Alastair Crooke in Al Mayadeen:
Israeli popular sentiment — even amongst former liberals — is moving toward a Greater Nakba. Gaza is under Nakba pressures. So is the West Bank, as settler violence against Palestinians surges. Even a ‘liberal’ such as former opposition leader Lapid now agrees that ‘settlers’ in the occupied West Bank are not ‘settlers’ at all, since the land is but the ‘Biblical land of Israel’.
Nakba ‘ambitions’ are widening to South Lebanon (up to the Litani River) too. The radical members of Netanyahu’s government say Israelis will never return to the kibbutz adjacent to Lebanon, without Hezbollah’s removal from the border area.
So, the call is heard for "Israel" to ‘take’ Lebanon up to the Litani (a key water source) — and ‘serendipitously’ the Israeli air force has begun operating up to 40 kms inside Lebanon. Cabinet members now openly speak of the IOF needing to turn its attention to Hezbollah once Hamas has been ‘obliterated’.
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Plainly, the White House is struggling to avoid the slide towards full regional war, as both the Lebanese front and the Iraqi front heats up: On Sunday, Iraqi movements again fired missiles at the American base in Shaddadi."Israel" is sensing the present crisis to be both an existential risk, but an ‘opportunity’ too – an opportunity to establish "Israel" across ‘its Biblical lands’ over the long term. There is no mistaking it — this is the direction of travel of Israeli popular sentiment, from both Left and Right wings, to bloody eschatology.
As I had pointed out three weeks ago President Joe Biden had supported that Israeli Nakba strategy before he was forced to pull back:
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.
Israel is continuously squeezing the 2.3 million people in Gaza towards the Egyptian border:
Israel drops leaflets warning people to flee southern Gaza towns – Guardian – Nov 16 2023
Israel has dropped leaflets into southern Gaza telling Palestinian civilians to leave four towns on the eastern edge of Khan Younis, raising fears that its war against Hamas could spread to areas it previously said were safe. The flyers told civilians in Bani Shuhaila, Khuza’a, Abassan and al-Qarara that anyone in the vicinity of militants or their positions was “putting his life in danger”, local people told Reuters.
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The UN’s human rights chief, Volker Türk, said that five weeks into the war, “massive outbreaks of infectious disease, and hunger” seemed inevitable in the densely populated Palestinian territory. He predicted catastrophic consequences if fuel supplies ran out, including the collapse of sewage systems and healthcare and an end to the already scarce supplies of humanitarian aid.
The intentionally created misery will be used to put pressure on Egypt and others to open their borders for refugees. Then the same method will be applied in the West Bank. South Lebanon up the Litani river is a more difficult matter as Hizbullah, once unleashed, is a real existential thread to Israel. The rick there is to get the U.S. to do the bloody work.
And all this would not stop there as some extremist settlers want even more foreign land:
What are the borders of that Jewish nation?
The borders of the homeland of the Jews are the Euphrates in the east and the Nile in the southwest. [This would include the territory of multiple Middle Eastern countries as well as the territory that Israel controls today.]
There’s a Palestinian slogan that has become very controversial: “From the river to the sea,” which means from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. It’s controversial because it would include all the land that currently makes up Israel. But you’re saying from the river to the—
What is controversial?
Palestinians sometimes use the slogan “From the river to the sea.” But what you’re saying is that from the river to the Nile is the Jewish homeland, correct?
Of course. If someone decides to invent a new religion today, who will decide the rules? The first nation that got the word from God, the promise from God—the first nation is the one who has the right to it. The others that follow—Christianity and Islam, with their demands, with their perceptions—they’re imitating what existed already. So, why in Israel? They could be anywhere in the world. They came after us, in the double sense of the world.
This is a war by a significant number of believers in one religion against all others.
