By Steve Bell
In recent days a number of events appear to presage the extension of Israel’s war on Gaza into a wider regional war. These events include, the assassination of Hamas official, Saleh Al Arouri in Beirut on 2nd January, and the initial retaliation by Hezbollah in 62 missile strikes against Israeli military installations in Meron in northern Israel. The US assassinated Iraqi resistance leader Abu Taqwa in Baghdad on 4th January. These followed the presumed Israeli assassination of Radhi Mousavi, senior member of Quds force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp in Damascus on December 25th. Not so clear, but deeply disturbing, was the terrorist bombing on January 4th, claimed by Islamic State, in Kerman, Iran resulting in nearly 100 deaths. These all suggest a potential extension of ground and aerial war involving US forces alongside Israeli forces.
Perhaps more significant has been the decision of the Ansarallah (“the Houthis”) government in the Yemeni capital of Sana’a to close the Bab-al-Mandab, in the Red Sea, to Israel linked shipping. This has resulted in military action and interdiction of ships by Yemeni armed forces. Consequently a large number of shipping companies have diverted traffic from the Red Sea, around the Cape. The Israeli port of Eilat has lost, according to different reports, between 80 to 100% its inward cargoes. After lobbying by the Israeli government, the US has put together an “alliance” of naval forces under the title of “Operation Prosperity Guardian”, involving Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, UK and US.
Undoubtedly these developments threaten a widening of the current war on Palestine. The sources of this threat lie in the weakness of the Biden administration, and the difficulties the Israeli government faces in its war on the Palestinians.
Biden’s failing agenda
US opinion polls suggest Biden could be facing defeat in the November Presidential election. Continued slow growth in the US economy, has led to a decline in real wages. His attempts to boost consumption, without increasing productive investment, resulted in inflation which fell most heavily upon the working class. On its own, this domestic failure would have imperilled his re-election bid. But his serious foreign policy failures appear to have made a return of Donald Trump imminent.
The main failure here has made the international situation even more explosive. Despite NATO states pouring in arms, intelligence, and training Ukrainian forces, the Ukranian government’s “spring offensive” has proved a military failure, This has created a political crisis for Zelensky’s backers.
Inside the US, Biden having already sent $200 billion subsidies, has been unable to secure Congressional approval for his proposed additional $60 billion package for Ukraine. He has been forced, twice, to by-pass Congress in order to despatch relatively small amounts of artillery shells to Ukraine. Over the past year, despite supposedly “game-changing” provision of advanced weapons, the Ukrainian government has failed to turn around the Russian backed forces. In November a Gallup poll found that 61% of those polled in the US favoured limits on funding of the war.
In parallel, the EU has been forced to bear the economic burden of US insistence on ending Russian energy provision to Europe. This has slowed EU growth, and created a dependency upon the more expensive US liquid natural gas. Political divisions amongst EU states have grown, with more governments tiring of demands for military and economic aid to Ukraine.
After two years of war, there now exists a de-facto separation between the Ukrainian speaking west, and the majority Russian speaking east. It resembles the unresolved war between North and South Korea – no military solution outside of a world war is conceivable. There is no serious suggestion that Ukrainian forces can be brought to a capacity to reverse their defeat. Nor is there any indication that western Ukraine will actually be brought into NATO or EU membership in the near future.
Meanwhile, the Russian government has secured its war aims of establishing a land bridge to the Donbass and Crimea; sustaining the Donetsk and Lugansk republics; and securing a supportive administration for the Russian minority in east Ukraine. Whatever the rhetoric used, the number of Russian forces committed was never adequate to secure control over the whole of Ukraine. Such an aim would have a required many times more forces than the initial 150,000 deployed and the 350,000 reinforcements. Equally, the economic weapons deployed against Russia have failed to prevent the Russian economy growing by 3% in 2023 – faster growth than that achieved by most of the countries sanctioning Russia. All the above represents a major setback for NATO and Biden.
Biden doubles down on war on Palestine
In these circumstances, the Biden administration is absolutely determined to ensure an Israeli victory in Palestine. The reputation of US imperialism is at stake. Yet it is one thing for the US to sustain Israel’s war by providing the munitions and arms needed, as Biden has done. It is quite another to create the diplomatic conditions to transform military dominance into a lasting settlement.
Here the problem is the difference between the US and Israeli governments’ war aims. Both agree on the need to defeat Palestinian resistance. But for Biden the Israeli government has to accommodate to pro-US Arab regimes by yielding to a “Palestinian” administration in Gaza, supported by these regimes. This would allow the “normalisation” of Israel’s relations, and a token set of Palestinian bantustans alongside a secure Israeli state.
For the Israeli government the optimal position would be to regain control of Gaza, perhaps by recolonisation, further partition and removal of part or all of the Palestinian population. Nor do its war aims end in Gaza. The settler offensive in the West Bank and East Jerusalem is being extended as part of the war. There is no limit to the acquisition of further Palestinian territory. In September, at the UN, Netanyahu waved a map of the proposed future of the region where the Israeli state included all of West Bank and Gaza.
The elusive Israeli “victory”
For Netanyahu’s government the war is an opportunity to secure a clear cut victory which would undermine the enormous domestic opposition his government has faced since returning to power in December 2022. Evidently after three months of war it has yet to secure such a victory. It has destroyed most of Gaza’a infrastructure, killed over 23,000 Palestinians, and established a substantial military presence inside Gaza. Yet the resistance has neither surrendered, nor been destroyed.
The difficulty is that ending Hamas’s presence and influence cannot be achieved by military means. Hamas is the most popular political party amongst the Palestinians, as measured by the last authoritative elections in 2006, and opinion polls – before and after October 7th. Ending Hamas’s “presence” or “influence” is comparable to ending the Conservative Party’s influence in Britain by military means. Both parties retain a substantial popular base whose loyalty cannot be overcome solely by coercion.
Even a limited interpretation – such as assassinating Hamas’s leadership, or destroying the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades – requires brutal methods resulting in a new generation being created to revenge the lost leaders and fighters. Overwhelming military superiority, and a preparedness to engage in genocidal casualty levels does not secure victory. Only a political solution to the conflict offers the possibility of a solution.
The initial internal unity secured by Netanyahu’s co-option of part of the opposition into government is beginning to look short-lived. Firstly, the government’s tactics have not secured the release of Israeli prisoners held in Gaza. The debates and protests initiated by the relatives have put some pressure upon the government. Secondly, the elements of the foregoing constitutional crisis have begun to reassert themselves, regardless of the war. The recent Supreme Court decision to overturn the government’s removal of the right of the Court to challenge government legislation is one blow. Equally, the major opposition demonstration in Tel Aviv last Saturday could be a step towards a general remobilisation of the mass opposition than transfixed Israeli society for most of 2023 before October 7th.
One, two, three months or more than a year?
Now there is not just a growing tension between the US and Israeli governments on war aims. There is a growing tension over the timetable for the war.
At the outset of the war, Defence Minister Gallant said it would take “one, two or three months” to defeat Hamas. After a hundred days of war, the assumption now in government circles is that the war will continue for most of 2024. This is absolutely against the needs of Biden’s administration – it needs a “victory” long before the US Presidential election campaign begins.
The type of victory Netanyahu is seeking creates the temptation to prolong and extend the war. This is particularly true if Biden can be dragged into using US forces to directly engage with Israel’s “enemies” in the region. And delaying a solution offers the prospect of working with a US president who is more in tune with Netanyahu and the settler movement.
Trump was seen by many Israeli right-wingers as the most pro-Israeli President in US history. A judgement informed by Trump’s actions in moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem; cutting back on aid to UNRWA and the Palestinian Authority; recognising the annexation of the Golan Heights; supporting settlements in the West Bank, and breaking the nuclear deal with Iran. His proposed “Deal of the Century” involved drawing in Arab states to normalise relations with Israel and fund Palestinian living standards, handing the Jordan Valley over to Israel, and postponing any prospect of a Palestinian state into an indefinite future.
It is then hardly surprising that Biden’s administration is constantly attempting to push the Israelis to outline an exit in the near term. While it continues to reject placing pressure upon the Israelis by calling for a ceasefire, or by refusing additional arms deliveries, the US government is in practice aiding Netayanhu’s expansion and extension of the war.
The Red Sea challenge
It is in the Red Sea that the US faces the most volatile challenge to its support for Israel’s war on the Palestinians. The Ansarallah government in Sana’a refuses to normalise Yemen’s relations with Israel. It has taken action to oppose genocide in Gaza, imposing a ban on Israeli linked shipping through the Bab-al Mandab. It is not all shipping that is the target. It is then not some issue of “freedom of navigation”. Yemeni statements have made clear that the action will be lifted once Israel lifts its siege and assault upon the Palestinians in Gaza.
The “Operation Prosperity Guardian” naval alliance established by the US is not supporting a general principle of freedom of commerce, navigation, etc. It is a specific operation to ensure that Israel can be provisioned through the Red Sea, as well as the Mediterranean. It is an extension of support for Israeli aggression against Palestine – a contribution to the war, not an issue external to the US pursuit of the war.
If it were an issue of general principle then the lack of active defence of that principle by the US and allies must be explained.
Firstly, the Israeli state has illegally blockaded access to Gaza’s port since imposing a siege from 2007. At the same time, Israeli naval forces have regularly blocked and attacked Palestinian fishing boats whose commerce has been subjected to arbitrary limits by the Israeli government. At no time have the Guardians of Prosperity bothered to intervene against this assault upon Palestinian rights of navigation and commerce.
Secondly, since 2015, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have engaged in a siege by land, sea and air of Yemen. The siege has resulted in the Yemeni people being subjected to a shortage of food, drinking water, medicines, fuel and commercial goods – at terrible suffering for the civilian population. The Saudis have even interfered with the UN agreed process which allows some cargoes in, while preventing arms smuggling. As a result many ships have been prevented, or delayed for long periods, from entering Hodeidah port.
Yet our noble Guardians, in this case in the form of the US and British navies, have not sought to break the siege. On the contrary, they have actively assisted the Saudis in enforcing it. The starvation of Yemenis is not troubling their duties, any more than the starvation of the Palestinians in Gaza does.
So when the Yemenis turn the tables, large parts of the world are unimpressed by calls to defend the freedom of the world’s oceans. There is not one state bordering the Red Sea that has joined this coalition of hypocrites. Indeed, the only Arab state to join the Guardians is the royal dictatorship of Bahrain – one of the least representative regimes amongst the Arab states, if not in the world.
The US intervention in the Red Sea threatens not just to extend Israel’s war. It could also threaten the Saudi-Yemeni truce, and perhaps even the Saudi/Iran diplomatic reconciliation. Once again, a simple move by Biden to promote a ceasefire in Gaza would avoid these dangers.
In conclusion
The international movement in support of Palestine has become the most significant mass movement since the Vietnam War. Made possible by the resilience of the Palestinians, it includes the extraordinary mass demonstrations across the globe. It also includes the actions of governments seeking a ceasefire via the UN, the South African government’s case at the International Court of Justice, the Sana’a based government’s actions to end genocide in Gaza. Nor should we overlook the numberless actions by organisations and individuals to stop the slaughter.
The mass movement in Britain has yet to force the British government, or the Labour leadership, away from tailing and endorsing US support for the war. The recent signs of an expansion of the war, and an extension of its timetable, must prompt activists to renew their commitment to end British complicity in this war. The national demonstration on January 13th is the next step in joining the global majority movement in defence of Palestinian rights and freedom.
The above article was originally published here by Labour Outlook.
Image: Palestinians inspect the damage following an Israeli airstrike on the El-Remal aera in Gaza City on October 9, 2023., Photo by Palestinian News & Information Agency (Wafa) (Q2915969) in contract with APAimages, licensed under the Creative CommonsAttribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Photo cropped.