The ongoing tension between Iran and Israel can be understood in the context that the latter views itself as the vanguard of Western Civilization in the region. The Israeli representative stated as much on 14th August 2024, during an emergency UNSC meeting convened to discuss his country’s bombing of Al-Tabeen school that killed about 100 civilians. Israel and The West cannot foresee themselves backing down until the entire region is brought under neocolonialism.
Suspense in the Middle East
The European’s apartheid mentality is on full display in the ongoing Middle Eastern conflict, where the thought of Iran responding to Israeli violation of its sovereignty is unacceptable, but Israeli killing of 40,000 Palestinians and displacing over 1.9 million is completely okay. On August 13th, 2024, Britain, France, and Germany threatened Iran to refrain from retaliating against Israeli’s assassination of Hamas Leader, Ismail Haniyeh in July 2024, which also constituted a violation of Iran’s territorial integrity. However, these countries did not condemn Israel’s action against Haniyeh or the Gazans but have continued to arm and invest in Israel’s war. Meanwhile, the US approved the sale of $20 billion worth of weapons to Israel to continue or amplify its genocide well into the future. An undeniable apartheid attitude is apparent where the west allows Israel to kill whoever it wants while baring victims from defending themselves, in a move calculated to bring the entire region under The West’s control through Israel. The proposed India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) is a convenient guise for this plan.
IMEC and Moses’ Civilizing Mission
IMEC is a vehicle designed to give the US, Western Europe, and Israel power to use India and the Arabian Peninsula to ‘Contain China’ and ‘Isolate Iran’. The projects’ vaunted benefits for Arabs which will never materialize are supposed to buy their submission to Israeli genocide and expansion on behalf of the civilized world. Israel acts as the vanguard of The Wests’ ‘civilizing mission’ -euphemism for colonialism and plunder-in the region. This can be noted in Netanyahu’s speech at the 78th UN General Assembly (UNGA) session in September 2023, when he presented a map showing India, Arabian Peninsula, the Mediterranean, and Europe and connected them with a red line signifying the proposed IMEC, which had been agreed on during the previous G-20 Summit in India. Clearly, IMEC was/is not Israeli in planning or investment but The Wests’. Therefore, Netanyahu’s presenting and likening it to one of biblical blessings presented by scriptural Moses for Israelites shows his role in pushing the Western agenda in the Middle East. Also, the map he presented had Palestinian territories erased, and only a few Arabs were perturbed by this gross violation of the UNSC resolutions by a display that retrospectively meant that Netanyahu had been allowed it to dispose of Palestinians or bury them under the rubble to usher in the civilizing IMEC. The US and Europe have continued to arm Israel for such a goal while bombing those that oppose, including Houthis, and now Iran. Conspicuously, one curse that Netanyahu mentioned while role-playing Moses was Iran, which he argued must be destroyed, and he is now pursuing such goals while launching provocations, and The West vowing to defend Israel than rebuke its bullying.
Middle East’s Modern Trojan Horse and a Toll Station
The IMEC is an impractical Trojan horse that is primarily aimed at containing China, isolating Iran and subjugating the Middle East to US whims. Assertions that both China and Iran have no rights to freely relate and trade with neighbors, but the US has such, including to control other regions as outlined in the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) and Thomas Friedman on IMEC are the epitome of racism. Similarly, insinuations by The West that Israel should be empowered to bomb any party that pursues its interest and not The Wests’ are chauvinistic. ECFR introduces IMEC as a US-Led, connectivity project designed to link India to Europe via the gulf, adding that the ongoing war in Gaza has stalled it. Shockingly, ECFR leaves out the fact that IMEC and Netanyahu’s Sermon at the 78th UNGA session could have triggered the war. Hamas might have been triggered to conduct October 7th attack out of desperation, noting that Israel had been given freedom to eliminate Gazans. Even the US nationalist, Friedman conceded that Hamas’ October 7th attack was triggered by Israel’s reckless building of settlements, inhuman treatment of Palestinians, and encroachment of Muslim’s religious sites (which continues to date), but still calls the attack «terroris», which shows apartheid. The west cannot accept that Israel is wrong as Friedman still finds a way to blame Iran for what Israel caused, and continues that IMEC must be implemented even if the US will have to invade Iran.
The sheer hypocrisy in ECFR’s claim that IMEC will link India to Europe can be noted in that there is currently a direct sea route between India and Europe, through the Indian Ocean, The Red Sea and Mediterranean. The existing route is easier than the proposed IMEC, which would entail loading containers on ships in India, to sail to the UAE, offloading and loading them on trains to move accross Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Israel, only to load them back on ships for another voyage across the Mediterranean to European ports, an option that makes no logical sense. The only justification for IMEC, is that it is a ploy to make Israel the center of the region’s commerce, and hence America’s toll station for collecting usury on the region’s trade by hosting American and European banks, clearing houses, and ‘security’ (essentially making Arabs pay for staying alive). Revealingly, ECFR proceeds to detail the advantages of this corridor to parties, stating, «With IMEC, the US and the EU aim to draw India closer and counter Chinese influence», showing how the corridor’s main purpose is to serve US interest as opposed to the Middle East’. The report proceeds to claim that UAE and Saudi Arabia embrace the project as it can make them a bridge between The East and The West, which shows the authors’ poor understanding of Geography. The bridge between The East and The West is in Central Asia, Anatolia, or Iraq and Syria. Still, the report carefully conceals the main contributions sought from Arab-Muslim monarchies, which is their political acquiescence to Israel’s erasure of Palestinians, which will make them parties to genocide in return for nothing. Also, Friedman reveals that IMEC is the Joe Biden administration’s extensive alliance to contain China and Isolate Iran.
It’s Apartheid and Money is the Motive
Friedman suggests that Israel should continue destroying Gazans but form an alliance with Palestinian Authorities to accelerate IMEC, which is a fragrant display of The West’s desire to mint money and influence even from human life. It is okay for them not only to commit genocide in Gaza but also draw Iran into a conflict and destroy more life, for money and influence. Therefore, the West’s framing that peace in the Middle East hinges on Iran failing to retaliate against Israeli provocation conceals the reality that they will pursue war at all cost. They will escalate the conflict even if Iran fails to respond to the last provocation.
Simon Chege Ndiritu, a political observer and research analyst from Africa, exclusively for the online magazine «New Eastern Outlook»
