How many Israel-Firsters does it take to mess up the Middle East?
One, Jared Kushner, Trump’s designated driver rolling a bulldozer through the back roads of an already bulldozed region.
Match him with Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi’s ‘clown prince,’ and Kushner’s Plan hatched in the desert sands stutters and plops.
With two previous meetings with the Sauds, Kushner’s third visit in October was veiled in secrecy.
But what was whispered in the ear is now shouted from the rooftops, and the whole world laughs watching Amateur Hour play out.
For if the Plan was to have Hariri resign and collapse Lebanon’s government into chaos, it didn’t work.
If it was to provoke Hezbollah to react as Iran’s ‘terrorist’ proxies as a pretext to send Israeli troops into Lebanon, didn’t work either.
Blowing up in Kushner’s face, it unified all of the normally contentious political factions of Lebanon like nothing else could, closing ranks with Hezbollah.
With statesman-like calm, Hezbollah’s leader Nasrallah, came out smelling like a rose.
[Clip: “Lebanon’s prime minister is detained in Saudi Arabia and it has to release him and then it is up to him to go wherever, maybe he wants to go back to Saudi, it’s his call. Saudi Arabia has demanded Israel to attack Lebanon and is ready to offer tens of billions of dollars to do that. If your problem is with Iran, why are you attacking Lebanon, destroying Lebanon, and sabotaging Lebanon?”]
It’s a coward’s game, like shooting someone in the back.
And tell me, if the Plan was to justify the Sauds ‘normalizing relations with Israel’ by forcing Abbas, when summoned to Saudi Arabia last week, to accept a Palestinian ’state’ with Israeli checkpoints and drones, that failed too.
Abbas would have none of it. No mistake about it.
[Clip: “I don’t want to govern the Arabs in the West Bank. I don’t want to govern the Arabs in Gaza. But I want to make sure that that territory is not used against Israel either. Therefore for us the critical thing is to have the overriding security responsibility. When we talk about de-militarizing the West Bank, it will be de-militarized by us.”]
Since when did the West Bank ever have its own standing army to be ‘de-militarized?’
It’s Zio-Speak.
The occupation remains, with Israel euphemistically fulfilling its “overriding security responsibility.”
That’s not a ’state,’ that’s a Balkanized ‘zone’ subject to an oppressive Master.
Nasrallah called the Plan just that, a scheme to please Master Israel.
[Clip: “Any party, any person, any political leader or arrogant stubborn wishing to upset the situation in Lebanon and wants to return Lebanon to the previous situation of institutional paralysis should be accused of treason by all Lebanese because certainly he would not act in the interest of Lebanon but for foreign interests, in the interest of his masters who want to destroy this peaceful, stable and secure, confident and reasonably confident country.”]
The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.
For what might work in Jєωιѕн Manhattan hasn’t a chance in the Muslim Middle East.