Middle East Meltdown: Israel took the bait

Oy-oy-oy! Israel went straight to 11.

Israel’s political and military response has set in motion a PR headache for the nation and its allies that is currently decimating its precarious and chequered international standing. The situation is so bad that there is an open conflagration of narratives across Twitter and mainstream media, fuelled not by citizen and alt-media/minority voice and therefore arguable or deniable, but by diplomatic and government statements.

We continue to predict this military/security situation will fast turn from a PR headache into a political nightmare for Israel in the bigger picture, beyond the Western media bubble.

This will worsen predominantly because of Israel’s choice of response and tactics, not because it was attacked by Hamas.

Events since the attack have largely mapped against our scenario and analysis laid out in Middle East Meltdown: The war dog trap?

TLDR:

• Israel’s instantaneous and ongoing political statements and military response has set it on a fixed path;

• Its response has actually reduced the number of political and military options it has in the immediate future, rather than expanding them;

• It has painted itself into a military and political corner that can be quickly tightened by the actions it continues to take and their near and far outcomes, ahead of its enemies actions;

• Any action that does not match its political declarations and statements of military intent are a form of backpedalling that creates more PR and political problems i.e. “reverse ferret” keeps digging Israel’s hole;

• Its present position and actions have already met with initial and growing objection amongst allies, neutral parties and adversaries;

• Why it has done this and what the internal political outcomes may be are up for debate;

• Containment and management strategies employed by the US and others mean Israel and Netanyahu are out on a much thinner limb than many would admit.

Mistake 1: Walk loudly and swing your stick

Netanyahu’s immediate response was to declare that Israel is at war. This has specific legal meaning and ramifications under international law, in the context of statehood e.g. is Palestine a sovereign state? A declaration of war made by action or statement then invokes legal constraints and conditions under the laws of war. The immediate and probably too superficial effect is that observers can now set Israel’s actions against the Geneva Convention, Human Rights Convention and other relevant laws of armed conflict. In the case of Palestine, the question of whether it is a state or an occupied territory also sets the actions of Hamas and the plight of Palestinian civilians in specific light. To what degree Israel has fully analysed and considered the implications of all this remains unclear, but questions are being directly asked in minority circles and are already creating issues (see below). Israel has declared war on what it categorises as a terrorist organisation that is only partially responsible for administration of Palestinian territories. It eschewed operations under the “anti-terror” umbrella and went straight to war.

Compare and contrast this to Russia in Ukraine. Russia never made a declaration of war, leaving the exact categorisation of its actions internally and externally as a legal argument on a longer list of legal arguments. The use of the “Special Military Operation” label was a deliberate legal decision. In that context, the labelling of what it has done in Ukraine as a generally illegal war, one big war crime or comprising of identifiable war crimes is at best noise on the narrative winds and at worst reflected in the slow-moving and spasmodic actions around the ICC, where its enemies have to do the maximum amount of work to prove a case against Russia. Russia has prosecuted an invasive war on its terms and given nothing for free to its enemies.

Israel has utterly failed to take a self-protective leaf out of Russia’s book, which betrays three fundamental characteristics that might look like strengths but are actually weaknesses born out of political ineptitude:

1. Israel has instantly reacted in an extreme manner politically and militarily;

2. Its actions are open expressions of anger and hatred against Palestine as a state and a people;

3. This opening response fans the flames of speculation that it has either fomented or sought to bring about a pre-text via which to achieve its internal and regional political objectives, rather than legitimately reacted to criminal attack.

Hot on the heels of Netanyahu was Israel’s Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, who made remarkably explicit statements that crossed the line of international law, straight into the language and intent of genocide, dehumanisation and possible racism.

To believe that Israel had no other option but to go to maximum deflection from the get go is to lie to oneself on a monumentally childish level. Israel’s options went from doing literally nothing, through securing immediate internal and border security, to a single revenge strike, focused/limited operations, direct talks with Hamas and any regional actors, to all out war. On this spectrum is a near infinite number of choices over an undefined timeframe.

Instead, Israel has implemented its Spinal Tap Doctrine and instantly turned the dial straight to 11.

This is its first and most predictable mistake. It is also likely its biggest mistake because it permanently defines every single subsequent action and statement Israel takes.

We have covered the definition and act of genocide before in previous articles around the Ukrainian war, but they are worth revisiting in this context because unlike Ukraine, Israel has seemingly wittingly ticked the hardest box to tick on the UN’s genocide check list.

Definition

Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide

Article II

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

1. Killing members of the group;

2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Elements of the crime

The Genocide Convention establishes in Article I that the crime of genocide may take place in the context of an armed conflict, international or non-international, but also in the context of a peaceful situation. The latter is less common but still possible. The same article establishes the obligation of the contracting parties to prevent and to punish the crime of genocide.

The popular understanding of what constitutes genocide tends to be broader than the content of the norm under international law. Article II of the Genocide Convention contains a narrow definition of the crime of genocide, which includes two main elements:

1. A mental element: the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such"; and

2. A physical element, which includes the following five acts, enumerated exhaustively:

   1. Killing members of the group

   2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group

   3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part

   4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group

   5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

The intent is the most difficult element to determine. To constitute genocide, there must be a proven intent on the part of perpetrators to physically destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Cultural destruction does not suffice, nor does an intention to simply disperse a group. It is this special intent, or dolus specialis, that makes the crime of genocide so unique. In addition, case law has associated intent with the existence of a State or organizational plan or policy, even if the definition of genocide in international law does not include that element.

Importantly, the victims of genocide are deliberately targeted - not randomly – because of their real or perceived membership of one of the four groups protected under the Convention (which excludes political groups, for example). This means that the target of destruction must be the group, as such, and not its members as individuals. Genocide can also be committed against only a part of the group, as long as that part is identifiable (including within a geographically limited area) and “substantial.”

The UN states that the hardest bit of genocide to prove is intent. If this has to be inferred by observers then genocide can be denied by the perpetrators, forcing the observers to gather sufficient evidence and try to prove intent. Israel, it would appear, has made an open declaration of intent to harm Palestinians on an indiscriminate basis, and then commenced widescale attacks against Palestinian people, irrespective of whether they are some form of combatant. Therefore, within just the first week of direct conflict, it could be argued that Israel has declared genocidal intent and then actually killed and harmed people who are identifiably of “in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.

NOTE: The UN’s definition of genocide contains no minimum numbers or scale, so there is no definite number of lives to take before genocide can be said to have been committed. This is another nail in Israel’s coffin.

To make matter worse, Israeli President Isaac Herzog said on Friday:

“It is an entire nation out there that is responsible. It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true. They could have risen up. They could have fought against that evil regime which took over Gaza in a coup d’etat… But we are at war with [inaudible]… We are defending our homes, we are protecting our homes. That’s the truth. And when a nation protects its home, it fights. And we will fight until we break their backbone.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/israel-gaza-isaac-herzog_n_65295ee8e4b03ea0c004e2a8

Herzog’s claim is outlandish and defies all basic notions of sense, restraint and legal legitimacy: clearly not all Palestinian citizens can be complicit with Hamas and/or with its attacks; such a claim did not even apply to the German populace in the aftermath of the WW2. His claim simply cannot apply to the vast majority of children, who constitute half of the casualties.

Unfortunately for Herzog, the US Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, directly contradicted his claim.

Hamas is not the Palestinian people. These are separate entities and so I do not think that the people should pay the price for the actions of this terrorist organization.

Lloyd Austin

Herzog cites a “coup d’etat” that no one has previously referenced but can assumed to mean the election of Hamas and its power within Palestine. This claim that the people are guilty for not having risen up against Hamas is beyond bizarre, given Hamas’ long existence and the Israeli government’s interactions with and funding of it under Netanyahu. Herzog’s has now branded all Israelis as guilty of the war crimes that the Israeli government has committed, ever. To make such a claim on the public stage, which literally hems him in to a corner that everyone can see, is grossly amateurish and verging on the insane.

For years, the various governments led by Benjamin Netanyahu took an approach that divided power between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank — bringing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to his knees while making moves that propped up the Hamas terror group.

The idea was to prevent Abbas — or anyone else in the Palestinian Authority’s West Bank government — from advancing toward the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Thus, amid this bid to impair Abbas, Hamas was upgraded from a mere terror group to an organization with which Israel held indirect negotiations via Egypt, and one that was allowed to receive infusions of cash from abroad.

…Meanwhile, Israel has allowed suitcases holding millions in Qatari cash to enter Gaza through its crossings since 2018, in order to maintain its fragile ceasefire with the Hamas rulers of the Strip.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/

Herzog’s claim also reflexively references “war” against an enemy he did not specifically name in the clip and references Israeli “homes” - a loaded term when it comes to the matter of Israeli settlements inside Gaza. The UN has declared, by vote including Israel, that the terms and situation of Israeli settlements within Gaza are illegal. This takes “defence” of settlements permanently off the table, leaving Israeli territory as the only legitimate “homes”. Herzog has set up his own legal and moral hypocrisy.

October 2022

Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory illegal: UN rights commission

Recent statements by the Secretary-General and numerous Member States have clearly indicated that any attempt at unilateral annexation of a State’s territory by another State is a violation of international law and is null and void; 143 member States including Israel last week, voted in favour of a General Assembly resolution reaffirming this,” said Navi Pillay, the Commission Chair.  

“Unless universally applied, including to the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, this core principle of the United Nations Charter will become meaningless”, she added. 

The Commission has called on the UN General Assembly to request an urgent Advisory Opinion from the ICJ on the legal consequences of the occupation.

The report concludes by saying that some of the Israeli government policies and actions may constitute “elements” of crimes under international criminal law, including the war crime of transferring part of your own civilian population into occupied territory. 

“The actions of Israeli Governments reviewed in our report, constitute an illegal occupation and annexation regime that must be addressed,” said Commissioner Chris Sidoti.  

“The international system and individual States must act and uphold their obligations under international law. That must begin at this session of the General Assembly with a referral to the International Court of Justice.”

https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/10/1129722

3 November 2021

Israel settlement expansion ‘tramples’ on human rights law, experts contend

Nearly 700,000 Israeli settlers are now living in illegal settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, they stated. 

In recent weeks, Israeli authorities have approved plans for more than 1,700 new housing units in two settlements in East Jerusalem, Givat Hamatos and Pisgat Zeev, the experts reported.  Developments are underway for an estimated 9,000 more in Atarot, and another 3,400 in an area just east of Jerusalem. 

In the West Bank, plans to construct some 3,000 housing units are also being advanced, while reports indicate the Israeli government wants to retroactively legalize several settlement outputs. 

“The very raison d’être of the Israeli settlements in occupied territory – the creation of demographic facts on the ground to solidify a permanent presence, a consolidation of alien political control and an unlawful claim of sovereignty – tramples upon the fundamental precepts of humanitarian and human rights law,” said the experts. 

https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/11/1104792

To add insult to injury, there are calls for a Nakba 2 from an MP and from Israeli citizens. In case we couldn’t spot Ariel Kallner’s racist psychopathy from his words, he did his best to pick a photo that goes some way to hinting at it.

But none of this is new.

In the space of just a week, Israel’s Prime Minister, President and Defence Minister have together set out Israel’s official position, which is instantly identifiable as illegal, morally questionable in the extreme and comprises the intent and actual act of war crimes. That this can be identified by simple reference to just core UN documentation and pre-existing rulings speaks to the degree of political ineptness on display. They have done this under the basic pressure of a single Hamas military operation, which the nation should be ready for and used to. Indeed, Israel itself foments the image that it has always been ready and able to face, deal with and contain Hamas and other security threats. That image is crumbling in just the first week and the weeks events have smashed through the relative silence around historic Palestinian oppression of the last 15 years, achieving what we described as an element of the first part of the trap.

The initial parts of this extreme position were laid out so quickly that it’s now open season on whether the attacks were “tolerated”, and also whether the political and military responses were pre-planned or determined with inadequate consideration and legal advice. To initially park this issue, Israel had only one option: to admit some form of error. It cannot offer any other explanation. It cannot say, “we knew but we ignored it,” or “allowed it for X reasons.” However, admission of such a grave error is another nail in the coffin of the present administration.

Shin Bet’s head, Ronen Bar, has taken the hit but is unlikely to go anywhere yet while there’s masses of people what all need killing. It’s all hands to the triggers. That Israel’s “state of war” has materialised slap bang in the time of Netanyahu’s political and criminal troubles and the attempt to re-engineer the supreme court smacks of perfectly convenient coincidence that Israeli’s might have a hard time buying.

The War Netanyahu Cares Most About Is His War on Israelis' Minds

As Israel Reels From Hamas Attacks, Netanyahu Blames Everyone but Himself

Naftali Bennet made a psychopathic outburst on Sky TV that almost beggars belief, considering his political background. He literally dismissed all Palestinian lives and declared Israel to have practically carte blanche out of little more than unbridled anger. What Bennett is betraying is his belief in the supremacy and primacy of Israeli lives over any others, which is potential expression of flat out racism.

A bizarre microcosm of Israel’s seeming willingness to walk or bungle into traps was pointedly illustrated by Danny Ayalon, former Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister and diplomat, in an interview with Al Jazeera. Ayalon dismissed “collective punishment” and humanitarian issues, citing “new rules of the game” as if Israel gets to re-write international law on a unilateral basis that no one else knows or understands, despite countries having faced terrorist attacks throughout the centuries. Ayalon also believes that Israel is free to abandon international laws of armed conflict and humanitarian conventions and only provide food, water, fuel and electricity when she feels like it i.e. when Israel’s demands or conditions are met. This is false. Ayalon himself walks into a trap of his own making, which displays his total disregard and even lack of understanding or recognition of international law (see hubris). It was refreshing to see the presenter hold Ayalon to account.

Why is this Israel’s first and defining mistake?

• Israel has simply eradicated its political and military options. Any form of manoeuvre that does not match its initial statements and actions is some form of backpedalling, doubt, acknowledgement of errors, or admission of weakness.

• It instantly crossed the line by declaring intention to commit genocide. Now the UN and nations around the world do not need to find evidence of and prove intent, which is the hardest bit.

• All of Israel’s actions from this point forwards will be judged against its statement of intent and the definition of genocide.

• The “intelligence error” is a political and military failure that still needs to be paid for.

• Setting an objective of the eradication of Hamas is largely impossible to actually achieve and prove, as well as so politically and militarily expensive it is likely to fail. It also rules out any other form of solution. It polarises everyone into war/no war camps. Hamas is not a group or a collection of things. It is fundamentally a set of ideas born out of experience of oppression and death. Those experiences are being forced back onto the wider Palestinian population by Israel and will grow the group and preserve the ideology. Israel’s actions make a rod for its own back, but that’s part of the point when you rule with fear and via enemies you create and maintain.

Political ineptitude sets up downstream military problems

IDF Spox Lt-Col Jonathan Conricus has the unenviable job of plastering over the IDF’s cracks. In a number of interviews and now X briefing sessions, Conricus has repeated the basic structure of Israel’s military PR blanket:

1. Israel is defending itself and so it has carte blanche to use any level of force, disregard proportionality and civilian casualties, and to blame Hamas for all of Israel’s actions and their consequences.

2. Israel didn’t start this, irrespective of what Hamas might claim as the genesis of its attack, so everything is Hamas’ fault and responsibility, including all death and destruction inflicted by Israel, anywhere, anytime.

3. Israel has fulfilled its commitments by telling civilians to “get out of the way” of Israeli attacks, irrespective of their ability to do so.

4. Hamas is using human shield tactics by discouraging people from leaving and setting up military positions in Gaza, one of the most densely populated places on Earth, thereby making all civilians and structures fair game in the end.

5. That there are no ways out of Gaza as a result of Israel’s and neighbouring nation’s decisions and actions, is irrelevant. Israel told people to get out and that’s enough.

6. Israel isn’t targeting civilians. It issues advanced warnings to civilians in a strike zone. That this would inherently also warn the military targets and enable them to escape every single time, thereby rendering the subsequent strike pointless is a contradiction that Conricus recognises and says “sometimes we can’t give a warning because of the target”. This doesn’t deal with the dominant problem - if you warn of strikes, the strikes become pointless. If you make pointless strikes of civilians and civilian structures, how are you achieving any legitimate military aim?

Conricus gets wound up when anything approaching serious questions are thrown his way by “journalists” as lame as can be found on CBC. Apparently questions about civilian deaths caused by Israel’s military choices are “off”. Maybe he is a graduate of the Neftali Bennet school of Public Relations.

The above is mired in the political set up that comes from the top. Now, the IDF personnel know that it is operating in an illegal siege that metes out collective punishment to the whole population of Gaza. They also know that people inside and outside Israel are accusing Israel of prosecuting illegal war, in which war crimes have been and will be committed. If this means that soldiers know they are being given illegal orders, their duty is to refuse those orders. If they do not, they could be labelled war criminals themselves.

For this situation to have been so quickly called out by nations and people around the world is a serious indictment of Israel as a nation. This isn’t going away and will only get worse.

Conricus tweeted that Hamas is trying to draw Israel into a militarily difficult situation, alluding to Hamas’ trap. Yet, Israel still intends to go in. It has delayed its ground offensive for a few days under the excuse of weather. This could indicate that it is trying to cope with reported problems that span tactics, potential decimation and the heavy use of technology and stand off weapons to avoid or limit the IDF’s losses. High on the list of things to mull over is also the credible threat that Hezbollah, who is already constantly engaged at the northern border and actively attacked by air and ground forces, will become maximally involved and start smashing Israeli targets across the country.

Seymour Hersh’s latest article states that the IDF is in the shit.

One veteran of the IDF, who served in a high post, told me that half of the Israeli Army has been engaged for the past decade or more in the protection of the increasing number of small settlements scattered in the West Bank where they are bitterly resented by the Palestinian population. “The Israeli planners don’t trust their infantry,” the insider said, not their willingness to go to war but what could be a disastrous lack of combat experience.

The command doesn’t trust its own troops integrity or capabilities, and it is looking to use massive, ground penetrating 5000lb JDAM bombs to blow the tunnels and everything above them. According to Hersh’s source, these weapons still aren’t enough to be sure of destroying tunnels built 60m below the surface. You remember the 5000lb JDAM, don’t you AKA MOAB (mother of all bombs)? It’s the one the yanks plonked on a mountain to keep Afghan bears inside their caves.

Hersh and Conricus don’t deal with a very, very basic question: if Hamas knows you want to destroy them then they have the option to literally leave via the tunnels for an indefinite time, then come back when the world has lost the stomach for killing civilians and there’s nothing left standing in Gaza. Hamas may have left by now. The IDF has claimed to have killed at least three Hamas commanders, but provides no proof and the circumstances beg the question of how it would know for sure, as well as how - if it knows exactly where individual Hamas people are at most times - it didn’t know about the impending attacks.

All of this is a PR nightmare for Israel provided that people badger it with simple questions, as they have been doing. This smacks of angry amateur bonfire night where childish idiots fire rockets at each other instead of into the sky. Thankfully, an adult has been dispatched in the form of Anthony Blinken, the most incompetent diplomat in the history of the United States, and he will be closely followed by Creepy Joe Biden, the most corrupt, arrogant, incompetent, deranged, demented and openly racist President in the last 40 years. So relax. It’ll all be OK as long as Kamala Harris remains locked in the drinks cabinet.

Do not underestimate the power of hubris

The obvious question here is why Israel so quickly adopted such a public yet potentially fraught position that cascades serious and legally damaging shit down on everything it does? A contributing factor that should not be dismissed is hubris born of at least three things:

1. The fundamentals of Zionist ideology combined with the notion of entitlement tracing back to interpretation of religious and ethnopolitical doctrines (see The Third Temple, below);

2. Israel’s wide support and backing of the US hegemon combined with a high level political belief that it can be manipulated;

3. Possession of nuclear weapons.

These three factors alone can drive any nation to consider itself above any law or norms that might be said to apply to any or all other parties. Add to them the fact that Israel has yet to face any consequences under international law for its historical actions to date. It may have been held accountable in some sense in occasional direct military conflict by its opponent(s), but that is not the same thing as global sanction, which will never be formally applied to Israel.

Indeed, the USA itself operates with greater degrees of hubris, born out of largely the same factors. In the “war on terror” anti-Islamic underpinnings were cited by Bush and Blair, both of whom referred to operations as a “crusade” before the language was quickly dropped. The USA’s dominance is directly reflected in its will and ability to act unilaterally even within the UN, as per operant philosophy put forward by Waxman via the Council for Foreign Relations:

The United States should prepare to operate in cases of urgent necessity absent UN Security Council authorization. The strategy laid out in this report emphasizes improving the Security Council’s functioning through unilateral and multilateral efforts that help raise the costs of actions that slow or thwart its responsiveness. That said, the United States should be prepared to act outside the Security Council if necessary. Although it should not go so far as to declare in advance an explicit intention to do so, the United States should not completely hide its willingness to do so either. For policymakers, this means being prepared to act within a legal gray zone when the moral calculus so dictates.

https://www.cfr.org/report/intervention-stop-genocide-and-mass-atrocities

In comparison to the USA, we argue that for the above reasons and more, Netanyahu and the ruling bodies he has been involved with act as though Israel is a regional superpower with global political power almost equivalent to the USA itself, such that it is now empowered to act unilaterally, outside of the legal norms. For this to be the case, other significant power blocs would have to largely confirm this in statement and/or action (or lack of it) on an ongoing basis. This is exactly what we have seen with the overt declarations of unconditional support for Israel’s absolute right “to defend itself”, absent of the definition of the meaning of “defence” or the moral and legal limits or conditions that must and should apply to that term.

In the arena of superficial noise and propaganda, we saw untrammelled and irresponsible, grossly simplistic and false statements made by those whose role hinges on being unaccountable for their statements and the consequences.

As we covered in a previous post, all Presidential candidates have adopted the same pro-Israeli stance because there is noting to lose in the race if they are all the same on that issue. The differentiation takes place on other points. Nikki Hayley cannot win and can say any junk she likes, such as “flatten them!” without any explanation of what that would require - the murder of massive amount of civilians.

Nikki Hayley and Lindsey Graham have yet another mask off moment and reveal themselves to back genocide while trying to push the “Bomb Iran” neocon objective. Ron DeSantis has raced in to surf their wake.

Considering DeSantis is a military lawyer, everything he said does not accord with what he knows about the law of war and also the reality of the political situation. He has just repackaged the Ukraine war slogan “if Russia stopped fighting and left there would be peace. If Ukraine stops fighting, they cease to exist.” The statement isn’t true. He also repeated the reference to the fake 40 dead babies story that has been fully disowned by the originating journalist but is still repeated by clowns around the world.

Sara Sidner and CNN prove again that they are not professional journalists, but professional liars and stenographers. DeSantis doesn’t care about the truth if he uses such sources and cannot identify misinformation in matters of life and death.

DeSantis directly demonstrates his selective and faulty interpretation of law. None of what he says adds up to a credible and defensible position; all it is is a talking point list to assuage his donors and the thickest and most immoral people staring at the TV, as we have seen from him all along so far.

POTUS confirms the USA’s hubris on 60 Minutes, in the style of a grotesquely, childishly arrogant, dirty, demented grandpa who kicks dogs and gets handsy with kids.

In our next instalment of Middle East Meltdown we’ll look at the effects of Israel’s self-imposed political and military corner on allies, neutral parties and adversaries alike.