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Read Part I:

The Hidden Reasons Behind the War on Gaza. Netanyahu’s Plan for “A New Middle East”

By Richard Medhurst, December 04, 2023

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“Israel” and the United States have been planning for decades to build the so-called “Ben Gurion Canal,” a rival to the infamous Suez Canal in Egypt. This Ben Gurion Canal would begin at “Eilat”, and finish right next to, if not directly through, Gaza.

The Suez Canal is one of the most important construction and irrigation projects in history, connecting the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. So vital to trade is the Suez Canal that a war was even fought over it in 1956: “Israel”, Britain, and France attacked Egypt for daring to nationalize the Suez Canal – its own land.

A document declassified in the 1990s showed that just a few years after the Suez Crisis, the Americans hatched a secret plan in 1963 to detonate 520 nuclear bombs in al-Naqab desert to help “Israel” construct the “Ben Gurion Canal.”

US classified document from 1963 proposing the use of nuclear bombs to clear a path for the “Ben Gurion Canal” in al-Naqab Desert, Palestine 

How the opening of Egypt’s Suez Canal revolutionized world trade and cut shipping time and costs

The Suez Canal is a geostrategic asset in every sense of the word: it sits at the intersection of three continents and two bodies of water.

It cuts shipping times and costs by so much that today 12% of global trade and 30% of global container traffic pass through the Suez Canal.

Egyptian President el-Sisi was told in the last weeks that if he accepts “Israel’s” plan to take Palestinians in Gaza and put them in the Sinai desert, which “Israel” would pay for, then the United States would wipe Egypt’s national debt.

This is why “Israel” is absolutely obliterating Gaza – they want to seize Gaza for themselves and kill off all Palestinians and the Resistance.

Nile River

In addition to offering debt relief, the United States and “Israel” have another incentive for Egypt lined up.

Egypt has been suffering from acute water shortages since its neighbor Ethiopia built the so-called Renaissance Dam in 2011, cutting much-needed water from the Nile to both Sudan and Egypt. It has caused a huge dispute ever since that has yet to be resolved.

Ethiopia’s Renaissance Dam, built in 2011

Ethiopia has a significant Jewish population. The United States and “Israel” could theoretically lean on Ethiopia, as they have done before, and pressure it not to fill up its reservoirs, which would be detrimental to Egypt and incentivize el-Sisi to take in Palestinians from Gaza.

While it is a natural human response to flee war, Palestinians have refused to abandon their homes in Gaza for a very good reason: they know that if they leave, they will never see their homes again. Most people in Gaza originally came from other parts of Palestine. They already lost their homes once to Israeli settlers from 1948 onward, and they are not willing to lose their homes again.

So despite the appeal of having Gazans move to supposed “safety” in the Sinai, this would be a betrayal of the Palestinian cause and the surrender of even more land to the Zionist occupation. The Israelis would then build their “Ben Gurion Canal,” cementing Washington and “Tel Aviv’s” control over the world’s most important shipping lane and global maritime trade.

The “Ben Gurion Canal” is the last piece of the puzzle in “Israel” and the United States attempts to control all strategic shipping lanes

1. The Red Sea

The Red Sea, which would feed into the “Ben Gurion Canal,” already has a huge presence of American and Israeli troops. Did you know that “Israel’s” biggest military base is located in the Red Sea, on the Island of Dahlak, in Eritrea?

This base was hit by Yemen in the last few weeks, in support of Gaza, as Yemen is an integral part of the Resistance Axis.

2. The Gulf of Aden and Bab el-Mandab Strait

Yemen is located near Eritrea, in a crucial area: the Gulf of Aden and Bab al-Mandab Strait. Tens of thousands of ships pass this area every year, including a large percentage of the world’s petroleum vessels.

The US has been trying for decades to control this important shipping lane by putting troops right opposite Yemen, inside Djibouti, Somalia, and the region known as the Horn of Africa.

The United States has also tried to control this area by attacking Yemen from the rear, using Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, and carrying out its own drone strikes. This war has been ongoing for 8 years; it devastated Yemen, and the media barely covered it.

3. Socotra Island

We come then to the Yemeni island of Socotra. To remind you how strategic this area is, it is located between the Horn of Africa, the Gulf of Aden, the Arabian Sea, and the Indian Ocean.

The UAE, after normalizing ties with “Israel”, helped “Israel” to establish a military presence and spy bases on Socotra.

The importance of the Bab al-Mandab Strait is that both Iran and China need to use this shipping lane, for Iran to export fuel and for China as the world’s largest economy and largest trading partner of most countries.

4. The Strait of Hormuz

Continue up the Arabian coast, and you get to another vital strait: the Strait of Hormuz.

There is an entire de facto Cold War taking place here: a tanker war.

The US and “Israel” constantly try to sink Iranian fuel ships, and Iran responds in kind by hitting Israeli-owned ships. Britain also tried playing this game in the Strait of Gibraltar by hijacking an Iranian ship. Only when Iran gave Britain a taste of its own medicine did Britain get the message and let the Iranian ship go.

The US has gone so far as to even steal Iranian fuel tankers and sell off the cargo – a practice commonly referred to as piracy.

The US and “Israel” want to control this vital part of the world, so they can attack Iranian and Chinese ships in Bab al-Mandab Strait, up into the Red Sea, and of course by replacing the Suez Canal with the “Ben Gurion Canal.”

This final piece of the puzzle will allow the US and “Israel” to dominate world maritime trade.

They can use this not only to the benefit of their own economies but also to damage and attack other countries’ economies, such as those of China, Iran, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon. It is literally a robbery highway on the high seas.

And the “Ben Gurion Canal” is the key to all of this.

Where Are the Arabs and Muslims?

Egypt could stop this war in Gaza right now by shutting down the Suez Canal. Were late Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser still here, he wouldn’t have even thought twice.

It’s bewildering that Egypt doesn’t shut the Suez– if not for Gaza’s sake, then for its own sake. It is Egypt’s economy and the Suez Canal that will suffer if “Israel” gets away with genocide in Gaza and building its “Ben Gurion Canal.”

Why doesn’t Saudi Arabia threaten to cut oil production for one week – even just for a day to try and stop the war? Or is there something in it for them, were Gaza to be replaced with a canal?

Where are the Arabs? Where are the Muslims? Why don’t the kingdoms in the Gulf use their wealth and resources to help Gaza?

If you look at the European Union, they have nothing in common except geography. They speak over 24 languages. Whereas the Arab world today, from Morocco to Oman, has a common tongue, common geography, common religion, common history, and common culture.

This automatically makes the Arabs a global superpower – not to mention the enormous wealth of natural resources, the geographical landmass, and the population, which are all essential criteria of “hard power”.

It is not only the size of the Arab world, but look at the straits: all the vital straits and shipping lanes are located in Arab countries: The strait of Gibraltar, (originally Jabal Ṭāriq), the Suez Canal, the Bab al-Mandob Strait, and the Strait of Hormuz between Iran and Oman.

All vital straits are located in Arab countries

European colonial powers understood how powerful Arab countries were a long time ago, so they planted “Israel” right in the middle to create chaos. And then they worked on bringing the Arab kingdoms over to their side and to make them normalize ties with “Israel”.

All these borders in the Middle East didn’t even exist until Britain and France – the same European powers that created and back “Israel” today – drew them.

Europe’s foreign policy toward the Middle East is a divide-and-conquer strategy. It is all about colonialism and theft. It is about dividing up the Arab world, creating instability, and controlling the resources and straits.

European colonial powers always play the sectarian card to achieve this: they pitted Sunni against Shia in Iraq and Lebanon. Now they try to do it between Arabs and Iran. In Palestine, they lie again and say the struggle is “between Jews and Muslims”. It has never been about that. This war has nothing to do with Hamas or religion. It has always been about colonialism because the West is afraid of unity between Arabs and Muslim countries.

The entire world can’t believe how “Israel” is allowed to slaughter Palestinians like this in broad daylight and get away with it. How is it that the so-called “civilized West” supports this behavior? Why won’t Western leaders even call for a ceasefire? The answer is that this genocide in Gaza is their project too. “Israel” itself is a European and American imperialist project, and these “leaders” are all complicit.

The theft of Arab resources and control over the straits and canals will ultimately impact everybody in the Middle East negatively – not to mention all the suffering Palestinians have had to endure. And that is precisely why the whole Axis of Resistance – Palestine, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon – is involved in this fight on multiple fronts. It is about time for other Arab and Muslim countries to do their part for Gaza too: cut all ties with “Israel”, impose an oil embargo on the West, and shut down the Suez Canal. The entire world is watching you.

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Featured image: Illustrated By Zeinab al-Hajj; Al Mayadeen English