Israeli held over Dubai drugs haul
An Israeli has been arrested in Dubai on a drugs charge and may seek repatriation for any trial or resulting prison term, his lawyer said on Wednesday.
The case could test fledgling relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
The suspect denies wrongdoing. His Israeli lawyer, Ori Ben-Nathan, said the suspect was arrested on October 5 at a Dubai apartment where United Arab Emirates authorities said 500 kg. (1,100 pounds) of cocaine had been stashed.
He could face life behind bars in the UAE if convicted.
The UAE’s Foreign Ministry and Dubai Media Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On Sunday, the office said Dubai police had seized more than $136 million worth of pure cocaine, with a person – described only as being of Middle-Eastern origin – held on suspicion of serving as an intermediary for an international drug syndicate.
“Our goal is to have him sent back over here as soon as possible for prosecution, if that is warranted, and any outcome,” Ben-Nathan told Reuters.
He said his client said he went to the Dubai apartment for what he believed would be a purchase of designer cellphones.
Ben-Nathan said he knew of no repatriation agreement between Israel and the UAE “given that relations are so recent.” The countries forged formal ties last year.
Similar drugs offenses could carry prison sentences of several years in Israel; less than in the UAE, he said. Israel’s Foreign Ministry has declined comment other than to say it was providing the suspect with consular assistance. (Reuters)
“According to the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, 155 kg. of 20%-enriched uranium would be enough to eventually be scaled up to weaponized uranium for a nuclear bomb,” The Jerusalem Post reported on October 10.
It’s worth noting here that Defense Minister Benny Gantz also discussed the Iran nuclear program at this week’s conference.
“Israel is one of the only countries in the world that is still under constant existential threat – with Iran at the top of our agenda. We have developed technological and operational tools that will guarantee our security against Iran’s nuclear ambitions,” he said.
“Iran aims to become a regional hegemon and tyrant,” Gantz said. “Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon, while operating its proxies to conduct violent attacks, disrupt international trade and undermine regional peace.”
This week Bennett also warned about Iran’s proxies. “Iran, which has dispatched proxies and built armies to surround the State of Israel, aspires to build yet another army on the border of the Golan Heights,” he said on October 11.
THE REALITY that can be gleaned from these comments by key figures in Israel is that Iran is closer to a nuclear weapon, but that it is still very far from actually building the weapon and testing it, and that Iran’s real threat is the proxies that it has deployed across the region.
This illustrates that Iran’s nuclear enrichment may have a dual purpose. On the one hand, Iran can keep enriching uranium, slowly inching toward enough material to build a weapon, but it can also use this for diplomatic leverage.
The Islamic Republic has learned over the past decade that its nuclear activity is actually more beneficial on the diplomatic front – wringing concessions from the West and using enrichment as blackmail – than the practicality of actually having a nuclear bomb. What’s the point of actually building a bomb and then needing to test it? That might annoy Tehran’s friends in Moscow and its new and emerging work with China.
If Iran actually built or tested a weapon, it would accelerate a nuclear arms race in the region, as other countries – from Turkey to Saudi Arabia – might scramble to build their own devices.
IRAN HAS a complex network of nuclear facilities that are part of its program. Iran can therefore do work on its project at Natanz, Fordow, Bushehr, Arak and other places.
Tehran also has secretive missile facilities, such as those run by the Shahid Hammat group and at the Khojir site.
Israel has also revealed the Iran drone base at Kashan, which plays a key role in Iran’s
regional threats. Iran exports drone technology to Yemen, Lebanon and Gaza and sends actual drones to Iraq and Syria.
Meanwhile, Iran has also rapidly increased the power of its proxies and the militias it backs in Iraq and Syria during the last several years. It also moved ballistic missiles to Iraq in 2018 and 2019, according to reports. It carried out drone attacks on Israel in February 2018 and May 2021. It has infiltrated the Deir al-Zor region of Syria, while maintaining facilities at Syria’s T-4 base.
Iran’s supply of technology to the Houthis in Yemen has enabled them, since 2016, to increase the range of missiles and drones to the extent that they threaten Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, including shipping lanes and even Israel.
Since 2018, Tehran has also sought to increase its entrenchment near the Golan, after the Syrian regime defeated rebels in that area. The BBC reported that satellite images revealed an Iranian base at Al Kiswah, south of Damascus, in November 2017.
Israel has carried out airstrikes against Iranian targets in Syria, according to comments by former IAF head Amir Eshel in 2017, and Eisenkot in January 2019. Iranian proxies in Iraq accused Israel of airstrikes in 2019 as well. This points to a larger picture of IAF attempts to prevent Iranian entrenchment in Syria.
In addition, Israel has warned about precision-guided munitions being trafficked from Iran to Hezbollah.
The most recent reports in Syria about airstrikes occurred on October 9, claiming that airstrikes targeted the T-4 base, killing at least two foreign fighters.
GIVEN ALL this information, it is worth concluding that the Iranian threat to the region is mostly embodied by its support for proxies in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Gaza. Tehran has a nuclear program, and it uses enrichment to try to get concessions from the West.
The recent death of A. Q. Khan, the Pakistani scientist who became a key figure in not only Pakistan’s nuclear program but also for trafficking nuclear technology, may be a lesson for Iran. Whereas Iran’s Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a nuclear physicist and scientist, was assassinated, Khan survived to old age.
But what did the bomb actually bring Pakistan? It didn’t bring Pakistan wealth or power. Iran may see the failure of Pakistan to get much for its bomb as a reason never to fully develop one. North Korea, for instance, has nuclear abilities but doesn’t get much. Like Iran, North Korea also uses weapons to try to blackmail its neighboring enemy South Korea.
Iran may be happy to be forever on the brink of a nuclear weapon. This enables it to continue spinning centrifuges and inch closer and closer to one, while its real power rests in its militias and its exportation of technology to groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and the Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces) in Iraq.
The comments by Israeli leaders such as Gantz and Bennett, as well as former officials like Cohen, show that Iran’s program has threatening aspects as well as setbacks. They also reveal that there is agreement about the threat of Iran’s proxies – and that this is where Israel’s concerns are focused. religious coexistence and the second on water and energy.
“This is a moment of rising antisemitism and rising Islamophobia and we want Israel and the UAE to build tolerance and ensure that all religious groups can worship in their own way,” Blinken said.
Lapid said, “Today, there are leaders in the Middle East who believe we can change history together.”
He and bin Zayed have become friends, he said, because they share values of moderation, religious tolerance and fighting terrorism and radicalization, and they have a partnership based on economics, progress and technology.
Lapid said that Israel wants to expand the Abraham Accords to more countries, but is also focused on making sure the existing agreements are successful.
Bin Zayed thanked the US for embracing the UAE and Israel, showing that it supports “changing the narrative in the region.
“I’m sure this will have a further effect in the region, and I’m sure the more successful the UAE-Israel relationship, it will not only encourage the region, but will also encourage the Israeli people and Palestinian people that this works,” he stated.
The UAE-Israel relationship should not only be celebrated, but should be advanced with new venues of cooperation, bin Zayed said, referring to an agreement on climate change he and Lapid signed that day.
Bin Zayed said Lapid invited him to Israel, and he plans to visit soon.
As for the Palestinians, Blinken said the US is committed to “advancing equal measures of dignity and freedom” for Israelis and Palestinians, as well as working toward a twostate solution.
As such, Blinken said the Biden administration “will be moving forward with the process of opening a consulate as part of deepening those ties with the Palestinians.”
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Lapid oppose opening a consulate for Palestinians on Israeli sovereign territory in Jerusalem, as the Biden administration has said it sought to do.
Lapid briefly mentioned the Palestinians in his remarks, quoting former US president John F. Kennedy, saying, “All people are entitled to a decent way of life.
“This includes of course the Palestinians,” Lapid said. “Our goal is to work with the Palestinian Authority to ensure that every child has that opportunity.”
Bin Zayed said he was
“encouraged” by meetings between Israeli ministers and their PA counterparts in recent weeks.
The Israeli government is split on how best to approach the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with Bennett opposing a twostate solution, while Lapid has supported it.
But Lapid’s visions of the borders of those two states differ from those envisioned by the Biden administration, which has not advanced a peace plan.
Lapid met with US Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday.
Lapid said Harris is one of Israel’s “best friends” in Washington, just weeks after she failed to push back at a university student who accused Israel of “ethnic genocide” against the Palestinians.
“We can always count on you in a difficult moment,” Lapid said, adding that this friendship is based on shared values.
“Even when we have differences, I know that our goal is common to see Israel strong and secure and thriving,” he said.
Harris recalled that the two of them had last met in 2017 when she visited Israel.
She told Lapid that the US is committed to ensuring the “security of the people of Israel.”
She did not mention the Palestinians. Lapid, in turn, also did not speak of the Palestinians, but he did not mention Palestinian statehood.
“We all believe, as you said, that the Palestinians are entitled to have a quality of life, an economy and education and hope,” Lapid said.
Lapid also met with Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday.
He is expected to meet with AIPAC’s leadership on Thursday, and with the Democratic Majority for Israel, whose president, Mark Mellman, has been political strategist for Lapid’s Yesh Atid Party for the past decade.•