Written by Julian Macfarlane, Tokyo based investigative journalist, writer, author, geopolitical and military analyst
This was my voiceover for SouthFront’s video on war “reigniting” in the Middle East, with the US attack on the Houthis and Israel’s subsequent attack on Gaza.
One could say that the war in the Middle East never stopped—just slowed down in Lebanon and Gaza as the Israelis sought to take advantage of the Turkish and American sponsored overthrow of the Assad regime in Syria, adding new territories to Greater Israel in the South of the country that and they hoped provide a base for future attacks on Iran.
So, the war did not “reignite” in the Middle East: it continued to smolder in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon while the flames ravaged Syria.
The US played its role too — having sponsored both the ceasefire in Lebanon and that in Gaza. How could they NOT know what was going to happen?
I have written articles on Substack about all of this, indicating how for the Israelis a “ceasefire” does not mean a stop to violence but just easing off on the death and destruction enough to recoup, re-arm and redeploy forces elsewhere for more killing. I called it an “easefire”. In the case of Gaza and Hamas, it also served to get a few hostages released to placate public option.
I suggested that in the case of Gaza once enough hostages had been let go –Netanyahu would ease off on “easefire”. He. didn’t actually care about the hostages— just about public opinion There would be no Phase 2 for that celebrated ceasefire.
The Israelis would blame Hamas. So would Trump.
Trump is even more Zionist than Biden. After all, his son-in-law Jared Kushner has been, and continues to be an advocate for Israeli Zionism: he is a personal friend of Netanyahu with links to the Zionist extremist West Bank settler movement. He’s an AIPAC man.
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He is another genocidaire in a grand tradition.
Trump’s own plan to relocate Gazans elsewhere recalls Hitler’s early attempts to relocate Jews from Germany. The US, the UK and Canada all turned away Jewish refugees. The Poles, who were as anti-Semitic as the Germans, had the idea of sending them to Madagascar. That failed, Then came the “Final Solution”.
The Israelis violated the terms of the ceasefire in Gaza egregiously from Day One. When Hamas objected—Israel then blamed them for violating the agreement, which they had actually been honoring. The US blamed them too.
Netanyahu’s visit to the White House and his gift of a gold-plated pager, presumably without explosives inside was an obvious success.
And Trump has stacked his “team” with people who are arguably worse than Biden’s Zionist neocon handlers.
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Ending the fictional ceasefire raised the question of Iran, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, who would almost certainly react.
As things got worse and worse in Gaza, the Houthis had said that if the Israelis continued to violate the agreement with Hamas, they, the Houthis, would once again target Israeli shipping in the Red Sea. It was a matter of “principle”. A very Un-American idea.
But the ceasefire was still technically in place. So, to set things up, the Americans struck Yemen on March 16, bombing residential areas, hoping to kill as many Houthi leaders as possible, as Israeli did Hezbollah leaders in Beirut last year. That meant killing civilians, of course – mass slaughter – but the Americans have a history of this kind of things, for example mounting strikes on wedding parties to kill maybe on “suspected” insurgent.
The strikes killed 53 people and left hundreds wounded.
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Israel restarted it war on Gaza shortly after on March 18 with their Operation Strength and Sword, killing more than 400 people, among them the spokesman for the Islamic Jihad, Abu Hamaza.
That’s the Israeli way. The American way.
Hundreds of women and children killed to get to a single spokesperson.
The Houthis responded with four strikes on the American fleet which were successful insofar as they forced the fleet to move out of range. They used drones and missiles. Nobody knows if the missiles hit anything, The Americans would never admit that. But the US Navy really did have to retreat. To stay in place or, worse get closer to the shore, would increase the chance of a missile doing major damage that could not be denied.
The Houthis also launched two Palestine 2 hypersonic missiles at Israel, the second one at Ben Gurion airport.
The Israelis claim to have intercepted them both – outside of Israeli airspace –which they always say, not matter what, despite their claims having been proven overstatement at best in the case of Iran.
It is possible that they intercepted the warheads, after they had separated from the main body of the missiles, but that would be inside Israeli airspace, with the warhead slowing down from Mach 15 to Mach 5 or less as it descends through denser atmosphere.
In addition, these were single shots, so the Israelis could saturate the predicted path of the missile with interceptors.
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Assume some exaggeration here. You still have a formidable weapon. Its main problem is terminal guidance and targeting, which would require a good satellite system.
The Israelis of course had sirens blaring and the population scurrying underground —not because of the possible damage from one missile —as much as possible damage from the dozens and dozens of interceptors fired, exploding and raining shrapnel down.
Only two Houthi missiles indicates that these missiles, however, were not intended to destroy any particular facility, which would require a lot more than two, as much as to remind the Israel public that they are vulnerable.
In the meantime, the Israelis struck at Hezbollah in the Beqaa Valley, perhaps hoping for retaliation—which I am sure will come with appropriate timing. They also struck targets in southern Syria to define their control over new territories.
As for the US, it hopes to unleash its attack dog, Israel, on Iran and it wants help from Russia. Dream on!
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