http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-geopolitical-chess-game-behind-the-israeli-attack-on-gaza/5313649
The recent
hostilities between the Gaza Strip and Israel have to be viewed in context of a
broader geopolitical chessboard. The events in Gaza are tied to Syria and the
US’s regional maneuvers against Iran and its regional alliance system.
Syria has been
compromised as a conduit for weapons to Gaza, because of its domestic
instability. Israel has capitalized on this politically and militarily.
Benjamin Netanyahu has not only tried to secure his own election victory in the
Knesset through an attack on Gaza, but has used the US-sponsored instability in
Syria as an opportunity to try and target the arms stockpiles of the
Palestinians.
Netanyahu calculated
that Gaza will not be able to rearm itself while Syria and its allies are
distracted. The bombing of the Yarmouk arms factory in Sudan, which Israel says
was owned by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, was probably part of this plan
and a prelude to Israel’s attack on Gaza.
In this chess game,
sit the so-called “Moderates”— a misleading label jointly utilized by Messrs
George W. Bush Jr. and Tony Blair to whitewash their regional cabal of tyrants
and backward regimes — alongside the Obama Administration and NATO. These
so-called Moderates include the desert dictators of the feudal Gulf Cooperation
Council (GCC), Jordan, Mahmoud Abbas, and Turkey. In 2011, the ranks of the
Moderates were augmented by the NATO-installed government of Libya and the
GCC/NATO-supported anti-government militias that were unleashed in Syria.
On the other side of
the chessboard defiantly sits the Resistance Bloc composed of Iran, Syria,
Hezbollah (and Hezbollah’s partners in Lebanon, like Amal and the Free
Patriotic Movement), the so-called Palestinian Rejectionists, and increasingly
Iraq. The Muslim Brotherhood, which has emerged as a new regional force, is
being increasingly prodded into the Moderate camp by the US and the GCC in an
attempt to ultimately play the sectarian card against the Resistance Bloc.
Stark
contrasts between Gaza and Syria
Israel’s attack on
Gaza was a litmus test. All those voices continuously pushing for America’s
McJihad against the Syrian government in the name of freedom vanished from
their podiums or suddenly went silent when Israel attacked Gaza. Al Jazeera’s
tele-preacher Yusuf Al-Qaradawi and Saudi Arabia’s dictator-selected Grand
Mufti Abdul Aziz went silent. Adnan Al-Arour — the Saudi-based exiled kooky
Syrian cleric who, as one of the spiritual heads of the Syrian anti-government
forces, has threatened to punish anyone that says that Al-Qaeda is among their
ranks — even berated Hamas and the Palestinians for fighting Israel.
The fighting in Gaza
really placed them in a fix. Here we see the contradictions in their “Arab
Spring.” We now see who really pays lip service to Palestinian liberation and
who does not. Moreover, the foreign supporters of the Syrian National
Coalition, a rehash of the Syrian National Council, are ironically all
supporters of Israel.
This is why
mentioning the support that Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah have provided for Gaza
has become a taboo among the supporters of the anti-government forces in Syria.
All they can say is that any acknowledgment of the support that Tehran,
Damascus, and Hezbollah have provided to Gaza is an attempt to sanitize “Bashar
Al-Assad and his supporters.”
Iran,
Syria, and Hezbollah helped the Palestinians in Gaza
The Iranian Fijr-5
symbolically embodies Tehran’s support for Palestine. Despite the fact that
Israel and Gaza are by far not equal, it was predominately Iranian arms and
technology that changed the balance of power. Tehran has been the main ally and
supporter of the Palestinian resistance. The US, Israel, Hezbollah, Hamas, the
Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Iran itself have all acknowledged this in
different ways.
The Palestinian
Islamic Jihad, which is unapologetically pro-Iranian, has openly stated that
everything Gaza used in the fight against Israel, from its bullets to missiles,
has been generously provided by Tehran. It was even reported during the
fighting that Hezbollah, using a special unit dedicated to arming the
Palestinians, resupplied the Gaza Strip with some of its own long-range missiles.
This has all taken
place while the cads in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey have instead armed the
Syrian anti-government militias. Egypt and Jordan continue to be major partners
in preventing Iranian arms from reaching the Palestinians.
Palestinian fighters
have also been trained in Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. Ironically, the
anti-government forces in Syria are also targeting members of the Palestinian
Liberation Army in Syria.
The support that the
Resistance Bloc has given the Palestinians puts those actors, like Turkey and
Qatar, opposed to the Syrian government in a real predicament. These so-called
Sunni states were embarrassed; not only did they fail to help a predominately
Sunni population, but their insincerity was exposed. This is why there is
an active effort to deny the support that Iran and its allies have provided for
Gaza.
De-linking
Hamas from Resistance Bloc to start a Muslim Civil War
As a back story to
all this, the Israeli attack on Gaza and the Moderate’s wooing of Hamas is more
than just about neutralizing Gaza. Hamas leaders are being tempted to choose
between the Moderate and Resistance camps and increasingly between governing or
active resistance to the Israeli occupation. Through this, some form of
accommodation to the US and Israel is being sought from Hamas. The aims are to
de-link the Palestinians, particularly Hamas, from the Resistance Bloc in order
to portray Iran and its allies as a Shiite alliance bent on dominating the
Sunnis.
If you are foolish
enough to fall prey to it, welcome to the unfolding “American fitna” (schism)
that aims to ignite a regional Muslim civil war between the Shiites and Sunnis.
The Obama administration is trying to construct and line up a Sunni axis
against the region’s Shiite Muslims.
It is a classic
strategy of divide and conquer that envisions America and Israel dominating the
region as the Muslims are incapacitated by their bloodletting. The Shia are
systematically being vilified courtesy of the new media war: Iran, Hezbollah,
Bashar Al-Assad (an Alawi who is increasingly labeled a Shiite for the benefit
of this project), and Nouri Maliki’s administration in Iraq are being portrayed
as the new oppressors of the Sunnis. In their place Turkey, with its virtually
stillborn neo-Ottomanism foreign policy, and Egypt under the Muslim Brotherhood
are being presented as the champions of the Sunnis. Never mind that Egypt’s
Mohamed Morsi has continued the blockade of Gaza for Israel or that Turkey’s
Erdogan lost his voice for a while when Israel began bombing Gaza.
The US is trying to
use Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood to control Hamas, because it was Cairo that
established a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza. While Iran offers military
technology, logistical support, and finance the Egyptians are being presented
as Gaza’s ticket to establishing some form of normality and the GCC as
alternative funding. This is why Qatar’s Emir Al-Thani visited Gaza to tempt
Hamas with his declining supply of petro-dollars.
Shiite
and Sunni divisions are political constructs
Inside Hamas there
are internal differences over this. While Damascus, Tehran, and Hezbollah
desired some form of public acknowledgment about their vital assistance to
Hamas and the Palestinians, Hamas officials were careful about their
statements. When Khaled Meshaal thanked Egypt, Qatar, and Tunisia during an
important press conference, he narrowly mentioned Iran.
Meshaal’s
politicking was not lost on Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, who
responded hours later by rhetorically asking who supplied and painstakingly
transferred the Fajr-5 missiles into Gaza? Nasrallah asked people to look past
Gaza’s fair-weather friends, like the Qataris and Saudis who think they can buy
their ways into the grace of the Palestinians, but to look at Gaza’s tested
friends who allowed Gaza to stand on its own two feet. Then the Lebanese leader
reaffirmed the ongoing support of the Resistance Bloc for the Palestinian
people.
Despite its
politburo’s position on Syria, Hamas is still a part of the Resistance Bloc.
There is a new format now. If Greece and Turkey were at odds with one another
as two NATO allies, then Hamas can have its differences with Syria and still be
allied with the Resistance Bloc against Israel.
The divide in the
Middle East is not a sectarian one between Shiites and Sunnis, but
fundamentally political. The alliance of the predominately Sunni Muslim
Palestinian resistance movements and the Free Patriotic Movement, Lebanon’s
largest Christian political party, with predominately Shiite Muslim Iran and
Hezbollah should defuse such a perception that the US and its allies are trying
to cultivate.
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