Open Discussions/ Gulf Cultural Club
Escalation of violence, killings, sabre rattling and warmongering
The elusive peace in the Middle East
*Dr Mohammed Haidar
**Stephen Bell
***Tara O’Grady
Tuesday 8th October 2024
Once again the bells of war in the Middle East are deafening. The human casualties are mounting, mostly civilian, while the calls for a ceasefire are muted. The killing of Hezbollah’s leader has been a seismic event in a troubled region. Whether it is going to change the balance of power is not certain. But it is unlikely to pass without further military escalation. The people of Gaza have also suffered immensely as the Israeli bombardments continue unabated. The attacks have been ferocious and claimed thousands of innocent lives. The prospects of peace have subsided, and tension is widespread. Intellectual and academic debate is thus needed to make sense of a senseless situation. What is next?
Dr Mohammed Haidar: When I was coming here it was raining and I was worried I would get wet. How could I present myself? But then I realised in Gaza where there are over 2 million people in the rain. They have no shelter and they have no roof over their heads. The question now is where do we stand? Every single person has to ask themselves this question.
You do not have to feel sorry for the people in Gaza. They have done their duty. But feel sorry for yourself, whether you fulfilled your role to support those people or not. This is a big question we have to answer individually. I cannot blame the society or the Arab world or the Western World or the Muslim world or anyone all over the world. It is a question of myself. What is my position? Who do I stand with? With the right people or the brutal people? This is the question we have to answer individually.
It is a year since this started. I made a speech here last year and I said the war is coming and this is the war. If you look at the pictures from Gaza you will say that these people have seen WW1 and WW2 – they have experienced that. And imagine what kind of feeling you had if you lived in the event itself when the planes just scream over your head and they demolish everything you have and take your relative or your cousin.
Yesterday the BBC Panaroma programme explained both sides. It is not the story of October 7th. When something like that happens the media try to freeze it right there. They don’t want to go back. They want to justify everything happening from that point. What is the reason, what is the cause, they do not care.
In reality if somebody commits a crime you can’t just straight away punish him. You have to put him in the court to question his intention. Is this justice what has been done to the Palestinians, for 70 years. Everybody knows about this. It is the story of people who would like to occupy a land and the story of the people who lived on this land do not want to leave this land for the occupier.
The number of people killed now is 40 or 50 thousand. The criminal is a criminal. The intention is the same. If you go back to the beginning I remember the objective of President Netanyahu. He said I have three objectives: to finish the power of Hamas, to secure the land and return the hostages. These three objectives have not been achieved at all. The war is expanding to Lebanon and to Syria. He has now added a new objective to return the people to the north. After that he wants to crush Hezbollah.
Extending the war is not in favour or anyone. I will start with a fact. Israel is occupying part of Lebanon and this is a fact. So whatever the Lebanese are doing is justifiable because they have an occupying power on their land. This is what international law gives them. This is what the Geneva Convention gives them. It gives them the right to defend themselves on their land.
The West Bank and Gaza has been occupied since 1967. How can someone be an occupier and say it is my right to defend myself. You are not on your land. You are on somebody else’s land. All the time they talk about military targets. They said that Hezbollah had rented flats from people and had given them $200 so they can store weapons there. Imagine a rocket of six or seven meters will be placed in somebody’s flat for $200. That is a really silly story to tell people and to sell so they can justify killing people. The land between the borders with north Palestine is 130 kilometres. Do you think they need a flat to put the stuff in a flat. This is total rubbish.
If you look at the United States policy how many times did Blinken visit the region? He visited the region 12 times and you think this super power does not have the ability to force or impose a ceasefire. In the beginning they were able to reach a ceasefire for 20 days and it ended in seven days.
During this time the USA was not really genuine. It did not have the genuine intention to stop the war. If this was really their intention why did they veto all the proposals in the United Nations. And if you are engaged in diplomacy, you go from one place to another, at the end of the road you bring the initiative to the United Nations. You tell them we have this problem and that is our proposal. But if you go to the United Nations and you put a veto you are complicit, you are part of this and what you are doing now is the same. So after a year where do we stand? Iran is involved. Maybe Syria will be involved, Yemen is involved, Lebanon is involved, Iraq is involved.
I want to speak about the economy of Israel and what is happening there and the day after. And if they hit Iran what will the consequences be? The Israeli GDP is between 500 and 520 billion dollars. It depends on industry, it depends on tourism and on some exports of diamond jewellery. Mostly it is technology. According to the official sources like the Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance the economy is suffering really badly.
If I tell you the contribution of each sector it would give you a good idea. Industry contributes 21.6 to the economy, agriculture 2.5 building and construction 7.1 communication and other related sectors 10.2. The financial sector is one percent 31 percent.
According to officials from the beginning of this war the Israelis were losing between 200 – 250 million a day. Imagine what that means. It means at least 25 percent of the total economy. There has been a review five times for the economy and since 24th October 2003 the economy shows a negative indicator five times. And the rating has gone down from A1 to B8. Some analysts say that this kind of liability is a junk bond. That means it is really really bad. And although the officials were denying that you can’t hide this.
If you look at the trade balance from August last year until August this year it is in the minus. The situation is very serious. If we are talking about the day after the war hasn’t started. In Lebanon the war is just in the beginning. And the next step is if Hezbollah finds itself in a difficult position they will use their power.
Not even 15 percent of their capacity has been hit by the Israelis. All the rockets, technology and missiles they have have not been used. Will this continue? The range they passed with the missiles is 150 kilometres from the borders. The next target would be the industry the economic institutions. This is possible if there is no limit to this war. It is not in favour of the Israelis and it is not in favour of our people either. Civilians and innocent people are being killed everywhere. It is enough if you live in an area where Hezbollah has influence. Lebanon is becoming like Gaza.
Let us say the Israelis really want to hit Iran. What targets will they hit? It is not easy for them to travel all this way to Iran and use the bomb they used to kill Nasrallah. It could be oil facilities, gas facilities or nuclear facilities. The nuclear facilities in Iran are spread all over the country so if you hit one there are a 100 exactly like that. How many can they hit? What will be the consequences? First of all it is very dangerous to hit a nuclear facility because of the consequences.
The Iranians have already accomplished their job in terms of nuclear power. A respectable American institution is monitoring every single step taken by the Iranians and they say they have limited capability but I think it is more than that.
What happens if they hit oil facilities. At the beginning of March two years ago when the Ukrainian-Russian war started what happened to the oil prices. The oil price was $78. After one week it jumped to $129 a barrel. Gas which about 2.2. When the war in Ukraine broke out it jumped to 9.2. It has gone down but we pay the price. Do you remember how much your gas bill was? Oil came back to 77. Gas to 2.7
If anything happens what are the options for Iran? There are two international straits under their control. It is easy for them to bring one their oil tankers and damage it there. They would say it was an accident and no oil is coming from the Gulf and the price would jump to $150. Gas as well. The only beneficiary from that would be Putin. I said on Al Jazeera that the sanctions were doing Putin a big favour because he is making extra of $330million every day. These will be the consequences for the world.
Stephen Bell: Two weeks ago the Wall Street Journal reported that the Biden administration had indicated that there would be no ceasefire in Gaza before Biden’s term ends in January 2025. Since the last ceasefire in Gaza, at the end of November last year, the US government has consistently stated that it is working for a further, extensive ceasefire. If that is taken at face value, then we must conclude that US diplomatic policy has been an absolute failure.
Taking US diplomacy at face value assumes that peace is the central aim. It is not. The central aim of that policy is stability. Or stated concretely, it means the protection of all regimes aligned to US regional hegemony – Israel, Egypt, Jordan, the Gulf Cooperation Council states, etc.
For US imperialism, peace – like democracy and freedom – remains a desirable but inessential element of its tool kit. The essential aim is to maintain US global dominance. Therefore governments which utilise their national resources for their people – regardless of US policy – are the enemy to be defeated. Thus the peoples of Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Iran, etc., are legitimate targets of US belligerence -whether direct or through one of the US client regimes.
In the past year – leaving aside all its diplomatic feints – the US government has demonstrated inexhaustible patience with Israel’s conduct of the war. There are two sources for this – one from a long historical process, and one from an immediate historical event.
The long process is the continued decline of the US as an economic power. In 1953, US average economic growth was 6.1% annually, by 1969 it was 4.4%, by 2002 3.5%, and by 2022 it was 2.1%. Nothing that successive US governments have attempted has reversed this decline.
In economic terms, the multipolar world is already here. By IMF measures, the Chinese economy is already 18% larger than the US, and is projected to be 35% larger by 2026.
In the last four years, the Chinese economy has grown two and a half times faster than the US. China is expected to grow by 5% in 2024, with the US at around half of that.
The US can no longer simply out-compete its economic rivals. But in one sphere it retains complete predominance. In 2022 – the US was responsible for 54% of global arms spending. In comparison China was responsible for just 10%. If we add the spending of US dominated NATO – then the US has direction over 66.2% of global arms spending.
In short, we are in a period when the US is attempting to stem its economic decline by military means – that is the long term cause of US aggression in West Asia.
But there is also an immediate historical event which has doubled down on US determination to ensure a victory for its operative, the Israeli state. In the Ukraine, the US proxy war against Russia has been seriously set back. The”spring offensive” of 2023 resulted in the Ukrainian government losing more territory, despite the provision of vast amounts of NATO armaments. No serious commentator is expecting the Ukrainian forces being now able to defeat Russia. The Ukrainian incursion at Kursk was purely demonstrative to show that the Ukrainian army was capable of initiative and so should receive more arms. In fact, the Kursk advance was into a mostly unpopulated are of no importance, but ended up weakening the Ukrainian defences and the loss of further territory.
The US government has yet to accept the need to negotiate an end to the Ukrainian war. Trump has promised to do so, and Harris would hardly wish to get completely bogged down there. But this setback is embarrassing for US imperialism.
However, it is one thing to be set back in a proxy war by a nuclear armed state. For the US to take a setback in Gaza is absolutely unaccep[table – hence the complete prioritisation of a military solution over a diplomatic one.
This determination is well illustrated in a report published by Brown University yesterday. According to their calculations, since October 7th last year the US has spent at least $22.76 billion on military aid to Israel’s war. The report stresses this is likely to be an underestimate, and contrasts with the annual military subsidy to Israel of $3.8 billion.
In this $22.76 billion – $17.9 billion has been direct to Israel in arms shipments and security assistance. The remaining $4.86 billion has been spent on additional US deployments in the region, and particularly on actions against Ansarullah in Yemen and the Red Sea.
As an aside, the actions of Ansarullah have been very effective. According to the IMF’s Port watch – daily trade through the Suez Canal has reduced from an average of 4.8 million metric tons, at the end of September 2023 to just 1.3 million at the end of September 2024. The blockade of Ansarullah (“the Houthis”) has reduced traffic in the Red Sea by 75% and bankrupted Israel’s port at Eilat.
US military assistance is the only way that the Israeli state has been able to keep up its genocidal action inside Gaza. Without it the Israeli state would have to have sought an end to hostilities. And such assistance is infinitely more significant than endless diplomatic ‘efforts’ to secure peace. While Netanyahu’s war machine was being supplied, it obviously wouldn’t stop.
Unfortunately such obvious facts are a closed book to the British government. As you will know, British foreign policy is essentially subordinate to the US in West Asia. When Biden supported, without qualification, Netanyahu’s launch of a war – so too did the Tory government and the Labour leadership. When Biden started speaking of a ceasefire and humanitarian aid – so too did our bipartisan parliament.
When Labour came to power, nothing substantially changed in policy towards the war. The new policies were on secondary questions – UNRWA funding restored, the last country before the US to do so; the objection to the ICC action against Netanyahu dropped; and the token 10% block on arms licences. None of these actions were significant enough to force a change in the Israeli government – only pin-pricks to irritate it. Actions that would impact, militarily like banning all arms exports – or diplomatically like recognising the Palestinian state – these were rejected by the Labour government.
So we have the pretty picture of the Labour government pretending the failure of US diplomacy is a success. Yesterday, the Israeli prime minister stated that Israel would not stop its attacks in Lebanon and Gaza – rejecting a US proposal for a 21 day ceasefire. British Defence Secretary, John Healey, was asked on Sky whether the US President was “humiliated” by Netanyahu’s continuous rejection of ceasefire proposals. He replied: “I think President Biden and the US have displayed extraordinary leadership during this year.”
Only if you assume that leadership was in military terms does this quote make sense.
Unfortunately Healey was talking about diplomacy. He continued “Diplomacy is difficult, you sometimes get setbacks, but the fact that the UK, the US alongside the United Nations itself was arguing for this 21 day ceasefire – its the sort of work that we’re doing behind the public scenes, as well as the public calls, and we have to redouble these efforts.”
If the US and UK governments are going to redouble their diplomatic efforts of the past year – then we must point out that twice nothing is nothing. While these governments work “behind the public scenes”, thanks to social media, the world is witnessing the most widely publicised genocide in human history. It cannot be stopped by continuing to arm the perpetrator. Peace-making demands a different policy.
The statement for Starmer yesterday, marking the anniversary of October 7th, was no better. Like the most racist elements in Israeli society, his words do not even acknowledge the existence of the Palestinians – let alone the horrific treatment they have endured this past year. They are only allowed to appear in the following guise – “We must not look the other way as civilians bear the ongoing dire consequences of this conflict in the Middle East.”
This really is callous. After all, his government is insisting on Israel’s right to continue to defend itself against these same civilians. Indeed, yesterday, when challenged by Zarah Sultana MP on whether his government would end arms sales to Israel, his reply was “never”. Even Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher were prepared to pause arms sales to Israel in pursuit of diplomacy. But for Keir Starmer – never!
Let me round up by stressing how unrepresentative these politicians are.
Yesterday, the Israeli Democracy Institute published the results of a survey on whether the war should be ended. There was a 53% result in favour of ending the war.
On October 1st, the Pew Research found that 61% of US respondents wanted their government to actually diplomatically resolve the war. This compared to 19% who wanted their government to play no such role, and presumably continue militarily.
And, on October 6th, the Sunday Times poll found that 56% of those polled wanted a ban on supplying arms to Israel, compared to 17% opposed. The same poll found that 67% believe Israel has committed war crimes, and that 84% want Netanyahu arrested if he enters Britain.
It is then evident that the obstacles to peace are not the majority of the population in Israel, the US or Britain. The obstacles are the wealthy elite who dominate these countries and sustain imperialism.
However, despite their power these elites are a minority. The global majority is with the Palestinians and oppressed peoples in West Asia. Over the weekend we saw a renewal of the Palestinian solidarity movement across the globe. In response to the invasion of Lebanon, there were huge protests in the US, Indonesia, Yemen, Australia, Germany, Ireland, Morocco, Italy, France, South Africa, India, Philippines, Denmark, Switzerland and elsewhere.
In Britain, the demonstrations in London, Edinburgh, Manchester, Cardiff, etc., were the largest since last November. If there is an escalation in the war then the opposition is being renewed too.
In search of peace, we must not grow weary. When we use such chants as “We are all Palestinians”, we take a responsibility upon ourselves. Our opposition to our government’s war policy must match the steadfastness of the Palestinians. The struggle is protracted, but if we can endure then peace for West Asis will prevail.
Tara O’Grady: We are all exhausted and horrified by what we are seeing. The organisation that I work for, no peace without justice is an Italian organisation. It was set up 30 years ago where the Rome statues were signed. I will be in the Hague calling for arrest warrants for the perpetrators of these beastly crimes.
A year has passed since the tragic event of October 7th and a disproportionate military reaction of the Israeli army accompanied by unprecedented violations of human rights described by human rights organizations and NGOs against the Palestinian. The international community has not managed to achieve a ceasefire despite a UN resolution requiring this.
The time has come to stop the killings and allow the shattered communities to rebuild their lives. We have to heed the call of the world including our closest allies for a full implementation of UN resolutions 2735 2024. There is no peace without justice. Failure to act when crimes are being committed undermines the fabric of the international legal system as does the failure to act on past crimes. We urge all parties to cease hostilities immediately and work for respect for human rights, the enforcement of international law and the right to self determination for the Palestinian people.
Only by ending the Israeli occupation of Palestine can we break the cycle of violence and create the conditions for a lasting peace in the Middle East. What we are seeing now is a genocide.
US doctors who had been to Gaza wrote in the most respected medical journal the Lancet that they had seen the bodies of children who had been assassinated with bullets to the head.
There are goals here of domination, extermination, eradication, expansion and genocide which ends in one of two ways: either by everyone being killed or by an external force coming in to stop them. This is why resistance fighters are so important and need our solidarity.
The US and the UK are sending billions of dollars worth of weapons to Israel and many of those weapons flow through our air space or land on Irish soil to refuel their planes. This is why we are calling for action in Ireland. We are descending on Shannon airport to shut it down because our government has been complicit with the USA to send weapons. The United States is a war criminal by shipping weapons to a country that is engaged in war crimes.
I have a lot more to say but am conscious of time so I will stop here and answer any questions.
*Mohamed Haidar is an economist, lecturer and commentator with many years of experience in the field. He holds a degree from Yarmouk University in Jordan and an MSc from Beirut University College (which is now the Lebanese University). He obtained his PhD from Durham University Business School. After working at the University first and at the Lebanese University later, he followed a career of journalism with the London-based daily, Al Hayat. He worked with the International Labour Organisation in Italy, preparing training courses for senior managers to enable them to run small and medium businesses in the Middle East. He published many research papers
*Stephen Bell is a life-long unionist, human rights and political campaigner. He is currently Treasurer of Stop the War Coalition. He was Campaign Officer for Palestine Solidarity Campaign. He was also Head of Policy for Communication Workers Union 2002-2015.
**Tara O’Grady is the president of No Peace Without Justice, founder and Executive Director of “Human Rights Sentinels” and member of the “National Women’s Council of Ireland”. She is a dedicated human rights activist, brave and outspoken in defending the oppressed.
