The bombast, timing, scope, and rhythm of the bombings suggest there is more to the pre-emptive attacks than immediate security consideration. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is sending a message to his own public at home ahead of the September 17 elections as well as to Iran and the United States.
The message to the Israelis was his decision to launch a cross-regional bombings spree three weeks before national elections was a carefully calculated political move aimed at guaranteeing his survival as prime minister and a free man.
The vote is important not only for Israel's future but also for Netanyahu's own fate. If he loses this election and, as expected, is indicted on corruption charges, he will certainly go to prison like his predecessor, Ehud Olmert.
But as several generals-cum-politicians are running against him on September 17, the incumbent prime minister, who promised to aneex the West Bank settlements to prove his right-wing credentials, needs to prove his military credentials as well, preferably without plunging the country into war.
So Netanyahu, the seasoned politician, took a calculated risk of bombing Iranian targets while assuming that Iran is not interested in fighting a major war - certainly not while Tehran is trying to save the nuclear deal with the help of Europe and others.
He also assumed that when the time comes, any tit-for-tat with Hizbullah would be limited. Indeed, the tit-for-tap last Sunday came to an end before it had even begun, with both parties moving towards immediate de-escalation.
Paradoxically, these avowed enemies have thus far proven more predictable in their confrontations than most allies are in their cooperation, including the US and Israel.
The message to the Iranians was Israel's expansion of its military operations against Iranian assets to include Iraq cannot be mistaken for anything other than putting Tehran on notice: Israel will be watching, weighing and wielding its superior power like never before, until and unless Iran stops projecting power and building allies and assets close to its borders.
Over the past two years, the Israeli army has allegedly carried out hundreds of attacks against Iranian targets in Syria, soliciting little or no real response from Damascus or Tehran, other than the occasional condemnation and threat of retaliation.
Israel delivered a similar message by attacking Hezbollah positions in Syria and Lebanon, which was considered a major escalation and a violation of previous agreements reached after their 2006 war.
But Israeli security establishment no longer views the group as a Lebanese resistance movement - a title it held since its inception as a byproduct of the 1982 Israeli invasion and occupation of Lebanon.
With Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah threatening regional war if Iran is attacked, and abetting Iranian projection of force and influence across the region from Syria, Yemen and Iraq, the Lebanese armed group has come to be considered an asset or client of the ayatollahs in Tehran.
Paradoxically, the more Hizbullah has become overstretched and preoccupied with other conflicts in the region, the less time and energy it has had for confronting Israel.
The message to his mate Trump was the timing of the most recent elaborate campaign of bombings on three fronts during the two-day G7 conference in Biarritz, France. It could hardly be a coincidence.
Netanyahu was angered by the French invitation of Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to the summit and dismayed by French President Emmanuel Macron's attempts to mediate between Tehran and Washington and arrange for a meeting between President Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.
Netanyahu has realised by now that Trump's love for shock, controversy and publicity and his willingness to meet US enemies like Kim Jong Un mean that it is quite possible for him to agree to France's mediation and commit to a meeting with Iranian leaders.
That is why Netanyahu tried vociferously to reach the American president in Biarritz to dissuade him from meeting Zarif or acquiescing to the French proposals to lift secondary sanctions on Iran. Apparently, the US president was too busy or perhaps unwilling to talk.
Trump may be impressionable, but he does not like to be told what do.
At any rate, bombs speak louder than words, and Netanyahu knew that even if he could not get Trump on the phone, the attacks on Iraq, Syria and Lebanon would be heard loud and clear in Biarritz.
Well, the G7 ignored the Israeli escalation, neither condemning it nor justifying it. The Trump administration, predictably, defended Israel's right to "defend itself", but the president remained open to the idea of direct talks with Iran as he insists on the need to withdraw the US military from the region's hotspots.
Moreover, Trump seems to be sidelining his national security adviser, John Bolton, who has long advocated for the US and Israel to bomb Iran, as he makes some peculiar overtures towards Tehran.
Well, that is until he changes his mind.
Meanwhile, Israeli and Iranian leaders and their allies are turning the Middle East into an open theatre of war, acting like pyromaniacs, who, unless stopped, may end up burning down the whole region.
Israel constitute the gravest menace to the future of the region. Supporting Tel Aviv will not bring victory or avert war - it would only accelerate the march towards an all-out conflict, and implicate other regional and global powers.
Israel and Iran may have succeeded over the past four decades in maintaining distance, fighting only by proxy, but deepening tensions amid the spree of Israeli attacks and biting sanctions against Tehran may pave the way towards a whole new regional confrontation with unforeseen consequences.
The main reason why Israel avoided war against Hizbullah since the defeat of 2006 is Tel Aviv's determination to prepare well enough to be able to win decisively and at minimum cost. The war, or Israeli new attack, may be nearer than we think, as the IDF (Israeli army) perfects its anti-missile defences, notably its iron dome system.
That is why France and its European partners need to step up their efforts to reach a diplomatic breakthrough between the US and Iran - one that ensures short as well as long-term regional security.
Putting a halt to the hostilities against Iran is crucial to stop Israel's irresponsible quest to plunging the Middle East into chaos.
As a matter of fact, for years, Kenya has served as Israel's gateway to Africa. Israel has been using the strong political, economic and security relations between the two states as a way to expand its influence on the continent and turn other African nations against Palestine. Unfortunately, Israel's strategy seems, at least on the surface, to be succeeding - Africa's historically vocal support for the Palestinian struggle on the international arena is dwindling.
The continent's rapprochement with Israel is unfortunate, because, for decades, Africa has stood as a vanguard against all racist ideologies, including Zionism - the ideology behind Israel's establishment on the ruins of Palestine. If Africa succumbs to Israeli enticement and pressure to fully embrace the Zionist state, the Palestinian people would lose a treasured partner in their struggle for freedom and human rights.
But all is not lost.
In discussions with the country's journalists, intellectuals, human rights activists and ordinary citizens in an effort to counter some of the propaganda inflicted by Israel's hasbara machine in recent years. Keeping Israel's success in penetrating various layers of the Kenyan society in mind, I also wanted to explore whether there is still some potential for solidarity. Despite all Shimon Peres' and his accomplices efforts, Israel's "success story" in Kenya and the rest of Africa seems to be a superficial one and the affinity between Africa and Palestine is far too deep for any "charm offensive" by Israel to easily eradicate.
Israel's "charm offensive in Africa" started after Israel failed to convince European states to support its policies vis-a-vis the Palestinians. When Europe openly expressed its support for the establishment of a Palestinian state, Israel made a strategic decision to focus on Africa.
But the EU's support for a Palestinian state and occasional criticism of the illegal Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories was not the only reason behind Israel's decision to turn its face towards Africa.
Most African countries, - like most countries in the global south - have long been voting in favour of pro-Palestinian resolutions at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), further contributing to Israel's sense of isolation on the international stage. As a result, winning back Africa became a modus operandi in Israeli international affairs - "winning back" because Africa has not always been hostile to Israel and Zionism.
Ghana officially recognised Israel in 1956, just eight years after its inception, and started a trend that continued amongst African countries for years to come. By the early 1970s, Israel had established a strong position for itself on the continent. On the eve of the 1973 Israeli-Arab war, Israel had full diplomatic ties with 33 African countries.
"The October War", however, changed all of that. Back then, Arab countries, under Egyptian leadership, functioned, to some extent, with a unified political strategy. And when African countries had to choose between Israel, a country born out of Western colonial intrigues, and the Arabs, who suffered at the hands of Western colonialism as much as Africa did, they naturally chose the Arab side. One after the other, African countries began severing their ties with Israel. Soon enough, no African state other than Malawi, Lesotho and Swaziland had official diplomatic relations with Israel.
Then the continent's solidarity with Palestine went even further. The Organization of African Unity - the precursor to the African Union - in its 12th ordinary session held in Kampala in 1975, became the first international body to recognise on a large scale the inherent racism in Israel's Zionist ideology by adopting Resolution 77 (XII). That very resolution was cited in UNGA Resolution 3379, adopted in November of that same year, which determined that "Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination". Resolution 3379 remained in effect until it was revoked by the Assembly under intense American pressure in 1991.
Regrettably, Africa's solidarity with Palestine started to erode in the 1990s. It was in those years that the US-sponsored peace process gained serious momentum, becoming the Oslo Accords and other agreements that normalized the Israeli occupation without giving Palestinians their basic human rights. With many meetings and handshakes between beaming Israeli and Palestinian officials featuring regularly in news media, many African nations bought into the illusion that a lasting peace was finally at hand. By the late 1990s, Israel had reactivated its ties with a whopping 39 African countries. As Palestinians lost more land under Oslo, Israel gained many new vital allies in Africa and all over the world.
Yet Israel's full-fledged "scramble for Africa" - as a political ally, economic partner and a client for its "security" and weapons technologies - didn't fully manifest until recently.
The Israeli scramble for Africa began on July 5, 2016 when Binyamin Netanyahu made an historic visit to Kenya, which made him the first Israeli prime minister to visit Africa in the last 50 years. After spending some time in Nairobi, where he attended the Israel-Kenya Economic Forum alongside hundreds of Israeli and Kenyan business leaders, he moved on to Uganda, where he met leaders from other African countries including South Sudan, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Tanzania. Within the same month, Israel announced the renewal of diplomatic ties between Israel and Guinea.
The new Israeli strategy flowed from there. More high-level visits to Africa and triumphant announcements about new joint economic ventures and investments followed.
However, diplomatic and economic efforts to win over Africa soon proved insufficient for Israel's prime minister. So, he succumbed to rewriting history to improve Israel's standing on the continent.
In June 2017, Netanyahu took part in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), held in the Liberian capital, Monrovia.
"Africa and Israel share a natural affinity," Netanyahu claimed in his speech. "We have, in many ways, similar histories. Your nations toiled under foreign rule. You experienced horrific wars and slaughters. This is very much our history."
With these words, Netanyahu attempted not only to cover the ugly face of Zionist colonialism and deceive Africans, but also rob Palestinians of their history.
Despite Netanyahu's blatant lies about "similar histories", Israel's charm offensive in Africa went from success to success. In January this year, for example, Chad, a Muslim-majority nation and central Africa's geo-strategically most important country, established economic ties with Israel.
As it tried to establish itself as a partner to African nations, Israel did make some contributions that benefited Africans, such as delivering solar, water and agricultural technologies to regions in need. However, these contributions came at a significant cost.
When, for example, in December 2016, Senegal co-sponsored UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which condemned the construction of illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, Netanyahu recalled Israel's ambassador to Dakar and swiftly cancelled the Mashav drip-irrigation projects - The projects had previously been "widely promoted as a major part of Israel's contribution to the 'fight against poverty in Africa'.
Israel not only used projects like these to punish African nations when they failed to give blind support to Israel in international forums, it also used this new relationship to turn Africa into a new market for its arms sales.
African countries such as Chad, Niger, Mali, Nigeria, and Cameroon, among others, became clients of Israel's "counterterrorism" technologies, the same deadly tools that are actively used to suppress Palestinians in their ongoing struggle for freedom.
And all this as Israel continues to champion the same racist, colonial mindset that enslaved and subjugated Africa for hundreds of years. This fact seems to have escaped African leaders who are lining up to receive Israeli handouts and support in their precarious "war on terror". Moreover, barefaced anti-African racism that defines mainstream Israeli politics and society also seems of no consequence to the growing Israel fan club in Africa.
Many African governments, including those of Muslim-majority nations, are now giving Israel exactly what it wants - a way to break out of its isolation and legitimize its Apartheid.
"Israel is making inroads into the Islamic world," said Netanyahu during the first visit by an Israeli leader to Chad's capital, Ndjamena, on January 20, 2019. "We are making history and we are turning Israel into a rising global power."
Arabs, of course, share some of the blame in all of this for abandoning their African allies in a fruitless chase after US-Western promises of a peace that never actualized. Arab politics have massively shifted since the mid-1970s. Not only are Arab countries no longer speaking in one voice and, thus, have no unified strategy regarding Africa or anywhere else, but some Arab governments are actively plotting with Tel Aviv and Washington against Palestinians. The Bahrain conference, held in Manama on June 25-26, was the latest case in point.
The Palestinian leadership has itself shifted its political focus away from the global south, especially since the signing of the Oslo Accords. For decades, Africa mattered little in the limited and self-serving calculations of the Palestinian Authority. For the PA, only Washington, London, Madrid, Oslo and Paris carried any geopolitical importance - a deplorable political blunder on all accounts. But this historical mistake must be remedied before Israel's success story denies Palestinians any leverage in Africa and throughout the rest of the global south.
Yet, despite its many successes in luring African governments to its web of allies, Israel has failed to tap into the hearts of ordinary Africans who still view the Palestinian fight for justice and freedom as an extension of their own struggle for democracy, equality and human rights.
In Nairobi, students, academics and human rights activists relate to the Palestinian people not as sympathetic outside observers of their struggle, but as their partners in a collective battle for justice, freedom and rights. Kenya's bloody fight against British colonialism, its proud liberation war and its numerous sacrifices to win its freedom are almost a mirror image of the ongoing Palestinian struggle against another colonial and racist enemy.
Palestine will always be close to the heart of all Africans because of the common painful, proud history of colonialism and resistance. With that in mind, Palestinians should wake up to the fact that Israel is actively trying to rewrite their history and deprive them of the solidarity of peoples that perhaps understand their plight much better than most. African nations Don't have much political influence in the UN, however, they have the right to vote.
PALESTINA
"We Teach Life, sir"! Rafeef Ziadah
Israel’s decision to bar United States Democratic Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, from entering Israel and visiting Palestine has further exposed the belligerent, racist nature of the Israeli government.
But our understanding of the Israeli decision, and the massive controversy and discussion it generated, should not stop there. Palestinians, who have been at the receiving end of racist Israeli laws, will continue to endure separation, isolation and travel restrictions long after the two Congresswomen’s story dies down.
Palestinian children from Gaza have been dying alone in Makassed Hospital in Jerusalem. Ever since Israel imposed near-complete isolation on the Gaza Strip in 2007, thousands of Palestinian patients requiring urgent medical care which is available in Palestinian East Jerusalem or elsewhere in the West Bank faced options, all of them painful. As a result, many died at home, while others waited for months, if not years, to be granted permission to leave the besieged Strip.
The Guardian reported in June on 56 Gaza babies who were brought to the Makassed Hospital, alas without any family accompanying them. Six of these babies died alone.
The Israeli rights group, Gisha, puts this sad reality in numbers. When the Beit Hanoun (Erez) Crossing between Gaza and Israel is not completely shut down, only 100 Gazans are allowed to cross into Israel (mostly on their way to the West Bank) per day. Before the breakout of the Second Palestinian Intifada, the Uprising of 2000, “the monthly average number of entries to Israel from Gaza by Palestinians was more than half a million.”
You can imagine the impact of such a massive reduction on the Palestinian community in the Strip in terms of work, health, education and social life.
This goes well beyond Gaza. Indeed, if there is one consistent policy that has governed Israel’s relationship with Palestinians since the establishment of Israel on the ruins of Palestinian towns and villages in 1948, it is that of separation, siege and physical restrictions.
While the establishment of Israel resulted in the massive influx of Palestinian refugees who are now numbered in the millions and are still denied the right to even visit their own homeland, those who remained in Palestine were detained in small, cut off spaces, governed by an inhumane matrix of control that only grows more sophisticated with time.
Immediately after the establishment of Israel, Palestinian Christian and Muslim communities that were not ethnically cleansed by Zionist militias during the war endured years of isolation under the so-called Defense (Emergency) Regulations. The movement of Palestinians in these areas were governed by military law and the permit system.
Following the 1967 occupation of the remaining 22 percent of historic Palestine, the emergency law was also applied to East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. In fact, in the period between 1967 and 1972, all of the occupied territories were declared a “closed military area” by the Israeli army.
In the period between 1972 and 1991, Palestinian laborers were allowed entry to Israeli only to serve as Israel’s cheap workforce. Hundreds of thousands of impoverished, desperate, though often well-educated Palestinians, faced the inevitable option of enduring humiliating work conditions in Israel in order to sustain their families. But even that route was closed following the First Intifada of 1987 particularly after the Iraq war in 1991. Total closure was once more imposed on all Palestinians throughout the country.
The Oslo Agreement, which was put into effect in 1994 formalized the military permit system. Oslo also divided the West Bank into three Zones, A, B, C and with the latter two (comprising nearly 83 percent of the total size of the West Bank) falling largely under total Israeli control. This ushered in yet another horrific reality as it isolated Palestinians within the West Bank from one another.
Occupied East Jerusalem also fell into the same matrix of Israeli control. After 1967, Palestinian Jerusalemites were classified into those living in area J1 – Palestinians with blue cards living in areas annexed by Israel after the war and incorporated into the boundaries of the Israeli Jerusalem municipality; and J2- Palestinians residing outside the municipality area. Regardless, both communities were denied “fundamental residency rights to adequate housing and freedom of movement and their rights to health, work, (and) education,” wrote Fadwa Allabadi and Tareq Hardan in the Institute for Palestinian Studies.
The so-called ‘Separation Wall’, which Israel began building in June 2002, did not separate between Palestinians and Israel, for that has already been realized through numerous laws and restrictions that are as old as the Israeli state itself. Instead, the wall created yet more restrictions for Palestinians, who are now left isolated in Apartheid South Africa-style ‘Bantustans’. With hundreds of permanent and “flying” military checkpoints dotting the West Bank, Israel’s separation strategy was transformed from isolating all Palestinians at once, into individualized confinement that is aimed at destroying any sense of Palestinian socio-economic cohesion and continuity.
Moreover, the Israeli military installed iron gates at the entrances to the vast majority of West Bank villages, allowing it to isolate them within minutes and with minimal personnel.
It does not end here, of course. In March 2017, the Israeli parliament (Knesset) approved an amendment to the law that would deny entry to foreign nationals who “knowingly issued a public call to boycott the state of Israel.” The “Boycott law” was rooted in a 2011 bill and an Israeli Supreme Court decision (upholding the legal argument in the bill) in 2015.
According to the Israeli website, Globes, in 2018, almost 19,000 visitors to Israel were turned away at the country’s various entry points, compared to only 1,870 in 2011. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib will now be added to that dismal statistic.
Every Palestinian, anywhere, is subjected to these restrictions. While some are denied the right to visit their families, others are dying in isolation in besieged areas, in “closed military zones”, while separated from one another by massive walls and numerous military checkpoints.
This is the story of Palestinian isolation by Israel that one must not allow to die out, long after the news cycle covering the two Congresswomen’s story move on beyond Omar, Tlaib and Israeli transgressions.
BRASIL
VENEZUELA
