STRATEGIC ALERT NEWSLETTER
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| | | The temporary four-day truce agreed upon last week by Israel and Hamas and then extended for 48 hours, afforded a desperately-needed respite from the bombing in Gaza, together with the release of some of the hostages against that of Palestinian women and children held in Israeli prisons and, most importantly, the delivery of humanitarian aid, food and fuel to the Gaza Strip.
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This agreement shows that breakthroughs are possible, even when the situation appears blocked. Due to international pressure, an Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu who had repeatedly vowed not to stop the killing and bombing before Hamas is wiped out, was forced to give in, at least temporarily. In the days preceding the agreement, there was intense diplomatic activity, in particular the mission of foreign ministers from Muslim countries to Beijing, Moscow, London and Paris (cf. SAS 47/23), emergency meetings of the G20 and of the BRICS, a special session of the UN Security Council called by China (cf. below), etc.. A key turning point was the decision of U.S. President Biden, following on his earlier summit with President Xi Jinping and numerous other initiatives, not to veto for the first time a UNSC resolution in favor a ceasefire.
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Those efforts have now intensified. The momentum built up must be used to push for an international peace conference, and implementation of a viable two-state solution.
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However, in addition to the diplomatic activity, millions of people altogether took to the streets, in particular in the United States, but also in many European cities, to demand an end to the brutal ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. The impact of such popular protests should not be underestimated. The Schiller Institute was among those protesting, and one of the very few groups to formulate concrete proposals for ensuring a lasting peace, notably the adoption of a new security and development architecture worldwide.
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That was discussed at an online event organized Nov. 26 by the association “Humanity for Peace” . Presentations were given by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, chairwoman of the Schiller Institute, Ray McGovern, co-founder of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) and a very active senior peace activist, and Vanessa Beeley, a journalist living in Syria, who warned in particular against the use of false flag operations by so-called Islamist extremists to discredit the Hamas. (The proceedings are available here.)
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The highlight of the event was the viewing of a documentary film titled 8:15, HIROSHIMA, From Father to Daughter, the gripping story of a survivor of the Aug. 6, 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima, as told by his daughter, Akiko Mikamo. During the discussion following the film, Dr. Mikamo, a psychologist, stressed the urgency of preventing such a new tragedy from occurring, and also developed the notions empathy and forgiveness, that are so indispensable for achieving lasting peace.
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| Helga Zepp-LaRouche, in her interventions, pointed out that so many apparently local or global conflicts, such as now in Ukraine or in South-West Asia, are in fact pawns in the “great game” of geopolitics going back to the British Empire. The best way to defeat this “game” would be to bring the Western powers to understand that cooperation, not confrontation, with the Global South would be much more beneficial for them. |
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| | | Egypt, together with Qatar and the United States, brokered the current agreement on the four-day truce in Gaza, according to Egyptian President El Sisi, who hopes it will be extended to a permanent ceasefire. On Nov. 24, he met with the Prime Ministers of Spain and Belgium in Cairo, after the two had carried out a mission “on behalf of the European Union” to Israel, Palestine, and the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza.
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During a press conference with the two PMs, the Egyptian leader called for a “different approach” to the failed Israel-Palestinian peace process of the last 30 years, one that “involves the international community’s recognition of a Palestinian state and its entry into the United Nations”. He went on to say that “the only solution to the Palestinian issue is the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, within the borders of 4 June (1967), with East Jerusalem as its capital”. The state of Palestine has only observer status in the UN General Assembly, and that, only since November 2012.
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Significantly, President El-Sisi said he would be ready to accept a demilitarized Palestinian state, potentially with the presence of international forces -- whether from NATO, the United Nations, or American or Arab forces -- to guarantee security for both the Palestinian and Israeli states. On the issue of displacement, he was adamant that “We will not permit the displacement of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. I sensed a genuine and real understanding by the international community on our rejection of the displacement issue.”
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The Egyptian President’s statement should be seen as a very serious proposal, given that Egypt has a peace treaty with Israel, will become a member of the BRICS as of Jan.1, and has close relations with the United States, Russia and China.
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It is also highly significant that the Egyptian President made his proposal in the presence of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, the current president of the European Council, and of Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, who will take over that presidency in January.
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Sanchez told a press conference at Rafah that “We may decide to recognize the State of Palestine, if the European Union does not”. He further urged for an international peace conference that would bring together both Palestinians and Israelis, and that should be built on mutual recognition between the conflicting parties.
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| De Croo insisted that although Israel has the right to defend itself against terrorism, the military mission it is conducting must respect international law. “The killing of civilians needs to stop now. Way too many people have died. The destruction of Gaza is unacceptable. We cannot accept that a society is being destroyed the way it is being destroyed.” |
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| | | The United Nations Security Council held a three-hour special session on Nov. 20 on the theme “Promote Sustaining Peace through Common Development”. It was convened by China, as the most important event of the rotating presidency it holds in November. The discussion there reflects the growing acceptance of the basic principle at the center of Lyndon LaRouche’s science of physical economy.
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The session opened with three guest “briefers” scheduled by China, speaking for 15 minutes each: UN Secretary-General António Guterres; Dilma Rousseff, President of the New Development Bank; and Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University. They, as well as many of the diplomats who intervened, referenced the self-evident, sociological association between poverty, instability and potential conflict. But several additional points were brought out during the special session.
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Dilma Rousseff, whose full text is not available, clearly called for reforming the Bretton Woods institutions (IMF, World Bank, WTO) that have “increased social fragility”, while international financial regulations have failed to prevent speculative bubbles or excessive liquidity problems. She also denounced the double standards now applied during crises.
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Professor Sachs pointed out that “all four wars could be ended quickly by agreement in the UN Security Council … by addressing the underlying economic and political factors.” He said “The Security Council should establish a Peace and Development Fund,” and specifically for the long-running Sahel conflict, he called for “external funding” of electrification, road and rail infrastructure, and education.
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China’s ambassador to the UN Zhang Jun noted, in his remarks, that “Peace, development, and human rights are the three pillars of the United Nations. Among them, development holds the master key to solving all problems and constitutes the basis for promoting peace and protecting human rights.”
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The EU’s representative Olof Skoog did pay lip service to the link between development and security, but quickly added that “we shouldn’t forget human rights”. As developing nations know, that is the usual catch phrase used by Brussels to justify denying funds for infrastructure and development projets...
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| A different standpoint was expressed by the Russian ambassador Vasily Nebenzya, who said that his country’s development assistance prioritizes “the transfer of technology and expertise to the poorest and most vulnerable countries without preconditions, and the development of industry and critical infrastructure. Russia is involved in projects in the areas of industrialization, digitalization and agriculture... and the production of electricity.” |
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| | | Immediately after the signing of the Oslo Accord in the White House by Israeli and Palestinian leaders in 1993, Lyndon LaRouche and his associates urged the different parties and the international community to implement economic development projects to sustain the peace process. LaRouche and Executive Intelligence Review (EIR) journalists had already developed the “Oasis Plan”, which included both certain economic aspects of what was to become Annex IV of the Declaration of Principles of the Oslo Accord, plus additional crucial water and power projects they had called for since the mid-1970s.
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The Oasis Plan focused primarily on solving the water shortage issue in the region through providing new fresh water by desalination of water taken from the sea. This would be done in two ways: 1. Building the Red Sea-Dead Sea and Mediterranean-Dead Sea canals to bring water to the low Dead Sea basin, using the difference in elevation to generate power to be used for desalination plants; 2. More importantly, building new nuclear power complexes (Nuplexes) along the canals and on the shores of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea to produce much larger quantities of electricity, both for desalination and to power an industrialization process in Israel, Palestinian territories, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt.
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The Nuplexes proposed were to consist of a series of four German Jülich-type pebble bed high temperature reactors. The “new rivers” thus generated would help green the deserts in the region and foster agro-industrial development to all surrounding countries. LaRouche said in a speech in 1994: “One cannot meet the indices of water consumption for a modern population, for both the Palestinian and Israeli populations, under present conditions. There is a conflict over water because the Israelis have, frankly, been using their conquests to take water from everybody. It's one of the conflicts with Syria on the Golan Heights issue. It involves, in Lebanon, the Litani River, and things of that sort.”
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The Oasis Plan also involved transportation infrastructure to establish physical connectivity among all regional nations, starting with the Palestinian territories, with a highway between the West Bank and Gaza Strip as well as regional highways and rail networks. An expansion of the Suez Canal was proposed with industrial zones on both sides – which has been accomplished by Egypt in recent years.
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LaRouche had argued since 1975 that Southwest Asia, at the crossroads of civilizations, has a unique position as an industrial and logistics hub, being geographically located between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean and between Europe, Asia, and Africa. The use of oil and gas as a feed stock for industrial production, such as petrochemical industries to produce plastics, paints, and many useful materials, rather than exporting it as raw material, was to transform this region economically. This has since become a key feature of the 2013 China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative. Scientific, technological, and cultural cooperation and exchanges were another key element in the transformative process the Oasis Plan represented.
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| Using this region today as a land-bridge between continents, with the major powers like the U.S., China, Russia, and the EU contributing to its development, will not only stabilize the area, but also lead to better relations among the superpowers. |
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| | | The EU’s insane anti-pesticide and decarbonization policies are being defeated, which is a good thing. However, as the next UN climate conference is about to open in Dubai, the myth of man-made climate change has not yet been challenged as it should be.
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Two pillars of Ursula von der Leyen’s Green Transition, the pesticide and packaging waste bills, were killed by the European Parliament on Nov. 22. More than a miracle would be needed for the Commission to come up with new bills to replace them, before its mandate expires.
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- The regulation aimed at reducing by half the use of pesticides by 2030, was totally rejected, a result welcomed by the EU farmers’ association COPA-COGECA. In a statement posted on its website, the association writes that “MEPs sent a decisive message: the lack of dialogue, the imposition of objectives from above, the refusal to assess the impact and the lack of funding for agricultural proposals must end now.”
- The packaging regulation, aimed at banning non “reusable” packages, was watered down, with the new text putting the goal at cutting the amount of plastic packaging in Europe by 10% by 2030, 15% by 2035, and 20% by 2040. More importantly, certain measures, such as bans on unnecessary packaging and reuse targets, were removed. In addition, a new provision allows EU countries to avoid the 2030 reuse targets for a specific packaging type if the recycling rate is over 85%. Some countries, such as Italy, already meet that target.
- “Team Ursula” also suffered a big defeat in the Dutch elections. Former EU Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans, touted as the “brains” of the “Green Deal”, was the main opponent of election winner Geert Wilders. Independent from Wilders' unsavory ideological views, the defeat of both Timmermans and the incumbent party candidate is just the latest manifestation of voters’ revolt against the globalist, unipolar and “green” paradigm.
| Despite such clear signals, the ruling elites are clinging to their failed paradigm. An example of this is the “Action Plan” signed by Italian PM Giorgia Meloni and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz Nov. 22 in Berlin. The centerpiece of the plan is the construction of new gas and hydrogen pipelines between Italy and Germany, via Austria and/or Switzerland, and in particular through the Central-South Corridor, connecting to North Africa. The idea of having Africans produce hydrogen with solar panels to be exported to the EU is a failing proposition, both because of the costs of hydrogen and because African countries won't fall again for such neocolonialist schemes. Furthermore, the Europeans must know that their pipelines can be bombed by their allies... |
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| | | The statement made on Oct. 29 by German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius that “Germany must be war-ready” with regards to Russia has caused quite an uproar ever since. Although he attempted to backtrack a bit, by claiming he only meant “defense-ready”, it would be naive not to consider this as another phase change in Germany in the direction of a full militarization. Indeed, just a few days later, Pistorius announced that military aid to Ukraine would be doubled in 2024.
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But even more indicative of the danger is a strategy paper published Nov. 17 by the German Foreign Policy Association (DGAP), the sister organization of the American Council on Foreign Relations. Authors Christian Mölling and Torben Schütz warn that NATO must be ready to fight a major war within five to nine years, that the alliance is in a “race against time”, as Russia “represents the greatest and most-urgent threat to NATO countries”. And further: “Once intensive fighting has ended in Ukraine, the regime in Moscow may need as little as six to ten years to reconstitute its armed forces. Within that timeframe, Germany and NATO must enable their armed forces to deter and, if necessary, fight against Russia. Only then will they be in a position to reduce the risk of another war breaking out in Europe.”
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Does that mean that, once again, German soldiers will be fighting a war against Russia, like 80 years ago? Do such “experts” really believe that America would have the means to prevent defeat this time?
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In any case, in what is likely to create great unease among some European neighbors, the authors support turning the German armed forces “into Europe’s strongest army and the backbone of allied defense”, and making sure that “overall defense becomes a part of everyday life in politics, the economy, and civil society”.
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Helga Zepp-LaRouche responds to the delusions of the self-proclaimed “elite” these authors claim to represent, in a leaflet titled “No to the Militarization of Germany -- Stop the Escalation to World War III!”, which was distributed at the Berlin anti-war rally on Nov. 25. She blasts the type of “change of mentality in society” that the DGAP calls for, with its demands that Germany “take a quantum leap” in making the Bundeswehr the largest NATO force in Europe, in massively building up the German arms industry, and in preparing all sections of society to defend the country (including by having “a mandatory internship for all people aged 18 to 65 living in Germany to give them experience in areas relevant to total defense”).
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| Instead of such folly, which is certain to lead to catastrophe, Helga Zepp-LaRouche proposes a “change of mentality” in a completely opposite direction. “We need a strong peace movement and sovereign citizens”, who ensure that their government will engage in cooperation with the Global South and “reject geopolitics once and for all”. |
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| | | There is widespread recognition by now, in the United States in particular, that the war in Ukraine has been lost. The latest budget passed by the Congress has not allocated any new funds to the war effort, due to the opposition to funding a losing propsition and also to fears in the White House as the next presidential election draws nearer. Another pressing consideration is the fact that the United States, whether it wants to or not, does not have the weapons and equipment needed to sustain NATO’s war effort against Russia.
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This reality continues to be vehemently denied in Kyiv by President Zelenskyy, but not by the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, Oleksiy Danilov. He warned Nov. 25 that the days of large-scale Western support are over and that there was pressure for negotiations and a potential ceasefire with the Russians. On that topic, he said, “discussions among certain partners have intensified”.
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Although Germany’s tabloid Bild is not a reputable source, we can nonetheless quote a story it ran Nov. 27, quoting Ukrainians soldiers who are enraged with the government. “We are defending our country, we risk our lives,” one of them says, “and in the end we have to pay ourselves for armaments, our rent, our food, and repair our vehicles ourselves. What is the government doing with all the money from abroad? We have been abandoned by this government more and more.” The daily also quotes an officer, for whom “the general staff should have nixed the orders given to Zelenskyy from abroad for the counteroffensive. They should have resisted it.”
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| While NATO’s direct engagement in Ukraine may be winding down, the war against Russia will continue, but by other means. Hopefully, in the meanwhile, more forces within Ukraine will demand their country stop playing the role of pawn. |
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| | | With over 200 million people, Nigeria is the most populated country in Africa and the only one in West-Central Africa able to deploy an Army in the true sense of the term. In virtue of its economic and military power, it holds the regional balance of power. Thus, whether the government formed after the election of a new President last February would continue on the policy course taken by the previous government or break with it, was a matter of strategic importance.
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Indications are that the government under President Bola Tinubu, despite his Anglophile pedigree, might follow the route of emancipation from the IMF and the Western financial oligarchy initiated by his predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari. Buhari had abandoned the neocolonial economic model of a raw material exporter, to make a strong push for developing infrastructure and manufacturing. To that end, he had strengthened ties with China and had Nigeria join the Belt and Road Initiative. It looks like this policy will not be changed, but rather upgraded.
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The new Foreign Minister, Yusuf Tuggar, stated that his country is open to the idea of joining the BRICS, in a statement reported by Bloomberg News Nov. 22. Optimistically, he said that: “Nigeria has come of age to decide for itself who her partners should be and where they should be, being multiple aligned is in our best interest. We need to belong to groups like BRICS, like the G20 and all these other ones, because if there’s a certain criterion, say the largest countries in terms of population and economy should belong, then why isn’t Nigeria part of it?” (Nigeria is expected to become the world’s fourth most-populous country by 2050.)
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This seems to be the result of a power struggle within the government. In fact, Tinubu did not even attend the August BRICS summit in South Africa, opting to send his Vice President Kashim Shettima in his stead. At the time, there was a public disagreement as to whether Nigeria had actually applied for membership, with Nigeria appearing on at least one published list of “applicants” for the summit. Shettima was forced to deny this in August, but the internal conflict went on into September, compelling the administration to issue a public statement confirming, “We have not applied to BRICS contrary to speculations out there. We have made no application to BRICs or the G20 as of today.”
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| Also notable is that the statements were made by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and not the Minister of Finance. Yusuf Tuggar, a former ambassador to Germany, is known for supporting the ambitious Transaqua project for water transfer from the Congo basin to the Lake Chad basin, which the former government had strongly promoted. He had endorsed it in a speech he gave at the 2018 Schiller Institute Conference in Bad Soden (cf. SAS 28/18). |
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| | | The Transaqua project had gained renewed momentum in 2018, when it was endorsed by all member countries of the Lake Chad Basin Committee, at an international conference in Abuja organized by the Buhari government. On that occasion, the Italian government had committed to co-finance the feasibility study, but the process got bogged down due to political changes and foreign interference.
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More recently, pressure has again been put on the Italian government, since Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced she was working on a “Mattei Plan” (named after the late industrial leader Enrico Mattei), aimed at countering illegal immigration with development initiatives in Africa. A major article promoting Transaqua as “the real Mattei plan” was published last Aug. 30 in the prestigious defense magazine Analisi Difesa (cf. SAS 36/23), and on Oct. 24, former government official Ercole Incalza exposed in his blog “an unconceivable paradox: we talk about producing a Mattei Plan and we forget we have a ready-made plan, which we do not know or do not want to know”. He suggested the Italian government “examine such a proposal , because maybe it could finally refer not to a hypothesis, but to a reality which is congenial with what we call the 'Mattei Plan’.”
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| A crucial feature of the 2018 agreements was the triangular collaboration LCBC-Italy-China. One of China's largest corporations, PowerChina, had joined the enterprise, signing an MoU with the Italian company owner of the Transaqua blueprint, Bonifica. Such a triangular cooperation anticipated the spirit in which then-Italian PM Giuseppe Conte and Chinese President Xi Jinping signed an MoU the following year, under which Italy joined the Belt and Road Initiative. |
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