Nearly a year after Hamas’s audacious 7 October cross-border incursion, Israel has made it clear there are no red lines that it is not prepared to cross in order to exact its revenge. The Zionist state has so far justified the slaughtering of tens of thousands of innocent women, babies and children in order to kill a relatively few Hamas fighters. Now it is ignoring the sovereign rights of countries by trashing, yet again, international law, for which it has always shown contempt.
Invading Lebanon was not an issue for the insane foreign policymakers in Tel Aviv. Deliberate lies to justify the genocide have been swallowed unquestionably by the West and even repeated.
Ordinary citizens of the world are still rising in anger on the streets of New York, Washington, London and Europe to protest against the brazen hypocrisy and double standards at play. Nevertheless, Western leaders continue shamelessly to give the green light to the genocide in Gaza, the illegal invasion of Lebanon, the bombing of Yemen and brutal attacks and destruction in the occupied West Bank, not to mention breaches of international law by the bombing of embassies and assassinating those who have diplomatic immunity.
Critics suggest that the horrors of the Holocaust have to have been invoked for the last time as the Israeli government’s rapid escalation of its conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon has thrust the Middle East to the brink of a regional war. It is clear that the rogue state’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, will not stop until he drags the US and possibly the UK into a war in the Middle East, and perhaps beyond.
This is why, I believe, Iran’s threatened response so far to the assassinations of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders has, as yet, not materialized. Netanyahu’s ultimate goal is to see the destruction of Iran and there is simply not a single country in the world prepared to stop him.
Holding up a map of “Greater Israel” at the UN recently, he showed the world that not only had he wiped Palestine off the map, but also that there were huge tracts of Saudi Arabia, Syria and Lebanon swallowed up by the Zionist state.
Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for the UN to sanction military action to rein-in the “new Hitler” just as the allies of World War Two came together to fight the evils of Nazism. By the time that Erdogan made his fire and brimstone speech, to loud applause, it was already too late, say observers. The genie is out of the bottle and Netanyahu will not take one step back. As I predicted last October, he is the world’s most dangerous man and will take us all to Hell in a handcart unless someone stands up to him.
Heroic Arab leaders of the past, such as Libya’s Omar Al-Mukhtar or Algeria’s Emir Abdelkader are no longer around to rise up and form a credible axis of resistance. Instead of these Lions of the Desert, Arab leaders are generally cowering in silence afraid that they and their kingdoms will be next. Who could or would stand up and stop Netanyahu from bombing Bashar Al-Assad’s presidential palace in Damascus or lobbing missiles towards Riyadh because the crown prince is refusing to normalize relations with apartheid Israel?
The highly effective and influential pro-Israel lobbies effectively own and control most world leaders and their lackeys.
In the US, for example, 365 of the 435 politicians in the House of Representatives are funded by the main pro-Israel lobby group, AIPAC. More than half of the British cabinet is funded by Labor Friends of Israel, it has emerged. These governments are compromised and their politicians can no longer deny that they’re in the pay and sway of an alien state accused of “credible” genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. It is an immoral investment which is paying Israel dividends in terms of silence and support, even when such crimes are broadcast in real time on social media and cannot reasonably be denied.
Emboldened by this global silence, Israeli leaders say that their over-the-top military strikes are already having an impact on Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, but the Zionist military strategy of “escalate to de-escalate” is seriously flawed. You cannot put out a fire by hosing the flames with petrol, which is in effect what Israel is doing.
This insane strategy will not achieve peace and security for the settler-colonial state or anyone else, but who is going to stand up to Tel Aviv and tell the maniacs now in charge of the asylum? Certainly not Britain, which is only now calling for a ceasefire after a year of silence, a year in which 42,000 Palestinians have been killed, and 97,000 have been wounded, with another 11,000 missing, presumed dead, under the rubble of their homes destroyed by Israeli bombs. Most of the casualties were women and children.
Israel says that the likes of Hezbollah are a threat which must be challenged, and yet the Lebanese militia has said consistently that it will stop attacks on the Zionist state the moment that it agrees to a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
What Israel is doing reveals its total disregard for international law, and US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer are powerless to stop it. Journalist Peter Oborne goes further in his podcast. He reckons that Biden and Starmer have given Netanyahu a license to kill. “He’s out of control,” says the respected journalist who points out that this lawless approach could never have happened under the watch of right-wing President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Thatcher stopped sending weapons to Israel in 1982 and refused to take calls from a protesting Israeli prime minister.
That would be unimaginable today, such is the hold that the pro-Israel lobby has over Westminster.
There remains one red line hanging by a thread: the use of Israel’s nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. Should Netanyahu invoke what is known as the Samson Option, the world will not be debating who was right; it will be looking to see who and what is left.
“Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother,” said war criminal and former Israeli defense minister Moshe Dayan. Does anyone with any credibility deny that we are witnessing that madness today?
Be afraid, be very afraid.
-British journalist and author Yvonne Ridley provides political analysis on affairs related to the Middle East, Asia and the Global War on Terror. Her work has appeared in numerous publications around the world from East to West from titles as diverse as The Washington Post to the Tehran Times and the Tripoli Post earning recognition and awards in the USA and UK. Ten years working for major titles on Fleet Street she expanded her brief into the electronic and broadcast media producing a number of documentary films on Palestinian and other international issues from Guantanamo to Libya and the Arab Spring. Her article appeared in MEMO.
