’re widely seen as deceptive, polarising figures, with a knack for acting with impunity. They also dislike free press and an active independent judiciary.

The trio’s original rallying cause, their ultimate nemesis, the man they hated most is none other than Barack Obama and everything he represented: be it multiculturalism, liberal ideals or liberal foreign policy.

Soon after entering the White House, Trump began to tear down everything that Obama built at home or abroad, trampling all over international law and international agreements to the cheers of his two buddies and an increasing number of special fans around the world.

He walked away from the Paris climate change agreement and the Iran nuclear deal, and lent his unconditional support to some of the most repressive regimes in the Middle East and beyond.

The trio has attracted and inspired a new league of aggressive hyper-nationalists who worship power from Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman and Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and Hungary’s Viktor Orban. Trump and Putin may lead the pack, but Netanyahu is indeed their “enthusiastic enabler“. 

The three leaders have sought to evict liberalism and progressive thought to usher in populist plutocracy. But their success in leading a new worldwide populist trend couldn’t obfuscate their failure to translate their bromance into closer US-Russian relations.

Stubborn geopolitics

Neither Trump nor Netanyahu could convince the US foreign policy establishment to embrace Putin, not even as a way to counter Iran.

Iran may be seen as a bad regional actor, but both the establishment Democrats and Republicans consider Russia to be a dangerous global enemy.

It’s the tragedy of great power politics that superpowers will continue to compete in an anarchic world, even at the risk of war, regardless of their leaders or system of government.

In that way, Russia has returned to the global stage as a major independent geopolitical player, most often as US antagonist. This has become evident in Putin’s military intervention in Ukraine and Syria and by his latest decision to begin deploying Russian troops to Venezuela in a direct challenge to Washington in the Western hemisphere.

While Putin and Trump think alike, their countries seem to be on the opposite side of everything: from cyber warfare, nuclear proliferation, regional security in Europe and the Middle East, and of course Russian interference in US elections.

But they do agree on Israel – or at least, Putin and Trump agree on Netanyahu, an affection the Israeli prime minister cannot be accused of taking for granted.

The leverage

Trump and Putin have had one summit, which ended in relative failure, and four short encounters. Netanyahu has had five successful meetings with Trump in two years, and 13 equally successful meetings with Putin in the past four years.

Netanyahu, a star networker, knows which rings to kiss. He has persisted in cultivating close relations with Putin despite a number of setbacks because Russia is the only power that has open dialogue with every major player in the Middle East, including Hamas and Hezbollah, regional rivals like Iran and Saudi Arabia, and Turkey and Egypt.

Netanyahu has exploited Russia’s eagerness for Washington’s recognition of its superpower status and its areas of influence, by leveraging his special relationship with Trump to extract concessions from Putin, starting with Syria.

The Russian president seems to have quickly gotten over Israel’s role in the downing of a Russian military plane that killed 15 Russian nationals in September 2018, and has already agreed to set up a working group with Israel to look into removing foreign forces from Syria.

He has also acquiesced to regular Israeli violation of Syrian airspace and its open-ended bombing of Iranian targets there.

The Kremlin went as far as asking Netanyahu recently to mediate a grand withdrawal bargain between the US, Syria and Iran, which the Israeli prime minister had to reject because the proposal calls for the early lifting of sanctions against Iran.

Having it both ways

It has been a bit of diplomatic poker play at times. Netanyahu invested so heavily in Russian relations that he was warned by leading US Senator Lindsey Graham to “be very careful” making agreements with Russia on Syria that could “affect US interests”.

Nevertheless, his warning rang hollow when a few months later, Graham stood by Netanyahu on the occupied Syrian Golan Heights and called on the Trump administration to recognise the Israeli annexation. 

Trump obliged happily, disregarding international law and traditional US policy in the process. In response, Putin did nothing and apparently said nothing about it during his last summit meeting with Netanyahu.

Russia might have needed some courting, but Netanyahu couldn’t have dreamt of a better partner at the White House. Trump has totally embraced Israel’s position on Iran, and the occupation of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.

Next comes the West Bank. Netanyahu promised last week that he will begin the annexation of the occupied Palestinian territories if he wins the elections. And again, expect Trump to lend his support, and Putin to lend his silence.

In sum, Netanyahu might have failed so far to get the US and Russia to work together to reshape the Middle East, but he has clearly succeeded in getting Trump and Putin to work for Israel as it reshapes the Eastern Mediterranean.

While they may not dare to believe just yet, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are pinning their hopes on a surprise. On November 5, 2024, at the end of the US presidential election, they hope to celebrate the victory of Donald Trump. The two leaders know all too well who they would vote for, if they could.

The perspective of a second Trump administration is also the yardstick with which to measure international news and developments. The singularity of today’s crises – and part of their drama – lies in the possibility of a radically different American foreign policy for the future. The return of the apprentice Republican coup leader to the White House would have a major impact on the two wars currently underway. The fighting between Russia and Ukraine would be affected, as would Israel’s campaign against the Palestinian Islamic movement Hamas.

The Russian president has a friend in Trump, a thwarted autocrat. Openly jealous, the Florida golfer has already expressed his admiration for Putin’s kind of leadership. Separately, at the head of a right-wing majority, the Israeli prime minister is betting on Trump, who from 2016 to 2020 was the most anti-Palestinian president ever to occupy the White House.

Carte blanche to annex the West Bank

The Gaza war will last a year or more, according to Israeli sources cited by the Financial Times on December 1, 2023. Joe Biden is hoping to contain Netanyahu’s ambitions. According to Michel Duclos’ latest analysis for the Institut Montaigne, the US president intends to force limits on the Israeli army. The US has stated that subjecting southern Gaza to bombardments like those that ravaged the north and Gaza City, driving those in Gaza into Egypt, or Israel reoccupying the strip for any length of time are all out of the question.

After an interim phase, the Biden administration has put forward the scenario of a restored Palestinian Authority (under Fatah) in charge of administering the West Bank and Gaza. Fatah would only agree to this on the condition of the resumption of negotiations leading – one day – to the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. On each of these points of the official US position, Biden has found himself at loggerheads with Netanyahu.

The US president is putting his credibility at stake in the Arab world, where he is strongly criticized for his unconditional support for Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. But it is also a matter of domestic politics with the US election so close. Weak in the polls largely due to his age, the Democratic candidate needs to project the image of a strong president abroad. Whether he will be a president capable of coercing Israel or bringing the hostages home remains to be seen.

You have 50% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.

The Mueller report contains new information about how the Russian government hacked documents and emails from Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

At one point, the Russians used servers located in the U.S. to carry out the massive data exfiltration effort, the report confirms.

Much of the information was previously learned from the indictment of Viktor Borisovich Netyksho, the Russian officer in charge of Unit 26165. Netyksho is believed to be still at large in Russia.

But new details in the 488-page redacted report released by the Justice Department on Thursday offered new insight into how the GRU operatives hacked.

The operatives working for the Russian intelligence directorate, the GRU, sent dozens of targeted spearphishing emails in just five days to the work and personal accounts of Clinton Campaign employees and volunteers, as a way to break into the campaign’s computer systems.

The GRU hackers also gained access to the email account of John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, of which its contents were later published.

Using credentials they stole along the way, the hackers broke into the networks of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee days later. By stealing the login details of a system administrator who had “unrestricted access” to the network, the hackers broke into 29 computers in the ensuing weeks, and more than 30 computers on the DNC.

The operatives, known collectively as “Fancy Bear,” comprised several units tasked with specific operations. Mueller formally blamed Unit 26165, a division of the GRU specializing in targeting government and political organizations, for taking on the “primary responsibility for hacking the DCCC and DNC, as well as email accounts of individuals affiliated with the Clinton Campaign,” said the Mueller report.

The hackers used Mimikatz, a hacking tool used once an intruder is already in a target network, to collect credentials, and two other kinds of malware: X-Agent for taking screenshots and logging keystrokes, and X-Tunnel used to exfiltrate massive amounts of data from the network to servers controlled by the GRU. Mueller’s report found that Unit 26165 used several “middle servers” to act as a buffer between the hacked networks and the GRU’s main operations. Those servers, Mueller said, were hosted in Arizona — likely as a way to obfuscate where the attackers were located but also to avoid suspicion or detection.

In all, some 70 gigabytes of data were exfiltrated from Clinton’s campaign servers and some 300 gigabytes of data were obtained from the DNC’s network.

Meanwhile, another GRU hacking unit, Unit 74455, which helped disseminate and publish hacked and stolen documents, pushed the stolen data out through two fictitious personas. DCLeaks was a website that hosted the hacked material, while Guccifer 2.0 was a hacker-like figure who had a social presence and would engage with reporters.

Under pressure from the U.S. government, the two GRU-backed personas were shut down by the social media companies. Later, tens of thousands of hacked files were funneled to and distributed by WikiLeaks.

Mueller’s report also found a cause-and-effect between Trump’s remarks in July 2016 and subsequent cyberattacks.

“I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” said then-candidate Trump at a press conference, referring to emails Clinton stored on a personal email server while she headed the State Department. Mueller’s report said “within approximately five hours” of those remarks, GRU officers began targeting for the first time Clinton’s personal office.

More than a dozen staffers were targeted by Unit 26165, including a senior aide. “It is unclear how the GRU was able to identify these email accounts, which were not public,” said Mueller.

Mueller said the Trump campaign made efforts to “find the deleted Clinton emails.” Trump is said to have privately asked would-be national security advisor Michael Flynn, since convicted following inquiries by the Special Counsel’s office, to reach out to associates to obtain the emails. One of those associates was Peter Smith, who died by suicide in May 2017, who claimed to be in contact with Russian hackers — claims which Mueller said were not true.

Does that implicate the Trump campaign in an illegal act? Likely not.

“Under applicable law, publication of these types of materials would not be criminal unless the publisher also participated in the underlying hacking conspiracy,” according to Elie Honig, a CNN legal analyst. “The special counsel’s report did not find that any person associated with the Trump campaign illegally participated in the dissemination of the materials.”