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What a difference a year makes …

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bigger – bigger

Time's big new story is quite revealing:

‘Nobody Believes in Our Victory Like I Do.’ Inside Volodymyr Zelensky’s Struggle to Keep Ukraine in the Fight – Time – Oct. 30, 2023

That offensive has proceeded at an excruciating pace and with enormous losses, making it ever more difficult for Zelensky to convince partners that victory is around the corner. With the outbreak of war in Israel, even keeping the world’s attention on Ukraine has become a major challenge.

 Quoting a soldier on the front of the counter-offensive, the Economist agrees:

"Left Handed", an infantryman fighting at the front between Robotyne and Verbove, says Ukrainian losses have increased to alarming levels, in part due to the work of drones. The plains of Zaporizhia have turned their back on life, he says. “It’s hellish. Corpses, the smell of corpses, death, blood and fear. Not a whiff of life, just the stench of death.” Those in units such as his own had more chance of dying than surviving. “Seventy-thirty. Some don’t even see their first battle.”

Still, Zelenski is urging them on:

Cont. reading: The War Is Lost – Zelenski Will Leave – The White House Has Failed

The U.S. government under Joe Biden had developed plans to ethnically cleanse Gaza by moving all of its 2.3 million people into Egypt:

Harry Sisson @harryjsisson – 2:44 UTC · Oct 11, 2023

Amazing: President Biden is working on a plan with other countries that would allow civilians to safely leave Gaza and cross the border into Egypt. This is great news. President Biden is making sure that innocent people don’t die due to the actions of Hamas. That’s leadership.

The NSC spokesperson had confirmed that plan:

US 'actively working' to establish safe corridor for Gaza civilians: White House – Yeni Safak – Oct 12, 2023

The US is in active talks with Israel and Egypt to establish "safe passage" corridors for civilians in Gaza to flee ongoing Israeli airstrikes, the White House said Wednesday amid an expected ground offensive in the besieged enclave.

"We're actively discussing this with our Israeli and our Egyptian counterparts, we support safe passions for civilians. Civilians are not to blame for what Hamas has done. They didn't do anything wrong," National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters at the White House.

"We are actively working on this with Egyptian and our Israeli counterparts. Civilians are protected under the laws of armed conflict, and they should be given every opportunity to avoid the fighting," he added.

This all was based on a plan originally developed by radical Zionist within the government of Israel:

Leaked: Israeli plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza – The Cradle – Oct 29, 2023

Cont. reading: Biden Forced To Call Off His Plans For Ethnic Cleansing Of Gaza

Only for news & views directly related to the war in Palestine.

The current open thread for other issues is here.

Please stick to the topic. Contribute facts. Do not attack other commentators.

Only for news & views directly related to the war in Ukraine.

The current open thread for other issues is here.

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Last week's post on Moon of Alabama:

• October 23 – The Penny Drops – The World Is Multi-Polar
  Related:
  – NATO’S GLOBALIZATION AND THE GLOBAL SCHISM – Gordon Hahn
  – US diplomacy lost traction in Middle East. Isolating Iran no longer possible. – Indian Punchline
  – How Much of the World Will the US Burn in the Transition to Multipolarity? – Naked Capitalism

• October 25 – Ukraine's Sudden High Air Losses Likely Caused By New Russian Missiles
  Related:
  – Joe Biden’s Armageddon, from Gaza to Ukraine – Aaron Maté
  – Who is killing foreign mercenaries in Ukraine? – Al Mayadeen

• October 25 – UN SecGen Calls For End Of Zionist Bombing
• October 27 – Two Middle East Outlooks
• October 28 – An Interview On Gaza With Dominique De Villepin (As Translated By Arnaud Bertrand)
  Related:
  – Israel’s new plan to encircle Hamas – Economist
    The unfolding invasion could take months or even a year
  – A Plan to Defeat Hamas and Avoid a Bloodbath – NY Times
  – Everything you need to know about the Israeli Offensive (video) – Weeb Union

  – October 7 testimonies reveal Israel’s military ‘shelling’ Israeli citizens with tanks, missiles – Grayzone
  – On Condemnation, Complicity, and Genocide – Tarik Cyril Amar
  – Listen to Israeli survivors: They don’t want revenge – +972
  – Cold Blooded Killers and their Cheerleaders Craig Murray

—
Other issues:

Cont. reading: The MoA Week In Review – OT 2023-253

Arnaud Bertrand has translated a radio interview with former Prime Minister of France Dominique De Villepin:

Absolutely masterful interview on Gaza of Dominique De Villepin, former Prime Minister of France, who famously led France's opposition to the Iraq war and who, IMHO is the best diplomat the West has produced in decades.

This is so important, so incredibly well argued, that I decided to translate it in full:

It is indeed important and I therefore reproduce the translation below.

The video of the original radio interview in French is here. A (machine) translation of the interview into German is available here.

The interview as translated by Arnaud Bertrand:

Hamas has set a trap for us, and this trap is one of maximum horror, of maximum cruelty. And so there's a risk of an escalation in militarism, of more military interventions, as if we could with armies solve a problem as serious as the Palestinian question.

There's also a second major trap, which is that of Occidentalism. We find ourselves trapped, with Israel, in this western bloc which today is being challenged by most of the international community.

[Presenter: What is Occidentalism?]

Occidentalism is the idea that the West, which for 5 centuries managed the world's affairs, will be able to quietly continue to do so. And we can clearly see, even in the debates of the French political class, that there is the idea that, faced with what is currently happening in the Middle East, we must continue the fight even more, towards what might resemble a religious or a civilizational war. That is to say, to isolate ourselves even more on the international stage.

This is not the way, especially since there's a third trap, which is that of moralism. And here we have in a way the proof, through what is happening in Ukraine and what is happening in the Middle East, of this double standard that is denounced everywhere in the world, including in recent weeks when I travel to Africa, the Middle East, or Latin America. The criticism is always the same: look at how civilian populations are treated in Gaza, you denounce what happened in Ukraine, and you are very timid in the face of the tragedy unfolding in Gaza.

Consider international law, the second criticism that is made by the global south. We sanction Russia when it aggresses Ukraine, we sanction Russia when it doesn't respect the resolutions of the United Nations, and it's been 70 years that the resolutions of the United Nations have been voted in vain and that Israel doesn't respect them.

[Presenter: Do you believe that the Westerners are currently guilty of hubris?]

Cont. reading: An Interview On Gaza With Dominique De Villepin (As Translated By Arnaud Bertrand)

Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor and dimwit, had written a laudation of his own and his bosses foreign policy for the November print edition of Foreign Affairs. The piece was finalized before the war in Palestine had begun.

The Sources of American Power
A Foreign Policy for a Changed World

Excerpts:

Indeed, although the Middle East remains beset with perennial challenges, the region is quieter than it has been for decades.

The progress is fragile, to be sure. But it is also not an accident.
…
[The president's] approach returns discipline to U.S. policy. It emphasizes deterring aggression, de-escalating conflicts, and integrating the region through joint infrastructure projects and new partnerships, including between Israel and its Arab neighbors. And it is bearing fruit.
…
This disciplined approach frees up resources for other global priorities, reduces the risk of new Middle Eastern conflicts, and ensures that U.S. interests are protected on a far more sustainable basis. Challenges remain. The Israeli-Palestinian situation is tense, particularly in the West Bank, but in the face of serious frictions, we have de-escalated crises in Gaza and restored direct diplomacy between the parties after years of its absence.

Alastair Crooke, who has personally negotiated prisoner exchanges between Hamas and Israel, has published a rather bleak outlook.

Escalations Cannot Be Stopped – The White House Is Rattled; Escalations Might All Fuse Into ‘One’
The reality of the necessity of war is permeating widely the consciousness of the Arabic and Islamic world.

Cont. reading: Two Middle East Outlooks

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News & views (not related the wars in Ukraine and Palestine) …

Press Briefing with the NSC Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby – October 24, 2023

And as I think you’ve heard us say, a ceasefire right now really only benefits Hamas. That’s where we are right now.

A ceasefire would of course benefit ALL people living in Gaza and all Israeli's under threads of Hamas missile fire.

The UN Secretary General António Guterres took a much saner position:

Secretary-General's remarks to the Security Council – on the Middle East – October 24, 2023

It is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum.

The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.

They have seen their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence; their economy stifled; their people displaced and their homes demolished. Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been vanishing.

But the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas. And those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.
…

Cont. reading: UN SecGen Calls For End Of Zionist Bombing

I am not sure how valid this is but I am sure it is relevant:

Victor vicktop55 @vicktop55 – 16:58 UTC · Oct 24, 2023

Military expert Vladislav Shurygin: The Pentagon has become sharply concerned about the suddenly increased effectiveness of the Russian Aerospace Forces.

In two weeks, the Russians staged a real massacre in the Ukrainian sky. The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost at least 10 of their aircraft (according to other sources, 14).

Moreover, all of them were shot down far from the front line and outside the radius of Russian air defense systems, as well as outside the standard radius of Russian fighter missiles. Those pilots who were able to eject reported that until the moment their planes were hit, they did not receive warning information about the attack from the appropriate warning systems.

The Americans believe that the Russian Aerospace Forces have acquired new missiles capable of not only hitting targets at a great distance, but also, after launch, independently pursuing a target without illuminating it from the aircraft’s radar, using a radio signature to guide it (the target).

Now Americans carefully check this information and consider it critically important. Since, if it is confirmed, it means that the Russians have acquired a weapon that will neutralize all the advertised advantages of their new main fighter, the F-35.

Vladislav Shurygin is indeed a Russian 'military expert' who has had various appearances on Russian talk shows.

The claim that there is 'a real massacre in the Ukrainian sky' is valid if the recent daily reports of the Russian Ministry of Defense are near to reality. I for one believe they are.

Cont. reading: Ukraine’s Sudden High Air Losses Likely Caused By New Russian Missiles

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In 2007, during his famous speech in Munich, the Russian President Vladimir Putin pointed to the inevitable rise of a multipolar world.

He started out by defining the opposite state:

However, what is a unipolar world? However one might embellish this term, at the end of the day it refers to one type of situation, namely one centre of authority, one centre of force, one centre of decision-making.

It is world in which there is one master, one sovereign. And at the end of the day this is pernicious not only for all those within this system, but also for the sovereign itself because it destroys itself from within.

The unilateral tendencies of the U.S. and the West in general were described as dead ends:

[W]hat is happening in today’s world – and we just started to discuss this – is a tentative to introduce precisely this concept into international affairs, the concept of a unipolar world.

And with which results?

Unilateral and frequently illegitimate actions have not resolved any problems. Moreover, they have caused new human tragedies and created new centres of tension.
…
We are seeing a greater and greater disdain for the basic principles of international law. And independent legal norms are, as a matter of fact, coming increasingly closer to one state’s legal system. One state and, of course, first and foremost the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way. This is visible in the economic, political, cultural and educational policies it imposes on other nations. Well, who likes this? Who is happy about this?

He pointed to the inevitable changes in the world that were arising to counter this trend:

The combined GDP measured in purchasing power parity of countries such as India and China is already greater than that of the United States. And a similar calculation with the GDP of the BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India and China – surpasses the cumulative GDP of the EU. And according to experts this gap will only increase in the future.

There is no reason to doubt that the economic potential of the new centres of global economic growth will inevitably be converted into political influence and will strengthen multipolarity.

There it is, multipolarity, the 'bad word' that the U.S. did not dare to take serious. Putin was laughed at, and then condemned, for making those very clear predictions.

But today multipolarity has risen.

Today we live in multilateral world. We see Russia, China and many smaller countries united in their will to preserve their rights and security. The cold-war is gone. The somewhat unilateral decades which had followed it are now over. We are in need a new world order.

In the U.S. that penny has finally started to drop.

It has not yet reached the ground. We do not know on which side it will land.

Two days ago U.S. President Joe Biden spoke at a campaign even. Among lots of the usual blah-blah this paragraph stood out:

Cont. reading: The Penny Drops – The World Is Multi-Polar

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The current open thread for other issues is here.

Please stick to the topic. Contribute facts. Do not attack other commentators.

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The current open thread for other issues is here.

Please stick to the topic. Contribute facts. Do not attack other commentators.

Last week's post on Moon of Alabama:

• October 17 – U.S. Deploys Large Force – Eyes On Syria
  Related:
  – President Biden on the U.S.’ Response to Hamas’s Terrorist Attacks Against Israel and Russia’s War Against Ukraine – White House
  – The Cost of Blindly Supporting Clients – Daniel Larison
  – Biden gives booster dose to the faltering Ukraine war – Indian Punchline
  – Behind the Curtain: Rattled U.S. government fears wars could spread – Axios

  – From Applauding Nazis To Backing An Actual Genocide In Under A Month – Caitlin Johnstone
  – Up to 6 Chinese warships present in Middle East over past week – SCMP via MSN
  – Putin sends fighter jets armed with hypersonic nuclear missiles to Black Sea in WW3 threat – Express

• October 18 – West's Pro-Israel Position Accelerates Its Loss Of Power
  Related:
  – Arab States Sour on Israel in Blow to US Aim of Saudi Peace Pact – Bloomberg
  – Little light, no beds, not enough anesthesia: A view from the ‘nightmare’ of Gaza’s hospitals – AP
  – Israel Bombed Gaza Hospital and Lied About It – Tikun Olam
  – The U.N. Is Powerless to Help Gaza. That’s How the U.S. Wants It.– Intercept
  – Cairo summit exposes deep rifts over Israel's war on Gaza – Majalla

> The summit also highlighted how little consideration for Palestinian blood is given by Western leaders and their hypocrisy in seeming to only care about the loss of Israeli life. <

Caitlin Johnstone @caitoz- 9:40 UTC · Oct 22, 2023

Normal person: It's bad to drop bombs on buildings full of children and it needs to stop right now

Crazy person: BUT A BAD THING HAPPENED TWO WEEKS AGO

• October 21 – Netanyahoo's Strategic Dilemma
  Related:
  – The Only Way Forward – Any peace will depend on a sober assessment of Hamas. – Helena Cobban / Boston Review
  – Professor Ilan Pappé – Crisis in Zionism, Opportunity for Palestine? (video) – Hatem Bazian
  – HAMAS–RELATIONSHIP WITH ISRAEL (U.S. cable) – Wikileaks
  – Israel's Tet Moment – Ettingermentum Newsletter
  – Amjad Iraqi · After the Flood (archived) – LRB

—
Other issues:

Cont. reading: The MoA Week In Review – OT 2023-246

Israel is a colonial settler state in permanent conflict with the suppressed natives.

It thought it could survive in that state, or even extend its settlements, by deterring opposing forces with its superior military.

Hamas has breached that deterrence myth by inflicting, in one day, more casualties in Israel than it had experienced in any previous wars.

Natanyahoo is under pressure to restore the deterrence, to again provide the Zionists with a feeling of superiority.

He can not do that.

Any land attack in Gaza means urban warfare in an already destroyed city with large underground facilities. During the taking of Bakhmut the Wagener forces had in total some 40,000 casualties (dead and wounded). The other side had more than 70,000. What price would the IDF have to pay to 'destroy Hamas'?

The other factor is of course Hizbullah and other resistance groups, which may well attack Israel from the north and various other directions. Hizbullah has loudly said it would do so should the IDF enter Gaza. It has some 100,000 missiles – more than enough to exhaust Israel's air defenses. Its longest reach missiles can attack any major city within Israel. There have already been daily fire exchanges at the norther border.

The 2006 war in Lebanon has shown that Hizbullah is dug in and very able to defend itself. It has since gained more experience by fighting ISIS in Syria. Neither U.S. air force attacks nor a land force invasion can hinder Hizbullah from firing its missiles.

(Syria, as well as Iran, will not intervene in the war unless they are directly attacked.)

Netanyahoo must attack Gaza to restore deterrence. He can not attack Gaza because the urban warfare would cause large Israeli casualties. He can not attack Gaza because Hizbullah would then destroy the myth of the superior settler state even more than Hamas has done so far.

Israel, with the help of the U.S., has tried to push the population of Gaza into Egypt. From Egypt's standpoint that would be a humanitarian solution, at least as long as others pay for it. But it would cause a serious strategic problem. Resistance by Hamas and others against Israel would continue indefinitely, but Egypt would be held responsible for it. It can not and will not take on that burden.

Netanyahoo's next idea was to starve Gaza. But the world will not let him do that. At least not beyond a certain point. Even the UN Secretary General has visited the Rafah crossing. Other global organizations, like the WHO and ASEAN, have spoken up. Pictures of starving people will make it impossible for the west to support that 'solution'.

Meanwhile Hamas fighters will continue to sit in their tunnels, ready to defend their land, and likely with enough provisions to hold out for months.

Israeli settlers, with the support of the IDF, are rampaging through the West Bank. They are killing more Palestinians and further enrage the global public against their deeds. This will escalate.

Israel's decision making is paralyzed. It will for now continue to talk of a ground invasion but will not launch one. It will also continue to starve Gaza.

But something will soon break. At any minute there might be a new large atrocity in Gaza or a pogrom in the West Bank. Any miscalculation in the north could launch that front into a hot war. Hizbullah could start to 'preemptively' invade Israeli proper.

But Israel's Jewish public is still demanding a war of revenge. It still needs the restoration of its deterrence and superiority.

But what if that turns out to be impossible to achieve?

Well. Then something else must change.

As Adam Shatz summarizes in the London Review of Books:

Vengeful Pathologies (archived)

The inescapable truth is that Israel cannot extinguish Palestinian resistance by violence, any more than the Palestinians can win an Algerian-style liberation war: Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs are stuck with each other, unless Israel, the far stronger party, drives the Palestinians into exile for good. The only thing that can save the people of Israel and Palestine, and prevent another Nakba – a real possibility, while another Holocaust remains a traumatic hallucination – is a political solution that recognises both as equal citizens, and allows them to live in peace and freedom, whether in a single democratic state, two states, or a federation. So long as this solution is avoided, a continuing degradation, and an even greater catastrophe, are all but guaranteed.

There are days where I feel paralyzed and overwhelmed by what is happening. Today is such a day.

I will leave you a few links:

Bassem Youssef is an Egyptian comedian. His satire is biting:
Israel-Hamas War: Piers Morgan vs Bassem Youssef On Palestine's Treatment (video)

Also:

• US Declares ‘War’ – Michael Brenner / Consortium News
• This is another Iraqi WMD moment. We are being gaslit – Jonathan Cook
• Biden Urges Americans Not To Let Dangerous Online Rhetoric Humanize Palestinians – The Onion

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The current open thread for other issues is here.

Please stick to the topic. Contribute facts. Do not attack other commentators.