SC287-15

https://informationclearinghouse.blog/2023/10/16/so-another-unprovoked-war/

So…  Another Unprovoked War?

So…  another unprovoked war?  The attack by Hamas on Israel, like Russia’s attack on Ukraine, was totally unprovoked, and had no cause!  Palestinian terrorists attacked a perfectly innocent people.  What can have been the motive for such barbarism?  Was it—as was the case in 9/11—hatred of their freedom?

This is now a trend.  The model for it was the attack on the Towers by Iraqi Arab terrorists, for no reason but hatred of our freedom.  Well, okay, they weren’t Iraqis, they were Saudis, but still… After we enriched their rulers by buying their oil and kept them in power with our military: where was their gratitude?

The most flagrant of unprovoked wars was, of course, Russia’s.  For no reason and without warning, they attacked Ukraine.  Note that in all three cases, the victims were thriving democracies while the attackers were mad terrorists.  These unprovoked madmen (e.g., Putin) must be unequivocally condemned, and their victims empowered.  Justice demands it.

How tired are you of being subjected to this shameless, brazen bullshit by the propaganda apparatuses of the most vicious, brutal, dishonest regimes in the world today?

The U.S. political establishment and its media are unanimous in  outraged condemnation of the Hamas attack, including the total destruction of Gaza, sharing the pretense that the civilian cost can be minimized.  There is nothing new in this hysteria, nor the revenge desired, though Israel has held the Palestinians hostage in a ghetto prison for decades while murdering them piecemeal.

The concept of the “unprovoked attack/war” has become the cliche pejorative since it was made the explanation of 9/11.  It was not original: it has served through history as a rationale for military reprisal when justification had to be created because there was none.  The 9/11 attack had to be cast as pure evil; indeed, with no cause at all, to allow invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq.  This propaganda only worked on those ignorant of America’s long history of subversion, betrayal, and exploitation of Arab peoples by propping up militarily the corrupt, absolutist toadies installed to rule them for Capitalism’s benefit.  Those ignorant comprise nearly all Americans.  As Bitter Bierce said, “War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.” 

Unprovoked was the term used to condemn Russia’s SMO in entering putrefying Ukraine to defend ethnic Russian Ukrainians in Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk from ruthless bombardment by the dominant Azov and Right Sektor Bandera Nazis who ran the Ukraine government.  It is now stridently used to vilify Hamas’ surprise attack on Zionist Israel, that Apartheid Monster Machine that stole their homeland, mercilessly drove Palestinians out and imprisoned them, humiliating, debasing and murdering them for decades.  Unprovoked… The Hamas attack was unprovoked. 

Consider… In all three cases, the term was used to validate military ferocity as a moral response to acts of violence inflicted supposedly without provocation.  Reflect that America has been directly involved in each, if not as prime mover, then as the power and money behind it.  America destroyed the shaky stability of the entire Arab world with its celebratory, overkill massacre of the innocent populations of Afghanistan and Iraq to avenge the acts of a tiny cadre of zealous criminals.  America promoted, funded and insisted on the war in Ukraine for one reason, as its top officials emphasized: to weaken Russia and break it.  America is now the head cheerleader for Israel, sworn to back it militarily as it threatens to destroy the entire population of Gaza. 

Acting with summary brutality to achieve its ends, regardless of consequences, is nothing unusual with empires.  They have all done it, historically.  The question that Americans should ask themselves during the current disaster in Gaza but won’t, is this: how long do they suppose that shielding themselves in a base, cowardly refusal to understand and oppose their nation’s violent aggression everywhere will preserve their privileged immunity from richly deserved, impending karma and deadly blowback?

Driven by voracious Capitalism, and infatuated with its tawdry magnificence, The Empire has pursued the receding chimera of absolute hegemony over the world, of Full Spectrum Dominance enforced by its insane threat of precipitating universal death for humanity and all life.  It is a rule history shows irrevocable that no single power can dominate the species. Those that tried have been destroyed without exception.  The American Empire has had, for better and worse, its run.  It is now in its terminal phase, and, desperate for dominance, it will hazard our futures because it is incapable of altering its internal imperative.  It is, in a real sense, beyond reason, on autopilot, its fixed course unalterably locked down on the goal of its own destruction.

All previous empires, in their downfall, disturbed the life within their purview.  Those that fell within recent memory shook the life of the whole industrially developed world.  None presented the prospect of potentially ending life on earth.  Until now.

This is why the idea of waking Americans to their peril, due to their empire’s senile madness is desperately sad.  For they have no voice, no moral agency.  They are more captive than the Palestinian people mentally and emotionally; and far less free morally and spiritually.  After generations of indoctrination they have neither the vision nor the moral courage to break out of their  invisible, existential maximum security prison.

The most evil and unprovoked attack in all history was that of Capitalism on defenseless, naive American minds.

....

https://informationclearinghouse.blog/2023/10/16/peace-dividends-not-in-our-lifetimes-war-is-americas-growth-stock/

Peace Dividends? Not in Our Lifetimes: War is America’s Growth Stock

When the Soviet Union fell in 1991, America heard something about “peace dividends” and “a new world order.” With the Soviet Union gone, the Cold War over, America could take all the hundreds of billions it had been spending on weapons and wars and spend it instead on America. We could, in theory, embrace peace, reinvest in America, and save our children from a world of incessant wars and preparations for the same.

It was not to be.

The collapse of the Soviet Union coincided with Desert Shield/Storm, when America allegedly kicked its “Vietnam Syndrome” once and for all, according to then-President George H.W. Bush. This “syndrome” was allegedly inhibiting America’s pursuit of righteous victory through military means, and the expulsion of Iraqi forces from Kuwait was allegedly proof that America was back and that military force had powerful efficacy for good. Out went the idea of peace dividends. This was America’s moment to dominate, a Pax Americana achieved through military force or threats of the same. 

The aftermath of 9/11 was an orgy of American violence directed against “evildoers” everywhere. It was a two-decade global war on terror, GWOT as jihad, leading to wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and elsewhere. Even as these wars proved disastrous, those who advocated for them saluted themselves as being right but (perhaps) for the wrong reason, the “wrong” reason being some version of having loved America too much, whereas those who’d opposed these wars were “wrong” even though events had proven them to be right (they were wrong apparently because they didn’t love America enough, especially its domineering government).

It’s been a long time, more than three decades, since I’ve heard anyone mention peace dividends. Even when President Biden ended the Afghan War in 2021, military spending soared upwards, and this was before the Russia-Ukraine War. With the Hamas attacks on Israel and the impending invasion and destruction of Gaza by the IDF, America will likely embrace war and increase military spending with even more fervor.

War is America’s growth stock. Our politicians brag that military aid to countries like Ukraine and Israel serves to create jobs in America. Rarely is any mention made of Russian dead, of Palestinian dead, or for that matter of any dead, as America dominates the global trade in weaponry. The idea of “the merchants of death,” the opposition by the U.S. Senate in the 1930s to making profits by killing people, seems like ancient history, seems absurd, given America’s tight embrace of militarism. If we’re not fighting wars we’re arming others to fight wars. And we console ourselves that we’re only providing “good guys” with guns, for, as the NRA taught us, the only way to stop bad guys with guns is to give good guys even more guns.

Perhaps that’s the essence of U.S. foreign policy today. We give “good guys” like Ukrainians and Israelis all the guns they want to go kill “bad guys” like Russians and Palestinians while congratulating ourselves for “investing” in America’s arms manufactures. Indeed, members of Congress have said that providing older weapons from U.S. stockpiles of the same to countries like Ukraine is positively wonderful, since it forces the U.S. military to buy new weapons for itself, helping to create more jobs among the makers of guns, ammo, and bombs. What a win-win!

Lately I’ve been reading a lot about President Lyndon Johnson and how his “Great Society” and fight against poverty was done in by the calamitous Vietnam War in the 1960s. What’s tragic today in America is that we no longer have a vision of a great society, a better society, a fairer, more just, and more equitable society. Endless war and wildly excessive military expenditures is our only vision.

The result is that “peace” has become a word rarely heard in America, a Pollyanna-like concept, easily dismissed as pie-in-the-sky. In fact, the last U.S. president to speak sincerely and powerfully for peace was John F. Kennedy, and that was sixty years ago. No president since JFK has stood before us to advance a vision of eventual world peace rather than of endless war and expensive preparations for the same.

We are told and taught today that peace is impossible and war is inevitable. Those who promote peace are dismissed as dreamers and weaklings as the “warriors” and hawks are promoted for their alleged realism and toughness.

Constant wars and preparations for the same destroy democracy and lead to spiritual death, to cite the words of James Madison and Martin Luther King Jr. Those are the true dividends of war, not jobs in American factories producing bullets and bombs. The true dividends of peace are a restoration of democracy and spiritual renewal in America.

Which dividends as a people do we truly want?

....

https://informationclearinghouse.blog/2023/10/15/the-world-cannot-stand-by-and-watch-this-slaughter/

The world cannot stand by and watch this slaughter

Two million helpless people in Gaza have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide and no way to save their children

As these lines are being written, Israel has informed the UN that more than one million people in the northern Gaza Strip, including residents of Gaza City, must evacuate their homes. There is nowhere to go in Gaza – not for 10,000 people, not for 100,000 and certainly not for a million.

To evacuate one million human beings within 24 hours is impossible, illegal, inhuman and impractical.

In other words, Israel is threatening to commit a war crime the likes of which we have not seen since the Nakba of 1948. 

Very possibly, this is all talk and threats; Israel may not ultimately invade Gaza, and a million people may not be evicted. In any case, nearly half-a-million are newly homeless following unprecedented bombings of Gaza neighbourhoods by the Israeli Air Force.

These are dark days. Dark days for Israelis, who woke up last Saturday to a reality that turned upside-down their conception of their world that they had embraced for years. 

Israelis believed that their army was omnipotent, the strongest in the world; that sinking 3.5 billion shekels ($1bn) into the barrier around Gaza would be sufficient to ensure the security of the residents of southern Israel. 

They believed that they had the most sophisticated intelligence system in the world – one that knows, hears and sees everything. Israel is equipped with miraculous technology that it sells to half the world, and boasts elite human resources, such as the army’s celebrated Unit 8200, born geniuses who clearly could not be surprised by anyone. 

Different reality

Then, the fence around Gaza was breached by an obsolete tractor, and the entire concept collapsed. It turns out, Israeli intelligence knew nothing about a huge operation that had been planned for more than a year; the army showed up very late to the sites of the Hamas incursions.

Israel is not so powerful or omnipotent after all. Its military strength is not enough to guarantee the security of its residents. What remains highly doubtful is whether Israel will learn the most essential lesson from this: that the country cannot continue forever to live only by the sword, relying solely on its military power.

Half of the Israeli army is currently guarding settlers in the occupied West Bank and all their capricious carryings-on. For the Sukkot holiday, several battalions were moved from the Gaza border to Huwwara, near Nablus, to protect a festival of revenge initiated by an extremist member of Israel’s parliament. 

Media images of Jewish worshippers sitting on a road in the middle of a Palestinian town, swaying from side to side like so many ritual palm fronds, were among the most grotesque of recent times. The grotesquery soon made way for catastrophe: because of this defiantly criminal provocation by the settlers, the residents of southern Israel had no one to protect them when Hamas forces invaded.

Last Saturday, Israel woke up to a different reality – one that should finally extinguish the country’s arrogance and complacency. This ought to demonstrate, once and for all, the impossibility of evading any consequences for continuing to indefinitely imprison more than two million people in a giant cage, with another three million people living indefinitely under military tyranny. 

There was a price to be paid, after all. Last Saturday, Israel woke up to horror upon horror.  

Israel was shocked and sought revenge. That wish is now fulfilled. As I write this, all residents of Gaza have become potential victims of a violence that even they, however much they already know of horror and suffering, have not previously known. 

Trauma of the Nakba

Thousands and perhaps tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza will not live for many more days. Their homes, their lives and their world will be completely destroyed. 

Those who are forced to evacuate will certainly remember how their parents and grandparents were forced to evacuate hundreds of villages in their homeland in 1948, unable ever to return. The trauma of the Nakba will reawaken now in all its intensity, in Gaza.

What is the Nakba?

The Nakba is one of the key events in modern Middle East history and one that has come to define the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ever since.

Also known as “The Catastrophe”, it began in late 1947 and 1948, as the new state of Israel came into existence. 

Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years until it was captured by the UK at the end of World War One (1914-18). 

The League of Nations – a forerunner of the UN – gave Britain a “mandate” over Palestine after the war, which did not take into account the wishes of the native Palestinian population. 

The aim of such mandates was to bring about “the rendering of administrative assistance and advice” to native populations until they were deemed capable of standing alone as independent states. 

What was the problem?

The British Mandate incorporated the Balfour Declaration,  sent by  Arthur Balfour, the British foreign secretary, to Lord Walter Rothschild, a prominent member of the British Jewish community, in 1917.

It pledged to establish “in Palestine a national home for the Jewish people”, who made up less than 10 percent of the population at the time. 

During the mandate years (1923-48), the UK facilitated the immigration of  European Jews to Palestine, increasing their population 10-fold, from 60,000 in the pre-Mandate era to 700,000 by 1948.

They also trained, armed and supplied Zionist groups, and allowed them a degree of self-governance. 

In contrast, the native Palestinian population, which rejected European Jewish immigration and called for independence, was violently suppressed.

The number of Jews arriving in Palestine from Europe and elsewhere increased in the wake of the Holocaust, which systemically targeted Jews and others, resulting in the deaths of more than 6m people.

In February 1947, Britain announced it would terminate the mandate and turn the question of Palestine over to the newly formed United Nations. 

The UN adopted a partition plan in November 1947, which divided Palestine into two parts: 55 percent would form a Jewish state, while 45 percent would create an Arab state.  Jerusalem would be kept under international control.

But many argue that the plan did not take into account populations at the time.

In addition, Jewish paramilitary groups produced a strategy to control the borders of the new territory, called Plan Dalet (below). 

Some of their members would go on to become key Israeli leaders, including Yitzhak Rabin (prime minister 1992 – 1995), Ariel Sharon (prime minister 2001 – 2006) and Moshe Dayan  (minister of defence 1967 – 1974).

In the weeks and months that followed, thousands of Palestinians were killed or driven from their homes and communities uprooted by Jewish paramilitary groups.

Jews were also killed by Palestinian groups, if not in the same numbers.

On 14 May 1948, the State of Israel was unilaterally declared, a day before the British Mandate officially expired. 

The new state had increased its share of historic Palestine from 55 percent to 78 percent. The remaining 22 percent was under Arab control. 

Many of the Palestinians who fled or were driven from their homes never returned to historic Palestine. Much of it is now the modern-day state of Israel.

More than 70 years later, millions of their descendants live in dozens of refugee camps in Gaza, the West Bank, and surrounding countries, including Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.

Many still keep the keys to the homes that they and their families were forced to leave.

Nakba Day is now a key commemorative date in the Palestinian calendar. It is traditionally marked on 15 May, the date after Israeli independence was proclaimed in 1948.

Some Palestinians also observe it on the day of Israeli independence celebrations, which itself changes from year to year due to variations in the Hebrew calendar.

It must be clear that, notwithstanding the understandable, friendly human sympathy that has been expressed, Israel’s response cannot be unrestrained.

As I was writing these lines, a resident of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip called me, asking to send an article to Haaretz, the newspaper for which I write. “I don’t know if I’ll still be alive in a few hours,” he said. “Right now, no one in Gaza knows if they will be alive in another hour – but please publish the article even if I am killed.”

At some stage, these atrocities will have to be stopped – and that stage is very close.