Israel is Losing This War. Why Doesn't The US Stop It?

 

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

HEO/GED

10-28-24

Some of us around this blog touched on this issue at our last Zoom meeting.  Speaking for myself here, I do not support the view that Israel is the tail wagging the US dog here. The US in my opinion is the driver and in answer to many people who ask why the US refuses to rein in Israel despite the rest of the world condemning its actions, I believe it is fairly obvious.

The Zionist regime is the only reliable ally in this vital part of the world. Not only is oil in abundance if we include Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Iran, Syria also, but it is a vital trade route to India and the far east. We can see the disruption to world trade a tiny country with a relatively small army of sorts can cause by attacking shipping entering the Red Sea. A defeat for Israel would be a humiliating defeat for US imperialism already under pressure from peer competitors, primarily China.

The US cannot rely on any other force to protect this foothold in the region, a product of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after WW1, that a British official once described as "Our loyal little Ulster in the Middle East". The revolutionary potential of the Arab working class from Syria to Mauritania is too great and the Arab regimes too unstable plus Saharan Africa is home to millions more Muslims and people's whose hatred of European/ US colonialism runs deep. We saw the potential power of the Arab working class with the eruption of the Arab Spring in 2011 when numerous US backed despots fell including Hosni Mubarak who Hillary Clinton referred to as a "friend" and "like family".

The Zionist regime heads a European colonial outpost, a settler state vital to US and western capitalism's interests. In a colonial outpost like this where a settler community is surrounded and outnumbered by those whose land it is and who resent the ethnic cleansing and assault on their culture and way of life, there develops a siege mentality, a constant fear of the "Other".  When this planted population is threatened and it always will be unless it ceases to be an occupying power and is integrated in to the whole,  the indigenous inhabitants are either driven out or thoroughly defeated in terms of resistance. The purpose of Israel's war in Gaza and the increased attacks in the occupied territories is to accomplish this goal.

To say that the US is the key player does not mean that the present right wing government of Netanyahu and his Neo-Nazi friends in the Knesset are on a short rein. There is no doubt that within the US body politic there are serious concerns about the Zionists go it alone policies. But what can they do? I say this because I cannot imagine the situation continuing if the US said that if there is not an immediate cessation of hostility from Israel there will be no more shipments of arms of any kind including spare parts and related items. We saw with the attack on Iran that the US's warning not to attack oil or nuclear facilities was obeyed by Israel.

Lastly, the constant equating of opposition to Israeli policies or Zionism itself as anti-Semitism is not taken seriously by millions of people. It is being used to silence opposition to the genocide, especially in Academia. It's bizarre to see so many academics harassed or fired from their positions at famous universities for their anti-Semitic views and so many of them are Jewish. It's equally bizarre to see British Labor Party members, some members for half a century or more, being expelled from the party for opposing Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. Not all Germans were Nazi's very few were I'm sure and not all Jews are Zionists. It is heartwarming to see that not only are Jewish academics speaking out but young Jews in the UK and US in particular are on the front lines of the protests supporting Palestinian rights.

Equating anti-Semitism with opposing something the state of Israel does, has made it harder to flush out genuine, what I call good old European Jew hating.

I am sharing this video below. I stress I am not endorsing this person and on checking out some history he is a bit of a controversial fellow. However, I think he raise a lot of points I agree with. No one that isn't an antiSemite would argue Jews don't belong in the Middle East. Jews have always been there and throughout what we call the Arab and Muslim world. Jews have lived in relative peace with Muslims for centuries and thrived in the main. When the Jews were expelled from Catholic Spain, they found a home and safety among the Muslims of North Africa. It is Christian Europe that discriminated against the Jewish population there and waged constant violence against them culminating in the mass extermination of two thirds of the population. The creation of the state of Israel by the British and the League of Nations was also an attempt of the European ruling class to rid themselves of what they refer to as the Jewish problem. So in that sense, Israeli Jews are also the victims of Western imperialism.