Opening Remarks
The Re-Ordering of the Middle East (ME)
1. Looking at the title or theme of today’s discussion, “The Re-Ordering of the Middle East (ME)”, as it were. Whenever you use the word ‘order’ in any international context, people would tend to think of it as referring to either stability or predictability – or both.
2. Now if you apply that frame to the ME, you’ll see that the environment has changed very significantly. We can discuss the changes. But are these changes going to result in greater stability or greater predictability? I think that is – you can agree – a very important question.
3. Most people – I think – agree that for there to be any hope of stability in the ME, that is guaranteed, but for there to be even hope of stability, there has got to be a just solution for the Palestinian question.
4. Which would mean a homeland for the Palestinians while Israel’s right to exist is also guaranteed and recognised.
5. We are in the current situation – I think – depending on which part of history you go back to, when you go back to; both sides can be accused of having prevented the arrival of a just solution. Who is getting their hands on which part of history – if you go back roughly to about, say, 30 years ago, I think there was a real hope of peace and a real possibility of peace, and we know what happened then. Looking at it today, I think there seems to be – at least where the leaders of power are in Israel – a desire to take actions which would prevent a Palestinian state. And Israeli leaders, or at least some of them, now categorically reject the two-state solution.
6. What’s our own position? We have made it very clear several times that, at least as of now, Israel’s response has gone too far. And as Prime Minister said on 30 May – and many things have happened since then – Israel’s actions may, and I quote: “even be a likely breach of international humanitarian law”. Many, including I, think that history will probably be harsh in its judgement of Israel’s action. To think that there can be a complete solution through the force of arms, that doesn’t require a just solution, I am not sure that that will bring about any lasting solution.
7. Our own position on the two-state position is clear. We said we will recognise a Palestinian state under certain conditions, and those conditions have been set out. It is fair to say it is difficult to see at present any viable pathway to such a solution. That’s a realistic conclusion. But it’s the only way we think to achieve a comprehensive, just, durable solution to this conflict. The Palestinians deserve no less, so we have to hold out hope.
8. At the same time, let’s recognise something else, which is that the current conflicts between Israel and Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, are not unique. The Congo DRC has been engulfed in conflict, resulting in perhaps as many as 6 million casualties – most of them civilian. Doesn’t get anywhere near the recognition that the Israel-Palestine situation is getting. South Sudan has suffered almost 400,000 casualties – again mainly civilian – in the conflicts leading up to and after its independence in 2011. These are just two examples, and you can go around, and I can mention several others, including in the Middle East, where the casualties are much higher than what’s been happening in Palestine. Doesn’t make any of them right, but they are all happening, and it’s not only happening in one place.
9. So conflict, war, civil war, insurgency, riot, revolution – these have been endemic in what we now call the Global South for the last 80 odd years since the end of the Second World War.
10. And such conflicts obviously bring misery wherever they take place. The Middle East seems particularly unfortunate because it seems to have had more than its fair share of these conflicts. But I think we also have to look at the Middle East and recognise that the conflicts there are unique in the context of the conflicts that are taking place around the rest of the region.
11. The purpose of this session is really to hear you and really have a dialogue. So I will conclude my very brief remarks at this point and let’s try and have a dialogue. Thank you.
Q&A
Question: Minister Shanmugam, would you be kind to share with us the impact of the Gaza conflict in Singapore and in the region? What is the global impact that it is creating outside Gaza, and how does governments and how should governments respond to mitigate the threat, because many of the developments now are affecting regions beyond the region. Thank you very much for your presence.
Minister: I’m not qualified to speak about the rest of the world. But speaking a little bit about Singapore, and maybe based on some knowledge on this region, I would say you can look at the impact at least on three levels. First, at the macro level, across society, there is a sense of partly helplessness, but also a sense, I would say, of revulsion, at the scale of civilian lives being lost, through what appears to be very directed and targeted actions against civilians. The Palestinians being harried into smaller and smaller spaces, and the attacks on the West Bank and the further actions that have been taken. I think you have to say that across religious and racial groups, there is a very high degree of negative feelings, emotions I would say, towards that.
Then, if you go down to the second level, survey after survey shows that the Muslim communities in the region are even more affected. They pay greater attention, and they follow events much more closely, but they also are, I mentioned, very angry about what’s happening. At the third level, which would then be directly relevant to someone like me. The transition from that to people wanting to do something violent about it, either by going over to the Middle East or doing something in Singapore. We have seen some of it. Singapore is perhaps slightly different from other places because we have, as you know, powers to order the detention of people, even as they are thinking about these things. I can sign an order detaining. To my significant concern, I have ordered the detention of persons as young as 16 to 17. Not that many. Still, you can count those numbers on one or two hands. But the fact that, you know, we are picking up 16 year olds and 17 year olds – that tells you that there is a brewing feeling, a significantly brewing feeling, it’s obvious. So there is the threat of terrorism and people wanting to take things into their own hands. I am sure that this feeling is perhaps greater in the other countries, but it is not insignificant feeling in Singapore. So I would, in broad terms, put it on these three levels, but don’t underestimate the feelings that non-Muslims, particularly younger people, have on the events that are taking place, and how they view Israel. In my lifetime, one of the most significant shifts I have seen in public opinion is how Israel has been viewed as a beacon of democracy and shining light, and is the underdog which is being unfairly targeted, to now a completely opposite picture. And the change has taken place in a period of something like, 40 years or so.
Question: Minister Shanmugam, thank you for supporting MEI all these years – all these conferences and seminars. I have one question that is on Indonesia. We usually have a speaker from the Indonesia Policy Bank, Rico Marbun, who is a graduate of RSIS, under Ambassador Barry Desker, and he tracks the opinions of Indonesians. And what is quite remarkable is the percentage of Indonesians, probably younger, their thoughts of Israel is changing quite radically – almost to the 50 per cent level. How do we take into account that, because Indonesia is very important to us and to Middle East.
Minister: It’s one facet, albeit a very important facet of what I have just described. I did say that in the region, the feelings are probably deeper, and I’m surprised it’s only at 50 per cent. I would expect it to be more – this is a country with a population of 270 million, and 87-88% of whom are Muslims, and a country that I think matters on the world stage, and a country with whom Israel would have normally hoped for a relationship. You know, the fact that international opinion is changing quite substantially – I don’t think you need to look at Indonesia for that, I think you can look at Western Europe for that, and even the United States, at the public opinion level. It does force policy makers in the security domain, it does give cause for concern in that the way a significant amount of the population moves in this direction, then you can expect a certain percentage of them to be two or three standard deviations, even more to the right. And they are the people you worry about, in the context of violence, and in such a large population, there is cause for concern, both for them and for us.
Question: Minister, I served in the previous administration and worked on Gaza quite a bit. And, as bad as it was at the transition point of the US administration, safe to say, it is profoundly worse. Going to your comments about security dimension or the impact of the conflict here in Singapore and also other regions, how do you make this point most effectively to the Trump administration?
Minister: How do you make points to the Trump administration? I think if someone can advise me of that, I think maybe Ashok Kumar, recently retired Ambassador to Washington, who is probably in a better position to advise. But on this specific issue, your administration – Biden administration – had its significant differences with Israel. You were in a position to, and probably the only country in the world which was in a position to actually dictate Israel's actions. But you couldn’t, despite your President's significant concerns and differences of opinion with Israeli actions and the Israeli prime minister. In the end, you went along with what Israel did, despite making your unhappiness clear. And that's the Biden administration. The Trump administration, the current administration, does not have as many differences as the Biden administration had, but nevertheless, it does have differences. I don't think that Trump, based on what I read, the current administration's policies - it's not 100% aligned with what Israel is doing. There are some differences, less so than previous administrations, but there are, but nevertheless, the United States has not taken any action to, as far as I can tell, any significant action, to prevent or change Israel's course of action and trajectory. And who do you think is best placed to advise the administration that that trajectory should be changed? And second, do we realistically believe that countries like Singapore or even larger countries, can overcome American viewpoints, which have been pretty much set in concrete over 60, 70 years. There's a certain trajectory with only Israel, and one of which is fundamentally to go along with almost anything that Israel does. And I am not, realistically, a believer that we can alter that course. If you think of a group of countries that can do something about it, perhaps, the countries in the Middle East would possibly have some influence – that's the best answer I can give you. There are some ambassadors or representatives here from Middle Eastern countries, and they might be able to give a better view as to whether they will come together and say anything to the US administration, but I don’t think anyone is holding his or her breath.
Question: One question I would like to ask is, what’s your opinion on Hamas rejecting US’ control of Gaza?
Minister: Hamas is an organisation that, in its charter today, talks about a Palestinian state from the river to the sea, which basically means the obliteration of Israel. And so the Israelis, quite naturally, say they can have no dealings with Hamas, and Hamas needs to be completely obliterated. Whether it is going to be possible, and even if you kill every single person who has identified as a Hamas operative today, the idea behind Hamas, the idea, particularly the central idea of a Palestinian state – can you really kill it? Even if you kill every single Palestinian today, can you kill that idea? Which is why I don't believe that history will judge that Israel’s actions were either wise, or right. So you cannot, I think, completely finish off the idea of a Palestinian state. Maybe today Israeli public opinion, and Israeli leadership think that it’s a very difficult environment they find themselves and that’s the only solution. People looking at them from outside, even if you are friends of Israel, are entitled and often take a different view.
Hamas, if you go back a little bit, I tell people in Singapore when I talk to them in the last year and a half, two years, that it’s difficult to find a way towards peace. You have Hamas, and then you have countries which, or at least one country that used Hamas very cynically, and supported it. But look, the Israeli administration, quite clearly also supported Hamas. Because as long as Hamas was alive and controlling Gaza, Israel could say, “Look, this is the terrorist organization in charge of Gaza, how can we have a two-state solution?”. It’s a completely cynical calculation, and that cynicism was not restricted to Israel. It’s also on the part of Iran, which openly believes that the more people who die in Palestine, the weaker US and Israel will be. And from Iran’s calculation, I’m not sure that Palestine, or the lives of Palestinians, are the most important thing. It is really the leadership of the Islamic world, and the leadership of the Islamic world means preventing the terrorists from giving any guarantees to Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and preventing a deeper and closer relationship with these countries. And how they do that? By putting the Palestinian issue front and centre in everybody’s minds, which will then derail any possible greater cooperation between Saudi Arabia, UAE, others in the region, and the United States. Which would then, in the Iranian calculations, make Iran a more central actor, a more powerful actor. Whether you look at Hamas, whether you look at Israel, whether you look at Iran, it’s difficult to find heroes in this picture. Everyone has his or her own cynical calculations. I think no one has really seriously tried to have a just solution for the Palestinian question.
Moderator: In the interest of time, I’m going to take two final questions from the floor, and then I’m going to have the last question.
Question: I have a question about what is happening lately between several countries, including the UK, France and even Australia, planning to recognise Palestine at the upcoming UN General Assembly. My question is, do you think that there is a possibility that trying to recognise Palestine will put us one step closer to establishing the two-state solution, and if so what conditions must be met in order for countries, more countries – including Singapore, to recognise Palestine?
Minister: You need to divide the actions between those which are purely performative, and those which would have some impact. I think Europe, or European countries recognising Palestine is probably in a different order from say, a country like Singapore recognising Palestine. Let’s say, for the time being, some countries in Europe recognise Palestine. Do they have the power to alter the course of actions in Gaza or in respect? And I said just now that there is only one country that probably has that power, and that is the United States. I don’t think Europe has that power. I don’t think the countries, Middle Eastern countries around Israel have that power. They may have some influence in the United States, but only the US can alter this course. And even then, I’m not sure that it can continue to do so, given its own political realities within the United States, and the fact that Israel might just say no to the United States too.
So, you have to ask whether recognising Palestine today immediately, where there is no viable government, and there is no viable two-state solution, hurts, or advances the Palestinian cause. You recognise, what counteractions do you expect? And how do you think that it’s going to actually change facts on the ground? My suggestion to you is, it’s not going to change it in favour of the Palestinians, it’s likely to harm them even more, realistically. You need some physical space, which Israel is doing its best to prevent. You need a population, which now the current actions seem designed to destroy large parts of the population or move them out of Gaza. Three, you need a viable government. And I don’t see either the Palestinian Authority or anyone else today having the wherewithal. What it really means is supporting the Palestinian Authority, giving them the legitimacy, and building them up to a stage where they can govern, but again, the facts on the ground prevent the international community from doing that. The international community will have one group which will have nothing to do with Israel, and Israel will, of course, ignore them as well. Then you have a second group, countries which want the just solution but are friendly with Israel. I think today, Israel’s administration largely ignores them too. And then you have the United States.
Question: Minister, thank you for your remarks. Just have one question, related to this one. There have been calls for Singapore to take a more firm stance, to downgrade or even break relations with Israel to show our disapproval for their actions. What do you make of this approach?
Minister: When you talk about breaking off relations, I think we need to start off with - what is in our interests, what are the facts, and what does that potentially mean, can it change the course of actions. Since the 7 October, Israel’s actions, I think there is no doubt in anybody’s mind that many of them have been wrong. The numbers vary, but probably 60,000 people have been killed, one-third of them being children reportedly, there is starvation, 20,000 have been admitted to centers for malnutrition, 60% of the buildings in Gaza apparently destroyed, including 90% of the homes and others, hospitals, mosques, cultural centres. 90% of the population of Gaza, nearly 2 million, have been displaced and Israel is expanding its military operations even further. Now, I think it is difficult to describe in words the misery and the scale of destruction – it is quite clearly that this is not acceptable. I refer to what our Prime Minister said in May, and since then there more unspeakable acts have been committed. And, we like many others say, even though it looks like a forlorn hope, that the two-state solution is the only path and that has been our position for many years.
Supposing we go further, what do you think we can do? Is there something we can do, usefully? First of all, it is not that we did nothing and it’s just been words. Since the start of the conflict, Singapore has delivered many tranches of aid to Gaza, humanitarian assistance. Just a few weeks ago, 12th of August, we delivered our ninth tranche, RSAF – the c130 transport aircraft to air drop humanitarian aid including medical supplies and food supplies. I think more than $20 million worth of assistance have been sent over to Gaza, we are amongst the top contributors – I’m not talking about per capita; we are one of the top contributors in ASEAN in terms of aid to Gaza.
And we also work with regional partners, UNICEF, United Nations, RWA, to do what we can to help. And capacity building – sounds absurd right now in this context, but there is an enhanced technical assistance package. More than 800 Palestinian officials have benefitted from training courses, study visits in public administration, digitalisation, public health. We also intend to launch two new initiatives next year to work with Japan to train Palestinian civil police officers. We will launch a young leaders programme to share experiences in public administration. And in the longer term, we are committed to contributing to the reconstruction of Gaza, once a permanent ceasefire agreement is reached. Now, none of these - these are all real, these are all important. Unfortunately none of them can be put into a single headline that will attract eyeballs.
Because this requires explanation and understanding, this is serious work, this is hard work. Breaking off relations is very easy for people, performative. First, if we cut off or reduce ties with Israel, would that be consistent, because if we did that, we have to be consistent with doing that with others in the similar position. So if you got to look around the world, you look at the Syrian civil war going on for the last 15 years, maybe now there is a little more peace - more than 500,000 people have been killed, almost 10 times the number who have been killed in Gaza; 14 million displaced. If you take the approach that you have to cut off ties with people who commit humanitarian breaches, then I think there are many actors in the Syrian civil war who qualify, including those who supplied arms, and several of them are P5 countries. To be consistent, you should be cutting off ties with them. And the other countries which took part in the civil war, likewise, because they are responsible for the civilian deaths, we should be cutting off ties with them too, if you want to be consistent. If you take the Yemen civil war, 2015 onwards, hundreds of thousands killed, 5 million displaced, 20 million depend on aid to survive, one in two children severely malnourished - there are several actors who are responsible, or could be said to be responsible for this. Should we be cutting off ties with all of them? I don’t see many calls for that. We look at who they are, they could be P5 countries, they could be countries in the region, so I am not going to name any specific actor, but you can argue it is Country A, Country B, Country C, do we declare and say that we take a policy to cut ties with everyone who is in breach of international law? You have the Myanmar civil war – economic collapse, three and a half million people displaced, plenty of them in need of humanitarian assistance, credible reports of the government bombings on the civilians. Do we cut our ties with Myanmar? Do we cut our ties with the countries which supply them with weapons? We need to be consistent with the foreign policy.
Will you take Russia? Russia-Ukraine war – more than 1 million casualties, 12 million Ukrainians in need of humanitarian assistance, 2 million children. Should we be cutting off ties with Russia? Why not? If you want to cut off ties with Israel, you should be cutting off ties with Russia, and on the basis of what I just outlined, you should be cutting off ties with the United States, France, Britain, all of whom have been supplying weapons to many of these conflicts. We won’t have any one in the P5 with whom we can have a diplomatic relationship with. You apply it consistently and not emotionally. Bad as they are, the casualties, and no one can justify them, the point is, equally bad or worse things happening around the world, and our approach has to be consistent to all of them.
And the second point – cut off ties with Israel. How is that going to help the people of Gaza? How does that give us any hope of continuing to speak with the Israeli government and putting forth our viewpoints? We are not the most significant player in terms of Israel government opinion, but we are not completely insignificant, because of the long relationship. If we speak, they do listen, as long as we are sensible. It doesn’t mean they follow, but at least they listen. You cut it off – how does it help the Palestinians? Really, that's you know –you can get angry, but foreign policy is going to be based on more realistic and unemotional, non-emotional calculation.
And if you take that approach to survey around the world, basically, there's only one power that can deal with Israel, and that's not Singapore, that's not Britain, that's not France, that's not Germany, and which means that you accept that there are limitations on what you can do, and you work within that framework, and you can explain your position to your population. I think that is the best answer I can give you.
Question: Minister, if I can exercise my prerogative chairing this dialogue – the last question. I think, it's understandable that we are all seized with the Palestinian issue, and Gaza in particular. But if I invite you to just take a step back, look at the Middle East, what do you think some of the key trends, you think we should keep an eye on?
Minister: Taking a security focus, or rather, you take one step back, before 7 October. I think there were many developments that were cause for optimism in a region that has been long beset with the conflict. If you looked at Saudi Arabia, the sweeping changes that was giving new rigor to the economy, adding new aspects to the economy, women in the workforce. Two visits, three years apart, and I could see the difference. It was so dynamic. The changes were so apparent. And trying to move out of a pure, resource-based economy to I believe many other things. United Arab Emirates (UAE), you see how they also trying to move out, moving into technology, you know, limitations because of a small population, but put in their best, and they’re blessed with money, so, you know, they can try and do the best they can to bring in expertise. We are a small country, small population. We are doing reasonably well, so others can do too. And UAE was making significant strides. Oman, others, if peace had continued, you had every hope that that trajectory would have continued. The 7 October conflict affected, I think, by bringing the Palestinian question to the centre and in some ways, putting a pall over the continued progress.
But I have no doubt those countries will continue to progress, and that should not be forgotten. But the conflict has the potential to radicalise sections of the population, perhaps even large sections of the population, or at least make them more resistant to say, changes in other fields. I don't know, I speak as an outsider. So that's one concern. And as long as you don't have a just solution for the Palestinian question, then you have to ask whether Israel can live at peace with its own significant Arab population within its borders, and whether the region can put this aside and move on and have economic progress for the benefit of its people, or whether this question will keep coming back, as long as you don't have a just solution. And it then allows other countries within the region, including Iran, to try and influence action sent one way or another, more favorable to them. So you have a problem there.
I am still optimistic about the progress of the rest of the region in that area – some faster, some slower, but I don't underestimate that the impact this war will have to inflame public opinion and affect the support of the public for other measures. It's not easy to say that.
Moderator: Thank you, Minister.
