Yossi Schwartz ISL (RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine), 19.04.2024
The American politician has said that he says “Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others“. ( Groucho Marx ) This is very true for the president of the US, Joe Biden, and his schizophrenic politics. Only a few days ago, he said that he opposed the entry of the Zionist army to Raffa and that the US would not enter a war against Iran. Now, he is saying in an op-ed published by the Wall Street Journal: “If Iran succeeds in significantly escalating its assault on Israel, the US could be drawn in. Israel is our strongest partner in the Middle East; it’s unthinkable that we would stand by if its defenses were weakened and Iran was able to carry out the destruction it intended this weekend.”
President Biden has been trying, so we are told, since October 7, to avert a full-scale war in the Middle East, exhausting overt and covert diplomatic channels to restrain Israel and Iran. But Israel bombed the Iranian embassy in Damascus. On April 13, the Iranian regime launched a. retaliation of more than 300 drones and missiles toward Israel in response to the bombing, which killed the IRGC’s top commander in Syria and his deputy, among others. Ignoring the Zionist provocation, Biden turns to accuse Iran and calls to impose sanctions on Iran,
At the same time, Biden, who claims that he supports the formation of a mini-Palestinian state, has been exposed as a liar even on this issue. The intercept exposed this lie. The Palestinian Authority asked the UNSC to recognize Palestine in the 1967 occupation lands as a full state. The United States is lobbying nations to reject such membership, hoping to avoid an overt “veto” by Washington. The lobbying effort, revealed in copies of unclassified State Department cables obtained by The Intercept, is at odds with the Biden administration’s pledge to support a two-state solution fully.
In 2012, the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution granting Palestine the status of a non-member observer state. The diplomatic cables detail pressure being applied to members of the Security Council, including Malta, the council’s rotating president this month. Ecuador, in particular, is being asked to lobby Malta and other nations, including France, to oppose U.N. recognition. The State Department’s justification is that normalizing relations between Israel and Arab states is the fastest and most effective way to achieve enduring and productive statehood[i].
“While clarifying that President Joe Biden has worked vigorously to support “Palestinian aspirations for statehood” within the context “of a comprehensive peace that would resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” a diplomatic cable dated April 12 details U.S. talking points against a U.N. vote for Palestinian statehood. The cable says that Security Council members must be persuaded to reject any proposal for Palestinian statehood — and thereby its recognition as a sovereign nation — before the council’s open debate on the Middle East, scheduled for April 18. It remains the U.S. view that the most expeditious path toward a political horizon for the Palestinian people is in the context of a normalization agreement between Israel and its neighbors,” the cable reads. “We believe this approach can tangibly advance Palestinian goals in a meaningful and enduring way..“We therefore urge you not to support any potential Security Council resolution recommending the admission of ‘Palestine’ as a U.N. member state, should such a resolution be presented to the Security Council for a decision in the coming days and weeks. ‘[ii]
“On Wednesday, Israel’s far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich said that Israel’s response to Iran’s attack should inflict a “disproportionate toll” and “rock Tehran” so that the leaders of the country “regret the moment they even thought about firing.”
Smotrich is the leader of the far-right Religious Zionism party; he is not a member of the war cabinet but wields considerable power because a ‘coalition deal’ means he is technically also a minister in Israel’s defense ministry.
Israel will make its own decisions about how to defend itself, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday, as Western countries pleaded for restraint in responding to a volley of attacks from Iran.
The United States, European Union, and G7 group of industrialized nations all announced plans to consider tighter sanctions on Iran, seen as aimed at mollifying Israel and persuading it to rein in its retaliation for the first-ever direct Iranian strikes after decades of confrontation by proxy”[iii].
In Tehran, President Ebrahim Raisi said at a military parade it would bring “a severe and harsh response.” The IRGC commander in charge of missiles and drones, Amir Ali Hajizadeh, seconded the president. Asked by a reporter if they would strike Israel again if they retaliate against Iran’s attack, he said, “One hundred percent.”
Thus, if Israel attacks Iran again, we may have a regional war, and Netanyahu may succeed in dragging Biden into such a war. In the meantime, frustrated Israel is attacking the entire Gaza Strip, including Raffa, where one and a half Palestinians live. In the past, Biden said that he opposed attacking the civilians in Gaza.
A regional war may turn into WWIII
As Lenin wrote: “If tomorrow, Morocco were to declare war on France, India on England, Persia or China on Russia, and so forth, those would be “just” “defensive” wars, irrespective of who attacked first, and every Socialist would sympathize with the victory of the oppressed, dependent, unequal states against the oppressing, slave-owning, predatory “great” powers.” [iv]
As Rosa Luxemburg wrote, it is Either socialism or Barbarism, but to consider nuclear weapons, we say socialism or the Stone Age.
As Lenin said: For humanity to live, imperialism must die!
For Palestine red and free from the river to the sea!
Endnotes:
[i] https://theintercept.com/2024/04/17/united-nations-biden-palestine-statehood/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=The%20Intercept%20Newsletter
[ii] Ibid
[iii] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-allies-plan-more-iran-sanctions-israel-war-cabinet-meet-again-2024-04-17/
[iv] Lenin Socialism and war 1915