Opinion Archives - Page 15 of 40

Middle East End Game!

Dr Khairi Janbek
June 25, 2025

By Dr Khairi Janbek

For the last four decades, each time a tragic event or another took place in the Middle East, the slogan that gets thrown onto the arena is that of a “new Middle East”. No one is certainly not against a new Middle East per se, but against the one in which someone acts stupidly and then against the stupid acts of someone else to stop the first one from acting stupidly.

Such a series of stupid events makes one think that the notion of the Middle East is supposed to be worse for the peoples of the region except most probably, Israel. Into the fray, is the idea of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who wants to change the face of the region, giving the impression this region is the face and Netanyahu is the make-up artist whom to make this “face beautiful” for Israel and probably with those grudging consent of those around it.

Now, considering what has been achieved on the ground as far as Israel is concerned in relation to Netanyahu’s end game may well be too early to tell, but at least one can say that Israel has gained a respite with its seeming regional supremacy.

The start was with crippling the threat capability of Hezbullah and although it has not been destroyed, the responsibility for dealing with this Iranian proxy is now left to the new Lebanese government, which means that the latter will have to bear the new/old responsibility.

Then Syria came along. After the demise of the Assad regime, all Syrian military capabilities became fair game for Israeli bombardement, but in fairness, they were already so during the past Assad regime. Now, however, Israel has gone further, occupying the buffer zone between the two states while expanding its security zone deep inside Syria. Here, the project being pursued is a push for a federal structure to make the country incapable of becoming a future threat to Israel.

As for the 12-day campaign of bombardment and counter-bombardment by Israel and Iran with US cameo appearance, it is hard to reach any conclusions because of the great damage on both sides that is not really known as it verges on exaggerations, either for seeking international sympathy or as a show of awkward display of power.

Here, the end game was for Iran to be stopped from backing its proxies in Yemen, Iraq, and Lebanon and to eliminate its nuclear capability, if indeed it has reached such a level. Here, again, it is very hard to say to what extent the Iranian nuclear program has been set back, and to what extent Iran will go on the diplomatic path to stop its military support for its regional proxies.

Inevitably, we go back in circles, to the bleeding wound of Gaza, bleeding for the Palestinians, Arabs and Israelis. End game, ideal scenario and possible solution are all lost between the Israeli genocide policy, Arab impotence and naïveté , EU flip-flopping in accordance with the change of wind, and Trumpist absurd proposals and change of mind.

The issue here is far beyond Hamas, it’s Gaza and its people. As things stand the strip is divided into three regions under starvation. A massive refugee camp for people on their own land which for all intents and purposes, will no longer be their land. All in all, Israel is, with the consent of all, will be the supreme power in the region.

Dr Janbek is a Jordanian writer based in Paris, France.

Opinion

Iran-Israel: Making of a World War

Dr Khairi Janbek
June 16, 2025

By Dr Khair Janbek

We became accustomed for a while to the mutual bombardment of Iran and Israel for the first a couple of days. Then Israel started declaring that it had achieved its objectives whilst Iran maintained its own momentum, saying it is also teaching Israel a lesson.

But now the new flaring conflict is lasting longer than expected. We really don’t know for certain what are the objectives as the declared intentions keep changing on daily basis and the hidden objections tend to be irrelevant, at least for the time being because we have no clue about them.

What is certain is that neither Israel nor Iran are naïve to think that, a protracted campaign of mutual bombardment, is in their interest. The reality however, is that a war of attrition is not in their interest of either, and may serve the interests of the two other regional powers: Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

But would both Israel and Iran willingly allow Turkey and Saudi Arabia to replace their influence? This is not very likely, as we can clearly see both sides are trying their best to drag others into the conflict by turning it into a regional conflgeration, by dragging the US and the EU on one side, and the Russians, Chinese, and Pakistanis on the other.

One at this juncture must say that a regional conflict, even by unintended consequences may lead to a wider global conflagration, quickly bringing in world powers and states that will not sit by the sidelines.

On the face of it, anyone cannot miss the fact that bombarding Iran came on the first day of the end of the two-month grace period which the US gave to Tehran to reach an ‘ironclad’ nuclear agreement. So at least on the face of it, the whole issue is related to forcing Iran to come back to the negotiating table with the US albeit with a weakened position.

But then again, the contradictory statement of the administration in Washington could mean anything or nothing, implying for certainty that it had prior knowledge of the Israeli attack on Iran.

Another idea which was thrown into the arena in a flip-flop manner, is that of helping in the process of regime change, but if one can say anything, is that when the Iraq-Iran war erupted, it was still in the early days of the Islamic Revolution and there was strong opposition to the mullahs regime.

And rather than creating a possibility for a regime, the war created a united nationalist response against the then Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq. In a sense what started with a serious possibility of regime change ended up uniting the forces of the country.

Therefore, if the intention of the Israelis is regime change, then they better think twice about. Still, Iran is a country of more than 92 million people, with a territorial space of about 1.6 million kilometers so anything is possible. Just for interest, it is argued that Iran is 75 times the size of Israel.

So where do both parties go from here? One thing is for sure: One doesn’t know the extent of damage the two parties can do to each others’ nuclear arsenals. But if Israel feels it may not be able to destroy the Iranian nuclear infrastructure but can make it costly for them to re-start their programme, that would be naive because the Russians, the Chinese, and Pakistanis would be more than happy to offer their expertise.

One must add here however, that in the Near East, things can change very quickly.

Dr Janbek is a Jordanian writer based in Paris, France. He has contributed this article to crossfirearabia.com.

Opinion

US-Israeli Conspiracy on Iran?

CrossFireArabia
June 16, 2025

By Jamal Kanj

Israel’s latest strike on Iran had nothing to do with dismantling the Iranian (civilian) nuclear program. Despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s assertion that “the timing was fixed back in November 2024,” the real zero hour was designated only to undercut possible diplomatic framework that could have legitimized Iran’s nuclear development under international, verifiable, supervision.

This war is not a preemptive blow against Iran —it is a preemptive strike against diplomacy itself. The Trump administration made a grave error by keeping Israeli officials closely informed of the sensitive progress in the secret negotiations. This privileged access allowed Israel to strategically time its military strike to sabotage diplomatic efforts at a critical juncture—undermining further progress just as it was beginning to take shape, and before any agreement could fully mature.

Multiple independent leaks had pointed to progress in the Oman brokered negotiation between the U.S. and Iran, inclusive of intrusive International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections, capped enrichment, and restart of oil exports under strict monitoring. An agreement of that sort would have undercut Israel’s decades-long doctrine that only isolation and coercion can keep Iran “in its box.”

Rather than accepting a rules-based diplomatic framework that Netanyahu could not control or veto, he chose to hinder the potential agreement—with F-35s and cruise missiles.

This war is also part of Israel’s long-standing obsession with maintaining its monopoly on nuclear technology in the Middle East. Far from a purely defensive measure, Israel’s broader strategy has consistently aimed at preventing any regional power from acquiring—not only the infrastructure required to develop nuclear capabilities—but even the scientific expertise and human capital necessary to pursue such knowledge.

Hours after the first explosions, U.S. officials solemnly declared, “America did not take part.” But the denial was tactical, not principled. By remaining officially aloof, the Trump White House hoped to keep a seat at any revived negotiating table while still wielding the Israeli strike as leverage. Donald Trump’s own split-screen rhetoric—calling the raid “excellent,” threatening Iran with “more to come,” yet urging Tehran to “make a deal”—spelled out the gambit: let Israel be the cudgel while the United States courts concessions.

On the other hand, and in response to American Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, claim that the U.S. is “not involved in strikes against Iran,” Israel declared that every phase of the attack had been “closely coordinated” with the Pentagon and that that US provided “exquisite intelligence” to attack Iran.

The yawning gap between the two narratives served both capitals. In Washington, it allowed officials to reassure anxious allies that the U.S. was not actively escalating another Middle East war. In Tel Aviv, Netanyahu exploited the ambiguity to provoke Iran into retaliating against U.S. forces—potentially drawing Washington deeper into Israel’s war. At the same time, he sent a calculated message to domestic hawks and regional adversaries: that Israel still enjoys unwavering American backing.

Netanyahu’s sinister calculus was familiar and transparent from Israel’s book to drag the US into its endless wars: derail the diplomatic channel, then dare Washington to pick up the pieces while Israel enjoys another round of strategic impunity.

Even in a region where Israel uses starvation as a weapon of war and genocide in Gaza, Israel’s choice to strike residential neighborhoods—ostensibly targeting senior officers, civilian leaders, and nuclear scientists—crosses a perilous line. The laws of armed conflict draw a bright red distinction between combatants and civilians; by erasing it, Israel has handed Iran moral and legal grounds to retaliate in kind. If Tehran targets the private homes of Israeli leaders and commanders, Tel Aviv cannot plausibly cry victim after setting that precedent.

The first wave of Iranian retaliation—targeting the Israeli Ministry of Defense headquarters in Tel Aviv, among other sites—marks the beginning of a new kind of war, one unlike anything Israelis have faced in previous conflicts. For the first time, a state with advanced missile capabilities has shown both the resilience to absorb the initial strike and the capacity to hit back ] deep inside Israel—an experience unprecedented in Israel’s 77 years of existence.

Unlike the sporadic and largely asymmetrical conflicts with non-state actors like the Resistance in Lebanon and occupied Gaza, this confrontation introduces a level of state-to-state warfare that challenges Israel’s long-held military superiority and assumptions of deterrence. What has unfolded so far with the Iranian retaliation is a harbinger of a more symmetrical and likely prolonged confrontation—one in which Israel’s own centers of power may be within range, and where the frontlines are no longer confined to Gaza, the West Bank, or southern Lebanon, but centered into the very core of Tel Aviv.

In the coming days, Washington’s true measure will be taken after the smoke clears. If U.S. Aegis destroyers in the Gulf or antimissile batteries in the region are activated to shoot down Iranian missiles and drones, America will cease to be an observer and become a co-belligerent.

Such presumably “defensive” steps quickly metastasize: one intercept invites another, and each exchange digs the United States deeper into a conflict created by a foreign country. History offers bleak guidance. Once American troops engage, momentum overrides strategy and the dynamics of war supplant planning. Political leaders feel compelled to “finish the job,” costs spiral, U.S. interests go unsecured, and the chief beneficiary is almost always the Israeli security establishment that triggered the crisis.

At the end of the day, Netanyahu’s success will not be measured by how many centrifuges he cripples or how many Iranian scientists he murders. It will be measured by whether he can lock the United States into yet another made-for-Israel Middle East war, paid for—strategically, financially, life, and morally—by Americans.

If Washington truly opposes escalation, it must say no—publicly and unequivocally—to any role in shielding Israel from the blowback it just invited. Anything less is complicity disguised as caution, and it will once again confirm that Israeli impunity is underwritten in Washington, even when it torpedoes America’s own diplomacy and ignites yet another Israeli-engineered war.

– Jamal Kanj is the author of “Children of Catastrophe,” Journey from a Palestinian Refugee Camp to America, and other books. He writes frequently on Arab world issues for various national and international commentaries. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle

Opinion

Notes From a Hospital Bed

CrossFireArabia
June 16, 2025

By Dr Birsen Gaskell

A piercing alarm wailing through the corridors of the hospital for the third time this evening. I swiftly climb down the stairs to the emergency room four floors down. A crushing dread fills my chest, as the wailing of the alarm signals a mass casualty is expected. I push through the crowd piling up in the ER: “Tafadal … tafadal (please go ahead).” A child drops a torn bag spilling pieces of bony flesh. A man shrieks, the meat is a small shredded arm, ashen fingers hanging loosely attached.

The child struggles to put the shredded arm back into the bag, he looks around for help. He sweeps the amputated arm aside, away from the passing crowd. His gaze falls on me just a moment. I quiver at the calm of his face. I search for tears, anger, fear, something recognizable in his eyes but the void there like a black hole sucks me in. Child, when did you stop being a child? He will later keep peering through the ajar ER door to see if the relative or friend whose torn off arm was shoved into a bag is still alive.

The resuscitation room is quickly filled with the smoke of burned flesh. Five bodies and some missing body parts are thrown onto the stretchers. The rest are taken to the next room, a plain room with another five stretchers. I scan the room, all the bodies seem limp, unconscious. I start with one by feeling for a pulse; a teenager, burned extensively with shrapnel wounds all over her chest and face. Her long curly hair seem to be still burning slowly. No pulse. I move to the next.

A toddler again with shrapnel wounds all over his bony little body. His arms and feet burned. He has an open skull, eye sockets blackened. He has a feeble pulse but he won’t make it. I move to the next one. Another burned child with a missing arm and crushed pelvis. A doctor is putting a chest drain on each side of his little chest. Chest drains are an easy call in the ER, the majority of patients have them as most blast injuries blow the chest cavity up with air sweeping from outside crushing the lungs down. The only way to get the lungs up again is putting tubes through the chest to deflate the air around the lungs. Sterility is no concern, chest drains are put in in a flash. I let the team carry on.

The next one is another child. I see shrapnel entries on his face, blast injuries on his bare feet. He’s unconscious but has a pulse. “Lazim oksijen (oxygen needed),” I shout. My voice is swallowed in the cacophony of the ER. I grab a nurse by the elbow, demanding oxygen. He goes out to fetch an oxygen cylinder but comes back empty handed. I scan the child with ultrasound. He has blood in his abdomen and around his lungs. A local doctor is with me now. Most doctors speak excellent English. I give my findings, we agree to send him to computer tomography (CT) to check for brain injury. We can’t treat patients with head injuries in this hospital. The only neurosurgical team is based in the European Gaza Hospital in southern Khan Yunis. Without adequate airway support, the child soon is ushered to the CT.

After a week here I’m used to hearing explosions

The fifth casualty is also a child. He is already intubated by the team but still bleeding from his crushed, half-amputated arm. The cloth wrapped round his arm as a tourniquet is soaked in blood. He has penetrating crushing injuries in his genitals and pelvis, his leg twisted. He is covered with so much blood, it’s difficult to inspect his injuries. With such severe injuries he’s unlikely to survive but there’s talk of moving him to an operating theater in order to stop his bleeding. I agree. We scoop him to a theater with no monitoring. His relatives grab the stretcher outside, carrying him swiftly. I rush to the stairs to alert the team in the theater. Before I reach the first landing, a shuddering blast fills my ears, shaking the windows and doors. The waves of the blast push me against the wall like a gale. I halt. That was close! But I quickly realize not close enough for me to stop. After a week here I’m used to hearing explosions, blasts, bombs in the background, some strong enough to shake the entire hospital building.

I soon find out the airstrike was just outside the main hospital gate. A tent with a Press sign was hit, setting off fire that soon will engulf the other tents around it. I now expect another wave of casualties. “Some have to be treated on the floor as the ER is pretty full now,” I think, then my thoughts shift to the child in the theater. I continue climbing the stairs. After a two-hour battle amputating his arm, exploring his abdomen and pelvis, and fixing his broken leg temporarily that painted the whole theater with blood, he makes it to the intensive care unit only to die the next day with organ failures. The mortality rate in the ICU is very high as well as in other parts of the hospital. Far too many patients with far too few resources, hardly any antibiotics or other meds, premature discharges to welcome new admissions, the hospital is often the last stop for the injured.

It is now 2 am. I feel a migraine kicking in, think I must drink some water but the taps aren’t safe to drink from. I must go to our accommodation room for a drink but I head towards the ER instead. The crowd outside the resuscitation room is bigger now. The cacophony is louder. It’s chaos in the ER, with some patients lying on the floor. I smell the familiar burned flesh. There’s ongoing cardiopulmonary resuscitation on a child whose body is covered with soot mixed with blood. The CPR is short lived, he’s dead. I watch his lifeless face, his eyes half open. I secretly feel relieved for him knowing he will no longer wake up to the sounds of explosions as he has been for the past nearly 600 days, no longer spending the day hungry and thirsty, no longer having to be displaced yet again from his makeshift tent or ruins of his city, no longer feel freezing cold overnight or scorching hot during summer days, no longer will miss his old school, his friends, his family, some of whom died or are thought to be dead. I stroke his dirty bare feet, think: “Now you’re safe little man, no one can hurt you.” Just then another crushing airstrike booms all around us! The lights go off.

Bombardment of Gaza never stops

The fourth floor of the main hospital building where the ICU unit is located in the middle is the designated assembly point for our team in case of a direct airstrike. I manage to climb the stairs to the assembly point with my cellphone flashlight. By the time I reach the assembly point the generator kicks in, the lights are back on. I don’t see anyone else from the team other than the usual traffic that never stops in and out of the ICU. I rush to the accommodation area, and we’re all fine. The strike was just outside the walls of the hospital’s east side.

We watch the massive smoke clouds billowing up right across the balcony of the accommodation. Dr. Osama instructs the team to stay in the accommodation for the time being, away from the balcony and windows. Ambulance sirens remain loud for hours to come. I lie down with a blooming migraine but can’t sleep as we spend the rest of the night with low-flying supersonic jets hovering the air above. Drones humming loudly as usual in between the sounds of jets. The bombardment of Gaza never stops.

I hear Rachael say: “Hold on.” Someone knocks on the door impatiently. “It’s for you,” says Rachael, seeing me raised in bed. What time is it? “Still very early” she says. I’m needed in theaters urgently. Anesthetic nurses are overwhelmed with no anesthetist around. My migraine is here to stay. I gobble up some painkillers and leave. Inside the theater room there’s so much blood on the floor, it swashes and ripples around every time I walk over. It’s a young girl with her chest cavity open. I see her heart fibrillating. “Lazim kalb compression (heart compression needed).” She doesn’t make it. The most efficient workers here are the cleaners. After returning from the bathroom, I see the operating room already clean and ready for the next case.

“Ahmad, where is Dr. Fayez?” I ask the anesthetic nurse. “In his office, he’s not well.” I find him having tea on a broken office chair. He offers me tea. I know that there’s no point in saying no as the hospitality of Palestinians always wins out. He turns on the mini plastic kettle behind him and pulls out some loose tea from the drawer of his table. “Feeling okay?” I ask. He doesn’t hear me as the kettle makes a buzz and vibrates violently. “You know what I really really miss, Doctor Birsen?”

He leaves me in suspense, brewing the tea in the kettle. “I miss drinking tea with sugar. Really miss tea with sugar so much. I don’t find sugar in the market anymore.” I nod. “You feeling okay?” “Better now … When we have a bad night I always get chest pain.” I say: “Ohh … shall we check you over?” He responds “It’s not new, doctor, I’m diabetic, hypertensive. Every time I hear a big explosion I get chest pain. I worry not about myself, but about my boys. They can’t survive without me.” He turns his face as his voice cracks. He wipes his eyes. Dr. Fayez has six boys. Touch between the genders is not customary here. But I put my hand on his shoulder for few seconds as he weeps quietly.

“They haven’t been out for the last 18 months. We don’t let them out to play, they’re always inside.” Their home took a hit by an airstrike on the neighboring house that knocked down part of their house down too. They survived with minor injuries. Since then they’ve been displaced five times. Now they live with other relatives in a damaged building with no windows. He was in Nasser Hospital when the neighborhood was invaded by ground troops.

When the staff and patients were led outside, he came very close to being abducted at a checkpoint. He told me: “I saw a toddler left alone screaming. I couldn’t leave him. I picked him and carried him with me. He kept screaming all the way to the checkpoint, IDF (Israeli army) soldiers who were pointing guns at us got annoyed by this. They let me through when most of the staff got held off and taken away. This small child saved my life.” I say: “You rest, Dr. Fayez, I’ll take over today.”

Many martyrs found in the ground

It’s going to be a long day. I desperately need my morning coffee. Our housekeeper Jamal makes coffee for me with the little coffee mocha I brought with me. I give half to him. We sip our coffee as we look out over the balcony. Several smoke clouds hang over the Rafah area. The air is very thick with the pollution of constant explosions. We watch the kids collecting garbage in the desolate ground of the hospital building.

The skeletons of ambulances, furniture, and hospital equipment and what’s left of them is scattered around. Some buried partially. Following the ground invasion almost a year ago, the Israeli army damaged and burned down the properties of the hospital. Children rummage around the hospital grounds every morning collecting anything they can find useful for burning fire. Every morning, when they should have been in school, they roam around the ruins of city to collect what’s left of it.

Jamal points to the hospital ground, says: “We found many shuhada (martyrs) in the ground.” He is talking about the mass graveyards that were dug out after the Israeli army withdrew from the area. The same evening on the same balcony, Jamal speaks in Arabic as my Jordanian colleague translates with a trembling voice. In December 2023, Jamal got trapped in Northern Gaza under a complete siege, constant bombardment, and a strict curfew lasting a month.

His neighborhood was reduced to ruins with decaying dead bodies scattered around. He saw his brother and his family home hit by a rocket and later made many attempts to save and retrieve their bodies. But with quadcopters hovering around, he couldn’t make it out. A week later from his windows he sees dogs eating human flesh, one of which he knows is his brother’s lifeless body. Jamal rubs his fists between his legs, says “Alhamdulillah” (praise be to God), and leaves us in silence.

Dr Birsen Gaskell, an anesthesia specialist, is a volunteer doctor for Doctors Without Borders. She visited the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza in April 2025.

Opinion

The Devil You Know!

Dr Khairi Janbek
May 30, 2025

By Dr Khairi Janbek

One wonders what more can be said about the tragic war in Gaza, more than the outpouring of words in the East, West and the Arab world with the habitual accusations and counter-accusations which have reduced the question of Gaza, after many other things to a mere question of semantics with the same words and same policies, while the habitual loser, the hostages and their families, and the Gazan people continue to suffer relentlessly.

Delegations keep going and coming, ceasefires agreed then broken given the impression that all what is being attempted is to keep the war going without the pangs of guilty conscience or more pragmatically, pending how public opinion shifts in western countries.

For all intents and purposes, can Israel destroy Hamas or at least break its military structure, if indeed this is the intention of Israel? If it is not, what would be the point of this war?

This is because all of what is being done is mere destruction of lives of innocent civilians who have no say when it came to “Hamas terrorism” and the subsequent Israeli retaliation. The tragi-comedy of the situation, is that Israel is fighting Hamas in order to keep a smaller version of Hamas, in the manner possibly of the devil you know is better than the one you don’t.

As for the other side of the divide, one doesn’t believe that Hamas cares about the innocent Gazans more than Israel, of course their aim is to survive, and rule for another day, because as it appears they seem to believe that Israel has no wish to occupy Gaza, and they stand a good chance to rule a diminished territory compatible with their diminished organizational size.

One wouldn’t actually be surprised knowing only too well than in the Middle East nothing is meant to be resolved; neither with peace nor with war.

Then comes the international community, President Trump’s policy towards the region fits very well with all what is going on, and it reflects this inconsistency with its own inconsistency. At one point, he wants the destruction of Hamas, then he wants a ceasefire and wants the war to stop, with the only logical demand of wanting what everyone else wants, the release of the hostages.

But even on this path one wonders for how long he will be able to keep his attention span on the question. The EU has its twists and turns, apart from’Ireland and Spain, the governments of Europe have their own contradictions with each other and subject to the fluctuations of public opinion, nevertheless, there will be plenty of rhetoric but the same policies will continue.

Ironically, the only side which is not counted on, and the only side which seems reluctant to get involved actively, save for holding hostage release negotiations, is the Arab side.

One firmly believes, against common wisdom, that only the Arabs can convince Hamas to surrender its weapons, and manage a post-Hamas Gaza, guaranteeing security for Israel and start the reconstruction efforts for Gaza. It is only after that, a permanent solution can be thought of.

Dr Janbek is a Jordanian writer based in Paris, France.