An award of ignominy given to deluded Middle Eastern leaders who have tried to destroy Israel.
By Neville Berman
There are many prestigious awards in the world for exceptional achievements. Anyone awarded a Nobel Prize instantly receives international recognition and fame. The film industry has the Oscars. Journalists have the Pulitzer Prize. The music industry has the Bafta awards. Time magazine has the Person of the Year award, and FIFA has Best Footballer of the Year awards for both men and women. The British King or Queen annually bestows titles and medals to individuals in recognition of outstanding services to the country. Every country has developed some way of honoring exceptional people in their society.
However, there is one award that has never previously been awarded, that has attracted a number of nominees. The award is the Bermuda Triangle Award. (BTA) This award is for leaders who by their own deliberate policies and actions, have brought poverty, death, destruction and in several cases starvation to the countries that they rule or ruled.
As this article is limited in length, the numerous post-colonial African leaders and other infamous dictators who should suffer the ignominy of being awarded a BTA have been omitted. Instead, only Middle Eastern leaders, both deceased and living, are included. Let us start with those nominees for a posthumous BTA.
Gamal Abdel Nasser was President of Egypt and a charismatic leader who promoted the concept of Arab unity known as Pan Arabism. In May 1967, he ordered the United Nations to withdraw all UNEF troops from Sinai. He then closed the Straits of Tiran and the Suez Canal to Israeli shipping, and boasted that Egypt was ready for an all-out war that would push Israel into the sea. On the morning of June 5, 1967 Israel responded with a preemptive air attack that destroyed almost the entire Egyptian air force on the ground. Nasser then lied to Syria and Jordan by informing them that the Egyptian air-force was bombing Tel Aviv. Syria and Jordan then joined the attack on Israel. In what is known as the Six Day War, Israel routed the armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan. Israel gained control of the whole of Sinai, Gaza, East Jerusalem, Judea (West Bank) and the Golan Heights. Not since the Egyptian army was destroyed in the Red Sea pursuing the Israelites, has Egypt suffered such humiliation.

In 1979, Saddam Hussein gained control of the Sunni Muslim Ba’ath Party and became President of Iraq. Iraq has the 5th largest crude oil reserves in the world and should be wealthy and prosperous. In 1980, Saddam attacked Iran in a territorial dispute. After nearly 8 years of fighting and an estimated 500,000 deaths, the war ended in a stalemate. In August 1988 both sides accepted UN resolution 598 that ended the war.
Two years later Saddam attacked Kuwait. When Saddam refused to leave Kuwait, America formed a coalition and decisively defeated Saddam and liberated Kuwait. In 1993, under the Presidency of George W Bush, America again invaded Iraq. The premise for the attack was that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction that were a direct threat to America. No weapons of mass destruction were ever found. Instead, Saddam was found hiding in a hole in the ground. An Iraqi Special Tribunal convicted Saddam of crimes against humanity and he was hanged on December 30th 2006. It was the end of a tyrant who was responsible for the deaths of an estimated million Iraqis in war, arbitrary arrests, torture, and disappearances. Iraq has yet to recover from the 24 years of the rule of Saddam Hussein.

Yahya Sinwar was one of the leaders of Hamas. Hamas seized power in Gaza in 2007. Hamas is a terrorist organization with a genocidal charter aimed at killing all Jews. Since 2007 it has fired over 30,000 rockets at Israel. It has stolen hundreds of millions of dollars of humanitarian aid and then sold it to the inhabitants in Gaza at inflated prices. It has built 500 kilometers of underground tunnels to attack Israel from and to hide in. Many of the tunnels are built under hospitals, schools and mosques. The main headquarters of Hamas was built directly under the maternity ward of the European hospital in Gaza. Without any doubt, Hamas uses babies, children and civilians as human shields. Under the leadership of Sinwar, Hamas planned and executed a surprise attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. The scale of the attack and the barbaric actions were proudly filmed by the attackers themselves. Hamas scored an opening victory that consisted of mass killings, beheadings, rapes, hostage taking, destruction of property, and unbelievable cruelty to babies and families. It has now turned into a pyrrhic victory. At the time of writing, Gaza is unrecognizable from what it once was. Thousands of Hamas terrorists have been eliminated, and those that are still alive are living like rats in tunnels underground. The only card that Hamas still holds are Israeli hostages captured in the initial attack. Both Yahya Sinwar and his brother, Mohammed Sinwar, who succeeded him have been eliminated. The legacy of the Sinwar family is death, hunger, poverty and destruction.

Starting in 1992, Hassan Nasrallah was the undisputed leader of Hezbollah. Before the rise of Hezbollah, Beirut was considered the Paris of the Middle East. With backing from Iran, Hezbollah basically took de facto control of Lebanon and effectively destroyed the country’s economy and prospects for a peaceful and prosperous future. With an estimated 150,000 rockets supplied by Iran, Hezbollah posed a direct threat to Israel. After Hezbollah decided to join the attack by Hamas on Israel, the vast majority of Hezbollah’s rockets were destroyed by Israel. Nasrallah himself was assassinated in his bunker in September 2024. Another posthumous BTA.

Bashar al-Assad succeeded his father as President of Syria when his father Hafez died in July 2000. Bashar retained power for 24 years by ruthlessly oppressing all opposition to his minority Alawite rule. Between 300-500 thousand Syrians were killed, and approximately 5 million Syrians became refugees during the rule of the Assad family. Assad even used poison gas against his own people. After Israel effectively reduced the capacity of Hezbollah to support Assad, opposition forces took advantage of the situation and seized control of Syria. Assad fled to Russia on December 8, 2024, where he was granted political asylum. Naturally the International Criminal Court has never charged Assad with committing any crimes against humanity. It appears that the killing of hundreds of thousands of Arabs by Arabs is not considered a crime. In an absurd double standard, if Jews kill Arabs in self- defense, then the ICC leaps into action against Israeli leaders.

Abdul-Malik al-Houthi became leader of the Houthis in Yemen in 2004. Yemen is situated at the entrance to the Red Sea and is more than 2,000 KM from Israel. There is no territorial dispute between the two countries. In 2014, the Houthis took control of parts of Yemen including the capital Sanaa in a civil war. Since then, the Houthis have carried out missile attacks against oil facilities in Saudi Arabia. They have attacked scores of ships in the Red Sea, and have fired inter- continental missiles at Israel. The Houthis are supported by Iran and are sacrificing themselves for Iran’s ambitions to destroy Israel. All of their actions have brought zero prosperity to the Houthis. They will continue to suffer because of the stupidity of their own leaders. By reducing shipping through the Red Sea, the Houthis have caused billions of dollars of lost revenue to Egypt. Some recent reports say that Abdul -Malik is no longer alive. Either way, he is a nominee for a BTA.

In 1989, Ali Hosseini Khamenei became the second Supreme Shiite leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Iran is larger than France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands combined. It has approximately 90 million citizens. It has the third largest oil reserves, and the second largest gas reserves in the world. Its geographical location affords it significant control over the vitally important Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. Under normal circumstances, Iran should have a thriving economy and a prosperous society. Instead, Khamenei has a fanatical religious aim of destroying Israel. Iran has built a nuclear program that it claims is for peaceful purposes. In a daring clandestine operation, Israel obtained the actual archives of the Iranian nuclear program. The archives provided 100% proof that Iran is actively trying to build a nuclear arsenal and that its nuclear program is not for peaceful purposes.

Iran has poured billions of dollars into building a crescent of proxy allies to try to wipe Israel off the map. Every country and terrorist entity that is supported by Iran, has suffered as a result of accepting Iranian so-called help. Iran’s policy of building a ring of fire around Israel has been a total failure. After Iran attacked Israel directly with inter-continental missiles and drones, Israel effectively destroyed Iran’s missile defense system and then attacked its nuclear and missile facilities. In what has been called the 12- Day War, that included an attack by American B2 bombers and tomahawk missiles on Iran’s nuclear program, the Iranian nuclear program is no longer a current threat to Israel or the world. Iran has wasted billions of dollars on trying to destroy Israel. This waste of money, coupled with American sanctions has devastated the value of the Iranian Rial. The present black-market rate of the Rial is close to 1 million to the dollar compared to 70 to the dollar before the Shah was overthrown. Khamenei has led Iran down a path of poverty, destruction and despair. Over 500 executions take place annually in Iran. Khamenei has proven that he is prepared to use the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to kill those demonstrating against the regime. Without any doubt Khamenei is the leading nominee for a BTA. Hopefully it will soon become a posthumous award.
What Israel builds, others try to destroy. This is the reality of the Middle East.
About the writer:

Accountant Neville Berman had an illustrious sporting career in South Africa, being twice awarded the South African State Presidents Award for Sport and was a three times winner of the South African Maccabi Sportsman of the Year Award. In 1978 he immigrated to the USA to coach the United States men’s field hockey team, whereafter, in 1981 he immigrated to Israel where he practiced as an accountant and then for 20 years was the Admin Manager at the American International School in Even Yehuda, Israel. He is married with two children and one granddaughter.
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