Will Israel join an Arab NATO?

I joined Eugene Puryear and Rania Khalek on their Breakthrough News show The Freedom Side to talk about the latest US efforts to exonerate, justify and cover up Israel’s responsibility for the May killing of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.

The clumsy American effort to get Israel off the hook is only fueling anger over the slaying of the Al Jazeera correspondent. But as I told Puryear and Khalek, it’s not the only example of the United States colluding in the killing and persecution of journalists.

US President Joe Biden is set to travel to Israel, the occupied West Bank and Saudi Arabia this week.

He’s expected to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, who according to US intelligence agencies personally approved the horrifying October 2018 murder and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

During his 2020 election campaign, Biden had vowed to make the kingdom a “pariah” because of the killing.

But the president’s concern for Israel and desperation to bring down oil prices that are driving inflation and a collapse in his approval ratings, ahead of November’s midterm elections, trumps any American pretense of concern for accountability and press freedom.

I also noted the ongoing effort by the Biden administration to extradite Julian Assange, in order to punish the Wikileaks founder for revealing US war crimes and deter others from doing the same.

One of the issues likely to be on Biden’s agenda during his upcoming trip are efforts to form a so-called Arab NATO to bring regional US client regimes into a formal military alliance against Iran.

The new twist, I pointed out, is that Israel may openly participate in such an alliance – possibly in a leading role.

In the meantime, the US is sabotaging negotiations to restore the Iran nuclear deal, while trying to cast blame for failure on Tehran.

We also talked about how the war in Ukraine is affecting the geopolitics of energy: With the European Union desperately trying to reduce its dependence on Russian energy, Brussels is eyeing the huge gas reserves in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Israel’s ability to fully exploit these resources is far from certain, following recent warnings from Lebanon’s main military resistance organization, Hizballah, over Israeli encroachment on Lebanese territorial waters.

You can watch the entire 25-minute discussion in the video at the top of this page.

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The US and Israel have a "bone-deep" relation says bone-headed Joe. "You don't have to be a Jew to be a Zionist," he adds. No, but to support Zionism as practised by the Israeli State since 1948 you have to be a bigot and a racist. There will be a Palestinian State, sometime in the next thousand years or so. What we return to always is the atrocious fact of genocidal removal of long-established populations as settlers follow their vision of election or progress or sturdy individualism or whatever sanitizing name is attributed to slaughter, oppression, expropriation and exploitation. American delusions of grandeur rule the world and in the case of Israel-Palestine condemn the Palestinian people to a life of at least indignity and at worst utter dehumanisation. Biden can see, of course, as can anyone, that a US in which full citizenship was confined to Christians couldn't be a democracy, that it would be racist by implication. Yet when his thoughts switch to Israel, interests take over and reason is kicked into the gutter. Even John Kerry, as Sec of State made the point: theocracy can't be democracy. Why should there be an exclusively Jewish State? By any reasonable standard, it's an outrageous idea. Should there be Islamic States or atheist States? Freedom of belief is absolute but religion and politics are different realms. Politically, there is no argument, except brutality, against people being able to control their own lives. Why not a democratic Israel-Palestine? Well, because we might get another 2006 when Hamas won an election they weren't supposed to. Voting is okay so long as the rich and powerful get the result they want. Truly dismal that the best liberal opinion in the US can produce is a man who gives credence to a vicious regime which brooks no criticism and accuses anyone who whispers against it of Nazism. And all for oil and power.