Daily Sabah – December 6, 2023
Israel encircles Khan Younis, mounts fiercest attacks since Oct. 7
The Israeli military mounted some of the fiercest attacks on Wednesday since Oct. 7 as it encircled southern Gaza's main city, Khan Younis.
Tel Aviv's closest ally the United States, in the meanwhile, again pressed to allow fuel and vital aid into the Palestinian enclave.
Israel said its forces, backed by warplanes, were engaged in fierce battles in Gaza on Wednesday, a day after the military reached the heart of Khan Younis and also surrounded the city.
The Hamas-affiliated Al-Qassam Brigades said its fighters engaged in clashes with the military, which reported it had struck hundreds of targets in the enclave, including an alleged cell near a school in the north.
The surge in combat comes after a truce between Israel and Hamas collapsed last week.
Hamas' armed wing said it killed or wounded eight Israeli troops and destroyed 24 military vehicles Tuesday. An Israeli military website listed two troop deaths for Tuesday and 83 since the ground operation began.
Gaza health officials said many civilians were killed in an Israeli strike on houses in Deir al-Balah, north of Khan Younis. Dr. Eyad Al-Jabri, head of the Shuhada Al-Aqsa Hospital there, told Reuters at least 45 people were killed. Reuters could not reach the area nor confirm the toll.
Hamas' media office said Tuesday at least 16,248 people including 7,112 children and 4,885 women had been killed in Gaza by Israel's military since the Oct. 7 Hamas incursion. Thousands more are missing and feared buried under rubble.
Those figures were not immediately verified by the Gazan Health Ministry.
Israeli casualties, on the other hand, remain at around 1,200.
The Israeli military mounted some of the fiercest attacks on Wednesday since Oct. 7 as it encircled southern Gaza's main city, Khan Younis.
Tel Aviv's closest ally the United States, in the meanwhile, again pressed to allow fuel and vital aid into the Palestinian enclave.
Israel said its forces, backed by warplanes, were engaged in fierce battles in Gaza on Wednesday, a day after the military reached the heart of Khan Younis and also surrounded the city.
The Hamas-affiliated Al-Qassam Brigades said its fighters engaged in clashes with the military, which reported it had struck hundreds of targets in the enclave, including an alleged cell near a school in the north.
The surge in combat comes after a truce between Israel and Hamas collapsed last week.
Hamas' armed wing said it killed or wounded eight Israeli troops and destroyed 24 military vehicles Tuesday. An Israeli military website listed two troop deaths for Tuesday and 83 since the ground operation began.
Gaza health officials said many civilians were killed in an Israeli strike on houses in Deir al-Balah, north of Khan Younis. Dr. Eyad Al-Jabri, head of the Shuhada Al-Aqsa Hospital there, told Reuters at least 45 people were killed. Reuters could not reach the area nor confirm the toll.
Hamas' media office said Tuesday at least 16,248 people including 7,112 children and 4,885 women had been killed in Gaza by Israel's military since the Oct. 7 Hamas incursion. Thousands more are missing and feared buried under rubble…..
DAILY SABAH – december 6, 2023
Israel’s biggest strength Islamic world’s division
Israel’s biggest strength does not lie in its capacities but rather in the dividedness of the Islamic world, Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmuş said on Wednesday.
“Today, Israel’s biggest strength does not rely on its capacities. Its greatest strength relies, unfortunately, on the fact that the Islamic world is disunited and divided,” Kurtulmuş told Qatar’s Al-Sharq newspaper.
Kurtulmuş reminded that all political parties with a parliamentary group condemned Israel’s attacks in two separate joint declarations and reiterated Türkiye is engaged in efforts to send all kinds of humanitarian aid to those in need in Gaza.
He said that the country also tries to raise awareness of Israel’s attacks on civilians on international platforms but that he encounters resistance from some countries that defend Tel Aviv.
Kurtulmuş underlined that the reactions of the Islamic countries 60 days after the start of the war were insufficient.
“Unfortunately, this is the part that saddens people the most. People follow the events in Gaza with great pain and condemn them, but unfortunately, no steps are taken that will yield results,” he said.
The Parliament speaker touched upon historical ties between Türkiye and Palestine and said that Ankara would continue its efforts to stop Israel’s atrocities.
“We will strive to fight for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. Hopefully, in the international arena, as part of a mechanism, Türkiye will continue its efforts in the Palestinian territories as a guarantor state in terms of preserving the cease-fire to be achieved in order to resolve this problem in a short time.”
He said, however, that Israel has also entered a stage of becoming isolated on the international stage. “They have great media, trade and finance powers; they may have the power to influence several parliaments, yet people’s conscience and mind are stronger than these.
“No matter how much the U.S. and West support it, Israel has now become a great burden for America and the West.”
Israel resumed its military offensive on the Palestinian territory on Friday after the end of a weeklong humanitarian pause with the Palestinian resistance group Hamas.
At least 16,248 Palestinians, 70% women and children, have been killed and more than 43,616 others injured in relentless air and ground attacks on the enclave since Oct. 7 following a cross-border attack by Hamas.
The Israeli death toll in the Hamas attack continues to stand at 1,200, according to official figures.
West Bank feels the heat as Gaza endures Israeli bombing for 2 months
Since Oct. 7, Israeli army has turned West Bank into ‘battlefield’ by conducting daily raids, killing, injuring, detaining Palestinians
Besides pummeling the besieged Gaza Strip with relentless bombing since Oct. 7, the Israeli army intensified its military campaign against the occupied West Bank, killing and arresting hundreds of Palestinians.
According to Anadolu reporters, the Israeli army turned all the West Bank into a "battlefield" through its daily incursions, erecting military checkpoints to cut the connectivity between the Palestinian areas and hindering the Palestinians' movement.
On the other hand, the Israeli army also supported Israeli settlers in their violence against Palestinian farmers, and in many cases the settlers attacked and opened fire, killing and injuring several Palestinians.
As the Israeli war on Gaza completes two months, the number of Palestinians killed and injured in the West Bank keeps increasing daily.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said on Tuesday the total death toll of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces and settlers in the West Bank since the start of the year has risen to 469.
- Settlers’ assaults
Since Oct. 7, the Israeli settlers carried out around 610 assaults across the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, according to a statement by the official Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission.
The violence by Israeli settlers included opening direct fire on Palestinians, attacking their properties and farmlands, and throwing rocks at Palestinians’ vehicles as well as setting Palestinian cars and homes on fire.
Palestinian official estimates say the settlers' violence forced at least 143 Palestinian families, comprising 1,014 individuals, to leave their homes located in the Israeli army-controlled areas of the West Bank.
- Detentions
As the Israeli army carries out raids across the West Bank, over 3,580 Palestinians have been detained since Oct. 7.
According to Palestinian official estimates, the Israeli authorities hold a total of 7,800 Palestinians in jails as of the end of November, including 33 women, 166 children, and 2,873 others held under the administrative detention policy without any charges or trials.
At least six Palestinian detainees have been killed in Israeli jails due to torture since Oct. 7, according to Palestinian groups, including the Palestinian Prisoners Society NGO.
- Blockade
After Oct. 7, the Israeli army blockaded the West Bank by erecting military checkpoints and disconnecting access to several areas.
Anadolu reporters report that Palestinians are forced to use alternative rural and unpaved routes to reach their destinations.
Under this situation, a Palestinian who used to travel from Nablus city to Ramallah city in less than 40 minutes before Oct. 7 now needs around two hours for such a trip.
- Onslaught on Gaza
Israel resumed its military offensive on the Palestinian territory on Friday after the end of a weeklong humanitarian pause with the Palestinian group Hamas.
At least 16,248 Palestinians have been killed and more than 43,616 others injured in relentless air and ground attacks on the enclave since Oct. 7 following a cross-border attack by Hamas.
Erdogan rebukes Israeli threat to carry out assassinations in Türkiye
"Those who attempt such a thing should not forget that the consequences can be extremely serious," says Turkish President Erdogan.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned Tel Aviv of heavy price amid reports of Israeli plot to assassinate Hamas members living outside Palestine.
“If they dare to take such a step against Türkiye and Turkish people, they will be doomed to pay a price which they cannot recover from,” Erdogan told journalists Tuesday on his return flight from a two-day Qatar trip when he was asked about a Wall Street Journal article which claimed that Israel plans to kill Hamas members living outside Palestine.
“Those who attempt such a thing should not forget that the consequences can be extremely serious. No one is unaware of Türkiye's progress in both intelligence and security fields worldwide. Additionally, we are not a newly established state,” he stressed.
Erdogan's warning came after Ronen Bar, the head of Israel’s Shin Bet domestic security service, said that Israel has initiated plans to carry out assassinations targeting Hamas members residing outside of Palestinian territories.
“In every place, in Gaza, in the West Bank, in Lebanon, in Türkiye, in Qatar, everywhere,” Bar said in an audio recording. “It’ll take a few years, but we will be there to do it.”
Gaza belongs to Palestinians
Gaza belongs to Palestinians and who will govern it will be decided by the Palestinian people, Erdogan said, condemning Israel's plan to create a 40-km long and 12-km wide buffer zone in Gaza.
"The best thing Israel can do is to accept the establishment of an independent Palestinian State within the 1967 borders and return the occupied Palestinian territories to their rightful owners," Erdogan said.
Underlining the issue of rebuilding and reconstruction in Gaza, the President Erdogan said, "we will strengthen our dialogue with Gulf countries to achieve the goal of healing the wounds of our Palestinian brothers and sisters and establishing an independent Palestinian State on the basis of the 1967 borders."
"We say to those with eyes who do not see the oppression, those with ears who do not hear the truth, and those with tongues who do not speak the truth: "See, hear, speak the truth now," he added.
In an effort to strengthen dialogue with Gulf countries, we will enhance our engagement with them to heal the wounds of our Palestinian brothers and sisters and work towards the establishment of an independent Palestinian State based on the 1967 borders.
'Settler terrorism of Israel'
On the increasing violence by the illegal Israeli settlers, President Erdogan said: "Israel needs to remove the terrorists they market as settlers from those houses and lands and think about how they can build a peaceful future with the Palestinians," remarking on Israeli settlers occupying Palestinian lands.
Drawing attention to the widely circulated blames over Hamas, he said, "Hamas is, above all, a resistance organisation. Hamas is a political movement that emerged victorious in the elections held in Palestine."
"Hamas is a political movement that had its territories taken away from them in 1947. Today, Hamas is striving to protect its own land," he added.
He also emphasised how Israel has turned Gaza into an open-air prison for years, subjecting it to restrictions on water, food, clothing, and electricity, trying to discipline it in its own way.
Increasing number of people showing solidarity with Palestine in streets
"The substantial financial, military, and material support provided by these countries has propelled Israel to its current position," he expressed, criticising the unwavering support of Western countries, especially the US to Israel.
Reminding that before the attacks on Gaza, there was a trial against Netanyahu in Israel, "Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is currently in a bankrupt situation and may raise the bankruptcy flag at any moment," he said.
He expressed that "we, on the other hand, have applied to the International Criminal Court with around 3,000 lawyers from various parts of the world for the international trial of Netanyahu and his accomplices."
He further remarks on the increasing number of people showing solidarity with the Palestinians in the streets of London and in front of the White House in New York, in Paris, Belgium, the Netherlands.
He expressed all these people demand the ending of atrocities in besieged Palestinian enclave.
Anadolu Agency – December 6, 2023
Mossad's assassination threat and the reaction of Turkish intelligence
Neither Türkiye nor any other country would ever accept being a playground for Mossad’s intelligence operations, as this would violate Turkish laws and sovereignty
Murat Aslan
On Dec. 1, the Wall Street Journal published a story by Dion Nissenbaum saying that Israel is planning to kill Hamas members around the world, mentioning those living in Lebanon, Türkiye, and Qatar. Turkish officials responded with a harsh statement through Anadolu that the Turkish Intelligence Agency (MIT) will never permit such undertakings, as various intelligence organizations tried to in the past. Pointing out the illegality of these alleged acts in Türkiye, officials said they had warned Mossad representatives in Türkiye. Turkish intelligence has made public several intelligence operations revealing Mossad cells and their activities in Türkiye. This shows that another wave of intelligence competition is coming in the days ahead including Mossad’s quest to attack Hamas in third countries and the MIT’s efforts to repel the Mossad threats.
Why did Türkiye warn Israel against intelligence operations targeting Hamas members in Türkiye?
Neither Türkiye nor any other country would ever accept being a playground for Mossad’s intelligence operations. Such an act would violate Turkish laws and Türkiye's sovereignty. Nor would Türkiye cooperate with Israel here, since it does not recognize Hamas as a terrorist group, especially if the Israeli aggression in Gaza is taken into consideration. The natural outcome of such an undertaking would be increased intelligence efforts on suspected Mossad units, as Türkiye did last year. The first operation identified 15 Mossad members who were trying to recruit Arab students in Türkiye. The second operation was this summer was when Turkish intelligence thwarted seven Mossad members who were planning to attack 14 Palestinians. Another piece of information circulated by Turkish media was that Turkish intelligence identified and arrested 13 Mossad members gathering information on Iranian citizens and companies this May. If Mossad repeats such acts, covertly or overtly, the Israeli intelligence community in Türkiye will be accused of committing espionage and terror activities. As could be witnessed in events in 2021, 2022, and 2023, Türkiye never accepted the intelligence activities of third parties, especially Iran and Israel, on its soil.
What are Türkiye’s options if Mossad starts an intelligence operation?
Türkiye has observed how Mossad assassinated high-value Iranian individuals with remote-controlled arms mounted on vehicles or assassinations. Thus, any expert would anticipate that Turkish intelligence has already prioritized Mossad’s activities in Türkiye within the context of counterintelligence. For instance, in Malaysia, Turkish intelligence recently rescued a Palestinian who is a software expert. So Turkish intelligence is prepared to respond to such acts.
Once Israel starts an intelligence offensive in Türkiye targeting Hamas or any other nationality, the reaction could be a combination of countermeasures, which might already be put in action. It may be an integrated effort through symmetric and asymmetric methods. The symmetry would address the prerequisites of reciprocity to prevent the hostile acts of Mossad. In this sense, the initial response is increased vigilance through counterintelligence measures covering all intelligence disciplines. A common practice of Mossad is to exploit nationals from third countries in their intelligence activities. Türkiye is quite familiar with that tactic. Hence Türkish intelligence will not only focus on individuals with linkages to Israel but on all probable ones with Turkish or a third country nationality.
Other than countermeasures, given that Türkiye provided information on the whereabouts of a Palestinian hacker to Malaysian intelligence, Türkiye may provide timely and accurate information to other countries so as to deter Mossad activities. Türkiye may deepen collaboration with these intelligence organizations to deter the acts of Mossad if it is seen as a direct threat.
The asymmetric response would be political and may be based on sanctions on Israeli interests as far as Israel directly starts an aggression in Turkish territories. Türkiye may limit Israeli citizens’ travels in Türkiye or deprive Israeli companies of the use of required services by Turkish service providers. Combined with Israel’s crimes against humanity in Gaza, Türkiye may run arrest warrants through international institutions and limit the freedom to maneuver of Israeli citizens suspected of being involved in hostile acts.
Is intelligence organizations’ cooperation against Mossad possible?
Western governments mostly support the Israeli cause against Hamas, and intelligence assets mounted on British Royal Air Force aircraft started to provide information on the Gaza hostages’ whereabouts. On the other hand, there exists no significant detail on what assets and what intelligence methodology they will use. The lessons learned from Afghanistan and Iraq remind us that we will witness signal intelligence assets, which are already active in southern Cyprus in British bases, probably scanning cell phones, receivers, or any transmitter. Turkish intelligence will be interested in what and how Israeli and British intelligence are proceeding with their activities, though it is not a matter of intervening for now. Nevertheless, once Mossad starts intelligence operations in Türkiye, the conditions may change. Türkiye may be more active in the region cooperating with Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, or other countries.
The best scenario for Mossad is to respect the sovereignty of other states. The worst case appears igniting an intelligence competition in which current technology facilitates accessing secrets. That is why Turkish intelligence didn’t hesitate to warn the representatives of Mossad in Türkiye.
Murat Aslan is associate professor at Hasan Kalyoncu University in Gaziantep, Türkiye and senior researcher at the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA), based in the Turkish capital Ankara.
Information Clearing House - December 5, 2023
Unable to Defeat Palestinian Resistance, Israeli Regime Intensifies Killing and Torturing Children
Locking children up and threatening their families with punishment if they show the slightest emotion is the dirtiest terror tactic.
By Finian Cunningham
Despite Western media’s systematic attempts to normalize Israeli state terrorism, it is inescapably evident even from their distorted lens just how wicked the Netanyahu regime is.
All Palestinians released so far in hostage exchanges by the Israeli regime are women and children. Women and children! Why were they even in detention in the first place? What sort of despotic regime does that?
One that is supported to the hilt, militarily and diplomatically, by the United States and other Western governments. So much for “Western Values”.
And for all their valiant attempts to cover up for outrageous war crimes, the Western media can only be seen to be contemptible laundromats washing the blood away. They are as complicit in this sickening genocide as the U.S. and European governments are. The BBC and CNN, etc, are the most trusted news sources, according to their advertising. Yes, the most trusted to make you throw up.
Viewers are told that Israeli “hostages” are being exchanged for Palestinian “prisoners”. The insulting implication is that the Israelis held by the Hamas militants are more innocent than the Palestinians held by the Israeli state.
More than 7,200 Palestinians are currently in Israeli prisons. Over the past six weeks since the deadly attacks by Hamas on October 7 when more than 1,100 Israelis were killed (a third of them soldiers and many of the civilian victims killed by the Israel Defense Forces using excessive lethal firepower), there have been more than 3,000 Palestinians from the West Bank and East Jerusalem thrown into detention centers.
Palestinians are being locked up at a greater rate than ever before. For every Palestinian released over the past week, more than ten have been put into detention. This makes a mockery of the so-called hostage swaps that the Western media are reporting.
Meanwhile, a surge in violence from Israeli state forces and settler vigilante groups has killed over 240 Palestinians in the West Bank, including nearly 60 children. The latest victims were two boys, aged 9 and 15, who were shot dead in the city of Jenin by IDF stormtroopers.
The massive bombing of Gaza has killed at least 15,000 people and nearly half of the death toll is due to children. Another 7,000 are missing and nearly half of them are believed to be children.
In the episodic slaughters over the 75 years of its existence that the Israeli regime inflicted on the Palestinians, the latest genocide is grotesquely differentiated by the huge proportion of children that are being murdered, or imprisoned and tortured.
The Western media provides cloyingly emotive portrayals of the Israelis released by Hamas. The conditions of their captivity in Gaza since October 7 are described as traumatic and hellish, even though the few accounts from hostages that are published confirm they were relatively well treated and not abused. The Israeli state appears to be curtailing any interviews by former hostages precisely because it fears what they may say as a few have already disclosed, namely, that Hamas militants treated them humanely and also that IDF tanks killed many of their own citizens with wantonly reckless firepower.
For Palestinians released, by contrast, the Western media give negligible coverage of their experience in Israeli detention. What are their names? Why were they detained? How were they treated while in custody? The information void dehumanizes the victims and whitewashes the perpetrators.
Fortunately, Al Jazeera and other Arab and Iranian media have commendably reported on the released Palestinians in a normal humane way.
One insightful report by Al Jazeera was from the cramped home of Ahmad Saleimi (14) in East Jerusalem. The youth was among the 210 or so Palestinians that have been released so far by the Israelis in exchange for captives held by Hamas. He was the youngest detainee.
All of the Palestinians released so far are women and children. Some of the minors have spent years in so-called administrative detention without charge or trial, some in solitary confinement. That is, under indefinite psychological torture.
On his release, as with other Palestinians, the family of Ahmad Saleimi was severely warned by the Israeli interior ministry to not display any celebrations on his reunion. Ahmad was threatened that he would be immediately taken into custody again if his family did not comply with the order. There were heartrending images of the mother and father kissing their son in a muted and suppressed manner. No doubt afraid that any sign of joy would incur the wrath of the regime. What should have been a cherished occasion was marred by fear and tension of reprisal by the Israelis.
Such vindictive cruelty! Hundreds of children like Ahmad are snatched from their homes by IDF raids and thrown into dungeons. They are beaten, tortured and even killed while in detention. They are accused of throwing stones or some other act of insurrection, without evidence or due process.
The Israeli regime has now over 7,000 Palestinian hostages, many of them women and children. When will they all be freed? The cumulative figure over the years runs to tens of thousands. Some children have been detained multiple times, and some have grown into adults while incarcerated.
Upon their release, they are threatened to not show any emotion upon being greeted by their mothers and fathers or younger siblings. Can you imagine the anguish, the joy, the heartache, and the anxiety of being thrown back into the dungeon at a whim by the Israeli regime?
This speaks of the perverse barbarity of the Zionist occupation regime that Washington and its European allies fulsomely support with military weapons and diplomatic and media cover.
After more than six weeks of murderous bombardment and IDF raids on hospitals leaving premature babies to die in cold defunct incubators, yet for all its vicious criminal terrorism, the Israeli regime has not defeated the armed fighters of Hamas and other Palestinian resistance groups.
Indeed, the fact that Hamas has been able to release nearly 100 Israeli civilians unharmed after weeks of devastating aerial bombardment shows that the U.S.-backed Israeli regime has failed in its stated objective of destroying Hamas. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ministers should be sacked for the abject failure, and for the unnecessary deaths, destruction and monstrous war crimes hauled off to an international war crimes court – along with Joe Biden and other Western politicians.
It seems that the Netanyahu regime is so desperate to defeat the Palestinian population who have shown the most incredible resilience that this despicable regime is resorting to targeting children in every abominable way imaginable. Bombing, shooting, imprisoning and torturing them. Holding the threat of re-imprisonment is an ultimate terror weapon to intimidate and suppress Palestinian families. What parent would not be terrified for the sake of their children and be tempted to appease the tormentors for a little mercy?
Locking children up and threatening their families with punishment if they show the slightest emotion is the dirtiest terror tactic for a psychotic Israeli regime in its historic fiendish failure.
Finian Cunningham. Former editor and writer for major news media organizations. He has written extensively on international affairs.
Tom Dispatch – December 4, 2023
The Israel-India-U.S. Triangle: Its Human Toll Will Be Incalculable
By Priti Gulati Cox and Stan Cox
In 1981, India’s post office issued a stamp showing the flags of India and occupied Palestine flying side by side above the phrase “Solidarity with the Palestinian people.” That now seems like ancient history. Today, Hindu nationalists are flying the flags of India and Israel side by side as a demonstration of their support for that country’s catastrophic war on Gaza.
It’s a match made in heaven (or do we mean hell?), because the two nations have similar “problems” they’re trying to “solve.” Israel has long been engaged in the violent suppression of Palestinians whose lands they occupy (including the current devastation of Gaza, an assault that 34 U.N. experts have labeled a “genocide in the making”). Meanwhile, India’s Hindu nationalist government continues the harsh oppression of its non-Hindu minorities: Muslims, Christians, Dalits, and indigenous people.
About the time Zionist settlers were beginning their occupation of Palestine in the early 1920s, an Indian right-wing figure, V.D. Savarkar, fashioned the ideology of Hindutva (Hindu-ness). Today, right-wing Hindu nationalists employ Hindutva and physical violence to further its vision of India as a nation for Hindus and Hindus only. Similarly, Zionism views historic Palestine as a land for Jews and Jews only. These parallel visions, along with the two governments’ increasingly authoritarian tendencies and ready use of violence, have drawn them into a dark alliance the consequences of which are unpredictable.
India Makes New Friends
The Republic of India and the State of Israel were born nine months apart in 1947 and 1948, each an offspring of partition. The British-ruled Indian subcontinent was then split into Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-majority India, while Israel was carved out of a portion of the British Mandate Palestine.
Throughout the Cold War, India would be a leader of what came to be known as the nonaligned movement — formerly colonized nations that sought to develop independently of both American and Soviet influence. In the 1980s, it also became the first non-Arab nation to recognize the state of Palestine. A similar recognition of Israel didn’t come until 1992, around the time India was shifting away from its nonaligned social-democratic stance toward its current adherence to neoliberalism.
In recent decades, India and Israel have established strong trading relationships, especially in the military sphere. In fact, given the massive militarization of its borders with China and Pakistan and its suppression of occupied Kashmir and its people, India has become the top importer of weapons and surveillance equipment from Israel. In 2014, the Hindu-supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won power and its leader, Narendra Modi, became prime minister. In the process, India and Israel grew ever closer.
By 2016, as the Washington Post reported, “after Indian commandos carried out a raid inside Pakistan-controlled Kashmir in response to an attack by militants on an Indian army post, Modi trumpeted the action, saying: ‘Earlier, we used to hear of Israel having done something like this. But the country has seen that the Indian army is no less than anyone else.’”
Today, the Israeli weapons-robotics firm Elbit Systems has even established a drone factory in India and now has a $300 million contract to supply drones to the Indian army occupying Kashmir. Meanwhile, Modi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have established a mutual-admiration society, dubbed by the media of both countries the “Modi-Bibi bromance.” And New Delhi has all but abandoned the Palestinians.
Economic Alliances
When, on October 27th, the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution calling for an “immediate, durable, and sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities” in Gaza, only the U.S., Israel, and a handful of small nations voted “no.” India abstained. (Apparently, the Modi-Bibi bromance wasn’t quite enough to sustain a “no” vote.) Modi, however, immediately responded to the measure’s passage by declaring his “solidarity” with Israel.
Economic, political, and diplomatic relations between New Delhi, Tel Aviv, and Washington (all nuclear powers, by the way) had been strengthening even before the current conflict. Last year, for instance, India, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States formed the “I2U2 Group” to attract corporate investment for their mutual benefit. Projects now underway include “food parks across India” with “climate-smart technologies” and a “unique space-based tool for policymakers, institutions, and entrepreneurs” (whatever in — or out of — the world “food parks” and “space-based tools” might be).
Then, in September, the G-20 summit of the group of 20 major nations, meeting in New Delhi, approved an India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor which, according to Voice of America, would “establish a rail and shipping network linking the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan to the Israeli port of Haifa on the Mediterranean Sea.” And guess who now operates that very port? A company led by Gautam Adani, India’s richest person and (naturally!) a Modi buddy. Foreign Policy notes, “It is also palatable for the Middle East to have India as a major energy market to diversify its exports and offset Chinese influence over critical commodities such as oil and gas.”
But not surprisingly, the war in Gaza has thrown plans for such a new Indian-oriented economic corridor through the Middle East into limbo.
High-, Medium-, and Low-Tech Warfare
Militarily, the conflicts in occupied Palestine and occupied Kashmir are both lopsided mismatches. In each, a powerful nation-state is assaulting resource-poor populations, though the scale of slaughter, displacement, immiseration, and death wrought by the Indian regime doesn’t faintly approach what’s currently being done by Israel in the Gaza Strip — at least not yet. While the cases have similarities, magnitude isn’t one of them.
In Gaza, you have the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), a massive high-tech killing machine financed in large part by the world’s richest nation, facing off against Palestinian resistance groups, including the Qassam Brigade, whose most effective weapons are homemade Yassin antitank grenades and whose defenses largely consist of a network of fortified tunnels. Instead of engaging in face-to-face subterranean combat with the Qassam fighters — something that could turn out badly indeed for the IDF — the Israelis have been carrying out an industrial-scale bombardment of densely populated areas. As of late November, the result was approximately 15,000 civilians killed (including more than 6,000 children) and the displacement of 1.6 million people, or two-thirds of Gaza’s population.
In India, the Hindu nationalists’ onslaught against non-Hindu minorities has not been carried out by the Indian Army itself, but by a paramilitary organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), in partnership with the BJP. That unofficial army, founded almost a century ago and modeled on Italian fascist Benito Mussolini’s “blackshirts” and Adolph Hitler’s Nazi stormtroopers, has a membership of five to six million and holds daily meetings in more than 36,000 different locales across India. Its shock troops rarely even carry firearms; their weapons are low-tech, crude, and exceptionally cruel, and their targets are unarmed, unsuspecting civilians. They kill or maim using batons, machetes, strangulation, sulfuric acid to the face, and rape, among other horrors.
Such attacks by Hindu-nationalist gangs, different as they are from the military assault on Gaza, do have parallels in the occupied West Bank. There, Israeli settlers, some carrying government-supplied small arms, maraud through parts of that area (where they live illegally), beating, torturing, and killing Palestinians, including ethnic Bedouin families. They have expelled people from their homes, stolen their money and possessions, including livestock, and destroyed houses and schools. It is now olive harvest season and Jewish settlers have attacked Palestinians in their olive groves, sometimes forcing them off their ancestors’ land, perhaps permanently. More than 200 Palestinians have been killed this way since October.
Common Language
One of the worst atrocities perpetrated against Muslims since India’s partition occurred in 2002 in the western state of Gujarat. (Not coincidentally, that state’s chief minister at the time was Narendra Modi.) Following the alleged torching of a train compartment in which 58 Hindu nationalist “volunteers” were traveling, Hindu mobs inflicted state-sponsored terrorism on the Muslim community across Gujarat. More than 2,000 Muslims were killed. Speaking in the aftermath of that horror, then-prime minister A.B. Vajpayee offered a perfunctory admission of regret for the carnage, only to ask rhetorically, “Lekin aag lagayi kisne?” (“But who lit the fire?”) The implication was that since some from their community were accused of committing the initial crime, all Gujarat Muslims were responsible and that, however regrettably, justified their slaughter.
Similar allegations of collective guilt and justifications for collective punishment have a long history in Israel, as in the current conflict. In October, Israeli President Isaac Herzog claimed that “there is an entire nation out there that is responsible.” That comment earned Herzog a place in a greatest-hits video of Israeli leaders attempting to defend atrocities inflicted on Gaza’s 2.3 million inhabitants. Similarly, a former Israeli ambassador to the U.N. told Sky News, “I am very puzzled by the constant concern which the world… is showing for the Palestinian people, and is actually showing for these horrible inhuman animals.”
Some of the language surrounding it can be similar. Allegations that, in their October 7th attack on Israel, Hamas fighters beheaded children and tore fetuses from women’s wombs — none of which have been substantiated — eerily echo the sexualized violence committed by Hindu mobs in Gujarat in 2002 (rape, mutilation, the killing of women and their babies, and other horrors). A report of attackers using a sword to cut a fetus out of a Muslim woman and burning the bodies of both fetus and mother has been told and retold countless times over the past two decades.
And within mere hours of the October 7th attack in Israel, BJP politicians and Hindu nationalists in India were spreading propaganda on social media, including accusations that Palestinians were “worse than animals” and were cutting fetuses from wombs, beheading children, and taking girls as “sex slaves.” This started in India before IDF spokespeople began spreading similar claims.
An Unnatural Disaster
Drawing a comparison to the ethnic cleansing of 1948, the Israeli agriculture minister, a member of the security cabinet, recently explained his governmentﾒs goal to a reporter for the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz this way: “We are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba.” (Nakba was a reference to Israel’s forcible expulsion of 800,000 Palestinians from large portions of their territory in 1948.) When the incredulous reporter tossed the minister a lifeline, asking if he really meant what he’d said, he doubled down: “Gaza Nakba 2023. That’s how it’ll end.”
As of now, it certainly looks that way. The IDF bombed apartment blocks, shelters, schools, and hospitals in northern Gaza to force the migration of the population there toward supposedly “safe” south Gaza. They then began bombing southbound car caravans and even ambulances in which refugees were fleeing. Large groups of other Gazans were forced to make the long journey south on foot through narrow IDF-designated corridors. As the Guardian reported in mid-November,
“Those walking south under the tense gaze of Israeli troops, through a hellscape of tangled rubble that had been buildings two months ago, along roads shattered by weapons and churned to mud by tanks, had little hope of rest when they reached the south. Shelters are crammed, food and water supplies are so low the UN has warned that Palestinians face the ‘immediate possibility’ of starvation, infectious diseases are spreading, and the war there is expected to intensify in coming days.”
Israel soon began bombing parts of South Gaza, too, clearly trying to drive the refugees further south, possibly even through the Raffah gate into Egypt. But Egypt has refused to participate in such an ethnic-cleansing campaign. So, figuratively speaking, millions of desperate Palestinians have their backs to the wall, or in this case, fence, with nowhere to run.
As economic and geopolitical ties among Israel, India, and the U.S. have only continued to strengthen, Joe Biden has chummed it up with both Netanyahu and Modi, averting his eyes from their antidemocratic and all-too-violent national visions. He has backed the assault on Gaza all the way and as late as November 18th was still arguing in the Washington Post against a ceasefire. At the same time, he called for increasing the flow of humanitarian assistance to Gaza to remedy critical staggering shortages of food, water, housing, and fuel. In other words, the Biden administration is treating the catastrophe there like a natural disaster, acting as if there’s something terrible happening, something beyond his (or anyone’s) power to prevent, so all that can be done is to aid the survivors.
In truth, administrations in Washington have been treating Israel’s occupation and immiseration of the West Bank and Gaza like a natural disaster for more than half a century now. Liz Theoharis, co-chair of the Poor Peopleﾒs Campaign, recently pointed out an incident that suggests just how disingenuous that claim is. In November, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant came under withering criticism for permitting a few small, wholly inadequate truckloads of humanitarian aid to enter Gaza from Egypt. As Theoharis noted, Gallant defended his decision to allow the aid this way: “The Americans insisted, and we are not in a place where we can refuse them. We rely on them for planes and military equipment. What are we supposed to do? Tell them no?” This puts the lie to the idea that Washington has no influence over the progress or outcome of this war. It does have influence over Israel — more than $3 billion worth in the form of military aid provided by Washington every year, not to speak of the $14 billion the Biden administration still wants to reward Israel with.
As we write this, we don’t know what will happen to the people of Gaza once the temporary ceasefire for prisoner exchanges expires. But rest assured that the governments of India and Israel will continue to feed off each other as they develop new strategies, tactics, and propaganda for their respective campaigns of occupation and oppression, campaigns the U.S. government, through both action and inaction, is endorsing. Consider them now three nations under god(s) of hell.
https://www.juancole.com/2023/12/israel-triangle-incalculable.html
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The Journal of America Team:
Editor in chief:
Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Senior Editor:
Prof. Arthur Scott
Special Correspondent
Maryam Turab
