The Duran Podcast - Biden White House, Lord Cameron warn Rafah catastrophe

Episode Date: February 17, 2024

Biden White House, Lord Cameron warn Rafah catastrophe

All right, Alexander, let's talk about what is happening in the Middle East, and let's discuss the possible invasion, incursion of Israel, the IDF, into Rafah. It's a very small piece of territory in the south of Gaza, which is where most of the Palestinians now have had to go to seek refuge. and it's bordering Egypt and Netanyahu has signaled that he's going to go into Rafa. And this could be a huge humanitarian catastrophe. Even Cameron, even Biden, even Adelina Berbach have voiced their opposition and concern about this latest development of the IDF entering Rafa. Of course, Saudi Arabia has issued warnings. Of course, Egypt has issued warnings.

What's your take on the situation that is developing? Well, the first thing to say is that from Netanyahu's point of view, he must be hearing all of these people telling him, don't go to Rafa, don't launch this attack on Rafa. And he must be saying, well, you've supported me as I've carried out all of the other offensives across the Gaza Strip. What is different ultimately apart Raffa? I can't complete my job if I don't go to Rafa because that's the main most populated area now of the Gaza Strip. Obviously Hamas is still in existence in some form there's arguments about

how much of it still is but there's talked that 80% of its tunnels are still intact. most of its fighters may or may not be active still. They're still able to use the tunnels to infiltrate back into northern Gaza where apparently they'd been driven out from, so the Israelis thought. So he's going to say, look, if I'm going to achieve the victory, which you encouraged me to seek, you always told me that you back me. I have to go to Rafa, because if I don't, Hamas survives. and Hamas is able then to move out of Rafah

and re-infiltrate the rest of the Gaza Strip. So he's got this imperative, which is to complete the war, political imperative, to complete the war in the Gaza, to achieve victory there. And that logic is pushing him towards launching him towards launching.

that operation in Rafa. And he's got all of those officials, his ministers, people like Ben-Gir, Ben-Gvier, and Smatrich, all of these hardliners within his cabinet, who are insisting upon it. And of course, he needs them in order to hold his government together. So it's not surprising, ultimately, that the Israelis are moving towards this.

And it is highly likely that at some, point over the next couple of days, they will begin it. The problem is that having originally given Netanyahu that blank check back in October, when the option existed, not to do so, all of these governments, the British government, the German government, the American government, are now horrified because, of course, they realize that if the operation in Raffa does stay place, and there are massive civilian casualties. The Middle East, people in the Middle East, are already very angry. Already the United States is tied up bombing various positions in the Middle East,

which is making people angrier still. The Iraqi government is talking about the need for American troops to leave. The Houthis apparently are undeterred. All of this. So there's going to be a huge amount of criticism in the Middle East. Western public, especially European publics, but some people in the US as well, are going to become even more critical. And what's hanging now over everything is we are two weeks away from the ICG deadline that was given to Israel, to take steps to avoid the possibility of a genocide happening in Gaza.

reports from various officials from Gaza, saying that the Israelis have done nothing, that their conduct is exactly the same as always. If an operation begins in Rafa, which causes more horrendous civilian casualties on the eve of the expiry of the deadline by the ICJ, it could be open for the South Africans and other countries that are now joining this case to start asking the ICJ to make further decisions based on the decisions that it already has. It could very easily go to the General Assembly. And of course, we are now getting hints from the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, who has been careful to sit on his hands throughout this crisis up to this point. Anyway, he's now under immense pressure

and he's just been publishing a series of tweets in which he's basically hinting that indictments of Israeli officials by the ICC might be just round the corner. I think he's waiting. I think Karim Karin Khan doesn't want to go there. But if there's no compliance, within the next two weeks. And of course, if there's this attack on Rafa, there cannot be, and the ICC starts expressing concern and referring the case back to the Security Council

and it goes to the General Assembly and the General Assembly then makes further mandatory orders, then the ICC may feel it has no choice if it's going to retain any international credibility at all other than to issue indictments. And my guess is those indictments would initially be against lower ranking and middle-level Israeli officials. They'll be very nervous about going after the politicians.

But when that starts to happen, the pressure grows and it grows upwards. So this is, again, a disaster, a debacle, but it flows directly from those bad decisions that were made back in October, which we warned about, and which, of course, Biden, Beirbach, Cameron, all of those people turn around and did the opposite. Yeah, there really is no way out of this conflict that's going to be provided at least from the collective West. That's obvious. if there's going to be some sort of resolution to this conflict, it's going to have to come from the UN with the cooperation of the countries in the Middle East

and with the cooperation of bricks. That's the only way you're going to get to any type of a ceasefire. I would say at the Biden White House, instead of trying to put pressure on Netanyahu to not go into Rafah, And they've got the means to put pressure on Netanyahu to not go into Rafa. They've actually opted for the media solution, which is to try and paint a picture of a Biden that is cursing Netanyahu and that they don't get along. They're trying to distance Biden so that when this disastrous incursion happens, this is invasion into Rafa. When it does happen, Biden can say, well, you know, I never liked Netanyahu anyway.

I never got along with him anyway. so, you know, don't put the blame on me. It seems like they're opting for the media optic solution instead of just going to Netanyahu and putting a red line there saying, no, you can't go into it. Absolutely. I completely agree. But, of course, as a political strategy, it is a very strange one.

I mean, you have a president who already looks, shall we say, fragile. And you have him basically. coming out, you know, his defences, well, actually, I'm too weak to do that, you know, to impose a solution to do things. I'm too weak. I can't control

Netanyahu. I'm too weak to do that. Going forward in an election, that might not be the most favorable look. Yeah, I mean, for the Biden White House, it makes sense, though. I mean, whenever they're presented with any type of

difficulties, the options that they always take is to use the media. Yes, and to hide. Instead of actually having to do the hard work. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. To hide behind the media.

I mean, you know, they do one thing and they tell, they leave the media to think that they would rather like to see something else happen. And of course, as I said, in this case, the one thing, as I said, it does do is it conveys weakness. And normally, that isn't a good look in an election year. But as you rightly say, what other option do they have? Well, of course, they do have one. Or at least, it's not, in my opinion, an option. But it is an option that more and more people might be asking or calling for. We know who they are. They might say, look, we escalate. We back. The Israelis aren't going to be called off. So we back them. And we back them in every conceivable way that we can. We escalate. We've been.

escalating already. We're bombing the Houthis. We're bombing the various militias in Syria and Iraq. So let's bomb even more and bomb even further because that's the only thing realistically that we can do that will assert again and show how strong we are. So, you know, don't discount that in the next couple of weeks. We might start to see those calls start to increase once again. And bear in mind that one person who up to now has apparently acted as a force for restraint, who is the Secretary of Defense, is now back in hospital in intensive care. So he may not be there to restrain people in the way that he's been doing up to now. Yeah, good point. Very good point. what does Egypt do? What does the region do? And I focus it on Egypt because you have the shared border.

Yeah, I mean, I'm not an expert on this condition of the Egyptian military, but I can't imagine that they're in a position to do anything in military terms. What I think they're going to do is I think that they're going to all work together. All of the various Arab states are going to, going to do more of what they've been doing. And they're going to start making further moves in the General Assembly. And I think that this is not the weak strategy that some people assume. As I said, it goes back to the General Assembly. The General Assembly starts taking steps under the United Peace procedure or starts making referrals to the International Criminal Court.

then it's not a token thing. It would imply the final collapse of U.S. influence in the Middle East. Just saying. I mean, people get upset because, or they say it's a weak move because it's seen through, it has to go through the United Nations, so it has to go through all these processes, and it takes a lot of time. And, you know, this is time that the Palestinians, don't have. Yes, I know, but I mean, that's why people look at this as a weak move.

Yes. On the part of Egypt or the Arab states to go through the system. Absolutely true. But they are never very clear on what the alternative should be. I mean, there's talk about economic boycotts of the West. I mean, those would undoubtedly make life difficult for the West. It would make life very difficult for the Arabs as well, perhaps even more difficult. So I'm not sure that that would be a particularly good. idea. That's the first thing to say. And of course, if you're talking about yourself seeking a wider war, in other words, trying to intervene militarily against Israel to prevent what's going on in Gaza, well, Israel is probably still the strongest military in the Middle East. The United

States still backs it. It's an incredibly dangerous and very high risk. And of course Israel, everybody presumes as nuclear weapons. And that increases the risk even further. So I think that the Arab states and the Muslim states are right in taking the diplomatic approach. It is slow, obviously. But ultimately, it gets there. It may take time. And I accept Palestinians don't have that much time.

but it's probably still the best thing to do. And Arab leaders will probably look to their own, make those calculations, and I think that is the course they will follow. They still do not, in my opinion, want a wider war. If there is going to be a wider war, they don't want to be the ones who will initiate it. They would prefer that it was the Israelis or the Americans that did that. One final question. And if you are Egypt and Israel does enter into Rafa, they are saying the Israeli defense forces,

they're saying that they're going to evacuate. This is what they're saying. They're going to have to evacuate the civilians out of Rafa. If you're Egypt, do you take those civilians in? Well, they've already said they won't. I mean, they've already made it absolutely. Yeah. They made it absolutely clear that they won't.

And I think that is what the troops that they've been deploying onto the border are up. That's what it's all about. And of course, Al-Sisi, the Egyptian president, who's had many conversations with Biden. Biden has had so many conversations with Al-Sisi. And Al-Sisi has spoken to Biden

in such forthright terms that Biden mixes him up by now with the president of Mexico. just saying. But anyway, Al-Cici and Biden have spoken many times. And there are plenty of readouts now on the White House website in which Biden has said that there is not going to be any displacement of people from Gaza, that the United States categorically rules that out. The word categorically is in those redouts, and that the United States will oppose that. And I think Al-Ci will close the border. the Americans come back and say, well, you've got to open it. Well, he's got all those readouts to show. I think the next follow-up question is what happens to the people there,

then. Well, that's the problem. I mean, there will be, by the way, the other thing that, of course, Al-Ci will do is that he will bring up all of these comments by people like Ben Gvier and Smortritch who are openly calling for the displacement, the permanent displacement. of the people of Gaza. And L.C. will say, look, you said to me, it mustn't happen. That's what the US has said.

And the Israelis are giving me the reasons why it mustn't happen, because if these people are driven out of Gaza, there is no going back. And that is contrary to international law, and we will oppose it. What the Egyptians

will say, if there is massive violence and death in in Rafa is they will say again that there needs to be a ceasefire and that this military operation by the Israelis must be stopped and again Al-Sisi will say look you're agreeing with me Cameron Biden of their book you're all saying that this operation in Rafa can't have the reason by the way Beirbok who up to now has been very pro-Israel and Cameron and all of these people are talking in this way is because they know

that if the Israelis attack Rafa, all of these things that we've been talking about, the moves in the UN, the possible moves by the ICC will happen. They're not, it's not the mass casualties in RAPH. It's a political thing. It's politics.

It's politics. Exactly. It's politics. Exactly. It's going to be a huge political hit for all of them. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. But, you know, they opened the door for this to happen. They took those disastrous decisions in October, which have led us precisely to this point. All right. We will end it there. The durand. Dot locals.com. We are on Rumble, Odyssey, Bitch, shoot, telegram, rock fin, and Twitter X.

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