THE GHOSTS OF GAZA

 

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Voici une série de cinq affichages publiés sur le réseau X, écrits au cours des trois premiers jours de mai, sur la guerre de Gaza.

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(Article écrit le mercredi 1er mai, au sujet d'un texte paru dans le site australien Pearls & Irritations)

Cruel, but true.

America will fight Russia to the last Ukrainian, and also... sell tons of weapons to Israelis to help them kill tens of thousands upon tens of thousands of defenseless Palestinians, mostly women and kids.

All in the name of Western Democracy, human rights, common decency, and all that...

https://johnmenadue.com/well-reward-you/

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(Article écrit le jeudi 2 mai 2024, relativement à un texte paru sur le site DefenseNews)

The Emiratis are turning their back to the Americans, going as far as allowing the construction of a Chinese military base near Abu Dhabi, on the shore of the very important Arabic Gulf. They also clearly favor China and France over the US in matter of advanced arms procurement.

The Saudis are not in the same configuration, apparently giving a chance for a defence pact with the US, likely as an hedge against Iran, despite the China-enginerred rapprochement with Tehran last year. It is quite possible that the start of the Gazan War caught them by surprise, the same way it caught everybody else by surprise, and made them think twice about China, and also about the economic group called the BRICS, which they still have not joined officially...

https://www.defensenews.com/global/mideast-africa/2024/05/01/emirati-f-35-prospects-languish-amid-high-stakes-chinese-us-courting/

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(Article écrit le vendredi 3 mai 2025, en réaction à un texte publié sur le site Watcher Guru)

Interesting. The new currency will essentially be a trading one, to be used not internally, inside the economy of each of the member states, but externally, between them (or between most of them, India being possibly a special case).

That currently will probably be based on the value of gold, fluctuating according to its change in value. It may eventually be adopted collectively by the three Sahelian countries (Mali, Nuger, Burkina Faso) that are actively looking for an alternative to the franc CFA.

From there, it may spread among the other countries of West Africa, those who also used the franc CFA and possibly also those who do not (Guinée, Ghana, etc.). West Africa, as much of the rest of that continent, has huge deposits of gold.

The fate of the war should then have an important bearing on Saudi Arabia: will it choose the West, that is to say America, or will it choose the BRICS, that is to say China? It is possible that the Gaza war, which erupted in October of last year, and took everyone by surprise, had the effect of putting that invitation on hold. Saudi Arabia is actively sought by America to conclude a peace treaty with Israel in exchange of a defense pact with the US.

Notice that the picture at the top of the article is misleading. It shows eleven flags. It probably was taken just after the Johannesburg meeting of last summer, when six new countries were invited to join the then five members of the BRICS. Of those six invited countries, one (Argentina) held elections in the fall, and the president elected choose to refuse the invitation. Another one (Saudi Arabia) has still not formally accepted the invitation.

https://watcher.guru/news/brics-makes-huge-announcement-about-launching-new-currency

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(Article écrit le vendredi 3 mai 2024, concernant un texte du journal Le Monde)

Voici un article bien documenté et très complet sur les visées israéliennes concernant la bande de Gaza, advenant une issue à cette guerre qui serait favorable à l'État hébreu.

D'ores et déjà, il semble clair que Jérusalem souhaite démanteler et reconfigurer le territoire gazaouï à long terme. Le corridor militaire de Netzarim délimite une portion qui est sans doute destinée à l'annexion immédiate, sur le modèle de Jérusalem Est, en ce sens que les Palestiniens y vivant encore seraient présumément privés de la citoyenneté israélienne et des droits s'y rattachant, incluant le droit de vote.

Toute cette portion du territoire gazaouï serait ouvert à une opération de repeuplement massif visant à attiter le maximum d'Israéliens possible, afin de faire des Palestiniens encore présents une minorité. Le front de mer serait sans doute consacré à un développement israélien intensif et dense, tandis que Gaza-ville serait reconstruite selon une formule de peuplement mixte, avec des quartiers palestiniens isolés entre eux.

Cela dit, l'ancien site des colonies juives, pré-retrait de 2005, puis agrandi récemment pour accueillir la masse des évacués à venir, laisse croire qu'Israel s'attend à y entasser le maximum possible de Palestiniens, à l'intérieur de ce qui deviendrait un genre de ghetto dont l'administration civile pourrait être laissée à une quelconque instance locale, indépendante du Fatah ou du Hamas, dont la docilité serait exigée en échange d'une ingérence israélienne minimale). La nouvelle zone de sécurité serait probablement remplacée par une série de points de passage intérieurs, afin de limiter et contrôler les déplacements des Palestiniens hors de ce secteur de Gaza-Nord.

Le sort de Gaza-Sud, entre le corridor de Netzarim et le Sinai égyptien, est plus difficile à évaluer. La guerre se poursuivant, il est probablement hasardeux, pour Israël, de préciser ses intentions en cas de victoire l"offensive attendue de Rafah n'ayant même pas encore eu lieu. Plus au sud, par contre, la nouvelle zone de sécurité serait sans doute conservée telle quelle, mais durcie et renforcée, ainsi que prolongée le long du corridor de Philadelphie.

Le manque de continuité territoriale avec le Sinai interdirait l'arrivée d'armes de contrebande et l'accès à la mer permettrait la tenue d'activités de pêche compensant en partie l'absence de terres cultivables.

La population palestinienne serait tenue dans la dépendance et soumise à une gestion locale inféodée à -et contrôlée par- l'administration civile israélienne, tout en étant tenue sous la surveillance constante des forces armées de l'État hébreu.

Dans ce scénario, le reste de Gaza-Sud pourrait possiblement être annexé par Israël et voué à des activites agricoles visant à nourrir la population captive voisine... Il suffirait d'entourer cette population par des murailles solides, renforcées par deux ou trois bases militaires dont le rôle serait essentiellement de prévenir, contenir et repousser les rébellions et autres incidents du type de ce qui est survenu le 7 octobre 2023.

Ainsi, les 2,2 millions de Gazaouïs deviendraient une population essentiellement captive, relevant de l'État hébreu, soumise à sa volonté et coincée dans un territoire encore plus petit que la bande de Gaza originelle, un territoire qui s'apparentait à une sorte de gigantesque camp de réfugiés, une prison surveillée jour et nuit et conçue pour que l'on ne puisse s'en échapper qu'en mourant...

Une telle formule n'a rien d'impossible, étant donné l'indéniable supériorité militaire d'Israël au plan des armes conventionnelles, sans même parler de son arsenal nucleaire.

Par contre, on devine bien qu'elle accompagnerait d'un boycott généralisé de la part des pays arabes, de même que de nombreux pays musulmans non arabes, tout en créant une bombe à retardement dont l'explosion pourrait se révéler encore bien pire que le massacre du 7 octobre 2023...

https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2024/05/03/comment-israel-remodele-la-bande-de-gaza-selon-ses-besoins-securitaires_6231297_3210.html?lmd_medium=email&lmd_campaign=trf_newsletters_lmfr&lmd_creation=a_la_une&lmd_send_date=undefined&lmd_email_link=a-la-une-points-forts-lire-la-suite&M_BT=43784327392868

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(Article écrit le vendredi 3 mai 2024, à propos d'un texte de la revue américaine Foreign Affairs)

The idea of a regional forum for the Middle East, on the model of the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), is very interesting and full of potential, but does little to put an end to the Gazan War.

Yes, the US has more important concerns on its mind, right now, like what to do about China, and won't be able to solve the Gazan problem. But it must also be said that it has let itself become part of that problem, since its concern is mainly with the safety of Israel, not the well-being of the Palestinians people, the big losers of the sionist dream.

The fact remains that only a two states solution has a fighting chance of bringing long-term peace in that long-suffering region. Palestinians are not figure-heads, or puppets, or abstract ideas, but flesh and blood beings who are currently treated like cattle, not like citizens, and who are forced to live in an apartheid-like, unfair system, with apparently no way out.

Given the present circumstances, it seems that the US, Europe, the Muslim countries, and China will be unable to bend the Israeli determination of not giving an inch to the Palestinians. Mainly because of its powerful army and its nuclear bombs, Israel will likely emerge victorious in this war unless something unexpected happens.

For justice to have any sense, there has to be a solution. The integration of the whole territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, the old British mandate of Palestine, into a single political entity, where all the inhabitants will have the same political rights, is a possibility, but is is likely to remain a pipe dream, simply because most Israelis will hesitate to relinquish their sovereignty in exchange of being simply a part of a bi-national country where Hebrew-speaking Jews and Arabic-speaking Muslims will be about equal in numbers.

It doesn't mean that all hopes are lost for the Palestinians. It is highly probable, in such an event, that an anti-Israeli economic boycott will spontaneously spread among the population of the neighboring countries. It is also quite possible that the current far-right Israeli government will fall at the next elections, the Israeli society being deeply divided about it.

Long-term economic pressure may achieve what Hamas tried to accomplish with its surprise, sudden, bloody attack. It took decades to get rid of the deeply unjust South African apartheid system that used to make the greater part of the population of that land non-citizens, ghosts in their own country, just like the Palestinians of today.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/middle-east/fix-middle-east-united-states

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(Ajout du 10 mai 2024)

The expanded el-Mawasi safe area is probably where Israel plan to park the survivors after the war, in a sort of very dense ghetto where the civilian population will likely be dependant on food produced on Israeli soil or provided by the UN. The rest of the Strip, in all likelyhood, will be slated for annexation and eventual resettlement by Israeli people, first in the north, around Gazaville, then in the south. Notice that the expanded safe area is not touching the Egyptian border in order to interdict all contact with the outside world. So, what was often described as the largest open air jail in the world would stay much the same, only smaller in area...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68983436

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PLUS:  @charles.millar3 (X-Twitter)