Middle East

Trump caused the Gaza crisis; Biden makes it worse

28/10/2023

By Eric Zuesse

On September 14th, just weeks before the October 7th Hamas attack against Israel, the U.S. Government’s Rhodesist (or “neoconservative”) Wilson Center headlined “The Abraham Accords: A Three-Year Success Now at a Crossroads”, and opened with high praise for all of the prominent U.S. promoters of expanding the U.S. empire even further. It tied all of this — the Middle Eastern components — in with the U.S. regime’s supreme objective of taking over ultimately even Russia and China; and this is how Trump’s Abraham Accords did this:

The Abraham Accords are successful three years on but including Saudi Arabia will face major hurdles. Despite this goal, Biden can continue capitalizing on changing trade and cooperation frameworks that the accords made possible, making a win for his administration.

The Biden administration is investing much of its Middle East engagement in strengthening and expanding the Abraham Accords: the term used for the process which began with diplomatic ties between Israel and three Arab states in 2020 (with a fourth, Sudan, in limbo). The administration is pressing for further Arab Israeli integration in diplomatic, military, economic and energy areas, adding them to multilateral fora from the security-oriented Negev Forum to the “I2U2” UAE-US-Israel-India initiative.

But its most important objective is the establishment of Saudi Israeli diplomatic relations. The stakes are high and the chances of a breakthrough this are year still uncertain. But this is all smart policy for the administration. It reflects realities in the region and the world as a whole which have encouraged President Biden’s dramatic embrace of this flagship Trump administration initiative.

The forces behind the accords

Those regional and global realities first became apparent during Barack Obama’s second term and have decisively shaped US policy ever since. The first was the growing strategic competition with China and Russia, as the two global-system outliers formed closer ties and began eyeing (and in Russia’s case seeking militarily) the overthrow of the American-led post-1945 global collective security system. Washington thus has had to shift its geopolitical and particularly military focus away from the Middle East towards East Asia and Europe.

The Abraham Accords were Trump’s initiative (carried out by his son-in-law Jared Kushner) to establish a ‘Middle-East peace’ by terminating the Democrats’ ’two-state solution’ and replacing it with a one-state solution whereby Israel will be internationally accepted as having legal control over all of the Palestinians, and there will be no foreign nation that will defend any rights of Palestinians, so that Israel’s final solution to the Palestinian problem will be achieved: national-security control by what Israel labels “Jews” over all of the lands that Israel wants for “Jews.” Trump’s plan was to get all Sunni-Muslim-controlled nations, including all U.S.-supporting Arab nations, to be allied with Israel against Palestinians, and, then, for America and its allies to conquer the Shia-Muslim-majority nations, of Iran, Iraq, and Syria, or else to get Israel to do that dirty-work there. Supposedly, doing this would help the U.S. regime ultimately to conquer both Russia and China.

The CIA-affiliated Wikipedia describes the Abraham Accords very differently from this, as-if these were Trump’s “Israeli–Palestinian peace proposal,” and not a plan to expand the U.S. regime’s areas of control (such as all neocon plans are), fundamentally aggressive, and hardly as non-controversial as the Abraham Accords actually were and still are. After all: they ditch the entire Democratic Party ‘peace’ plan for a two-State solution, the plan that started under President Jimmy Carter, but that actually had been endorsed by the United Nations ever since 1947, though never even started on the ground until the Oslo Accords. Republicans were now replacing all of that idea, and Biden was pushing this one-State ’solution’ to the Palestinian issue with a fixed determination that Trump’s plan would succeed. Although that Wikipedia article on the two-State solution makes no mention of either Carter or his Oslo Accords, the Wiki on the Oslo Accords does bury deep down in it, that “Although the Oslo Accords did not explicitly endorse a two-state solution, they did create self-governing institutions in the West Bank and Gaza, and as such have been interpreted as anticipating a two-state future.^[43]^[44]” The Oslo Accords were creating the Palestinian federation that then was supposed to negotiate with Israel for a two-state solution, but Trump’s Abraham Accords threw that out, partly because it came from the Democratic Party. And now the Democratic Party, under Biden, is pushing it as hard as it can. Because the U.S. Government has been controlled by Rhodesists (neocons) ever since 25 July 1945, this “neoconservatism” is bipartisan in both of the regime’s two billionaire-controlled Parties.

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On the other hand: the Washington Institute for Near East Policy hired a pro-Israel PR firm that calls itself the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion, to design and administer a series of polls, including in Palestine, about the Abraham Accords, and they ‘found’ that the Abraham Accords seem to be just the thing. First, though: here is some information about the sponsoring organization:

Remarkably, the Wikipedia article on The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP or TWI, also known simply as The Washington Institute) accurately presents it as being a shill for Israel’s Government, and as being an outgrowth from that Government’s chief lobbying organization in Washington, AIPAC, which outgrowth was created so as to produce superficially credible ‘studies’ whose ‘findings’ would be ‘impartial’ enough for lobbyists to cite to ‘our elected representatives’ in Congress, so that they could vote for Israel. Though that Wiki doesn’t mention this, WINEP also propagandizes in Washington for regime-change in Russia, and for more funding of Ukraine’s government. So: it’s solidly Rhodesist. WINEP claims to be not affiliated with AIPAC or any other agency of Israel’s Government. The ‘Charity Navigator’ site rating non-profits gives WINEP five stars out of five, and rates it 100% good to donate to. The U.S. Government, on its tax form for ‘non-profits’, 990 Schedule B, doesn’t require any donors to be identified, but does require each donation above $5,000 for the year to be listed; and, for the latest year shown by WINEP (2021), there were 8 of those, all from unidentified individuals, and their sizes of donations (starting from the lowest) were $375,000, $500,000, $500,000, $500,000, $589,500 , $692,360, $1,500,000, and $1,800,000. So: the individuals who control WINEP on behalf of Israel’s Government are not known.

On 23 August 2023, WINEP headlined “Palestinians More Positive on Abraham Accords and Open to Vying Powers Than Arab Neighbors”, and opened:

Commissioned by The Washington Institute and conducted in July 2023 by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion, this poll assessed Palestinian perceptions on topics ranging from the war in Ukraine to internal political divisions to the viability of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Paired with polling earlier in April 2023 from seven Arab countries, comparing responses has exposed subtle yet meaningful contrast between Palestinians’ viewpoints and those other Arab countries — as well as differences among Palestinians themselves living in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem.

Almost Half of Palestinians View Abraham Accords Positively, Though Majorities Feel Neglected by Arab Governments Making Peace

When compared to the average 16% of other Arab publics in the April 2023 poll who viewed the Abraham Accords as “somewhat” or “very” positive for the region, attitudes in Gaza and East Jerusalem are starkly different. Notably, 47% in Gaza and 63% in East Jerusalem express a positive view of the regional impact of the Accords. And while the percentage of those who held this opinion shrinks in the West Bank, it is a similar proportion to the UAE, which had the most positive response in April 2023 at 27%.

Then, on 10 October 2023, WINEP headlined “Polls Show Majority of Gazans Were Against Breaking Ceasefire; Hamas and Hezbollah Unpopular Among Key Arab Publics”, and reported:

According to the latest Washington Institute polling, conducted [likewise by PCPO] in July 2023, Hamas’s decision to break the ceasefire was not a popular move. While the majority of Gazans (65%) did think it likely that there would be “a large military conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza” this year, a similar percentage (62%) supported Hamas maintaining a ceasefire with Israel. Moreover, half (50%) agreed with the following proposal: “Hamas should stop calling for Israel’s destruction, and instead accept a permanent two-state solution based on the 1967 borders.” Moreover, across the region, Hamas has lost popularity over time among many Arab publics. …

Overall, 57% of Gazans express at least a somewhat positive opinion of Hamas — along with similar percentages of Palestinians in the West Bank (52%) and East Jerusalem (64%) — though Gazans who express this opinion of Hamas are fewer than the number of Gazans who have a positive view of Fatah (64%).

But it is organizations like Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and Lion’s Den that receive the most widespread popular support in Gaza. About three quarters of Gazans express support for both groups, including 40% who see the Lion’s Den in a “very positive” light, an attitude shared by a similar percentage of West Bank residents. Moreover, when it comes to Iran, which has strongly supported and potentially helped coordinate the attack, about half of Gazans view Tehran as either a “friend of the country” (29%) or security partner (28%), compared to less than a third of West Bankers who would say the same. …

While expressions of support for the Palestinian cause are widespread throughout the Arab world, attitudes toward the terrorist [Israel’s synonym for anti-Israel] groups attempting to claim it are decidedly unpopular in a number of Arab countries.

The WINEP/PCPO polls were designed, administered, and are promoted, so as to avoid the harsh truth that comes through from all of the reliable sources, which is that the Trump-Biden plan for the Middle East is widely loathed by Palestinians, and that Hamas does continue to represent the support of Gazans far more than the Trump-Biden plan does. The Trump-Biden plan is purely for America’s Rhodesists, and for the racist-apartheid theocratic nation of Israel.

The Wilson Center’s article about the Abraham Accords was honest that “its most important objective is the establishment of Saudi Israeli diplomatic relations.” If the result of the October 7th Hamas attack will include cancellation of any further consideration of signing that treaty, then Hamas’s effort will be a success, and the nations that did sign with Israel will probably cancel it. That might leave only U.S. and UK as backers of the Trump-Biden plan. Trump and Biden brought about all this bloodshed, and ought to drown in it.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s new book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.

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