The people’s right to self-determination is perhaps the major source of conflict throughout history – and still is. The struggle for self-rule in Western Sahara – vs Spain’s colonial rule – began prior to the Sahrawi rebellion of the 1950’s, but really manifested itself when the peaceful Sahrawi Harakat Tahrir made demands for self-rule in 1970, and Spain responded with a bloody massacre. The suppression of the Zemla Intifada https://glosbe.com/en/en/Zemla%20Intifada in 1970 resulted in an armed struggle for self-rule by the Sahrawi called the « Frente Polisario » or Polisario Front, supported with funding and arms by Libya and Algeria.
The UN recognized the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic as being the legitimate Western Sahara movement for self-rule in 1979 https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/un-documents/document/ares3437.php and declared the Moroccan occupation illegal there by international law. UN 34/37 was endorsed by 84 member states, until US State agitated to have such recognition revoked after March of 2020.
In the little-known background, such bright Neocon lights as John Bolton and the AEI’s Michael Rubin (yes, the American Enterprise Institute an arch-nemesis of peace) pressed for a ‘clean break’ to confront SADR in Western Sahara. https://www.aei.org/foreign-and-defense-policy/middle-east/how-much-un-wasted-on-western-sahara-referendum/
A mouthpiece for Israel’s aggressive Nile-to-Euphrates Biblical agenda, in typical AEI fashion Rubin claims that UN documents no one can find http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/operations/financing.shtml show an expenditure of $400Mn USd by the US to ‘keep the peace’ in the SADR effort, largely pushed by Algeria. Mike Rubin’s Neocon twist is based on the factual argument that the US wastes billions on military intervention, NATO, etc, but of course ignores billions in US ‘aid’ to Israel.
By selective enforcement — and encouraged by the bloody Azeri military coup in Nagorno Karabakh — Kushner and Avi Berkowitz chose an assumed easy mark on the Sahel, to recognize Morroco’s illegal occupation of the Western Sahara. According to Axios, the decision to ignore Western Sahara’s right to self-rule was aided by Trump’s rift with Jim Inhofe, a US senator and former Trump ally. But Trump has little need for Inofe now. But will recognition of the Morrocan occupation be so easy? More on that later. https://www.axios.com/trump-morocco-israel-inhofe-cc6e66a4-cd1b-4c08-9126-0c3e608b38fb.html
Consider the close relationship between Israel and Morocco for many years. Despite Israel’s brutal occupation of Palestine and brutality versus Palestinians, Morocco has aided the mossad in subverting Palestinian rights and sovereignty for many years, beginning in the 1960’s. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/10/world/middleeast/Israel-morocco-cooperation-history.html Morocco allows an AMAN military intelligence base to operate there, and Israel’s mossad assisted in the torture and assassination of a Moroccan opposition leader in 1966, https://www.nytimes.com/1966/10/01/archives/witness-reports-ben-barka-torture.html where political assassination is the national policy of Israel, the US, and Morocco. During the ‘Yom Kippur’ war Moroccan military officers cooperated and coordinated with the Israeli military throughout, especially in the Golan, versus the Syrians. And even the sand berm splitting Western Sahara into two separate zones was built under the supervision of the Moroccan occupation and Israeli military advisers.
Kushner’s arbitrage with Morocco on Western Sahara for Israeli formalization is meaningless overall; extensive cooperation existed prior, just as with the UAE. And the US ‘gift’ of recognition to Morocco on Western Sahara won’t mean much to the simmering state of the conflict there. The move will mean much to Algeria though, and will push that low profile but important power to cooperate with China and Russia to a far greater extent than before, especially in their realm of control in the Western Mediterranean Sea.
Due to US destabilization of the Middle East and Northern Africa, Algeria is now pressed on all sides by the Axis of Evil, including Libya’s anarchy and Algeria’s sworn rival, US-debased Egypt, also driven by Wall Street and USd economic hegemony.
The US gesture on the Western Sahara further alienates all who press for ending Israel’s brutal and inhumane treatment of Palestinians, and the Occupation there, and an end to Israel’s decade-long siege of Gaza, a humanitarian disaster only eclipsed by Saudi in Yemen.
Steve Brown
Steve is an antiwar activist, a published scholar on the US monetary system, and has appeared as contributor to The Duran, Fort Russ News, Herland Report, Lew Rockwell Report, The Ron Paul Institute, and Strategika51.
Steve Brown on twitter: @newsypaperz
Source: Lire l'article complet de Strategika 51
