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Oliver Boyd-Barrett
Empire, Communication and NATO Wars
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Once Again, On the Precipice
Middle East War
As has been widely reported, the likely Israeli assassination this week of a Hamas leader in Tehran on the day when the new President of Iran was being inaugurated, as well as the assassination of a Hezbollah leader in Beirut, along with the disclosure of another assassination of a Hamas leader in Gaza in mid-July has brought world one more time to the brink of World War Three.
The murder of Ismail Haniyeh, a former Palestinian prime minister, who was playing a key role in negotiations for a ceasefire, is a good indication that far from wanting peace, Israel is doing all it can to provoke a regional war, one in which the USA will become embroiled (as, indeed, US Secretary for Defense Lloyd Austin has just assured Israel that it will) so that, Israel recklessly hopes, the US can solve all of Israel’s immediate security issues.
To get the war that Israel needs, it is staging provocations, such as the recent assassinations just mentioned, along with continuing strikes on Syria and, with US help, Iraq. On Tuesday, a US strike killed several members of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), a coalition of mostly Shia militias that was formed in 2014 to fight ISIS and are part of Iraq’s security forces. The strike was in alleged retaliation for PMF strikes on US military bases in defense of Palestine. Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has called for an end to the US-led anti-ISIS coalition in Iraq (sic) following what his spokesman has called “a heinous crime and blatant aggression.” The spokesman, Iraqi Maj. Gen. Yehia Rasool, said that:
“Such serious and uncalculated transgressions can significantly undermine all efforts, mechanisms, and frameworks of joint security work to combat ISIS in Iraq and Syria. They also risk dragging Iraq and the entire region into dangerous conflicts and wars. Therefore, we hold the coalition forces fully responsible for these consequences following this flagrant aggression.”
In short, Israel, with the full expectation of US backing, is targetting Hamas and Hezbollah and other militia in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and, let us not forget, the Houthis in Yemen, not to imention Iran, often with scant regard for the dangers to civilians or for the larger consequences of their actions. There is a reasonably good chance of Turkish involvement on the side of Iran.
The fact that Iran has now suffered further Israeli strikes in the wake of what could have been an assassination of former President Raisi on May 20 and, more directly, an Israeli strike on Damascus on January 20th which destroyed a building used by the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, killing at least five Iranians, not to mention a long history of illegal Israeli attacks on Iranian forces in Syria and, before then, Israeli murders of Iranian scientists thought to have been involved in a likely fictitious or very elementary Iranian nuclear weapons program, is raising questions as to the competence of Iranian defenses.
Failure of the Iranian security services to take control of this pattern of assassination by foreign interest (a failure that is perhaps related to tensions throughout Iranian professional classes between globalist/pro-Western perspectives and and nationalistic inclinations, just as there were in Russia up until 2022, just as in Venezuela now, and which still likely characterize China) fly in the face of what is otherwise often regarded as a fearsome military bulwark against potential Israeli aggression. More important than the question of whether Iran is competent, perhsps, are Israeli perceptions of that competence. These may encourage Israel to even more egregious provocation.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has ordered immediate retaliation, directly against Israel. Its previous relataliation, following Israel’s Damascus strike, was also a direct attack on Israel, one that was very carefully calibrated with the USA beforehand, and that demonstrated Iranian power to penetrate a significant Israeli military facility deep in the heart of Israel but with minimal casualties. The most likely outcome of this week’s attacks is some form of a similarly calibrated tit-for-tat response, albeit one that is suitably more dramatic. Mercouris makes the observationin his daily YouTube broadcast today that Western pleas to Iran to show moderatin are rarely, if ever, balanced with pleas to Israel for moderation. Iran has very difficult choices to make. The option of an appeal to the UN in the hope of the eventual applicability of Section 7 sanctions against Isreal seems unreal.
The Israeli attack has been explained by some sources as a reprisal for what is claimed to have been a Hezbollah missile strike against a group of Druze children in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Claims that this was a deliberate strike are utterly incredible. Yes, it is conceivable that some of the victims were Israeli citizens, but others were Syrian citizens, all were Arab, and all were living under an illegal Israeli occupation. It is inconceivable that Hezbollah perceived any military advantage. The fact that Hezbollah has denied all responsibity is in itself evidence that it did not, given the group’s record for honesty in such matters. It is conceivable that Hezbollah had targeted an Israeli position and that a missile defense rocket knocked the missile off course, or that Israel had staged a false flag operation in order to furnish a pretext for further triggers towards a regional war and, quite possibly, World War Three.
EurAsian War
In Ukraine, there is further discussion of the possibility, as I mentioned in my previous post, that Zelenskiy may organize a referendum that, amongst other things, would sound out Ukrainian readiness for Ukraine to make territorial concessions as a means towards peace. Zelenskiy has, for some time now, faced growing international demand that he concede to the impossibility of a return to the 1991 borders of Ukraine that were established following the implosion of the Soviet Union. One of the latest voices of realism in this direction of concession has come from the President of Finland, Alexander Stubb.
A referendum might help Zelenskiy along this route, while to some extent saving face, and it might protect him from punishment by his Nazi right-wing for making concessions that they have violently opposed and it would, naturally, provide some legitimacy for such concessions. At the same time, one should interpret the results of any such referendum in the context of a country from which perhaps a third of its population has fled, or has been killed in war, and of a country whose suppression of opposition and free speech undermines the trust that one can invest either in opinions expressed to pollsters or in the machinery of the referendum itself.
What might happen following such an event will depend to a major extent on how far Zelenskiy and his regime (and their Western bosses) are willing to go and on how far the Kremlin will consider itself constrained by the ceasefire terms that were recently indicated by President Putin.
Even if peace talks actually do gain some traction (and Zelenskiy has still to remove the law that makes such talks illegal) there is always the possibility of a further neocon attempt to destabilize the Russian Federation by implementing plans for a color revolution in Georgia where elections are scheduled on October 26 and in which the US color revolution apparatus has been long and expensively engaged. It will follow the usual neocon script as we have seen played out just this week in Venezuela, of a narrowly fought campain, a win by the nationalists that is contested by the foreign-sponsored globalists, backed up with very undemocratic violence in the Street and a fierce anti-nationalist media campaign throughout the collective West.
But before we get to October we should note some very interesting developments occurring today as reported and discussed on the Military Summary channel by Dima. These relate to claims from the British Daily Telegraph and from Ukraine that F-16s are already operational in Ukraine and may have already been used in combat mode. Dima speculates that these reports, not terribly well substantiated, may have been intended to interrupt the news cycle concerning a prisoner exchange between Russia (with Belarus) and the US. This prisoner exchange was mediated by Turkey and negotiated in Ankara, once again underlining the important role that Turkey plays in NATO-Russian-Ukrainian relations.
The exchange involved an unusually large number of people, 26 in all, from an unusually large number of countries, 7. Turkish intelligence sources indicate that 10 of the prisoners were destined to return to Russia, 13 to Germany, and 3 to the US. Dima notes that no Ukrainians were party to this negotiation, and that no Ukrainians were involved in the swap itself. He suggests that such events, historically, are indicative of the ending of hostilities, perhaps prior to peace negotiations. If so, then it would seem clear that Ukraine’s participation was either not invited or was not wanted by Ukraine, and that Ukraine is more interested in signalling the continuation of hostilities (the F-16s being symbolic of the usual “wonder weapon” logic of why the war can continue) than in demonstrating any inclination to concessions.
China has recently taken the decision to impede the flow of commercial, off-the-shelf drones to Ukraine at a time when Russian production of drones is approaching double the number available at any time to Ukraine and Russia adaptations and innovations in drone technology are beginnning to far-outpsce those of Ukraine and its extreme reliance on FPV drones.
Islamic Terrorism in Russia
Writing for the Christian Science Monitor this is discussed by Fred Weir (Christian Science Monitor). As recently as last Sunday, Islamist extremists killed at least 21 people in coordinated attacks against minority Christians and Jews in Dagestan, the third major terrorist incident in Russia in as many monthsThe attackers struck a police station and four places of worship in two Dagestani cities, executing an Orthodox priest and burning down the only synagogue in the ancient city of Derbent. Yet Russia as a whole is overwhelmingly secular. Almost 80% of Russians are Slavs, most self-identifying as Orthodox Christians, although seldom going to church. About 18% of Russians are Muslim, mostly concentrated in several republics, including Dagestan, one of the poorest, and Tatarstan, one of the richest. Back in the 1990s and early 2000s most such concerns were related to Chechen militants. Lately, there has been a growing hostility toward Russia’s large communities of migrant workers, who tend to be mostly Muslims from former-Soviet Central Asia, has been on the rise since the Moscow attack by Tajik citizens in March.
The Battlefields
I noted in my most recent post that there are large concentratioins of Russian forces along the northern border of Ukraine, poised for a possible invasion. This likelihood appears to be confirmed by reports cited today by Dima that Ukraine is removing or changing road signs in the Sumy area and that the SBU is interrogating local citizens whom they suspect of Russian loyalties. In the Kharkiv area there have been no dramatic changes, only further confirmation based on the direction of Ukrainian FPV drones of Russian occupation of the citadel area in the east of the northern sector of Vovchansk, above the Volcha river. Further south, Russia continues to bomb the bridge over the Oskil river near Osynovo (west of Kurylivka and Pishanne) and is struggling for control over territory around Tabaivka. North of Rozdolivka (now controlled by Russia) and Fedorivka, Russian forces have moved north and are likely already to be penetrating Pereizne, south of Kuzmynivka.
Recent reports and geolocated video from Chasiv Yar confirms that there are fierce clashes in the center of Chasiv Yar, to the west of the Kanal and also that Russian forces have crossed the Kanal from each to west, to the north of the settlement. Further south, Russian forces have control over the east of Zalizne and of Pivnichne, they have improved their positions in the center of Niu-York, they have control over Yurivka, and are moving westwards from Toretsk towrds Panteleimonivka and Okeksandropil. They have cut the supply road to Niu-York from Constantinivka. To the west, Russia has destroyed many bridges and supply roads.
West of Avdiivka, Russia has taken under control the settlements of Prohres, Vovche and Lozuvatske and is in the process of taking Vesele (with little evidence of Ukrainian resistance). A bit to the north Russia appears to have taken Tymofievke, and in semi-encircling Zhelkanne and Ivanivka. Russia has most of Krasnohoriivka under its control and its taking territory between Krasnohoriivka and Marinka, and has taken control or is in the process of taking control over a coal-mine in this area.
South of Avdiivka, and south of Pobieda, Russia, for the past five days, has been making very concerted efforts to take Kostiantynivka, deploying hundreds of tanks for this purpose and very likely suffering significant losses as well, while consolidating control over the Kostyantynivka-Vuhledar highway. Westwards towards Urozhaine, Russian forces are moving north towards Makarikva along the TO-518 highway.
From the Golan Heights, Through Turkey and Beijing, to Palestine
BELOW, a Guardian (UK) account of the suposedly Hezbollah rocket strike. Use caution in believing anything claimed in the collective West media.
Guardian NewsThe missile struck a football pitch in the town of Majdal Shams, leaving a crater. Hundreds of mourners gathered at a funeral for the victims. Israel has said the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah was responsible for the attack, which Hezbollah denies. Israel carried out strikes on what they said were Hezbollah targets across southern Lebanon.
Golan Heights Massacre
The US and Israel claim that the missile was Iranian, of a kind frequently used by Hezbollah. Hezbollah, which typically assumes responsibility for its strikes, even when they are accidental, has denied responsibility in this case, and its denial has been backed up by the Lebanese government. It is extremely likely that Hezbollah would have targeted Arab civilians; Israel has a far worse record than Hezbollah for targetting or even killing civilians. The missile in question did not leave a crater in the field, but fragments were found, as also in the nearby village. Hezbollah has confessed to targeting an Israeli position some way away. Perhaps this missile was targeted and diverted by Israeli air defense. Or perhaps Israel itself acquired such a missile and used this to stage a false flag incident.
EVEN THE CIA-REDACTED WIKIPEDIA SAYS THIS:
The Golan Heights (Arabic: هَضْبَةُ الْجَوْلَانِ, romanized: Haḍbatu l-Jawlān or مُرْتَفَعَاتُ الْجَوْلَانِ, Murtafaʻātu l-Jawlān; Hebrew: רמת הגולן, Ramat HaGolan, ⓘ), or simply the Golan, is a basaltic plateau, at the southwest corner of Syria. It is bordered by the Yarmouk River in the south, the Sea of Galilee and Hula Valleyin the west, the Anti-Lebanon mountains with Mount Hermon in the north and Wadi Raqqad in the east. Two thirds of the area has been occupied by Israel following the 1967 Six-Day War and then effectively annexed in 1981, which was rejected by the international community that continues to consider the territory as Syrian and under Israeli occupation.
The speed with which Israel and the US have accused Hezbollah aligns with the Netanyahu narrative to Congress last week whose purpose is to blame Iran as (one of) the sponsors for both Hamas and Hezbollah and therefore responsible for the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. It may also be that the US wants to use the Golan Heights incident to reinforce anti-Hezbollah sentiment and thereby increase pressure on Hamas to reach a deal over Gaza before the outbreak of a wider war. But were that really to be the game then it is difficult to see why Netanyahu is doing everything he can to stop Hamas from agreeing a deal by adding ever more conditions Isrsel and backing away from offering any kind of absolute gurantee of a permanent ceasefire.
Alastair Crooke today argues with Judge Napolitano that there is no lasting solution to Gaza because there is no possibility of a two-state solution, given 800,000 settlers in the occupied territories and, I would add, the uncompromising apartheid nature of the regime. Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on June 27 threatened European countries that for “every country that unilaterally recognizes a Palestinian state, we will establish a settlement.”
One way for Israel in a context of a failing IDF in Gaza, an incresasingly powerful Iran, and the continuing threats to Israeli regional supremacy from Hamas and Hezbullah, is to threaten to extend the war by invading Lebanon, provoking war with Iran and forcing the US to become involved on Israel’s side. Orders for such a war have already been given, but it is uncertain whether the initial attacks will be solely on military targets or civilian, and how far such attacks will penetrate Lebanon. There is no real likelihood, says Crooke, that Kamala Harris will make any different to this equation.
Turkish Intervention
Suddenly, back into the picture comes Turkey, which has the largest army in the region but whose role in protesting the genocide in Gaza has been extremely modest and disappointing. Yes, one might argue that Turkey has had all manner of economic challenges, that it has had to respond to the devastating earthquake of early 2023 and that it must somehow balance its continuing membership of NATO against its orientation to the BRICS and its Islamic solidarity with Palestine (both are primarily Sunni).
But then again, Turkey played a very substantial role – deeply malign, in my view – in supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and other extremist Islamic elements in reigniting a sectarian challenge to the Assad regime in 2011; collaborating with the CIA in the routing of weapons from post-Gadaffi Libya, through Turkey, to Syrian jihadists; hosting jihadists on Turkish soil; ruling over remnants of foreign extremist Islamists in Syria’s Idlib (some linked to Al Qaeda and to ISIS) some of whom have now been weaponized by Turkey in other conflicts (Libya; Azerbaijan – see below).
That involvement together with its cooperation with both Damascus and Moscow in the policing of a buffer zone between Syria and Turkey along Syria’s northwestern border, its eternal enmity towards Syrian-based Kurds in northeastern Syria, and its absorption of a million or so Syrian refugees, suggest that Turkey is well able to afford an expansive and intrusive foreign policy if it so decides.
Why not Gaza? On Sunday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a televised address threatened Turkey could “enter” Israel as it did in Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh. In 2020, Turkey began deploying military advisors and Syrian mercenaries to Libya to support the UN-backed Government of National Accord. Turkey also strongly backed Azerbaijan’s 2020 assault on Nagorno-Karabakh by providing weapons and political support. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz has commented in response that “Erdogan follows in the footsteps of Saddam Hussein.”
Chinese Mediation
Whereas Turkish involvement would likely be escalatory, China is considering a more constructive, peaceful role, as illustrated in the recently-agreed Beijing Declaration. The agreement calls for a national unity government to govern Gaza jointly after the end of the current conflict. Steven Sahiounie today (Sahaoun) reports that Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi hosted a three-day meeting attended by senior Hamas official Musa Abu Marzuk, Fatah envoy Mahmud al-Aloul, along with emissaries from 12 other Palestinian groups and envoys from Egypt, Algeria and Russia.
The purpose was to establish the Palestine Liberation Organization as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people by working to reconcile the long-established feud between Hamas (the major political force in Gaza) and Fatah (the major political force in the West Bank).
China has proved to be the only world power that can engineer a rapprochement between the Palestinian rivals. Wang Yi also called for a “comprehensive, lasting and sustainable ceasefire”, as well as efforts to promote Palestinian self-governance and full recognition of a Palestinian state at the UN. China was also an important mediator in bringing about a rapprochement between Saudia Arabia and Iran in 2023. Sahiounie writes that the Saudi-Iran relationship has been strengthened during the Israeli war on Gaza, as both sides reaffirm their shared support of the Palestinian people, and call for the end of the war and long-term peace.
Sahiounie explaints that Fatah was formed from the PLO, founded by Yasser Arafat:
“In the 1993 Oslo Agreement, the PLO laid down their arms, while Hamas has remained an armed resistance group. The Geneva Convention guarantees the legal right of armed resistance to occupation”.
Hamas has recently indicated a willingness to disarm if a Palestinian state were established. Hamas and Islamic Jihad are not members of the PLO – the Palestinians’ highest decision-making body – but they demand that any unity deal includes holding an election for the PLO parliament to secure their inclusion.
But nothing, of course, is that simple. Ali Abunimah (Abunimah), writing in Popular Resistance, agrees that the new agreement commits all factions to form a “national consensus government,” which would be in charge of running affairs in Gaza after the war. The government would be chosen in consensus by all factions, suggesting that it would therefore comprise technocrats rather than factional representstives. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other factions that emerged during the first and second Intifadas would have to join the PLO.
This in turn highlights the longstanding commitment of the PLO to a negotiations process as a way to establishing a Palestinian state, while cooperating in security and business affairs with Israel. The problem, of course, if we return to the above comments by Alastair Crooke, is that the notion of a two-state solution seems utterly impractical, while the notion of a single, non-apartheid Israel flies directly in the face of the Zionist ideology that prevails. Further, there are factions that do not agree with the PLO’s commitment and were these to join the PLO then its unity would be in name only.
Nonetheless, Abunimah sees the possibility of a functional unity following the Gaza war – a context in which one might consider it the interest of all Palestinian factions to establish a new order. Abunimah notes that the conflict between the Palestinian Authority, and its Fatah leadership, and Hamas in 2007 – a conflict, I would add, that was encouraged by Netanyahu, who even supported Hamas at that time – was responsible for the administrative division between the West Bank and Gaza.
But for a new generation of Palestinians this division is ancient history. Palestinian youth manifested their own version of national unity on the street, especially following the cancellation by the Palestinian president of elections in 2021 and the subsequent uprisings in protest.
Political divisions between Palestinian leaders do not reflect divisions in the Palestinian society therefore, but only the different compromises that different leaders have made to ensure their own continuance in the political game. The Palestinian Authority staked its political and historical capital in a Western-led negotiation process, with the hope of reaching Palestinian statehood.
“As a consequence, the PA became dependent on the approval of the U.S. and European donors, as well as on the Israeli-controlled customs money used by Israel repeatedly as a political weapon. These dynamics leave the PA no choice but a political program based on security and economic cooperation with Israel. A program that contradicts the popular will to such an extent that it needs to rely on growing authoritarianism to impose itself.”
Hamas, by contrast, stood for resistance to occupation by all means. October 7th was in essence a political statement by Hamas to the effect that it was ready to lead the Palestinians. This was necesssary in part because Palestinian political elections had been canceled a month earlier, depriving Hamas of a strictly political venue to challenge the PA. Yet in reality, Abunimah argues, Hamas being led by a new force “that Palestinians expressed through their non-partisan, trans-geographical unity across historic Palestine, with mass mobilizations.” This underlined the contemporary reality that the old PA-Hamas division is obsolete.
The US may want the PA to play a role in post-war Gaza but this will be impossible without a formal reconciliation involving all Palestinian factions. Hamas is now the most relevant force in Palestinian politics but in a post-war context it can only exercise influence as part of a unified Palestinian leadership.
“The consequences of previous political failures have accumulated to the point where the Palestinian people are now facing the breaking point of an Israeli war on all Palestinians, which aims to end the hopes for a Palestinian state, the mass expulsion of millions of Palestinians, and the final annexation of the West Bank. The consequences of failure now cannot be overstated”.
The Failing Counter-Revolution Against Multipolarity
Israeli Economy and Conflict in the Middle East
Consider the list of Israel’s failures and likely failures (and I elaborate a little on some of these):
*Israel has failed to defeat Hamas;
*Congressional clapping in favor of Genocide perpetrator Netanyahu has further enraged at least half the globe against Israel and its sponsor, the USA, boosting the appeal of the BRICS;
*Israel has been unable to beat the Houthis who have inflicted considerable damage on Israeli trade through the Red Sea;
*Israeli threats to wage war in the Lebanon against Hezbollah (something that Israeli military leaders decry, even though Netanyahu was signalling this possibility in his Wednesday speech to Congress) are reckless;
*Even if Iran is compelled by Israeli war logic to directly enter the war in order to defend Hezbollah, and the USA is enticed into Israel’s trap of a regional war, then the USA itself, and, therefore, Israel, will very likely lose, and the USA will be even less equipped to pursue its counter-revolution – against multipolarity – elsewhere (mainly, for the moment, Ukraine and Taiwan).
Of significance was Blinken’s almost certainly false claim the other day that Iran was only one or two weeks’ away from reaching nuclear weapon capability through uranium enrichment. US intelligence agencies continue to assert that there is no evidence that Iran has or will soon acquire nuclear weapons. And even if it had, by the way, its nuclear capability would be dwarfed by Israel at least one hundred fold. Netanyahu has been pumping evidence-free, false claims of how Iran was just about to become a nuclear weapons power ever since the 1990s. So here was Blinken – just days before the disgraceful spectacle of Netanyahu’s harangue to Congress – helping Netanyahu to use Iran as Israel’s excuse for the Israeli genocide in both Gaza and the West Bank, for Israel’s threat against the Lebanon, while pushing, for good measure, the delusional fable that Iran was somehow behind the student protests in the USA against Israeli genocide.
As if ordinary, intelligent, moral people would somehow need Iranian money to express their anger with the horrific monster than the US-Israel incubus has become.
Any day now Russia, will consolidate what amounts to a mutual defense arrangement with Iran, and this week, President Assad has been visiting Moscow, their agenda doubtless encompassing options in the event of a regional conflict. Meanwhile, Smith observes, Israeli defense depends on short, fierce, air-power heavy conflicts, and not “slow, resource and will-sapping slogs”.
Israel’s “Atlantis,”scheme was to take out the Hamas tunnels by pumping in seawater at high intensity, failed not least, according to a Haaretz newspaper investigation, because Israeli forces underestimated the dimensions of the tunnels. Hamas had changed its tunnel structures over time to make it even more resistant to an IDF clearance operation.
135 Congressional members boycotted the Netanyahu speech on Wednesday – not nearly as many as one would want, but sufficient to indicate, says Smith, that it is becoming acceptable, even respectable, to criticize Israel’s genocide. On Tuesday, Japan imposed sanctions on four Israeli settlers for violence against West Bank Palestinians, and a fairly large number of settlers and far-right groups are already being sanctioned by Western powers. Other members of the Group of Seven countries have been doing the same since the United States announced its first set of sanctions against four violent settlers on February 1st.
“In terms of trade, Israel’s import and export statistics don’t indicate much US dependence but as Israel continues to suffer an exodus of skilled professionals, particularly of highly skilled, highly mobile professionals and experts the country will very likely become more dependent. Over 46,000 businesses have gone bankrupt, tourism has stopped, Israel’s credit rating was lowered, Israeli bonds are sold at the prices of almost “junk bonds” levels, and the foreign investments that have already dropped by 60% in the first quarter of 2023 (as a result of the policies of Israel’s far-right government before October 7) show no prospects of recovery. The majority of the money invested in Israeli investment funds was diverted to investments abroad because Israelis do not want their own pension funds and insurance funds or their own savings to be tied to the fate of the State of Israel. This has caused a surprising stability in the Israeli stock market because funds invested in foreign stocks and bonds generated profit in foreign currency, which was multiplied by the rise in the exchange rate between foreign currencies and the Israeli Shekel. But then Intel scuttled a $25 billion investment plan in Israel, the biggest BDS victory ever…”
Israel’s power grid, which has largely switched to natural gas, still depends on coal to supply demand. The biggest supplier of coal to Israel is Colombia, [which has recently] announced that it would suspend coal shipments to Israel as long as the genocide was ongoing. After Colombia, the next two biggest suppliers are South Africa and Russia, both members of the BRICS and highly antagonistic to apartheid. Without reliable and continuous electricity, Israel will no longer be able to pretend to be a developed economy. Server farms do not work without 24-hour power, and no one knows how many blackouts the Israeli high-tech sector could potentially survive. International tech companies have already started closing their branches in Israel”.
Sources cited suggest that 60,000 businesses are expected to have closed by the end of 2024. 50% of startups are on track to closing within six months. One economist, has argued that the Israeli economy is held together by 300,000 people (the senior staff in universities, tech companies, and hospitals) and that once these leave, Israel will in effect cease to exist. “The hype of Israel’s “startup nation” has turned into a #Shutdownnation”. Two senior Israeli economists have predicted that Israel will not survive to its 100th year.
USA in the Pacific Rim
In Consortium News today, Vijay Prashad (Pacific Rim) reports on US and Western militarization in the Pacific, beginning with further French suppression of indigenous protests against Macron’s high-handedness in New Caledonia (source of one fifth of global nickel deposits), and moving on to the current involvement of 25,000 military personnel from 29 countries (mainly northern or allies of northern countries; including Israel which, as astute geographers will discern, is nowhere near the Pacific) led by the USA, in the latest biennial Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) military exercises (these began in 1971).
Israeli Leader of Genocide Arrives to Lecture Congress of the Fatherland of Genocides
“We believe ample credible evidence exists to sufficiently establish that serious crimes falling within U.S. criminal jurisdiction are systematically being perpetrated in Gaza…There is overwhelming evidence that under Netanyahu, Israeli forces and authorities are committing genocide, war crimes, and torture against Palestinians in Gaza, acts that are proscribed under federal criminal statutes and prosecutable by HRSP.”
International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan, writes Corbett, is seeking
“Arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders, and Israel faces a South Africa-led genocide case at the International Court of Justice — which on Friday issued a non-binding advisory opinion that Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is unlawful and must end “as rapidly as possible.”
But in the US, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week affirmed a lower court’s dismissal of a lawsuit against the president, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
Palestine
It strikes a blow against the entire Zionist project based, Amar argues:
“On the irreparable injustice of violently depriving the Palestinians of their inalienable right to national self-determination…. It calls into question the foundations of Israel as a state, as it is built around the systematic defiance of justice, law, and elementary ethics”.
The ICJ has made it clear that all settlement must cease and that the settlers already on these territories must leave. This would affect 700,000 and 750,000 Israeli illegals on over 100 settlements they never had a right to establish. The Israeli state has an obligation to evacuate them. Israel’s expropriations, tens or thousands of acreas of land are also illegal.
As for Gaza, the court rejects the argument that Israel withdrew in 2005 and notes that because of its stifling control, it has remained an occupying power, with all the attendant obligations. Further, the court has determined that Israel’s policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory amount to segregation or apartheid in breach of internstional law. The court rejects the argument that Israel can justify its continuing, pervasive criminality by alleged “security” needs. The ICJ findings confirm that Palestinians have a right to armed resistance under international law.
As was easily anticipated, the The whole Israeli political spectrum has rejected the ICJ findings. But the ICJ notes that all other states have a duty to co-operate with the UN in order to bring about an end to Israel’s illegal presence in the Occupied Palestinisn Territory, and that international organizations, specialized agencies, investment corporations etc. must not cooperate “in any measures undertaken by Israel to exploit the resources of the occupied territories or to effect any changes in the demographic composition or geographic character or institutional structure of those territories.”
Houthi and Hezbollah Resistance to Genocide
A piece by Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism (Israeli-Houthi-Hezbollah War) comments on Hezbollah’s and Yemeni strikes against Israel in retaliation for the Israeli response against a Houthi drone attack on Tel Aviv last Friday.
Israel’s enemies may perceive Israel as weak.
Israel’s strike on the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah blew up fuel storage tanks and indicated Israeli intention to curb food supplies to Yemen, which has suffered from both food shortages and outbreaks of cholera during its war with the Saudis. The Houthis’ purpose is to punish Israel until Israel stops its genocide in Gaza. The Houthis have experienced success with low tech tactics such as sending of unmanned boats full of explosives into ships and also claim to have modern missiles.
The head of the US Joint Chiefs, Charles Brown, has told Israel that the US can do little to help. When Iran responded to the Israeli murder of Iranian revolutionary guards in Syria, some weeks ago, it successfully hit two Israeli airbases, demonstrating its ability to penetrate combined US and Israel defenses even under textbook conditions for Israel.
US insistence that Israel should ship eight Patriot systems to Ukraine and that Ukraine should get top priority for new missile deliveries may encourage the Houthis, Hezbollah and perhaps even Iran, to strike now.
Former colonel Larry Wilkerson has estimated that Israel has lost 10% of its forces. Replacing these with fresh conscripts is hardly a reassuring measure. Further, Israel has admitted to a tank shortage. A substantial number of tanks has been withdrawn from service. There is an insufficiency of training programmes for personnel and the resources needed to maintain the tanks. More than 500 armoured vehicles of various types have been damaged since October 7, along with their crews inside. Al-Qassam claims to have hit more than a thousand tanks and armoured vehicles inside Gaza. Strikes between Hezbollah and Israel have forced the relocation of between 60,000 to 100,000 settlers from Israeli border towns, who are being housed at government expense.
In a story republished in Popular Resistance, investigative reporter Kit Klarenberg, dissected an AP news piece about US naval personnel returning from Red Sea duties. The AP reported that the aircraft-carrier Eisenhower and its accompanying ships had been bombarded relentlessly by Ansar Allah drones, and ballistic and cruise missiles. These attacks sometimes penetrated multiple layers of on-ship defenses, totally unprecedented in modern history. Most sailors were not used to dealing with an enemy that fought back.
A purported Western alliance – Operation Prosperity Guardian – to combat this situation assembled last year has simply fallen apart, with France, Italy and Spain announcing that they would not take part. A DIA report found that shipping through the Red Sea, which typically accounts for approximately 10-15% of international maritime trade, had declined by approximately 90% since Operation Prosperity Guardian began. Many ships were forced to take alternative routes around Africa, adding approximately 11,000 extra nautical miles, up to two weeks further transit time, and approximately $1 million in additional fuel costs for each voyage.
For many shipping companies, the combined costs of crew bonuses, war risk insurance (roughly 1000% more than pre-war costs), and Suez transit fees make the additional time and financial costs traveling around Africa less expensive by comparison. Insurance premiums for Red Sea transit have risen to 0.7-1.0% of a ship’s total value, compared to less than 0.1% prior to December 2023.
Suppression of Social Media Criticism of Israel for Genocide
Investigative journalist Kit Klarenberg (Meta Mega Suppression) reports on how social media giant Meta intends to broaden the scope of its censorship and suppression of content related to the Gaza genocide. Posts containing “derogatory or threatening references to ‘Zionists’ in cases where the term is used to refer to Jews or Israelis” will be proscribed. In January, CyberWell (a private Israeli-linked “trusted partner” of Meta, TikTok, and X, supposedly helping them to combat “disinformation.”), published an extensive report on how it was seeking to censor many prominent X accounts that expressed doubts about the official narrative of October 7th.
CyberWell has submitted formal guidance to Meta “on censoring the Palestine solidarity phrase ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,’ which Zionists falsely claim is a clarion call for the genocide of Jews”. The firm is trying to force social media to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) highly controversial definition of antisemitism which falsely conflates criticism of the Zionist entity and antisemitism.
Many members of Cyberwell’s team have extensive Israeli Occupation Force (IOF) backgrounds and Israeli government ties and ties to Voices of Israel. Voices of Israel describes itself as a non-partisan, apolitical organization that funds and partners with a broad range of Israeli and international NGOs, with the common goal of strengthening the positive perception of the State of Israel and combating hate speech and incitement around the world. Voices of Israel’s activity is part of a joint venture with the State of Israel. The chief executive of CyberWell and two of its board members previously worked at the same private intelligence spin-off from Voices of Israel, a director of the spin-off is an advisor to CyberWell, and the CEO of Voices became the CFO of CyberWell.
BBC’s Israeli Propaganda
Ruhayem had asked the BBC whether instructions had been given:
“To drop requirements for applying scrutiny regarding the most serious, unverified claims that were being repeated by propagandists for Israel? Would they be able to explain why, and offer a defence of such decisions based on BBC values and standards? If that is not the case, would the editors be able to explain why – upon observing these standards being repeatedly cast aside – they did not intervene? In any case, would upper management clarify what it thinks its own duties are in such a situation?’
He complained that Israeli claims about the events of October 7 were given an” open, uncritical platform by the BBC”. When Ruhayem’s email to the BBC Director General was leaked to the right-wing press, their reports “downplayed the seriousness and extent of his collated evidence and emphasised the ‘outrage’ of ‘Jewish staff’ with the inevitable and insidious deployment of the ‘antisemitism’ card.
Ruhayem’s analysed 22 interviews with Israeli guests – mostly current officials, a few former officials, army officers, politicians, and a ‘human rights activist’…Media Lens reports his main findings as including:
“There was no challenge about different manifestations of what appears to be the Israeli government’s drive to destroy any chance of Palestinian self-determination, about Israeli officials in positions of power who had incited extreme violence against Palestinians prior to October 7, or what all of that might suggest about the motivations driving Israel’s conduct of the war”.
In one exception to the rule, the issue was framed in terms of the potential legal and reputational harm to Israel.
The so-called Dahiya Doctrine, essentially an Israeli military doctrine that overrides any sense of ‘proportionality’ in Israel’s attacks on Palestinians was not mentioned in any of these interviews.
There was, Ruhayem maintained:
“A growing body of evidence indicating that the BBC may have been withholding vital information from the public, contributing to incitement against Palestinians, and spreading and reinforcing Israeli war propaganda.”
Presenters constantly failed to use crucial evidence to challenge Israel’s west-facing propaganda.
“The main assumption is that Israel is trying to avoid harming Palestinian civilians as it conducts a war of self-defence. Thus, discussions between BBC presenters and Israeli propagandists are centred on the question of whether Israel is trying hard enough, or acting intelligently enough, to achieve its goal of “crushing” and “dismantling” Hamas without harming civilians – or its reputation. This framework is cemented because evidence to the contrary is erased.”
In the context some of the most lurid and ultimately unsubstantiated or provenly false claims of what happened on October 7, 2023:
“Claims and testimony that encourage the most extreme portrayals of Israel’s enemies are allowed to be repeated without challenge – regardless of whether or not they’re backed by evidence. Claims and testimony that raise the possibility of Israeli disinformation around the events of October 7 are ignored – despite the evidence.
By seeking to place Hamas on the most extreme end of the spectrum of evil, propagandists for Israel seemed to believe they’d be able to defend whatever Israel chose to do – and set the stage for more. The seeming suspension of basic standards of scrutiny on the BBC most likely encouraged that strategy.’
Such coverage is likely to have aided Israel’s efforts to ensure political support in the West for its actions, and to intimidate those opposed to them and portray them as supporters of the most hideous atrocities.”
- In cynicism and power, the US propaganda machine easily surpasses Orwells Ministry of Truth.
- Now the fight against anti-semitism is being weaponised as a new sanctimonious McCarthyism.
- Unless opposed, neither justice nor our Constitutional right to Free Speech will survive this assault.
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