The special military operation, Avdeyevka, and Gaza
By Yuriy Zinin – New Eastern Outlook – 09.03.2024
The name Avdeyevka, which is known to few in the Arab world, has featured prominently in the Middle Eastern media in recent weeks. Media commentators have examined the battle to liberate this city, its significance, and discussed the opinions of political analysts and observers on the future course of military operations in the conflict, including its international impact.
A number of military observers quoted in the media have referred to this event as “a turning point in the course of the war,” similar in significance to the conquest of Bakhmut by Russian forces last year, with both cities being of similar strategic and symbolic value.
For example, Rizk Al-Hawalda, a retired brigadier general and military expert from Jordan, believes that the capture of Avdeyevka will allow Russian forces to further strengthen their position in Ukraine, and increase their combat capability to defend the territories under their control. For the Ukrainian forces, however, the capture means that their ability to retake what they have lost has been thwarted, leaving them to face the fact that this land has now become Russian territory, and that this loss is irreversible.
Other authors believe that the capture of this city will allow Russian forces to control the space around Donetsk and create logistical corridors to expand the scope of their operations.
The Egyptian Al Qahera News edition sees the capture of Avdeyevka as an “important victory” achieved by Russian troops just before the second anniversary of the start of the special military operation. They outnumber the enemy on the battlefield, both in terms of troop numbers and equipment, giving them an advantage when attacking Ukrainian formations, which are short on weapons and soldiers amid cracks in the West’s military support for Kiev.
These changes are also evident in the range of media responses from the Middle East. In general, they adopt a balanced tone when discussing the results of fighting after two years of the special military operation, and the political and economic consequences of the combat.
For example, the influential Saudi newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat opines that Washington and its allies have miscalculated. It is referring to the West’s imposition of anti-Russian sanctions, its attempts to undermine Russia’s economy, deprive it of revenues from hydrocarbon exports, and isolate it in the international arena, etc.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s calculations, it suggests, are based on common sense and are absolutely correct. He has carefully avoided the traps laid out for him and been able, with skill and step by step, to dismantle the economic blockade declared against his country, and the authors also admire the undeniable victories of Russian troops on the military frontlines.
A number of other Arab publications take a similar line. A review of the events in Ukraine, as they see it, teaches a number of lessons. One is that a state’s policy should not be based on promises of support from outside, and should be founded first and foremost on its own interests. Now, the West’s promises of support have failed. The former media rhetoric that Ukraine is bulwark for Europe is on the wane.
Europeans are suffering from interruptions to the supply of Russian gas, supply chain disruption, inflation and interest rate hikes, etc. The European countries see resolving their own economic crises as their priority, and do not wish to suffer because of Ukraine. In short, the credibility of the Western coalition supporting Ukraine has fallen, and, as the present author notes, it looks as if Ukraine will have to go into the third year of the war alone.
Significantly, such assessments are increasingly being reflected in public opinion in the Middle East. Recently, Akhbar Al Aan, a leading news platform in Dubai (UAE) conducted a poll among its readers about Western military aid for Ukraine. To the question: would this help rescue Kiev, 85% of respondents answered “no” and just 15% answered “yes”.
Today, a number of political observers in the Middle East are drawing parallels between the conflict in Ukraine and the war in Gaza and reaching their own conclusions. In particular, they note the similarity of behavior styles of the leaders of the two countries: Volodymyr Zelensky and Benjamin Netanyahu. They conclude that both are characterized by a pathological desire to deny reality and are stubbornly following their chosen courses, despite the obvious failures of their strategies….
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky showed no sympathy for the Palestinian victims of the war in Gaza. He did not hesitate for a second, but supported the Israeli war machine, Akhbar Al Aan claims.
Other authors criticize the “blindness” of those countries that oppose Russia’s “invasion” of Ukraine but are unable to see what Israel has been doing in the Gaza Strip since October 2023.
In their view, one of the lessons of the Gaza conflict involves the issue of trust in the West. It promotes and continues to proclaim its values and principles as universal, applying to all people regardless of religion, race or nationality. But these trumpeted values have not been applied in Gaza.
Many political observers share this view. The disillusionment with Western values that has emerged in the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Gaza Strip has left a deep wound in the hearts and minds of Arab elites who had placed their hopes in an engagement with Western civilization. This will push the Arab nations’ Islamic civilization, and the civilization of the Global South in general, further away from the West, Arab media commentators predict.
Yuri Zinin, senior researcher at the Center for Middle East and Africa Studies at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO).
Peaceful times are over – Tusk
RT | March 9, 2024
The peaceful times in Europe are long gone, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said, painting a grim picture of the future of the continent amid the continuing tensions with Russia.
“The times of peace are over. The post-war era is over,” Tusk said at a meeting of the European People’s Party (EPP) in Bucharest, Romania on Thursday. “We are living through new times – the pre-war era.”
“The fight against totalitarian trends, corruption, and lies is taking place on many fronts. The most dramatic illustration of this is, of course, what is happening in the war in Ukraine,” the prime minister continued.
“We are facing a simple choice: either we fight to protect our borders, territory and values, and defend our citizens and future generations, or [accept] the alternative that is defeat.”
Tusk made his comments as the Russia-Ukraine conflict entered its third year last month, with many EU heads of state renewing their pledges to continue military and financial aid to Kiev.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in February that the US-led alliance should brace for “a confrontation that could last decades.” US President Joe Biden vowed during his State of the Union address on Thursday to continue backing Ukraine and accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of “sowing chaos around Europe and beyond.”
Moscow has blamed the West for instigating current tensions, arguing that NATO’s expansion eastward is one of the key causes of Russia’s ongoing military operation in the neighboring state. Putin stated last year that the West’s true goal is “the breakup” of Russia.
The Russian leader, however, stressed that Moscow has no intention of attacking NATO member states unless it will be attacked first.
Zelensky critic claims Spain ignoring ‘assassination attempt’
RT | March 7, 2024
YouTuber Anatoly Shariy has accused the police in Catalonia of trying to ignore Wednesday’s drive-by shooting, which he alleges targeted him and his wife. Ukraine had banned his political party in mid-2022.
Shariy and his wife Olga were driving towards their home in Roda de Bera near Tarragona – southwest of Barcelona – on Wednesday morning when a masked man pointed a “machine gun” at their car.
“They tried to kill us in broad daylight, in the middle of the street,” Olga told the outlet El Diario on Wednesday evening. Since then, however, Shariy has lambasted the police for dragging their feet.
“Day concluded. The police did not question witnesses who saw the [would-be] murderer escape from the crime scene,” Shariy posted on X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday evening, in Spanish. “They want me to be killed. There are no more doubts.”
He continued to criticize the police on Thursday, pointing out that they had failed to question the postman who witnessed the shooting. “No action was taken to search for the killer,” Shariy added in another post.
According to El Diario, the Shariys have faced “threats and harassment” ever since “neo-Nazi groups” from Ukraine discovered their location. Last October, someone threw Molotov cocktails at their home.
Earlier this week, Olga told the outlet, the Shariys received a tip – which included recordings of phone conversations – that someone had offered money for Anatoly’s death and asked organized crime groups for his exact location. They reported this to the police, she said, but nothing was done.
Shariy was detained by the Spanish authorities in May 2022 on Ukrainian charges of “treason”, but was released soon thereafter. Spain eventually rejected Ukraine’s extradition request.
A frequent critic of the Ukrainian government, Shariy runs a popular YouTube channel with almost 2.9 million subscribers. He founded a libertarian-leaning party in 2019, the same year Vladimir Zelensky became president, and while it fell short of getting into the Ukrainian parliament, it won several seats on regional councils. Zelensky’s government banned it in early 2022 and rejected all its appeals in October that year.
Europe is Fearful and Desperate
By Alastair Crooke | Al Mayadeen English | March 4, 2024
A leading Establishment newspaper in Europe says that “what is driving European politics at present – is fear”. The headlines ring out with apprehension: “Germany’s élites run scared, as Putin rains down death on Ukraine”. The British Prime Minister calls an emergency press conference to warns of ‘democracy at risk’ from ‘extremism’ on the eve of a by-election win by George Galloway, an articulate, if somewhat unruly, ‘thorn’ in the side of conventional politics (but hardly any ‘extremist’).
In the US too the liberal sphere is in meltdown over the publication of a just-released book: White Rural Rage: The Threat To American Democracy, in which “rural whites are [described as] the most racist; xenophobic; anti-immigrant; anti-gay; and conspiracy-minded, anti-democratic” demography in America. They “don’t believe in an independent press or free speech”, and are “most likely to accept or excuse violence”.
Of course, the fear is being — in the first instance — diverted outwards towards the claim that this is somehow Russia’s ‘doing’ — a looming ‘menace’ further stoked by claims of President Putin’s ‘imperial aspirations’, way beyond Ukraine. There is however (to invert the usual MSM meme), absolutely no evidence for these claims (from anything Putin has said over the years).
What is spooking the West more immediately is the cascading defeats inflicted on Ukrainian forces, after the Avdeevka rout. The new Ukrainian commander, General Syrski, in the wake of the flight, announced a retreat to new defence lines, but as some had predicted, it turned out that the ‘more favourable lines’ Syrski promoted did not exist.
Ukrainian photographers Konstantin and Vlada Liberov who document the war from the ground demanded from Syrski: “So what is the next “fortetsia” – Pokrovsk? Or just Konstantinovka?”
“Where is this second line of defence?” Yuri Butusov, editor-in-chief of Censor— following his trip to this area – asks: “There are no words. Gap: here in Kiev – the supreme commander-in-chief says one thing, but at the front something completely different is happening. I want to say that no field lines of fortifications have been built beyond Avdeevka so far. I saw Russian drones attacking our soldiers in their burrows – in the middle of a field”.
There are no constructed defence lines – only hurried improvisations – whilst Ukraine resorts to simply throwing its reserves at the deficiency – so to prop up the incremental retreat. Did NATO leaders not spot this defence-line lacuna? Apparently not …
And so one leg to the current panic is just this: The EU has heavily over-invested in its Ukraine project, and now sees it fast crumbling. Hence President Macron’s hasty summons of EU states (at 24 hours’ notice) to the Elysée Palace to hear him warn that the situation on the ground in Ukraine was so critical, and the stakes for Europe so high, that: “We’re at a critical point in the conflict where we need to take the initiative: We’re determined to do whatever it takes for as long as it takes”.
What Macron in fact proposed however, shocked the gathered leaders. He advocated committing detachments of European special forces to Ukraine, not so much directly to fight the Russian forces, but to act as vulnerable strategic ‘tripwire’ deterrents to Russia – which, were they attacked, would ‘trip’ a full-throated NATO retaliation down onto the head of Russia.
These tripwire forces, Macron claimed, would form strategic deterrents to Moscow’s military room for manoeuvre — oases of ‘untouchable’ NATO, scattered through Ukraine. His colleagues, horrified, demurred; they saw the emplaced tripwires as the conveyor belt leading to WWIII: ‘Madness’, and ‘no thank you’.
The ‘other leg’ to European desperation was given away by PM Sunak’s rush to the microphone in the wake of the Rochdale by-election outcome to warn that democracy is in peril from extremism.
One commentator opined: ‘Rishi Sunak was right’: “This is not politics, not even of the radical kind … It is inchoate, incoherent rage which is ready to make common cause with anyone else, who is enraged even on contradictory grounds”.
If this reaction sounds a bit over the top – just because George Galloway overwhelmingly won in Rochdale – let us ‘join up the dots’ for you:
The same commentator (Janet Daley in the Telegraph ) avers: “To bring this right up to date, we now have an entity called the Workers Party – a name that summons up traditional Left-wing dedication to the interests of working class people – winning a by-election in Rochdale by somehow conflating the Palestinian cause in Gaza with local working class needs”.
Ouch! That is what hurts. Echoes here from the Michigan primary in the US, where a coalition of pro-Palestinian groups who had set a modest target of 10,000 ‘uncommitted’ votes — Trump’s margin of victory in Michigan in 2016 — to send a message to President Biden that voter frustration over the Gaza war could cost him dearly in the November election. In the event, however, the pro-Palestinian support blew past the 10,000 target and clocked in at nearly 101,400 votes.
Message sent — and as the electoral desperation in Democratic circles, indicates, ‘message received’.
Just to be plain: Events in Gaza and in Ukraine are unravelling long-standing political power control structures in the EU, in Europe and in the US. This is why there is panic and double-down.
Latest European Propaganda: Russia Is Flooding Europe With Illegal Migrants
By Robert Bridge | Strategic Culture Foundation | March 5, 2024
Western media is in full-blown hysteria mode, asserting that Vladimir Putin is ‘weaponising’ the flow of migrants in an effort to destabilize upcoming European elections.
Right up there with ridiculous claims of “little green men” and “tractor protests from Moscow,” Europe is now accusing Russia of fielding paramilitary forces and private mercenaries for the purpose of directing waves of migrants from Africa across the Mediterranean Sea and into the heart of Europe, an apparent effort to ratchet up the spring fever just in time for general elections across the continent.
With no loss of irony, Western propagandists are disseminating allegations that the Kremlin is in the process of agitating those African nations that for so long suffered from European colonial rule, namely Burkina Faso, Mali, Sudan, Ghana, Central African Republic and Libya, a formerly highly developed country that was destroyed by a U.S.-led attack in 2011.
The Telegraph would have its British readers believe it has “seen” intelligence documents detailing plans for “Russian agents” to create a “15,000-man strong border police force” comprising former militias in Libya to control the flow of migrants. Anyone hoping to review something like photographic evidence of this massive army would be advised not to hold their breath. Apparently, the thousands of Russian recruits are so technologically advanced they are invisible to spy satellites.
While it stands to reason that millions of desperate refugees from these turbulent nations would seek shelter in Europe, or possibly even in the United States, risking a trans-Atlantic journey to reach the wide-open U.S.-Mexican border, Brussels simply hopes to deflect attention away from its immigration failures onto Moscow, a sham that is transparent to anyone with even a half-functioning brain.
Let’s not forget that we’ve heard such allegations before.
Without so much as a single apprehended trespasser, Moscow was accused of trying to foment a refugee crisis by transferring asylum seekers to its border with Finland, thus prompting the new NATO lackey to close its land crossings with Russia in contravention of all diplomatic norms. The truth of the matter is that Helsinki was aggravating Russophobia to make the bitter pill of increased spending on Western-made (read: American) armaments go down smoother for Nordic voters.
Belarus, Russia’s closest ally, has also been accused – once again, without a shred of evidence – of sending immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa to its borders with Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.
The latest wave of Russophobia to strike the European capitals comes at a time when migration is set to be a key issue in general elections on the continent, as well as in the UK, where the drumbeat about Russian-sponsored migrant invasion parties resonates the loudest.
An unidentified security source reportedly told the Telegraph : “If you can control the migrant routes into Europe then you can effectively control elections, because you can restrict or flood a certain area with migrants in order to influence public opinion at a crucial time.”
“A failure to control the number of migrants coming to the UK is already seen as a major weakness for Rishi Sunak who is struggling to push through a scheme to deport illegal migrants to Rwanda to stop the flow of small boats across the Channel,” the British daily continued.
Sunak made “stopping the boats” one of his top priorities as Prime Minister, though a survey of British sentiment earlier this year showed that three-quarters of voters believe the pledge has not gone well.
Since June 2023, over 52,000 illegal migrants were recorded as entering the UK, up 17 percent on the previous year. Data released last month revealed that the number of illegal migrants granted asylum in the UK hit a record high in 2023 as border guards waved through thousands of applications “in an attempt to clear a huge post-pandemic backlog.” What is even more laughable, albeit totally predictable, is that the people doing the “waving through” were British border officials, not secret “Russian agents.”
With EU elections in June, the European parliament looks set to shift hard to the right, with migration already proving to be a key issue for voters. Who best to blame for this approaching debacle? Certainly not Angela Merkel, who is personally responsible for much of the mess. Once again, Russia serves as a convenient bogeyman for the blockheaded decision-making processes coming out of the EU, and we’ve heard such accusations before.
In February 2016, one year after Merkel opened the floodgates to some 2 million migrants, many of them Muslims from Syria, U.S. General Philip Breedlove, Head of NATO forces in Europe, blamed Russia for working to exacerbate the refugee flows in a dastardly ploy to destabilize and destroy the EU. In a testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, he said, “Together, Russia and the Assad regime are deliberately weaponizing migration from Syria. In an attempt to overwhelm European structures and break European resolve.”
Nearly a decade later, the same reckless utterances are being made, although this time around the European public, more skeptical about ‘Russia the enemy’ narrative following the Nord Stream fallout, is prepared to express its anger at the ballot box come June during elections for European Parliament. Far-right populist parties are polling well in several EU countries, notably in Austria, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. This terrifies Brussels, as the threat of a right-wing takeover appears imminent, and Europe has only itself to blame for that.
Sending NATO soldiers to Ukraine is “apocalypse warning,” says Slovak prime minister
By Ahmed Adel | March 5, 2024
The Prime Minister of Slovakia, Robert Fico, said on March 2 in a video posted on social media that sending soldiers from the European Union and NATO to Ukraine could precipitate a global apocalypse. The social media post was made on the same day that the Slovakian foreign minister met with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov.
Fico also highlighted Ukraine’s inability to resolve the conflict despite the West’s substantial financial and military aid. He emphasised that an EU and NATO military presence in Ukraine could potentially alter the dynamics of the conflict and trigger catastrophic consequences.
“The West sees that, despite significant financial and military aid, Ukraine is incapable of resolving this armed conflict,” said the Slovak prime minister, adding: “The situation could change with the arrival of EU and NATO military personnel in Ukraine, but then there would be nothing left but to wait for the arrival of the global apocalypse.”
Fico highlighted the pressing need for modern air defence systems for Ukraine but warned that the West could not provide these systems without a commitment to maintaining and operating this equipment. He argued that sending Western military personnel would only worsen the conflict rather than resolve it.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on February 27 during a conference of European leaders that he does not rule out sending troops from Western allies to Ukraine and announced a coalition to deliver missiles to the Ukrainian Army.
“There’s no consensus today to send in an official, endorsed manner troops on the ground. But in terms of dynamics, nothing can be ruled out,” declared Macron.
However, several NATO members, including Slovakia, ruled out the possibility of on-the-ground support for Ukraine which has been in armed conflict for more than two years.
It is recalled that on February 26, Fico warned when speaking ahead of a meeting of EU and NATO national leaders in Paris that several EU and NATO members are considering military deployments to Ukraine. He cited a “restricted document” listing topics to be discussed in Paris that “sends shivers down your spine.”
“These topics,” the Slovak said, “imply that a number of NATO and EU member states are considering sending troops to Ukraine on a bilateral basis. I can’t say for what purpose or what they would do there.”
According to Fico, “This [Paris] meeting is confirmation that the Ukraine strategy of the West has completely failed.”
Macron’s statement was intended to send a strong warning to the Kremlin, but it failed miserably since his comments revealed Western divisions and disagreements instead. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz led the group of European leaders who disagreed with Macron’s claim that NATO had not ruled out sending troops, whilst Washington abandoned Paris in the idea of sending troops and let the French president receive all the flak.
A survey of 12 European Union countries, commissioned by the European Council on Foreign Relations and published on February 21, reveals that only 10% of respondents believe Ukraine can defeat Russia. Furthermore, only 31% of respondents favoured Europe supporting Ukraine until it regained lost territory, while 41% favoured Europe pushing Ukraine to negotiate a peace agreement with Russia.
Unlike many of his European counterparts, Fico acknowledges the reality that Ukraine cannot win the war with Russia. For this reason, Fico sent Foreign Minister Juraj Blanar to hold talks with his Russian counterpart on March 2 on the sidelines of a diplomatic forum in Turkey, a rare high-level encounter between a European Union member state and the country Brussels has attempted to isolate.
The Slovakian prime minister highlighted that the meeting “was an example of our balanced and sovereign [foreign policy],” adding that Blanar and Lavrov spoke about the possibility of a Ukraine peace summit in Switzerland.
For his part, Blanar said in a statement that the war did not have a military solution and urged peace talks. The foreign minister added in the statement that he told Lavrov that Slovakia was against creating an “iron curtain” between Russia and the EU, and its position was based on respect for international law principles, such as territorial integrity and sovereignty.
Fico returned to power after winning an election in 2023 on promises to stop state military aid to Ukraine and has been critical of anti-Russia sanctions. The leftist populist leader also recently said the West’s approach to the Ukraine war is “an absolute failure,” which, as observed by the European Council on Foreign Relations survey, is what most EU citizens also believe. Fico joins Viktor Orban, prime minister of neighbouring Hungary, in resisting major pressure from Brussels and Washington to relent on their efforts to normalise with Moscow, and his actions once again demonstrate the fractures in the EU and NATO.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
EU tells citizens to further reduce gas consumption
Greenpeace activists put giant sticker on European Union Commission HQ in Brussels, March 1, 2023 © Thierry Monasse / Getty Images
RT | February 28, 2024
EU residents must maintain the reduced natural gas consumption levels imposed in the wake of sanctions targeting Russia’s energy sector, according to a draft proposal from the European Council published on Tuesday.
The proposal states that usage levels at least 15% below average demand (measured between April 2017 and March 2022) should be maintained on a voluntary basis for another year. This is despite claiming that the reductions undertaken up to now – or an even more severe rate of 18% – had successfully achieved many of the original proposal’s goals.
Despite diversified supply, lower, more stable prices and higher storage reserves “benefiting the competitiveness of the EU economy,” the Council claims cutbacks must continue for another year. The proposal also notes that such a restriction would also push the EU towards Net Zero carbon emissions.
Should EU residents or their leaders become unwilling to cut back on their fossil fuel consumption, the resolution allows the “voluntary” cutbacks to be mandated, eliminating any risk of scuttling the concept entirely with one or two holdout countries.
Brussels recently confirmed that a five-year pipeline gas transit agreement via Ukraine with Russia’s Gazprom would not be renewed when it expires at the end of March.
Despite passing 13 sanctions packages since 2022 in an effort to punish Russia for its military operation, the EU still bought nearly €30 billion in oil, petroleum products and natural gas from the country last year.
At the same time, Germany, traditionally the EU’s strongest economy, is in crisis, with 15% of its companies in distress, consultants Alvarez & Marsal reported earlier this month. Many analysts blame high energy costs and predict the worst is yet to come, with a real estate crisis looming as companies that can no longer afford to pay for their office space are defaulting, among other secondary effects.
‘State-minus’: Biden’s Palestine solution
Three decades after the Oslo Lie, neither the US nor the EU are in any position to dangle the promise of a Palestinian state.
By Stasa Salacanin | The Cradle | February 29, 2024
Is it sadly ironic that the issue of Palestinian statehood – unresolved for over 75 years – has resurfaced only after Israel’s wholesale carpet-bombing of the Gaza Strip, killing over 30,000 civilians, injuring tens of thousands more, and destroying significant swathes of the territory’s infrastructure.
University of California (UCLA) historian James Gelvin states the case plainly:
“There would have been no serious discussion of a two-state solution without [the events of] 7 October. As a matter of fact, putting the Palestine issue back on the front burner of international and West Asian politics was one of the reasons Hamas launched its operation.”
As Gelvin explains it to The Cradle, Hamas has already scored several victories since its Al-Aqsa Flood operation: “The Palestine issue is back on the international agenda, it is negotiating the release of its captives as an equal partner to Israel,” and has demonstrated that it is “more effective in realizing Palestinian goals than its rival, Fatah.”
New ‘Biden Doctrine’
While the unprecedented, brutal Israeli military response has indeed illustrated the urgency for establishing a Palestinian safe haven, it is impossible to ignore that western state backers of the 1993 Oslo Accords – which laid out the essential framework for the establishment of a Palestinian state – have then so assiduously ignored and neglected that responsibility.
Even greater hypocrisy emerges from the fact that these western powers, led by Washington, have now decided to force the discussion of Palestinian statehood in the midst of Gaza’s carnage, with an Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who is infamously opposed to it.
So, why is this debate possible now? Why was it ignored before 7 October – or even prior to Netanyahu’s return to the prime ministership?
After enormous public and international pressure, US President Joe Biden has, at least rhetorically, reopened the issue of Palestinian statehood. According to the New York Times, the Biden White House’s new doctrine would “involve some form of US recognition of a demilitarized Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in return for strong Palestinian guarantees that their institutions could never threaten Israel.”
In addition, the US president’s plan also envisages Saudi–Israeli normalization and a tough military stance against Iran and its regional allies. However, many analysts have already raised questions about the viability of a plan that does not reflect current ground realities.
While Netanyahu rejects the very notion of a Palestinian state, the ‘Biden doctrine’ and its offering of some limited-sovereignty version of a demilitarized Palestinian state is nothing less than humiliating for Palestinians.
Dr Muhannad Ayyash, Professor of Sociology at Mount Royal University, observes that there is no fundamental change of approach by the US on this issue. In short, the Biden administration refuses to clarify what it means by a ‘Palestinian state.’ Its initiative appears mainly to advance a form of a two-state solution that would be palatable to Israel.
Ayyash points out that the key issues related to Palestinian statehood are left unanswered, including the issue of sovereignty, Jewish settlements, the status of East Jerusalem, a necessary West Bank/East Jerusalem connection with the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian right to return, and so forth.
As Israel has firmly insisted on retaining full security control over the entire territory west of Jordan – meaning, over all the territory likely to come under Palestinian (self-)rule – many experts fear that Israel would have the right to militarily enter those territories at will, without Palestinian consent, with the latter banned from assembling its own military force.
This version of ‘statehood’ is not remotely on par with that of other UN member-states, who are entitled, under the UN Charter, to exercise full sovereignty and defend their territorial integrity. Biden’s ‘solution’ of a Palestinian state with limited sovereignty is nothing more than the legalization of Israel’s perpetual occupation of Palestine.
A Palestinian ‘empty shell’
The revived debate on Palestinian statehood is also intricately connected to a big western public relations dilemma. The Atlanticists’ unconditional support for Israel’s illegal, disproportionate military assault against mostly female and child populations has deeply impacted their image and capacity to maneuver in West Asia and beyond.
This is especially true for Washington’s foreign policy objectives in the region, which are facing major, direct resistance on the ground in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.
The revival of a two-state solution is, therefore, a “desperate act to salvage some of the credibility or legitimacy of these regimes (both Arab and Western governments),” argues Dr Mohammed Abu-Nimer, Professor and Abdulaziz Said Chair for Peace and Conflict Resolution at the American University in Washington, DC.
For decades, the US has capitulated to Israeli demands on pretty much everything Tel Aviv has ever asked for. In recent years, as Gelvin describes it, the US has mainly focused “on bribing various Arab governments – the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan – to normalize relations with Israel” through the “Abraham Accords,” which, in effect, took the Palestine issue off the table.”
Meanwhile, Arab states managed regional expectations by continuing to pay lip service to Palestinian issues while scuttling any opportunities behind the scenes. With few Arab state allies left, Palestinians themselves had no cards left to leverage – until 7 October.
Now, Israel is doing all it can to negate that day’s gains. Says Ayyash:
“Netanyahu wants to dispense with all pretension about the establishment of the Palestinian state and use this moment to establish full Israeli Jewish sovereignty from the river to the sea, whereas the Biden administration prefers a quieter approach that pretends to care about the aspirations of the Palestinian people in order to maintain its close ties with Arab regimes across the region.”
The two-state solution, according to Professor Abu-Nimer, is, therefore, nothing other than a “fig leaf” to resuscitate the west’s crashing image and should not be viewed as a serious US initiative. The proposed plan is “a skeleton or an empty shell which lacks of any serious form of sovereignty.”
Nathan Brown, an American scholar of Middle Eastern law and politics at George Washington University, largely concurs:
“This is not a step toward statehood but only reviving some provisions of the Oslo Accords. Even at a maximum, it would produce what would have been called a ‘protectorate’ in the nineteenth century, not a state.”
A Palestinian state is not on the cards
Although the US and the EU could exercise immense leverage over Israel to revive the Oslo agreement and fast-track its provisions, they are doing nothing of the sort.
Today, there is a unique opportunity for Tel Aviv’s western allies to play this hand, given the utter collapse of Israel’s image worldwide and the mass public demand for the protection of Palestinians.
Instead, the Biden administration thinks that it can resurrect the two-state idea by mediating a grand regional deal – one that will deliver everything Israel wants, by dangling the promise of a rump Palestinian state.
The White House believes that the reward of normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia will offset for the Netanyahu government a reversal on the question of Palestinian statehood and withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian territories.
Gelvin dismisses the plan, saying it simply won’t work on so many levels. For starters, “if Netanyahu commits to a Palestinian state and withdrawal from the occupied territories, his government will collapse and he will go to jail.”
Don’t expect anything spectacular from the European Union either. Although EU High Representative for Foreign Relations Josep Borrell has said that a Palestinian state may need to be imposed from the outside without Israel’s agreement, realistically, the range and reach of European foreign policy is minimal or non-existent. According to Gelvin, “the EU has no more leverage against Israel than Costa Rica.”
Abu-Nimer likely speaks for the majority of regional observers – who have seen this game play out before: these top-down western statehood formulas do not work without genuine engagement with Palestinian political representation – in this case, Hamas and other Palestinian resistance organizations.
Thirty-one years after the Oslo Accords promised a Palestinian state, Israel is ethnically cleansing Gaza and swallowing up the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Almost five months after the start of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, some of the leverage is back in Palestinian resistance hands, and they are unlikely to trade their gains for an unsovereign rump state which diplomats are privately calling a ‘state-minus.’
EU-Created Fund Interfering in Georgia’s Elections – Parliament Speaker
Sputnik – 28.02.2024
TBILISI – The EU-established European Endowment for Democracy (EED) fund is interfering in the parliamentary elections to come in Georgia by financing various political parties, Georgian parliamentary speaker Shalva Papuashvili said on Wednesday.
“EED does not disclose its own expenses in Georgia. Apparently, the fund directly finances political parties and interferes in the elections. Holding the elections properly is part of the nine points [needed to be taken by Georgia for EU integration] and we cannot deal with this alone. The European Union, its representative office, the European Commission must intervene, because this foundation is an institution created by the EU,” Papuashvili told reporters.
If not stopped, foreign funding will harm the elections, which are scheduled to take place in the country, on October 26, and hinder the choice of the Georgian people, the parliamentary speaker added.
“We are seeing that a significant part of the opposition is being financed directly from abroad and, given the fact that the current year is an election year, this is equivalent to foreign interference in the elections in Georgia. Foreign interference is one of the threats expected in these elections … For the elections to be transparent, it is necessary to prohibit and stop direct or indirect funding of parties in Georgia through European channels,” Papuashvili said.
Established in 2023 by the European Union, EED officially aims to promote democracy in the European Neighborhood, the Western Balkans, and Turkiye.
Here’s How Russia Could Hit Back If West Seizes Assets
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 27.02.2024
Some $300 billion in Russian assets were trapped abroad in 2022 after the escalation of the Ukrainian crisis into a full-on NATO-Russia proxy war. Western officials have threatened to seize these funds and transfer them to Ukraine for “reconstruction.” A pair of leading Russian economists tell Sputnik why that’s a very bad idea.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has called on nations of the Western “coalition” against Moscow to “find a way to unlock the value of [Russia’s] immobilized assets to support Ukraine’s continued resistance and long-term reconstruction.”
“I believe there is a strong international law, economic and moral case for moving forward. This would be a decisive response to Russia’s unprecedented threat to global stability,” Yellen said at a meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bank governors in Sao Paulo, Brazil on Tuesday.
Tackling the question of the potential threats to the dollar’s status as the de facto world reserve currency that such an unprecedented move would entail, Yellen said that it it’s “extremely unlikely” that the greenback would be negatively affected. “Realistically there are not alternatives to the dollar, euro and yen,” she assured.
Yellen is the latest senior Western official to propose moving forward with the seizure of Russian assets as Western countries’ own desire to continue fueling the Ukrainian proxy war against Russia falters. Earlier this month, the European Union adopted a law allowing Brussels to bank windfall profits from Russian assets trapped in European banks and use them in Ukraine, a move characterized by Moscow as blatant “theft” which will be met with legal action.
Russian officials and independent economic observers alike have warned of the possible consequences stemming from what Yellen is proposing, with Russian finance minister Anton Siluanov saying Moscow has the means to issue a “symmetrical” response to this form of Western financial aggression.
“We have no fewer frozen [assets than Western countries],” Siluanov said in an interview with Sputnik on Monday. “Any actions taken against our assets would receive a symmetrical response.”
Mechanism for Tit-For-Tat Response Already Exists
“Russia has already taken conservatorship of assets of a number of foreign companies which refused to operate in Russia,” Dr. Andrei Kolganov, a professor of economics at Moscow State University and chief researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Economics, told Sputnik, commenting on the folly of the West’s asset seizure plans.
This instrument was already used against foreign investors with an ownership stake in the Baltika Beer Company, as well as the assets of Finnish energy concern Fortum, the professor noted.
“So in principle, the mechanism for the confiscation of foreign assets has already been worked out. Moving from conservatorship to confiscation is, in principle, a fairly simple technical procedure. The amount of assets that are ‘frozen’ on the territory of the Russian Federation, or which may be frozen, is now estimated at approximately $288 billion,” Kolganov explained.
In other words, the professor said, Russia has control over a big chunk of Western assets which, if the US and its allies proceed with confiscation, “will not escape to the West, but will work here in Russia, because we are talking about investment, first and foremost, in the manufacturing sector.”
From there, these assets could become the property of the Russian state, or be transferred to Russian private owners and continue to work as before.
Confiscation of assets of Western companies in Russia would seriously impact their respective bottom lines, meaning they could try to put pressure on governments, both in their home countries and in Russia, to try to avoid having their capital seized.
“We have a lot of foreign companies working in Russia, including those from so-called unfriendly countries. We have more than 50 decently-sized American firms alone working here, and plenty of European companies,” Dr. Georgy Ostapkovich, director of the Center for Market Research at the Institute of Statistical Research and Economics of Knowledge at Russia’s Higher School of Economics, told Sputnik.
Sorry Yellen, Seizing Assets Won’t Crash Russian Economy
Kolganov says that as unpleasant as a seizure of Russia’s assets abroad might be it would not serve to tank the country’s economy, with Moscow able to continue its international payments using its sizable and healthy foreign exchange earnings after reorienting its trade toward developing countries. The money frozen in Western banks constitutes reserves, which “were not actively used for international trade and international payments” anyway, the professor explained.
“For private businesses, the confiscation of assets would create a pretty big hole in their earnings and budgets. Therefore, it would be a rather sensitive measure if Russia had to resort to it in response to the confiscation of its assets,” the economist added.
Dr. Ostapkovich emphasizes that Moscow will have to be strategic and precise in the foreign assets it may choose to seize, to avoid the risk of friendly countries and companies doing business in Russia feeling threatened.
“Every operation” on Russia’s part “must take place with the help of legal services, that is, through the courts,” the veteran economist said. “We are a state based on the rule of law, and cannot just go ahead and close them, because they will naturally go to court. Moreover, they will file in the London court, which judges according to Anglo-Saxon law. This is case law. They will look for a precedent.”
In other words, Ostapkovich stressed, Moscow should expect a tug of war on the international stage regarding the seizure of assets by the West and Russia’s tit-for-tat response.
Pandora’s Box of Damage to the Dollar
In his interview with Sputnik, Russia’s finance minister mentioned the promising transition away from Western currencies in favor of new currencies among the world’s rising economies, especially China.
“The Chinese are reducing their holdings of American securities. This is a consequence of what’s happening [to Russia, ed.] The reliability of the dollar and the euro has been undermined,” Siluanov said.
And while it may be too early to speak about the collapse of the dollar or euro as a result of a decision to seize the assets of a sizable economy like Russia, Kolganov confirmed that it has the potential to seriously undermine Western reserve currencies’ reputation in a big way.
“The yuan’s share in international transactions has doubled over the past two years, but doubled to only about 4.6 percent of the total. This is not a huge amount, but still, an upward trend exists. The share of rubles in international payments has also increased, mainly in the form of payments with our country… Nevertheless, a gradual move away from the dollar will of course take place. Because here we’re talking not only about the confiscation of assets, which will undermine confidence in payments made in reserve currencies. Because any country and any central bank may feel threatened that if the geopolitical situation changes, they could be treated in a similar way.”
The problem is exacerbated by the fact that the United States and Europe are facing a loss of economic confidence at home, with the former facing debt levels that are off the charts, which in the future could cause serious shocks to the entire global dollar system, Kolganov noted.
Recipe for Action
Russia can already move forward with tit-for-tat measures against the Europeans over Brussels’ law allowing the seizure and use of the interest earned on Russian assets frozen in Western banks, Ostapkovich says, noting if the EU moves forward with the seizures, Moscow could similarly start shaving dividends and interest on European companies operating in Russia.
EU’s Russia sanctions ‘massively circumvented’ – study
RT | February 27, 2024
The EU’s sanctions on Russia are being “massively circumvented” via third countries, Euractiv reported on Monday, citing a study by the IESEG School of Management. The bloc has introduced 13 rounds of restrictive measures against Moscow over the Ukraine conflict.
The research found statistical evidence that the sanctions have been hugely dodged for so-called “high priority items,” which are subject to EU export restrictions and include manufacturing equipment and electrical components with potential military applications.
According to the report, EU exports of such items to Türkiye, the UAE, Kazakhstan, and other “Kremlin-friendly” countries skyrocketed by €2.9 billion ($3.2 billion), or over 80%, in the period from October 2022 through September 2023 compared to the previous twelve-month span. The data shows that at the same time EU exports of such goods to Russia decreased by $3.5 billion, or more than 95%.
The decline in EU sales of advanced technology and dual-use items to Moscow was seen as almost entirely compensated for by a sharp increase in exports of the same goods to countries in West and Central Asia, according to Euractiv.
“The surge of these purchases by third countries is too huge to be entirely caused by an increase in local demand, so that it can be suspected that a big part was thereafter exported to Russia,” the IESEG report claimed.
A senior associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Janis Kluge, told Euractiv that “Russia’s economy is resilient because it is, for the most part, still a market economy.”
The country adjusted to the sanctions through a “decentralized effort” by “thousands of [businesses] managers” to find their ways around the restrictions and “keep things working” – thus proving to be one of the key factors behind Russia’s relative “resilience” to Western sanctions, according to Kluge.
“There were new traders popping up who specialized in importing these goods through third countries. There’s a whole industry that has appeared, which is dedicated to the circumvention of sanctions – because it’s a billion-dollar business,” he stated.
The EU adopted its 13th package of sanctions against Russia last week ahead of the second anniversary of the start of the Ukraine conflict. The measures target 106 individuals and 88 entities and also further restrict trade in technologies and components that could be used by Russia’s defense industry. Components for the development and production of unmanned aerial vehicles have also been added to the blacklist. Some of the sanctioned entities are located in third countries, such as India, China, and Türkiye.
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Book Review
The Voters’ Self-Induced Matrix
By Jeb Smith | The Libertarian Institute | April 20, 2026
In Collective Illusions: Conformity, Complicity, and the Science of Why We Make Bad Decisions, Professor Todd Rose explains that to belong to a group, people “keep twisting [themselves] into pretzels, trying to conform to what we falsely believe everyone else expects of us.” Seeking acceptance from the group, we conform in language, behavior, beliefs, and practices. As a result, we lose our individuality and aggregate into herds. Within our group we create an alternate reality to fit whichever collective mindset we attach ourselves to, and interpret the world through those lenses—our innate desire to belong overrides reality.
Rose says these illusions “have become a defining feature of our modern society.” In other words, the collectivist mindset is a great conduit for spreading illusions; thus, it is the politician’s favored form of governance.
Rose points to studies in psychology and neuroscience showing we delude ourselves into believing what the majority does, even if it is not what we desire or know to be accurate. … continue
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