General
Ethnic Cleansing in Northern Gaza
From Mondoweiss
Gaza
- Israeli army says it is close to completely “evacuating” the population of north Gaza and that they will not be allowed to return to their homes.
- Israel says it will expand its offensive in north Gaza to include Beit Lahia.
- Israeli forces kill at least 20 Palestinians in north Gaza in the past 24 hours while bombing a marketplace in Beit Lahia and several houses in Jabalia.
- Israeli forces bomb Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip.
- Israeli strikes target the upper floors of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, forcing patients to flee to the lower floors.
Lebanon
- Hezbollah Secretary General Naim Qassem says political moves will not end the war and “only the battlefield will deter Israel.”
- Qassem says only “indirect negotiations through the Lebanese state” will result in end of the war.
- Hezbollah launches rocket barrage directly at Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport for the first time, one rocket strikes airport’s perimeter.
- Israel bombs Tyre, Saida, Baalbek, and Lebanese towns and villages in the south and the Beqaa Valley.
- Lebanese authorities say 70% of the population of Baalbek has fled the city.
- Lebanese authorities say that 1 in 4 Lebanese have been displaced since the beginning of Israel’s offensive on the country in early October.
West Bank
- Israeli forces raid Tulkarem and Jenin, clash with Palestinian fighters.
- Israel kills 11 Palestinians in West Bank since Monday, including seven in Jenin.
- Two Israelis injured in a car-ramming attack north of Ramallah. Palestinian car driver killed by Israeli forces.
- Israeli settlers take over five dunams of Palestinian farmland in northern Jordan Valley in the West Bank.
- Israeli settlers steal Palestinians’ olive harvest in the village of Yasuf near Salfit in the northern West Bank.
Israeli army says it is staying in north Gaza
Israel announced on Thursday that it will expand its offensive on north Gaza, which has been ongoing since October 5. According to the Israeli army, military operations that have largely taken place in Jabalia refugee camp will expand to Beit Lahia.
On Tuesday, a spokesperson of the Israeli army, Yitzhak Cohen, said in a press briefing that the army has come close to the complete “evacuation” of the population of north Gaza. The army spokesperson said that Palestinian residents of the north will not be allowed to return to their homes. This declaration marks the first official Israeli admission of the intent to permanently expel Palestinians from north Gaza.
Unprecedented Pro-Israel PAC Funding Floods 2024 Elections
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, November/December 2024, pp. 28-36
Election Watch
By Jack McGrath
Although the daylight between the presidential candidates on Middle East policy is minimal, U.S. support for Israel is gradually becoming a subject of debate in U.S. politics. The Overton window has begun to shift within the Democratic Party, even as its candidates receive tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions from pro-Israel Political Action Committees (PACs) and affiliated donors.
This election cycle saw unprecedented spending by the Israel lobby, which donated more to House and Senate candidates than in the last two elections combined: $44,656,374 in 2023-2024, compared to $17,175,455 in 2021-2022 and $12,661,440 in 2019-2020. Since April, the lobby has spent over $7.5 million to bolster its favored candidates in Congress.
In a perplexing twist, many candidates in both parties reported pro-Israel contributions in September that amount to less than those disclosed in April’s Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings (when the Washington Report last published donation records). Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) reported $671,578 for the 2023-2024 cycle in April but only $440,009 in September, Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) dropped from $1,229,070 to $932,627 and Rep. Lucy McBath (D-GA) fell from $271,663 to $13,500. There is no obvious explanation for these reductions. While candidates can return contributions without depositing them, it is unclear why Cruz would refund donations during a competitive race against Democratic candidate Colin Allred (who has received $164,654 from pro-Israel donors in this cycle). The Washington Report will seek answers from the campaigns about these discrepancies.
On the other hand, many candidates in both parties have seen drastic boosts in financial contributions since April. Between April and September, pro-Israel donations to the campaign of Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) increased from $7,800 to $109,034, candidate Jack Brian (R-GA) from $1,002 to $163,814, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) from $11,850 to $117,100, candidate Sarah Elfreth (D-MD) from $173,970 to $610,729, candidate George Latimer (D-NY) from $1,633,912 to $2,524,866 and candidate Wesley Bell (D-MO) from $827,094 to $2,609,157.
“Dark money” from nonprofits, which are not obligated to report their donors and have no spending limits, will also influence this election by spending exorbitantly on ads for or against candidates. Viewers don’t know the source of these ads, which rarely mention Israel. For example, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) spent a reported $15 million to bolster George Latimer in his primary against incumbent Rep. Jamaal Bowman, but only $1.6 million was listed as campaign contributions. By definition, the individual sources of dark money spending are undisclosed, and their total sums are nearly impossible to quantify accurately. …
Jack McGrath is assistant bookstore director and senior staff writer for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.
https://www.wrmea.org/congress-u.s.-aid-to-israel/unprecedented-pro-israel-pac-funding-floods-2024-elections.html
Black Girl Magic Beaten by White Male Competence
Before we say goodbye to Kamala, just think of what we will be missing. From Ann’s column:
“We were all doing a tour of the library here and talking about the significance of the passage of time. Right? The significance of the passage of time. So, when you think about it, there is great significance to the passage of time in terms of what we need to do to lay these wires, what we need to do to create these jobs. And there is such great significance to the passage of time.”
In retrospect, maybe running the DEI hire for president was not a good idea.
On the other hand, President Joe Biden’s revenge plan worked perfectly. As reported by The New York Times, after his catastrophic debate, Biden’s White House staff kept presenting congressional Democrats with data proving he still had a much better chance of beating Trump than his vice president did.
Then, the moment he was defenestrated, guess who Biden endorsed? Kamala Harris, the candidate he’d told them could not win. But she was a Black lady, so … checkmate!
Inasmuch as the sole motivating factor of the modern Democratic Party is identity politics, Democrats were forced to drop their plans for a stronger candidate, like Govs. Josh Shapiro or Andy Beshear. No Democrat would dare suggest that Kamala was not absolutely the most qualified person for the job. Just look at her — a woman AND a minority!
Harris’ race and gender was how Biden got stuck with her in the first place — an amazing choice for VP, considering that she’d accused him of racism during the primary, and also that she hadn’t won a single vote.
This is how Democrats ended up running a dingbat who’d cheered on the BLM riots, enthusiastically released violent criminals from prison, insisted on taxpayer-funded sex change operations for prisoners and illegal aliens, compared ICE agents to the Ku Klux Klan, completely believed Jussie Smollett’s hoax hate crime, supported defunding the police and said she wanted to decriminalize illegal immigration.
Indeed, Harris was the lead player in the administration’s decision to defy federal law and fling open the border, sending millions of foreign criminals and mental patients to every corner of America.
The Democrats’ obsession with dragging in the third world is itself part of the party’s DEI framework. Why do we have to admit tens of thousands of people from Haiti and the Congo? Because they’re Black.
When Biden and Harris came in, DEI was instantly made the priority of every government organ — the military, NASA, FEMA, the judiciary and on and on. An astonishing 66% of Biden’s judicial appointees have been non-White. Even Barack Obama only managed to get up to 37%. Biden’s one Supreme Court appointee was, of course, a Black woman, despite the fact that only 2% of nation’s lawyers are Black women. But he’d promised during the primaries to exclude 98% of lawyers from his consideration.
In congressional testimony, Biden’s FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell — herself a diversity pick — stated that FEMA’s No. 1 goal was to “instill equity as a foundation of emergency management.” She boasted that she was prioritizing the hiring of no-Whites. When her agency subsequently failed in its response to Hurricane Helene, Criswell attacked anyone who mentioned her “equity” agenda as spreading “disinformation.”
Earlier this year, the incompetence of the gender-feminist head of the Secret Service nearly got Donald Trump killed, the closest we’ve ever gotten to turning DEI into DOA.
Thus, Kamala is the perfect representative of today’s Democratic Party. Her entire life has been one affirmative action promotion after another. She even got into law school on the basis of her race — as the law school has bragged. And this week, she almost made it to the top on the basis of her race and gender, without doing, let alone achieving, anything.
Harris is not only a beneficiary, but a tragic casualty of affirmative action.
She can’t really be as stupid as she sounds, can she? Consider this classic Kamala philosophizing:
“We were all doing a tour of the library here and talking about the significance of the passage of time. Right? The significance of the passage of time. So, when you think about it, there is great significance to the passage of time in terms of what we need to do to lay these wires, what we need to do to create these jobs. And there is such great significance to the passage of time.”
As you can see, she’s a loon, but we were required to act as if she was Zarathustra, her every utterance profound. It’s the same phenomenon that leads rich or very good-looking people to develop such terrific personalities. Except in this case, the constant flattery is being done to a whole race.
Harris has never had a moment of self-doubt. Why would she? No matter what she did, everyone was always telling her, You go, girl!
Instead of demurring from Biden’s endorsement and suggesting a stronger nominee — perhaps a governor or a Democrat from a red state — Harris accepted her coronation as a matter of right. She then proceeded to run as the Angry Black Woman, backed up by other Angry Black Women, like Michelle Obama and Oprah, hectoring voters to make her president.
That always works on Democrats, so why not the electorate?
The problem with liberals using intimidation tactics to bully people into staying quiet about the incompetence of DEI hires is that the only way they ever had to register an objection was in the privacy of a voting booth. And on Tuesday, boy, did they .…
COPYRIGHT 2024 ANN COULTER
New York Post on Celebrity fury: Cardi B: “I’m gonna fuck you up”
Please Leave the Country.
Cardi B, Alec Baldwin and Stephen King fume over 2024 election result as Trump emerges victorious: ‘I’m gonna f–k you up’
The Grammy-winning rapper, 32, was one of the first to air out her frustration on social media after it emerged Wednesday that Trump will be returning to the White House.
Taking to Instagram Live, the “I Like It” hitmaker read aloud a comment from a fan that said, “Cardi we need you at the Trump inauguration.”
“I swear to god I’m gonna f–k you up, get away from me,” she said during the video with more than 37,000 followers. “I’m sick of you! Burn you’re f–king hats motherf–ker. I’m really sad. I swear to god I’m really sad.”
Cardi B, whose real name is Belcalis Cephus, added that she’s “proud” of Vice President Kamala Harris, whose rally she spoke at in Milwaukee last week.
“When I look at her face and she was talking to me, I thought she was very genuine and not playing any f–king games,” she went on. “She had 100 days to do all of this and she woke this nation up. I feel there was a lot of things that went wrong last year and they kept her too much in the background.”
“I’m proud of her and I hope she’s proud of herself no matter what happens tonight. This is one of the most unforgettable elections and I love her. I don’t say I love a lot of people, y’all know that. Because I hate everybody.”
Alec Baldwin, who famously previously impersonated Trump on “SNL,” shared a photo of a black screen on Instagram. He did not caption the image.
Actress Christina Applegate expressed her anger at the result, rushing to social media following Trump’s win.
“Why? Give me your reasons why????? My child is sobbing because her rights as a woman may be taken away. Why?And if you disagree , please unfollow me,” the “Dead To Me” star wrote on X.
Bravo honcho Andy Cohen took to Instagram to share his frustration with the result, saying, “We will persist, we will move forward.”
Hours earlier, Cohen wrote on X, “so the election ISN’T rigged????”
Meanwhile, “Act Your Age” star Yvette Nicole Brown called the election result a “disgrace.”
“Sherrod Brown losing in Ohio is a lost to Ohio and our nation. This is a disgrace at a level I can’t even quantify. My home state of Ohio chose a criminal,” Brown wrote on X. “And it looks like this nation is choosing a criminal. AmeriKKKa is showing out tonight. Just showing out.”
While actor John Cusack wrote on X, “The fact that the country would choose to destroy itself by voting in a convicted felon rapist and Nazi is a sign of deep nihilism. To put it mildly.”
“Glee” alum Kevin McHale echoed similar thoughts, adding, “Supreme Court gone for the rest of my lifetime. Ultra-conservative evangelical bigotry, xenophobia, racism is the mandate,” in a post on X.
What’s more, Mary Trump — a niece of the former president — also shared her disappointment over the result.
“I am so deeply sorry. I thought better of us,” she wrote on X.
Author Stephen King also weighed in on the result, writing on X, “There’s a sign you can see in many shops that sell beautiful but fragile items: LOVELY TO LOOK AT, DELIGHTFUL TO HOLD, BUT ONCE YOU BREAK IT, THEN IT’S SOLD. You can say the same about democracy.”
Elsewhere, “Suits” and “The Wire” actor Wendell Pierce warned of the “consequences” there could be once Trump moves into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave in a post on X.
“The Supreme Court will be changed for a generation,” he wrote. “I’ll never see a moderate court again in my lifetime. Alito and Thomas will step down and Trump will appoint 40 year old partisans to the bench. The damage he is about to inflict on our institutions the next 2 years will be irreparable.”
Meanwhile, “Countdown” dictionary guru Susie Dent shared a tongue-in-cheek post on X following Trump’s historic win.
“Word of the day is ‘recrudescence’ (17th century): the return of something terrible after a time of reprieve,” she wrote.
The British Media Meltdown
‘This is America’s darkest dawn’: How the Left-wing media reacted to Trump’s victory
As the scale of the Republican triumph became clear, commentators such as Emily Maitlis and Rory Stewart began to vent their dismay
Emily Maitlis on Channel 4’s election coverage. Left-leaning commentators began to vent their dismay at Trump’s win on TV and social media Credit: Bryan Dozier/Shutterstock for Channel Four
The Left-wing media has described Donald Trump’s victory as the “darkest dawn” for America in an outpouring of incredulity.
As the scale of Trump’s electoral triumph became clear, Left-leaning commentators began to vent their dismay on televison and social media.
Krishnan Guru-Murthy, the Channel 4 presenter, apologised for his guest Emily Maitlis’s on-air behaviour during election coverage as the inevitability of Kamala Harris’s defeat became clear.
He said he would “tell Emily off” as she had “started swearing” during the broadcast.
Writing in the i newspaper, commentator Ian Dunt declared that the election result was America’s “darkest dawn” and left a “taste of despair”.
Rory Stewart, who presents The Rest is Politics podcast, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that it was “heartbreaking” that Trump had been elected president.
The former Tory MP had proclaimed that Harris would win with ease and claimed to have bet heavily on that result, only to be left deflated during live coverage of the election.
A dejected Mr Stewart said that he “got it totally wrong” but claimed: “I think I was wrong because I’m [an] optimist. I hate the idea of being right pessimistically.”
The Guardian newspaper sent out a notification as the result was put beyond doubt, branding Trump’s victory as the “first for a convicted criminal”.
The Guardian described Trump’s victory as him becoming the “first convicted criminal” to be elected president
Katharine Viner, The Guardian’s editor-in-chief, sought to reassure readers following the news of Trump’s victory. In an editorial, she wrote that the paper would “stand up to four more years of Donald Trump”, and that the election was an “extraordinary, devastating moment in the history of the United States”.
Ms Viner added: “With Trump months away from taking office again – with dramatic implications for wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, the health of American democracy, reproductive rights, inequality and, perhaps most of all, our collective environmental future – it’s time for us to redouble our efforts to hold the president-elect and those who surround him to account.”
Above an invitation to donate to The Guardian, the editorial signs off: “We will stand up to these threats, but it will take brave, well-funded independent journalism. It will take reporting that can’t be leaned upon by a billionaire owner terrified of retribution from a bully in the White House.”
Carole Cadwalladr, The Observer journalist best known for her legal battles with pro-Brexit businessman Aaron Banks, also lamented the result. She wrote on X that “democracy died in darkness”, and claimed that the US was now an “oligarchy” on par with “90s Russia”.
Carol Vorderman, the Countdown star turned political commentator, said: “God help America” on X as the result became clear.
Chris Packham, the BBC presenter and environmental activist, shared his concerns with the incoming president, writing on X: “Things have just got a lot more difficult. Here’s what I think. I had no control over what just happened. None.
“But I do have control over how I will react to it. And I am not going to give up on the beautiful and the good, the grip on my dreams just got tighter.”
Meanwhile, Paul Mason, the former economics editor of BBC’s Newsnight, claimed in a piece for the anti-Brexit paper The New European that America was “in the grip of the fascist process”, while LBC radio host James O’Brien, a former Newsnight presenter, wrote on X: “What fresh hell is this?”
Former British diplomat and left-wing podcaster Alexandra Hall Hall complained on X: “Brexit was a lie. The royal family is a racket. Our politicians are plastic. Our system is feeble; our defences a joke.”
Peter Jukes, co-founder of the left-wing publication The Byline Times, warned that Britain needs to secure itself “against the influx of dark US money and the influence of foreign oligarchs”.
In the US, Jake Tapper, the CNN news anchor, was stunned by analysis which showed that Harris had not outperformed Joe Biden in a single county, saying “holy smokes” when presented with a map showing the scale of her defeat.
On MSNBC, Joy Reid, the Left-wing commentator, claimed that Ms Harris’s campaign had been “flawless”, despite its end result, and cited the number of celebrity endorsements the Democratic candidate had received.
She claimed that Harris had won over the Swifties, fans of Taylor Swift, and said she was shocked at the rejection of the Democrats at the polls.
Comedian Jason Manford claimed on X that he awoke to the news of a “psychopath being declared president”, and Countdown etymologist Sue Dent shared the definition for recrudescence, the “return of something terrible after a time of reprieve” in an apparent reference to the election.
Other celebrities who had endorsed Harris included Bruce Springsteen and Madonna, while US rapper Cardi B had been a vocal supporter of Harris in the build up to the election, and became embroiled in a row with the Trump-supporting Elon Musk after he accused her of being a “puppet” for the Left-wing cause.
The performer messaged fans on her Instagram account following Ms Harris’s defeat, stating: “I’m really sad. I swear to god I’m really sad.” She also told Trump supporters to burn their “hats”, possibly in reference to MAGA caps.
Democrat blame game begins as Harris accused of picking wrong running mate
Democratic operatives also argue vice-president failed to stake out her policy positions and distance herself from Joe Biden
Kamala Harris chose Tim Walz as her running mate and vice-presidential candidate Credit: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
Kamala Harris has been accused of picking the wrong running mate as the Democratic blame game over her humiliating election defeat began.
The US vice-president appeared on course to lose every one of the seven swing states that determined the White House race.
Ms Harris, 60, declined to address the nation on election night, leaving Democratic operatives to fill the vacuum.
Some blamed her choice of Tim Walz, the unassuming Minnesota governor, as her vice-presidential candidate.
The leading alternative had been Josh Shapiro, the charismatic and popular governor of all-important Pennsylvania.
Lindy Li, a Pennsylvania-based senior Democratic official, told Fox News: “People are wondering tonight what would have happened had Shapiro been on the ticket. And not only in terms of Pennsylvania.”
Ms Li said that as a moderate, Mr Shapiro “would have signalled to the American people that she is not the San Francisco liberal that Trump said she was”.
“But she went with someone actually to her Left,” she added. “In the eyes of the American people, Walz was the governor who oversaw the protests.”
Harris ‘failed to stake out policy positions’
Democratic operatives also argued Ms Harris had failed to stake out her policy positions and sufficiently distance herself from Joe Biden, who was underwater in public approval ratings.
They pinpointed her appearance on the talk show The View, when she was asked what she would have done differently to Mr Biden during the last four years, and replied: “There is not a thing that comes to mind.”
Meanwhile Joy Reid, the MSNBC commentator, blamed white women in North Carolina for the Democrat’s loss in the swing state.
“In the end, they didn’t make their numbers. We have to be blunt about why, black voters came through for Harris, white women voters did not,” she said.
Van Jones, a CNN contributor and former Barack Obama adviser, criticised the Harris campaign’s focus on celebrity-filled rallies.
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“I don’t think people understand, working people sometimes have to choose. Am I going to go to the big, cool concert and pay for babysitting for that or am I going to figure out a way to get to the polls? I don’t like these big star-studded events,” he said.
Symone Sanders, a former adviser to Ms Harris turned MSNBC commentator, said: “We have to listen to what the voters are saying.”
A Trump victory is awful for Starmer – and a nightmare for David Lammy
Labour’s hubris may have irreparably destroyed our relationship with the only pro-British US president in decades
David Lammy had made no secret of his hostility towards Trump Credit: Stefan Rousseau/Reuters
06 November 2024 6:56am GMT
As election hangovers go, Keir Starmer’s will be only slightly less painful than that of Kamala Harris.
With not a great deal going right for the Labour Government on the domestic front, the last thing the prime minister needs is a new American president who bears a grudge. But that’s what he’s got.
In the heady days after Joe Biden finally and belatedly called it a day and handed the torch of the Democratic Party to his vice-president, when polling suggested Kamala was about to sweep all before her, the Labour Party went a bit giddy with excitement and publicly announced it was lending the Democrats a hand.
Who cared if The Orange One resented the participation in the presidential election of 100 Labour activists and staffers? He was a dead-cert loser, and the party would enjoy the gratitude of President Harris for the next four years.
Well, “oops”, as they say.
Starmer might now reflect that as well as having to offer a craven apology to the once and future President Trump for his party’s ill-advised bout of amateurish virtue signalling, he has a more pressing problem to hand in the shape of his foreign secretary.
In his constant and never-failing desire to please whichever audience he’s speaking to, David Lammy once described Trump as a “Neo-Nazi sociopath”. Which is the sort of thing you might call someone if you (a) are a precocious sixth-former in the school debating society, or (b) do not expect ever to be in the same room with the target of your criticisms.
Now, as Britain’s Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, Lammy is our chief representative abroad, including to the United States. Not only has he needlessly thrown a stupid insult at the victor of the 2024 presidential election, but in doing so he has basically accused the American electorate of electing someone unfit for the most important elected office in the world.
The arguments that might be made in defence of Lammy’s opinion are neither here nor there: our foreign secretary needs to maintain the best possible relations with our most important ally. David Lammy has talked himself out of that job.
We cannot allow any foreign power to decide who serves in the UK cabinet and in what position. However, sacking or demoting Lammy at the earliest opportunity would demonstrate to the incoming administration that Starmer is serious about repairing the damage Lammy, by his infantile language, has caused to the special relationship.
This Government may not be all that keen on post-EU “Global Britain”, but given that the last time Trump was in the White House, he was far keener than either his predecessor or his successor to give us a transatlantic trade deal, Lammy’s sacrifice would be a small price to pay for smoothing the way to such a breakthrough.
Beyond the immediate implications for the Government and its foreign secretary, Harris’s humiliating defeat at the hands of a man who, in more serious times, really should never have been able to come within shouting distance of the White House, ought to signal a major rethink of progressive Left-wing politics across the democratic west. But will it?
The lessons were all there to be learned in 2016, when an arrogant, entitled Democratic Party crowned Hillary Clinton as their surefire winner in that year’s election. After all, who could fail to lose against someone as unappealing as Trump? And yet somehow, Clinton’s disdain for working class Americans without college degrees and her obsession with the rights of trans people to use women’s bathrooms in Oklahoma didn’t strike a chord with the electorate. It was a real mystery.
Eight years later, Joe Biden could have chosen to accept the inevitability of his advancing years and allowed his party to choose a new candidate last year, allowing the victor to be subjected to the usual rigours and scrutiny of the primary process.
Instead he made it impossible for the party and the country to choose anyone other than Harris, a woman who, when she stood against Biden for the Democratic nomination in 2020, resigned from the race without winning a single delegate to her party’s national convention.
It wasn’t just the method of her becoming the candidate that rankled with voters; it was her policy platform. Across America – and indeed, across much of the Western world – the curse of woke is wreaking terrible damage to politics and to society.
Gender ideology and critical race theory have their roots in the US, but like any virus, they quickly made their way across the Atlantic. Few viral clips on social media did Harris more harm than the one in which she introduces herself to an audience – from behind a mask, obviously – as “Kamala Harris, she/her”.
It’s not the self-congratulatory smugness that irked; it was the assumption that the cult of the pronoun is now not only obligatory but normal. Does she really not know how much ordinary Americans object to such nonsense? Does she not realise that many voters lump such language in with “taking the knee” and demands by Black Lives Matter protesters to “defund the police”? It’s all toxic – the language, the smugness and the policies that the White House advocated in the last four years to push the agenda.
Labour too must learn the lessons of a second Trump victory before they go too far down the same road. Because if British voters decided to follow the lead of their American cousins, our own politicians would have every reason to be nervous the next time the ballot boxes are opened.
Charles Malik in 1949 on the Future of Israel vis-à-vis the Arab World
Charles Malik, Doctor of Philosophy from Heidelberg, former President of the UN General Assembly and drafter of its Charter. Here is what he predicted 75 years ago, in 1949— something to ponder deeply, given that this is what Lebanon and the Arab world are experiencing today.
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In a small book entitled Report on the Current Situation — 5 August 1949, republished by An-Nahar in 2002 and prefaced by the Lebanese journalism professor Ghassan Tueni, Charles Malik talks about the ‘phases of the Zionist movement’, ‘America and the Arab world’ and ‘the destiny of Lebanon’. These three themes are linked to Israeli strategies and their repercussions on Lebanese and Arab realities, as well as their complexities and dilemmas.
Malik begins his report with a description of the Arab situation, saying: ‘The Palestinian question has been and remains the most serious of all Arab questions, and its outcome is therefore that of the entire Arab world. The Palestinian catastrophe is a clear image of the Arab catastrophe, and the weaknesses that led to the Arab failure in Palestine are the same weaknesses that have led and will lead to complete defeats in the Arab world.”
Malik: ‘Everything that has happened so far in Palestine and concerning Palestine is only the beginning. As for the conclusion, it will either be the domination of the Arab world and its colonisation by the Jews, or its renewal as a modern world, respected and interacting with living civilisations in the creation and preservation of values. Either way, the near future will be darker than the present and more dangerous than the past.”
Why is the future darker and more dangerous?
Malik explains this by saying: ‘Israel’s entry as a member of the United Nations is not an act that puts an end to Jewish ambitions. The State of Israel, in its present situation and borders, is not a refuge for the invading Jewish power, but a gathering centre for it and a breeding ground for its growth, a starting point for its expansion and assault on neighbouring and distant Arab countries, politically, economically and socially. Jewish claims that in fifty years there will be only two states in the world — America and Israel — are not to be taken lightly.”
Malik: ‘I am certain that our future is one of Jewish colonisation and enslavement, and no one will mourn our enslavement.’
What about the dangers?
According to Malik, ‘the phase that ended with the creation of Israel is a preparation for the next complementary phase, which aims to effectively colonise and enslave the Arab world. In this phase, it will be a question of preparing for expansion in the Arab world and deepening the takeover of its resources.”
Where do the United States stand in all this?
Malik replies: ‘We have to interpret the aid and development projects emanating from the United States as being, for the most part, decoys aimed at appeasing the indignation of the Arab world. The window dressing seems attractive, translating empathy towards the Arab world and an interest in its development, but the aid is essentially linked, conditionally, on the perpetuation of the Jewish state.
What are Israel’s future strategies?
Malik answers this question by saying: ‘The Zionists have succeeded, but they will not be satisfied with this partial success, because their ambitions will not stop at the piece of Palestine they have conquered. The second phase is to prove that they are the chosen ones to develop the East, that they are the real force within it, that they represent its interests and determine its will.
The whole of Palestine does not satisfy the needs of the Jews; Israel wants to control the Arab world and be the heir to all its predecessors, whether Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Turkish or under [the British] mandate. Thus, Zionism wants to be recognised in a future era as the Mandate. The Arab world is Zionism’s living space, and I say: if nothing changes in the Arab world (temporary solutions, epidermal susceptibilities, disunity, drunkenness with the past, improvised policies, lack of real reforms), then I am certain that our future is one of Jewish colonisation and enslavement, and no one will mourn our enslavement.”
What advice do you have for Lebanon and the Lebanese?
Malik: ‘There is a danger that a secret agreement will be formed between Israel and certain short-sighted Lebanese, leading to a coup d’état in favour of Israel, but such a coup d’état will inevitably lead to chaos, then to Syrian intervention, followed by Israeli intervention, and therefore to a new war, and Lebanon will never come out the winner.’
Is there a greater danger lurking?
According to this premonitory report, there are innumerable dangers. Among these dangers, Malik says: ‘The day will come, and it may be soon, if not already, when nothing in the Arab world will be resolved or settled without Jewish consent, and then governments, systems and people will be maintained or overthrown at the whim of the Jews. A president or head of government will be formed or fall because Tel Aviv and world Jewry based in New York and other Western capitals want it that way.”
So what does the future hold?
Malik goes on to say: ‘The day will come when the Jews will succeed in convincing the West and some of our politicians and thinkers that they are the interface between the West and the Middle East in matters of economics, town planning, culture and politics. The day will come when all the economic, urban planning and rescue projects will be based largely on the Jewish will, aimed at forcing the Arabs to recognise Israel and cooperate with it. These projects will be designed to strengthen primarily Israel’s foundations and make it the cornerstone of the economic edifice and urban progress in the Middle East.”
How can we meet this challenge?
Malik links the factors confronting the Israeli challenge supported by the states of the East and West with the need for a liberating reform movement on an Arab scale. He asks: ‘Where can this liberation and reform movement be born in the Arab world? I doubt very much that any one Arab country can be the forerunner or carry its flame to the others. The only Arab countries left are Lebanon and Syria. I’m certain that the renaissance we want can only happen in Lebanon or Syria, or both. Is Lebanon aware of its responsibilities in this area, and is it prepared to cooperate with the new Syrian regime, without compromising any of its freedoms and independence?”
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Francis Goumain – Translation from a French version
Also available at Barnes & Noble
Also available at Barnes & Noble
