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What does the sift in US-Israel relations mean for Gaza?

Carol Turner traces the shift in US-Israel relations which led to the first ceasefire resolution from the UN in six months, and asks what it might mean for Gaza

On 25 March the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2728 (2024) by 14 votes for, including the UK, and 1 abstention by the United States. The UNSC resolution demands ‘an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan’ and ‘the lifting of all barriers to the provision of humanitarian assistance at scale, in line with international humanitarian law’. 

Israel immediately announced it would not comply with the resolution, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cancelled a scheduled trip to the US by his senior advisers. The Israeli Foreign Minister, Israel Katz, tweeted: ‘We will destroy Hamas and continue to fight until the last of the hostages returns home.’

The current strain in relations between Israel and the US, which have led to the first successful ceasefire resolution in six months, emerged into the open in December when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced plans for his military operation in Rafah. The US insists this is ‘a major mistake’. But diplomatic efforts to change Netanyahu’s direction have so far failed to achieve results.

Rafah: a shift in US-Israel relations

Rafah not only marks a new and brutal phase in Israel’s war on Gaza, it also represents a significant shift in US relations with the Netanyahu government. It does not, however, signal a fundamental break in the United States relations with Israel. Nor is it the first sign of tensions between Israel and the US over Gaza.

An intelligence report, the Annual Threat Assessment 2024 of the US Intelligence Community – released on 5 February this year but prepared over months before recent tensions emerged – predicts that Israel will struggle to achieve its goal of destroying Hamas.  The report expresses concern that Netanyahu’s right wing coalition ‘may be in jeopardy’, and poses the possibility of ‘a different, more moderate government’ in Israel.

The following exchanges (mostly taken from New York Times reports) trace the path to the United States abstention on UNSC resolution 2728:

US pressure on Netanyahu

9 March: President Joe Biden said Netanyahu was ‘hurting Israel more than helping Israel’.

10 March: in an interview with Politico US, Netanyahu dismissed Biden’s comment saying the ‘overwhelming majority’ of Israelis agree with his, Netanyahu’s policies.

14 March: Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer, majority Senate leader and described as the most senior Jewish elected official in the US called for elections to replace Netanyahu. He said Netanyahu’s ‘political survival [was] taking precedence over the best interests of Israel’.

15 March: Biden confirmed the White House had been given notice of Schumer’s speech: ‘He made a good speech, and I think he expressed serious concern shared not only by him, but by many Americans.’

15 March: Israeli politicians were divided. Yair Lapid, leader of Israel’s opposition since January 2023 and founder of Yesh Atid, described as a centrist, liberal Zionist party, welcomed Schumer’s comments. He said ‘Netanyahu is causing heavy damage to the national effort to win the war and preserve Israel’s security. War cabinet member Benny Ganz tweeted that Schumer ‘erred in his remark’ saying ‘external intervention is not correct and not welcome’.

Should Biden be unable to persuade Netanyahu to change course, the intelligence report together with the political comments and exchanges cited above suggest that the US is willing to publicly encourage a change of government in Israel. This is further confirmed elsewhere.

Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley, President of the Middle East Policy Council and a former US Ambassador to Malta told BBC Newsnight, Schumer was known as a staunch ally of Israel and the point of his speech was ‘for it to be noticed by the Israeli people’.  Ehud Olmert, speaking on the same programme said ‘every minute that [Netanyahu] is prime minister he is a danger to Israel’ and pointed out ‘a majority of Israelis don’t trust the prime minister’. Olmert is a former Israeli prime minister 2006-09 and Mayor of Jerusalem 1993-2003.

No change of direction for the US

Sadly, this does not reflect a change of heart in relation to Gaza so much as concern that the impact of Netanyahu’s military action in Gaza is significantly undermining international support for Israel and, therefore, acting as a hinderance to US influence in the Middle East.

In an interview with MSNBC, Biden elaborated on his comments that Netanyahu was hurting more than helping Israel. He had, he said, spoken to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and they are ‘all fully willing to recognise Israel and begin to rebuild the region’.

It is not yet clear that the events of the past week will lead either to a change of policy on humanitarian aid to Gaza and the collective punishment of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, or to a change of government in Israel.

Despite Netanyahu’s personal unpopularity in Israel and the differences that exist in the Knesset, all the political parties share an over-arching goal – that of protecting the existence of the state of Israel. So far this has meant the Knesset is unwilling to distance itself from Netanyahu’s military strategy, even though some politicians are critical of the details.

This is the fundamental roadblock Biden is facing.

Carol Turner is Coordinator of CND ‘s International Advisory Group. This article first appeared as an IAG Information Paper for CND’s National Council

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Remembering Alice Mahon

Regretfully we’ve had to postpone this commemoration. The demands on all our time are greater than usual, and speakers availability is more limited. We will be rescheduling the event for later in the year, and will be in touch as soon as the date is confirmed. Apologies for any inconvenience caused. All ticket-holders have had any donations they made refunded, and will be emailed as soon as a new date is available. 

Alice Mahon
28 September 1937 to 25 December 2022

When it came to war and nukes, former MP for Halifax Alice Mahon was the scourge of the Parliamentary Labour Party. A life-long CND supporter and tireless anti-war campaigner, she opposed the bombing of Iraq in 1991 and founded the Committee for Peace in the Balkans two years later, anticipating NATO’s bombardment of former Yugoslavia.

In 2003 Alice resigned as PPS to Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport Chris Smith to oppose the invasion of Iraq in 2003. She worked with the Stop the War, with CND, and with Muslim organisations such as Iraqi Democrats Against War and the Muslim Association of Britain, against the second Iraq invasion, and founded Iraq Liaison, a cross party campaign to promote parliamentary opposition to military action.

Throughout her life, Alice was committed to peace, socialism, and internationalism. A feminist, a strong trade unionist, and proud to represent Halifax where she’d live all her life, in public and in private, Alice worked hard at living her life in line with her principles.

Join Labour CND’s online commemoration of Alice’s life, and hear more about the many rights she supported and injustices she opposed from Jeremy Corbyn and many of her friends throughout the movement.

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UKRAINE: Stop the war! Build the peace!

The world is facing a period of unprecedented danger. At the end of January, the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the hands of the Doomsday Clock forward. They are now set to 90 seconds to midnight – the closest to global catastrophe the world has ever been. The main, but not the only reason is the war in Ukraine.

Early in the course of the war Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg asserted ‘we must prepare for the fact that it could take years’. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres cautioned last August, the world had entered ‘a time of nuclear danger not seen since the height of the Cold War’.

Despite many warnings that the war could provoke nuclear confrontation, President Biden and Prime Minister Sunak are still calling for escalation. Encouraged by this, in December President Zelensky called on Nato allies for 500 more tanks; in January he appealed for some of the latest fighter jets.

Ukraine is a war fought on two fronts – the invasion of Russia and resistance of Ukraine; and a proxy war between the US-Nato and Russia. Sadly, Ukrainians are the all-round losers. One year on, the statistics tell the story.

According to UNHCR sources:

    • over 8,000 civilians are recorded dead and almost 13,500 more injured – the actual figures are considered to be much higher
    • approximately 8 million Ukrainians are internally displaced
    • another 8m have crossed Ukraine’s borders, including 2.8m to Russia and 1.6m to Poland, and
    • nearly 18 million Ukrainians are ‘in dire need’ of humanitarian assistance.

Continue reading “UKRAINE: Stop the war! Build the peace!”

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Are US nuclear weapons coming to Britain again?

Labour CND Chair Carol Turner’s blog on the Ukraine crisis launches with the announcement that the UK is about to become the sixth European Nato member to host American nuclear weapons. Keep tuned in for updates

The world is closer to nuclear war than we’ve been for decades, closer perhaps than ever before. Strained relations between Russia and the US over Nato’s eastward expansion touched boiling point at the end of February, when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was followed by the announcement that Russian nukes were being moved to special alert.

What’s needed is cool council, encouragement to de-escalate the war and negotiate a stable end to this dangerous conflict. Instead, the belligerent rhetoric of the US, Britain and other European Nato members adds weight to the emerging view that Nato would welcome a long and protracted war in order to exhaust Russia – and consequences for the people of Ukraine be damned.

Against this looming possibility of nuclear war, a report by Hans Kristensen, Nuclear Information Project Director at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) gives cause for us to be very afraid. The UK, he says, is set to become the sixth European Nato member to host American nuclear weapons on our territory.

Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, and Turkey already have US nuclear weapons stationed within their borders. FAS estimates around 100 US nuclear bombs are deployed in these five countries.

US Department of Defence (DoD) documents suggest the UK has been added to the list of nuclear weapons storage locations. Kristensen believes RAF Lakenheath, 80 miles northeast of London, is likely to be that facility. In the past, Lakenheath was used to store US Air Force (USAF) nuclear gravity bombs. The facilities to do so are still intact.

This analysis by FAS comes as Lakenheath is getting ready to become the first USAF base in Europe equipped with the latest generation of nuclear-capable fighter-bomber aircraft. The first of the F-35As arrived at Lakenheath in December last year; the US is due to begin training in the next 12 months.

Kristensen points out there is no public indication from Nato yet that it intends to store nuclear bombs in Lakenheath. He speculates that its upgrade ‘could potentially be intended to increase the flexibility of the existing nuclear deployment within Europe, without increasing the number of weapons’. In other words, with a war with Russia in the offing, Lakenheath could receive nuclear weapons from existing European Nato locations to ‘better realign the overall nuclear posture in Europe’.

Arms Control Association Director Daryl Kimball, however, told the Guardian he saw the upgrade of the UK storage facilities as: ‘an early sign that the US and Nato are preparing to engage in a protracted and maybe heightened standoff with Putin’s Russia.’

Meanwhile, the British government is working hand in glove with Nato and the US on Ukraine. Prime Minister Johnson’s recent announcement of increased military assistance to President Zelensky, including supplying offensive weaponry, is fanning the flames of a war that could stretch across Europe and beyond.

Keeping the people of Britain safe should be foremost amongst the UK government’s concerns. Creating the conditions for siting American nuclear weapons in Britain is tantamount to painting a target on the back of everyone in the UK.

This Tory government could and should be playing a supportive role in negotiations to end the Ukraine conflict, not helping escalate it. And Labour should be demanding it do so from across the opposition benches, not trailing in Johnson’s wake.

Read Hans Kristensen full report, Lakenheath Air Base Added To Nuclear Weapons Storage Site Upgrades, 11 April 2022 here
See Julian Borger and Sam Sabbagh, UK military vaults upgraded to store new US nuclear weapons, Guardian 12 April 2022 here