Melaine Phillips: Israel's two-faced allies
America and Britain claim to be allies of Israel. There is no gainsaying the deep links between them of military assistance, intelligence and trade. Israel is the invaluable strategic asset for America and Britain in the Middle East, a crucial bulwark in the defense of the West.Biden Is Delivering the Middle East to China
And yet, both America and Britain undermine Israel's security and defense against existential attack by sanitizing, promoting and funding Palestinian Arabs, whose active cause remains the destruction of the Jewish state.
A recent event illustrated this particularly sharply when British diplomatic officials in Jerusalem effectively endorsed the Palestinian Authority's agenda to eradicate Israel.
Palestinian Media Watch has revealed that at last Friday's annual "Palestine Marathon" held by the PA, seven British officials taking part as "#TeamUK" wore marathon T-shirts displaying the PA's map that erases Israel and represents the whole country as Palestine.
The Jewish Chronicle reports that the team consisted of the UK's Deputy Consul General Alison McEwen and Foreign Office colleagues. A picture of the team was tweeted from the official account of the British Consulate in Jerusalem, hailing "the incredible Palestine Marathon to support #FREEDOMOFMOVEMENT for all Palestinians."
Palestinian Media Watch observes that this hashtag was conceived to support the PA's demand that Israel remove the security measures it has adopted to prevent the flow of Palestinian terrorists from PA-controlled areas into Israel's cities.
According to The Jewish Chronicle, the marathon was organized by a group called "Right to Movement," which campaigns against "the many obstacles that we live daily under fascist racist occupation."
The race was held under the auspices of the Palestine Liberation Organization Supreme Council for Youth and Sports headed by Jibril Rajoub, a man who has been convicted of numerous terrorist offenses and who persistently glorifies Palestinian terrorist murderers.
So these British diplomats took part in an event supervised by a terrorist sympathizer; openly supported the Palestinian Arabs' lie that Israel is subjecting them to "fascist racist occupation"; openly opposed Israel's measures to protect its citizens against attack; and openly endorsed the eradication of Israel altogether.
In return for participating, at least partially, in a China-centric economic sphere, Xi is presenting Beijing to the Gulf Arab states as an alternative to Washington for managing the Iranian threat. The Saudis made their Iran focus clear when, in exchange for normalizing relations with Israel, they recently asked the United States for security guarantees, help in developing a civilian nuclear program, and missiles and drones, the very weapons that tilt the regional balance of power in favour of Tehran. In essence, the Saudis said that if Washington will check the rise of Iran, they will participate with Israel in an American-led regional bloc.ICC issues arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin over Russian war crimes in Ukraine
Biden perhaps fears that the Saudis are bluffing, that they will pocket any concession the United States makes and still continue to hedge toward Beijing. Or perhaps he fears that Iran will draw the U.S. into a military confrontation. With a war raging in Ukraine and the threat of war looming over Taiwan, neither Biden nor the Pentagon relish the prospect of an escalation in the Middle East.
But American options are diminishing by the day. In the Middle East, the United States cannot outcompete China economically. The Chinese are now the world’s largest purchaser of oil from the region, and they are rapidly expanding their exports to the Middle East. As a great power patron, the only thing that distinguishes the U.S. from China is its military might.
But the Biden team refuses to check Iran militarily. In that case, what good is Washington to Saudi Arabia? Why wouldn’t Riyadh turn eastward? In contrast to Washington, Beijing at least wields influence in Tehran. It is eager to export drones and missiles, it won’t hesitate to provide assistance with a civilian nuclear program, and it won’t deliver sermons on human rights. Best of all, Xi’s grand economic strategy compels him to woo Riyadh.
America’s refusal to build an anti-Iran bloc is delivering the Middle East to China.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant on Friday against Russian President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of being responsible for war crimes committed in Ukraine, but Moscow said the move was meaningless.
Russia has repeatedly denied accusations that its forces have committed atrocities during its one-year-old invasion of its neighbor.
The ICC issued the warrant for Putin's arrest on suspicion of unlawful deportation of children and unlawful transfer of people from the territory of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.
The court also issued a warrant for Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia's Commissioner for Children's Rights, on the same charges.
Moscow: ICC's arrest warrant has no bearing on Russia
In the first reaction to the news from Moscow, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on her Telegram channel: "The decisions of the International Criminal Court have no meaning for our country, including from a legal point of view."
"Russia is not a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and bears no obligations under it."
There was no immediate reaction from the Kremlin.