First published at Axis of Logic, 2016-02-22.
Miles Report No. 68 - Israel, Turkey, Kurds, and Canada
BDS and Israel
According to the CBC,
the Trudeau government intends to join with the Conservatives next week and condemn the United Church of Canada and the Quakers, along with every other organization and individual participating to any degree in a boycott of Israeli goods and services. [1]
Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion said,
most of the organizations and individuals supporting the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement are doing so in good faith, believing it will somehow force an end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and its control over Gaza, and maybe some sort of peace deal.
Dion also indicated that the Conservatives are “bullies.” Really? An amazing statement from a majority government.
The reality for Israel is that BDS is being used successfully to bring attention to the non-democratic army rule that is used to control the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza. The Arab Israelis are under civil law, but civil law not backed by a constitution, laws that discriminate in a wide range of social and civic services. Whether BDS amounts to much financially is arguable as most Israeli trade on a GDP basis is within the military/security/corporate realm.
Dion also says “we will not convince them of their error.” Quite simply true as it is not an error to try and convince civilians and governments to not deal with an entity that illegally occupies territories, illegally annexes other territories (Golan Heights in Syria as an aside - never mentioned in the current Syrian aspect of Middle East wars), illegally imprisons children, uses lethal force against children and civilians, demolishes homes, confiscates farmlands et al.
The Cons argue,
Israel is the greatest, in fact singular, benefactor of the Palestinian economy: "Israel invests heavily in Palestine and the rest of the world typically does not."
Only natural as the Israelis control all aspects of Palestinian life. That investment is mainly monies to make the PA/Fatah acquiesce to Israeli demands. The rest of the investment is using the Palestinian population as cheap manufacturing and service labour - especially after destroying their agricultural base - just as most neoliberal policies do in other third world countries.
As for the peace processe, it has not been rejected. The Israelis have never intended peace to be the solution; rather, from the earliest moments of the Zionist movement in Europe, the goal was to settle and colonize all of Eretz Israel, with the recognition that there was an indigenous Palestinian population (in spite of the lie about “a land without people for a people without land”). The so-called peace process was used as a facade to cover Israeli actions building more and more settlements in the occupied territories so that there would be no contiguous portion of land for a Palestinian state. Instead they have settled - so far - on creating dozens of smaller bantustan enclaves where the Palestinian people can be controlled on their reservations (yes, that does sound rather Canadian).
The two state solution as a result is simply dead. The Israelis do not want it and their actions have precluded it. What is left is a South African style apartheid which in itself was partly modelled on Canada’s indigenous reservation system.
Current Events
The current situation in the Middle East has its roots deep into the history of European empires looking for control of the region for its resources and as a transportation route to other riches of Eastern Africa and South Asia.
When Balfour wrote his letter (a promissory letter and not an international legality) the main geopolitical interests of Britain was not the settlement of Jews but the control of transportation routes through the Suez Canal. A Jewish state supported by Britain was seen as an outpost of western power to control the canal, control Egypt, and control the nascent oil industry, the latter recognized as being of strategic value for future military control. That same outlook has carried forward to modern history when the U.S. essentially took over from the British empire after WW II.
U.S. strategic interests
Today, the main geopolitical interest remains oil and the US$.
The nugget, the kernel, of terrorism lies with Israeli occupation of Palestinian/Arab lands. Admittedly that has been surpassed by events stemming from U.S. geopolitical interests vis a vis the old Soviet Union in Afghanistan that used rising Islamic fundamentalism - rising in part thanks to CIA/NSA covert interventions - in order to pursue their own strategic goals.
The countries that have been invaded and destroyed are countries that have not accepted the position of the U.S. as global hegemon. Iraq declared that it was using euros to trade for its oil. Iran defied U.S. interests after a long history of CIA interventions dating back to the 1953 overthrow of the democratically elected Mossadegh government - elected in part to nationalize the oil industry. Libya wanted to create an African union using a gold based currency (the mortal enemy of a pure fiat currency e.g. the US$) as well as having an oil based economy with all sorts of socialist things like free education, gender equality, free health care et al. Now that Iran is somewhat settled, Syria has become the “freedom” fight de jour.
Syria, Turkey, and Canada in Syria
Canada has generally always supported British/U.S. geopolitical strategies, and more so today than ever before. Subject to a corporate owned mainstream media and a general complacency towards actual critical thinking, it is easy to maintain an image of good and evil, without nuance. Michelle Rempel says, "There is a time and a place for nuance and there is a time and a place to take a stand." No problem, Michelle, as the Liberals are knuckling under to you ”bullies” even without a “spine.”
But to redirect the argument back to the Middle East, Canada now has a new policy of intervention in the war against ISIL in Syria and Iraq. Apparently the Turks also have a new policy - well, essentially their old policy made public - and are wanting the Kurds to be declared terrorists as they are getting in the way of Turkish dreams/plans for controlling Syria, assisting ISIS, and dragging NATO into a war against Russia.
Now enter more Canadian forces into ground actions in support of the Kurdish people. So now Canada is supporting an organization that the Turks - our NATO “allies” - are wanting to have declared a terrorist organization. Re-enter the U.S., who support the Kurds as well, but don’t want the Russians assisting the Kurds, and who have a major air base in Turkey and have done relatively nothing effective with their bombing campaign in stopping the spread of ISIS - unlike the Russians….
Then along comes our good ally Saudi Arabia, buying billions of dollars of military goods from us, threatening a ground invasion alongside Turkey in order to stop the Kurdish units from controlling the border thus preventing Turkey from assisting ISIS and other real terrorist groups. To come full circle, the Saudis are the main supporters of the US$, and it is their agreement to use US$ for oil sales and to have those dollars recycled through U.S. banks (remember the Savings and Loans fiasco with its ties to the Bush family, Saudi Arabia, and oil?) that has played a major role in continued U.S. attempts at hegemony in the region.
And as a reminder, notice how quiet Israel is being concerning Russia’s role in Syria. The Israelis know that their benefactor of the future may not be the U.S., or at minimum are recognizing that the world is no longer a unipolar world. In spite of their best intentions, the U.S. and its sycophantic supporters have created a situation with a new power structure based on the interactions between Russia, China, Iran, India and other non-western countries.
Actually, Israel is being quiet on most Middle East actions. It serves their purposes well, acting outside the glare of media publicity, continuing with their settlements and ongoing establishment of a bantustan style apartheid governance.
Full circle
“Oh what a tangled web we weave When first we practice to deceive.” (Sir Walter Scott, 1808)
Canada is truly in a web of deceit and lies within its foreign policy. It has no independence, tangled up within a variety of military and trade agreements that constrain and restrict its thoughts to those of the wishes of its U.S. geopolitical masters - the financial/corporate/military complex that is the true power of the west.
[1] all quotes from: "Liberals denounce and agree with Tory motion condemning Israel boycotters, All parties agree BDS tactics against Israel bad policy, but that's about all they agree on." By Neil Macdonald, CBC News, Posted: Feb 18, 2016 7:20 PM ET