Eric Zuesse – How Trump and Biden Created this War in the Middle East, and Why Hamas Attacked Israel on October 7th + The US and Israeli Governments’ Insanity

4 november 2023adminBusinessplan, Home, Interview, Locatie, Media, Portretten, Ridderboek, Zuesse0

How Trump and Biden Created this War in the Middle East, and Why Hamas Attacked Israel on October 7th

Shortly before the 7 October 2023 Hamas invasion of Israel, the Harris Poll headlined on September 13th, “New Poll: Many Americans Oppose a Defense Pact with Saudi Arabia” (but then they changed its URL so that fewer people would ever find it, and now its URL is here, and that has been archived here and I archived it also here, so as to preserve the record of its existence) and reported:

Just over half of Americans (55%) would oppose an agreement between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia that would establish diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel in exchange for the U.S. committing American soldiers to defend Saudi Arabia in the event of a war, according to a Quincy Institute | Harris Poll survey released today.

The survey found that when presented with the prospective details* of the deal the Biden administration is currently pursuing with Saudi Arabia, nearly 3 in 5 Americans (58%) feel this is a bad deal for the U.S. and there is no justification for committing U.S. soldiers to defend Saudi Arabia. There were no significant differences on views of this deal among political affiliation.

* The United States is currently pursuing a deal with Saudi Arabia which would normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. As part of the agreement, the U.S. is reportedly considering offering Saudi Arabia a defense pact in which U.S. soldiers would defend them in the event of war, and the U.S. would provide them with more arms sales and nuclear technology, which could be used for the development of nuclear weapons. Some say this deal is worthwhile if it means Saudi Arabia and Israel establish diplomatic relations, and Saudi Arabia draws closer to the U.S. than to China. While others say the U.S. military should not engage in more Middle East wars, and that U.S. soldiers should not be deployed to defend the authoritarian regime in Saudi Arabia.

That proposed U.S.-Saudi Agreement was to be the crowning achievement of Donald Trump’s “Abraham Accords” agreements (basically like that with Saudi Arabia which was being negotiated prior to October 7th between Joe Biden, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Mohammed bin Salman al Saud), between all of the major Sunni Muslim Arab countries and Israel. (Here, for example, is the one that Netanyahu and Trump had signed with UAE’s Abdullah bin Zayed al Nahyan on 15 September 2020.) And The Saudi version of it was to include explicitly a commitment by the U.S. Government to put down any revolution that might occur in that country to overthrow the Saud family who lead that country. The U.S. Government would guarantee the Saud family that they won’t be overthrown — will always own that country (as they now do). The deal would also include a renewed commitment by that family to purchase $ 350 billion of U.S. made weapons over a ten year period (the largest arms-deal in history , that deal had actually been negotiated by Trump in 2018).

The Abraham Accords grant recognition to Israel’s Government without requiring it to achieve any settlement with the Palestinians. They are agreements between those Sunni Arab Governments granting this official recognition to Israel and thereby leaving ONLY the Shiite Muslim countries, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, still actively supporting rights for Palestinians.

President Biden 100% backs Trump’s Abraham Accords.

The reason why Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th was to prevent the Sauds from signing, because, if they did, then the entire Palestinian cause would, in effect, have no defenders outside Palestine itself. Palestinians would be abandoned to whatever Israel wants to do to them. The independent Middle Eastern journalist Steven Sahiounie headlined on October 29th, “The US has betrayed Egypt again”, and explained that (Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al “Sisi” knows there is an Israeli plan, condoned and supported by Biden, to remove all Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt, where they will be supported by humanitarian aid, but can never repopulate Gaza again. They will be permanently homeless and stateless refugees.” And, as Sahiounie also explained, “the leaders of Egypt, Jordan, and Palestine, met on October 21” and agreed to stand firm against that plan by Netanyahu and Biden.

Biden had hoped to achieve a signed agreement. Abraham Accords. with the Sauds, as being a fait accompli, so as to leave the Palestinians in the ditch, to their Israeli fate, and so as to get the Sauds to recommit to fulfilling their promise, which they had made to Trump, to spend the full $ 350 billion on purchases of U.S. armaments within the specified 2018-2028 time-frame.

So: it was do-or-die for Palestinian rights, and Hamas therefore attacked on October 7th. It was done in order to prevent the Sauds from signing Abraham Accords. The Trump-Biden-Netanyahu plan was for these Arab countries to grant recognition to Israel without there having been any settlement reached between the Israelis and the Palestinians. The Arabs were to do this in order to please the Americans. But now, all of that will become mere dust.

Consequently, the Sauds probably will not end up buying that $ 350 billion worth of U.S. made armaments after all. (They might buy that much in weaponry, but now that the U.S. is so hated in all Islamic countries, the more of those weapons that are made in America, the higher the likelihood of a revolution to overthrow those rulers will be.) Trump’s plan for the Middle East is likely to produce nothing but the biggest and most destructive Middle Eastern war there ever was, and possibly even WW III if Biden carries out his threats to, with Israel’s help, destroy Iran and destroy its supporters in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.

Whether Russia and or China would come to the defense of Iran and its Middle Eastern allies if the U.S. and or Israel try to destroy them, is not known, but, if it happens, then that would be WW III. And if it won’t happen, then the almost universal revulsion to what Israel and America had done would mean that “The American Century” would already be over, in any case — merely pariah-nations. The “brand-value” of them would be like a stench.

https://theduran.com/how-trump-biden-created-this-war-in-the-middle-east-and-why-hamas-attacked-israel-on-october-7th-2/

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The US and Israeli Governments’ Insanity

On November 3rd, Reuters headlined “US, allies try to craft Gaza endgame as deaths, destruction mount”, and reported

The process is still at what another U.S. source terms an informal “idea floating stage.” Key questions include whether Israel can destroy Hamas as it has vowed and whether the U.S., its Western allies and Arab governments would commit military personnel to stand between Israel and the Palestinians, overcoming a long reluctance to do so.

The White House said on Wednesday there were “no plans or intentions” to put U.S. troops on the ground in Gaza. (…)

It is also unclear whether the Palestinian Authority (PA), which has limited autonomy in parts of the occupied West Bank while Hamas rules Gaza, would be able or willing to take control. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday held out the prospects for a “revitalized” PA, but President Mahmoud Abbas’ administration has been plagued by accusations of corruption and mismanagement. (…)

Even if Hamas’ leadership is toppled, it would be all but impossible to eradicate pro-militant sentiment from the Gaza population, raising the threat of new attacks, including suicide bombings, against whomever assumes power.

“If the Israelis succeed in crushing Hamas, I think it’s going to be extremely difficult to get a governing structure in there that is going to be legitimate and functional,” said Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. Middle East negotiator.

“The ‘day after’ exercises right now strike me as fantastical,” Miller said. (…)

There is a growing realization that massive amounts of international aid will be needed to rebuild Gaza, and such an infusion would be nearly impossible to secure from Western governments with Hamas still in charge. (…)

Among the options that U.S. officials have discussed is creation of a multinational force to maintain order. Its composition could include some mix of European or Arab countries, though no government has openly expressed interest in joining such a force. (…)

Some policy analysts have also floated the idea of deploying to Gaza a United Nations backed force – either a formal U.N. peacekeeping force, as it does on the Israel-Lebanon border, or a multinational force with U.N. approval.

But diplomats say there have been no discussions at the United Nations about such a move, which would require agreement among the 15 members of the U.N. Security Council. (…)

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for saying the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 “did not happen in a vacuum.”

Israel expects a long war but says it has no interest in re occupying Gaza.

Outside experts, some known at times to have the ear of U.S. policymakers, are weighing in on what a post-war Gaza might look like.

If Hamas can be stripped of its “veto power” and Gaza is demilitarized, “that could open the way for establishment of an interim administration with a technocratic Palestinian led government that operates under some kind of international and/or regional umbrella,” said Dennis Ross, a former Middle East negotiator and White House adviser. (…)

An article authored by Ross and two of his colleagues at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, proposed that once Israel withdraws, security in Gaza be provided by a “consortium of the five Arab states who have reached peace agreements with Israel, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco.”

But there is some skepticism that such an arrangement could be struck.

“Arab states aren’t going to put boots on the ground to kill Palestinians,” said former negotiator Miller, now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.

Those were the only ideas that Reuters’s 7 member team were able to identify from the U.S. Administration, now, after Biden had said, in closing his October 7th speech, “Remarks by President Biden on the Terrorist Attacks In Israel”: “Let there be no mistake: The United States stands with the State of Israel, just as we have from the moment the United States became the first nation to recognize Israel, 11 minutes after its founding, 75 years ago.”

Biden is backing up those words, by actions. On October 15th, the N.Y. Post headlined “US Navy sends second carrier group back to Israel as Gaza invasion nears” and described the vast flotilla of weaponry, men, and aircraft carriers, that the Post described as each being “a floating airport for fighter jets and other military aircraft,” which Biden was sending to support Israel’s operation against the Gazans.

Whereas the Gazans are born, and live, and die, as inmates in the world’s largest open-air prison (with Israeli guards blocking their exits and entrances), the Americans are expecting Arabs and Muslims to help Israel to conquer them. But if that wish were to be fulfilled, then the millions who now are marching and demonstrating against Israel’s slaughter of those born inmates might instead start demonstrating and marching for the overthrow of their own leaders. Why do America’s officials expect those leaders to do that? But they apparently do. Apparently, they take seriously these insane proposals. It very publicly displays the caliber of America’s leadership.

And this insanity is entirely bipartisan, because both political Parties are controlled by their billionaires, who are even stronger in their support for Israel against Palestinians than their voters are. Thus, on November 3rd, Vanity Fair magazine headlined “Donald Trump, After Bashing Netanyahu, Is Trying to Shore Up His Pro Israel Cred: While Joe Biden’s handling of the Israel Hamas war is drawing rare praise from Republicans “A+” says one GOP donor. the former president is doing damage control in speeches and privately with Jewish leaders on the right.” Trump “positioned himself as the most pro Israel candidate in the field. ‘I will defend our friend and ally the State of Israel like nobody has ever defended,’ Trump told the 1,000 plus crowd of donors and activists. Twice Trump said: ‘I love Israel.’ After his RJC speech, Trump reportedly had a private dinner with Miriam Adelson, the widow of late GOP mega donor Sheldon Adelson.”

The caliber of America’s leadership is determined by the caliber of America’s billionaires. It’s an aristocracy, not a democracy. And this is the caliber of those aristocrats. And, after all: every aristocracy is highly tribal. One can’t reasonably blame democracy for this insanity, because it is in service to America’s aristocracy. these ‘philanthropists’, who endow ‘charities’ (and buy politicians) (so as to reduce their taxes).

Is America the world’s most corrupt country? Maybe. But it’s got lots of competition. Israel, for example.

https://theduran.com/the-u-s-israeli-governments-insanity/

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s new book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S. and allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’, duping the public.

Eric Zuesse blogs at https://theduran.com/author/eric-zuesse/.

https://theduran.com/a-post-by-one-of-the-worlds-leading-international-lawyers/