Great Game

Greater Middle East

Regional war looms closer after Golan rocket strike

Israeli warplanes hit several targets in southern Lebanon, as diplomats worked frantically to prevent a regional war after a rocket strike that killed 12 youths in the Golan Heights. Israel is blaming Hezbollah for the rocket, which struck a football field in the Druze village of Majdal Shams. Hezbollah has denied responsibility, asserting that a projectile from Israel’s own Iron Dome missile defense system hit the village amid strikes on military targets elsewhere in the area by the Iran-backed Lebanese armed organization. Israel and Hezbollah have been trading strikes over the Lebanese border since Oct. 8, a day after the start of the war in Gaza. Israel has killed 527 people in Lebanon since then, according to an AFP tally, including at least 104 civilians. Israel says 23 of its civilians and 17 soldiers have been killed by Hezbollah rocket-fire over this period. (Image: Pixabay)

Palestine

Fatah and Hamas sign unity declaration in Beijing

Meeting in the Chinese capital, senior leaders from Fatah and Hamas as well as 12 other Palestinian factions signed a joint statement, the “Beijing Declaration to End the Division & Strengthen Palestinian National Unity,” calling for establishment of an “interim government of national reconciliation” with a focus on post-conflict reconstruction of Gaza. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi described the event as an “historic moment for the cause of Palestine’s liberation.” Asserting that “‘Palestinians governing Palestine’ is the basic principle for the post-conflict governance of Gaza,” Wang called for an international peace conference to advance a two-state solution. Israel quickly rejected the agreement, with Foreign Minister Israel Katz saying that Hamas’ rule in Gaza “will be crushed.” (Photo: PRC MFA)

Syria

Continuing fallout of Syria’s forgotten war

News of Syria’s war often makes it seem like the conflict is in the past. Take the announcement that US officials in Los Angeles had arrested Samir Ousman al-Sheikh, a Syrian military official who ran Adra prison outside Damascus, infamous for torture, and later served as governor of Deir ez-Zor province, where he oversaw a violent crackdown on protesters after the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad broke out in 2011. Al-Sheikh was arrested for immigration violations, and has not been charged with war crimes. But the war is ongoing, and rights groups report continuing reprisals and collective punishment against people who oppose (or once opposed) Assad in recaptured areas. (Map: PCL)

East Asia

China and Russia launch joint naval exercise

Chinese and Russian naval forces have begun a joint exercise at a southern Chinese military port, China’s Ministry of National Defense announced. The “Maritime Joint-2024” exercise is taking place off Zhanjiang, Guangdong province, on the South China Sea. The operations encompass reconnaissance, anti-submarine warfare, anti-missile and air defense maneuvers. This naval cooperation unfolds against a backdrop of mounting tensions between China and NATO allies. At their Washington summit, NATO members designated China as a “decisive enabler” of Russia’s war in Ukraine, citing the two nations’ declared “no-holds-barred partnership” and China’s support for the Russian defense industry. (Map: Google)

Africa

Uranium at issue in Great Game for West Africa

The ruling junta in Niger revoked the operating license of French nuclear fuel producer Orano at one of the world’s largest uranium mines. Russian companies have meanwhile indicated interest in picking up the lease for the giant Imouraren mine. However, exports are stalled by closure of the border with Benin, the vital sea corridor for landlocked Niger, as tensions mount between the two countries. The uranium dispute comes as French and US troops have been forced to withdraw from Niger, and Russian forces have moved in. The Pentagon’s AFRICOM commander Gen. Michael Langley has acknowledged that the US is seeking to establish new bases in neighboring West African countries, including Benin. (Map: World Sites Atlas)

East Asia

Russia-DPRK defense pact: Cold War redux

Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a mutual defense assistance pact during Putin’s first visit to Pyongyang since 2000. According to a statement from the Russian government, the Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership stipulates “mutual assistance in the event of aggression against one of the parties thereto.” Article 4 of the pact states: “If either side faces an armed invasion and is in a state of war, the other side will immediately use all available means to provide military and other assistance.” While full details were not made public, this appears to revive provisions of the 1961 treaty between the Soviet Union and North Korea that stipulated automatic military intervention if either nation came under attack. (Photo: gfs_mizuta/Pixabay via Jurist)

Southeast Asia

Maritime collision escalates South China Sea tensions

Manila accused Chinese military vessles of engaging in “dangerous manoeuvres, including ramming and towing” a Philippine ship in an effort to disrupt a “routine” resupply mission to an outpost on Second Thomas Shoal (known to the Philippines as Ayungin Shoal) in the the disputed Spratly Islands (known to the Philippines as the Kalayaan Islands). By Philippine media accounts, the craft was fired upon with water cannon and boarded by Chinese troops, with several Filipino soldiers injured in the ensuing confrontation. The skirmish came amid escalating tensions over the South China Sea—much of which Manila calls the West Philippine Sea, but nearly all of which is claimed by Beijing. The chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, Romeo Brawner Jr., stated that the military and other maritime law enforcement agencies are prepared to defend Filipino fishermen from China’s newly announced “anti-trespassing policy.” (Map via IDSA)

Europe

Baltic brinkmanship amid NATO war games

Sweden’s armed forces charged that a Russian SU-24 fighter plane violated the country’s airspace just east of the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea, calling the act “unacceptable.” Just days before the incident, Sweden and other NATO allies were conducting naval exercises in the area as part of the annual Baltic Operations drill (BALTOPS). Amid the exercise, the Finnish military reported a similar airspace violation by four Russian warplanes over the Gulf of Finland. This was the first time Sweden and Finland had taken part in BALTOPS. (Photo: NATO)

Greater Middle East

Podcast: from Palestine to Western Sahara

Benjamin Netanyahu’s gaffe on French TV, displaying a map of the “Arab World” that showed the occupied (and illegally annexed) Western Sahara as a separate entity from Morocco, sparked a quick and obsequious apology from the Israeli Foreign Ministry. But the snafu sheds light on the mutual hypocrisy at work here. There is an obvious hypocrisy to Moroccan protests that demand self-determination for the Palestinians but not the Sahrawi, the indigenous Arab inhabitants of Western Sahara. The hypocrisy of Israel is also obvious: Israeli commentators and hasbara agents are the first to play the “whataboutery” game—relativizing the plight of the Palestinians by pointing to that of Kurds, Berbers, Nubians, Massalit and other stateless peoples oppressed under Arab regimes. But, as we now see, they are just as quick to completely betray them when those regimes recognize Israel and betray the Palestinians. Yet another example of how a global divide-and-rule racket is the essence of the state system. Bill Weinberg breaks it down in Episode 229 of the CounterVortex podcast. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo: Kirby Gookin/Western Sahara Resource Center)

Greater Middle East

Netanyahu’s new map flap: multiple ironies

Israel was forced to apologize to Morocco after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was seen in a video displaying a map of the Middle East and North Africa—that failed to show the occupied (and illegally annexed) territory of Western Sahara as within the kingdom’s borders. Netanyahu brandished the map in an interview with a French TV channel, showing what he called “the Arab world” in green, a swath of near-contiguous territory from Iraq to Mauritania—contrasting small, isolated Israel, “the one and only Jewish state.” The goof was especially dire because in 2020 Israel joined the US as the only two countries on Earth to recognize Moroccan annexation of Western Sahara, in exchange for Moroccan recognition of the Jewish state under the Trump administration-brokered Abraham Accords. This was a cozy mutual betrayal of both the Palestinians and Sahrawi Arabs, the indigenous inhabitants of occupied Western Sahara. (Image: Twitter via Middle East Eye)

Africa

Podcast: a cannabis coup in the Congo?

The attempted coup d’etat in the Democratic Republic of the Congo may or may not have been assisted by the CIA, but one of the Americans arrested in the affair is named as a “cannabis entrepreneur“—pointing to the possibility of legal cannabis playing the same destructive role in Central Africa that bananas have played in Central America. Yet while corporate power sees a lucrative new cash crop, lives (and especially Black lives) are still being ruined by cannabis prohibition in the United States. In Episode 228 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg argues that the old anarchist slogan “Neither your war nor your peace” can be updated as “Neither your prohibition nor your legalization!” Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Map: CIA)

Africa

Senegal PM broaches ejecting French military

The new prime minister of Senegal, Ousmane Sonko, announced the possibility of closing French military bases in the West African country in a national address. During his speech at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, Sonko expressed his concerns about the French role throughout the West African region. He stated: “More than 60 years after our independence we must question the reasons why the French army still benefits from several military bases in our country, and the impact of this presence on our national sovereignty and our strategic autonomy.” (Map: PCL Map Collection)