– Rieletto, il presidente Usa Obama si è impegnato a tentare l’apertura di un dialogo con l’Iran,
– Il presidente israeliano, Nethanyahu, ha risposto cambiando tema: dall’Iran (“minaccia esistenziale” al “terrorista” Hamas.
– Il calcolo è: se Israele uccide dei palestinesi, mentre gli Usa guardano altrove (all’Asia Pacifico, ad es.) Teheran non accetterà mai negoziati sostanziali.
o L’attacco alla striscia di Gaza serve a creare un gran scompiglio, impunemente e con “danni collaterali” trascurabili.
– Per le forze armate israeliane è facile creare una giustificazione per un’azione militare:
o domenica scorsa ha fatto uccidere un giovane “terrorista” palestinese 13enne,
o inviato qualche carro armato in più,
o il tutto per causare la reazione delle fazioni di Gaza, e di conseguenza la necessità di un attacco violento.
– Lunedì Israele ha respinto una nuova tregua offerta da Hamas e da altre fazioni palestinesi; ha poi fatto uccidere il capo del braccio armato di Hamas, Ahmed al-Jabari,
o che negli ultimi 5 anni e mezzo era stato il maggiore subappaltatore israeliano a Gaza, responsabile della sicurezza di Israele.
o Questa azione si inquadra nella campagna elettorale di Nethanyahu per le elezioni parlamentari del prossimo gennaio, che si prevede saranno vinte dalla sua coalizione con Yisrael Beiteinu (il partito di Liberman) che populisticamente sostiene il “Grande Israele”.
– A poche ore dal fallimento della tregua, l’Amministrazione Obama ha ripreso la linea di sostegno incondizionato ad Israele, che ha diritto di colpire per autodifesa.
– Potrebbe essere imminente un’invasione sul terreno, ma Nethanyahu non ha fatto bene i conti,
o anche se le petro-monarchie del GCC (Consiglio di Cooperazione del Golfo, ridefinite da Escobar Club della contro-rivoluzione del Golfo) non reagiscono, e neppure gli occidentali “amici della Siria”, invece indignati perché Assad uccide “la sua gente”,
o L’Egitto di Mursi e dei Fratelli musulmani però è costretto a fare qualcosa, perché lo chiede la piazza,
o e perché il Cairo ha fatto da mediatore per la tregua tra Tel Aviv e Hamas, ora sabotata da Israele;
o Non staranno a guardare il massacro neppure la Turchia che appoggia Hamas e l’emiro del Qatar con i suoi miliardi di petrodollari.
– Le relazioni di Nethanyahu con Obama sono tese dal 2010, quando quest’ultimo chiese venissero fermate le costruzioni dei coloni nella West Bank, e Nethanyahu rispose provocando l’Iran perché attaccasse Israele per trascinare gli Usa in un nuovo conflitto. Secondo un analista CIA, per le presidenziali Usa Nethanyahu ha puntato su Romney, il cavallo sbagliato.
– Con il montare della tensione con le truppe e i carri armati che avanzano, Gaza è divenuta la prova del nove per Obama, al di là delle sue proclamazioni sulla agenda di cambiamento per il Medio Oriente.
– Il primo ministro israeliano, Nethanyahu, ha messo a nudo le profonde contraddizioni della strategia americana per il Medio Oriente; Nethanyahu sta forzando un riassetto delle relazioni Usa-Israele.
– Netahnyahu ha messo letteralmente il bastone tra le ruote ai piani Usa-Egitto-Turchia etc. sulla Siria.
– Ma, in primo luogo, Nethanyahu ha colpito intenzionalmente la credibilità di Obama sulla possibilità di negoziati con i leader iraniani.
o Se le truppe di Israele marciano su Gaza, Obama sarà visto dai paesi arabi come uno che promette a vuoto.
o Obama è stato costretto a tornare alla politica unilaterale Usa di dare tutta la colpa ad Hamas per la crisi attuale …
o questo può divenire un duello Obama-Nethanyhau;
– Se vuole avere il consenso della camera del rappresentanti, controllata dai Repubblicani, per la sua agenda interna (fiscal cliff, riforma fiscale, immigrazione, energia, clima, disarmo, etc.) Obama deve superare la prova del nove dell’appoggio al 100% ad Israele.
– E questo creerà un serio problema con l’Iran, per il quale la questione palestinese è una questione centrale della sua politica regionale.
– Quello che Obama potrebbe fare è spingere Morsi a frenare Hamas.
– La crisi di Gaza scoppia paradossalmente proprio quando sembrava che fosse possibile una riassetto delle relazioni Usa-Egitto, compresa un’azione congiunta per dare una spinta decisiva al “cambio di regime” in Siria.
o L’FMI, su pressione Usa, ha concesso un prestito di $4,8Md all’Egitto, senza attendere (come fa solitamente) l’attuazione delle riforme economiche concordate.
– Per Obama la crisi di Gaza giunge in un momento scomodo per il suo progetto sulla Siria:
o lo scorso weekend l’ambasciatore americano e l’ex parlamentare siriano, Riad Self, avevano faticosamente concordato una Coalizione Nazionale Siriana (SNC),
o prerequisito per la riunione degli “amici della Siria” a Tokyo, dove le potenze concorderebbero il riconoscimento dell’opposizione siriana.
o Morsi è stato ammorbidito dato che nel SNC è stato dato un ruolo guida ai Fratelli musulmani siriani.
o Qatar e Turchia hanno ognuna accordato $2MD di aiuti al governo di Mursi; il piano è di stabilire il quartier generale del SNC al Cairo.
Obama non è sotto la pressione di un’opinione pubblica interna e neppure degli alleati europei.
Israel kills Hamas military chief
By Al-Jazeera correspondents
– DOHA – A top Hamas commander was among seven people killed in more than 20 Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip, as Israel began an operation targeting armed groups. Ahmad Jabari, the operational commander of Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, was killed on Wednesday alongside his bodyguard, Mohammed al-Hams, in an initial Israeli strike on a car in Gaza City which took place just before 4pm, the Islamist movement said.
– Shortly afterwards, Israel pounded the Gaza Strip with another 20 air strikes, killing five more people, two of them children, Hamas health minister Mufid Mukhalalati said in a televised press conference at Gaza City’s Shifa hospital.
– He said another 30 people had been injured in the wave of strikes on targets across the territory which hit Gaza City, the northern town of Beit Lahiya and the southern city of Khan Yunis.
"The Israeli occupation has carried out more than 20 air strikes on targets and headquarters of the police and security in the Gaza Strip," Interior Ministry spokesman Islam Shahwan said.
– The attacks on Wednesday marked the biggest escalation between Israel and Gaza fighters since the 2008-2009 conflict and came despite signs on Tuesday that neighboring Egypt had managed to broker a truce in the territory after a five-day surge of violence.
Hamas said Ahmad Jabari died along with his son when their car was blown apart by an Israeli missile. Israel’s Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency and the military also confirmed the operation.
"During a joint operation of the General Security Service [Shin Bet] and the IDF [army] today, Ahmed Jabari, the senior commander of the military wing of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, was targeted," a statement from the Shin Bet said.
– The military said Jabari "was a senior Hamas operative … directly responsible for executing terror attacks against the State of Israel in the past number of years". The purpose of the operation "was to severely impair the command and control chain of the Hamas leadership, as well as its terrorist infrastructure," it said in a statement.
– Military spokeswoman Avital Leibovich said the strike was the start of an operation targeting armed groups in Gaza following multiple rocket attacks on southern Israel. "The IDF started an operation against terror organizations in Gaza due to the ongoing attacks against Israeli civilians," she said on her Twitter account. Leibovich confirmed to Al-Jazeera that Jabari was targeted specifically.
"The first target we targeted was Ahmad Jabari. A short time ago we completed another phase in the operation which included 20 different targets of rocket launcher pads," she said. "Israel is exercising its right to protect itself, and Jabari has a lot of Israeli blood on his hands."
She went on to say that "there are 1.5 million people in Gaza, and even though we were targeted on a daily basis, we still helped Gazans in our hospitals because we are humanitarian people."
– Asked whether Israel was ready to initiate a ground operation in Gaza, Leibovich said: "All options are on the table for us. We will do whatever necessary to protect the people of Israel."
– Responding to the killing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said its fighters would "continue the path of resistance". The occupation "has opened the gates of hell on itself," it said in a statement.
– Al-Jazeera’s Nadim Baba, reporting from Gaza, said Israeli strikes were still going on into Wednesday evening. "We have been hearing of strikes in different areas of the Gaza Strip," he said. "For the civilian population here it is a very worrying time. People have deserted the streets, and it is very quiet and very tense."
– He added that eyewitnesses have reported seeing the Israeli navy off the coast of Gaza, further increasing their concerns.
– Jabari headed of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades. He co-ordinated much of Hamas’s military capability, its military strategy, and the transformation of the military wing. He also led the final negotiations in Cairo that concluded the prisoner swap between Hamas and Israel in 2011.
– The killing of Jabari sparked furious protests in Gaza City, with hundreds of members of Hamas and the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades chanting for revenge inside Shifa hospital. Outside, armed men fired weapons into the air, and mosques throughout the city called prayers to mourn the commander’s death.
Osama Hamdan, a Hamas representative in based in Lebanon, talking to Al-Jazeera in Doha, confirmed that Jabari’s son was also killed in the targeted air strike that killed the military chief.
"We will respond [to the assassination], this I have to say clearly," he said. "The Israelis are working to target the local leaders and political leaders in Gaza. We are expecting acts and reactions from the Palestinians."
Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian negotiator based in the West Bank, told Al-Jazeera: "We condemn this Israeli crime and assassination of Ahmad Jabari. "We are witnessing a major escalation against our people in Gaza, and it seems to me the Israeli agenda is war, not truce or a ceasefire. We hold the Israeli government responsible."
Palestinian security sources and medics confirmed a total of four air strikes across Gaza during the late afternoon, two in Gaza City, one of which killed Jabari, one in northern Gaza, and a fourth in the southern city of Khan Yunis.
Wednesday’s attacks come after several days of Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip, leaving at least seven Palestinians dead and several more wounded.
– Al-Jazeera’s Rula Amin, reporting from Beirut, Lebanon, said Jabari had been a target for Israel for a long time. "This is a big loss for Hamas, and a success for Israel, who have been after him for a while." she said. "We will see an escalation for sure within the immediate future. People in Gaza know him. He was considered very smart, very shrewd, considered to be a hero because he had managed until now to escape numerous assassination attempts by Israel. People will be bracing for more violence, not just against Hamas but against the civilians too."
Netanyahu calls Obama’s bluff
– As tensions mount in the coming hours and days with the Israeli troops and tanks advancing toward Gaza menacingly, United States President Barack Obama begins to realize that he has a forked tongue.
– Gaza becomes the litmus test of what he can claim to be as a statesman and what he cannot be in political reality.
– For Obama, there is no running away from the reality that he has been hiding his head ostrich-like from the day he left Cairo in 2009 after making a magnificent speech there on the Palestinian problem.
– The events of the past week in Gaza underscore that unless he musters the political courage – and integrity as a statesman – to address the Palestinian problem, all his talk of a transformative agenda for the Middle East remains sheer baloney.
– Furthermore, his lop-sided priorities in the Middle East are getting exposure. In essence, he ends up being seen as cooking up tales about Syria and Iran and shying away from the one issue that can make all the difference for America’s discourse with the Muslim world.
– The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has exposed Obama and is forcing a reset of their mutual equations even before the US president gets started on his second term in the White House.
– Obama can always take shelter behind mellifluous rhetoric and has no adverse domestic public opinion to grapple with. Nor is he being called upon by his European allies to be accountable.
– The paradox is that the crisis in Gaza had to erupt just when things were looking up for a possible US-Egyptian reset, including a joint enterprise by the two countries to give a decisive push for "regime change" in Syria.
– A technical team from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been in Cairo for the past fortnight to negotiate a US$4.8 billion loan that Egypt has sought to shore up finances. Even as the Israeli jets kept pounding Gaza relentlessly and Hamas beseeched Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi for help, the IMF announced on Wednesday, "The mission will remain in Cairo for a few more days to continue work and build on the good progress already made."
– The IMF usually expects that governments take actual measures as per an agreed economic reform plan before signing off on loans, but Morsi knows exceptions can always be made, and it is Washington who decides.
– Equally, from Obama’s viewpoint, the flare-up in Gaza comes at a most awkward moment for his best-laid scheme for Syria in the coming months. After much effort spread over five agonizing days in Doha, the former US ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, and the former Syrian parliamentarian Riad Self somehow managed to cobble together a Syrian National Coalition (SNC) over the weekend.
– Many a time it seemed Ford would fail to pull the rabbit out of the hat, and the Qatari hosts had to literally step in and blackmail some of the key figures in the Syrian opposition groups before they’d fall in line with the script Ford brought from Washington.
– The urgency was clearly there. The formation of the SNC was a prerequisite for the forthcoming meeting of "Friends of Syria" in Tokyo where the "international community" would accord recognition to the Syrian opposition.
– Morsi has been mollified, as Syria’s Brothers have been given the lead role within the SNC.
– Also, Qatar and Turkey each extended US$2 billion as aid for Morsi’s government. The game plan is to have the SNC headquartered in Cairo.
– The Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu visited Cairo on Wednesday and talked things over with Morsi as to what is expected of him while Obama shifts gear on his transformative agenda on Syria.
– Therefore, Netanyahu has literally thrown a spanner in the wheel and is all but acting as a spoilsport.[guastafeste] The crisis over Gaza takes the focus away from the SNC and highlights all over again that the real battle line in the Muslim Middle East ought to be not on Syria at this juncture but instead on the Palestinian problem.
– However, where Netanyahu would have intentionally hit Obama hardest is in terms of the latter’s credibility to enter into one-on-one negotiations with the Iranian leadership. In his very first press conference on Wednesday after his magnificent election victory, Obama declared that he intended to "make a push in the coming months to see if we can open up a dialogue" with Tehran "to see if we can get this thing [nuclear issue] resolved."
– Obama was manifestly conciliatory and claimed he wouldn’t stand on "diplomatic niceties or protocol" and "if Iran is serious about wanting to resolve this, they’ll be in a position to resolve it."
– Now, if the Israeli troops march into Gaza, Obama will be seen in the entire Arab world as someone who makes empty promises.
o It suits Netanyahu at this point to be seen as calling the shots in the Middle East[dettar legge], since his alliance with Yisrael Beiteinu (Avigdor Lieberman’s party) stands to gain in January’s parliamentary elections. The hardline grouping panders to the prevailing popular mood in Israel in its championing of "Greater Israel".
– Clearly, Obama has been compelled to fall back on the one-sided US policy of putting all the blame on Hamas for triggering the present crisis and by justifying Israel’s "right to defend".
– More fundamentally, however, this also has the potential to become an Obama-Netanyahu duel, which will impact the uncertain alchemy of their relationship through the US president’s second term.
– Obama may not like it that Netanyahu has hustled him, but then, as a realist he also has to factor in that the Republican-controlled House of Representatives in the US Congress will not brook anything other than 100% support to Israel in the present crisis.
– Obama might as well say goodbye to his hopes to forge a consensus in the United States Congress to advance a second-term agenda that would go into the making of his presidential legacy – fiscal cliff, tax reform, immigration, energy and climate change, disarmament, etc – if he fails to pass the litmus test on support to Israel.
– But this is exactly where he is going to run into a serious problem with Tehran.
o The point is, the centrality of the Palestinian problem in the regional policies of the Islamic regime in Tehran is not often fully grasped when facile conclusions are drawn that what motivates that country would be solely its (legitimate) claim to be accommodated as a regional power.
– The regime in Tehran, like most of the Muslim world, has great sympathy for the Palestinians and finds the suppression in Gaza appalling and genuinely unacceptable.
– Yet, all that Obama can do today is to urge Morsi to rein in Hamas. Suffice to say, Obama is making a grievous error by once again instinctively taking the pragmatic route of being seen walking shoulder-to-shoulder with Israel.
– Influential sections within the Iranian establishment all along alleged that Obama is far too weak to negotiate meaningfully with Tehran on the nuclear issue. Besides, Tehran also harbors the suspicion that the real US agenda is to weaken Iran by imposing a Taif-model accord (as in Lebanon and Iraq) on Syria (which also enables Israel to regain its regional dominance.)
That is to say, Netanyahu may have smothered for the present whatever degree of optimism Obama generated regarding direct talks between the US and Iran. All in all, therefore, Obama finds himself on a spot even before his second term gets under way. Netanyahu has turned the tables on him for the slights administered by Washington in recent months.
– There is no doubt that in one brilliant swipe Netanyahu has brought to the surface the profound contradictions in the US strategy on the Middle East question.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
(Copyright 2012 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
Bomb Iran? No. Bomb Gaza? Yes!
By Pepe Escobar
So many wars to launch, so little time. When you’re the political leader of the most militarized nation on the planet – as is the case with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu – you gotta find ways to play with your toys.
– Even if you’re itching to, you can’t bomb Iran because you don’t have the right bunker buster bombs and enough fighter jet refueling capability. And on top of it, re-elected US President Barack Obama has made it absolutely clear; the way forward is diplomacy, not bombs.
– This may be an indication that Obama is at least considering a deal: "There should be a way in which they [Iran] can enjoy peaceful nuclear power while still meeting their international obligations and providing clear assurances to the international community that they’re not pursuing a nuclear weapon." This had led to the president’s commitment to "make a push in the coming months to see if we can open up a dialogue" cutting through the US/Iran Wall of Mistrust.
– So what is Bibi to do? Simple. Launch Operation Pillar of Cloud (then Pillar of Defense; see this priceless piece on the "divine" ramifications) against the only place on Earth the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) can raise hell and wreak havoc with total impunity and negligible "collateral damage"; the under-siege, illegally blockaded, collectively punished-to-death inhabitants of the open-air prison known as Gaza.
– Of course you won’t find this explanation by reading the Murdoch press or watching CNN. Nor will you get any detailed explanation on the real timeline leading to what could be another war.
– This is the best timeline so far. Crucial in it is what happened last Sunday. Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra announced that a 13-year-old boy, Hameed Abu Daqqa, was shot in the stomach while playing football with his friends outside his southeast Gaza home. This soccer terrorist was evidently a threat to myriad Israeli helicopters buzzing overhead.
– Launching a war, for the IDF, is child’s play. Tel Aviv just had to kill a few Palestinian civilians like the dangerous soccer terrorist – and send in some extra tanks. Gaza factions had to respond – and they targeted Israeli soldiers (not civilians). That was the perfect excuse for Tel Aviv to go on a rampage.
– On Monday, Hamas and other Palestinian factions in Gaza offered a renewed truce to Israel. To no avail. On Wednesday, the head of the armed wing of Hamas, Ahmed al-Jabari, was killed in a targeted assassination (ask General David Petraeus and his CIA buddies about it, they are specialists in the matter).
– One does not need to read Haaretz to know that al-Jabari has been the top Israeli subcontractor in Gaza – as in charge of assuring Israel’s security – for the past five-and-a-half years. In exchange, Israel once in a while would drop a few shekels on Gaza’s banks, via bulletproof trucks.
– So why snuff out al-Jabari? Simple. Israel goes to the polls in January. Thus emerges Bibi’s political campaigning in full-action mode. Campaign motto: Let’s kill Palestinians. With such thrills on offer, any other Israeli political voice – even slightly dissenting – is drowned.
– On Iran, former CIA analyst Paul Pillar and then John Glaser at antiwar.com have been right on the mark. Bibi bet on the wrong horse in the US – his pathetic, defeated pal Mitt "Binders Full of Women" Romney.
– To compound matters, the relationship between Obama and Bibi is as frosty as holidays in the Arctic – at least since 2010, when Obama wanted a freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank and Bibi responded with provoking Iran into attacking Israel, hoping to drag the US into a new war.
– Now, Bibi obviously sensed that Obama is considering moving towards a deal with Iran.
o So he killed two (Arab/Persian) birds with one (or several) stones/targeted assassinations; he changed the subject – once again – from "existential threat" Iran to "terrorist" Hamas, knowing full well that as long as Israel is killing Palestinians while Washington looks elsewhere (the Asia-Pacific?) the leadership in Tehran will never accept/trust meaningful negotiations.
This is Bibi telling Obama; "You wanna deal with those crazy mullahs? Over my dead body, Barry boy!" And on top of it he gets away with Western public opinion being totally brainwashed by corporate media; once again those evil Palestinian "terrorists" are duly terrorizing oh so innocent Israelis. The icing in the deadly cake is an IDF spokesman spinning madly that the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip is "a forward Iranian base".
– Just like clockwork, only a few hours after the truce/ceasefire totally collapsed, the Obama administration in its pre-2.0 form duly proclaimed Israel has a "right" to strike anything, anywhere, in "self-defense". And how dare Hamas to retaliate.
– A ground invasion may be imminent. But Bibi may – once again – be biting more of a gefilte fish than he can chew.
o Don’t expect any condemnation from the cowardly petro-monarchies of the Gulf Counter-Revolution Club (GCC), previously known as Gulf Cooperation Council.
o And don’t expect any condemnation from all those Western "Friends of Syria" who get so outraged by the Assad regime killing "its own people".
– Yet Egypt under Muslim Brotherhood President Morsi will have to do … something; the Egpytian street, which is all in favor of scrapping the Camp David accords, will demand it.
o On top of that, Cairo itself broke the truce between Tel Aviv and Hamas – now totally sabotaged by Israel.
o Moreover, Hamas is supported by Turkey and, crucially, the Emir of Qatar and his petro-billions. Will they just shut up and watch the carnage? As for King Playstation in Jordan, he cannot play conciliator towards Israel because he may be booking a one-way flight to London sooner than he thinks.
If Obama had any balls he would be fuming. Then he would smack down Bibi. Shouldn’t even bet on it. We know he won’t.
Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His most recent book is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com
(Copyright 2012 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)