Israeli regime brings in strict rules on West Bank visitors amid international criticism
Press TV – October 21, 2022
The Israeli regime has implemented strict rules on all foreigners or Palestinians holding dual nationality who intend to come to the Occupied Palestinian territories, where it limits their ability to enter and stay in the occupied West Bank.
A 90-page authoritative order came into effect on Thursday despite international criticism, as reported by The Guardian, which will create complications for hundreds of thousands of Palestinian families who hold dual nationality and are already having a hard time maneuvering a complicated permit system.
COGAT, the Israeli body in charge of Palestinian civilian affairs issued the rules, which are to be allegedly implemented over a two-year pilot period. The strict rules are expected to suffocate the Palestinian economy and academia and the work of aid agencies, where all foreign internationals coming to volunteer, study or work in the West Bank will be granted a single-entry visa valid for only three months.
There are no guarantees they will be granted a visa again, and they will have to leave and wait between visas in some cases for more than one year before they are able to reapply for entry. In most cases, residency is limited to a 12- to 27-month period, making family life and long-term employment almost impossible.
Palestinian academics, business leaders and rights groups expressed outrage over the policy when it was first outlined in February.
“This is going to cause major issues. Some of our board members come here frequently and they need to be able to see their investments. They are destroying Palestinian businesses,” said Bassem Khouri, chief executive of a pharmaceutical company in the West Bank, adding, “Who can live and work here is supposed to be a Palestinian decision. This is designed to isolate us.”
Meanwhile, Jessica Montell, executive director of HaMoked, an Israeli human rights group that has challenged the rules in court slammed the ordinance, saying, “The Israeli military is proposing new restrictions in order to isolate Palestinian society from the outside world and keep Palestinian families from living together.”
In a move that controls the lives of foreigners and Palestinians as well, the rules stipulate that only 150 foreign students a year may register at Palestinian colleges and universities. The major they chose to study must be pre-approved, and there is a quota of 100 foreign “distinguished” lecturers that will be determined by the Israeli occupation regime.
Also, Palestinians holding dual citizenship will have to hand the Israeli apartheid regime a list of names and ID numbers of family and friends they plan to visit beforehand, even before they travel.
Students, teachers, journalists working for Palestinian media outlets, tourists, and Palestinian family members including siblings, grandparents or grandchildren will all have to undergo these new rules.
The rules also read that if a foreigner starts a relationship with a Palestinian, “the appointed COGAT official must be informed as part of their request to renew or extend the existing visa.”
According to Montell, none of the rules have any legal ground. “Under international law, the Israeli military is only allowed to work for the interests of the occupied population, or its own security needs. These restrictions obviously advance neither.”
The new procedures apply only to Palestinians, and not Israeli settlers living across the area in violation of international law. Nearly 700,000 Israelis live in illegal settlements built since the 1967 occupation of the West Bank and East al-Quds.
AOL Reviews and Accepts “Israel Killed JFK” Comment
Then Re-Reviews and Rejects It Four Hours Later
BY KEVIN BARRETT • UNZ REVIEW • OCTOBER 19, 2022
Earlier today, NBC News published a surprisingly fair and informative JFK assassination story. Headlined “‘What are they hiding?’: Group sues Biden and National Archives over JFK assassination records,” Mark Caputo’s piece details the Mary Ferrell Foundation’s lawsuit demanding that the federal government comply with the JFK Records Act and release the 16,000 records that, by law, it was required to release back in 2017.
Since the headline asked “what are they hiding?” I was happy to answer the question in a succinct comment:
Israel killed JFK, using its CIA assets like James Angleton and mob assets like Meyer Lansky, to eliminate an obstacle to its nuclear weapons program, and put its man LBJ in the White House in preparation for the 1967 land grab. Free online book: https://www.unz.com/book/michael_collins_piper__final-judgment/
I was not surprised when my post didn’t immediately go through, but instead elicited a warning: “Sure about this? Your post is more likely to get published if you keep the conversation civil.” My post was perfectly civil, so I clicked on “post anyway” which elicited “your comment is under review.” About an hour later, I received an email stating that the post had been approved. It appeared beneath the article, garnered a couple of “likes”—and then was taken down shortly before 8 pm. (See screenshot at the top of this article.)
I am reasonably certain that if I had blamed the JFK assassination on Oswald, Ruby, the CIA, the mob, fascists, militarists, the military-industrial complex, Russia, Cuba, French intelligence, Oliver Stone, aliens, or the man in the moon, AOL would not have seen anything less than civil in my comment. But blaming the nation whose intelligence services actually did it is taboo. Why is that? Who made those rules? Who enforces them?
As the headline says: What are they hiding?
Obviously the people who killed both Kennedys (and did 9/11) couldn’t have executed either coup d’état without controlling the media. So ask yourself: What group controls the media to the extent that you can’t even post a comment casting aspersions on their favorite nation?
Israeli Colonizers Assault International Activists, Stab One, Near Bethlehem
IMEMC | OCTOBER 19, 2022
On Wednesday, a group of illegal Israeli paramilitary colonizers assaulted many Palestinians and international peace activists picking Palestinian olive trees in Kisan village, east of Bethlehem, and stabbed a female activist.
The olive orchard owner, Ibrahim Obeyyat, said the colonizers invaded his land and assaulted the locals and the international peace activists who came to help in picking the olive trees, especially since the area is subject to constant Israeli violations.
Obeyyat added that the international peace activist was stabbed in the back and suffered a fracture in her leg after the colonizers struck her with a bar.
He stated that the colonizers also uprooted at least 300 olive saplings and sprayed many olive trees with chemicals in his 90 Dunam olive orchard.
The colonizers repeatedly target Kisan, its farmers, and lands, and have stolen agricultural supplies, uprooted trees, and frequently attack the farmers and the shepherds.
Difficult months ahead: Why Israel is afraid of the Lions’ Den
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | October 18, 2022
This headline in the Israeli newspaper, the Jerusalem Post, only tells part of the story: “The Lions’ Den, Other Palestinian Groups are Endless Headache for Israel, PA.”
It is true that both the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority are equally worried about the prospect of a widespread armed revolt in the Occupied West Bank, and that the newly formed Nablus-based brigade, the Lions’ Den, is the epicentre of this youth-led movement.
However, the growing armed resistance in the West Bank is causing more than a mere ‘headache’ for Tel Aviv and Ramallah. If this phenomenon continues to grow, it could threaten the very existence of the PA, while placing Israel before its most difficult choice since the invasion of major Palestinian West Bank cities in 2002.
Though Israeli military commanders continue to undermine the power of the newly formed group, they seem to have no clear idea regarding its roots, influence and future impact.
In a recent interview with the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, Israeli Defence Minister, Benny Gantz, claimed that the Lions’ Den is a “group of 30 members”, who will eventually be reached and eliminated. “We will lay our hands on the terrorists,” he declared.
The Lions’ Den, however, is not an isolated case, but part of a larger phenomenon that includes the Nablus Brigades, the Jenin Brigades and other groups, which are located mostly in the northern West Bank.
The group, along with other armed Palestinian military units, has been active in responding to the killing of Palestinians, including children, elders, and, on October 14, even a Palestinian doctor, Abdullah Abu Al-Teen, who succumbed to his wounds in Jenin. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, over 170 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and Gaza, since the beginning of the year.
The Palestinian response included the killing of two Israeli soldiers, one in Shuafat on 8 October, and the other near Nablus on 11 October.
Following the Shuafat attack, Israel completely sealed the Shuafat refugee camp as a form of collective punishment, similar to recent sieges on Jenin and other Palestinian towns.
Citing Israel’s Hebrew media, the Palestinian Arabic daily, Al Quds, reported that the Israeli military will focus its operations in the coming weeks on targeting the Lions’ Den. Thousands more Israeli occupation soldiers are likely to be deployed in the West Bank for the upcoming battle.
It is difficult to imagine that Israel would mobilise much of its army to fight 30 Palestinian fighters in Nablus. But not only Israel, the PA, too, is terribly concerned.
The Authority has tried but failed to entice the fighters by offering them a surrender ‘deal’, where they give up their arms and join the PA forces. Such deals were offered in the past to fighters belonging to Fatah’s Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, with mixed degrees of success.
This time around, the strategy did not work. The group rejected the PA’s overtures, compelling the Fatah-affiliated governor of Nablus, Ibrahim Ramadan, to attack the mothers of the fighters by calling them ‘deviant’ for “sending their sons to commit suicide”. Ramadan’s language, which is similar to language used by Israeli and pro-Israel individuals in their depiction of Palestinian society, highlights the massive schisms between the PA’s political discourse and those of ordinary Palestinians.
Not only is the PA losing its grasp of the narrative, but it is also losing whatever vestiges of control it has left in the West Bank, especially in Nablus and Jenin.
A senior Palestinian official told the Media Line that the Palestinian “street does not trust us any more”, as they “view us as an extension of Israel”. True, but this lack of trust has been in the making for years.
The ‘Unity Intifada‘ of May 2021, however, served as a major turning point in the relationship between the PA and Palestinians. The rise of the Lions’ Den and other Palestinian armed groups are but a few manifestations of the dramatic changes underway in the West Bank.
Indeed, the West Bank is changing. A new generation that has little or no memory of the Second Intifada (2000-2005), had not experienced the Israeli invasion then but grew up under occupation and apartheid, feeding on the memories of the resistance in Jenin, Nablus and Hebron.
Judging by their political discourse, chants and symbols, this generation is fed up with the crippling and often superficial divisions of Palestinians among factions, ideologies and regions. In fact, the newly established brigades, including the Lions’ Den, are believed to be multi-factional groups bringing, for the first time, fighters from Hamas, Fatah and others into a single platform. This explains the popular enthusiasm and lack of suspicion among ordinary Palestinians of the new fighters.
For example, Saed Al-Kuni, a Palestinian fighter who was recently killed by Israeli soldiers in an ambush on the outskirts of Nablus, was a member of the Lions’ Den. Some have claimed that Al-Kuni was a leading member of Fatah’s Brigades, and others say he was a well-known Hamas fighter.
This lack of certainty regarding the political identity of killed fighters is fairly unique to Palestinian society, at least since the establishment of the PA in 1994.
Expectedly, Israel will do what it always does: amassing more occupation troops, attacking, assassinating, crushing protests and laying sieges on rebellious towns and refugee camps. What they fail to understand, at least for now, is that the growing rebellion in the West Bank is not generated by a few fighters in Nablus and a few more in Jenin, but is the outcome of a truly popular sentiment.
In an interview with Yedioth Ahronoth, translated by Al-Quds, an Israeli commander described what he has witnessed in Jenin during a raid:
“When we enter (Jenin), armed fighters and stone throwers wait for us in every corner. Everyone takes part. You look at an old man … and you wonder, will he throw stones? And he does. Once, I saw a person who had nothing to throw (on us). He rushed to his car, grabbed a milk carton and he threw it on us.”
Palestinians are simply fed up with the Israeli occupation and with their collaborating leadership. They are ready to put it all on the line; in fact, in Jenin and Nablus, they already have. The coming weeks and months are critical for the future of the West Bank and, in fact, for all Palestinians.
Looking beyond US violence and PA dependence
By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | October 18, 2022
Belatedly, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas has issued a statement of clear mistrust in US diplomacy towards Palestine. “We don’t trust America and you know our position. We don’t trust it, we don’t rely on it, and under no circumstances can we accept that America is the sole party in resolving a problem,” Abbas told reporters before meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Kazakhstan last Thursday.
Despite being beholden to the international community’s diplomacy and, more recently, to Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz’s concessions which allow Abbas to consolidate his hold in Ramallah, it is clear that the PA does not trust Washington. Even though Abbas’s statement does not reflect the complete reality of the situation, particularly the PA’s dependence on the US for its own survival, his call to reduce America’s role is significant.
This comes at a time when Russia has threatened to cut diplomatic relations with Israel if the latter sends military aid to Ukraine. The US, meanwhile, does not relish a secondary role to Russia, with Abbas stating that the US can still be part of diplomatic negotiations only within the Middle East Quartet. Washington’s response, ironically and hypocritically, was to berate Putin’s threat as “a far cry from the type of international partner needed to constructively address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” The US should take a look at its own global track record of foreign intervention under various “constructive” guises. Does Operation Condor in Latin America ring any bells in the White House, for example? Likewise, Libya’s destruction under a NATO umbrella, albeit it was a planned US intervention post-9/11? Both expose the sham of Washington’s “commitment” to human rights.
President Joe Biden’s administration is actually worse than its predecessors in terms of its hypocrisy. Biden’s electoral victory brought no real change other than him being an alternative to Donald Trump, whose belligerence can at least be credited with exposing US diplomatic double standards. Trump’s overt concessions to Israel, alarming as they were due to their swift approval, were the culmination of decades of covert US diplomacy.
Biden’s promise to revert to the two-state paradigm, defunct though it is, has been particularly problematic for Palestinians due to it being just a veneer for sticking to Trump’s damaging policies. Washington’s disappointment at Abbas’s words is undoubtedly feigned, and ignores its own dismal record when it comes to Palestine. How is sending billions of dollars in military aid to Israel every year conducive to bringing about an “independent and viable Palestinian state”? Or how does preserving Abbas’s presidency — his mandate expired in 2009 — to prevent a democratically-elected alternative from entering Palestine’s political arena, help democracy and the aforementioned Palestinian state? The PA and Abbas might distrust the US, but both depend on Washington for their survival.
The US commitment to the so-called Abraham Accords is gaining ground internationally, eclipsing a defunct paradigm which Biden claims to support. Russia is within the fold of international consensus regarding the two-state compromise, even when it is clear that decolonisation is essential for the political aspirations of the Palestinian people. The PA stands in the way of decolonisation by begging the international community to keep the two-state “solution” alive.
Abbas cannot be taken seriously in anything he says or does; his leadership is tied to international donors and Israel’s colonial expansion. Nevertheless, the mere possibility that the US might lose its prominence in terms of involvement with Palestine deservers to gain traction, particularly if Fatah loses its iron grip on Palestinian politics and the people of occupied Palestine get the chance to experience a democratically-elected government which thrives less on hyperbole and more on the Palestinians’ own narrative.
Americans criticize US Middle Eastern policies
By Viktor Mikhin – New Eastern Outlook – 18.10.2022
The USA never misses an opportunity to present itself as an open and democratic society and a state in which the government authorities respect the will of the majority of the people and tailor their policies accordingly. That may have been the case in the past, but the facts no longer support this view – the President and his team are pushing through policies which favor their own interests and which are quite different from what they promised in their election campaigns.
There is a great deal of evidence to support this claim, but one particularly striking example is a new wide-ranging survey of Americans’ views on Washington’s foreign policy in the Middle East. The survey revealed that the majority of young Americans oppose their country’s policy in relation to Israel and, specifically against its sale of arms to the Israeli regime. The survey also shows that there is a great deal of support in American society for the Iran nuclear deal.
The survey, conducted by the Eurasia Group Foundation (EGF), shows that young Americans are more politically aware than older generations in relation to Israel’s aggressive policies against the Palestinians and its Arab neighbors. Most respondents aged between 18 and 29 were not in favor of continuing to supply arms to Israel. Older Americans (over sixty years old), on the other hand, tend to be in favor of the US providing military support to Israel.
The US supplies Israel with military aid worth some $4 billion a year. As a result, Israel is the biggest recipient of American military support in the world. But this support is being paid for by American taxpayers, many of whom are unaware that their taxes are being used to support the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the native Palestinians. Similarly, more than 80% of Americans support the Biden administration’s policy of negotiating in order to revive the Iran nuclear deal, as they consider that this will help improve the situation in the Middle East. Both in the region and at the international level there is a great deal of debate about how ready ordinary Americans are to criticize their government’s military support for dictatorships and authoritarian regimes enforcing policies of territorial occupation and ethnic segregation. Washington, in a bid to justify its actions, frequently claims that its support is made necessary by so-called security concerns, but many are skeptical of these arguments, dismissing them as cheap populism.
Mark Hannah, senior fellow at the Eurasia Group Foundation, describes the motivation behind the survey, “We began this survey five years ago because we believed lawmakers and foreign policy leaders conducting foreign policy on behalf of the American people would benefit from a window into their opinions and priorities.” He also expressed the hope that the survey results would be used by decision makers responsible for foreign policy in relation to the Middle East would study the survey “to make the activities they pursue more sensitive to – and informed by – the opinions of their constituents, and to bridge the gap between the concerns of policymakers and those of ordinary Americans.”
Unfortunately, the above hope is very naive: officials in Washington and in the Biden administration do not take the interests of ordinary Americans into account when making foreign policy decisions. It would suffice to cite Washington’s involvement supporting neo-Nazi groups in the war in Ukraine, thus threatening the world with nuclear war.
Or one could cite its offer to supply Israel – completely free of charge – with four Boeing military refueling aircraft over the next four years. Boeing signed a contract with the US Defense Department for the supply of four Boeing KC-46 Pegasus aircraft at a cost of $927 million. In effect, this means that the purchase price of $927 million will be paid by the US taxpayer, and Boeing will make a handsome profit from the transaction. According to Israeli media reports and also official government sources, Israel is already planning to use these state-of-the art aircraft to attack Iranian territory. It is obvious that the revival of the so-called Iran nuclear deal is in the interests both of the USA and of ordinary Americans, and that it would have a very positive effect on the highly tense situation in the Middle East.
In a formal statement on the decision to supply Israel with the refueling planes, Benny Gantz, Israel’s Minister of Defense, said, “This is further proof of the alliance and the strategic relations of the Israeli and American defense establishments.” In line with their standard practice, the Minister of Defense and other Israeli officials, along with their counterparts in Washington, all falsely name Iran as the justification for their huge military aid budget. This military aid has support from both parties in Congress, and is approved each year by a majority of lawmakers, even though this support goes against the interests of ordinary Americans.
According to a study by Maryland University, less than 1% of respondents consider Israel to be one of Washington’s two main allies. Many other surveys conducted over a number of years confirm the findings of the Eurasia Group Foundation. Earlier this year a survey by Pew Research also found that Americans under 30 tended to have a negative view of Israel. 61% of respondents in that age group felt sympathy towards the Palestinians. Maryland University also found that only a small proportion were in favor of stronger links with Israel, and that Israel is able to manipulate these links to favor its own interests.
In an interview with Middle East Eye, Dr. Zuri Linetsky, a Research Fellow at the Eurasia Group Foundation, explained that many American respondents who stated that they were against arms sales to Israel explained that they saw Israel’s long-term occupation of Palestinian territory as a violation of human rights. That last survey also found that many Americans are against their government’s continuing arms sales to Saudi Arabia, with 70% of respondents critical of Washington’s policy in relation to Riyadh.
That is despite the fact that rights groups are deeply concerned about the Biden administration’s continuing approvals of new arms sales to countries such as Israel, which have a record of invading other Arab nations. In August President Biden approved a $5 billion sale of rocket technology to Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The survey also shows that respondents are in favor of reining in US military involvement abroad, and, conversely, want to see the US administration make more efforts in the field of diplomacy, especially in relation to US rivals.
One of the key findings of the survey conducted by the Eurasia Group Foundation is that respondents attach a lot of importance to the Iran nuclear deal. It revealed that, irrespective of whether they vote Democrat or Republican, most Americans are in favor of talks with Tehran. Almost 80% of them support Joe Biden’s administration engaging in talks to revive the nuclear deal. To a great extent, support for the talks cuts across party divisions, with more than 70% of Republicans believing that the USA should continue with the talks.
However, approximately 80% of respondents also feel that Congress should more strictly control the President’s powers and authority in military matters, and that such decisions should be made by Congress. The USA has invaded many countries, most notably Afghanistan and Iraq, and its military continues to be involved in combat operations in Syria. Washington is also still illegally “occupying” a number of Arab countries, and has military bases in Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. And the Pentagon does all this without consulting Congress – it prefers to take action and present the legislature with a fait accompli.
When asked about Afghanistan, almost two thirds of respondents consider that the most important lesson to be learned from the Afghan war is that the USA should not be involved in nation-building, or that it should only send troops into harm’s way if its vital national interests are threatened.
As for nuclear weapons, almost 75% of respondents said that they were concerned about this problem. Those respondents who have served or currently serve in the armed forces were less concerned than those with no military experience. “For the vast majority of the 21st century, the United States has been involved in conflicts in far-flung parts of the world. So the question is, is this what the American people want? Does this represent their interests?”, asked Zuri Linetsky, in his interview with Middle East Eye.
In conclusion, the author can confidently state that the survey is a good test to determine the areas in which respondents are dissatisfied with American policies in relation to the Middle East, and what they consider should be their leaders’ priorities, whether concerning international or domestic matters. The survey shows that in relation to many questions, the White House’s policies are inconsistent with the views of the majority of respondents. The survey sample was made up of a highly diverse group of Americans from all parts of the country, with different religions, political affiliations, drawn from every age group and representing all income levels.
What kind of democracy is that?
Palestinian President Rules Out US as Sole Mediator, Open to Russia Filling Role
By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | October 13, 2022
In a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he did not trust Washington and the US could not play the sole mediating role in resolving the Israeli occupation. Abbas voiced support for Moscow, saying, “Russia stands for justice.”
Abbas made the remarks during a public meeting with Putin in Kazakhstan on Thursday. “We don’t trust America and you know our position.” He continued, “[w]e don’t trust it, we don’t rely on it, and under no circumstances can we accept that America is the sole party in resolving a problem.”
He said the situation can only be resolved by the “Quartet” – Russia, the US, the United Nations and the European Union working together. Abbas stressed the importance of Moscow’s role in coming to a resolution. “We believe and know that Russia has a clear position on the settlement, and I am absolutely sure that it will never change. We know perfectly well that Russia stands for justice, for international law,” the Palestinian leader said.
Putin responded favorably and said he hopes to increase ties between Moscow and Ramallah. Russia has “a principled stance based on the fundamental resolutions of the United Nations and it remains unchanged,” Putin said.
Abbas is 87 years old and was last elected in 2005. His mandate to rule expired in 2009. However, Tel Aviv and Ramallah have prevented new elections since. While Israel maintains security control and enforces its laws over all the territory of historic Palestine, Abbas and his government in Ramallah have some control in the West Bank. His influence does not extend to Gaza, where Hamas rules as the last elected political leader.
Abbas’s “Quartet” plan appears to be a non-starter. Currently, American and many European officials are refusing to attend any meeting with Russian officials.
The meeting between Putin and Abbas does expose fractures in the West’s campaign to isolate the Kremlin. After Russia invaded Ukraine in February, President Joe Biden said he would ensure Putin lost his global partners.
Washington is Tel Aviv’s primary sponsor. The US provides Israel with $3.8 billion in military aid every year. Tel Aviv’s control over Palestinians amounts to apartheid, according to several Western human rights organizations.
Three poultry farms, one car burned by settlers in West Bank village
Settler opens fire at Palestinian citizens in Silwan
Palestine Information Center – October 13, 2022
NABLUS – Three agricultural structures and one car were destroyed on Wednesday when extremist Jewish settlers launched arson attacks in Qusra village, south of Nablus City, under military protection.
The Palestinian civil defense said on Thursday that a crew of its firefighters dealt with a number of blazes that were started by settlers in Qusra village.
The civil defense added that the fires destroyed three poultry farms and killed 30,000 chickens, pointing out that the settlers burned a vehicle near the farms.
It also said that its firefighters faced obstacles as they were heading for the area to tackle the fires.
Palestinian towns and villages in the southern countryside of Nablus, especially, Qusra, Jalud and Burin, are exposed to repeated attacks by Jewish settlers, who escalate their crimes during the olive harvest season.
Will Lebanon and Israel go to war over the maritime border dispute?
By Robert Inlakesh | Samizdat | October 8, 2022
Israel has announced its readiness for war with Lebanon, as the ongoing US-mediated maritime border demarcation talks head towards a dead end. The issue, however, is not just causing dispute between Beirut and Tel Aviv, but also becoming more prevalent within Israeli politics as it heads into another round of general elections.
On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid rejected Lebanese amendments to a US-proposed maritime border demarcation agreement. The previous day, Israeli officials had reportedly been briefed on the deal, which was the cause of much optimism, with an unnamed source telling Axios news that Lapid “made it clear that Israel will not compromise on its security and economic interests, even if that means that there will be no agreement soon.”
Later on Wednesday, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz ordered the military establishment to prepare for an armed confrontation with Lebanon. A four-hour cabinet meeting, which was said to have been attended by major Israeli security establishment figures, was then concluded with a public announcement that the prime minister and defense minister had been granted permission to strike Lebanon without further cabinet approval.
Why are Lebanon and Israel on the verge of war?
In early June, a ship owned by the gas company Energean arrived at the resource-rich Karish field in the Eastern Mediterranean to begin preparations for natural gas production for Israel. Lebanese President Michel Aoun condemned the arrival, warning Tel Aviv against taking any further “aggressive action.” The Karish field, as well as the nearby Qana field, have for years been central to on-off US-mediated negotiations between Lebanon and Israel. The two nations have still not come to any agreement on the demarcation of their maritime borders, with Beirut seeing Karish and Qana as vital to reviving its collapsing economy.
While Lebanon maintains, due to legal arguments put forth in previous negotiations, that the entire area is to be considered ‘disputed waters,’ Israel has maintained that all of the Karish field and the majority of the Qana field are within its own ‘Exclusive Economic Zone’. The Lebanese political and military party Hezbollah, which claims to have 100,000 battle-ready troops at its disposal, then weighed in on the debate, vowing to protect Lebanon’s rights to its oil and gas.
Secretary General of Lebanese Hezbollah Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah declared that if no maritime border deal were reached and Lebanon is not able to secure its rights, then military action will be taken. Nasrallah vowed that the new reality would be “If we can’t have our resources, nobody can.” Hezbollah’s red line is Israeli extraction from the Karish field before any agreement is signed – if this happens, the group has threatened to strike not only Tel Aviv’s infrastructure at site, but every other Israeli oil and gas facility in the Mediterranean.
Israel has since responded with threats of its own, which have ranged from a vow to eliminate the entire densely populated Beirut suburb that serves as Hezbollah’s stronghold, to Benny Gantz’s recent warning that the whole of Lebanon would “pay a heavy price” for any military action by Hezbollah. Now that the negotiations have reached a “make or break” point, there are significant fears that military action will be taken, either by Israel or Hezbollah.
Empty threats?
The most recent threats issued by the military and political leadership in Tel Aviv have caused panic among Israelis living near the Lebanese border. However, there is a significant possibility that the rhetoric is aimed at a domestic audience. Israel will enter into a new round of national elections in November and the demarcation of maritime borders has recently been weaponized against the current Israeli leadership, causing ministers to act in order to save face.
Israeli opposition leader and former long-time prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu began to lash out at interim-PM Yair Lapid back in September, releasing a video in which he claimed that Lapid had “totally folded in the face of Nasrallah’s threats” and that Hezbollah had forced him to delay extraction from the Karish field. Netanyahu has continued to heavily criticize his political opponents’ handling of the demarcation-line issue, with similar claims that Israel is backing down over the threats issued by Lebanese Hezbollah.
Netanyahu’s words ring true in that Lapid has clearly been forced to take the issue of demarcation of maritime borders very seriously and has conceded on positions held by Tel Aviv in the past. In addition to this, the extraction of gas from the Karish field has also been delayed, as Energean, which owns the rights to extract from the site, was initially prepared to begin operations in late September and has so far refrained from doing so. However, had Netanyahu remained as PM, he would hardly have had any other choice but to do the same.
The threats made by Hezbollah are very serious, and the group apparently has the capacity to follow through with them and destroy all of Israel’s oil and gas facilities. At this time, however, the Israeli far-right camp headed by Netanyahu is blaming the situation on Lapid’s weak governance, saying he is prepared to give away territory that belongs to Israel. For this reason, it is likely that Yair Lapid will attempt to delay extraction of gas from the Karish field in order to sideline the issue until after the elections.
The necessity of a deal for Lebanon
Lebanon sees the Karish and Qana issue as integral to its survival. Some UN experts put the percentage of Lebanese living in poverty at around 80%, while the country endures round-the-clock blackouts, a rising crime rate, and civil instability. Some people have even been spotted searching for food in garbage bins, as well as fighting over loaves of bread at bakeries. Getting its hands on a possible multi-billion-dollar oil and gas field is a matter of life or death for Beirut – but not for Tel Aviv, which enjoys far more economic stability.
The US mediator in the Lebanon-Israel talks, Amos Hochstein, gave an interview to the American owned al-Hurra TV in June, laughing when asked about the prospect of trading the Karish field for Qana. Months later, after Hezbollah upped its threats and the group’s leader, Nasrallah, stated that the Lebanese people would not be laughed at, this issue has become a rather grave one. The US, which has a clear pro-Israeli bias, is now being forced to take the talks much more seriously.
Earlier this year, as the European Union looked for alternative gas suppliers, a deal was inked between Tel Aviv and Brussels, under which Israel would send gas through pipelines to Europe via Egypt. This has encouraged Tel Aviv to announce its plans to double its gas output, and the Karish field is key to achieving this.
The Qana field, however, has not yet been explored and will take time to develop. Despite this, one of the key reasons for Israel’s rejection of the Lebanese proposal is that Beirut refuses to pay Tel Aviv royalties for the gas it would extract from the Qana field should it be handed to Lebanon. Beirut cannot commit itself to such an agreement, because this would mean normalizing ties with the Tel Aviv regime, which still occupies Shebaa farms – an area that Lebanon claims as its rightful territory.
Whether war happens will now boil down to whether bickering between Israeli political parties and individual officials will cause Tel Aviv to adopt a belligerent approach and push forward with gas production in the disputed fields before an agreement is reached. If it does, there can be little doubt that Hezbollah will open fire if its red line is crossed. Israel’s stake in the matter is additional energy revenues, while for Lebanon it is potentially a matter of life or death. Neither side wants war, but one has much to gain and the other has everything to lose.
Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the Palestinian territories and currently works with Quds News.
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How 1960’s French Nuclear Tests Are Still Claiming Lives in Algeria
Sputnik – 15.02.2018
On February 13, 1960, France carried out its first nuclear test in Algeria’s southern Reggane region. According to official statistics, 17 nuclear tests were carried out in total over the next 6 years. The area remains affected, and local scientists say that radioactive contamination has caused genetic mutations and irreversibly changed the region.
There are no official statistics on the number of victims. The only figures can be found in the records kept by the French representative of the local church, which lists 42,000 victims of nuclear tests. Three years ago, the French Ministry of Defense issued a statement, putting the number at 27,000 people. The victims include French soldiers as well as local Algerians who lived in the surrounding areas. … continue
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