Liberation Trumps Dogma

Non-Dogmatists,

  Alastair Crooke, They Can Wait at Leisure, Whilst Netanyahu Labours – and Errs  (paraphrasing Sun Tzu's Art Of War)

​  This man in the wheelchair and with the rickety earpiece – Sheikh Ahmad Yasin – was the founder of Hamas.
And what he said to me that morning has come to upend the Islamic world today.
​  What he said was: “Hamas is not an Islamic movement. It is a liberation movement, and anyone, be they Christian, or Buddhist – or even I – could join it. We all were welcome”.
​  Why was this simple formula somehow so significant and connected to today’s events?
Well, the ethos of Gaza, at that time (2000-2002), was predominantly that of ideological Islamism. The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood was deeply embedded. It was not then a resistance movement per se – it was capable of violence, but its prime focus was social work and uncorrupted governance. It wanted to show how well it could govern.
​  Yasin’s comment was revolutionary because liberation trumped dogma and the various ‘schools’ of political Islam. This ultimately was to become ‘Gaza Hamas’ – at odds with its conventional leadership resident in Doha. Sinwar and Dief are ‘Yasin’s children’.
​  ‘Long story short’, a little while later, Yasin, on one of his Friday prayers’ wheel-chair trundles across the road to his adjacent mosque, was blown to pieces by an Israeli missile as he exited.​..

..PM Blair and President Bush put together a secret (unacknowledged to the EU) plan in response: Hamas leaders – plus the movements’ social support NGOs – were to be eliminated. And the Palestinian Authority would crack down on all and every Hamas activity – in close collaboration with Israel.

​  The West Bank, in this plan, would be the recipient of large financial aid to construct a prosperous western-style consumer/security state, and Gaza explicitly was to be impoverished...

​..As Tareq Baconi writes in Foreign Policy:
​  “Hamas was stuck in … a “violent equilibrium,” whereby military force emerged as a means for negotiating concessions between Hamas and Israel. [Hamas used] missiles and other tactics to compel Israel to ease restrictions on the blockade, while [Israel] responds with overwhelming force to build deterrence and secure “calm” in the areas around the Gaza Strip. Through this violence, both entities operated within a framework whereby Hamas could maintain its role as a governing authority in Gaza even under a blockade that enacts daily structural violence against Palestinians”.
​  It is this siege paradigm for Gaza that blew up on 7 October​...

​..Hamas has transformed: It is now the ‘liberation movement’ that Sheikh Yasin foresaw – liberation of all living under occupation, and again, Yasin-like, is centred around non-ideological Islam on the civilisational icon of ‘Al-Aqsa’ mosque which is neither Palestinian nor Shia nor Sunni, nor Wahhabi, Brotherhood, nor Salafist.
​  And it is this – Hamas’ liberation framing – that chimes directly with the new global ‘independence push’ that we are witnessing today, and that perhaps explains the huge marches in support of Gaza, across the global south, as well as in Europe and the U.S. The punishment meted out to Gaza civilians has that unmissable ‘old colonial’ touch to it – one that evokes wide resonance and anger.
​  Hamas’ calculus is that its military resilience, plus the sustained international pressure from the Gaza massacres, ultimately may compel Israel to negotiate – and eventually reach a (costly, ‘all for all’) hostage deal with the Palestinian movement – as well as a paradigm-change in the political realm of endless ‘peace talks’ with Israel. In short, Hamas’ bet is that its military resilience will likely outlast the White House impatience to bring a speedy end to the Gaza war episode.​..

​..Netanyahu both has to keep the war going (for his own survival), because the end of it may spell disaster for the him (and his family). Netanyahu therefore is in the midst of ‘a campaign’. It’s not an election campaign, because he has no real chance of surviving an election.
​  On the contrary, it is a ‘campaign for survival’ with two aims: to hang on to his seat for two more years (which is feasible as the chance of government defections is far from assured), and secondly, to preserve, or even strengthen, the slavish admiration of ‘the base’.
​  "Only I, Netanyahu, can prevent a Palestinian State ever coming into being in Gaza, Judea or Samaria”: “I will not allow it”. “There will never be” a Palestinian state. Only I can manage relations with Biden. Only I know how to manipulate the U.S. psyche’.
​  “I am leading”… not only on behalf of Jewish history, but also for western civilization.
“But what good is a long war”, Israeli correspondent, Haaretz commentator B. Michael asks,
​  “if at the end, or even while it’s still ongoing, the ‘base’ becomes bored and indifferent and disappointed? That’s not the kind of base that will rush to the voting booth with the right voting slip in its teeth. A base wants action. A base wants blood. A base wants to hate, to be angry, to be offended, to get revenge. To unload on ‘the other’ everything that is getting it riled up”.
​  “This is the only way to understand the stubborn evasion [by Netanyahu] of any serious discussion of an exit policy from the war. This is the only way to understand the groundless promises of everlasting control of Gaza”. The Base is delighted. Hopes coming true. “We’re really sticking it to the Arabs, pushing them toward the sea. And it’s all Bibi”.
​  “There isn’t a drop of logic to the massive bombardment in Gaza. Nor will a drop of benefit result from the killing of more Palestinians … the step is blatant foolishness and embarrassing grovelling to the base – lest it be at all disappointed by the leader. What will become of the hostages? The base is more important”.
​  Israel has seen this before – notably with the 1948 Nakba. The hubristic expectation that this would be the ‘end to it’ – Palestinians expelled, their property plundered and appropriated – ‘End of story’ (it was believed). ‘Problem solved’.
​  Yet it was never solved. Hence 7 October.
The Prime Minister and his cabinet are on a ‘campaign trail’ to seize and magnify the base’s trauma arising from the 7 October – and to mould it to their electoral needs.
​  Netanyahu has been repeating a single message: ‘We will not stop the fighting’. From his perspective, the war must continue forever:
“The vision of Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich and company is taking shape. And the messiah’s arrival must be just around the corner. And it’s all Bibi. Hooray for Bibi!”.
​  The Resistance understands and can see it all: How does Israel get out of this? Overthrowing Bibi? That won’t do it. It’s too late. The stopper is off; the genies and the demons are out.
​  If the ‘front’ remains co-ordinated, proceeds by consensus; eschews any Pavlovian over-reaction to events that might plunge the region into an all-out war, then:
​'They can wait at leisure, whilst (Netanyahu) labours’ – and errs (Sun Tzu). https://strategic-culture.su/news/2023/12/18/they-can-wait-at-leisure-whilst-netanyahu-labours-and-errs/

​  John Helmer, THE US PREPARES ITS UKRAINE WAR COALITION FLEET IN THE RED SEA TO PROTECT ISRAEL, ATTACK YEMEN – RUSSIA RESPONDS

​  On Monday, General Lloyd Austin, the US Secretary of Defense, announced that the US is assembling a fleet of warships to defend Israel’s port of Eilat, the Gulf of Aqaba, and Israel’s Red Sea shipping route by threatening to attack Yemen if it exercises its Law of the Sea right to regulate military transit through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait​.

​  The Austin fleet is to be assembled from the coalition of NATO states at war with Russia in the Ukraine.  Austin’s call, announced by the Pentagon while Austin is in Israel,  follows the failure of the USS Eisenhower and its squadron, with additional French and British warships, to prevent the collapse of commercial container and tanker shipping to and from Israel.​..

​..Bahrain on the Persian Gulf — the only Arab state included on Austin’s list — and the Seychelles, the island state in the Indian Ocean, are included to provide shore base facilities for the proposed Yemen-attack fleet. However, no country with naval bases on the Red Sea shore, territorial waters,  and exclusive economic zones extending into the waterway  — Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, and Djibouti  — has publicly agreed to participate or approved this escalation of the Gaza war to benefit Israel...
  All of the governments on Austin’s list, with the exception of the US, voted last week at the United Nations General Assembly for Israel to halt its operations in the Gaza war.  In this context, none of these states recognizes Israel’s right to impose its blockade of Gaza’s ports extending into Palestine’s territorial waters, the Gaza Maritime Area, and Israel’s de facto military rule of the international waters of the Mediterranean, including the Gaza Marine gas field.
​  “Freedom of navigation”, Austin’s version of the legal doctrine of his Operation Prosperity Guardian, does not apply to the Gaza Maritime Area.  
​  In the Red Sea, maps of the International Institute for the Law of the Sea Studies    show overlapping territorial waters and economic zone claims from the eastern and western shore states, leaving no international waters for the passage of warships, particularly through the southern gateway to the Red Sea, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.   Austin’s operation is not innocent passage, as the international Law of the Sea requires, and it defies Yemen’s right to exercise prior authorization.  

​  Russia’s response is no response, for the time being.​..

..The implication is that the Foreign Ministry, Defense Ministry, and Kremlin are reluctant to publicly condemn the Austin fleet operation move so as not to upset current Russian relationships with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).​..

​..On Sunday, Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL), the Chinese state-owned fleet company, announced that it is halting all shipments to and from Israeli seaports. However, unlike its European peers, OOCL did not say it will stop sailing through the Red Sea. The implication, a shipping source comments, is that Beijing has declared its support for the Arab-led blockade of Israel, and will negotiate directly with Houthi and Yemeni officials so that OOCL vessels will be able to navigate safely through the Red Sea and into the Suez Canal, and vice versa. The commercial advantage to the Chinese is plain, the source said. Whether the Chinese Navy will send escorts for Chinese-flagged cargo vessels remains to be seen. https://johnhelmer.net/the-us-prepares-its-ukraine-war-coalition-fleet-in-the-red-sea-to-protect-israel-attack-yemen-russia-responds/#more-89069

(​They are now the Yemeni Government) Houthis Vow To Keep Up Attacks After US Unveils Details Of Ten-Nation Naval Force https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/houthis-vow-keep-attacks-us-unveils-details-multi-national-naval-force

(All three US candidates are "Zionists", whether professed or not.) Middle East "Totally Out Of Control" - Trump Says World Needs US Leader Who Can Negotiate Peace https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/middle-east-totally-out-control-world-needs-us-leader-who-can-negotiate-peace-trump

  Gilbert Doctorow and Anthony Hall, Yesterday, Teheran kindly invited me back to join Professor Anthony Hall of Lethbridge University in Alberta, Canada in a 24-minute long discussion of latest developments in the Israel-Gaza war.

​  The Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping were mentioned in passing on the show, as was the visit of US Defense Secretary Austin to Israel, though the two events were not linked in our discussion. Let me do that now, when the efforts during this visit by Austin to build a coalition of the willing to provide security to ships passing through the Red Sea were announced this morning.
​  I spoke yesterday about the caution that all state and non-state actors in the Middle East have been demonstrating since the early days of October to avoid escalation of the conflict to a regional or global level. This also applies to what has been said about Austin’s coalition for securing shipping in the Red Sea. Apparently the emphasis is on putting in place convoys to accompany the commercial vessels and so protect them against boarding parties, and also putting in place military vessels with capabilities to shoot down attacking missiles and drones.  Note that there is not a word about directly attacking Yemen. And the reason should be clear:  a U.S.-led attack on the Yemeni Houthis would be tantamount to a declaration of war against their backers, Iran. It would instantly escalate the conflict to a regional war that would swiftly escalate further to a global war in which the key protagonists would be the United States and…Russia, who are the allies in all but name of the Iranians.
​  As I said yesterday on these pages, everything is interconnected, as even the densest among us like Austin and his colleagues in the Biden administration understand.

Discussion of the ‘Israeli-US bloodbath’ on Iran’s Press TV yesterday

​That video interview:  https://www.urmedium.net/c/presstv/127826

​  Tennessee Slaps BlackRock With First-Of-Its-Kind Consumer Protection Lawsuit Over ESG Sham

​  Tennessee State Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti filed the first-of-its-kind consumer protection lawsuit against BlackRock, accusing the world's largest 'woke' money manager of making false and misleading claims regarding its Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investment strategies to residents of the state. https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/tennessee-slaps-blackrock-first-its-kind-consumer-protection-lawsuit-over-esg-sham

​Elon Musk is an industrial whiz-kid who is in league with nationalists over globalists. The Multifront Attack on Elon Musk https://brownstone.org/articles/the-multifront-attack-on-elon-musk/

  Meryl Nass MD explains the requirement to "identify and share potential pathogens" , The WHO has to pretend the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) does not exist since the Pandemic Treaty requires nations to transgress the BWC

The WHO has to pretend the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) does not exist since the Pandemic Treaty requires nations to transgress the BWC

William Makis MD, Pfizer completes $43 Billion acquisition of Seagen on Dec.14, 2023 - becomes largest oncology company to treat most TURBO CANCERS caused by mRNA Vaccines - deep dive into the sinister aspects of this very bizarre deal. https://twitter.com/MakisMD/status/1736357466127192156

​(It blocks the little blood vessels, causing micro-strokes, too.) Smoking cigarettes shrinks the size of the brain, and stopping doesn’t reverse the damage, a new study shows. The findings help explain why smokers have a higher risk of developing age-related cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease. https://www.zerohedge.com/political/smoking-shrinks-brain-and-quitting-doesnt-restore-size-study

Unshrunken-Head (pictured preparing garden fresh breakfast)