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2025-03-05 International-UN-NGOs
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As European and Arab leaders panic, Trump gives Netanyahu rare freedom of action
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[IsraelTimes] In a fateful week for the Ukraine and Gaza wars, with summits in London and Cairo, the PM aims to ramp up pressure on Hamas, buoyed by the US president’s ‘do whatever you want’ approach
The course of the two conflicts that have dominated the global agenda in recent years could be set this week, as Europa
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
tries to figure out its response to growing White House hostility toward Ukraine, and the ceasefire in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response ...
moves beyond its surprisingly resilient first phase.
In both wars, the positions — and often mind-boggling statements — of US President Donald Trump
...Oh, noze! Not him!...
loom large. But as Europe scrambles to come up with a response to the angry new American approach to Kyiv, Israel finds itself with no overt criticism from the Trump administration and wide freedom of action as it seeks to achieve its key war goals of destroying Hamas
 ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
and bringing home all remaining hostages.
Western leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met in London on Sunday after a disastrous visit by the wartime leader to the Oval Office. Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance had berated Zelensky on live TV, confirming the worst fears in Kyiv and European capitals about Trump’s vision for ending the war in Ukraine.
In response, 18 mostly European leaders hurried to London to embrace Zelensky, a stark contrast from the dressing down he received in Washington.
"We are at a crossroads in history today," said British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
They certainly are. It’s just unclear how the leaders in London will get history to move down their desired path.
DETERRENCE WITHOUT THE US
The Europeans are first of all trying to figure out a way to get Trump and Zelensky talking again, with the hopes that the two will finally sign a mineral deal that could lay the groundwork for a postwar economic and security arrangement with enough US involvement to keep the Russians from violating any armistice.
But with Trump emphatically choosing to pursue an end to the war over the defeat of Russia, a larger challenge remains. "The free world needs a new leader," said EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas last week.
Rhetoric aside, Europe will struggle to fill that role in any practical sense, and certainly when it comes to Ukraine.
Zelensky believes that deterring Russia in postbellum Ukraine would take a minimum of 200,000 peacekeepers in his country. But Europe is unable to provide anything close to that number, and top US officials rule out sending American soldiers to Ukraine.
Britannia and La Belle France, two of NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions...
’s most powerful non-US militaries, are calling for a European "reassurance" force of under 30,000 troops, which officials say would be focused mainly on air and maritime defense.
But even that would be largely impotent without significant US backing.
For example, when fighting against Muammar Qadaffy
...who single-handedly turned a moderately prosperous kingdom into a dictator's fantasyland and was then murdered by his indignant subjects 42 years later...>
’s dilapidated Libyan army in 2011 European NATO countries began running short of munitions before a month had passed.
Libya "has not been a very big war. If [the Europeans] would run out of these munitions this early in such a small operation, you have to wonder what kind of war they were planning on fighting," John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, told The Washington Post at the time. "Maybe they were just planning on using their air force for air shows."
Even as the Europeans were ostensibly taking the lead in Libya, the US still flew 80% of intelligence flights and did almost the same percentage of midair refueling. "In effect," wrote Chris Brown of the London School of Economics, "Europe flew the planes and attack helicopters, but most of the time they were firing US munitions at targets identified by the US in operations coordinated by US technology."
European defense spending has surged over the last decade, but so has Russia’s. EU member states spent an estimated €326 billion on defense in 2024, but would have to raise that number by €250 billion a year if they want to create a meaningful deterrent against Russia, according to European economic think tank Bruegel.
"If defense spending is to be permanently higher," wrote Financial Times chief economic commentator Martin Wolf on Tuesday, "taxes must rise, unless the government can find sufficient spending cuts, which is doubtful."
Russia isn’t likely to take European will especially seriously either.
If they aren’t willing to accept Ukraine into NATO over fears that they could be drawn into a conventional war with nuclear-armed Russia, why would European states be willing to fight if their peacekeepers are attacked in Ukraine? And if their limited tanks didn’t come rumbling across the continent during the three years of war in Ukraine to date, why would they be more serious about committing them to the fight if Russia violates a ceasefire?
There are no easy answers for Europe. But while its leaders may be mostly infuriated by Trump’s positions and his treatment of Zelensky, they are being extremely careful about how they talk about the situation. A phrase taken the wrong way by the thin-skinned American president could send careful efforts to produce effective US-European dialogue on Ukraine skidding off the tracks.
NO PHASE TWO
While politicians sweat in Europe, Israel’s government — which endured from these same European leaders months of condemnation, quiet arms embargoes, and pressure to end the Gaza war with Hamas still in power — is acting with fresh confidence because of the US president.
In these first weeks of his second term, Trump has been everything Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could have wanted, and more. The president restored the maximum pressure policy against Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate Jews Zionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
and its nuclear program. He and his team have promised repeatedly to work with Israel "to ensure Hamas is eliminated" — not just pushed out of ruling Gaza. He wants to broker the Saudi-Israeli normalization deal. And he is going after the International Criminal Court for targeting Israel’s leaders, with obsessive Israel critics like South Africa and Ireland in the crosshairs.
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Posted by trailing wife 2025-03-05 2025-03-05 02:02||
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