Wednesday August 22 – Trump’s national security advisor and most hawkish of neocons, John Bolton, told reporters there would be “no change in US position for now”.
Given the subject – the official US view, in line with that of the UN, that Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights is illegal under international law – we might be forgiven for thinking the caveat in Bolton’s last two words would bring hope, comfort and succour to Mr Netanyahu.
Fat chance! The very next day saw the Israeli PM right out there to tell the world he “will not give up our expectation that the United States recognise Israeli sovereignty over Golan”
Of course, we’d be naive to take either Bolton’s or Netanyahu’s words at face value. We should not assume Netanyahu is rebuking Bolton, or that Bolton is not delighted at the mood music in Jerusalem. Do remember that, alongside a million and one other considerations, there’s oil in the Golan and at least one US corporation is in there sniffing hard. So mebbes Wyatt Earp is irked – and mebbes he ain’t.
All the same, just as the Israeli lobby can take scalps in the British Labour Party, so is it feared inside the Beltway. A surefire route to political downfall in Washington is to incur the wrath of that highly organised and extraordinarily well funded cabal. Which is not to say, as some hot-heads insist – often as not in antisemitic tones – that the USA is a vassal state of Israel. But let’s not go there. Such crass oversimplification is subject for another day.
And the subject for today? When a FB friend posted on Netanyahu’s reaffirmation of Israel’s resolve, I made a comment referencing my post on oil in the Golan. One thing led to another, and here’s the way it went …
Now that Iran has been clearly marked for “Regime change” the so-called socialist Trotskyists and others are tripping over themselves to highlight the failures of the current regime whilst bemoaning the wars that have devestated certain ME countries. Those countries are of coarse Iraq, Libya and Syria, all of whom these socialist theorists have and still do condemn from the rafters while somehow managing to stay silent on such hideous regimes as Riyadh, Doha, Israel, any of the five eyes and the current nazi Kiev regime. Have to say Philip, I am no longer in solidarity with such intervention enablers and their pious inactivity in condemning any regime but the ones Washington intends to target next. Being a socialist is supposed to be a democratic consensus and yet the demonstrators in Iran do not even represent one per cent of the workers and in fact that percentage is even less given the divisions between the organised chaos that Iran is trying to control Should I stay silent on one faction deliberately trying to incite violence or are you already aware of their role in both Libya and Syria?
Anne Abercrombie certainly asks all the right questions and hopefully we’ll see her on OffG and here, often.
Hi Susan. Re your opening sentence, sadly I must agree. (Sadly because I still see much of value in Trotsky’s writing – and btw he was a terrific pensman – and recommend his Revolution Betrayed.) I’ve had less than comradely exchanges with Trotskyist sects over Syria. They were just as bad on Iraq and Libya, and have swallowed the Russia-is-imperialist line without doing a scrap of theoretical work on the question. Our mutual friend Roger Annis is good on this. See his blog, A Socialist in Canada. (I think you’ve already seen his excellent 8,000 worder on the question.)
Re your penultimate sentence, I’m not sure what you’re asking. Could you rephrase?
Your final sentence I’ll forward to AA. I’m sure she’ll be pleased. Like you she combines a passionate sense of right and wrong with rare – I speak as a feller – modesty and lack of pretension.