Countercurrent – June 16, 2024
With Eight Killed War Goes Badly For Israel
by Dr Marwan Asmar
The Israeli war on Gaza is going badly despite the intense destruction and soldiers of the Palestinians of Gaza.
The Israelis are getting hit from both the south and the north. Hezbollah fighters are launching intense rockets, burning whole geographical areas that spread 12 to 13 kilometers across Israel.
Meanwhile the Israeli occupation army admits to the killing of eight of its soldiers in Rafah, Saturday afternoon.
News of the killing is trending on social media with the Israeli Army Radio confirming the number of dead in an armed vehicle destroyed in an explosion.
Izz Al Din Al Qassam fighters earlier said earlier it had killed the entire crew of the armed vehicle after it was targeted by an anti-tank shell.
Among those killed is the deputy commander in the 601 Engineering Brigade according to Israeli media sources.
A Palestinian resistance fighter in flipflops and jeans. They come out from underground tunnels.
Al Yassin, a home-made shell, manufactured in the nooks and crannies of Gaza costs $500 according to Rozan Qabas Aal Salem, a Yemeni Jewish translator in Israel.
The destruction of the Tiger troop carrier, which is the pride of Israeli industry represents a great economic loss for each of these units, costing $3 million.
But the cost of the machine is one thing; another is the cost of the training of these elite soldiers using the most sophisticated equipment and then parish.
The training and rehabilitation of soldiers for each machine tank and other military hardware takes as much as 10 years.
In this war on Gaza, 100s of troop carriers, tanks, drones and military hardware has been lost by the Israeli army to Palestinian fighters.
A loss estimate would put the number of military hardware units stand at 1500. This is not to account for the Israeli soldiers killed in tanks and troop carriers.
Israeli soldiers kill their own
According to their own Israeli soldiers are in a fix in Gaza. The state of morale is so low that they are committing many mistakes according to Israeli journalist Israeli journalist Hallel Biton Rosen and who writes of a damining account of the war.
The Izz Al Din Al Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, announced Friday, the Israeli occupation army killed two more Israel hostages held by the Islamist organization.
The two hostages were killed last Monday by Israeli airstrikes on the city of Rafah at the southern end of the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli occupation forces do not want the return of the hostages except in coffins, says Hamas officials adding that this is because the Israeli regime is not interested in any peace talks but to continue the war on Gaza.
The two deaths mean the number of hostages held by Hamas goes down to 118 and this is not the first time Israeli warplanes targeted its own hostages.
Global boycott campaign
Meanwhile the global boycott campaign against international companies who are seen to support Israeli actions is in full swing.
Latest global purchasing survey shows 1 in 3 consumers are boycotting brand names over the Israeli war in Gaza.
The survey made by the Edelman’s public relations firm polled 15,000 consumers around the world across 15 countries that included USA, France, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, UK, India and Indonesia.
The consumer boycotting brands include Starbucks, McDonald’s and Coca-Cola with news of the Trust Barometer report currently trendingﾠon social media.
The top five consumer boycotting countries are Saudi Arabia, UAE, Indonesia, India and surprisingly Germany. In Saudi 72 percent of those surveyed said they are boycotting international brands followed by 57 percent in the UAE.
Respondents perception is the major reason for their boycott, saying they believe one side supports the other in the war on Gaza.
One commented this is a shocking surprise for the boycott’s enemies and a joyful surprise for its supporters while another said this is a reminder to the “boycotts don’t work idiots.”
The boycott campaign has been strongest in the Middle East when many consumers stopped buying products and or frequenting brand cafes with international tag names associated with Israel.
Further the campaign took off last October after McDonald’s Israell’s “franchise announced it was giving free meals to Israeliﾠsoldiers in its branches in the country,” according to Middle East Eye.
Dr Marwan Asmar is an Amman-based journalist covering Middle East Affairs
https://countercurrents.org/2024/06/with-eight-killed-war-goes-badly-for-israel/
Eight Israeli Soldiers Killed During an Operation in Rafah in Southern Gaza
The Israeli government have confirmed the death of eight Israeli soldiers, included a Captain of the armoured personnel product of a “serious incident” during an operation in Rafah, in the southern tip of Gaza.
The captain is Wassem Mahmoud, 23, from Beit Jann (northern Israel), and he was the deputy commander of the Israeli Army’s 601st Engineering Battalion. ” Seven other soldiers also fell in this incident. Their families have been notified,” a military statement added.
The al-Qassam brigades, the armed wing of the resistance and anti-Zionist invasion group, Hamas, claimed soldiers’ death this morning as “an ambush against enemy vehicles” in the Tal al-Sultan area of western Rafah.
According to the organization, they attacked an armored combat engineering vehicle ‘Namer’ using an Al Yassin 105 projectile, which burned it and killed the eight military personnel.
The armed forces, for their part, also study a possible explosion of mines that would be stored inside the vehicle -although normally these are loaded on the outside so that, in case of a detonation, they do not hurt the military-, according to the Times of Israel.
Since 7 October, 37,296 people have been killed in Gaza, while 85,197 have been injured, 70% of them women and children, according to the enclave’s Ministry of Health, which is governed by Hamas.
Rafah has become one of the nuclei of the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip despite the reluctance of most countries that urged the Zionist forces not to enter the city as it is populated by more than one and a half million Palestinians, mostly displaced from other parts of the besieged strip.
Informed Comment June 16, 2024
Israel, Defying UNSC Ceasefire Order, “Completely Dehumanizes” Palestinians
By Juan Cole
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairsﾠreports on the humanitarian situation in Gaza this week in the aftermath of the United Nations Security Council demand (14-0 with Russia abstaining) for a ceasefire in Gaza. It required Hamas and Israel to reply with a letter outlining their response. Hamas has done so but Israel has not, and members of the government, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have made it clear in public remarks that they will defy the Security Council and will reject the Biden peace plan.
Saddam Hussein’s apparent defiance of UNSC resolutions was given as a legitimate causus belli by the George W. Bush administration, bolstering its case for invading Iraq in 2003.
To underline this defiance of the will of the world community, between June 10 when the UNSC order came down and June 14, the Israeli armed forces killed 142 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded 396. According to the professionals at the Gaza Ministry of Health, since October 7 the Israelis have killed 37,266 Palestinians in Gaza and injured 85,102, the vast majority of them women and children, with many of the rest elderly and other noncombatant men.
Doctors without Borders (French acronym MSF) points to the casualties since the start of this month as further proof of the “complete dehumanization of the Palestinians,” saying that “since the beginning of June, more than 800 people have been killed and over 2,400 wounded in intense bombing and ground offensives by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip, Palestine.”
These are physicians at the few hospitals still partially functioning, so they see the influx of the wounded and dead bodies.
Brice de le Vingne, Head of MSF Emergency Unit, asked, “How can the killing of more than 800 people in a single week, including small children, plus the maiming of hundreds more, be considered a military operation adhering to international humanitarian law? We can no longer accept the statement that Israel is taking ‘all precautions’ – this is just propaganda.”
De le Vingne added, ““Catch-all phrases like ‘war is ugly’ act as blinders to the fact that children too young to walk are being dismembered, eviscerated, and killed.”
Children too young to walk. Some children begin walking as early as 10 to 11 months old.
It reminds me of when President Joe Biden dismissed Palestinian deaths, saying “people get killed in war,” or words to that effect.
MSF rejects Israeli propaganda that they are letting in aid. They’ve seen with their own eyes that it isn’t happening. Plus, they note, “Israel repeatedly bombed so-called safe zones, refugee camps, a school and multiple humanitarian warehouses, which were formally registered as ‘deconflicted’ by Israeli forces.”
In the path month and a half, the UN’s OCHA reminds us, a million Palestinians were again displaced from the south, and 100,000 were displaced from the north. Displaced means made homeless and likely sleeping rough with few toilets or potable water or food. Most of the domiciles in Gaza have been made into rubble by the Israelis, though 16% of the displaced have tried to go home. Some erect tents over their former homes. Some 31% go to new shelters.
At “informal displacement sites” (tent cities?) in Deir al-Balah, “families reported irregular food distributions, overcrowded and dilapidated shelters with an average of eight to 10 persons per shelter, lack of sanitation infrastructure, and a range of health issues such as skin diseases, hepatitis A, gastroenteritis, and respiratory illnesses.”
Water shortages are severe among these refugees in Deir al-Balah: “average water availability per person per day was less than two litres [half a gallon] at Abo Dalal displacement site and only 0.7 litres [less than a quart] at Ard Al Ghusain displacement site. This is less than the internationally recognized minimum requirement for survival of three litres [3 quarts] per day and significantly lower than the minimum amount of 15 litres [4 gallons] per day needed in an emergency for drinking, washing and cooking.
As for food, some 8,000 children in Gaza have been formally diagnosed with malnutrition and another 3,000 have been identified as in imminent danger of it. Given the poor state of medicine in the Strip, these figures are only the tip of the iceberg.
Israeli airstrikes have taken out water pipes, wells, and sewage treatment plants. There is only 28% the potable water in Gaza that existed on October 6. This is not an accident, as MSF pointed out. People are forced to collect surface water that is tainted with sewage, causing a range of diseases of the intestinal tract and liver.
Apparently the Israeli military has expelled all but about 90,000 people from Rafah, which had had a pre-war population of 300,000 and had swollen to 1.2 million before the Israeli invasion of early May.
Those 90,000 people have no functioning hospital, since Israel has destroyed the medical facilities there, according to the World Health Organization.
OCHA finds that “Over 76 per cent of schools in Gaza are now assessed as requiring full reconstruction or major rehabilitation to be functional again.” The Israeli Air Force continues to directly target schools; this week it smashed a UN school functioning as a shelter, killing 30 refugees.
The children of Gaza have lost a school year. If they lose two more, studies suggest that they will never get back on track. Palestinians are the most educated people in the Middle East, but Israel is depriving those in Gaza of a basic education. Those who suffer malnutrition will suffer permanent cognitive losses as well as emotional problems. Others have PTSD and are traumatized, and may never be right in the head again.
Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.
https://www.juancole.com/2024/06/completely-dehumanizes-palestinians.html
U.S.-Saudi Petrodollar Pact Ends after 50 Years
The 50-year-old petrodollar agreement between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia was just allowed to expire. The term “petrodollar” refers to the U.S. dollar’s role as the currency used for crude oil transactions on the world market. This arrangement has its roots in the 1970s when the United States and Saudi Arabia struck a deal shortly after the U.S. went off the gold standard that would go on to have far-reaching consequences for the global economy. In the history of global finance, few agreements have wielded as many benefits as the petrodollar pact did for the U.S. economy.
A Boon to U.S. Bonds
The petrodollar agreement, formalized after the 1973 oil crisis, stipulated that Saudi Arabia would price its oil exports exclusively in U.S. dollars and invest its surplus oil revenues in U.S. Treasury bonds. In return, the U.S. provided military support and protection to the kingdom. This arrangement was a win-win situation for both; the U.S. gained a stable source of oil and a captive market for its debt, while Saudi Arabia secured its economic and overall security.
Status as the Reserve Currency
Oil being denominated in U.S. dollars alone has significance beyond the categories of oil and finance. By mandating that oil be sold in U.S. dollars (DXY), the agreement elevated the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency. This, in turn, has profoundly impacted the U.S. economy. The global demand for dollars to purchase oil has helped to keep the currency strong, making imports relatively cheap for American consumers. Additionally, the influx of foreign capital into U.S. Treasury bonds has supported low interest rates and a robust bond market.
In his recent book, Bonfire of the Sanities (December 2023), bestselling author and investment manager David Wright argues the strength of the dollar is a key factor behind America’s high standard of living. Wright declares that the reason why people in the U.S. enjoy “as high of a standard of living as we do is because the dollar is strong.” Wright then explains this strength is partly because of faith in our economy “and because energy can’t be bought without U.S. dollars.”
Potential to Disrupt the Global Financial Order
However, the petrodollar’s dominance may be facing its most significant challenge yet. The agreement between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia expired on June 9, 2024. This expiration has far-reaching implications, as it has the potential to disrupt the global financial order.
The shifting power dynamics in the oil market are a critical factor in this development. The rise of alternative energy sources, such as renewables and natural gas, has reduced the world’s reliance on oil. Furthermore, the emergence of new oil-producing nations, such as Brazil and Canada, has challenged the traditional dominance of the Middle East.
U.S. Dollar’s Future
The petrodollar’s expiration could weaken the U.S. dollar and, by extension, the U.S. financial markets. If oil were to be priced in a currency other than the dollar, it could lead to a decline in global demand for the greenback. This, in turn, could result in higher inflation, higher interest rates, and a weaker bond market in the United States.
Key Takeaway – A Significant Shift in Global Power Dynamics
The expiration of the petrodollar agreement represents a significant shift in global power dynamics. It highlights the growing influence of emerging economies and the changing energy landscape. While the full implications of this shift remain to be seen, investors should at least be aware that on a macro level, the global financial order is entering a new era. The U.S. dollar’s dominance is no longer guaranteed.
https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/us-saudi-petrodollar-pact-ends-after-50-years
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