Arab-Iran amity is a geopolitical reality
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | NOVEMBER 9, 2023
The forthcoming first visit by Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi to Saudi Arabia on November 13 marks a milestone in the rapprochement between the two countries mediated by China in March. The relationship is fast acquiring a qualitatively new level of solidarity in the context of the Palestine-Israel conflict.
This marks a shift in the tectonic plates in regional politics, which has long been dominated by the United States but no longer so. The latest China-UAE initiative on Monday to promote a ceasefire in Gaza was rounded off with an extraordinary spectacle of diplomacy at the UN headquarters in New York as the two countries’ envoys read out together a joint statement to the media. The US was nowhere to be seen.
The events since October 7 make it abundantly clear that the US attempts to integrate Israel into its Muslim neighbourhood on its terms is a pipe dream — ie., unless and until Israel is willing to turn its sword into plowshares. The ferocity of the Israeli revenge attacks on the people of Gaza — “animals” — smacks of racism and genocide.
Iran knew all along the bestiality of the Zionist regime. Saudi Arabia too must be in a chastened mood following the wake-up call that it must first and foremost learn to live in its region.
Raisi is heading for Saudi Arabia against the backdrop of a historic shift in the power dynamic. King Salman invited Raisi to speak on Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians in Gaza at a special summit of Arab states, which he is hosting in Riyadh. This signifies a profound Saudi realisation that even its willingness to be involved in the Abraham Accords under American persuasion has alienated the Arab public.
There is a fallacy in the western discourse about a Russia-China-Iran axis in West Asia. This is a nonsensical misinterpretation. A consistent three-fold foreign policy principle that Iran pursued right from the Islamic Revolution in 1979 is that, one, its strategic autonomy is sacred; two, the countries of the region must take their destiny into their own hands and solve regional issues themselves without involving extra-regional powers, and, three, foster Muslim unity howsoever long and winding that road might seem.
This principle had severe limitations due to force of circumstances — principally, in the conditions engendered by the colonial policy of divide and rule pursued by the US. Circumstances were even deliberately engineered, such as the Iraq-Iran war, where the US encouraged the regional states to collaborate with Saddam Hussein to launch an aggression against Iran to stymie the Islamic revolution in its infancy.
Another painful episode was the Syrian conflict. There, again, the US actively canvassed among regional states for a regime change in Damascus with the ultimate objective of targeting Iran by using the terrorist groups that Washington incubated in Occupied Iraq.
In Syria, the US brilliantly succeeded in pitting the regional states against each other and the result is plain to see in the ruins of what used to be the throbbing heart of Islamic civilisation . At the peak of the conflict, several western intelligence agencies were freely operating in Syria assisting the terrorist groups to rampage the country whose cardinal sin was that, like Iran, it too consistently put primacy on its strategic autonomy and independent foreign policies through the cold war and post-cold war eras alike.
Suffice to say, the US and Israel met with great success in fragmenting the Muslim Middle East by exaggerating the threat perceptions and convincing several Gulf Arab states that they faced direct threats or even attacks by Iranian proxies, as well as alleged Iranian support for dissident movements.
Of course, the US capitalised on it by selling huge volumes of weapons and more importantly, to finesse the petrodollar as a key pillar of the western banking system. As for Israel, it directly benefitted from demonising Iran in order to draw attention away from the Palestine issue, which has all along been the core issue in the Middle East crisis.
Suffice to say, the rollout of the Iran-Saudi-China agreement has reduced the hostility that existed between Riyadh and Tehran for the better part of the recent decades. Both countries sought to build on the momentum generated by the success of the secret Beijing talks with regard to their commitment to non-interference. It must be noted, however, that the relations between Gulf Arab countries and Iran had already improved significantly over the last two years.
What western analysts miss is that the wealthy Gulf states are fed up with their subaltern life as sidekicks of the US. They want to prioritise their national life in directions they choose and with partners who respect them, eschewing any zero-sum mindset, unlike in the Cold War era, for reasons of ideology or power dynamic.
That is why, the Biden Administration cannot accept that the Saudis today work with Russia on the OPEC+ platform to fulfil their commitment to extra voluntary oil supply cuts, while also negotiating with the US on nuclear technology, and at the same time moving on the diplomatic track with Beijing to douse the fire set ablaze in the Levant a month ago from spreading to the rest of the West Asian region.
Evidently, the Saudis are no longer rolling with pleasure at the prospect of a US-Iran confrontation. On the other hand, Saudis and Iranians have a shared concern that their new thinking with primacy on development will dissipate unless there is regional stability and security.
Thus, it is sheer naïveté on the part of Washington to bracket Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran as one grouping — as Blinken did during his latest visit to Tel Aviv on Monday — and juxtapose it with the rest of the region. The canard that Hezbollah and Hamas are “terrorist” movements is about to be exposed. Truth be told, how are they any different from Sinn Féin, which was historically associated with the IRA?
Such naïveté underlines the absurd US-Israeli-Indian venture to create a West Asian QUAD 2 (“I2U2”), which today looks laughable — or the quixotic plot hatched in New Delhi recently during the G20 summit to get the Saudis on board the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor project, with the fond hope that it “integrates” Israel and creates business for Haifa Port, isolates Iran and Turkey, rubbishes Russia-led International North-South Corridor and shows the middle finger to Beijing’s Belt and Road. Whereas, life is real.
Taking all things into account, it is the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s regional tour to Israel and his summit with a select group of Arab states in Amman over the last weekend that has turned into a defining moment in the Gaza crisis.
The Arab foreign ministers point blank refused to buy into any of the invidious proposals put forward by Blinken with malicious intentions to preserve Jewish interests — “humanitarian pause” instead of ceasefire; refugee camps for the people from Gaza escaping from Israel’s horrific, brutal attacks that would be funded with Arab money but would eventually lead to Jewish settlements in Gaza; contours of a post-war arrangement for Gaza that will leave the debris to be handled by the Palestinian Authority and reconstruction to be financed by the Gulf states while Israel continues to dominate it in the all-important security sphere; preventing Iran from going to the rescue of Hezbollah and Hamas as they are put into Israeli meat grinders of American make.
It was rank hypocrisy. The Arab foreign ministers spoke up in one voice to articulate their counter proposal to Blinken’s — immediate ceasefire. President Biden seems to see the writing on the wall, finally — although, intrinsically, he continues to be the world’s number one Zionist, as someone once called him, and his motivations are largely borne out of his own political survival as the 2024 election draws closer.
Be that as it may, the high probability is that it is now a matter of time before the global community insists on stopping the Israeli apartheid state in its tracks. For, when Muslim countries unite, they call the shots in the emerging multipolar world order. Their demand that a settlement of the Palestine problem brooks no further delay has gained resonance, including in the Western Hemisphere.
Al-Nasr Children’s Hospital in Gaza becomes inoperable following Israeli attack
MEMO | November 10, 2023
The Al-Nasr Children’s Hospital in western Gaza City was rendered inoperative on Friday due to Israeli attacks, leading to the tragic death of a child because of oxygen deprivation, the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported.
The hospital was targeted twice, its Director, Mustafa Al-Kalhalut, said, Anadolu Agency reports.
“One attack targeted the hospital’s gate and the other was directed at the departments in the hospital” the Director said in a release, adding that “the hospital suffered great damage and the patients were left without oxygen resulting in the death of one child.”
Al-Kalhalut highlighted that the power supply to life-sustaining equipment in the Intensive Care Unit, which housed several children, was also severed. As a result, the hospital has been unable to offer any services beyond the Intensive Care Unit, where eight patients were currently receiving treatment.
“No one could reach the hospital and ambulances on the road were also targeted,” the Palestinian doctor said.
The Director appealed to the Red Cross and international bodies for urgent assistance to rescue the staff and patients of Al-Nasr Children’s Hospital.
Almost all hospitals in the besieged Gaza Strip came under Israeli attacks and airstrikes in the last 24 hours, including Al-Shifa, which saw at least four rounds of Israeli airstrikes in the same period.
Israel has launched relentless air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip – including hospitals, residences, and houses of worship – since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas on 7 October.
At least 11,078 Palestinians have been killed, including 4,506 children and 3,027 women. The Israeli death toll, meanwhile, is nearly 1,600, according to official figures.
Protesters shut down UK arms factory to ‘disrupt Israeli war machine’
Press TV – November 10, 2023
Hundreds of trade union members have blocked the entrance of Britain’s largest weapons maker, calling for an immediate end to arms supplies to Israel amid the regime’s brutal military campaign in the Gaza Strip.
Demonstrators gathered outside the gate of the BAE Systems site in Rochester, Kent, on Friday.
They were holding Palestinian flags and chanting slogans like “Stop Arming Israel,” “ceasefire now,” and “How many kids have you killed today?”
One organizer said more than 400 trade unionists were involved in the action at the site.
Union members were calling for “an end to the UK government’s complicity in war crimes being committed in Palestine”, which includes an end to arms sales to the occupying regime and support for an immediate ceasefire.
A teacher and member of the Nation Education Union, who took part in the protest said, “As a teacher, seeing 185 schools and other educational institutions in Gaza bombed is utterly heartbreaking.”
“We’re here today to disrupt the Israeli war machine and take a stand against our government’s complicity and we urge workers across the UK to take similar action in their workplaces and communities,” she added.
The factory, run by BAE Systems, claims it does not directly export equipment to Israel. Activists say the company – which includes the site being blockaded – “provides 15% of the components in the F-35 fighter jets that are currently being used in the bombardment of Gaza.”
The value of components supplied by BAE Systems to Israel could be worth more than £300m since 2016, according to campaigners.
Similar protests were also held outside Israeli-owned factories in Britain.
Two of Israel’s biggest weapons factories, Elbit and Rafael, both have operations in the United Kingdom.
The governments of the UK, the United States and the European Union member states have been providing Israel with weapons and military assistance, since the regime launched its genocidal campaign in the Gaza Strip on October 7.
Palestinian officials in the besieged Gaza Strip say the Israeli regime has dropped more than 32,000 tons of explosives on the territory in its ongoing war of aggression.
Israel’s ongoing bombardment of the besieged enclave has now killed and injured more than 40,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children.
Red Cross condemns attack on aid convoy in Gaza City
MEMO | November 8, 2023
Humanitarian aid convoy came under attack in Gaza yesterday, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
Condemning the strike, the ICRC said it was “deeply troubled that its humanitarian convoy in Gaza City came under fire on Tuesday. The ICRC reminds the parties of their obligation under international humanitarian law to respect and protect humanitarian workers at all times.”
The convoy of five trucks and two ICRC vehicles was carrying lifesaving medical supplies to health facilities, including to Al-Quds Hospital of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, when it was hit. Two trucks were damaged, and a driver was lightly wounded.
“These are not the conditions under which humanitarian personnel can work,” said William Schomburg, the head of the ICRC delegation in Gaza. “We are here to bring urgent assistance to civilians in need. Ensuring that vital assistance can reach medical facilities is a legal obligation under international humanitarian law.”
After the incident the convoy altered its route and reached Al-Shifa hospital where it delivered the medical supplies. Afterward, the ICRC convoy accompanied six ambulances with critically wounded patients to the Rafah crossing.
Israel has intensified its bombing campaign in the northern Gaza Strip and has called on all civilians to leave, saying that those who remain will be assumed to be fighters and therefore targeted. This is in spite of the fact that tens of thousands do not have the means or ability to leave the area and thousands are working as emergency workers supporting their local community, including at Al-Shifa Hospital.
US media say Israel is retaliating. The facts show the opposite

A woman taking part in the women’s march near Israel’s fence imprisoning Gazans on July 3, 2018 is carried on a stretcher
By Alison Weir | If Americans Knew | November 8, 2023
US media reports virtually always say that Israeli violence against Palestinians is “retaliation”. The chronology, however, shows the opposite.
Time after time, US news coverage of the issue begins when Palestinians have committed violence, without noting that this violence was preceded by Israeli violence.
Most recently, US news reports make it appear that the current violence began on October 7th, while failing to mention that Israeli forces had been killing Palestinians regularly in the days, weeks, months, and years before that.


Current news reports also fail to note that October 7th was basically a prison break from what many have accurately described as the world’s largest open air prison, imprisoning over 2 million men, women, and children.
Media reports also neglect to inform Americans that the communities surrounding Gaza are built on stolen Palestinian land, many of the former owners imprisoned in the Gaza ghetto, destitute and desperate.
Media reports also fail to inform Americans that before the October operation, thousands of Gazans had gathered every week for over a year and a half to protest their imprisonment and dispossession – and Israeli forces had shot them, week after week.
Media also fail to inform Americans that it is Israel that regularly initiates the violence after periods of calm, according to an MIT professor’s study on the subject.
This type of news coverage is not new, and has often been found in alternative media as well as legacy media companies.
While the pro-Israel lobby in the US is arguably the most powerful special interest group in the country (it appears that $19 billion may go to Israel this year alone), and while media coverage of the issue is demonstrably slanted toward Israel, there are growing numbers of Americans who are demanding a stop to US support for Israeli crimes.
Until Americans learn the many facts on this issue being obscured by US media, the tragic violence in the region, and the wars fought on Israel’s behalf, will continue, and Americans, too, will continue to die.
Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew, president of the Council for the National Interest, and author of Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel.
Hamas faces off against Israeli troops pushing into ‘heart’ of Gaza City
The Cradle | November 8, 2023
Hamas’ Qassam Brigades continue to confront invading Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip, as Tel Aviv claims its forces have reached the “heart” of Gaza City.
The Qassam Brigades announced in a statement on 8 November that since the early morning, its forces destroyed “15 enemy vehicles in several areas in Gaza.”
The statement also announced “the sniping of a soldier in the Al-Tawam area, wounding him directly.”
Resistance fighters also targeted a gathering of soldiers and vehicles south of Gaza City with a Konkurs guided missile, as well as two tanks and an armored troop carrier near the Al-Shati camp in the northern Gaza Strip, according to the group’s Telegram page.
Fierce clashes were reported in Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip, as well.
The Quds Brigades of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement also targeted several Israeli armored vehicles with mortar fire near the Al-Mashtal hotel in northwestern Gaza.
The Israeli army said on 8 October that two more soldiers were killed inside Gaza. This brings the number of casualties admitted by Israel up to 33 since 27 October, when Tel Aviv announced limited ground operations inside Gaza.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army claims that its troops are now deep inside Gaza City.
Israeli forces are operating “in the heart” of Gaza City and are “tightening the noose” around Hamas, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on 7 November.
“Gaza City is surrounded. We are operating within it; we are deepening the pressure on Hamas every hour, every day,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that evening.
The prime minister vowed that there would be no ceasefire until all prisoners inside Gaza were returned to Israel.
The Israeli air force has also continued to launch indiscriminate air strikes across the strip, including in the south, where Tel Aviv has called on civilians to evacuate.
In Khan Younis, Israeli warplanes destroyed two Mosques on 8 November. Several other areas in central and northern Gaza were struck by fighter jets.
Hamas to remain key player in Gaza’s future: Resistance group’s senior official to Netanyahu
Press TV – November 8, 2023
A senior member of Hamas political bureau says the resistance movement will continue to be the key player in the politics and the administration of the Gaza Strip which has been under brutal aggression by the Israeli regime for over a month.
Ghazi Hamad said on Wednesday that claims by US officials about the diminishing role of Hamas in Gaza are in fact a sign they have failed to defeat the group after more than a month of military action.
Hamad told Al Jazeera that despite the claims, Hamas is currently a powerful political and military force in Gaza that still determines the course of action in the territory.
He said efforts by the Israeli regime and the US to redefine the situation in Gaza have failed and they have achieved nothing in the small blockaded territory and have only caused mass killing of civilians and destruction of hospitals and the civilian infrastructure.
The official said restoring order to Gaza is purely a Palestinian issue and Hamas will remain a key part of that process despite the will of the US government and the Israeli regime.
The remarks came after Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested that Israel would maintain “overall security responsibility” for Gaza “for an indefinite period” when the war ends.
He, however, did not elaborate on the kind of security mechanism such a plan would involve.
At least 10,569 people have been killed in Gaza since the Israeli regime launched its military campaign on the territory on October 7.
The aggression started after an operation by Hamas that killed 1,400 settlers and military forces in the Israeli-occupied territories of Palestine near Gaza.
Israel has declared its main ambition from invading Gaza is to eradicate Hamas, which has ruled the territory for the past 15 years.
Military experts say the Hamas operation against Israel dealt a huge blow to the regime’s myth of invincibility and boosted the morale of resistance groups in Gaza and in the wider Palestine.
Why Does US Keep Mum on Arms Supplies to Israel?
By Oleg Burunov – Sputnik – 08.11.2023
The Biden administration remains tight-lipped about “critical” US military equipment being delivered to Tel Aviv amid the ongoing armed conflict between Palestine and Israel.
US claims that transparency about Washington’s weapons delivers to Tel Aviv would endanger Israel’s operational security are misleading, experts have told The Intercept.
William Hartung, a fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and an expert on weapons sales, said: “The notion that it would in any way harm the Israeli military’s operational security to provide more information is a cover story for efforts to reduce information on the types of weapons being supplied to Israel and how they are being used.”
According to him, “the purposeful lack of transparency over what weapons the US is supplying to Israel ‘on a daily basis’ is tied to the larger administration policy of downplaying the extent to which Israel will use those weapons to commit war crimes and kill civilians in Gaza.”
Hartung added that even as the Biden administration supports Israel with “weapons and rhetoric, it is a delicate matter politically to give all the details on US weapons supplied to the Israeli military, some of which will certainly be used in illegal attacks on civilians if the war continues to grind on.”
The Intercept also cited an unnamed retired US Marine general as saying that Washington keeping mum on details on its arms supplies to Tel Aviv can be attributed to the political sensitivity of the Palestine-Israel conflict.
In particular, weapons used in door-to-door urban warfare, which […] result in civilian casualties, are not going to be something the [Biden] administration wants to publicize, the retired officer said.
The remarks come after US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby admitted late last month that the White House is “being careful not to quantify or get into too much detail about what Israel is getting [in terms of military aid]— for their own operational security purposes, of course.”
Although the US Department of Defense at first declined to identify any specific weapons systems supplied to Israel, it finally revealed that these include “precision guided munitions, small diameter bombs, artillery, ammunition, Iron Dome interceptors and other critical equipment.”
The Intercept noted in this vein that, “What ‘other critical equipment’ entails remains a mystery, as do specifics about the quantity of arms being supplied, which the US administration has refused to disclose.”
The US news website also recalled that while the Biden administration “put out a three-page list of arms for Ukraine, information on weapons sent to Israel could fit in one sentence.”
US President Joe Biden earlier requested $14.3 billion in funding for Israel in addition to the over $3 billion in military assistance Washington already provides.
Barcelona dock workers refuse to deal with weapons ships heading to Israel
MEMO | November 7, 2023
Workers at the Spanish port of Barcelona announced their refusal to allow any ships carrying weapons to operate inside the port, rejecting the violence practiced by Israel in the occupied territories, and accusing the UN of failing to carry out its role.
The workers said in a statement to their association that it is their duty to adhere to and defend the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, at a time when the signatory countries have forgotten about it.
The statement continued: “We decided within the association not to allow ships containing war materials to operate in our port, for the sole purpose of protecting any civilian population, regardless of their location, as there is no justification for sacrificing civilians.”
The statement called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the search for peaceful solutions to conflicts, and for the UN to stop its complicit and negligent behaviour in order to maintain international peace and security and defend international law.
Earlier last week, the Belgian transport workers’ unions called on their members to refuse to load or unload arms shipments being sent to Israel.
“While genocide is under way in Palestine, workers at various airports in Belgium are seeing arms shipments in the direction of the war zone,” the trade unions said in a joint statement.
A Belgian government spokesman declined to comment on whether weapons were being shipped to the region via Belgium.
The unions said that loading or unloading these weapons means contributing to supplying regimes that kill innocent people.
The unions added: “We, several unions active in ground logistics, call on our members not to handle any flights that ship military equipment to Palestine/Israel, like there were clear agreements and rules at the start of the conflict with Russia and Ukraine.”
Displacement of Palestinians to be considered ‘declaration of war’: Jordan
Press TV – November 7, 2023
Jordanian Prime Minister Bisher Khasawneh has warned against vicious attempts by the Israeli regime to displace Palestinians from the Gaza Strip or the occupied West Bank, saying any such move would be a “declaration of war.”
Khasawneh said in a statement on Tuesday that all options were on the table for Jordan within the framework of a gradual stance in dealing with the ongoing Israeli aggression on the besieged Palestinian enclave and its repercussions.
Any attempt by Israel to displace Palestinians would be considered a “red line” and could be deemed a declaration of war, the prime minister noted.
“The continuation of the sinful aggression against the Gaza Strip, with all its crimes, constitutes a flagrant violation of international law and international humanitarian law,” he said.
“The immunity and protection that gives Israel a license to kill Palestinian civilians must be stopped. International humanitarian law prohibits and criminalizes targeting and killing civilians, without exception,” he added.
The premier made remarks in a meeting held in the Jordanian House of Representatives with the members of the Permanent Bureau and heads of parliamentary blocs and committees.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Khasawneh said the Israeli aggression would not succeed in violating legitimate Palestinian rights and establishing an independent, sovereign Palestinian state on the lines of 4 June 1967, in accordance with the two-state solution, with East al-Quds as its capital.
Norwegian Refugee Council chief warns of forced displacement of Palestinians
Jan Egeland pointed to recent comments by far-right Israeli minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has urged that so-called “security zones” be established around illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and along major roads.
The move “would prevent Palestinians [from] freely moving & increase [the] risk of forced displacement,” Egeland wrote on social media.
He also said that in Gaza, the past month has seen “the transfer, en masse, of Palestinians without any guarantees of their safety, survival, and eventual return to their homes.”
“Israel must not further perpetrate forcible transfer, and should allow the safe return and compensate for damages caused to displaced Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza according to international law,” Egeland said.
The United Nations human rights office last month said Israel’s brutal blockade of the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, combined with the evacuation order and forcible transfer of civilians, could amount to a crime against humanity and is punishable by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
On October 12, Israel ordered 1.1 million people in the north of Gaza to evacuate and move south of the enclave as the regime forces prepare for a ground invasion of the besieged Gaza Strip.
Israel’s bombardment has already pushed Palestinians in the besieged enclave into smaller areas and spaces.
Israel has pressed ahead with its deadly war on Gaza for over a month now. The total death toll from the Israeli war since October 7th has topped 10,300. Over 6,500 of the victims are children and women as the regime keeps raining down bombs on residential buildings.

