Israel provokes Iran with assassination in bid to draw the US into war
By Trita Parsi | December 25, 2023
Some brief analysis of the implications of the assassination of Iran’s top commander in Syria, Radhi Mousavi, presumably by Israel.
Bottom line: Israel either killed Mousavi as a warning to Iran, given Tehran’s support for the Houthis’ targeting of ships in the Red Sea, as a provocation to beget an Iranian response that would give Israel the pretext to enlarge the war, or as a preparatory move to enlarge the war regardless of Iran’s response.
It is very likely that Israel is behind the assassination of Mousavi since it is the only power with both a motive and capacity to pull off such a killing – not to mention a long history of assassinating Iranian operatives. The US has the capacity but not necessarily the motive. The analysis below rests on the rather safe assumption that Mousavi was assassinated by Israel.
US intelligence believes that Iran has been actively involved in the Houthi movement’s targeting of ships in the Red Sea, which has effectively closed the Bab el-Mandeb Strait for Israel and cost the Israeli economy billions of dollars. The Houthis insist they will continue the attacks – despite threats of retaliation from the US – until Israel ceases its bombardment of Gaza. Israel, of course, refuses and Biden is loath to press Israel for a ceasefire. From Israel’s perspective, Iran is not paying a price for its alleged role in the Red Sea attacks. The assassination may, as a result, be a warning to Iran that Israel has the capacity and willingness to exact a price from Iran – even in areas where the Iranians may have presumed that they are safe.
In a second scenario, the assassination may be a deliberate provocation to beget an Iranian response that would give Israel the pretext to enlarge the war. While the Biden administration has given Israel a complete green light to bomb Gaza to smithers, Biden opposes an expansion of the war since that very likely could drag the US into it. The debate inside the Israeli government is increasingly leaning toward expanding the war – they have already mobilized +300,000 troops and there is a growing belief in Israel that it simply is intolerable for Israel to live next to Hezbollah. They thought they could manage the threat from Hamas – and they couldn’t. Even though it wasn’t Hezbollah that attacked Israel on Oct 7, the Israeli argument is that next time it might be Hezbollah, and as a result, Israel has no choice but to expand the war. But unless there is an attack from Iran or Hezbollah itself, the US may continue to oppose such a move.
But the assassination of Mousavi may cause Iran to retaliate against Israel via Hezbollah, the reasoning goes, and Israel can then use Hezbollah’s action as a pretext to not only expand the war to Lebanon – but also force the US to go along with it.
There is also a third explanation. According to Amwaj Media, Mousavi was in charge of facilitating the entry of Iran-led forces and arms shipments to Syria as well as Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement. If Israel intends to attack Lebanon, taking out Mousavi could be a logical first step to disrupt the arming of Hezbollah as well as its supply lines. As such, the assassination may be a preparatory move to enlarge the war regardless of Iran’s response to the killing of Mousavi.
All of these scenarios point to one undeniable reality: As long as Biden refuses to pressure Israel to accept a ceasefire in Gaza, tensions in the region will continue to rise and the Middle East will gravitate towards a regional war that very likely will engulf the US as well. Biden may think that he can control these events and allow Israel to slaughter the people in Gaza while keeping a lid on the escalation risk. He is likely wrong – and the American people may soon find themselves in yet another unnecessary war in the Middle East because of Biden’s strategic incompetence.//
India deploys warships to Arabian Sea following attack on Israeli-linked ship
The Cradle | December 26, 2023
The Indian Navy has deployed three guided missile destroyers to the Arabian Sea in response to an alleged drone attack on an Israeli-linked chemical tanker last week.
New Delhi also uses long-range maritime patrol aircraft for “domain awareness,” the defense ministry reported Monday night.
On Saturday, the Liberian-flagged MV Chem Pluto, a Japanese-owned tanker traveling 370km off the coast of India, was reportedly hit by a kamikaze drone, according to the Pentagon.
The Israeli-linked tanker had been on its way from Saudi Arabia to India, according to maritime security firm Ambrey.
The Indian Navy says they are examining the specifics of the attack on the MV Chem Puto, which managed to anchor in Mumbai on 26 December.
Although Indian officials say a preliminary evaluation suggests a drone strike, they emphasize that additional forensic and technical examinations are necessary to determine the exact method of attack.
Washington blamed the attack on Iran, saying the drone had been launched “directly” from the Islamic Republic.
“We declare these claims completely worthless,” said Nasser Kanaani, spokesman for the Iranian foreign ministry, on Monday.
“Such claims are aimed at projecting, distracting public attention, and covering up for the full support of the US government for the crimes of the Zionist regime in Gaza,” he added.
Saturday’s drone attack came less than a week after the US announced the formation of the so-called Operation Prosperity Guardian, described by US officials as a new “coalition of the willing” that seeks to counter the threat posed by Yemen in the Red Sea.
Although the Yemeni armed forces have been conducting the attacks against Israeli-linked vessels of their own accord, the Pentagon insists Iran is somehow involved.
“The [Yemeni] resistance has its own tools […] and acts by its own decisions and capabilities,” Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri told Mehr News Agency on Saturday.
“The fact that certain powers, such as the US and the Israelis, suffer strikes from the resistance movement […] should in no way call into question the reality of the strength of the resistance in the region,” he added.
Biden’s plan to ‘revive Palestinian Authority’ fizzles out: Report
The Cradle | December 26, 2023
The US government has run into a significant hurdle in its campaign to “revitalize” the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA) as possible successors to Hamas in the Gaza Strip, failing to convince Israel to unblock funds necessary to prevent the PA from total collapse.
“Even if we agreed [to take over for Hamas in Gaza], how can we implement it? The policy of Israel is to weaken the authority, not strengthen it,” PA Deputy Prime Minister Nabil Abu Rudeineh told the Washington Post. “We cannot even pay the salaries of our soldiers, our employees,” he added.
Despite round-the-clock visits to the heavily fortified PA headquarters in Ramallah and meetings with Israeli authorities, US officials have made little progress in securing the release of millions in Palestinian tax money that Israel has blocked since 7 October.
Two months ago, the Israeli finance ministry – led by Jewish supremacist official Bezalel Smotrich – froze the transfer of tax revenues amounting to some $188 million monthly to the PA.
“The PA didn’t see fit to distance itself from these barbarian actions, and officials in the authority even expressed support for the awful massacre […] Furthermore, the PA is acting against Israel at the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice,” Smotrich said on 30 October.
The tax revenues – known in Palestine as maqasa – are collected by the Israeli government on behalf of the PA on Palestinian imports and exports. Israel earns a commission of 3 percent of collected revenues.
On Friday, the European Commission said it was preparing a $130 million aid package to help plug the gap.
According to Sabri Saidam, a member of the central committee for the Fatah party and close adviser to PA President Mahmoud Abbas, plans for Palestinians to receive their tax revenue have “collapsed.”
Besides finding ways to avert the financial collapse of the PA, US officials have also been pushing for “changes and new faces in key positions” in a last-ditch effort to improve the public image of the deeply unpopular organization.
According to a recent poll from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, 88 percent of Palestinians want Abbas to resign as PA President, up 10 points from three months ago.
Meanwhile, the popularity of Hamas has soared in the occupied West Bank, from 12 percent to 44 percent.
“It’s always this colonizing mentality, whereby, ‘We decide your leadership, we are the ones basically designing your strategy for the day after, we tell you how to live, we tell you how to breathe, and we tell you how to run your land,’” Saidam told the Washington Post.
The PA was established in 1994 based on the first Oslo Accords (1993) between Tel Aviv and the now-defunct Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). It was initially established as a temporary governing body to lay the foundation for an independent Palestinian state.
However, after decades of corruption allegations, collaboration scandals, and a poor human rights record, the PA was in a state of “total inertia” before the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation unfolded on 7 October.
Complicating matters further for Washington, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is staunchly opposed to a PA-controlled Gaza.
“Expectation that the Palestinian Authority will demilitarize Gaza is a pipe dream,” Netanyahu says in an op-ed published by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on Monday.
“[The PA] has shown neither the capability nor the will to demilitarize Gaza,” the premier added, claiming that Ramallah “currently funds and glorifies terrorism […] and educates Palestinian children to seek the destruction of Israel.”
“For the foreseeable future, Israel will have to retain overriding security responsibility over Gaza,” Netanyahu stressed.
US jets strike resistance sites in Iraq
The Cradle | December 26, 2023
US warplanes launched airstrikes against several sites belonging to the Kataib Hezbollah faction early on 26 December, in Washington’s latest response to ongoing drone and missile attacks launched by the Iraqi resistance on US bases in Iraq and Syria.
The strikes resulted in large explosions south of Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, an Al-Mayadeen correspondent reported. One was killed and over a dozen wounded, according to an official statement.
The US hit “three locations utilized by Kataib Hezbollah and affiliated groups focused specifically on unmanned aerial drone activities,” a US National Security Council spokesman said in a statement.
The attack “likely killed several Kataib Hezbollah militants,” according to CENTCOM.
The Iraqi government said in a statement that the attack “harms bilateral relations between the two countries and represents an unacceptable violation of sovereignty,” which “harms” Baghdad’s bilateral ties with Washington. The statement added that an Iraqi service member was killed, while 18 were injured, including civilians.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the attack was a response to ongoing Iraqi operations targeting US bases, in particular one attack on the Erbil air base on Monday, 25 December, which left three US soldiers wounded, including one in critical condition.
An Iraqi Ministry of Interior official told AFP that the US airstrikes targeted a Popular Mobilization Forces’ site in the city of Hillah, the capital of Babylon Governorate in central Iraq. A site in the Wasit Governorate was also targeted, resulting in the wounding of at least four people.
In a statement, leader of the Nabni Coalition Hadi al-Amiri stressed his “strong condemnation and denunciation of the repetition of the sinful American attacks that were embodied at dawn this day in the provinces of Babil and Wasit.”
On the afternoon of Christmas Day, the Islamic Resistance coalition in Iraq said in a statement that it targeted “the occupied Harir base near Erbil Airport in northern Iraq with drones.”
The statement vowed that the Iraqi resistance would continue the “destruction of enemy strongholds” in line with its goals of “resisting the American occupation” in Iraq and responding to “the Zionist entity’s massacres against our people in Gaza.”
The Iraqi resistance also struck the US Green Village base in northern Syria, the group said in a separate statement earlier that day.
Following Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and the start of the Gaza-Israel war in October, Iraqi resistance groups banded together under a single coalition. They launched near-daily attacks on US bases in both Iraq and Syria in solidarity with the Palestinian resistance and in rejection of Washington’s support for the Israeli assault on Gaza.
The attacks also aim to hasten the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq.
The US air force has launched several attacks in response. One strike in early December resulted in the killing of five Iraqi resistance fighters.
While the US presence in Iraq is coordinated with the government of Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani, a political alliance of Shia parties represented in his parliament are staunchly opposed to it.
In 2020, following the assassination of Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, Iraq’s parliament voted in favor of expelling the US from Iraq. The resolution specifically called for the cancellation of Iraq’s formal request for US military assistance against ISIS, which was issued in 2014.
Washington rejected the resolution and threatened to impose sanctions on Baghdad.
Eisenhower’s Dirty WWII Secret
By Nial McCrae | 21st Century Wire | December 22, 2023
A vast field is filled as far as the eye can see with miserable and gaunt men in remnants of military uniform. It’s May 1945 and the war in Europe has ended. By rights, these surrendered soldiers will be allowed to return to their families, but many will not leave this muddy ground alive. There is no food, no shelter, and no medicine. The Rheinwiesenlager (Rhine meadow camps) were the killing fields of one of the worst war crimes in modern history, committed by General Dwight Eisenhower and the US Army.
The cull of German troops was a closely-guarded secret until four decades after the war, when a Canadian researcher was writing a book on a French resistance hero. James Bacque found that his subject, Raou Laporterie, had been saved by a German soldier, Hans Goertz. In gratitude, in 1946, Laporterie got Goertz out of a French prison camp to work in his chain of drapery stores. Goertz told of mass deaths of inmates through lack of sustenance.
After pursuing leads in the French records, Bacque came to realise that Allied military leaders had ‘committed an appalling crime against humanity’. His investigation culminated in Bacque’s harrowing book Other Losses: The Shocking Truth Behind the Mass Deaths Of Disarmed German Soldiers And Civilians Under General Eisenhower’s Command (1989). The foreword to this expose was written by Ernest Fisher, a retired colonel of the US Army, and war historian noted for his book Cassino to the Alps. Fisher set the scene: –
‘Over most of the western front in April 1945, the thunder of artillery had been replaced by the shuffling of millions of pairs of boots as columns of disarmed German soldiers marched wearily towards Allied barbed wire enclosures. Scattered enemy detachments fired a few volleys before fading into the countryside and eventual capture by Allied soldiers.’
As Fisher explained, German soldiers did everything they could to evade capture by the Russians, who raped and pillaged as they advanced over eastern Germany:
‘The mass surrenders in the west contrasted markedly with the final weeks on the eastern front where surviving Wehrmacht units still fought the advancing Red Army to enable as many of their comrades as possible to evade capture by the Russians. This was the final strategy of the German High Command then under Grand Admiral Doenitz who had been designated Commander-in-Chief by Adolf Hitler.’
But crossing to the Allied side was not the sanctuary that the defeated Germans expected, due to the visceral hatred of Eisenhower. The supreme military commander, of Swedish-Jewish background, had wriiten in a letter to his wife ‘God, I hate the Germans’. In September 1944, in the presence of the British ambassador to Washington, Eisenhower proposed that the entire German general staff, all officers of the Gestapo and all leaders of the Nazi party from mayor upwards should be exterminated (around a hundred thousand men).
Fisher had met Bacque in Washington in 1987 where they uncovered evidence, deeply buried in national archives, of a systematic slaughter. ‘More than five million German soldiers in the American and French zones were crowded into barbed wire cages, many of them literally shoulder to shoulder. The ground beneath them became a quagmire of filth and disease. Open to the weather, lacking even primitive sanitary facilities, underfed, the prisoners soon began dying of starvation.’
Shockingly, more German soldiers died in the camps from April 1945 onwards than died in combat.
In the archives, Bacque studied each edition of the ‘Weekly Prisoner of War and Disarmed Enemy Forces Report’, which showed a high number in the category of ‘other losses’. As escape was almost impossible, these men must have died in the camps. According to Bacque:
‘The victims undoubtedly number over 800,000 and quite likely over a million. Their deaths were knowingly caused by army officers who had sufficient resources to keep the prisoners alive. Relief organizations that attempted to help the prisoners in the American camps were refused permission by the army. All of this was hidden at the time; then lied about when the Red Cross, Le Mondé and Le Figaro attempted to tell the truth publicly.’
Ominously, on 26th April 1945 the combined chiefs-of-staff at Reims decided to create the status of ‘disarmed enemy forces’. This category would apply to ‘prisoners-of-war in American hands only’. No public declaration was made of this bypassing of the Geneva Convention. Mortality data were censored by the American military authorities, who exploited their control of media to push propaganda about their humane treatment of prisoners.
With German soldiers failing to come home in the months after the war ended, the myth of a ‘world food shortage’ was used, a contrived crisis blamed on the Germans. Yet despite the war, there was ample supply of wheat and corn The Swiss Red Cross had thirteen and-a-half million food parcels intended for prisoners, which would have prevented any death from starvation, but this provision was blocked. Indeed, the Red Cross was prevented from entering the camps, as Bacque explained:
‘Granting permission for the welfare agencies to visit the camps would have led to a storm of public protest against the atrocious conditions, while at the same time producing the workers and political will needed to alleviate them. It can hardly be doubted that this was why permission was not given.’
Eisenhower’s accomplice in this cruelty was an old friend of his from military training. Appointed as Eisenhower’s right-hand man, General Everett S Hughes took an extraordinary interest in prisoners’ rations, which he deviously reduced by as much as he could.
The British were innocent in this massacre, its German prisoners dying at no more than an expected rate, because they were fed and housed appropriately. Bacque’s book begins with a conversation at the banqueting table at the Yalta conference in 1943. Joseph Stalin expressed his desire to shoot a line of fifty thousand German officers. Franklin Roosevelt suggested a compromise of 49 thousand, before his son Elliott, a brigadier-general in the US Army, added to the proposed cull hundreds of thousands of Nazis. Winston Churchill stormed out, after stating ‘I would rather be taken out in the garden here and now to be shot myself than sully my own and my country’s honour by such infamy’.
There is another part to this dark episode. General George Patton, a magnanimous victor who respected the Germans as a people, was disgusted by Eisenhower, accusing him of Gestapo practices. Patton, whose Third Army had rapidly swept through northern France after the D-Day landings, due to his brilliant tactics, made himself unpopular with the US military establishment after the war was won. A thorn in the side of Eisenhower, he suggested that the Germans be rearmed to fight the communist Russians.
As described in a Daily Mail article (21 December 2019), General Patton MURDERED? Mystery pertaining to the suspicious death of the general 74 years later, Patton’s death at the end of1945 was later suspected as an assassination. In 1979 Second World War spy Douglas Bazata claimed that he was ordered by the Office of Strategic Services (forerunner of the CIA) to kill Patton and make it look like an accident. Patton was driving a Cadillac in Mannheim when he collided with a military truck. He was paralysed from the head down, but recovered sufficiently in an army hospital for medical clearance to fly back to the USA. On 21st December, the day before his flight, he died suddenly. There was no autopsy, and medical records disappeared.
Was Patton killed because he knew too much about the death camps, and was as much of a maverick to risk the dirty secret coming out?
***
Niall McCrae is a researcher and educator, and author of ‘The Moon and Madness’ (Imprint Academic, 2011), and ‘Moralitis: a Cultural Virus’ (Bruges Group, 2018). See his 21WIRE archive here.
Netanyahu Outsmarted by ‘Wily’ Biden? No, Biden Is the One Being Played
By Alastair Crooke | Strategic Culture Foundation | December 25, 2023
Biden smirked and responded, “I know”, when told by a guest that Netanyahu is drawing the U.S. into a civilisational conflict – and further that Netanyahu blames him (Biden), complaining that the White House wants to block Israel from getting at the root of the problem, by harping on about Gaza and the ‘day after’.
In practice, what Netanyahu is doing is simply mounting a classic flanking manoeuvre – attempting to circumvent Biden by pointing to the ‘broader conflict’ with Iran: ‘Why are you pestering me about Gaza when there’s a monumental conflict raging’, suggests Bibi in exasperation?
“This is not only ‘our war’ but in many ways your war… This is a battle against the Iranian axis… now threatening to close the maritime strait of Bab Al-Mandeb… It is the interest … of the entire civilized community”, Netanyahu has said – not very subtly.
Biden’s reaction is a smug smile, hinting that he thinks he can outplay Netanyahu (‘the fox’). This is Biden’s approach: He aims to disarm Netanyahu’s allegation of an obstructionist U.S. through a parade of top-level visits that reiterates his unstinting support Israel – and to pre-empt Bibi, through insisting that he (Biden) will take care of the non-Gaza issues (Hizbullah, Yemen etc.).
So, the U.S. is assembling a maritime force to confront AnsarAllah in Yemen; the Biden Admin will act to sanction violent settlers in the West Bank; it is warning Baghdad to rein-in the Hashad al Sha’abi; and his envoys in Beirut are trying to forge a ‘diplomatic agreement’ that will include the withdrawal of Hizbullah’s Radwan Forces to the other side of the Litani River in southern Lebanon, and also deal with the unresolved border disputes between Israel and Lebanon.
Biden prides himself on being a hugely experienced foreign policy actor – and thinks himself too wily for Bibi’s tricks. But maybe, Netanyahu – for all his many faults – better understands the Region?
Biden clearly is being played. Even though he fails to recognize it.
Netanyahu knows that ‘no way’ will Hizbullah disarm, and withdraw to north of the Litani. He knows this, and thus can wait out Biden’s diplomatic failure, before saying that the approximately 70,000 Israeli citizens displaced from the northern towns in the wake of 7 October need to ”go home”, and that if the U.S. cannot remove Hizbullah from the border-fence, then Israel will do it.
Netanyahu is using Biden’s diplomatic Lebanese initiative to build European justification for an Israeli operation in a few weeks’ time to push Hizbullah away from the border with Israel. (An Israeli operation against Hizbullah has been in the works from the outset of the Gaza war).
Netanyahu knows too that control over settler violence in the West Bank lies not with him, but is in the hands of his partners: i.e., Ministers Ben Gvir and Smotrich. Neither he, nor Biden can dictate to them – they have been quietly increasing the squeeze on West Bank Palestinians for months.
And finally, Netanyahu knows the Houthis: They will not be deterred by Biden’s maritime flotilla. They will, rather, relish drawing the West into a Red Sea quagmire.
Like it or not, Biden’s tactic of containing and pre-empting regional escalation through the U.S. itself becoming lead actor – in lieu of Israel – is clearly drawing the U.S. deeper into conflict. Does Biden believe that the Houthis will just quietly ‘roll-over’ because the Gerald Ford is anchored off Bab Al-Mandeb, or that Hizbullah will accept instruction from Amos Hochstein?
The second way that Biden is being outplayed is through him seeing the Israeli problem as ‘just Bibi’ – indulging in personal politics. Of course, it is true that the Israeli PM is moulding Israeli politics to his own survival needs; yet pause a moment to consider what President Herzog said on Tuesday during an interview facilitated by the Atlantic Council, a leading Washington-based think tank.
Herzog has long been viewed as distinctly ‘dovish’ and ‘Leftist’ by the Beltway foreign policy establishment – prior to the war – compared to Netanyahu.
In the interview, Herzog said: “We intend to take over the entire Gaza Strip and change the course of history”. He said that the current conflict is a clash of “a set of civilizational values” and he cast Hamas (in pure Manichaean terms) as a “force of evil”, adding that Israel would no longer tolerate Gaza being a “platform for Iran – driving everyone into the abyss of bloodshed and warfare”.
Not much daylight then between him and the PM then.
The convergence between Herzog and Bibi reflects, perhaps, a more substantive change taking place in Israel – a strategic shift that extends far beyond Biden’s personal obsession with Bibi:
Since 7 October, the New York Times and the Jerusalem Post report that 36% of Israelis have moved decidedly to the right on a number of political issues, including support for settlers in the West Bank, endorsements for far-right politicians, and even settlements again inside the Gaza Strip. And while public opinion of Netanyahu himself is faltering, his government is not expected to fall.
And even were that to occur, the more important point to grasp is that support for the policies upheld by Netanyahu’s radical Rightist government is growing, and rapidly.
Israel’s Right generally believes in Israeli control of the West Bank and Gaza, with many right-wing Israelis opposed to the principle of a Palestinian state existing at all alongside Israel. This can be seen in many of the current government’s policies, which have worked toward expanding Israeli settlement of the West Bank and rendering Gaza unlivable for Palestinians.
On the opposite side of the spectrum sits Israel’s Left. The Jerusalem Post notes that the Left largely believe that Israel is ‘occupying’ the West Bank, and that an end to the conflict can only be achieved by ending the occupation and enabling a two-state solution. But no one is explicit on where that second state – a Palestinian state – would be situated. Legally it would be Gaza, the West Bank and part of Jerusalem. But who could enforce that? Who would expel settlers from the West Bank?
For many Israelis, the separation ‘apartheid’ Occupation state of the past 30 years was the workable ‘two-state solution’ – but its pillars (structural separation, military enforcement and deterrence) which had for many Israelis seemed to promise the ‘quiet’ that many hoped for – blew apart on 7 October.
“The trauma of what happened on Oct. 7 shifted Israeli society. It made them question the most basic tenets of whether they were safe in their homes”, said Israeli columnist, Tal Schneider:
“They are calling now for more — more military, more protection, more hard-line policies”.
“Many right-wing people,” Ariella Marsden writes in the Jerusalem Post, “and a minority of left-wingers, saw 7 Oct as proof that peace with the Palestinians is impossible”. Not surprisingly, thinking has turned to population removal which chimes with Netanyahu’s ‘new war of Independence’ theme.
In short, Biden may believe that his ‘long experience’ puts him on the ‘right side’ in judging events. His experience however, is drawn from another era. The political Israel he knew is over: It has reached the end of the road in respect to the old paradigm of its Palestinian modus vivendi. Demography no longer pushes towards ‘giving’ the Palestinians a state, but rather to a clearing of the land of all ‘hostile populations’.
Israelis are rummaging now for their new solution.
And just as Hamas’ resistance has pointed to new ways of conducting warfare, so Biden’s ‘long experience’ exemplified in the sending of 1960s era carriers and vessels to sit offshore, in an age of smart nimble, often untraceable drones and pinpoint missiles, points to something also passé.
The U.S. is directly engaged today in Yemen, Lebanon, the West Bank, Iraq and Syria. And as the war widens, so the U.S. will be held at least partly responsible – You deliberately let Gaza break, and what’s broken, you own. What further gets broke, you own that too.
A destitute 2 million Gazans will be all refugees with no government to provide basic functions and services. Does Netanyahu get it? Of course. Do the vast majority of Israelis care? Nope. But the rest of the world does, and sees a dark stain spreading across the map, and leeching into the West.
And does the U.S. Red Sea flotilla; does the diplomatic effort in Lebanon; do the frantic calls to China to ask for help to rein-in Iran, and the efforts in Baghdad – will this suffice to bring an end to the Axis’ plan?
No – the Resistance must see the U.S. floundering and that Israel – suffused with anger – is positively inviting the next ascent up the escalatory ladder of diffused incremental wider conflict.
Biden’s disregard for truce speaks volumes of US heartless approach to Gaza genocide: CAIR
Press TV – December 25, 2023
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has slammed US President Joe Biden’s administration for “actively supporting” Israel’s ongoing “genocide and ethnic cleansing” in the Gaza Strip and indifference to the genocide there.
In a statement on Sunday, CAIR national communications director of the US-based Muslim advocacy group said Biden’s actions will “stain” the US “international reputation.”
“The Biden administration’s callous indifference to – and active support for – the ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing being carried out by [Israel] will stain our nation’s international reputation for generations to come,” Ibrahim Hooper said.
“The fact that President Biden admits that he did not even ask for a ceasefire in a recent conversation with [Israeli prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu speaks volumes about the administration’s heartless and immoral approach to the genocide in Gaza,” he added.
On Saturday, Biden told reporters that his conversation with Netanyahu over the war on Gaza was a “long talk,” but he did not ask for a ceasefire in that call.
“Israel has now killed probably more than one in every 100 people in Gaza. That shocking figure alone should be all the evidence that is needed to finally acknowledge the truth of the ‘genocide’ label,” Hooper said.
The statement came as Israel’s deadly air raid on the al-Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza killed at least 70 people, including pregnant women and children on Monday.
An Al Jazeera reporter in Gaza interviewed eyewitnesses who said Israeli forces killed pregnant women “without mercy.”
“The women were reportedly raising white flags as they were attempting to reach the Al-Awda Hospital when they were shot by Israeli forces,” the reporter said.
On Saturday, CAIR called on Americans of all backgrounds to demand that the Biden administration act to “end the slaughter, starvation and ethnic cleansing.”
The call came after several reports revealed that Israeli forces massacred 76 members of an extended family in Gaza, Israeli-imposed famine is widespread, and that bodies are decaying in the streets and are being dug up by Israeli bulldozers.
The group said more than 110,000 Americans have used CAIR’s action alert to contact their members of Congress and call for an end to the violence and occupation.
Previously, CAIR called on the Biden administration to stop sending what it called “genocide bombs” to Israel after the New York Times revealed that US-supplied 2,000-pound bombs were “routinely” used against Palestinian civilians in so-called “safe areas” in Gaza.
CAIR also said the Biden administration must stop “justifying war crimes” Israel has perpetrated against hospitals after an investigation by the Washington Post debunked claims that Gaza’s Al Shifa Hospital had to be attacked because it was a military command center.
Israel waged the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas carried out Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s decades-long campaign of death and destruction against Palestinians.
The Israeli attacks have so far killed at least 20,400 Palestinians, including 6,200 women and 8,200 children, and wounded 53,688 others in the besieged territory, where the Zionists cut off fuel, electricity, food, and water to Gaza’s 2.3 million population.
Despite its shortcomings, UNSC vote will tie Israel’s hands
By MK Bhadrakumar | The Cradle | December 25, 2023
The adoption of a resolution by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Friday with focus on a pause in the fighting in Gaza to allow for the delivery of more humanitarian aid can be seen as a turning point in the tortuous journey toward imposing a sustainable ceasefire.
But a caveat must be added that the ultimate litmus test lies in the implementation of the UNSC resolution, as the past history of such resolutions on Palestine does not give cause for optimism.
In fact, Israel’s defiance was in full view already. As the Security Council passed the resolution, Israeli forces pushed ahead with their offensive into Gaza on Friday and ordered residents in Al Bureij — an area in central Gaza where Israel had not previously focused its offensive — to evacuate. The Israeli military’s chief spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said on Thursday: “Our forces continue to intensify ground operations in northern and southern Gaza.”
UN Secretary General António Guterres was spot on when he told reporters after the resolution was passed that “a humanitarian ceasefire is the only way to begin to meet the desperate needs of people in Gaza and end their ongoing nightmare.”
The resolution itself is the outcome of week-long intense negotiations between the United States and the Arab countries that sponsored it — the UAE and Egypt, in particular — to settle for the lowest denominator, which meant accepting a Washington-friendly text that enabled the Biden administration to evade responsibility for another veto, for the third time since 7 October.
Unsurprisingly, the US negotiators brazenly resorted to pressure tactics by drawing on their usual diplomatic tool box — blackmail, arm-twisting and ultimatums — to water down the text to the extent that important provisions relating to a ceasefire and a UN mechanism to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza and ensure its monitoring were abandoned.
And, yet, the US abstained in the vote at the end of the day, registering its reservations — principally, that the resolution was silent on the attack by Hamas on 7 October.
The unkindest cut of all is that the resolution accommodated the US diktat to replace the language describing an immediate cessation of violence with an ambiguous phrase calling on the parties to “create conditions for a cessation of hostilities.” The wording meets the Israeli requirement to have a free hand to continue with its barbaric military operations.
This anomaly, coupled with the absence of any reference to the condemnation of indiscriminate attacks by the Israeli military against civilians almost delivers the wrong signal that the Security Council is effectively becoming an accomplice to the destruction of Gaza — a misnomer that agitated Russia so much that it proposed a last-minute amendment to replace the phraseology in the resolution: “to create the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities” with the unambiguous call “for urgent steps toward a sustainable cessation of hostilities.”
Russia’s demand for an immediate ceasefire was in line with a resolution overwhelmingly passed by the UN General Assembly recently, but the Americans would have nothing of that sort. The unfortunate part is that the Arab sponsors of the resolution caved in to US blackmail to veto the resolution. What transpired between the protagonists behind the scenes is not known.
The paradox is that, in reality, the Americans themselves were desperately keen to avoid casting a veto — the third in as many months — that would have made a mockery of President Joe Biden’s bombastic remark in his September speech at the UN last year that the permanent members of the Security Council should cast vetoes only under “rare, extraordinary situations to ensure the council remains credible and effective.”
All indications are that the US is acutely conscious of finding itself “diplomatically isolated and in a defensive crouch,” as the New York Times put it in an acerbic commentary on the Biden administration’s plight as “an increasingly lonely protector of Israel … (that) puts it at odds with even staunch allies such as France, Canada, Australia, and Japan.”
The commentary says that what rankles most is that first, when the US seems to have green-lit a massive Israeli military response to 7 October “without guardrails,” it:
“painfully confirmed to many in the (global) south this sense that there was a double standard” — and second, even more, “the Russian strategy works, because beyond the United Nations what everyone sees is Russia standing up for international law — and the US standing against it.”
The crux of the matter is that Israel’s Gaza operation is running into a Cornelian dilemma (dilemme cornélien) where sooner rather than later, it is obliged to choose one option from a range of options, all of which reveals a detrimental effect on itself.
Hamas’ top leaders have evaded capture so far, and Gaza’s armed resistance groups have continued to fire rockets into Israel, including two barrages that reached Tel Aviv and its environs last week.
According to another New York Times report,“ political commentators and some military experts have been lowering expectations for a quick and decisive Israeli victory.
“Nobody should imagine that there will be a situation where we put a flag on top of a hill and say: OK, we won, and now Gaza will be peaceful and safe. It will not happen,” said Gabi Siboni, a colonel in the reserves and a fellow at the conservative-leaning Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security. “The reality is that we are going to be fighting in Gaza for years to come.”
But is that sustainable — even if Israel controls the US Congress? Conceivably, Israel’s main goal in Gaza was to ethnically cleanse the Strip and drive the Palestinian population to Egypt and Jordan by killing and starving them and making Gaza unlivable.
The real significance of the UNSC resolution, therefore, lies in that such an Israeli game plan will not fly. By not vetoing the resolution, the US may also have signaled that it will not allow the ethnic cleansing. There seems to be an understanding on this score between the US and the Arab protagonists at the political level — Egypt, in particular.
On the other hand, can Israel really destroy Hamas while the Palestinian population remains in Gaza? No, it will not be possible. Now, there is reason to believe that Hamas is inflicting significant damage to the Israeli military. The retreat of the Golani Brigade from the Gaza operation also points in that direction.
The bottom line is that the Israeli operation in Gaza will have to take a different form during the next several weeks — one that is anchored on surgical strikes rather than continuing with the extended ground operation and open-ended Israeli occupation. With warts and all, the Security Council resolution that was passed on Friday paves the way for such a transition.
Europe betrayed by US and Ukraine – Minsk talks negotiator
By Lucas Leiroz | December 25, 2023
The current conflict in Ukraine is a direct result of the failure of the Minsk Agreements. Between 2014 and 2015, Russia and the European Union mediated negotiations between the breakaway republics of Donbass and the Kiev government, reaching a mutually beneficial protocol that was expected to guarantee regional peace. However, the terms of the pact were never respected by the Ukrainian regime, which continued to constantly attack the republics and advance its project of “de-Russification” and ethnic cleansing.
According to former German prime minister, Angela Merkel, the Agreements did not fail, but fulfilled their real objective: to prepare Ukraine for a war against Russia in the near future. Commenting on the beginning of Moscow’s special military operation and the escalation of the conflict in Donbass, the German former official stated that this confrontation was expected from the very beginning, with the ceasefire established in Minsk only working as a way to temporarily alleviate tensions, enabling Kiev to gain time.
However, this does not appear to be the opinion of some other insiders who were also deeply involved in negotiations in the Belarusian capital. I recently had the opportunity to visit the Donbass region as a war correspondent. There I interviewed several local leaders, politicians and state officials, including the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of Lugansk, Vladislav Deinego, who was one of the negotiators in the Minsk process.
In our conversation, I asked the Minister his opinion on the failure of the Minsk Agreements and heard from him a long explanation about how the situation got out of control and escalated to the current status of war. According to Deinego, Merkel is lying when she claims that the plan has always been to simply prepare Ukraine. For him, Europe had a genuine interest in achieving regional peace and stabilizing its relations with Russia, avoiding a military escalation that would put the entire continental security architecture at risk.
Deinego claims that Kiev wanted total war from the beginning. The Minister explains that, before the Minsk Accords were established, the separatists tried to resolve the situation diplomatically in several ways. After non-military means failed, the republics proposed to Kiev that the fighting be somewhat limited to avoid civilian casualties.
First, a ban on the use of artillery and aviation was proposed, which Kiev quickly denied. Next, Donbass’ leaders attempted to establish security zones, limiting the use of heavy weapons according to their distance to civilian areas. In this model, artillery would be allowed only in regions far from inhabited cities, while in the “zero line” combat would be limited to the regular use of infantry, preventing civilians from being hit by heavy weapons. Even so, Ukraine denied signing such a deal.
This insistence by the neo-Nazi regime on waging all-out war against the separatists, according to the minister, generated real concerns among Europeans. The deeper the Ukrainian incursions were, the closer the attacks would come to Russian borders, worsening the security crisis. In practice, the situation could at any time escalate into a situation of absolute violence in which Moscow would be forced to intervene, generating a major conflict in Europe. This worried EU members, especially Germany, which was very dependent on the partnership with Russia.
Being a major importer of Russian gas and depending on friendship with Moscow to guarantee its economic and social stability, Berlin engaged deeply in the diplomatic process to try to end, or at least freeze, the conflict. For this reason, Germany was the main negotiator on Kiev’s side in Minsk, while Russia negotiated in support for the Donbass’ republics. In this sense, after many negotiations, the pact was finally signed, establishing measures such as ceasefire, release of prisoners and respect for the political autonomy of Russian-speaking regions.
Deinego believes that actual compliance with the Agreements would be the best scenario for Europeans as it would guarantee stability in Russia-EU relations, despite Ukrainian hostility towards Moscow. However, as well known, Kiev never obeyed the Minsk’s terms and continued violence in the region – even though the intensity of the fighting obviously decreased. Deinego thinks that this was never in the European interest and that, in fact, the direction taken by the conflict showed the failure of European diplomacy.
Indeed, at the time Russia-EU relations were prosperous, despite ideological and geopolitical rivalry. There was no reason for Europeans to agree to participate in a war plan in which they would be severely harmed. This leads us to believe that other actors worked to escalate the crisis, without considering European interests. Certainly, the US, which always wanted war with Russia, was responsible for this.
The circumstances show that Washington probably took advantage of the “stability” generated by the Minsk Agreements to prepare Kiev to act as a proxy against Russia. The Europeans never participated in this plan and were betrayed by NATO just like the Russians. Currently, Europe continues to be a victim of NATO’s war plans, being forced by the US to impose suicidal sanctions against Russia, affecting its own economy.
The opinion of an insider of the Minsk process is vital to show the real reasons for the conflict. In practice, Deinego presents proof of how relations between the US and EU are semi-colonial, with Europeans being used by Washington in war plans, without having their interests respected.
Lucas Leiroz, journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.
You can follow Lucas on X (former Twitter) and Telegram.
Houthis Say US Warship ‘Firing Hysterically’ Nearly Hit Tanker in Red Sea
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 24.12.2023
A Houthi spokesman has sought to set the record straight regarding the US’s claim that the Yemeni militia had targeted a Gabonese oil tanker.
“An American warship fired hysterically during a reconnaissance mission by Yemeni forces in the Red Sea,” Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdul-Salam said in a statement Sunday. One of the missiles nearly hit a Gabon-flagged oil tanker traveling from Russia, the spokesman added.
“The Red Sea will be a burning arena if the US and its allies continue their bullying. Countries bordering the Red Sea must realize the reality of the dangers that threaten their national security,” Abdul-Salam warned. “The threat to international maritime navigation” is the result of “the militarization of the Red Sea by America and its partners, who have come to the region without any legitimate reason other than providing security services for enemy Israeli ships,” the spokesman said.
The Houthi statement contradicts an after action report put out by United States Central Command early Sunday morning alleging that the Houthis had launched two anti-ship missiles into the Red Sea’s shipping lanes on December 23.
“Between 3 and 8 pm (Sanaa time), the USS Laboon (DDG 58) was patrolling in the Southern Red Sea as part of Operation Prosperity Guardian and shot down four unmanned aerial drones originating from Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen that were inbound to the USS Laboon. There were no injuries or damage in this incident. At approximately 8 pm (Sanaa time) US Naval Forces Central Command received reports from two ships in the Southern Red Sea that they were under attack. The M/V Blaamanen, a Norwegian-flagged, owned and operated chemical/oil tanker, reported a near miss of a Houthi one-way drone attack drone with no injuries or damage reported. A second vessel, the M/V Saibaba, a Gabon-owned, Indian-flagged crude oil tanker, reported that it was hit by a one-way attack drone with no injuries reported. The USS Laboon responded to the distress calls from these attacks,” CENTCOM said.
According to MarineTraffic, the Saibaba sails under the flag of Gabon, not India.
The Houthis have said that they will intentionally target only commercial cargoes that are Israeli-owned or linked, or traveling to or from Israel.
The Yemeni militia began their month-long campaign of hijackings, missile and drone attacks in the Red Sea on November 19 with the seizure of the Galaxy Leader, an Israeli billionaire-owned ro-ro car carrier.
On December 18, the United States announced the formation of a maritime coalition to clamp down on Houthi attacks. Amid reports that US operations may include strikes inside Yemen, the Houthis have threatened to turn the Red Sea into the coalition’s “graveyard.”
The nascent US-led coalition has reportedly run into some difficulties, with major American allies France, Italy and Spain apparently declining to join a Red Sea mission under US command. Other allies, including Norway, the Netherlands and Denmark, have limited their participation to a handful of seamen.
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US murdering 1 million Iraqis is democracy, Iran giving yogurt to Iraq is “domination”
By Ali Salaam | American Herald Tribune | July 31, 2017
The New York Times, owned by the Zionist Jewish supremacist Ochs-Sulzberger family, has no problem with Iraqi suffering as long as Iran is not the one behind it.
The Iraq War was a genocide of the Iraqi people by Zionist supremacists in the Bush administration. Over 1 million innocent people were killed based on a lie. American soldiers died in an Israeli war and now an average of 22 soldiers commit suicide every day because their consciences cannot cope with the fact they committed crimes in an illegal war that served no purpose other than to benefit Israel, not America.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of the Zionist regime, once said “We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq.”
Paul Wolfowitz had his sights on Iraq since his time in the first Bush administration. Former Israeli official and Bush administration official Richard Perle had his eyes on Iraq since at least his authorship of the Clean Break white paper. The Zionist regime had their eyes on Iraq since the 1980s when strategist Oded Yinon wrote his white paper in support of dividing the Arab-Muslim world along ethnic and sectarian lines. The global Zionist lobby has had their eyes on Iraq since Theodor Herzl stated that Eretz Israel’s true borders go from the Nile River in Egypt to the Euphrates River in Iraq. … continue
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