The White House’s position that these are all unrelated conflicts that are just cropping up at the same time can’t be squared with the evidence showing that the war in Gaza has fueled regional instability and violence, including the recent drone attack by an Iraqi militia that killed three American service members and injured more than 40 at a base in Jordan earlier this week.
As much as the administration might want to keep the conflict confined to Gaza, the truth is that it has spread to several other countries. It is a disservice to the American people and to American military personnel to pretend that U.S. support for the war in Gaza hasn’t already had serious negative consequences for regional stability and for American forces in the region when it clearly has.
When he was asked about this “same, larger conflict” at a press conference on Wednesday, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby dismissed any link between Gaza and the U.S. fight with the Houthis or the back-and-forth strikes between local militias and U.S. forces.
I absolutely don’t agree with your description of the same, larger conflict.
Kirby’s answer is misleading and false. The umbrella group in Iraq that claimed responsibility for the attack in Jordan, the Islamic Resistance of Iraq, explicitly stated that its attack was connected to the war in Gaza. The Houthi leadership has been emphatic that their attacks will continue for as long as the war does. The decision of other actors to jump on a cause’s bandwagon may be cynical or not, but there is no denying that they have jumped on the bandwagon.
Refusing to face the reality of the connections between these conflicts guarantees that the U.S. will pursue ineffective and counterproductive policies by ignoring that the key to defusing regional tensions is to bring the war in Gaza to an end as quickly as possible.
No surprise here. Just like the US War on Terror in which trillions of dollars were wasted, more hatred in the region created by drone killing of innocents, to say nothing of US military deaths and permanently maimed personnel.
WMDs in Iraq, victory around the corner in Afghanistan, attacks on shipping & US military personnel unrelated to Gaza genocide; all lies to continue US despicable foreign policy interventionist agenda.
The most ferocious attacks have come from the air, flattening entire city blocks and cratering the landscape.
The Washington Post analyzed satellite imagery, airstrike data and U.N. damage assessments, and interviewed more than 20 aid workers, health-care providers, and experts in munitions and aerial warfare. The evidence shows that Israel has carried out its war in Gaza at a pace and level of devastation that likely exceeds any recent conflict, destroying more buildings, in far less time, than were destroyed during the Syrian regime’s battle for Aleppo from 2013 to 2016 and the U.S.-led campaign to defeat the Islamic State in Mosul, Iraq, and Raqqa, Syria, in 2017.
The war has wounded more than 53,320 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. More than 7,700 Palestinian children have been killed, and women and children make up around 70 percent of the dead, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Yet they do not surrender. Perhaps their perceived 75 years of ill treatment by Israel weight heavier in their minds. The current deaths of women
and children just adds more onto the scale.
Viewed from another angle after the October 7th attack by Hamas.
An Israeli lawmaker from the ruling right-wing Likud Party on Wednesday offered fresh evidence that the Israeli government’s aim in its bombardment of Gaza is a genocidal effort to kill or forcibly remove the more than 2 million Palestinians living there, declaring, “Gaza should be erased.”
I understand the rage. There was similar rage within the USA after the 9/11 attack. It led to the US war on Terror campaign which was a failure.
And what was the #1 reason bin Laden gives for the attack? Palestine.
Why are we fighting and opposing you? The answer is very simple:
(1) Because you attacked us and continue to attack us.
a) You attacked us in Palestine:
(i) Palestine, which has sunk under military occupation for more than 80 years. The British handed over Palestine, with your help and your support, to the Jews, who have occupied it for more than 50 years; years overflowing with oppression, tyranny, crimes, killing, expulsion, destruction and devastation. The creation and continuation of Israel is one of the greatest crimes, and you are the leaders of its criminals. And of course there is no need to explain and prove the degree of American support for Israel. The creation of Israel is a crime which must be
erased. Each and every person whose hands have become polluted in the contribution towards this crime must pay itsprice, and pay for it heavily.*