Obama's Gaza Game
By Daniel Greenfield
SultanKnish.Blogspot.com
While Israelis are fighting and
dying, families huddling in bomb shelters and
soldiers going off to face death, the men and women
in suits and power suits moving through the great
halls of diplomacy are using them as pawns in a
larger game.
During the Cold War, Israel was a
pawn in a larger struggle between the US and the
USSR. Now it is back to being a counter in a larger
game.
Israel’s function within the great halls of
diplomacy was always as a lever on the Arab states.
It was not an end, but a means of moving them one
way or another. When the Arab states drifted into
the Soviet orbit, the “Special Relationship” was
born. The relationship accomplished its goal once
Egypt was pried out of the Soviet orbit. It has
lingered on because of the emotional and cultural
ties of Israel and the US.
Now Obama is using Israel as a lever to push Egypt
back into the Islamist camp. Egypt’s rejection of
the Muslim Brotherhood broke the Arab Spring.
Political Islam, which seemed to be on the
ascendance, is back to being a freak show
represented by terrorists and Turkey’s mad
mustachioed dictator.
Egypt was where Obama went to begin the Arab Spring.
Egypt is still his target. Israel is just the lever.
The reason Israel was never allowed to truly win any
wars was because it was being used as a lever. By
being a “good lever” during the Cold War, it could
damage Egypt enough that the latter would come to
the negotiating table overseen by the US and move
back into the Western sphere of influence.
Israel couldn’t be allowed to win a big enough
victory because then there would nothing to
negotiate. Likewise, Israel wouldn’t be allowed to
keep what it won because then there would be no
reason for Egypt to come to the negotiating table.
Sometimes Israel would even be expected to lose, as
in the Yom Kippur War, to force it to come to the
negotiating table.
Swap Egypt for the PLO and that’s how the disastrous
peace process happened. Then swap the PLO for Hamas
and that is where we are now.
Obama’s initial support for Israel’s war on Hamas
was only to the extent necessary to bring the
terrorist group to the negotiating table. And then
once Hamas comes to the negotiating table, the White
House will back its demands against Israel in
exchange for getting the Brotherhood on board with
its agenda.
Israel is just the means; the Muslim Brotherhood and
political Islam are the objective. That objective
may mean the end of the West, but those striding
boldly through the halls of diplomacy are not
worried.
The real target of the Hamas campaign wasn’t Israel;
it was Egypt.
Egypt’s crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood had
included Hamas. That crackdown worried Hamas far
more than anything that Israel was doing. Meanwhile
the Muslim Brotherhood’s loss of power meant a major
setback for the sugar daddies of the Arab Spring;
Qatar, Turkey and their Western allies.
The new alignment had placed Qatar, Turkey, Obama
and the EU in one row, while Saudi Arabia, Egypt,
Jordan, Israel and the PLO were in another row. The
latest phase of the Gaza War between Israel and
Hamas was meant to break apart that alignment.
Obama’s tilt toward Iran had encouraged Sunni
Muslims to throw their backing behind ISIS leading
to significant gains in Iraq. Qatar and Turkey,
backers of both Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood,
then used ISIS to push the myth that the only
counter to Al Qaeda was the Brotherhood’s political
Islam.
Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood, political Islam
and the Jihadist bands, have always been two sides
of the same coin, but the argument remains a
persuasive one in the great halls of diplomacy.
Egypt had bottled up Hamas to
avoid a repetition of the jailbreaks, terrorist
attacks and street violence that had freed Morsi and
Brotherhood leaders and later enabled Morsi to
attempt a takeover of the Egyptian military.
The path to putting the Muslim Brotherhood back in
power in Egypt runs through Hamas.
Hamas attacked Israel. There was enough backing for
Israel’s attack on Hamas to get it to the
negotiating table. But once a ceasefire offer was on
the table, Egypt would no longer be calling the
shots. Instead the deal would come through two of
Hamas’ state sponsors; Qatar and Turkey.
For this to work, Obama had to keep a leash on
Israel, giving it permission to fight and then
pulling it back at the critical moment. Meanwhile
Egypt would be surprised to learn that it was no
longer setting the terms of the ceasefire based on
the same old arrangement, but that its place would
be filled by Qatar and Turkey. Their ceasefire
terms, approved by the US, would loosen the blockade
around Hamas.
Egypt had attempted to hold Hamas to the original
ceasefire terms. That was not in the interests of
the White House. The ceasefire negotiations had to
be sabotaged with a political intervention on behalf
of Hamas. And who better to conduct that political
intervention than Secretary of State John Kerry?
Egypt, Israel and the PLO had not wanted Kerry to
come. Israel’s former ambassador to the US had said
that he was not invited. But he was caught on a hot
mic saying that he was going to come anyway.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was even more
unwanted, but Qatar transported him to Israel.
Kerry, the UN and Hamas had all become projections
of Qatari state power into Egypt and Israel.
The US and the UN pushed for an urgent and immediate
ceasefire. Israel accepted the ceasefire several
times, but Hamas resumed firing each time. While
Israel thought that this demonstrated its peaceful
intentions, what it actually did was give Hamas the
power to set the terms of the ceasefire.
Once Hamas had that power, meeting its demands
became the key element of ending the violence.
One of Egypt’s remaining political assets had been
the ability to turn off Hamas violence. Now Qatar
and Turkey had demonstrated that it could no longer
do that. With Qatar, Turkey and the US undermining
Egypt, it could no longer pressure Hamas. Meanwhile
the UN and the US were pressuring Israel to accept
the Qatar/Turkey ceasefire terms favorable to Hamas
and unfavorable to Egypt and Israel.
But diplomacy was never Kerry’s
strong suit. His blatant Qatari intervention instead
alienated everyone.
Netanyahu has chosen to extend the operation against
Hamas. Backing him up are poll numbers which show
that the vast majority of Israelis want the job
done. The PLO now suspects that Obama is about to
back a Hamas coup against it. And Egypt’s military
has gotten a lot of recent experience watching
Obama’s botched diplomatic strategies blow up in his
face.
The real objective of this war was to undermine
Egypt. Egypt was supposed to scramble into the new
alignment by developing closer ties with Hamas and
cutting a deal with the Muslim Brotherhood.
And if Egypt’s government wouldn’t cooperate, the
Muslim Brotherhood might be able to tap into enough
of the anti-Israel and pro-Hamas sentiment to topple
the government a second time. But if Egypt remains
opposed to Hamas and Israel pushes forward with a
plan to demilitarize Gaza, then the goals of those
in the great halls of diplomacy who are behind this
war will fail.