MESOPOTAMIA NEWS LAST ORDERS TO THE WEST – A 3-Pillar Strategy to Deflate China
- By Rauf Baker ISRAEL – BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 2,031, May 16, 2021
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The West is facing an increasing challenge from China. There are several ways to meet that challenge: expanding, restoring, and deepening relations across different regions of the world; taking a revolutionary approach toward Russia; and, most drastically, acting like the Chinese.
In recent years, an “imperialist” economic shift toward China has been crystallizing in parallel with an ideological quake in the West’s vision of itself and role in the world. With Beijing penetrating African markets along with its steady expansion into Asia, its influence over the American and European economies has reached an unprecedented level. The Chinese are seizing the opportunity presented by the American retrogression and the preoccupation of major European powers with the challenges of terrorism and illegal immigration, as well as the COVID-19 crisis. The last of these was spawned by a virus that originated in China but that caused greater destruction, disruption, and distress abroad than at home.
MESOPOTAMIA NEWS SIGNIFICANT ! : Statement on Israel/Palestine by Scholars of Jewish Studies and Israel Studies
| May 2021 | |||
As scholars of Jewish Studies and Israel Studies based in various universities, departments, and disciplines, we condemn the state violence that the Israeli government and its security forces have been carrying out in Gaza; their evictions of Palestinian residents of Sheikh Jarrah and other neighborhoods of East Jerusalem; and their suppression of civilian protests in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Jewish-Arab cities, and Palestinian towns and villages in Israel. We express profound sadness at the recurrence of intercommunal violence between Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel and anger at the impunity enjoyed by most Jewish attackers.
We share and hold the pain of Gazans, who have lost and are losing family members, homes, property, businesses, cultural institutions, medical facilities, and civilian infrastructure to Israeli bombings and of Palestinians in the West Bank who have lost loved ones in shootings by security forces. We affirm the pain, fear, and anger of Israeli Jews and Palestinian citizens of Israel who have lost loved ones and homes to unjustifiable and indiscriminate Hamas rockets.
As such, we stand with our Israeli, Palestinian, American (including Jewish American), and international colleagues who are working towards a process of structural change that would bring equality and justice in Israel/Palestine, a systemically unequal space that, nonetheless and inescapably, has a common history and future. We also denounce expressions of antisemitism or islamophobia in connection with ongoing events in Israel/Palestine.
MESOPOTAMIA NEWS : RED CHINA VOTES PRO PALESTINE
Journalist Zheng Junfeng On Official Chinese TV: U.S. Gives Israel A Diplomatic Shield Because Of Wealthy Jews And Their Powerful MLobby In The U.S.; Israel Serves As ‘Beachhead’ For American Interests
May 21, 2021 MEMRI China | Special Dispatch No. 9348
Zheng Junfeng, a Chinese journalist and a pundit for official Chinese broadcaster in English CGTN TV, discussed U.S.-Israeli relations against the backdrop of the Hamas-Israel clashes. During his show, Bizbeat, Zunfeng claimed that the U.S. acts as Israel’s “diplomatic shield.” He said that some people believe this is traceable to the activity of wealthy Jews and the pro-Israel lobby in the U.S. and added that Israel serves as the U.S.’s “beachhead” in the region and carries out attacks and policies that serve the American interests. The show was aired on May 18, and was removed from all CGTN platforms after the Israeli Embassy in China protested, making headlines.
“Some People Believe That U.S. Pro-Israel Policy Is Traceable To The Influence Of Wealthy Jews In The U.S. And The Jewish Lobby On U.S. Foreign Policy Makers”
Zhen Junfeng: “Why does the U.S. act as a diplomatic shield for Israel?
MESOPOTAMIA NEWS : WHAT FOLLOWS NO ? – WINNING THE GAZA CEASEFIRE: CRITICAL DECISIONS FOR THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION
by Robert Satloff – PolicyWatch 3487 – May 21, 2021
Hamas may not have realized it when firing its first salvo against Jerusalem, but the challenge of its rockets didn’t end with a ceasefire—the administration now faces complex and urgent decisions that could affect the direction of its overall foreign policy.
With a welcome ceasefire in the Hamas-Israel conflict, achieved with a strong assist from Washington, the Biden administration will have to decide whether to revert to its pre-crisis strategy of relegating Arab-Israel diplomacy to the backwater of U.S. priorities. Keeping distance from this issue made sense when the conflict seemed frozen and little was likely to change, even with substantial U.S. involvement. Now, however, Gaza has turned a static situation fluid. While the administration can certainly sit and watch as these changes play out, the wiser course would be to assess its options for actively shaping outcomes that will affect larger U.S. equities in the region.
AFTER TRUMP ! : MESOPOTAMIA NEWS US DEMOCRATS : Bernie Sanders introduces Senate resolution to block $735 million weapons sale to Israel
Sanders’ move will force a vote in the Senate on whether or not to block the arms sale.
Al-Monitor Staff May 20, 2021 – US Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., introduced a resolution Thursday that will force the Senate to vote on whether or not to block a controversial $735 million sale of bombs and bomb guidance equipment to Israel. The move came shortly before Israel announced it had reached a cease-fire with Hamas, set to begin at 2 a.m. Friday.
The move marks an unprecedented challenge by lawmakers to US aid to Israel in recent decades, a subject that has become increasingly controversial in progressive circles in US politics.
MESOPOTAMIA NEWS : Fighting in Gaza Marks the Start of a More Violent Era
The Search for a Two-State Solution is Over – FOREIGN AFFAIRS – By Khalil Shikaki – May 19, 2021
At some point soon, the current military conflict between Israel and Hamas will end. But the ramifications of this latest round of Israeli-Palestinian confrontation—Israeli military strikes in Gaza, Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli cities, and rising intercommunal violence between Arabs and Jews—will be long-lasting and profound. Above all, it will reinforce the sense among Israelis, Palestinians, and most of the international community that the search for a peaceful resolution to the conflict has come to an end for the foreseeable future.
The conflict that began in early May was not planned. It was the culmination of various small but important steps that, while linked, did not make violence inevitable. Yet a combination of domestic Israeli and Palestinian political dynamics, international failures, and worsening relations between the two sides created the right conditions for bloodshed.
Yet whatever its accidental quality, the latest round of violence will have enduring consequences.
MESOPOTAMIA NEWS : FORMER US AMBASSADOR PREFERS RECONSTRUCTION WITH HAMAS UNDER NEW TERMS OF TRADE
HOW THE WORLD COULD HELP END THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT—AND PREVENT FUTURE CLASHES
by Dennis Ross – Los Angeles Times – May 19, 2021
To make the ceasefire a lasting one, Washington should pursue discreet Israeli-Saudi normalization discussions and force Hamas to choose between its rockets and reconstruction.
Once again, Israel and Hamas are engaged in an intensive and deadly exchange of rockets and bombings. This latest conflict, with all its pain, highlights several deeper realities.
First, the Palestinian issue can be neither dismissed nor denied. Some in Israel may have believed that the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and two Arab states, meant they could ignore the Palestinians and absorb the territories. But this week tells a different story—one that has implications not only for what is happening outside Israel but also internally for its social fabric.
MESOPOTAMIA NEWS Expert: Turkey seeks to annex mountains of Kurdistan region to revive Millî Pact against Kurdish PKK in Iraq
The expert on Turkish affairs, Dr. Muhammad Nur al-Din said that the Turkish strategic goal of the attacks on Medya’s defensive zones is to revive what he calls “the boundaries of the Millî Pact,” which guarantees the annexation of northern Syria and northern Iraq to Turkey. “
NEWS 20 May 2021, Thu – 04:03 2021-05-20T04:03:00 Beirut – Ziad Abu Ghazaleh
On the 23rd of last April, Turkey began a large-scale attack on Medya, using chemical weapons, in return the guerrilla forces are fighting heroic battles against the Turkish occupation forces, and in this context our agency conducted an exclusive interview with the expert in Turkish affairs, Dr. Muhammad Nur al-Din. The dialogue was as follows:
* Dr. Muhammad, Turkey launched a massive attack on the mountains of the Kurdistan region of Iraq in conjunction with the anniversary of its genocides against the Armenians. What does it mean?
MESOPOTAMIA NEWS : Turkey, Russia pressure SDF to restore electricity to northeast Syria
The Syrian Democratic Forces continue to cut power in the areas under the control of the Turkish-backed opposition in northeast Syria, under the pretext that Turkey is responsible for the drop in water levels in the Euphrates River.
Mohammed Hardan AL MONITOR – May 18, 2021 – Since April 17, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have been cutting off electricity to the areas under the control of the Turkish-backed opposition in northeast Syria, mainly in Ras al-Ain in the northern countryside of Hasakah and Tell Abyad in the northern countryside of Raqqa, under the pretext of the drop in water levels in the Euphrates River caused by Turkey.
The power cuts continue although the damage to the high-tension 230-kilovolt line supplying the area with electricity from the Tishrin Dam was repaired May 4, after it was struck by SDF shelling.
MESOPOTAMIA NEWS: AN IMPORTANT READ ! – Hamas representative in Iran: latest round of fighting is strategic shift for group
Khaled al-Qaddumi claims that while the militant group and the Islamic Republic share common goals, the fighting was not instigated by Tehran.
Ali Hashem (Iran Pulse) May 17, 2021 AL MONITOR – This is not just another normal round of confrontation between the Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip and Israel — at least this is what Hamas believes. The group’s representative in Tehran told Al-Monitor in an exclusive interview that, this time, his group along with other Palestinian factions “applied a strategic shift in the concept of resistance, from defending Gaza against Israeli attacks to defending all Palestinians living in historical Palestine.”
Khaled al-Qaddumi told Al-Monitor that another strategic change is that “the resistance will not allow Israeli occupation forces to attack civilian targets in al-Quds [Jerusalem].”
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