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Jack Cohen – Going my way – Iran’s choices – Occupations

Going my way

It’s a small event, but significant.  Egypt has returned two small islands in the Red Sea, Tiran and Sanafir, to Saudi Arabia and Israel approves of this action.  Saudi Arabia had transferred the islands to Egypt in 1950 so that they could be used in the war against Israel. The Egyptians used the islands to blockade the Gulf against any ships going to/from the Israeli port of Eilat.  This blockade was against international law, and despite much blustering from Pres. Johnson, not even the Americans did anything about it.  This blockade was one of the causes of the 1967 Six Day War.

Now Egypt is ceding back the islands to Saudi Arabia so that they can build a bridge across the Gulf and join the two countries.  These two Sunni Muslim States are the crux of the alliance that the Saudis are trying to form against the power of Shia Iran.  Israel is both a supporter of this Sunni alliance and in effect a guarantor of their independence.  Under Pres. Obama the US has abrogated its role as guarantor of the independence of the Sunni States.  Even Saudi Arabia that is a major producer of oil and is a strong US ally, like Israel, is no longer sure of American support.

In effect, Israel has to some extent replaced the US in this role.  Israel is in fact the only military power in the region that can challenge and probably defeat Iran if it chooses to develop a nuclear weapon and act aggressively in order to achieve hegemony over the region.  Both the Sunni extremists of the Islamic State (ISIS or ISIL) and the Shia extremists of Iran would like to do this, and since they are competing and fighting proxy wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, this conflict is already ongoing.   But, of the two, Iran is by far the more dangerous military opponent.

Israel is in effect an ally of the Sunni powers, even though they would not admit it publicly.  But, even PM Netanyahu has let it be known that secret meetings are occurring between Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia in relation to their common enemy Iran.  Recently a former Iraqi diplomat Hamid al-Sharifi visited Israel and stated that these meetings should be made public, because the Sunni Arabs have more to gain than to lose by making their common cause with Israel a matter of public record.

At the same time some Sunni Arabs have lost patience with the Palestinians. Saudi Prince Waleed bin-Talal was quoted in a Kuwaiti newspaper as saying that the Arabs would do better to give money to Israel rather than to the Palestinians and let Israel help them solve their problems.  Not a bad idea, although it was later denied and there was a report that the Prince was on drugs at the time (!)

 

Iran’s choices

 

When Ayatollah Khomenei initiated the revolution in Iran in 1979, he not only intended to fundamentally alter Iran itself.  He also intended to export the revolution, first to other Shia communities around the Arab world, notably in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, and second to all Arabs.  By destroying Israel he planned that Iran would become the hero of the Muslim world.  After the revolution, slogans were posted around Tehran, and the most common was “the road to Jerusalem leads thru Baghdad.”  This signified the intention of the regime to conquer Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and then go on from there to conquer Israel.  But, Saddam attacked first in 1980 and the Iran-Iraq war lasted until 1988, with no clear winner.

After this terrible experience the Iranian regime rethought their strategy for achieving their aims and came up with the nuclear option.  Of course, they deny that they want enriched uranium for weapons, but no commentator accepts their claim, otherwise why would an oil-rich state need enriched uranium.  But, then this avenue has been temporarily cut-off by the international agreement with Iran.  So what will Iran do next?

They have two major options, depending on the circumstances.  Their major enemy (despite their designation of the USA as the “great Satan”) are the Sunni Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia and including Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf States.  Their second declared enemy (“the little Satan”) is Israel.  Would Iran, if it had the capability, choose to strike first at Saudi Arabia or Israel?  The fact is that Israel has atomic weapons, everyone knows this, and certainly the Iranians do, and Israel also has a crack military. They don’t want to risk destruction of their regime. So since Israel is too hard a nut to crack, they would probably choose to attack Saudi Arabia.  The Saudis have something that the Iranians badly want, no not oil, control of Mecca and Medina.

However, there may be a hitch, the best ally of the Saudis is America.  They guarantee the independence of Saudi Arabia, in order to ensure the supply of oil.  The US would almost certainly come in on the Saudi side.  But, Iran is a powerful state, and recent Presidents have not been enthusiastic to enter a new war.  The Iranians might bank on this.  But, the Iranians have a powerful tool, they can cut off the Straits of Hormuz to all shipping, and notably ca. half of the world’s oil supply goes thru there.  No-one will want to mess with Iran.  So what will the Iranians do next?

 

Occupations

Many countries that criticize the so-called “occupation” by Israel of the “West Bank” are themselves founded on occupations.  For example:

1. The USA: The USA occupied the territory of the indigenous peoples (so-called Indians) in New England, Ohio, Indiana, Oklahoma, Arizona and elsewhere and fought wars of extermination against them.  For example, there are no longer any native Americans in California.
2. The UK: The UK became the United Kingdom in 1707 after the English had occupied and subjugated the Welsh, Scottish, and Irish peoples.
3. Germany: Germany wrested control of the southern counties of Denmark named Schleswig-Holstein from 1848 on and then settled its own people there.  Of course, later Germany launched wars of occupation and extermination in 1914 and 1939.
4. Russia: Most of Asiatic Russia was conquered from the indigenous inhabitants, many of them Muslim Tatars, over a period of several centuries.
5. Canada was conquered from the “First Peoples,” Australia was conquered from the Aborigines, New Zealand from the Maoris.
6. China: The Han people occupied the land of China in a series of historic wars.
7. Japan: The Japanese defeated and exterminated the native Ainu peoples.
8. South America;  All the countries of S. America were conquered and occupied by the armies of Catholic Spain and Portugal.
9. The Arab World: Most of the Arab Muslim world results from the conquest of the former Byzantine Greek Empire that included Egypt and Syria.  These conquests included Spain, India, Indonesia and many former non-Muslim minorities.
10. Turkey: Eastern Turkey consists of occupied Kurdistan and Armenia, and the northern third of Cyprus has been illegally occupied by Turkey since 1983.

It is in fact hard to find any country in the world that has not resulted from conquest and occupation.  The other countries of the world have not earned the right to pontificate and tell Israel what to do in a “holier than thou” hypocritical manner!

One might argue that all these conquests and occupations are ancient history that cannot be reversed, but that is not always true.  For example:

1. Spain; the establishment of modern Spain is based entirely on the Reconquista, the reconquest of the Iberian peninsula by Christian armies from the Battle of Poitiers in 732, that prevented the Muslim conquest of western Europe, to the final victory in Granada in 1492.
2. Armenia: Armenia was a great Christian Kingdom that was destroyed by the Muslim Turks and most of the Armenians were massacred in the genocide of 1915 during WWI.  Part of Eastern Armenia was occupied by Russia and was declared the Armenian Soviet Republic in 1922.  It became the independent sovereign country of Armenia on the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991.
3. Ireland: Fought for and obtained its independence from England in 1937.
4. British devolution:  During the past twenty or so years the United Kingdom has been forced to devolve more power to regional Parliaments in Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland.
5. Israel: Israel was founded as a result of the reversal of the conquest of the formerly Jewish Land by the Arabs, another historic reconquest.

Many criticize Israel for supposedly “occupying” Palestinian territory.  This is sheer nonsense.

1. The Jews are the indigenous people: the Arab Muslims came from Arabia in the 7th century ce (ad) and occupied the Land, and are upset that the Jews came and took it back!  International law, such as it is, is on the Jew’s side.  This fact was recognized in the Balfour Declaration of the British Government in 1917, the Treaties of San Remo and Locarno after WWI, and was ratified in the Mandate given to the British in 1922 by the League of Nations and subsequently ratified by the UN.  The Jews are the owners of the Land the British deliberately misnamed “Palestine.”
2. The Jews won the war of extermination: When the UN declared Israel a State in 1948 the Jews won the war of extermination launched against it by 6 Arab armies (Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia).  As a result, all the civilized countries of the world and the UN recognized Israel as the Jewish State.
3. The Palestinian Arabs are not occupied: The Palestine Authority was established as a result of the Oslo Accords of 1993 between the PLO and Israel.  After the withdrawal of Israel from the territories designated “A” in the Oslo II Agreement of 1995, Israel gave up control of 95% of the Palestinian Arabs residing in Judea, Samaria and Gaza to the PA.
4. The Palestinian Arabs have never held sovereignty: In history there never was a separate Palestinian people identified as sovereign in this Land.  It was simply part of southern Syria.  The designation of Palestinian Arab was not used before 1967 when Israel won the 6-Day war against the invading armies of Egypt, Jordan and Syria.

So the idea that Israel exists on so-called “occupied Palestinian Land” is mere propaganda.