Mouin Rabbani Profile picture
Jan 29, 2024 39 tweets 6 min read Read on X
THREAD: There have been a number of important developments over the weekend.
Three US soldiers were killed, and several dozen wounded, in a drone attack on a US military/intelligence base known as Tower 22 in northeastern Jordan, the region where the borders of Jordan, Syria, and Iraq meet.
The Jordanian authorities continue to insist that the attack was in fact directed at the US base in Tanf in southeastern Syria rather than Tower 22, because it does not want to draw unnecessary attention to the highly unpopular US military presence on Jordanian territory.
The US deployment is regulated by the 2022 US-Jordan Memorandum of Understanding on Strategic Partnership, which gives Washington virtually unlimited rights to use Jordanian territory for US military purposes, and the Jordanian treasury USD 1.45 billion per year for seven years.
The attack is significant for a number of reasons. Although there have been numerous attacks on US bases and forces in the Middle East since 7 October 2023, including in Iraq, Syria, in the Red Sea off Yemen, and according to unconfirmed reports Israel as well,
these are the first confirmed killings of US soldiers in the region since that date. (Two Navy SEALS died off Yemen’s coast recently, but it was reported as an accident). It is also the first confirmed attack on or from Jordanian territory since 7 October.
Responsibility for the attack was claimed by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a coalition of groups aligned with the Axis of Resistance, itself a coalition of states and movements in the region opposed to US-Israeli hegemony in the Middle East.
According to the statement of responsibility the attack, apparently launched from Syrian rather than Iraqi territory, is intended to raise the cost of Israel’s genocidal onslaught on the Gaza Strip and US support for Israel’s mass killings.
“If the US keeps supporting Israel, there will be escalations. All US interests in the region are legitimate targets and we don’t care about US threats to respond.” The expulsion of US forces from Iraq and Syria is an additional, unspoken objective.
In his own statement about the incident, US President Joe Biden blamed “radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq”.
White House spokesperson John Kirby will probably be trotted out to deny any connection whatsoever between developments in Jordan and Gaza, much as he has done in relation to attacks by Ansar Allah off Yemen’s coast, which even more explicitly reference the Gaza Strip.
Given US casualties, Washington is virtually certain to respond to this escalation with a significant escalation of its own. This in turn brings direct conflict between the US and Iran one big step closer, from plausible but unlikely to plausible and possible.
Powerful forces in both the US and Israel have been agitating for such a scenario since 7 October, and will now see a new opportunity to make this a reality.
The broader significance is that US forces are now dying in defense of Israel. Throughout this war Washington has had a clear choice: put an end to Israel’s genocidal onslaught on the Gaza Strip, or engage in conflict with regional forces determined to do so themselves.
Given Israel’s extraordinary level of military and political dependence on the US, so visibly demonstrated these past several months, it would take only a brief phone call to achieve the former. But the Biden administration has consistently chosen for the latter.
In the words of @asadabukhalil : “The US does not want a cease-fire in Gaza and objects to the regional repercussions of its rejection of the ceasefire.”
@asadabukhalil That’s not how the US-Israeli relationship is supposed to work. Israel is the designated proxy, assigned to defend Western interests in the Middle East. A “stationary aircraft carrier”, in the words of former US Secretary of State Alexander Haig.
@asadabukhalil Instead, the US is functioning as Israel’s proxy, now fighting on multiple fronts, its soldiers dying to defend Israel and protect its ability to continue fighting in the Gaza Strip. This is because for more than 100 days, Israel’s longest war since 1948-1949,
@asadabukhalil it has proven incapable of defeating Hamas, a second-order guerilla movement that doesn’t possess a single aircraft, tank, warship, or anti-aircraft defense system. Its long-range missiles basically need to make a direct impact on an individual’s forehead to achieve a kill.
@asadabukhalil As previously argued, Israel’s military incompetence and mediocre performance will have long-lasting consequences for its strategic relationship with its Western sponsors.
@asadabukhalil To put it simply, t-shirts emblazoned with an Israeli fighter jet and the slogan “Don’t Worry America, Israeli is Behind You!” used to popular among visiting tourists. I suspect they can now be obtained at a steep discount.
@asadabukhalil Related to this, a rally was held in Jerusalem today to promote the expulsion of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and renewal of Israeli settlements in that occupied territory. It was attended by no less than 12 of Israel’s 37 government ministers (almost a third),
@asadabukhalil including several leaders of parties represented in that state’s genocidal coalition. Two of Israel’s most senior leaders, Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir and Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich, addressed the raucous and adoring crowd of several thousand.
@asadabukhalil Ben-Gvir leads Otzma Yehudit (“Jewish Power”), a Kahanist party that is Israel’s equivalent of Germany’s Nazis. Bezalel Smotrich is the leader of Tkuma (Religious Zionist Party), also Israel’s equivalent of Germany’s Nazis.
@asadabukhalil One thing that distinguishes these parties (and a few others) from others in Israel is their insistence that Israel is sufficiently powerful to act unilaterally and do as it pleases, and sufficiently independent to give the world, including Israel’s sponsors in the US and Europe,
@asadabukhalil the middle finger. That’s why they convened this meeting within 48 hours of the International Court of Justice session indicating that Israel has plausibly been accused of genocide.
@asadabukhalil The above notwithstanding Ben-Gvir and Smotrich have the mannerisms of spoiled children more than seasoned gangsters. Insufferable kids who feel free to grab or break anything they want at the store because they know Mummy and Daddy are there to take care of things,
@asadabukhalil and clean up any resulting mess. In other words, they talk big but know they can only do so because Biden and Brussels have their back. And on this score they’re right.
@asadabukhalil Which brings me to UNRWA. Several of Israel’s sponsors, including the US and UK, have suspended their funding of the UN refugee agency for Palestine refugees in response to unproven allegations that several of its employees participated in the attacks on Israel on 7 October.
@asadabukhalil It’s a bit like cutting off aid to a foreign country because a dozen of its civil servants have been charged (but not yet tried) for participation in criminal activity.
@asadabukhalil There’s much going on here, including a long-term campaign to liquidate the Palestinian refugee question, in which UNRWA serves as a primary surrogate for US-Israeli hysteria. And a history of previous Israeli allegations against UNRWA subsequently exposed as fraudulent.
@asadabukhalil (For example, a 2014 drone video released by Israel of two UNRWA medics purportedly using an ambulance to transport Hamas missiles was later revealed to be two UNRWA medics transporting a stretcher into an ambulance.)
@asadabukhalil But when it comes to UNRWA, a rush to judgement is obligatory, the agency is guilty until proven innocent, and then still guilty.
@asadabukhalil The Israeli allegations were transparently released to divert from the ICJ ruling. The response of multiple Western governments should also be seen as a response to the ICJ.
@asadabukhalil In their rules-based international order, it is a violation of international law to apply international law to Israel or Western states.
@asadabukhalil South Africa dares to hold Israel accountable for genocide? Let’s see what it thinks when we deliberately intensify hunger and famine in the Gaza Strip.
@asadabukhalil I’ll conclude by citing the comment of @sarahleah1, former head of MENA at Human Rights Watch and currently Executive Director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN):
@asadabukhalil @sarahleah1 “It took Blinken about 3 seconds to suspend UNRWA aid based on mere allegations that 12 employees linked to Hamas attack,
@asadabukhalil @sarahleah1 but despite evidence that IDF has indiscriminately & deliberately massacred tens of thousands of Palestinians – plausibly a genocide ICJ said – zero suspension of military aid”. END

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Mouin Rabbani

Mouin Rabbani Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @MouinRabbani

Apr 2
THREAD: I have on several occasions pointed out that Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a fraudster who invented her origin story out of thin air. Like other immigrants who embrace far-right politics, she is motivated by a combination of opportunism, self-promotion, and callous, gratuitous contempt for those who genuinely experience the challenges she falsely claims as her own. Combine with the requisite insecurity, identity crisis, and burning desire to be accepted by the dominant culture, add a hefty dose of insufferable narcissism, et voila, the far-right immigrant template is complete.
I wrote the below in 2006, in response to a disingenuous defence of Hirsi Ali by the unlamented Christopher Hitchens. At the end of this thread I provide a link to the documentary that I reference in this thread. The link is to a copy of the Dutch documentary with (accurate) English subtitles, and I can’t recommend it highly enough for those unfamiliar with the sheer scale and brazen nature of Hirsi Ali’s fraud. Here’s my 2006 text:
Christopher Hitchens's most recent defence of Ayaan Hirsi Magan (aka Ayaan Hirsi Ali), "Dutch Courage", published in Slate on 22 May 2006, was – judging by the reference to a 19 May 2006 New York Times op-ed by Ian Buruma, completed on or after that date. Yet it fails to account for a slew of facts that were by then public knowledge. Together with other facts that have been in the public record for considerably longer, these collectively either undermine or reverse many of Hitchens’s assertions:
Read 22 tweets
Mar 18
THREAD: As of this writing, intensive Israeli air raids and shelling throughout the Gaza Strip has killed more than 350 Palestinians, and wounded hundreds more, in the space of several hours. How did we get here?
In January the incoming Trump administration forced Israel to accept a ceasefire proposal that had been largely formulated by the Israeli government and unveiled in late May 2024 by US President Joe Biden.
At Israel’s insistence it was not a comprehensive agreement that would see each party simultaneously implement all of its obligations in reciprocal fashion, but rather a process consisting of three stages.
Read 25 tweets
Mar 6
THREAD: After absorbing the unwelcome news Wednesday morning that their American idol, Donald Trump, is negotiating directly with Hamas, Israel flunkies became positively ecstatic when the US president later that day issued an apocalyptic and indeed genocidal threat against “the People of Gaza”: If Hamas does not immediately, and presumably unconditionally, release all the remaining captives in the Gaza Strip along with the corpses it holds, “you are DEAD”. What are we to make of these very contradictory developments?
To its credit, the Trump administration has ventured where its Democratic predecessor never contemplated going: negotiating with not only its Israeli proxy but also its Palestinian adversary in order to achieve an agreement.
Speaking to all parties involved in a dispute is of course standard diplomatic practice, particularly where resolution of a crisis that has consumed tens of thousands of lives is concerned. Palestine has been one of the rare exceptions to this template. Washington for decades refused to negotiate with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) until it jumped through a succession of increasingly narrow hoops, and in fact recognized the PLO only after Israel did so in 1993.
Read 9 tweets
Feb 13
THREAD: It seems the Israeli-Palestinian exchange of captives that had been scheduled for this weekend but was suspended by Hamas this past Monday is now back on track. What happened? The short answer: Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, caved.
As I noted in my previous thread, Hamas on Monday stated that it was indefinitely suspending the further exchange of captives in response to repeated and escalating Israeli violations of the January agreement between the two parties. Israeli officials, cited in the Israeli press and at the tail end of a NYT article, confirmed the validity of Hamas’s accusations.
I had earlier also noted that Hamas was responding to Israel’s refusal to engage in negotiations on the second stage of the three-part January agreement, to new proposals put forward by the Israeli prime minister that sought to comprehensively revise what had already been negotiated and concluded between the two parties, as well as to US President Donald Trump’s harebrained scheme to permanently expel the Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip to the Arab world. The latter scheme, needless to say, renders the entire agreement meaningless and irrelevant.
Read 23 tweets
Feb 11
THREAD: On Monday 10 February Abu Ubaida, spokesperson of the Martyr Izz-al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, announced that the movement was indefinitely suspending further Israeli-Palestinian exchanges of captives on account of repeated and continued Israeli violations of the agreement reached between the two in January of this year.
While Israel has indeed been violating the agreement in various ways, there is also more to the story. Most importantly this concerns Israel’s refusal to commence negotiations on the the agreement’s second phase, and US President Donald Trump’s recent proposal for the forcible mass expulsion of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to the Arab world.
The January agreement between Israel and Hamas is about more than an exchange of captives. At Israel’s insistence, it comprises three phases rather than one. During the first phase, scheduled to last 42 days (until the beginning of March) a limited exchange of captives and suspension of hostilities will be accompanied by a partial Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, freedom of movement within the territory for displaced Palestinians, and surge of urgently-needed humanitarian supplies.
Read 19 tweets
Feb 8
THREAD: The three Israeli captives released on 8 February appeared emaciated, pallid, and in need of medical attention. The Palestinian organizations that held them were under an absolute obligation to treat them in accordance with international law. That includes a prohibition – also absolute – on taking captive civilian non-combatants, because such individuals are considered hostages rather than prisoners-of-war.
The primary responsibility for any harm to civilian hostages rests with those who took them hostage and did not comply with their obligation to release them, immediately and unconditionally. They should never have been placed in a situation that exposed them to prolonged confinement, or to the deliberate attempts by Israel to murder them to prevent their captivity, or to the hunger, thirst, and lack of medical care resulting from Israel’s comprehensive, genocidal siege of the Gaza Strip, or to Israel’s efforts to kill them during their captivity to reduce Hamas’s bargaining power.
Whatever culpability Israel and its Western sponsors have for the suffering and killings of civilian hostages in the Gaza Strip – and that culpability is very considerable – it does not absolve those who took them hostage from their own responsibilities, or exempt them from accountability.
Read 12 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(