US and Israel Lobby reel from Hezbollah al-Qusayr victory

Beirut -- Although al-Qusayr may not be the decisive battle for Syria, it is

irrefutably an important turning point in the crisis which has given the
regime 
much sought military momentum. Plenty of adjectives and some clichés 
are being bandied about from Washington to Beirut to describe the al-Qusayr 
battle results and significance.  Among them are "game-changer," "mother 
of all battles," "altered balance of power," critical "turning point in the
civil 
war," “Divine victory”  and so on.

It does appear that the victory of the Syrian government forces at al-Qusayr

is a strategic achievement, if also a humanitarian disaster for the civilian

population still waiting for the ICRC and SARCS, (Syrian Arab Red Crescent 
Society) emergency help. Al Qusayr is located in Homs province, an area 
central to the success of the Syrian government’s military strategy. It is 
situated just west of the shortest route from Damascus to the coast, at a 
juncture where regime forces have struggled to maintain control. Rebel 
control of al-Qusayr had disrupted the regime’s supply lines from the port
of 
Tartus and was open for the cross-border movement of Gulf arms to rebels 
via Lebanon's Bekaa Valley.

Government control of al-Qusayr also provides a ground base for the Assad 
government to move to retake control of the north and east of Syria. This 
cross-roads city just 6 miles from the Lebanese border has many strategic 
ramifications: breaking the opposition's 18 month control of much of Homs 
province, facilitating government forces momentum generally across Syria, 
and psychological, by raising the morale of exhausted Syrian forces while 
energizing the Assad government and its allies to finish the conflict and
focus 
on long-promised reforms and try to relieve Syria from the nearly 27 months 
of hell for its people.

Perhaps less appreciated here in Beirut are al-Qusayr’s effects on the
Zionist 
occupiers of Palestine and their currently traumatized US lobby.

>From conversations and emails with former colleagues at the Democratic 
National Committee (on which this observer served during the Carter 
administration) as well as with Congressional insiders, a picture emerges of

nearly debilitating angst among those committed to propping up the 
apartheid state in the face of truly historic changes in this region that
have 
only just begun to re-shape the region.

The reactions from various elements of the pro-Israel lobby range from the 
Arabphobic Daniel Pipes’ fantasy essay in the Washington Times this week 
entitled “Happy Israel” to Netanyahu’s increased threats issued from Tel 
Aviv about what Israel might do if his three cartoon “red lines” are
breached, 
to more pressure on the White House by Israel’s agents in Congress who are 
demanding that Obama act immediately to undo “the major damage done 
at Qusayr”.

Several aspects of “the Qusayr rules and results” are being discussed at the

HQ of the racist anti-Defamation League (ADL) which has summoned an 
emergency gathering of the Conference of Presidents of Major American 
Jewish Organizations to craft a solution to the problem. The tentative
agenda 
reportedly includes for discussion and action the following:

The twin defeats at al-Qusayr and at Burgas, Bulgaria -- the latter, in
which 
Bulgaria is claiming there is no probative evidence to conclude that 
Hezbollah was involved in the attack on Israelis last year --  should not be

underestimated, according to one AIPAC activist who works on the House 
Foreign Affairs Committee, given that it substantially knocks out the props 
from the lobby’s project to get the European Union to list Hezbollah as a 
terrorist organization, thus interfering with the Islamist party’s
fundraising. 
The lobby is reacting angrily to Austria’s Chancellor Werner Faymann and 
Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger’s statement about that country’s 
decision to withdraw its 380 peacekeeping troops, more than one-third of the

1000 United Nations Disengagement Observer Force, (UNDOF) contingent, 
from the Golan Heights.

The lobby is claiming that this Austrian move constituents an existential
threat 
to Israel because it opens the Quneitra crossing, the door to the Golan, for
the 
Syrian civil war to spill over the border into Israel. At the same time it
is 
being argued that al Qusayr lifts pressure off Hezbollah, Iran and Syria as 
well as the Palestinian resistance and gain all more fighters who sense
victory 
for the current regime and major gains for all in the political dynamics of 
the region.

The Israel embassy in Washington has chimed in with a statement that the 
Austrian withdrawal threatened the role of the UN Security Council in any 
future negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, while at the same 
time encouraging Hezbollah to move into the Golan.

Israel stalwart, Eric Cantor (R-Va) told a "brown bag" lunch gathering in 
the House Rayburn Building cafeteria late this week that the “fall of al 
Qusayr, will facilitate the Assad regimes advance on areas north of Homs 
province and will likely return to Damascus control of important rebel-held 
areas in the north and the east. Cantor claims that the Assad regime victory

effectively cuts off an important supply route to the rebels which will
leave 
the armed opposition even more weakened and scattered. Israel is 
demanding an immediate US supported counter-offensive consistent with 
the demands made by US Senators John McClain and Lindsay Graham. 

The apartheid state also is demanding that the White House scrap Geneva II, 
claiming that Assad is now too strong for the US/Israel to benefit from such

a dialogue. “If the international community is serious about seeking to
enforce 
a negotiated settlement, they will first have to do something to decisively 
change the balance of power on the ground ahead of any serious
negotiations,” 
he added.

When asked about giving US aid to Lebanon, Cantor reportedly sneered, 
as he expressed his shock that Hezbollah had so many troops and, without 
US boots on the ground, would be very difficult for Israel to defeat, he 
reportedly replied, “Forget about Lebanon, it never was a real country 
anyway, just call the whole place over there Hezbollah and let’s send in the

marines to finish the job.”

One congressional staffer who attended the meeting winced at the thought of 
US marines again being sent to Lebanon given their previous experience there

nearly 30 years ago.

The Lobby is also concerned about the fact that the Arab League and the Gulf

countries might be softening in their ardor to confront Syria and Hezbollah,

who they view as now being full partners in this crisis. A media source at 
the Saudi Embassy in Washington has complained that the six member Gulf 
Cooperation Council (GCC) has spent more than a billion dollars on the 
opposition and have, to date, little to show for their “investment.” Nor
does 
Israel have much to show to date for its deepening role in the crisis given
that 
its air strikes are widely viewed in Washington and internationally as being

counterproductive and helping to unite Muslims and Arabs in the face of 
their common global enemy.

The ADL reportedly wants the White House to act fast “to do something” 
in light of a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released on Wednesday, 
the day of the Syrian government’s victory at al Qusayr, showing that only 
15% of Americans polled advocated taking military action, and only 11% 
supported providing the rebels with arms. A quarter of respondents, 24%, 
favored taking no action, similar to the White House current position. 

Abe Foxman, ADL’s President for Life, and inveterate anti-Semite tracker, 
myopically sees anti-Semitism, and surely not Israel’s decades of crimes 
against humanity as the cause for other “anti-Semitic” polls released this 
week. Those included the recent one commissioned by the BBC which 
confirmed that Israel is not only ranked second from the bottom of 197 
favorably viewed countries, including as a danger to world peace, and just 
about the world’s most negatively viewed country, but its support globally 
continues to evaporate. Views of Israel in Canada and in Australia remain 
very negative with 57 and 69 per cent of their citizens holding unfavorable 
views. In the EU countries surveyed, views of Israeli influence are all 
strongly negative with the UK topping the list with 72 per cent of the 
population viewing Israel negatively.

As Ali Abunimah noted this week, “The persistent association of Israel with 
the world’s most negatively viewed countries will come as a disappointment 
to Israeli government and other hasbara officials who have invested millions

of dollars in recent years to greenwash and pinkwash Israel as an 
enlightened, democratic and technological 'Western' country."*

With Wednesday's National Lebanese Resistance (Hezbollah) victory at 
al-Qusayr, coming as it does 97 years to the month after the Triple
Entente’s 
(UK, France & Russia) May 1916 secret Asia Minor Agreement, generally 
known as Sykes-Picot, the scheme to control the Middle East following the 
defeat of the Ottoman Empire has furthered crumbled. Its "Rosemary’s 
Baby" progeny, the colonial Zionist occupation of Palestine, is increasingly

being condemned by history to an identical fate.

According to a growing number of US and European officials and Middle 
East analysts as well as public opinion polls, it is solely a matter of time
until, 
like al-Qusayr, Palestine is returned to her rightful, indigenous
inhabitants. 


* "Israel one of world’s most unpopular countries and it’s getting worse: 
BBC survey," Ali Abunimah, Electronic Intifada, June 6, 2013



 

           Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni and Dr. Kiiza Besigye Uganda is in anarchy"
           Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni na Dk. Kiiza Besigye Uganda ni katika machafuko"

 

_______________________________________________
Ugandanet mailing list
Ugandanet@kym.net
http://kym.net/mailman/listinfo/ugandanet

UGANDANET is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/

All Archives can be found at http://www.mail-archive.com/ugandanet@kym.net/

The above comments and data are owned by whoever posted them (including 
attachments if any). The List's Host is not responsible for them in any way.
---------------------------------------

Reply via email to