By John Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with
In the war at this stage, the Israeli-American force for genocidal killing and displacement of the Palestinians of Gaza appears to be winning. Not on the ground so much as in the consent of their western allies to supply the logistics, pay the bills, and endorse the morality of the crimes.
By the time William Shakespeare picked up the idea that force can compel consent, the maxim he made popular had already been expressed in English for two hundred years. In All’s Well That Ends Well, he has the Countess ask her clown why he wants to marry. He replies: “My poor body, madam, requires it: I am driven on by the flesh; and he must needs go that the devil drives.” Usually left out of this famous exchange is that the jester explained he had “other holy reasons”. The Countess liked hearing them even less, so she sent him off stage.
In the Gaza operations so far, and in the ideology which Israeli officials and journalists are repeating to the western media, the devil aims to drive every Palestinian, the born and the as yet unborn, to death. In such a war the first need for Hamas and the Arabs is to survive in order to keep fighting. Nothing is more sure than the “holy reasons” Shakespeare put into the mouth of Lavatch the Clown, that surviving to fight the long war will defeat this devil’s needs in the end.
In practical politics, Israel and the US either win their genocidal war swiftly now, or else they will lose the long war. Russian military sources are reporting the US is resupplying the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) at a rate of two US Air Force (USAF) transports every hour, moving from the continental US through bases in the UK, Germany, Italy, Greece, and Cyprus. US sources have acknowledged the logistical effort is too great to continue for long. Right now the US Navy and USAF cannot continue delivering on the promised resupply of the Ukrainian forces in their war against Russia, while at US bases in Syria and Iraq the Pentagon is privately evacuating troops while publicly striking at their Arab attackers.
The Arab, Iranian, and Russian media are reporting that in response, Hamas and Hezbollah are maintaining a frequent rate of fire against IDF and Israeli territorial targets. They are not yet attacking Israel’s offshore gas production platforms, which provide most of the fuel for the country’s electricity generating plants. They are not yet disabling Israel’s ports and airfields. The Russian military assessment is that for the time being the Hamas and Hezbollah capacity remains intact and in reserve. The Arab side is exercising restraint.
What then are the needs which must now be addressed by the allies of the Palestinians, the Arab states, Iran, and then Russia?
On Sunday, Russia officially called this war “the American project”. This followed the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) vote last Friday, October 27, when the US and Israel led a tiny minority in favour of their short war, including a half-dozen island states sinking slowly into the Pacific Ocean.
A Moscow source confirms the US is the priority Russian target because the IDF cannot continue in Gaza as the US capabilities exhaust themselves. He believes that US over-exertion in the Middle East will accelerate the Russian military’s move on to the offensive on the Ukrainian battlefield, and shorten thereby that war. The public statements for mediation between the warring parties issued by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his ministry are not the full Russian story, the source believes. The first need in Lavrov’s mediation, he says, is between the General Staff and the Kremlin. The second priority is to let the Americans demonstrate their weakness across the region by conserving the Palestinians in place, deterring Egyptian and Jordanian concessions, and preventing a direct attack on Iran. “The real Russian position , not the public statements , ultimately comes down to what level of military cooperation the Ministry of Defense has with Teheran. The Syrian and Ukrainian wars have made this very deep. I expect the Foreign Ministry’s public line will change when the Palestinian casualties reach 20,000. As the official Israeli statements against the Russian government already make clear, they know what is going on behind the scenes. It’s not just the Caucasian Muslims now but most Russians feel there’s been enough crying support for Israel. Lavrov will catch up.”
“I would say the real work now in Moscow is on ensuring the Americans do not directly attack Iran. The rest is going to play out according to the General Staff’s road map Lavrov could and should have in front of him. Call it the long war for short.”
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