Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine - Page 179

On January 09 2024 05:34 Mohdoo wrote:
A friend of mine who lives in Egypt has an interesting perspective on how Egypt fits into this whole mess. Word on the street is that the US tried to convince Egypt to accept refugees who want to flee Gaza. Not relocation or anything, but people who are like "get me the fuck out of here, I don't give a shit about jihad bullshit over some land". This friend of mine is full-ass "Israel should not exist at all" and whatnot and insists the Egyptian government would be voted out in favor of a government that favors directly military action against Israel if there was an actual free election.

Anyway, the "seems reliable and true" rumors are that Egypt was offered full debt forgiveness and a clean slate if they just open their border to allow people to flee if they want to. Egypt supposedly declined this supposed offer, and my friend thinks Egypt's government believes they can simply play the waiting game until things get so bad that the west will pay any price.

According to my friend, the Egyptian economy is essentially in shambles and the country is kind of crumbling. His theory is that the government of Egypt plans to let things go to shit in Gaza/Israel until they receive an amazing offer they can't refuse. Imagine if Egypt got a freakishly large payout and continuous "aid" to be the curators of Gaza. All that UN money, with tons of extra for rebuilding, lots of US money for this or that, all debts forgiven, would basically supercharge Egypt's economy and be a bailout of sorts that would prevent a lot of dumpster fire situations they are rapidly approaching.

Whether an offer was ever made or not, I do think my friend is right about the fact that Egypt has every incentive to just keep the gates closed and wait for a better offer. Especially with how corrupt Egypt's government is. Having a huge pipe of Western/UN aid to siphon bits here and there through corruption and personal enrichment would be a great deal for them and would allow them to save their economy. As I see it, Egypt has no real incentive to "help" in any way. But Egypt is the only one other than Israel with an actual border with Gaza. So any solution is likely going to include Egypt either way.

What I think will happen is Gaza gets chopped in half at the choke point. Egypt becomes the curator of all the Palestinians who fled from the North. Egypt and Israel form a DMZ of sorts. Northern Gaza basically entirely empty and destroyed from the war. Northern Gaza becomes a part of Israel. Southern Gaza becomes part of Egypt. Probably the closest we'll ever get to a "long term solution". Treating Gaza and WB as separate entities makes the most sense in many ways. Figuring out Gaza right now would likely be a big benefit. But the world will need to realllly make it worth Egypt's time.

ISTANBUL — President Biden has dispatched his top aides to the Middle East with a critical objective: Prevent a full-blown war from erupting between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Israel has made clear it views as untenable the regular exchange of fire between its forces and Hezbollah along the border and may soon launch a major military operation in Lebanon.

“We prefer the path of an agreed-upon diplomatic settlement,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Friday, “but we are getting close to the point where the hourglass will turn over.”

U.S. officials are concerned that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may see an expanded fight in Lebanon as key to his political survival amid domestic criticism of his government’s failure to prevent Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, which killed an estimated 1,200 people and resulted in some 240 hostages being taken to Gaza.

In private conversations, the administration has warned Israel against a significant escalation in Lebanon. If it were to do so, a new secret assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) found that it will be difficult for Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to succeed because its military assets and resources would be spread too thin given the conflict in Gaza, according to two people familiar with those findings. A spokesperson for the DIA did not offer comment.

More than a dozen administration officials and diplomats spoke to The Washington Post for this report, some on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive military situation between Israel and Lebanon.

Hezbollah, a longtime U.S. adversary with well-trained fighters and tens of thousands of missiles and rockets, wants to avoid a major escalation, according to U.S. officials, who say the group’s leader, Hasan Nasrallah, is seeking to steer clear of a wider war. In a speech on Friday, Nasrallah vowed a response to Israeli aggression, while hinting that he might be open to negotiations on border demarcation with Israel.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to arrive in Israel on Monday where he will discuss specific steps to “avoid escalation,” his spokesman, Matt Miller said before boarding a plane to the Middle East.

“It is in no one’s interest — not Israel’s, not the region’s, not the world’s — for this conflict to spread beyond Gaza,” Miller said. But that view is not uniformly held within Israel’s government.

Since Hamas’s October assault, Israeli officials have discussed launching a preemptive attack on Hezbollah, U.S. officials said. That prospect has faced sustained U.S. opposition due to the likelihood it would draw Iran, which supports both groups, and other proxy forces into the conflict — an eventuality that could compel the United States to respond militarily on Israel’s behalf.

Officials fear that a full-scale conflict between Israel and Lebanon would surpass the bloodshed of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war on account of Hezbollah’s substantially larger arsenal of long-range and precision weaponry. “The number of casualties in Lebanon could be anywhere from 300,000 to 500,000 and entail a massive evacuation of all of northern Israel,” said Bilal Saab, a Lebanon expert at the Middle East Institute, a Washington think tank.

Hezbollah may strike deeper into Israel than before, hitting sensitive targets like petrochemical plants and nuclear reactors, and Iran may activate militias across the region. “I don’t think it would be limited to these two antagonists,” he said.

The threat of a wider conflict continued to grow Saturday as Hezbollah launched about 40 rockets into Israel in response to its suspected assassination of senior Hamas leader Saleh Arouri and six others in an airstrike in suburban Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, days earlier.

In recent weeks, Israel’s regular shootouts with Hezbollah along the border have grown more aggressive, drawing private rebukes from Washington, said U.S. officials.

According to U.S. intelligence reviewed by The Post, the IDF has hit the positions of the U.S.-funded and trained Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) more than 34 times since Oct. 7, officials familiar with the matter said.

The United States views the LAF as the principal defender of Lebanon’s sovereignty and a key counterweight to the influence of Iran-backed Hezbollah.

On Dec. 5, four rounds of Israeli tank fire resulted in the killing of one LAF soldier and the injury of three others. On Dec. 8, Israeli artillery fire containing white phosphorous hit LAF facilities, injuring an LAF soldier who inhaled the noxious fumes. On Nov. 4, Israeli fire against an LAF position at Sarda left a “large hole in a LAF structure,” according to the U.S. intelligence. Some details of these attacks were reported previously by CNN.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment on the Israeli strikes, but the White House National Security Council confirmed that Washington has conveyed to Israel that attacks on LAF and Lebanese civilians are “completely unacceptable.”

A National Security Council official said the Biden administration has been “very direct and tough” with the Israelis on the issue and has said Lebanese Armed Forces injuries and fatalities are not acceptable.

The official also said a priority was maintaining the credibility of the Lebanese Armed Forces and that the international community should be doing everything it can to bolster and support them, as they would be a vital component of any “day after” scenario in Lebanon in which Hezbollah is weakened and poses less of a threat to Israel.

The official emphasized, though, that Hezbollah is a “legitimate threat” to Israel and said the Jewish state has a right to defend itself.

An Israeli official told The Post that Israel does not deliberately target LAF positions and blamed Hezbollah for ratcheting up tensions.

“Hezbollah began firing into Israeli territory, unprovoked, on October 8th and has continued to do so on a daily basis, firing thousands of projectiles. Israel was forced to respond in self-defense,” the official said.

“As a result of Hezbollah’s aggression, tens of thousands of Israelis were forced to leave their homes. The state of Israel will not return to the prewar status quo in which Hezbollah poses a direct and immediate military threat to its security along the Israel-Lebanon border,” the official added.

When Israeli officials first floated the idea of attacking Hezbollah during the opening days of the Gaza conflict, U.S. officials immediately raised objections, said a senior administration official.

Israeli officials initially were convinced that the Lebanese militant group was behind the Hamas incursion and had received bad intelligence that a Hezbollah attack was imminent in the days after Oct. 7, according to two senior U.S. officials. There were deep fears in Israel that the government would miss the signs of another violent assault.

Biden was on the phone up to three times a day, the senior administration official said, in part working to dissuade Israel from attacking Hezbollah — a move that would have resulted in “all hell breaking loose,” the official said. The Israelis’ deep fears about the threat influenced Biden’s decision to fly to Tel Aviv less than two weeks after the Hamas attack, according to one of the senior officials.

The risk that Israel might launch an ambitious attack on Hezbollah has never gone away, said White House and State Department officials, but there has been broader concern about an escalation in recent weeks, particularly as Israel announced the temporary withdrawal of several thousand troops from Gaza on Jan. 1 — a decision that could open up resources for a military operation in the north.

“They have a freer hand to escalate,” said a U.S. official.

Another U.S. official said that the forces Israel withdrew from Gaza could be deployed to the north after sufficient time to rest and prepare for another wave of combat. But Israel’s air force is also overworked, having conducted constant strikes since the war began in October, said the official, explaining the Defense Intelligence Agency’s assessment that an escalation in Lebanon would spread Israeli forces thin.

Pilots are tired, and airplanes have to be maintained and refitted, the official said. They would face more dangerous missions in Lebanon than in Gaza, where Hamas has little in the way of antiaircraft defenses to shoot down attacking planes.

On Thursday, Biden sent special envoy Amos Hochstein to Israel to work on an agreement to reduce tensions at the Lebanese-Israeli border. The near-term goal is to develop a process to start negotiating a land demarcation agreement that could delineate where and how the two sides deploy forces along the border in an effort to stabilize the situation.

U.S. and French officials are in discussions with the Lebanese government over a proposal that would have the Lebanese government take control of part of the Lebanon-Israel border, rather than Hezbollah, to help assuage Israeli concerns, according to two people familiar with the conversations.

The White House declined to detail the plan.

“We continue to explore and exhaust all diplomatic options with our Israeli and Lebanese partners,” said the National Security Council official. “Getting Israeli and Lebanese citizens back into their homes, living in peace and security is of the utmost importance to the United States.”

U.S. officials concede that Hezbollah is unlikely to agree to a border deal while scores of Palestinians in Gaza are being killed or injured as a result of Israel’s military campaign there.

Within the administration, there are differing perceptions about Netanyahu’s interest in a negotiated resolution to the Hezbollah conflict. One senior U.S. official said the Israeli leader’s pledge to create a “fundamental change” to address the border fighting with Hezbollah is mere bluster aimed at extracting concessions from the Lebanese group. Others said that if the Gaza war ends tomorrow, Netanyahu’s political career will end with it, incentivizing him to broaden the conflict.

“The political logic for Netanyahu is to rebound after the historic failure of Oct. 7 and have some kind of success to show to the Israeli public,” said Saab, the Lebanon expert. “I’m not sure going after Hezbollah is the right way to do it because that campaign will be far more challenging than the one in Gaza.”

When asked if political incentives are driving Netanyahu’s military ambitions, a senior Israeli government official said only that “the prime minister will continue to take the necessary steps to secure Israel and its future.”

Before flying to Jordan, Blinken said reducing tensions at the border “is something that we’re very actively working on.”

“It’s clearly a strongly shared interest” among countries in the region, he said.

Biden administration officials are drawing up plans for the U.S. to respond to what they’re increasingly concerned could expand from a war in Gaza to a wider, protracted regional conflict.

Four officials familiar with the matter, including a senior administration official, described internal conversations about scenarios that could potentially draw the U.S. into another Middle East war. All were granted anonymity to speak about sensitive, ongoing national security discussions.

The military is drafting plans to hit back at Iran-backed Houthi militants who have been attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea, according to three U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the discussions. That includes striking Houthi targets in Yemen, according to one of the officials, an option the military has previously presented.

Intelligence officials, meanwhile, are coming up with ways to anticipate and fend off possible attacks on the U.S. by Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria, according to one of the officials. They are also working to determine where the Houthi militants may strike next.

The U.S. has for months behind the scenes urged Tehran to persuade the proxies to scale back their attacks. But officials say they have not seen any sign that the groups have begun to decrease their targeting and worry the violence will only surge in the coming days.

It’s an escalation that could result in President Joe Biden becoming more deeply embroiled in the Middle East just as the 2024 campaign season heats up and his campaign pushes to focus on domestic issues.

The potential for wider conflict is growing, officials said, following a series of confrontations in Iraq, Lebanon and Iran over the past several days. Those have convinced some in the administration that the war in Gaza has officially escalated far beyond the strip’s borders — a scenario the U.S. has tried to avoid for months.

The developments are perilous not just for regional security but for Biden’s reelection chances. He entered office with vows to end wars, realized with the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan that removed the U.S. from 20 years of fighting. Biden now ends his first term as the West’s champion for the defense of Ukraine and key enabler of Israel’s retaliation against Hamas.

Even without U.S. troops in either conflict, voters may see 2024 as their chance to weigh in on the key foreign policy question of this election: how involved should America be in foreign wars?

Biden has vowed to support Ukraine for “as long as it takes” while standing staunchly behind Israel. Former President Donald Trump, Biden’s most likely Republican rival, has boasted he could end Russia’s invasion in mere hours and argued the U.S. should take a hands-off approach to the Israel-Hamas fight.

“Incumbents get blamed for bad things, whether they’re his fault or not. This is the downside of the imperial presidency,” said Justin Logan, director of defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute. “Trump will campaign on a ‘remember the glory days’ message, arguing that Russia wouldn’t be in Ukraine, Israel wouldn’t have been attacked, and China wouldn’t be leaning into Taiwan had he been in charge.”

“Biden will have to say, ‘yes they would, and none of it was my fault,’” Logan continued. “It’s not a good subject for Biden. But unless things get a lot worse, to include U.S. troops dying, foreign policy is still unlikely to factor heavily in this election. It almost never does.”

Still, a Quinnipiac poll in November showed that 84 percent of Americans were either very or somewhat concerned that the U.S would be drawn into the Middle East conflict. And with each passing month, more and more Americans fear the Biden administration is offering too much material support to Ukraine.

A person close to the Biden campaign, granted anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak to the press, argued that “an incumbent will always face foreign policy events,” noting George W. Bush contended with the Iraq War and Barack Obama oversaw the end of the Arab Spring during their reelection bids. The campaign confidant said Biden is focused on issues more important to voters like the economy, the future of democracy and abortion rights.

But as campaign season ramps up, the administration is increasingly being forced to address flashpoints across the Middle East.

Over the weekend, Houthi rebels targeted a commercial freighter, forcing U.S. Navy helicopters to target and sink three of their boats. On Tuesday, Hamas accused Israel of killing a top commander in Beirut. Dozens of people were killed Wednesday during a series of explosions at the tomb of Qassem Soleimani, the late Iranian military commander who was killed in a 2020 U.S. drone strike, in Kerman, Iran. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack.

Tensions in the region ratcheted up even higher on Thursday after the Biden administration launched a drone strike in Baghdad that killed the Iran-backed militia leader Mushtaq Taleb al-Saidi, or “Abu Taqwa,” and at least one other militant, according to two Defense Department officials.

The president convened his national security team on the morning of New Year’s Day to talk about the situation in the Red Sea, to discuss options and a way forward, said another senior administration official. One of the outcomes of that meeting was a joint statement issued simultaneously by the U.S. and a dozen of its allies warning that the Houthis would face “consequences” if they continue to “threaten lives” and disrupt trade flows in the Red Sea, said the senior official.

Another U.S. official stressed that the administration’s concerns about a wider war in the region aren’t new. The official said the U.S. has for weeks been worried about the war in Gaza escalating and that there was no indication that the threats to U.S. troops overseas had expanded in recent days.

However, there are other signs the administration is worried about those threats increasing. In the aftermath of the attack in Iran on Wednesday, officials across the administration from the Pentagon to the State Department to the intelligence agencies began assessing how Iran or its proxy forces in the Middle East could directly target the U.S. or its allies in the region.

Such contingency planning is normal in states of heightened tension in the Middle East, officials said. But the scramble inside the administration to draw up reports on potential points of attacks and possible U.S. responses this week came as a result of orders from the top echelons of the administration over fears that the violence in the region will only continue to grow and that Washington will eventually have to intervene.

Of particular concern is the potential for escalation in the Red Sea. Houthi attacks against merchant vessels there prompted the U.S. last month to announce the start of a new international maritime coalition to deter these attacks. The coalition, which now involves more than 20 countries, has allowed roughly 1,500 merchant ships to safely transit these waters since operations began on Dec. 18, Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. 5th Fleet, told reporters Thursday.

Still, as of Thursday, there had been 25 attacks against commercial ships transiting the southern Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, Cooper said. On Thursday morning, the Houthis for the first time detonated a small, one-way attack, unmanned surface vessel in international shipping lanes, he said, posing a new threat.

Already, the Houthi attacks have forced major shipping companies that represent a significant portion of the international maritime economy to reroute their vessels, adding costs and delays. Officials are concerned about further escalation.

“From our perspective, the most worrying thing is that the Houthis might sink a ship. Then what happens?” said one of the U.S. officials.

And there’s the ongoing fear that the violence in Gaza could spread to the West Bank and Lebanon. Already, Lebanese Hezbollah and Israel are trading fire on the border, and there have been reports of attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians in the West Bank. Those concerns could grow after the suspected Israeli killing of a Hamas leader in Lebanon on Tuesday; so far though, the U.S. has not seen any signs Hezbollah wants a wider war.

“Although the U.S. has been trying to avoid having the war in Gaza from turning into a regional one, ultimately that decision is not entirely up to us,” said Mick Mulroy, a former Marine, CIA officer and Pentagon official under Trump. “The signs are blinking red for this to erupt into a regional war.”

On January 08 2024 08:12 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
To think it is odd seeing politicians of other countries be lunatics and use foreign policy to stay in power. We in the US are familiar with our country having a monopoly on such people... Biden could easily put this to bed by stating he will only approve Humanitarian aid going forward, no armaments etc. Allow Congress, and the Senate take the heat going forward. But for some reason he won't do that.



Source

On January 09 2024 19:26 GreenHorizons wrote:

Biden could force their hand if he wasn't busy circumventing congress to send them more weapons to massacre more Palestinians.

Hell, Biden could just stop vetoing calls for ceasefires through the UN and that'd send a pretty clear message. But he's an avowed Zionist, so I won't be holding my breath for him to stop acting like one.

On January 09 2024 04:46 Cricketer12 wrote:

Checkmate libtards 😎

On January 09 2024 20:44 GreenHorizons wrote:

I don't know what you think they mean in the headline by "Biden admin again bypasses Congress to sell military equipment to Israel"? It means Biden via Blinken.

It's basically the same thing for the US vetoing the ceasefire resolution (Congress doesn't have a veto vote at the UN).