Counterpunch published an interview with John Pilger, where he stated the obvious: “It is an ongoing assault on the Palestinian people. And especially the people of Gaza, which began a very long time ago and the plan is to effectively get rid of them as an entity.”
John Pilger said in clear words what the Western media try do veil: This is genocide, Gaza is the Warsaw Ghetto of the 21st century, Israel and the USA use Gaza as test site for new weapons systems, and the USA is as responsible as Israel.
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts tried to exonerate the USA in a commentary titled Puppet State America, bemoaning that the American superpower is “groveling at Netanyahu’s feet.”
Dr. Roberts is a respectable person but this time he got it wrong.
Come on, this is a US funded army (11 billion US$ since 2009) using US bombs and missiles. Concerning Middle East strategy, the USA and Israel are in complete agreement, if there are discrepancies, they are about the style of public presentation and about the usefulness of certain lies and deceptions.
The Israelis love to humiliate their adversaries, as do the US Americans, but the USA nevertheless takes care (at least a little bit) of public opinion around the world, especially in Europe and Asia. While the Israeli leadership considers all “gentiles” as idiots and treats them accordingly, the US leadership has a more nuanced approach.
Whatever the coating may be, the USA and Israel bake the same cake.
Abayomi Azikiwe gave an insightful lecture at Wayne State University about the relationship between US domestic and foreign policy: http://panafricannews.blogspot.com/2012/11/political-science-101-relationship.html
The ceasefire negotiated with the help of the USA and Egypt was entirely predictable and strengthens the impression, that this was a bloody and monstrous, but carefully choreographed show.
The German magazine Der Spiegel wrote: “The crisis has propelled Morsi into the role of an important regional statesman. The proof: As the ceasefire was being finalized this week, US President Barack Obama telephoned with Morsi multiple times.” And “...even Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman saw it necessary to thank Morsi for his role in bringing about a truce.”
There’s no doubt about, that Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi is the man of the USA and that there are close ties between the Muslim Brotherhood and the USA (this will be soon discussed in another blog post).
As Mohamed Morsi is about to assume more powers in Egypt and solidify his position, securing the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas boosted his popularity both at home and in the whole Middle East and elevated him into the role of an important regional statesman. The proof: As the ceasefire was being finalized, US President Barack Obama conferenced with Morsi multiple times.
Qatar’s Emir visited Gaza shortly before the Israeli assault, tempting an Iranian news agency to spread the rumor that he gave Hamas leaders wristwatches as gifts which emitted pilot signals for Israeli warplanes. That seems far fetched, though no one can rule out that CIA or Mossad assets in Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani’s entourage gathered information or planted GPS devices.
Is this a war over natural gas, which could be plentiful off the Gaza coastline? Not yet, but Qatar, the greatest exporter of liquified natural gas is positioning itself.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan also had the chance to repair his shattered reputation by accusing Israel of ethnic cleansing in Gaza. Words are cheap and they will be soon forgotten, Erdogan didn’t announce any concrete actions against Israel and his criticism will not hurt the existing economic and military cooperation between Turkey and Israel.
What did Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense achieve?
160 Palestinians (including at least 34 children) and 6 Israelis died, 500 buildings, bridges, roads, factories in Gaza were damaged or totally destroyed by 1,550 Israeli air strikes.
Hamas, Mohamed Morsi (and with him the Muslim Brotherhood), Qatar, and Turkey’s Erdogan were able to strengthen their position. The Palestinian Authority and Fatah have been sidelined, the essential contribution of Syria and Iran to the Palestinian resistance is neglected, forgotten, denied.
At the end of the day, Pillar of Defense was a big success for the master planners in Washington. All the local players reacted according to plan (as I wrote before: irrational, but predictable irrational) and 166 casualties are small change compared to the big price, which is Syria.
Tony Cartalucci again published a great compilation about the latest Israeli assault on his blog
Syria presents terrorist names to UN
RT News
Syria presented the UN Security Council a list of 143 foreign citizens that were killed in fighting with government troops. Damascus hopes the move will force the UN to declare the presence of foreign nationals in Syria to be international terrorism.
Bashar Jaafari, Syria’s permanent representative to the United Nations, wrote a letter to the Security Council requesting to register the list as an official document on the UN’s agenda of “measures to combat international terrorism.”
The list contains the names of people who were positively identified through ID or documents found on their bodies that helped establish their nationality. Most of the killed terrorists in Syria are unidentified, therefore this list is only a small sample.
The UN Security Council has not yet officially recognized Syria as a country confronting international terrorism. Last month, Syria delivered a previous version of the list containing 108 names.
The new list contains the names of citizens from 19 countries: Afghanistan, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Chad, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, Turkey, Yemen and Chechnya (a republic of the Russian Federation).
Syrian state TV aired several reports in recent months claiming that the army has captured Al Qaeda-linked mercenaries from Egypt, Libya, Pakistan, Tunisia and Yemen.
In July, Dutch photo journalist Jeroen Oerlemans and British photographer John Cantlie were captured and held hostage in Syria for a week by rebel militants. They claimed that several of their captors spoke English with recognizable regional British accents, like Birmingham and London.
In August, Syrian rebel commanders reportedly became concerned over the numbers of hardline Islamists entering Syria from other Muslim-majority countries.
British media reported, that Chechen nationals were observed fighting alongside rebel forces in Syria. Last August, 24-year-old Chechen national Rustam Gelaev, son of notorious Chechen warlord Ruslan Gelaev (known as ‘Black Angel’ and killed in 2006), reportedly died in Syria in unclear circumstances.
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