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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://popularresistance.org/israel-us-gaza-plan-stares-us-in-the-face/">popularresistance.org</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Israel-US Gaza Plan Stares Us In The Face</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">By Jonathan Cook, Consortium News.</div>
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<div class="gmail-reader-estimated-time">May 2, 2024<br></div>
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By Jonathan Cook, <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2024/05/01/israel-us-gaza-plan-stares-us-in-the-face/" rel="noopener">Consortium News</a>. </span>
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May 2, 2024 </span>
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<a href="https://popularresistance.org/category/educate/">Educate!</a> </span>
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<p>Above photo: Smoke and flames billow after Israeli forces struck a
high-rise tower in Gaza City, Oct. 7, 2023. Palestinian News and
Information Agency, Wafa, in contract with APAimages.</p>
<h2>The media is pretending the West’s efforts to secure a ceasefire are serious.</h2>
<p><strong>But a different script has clearly been written in advance.</strong></p>
<p>One does not need to be a fortune-teller to understand that the Israel-U.S. game plan for Gaza runs something like this:</p>
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<p>In public, Biden appears “tough” on Netanyahu, urging him not to
“invade” Rafah and pressuring him to allow more “humanitarian aid” into
Gaza.</p>
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<p>But already the White House is preparing the ground to subvert its
own messaging. It insists that Israel has offered an “extraordinarily
generous” deal to Hamas – one that, Washington suggests, amounts to a
ceasefire. It doesn’t. According to reports, the best Israel has offered
is an undefined “period of sustained calm”. Even that promise can’t be
trusted.</p>
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<p>If Hamas accepts the “deal” and agrees to return some of the
hostages, the bombing eases for a short while but the famine
intensifies, justified by Israel’s determination for “total victory”
against Hamas – something that is impossible to achieve. This will
simply delay, for a matter of days or weeks, Israel’s move to step 5
below.</p>
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<p>If, as seems more likely, Hamas rejects the “deal”, it will be
painted as the intransigent party and blamed for seeking to continue the
“war”. (Note: This was never a war. Only the West pretends either that
you can be at war with a territory you’ve been occupying for decades, or
that Hamas “started the war” with its October 7 attack when Israel has
been blockading the enclave, creating despair and incremental
malnutrition there, for 17 years.)</p>
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<p>Last night US Secretary of State Antony Blinken moved this script on
by stating Hamas was “the only thing standing between the people of Gaza
and a ceasefire… They have to decide and they have to decide quickly”.</p>
<p>The U.S. will announce that Israel has devised a humanitarian plan
that satisfies the conditions Biden laid down for an attack on Rafah to
begin.</p>
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<p>This will give the U.S., Europe and the region the pretext to stand
back as Israel launches the long-awaited assault – an attack Biden has
previously asserted would be a “red line”, leading to mass civilian
casualties. All that will be forgotten.</p>
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<p>As Middle East Eye reports, Israel is building a ring of checkpoints
around Rafah. Netanyahu will suggest, falsely, that these guarantee its
attack meets the conditions laid down in international humanitarian law.
Women and children will be allowed out – if they can reach a checkpoint
before Israel’s carpet bombing kills them along the way.</p>
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<p>All men in Rafah, and any women and children who remain, will be
treated as armed combatants. If they are not killed by the bombing or
falling rubble, they will be either summarily executed or dragged off to
Israel’s torture chambers. No one will mention that any Hamas fighters
who were in Rafah were able to leave through the tunnels.</p>
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<p>Rafah will be destroyed, leaving the entire strip in ruins, and the
Israeli-induced famine will worsen. The West will throw up its hands,
say Hamas brought this on Gaza, agonise over what to do, and press third
countries – especially Arab countries – for a “humanitarian plan” that
relocates the survivors out of Gaza.</p>
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<p>The western media will continue describing Israel’s genocide in Gaza
in purely humanitarian terms, as though this “disaster” was an act of
God.</p>
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<p>Under U.S. pressure, the International Court of Justice, or World
Court, will be in no hurry to issue a definitive ruling on whether South
Africa’s case that Israel is committing a genocide – which it has
already found “plausible” – is proved.</p>
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<p>Whatever the World Court eventually decides, and it is almost
impossible to imagine it won’t determine that Israel carried out a
genocide, it will be too late. The western political and media class
will have moved on, leaving it to the historians to decide what it all
meant.</p>
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<p>Meanwhile, Israel is already using the precedents it has created in
Gaza, and its erosion of the long-established principles of
international law, as the blueprint for the West Bank. Saying Hamas has
not been completely routed in Gaza but is using this other Palestinian
enclave as its base, Israel will gradually intensify the pressures on
the West Bank with another blockade. Rinse and repeat.</p>
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<p>That’s the likely plan. Our job is to do everything in our power to stop them making it a reality.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Jonathan Cook</strong> is an award-winning British
journalist. He was based in Nazareth, Israel, for 20 years. He returned
to the U.K. in 2021.He is the author of three books on the
Israel-Palestine conflict: Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the
Jewish State (2006), Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran
and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (2008) and Disappearing
Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair (2008). If you
appreciate his articles, please consider offering your financial
support.</p>
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