By Viktor Mikhin – New Eastern Outlook – 17.02.2024
Joe Biden’s emotional embrace with Benjamin Netanyahu on 18 October on the tarmac of Ben-Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv was seen around the world and is still being commented on by the world media. The embrace, which took place 11 days after the shameful failure of Israel and its “famous” Mossad intelligence agency on October 7 in the south, gave the Israelis carte blanche to do whatever they wanted against not only the militant organisation Hamas, but also against peaceful Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.
On that trip, Biden demonstrated his “ironclad” commitment to Israel, despite the crimes the Israeli army was committing in Gaza, cutting off access to food, water, medicine and other necessities for a population of 2.3 million and destroying homes, hospitals, universities, schools, churches, mosques, etc. And yet, the “Democrat-in-Chief” told Netanyahu, “I come to Israel with a single message: you are not alone. You are not alone.”
The unequivocal support for Israel, which has the most extremist government in power since its creation in 1948, has especially intensified since Biden and his pro-Israel administration took office. Not only has the U.S. begun supplying arms to Israel, but it has also gone against the will of the world at the United Nations, which has demanded an immediate ceasefire and the delivery of humanitarian aid to the besieged territory. On 3 November, the US House of Representatives also passed a Republican-drafted plan to provide $14.5 billion in military aid to Israel. The Pentagon also sent two aircraft carriers to the region as a sign of support for Israel.
Biden’s strong support for the right-wing party in Israel has even embarrassed some figures in his administration. On 19 October, Josh Paul, director of the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, said he was resigning because of the White House’s “intellectually bankrupt” decision to increase military aid to Israel. He said the Biden administration is “repeating the same mistakes Washington has made for decades”.
Paul also said the administration’s “blind support for one side” led to policy decisions that were “shortsighted, destructive, unfair and contrary to the very values we publicly espouse”. In an interview with the New York Times, Paul also said that continuing to give Israel “carte blanche to destroy a ‘generation of enemies’ only to create a new one is ultimately not in the interest of the United States.”
It has come to the point where Biden openly states that he is a Zionist and is proud of it, “I don’t believe you have to be a Jew to be a Zionist, and I am a Zionist,” Reuters quoted Biden as telling an Israeli military cabinet. Politicians and generals gathered in a hotel ballroom in Tel Aviv nodded approvingly, according to a U.S. official with knowledge of the remarks behind closed doors.
This explains the unconditional US support for the Israeli state, its huge funding and the dispatch of the most modern weapons, which are now actively used by the IDF to destroy Palestinian civilians, the constant shelling of Lebanon’s borders, and the unpunished bombing of Syrian territory. Such remarks are made at a time when Israel’s 75-year history is associated with the theft of Palestinian land, the displacement of indigenous Palestinians, the destruction of their homes, the creation of hundreds of thousands of refugees inside and outside Palestine, the building of homes on stolen land, the killing of children, the destruction of olive trees, the burning of agricultural land, the imprisonment of those who oppose the occupation, etc.
In his 26 October speech, Biden said: “I will say it 5,000 times in my career: The United States’ ironclad commitment to Israel is based on our principles, our ideas, our values.” The values of Israel stand for making a mockery of international law and qualify any criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism. Of course, it’s no secret that the United States doesn’t care about international law when it comes to Israel’s crimes and illegal actions, and whenever it seems that its commitment to international law doesn’t match its desires, just like what it did regarding the 2015 Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA).
Biden’s alliance with Israel has dealt a serious blow to the image of the United States. People around the world now view the Biden administration as complicit in the crimes Israel is committing in Gaza. Israel has dropped more than 22,000 U.S.-supplied bombs on Gaza in the first month and a half of the war alone, according to intelligence data provided to Congress and revealed by The Washington Post.
It is quite obvious that Biden considers himself indebted to the Zionist lobby. During his 36 years in the Senate, Biden was the largest recipient of donations from pro-Israel groups in the chamber’s history, receiving $4.2 million, according to the Open Secrets database, Reuters reported on 21 October.
In a speech to the Senate on 5 June 1986, Biden defended annual military aid to Israel, saying: “This is the best three-billion-dollar investment we are making. If there were no Israel, the United States of America would have to invent Israel to ‘protect its interests in the region.’”
A 4 November 2023 report on the US news site Axios states: “While the timing of the new security package remains unclear, the U.S. is by far the largest provider of military aid to Israel, having provided some $130 billion since its founding.”
In addition, as vice president, Biden often mediated the testy relationship between Barack Obama and Netanyahu. Dennis Ross, a Middle East adviser during President Obama’s first term, recalled that Biden intervened to prevent Netanyahu from retaliating against him for a diplomatic outburst during a 2010 visit. According to Ross, Obama wanted to respond harshly to Israel’s announcement of a major expansion of housing for Jews in East Jerusalem. “Whenever the situation in Israel got out of control, Biden was the liaison,” Ross said. “His commitment to Israel was so strong … And that’s the instinct we’re seeing now.”
During a visit to the United States in July 2023, Israeli President Yitzhak Herzog gave a speech to Congress. He called the bond between Israel and the United States “sacred” and said that calling Israel a racist state is anti-Semitism. Describing the alliance between Israel and the US as sacred is ideological and extremely dangerous. Such a term resembles the language used by ideologically motivated terrorist groups who hold their vicious ideas sacred and others as enemies to be purged. Describing ties between Israel and the US as sacred inherently conveys the idea that any Israeli action is right. For example, Israel believes it has an inalienable right to steal Palestinian land, demolish their homes in the West Bank, ethnically cleanse the population in Gaza, and starve all Palestinians to death without facing any consequences because the US as the most powerful country in the world will protect you. It’s as if loyalty to Israel is carved in stone to the point that if any official dares to criticise Israel, they are forced to back down from their position.
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, chairwoman of the Congressional Progressives Caucus, who called Israel a “racist state,” came under pressure from both Democrats and Republicans. They called the comments anti-Semitic, forcing her to retract her remarks. The House of Representatives then overwhelmingly passed a resolution declaring that Israel “is not a racist or apartheid state” by a vote of 412 to 9. Aida Touma-Suleiman, a member of the Israeli Knesset, was also suspended after criticising the bombing in Gaza.
Democrats and Republicans are competing to win Zionist support in Israel and the US, regardless of American public opinion. Harsh criticism of senior American officials is tolerated in the US, but it is unacceptable when it comes to Israel. Furthermore, the decades-old repeated statements by Democrats and Republicans that they support a two-state solution in which Palestinians and Israelis live together peacefully are not genuine.
The West’s blind and unconditional support for Israel that its crimes in Gaza are unbelievable, astonishing and shocking, has also infuriated some officials on both sides of the Atlantic. More than 800 officials in the United States, Britain and the European Union published an open letter of dissent against their governments’ support for Israel on Friday. “The current policies of our governments weaken their moral character and undermine their ability to stand up for freedom, justice and human rights around the world,” the letter reads. It adds: “There is a real risk that our governments’ policies are contributing to serious violations of international humanitarian law, war crimes and even ethnic cleansing or genocide.”
Amid such crimes and protests against Israel’s behaviour in Gaza, it seems that Biden, who boasts of a 50-year political career, has lost touch with reality to the extent that his support for war criminals in Israel has brought shame to him and a bad reputation to the United States. Biden turned a blind eye to mass rallies around the world, especially in Western cities, against Israeli crimes in Gaza. No doubt, he has seen protesters carrying placards calling him “Genocide Joe.” Biden should also have read a book written by his colleague, Democratic President Jimmy Carter, entitled Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.
A month after Russia launched a special military operation against the neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine, the US government was quick to accuse Russia of committing aggression. However, when South Africa submitted an 84-page document to the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of actions in Gaza that are “genocidal in nature because they are intended to destroy a significant portion of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnic group,” the Biden administration dismissed the accusation as “baseless.” This is despite the fact that Russia’s behaviour in Ukraine is in no way comparable to what Israel is doing in Gaza.
In a 3 December article, The Washington Post stated: “The United States is making it clear that it will not stand up for international rules and norms if one of its closest allies violates them.”
And that is true. Nevertheless, it will take the United States many years, perhaps even decades, to regain the reputation it lost because of the ironclad commitment and ill-considered policies of Biden and his administration officials towards Israel.
Victor MIKHIN is a Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Natural Science.
The Grayzone | February 15, 2024
In the latest Grayzone report from the ground in Gaza, 39-year-old mother Abier Mohammed Gheben describes how invading Israeli forces kidnapped her and subjected her to humiliation and violent threats as they interrogated her in captivity.
Defence for Children Palestine | February 13, 2024
Abdulhakim, 13, was injured in the Israeli military’s assault on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. As he recovers in a hospital in southern Gaza, there is no room for him and many others, so his bed remains in the hallway.
RT | February 16, 2024
The US-led strikes against targets in Yemen are illegitimate and have no justification under the UN Charter, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev said on Friday at a meeting of security officials from regional powers.
The US and UK, with support from allies, have launched dozens of attacks since January against the Houthis, a Yemeni armed movement. The stated intention was to protect maritime traffic from the militants, who have targeted trade vessels with raids and drone strikes in an attempt to put pressure on Israel.
”Washington and London have unleashed a war with Yemen under the pretext of securing freedom of navigation in the Red Sea. They are trying to drag other nations of the region into it,” Patrushev said. “However, their strikes on the positions of the Houthis are absolutely illegitimate and have nothing to do with the right of self-defense… contrary to what Washington claims.”
The Houthis were a major party in the civil war in Yemen and the primary opponents of the Saudi-led military intervention launched in 2015. They have emerged from the conflicts as the de-facto government of a large portion of the country.
Houthi forces have been targeting passing ships they believe to have ties with Israel in an attempt to enforce a naval blockade of the Jewish state – in retaliation for Israel’s siege of Gaza, which West Jerusalem has conducted with the stated goal of obliterating the Palestinian militant movement Hamas.
Tensions are on the rise globally, Patrushev said, claiming that the core reason for the violence is “the Western intention to hold on to its dominance in world affairs at all cost.”
“People in Washington are convinced that doing so would be easiest amid a global chaos,” he added.
Patrushev delivered the report to his counterparts from China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek. The event’s main focus was on the situation in Afghanistan.
MEMO | February 16, 2024
An elderly Palestinian woman, Umm Muhammad Musmah, has categorically refuted the Israeli army’s propaganda that soldiers had found her last month while shackled inside a building and provided her with medical aid, Anadolu news agency reported.
Umm Muhammad. who is currently receiving treatment in the Gaza European Hospital in the city of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip, told the agency that it was the Israeli army soldiers who had detained her, handcuffed and beaten her then filmed her for propaganda purposes.
She said she was chained and kept outdoors in the cold weather and deprived of food throughout her detention which lasted for nearly two weeks.
Recounting the harsh experience, Umm Muhammad said: “I was arrested [by occupation forces] with many citizens from the Ma’an area, east of the city of Khan Yunis, and [the soldiers] tied my hands, while the weather was very cold. I tried to untie myself, but could not.”
“I was left without food, and was beaten during the arrest,” she added.
In a post published on X on 26 January, the Israeli occupation army added a video of the elderly Palestinian woman being carried on an ambulance stretcher, accompanied by Israeli soldiers.
Israeli army spokesman, Avichay Adraee, claimed that an Israeli army’s drone had located the woman while combing an area in Gaza after she had taken shelter in the building while her hands were shackled and she was suffering from bad health.
“While providing medical care to her, the elderly woman told the force that all her family members had fled to the south, and that Hamas saboteurs arrived at her house wearing military uniforms and handcuffed her two days ago and ordered her to say that our soldiers did that,” he claimed, adding that the Israeli forces provided medical treatment to the elderly woman and released her later.
Israeli forces have repeatedly published claims which have later been disproven. Including claiming it didn’t bomb Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital on 17 October 2023 and kill 500 Palestinians in Gaza.
Over the past few months, Palestinians have been released from Israeli captivity and left to make their own way to shelters or to find their families in Gaza. The detainees have shown signs of torture and pictures from their detention show them being humiliated and degraded, stripped of their clothes and left outside in the winter cold.
Just this week, a detained Palestinian civilian was sent into Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis with his wrists tied together and ordered to tell those taking shelter in the hospital to evacuate it. He was then killed by sniper fire, while three Palestinians who were heeding his advice and who tried to travel through the designated evacuation route were all killed.
Just like the caged-up Palestinians
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • FEBRUARY 15, 2024
Over the past four months I have carried out my daily morning scan of the major online news websites increasingly concerned over what I would be seeing given the mainstream media’s reluctance to report honestly and the persistent management by government propaganda mills of what is leaked to the journalists. News regarding what is taking place with Russia-Ukraine suffered initially as the war turned sharply in Moscow’s favor late last year, so much so that the likely outcome is only being challenged on neocon dominated sites like American Enterprise Institute, Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the National Review. President Joe Biden and team are now only struggling to raise $61 billion for Volodymyr Zelensky to prolong the conflict through the US election later this year so Biden can appear to be a strong “wartime” president fighting hard to defend the United States from the threatening Red Hordes. That the money will essentially drop down the hole of Ukrainian corruption seems to bother no one in the White House, but the game goes on with Biden saying “This bipartisan bill sends a clear message to Ukrainians and to our partners and to our allies around the world: America can be trusted, America can be relied upon, and America stands up for freedom. We stand strong for our allies. We never bow down to anyone, and certainly not to Vladimir Putin. So, let’s get on with this… Are [we] going to side with terror and tyranny? Are [we] going to stand with Ukraine, or are [we] going to stand with Putin? Will we stand with America or – or with Trump?” The president is also currently pumping the line that he is somehow saving or protecting “democracy.” The fact that Ukraine, banning political parties and even religious groups and the Russian language, is no democracy does not seem to impact on the narrative. And don’t forget how the Zelensky government recently murdered American journalist Gonzalo Lira for his exercising freedom of the press!
Biden argues that standing by America’s “allies,” even when they are not actual allies, is essential to maintain confidence in the United States and its leadership mission to create a “rules based international order” and thereby save the world. Beyond Ukraine, there is, of course, America’s “best friend” and “greatest ally” Israel which also is no democracy as Palestinian citizens have limited rights, with those living on the Israeli army occupied West Bank having effectively no protection from being arrested arbitrarily or even shot on sight by rampaging soldiers and settlers, who fear no consequences for killing and robbing Arabs because there are no consequences. The bombing of Gaza into the stone age continues with hardly any coverage in the mainstream media as if it is an atrocity that will disappear from the collective conscience if no one refers to it in spite of the rows of dead women and children. The US and European media meanwhile blithely report every new “Hamas atrocity” promoted by the habitually lying Israeli Army (IDF) as if it were the truth while Biden is pulling out the stops to provide the cash ($14 billion) and weapons to enable the IDF to kill more Palestinians while at the same time mock-mourning the slaughter of the innocents that is taking place. The ghastly death toll is a direct result of Joe’s lack of any action to force the Israelis to change course, which he has the leverage to do with a phone call to Benjamin Netanyahu threatening to cut off the cash, arms and political support. But the administration has made plain that it has no intention to do anything like that.
But even given all of that excitement last week there is one story that stands out, the video of former Secretary of State and CIA Director Mike Pompeo in Israel grinning and dancing with celebrating Israeli soldiers, who presumably have just returned from Gaza after having had the pleasure of blasting a few more score of civilians, including a large percentage of children. The Israeli Army’s latest stunt is to position snipers and tanks around the last functioning major medical facility in Rafah district in the south of Gaza, the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. The Palestinians trying to survive in Gaza were previously ordered by Israel to go to Rafah where they would be “safe” but it was a self-serving lie and the military then proceeded to bomb and shoot civilians, even when they were trying to surrender, and also destroying infrastructure like hospitals and schools to make the area uninhabitable. The army snipers have now joined in the fun by shooting Gaza’s doctors and patients inside the building and on the grounds to force Nasser Hospital to evacuate and shut down. They followed up on the shooting gallery by storming the hospital, allegedly in search of “hostages.” It is all part of what is developing as Netanyahu has announced that the ground invasion of Rafah will soon begin even though the encaged Palestinians, who are already starving due to the Israeli blockade of humanitarian aid, have nowhere to go and many more thousands will die one way or another.
As a taste of what is to come that is even more bizarre than what has already transpired, Israel’s “most moral army in the world” has now also gone into the entertainment business. It has begun to invite groups of Israeli civilians into detention centers and prisons that have been holding West Bank Palestinian prisoners as well as detainees from the Gaza Strip. The civilians are able to observe the detainees, stripped to their underwear, and laugh and jeer as the men are being beaten, humiliated and tortured, with many of the viewers also allowed to film what is happening on their own cell phones to share with their friends and families. Mike Pompeo, who is a Christian Zionist of dispensationalist persuasion, believes that the former Palestine belongs to the Israelis because it says so in the Bible, which he has carefully “studied.” He also, while Trump’s Secretary of State, declared that the US no longer regards the illegal Israeli settlements on the West Bank as “illegal” and he similarly approved of the Israeli annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights as perfectly acceptable under international law, which it is not. Wonder what Mike as a self-identified pious Christian thinks about all those dead and mutilated Palestinian babies if he ever chooses to think about it at all?
Also in the running for god-awful narrative of the week was a piece claiming that the successful first step by way of a majority vote in the House of Representatives to bring about the richly deserved impeachment of Department of Homeland Security’s ghastly Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Thursday was the result of an “antisemitic conspiracy theory” because he is a “Sephardic Jew,” not due to his own incompetence which he has been demonstrating regularly for the past three years. The deep hole of depression that I crawled into as I watched the fat twerp Pompeo cavorting while the midget Mayorkas touted his Jewish credentials drove me to rethink the whole issue of US foreign and national security policy. I came to the conclusion that the players are caricatures and it should not be taken seriously and should instead be regarded as a comedy routine, something like Monty Python but terribly lethal and without the intelligence and wit of John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin and Graham Chapman.
To be sure the Biden administration can always be counted upon to produce a laugh, particularly when it brings on the clowns named Antony Blinken, Victoria Nuland, Karine Jean-Pierre and Jake Sullivan. There has been a lot of funny stuff lately, most particularly the chatter about a solution to the Palestinian genocide, even though Biden seems quite comfortable to let the Israelis finish their ethnic cleansing of Gaza before anyone looks for a place willing acquire two million more stateless and homeless Palestinians. Former presidential aspirant and totally owned Zionist stooge Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida has already declared that no Palestinians should be allowed into the US as refugees as they are “antisemites.”
Nevertheless, Biden and Blinken’s State Department want to come up with some kind of formula, if only because the worldwide blowback due to the White House’s unflinching support for Israeli brutality has begun to have consequences as it constitutes complicity in crimes against humanity. Some kind of limited sovereignty, disarmed for sure, allowed to Palestine is envisioned but Netanyahu and his political allies, long opposed to a two-state solution, have recently repeatedly rejected proposals for any Palestinian sovereign entity. Israel is even now using its formidable lobby and international press/narrative control to work assiduously against any diplomatic recognition of a Palestinian state by individual countries or as a full member at the UN. Not surprisingly, the greatest effort to keep things on track is being directed against voices raised in support of Palestine in the United States. Biden is listening to be sure and is having both Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan carefully coordinate every step the administration takes with the Israeli Minister for Strategic Affairs and former ambassador to Washington Ron Dermer. Even though Israel and Netanyahu definitely hold the whip hand, the president is nevertheless inevitably looking over his shoulder and is fearful of alienation of voters with the national election coming up if the carnage in Gaza continues. Not for the first time the endless farce of US internal politics will likely at least somewhat influence what eventually takes place in countries six thousand miles away. And given Biden’s propensity to avoid doing the right thing, one can be pretty sure that the result won’t be pretty!
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
The Cradle | February 15, 2024
Israeli forces stormed Al-Nasser Hospital in Gaza’s southern city of Khan Yunis on 15 February, which had been besieged by the invading troops for several weeks.
“Israel’s military stormed Nasser Hospital and turned it into a military outpost. The Israeli military destroyed the ambulance station and tents of displaced civilians and bulldozed over [mass] graves in the courtyard of the hospital,” the Gaza Health Ministry announced.
Displaced Palestinians inside the hospital were “forcibly evacuated” on 14 January before a “massive incursion” on Thursday morning, which began under intense shelling, the ministry added.
Al-Jazeera reported “heavy tank and machine-gun fire as the Israeli army entered Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis after ordering occupants to evacuate this morning.”
Intensive care patients were forced to move into one of the hospital’s older buildings, which was not equipped to care for them.
“The Israeli occupation forces the administration of Nasser Medical Complex to keep intensive care patients without medical staff, which puts their lives in grave danger,” Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said.
According to hospital officials, seven patients were hit by Israeli fire, and one of them was killed.
The Israeli military claimed on 15 January it had “credible evidence” that Hamas kept prisoners inside Al-Nasser Hospital and that their remains may still be in the facility.
However, Hebrew media reported on Thursday that “expectations regarding finding corpses of Israeli detainees at Nasser Hospital must be lowered.”
Tel Aviv also claimed Hamas operatives involved in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood were hiding in the hospital. The Israeli army entered Khan Yunis in early December, laying siege to the southern city’s hospitals.
Over the past week, dozens of Palestinians have been shot and killed by Israeli snipers in the vicinity of Al-Nasser Hospital, including those who were trying to leave the facility.
The Israeli army stormed Khan Yunis’ Al-Amal Hospital at the start of this month.
Tel Aviv has been conducting a military campaign against hospitals in Gaza with the aim of making the strip uninhabitable for Palestinians. In November, north Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital was besieged, stormed, and transformed into a detention center by Israeli troops.
Israeli forces are now preparing to push further south into Rafah but are still facing fierce resistance from Hamas’ Qassam Brigades and other resistance groups in Khan Yunis.
Sputnik – 15.02.2024
At least six people were killed during a Ukrainian missile attack on the Russian city of Belgorod today.
Ukrainian forces carried out the attack using the Czech RM-70 Vampire multiple launch rocket systems, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said in a statement, adding that Russian air defense systems managed to intercept 14 rockets.
“On February 15, 2024, at around 12:30 [local time, 09:30 GMT], an attempt by the Kiev regime to carry out a terrorist attack on targets on the territory of Russia using the RM-70 Vampire multiple launch rocket system was stopped. On-duty air defense systems destroyed 14 rockets over the territory of the Belgorod Region,” the ministry said in a statement.
A shopping mall in Belgorod ended up being damaged as a result of this attack.
The mall building, which housed a grocery store and a pharmacy, sustained serious damage, according to local media reports.
Accorting to preliminary reports cited by local authorities, at least six people (including one child) were killed during this attack, and 17 more (including four children) were injured.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, who branded the attack as “another act of terrorism perpetrated by the Kiev regime,” has announced that Russia is going to have this matter reviewed by the appropriate international organizations, including the UN Security Council.
The Cradle | February 15, 2024
The Egyptian government has started building an “isolated security zone” in the eastern Sinai Desert on the border with the Gaza Strip that would serve as a buffer zone for Palestinian refugees if they are forced out of Rafah by the Israeli army, according to the Sinai Foundation for Human Rights.
Local contractors told the rights group that the construction work was commissioned by the Sons of Sinai Construction and Building Company, owned by businessman Ibrahim al-Arjani, a former warlord from the Tarabin tribe in northern Sinai who holds close ties with the family of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
The construction work aims to “create an area surrounded by walls seven meters high, after removing the rubble of indigenous homes that had been destroyed.” The construction is expected to be completed in under 10 days and is supervised by the Egyptian Armed Forces Engineering Authority, with a heavy security presence.
“This morning, the Foundation’s team … monitored the construction of a seven-meter-high cement wall, starting from a point in the village of Goz Abu Waad, south of the city of Rafah, and heading north toward the Mediterranean Sea, parallel to the border with the Gaza Strip,” the Sinai Foundation said on 14 February.
“The construction work seen in Sinai along the border with Gaza – the establishment of a reinforced security perimeter around a specific, open area of land – are serious signs that Egypt may be preparing to accept and allow the displacement of Gazans to Sinai, in coordination with Israel and the United States,” Muhannad Sabry, a researcher in Sinai affairs and security in Egypt, told the Sinai Foundation.
Earlier this month, Egyptian journalist Ahmed el-Madhoun shared a video showing workers strengthening the security wall separating Egypt and Gaza. Since the outbreak of the war on 7 October, Cairo has constructed a concrete border topped with barbed wire and extending six meters into the ground.
Cairo recently boosted its military presence on the Gaza border, citing fears of a spillover of Israel’s ethnic cleansing campaign onto its territory once the ground invasion of Rafah begins. Western media has also quoted Egyptian officials as saying that the government considered suspending the 1978 Camp David Accords if Palestinians were forcibly displaced into the Sinai Desert.
Nevertheless, Israel’s Army Radio reported over the weekend that Cairo informed Tel Aviv that they will not object to a military operation in Rafah as long as it is conducted without harming Palestinian civilians. Other Israeli outlets, as well as the New York Times, have reported Egyptian officials expressing fears that any influx of Palestinians could lead to a resurgence of “Islamist militancy.”
Israeli officials have repeatedly made clear their desire not only to defeat Hamas but also to force Gaza’s 2.3 million citizens to flee to Egypt or other countries as refugees. Those statements coincided with explicit plans to annex Gaza and build settlements for Israeli Jews over destroyed Palestinian homes.
Israeli settler groups and Knesset members recently held a conference to discuss building Jewish settlements in Gaza once its indigenous inhabitants have been ethnically cleansed.
The Cradle | February 14, 2024
The White House has no “reprimand plans” in the works to punish Israel if its army launches a ground invasion into the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, where 1.4 million Palestinians are taking shelter after forcible displacement.
“Israeli forces could enter the city and harm civilians without facing American consequences,” POLITICO reports, citing three US officials speaking on condition of anonymity.
Measuring about 64 square kilometers in size, Rafah is severely overcrowded, with hundreds of thousands of civilians who fled there after the Israeli army designated the city a “safe zone” in its ongoing genocide campaign.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to stage a land assault on Rafah, as he announced over the past several days, where he claims the “last four battalions” of Hamas’ armed wing are entrenched.
“We’re going to do it while providing safe passage for the civilian population so they can leave,” Netanyahu said in an interview with US outlet ABC News on Sunday. The premier, however, failed to specify where such a large number of displaced civilians could evacuate, stating only that Tel Aviv is “working out a detailed plan.” He alleged that “there are plenty of areas” north of Rafah despite the Israeli army having flattened most buildings and infrastructure in that region.
US President Joe Biden reportedly told Netanyahu on Sunday that an attack on Rafah should not be launched “without a credible and executable plan for ensuring the safety of and support for the more than one million people sheltering there,” yet he did not oppose the operation.
Hours later, bombs rained down on Rafah, killing over 100 civilians.
Over recent weeks, western media has been awash with reports that Biden is growing “frustrated” with Netanyahu, even using “disparaging terms” to refer to the Israeli premier and holding discussions about the “day after” Netanyahu.
Nevertheless, public statements by White House officials make it abundantly clear there will be no change in approach to US–Israel relations.
Newly-minted US National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby told reporters on Monday that the White House will “continue to support Israel … And we’re going to continue to make sure they have the tools and the capabilities” to continue military operations.
Asked on Wednesday what the US response would be to a ground invasion of Rafah without concern for civilian safety, Kirby refused to respond, saying, “I’m not going to get into a hypothetical game.” The senior US official has also come under fire for saying the Israeli military is doing a “better job at protecting civilians in Gaza” than their US counterparts would.
Furthermore, as international calls grow for Washington to cut arms deliveries to Israel, earlier this month, US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Barbara Leaf, made it clear Washington has no plans to do such a thing.
“In a word, no – we are not contemplating that,” Leaf told reporters during a digital press briefing when asked if the White House is contemplating a reduction in the pace of arms deliveries to Israel.
In addition to fueling the mass murder of nearly 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza, the US has also provided political cover for Israel. Most recently, it threatened to review its ties with South Africa after Pretoria took Tel Aviv to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on charges of genocide.
By Dr Binoy Kampmark | MEMO | February 14, 2024
By Adam Dick | Peace and Prosperity Blog | February 13, 2024
This week President Joe Biden was again talking about his ideas of how the Israel government should exercise more restraint in its war in Gaza. But, he remains all talk and no action on this count.
It is tedious to repeatedly hear the man who is, in the absence of congressional action to provide special assistance to Israel for its war, unilaterally providing the key aid including weapons and intelligence for prosecuting Israel’s war continue to insist he supports restraint while the Israel government keeps pursuing relentless devastation.
Biden, in a Monday statement he made at the White House after meeting with Jordan King Abdullah, said the following regarding impending Israel military action:
As I said yesterday, our military operation in Rafah — their — the major military operation in Rafah should not proceed without a credible plan — a credible plan for ensuring the safety and support of more than one million people sheltering there. Many people there have been displaced — displaced multiple times, fleeing the violence to the north, and now they’re packed into Rafah — exposed and vulnerable. They need to be protected.
This schtick is way past its expiration date. The Israel war, now in its fifth month, continues to rack up destruction of life, health, and the physical manifestations of civilization in Gaza at an astounding pace, with the brunt of the suffering imposed on civilians. Israel is taking the actions. But, the US is the key accomplice to the atrocities because of the aid it provides.
This is Biden’s war as much as it is Israel’s war.
Biden is notoriously prone to make blunders in his public presentations. The blunder he made in his comment in his Monday White House statement is different than many. Biden quickly corrected his mention of “our military operation in Rafah” to clarify that the military operation is Israel’s. The slipup here was not that Biden had stated something false. Instead, it was that Biden had stated the truth that he and his administration are trying their best to hide.
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Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
By Judith Curry | Climate Etc. | November 5, 2013
Groupthink: A pattern of thought charaterized by self-deception, forced manufacture of consent, and conformity to group values and ethics.
Groupthink: Collective Delusions in Organizations and Markets, by Roland Benabou, published in the Review of Economic Studies. Benabou also has a talk (ppt slides) on this subject.
First, a definition of groupthink (from the ppt slides):
Janis (1972)’s eight symptoms [of groupthink]:
Sound like any groups that we know? … continue
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