THE ROVING
EYE 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.
Lemme change
the subject 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. 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.
Don't expect any condemnation from the cowardly
petro-monarchies of the Gulf Counter-Revolution
Club (GCC), previously known as Gulf Cooperation
Council. 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. On top of that, Cairo itself broke the
truce between Tel Aviv and Hamas - now totally
sabotaged by Israel. 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.
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
