Israel Blind To Its Own Isolation

I wrote less than two weeks ago that Israel was in an accelerating decline as a result of changed geopolitical realities in the Middle East, most recently and acutely the Arab Spring. That Arab Spring is now in the throes of a 2.0 reawakening and reconstitution of last year's settlements, as events in Egypt in the last two weeks have made clear, not to mention the momentum of Syrian rebels, rioting in Tunisia and renwed protests in Kuwait, Jordan, Bahrain, etc.

But like a Saudi Emir who can't see the protests outside his window past his line of servants, the Israeli regime appears to have no idea that they are more isolated than ever. Or, perhaps they do, but are unable to change their modus operandi because it is hard-baked into how the state operates, ie. by terror, humiliation and intimidation.

In any case, there's no doubt the world is a changed place when the UK and France call in Israel's ambassador to condemn plans to build 3,000 illegal settler homes as revenge for Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas seeking recognition at the UN. And the UK's mooting of the possibility that it will withdraw its own ambassador from Israel - a major diplomatic slap in the face - is a stunning development. You have to know that America's given its approval for this strong response - the UK is, after all, the tail that the American dog wags.

This is not really the result of Israel engaging in illegal or inhumane practices. Israel has been building settlements in the West Bank since it seized control of it, and Gaza, during the 1967 war. This is not a new event. What has changed isn't Israel, it's everything else.

The US and Europe all fear that Israel's uncontrollable brutality is inflaming the region, making it more unstable and more anti-American/anti-European. They are deepening the radicalization. Where once Israel's policy of armed fury towards all comers was useful to keep in line weak and despotic Arab regimes, it is now a hindrance. At a time when Mohammad Morsi, president of Egypt, is facing a revolt for being too much like Mubarak, despised in part for his refusal to confront Israel, Israel's actions could undermine Morsi's credibility further. Or it could force him to hit back at Israel to bolster his domestic position, putting the Camp David Treaty with Israel, which underpins American hegemony, at risk.

Israel really is shooting itself in the foot here. But it's not clear that they have any option. Already almost totally isolated - as the lopsided vote at the UN in support of granting statehood status to Palestine demonstrated - what is Israel to do? If it doesn't respond, coming after its perceived defeat in Gaza, it looks weak - which endangers its role as the American gendarme. And worse, it would look like it accepts the world's verdict that Palestine is a state, which would mean real negotiations towards a viable two-state solution. This it has never and will never accept. Israel has always played the long game, meaning it creates "facts on the ground" over time by stalling on negotiations as it pushes forward on settlement construction and economic strangling of the Palestinians. The end goal was always to gain control of all of Biblical Israel, in part because it provided a strong ideological underpinning justifying the right of European Jews to steal the land of the indigenous population, ie. Palestinians. But also because of the valuable natural resources - in particular water - that exists in the West Bank.

If the rest of the Middle East continues on its journey towards a deepening of democracy, Israel's bullyboy routine will put it increasingly in conflict with the policy of the Americans - and will stand out as anachronistic to the rest of the region. How this will play out in the end is unclear but if Israel closes off definitively the possibility of a two-state solution and the Americans place some distance between themselves (and their barrels of money) and Israel, they could be faced with their own Arab Spring - meaning a civil rights movement of Palestinians and Israeli-Arabs demanding full civil rights and equality.

France and Britain summon Israeli ambassadors - Middle East - Al Jazeera English:

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Gaza & The Not So Slow Decline Of Israel

Not alone any more: Egyptian protestors in Tahrir last year

In some ways what just went down in Gaza was business as usual. Israel provoked a mini-war with Gaza killing a leading Hamas politician (who was, in fact, the chief negotiator for a long term ceasefire with Israel) after engaging in its "normal" policies of drone flights, missile strikes and, of course, economy-crippling embargoes. In the process they killed some Palestinians, primarily civilians, many of them children. The USA publicly backed every act of brutality and every lie of the Israeli government and military. Hamas, and other factions of the Palestinian resistance were hopelessly outgunned, while Abbas and the PLO were craven, irrelevant and despised by many Palestinians for being so. Most of the Israeli public cheered on the IDF and hoped for more Palestinian death and destruction.

And yet, things couldn't have been much different from one, let alone three decades ago. In the face of changes in the Middle East, not least the Arab Spring that kicked off last year, Israel is a European settler-colony in decline.

The changes are in many ways rooted in the economic developments of the Arab world that have pulled literally tens of millions of people into the cities - creating more workers, more literate people, more connected people. Turkey alone is industrializing with China-like speed, transforming the country and increasing its weight in the region. Alongside this has been a growing political awakening that received significant boosts from the two Iraq wars, the second Palestinian intifada and the indefatigability of Hizbullah in Lebanon. And the post-war, post-colonial set-ups, which often saw significant concessions to the masses by nationalist anti-colonial regimes – the Ba'ath party in Syria and Iraq, Nasser in Egypt, etc. – has been replaced by rapacious, go it alone neo-liberalism, creating resentment and class polarization.

Of course, this hasn't only affected Israel's standing as a few Arab dictators could woefully tell you - soon to be joined by Assad in Syria (I give him three months, tops). The accumulation of all those changes I indicated above were, at some point, bound to come together in an explosion. And what an explosion it has turned out to be. The Middle East is going through the kind of historic transformation that happens once in a century.

But neither has Israel been spared from this process. In many ways it had been spared from the more dramatic impacts of what was going on around it for the simple reason that it is the recipient of billions of economy boosting dollars in "foreign aid" from the USA (et al). It also receives the most advanced weaponry on the planet - often for free - from the USA. In fundamentals, Israel is a Sparta, an armed camp or, if you will, the USA's largest military base. Still, sooner or later, it was bound to catch up.

The first signs of how things were changing came from the invasion of Lebanon in 2006 (though I'm certain people could trace it back even further). Here was the IDF - an undefeated and feared military. It had launched wars before - pretty much every war, other than 1973 - and it had always won. In 2006, while it destroyed villages and neighbourhoods, and killed over 1000 people, it was forced to flee back to Israel. Hizbullah showed the whole of the Middle East (and the world) that Israel could be defeated and humiliated.

One year later Israel and the USA tried to depose Hamas in Gaza, though it had been chosen democratically in an election that was imposed upon Gaza - again, by the USA and Israel. And just as their forced election blew up in their faces, so did the attempt to foment a Fatah-led coup d'etat. Fatah was too corrupt and weak and Hamas simply drove them out of Gaza. In anger at their own stupidity and foreign policy failure, Israel imposed a near-total blockade of Gaza's economy. The idea was to put the Palestinians "on a diet" to cripple their ability to resist.

One year after that, in 2008, Israel invaded Gaza during Operation Cast Lead, wreaking wide destruction and killing over 1,000 Palestinians - again, mostly civilians. Israel's goal was to destroy Hamas - not stop rocket fire, which Hamas had effectively policed after agreeing a truce with Israel, which Israel repeatedly broke. Not only did Israel fail to dislodge Hamas, they generated an enormous amount of global criticism, which helped to create the movement to break the Gaza blockade. That movement spurred Turkey to break all ties with Israel, once its only Muslim ally in the region.

Now, here we are in 2012, still in the throes of the Arab Spring, which has deposed Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, once the region's greatest protector of the Israel/US hegemony in the Middle East. Israel is more isolated than it has perhaps ever been, with no regional friends whatsoever (though Morsi in Egypt is more moderate than his supporters and also more open to accepting the Camp David peace settlement as well - popularly hated in Egypt). This time Israel couldn't even invade Gaza. And, in proportion, as the popular voices in Israel became more shrill, with calls to wipe Gaza off the map and impose a Holocaust on the Palestinians, etc. Israel was more constrained from doing so.

Israel started this latest war by murdering Hamas' military leader and chief negotiator. And they have ended it by allowing Hamas to demonstrate that it is growing more powerful, more able to strike inside Israel. They have also agreed a ceasefire - that Israel will break, like all others - that includes an end to the blockade and the policy of targeted killings inside Gaza. Moreover, Egypt gave no commitment to stop the flow of arms into Gaza. It's no wonder that Netanyahu is being assailed from all sides. He presided over another humiliation that has left their comprador ally, Abbas, even more despised and discredited.

With this secular decline of Israel's role and power in the region, one wonders how long the Americans will continue to sponsor their favourite regional gendarme. What will be the next crisis for Israel and will it lead to its further isolation?

Nobody Says "F*** You" Like Israel

As vile and racist as the regime is, you have to give them points for sheer chutzpah. Having denounced the Palestinians at the UN for not being serious about peace, Israeli PM Netanyahu has agreed two days later to build another 1,100 illegal buildings in occupied East Jerusalem. Of course, this has always been the strategy of Israel, ultimately emanating from the ultra-colonialist doctrine of Ze'ev Jabotinsky known as the Iron Wall. Basically, Israel will be so bad ass, so murderous and just plain crazy with a plentitude of American-bought weapons that the Palestinians, the Syrians, the Egyptians - the whole damn planet - will shut the hell up and do what Israel says. Unfortunately for the Palestinians what the state of Israel says is "fuck off and die", which isn't a very good place to start negotiations. And when Netanyahu says that negotiations must start from a perspective of "no preconditions", what he really means is that the only precondition is that the Palestinians will perform the above-noted-act of dispersal.

Unfortunately for Israel, the "we're-too-nuts-to-be-messed-with" line isn't carrying the same weight. Previously, they used the horrors of the Holocaust (which the Palestinians had nothing to do with) to justify their murderous, genocidal behaviour. Increasingly that doesn't hold much water - except with John Baird and the Harper Tories. Now there is no justification, just that they will kill whoever crosses them (and "crossing" them is broadly defined). But the Middle East is changing rapidly and Israel's actions have isolated it internationally, outside of the United States. With Turkey preparing a case against Israel's blockade of Gaza and threatening to escort aid ships with Turkish navy vessels and Egypt's post-revolution Prime Minister openly musing about the end of the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, Israel is in danger of digging its hold deeper. Nor can it count on the power of the US to unilaterally discipline countries like Turkey, Egypt or even Saudi Arabia. The wave of revolutions have put everything on the table. Hell, the Saudis are even going to let women vote and run for office (well, insofar as anyone can vote or run for any office that has any power). And the rise of a dynamic and wealthy China, which doesn't demand the same fealty to every twist and turn of its foreign policy as the USA and Europe, has undermined America's power as a more attractive ally. The result is that while, in the past, Israel's "fuck you" was accepted, if grudgingly by everyone in the neighbourhood (bar, perhaps, Hezbollah), more and more of the world is replying back "no, fuck you." That will ultimately be to Israel's detriment.

Israel okays new buildings in east Jerusalem - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

The Palestinians Would Be Foolish To Trust Obama or Netanyahu

There's an old saying that goes "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me". I'm not sure what the appropriate riposte is when you've been scammed by the same dishonest brokers a hundred times over. That sadly describes the behaviour of the Palestinian Authority who have gone along with the charade of negotiations and broken treaties so often that it's like watching reruns of a syndicated TV series - you know how every episode is going to end but you can't help but watch it anyway. Granted, the PA have often been duped not so much out of political cowardice or foolishness as a lack of alternatives. During the civil war in Lebanon in the early 1980s, the PLO were effectively defeated by the combined power of Lebanese fascists and Israeli military power and accepted a "peace agreement" that saw the Palestinian guerillas leave the country in return for a guarantee that Palestinian civilians would be protected. Within days the Israelis had facilitated a horrific massacre at the Sabra & Shatila refugee camps, carried out by the Israeli allied Lebanese falangists.

The same inability to mobilize sufficient levels of resistance during the first Intifada to defeat Israel - though enough to make Israel look like the child-murdering bastards that they are - led to the Oslo Accords. Oslo, lovingly pined after by squishy liberals everywhere as a way to avoid dealing honestly with Israel's racist colonialism while appearing sympathetic to an obviously oppressed people, was never anything other than an agreement to outsource the oppression and colonization to the Palestinians themselves. In return for suppressing resistance, the PLO would get authority at about the level of a municipal government, be allowed to fly the Palestinian flag, and Israel would even hand over tax dollars that were collected from and therefore legally belonged to the Palestinians. Israel would continue to build illegal settlements, kill Palestinians that the PLO, by then the Palestinian Authority, hadn't jailed or suppressed and, finally, chop up the West Bank with an Apartheid Wall and turn Gaza into a giant open-aired prison on the brink of starvation. Oslo, far from being the basis to establish a Palestinian state and end the conflict, was about neutering Palestinian resistance while continuing with the same genocidal policies.

That thoroughly dishonest, not to mention murderous, modus operandi has always been how Israel carried out its dirty deeds - claim to be under existential threat, plead a desire for peace, and then stage pre-emptive attacks on a people who have been disarmed by international conspiracy using the most advanced weapons on the planet, gifted to them by the most powerful empire in world history. When the oppressed fight back with stones and bottles filled with gasoline against heavily armoured tanks and sniper rifles with night vision or jet fighters flying at 10,000 feet, claim that this demonstrates the Palestinians are murderous, trained from birth to hate Jews, religious fanatics, etc. There is, in other words, "no partner for peace." How often did we hear that in the 1990s in relation to Yasser Arafat, even as he jailed oppositionists. That is, until Abbas finally stepped up and agreed to be a mini-Mubarak happily working on behalf of Israel's pantomime of being the USA in oppressing his own people even more profoundly. Then Arafat was no longer necessary and was conveniently disposed of.

This - and much more, frankly - is worth rehearsing as we hear Obama and Netanyahu pleading with Mahmoud Abbas not to bring the issue of recognizing Palestine as a state to the UN. Hilary Clinton even pretends to want to see a two-state solution and professes to be struggling to bring one about. Netanyahu has even offered direct negotiations. The only accurate words to describe this little charm offensive ought not to be used in polite company. Suffice to say that only an absolute moron with a profound memory disorder would fall for any of this. Obama had his chance to demonstrate having the Palestinians' interests at heart when Netanyahu accelerated the settlement building program and snubbed Obama's plea for a serious hiatus. Obama and the US government could have suspended the $3 billion in annual gift cash that Israel receives each year. They could have suspended the military aid and joint training exercises. They did nothing and not because of any Jewish/Israel lobby in Washington. They did nothing because of the vital role that Israel plays as America's loyal little Sparta, their watchdog in the Middle East, a bulwark against Arab democracy or any Arab dictator who gets delusions of anti-colonial grandeur. Or simply gets too big for his britches, as Saddam Hussein found out.

The trouble now for the Americans and the Israelis is that revolution is sweeping the region and all the old calculuses no longer hold. Just over a week ago Egyptians rioted outside of the Israeli embassy, forcing the embassy staff to flee for their lives. Turkey, emboldened by years of China-style economic growth, is flexing its muscles in the region and has threatened to send Turkish warships to accompany aid vessels going to Gaza. Turkey, with 74 million people and a modern economy and modern military is not so easy to push around as the disarmed Palestinians. Egypt, Israel's neighbour, is no longer under the thumb of a pro-Israel, pro-US dictator and everything, including the 35-year peace accord is now up in the air. The revolutionary wave has made Israel more isolated and the Palestinians more powerful than they have been in generations. And Abbas knows that. He also knows that the division between Hamas' controlled Gaza and the PLO controlled West Bank was a machination by the White House/Israel - one that he actively went along with, to be sure. But rather than cementing his rule and destroying his Hamas enemies, as it was meant to do, it weakened him, made him look like what he is - a comprador tool of Israel and the USA. All of this may have emboldened Abbas. Certainly he can't turn back now or he will be a corpse politically. He has nothing to lose - the Palestinians have nothing to lose - by pushing for a symbolic victory at the UN. Of course, the USA will - as they have promised - veto the Palestinian application in the Security Council. But at a time when the USA is trying to appear as the friend of the Arab Spring, this will seriously damage their image. And the world will see that the Palestinians have the support of the vast majority of countries. Israel will appear, again, as the molly-coddled bully boy of the Middle East, kept solvent and dangerous by their American benefactors. And there is yet a further danger. If the Americans and Israel publicly and actively stand up and say that Palestine isn't a country, there is every danger that the strategy of the "two-state solution" will be finally and completely dead; revealed as a façade behind which Israel could engage in endless, meaningless negotiations while creating "facts on the ground." If that leads to a civil rights struggle for a truly civil state - as opposed to the theocratic monstrosity that is Israel, the "Jewish state" - including calls for the right to democratic representation and an end to Apartheid-like policies, this will be very dangerous ground, especially in an era where everyone in the Middle East is engaging in the fight for democracy and freedom. If Abbas doesn't back down, this could open up a new round of struggle in Palestine that aligns it with a regional revolution. Palestine could truly join the Arab Spring. That can only end badly for Israel - and rightly so; they have sown the wind, it's about time for them to reap the whirlwind.

Netanyahu calls for talks with Palestinians - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

Rupert Murdoch, Friend Of Israel

Well this article is an interesting addition to the swirl of debate and exposé that's happening around Rupert Murdoch. The attached article is from J-Wire and is written by Isi Leibler. As all this scandal and humiliation was unfolding, I hadn't considered the impact that it might have upon Israel. Luckily, the zionists never neglect to defend a friend, no matter how much of a dirtbag, dictator, liar, racist or generally unpleasant person that they are. As Mr. Leibler notes:

"... while his enemies continue baying for his blood, most Israelis will be hoping that despite the criminal nature of the News of the World scandal, Rupert Murdoch and his senior management will be exonerated of direct malfeasance and his media holdings will remain substantially intact."

To be fair, Mr. Leibler does say several times that the phone hacking was "unconscionable" and "a disgrace to journalism" but the main thrust of the article is that Murdoch is a victim of the liberal media - which has also abandoned Israel - and the far left in the media. Apparently, Murdoch saved the British nation from the clutches of the far left - I assume by smashing the unions in the press back in the 1980s and creating the conditions of hyper-competitiveness that was a key dynamic driving the turn to the use of phone hacking.

Leibler continues, defending Murdoch from accusations of bias: "most of the Murdoch outlets maintain a fair and evenhanded approach [to Israel]". Fox News? The New York Daily Post? The Sun? Bias? Heavens, no? Leibler focuses his argument on the fact that while the Murdoch empire may have been guilty of some transgressions, the great man was in the forefront of defending western civilization (i.e. Israel) from an assault by "hostile Muslims and other extremists." As an aside, does a Muslim become an extremist by virtue of being hostile to something or is it rooted in the very nature of being Muslim? My guess is the latter and the only good Muslim for Mr. Leibler is one that acquiesces to the Israeli colonialist project and to the US backed dictatorships in the Middle East.

I have to say that I'm grateful that Mr. Leibler brought in the Israel angle and defends Rupert Murdoch from the point of view of the Zionist project. It has given me one more reason to cheer the public dismemberment of his empire and the corruption woven through its every fiber. If it means that Israel's lies have one less mouthpiece in the west and their hold over the narrative of the roots of the conflict in that region are weakened, the world will be a tiny bit of a better place.

Israel Attacks Free Speech To Defend Democracy

When is an attack on democracy not an attack on democracy? When the government says that they are defending democracy, of course. That seems to be the thinking in Israel's higher circles in any case as a bill moves towards becoming law that will ban Israeli citizens from advocating boycotts of Israel or its illegal occupations. It seems likely that the bill will pass with more or less fillibustering from the parliamentary opposition.

The real story here is that it's not surprising that over the long term, in order to sustain the Israeli dictatorship over the Palestinian population, it will have to reduce more and more the trappings of democracy for the minority of its population who are Jewish. Since its founding Israel has moved more and more away from "labour zionism" and "socialist zionism" towards the kind of far-right revisionist zionism espoused by people like Ze'ev Jabotinsky.

And since the only justification that could exist for taking over Palestine and re-designating it by its (short-lived) biblical name was to refer to religious doctrine, it's also not a surprise that the reversion to open racism has been accompanied by a rise in power of obscurantist Jewish fundamentalism. The religious fervour, the racism, the regime of permanent military crisis, these things are all necessary to sustain the campaign to colonize "eretz Israel" by driving out the indigenous population.

The present law, a response to the global disgust and growing boycott/divestment movement directed towards Israel's apartheid policies, is just another step down a road whose path was laid at the very foundation. Any society that is founded upon oppressing, dispossessing and humiliating another, will ultimately turn inwards and devour itself.

Israel prepares to pass law banning citizens from calling for boycotts | World news | guardian.co.uk