Going after Putin: A Win-Win-Win Solution to the Iran-Israel War and a New Middle East (A Time for Two Big Wars)
You can see what’s going on when you step back a long time: Ukraine is trying to join the West. Israel is trying to join a new Middle East. And Russia and Iran have teamed up to try to block both.
All of this has created a huge opportunity for Putin. A Hamas delegation was welcome to Moscow last week and he has been growing his relationship with Iran, which is giving Putin anti-aircraft equipment and drones in return for killing Ukrainians. It’s a win-win-win for Putin. Putin knows that he is forcing the US to send more spare parts to Israel because he is helping Iran in the war between Israel and Iran. If the arms flow is cut off by Johnson and the House G.O.P., Putin should probably count the days before Donald Trump is re-elected to make sure he isn’t involved in another war with Ukraine. Plus all the instability drives up oil prices!
He wants the $14.3 billion the Administration wants to send to Israel to be taken from the funds added to the IRS so it can better collect taxes from cheaters. (Attention, Israel lobby: Do not go along with that game. Next time, aid for Israel will be tied to positions on abortion and guns.
Source: Opinion | Seeing the Big Picture in Two Big Wars
The Tectonic Shifts of the World after the Second Cold War: Is Iran a Stable State, or Can Israel Be a Free and Democratic Country?
Johnson and his members might have wanted to fund the war against the Germans in Europe, but not against the Japanese in the Pacific. Or they would have agreed to Lend-Lease assistance for the allies only if President Franklin Roosevelt would eliminate the I.R.S. altogether. There are more guns, more butter, and no taxes.
If it sounds like an incoherent philosophy that would affect global leadership in a negative way, it is. And if it feels as if House G.O.P. leaders are small thinkers in a big time, it’s because they are. They are dangerous and shameful. Please do our country a favor and audition for Fox News on some other issue.
If these tectonic shifts can happen, the post-post-Cold War world has a far greater chance to handle other global challenges, like climate change, than if these shifts are stymied.
Iran-backed Hamas launched its war to keep Saudi-Israel from being normalized and Vladimir Putin did the same in order to prevent the expansion of Europe, so you don’t need to speak Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Russian or Ukrainian.
Both leaders are vying for countries that are far different from Russia and Iran. Aron states that Ukraine proves that it can be a Slavic Orthodox country with a free, democratic and prosperous economy that doesn’t need a state of war or dictatorship with the West.
Source: Opinion | Seeing the Big Picture in Two Big Wars
The Gaza Strip: Israeli-Second-Israel War and the Jewish-Muslim Interaction During the Sept. 11, 2001 Israeli-Israeli War
It’s possible that ties between Israel and the most populous Muslim country in the world, Indonesia, could be normalized after Saudi Arabia normalized relations with the Jewish state. It would prove that Jews and Muslims aren’t destined to be forever in conflict and can revive the not always harmonious — but often harmonious — relations their communities enjoyed throughout much of history before the Palestinian conflict.
Hamas knew that if Saudi Arabia were to be normalized by Israel it would mean significant financial advantages and more legitimacy for the more moderate Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Hamas launched this war knowing that it would ruin many Israelis and also many innocent civilians in the process. Completely disgusting. Iran knew the same.
So it looks as if Israel’s army is reoccupying Gaza to eventually turn it over to some kind of legitimate Palestinian Authority — while Israel’s extreme right-wing politicians and settlers are working overtime to delegitimize that authority and drive Palestinians out of the West Bank. This is a strategic contradiction. Israel actually needs a wartime peace process with the Palestinian Authority.
I was in Jerusalem and spent time with some of the families of the people kidnapped by Hamas. Jewish Israelis, Muslim Israelis and foreign citizens of different ethnicities are held captive in the Gaza Strip.
The meetings I have held with these families have been the most difficult and fraught I have ever had. I’ve also spoken with families of some of the more than 1,400 of my people who were killed that day, many of them murdered in their living rooms and kitchens or dancing at a music festival. The blood from my shoes was washed off after I returned from a kibbutz devastated in the attack.
We’ve heard certain governments fail to denounce Hamas, instead condemning Israel’s response and even seeking to offer justification for Hamas’s atrocities. It would have been unthinkable to hear such moral confusion uttered after the Sept. 11 attacks or after bombings in London, Barcelona and Baghdad. When I spoke to a joint meeting of Congress this year, I said terrorism “contradicts humanity’s most basic principles of peace.” Not everyone agrees.
The Hamas terrorists didn’t hesitate about burning babies when they attacked Israeli homes. They tortured children, raped women and destroyed peace-loving communities. They were so proud of their deeds that they made sure to capture them on video and even broadcast them live. These videos will forever remain a stain on those Palestinians and their supporters who celebrated that day and a testament to the depravity of the terrorists and of the ideas that inspired them.
The realization that many in the West are willing to support actions of others is troubling for me as well. In Europe, we have seen rallies for the destruction of Israel from the river to the sea. Students at American colleges sign statements justifying terrorism, even making speeches about it.
Even as Hamas fires hundreds of rockets at our cities and as our soldiers fall in battle, we are trying to give early warning to civilians so that they can get out of the main battle zones and get aid through the border with Egypt. More and more aid trucks arrive each day.
The strategic issues on the agenda will include these questions as they were during the visit to Israel of President Biden a few weeks ago.