EDITOR—In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP President Lara Friedman speaks with Mouin Rabbani about Israel’s war on Gaza, its offensive in Lebanon, and how these and other developments fit into Israel’s broader objectives in the region, most notably with respect to Iran. Mouin is widely published analyst and commentator on Palestinian affairs, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the contemporary Middle East. He was previously Senior Analyst Middle East and Special Advisor on Israel-Palestine with the International Crisis Group, and head of political affairs with the Office of the United Nations Special Envoy for Syria. He is Co-Editor of Jadaliyya E-zine.
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EDITOR—Capt. Matthew Hoh discusses the volatile situation currently engulfing the world as Israel prepares to strike Iran and defences are beefed up on both sides. Capt. Hoh notes that in order to strike Iran, Israel will have to use its prized F-35 fleet and this will become a test of this plane’s actual capabilities. The world—and especially the Russians and Chinese—will surely be watching. The F-35s already have a poor reputation even in the US, where many qualified observers see it as hugely expensive, overdesigned, and highly prone to malfunction.
Capt. Matthew Hoh had nearly twelve years experience with the US military and the wars overseas with the United States Marine Corps, Department of Defense and State Department.
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ALASTAIR CROOKE—The strategy of using Israel as the regional battering ram to achieve U.S. (imperial) objectives was worked out essentially in the 1960s by Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson. Jackson was nicknamed ‘the Senator from Boeing’ for his support for the military-industrial complex. And the military-industrial complex backed him to become chair of the Democratic National Committee.
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KARL SANCHEZ—To review, Iran was a tool of Anti-Communist containment while control of oil was presumed to be everlasting. The Zionists were hedges against Arab Nationalism that threatened control of oil. And given the Outlaw US Empire was a Settler State, it empathized with the Zionist adage that they were a people without a land who discovered a land without a people (Paraphrase of David Ben-Gurion) since that was the same story/myth the USA told itself and taught its children.
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EDITOR—A former US aviator, Commander Graham Scarbro of the US Navy, reviewed the evidence of the Israeli strikes for the US Naval Institute. In a very revealing article, Scarbro notes that Israel ‘seems to have taken a notably different approach to collateral damage than US forces over the past few decades’. While the US has never demonstrated any significant concern for civilian casualties or ‘collateral damage’, it is worth noting that even senior US military officials have raised their eyebrows at the degree of Israel’s disregard for human life.
