On ISIS and the Kurdish Region.

Though the purpose of the US air strikes was to contain ISIS and, in conjunction with humanitarian food drops to the Yazidis to save them from imminent death, the wider purpose of this military intervention seems to have been the need to protect the Kurdish region from attack and to protect the Mosul Dam.

The reason is that ISIS could use their control of the dam to deny electricity to Iraq as a means of increasing their strength against their enemies in Baghdad and Erbil. More catastrophically, if ISIS blew up the dam a 65m high wave would be created that would cause widespread flooding and 500,000 deaths.

The determination to arm the Kurdish peshmerga and send in US and UK special forces is connected to that. Evidently, oil interests are at stake as Kirkuk is a major oil producing zone in the Kurdish region and if it were to be taken by ISIS it would increase it's revenue to fund its operations further.

Apart from that, Erbil is a major oil prospecting boomtown with Western companies like Chevron and ExxonMobil leading the exploration and drilling for oil. Had the Kurdish region not been threatened, Obama would not have decided upon risking air strikes and arming the Kurds.

Whether ISIS would blow up the Mosul dam is not certain because it has not destroyed energy installations in the territory it occupies such as the Qayara refinery. ISIS is part of a resource war backed by Arab Sunnis who lost out to the Shi'ites and Kurds after Saddam's regime was removed.

The danger with that strategy is it would lead to Kurdish demands for independence from Baghdad, something that would sink plans to try to coalition a 'unity government' that would help to draw Sunni Arabs back into the fold and end the benefits of them aligning with ISIS.

The situation in Iraq is a bloody chaos with no easy means to resolve it. It's a proxy ground, as is Syria, for regional powers vying and contending for influence. Turkey has interests in shoring up the Kurdish region as relations have warmed in recent years as oil imports have increased.

Iran would want to block moves towards Kurdish independence and autonomy as it would check their plans to have a Shi'ite dominated Iraq amenable to the promotion of its energy interests and struggle for a regional Shi'ite 'axis of resistance' to Turkish and Qatari plans to remove Assad in Syria.

Washington's policy has been vacillating and contradictory. Having made the mistake of backing the Turkish and Qatari move to remove Assad to check Iranian influence, it effectively guaranteed the space would be created that would enable a group such as ISIS to gain ground.

Whatever, the Western powers attempt through military intervention or backing the Kurds in Iraq in bound to have unforeseen consequences. Whole swathes of norther Syria and Iraq could descend into barbarism for decades due to resource struggles, global warming. crop failure and religious fanaticism.

Why the Stop the War Coalition in Britain is Orwellian.

'The terrible plight of the Yazidis, trapped by Isis and fearing a terrible fate if captured, is heart-rending but will not be helped by further military intervention in Iraq. The occupation of Iraq broke the infrastructure of Iraqi society. Sectarian tensions were encouraged and exacerbated by the occupying forces, and some of those now supporting Isis formed the opposition to this occupation'.

So opines Lindsey German, head and chief propagandist of Britain's Stop the War Coalition. Of course, if the war being waged by ISIS in Iraq at present is considered a continuation of the war the US and Britain started in 2003 by invading Iraq then there is not really much more to say on it. Only there is.

Some of those now aligning with ISIS were indeed part of the 'opposition' to the US and UK occupation. Former Baathists and Sunni jihadists whose 'opposition' was not called so but termed 'the resistance' by luminaries of the Stop the War Coalition such as Tariq Ali and John Pilger.

The hypocrisy of this is not surprising but it is no less fundamentally repellent to the deepest core possible. Back in 2003, the 'Stop the War Coalition' continually ( and artificially ) yoked the fate of Palestine to Iraq when the line was the witless placard slogan 'Don't Attack Iraq: Freedom for Palestine'. 

Now after eleven years when a pyschotic jihadist movement called ISIS is murdering Christians and the Yazidis in northern Iraq, Lindsey German merely claims that is the fault of 'the west' for having invaded Iraq in the first place ( as if this was radical subversive knowledge we did not know ).

But German bemoans the fact too that 'the west' and Turkey and Saudi Arabia 'armed the rebels'. The 'rebels', in any case, are not one homogenous group and the failure of the Western powers to try to strongly advise Saudi Arabia and Qatar enough not to fund Sunni fundamentalist fanatics is an abject failure.

The Free Syria Army is connected with the Muslim Brotherhood backed by Qatar and which also supports and gives funds to that noble 'resistance' movement known as Hamas which is extolled by leading members of the absurdly entitled 'Stop the War Coalition'.

But, of course, German knows that, which is why, in accordance with doublethink, she omits to mention Qatar at all as a factor in the regional power politics of the Middle East. It's obvious that the US and Britain's 'intervention' in the Middle East has largely had negative consequences in Syria and Iraq.

However, to say there is plenty that could be 'done' to 'stop' Israel committing war crimes in Gaza while insinuating absolutely nothing could be 'done' to stop ISIS killing thousands of Christians and Yazidis does not add up. Any truly humane 'anti-war' activist would, at least try to outline what could be done.

Adding to that the sneering and embittered comment that if the 'Stop the War' movement is to be accused of double standards for not having anything to say about that then those concerned are 'Tory bloggers, shock jocks and neocons', it could be made plain that the leadership of the StWC is actually little better.

The STWC leadership consists of a miserable array of failed Trotskyist revolutionaries and sour malcontents whose insistence in hijacking the cause of being 'anti-war' is a total fraud and a con. If Galloway could not be described as a ranting shock jock , then it would be difficult to see who else could be.

There is a need for a principled opposition to Britain's foreign policy that is seldom there in Parliament any more. Unfortunately, the StWC cannot provide it because it sits there as a sort of established anti-establishment consisting of the same dreary faces and self important hack propaganists.

Maybe it's time for an alternative alternative ? One based on true principles and, above all, a real knowledge of the Middle East and not the same empahasis on pure political expediency and hypocrisy that defined Tony Blair's approach and that has, in part, been carried on by the British government since.

Isis and Crisis in Iraq: Plots, Paranoia and Radical Conspiracies.

As I write this, the US is launching air strikes against the Islamic State group in northern Iraq and dropping humanitarian relief parcels to the Yezidis who have been foreced from their villages and towns by the militant group who regard them as "Devil worshippers' fit for conversion or extermination.

ISIS have killed and slaughtered civilans in their attempt to carve out their Caliphate in Syria and Iraq, decapitating Iraqi state soldiers and policemen, crucifying Christians, and surging deep into Iraq to within striking distance of the capital, Baghdad.

They have attracted Sunni allies and even jihadists from the West to join in attacking a fragile state created by the US and Britain after the invasion 2003 and prone to sectarian and ethnic conflicts ever since, a consequence Blair was warned about prior to the invasion but ignored because 'Saddam is evil'.

No matter whether one was opposed to the invasion, not even the most ferocious 'anti-imperialist' could regard ISIS as anything other than barbaric and as a force that had better be defeated. The question, of course, is how and for some, more importantly, by whom.

Even so, despite the need for scepticism about whether air strikes could actually prove to make a bad situation worse, the usual and predictable armchair 'anti-war' ideologues have been out in force trying to oppose anything that could be termed 'intervention', even of a non-military sort.

The worst example comes from Sami Ramadai, an 'anti-war' sociologist based in London, who claims the intervention is neither humanitarian nor would it protect 'the people of Iraq'. The fact that the air strikes are specifically mean to protect some Iraqis such as the Yezidis and the Christians is considered largely unimportant,

Ramadani bats off with this weary set of claims about how hypocritical US foreign policy appears to be,

'Here we go again, the US is using a humanitarian catastrophe to implement imperialist objectives and pour petrol on fire.

It is sickening to see Obama and the Western media shedding crocodile tears for the Iraqi people, after the US-led occupation pulverised Iraq as a society and killed a million of its people. It is obscene to now suggest that the US will fight terrorism and protect the Iraqi people, when the rise of terrorism was the direct result of the US-led invasion of the country. 

Emergency humanitarian help to Yezidi, Christian, Shia communities and all victims of ISIS is essential. But this has to be done through genuine humanitarian organisations and the UN (like in Gaza)'

The first thing to notice about the propaganda is that it does not even start off with mentioning the fact there is a humanitarian crisis. Ramadani's main gripe, put forth in sulky adolescent language, is that the effort, even in fact as regards dropping humanitarian supplies by aircraft , is that it is 'imperialist'.

In fact the entire polemic and many others like it could be translated according to the following translation:

'The first thing to remember in any situation where the US is involved is to hate the US unconditionally while affecting decent scepticism about previous interventions. However, no matter what case could ever be made and for whatever reasons for humanitarian intervention, we would oppose it anyway. 

So this intervention is not humanitarian but, just in case it could be intended as such, it won't be effective ( just in case you had illusions about that ).In order to pretend I care about those Yezidi, Christian, Shia communities who could be slaughtered by ISIS, I need to make windy comments about the UN intervening in a 'genuine' humanitarian way. 

Then , I will explain why the Kurds are stupid to accept US help because of their the superpower's sinister imperial motives. Then, in the safety of my cocoon here in Western Europe I can feel satisfied I have taken the correct line. The important thing is to use the crisis to ramp up the resistance to imperialism. Nothing much else matters.'

It is difficult to think how dropping humanitarian parcels, as the British RAF is doing at present, could make things worse. How the UN would be able to get near the conflict zone without being themselves exterminated is not something Ramadani has given much thought to and for a simple reason: he does not care.

Instead, Ramadani is not even prepared to accept that the Kurdish region is autonomous because the Pashmerga have decided to cooperate with the US in order to drive ISIS back and accept US arms and assistance. As a consequence, they are in league with the imperialists and that's more damning that fighting ISIS.

'The actions of the Kurdish leaders run against the interests of the Kurdish people.' Says Ramadani. Why ? Because he says so. Note he wants to tell the Kurdish leaders what they should do while criticising 'imperialism'.If the Kurdish leaders are prepared to align with the US for whatever tactical reasons they are mere 'tools'.

The actions of the Kurdish leaders run against the interests of the Kurdish people. A similar policy was followed by the Kurdish leaders in the 1960's and 1970's. They, like today, relied heavily on US and Israeli backing. They became so dependent on the US, and its ally the Shah of Iran, that they had to abandon the Kurdish people when the US decided to ditch them. 

Only this is not the 1960s and 1970s. Back then there was a strong state, albeit one lead by the tyrant Saddam Hussein by the 1970s. No doubt there are realpolitik strategies at work with the US. But the Kurdish region is strong, relatively safe and autonomous at present and would have an interest in checking ISIS.

But ISIS is also serving Israel and US interests, apparently. Only this genius has the visionary ability to glean patterns and trends not nearly always associated with other more humble mortals,

'It is clear to me that ISIS is serving Israeli and US economic, political and military objectives in the region. The US is also using ISIS terrorism as a stick to impose conditions on Baghdad, i.e. to cut links with Iran and Syria'.

So not only the Kurdish leaders but also ISIS are 'objectively' in the grand scheme of things 'tools of imperial dominance'. Evidently, that Washington aims at defeating and rolling back ISIS as a means to save the Iraqi state ( the one Ramadani wants preserved ) and trying to put pressure on Baghdad to create a 'unity government'.

Ramadani, however, then put foward the paranoid idea that ISIS serves both the US and Israeli interests. This is despite the fact Israel and the US have been at odds over Israel having wanted to see Kurdistan as an independent republic and the US insistence that the Iraqi state should stay together and not fragment. He opines,

It was noticeable that the ISIS "Caliph" and Israeli war criminal Netanyahu declared the death of Sykes-Picot borders between Iraq and Syria on almost the same day. The Caliph did not mention Israel or its war crimes in Palestine and the region, while Netanyahu declared that the Jordan river will be where Israel will "defend" itself. He also declared his support for an independent Kurdish state. 

There is no 'plot'. Ramadani is paranoid. The fact that the Sykes-Picot borders are breaking down is simply a standard observation of fact with regards northern Syria and Iraq, not some sort of sinister statement of the intent to 'detabilise' the region. Moreover, it is flat out untrue that the Caliph has not condemned Israel.

On July 31st 2014, some eight days before Ramadani's miserable and feeble polemic appeared on the 'Stop the War Coalition' site, it was reported that the Caliph declared it was "only a matter of time" before they got to Palestine to join the fight against "barbaric Jews".

"As for the massacres taking place in Gaza against the Muslim men, women and children, then the Islamic State will do everything within its means to continue striking down every apostate who stands as an obstacle on its paths towards Palestine".

This sort of statement would tend to deflate Ramadani's assertion-'It is clear to me that ISIS is serving Israeli and US economic, political and military objectives in the region.' By aiming to murder everyone in the Middle East, including the Jews, it is difficult to see how that advances Israeli strategy.

In fact, Israel under PM Netanyahu was again at odds with President Obama because he supported Assad in Syria as a lesser evil than having a Muslim Brotherhood government backed by Turkey and Qatar in its place or, perhaps, even more radical Sunni fundamentalists in power in Damascus.

That makes Ramadani's next claim even more bizarre,

 'Similarly, the US is using ISIS terrorism to make Iran halt supplies to the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance movements and to cut its aid to Syria. Generally, the aim is to make Iran more amenable to US objectives in the region.'...

That is why ISIS started fighting the Free Syria Army backed by Qatar and Turkey-and the West and against Assad, Iran's main ally in Syria along with the Shi'ite Lebanese Hizbollah. If this is a plot, then it would be a plot by the the US and Western powers against themelves for some bizarre reason yet to be revealed.

And this is what is supposed to be 'cutting edge' commentary revealing the true yet 'concealed' reasons for US intervention in northern Iraq.

Gaza, Stop the War Protests, George Galloway and Anti-Semitism.

Owen Jones means well but he comes across as a studenty sort who is trying to stake out the politically correct position in such a way that would ensure the anti-war protests remain nice and inclusive instead of polarising Muslims and Jews on the issue of opposition to Israel's conduct of the war in Gaza.

As a consequence, Jones produces a series of high sounding generalisations which do not address the specific content of the utterances made by those opposing Israel or why they could be construed as veering towards a dislike of Israelis because of who and what they are.

'..antisemitism needs to be treated very seriously indeed. Attempts to belittle it are dangerous, allowing the tumour to spread unchecked. But...Israel’s assault on Gaza has highlighted another danger too  It has often been debated whether the charge of antisemitism is concocted against anyone who supports Palestinian justice or criticises the actions of the Israeli state'.

Evidently, there are vested interests at stake in defending Israel no matter what it does. There are arms contracts, large volumes of trade and Britain and Israel cooperate on security projects whereby they can learn how to use sophisticated technology to contain the threat of terrorism.

As a consequence, it is convenient to accuse those criticising Israel as 'anti-semtitic'. But, then again, the word 'Islamophobia' is deployed in a similar way to mean a critic of an Islamist political movement, a person critical of Islam as a religion, or somebody who does not like Muslims.

Words and their meanings matter. To be against Israel's policy is to be anti-Israeli or, better, against Israel's policy on Gaza'. The danger of using words such as 'anti-Zionist' is that they could be taken to mean being against far right Israeli nationalism or against the existence of a Israel as a country.

The fact is that it is sometimes difficult to work out whether those 'taking a stance' against Israel are not rationalising darker motives not necessarily related to the actual situation in Gaza: a brutal but regional conflict but not the site of some cosmic battle between world historical forces.

Leaders of the Stop the War Coalition themselves are hardly paragons of peace. George Galloway's rhetoric is often violent and intemperate. His defence of Gaza and refusal to 'accept Israel' is not about anti-semitism but he likes to give his Bradford West electors the impression he rejects its right to existence.

With Galloway ( whom Jones never criticises due to the need to retain 'solidarity' no doubt ) the Gaza conflict provides an opportunity to advance a career in the doldrums after the Soviet Union fell and his attachment to Hamas and Hizbollah comes from their opposition to the US Imperialists.

This is a form of solidarity that works negatively. Hamas and Hizbollah are only aligned in opposition to Israel and so is Galloway. In fact, neither movement has much time for each other in the context of the Sunni-Shia sectarian division that have opened up over the conflict in Syria.

One reason Israelis and their Jewish supporters feel 'picked on' is that while Muslims across the Middle East are in the process of murdering one another on a large scale, there is a perception that most Muslims in the West unite on loathing Israel and that there must be a sinister agenda against them in Europe.

'One retort repeatedly offered is that Israel is itself the source of antisemitism; that its brutality towards the Palestinian people encourages hatred against the Jewish people. This is a nonsense, like rationalising anti-Muslim prejudice as the inevitable consequence of Islamist fundamentalist terror; responsibility for prejudice lies with the prejudiced. Most of us are quite capable of opposing brutality without turning into bigots. Racism needs to be eliminated, not excused'

It may well be a nonsense but it is nevertheless a rationalisation that is implicit in the sort of placard that is often held up by Islamists on anti-war marches. Jones refers to the infinite world of idealistic 'oughts' without looking at the grubby reality of what 'is' to be found on the 'anti-war left'.

One example would be the placard that reads 'Stop the Genocide of Gazan children'. The implication could be ( beyond mere hyperbole ) that if Israel is committing the genocide of the children, then maybe some genocides are better than others because they do not target only children.

Genocide talk as regards Israel, as opposed to the more obvious and provable accusation of war crimes, tends to have a sinister edge to it. If Israel is held to committing genocide, especially of children ( forget the adults then ), then, perhaps, Hitler should have finished off all Jews.

So there are no grounds for the assertion 'most of us' are able to oppose brutality without turning to racial hatred. The historical record nowhere bears that out as an absolute certainty. And if racism is considered a form of evil, then evil is an ineradicable part of human existence.

Wherever, one group so defined on the basis of ethnicity, creed, religion or race has leaders playing on unique victimhood the better to advance one set of power claims against an 'existential' rival or enemy, then aggressive instincts of hatred can, indeed, be rationalised.

So there is little purpose in mentioning the real effects of anti-semitism by pointing to the Jobbik in Hungary and by ignoring the sort of irresponsible propaganda that does inflame feelings against Israelis in Britain as opposed to their government ( not least as a great majority support it over Gaza )

So Jones focuses ( rightly) on the need of a British anti-war movement over Gaza to put pressure on the British government on arms exports and so on. But he goes on to provide his own form of deflecting attention away from intolerant forms of activism within Britain by pointing to anti-semitism elsewhere.

Hungary is a convenient choice because Jones knows that there are very few Muslims living in this Central European nation. So he can position himself as anti anti-semitic without needing to deal with its existence within Britain, even if it is bound to be exaggerated by uncritical apologists for the Israeli state

So Douglas Murray was no doubt trying to smear the entire protest march against Israel's war on Gaza as being 'anti-semitic'. The problem is unless the anti-war movement ( such as it is ) rejects intemperate demagogues such as Galloway, amongst others, it is always going to play into the hands of established interests.

The problem is that 'anti-war protest' really often means an ideological siding with Islamist forces as opposed to the more obvious point of a protest which should be focused on trying to advocate Britain is not complicit in what Israel is doing in pursuing war not diplomacy.

The 'anti-war movement' contains leading figures who, even if they may not peddle anti-semitism, do come out with absurd conspiracist ideas on geopolitics and the Middle East whether on Gaza ( or even on ISIS as being backed by Israel ) that feed a paranoid world view.

The existing 'Stop the War Coalition' is simply headed by a coterie consisting of the dregs of the communist left whose tendency to rationalise totalitarianism ( Galloway and journalist Seumas Milne being the supreme examples ) discredits anti-war causes and puts off sane conscientious people.

It is possible to be against the war crimes committed by Israel and against the insane suicidal strategy of Hamas. But in the 'Stop the War Coalition' this sort of nuance is not permitted and only those propaganda slogans that boost outrage and hatred are promoted.

It's depressing but the reality is that there is never going to be a sensible open discussion of Israel and Palestine that does not lurch into accusations of complete collective guilt and innocence on one side and counter accusations, spiralling paranoia, outrage and pyschopathological venom :i.e. pure hatred.

The real question is :Who benefits ? Clearly, those making a career from demagogy such as Galloway on Iranian funded Press TV, neurotic ex-revolutionary leftists who need a cause to glom on to in order to raise them from otherwise wholly deserved obscurity as leaders of sectarian revolutionary utopian cults.

Yet the impossibility of a sensible debate without platform posturing and soundbites from the self appointed 'anti-war' types benefits those defending Israel unconditionally as they can point to the opposition to Israel as Hamas supporting maniacs and 'extremists'.

Israel, The Gaza War and the West

'Global revulsion at the mind-numbing carnage of Israel’s onslaught on Gaza seems finally to have spurred some of the western political class to speak out'. Seumas Milne, Gaza is a crime made in Washington as well as Jerusalem, The Guardian, Wednesday 6 August 2014

The reason why British politicians are hastening to position themselves against Israel's ruthless attack on Gaza has as much to do with dormant principles being awoken as with the fact, contrary to Milne's assertion, that Israel is acting completely in defiance of Washington and London.

That is a thought Seumas Milne never has been prepared to entertain. For him, it's quite clear Israel's assault on Gaza is one done with the connivance of 'the West' because he wants to claim only world opinion and outrage, as represented in and through him and his 'journalism' has led to an attitude shift.

However, Israel, has never, followed Washington's line nor was it ever a puppet of 'US Imperial Power', even during the Cold War. But its foreign policy has become increasingly independent in recent years, especially under Netanyahu who detests Obama and his administration for being 'soft' and pro-Arab.

The rise of Qatar as a major trade partner and gas rich oil emirate prepared to back the Muslim Brotherhood accounted for a gradual shift in the foreign policy of the Western Powers which preceded the 2014 War. Qatar was also prepared to back Gaza by supplying aid for infrastructure projects.

Evidently, the value of the arms deals remained a factor in the reluctance of British and US politicians to say anything condemnatory at the outset of current crisis this summer. But the point is that arms deals are usually tied to perceived strategical objectives and often energy interests.

With the collapse of Syria and the ongoing chaos in Iraq and Libya, the states carved out of the remains of the Ottoman Empire during and after the First world War 1914-1918 are coming unravelled. Across the Eastern Mediterranean and Greater Middle East, a new constellation of alignments have emerged.

The important year was 2011. Though Qatar is not a democracy, it used its gas wealth to support its regional policy of promoting Arab democracy in Egypt and Syria. The Obama administration was, in fact, not for the Egyptian coup in 2013 that restored the old order after the revolution of 2011 ( the 'Arab Spring ').

Nor was Britain. The reason was parly an admission that the old order of the secular dictator dating back to the post-1945 era and Cold War realpolitik was over. But it was also a recognition that Arab democracy was necessary is resentments at the old order were not to boil over into support for terrorism.

The Egyptian coup ended that and had to be accepted as an a fait accompli because of two things. Firstly, Russia was vying for influence in the Eastern Mediterranean with the discovery of the large gas reserves of the Levant Basin and was prepared to step in to supply arms to Sisi's military regime.

Secondly, despite an identification with some of Qatar's regional ambitions in tangent with Turkey, especially as part of the Friends of Syria Group-one dedicated to overthrowing Assad-the better to check Iran and advance a Qatar-pipeline, Egypt remained important as a geopolitical bulwark of stability.

Once Washington overcame its intitial hostility to the coup, it hastened to restore full military aid but it had not expected Israel to have taken that as a green light to impose its own 'solution' to its own problem with the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza, that is Hamas, with such exemplary brutality.

The Western Powers have been distinctly cool towards Netanyahu's revival of the 'war on terror' pose put forth under the Bush presidency and, as its diplomats and politicians have pointed out, the killing in Gaza is bad in itself but also makes it harder to assert US and British interests in the Middle East.

Israel, it should be remembered, was hostile to the West's backing for Sunni forces in Syria, brokered by Qatar and Turkey and designed to removed Assad. That's why Netanyahu praised Putin's Russia for negotiating the deal to remove Assad's chemical weapons without a military strike.

That, and the fact Israel has sought cooperation with Russia on arms developments and developing the offshore gas fields discovered in its territorial waters in 2010, hardly shows Israel to be a mere tool of the West just as vulgar propagandists such as Milne blithely assume.

Israel, has never, followed Washington's line nor was it ever a puppet or 'a satrapy' of Us Imperial Power, even during the Cold War. But it's foreign policy has become increasingly independent in recent years, especially under Netanyahu who detests Obama and his administration.

Washington, London and Paris have been gravitating towards Qatar because of energy interests and no longer regard the Israeli-Egypt-Saudi block as the main or important player in the Middle East. The growing consternation at the Israeli onslaught is a product of this changed reality.

Resource Wars: Israel, Egypt and the Dim Prospects for Peace Over Gaza

The prospects for peace between Israel and Gaza were bad enough and have grown dimmer due to the 2014 war. Both sides are predictably trying claim victory already. Actually, neither have won. The difference is the balance of terror lies decisively in Israel's favour in this brutal pyschopathological struggle.

From Netanyahu's perspective, the strategy is about forcing Hamas to surrender by whatever means (no matter the civilian casualties ) so they agree to demilitarise. But to get to that point he was ready to use a clearly 'disproportionate' amount of military force instead of one other thing-diplomacy.

From his perspective Israel cannot get a sustainable peace without war. As in Orwell's novel 1984, 'war is peace'. Hamas has to pretend that all the civilian dead are glorious martyrs to their cause in a jihad in which all the deaths and massacres could bring about a moral victory over the oppressor.

Hamas would not agree to demilitarise and have demanded the blockade to end. However, Israel would not agree to as it part of their strategy for national security. There is evidence that the wrangle over Gaza is being made more protracted by the fate of the Gaza Marine gas reserves.

Israel fought this war with ferocity because it wanted to crush Hamas and eliminate it as a potential proxy force while Hizbollah had been drawn deeply into the Syrian conflict by 2013. Despite Netanyahu's claims, Iran's backing for Hamas had declined dramatically due to sectarian enmities coming to the fore.

With Iran distracted and the Egyptian authoritarian regime of Sisi having destroyed the Muslim Brotherhood in the 2013 coup, Netanyahu went for Hamas while the time was right. One aim is to secure Israel's southern flank from rocket attacks because this would set back setting up gas rigs.

As Forbes magazine reported in January 2014,

'The rigs required to lift the gas from the sea floor are a target that some commentators have referred to as a “sitting duck” for terrorists. The gas platforms are to be situated outside of Israeli territorial waters, but inside Israel’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), an area roughly twice the size of Israel itself'

One reason for the divided and vacillating response from the Western Powers was that major energy corporations have a stake in aiding Israel in tapping these reserves. Whether the US group Noble Energy or else Britain's BG Group in regards to Gaza Marine. 

That backing for Israel and Egypt in the Eastern Mediterranean, however, has been complicated by the fact that Britain and the US's other regional partners in the region, Turkey and Qatar, are backing Hamas as part of a strategy to check Israel's dominance of the offshore reserves.

Increasingly, Britain and France draw much of their import of liquefied natural gas from Qatar and have formed bilateral trade ties to the gas rich emirate. This accounts for the start of a shift away from the position of backing Israel to criticism of its conduct of this war as much as humanitarian principles.

The problem is that Israel is acting unilaterally over Gaza so as to be able to tap the reserves as quickly as possible as a vital 'existential' interest that would put it in such as position to guarantee both its independence and importance for the West against Qatar and Turkey's rival ambitions.

Israel is going to be intransigent on the demilitarisation of Gaza and maintaining the blockade as it is regarded as necessary to ensure the energy security both of it and Egypt which, under Morsi in 2012, cut off its gas supply as it faced, and still does, a fuel crisis and economic deterioration.

The prospect for peace is low as Egypt is confronted with collapse if it were not able to import energy from Israel as agreed in in June 2014. As Egypt is seen as a key partner in defeating a jihadist insurgency raging on the Sinai Peninsula, Israel regards destroying Hamas as part of that wider battle.

Israeli national security involves energy both as a nationalist goal as a Gift from God. So Hamas is regarded as one of the threats to the exploitation of their gas reserves ( even those in Israel's territorial waters ) through rocket attacks and sabotage just as Hizbollah could from the north.

Such reasons for the blockade of Gaza not being emphasised in the Western media very much at all. Without the gas the regional security nexus with Egypt would be under threat. Since the 1970s has depended on Egypt to maintain the security of the borders with Israel in Sinai.

Even worse, there is a jihadist insurgency in Sinai at present and pipelines from Egypt to Israel were targeted and blown up in the past . Making the need to exploit the gas more and more important. Compromise could be difficult as Israel fears Hamas being used by Qatar to disrupt its regional energy strategy.

So the ceasefire could well not lead to a durable peace. Israel is not going to trust Hamas 'perhaps ever' as Tony Blair sinisterly intimated at the outset of the conflict on July 15 . Blair is hopeless as UN Quartet's Special Envoy to the region and has sided too obviously with Egypt and Israel against Turkey and Qatar.

Blair's bias and Netanyahu's nationalism means Israel has no interest in offering a Hamas controlled Gaza anything that would affect its energy security or enable Qatar and Turkey in alliance to use Hamas as a bargaining chip in what are increasingly dangerous geopolitical struggles for control over the gas fields and energy routes.

Why the UK, US and France Would Not End its Arms Trade with Israel.

'Whereas Hamas is constrained by the continuing blockade and allegedly relies on neighbouring countries, such as Iran , for its arms, Israel has an advanced arms industry. There are more than 200 arms companies in Israel'  'The UK must end its arms trade with Israel' Andrew Smith, The Guardian Tuesday 5 August 2014

The US and UK would most likely review its selling of arms so as to use it as a tool of diplomacy to try to push Israel away from attempting to impose a military solution as regards Gaza. One reason is that they ( and especially France ) already have a flourishing arms trade with energy rich Qatar.

Arms deals are connected not only to profit. They tend to be a means to forge regional alliances and evermore closer relations with Qatar which, in turn, supports Gaza and ( in effect ) Hamas against the air, land and sea blockade. It is vying with Israel for influence in the Eastern Mediterranean along with Turkey.

The regional alliance with Israel has become less important with the Syrian conflict as a consequence and because, oddly enough, Israel has tended to look towards Russia and Gazprom as a potential regional partner to exploit energy reserves and as a client for arms ties.

That is why Israel has, under threat of an arms embargo, suspended an arms deal with Russia which would have seen the export of drones in the wake of the Ukrainian crisis, another conflict as in Syria involving the use of proxies and a ruthless power pathological struggle over energy transit routes.

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond was, in his previous capacity as Defence Secretary, an advocate of closer military ties with Qatar. As North Sea gas runs down and Britain is searching more for ways to diversify its gas supply away from the prospect of depending too much on Russia.

Yet arms sales to Egypt and Israel are not going to stop for the reason that this strategic connection remains a vital interest for two reasons. Firstly, Israel is set to tap its gas reserves in the Eastern Mediterranean and it would potentially offset the dependence of Britain's EU partners have on gas from North Africa and Russia.

Secondly, Russia has sought to muscle into the market for exporting that gas and to increase its connections with both Egypt and Israel through arms sales. Even if the Egyptian coup of 2013 was not backed by the US or UK, it was accepted as an a fait accompli to protect arms sales and strategic interests.

Arms deals are increasingly bound up with energy geopolitics as gas rich powers try to compete for export routes and to assert their interests with or against those dependent upon buying that gas. Moralistic outrage at arms deals is neither here nor there unless the geopolitics of energy is understood.

Gaza 2014: Why Ceasefires Are Going to be Harder and Harder to Keep.

No truce nor ceasefire could stick for long throughout July 2014 because the geopolitical stakes have been increased vastly in the course of the period between 2011 and 2014. One neglected aspect has been to explain the failure of diplomacy as a consequence of the growing regional rivalry between Qatar-Turkey and Israel. 

Whereas previous encounters between Hamas and the IDF could be described as conflicts, in 2014 there is now a apparently a war to the end. Hamas is fighting to the end because it knows Israel  seems bent on finishing them off and is not interested in a ceasefire but in their unconditional surrender. 

This is a resource war in which Israel wants to decisively crush Hamas, demilitarise Gaza and so secure Israel's control over the gas reserves of the Eastern Mediterranean against Qatar and Turkey's attempt to use Hamas as a bargaining chip in advancing other claims to the gas in the region. 

According to existing agreements a percentage of the revenues would go into a special fund earmarked for Palestinian economic development. At present, that stands at about 10% and would go to the West Bank and not to Gaza because Hamas in regarded still as a straightforwardly terrorist organisation.

Israel is not prepared to exploit those reserves if Hamas has any role in governing Palestine and Hamas has no interest in allowing Israel to exploit them under the existing agreements. Israel cannot, at present, completely guarantee the security of its gas rigs from sabotage and attack by Hamas

Israel fears Qatar using Gaza as a way of meddling in its much needed push to exploit the reserves, not merely the Gazan reserves but even Israeli gas fields which could be reached by Hamas rockets should Qatari funds be channelled away from infrastructure projects and into continued armed resistance.

Israel cannot afford that as tapping these resources is considered a strategic and economic imperative. The only way to get peace is if Hamas agrees to demilitarise the zone in accordance with outside powers or, from Israel's perspective, if Hamas is so relentlessly crushed that it ceases to be in any bargaining position. 

Netanyahu has made that quite clear. 'Sustainable quiet', in actual fact, means Israel can develop those gas resources as would any other advanced state in the world, a 'Gift from God', and it is connected with the idea of Israel's right to exist as a self sufficient economic power in the Eastern Mediterranean

The great surge of optimism about Israel's energy potential is mingled with pessimistic fears that Israel, despite being a nuclear armed state, could be intimidated by having its energy supplies affected. It was furious when Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood backed government cut gas exports from Egypt in 2012.

The use of energy as a tool of diplomacy led Israel into an energy crisis, making the necessity of getting Israeli gas on stream. The Egyptian coup of 2013 came as a relief to Israel and led, with the effective crushing of the Muslim Brotherhood by General Sisi, for the need to strengthen military and energy ties. 

These fears have increased at a time when the US is considered not to be as interested in upholding Israeli interests in the Middle East as it once was. The US has started cooperating far more with its opponent Qatar as a global hub for exporting and importing liquefied natural gas to both the EU and East Asia. 

Qatar has become an ever closer ally of Britain and France which increasingly buy more and more LNG as part of a strategy of energy diversification and to secure independence from Russia ( which is flexing its muscle once more because of its huge energy reserves ) and North Africa. 

With jihadists active in sabotaging pipelines in Algeria and Libya in continued state of chaos, Israel has, therefore, reckoned that it has to be a major regional energy player at least partly on a par with Qatar in order to maintain its independence and status and influence within Western capitals.

The failure to condemn Israel's actions in Gaza in partly about hedging their bets between Qatar on the one hand and Israel's potential for helping EU states, especially those in the Mediterranean such as Spain and Italy, and diversify supplies away from Russia ( especially with civil war in Ukraine ). 

The sheer level of ignorance of the role of resources in driving the current war prevents a true understanding of the real geopolitical stakes and why the regional and global actors concerned with this war are acting in a way that appears callous, brutal, indifferent and revoltingly hypocritical.

Baroness Warsi, Qatar and Why Her Resignation Over Gaza is Not Entirely a Matter of Principle.

In Britain, politicians in the Conservative-Liberal government started off repeating the stock phrases about Israel's 'right to defend itself' and the need for an unconditional ceasefire on both sides. Clearly, of course, it was Israel that rejected diplomacy with Hamas backed by Qatar and Turkey.

The resignation of Baroness Warsi, the Muslim Tory peer and Senior Foreign Office minister, Mark Wallace in the Guardian opines

'Lady Warsi’s resignation over Gaza is undoubtedly one of principle. Like many of her principles, it is different from the prime minister’s – eventually that divide evidently became too much'.

One reason why statesmen and diplomats are starting to issue denuciations of Israel is,in part, due to the fact Israel's foreign policy is opposed to that of another key regional ally and business partner in the form of Qatar. Qatar backs Hamas in a struggle for regional power dominance in the Middle East.

Israel clearly rejected all possible diplomacy involving Hamas and two of its regional backers are also Western allies ( Turkey as well as Qatar ). Israel remains a large trading partner and and a potential supplier of liquefied natural gas in the course of this decade to EU energy markets.

Warsi, however, was a close defender of Qatar and aligned with certain policies and outlooks put forth by the gas rich state and appears at conferences in Doha alongside Al Jazeera journalists. When tensions between her and Prime Minister Cameronflared up over the use of the face veil in 2012 it was reported

'Organisers say that Lady Warsi, who posed in traditional Islamic dress on the steps of 10 Downing Street after the general election in May, had been booked three months ago to speak at the Qatar Foundation Doha Debate on Oct 11.

She was given free Qatar Airways business class tickets and had a complimentary room booked for two nights at the five-star Four Seasons beach hotel in Doha, the capital of the Gulf emirate of Qatar'.

Even so, self interest has started to dovetail with a genuine sense Israel is acting too unilaterally and ruthlessly in its determination to use military force to impose its own solution on Gaza. Politicians are divided on what position to take but it should not be thought voices criticising Israel are wholly about principle. 

The Geopolitical and Energy Stakes behind the Israel-Gaza War of 2014.

'Barring some element that fundamentally changes the equation – an Israeli decision to re-occupy Gaza, the eruption of a third intifada on the West Bank – at some point both Israel and Hamas will be ready for mediators to help produce some negotiated ceasefire.'-America needs to end its obsession with trying to fix everything in Gaza-Aaron David Miller,

Israel is going for outright victory and to crush Hamas decisively as a political force. The absence of any geopolitical context to Aaron Miller's analysis is noticeable. Israel aims primarily to secure the Gaza Marine gas fields the better to stave off  a potential energy crisis and shore up Egypt which also lacks enough cheap gas.

Washington partly shares the aim of stable Egypt but it has been wary about the troubling division being opened up between Turkey and Qatar, on the one side, and Egypt and Israel and Saudi Arabia on the other. Growing tensions between these regional power alignments are blocking effective peace negotiations.

Hamas is backed by Qatar and Turkey because both have a geopolitical interest in being onside with their Muslim Brotherhood allies in Syria whom they hope will overthrow Assad and so push forward the construction of a Qatar Turkey pipeline. in rivalry to Israel's regional energy designs.

Israel, for its part, would not want the Sunni axis of influence to develop and for Qatar to be able to transit gas through to the Eastern Mediterranean before it has fully developed the Leviathan, Tamar and Gaza Marine gasfilelds. Nor would it want the rival pipeline between Iran, Iraq and Syria.

One reason Netanyahu was pleased that Russian diplomacy was able to avert  the prospect of a US and French military attack on Syria ( though he praised forceful US diplomacy for bringing Russia to negotiate ) was that Israel has no interest in Assad going so soon but in a continuation of the conflict.

Natanyahu was keen to urge the US to accept Russia's deal on Syria's chemical weapons back in 2013, even though his office officially denied it, because it was lukewarm about Washington's strategy in Syria which stood to benefit Qatar and Turkey more than it.

In turn, the coup in Egypt in 2013 was supported by Israel while the US was not so initially enthusiastic, with Kerry only reaffirming its full support and sometime later when the US had to accept it as an a fait accompli, partly because of the embarrassing scale of the killing but also so as not to anger Qatar and Turkey.

The US has backed off from being too involved in the Middle East since the wihdrawal of troops from Iraq. The shale revolution and the refocusing of diplomatic attention towards the Asia Pacific region in 2011 was part of that. So Israel has a free hand with which to crush Hamas.

The reason is that despite the vocal opposition to Israel's war in Gaza, few global or regional powers have any particular interest or ability to stop it. Israel wants to destroy Hamas while it has the chance with Egypt under Sisi sealing the border and frostier relations between Iran and Hezbollah and Hamas.
 
Israel has seized the opportunity to finish off Hamas the better to remove its rocket capacity which was feared as something that could be unleashed against Israel's gas infrastructure in the Eastern Mediterranean. Then, it would be able to use that to put the PA a position where it could break its alliance with Hamas.
 
The message would then be if the PA wants to benefit from the gas revenues it and the West Bank would be better off not alligning with Hamas because there would be no advantage anymore. Netanyahu's strategy is ruthless but it seems both the US and EU powers would have little to lose if he succeeded.

The need to hedge their bets as regards Israel's war on Gaza is partly about the EU's need for energy diversification. Israel could use the LNG supplies it is set to export in future to East Asia as well to to promote its regional security by supporting Egypt and Jordan which are seen as threatened by jihadists.

It's hard to see how Israel's war in Gaza could make it particularly less secure. The only possibility of that would be if ISIS were to gain a stronger foothold in Gaza at the expense of Hamas. Ex-IDF commanders have warned of this. Yet even then, that would not change much as Netanyahu is intent on a general 'war on terror'.

The Likud government makes no distinction between Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood or ISIS: all are jihadi Islamist fanatics at a regional and global level burning with a pyschopathological obsession with destroying both Israel and Western civilisation.

As a wealthy and largely rather effective 'national security state', Israel is not going to be realistically threatened. The last suicide bombing was in 2008. That threat has been largely averted. Hamas did not get much assistance from Iran between 2011-2014.

Part of that is connected with the sectarian divisions opened up and made worse by the Syrian conflict. It remains to be seen whether Hizbollah and Iran would put more priority on their struggle against Sunni jihadists than in starting to refocus on Israel should Israel prove too successful.

Yet that is very unlikely and the reality is that Netanyahu knows that he has the best chance Israel has had in years to compel a peace entirely on his terms, one that he refers to as a 'sustainable ceasefire' or a 'sustainable quiet', and that melds the agends of energy security with a a 'war on terror' one.

Irrespective of the humanitarian cost, which Israel blames on Hamas for continuing to attempt fire rockets as far as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, the war is set to go on till it gain the regional security it wants which is why Netanyahu made it quite clear that ‘this will be a long operation’.

Gaza, Israel and the Uses of Terror.

'Israel is being projected on the world’s TV screens and front pages as a callous, brutal monster, pounding the Gaza strip with artillery fire that hits schools, hospitals and civilian homes...They know what it looks like – but they desperately want the world to see what they see.'-Jonathan Freedland, Israel’s fears are real, but this Gaza war is utterly self-defeating, The Guardian July 25 2014

There is no reason why Israelis need to identify with the military position being taken on Gaza or to accept the routine propaganda line that the 'ground incursion' and air and naval strikes are primarily or only about protecting them from Hamas terror. Hamas rocket attacks are mostly ineffective.

The Iron Dome defence system that was constructed in 2011-12 has been seen , to use that currently popular media word, a 'game changer' in that Israel is largely safe from attacks. The determination to go for outright victory and what Netanyahu terms the 'demilitarisation of the Gaza Strip' is the policy.

The Hamas tunnels and the possibility of abductions caused real fears but they are hardly on such a scale that would justify the the degree to which the IDF has pounded Gaza. The abduction of the three Israeli teenagers was seized on as the pretext for the Netanyahu to pursue his military strategy.

As Zbigniew Brzezinski pointed out,

'When Hamas in effect accepted the notion of participation in the Palestinian leadership, it in effect acknowledged the determination of that leadership to seek a peaceful solution with Israel. That was a real option. They should have persisted in that.

Instead Netanyahu launched the campaign of defamation against Hamas, seized on the killing of three innocent Israeli kids to immediately charge Hamas with having done it without any evidence, and has used that to stir up public opinion in Israel in order to justify this attack on Gaza, which is so lethal'

The question is why. The purpose of the campaign is quite clear: the readiness to eliminate Hamas or destroy its military capacity regardless of civilian casualties is part of a strategy that aims at destroying its bargaining position following the unity agreement between Hamas and Fatah in the West Bank.

One means to effect that is to firmly secure control over the Gaza Marine gas reserves which lie 20km off the Gazan coastline and so clearly in range of potential Hamas rocket attacks .To tap these reserves is considered a vital interest in the eyes of the Israeli government and its accepted by its allies.

Many conflicts across the globe after the end of the Cold War have been about access to strategically important resources such as oil and gas ( as well, in fact, even water). The Iraq War was justified on a 'war on terror' narrative but was about geopolitics and oil. The Gaza conflict is no exception.

So the problem is that the conflict in Gaza is portrayed as one concerned on the Israeli side only with fears for its security and the mutual fear, distrust and antagonism that goes all the way back to the way Israel emerged as a nation state in 1948. That is important to understand but it is not the entire picture.

Clearly, there is a fear that if Hamas were to be aligned with the Palestinian Authority then it would stand to benefit from the gas wealth, 10% of which is earmarked for the Palestinians as part of the policy of developing the West Bank economically.

The sticking point has been that Israel has wanted first to break Hamas, then pursue a separate peace with the Palestinian Authority whereby the gas revenues would flow into their 'special funds' on condition that violence against Israel is renounced in the West Bank.

The thinking behind such a strategy, supported by Special Envoy Tony Blair, is that a developing West Bank would act as a model for Gaza and encourage Gazans and Hamas to realise that armed resistance ( i.e terrorism ) and jihadism could only see them isolated further from the region.

Evidently, the longer the 2014 conflict drags on, the more anger and bitterness amongst Palestinians is set to increase. But the fact remains that in power political terms it is irrelevant because Israel would be able to develop economically and militarily with or without the Palestinians. 

For the first time in history, Gaza and Hamas are totally isolated. Iran is advancing its regional strategy via the backing Shia governments and forces such as Hizbollah. Egypt is intent on deepening and strenthening energy and security ties with Israel no matter the domestic reaction.

The Israeli government has seen a historic window of opportunity to compel a peace deal on Hamas on their terms by using effective military force to finish it off as an effective force with bargaining power. This is the reality of the conflict of 2014 and why it could be the bloodiest yet as the stakes are so high.

Hamas has its back against the wall. The blockade, the sealing of the border with Egypt following the Sisi coup against the Muslim Brotherhood government, the increased poverty and immiseration, the lack of regional support means armed struggle is seen as vital but their capacity for it is being eroded.

Israel has nothing to lose by crushing Hamas. It's security is not going to be made worse by the ground incursion into Gaza. The EU is interested in cooperating with it in the exploitation of its gas reserves. The US is bound to back it as part of the policy of securing the Saudi-Egypt-Israel alliance.

As for Israeli citizens, most of them would be able to get on with their ordinary daily lives in a largely successful advanced consumer-capitalist land without much that thought for Gazan casualties who inhabit a very different world from them and could be considered as dying because of the stupdity of their leaders.

Certainly, that the thrust of Israeli 'public diplomacy' from Netanyahu and slightly sinister spin doctors such as Mark Regev who claim that the victims of the IDF's 'ground incursion' are not really being killed by Israel but by the Hamas policy of hiding rocket stores in civilian areas.

Israeli government claims need only have a certain degree of plausibility for them to be accepted by both the Israeli public which wants security and finds the Palestinian issue a tiresome and tedious legacy of the past, and Western leaders who are also willing to identity with Israeli war aims the better to serve their interests.

The Israel-Palestine Conflict: Reflections on Just War and Just Terror

Propaganda about the Israel-Palestine conflict often falls into two versions. One is that Israel only uses such means as is strictly necessary to defend itself against Hamas, a dastardly group of terrorist fanatics that wants to wipe Israel off the map as stated in their charter.

The second is that, on the contrary, Hamas are a dedicated resistance force representing the true will of the Gazan people against an agressive colonialist terror state and that Israel is an alien entity in the Middle East founded on a form of 'state terrorism' far worse than anything offered by the PLO or Hamas.

Neither of these two propaganda tropes lead to an understanding that there is, in fact, a dark and pyschopathological link between Israel's politicians and the Hamas rocketeers who both need the aggression and terror of the other in order to advance their respective power claims.

Terror cuts both ways. Israel is a state in which its government is ready to deploy terror tactics to advance their strategy for dealing with Hamas. Likewise, Hamas is an organisation dedicated to an armed insurgency against Israel using rocket attacks and that is also a tactic of terror.

The brutal reality is in previous confrontations in 2012, 2008-9 and, further back to the period that followed on from the war which created the Gaza Strip and Israel back in 1948, terror has been used by fanatics both sides just as it was from the outset.

The Likud government pursuing the war in Gaza at present, though termed a 'ground incursion', is directly connected to the Irgun, a Zionist paramilitary group in many ways similar in its tactics to the PLO and even Hamas. That Israel is a succesful democracy tends to obscure this.

The irony, however, as historian Mark Almond pointed out during the 2008 Israeli-Gaza conflict is that it is precisely democracy that has ratcheted up the tensions and led to a belief on both sides that the terrorism of the other justifies being tough and intransigent so as to shore up domestic support.

As Almond puts it ' both Israel and Gaza are among the few democratic parts of the Middle East. But democracy makes peace more difficult to come by. few Israeli would-be prime ministers want to appear ‘soft’ on terrorism. And Hamas won the election in Gaza by voicing its bitter resentment of Israel'.

The Israel Palestine conflict of 2014 is, as with others before it, in reality a regional conflict. Yet it tends to get portrayed as the theatre of some cosmic global struggle between good and evil. As with other conflicts it is about ethnicity and religion but also about control over resources such as water and offshore gas.

Though Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel condemns the rocket attacks as terrorism ( which they are ) the fact is that they are designed as provocations to get Israel to retaliate in precisely the way it is doing and for Hamas to portray Israel as a terrorist power ( and it is carrying out war crimes ).

The difference, of course, is that the balance of terror in 2014 more than in any previous conflict is stacked in Israel's favour due to the development of the Iron Dome defence system in 2011-2012. And this has been decisive in Israel going for outright victory and to military means to force Hamas into submission.

The usual criteria of 'intentionality' and 'proportionality' when considering whether a hostile action is just war or terror has become blurred entirely. On both sides the emphasis has been on just terror, even if the the decisive advantage lies with Israel which wants to now finish off Hamas permanently.

Why Israel Could Eliminate Hamas as a Military Force: Energy Geopolitics and Regional Power Interests in the Eastern Mediterranean.

'Why is it that Palestinian lives are not valuable enough for comment, let alone diplomatic action? For the same reason Netanyahu labelled Gaza, home to 1.8m Palestinians, a “fortress of terror”. There is a belief that Palestinians are terroristic by default'
-Jennine Abdul Khalik.

The reason why Western politicians and statesmen have been reluctant to criticise Israel or even refer to its attacks on Gaza as being disproportionate ( as was the case in the 2006 conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon ) is that business and energy interests trump humanitarian considerations.

Israel is a nuclear armed state and has been emboldened to finish off Hamas as a military force in Gaza with the tacit acceptance of the US and Britain because it is set to become a significant exporter of gas after large reserves where discovered off the Israeli coast in 2010.

The Gaza Marine gas reserves, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), hold about 1.6 trillion cubic feet in gas, and state "offshore Gaza territory may hold additional energy resources.". The license to exploit Gaza Marine is held by the BG Group ( British Gas ).

The Eastern Mediterranean gas reserves controlled by Israel have made its commanding geopolitical position more secure as the EU states in particular would like to diversify their supply of gas away from Russia. But others are also vying to benefit from future LNG exports, including Russia and Australia

The hard reality is that none of the great powers have any interest in displeasing Israel or 'rocking the boat'. This is not merely because of the interests of the energy corporations. Energy diversification is bound up with global power politics and not being too dependent upon any one nation for gas exports.

Netanyahu has realised that with the Egyptian coup of 2013 and the Syrian conflict, Hamas is isolated from having any support in the Middle East, except a certain amount of diplomatic backing from Turkey and Qatar who have aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood to promote their energy interests.

In Syria, Turkey and Qatar back a Muslim Brotherhood government-in-waiting to replace Assad so as to promote a gas pipeline that would have connected the South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf to EU markets or, at best, prevent Iran from exporting its gas through to the Eastern Mediterranean via Syria.

Yet despite vocal opposition from Turkey and Erdogan to Israel's 'ground incursion' into Gaza, neither Turkey not Qatar would directly back Hamas in the way Iran did in the past. Apart from the fact Qatar would be wary of a hostile reaction from Saudi Arabia, Turkey has interests in cooperating with Israel.

On Kurdistan, both Israel and Turkey had mutual interests in having Kurdistan export oil via Turkey and also on cooperation on a Mediterranean Pipeline Project (Medstream). What Turkey would not want is Israel to develop its offshore gas by 2017 in a way that would bypass it.

The determination not to be left out of the development of Eastern Mediterranean gas reserves and export routes is at the centre of Turkey's regional ambitions. It explains why Hamas has no interest in an Egyptian led ceasfire agreement and why Erdogan has slammed Sisi as a 'tyrant'.

The predicament of the Palestinian in Gaza is that their fate is tied up with cynical power political calculations and energy geopolitics. One reason there have been calls for Blair to be removed as Special Envoy is that he is regarded as too close to the Israeli-Egyptian alliance at the expense of Turkey and Qatar.

The outlook for Gaza is bleak. Israel has every interest in intensifying the blockade of Gaza from land, air and sea the better to crush Hamas and exploit the Gaza Marine gas reserves as soon as possible so as to increase its bargaining position in the region.

The exploitation of the Levant Basin has run up against certain problems as well as squabbles with other Eastern Mediterranean powers. With a looming 'energy crunch' forecast for 2015, Israel is determined to secure the Gaza Marine reserves as a 'stop gap' without needing to pay the market price.

The Fate of Palestine in the New Great Game for the Energy Resources of the Eastern Mediterranean.

'Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has signalled that the offensive against Gaza will intensify still further. "The operation will be expanded until the goal is achieved," he said after a meeting of his security cabinet'

The goal of the Israeli military operation is said to be the destruction of Hamas's capacity to launch rockets from Gaza and to destroy the tunnels through which terror attacks are made possible. Yet the reality is that, in contrast to the 2008 conflict, Israel intendstotal victory in destroying Hamas militarily.

Hamas has been isolated by the impact of both the broadening out of the Syrian Conflict into a Sunni-Shia sectarian struggle in the course of 2012 and the Egyptian coup of 2013. Both have contributed to Gaza being cut off from supplies and finance and so desperate to shore up its flagging support base.

The Syrian Conflict fractured the unity of Hezbollah and Hamas in their joint struggle against Israel and led to Iranian funds for Hamas at first being slashed back in 2012. Even when Hamas courted Iran once more by not taking sides on Syria, supplies have not been able to get through.

The Egyptian Coup led to a government close to the Muslim Brotherhood being overthrown by General Sisi and the closure of tunnels into Gaza from the Egyptian side as Israel and Egypt have strengthened their security cooperation in trying to crush jihadist insurgents on the Sinai Peninsula.

The strengthened alliance between Egypt and Israel is crucially connected with the determination of Israel to exploit the gas reserves off the Gaza coast, the profits of which would benefit not only Israel but also the Palestinian Authority. By decisively destroying Hamas, the PA would have to negotiate on Israeli terms.

If the PA under Abbas refused to accept the destruction of Hamas, then the Palestinian elite would need to forget about having any share in Gaza's offshore gas wealth. The West Bank would continue to face economic problems and the region would miss out on their cut of the gas wealth provided through services.

Israel's discovery in 2010 of huge reserves of natural resources in the Eastern Mediterranean should last half a century. One reason Hamas has no backers and there has been no condemnation of the IDF operation is that EU ministers hope that Israeli gas could help diversify supply away from Russia.

The US and Britain follow the same position that 'Israel has the right to defend itself' from Hamas rocket attacks and to be indifferent to IDF incursions ( even if wary that the Palestinian deaths make 'public diplomacy' difficult ) because both US and UK energy corporations have an important stake in the gas.

The gas reserves off Gaza are worth $4bn and were developed by the BG Group ( formerly British Gas ). The Leviathan gas fields off Israel's coast are being tapped by an energy consortium including Israel’s Ratio and Derek Drilling and US-headquartered Noble Energy. 

Simon Henderson in one study wrote,

'There is little doubt that the discovery off Israel of the Tamar field (10 tcf) in 2009 and the Leviathan field (18 tcf) in 2010 changed perceptions in Jerusalem, making Israel more confident of the strength of its negotiating hand. In late 2011 and early 2012, there was renewed Israeli interest in devising a way to exploit the natural gas of Gaza Marine.

'The level of international diplomatic interest in the development of the field increased in 2013 with both the East Jerusalem-based Office of the Quartet Representative, led by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry focusing attention on the positive aspects of Palestinian economic development. In October 2013, an unnamed Israeli official was quoted as saying that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s government was “very supportive” of the project'.

Faced with an energy shortage and problems with disputes with Syria, Lebanon and Cyprus, it is said Israel's gas potential would not be ready before 2020. Even so, the EU is interested in seeing Eastern Mediterranean gas run from Israel via Cyprus, a "second Southern Corridor” to that running via Turkey.

One reason Turkey is the only regional power to openly condemn Israel's incursion into Gaza and to regard Hamas as an ally is it does not wish Israel's gas to run via Cyprus instead of through Turkey as Erdogan has a neo-Ottoman vision of his nation as the main east-west energy hub.

Qatar, likewise, had interests in backing Hamas because of its regional strategy of building a gas pipeline via Syria towards Turkey, one reason both powers are so keen to back Sunni jihadists against Assad the better to advance it against both Iran's rival plan for a pipeline via Syria and Israel's energy plans.

Hence Israel has gained from the Syrian Conflict and has no interest in taking any particular side in that struggle as neither the Turkey-Qatar plan, backed by the West, nor the Iranian 'axis of resistance', which has been backed by Russia's support for Assad, is in in its interest so long as it is yet to develop its gasfields.

The problem for the EU is that a deterioration of Israeli-Turkish relations would stall plans to export Israeli gas either via Turkey or even Cyprus and could leadTurkey to strengthen its cooperation with Russia, thus increasing Moscow's influence in the Black Sea region.

US diplomacy from John Kerry is going to centre around trying to broker a deal between Qatar and Turkey, allies in the struggle against Assad in Syria and his backer in Iran, and Israel and Egypt on the other. Egypt has sought Israeli gas to end its fuel crisis and restore economic stability and the security of the Sinai Peninsula.

With strengthened cooperation between Egypt and Israel to crush the jihadist insurgency in north east Egypt, the security of Israel's border with Gaza and of the Sinai pipeline. Two days ago militants blew up the Sinai pipeline. So destroying both the jihadists in Egypt and in Gaza is considered part of a joint security effort.

The naval blockade from 2007 positions the Israeli navy 65km from the Gazan coast because Hamas rockets have a range of only 50km. The gas reserves are 20km off the Gazan coast which makes the necessity to eliminate the rockets and the capacity to import or to make them through smuggling in the parts a geostrategic imperative.

A New Great Game is on across the Middle East for supplying energy to the EU which consumes 25% of the globe's gas supplies but produces only 2%. In this ruthless and pathological power political struggle, the Palestinians of Gaza are the ultimate losers because their struggle is merely a bargaining chip in a broader geopolitical contest.

Tony Blair's Role as Special Envoy for the Middle East Quartet.

'Last week he was in the Middle East....He says he is "saddened and angry" by what is happening in Gaza. He says he wants to see a two state solution. Whatever you think of Iraq, we did lead in the world, he says'.

Blair is using this twentieth anniversary of his becoming Labour leader in 1994 to spin his legacy as some far seeing political visionary whose approach retains 'clarity of purpose'. Yet Blair is going to be remembered for Iraq, a war that cost billions, and creating a debt fuelled economy that crashed in 2007-8.

The attempt to use his position as Special Envoy to the Middle East Quartet to 'frame the issues' on the need for a continued global war on Islamist terrorism everywhere, as though it were one seamless totalitarian threat, shows that he remains attached to discredited 'neoconservative' ideas in foreign policy.

Even so, Blair's ideology is what unites his position on Iraq with that of Gaza. The agenda is to first support Israel in crushing Hamas the better to force Palestinian leaders into agreeing to an Israeli settlement in which the gas wealth of Gaza would be used to benefit Israel first then Palestinians.

The same idea of 'trickle down' economics was behind Blair's support for the Iraq War" invade it, get rid of the dictator, allow Iraq's oil wealth to fund the reconstruction of the nation while allowing the west to diversify its oil supply. The result was a greater war within Iraq between those vying for its oil wealth.

Likewise, in Gaza, Blair's idea as a 'man of peace' invested with the duty to create 'stability' is in advocating Israeli control over the gas according to a deal he brokered back in 2011 whereby the BG Group ( formerly British Gas ) would sell the Gazan gas reserves to Israel instead of Egypt.

First and foremost, it is as a broker of gas deals Blair makes himself useful. It is secondary whether than actually creates peace because that could only happen if Hamas were to surrender authority and control over Gaza and not as a consequence of any concession Israel could make.

When the current conflict between Israel and Hamas broke out, Blair made it clear there was no chance of peace between the two. As Blair made quite plain “[There will be] ”no trust on either side between Hamas and Israel. That is not going to happen in the immediate term and possibly ever”.

Blair essentially supports the policy of Israeli PM Netanyahu in using a military solution to eliminate Hamas in Gaza as he sees Hamas as a terrorist organisation no less than ISIS or Al Qaida and so no less fundamentally evil than in having a dictator such as Saddam Hussein in control of resources in Iraq.

Egypt, of course, is different for Blair because Sisi is a secular authoritarian and not a theocratic or ideologically fanatical dictator. One reason Blair supported the coup was that it was necessary to create 'stability' and to get the economy functioning and the fuel crisis Egypt faces solved in alliance with Israel.

To that end, Blair supports a reinvigorated Israeli-Egyptian security and energy nexus as does the US and EU states, hoping that Israeli gas could be used to help European nations avoid being overdependent upon Russia for gas and to enrich the elites in the PA so as to get them onside in the 'peace process'.

However, Blair also believes that the exploitation of Israeli gas reserves and the elimination of Hamas would benefit Russia as well. One reason Israel has been able and willing to try to finish off Hamas is that it lacks regional support following the coup in Egypt in 2013 and the Syrian conflict.

In 2014 Russia's Gazprom was set to help develop Gaza's gas field.Israel has taken a more pragmatic stance towards Russia in recent years as it discovered its own gas reserves and sought cooperation on energy projects. This is why Blair advocated that Russia and the West join forces against 'radical Islam'.

For Blair this blending of tough realpolitik and potential wealth creation through the exploitation of resources is a "progressive" foreign policy. In the short term, there may well be blood and tears, yet in the longer term there is no alternative and wealth and consumerism is the only way to overcome the past.

While Blair is routinely condemned by British politicians for joining the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 ,his thinking and the role of resources in foreign policy strategy remain close to the way Western politicians still approach geopolitical struggles across the globe. After all, he is Special Envoy for a reason.

Why There Will Be No Immediate Peace between Israel and Gaza.

'We Palestinians and Israelis have experienced many destructive wars and the result is always the same: more deaths, more terrible injuries, more bloodshed, more animosity and more hatred. What do we expect to be the result of any war?

The current conflict has led to at least 260 people being killed, more than 1,600 severely wounded, more than 2,300 Israeli air strikes, more than 1,300 rockets fired from Gaza and at least 600 houses and institutions demolished and destroyed'.As a father who lost his children in Gaza, I call for an end to this bloodshed, The Guardian Friday July 17 2014

The conflict is intractable and set to continue because religious and ethnic divisions, as well as the history of mistrust and enmity, is being intensified by a psychopathological struggle for the offshore gas off the Eastern Mediterranean that Israel wants a Hamas led Gaza to have no stake in.

Israel was emboldened enough by the prize of gas discovered by British Gas in 1999 off the coast of Gaza back in 2008 to want to destroy Hamas. Analyst Mark Turner, argues Israel sought by its siege and military attacks to want to "eliminate Hamas" and prevent any alliance with the PA in the West Bank.

With the discovery of the Leviathan and Tamar gas fields in 2010, Israel is set to be self sufficient in gas for 50 years and to be in a position of both energy independence and to export as LNG at least 40% of its reserves to the global market. This should put Israel in a commanding position.

Moreover, by being a major gas producer the EU states would have no substantial objection to Israel doing as it requires in Gaza, having already turned a blind eye to General Sisi's 2013 coup in Egypt and the strengthening once more of security and energy interests.

Hamas is not going to be allowed any benefit from the offshore gas off Gaza via Western influence either. This is one essential reason both the US and Britain remains largely indifferent to the current crisis and repeats stock phrases about 'Israel's right to defend itself'.
 
The gas field ( as with that off Egypt ) was discovered by the BG Group which holds the license and Both Tony Blair as Special Envoy to the Middle East Quartet and John Kerry believe could be used to fund the Fatah controlled West Bank, despite the fact the gas reserves lie off Hamas controlled Gaza.

Blair is employed mostly as an advocate of energy and business interests and because he has a talent for high sounding platitudes that make it appear as though there is a peace process “There will be.. no trust on either side between Hamas and Israel. That is not going to happen in the immediate term and possibly ever,”

Israel wants to tap this gas irrespective of the Palestinians in Gaza and so it the with the area cut off from Egypt and Iranian supplies it is more isolated than as ever before. The West seems content to let Israel get on with the job. Only Turkey has been vocally critical of Israel's military incursion into Gaza.

EU ministers have discussed the role of Israeli and Cypriot gas as part of their strategy of energy diversification, something given greater urgency following the crisis and conflict in Ukraine and Russia's attempt to check a Qatar-Turkey gas pipeline by backing Assad in Syria against the Sunni jihadists supported by the Western Powers.

Britain stands to benefit as the BG Group's dominant position in the offshore Egyptian gas field concession means it could play a key role in importing gas from Israel into Egypt, a prospect that could restore confidence after what William Hague called the "turbulence" of political events in 2013.

Egypt needs gas imports after its domestic supplies peaked and in order to fuel economic growth once more. As Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Sherif Ismail stated on July 6 “Whatever is in Egypt’s interest must be implemented immediately as we are dealing with an energy crisis”.

This explains why Israel and Hamas have refused to back down in the July 2014 conflict. Israel realises Hamas is weak due to the combined impact of the Egyptian coup, which removed the Muslim Brotherhood as a regional player, and the Syrian Civil War which has led sectarian tensions between Sunni and Shia.

Israel wants to press home its advantage and crush Hamas the better to get it to give in and sue for peace wholly on Israel's terms. If Hamas chooses not to, Israel is indifferent. It has no interest in a Hamas Gaza benefitting from the gas wealth ( which it fears could be used to fund terrorism against it).

Yet for Israel the blood price is minimal so far and Bloomberg reported that the IDF military activity has had no impact upon shares in the leading Israeli energy firms such as Delek Group Ltd and Avner Oil Exploration, in fact, on the contrary, their share prices have increased.

Israel faced a potential energy crisis until 2010. As Egypt has too, the determination to deal with Islamist insurgents in Sinai and Hamas is part of a drive towards a mutually beneficial partnership in which security comes first and then the gas riches believed to be a 'Gift from God'.

The danger for Israel and for Gaza is that the failure of Hamas could lead to the rise of rival Islamist groups aligned to ISIS as Salafist entities such as Al Dalwa Al-Islamia try to propagate their role in the rocket attacks, having claimed to have led one against the town of Bnei Netzarim.

Should ISIS affiliates in Gaza link up with those in Sinai, the struggle could blow up into a broader regionwide conflagration set to get worse under the impact of increased global heating and recurring drought, economic collapse, resource struggles, overpopulation and male unemployment.