Tag Archives: war

US Stretched Thin as Ukraine Offensive Fails, Israelis Threaten Large-Scale Conflict

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By Brian Berletic

Source: New Eastern Outlook

As Ukraine’s “spring counteroffensive” nears five months of intense fighting and equally intense losses achieving only negligible gains, Kiev’s sponsors in Washington, London, and Brussels find their military stockpiles nearing depletion and their military industrial base stretched far beyond capacity. This single conflict has tested the limits of US military power, diplomatic reach, and economic influence, exposing significant and growing weakness.

At the same time cracks begin to emerge militarily, diplomatically, and economically in the US and among its European allies, the rest of the globe continues its pivot away from the previous US-dominated global order, toward a broader balance of power under multipolarism, further undermining US foreign policy objectives.

Rather than reflect on this paradigm shift and find a rational place for the collective West in this emerging global order, the US and its allies are doubling down in an attempt to reassert their slipping international system and specifically through the use of proxy conflicts.

Just as the US-led collective West is using Ukraine as a focal point to confront, encircle, and contain Russia, the US has maintained Israel as a foothold in the Middle East for decades vis-à-vis Iran and its allies.

In East Asia, the US maintains a presence of tens of thousands of American troops in South Korea and Japan, while expanding its military presence in its former colony of The Philippines. It also has heavily invested in separatist elements on the Chinese island province of Taiwan, setting up the same sort of dynamics seen in Ukraine and Israel that have led to violent conflict in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

It stands to reason that if Washington’s proxy war with Russia in Ukraine is unsustainable and a losing proposition, compounding the strain on US military, diplomatic, and economic power by investing in one or more additional proxy wars around the globe will only accelerate the collapse of US primacy around the globe and the rise of multipolarism.

Ukraine: A Failing Proxy War 

A recent New York Times article titled, “Has Support for Ukraine Peaked? Some Fear So,” highlights growing concern over Washington’s stretched global ambitions. It notes that with growing hostilities in the Middle East and US military aid now being divided between two US proxies, Ukraine and Israel, there is a growing realization that difficult decisions will be necessary.

The article also admits that even before conflict erupted in the Middle East between Israel and Hamas, expanding into a broader and large-scale Israeli military operation against the Palestinians, both support for and interest in Ukraine was already waning.

Beyond political will, the New York Times admits to technical limitations of Western support for its proxies globally.

The article admits:

European vows to supply one million artillery shells to Ukraine by March are falling short, with countries supplying only 250,000 shells from stocks — a little more than one month of Ukraine’s current rate of fire — and factories still gearing up for more production. 

Adm. Rob Bauer, who is the chairman of the NATO Military Committee, said in Warsaw that Europe’s military industry had geared up too slowly and still needed to pick up the pace.

It should be noted that a previous New York Times article revealed that Russia is currently producing as many artillery shells annually as the combined output of the US and Europe if production is expanded by 2025 at the earliest.

Even if the West could rally both political and public support for not only Ukraine, but also Israel, the limitations of the West’s combined military industrial base simply cannot deliver the material support needed to match it.

Israeli Military Gears Up For War, Diverts Military Support for Ukraine 

Following the October 7, 2023 Hamas raids into Israeli-held territory, the Israeli military has begun carrying out large-scale military operations against the inhabitants of Gaza as well as strikes on southern Lebanon and airports in Syria. A military incursion into Gaza alone will require huge amounts of artillery and aerial munitions, as well as small arms ammuniton.

While the US government claims it is capable of supplying both Israel and Ukraine, it is clear that if support was already falling far short of requirements in Ukraine, dividing it among Ukraine and now Israel means US military support will be stretched even thinner still.

In a Politico article titled, “Planes have already taken off’: U.S. sends Israel air defense, munitions after Hamas attack,” admits:

The needs of the Israelis and Ukrainians are different in some key respects. Israel will rely heavily on precision air-to-ground munitions fired from F-16 and F-35 fighter jets and Apache helicopters, none of which is in the Ukrainian arsenal. The issue of 155mm artillery shells, which both countries rely on heavily, will likely loom large, however.

The US has already transferred 300,000 rounds of 155mm artillery ammunition from stockpiles maintained in Israel for both US and Israeli use, to Ukraine. Now 155mm rounds will be flowing back into Israel.

It should be pointed out that Israel also operates M270 multiple launch rocket systems, which fire the same GPS-guided rockets as the HIMARS vehicles the US transferred to Ukraine. There has so far been no discussion of transferring such rockets to Israel and if this will impact shipments of this ammunition to Ukraine, but as CNN pointed out in a May 2023 article, Ukraine’s daily rate of fire was already a meager 18 rockets.

In 2006, Israel’s failed ground incursion into southern Lebanon was accompanied by an intense nation-wide aerial bombardment of Lebanon using a variety of aerial munitions including guided bombs. In less than a month of intense military operations, Israel’s stockpiles were depleted, and as the New York Times reported at the time, additional munitions were rushed from US stockpiles to Israel.

Protracted Israeli military operations will broaden the drain on US military stockpiles and military industrial output across even more weapons and munitions than Ukraine has.

And Taiwan Too… 

It cannot be forgotten that the third focal point of Washington’s Russia-China containment policy, Taiwan, also requires large amounts of munitions to prepare for a conflict the US is openly attempting to provoke with the rest of China.

Even as the US intensifies its pressure on China over Taiwan, America’s stretched military industrial base is struggling to meet even previously agreed upon arms sales.

Bloomberg in its September 2023 article, “Taiwan Arms Supply Is Hobbled by Slow Contractors, US Official Says,” admitted:

Delays in US delivery of promised weapons to Taiwan stem more from defense industry shortcomings than government inefficiency, according to a State Department official handling foreign arms sales. 

“We need to work together to encourage our partners in industry to take more risks, be more flexible, diversify their supply chains and act with deliberate speed to expand production capacity,” Mira Resnick, deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of Political Military Affairs, said in prepared remarks for a hearing Tuesday by the House Armed Services Committee. 

Expanding physical production facilities, channeling larger amounts of raw materials and basic components into these facilities, and manning them with sufficient human resources depend on other prerequisite investments to be made, such as in construction, mining, upstream manufacturing, and education.

Thus, despite the ease with which US officials demand military industrial production be expanded, doing so is a resource and time-intensive process that will take years if and only if both the US government and Western arms manufacturers agree to significantly expand production. This takes place at the same time both Russia and China continue expanding their own industrial bases, including the production of military equipment, weapons, and ammunition.

For US, proxy wars to have succeeded, Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan would have needed US military industrial production expanded years ago.

It is clear US geostrategic planning attempted to produce a strategy that achieved its objectives with what it had on hand. This strategy was swallowed up in Ukraine, with the remnants being divided between a depleted Ukrainian military and a nascent Israeli military operation that could escalate out of control.

This leaves US policymakers with two options; increasingly extreme and dangerous options including direct interventions in Ukraine, the Middle East, and against China in what could escalate into nuclear war or a pivot away from achieving global primacy and finding a proportional role for the US to play among, rather than above, all other nations.

The future of the United States will take the shape of either an overextended empire involuntarily retreating into irrelevance and destitution, or a powerful member of the multipolar world prioritizing the rebuilding of its industrial base, infrastructure, and its education system to trade with and contribute alongside the rest of the world. The longer the US invests in the former option, the longer and more difficult the transition will be to the latter.

Israel is committing an epic war crime with US backing and arms

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Where is the U.S. peace movement and the U.S. public outrage?

Image Credit: AFP

By Dave Lindorff

Source: Nation of Change

When the U.S. was bombing levees and hospitals in North Vietnam, peasants in Laos and burning villages in South Vietnam, herding those not killed in the process into “strategic hamlets,” Americans took to the streets en masse, occupied the Pentagon mall, brought central Washington D.C. to a standstill, and broke into an FBI office stealing the records of Cointelpro disruption and spying and into a draft ward destroying the records of potential draftees.

When U.S. military “trainers” helped massacre and slaughter peasant guerrillas and their urban supporters fighting a brutal dictatorship in El Salvador, and the Pentagon was running a proxy war against the revolutionary government in Nicaragua, masses of Americans, even in the absence of a draft and of US deaths, rose to the occasion to massively oppose U.S. intervention in those countries’ internal conflicts.  Even in 2003 when America was preparing to invade Iraq, claiming it was making or hiding weapons of mass destruction, chemical or even nuclear, Americans in record numbers turnout out in Washington to oppose going to war. (It didn’t work, but at least they turned out to protest war.)

Now when America is basically bankrolling and arming Israel as it prepares to commit a massive war crime, collectively punishing and killing ordinary Palestinians trapped in the open-air prison of Gaza. When the Israeli ‘Defense’ Force (IDF)  is giving the 1.1 million Palestinians living in the northern 12-mile-long and 7-mile-wide half of the walled-off enclave 24 hours to relocate themselves to the southern half of the strip or face the full destructive force of an all-out  IDF air and ground attack and invasion of the north—an impossible challenge. When Israel has cut off all supplies of food, medicine, water (in a desert!), electricity, and oil for the enclaves on rickety power plant, already for a week, the protests by Americans have been anemic, and have largely been by specifically pro-Palestinian groups, not by what is left of the once large and broad peace movement.

It is a shameful moment. While a few left-leaning progressive Democratic members of Congress like Reps AOC and Ilhan Omar have denounced Israel’s war crime of collective punishment and U.S. support for it, there is actually more criticism of Israel and of U.S. military aid to that country coming from Republicans than Democrats, (though they aren’t talking about the war crimes, since Republicans favor those tactics in other circumstances). The truth is, one of the arguments being used by Democrats to convince House Republicans to get their shit together and elect a House speaker is so they can pass legislation in that chamber to allow the U.S. to give Israel (and Ukraine) even more military aid.

And still, no burgeoning, blooming peace movement.

The U.S. may not be technically at war, but the U.S. war machine is everywhere, on every continent, in every ocean, its military budget, way over $1 trillion a year when everything is counted, bigger than it was in constant dollars than at the height of the Vietnam War when 500.000 U.S. troops were in that country fighting, dying (and losing) a hot war. But its special forces, its arms merchants of death, and its military “trainers” are busy stirring up and supporting local conflicts and pouring oil on fires like those blazing in Ukraine, Yemen, Gaza, Syria, Niger, Haiti, and elsewhere, while also making trouble off the coast of China, on the Korean peninsula (where it still has troops based and has had since 1950, and in Eastern Europe and the Baltic Sea.

Where is the public anger? Where is the organized protest against this warmongering permanent government in Washington, D.C.?

Americans are mad at Washington to be sure, correctly perceiving that it is corrupt and rotten to the core They know it ignores popular calls for taxes on the rich, for a well funded Social Security system that will pay livable retirement benefits as promised to all retirees into the foreseeable future, instead of facing drastic cuts in a decade or sooner, a medical system that doesn’t drive us into bankruptcy when we get sick, that gives everyone access to care they can afford and doesn’t give mega profits to private insurers and hospital executives, good public schools for our kids, affordable public colleges, an end to debt enslavement, police who are social servants not fear-inspiring centurions, clean air and water, and action of preventing a climate emergency. But too many of us don’t grasp that none of those things that huge majorities of us want will happen as long as the leaders in Washington, almost all of them bought and owned by large corporate and financial interests and the rich, are enamored of weapons, wars and militarism.

We need a focused campaign to use all available means to educate the American public to a common-sense reality: you cannot have guns and butter. And you can’t eat guns.

As a  Vietnam War Era war resister and protester I’m disgusted. How can we U.S. Americans be accepting that almost all the income tax we pay each year (including income taxes on our Social Security benefits for gods’ sakes!) goes straight to funding the Pentagon and America’s endless wars and proxy wars, with the rest of federal government operations being funded using borrowed money– loans that we the taxpayers have to then pay five percent or more  in interest on every year. In the end it’s all because of the military budgets.

Get it?

It’s time to take that to the streets.

A good place to start would be demanding that the U.S. stop propping up the intransigent, apartheid, fake democracy of Israel and demand that it stop its collective punishment of 2.3 million Gazan Palestinians. For once, the U.S. should try to solve an international crisis by taking action to de-escalate conflict instead of pouring oil on the fire by mindlessly offering more weapons and ammunition.

If that approach works there, our troglodyte leaders should try the same thing with the Ukraine/Russia conflict.

“This is genocide. This is a war crime,” a Palestinian Red Crescent Society representative said.

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Wounded Palestinians wait for treatment at the al-Shifa hospital following Israeli airstrikes, in Gaza City, central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023. (AP Photo/Abed Khaled)

By Diego Ramos

Source: ScheerPost.com

An Israeli airstrike on the al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City has killed more than 500 people, according to Palestinian health authorities and journalists on the ground.

According to Al Jazeera journalist Maram Humaid, a spokesman for the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported an initial estimate of 200-300 casualties. The health ministry has updated estimates to 500 people killed.

Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting for Al Jazeera from Khan Younis in southern Gaza, detailed that the bombing on the hospital courtyard came without warning and has caused significant damage to the building, which continues to provide medical services.

“This hospital contains hundreds, if not thousands, of Palestinians injured during the continuing Israeli attacks on the besieged enclave.

It is crowded with civilians. Just at this moment, hundreds of wounded people have reached the hospital. The area is full of residential buildings.

This is a true massacre that has taken place,” Azzoum reports.

Journalist Younis Tirawi spoke to people in the hospital, who described seeing thousands of people taking shelter, thinking the hospital was a safe haven.

Tirawi also reported a statement from Donald Binder, the undersecretary to the Heads of Churches in Jerusalem, who warned against Israeli airstrikes two days prior to the Oct. 17 bombing. Binder noted the severe damage done to the ultrasound and mammography sections of the hospital and pleaded for anyone with influence in the Israeli government to call off any future strikes.

Journalist Dan Cohen posted a phone conversation with Dr. Mohamad Ziara from Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest in Gaza, as it prepares to receive casualties and injured civilians from the al-Ahli attack:

Mahmoud Basal, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Civil Defense, said, “The massacre at al-Ahli Arab Hospital is unprecedented in our history. While we’ve witnessed tragedies in past wars and days, what took place tonight is tantamount to a genocide.”

Representative from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, Nebal Farsakh, echoed the sentiment stating to Al Jazeera:

“Those who were in front of the hospital were forced to leave their homes under the evacuation order. They can’t even afford to evacuate to the south. There’s complete destruction of the infrastructure and transportation,” she said. “They are forced t[o] evacuate themselves under continuous bombardment. The only available [refuge] is a hospital, so they’re thinking that they would be in a safe place.

“This is genocide. This is a war crime,” she said.

The Powder Keg in the Middle East has Exploded: What Israel’s War on Gaza Means for the Rest of the World

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By Timothy Alexander Guzman,

Source: Silent Crow News

A new war in the Gaza Strip should not be a surprise to anyone who understands what the Palestinians have been going through for the last 75 years.  Many people in the West, in particularly those in the United States and the European Union are shocked and very angry with the attack on Israeli territory by Hamas.  The US mainstream media obviously has a biased view with mostly pro-Israel viewpoints on Israel’s latest conflict in Gaza especially with FOX news who so far, has not invited a Palestinian or Muslim analyst or academic to explain to its audience what led up to this recent attack in the first place.  However, I do believe that Israeli intelligence namely, Mossad knew what was about to take place so that they can move forward to “wipe Gaza off the map” which has been a long-time strategy for Israeli hardliners. Why do I believe Israel allowed it to happen? because the Gaza Strip is one of the most surveilled areas on the planet, therefore Israeli intelligence had to know beforehand that sooner or later, something was going to happen.

Despite what is happening in Gaza, there is one important fact that needs to be told, its not just about Palestine because if Israel gets its way in this war, it will begin targeting other Arab states including Lebanon and Syria which fits into what Oded Yinon, an Israeli journalist wrote in ‘A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties’ suggesting that Israel must “become an imperial regional power” and that it “must effect the division of the whole area into small states by the dissolution of all existing Arab states.” 

The strategy according to Yinon is that “the Zionist hope is that sectarian-based states become Israel’s satellites and, ironically, its source of moral legitimation.”  Although this was written in the 1980’s, all of it is absurd and unrealistic.  Israeli hardliners and Americans especially those in the US bible belt are hoping for a Greater Israel, but that will never happen, the resistance will become stronger throughout the Middle East as more Israeli fighter jets continues to bomb Gaza day after day.  Several Middle Eastern countries and resistance groups have been prepared for the next big war with Israel and the US including Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon, Kataib Hezbollah and other factions in Iraq, Syria, and Iran. 

Government officials, military top brass and intelligence agencies from the US, and NATO know that it will be long and bloody war since Israel is going full force in efforts to take more land in Gaza thus creating more Palestinian refugees in the process. Yinon said create “small states” that will be easier to dominate just like they did in Palestine, they split the territories by turning the Gaza Strip into an open air prison, and at the same-time they created a separate territory in the West Bank, both areas are militarily dominated by Israel Defense Forces (IDF). 

However, for Israel, time is not on their side.  They know that the US is in financial trouble with $33 trillion in debt, so I am sure that many Israeli economists know that without the US and its financial assistance, Israel will not last since they depend on almost every penny that the US government gives them.

In the meantime, Israel is trying to somehow get the US involved in the war. For the Israelis, that’s nothing new.  Remember when Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu claimed to the US congress in 2002 that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons?  “There is no question whatsoever that Saddam is seeking, is working, is advancing towards to the development of nuclear weapons,” he continued “Once Saddam has nuclear weapons, the terror network will have nuclear weapons,” I would say that Netanyahu was successful in getting the US in a war with Iraq.  Or how about the time when Israel attacked the USS Liberty in 1967 in the Mediterranean sea during the Six-Day War which was meant as a false flag operation to bring in the US in its war against Egypt and the rest of the Middle East.

The war on Palestine was the first step in creating an imperial Israel.  On July 9th, 1947, Rabbi Fischmann, a member of the Jewish Agency declared at a U.N. Special Committee of Enquiry that Israel needs to expand “from the River of Egypt up to the Euphrates, it includes parts of Syria and Lebanon.” It is also important to note that Israel has another important reason for expansion which one of them being the obvious and that is to ultimately control the natural resources including oil and gas throughout the Middle East.  When it comes to Big Oil, Washington and the Pentagon share similar goals with Israel when it comes to natural resources in the region. 

Oil Resources & Facilities in Kurdish Regions of Iraq

Since the Gulf war in the early 1990s, Washington and the Pentagon along with Kurdish leadership tried to create a ‘Free Kurdistan‘ that included areas of Iraq, Iran, Syria and even Turkey to dominant the potential energy markets.  In other words, the US establishment and Israel benefit in numerous ways by Balkanizing the Middle East thus making it easier to control the oil and gas fields.

So for the US-Israel partnership, it’s not only ideological, it’s also about the economic benefits of Zionist expansion that not only benefits Big Oil, it benefits the US arms industry since Israel will need a steady supply of weapons for a very long time to maintain control over a Balkanized Middle East and that’s always a plus for the establishment.  So, it is fair to say that Israel needs the US military and its financial aid just as much as the US and its Big oil enterprises need Israel to continue its illegal occupation.

Meanwhile worldwide protests have taken place as the war hawks, neocons, special interest groups (AIPAC) in Washington and their media mouthpieces are already pushing for US military to ultimately attack Iran. 

The US military is already sending its naval ships to the Eastern Mediterranean in show of support to Israel according to Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III:

I have directed the movement of the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group to the Eastern Mediterranean. This includes the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), the Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser USS Normandy (CG 60), as well as the Arleigh-Burke-class guided missile destroyers USS Thomas Hudner (DDG 116), USS Ramage (DDG 61), USS Carney (DDG 64), and USS Roosevelt (DDG 80). We have also taken steps to augment U.S. Air Force F-35, F-15, F-16, and A-10 fighter aircraft squadrons in the region. The U.S. maintains ready forces globally to further reinforce this deterrence posture if required

US ships in the Mediterranean sea? seems like déjà vu, but the point here is that the US will most likely get involved despite losing almost every major war they started since the end of World War II. It is assured that they will face a heavy onslaught of firepower from Hezbollah, Syria, Iran, resistance groups from Iraq that can target US bases and assets, even Yemen can get involved in some capacity.  

Russia and China are watching events very closely as their countries are also facing Western aggression on various levels including the US-NATO proxy war in Ukraine and if the US and its close allies in the Asia Pacific are foolish enough, they will to start another proxy war in Taiwan.

This is the big war in the Middle East that many of us have been fearing and it seems unstoppable as tensions have dramatically escalated in such a short period of time. 

Russia and China can sure try to mediate a peace agreement or a ceasefire, but that seems impossible given how Israel sees the necessity and the long-term benefits of seizing more Palestinian territory with close to half of the Gaza strip in its sights and that’s their next step, stripping land away from the Palestinians piece by piece. 

The bottom line is that the US is at $33 trillion in debt with a US dollar reserve currency that is not so popular as before, so how long can the US establishment keep up its military and economic support to Israel?  No one knows for sure, but it is clear that the US and the European establishment is committed to Israel’s security, even if it means bankrupting its own citizens. 

Who are the Real Terrorists in the Palestine Story?

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By Stuart Littlewood

Source: Dissident Voice

I don’t think I’ve ever heard a more sickening speech from a world leader than Biden’s following Hamas’s attack on Israel, the tormentor of the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. His crass ignorance, prejudice and subservience to a criminal, apartheid regime, while utterly indifferent to the suffering of the Palestinian people, sets a new low among Western administrations.

Biden says that the United States “stands with the people of Israel in the face of these terrorist assaults. Israel has the right to defend itself and its people, full stop. There’s never a justification for terrorist attacks and my administration’s support for Israel’s security is rock solid and unwavering.’’ He added that the people of Israel were “under attack, orchestrated by a terrorist organisation… The United States stands with Israel. We will not ever fail to have their back. We’ll make sure that they have the help their citizens need and they can continue to defend themselves.”

And Israel’s faithful stooges in the UK and Europe are in perfect harmony:

  • UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak: “Shocked by this morning’s attacks by Hamas terrorists… Israel has an absolute right to defend itself.”
  • UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly: “The UK will always support Israel’s right to defend itself.”
  • Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey: “Liberal Democrats fully condemn Hamas. This terrorism must cease. Israel has a right to defend itself.”
  • UK Labour Party leader Keir Starmer: “No justification for this act of terror… perpetrated by those who seek to undermine any chance for future peace in the region.”
  • Head of the EU Commission Ursula von der Leyen: The attack was “terrorism in its most despicable form… Israel has the right to defend itself against such heinous attacks”.

But who are the real “despicable” terrorists?

The US’s own definition of terrorism fits Israel itself perfectly. Under Section 3 of Executive Order 13224 “Blocking Property and prohibiting Transactions with Persons who commit, threaten to commit, or support Terrorism”, the term “terrorism” means an activity that:
(i) involves a violent act or an act dangerous to human life, property, or infrastructure; and
(ii) appears to be intended:

  • to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
  • to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
  • to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, kidnapping, or hostage-taking.

This instrument, signed on 23 September 2001 by George W. Bush, is used to outlaw and crush any organisation, individual or country the US doesn’t like. And the Israeli regime’s “amoral thugs”, as one British MP branded them, have plainly been terrorising Palestinian civilians for decades. Biden is one very confused bunny.

As for the other stooges, their position is demolished by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), said to be the largest progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organisation in the world. “We’re organising a grassroots, multiracial, cross-class, intergenerational movement of US Jews into solidarity with Palestinian freedom struggle,” they say on their website. Here’s an extract from their statement on the hostilities.

The Israeli government may have just declared war, but its war on Palestinians started over 75 years ago. Israeli apartheid and occupation — and United States complicity in that oppression — are the source of all this violence. Reality is shaped by when you start the clock.

For the past year, the most racist, fundamentalist, far-right government in Israeli history has ruthlessly escalated its military occupation over Palestinians in the name of Jewish supremacy with violent expulsions and home demolitions, mass killings, military raids on refugee camps, unrelenting siege and daily humiliation. In recent weeks, Israeli forces repeatedly stormed the holiest Muslim sites in Jerusalem.

For 16 years, the Israeli government has suffocated Palestinians in Gaza under a draconian air, sea and land military blockade, imprisoning and starving two million people and denying them medical aid. The Israeli government routinely massacres Palestinians in Gaza; ten-year-olds who live in Gaza have already been traumatized by seven major bombing campaigns in their short lives.

For 75 years, the Israeli government has maintained a military occupation over Palestinians, operating an apartheid regime. Palestinian children are dragged from their beds in pre-dawn raids by Israeli soldiers and held without charge in Israeli military prisons. Palestinians homes are torched by mobs of Israeli settlers, or destroyed by the Israeli army. Entire Palestinian villages are forced to flee, abandoning the homes and orchards and land that were in their family for generations.

The bloodshed of today and the past 75 years traces back directly to US complicity in the oppression and horror caused by Israel’s military occupation. The US government consistently enables Israeli violence and bears blame for this moment. The unchecked military funding, diplomatic cover, and billions of dollars of private money flowing from the US enables and empowers Israel’s apartheid regime.

Meanwhile, Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP)’s team on the ground in Gaza have a close-up view of the situation. They say they “are releasing all of our pre-positioned stocks, worth $570,000 USD (approximately £465,000), to ensure hospitals and emergency responders have the supplies they need to cope with an unprecedented influx of casualties”.

Supplies provided by MAP include essential drugs and disposables, laboratory reagents and support for Gaza’s blood bank services. Even before this latest escalation Gaza’s beleaguered health system was struggling, with 48 per cent of essential medicines and 26 per cent of medical disposables unavailable or in critically short supply. Today, the Ministry of Health in Gaza is calling for blood donations for the influx of casualties. Melanie Ward, MAP’s chief executive, says: “We are deeply concerned about the potential for substantial loss of civilian life in the coming days. Gaza’s healthcare services are woefully under-equipped to respond to this emergency, and MAP’s support is needed now more than ever. We call on the international community to take urgent steps to protect civilian life and infrastructure from attack, and to launch immediate humanitarian relief efforts to ensure that health services have the resources they need to save lives and respond to casualties.”

MAP is also committed to bearing witness to the injustices caused by occupation, displacement and conflict. “We speak out in the UK and internationally, and ensure Palestinian voices are heard at the highest levels, to press for the political and social barriers to Palestinian health and dignity to be addressed.”

Self-defence? Really?

And what about this mantra-like claim that Israel, the aggressor and illegal occupier, has a right to defend itself? The West Bank, East Jerusalem (including the Old City) and Gaza are regarded as Palestinian territory under international law and by the United Nations. So what are Israel’s occupation army and armed settlers doing there?

The word “settler” is much too nice. I call these armed thugs “squatters”. They are transferred illegally onto Palestinian territory by the Israeli government to establish “facts on the ground” in the hope of eventually annexing and acquiring the territory for itself. That’s why Israel has never declared its borders – it intends to keep expanding until it has stolen all of the Holy Land.

This of course is a violation of occupation law and a war crime on the part of the individuals involved. And it is a violation of Israel’s legal obligation to respect the sovereignty of another state and a violation of Israel’s legal obligation to respect the right of self-determination of the Palestinian people; also a violation of Israel’s obligations regarding international law on the use of force. Ending these violations calls for the removal of the squatters and their squats from occupied land and an immediate end to Israel’s exercise of control, including its use of military force, over the Palestinians’ territory. It is nonsense to suggest that Israel has any right to defend its nationals when misbehaving and committing war crimes on somebody else’s territory.

The UK government is complicit in these crimes, having created the problem in the first place back in 1916/17 (Balfour’s infamous declaration and promise to the Zionists) and even today refuses to sanction Israel’s murderous behaviour and racist policies. As we so often see demonstrated, all our political parties have brainwashed elements within their ruling elite that are obedient to the Israel lobby.

Know your terrorist

Furthermore, there’s nothing anyone can teach Israelis about terrorism. They wrote the manual. If you don’t believe it, read their Dalet Plan, or ‘Plan D’. This was the Zionists’ blueprint for the violent and bloody takeover of the Palestinian homeland – some call it the Palestinian holocaust – drawn up in early 1948 by the Jewish underground militia, the Haganah, at the behest of David Ben-Gurion, then boss of the Jewish Agency.

Plan D anticipated the British mandate government’s withdrawal and the Zionists’ declaration of Israeli statehood, and plotted the ethnic cleansing that was to follow. Here is a chilling extract setting out guidelines for besieging, occupying and controlling Arab cities:

1. By isolating them from transportation arteries by laying mines, blowing up bridges, and a system of fixed ambushes.
2. If necessary, by occupying high points which overlook transportation arteries leading to enemy cities, and the fortification of our units in these positions.
3. By disrupting vital services, such as electricity, water, and fuel, or by using economic resources available to us, or by sabotage.
4. By launching a naval operation against the cities that can receive supplies by sea, in order to destroy the vessels carrying the provisions, as well as by carrying out acts of sabotage against harbour facilities.

It is one of the vilest documents in history and shows why so many people question Israel’s legitimacy. Jewish terror gangs committed a massacre at Deir Yassin to set the tone and “soften up” the Arabs for expulsion. More atrocities followed the declaration of Israeli statehood on 14 May 1948. Some 750,000 Palestinians were put to flight as Israel’s forces obliterated hundreds of Arab town and villages. The village on which Sderot now stands was one of these. It was designate an Arab town in the UN Partition Plan but that made no difference. To this day its inhabitants have been denied the right to return and received no compensation. Thirty four massacres are said to have been committed in pursuit of the Jewish nation’s racist and territorial ambitions, which immediately overran the generous borders gifted to the Zionists in the Partition Plan.

Biden, put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Waiting for an Apocalypse

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By Edward Curtin

Source: Behind the Curtain

“Method, Method, what do you want from me?  You know that I have eaten of the fruit of the unconscious.”  – Jules Laforgue, Moralités légendaires

The other day my wife attended an event at a well-appointed home in town where men in dark suits stood around to provide a sense of security that no harm would come to the visitors, even though the angel of death had visited this house on previous occasions, for it was a funeral home, well-steeped in boxing people up for the journey to the underworld.  So to call it a “home” is really a misnomer; that might sound cozy, but it is really a way station for the dead.  A layover.

Mistakenly thinking that she was attending a traditional wake and the dead person’s corpse would be there in a coffin, I suggested that she check out the casket and, if she liked its wood and the softness of its velvet liner, to inquire whether they had any sales going on, especially if they had a buy-one-get-one-free sale like the local supermarket often has for English muffins and other goodies.

I think she forgot to ask, but she did tell me that the elderly woman who died had been cremated weeks ago and that her ashes were in a box on a table.  Boxes, ah, little boxes.

***

I have long wondered why so many people are enchanted by sunsets, why they travel to see them and gasp in wonder that the sun disappears and night comes on.  Colorful yes, but not as glorious as the sunrise, the rosy-fingered dawn of every new day.  Why celebrate the death of the day and our journey into the underworld of sleep and the cave of dreams rather than the dawn of our awakening and new life.  Jokes aside, morbidity is not life-affirming.  The true apocalypse – Greek apokalyptein, uncover, disclose, reveal – is every dawn’s epiphany when we can dream while awake and create.

***

In Apuleius’s Metamorphoses there is the story of Cupid and Psyche, the former being a male god and the latter a female human.  Psyche, who has lost her lover Cupid but wants him back, is tricked by the goddess Aphrodite who challenges her, if she wants Cupid back, to take the dangerous journey to the underworld to retrieve a box of beauty cream.  Psyche goes and gets the box but is tempted to open it since it would enhance her already beautiful human appearance.  When she does, she falls into a deathlike sleep.  It’s an old story, forever new.  Switch the sexes if you wish.  Take 200 vitamin pills a day as many billionaires and other assorted crazies do intent on becoming immortal gods.  Good luck.  Get uploaded or downloaded into a computer, whichever it is, and live forever.  Maybe watch the sun set or perchance wake up.  And although Psyche is given a Hollywood ending when she is saved by Zeus and made immortal with the other gods in Olympus, that’s just an old movie.  We live by facts these days, not myths.  Ah, boxes.

***

The Boxer by Simon & Garfunkel
I am just a poor boy, though my story’s
seldom told
I have squandered my resistance for a
pocketful of mumbles
Such as promises
All lies and jest
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest, hmm

***

Children love boxes within which they often hide their collections for safekeeping.  Give a child a box with a lid and it will be filled in no time.  Filled with little things that symbolize for children the vast infinity of secret space that is their hold on time.  Children are born poets and philosophers who over time are usually dulled by adults around them from whom they learn to hide their secrets and the questions these secrets raise.  The secrets often fester and die, only to live on in repressed lives.  I knew a man who collected cigar boxes.  They were everywhere in his house when he died.  Most were empty.  His wife outdid him with her collection of empty boxes: shoe boxes, jewelry boxes, every kind of box imaginable.  All empty.  Were they waiting to be filled?  With what?  Secrets? Another woman I knew had a box with an envelope inside marked, “My Father’s Magic Envelope – AKA Miracles.”  It was empty.  She pictured herself as a boxer in a sketch she drew, a child without a face with boxing gloves.  I can only guess at the secrets she was fighting to remember or forget. The experimental method is based on repetition, but so too is trauma.  Internment is not just for the dead.

***

Boxed in, boxed up, housed, enclosed. trapped, contained, caged , enveloped, bounded, penned, corralled, trapped: calling from my cell for help?  The screen lights up with a concatenation of phantom images that seize the mind, what the Greeks called eidolon.

***

Let’s forget about Pandora’s box, which was actually a jar in the original story.  Its last content being hope.  I once knew a girl named Hope.  She was very seductive. But I sensed she was trouble and escaped when she started to open up about her secrets.  I wasn’t very curious, just afraid.  So long, Hope, “it’s time that we began to laugh and cry and cry and laugh about it all again.”  Thanks, Leonard.

***

There are countless political analyses of what drives the United States’ ruling forces in their systematic, brutal, and remorseless wars of aggression around the world.  The perpetual effort to expand an empire originally built on the blood of indigenous people.  The refusal to live in peace within national boundaries.  The pushing of NATO expansion up to Russia’s borders.  It seems insane, which of course it is.  But what is behind such madness?  The secret may be quite simple.  Again the ancient Greeks come to mind as Roberto Calasso writes in The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, quoting the historian Jacob Burckhardt, when he wrote of the secret of war-loving Sparta: “But the power of Sparta seems to have come into being almost entirely for itself and for its own self-assertion, and its constant pathos was the enslavement of subject peoples and the extension of its own dominion as an end unto itself.”  Power as an end in itself.  Realizing this is apocalyptic in the revelatory sense, for it opens the box on the secret nihilism of the U.S. ruling elites.

***

I am waiting
to get some intimations
of immortality
by recollecting my early childhood
and I am waiting
for the green mornings to come again
youth’s dumb green fields come back again
and I am waiting
for some strains of unpremeditated art
to shake my typewriter
and I am waiting to write
the great indelible poem
and I am waiting
for the last long careless rapture
and I am perpetually waiting
for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn
to catch each other up at last
and embrace
and I am waiting
perpetually and forever
a renaissance of wonder

– Lawrence Ferlinghetti, “I Am Waiting,”
for jazz accompaniment

It’s A Trap! The Wave Of Repercussions As The Middle East Fights “The Last War”

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By Brandon Smith

Source: Activist Post

Few people are familiar with a little event around 1200 BC called the Bronze Age Collapse in the region known as the Levant (now known as the Middle East). Most folks are taught that history and progress travel in a straight line and that each generation improves upon the culture and innovations of previous generations. This delusion is constructed around a Smithsonian-influenced view of the past. In reality, history tends to go in a circle, or a spiral, with innovation leading to ease, ease leading to laziness and corruption, and corruption leading to weakness and collapse.

Over and over again, humanity reaches for Elysium on Earth only to be slapped back down. The survivors then build grass huts on top of the ruins of the old empires and they start over from scratch.  Why does the Bronze Age catastrophe matter?  Obviously, because history tends to rhyme.

The Levant at this time was rich with civilization and trade, composed of a host of kingdoms that represented the known world including the Egyptians, Babylonians, Minoans, Mycenaeans, Hittites, etc.  They had vast economic networks, agriculture, industry and written libraries. The proximity of the kingdoms allowed for such extensive trade relations that this period is often referred to by modern historians as the first “globalized economy” (sound familiar?).

What took centuries to build was destroyed in a single generation by a series of disasters. A “mega-drought” caused kingdoms without consistent water resources to lose agricultural production leading to widespread famine and disease (yes, the climate can and does change dramatically regardless of human carbon footprint). Trade was disrupted by internal disputes, and a mysterious invasion of a group of roaming raiders called the “sea people” is documented as a primary factor in collapse.

The Sea People attacked numerous kingdoms, but many of them were also refugees flooding into the region. They disrupted cultures and economies and dragged a number of empires into the dust. This all happened in less than 30 years. Sadly, because only the elites of these civilizations were able to read and write, languages and historical documentation were lost.

This initiated a dark age which lasted for centuries. Humanity was set back, essentially to zero, while scratching and surviving among temples and pyramids of past generations. They must have looked up at those decaying marvels of architecture from hundreds of years ago and wondered “What the hell happened to us?”

Not everything perished, of course. The Egyptian dynasties were in decline, but they managed to hold together far better than their counterparts across the Levant.  However, the event represented a setback to human knowledge that was detrimental. One might suggest that if the Bronze Age Collapse never occurred we might be a space borne species traveling the stars by now.

Then again, maybe these cultures were so corrupt that they needed to fail so that something better could be built in their place?

What does any of this have to do with the state of the Middle East today? The smart readers out there surely see what I’m getting at. The intricate relationships and trade mechanisms of the Bronze Age led to great wealth and prosperity, but they were terribly fragile. That same interdependency resulted in their demise as they tumbled like dominoes on top of each other.

The globalization and collectivist war mongering of today is leading to a similar worldwide implosion. Our irrational ties to foreign entanglements and economies could very well destroy civilization again. Consider what are we about to see as the Israel/Palestine war unfolds…

Multiple Nations Dragged Into The Conflict

If you were wondering what the “October surprise” was going to be, well, now you know.  I will make my position on this situation clear – I don’t care about either side.  I care about innocent civilians, but other than that the war is irrelevant.  I am an American and I care about America. The same goes for Ukraine and Russia. Their wars are not our wars, and I am highly suspicious every time our political leaders try to lure us into choosing a side when foreigners start shooting each other. To summarize:  All wars are banker wars.

The Israelis enjoy our money but they have a history of proven elicit operations to lure us into war (USS Liberty, anyone?). The Palestinians and most of the Muslim world despise the West and Christianity in general (and I don’t really care who started it, the fact remains that our cultures are completely incompatible and this will never change).  Just because we happen to find common ground on fighting back against the insane trans agenda does not mean I’m willing to accept draconian Sharia Law in my community.

Both sides use tactics that deliberately target civilians. I’m not talking about collateral damage like we saw in Iraq and Afghanistan, I’m talking about groups that are consciously and brazenly engaged in plans for genocide. Bottom line? There are no “good guys” to join with. It’s a complete sh*t show of ancient tribal nonsense that Westerners should stay away from.

For those who disagree, ask yourselves this – Are you truly willing to go pick up a rifle and fly to Israel or Gaza to fight and die for either side?  If so, then go do it and stop demanding others do it for you.  If not, then shut up.

But here’s what’s going to happen:  the establishment will seek to force Americans and Europeans into these wars regardless.  The corporate media and some political leaders are already suggesting that the recent full-scale attack on Israel was planned by governments outside of Gaza. Some are accusing Iran, and others accuse Lebanon. From the extensive amount of footage of the attack that I have examined, I have no doubt that someone other than the Palestinians orchestrated the event. The tactics were far too advanced and far too coordinated; the Palestinians have never been all that smart when it comes to military strategy.

Who drafted the attack is another question entirely. So far there are a lot of rumors but no hard evidence leading to any specific governments. Another big question is, how did the Palestinians manage to organize all of this and execute the invasion WITHOUT Israeli intel services knowing about it? Mossad is known to be one of the most intrusive and pervasive covert agencies in the world, yet they were caught completely off guard by this unprecedented attack?  I think not.

I’m reminded of the events of 9/11 and the strange series of intelligence failures that preceded it. I’m also reminded of the lies, propaganda and the reactionary response which led to two decades of meaningless war.

I’m going to call it here – in a couple of weeks we will hear reports that many of the soldiers involved in the incursion were NOT Palestinian. They will claim some of them are from Iran, Syria, Lebanon, etc. There will be intel that says Iran was a major backer of the plan (The Wall Street Journal already claims this is the case, but they have not provided any compelling proof, yet).

A US carrier strike group is on the way to the region now, and this is just the beginning. Europeans will be pressured to go to war, American conservatives in particular will be waterboarded with propaganda telling us that an “attack on Israel is an attack on the US.” It will be a lot like the rhetoric Neo-cons and leftists used during the initial invasion of Ukraine, but multiplied by a thousand. To be clear, both Biden and Trump have been rattling sabers and testing the waters of war, so don’t think that we can avoid this simply by voting.

Multiple Fronts

Israel is going to pound Gaza into gravel, there’s no doubt about that.  A ground invasion will meet far more resistance than the Israelis seem to expect, but Israel controls the air and Gaza is a fixed target with limited territory.  The problem for them is not the Palestinians, but the multiple war fronts that will open up if they do what I think they are about to do (attempted sanitization).  Lebanon, Iran and Syria will all immediately engage and Israel will not be able to fight them all – Hell, the Israelis got their asses handed to them by Lebanon alone in 2006.

This will result in inevitable demands for US/EU intervention.

East vs West

Depending on the extent of the Western reaction, the BRICS nations may be compelled to get involved. This may not be on a kinetic level, but there is a chance. Russia has strategic security treaties with Iran and Syria. China has numerous economic interests and influence in the region as the world’s largest importer/exporter.

These nations might retaliate with the same kind of financial warfare that the West used against Russia – with China and the BRICS cutting off the dollar as the world reserve currency. This would add to the crippling inflation we are already experiencing.

Terror Attacks And False Flags

If you thought things might be eerily quiet on the terrorism front lately, that’s now over. I would be shocked if we made it another six months without multiple attacks tied back to Islamic groups. Some of them will be real and some of them will be staged, and telling which is which will be difficult.

The thing is, wide open borders in the West have made this far more likely and the establishment knows it. In my opinion they WELCOMED IT. If they can get at least one crazy Muslim to shoot up a strip mall or blow up a football stadium, they will have all the leverage they need to con Americans into another ground war in the Middle East.  Do we need to “fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here?”  That’s garbage thinking.  We should not be letting them over here in the first place.

Europe in particular is playing with fire. National governments and the EU have invited tens-of-millions of these people to their doorsteps and now they face a serious conundrum. There are Sharia Law communities all over Europe, there are millions of military-age Muslim men with every opportunity to do great harm. And, there are millions of woke leftists currently cheering them on, thinking that this is some form of “decolonization.”

Closure Of The Strait Of Hormuz, Skyrocketing Oil Prices

I have been warning about this scenario for many years; it was only a matter of time before tensions with Iran gave them a rationale to close the Strait Of Hormuz and shut down 30% of all oil exports from the Middle East to the rest of the world. Keep in mind, Europe is suffering from extensive energy inflation, in part because of the economic crisis and also because of sanctions against Russia.

Biden has been trying to hide inflation by dumping oil from the strategic reserves onto the market, but now those reserves are the lowest they have been since 1983.  Conveniently, this happened right before the strike on Israel. Our reserves are depleted as we go to war. Oil prices and gasoline prices will explode if Iran is implicated in the Israel attack. Iran will run a few giant oil tankers into the Hormuz, sink them, and make the strait impassable for months. Don’t be surprised of we see $200 per barrel oil next year, which will translate to around $7 per gallon gas or higher for much of the US.

A Push For A New Draft

Let’s be honest, current US recruitment numbers are a joke and the wokification of our military is making it weaker by the month. No American citizen with a legit warrior mindset or combat aptitude is going to join that circus freak show voluntarily. The establishment will try to regale conservatives and patriots with visions of “fighting the good fight for family and country” but most will not buy in. With attempts to ignite multiple fronts against Russia, China and the Middle East, they will start talking about a new draft system.

My belief is that this will fail miserably and would start a civil war rather than fill the ranks of the Army or Marines, but they may have a scheme to deal with this outcome…

Is This The Real Reason Why US Officials Are Encouraging The Migrant Invasion?

The reality is, America has its own invasion to deal with.  During the Bronze Age Collapse certain empires (like Egypt) survived using an odd tactic – instead of fighting off the invading hordes of refugees, nomads and sea people, they HIRED them and inducted them into important positions within their military. Corrupt authoritarian rulers ultimately found that they faced more of a threat from their own starving peasants than they did from the outsiders, so they joined with them to put down local rebellions.

This might not be as useful in Europe, but in America I wonder if this was the intention all along; to bring in millions of military-age foreigners with little sympathy for the existing culture, then in the midst of collapse and conflict offer them automatic citizenship and benefits if they join the military. Not on the small scale the federal government has going today, but on an enormous scale the likes of which we have never seen.

Maybe the plan was always to leave the gates open and allow illegals to stroll in so that they could act as a mercenary contingent to fight in foreign wars or fight against American citizens should rebellion arise…

Plan C

The timing of the conflict in Israel is incredibly beneficial to globalists, and this might explain Israel’s bizarre intel failure. Just as US and British leaders had prior knowledge of a potential Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 but warned no one because they WANTED to compel Americans to fight in WWII, the Palestinian incursion serves a similar purpose.

The covid pandemic and mandates failed to get the desired result of a global medical tyranny. The war in Ukraine failed to get desired results as the warhawks’ demands for boots on the ground against Russia fell apart. Perhaps this is just Plan C?

The establishment seems particularly obsessed with convincing US conservatives and patriots to participate in the chaos; there are a number of Neo-cons and even a few supposed liberty media personalities calling for Americans to answer the call of blood in Israel. Some have described the coming conflagration as “the war to end all wars.”

I believe that the real war is yet to truly start, and that is the war to erase the globalists from existence. They want us to fight overseas in endless quagmires in the hopes we will die out. And when we do, there will be no one left to oppose them. It’s a predictable strategy, but its success is doubtful. Another interesting fact about the Bronze Age Collapse – the elites were some of the first groups to be wiped out after the system broke down.

‘Al-Aqsa Storm’ Operation: Far-reaching Geopolitical Implications

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By Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

Source: GlobalResearch.ca

A major conflict is beginning in Palestine. On October 7, Hamas launched a military operation against the Israeli occupation forces. Using missiles, drones and paragliders, Palestinian soldiers managed to surprisingly attack Israeli troops and advance through occupied territory, liberating many areas. Tel Aviv responded with a declaration of war and several brutal attacks on civilian areas in Gaza, however, the Jewish State’s forces still appear unable to expel Palestinian soldiers from their occupied territory, with Hamas advancing rapidly.

In addition to territorial disputes, the attack seems to have direct religious reasons. Palestinians call the assault “Al-Aqsa Storm Operation“, referring to the famous Al-Aqsa Mosque, an important Islamic holy site. Jewish militants have frequently attacked the site and extremist religious groups have pressured the state to demolish the Mosque and build a Jewish temple in the region. The constant desecration of Al-Aqsa appears to have been a red line for Palestinian Muslims.

The surprise effect of the Hamas attack shocked Israeli authorities and Tel Aviv’s supporters around the world. Hamas’ ability to destroy the illegal siege imposed by Zionist forces was seen as a historic defeat for Israel. Furthermore, many experts are criticizing the intelligence capabilities of the Jewish State after the start of the battle, as the country’s spy forces were inefficient in predicting Palestinian moves and taking preventive measures against Hamas, which is a militia, not a regular national army, therefore having much more limited resources than Israeli Defense Forces.

Immediately after the start of hostilities, many videos and images began to be shared on social media showing the violence of the clashes. Many of these images are spread out of context, mainly by the Western pro-Zionist propaganda machine. Anti-Palestine activists accuse Hamas of murdering civilians, while anti-Zionists claim [erronously] that all those killed are military targets – even though some of them are unarmed. It is important to remember that in Israel military service is mandatory for almost all citizens (including women), with most of the Gaza borders’ settlers being actually military, even if they were eventually killed or captured while off duty.

Israel’s reactions were harsh. Netanyahu declared a state of war and ordered a series of bombings against the Gaza Strip.

Hundreds of Palestinian civilians died, non-military facilities were destroyed, and a severe blockade is being imposed on any type of food, energy or water supply. The retaliation, did not prevent Hamas’ advance into the occupation zone. There is still a strong presence of Palestinian troops and an absolute Israeli inability to expel them. Furthermore, thousands of Israeli citizens are leaving the country, creating an unprecedented crisis.

Around the world, reactions to the escalation were as expected. Most Arab and Islamic countries have expressed support for the Palestinian resistance, but without committing to direct military cooperation. The Collective West has voiced support for Israel, with the US, EU, UK and their allies harshly criticizing Hamas, which they consider a “terrorist group”. On the other hand, Russia and China called for an immediate ceasefire and emphasized the importance of recognizing a Palestinian State as an existential condition for peace in the Middle East.

Washington is moving significant extra military aid to Tel Aviv. The Jewish State already receives 3 billion dollars in military assistance annually from the US, but with the escalation of hostilities, the tendency is for this assistance to increase substantially. Obviously, this will have a severe impact on the proxy war against Russia, as it will be impossible for the US to continue backing two high-intensity conflicts at the same time. The pro-Israel agenda is unanimous among American politicians, bringing together Republicans and Democrats much more cohesively than Ukraine, which many conservative politicians dislike. So, it is most likely that Kiev will be progressively “abandoned” by Washington as the crisis in Palestine worsens.

However, it is unlikely that American aid will automatically be a “game-changer” for Israel. There will be many local reprisals as Iran will certainly exponentially boost its participation in the conflict and send weapons and irregular troops to help the Palestinians. Furthermore, Hezbollah from Lebanon and some Syrian military units are also on combat readiness and could openly enter the conflict if it escalates. Iran also controls Houthi dissidents in Yemen, who could also take part in hostilities. So, instead of an “easy” military effort, with systematic killing of civilians and territorial expansionism (as seen on other occasions), this time, Israel may be facing a serious security crisis, putting its very existence at risk.

To avoid this disastrous scenario, the right thing to do for Tel Aviv is to stop territorial expansionism and the illegal occupation of Palestinian territories. The Jewish State needs to respect international law and start thinking seriously about returning its borders to the limits of the 1948 UN plan – with possible changes, as long as they are negotiated with the Arabs under mutually beneficial circumstances. Aggressive policies of apartheid and territorial annexation, as well as desecration of Islamic religious sites, will only result in more conflicts.

However, Tel Aviv seems not only committed to the most extreme wings of Zionism but also shows a willingness to act as an American proxy against Iran in the Middle East, which brings very negative expectations. If Israel chooses the path of war, it could become a “new Ukraine”.