Informed CommentThoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion2024-10-15T05:50:28Zhttps://www.juancole.com/feed/atomWordPressJuan Colehttp://juancole.com<![CDATA[Nobel Prize-Winning Japanese survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki see themselves in the Palestinians of Gaza]]>https://www.juancole.com/?p=2210102024-10-15T05:50:28Z2024-10-15T05:44:14ZAnn Arbor (Informed Comment) – The decision of the Truman administration to use nuclear weapons on the civilian cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 is one of the great stains on the United States. There are other blots on our escutcheon, including the perfidious treatment of Native Americans and the enslavement of millions of Africans. But to be the only nation ever to have deployed nuclear weapons, and to be the only one to have bombed densely inhabited cities with them, makes the crime pointed and dramatic rather than unfolding over decades.
The survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, of whom there are still 106,825, were known as Hibakusha, literally “bombing victims.” They were often stigmatized by other Japanese and sometimes had complicated love lives. Some had disfiguring burns on their bodies or faces. They were thought to be at special risk of dying young from the effects of the nuclear weapons, and so had trouble finding mates. Some Hibakusha hid their past. Some of those willing to come out of the closet formed organizations to lobby for the banning of nuclear weapons.
Friday evening it was announced that Nihon Hidankyo, which Asahi Shimbun glosses as “the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations,” has won the Nobel Peace Prize this year.
Israel’s genocide in Gaza, however, hung over the victory. According to the Irish Times’s David McNeill in Tokyo, when Toshiyuki Mimaki, the co-chair of Nihon Hidankyo, watched the ceremony in Oslo on television and discovered that his organization had won, he said tearfully, “It can’t be real, I felt so sure it would be the people of Gaza.”
Mr. Mimaki’s certainty that the “people of Gaza” would compete successfully for the Nobel with the survivors of a nuclear attack speaks volumes about how the genocide is viewed outside the North Atlantic world. And, to be sure, the sheer tonnage of bombs dropped on Gaza since October 2023 has exceeded that of the two atomic bombs deployed in 1945.
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Mimaki accepted the award on behalf of Nihon Hidankyo and gave an acceptance speech in which he pointed out that “nuclear weapons can be used by terrorists. For example, if Russia uses them against Ukraine, Israel against Gaza, it won’t end there. Politicians should know these things.” At the press conference, Mr Mimaki went on to compare the plight of Gazan children to that of Japanese children at the end of the Second World War.
He observed, “In Gaza, bleeding children are being held (by their parents). It’s like in Japan 80 years ago.”
Miyaki added, “When it comes to Israel and the Middle East, regardless of the specifics, the underlying issue is conflict and the act of doing things that people abhor. Firstly, it is about killing people. This idea of killing others before being killed oneself —- that is essentially what war is. Also, war involves destroying homes, demolishing buildings, and taking down bridges. These actions constitute war. Japan, too, fought a major war 80 years ago, and it is said that 3 million people lost their lives. Since then, we have upheld our constitution, aiming for a world without war. I hope Japan can become a leader in promoting peace globally.” (- ChatGPT translation of the computer-generated YouTube transcript.)
He also said, “nuclear weapons can be used by terrorists . . . For example, if Russia uses them against Ukraine, Israel against Gaza, it won’t end there. Politicians should know these things.”
The situation in Gaza is therefore very much on Mr. Miyaki’s mind, and on the minds of other Japanese pacifists. They see civilian cities reduced to rubble from the sky and bleeding children in the arms of their parents, and it takes them right back to August 6, 1945.
About 140,000 people were incinerated when the U.S. deployed an atomic bomb against Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and three days later, some 74,000 more were turned into carbon dust in Nagasaki.
Gilad Cohen, Israel’s ambassador to Japan, criticized Miyaki’s heartfelt sentiments, saying on “X,” that Miyaki’s comparison “is outrageous and baseless.” He added, “Gaza is ruled by Hamas, a murderous terrorist organization committing a double war crime: targeting Israeli civilians, including women and children, while using its own people as human shields.” He accused Miyaki of dishonoring the victims of October 7.
Cohen, however, is the one who misunderstands the similarities here. The Truman administration viewed Imperial Japan and generals such as Hideki Tojo (who also served as prime minister during much of the war) as murderous terrorists who had launched a sneak attack that killed 2,403 Americans at Pearl Harbor, including some 68 civilians.
As for Hamas being responsible for all the Palestinian deaths in Gaza at the hands of the Israeli military (!), that is a similar argument to the one made by Truman regarding Japan. It was necessary to nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he said, because the US could lose as many as a quarter of a million troops in an invasion of Japan, since the Japanese would unitedly defend the island. In essence, all the Japanese formed a human shield against any ground incursion. Therefore, it was the refusal to surrender of the former admiral, Prime Minister Kantarō Suzuki, that made the US kill those 214,000 civilians.
The devil made me do it, is the refrain of all genocidaires.
Mr. Mimaki will have none of it. He condemns belligerent actions whoever takes them. But most importantly, he knows a crime against humanity when he sees one.
]]>Middle East Monitor<![CDATA[Gaza Aggression tops new Mexican President’s Agenda: wants to Recognize Palestine]]>https://www.juancole.com/?p=2210042024-10-15T03:31:18Z2024-10-15T04:06:18Zby Eman Abusidu
( Middle East Monitor ) – Just days after her inauguration as the first female president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum called for the recognition of the State of Palestine as a step towards achieving peace in the Middle East, and reaffirmed her country’s longstanding support for the Palestinian people.
“We condemn the aggression currently taking place,” said Sheinbaum, “and we also believe that the state of Palestine must be fully recognised, just as Israel is.”
The president condemned the violence in the Middle East and outlined what Mexico’s position will be during her term in office. “This has been Mexico’s position for many years,” she pointed out, “and it remains the same. We seek peace above all.”
Speaking at her daily press conference, the new president addressed Israel’s actions in the region, stressing that mutual recognition of a Palestinian state is key to finding a diplomatic solution to end the violence in Gaza. Sheinbaum also stressed that “war will never lead to a good outcome,” urging a peaceful resolution to the conflict and calling on international institutions to take a more active role. “The United Nations should be much more proactive as an institution in the pursuit and construction of world peace,” she insisted.
Furthermore, the Mexican president recalled that the previous Mexican government, led by Andrés Manuel López Obrador, condemned the aggression of the Israeli government. “The previous government condemned the aggressions of the Israeli state against Palestine and what is currently happening in the world. There is concern about the risk of this conflict expanding to Lebanon and Syria, which could greatly complicate the situation in the Middle East.”
She also mentioned that Mexico joined Chile’s complaint at the International Court of Justice regarding Israel’s disproportionate response following the attacks of 7 October last year. “The international community is aware of the growing complexity of the Middle East conflict with its potential for expansion,” she noted. The leaders of both Chile and Mexico emphasised the latter’s commitment to international legal mechanisms in seeking justice and accountability.
Claudia Sheinbaum is the daughter of Jewish parents, but she rarely discusses her heritage. When she does, she tends to express a more distant connection to Judaism than many others in Mexico’s Jewish community, which has been present since the country’s early days and now numbers about 59,000 people in a population of 130 million.
“Of course I know where I come from, but my parents were always atheists,” Sheinbaum told the New York Times in a 2020 interview. “I never belonged to the Jewish community, and we grew up kind of removed from that.”
Sheinbaum’s Jewish heritage has made her the target of a smear campaign. False rumours have circulated that she is not a Mexican citizen and was “born in Bulgaria”.
Despite being part of the Latin American Jewish community, which is often associated with Israel, she supports left-wing governments in the region, such as those in Venezuela, Brazil, Nicaragua and Mexico, many of which have a strong anti-Israel stance.
Since the war broke out last year, Sheinbaum has condemned attacks on civilians, called for a ceasefire and expressed her support for a Palestinian state. Her consistent stance highlights her long-term commitment to advocating for peace and the recognition of Palestinian rights. Moreover, she has extended a helping hand to some 30,000 Palestinians living in Mexico.
“Many of my relatives from that generation were exterminated in concentration camps,” she wrote in a 2009 letter to La Jornada, in which she also condemned what she described as the “murder of Palestinian civilians” during an Israeli bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor or Informed Comment.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
]]>The Conversation<![CDATA[Sudan’s Brutal War has become many Wars, making Peace even harder to Reach]]>https://www.juancole.com/?p=2210002024-10-15T03:31:55Z2024-10-15T04:02:55ZBy Justin Willis, Durham University and Sharath Srinivasan, University of Cambridge | –
(The Conversation) – Sudan’s war runs grimly on. The two main protagonists (though there are others involved) are each claiming local victories. The Sudanese army appears to be slowly regaining control of the ruined capital, Khartoum, and has recovered some ground it lost elsewhere in Sudan. And the rival Rapid Support Forces (RSF) continues its brutal siege of the western city of El Fasher.
But, while the army seems to have the upper hand at present, neither they nor the RSF looks likely to win outright. Instead, the two sides keep up a mutual battering with ill-aimed barrages of artillery fire and bombs that destroy markets, wreck hospitals, and each day add to the grim toll of civilian death and misery.
Abdel-Fattah al Burhan, the general who seized power and derailed what was supposed to be a transition to civilian rule after the revolution of 2019, still insists he is the head of Sudan’s legitimate government, and that the army will win the war.
The RSF’s leader, Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, who is referred to as Hemedti, had initially been willing to play deputy to Burhan, but is now his bitter enemy. He makes a show of being willing to negotiate, but relentlessly pursues a military victory.
It is tempting to point the finger at actors outside Sudan for their part in the spiralling violence. There are multiple credible allegations that the governments of the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia and Russia have all helped arm or finance one side or other in pursuit of regional influence or economic gain. Libya’s eastern – but not internationally recognised – government has also been accused of complicity.
Some would say there are sins of omission as well as commission. The US, EU and others have all called for an end to this war. But they could be doing more to stop the flow of weapons and money that helps keep the fighting going, and to mobilise more concerted action to protect civilians.
The world stands accused of turning its back on Sudan, despite being its biggest hunger and displacement crisis. But external actors did not start the war, and they cannot simply end it.
Despite their common cause in a counter-revolutionary coup in 2021, the war started when Burhan and Hemedti fell out over who would have military and political primacy – and the associated economic benefits – in Sudan.
They’ve already decided the country isn’t big enough for the both of them, so it’s nigh-on impossible to negotiate the usual kind of deal that shares power between foes.
Burhan is intensely sensitive about the fragile sovereignty of his government, and views external mediation as foreign meddling. He has always insisted that the army can win an outright victory, and now he is encouraged by recent gains. Yet he is a long way from regaining control of the whole country.
Hemedti, who craves the status that would come from negotiations, makes grandiloquent offers of ceasefires, coupled with promises to respect human rights – all while the RSF continues to murder, rape and loot. Hubris and hypocrisy make poor bases for negotiation.
A precarious balancing act
This is also not a war simply being waged between two individuals. Neither the army nor the RSF are coherent or well disciplined – the RSF, in particular, is a messy constellation of armed men, mostly from western Sudan (and, allegedly, further afield). They share a distinctive style of camouflage dress and a sense of long-term exclusion, but are not under close or effective control.
The army has more formal structures – too many, perhaps – but these are also fragmented. Strong on generals and air firepower but weak on fighting forces, the army is adapting the government’s old playbook of mobilising local militias.
The war has become several wars, drawing in other armed groups whose alliances with either the army or the RSF are contingent or opportunistic.
Since independence in 1956, Sudan has mostly been a militarised state, where power was won by force. Those who ruled it feared their fellow soldiers and so created alternative forces, hoping these would back them against potential coups. Some of these groups had distinct social bases in particular regions or ethnic groups.
This fragmentation had been happening since the 1970s, but it became endemic during the long reign of Sudan’s former president, Omar al-Bashir. Bashir stayed in power for 30 years by dividing possible rivals within the ruling elite, and used the multiplying, competing arms of the “security forces” to fight rebels on the margins.
What seemed like a powerful, authoritarian system was, in fact, a brutal but precarious balancing act. After Bashir fell in 2019, the transitional government floundered. The soldiers seized power, then the complex rivalries and institutional fragmentation proved unsustainable. The core institutions that held Sudan together have shattered.
So who, if anyone, can put Sudan back together again? Burhan and Hemedti are in no mood, and may anyway lack the control of their followers needed for any deal to stick.
Civilian politicians were discredited by the bickering of the transition, and the most prominent of them seem confused between claiming to be a government-in-exile or trying to build a bigger anti-war coalition.
At present, Sudan faces either the long-term absence of central authority or, more dramatically, an effective division into two or more states, whether or not these are internationally recognised. Some might say we should not mourn this – Sudan was a colonial creation, made by violence and predation. But this is an outcome that may only increase misery and misrule.
However, there is still resistance amid the ruination. Sudan’s post-Bashir transition to democracy, as envisaged by the UN and others, is long dead. But in some vital ways, the popular revolution that toppled Bashir lives on.
Grassroots emergency response rooms organise whatever lifesaving support for desperate communities that they can. And women and youth – the revolution’s vanguard – continue to organise, agitate and debate Sudan’s future among themselves, as well as demand a role in making it. They deserve our solidarity.
Many, both Sudanese and non-Sudanese, refuse to let go of the idea of a better Sudan that has never yet been realised, but just might rise up from these ashes.
]]>Juan Colehttp://juancole.com<![CDATA[Israelis Burn up Refugee Tents in Central Gaza, as they Plan Ethnic Cleansing of North]]>https://www.juancole.com/?p=2209882024-10-14T16:48:30Z2024-10-14T04:15:00ZAnn Arbor (Informed Comment) – One reason why Palestinians in northern Gaza are resisting attempts of the Israelis to expel hundreds of thousands of them from what is left of their residences is that the center and the south of the country are still being indiscriminately bombarded by the Israeli military. Early on Monday morning (today), the Israeli army shelled the courtyard of al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, in the center of the Gaza Strip, setting fire to refugee tents there. Initial reports said that 3 people were killed and 40 injured, though observers expect the casualty toll to climb. Some images from the scene released on social media showed patients in the courtyard hooked up to IV drips being engulfed by flames.
Israeli attacks on hospitals are common. The UN High Commission on Human Rights has accused Israeli authorities of deliberately destroying the medical infrastructure of Gaza.
Meawhile, Israeli shelling of a school at the Nuseirat Camp in central Gaza killed 15 children and a woman and injured 80 others. Israel has bombarded 191 displacement centers in Gaza during the past year, presumably because their automated attack programs, Lavender and Go Daddy, discovered known members of al-Qassam Brigades there, and hit them without regard for the civilians around them.
The Israelis also bombed the Mufti School in Nuseirat Camp, where thousands of displaced children and women had sought shelter.
Haaretz reports that senior Israeli military officers are saying privately that the negotiations for the release of the remaining 101 Israeli hostages in Gaza are being abandoned and that Israel will seek to seize substantial portions of the Gaza Strip. The annexation of territory by military force is forbidden by the United Nations Charter, to which Israel is a signatory.
The officers, reports Yaniv Kubovich, said that the recent offensive in North Gaza was launched without consultations. That statement is likely a code for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and hardliners on his cabinet ordering the army in abruptly and without military rationale. The officers seemed confused about why the Israeli government is expelling the 400,000 Palestinians of Gaza from the north. Israel had announced months ago that Hamas was cleared from North Gaza.
Kubovich wonders if the current North Gaza campaign is intended to implement the “surrender or starve strategy” that had been proposed by retired General Giora Eiland, which envisaged that all inhabitants of northern Gaza would be expelled to the south. Anyone who declined to leave would be deemed Hamas and could be legitimately targeted and cut entirely off from food and other humanitarian aid. Only the Palestinians who allowed themselves to be pushed out of their homes and who risked random Israeli bombardment could hope to get so much as an occasional meal in the south of the Strip.
The new campaign against the civilian population of northern Gaza involved ordering the 162nd Division to relocate from southern Gaza to the north. There, it was positioned to launch a wider-ranging attack on the Jabalia refugee camp. Kubovich reports that military circles do not see a military justification for this campaign.
Ground and air operations against Jabalia have been ongoing for the past week, as Israeli officers demanded everyone leave, which one volunteer French nurse on the ground called “a direct death sentence” on the 400,000 civilians. On Saturday, an Israeli bombardment killed 22 and wounded more than 90 persons, including women and children, according to Al Jazeerah
Expulsion of an occupied population is a crime against humanity according to International Humanitarian Law, including the Rome Statute that underlies the International Criminal Court. The ICC prosecutor has asked for warrants for Prime Minister Netanyahu and the International Court of Justice is considering a case brought by South Africa against Israel charging it with the commission of genocide in Gaza.
]]>Shahram Akbarzadeh<![CDATA[Iran’s Leaders have everything to lose in a direct War with Israel; Why take such a Massive Risk?]]>https://www.juancole.com/?p=2209832024-10-14T02:05:09Z2024-10-14T04:06:58ZShahram Akbarzadeh, Deakin University | –
(The Conversation) – With Iran’s firing of some 180 ballistic missiles at Israel overnight, the Middle East is again on the brink of what would be a costly, ruinous regional war. Israel and its ally, the United States, shot down most of the missiles.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately vowed to retaliate for the attack. He called it a “big mistake” that Iran will “pay for”.
The strike marked a dramatic shift in Iran’s calculations following weeks of escalating Israeli attacks on the leaders of its proxy groups, Hamas and Hezbollah, and their forces in both Gaza and Lebanon.
Iran has traditionally outsourced its fighting to Hezbollah and Hamas. It has been very much concerned about getting dragged into direct confrontation with Israel because of the ramifications for the ruling regime – namely the possible internal dissent and chaos that any war with Israel might generate.
When Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Tehran in late July, Iran’s leaders said they would respond appropriately. They basically left it to Hezbollah to do that.
And as Israel intensified its military campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon in recent weeks, another Iranian proxy group, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, claimed to have retaliated by launching missiles and drones at Israeli cities and US destroyers in the Red Sea. Israel responded with airstrikes on Yemen.
In this context, from the Iranian point of view, it looked like Iran was just sitting on the fence and not performing its leadership role in challenging Israel. So, to a large extent, Iran had to exert its role as the leader of the so-called “axis of resistance” and get into the fight.
Fighting Israel is very much a pillar of state identity in Iran. The Iranian political establishment is set up on the principle of challenging the United States and freeing Palestinian lands occupied by Israel. Those things are ingrained in the Iranian state identity. So, if Iran doesn’t act on this principle, there’s a serious risk of undermining its own identity.
A delicate balancing act
Yet there are clearly serious risks to this type of direct attack by Iran.
Domestically, the Iranian political regime is suffering from a serious crisis of legitimacy. There have been numerous popular uprisings in Iran in recent years. These include the massive “Women, Life, Freedom” movement that erupted following the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody for allegedly not properly wearing her hijab.
There is also a major dissenting view in Iran that challenges the regime’s anti-US and anti-Israel state identity and its commitment to perpetual conflict with both countries.
So, the authorities in Iran have been concerned that direct confrontation with Israel and the US would unleash these internal dissenting voices and seriously threaten the regime’s survival. It’s this existential threat that has stopped Iran from acting on its principles.
In addition, Iran has a new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, who belongs to the reformist camp and has an agenda of improving Iran’s relations with the West. He has been talking about reviving the Iran nuclear deal with the international community, sending signals that Iran is prepared to talk with the Americans.
But the problem is the regional dynamics have completely changed since that deal was negotiated with the Obama administration in 2015. Iran has been a pariah state in recent years – and even more so since the conflict between Israel and Hamas began a year ago.
Since then, no Western country would deem it appropriate or politically expedient to engage in nuclear talks with Iran, with the aim of alleviating international sanctions on the regime. Not at a time when Iran is openly calling for the destruction of Israel, supporting Hezbollah and Hamas in their attacks on Israel, and now engaging in confrontations with Israel itself.
So the timing is awful for Pezeshkian’s agenda of repairing the damage to Iran’s global standing.
Ultimately, though, it’s not the president who calls the shots in Iran – it is Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Supreme National Security Council who consider matters of war and peace and decide on the course of action. The supreme leader is also the head of state and appoints the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The IRGC generals have been advocating for more serious and resolute action against Israel ever since the war in Gaza started. And it looks like the supreme leader has finally listened to this advice.
So, the regime has been maintaining a delicate balance of these factors:
preserving Iran’s state identity and what it stands for in the region, and the need to manage internal dissent and ensure its survival.
In normal circumstances, it was easy for Iran to maintain this balance. It could manage its internal opponents through brutal force or appeasement and advocate an aggressive foreign policy in the region.
Now, the scales have tipped. From the Iranian perspective, Israel has been so brazen in its actions against its proxies, it just didn’t look right for Iran to continue sitting on the fence, not taking action.
As such, it has become more important for Iran to emphasise its anti-American, anti-Israel state identity and perhaps deal with an acceptable level of risk coming from a rise in internal dissent.
Where things go from here
With its attack on Israel, Iran is also prepared for another risk – direct retaliation from Israel and all-out war breaking out.
The conflict in the region is really going according to Netanyahu’s playbook. He has been advocating for hitting Iran and for the United States to target Iran. Now, Israel has the justification to retaliate against Iran and also drag the United States into the conflict.
Unfortunately, Iran is also now prepared to see the entire Persian Gulf get embroiled in the conflict because any retaliation by Israel and perhaps the United States would make US assets in the Persian Gulf, such as navy ships and commercial vessels, vulnerable to attacks by Iran or its allies. And that could have major implications for trade and security in the region.
This is the way things are heading. Iran would know that hitting Israel would invite Israeli retaliation and that this retaliation would likely happen with US backing. It seems Iran is prepared to bear the costs of this.
Shahram Akbarzadeh, Convenor, Middle East Studies Forum (MESF), and Deputy Director (International), Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University
]]>Middle East Monitor<![CDATA[War Effect: Fear of Brain Drain as Twice as many Israelis Emigrate in 2024, Transfer $7 bn Abroad]]>https://www.juancole.com/?p=2209652024-10-13T03:12:52Z2024-10-14T04:02:37Z( Middle East Monitor ) – Israeli data revealed a sharp increase in emigration from Israel abroad since the beginning of the year, reaching a level three times more than the emigration rates prior to the war.
Israel’s Maariv newspaper reported that the first seven months of the year witnessed the emigration of 40,000 Israelis, equivalent to three times the emigration rates before the war, as 2,000 more people immigrate monthly than the rates from previous years.
Moreover, nearly one million Israelis have obtained foreign passports in recent years as an insurance policy in the event of a comprehensive war.
Regarding financial transfers abroad, the newspaper reported that Israelis transferred $7 billion abroad in deposits during the first seven months.
The newspaper also described this as a “brain drain”, as the immigrants included doctors, scientists, pharmacists and high-tech experts after being presented with attractive offers to work for foreign companies.
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]]>Juan Colehttp://juancole.com<![CDATA[Juan Cole: Israel’s Invasions of Lebanon Produce Radicalization, Help Iran and End Badly (ScheerPost)]]>https://www.juancole.com/?p=2209782024-10-13T04:25:30Z2024-10-13T04:15:00ZBob Scheer’s long interview with me, “Where is the Middle East Heading?” is available at ScheerPost. I’m providing an excerpt below, but be sure to head on over to his site for the entire interview and audio link, as well as the full transcript. I’m embedding the full YouTube video believe.
Excerpt from the Interview
Robert Scheer
So this is important for people to consider, because the Israel that I have in my memory is one that was easy for American liberal people and Jews and non-Jews to embrace, people on the progressive side of things, including what were then moderate Republicans and others, as basically a place of tolerance and where the notion of the Jewish people as a tolerant people came out of oppression came out of suffering antisemitism. And therefore the great, most of the great Jewish writers and cultural figures were advocates of tolerance, whether it was Hannah Arendt or Albert Einstein or many, many others, Leonard Bernstein, what have you. And something changed here, and it affects American politics, because right now, the Israel that you described is one that it’s easy for Trump to embrace, but a little more awkward for Democratic politicians to embrace, ever more so by the increase of violence connected with nationalism for Israel. And you saw that even when Netanyahu came to Congress, the people who sort of were not there, were mostly Democrats and the Republicans were quite happy with Netanyahu. Is this going forward, particularly as the violence and the charge of genocide, can be now more supportable as a description, where does this leave American politics?
Juan Cole
Yeah, well, it’s very clear that most members of the Democratic Party — and including American Jews in very large numbers — are disgusted with with Netanyahu policies, and the support for Israel has fallen dramatically among them, especially young people — and, again, including young American Jews. So yes, Israel had benefited from being a bipartisan commitment. Both Democrats and Republicans were committed to it. That’s changing now. It’s becoming a partisan football, and there are Democrats who are beginning to be highly critical of Israel — and the Progressive Caucus of about 60 members of Congress on the Democratic side, I think they all believe that Israel is committing a genocide, and are concerned about the degree to which the United States government is supporting these actions.
So, yes, I think it’s not a good development for the Israelis, and it’s not a good development for anybody, including Jewish Americans, some of whom, you know, are unfairly now being tagged as genocidaires, as supporting all of this, even though it’s not clear at all that most American Jews are on board with what Netanyahu is doing. The American Jewish establishment back in the ’90s wouldn’t meet with Likudniks. They wouldn’t meet with people from Netanyahu’s party. Ariel Sharon couldn’t get a hearing before he was Prime Minister back in the ’90s.
The organized Israel lobby of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, AIPAC, has shifted to the far right, along with Netanyahu, and some of the very wealthy members of the community are all on board — the Adelson’s with their casino money and so forth. But I would say that the average Jewish American in the street is not at all happy with this situation. You know, obviously the October 7 attacks were horrific, and I think everybody in America felt supportive of Israel at that moment. But the things that have happened in the aftermath have been unacceptable to most Americans, and I think most Jewish Americans, so that I think Kamala Harris’s diction about it — that “Israel has the right to defend itself, but it matters how” — is a very widespread sentiment.
And there are people who are much more vehement than that, of course. So yes, you’ve put your finger on an important issue. It’s also the case that Netanyahu is obviously attempting to draw the United States into another war in the Middle East with Iran this time. And were he to succeed, and were it to go badly — and I think inevitably, it would go badly — there’s danger of that feeding into antisemitism as well as “the Jews dragged us into this thing,” and so forth. So it’s an extremely explosive moment.
Robert Scheer
And you just made so much sense about it. And I thought about today, because thinking about Kamala Harris, first of all, she did give a significant speech in Selma, where she preceded her speech by talking about the situation in Gaza and West Bank in very human terms about the suffering and it had to be dealt with, and she clearly has a sensibility in that direction. On the other hand, she’s moved more hawkish and so forth and during the course of this campaign. But today, and I didn’t fully absorb the statement, but I gathered from what I read so far, she sort of singled out Iran as our biggest enemy. And for people who don’t understand anything of the history of Iran, if that’s our biggest enemy, it’s an enemy that US foreign policy created. Just going back to the overthrow of the last secular leader of Iran, which is now 75 years ago, or something Mohammed Mosaddegh and how we installed the Shah and created all these conditions and so forth. How should we think about Iran right now? And they’ve gone through some changes. They have sort of a more moderate elected leader now, but bring us up to date. And how is Israel going to fare? You say it won’t end well, but they think they’re going to have a swift victory and just get rid of the Islamic State, right?
Juan Cole
Well, they, you know, a lot of people told us we’d have a quick victory over Iraq, and we would the Middle East would turn glorious if only we got rid of Saddam Hussein. The United States has the most high tech and most capable military in the world, and certainly could defeat a conventional Iranian force. But Iran is three times geographically larger than Iraq, and two and a half times more populous than Iraq. And so if things didn’t go well for the United States in its eight and a half year occupation of Iraq, imagine how badly things would go in Iran. That’s a much bigger, more populous country, which is, frankly, also more technologically advanced than Iraq was, so the guerrilla resistance would be fierce and effective. Iran has, by now, a long history of opposing Western imperialism, and it’s been put in a very difficult position by Netanyahu’s aggressive actions. Iran supports the Palestinians and their demand for citizenship in a state. It seems to favor a one-state solution in which there are just Palestinians and Israelis would jointly elect a government. That’s the kind of thing that they say, which the Israelis view as a call for the liquidation of Israel, because it’s an ethno-nationalist state. If it’s not a Jewish state, then it’s not Israel. But the Iranians are not saying that the Jews should be killed or that anything should be liquidated. Some of them are antisemites, and do speak horribly about about the Jews of Israel, but the main figures of the government have had this one state solution sort of rhetoric. But they support the Palestinians. They have supported the Hezbollah, the Shiite party militia of southern Lebanon. And yes, I think that you have to see Iran and and Hezbollah as reactive to Israeli expansionism. The Israelis occupied 10% of Lebanese soil, southern Lebanon, for 18 years. And the Lebanese, wanted them right back out of their country. They didn’t want to be occupied. And the Shiites of southern Lebanon, who nobody ever heard of them in the wider world, before Israel occupied that area, threw up these resistance movements like Hezbollah. It was Israel that radicalized the Shiites of southern Lebanon.
Robert Scheer
This is an important point, if I could just stop you. Could you tell us a little bit about that history is this where Hezbollah comes from?
Juan Cole
Yeah, Hezbollah was formed in 1984 two years after the Israelis invaded southern Lebanon. The Lebanon is a multicultural country. It has Christians. It has Sunni Muslims. That has Shiite Muslims. It has Druze, which are an offshoot, ultimately, of the Shiites. It has Eastern Orthodox Christians. It used to have Jews and its constituent parts are very finely balanced in the national elections and institutions. But the Israelis in 1947 and ’48 expelled large numbers of Palestinians north to Lebanon and the Lebanese couldn’t accept them as immigrants. They couldn’t give them citizenship because they were mostly Sunni Muslims. And it would have given extra numbers to the Sunnis, it would have unbalanced the whole system. So the Palestinians in Lebanon have lived without citizenship, without property rights, without the right to work in refugee camps in squalid conditions ever since 1948, and I’ve spoken to some of them in camps, they all want to go back to their homes in what is now Israel, and they formed the Palestine Liberation Organization. They joined it in some numbers, and started striking at Israel in the ’70s, and the Israelis hit back at Lebanon. They didn’t just hit back at the Palestinians in Lebanon, but they hit back at Lebanon proper. And the Christians in Lebanon really minded that the Palestinians were using Lebanon as a base to hit Israel. And a civil war broke out in ’75 between the right-wing Christians and the Palestinians and their allies. And that war went on until 1989. And in the midst of the war, in 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon with the hope of destroying the PLO, destroying the Palestine Liberation Organization and propping up the right-wing Christians and reshaping Lebanese politics, the candidates…
Robert Scheer
The right-wing Christians, as I recall, created a massacre of Palestinians.
Juan Cole
At Sabra and Shatila, the Israelis gave the task of guarding this Palestinian camp to the right-wing Christians, and the right wing Christians committed a massacre there. The Israelis have recently been bombing in that area, and people are fleeing Sabra and Shatila as we speak, bad memories are coming back up.
So, Hezbollah formed because of the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, because of this invasion, and the Israelis just stayed. They stayed, and Hezbollah formed and began hitting them with guerrilla tactics. They would snipe at them. They would set off bombs. They would engage in suicide bombing, which they picked up from the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, and they succeeded in 2000 in forcing the Israelis back out. And the right wing in Israel has always minded that, that Ehud Barak, the then Prime Minister, gave up this territory in Lebanon and let Hezbollah push them out. That’s one of the reasons they’re determined now to destroy Hezbollah, to throw Lebanon, from their point of view, they have hopes of throwing it back into civil war, maybe enlisting some of the Lebanese to help destroy Hezbollah, and then putting in a government that they like. It’s 1982 all over again. 1982 was an enormous failure, and it produced more radicalization and more headaches in the long term for Israel. And it caused the Shiites in southern Lebanon to ally with Iran, which wasn’t, you know, many of them were not with Khomeini initially. So this will just be more trouble. This kind of “big think” of Netanyahu that he can just reshape the countries around him, militarily. It’s all going to end very badly.
]]>Foreign Policy in Focus<![CDATA[How Netanyahu’s Ambitions in Lebanon undermine Biden’s Middle East Strategy]]>https://www.juancole.com/?p=2209732024-10-13T03:36:19Z2024-10-13T04:06:06Z
Israel’s invasion of Lebanon is disrupting the Biden attempt to prevent a regional war.
( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – The Biden administration’s approach to the Middle East crisis that erupted in the wake of October 7, 2023 is on the brink of collapse. Israel’s aggressive maneuvers, coupled with Iran’s growing involvement, are pushing the region toward a full-scale war, one that the Biden administration ostensibly hoped to avoid.
Initially, the administration calculated that U.S. interests could survive the Gaza conflict on its own, but the risk of being drawn into a broader war with untold consequences has loomed larger. Biden’s calculated ploy to restrain Israel, especially regarding Lebanon, by offering support for its Gaza actions, now seems like a failed effort to prevent an even larger conflict. Washington’s attempts to rein in Israel, including diplomatic missions to Egypt and Qatar, have failed to shift Israeli policy. Despite repeatedly sending key figures like the CIA director and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to broker peace, the United States has been left looking complicit, supplying weapons even as Israel continues its incursions. Biden, for all his efforts to distance America from the widening chaos, can no longer escape the charge that his administration bears responsibility for enabling Israel’s unchecked escalation.
Washington is now viewed as an accomplice in the region’s unfolding chaos. Biden’s reluctance to push for a ceasefire in Gaza became more untenable by the day. By June, the so-called Biden-backed peace plan emerged, supported by Hamas and begrudgingly accepted by Israel, only for Netanyahu to shift the goalposts, ignoring U.S. requests to steer clear of Egypt’s Rafah border. Instead, Israel occupied the Philadelphi corridor, violating the Camp David Accords. The U.S. response? More military aid to Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, seems to have secured Washington’s tacit approval to target Hezbollah in Lebanon, escalating a conflict that is spiraling out of control. The results have been devastating. Booby-trapped devices detonated in everyday locations such as homes and hospitals, killing civilians, including children and medical staff. The assault displaced thousands from their homes along the Lebanon border, yet Israel’s appetite for aggression appears far from sated.
While nominally approving only a “limited” strike on Lebanon, the United States has repeated a troubling historical pattern. In 1982, Ariel Sharon promised limited Israeli operations in southern Lebanon, only for Israeli forces to advance to Beirut, laying siege to the city. Israel remained an occupying force until it was driven out in 1989 by Hezbollah.
Despite months of diplomatic wrangling, President Biden has been unable to compel Netanyahu to honor the comprehensive ceasefire agreement it accepted back in June. That plan, a phased approach to ending the Gaza conflict, remains in limbo as the war grinds on. Biden’s inability to assert control over the situation only deepens the crisis, casting doubt on U.S. influence in the region.
Ironically, the greatest threat to U.S. strategy in the Middle East hasn’t come from Iran, but from its closest ally, Israel. In the chaotic days following the October 7 attacks, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant pushed for a large-scale offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon. President Biden intervened, urging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to shelve those plans and concentrate on Hamas. This scenario played out repeatedly, with Biden’s administration trying to restrain Israel from escalating the conflict beyond Gaza. But for Israel, Gaza was not the strategic prize it desired. Finding himself in a tricky position, Netanyahu now needs a decisive “win” to rebuild the credibility of the country’s national security apparatus, shattered by the failures of October 7. Facing potential investigations over those failures, he is desperately looking for a way to salvage his political standing.
The United States has found itself caught in the middle, struggling to manage an ally determined to shift the focus of the conflict. Netanyahu’s push for a military victory beyond Gaza threatens to drag Washington into a broader regional war, complicating Biden’s Middle East strategy and challenging America’s long-term interests in the region. Israel claims that Hezbollah is making life unbearable for its citizens, forcing many to abandon their homes for hotels. Even the late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, despite his anger over Israeli attacks, had one consistent message: a ceasefire in Lebanon could only happen if there was a deal on Gaza. It’s a sentiment that even many Israelis agree with, with some finding Hezbollah’s former leader more reliable than their own prime minister.
But there’s a catch: Netanyahu is determined to separate any resolution in Lebanon from Gaza. On the surface, this latest military escalation seems focused on securing Israel’s northern border. But beneath it lies something far more calculated: Netanyahu’s long-standing ambition for a broader conflict.
This isn’t the first time he’s maneuvered global powers toward war. He convinced the Bush administration to topple Saddam Hussein on flimsy grounds and later persuaded Donald Trump to tear up the Iran nuclear deal. Now, Netanyahu wants a war with Iran, knowing that the United States would be obligated to defend Israel.
When Israel assassinated an Iranian official with whom they’d been negotiating, it crossed a dangerous line. Though Iran didn’t respond directly, Hezbollah did. Netanyahu’s gamble is clear: provoke enough conflict, and Washington will have no choice but to step in. It’s a risky game, one with global consequences. Israel appears unlikely to show restraint in the current conflict, and the Biden administration is caught in a difficult bind. Yet President Biden seems hesitant to use the leverage the United States holds to keep Israel from escalating further. His administration now hopes that Hezbollah and Iran might seek an understanding to de-escalate the tensions along Israel’s northern border. But with the Israeli government unlikely to compromise, that hope feels increasingly fragile.
Imran Khalid is a geostrategic analyst and columnist on international affairs. His work has been widely published by prestigious international news organizations and publications.
]]>Middle East Monitor<![CDATA[UN: Gaza home to largest Number of amputee Children in modern History]]>https://www.juancole.com/?p=2209712024-10-13T03:12:18Z2024-10-13T04:02:24Z( Middle East Monitor ) – In a statement to the UN General Assembly, Lisa Doughten from OCHA warned of the dire humanitarian situation in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, saying the besieged Strip ‘is home to the largest cohort of child amputees in modern history’. ‘Each day 10 children are losing 1 or both of their legs,’ she said, adding that women are 3 times more likely to suffer miscarriages as a result of Israel’s bombing campaign.
Gaza is home to the largest number of amputee children in modern history, a senior UN official told the Security Council on Wednesday.
Director of the Financing and Partnerships Division of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Lisa Doughten, said women and children are hard-hit by the trauma of the war and each day ten children are losing one or both of their legs.
“Gaza is home to the largest cohort of child amputees in modern history,” she said, also noting that women there are three times more likely to miscarry or die from childbirth. “We cannot claim ignorance to what is happening — nor can we afford to look away,” she emphasised, repeating calls for the Council and Member States to act, adding: “These atrocities must end.”
She warned that the systematic and permanent targeting of the health sector has deprived more than two million people in the Gaza Strip of receiving basic health services, where more than 50,000 pregnant women are deprived of maternity care.
Doughten’s full remarks were,
“Humanitarian partners report that women and children are hard hit by the trauma of this war each day. According to UNRWA, 10 children are losing one or both of their legs. Gaza is home to the largest cohort of child amputees in modern history. Women are three times more likely to miscarry and three times more likely to die from childbirth.
And yet, humanitarians are not giving up.
Madam President, we also remain deeply concerned about the worsening situation in the West Bank. Over the past year, Israeli military operations along with rampant settler violence and house demolitions have led to a sharp rise in fatalities, widespread destruction, and forced displacement.
Just last week, on October 4, 18 Palestinians, including women and children, were killed in an airstrike on a residential building in the Tarm refugee camp. This was the single deadliest incident carried out by Israeli forces in the West Bank since OCHA began systematically documenting casualties in 2005.”
This work
