Countercurrent – June 15, 2024
Gaza: Everything bombed to The Ground!
By Dr. Marwan Asmar
The economic losses of Gaza as a result of the 9-month Israeli bombardment are estimated at $33 billion. The Gaza Government Media Offices says these are direct initial losses.
On the housing level, 138.4 thousand units were destroyed completely whilst 453 thousand housing units were partially destroyed.
Israeli warplanes attacked and destroyed 194 government headquarters throughout the Gaza strip.
The educational sector was completely decimated. The Media Office points out that 110 schools and universities were destroyed completely. However, 321 schools and universities were only partially destroyed in a clip shown on Al Jazeera.
The Israeli occupation even tried to destroy the history, culture and civilization of Gaza as 206 archaeological sites where destroyed with 604 Mosques bombed to the ground. However, 200 mosques were partially destroyed with Israeli bombs destroying three churches in Gaza.
Finally, before 7 October 36 hospitals operated in Gaza. Today 33 of these have been bombed and brought out of service. This is while 55 health centers are no longer in service.
Dr Marwan Asmar is a writer based in Amman. He blogs at https://crossfirearabia.com/
https://countercurrents.org/2024/06/gaza-everything-bombed-to-the-ground/
Text of Palestinian Resistance's response to 'Israel's' ceasefire proposal
Al Mayadeen obtains the document outlining the fundamental principles of the Palestinian Resistance's response to the Israeli proposal, as presented by US President Joe Biden, regarding the ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip.
After the Palestinian Resistance in the Gaza Strip recently submitted its response to the American proposal for a ceasefire, including comments and amendments reflecting its conditions, Al Mayadeenﾠacquired a document outlining the basic principles of the response document.
Here is the text of the Resistance's response:
Here are the foundational principles for an agreement between the Israeli and Palestinian sides in Gaza concerning the exchange of detainees and prisoners, as well as achieving sustainable calm.
This text outlines the fundamental principles for an agreement, referencing the Palestinian response to the Israeli proposal dated May 6, 2024.
The framework aims to release all Israeli captives in the Gaza Strip, including civilians and soldiers, regardless of their status (alive or deceased) or the duration of their detention. In exchange, there would be a reciprocal release of an agreed-upon number of prisoners held in Israeli prisons, to achieve a state of calm.
To achieve a permanent ceasefire, the following steps are proposed: the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip, the reconstruction of Gaza, and the lifting of the blockade. This includes opening all border crossings to facilitate the movement of residents and unrestricted transport of goods.
The framework agreement consists of three related and interconnected stages as follows:
The first phase (42 days)
1. Both parties agree to temporarily cease military operations, with Israeli forces withdrawing eastward and away from densely populated areas to position themselves along the border throughout the Gaza Strip. This includes the Philadelphi Axis and the Gaza Valley (Netzarim Axis and the Kuwait roundabout), as outlined below.
2. Temporary cessation of flights (both military and reconnaissance) over the Gaza Strip daily, to be restricted to 10 hours, extended to 12 hours on days designated for the exchange of captives and prisoners.
3. The agreement includes provisions for returning displaced individuals to their respective areas of residence, along with the withdrawal of forces from the Philadelphi axis and Gaza Valley (specifically the Netzarim axis and the Kuwait roundabout).
- On the third day (following the release of three detainees), Israeli forces will fully withdraw from the Rafah crossing, the entire Philadelphi Axis, and eastward from al-Rashid Street to Salah al-Din Street. All military sites and installations in the area will be dismantled by no later than the seventh day. From the first day, displaced individuals will begin returning to their residences (without carrying weapons), and residents will enjoy unrestricted movement throughout the Gaza Strip. Additionally, humanitarian aid will enter via al-Rashid Street from the outset without restrictions.
- By the 22nd day, Israeli forces will withdraw from the central areas of the Gaza Strip, specifically the Netzarim Axis and the Kuwait Roundabout axis, to a nearby border area. All military sites and installations in this zone will be dismantled. Displaced individuals will continue returning to their residences throughout the Gaza Strip, without carrying weapons, with a focus on facilitating their return from the South to the North. The agreement ensures unrestricted freedom of movement for the population across all areas of the Gaza Strip.
- From the first day onwards, a substantial amount of humanitarian aid, relief materials, and fuel will be delivered, totaling 600 trucks daily. This includes 50 fuel trucks, with 300 allocated for the northern regions. The aid will support the operation of power stations and trade activities, and provide equipment for rubble removal, hospital rehabilitation, and operational needs across Gaza's health services and bakeries. This humanitarian assistance will be sustained throughout all phases of the agreement.
- 4. Prisoner-captive exchange between both sides:
During this initial phase, Hamas will release 32 Israeli captives, including both living individuals and the remains of the deceased. This group includes women (both civilians and female soldiers), children (under 19 years who are not conscripts), elderly individuals (over 50 years old), and civilians who are sick or wounded. In exchange, an agreed number of prisoners held in Israeli prisons and detention centers will be released.
- Hamas would release all living Israeli captives, which includes civilian women and children (under 19 years old who are not conscripts). In return, "Israel" agrees to release 30 women and children for each Israeli captive released, based on lists provided by Hamas, according to their date of capture.
- Hamas would release all living Israeli detainees, including elderly individuals (over 50 years old) and sick or wounded civilians. In exchange, "Israel" agrees to release 30 elderly individuals (over 50 years old) and any sick or wounded civilian detainees for every Israeli captive, based on lists provided by Hamas sorted by the oldest arrests.
- Hamas would release all living Israeli female captives and recruits, in exchange for "Israel" releasing 50 detainees from its prisons for every Israeli female captive released (30 sentenced to life, 20 to other sentences) based on lists provided by Hamas.
- 5. Mechanism for exchanging detainees and prisoners between the two parties during the first phase:
- By the third day, Hamas will release three Israeli captives, prioritizing civilians. By the seventh day, Hamas will release three Israeli captives, prioritizing civilians.
- Afterward, Hamas will release three Israeli detainees every seven days, beginning with women (both civilians and soldiers, if possible), and prioritizing all living detainees for release before addressing the transfer of body parts and remains of the deceased.
- In return, “Israel” will release the agreed-upon number of detainees in Israeli prisons for every Israeli captive who is released, provided that this happens simultaneously and on the same day according to the lists that Hamas will provide.
- During the sixth week, Hamas will release the remaining detainees included in this stage. In exchange, the agreed-upon number of detainees will be released from Israeli prisons simultaneously and on the same day, based on lists provided by Hamas.
- By the seventh day, Hamas will disclose the available information regarding the number of Israeli detainees to be released in this phase, contingent upon "Israel" providing adequate information to Hamas and relevant international authorities regarding Palestinian prisoners and detainees from the Gaza Strip, particularly those arrested after October 7, 2023.
- On the 22nd day, "Israel" will release all detainees who were re-detained following the Gilad Shalit deal.
- If the number of Israeli detainees to be released in this stage does not reach 32, Hamas will supplement the release with body parts or remains of the deceased from the same categories outlined for this stage. In exchange, "Israel" will release all women, children (under 19 years old), patients, and elderly individuals (over 50 years old) who were arrested from the Gaza Strip after October 7, 2023.
- This exchange is expected to occur during the fifth week of this phase.
- The standards and criteria for a prisoner-captive exchange in this stage will apply to the two individuals, Hisham al-Sayyed and Avera Mengistu if they are confirmed to be alive.
- The exchange process is contingent upon adherence to the terms of the agreement, which include halting military operations by both parties, withdrawing Israeli forces along the border including the Philadelphi Axis and Rafah crossing, facilitating the return of displaced persons to their homes, and ensuring the unrestricted entry of humanitarian aid.
- 6. The Palestinian detainees who are liberated will not be re-detained on the same charges for which they were initially detained. "Israel" will not reincarcerate these prisoners to serve the remainder of their sentences, nor will they require them to sign any documents as a condition for their release. These measures will be accompanied by necessary legal procedures to ensure compliance with these terms.
- Restoring the conditions of prisoners and detainees in Israeli prisons and detention camps to what they were before October 7, 2023, including those who were arrested after this date.
- 7. The principles and criteria for exchanging detainees and prisoners in the first phase mentioned above do not serve as the basis for negotiating the exchange criteria in the second phase.
8. By the 16th day at the latest, indirect discussions will commence between the two parties to finalize the criteria for exchanging detainees, including conscripts and remaining individuals, for the second phase. This process must be completed and agreed upon before the end of the fifth week of this phase.
9. The United Nations, its agencies (including UNRWA), and other organizations will actively engage in providing humanitarian services across all areas of the Gaza Strip, a commitment that will be sustained throughout all stages of the agreement.
10. Infrastructure rehabilitation (including electricity, water, sewage, communications, and roads) across all areas of the Gaza Strip will commence immediately from day one. Necessary equipment for civil defense, public works, and municipal services will be deployed for debris removal and reconstruction, a process that will persist throughout all phases of the agreement.
11. The necessary supplies and resources will be provided to accommodate displaced persons who lost their homes during the war, ensuring a minimum of 60,000 temporary homes and 200,000 tents.
12. An agreed-upon number of wounded soldiers will be permitted to travel (at least 50 per day) through the Rafah crossing. Restrictions on travel will be lifted, and the movement of goods and trade will resume from the first day of this phase.
13. Arrangements and plans are underway for the reconstruction of homes, civilian facilities, and infrastructure destroyed during the war. Those affected will receive support and compensation under the supervision of several countries and organizations, including Egypt, Qatar, and the United Nations.
14. All procedures from this stage will carry over into the second stage, encompassing temporary cessation of military operations by both parties, relief efforts, shelter provisions, withdrawal of Israeli forces, cessation of flights, and more, until a sustainable calm is declared, marking a permanent cessation of military and hostile operations that comes into effect.
Negotiations will persist under the guarantee of mediators until both parties agree on the criteria for exchanging captives and detainees during the second phase.
The second phase (42 days):
15. Announcing the restoration of sustainable calm, which signifies a permanent cessation of military and hostile operations, will take effect before the captive-prisoner exchange between the two parties.
This exchange will involve all remaining Israeli male captives who are alive (both civilians and soldiers), in exchange for an agreed-upon number of detainees from Israeli prisons and detainees from Israeli detention centers. Additionally, it includes the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip.
The third phase (42 days):
16. Both parties will exchange all body parts or remains of the deceased after their arrival and identification.
17. Initiate the Gaza Strip reconstruction plan, scheduled to span three to five years, encompassing the rebuilding of homes, civilian facilities, and infrastructure to support and compensate all affected groups. This effort will be overseen by several countries and organizations, including Egypt, Qatar, and the United Nations.
18. Ending the complete siege of the Gaza Strip entails opening all border crossings, notably the Rafah crossing, to facilitate the movement of residents and goods. Additionally, ensuring uninterrupted electricity supply throughout all areas of the Gaza Strip is paramount.
Guarantors of this agreement:
Qatar, Egypt, the United States, the United Nations, Turkey, Russia, and China
Middle East Eye – June 14, 2024
War on Gaza: The death of American exceptionalism
By Jess Salomon
Amid Israel's genocidal onslaught, the international rules-based order has been torn to shreds. There's no going back
For more than eight months, Israel’s US-backed assault on Gaza has killed tens of thousands of civilians. It has levelled Gaza’s buildings and infrastructure to such a degree that it is noticeable from space.
Under the rubble, along with an untold number of people still unaccounted for, saturated with toxic matter and unexploded ordinances, lies whatever pretence remained of the United States as a country that upholds its obligations under international law - including, but especially, the prevention and punishment of genocide.
It’s not a revelation to say that international law is applied unequally. We know the international rules-based order created in the wake of World War II favours the victors of that war.
The five veto-endowed permanent members of the UN Security Council are a snapshot of the world in 1946; who was rewarded, who was punished, and some consideration for regional representation (ie China).
Still, it honestly feels a little shocking to see this laid so bare.
It’s as if an employer put out an ad that read: “Hiring men who will golf with me and people I have to hire because I owe someone a favour.” Imagine a bouncer came out and said: “Hot, rich, and famous people only. Everyone else, you’re ruining the vibe.”
We know people are treated differently, that exceptions are made for the powerful - but generally speaking, the pretence remains intact: everyone has, if not a fair shot, a shot.
Saying the quiet part loud
In a recent interview, International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim Khan told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour: “I’ve had some elected leaders speak to me and be very blunt. ‘This court is built for Africa and thugs like Putin,’ was what one senior leader told me.”
Khan gave this interview on the heels of announcing he was seeking arrest warrants for three Hamas leaders, along with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, for war crimes and crimes against humanity. It marks the first time an American ally has been targeted by the international criminal tribunal; this is apparently all it took for the quiet part to be said very much out loud.
I always assumed the US would try to maintain some level of plausible deniability around the equal application of international law - that it would respect the judgements of international courts while avoiding their jurisdiction, if only because its stated commitment to the promotion and protection of human rights, rule of law, and democratic principles plays such an important role in justifying its interventionist foreign policy.
American exceptionalism, as it applies to international relations, would seem to require the pretence, however thinly worn, that despite its failings, the US is ultimately a force for good in the world.
If it is simply a rogue nation acting outside the law and using its immense power to undermine the system for no other reason than its own (and its allies’) self-interest, what are we left with? What then becomes of the international rules-based order?
This feels like a big concession to be making for an ally credibly accused of genocide. There is no plausible deniability to fall back on when we can all see the crimes Israel is committing; when we see the weapons and money the US continues to send, the red lines drawn and then crossed.
There is no plausible deniability to fall back on when people the world over have borne witness to the unimaginable suffering of Palestinians in Gaza every day for more than eight months; when the consensus opinion among legal experts and international humanitarian groups is that Israel is committing genocide. The International Court of Justice has repeatedly ordered provisional measures against Israel, citing an urgent need to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the plausible risk of genocide.
Israeli fan fiction
And yet, US President Joe Biden’s spokespeople stand at the White House podium day in and day out, sharing what sounds like Israeli fan fiction, as reporters ask them serious and pointed questions.
In the Biden administration’s fictionalised world, every documented horror perpetrated against the civilians of Gaza - babies, aid workers, doctors, journalists, ambulance drivers, zip-tied patients with IVs still in their arms excavated from mass graves - all of it, they tell us, Israel is investigating and can be trusted to do so.
It doesn’t matter that Israel has never legitimately carried out any such investigation. They haven’t even (at least publicly) investigated what happened on 7 October.
In this world, we’re told the ICC doesn’t have jurisdiction, because Israel’s independent judiciary can be trusted to hold its leaders accountable for atrocity crimes - as if we aren’t all watching Netanyahu preside over a genocide to avoid personal accountability for much (much) lesser crimes. As if, prior to being interrupted by 7 October, this government wasn’t specifically working to take away the judiciaryﾒs independent authority to review government actions.
In fact, the only real example of accountability we’ve seen was Israel’s recent decision to phase out its use of the Sde Teiman detention facility. This was because of a CNN report that detailed the extreme use of torture against detainees held without charge, trial, or access to the Red Cross, including being tied to electric chairs and having hot metal rods put up their anus.
Hypocrisy exposed
It’s not even gaslighting. These White House news conferences are more like very dark, absurdist performance pieces. Remember the Iraqi information minister during the US invasion of Iraq in 2003? He’d be out there talking to the cameras, denying there were any American tanks in Baghdad, when you could see and hear them approaching behind him. It’s like that, but more repetitive, and with less charisma and humour.
Gaza, and the broader Palestinian cause, has exposed the hypocrisy of western governments in ways it’s hard to imagine coming back from. We’ve seen anti-democratic repression of peaceful protests, and of academic and artistic freedoms; and a McCarthyite blacklisting of people who advocate for Palestinian liberation.
There is a very real possibility that Donald Trump will be re-elected president in November if young people don’t turn out for Biden because of his full-throttled support for this genocide (and because the Democratic Party chooses not to replace him). If that happens, then the pretence of American democracy itself could end up buried beneath the rubble.
Again, I think it’s worth underscoring: this is a very big price to pay for an ally that takes your money and does not appear to respect you.
Perhaps looking back, Gaza will come to be seen as what marked the beginning of the end of American exceptionalism, and in its place, we’ll see a reordering that puts the Global South and the Global North on equal footing. None of this is to say that the ideals upon which American exceptionalism is claimed - democracy, liberty and equality - are not still a very worthy pursuit. But their pursuit is not a justification for exemptions from the application and consequences of international law.
In this post-exceptionalist world, perhaps pretence will finally be dispensed with, and we can all finally admit that the US is in fact the world’s biggest thug.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/war-gaza-end-american-exceptionalism
Why the fight for Palestine is the fight against U.S. imperialism in the region
We need an alternative approach to understanding Palestine that situates it within the wider region and the Middle East’s central place in our fossil fuel-centered world.
By Adam Hanieh
Over the last seven months, Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza has generated an unprecedented wave of global protest and awareness around Palestine. Many millions of people have taken to the streets, encampments have spread across universities throughout the world, courageous activists have blocked ports and arms factories, and there is a deep-seated recognition that a global campaign of boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel is needed now more than ever. The strength of these popular movements has been reinforced through the enormous attention brought by South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) — a case that has not only powerfully highlighted the reality of Israeli genocide but also the intransigence of the leading Western states in enabling Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip and beyond.
Nonetheless, despite this global upsurge in solidarity with Palestine, there remain several misconceptions about how Palestine is commonly debated and framed. Too often, the politics of Palestine are viewed simply through the lens of Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, ignoring the wider regional dynamics of the Middle East, and the global context in which Israeli settler colonialism operates. Relatedly, solidarity with Palestine is frequently reduced to the question of Israel’s massive human rights abuses and ongoing violations of international law — the killings, arrests, and dispossession that Palestinians have experienced for nearly eight decades. The problem with this human rights framing is that it depoliticizes the Palestinian struggle, failing to explain why Western states continue to support Israel so unequivocally. And when this crucial question of Western support is raised, many point to a “pro-Israel lobby” operating in North America and Western Europe as the cause — a false and politically dangerous viewpoint that gets the relationship between Western states and Israel fundamentally wrong.
My goal in this piece is to present an alternative approach to understanding Palestine — one that is framed by the wider region and the Middle East’s central place in our fossil fuel-centered world. My key argument is that the unstinting support of the U.S. and leading European states for Israel cannot be comprehended outside of this framework. As a settler colony, Israel has been crucial to the maintenance of Western imperial interests — notably those of the U.S. — in the Middle East. It has performed this role alongside the other major pillar of U.S. control in the region: the oil-rich Gulf Arab monarchies, principally Saudi Arabia. The fast-evolving relationships between the Gulf, Israel, and the U.S. are essential to understanding the current moment, especially given the relative weakening of American global power.
Postwar transformations and the Middle East
Two major global shifts defined the changing world order in the years immediately following the Second World War. The first was a revolution in the world’s energy systems: the emergence of oil as the world’s principal fossil fuel, displacing coal and other energy sources across the leading industrialized economies. This fossil fuel transition occurred first in the U.S., where the consumption of oil surpassed coal in 1950, followed by Western Europe and Japan in the 1960s. Across the wealthy countries represented in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), oil made up less than 28% of total fossil fuel consumption in 1950; by the end of the 1960s, it held a majority share. With its greater energy density, chemical flexibility, and easy transportability, oil powered a booming post-war capitalism — underpinning a range of new technologies, industries, and infrastructure. This was the beginning of what scientists would later describe as the “Great Acceleration” — a massive and continued expansion of fossil fuel consumption that began in the mid-twentieth century, and which has led inexorably to today’s climate emergency.
This global transition to oil was closely connected to a second major post-war transformation: the consolidation of the U.S. as the leading economic and political power. The economic rise of the U.S. had begun in the early decades of the twentieth century, but it was the Second World War that marked the definitive emergence of the U.S. as the most dynamic force in global capitalism, opposed only by the Soviet Union and its allied bloc. American power arose on the back of the destruction across Western Europe during the war, coupled with the weakening of European colonial rule over much of the so-called Third World. As Britain and France faltered, the U.S. took the lead in shaping the architecture of post-war politics and economics, including a new global financial system centered on the U.S. dollar. By the mid-1950s, the U.S. held a 60% share of world manufacturing output and just over a quarter of global GDP — and 42 of the top 50 industrial corporations in the world were American.
These two global transitions — the transition to oil and the ascendance of American power — had profound implications for the Middle East. On one hand, the Middle East played a decisive role in the global shift to oil. The region had plentiful oil supplies, amounting to nearly 40% of the world’s proven reserves by the mid-1950s. Middle East oil was also located close to many European countries, and the costs of producing it were much lower than the costs of oil production anywhere else in the world. Seemingly unlimited quantities of low-cost Middle East oil could thus be supplied to Europe at prices lower than coal while ensuring that domestic U.S. oil markets remained insulated from the effects of increased European demand. The recentering of Europe’s oil supply on the Middle East was a remarkably rapid process: between 1947 and 1960, the share of Europe’s oil that originated from the region doubled, rising from 43% to 85%. This not only enabled the emergence of new industries (such as petrochemicals) but also new forms of transport and war-making. Indeed, without the Middle East, the oil transition in Western Europe may never have happened.
Most of the Middle East’s oil reserves are concentrated in the Gulf region, especially Saudi Arabia and the smaller Gulf Arab states, as well as Iran and Iraq. Through the first half of the twentieth century, these countries had been ruled by autocratic monarchies supported by the British (except for Saudi Arabia, which was nominally independent of British colonialism). Oil production in the region was controlled by a handful of large Western oil firms, who paid rents and royalties to the rulers of these states for the right to extract oil. These oil firms were vertically integrated, meaning they not only controlled the extraction of crude oil, but also the refining, shipping, and sale of oil around the world. The power of these firms was immense, with their control of the infrastructures of oil’s circulation allowing them to exclude any potential competitors. The concentration of ownership in the oil industry far exceeded that seen in any other industry; indeed, at the end of the Second World War, more than 80% of all the world’s oil reserves outside the U.S. and the USSR were controlled by just seven large American and European firms — the so-called “Seven Sisters.”
Israel and the anti-colonial revolt
Despite their huge power, as the Middle East became the center of world oil markets through the 1950s and 1960s, these oil firms were faced with a major problem. As took place elsewhere around the world, a range of powerful nationalist, communist, and other left-wing movements challenged rulers who were backed by British and French colonialism, threatening to upset the carefully constructed regional order. This was experienced most sharply in Egypt, where the British-supported monarch, King Farouk, was ousted in 1952 in a military coup led by a popular military officer, Jamal Abdel Nasser. Nasser’s coming to power forced the withdrawal of British troops from Egypt and led to Sudan obtaining independence in 1956. Egypt’s newly gained sovereignty was crowned with the nationalization of the British/French-controlled Suez Canal in 1956 — an action celebrated by millions of people across the entire Middle East and met with a failed invasion of Egypt by Britain, France, and Israel. As Nasser took these steps, anti-colonial struggles were growing elsewhere in the region, most notably in Algeria, where a guerrilla war for independence was launched against the French occupation in 1954.
Although it is often overlooked today, these threats to longstanding colonial domination were likewise felt across the oil-rich states of the Gulf. In Saudi Arabia and the smaller Gulf monarchies, support for Nasser ran high, and various left-wing movements protested the venality, corruption, and pro-Western stance of the ruling monarchies. The potential consequences of this were demonstrated in neighboring Iran, where a popular national leader, Muhammad Mossadegh, had come to power in 1951. One of Mossadegh’s first acts was to take over the British-controlled oil company, Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (the forerunner of today’s BP), in the first oil nationalization in the Middle East. This nationalization resonated strongly in nearby Arab states, where the slogan “Arab oil for the Arabs” gained widespread popularity amid the general anti-colonial mood.
In response to Iran’s oil nationalization, U.S. and British intelligence officials orchestrated a coup against Mossadegh in 1953, bringing to power a pro-Western government loyal to the Iranian monarch, Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. The coup marked the opening salvo in a sustained counter-revolutionary wave directed against radical and nationalist movements across the region. The overthrow of Mossadegh also demonstrated a major shift in the regional order: while Britain played an important role in the coup, it was the U.S. that took the lead in planning and carrying out the operation. This was the first time the U.S. Government had deposed a foreign ruler during peacetime, and the CIA’s involvement in the coup was an important precursor of later U.S. interventions, such as the 1954 coup in Guatemala and the overthrow of Chile’s Salvador Allende in 1973.
It was in this context that Israel emerged as a major bulwark of American interests in the region. In the early years of the twentieth century, Britain had been the principal supporter of the Zionist colonization of Palestine, and after Israel’s establishment in 1948, it continued to support the Zionist state-building project. But as the U.S. supplanted British and French colonial dominance in the Middle East during the post-war period, American support for Israel emerged as the lynchpin of a new regional security order. The key turning point was the 1967 war between Israel and leading Arab states, which saw the Israeli military destroy the Egyptian and Syrian air forces and occupy the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the (Egyptian) Sinai Peninsula, and the (Syrian) Golan Heights. Israel’s victory shattered the movements of Arab unity, national independence, and anti-colonial resistance that had crystallized most sharply in Nasser’s Egypt. It also encouraged the U.S. to become the country’s primary patron, replacing Britain. From that moment onwards, the U.S. began to supply Israel annually with billions of dollars worth of military hardware and financial support.
The significance of settler colonialism
The 1967 war demonstrated that Israel was a powerful force that could be used against any threats to American interests in the region. But there is a crucial dimension to this that often goes unremarked: Israel’s special place in supporting American power is directly connected to its internal character as a settler colony, founded on the ongoing dispossession of the Palestinian population. Settler colonies must continually work to fortify structures of racial oppression, class exploitation, and dispossession. As a result, they are typically highly militarized and violent societies, which tend to be reliant upon external support, which allows them to maintain their material privileges in a hostile regional environment.
In such societies, a substantial proportion of the population benefits from the oppression of Indigenous peoples and understands their privileges in racialized and militaristic terms. For this reason, settler colonies are much more dependable partners of Western imperial interests than “normal” client states.[1] This is why British colonialism supported Zionism as a political movement in the early twentieth century — and why the U.S. embraced Israel in the post-1967 moment.
Israel’s ability to maintain a permanent state of war, occupation, and oppression would be deeply imperiled without continuous American backing.
Of course, this does not mean that the U.S. “controls” Israel, or that there are never differences of opinion between the U.S. and Israeli governments over how this relationship should be sustained. But Israel’s ability to maintain a permanent state of war, occupation, and oppression would be deeply imperiled without continuous American backing (both materially and politically). In return, Israel serves as a loyal partner and a bulwark against threats to American interests in the region. Israel has also acted globally in supporting repressive US-backed regimes across the world — from Apartheid South Africa through to military dictatorships in Latin America. Alexander Haig, U.S. secretary of state under Richard Nixon, once put it bluntly: “Israel is the largest American aircraft carrier in the world that cannot be sunk, does not carry even one American soldier, and is located in a critical region for American national security.”[3]
The connection between the internal character of the Israeli state and its special place in American power is akin to the role that South African apartheid played for Western interests across the African continent. There are important differences between South African apartheid and Israeli apartheid — not least the preponderant share of South Africa’s black populations in the country’s working class (unlike Palestinians in Israel) — but as settler colonies, both countries came to act as core organizing centers of Western power in their respective neighborhoods. If we examine the history of Western support for South African apartheid, we see the same sorts of justifications that we see today in the case of Israel (and the same kinds of attempts to block international sanctions and criminalize protest movements). These parallels extend to the role of specific individuals. One little-known example of this is a trip made by a young member of Britainﾒs Conservative Party to South Africa in 1989, during which he argued against international sanctions on South Africa and made the case for why Britain should continue to support the Apartheid regime. Decades later, that young Tory, David Cameron, now holds the position of UK Foreign Minister — and is one of the key world leaders cheerleading Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
The Middle East’s centrality to the global oil economy gives Israel a more pronounced place in imperial power than was held by Apartheid South Africa. But both cases demonstrate why it is so important to think about how regional and global factors intersect with the internal class and racial dynamics of settler colonies.
Israel’s economic integration into the Middle East
The Middle East became even more significant to American power following the nationalization of crude oil reserves across most of the region (and elsewhere) during the 1970s and 1980s. Nationalization brought the longstanding direct Western control of Middle Eastern crude supplies to an end (although American and European firms continued to control most of the global refining, transport, and sale of this oil). In this context, U.S. interests in the region revolved around guaranteeing the stable supply of oil to the world market — denominated in U.S. dollars — and ensuring that oil would not be used as a “weapon” to destabilize the American-centered global system. Moreover, with Gulf oil producers now earning trillions through the export of crude oil, the U.S. was also deeply concerned about how these so-called petrodollars circulated through the global financial system — a matter that is directly consequential to the dominance of the U.S. dollar.
In pursuing these interests, U.S. strategy became fully focused on the survival of the Gulf monarchies, led by Saudi Arabia, as key regional allies. This was particularly important following the overthrow, in 1979, of Iran’s Pahlavi monarchy, which had been another mainstay of American interests in the Gulf since the 1953 coup. U.S. support to the Gulf monarchs was manifested in a variety of ways — including the sale of massive amounts of military hardware that turned the Gulf into the largest market for weapons in the world, economic initiatives that channeled Gulf petrodollar wealth into American financial markets, and a permanent U.S. military presence that continues to form the ultimate guarantee of monarchical rule.
A pivotal moment in the U.S.-Gulf relationship came with the Iran-Iraq War, which lasted between 1980 and 1988, and ranks as one of the most destructive conflicts of the twentieth century (up to half a million people perished). During this war, the U.S. supplied weapons, funding, and intelligence to both sides, viewing it as a way to sap the power of these two large neighboring countries and further ensure the security of the Gulf monarchs.
U.S. strategy in the Middle East came to rest upon two core pillars: Israel and the Gulf monarchies. These two pillars remain the crux of American power in the region today.
In this manner, U.S. strategy in the Middle East came to rest upon two core pillars: Israel, on one side, and the Gulf monarchies, on the other. These two pillars remain the crux of American power in the region today; however, there has been a critical shift in how they relate to one another. Beginning in the 1990s, and continuing through to the current moment, the U.S. Government has sought to knit these two strategic poles together — along with other important Arab states, such as Jordan and Egypt — within a single zone that is tied to U.S. economic and political power. For this to happen successfully, Israel needed to be integrated into the wider Middle East — by normalizing its relations (economic, political, diplomatic) with Arab states. Most importantly, this meant getting rid of the formal Arab boycotts of Israel that had existed for many decades.
From Israel’s perspective, normalization was not simply about enabling Israeli trade with and investments in Arab states. Following a major recession in the mid-1980s, Israelﾒs economy had shifted away from sectors such as construction and agriculture, towards a much greater emphasis on high-tech, finance, and military exports. Many leading international companies, however, were reluctant to do business with Israeli firms (or inside Israel itself) because of the secondary boycotts imposed by Arab governments.[4] Dropping these boycotts was essential in order to attract big Western firms into Israel, and also to enable Israeli firms to access foreign markets in the U.S. and elsewhere. Economic normalization, in other words, was just as much about ensuring Israeli capitalism’s place in the global economy as it was about Israel accessing markets in the Middle East.
To this end, the U.S. (and its European allies) employed a variety of mechanisms from the 1990s onwards aimed at driving forward Israel’s economic integration into the wider Middle East. One was the deepening of economic reforms — an opening up to foreign investment and trade flows that spread rapidly across the region. As part of this, the U.S. proposed a range of economic initiatives that sought to tie Israeli and Arab markets to one another, and then to the U.S. economy. A key scheme involved the so-called Qualifying Industrial Zones (QIZs) — low-wage manufacturing zones established in Jordan and Egypt in the late 1990s. Goods produced in the QIZs (mostly textiles and garments) were given duty-free access to the U.S., provided that a certain proportion of the inputs involved in their manufacture came from Israel. The QIZs played an early and decisive role in bringing together Israeli, Jordanian, and Egyptian capital in joint ownership structures — normalizing economic relations between two of the Arab states that neighbor Israel. By 2007, the U.S. government was reporting that more than 70% of Jordan’s exports to the U.S. came from QIZs; for Egypt, 30% of exports to the U.S. were produced in QIZs in 2008.[5]
Alongside the QIZ program, the U.S. also proposed the Middle East Free Trade Area (MEFTA) initiative in 2003. MEFTA aimed to establish a free trade zone spanning the entire region by 2013. The U.S. strategy was to negotiate individually with “friendly” countries using a graduated six-step process that would eventually lead to a full-fledged free trade agreement (FTA) between the U.S. and the country in question.
These FTAs were designed so that countries could connect their own bilateral FTAs with the U.S. with other countries’ bilateral FTAs, thereby establishing subregional-level agreements across the Middle East. These subregional agreements could be linked over time until they covered the entire region.
Importantly, these FTAs would also be used to encourage Israel’s integration into Arab markets, with each agreement containing a clause committing the signatory to normalization with Israel and forbidding any boycott of trade relations. While the U.S. failed to meet its 2013 goal of establishing MEFTA, the policy successfully drove an expansion of U.S. economic influence in the region, underpinned by normalization between Israel and key Arab states. Strikingly, today the U.S. has 14 FTAs with countries across the world, five of which are with states in the Middle East (Israel, Bahrain, Morocco, Jordan, and Oman).
The Oslo Accords
However, the success of economic normalization ultimately hinged upon there being a change in the political situation that would give a Palestinian “greenlight” to Israel’s economic integration into the wider region. Here, the key turning point was the Oslo Accords, an agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) that was signed under the auspices of the U.S. Government on the White House lawn in 1993. Oslo built heavily upon colonial practices established over preceding decades. Since the 1970s, Israel had attempted to find a Palestinian force that would administer the West Bank and Gaza Strip on its behalf — a Palestinian proxy for the Israeli occupation that could minimize day-to-day contact between Palestinians and the Israeli military. These early attempts collapsed during the First Intifada, a large-scale popular uprising that began (in the Gaza Strip) in 1987. The Oslo Accords brought the First Intifada to an end.
Under Oslo, the PLO agreed to constitute a new political entity, called the Palestinian Authority (PA), which would be granted limited powers over fragmented areas of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The PA would be completely dependent upon external funding for its survival — especially loans, aid, and import taxes collected by Israel that would then be remitted to the PA. Because most of these funding sources ultimately derived from Western states and Israel, the PA was quickly politically subordinated. In addition, Israel retained full control over the Palestinian economy and resources, and the movement of people and goods. After the territorial division of Gaza and the West Bank in 2007, the PA established its headquarters in Ramallah in the West Bank. Today, the PA is headed by Mahmoud Abbas.[6]
Despite the way the Oslo Accords and subsequent negotiations are typically presented, they were never about peace and a road to Palestinian freedom. It was under Oslo that Israeli settlement expansion exploded in the West Bank, the Apartheid Wall was built, and the elaborate movement restrictions that govern Palestinian life today developed. Oslo served to cast key segments of the Palestinian population — refugees and Palestinian citizens of Israel — out of the political struggle, reducing the question of Palestine to negotiations around slivers of territory in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Most importantly, Oslo provided a Palestinian blessing to Israel’s integration into the wider Middle East, opening the way for Arab governments — led by Jordan and Egypt — to embrace normalization with Israel under a U.S. umbrella.
It was after Oslo that the movement restrictions, barriers, checkpoints, and military buffers that now encircle Gaza emerged. In this sense, the open-air prison that is today Gaza is itself a creation of the Oslo process: a direct thread connects the Oslo negotiations to the genocide we are now witnessing. It is crucial to remember this in light of ongoing discussions about possible post-war scenarios. Israeli strategy has always involved the periodic use of extreme violence, twinned with false promises of internationally-backed negotiations. These twin tools are part of the same process, serving to reinforce the continued fragmentation and dispossession of the Palestinian people. Any postwar negotiations steered by the U.S. will certainly see similar attempts to ensure Israel’s continuing domination of Palestinian lives and land.
Thinking forward
The strategic centrality of the oil-rich Middle East in American global power explains why Israel is now the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign aid in the world, even though it ranks as the world’s 13th wealthiest economy by GDP per capita (higher than the UK, Germany, or Japan). It also explains the bipartisan support for Israel among political elites in the U.S. (and UK). Indeed, in 2021 — under the Trump presidency and before the current war — Israel received more U.S. foreign military financing than all other countries in the world combined. And, crucially, as the last eight months have shown, American support extends far beyond financial and material support, with the U.S. acting as the final backstop in defending Israel politically on the world stage.[7]
As we have seen, this American alliance with Israel is not incidental to the dispossession of the Palestinian people, but is actually grounded in it. It is Israel’s settler colonial character that has given it such an outsized role in bolstering U.S. power across the region. This is why the Palestinian struggle is such a core part of driving political change across the Middle East — a region that is now the most socially polarized, economically unequal, and conflict-affected area in the world. And, conversely, it is why the struggle for Palestine is intimately bound up with the successes (and failures) of other progressive social struggles in the region.
The central axis of these inter-regional dynamics remains the connection between Israel and the Gulf states. In the two decades that followed the Oslo Accords, U.S. strategy in the Middle East continued to emphasize Israel’s economic and political integration with the Gulf states. A major step forward in this process occurred with the 2020 Abraham Accords, which saw the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain agree to normalize relations with Israel. The Abraham Accords paved the way for a UAE-Israel FTA, signed in 2022, which was Israel’s first FTA with an Arab state. Trade between Israel and the UAE surpassed $2.5 billion in 2022, up from just $150 million in 2020. Sudan and Morocco have also reached similar agreements with Israel, driven forward by significant American inducements.[8]
With the Abraham Accords, five Arab countries now have formal diplomatic relationships with Israel. These countries encompass around 40% of the population across the Arab world and include some of the region’s leading political and economic powers. But one crucial question still remains: when will Saudi Arabia join this club? While it is impossible that the UAE and Bahrain could have agreed to the Abraham Accords without Saudi Arabia’s consent, the Saudi Kingdom has so far not formally normalized ties with Israel — despite a plethora of meetings and informal connections between the two states over recent years.
Amidst the current genocide, a normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel is undoubtedly the principal goal of U.S. planning for the post-war moment. It is very likely that the Saudi government would agree to such an outcome — and it has probably indicated as much to the Biden administration — provided it receives some sort of go-ahead from the PA in Ramallah (perhaps connected to international recognition of a Palestinian pseudo-state in parts of the West Bank). There are obviously significant obstacles to this scenario, including the ongoing refusal of Palestinians in Gaza to submit and the question of how Gaza will be administered following the end of the war. But the current U.S. plan of a multinational Arab force taking control of the Strip, headed by some of the leading normalizing states — the UAE, Egypt, and Morocco — would likely be connected to Saudi-Israeli normalization.
Bringing the Gulf states and Israel together is increasingly crucial to U.S. interests in the region, given the sharp rivalries and geopolitical tensions emerging at the global level, especially with China. While there is no other “great power” that is set to replace American dominance in the Middle East, there has been a relative decline in U.S. political, economic, and military influence across the region over recent years. One indication of this is the growing interdependencies between the Gulf states and China/East Asia, which now go far beyond the export of Middle East crude. In this context — and given the longstanding place of Israel in American power — any normalization process steered by the U.S. state would help reassert American primacy in the region, potentially serving as a crucial lever against China’s influence there.
Nonetheless, despite the ongoing discussions around post-war scenarios, the last 76 years have repeatedly demonstrated that attempts to permanently erase Palestinian steadfastness and resistance will fail. Palestine now sits at the forefront of a global political awakening that exceeds anything seen since the 1960s.
Amidst this heightened awareness of the Palestinian condition, our analysis must go beyond immediate opposition to Israel’s brutality in the Gaza Strip. The struggle for Palestinian liberation sits at the center of any effective challenge to imperial interests in the Middle East, and our movements need a better grounding in these wider regional dynamics — especially the pivotal role of the Gulf monarchies. We also need a deeper understanding of how the Middle East fits within the history of fossil capitalism and contemporary struggles for climate justice. The question of Palestine cannot be separated from these realities. In this sense, the extraordinary battle for survival waged by Palestinians today in the Gaza Strip represents the leading edge of the fight for the future of the planet.
Notes
[1] For further elaboration and documentation of the points made in this section, see my upcoming book, Crude Capitalism: Oil, Corporate Power, and the Making of the World Market (Verso Books, 2024).
[2] Arab client regimes — such as today’s Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco — face repeated challenges from political movements within their own borders and are always forced to accommodate and respond to pressures coming from below.
[3] Revealingly, the source for this quote appears in an article written by the former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, entitled “The Ultimate Ally.”
[4] Secondary boycotts meant that a firm invested in Israel, say Microsoft, would face exclusion from Arab markets.
[5] Further discussion of the QIZs, MEFTA, and the political economy of Israel’s normalization can be found in Adam Hanieh, Lineages of Revolt: Issues of Contemporary Capitalism in the Middle East (Haymarket Books, 2013), especially pp. 36–38.
[6] In 2006, elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council were convincingly won by Hamas, which took 74 out of 132 contested seats. A national unity government was initially set up between Hamas and Fatah, the dominant Palestinian party that controls the PA. But this government was dissolved by Fatah after Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007. Since then, separate authorities have existed in Gaza and the West Bank.
[7] There also exist many other kinds of support beyond direct military and financial aid — for example, the U.S. provides billions of dollars in loan guarantees to Israel, which allows Israel to borrow more cheaply on the world market. Israel is one of only six countries in the world to receive such guarantees over the last decade (Ukraine, Iraq, Jordan, Tunisia, and Egypt are the others).
[8] In the case of Sudan, the U.S. agreed to provide a $1.2 billion loan and to remove the country from its list of state sponsors of terrorism (although the normalization agreement remains unratified). For Morocco, the U.S. recognized Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara in return for the country’s normalization with Israel.
Adam Hanieh is Professor of Political Economy and Global Development in the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter. His most recent book, Crude Capitalism: Oil, Corporate Power, and the Making of the World Market, is forthcoming from Verso Books in September 2024.
Putin names conditions for Ukraine peace talks
Kiev must withdraw its troops from Russia’s new territories, the president has said
Ukraine must remove its troops from Russia’s new regions before any meaningful peace talks can begin, President Vladimir Putin has said.
Moscow rejects Kiev’s claims of sovereignty over five formerly Ukrainian regions, four of which have joined Russia amid the ongoing hostilities. People in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics and Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions voted for the transition in late 2022, though hostilities continue in all of them.
Ukrainian troops must be removed from these territories, Putin said on Friday at a meeting with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and other senior Russian diplomats.
“I stress: the entire territory of those regions as defined by their administrative borders at the time they joined Ukraine [in August 1991],” Putin stated.
“Our side will order a ceasefire and start negotiations the minute Kiev declares that it is prepared to take this decision and starts actual withdrawal of troops from those regions, and also formally informs us that it no longer plans to join NATO,” the Russian leader pledged.
Putin outlined the conditions after condemning Kiev’s Western backers for allegedly preventing it from holding peace talks with Moscow while accusing Russia of rejecting negotiations.
“We are counting on Kiev to take such a decision on withdrawal, neutral status, and dialogue with Russia, on which the future existence of Ukraine depends, independently based on the current realities and guided by the true interests of the Ukrainian people and not at Western orders,” Putin stated.
At this point, Moscow will not accept a frozen conflict, which would allow the US and its allies to rearm and rebuild the Ukrainian military, Putin claimed. The full resolution of the issue will involve Kiev recognizing the four new regions as well as Crimea as part of Russia, he insisted.
“In the future, all those basic principled positions have to be enshrined in fundamental international agreements. Naturally, that includes the lifting of all Western sanctions against Russia,” Putin stated.
Accepting these terms will allow everyone involved to turn the page and gradually rebuild damaged relations, the president said. Eventually, a pan-European security system that works for all nations on the continent could be created, Putin added, noting that Moscow has sought this outcome for years.
The Russian president’s keynote remarks came ahead of a Swiss-hosted summit supposedly meant to further peace in Ukraine. Kiev has insisted that Moscow could not be invited to the event because it would try to “hijack” it by promoting alternatives to the “peace formula” pushed by the Ukrainian government.
Putin claimed that the event was meant to distract public opinion from the “true roots” of the conflict, and that Vladimir Zelensky has usurped power in Ukraine after his presidential term expired last month. Nothing but demagoguery and accusations against Russia can come out of the Swiss gathering, he predicted.
https://www.rt.com/russia/599276-putin-names-conditions-peace-talks/
|
Published since July 2008 |
Your donation
is tax deductable.
The Journal of America Team:
Editor in chief:
Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Senior Editor:
Prof. Arthur Scott
Special Correspondent
Maryam Turab
