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07.23.11 6:51 PM ET

The Billionaire and the Fugitive

The story of how Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan worked with Israeli intelligence. An exclusive excerpt from 'Confidential: The Life of Secret Agent Turned Hollywood Tycoon Arnon Milchan.'

In Hollywood, Arnon Milchan is best known as the billionaire producer of films like Pretty Woman and LA Confidential, and as the owner of Fox-based New Regency. But there is another Arnon Milchan, as Meir Doron and Joseph Gelman reveal in their new biography, Confidential: The Life of Secret Agent Turned Hollywood Tycoon Arnon Milchan.

For the first time, the writers expose how in the mid-1960s, while still in his early 20s, Milchan was recruited by Israel’s secretive spy agency, LAKAM; how he became a key operative for Israel’s top master spies, Benjamin Blumberg and Rafi Eitan, and a confidant of such powerful Israeli politicians as President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; and how he participated in a web of complex undercover schemes to procure armaments for his country.

In this adaption from their book, they detail Milchan’s controversial relationship with American aerospace engineer Richard Smyth, a friend who became a fugitive after the U.S. accused him of illegally smuggling nuclear-bomb triggers to Israel. We pick up the two men’s story in May 1985.

Arnon Milchan was nervous, very nervous. He had just received a phone call at his Paris apartment from a Newsweek reporter seeking his reaction to the stunning indictment of Dr. Richard Kelly Smyth, president of California-based Milco Ltd.—an Israeli intelligence front company—for shipping krytrons to one of Milchan’s Tel Aviv companies.

Krytrons are sophisticated triggers for the detonation of nuclear bombs. According to Smyth, Milchan’s company had pushed him hard for the krytrons and knew perfectly what they were for—even though it was illegal to export them from the U.S. without a U.S. State Department munitions license. Milchan’s Heli Trading Ltd. had ordered 14 shipments totaling 810 krytrons from 1979-82. Now U.S. Customs and the FBI had moved in and the entire Milco operation was in jeopardy. Milchan feared that a politically ambitious and publicity-hungry U.S. prosecutor would come hunting for him, he told us.

After a short conversation with the Newsweek reporter, in which Milchan pleaded ignorance, he booked the ﬁrst available ﬂight to Tel Aviv. Within hours, TV crews were camped in front of his penthouse and the phone was ringing oﬀ the hook.

There was one call he could not avoid—from his mother, Shoshanna. “Everyone is calling my son an arms dealer,” she said, bursting into tears. “It’s embarrassing.”

Arnon was devastated.

“Mother, it’s not like I’m instigating wars in third-world countries and shipping them guns,” he told her. “I’m doing this to help our country.”

***

Milchan first met Smyth in 1968, when U.S.-based defense contractor Rockwell Inc. sent its newly appointed vice president to Tel Aviv to downgrade relations, under pressure from the Arab world.

Smyth was a senior engineer who had grown up in rural Oklahoma and struggled to put himself through school, obtaining a B.S. in physics from Caltech as well as a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and mathematics from USC. Along the way, he’d gotten married and fathered ﬁve children.

In his early 40s, he couldn’t be more different from the flamboyant figure he now met at the Tel Aviv airport. Tall, athletic and rich, Milchan was only 24 years old but had already made a mark in Israel, where he had taken over his late father’s fertilizer company and transformed it from near-bankruptcy to mega-million success.

As Milchan grew the business, he had come to the attention of up-and-coming politician Shimon Peres, who introduced Milchan to Benjamin Blumberg, nicknamed Israel’s “prince of silence,” the head of LAKAM (a Hebrew acronym for the Science Liaison Bureau). LAKAM’s very existence was unknown to the United States at the time.

Milchan’s recruitment in the 60’s was gradual. “It was almost a glamorous thing to be involved,” he acknowledged in a March 5, 2000 60 Minutes interview. “Everybody looked to me as a James Bond.” He confirmed his involvement to us in a November 2009 interview at his offices on the 20^th Century Fox lot, one of a number of meetings we had with him between August 2009 and March 2010.

confidential arnon milchan — Confidential: The Life of Secret Agent Turned Hollywood Tycoon, Arnon Milchan by Meir Doron and Joseph Gelman. 310 pages. Gefen Books. $24.95.

Blumberg taught Milchan how to establish front companies and secret bank accounts; meanwhile, foreign arms suppliers like Rockwell and Raytheon were encouraged to hire Milchan as their “representative” in Israel. Within a few years, he was acting as a middleman for weapons transactions, raking in hundreds of millions of dollars in commissions that in fact would fund LAKAM and Mossad activities.

Now here he was, meeting Smyth on Israel’s behalf, to do a deal with Rockwell. Its representative, he discovered, was a modestly successful functionary with a strong taste for the good life, money and women, possessed of a rather inﬂated ego, who insisted on using his “doctor” title at every opportunity.

Over the ensuing years, this disparate pair would grow closer.

Their first joint endeavor was a Rockwell–Israel Aircraft Industries project called Ibex, designed to develop a sophisticated ring of electronic listening posts around the borders of Iran, as Milchan confirmed in our interview.

“I established strong connections between Rockwell and Israel Aircraft Industries,” Milchan acknowledged, adding that he tried but failed to connect Rockwell, Smyth and other companies in Israel.

Throughout these early years, Smyth remained a devoted employee of Rockwell—which, at its peak, was number 27 on the Forbes 500 list. But Smyth’s desire to do bigger and better was evident, and Milchan, a man of considerable charm, knew how to exploit it. So in late 1972, over dinner at Tel Aviv’s Kasbah restaurant, he suggested this was the moment for Smyth to make “real money” in his own procurement business by striking out on his own. It was a risk; matters like health insurance, retirement pension and job security weighed heavily on Smyth.

But when Milchan emphasized that he could supply him with all of the orders he could possibly handle, Smyth agreed.

“Greed was certainly a factor,” Milchan reflected when we asked about Smyth’s thinking.

Smyth broached the notion to Rockwell and was surprised that his bosses were delighted: Having him operate independently gave them a solution to the constant pressure they’d felt from the Saudis to cut ties with Israel. Instead of ordering from Rockwell directly, trade with Israel could be funneled through Smyth’s new company, Milco International Inc.

And so on January 19, 1973, Smyth oﬃcially registered Milco in Orange County, Calif., and got his new business under way. Its dealings with Milchan Brothers—Arnon’s Israel-based company—were simple: Milchan’s oﬃce manager, Dvora Ben Yitzhak, working directly with Blumberg, would send a coded telex to Smyth listing sensitive items that they wished to order on behalf of Israel. Milchan himself would make contact only when necessary.

“Everything I did, I did in coordination with Mr. Milchan and was in contact with him almost on a daily basis,” Dvora told us in October 2009.

“Milco and their employees had secret clearances that permitted them to [obtain] consulting contracts with government agencies and contractors,” Smyth wrote in an extraordinary book about his exploits, Irrational Indictment & Imprisonment For Export Krytrons to Israel, written in 2008 under the pseudonym Dr. Jon Schiller—one of several sources for Smyth’s true story, in addition to documentation from his legal proceedings and confirmation supplied by a high-level Israeli intelligence operative.

After a while, that included the purchase of krytrons, a small, seventy five dollar, cold-cathode gas filled tube intended for use as a high-speed switch, which among other things, serves as triggers for the detonation of nuclear bombs. It was illegal to export krytrons at the time without a munitions export license, and its export to Israel had been rejected before.

“It’s always the little things that cause the most problems,” Milchan shrugged, when we asked him about it.

***

Over the following decade, Smyth’s business moved briskly.

He was able to ship long lists of sensitive products to Israel: training simulators for air defense missiles, voice scramblers and lasers, computerized flight control systems, thermal batteries, gyroscopes for missile guidance systems, neutron generators, high-speed oscilloscopes, high voltage condensers, and many other dual-use components—almost everything a country might need to turn itself into a high-tech, nuclear armed powerhouse.

Smyth’s relationship with Milchan was all-important; over 80 percent of his business with Israel was done through Milchan Bros. and satellite companies such as Heli Trading. Thanks to Milchan, Smyth grew wealthy, maintaining two waterfront properties in Huntington Beach and an apartment on Catalina Island, Calif. He joined the local Cabrillo Beach Yacht Club there and by 1977 had reached the membership rank of commodore.

Life for the commodore was good.

It was also good for Milchan, who had started producing movies, initially with the David Soul starrer The Stick-Up, “a movie so bad that I had my name removed from the credits,” he told us. That was followed by Black Joy, The Medusa Touch starring Richard Burton, and the Robert De Niro vehicle King of Comedy.

Then on Christmas Eve, 1984, just as Milchan was working on Once Upon a Time in America, Smyth flipped through his mail and found a letter ordering him to appear before a federal prosecutor in Los Angeles to answer questions about the krytrons and face possible charges of high crimes and misdemeanors.

Smyth felt a sudden sinking feeling. Even though he would later claim he was ignorant about the illegality of his exports, he knew just how severe the punishment could be.

He tried desperately to reach Milchan—and failed.

“I felt bad, but I was ordered to cut all contact with Smyth,” Milchan maintained.

Informing his attorney that his court appearance was scheduled to take place at the precise time his family would be on vacation in Israel—true, as it turned out—Smyth was granted permission to leave the country, provided he post a $1 million bond.

In Israel, Smyth began a frantic search for his patron. He went to Milchan’s oﬃce, dialed every number he knew, stopped by restaurants they had frequented together, even reached out to LAKAM and high-level oﬃcials he had met there. Every door snapped shut.

Then he received a call from Dvora, who agreed to meet with him.

During that meeting at the Tel Aviv Hilton, the two discussed Smyth’s situation at length. Dvora asked what information Smyth had divulged about her boss, along with any other activities he might have unveiled. Smyth insisted he’d said nothing incriminating; even so, he was never allowed to speak to Milchan himself.

Back home, petrified, Smyth couldn’t sleep. He was facing 105 years in prison for what he portrayed as essentially a clerical error. Terror consumed him. He’d become radioactive as far as his former friends were concerned.

“When we went to social meetings and walked towards longtime friends to talk to them, they would turn their backs and walk away,” he wrote in Irrational Indictment. Worse, he was strapped for cash, too, as almost all of Milco’s orders had dried up, and attorneys’ fees were piling up.

Tempted to throw himself at the mercy of the prosecutor, he didn’t only because his wife, Emilie, refused. Then in 1985, Emilie herself broke down. Rushing out of the Milco oﬃces where she worked with her husband, sobbing, she drove home and drank an entire bottle of vodka. Her daughter found her unconscious on the ﬂoor and raced her to the hospital, where she recovered.

Finally, in August, Smyth received a call from his attorney’s assistant urging a plea bargain and informing him it was the ﬁrm’s considered opinion there was a good chance he’d face prison.

“How can I go to prison?” Smyth demanded, according to the book. “I haven’t done anything wrong!”

“Don’t you know prisons are full of people who didn’t do anything wrong?” the assistant responded.

In that moment, Smyth knew he and his wife must follow a plan they had already set in motion that would change their lives forever.

Taking Milco’s $15,000 emergency cash reserve, Smyth dyed his gray hair black. The couple packed lightly, in a state of deep fear and paranoia, then drove randomly for about 20 minutes, making U-turns and detours, hyper-alert to the danger of being followed. Once satisﬁed they were safe, they headed for Los Angeles International Airport, where they abandoned their car with the keys in it, and paid cash for one-way paid tickets out of the country.

“We hurried to board the aircraft,” Smyth recalled in the book. “All we were carrying after our 34 years of marriage were two under-the-seat luggage pieces.”

In Frankfurt, a German official opened the passport of one Dr. Jon Schiller. Everything was spot-on. After a brief hesitation, he stamped the passport and said, “Welcome to Germany.”

***

While the Smyths were on the run, Milchan was engaged in a battle with Universal over executive Sidney Sheinberg’s refusal to release his and director Terry Gilliam’s movie Brazil. The drama led Gilliam to take out a full-page ad in the trades demanding that the movie be released; it also strained Milchan’s dealings with a top Hollywood power player, Lew Wasserman’s right-hand man.

But the “Schillers” were dealing with bigger problems. They quickly left Frankfurt for Zurich, Switzerland, where they waited desperately for financial support from LAKAM. At last, the money arrived and the Smyths relocated to a new safe house in Malaga. Incremental deposits to their bank account gave them the means to survive and allowed them, for the first time in months, to breathe easier.

Time passed; weeks turned to years; their paranoia faded and the couple almost forgot they were fugitives. Under the Schiller alias, they even voted in the Malaga municipal elections.

According to Smyth’s self-published book—something confirmed by Dvora herself—Milchan’s assistant maintained regular communication with him, via telephone and fax, though he and Emilie never heard directly from Milchan. Little by little, they grew to feel secure, with enough money to meet their basic needs. Life wasn’t luxurious, but at least it was free from danger.

By 1994, Smyth had spent nine years in Spain as a fugitive. Turning 65, unhappy with his modest lifestyle, especially when compared to his glory days of yachting and multiple residences, he took a mind-boggling risk and applied for his U.S. Social Security beneﬁts, betting that no low-level bureaucrat in the Social Security Administration would make the connection.

He was right—at first. For seven more years, the Smyths lived on both that income and the money LAKAM had supplied them. And then, in June 2001, everything unraveled.

It began harmlessly enough, with a call from the manager of Banco Bilbao in Malaga, who asked Schiller to stop by. During their meeting, he informed him he’d have to obtain a non-resident permit in order to continue banking there. This, in turn, meant a visit to the local police station.

Upon arriving at the station, Smyth and his wife were instructed to go to the back oﬃce and wait. After 15 minutes, Smyth turned to Emilie and asked, “What’s taking so long?” Then a tall oﬃcer in a dark blue uniform entered the room, walked over to a fax machine and pulled out a paper. He handed it to Smyth without a word. The fugitive was shocked to see a black-and-white photo of himself, taken some 20 years earlier. The word “Interpol” was marked at the top of the page.

A sudden sense of dread overcame him.

“Is this you?” the officer asked. Smyth confirmed it was. Then the officer turned to Emilie and announced, “I am placing this man under arrest.”

Overnight, Smyth’s life was transformed.

He was shoved into a concrete, windowless cell with a raised cement area that served as a bed and two ﬁlthy blankets. The toilet down the hall was a simple hole in the ground with no toilet paper. Food was served in small plastic containers. There were no guards at night, so when the 72-year-old prisoner had to urinate, he did so on the ﬂoor of his cell.

That ﬁrst night was hell. He went through the process that led to his capture over and over, knowing he’d had multiple opportunities to dodge this outcome: He could have avoided applying for Social Security; he could have walked right out of the police station; he could simply have denied that the man in the picture was him. He could have stayed at Rockwell all those years ago and avoided the whole mess.

When Milchan heard of Smyth’s arrest, he knew it would be a big deal. His name would be mentioned—not for the first time—in connection to what he’d described to The Los Angeles Times in 1992 as “the unbelievable stupid krytron story.” On the one hand, he was furious at the carelessness of it all; on the other, he felt sorry for the man.

On November 15, 2001, more than 16 years after Smyth’s escape to Frankfurt, he was extradited to the United States. There, Judge Pamela Ann Rymer handed down a prison sentence of 40 months and a $20,000 fine, with two years’ probation—a light sentence compared to what he had faced 16 years earlier. Still, Smyth sat in the courtroom in shock, unable to move.

It would be four years before he was a free man.

***

Milchan has always insisted he knew nothing about the krytrons. “I’m not saying I’m an innocent person, but in this specific case, I knew nothing about it,” he told Premiere magazine in June 1993.

When interviewed for this book, he insisted he never profited from the arms deals, but merely took part in them as a service to his country—something confirmed by Shimon Peres.

“I am restrained from recommending any single individual for our highest defense-related honor,” he told us, “but undoubtedly Milchan is worthy of such an acknowledgement.”

The Smyth incident has barely affected Milchan. His business has grown; he is now married to his second wife, Amanda Coetzer, a former South African tennis star; he has residences all over the world, from Tel Aviv to South Africa to Malibu. He also has friends at the highest echelons of power, in Hollywood and politics. Rupert Murdoch, an investor in New Regency, calls him one of the most honest men he knows. He is admired, if not always loved.

As for Smyth, today, he ekes out a living conducting investment seminars. He is still living with his wife of 60 years, Emilie, and his past as a celebrated fugitive has almost been forgotten. But he has lost his money, his reputation and his various houses.

When we tracked him down in August, 2009, he looked old and frail and was living in a mobile home in Lompoc, Calif.—ironically, just 30 miles from Arnon Milchan’s vineyard.

It’s been 26 years since the two men last spoke.

Tim Mak

Twins

06.02.16 5:20 PM ET

Hillary Clinton Nukes Donald Trump With Marco Rubio’s Bombs

Hillary Clinton took it to Donald Trump in a scathing speech on national security on Thursday. But the rhetoric sounded very familiar.

Hillary Clinton delivered a powerful, yet strangely familiar national security speech as she kicked off her general election matchup with Donald Trump Thursday in San Diego.

That’s because Marco Rubio has, in virtually the same language, already given it.

Clinton’s speech mercilessly and repeatedly mocked Trump’s character; featured a soaring, more optimistic version of America; condemned the businessman as “dangerous”; and appealed to the nation to elect someone with a more stable temperament to handle the nation’s nuclear codes.

For Clinton, the speech was the first major foreign policy salvo against Trump as she transitions to a general election. Her hawkish positions, developed over years in the Democratic foreign policy establishment, have been closer to Rubio’s traditional foreign policy platform than Trump’s have been.

They may even share some of the same guidance: Beacon Global Strategies, a small bipartisan consulting firm, has provided foreign policy advice to both Clinton and Marco Rubio.

“She actually sounds more Reaganesque than the GOP nominee,” Dan Drezner, a professor of international politics at Tufts University, told The Daily Beast after Clinton’s speech.

And it comes as The New York Times reports that the Clinton campaign is reaching out to prominent moderate Republicans to endorse her on the basis of her foreign policy bona fides.

Granted, there were no jokes about small hands, but Clinton’s mockery was scathing because it was delivered so seriously—it was not Trump, but Trump’s ideas, that were the target of her audience’s laughter.

“He says he doesn’t have to listen to our generals or admirals, our ambassadors and other high officials, because he has, quote, ‘a very good brain,’” Clinton said Thursday, to peals of laughter.

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“He says he has foreign policy experience because he ran the Miss Universe pageant in Russia,” she continued, with eyebrows raised in disbelief.

“Donald Trump’s ideas aren’t just different. They are dangerously incoherent. They’re not even really ideas, just a series of bizarre rants, personal feuds and outright lies,” she said.

“We all know the tools Donald Trump brings to the table: bragging, mocking, composing nasty tweets—I’m willing to bet he’s writing a few right now,” she grinned, no doubt aware of how much this might get under Trump’s skin.

(Spoiler: it did.)

Compare that to the speeches Rubio made in the last weeks of his campaign against Trump—at an athletic facility in Manchester, N.H or outside a mom-and-pop store near Miami.

Rubio, in February, lamented the idea of “the nuclear codes of the United States—to an erratic individual.”

“This is not someone who should ever have the nuclear codes, because it’s not hard to imagine Donald Trump leading us into a war just because somebody got under his very thin skin,” Clinton said Thursday afternoon.

Both Rubio and Clinton have now called The Donald “dangerous.” And both, in their campaigns, have appealed to a more optimistic version of American society:

“This election is a choice between two very different visions of America: one that’s angry, afraid and based on the idea that America is fundamentally weak and in decline. The other is hopeful, generous and confident in the knowledge that America is great just like we always have been. So, let’s resolve that we can be greater still. that is what I believe in my heart,” Clinton said.

Close your eyes. Can you hear Rubio speaking those words?

That’s because he did, essentially.

“I would remind everyone America is great,” Rubio said in September. “There’s no nation on earth I would trade places with. There’s no other country I would rather be.”

A large group of Republican national security leaders signed an open letter in March argued that with Trump in the White House, “he would use the authority of his office to act in ways that make America less safe, and which would diminish our standing in the world.” They condemned his advocacy for “trade wars,” the use of torture, anti-Muslim rhetoric and his admiration for dictators like Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

“This is a man who said that more countries should have nuclear weapons, including Saudi Arabia. This is someone who has threatened to abandon our allies in NATO… he believes we can treat the U.S. economy like one of his casinos and default on our debts to the rest of the world,” Clinton said Thursday.

In contrast to Trump, Clinton supported the Iraq War (which she now believes was a mistake); supported aid for Syrian rebels and a no-fly zone to protect civilians; and is staunchly pro-Israel.

“Hillary’s about appealing as leukemia. But she’s not insane,” said John Noonan, a former staffer on the Republican-controlled House Armed Services Committee and a signatory to the open letter. “Her prognosis is accurate. Trump’s a fascist lunatic whose ideas mean the end of a golden age of US global leadership.”

But Noonan, who worked for Jeb Bush in the 2016 presidential campaign, is skeptical a serious-minded approach will work for Clinton as the election bout continues over the next six months.

“[S]he’s wrong to think that ideas matter in this election. They don’t. We learned that the hard way in the primary. She should just call him the tiny-handed criminal that he is and leave the foreign policy mumbo jumbo to the eggheads,” he told The Daily Beast.

Rubio, in closing out his 2016 campaign, urged his fellow Republicans: “do not give into the fear, do not give into the frustration… we are a hopeful people, and we have every right to be hopeful.”

His campaign may have ended—but this spirit lived on, and will continue to live on, in an unlikely place: his nemesis Hillary Clinton’s bid to what he couldn’t—end Trump’s chances for the White House.

“Making Donald Trump our commander-in-chief would be a historic mistake… it would fuel an ugly narrative about who we are—that we’re fearful, not confident… that’s not the America I know and love,” Clinton said.

Emma Beals

Hunger Games

06.02.16 6:20 PM ET

The Syrian Humanitarian Food Farce

Wednesday’s UN aid delivery to a besieged Damascus suburb was pitiful, and shows how much the Assad regime, infamous for siege and starve tactics, still runs the show.

LONDON — Lice shampoo—more than one bottle for every two residents. Sand-fly nets—more than 1,000 of them, designed to stop the spread of leishmaniasis, a sand-fly-borne skin disorder that isn’t prevalent in southern Syria.

After four years, the 4,000 residents of the besieged Damascus suburb of Darayya received their first official multi-agency United Nations aid convoy Wednesday. But documents viewed by The Daily Beast show that the convoy carried items that are largely useless to the population, whose primary concerns are starvation and disease. And even at that, the Assad government gave the convoy permission for the partial delivery in an eleventh-hour concession to stop the UN from staging air drops of desperately needed aid.

Darayya is only 15 kilometers—fewer than 10 miles—from downtown Damascus. Despite extensive social media fanfare by the agencies taking part in the convoy, the first “successful” delivery to the area since 2012 was far from cause for celebration for the besieged residents.

“It is unprecedented in areas of conflict that the UN and the aid community as a whole is not allowed to access an area for four years,” a UN official who did not want to be named for fear of the impact on the work of their organization, told The Daily Beast.

The U.S, Britain and France have pressed the UN to start the air drops, but as the BBC is reporting, UN deputy special envoy for Syria Ramzi Essedine Ramzi says they are not “imminent.” Jan Egeland, UN humanitarian coordinator, says deliveries are planned for Friday, but suggested they may be delayed, claiming there are “clear indications” the deliveries will go ahead some time in the next several days.

So, for now, there’s no food and precious few medicines. A Darayya resident told The Daily Beast that even the small number of medicines received were, “not close to enough according to the field hospital, and only small part was [what was] really needed.”

Images apparently from the besieged suburb, which could not be independently verified by The Daily Beast, showed trucks arriving that were half empty and contained boxes which appeared to have been ransacked en route.

Former UN staff members told The Daily Beast that on other occasions, even once the location of a delivery had been approved by the government and the contents of the delivery agreed between the UN agencies and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, interference can then occur while the trucks are loaded and again at checkpoints.

This previously occurred in Darayya when a partial delivery of aid finally was approved last month, but turned back on May 13 by Syrian government forces manning the final checkpoint at the edge of the suburb. At the time a UN spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, told reporters that the UN aborted the mission to Darayya “because the convoy was refused entry, due to the medical and nutritional supplies on board.”

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Following the departure of the convoy, civilians in Darayya were shelled by Syrian army positions. Negotiations among all parties have been ongoing since, to secure access.

According to information provided to The Daily Beast, written approval from the Syrian government, which approves or rejects—but frequently simply ignores—all requests for aid delivery, came late on May 30, just 24 hours before the deadline to provide access to besieged areas set by the International Syria Support Group (ISSG).

The deadline was set after the international coalition of countries met last month and agreed that airdrops of aid would begin if access to besieged areas was not forthcoming; 16 of the 19 areas in Syria under siege are besieged by the Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government.

The viability of deliveries in the coming days, remains unclear as the 48 hour local truce between government forces and rebel groups in Darayya is due to expire at midnight Thursday night, prior to the scheduled delivery of food items to the besieged area.

In the days leading up to the current truce there was heavy shelling in the area and residents of Darayya expect it to continue. The frequent shelling means most residents live primarily in basements, and field clinics are run underground, to avoid injury. This makes Wednesday’s delivery of sand-fly nets all the more baffling. The risk of transmission is very low in the south, especially for those living underground.

Darayya was one of early strongholds of dissent against the Assad government when the uprising began in Syria in 2011. When many local residents were arrested, locals took up arms. In August 2012, a massacre of several hundred people took place at the hands of Syrian Arab Army forces and regime loyalist militias (shabiha). In November of that year, military checkpoints appeared around the suburb and access into or out of Darayya has been extremely difficult since.

Many humanitarian workers are appalled that their work is impeded so extensively in Syria. “The truth is, these places aren’t ‘hard-to-reach’ in a way that would normally require airdrops; they’re ‘hard-to-reach’ because they’ve become political bargaining chits,” says Ashley Proud, humanitarian director of Mercy Corps in Syria. “The only reason we aren’t able to get aid in through cost-effective ground access is the intransigence of parties to the conflict. The ISSG and international community must push harder for consistent, unfettered access for all humanitarian groups. The continued failure to allow for the delivery of life-saving aid to innocent civilians is shameful.”

According to information shared with The Daily Beast, 23 requests for access were made by UN agencies in Damascus in May, aiming to reach 35 areas; 15 of those were approved, of which yesterday’s delivery was one. Not all of the approved requests have resulted in deliveries for varying reasons, some to do with security and others because local actors have blocked them, including localized Syrian government officials. For the month of June, similar numbers of requests for access were made, while the Syrian government added a number of locations to the list which they have recently regained control of, such as Palmyra. The outcome of these requests to reach “hard-to-reach” areas is still unclear.

While in the majority of besieged areas access is restricted by the Syrian government forces, in a handful of cases the areas are besieged by other actors. Notably, in the eastern city of Deir Ezzour, government loyalists are under siege by ISIS forces.

The World Food Programme (WFP) is working with Syrian and Russian actors to provide food aid to those civilians by airdrop. Over 40 kilos of food aid per resident has so far been delivered, according to UN documents, although the nature of airdrops prevents aid agencies from verifying how much is received by each beneficiary. These drops have been heralded by United Nations envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura as an example of the success of such measures, despite the fact they required no concessions by the Syrian government and did not result in access to any of the areas the government has under siege.

The system of approval and denial of access for aid convoys has been controversial throughout the conflict, which has now been raging for more than five years. The Syrian government has used “starve and siege” all along, meaning dozens of areas are deprived of food, medicines and basic needs, despite the enormous humanitarian presence in the country.

In 2014, United Nations Security Council resolutions were passed to allow humanitarian aid to enter Syria “cross-border” from neighboring countries without the government’s permission as access had been repeatedly denied and NGOs were working secretly in the country at great risk.

In Damascus, out of respect for Syrian sovereignty, United Nations agencies are forced to work closely with the Syrian government, to determine where they can provide aid and which items they can provide. Agencies are terrified of losing access to large parts of the country, or having their visas and imports denied, if they do not cooperate.

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said Wednesday that the latest agreement was a cynical move designed to avoid airdrops of aid to besieged areas of the country. “While air drops are complex, costly and risky, they are now the last resort to relieve human suffering across many besieged areas,” he said after the convoys arrived in Darayya and Moadamiyeh, another area under siege.

The threat of airdrops is being used in political circles to attempt to force the hand of the Syrian government, but in reality they are unlikely to begin any time soon.

In fact, airdrops are not the best way to deliver food and medicine. The International Committee of the Red Cross position paper on the use of airdrops for aid identifies the difficulty in assessing need and the likelihood of doing harm in the process of dropping the aid as reasons to proceed cautiously. Combined with the fact many of Syria’s besieged areas are urban and surrounded by multiple hostile actors, the likelihood of the ISSG, or any of its members, coordinating and approving unilateral airborne aid drops to Syria’s most deprived areas any time soon is slim.

But until then, the residents of Darayya and other besieged areas have no choice but to wait, and hope that a food delivery makes it through, if not tomorrow, then soon. And even food isn’t enough, says one: “UN resolutions are about ending siege, not just delivering aid. Siege and starving people is a war crime. What people need is to lift sieges and enable people to get back to their normal lives again.”

The Khazarian Occupation of America

Thursday, June 2, 2016