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I am still away from Australia and so cannot link up with any protests about the slaughter that Israel is perpetrating. The papers here report a Unionist/Loyalist versus Nationalist divide on the question. As I posted earlier the Northern Irish Loyalists support the Israeli side while the Nationalists proudly fly the Palestinian flag. That is as it should be. I have begun reading the Angry Arab and Juan Cole again, and that in itself is a sign that political tensions are growing. Morsi, who did very little for Gaza when he was president, has issued a pro-Palestinian statement. The Angry Arab reports Israeli flags being burned in unlikely places such as Kuwait and Suez. The Saudi Arabia ruling family and the Egyptian dictator Sisi are probably feeling more isolated. Juan Cole blogs that Kerry and Obama are furious with Netanyahu because Israel's actions are isolating America within the Middle East. The Turkish government is talking or hinting at the possibility of sending warships to Gaza. That will never happen under Erdogan, but the fact that the hint is being aired does have some significance. Yet nothing seems to stop the Israel war machine. The original objective of weakening Hamas was in all probability a Saudi Arabian-Egyptian-Israeli initiative. The idea presumably was to kill so many Gazans then offer a truce which would weaken Hamas. The bombing failed to achieve that. Hamas rejected the 'truce' and public opinion stayed behind them in Gaza. Then Israel made the mistake of committing ground troops. This resulted in significant Israeli losses and evoked memories of IDF humiliations in Lebanon. At that stage the Israeli war machine was faced with the bad choice of accepting a truce which would leave Hamas stronger. They rejected that and as a consequence the bombing intensified and more children died. Now there is threat of an even bigger military offensive. Seemingly the objective is the tunnels. That of course is a nonsense. If the IDF fills in tunnels and they can be dug up again. Besides picture of tunnels do not cut it in the social media sphere when they are up alongside pictures of the butchered children. So where are we now? Obama and Kerry seem unable to save Zionism from the Zionists. A full on military assault on Gaza will result in more horror and the political consequences for those Arab regimes which support Israel could be very serious. The Hezbollah leader, Nasrallah, has reportedly said the situation was becoming decisive. That is exactly correct. Ultimately Israel must win militarily if it throws everything it has at the Gazans. But that will be a political disaster of the first magnitude. I personally expect Obama, Ban KI-Moon and all the other opportunists to go all out to restrain Netanyahu. But politics is not an exact science and the Zionists have embarked on a path from which they will have great difficulty in returning. comradely Gary ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
