Saturday, 8 September 2018

بوتين وروحاني يحسمان السير بمعركة إدلب... وأردوغان يطلب ضمانات لما بعدها


قمة طهران: لا تهاون مع الإرهاب… ولعبة الكيميائي مكشوفة… والخطوة التالية شرق الفرات

كتب المحرّر السياسيّ

الحدث الإقليمي والدولي كان أمس في طهران، حيث انعقدت على الهواء بصورة جذبت أنظار العالم، أول قمة من نوعها، تحاوَرَ خلالها أمام الرأي العام العالمي، رؤساء روسيا فلاديمير بوتين وإيران حسن روحاني وتركيا رجب أردوغان، ولأن القمة تنعقد وعلى جدول أعمالها مستقبل إدلب، ولأن المعركة الوحيدة المتبقية لحسم مستقبل سورية هي في إدلب، والرهان على قيام الرئيس التركي بتعطيل المعركة، كانت العروض وكانت التهديدات، ومعها الحرب النفسية في ساحات الاشتباك الممتدة على مساحة المنطقة بين واشنطن وبين قوى المقاومة، وكان الكل ينتظر قمة طهران.

في القمة كان الرئيس الروسي في ضفة الصقور والرئيس الإيراني بابتسامته الاحتوائية في ضفة الحمائم، وكانت رسالة ذات مغزى من طهران وموسكو للمراهنين على أن إيران مَنْ يدفع باتجاه المعركة وأن روسيا تتمهّلها، ليسقط رهان المراهنين وتصيبهم الدهشة. وكانت سلاسة كلام الرئيسين الروسي والإيراني في مقابل تلعثم وتأتأة الرئيس التركي، والوجه المشرق للرئيس الإيراني والملامح الغاضبة للرئيس الروسي، مقابل شحوب الرئيس التركي، إشارات تترافق مع المضمون حول قرار قد اتخذ بالحسم في إدلب، وخيارات ضيقة أمام الرئيس التركي بين السير بالخيار، أو الخروج من المسار، ومواجهة الثنائي الروسي الإيراني دفاعاً عن جماعات إرهابية مكشوفة، وفي ظل أسوأ أزمة علاقات بين أنقرة وواشنطن، فاختار معادلة «ببكي وبروح» التي اعتمدتها المعارضات السورية العاملة تحت عباءة تركيا، في كل مرة تهدّد وتتوعّد ثم تنصاع. وبدا أن التحفظات التركية تعبير عن قلق من خسارة الدور والمكانة، فكان كلام أردوغان عما بعد إدلب واضحاً في تركيزه على ما يجري في شرق الفرات وما يعدّه الأميركيون مع جماعات كردية مسلحة، يهدد وحدة سورية، وأمن تركيا، ليسمع كلاماً واضحاً أضيف إلى بيان القمة، باعتبار الخطوة اللاحقة لإدلب هي شرق الفرات.

التدرّج في المعركة وتجزئتها إلى مراحل هو السياق الذي ستجري من خلاله عملية ضرب الإرهاب، كما قالت مصادر مواكبة للقمة، وفتح ممرات آمنة للمدنيين سيكون ملازماً لكل مرحلة، والاستعداد لكل الاحتمالات قائم، خصوصاً مع التأكيدات التي صدرت عن الرئيس بوتين بتوثيق تحضيرات أميركية وغربية لعدوان يستهدف سورية تحت عنوان مفبرك ومكرّر هو استخدام السلاح الكيميائي.

بالتوازي كان العراق يدخل المزيد من الفوضى، وكانت البصرة تسير إلى الخراب وتحترق، قبل أن تتوجّه قوات عسكرية نوعية ليلا لفرض حظر التجول، وبعدما أعلنت تنسيقية التظاهرات انسحابها لخروج التظاهرات عن سلميتها وتحولها إلى مشروع خراب تحرّكه قوى مشبوهة، خصوصاً بعدما تمّ اقتحام القنصلية الإيرانية وإحراقها ومحاصرة المقار الرئاسية، بعدما تم إحراق مقار أحزاب عراقية عديدة، فيما سجّل سقوط قذائف قرب السفارة الأميركية في المنطقة الخضراء.

في لبنان كانت أزمة تعطّل نظام تسجيل الحقائب في مطار بيروت خبر اللبنانيين الباحثين عن حقائب وزرائهم الضائعة فصاروا يبحثون عن حقائب سفرهم التي ضاعت، وفيما تنشّطت حكومة تصريف الأعمال لاجتماع وزاري لبحث المشكلة، كانت مساعي التهدئة بين بعبدا وبيت الوسط تنتهي بتفاهم على وقف السجالات وتهدئة الشارع بعد أيام من حرب صلاحيات كادت تتحوّل حرباً بين الطوائف بدلاً من الاحتكام إلى دستور الطائف.

تعنُت الحريري يُجمِّد المبادرة الروسية!

أسابيع عدة مرّت على إطلاق روسيا مبادرتها للمساعدة في حل أزمات النازحين السوريين في دول النزوح، إلا أن المبادرة جُمِّدت ولم تشقّ طريقها الى التنفيذ حتى الآن، رغم المحاولات الروسية المتكررة مع الدولتين اللبنانية والسورية ودول أخرى لتأليف لجان تنسيق مشتركة بين هذه الدول والتواصل مع الدولة السورية لوضع آليات تطبيقية لإعادة النازحين. أما السبب فهو عدم تشكيل اللجنة اللبنانية التي من المفترض أن تتعاون مع اللجنة الروسية في ظل غياب قرار لبناني رسمي واضح من هذه المبادرة والخلاف السياسي القائم وتعنُّت الرئيس المكلف سعد الحريري ورفضه التواصل المباشر مع الحكومة السورية تارة وانتظاره تشكيل الحكومة الجديدة طوراً، بحسب ما أكدت لـ»البناء» مصادر رسمية مطلعة على ملف العلاقات اللبنانية السورية، والتي أوضحت أن «روسيا من خلال المبادرة التي أطلقتها شكلت غطاءً دولياً لعودة النازحين في ظل المعارضة الأميركية لهذا الأمر، كما يمكنها تقديم تسهيلات وضمانات أمنية للعودة، لكنها لن تحل مكان الحكومة اللبنانية ولا مكان الدول الأخرى التي عليها أن تتواصل مع الحكومة السورية عبر لجان التنسيق للاتفاق معها على آليات تنفيذية للعودة». وذكرت المصادر بـ»موافقة الرؤساء الثلاثة في لقائهما في بعبدا على المبادرة الروسية»، ولفتت الى أن «الامن العام اللبناني هو الذي يتولى تنسيق الجهود الداخلية لتحفيز النازحين على العودة والتواصل مع السلطات السورية». وإذ أشارت الى أن المدير العام للامن العام زار سورية خلال اليومين الماضيين لمتابعة هذا الملف، نفت ما تردّد عن أن «اللواء ابراهيم طلب مساعدة روسيا في استصدار عفو عام من الدولة السورية للنازحين الصادرة بحقهم أحكام قضائية»، موضحة أن «ابراهيم ليس بحاجة الى واسطة للتحدث مع سورية بل هو يزورها دائماً بتكليف رسمي ويتحدث معها بكامل جوانب الملف». وأكدت أن «السلطات السورية تتعاون بشكل كبير مع الأمن العام من خلال دراسة طلبات النازحين الذين ترسلهم المديرية من الناحية القانونية والردّ عليها بأسرع وقت ممكن كما عملت على تسوية أوضاع الكثير من النازحين ممن لديهم ملفات قضائية وتهرُّب من الخدمة العسكرية»، نافية أن يكون الأمن «قام بتسليم أحد المطلوبين الى السلطات السورية». وكشفت المصادر بأن «عدداً كبيراً من النازحين يعودون الى سورية من دون وساطة أحد وبلغ عددهم في شهر آب المنصرم فقط حوالي 30 ألفاً». وأشادت المصادر بمشاركة عدد من الوزراء اللبنانيين بافتتاح معرض دمشق الدولي معتبرة ذلك «خطوة طبيعية وإيجابية تصب في مصلحة لبنان وفي اتجاه التعاون وتفعيل الاتفاقات بين الدولتين وتعزيز دور لبنان في المرحلة المقبلة في سورية لا سيما إعادة الإعمار وفتح معبر نصيب».

وفي سياق ذلك، أعلنت المديرية العامة للأمن العام في بيان عن تأمين العودة الطوعية لمئات النازحين السوريين من مناطق مختلفة في لبنان إلى سورية عبر معابر المصنع ، العبودية والزمراني يوم غدٍ»، محددة نقاط التجمّع في مختلف المناطق اللبنانية.

ونفت وزارة الخارجية الروسية أن تكون موسكو اقترحت «نشر وحدة الشرطة العسكرية الروسية في منطقة البقاع شرق لبنان لمرافقة عودة اللاجئين السوريين إلى وطنهم»، وأكدت الوزارة في بيان «أنها تنظر إلى مثل هذا التسريب لوسائل إعلام كويتية على أنه محاولة أخرى لتضليل قرائها وإلحاق الضرر بالجهود الروسية حول ضمان عودة اللاجئين السوريين إلى ديارهم».

حراك على خط بعبدا بيت الوسط

وقد سُجِل يوم أمس، حراك على خط بعبدا – بيت الوسط قام به بعض الوسطاء لاحتواء الموقف بين الرئاستين، حيث أوفد الرئيس المكلف مستشاره وزير الثقافة في حكومة تصريف الأعمال غطاس الخوري حيث التقى عون وأجرى معه جولة أفق في الأوضاع العامة ومسار تشكيل الحكومة العتيدة. وذكرت قناة «أم تي في» نقلاً عن مصادر أن «الحريري حريص على التسوية الرئاسية ويعمل على لملمة الأجواء المتوترة». ولفتت الى أنه «خلال الـ48 ساعة المقبلة سيعود الهدوء الى الساحة السياسية»، منوّهةً الى ان «العمل جارٍ لسحب موضوع الصلاحيات عن الاعلام». كما لفتت الى ان «الصيغة الحكومية التي قدّمها الحريري الى رئيس الجمهورية هي صيغة مبدئية قابلة للأخذ والعطاء والتبديل»، بينما لفتت مصادر «البناء» الى أننا في مرحلة استعادة الهدوء وتمهيد الأجواء لزيارة يقوم بها الرئيس المكلف الى بعبدا لإعادة المفاوضات بين الرئيسين.

وخرج الحريري عن صمته أمس، ملاقياً مساعي التهدئة، محدداً القواعد التي انطلق منها في عملية التأليف، ولفت الى أن «كل القوى السياسية تتفق على ضرورة تشكيل الحكومة اليوم قبل الغد»، موضحاً أنني «انطلقت من 3 قواعد بهذا الخصوص، القاعدة الاولى أن تكون الحكومة حكومة وفاق وطني تجمع جميع القوى السياسية، والثانية بما انني سأجمع القوى السياسية حول طاولة مجلس الوزراء ، ولا فائدة من الكلام فوق السطوح والتصعيد والاتهامات انا أعمل بصبر وكتمان وهدوء للوصول لهذا الهدف». وشدد على ان «القاعدة الثالثة هي أنا اعلم الدستور وأعمل كرئيس مكلف على أساس الدستور ولا داعي للسجالات».

على صعيد بعبدا لا جديد يُذكَر، وسط استغراب كبير إزاء الحملة التي يتعرّض لها رئيس الجمهورية فقط لانه أبدى رأيه بتشكيلة الحريري، وسأل النائب الياس بو صعب : «هل من يعطي رأيه بتشكيل الحكومة أصبح متعدياً على صلاحيات الآخر وبات مخالفاً للدستور؟»، مشيراً إلى أنه «على الجميع أن يُعيدوا حساباتهم». وفي حديث تلفزيوني، لفت بو صعب إلى أنه «قد يكون هناك طابور خامس يقطع الوقت لأن يصدر قرار بتشكيل الحكومة وهذا القرار لم يأخذ بعد»، مشيراً إلى أن «على رئيس الحكومة المكلف سعد الحريري أن يجد حلاً لتشكيل الحكومة ويتبع معياراً واحداً يرضي جميع الأفرقاء السياسيين».

من جهته، دعا وزير المال علي حسن خليل، جميع القوى السياسية الى «تجنّب رفع وتيرة الخطاب السياسي، وتحييد المسائل الميثاقية والدستورية عن النقاش التفصيلي بتشكيل الحكومة». وقال في كلمة له في الجنوب: «من المخاطر الكبرى في لحظة سياسية كالتي نمرّ بها على مستوى المنطقة وعلى مستوى لبنان، أن نتعاطى بخفة مع هذه المسألة التي تشكل اليوم التحدي الأكبر أمامنا جميعاً. من حق الجميع أن يطالب، من حق الجميع أن يضع قواعد وشروطاً، لكن ليس على حساب الدستور والنظام العام وعلى حساب الوصول الى تفاهم يُخرجنا من أزماتنا التي نعيش».

أزمات بالجملة…

وفي وقت تمكّنت الاتصالات من استيعاب عاصفة السجالات السياسية والدستورية التي هبت خلال الأيام القليلة الماضية، انهمكت الدولة ومؤسساتها في قضية توقف نظام الاتصالات المخصّص لتسجيل حقائب الركاب المغادرين عبر مطار بيروت الدولي ما أدى إلى توقف كلي لعملية التسجيل وازدحام في قاعات المغادرة من ليل أمس الأول حتى الفجر منه فتأخر إقلاع الطائرات وأرجئت الرحلات المحددة الى دول العالم، وسط تبادل للاتهامات ورمي المسؤوليات بين الوزارات المعنية والشركة المسؤولة «سيتا» من دون تحديد الجهة المسؤولة.

وقد عقد الرئيس الحريري اجتماعاً طارئاً في بيت الوسط حضره وزراء المال والداخلية والأشغال وقادة الأجهزة الأمنية والمسؤولون عن المطار، واعتبر وزير الأشغال والنقل يوسف فنيانوس بعده أن «المشكلة التي واجهناها اليوم تتعلق بمشكلة تقنية حصلت مع شركة خاصة «سيتا» التي تتعامل مع دول عدة غير لبنان». أكّد فنيانوس أن «العمل عاد إلى حالته الطبيعية في المطار». وأوضح أن «قوى الأمن الداخلي بدأت بأخذ الإفادات لتحديد المسؤوليات»، وتابع: «اجتمعنا مع شركة «سيتا» التي ستعوّض المتضررين وننتظر بياناً صادراً عنها».

في المقابل طلب وزير العدل سليم جريصاتي من النيابة العامة التحقيق مع وزارة الاشغال والجهات المعنية للوقوف على ما حصل.

وفي مقلب آخر، بدأ الخلاف السياسي والحكومي ينعكس على الوزارات والمؤسسات، حيث تحوّل قرار إعفاء وزير التربية مروان حمادة رئيسة دائرة الامتحانات في الوزارة هيلدا خوري من موقعها قضية طائفية واستدرجت ردود فعل غاضبة وتصعيدية من نواب التيار الوطني الحر الذين اعتبروا أن الإعفاء جاء بسبب انتماء الموظفة السياسي للتيار الحر، وطالب بعضهم وزراء تكتل لبنان القوي المعاملة بالمثل في وزاراتهم متّهماً بشكل مباشر تيار المستقبل والحزب الاشتراكي بالفساد، بينما ردّ الاشتراكي بأن ما حصل تدبير إداري.

واتهم النائب زياد أسود وزير التربية بأنه جزء من منظومة فساد وغطاء مع تيار المستقبل. وقال عبر «تويتر»: «عندما تقولون إننا عنصريون تثبتون أنكم حقيرون». وتابع: «ادعو وزراء التيار الى اقالة من ينتمي الى مروان حمادة وفريقه، وليكن الأسلوب نفسه عبرة لمن اعتبر طالما ان الكيدية والميليشياوية طاغية والحكم ليس للقوانين والأخلاق بل للتشبيح والشبيحة».

أما عضو اللقاء الديموقراطي النائب بلال عبد الله فردّ على نواب التيار في تغريدة عبر تويتر قائلاً: «نواب التيار اللبناني العظيم هذا الأسلوب ليس معنا.. لا نريد أن نقول لكم بلطوا البحر».

هذا الواقع الداخلي المُثقل بجملة الأزمات المتتالية من الكهرباء والماء والنفايات والتلوّث البيئي والصحي وتعطّل المطار وغيرها، يدعو للتساؤل عن وجود جهة ما تعمل على التهديد بالانهيار المالي والاقتصادي وافتعال هذه المشاكل وتظهيرها إعلامياً وسياسياً بالتزامن مع عملية تشكيل الحكومة وفي خضم شد الحبال والتفاوض الشاق على التأليف!.

على صعيد آخر، تابع رئيس الجمهورية الأوضاع المالية والاقتصادية في البلاد، وترأس لهذه الغاية في قصر بعبدا أمس اجتماعاً حضره وزير المال ورئيس لجنة المال والموازنة النائب ابراهيم كنعان، وأكد عون إعطاءه الوضع الاقتصادي الأولوية ضمن اهتماماته، فيما شدّد خليل على سلامة الوضع المالي والنقدي برغم صعوبة الاوضاع الاقتصادية. واعتبر كنعان، بدوره، أن «التهويل بالانهيار الاقتصادي في غير محله»، مشدداً على ضرورة مواصلة الإصلاحات التي بدأها لبنان منذ إقرار موازنة عام 2018.

«إسرائيل» تستكمل بناء الجدار

وفيما يتلهى اللبنانيون بخلافاتهم السياسية والحكومية المستحكمة يقتنص العدو الإسرائيلي الفرصة لتوجيه التهديدات الى لبنان ومحاولة التعدي مجدداً على أرضه ومياهه وجوّه وثروته النفطية، فيما الأجدى بلبنان الحفاظ على وحدته الوطنية للدفاع عن حدوده وثرواته وسيادته الوطنية، فبعد التهديدات للثروات النفطية أعلن الجيش الإسرائيلي أمس، أن «قواته أوشكت على استكمال إقامة جدار إسمنتي، على طول الحدود مع لبنان».

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The Israel lobby’s non-stop attacks on Corbyn will backfire#JeremyCorbyn

Not only is the role of pro-Israel partisans in the UK now visible, but their ugly assumptions are under closer scrutiny than ever before



Back in the 1950s, the US intelligence community coined a term: “blowback”. It referred to the unintended consequences of a covert operation that ended up damaging one’s own cause.
There are mounting indications that the intensifying campaign by the Israel lobby in the UK against Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the parliamentary opposition, is starting to have precisely such self-harming repercussions.

A campaign of smears

In the three years since he was elected to lead the Labour party, Corbyn has faced non-stop accusations that his party has an endemic “anti-Semitism problem“, despite all evidence to the contrary. Of late, Corbyn himself has become the chief target of such allegations.
Last week the Daily Mail led a media mauling of Corbyn over disparaging comments he made in 2013 about a small group of pro-Israel zealots who had come to disrupt a Palestinian solidarity meeting. His reference to them as “Zionists”, it was claimed, served as code for “Jews” and was therefore anti-Semitic.
Mounting evidence in both the UK and the US suggests that the Israeli government is taking a significant, if covert, role in coordinating and directing such efforts to sully the reputation of prominent critics
Mounting evidence in both the UK and the US, where there has been a similar escalation of attacks on pro-Palestinian activists, often related to the international boycott movement (BDS), suggests that the Israeli government is taking a significant, if covert, role in coordinating and directing such efforts to sully the reputation of prominent critics.
Corbyn’s supporters have argued instead that he is being subjected to a campaign of smears to oust him from the leadership because of his very public championing over many decades of the Palestinian cause.

Israel lobbyists

Al-Jazeera has produced two separate undercover documentary series on Israel lobbyists’ efforts in the UK and US to interfere in each country’s politics – probably in violation of local laws. Only the UK series has been aired so far.
It showed an Israeli embassy official, Shai Masot, both plotting to “take down” a Conservative government minister seen as too sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and helping to create an anti-Corbyn front organisation in the Labour party.
Masot worked closely with two key pro-Israel groups in Labour, the Jewish Labour Movement and Labour Friends of Israel. The latter includes some 80 Labour MPs.
US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley speaks at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference in Washington, DC, on 5 March, 2018 (AFP)
Under apparent pressure from the Israel lobby in the US, the series on the US lobby was suppressed.
This week Alain Gresh, the former editor of Le Monde diplomatique, published significant quotes from that censored documentary after viewing it secretly in Dubai. The US lobby’s aims and practices, as reported by Gresh, closely echo what has happened in the UK to Corbyn, as he has faced relentless allegations of anti-Semitism.
The US documentary reportedly shows that Israel’s strategic affairs ministry has taken a leading role in directing the US lobby’s efforts. According to Gresh, senior members of the lobby are caught on camera admitting that they have built up a network of spies to gather information on prominent critics of Israel.
Through its constant attacks on Corbyn, British activists are looking less like disparate individuals sympathetic to Israel and more recognisably like a US-style lobby – highly organised, on-message and all too ready to throw their weight around
In Gresh’s transcripted excerpts, Jacob Baime, executive director of the Israel on Campus Coalition, a group of organisations fighting BDS, states: “When I got here a few years ago, the budget was $3,000. Today it’s like a million and a half [dollars], or more. … It’s a massive budget.”
“It’s psychological warfare,” he adds, noting how the smears damage the targeted groups: “They either shut down, or they spend time investigating [the accusations against them] instead of attacking Israel. It’s extremely effective.”
David Hazony, a senior member of another lobby group, The Israel Project, explains that a pressing aim is to curb political speech critical of Israel: “What’s a bigger problem is the Democratic Party, the Bernie Sanders people, bringing all the anti-Israel people into the Democratic Party. Then being pro-Israel becomes less a bipartisan issue, and then every time the White House changes, the policies towards Israel change. That becomes a dangerous thing for Israel.”

No discussion

These reported quotes confirm much of what was already suspected. More than a decade ago scholars John Mearsheimer and Steven Walt wrote a book examining the composition and role of the powerful pro-Israel lobby in the US.
But until the broadcasting of the Al-Jazeera documentary last year no comparable effort had been made to shine a light on the situation in the UK. In fact, there was almost no discussion or even acknowledgment of the role of an Israel lobby in British public and political life.
Members of the Jewish community protest against Britain’s opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and alleged anti-Semitism in the party on 26 March 2018, outside Parliament in central London (AFP)
That is changing rapidly. Through its constant attacks on Corbyn, British activists are looking less like disparate individuals sympathetic to Israel and more recognisably like a US-style lobby – highly organised, on-message and all too ready to throw their weight around.
The lobby was always there, of course. And, as in the US, it embraces a much wider body of support than right-wing Jewish leadership organisations like the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council, or hardline lobbyists such as the Community Security Trust and BICOM.

The earliest Zionists

That should not surprise us. The earliest Zionists were not Jews but fundamentalist Christians. In the US, the largest group of Zionists by far are Christian evangelicals who believe that the return of Jews to the Promised Land is the key to unlocking the second coming of the Messiah and an apocalyptic end-times. Though embraced by Israel, many of these Christian fundamentalists hold anti-Semitic views.
In Britain, there is an unacknowledged legacy of anti-Semitic Christian support for Zionism. Lord Balfour, a devout Christian who regularly voiced bigotry towards Jews, was also the man who committed the British government in 1917 to create a home for Jews in Palestine. That set in motion today’s conflict between Israel and the native Palestinian population.
In addition, many British gentiles, like other Europeans, live with understandable guilt about the Holocaust.
The media have been only too willing to assist in the smearing of the Labour leader because they have their own separate interests in seeing Corbyn gone
One of the largest and most effective groups in Corbyn’s parliamentary party is Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), most of whose members are not Jewish. LFI takes some of the party’s most senior politicians on all-expenses-paid trips to Israel to wine and dine them as they are subjected to Israeli propaganda.
Dozens of Labour MPs have remained loyal to LFI even as the organisation has repeatedly refused to criticise Israel over undeniable war crimes.
When Israeli snipers executed dozens of unarmed demonstrators in Gaza in May, the LFI took to Twitter to blame Hamas for the deaths, not Israel. After facing a massive backlash, the LFI simply deleted the tweet.

A double whamy

Historically the Israel lobby could remain relatively low-profile in the UK because it faced few challenges. Its role was chiefly to enforce a political orthodoxy about Israel in line with Britain’s role as Washington’s foreign policy junior partner. No British leader looked likely to step far from the Washington consensus.
Until Corbyn.
The Israel lobby in the UK now faces a double whammy.
First, since Donald Trump entered the White House, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dropped any pretence that Israel is willing to concede a Palestinian state, whatever the Palestinians do. Instead, Israel has isolated the Palestinian leadership diplomatically while seeking to terrorise the Palestinian population into absolute submission.

That was all too clear over the summer when those Israeli snipers picked off demonstrators each week in Gaza. As a result, the Israel lobby stands more exposed than ever. It can no longer buy time for Israeli expansionism by credibly claiming, as it once did, that Israel seeks peace.
Second, Israel’s partisans in the UK were caught off-guard by the unexpected rise of Corbyn to a place that puts him in sight of being the next prime minister. The use of social media by his supporters, meanwhile, has provided a counter-weight to the vilification campaign being amplified by the British media.
The media have been only too willing to assist in the smearing of the Labour leader because they have their own separate interests in seeing Corbyn gone. He is a threat to the corporate business interests they represent.
But not only has the messenger – the Israel lobby – now come under proper scrutiny for the first time, so has its message.

English Irony

The success of the lobby had depended not only on it remaining largely out of view. It also expected to shore up a largely pro-Israel environment without drawing attention to what was being advocated, beyond unquestioned soundbites. In doing so, it was able to entirely ignore those who had paid the price for Israel’s diplomatic impunity – the Palestinians.
The campaign against Corbyn has not only forced the lobby to come out into the open, but the backlash to its campaign has forced the lobby to articulate for the first time what exactly it believes and what is at stake.
The latest furore over Corbyn concerns a Youtube video of him speaking at a pro-Palestinian meeting in 2013, two years before he became Labour leader. He has been widely denounced in the media for making disparaging remarks about a small group of hardline pro-Israel partisans well-known for disrupting such meetings.
He referred to them as “Zionists” and suggested that the reaction of this particular hardline group to a speech by the Palestinian ambassador had betrayed their lack of appreciation of “English irony”.
Israel’s lobby, echoed by many liberal journalists, has suggested that Corbyn was using “Zionist” as code word for “Jew”, and that he had implied that all Jews – not the handful of pro-Israel zealots in attendance – lacked traits of Englishness.
This, they say, was yet further evidence of his anti-semitism.
Jonathan Sacks, Britain’s former chief rabbi, told the New Statesman this week that Corbyn’s comment was “the most offensive statement made by a senior British politician since Enoch Powell’s 1968 ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech”. In that notorious speech, the right-wing politician sought to incite race hatred of immigrants.
Calling Corbyn an “anti-Semite”, Sacks added: “It undermines the existence of an entire group of British citizens by depicting them as essentially alien.”

Treacherous words

In a now familiar pattern to lobby claims, Sacks relied on the false premise that all Jews are Zionists. He conflated a religious or ethnic category with a political ideology. The Labour leader has held his ground on this occasion, pointing out that he was using the term “in the accurate political sense and not as a euphemism for Jewish people”.
Others have pointed out that his accusers – many of them senior journalists – are the ones lacking a sense of irony. Corbyn was not “otherising” Jews, he was pointing out a paradox not confirming a prejudice: that a small group of Britons were so immersed in their partisan cause, Israel, that it had blinded them to the “English irony” employed by a foreigner, the Palestinian ambassador.
However, the terms “anti-Semitism” and “Zionism” are likely to prove more treacherous to weaponise against Corbyn than the lobby thinks. As the anti-Semitism controversy is constantly reignited, a much clearer picture of the lobby’s implied logic is emerging, as illustrated by the hyperbolic, verging on delusional, language of Rabbi Sacks.
The argument goes something like this: Israel is the only safe haven for Jews in times of trouble – and the only thing that stands between them and a future Holocaust. The movement that created Israel was the Zionist movement. Today most Jews are Zionists and believe Israel is at the core of their identity. Therefore, if you are too critical of Israel or Zionism, you must wish bad things for the Jewish people. That makes you an anti-Semite.

Problematic premises

It probably doesn’t require a logician to understand that there are several highly problematic premises propping up this argument. Let’s concentrate on two. The first is that it depends on a worldview in which the non-Jew is assumed to be anti-Semite until proven otherwise. For that reason Jews need to be eternally vigilant and distrustful of those outside their “tribe”.
If that sounds improbable, it shouldn’t. That is exactly the lesson of the Holocaust taughtto children in Israel from kindergarten onwards.
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Israel derives no universal message from the Holocaust. Its schools do not teach that we must avoid stigmatising others, and discourage sectarian and tribal indentifications that fuel prejudice and bigotry. How could it? After all, Israel’s core ideology, political Zionism, is premised on the idea of tribal and sectarian exclusivity – the “ingathering of exiles” to create a Jewish state.
In Israel, the Holocaust supplies a different lesson. It teaches that Jews are under permanent threat from non-Jews, and that their only defence is to seek collective protection in a highly militarised state, armed with nuclear weapons.
This idea was encapsulated in the famous saying by the late Israeli general Moshe Dayan: “Israel must be seen as a mad dog; too dangerous to bother.”

A ‘globalised virus’

Israel’s ugly, self-serving tribal reading of history has been slowly spreading to Jews in Europe and the US.
Fifteen years ago, a US scholar, Daniel J Goldhagen, published an influential essay in the Jewish weekly Forward titled “The Globalisation of anti-Semitism”. In it, he argued that anti-Semitism was a virus that could lie dormant for periods but would always find new ways to reinfect its hosts.
“Globalized anti-Semitism has become part of the substructure of prejudice in the world,” he wrote. “It is relentlessly international in its focus on Israel at the center of the most conflict-ridden region today.”
This theory is also known as the “new anti-Semitism”, a form of Jew hatred much harder to identify than the right-wing anti-Semitism of old. Through mutation, the new anti-Semitism had concealed its hatred of Jews by appearing to focus on Israel and dressing itself up in left-wing garb.
Perhaps not surprisingly, given his latest comments about Corbyn, that is also an approximation of the argument made by Rabbi Sacks in a 2016 essay in which he writes: “Anti-Semitism is a virus that survives by mutating.”
In a sign of how this kind of paranoia is becoming slowly normalised in Europe too, the Guardian published a commentary by a British journalist this month explaining her decision, Israel-style, to teach her three-year-old daughter about the Holocaust and anti-Semitism. That, she hoped, would prepare her child for eventualities such as Corbyn becoming prime minister.
But the increasing adoption of Israel’s tribalist doctrine among sections of the British Jewish community – and the related weaponisation of anti-Semitism – is likely to shed further light on what kind of a state hardline Zionists uphold as at the core of their identity.
Paradoxically, the new anti-Semitism turns the tables by legitimising – in fact, necessitating – Jewish racism towards gentiles. Rather than Corbyn stigmatising Jews – except in some feverish imaginations – it is the pro-Israel lobby stigmatising non-Jews, by claiming that they are all tainted by Jew hatred, whether they know it or not.
The more the lobby kicks up a hysteria about Corbyn’s supposed anti-Semitism, the clearer it becomes that the lobby regards much of the non-Jewish public as suspect too.

Palestinians made invisible

The other obvious lacuna in the lobby’s logic is that it only works if we completely remove the Palestinians from the story of Zionism and Israel. The idea of a harm-free Zionism might have been credible had it been possible to establish a Jewish state on an empty piece of land, as the early Zionists claimed Palestine to be. In reality there was a large native population who had to be displaced first.
Pro-Palestine demonstrators march down a street in central London (MEE/Areeb Ullah)
Israel’s creation as a Jewish state in 1948 was possible only if the Zionist movement undertook two steps that violate modern conceptions of human rights and liberal democratic practice. First, Israel had to carry out large-scale ethnic cleansing, forcing more than 80 per cent of the native Palestinian population outside the new borders of the Jewish state it created on the Palestinians’ homeland.
Then, it needed to deny the small surviving community of Palestinians inside Israel the same rights as Israeli Jews, to ghettoise them and stop them from bringing their expelled relatives back to their homes.
These weren’t poor choices by flawed Israeli politicians. They were absolutely essential to the success of a Zionist project to create and maintain a Jewish state. The ethnic cleansing of 1948 and the structural racism of the Jewish state were unmentionable topics in “legitimate” public debates about Israel until very recently.
The lobby and its supporters are not just seeking to silence Corbyn. They also intend to silence the Palestinians and the growing ranks of people who choose to stand in solidarity with the Palestinians
That has been changing, in part because it has become much harder to conceal what kind of state Israel is. Its self-harming behaviour includes its recent decision to make explicit the state’s institutionalised racism with the passage last month of the Nation-State Basic Law. That law gives constitutional weight to the denial of equal rights to a fifth of Israel’s population, those who are Palestinian.
The backlash against Corbyn and other Palestinian solidarity activists is evidence of the lobby’s fears that they can no longer hold the line against a growing realisation by western publics that there was a cost to Zionism’s success.
That price was paid by Palestinians, and there has yet been no historical reckoning over their suffering. By veiling the historical record, Israel and the Zionist movement have avoided the kind of truth and reconciliation process that led to the ending of apartheid in South Africa. The lobby prefers that Israel’s version of apartheid continues.

Loss of moral compass

If there is one individual who personifies the loss of a moral compass in the weaponisation of anti-Semitism against Corbyn and Israel’s critics, it is Rabbi Sacks.
Asked by the New Statesman what he thinks of the new Nation-State Basic Law, the normally erudite Sacks suddenly becomes lost for words. He asks a friend, or in his case his brother, for the answer: “I’m not an expert on this. My brother is, I’m not. He’s a lawyer in Jerusalem. He tells me that there’s absolutely nothing apartheid about this, it’s just correcting a lacuna… As far as I understand, it’s a technical process that has none of the implications that have been levelled at it.”
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Sacks, it seems, cannot identify apartheid when it is staring him the face, as long as it is disguised as “Jewish”. Similarly, he is blind to the history of Zionism and the mass dispossession of Palestinians in the 1948 Nakba.
He tells the New Statesman: “Jews did not wish to come back to their land [Palestine] to make any other people [Palestinians] suffer, and that goes very deep in the Jewish heart.” Not so deep, it seems, that Sacks can even identify who had to suffer to make possible that Jewish “return”.
In a critique of Sacks’ lengthy 2016 essay on anti-Semitism, a liberal Jewish commentator Peter Beinart noted that the rabbi had mentioned the “Palestinians” by name only once.
He berated Sacks for equating anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism: “By denying that [Palestinians] might have any reason besides bigotry to dislike Zionism, it denies their historical experience and turns them into mere vessels for Jew-hatred. Thus, it does to Palestinians what anti-Semitism does to Jews. It dehumanizes them.”

Topsy-turvy world

In a world that was not topsy-turvy, it would be Sacks and the Israel lobby that were being publicly upbraided for their racism. Instead Corbyn is being vilified by a wide spectrum of supposedly informed opinion in the UK – Jewish and non-Jewish alike – for standing in solidarity with Palestinians.
That is, remember, the Palestinian people who have been the victims of more than a century of collusion between European colonialism and Zionism, and today are still being oppressed by an anachronistic ethnic state, Israel, determined to privilege its Jewishness at all costs.
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The lobby and its supporters are not just seeking to silence Corbyn. They also intend to silence the Palestinians and the growing ranks of people who choose to stand in solidarity with the Palestinians. But while the lobby may be winning on its own limited terms in harming Corbyn in mainstream discourse, deeper processes are exposing and weakening the lobby. It is overplaying its hand.
A strong lobby is one that is largely invisible, one that – like the financial and arms industries – has no need to flex its muscles. In making so much noise to damage Corbyn, the Israel lobby is also for the first time being forced to bring out into the open the racist premises that always underpinned its arguments.
Over time, that exposure is going to harm, not benefit, the apologists for Israel.
– Jonathan Cook, a British journalist based in Nazareth since 2001, is the author of three books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He is a past winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His website and blog can be found at: www.jonathan-cook.net.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Photo: Demonstrators hold placards and flags of Israel as they protest outside the headquarters of Britain’s opposition Labour party in central London on 4 September, 2018 (AFP)

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هل يفهم العرب درس الباراغواي؟


سبتمبر 7, 2018

ناصر قنديل

– بينما كانت إدارة الرئيس الأميركي دونالد ترامب ومعها رئيس حكومة الاحتلال بنيامين نتنياهو يصوّرون قرار نقل السفارة الأميركية إلى القدس كبداية كرة ثلج ستكبر، وتجعل من اعتبار القدس عاصمة لكيان الاحتلال أمراً واقعاً، تحوّل قرار الباراغواي بنقل سفارتها إلى القدس قبل شهرين إلى مستند ودليل تستقوي به واشنطن وتل أبيب لتشجيع الدول المتردّدة على حسم أمرها، بعدما كان المثالان التشيكي والروماني في التردد يشكلان سقف ما حصلت عليه حكومة نتنياهو وإدارة ترامب من تجاوب دولي، باعتبار ما تبقى من استجابة للدعوات الأميركية الإسرائيلية كحال غواتيمالا لا يُقام له حساب.

– استتبع ترامب ونتنياهو وفق لعبة حجارة الدومينو قرار إعلان القدس عاصمة لكيان الاحتلال بتجفيف تمويل وكالة غوث اللاجئين تمهيداً لإلغائها وتصفية حق العودة معها، فعاجلتهم الانتخابات في باراغواي بخبر سيئ، حيث فاز الرئيس ماريو عبدو بينيتيز وانتهى عهد الرئيس هوراسيو كارتيس الذي قرّر نقل السفارة إلى القدس في شهر أيار الماضي تلبية لرغبات ترامب ونتنياهو. وكانت أولى القرارات التي اتخذها الرئيس الجديد إعادة سفارة الباراغواي إلى تل أبيب وإقفال السفارة في القدس، فقرّرت حكومة نتنياهو إغلاق سفارتها في الباراغواي، التي أعلنت قرارها بفتح سفارة فلسطين فوراً، وبالطبع لم يكن لأي من الحكومات العربية دور في هذا التغيير.

– لا يوجد تهويل بعظمة وقوة أميركا وما تقرّره، في مكان في العالم، بمثل ما هو في العقول العربية الحاكمة وعلى شاشات القنوات التي تموّلها الحكومات العربية، فلا يعكس قرار الباراغواي شيئاً بقدر ما يعكس حجم الوزن الحقيقي للإرادة الأميركية الإسرائيلية ومهابتها في عقول البشر الطبيعيين، الذين يقيسون بعقولهم الطبيعية الموازين، والمواقف. وهذا هو حال جميع حكومات العالم التي لم تجتمع على موقف بمثل ما اجتمعت على رفض الاستجابة للدعوات الأميركية الإسرائيلية، والخلاصة بسيطة وهي أن الذريعة العربية الدائمة للانصياع للمشيئة الأميركية لم تكن في تصديق الوعود ولا في صحة الخيارات، بل بداعي الخوف من معاندة الجبروت الأميركي وادعاء تفادي غضب سيد البيت الأبيض. فجاءت دولة أقرب في الجغرافيا من العرب لأميركا، وأصغر من دولة عربية صغرى في حجمها السياسي والاقتصادي، لكن على رأسها حكام من طينة البشر الطبيعيين الذين يستعملون عقولهم، وقالت ببساطة، رغم أن القضية ليست قضيتنا، لكن الحق يعلو ولا يعلى عليه، وتشجّعت وقرّرت وقالت لا كبيرة لواشنطن وتل أبيب.

– المواطن العربي المأخوذ بحسابات حكامه الواقفين بذلٍّ وراء الأميركي يتسوّلون رضاه معني بالتوقف أمام هذا المشهد الذي يرتسم في العالم، من أوروبا إلى تركيا وباكستان وصولاً إلى كندا وأميركا اللاتينية، حيث ليست القضية في مَن معنا ومَن ضدنا، بل قضية كيف يتجرّأ البشر الطبيعيون على قول لا لأميركا و»إسرائيل» عندما يفكرون كبشر طبيعيين ويقرّرون كبشر طبيعيين. فزمن المهابة الأميركية والتهويل بها صار كذبة كبرى، لم يعُد مقبولاً أن يجد من يصدّقه، طالما أن من سيسوّق له باقٍ وموجود.

– ليست القضية الحديث عن وجود مناخ دولي لمواجهة أميركا و»إسرائيل» أو وجود فرص لتحالفات لنصرة قضية فلسطين أم لا. القضية هي أنه آن الأوان كي يحكم بلاد العرب بشر طبيعيون يفكرون بعقولهم ويستعملونها كما يفعل كل البشر الطبيعيين. وأن ينظر المواطن العربي نحو حكامه مرة ليكتشف أنهم من غير طينة البشر الطبيعيين، وأنه عندما يتطلّع للتغيير فهو لا يطلب ديمقراطية وحرية وعدالة، بل يطلب فقط أن ينتمي حكامه إلى فئة البشر الطبيعيين يُخطئون ويُصيبون ويرتكبون الإساءات بحقه، كما يفعل حكام آخرون، ولكن بصفتهم بشراً طبيعيين.

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One Year After Calling Idlib ‘Al Qaeda’s Largest Safe Haven Since 9/11,’ the US Govt is Trying to Save it

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As the Syrian government and its allies prepare to begin a military offensive against the last rebel-held province in the country, top US government officials and even US President Donald Trump have recently urged Syria to refrain from “recklessly” attacking the Idlib province, warning that it could result in a high civilian death toll. These recent statements of US government officials have sought to portray Idlib as chiefly populated by civilians and benign opposition “rebels.”
Yet, just last year, one of the US government’s top counterterrorism officials involved in the country’s Syria and Iraq policy stated on video that, in contrast to current government statements, Idlib is dominated by none other than the Al Qaeda terrorist group and that the province should be a major focus of US counterterrorism policy given the threat that Idlib represents to global efforts to fight terrorism.
Speaking last July at a conference organized by the Middle East Institute, Brett McGurk – the US government’s Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL (Daesh, ISIS) – called Syria’s Idlib province “the largest Al Qaeda safe haven since 9/11 tied directly to Ayman al-Zawahiri [current leader of Al Qaeda].” He then immediately added that the Al Qaeda presence in Idlib was a “huge problem” and had been so “for some time.” McGurk later stated that the efforts by foreign governments, including the US, “to send in tens of thousands of tons of weapons and looking the other way as foreign fighters come into Syria may not have been the best approach. Al Qaeda has taken full advantage of it and Idlib now is a huge problem.”
Watch | Top U.S. counterterrorism official calls Idlib “largest Al Qaeda safe haven since 9/11″
McGurk’s characterization of Idlib as an “Al Qaeda safe haven” has also been reported on by the mainstream US press. For instance, last February, The Washington Post published an article that stated that Idlib, “the biggest surviving rebel stronghold in northern Syria,” was “falling under the control of Al Qaeda-linked extremists.” One of the rebels quoted in the Post article stated that Al-Qaeda-linked radicals “are controlling every aspect of life” in Idlib and that “Al-Qaeda ideology is spreading everywhere.”
That same article went on to report that most rebels have joined one of the two most powerful factions in Idlib: Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a coalition formed by Syria’s Al Qaeda branch al-Nusra Front; or the “more moderate” Ahrar al-Sham, a coalition known for being a common battlefield ally of al-Nusra Front. The New York Times wrote in 2015 that Ahrar al-Sham membership included associates of Osama bin Laden.
However, recent statements made by Trump administration officials omit this key fact, despite the fact that the Al Qaeda presence and threat within the Idlib province remains unchanged from last year. In fact, since last year, Al Qaeda’s presence in Idlib has only grown, as Al Qaeda affiliates in other parts of Syria were evacuated to Idlib province as part of several deals negotiated with the Syrian Arab Army that resulted in the surrender of then-rebel-held territories to the Syrian government.
Unsurprisingly, US mainstream media outlets now echo the Trump administration on Idlib, despite their own past admissions that the province is dominated by Al Qaeda-linked terrorist groups. For instance, a New York Times article published this past Sunday opened by lamenting that the Syrian government offensive targeting Idlib presented a threat to “rebel fighters and their civilian supporters who rose up more than seven years ago demanding regime change,” noting only in the story’s 21st paragraph that these same “rebel fighters” are “affiliated with Al Qaeda.”
While it may seem striking that the Trump administration would spring to the defense of a known “Al Qaeda safe haven,” government officials have stated in recent months that the US’ objectives in Syria are no longer about fighting terrorism but about countering the “Iranian menace,” as National Security Adviser John Bolton stated in July. Thus, it seems that defending Al Qaeda has become par for the course given the Trump administration’s ultimate goal of targeting Iran, a country that has spent much of the past seven years fighting terrorists like ISIS and Al Qaeda in Syria.

Reprinted with permission from MintPressNews.

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Things Are Not Going to Plan in Trump’s U.S. Trade Deficit Wars

Things Are Not Going to Plan in Trump’s U.S. Trade Deficit Wars

The numbers are not looking good for a president who has made reducing the U.S. trade deficit one of his main economic goals.
Worse still, signs are emerging that President Donald Trump’s trade wars are starting to hit economic growth, not just at home but around the world.

New data out Wednesday showed the U.S. trade deficit in July widening at its fastest rate since 2015 as monthly deficits with China and the European Union both hit new records . In the year so far, the U.S.’s overall goods and services deficit is up by $22 billion, or 7 percent, versus the same period last year.

The data coincides with Trump’s moves to escalate his battles with China and efforts to badger Canada into signing on to a new Nafta, highlighting what economists have argued is the incongruity of his trade policies. Even as he launches his battles in the name of reducing the U.S.’s imbalances, he has been causing the overall deficit to grow by increasing public spending and encouraging domestic investment.

“The policies of this administration are policies that may not have been designed to increase the trade deficit, but that is their effect,” said Philip Levy, who served on President George W. Bush’s council of economic advisers.

Policy Distortions


Also apparent in the trade data are some of the distortions that Trump’s policies have been fueling and how they may be helping mask the long-term impact of his trade wars.

While soybean farmers are widely seen as one of the likely victims of a trade war with China, for example, a surge in exports of soybeans to get ahead of new tariffs helped boost U.S. GDP growth in the second quarter. In the first seven months of this year, the value of U.S. soybean exports actually increased by more than 40 percent, or $5.7 billion, versus the same period last year, according to the data released on Wednesday.

Those distortions are likely to be temporary. And that is why many economists believe U.S. GDP growth may have peaked at 4.2 percent in second quarter, with trade likely to be a drag on growth in the months to come.

Modest Drag


Andrew Hunter of Capital Economics said the trade data released on Wednesday indicated that after boosting GDP figures in the second quarter, net exports would subtract from it in the second half. In the third quarter, he predicted, net trade would subtract more than a percentage point from GDP growth while the recent surge in the dollar suggested that trade could be a “modest drag” in the fourth quarter too, even before the impact of tariffs starts to take hold.

Most economists argue against Trump’s characterization of the U.S. trade deficit as a reflection of the country’s profits and losses from trade. They also tend to cringe when people invoke reducing the deficit as a policy goal. The last time the U.S. trade deficit shrank significantly was in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, which saw a collapse in global trade.

“Trade policy has very little direct impact on the overall trade deficit in the longer run,” said Mary Lovely, a Syracuse University economist. A new Nafta, for example, is unlikely to do much to change the trade deficit, despite the administration’s claims, she said.

On the other hand, if Trump’s trade wars eventually hit business confidence it would certainly affect the trade deficit. “Then we would see a reduction in the U.S. trade deficit, but of course with harmful effects on economic activity and employment,” she said.

The impacts of Trump’s growing trade wars aren’t limited to the U.S. They also have only just started to bite.
At the World Trade Organization, Robert Koopman, the chief economist, fears that we are beginning to see signs of a slowdown in global trade growth linked to the trade wars. That matters because just a few months ago trade growth was being cited as one of the main causes for a robust streak in the global economy.

Around the world, manufacturing surveys are beginning to show a dip in export orders. Air and ocean freight data are pointing to a slowdown. So too is a dip in auto production around the world, Koopman said in an interview.

More worryingly, he said, the world is already seeing a slowdown in foreign direct investment that’s likely to lead to a longer term impact on trade. It also is significant because, if anything, the Trump trade wars are only just getting started.

More significant damage looms ahead, Koopman said, with the Trump administration expected to proceed with a new wave of tariffs on $200 billion of China goods as early as this week and amid its threats to put national-security tariffs on imported cars and parts.

The real damage from those measures — and any retaliation from China and other U.S. trading partners — may not hit the global economy until the first quarter of next year, Koopman said.

“There’s been a lot more talk than action so far,” Koopman said. “The worry is when the action starts happening.”

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Zionists Tell Tales of Ansariya: The Saddest and Most Painful Days



“It was one of the saddest and most painful days for “Israel” which is currently facing fierce and bitter fighting on two fronts.”
With these words, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged the disaster that befell the commandos in his army during the failed landing operation in Ansariya.
Netanyahu admitted that the lessons learned from the recent events in southern Lebanon may affect the methods of military operations led by the occupation forces.
Netanyahu’s remarks were made at a press conference following a meeting of his Kitchen Cabinet.
If the results of this operation were so “tragic” for the Zionists, perhaps the failure to achieve the required objective led to more tragedy and frustration among the “Israeli” leaders.
The political correspondent of “Israel’s” Channel One revealed this objective.
“It was a very precise and very specific operation that would have accomplished very important achievements for the “Israeli” security forces against Hezbollah.”
But what happened?
“While a naval commandos unit headed to carry out a qualitative and localized operation, it fell into an ambush by Hezbollah fighters, and bombs were detonated by force,” the military correspondent said.
The official military statement clarifies the details, explaining that “the commandos unit, which was comprised of 16 fighters, including the force’s commander with the rank of ‘Lieutenant colonel’, landed on the coast and was on its way to ambush the (saboteurs) in the village of Ansariya north of Tyre. On its way, it was struck by an explosive device and then a series of explosions and gunfire, which killed the majority of the force, including the force commander.”
The force responded and informed the backup unit of the details of the incident. A rescue team was dispatched to the site in a Yasour transport [CH-53] helicopter.
Navy boats attacked from the sea to assist in the rescue operation.
The rescue operation was difficult and complicated. It continued for many hours due to intense gunfire on the helicopter at approximately 1:30 pm.
Another helicopter arrived and continued to transport the injured soldiers.
According to an “Israeli” radio station, Chief of Staff of the Zionist army Amnon Shahak, Minister of War Yitzhak Mordekhai and the Commander of the Navy followed the developments since the start of the clashes. At dawn, the chief of staff conducted a preliminary inquiry into the circumstances of what happened. He appointed Major General Gabi Ophir to head a special commission to investigate the circumstances of this engagement.
The radio station’s military correspondent (Igal Almeh) revealed in a report that
“the commandos unit is characterized by its high degree of combat capabilities and is doing similar activities in Lebanon and other areas.”
The correspondent added that
“the activities of this unit are usually kept secret. Unfortunately, in the wake of the clash, this operation was revealed.”
As for the missing soldier, the radio station reported that he “was close to the site of the explosions and was killed as a result.”
Meanwhile, Channel One reported that
“the army succeeded in dispatching a Yasour helicopter carrying rescuers who rescued the wounded soldiers and evacuated the dead. It searched for several hours for the missing soldier but without success. After that, the troops were forced to return under heavy fire without the missing soldier.”
The “Israeli” television showed pictures of the Yasour helicopter, which was trying to evacuate the wounded from the battlefield. It was hit by shrapnel from a mortar shell that landed near it.
The enemy’s television channel stated that
“during the landing of the rescue aircraft, it was hit by artillery shells and gunfire. As a result, the helicopter was hit by shrapnel. But the helicopter was able to transport the injured even though it was hit.”
“Israel’s” Channel One said, “The ranks of the soldiers who fell are as follows:
1-            Commander of the naval commando unit
2-            Three captains
3-            Three NCOs [Non-commissioned officer]
4-            Five soldiers

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