Geopolitics. It means to look at what is happening at a global political level. It means we have to be smart because the world is in trouble. If you want to understand why the Middle East is blowing up, look to how Ukraine is being undermined in Congress, and at how the former administration, along with Russia and others have set this up for years. If you want to understand why countries and their people aren’t noticing that, look to a media who looks for headlines and clicks, to people increasingly exhausted by climate change, and disappearing jobs, by pandemics, and the lost of societal cohesion that is increasingly impacting the middle class.
Even with all those headwinds, however, it’s important that we understand this, because this isn’t about the regional wars that have been sprung by traps, even with as horrible as they are, whether it’s the Middle East or Eastern Europe. It’s a long game against democracy, and, terrifyingly, it’s working, and most people haven’t figured it out.
If you look at it as a global chess board it will start to make sense. With the former administration’s support, the Israeli government backed off fighting Hamas because they had an interest in keeping Hamas's rivals, the more moderate Palestinian Authority, from a two state solution. At the same time, the U.S, focused on Ukraine, not the Middle East.
In an opening move, someone got Hamas to take a more moderate position publicly. Hamas even stated they would accept two states. We now know this was a lie, that they were planning the attack on Oct. 7 at least two years ago, but it was the narrative Israel was being fed, and on which it was acting, which meant it didn't act. We're not sure anyone would have acted differently. Hamas was offering peace. How amazing was that?
At the same time, also influencing complacency, Putin declared himself a "Friend of Israel” at the same time Israel was disappointed in Biden for backing Israeli protesters against Bibi Netanyahu's proposed judicial reforms. Netanyahu even traveled to Moscow to meet with Putin who seemed to be holding Hezbollah in Lebanon at bay. But there was that push for actual authoritarianism in Israel’s far right government that was identical to proposed reforms taking place in other countries that Putin was influencing; judicial reforms stripping power from Israel's Supreme Court, which was known to be fair to all parties, reforms that put in that are a first step to dictatorship.
The people of Israel exploded and took to the streets. For the better part of a year, Israelis have filled their cities trying to stop the Netanyahu government from neutering their Supreme Court. Even Israeli Special Forces, their army, their reservists, took to the streets with the citizens and refused to report for duty to try to stop dictatorship. As a result, by October 7th, which was an important holiday in Israel, a lot of the army was not on duty. A lot of it.
When Hamas struck with thousands of rockets, with troops, with atrocities that they knew could not be ignored, with state level intel they must have gotten from somewhere, it was the culmination of a multi-year plan that involved deception on a state level by Iran, Russia, China, and Trump. Why China? Because China, who plays a long game, held a summit n Beijing this week with all players involved, and they backed Hamas.
Why would China do this? Do they want, as Putin declared this week in Beijing, a new world order where strongmen are in charge, with Asia, Russia, most of Africa and their resources, and the Arab and Iranian Middle East with their oil, as their allies and under their influence?
If so, what do you do when you realize a group has so thoroughly fooled you, that every one of your major allies, Russia and China, two of the big three, leaving only America under Biden, show that they have used you, lied to you, set you up, and left you with one option - get Hamas - which is a setup for wider war.
We’re not asking what Israel would do. What must Biden do? Biden, no matter how old he seems, is one of the sharpest minds in government. There’s no way he didn’t suspect something was coming with the rising antisemitism and Islamophobia that both Trump and Putin have been stoking. Biden said that was why he ran for president. We're not sure if it wasn't also more involved on Biden's part, however, along with the wrongness of their bigotry that made him do it. Biden thinks strategically. He’s been worried about Russia and China for a while.
The evidence was in how he moved carrier groups to stop China’s expansion, how he backed Ukraine with everything we had, and, even, as horrible as it was, how he kept Trump’s deal with the Taliban alive to get us out of Afghanistan. Did Biden know he would need those resources?
It’s not a happy thought that authoritarian states have played the West, and are continuing to play the West. But, if they are, thousands of Israelis and Palestinians are paying the price, and, not as much in the news, Ukraine is thoroughly paying the price. And that’s a huge risk, even if people don’t see it. If Putin takes over Ukraine, his influence will disrupt NATO allies, and could draw us into war with Russia. While we’re engaged in the Middle East.
This is not about Israel and Palestine, though they are both the victims in this, and what's happening to them must stope. Aid must get in to Gaza. Peace must be found, somehow. But, it is unrealistic to expect that anyone will trust Hamas again. Not Israel, not Egypt, not Jordan, not Saudi Arabia. So, that should be taken into account. Right now, with governments bumbling on all sides, with Israelis recognizing how weak they’ve becoming and doing the one thing they were capable of doing while they built their forces back up - bombing. with Hamas and its handlers counting on that, they knew the Middle East would explode, that, in the Arab Street, understandably, they wouldn’t care about what Hamas did to Israelis. That they would and must care about what Israel did to Gazans. And that’s exactly what has happened.
It was a trap expertly sprung, and it hasn't finished. Before you take one side or the other, please understand that both Israelis and Palestinians are pawns on a chess board labeled in Cyrillic (Russian alphabet) and Hànzì (Chinese calligraphy). Before you focus only on the Middle East, remember Ukraine has lost thousands of children taken by Russia, that they are still under threat, and aid to Ukraine has been stopped by Congress.
Democracies have never been more vulnerable. Biden is trying to turn that around, but he has a problem. There are younger generations who see only Biden’s visible age, and they may not vote. Trump may get in again. If not, some other authoritarian may get in or become speaker (two steps away from the presidency).
We hope people can start pulling together for the sake of democracy, because, if we don’t, we’re lost politically And, if we are, then the war we’re not fighting, the one that threatens to destabilize the entire world that will already be at war in proxy wars, climate change, will reach a tipping point that will overshadow us all.
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