Two Japanese have been taken hostages by the IS. One of them is believed to have been already killed. The second one has said in his broadcast late last night, Japan time, that he has been given twenty-four hours to live unless a woman terrorist captive by the Jordanian Government is released.
Here I would like to write several questions concerning Japanese PM Abe's recent Middle East tour which immediately preceded this crisis during which the IS made the first announcement that they would murder the hostages.
Abe and his entourage left Japan on 16 January. Their first visit was to Egypt, where Abe gave a speech outlining his Middle East policy on 17. My first question is why he said that he would give $ 200 million as humanitarian grant-in-aid specifically to those Arab countries fighting the IS. Abe must have been known about the two hostages in their hands. Did at least this part of his speech not amount to provocation to the IS?
After the speech he conferred with the Egyptian President, the former Army Chief of Staff, who and whose Government are strongly hostile to the Muslim Brotherhood, and said that democratic transition of power was in progress in Egypt. This was clearly another provocation.
Then he visited Jordan on 17 and 18, meeting the King on both days, and proceeded to Israel. He conferred with the Israeli Prime Minister on two days, 18 and 19, reportedly on how to cope with the Islamists. He, incidentally, also met the hawkish US Republican Senator McCain. My third question is if he did not notice how dangerous it could be for the lives of the hostages to show publicly such intimate relations with the Israeli Government.
On 20, the next day, while Abe was still in Jerusalem, the first announcement by the IS was broadcast. Abe denounced it in a press conference in Jerusalem. He then visited the Palestinian President in the West Bank on the same day, returned to Jerusalem, and came home on 21. Before coming home, however, he put the Vice Foreign Minister, who was in the entourage, in charge of the on-the-spot operation to be based at the Japanese Embassy in Jordan. Jordan is among the US-led coalition of the willing against the IS. Is the location appropriate?
My fifth and final question is, why even now does Abe not try to keep distance from the US? The IS is, after all, a part of the legacy of the Iraq invasion of 2003. Japan supported that invasion, and even sent a token military contingent. For this reason alone, it is high time Japan might come away from the US intentions. At the moment she is moving in the opposite direction. When the murder of the first hostage had been broadcast on 24, Abe phoned up Obama who was in India the next day. This is hardly the way Japan can make contribution to a peaceful solution of the many-faceted Middle Eastern crisis.
Here I would like to write several questions concerning Japanese PM Abe's recent Middle East tour which immediately preceded this crisis during which the IS made the first announcement that they would murder the hostages.
Abe and his entourage left Japan on 16 January. Their first visit was to Egypt, where Abe gave a speech outlining his Middle East policy on 17. My first question is why he said that he would give $ 200 million as humanitarian grant-in-aid specifically to those Arab countries fighting the IS. Abe must have been known about the two hostages in their hands. Did at least this part of his speech not amount to provocation to the IS?
After the speech he conferred with the Egyptian President, the former Army Chief of Staff, who and whose Government are strongly hostile to the Muslim Brotherhood, and said that democratic transition of power was in progress in Egypt. This was clearly another provocation.
Then he visited Jordan on 17 and 18, meeting the King on both days, and proceeded to Israel. He conferred with the Israeli Prime Minister on two days, 18 and 19, reportedly on how to cope with the Islamists. He, incidentally, also met the hawkish US Republican Senator McCain. My third question is if he did not notice how dangerous it could be for the lives of the hostages to show publicly such intimate relations with the Israeli Government.
On 20, the next day, while Abe was still in Jerusalem, the first announcement by the IS was broadcast. Abe denounced it in a press conference in Jerusalem. He then visited the Palestinian President in the West Bank on the same day, returned to Jerusalem, and came home on 21. Before coming home, however, he put the Vice Foreign Minister, who was in the entourage, in charge of the on-the-spot operation to be based at the Japanese Embassy in Jordan. Jordan is among the US-led coalition of the willing against the IS. Is the location appropriate?
My fifth and final question is, why even now does Abe not try to keep distance from the US? The IS is, after all, a part of the legacy of the Iraq invasion of 2003. Japan supported that invasion, and even sent a token military contingent. For this reason alone, it is high time Japan might come away from the US intentions. At the moment she is moving in the opposite direction. When the murder of the first hostage had been broadcast on 24, Abe phoned up Obama who was in India the next day. This is hardly the way Japan can make contribution to a peaceful solution of the many-faceted Middle Eastern crisis.
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