Kim Jang-min | Political Economics Research Institute PNYX
1. Why is Israel a treasure of the USA?
Israel is giving a pretext for the West to interfere in the Middle East by causing conflict between Christianity and Islam in the Middle East. In other words, the West played a guard game in the center of the Middle East to block the establishment of the Islamic Empire.
The Jews were discriminated against in Europe, but with their status improving with the develop-ment of commerce and industry, the Jewish issue drew attention. Napoleon proposed, in 1799, the creation of a state for Jews in Palestine. The Dreyfus Affair that occurred in France in 1894 made Jews aspire to build a utopia. Jewish author Theodor Herzl, born in Austria, hosted the 1st World Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897 under the banner of building a Jewish state in Palestine.
Queen Victoria and the US president Woodrow Wilson also supported Zionism. At the end of the Ottoman Empire, of the 500 thousand Palestine population, Jews were only 20 thousand. The first Aliyah (returning to Canaan) started as the minority of Jewish Russians naturalized to Israel, when pogroms (Jewish persecution) occurred in Russian Empire.
Churchill, who occupied the Middle East during WWI, divided southern Syria based on Jordan, and the western part is today’s Palestine. However, the UK promised to bring it back to the Arabs through the McMahon declaration in 1915. At the same time, it promised to allow Jews to construct a state in the region through the 1917 Balfour declaration.
According to the 1922 population research in the Palestine region, the Jews were 80 thousand and this number was only 1/7 of the Muslim population, but their immigration gradually increased. Arab uprisings occurred frequently in this area, until the liberation from UK occupation after WWII. To suppress them, the UK organized and armed more than 20,000 Jews in a defense organization called Haganah. It led to military conflicts between Arabs and Jews.
In 1947, the UN divided the region into an Arab zone, middle zone and Jewish zone, but the Arabs protested. After the UN decision, Jews around the world swarmed in the Palestine region to build a community based on Zionism. After the Holocaust became known to the world, anti-semitism was weakened, and Jews actively took advantage of this in the process of establishing the state of Israel.
According to the establishment of Israel and subsequent Palestine issue, in 1948, the war occurred between Israel and the 5 Arab country alliance force: Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, etc. The US did not actively support Israel in the early stages of the war, because it regarded Jewish settlements as similar to Soviet ones. Rather the USSR supplied weapons to Israel through Czech with the expectations to make Israel an anti-UK state. Israel had a tough game at the beginning, but as the US changed its position during Sweden’s mediation, and supplied weapons to Israel—the tide has turned.
In 1956, the second Middle East war began as Israel occupied Suez Canal in Egypt, which was abetted by the UK and France who wanted to rule the Canal. In exchange for it, Israel got nuclear weapon technology from France. It was followed by the UK and France invasion of Egypt, while the US moderated by taking Egypt’s side. After the Suez War, the UK and France were subordinated to the US diplomatically. In 1979, ownership of Egypt on the Suez Canal was established by Israel and Egypt normalizing diplomacy.
On June 8, 1967, during the Third Middle East War, the intelligence gathering ship, Liberty, a part of the US Navy’s Sixth Fleet, sank in high seas off the coast of Egypt, after being bombed and torpedoed by Israeli fighter jets for more than an hour, and 34 killed and 172 injured. The aircraft carriers Saratoga and America, a 10-minute away by flight, were about to launch retaliatory strikes against Israeli planes and ships, but President Johnson ordered them to stop. According to a secret report of the CIA revealed in 1977, the Israeli defense minister Dayan gave the order to sink the Liberty despite the opposition of other generals. The pilot of a combat plane who refused to attack it because he knew it was the US craft, was detained for disobeying.
This incident showed how important the US considers Israel. The US did not want a war against its friendly nation, Israel. Furthermore, the US was planning to remove the prohibition of exporting weapons to Israel, so the US government did not want the arms export to fall apart. During president Carter’s term, Israel agreed with the US to pay 6 million dollars in compensation to the bereaved families.
In 1973, the Fourth Middle East War began as Egyptian president Sadat formed an allied force with Arab countries including Syria, and invaded the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights occupied by Israel. Israel was losing at the beginning, but the table turned as the US helped besieged Israel. The USSR supported Egypt. The US operated more than 5 thousand air transportation operations to save Israel. As the Israeli army attempted to occupy the Suez Canal, the US and the USSR faced with direct risk of war. The US and USSR, concerned about an all-out war, implemented an arbitration plan through UN, the war was halted.
2. Palestine Issue
Palestine consists of West bank and Gaza strip. In 1848, right after the Israeli War of Independence, the Palestine government was established by Arab league. However, when the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel merged West bank and Gaza strip. In 1988, Yasser Arafat from the Palestine liberation organization (PLO), declared establishment of Palestine in Algiers. Within the PLO, there are several political parties and organizations including FATAH (Palestinian National Liberation Movement) led by Arafat, and Hamas, etc. After Arafat, Hamas became the majority in the PLO.
According to Oslo Accords in 1993, Israel and the PLO made an agreement on establishing Palestine within 5 years. Additional transition negotiations could not proceed due to the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by extreme ultra-right wings in 1995 and Hamas’s suicide bombing attack in 1996. In 1996, Benjamin Netanyahu was elected as Prime Minister in general election, and he signed the peace treaty, in turn, he resigned due to it. In 2009, Netanyahu returned as Prime Minister and refused to implement peace agreement in fact.
On November 29, 2012, the United Nations General Assembly voted and passed a resolution to upgrade the status of Palestine from an observer ‘entity’ (without voting rights) to an observer ‘state’. On April 19, 2024, a resolution was submitted to the Security Council recommending formal membership for Palestine, which was granted ‘observer state’ status, by Algeria at UN, and 12 of 15 member states, including Japan, supported it, but the UK and Switzerland abstained, and the US vetoed. Therefore, the resolution was rejected. The US defines not only Hezbollah but also Hamas as terrorist organizations and imposes sanctions on them. The US is only formally supporting the two-state solution decided by the UN. Israel has opposed to the two-state solution since its dominance was secured. Unless there is a change in US attitude, there is no chance for Israel to recognize Palestine as a state.
Palestine is currently recognized by 136 UN member states. Palestine has adopted dual executive system, in which a president exists alongside a prime minister. In the 2005 presidential elections, Fatah won a landslide victory with 67% of the vote. However, in the 2006 general election, Hamas won 44% of the vote, defeating Fatah by 3%, and especially they won an overwhelming victory in Gaza strip.
Fatah is a moderate that favors the two-state solution and a secularist party that demands the separation of religion and state. On the other hand, Hamas is a Sunni Islamist and nationalist party, as well as a paramilitary organization. Hamas opposes the two-state solution, seeks to oust Israel, and advocates for the unity of religion and state as an Islamic state. Hamas was founded in 1987 and got public support for its armed struggle against Israel. However, the PLO and Israel declared the 2006 general election null and void, and the State of Palestine was divided into the West bank ruled by Fatah and the Gaza Strip ruled by Hamas. Following the division, Israel removed settlements from Gaza Strip and built a wall to seal it off. Armed conflict has been ongoing since then.
3. Background of the Gaza War and the Possibility of the Fifth Middle East War
More than 500 Hamas commandos neutralized Israel’s wall by air infiltration and transferred 220 hostages to Gaza. Israel’s official death toll from Hamas attacks is 1,200, mostly civilians. Hamas hurt Israel’s pride by inflicting the biggest damage ever. Hamas has 20,000 standing forces and 20,000 reserve force. Israel has mobilized 350,000 including reserve forces. As of the end of January 2024, more than 28,000 Palestinians have been killed since the beginning of the war, and 219 Israeli soldiers have been killed. In the Fourth Middle East War, 2,600 Israel soldiers were killed.
The source of the war in Gaza is US strategy of dominating the Middle East and Israel that is a parasite on the US. On the other hand, the phenomenal background is the resistance to Israel’s complete siege on the Gaza Strip, the challenge to the US-Israel-Fatah dominant order, Hamas’s improved status, and the exchange of hostages for the 5,500 Palestinian political prisoners (including 113 child prisoners) in Israeli jails.
Through the US-led Abraham Accords of 2020, Israel signed agreements to normalize diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain, and is pursuing similar agreements with Saudi Arabia. If Israel normalize the relations with Middle Eastern countries, Iran and Hamas will be further isolated diplomatically, so it is needed to rebuild the anti-Israel front in the Middle East. The US is unable to take a hard line because of the war in Ukraine, and there is also some expectation of lateral support from Russia and China, which are confronting the US.
The reason why the war expanded is the fascist, Zionist Netanyahu regime, the incumbent government of Israel, is playing hardball for internal unity as it faces the prospect of losing office in the wake of the largest anti-government protests in its history by repressing the judiciary. Of the 120 seats in Israel’s parliament, Netanyahu’s party took only 32, so they formed coalition government with an ultra-right party.
Public opinion in Israel supported punishing Hamas at first, but as the release of the hostages was delayed, damage to the Palestinian side increased, and blame from international society was intensified, as the result, they are condemning the government’s responsibility and demanding an end to war. The Israeli government needs to maintain the war to stay in power, but it is waging a moderate-intensity war due to domestic and international public opinion and the opposition of the US, which wants to focus on the war in Ukraine and competition with China.
Israel’s goal is not to retaliate, but to annihilate Hamas. The rules of engagement were relaxed so that when enemy soldiers and civilians are mixed, the civilians can be treated as enemies and attacked. Hamas is the democratically elected ruling power in Gaza, and is based on Islamic fundamentalism and anti-Israel sentiment, so eradicating Hamas is an unrealizable goal for Israel. The far right wants to attack Rafah which is the last Hamas stronghold in Gaza.
The expansion of the war can be viewed by dividing into the West Bank, Lebanon, Iran, and other Middle Eastern countries. The Gaza War began as a war between Hamas, a non-state actor, and Israel, which escalated into a war between Lebanon’s Hezbollah, also a non-state actor, and Israel. Hezbollah has military capabilities that surpass those of the Lebanese regular army and holds 11 of the 30 seats in parliament.
According to the New York Times, Iran has used 185 drones, 36 cruise missiles, and 110 surface-to-surface missiles to attack Israel. Iran has 3,000 ballistic missiles, with a range of more than 2,000 kilometers, and can reach the entire Middle East. Iran provides drones and missiles to pro-Iranian militants, and has legal trade in missile parts and technology with Russia and China. As Iran and Israel have attacked each other’s homelands, the Middle East has escalated from a shadow war, a proxy war, to an inter-state war, but neither side is willing to expand it.
Iran has no intention of going to war with Israel right now because it wants to escape economic sanctions and has a long-term goal of developing a nuclear weapon. Instead, it will continue to wage proxy wars against Israel through pro-Iranian militants in Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. If Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz, either directly or through militants in Yemen, to increase pressure on the West, oil prices are expected to spike.
Palestinians in the West Bank have gone on strike several times since the war broke out in Gaza. With the general strike on April 21, shops, banks, and schools in the West Bank were shut down and public transportation was halted. The Israeli government promised to return occupied West Bank land and withdraw Israeli troops under the 1993 Oslo Accords, but has not withdrawn its forces since, citing ‘the protection of Israeli settlers’. Since the mid-2000s, it has illegally expanded its territory by building an 8-meter-high concrete separation barrier between settlements. The construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank is a violation of international law, and the UN Security Council adopted a resolution in 2016 calling on Israel to suspend settlement construction. Netanyahu expanded settlements, and the Jewish population in the West Bank exceeded 500,000. The Palestinian population in the West Bank is 2.7 million. Far-right members of the cabinet, including Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, are inciting violence by arming Jewish settlers, arguing that Palestinians should be expelled from the West Bank.
Since many of the Israeli hostages have dual citizenship, so both people are the parties involved the Gaza war. Both counties want the Gaza war to stop because they are tired of the coronavirus and the war in Ukraine. The West wants to deal a blow to Russia by focusing on the war in Ukraine.
Egypt and Syria are the main players in the current Fourth Middle East War. However, Egypt has formal diplomatic relations with Israel, having signed a peace treaty in 1979. Both Hamas and Hezbollah are labeled terrorist organizations, so it is difficult to support them. Syria is unable to wage war against Israel due to its long civil war. Islamic countries in the Middle East are reluctant to go to war, but could take a hard line against Israel if anti-government protests escalate against them. Therefore, Middle Eastern countries are working with the United States to stop the war to avoid being caught in an awkward situation.
4. The Gaza War and the Risk of World War
A world war is a war between blocs of allies. The United States is strengthening its military alliances, such as NATO in Europe and Quad in Asia, and combining them. On the other hand, Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, etc. are sympathizing with one another and expanding their cooperation, but they are only low-level US fronts and have not reached the level of alliances. In addition, global war requires multiple regional fronts, which are already underway in Ukraine and Gaza, and military tensions are rising in Taiwan and the Korean Peninsula. According to US operational plans, military exercises near enemy countries such as Taiwan and North Korea are low-intensity warfare. Economic sanctions and blockades are also low-intensity warfare.
The United States is fighting a proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, an economic war with China, North Korea, and Iran, and a low-intensity war on Taiwan. The war in Gaza is also a proxy war between Islamic forces and Christian forces centered on the US. In this respect, the world has already entered a low-intensity global war, and there is a risk of World War III if the cold war turns into a hot war in Taiwan and the Korean Peninsula. However, given the existence of nuclear weapons and the interdependence of the world system, the likelihood of a full-scale hot war between the United States, China, and Russia is low. Even if an all-out war between the US and China, and Russia is unlikely, the chances of a hot war in the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan are higher than ever.
The likelihood of an all-out war on the US mainland is not even comparable to the likelihood of an all-out war on the Korean Peninsula. In terms of controlling even a one percent chance of war, a military confrontation on the Korean Peninsula carries a very high risk of war.
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It is an outline of his speech at the panel discussion in session 3.
1. Has World War III begun?
1) The war in Ukraine shows that in the age of nuclear weapons, a world war without the use of nuclear weapons is quite possible. In other words, a world war in the age of nuclear weapons can be a war of attrition, not only a war of annihilation. The imperialist alliance of NATO in Europe, Israel in the Middle East, Korea, Japan, and Australia in Asia, with the United States as the centerpiece, is virtually complete, evident by the USA-Japan-ROK alliance, the AUKUS, and the QUAD. Against this, North Korea, China, Russia, and Iran are forming a counter-alliance centered on the North-Russia and North-China alliances.
2) Hot wars have begun in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, and low-intensity wars are underway in Taiwan and the Korean Peninsula. The USA and Russia are fighting a proxy hot war in Ukraine, not a Cold War. Russia is conducting tactical nuclear launch drills in response to NATO intervention. The USA and China are engaged in economic warfare and low-intensity warfare in Taiwan and the South China Sea. Operational Plan 5030 is a low-intensity war plan that creates a war situation from time to time to deplete the enemy’s resources. Large-scale military drills without advance notice also induce a total response posture, including aggressive acts that provoke war, such as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident in Vietnam, the Pueblo Incident, the EC-121 shootdown incident, the failed shooting down of the SR-71 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft, and the violation of North Korean airspace by stealth aircraft F-117 and F-22.
3) As Joti Brar points out, World War II began long before Germany’s annexation of Austria, occupation of the Czech Republic, and partition of Poland in 1938, with the Spanish Civil War in 1936 and the Japanese occupation of Manchuria in 1931. When World War III entered full swing with the outbreak of hot wars in Taiwan, the South China Sea, and the Korean Peninsula, history would likely mark its beginning as the war in Ukraine.
2. Cold War or Hot War?
The current situation is much graver than the Cold War between the USA and USSR since a hot war started in Eastern Europe and has spread to the Middle East, and a low-intensity war is now ongoing in Northeast Asia. The USA and Russia are fighting a hot war. The war in Ukraine is destroying the US-China-Russia global division of labor. During the Cold War, the USA and the USSR never fought a war on each other’s borders. In the Middle East, the US proxy regimes and anti-US Islamic factions are at a hot war. The USA and China haven’t concluded their economic warfare and are engaged in a military confrontation, i.e., low-intensity war, over Taiwan and the South China Sea.
On the Korean Peninsula, large-scale invasion drills by South Korea, the USA, and Japan have raised the risk of conventional war. In response, North Korea has launched a large number of missile tests of various advanced strategic and tactical nuclear missiles aimed at South Korea, the USA, and Japan. North Korea has simulated strikes on the US mainland, Guam and Hawaii, US military bases in Japan, and Yongsan, Gyeryongdae in South Korea. The USA and South Korea have been practicing retaliatory strikes against these launches to strike the launch sites immediately.
