Judas kiss? Benjamin Netanyahu greets Joe Biden at Ben Gurion airport, October 18
In a previous post – Hamas attacks: another 9/11? – I voiced my openness to the possibility of said attacks being a false flag. In a subsequent post – Why didn’t Israel & USA isolate Hamas? – I opined that:
Whatever the realities of this situation, no one acquainted with the Byzantine currents of Western domination of the Middle East, and the strange bedfellows momentarily thrown together – WW1 and Lawrence of Arabia … tactical alignment of US/UK interests with Shia clerics in Iran, 1953 … Israeli backing of Hamas against Fatah .. NATO/Israeli support of ‘moderate Islamists’ in Syria – could rule out, a priori, the idea of collusion between Hamas and Israel’s most atavistic elements. As to why I think it unlikely in this case, one obstacle for me is the hit to Israeli prestige: hence to its power to intimidate neighbours, and lucrative export trade in the dark arts of counterinsurgency.
In saying that false flag could not be ruled out on October 7, I meant in the ‘weak’ sense of an Israel not planning or executing the attacks but forewarned of them by Cairo, which loathes Hamas for its Muslim Brotherhood ties, yet choosing to let them happen to further the agenda of a Greater Israel on the back of an ethnically cleansed Gaza.
But a third account has surfaced. It too holds that Israel was forewarned yet refused to act, but axes Machiavellian calculation in favour of complacency. Nobody who counted, it posits, saw Hamas as capable of such an attack. 1
Hold that thought.
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In a podcast featured on this site – see my post, Taking stock: Gaza and Ukraine – former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter assured his viewers that a two-state Palestine solution is now inevitable – “and there’s nothing Israel can do to stop it” – as a direct result of October 7.
If he’s right, and he may well be, history will look more kindly on the Hamas attacks than do those voices – including many critical of Israel – who today demand they be condemned.
Hold that thought too.
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In an open letter more than two years ago – Isn’t China just as bad? – I wrote that:
I’ve long welcomed the rise of China not because of its intrinsic features – of which, like most Westerners across the political spectrum, I knew little – but because I saw as A Good Thing any check to US Exceptionalism’s pursuit of full spectrum dominance.
(A simple ‘market discipline’ analogy may help. Under capitalism a town with only one food store is worse for its people than a town with two. Provided they aren’t in cahoots, this holds even if the second owner is just as venal as his rival.)
Lately though I’ve been taking a closer look at China, and liking what I see …
The same may be said of Russia, her status in the global south enhanced by having taken all the West could throw at her, short of nuclear attack, only to emerge – in marked contrast to a Europe betrayed by its leaders – stronger than ever. Which leads me to my last post but one, Currency swaps weaken dollar hegemony, and its opening words:
It’s not just Ukraine, Taiwan and Gaza. From tensions in the Horn of Africa to echoes of Baltic sabotage in the Black Sea – and from the Sahel through Bangladesh to bloody repression in Latin America – there is nothing inherently reductive in claiming that no major conflict today, be it hot or cold, can be fully understood without reference to the wider context of a shift away from US hegemony, and Washington’s efforts to counter the same …
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All the above threads have been drawn together in this morning’s post by Andrew Korybko, who asks:
Did The New York Times Just End Bibi’s Political Career?
Everything that American strategists are planning is premised on Bibi being removed and then his replacement immediately resuming negotiations on a two-state solution, during which time the US would leverage its monopoly over that process to finally implement it in order to preempt Russia from doing so.
The New York Times (NYT) cited a secret document code-named “Jericho’s Wall” to report on Thursday that “Israel Knew Hamas’s Attack Plan More Than a Year Ago”. According to their findings, the self-professed Jewish State knew almost every detail of Hamas’ sneak attack that far in advance, yet incorrectly assessed that the group lacked the capabilities and intent to carry it out. Although it’s unclear whether Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu was informed of this, he might go down as a result.
After all, he’s Israel’s longest-serving leader and built his political career on being a hardliner against Hamas, but now it turns out that his third government knew exactly what Hamas was planning but failed to take any action to stop it or improve their country’s defenses around Gaza. This report is the latest in a spree of similarly damning ones from the Washington Post (WaPo) and the Associated Press (AP) about Bibi’s years-long Faustian bargain with Hamas and the US’ decade-long Qatari-facilitated ties with them.
All three were published in the span of less than a single week, which strongly suggests that a coordinated information operation is underway to completely reshape the public’s perceptions about the latest Israeli-Hamas war and the larger Israeli-Palestinian conflict within which it’s being fought. 2 The abovementioned hyperlinked analysis connected to the Associated Press’ report argued that American policymakers have concluded that the ongoing hostilities will be a game-changer for the region.
This explains why these three leading Mainstream Media (MSM) outlets, which are all aligned with the US’ ruling Democrats, began coordinating their narrative revolution that finally began to unfold over the past week. WaPo’s piece discredited Bibi’s reputation as a hardliner against Hamas, the AP’s preconditioned the public into accepting the possibility of the US mediating a resolution to the larger Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while the NYT’s potentially just dealt a deathblow to Bib’s political career.
With these observations in mind, it’s possible to speculate on the US’ envisaged end game with a greater degree of confidence than just a week ago. It appears that America is serious about removing Bibi throughout the course of Israel’s planned inquiry into Hamas’ sneak attack, hence WaPo’s and the NYT’s latest pieces, which would thus remove the greatest domestic political obstacle to a two-state solution. Whoever replaces him would then be pressured by the US to immediately resume relevant negotiations.
The Biden Administration already made it clear that a two-state solution is the only acceptable long-term one, and this isn’t high-sounding rhetoric like skeptics might suspect, but is a sincere declaration of intent after America correctly assessed that Russia has a chance of replacing its role in this process. That country’s truly neutral approach towards this conflict perfectly positions it to break the US’ monopoly that hitherto impeded that same solution and then gain global applause for successfully mediating it.
In that event, American influence in West Asia would forever be shattered, and that would accelerate the global systemic transition to multipolarity that the US is so desperate to offset or at least decelerate. It’s therefore with a view towards preemptively averting this worst-case systemic scenario that AP was tasked with preconditioning the public to accept the US’ envisaged mediation role. This first requires normalizing its decade-long shadowy ties with Hamas via Qatar, ergo their “controlled exposé”.
To be sure, everything that American strategists are planning is premised on Bibi being removed and then his replacement immediately resuming negotiations on a two-state solution, during which time the US would leverage its monopoly over that process to finally implement it and preempt Russia from doing so. This sequence can’t be taken for granted since a lot can still happen to derail it, but the purpose of this piece was to raise awareness of this and break the taboo in talking about how Biden betrayed Bibi.
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See also this short piece of November 28, by Dave DeCamp, on Defend Democracy Press:
Looking for Likud Support, Netanyahu Says He’s the Only One Who Can Prevent a Palestinian State:
Netanyahu also boasted that he knows how to handle pressure from the US
As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political career is in peril due to his failure to prevent the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel, the Israeli leader has been meeting with members of his Likud party to ensure continued support.
According to Israeli media, in these meetings, Netanyahu has sold himself as the only one who can prevent the creation of a Palestinian state and stand up to pressure from the Americans.
“I am the only one who will prevent a Palestinian state in Gaza and [the West Bank] after the war,” Netanyahu told Likud lawmakers, according to Israel’s Kan public broadcaster.
Netanyahu has come under fire from his political opponents over his previous strategy of helping prop up Hamas to prevent a Palestinian state. In a now-infamous quote from 2019, Netanyahu said anyone “who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas.”
Netanyahu continued, “This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank… It’s impossible to reach an agreement with them … Everyone knows this, but we control the height of the flames.”
President Biden has said he wants to see effort toward a two-state solution if Israel is successful in rooting out Hamas, but the US has placed no conditions on its military support for the war. Biden and his top aides have also said Israel can’t control Gaza after the war, an idea Netanyahu publicly rejected.
According to The Times of Israel, Netanyahu also told Likud lawmakers that the US didn’t want Israel to launch a ground invasion of Gaza and also didn’t want Israel to raid al-Shifa hospital in northern Gaza. He reportedly boasted of defying the US’s wishes.
Two US officials speaking to the Times challenged Netanyahu’s narrative, saying the US didn’t actually oppose the Israeli military actions but just expressed concerns about the protection of civilians. The US has continued to provide full military support for Israel despite the massive civilian casualties.
According to Kan, Netanyahu told Likud backbenchers, referring to Knesset members who don’t hold prominent positions, that he has “known Biden for more than 40 years” and knows “how to speak to the American public.”
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- In a piece today on WSWS, Andre Damon rejects the thesis of complacency as underlying Israel’s failure to act on the warnings. WSWS is not infallible but neither is it predisposed to conspiracy theorising. Read the arguments here.
- “… a coordinated information operation is underway to completely reshape the public’s perceptions about the latest Israeli-Hamas war and the larger Israeli-Palestinian conflict within which it’s being fought …” As Andrew Korybko knows better than most, the first part of this works equally well with “Ukrainian” substituted for “Israeli-Palestinian”. The equivalent for the second would, given truly independent media, be NATO expansion.
A two state solution instigated by the US raises a number of pertinent contextual questions.
Such as what exactly would a Palestinian state created by the USA look like? How, and with whom, would it be aligned economically after the World Bank, IMF and associated players – who would inevitably be involved (as well as embedded) – have their way like they did in South Africa post apartheid?
And when you’ve got a people by the economic cojones the politics tends to follow. The Palestinians will need the longest of barge poles in such a scenario.
A step in the right direction from pre-October Gaza.
Or maybe a step forward, yes, as you imply, but in the wrong direction. A two-state solution mediated by the US will be heavily weighed in favour of Israel, with just barely enough for the Palestinians to unwillingly sign (or be forced to sign) up to. This would kill legitimate Palestinian resistance to the Israeli comprador state, which would continue to act as a US proxy in the ‘Middle East’. So threats and acts of violence against Syria and Iraq would continue unabated. No return of the Golan Heights, or peace throughout the region will be implied in any US sponsored settlement. Palestine will be lucky to be allowed a police force, and will be heavily dependent on the ‘goodwill’ of Israel to allow free trade into its territories.
This can only lead to more unnecessary civilian deaths and lack of a settled peace in the area. The only way to guarantee peace is through a one-state-with-equal-rights-for-all solution. Of course, this would have to forced on Israel – but better than two states being forced on the Palestinians. A US led settlement can never be the answer.
Of course, whether the Palestinians settle for this is up to them, but the drawbacks are clear.
Hey Jams. In theory I’m all for a one-state solution. How do we get there? I’ll host your plan on this site if you’re up for penning it. There’s a reason other than indolence for my failure, five weeks after writing part one, to come up with part two of A way forward for Palestine?
You’ll agree the global landscape is shifting and the dust far from settled. For the time being, and knowing I may be wrong, here are my thoughts:
One state or two? I fear this is now a theological axiom: I’m a one state man myself. Are you one of them there two-state dunderheads? Like insisting on revolution as the only way to avert barbarism – yet never quite saying how that’s gonna play out against states armed to the teeth with surveillance and counter-insurgency tools beyond the dreams of 20th century totalitarianism – a fixed position on this strikes me, as I say in my reply to Susan, as making perfect the enemy of better.
Israel is a nuclear power. I like that no more than you do but facts cannot be wished away and not even Israel’s liberals will accept a solution with no upside. Meanwhile, what do the ups and downs (currently the latter!) of Palestinian support for a 2-state solution tell us, if not that those living in that hell on earth take a more flexible and pragmatic view than do Western militants from our cosy armchairs?
I see the only possible way forward as economic carrot and stick. As BRI and BRICS develop apace I hold a modicum of hope – slender I grant you – of regional prosperity making peaceable coexistence a less distant prospect than it now seems. (And who’s to say two states could never, in the fulness of time and given a business case for so doing, become one?) One of many things you and I see eye to eye on is that America has a vested interest in chaos and division, in the Middle East as in every other corner of this sorry planet of ours.
And America’s hand is weakening.
Which brings me to my strongest argument for a 2 state Palestine – that the emergent super powers, China and Russia, both back it. Washington will not have a free hand in dictating its terms.
I stress that my thoughts are evolving. My offer to host a counterargument by you stands, and I make it in good faith. If you can address my concerns you may well convert me! In the meantime let’s keep in mind that those matters where we speak as one far outweigh those on which we differ.
Well, you’re right I suppose about all that. One state would probably only be possible if the Arab and Islamic world were to unite with that goal in mind, and persuade the world that it’s the way ahead (and when the US has become a ‘normal’ state). That hasn’t happened yet, even with the movement of Saudi Arabia away from the US and towards a compromise with Iran.
Without immersing myself in the ins and outs of Arab politics, I imagine there are various obstacles there too. That doesn’t mean that it can’t happen in the future, especially if, as I said, the (inevitably inherently unfair) two-state position becomes a reality, and low or other level Palestinian unrest keeps happening. Also, ‘one-state will always be the preferred position of nations such as Iran and its allies, so there is another flame to keep the pot boiling. Possibly we’ll see a ‘two-state’ followed by a ‘one-state’
Of course, I’m retreating into the future with my argument, and ‘letting the best become the enemy of the good’, but I still see any two-state solution where the Palestinians will be told what they want as being just another reason for further strife.
Or, as you envisage, maybe they’ll become like the Welsh, always looking over to ‘The Lost Lands’
And then there are demographics too. A large and growing Palestinian population crammed into perhaps a third or quarter of the country, while the smaller Jewish population has the lions share, will also lead to further conflict. Add to that all the possibilities of disruption from global warming, desertification etc. etc.
Basically, my argument against ‘two-state’ boils down the the prediction that it will be a short term solution only, leading to more violence.
Hi Phil,
Agree with the logic re the US in a panic that Russia could indeed intervene on a diplomatic level which would make the US look weak & ineffectual. In truth, however, the US has always been poor at the diplomatic level as it is in wars and total lack of winning them.
Any “interventionism” by the US will see another lengthy and protracted “Accord” which will achieve absolutely nothing for the Palestinians but will buy time for the US to get up to it’s usual tricks.
Israel cannot afford Russia as an enemy, now or in the future,(Russia is superior in technical, military, logistics, negotiating and diplomacy compared to the inept US) so I would sooner Russia got in there first(after Netthetenutter is removed.) I find this remote for all the reasons mentioned in the article, which is sad, because the US will not require the Israel entity to remove itself behind the 1967 lines let alone the 1948 original one and most certainly not require any policing of such agreements made to be broken.
Russia, with the help of China and the BRICS+ could sway the US puppet UN to get involved, with heavy penalties for any attacks against UN personnel as has happened already.
Just thinking the many ways things could go pear shaped whenever the US is involved.
Regards,
Susan:)
The danger methinks is of perfect – demanded by we who live lives of ease far from that hell hole – being the enemy of better.
Besides, AK points to the possibility – we need put it no stronger – of the shift to multipolarity making it much harder for Uncle Sam to call all the shots here.
Sorry – I was replying to you Susan but still had Jams’ comment in mind. I now see that your comment sets out very similar thinking to mine, as expressed in my reply this morning to Jams.
Other views can be found here: https://robcampbell.substack.com/p/israel-palestine-an-analysis which tend to not support any of the views noted above, but instead suggest that the conflict will be both prolonged and leading to an increase in Moslem solidarity, ending with the demise of Israel.
Nobody is going to applaud the prolongation, but if it ends with a sovereign Palestinian state, then a least there would be an end to the whole sorry saga, initiated by Arthur Balfour, that imperialist ruin. https://www.conter.scot/2023/12/4/arthur-balfour-the-scot-who-authored-the-palestinian-tragedy/
Susan makes a good point. Since Sharon the Israelis have come to believe that they have more power in the US than any American politician could have.
There is a big difference between George Bush Sr ‘s stern warnings to Israel and Netanyahu’s use of Congress to put Obama in his place.
What has changed now is that the US no longer has the absolute power to dictate so that Israel has to rediscover the lost arts of diplomacy.
What we have seen in the past month has been the US pulling out all the stops (including those in London and Berlin) to back up Israel. And it hasn’t been enough – cue the rest of the world led by China and Russia (with all their powder dry and intact).
So, no I don’t think that ‘Biden ‘ either wants a two state solution or is in a position to force Israel to negotiate one – the US has had its chances to dominate the ‘peace’ project in the region. And has consistently shown its bad faith. Nobody, with the exception of the few Arab leaders still on the payroll, even pretends to take them seriously.
Israel has had its chances and has been too arrogant, racist, besotted with US hegemony to take them. So now the baton is going to be passed to China which is going to protest that it has nothing to offer. But, if everyone insists, shares responsibility and does what they can to help, she is sure that the matter can be negotiated- “We agree” say the Russians.
A return to the 1967 borders with all settlements put under the authority and policed by the local (palestinian) government. This will allow genuine settlers to stay provided that acceptable legal title to their lands can be discovered. The troublemakers and zealots, having been disarmed, will leave.
Palestinan exiles will be granted the right to return by the local Palestinian government.
The entire apartheid system including roads checkpoints etc will be dismantled.
Provided that the Palestinians can elect- and the elections are long overdue – a new government this should be manageable. And will result in two states living side by side with the Israeli one slowly changing its nature as the mad people, recognising that their nightmares are not going to be realised, disappear either by personal growth (returning to sanity) emigration or death.
Once the race to build the nonsense of eretz Israel is off the table the entire region can return to sanity and throw itself into the Belt and Road initiative, commerce, and all the other things for which the Levant (regardless of sectarian affiliations) is famous.
In the end there will be One State and it will probably include Syria and Lebanon as well as Jordan too- the Jews will be an important part of it, as will the Druze, the Alawi, the Maronites etc etc.
And we will all live happily ever after (in a multicultural socialist commonwealth.)
Great post, bevin.
Yes, Israel has forgotten how to negotiate, as has Uncle Sam. Successive administrations in Washington have not had to. Ergo – given AIPAC, and given its value to the West as explored here – neither has Israel.
The clock is ticking on those interlinked realities, and necessity is famously the mother of invention. The arts of diplomacy based on the realism of enlightened self interest will be rediscovered in both DC and Tel Aviv when arrogant strutting is no longer viable and the madmen are marginalised. As you put it in your closing remarks:
I’ll drink to that.