Almost 90 bombs were dropped in one region in just 24 hours.
Russia unleashed an unprecedented bombardment in southern Ukraine overnight in what local officials described as a “massive attack” in the conflict which has continued to rage even as the international community’s attention has moved to the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
The Ukrainian Internal Affairs Ministry on Monday morning said Russia dropped at least “87 aerial bombs on populated areas of the Kherson region - the largest number for all time.” At least eight people were also injured in other Russian strikes carried out in the Odessa region further to the west on Sunday night.
Looks like it’s all going according to Putin’s plan.
I’m the last guy to put on a tinfoil hat, but the whole situation seems like it was engineered by Russia to take pressure off their war with the Ukraine.
I’d say it’s simpler than that. Russia keeps funding regions it wants destabilized so something bad is always happening at a time good for Russia.
No tinfoil hat, but total Scumbag Putin.
Guy must have a copy of 7 Effective Habits.
More likely an opportune moment for Putin. The Gaza conflict seems to have been primarily stoked by Iran over concerns of growing positive Israel and Saudi Arabia relations
And Russia has been purchasing large amounts of Iranian munitions. It’s not that far fetched for Russia to simply throw some money at Iran to throw a bit less money at Hamas to start some shit
Iran does not now and never has needed Russian money to finance Hamas. This is a much older pre-existing relationship that its had with Hamas for decades. Furthermore, Iran and Hamas, as well as the other Iranian proxies, have a much greater interest than Russia in ensuring that Israel doesn’t normalize relations with the KSA and other Arab nations. Accordingly, while Russia is happy to see this all go down, there’s very little chance that they played any active role in it at all.
There was no real indication for the scope and intensity of the hamas attacks. Based on US and Israeli Intel. There were some kind of warning signs, but nothing pointing to this ferocity. I think fighters got far further than they could dream of, and the severity of the response is a direct reaction to the failure of the isreali army to see and stop the attack. It’s difficult to believe that the kremlin had more and better information to know that an attack would lead to war on the scale we see today. And I’m willing to believe that Russia sees benefits in arming hamas through the lens of geopolitics, they aren’t controlling the actions of hamas in any meaningful way, I certainly don’t believe that.
Putin is just taking advantage and is absolutely never harmed by being seen as some kind of geopolitical mastermind. He isn’t.
Take the pressure off to help optics but also to squeeze any western support
They said that the Hamas attack took at least one year to plan, maybe 18 months. Putin thought he would win the war on Ukraine quickly.
So I have my doubts that this was perfectly orchestrated to take attention away at the right time.
Russia and Iran’s strategy is more likely loosely aligned.
Putin would have steamrolled Ukraine quickly if Trump had been reelected. There’s a reason Russian troops massed on the Ukraine border right at the election. Putin couldn’t back down when Trump lost, and lose face.
He probably could have, haha dumb westerners thought we were going to invade. They’ve trolled before.
They could just have said their special military training exercise was just that, an exercise.
But imagine that, a Russia that isn’t lying.
Presumably he knew there was more than an outside chance the war took over a year. And it could easily have been assisted by Russia while already in the works.
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Given how much Putin spent on Israilian DPI and their other… systems, I don’t see it impossible.
Why not the opposite in that case? Why can’t the Ukraine thing be a distraction, if one of these events is a distraction for the other?
It was a great plan, if so. Russia obviously knew Israel wanted to start completing the genocide, and it wouldnt be beyond belief that Russia got extra rocket supplies into Gaza. It’s not even, like, deceitful, it’s just good planning. The best way to get away with something is to get someone else to do something way worse. And genocide is clearly way worse than Russia reclaiming a historically Russian area.
Fuck Putin, the warmongering cunt. I hope Ukraine continues to get Western support and can kick Russia out of their country, however slim the chances might be looking right now. Russia extending its influence and things gradually going back to business as usual, only for them to do it again in another 10 years won’t be good for any Western democracies.
Haven’t really been following the Israel/Palestine thing much to be honest, but it would be nice if people would stop killing one another. Also really sucks that it benefits Putin.
I truly feel like if we let Russia get anything that might count as a positive for them from this war, there will definitely be a new war of at least similar scale, but probably significantly worse and significantly less contained.
Russia wants to keep unobstructed access to the Black Sea, for its freight and military ships.
The EU and China want to keep a railroad from China to the EU, through Kazakhstan and Ukraine or Belarus, to cut in half the time freight ships take.
Both need control over the same piece(s) of land.
For reference:
Russia already has access to the Black Sea even without any Ukrainian land.
Russia has access to the Black Sea through the Sea of Azov, which is controlled by whoever controls Crimea… and to maintain control over Crimea, Russia needs supply lines over a land access at least across the Donbass, not just through a bridge that can be bombed at any time, as it has been already.
Both the Donbass and Crimea, Ukraine considers to be Ukrainian land, even though the history of both areas is plagued by forced resettlements during the USSR times.
Additionally, there are natural resources, some ports, and a nuclear plant in the Donbass area, which Russia would happily take over.
Russia has a long stretch of Black Sea coast outside of the Sea of Azov. They don’t need any more land to use that.
Please look again at the map for the Unified Deep Water System.
This isn’t about having a port on the Black Sea, it’s about having ships from ports in inland Russia getting unobstructed waterway access to the Black Sea, from where they can go to the Mediterranean and beyond.
Then it looks like they need to change their strategy.
The chances aren’t as slim as many people seem to imagine. Putin is basically in a holding pattern for now. He’s holding out on the chance that Trump might win a second term, thus changing everything about the current dynamic. If Trump doesn’t win, Putin is probably in pretty big trouble since he almost certainly won’t survive a defeat in Ukraine and will be hard-pressed to find a good exit that doesn’t look like one.
How is trump remotely relevant to Putin?
It is sad to see Putin’s oligarchs “honorable buisnessmen”, while everyone else should cross border naked and without phones or laptops. If they were lucky enough to get visa in the first place.
in another 10 years won’t be good for any Western democracies.
Another 10 years of Putin won’t be good for any democracy. Fuck Putin.
Putin the war monger? Bro, Biden is literally funding genocide. The west calling Putin a warmonger is insanely hypocritical. It’s not Russia that is responsible for most of the violence in the middle east in the 21st century, America is.
is this ‘the west’ in the room with us
does he have a blog perhaps, id love to read his takes
“The West” means America’s zone of influence. Otherwise known as Europe, NA, and parts of other continents. Why are you questioning the definition of a word? It’s just what the term means.
i figured you mustve meant an actual specific person, since disagreeing with something doesnt suddenly make you a hypocrite if some guy you have nothing to do with in the same ~1 billion people group you were born into also does it
is it actually hypocrisy that youre using a wrong definition for, then?
Every American that gives a shit about Russias actions and is not very loudly against American imperialism, even though their own country regularly does far worse wars in the middle east, and is currently funding a genocide, is a hypocrite. Even if Russia were somehow worse than America, despite committing far fewer war crimes and crimes against humanity, Americans who care about Russia need to STFU. When you have a problem in your own home, you fix it, you don’t go around criticizing others. Americans need to fix our imperialism problem.
Makes sense, UN can only produce a finite amount of concern, not enough to express it on 2 major conflicts.
UN doing absolutely diddly in two major theaters of conflict rather than just the one.
The UN’s role is to prevent conflict between major powers, not stop all war period. It has done an exemplary job at that, better than any organization in history. There have been no wars between major world powers in the past 75 years. Prior to that, all empires were constantly at each other’s throats.
idk how much of that really is the UN and how much can just be attributed to mutually assured destruction
Good point, but we can understand it as a parallel solution. People deride the UN as a debate society, but that’s the point. Countries yell at each other and get domestic points that way instead of attacking each other.
You don’t understand what the UN is. It’s a common misconception.
The purpose of the UN is to have a diplomatic environment where all can be heard in front of all others. It’s to encourage diplomatic solutions to problems and to defuse conflicts.
The UN doesn’t have any way to do anything, it’s merely a fancy forum. Its members could meet at the UN and decide to do something (although it can be legally complicated) but that’s not on the UN.
The purpose of the UN is to have a diplomatic environment where all can be heard in front of all others.
A dialogue that fails to yield productive policy is mere busy work.
It’s to encourage diplomatic solutions to problems and to defuse conflicts.
Right now we’re having a debate over whether a ceasefire would be antisemitic. That’s not a conversation that behooves diplomatic solutions or defuses conflicts. It just serves to distract public attention while folks in Gaza are exterminated.
We all hope that you’ll graduate into the diplomatic corps of whatever place you’re in and single-handedly solve the world’s problems. Best luck to you.
There’s certain openings. Since the war started, even Biden’s designated state department armies dealer can no longer stomach the job.
And still getting his ass kicked by civilian volunteers with drones.
Why don’t the Russian people get rid of this asshole?
It’s a little harder than you imagine Source: I’m Russian
Ye, me too brother. People think 🤔 Russia is like easily changeable or something… I think people forget just how many Russians and other people Russians have killed and imprisoned since Russia began so to say. I think people don’t understand that Russia never had a democracy… Ever. I don’t think people get that it’s not easy to live and survive in Russia no matter when and where…
Also it’s as if people pretend not to know that if You protest 🪧 anything in Russia; you’re fucked.
People also don’t know that the policemen rape people / men in prison. They torture You and rape you. At anytime You can be put in an MMA style fight against an opponent who will brutalize You before You die of the physical injuries.
I don’t think people understand that if the world doesn’t help to establish a democracy in Russia that Russia will always ; always go back to its corrupt ways.
I don’t think people understand that there are also Russians who’ve been totally brainwashed just the same way that people got / get brainwashed in states like China, north Korea and Nazi Germany ( in the passed ) , imperial Japan etc.
I don’t think people get that its not easy to be the hero a martar or organize a rebellion when you’re under a violent regime and when all you have is your small family or none at all
Seems pretty simple, get tank, stand on tank with paper, scream loudly and voila we are done. Also, radiation salad works well.
Comparing to this, getting into Russia is even simpler, so you can do all of those things, that are simple to you to type yourself. Go for it, we root for you!
Look I got these U-239 croutons off Wish and I could certainly use them.
Wish scammed you and it’s now Pu-239.
Why don’t the israelis get rid of Netanyahu?
Why don’t the Americans get rid of Genocide Joe?
Be the change you want to see in the world.
Genocide Joe? 🙄
And who should voters replace him with, Mr Answers?
Genocide Joe? 🙄
People are really working to rob that word of all meaning
“We are all domestic terrorists”
That’s what they do.
Edit: They even called the congressman who pulled the fire alarm to delay voting so people could read the bill, an insurrectionist.
Are they? Or do you just not consider Arab people humans? Maybe specifically Palestinians are the bad ones we can exterminate, in your mind?
I see downvotes but I see no interaction with the two true assertions that make for this argument. Biden has the immediate power to stop this. And the this is a genocide of Palestinians.
And how exactly would he do that? I wasn’t aware he was The King of Israel. Should he threaten to nuke them?
Maybe
- check notes
Stop sending billions in bombs to them knowing they’re gonna blow up Palestinian kids with them.
Israel is a client state of the US. Biden could simply threaten to revoke aid and they would immediately stop the bombing. Their defense minister said so outright not long ago.
Liberals tell you they’re powerless so they can pretend to be good people who simply have no means to stop the status quo. Don’t believe them on either part.
In addition to not vetoing UN resolutions, Reagan took several actions that many in Israel and the United States perceived as anti-Israel. For example, on June 7, 1981, less than six months after Reagan took office, Israel launched a surprise bombing raid on the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak, and, in so doing, violated the airspace of Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Reagan not only supported UNSC Resolution 487, which condemned the attack, but he also criticized the raid publicly and suspended the delivery of advanced F-16 fighter jets to Israel. Moreover, over the strident objections of Israel and the pro-Israel U.S. lobby groups, Reagan approved the sale of advanced reconnaissance aircraft (AWACS ) to Saudi Arabia, which Israel then viewed as a hostile state.
A year later, in August 1982, when Israeli forces advanced beyond southern Lebanon and began shelling the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in Beirut, Reagan responded with an angry call to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, demanding a halt to the operation.
In addition, during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Reagan intervened directly when Israel threatened to blow up the Commodore Hotel in downtown Beirut, which housed more than 100 western reporters. As David Ottaway, who was then the Washington Post Middle East correspondent and was in the building, pointed out, the Israeli defense minister did not like the media coverage the invasion was getting and wanted to close down the media center.
Biden, on the other hand, even though he had an hour’s notice, failed to intervene to stop Netanyahu from bombing and collapsing the 12-story building that housed the offices of Al Jazeera and the Associated Press in Gaza during the recent bombing campaign. He also failed to publicly condemn the attack, let alone challenge Israel’s contention that the building sheltered Hamas military intelligence assets, despite AP’s insistence that its staff had no evidence that such assets were or ever had been present.
In addition to allowing the UN resolutions to pass and suspending the F-16 delivery, Reagan also restricted aid and military assistance to Israel to help force its withdrawal of troops from Beirut and central Lebanon.
Therefore, if in the future some members of the Biden administration or Congress want to join the international community in condemning Israel’s behavior, or in conditioning U.S. assistance or arms transfers and face resistance from Republicans, they need only point to the precedents established by President Reagan in the first instance.
Or do you just not consider Arab people humans?
Its been standing US policy to dehumanize Arab people since at least 2001.
Since the shores of Tripoli
Which Arab nations have Joe Biden exterminated, exactly?
So if it’s not a genocide until you finish the job, you think the Nazis are innocent, I take it?
Which Arab nations are Joe Biden currently exterminating, then?
I reject the premise of your comment.
neener neener poo poo to you as well
Top UN officials have called this a a textbook case of genocide in all aspects. Even BEFORE Oct 7.
You are a modern holocaust denier. A special thing to observe.
Asserting that Joe Biden hasn’t committed any genocides is not denying the holocaust. You know this very well, I think.
If you have to choose between Hitler and Stalin consider voting for a third party or not voting.
Voting for any person means you approve of their actions and you are complicit and responsible for them.
Voting for any person means you approve of their actions and you are complicit and responsible for them.
I don’t think it means that necessarily. It’s just as valid to vote strategically against an even worse party if they have a chance of winning. It’s not morally contentious to vote for the lesser of two evils.
If you keep voting for the lesser of two evils there will never an incentive for a good one to show up because you won’t vote for them anyways.
You’re too busy voting for Genocide Joe.
Well I Iive in Canada but point taken. I’m still not sure I agree that it’s on the voter to let the worse party win just to support a burgeoning better one. I’d say the responsibility is on that better party to secure their base and show a reasonable chance to win before asking voters to risk the worse party winning.
I can agree that concessions need to be made but any party that supports literal should never ever receive a vote.
In that case it’s time to pull out the classic
https://media.tenor.com/2-5XPoT_7esAAAAC/are-we-the-baddies-bad.gif
The moral option is then a third party that doesn’t support genocide to show that any party supporting it will never win your vote.
Its different because America and Israel are democracies. Therefore, they can kill as many people as they want and its okay actually.
Putin is an evil dictator leading a rogue state (That’s on the verge of collapse! Any day now!) And suggesting he is in any way like an Israeli or an American flags you as a Chinese Robot Antifa Fifth Columnist Hamas Affiliated Trump Supporter.
That’s a false dichotomy… Joe Biden is a genocidal Zionist and Putin is an ethno-national imperialist, there is no inherent conflict with those statements.
They are both the heads of militaristic, expansionist, capitalist governments. I never saw why people on the left are cheering for Putin. Is he in opposition to the western hegemony? Yes, but only because it stands in competition to his own western hegemony.
It’s like you guys are embodying the Godzilla “let them fight meme”, but forgetting that they are murdering thousands of people in the process.
It’s like you guys are embodying the Godzilla “let them fight meme”, but forgetting that they are murdering thousands of people in the process.
The meme was something of a joke in the movie, in large part because all anyone could do was kick back and let them go at one another. At best, a distraction would involve one or the other flattening you and getting back to the business at hand.
The Ukraine War is very much a Clash of the Titans, in so far as there’s nothing a domestic Russian or American do to oppose these colossal military forces. To actively oppose the old Cold War powers is an exercise in futility. All you can really hope for is that they exhaust themselves - possibly even kill each other off - and leave you alone.
Israel managed to get rid of Netenyahu for a year or two but then he regained power.
Gosh… Why didn’t the Germans kill Hitler? Why didn’t Japanese kill their “emperor” during world war 2? Why didn’t soviets kill Stalin or lenin ? What’s up with the dictators in China, why didn’t the Chinese kill them ? Why don’t the north Koreans kill their “leader”? Why didn’t Iraqi people kill Saddam Husain? Why didn’t Syria kill their Bashar al Assad? Why didn’t the Cubans kill Fidel Castro? Why didn’t the French kill Napoleon Bonaparte?
Maybe 🤔😏 people just LOVE living under dictatorial regimes?
Who knows?.. We’ll probably never know…
/S
We were all wondering how Trump made it out alive tbh
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The French managed it. The Haitians. Even the Libyans. I know it’s easier said than done, but quitters never win, do they?
Commented their way to revolution. Got it.
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It is amazing how the news cycle dropped Ukraine so fast. Not good for getting US support, but I think Ukraine can still get support from Europe.
dropped?
we never drop our money makers just because you don’t hear about it. Double the wars, double the profits. what are you even talking about? All I see is money money money. now we get to ask for even more money as there is more demand and limited supply.
Mr. Krabs? What are you doing on Lemmy?
Money money money. Almost like money makes the world go 'round.
At this point, pouring on the bombs (shortly after gloating that the new speaker in congress suits Russia) seems likely to be as much about shifting morale (getting Ukraine to worry that its support from the west will dry up with Kremlin toadies in control of Washington’s purse strings) as it is about on-the-ground strategy or tactics.
It’s not like new Israeli atrocities detracts significantly from the world’s ability to pay attention to the atrocities in Ukraine, but anything that gives Moscow something else to gesture at gives it something to whatabout over, and getting the rest of the world (including nato members and US politicians) to fight amongst themselves (over whether it’s better to back a genocidal ethnostate or the terrorists resisting it) is always a win when the alternative might be for them to unify against your invasion of Ukraine.
Can we please give the armed forces of Ukraine finally airplanes? The offensive is going nowhere if they are not supplied with an edge in combat gear.
Unfortunately it’s not that easy.
They have already got a large sum of F16’s, but it takes training of Ukrainian pilots before they can be used in combat.
From what I understand they should be ready to fly in early 2024. That still a long time to go - but you don’t want to lose pilots or planes because of inexperience with that type of airplane.
3-4 months until planned delivery of F16s
The planes aren’t what’s taking time. The F-16s are either being used for training, which is totally unnecessary as that training takes place in the US, and we have a few hundred of the things pretty much just sitting around, or are on standby to be deployed. The training of the pilots is what’s taking time. I suspect Putin knows he’s about to lose air superiority, and this attack is a demonstration of that. He’s using what little weapons he has left, while he still can.
Nothing the West is willing to provide is going to change the course of the war alone. That ship has sailed, this is back to an attritional war with positional fighting.
The only thing the West can do now is provide LONG term commitments, written in law e.g. locked in funding for 5+ years of arms transfers.
Unfortunately, I don’t know how good the odds are that will happen. I hope it does, but we’ll just have to wait and see.
The ONLY other way for either Russia, or Ukraine, to win, is a new technological development that enables a significant change to the current battlefield dynamics.
This is a fairly simplified analysis, but it does align with the most current assessments provided by both the Ukrainian and Russian military leadership.
Haven’t you seen the pattern:
- Ukraine: Give us [some weapon].
- US/NATO: No, it would mean WW3.
Let some time pass.
- US/NATO: Well, we could send you some [some weapon].
Rinse and repeat.
Lol to the comments saying it is engineered by Iran and Russia.
WHILE ISRAELIS MINISTER ASK THE GOVERNMENT TO NUKE GAZA
AND THE OTHER TO STOP PEOPLE FROM HARVESTING OLIVES IN THE WEST BANK. WHICH SHOULD NOT BE UNDER THERE RULE ANYWAY…
If you allow and support Isreal attack on Gaza Without any form of accountability of War Crimes Based on UN definitions of War Crimes, Russia will do the same…
Russia has already been doing the same for a year and a half now, you absolute fucking nozzle. WTF is wrong with you people? Have you no fucking decency? Your selective outrage is telling.
Oh boy. Anyways, that’s just how the right wingers make themselves look more moderate by incorporating extremist into the mix to act as a lightning rod with their idiotic and completely ultraviolent positions.
The world watching has never stopped him before.
What a totally unforeseeable situation.
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Could you provide a source on these talks between US, KSA, and Israel? This sounds plausible, but it would be the first I’ve heard of it.
He’s probably living in a fantasy world.
nope. he put in some links but it was regularly in the news for months. Its been going on for a long time. Well it mostly might have been mentioned on public radio considering my media habits.
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Thanks for the articles!
Between this and finding out that there’s natural gas under Gaza I’m getting suspicious
Wait until you hear it’s not “under Gaza” but under the sea, in what would be Gaza’s “economic influence” area… and that the Palestinian Authority has been in talks with Egypt to extract it, while Israel has been in talks with US corporations.
The gas is expected to be worth about 400 billion USD.
Didn’t know all those details, except I was under the impression that EU and Israeli companies were the ones trying to extract the gas, the US wasn’t directly involved in that from the few articles I’ve seen about it.
Did know about the fact that they are squabbling over a mere $400 billion. Fucking chump change at an international level. We could easily pay both sides that much and not hurt our budget.
Israel, US, Europe would always share the gas (through protected and exclusive trades). These parties all win when one of them wins. The same goes for Islamic States and the Arabic League.
Israel was a perfect and unfortunate point to disrupt an otherwise closed up and profitable region for the powers in the middle east.
You’re right, I’ve checked my notes and it mentions Shell; technically British now, post-BREXIT, but it has branches all over the world.
Anyway, the problem with those $400B is… if a corporation can sell for $400B and it only costs them $200B to extract and distribute it plus $20B to kill everyone in Gaza… that’s $180B of “clean” money (just dripping some blood). Shell’s yearly revenue is $380B, with a net income of $40B, so they’re just the kind who might consider it a reasonable 5-10 year plan.
Sept 29 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia is determined to secure a military pact requiring the United States to defend the kingdom in return for opening ties with Israel and will not hold up a deal even if Israel does not offer major concessions to Palestinians in their bid for statehood, three regional sources familiar with the talks said.
A pact might fall short of the cast-iron, NATO-style defence guarantees the kingdom initially sought when the issue was first discussed between Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Joe Biden during the U.S. president’s visit to Saudi Arabia in July 2022.
Instead, a U.S. source said it could look like treaties Washington has with Asian states or, if that would not win U.S. Congress approval, it could be similar to a U.S. agreement with Bahrain, where the U.S. Navy Fifth Fleet is based. Such an agreement would not need congressional backing.
Washington could also sweeten any deal by designating Saudi Arabia a Major Non-NATO Ally, a status already given to Israel, the U.S. source said.
But all the sources said Saudi Arabia would not settle for less than binding assurances of U.S. protection if it faced attack, such as the Sept. 14, 2019 missile strikes on its oil sites that rattled world markets. Riyadh and Washington blamed Iran, the kingdom’s regional rival, although Tehran denied having a role.
Agreements giving the world’s biggest oil exporter U.S. protection in return for normalisation with Israel would reshape the Middle East by bringing together two longtime foes and binding Riyadh to Washington after China’s inroads in the region. For Biden, it would be a diplomatic victory to vaunt before the 2024 U.S. election.
The Palestinians could get some Israeli restrictions eased but such moves would fall short of their aspirations for a state. As with other Arab-Israeli deals forged over the decades, the Palestinian core demand for statehood would take a back seat, the three regional sources familiar with the talks said.
“The normalisation will be between Israel and Saudi Arabia. If the Palestinians oppose it the kingdom will continue in its path,” said one of the regional sources. “Saudi Arabia supports a peace plan for the Palestinians, but this time it wanted something for Saudi Arabia, not just for the Palestinians.”
The Saudi government did not respond to emailed questions about this article.
‘LESS THAN A FULL TREATY’
A U.S. official, who like others declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter, said the parameters of a defence pact were still being worked out, adding that what was being discussed “would not be a treaty alliance or anything like that … It would be a mutual defence understanding, less than a full treaty.”
The official said it would be more like the U.S. relationship with Israel, which receives the most advanced U.S. weapons and holds joint air force and missile defence drills.
A source in Washington familiar with the discussions said MbS had asked for a NATO-style treaty but said Washington was reluctant to go as far as NATO’s Article 5 commitment that an attack on one ally is considered an attack on all.
The source said Biden’s aides could consider a pact patterned on those with Japan and other Asian allies, under which the U.S. pledges military support but is less explicit about whether U.S. troops would be deployed. However, the source said some U.S. lawmakers might resist such a pact.
Another template, which would not need congressional approval, would be the agreement signed with Bahrain on Sept. 13, in which the U.S. pledged to “deter and confront any external aggression” but also said the two governments would consult to determine what, if any, action would be taken.
The source in Washington said Saudi Arabia could be designated a Major Non-NATO Ally, a step which had long been considered. This status, which several Arab states such as Egypt have, comes with a range of benefits, such as training.
The second of the regional sources said Riyadh was compromising in some demands to help secure a deal, including over its plans for civilian nuclear technology. The source said Saudi Arabia was ready to sign Section 123 of the U.S. Atomic Energy Act, establishing a framework for U.S. peaceful nuclear cooperation, a move Riyadh previously refused to take.
The Gulf source said the kingdom was prepared to accept a pact that did not match a NATO Article 5 guarantee but said the U.S. had to commit to protecting Saudi Arabia if its territory was attacked. The source also said a deal could be similar to Bahrain’s agreement but with extra commitments.
‘LOTS OF WORK TO DO’
In response to emailed questions about details in this article, a U.S. State Department spokesperson said: “Many of the key elements of a pathway towards normalisation are now on the table and there is a broad understanding of those elements, which we will not discuss publicly.”
“There’s still lots of work to do, and we’re working through it,” the spokesperson added, saying there was not yet a formal framework and stakeholders were working on legal and other elements.
The spokesperson did not address specifics about the U.S.-Saudi defence pact in the response.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has hailed the possibility of a “historic” peace with Saudi Arabia, the heartland of Islam. But to secure the prize, Netanyahu has to win the approval of parties in his a far-right coalition which reject any concessions to the Palestinians.
MbS said in a Fox News interview this month that the kingdom was moving steadily closer to normalising ties with Israel. He spoke about the need for Israel to “ease the life of the Palestinians” but made no mention of Palestinian statehood.
Nevertheless, diplomats and the regional sources said MbS was insisting on some commitments from Israel to show he was not abandoning the Palestinians and that he was seeking to keep the door open to a two-state solution.
Those would include demanding Israel transfer some Israeli-controlled territory in the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority (PA), limit Jewish settlement activity and halt any steps to annex parts of the West Bank. Riyadh has also promised financial aid to the PA, the diplomats and sources said.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said any bargain must recognise the Palestinian right to a state within the 1967 borders, including East Jerusalem, and must stop Israeli settlement building. However, all the sources said a Saudi-Israeli deal was unlikely to address those flashpoint issues.
Netanyahu has said Palestinians should not have a veto over any peacemaking deal.
Yet, even if the U.S, Israel and Saudi Arabia agree, winning support from lawmakers in the U.S. Congress remains a challenge.
Republicans and those in Biden’s Democratic Party have previously denounced Riyadh for its military intervention in Yemen, its moves to prop up oil prices and its role in the 2018 killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who worked for the Washington Post. MbS denied ordering the killing.
“What’s important for Saudi Arabia is for Biden to have the pact approved by Congress,” the first regional source said, pointing to concessions Riyadh was making to secure a deal.
For Biden, a deal that builds a U.S.-Israeli-Saudi axis could put a brake on China’s diplomatic inroads after Beijing brokered a rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which Washington accuses of seeking nuclear arms. Tehran denies this.
“There was a sense that the U.S. has abandoned the region,” said one diplomat. “By courting China, the Saudis wanted to create some anxiety that will make the U.S. re-engage. It has worked.”
Reporting by Samia Nakhoul in Dubai, James Mackenzie, Dan Williams and Ali Sawafta in Jerusalmen, Aziz El Yaacouby in Riyadh, Steve Holland, Matt Spetalnick, Humeyra Pamuk and Patricia Zengerle in Washington; Writing by Samia Nakhoul; Editing by Edmund Blair
Buy 2 TVs, so you can watch both human miseries unfold at the same time! Better than anything Hollywood or Bollywood or Nollywood could ever produce! And when you get bored, just vote in another war fueling and genocide financing psychopathic “lesser evil” moron into the office, so you never get bored of human despair and pain.
honestly? America only had as much to do with the Ukraine war as it was giving them the ability to defend themselves.
I think he doesn’t want Laos to be the most bombed country in the world anymore.
Well, given that at the same time as Russia dropped 100 bombs, once, Israel dropped 400+ (and in a much more heavilly populated area, so killing about 10s or maybe even 100 times more civilians), every night, it’s hardly surprising that at least the people who were against the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a question of principle (the strong attacking the weak, the murdering of innocent civilians for merelly having been born were they were born, the calous disregard for people’s lives and so on) are focused were a far more extreme case of it is happenning.
That in Palestine, the US and some of the largest European nations, unlike in Ukraine, actually support the strong who are murdering innocent civilians in massive numbers, just makes those who are natural supporters of victims to be even more focused on Palestine since the “great” powers in that case have not sided with the main victims but instead are giving cover and even monetary and military support to the side commiting a genocide, making such people feel their support is even more needed in the face of such “coalition of the strong”.
Meanwhile the crowd who are driven to take sides for reasons other than principle or morality are also being guided to focus on Palestine, the nationalists in nations which support one of the sides because their nation’s leader or favored politician is supporting that side, whilst the ones who mindlessly follow the baiting of the more propagandistic news and social media because the propaganda in most of those newspapers, TV channels and social networks is now entirelly focused on Palestine.
In summary, the crowd driven by morals and principles are focused where the greatest underdogs are being victimized the most and, worse, that is supported by the powerful, and the rest are either looking at the same because that’s were their national or political leaders point them to or because pretty much the entirety of the propaganda in the most manipulated newsmedia or social media is about that.
It’s almost paradoxical that Ukraine’s success at stopping Russia (thus avoiding the kind of mass civilian casualties there would be in something like a siege of Kiyv) thanks to the help of nations that are now supporting a side doing the invasion an mass killings, means that their plight is merelly a fraction of that of the Palestinians hence they eyes of the World are turned to the latter.
Israel dropped 6000 bombs in one week, on an area much smaller… More children have died in the first 25 days of the current Israeli conflict than in a year of the war on Ukraine.
I did not know this was a competition where only one could “win”.
It’s more like a competition where the bystanders lose
