The Dangerous New Iran-Qatar-Turkey-Hamas Alliance

by Khaled Abu Toameh • September 28, 2020 at 5:00 am

Abbas has already damaged the Palestinians' relations with some Arab countries by condemning the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain for signing peace treaties with Israel.... Now it appears that the Palestinians are also headed toward ruining their relations with Egypt because of Abbas's decision to make peace with Hamas and appease Iran, Turkey and Qatar.
"Qatar has provided Hamas with more than a billion dollars since 2012... Qatar did not provide these funds out of a humanitarian standpoint and to help the residents of the Gaza Strip. The Qataris did so to help Hamas and its leaders and to enable Qatar to establish a foothold in the region." — Egyptian writer Hashem al-Fahkrani, Al-Youm7.com, September 21, 2020.
"Those who believe that Hamas's first goal is to resist Israel are mistaken. Its first and only goal is to receive money. Hamas's slogan is: Loyalty to anyone who pays the most." — Hashem al-Fahkrani.
Yet, the Palestinian leadership and the international community appear distinctly indifferent the looming danger of this newest axis of evil. For them, the only fate worse than death is normalization between the Arabs and Israel. Abbas has once again pegged his hopes and those of his people on entities that would obstruct the Palestinians and destroy Israel.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's continued rapprochement with the Iran-backed Hamas is jeopardizing the Palestinians' relations with Egypt. Abbas, however, seems determined to ignore the Egyptian warnings and is marching forward with full speed toward forming an alliance with Hamas and its masters in Iran, Qatar and Turkey. (Photo by Mohamad Torokman/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's continued rapprochement with the Iran-backed Hamas is jeopardizing the Palestinians' relations with Egypt. Egyptian media outlets have resumed their scathing attacks on the Palestinian leadership in general, and the Islamist movement that has been ruling the Gaza Strip since 2007 in particular.

The Egyptian attacks came on the eve of a meeting in Turkey between leaders of Abbas's Fatah faction and Hamas. At the meeting, held under the auspices of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Hamas and Fatah leaders discussed ways of ending their dispute and holding long overdue Palestinian presidential and parliamentary elections.

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U.S. and China: Emerging Technologies and the Race to Control the Future

by Lawrence A. Franklin • September 28, 2020 at 4:00 am

Chairman Xi seems to want to secure a commanding lead in the emerging hi-tech disciplines to create a sense of inevitability about China's rise to world domination.
Now, a Chinese physician and virologist, Dr. Yan Limeng, who fled China and is in hiding in the U.S., has said that China released the virus "intentionally" -- perhaps, one surmises, as a way of torpedoing both President Trump's prospects for re-election and his effort to alter trade deals that have favored China by $600 billion a year. Meanwhile, Twitter thoughtfully deleted Yan's clearly important account.
Ominously, China appears to be doubling down on its effort to checkmate the West's capability to use space-based systems during conflict. If China can successfully blind U.S. systems by offensive cyber operations or outright destruction of U.S. systems by anti-satellite attacks, the war-fighting advantage currently possessed by the West can be annihilated.
The costs to the US of falling behind could well prove catastrophic.

Ominously, China appears to be doubling down on its effort to checkmate the West's capability to use space-based systems during conflict. If China can successfully blind U.S. systems by offensive cyber operations or outright destruction of U.S. systems by anti-satellite attacks, the war-fighting advantage currently possessed by the West can be annihilated. Pictured: China's Long March-5 rocket, carrying an orbiter, lander and rover to Mars, lifts off from the Wenchang Space Launch Centre in Hainan Province on July 23, 2020. (Photo by Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images)

The United States is in a "Tech War" with China, the victor will control the global dissemination of information. The winner will also write the world's rules and standards for emerging technologies in the digital economy.

Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Xi Jinping threw down the gauntlet to the U.S. in a May 2017 speech, where he outlined the plan for establishing a Chinese-supervised "Digital Silk Road." President Xi realizes that the information dimension of modern war is bound up with China's apparent overall objective of unseating the United States as the leader of the existing liberal democratic world order.

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