Syria Between the Ottoman Hammer and the Israeli Anvil

Elias SAMO

Syria, uncomfortably and vulnerably, finds itself sandwiched between the Ottoman hammer to the North and the Israeli anvil to the South. Both power houses are, hostile, expansionist and occupy Syrian territory. When one thinks of a ‘safe zone’ along the Syrian-Turkish border on the Syrian side, one is reminded of the American-Mexican border. Both borders face a similar security situation: one state faces security threats emanating from the neighboring state.

The American-Mexican border has long been a source of security concerns in Washington due to the influx of illegal Latin American immigrants, known pejoratively as the ‘wet backs’ – as they would get wet crossing the Rio Grande River to US mainland. To deal with border security, Trump did not consider establishing a ‘safe zone’ on the Mexican side of the border, for such a zone would have to be occupied and ruled by the American military, in violation of international law and Mexico’s sovereign and territorial integrity. Instead, Trump decided to build a wall on the American side of the border to alleviate the security threat.

Similarly, Erdogan views the concentration of anti-Turkish armed Kurds, whom he considers terrorists, on the Syrian side of the Syrian-Turkish border, a threat to Turkey’s national security. However, he does not think a wall is good enough to deal with the Kurdish threat. He opted, ironically with Trump’s blessings and partnership, to establish a 400 kilometers long – and at the moment still undecided depth – ‘safe zone’, on the Syrian side of the border, East of the Euphrates to the Iraqi border, in violation of international law and Syrian sovereignty and territorial integrity. Erdogan’s insistence on having Turkish boots in the zone, in Syria, is a military occupation. A similar process West of the Euphrates covering the remaining segment of the Syrian-Turkish border, according to Erdogan, will eventually complete 800 kilometers long ‘Ottoman Belt’.

Erdogan is determined and impatient to have the zone established and have Turkish boots on the ground. Recently, in a speech in Istanbul, he said “We don’t have much time or patience regarding the security zone which will be established along our complete border, East of the Euphrates, in a few weeks. If our soldiers don’t start actual control of the area, there will not be any option except the implementation of our plans.” Erdogan choosing the zone rather than the wall raises a serious question about Erdogan’s real and ultimate intention and plans. If it is not the wall, it is not security; if it is the zone, it is occupation, similar to the Northern Cyprus precedent.

Erdogan has three objectives regarding the establishment of a safe zone; two declared short range and a third undeclared long range. The first objective is security; the withdrawal of the armed Kurdish groups from the zone, a process which appears to have started. The second objective is resettling the Turkey-based Syrian refugees in the zone. The third and insidious objective is potentially reclaiming Syrian territory which was occupied by the Ottomans for 400 years, until the end of World War I. It should be noted that the 800 kilometers Syrian-Turkish border was based on the Sykes-Picot Agreement and drawn after WWI and the demise of the Ottoman Empire; it is not a historic nor natural border. A substantial part of the border is the Orient Express rail track, built by German Christians to be the border between two antagonistic Muslim states and not to the liking of either.

Erdogan is using a double strategy in dealing with the great powers to implement his three objectives. With Europe, it is blackmail. He either gets European support, or he will facilitate shipping hundreds of thousands of refugees to Europe. With Washington and Moscow, it is ‘the other woman’. I recall the Israeli-Palestinian and the Israeli-Syrian peace negotiations in the early 1990s. Whenever the Israelis didn’t get their way in one track, they would hint of reverting to the other track; so is the case with Erdogan vis-a-vis Washington and Moscow.

As for southern Syria, although Netanyahu and Erdogan overtly appear antagonist, they in fact share one common objective which is to squeeze and occupy Syrian territory. In the pursuit of their objectives, both rely on questionable historical claims and power differential between Syria on the one hand and Turkey and Israel on the other. Netanyahu’s annexation of the occupied Golan on the basis of questionable historical claims and Trump’s blessings is not objectionable to Erdogan despite his pretentious public protestations. The Ottomans occupied Syria for 400 years and Netanyahu claims the Golan historically belongs to Israel. Both Turkey and Israel have ‘recovered’ part of what they believe was theirs; Turkey ‘recovered’ Syrian Alexandretta district in 1939 and Israel ‘recovered’ two thirds of the Syrian Golan in the 1967 War and one assumes that both would like to ‘recover’ more.

There is an old Arab proverb: The camel’s nose is in the tent. Turkish tanks and soldiers are in northern Syria; Israeli military and settlements are in the Golan. The ultimate irony is that Syria, the eternal, the cradle of civilization and the home of the three monotheistic religions, has become a prey to the Ottoman and Israeli empires. What a travesty; a treachery. However, take note, Syria is not a pushover, nor is it alone.

Elias SAMO

PhD, Professor of International Relations at American and Syrian universities

Palestine Is Being Led to the Crematorium

by RAOUF HALABY

Would one employ a convicted pedophile to work in an early childhood center? Would one employ a convicted felon with a mile-long record to be a Boy Scout Master? And, would one employ a convicted serial killer to patrol school hallways?

How silly of me; of course not.

Donald Trump, the consummate-narcissist-in-chief, the one who loves to make a spectacle of every decision he makes and every policy he pontificates, and the one who loves to hold court while he signs a miscellany of edicts with maximum media pageantry, appointed his wet-behind-the-ears Harvard-purchased admission school boy as the Near East negotiator.

I just love to watch Donald Trump’s fanfare as he signs his name – always using bold script to fill up the page. Methinks that the longer he’s in office, the larger his signatures get. The consummate self-centered promoter, Trump revels in exhibiting his egotistical calligraphic scribblings.

A word of caution to those who have allergies, should they be invited to such a ceremony, they need make sure that their sniffling and coughing is done either before, or immediately after they exit the imperial rotunda. Someone’s opined that Trump does not like weak people, and anyone with a cough or a sniffle is banished (for the whole world to witness) from the inner sanctum by a ruler who’s also been accused of being a germaphobic.

Kushner is a real estate wheeler dealer who’s been accused of leveraging his business with loans from a variety of sources, including Emirati, Saudi, and Gulf nations, and oil tycoons with deep pockets eager to buy favor with Donald Trump. In return, Trump’s Iran policy is dictated by Israel and her new BFF’s; Netanyahu and Saudi Arabia’s MBS have placed U.S./Iran policy in the Trump/Pompeo/Bolton crosshairs. Why not? If you can sucker the school yard bully to fight your wars, you’re home scot free. Think Iraq, Syria, Libya and soon – Iran.

While many former Presidents and Secretaries of State have miserably failed to broker a peace agreement between Palestinians and Israel, the Palestinians’ forever brutal masters and occupiers, Donald Trump appointed his inept son-in-law as the gatekeeper and master of ceremonies for the Bahrain so-called Peace conference.

Jared Kushner is an avowed hardcore Zionist. His family’s friendship with Netanyahu spans decades. Observers have pointed out that Netanyahu’s overnight stays at the Kushner house were the indoctrinating sessions on which young Kushner was suckled and cut his teeth, visits that inculcated the young apprentice with the same Bibi Netanyahu venom of hatred, anger, vengeance, and bigotry that have become Israel’s trademark.

As a prelude to the Trump/Kushner crematorium in which the dream of a free and independent Palestinian state has been deposited, Trump moved the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem; he severed diplomatic relations with the Palestinian leadership; he cut off UNRWA funding to starve an already emaciated population under the most brutal occupation of the last 50 years, he warned the entire world that should Israeli violations/violators of human rights abuses and brutalities be held accountable for their crimes at an international tribunal, the U.S. would retaliate in a variety of ways (including his favorite weapons – freezing diplomatic relations, the implementation of sanctions, tariffs, and embargoes, and possibly annihilation); he shut down the PLO office in Washington, D.C.; and he recognized Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights for which he was rewarded by Netanyahu, his like-minded bosom buddy, for having a Jewish community on the Golan Heights named after him.

Who knows, perhaps a Trump Golan Golf Course of the Century will soon be part of the “Ultimate Deal.”

Now wouldn’t this be the sweetheart real estate deal of The Century?

I wish someone had kept a detailed record of Trump’s obsession and preoccupation with money. Only recently he told Chuck Todd that “his only interest in the Middle East are [sic.] preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons and protecting Israel and Saudi Arabia.” As for Saudi Arabia’s MBS having to account for the barbaric use of a hack saw to surreptitiously dispose journalist Khashoggi’s mutilated corpse, Trump would not have any of that.

During the interview Trump affirmed the following: “That’s all [money] I care about. … Look, Saudi Arabia is buying $400 billion worth of things from us. That’s a very good thing.” The actual purchases are more like $15 billion, yet one more manufactured fact that only Trump could fabricate. Furthermore, Saudi money “means something to me, it’s a producer of jobs, [and they are] a big buyer, [for this reason I am] willing to overlook [Saudi] bad behavior.” To drive his point home, he assured Todd that he would “Take their money, Take their money, Chuck.”

If “It’s all about the Benjamins, baby,” then for sure Trump’s proposed Deal of the Century (Palestine/Israel proposed peace) is all about taking “their money.”

Recently Reporter Eli Clifton observed the following about the Benjamins used to buy/influence Trump’s foreign policy vis à vis Palestine, Israel and Iran:

Those funds came from Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, Paul Singer and Bernard Marcus, donors who have made no secret, both through public statements and funding think tanks that support military action against Iran, of their desire for the United States to destroy the Islamic Republic.

Adelson, who alongside his wife Miriam are the biggest donors to Trump and the GOP, contributed $205 million to Republicans [with $130 million to Trump’s campaign] in the past two political cycles and reportedly sent $35 million to the Future 45 Super PAC that supported Trump’s presidential bid.

The above does not include tens of millions of dollars’ worth of tax free contributions to fund illegal Israeli settlements and other Zionist projects at home and abroad.

Masquerading as a Kushnerized version of a peace proposal, the plan is a version of the Clinton/Bush/ Rabin/Sharon/Netanyahu/Zionist plan with one exception – it is a plan on steroids to legitimize apartheid, place the Palestinians under permanent occupation, and make them the orphans of the Middle East in perpetuity.

The Clinton peace deal forced the Palestinians to become economically dependent on Israel for every aspect of their lives. Israel collected taxes on Palestinian goods and dispensed the funds when and if they wished. Israel controlled all borders, security, education, health care, electric grids, water resources, the use and development of natural resources, economic growth, and infrastructure. Under Bush the Dumber, Tony Blair, Bush’s Poodle, spent years pretending to develop the decimated Palestinian infrastructure caused by Israel’s Nazi policies. Needless to say, while Blair got rich off his Balfourian (after Lord Balfour) scheme, a scheme which gave Israel the cover to steal more land and to impose sanctions on the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza (especially Gaza, the world’s largest open air prison in which over 2 million people are caged), he helped cement and institutionalize Israeli apartheid. Above all, Blair’s criminal policies condoned, excused, and ameliorated Israel’s brutality by making it palatable to his European EU compadres.

Obama inherited a Palestinian patient so brutalized and, instead of changing course by pumping life into a by-now body on life support, he was outmaneuvered by Netanyahu at every turn. For eight years Obama, ever the docile servant, played field hand to Bibi Netanyahu, carrying his water, begging, cajoling, pleading, and apologizing. One of the most humiliating White House scenes is the embarrassingly demeaning confrontation during which the Netanyahu-lecturing-Obama-episode too place. Barack Obama, the President of the most powerful nation on the face of this earth blinked. Emboldened, Bibi Netanyahu, the prime minister of a tiny country whose survival is solely dependent on American beneficence, went on to address an equally servile Congress that gave him 67 standing ovations.

In his final weeks in office Obama played his last cowardly Israel hand; he gifted Israel a guaranteed 38 billion precious tax payer dollars. Like Casey’s final stand at the bat, he struck out; how servile the Mighty Obama became. After all, the Presidential library must be built in Chicago, and donors have to be courted to write checks in the millions of Benjamins.

So Kushner is proposing a $50 billion dollar scheme to cinch the Deal of the Century.

Like a shrewd real estate investor, he is using the OPM formula (Other People’s Money scheme) to cough up the $50 billion dollars. Some 10 billion will go to Egypt, and another 7 billion to Jordan – to buy their complicity. I call this hushing the opposition with Benjamins.

The rest of the funds will (supposedly) be invested in West Bank/Gaza infrastructure projects. The mercurial behavior of Gulf Arabs, EU, and U.S. donors, as evidenced by their reneging on previous financial commitments to Palestinians, makes this a very iffy proposition.

And finally, will the Israelis, who’ve always cashed in on Palestinian misery by stealing their lands, their cultural heritage, and their natural resources, and by ruining their lives and killing them with impunity, exploit this proposal by becoming the brokers, deciders, planners, controllers, exchequers, arbitrators, and the-go-between of this, The Deal of Century?

Rest assured that Trump is looking for his cut.

As long as this Deal of the Century does not address the aspirations of a free and independent Palestine state, the Palestinians will forever live in servitude, humiliation, and degradation.

For the Palestinians it ain’t about the Benjamins; rather, it is about dignity, independence, freedom, the birthright of all the brutalized peoples of the world.

Donald Trump chose three politically inexperienced men to concoct the “Ultimate Deal” scheme. None of them has served in the diplomatic core, and their only qualifications are: they are Jewish, they are ardent Zionists, they’ve supported (verbally and financially) Illegal Israeli settlements, they’ve been very vocal about their support of Israeli policies, their antipathy for Palestinians mirrors Israeli thinking, and , likely, they hold dual American and Israeli citizenships. Above all, they are Trump’s fixers, confidents, and bail bonders.

I doubt that the troika of Jared Kushner, Jason Greenblatt, and David Friedman are the sole planners in a hands-off Trump foreign policy that is dictated to him by the likes of Bolton, Pompeo, Lindsey Graham, and Stephen Miller who, much like Rasputin, lurks in the shadowy hallways of the White House.

The first is Trump’s son-in-law, the second was/is Trump’s lawyer and executive vice president and Chief Legal Council to The Trump organization. The third is Trump’s bankruptcy lawyer and now U.S. Ambassador to Israel.

I have no doubt that Benjamin Netanyahu, along with MBS and other Emirati and Bahraini characters (in a less active role) are the planners of this scheme. How ironic it is that proposed funding (mostly Arab money) is rewarding Israel for its 71 years of the theft of Palestine and its long history of transgressions against the Palestinian people, the orphans of the Arab world.

For his Ultimate Deal of the Century Donald Trump has chosen the wrong set of characters. And that is precisely why his plan, like most of his other “tremendous” real estate schemes, will fail.

The man who boasts about using bankruptcy as “a good business practice” is about to embark on his biggest failure of the century.

Raouf J. Halaby is a Professor Emeritus of English and Art. He is a writer, photographer, sculptor, an avid gardener, and a peace activist. 

The ‘Deal of the Century’: Two Con Men’s Job

Elias SAMO

Yes, you can ‘judge a book by its cover’, especially if the ‘book’ is the ‘Deal of the Century’ and the ‘cover’ lauds two con men, Trump and Netanyahu. Furthermore, when two con men are involved, ‘Deal of the Century’ is likely more akin to ‘Theft of the Century’.

The ‘Deal’, presumably a road map for peacefully settling the Palestinian problem, was drawn up, ironically, by a small group of American Zionists responsible for the formulation of American foreign policy. The group is led by Jared Kushner, Trump’s son in law and senior presidential adviser, with help from John Bolton, national security advisor, Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State and David Friedman, American ambassador in Israel. Anecdotally, it should be noted that Netanyahu is a close friend of the Kushner family and used to visit the family while in the US and stay overnight, at times in Jared’s bedroom; perhaps making Jared an unregistered foreign agent serving Israeli interests. With such strong pro-Israeli input in drawing up the ‘Deal’, what does one expect the ‘Deal’ to be except a right-wing, Likudist plan to establish a Great Israel from the River to the Sea.

A central question to this ‘Deal’ is, what does Trump have left in his pocket to offer the Palestinians? Historically, Palestinian maximum demand was the liberation of mandated Palestine. With the passage of time the Palestinians have lowered their demands to the minimum of three elements. First, a Palestinian state on the West Bank, (which David Friedman, the American ambassador no less, refers to it as Judea and Samaria). Second, East Jerusalem as its capital. Third, the return of the refugees. Trump has already given away or eliminated these three quintessential elements necessary for resolving the Palestinian problem peacefully. Trump has recognized united Jerusalem to be the eternal capital of Israel and moved the American embassy there. He has also acquiesced to Netanyahu’s declaration that he will annex the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and probably an eventual annexation of the entire West Bank. As to the Palestinian refugees, for Trump a Palestinian refugee is one who was alive when Israel was created in 1948, that is seventy one years old or more, which makes it very difficult to find many Palestinians still alive who qualify as refugees based on the criteria set by Trump. He furthermore severed political relations with the Palestinians when he ordered the closure of the PLO offices in Washington and imposed economic sanctions on the Palestinians when he stopped economic support to UNRWA.

Bearing in mind the fact that the ‘Deal’ was drawn up by Zionists in the Trump administration, it is only appropriate to expect that the ‘Deal’ will be everything Israel wants. Thus, a peaceful resolution of the Palestinian problem, in all probability, has become null and void in the foreseeable future; the ‘Deal’ offers nothing to the Palestinians and some prominent Palestinian officials have said so. Nabil Shaath, advisor to Mahmoud Abbas, noted that Trump’s ‘Deal of the Century’ will not bring peace to Palestine. Riyad Maliki, Palestinian Foreign Minister, said that the ‘Deal of the Century’ which seeks to find the ultimate solution for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict will bring bad news to the Middle East. Saeb Erekat, chief Palestinian negotiator, elaborated further, noting that “Trump and Netanyahu are planning to terminate the Palestinian cause by removing Jerusalem from any solution, annexing major settlements and finding a capital for us on the outskirts of Jerusalem.” In view of the foregoing, Mahmoud Abbas has no choice but to reject the ‘Deal’, with the consequence of being condemned for sabotaging the peace process and for Netanyahu reverting to his mantra that there are no Palestinians to negotiate with.

Although the ‘Deal of the Century’, by all indications, deals exclusively with resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict peacefully, it nevertheless has a Syrian dimension which has escaped notice and has not been dealt with in the published speculations and analysis so far. During the 1990’s, after the Madrid peace conference, there were Syrian-Israeli peace negotiations. The negotiations, both official and Track Two negotiations, in which I participated, dealt with the four central issues: Israeli withdrawal, security arrangements, timeframe for withdrawal and normalization of relations. These four issues were theoretically surmountable. A fifth issue, peace agreement between Syria and Israel had to be within the framework of a comprehensive and just peace, was insurmountable. It was very unlikely for Syria to sign a separate, unilateral peace with Israel without progress on the Palestinian-Israeli track; as Sadat did in 1979. I used to tell Palestinians, when they ask for the return of the refugees, they should reciprocate Syria’s loyalty, and ask for a double return: return of the refugees and return of the Golan. A crucial question for the Palestinian leadership is, if the Trump ‘Deal’, in the highly unlikely event, were to offer the Palestinians an acceptable ‘Deal’, meeting their minimum demands, will they sell out Syria, forget the Golan which was lost in the Palestinian cause and sign a separate peace with Israel? Only time will tell.

In conclusion, Miko Peled, an author and human rights activist born in Jerusalem, writes: “Though the ‘Deal’ of the century will try to eliminate the Palestinian issue for good, what the architects of the “Deal” in their arrogance fail to see is that this so-called “Deal” is nothing more than an irresponsible, impractical and precarious plan that will fail just as soon as it is raised”.

Elias SAMO

PhD, Professor of International Relations at American and Syrian universities

Trump dances to Israel's tune

So newly reelected Israeli monster-in-chief Benjamin Netanyahu has boasted, with a grin, that America’s President Donald J. Trump followed through on his proposal to declare the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a terrorist group.

Bibi was smiling because the timing of the move, one day before the Israeli election, strongly suggests it was done to assist him against what had become a very strong opposition challenge. That Trump likely colluded with Netanyahu to blatantly interfere in the election has apparently bothered no one in the occupied lands called ‘Israel’ or in the tame American media. Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, which is an educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in West Asia. “Trump dances to Israel's tune” is the title of an article by Dr. Philip M. Giraldi in this topic.

The gift from Washington came on top of recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Syrian Golan Heights, threatening members of the International Criminal Court if they try to prosecute the usurper regime of Israel for war crimes, and moving the U.S. Embassy in the occupied lands to Palestine’s al-Quds. The gift continued, removing the word “occupation” from the State Department’s assessments of human rights infringements on the West Bank, eliminating relief funding for Palestinian refugees, leaving the U.N. Human Rights Council because it was too critical of the Zionist regime of Israel, and looking the other way as Israel declared itself an alleged ‘state’ only for Jews, better to read Zionists. Washington also ignored the bombing of hospitals, schools and water treatment infrastructure in Gaza while Israeli snipers were shooting unarmed demonstrators demanding their freedom.

The labeling of the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group is particularly disturbing as it means that the United States military by virtue of the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) now has a kind of mandate to attack the IRGC wherever it appears, including in Syria or even in the waterway the Straits of Hormuz, where the guard has regular patrols in small boats. It is a de facto declaration of war and it comes on top of a number of deliberate provocations directed against Iran starting with the withdrawal from the nuclear agreement Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) one year ago, which led to the unilateral imposition of harsh sanctions directed against the Iranian economy to bring about a popular uprising as well as regularly repeated false claims that Iran is the leading “state sponsor of terrorism.” All but to no avail. Next month, the U.S. will begin enforcing a unilaterally declared worldwide sanction on any and all Iranian oil sales.

Netanyahu pledged to annex illegal Zionist settlements on the largely Palestinian West Bank if reelected, which is undoubtedly a move cleared in advance with the Trump team of foreign policy sociopaths as it de facto puts an end to any delusional speculation over a possible two-state negotiated solution for the Israel-Palestine conflict. It will also lead to a massive upsurge in violence as the Palestinians object, which is neither a concern for the White House or Netanyahu, as they are assuming that it can be suppressed by overwhelming force directed against an almost completely unarmed civilian population.

And Trump will no doubt expect Bibi to return the favor when he is running for reelection in 2020 by encouraging American pro-Israelis who care about Israel to support the Republicans. Trump is focused on his own electability and is absolutely shameless about his betrayal of actual American interests in West Asia, possibly because he has no inkling of the actual damage that he is doing. His speech just recently before the casino multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson-hosted Zionist Jewish Republican Coalition Annual Leadership Meeting in Las Vegas was a disgusting pander to a group that includes many key players who have little or no concern for what happens to the United States as long as Israel flourishes. The only good news that came out of the meeting was that Adelson himself appears to be “gravely ill.”
Trump at times appeared to be speaking to what he thought was a group of Israelis, referring to “your prime minister” when mentioning Benjamin Netanyahu and several times describing Israel as “yours,” suggesting that deep down he understands that many American Jews are more loyal to Israel than to the United States. At another point, Trump declared that “The Democrats have even allowed the terrible scourge of alleged anti-Semitism to take root in their party and their country,” apparently part of a White House plan to keep playing that card to turn American pro-Israeli Zionist Jews and their political donations in a Republican direction before elections in 2020.

Trump also told the Republican Coalition audience how he came to a decision on recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the Syrian Golan Heights. He described how “he’d been speaking to his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, as well as U.S. ambassador to Israel David Friedman and his Israel adviser, Jason Greenblatt, over the phone about an unrelated issue when he suddenly brought up the Golan Heights.” Trump shared how “I said, ‘Fellows, do me a favor. Give me a little history, quick. Want to go fast. I got a lot of things I’m working on: China, North Korea. Give me a quickie.’ After the advisers filled him in, Trump said he asked Friedman: ‘David, what do you think about me recognizing Israel and the Golan Heights?’ Friedman, apparently surprised by the suggestion, reacted like a ‘wonderful, beautiful baby,’ Trump said, and asked if he would ‘really … do that.’ ‘Yeah, I think I’m doing it right now. Let’s write something up,’ Trump said he responded, prompting applause and cheers from his audience in Las Vegas. ‘We make fast decisions and we make good decisions.’”

Putting the Trump story about the Golan Heights in some kind of context is not really that difficult. He wanted an answer to please Netanyahu and he went to three Orthodox Jews who support the illegal Israeli settlements and have also individually contributed financially to their growth so he was expecting the response that he got. That he was establishing a precedent by his moves on al-Quds and the Golan apparently did not occur to him as his administration prides itself on having a foreign policy vision that extends no longer than the beginning of next week, which is why he hired Mike Pompeo, John Bolton and Elliott Abrams. And then there is always the doleful Stephen Miller lurking in the background as well as the three musketeers of Kushner, Greenblatt and Friedman for really serious questions relating to why acceding to the wishes of parasite entity called Israel should continue to be the apparent number one priority of the government of the United States.

Donald Trump neither poses nor answers the question why he feels compelled to fulfill all of the campaign pledges he made to the so-called Jewish community, which by and large did not vote for him, while failing to carry out the promises made to those who actually did support him. The absurd Jewish Republican Coalition narrative about how Trump gave Israel the Golan Heights should have resulted in a flood of opprobrium in the U.S. media about his profound ignorance and fundamental hypocrisy, but there was largely silence.

The nonsense going on in Las Vegas in front of a lot of fat cats who regard the United States as little more than a cash cow that they control as well as in the White House itself unfortunately has real world consequences. America is being led by the nose by a well-entrenched and powerful group of Israeli loyalists and this will not end well. The U.S. doesn’t even have a West Asia foreign policy anymore – it has a “to do” list handed by Netanyahu to whomever is president.
The fact that the current man in charge in Washington is either so ignorant or so deluded as to allow the process to escalate until the U.S. is drawn into yet more catastrophic wars is beyond regrettable. U.S. foreign policy should not depend on the perceptions of Kushner and company. It should be based on real, tangible American interests, not those of the brutal, child-killer Zionist regime of Israel. Someone should explain that to the ignorant president.

Endorsing the stealing of Golan Heights means pushing the world toward anarchy

By M.A. Saki

1. 

Donald Trump signed a proclamation on March 25 recognizing Israel’s stealing of the Golan Heights owned by Syria. Israel seized the land from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war with a support by the U.S. and certain other Western countries.

Trump signed the proclamation while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was present in the White House.

According to France 24, Trump said, "This was a long time in the making." However, it took place at a time to give boost to Netanyahu who is facing reelection on April 9.

Such actions by Trump are making international law irrelevant. In fact, the Trump administration is pushing the world toward anarchy and lawlessness. Trump and his lieutenants, including John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, Mike Pence, are promoting the law of jungle in the world.

Recognizing Jerusalem al-Quds as the capital of Israel and moving the U.S. embassy to there, endorsing Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights, and abrogating the Iran nuclear deal enshrined in the UN Security Council Resolution 2231 are blatant violations of international law if we still think that international law matters.

Authorizing Israel’s stealing of the Golan Heights and other illegal moves will remain in the memory of the human being so long as the life continues on the earth. These actions will also deepen hatred of the U.S. among the people around the world, particularly those in Arab countries. Surely, it will also fan the flames of extremism among the Arab youth.

Such measures are being taken by a country who is claiming support for human rights, the rule of law, respect for international law and many other empty slogans.

It is true that Trump is not synonymous with the entire U.S. and that his rash behavior, especially his foreign policy, is facing fierce opposition at home, yet the U.S. blind support for Israeli occupation of other nations’ lands since it was born in 1948 cannot be omitted from the memory of the history. The only difference is that Trump is acting like a wild animal when it comes to supporting Israel.

The Trump administration is also abusing inaction by the international community. It is not an exaggeration if we call the international community a group of indifferent countries who just care about their own interests and allow arrogant persons such as Trump do whatever they wish without facing any punishment.

The least thing that the countries could do toward such illegal acts was to adopt a resolution at the UN General Assembly condemning the U.S. for endorsing the stealing of Golan Heights or recognizing Jerusalem al-Quds as Israel’s capital.

The world cannot excuse itself for being so passive in face of illegal moves by Trump, who is mistaking the world with a zoo.

US – Israeli aggression in the Middle East and Beyond

by Judith Bello

Since he came to office, Donald Trump has taken a very aggressive stand supporting Israel’s Zionist agenda in the Middle East. Early in his term, Trump made a unilateral decision to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem despite the fact that it was designated by the United Nations in 1948 to be an international protectorate. Israel invaded Jerusalem during the 1967 “6 Day” war and occupied half the city, claiming the city as their capital. They drove Palestinians from their west Jerusalem homes, stealing their possessions as they did to the refugees in 1948, and took control of the ancient Al Aqsa Mosque which is particularly sacred not only to Palestinian Muslims but to Muslims worldwide. Even so, East Jerusalem remained a home for the Palestinians and they continue to see Jerusalem as their capital though the U.S. now suggests that they need to move out.

At the end of the 1967 war, Israel occupied the neutral zone in the Syrian Golan Heights thereby occupying Syrian territory. In 1973, Syria partnered with Egypt to reclaim the Sinai and the Golan, their territories held by Israel since 1967.   They were doing pretty well until Henry Kissinger mediated a deal between Egyptian President Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir such that Egypt would withdraw their troops from battle in exchange for the return of the Sinai.   When Egypt unexpectedly withdrew from the war, Israel was able to bring all its forces to a single front and rout the Syrian and Jordanian forces attempting to restore the Golan to Syrian governance. <1>

Since the time the Golan Heights were first occupied, Syria has never been willing to cede this territory in any negotiation.   Both Hafez (who was the General in the Golan when Syria and Jordan were betrayed by Sadat) and Bashar Assad have remained steadfast in their determination to restore the Golan Heights to Syria for more than 40 years. The international community as represented by the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council have supported Syria’s claim to the Golan Heights throughout, along with the right of return of the Palestinians to the towns and villages of their homeland.   International law states clearly that no country is allowed to acquire land through conquest and the annexation of occupied territory is forbidden. You can see Israel’s disregard for the people and property of the Golan in this short video made in the Golan Heights city of Quneitra in 2001.   The fighting around Quneitra continues in the current war on Syria.

Golan Heights are a mountainous region which provides an advantage in a border war.   The Golan Heights are also a source of water, which Israel craves to fill its swimming pools and support the Western way of life for its citizens, and which Syria desperately needs for irrigation in this time of drought.   And now they say there is a significant source of oil in the Golan Heights.   The Golan Heights are important for a number of reasons, but maybe none more important than the sovereignty of Syria, or on the downside, the deliberate disregard for international law and international consensus.   The United Nations General Assembly has voted year in and year out in near unanimity for Israel to restore the Golan to Syria and, to free the West Bank and Gaza, and in support of the right of return for Palestinians. Most recently the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously against the U.S. supported Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights (with the exception, of course, of the U.S.).

Israel also illegally occupies a small area south of the Latani river that belongs to its northern neighbor, Lebanon, and which it has refused to return since the Israeli occupation of Lebanon during the 80s.  This occupation was defeated by a massive local insurgency led by the predecessor organization to Hezbollah, and Hezbollah fighters guard the border. This area, known as Shabaa Farms, borders on the Golan Heights.  The Lebanese are very concerned that the Shabaa Farms, still occupied by Israel, will be included in Trump’s gift to Israel.

When Mike Pompeo met with Lebanese President Michel Aun earlier this week, he explained to the Lebanese that they merely need to abandon support for the ‘terrorist organization’, Hezbollah, and the US cornucopia will become available to them. <2>  The Lebanese immediately turned to Russia for assistance.  Apparently Pompeo is not aware that Hezbollah has become a legitimate and very popular political party in Lebanon with the support of the Lebanese state and of a majority of Lebanese people.

This week, after U.S. President Trump “recognized” the Golan Heights as Israeli Territory. Mike Pompeo, answered with the affirmative to a question as to whether Trump might have been “raised by God” to save “the Jewish people” from an ‘Iranian menace”. He replied “As a Christian, I certainly believe that could be true. ”   <3>

The question was in reference to the biblical story that, if it actually occurred, happened 2,500 years ago in the city of Mashad, in what is now Iran. Esther, a Jewish queen married to Persian Emperor Xerces I heard of a plot against the Jews by one of Xerces’ ministers.   She approached her husband (the Persian/Iranian Emperor) with her concerns, and he had the minister executed along with his co-plotters.   Xerces father, Cyrus, is famed in the Torah and the Old Testament of the Christian Bible for freeing the Jews from captivity in Babylon.   Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif replied:

“It is truly regrettable that bigotry gets to the point of making allegations against an entire nation which has saved Jews three times in its history. The Book of Esther tells of how Xerxes I saved Jews from a plot hatched by Haman the Agagite, which is marked on this very day; again, during the time of Cyrus the Great, an Iranian king saved the Jews — this time from captivity in Babylon; and during the Second World War, when Jews were being slaughtered in Europe, Iran gladly took them in”, …<4>

Both Donald Trump and his minister Mike Pompeo are seemingly adrift from both international law and international consensus.   But the matter is worse than that.   Their policies are driving a new cold war to dangerous levels.   Aside from their cloddish interventions in the Middle East, Trump has formally withdrawn, not only from the JCPOA (the Iran Nuclear Deal) much to the dismay of our European allies as well as Iran, but he has also formally withdrawn from the INF (Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces) Treaty with Russia, much to the horror of our European allies and the Russians.   The Europeans are presently not very happy getting the back end of their North American ally’s policy of endless war. The ignorance, cultural insensitivity and aggression of today’s leaders is unprecedented.

While Saudi Arabia, under the leadership of Prince Mohammad bin Salman continues to devastate Yemen with US weapons US trainers and US Intelligence, Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is plotting with his good friend MBS to sell nuclear weapons materials and technology to the barbaric Al Saud clan. No surprise, I suppose, when the US has continually showered Israel with our tax dollars and high tech weapons from the Pentagon for decades while it slaughtered Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Since Trump gave the Syrian Golan Heights to Israel (for their protection), there is news that Israel and the U.S. are bombing in Aleppo Province in Syria?   Israel says they are bombing Iranians, while Syria is reporting civilian casualties.   Will the U.S. claim there are ISIS fighters among them? When will this bizarre ignoring, distorting and twisting of reality end?

In response to Trump and Pompeo’s aggressive moves on the international game board, Vladimir Putin, always the chess-master, just castled<5>, and is now breathing down their necks in Latin America.   Putin just sent a group of military men led by a well-known general to operate the S-300 Missile shield Russia sold to the Venezuelan government a few years ago.

With U.S. nuclear missiles all along the border between Russia and Europe, one can’t blame Putin for exploring possible counter-threats.   I am not a weapons expert but my guess is that the S-300s are no threat to the U.S. unless you count ‘protecting Venezuela from missile strikes’ a threat. However, earlier this year a couple of planes capable of carrying nukes briefly landed in Caracas.   ‘It was just for show’, the Russians said. But the S-300s just came to life. What’s next?  Do we want to be playing with fire or could we embrace a world of peace and mutual respect?

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1. Asad of Syria: The struggle for the Middle East by Patrick Seale
2. Russia One-Ups U.S. in Middle East as Lebanon Challenges Donald Trump’s Stance on Iran, Israel and Syria
3. Trump recognizes Golan Heights as Israeli territory; Pence says support for Israel combats anti-Semitism
4. Zarif’s Disagreements with Pompeo Turn Biblical
5. Move your King forward and back him up with a Rook/Castle.
6. Video of Quneitra in 2001

• —————————————-
• Bio: Judy Bello is a Middle East activist and analyst who has, over the last decade,  spent time in Iran, Iraqi Kurdistan, Syria and Pakistan.  She  is a member of the UNAC Administrative Committee and moderates the ‘End the Wars at Home and Abroad’ Blog.   She is active with the Syria Solidarity Movement and the One State Assembly supporting One Democratic State of Palestine and the Palestinian Right of Return.

Trump’s Golan Declaration Another Own Goal

EDITORIAL

Hardly a week goes by and the United States falls deeper into global disrepute. This week was a bonanza of own goals for the self-declared “leader of the free world”.

The debacle over the ridiculous “Russiagate" scandal finally imploding was spectacular.

Then there were more horrific reports of US air strikes killing civilians simultaneously in four countries – Afghanistan, Somalia, Syria and Yemen.

That was followed by Washington’s ludicrous lecturing to Russia about the US-imposed humanitarian crisis in Venezuela.

And then, to top all those own goals, we saw President Donald Trump declaring that Israel’s illegal annexation of the Golan Heights is not, in the warped US view, illegal after all. Can you possibly keep score of the mind-boggling inanities and insanities?

Switching metaphors for a moment – because you can hardly just use one when it comes to grappling with American asinine policy – Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova got it right when she likened the US to a “cowboy shooting up the Louvre museum” in its free-wheeling, double-dealing foreign conduct.

Where to begin in dissecting the US and its descent into madness and mafia-style foreign policy? It truly is a brain-wrecking, train-wrecking challenge. Is there a wicked genius to its Mephistophelean madness? Perhaps it is simply down to Washington becoming an absurd circus of incompetence, accelerated under the administration of a former real-estate magnate and reality TV star, President Donald J (for Joker) Trump.

On the Golan issue, Trump’s proclamation this week of recognizing the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights as under Israeli sovereignty is a flagrant subversion of international law and the United Nations Charter. Israel has been forcibly occupying Syrian southern territory since the 1967 Six Day War. It formally annexed the strategic plateau in 1981, which was ruled as illegal by the UN Security Council – including a vote from the US at that time.

Trump’s declaration is thus a brazen repudiation of international law and a glaring green light to aggression. Can anything this president says or does be taken seriously? What’s that about Venezuela, or Ukraine?

His declaration this week undermines gravely the foundation of international law in a shocking, reckless affront. It completely demolishes any pretense the US claims to have as a world leader and upholder of international law.

Washington has been slamming Russia for the past five years over alleged “annexation” of Crimea – and then Trump this week turns around and endorses Israeli theft of Syrian territory.

At a UN Security Council meeting called this week by Syria in protest to Trump’s proclamation, the US was seen as a pariah state. All 14 other members of the council (including non-permanent members) slammed the US policy on Golan. They included US allies Britain and France.

Outside the UNSC, other US allies also condemned Washington’s declaration of complicity in Israeli annexation of Golan.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, among others, all slammed the US for daring to legalize the theft of Syrian territory by Israel.

Russia’s deputy envoy to the UN, Vladimir Safronkov, put it aptly. He said that the US move was not only an audacious violation of international and the UN Charter. “This only exacerbates the situation in Syria and complicates the establishment of a political process, but it also creates serious obstacles to normalizing the relations between Israel and the Arab states.”

We will come back to that profound point in a moment. But first, let’s throw out a few other motives for Trump’s outrageous violation of international law regarding Golan and Israel’s annexation.

Trump is no doubt giving his family friend Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a timely electoral boost ahead of Israeli state elections scheduled for April 9.

There is also the issue of American oil interests being pursued by designating the Golan as Israeli territory. The mountainous region overlooking the Jordan Valley is reputed to hold untapped reserves on par with those of Saudi Arabia, which US-based Genie oil company has been exploring for years.

But still a more strategic motive is the objective of keeping the Middle East and Syria in particular in perpetual turmoil. By annexing Syrian territory, the US-Israeli move furthers the objective of controlling the wider Arab region.

Syria’s envoy to the UN, Bashar al Jaafari, made that very point at the UN Security Council meeting this week. He said the US-backed annexation of Golan was a part of the US-sponsored covert war against his country. The move is a way to keep Syria and the region in turmoil, said al Jaafari.

This gets back to what the Russian envoy, Vladimir Safronkov, said. The whole point is for Washington to prevent any political settlement to the eight-year war in Syria and to impede any normalization of relations in the region. The US and its client Israeli regime only stand to benefit from perpetual chaos and conflict in the region.

So far so good, as Washington may calculate – albeit fiendishly. But in the final analysis, the US is ending up looking like a complete rogue state without any respect, even among its supposed allies.

The presumed global leader, Washington, is losing foes and allies alike through its disgraceful duplicity and disregard for any pretense of probity. The Golan Heights is another nail in the coffin for Washington’s over-rated self-regard.

In a week of other American absurdities and own-goals, the Golan debacle may turn out to be the moment when Washington is finally seen in the eyes of the world as the utter laughing stock that it surely has become. It’s a laughing stock, but in the creepiest, macabre sense.

Trump Is America’s First Zionist President

By Paul Craig Roberts

On any issue that pertains to Israel’s interest, Trump has placed US foreign policy into Israel’s hands, pandering to Zionism to an unprecedented extreme.

It is impossible not to feel some sympathy for President Donald Trump. His agenda to restore normal relations with Russia and to end Washington’s gratuitous wars has been frustrated by the “Russiagate hoax” that the military/security complex and corrupt Democratic Party used in the effort to remove Trump from the presidency. He and his wife have been embarrassed by the fake “Steele Dossier” paid for by the Clinton campaign and used by a corrupt FBI leadership to illegitimately obtain spy warrants on Trump and his associates. Accused of cavorting with prostitutes in Moscow and confronted with claims by a porn star of an affair in order to boost the recognition value of her name, Trump and his wife have experienced uncomfortable times. Now that the lies the presstitutes have told since 2016 have been exposed by Mueller’s inability, despite his use of every dirty trick, to come up with any indictable offense connected to “Russiagate,” the psychopathic liars who comprise the presstitute media are on the verge of tears. Mueller has betrayed them, they claim, by letting Trump off the hook.

In other words, there will be no apology to Trump. Don’t be surprised to see the deranged accusation that Mueller himself was part of the Russian collusion and was appointed for the purpose of covering it up.

Weakened by “Russiagate” accusations, Trump was forced to back off his agenda of ending the wars. He put policy in the hands of neoconservative warmongers like John Bolton and Pompeo, and expanded the prospect of wars into Iran and Venezuela. Trump in office bears little resemblance to Trump campaigning for the presidency.

Under such pressure Trump has broken American diplomatic precedent and international law with respect to Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan Heights in his effort to seek the protection of the powerful Israel Lobby. He recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moved the US Embassy there, and on March 22 he said it is time to accept the reality of Israel’s occupation of Syria’s Golen Heights as Israeli territory. This extreme pandering to Israeli Zionism is a disgrace to the United States.

Related article: Why the US Moving Its Israel Embassy to Jerusalem Would Be Illegal

It is not clear how Trump has benefited from his groveling. If polls can be believed, Trump’s pandering has done him no good with American Jews, 70% of whom disapprove of Trump. Moreover, the Israel Lobby failed to use its influence to silence the presstitutes false “Russiagate” accusations against Trump. Perhaps the Lobby wanted to keep Trump in a weak position in order to extract more concessions from him.

Nevertheless, by terminating US aid to Palestinians and by being the only head of state to fully recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital and to assign Syrian territory to Israel, Trump has established a US relationship with Israeli Zionism that the US has with no other state and that Israel has with no other state. On any issue that pertains to Israel’s interest, Trump has placed US foreign policy into Israel’s hands.

Various diplomats and analysts are saying that Trump gifted the Golan Heights to Israel in order to help out Netanyahu who faces indictment for corruption. I think the explanation is that the neoconservatives running US foreign policy are Zionists and that the only ally Trump has, other than the remnants of the American working class now dismissed as “white supremacists,” is the Israel Lobby.

The hostility of the Trump regime toward Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Syria, and Venezuela does America no good (except for the shareholders of the military/security complex). But the hostility toward Iran, Syria, and their protector—Russia—does benefit Israel. Israel has been frustrated in its desire to occupy southern Lebanon by the Hezbollah militia, which is supported by Syria and Iran. If Washington can destabilize Syria and Iran, as it did Iraq and Libya, Hezbollah would be cut off from support. Moreover, Washington’s accusations against Russia and missile bases on Russia’s border can distract Russia’s attention and resources away from the Middle East and leave Syria and Iran less able to resist the US/Israeli pressures.

Trump, who campaigned on peace so that America’s attention and resources could be focused on America’s own situation, now has the US more embroiled than ever in the affairs of foreign countries, principally Israel, a Zionist state. This fact makes it reasonable to conclude that Trump is America’s first Zionist president, a development that bodes more ill for the world.

Paul Craig Roberts

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts attended four of the finest universities, studied under two Nobel Prize-winners in economics, authored 20 peer-reviewed articles in journals of scholarship, and published four academic press peer-reviewed books, including Harvard and Oxford Universities, and seven commercially published books. His most recent book is The Neoconservative Threat to World Order: Washington's Perilous War for Hegemony.