The poor performance of the Syrian Arab Army troops at Aleppo shows again that for foreign patrons to stand up a friendly government and back a client army can often produce a Potemkin village, a facade with no reality behind it, which easily falls to pieces under some concerted pressure. This sort of disintegration afflicted the Iraqi National Army built by George W. Bush, the Afghanistan National Army built by Bush, Obama and Trump, and now the Syrian Arab Army stood up by Vladimir Putin and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

Indeed, a commander of the Qods Force (the special operations overseas branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps) and senior adviser to Syria, Brig Gen Kioumars Pourhashemi, was killed in the course of the HTS attack in northern Syria. Most Iranian media is in denial about the fall of Aleppo.

The Syrian Baath government of Bashar al-Assad is as guilty of genocide as the Israeli government, having tortured to death some 10,000 people and having killed hundreds of thousands of innocents in its war to crush the Sunni rebel forces in the teens of the last decade. The rebel HTS also has innocent blood on its hands.

The regional meaning of these events differs according to the lens through which they are viewed.

If we view the victors as Sunni Muslim fundamentalist extremists, their ascendancy will be welcomed by President Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, who indeed may have a hand in the campaign, since he has been a patron of HTS. Erdogan has championed groups as diverse as the Muslim Brotherhood and the HTS, and while he is not himself a fundamentalist, he enjoys the soft power that accrues to Turkey from his support of groups such as Hamas, MB and others. The Turkish press is speculating that the four million Syrian Sunni refugees in Turkey might be able to return home if the Sunni rebels come to power. Likewise, Qatar, a regional champion of political pluralism that makes a place for political Islam, is a severe critic of the Baathist dictatorship, which wielded its secularism as a political cudgel. Most Sunni Muslims in Lebanon are anything but fundamentalists, but on the whole they will likely be happy about the collapse of the Baath, which they view as a totalitarian Stalinist knock-off in the hands of the Alawite Shiite sect, which discriminates against Sunnis. They are not wrong.

In contrast, the Christians both in Syria (5% of the population) and Lebanon (about a fourth of the population) are terrified today, given HTS’s past harsh record regarding religious minorities.

From the point of view of the region’s nationalist, secular-leaning regimes, this movement is an unwelcome resurgence of radical political Islam. That is how it will be viewed by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Egypt, who has spent a decade crushing the Muslim Brotherhood, by Qais Saied of Tunisia, by Khalifah Hiftar, the strongman of East Libya, by President Abdelmadjid Tebboune of Algeria, by Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestine Authority, by the Democratic Union Party of the Syrian Kurds, and by Mohammed Bin Zayed of the United Arab Emirates. Bin Zayed has spent his oil money trying to put down Muslim fundamentalists around the region, including in Libya and Sudan, and he is generally on the same page as al-Sisi. Bin Zayed spent some of Saturday on the phone with Bashar al-Assad discussing the events. As noted above, outside the region these events will alarm Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had shored up the al-Assad regime beginning in 2015 with air support from the Russian Aerospace Forces.

From the point of view of those countries that feel threatened by Iran, the development will be greeted as a further sign of Tehran’s enfeeblement. Israel has humiliated Iran and its ally, Hezbollah, during the past four months, which may have emboldened the HTS to make this move. Bashar al-Assad’s Syria is one of Iran’s few firm allies in the Arab world, along with the Houthi government of Yemen, the Shiite-led government of Iraq, and the Hezbollah-influenced government of Lebanon. Syria is a key transit point for Iranian shipments of rockets and other munitions to Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and if it falls then Hezbollah– already on the ropes after Israel’s recent campaign against it — could face a bleak future.

These anti-Iran forces include Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Azerbaijan, and, outside the region, the United States. All are delighted at the news. In 2012-2016 during the Syrian Civil War, the US CIA funneled billions to 40 Sunni Muslim fundamentalist groups in Syria, using Saudi intelligence as the pass-through. These groups were mainly Muslim Brotherhood affiliates and were vetted as “not al-Qaeda.” They were, however, close battlefield allies of the Succor Front (Jabhat al-Nusra), the leading organization in the current HTS or Levant Liberation Council. So the CIA was again de facto allied with al-Qaeda in Syria, as it had been in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

The prospect of the fall of Baathist Syria, however, is not without peril for these same countries, if al-Qaeda-adjacent forces come out on top. Would a wave of fundamentalist fervor in the region really benefit the bon vivant Mohammed Bin Salman of Saudi Arabia? Will the 800 US troops at Tanf in southeast Syria be threatened by the victorious HTS, given that those troops are in part a support for the leftist Kurds of Syria’s northeast that have fought it on many occasions?

Indeed, if the Jabhat al-Nusra or Succor Front, an al-Qaeda offshoot, comes out on top in the new power struggle, even Turkey may come to regret these events. Erdogan has consistently underestimated the danger of groups such as HTS and ISIL, which have their origins in al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia and which split from one another in 2012. Despite its insouciance Turkey has been hit by ISIL bombings on several occasions.

And, will Sunni fundamentalist militias marching into Damascus really be a good thing for the current extremist government of Israel, engaged in a genocidal campaign against Gaza that is justified as an attempt to exterminate Sunni fundamentalist militias? The far right Likud Party’s theory that chaos in its neighbors is good for Israel may be tested.

——

Bonus Video:

Channel 4 News: “Syrian rebels capture most of Aleppo in sudden offensive”

Spain is Europe’s champion at producing solar power, because some of its regions are especially sunny — think Seville. The Global Energy Monitor puts it this way: “The country has more utility-scale solar capacity in operation (29.5 GW) than any other European nation, and more capacity under construction (7.8 GW), and in early stages of development (106.1 GW) than the next three European countries combined.” They have 100 gigawatts of solar in development! That is all the solar capacity the US has now, and it is a much bigger and wealthier country.

Germany comes in second in Europe with 24.6 gigawatts of industrial-scale solar.

So far this year, renewables account for 57.5 percent of electricity in Spain, which is remarkable for an industrial democracy. Renewables only make 26% of American electricity, so Spain is doing twice as well as we are. Spain wants to get 74% of its electricity from renewables by 2030.

Wind power provides 22.4 percent of Spain’s electricity, while solar is at 18.3 percent. Solar, however, is rapidly building out.

Spain has already produced more renewable energy by November this year than it did in the full 12 months of 2023, and production is up 13%. And, this is the second year in a row that renewables produced more electricity for Spain than did fossil fuels.

All this is not an accident. The Socialist government of Pedro Sánchez has an industrial policy when it comes to green energy. He credits outgoing Minister for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge (MITECO), Teresa Ribera Rodríguez, as having spearheaded the expansion of renewables since 2018, leading to some of Europe’s lowest electricity prices for consumers. Sunlight and wind are free, so once you have built the means to capture them, electricity generation is low-cost. This is especially true at a time when the Ukraine War has caused fossil gas prices to increase substantially, hurting countries dependent on it. Ribera is on her way to Brussels to serve on the European Commission, with portfolios in competitive practices and the environment.

In contrast, when they were in power Spain’s conservatives actually put a punitive tax on rooftop solar to benefit the fossil fuel corporations to which they are close.

All the research demonstrates that Socialist democracies make people happier than other systems, and now it turns out they are better for the health of the earth, as well.

Elections matter. But so do civil society initiatives. People are forming cooperatives to share the output of solar installations. Even football (soccer) teams have done this with solar panels at their stadiums.

Spanish utilities are increasingly creating hybrid solar parks that incorporate wind turbines and batteries, as well, to ensure steady power once the sun goes down. Spain has about 1 gigawatt worth of battery storage projects under review, and has a goal of 22.4 gigawatts of battery capacity by 2030 — a deadline that some experts believe the country will easily beat.

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Bonus video added by Informed Comment:

TRT World: “60% of electricity in Spain comes from renewable energy”

(The Conversation) – The EU has stood in solidarity with Israel since the start of the war with Hamas, and has been consistent in saying the country has the right to defend itself. But the EU has always said that this has to be done in line with international law, which Israel has been accused of breaching.

In July 2024 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) advised that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories was unlawful. Then, in October, Israel’s parliament voted to ban the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency (Unrwa) from operating in Israel – and therefore Gaza. This ruling will only mean further suffering for the Palestinian people.

One month later, on November 21, the International Criminal Court (ICC) decided to issue arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant, as well as Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif.

Netanyahu and Gallant are wanted for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during the war in Gaza. And Deif is wanted on the same charges for crimes committed both in Israel and Palestine from October 7 onwards.

More women and children have been killed in Gaza by the Israeli military since the start of the war than in any other conflict of an equivalent period over the past two decades. Israel’s actions in Gaza, the West Bank and now Lebanon are gradually causing some EU states to change their stance.

Shifting towards condemnation

Only five EU states – Belgium, Latvia, France, Estonia and Cyprus – were in favour of a resolution adopted by the UN general assembly in September that demanded Israel end “its unlawful presence” in the occupied territories of Palestine within 12 months. Bulgaria, Austria, Sweden, Italy and Germany abstained.

There has been a notable shift in the position of EU leaders since then. When Israeli forces fired on a UN peacekeeping position in Lebanon in October, Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, denounced the incident as “unjustifiable”.

The EU’s foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, then condemned the Israeli attacks and reiterated calls for sanctions against those responsible for Israeli settlers in the West Bank, including two members of Netanyahu’s government, finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

“EU v. Israel,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland, 2024.

The UK, while not an EU state, is also considering sanctions on these two individuals over what Prime Minister Keir Starmer called “obviously abhorrent comments” they made about Palestinians in August. Smotrich said starving civilians in Gaza might be justified and Ben Gvir called perpetrators of settler violence in the West Bank “heroes”.

Some European states such as France, Spain, Italy, Belgium and the UK have reduced arms sales to Israel. But despite these policies, there is no EU arms ban on Israel. In fact, Germany provides one-third of Israel’s arms, and has even increased these exports in the second half of 2024.

Yet in July 2024, the court said that states are “under an obligation not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by Israel’s illegal presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”. This should arguably not only involve an EU ban on arms sales to Israel, but also a suspension of the EU’s trade agreement with Israel. Ireland and Spain have been pushing for the latter, but no decision has yet been taken.

The EU has the economic clout to hurt Israel’s economy. While Israel is only the EU’s 25th largest trading partner, the EU is Israel’s largest, and accounts for almost one-third of its trade in goods.

But EU sanctions look a way off at present. Austria, Hungary, Germany and the Czech Republic are Israel’s closest allies in the EU, and it is very unlikely that they would vote in favour of sanctions.

That said, the recent arrest warrants are likely to have a powerful indirect effect. In May 2024, UN experts said that “the transfer of weapons and ammunition to Israel may constitute serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian laws and risk state complicity in international crimes”. So, EU states that continue to provide arms to Israel are arguably complicit in war crimes and crimes against humanity.

And even if the EU government itself does not ban arms sales, citizens can ask their own courts to enforce such a ban. This type of case is already occuring in the Netherlands.

The issue of arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant also make it possible for the EU to establish a travel ban and impose financial sanctions against them. All EU member states are party to the ICC, and support the court’s work. On November 21, Borrell said the ICC warrants are “not political and the court decision should be respected and implemented”.

EU states are firmly in agreement that only a two-state solution will increase the chances of security and peace in the region. To make this a realistic prospect, more EU countries need to recognise the state of Palestine.

In the 1980s, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Hungary, Poland, Romania and the Czech Republic all recognised Palestinian statehood. Sweden did in 2014, and Ireland, Spain and non-EU member Norway followed in 2024.

The EU’s responsibility for discussing these policies is all the more salient given Donald Trump’s return to the White House. His ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has previously said that Israel has a rightful claim to the West Bank.

Many Palestinians in the West Bank believe the US election result will “make Israel even stronger”, with the prospect of a Palestinian state soon to be “off the table”.

Catherine Gegout, Associate Professor in International Relations, University of Nottingham

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

“France is committed to international justice and its independence,” Barrot said in an interview for France 3 TV channel.

“We have been saying from the very beginning that Israel has the right to defend itself within the framework of respect for international law.”

“Each time Israel violates international law, blocking access to aid, bombing civilians, forcibly displacing them, establishing colonies in the West Bank.”

He added they “strongly” condemn these actions.

Asked if he supported the ICC’s arrest warrant for Netanyahu, Barrot said: “I cannot put myself in the position of the court in any circumstance.”

Barrot argued that the ICC’s arrest warrant amounted to “the formalization of the accusation against certain politicians.”

Regarding the question of whether Netanyahu would be arrested if he visited France, Barrot said: “France will always apply international law.”

The ICC, in a landmark move on Thursday, issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel has launched a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip following a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas in October last year, killing more than 44,000 people, most of them women and children.

It has also engaged in cross-border warfare with Lebanon, launching an air campaign in late September against what it claims are Hezbollah targets.

Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on Gaza.

Middle East Monitor

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

——

Bonus Video Added by Informed Comment:

Al Jazeera English: “ICC issues arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant. What’s next? | The Take”

The two guards were tasked with securing the area ahead of a scheduled visit by French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot. This move reflects Israel’s insistence on continuing its actions that violate the historical and legal status quo in occupied Jerusalem, stressing that Israel has no sovereignty over it.

The official spokesperson for the Jordanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Sufyan Qudah, stressed in a statement the Kingdom’s absolute rejection of all Israeli measures aimed at changing the identity and character of East Jerusalem, including the Old City, and changing the historical and legal status quo in Jerusalem and its Islamic and Christian holy sites.

He also reiterated the Kingdom’s support for France and its position against the attacks of the Israeli occupation forces.

Via Middle East Monitor

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Bonus Video added by Informed Comment:

WION: “French FM Refuses To Enter Holy Site In Jerusalem In Protest | World News | WION”

All in all, 59% of German electricity, almost six tenths, has come from renewables this year, with hydro the main source aside from wind and solar. In 2023, renewables only accounted for 52% of Germany electricity, so there has been a substantial advance. Half of that advance came from new solar installations, Ember says.

An amazing 11 gigawatts of new solar capacity has been added this year. As of mid-summer, Germany had 92 gigawatts of installed solar capacity, exceeding its 2024 goal of 88 GW.

Through the end of July, fossil fuel electricity generation plummeted 14.5% from the same period in 2024, reaching the lowest levels on record. The consumption of coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, fell by 39% through September of this year compared to the same months in 2023.

Germany’s carbon emissions dropped by 10% in 2023 compared to the previous year, and are expected to fall again this year. If all industrialized countries met Germany’s performance, the climate crisis would be less severe. Energy-related carbon emissions in the US. fell last year, but only by 3%.

The rapid advance of solar, Ember explains, is the result of government policy changes, including the reduction in bureaucracy and easier permitting and “simplified grid connection for small PV systems,” as well as better remuneration for consumers who sell their electricity back into the grid.

“German Solar,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3 / Clip2Comic, 2024

Wind installations kept pace with those of the previous year, at 2.3 gigawatts. Wind-generated electricity was up 7% this year. Although wind’s progress was not as spectacular as that of solar, it still did make impressive advances, and there is a lot of capacity in the pipeline. Germany won’t quite meet its goals for total wind installations of 80 gigawatts this year, but those goals are the most ambitious in the European Union.

Winds have been anemic in the summer and fall, but are expected to pick up in the last two months of the year. Wind has had to be replaced with expensive fossil gas for the moment. Emissions will likely still fall, since electricity demand is lower. Wind plus battery will smooth out some of these fluctuations in the future.

There are also legal reasons for which wind will advance even more in future. Ember writes, “The German government has declared renewables to be in the overriding public interest, a privileged legal status which unlocks faster permitting and simplified procedures. Furthermore, German states are now required to allocate around 2% of their land for wind turbines.”

Ember doesn’t say so, but battery capacity is also rapidly increasing in Germany, where battery storage reached 9.9 gigawatts so far in 2024. Reuters reports that grid battery capacity in the country is up by 1/3 in 2024, an incredible advance. In the next two years, through the end of 2026, battery storage in Germany is set to increase five-fold, according to Clean Energy Wire. Battery storage allows solar energy to be captured during daylight and released at night.

CEW adds that “more than 80 percent of smaller photovoltaic rooftop systems are already being installed in combination with battery storage systems.” That combination is not nearly as common in the United States, but it should be.

Two big issues loom over Germany’s energy situation. One is the closure of the country’s nuclear plants at the insistence of the Green Party, which has been in government off and on (it is part of the present shaky coalition). Despite predictions of gloom and doom, the transition to wind, solar and battery has gone well.

Clean Energy Wire observes, “Decades of debates came to an end in April 2023, when Germany finally shuttered its last nuclear power plants after the energy crisis. One year on, predictions of supply risks, price hikes and dirty coal replacing carbon-free nuclear power have not materialised. Instead, Germany saw a record output of renewable power, the lowest use of coal in 60 years, falling energy prices across the board and a major drop in emissions.”

The other issue is the Ukraine War and Germany’s attempt to wean itself off Russian fossil gas. Germany cut its natural gas imports by nearly a third last year, and is pressing the EU to end imports of gas from Russia, still 20% of Europe’s usage. There isn’t any doubt that replacing both nuclear and fossil gas with wind, water, solar and battery is saving Germany money and allowing it energy independence from Russia.

In 2025, as Trump comes back into office, Americans should remember the cost savings offered by renewables, the environmental benefits of reducing carbon emissions and avoiding climate catastrophes, and the significance of energy independence for the US and its allies. Germany has overtaken Japan to become the world’s third largest economy.

(The Conversation) – In the last few days, a seasonal weather system known in Spain as the “cold drop” or DANA (an acronym of depresión aislada en niveles altos: isolated depression at high levels) has caused heavy rain and flooding across Spain’s Mediterranean coast and in Andalusia, especially in the Valencian Community, Castilla-La Mancha and the Balearic Islands. The storm has left hundreds dead and many more missing, with immense damage in the affected areas.

50 years ago, a DANA occurred every three or four years, typically in November. Today, they can happen all year round.

How does a DANA form?

These storms are formed in the same way as Atlantic hurricanes or typhoons in China. The difference is that the Mediterranean is smaller than these areas, and so storms have a shorter path, and store less energy and water vapour.

Decades ago, warm sea surfaces at the end of summer would cause water to evaporate into the atmosphere. Today, the sea surface is warm all year, constantly sending massive amounts of water vapour up into the atmosphere.

The poles are also much warmer now than they were 50 years ago. As a result, the polar jet stream – the air current that surrounds the Earth at about 11,000 metres above sea level – is weakened and, like any slowly flowing current, has meanders. These bring cold air, usually from Greenland, into the high atmosphere over Spain.

The evaporated water rising off the sea meets this very cold air and condenses. The Earth’s rotation causes the rising air to rotate counterclockwise, and the resulting condensation releases huge quantities of water.

This combination of factors causes torrential, concentrated rains to fall on Spain, specifically on the Balearic Islands and the Mediterranean coast, sometimes reaching as far inland as the Sierra de Segura mountains in Andalucia and the Serrania de Cuenca mountains in Castilla la Mancha and Aragón. These storms can move in very fast, and are extremely violent.

On occasions, this Mediterranean water vapour has moved as far as the Alps, crossing its western point and causing downpours in Central Europe.

Warming oceans, warming poles

Many years ago, humans discovered a gigantic source of energy: 30 million years worth of the sun’s energy, stored under the ground by plants and animals. Today, we are burning through this resource fast.

This fossilised energy source is made up of carbon compounds: coal, hydrocarbons and natural gas. By burning them, we release polyatomic molecules such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen oxides and other compounds. Once released into the atmosphere, these trap some of the heat radiating from the earth’s soil and seas, returning it to the planet’s surface.

This process is what causes climate change, and it can occur naturally. When these molecules, especially methane, are stored in continental ocean slopes, the water cools and the carbon dioxide captured by the waves is trapped inside. As the planet cools and sea levels fall, methane is eventually released into the atmosphere. The atmosphere warms up, warming the sea, and the sea releases CO₂ which amplifies the effect of the methane. The planet then gets warmer and warmer, causing glaciers to melt and sea levels to rise.

This alternation of cold and hot has occurred eight times over the last million years.

No end in sight for fossil fuels

Today we are forcing this process by emitting huge quantities of polyatomic gases ourselves. The question is whether we can limit these emissions. So far, this has been impossible.

To this we can add the fact that by 2050 there will be about two billion more human beings on the planet, who will also need food, housing and transport. This means more chemical fertilisers, cement, petrol, diesel and natural gas will be consumed, leading to further polyatomic gases being released.

Various measures to limit the burning of carbon compounds are falling short, or developing very slowly. Hopes for electric cars, for example, have been greatly diminished in recent years.

In Europe progress is being made in solar and wind energy, but electricity only makes up around a third of the energy consumed. Europe is also the only region making real progress on alternative electricity generation – much of China’s progress is being offset by its continued construction of coal-fired power plants.

Despite some large, high-profile projects, the reality is that we will continue to burn carbon compounds for many decades to come. This means the concentration of polyatomic gases in the atmosphere will increase over the next century, and with it the temperature of the planet, leading to more DANAs, hurricanes, typhoons and floods.

Climate adaptation is vital

What we are left with is adaptation, which is much more manageable as it does not require international agreements.

In Spain, for instance, we can control flooding through massive reforestation in inland mountainous areas, and through rainwater harvesting systems – building small wetlands or reservoirs on hillsides. This would slow the amount of water reaching the ramblas and barrancos, the gorges and channels that funnel rainwater through Spain’s towns and prevent them from flooding. At the same time, this would mean water can be captured by the soil, where it can then be gradually returned to the rivers and reservoirs.

Not only is this feasible, it is cost-effective, generates many jobs, and could save hundreds, if not thousands of lives.

Antonio Ruiz de Elvira Serra, Catedrático de Física Aplicada, Universidad de Alcalá

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

—–

Bonus video added by Informed Comment:

AP: “Climate change is making extreme downpours in Spain heavier and more likely, scientists say”

( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – It took nearly a year for French President Emmanuel Macron to confront the uncomfortable truth: the path to peace in Gaza cannot be paved with more weapons to Israel. His recent remarks, sharp and unapologetic, reflected the urgency of shifting away from military escalation. “I think that today, the priority is that we return to a political solution, that we stop delivering weapons to fight in Gaza,” Macron declared, laying bare his stance. He was unequivocal in his message, adding, “If you call for a ceasefire, it’s only consistent that you do not supply weapons of war.”

Although Macron clarified that France does not supply Israel with offensive arms, his pointed comments seemed aimed at the United States, which remains Israel’s primary arms provider. Washington and other European countries, despite acknowledging that these weapons have been used against civilians, continues to send shipments, fueling a conflict in Gaza that has already claimed more than 42,000 lives. Macron’s statement contributes to an ongoing shift in Europe’s approach that challenges the long-standing, uncritical support for Israel’s military actions.

Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu, visibly agitated by Macron’s remarks, fired back with a familiar rhetoric of defense, invoking Israel’s right to self-protection. “As Israel fights the forces of barbarism led by Iran, all civilized nations should stand by us,” Netanyahu declared, calling Macron’s stance “a disgrace.” In a video addressed directly to the French president, Netanyahu doubled down, stating, “Israel will win with or without their support. But their shame will linger long after this war is over.”

His remarks underscore the widening rift between Israel and some of its traditional Western allies as the conflict escalates. Yet, the undercurrent of this diplomatic quarrel suggests something far more significant than a routine policy disagreement. Macron’s hesitation to unconditionally support Israel—despite the West’s long-standing alignment with its security needs—indicates a growing recognition among European leaders that Israel’s operations have surpassed legitimate self-defense and entered the realm of excessive, unchecked aggression.

As the violence grinds on, Macron’s call for a political solution reflects an emerging European discomfort with the status quo. The question now is whether Macron’s bluntness will push other leaders, especially in the United States and Germany, to reconsider their own complicity in fueling this relentless cycle of violence. For years, European nations have trod lightly around Israel’s military actions, particularly in its volatile engagements with Palestinian territories. But more European capitals are now witnessing massive protests against Israel, indicating increasingly discomfort in Europe with Netanyahu’s expansionist approach to the conflict, which is designed to shore up his domestic political survival rather than achieve long-term security.

“J’accuse,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3 / Clip2Comic, 2024

Netanyahu’s heated response to Macron is particularly notable for its timing: October 7. The anniversary of the devastating violence that ignited yet another round of suffering for both Israelis and Palestinians should be a day of solemn reflection, yet Netanyahu has used it to double down on his military offensives on all sides of Israeli borders. Instead of working toward a resolution, his government has opted for broader assaults, widening the conflict, and targeting civilian infrastructure in a way that has drawn mounting international condemnation.

At the heart of Netanyahu’s strategy lies a grim reality: his political survival hinges on perpetuating conflict. Under intense scrutiny for his domestic failures and facing an increasingly fractured political landscape at home, Netanyahu has leaned into a hawkish narrative to rally support from his far-right base. By stoking fear and framing Israel as under siege, Netanyahu has stifled criticism from within his own country while marginalizing voices calling for a peaceful resolution.

Netanyahu’s war is not about elections or the protection of Israeli citizens. It is about staying in power. Expanding the conflict offers him a chance to maintain his political grip, even as international sentiment shifts uneasily away from unconditional support for Israel. Netanyahu’s actions have raised serious concerns about war crimes, particularly in light of Israel’s reported strikes on civilian areas and humanitarian corridors. Although Israel claims its right to target Hamas militants, the disproportionate toll on Palestinian civilians has been impossible to ignore. Hospitals, schools, and densely populated neighborhoods have been devastated, with little regard for international law or the principles of proportionality.

European nations, including France, have historically turned a blind eye to such violations, framing them as unfortunate but necessary casualties of war. But as the conflict drags on, Macron’s diplomatic distancing could mark the beginning of a broader shift in Europe’s stance toward Israel’s military campaigns. As the death toll rises in Gaza, West Bank and Lebanon and the international community grows more aware of the scale of the destruction, Netanyahu’s gamble may yet backfire. His attempt to expand the conflict for personal gain could result in the very political isolation he is desperate to avoid.

Foreign Policy in Focus

Caribbean and African leaders of the British Commonwealth, CNN reports, are insistently raising the issue of British reparations for slavery and for Shanghaiing colonial subjects, shipping Indians off to Guyana and Fiji on false pretenses. British ships transported some 3 million Africans to the New World between 1640 and 1807, 400,000 of whom died in transit. The unpaid labor of these enslaved people and their descendants added significantly to Britain’s bottom line. Jamaica, one of London’s most profitable colonies because of the sugarcane trade (produced by slave plantations), figures Britain owes it $9.5 trillion.

Once we see that the Palestinians are a deeply injured party, it becomes clear that they are owed reparations. After World War I, the victors divvied up the defeated empires at Versailles and the satellite conference of San Remo. The League of Nations awarded the great powers “mandates,” giving them charge of territories on the grounds that they would administer them and also prepare them for independent statehood. This was a new form of colonialism, since the freebooters of the 18th century conquered countries like India purely for profit, with no obligation to ready it for independence. If it had been up to Winston Churchill, Britain would still be ruling India and taking money out of it to pay for his brandy and cigars.

As I point out in my new book, Gaza Yet Stands, the British Mandate of Palestine was peculiar compared to all the rest. The British Mandate of Iraq eventuated in an independent Iraq in 1932. Formerly German Tanganyika was a British Mandate and became independent in 1961. It joined with Zanzibar to become Tanzania in 1964. Syria, a French Mandate, became independent in 1946. The French Mandate of Togo became independent in 1961.

The British Mandate of Palestine, however, did not eventuate in an independent Palestine. The other League of Nations members, including France and Italy, remonstrated with Britain that it had to look after the native Palestinians, despite the Balfour Declaration of 1917 in which the British (who did not then rule Palestine) promised a “Jewish national home” there that, they pledged, would in no way disturb the locals.

Lord Curzon wrote in 1920, “As regards the Palestine Mandate, this Mandate also has passed through several revises. When it was first shown to the French Government it at once excited their vehement criticisms on the ground of its almost exclusively Zionist complexion and of the manner in which the interests and rights of the Arab majority (amounting to about nine-tenths of the population) were ignored. The Italian Government expressed similar apprehensions. It was felt that this would constitute a very serious, and possibly a fatal, objection when the Mandate came ultimately before the Council of the League. The Mandate, therefore, was largely rewritten, and finally received their assent.”

“Palestine Reparations,” Digital, Midjourney, 2024.

The League of Nations therefore demanded that the British Mandate of Palestine attend to the “interests and rights” of the 90% of its residents, who were native Palestinians.

When Palestinians revolted in 1936-1939 against the British policy of settling European Jews on their land, the British army brutally crushed them, with the help of Jewish militias like the Haganah. Embarrassed, the British commissioned the MacDonald White Paper of 1939, which pledged an independent Palestinian state by 1949, in which immigrant Jews would form a minority.

The British abruptly departed Palestine in 1948 and they failed to prevent the half-million Jews they had brought to Palestine from expelling 750,000 or so of the 1.3 million Palestinians from their homes and usurping all their property, leaving them stateless, homeless and penniless. Some 250,000 of those refugees were crowded into Gaza, where their descendants are now being genocided by the Netanyahu government.

The value of the land seized from the Palestinians at that time is estimated at over half a billion dollars in 1998 dollars.

But that $500,000,000 worth of property in 1948 is worth way more today.

The total value of Israeli real estate today is roughly $2.5 trillion, and in 1920 when the British accepted the charge of administering the Mandate of Palestine and turning it into and independent country for its citizens, the Palestinians owned virtually all the land in it.

I’d say that $2.5 trillion is a good place to start for British reparations to the Palestinians. That is roughly a year’s worth of the UK GDP. But I’m sure the Palestinians would accept an installment plan.