I was born in Poonch (Kashmir) and now I live in Norway. I oppose war and violence and am a firm believer in the peaceful co-existence of all nations and peoples. In my academic work I have tried to espouse the cause of the weak and the oppressed in a world dominated by power politics, misleading propaganda and violations of basic human rights. I also believe that all conscious members of society have a moral duty to stand for and further the cause of peace and human rights throughout the world.
Protesters
with hands painted red to symbolize blood stand outside the Turkish
Embassy in Croatia on Nov. 11, 2024, holding signs in English and
Croatian that read, “Erdoğan stop fueling genocide in Gaza.” The
demonstration is part of a global campaign urging Turkey to cease its
alleged role in oil shipments benefiting Israel.
A new report by the Stop Fueling Genocide campaign, supported by
Progressive International, has revealed that 10 crude oil shipments were
made from Turkey to Israel over the past year, eight of which violated
Ankara’s embargo announced in May, according to the Gazete Duvar news
website.
The report is the second from the group, which uses satellite imagery
and shipping data to track the movement of tankers from Turkey’s Ceyhan
port to Israel, providing evidence that Ankara’s crude oil shipments to
Israel continued despite the trade ban.
In the first report researchers confirmed that a tanker, the
Seavigour, loaded Azeri crude oil in Ceyhan on October 28, turned off
its tracking signal in the eastern Mediterranean on October 30 and
reappeared near Sicily a week later, having reportedly offloaded its
cargo. Satellite imagery later showed the Seavigour docking at the EAPC
terminal near Ashkelon, Israel, on November 5.
Ceyhan serves as the endpoint of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC)
pipeline, which transports crude oil from Azerbaijan. This oil accounts
for nearly 30 percent of Israel’s crude imports. Reports indicate that
Azerbaijan’s oil exports to Israel have quadrupled this year, rising
from 523,554 tons in January to 2,372,248 tons in September.
Researchers identified 10 journeys made since December 2023 by
another crude oil tanker, the Kimolos, between Ceyhan and the EAPC
Terminal in the second report, with eight occurring after Turkey’s trade
blockade on Israel was announced.
The report said the Kimolos, similar to other vessels trading with
Israel, was turning off its tracking signal in the middle of the eastern
Mediterranean for several days to mask the trade between Turkey and
Israel.
The two ships identified in the reports are Suezmax-size vessels,
which are chartered specifically for the transfer of high volumes of
crude oil.
The report said researchers “have reasonably concluded” from this
evidence that the Kimolos has routinely shipped Azeri crude oil from
Turkey to Israel throughout the past year.
The findings contradict statements by Turkey’s energy minister, who
had denied any oil shipments to Israel since the embargo began.
The ongoing trade with Israel has drawn criticism from activists, who
argue that crude oil from the BTC pipeline is refined and used to fuel
Israeli military equipment. Advocacy groups have called on Turkey to
enforce the embargo and align its policies with its stated support for
Palestine.
Experts warn that if the International Court of Justice determines
Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, those involved in supplying fuel
could be found complicit in failing to prevent genocide.
Earlier this month nine activists, who had interrupted President
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s November 29 speech at the TRT World Forum in
İstanbul, accusing the president of hypocrisy for allegedly facilitating
crude oil shipments to Israel despite Turkey’s public stance against
Israeli military actions in Gaza, were detained and subsequently arrested by a court on December 2. They were released on December 6 after their lawyers filed an appeal contesting the arrests.
The arrests have sparked outrage among human rights groups and
activists. Critics argue that Erdoğan’s government is suppressing
dissent while enabling trade that contradicts its pro-Palestinian
rhetoric.
Aid group accuses Tel Aviv of deliberate ethnic cleansing in latest damning report
Israeli soldiers move on armored personnel carriers (APC) near the Israeli-Gaza border, in southern Israel, December 18, 2024
THE medical aid group Doctors Without Borders accused Israel of
“ethnic cleansing” in Gaza in a damning new report released on Thursday.
This comes as the Swedish government announced that it was ending its
“core support” for the United Nations relief agency for Palestinians
(Unrwa).
MSF, the acronym from Doctors Without Borders’ original French name,
said Israel was systematically attacking Gaza’s healthcare system and
restricting essential humanitarian assistance.
MSF say Palestinians are forcibly displaced, trapped and bombed. It
also says MSF staff have witnessed a relentless campaign by the Israeli
forces marked by massive destruction, devastation and dehumanisation.
The report accuses Israeli forces of having prevented essential items
such as food, water, and medical supplies from entering the strip on
numerous occasions, as well as blocking, denying, and delaying
humanitarian assistance.
Fewer than half of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are even partially functional, and the healthcare system lies in ruins.
The report says that during the one-year period covered by the report
— from October 2023 to October 2024 — MSF staff “have endured 41
attacks and violent incidents, including air strikes, shelling, and
violent incursions in health facilities; direct fire on our shelters and
convoys; and arbitrary detention of colleagues by Israeli forces.”
MSF medical personnel and patients have been forced to evacuate
hospitals and health facilities on 17 separate occasions, often
literally running for their lives.
The report says that even if the war ends today, the loss of
families, repeated forced displacement and inhumane living conditions
will scar the population for generations.
MSF’s secretary-general Christopher Lockyear said Israel was guilty
of dismantling the infrastructure in Gaza that was essential for life
and had strangled access to humanitarian aid in the besieged enclave.
He said: “We are seeing forced displacements, ethnic cleansing in the
north, the destruction of infrastructure, physical and mental injuries
to the population in Gaza and all of this is undeniable.”
The report said: “Attacks on civilians, the dismantling of the
healthcare system, the deprivation of food, water and supplies are a
form of collective punishment inflicted by the Israeli authorities on
the people of Gaza.
“This must stop now.”
Israel’s Foreign Ministry hit back at the report, describing it as “entirely false and misleading.”
In a statement the ministry said Israel does not target innocent
health workers and tries to ensure delivery of aid, and charged the
medical group with failing to acknowledge Hamas’s alleged use of
hospitals as bases “for terrorist activities and operations.”
The MSF report reinforces similar allegations made on Thursday in a Human Rights Watch study.
HRW accused Israel of a campaign in Gaza that amounted to “acts of
genocide,” cutting off the flow of water and electricity, destroying
infrastructure and preventing the distribution of critical supplies.
HRW executive director Tirana Hasan described the findings of the MSF
report as being consistent with her own organisation’s report.
Amnesty International secretary-general Agnes Callamard said the
research by MSF was “yet one more report detailing the carnage in Gaza.”
But Vedant Patel, a spokesman for the US State Department, said it “disagreed with the HRW report conclusions of genocide.”
Of the MSF report Mr Patel said the health organisation itself
acknowledged that the “intentionality” of any Israeli actions was beyond
the scope of its assessment.
Islington North MP Jeremy Corbyn warned the British government to learn lessons from the report.
He said: “This devastating account of Palestinian suffering should be
mandatory reading for government ministers. How much more evidence of
genocide does the government need to end its complicity and suspend all
arms sales to Israel?”
Director of the Tricontinental Centre for Social Research Vijay
Prashad told the Morning Star: “Perhaps the most stunning part of the
new MSF report is this simple fact: it could take up to 15 years to
clear the rubble and 80 years to rebuild housing.
“This itself shows that Israel has ethnically cleansed Gaza for at least several generations. No further proof is necessary.”
Luciano Zaccara, an associate professor in Gulf politics at Qatar
University, says Israelis are trying to push all the people in the north
of Gaza out of the area, which has been under siege.
He told the Al Jazeera network that the Israeli operation and siege
“has been going on for more than two months without anybody being able
to do anything.”
Mr Zaccara said: “There is no doubt about the kind of ethnic
cleansing that they are carrying out in the north of Gaza,” he stressed.
MSF said it continued to demand an immediate and sustained ceasefire
and safe access to northern Gaza, to allow the delivery of humanitarian
aid and medical supplies to hospitals.
The aid organisation added that while it continues “to provide
lifesaving care in central and southern Gaza, we call on Israel to end
its siege on the territory and open vital land borders, including the
Rafah crossing, to enable a massive scale-up of humanitarian and medical
aid.”
The Israeli onslaught against the Palestinians in Gaza continues.
On Thursday five children and 12 others were killed in an Israeli air
strike on the Shaaban Rais School sheltering displaced people and
earlier another five people were slaughtered in the Maghazi refugee camp
in Deir al-Balah.
Officials said some people remained under rubble and on roads where ambulance and civil defence crews could not reach them.
The Gaza health ministry said the total number of deaths in Gaza is
now at least 45,206 since October 7, when Hamas staged a cross-border
raid that killed 1,139 Israelis.
Meanwhile the Swedish government confirmed it was ending its “core support” for Unrwa.
In October, Israel’s parliament approved legislation banning Unrwa
activities in the Palestinian territories, a measure that was to take
effect in 90 days.
Stockholm said that 800 million kronor (around £58 million) being
allocated for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the region next year
will instead go through the channels of the Swedish International
Development Co-operation Agency and the government’s support for other
agencies such as the World Food Programme, the UN Children’s Fund, the
UN Population Fund and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Sweden’s minister for international development co-operation and
foreign trade, Benjamin Dousa, posted on X that the Israeli decision
will make much of Unrwa work difficult or impossible.
But head of Unrwa Philippe Lazzarini said on X: “Defunding Unrwa now
will undermine decades of Sweden’s investment in human development
including by denying access to education for hundreds of thousands of
girls and boys across the region.”
He added the decision would “double” the suffering for the people of Gaza.
Desperate to stay relevant, the faithful US-Israeli
‘handpicked leader’ has intensified his crackdown on Palestinians in the
West Bank and pledged to work with Trump
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas speaks during the
United Nations General Assembly at the UN headquarters in New York City
on 26 September 2024 (Stephanie Keith/Getty Images/AFP)
Palestinian Authority
(PA) President Mahmoud Abbas has been trying to stay relevant as events
in Gaza, the West Bank and across the region have been moving at a much
faster pace than the octogenarian politician is able to cope with.
This week, amid an Israeli genocide that has been unceasingly raging in Gaza for 14 months, Abbas’s security forces brazenly killed several prominent resistance fighters in Jenin in an attempt to appease the Israelis and their American benefactors.
When then-US President Donald Trump announced in January 2020 the so-called “deal of the century“, a proposal that was wholly aligned with Israel on all issues of contention, Abbas said:
“I want to say to the duo – Trump and [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin]
Netanyahu – that Jerusalem is not for sale, and all of our rights are
not for sale or bargaining. Your deal, the conspiracy, will not
happen…we say a thousand times no, no, no to the deal of the century.”
Yet, when Trump was re-elected on 5 November, Abbas called
to congratulate him and vowed to work with him on a political
settlement that he himself rejected out of hand five years earlier.
This was followed by a deal the
Egyptians struck two weeks ago between Hamas and Fatah, the Palestinian
faction headed by Abbas. The agreement was to appoint an independent
committee of prominent and professional Palestinians in Gaza to run its
affairs and reconstruction after the war.
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It was a demand by the Zionist regime and the Biden administration in
order to dislodge Hamas from any future role in ruling Gaza.
However, Abbas’s Fatah quickly retracted
its approval as the Israelis rejected any role for or input from Hamas
in the future of Gaza. It seems that such a deal would not play well in
Netanyahu’s vow for a “total victory” over Hamas and the resistance.
So what’s Abbas’s end game, and where is he headed in his twilight years?
Hand-picked ‘leader’
In his 20th year of a four-year term, Abbas announced in late November, a few days after he turned 89, his succession plan.
He issued a decree that called for the appointment of the unambitious, uncharismatic and feeble Fatah leader, Rawhi Fattouh, as an interim president after Abbas.
Condoleezza Rice recounted how a handful of people in 2003 hand-picked Abbas to become the leader of the Palestinian people
The 75-year-old Fattouh is currently serving as the chairman of the
Palestine National Council, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO)
parliament in exile.
In 28 years, the PNC met only once in 2018.
Interestingly enough, Fattouh is also the same person who served as
an interim president after the death of former PA President Yasser
Arafat in November 2004 until Abbas was elected to replace him in
January 2005.
For over a year, Abbas has been under American pressure to appoint a successor who will be as compliant and amenable to Israel and the US as he has been during his long tenure.
As recalled in her 2011 memoir, No Higher Honor,
Condoleezza Rice, who served as US President George W Bush’s national
security advisor, recounted how a handful of people in 2003, including
her, Bush, CIA Director George Tenet, and Ariel Sharon, the Israeli
prime minister at the time, hand-picked Abbas to become the leader of
the Palestinian people.
For much of 2002, Sharon refused to deal with Arafat but was eventually able to convince Bush to sideline the PLO leader in favour of Abbas as the more submissive and yielding Fatah leader.
Before he was appointed as a prime minister in 2003 as a result of American and European pressures, Abbas was publicly ridiculed
by Arafat, who called him the “Karzai of Palestine”, a reference to
Hamid Karzai, the former Afghan president, who was widely considered in
the Arab world as a US puppet.
Abbas, aka Abu Mazen, had risen to the leadership of Fatah and the PLO almost by default.
Even though he was considered among the first generation of Fatah
founders as he joined the movement in the early 1960s, he was not
distinguished or appointed to senior positions until decades later.
‘Strategic asset’
It was not until most of the early founders and senior leaders of
Fatah and the PLO, such as Khalil al-Wazir (Abu Jihad), Salah Khalaf
(Abu Iyad), Sa’ad Sayel, Abu Yusuf al-Najjar, and many others, had been
assassinated by Israel between the 1970s and early 1990s that Abu Mazen
started to hold more significant positions within Fatah and the PLO.
When the PLO adopted its 10-point plan in 1974, paving the way
towards a political settlement based on recognising Israel in exchange
for a truncated Palestinian state, Abbas was known to favour abandoning
any form of armed resistance to the Israeli occupation.
Why the Palestinian Authority’s biggest claim is a lie
Regarding this political ideology, Abu Iyad, who was considered to be
next in line in the Palestinian movement after Arafat before his
assassination in 1991 by the Zionist regime, quipped: “The thing that I fear the most is that treason would one day just become (normalised as) an opinion.”
When
Israel failed to crush the First Intifada (1987-1991), it adopted a
political track that would preserve its expansionist and settlement
policies. This path culminated in the 1993 Oslo Accords.
Abbas
was not only one of the few Palestinian interlocutors in this process
but also the person who actually signed the accords on the White House
lawn on behalf of the Palestinians.
Needless to say, the Oslo process was nothing short of a disaster that was doomed to fail from the start.
The Palestinian negotiators led by Arafat and Abbas surrendered their
main card and strongest leverage at the outset, which was the
recognition of the Zionist regime on 78 percent of the historical land
of Palestine.
In exchange, Israel only pledged to engage in a vain political
process that should have ended with an independent Palestinian state by
1999, or so thought the PLO leaders.
Yet, more than three decades after Oslo, the Zionist regime has not only killed the so-called two-state solution but consolidated its plans for a “Greater Israel”, including a more than six-fold increase of illegal settlers in the West Bank from about 115,000 in 1993 to over 750,000 today.
According to a 2015 International Crisis Group report, most Israeli officials consider Abbas their most important “strategic asset”.
The reason is quite clear.
It has been mainly through a political philosophy championed by Abbas that rejected decades of Palestinian resistance, prompting one expert to remark: “Abbas not once in his life did he adopt armed resistance, nor did he support it.”
He often mocked any notion of armed resistance by any group, including his own, even when Israel had killed scores of Palestinians unprovoked.
Brutal security force
His leadership style turned a relatively vibrant Palestinian national
movement into a subsidiary of the Israeli occupation, often referred to
as a “five-star occupation”
since it had relieved the Zionist regime from appearing as the
occupying power, while carrying out aggressive and domineering
settler-colonial policies worse than South Africa’s apartheid regime.
During his tenure, he embraced the American dictate to change the
security doctrine of the Palestinian security forces from policing and
protecting Palestinian population centres into a brutal security force
acting as the first line of defence of Israeli settlements and the
occupation army against any form of resistance, including passive
popular forms.
Why western plans for another Palestinian client regime will fail
Since his rise to lead the Palestinian Authority in 2005, he adopted the American plan under Lieutenant General Keith Dayton to train PA security forces, which engaged in suppression and silencing of dissent, as well as illegal arrests and torture, many times leading to death as in the case of Nizar Banat in 2021.
In
coordination with the US and the Zionist regime, Abbas created a
bloated security force whose primary mission was security coordination
with the Israeli army to thwart any resistance or operations against the
occupation.
He called this mission sacred and for decades refused to stop it even though Palestinian public opinion overwhelmingly condemns it.
Scores of Palestinian political bodies and factions have called on him to halt such disgraceful practices.
A detailed 2017 report
found that the Palestinian security sector employed around half of all
civil servants, accounting for nearly $1bn of the PA budget, and
receives around 30 percent of total international aid given to the
Palestinians, including most of the funds coming from the US.
The
study further found that the Palestinian security sector spent more of
the PA’s budget than the education, health, and agriculture sectors
combined. It included more than 80,000 individuals, where the ratio of
security personnel to the population is as high as 1 to 48 – one of the
highest in the world.
In Abbas’s first encounter with Donald Trump in 2017, the US president bragged
about the PA’s continued security coordination with Israel, as he
praised its effectiveness in protecting the Israeli occupation, in which
he said: “They get along unbelievably well. I was actually very
impressed and somewhat surprised at how well they got along. They work
together beautifully.”
‘Small-time dictator’
When Hamas won the 2006 legislative elections, Abbas coordinated with
the Americans and Israelis, as laid out in detail in Rice’s account in
her book, to obstruct the Hamas-led government from being able to serve
as the democratically elected party.
In fact, it was Abbas’s security forces, again in coordination with the Americans, that tried in 2007 to topple
Hamas’s government in Gaza, only to be outmanoeuvred by Hamas, which
took over Gaza, effectively resulting in two separate Palestinian
governments.
Palestinian resistance can always survive without outside support. Can Israel?
David Wurmser, a Bush administration official at the time, commented
in a Vanity Fair article in 2008 that the Bush administration was
engaged “in a dirty war in an effort to provide a corrupt dictatorship
[led by Abbas] with victory”.
He added that Hamas had no intention of taking Gaza until Fatah forced its hand.
Wurmser
further observed: “It looks to me that what happened wasn’t so much a
coup by Hamas but an attempted coup by Fatah that was pre-empted before
it could happen.”
Ever since this internal strife, Gaza has been living under a crippling Israeli siege with little interference from Abbas.
With
the support of the Americans, Israelis and regional actors, Abbas took
total control of the Palestinian political life. He started to
unilaterally issue decrees like any small-time dictator of a banana
republic.
His unconstitutional and unlawful decrees would dismiss governments, install prime ministers, cancel elections, spend billions, cover corruption by his cronies, family members and sons, and appoint a constitutional court in order to dismiss the Hamas-led legislative council.
But perhaps the behaviour that shocked most Palestinians was Abbas’s
deafening silence during the early days of Israel’s genocidal war.
As the Israeli war of extermination and ethnic cleansing campaign
intensified, Abbas would voice his strong but empty opposition to the
Israeli brutality on the one hand, while continuing to have security
coordination with the same vigour as if no genocide in Gaza, daily
settler attacks across the West Bank, or routine Al-Aqsa compound
incursions had been taking place for over a year.
With the Israeli genocidal war in Gaza entering its 15th month with
no end in sight, and while Israel prepares its long-term occupation of
Gaza, as well as aggressively pushing its policy of effective annexation
of Area C in the West Bank, it appears that the current fascist Israeli
government is on the verge of dumping Abbas in favour of a new security
arrangement that would favour local Palestinian collaborators to govern the Palestinian populations.
A 2017 study found that the Palestinian security sector employed
around half of all civil servants, accounting for nearly $1bn of the PA
budget
It’s clear that the current Zionist regime, with its grand design to
impose the Greater Israel project, wants to resolve its demographic
Palestinian problem and decisively end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
in its favour once and for all.
Hence, part of Israel’s grand strategy to realise this objective is not merely to be content with banning Unrwa, killing the two-state solution, or establishing Israeli hegemony in the region.
But in essence, it’s moving aggressively to redesign all the
Palestinian institutions and sources of power that have defined the
Palestinian struggle over decades.
Regardless of Abbas’s decree or what happens to him in the near term
as he enters the twilight of his life, Israel will make sure that he is
the last Palestinian leader who combines all the titles that define the
Palestinian institutions – the PA president, the PLO chairman, the Fatah
leader, and the president of the “State of Palestine”.
From an Israeli perspective, he has served his purpose, and it is now time for the final solution.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Sami Al-Arian is the Director of the Center for Islam and Global
Affairs (CIGA) at Istanbul Zaim University. Originally from Palestine,
he lived in the US for four decades (1975-2015) where he was a tenured
academic, prominent speaker and human rights activist before relocating
to Turkey. He is the author of several studies and books. He can be
contacted at: nolandsman1948@gmail.com.
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On
Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he spoke
with President-elect Donald Trump about Israel’s need to achieve
“victory” against Iran and its allies in the region.
“I
unequivocally declare to Hezbollah and to Iran: In order to prevent you
from attacking us, we will continue to take action against you as
necessary, in every arena and at all times,” Netanyahu said.
“I
discussed all of this last night with my friend, US President-elect
Donald Trump. We had a very friendly, warm and important discussion. We
discussed the need to complete Israel’s victory and we spoke at length
about the efforts we are making to free our hostages,” the prime
minister added.
The conversation
between Netanyahu and Trump came after reports said Israel sees an
opportunity to bomb Iran following the regime change in Syria that
ousted former President Bashar al-Assad. The Wall Street Journal also
reported that the Trump transition team is discussing the idea of
strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The
pretext for any Israeli or US action against Iranian nuclear facilities
would be to stop Iran from building a bomb, but there’s no evidence
that Tehran has decided to pursue nuclear weapons, something recently
acknowledged by the CIA.
In his
remarks on Sunday, Netanyahu also said Israel was changing the “face” of
the Middle East. “Syria is not the same Syria. Lebanon is not the same
Lebanon. Gaza is not the same Gaza. And the head of the axis, Iran, is
not the same Iran; it has also felt the might of our arm.
The
Israeli leader claimed Israel has “no interest in a conflict with
Syria,” but Israel has unleashed a heavy air campaign against the
country since the downfall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad,
launching over 800 strikes.
The recent fall of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in
Damascus marked a turning point in Syria’s ongoing conflict, with new
reports revealing a covert Ukrainian role in aiding Syrian rebels.
Ukrainian intelligence provided strategic support, including drone
technology and experienced operators, to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the
dominant rebel faction in Idlib, Caliber.Az reports via The Washington Post.
This effort underscores Ukraine’s broader strategy to undermine
Russian influence on multiple fronts amid its ongoing war with Moscow.
Approximately four to five weeks prior to the HTS-led offensive,
Ukrainian operatives delivered 150 first-person-view drones and deployed
20 experienced operators to assist the rebels. Although Western
intelligence sources suggest this aid played a modest role in the
regime’s downfall, it was a significant demonstration of Kyiv’s intent
to counter Russia in unconventional theatres such as the Middle East,
Africa, and even within Russia itself.
Ukraine’s intelligence agency, the GUR, has reportedly collaborated
with opposition groups in Syria under a special unit known as “Khimik,”
bolstering rebel capabilities against Russian-backed Syrian forces.
Ukraine’s motivations for such actions are clear. With its homeland
under siege, Kyiv is actively opening secondary fronts to stretch
Russian resources and influence. A June report in the Kyiv Post detailed
strikes by Ukrainian-backed Syrian rebels on Russian military
installations, accompanied by video evidence of these operations.
Russian officials have expressed growing concern, with statements
from representatives such as Alexander Lavrentyev and Foreign Minister
Sergei Lavrov accusing Ukrainian intelligence of conducting “dirty
operations” in Idlib. Despite these claims, independent verification
remains scarce.
While Russia has downplayed Ukraine’s involvement, pointing to HTS’s
independent drone program and prior expertise, the rapid collapse of
Assad’s regime caught Moscow off guard. Russian Telegram channels have
sought to minimize Kyiv’s role, suggesting Ukrainian personnel were in
Syria for too short a time to significantly influence operations.
However, this narrative contrasts with Ukraine’s broader pattern of
covert actions against Russian forces worldwide.
Beyond Syria, Ukraine has demonstrated its capability for overseas
operations in other regions. In July 2023, Ukrainian intelligence
reportedly supported Malian rebels in an ambush against Wagner Group
mercenaries, resulting in significant losses for the Russian
paramilitary group.
Such actions highlight the GUR’s aggressive strategy, with its head,
Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, affirming Ukraine’s commitment to targeting
Russian military assets globally. This approach has drawn concerns from
Western allies, including the Biden administration, over potential
escalations.
Ukraine’s actions in Syria align with its broader strategy to disrupt
Russia’s influence and partnerships. By aiding HTS, Kyiv weakened a
critical Russian ally in the Middle East, further isolating Moscow.
Although the Ukrainian assistance may not have been decisive, it
contributed to an environment where the Assad regime’s fall became
inevitable.
The parallels to other intelligence failures, such as Russia’s
inability to anticipate HTS’s offensive or Israel’s surprise during
Hamas’s October 2023 attack, are striking. Both underscore the
challenges nations face in responding to unconventional threats.
For Ukraine, these operations serve as a testament to its resilience
and resourcefulness in a protracted struggle against a powerful
adversary. While not the decisive factor in Damascus, Ukraine’s covert
actions signal its intent to shape the global battlefield to its
advantage.
Editor's remarks: There are great jubilations in Syria and the Syrian diaspora in the
world on the fall of Bashar al-Assad and his oppressive regime. However,
many people are not aware of the implications of the new ‘Mujahideen’
regime in Damascus and its unknown course in the time to come. What role
did the United States and Israel play in bringing down the al-Assad
regime and its long-term implications for Syria and the Middle East?
There are many questions that need clarifications and answers. In this
article, Kyle Anzalone, a political analyst, discusses the imperial role
of the United States in Syria, a role about which many ordinary readers
don’t hear much in the mainstream media.
by Michael Brenner, Dissident Voice, December 2nd, 2024
Racism is at the core of Western societies complicity in Israeli’s
genocide against the Arab Palestinians. That is self-evident. The United
States and Britain are more than accomplices; they are co-belligerents.
The behavior of all has been constant over 14 months of graphic
depiction day-by-day of atrocities of the most heinous kinds.
Racism, though, is a multifaceted phenomenon. It encompasses a wide
range of attitudes and actions. They should be parsed as a precondition
for analyzing which have been operative in this case, how they shaped
policies and interventions, how reconciled with the values of liberal
democracies, and how sustained in the face of such glaring criminal
abuses of humanity.
Nazi extermination of Jews is at one extreme of racism. The negative
weighing of ethnic identity in vetting candidates for a position of town
supervisor also is racism. Using disparaging terms about a particular
ascriptive group in casual conversation is racism. Apartheid is racism –
whether in the form of ghettoes, Bantustans, or the Gaza concentration
camps. Thoughts can be racist, words can be racist, actions can be
racist. There are connections among these three expressions of racism –
but to varying degrees and not always.
Let us take a look at these ambiguities and discontinuities with a
view to getting a better fix on the ways that racism has driven Western
countries’ involvement in the Palestine genocide.
It is normal for social groupings to differentiate themselves. This
is an affirmation of solidarity. It need not be accompanied by an
ascription of the other’s intrinsic inferiority. Nor be hostile and
aggressive.)
The diversity among larger, more organized societies changes things
in two respects: variations in race, color, language, ethnicity are
frequently encountered; the capacity for stereotyping grows along with
interactions that can lead to contention and rivalry.
Competition and conflict generate a need for justification of
‘winners’ exploiting/subordinating/abusing losers. Prejudice serves this
person.
That experience once institutionalized, as it was historically in
Western societies’ domination of non-Western peoples, leaves an enduring
residue of prejudicial feelings among both parties in the relationship.
Those feelings can fade over time while remaining dormant with the latent potential to resurface.
A dramatic event instigated by a formerly subordinate/inferior that
inflicts pain is the surest catalyst for that recrudescence – for it is
acutely humiliating as well as painful. The intensity of the reaction
(emotional, physical) to such an offense can be commensurate with the
sublimated guilt one feels about past abuse of the perpetrator.
Back to the contemporary situation. The facilitating, background
factors that help explain Western elites’ willing embrace of the
Palestinian genocide are easy to identify. The long history of colonial
domination of ‘inferior’ peoples; their systematic exploitation; a
widespread sense of diminishing status relative to emerging new centers
of strength and influence – as punctuated by the 1973 oil crisis and
ensuing dependency on the ‘hajjis’; a reflexive disposition to perform
penance for historical sins committed against Jews in Europe by turning a
blind eye to the sins of the previously sinned against; 75 years of
painting the Arabs as the ‘black hats’ in their struggle against the
Israeli settler state; revulsion at earlier acts of terror abroad by PLO
and PFLP.
Stunning events over the past two decades have stirred a potent mix
of negative emotions about Arabs. 9/11 punctuated the opening of the
Terrorism Era. Reciprocation of violent acts on Western soil and the
brutal, indiscriminate retaliation of the so-called War on Terror drew a
line of blood not only between the Westerners on the one side, and
terrorist groups along with their perceived state ‘sponsors’, on the
other. It also imprinted powerful images of Arabs/Muslims as fanatics,
as a menace to their comfortable social order, as people ‘beyond the
pale’ – to coin a phrase – who can be dealt with only through strength
and a readiness to follow the admonition of “an eye for an eye.”
This depiction of the ingredients that have formed the psyche of our
political class in regard to Arabs, and the Palestinians in particular,
goes aways toward explaining the West’s current abhorrent behavior. The
extremity of their actions and inactions could be seen as the outcome of
a dynamic wherein enmity turns into hatred (albeit expressed in the
quiet tones of normality) and dehumanization of the ‘other.’ A
paradoxical feature of this dynamic is that as past shameful abuses of
the ‘other’ are aggravated by new ones, there is a compulsion to
continue farther down that path. For doing provides a perverse form of
reassurance that somehow they must have deserved such extreme ill
treatment. This relentless punishment of our victims becomes a
displacement of suppressed self-hatred – among a few.
Suppose that the analysis offered above makes sense. That still
leaves us with an inadequate understanding of what is happening. We
should bear in mind the unprecedented features of the present situation.
One, Western governments have no strategic interest in supporting
Jerusalem’s project of creating a Greater Israel by eliminating the
Palestinians. No security or economic stakes encourage that. On the
contrary, Western interests in the region, and in the wider world,
manifestly have been seriously damaged by their close association with
all parts of the Israeli campaign. Two, there is no uncertainly about
the gross crimes against humanity being committed before our eyes daily
or the genocidal intent of the Israeli government. Indeed, cabinet
ministers advertise what their plans are. Three, the means to prevent
the bloody onslaught existed at the outset, and have been available
throughout. Without abundant provision of arms and money from the United
States and allies, Israel could not have prosecuted its diabolical
strategy. Sanctions are also an available option, although unnecessary.
Four, Western societies – particularly the European – are timorous,
complacent and risk averse; therefore, to act in a manner that erodes
their legitimizing foundations is incongruous, and needs explanation.
Conclusion: the behavior of Western societies is
pathological – that is to say, abnormal. It is perverse. We all share
the natural instinct to protect the young of the species, and – to a
somewhat lesser extent – the vulnerable aged and infirmed. This
instinct, in fact, can be observed in the behavior of all mammals. Our
supposedly enlightened societies go well beyond instinct to proclaim our
dedication to those humane values, and to stipulate them in laws and
conventions. This instinct/principle normally overrides prejudice when
confronted, in the mortified flesh, with the realities of atrocity. Yet,
we are acting in the diametrically opposite manner. And we ruthlessly
repress those among us who point out that contradiction because their
witness to our perfidy is intolerable.
Therein lies a great puzzle. No conventional political or
sociological analysis can solve it. Filling that void is the compelling
challenge – and precondition for restoring a collective ethical sense
that abhors rather than embraces evil. There is no scarcity of
anthropologists, psychiatrists and psychologists. With luck, a few
talented and motivated persons among them might step forward.
Michael Brenner is Professor Emeritus of
International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh and a Fellow of
the Center for Transatlantic Relations at SAIS/Johns Hopkins. He was the
Director of the International Relations & Global Studies Program at
the University of Texas. Brenner is the author of numerous books, and
over 80 articles and published papers. His most recent works are: Democracy Promotion and Islam; Fear and Dread In The Middle East; Toward A More Independent Europe ; Narcissistic Public Personalities & Our Times. Read other articles by Michael.
This article was posted on Monday, December 2nd, 2024 at 8:50am and is filed under Genocide, Palestine, Racism.
