Posted: 30 Jul 2014 10:49 PM PDT
While Israelis are fighting and dying, families huddling in bomb
shelters and soldiers going off to face death, the men and women in suits and
power suits moving through the great halls of diplomacy are using them as
pawns in a larger game.
During
the Cold War, Israel was a pawn in a larger struggle between the US and the
USSR. Now it is back to being a counter in a larger game.
Israel’s function within the great halls of diplomacy was always as a lever
on the Arab states. It was not an end, but a means of moving them one way or
another. When the Arab states drifted into the Soviet orbit, the “Special
Relationship” was born. The relationship accomplished its goal once Egypt was
pried out of the Soviet orbit. It has lingered on because of the emotional
and cultural ties of Israel and the US.
Now Obama is using Israel as a lever to push Egypt back into the Islamist
camp. Egypt’s rejection of the Muslim Brotherhood broke the Arab Spring.
Political Islam, which seemed to be on the ascendance, is back to being a
freak show represented by terrorists and Turkey’s mad mustachioed dictator.
Egypt was where Obama went to begin the Arab Spring. Egypt is still his
target. Israel is just the lever.
The reason Israel was never allowed to truly win any wars was because it was
being used as a lever. By being a “good lever” during the Cold War, it could
damage Egypt enough that the latter would come to the negotiating table
overseen by the US and move back into the Western sphere of influence.
Israel couldn’t be allowed to win a big enough victory because then there
would nothing to negotiate. Likewise, Israel wouldn’t be allowed to keep what
it won because then there would be no reason for Egypt to come to the
negotiating table. Sometimes Israel would even be expected to lose, as in the
Yom Kippur War, to force it to come to the negotiating table.
Swap Egypt for the PLO and that’s how the disastrous peace process happened.
Then swap the PLO for Hamas and that is where we are now.
Obama’s initial support for Israel’s war on Hamas was only to the extent
necessary to bring the terrorist group to the negotiating table. And then
once Hamas comes to the negotiating table, the White House will back its
demands against Israel in exchange for getting the Brotherhood on board with
its agenda.
Israel is just the means; the Muslim Brotherhood and political Islam are the
objective. That objective may mean the end of the West, but those striding
boldly through the halls of diplomacy are not worried.
The real target of the Hamas campaign wasn’t Israel; it was Egypt.
Egypt’s crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood had included Hamas. That
crackdown worried Hamas far more than anything that Israel was doing.
Meanwhile the Muslim Brotherhood’s loss of power meant a major setback for
the sugar daddies of the Arab Spring; Qatar, Turkey and their Western allies.
The new alignment had placed Qatar, Turkey, Obama and the EU in one row,
while Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Israel and the PLO were in another row.
The latest phase of the Gaza War between Israel and Hamas was meant to break
apart that alignment.
Obama’s tilt toward Iran had encouraged Sunni Muslims to throw their backing
behind ISIS leading to significant gains in Iraq. Qatar and Turkey, backers
of both Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood, then used ISIS to push the myth
that the only counter to Al Qaeda was the Brotherhood’s political Islam.
Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood, political Islam and the Jihadist bands,
have always been two sides of the same coin, but the argument remains a
persuasive one in the great halls of diplomacy.
Egypt
had bottled up Hamas to avoid a repetition of the jailbreaks, terrorist
attacks and street violence that had freed Morsi and Brotherhood leaders and
later enabled Morsi to attempt a takeover of the Egyptian military.
The path to putting the Muslim Brotherhood back in power in Egypt runs
through Hamas.
Hamas attacked Israel. There was enough backing for Israel’s attack on Hamas
to get it to the negotiating table. But once a ceasefire offer was on the
table, Egypt would no longer be calling the shots. Instead the deal would
come through two of Hamas’ state sponsors; Qatar and Turkey.
For this to work, Obama had to keep a leash on Israel, giving it permission
to fight and then pulling it back at the critical moment. Meanwhile Egypt
would be surprised to learn that it was no longer setting the terms of the
ceasefire based on the same old arrangement, but that its place would be
filled by Qatar and Turkey. Their ceasefire terms, approved by the US, would
loosen the blockade around Hamas.
Egypt had attempted to hold Hamas to the original ceasefire terms. That was
not in the interests of the White House. The ceasefire negotiations had to be
sabotaged with a political intervention on behalf of Hamas. And who better to
conduct that political intervention than Secretary of State John Kerry?
Egypt, Israel and the PLO had not wanted Kerry to come. Israel’s former
ambassador to the US had said that he was not invited. But he was caught on a
hot mic saying that he was going to come anyway.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was even more unwanted, but Qatar
transported him to Israel.
Kerry, the UN and Hamas had all become projections of Qatari state power into
Egypt and Israel.
The US and the UN pushed for an urgent and immediate ceasefire. Israel
accepted the ceasefire several times, but Hamas resumed firing each time.
While Israel thought that this demonstrated its peaceful intentions, what it
actually did was give Hamas the power to set the terms of the ceasefire.
Once Hamas had that power, meeting its demands became the key element of
ending the violence.
One of Egypt’s remaining political assets had been the ability to turn off
Hamas violence. Now Qatar and Turkey had demonstrated that it could no longer
do that. With Qatar, Turkey and the US undermining Egypt, it could no longer
pressure Hamas. Meanwhile the UN and the US were pressuring Israel to accept
the Qatar/Turkey ceasefire terms favorable to Hamas and unfavorable to Egypt
and Israel.
But
diplomacy was never Kerry’s strong suit. His blatant Qatari intervention
instead alienated everyone.
Netanyahu has chosen to extend the operation against Hamas. Backing him up
are poll numbers which show that the vast majority of Israelis want the job
done. The PLO now suspects that Obama is about to back a Hamas coup against
it. And Egypt’s military has gotten a lot of recent experience watching
Obama’s botched diplomatic strategies blow up in his face.
The real objective of this war was to undermine Egypt. Egypt was supposed to
scramble into the new alignment by developing closer ties with Hamas and
cutting a deal with the Muslim Brotherhood.
And if Egypt’s government wouldn’t cooperate, the Muslim Brotherhood might be
able to tap into enough of the anti-Israel and pro-Hamas sentiment to topple
the government a second time. But if Egypt remains opposed to Hamas and
Israel pushes forward with a plan to demilitarize Gaza, then the goals of
those in the great halls of diplomacy who are behind this war will fail.
Daniel Greenfield is a New York City based writer and blogger
and a Shillman Journalism Fellow of the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
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