British writer Jonathan Cook says in an article published by the Middle East Eye website that Western leaders refuse to draw any red lines for Tel Aviv despite the conflict expanding to all parts of the Middle East.
He adds that the short release of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) from prison in Gaza sparked an overwhelming desire for revenge among the Israelis, and provided them with an excuse to wipe out the Strip and implement a plan they had been keeping for a long time. It also provided Western countries with the excuse they needed to stand with Israel and justify its brutality as “Israel’s right to defend itself.”
Cook said that a prominent Israeli human rights activist revealed to him nearly a decade ago that he had asked one of Europe’s ambassadors to Israel, from a country seen at the time as one of the most sympathetic in the West toward the Palestinian people, about the thing that Israel could do to make it move. His government is against it? Where is the red line? The ambassador thought for a moment and then shrugged, saying, “There is nothing Israel cannot do. There is no red line.” The writer commented that this response was understood to be evasive, but a year after Israel destroyed Gaza, it appears to have been prophetic.
Israel is certain
Because Israel is certain that there are no red lines, things in Gaza are getting worse every day. Food and aid shipments to Gaza have fallen to their lowest level in 7 months, meaning that Israel’s stranglehold on aid provided to the starving residents of Gaza has actually intensified since May. May, when Karim Khan, the British prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, requested the issuance of arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of crimes against humanity.
If Western politicians do not have red lines regarding Israel, the same applies to the Western media, as they hardly mention the situation in Gaza. They celebrated the anniversary of October 7 this week, and as expected, most of them did so from an Israeli perspective. Purely, as the day on which 1,150 Israelis were killed in a Hamas attack, and on which 250 hostages were taken into the Gaza Strip.
Media
Jonathan Cook stated that October 7 was not only the day on which Hamas launched its surprise attack on Israel, but it was also the day on which Israel began the massacre of Palestinians in retaliation, the beginning of what the International Court of Justice concluded amounted to “genocide.” Reasonable,” a genocide that Israel prevented foreign correspondents from covering, but which was broadcast live by the Israeli residents and soldiers who committed it.
The only major channel that tried to honor the civilian victims in Gaza and the experiences of survivors since last October was not a Western media outlet, but rather the Qatari Tel Aviv Tribune channel, and its documentary “Investigating War Crimes in Gaza” uses footage filmed by Israeli soldiers and published on its website. Social media and they are committing horrific atrocities against the civilian population.
Although the International Court of Justice agreed to try Israel on charges of genocide last January, and it was assumed that, given that genocide is the ultimate international crime, the court would rush to issue a final ruling, there was nothing but silence a year after the massacres. And imposed starvation.
At the same time, the same court belatedly ruled that Israel’s 57-year military occupation of the Palestinian territories is illegal, that Palestinians have the right to resist, and that Israel must immediately withdraw from Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, but Western politicians and media ignored the significance of this ruling. .
International justice is under enormous pressure
The writer pointed out that the International Court of Justice has a double problem. It is under tremendous pressure from the United States not to declare genocide in Gaza, because such a ruling would reveal the complicity of Western powers in this great crime. On the other hand, it does not have enforcement mechanisms. Outside the Security Council, where Washington has veto power to protect Israel, and for much the same reasons, the International Criminal Court is also dragging its feet.
It is this complete lack of accountability from the centers of Western power, from politicians, media, and international courts – as the writer says – that paved the way for Israel to escalate the bloodshed, to now include the occupied West Bank, Lebanon, Yemen, and Syria, and may expand quickly to include Iran, which the world is preparing for an imminent Israeli attack. On her.
For Israel’s defenders, in order for its citizens to feel safe, Tel Aviv needs to reaffirm its military deterrence by crushing Hamas and its supporters in Gaza, and imposing submission on those who oppose its superiority in the region, which is the civilizational superiority of the West.
The slogan of Israel and its defenders appears to be “de-escalation through escalation,” a neo-colonial policy based on “subjugating the savages,” but its critics claim that Israelis can never become safe through military aggression alone without diplomatic solutions, because violence breeds more. Of violence, as evidenced by the decades of structural violence against the Palestinian people that have led us to this point.
Finish the task
The writer concluded that Israel now seems determined to finish the mission it began in 1948 to eradicate the Palestinian people, because it is its Western-backed settlement colonial project, and it has failed repeatedly in doing so.
Now, under the pretext of October 7, Israel is embarking on a genocidal program in Gaza first, and if it succeeds in escaping punishment, it will soon implement it in the occupied West Bank.
The writer pointed out that destabilizing the Middle East is not a new thing, as the neoconservatives exploited Al-Qaeda’s destruction of the World Trade Centers in New York on September 11 as an opportunity for them to “reshape the Middle East.”
Clash of civilizations
Former NATO commander Wesley Clark said that the neoconservatives “wanted us to destabilize the Middle East, turn it upside down, and subject it to our control.” Israel was supposed to implement an essential part of Washington’s post-Iraq plan, and that is what the US Secretary of State meant at the time. , Condoleezza Rice, when she spoke of “the birth pains of a new Middle East.”
And now – as the writer says – we are back where we started, because the Western Israeli goal is to destroy Lebanon and Iran, just as it destroyed Gaza, although there is no evidence that this goal has become achievable today. Indeed, the Israeli military spokesman, Daniel Hagari, admitted that “ “Anyone who thinks we can eliminate Hamas is wrong.”
However, Israel made clear that it, and the American military giant behind it, had no way to back down, and US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said loudly, “We never wanted a diplomatic solution with Hamas.”
