We face the prospect of an escalating war in the Middle East.
The politics of this are obvious. The struggle to control oil is clearly in play.
Meanwhile, Israel plays the role of the threatened western democracy, and is exceptionally well armed to do so.
Russia, and other states, are arming those opposing Israel. They win influence as a result.
Although the issues on the ground are very real, and few seem to really want to understand them, at one level this is yet another classic proxy war between the West, Russia and its allies, with China offering Russia at least tacit support.
The big, immediate, issue is to end this proxy war which no one can win and from which many can lose. The way to do that is quite simple. It's not even rocket science, because the answer is to stop supplying the rockets that are fuelling this war at present.
I am happy to stand accused of being naive for saying this. I am a Quaker. Of course I am on the side of peace. But it's not naive to be so. This war will have to end in talks. There is no foreseeable alternative. Israel, for example, is not going to cease to be, and nor should it, even if any reasonable observer might wish for a different government there, as will in all likelihood happen as a precursor to peace.
Nor will those seeking Palestinian homelands drop their claims.
It is only by negotiation that these matters can progress. In that case stopping the supply of armaments makes sense when no one seriously thinks there is a real risk to Israel at present if that were to happen.
The only two questions are how many must die before those talks happen, and is Netanyahu doing this to support his fellow neofascist, Trump? I fear that the answers are many, and yes. Both are distressing and a massive cause for concern.
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Netanyahu needs to keep the conflict going to stay out of jail. He doesn’t care how many people die.
Couldnt agree with you more,
‘We’ – ‘the West’ have stood by for twenty yeears plus as Israel systematically demolished the ‘two state solution’ by moving 600,000 people and roads and buildings illegally into the West Bank. We knew this was happening, and by doing nothing , encouraged it.
Netanyahu is on record as saying he deliberately kept Hamas going , to keep Palestinans politically divided and to undermine the internationally recognised PLO.
The U.S, while purporting to seek a end to the killing and massacres in Gaza – 40,000 dead, 70% of buildings raised to the ground ,all schools universities and nearly all hospitals bombed to smithereens, has continued to pour in arms including bombs.
The US has had the power to stop it but pretends it doesnt.
As the Pope said Hamas’ 1 day act of terror does not justify 360 days of terror.
Extremists on both side feed off each other – Netanyahu of the ‘civilised’ West and the Ayatollas in Tehran must love each other.
We are on track – following Netanyahu are on track for an open ended war. He has no end game strategy.
I am echoing you Richard when I again say that peace will not be possible with Netanyahu in role. He has openly stated that he wishes the Jewish homeland to include the West Bank and Palestine. He also talks of military victory over Iran. Neither objectives are achievable or sustainable. The appalling loss of life will continue until there is leadership that genuinely wants to negotiate an equitable sharing arrangement of lands which have been lived on by Jews and Arabs for centuries.
Thank you.
South Lebanon and the Golan for their water resources and the gas fields off Lebanon.
Now that Aljazeera has been kicked out of the West Bank (they were operating out of Ramallah,in Area A of the WB, supposedly 100% controlled by Palestinians.. but. oh well, since when has Israel bothered about small details like that) we don’t know what is happening there probably more live fire, civilian killings, house demolitions, roads ripped up and sewer and water and electricity services broken and left that way…I came across an article that describes how Israel is taking the natural resources of the WB. Legally its called “pillage” and is a war crime. (another one!.. when are the ICC arrest warrants going to be issued?)Gaza has rich natural gas deposits off shore. Natural stone quarries located in the WB were largely taken over by Israel in 2010 supported by Israel’s High Court of Justice (laugh!) who ruled that it was permitted to exploit the natural resources of the West Bank because “the occupation was so long standing that it required an adjustment of the law to the reality on the ground” The sheer breathtaking illegality of Israel’s actions supported by the US is just breath taking. International law? Too bad. Its now the law of the jungle, presumably for everyone as it either applies to everyone or no-one. Another interesting article I came across written in 2014 entitled “Blown Chances in Gaza; Israel and the US miss many chances to avoid war” by Sandy Tolan. Available online. If you search around a bit it becomes obvious that Israel will do anything to avoid statehood for the Palestinians, supported by the US. Its unconscionable what Palestinians are having to endure. The world especially the US with its so called “values” should be ashamed.
I said that I would not comment further on this issue but just one thing comes to mind.
There is an old saying in self defence that when you go on the attack, you open yourself up to attack, to being seen – your play your hand don’t you?
If you look at how Israel has been so intelligence and tech heavy in its pursuit of this conflict – the apparent targeting of where its opponents live; the sabotaging of mobile phones and pagers etc., their air defences – the more impossible it is to believe that the events of 7th October were a surprise to the Israeli’s?
It makes you wonder, it really does.
There is on record a statement by a female IDF soldier who has served as a Gaza border guard. She volunteered that ‘if a bird came within a metre of the security fence then the Israelis would know of it’.
With Gaza being the most heavily surveilled strip of land in the world this is entirely plausible.
Make of it what you will in light of the Oct 7 incursion.
Not just oil but also water.
This interminable conflict has been going faster and slower, hotter and colder, for over 75 years. Who benefits from another 25, 50, 75 years of conflict? Yet neither side seems willing to compromise.
Thank you and well said, Andrew.
Plus the gas fields between the Levant and Cyprus. The income from the Palestinian ones are held at a Wall Street giant, which numbers a former British PM and former British chancellor as advisers, but the Palestinian authority can’t access the funds.
My employer has been approached by two clients to finance property related transactions planned by developers after Gaza is cleansed. We have yet to be approached for what is planned in what is currently the south of Lebanon.
Have the Palestinians and their allies ever had a realistic deliverable offer for them to accept? The one time there was the Israeli leader was assassinated.
I find the media coverage very unbalanced.
Iran hit the Consulate in Syria. Iran said they would do what Israel claims to always do: retaliate. Yet Iran was urged to show restraint. Iran did shoot off a number of missiles but informed Israel when they did so; aimed at a desert military installation and then declared that closed the affair. Britain, France and the US helped Israel shoot them down.
Hezbollah claim they are firing rockets to put pressure on Israel to have a ceasefire in Gaza. It is a tactic not unknown to the USA. The weight of ordnance exchanged over the last year is about four to one, most coming from Israel. It seems to be accepted by commentators that if there was a ceasefire in Gaza, Hezbollah would stop. The UN and even the US has called for a ceasefire.
But Netanyahu have IMO ramped up the war by attacking Lebanon, killing hundreds and again we hear calls for Iran to show restraint. They know their technology can’t match the US supplied weapons. But they decided to shoot anyway-maybe not wise.
Our govt has not condemned the Israeli bombing of Lebanon and our forces have been used to defend Israel. The Israeli ambassador was interviewed on R4. We rarely hear their point of view -with an exception last night on Newsnight from a lady in New York.
The lesson for the people of the region is that the West doesn’t care much for their lives and will protect Israel.
The ‘stand by Israel’ posture of the British establishment will undermine any influence we have in the world and I suggest any ambition for a rules based international order.
You appear to have made 2 mistakes – it was ISRAEL that attacked Iran’s consulate in Syria.
It is Lebanons perspective that is never heard – the Israeli perspective who’s spokespeople are on the BBC every day on TODAY, World at One, PM over and over again telling us all what poor little victims they are and its the big nasty Hamas, Hezbollah and now Iran that has been pummelling them into retaliation.
I meant to edit the first point, which was an obvious mistake.
Their ‘point of view’ was referring to Lebanon -and the second part of the sentence referred to lady on Newsnight who eloquently made the point about Arab lives being of equal value.
When I wrote it, I was being heavily canvassed by the dog for a walk.
I shall more carefully before posting
Regarding the bias shown by the BBC, I was very disappointed to listen to Today’s interview of the Lebanese ambassador by Emma Barnett. She continually interrupted him and was determined to get the last word in….. which said a lot about her supposed journalistic impartiality.
Whilst he was utterly reasonable
Thank you, Richard.
Yesterday evening, France’s former foreign minister and PM, Dominique de Villepin, addressed the University of Paris-Dauphine. As the missiles were flying, this event was timely.
Villepin criticised the one sided reporting of the conflict and the west’s alliance with Israel and called for a Palestinian state. He concluded that Europe was finished, had nothing that the rest of the world needed and should reset its relationship with the rest of the world. Villepin repeated that France should consider leaving the EU and NATO and rebuild ties with the rest of the world.
The global south / zone b takes a very different view of Iran, especially from that nonsense spoken by Starmer yesterday, and does not consider Trump worse than Biden and even Obama. The Clintons, Trump and Biden have much in common, including having children married into prominent and wealthy zionist families.
Good points Richard. I think that commentators harping on about Iran being the cause of the problem misses the point. The Islamic Republic of Iran is not the best country around with a terrible human rights record. Iran has backed up groups it supports for various reasons.
But we have to deal with the basic problem – Israel needs to withdraw from Gaza and the West bank, then the other groups – Hezbollah and the Houthis won’t have excused. But we also need to sort out other issues which requires treats with Lebanon for a start. Simply saying Hezbollah is a terrorist group gets us nowhere – a bit like the situation in Northern Ireland pre the Good Friday Agreement. The ‘west’ is making a complete mockery of the rules based system which all countries need to uphold. Not applying them in the Middle east weakens support for Ukraine. We have I am afraid a rather useless lot of leaders who do not appear to understand problems or how to deal with them!
I do wonder if that if we could wave a wand and remove all the oil reserves from under Lebanon, Israel, Gaza, Sinai, West Bank and Syria, then peace might break out.
No, it wouldn’t
But it would ease the pressure
Russia, Iran and Qatar are 1,2 and 3 in terms of global gas reserves between about 55% between them.
The UK has 0.12% of global reserves.
Peace is not breaking out anywhere soon.
I belong to a non-Zionist Jewish organisation (JVL) that used to be in Labour. Even members elected to the NEC got suspended or thrown out by Starmer. Starmer is a Zionist, married to a Zionist and funded by Zionists. Many of the polity of major parties are Zionists or funded by Israel. The governments terrorism czar is an avowed Zionist focused on Islam rather than home grown fascists. We are no better than the USA with the influence of AIPAC. I, and many others, can see the time fast approaching when any sympathy with Palestine will be branded terrorist support, and prosecuted under the terrorism acts; we are ready supposed to record socialism or eco stuff under Prevent in schools, and Palestine will be an issue soon.
Thank you, John.
MPs and government departments have Zionist shadows (lobbyists) to ensure they toe Israel’s line. In addition, Zionist civil servants are encouraged to form departmental community support groups and identify any potential impediment to Israeli’s interests. There are similar arrangements in the US. Recently, I learnt that even government pension funds in the UK and US are, ahem, encouraged to invest in Israel.
I disagree with the analysis.
In the case of Israel/Netanyahu, the objective (genocide in Gaza, attack on Lebanon) is to stay in power. When one event starts to fade, other threats are manufactured (or trigging opponents to react) – hence the exploding pagers etc, murder of Hezbollah top guy: result? bingo! missiles from Iran. Keeps the ball rolling (over an increasing pile of bodies murdered by the Israeli military).
In the case of Russia – the war with Ukraine was needed because Ukraine for all its faults, was a democratic threat to Russia/Putin coupled to a Kremlin view that Ukraine should never have been granted independence.
In both cases, mayhem and murder are instigated by one person/group with the aim of staying in power – and in both cases, the UN is shown to be well-past its sell-by date – toothless, nutless, gutless (by design). By the way, a cusory glance on Google Earth shows that there is zero possibility of a Palestinian state – there is not just Israeli housing there – but industrial estates………all of this showing that we live in the age of “might is right”
I disagree with you on the Palestinian state issue
But you are right; crises are being manufactured
Even if Mike is right about Netanyahu, Bibi can’t survive without broader support and that of course comes from the Zionists around him and then from Israeli business who are working together in my view to expand Israeli territory. These ‘synergies’ are what help things like this to hold together politically. It might also be worth pointing out that all that hardware Israel runs to defend itself needs paying for and an aim of economic growth off the backs of the Palestinians may well be reflected in what it is up to. The tensions it has had with the U.S. (apparent or not) could be got out of the way if the Israelis were able to develop and maintain their own defence systems instead of buying in.
As for Ukraine, it has been coveted before because of its agricultural productivity.
Ukraine this time was a western mistake which the poor Ukrainians have had to pay for because they got Putin wrong. Having said that though, Putin is totally unhinged anyway, in my mind. He has rampant power anyway in terms of carbon, and the use of his military is a serious mistake.
Thank you to Peter and Mike above.
Yesterday, and before, Villepin addressed the undermining of international law and bodies in support of Israel and other western interests and the sanctioning of much of the planet and was not surprised that the rest of the world turns towards China, Russia, BRICS etc. Villepin explained that as the west declines in terms of economic, military and even demographic power, it would regret the day that it undermined international law and institutions.
There are two other French diplomats, as Villepin was before going into politics, who talk out of turn like that. The UK has Alastair Crooke. The US has Chas Freeman and Jack Matlock. Villepin is often on TV as he has stature. The others are kept off air.
Villepin a Gaullist, so right / centre right, even mused about joining the left alliance and remarked how the politics had shifted around him.
Don’t have much to add to great comments, except – told you so!
To look at events in isolation as if it was all rosy in the garden until some huffalump arrived to cause chaos is just ignoring the continuous history of invasion, exploitation, genocide of native peoples and ecocide of their environs through centuries of imperialism and colonialism.
The Illegal Apartheid Entity – is just another in that chain over centuries – it may not be the last to be setup as such – the ex Soviets ‘balkanisation’s’ are, in the last 3-4 decades.
What links them all through the centuries?
The commercial exploiters is the simple answer – from the Owners of the East India Companies to The Seven Sisters that took control of the Black Gold across the world over a century ago to the current Financial and Technocratic corporations; their constant attempts at spreading and protecting their Interests in all the parts of the World.
Especially by brutal sanctions and illegal undeclared wars against these which refuse to hand over their natural resources and sovereignty to such capricious Business and Banker Dynasties .
The vote to lift the sanctions against Cuba after over 50 years being vetoed by just the US and 2 of the most odious fascist satraps just a few days ago. Again.
No one can justify that but our media and establishment does! Wtf?
Whether it is currently Ukraine which has Blackrock and Banker employees running the show and buying up land and resource rights or The Levant with its resources and toll booth prospects of earning rents from transit of resources and trade through geographical control.
The Illegal Entity Imposed post war as a supremacist , theological AngloEuropean super imperial colony in one of the cradles of human civilisation, has never accepted its supposed ‘given’ borders and has constantly expanded through brutality on the never ending suffering of the native Semitic peoples of Palestine and the now superceded ‘MENA’ – peoples of all religions and creeds.
Hence there is the not so surprising single hymn sheet that all Collective West ‘elected’ leaders all sing from – regardless of the actual Interest of their nations and Peoples.
What are these US and European Interests that Borell speaks of yesterday on CNN?
Who is he to decide? Non elected , technocrats, working for the ancient Money Oligarchs.
War. It never ended. It got hotter thirty years ago when the hegemon decided it had won and History Ended! We are just getting to the shit end of that stick and seeing it for the first time as the Multipolar reinstates actual Human Civilisational History and slaps down the unipolar delusional Brats of the Collective Waste.
Things look bleak.
Blessed be the peacemakers.
Where are they?
I wish I knew…..
They are needed right now
I`m sure that nobody I know approves of what is happening. `Who benefits?` is the way to follow. Oil+gas is the route. Zionism is the moral imperative. 1.3 million well-financed Russian immigrants are the enforcement. Mediterranean resorts are a part of the answer, with their native servants. (Illegals.)
In this independent country, oh yes, we are treated with derision if we even propose that state agents are biased. Against women-Sarah Everard vigil. Eternal shame on the Metpolice.
Against the Left-where do I begin? Independent government advisor Lord Woodcock? Parachute consultant extraordinaire Akehurst? (`Our best agent in the government`-Israeli ambassador.) Asaf Kaplan of the IDF in the PM`s office? Government complicity in the sexual betrayal of vulnerable women by secret police? It makes my heart ache, to be honest. As Richard acknowledges, many of his appreciative correspondents are older. So? We have lived and thought, and suffered too.
I`d write to my MP about it, but as a newly Gerrymandered non-productive unit, I doubt if I`ll get very much more than how to fall off a sailboard.
The peace makers are not there because because they have been replaced by the moneymakers who represent a capitalist practice that has too often depended on the destruction of someone or something.
Western capitalism is just a way of moving riches from one group to another.
And asset stripping through violence is a legitimate means to achieve this.
For months we have been warned of a war enveloping the whole Middle East.
But let’s look at the current situation and project to the appearance of the threatened war. It will be awful,with thousands of casualties, but not much of a war. Currently, Palestinians in Gaza may fire rockets into Israel. They all get shot down. Rockets in greater numbers are fired from Lebanon and Iran. They are all shot down. Israel on the other hand, can carry out slaughter from a safe distance with little effective response. They can lay waste to any country around and barely face an equivalent retaliation.
They are a proxy for US power with the military superiority that goes with it. So , just what kind of war will it be?
The kind of war that the US can easily cope with , with an entirely predictable outcome. Mass murder and resource theft dressed up as the defence of “democracy”. Starmer seems to be getting his “Iraq” out of the way a lot earlier than Blair.
A lot of comments I agree with especially AIPAC control of American politics and it seems zionism is increasingly having more influence in most westernised countries I think that obviously there’s lots of money to be made from conflict and they get to see how effective all the new toys of destruction play out in a real conflict
I see Andrew Bayley, wrecker-in-chief at the BoE, is blessing us all with his geopolitical & economic wisdom.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/oct/03/its-tragic-bank-of-england-governor-watching-middle-east-crisis-closely
The other day I filled up at 131p/l
https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/fuel-watch/
& wondered if the dip in prices was bothering the oil barons.
I read Mr Bayley’s comments, but couldn’t make head nor tail of them. He seems as poorly informed on geopolitics as he is on economics.
As for the rogue state led by a war criminal, egged on by its security Council allies to commit more genocidal terror attacks, against innocent civilians, I better not get started…
I saw it
And ignored it as typically out of touch, at best
During the run up to 2003 Iraq War there was a fairly strong thread of commentary that attempted to explain the war as – in Tariq Ali’s words – “just another colonial oil war.” I was studying the history of oil supply security at the time, and I became aware of a US think tank, the Project for a New American Century (it used to have a website), the members of which would become fairly widely known as “the neocons” was driving the Iraq war policy, and it had absolutely nothing to do with oil.
Ann El Khoury, in her 2015 book “Globalization Development and Social Justice” tells the story succinctly (pp47-58), so I’ll quote her at length:
“A group of former Trotskyists who had turned to the Right during the Cold War anti-communist crusade, the neoconservatives had their origins in a section of the Jewish émigré intellectual scene in New York during the 1930s, and later joined with a number of Gentiles. Neoconservatism can be summarized in six propositions:
1 a theory of history that invested the Shoah with perpetual contemporary significance;
2 the necessity and irreplaceability of military force;
3 there are no alternatives to US global leadership;
4 a cultural politics of deference to authority;
5 crisis is a permanent condition requiring urgent action; and
6 strong statesman-like leadership is the only decisive antidote to crisis.
The neoconservatives were also largely likudnik zionists: it was in a 1996 policy paper for Benjamin Netanyahu’s then incoming Likud government that the group of core neoconservatives headed by Richard Perle outlined their political agenda via the Jerusalem-based Institute for Advanced Strategic Political Studies. Entitled ‘A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm’, the group advised Netanyahu to directly challenge existing US policy, advocating a break with the ongoing Oslo ‘peace’ process. They explicitly encouraged strikes against Lebanon and Syria as a ‘prelude to a redrawing of the map of the Middle East’ and called for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s government in Iraq. ‘Whoever inherits Iraq’, they wrote in a related paper, ‘dominates the entire Levant strategically’. In a few years, many of the letter’s signatories would assume key or shadow positions in the Bush administration, ready to act on their recommendations.
The broad blueprint for how to carry out these recommendations was laid out in a 90-page report, ‘Rebuilding America’s Defences’, published by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), whose founders included future vice- president Dick Cheney, future defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and future deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz. Promoting US global leadership, according to PNAC, entailed higher military spending. The US needed a major ‘military transformation’ – although such transformation was ‘likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbour’.
The events in New York of September 11, 2001 tilted the policy climate toward the neoconservatives, giving them their ‘Pearl Harbour’ style crisis to change the balance of power in the administration. Hitherto marginal – they had been dubbed the Crazies in the first, George Bush Senior, administration – they successfully used the trauma to reorient policy. The neonconservatives waged a concerted campaign, both within and outside the Bush administration, to put Iraq on the policy table after September 11, 2001.”