Palestine Tet – 18 – The Coming Middle East Regional War, “Shoulder To Shoulder with the Americans”
Their last supper?
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The war has been stalled by the actions of one of the ineptest Secretaries of State in U.S. history, Anthony Blinken, a man completely out of his competency, engaging in what has frankly been a farce of U.S. diplomacy. Given the seriousness of the crisis, wherever he went on this Middle East sojourn Blinken made his interlockers offers that seemed planned to fail they were so off the mark. Blinken’s “shuttle diplomacy” is an exercise in futility to buy time until the U.S. Naval armada, that unwieldy,military brontosaurus, waddles into place in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. More and more I’m convinced not only was his trip doomed to fail, but possibly it was planned to fail. Just time-buying sops. These are insipid gestures and offers that Washington understood would be rejected.
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Despite something approaching universal opposition, “shoulder to shoulder” with Israel, the United States is heading for regional war
For 33 days, the Israeli army has been waging a war on Gaza, during which it destroyed residential neighborhoods on top of their residents, killing more than 10,569 Palestinians, including 4,324 children and 2,823 women, wounding 26,475. In addition, 163 Palestinians were martyred and 2,280 were arrested in the West Bank, according to official sources. This from the Palestinian news source Rai Al Youm today (November 8, 2023).
All this in an effort to achieve an impossible task: destroy Hamas. It won’t happen and the fact that Israel has set itself this goal – and that Washington has exhibited the political stupidity to encourage it – suggest how unrealistic are the strategy thinkers in both countries. In the end both the US and Israel will, despite the current anti-Hamas frenzy gripping the leadership in both countries, have to sit down at the negotiating table with the representatives of Hamas along with spokespeople for other Palestinian groups.
Washington and Tel Aviv would like to choose their Palestinian negotiating partner. Think about that for a second. Israel thinks it has a right to choose which Palestinians it will negotiate with. It is the Palestinian people and their representatives who will make that choice.
Washington and Tel Aviv would like to choose their Palestinian negotiating partner. Think about that for a second. Israel thinks it has a right to choose which Palestinians it will negotiate with. It is the Palestinian people and their representatives who will make that choice.
Rather than escalating towards peace, regional Middle East war appears around the corner. The situation is too explosive to be contained, nor does Washington have any intention of doing so: its hostility to a cease-fire proves that point. What pathetic lie as a pretext will Washington use this time?
As retired Indian (from India that is) diplomat, lifetime perceptive observer of geopolitics, M.K. Bhadrakumar notes:
No power on earth can stop Israel on its tracks [to war] now. Its stability and defence is inextricably linked to this war, which will also ensure abiding US commitment to its security as a key template of American global strategies for the foreseeable future. Therefore, Israel’s best chance of survival lies in expanding the scope of the war in Gaza into Lebanon-and possibly even into Syria-shoulder to shoulder with the Americans
There is global opposition to both Israel’s genocidal pounding of Gaza and to the the war morphing into a regional conflict. The world is becoming increasingly angry watching the people of Gaza literally being buried alive. The carefully contrived myth of Israel as “a beacon of democracy” in the Middle East is withering to naught, as are Israel’s claims to fighting “a defensive war” and facing “a second Holocaust”.
Except for those countries subservient to Washington’s will, the world is turning against both the United States and Israel with revulsion. Israel is killing Palestinians fish in a barrel. In response people the world round are hitting the pavement for peace. They want to freeze the violence in its tracks and to discourage an escalation of the conflict. The horrors that are exploding before our very eyes are about to go regional. With more than a little help from the US, Israel plans to extend its military operations to the north, to Lebanon and Syria. Iran is also in their crosshairs.
Missing from U.S. newspapers and tv screens are the massive demonstrations throughout the global south:Mexico, Venezuela, Egypt, Tunisia, in numbers so great in India that it is impossible to count. More than 2 million demonstrated in Indonesia alone, hundreds of thousands elsewhere, including the largest pro-Palestinian demonstration in U.S. history in Washington DC on Saturday where 300,000 showed up. I am guessing that since October 7, that all told, more than 20 million people have hit the streets.
Pro-Israel Jewish support for Israel is itself in crisis as tens of thousands – maybe more – of Jewish youth reject the lie of Jews being “the chosen people”. Members of groups like Jewish Voice For Peace and Not In Our Name (my kind of Jews) and many more are rejecting Zionism and its rationalizations. They are leading demonstrations and sit-ins calling out Zionism for what it is: a particularly toxic form of settler colonialism based on a racist foundation.
The “humanitarian pause” diplomatic charade: buying time for the U.S. naval fleet to maneuver
The war has been stalled by the actions of one of the ineptest Secretaries of State in U.S. history, Anthony Blinken, a man completely out of his competency, engaging in what has frankly been a farce of U.S. diplomacy. Given the seriousness of the crisis, wherever he went on his recent Middle East sojourn, Blinken made his interlockers offers that seemed planned to fail they were so off the mark. Blinken’s “shuttle diplomacy” is simply buying time until the U.S. Naval armada, that unwieldy military brontosaurus, waddles into place in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. Just time-buying sops.
No one, not the Israelis, the Palestinians, the Arabs, the Chinese or Russians took these suggestions seriously.
The fast approaching regional war is a U.S.-Israeli effort has a number of goals. It is not only to reverse the humiliation that resulted from Hamas’ October 7 offensive but also to “eliminate” Hamas as a political force within the Palestinian body politic – an impossible goal. The past month alone has witnessed a precipitous decline in both U.S. and Israeli influence. Unable to restore their waning power either through economic or diplomatic means, both Washington and Tel Aviv are using the only tool left to them which is war, possibly a losing effort.
How have their plans evolved? Plan A was to ethnically cleanse northern Gaza and expel Palestinians living there out into the Egyptian Sinai and has crashed. This is a result of Palestinian (and Hezbollah) military resistance combined with worldwide opposition to Israel’s bombing campaign. Plan B is to split Gaza in two, divide it further into smaller segments that would be neutralized one by one in an effort slowly but surely to eliminate Hamas a la a Battle of Algiers-like operation.
It will not succeed either.
Washington and Tel Aviv have dug themselves into a hole from which they will not emerge. Outside a narrow circle that includes the USA, Israel and Washington’s increasingly subservient E.U./NATO allies, both Hamas and Palestinian influence and prestige are soaring worldwide with both profound sympathy and solidarity that extends far beyond the Arab World. The threat of using nuclear weapons exemplifies the degree to which they are lost in the diplomatic woods. Biden increasingly gives the appearance of not having all his marbles upstairs and, as a recent article in Politico suggests, Netanyahu has been “destroyed emotionally” by his massive failure on national security and is now miscalculating by preparing to take overall control of Gaza’s security for an “indefinite period” after Hamas has been crushed, according to former leader Ehud Olmert.
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View from the Left Bank: Rob Prince's Blog 