NATO 2024 Summit: Rampant Hypocrisy

 By Bob Travica

The NATO 75^th annual summit occurred on July 9-11, 2024 in Washington D.C., USA. The war in Ukraine, which has been running since February 2022, dominated the agenda. The war in Gaza, which started in October 2023, wasn’t on the agenda. Around 11,000 civilians died in Ukraine, and at least three times that number in Gaza. The former started with Russia’s response to NATO’s advancement to its borders, and the latter began with Israel’s reaction to small-scale attacks on Israel proper by fighters from Gaza (two million strong Palestinian territory within Israel, which Israel sealed from the land and sea). Russia’s war is against Ukraine’s policies of endangering Russia’s borders, while Israel’s war is against the entire Gaza population (not just the Hamas government’s military) whom most Israelis deem a lower race and terrorists. Russia wants a neutral Ukraine, whereas Israel wants an ethnically cleansed Gaza for Israeli settlers. There are accusations of Israel being an apartheid state by many, including free-thinking Israelis, as well as genocide allegations. But these alarming characteristics of the Gaza war didn’t compel NATO to put it on the agenda. Neither did the similarities between these two wars.

[ “NATO calls out the U.S., as the decisive enabler of Israel’s war on Gaza, to cease all material and political support to Israel’s war effort.” 

The NATO declaration could've read like this, had Gaza been on the agenda,         but it was not. ]

Both the Ukrainian and Israeli governments are backed by the Western powers, most notably the U.S. Both get Western weaponry, surveillance on the battlefield, military training, etc. Neither war would be possible to sustain for longer without the support of NATO countries. Therefore, they could make an impact on the Gaza war should they wish so. Moreover, both wars destabilize large geographical and geopolitical spaces, pose significant security threats, and violate the values alleged by NATO (peace, freedom, stability, democracy, rule of law). Still, NATO remained mute on the Gaza problem as there’s no single cite of “Gaza” or “Israel” in the summit’s declaration (https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_227678.htm). Abundant shouting and rambling about Ukraine happened beside the elephant in the room with the inscription “Gaza”. The aging military alliance chose to celebrate its jubilee in furnishings of smoke and mirrors, covered by hellish-red domes.

Peons on the Eastern Flank

No observer has paid attention to the racial dimension in the Ukrainian war. Russia is the largest Slavic nation (144 million), and Ukraine is the third (38 million). In between lies Poland (40 million) which plays a major role in NATO’s eastward expansion and support to the Kyiv government. In this war, the West succeeded in turning the second and third-largest Slavic nations against the largest one. This is important because there are differences in decision-making stemming from cultural differences between Slavs and Western races (Germanic and Latin).

Roughly speaking, an elevated emotionality outweighing rational reasoning pushes Slavs toward extreme decisions. Specifically, Ukrainian officials don’t balk at the prospect of dragging the world into an all-out war in order to beat Russia; in fact, they invite this! Getting Ukraine into NATO at wartime, would mean that 32 NATO countries would have to come to rescue, no matter that this would most likely cause a devastating nuclear war that would first wipe out Ukraine itself. This standpoint isn’t just irrational but it borders with an intelligence insufficiency.

Enter Poland. It shows eagerness to fight Russians by all means, for example as being the top dog in the American push toward an integrated NATO missile defense system. Throughout its history, Poland had been sandwiched between Russia, Prussia, and Austria, and parts of it were chopped off. So, Poles’ animosity toward the conquering powers was coming in tides. It was turned against Germany which started WWII by attacking and occupying Poland (1939-1945). As Germany lost the war, sympathy turned toward Russians/Soviets who defeated Germans. Poland’s capital was promoted into the formal center of the military alliance of the Eastern block of communist countries: In 1949, the Warsaw Pact was established in response to the formation of NATO. But the period until the disbanding of the Eastern Block germinated an animosity against the former liberators, who over time came to be viewed as occupiers. Since the 1990s, the Polish tide of animosity targeted Russia, while the West (including Germany) was embraced across the board (economy, geopolitics, popular culture, military strategy). A desire for “revenge” against Russia became the backdrop to Poland’s foreign policy and is visible to the naked eye in Poland.

Note that Poland holds grudges against Ukraine due to some territorial disputes and still vivid memories of atrocities that Ukrainian Nazis, serving under the German flag, committed against Poles in WWII. But it appears willing to neglect this temporarily for the sake of the larger vengeful cause. Similarly to Ukraine, it appears that Poland is awaiting the U.S. cavalry to come and deal justice by killing the big bad bear. To the extent that Poland would be targeted by Russia’s nuclear arsenal early on in a war between NATO and Russia, Poland’s decisions aren’t less irrational than Ukraine’s. (Or they may be an effect of film-binging westerns after decades of deprivation.)

Ave, Caesar, Morituri Te Salutant

What about Russia? It certainly fits the Slavic emotional pack: the culture of protecting the grand motherland has been meticulously nurtured across generations of Russians. Even Stalin, a Georgian by nationality, understood that when his propaganda machinery crunched slogans of defending the Russian motherland against Germans in WWII rather than the Soviet Union or communism. There’s no better way to consolidate the Russian nation into a formidable fighting force than with the help of a real foreign threat; Mongols, Swedes, French, and Germans know a thing or two about this. The more NATO presses against Russia’s borders, the more it plays into the hands it tries to cut off.

Cold-blooded decision-makers in NATO’s decision rooms know how to account for nationalistic sentiments in decision-making. In the familiar divide and conquer approach, such a sentiment is an instant yeast for fomenting problems and providing self-serving solutions for them. Eager ears and willing bodies of executioners are ready, awaiting marching orders. Those ready to die are greeting you, Cezar! Cezar of our days, the aged Yankee, who’s six years older than NATO, demonstrated at the NATO summit how he still draws fatal Cold Warrish energy from sending young men to die on the battlefield.

And so, the NATO summit dropped the topic of the devastating war in Gaza, since the master said so. However, it poked China for being “a decisive enabler of Russia’s war against Ukraine through its so-called ‘no limits’ partnership and its large-scale support for Russia’s defence industrial base.” NATO even dared to call out China “to cease all material and political support to Russia’s war effort.” Had Gaza been on the Summit’s agenda, the NATO declaration could also read something like this: “NATO calls out the U.S., as the decisive enabler of Israel’s war on Gaza, to cease all material and political support to Israel’s war effort.”

The key conclusion of NATO’s summit is the promise to Ukraine that it’s on an “irreversible path” to future NATO membership. Ukraine is dissatisfied as there is no clear timetable for this promise, which is actually 20 years old. In fact, there has always been a timetable: Keep fighting against Russia until you reach the line where you fall dead (“deadline”, as ordinary people call it). Too cynical? No, just realistic: Only while being outside NATO can Ukraine be manipulated as an obedient fighting peon to keep straining and weakening Russia. Therefore, the US/NATO will keep fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian. 

As for the Kyiv regime, it can only hope that NATO will continue footing the war bill indefinitely or get tricked somehow to finally engage fully in the war. In any case, such a decimated Ukraine would eventually not be militarily worthy for inclusion in NATO. As for the democratic, economic, and security reforms required again for the membership, the road can even be much longer. It is no secret that Ukraine shares the destiny of the corrupted countries in East Europe, characterized by a strange mix of state, business, and organized crime structures. Therefore, the deadline for joining NATO is practically - never! It would be beneficial for Ukrainians, who awfully suffer, that their government start thinking realistically and cutting losses before these become unbearable. 

The 75^th NATO summit confirmed its historical roots – it’s an instrument of the American empire for holding Europe in a semi-colonial status. The degree of servitude Euro members exhibited by dropping the Gaza topic proves this. Israel is in Europe's backyard and wars in the Middle East endanger Europe's security. The summit also confirmed a newer principle set with the cessation of the Cold War, when NATO transformed into a hot war-mongering alliance. Isn’t this 75^th anniversary also the 25^th anniversary of NATO’s first war of aggression on a sovereign country, FR Yugoslavia? That’s when champions of the New World Order trampled over the international law and global security guaranteed by the United Nations, and imposed an “order” based on “rules” (the champions’ arbitrary decisions). At that point, the history wheel was turned back to the Middle Ages because the master could sue you, and the master could judge and sentence you.

Vivere mori! Live and die much faster with NATO as a custodian of international security.

Move South and Get Out! - Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza

By Bob Travica

On October 7, 2023, the military wing of Hamas committed crimes against Israeli citizens. That's a horrible tragedy. A day after, the Israeli government declared war on Gaza where the Hamas party is in power. We still don't know the real proportion of the October 7^th tragedy nor how it happened. How is it possible that Hamas' long preps escaped Israel's advanced surveillance system? How did long-range rockets get into the sealed Gaza ghetto before the Israeli noses? How come the military and security forces were so asleep on October 7^th? How many Israelis died at the hands of Israeli forces that day, which hit both the militants and their hostages in kibbutzim?

Three weeks later, we are witnessing an unprecedented onslaught of the Israeli military on Gaza, a tiny land strip of 360 square km, that is home to 2.3 million Palestinians. In three weeks of the war, Israel's war machine killed 9,000 civilians, nearly as much as in 20 months of the Ukraine war (1).

The Background

Gaza is practically a ghetto within the state of Israel. Israel created it via concrete walls, barbed wire fences, watchtowers, reflectors, motion sensors, and remotely controlled weaponry. There is a North exit into Israel, a South goods-only exit also to Israel, and one nearby to Egypt. Institutionally, the Gaza Strip is the result of the unsuccessful implementation of the 1947 UN resolution of partitioning the land between Palestinians and Jews after colonial rule ceased. Historically, Gaza was part of the territory called Palestine since the Roman Empire era. Beforehand, Jews originated there and called it the Land of Israel. Arabs settled in the 7^th century and controlled it until Ottoman Turks took over and ruled for five centuries. The Zionist movement was established in Europe in the 19^th century with the mission of reestablishing Israel. That happened in 1948. Jews became "Israelis," and Arabs "Palestinians." The percentage split between Israelis and Palestinians was 30:70 in the combined population of 2.7 million.

The eviction of Palestinians to neighboring countries began right away. There were wars between Israel and its neighbors (Egypt, Syria, Jordan), in which it prevailed and enlarged the territory controlled. In the short 1967 war, Israel occupied Golan Heights, Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, previously controlled by the neighbors (Egypt ruled Gaza). Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem became Palestinian territories under Israel's occupation. In 2005, Israeli forces unilaterally pulled out of Gaza and sealed its borders (so-called "disengagement"). Insecurity and violence continued. There were Palestinian uprisings, suicide attacks in the streets of Israel, firearm battles… There were Israeli raids into Gaza, with thousands killed.

Since 1948, many negotiations, diplomatic maneuvering, declarations, and treaties unfolded. In 1974, the UN reaffirmed the 1947 resolution on land partitioning known as the "two-state solution," reasserting Palestinians' right to self-determination. While some progress was made in stabilizing relations between Israel and its neighbors, no effective resolution to Palestinian statehood has ever been reached. Israel has never accepted the condition of the "two-state solution" to pull out of the territories occupied in 1967, and the nationalists never accepted the idea of an independent Palestinian state as a neighbor.

Today, the Palestinian Territories consist of Gaza and the West Bank, both nested within Israel, numbering 5 million people; over 4 million Palestinians live in neighboring countries, including refugee camps. The Israeli Jewish population has grown 10-fold since 1948, owing to Jewish immigrants from abroad. According to the UN, the West Bank is the Palestinian territory occupied by Israel; this fact doesn't deter Jews from settling there with the support of right-wing forces, such as the nationalist Likud Party now led by Benjamin Netanyahu. "We have nowhere else to go" became the mantra of Jewish immigrants, which expressed both honest patriotism and a neo-colonialist mentality.

Hamas entered the scene in 1987 – a radical party competing with the older Fatah party and defeating it in the 2006 Gaza elections. The U.S. and its allies denied Hamas' legitimacy, branding it a terrorist organization. Still, Hamas established civil and military governance, although it hasn't been the sole force in Gaza. Palestinian political and military players range from the political left to the right. For example, Hamas is not jihadist while Palestinian Islamic Jihad is. 

Enter Iran, a regional player with a long history, and with a unique ethnicity and branch of Islam. Its involvement in regional affairs arises from contemporary ideological and longer-term political ambitions, which are carried out partly by militant agents. Iran has targeted Israel since its turning into a Shia theocracy in 1979, and it funds radicalized Palestinians (military Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad). And the list of interested regional parties doesn't end here; lately, Qatar and Turkey have got aboard by supporting Hamas. 

Finally, more distant "friends" complete the picture - great powers interested in energy resources, weaponry markets for their exports, and military positioning in the strategic geographical space. The prominent ones are the U.S. and Russia/USSR. They back regional players (the US backs Israel, Russia supports Egypt and Syria). Friends request favors that hurt the other side's friends, thus the plot gets even trickier.

Looking at this history, Palestinians appear sandwiched between Israel and their neighbors (Egypt, Jordan, and Syria). Israel is hostile: it doesn't tolerate Palestinians and denies them statehood. Neighbors appear friendly but attach strings: aid is mixed with nudging radicalized Palestinians to punch Israel. Small improvements in the Middle East conundrum are short-lived and pale before the failures in solving the Palestinian issue and the continuous radicalization across the board.

Unpacking Spins

The reporting of Western liberal media is a bit better than in some other conflicts. For example, owing to the BBC, we see pictures of civilian suffering, and get reports of Gaza's authorities. Commentators don't refrain from using critical language in the context of the Israeli military's actions. Still, twisted language is persistently fed to the public and media, creating a biased picture of reality. Here are some examples of such spins unpacked.

As opposed to what we've been told, it is not just the "Hamas terrorists" that resist Israel's onslaught, but a broader coalition of fighters defending Gaza. The blanket label "Hamas" is consistently used to label Israel's enemy even when Palestinian Islamic Jihad commits acts that the Israeli government or media report. This spin may have the purpose of averting the rage of jihadists since Hamas is not part of that camp.

We keep hearing that "Israel has every right and obligation to defend itself." However, Israel formally declared war on Gaza and attacked, so it acted as the aggressor on the Palestinian territory. And the aggressor is apparently aggressive: the world witnesses how it demolishes Gaza, killing indiscriminately babies, children, and adult civilians, and destroying homes, hospitals, schools, infrastructure, everything… So, a true language would be: Israel has every right to attack and destroy with no obligation to anyone or anything.

The Israeli government declares that one strategic goal is "to dismantle Hamas" and "not to target civilians." However, the two tenets are impossible to accomplish in urban warfare within a small place like Gaza. This fact is glanced over by "Hamas uses people as human shields." So, the logical conclusion is that taking on civilians is necessary to get to Hamas (and other defenders). Therefore, the concern for civilians is baloney. 

Consistently with this, the invading aggressor "warns" Gazans to move south allegedly for their safety. To move with no possessions, food supplies, basic sanitation, shelter to count on… Actually, the aggressor just clears the way so it can move faster in its conquest, while Israel's warplanes bombard the south nevertheless. Israeli officials add insult to injury by "explaining" cynically why they shut down Gaza's infrastructure, 'Hamas controls electricity, gasoline, food, so it should release these resources to Gazans – not Israel!'

Since the declaration of "dismantling Hamas and not targeting civilians" doesn't hold water, what is the Israeli military doing really? Obviously, it slaughters Gazans and executes a criminal strategy aiming at ethnic cleansing. In the process, Gazans are severely punished, and Gaza is destroyed and made unlivable. Surviving Palestinians are to be pushed out of Gaza and Israel, probably to Egypt,  as envisioned in a leaked government document (2) and statements of some Israeli politicians. The Netanyahu nationalist government is engaged in a merciless revenge and criminal land-grab. Period.

But what about avenging the claimed 1,400 deaths and rescuing 240 hostages, as claimed? The revenge appears bottomless until the destruction and ethnic cleansing are completed. So, Israel's actions are totally disproportional to the cause of war. Indeed, this is the revenge-and-rescue spin with the purpose of whitewashing the government's failure in defending the country on October 7. The government gaslights the shocked citizenry by putting all the blame on Hamas and turning Israelis into busy, vengeful warriors. Catastrophic mistakes and incompetence are disguised by calls for retaliation and saving hostages.

"Saving hostages" is actually just another spin. The actions of the Israeli government show absolutely no care for hostages. Caring would've been demonstrated by continuing negotiations for the hostages' release in exchange for Palestinians jailed in Israel, rather than pouring 10,000 air strikes in three weeks, that endanger the hostages and enrage the kidnappers. We still need to learn how many hostages died at Israelis' hands. (3)

Duplicity Unmasked

What do powerful Western allies advise Israel? Publicly, we hear claims that the Israeli authorities are urged to avoid civilian casualties. But Israel's response has been only to increase the mayhem; 9,000 civilians were murdered in three weeks of the invasion. Israel doesn't budge: even when cautiously warned of violating laws of war, it continues terrorizing civilians from the air and on the ground. So, it follows that Israel disobeys the U.S. and other allies? Wow! But does this make any sense? Support of the U.S. is crucial for Israel (political backing internationally, military aid, deterring Hezbollah and Iran, and engaging in a broader war should it erupt).

Because it makes no sense that Israel would risk weakening/losing this support, we may assume that, behind closed doors, the U.S. officials advise something different than what they say publicly and the media is readily parroting. All the American shuffle diplomacy amounts merely to defending Israel and endeavoring to pacify the interested parties by pretending to be concerned with Palestinian civilians. The U.S. has gotten used to civilian "collateral damage" in its many wars, hasn't it? To the extent that the effects of Israel's war against Gaza qualify as war crimes or genocide, Israel's allies are accountable as well. Undoubtedly, they will use their political influence to ward off such accountability at the time of reckoning.

Israel doesn't take Palestinians as a party to negotiate with and make deals; they can't be trusted or respected as citizens and owners. Israel plans the future for Palestinians on its own, and ridicules them as "children of darkness" (Netanyahu), human animals (the minister of defense Yoav Gallant), monsters (former minister Galit Distel Atbaryan), barbaric, medieval, rats, snakes, savages... (4) Who talks like this, if not a party that views its counterpart as a lower race? This is called racism in the older vocabulary or "dehumanization" today. It implies that Gazans play no role in strategizing about the future; they must be deprived of any means of self-defense, murdered, or kicked out.

We should pause at this point and think about a broader historical picture. It suggests that history in this case repeats as a paradox. Under zionist governments, Israel has inflicted on Palestinians such policies that are eerily similar to those that Nazis imposed on Jews decades ago in Europe. This time though the tables are turned: racist Israelis terrorize Palestinians. History may be repeating also regarding the Jewish deep belief that "the whole world is against us." Sadly, the apocalyptic carnage inflicted upon Palestinians in Gaza cannot help but turn the world against Israel. One can only be sorry for those Israelis and Jews elsewhere who oppose the Gaza aggression and don’t deserve such blame.

Even much softer criticism than this one enrages warmongers in Israel and right-wingers in the West. They strive to stamp "antisemitism" on any attempt at looking at history or showing concern for the Palestinian plight. The right-wing politicians and media brand millions of protestants around the world demanding a ceasefire in Gaza as "pro-Hamas" and "supporters of terrorists." The former U.S. President Trump promises that, if reelected, he'll gag "antisemitism" and cancel citizenship of politically incorrect immigrants. Right on, a revealing support from the mouth of a white supremacist! People who are blinded by rage, defensiveness, or prejudices can't grasp any of these conclusions. But these do follow the principle of giving the same respect to all the people, Palestinians and Jews alike.

The war in Gaza is a culmination of the Middle Eastern vicious cycle of violence blocking the way for resolving the problem of Palestinian statehood. It's delusional to expect that the "dismantling of Hamas" will prevent the emergence of new militants. On the contrary, the terror and obliteration of Gaza will undoubtedly extend the spiral of radicalization and violence into an unforeseeable future. Perhaps that's exactly what warmongers on both sides want. How else could they survive?

A Tel-Aviv social psychologist Bar-Tal, a researcher of mass psychology in Israel, said: "An analysis of the present situation indicates that with the exception of a small minority, which is capable of looking at the past with an open mind, the general public is not interested in knowing what Israel did in Gaza for many years, why Hamas came to power in democratic elections; how many people were killed in Gaza from the disengagement (in 2005)…" (5). No, this is not a characterization of the present war: the statement is from 2009!

1) https://tinyurl.com/5xz4ty4b

2) https://tinyurl.com/2vu9uhzm

3) https://tinyurl.com/5n7jv9hs

4) https://tinyurl.com/awzt2xxx

5) https://tinyurl.com/jdnutrbs