comments from scott ritter in an interview - we'll see how all this pans out...
Ritter: Israel is in a very difficult situation right now. And the Israelis know it. There's panic in Israel as we speak. In order for Israel the nation to exist, it needs to be literally a land of plenty, a land of comfort, a land of economic success. And to have that, Israel has to live in peace and harmony with its neighbors and to be horizontally and vertically integrated with its neighbors from an economic standpoint. On October 6th, everybody was talking about normalization of relations. Israel was negotiating normalization of relations with Saudi Arabia. Joe Biden had just gone to the G20 Summit in India, where he bragged about what he called the India-Middle East Economic Corridor, which would connect India with Dubai and Dubai with Saudi Arabia by rail through Jordan into Israel through Haifa into Greece, so that India and Europe are now connected by this Corridor. And this is such a big deal that Benjamin Netanyahu himself briefed this during the general assembly debate in September. Instead of putting up his cartoon figure of the Iranian bomb, he put up a map that showed Israel's role in this. And this is what Israel needed to survive as a nation state: peace and prosperity.
Israel will never again enjoy peace, ever. They're not going to defeat Hamas. Gaza is a permanent wound. It's not going to be resolved in Israel's favor. Israel is talking about expanding the conflict into Southern Lebanon against Hezbollah. Israel cannot win that conflict. I think one of the reasons why Israel hasn't yet launched that invasion is because they were reminded of that fact by Hezbollah, who successfully took out several Iron Dome sites in the vicinity, letting the Israelis know that they can take out all of the Iron Dome sites, and Israel will have no ability to protect itself from tens of thousands of rockets that'll land on Israel fired from Hezbollah on a daily basis. And if you hit Israel with enough rockets over enough period of time, Israel doesn't exist.
And the other thing is that Hezbollah isn't going to fight a fight that allows Israel to put 50,000 troops in Southern Lebanon to push Hezbollah back to the Litani River. Hezbollah has gone underground just like Hamas did in Gaza. And while Israel is digging and fighting Hezbollah there, Hezbollah will appear in the rear of Israel and take Galilee. Hezbollah will ensure that the next fight between Israel and Hezbollah isn't going to be fought amongst Southern Lebanese villages but amongst the villages and towns of Northern Israel. And Hezbollah will win this fight. Israel now knows this.
The Houthis have shown that Israel's sea lines of communications are vulnerable and have been successfully interdicted. And Israel has suffered billions of dollars of economic loss as a result. And then these continued attacks from Gaza, from Yemen, from Hezbollah, from Iraq now; the pro-Iranian Shia militias are now firing drones and cruise missiles that are striking Haifa, the city of Haifa.
The bottom line is, Israel will never know peace as long as it continues this current stance. The India-Middle East Economic Corridor is finished. It is not going to be revived. The concept of normalization of relations between Israel and its neighbors is ridiculous. Israel has lost the support it enjoyed amongst other nations around the world. In fact, the only nation that unabashedly supports Israel is the United States. Everybody else is turning their back on Israel. Israel has lost the world. Which means that if this is not rectified, and it won't be rectified, that millions of Israelis are going to start asking themselves the question, “Can we continue to live in Israel? Is it the quality of life that we were expecting? Is this a healthy enough economy? Do I want to subject my family to the economic pressures and the psychological pressures of living in a besieged Israeli State?” And the answer is “no.” Millions of Israelis have dual citizenship. They hold second passports. And we've already seen hundreds of thousands of them flee Israel, and if this situation deteriorates, you'll see millions more. And as Israel depopulates, it becomes less and less viable as a nation state, especially in terms of the singular state.
Israel is in big trouble. The only thing that's holding Israel up right now is the support of the United States. The United States just passed a resolution now that's been voted in favor of by the Security Council. If Israel disregards this, they're going to lose the United States. The United States will have no choice but to move forward and impose some sort of restrictions on Israel.
And we can make the following observation. Throughout the modern history of Israel, especially since the Six Day War in 1967, no Israeli prime minister has been able to remain in power without the support of the United States. And no American president has been able to be elected without the support of the State of Israel.
We have a situation now where Joe Biden is probably going to be compelled to decisively act against the State of Israel. And this is going to create tremendous political problems for him here in the United States. And we have a problem for Benjamin Netanyahu, that he is going to have to act in a manner which alienates him from the United States at a time when his government is in collapse. And there may be the necessity for reelection. And this is going to damage him politically. So, this is a big deal, this resolution. It puts both the United States and Israel, both Biden and Bibi, in a lot of hot water.
Which only then comes back to the point I was making. None of this promotes stability and peace. All of this promotes continued chaos and anarchy. And this will be disruptive to the region, disruptive to Israel and probably prompting even more Israelis to flee. I don't see Israel lasting the decade. I don't see Israel as it currently exists surviving another 10 years. It can't. Its economy will collapse. The political isolation will be real.
As you move forward with a two-state solution, that only works if both states are viable. But as Israel depopulates, remember, if Israel is compelled to move towards a two-state solution, there's going to be big problems. There's going to be a lot of Israelis that say, “We don't want to live in a two-state solution.” They'll leave.
The other thing is, you have a whole bunch of West Bank settlers in there who have stolen land that they're going to have to be evicted. That is another guaranteed outcome from this. The settlers cannot be allowed to remain in any construct that is Palestinian land. If the Israelis move against those West Bank settlers, a) there's going to be a crisis of confidence inside Israel. Again, those settlers aren't gonna say, “Uh okay. We're just gonna stay in Israel.” These are Brooklyn Jews who fled the United States knowing they were going to steal land and stay there. These are people who don't believe in hard work; they don't believe in earning anything. They're thieves; they're thugs; they're murderers; they're bandits. And when they lose their settlements, they're going to go back to where they came from: the United States or Australia or Canada or Europe. They’re not staying.
Israel is going to depopulate and lose its most fervent Zionistic elements, which means that the Israelis that stay behind are going to be those Israelis who are conditioned to the understanding that Israel has to live peacefully with their Palestinian neighbors, which means that the Zionist entity, this Zionist experiment, is finished, and that whatever emerges from this isn't going to be called the State of Israel. It's going to be called the State of Palestine. And hopefully it will incorporate a significant Jewish population. Of course, a significant Muslim population, a significant Christian population. The current population of Palestine is going to have to come together and learn to live together.
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