San Francisco Joins World Wide Protests Against Israeli War Expansion

Photos: Leon Kunstenaar

(San Francisco, Oct 6) - As Israel descends to ever more barbarism, it has now attacked Lebanon. With Joe Biden muttering platitudes for public consumption about "working" for a cease fire that Netanyahu never intends to honor, the rain of US supplied bombs brings Gaza style death and destitution to the Lebanese.

With the US as enabler, Israel is now on the path it thinks will make its part of the world subservient to an imagined Arab free greater Israel. Israel could have, at the time of its founding, worked toward existing as a multi-ethnic state with Palestine's existing people, but instead chose the path of ethnic cleansing. It is now living with the consequences. As Israel slaughters Lebanon's population, attacks Syria, and invades the West Bank, it is now provoking Iran. It has already assassinated Iranian diplomats in Damascus and killed the lead Palestinian negotiator in the middle of Tehran while Iran was inaugurating a new president. The previous president died in a helicopter crash. It is difficult to believe that Israel was not involved.

But Iran is big, with a population ten times that of Israel, therefore Israel is working to involve the US in a war with Iran. The New York Times is preparing the ground, advancing the "criticism of Israel equals antisemitism" narrative in The Year American Jews Woke Up and Iran as a terrorist state by Israel's hyper Zionist defense minister,Benny Gantz.

Biden's term is ending and Harris, if elected, might not be an as enthusiastic Zionist. To accomplish his goals, Netanyahu's preferred course is to get Trump elected.

The election looks close. An attack on Iran's oil industry would cause oil prices to spike and, while the US, thanks to fracking, is no longer dependent on foreign oil, it would still send the stock market down and give Trump something to seize on. Even better, it would make Iranian oil more expensive for Iran's best customer, China. If the Israelis can manage get some US airmen and sailors killed by Iran, Trump would pretend to care and scream even louder. This could get him elected.

The US, with considerable air and naval power now in the Mediterranean, is already attacking whatever Iran throws at Israel. With Israel bombing Iran and Iran sending many more missiles over Israel, US interceptions would greatly increase. It then becomes logical for Iran to attack US Naval power. Iran's air power is almost non-existent, with only a small number Vietnam era fighters for which they can't get parts. However, they have been preparing for an American attack for years and they do have, hidden underground, hundreds of thousand missiles they could use against US ships. Then in order to "defend our sailors and airmen", the US would join the attack on Iran. Netanyahu gets his war and we get Trump.

How did we get here and how did Iran become our mortal enemy? World War II left the US as the world's dominant power. While the Soviet Union had been the most responsible for destroying Nazi Germany, it had paid the terrible price of 21 million dead and the country devastated.

The US had expanded its huge industrial capacity to successfully arm the allies and had suffered no damage to its homeland. It was in position to establish a new world economic order and proceeded to do this, with appropriate framing as promoting democracy, peace, and harmony, etc. It was the new rules-based international order. But the rule was the golden rule of "he who has the gold makes the rules." Countries not accepting their US assigned role were to pay a heavy price.

In this "rules-based order", the US reconstructed Europe with the Marshal Plan that did rebuild Europe but economically cemented the US and Europe together. As to the rest of the world, the South American continent remained the US back yard, a source of raw materials provided by US supported dictators running low wage high repression countries. Countries in South America not agreeing with this model suffered attacks, overthrows and subversion as did Chile, Nicaragua, Panama, Haiti, Cuba; the list is long. So did Iraq and Viet Nam.

The Soviet Union, too big and powerful to control, became the object of a quasi religious ideological competition framed as Communism versus the "free world." The Soviet Union and later Russia was never able to marshal its vast territory and economical potential and lost the contest. China is another story.

The anti-communist crusade was mostly public manipulation. As proof, Communism in Russia is now irrelevant but Russia is nonetheless still an official US enemy. The West's article of faith is that Russia must never be allowed rise to the level of equal economic competitor. It must therefore be surround by a powerful military alliance and remain a second rate power. Thus the current war in Ukraine.

Britain and France lost their empires but the middle east, whose oil was seen as crucial for the "West." needed to remain a part of the new order. US economic penetration replaced the British. Zionism and the horrors experienced by Europe's Jews was there to be leverage into a new state that would end up functioning as the US' unsinkable aircraft carrier.

In Iran, Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh committed the unpardonable crime of nationalizing Iran's oil industry intending that Iran's resource benefit Iranians rather than British and American investors and was overthrown by the CIA and the British. Though the Shah of Iran was friendly to Israel and was modernizing Iran with a western orientation, he was seen by many Iranians as corrupt and too "Western". He wielded an oppressive secret police.

Western scholars have been puzzling on how the Ayatollah Khomeini was able to implement a fundamentalist Muslim revolution in 1979, but implement one he did. The Ayatollahs have imposed a religious tyranny with a horrific repression of women. That Iran is now, at the same time, the only major power supporting those who Israel is attempting to ethnically cleanse, presents a dilemma to leftists in Europe and the US.

Israel is no longer in total control of the current war. Iran, with ten times Israel's population, has no meaningful air force to take on US bombers but it can muster a formidable land army that can hit US assets in Iraq and throughout the Middle east. For years, it has been preparing for an American attack with hundreds of thousands of missiles kept underground. Also, the recent 181 missile barrage did more damage than Israel has revealed.

Israel is facing difficulties against Hezbollah in Lebanon. While Israel was regularly announcing its successes in killing Hamas fighters, i.e. woman and children, as it bombed people's homes in Gaza, we are not getting much news from the Israeli army in Lebanon, an indication that the "incursions" are not going so well.

Israel's military, while tactically brilliant, has been not been strategically successful. It has been assassinating its enemies' leaders for years yet more always seem to take their place. Nasarallah, the Hezbollah leader recently assassinated was himself the replacement for the previously assassinated Hezbollah leader.

In Gaza, Hamas, while hurt, has not been defeated. Killing masses of civilians does not yield military victory. When the Allies obliterated German cities during WW2, killing 30,000 to 40,000 people at a time in thousand bomber raids, it did not bring victory. It was then called "morale bombing" (today we call it terrorism) in the hope that the population would become so demoralized that they would repudiate their leaders. Instead it stiffened resistance. Germany was defeated on the battlefield (mostly in Russia) and in the armaments factories.

For Israel, decapitation of enemy leaders did not work and terrorism is not working either. Due to the dictates of messianic Zionism and the incredible hatred being generated by Israel's attempted genocide, a settlement is not likely. The ethnic cleansing of Palestine's Arab population of 7.5 million people is the remaining option for Israel and Netanyahu is pursuing it.

Iran is standing in the way. Netanyahu believes that Iran's leadership is very shaky and that the country is ripe for regime change. From what people who know people in Israel are reporting, this might be more true of Israel.

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