Middle East Press On Iran, Israel, Guterres Syria: New Age Islam's Selection, 18 October 2024
By New Age Islam Edit Desk
18 October 2024
Nuclear Fever: Warmongering On Iran
The Psychological Manipulation Behind The Generals’ Plan
Israel Is Playing Even More Dirty To Force People Out Of Jabalia
Pact For The Future: A Promising Vision Or Another Empty Promise?
Resign, Mr. Guterres!
Syria At Risk Of Being Dragged Into Regional War
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Nuclear Fever: Warmongering On Iran
By Dr Binoy Kampmark
October 17, 2024
The recent string of exaggerated military successes – or, at least, as they are understood to be – places Israel in a situation it has been previously used to: prowess in war. Such prowess promises much: redrawing boundaries; overthrowing governments; destroying the capabilities of adversaries and enemies. Nothing in this equation contemplates peace, let alone diplomatic resolution. It is playground pugilism that rarely gets out of the sandpit.
In Washington, a fever has struck regarding Israel’s advances. The outbreak has stirred much enthusiasm in a doctrine that has been shown, time and again, to be wretchedly uncertain and grossly dangerous. With no concrete evidence of imminent harm to US interests, it featured in the highest policy planning circles that oiled an invasion of Iraq in 2003. While the stated objective was the disarming of Saddam Hussein’s regime for having Weapons of Mass Destruction it turned out not to have, the logic was one of pre-emptive strike: we attack the madman in Baghdad before he goes nuclear and loses it.
The establishment wonk on empire and espionage at The Washington Post, David Ignatius, offers a fairly meaningless assessment in terms of claimed Israeli dominance over Iran and its proxies. After a year of conflict, Israel had “gained what military strategists call ‘escalation dominance’”. The implication: a decisive attack on Iran is imminent.
The point here (at this juncture, the mind lost seeks sanctuary in a mental asylum of lunatic reassurances), is that attacking Iran in toto will not result in much by way of retaliatory detriment. Some bruising, surely, but hardly lingering flesh wounds. Israel has, it would seem, been working some magic, spreading its own view that Iran has a gruesome plan in its military vault: eliminating Israel by 2040.
In Foreign Policy, Matthew Kroenig, generously self-described as a national security strategist, blusters for war. “Indeed, now is an ideal opportunity to destroy Iran’s nuclear program,” he asserts with childish longing. The reason for such an attack lies in a presumption. Yet again, the doctrine of pre-emption, one hostile to international law and the UN Charter, plays out its feeble rationale. Evidence, in such cases, is almost always scanty. Kroenig, however, is certain. Iran will secure one bomb’s worth of weapon-grade material within a matter of weeks. The rest is obvious. No evidence is offered, nor does it even matter, given Kroenig’s longstanding zeal in wishing to rid Iran of its nuclear facilities.
The Atlantic Council has also suggested a policy that what is good for the goose of Christian-Jewish freedom is not good for the gander of Persian Shia ambition. It is exactly this full-fledged hypocrisy that the despots of the secular tyranny in North Korea realised in dealing with Washington. Beware the nostrums against nuclear armament.
In a report authored by both Democrats and Republicans for the Council, a warning of chilling absurdity is offered: “The United States needs to maintain a declaratory policy, explicitly enunciated by the President, that it will not tolerate Iran getting a nuclear weapon and will use military force to prevent this development if all other measures fail.”
Instead of resisting belligerent chatter, the authors suggest that the US threaten Iran through announcing “yearly joint exercises with Israel, such as Juniper Oak and seek additional funding in the next budget cycle to speed research and development of next-generation military hardware capable of destroying Iran’s nuclear program.”
Kroenig shows his usual stuffing. Iran can never have nuclear weapons, because the United States and Israel say so. (The Sunni powers, for their own reasons, agree.) This form of perennial idiocy could apply to all the powers that have nuclear weapons, including Israel itself. At one point, no state should have had that relic of sadism’s folly. Then they came in succession after the United States: the Soviet bomb, the Britannic bomb, the Gallic bomb. Throw in China, India, Pakistan, Israel. Plucky, deranged North Korea, was wise to note the trend, showing lunacy to be eternally divisible.
It is precisely that sort of logic that has drawn such comments as this from the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a May interview: “Iran’s level of deterrence will be different if the existence of Iran is threatened. We have no decision to produce a nuclear bomb, but we will have to change our nuclear doctrine if such threats occur.” This month, almost 40 legislators penned a letter to the Supreme National Security Council calling for a reconsideration of current nuclear doctrine. The greater the fanatic’s desire to remove a perceived threat, the more likely an opponent will give basis to that threat.
For all the faux restraint being officially aired in Washington regarding Israel’s next round of military assaults, there is enormous sympathy, even affection, for the view that wrongs shall be righted, and the mullahs punished. Bedding for a more hostile response to Iran also features in the inane airings of the presidential election. Vice President Kamala Harris, in an interview with 60 minutes, remarked that, “Iran has American blood on its hands, okay?” In making that claim, she suggested that Tehran was somehow Washington’s greatest adversary.
In response to this fatuous remark, Justin Logan of the Cato Institute offers an ice-cold bath of reason: “This is not the Wehrmacht in 1940.” The path to dominating the Middle East hardly involves such tools as propaganda, proxy operations and psychological warfare “much less becoming the greatest threat to the United States.”
The nuclear option is now available to governments that should never have had them. But acquiring the dangerously untenable followed. To assume that brutal, amputation loving theocrats in Tehran should not have them defies the trajectory of a certain moronic consistency. The Persian bomb is probably imminent, and it is incumbent on the murderous fantasists in Israel and the United States to chew over that fact. Unfortunately, for the rest of us, the fetish against acquisition risks expanding a conventional conflict through testing the will and means of a power that, while wounded, hardly counts as defeated.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20241017-nuclear-fever-warmongering-on-iran/
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The Psychological Manipulation Behind The Generals’ Plan
By Ramona Wadi
October 17, 2024
Last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu contemplated implementing the Generals’ Plan in Gaza, backed by former Israeli Defence Forces planning and operations chief General Giora Eiland who has described the siege as “compliant with international law”. The plan, Eiland explained, would give Palestinians a week to evacuate and anyone who remains becomes a legitimate military target.
This week, Axios reported that Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant assured US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin that the Generals’ Plan would not be implemented. Presumably, the US is now reassured that Palestinians in Gaza will not be starved by Israel, nor considered legitimate military targets.
Can we consider for just a few seconds that Israel does not need the Generals’ Plan to lay siege to and starve Palestinians, and encourage its soldiers to kill them? As macabre as the plan might sound, it is also another weapon of alienation used by governments to silence the cries of genocide, even as Israel is still committing genocide.
Besieging, forcibly displacing and crowding them into increasingly smaller pockets of land makes it easier for Israel to kill more civilians with a single air strike. That’s a fact too. Burning them to death in tents? Fact. Does Israel really need to bring up the Generals’ Plan?
“What matters to [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar is land and dignity, and with this manoeuvre, you take away both land and dignity,” is how Eiland summed up the plan. Yahya Sinwar does not constitute the entire Palestinian population in Gaza, and Israel has been stealing Palestinian land since its inception and before; the early Zionist colonial settlers were laying the foundations of land appropriation for the settler-colonial, genocidal project. Israel does not need the Generals’ Plan to remove land and dignity. It has been stealing land for decades but, despite colonising Palestine, Israel can never strip Palestinians of their dignity. It is Israel that is entirely without dignity; a grubby monstrosity that needs to stand in front of a mirror and terrify itself with its own image.
Last month, the Norwegian Refugee Council reported that 83 per cent of food aid is not allowed by the occupation state to enter Gaza. The US is not concerned with the ongoing starvation, which is already tangible, but with the possible implementation of the Generals’ Plan. Likewise, the US is not concerned about stating that a military campaign cannot defeat an ideology, with reference to Hamas, but can still make itself complicit in a military campaign to kill thousands of Palestinians in a genocide that world leaders are conveniently ignoring. Sickeningly, the US Department of State has claimed that it cannot say whether burning Palestinians to death can be considered to be another war crime committed by Israel.
The Generals’ Plan may or may not be implemented, but the genocide continues as Israel picks and chooses how it empties Gaza of Palestinians.
Instead of getting caught up in speculation, why not focus on the fact that Israel is carrying out a livestreamed genocide in Gaza which world leaders are still reluctant to call out? The psychological manipulation of Israel mulling over the Generals’ Plan needs to be exposed and challenged. Starvation is no less terrifying if it lacks a grandiose name. The truth is that Israel no longer needs a plan when it is allowed to act with apparently endless impunity.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20241017-the-psychological-manipulation-behind-the-generals-plan/
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Israel Is Playing Even More Dirty To Force People Out Of Jabalia
October 17, 2024
By Motasem A Dalloul
For the 13th consecutive day, the Israeli occupation forces are carrying out a ground incursion and air strikes in northern Gaza. Jabalia, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya are all being targeted, although the occupation forces are concentrating their attacks in Jabalia refugee camp, where they are cutting-off all humanitarian aid.
The Israelis have also issued orders for the three partially operational hospitals in the area to evacuate patients and staff. The staff, however, have all refused to leave despite the lack of fuel which is necessary for ambulances and operation theatres in all three hospitals to continue working. Moreover, the Palestinians in the area are being starved by the occupation regime.
Several days after the onset of the latest incursion, Israeli and international media started to speak about the plan laid down by retired Israeli General Giora Eiland. This would see military pressure put on the Palestinians as well as them being starved in order to force them out of northern Gaza.
The Israeli intention is to evacuate all northern parts of the Gaza Strip and then annex the territory under the smokescreen of creating a military buffer zone. The creation of the heavily-fortified Netzarim Corridor is meant to be the barrier between the displaced Palestinians in the south and their homes which have been destroyed by Israel in the north.
To summarise, on the ground the Israeli occupation forces are carrying out ground and air strikes and imposing a tight siege on Jabalia. The besieged Palestinian residents are being starved, while the remaining three hospitals have been ordered to evacuate patients and staff. The world is condemning these acts and calling for humanitarian aid to be allowed in, especially into northern Gaza.
The apartheid occupation state of Israel is ignoring the condemnations and continuing with its ethnic cleansing operations by killing civilians or otherwise forcing them out of their homes. Whole residential blocks are then being destroyed by the occupation army, sometimes over the heads of the residents who refuse to leave their homes.
The Israeli regime claims to have allowed between 20 and 50 truckloads of aid to enter northern Gaza on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The simple fact is that, unless world leaders carry out real action against the occupation state and stop this ethnic cleansing which is happening as I write, and persuade the US to end its unconditional support for Israel’s genocide and other war crimes, the Palestinians in Gaza are facing the worst disaster in their history.
This is happening in real time on social media; the first livestreamed genocide, ever. Israel is playing even more dirty than usual to force the Palestinians out of Jabalia and the rest of northern Gaza. Nobody can ever claim that they didn’t know what was going on.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20241017-israel-is-playing-even-more-dirty-to-force-people-out-of-jabalia/
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Pact For The Future: A Promising Vision Or Another Empty Promise?
By Faroukou Mintoiba
OCT 18, 2024
The Future Summit, held in September 2024, was hailed as a historic milestone with the adoption of the "Pact for the Future." This ambitious text promises to address our times’ most complex issues, regarding international peace, security, emerging technologies, and of course, reducing global inequalities. However, on closer inspection, what appears to be a bold step forward hides an often-overlooked reality: International meetings’ outcomes often struggle to translate into concrete actions. Pandemics, conflicts at every corner, inflation and climate change are all issues that impede efforts to move forward ending inequalities and protecting the planet.
The 2023 edition of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) report provided some insightful facts likely to support this. Of the 140 targets of the SDGs, 15% are doing pretty well, while 48% are stagnating with 37% recording no progress or regressing according to the 2015 report. This is worrying and disturbing because one only has to look at the calendar and realize that we are seven years away from 2030.
Luckily, it's not lost on world leaders that urgent action needs to be taken. This is exactly why at the UNGA meeting in New York in September 2023, the report titled “Towards a Rescue Plan for People and Planet” was issued. Except just one year later, in September this year, they were in the same New York for another meeting at the end of which the “Pact for the Future, Global Digital Compact, and Declaration on Future Generations” was adopted. That is good. We should not be ungrateful to the point of overlooking their concerns for our planet. But what else? Who is taking us to the world where we will wake up one day to realize that the planet’s crises are being solved by pacts’ adoption and endless meetings? When is it going to happen?
Golden promises, leaden results
So, as is the case of most similar big meetings, this summit’s pact also stood out with the strongness of its statements. One of its most innovative aspects is undoubtedly the Global Digital Compact, a framework intended to guarantee international cooperation in the digital space. The commitment to regulating artificial intelligence, promoting digital public goods and combating online disinformation marks a step forward. However, this modernity is counterbalanced by the stagnation of other areas like challenges relating to climate, access to health, education, the fight against malnutrition, the protection of biodiversity or financing for development.
The reaffirmation of commitments in favour of nuclear disarmament, although important, seems to be part of a continuity that is more symbolic than transformative but pointless in either case as countries like the United States, Russia or China continue to modernize their arsenals and develop new military technologies. Such a fact is a testimony of commitments being disconnected from geopolitical realities, in a world where citizens still need to beg for their basic human rights, when they are not denied.
Commitment Or Mirage?
The pact affirms the importance of involving young people in global governance, a promise repeated at every major summit. Yet for decades, young people have continued to experience systemic exclusion from decision-making processes. While the declarations multiply, the reality remains implacable: Young people, particularly in the countries of the Global South, still do not benefit from real representation. One thing is for sure, a Global Youth Fund’s creation is an encouraging initiative, but how many of these funds will actually be released and allocated equitably? More importantly, will these young people have concrete power of influence, or will they only be symbols, of young faces placed to give an illusion of change in a fundamentally unchanged system?
This interrogation of youth involvement is all the more relevant as their marginalization perpetuates dynamics of inequality and fuels social frustrations in many regions. Young people excluded from decisions are prey to disillusionment, often pushed toward precariousness and more extreme forms of protest.
The Pact for the Future reaffirms the United Nations’ role in conflict prevention and civilians’ protection, two historic objectives of the organization. But in a world where wars prolong and diplomacy seems paralyzed by divergent geopolitical interests, such commitments appear once again pointless. The war in Ukraine, the Middle East on fire, chaos in the Sahel and the crime against the Palestinians are so many disorders that lead us to question the role of the international community as claimed. After decades of often ineffective missions, promises regarding the U.N. peace operations look more like a repeat of past promises than a true paradigm shift.
An Ever-Widening Divide
Despite its ambitions, the pact exposes an increasingly obvious divide between diplomatic discourse and the realities experienced by millions of people around the world. Climate commitments, notably the objective of keeping temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), are painful reminders of the broken promises of previous COPs. As natural disasters increase, forests disappear, and people suffer the devastating effects of climate change. Therefore, it becomes difficult to believe that the decisions taken at this summit will be enough to reverse the trend. Financial commitments to fill the SDG's financing gap seem far from the concerns of ordinary citizens. In a world where inequalities are increasing, where developing countries struggle to access financial resources to invest in their future, the hope of seeing concrete measures resulting from this pact seems very slim.
The Summit of the Future may well intend to be a turning point for a changing world, but this does not change the fact that it remains marred by a dissonance between the major declarations of principle and the reality of the global balance of power. We won’t achieve sustainable development by endlessly ritualizing commitments at summits without actions.
While some symbolic progress has been made, particularly in terms of digital governance, national priorities, power struggles and institutional slowness make its implementation uncertain. The path to a sustainable future remains paved with uncertainty, and the history of international summits teaches us that without constant pressure from civil society and a real will of economic and political actors, the fine promises risk remaining a dead letter.
In the current context, where crises are accumulating and inequalities worsening, this pact could well be just another summit among many, another pompous promise serving as a pretext to postpone real changes, in a system that struggles to meet the real needs of populations. And at this point, there is no doubt, as said by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, that, “Unless we act now, the 2030 Agenda will become an epitaph for a world that might have been.”
https://www.dailysabah.com/opinion/op-ed/pact-for-the-future-a-promising-vision-or-another-empty-promise
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Resign, Mr. Guterres!
By Melih Altinok
OCT 18, 2024
Israel's genocide against the Palestinians has completed its first year. But it does not stop. Just the other day it bombed tents in the garden of a hospital in Gaza. The images of civilians and children who burned to death while being given blood in a hospital bed do not belong to this age!
Tel Aviv, which is attempting to shape the region under the pretext of Hamas, continues its occupation campaign in Lebanon and Syria. Last Friday, Israeli forces struck the Nakura base of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) mission for the second time. Two U.N. peacekeepers were wounded. On Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) also hit a watchtower at the headquarters of the U.N. peacekeeping mission, wounding two more peacekeepers.
High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell said that there was no justification for Israel's attack on the UNIFIL: “Another line has been dangerously crossed in Lebanon. The IDF rained bullets on U.N. peacekeepers whose positions were known.” Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for the U.N. secretary-general, reminds us that Israel has hit U.N. missions 20 times so far. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also says that Israel's attack on the UNIFIL constitutes a war crime.
What would happen if any U.N. member state, say Iran, did the same thing? Not 20 times, but just once, what do you think would happen to it? What kind of sanctions would it face? Okay, Israel has very powerful friends in the U.N. Security Council. It is protected by the U.S., France and the U.K. So it is very difficult to pass a resolution against Israel. But again, other members of the U.N. and Guterres can also do something. Israel has literally declared war on the U.N., of which it is a member. So much so that Israeli Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz has declared Guterres “persona non grata”. Is this unprecedented? So what can Gutteres do? How can he lead the way?
First of all, let me underline that I am not claiming that the secretary-general is insensitive to the problem. As a human being, I believe that he was devastated by the loss of more than 40,000 civilian lives in Palestine, 17,000 of them children. We are witnesses to his efforts to stop this genocide during his tenure.
However, the glass is now overflowing. Diplomacy is deadlocked. We have entered a period where individual initiatives are worth their weight in gold. Guterres should describe this jam and resign, noting in history that Israel has turned the U.N. into a child's play and that the organization no longer has any function. It is clear that this shake-up would benefit the U.N., which has 193 member states, and humanity more than Guterres sitting in that seat. Perhaps some U.N. member states and nations that still feel responsible for honor and law will follow him and support his campaign.
After all, there are great states like Türkiye, Ireland, South Africa, Spain and Hungary that have stood up against the last genocide in history. Such a movement would also have many supporters in Latin America, Africa and Eastern Europe. Russia and China will also find it difficult to remain indifferent to the process. And it may turn out that even among Muslim states there will be those who support this rebellion!
https://www.dailysabah.com/opinion/columns/resign-mr-guterres
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Syria At Risk Of Being Dragged Into Regional War
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh
October 17, 2024
The ongoing Israeli war on Hezbollah in Lebanon poses a critical question: Will Syria be drawn into this conflict as it escalates? As the violence intensifies, the geographical proximity of Syria to Lebanon makes it almost inevitable that events in the latter will affect the former. Historically, Lebanon and Syria appear to have had intertwined fates, politically, economically and socially, due to their shared border and cultural ties. This raises concerns that the current conflict in Lebanon could spread across the border, especially given the complex alliances and rivalries in the region, which involve not just local actors but also global powers like Iran, the US and Russia.
Conflicts in Syria and Lebanon have often spilled over from one to the other, especially during times of civil strife. The Syrian civil war, for instance, had devastating effects on Lebanon, causing severe economic strain and altering the social fabric.
Over the past decade, Lebanon has absorbed nearly 1.5 million Syrian refugees, placing enormous strain on its infrastructure and public services. Now, as violence erupts in Lebanon, the reverse could happen, with refugees flooding into Syria, further destabilizing this already fragile country. The social, economic and political ramifications of this are vast and Syria is unlikely to escape the fallout if this conflict worsens.
Israel’s war against Hezbollah is already having a significant impact on Syria, though it has not yet drawn the country into direct conflict. One of the first effects is an influx of refugees, with more than 250,000 Lebanese civilians reportedly fleeing to Syria. For a country still recovering from a brutal civil war, this influx exacerbates Syria’s already dire humanitarian crisis.
In addition to this, Israel has launched multiple airstrikes into Syrian territory, targeting locations said to be linked to Hezbollah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. So far, the Damascus government has limited its response to condemning these strikes verbally, avoiding military retaliation. However, continued Israeli military operations in Syrian airspace could eventually provoke a stronger reaction, pushing Syria closer to open involvement in the conflict.
From the perspective of the Syrian leadership, directly entering the conflict in Lebanon would not serve its strategic interests. The Syrian state is still grappling with its own internal challenges, including the fact that its authority remains contested in some areas. The government appears to be focused on consolidating its power internally and engaging in a war with Israel could unravel the fragile gains it has made since the end of large-scale civil war. Furthermore, Syria is not yet fully stable, with much of the country still under reconstruction and grappling with international sanctions, making any involvement in a regional war a potentially catastrophic miscalculation.
There are several other reasons why Syria is likely to avoid entering a direct military confrontation with Israel. From an economic perspective, Syria is struggling to rebuild after years of war and another military conflict could crush what little recovery is underway. Militarily, Syria is no match for Israel’s sophisticated and well-funded defense forces. While Syria does maintain a military presence and it has some alliances with Hezbollah and Iran, its capabilities are nowhere near those of Israel.
Moreover, the Syrian government is aware that a war could lead to renewed insurgencies within its own borders. Some groups could use the chaos of war as an opportunity to regroup and challenge the government’s rule once again, risking a return to civil war conditions.
In addition, history has shown that Syria tends to avoid direct involvement in conflicts between Israel and Hezbollah. In the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel, Syria refrained from entering the fray, even though it supported Hezbollah diplomatically and logistically. This strategic neutrality allowed Syria to avoid the devastating consequences of direct warfare with Israel. It is likely that the same approach will be followed now.
However, the influx of refugees from Lebanon is already taking a toll on Syria’s fragile stability. With more than 250,000 Lebanese refugees entering Syrian territory, the already stretched resources of the country are being tested. In a country that has not yet fully recovered from its own refugee crisis during the civil war, this new wave of displaced people could further destabilize Syria’s economy, weaken public services and strain social cohesion. The country’s infrastructure is still fragile and the addition of a large refugee population could exacerbate existing vulnerabilities, potentially leading to unrest.
It is also important to point out that wars are inherently unpredictable and, while Syria may not be directly involved in the conflict with Israel at the moment, there is always the possibility that the war in Lebanon could fully spill over into Syrian territory.
Moreover, Syria could become a battleground for proxy conflicts between Israel and Iran. Instead of engaging in direct warfare with Israel, Iran may opt to use Syrian territory as a staging ground for attacks against Israeli targets, further entangling Syria in the conflict. Such a scenario could inadvertently draw Damascus deeper into the war, even if the government tries to avoid it.
In conclusion, while Israel’s war on Hezbollah will most likely have a negative impact on Syria, it is expected to continue avoiding direct military involvement. Engaging in a war with Israel does not serve Syria’s interests at this time. The country is still recovering from its civil war and its military and economic capabilities are too weak to handle a full-scale regional conflict. However, the ongoing war in Lebanon and the influx of refugees could create spillover effects that Syria cannot ignore, potentially drawing the country into a wider conflict against its will.
The region remains volatile and the situation could rapidly change depending on how the war evolves and how external actors like Iran and Israel choose to maneuver within this complex geopolitical landscape.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2575649
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