The Possible Impact of the Israel-Palestine War on the Philippines

 

The Israeli policy over recent years did not necessarily want to cultivate a Palestinian leadership... Many are in prison, and Israel's interest - because I repeat: it was not in their program or in Israel's interest at the time, or so they thought - was instead to divide the Palestinians and ensure that the Palestinian question fades. This Palestinian question will not fade. And so we must address it and find an answer. This is where we need courage. The use of force is a dead end. The moral condemnation of what Hamas did - and there's no "but" in my words regarding the moral condemnation of this horror - must not prevent us from moving forward politically and diplomatically in an enlightened manner. The law of retaliation is a never-ending cycle—Dominique De Villepin, former Prime Minister of France 

 

In this issue 

The Possible Impact of the Israel-Palestine War on the Philippines 

I. The Increasing Trend of Wars; Nakba 1.0: The Origin of the Israel-Palestine Conflict 

II. Nakba 2.0: The Israel-Palestine War: The Prison Revolt 

III. Divide and Conquer Rule: Israel Created, Nurtured and Fought the Hamas 

IV. The Global Sympathy War 

V. The Collective Punishment of The Palestinians 

VI. The Law of Large Numbers, Rising Risks of Direct World War 3 

VII. The Middle East Conflict as Symptom of the "Thucydides Trap" 

 

That's the outline.

Due to the risk of "community guideline" restrictions, please read the whole post at my substack.

Please press the following link:

https://open.substack.com/pub/theseenandunseenbybjte/p/the-possible-impact-of-the-israel?r=9066v&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

US Finances Israel’s Gaza War via Foreign Aid

The Israel Central Bank estimates the cost of the Gaza War to the Israel at $1.4 billion

From Reuters: The month-long Gaza war cost Israel's economy some $1.44 billion (855.51 million British pound), its central bank governor Karnit Flug said on Thursday, citing interim assessments. "The assessment is that it can reach up to around 0.5 percent of GDP, which is up to 5 billion shekels," Flug told Israel's Channel Ten television.

The CCTV has higher projections. They see that the costs of the war to Israel’s economy will accrue to $3 billion.

For Gaza the assessed cost has been at $ 6 billion, according to Haaretz.com

 

I’ll apply Murphy’s law here where “anything you try to fix will take longer and cost you more than you thought.”

Why? Because of the political economic dimension behind the war.

Of course, wars haven’t just been about damage to property or cost of armaments, the most important costs are people’s lives.

Nonetheless for Israeli politicians “costs” will likely be a less important consideration, why?

Well, because the “costs” to Israel have been financed by the US government via foreign aid.

2015 Foreign Aid has been appraised at $ 3.1 billion, which seems higher than those "cost" assessments.

As the Vox.com reports: (bold mine)

Even Egypt and Pakistan are not, in the grand scheme of things, particularly poor countries. It's just that American foreign aid mostly isn't economic assistance to needy people or needy countries. If it were, India would get more aid than Israel and Haiti would get more aid than Egypt.

Instead, the bulk of the money is spent on buying American military equipment, serving as a kind of indirect subsidy to the military-industrial complex. That's part of how a country like Israel that isn't objectively hard-up for money winds up getting more assistance than anyone else. Israel does have a healthy appetite for advanced military hardware, and it's considered a geopolitically reliable nation that can be trusted with it. So American foreign policy is committed to helping Israel maintain a qualitative military advantage vis-à-vis other Middle Eastern countries. Meanwhile, part of the Carter-era Camp David Accords is a guarantee of a lot of money to the Egyptian military to keep it favorably disposed to a pro-American foreign policy and détente with Israel.

The incentive to go to war is there because of subsidies provided to the Israel government. Consequently, such subsidies enriches the highly influential US military industrial complex. Take away those phony "foreign aid" and the incentive to go to war will most likely diminish. Perhaps the warring parties will learn how to use the markets and trade in order to develop cooperation instead of destroying each other.

And you can also see, foreign aid "flows" reveal that the US hasn’t been helping the poor, but rather helping nations allied to their goals of promoting their role as de facto “global policeman” regardless of their economic conditions.

And it could even be interpreted that the Gaza war could signify a proxy-surrogate war by the US channeled through Israel.

War is indeed a racket

Read more about the modern roots of Israel-Arab conflict from the dean of the Austrian school of economics Murray N. Rothbard here

Michael Rozeff: US Implements the Wolfowitz Doctrine

Retired Professor and author Michael Rozeff on the undeclared "Wolfowitz Doctrine" as blueprint to US imperial foreign policy.

From the Lew Rockwell Blog (bold mine)

The U.S. is implementing the Wolfowitz Doctrine. It aims to maintain the U.S. as the sole superpower and to preclude any regional powers. It wants no rivals such as Russia, Iran and China. This agenda is primary for the U.S. Other purported goals of foreign policy such as anti-terrorism, furthering democracy, advancing human rights, and the self-determination of peoples are useful only insofar as they advance the superpower status of the U.S. and the elimination of rivals. Whenever the Wolfowitz Doctrine can be implemented by sacrificing anti-terrorism, democracy, human rights and self-determination, the U.S. does not hesitate to sacrifice them. This is why the U.S. appears to be so hypocritical.

Here is an example out of today’s news. The U.S. condemns separatism in Ukraine and aids Kiev in attacking its own people with heavy and advanced weapons of all kinds. This is because the superpower agenda is served by steering Ukraine into the Western camp. At the very same time, the U.S. condemns China for indicting a professor who is a vocal separatist and critical of Chinese policy in Xinjiang. Hence, we observe the U.S. against separatism in Ukraine but supporting it in China. This is because the U.S. is applying pressure on China wherever it thinks this will succeed in diminishing China as a power. If China has to contend with breakaway movements, the U.S. agenda is advanced.

Numerous other instances of U.S. hypocrisy can be understood in this way. The U.S. will support democracy but then ignore elections and support dictators. It will bemoan the deaths of children in some instances but support their being killed in others. It will condemn interfering in domestic politics in some countries but approve of it in other instances. It will condemn terrorism and then arm terrorists. This is because the overriding agenda is the Wolfowitz Doctrine.

The U.S. supplies the Israeli military with aid and ammunition so as to maintain Israel in the region and prevent regional powers like Iran from growing in strength. When Israel attacks Gaza, the U.S. approves a certain amount of death and destruction. However, if Israel’s killing becomes so excessive that it promises to cause a backlash that weakens Israel or gives rise to an anti-Israel movement that is more radical than Hamas, then the U.S. will switch and disapprove of Israel’s attack and seek to stop it. The criterion being used is that of the supremacy of U.S. power in a worldwide game of power.

This is not to say that the different divisions in Washington are united in this goal or united in how to play this game. It’s not to say that the Wolfowitz Doctrine is sensible. It’s not to say that important leaders are playing this game effectively. In most instances, they are playing it foolishly, rashly, dangerously and in a very costly way that results in diminishing U.S. power. This exclusive superpower goal and game generally reduces American well-being in numerous ways. From that standpoint, the Wolfowitz Doctrine is deeply flawed.

Daniel Adams also at the Lew Rockwell Blog also reveals that the US government just gave a green light to the Israeli government for the use armaments from a US government owned US $ 1 billion cache or “War Reserves Stocks Allies-Israel (WRSA-I) in the ghastly war with the Hamas at the Gaza. Reportedly 80% of the fatalities have been civilians as the military industrial complex benefits from sale of arms.

Sad to see how political (and politically based economic) greed has led to senseless slaughter of innocent lives.