{"id":276104,"date":"2023-11-21T07:50:54","date_gmt":"2023-11-21T07:50:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=276104"},"modified":"2023-11-23T06:58:34","modified_gmt":"2023-11-23T06:58:34","slug":"will-the-scorpion-sting-the-u-s-frog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=276104","title":{"rendered":"Will the Scorpion Sting the U.S. Frog?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alistair Crooke \u2013 Strategic Culture Nov 20, 2023<\/strong><\/h1>\n

The allegory is one in which a scorpion depends on the frog for its passage across a flooded river, by hitching a lift on the frog\u2019s back. The frog distrusts the scorpion; but reluctantly agrees. During the crossing the scorpion fatally stings the frog swimming the river, under the scorpion. They both die.<\/p>\n

It is a tale from antiquity intended to illustrate the nature of tragedy. A Greek tragedy is one in which the crisis at the heart of any \u2018tragedy\u2019 does not arise by sheer mischance. The Greek sense is that tragedy is where something happens because it has to happen<\/em>; because of the nature of the participants; because the actors involved make it happen. And they have no choice but to make it happen, because that is their nature.<\/p>\n

It is a story that was deployed<\/a> by a former senior Israeli diplomat, well versed in U.S. politics. His telling of the frog fable has Israel\u2019s leaders desperately fending off responsibility for the 7 October d\u00e9bacle, with a cabinet furiously trying to turn the crisis (psychologically) from culpable disaster \u2013 to present the Israeli public instead with an image of epic opportunity.<\/p>\n

The chimaera being presented is one that by reaching back to earliest Zionist ideology, Israel can turn the catastrophe in Gaza \u2013 as Finance Minister Smotrich has long argued<\/a> \u2013 into a solution that once and for all \u2018unilaterally resolves the inherent contradiction between Jewish and Palestinian aspirations \u2013 by ending the illusion<\/em> that any kind of compromise, reconciliation or partition is possible.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is the potential scorpion sting: the Israeli cabinet betting all on a hugely risky strategy \u2013 a new Nakba \u2013 that could draw Israel into major conflict, but in so doing also sink what remains of western prestige.<\/p>\n

Of course, as the former Israeli diplomat underlines, this ploy is essentially constructed around Netanyahu\u2019s personal ambition \u2013 he manoeuvres to alleviate criticism and to stay in power as long as he can. More importantly, he hopes this will enable him to spread the blame, shedding all and any responsibility and accountability from himself. [Better still], \u201cit can place Gaza in an historic and epic context as an event that might render the PM as a formative wartime leader of grandeur and glory\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

Far-fetched? Not necessarily.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu may be writhing politically for survival<\/a>, but he is a true \u2018believer\u2019 too. In his book, Going to the Wars<\/em>, historian Max Hastings writes that Netanyahu told him in the 1970s that, \u201cIn the next war, if we do it right, we\u2019ll have the chance to get all the Arabs out \u2026 We can clear the West Bank, sort out Jerusalem.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

And what is the Israeli cabinet thinking about the \u2018next war\u2019? It thinks \u2018Hizbullah. As one minister noted recently, \u2018after Hamas, we will turn to deal with Hizbullah\u2019.<\/p>\n

It is precisely the confluence of a lengthy war in Gaza (along lines established in 2006), and an Israeli leadership seemingly intent to provoke Hizbullah<\/a> on to, and up, the escalatory ladder, which is causing red lights to flash inside the White House, according to the former Israeli diplomat.<\/p>\n

In the 2006 war with Hizbullah, the entire urban populated suburb of Beirut \u2013 Dahiya \u2013 was levelled. General Eizenkot (who commanded Israeli forces during that war and is now a member in Netanyahu\u2019s \u2018War Cabinet\u2019) said<\/a> in 2008: \u201cWhat happened in the Dahiya quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired on \u2026 From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages, they are military bases \u2026 This is not a recommendation. This is a plan. And it has been approved.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Hence the Gaza treatment.<\/p>\n

It is not likely that the Israeli War Cabinet seeks to provoke a full-scale invasion of Israel by Hizbullah (which would represent an existential threat); but Netanyahu and the cabinet might like to see the present exchange of fire on the northern border escalate to the point at which the U.S. feels compelled itself <\/em>to rain some warning blows onto Hizballah\u2019s military infrastructure.<\/p>\n

With the IDF already striking 40 kms deep into Lebanon at civilians (a car with a grandmother and her three nieces was incinerated last week by an IDF missile), the U.S. concern at escalation is real.<\/p>\n

This is what worries the White House, the diplomat says<\/a>. Iran confirms that it received no less than three U.S. messages within one day telling Tehran that the U.S. is not <\/em>seeking war with Iran. And an American envoy, Amos Hochstein, has been doing the rounds in Beirut insisting that Hizbullah must not escalate in response to Israeli cross-border attacks.<\/p>\n

\u201cNetanyahu\u2019s reluctance to enunciate any ideas about the \u2018day after\u2019 in Gaza \u2013 and major and ominous escalatory developments in Lebanon \u2013 are creating a rift between U.S. and Israeli policies to the point that some in the Biden administration and Congress are beginning to think Netanyahu is trying to drag the Americans into a war with Iran\u201d. <\/em><\/p>\n

\u201c[Netanyahu] \u2018isn\u2019t interested in a second front in the north with Hezbollah\u201d, the former official says, adding however they [in the White House] believe that a U.S. strike against Iran\u2019s provocations would potentially turn Netanyahu\u2019s abject debacle into some kind of strategic triumph\u201d. <\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThat is the same convoluted logic that guided him when he encouraged his soulmate, then-President Donald Trump, to unilaterally withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018. That was also the underlying logic of his 2002 congressional hearing encouraging the Americans to invade Iraq, because it would \u201cstabilize the region\u201d and \u201creverberate\u201d to Iran\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

These fears go to the core of the \u2018tragedy\u2019 that \u2018has to happen\u2019 \u2013 the frog very cautiously has agreed to carry the scorpion over the river-crossing, but wants a guarantee that given the nature of the scorpion, he won\u2019t sting his benefactor.<\/p>\n

Team Biden, likewise, doesn\u2019t Trust Netanyahu. He does not wish to \u2018be stung\u2019 through being drawn into a quagmire war with Iran.<\/p>\n

The sting is palpable: The Netanyahu cabinet is gradually and deliberately setting the stage for the entrapment of the Biden Administration by manoeuvring so that Washington has little choice but to join with Israel, were the war to widen.<\/p>\n

Like in all classic tragedy, the outcome comes about because the actors involved make it happen; they have no choice, but to make it happen, because that is their nature. \u201cNot only does the Israeli Premier dismiss any idea or request coming from Washington; Netanyahu explicitly wants the Gaza war to go on indefinitely without any political corollary\u201d<\/em>, the ex-official relates.<\/p>\n

Consider too, Jake Sullivan\u2019s explicit setting out of U.S. red-lines: No re-occupation of Gaza; no displacement of its population; no reduction of its territory; no political disconnection with the West Bank authorities; no alternative decision-making, save only the Palestinian \u2013 and no going back to the status quo ante<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu simply rejects all these \u2018lines\u2019 in a single phrase: Israel, he said, would oversee and maintain \u201coverall security responsibility\u201d for an indefinite period of time. At a stroke, he undermines the U.S. identified end-game, leaving it to dangle in the cold winds of increasingly unsympathetic global and domestic sentiment, and the sands in the hourglass running out.<\/p>\n

The Smotrich \u2018end game\u2019 is evident: Netanyahu is building popular domestic support towards a silent new ultimatum for Gaza: \u201cemigration or annihilation\u201d<\/em>. This is anathema for Team Biden. America\u2019s Middle East decades of diplomacy \u2018is down the sink\u2019.<\/p>\n

Washington is observing with mounting unease the \u2018horizontal military escalation\u2019 across the region, and wonders whether Israel will survive this tightening noose. Yet, the U.S. has only limited means and time to constrain Israel.<\/p>\n

Biden\u2019s immediate backing of Israel is creating turmoil at home and entailing a political price that \u2013 with the election a year off \u2013 has consequences. It was perhaps \u2018in Biden\u2019s nature\u2019 that he might believe he could \u2018bear-hug\u2019 Israel into compliance with U.S. interests. It is, however, not working \u2013 leaving him stuck with a scorpion on his back.<\/p>\n

Some argue that the solution is simple: Threaten to cut off the supply of munitions or funding that are flowing<\/a> to Israel. It sounds simple. It would constitute a powerful \u2018threat\u2019; but for this to happen, it would require Biden to confront the all-powerful \u2018Lobby\u2019 and its tight hold over Congress. And this is not a contest that he likely would win. Congress stand solidly with Israel.<\/p>\n

Some suggest that a resolution in the UN Security Council could impose \u2018a stop to the Gaza nightmare\u2019. But Israel has a long history of simply ignoring such resolutions (from 1967 to 1989, the UN Security Council adopted 131 resolutions<\/a> directly addressing the Arab\u2013Israeli conflict, most of which have had little or no impact). On Wednesday this week, the UNSC approved a resolution calling for<\/em> humanitarian pauses.The U.S. abstained, and most likely, the resolution will be ignored.<\/p>\n

So might a world-wide call for a two-state solution fare any better? It hasn\u2019t so far. Yes, theoretically the UNSC can mandate<\/em> a resolution, but the U.S. Congress would \u2018go nuts\u2019 if it did, and would threaten force on anyone attempting to implement it.<\/p>\n

However, put bluntly, the two-state rhetoric misses the point: It is not only the Islamic world that is undergoing angry popular transformation \u2013 so too is Israel. Israelis are angry and passionate, and with an overwhelming majority, approve of the annihilation in Gaza.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu\u2019s contextualising of the Gaza war in absolute Manichean terms \u2013 light versus<\/em> the dark; civilisation versus<\/em> barbarism; Gaza as the seat of evil; all Gazans complicit with Hamas evil: Palestinians as non-human \u2013 all this is stirring Israeli emotions, and memories of a 1948-style ideology.<\/p>\n

And this is not confined to the Right \u2013 popular sentiment in Israel is shifting from liberal-secular, to biblical-eschatological.<\/p>\n

The Chair of B\u2019Tselem\u2019s <\/em>Executive Board, Orly Noy, has written<\/a> an article \u2013 The Israeli Public has Embraced the Smotrich Doctrine<\/em> \u2013 that underlines how the internalization of Smotrich\u2019s \u2018Decisive Plan\u2019 is manifest in popular support for Israel\u2019s \u2018emigration or annihilation\u2019<\/em> Gaza policy:<\/p>\n

\u201cSix years ago, Bezalel Smotrich, then a young Knesset member in his first term, published his thinking of an endgame for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict \u2026 Instead of maintaining the illusion that a political agreement is possible, he argued, the issue must be unilaterally resolved once and for all.<\/em><\/p>\n

[The solution<\/em> Smotrich proposed was to offer] \u201cthe 3 million Palestinian residents a choice: to renounce their national aspirations and continue living on their land in an inferior status, or to emigrate abroad. If, instead, they choose to take up arms against Israel, they will be identified as terrorists and the Israeli army will set about \u201ckilling those who need to be killed.\u201d When asked at a meeting, in which he presented his plan to religious-Zionist figures, if he also meant killing families, women, and children, <\/em>Smotrich replied<\/em><\/a>: \u201cIn war as in war\u201d\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

Orly Noy argues that this thinking is not simply confined to the Cabinet or the Israeli Right \u2013 rather, it has gone mainstream. Israeli media and political discourse shows that when it comes to the current IDF assault on Gaza, large parts of the Israeli public have completely internalized the logic of Smotrich\u2019s thinking.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn fact, Israeli public opinion regarding Gaza, where Smotrich\u2019s vision is being implemented with a cruelty that even he may not have foreseen, is now even more extreme than the text of the plan itself. That\u2019s because, in practice, Israel is removing from the agenda the first possibility on offer \u2014 of an inferior, de-Palestinianised existence \u2014 which until 7th<\/sup><\/em> October was most Israelis\u2019 chosen option\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

The implication to this \u2018Smotrichization\u2019 of the public is that Israel \u2013 as a whole \u2013 is turning radically allergic to any<\/em> form of Palestinian state existing at all. The public, she observes, have now come to see the Palestinians\u2019 refusal to submit to the might of the Israeli military as an existential threat in itself \u2013 and sufficient reason for their displacement.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alistair Crooke explains that Netanyahu is setting the stage for entrapment of the Biden Administration by manoeuvring so that the U.S. has little choice but to join with Israel. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-276104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=276104"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":276151,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276104\/revisions\/276151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=276104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=276104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=276104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}