Day: February 19, 2024

There couldn’t be a better metaphor than what a Chinese analyst used to characterise the NATO while commenting on its secretary general Jens Stoltenberg’s recent remark that the West does not seek war with Russia but should still “prepare ourselves for a confrontation that could last decades.”

The Chinese commentator compared Stoltenberg to an in-charge of a firm of undertakers, “a store owner of coffin and casket, which makes no money in peacetime. As an undertaker, NATO needs conflict, bloodshed for earnings. So it spreads fear and panic in order to ensure its member countries continue to contribute military funding.”

Stoltenberg’s remark appeared in an interview with German newspaper Welt Am Sonntag on Feb. 10, soon after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s famous interview with Tucker Carlson where the Kremlin signalled that Russia did not refuse and is not refusing negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. Stoltenberg spoke for the Pentagon, no doubt. 

Moscow, having reached  an unassailable position in the war, is not interested in a full-scale war to realise its objectives, as eventually, the West will have to co-exist with Russia. Putin’s interview with Carlson was timed carefully — with hardly a fortnight left for the war to enter its third year. 

Putin’s “message” that Russia is open to dialogue caught Washington off guard. For one thing, the bandwidth of the Biden Administration is dominated by the Israel-Palestine crisis. On the other hand, the two-year anniversary of the war is marked by a signal battlefield victory by Russian forces in the strategic eastern town of Avdiivka, a gateway to Donetsk city, and effectively on the front line ever since 2014 when the conflict in Donbass started.

All attempts by Russian troops to liquidate the big Ukrainian base in Avdiivka threatening Donetsk city had failed so far. Avdiivka is key to Russia’s aim of securing full control of the two eastern Donbass provinces — Donetsk and Luhansk. Its capture not only boosts the Russian morale but also consolidates Donetsk as a major Russian logistics hub for further westerly operations in the direction of the Dniepr river.

In political terms, it underscores that all along the almost 1000-km frontline, Russian forces are presently advancing. The Ukrainian military suffered a rout in Avdiivka.  

Biden’s re-election bid will be bumpy if such distressing news keeps appearing from Ukraine highlighting the gravity of his foreign policy disaster, as NATO stares at another humiliating defeat after Afghanistan. Donald Trump is relentlessly challenging Biden on the issue of Russia-Ukraine and on NATO. Contrary to earlier prognosis, the US election has turned into one of the most influencing factors in the Ukraine conflict. 

The path in the US Congress towards a military aid package for Ukraine is uncertain. The main obstacle was all along the House of Representatives, where Republicans have a majority. Apart from the Republican Speaker of the House being not in any hurry to table the bill passed by the Senate, the Congress is also about to shift back towards domestic fiscal policies, so that the foreign aid bill might simply fall down the list of priorities in the legislative agenda.

Meanwhile, the hearing in the Supreme Court on Trump’s candidacysignals that the talk that he might be debarred from running for the presidency is only wishful thinking. That means, if Trump maintains his lead in the South Carolina primaries on 24th  February, the Republican race will be essentially over and he will be the party’s presumptive candidate. Trump has also widened his lead over Joe Biden in the polls.

The flow of finance to Ukraine is already ebbing and there is a pall of gloom among Ukraine’s cheerleaders in Europe after having discovered finally that Kiev is not winning the war. The West’s proxy war without a clearly set war goal means that there is no exit strategy, either.

A Trump victory would badly expose the European partners. Plugging the funding gap by Europe is going to be highly problematic. The US has so far committed €71.4 billion, more than half of it in the form of military aid. Number two is Germany with €21 billion, followed by the UK with €13.3 billion. Norway comes fourth. The paradox is, while the three largest European donors are all NATO members, it is only Germany who is a member of the European Union.

And Germany is not big enough to fill the gap left by the US on its own. But the biggest obstacle to a common European response is the lack of common ground between France and Germany. The special Franco-German relationship has largely become a historical artefact. The two EU giants are pursuing incompatible economic strategies — on fiscal policy and nuclear energy — and their economies are diverging, and so is their politics and defence strategies. 

Chancellor Olaf Scholz has reoriented German defence co-operation away from France and towards the US. The power struggle between the EU’s two biggest powers that had its origins in the lack of chemistry between French president Emmanuel Macron and Scholz has turned into an antagonism manifesting as two different visions of the world. 

Macron’s concept of “strategic autonomy”, which calls for Europe not to rely on outside powers in vital areas that could give them political leverage, is rubbing against Germany’s historical reliance on American military umbrella (which France does not require.) 

After a meeting with Biden at the White House in Washington on February 9, Scholz said, “Let’s not beat about the bush: support from the United States is indispensable if Ukraine is to be capable of defending itself.” Scholz strongly advocated stepping up military aid to Ukraine, emphasising an imperative need to send out a “very clear signal” to Putin. 

As he put it, “We need to show that he (Putin) can’t count on our support waning.” Scholz added: “The support we provide will be on a big enough scale and it will last long enough.” By hyping up the war-like atmosphere, Germany seeks to maintain the relevance and financial stability of NATO through the conflict in Ukraine. 

Biden responded to Scholz purring like a cat showing pleasure. Biden will next host Poland’s President Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Donald Tusk for a meeting in Washington on March 12. The US is re-energising its coalition with Germany and Poland for the next phase of Ukraine war. France stands outside looking in, while Britain lies in coma. 

Simply put, while Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s delusion is that he can win this war, NATO’s delusion is that it will do whatever it takes. But the undertaker’s money is running out and further business depends on prolonging the war. 

The veil has come off the western narrative — this war was never about Ukraine. The enemy image of Russia has become the cornerstone of NATO’s very existence and function.

Certainly, taking orders from an undertaker is not in Germany’s interests. The noted German editor Wolfgang Münchau wrote recentlyabout “a general disorientation in Germany that accompanies the geopolitical and social change” manifesting in the faltering economy, the de-industrialisation that is happening and the absence of a post-industrial strategy for the country as such. 

Clearly, European interests lie in shouldering own defence and making peace with Russia so as to focus attention on the economy. Germans themselves are conflicted over this war. Scholz is not a man of charisma or of big ideas, Münchau noted, and German public no longer trusts him. But then, there is also “the deeper problem: it is not really Scholz. It is that Germany has become a lot harder to run.”  

This article was published at Indian Punchline

He was sweet and well meaning, but he was old.  He was hazy.  His memory was poor.  Doddering, confused, the self-proclaimed leader of the Free World seemed ready to check into a retirement village.  That, at least, is the thick insinuation of the Special Counsel’s report on President Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified documents when vice president during the Obama administration.

The findings of the Special Counsel Robert Hur were not punitive.  But they were laceratingly wounding.  It seemed to resemble more of a nurse’s assessment of whether you need an upgrade in aged-care treatment, a bolstering of services for a person in declining years. (“Have you lost your mind, dear?”)

During the course of the investigation, things did not get better. “In his interview with our office, Mr. Biden’s memory was worse.  He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended (‘if it was 2013 – when did I stop being Vice President?’), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began (‘in 2009, am I still Vice President?’).”      

At an ill-tempered press conference, Biden insisted that his memory was “fine”, that Hur should never have asked such questions as whether the president could recall when his son died and that he was “well meaning.  And I’m an elderly man.  And I know what the hell I’m doing. I’ve been president – I put this country back on its feet.”

The picture is not a good one.  But then again, when was it?  Prior to coming to power, Biden already had a bookshelf list of bungles, gaffes and misjudgements.  The only question looming behind was the degree of intent behind them.  In 1987, he notoriously plagiarised much of a speech by the then leader of the British Labor Party, Neil Kinnock and, to show he was on a hot streak, generously decorated his academic record from Syracuse Law School.  Despite describing this as “much ado about nothing,” he withdrew from the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination that September.   

His campaign team, terrified that he might verbally snare himself leading up to the 2020 election, tried their best to insulate him from penetrative public scrutiny.  This was very much aided by the ravages and restrictions of the pandemic, which afforded him the perfect excuse to operate in conditions of masked isolation.  

As commander-in-chief matters have only worsened.  Figures, for example, were airily revised – a million dead US residents and citizens from the ravages of COVID-19 became the somewhat reduced figure of “over 100”.  World leaders dead or alive were swapped in Biden’s memory channel – a flattering form of death revival, and a denigration of the living.  Biden, for instance, confused the current French president, Emmanuel Macron, with the late François Mitterrand before a campaign rally in Las Vegas.  

His geographical recall was not too good either. “Right after I was elected, I went to a G7 meeting in southern England.  And I sat down and said, ‘America is back!’ and Mitterrand from Germany – I mean France – looked at me and said, ‘How long are you back for?’”  

In terms of wars, he has remarked that Russia’s Vladimir Putin was “losing the war in Iraq”, which would have surprised the Russians, Ukrainians and everybody else.  More could have been made by the Republicans about this in Congress, but then again, their aged warriors are hardly endowed with brainbox memories of sound recall or cognition either.

Other mishaps could cause titters of amusement – the harmless, dotty chap who muddles the facts, lighting up pub conversation.  During his April visit to Ireland last year, light entertainment was caused by his confusion between the terroristic Black and Tan enforcers during the Irish War of Independence (1919-21) and the All Blacks, New Zealand’s fabled rugby team.  The remarks were made in Louth in the context of speaking about a former rugby player and distant cousin Rob Kearney.  “He beat the hell out of the Black and Tans,” an admiring Biden recalled.

The more significant, and dangerous problem is that a decaying, eroding memory can become the perfect pretext of making appalling policy even as it is forgotten, a form of erasure as things are being done.  Policies long pursued and understood can be given the heave-ho.  Biden’s belligerence over the Taiwan question, and whether a war over the province with China would be worthwhile, is a case in point.

Biden’s opponent does not, oddly enough, have that problem.  Donald Trump, even at 77-years of age, has a habit of transmuting inability to faux talent.  One never knows whether his confusions are intentional in their malice or genuine acts of indifference or imbecility. (He very intentionally forgot the existence of WikiLeaks after the 2016 election, despite lauding the organisation’s press achievements prior.)  More recently, competing Republican contender Nikki Haley got switched with Democrat veteran Nancy Pelosi.  Petulant, hysterical, and stubbornly adolescent, he has a form of counterfeit youth on his side, the child in rompers who always screams even after downing the milk.  When he errs, he is not only forgiven but given candied approval by his understanding supporters.

What matters now is the sense that the errors and lapses have arisen because of Biden’s age, the causal attribution to worn memory that renders the ruling magistrate enfeebled and vulnerable to overthrow.  The campaign trail till November 2024 will be long and vicious, and Biden’s team may well have to reprise their role as quarantine specialists for their leader.  In the meantime, best consult the RAND Corporation study about the risks posed by dementia afflicting the US imperium’s aged security and intelligence community.  It promises to only get worse.  

On February 14, Indonesia held a heated presidential election involving Prabowo Subianto, Anies Rasyid Baswedan, and Ganjar Pranowo. After his fourth attempt, Prabowo, as predicted by several quick counts, could take his chance by getting over 50% of the total votes. His vice, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, who has been a “Nepo Baby” and the son of President Jokowi, was forecasted to be the biggest factor in Prabowo’s win. Among Ganjar and Anies, Prabowo committed to continue Jokowi’s policy. He says his commitment multiple times since massively during the presidential debates. 

Downstream projects, one of Jokowi’s priorities, have been discussed as an issue, mainly in Maluku, due to the biggest nickel industry supported and financed by China. Prabowo will increase its attention to this project. Briefly, the project involves extractive ventures that could increase the added value of the mining sector, ranging from coal to nickel. President Jokowi also believes that it could amplify Indonesia’s economic growth. It is in line with Indonesia’s vision for 2035. President Jokowi assures Indonesia needs more than 59 million tons of sulfate nickel to be a player in electric vehicles in Southeast Asia and the world. 

Based on the Central Bureau of Statistics, in the second quarter of 2023, Maluku’s economic growth could reach 23.89%. It was five-fold or far from the national growth. For example, In 2022, the Indonesian Investment Coordinating Board noted that the total investment in North Maluku could reach USD 9.8 billion or nearly Rp 150 trillion. 

China has been involved in this project. In the past few years, PT Halmahera Persada Lyhend (PT HPL) or Harita Nickel officially announced one of the gigantic nickel sulfates for building the electric vehicle industry on Obi Island, North Maluku. PT HPL has been owned by Chinese ventures such as Lygend Resources Technology Co. Ltd at 36.9%, a venture of global value chains since 2009 in Zhejiang, China, and Kang Xuan Pte Ltd at 18%. It has aligned with Indonesia Weda Bay Industrial Park (IWIP) or Weda Bay, which Thingshan Group dominated at 51.2% of the total share. For the rest, it has been owned by Indonesian ventures PT. Aneka Tambang Tbk and Antar at 10% and Eramet (France) at 37.8%. 

Several of those companies were also buoyed by Contemporary Amperex Technology Co Ltd (CATL) – China-backed – that built some facilitations of cultivating nickel fabrics to sulfate nickel in East Halmahera, North Maluku. The project is estimated to finish in 2026. In addition, the total CATL investment in Maluku could be worth USD 5.6 billion. 

In 2023, for the first time, PT HPL announced exporting 5.584 tons of sulfate nickel to China via 290 containers. However, the senior researcher of the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (INDEF), Faisal Basri, argues the projects are not for Indonesian but for China. He criticizes that over 90% of the results are enjoyed by the Chinese, not Indonesia. 

Prabowo’s Steps and the Impacts

Prabowo will likely continue that downstream project by increasing his talks significantly with China. Luhut Binsar Panjaitan, the coordinating minister of maritime affairs and Prabowo’s senior during TNI AD, argues Prabowo is committed to bringing Indonesia’s economic development by copying Jokowi’s path. If this scenario occurs, severe implications could happen in Maluku. 

First, although BPS reported it could accelerate Indonesia’s growth, apparently, the nickel could worsen poverty. Compared to March 2022, BPS released a report showing that the poverty index in North Maluku mounted to 1.083 in March 2023, an increase of more than 50 points. However, the government of Maluku could not decrease or lessen the Gini Index from 0.3 to 0.289. Due to these facts, certain groups and elites could only enjoy the downstream rather than the original people. 

Second, there are environmental effects. The activist of North Maluku, Upiawan Umar, said the waterfall and Toduku River are contaminated by disposing of nickel ore. Despite being polluted and dirty, the people of Maluku are still using the waters due to a lack of ability to purchase clean water. 

Ake Lamo River, the biggest river in Obi Island, has also had an impact. Jatam, the mining advocate, released a report showing that not only does water get the impact, but Jatam notes the people also breathe “the deadly air” resulting from Harita Nickel. The Public Health Office of Maluku said in 2023, 520 cases of diarrhea and respiratory infections caused death. Ironically, most of its victims are children and babies below four years of age. 

In conclusion, if Prabowo desires to continue the downstream projects in Maluku, he could and must read academic articles or some reports about the impacts of the projects. It may be attentive to the people and could warrant dirty investments. Quoted from Kompas, Romo Herry Priyono, the lecturer at STF Dtiyarkara, said if the government wants to improve economic development, the first task they could do is to improve the quality of life of its people. 

By Wanjiru Njoya

Natural rights are often regarded with deep suspicion by lawyers and economists, who are wary of the wild and extravagant demands framed in the language of human rights. A good example is the United Nation’s list of fundamental human rights, which Antony Flew derides as absurd in “Could There Be Universal Natural Rights?”:

“A right to social security” (Article 22) . . . “the right to . . . periodic holidays with pay” (Article 24) . . . “the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family . . . and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control” (Article 25) . . . “the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages.”

The list is potentially endless. Many people are now accustomed to defining anything they want as a right, as exhibited in this hostile exchange on X where a social justice warrior demands all the land owned by white South African farmers:

Warrior: We want all that’s with Whites, all of it, period.

Farmer: I want a Ferrari.

Warrior: Who cares what you want?

Farmer: My point exactly.

People’s tendency to think themselves entitled to demand anything they want highlights one of the reasons why many philosophers are skeptical of natural rights, both as to whether such rights exist and, if so, how they ought to be defined.

Murray Rothbard’s theory of natural rights is derived from “reason and rational inquiry.” In The Ethics of Liberty, he treats property rights as the ethical foundation for understanding the scope of rights: “Property can only accrue to humans, so that their rights to property are rights that belong to human beings . . . the person’s right to his own body, his personal liberty, is a property right in his own person as well as a ‘human right.’”

More importantly, this reveals the content and boundaries of human rights, as human rights derive from self-ownership and are not simply any demand that people may choose to couch in the language of rights for purposes of promoting the public good. As Rothbard further explains:

“Not only are there no human rights which are not also property rights, but the former rights lose their absoluteness and clarity and become fuzzy and vulnerable when property rights are not used as the standard.

“. . . Human rights, when not put in terms of property rights, turn out to be vague and contradictory, causing liberals to weaken those rights on behalf of “public policy” or the “public good.”“

However, understanding human rights as property rights within the framework of natural law is not the end of the inquiry. In addition to the redistributionist traps set up by human rights conventions and declarations, there are also many policy demands that encroach upon property rights, not least of these being the raising of taxesto fund welfare programs defended by appeals to alleged natural rights. As David Gordon highlights, “If you accept natural rights, you must acknowledge that your view of them is controversial. Other people may reject natural rights or interpret them differently from you.”

The question then arises whether utilitarian approaches to public policy are better placed to avoid these types of difficulties. In “Are Pay Equity Policies Justified?,” Bruce Gilley points out that the language of human rights used to promote ideas like “gender justice” fails to incorporate any evaluation of whether equity policies work, whether they achieve their stated goals, or whether they are worth the costs of implementing them. Gilley is right to highlight the importance of benefit-cost analysis. That approach might have saved Birmingham city council in England from going bankrupt following its attempt to equalize pay between men and women by paying women back wages of nearly $1 billion.

However, utilitarian benefit-cost analysis turns out to suffer from the same vulnerability as natural rights in this respect. Benefit-cost analysis is itself increasingly harnessed to advance social welfare demands on grounds that achieving the greatest good for the greatest number requires distributional analysis. Distributional analysis is used to argue that costs and benefits must be weighted according to the impact on different groups based on factors such as race or sex. This has been further hijacked by what Bruce Gilley calls “grievance-based policy analysis,” in which the “real” costs and benefits of a policy are said to vary according to group or personal identity. As Gilley explains:

“The Biden administration wants to add “race” and “ethnicity” as well as other identity categories to the mix on the assumption that some groups are like rich people: they have too much privilege so any additional benefits to them should be discounted. Other groups are like poor people: they don’t have enough privilege, so benefits to them should be given more weight. The result would be to skew BCA [benefit-cost analysis] in favor of whatever group the administration is currying favor with at the moment, totally apart from whether the individuals affected by a policy are actually underprivileged in an economic sense.“

The federal government argues that this type of wealth redistribution based on race or ethnicity reflects “scientific and economic advances” in the regulation of federal programs. Their stated goal is “to promote social welfare through well informed decision-making by the Federal Government” and provide “general guidance for conducting benefit cost and cost effectiveness analyses of certain Federal activities.”

In The Ethics of Liberty, Rothbard warns about exactly this vulnerability in utilitarian approaches:

“Utilitarian social philosophy holds the “good” policy to be the one that yields the “greatest good for the greatest number” . . .

“But this doctrine is hardly scientific and by no means value-free. For one thing, why the “greatest number”? . . .

“Secondly, what is the justification for each person counting for one? Why not some system of weighting? This, too, seems to be an unexamined and therefore unscientific article of faith in utilitarianism.“

Moreover, Rothbard adds: “Individual utilities are purely subjective and ordinal, and therefore it is totally illegitimate to add or weight them to arrive at any estimate for ‘social’ utility or cost.” Instead, what is needed is “some ethical system, some concept of justice.”

The concept of justice rooted in the idea of self-ownership is based on the formal equality of all human beings so that it is always unjust to take anyone’s property from him without his consent in order to advance the welfare of another person or the “public good.” This concept of justice has both of the advantages identified by Antony Flew: it defines natural rights as both objective and universal. To this, we may add the further advantages identified by Hans-Hermann Hoppe in his introduction to The Ethics of Liberty, namely the formulation of principles of natural law that are both ethical and absolute: “They pass the universalization test—they hold for everyone equally—and they can at the same time assure the survival of mankind. They and only they are therefore non-hypothetically or absolutely true ethical rules and human rights.”

These principles are absolute in the sense that they do not vary according to political whims nor can they validly be overridden by democratic mandate. It is in this sense that Rothbard depicts natural rights as radical.

The implication of this radical approach to defining natural rights is that wealth redistribution does not become justified simply because politicians think it will promote “good democracy” or “racial equality.”

• About the author: Dr. Wanjiru Njoya is a Scholar-in-Residence for the Mises Institute. She is the author of Economic Freedom and Social Justice (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021), Redressing Historical Injustice (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023, with David Gordon) and “A Critique of Equality Legislation in Liberal Market Economies” (Journal of Libertarian Studies, 2021).
• Source: This article was published by the Mises Institute

By Baria Alamuddin

Intensifying regional conflict is being fueled by a raging war of words as extremist Israeli leaders relentlessly beat the drums of war against Lebanon. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant pledged to intensify operations against Hezbollah, warning that Israel could attack to a depth of 50 kilometers “toward Beirut and anywhere else.”

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah reciprocated with a threat that Hezbollah’s “precision missiles” could target any location from Kiryat Shmona in the north to Eilat in the south. Nasrallah further asserted: “The enemy will pay the price of spilling blood with their own blood,” and pledged to “escalate resistance activity at the battlefront.” 

At last week’s Munich Security Conference, Israeli Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz warned: “If a diplomatic solution is not found, Israel will be forced to act to remove Hezbollah from the border” to return 70,000 displaced Israelis to their homes. “In such a case, Lebanon will also pay a heavy price,” he said. He failed to mention that nearly 100,000 Lebanese have also been displaced by the conflict, a number that will soar in the event of a full Israeli invasion. Lebanon’s already bankrupt economy has suffered further damage estimated at $1.6 billion.

A newspaper poll suggested that 71 percent of Israelis want a major military operation against Lebanon. A politically mortally wounded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may find it difficult to resist such pressures as an illusory route to rebuilding his popularity, even though it would be massively destructive for both sides, given Hezbollah’s huge missile arsenals and Israel’s access to unlimited US weaponry.

The rapid trajectory of this escalation illustrates how such retaliatory cycles can be self feeding: Israel in recent days struck Nabatieh and Al-Sawana, resulting in numerous civilian casualties, and Hezbollah retaliated by firing dozens of rockets into northern Israel. Over 170 Hezbollah fighters are among the 200 Lebanese deaths so far.

This trajectory is further reinforced by Israel’s remorseless airstrikes on Iran’s proxy assets in Syria, including the assassination of Republican Guard leadership figures. Hezbollah-aligned paramilitaries have been strengthening their presence in southwest Syria with the objective of ensuring that Israel would be fighting on a widened northern front in the event of conflict fully erupting.

In the view of Israeli military hawks, the encircling chain of Iranian proxies linking Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad and Sanaa makes it necessary for Israel to strike a blow against this amassed “resistance” before it becomes all prevailing. Indeed, Israel’s direct war with Tehran appears to have already begun, with a series of devastating sabotage attacks against gas infrastructure across Iran. Israel has in the past used such tactics against Iranian military and nuclear sites. 

Immediately after Oct. 7, only vigorous US diplomatic intervention deterred a vengeance-thirsty Netanyahu from striking an immediate and massive blow against Hezbollah. With the recent deterioration in relations between the prime minister and US President Joe Biden, America’s ability and will to moderate Israeli military policy is diminished. Despite supposedly working to end the conflict, the US is preparing to send large volumes of additional weaponry to Israel.

French and US initiatives for defusing the crisis are premised upon implementation of UN Resolution 1701, i.e. Hezbollah withdrawal to behind the Litani River. This is a dim prospect in the current circumstances, unless Hezbollah is offered political concessions, which would be destabilizing for Lebanon; or if Israel militarily intervened to enforce Hezbollah’s withdrawal, which would result in a bloodbath.

The Gaza carnage has aroused global anger, but war in Lebanon would be an entirely different prospect: first, because it would enmesh the US and Western and Arab states further into the conflict; but also because of the vast Lebanese global diaspora, including highly influential figures. Lebanese citizens of the Shiite-majority rural south take enormous pride in building and establishing their homes, so the massive destruction of 2006 and the bombardment of recent weeks have been particularly traumatic. Likewise, the massive disturbances to agriculture due to shelling, phosphorous bombs and cluster munitions, as well the displacement of laborers, have taken their toll. Citizens who’ve already lost so much fear that far worse is yet to come.

With Netanyahu basing his political choices on gambits for remaining in power; Biden premising his Gaza policies on requirements for re-election; Nasrallah seeking to match Israel’s bellicose language blow for blow; and Russian President Vladimir Putin perpetuating his own conflict in order to avoid having to lose face — international politics has become a grudge match of posturing, muscle-flexing egos and warmongering rhetoric. Lebanon, Israel, Gaza and the wider region risk utter destruction because of these strongmen’s refusal to back down, with zero regard for the millions of civilians who have been caught in the crossfire.

Netanyahu has never hidden his lifelong aim to kill off the two-state solution. The current conflagration, international disarray, the failure of global institutions, and a vengeful hawkish consensus within Israel toward illusory maximalist solutions offer him the perfect opportunity to permanently destroy Palestinian dreams of statehood.

Nobody believes Nasrallah wants war, but he has too often been a prisoner of his own fire-breathing rhetoric and the agenda of his Iranian paymasters. Addressing the Lebanese public last week, Nasrallah claimed: “We are faced with two options: resistance or surrender. The option of resistance is the least costly, and the price of surrender is very high.” Have Nasrallah’s memories of how Israel incinerated southern Lebanon in 2006 not been reinforced by the Gaza genocide?

With Israel’s extreme-right regime willing to stop at nothing to destroy Lebanon and aspirations for Palestinian nationhood, scattering Arab citizens to the four winds, both sides’ mutual provocations resemble two racing cars hurtling toward each other. Cooler heads should compel disengagement from this collision course and putting citizens’ lives first. The only way to prevent conflict regionalization is an immediate halt to the Gaza mass murder.

We all stand with the people of Gaza, but allowing the precious Lebanese nation to be utterly destroyed as collateral damage in this infernal battle of egos can never further the Palestinian cause one iota.

• Baria Alamuddin is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster in the Middle East and the UK. She is editor of the Media Services Syndicate and has interviewed numerous heads of state.

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