{"id":298595,"date":"2024-11-15T08:20:25","date_gmt":"2024-11-15T08:20:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=298595"},"modified":"2024-11-17T08:46:27","modified_gmt":"2024-11-17T08:46:27","slug":"war-on-gaza-trumps-cabinet-is-a-recipe-for-all-out-middle-east-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=298595","title":{"rendered":"War on Gaza: Trump’s cabinet is a recipe for all-out Middle East war"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Hearst \u2013 Middle East Eye.net Nov 14, 2024<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Scenes like these have become so commonplace, they barely register: a group of men carrying sacks of flour are mown down where they stand by an Israeli<\/a> strike, a massacre\u00a0whose only purpose is to enforce mass starvation.<\/p>\n

To publish unblurred photographs of this massacre is to risk having the content banned on social media websites, so I will describe the scene in words.<\/p>\n

A line of flour and body parts stretches into the distance of northern Rafah.\u00a0An Israeli air strike had struck a tuk-tuk vehicle near an aid distribution point in the Miraj area.<\/p>\n

Seven bodies lie sprawled in various poses of sudden death, although we know that a total of 11 were killed. In the foreground, one man lies on top of another, red ribbons of blood stretching from the brains of the man beneath.<\/p>\n

Behind him lies a man on his side. Rivulets of blood stretch away from him too. His clothes are covered in white dust, for behind him are the scattered remains of the sack of flour he was carrying.<\/p>\n

A horse and cart plods across. A boy walks away. Bystanders look on stunned, not knowing what to do. Flour is precious. Human life is not.<\/p>\n

As this was happening, US<\/a> Secretary of State Antony Blinken let it be known that he was \u201chappy with the number of aid trucks Israel was letting in\u201d, and would not apply sanctions as his country had threatened to on 13 October.<\/p>\n

His officials\u00a0said<\/a> Israel had taken \u201cimportant steps\u201d to address US concerns regarding the humanitarian situation in Gaza, but did not elaborate as to what these were.<\/p>\n

No doubt, Blinken was speaking on autopilot. But his optimism that aid was getting through was not shared by Unrwa, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, which reported that October saw the lowest amount of food entering Gaza in a year.<\/p>\n

Look in the mirror<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Nor was it confirmed by the increasingly confident enforcers of mass starvation themselves.<\/p>\n

Brigadier General Itzik Cohen\u00a0told Israeli reporters<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cthere is no intention of allowing the residents of the northern Gaza Strip to return\u201d,\u00a0adding<\/a> that humanitarian aid would be allowed to \u201cregularly\u201d enter the south of the territory, but there were \u201cno more civilians left\u201d in the north.<\/p>\n

His comments were\u00a0walked back<\/a>\u00a0by superior officers almost as soon as they were uttered, because they were de facto evidence of two war crimes: using starvation as a weapon and forcible transfer.<\/p>\n

If Democrats really want to find out why significant numbers of their voter base – college-educated youths, Arab Americans and Muslims – deserted a candidate of \u201cjoy\u201d for the \u201cforces of darkness\u201d, this is the reason why.<\/p>\n

Joyful Kamala Harris owns the scenes taking place in Gaza<\/a> and Lebanon<\/a> every day as much as President Joe Biden or Blinken do. She has never distanced herself from the Gaza policy of her administration. As she herself has said, she was in the room when decisions were taken.<\/p>\n

My message to them is this: don\u2019t look anywhere else for your defeat. It\u2019s all there in the mirror in front of you.<\/p>\n

The same applies to anyone who continues to argue that Israel should now \u201cfinish the job\u201d<\/a> – code for accelerating starvation, forcible transfer and mass murder.<\/p>\n

This is the collective mindset that president-elect Donald Trump is filling his cabinet with.<\/p>\n

Posing as the \u201cstop the war\u201d candidate, Trump told\u00a0the credulous imam of Hamtramck, Detroit<\/a>, that he would bring peace. And in one of the most cynical electoral stunts, the imam and his colleagues duly appeared on the platform with Trump.<\/p>\n

Within days of the election, Trump had already begun filling<\/a> his cabinet with people who have made every case for Israel to spread the war around the region.<\/p>\n

Trump’s picks<\/strong><\/h2>\n

There\u2019s Mike Waltz, touted by Trump\u2019s social media site Truth Social as an \u201cexpert on the threats posed by China<\/a>, Russia<\/a>, Iran<\/a> and global terrorism\u201d.<\/p>\n

Waltz, who is going to be Trump\u2019s national security adviser, told\u00a0Fox News in September<\/a>\u00a0that a ceasefire and hostage release deal would not end the conflict. \u201cIran will continue to stoke unrest because they want to destroy Israel,\u201d he said. \u201cMaking concession after concession to Iran is actually what is destabilising the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Waltz is a dedicated enemy of ceasefires. So, too, is Vivek Ramaswamy, who along with Elon Musk will\u00a0lead<\/a> a \u201cDepartment of Government Efficiency\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ramaswamy\u00a0said<\/a>: \u201cI have full confidence that if left unrestrained, the [Israeli army] will be able to get the job done on defending Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n

There\u2019s Trump\u2019s ambassador to Israel, Christian evangelist\u00a0Mike Huckabee<\/a>. There are certain words the forthcoming US ambassador refuses to use: \u201cThere is no such thing as a West Bank. It\u2019s Judea and Samaria. There\u2019s no such thing as a settlement. They\u2019re communities, they\u2019re neighbourhoods, they\u2019re cities. There is no such thing as occupation,\u201d he told<\/a> CNN in 2017.<\/p>\n

There is Pete Hegseth, who told\u00a0Fox News<\/a>: \u201cI think this is a moment for the Israeli government, not the US government, to take action against Iran to prevent an Iranian bomb. The West has said forever that we cannot have Iran, the mullahs with a nuclear shield \u2026 Imagine what the region and the world would look like. Israel has already done a lot of covert things to push them back, assassinating, hacking into their facilities, damaging their centrifuges. They are going to do more of that, because clearly this administration is not going to.\u201d<\/p>\n

That is the designate secretary of defence speaking.<\/p>\n

For the most important job of US secretary of state, Trump has selected Marco Rubio, who\u00a0wrote\u00a0<\/a>after his last trip to Israel (his fourth one): \u201cIsrael\u2019s enemies are also our enemies. The Iranian regime and its proxies – Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon<\/a>, the Houthis in Yemen<\/a>, and a multitude of groups in Syria<\/a> and Iraq<\/a> – seek Israel\u2019s destruction as part of a multi-stage plan to dominate the Middle East and destabilize the West. The Jewish state is on the front lines of this conflict, fighting with many shared American-Israeli lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rubio finds it nothing less than outrageous that the International Criminal Court is mulling arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and senior army officers: \u201cThe court isn\u2019t going after Assad in Syria, who gassed his own people. It isn\u2019t going after Xi Jinping in China, who is conducting real-time genocide against the Uyghurs. Instead, it\u2019s attacking a country whose military has gone to great lengths to protect civilian lives. The hypocrisy is astounding.”<\/p>\n

And who better to appoint as your\u00a0special envoy to the Middle East<\/a> than your golfing partner?<\/p>\n

Steve Witkoff, a New York real estate developer,\u00a0said of Netanyahu\u2019s recent address to the joint houses of Congress: \u201cIt felt spiritual and yet, that\u2019s not the reaction you sense that you were getting from many of those Democrats.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is the chorus that is supposed to guide the new president to end all wars in the Middle East and beyond.<\/p>\n

Israel’s post-Gaza plan<\/strong><\/h2>\n

But that is just one side of a developing picture. The other involves Israel\u2019s plans for a Trump administration, which are coming into focus.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu\u2019s special adviser and strategic affairs minister,\u00a0Ron Dermer<\/a>, has already been dispatched to Trump\u2019s residence at Mar-a-Lago in Florida\u00a0to hammer out what issues Trump wants to see resolved before 20 January, when the new president takes over, and what he prefers that Israel leave for him.<\/p>\n

Dermer took with him\u00a0intelligence<\/a>\u00a0on Iran\u2019s nuclear programme and the potential threat of Tehran “advancing toward nuclear armament”.<\/p>\n

Dermer did not leave Florida without checking in with Trump\u2019s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, whose plans for a\u00a0waterfront development\u00a0<\/a>in Gaza delighted Israeli officials.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Property developers are already looking at plans to redevelop Gaza. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

Sounding ever more like a mainstream voice, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that the time had come\u00a0to annex the West Bank<\/a>, instructing officials overseeing settlements \u201cto begin professional and comprehensive staff work to prepare the necessary infrastructure\u201d for extending sovereignty.<\/p>\n

And as we reported\u00a0earlier<\/a>, Daniella Weiss, the leader of Nachala, an orthodox settler movement, is waiting for Palestinians to \u201cdisappear from Gaza\u201d, for she has thousands of Jews waiting to resettle there.<\/p>\n

But the most significant thing to be said by a government minister was a detailed speech by Israel\u2019s latest foreign minister,\u00a0Gideon Saar<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In an implicit acknowledgement that Israel will not find peace by getting signatures on a piece of paper from Arab heads of state, Saar\u00a0said\u00a0<\/a>Israel\u2019s natural allies in the region were its oppressed minority groups who were stateless. He mentioned Kurds and the Druze by name.<\/p>\n

Speaking of the Kurds, Saar said: \u201cIt is a national minority in four different countries, in two of which it enjoys autonomy: de facto in Syria and de jure in the Iraqi constitution.\u201d Kurds are \u201ca victim of oppression and aggression from Iran and Turkey<\/a>\u201d, he said, adding that \u201cthis has both political and security aspects\u201d for Israel.<\/p>\n

Recipe for regional war<\/strong><\/h2>\n

It\u2019s not a secret that Israel has been supporting the Kurdistan Democratic Party, which dominates the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region in Iraq. Israel was the only country<\/a> to support an independence referendum hosted in the Kurdistan Regional Government in 2017, which Baghdad refused to recognise.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, the Kurdish People\u2019s Protection Units, which controls much of northeastern Syria, is an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers\u2019 Party, which has been conducting an insurgency in Turkey for decades, and both are long-time supporters<\/a> of Palestine.<\/p>\n

But for anyone sitting in Turkey or Iran, Saar\u2019s statement is a direct threat of military interference by Israel itself.<\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan cut off <\/a>all relations with Israel on Wednesday.<\/p>\n