Experts widely concede that Israel cannot maintain its occupation and colonialism of the Palestinian territories (and siege of Gaza) except that it remains on a war footing.
Alain Gresh, writing in Le Monde diplomatique, went further in this analysis entitled, Israel: the next war:
The US’s failure under Barack Obama to impose peace between Israel and the Palestinians makes a new war likely
…..
Israel’s refusal to accept Obama’s proposal to halt settlements on the West Bank (but not in East Jerusalem) for three months in return for unprecedented promises – or bribes, according to columnist Thomas Friedman (2), who is not known for sympathy to the Arabs – confirmed that Obama is unable to exert any real pressure on Israel and that Netanyahu rejects any compromise. Netanyahu, like his predecessors, claims to want peace but he wants the humiliating peace imposed by conquest and based on denial of Palestinian rights. In secret negotiations over the past year, he has repeatedly told the Palestinians they had to accept Israel’s “security concept”, keeping Israeli troops stationed in the Jordan valley along the “barrier” (on the Palestinian side) and the occupation of a substantial part of the West Bank (3). He did not say how long the occupation would last.
This deadlock is forcing the Israeli army to draw up plans for further wars based on the “security concept” – that anyone who refuses to accept Israel’s rule in the region is a “terrorist” to be eliminated. No other country, not even the US, has such a comprehensive security concept, which means that Israel is permanently at war. Who will the Israeli army attack next?….
(click on the link to find out)
Then only this morning, Israel’s Deputy PM Moshe Yaalon, a former armed forces chief, uttered a sort of ominous ultimatum:
‘Iranian regime … must choose between continuing to seek nuclear capability and surviving’
`West has 3 years to rein in Iran’
The West?
Will Israel then strike Iran? Yaalon didn’t say, but when you combine militarism and arrogance, it can be a lethal combination. Obama’s failure in the Middle East peace effort thus has the wider implication of potentially dragging the US into another Middle East war.
The Neocons are quietly finding ways to continue their project of using American military power to make the Middle East subordinate to Israel.