Palestinians Want Peace: Will Netanyahu Agree on Terms Acceptable To Hamas?

Palestinians Want Peace: Will Netanyahu Agree on Terms Acceptable To Hamas?

                                                                                    Saeed Naqvi

There is a growing school of thought that the West, led by the US, is fighting with its back to the wall in West Asia and Ukraine not to obtain victories in these theatres but to protect Western hegemony now in free fall.

All eyes are on Trump, how will he cope with this predicament? By erecting safety nets to cushion this fall or by making fortress America great again, lapped by the two oceans. The latter course implies less interest in foreign expeditions. This would hit Israel where it hurts.

For the past 40 years at least US foreign policy has been navigated by Israel or Israeli interests. Should Washington begin to look inwards, Israel will become the tail with no dog to wag.

It is a foregone conclusion that the West has lost in Ukraine, pending the final agreement to bring about peace. Remember Defence Secretary Lloyd Austen’s most self assured statement: “We want to weaken Russia.” There was modesty in Austen’s utterance compared to Senator Lindsay Graham’s bombast: “Lets assassinate Putin.”

A reversal like Ukraine in the heart of Europe was bad enough. Even more mortifying are electoral verdicts coming out of central Europe. That which Donald Rumsfeld proclaimed was “New Europe”, America’s very own carved out of the former Soviet Union, was now turning its back on the West.

Results are pro Russia, anti NATO and EU. It is another matter that every result causes the pro west losing candidate to throw a ginger fit. “Fraud” chants the crowd mobilized towards this end. As my leftist wag remarks: “democracy is legitimate only when people vote for the West’s agenda.”

However galling it might be for the Western media, all truth cannot be suppressed forever. It must have been with a heavy heart, the Editor of The Economist cleared the headline for its January 11, 2025 issue.

“Putinization of Central Europe.”

The editorial sheds copious tears at the “rise of Herbert Kicked, leader of Austria’s hard-right Freedom Party.” The writer of the edit mollifies himself that Austria is a country of only 9 (nine) million. But come the German elections in February, Europe’s largest country is expected to bring the far-right alternative for Germany to power. What then?

Another, of the same ilk as Victor Orban of Hungary, Robert Fico of Slovakia, is Andrez Babis who is likely to win in the Czech Republic. This is not all. Lost to the West are Georgia, Moldova, Romania and more coming. How long will Emanuel Macron of France, menaced by the fascist Marine Le Pen on the right and a powerful Communist-Socialist coalition on the left, keep playing one against the other without going under.

The rout in Europe would have demoralized all those busy shoring up US and Israeli interests in the many conflicts in West Asia in which the spider in the web is the Jewish state.

Given their current score in Europe, who knows the Russians may have struck a clever bargain by keeping away from the mess that Syria is guaranteed to descend into. Their bases in Latakia and Tartous are intact. A tired Bashar al Assad, politics thrust upon him by his elder brother’s death, can now attend to his wife’s cancer in Moscow.

Moreover, by creating the illusion that Assad has been handed to them as a trophy, the US-Israel combine might see a stimulated victory. This will enable them to come out of the blinding rage which impelled them into the world’s only genocide on live television. They are impaled on the world’s TV screen as blood thirsty men.

Ofcourse, October 7, killing of 1,200 people, the taking of 200 hostages was a huge provocation. Surely Yahya Sinwar and his compatriots did not calculate that October 7 would bring them victory, a Palestinian state. It was a trap. It was an invitation so the Israel-US could expose themselves as genocidal murderers, atleast one of them, Israel, certified as such by the International Court of Justice.

When lady Macbeth would not stop washing her hands after Duncan’s murder, Shakespeare had created a woman, hard as nails, and yet human enough to break down with guilt. But Benjamin Netanyahu, his far right colleagues, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich are of another ilk. During the monstrous war, how many times were Palestinian described as “amalak” who have to be blotted out of Jewish holy lands.

Now that peace is nigh, people will ask: who won? The western narrative is already in full spate: Hamas and Hezbollah have been thoroughly “degraded”. Iran has been weakened and the Palestinian resistance groups no longer have Syria as the conduit for arms from Iran. It is against this weakened lineup the Hamas has been compelled to sue for peace.

The other narrative sees this line of thinking as western propaganda. After all the reason that Netanyahu sustained his genocidal destruction of Gaza for so long was because his war aims had not been fulfilled. Even today neither has Hamas been destroyed nor have the hostages returned.

Also, Hezbollah is nowhere near being defeated. Israelis have not returned to their homes in northern Israel. The number of Israelis fleeing Israel because of the seemingly endless war. How many Israeli soldiers killed?

Peace is not a good time for the belligerent who has had to conceal the truth.

At the first inkling of a ceasefire, the Palestinians in Gaza came out dancing in jubilation on the debris and mangled steel which was once their home. They have nothing to hide. Their tragedy was seen by millions worldwide.

The mood was somber on the Israeli side. Should peace really descend, skeletons will come rattling out of shelves and cupboards. The people want peace, but do the leaders?

Neo cons encircling Trump (all Israel’s proxies) are fixated that Riyadh reach out to Jerusalem. Abraham Accords are their panacea for the region. First, Mohammad bin Salman is unlikely to ditch China and Iran in one dark move. Supposing he does, he will demand the Palestinian state as a pre condition. What then Netanyahu?

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The Syrian Gold Rush: Difficult Counting Trekkers

The Syrian Gold Rush: Difficult Counting Trekkers

                                                                                       Saeed Naqvi

The multitudes who trekked the tricky path for the Alaska Gold Rush mostly came a cropper. What fate awaits the punters who have made a beeline for the Syrian casino will become a wee bit clearer when President Trump ascends the Washington gaddi on January 20. The US, Israel, Tukey, HTS, a stream of European countries have their hats in the ring. Iran, Iraq, Lebanon are relatively passive.

Some unexpected names are in circulation again – Eric Prince, the founder of Blackwater, the world’s biggest contractor for mercenary armies. In 2017, during Trump’s first term, Prince had submitted a lengthy project report to “privatize” the military management of Afghanistan.

At the very outset, the project should have been turfed out of hand as moronic, but the lamentable fact is that the document did find traction upto the White House, through the agency of Trump’s close adviser Steve Bannon before he was shown the door. The Pentagon ultimately put the project through the shredders.

The Afghanistan project may not have taken off. This does not mean that Prince has been grounded. He now lives in the UAE, has been active in disturbed places like Libya. How could Syria not be a magnet for a businessman filled with the Spirit of adventure and faith in American capitalism?

We have the testimony of the Wall Street journal that the Trump team is already in touch with Prince on a matter concerning Ukraine. Prince is being nudged to buy Motor Sich, a Ukrainian aircraft engine manufacturer to prevent a group of Chinese companies from acquiring all the sensitive goodies that go with Motor Sich.

American adventurers being asked to buy up Ukrainian assets? Is the loot on? The incoming President has already gone public: he wants to own the Panama Canal, Greenland and Canada. Why not add Syria to the list?

Who sired Hayat Tehrir al Sham?

Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin and Eric Prince may have known Abu Mohammad al Julani who mutated into Ahmed al Sharaa and is now the leader of Hayat Tehrir al Sham. HTS itself an amalgamation of various Sunni, Takfiri groups once Jabhat al Nusra which was in guerrilla combat with the official Syrian Army eversince the civil war broke out in 2011 just when the Arab Spring gathered pace in the Arab world.

The late King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, coming out of convalescence from a German clinic, was stunned to find his friends Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia ousted by their people. To stave off popular resentment against his regime, he showered $136 billion on his people in cash payments and welfare schemes.

He then went about lobbying for a coalition for dismantling the Shia arc – Iran, Syria, Hezbollah (Southern Lebanon) and Hamas in Gaza, all under US auspices. Israel, the spider in all West Asian webs, is by western custom, never mentioned when plots are revealed.

There was a difficulty in the Shia arc from the beginning. It was a misnomer. Yes, Iran is Shia, but Syria is predominantly Sunni with a variant of Shias, the Alawis, a minority elite group who control military power. Islam in Syria and Iraq was tempered by Baath socialism founded in 1947 by Michel Aflaq (a Christian), Salah al-Din al-Bitar (Sunni) and Zaki al Arsuzi (Alawi/Shia). It was at core Arab nationalism, tied to socialism and anti Imperialism.

In 1952, Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egypt was similarly structured. This concert of Arab nationalism and socialism with an anti imperialist slant was always going to be hugely inconvenient to a theocratic, Zionist state plus America.

The Israel national security state required a solid enemy, not socialism and nationalism but something more like rampaging Islamism, potential of terrorism built into it. 9/11 should be made out to be a credible possibility, the stuff that makes propaganda copy writers salivate.

Nasser with his secularism made way for Anwar Sadat, with his Muslim Brotherhood background. That became the perfect counterpoint – one theocracy in conversation with another. Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem was the seed from which sprouted the idea of Abrahamic accords.

From Sadat’s Islam, reared in the ranks of the Akhwan, to Ahmed al Sharaa who mutated from Abu Mohammad Ali Julani and who was a true blue terrorist until the other day, Israel is now surrounded by every possible variety of Islam.

The world opens up for Mercenaries.

Yes, to revert to mercenary supremo, Eric Prince who may well have monitored the career of a star mercenary like Sharaa. When Ashton Carter was the Secretary of Defence, he had assigned Lloyd Austin to train and equip Syrian militants to strengthen the opposition to Bashar al Assad. Could Sharaa be one of the youth he trained? The $500 million project flopped so badly that Lloyd Austin was severely grilled by a Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs. “How many of those you trained are still fighting in Syria?” a Senator asked him. Austin was tongue tied. On persistence questioning, he opened up. “Four or five may still be fighting.”

During the chaotic American involvement in the Syrian civil war, troops trained by the US walked away with military hardware and joined Jabhat al Nusra, the brutal terrorist group. The clip of the Senate hearing was on e-span as was Defence Secretary Carter’s Press Conference.

Another chapter with Afghanistan?

Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri broke his duck with Afghanistan at the right moment by meeting Amir Khan Muttaqi Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister in the neutral turf of Dubai. Indians did not quite clamber onto the same helicopter which ferried ousted President Ashraf Ghani to Dubai but the Indian embassy staff fled in double quick time. Without the US and Ghani crutches, Indians felt unsafe among Afghans.

When President Obama announced phasing out of troops, the argument against the move offered by General Stanley McCrystal says something of our standing among Afghans. “India’s socio economic development creates problems. It detracts Pakistan from helping our war on terror.” That was a decade ago. But New Delhi was not convinced even then.

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Manmohan Singh: Decency in Public Life

Manmohan Singh: Decency in Public Life

                                                                       Saeed Naqvi

The spontaneous outpouring on Dr. Manmohan Singh’s death reflects on the widespread yearning for decency we have lost lot in public life.

I remember with affection the occasion when he turned up at the Habitat Centre for the screening of a collection of short films on composite culture – e.g. Abdul Rahim Khanekhana’s Sanskrit verse on Lord Rama, Hasrat Mohani’s adoration for Krishna committed to verse in Urdu, Awadhi and Braj Bhasa; Munshi Chunnilal Dilgir’s pre Anis Marsias on the tragedy of Karbala and so on.

He waited for the audience to thin, then waved to me. “What a beautiful country we are spoiling.” He surprised me by repeating a couplet with which every episode in the series opened:

“Uske farogh e husn se jhumke hai sub mein noor

Sham e haram ho ya ki diya Somnath ka”

(His light permeates all;

The lamp in Kaaba; the diya at Somnath.)

“That’s Mir Taqi Mir” I said.

“I read poets other than Iqbal also” he laughed.

Second Term: Third power centre

Manmohan Singh second term, beginning 2009 was something of a surprise to him. Before the result, the Prime Minister had begun to advise his confidantes to look for other pastures. But the increase in the number of seats from 145 in 2004 to 206 in 2009 was attributed to a certain “youth surge.” The expression boosted Rahul Gandhi’s standing. This created problems for the party managers. The bipolarity at the top, the Congress President and the PMO, was already preoccupying pundits. Was Rahul, riding a supposed Youth surge, likely to be the third power centre?

Biting his finger nails, Ahmad Patel would talk of Rahul like he had seen an apparition. A suggestion gained currency that Rahul should be absorbed in the Union Cabinet. This would be just the sort of apprenticeship which would equip Rahul for the bigger stage being planned for him. Would that not have given him the slot he needed?

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 Indira Gandhi: Absorb dissenters in cabinet

Congress President during the emergency Deb Kant Barua once invited Rishi Kumar Mishra, Editor of Patriot for a hush-hush conversation on the lawn of his house where there was no fear of the exchange being bugged. Furtively a crumpled piece of paper, names of three Congress leaders scribbled on it, was handed to Mishra. Indira Gandhi needed Mishra to find out with some urgency their ideological antecedents, specifically “how close were they to the Americans.” Remember, this was not long after Congress President Shankar Dayal Sharma’s obsession with the ubiquitous “foreign hand”.

Mishra’s self esteem boosted by such abundant faith in his resourcefulness by the most powerful leader in the land, spurred Mishra to swift action! As he dug deep into his Top Secret assignment and found himself nearing the end of the tunnel, he received a high voltage shock one morning. The three names in the crumpled piece of paper adorned page one headlines in the newspapers. The three had been absorbed in the Union cabinet.

A cheated Mishra turned up at Barua’s office seething with rage. Anticipating the storm that was about to break, threatening the glass top table, Barua held him by the hand shared with Mishra his most succinct interpretation of the apparent double cross.

“One way to monitor recalcitrants in the party was to sterilize them in the cabinet system.”

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The excitement about Hungarian – American billionaire George Soros trying to do in India what the US is doing elsewhere – bring about regime change – takes my mind back to Donald Trump’s first term, 2016 to 2020. A huge influence in the White House in Trump’s earlier months, Steve Bannon, spent months, after giving up his White House job, across western democracies identifying Right Wing leaders like Marine Le Pen (France), Nigel Farage (UK), or Bolsario (Brazil), who would easily fit into the category of fascist for some future global coalition. At about the same time George Soros, the other capitalist ideologue was searching for the “liberal” like a needle in a laystack.

A Soros story I value is set in the Bosnian war 1992-96. During this calamitous war, was played out the siege of Sarajevo, Bosnia’s capital – a year longer than the siege of Leningrad and the longest siege of any capital city in history.

A story of brave journalism that deserves to be celebrated, annually if possible, concerns Sarajevo’s oldest newspaper, Oslobojema. How did the journalists of this newspaper manage to produce the daily regularly, without fail for the 1,440 days that the siege lasted and during which over 15,000 people were killed?

When we asked for the address of Oslobojema, people in Sarajevo pointed their finger in one direction. We scanned the horizon without being able to see any building.

There was no building to be found, only a huge heap of a debris. This must have been a multistoried structure. From beneath the debris light shimmered like lamps in a graveyard. It was a trek not a walk through broken brackets and slanted slabs of cement and concrete. I was able to recognize the editor, Kemal Kurspahic from our meeting at the Non Aligned Summit in Belgrade in 1989, a year before Yugoslavia broke up, leading to the Bosnian war of which the siege of Sarajevo was the crowning tragedy.

Kemal was no longer a lively, gregarious journalist, strong of elbow, knocking back an improbable rounds of schnapps. Now he had a mark on his forehead which devout Muslims develop as proof of multiple sajdas or the act of placing the forehead on the ground for supplication.

“That’s a huge change”, I said, pointing to his forehead.

“That is what happens when the world abandons you” he said.

Despite unbelievable odds in the midst of a raging war, it was almost miraculous that Oslobojema hit the stalls on a daily basis. Above all such an enterprise required a steady source of finance. Who financed this paper for Bosnia’s pre dominantly Muslim population? “You really want to know.” Kemal asked looking at me severely.

“George Soros.”

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