One of the biggest challenges confronting Israel is to assess honestly how many soldiers, intelligence officials and established security procedures failed before Oct. 7.
Answering that question properly could well change radically how Jerusalem deals with Gaza and the West Bank. It could easily superannuate a significant slice of Israel’s military, security and intelligence elite.
Note: We can see how the Biden administration will attempt to wash its hands of the Israeli genocide in Gaza it financed, armed and propagandized: blame it on the “rogue” government of Benjamin Netanyahu, the man Biden rushed to Tel Aviv to give a full-frontal embrace only weeks ago. Netanyahu will eventually be condemned for all of the excesses in Gaza and the West Bank. He will be portrayed as an extremist, an outlier, who has sullied the reputation of Israel before the world. A man who refused to listen to Biden’s counsel. This is, of course, nonsense. You couldn’t find a living figure more deeply embedded in the history of modern Israel than Netanyahu. He’s been at the center of Israeli policy-making since the early 1970s. He was mentored by the likes of Menachem Begin, Moshe Arens and, most decisively, Ariel Sharon, the butcher of Sabra and Shatila. As such, he’s also been a creature of US policy toward Israel, nurtured and empowered by US largesse and weapons. Netanyahu and his government are no aberration. They represent the logical continuum from the exterminationist policies of Sharon. There’s a direct line from Sabra and Shatila to Gaza and the US has never wavered in helping finance the slaughter. To understand Netanyahu, you must understand where he came from, the political model Sharon established for him, a model of ruthless expansionism and extreme violence. During the fateful Israeli elections in 2001, Alexander Cockburn and I wrote a long profile of the sinister career of Ariel Sharon, the man some admirers went so far as to label the “Israeli Moses.” — JSC
The topic of “Syrian Hezbollah” is shrouded in a veil of secrets, rumors, informational stuffing by provocateurs, manipulation of facts and simply a belief where wishful thinking is taken for reality.
Let’s start with where the rumors about the so-called “Syrian Hezbollah” originated. After the Lebanese Islamic Resistance Party (Hezbollah from Lebanon), at the request of the Assad government, entered Syria with the goal of helping the Syrian army destroy representatives of international terrorism and various other types of extremists, thereby saving the sovereignty of Syria, securing Lebanon and not allowing Zionism organize a new intervention to overthrow the government in Damascus. Among Western and pro-Western experts in the Middle East, an opinion has arisen that the Lebanese party is allegedly creating branches throughout Syria that should serve its goals. In order to simplify the name, these branches were nicknamed “Syrian Hezbollah”. From then on, every second pro-Syrian militia group could automatically become designated as part of the Syrian Hezbollah project. However, in reality everything is much more complicated.
In recent years, Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba (HaN) has grown from a small Iraqi-Syrian militia into one of the main symbols of the IRGC’s revolutionary politics. At first, the revival of the Iraqi revolutionaries was conceived with the goal of eliminating the American presence in Syria and Iraq, but later it turned out that the plans of the neo-Sadridists are quite grandiose and are not limited to purely military activity.
“Terrorism is when the United States installs a dictatorial regime somewhere,
relying on bayonets and using terror against his own people.”
Former CIA employee F. Agee.
Intervention in the internal affairs of foreign states became one of the primary directions of US foreign policy immediately after the end of the Second World War. The key instrument in achieving these goals is an agency with virtually unlimited powers, established in accordance with the National Security Act of 1947, called the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Despite the fact that during the bombing of the Gaza Strip by Israeli troops not only hospitals and mosques, but also Christian churches were destroyed, many people who call themselves Christians and are not ethnic Jews actively support Israel’s actions. Where did this phenomenon come from?
The fact is that Zionism as a Jewish political movement arose at the end of the 19th century, but similar ideas appeared much earlier. And, paradoxically, they were born in a Christian environment.
How local factors shape Libya’s security sector, and what this means for disarmament, demobilization and reintegration
In the absence of durable political and security institutions at national level, there can be no ‘one size fits all’ approach to disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) across Libya. But as the country’s sprawling security sector continues to grow, with fresh recruits signing up to join the many state-affiliated and non-state-affiliated armed groups, it is clear that planning for DDR cannot wait for a ‘post-conflict’ situation.
Given that the U.S. presence is vital for the survival of the AANES, the prospect of withdrawal leaves the entire issue uncertain Akil Mahfouz writes in Athr Press.
While the Autonomous Administration and the SDF exert significant control in eastern Syria, the region faces persistent high levels of perceived threats. The presence of the United States, supporting the Autonomous Administration and opposing Turkey, contributes to this tension. There’s an American interest in forming militias from local tribes, potentially serving as a “partial replacement” along the Euphrates line and the Syria-Iraq border. Forecasts suggest a greater likelihood of violence than resolution in eastern Syria, intensifying tensions between the SDF and Arab tribes in the Euphrates line.
The Autonomous Administration has unveiled a new social contract (constitution) that introduces several contentious principles. Foremost among them is the decision to rename the Syrian state as the Democratic Republic, departing from the previous designation of the Syrian Arab Republic, and a restructuring of the government’s form.
With their uncritical support of Israel, Western leaders have kickstarted the same polarization in Muslim societies that led to the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and the birth of violent Islamic fundamentalism.
The Western world is unequivocal in its support of Israel in the ongoing Gaza conflict. This much has been clearly demonstrated, when Western political leaders started parading the corridors of power in Israeli capital Tel Aviv after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israeli territory that according to Israeli claims, killed more than 1,400 people. A prolonged conflict in Gaza and the larger Middle East involving other regional countries apart from Israel and Palestine could be devastating for western European countries from two perspectives. Firstly, a prolonged conflict, especially involving Iran, could generate a refugee crisis with Southern European countries with coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea receiving most of the refugees from the Arab world. Secondly, as feared by some western experts, it could also lead to terror attacks in Europe.