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Reiterating their support for Israel in the face of the Hamas offensive, the thirty members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) urged Israel to “defend itself proportionately against these unjustifiable acts of terrorism.” Together with its mandatory partner, the United States, it will have to face the consequences of its complicity with what its ally will now be able to do.
The commitment is firm, but the consequences of this endorsement on US strategy in the Middle East could be disastrous for Washington in the Middle East and crack the united front against Iran that
looks to its Arab allies, especially Saudi Arabia. The Gaza Strip can become the Armageddon that Biden spoke of so many times in relation to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Israeli and American intelligence were left in a bad position, just as much as the latter did in 2001 by having no idea about the 9/11 attacks. Israel is not only considered a military power, but also a technological one, but neither of the two helped it to foresee, know and prevent what happened, despite the fact that its Unit 8200 within the Israel Defense Forces has invested billions of dollars in Artificial Intelligence (AI), with which to spy on any communication in Gaza.
The first victim of war is always the truth (Aeschylus had already said it 2,500 years before our era). The media from all over the Western and Christian world spread – in the parallel campaign of media terrorism – the fake (lie) that a newspaper related to the far-right Israeli government had launched: “40 Israeli babies beheaded” in the attack committed by Hamas in Kfar Aza.
Suspecting that it could be another Israeli propaganda maneuver, the journalist who signed the “exclusive” on the 40 beheaded babies explains that her source was an Israeli soldier who says he believes it happened, but is not sure. A diversionary maneuver that aims to turn Palestinians into the animals and beasts described by the Israeli Defense Minister. And the ineffable Biden promotes the fake: I never thought I would see and confirm images of terrorists beheading children.”
Several NATO partners indicated that they are already providing practical support to Israel. The war unleashed between Israel and Hamas, if it continues, beyond the risk of triggering a regional conflagration with devastating consequences, could also have disastrous consequences in Europe, such as those unleashed by the war in Ukraine: increase in oil and gas prices , immigrant crisis, new wave of racism.
Although the ties between Biden and Netanyahu have been known for decades, the far-right radicalism – Jewish, political and religious fundamentalism – of the Israeli government makes things very difficult for US diplomacy, especially with pressure from the street blaming to the Israeli prime minister about what happened with Hamas. Today it is easier to support the war option than mediation.
To stop defection among Arab countries that have good relations with Washington, in the event of a large-scale Israeli attack on Gaza, Blinken announced in Tel Aviv that he will meet with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates Joined. For analysts, the US message is clear and is directed at Hezbollah and Iran itself. «We are telling the Iranians clearly. “Be careful,” said Biden, referring to his aspiration to globalize the war.
The hawks in Washington and NATO dream of globalizing the war, taking it to the entire world. The one in Ukraine would be remembered – if anyone was left alive in a conflagration that threatens to be the last for humanity – as a mere ex-Soviet conflict.
Meanwhile, the EU did not clarify the alleged blocking of the economic aid that the EU had planned for Palestine, some 691 million euros in total, with the excuse of creating “responsible institutions for a future Palestinian state and support for the birth of a self-sufficient economy.”
Ahead of next year’s US presidential election, where Republicans accuse him of being soft on Iran, Hamas’s alleged backer, President Joe Biden said he is willing to deploy additional military forces to the Middle East. It would not be unreasonable to think that some European country, wearing the NATO uniform, would join this attempt at generalized war.
Does war have rules?
Israeli troops used white phosphorus in attacks against Gaza and Lebanon, Human Rights Watch (HRW) denounced, warning of the risks of “serious and long-lasting injuries.” The human rights organization verified a series of videos taken on October 10 and 11 and that “show multiple bursts of white phosphorus artillery fire on the port of Gaza and two rural towns along the border between Israel and Lebanon.
Many talk about the rules of war. The head of the Pentagon, Lloyd Austin, stressed that his country did not impose any conditions on Israel for the use of its military aid, and when asked by the press he responded: I am not going to define proportionality. I mean, anything goes.
For the Palestinians, no medicine, no water, no electricity, no fuel. Hunger and despair as a political weapon. “We are fighting animals and we act accordingly,” said Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
These rules of war had no impact for years on Israel’s war policies against the Palestinian population, especially in Gaza, and have been repeatedly denounced as war crimes by Amnesty International and other human rights organizations.
Israel and its Western allies have been justifying this war strategy with the argument that it faces a terrorist threat where the rules of war are not easily applicable. Israel’s response to what it calls war crimes committed by Hamas has been a total siege of Gaza, which is technically a war crime because it is a collective punishment of a civilian population.
The Gaza Strip, subjected to attacks and a total blockade since 2007, is controlled by the Hamas militias, the group that carried out a massive armed attack on Israeli territory on October 7. These events triggered the current Israeli siege of Gaza, under bombs since that day and with 300,000 soldiers and hundreds of tanks ready to enter that Palestinian territory, without any regard for its 2.2 million inhabitants.
The Israeli Prime Minister, the far-right Benjamin Netanyahu, said that “every member of Hamas is a dead man.” This means that there will be no prisoners and no one will ask for clemency. T he ultraconservative Israeli forces demand that the Army raze the Palestinian territories and then repopulate them with their own settlers, with whom Biden and his envoys in Tel Aviv have to deal.
The US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, traveled to Tel Aviv to reiterate the formula that the United States supports Israel, but avoided acknowledging that his government, like all previous ones since 1948, is complicit in the Israeli war strategy, partly financing the military occupation of Gaza, facilitating the expansion of colonies in the West Bank and allowing the development of nuclear weapons by its ally.
Successive U.S. governments have given more than $158 billion to Israel since 1948, with two-thirds of that amount in military assistance, according to the Congressional Research Service report. No other country in the world world received an amount not even close. Successive governments in Washington looked the other way while the Israelis developed their nuclear weapons.
Since the middle of the last century, the United States has supported with all its forces (political, warlike, communications) to obstruct any possibility of peace in the Middle East, which always involved the creation of two separate states, Israel and Palestine. And the icing on the cake was Donald Trump’s recognition of the annexation of eastern Jerusalem in the West Bank.
British journalist Helena Cobban, a veteran observer of the Middle East region, points out in her blog Globalities that this is current policy, since Joe Biden has never reversed that, nor has Trump’s recognition of Israel’s annexation of the Syrian Golan .
Kissinger after meeting with Nixon, after discussing the Yom Kippur War in 1973
It was the United States that facilitated this process of expansion of Israeli colonies. In 2010, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz led a report like this: American taxpayers are paying for Israel’s occupation of the West Bank.
Washington granted a tax break to several organizations in the United States building Israeli settlements that, in effect, take their subsidies from taxpayers to use to build new settlements.
China asserted that the crux of the conflict is that justice has been denied to the Palestinian people, French President Emmanuel Macron defended the two-state solution, an indispensable guarantee for achieving peace in the Middle East and made it clear that the fight against Terrorism cannot replace this purpose.
Iranian President Ebrahi Raisi called on Muslim-populated countries to stop the crimes of the Zionist regime against the oppressed Palestinian nation during a call to his Syrian counterpart, Bashar al Assad. Raisi stated that Iran will coordinate with Islamic countries as soon as possible to stop the genocide of the Palestinians by the Zionists.
Today the world is witnessing an Israeli government that is more violent and radical than ever, with the implementation of a genocidal plan of annihilation of the enemy and total control of the territory, which is internationally illegal, declared a war crime by International Law, and that suffocates the Palestinian population.
And, you see how the West continues to look the other way and lacks the capacity to contribute to the construction of a peaceful solution, which may be as profitable for its arms companies, contracting armies, as the genocide of the Palestinians and the reconstruction of its territory annexed to Israel, and the business of war, total, final?, which it seems that Washington and NATO have been preparing.
By Isabella Arria and Aram Aharonian
*Arria is a Chilean journalist living in Europe, an analyst associated with CLAE. Aharonian is a Uruguayan journalist and communications specialist, master in Integration, creator and founder of Telesur, and directs the Latin American Center for Strategic Analysis (CLAE).
