Abbas's Responsibility for Gaza Crisis

by Bassam Tawil • August 21, 2018 at 6:00 am

In a letter to the UN Secretary-General, Mahmoud Abbas's Foreign Ministry accused Israel of committing "crimes" against Palestinians civilians, especially in the Gaza Strip, and renewed the call for providing "international protection" for the Palestinians.
This is the same Abbas whose sanctions have triggered the recent violence along the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel. If anyone needs "international protection," it is those protesters who are being targeted by Abbas's security forces in the West Bank.
Abbas is especially worried that the international community will be funding economic and humanitarian projects in the Gaza Strip behind his back. He wants the money to be spent through his government. He wants to control every penny the international community earmarks for the welfare of his people.
What exactly does Abbas want? He wants the people of the Gaza Strip to continue protesting so that he will be able to continue to demonize Israel.

Left: A Palestinian rioter behind a smokescreen from a burning tire, at the Gaza-Israel border fence, June 8, 2018. (Photo by Ilia Yefimovich/Getty Images) Right: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. (Photo by Kevin Hagen/Getty Images)

The Palestinian Authority (PA) is continuing to pursue a policy of double-dealing regarding the Gaza Strip.

On the one hand, President Mahmoud Abbas and the PA leadership continue inciting against Israel by holding it solely responsible for the humanitarian and economic crisis in the Gaza Strip. On the other hand, Abbas and his Ramallah-based government continue to impose strict economic sanctions on the Gaza Strip.

Now, Abbas is bending over backwards to foil a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas and the other Palestinian terror groups in the Gaza Strip. Abbas says he is worried that such a deal would pave the way for the implementation of US President Donald Trump's yet-to-be-announced plan for peace in the Middle East.

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Russia's War on the West

by Stephen Blank and Peter Huessy • August 21, 2018 at 4:00 am

If one examines Russia's proposals, there is a shell game going on. Russia wants the United States to abide by treaties that they themselves are breaking. Russia, for instance, has been breaking the INF Treaty since the 1990s, a fact essentially admitted by the Russian press in 2007.
The real Moscow build-up of nuclear warheads and associated missiles and bombers are tailored for short, intermediate, and long-range missile strikes. These systems, along with Russian published doctrine and testing, reveals a Russian military preparing to use nuclear weapons (as well as chemical and biological weapons) for war-fighting purposes and to threaten not only military targets but population centers as well.
Russia's proposals also aim to block American conventional global strike programs and capabilities and to seek guarantees that American and allied missile defenses, especially those in Europe, will either not be built or will be strictly limited.
Russia's public displays of the new programs is no doubt designed both to intimidate the West into not responding to Russian provocations, and to force the U.S. into one-sided arms control deals in their favor, out of fear of emerging Russian nuclear arms.

Pictured: A screenshot of what Russian President Vladimir Putin called a new "invincible" cruise missile developed by Russia, from a video screened by Putin on March 1, 2018.

After the Helsinki Summit was over, the Russian government, the Russian and American media, and many Russian experts in the West have been calling for the United States and Russia to agree quickly to either an extension of the 2010 New Start Treaty, or a new follow-on arms control agreement; the New Start Treaty between the two countries is scheduled to expire in 2021.

Many of these calls for new negotiations and a new treaty are primarily driven by alarm at the bad state of East-West relations, the belief in the inherent benefits of arms control in general, and that arms control remains the area where it is easiest to secure Russo-American dialogue.

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