The official narrative is that the Islamic State, funding itself from banditry and kidnappings, has sprung from the regional power vacuum to wreak havoc across the Middle East. On the surface this appears to be a brilliant explanation for America’s complete powerlessness over this emerging barbaric state, and the strength of ISIS over northern Iraq and Syria. All of this makes sense until, like most things in the region; it is discovered to be far more complicated. ISIS should, in theory, unite the Arab states, Iran, the European Union, and Israel in common cause. ISIS should be the cause, on paper, of world peace. That is the theory. The practice reveals more uncomfortable truths about the nature of ISIS, and its connections to the United States and Israel. From the very earliest days of the Islamic State there have been whistle-blowers shouting about the link between US money and interests, and the beheadings of these jihadists.
Hezbollah in the Lebanon, closely aligned with Iran and the Iranian Republican Guard, has spent the past year on the Lebanon-Syrian border keeping ISIS from spreading west to Beirut. ISIS has no friends among the traditional ‘extremists’ of the region. Correction: ISIS has Israel as a friend. During a week of fighting between Hezbollah and ISIS rebels on the Lebanese border the Israeli army launched a flanking attack on Hezbollah in a shoot-out that resulted in the death of one Spanish UN peacekeeper. In fact Israel – the US backed Western colony in Palestine – has consistently worked to weaken Hezbollah against the spread of the Islamic State. To top all of this off the ISIS fighters are using US made weapons that have already been shown to have been shipped into Syria and Iraq from Saudi Arabia – America’s human rights abusing ally. ISIS may well think of itself as a state of radical Islamic freedom fighters, but the strings are being pulled from Washington.
Continuous war and the aggressive expansion of Capitalism have been the hallmarks of the early twenty-first century. In one form or another – military or economic – the US has been engaged in a ceaseless series of wars in the Middle East and around the globe since 1990 with the launch of Operation Desert Storm. With each successive military campaign, in which the US has involved a number of allies including Britain and other EU member states, Western multi-national corporations have increased their share in the oil wealth of the Middle East. As oil prices rise, reflecting the depletion of its sources, the intensity of US military engagement increases. Yet within these supposedly liberal democratic societies of America and Europe public opinion, as with the US war in Vietnam, can have a negative effect on the state’s will to war. The Patriot Act in the US and moves within Britain and across Europe to legislate against press criticism of government are geared towards keeping public opinion behind the endless war effort. Control of the media, in the age of the internet, is now no longer enough to keep the democracy onside in matters of war, especially when the motives for such violence have no more moral defence than simple greed. One way or another, states have been forced to find ever more inventive methods of manufacturing consent. Only with the will of the people can the great democracies plunder weaker nations.
In Gaza there is a sad inevitability that this current ceasefire will not be the end of the conflict. While the tentative peace lasts the sides are busy negotiating the future, not only of Gaza but also that of the West Bank. Israel has never taken the discussions with Palestine seriously and has always managed to find a way around previous agreements in relation to the illegal occupation of the West Bank and the question of the Settlements which have been a central instrument in the cantonisation of the occupied territories. Israel and its US allies well know that a meaningful peace between Israel and a hypothetical Palestinian state will damage their colonial and strategic ambitions for the territories. Mahmoud Abbas, the Fatah leader of the Palestinian unity government, which is still supported by Hamas, is largely rejected by the people of Palestine as a US-Israeli stooge, and the fact that Operation Protective Edge did not include the invasion and systematic destruction of the West Bank does point in this direction. Since Arafat the US and Israel have been looking for a ‘moderate’ Palestinian who will be happy to accept a dictated peace on Israeli terms, and in Abbas they certainly do seem to have their man. Going on the past record of the State of Israel in using any pretext to invade Gaza in order to exterminate Hamas, it is unlikely that any of the demands of Hamas will be taken into consideration in the current negotiations. 
Emerald News Network 
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