News Review 08/11/2023

Differences Grow between ‘Israel’ and the US

Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu envisions ‘Israel’ taking “overall security responsibility” for the Gaza Strip indefinitely if the ‘Israeli’ war to destroy Hamas is successful, the Zionist leader said in an interview with ABC News. “I think Israel will, for an indefinite period will have the overall security responsibility because we’ve seen what happens when we don’t have it. When we don’t have that security responsibility, what we have is the eruption of Hamas terror on a scale that we couldn’t imagine,” Netanyahu said. The US State Dept hit back straight away: “Our viewpoint is that Palestinians must be at the forefront of these decisions and Gaza is Palestinian land and it will remain Palestinian land,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters. The Jewish entity’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said, contradicting Netanyahu that ‘Israel’ has no desire to impose a civilian administration on Gaza after the war is over. Once Hamas is toppled, he said, ‘Israel’ seeks to turn over responsibility for governing the Palestinian enclave to an international coalition, including the US, the European Union and Muslim majority countries, or to local political leaders in Gaza. After 4 weeks of war the differences between the US and the Jewish entity are becoming wider.

Ukraine War Fatigue

During a joint press conference with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Nov. 4, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy admitted that there was growing fatigue in the West over his country's war against Russia and that it was ''clear the war in the Middle East'' had ''tak[en] over the focus of international attention,'' However, he denied media reports that US and EU officials were asking Ukraine to consider peace negotiations with Russia. All of this comes on the back of Ukraine war General telling The Economist last week that the war was at a stalemate. The fact US and European officials are finally pushing Ukraine to negotiate is quite a U-turn. The position marks a notable shift in US policy toward the war as the US discouraged the idea of peace talks since Russia invaded in February 2022. Before the invasion, the US refused to engage with Russia on its key security concerns. Peace talks between Russia and Ukraine only happened in the early days of the war, in March 2022 and April 2022. At the time, Russia’s main demand was Ukrainian neutrality. But since then, Russia has annexed the territory it controls in Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk, and now says any peace deal must recognize those territories as Russian.

Hezbollah to Not Intervene in Palestine

Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, said in a nationwide speech that Hezbollah would not escalate the ‘Israel’-Hamas war immediately but would respond to future provocations. Nasrallah's speech lays out Hezbollah's political strategy for the ‘Israel’-Hamas war and suggests that Hezbollah will not escalate against the Jewish entity without sufficient provocation that goes beyond the Jewish entity's ground invasion of Gaza. This means what's taking place in Gaza, the deaths exceeding 10,000 civilians it not sufficient for their intervention. Hezbollah is Iran's most effective proxy and deters the Jewish entity’s attacks on Iran itself. As the war doesn't threaten Iran, Iran sees no need to get involved since that would exhaust Hezbollah's deterrent capabilities against the Jewish entity.