Israel needs Obama nod to attack Gaza: Expert

A Middle East expert says Israel would not dare attack Gaza and carry out war crimes against a besieged people without the green light from US President Barack Obama personally.

Israel has launched a brutal campaign of aggression against the people of the Gaza strip. According to human rights activist Adie Mormech at the scene, hospitals in Gaza are overloaded. Young children and infants are already among the dead. In response, a barrage of rockets from the Palestinian side has hit Israeli settlement areas. The Pentagon has stated that they will stand by their Israeli partners.

Press TV has interviewed Saeb Shaath, author and Middle East expert, from Belfast about the acts of aggression targeting Gaza. He is joined by two additional guests on Press TV’s News Analysis, Mormech, who has joined the program from the Gaza Strip, and Lawrence Korb with the Center for American Progress progressive public policy research and advocacy organization, from New York City.

The following is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Please explain to us what you think is the reason for the timing, which has come at this time looking at course at Barak Obama being reelected. Do you think Israel informs Barak Obama of what is to occur in the Gaza Strip of which they forewarned 24 hours back that they were going to at some point attack the Gaza Strip?

Shaath: Let me express it in this way… If we notice today’s attack and assassination in Gaza it is obliged to be an attack on all Arabs and all Muslims worldwide and if you are going to react to that God help us what is going to happen and who the next target will be.

Since Obama has been elected the second time we shall not be fooled by Romney and pschy-wars with Netanyahu or not. The plan will play in America between Democrats and Republicans, they’ve got both Parties. Both Parties are partners in the crime with the Zionists assassinating and killing the Palestinians.

The Israelis won’t dare to attack Gaza in that way and carry these sorts of war crimes against a besieged area without the green light of the United States of America, Obama personally.

So, today the assassinations and killing of people, some of them babies and children; Ahmed al-Jabari the leader of the military wing of Hamas was one of them.

This is all a reaction to when the resistance reacted to the planned attack the previous week on Gaza last Saturday and the killing of a child there last Thursday.

So when the resistance reacted targeting a military vehicle with it’s new anti-tank missile coordinates the Zionists confirmed that four of its senior officers were badly injured… Then, the other part of the resistance Islamic Jihad launched a new sophisticated rocket at them – that scared them.

Do not forget who has the highest security arsenal in the region and weaponry made in the United States of America attacking the civilians of Gaza and Palestinians everywhere.

So the timing of this if we look at the picture a little bit wider Israel since September has been engaged in war games at the Golan Heights bringing more brigades into the area.

Today just a couple of hours before the assassination Barak said – Ehud Barak the Israeli Defense Minister said that the summoned delegates of the Golan Heights in the Zionist State are totally under the control of the Free Syrian Army at this time.

So, they are working there, the Zionists, hand in hand with the Syrian gangs to create a buffer zone and the message sent to Gaza and a second to Syria that they are in the future not to interfere. This is also a message to… Beirut, to the resistance. At the end of the day, Iran has to hear this message in order to understand what is coming.

Press TV: Are we going to see any action when it comes for example from the Arab League countries? We’ve has some reaction given immediately by Egypt. What are we going to see in terms of Arab countries and them being proactive in this?

Shaath: You are absolutely going to see nothing from the Arab League who are busy plotting and helping the gangs to kill in Syria as they had done before in Libya. That’s what the Arab League since 1945 has been designed to implement imperialist projects and since then have become partners with the Zionists.

They are blocking against Syria; they are blocking against Iran. The Muslim Brotherhood in the government of Egypt is colluding with the Zionists in tightening the siege on Gaza and helping them in destroying most of the tunnels – the life supply for the Gazans.

All of that to appease the Zionists and the Western imperialists to let them rule Egypt, since they learned their lesson from Hamas in ruling Gaza. If you don’t do it now and accept the Zionists their bribe, they didn’t want them breaking up the election.

So they are helping them in tightening the siege in Gaza; they are helping them in destroying their own brotherhood government in Gaza. That is what the Muslim brotherhood in Egypt is doing and that’s what the Arab League is doing.

So it all depends on the people now to take matters into their own hands in the streets of Cairo this Friday to show the government of Morsi that the Egyptian people refuse to see their brothers being killed in Gaza while their government is watching… since the attack on Gaza is an attack on them and destroying Gaza will be the key to destroy another Arabic country against the will of the world delivered by the imperialists.

Press TV: Earlier I asked you whether we are going to see any type of proactive action by Arab League Countries for example and you said ‘no’.

But aren’t we looking at a new landscape now especially given for example a new Egypt with President Mohamed Morsi who has come out condemning these attacks on Palestinians and saying it needs swift Arab and international action.

Are we not to be optimistic on this?

Shaath: No I don’t think so since the Palestinian issue in Egypt is controlled by their secret service apparatus, which is called Mokhaberat – that is how important the Palestinian issue is to the Egyptians. Morsi did not move that from the hands of the secret service to the hands of the foreign ministry or even creating a department in the foreign ministry to deal with the Palestinian issue.

So, we would see those guys who are in the Egyptian secret service coordinating with the Israelis from the days of Anwar Sadat from the early 1970s They are illogically-minded to consider the Zionists as their friends and their allies while considering the resistance and the Palestinians as their enemy and that is why you see a lot of suffering at the hands of some of these Egyptian officers toward the Palestinians.

Morsi hoped to move and was to change the order, which was started by the revolution in Egypt, attacking the old regime and to change it – they didn’t. The old regime is in position; the United States is in control; Morsi moved to appease using words to the Arab masses while he is coordinating with the Israelis.

We can see that at the border of Gaza how they are tightening the noose on the Palestinians in there so I don’t think anything is going to come from the Egyptians, the Egyptian revolution being hijacked they need a new revolution, which they can at least help their brothers in Palestine.