The Attempts to Resolve the Middle East Problems Comprehensively

CONFLICT RESOLUTION - MEDIATION, 18 Nov 2024

Sakai Tanaka - TRANSCEND Media Service

Trump and Netanyahu. Source of the image above. → https://res.cloudinary.com/hb0stl6qx/image/upload/w_900,c_scale,q_auto,f_auto,dpr_auto/w_900,c_scale,q_auto,f_auto,dpr_auto/v1639139916/AIN/trump_and_netanyahu.jpg

14 Nov 2024 – Since Donald Trump’s victory in the Presidential Election, various attempts have been underway to resolve all hostilities in the Middle East. The current focus is on the plan for the United States and Russia (Trump, Biden, and Putin) to mediate a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. After his secret visit to Russia, which represents Hezbollah, Israeli Strategic Minister Ron Delmer visited the United States on 11 November this year and met with Trump and Biden. It appears that they are considering a ceasefire plan in which (1) Hezbollah withdraws its forces north of the Litani River in southern Lebanon, (2) the Lebanese Army will provide the security in return, and (3) the IDF (i.e. the Israeli Defense Forces) will withdraw in two months after observing these.

-（Significant efforts to end fighting in Lebanon underway with both Trump and Biden support）

-（Dermer to discuss Lebanon ceasefire in US after reported secret Russia visit）

2. Hezbollah has supported the Syrian Civil War for the past decade and received a lot of weapons from Iran, improving its military skills and strengthening its offensive power against Israel. In response, Israel has been attacking Hezbollah thoroughly since the beginning of October this year and has almost completely destroyed it. Now that the destruction of Hezbollah has come to an end, Israel is at the stage of preparing to stabilize the situation by a ceasefire. The series of these events since the start of the Gaza War in October last year are in line with the schedule for Trump’s election and inauguration. Trump wants to team up with Israel (Likud Party), a powerful force in the US Intelligence Community (DS), and deter other forces in the Intelligence Community that are hostile and attacking him (such as the Unilateral Hegemonic Faction that turns the Democratic Party and the media into their puppets).

-（CIA Official Arrested Abroad For Leaking Secret Documents On Israeli Military Plans）
-（Israeli official covertly visits Russia for Lebanon ceasefire talks）

– [Hezbollah’s collapse: The end of an era of fear in Lebanon]

– [Israeli Defense Minister: New Hezbollah leader likely neutralized]

3. At the same time, Trump doesn’t want to start a new war under his administration. He wants to resolve and end the existing wars, withdraw the US troops from those relevant war-zones in the world, and reduce the US Hegemony (stop taking care of the world). That was why he urged Netanyahu to settle relevant conflicts before he takes office.

-（トランプ快勝の裏側）
-（Israel sees ‘progress’ in ceasefire talks with Lebanon, but no deal yet）

– [Netanyahu Escalating Gaza War to Help Trump Win Elections, NYT’s Thomas Friedman Says]

– [Trump told Netanyahu he wants Gaza war over by time he enters office]

– [Israeli PM Netanyahu given deadline to end war by Trump, according to reports]

– [U.S. presidential election: Why Trump’s phone call with Netanyahu is so alarming.]

4. Since 9/11 in 2001, Israel has been trying to drag the US into various wars in the Middle East and to use the US as the permanent guard for Israel. Unfortunately for Israel, (partly because the hidden multipolar faction has turned this strategy into the self-destructive one) the US Hegemony is on the decline. Israel can no longer be able to rely on the United States; so it must break down the hostile structure between itself and the Islamic side that it created to draw in the United States, and make peace with it. If Israel simply moderates, the Iranian groups such as Hezbollah will retaliate against Israel after the decline of the US Hegemony. Therefore, Israel cannot turn to a reconciliation strategy until it has first militarily neutralized the Iranian groups and cleared them out of Lebanon and Syria.

-（Russian official: ‘Russia is prepared to assist in reaching a deal in Lebanon’）

5. Israel (Likud) also believes that it cannot trust the Palestinians and cannot coexist with them, and is promoting a plan to eliminate the Palestinians by expelling the Gazan citizens to Egypt and the West Bank citizens to Jordan. For 80 years, the idea of ​​establishing a Palestinian State has been forced upon the sole hegemonic faction of the United States (and British) as the measure to weaken Israel to prevent its rise. Trump, a rival of the British, is in favor of the Palestinian erasure plan and is allied with Likud. Israel wants to weaken the Iranian faction around the country and seek a way to reconcile with the Islamic side (the Arabs, Iran, and Turkey), while completing the erasure of Palestine within the country. Since the Islamic side is against the erasure of Palestine, Israel’s plan is contradictory. The reconciliation with the Islamic side will be informal (with the Arabs and Turkey) or a “Cold Peace” (with Iran).

-（Israel’s Smotrich tells authorities to prepare for West Bank annexation）
–  (‘Netanyahu will want a lot from him’: Can Trump reconcile Israel and Iran?）

6. Trump urged Israel to advance the above strategy as much as possible before he takes office as the US President. Netanyahu made a deal with Trump in the summer of 2023. That was why he provoked Hamas’ attack in October 2023, starting the Gaza War. After the Gaza eradication was over, Israel launched a major attack to crush Hezbollah in October this year. Netanyahu and Trump want to achieve a ceasefire in Lebanon as early as November of this year, before Trump’s inauguration on 20 January 2025. This requires the consent of Iran, which has supported Hezbollah. Russia, which is close to Iran, has proposed a plan to incorporate Iran into the non-US economic system of BRICS, so that Iran can make profits and develop its economy by trading with China, Russia, India, etc. In return, Trump and Netanyahu have requested Iran to agree to the elimination of the military influence over Lebanon and Syria (to tolerate Israel’s destruction of the Iranian military bases and the supply routes by air strikes) and the realization of a Cold Peace with Israel. Iran seems to have mostly agreed.

-（Iranian, Russian Card Payment Systems ‘Officially Linked’: Tehran）
-（At War in Ukraine, Putin Emerges as Potential Peace Broker in Middle East）

– [The not-so-secret history of Netanyahu’s support for Hamas]

– [A Brief History of the Netanyahu-Hamas Alliance]

– [Lapid says Netanyahu knew for months before Oct. 7 that a violent eruption was looming]

– [How the October 7 attacks became a turning point for US politics]

7. Turkey and Saudi Arabia are also involved in this story. Turkey and Saudi Arabia (GCC countries) will support Lebanon and Syria after Iran withdraws. And then, Lebanon and Syria will be stabilized as the non-Iranian countries. Lebanon and Syria will return to the Arab side from the Iranian side. Israel and Trump will be grateful to Turkey and Saudi Arabia and will maintain a good relationship with them. In addition, Turkey can recover from being the loser of the Syrian Civil War. Both Turkey and Saudi Arabia are on the brink of the formal reconciliation with Syria’s Assad and are ready.

-（厚顔無恥なイスラエルの成功）See this translation. →  [The Success of Shameless Israel]
-（Neutral for now: Persian Gulf states’ gamble in the Iran-Israel showdown）

8. While maintaining an informal cooperative relationship with Israel, Saudi Arabia is deepening its friendship with Iran, which reconciled through Xi Jinping’s mediation. After Trump’s election, Saudi Arabia is discussing the conclusion of a security agreement with Iran. Previously, when the United States was the sole hegemonic power, Saudi Arabia was unable to enter into a security cooperation agreement with Iran because the United States would have blocked it. Trump also publicly views Iran as an enemy of the US. However, in reality he is a hegemony renegade and hidden multipolarist (seeking the prosperity of the United States even after the world becomes multipolar), so he might tacitly forgive Saudi Arabia even if it enters into a security agreement with Iran.

-（Saudi armed forces chief visits Iranian counterpart for rare meeting）
-（A Mideast Shift Is Underway, Without Israel）

– [Experts React: Iran and Saudi Arabia Restore Relations]

– [The Real Motivation Behind Iran’s China-Brokered Deal With Saudi Arabia]

– [The Saudi–Iranian Détente Has Proved Vital for De-escalation. But Regional War Could Still Break It.]

– [Everyone is ‘multi-vectoring’ — the US shouldn’t be left behind]

9. On the surface, Turkey and Saudi Arabia have suddenly stepped up their criticism of Israel recently. This is not the genuine hostility, but a measure to pressure Israel to quickly ceasefire in Lebanon. The purpose for it is not to destroy Israel, but the exact opposite, to support the ceasefire measures that Netanyahu wants to promote. There are some old-school factions within Likud which want a full-scale war with Iran. Netanyahu wants to silence these domestic resistance forces by getting Turkey and Saudi Arabia to step up the pressure to the resistance forces.

-（‘May Be New Beginning’: What Could Come From Turkiye Severing Relations With Israel）
-（What’s Behind Saudi Crown Prince’s Demand to Israel Not to Attack Iran?）

10. If the above overall solution is realized, the Lebanon ceasefire will begin, and the Middle East overall will also begin to stabilize. However, the situations in Gaza and the West Bank, which are the quasi-states of Israel, will not improve. Israel’s expulsions of the Palestinian residents, the massacres of them, the ethnic cleansing of them, and the crimes against humanity in Gaza and the West Bank will continue. Meanwhile, the Arabs and Turkey will only criticize verbally and will not take any substantially preventive action.  They will continue to tacitly tolerate all these inhumane actions by Israel. The ethnic cleansing in Gaza has come to an end, but Israel will continue to block the ruins of Gaza, deport the remaining Gazan citizens to Egypt, and refuse to let them return. The humanitarian crime of the expulsion of the Palestinians from the West Bank continues to worsen. Israel has closed the West Bank to censor the press, and Israel’s humanitarian crimes will probably continue with little information even after Trump takes office.

-（The state-backed settler war to annex the West Bank）
-（Israeli Minister Says Trump Victory Presents Israel ‘Opportunity’ To Annex West Bank）

– [U.N. Report Says Israel’s Actions Toward Palestinians Qualify As Genocide]

– [Genocide in Pictures: Worth a Trillion Words]

– [The Gaza Tribunal: Law, Conscience, and Compassion]

Palestinians walking in a devastated neighborhood, Gaza City, October 2024
Dawoud Abu Alkas / Reuters

11. Trump and Putin are in the cooperative relationship in the above-mentioned Middle East solution, Both of them are essentially pro-Israel (even though Putin outwardly pretends to support Palestine). If the two are in a cooperative relationship, will the Ukrainian peace process also progress? No, it will probably not. Russia is aware that if it does not make peace with Ukraine, it can easily unite the non-US sides. For that reason, Russia is allowing the Ukrainian Army to occupy the Kursk Oblast region. As long as this occupation by the Ukrainian forces continues, the Ukrainian peace process will remain as a fuss without substance. I will write about the Ukrainian issues again.

-（Iranians Frustrated By China, Russia For Meager Response To Israeli Strikes）
-（Ukraine prioritizes holding Russian land over its own defense – media）

– [Kursk Oblast]

– [2024 Kursk offensive]

– [Counterattacking Ukrainian Troops ‘Destroyed’ Russian Marines]

– [Everybody Wants to Join BRICS]

– [Putin Suggests NATO Allies Want to Join BRICS]

Translator’s comment on the above-mentioned paragraph 11:  It seems that Russia’s stance over Kursk Oblast has changed since Sakai Tanaka, the original author of the article above, wrote the paragraph 11 as such. It is now considered that Russia is attempting to retake Kursk Oblast before Trump’s inauguration on 20 January 2025.  See. →  [Putin’s push: Reclaiming Kursk before Trump’s inauguration], [Russia Racing Against Time To Retake Kursk Ahead of Trump ‘Ceasefire’] and [Trump’s Peace Plan for Ukraine Looks Like Putin’s Victory].

Notes:

1. The hyperlinks with the parentheses ( ) at the end of some paragraphs were added by the original author. Those hyperlinks in the paragraphs and those with brackets [ ], with the italic letters at the end of some paragraphs, were added by the translator for the convenience of the reader.
2. The paragraph number was added to the head of each paragraph (except to that of the first paragraph) by the translator for the convenience of the reader.
3. The views and/or opinions in those hyperlinks added by the translator do not necessarily reflect those of his. In addition, it is either impossible or unavailable for the translator to verify the genuineness of the information in those links. He does not take any responsibility for the contents in those relevant links at all.
4. The views and/or opinions expressed in the above-mentioned article are those of Sakai Tanaka, who is the original author. His views and/or opinions do not necessarily reflect those of TMS or those of the translator. Therefore, the reader is kindly requested to understand, interpret or judge those views and/or opinions at his or her own responsibility.

_______________________________________

After graduating from university, Sakai Tanaka started working at the Kyodo News  Agency in 1986. From 1997 he joined Microsoft Network (MSN) and in 1999, due to change of policy at Microsoft, he became an independent journalist. Tanaka has published more than twenty books on international affairs, some translated and published in China, South Korea and Taiwan. He studied at Harvard University from 2000 to 2001 and in 2005 was invited to serve as a senior researcher at the Royal Faisal Institute in Saudi Arabia. Website: tanakanews.com

Satoshi Ashikaga is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment. Having worked as researcher, development program/project officer, legal protection/humanitarian assistance officer, human rights monitor-negotiator, managing-editor, and more, he prefers a peaceful and prudent life.  His previous work experiences, including those in war zones and war-torn zones, constantly remind him of the invaluableness of peace.

Translation: Satoshi Ashikaga – Google Translate

Original in Japanese:中東全体解決の試み

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 18 Nov 2024.

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