Resulting from Russia’s declaration that it would be establishing eight militarized outposts along the de facto Syria-Israel border, the UN has been prodded into action, and is re-engaging its own responsibilities to monitor the region. The UN previously was unable to perform, due to pressure from the US, Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia chiefly, to pressure the UN not to guard the demilitarized zone.
The result of a lacking UN presence was that the area was more easily used by Israel to provide safe harbor, arms, equipment, and medical care to Al-Qaeda and ISIS groups, under these and several related brands. Russia has been looking for a solution ever since. With the US’s waning influence in the region, and significantly reduced force projection capacity, we entered into a new period.
This had the effect of sending the Zionist entity scrambling in order to seek a better deal, attempting to triangulate US-Russia tensions and the proxy war between the two multi-polar powers in the region. Israel has considerable pull on some pillars of Russian power, enough so that it is able to build its move of desperation into the creation of the perception both domestically and internationally, that its moves here are proactive, and demonstrate an expansion of Israeli power.
Whether a line trotted for domestic consumption or international consumption or both, Israel trumps that it is not only controlling the US Congress through AIPAC and other deeper mechanisms upon the deep state, such as through banking and through pedophile kompromat, but ostensibly also the Russian Duma. A large portion of Israel’s population today are also Russian and former Soviet citizens, holding two passports. In addition, a statistically disproportionate number of Russia’s capitalist class are also Israeli citizens.
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FRN has made an editorial decision to focus on directly analyzing events without self-censorship. Previously pressured by Russian media-intelligence operatives to not openly report on Russian strategy in light of 4GW, FRN must instead utilize our sources to shed light on Russian strategy as we did prior to Russia’s engagement in the Syrian conflict. At the end of the day, an informed public is the greatest weapon of democracy. In the face of encroachment on the freedom of press in the Anglo-sphere, and the lack of any attempt to coordinate support from the Russian media-intelligence sphere with FRN, our best option now is to deliver our editorial line in the raw, while we still have a platform
In the grand strategies of nations, it is always beneficial when they are able to shape their major strategic activities in ways that can be read multiple ways, by multiple other strategic actors, with each actor having a generally correct read of the activity. This provides tremendous latitude and ability to act. These can be considered ‘dual purpose’ strategies.
At the present moment, nowhere is this practice and this condition more visible than with Russia’s game with Israel. The biggest news recently was that Russia was set to establish eight military outposts, along the de facto border of Israel and Syria, on the Syrian-governed side of the border with the Golan Heights, the region which is presently under an illegal Israeli occupation.
Through a complex system of information war, Russia is using the very same cordoning off of the internet which the US establishment and deep state are set to complete, to disassemble reality. This virtual walled garden is meant to decelerate and frustrate the otherwise natural tendency of the internet towards the cross-pollination and cross-semination of ideas.
This original internet process of cross-pollination leads inevitably to a quickening of the historic process of the same, and previously the internet increased the rate at which this process occurred, which is inherently destabilizing for the powers that be. As the US is cordoning the internet off into various ‘walled gardens’, keeping like with like, it is maintaining a segregative process.
And Russia is doing its best responsive maneuver, at least operationalizing that fact of the US establishing cordoned off internet zones. How this works, is fairly easy to understand. In some sectors of the internet, Russia is promoted as Israel’s greatest ally. In others, the ‘Axis of Resistance’, featuring Iran, Iraq, and Hezbollah of Lebanon, depicts Russia as an important ally. Both are able to point to certain aspects of the conflict in Syria as evidence of this.
This belief creation process, especially through new media and the internet, is a critical part of how simulacra are created in the context of 4GW – fourth generation warfare. Beliefs derived from the internet carry stronger weight at this time than beliefs drawn from television and radio. This is for many reasons, including the role of peer to peer information gathering, and that internet based information was pre-selected and ‘dug for’ by the consumer. This lends it a higher degree of value.
Russia has stated publicly that it is interested in both Iran and Israel’s strategic interests. How can this be, given that both countries are apparently in a proxy, and even recently direct, conflict with one another? In deciphering ‘Lavrovese‘, the language of Russian diplomacy, it must be understood that words have a certain meaning. In terms of Russia’s policy commitments to ‘strategic interests’, this doesn’t mean ‘as these countries view these themselves‘. In other words, Russia is committed to what it, itself, believes are Israel and Iran’s strategic interests, as opposed to what these two countries publicly state their interests are. In short, Russia is committed to Russia’s strategic interests; which do align with the general conception of deconfliction. The idea here is the most balanced compromises that deliver peace as a status quo. Instead of strategic interests, ‘security insurance’ is a better concept to separate this out from Israels irredentist goals or Iran’s foothold in Lebanon. It is neither a problem nor a criticism to state such. Russia has sandbagged its intentions with regard to Israel, and Israel is taking the bait.
Also, there is the fact that Russia is aware that both states, Israel and Iran, engage in a form of demagoguery and rhetorically politicize things beyond what may be the real strategic goal. A war between both countries may not be within either country’s strategic interests, given that Israel is a nuclear power and that Iran’s conventional response would be similarly effective. So all this rhetoric is in fact about containment, playing to their bases, not about mutual destruction, as it is sometimes understood each has called for the other.
Both Iran and Israel have strategic interests in Iraq, with Israel building strong ties with radical Sunni’s in Iraq who despise Iranian Shia’s growth of power. In essence, Iraq has become a proxy border between Israel and Iran. The government of Iraq today is increasingly, and more than nominally so, supportive of Iran. At the same time, through its parliament and private industry, Israel also has a vested interest in Iraq’s natural and mineral resources – oil and water. Moreover, and finally, what Iran and Israel publicly say their strategic interests are, may not match up with their own internal designs and discourse with regard to grand strategy and regional hegemony. Both states have benefited from the US-led invasion of Iraq. Recall at the time that both the US hand-picked ‘secular moderate’ government of Chalabi, and the ‘Shia resistance’ led by al-Sadr’s al-Mahdi Army, represented Iranian vested interest in the US’s campaign
We can see for example here that ‘TruNews’, gives this news an angle that would please those following the ‘Russia is allies with Iran’ part of the internet, even while raising concerns and legal contentions from the POV of Israel. Here they point out a few facts which trend in the direction that supports their view, such as framing it as a Russian deployment that would prevent Israel from striking at Syrian and Iranian targets on the Syrian governed side of the Purple Line.
The standard reportage went like this;
“The Russian military police will create eight outposts near the demilitarized zone at the Golan Heights on the Syrian-Israeli border, a deputy commander of the Russian forces in Syria in charge of of military police, Viktor Zaytsev, said. According to the official, the first permanent observation post of the Russian military police has already been set up. “Seven more will be created in the future. They will serve as a security guarantee for civilians of the Quneitra governorate,” he said. Another deputy commander of the Russian forces in Syria, Sergei Kuralenko, said the outposts will be created near the demilitarized zone, controlled by UN forces. “I would like to stress that there will be no Russian military police posts in the demilitarized zone,” he said. The Golan Heights had been part of Syria since 1944, but the territory was seized by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War.”
TASS, reported it like this (below), denying speculation that the Russian outposts would be ‘militarized’ – indeed we are asked to believe that the Chechen volunteer units in Russian uniforms would be unarmed. This is contrary to the findings of independent citizen journalism, such as FRN.
What’s interesting here also is that it was a number of years ago that Russia proposed to lead the UN’s blue helmets mission in the demilitarized zone. What’s been arrived at, appears to be something very close to what Russia had originally proposed. Indeed, perhaps even more so, since the UN may find itself more constricted and its activities controlled by forces hostile to Syrian sovereignty, which may still have been the case even with Russian forces entirely embedded ‘as’ UN forces.
At the same time, the Syrian military is growing stronger, and Hezbollah – Iran’s best asset in Lebanon and acting in Syria at the invitation of the Syrian government – has also emerged from this conflict with yet another victory, and the experience and morale boost that goes with this, doubling on the 2006 victory against the entire IDF back in 2006.
Israel no doubt has had it sold to them by Russia, that Russia’a activity in the region will prevent a mobilized Syria, and its allies especially, from taking their campaign to it’s logical conclusion, and pushing back on Israel – retaking some or all of the Golan Heights. Israel has certainly provoked this with their active involvement in backing foreign (to Syria) terrorists and ‘rebels’ in the Syrian conflict. That Israel has used the Golan Heights and the adjacent parts of what is recognized as Damascus governed Syria (though when under FSA/ISIS etc. control), to arm and provide cover for ISIS and Al Nusra, et al, is significant enough pretext for Syria to have a legitimate reason to take their forward momentum and rebuilt military into a limited conflict to make new facts on the ground.
Israel’s military was proven to be a decidedly weak force, back in 2006, when it was defeated by Hezbollah – the paramilitary wing of the Hezbollah party of Lebanon, not even a conventional force with the entire resources of a state behind it.
Additionally, the much vaunted Israeli air-force, when really broken down by fighter and bomber type, generation, and the number of units, is significantly outdated and weaker in comparison to its claims, and when compared to that of Iran, is perhaps even the lesser force. For what its worth, and certainly given Wikipedia’s owner’s pro-Zionism, and the propensity of Zionist media to inflate Israel’s projection capacity (this is a clue to understanding antisemitism), even these following numbers which show that Iran has a clear conventional strategic advantage over Israel, are difficult to dispute. Take these also with the fact that the S 200/S 250 systems that Syria has were sufficient to down Israeli bombers.
All of this also makes sense with an understanding of one of Zionism’s weapons, the illusion of strength and the illusion of being under attack. Aggression postured as ‘defense’ has been, like the US, Israel’s main propaganda weapon to justify its expansionist policy against its neighbors.
Now is a critical time for Israel, given the US’s decreased role as the sole foreign hegemon in the region. Turkey is active, and while not acting in any interests but its own, now also acts at odds with the US. Iran emerges from the Syrian conflict in better shape over all militarily. The sanctions on Iran have split Europe from the US, as the former is sticking to a deal which sees Iran emerge as a normalized trading partner with the EU. This has the effect of increasing the tensions and the trade war between the US and EU. This same trade war also has the effect of pushing the EU closer to Russia and China as a result.
Through all of this, Russia masterfully manipulates Israel’s Zionist mythos, embodied in Netanyahu, as a ‘cunning’ juggernaut of ‘strategy’, being able to middle-itself between the US and Russia – ‘hedging’ its bets and investing reliance on its security into Russian positions, even those in the Golan Heights. Media can work both ways, towards opposing ends, regardless of the apparent editorial line. Media which plays up danger to Israel, can also strengthen Zionism as a threatened ‘democracy’ and ‘underdog‘ – a ‘shining light‘ in a sea of growing Islamism, regardless of sectarian distinction. Media that plays up Israel’s ‘success’ in playing Russia and the US, feeds into antisemitism, presenting Israel as representative of ‘world Jewry‘, a claim that the ‘Jewish state’ makes of itself, which in turn, Zionism requires as oxygen.
The state of Israel, outside of esoteric and religious contexts of a burnt-offering and the subsequent rebuilding of the temple, is legitimated almost entirely upon the precept of antisemitism and its historic consequences. It is one of the few states in the world today which has established its right to exist upon an ongoing and permanent existential threat to those who identify as its ‘people’. At the same time, there lies a significant problem, in that Netanyahu has platformed himself as a ‘strong-man’, and so sandbagging as a state in jeopardy doesn’t fit very well with his winning strategy in the domestic electoral and international diplomatic stage.
Israel has overplayed its hand, believing it would be able to influence both US and Russian foreign policy in the region, towards its aims. Israel has failed to ensnare the US in an over-commitment in Syria – the Lavrov-Kerry deconfliction talks were ultimately preparatory for the US’s surrender in that conflict in general. Reading this correctly, Israel moved to push on its nevertheless impressive human and financial capital influence in Russia, giving Netanyahu the false assurance that such a strategy was possible.
While some in both the Russian and Israeli media sphere will report on the deployment of Russian soldiers to the Golan Heights region as being a sign of Russia’s commitment to ensuring Israel’s strategic interests, rather it does so in a very different way, ensuring Israel’s security from it’s own mis-leadership in the image of Netanyahu.
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!
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