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.
Those who have followed developments in Scotland over the past number of months will be acutely aware that the independence referendum campaign saw the division of two opinions on the political spectrum. On the one hand the Yes Scotland side of the debate was marked by its resistance to nuclear weapons and involvement in wars deemed illegal by the international community (among other things), and on the other the Better Together platform of pride in the British colonial project and militarism. Days after the rejection of independence in Scotland the government at Westminster decided to engage Scottish soldiers in another invasion of Iraq – much to the delight of the State of Israel which has ceaselessly lobbied both the US and the UK to continue military action in the region. With the resultant collapse of the Labour Party in Scotland in the aftermath of its pyrrhic victory over the independence movement Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont has stepped down, leaving a power vacuum in the party. Few wish to touch this particular hot potato except for Jim Murphy MP. Murphy, who has served as the chair of Labour Friends of Israel, has been a firm defender of the State of Israel and its numerous invasions of Gaza and the ghettoization of the West Bank. Jim Murphy’s potential leadership of Scottish Labour is bound to further antagonise an independence movement that has been keen to promote peace and justice at home and abroad.
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. 
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