Why the US needs this war in Gaza

By Pepe Escobar

The Global South was expecting the Dawn of a New Arabian Reality. 

After all, the Arab street – even while repressed in their home nations – has pulsed with protests expressing ferocious rage against Israel’s wholesale massacre of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. 

Arab leaders were forced to take some sort of action beyond suspending a few ambassadorships with Israel, and called for a special Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) summit to discuss the ongoing Israeli War Against Palestinian Children. 

Representatives of 57 Muslim states convened in Riyadh on 11 November to deliver a serious, practical blow against genocidal practitioners and enablers. But in the end, nothing was offered, not even solace.  

The OIC’s final statement will always be enshrined in the Gilded Palace of Cowardice. Highlights of the tawdry rhetorical show: we oppose Israel’s “self-defense;” we condemn the attack on Gaza; we ask (who?) not to sell weapons to Israel; we request the kangaroo ICC to “investigate” war crimes; we request a UN resolution condemning Israel.  

For the record, that’s the best 57 Muslim-majority countries could drum up in response to this 21st-century genocide.  

History, even if written by victors, tends to be unforgiving towards cowards.

The Top Four Cowards, in this instance, are Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Morrocco – the latter three having normalized relations with Israel under a heavy US hand in 2020. These are the ones that consistently blocked serious measures from being adopted at the OIC summit, such as the Algerian draft proposal for an oil ban on Israel, plus banning the use of Arab airspace to deliver weapons to the occupation state.

Egypt and Jordan – longtime Arab vassals – were also non-committal, as well as Sudan, which is in the middle of a civil war. Turkiye, under Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan, once again showed it is all talk and no action; a neo-Ottoman parody of the Texan “all hat, no cattle.” 

BRICS or IMEC? 

The Top Four Cowards deserve some scrutiny. Bahrain is a lowly vassal hosting a key branch of the US Empire of Bases. Morocco has close relations with Tel Aviv – it sold out quickly after an Israeli promise to recognize Rabat’s claim on Western Sahara. Moreover, Morocco heavily depends on tourism, mainly from the collective west.  

Then we have the big dogs, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Both are stacked to the rafters with American weaponry, and, like Bahrain, also host US military bases. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MbS) and his old mentor, Emirati ruler Mohammad bin Zayed (MbZ), do factor in the threat of color revolutions tearing through their regal domains if they deviate too much from the accepted imperial script.  

But in a few weeks, starting on 1 January, 2024, under a Russian presidency, both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi will expand their horizons big-time by officially becoming members of the BRICS 11

Saudi Arabia and UAE were only admitted into the expanded BRICS because of careful geopolitical and geoeconomic calculations by the Russia-China strategic partnership.

Along with Iran – which happens to have its own strategic partnership with both Russia and China – Riyadh and Abu Dhabi are supposed to reinforce the energy clout of the BRICS sphere and be key players, further on down the road, in the de-dollarization drive whose ultimate aim is to bypass the petrodollar.  

Yet, at the same time, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi also stand to benefit immensely from the not-so-secret 1963 plan to build the Ben Gurion canal, from the Gulf of Aqaba to the Eastern Mediterranean, arriving – what a coincidence – very close to now devastated northern Gaza. 

The canal would allow Israel to become a key energy transit hub, dislodging Egypt’s Suez Canal, and that happens to dovetail nicely with Israel’s role as the de facto key node in the latest chapter of the War of Economic Corridors: the US-concocted India-MidEast Corridor (IMEC).

IMEC is a quite perverse acronym, as is the whole logic behind this fantastical corridor, which is to position international law-breaking Israel as a critical trade hub and even energy provider between Europe, part of the Arab world, and India.  

That was also the logic behind Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s UN charade in September, where he flashed the whole “international community” a map of the “New Middle East” in which Palestine had been totally erased. 

All of the above assumes that IMEC and the Ben Gurion Canal will be built – which is not a given by any realistic standards.  

Back to the vote at the OIC, US minions Egypt and Jordan – two countries on Israel’s western and eastern borders, respectively – were in the toughest position of them all. The occupation state wished to push approximately 4.5 million Palestinians into their borders for good. But Cairo and Amman, also awash in US weapons and financially bankrupt as they come, would never survive US sanctions if they lean too unacceptably towards Palestine.

So, in the end, too many Muslim states choosing humiliation over righteousness were thinking in very narrow, pragmatic, national interest terms. Geopolitics is pitiless. It is all about natural resources and markets. If you don’t have one, you need the other, and if you have none, a Hegemon dictates what you’re allowed to have. 

The Arab and Muslim street – and the Global Majority – may rightfully feel dejected when they see how these “leaders” are not ready to turn the Islamic world into a real power pole within emerging multipolarity. 

It wouldn’t happen any other way. Many key Arab states are not Sovereign entities. They are all boxed in, victims of a vassal mentality. They’re not ready – yet – for their close-up facing History. And sadly, they still remain hostage to their own “century of humiliation.”

The humiliating coup de grace was dispatched by none other than the Tel Aviv genocidal maniac himself: he threatened everyone in the Arab world if they don’t shut up – which they already did.

Of course, there are very important Arab and Muslim brave-hearts in Iran, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen. While not a majority by any means, these Resistance actors reflect the sentiment on the Street like no other. And with Israel’s war expanding each day, their regional and global clout is set to increase immeasurably, just as in all of the Hegemon’s other regional wars.

Strangling a new century in the cradle 

The catastrophic debacle of Project Ukraine and the revival of an intractable West Asian war are deeply intertwined. 

Beyond the fog of Washington’s “worry” about Tel Aviv’s genocidal rampage, the crucial fact is that we are right in the thick of a war against BRICS 11.      

The Empire does not do strategy; at best, it does tactical business plans on the fly. There are two immediate tactics in play: a US Armada deployed in the Eastern Mediterranean – in a failed effort to intimidate Resistance Axis behemoths Iran and Hezbollah – and a possible Milei election in Argentina tied to his avowed promise to break Brazil-Argentina relations. 

So this is a simultaneous attack on BRICS 11 on two fronts: West Asia and South America. There will be no American efforts spared to prevent BRICS 11 from getting close to OPEC+. A key aim is to instill fear in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi – as confirmed by Persian Gulf business sources.  

Even vassal leaders at the OIC show would have been aware that we are now deep into The Empire Strikes Back. That also largely explains their cowardice. 

They know that for the Hegemon, multipolarity equals “chaos,” unipolarity equals “order,” and malign actors equal   “autocrats” – such as the new Russian-Chinese-Iranian “Axis of Evil” and anyone, especially vassals, that opposes the “rules-based international order.” 

And that brings us to a tale of two ceasefires. Tens of millions across the Global Majority are asking why the Hegemon is desperate for a ceasefire in Ukraine while flatly refusing a ceasefire in Palestine. 
Freezing Project Ukraine preserves the Ghost of Hegemony just a little bit longer. Let’s assume Moscow would take the bait (it won’t). But to freeze Ukraine in Europe, the Hegemon will need an Israeli win in Gaza – perhaps at any and all costs – to maintain even a vestige of its former glory. 

But can Israel achieve victory any more than Ukraine can? Tel Aviv may have already lost the war on 7 October as it can never regain its facade of invincibility. And if this transforms into a regional war that Israel loses, the US will lose its Arab vassals overnight, who today have a Chinese and Russian option waiting in the wings. 

The Roar of the Street is getting louder – demanding that the Biden administration, now seen as complicit with Tel Aviv, halt the Israeli genocide that may lead to a World War. But Washington will not comply. Wars in Europe and West Asia may be its last chance (it will lose) to subvert the emergence of a prosperous, connected, peaceful Eurasia Century.

The Roots of Radicalism and the Structure of Evil

By Edward Curtin

Source: Behind the Curtain

My title is redundant for a reason, since the root of the word radical is the Latin word, radix, meaning root.  For I mean to show how the use and misuse of language, its history or etymology, and ours as etymological animals as the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gassett called us, is crucial for understanding our world, a world once again teetering on the edge of a world war that will almost inexorably turn nuclear as events are proceeding.  If our language is corrupted, as it surely is, and political propaganda flourishes as a result, the correct use of our language and the meaning of words becomes an obligation of anyone who uses them – that is, everyone, especially writers.

The United States government exists to wage war.  In its present form, it would crumble without it; and in its present form, it will crumble with it.  Only a radical structural change will prevent this.  For war-making is at the core of its budget, its raison d’être – 816.7 billion for the Fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act alone – a deficit-financed sum that tells only part of the story.  This amount that finances the military-industrial complex and its blood money is for a country that has never been invaded, is bordered by friendly neighbors, and is oceans away from the multitude of countries its leaders attack and call our enemies.  The U.S. wages wars around the world because killing is its lifeblood, its structural essence.

In writing of the misuse of language, George Orwell wrote, “It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.”  So with these words Orwell slyly places us within the enigma of the chicken and the egg, a conundrum or paradox that relates to my theme in a weird way, but which I will directly ignore.

By radical I do not mean the widespread political usage as in radical-right or radical-left or radical meaning one who plays the role through dress or demeanor.  I am using the word in its primary meaning – a radical is one who is rooted in the earth, which means everyone.  Everyone therefore is mortal, human not a god, and comes from the earth and returns to it.  Everyone is radical in this sense, although they may try to deny it.  And the more one feels alive the more one senses one will die and doesn’t like the thought, therefore many tamp down their aliveness in order to reduce their fear of death.  The best way to do this is to disappear into the crowd, to become a conventional person.  To act as if one didn’t know that one’s political leaders were in love with death and killing and were not obedient cogs in a vast systemic killing machine.  Maybe the unconscious assumption is that these “leaders” can kill death for you by killing vast numbers of people and make you feel someone has control of this thing called death.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who stood strongly against the Vietnam War and marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., put the basic sense of radical well when he said:

Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement. . . . get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.

To be radically amazed that we exist is to be equally amazed that we will die.  And there’s the rub.

Yesterday I got in our car and drove away to meet a journalist friend.  It was evening and my wife had previously used the car.  I had just spent time following all the dreadful news about the massive slaughter by Israel of Palestinians in Gaza, including the death of more than 3,000 children whose numbers are climbing fast.  Visions of those children and babies played havoc with my spirits, and I kept thinking of my own children and the love and tenderness that comes with being a  parent.  A musical cd that my wife had been listening to started playing.  The case was on the console.  It was Sacred Arias by Andrea Bocelli.  He of the majestic voice was singing Silent Night.  I was overwhelmed with tears by his passionate words:

Silent night! Holy night!
All is calm, all is bright
round yon Virgin Mother and Child,
Holy infant so tender and mild,
sleep in Heavenly peace!
sleep in Heavenly peace!

I saw nights in Gaza as Israeli bombs burst and shattered everyone and everything to bits, all the holy infants, the children and adults.

I felt beside myself with grief, a U.S. citizen driving down a safe country road contemplating the savagery of my nation and its support for the Israeli government’s brutality and mass killings of Palestinians for all the world to see on screens everywhere.

I felt ashamed to live in a land where justice is a game reserved for rhetoric alone as it joins in the massacre of the innocent, as it always has, now together with the apartheid Israeli regime.

I thought of all the compromised politicians who pledge their allegiance to the killers, Biden and all his presidential predecessors, now including the aspirant Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a man with a conscience on many important issues whom I have supported in his quest for the presidency, but a man whose conscience has abandoned him when it comes to the Palestinians, as Scott Ritter has recently documented.  I have privately urged Kennedy to reconsider his “unwavering, resolute, and practical” support for the Israeli government following the Gaza breakout of October 7, but to no avail.  In fact, I have been trying to get him to withdraw his unconditional support for Israel since the summer when he withdrew his support for Roger Waters, marched with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach in the Israel parade in NYC, and allowed Boteach to say that Sirhan Sirhan had killed his father without correcting him since he knew it was an egregious lie.  My failure in this regard deeply saddens me.

I felt betrayed again – perhaps you will call me naïve – as when I was young and last put my trust in voting for a US presidential candidate in 1972.  I thought I had learned to radically grasp the systematically corrupt nature of the U.S. warfare state.  Now more than three weeks have passed and Bobby Kennedy has remained silent, only to ask for our prayers for the victims of the mass shooting in Maine.  For the Palestinians, not a word. Although he considers the Israeli-Palestinian situation complicated, there is nothing complicated about genocide; it doesn’t necessitate long analyses and discussions with advisers.  The facts of the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza are evident for all to see, if they wish.  Bobby Kennedy has turned away.  And I have now sadly turned away from him.

I remembered the Gospel words I heard long ago about the fulfillment of the words of the prophet Jeremiah: “A voice was heard in Ramah, sobbing and loudly lamenting: it was Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted because they were no more.”  But this time it is not the Jewish Rachel, for Herod has assumed the name Netanyahu and his U.S. allies, and the weeping ones are Palestinian mothers and fathers.  Nothing can justify such slaughter, not the terrible killings of innocent Israelis on October 7 that I denounce; not the fear that the birth of messengers of peace might strike into Herod/Netanyahu’s heart – nothing!  Seventy-five years of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians continues apace. The Jewish child Jesus, the radical preacher of love and peace for all people, didn’t die on a private cross, nor do the Palestinians.  So it goes.

I thought of the indescribable sweet wonder of holding your baby in your arms while realizing how many Palestinian parents have been holding their dead children in theirs.  Rage welled up in me at the obscenity of those who support this and those who shut their eyes to it and those who remain silent.

I realized that as a Christian I am baptized into the human family, not some special in-group, which is the opposite of Jesus’s message.  Every child is holy and innocent and to massacre them is evil.  And to remain silent as it happens is to be complicit in evil.

I remembered how these many ongoing weeks of terror started and thought of a poem that is succinctly apposite: Harlem by Langston Hughes:

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore-
and then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over-
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

And I thought that he could have omitted that final question mark because we have our answer, then and now.

Then the music stopped and I arrived at my destination to meet my friend.

Yes, to be radical is to be rooted in the earth and to realize all people are part of the human family, each of us made of flesh and blood and therefore sisters and brothers deserving of justice, peace, and dignity.  But this is just a first step in the grasping of the full dimension of the radical vision.  It can end in fluff if a second step is not taken: to use our freedom to uproot ourselves from the conventional government and mass media propaganda and mind control that clouds our understanding of how the world works. This takes study and work and an understanding of the historical and systemic roots of all the alleged “unprovoked” violence that ravages our world.

Thus the existential and socio-historical merge in the radical vision that allows us to grasp the structures of evil and our personal responsibility.

Today that obligation is clear: To oppose the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians.

Otherwise we are guilty bystanders.

The Hannibal Directive and Zionist Israel’s False Flag Terrorism

By Gary D. Barnett

Source: GaryD.Barnett.com

“False Flag operations by governments are the easiest and quickest way to persuade the population to sacrifice their own in order to achieve goals of the elite.”

~ James Thomas Kesterson Jr.

First, let me make it perfectly clear that Zionism is not Judaism, although the blending of the two obviously takes place at times, due to a complete misunderstanding, and false reverence for bogus nation-state ‘patriotism.’ Zionism is certainly an evil political nationalist ideology, but at its core, it is pure colonialism. To have to preface this conversation with such a statement is to expose the ignorance of those who have been brainwashed and indoctrinated to such an extent, as to be willing to accept historically counterfeit propaganda, without any critical scrutiny or logic applied. This is the imminent result of becoming a cog in the machine of life amid an ‘organized’ non-thinking, like-acting collective mob, lost in a fog of oblivion.

We are living in the clear presence of genocidal terror at the hands of Zionist Israel. Please do not feign disgust, or pretend to be aghast at this pronouncement, as when something is this apparent, it is excruciatingly embarrassing to witness blind apathy in the midst of mass murder. The plot by the Zionists to take over Palestine and other parts of that region, to expel and exterminate the masses of Palestinians, and to claim the entirety of the region for a new Israeli State, has been ongoing since long before the 1933 agreements, and has been brutally pursued since that time until today. It has been a violent expulsion, a destruction of most all Palestinian homes, villages, and cities, and slaughter of men, women, and children, for the past 75 years. Currently, all efforts by the Zionists are meant to finalize the genocide that began so long ago.

This long-planned ethnic cleansing of all Palestinians by the Zionists, is now close to fruition, and with the help, support, and funding of the United States and its military, and the ‘blessing’ of so many confused fools, the complicity of the U.S. means that not only are the Zionists committing genocide, but by proxy and with the use of ruthless force and funding, so is the U.S. government and its ruling class.

What this not only indicates, but fully exposes, is that expulsion of an entire race, genocide by ethnic cleansing, a heinous crime against humanity, and the essence of holocausts, is apparently accepted only if committed by Zionists. The hypocrisy here is astounding, and any who cannot see it, are completely blinded by asinine and ideological indifference so insane as to be pathological.

These efforts of brutality, displacement, and murder, are always dependent on acceptance and support by the populations involved in the slaughter, and most always, the people allowing State crimes of war and genocide, also become the victims of the same monsters they endorse who rule over them. None of you are exempt from harm or death during these times of aggression, as you, all of you, are expendable, and nothing more than fodder for the sake of the State. Those who happen to be in the way, and whose deaths can enhance the State’s power, are simply considered collateral damage by the governments involved in conflict. This is even spelled out in many cases, and openly admitted. One case in point, and very appropriate considering what is going on today in Israel, is Israel’s Hannibal Directive, which spells out that killing Israeli hostages in order to ‘protect’ the State is warranted, and accepted political and military policy. Remember, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country — die is the answer expected!

To understand governments and nation-states, the motives for gaining power and control, and the ill-considered necessity for war by the State, one must understand that the common people are held in little regard when political agendas are sought, and their sacrifice is simply considered a necessary (and uncaring) consequence of State actions. This is no different in this Zionist Israeli slaughter of defenseless Palestinians, as the common Israelis, have been used to set up the ethnic cleansing in Palestine. One of the most advanced militaries on earth, one that has many of the highest capabilities, modern weaponry, a huge nuclear arsenal, and that controls the border with Gaza to such an extent as to know when even a bird breeches this walled concentration camp, removed all soldiers and guards, and allowed their own created terrorist organization, Hamas, to come across with an attack, and did not even respond for hours, while Israelis were killed and hostages were taken. In other words, this was an intentional set up to cause the populace to support the genocide of all Palestinians, while using its own citizens as bait, knowingly killing many in the process in order to further their terror.

How many false flag operations have to take place in order for the blind to see? The U.S. government, its military, the CIA, and all its accomplices in government and corporate America, have used many false flag attacks to stoke war and division for over a century, and Israel is now allowing and committing purposeful acts of terror against its own and Palestine in order to further its agenda of colonialism and murder by way of a false flag event. This has led to thousands of deaths of innocents, (likely tens of thousands) mostly children, as much of the world stands by applauding the carnage, or at least fully supporting the Zionist’s crimes against humanity.

What has happened to mankind? What has happened to sanity. What has happened to the moral fiber of man, when genocide can be not only accepted, but praised? This is the insane world we live in today. It is not normal, it is not due to individual terrorists, or to outlying terrorist cells mostly created purposely with nation-state funding, with weapons supplied by Western powers. It is conspiratorial at every level, and done to affect a particular outcome; that outcome is to advance the reset of the world in favor of those who run it.

Every false flag operation, every unnatural firestorm, every geo-engineered weather tragedy, and the multitude of attacks on the innocent; are plotted and intentional, and in most all cases, they are soon eliminated from the fake news cycles, and then forgotten. Consider 9/11, the many economic crises, the fake ‘covid’ terrorism, chemical spills, the Lahaina, Maui murders, and many, many more. Competent reporting, as well of course as mainstream ‘reporting’ on the horrors in Palestine are already subsiding, and this is a tragedy in and of itself. Do not let the political and media scum erase this slaughter and genocide of innocents from your minds, as that will be the plan. Then, the next atrocity will simply take the place of the last, and on and on it goes until it doesn’t. There are no political accidents, no coincidences, so legitimate reaction does not exist, as all is premeditated, planned out over time, and released on the lowly proletariat at a time when beneficial to the State. The State is forever and always the enemy of the people, and never is it your protector and savior; it is only evil.

What is missed (or ignored) by most all Americans, as well as most others around the Western world, is that we are all Palestinians now. To believe that it cannot happen here is not only ludicrous, but also far beyond naïveté, and borders on extreme psychosis. What will you do when you, your family, and your children are targeted by the State for elimination? Will you run and hide, or will you defend your life and family?

Knowledge is entirely provisional; ignorance is not. What you think you know and what is reality is more often than not reversed, and this can lead only to confusion, mistakes in judgement, and bad decisions. Instead of taking sides, consider only right and wrong, and always embrace the side of right, instead of accepting the lies and false narratives of the State. Place yourself in the shoes of others, and then side only with the innocent victims.

Concerning the State:

The concept of good versus evil is a handy construct for framing a narrative. When you see someone applying that concept to real-world events, however, be aware that you’re in the presence of a peddler of fiction.”

~ Stewart Stafford

Reference links:

October 7th testimonies reveal Israeli’s military shelling of Israeli citizens with tanks and missiles

Evidence shows that Israel deliberately killed its own citizens, UN personnel, and journalists

Did Israel Decide to Kill Hamas and Israeli Hostages Indiscriminately?

The Hannibal Directive: What really happened on October 7th?

Israeli False Flag and Intelligence Operation

The history of the Israeli expulsion of Palestinians is vital to understand

Israel’s Final Solution for the Palestinians

When Jewish extremists, fanatic Zionists, religious zealots, ultranationalists and crypto-fascists in the apartheid state of Israel say they want to wipe Gaza off the face of the earth, believe them.

Bad Moon Rising – by Mr. Fish

By Chris Hedges

Source: Scheer Post

Icovered the birth of Jewish fascism in Israel. I reported on the extremist Meir Kahane, who was barred from running for office and whose Kach Party was outlawed in 1994 and declared a terrorist organization by Israel and the United States. I attended political rallies held by Benjamin Netanyahu, who received lavish funding from rightwing Americans, when he ran against Yitzhak Rabin, who was negotiating a peace settlement with the Palestinians. Netanyahu’s supporters chanted “Death to Rabin.” They burned an effigy of Rabin dressed in a Nazi uniform. Netanyahu marched in front of a mock funeral for Rabin. 

Prime Minister Rabin was assassinated on Nov. 4, 1995 by a Jewish fanatic. Rabin’s widow, Lehea, blamed Netanyahu and his supporters for her husband’s murder.

Netanyahu, who first became prime minister in 1996, has spent his political career nurturing Jewish extremists, including Avigdor LiebermanGideon Sa’arNaftali Bennett, and Ayelet Shaked. His father, Benzion — who worked as an assistant to the Zionist pioneer Vladimir Jabotinsky, who Benito Mussolini referred to as “a good fascist” — was a leader in the Herut Party that called on the Jewish state to seize all the land of historic Palestine. Many of those who formed the Herut Party carried out terrorist attacks during the 1948 war that established the state of Israel. Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt, Sidney Hook and other Jewish intellectuals, described the Herut Party in a statement published in The New York Times as a “political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to Nazi and Fascist parties.”

There has always been a strain of Jewish fascism within the Zionist project. Now it has taken control of the Israeli state.

“The left is no longer capable of overcoming the toxic ultra-nationalism that has evolved here,” Zeev Sternhell, a Holocaust survivor and Israel’s foremost authority on fascism, warned in 2018, “the kind whose European strain almost wiped out a majority of the Jewish people.” Sternhell added, “[W]e see not just a growing Israeli fascism but racism akin to Nazism in its early stages.” 

The decision to obliterate Gaza has long been the dream of Israel’s crypto-fascists, heirs of Kahane’s movement. These Jewish extremists, which make up the ruling coaltion government, are orchestrating the genocide in Gaza, where hundreds of Palestinians are dying daily. They champion the iconography and language of their homegrown fascism. Jewish identity and Jewish nationalism are the Zionist versions of blood and soil. Jewish supremacy is sanctified by God, as is the slaughter of the Palestinians, who Netanyahu compared to the Biblical Ammonites, massacred by the Israelites. Enemies — usually Muslims — slated for extinction are subhuman who embody evil. Violence and the threat of violence are the only forms of communication those outside the magical circle of Jewish nationalism understand. Millions of Muslims and Christians, including those with Israeli citizenship, are to be purged. 

leaked 10-page document from the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence dated Oct. 13, 2023 recommends the forcible and permanent transfer of the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million Palestinian residents to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. 

It is a grave mistake not to take the blood curdling calls for the wholesale eradication and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians seriously. This rhetoric is not hyperbolic. It is a literal prescription. Netanyahu in a tweet, later removed, described the battle with Hamas as a “struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle.” 

These Jewish fanatics have begun their version of the final solution to the Palestinian problem. They dropped 12,000 tons of explosives on Gaza in the first two weeks of assault to obliterate at least 45 percent of Gaza’s housing units, according to the U.N.’s humanitarian office. They have no intention of being detoured, even by Washington.

“It became evident to U.S. officials that Israeli leaders believed mass civilian casualties were an acceptable price in the military campaign,” The New York Times reported.

“In private conversations with American counterparts, Israeli officials referred to how the United States and other allied powers resorted to devastating bombings in Germany and Japan during World War II — including the dropping of the two atomic warheads in Hiroshima and Nagasaki — to try to defeat those countries,” the paper continued.

The goal is a “pure” Israel, cleansed of Palestinian contaminants. Gaza is to become a wasteland. The Palestinians in Gaza will be killed or forced into refugee camps over the border in Egypt. Messianic redemption will take place once the Palestinians are expelled. Jewish extremists call for the Al-Aqsa mosque – the third holiest shrine for Muslims, built on the ruins of the Jewish Second Temple, which was destroyed in 70 CE by the Roman army – to be demolished. The mosque is to be replaced by a “Third” Jewish temple, a move that would set the Muslim world alight. The West Bank, which the zealots call “Judea and Samaria,” will be formally annexed by Israel. Israel, governed by the religious laws imposed by the ultra-orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism parties, will be a Jewish version of Iran.

It is a short step to total Israeli control over Palestinian land. Israel’s illegal Jewish settlements, restricted military zones, closed highways and army compounds have seized over 60 percent of the West Bank, turning Palestinian towns and villages into ringed ghettos. There are over 65 laws which discriminate directly or indirectly against Palestinian citizens of Israel and those living in the occupied territories. The campaign of indiscriminate killing of Palestinians in the West Bank, many by rogue Jewish militias, along with house and school demolitions and the seizure of remaining Palestinian land will explode. Over 133 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by the Israeli army and Jewish settlers since the Oct. 7 incursion by Hamas and thousands of Palestinians have been rounded up by the Israeli military, beatenhumiliated and imprisoned.

Israel, at the same time, is turning on “Jewish traitors” who refuse to embrace the demented vision of the ruling Jewish fascists and who denounce the horrific violence of the state. The familiar enemies of fascism — journalists, human rights advocates, intellectuals, artists, feminists, liberals, the left, homosexuals and pacifists — are already being targeted. The judiciary, according to plans put forward by Netanyahu, will be neutered. Public debate will wither. Civil society and the rule of law will cease to exist. Those branded as “disloyal” will be deported.

Fascists do not respect the sanctity of life. Human beings, even from their own tribe, are expendable to build their deranged utopia. The zealots in power in Israel could have exchanged the hostages held by Hamas for the thousands of Palestinian hostages held in Israeli prisons, which is why the Israeli hostages were seized. And there is evidence that in the chaotic fighting that took place once Hamas militants entered Israel, the Israeli military decided to target not only Hamas fighters, but the Israeli captives with them. 

“Several new testimonies by Israeli witnesses to the October 7 Hamas surprise attack on southern Israel adds to growing evidence that the Israeli military killed its own citizens as they fought to neutralize Palestinian gunmen,” Max Blumenthal writes in The Grayzone.

Tuval Escapa, a member of the security team for Kibbutz Be’eri, Blumenthal notes, set up a hotline to coordinate between kibbutz residents and the Israeli army. 

Escapa told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that as desperation began to set in, “the commanders in the field made difficult decisions – including shelling houses on their occupants in order to eliminate the terrorists along with the hostages.”

The newspaper reported that Israeli commanders were “compelled to request an aerial strike” against its own facility inside the Erez Crossing to Gaza “in order to repulse the terrorists” who had seized control. That base housed Israeli Civil Administration officers and soldiers.

Israel, in 1986, instituted a military policy called the Hannibal Directive, apparently named for the Carthaginian general who poisoned himself rather than be captured by the Romans, following the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah. The directive is designed to prevent Israeli troops from falling into enemy hands through the maximum use of force, even at the cost of killing the captured soldiers and civilians. 

The directive was executed during the 2014 Israeli assault on Gaza known as Operation Protective Edge. Hamas fighters on Aug. 1, 2014 captured an Israeli officer, Lt. Hadar Goldin. In response, Israel dropped more than 2,000 bombs, missiles and shells on the area where he was being held. Goldin was killed along with over 100 Palestinian civilians. The directive was supposedly rescinded in 2016.

Gaza is the start. The West Bank is next.  

Israelis who cheer on the Palestinian nightmare will soon endure a nightmare of their own.

Exposing Truth And Lies In Gaza

An analysis and collection of articles elaborating the reality of Israel’s ethnic cleansing in Gaza

By Don Via Jr.

Source: The Free Thought Project

Ever since the outset of Israel’s genocidal onslaught against Gaza approximately one month ago corporate media has been awash with perspectives sympathetic to the Zionist cause. In fashion typical of the news media establishment parroting the talking points of the military industrial complex, acting as stenographers regurgitating pro war propaganda and maintaining the status quo of the western unipolar hegemony. With complete disregard to historical context, logical consistency, or pesky facts.

In layman’s terms, inverting the reality of the ongoing conflict to fit the agenda of imperialist psychopaths as per usual.

Rehashing much of the same talking points utilized at the outset of the US/ NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. Ukraine good; Russia bad… Just swap out the blue and yellow profile pic flag emoji with the Star of David, rinse, and repeat. Israel good; Palestine bad. They’ve even managed to trudge up some of the old rhetoric from the George W Bush regime to once again help sell the wholesale slaughter of innocent civilians. “There is no room for neutrality”. “You are either with us or you are with the terrorists”. George Bush in 2001 or Lior Hayat in 2023, what’s the difference? Either way the result is a 7000 pound bomb paid for with US taxpayer dollars dismembering Arab children for the crime of being born the wrong color in the wrong region.

Yet in this inverted reality that they facilitate where weapons manufacturers continue to make a killing off of senseless killing somehow the moral fabric of our society has deteriorated so far, our apathy so exorbitant, that it is actually a point of contention whether or not it is ethical to carpet bomb a concentration camp full of kids.

Of course the sad reality is this is nothing new when it comes to the nature of American exceptionalism, or the indifference of many around the world as a whole. Whether it be turning a blind eye to the carpet bombing of children in Gaza today, or those in Iraq twenty years ago, or the instantaneous incineration of whole cities á la Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or even casual dismissal of the mass genocide of over one hundred million indigenous peoples that precipitated the founding of our empire over two centuries ago. So long as people can be lulled into the comfortable ignorance of being insulated from the real world consequences of their governments actions, all is well.

This is partially the consequence of a civilization indoctrinated, psychologically subdued as casualties in the ever intensifying information war. Completely desensitized from the horrific monstrosity that is warfare; the obliteration of our fellow humans, particularly grizzly under the circumstances of false pretenses as established by neocolonialist ambitions.

Keep them dissociated with bread and circus while pundits promulgate empty talking points like it were a football game and let them keep pretending as if their impassivity doesn’t beget atrocity. Meanwhile Israeli officials continue to openly espouse the desire to wipe every Palestinian off the map, man, woman, and child, up to and including with the use of nuclear bombs in an effort to conquer the enclave.

Up to this point upwards of 9,000 civilians have been killed, over half of which are women and children. According to UNICEF Gaza has essentially become a child graveyard.

The sheer unbridled brutality has reached such a scale that even some who are typically in lockstep with the status quo of the war machine have spoken in opposition against it. Even CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and the UK’s Piers Morgan, both notorious war apologists in their own right, have shown brief glimpses of empathy in the face of Israel’s brazen mass murder of innocents.

Despite this there are still those, politicians, pundits, and regular people alike, seemingly divorced from their humanity encouraging this ruthless slaughter to continue. There is still no shortage of propaganda pieces deliberately disseminating misinformation to the average reader in an attempt to sway their sympathies in favor of the occupying apartheid colony.

Most common sense individuals by now understand that western media reporting on foreign policy has about as much reliability as a serial rapist put in charge of safeguarding a battered women’s shelter. Yes, that analogy is crude. But far from being an exaggeration.

So amidst this corporate deluge of disinformation I saw it fit to compose a compilation of essential reporting on the subject matter to help readers grasp a better understanding of the reality of the conflict. The following is an assortment of articles delineating those pertinent facts.

The final piece mentioned in that listing should be read after all else and considered with particular import. It is okay to admit when we are wrong about things. We live in a time when topics have become so overly polarized, positions so deeply tribal, that the mere concept of considering an opposing perspective, much less coming to the acceptance that perhaps we don’t know everything is literally repulsive to many. That is a behavior that we have to unlearn.

Life is about growing, our learning as a thinking species never ceases. Especially when our institutions of learning and education are so hopelessly co-opted to perpetuate the kind of thinking distinctly designed to benefit the ruling class, it is our responsibility to come to terms with the fact that often the notions that were instilled in us as facts were in actuality carefully curated half-truths, and sometimes even blatant lies, intended to manipulate our opinion on a subject and craft a worldview that doesn’t fall out of line with the status quo. It is our responsibility to unlearn the fallacies, so that we can begin to learn the truth.

Truth and liberty go hand in hand. One cannot exist without the other. If one claims to be an advocate of truth they must then in turn also become an advocate of liberty, and vice versa. Liberty is not selective, it is universal. It is an irreconcilable inconsistency to advocate for the liberty of some but not others. Frankly put you are either for the freedom of all people, or you are not for freedom. That includes the Palestinian people; the native Arab inhabitants of a strip of land that has been under illegal occupation and subjugation for more than a century. If you care about truth that is a fact that simply cannot be ignored. If you advocate liberty, it must include the liberation of Palestine.

“Drop a Nuclear Bomb on Gaza”: Israeli Minister Says Using Nukes on Gaza an Option

By Timothy Alexander Guzman

Source: Silent Crow News

Amichai Eliyahu, an Israeli Heritage Minister has admitted to the world that Israel has nuclear weapons ready to be used on the Palestinians.  The Times of Israel reported that “Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu said Sunday that one of Israel’s options in the war against Hamas was to drop a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip, in comments that were quickly disavowed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who also suspended the minister from cabinet meetings.” 

Surely, Netanyahu is angry with Eliyahu’s comments since the Israeli government never confirmed nor denied that they have nuclear weapons, so Eliyahu got himself suspended.

Eliyahu was asked in an interview with Radio Kol Berama “whether an atomic bomb should be dropped on the enclave” and he responded with “This is one of the possibilities.”

Eliyahu is a far-right politician who rejects humanitarian aid into Gaza by saying that “we wouldn’t hand the Nazis humanitarian aid,” and that “there is no such thing as uninvolved civilians in Gaza.”  He also advocates efforts to retake the Gaza Strip and rebuild Israeli settlements before his government decided to unilaterally withdrew in 2005. Eliyahu was also asked about what would happen to the Palestinian population in the aftermath and he said that “They can go to Ireland or deserts; the monsters in Gaza should find a solution by themselves.”

Whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu, a Moroccan-born Israeli citizen, a former nuclear technician exposed Israel’s nuclear weapons factory located in the Negev Desert, not far from the city of Dimona to The Sunday Times of London in 1986.  Vanunu was drugged and kidnapped by Mossad agents while in Rome and spent more than 11 years out of 18-year prison sentence in solitary confinement in an Israeli prison.

In 2005, The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) published ‘The Release of Mordechai Vanunu and U.S. Complicity in the Development of Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal’ which revealed an important fact that Vanunu’s revelations about how Israel’s nuclear program is “offensive in nature”:

A former strategic analyst at the Rand Corporation observed that Vanunu’s revelations about Israel ’s nuclear program demonstrated that: “Its scale and nature was clearly designed for threatening and if necessary, launching first-use of nuclear weapons against conventional forces.” Prior to Vanunu’s revelations, many suspected that Israel ’s nuclear program was limited to tactical nuclear artillery and naval shells

Mordechai Vanunu exposed Israel’s nuclear weapons program so he is considered a traitor but to Vanunu’s own observation, he sees it differently, “Five million Jews are regarding me as a traitor, but six billion people around the world think me as a hero and a good man who bring the message to all the human beings that we should survive and prevent the use of nuclear weapons and to prevent the nuclear preparations and to prevent nuclear war in the future.” 

Israel says that Iran is building a nuclear weapons program which Tehran has repeatedly denied, but it is Israel who has been exposed for having an arsenal of nuclear weapons ready to be used against the Muslim world. 

The Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Seymour M. Hersch wrote, ‘The Sampson Option; Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and America’s Foreign Policy’ and concluded that “America’s policy toward the Israeli arsenal, as we have seen in this book, was not just one of benign neglect: it was a conscious policy of ignoring reality.”   Hersch warned about Israel’s nuclear capabilities including the production of low-yield neutron warheads to exporting nuclear technology:

By the mid-1980s, the technicians at Dimona had manufactured hundreds of low-yield neutron warheads capable of destroying large numbers of enemy troops with minimal property damage. The size and sophistication of Israel’s arsenal allows men such as Ariel Sharon to dream of redrawing the map of the Middle East aided by the implicit threat of nuclear force. Israel also has been an exporter of nuclear technology and has collaborated on nuclear weapons research with other nations, including South Africa.

In September 1988, Israel launched its first satellite into orbit, bringing it a huge step closer to intercontinental missiles and a satellite intelligence capability—no more Jonathan Pollards would be needed to steal America’s secrets. Scientists at Z Division concluded that the rocket booster that launched the Israeli satellite produced enough thrust to deliver a small nuclear war- head to a target more than six thousand miles away.  Israeli physicists are still at the cutting edge in weapons technology and involved, as are their American and Soviet counterparts, in intensive research into nuclear bomb-pumped X-ray lasers, hydrodynamics, and radiation transport—the next generation of weaponry.

None of this has ever been discussed in the open in Israel, or in the Knesset. Meanwhile, Israeli field commanders have accepted nuclear artillery shells and land mines as battlefield necessities: another means to an end

So, would the Israelis be willing to drop a nuclear bomb on Iran? There is no doubt that Russia and other world powers including China would not allow Israel to hit Iran with a nuclear bomb.  

If Israel decided to use a nuclear weapon anywhere in the Middle East, it would unite all Muslims against Israel and that is something Tel Aviv and Washington is not prepared for.      

Hersch concluded that “the basic target of Israel’s nuclear arsenal has been and will continue to be its Arab neighbors. Should war break out in the Middle East again and should the Syrians and the Egyptians break through again as they did in 1973 or should any Arab nation fire missiles again at Israel, as Iraq did, a nuclear escalation, once unthinkable except as a last resort, would now be a strong probability. Never again. The Samson Option is no longer the only nuclear option available to Israel.” 

Will the Hamas-Israel Conflict Spin Out of Control?

By Paul Craig Roberts

Source: PaulCraigRoberts.org

According to Iran’s PressTV, the Iranian defense minister announced that the US “will be hit hard” it Israel’s war on Gaza does not halt.  It is unclear why the defense minister’s target is the US and not Israel.  By US he probably means US bases in Syria and Iraq.  

Add this puzzle to the growing collection.  For example, if Iran and Hezbollah are behind Hamas’ October 7 attack, why wasn’t Hamas provided with air defense capability against what everyone had to know would be massive Israeli bombing of Gaza?  Why did Russia provide Syria with the S-300 air defense system and prevent Syria from using it against Israeli and US aircraft that attack Syrian territory?

I explained that the October 7 attack on Israel has the Biden regime’s neoconservatives and Netanyahu’s fingers all over it–https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2023/10/30/the-israeli-hamas-conflict-is-a-continuation-of-the-9-11-plot/ .  It is not only Palestine that is Netanhayu’s goal, but also Greater Israel which runs according to Zionists from the Nile to the Euphrates. The intent is to draw into the conflict Iran and Syria so that the neoconservatives can reopen the wars in the Middle East against Hezbollah’s suppliers.  Without weapons and money from Iran and Syria, Hezbollah would not be able to prevent Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon. I doubt that Biden understands this.  Most likely the neoconservatives in the government told him that having a strong US military presence on the scene would keep things from getting out of hand. Many Americans think that the president knows everything and is in control, but the fact is that he only knows what his officials tell him, and the neoconservatives have their own agenda.

That the intent is to widen the conflict is supported by the enormous quantities of weapons, troops and air power that the US is assembling in the area. This concentration supplemented with German and French troops, according to media reports, go far beyond what is needed to subdue Hamas.  The official explanation for this concentration of Western military resources is to protect Israel from Hezbollah and Iran.  Adding to the collection of puzzles, if Israel is so vulnerable from attacking Gaza, why would Israel risk it.  It makes no sense to risk defeat for the sake of revenge.  Israel must have known in advance that US forces would instantly be on the scene.  How did Israel know that if October 7 was a surprise?

Putin and it seems Biden have realized that if Iran and Hezbollah are enticed into the conflict a wider regional conflict will emerge that could result in World War III.  Putin has been restraining the Muslims and Biden has tried to restrain Netanyahu. If Putin succeeds, the neoconservatives and Netanyahu will likely initiate a false flag attack on Israel and blame Hezbollah, and the neoconservatives who run the Biden regime will use the false flag attack to widen the war.

Certainly Americans and Europeans are getting no help from their governments or media in understanding that Putin is doing his best to save them from a world war.  Instead, hate continues to pour out against Putin.  

Putin cannot prevent a false flag attack.  By performing the statesman’s role while the other side agitates for war, Putin is repeating his mistake with the Minsk Agreement.  He held to his hopes for this agreement despite clear evidence that the US and NATO were building a massive Ukrainian army to subdue the two break-away Donbas republics.  The result was a costly war.  Now by restraining the Muslims, Putin is denying Muslims the initiative and handing the initiative to the US neoconservatives and Netanyahu.  It is a paradox that by doing the right thing Putin is likely contributing to the widening of the conflict. 

As Western governments and media are focused solely on Hamas’ atrocities, no one can think clearly about what is really going on.  Republicans and some Christian evangelicals find themselves in company with neoconservatives demanding war.  Protesters in Europe against Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of civilians are branded anti-semitic and domestic terrorists.  ( See: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2023/11/05/tyranny-now-rules-in-great-britain/ ) In the US even Jewish protesters against Israel’s war crimes are called anti-semitic “self-hating Jews.”  

It seems no reasonable humane voice can find a hearing.  In other words, there is no constraint on the conflict spinning out of control. 

The Grim Prospects of US Proxies: Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan

By Brian Berletic

Source: New Eastern Outlook

As Russia’s special military operation (SMO) approaches two years of intense fighting, having parried Ukraine’s “spring counteroffensive” and with the initiative shifting to Russian forces, Western capitals are now admitting they are reaching the limits to remaining support for Kiev.

During the Ukrainian offensive alone, the Western media has admitted Ukrainian forces have suffered catastrophic losses in both manpower and material. The Ukrainian economy has all but been replaced by heavy subsidies from the United States, Europe, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Ukrainian infrastructure including its power grid and ports have suffered severe damage the collective West is unable to repair in a timely manner.

Ukraine’s territory has shrunk. Four oblasts, Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporozhye, and Kherson are now considered by Moscow as part of the Russian Federation. Crimea had already joined the Russian Federation following a referendum conducted in 2014 after the US-backed overthrow of the elected Ukrainian government.

In fact, from 2014 onward, Ukraine’s sovereignty had been stripped away, with the resulting client regime installed into power by the US answering to Washington at the expense of Ukraine’s best interests. To say Ukraine’s status as a viable nation state hangs in the balance because of this arrangement would not be an understatement.

Ukraine, as a US proxy, has suffered irreversible losses economically, politically, socially, and militarily. In a wider sense, Europe is also politically captured, led by the European Union bureaucracy who, like the Ukrainian government, serves Washington’s interests entirely at the expense of Europe’s collective interests.

Germany stands out as a particularly poignant example, having ignored the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines, imposing sanctions on Russia to restrict any remaining hydrocarbons required by Germany’s industry and public, beginning a process of recession and deindustrialization.

Europe’s wider economy is suffering from similar setbacks, setbacks that cannot be offset by alternatives such as US liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) moved by ship across the Atlantic Ocean which will always be more expensive than Russian hydrocarbons piped in directly to Europe.

The price of subordination to the United States is in reality the existential threat the US claims Russia poses to Europe in fiction.

It should be noted that the US had long-planned to use Ukraine as a proxy to overextend Russia. Laid out in a 2019 policy paper published by the US government and arms industry-funded think tank, RAND Corporation, titled, “Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground,” US policymakers would recommend providing lethal aid to Ukraine to draw Russia into the ongoing conflict between Kiev and militants in eastern Ukraine. The idea was to “increase the costs to Russia, in both blood and treasure,” as it dealt with the conflict between Kiev and eastern Ukraine along its borders.

The paper also noted, however, the strategy posed a high risk to Ukraine. Such a move, the paper warned, might:

…come at a significant cost to Ukraine and to U.S. prestige and credibility. This could produce disproportionately large Ukrainian casualties, territorial losses, and refugee flows. It might even lead Ukraine into a disadvantageous peace. 

Despite these acknowledged risks, the United States pressed ahead with the plan anyway. Today, we see that fears expressed by US policymakers proposing this strategy have been fully realized, if not entirely surpassed.

Taiwan is Next… 

As Ukraine is destroyed by a US-engineered proxy war against Russia, with members of the US Congress vowing to fight Russia to the “last Ukrainian,” a similar arrangement is being used to organize the Chinese island province of Taiwan as a heavily US-armed proxy against the rest of China.

Just as was the case with Ukraine, US policymakers acknowledge the existential threat Taiwan faces in its role as a US proxy.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), likewise funded by the US government and arms manufacturers, published a 2023 paper titled, “The First Battle of the Next War: Wargaming a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan.” In it, policymakers acknowledge that during any fighting between a US-backed Taiwan administration and the rest of China, heavy damage would be inflicted on the island.

The paper notes that any infrastructure the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) does not destroy in the fighting, because of its possible use to the PLA, the US itself would target and destroy it:

Ports and airfields enable the use of more varied ships and aircraft to accelerate the transport of troops ashore. The United States may attack these facilities to deny their use after Chinese capture. 

Beyond infrastructure useful to Chinese military forces, US policymakers have also explored the possibility of destroying economically useful infrastructure on Taiwan. An October 2022 Bloomberg article titled, “Taiwan Tensions Spark New Round of US War-Gaming on Risk to TSMC,” would report:

Contingency planning for a potential assault on Taiwan has been stepped up after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to people familiar with the Biden administration’s deliberations. The scenarios attach heightened strategic significance to the island’s cutting-edge chip industry, led by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. In the worst case, they say, the US would consider evacuating Taiwan’s highly skilled chip engineers.

The article also stated:

At the extreme end of the spectrum, some advocate the US make clear to China that it would destroy TSMC facilities if the island was occupied, in an attempt to deter military action or, ultimately, deprive Beijing of the production plants. Such a “scorched-earth strategy” scenario was raised in a paper by two academics that appeared in the November 2021 issue of the US Army War College Quarterly.

CSIS’ paper would analyze the possible outcome of a conflict between China and the US-backed administration on Taiwan, surmising:

In most scenarios, the United States/Taiwan/Japan defeated a conventional amphibious invasion by China and maintained an autonomous Taiwan. However, this defense came at high cost. The United States and its allies lost dozens of ships, hundreds of aircraft, and tens of thousands of servicemembers. Taiwan saw its economy devastated. Further, the high losses damaged the U.S. global position for many years. 

In other words, even under the best-case scenario, following a US-backed defeat of any Chinese military operation aimed at reunification, the US would nonetheless have suffered heavy losses in terms of its military while Taiwan would have suffered catastrophic losses both militarily and economically.

Like Ukraine, Taiwan, in its capacity as a US proxy, would be destroyed.

Israel Will Not Be Spared Either 

US policy papers are also abounding with strategies employing Israel as an eager military proxy in the Middle East. Israel is elected to strike at nations across the region with impunity, freeing Washington of the political, military, economic, and diplomatic baggage of carrying out such military operations itself.

Of course, such military operations expose Israel to the same dangers that have threatened Ukraine’s self-preservation and threaten to undermine Taiwan’s.

With the US having demonstrated a fundamental inability to sponsor and win proxy wars against peer and near-peer adversaries in both Ukraine and Taiwan, there is little reason to believe that an already overstretched US military industrial base could somehow give Israel the ability to wage and win protracted proxy war in the Middle East.

Such a proxy war has already unfolded from 2011 onward both in Syria and Yemen with little success. Israel has already played a role in Syria, carrying out missile strikes across the country in an attempt to provoke Syria into a wider conflict.

Syria and its allies Iran and Russia have only strengthened their positions in the region and are driving a fundamental transformation across the Middle East. Even long-time US allies like Saudi Arabia and Turkey find themselves gradually divesting from a US-led regional order to one that better fits with the wider trend toward global multipolarism.

This has left the US and its remaining proxies in the region more isolated and vulnerable than ever. The US itself finds its own troops illegally occupying eastern Syria in an increasingly precarious position.

Israel, in many ways, finds itself likewise isolated. Should it lend itself to a major US proxy war more directly, it may find itself in a similar position as Ukraine – locked in intense, protracted combat with its US allies unable to provide the arms and ammunition necessary to win.

Unlike either Ukraine or Taiwan, Israel is believed to be in possession of between scores to hundreds of nuclear weapons. While Israel will thus never face the same sort of defeat Ukraine faces, a protracted military conflict will leave Israel exhausted economically and isolated diplomatically. Its Arab neighbors will move on with the multipolar world while Israel exhausts itself fighting to reassert US-led unipolarism.

Because of the deliberate, premeditated manner in which the US uses and then disposes of its proxies around the globe, there is little reason to believe it will spare Israel. While Israel has several advantages over other US proxies in terms of its economy, military capabilities, and diplomatic connections, these advantages will only prevent Israel’s use and disposal by US foreign policy if there is a conscious decision to pivot with the rest of the region away from US subordination and toward regional and global multipolarism.