Update: Israel-Hamas war
With a gentle nudge from WION, the Indian global broadcaster, who requested an interview early this morning, I found several of the latest developments in the Mideast conflict worthy of the close attention of Russia watchers and of the wider international community. I used the interview to mention these as you will find once the link is posted below.
In particular, I pointed to the number one news item in Russia today: the restoration of air services at the Makhachkala airport in Dagestan, a region of the Russian Federation just north of the Caucasus which has an overwhelmingly Muslim population, but also a noteworthy minority of some 30,000 Jews, mostly concentrated in the ancient city of Derbent where a Jewish community has existed since the early days of the diaspora many centuries ago. The airport was closed following a mob attack on a just landed plane from Tel Aviv, with which Dagestan has regular direct flights. They were looking for Israeli passport holders and Jews, whom they wrongly believed would be settled in Dagestan, against their wishes. The mob clashed with airport workers and law enforcement officers before being arrested and taken away.
This ugly development underscored the importance of an unrelated meeting by President Putin yesterday with the heads of all the officially recognized religions in the Russian Federation. He issued a call for mutual respect and for multi-national, multi-confessional solidarity of Russia today in the face of the provocations coming from the Middle East. For reasons of domestic peace, Russia is observing neutrality in the Hamas-Israel conflict.
As I mention in the interview, the tensions generated by Israel’s ongoing atrocities in Gaza may inflame ethnic and religious disturbances in all countries where there are mixed populations. That concerns Europe, which with a couple of exceptions chose to abstain on the UN General Assembly vote last Friday calling for an immediate cease-fire, and also India, which did the same. And those European exceptions, regrettably, voted with the United States against the draft resolution.
As for the situation on the ground in the Middle East, little has changed in the past 24 hours. On the Lebanese border, Hezbollah makes only token strikes on Israeli reconnaissance towers. On the Syrian border, there also is no significant increase in violence.
Israel continues its intense bombardment of Gaza, with emphasis on Gaza City, and its ground forces are said to be advancing into the enclave. The latest alarms over pending war crimes and humanitarian catastrophe are focused on the Al Quds hospital in North Gaza, which the Israelis have ordered to evacuate ahead of a planned bombing raid but which hospital authorities claim is impossible due to the large numbers of patients in critical condition on life support devices who cannot be moved as well as the thousands of homeless civilians who have taken refuge there.
We read that President Biden has strongly urged the Israelis to allow humanitarian aid into the enclave and there is talk of raising the daily passage of trucks into Gaza to 100. So far this is just talk.
On the subject of talk, I use this occasion to praise UN General Secretary Antonio Gutteres for his bold criticism directed against the Israeli authorities for the suffering they inflicted on the Palestinians during their decades-long occupation of their lands, and for repeat calls to restore deliveries of food, water and fuel to the Gaza. We have not witnessed such a stand against the United States-led Collective West since the days of Dag Hammarskjold and we all know where Hammarskjold’s courage got him. It is a pity that Gutteres has been utterly mealy-mouthed with respect to the Donbas civilians killed in the run-up to the Russia-Ukraine war and in particular with respect to Ukrainian attacks this past year on the nuclear power station in Zaporozhie.
I have mentioned above the present Russian wish not to be drawn into the Middle East conflict. Notwithstanding Iran’s open hostility to Israel, Teheran is also standing back for the time being. Of course, this restraint is predicated upon the war’s not escalating further but instead grinding to a halt under the pressure of China, Russia and the Global South. For the moment, no one can say with confidence what comes next.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023