Aha Dua Permata: As US and UK Send Armed Forces to Israel, Who Else is Escalating the Conflict?

As US and UK Send Armed Forces to Israel, Who Else is Escalating the Conflict?

©Photo : Paul A Barrow / Royal Navy amphibious assault ship RFA Lyme Bay

Israel has compared Saturday's breakout from the besieged Gaza Strip by Hamas and other groups, which has left 1,300 civilians and soldiers dead, to the Nazi genocide of millions of Jews and others. Western allies have pledged full backing for Israel's military offensive.

The UK has joined the US in sending naval forces to back Israel following the latest escalation of its conflict in the occupied Palestinian territories — but will other NATO members follow suit?

British Response

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced on Thursday that he had ordered to Royal Navy amphibious warfare ships to sail for the eastern Mediterranean, along with Royal Air Force (RAF) P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft "to deliver practical support to Israel and partners in the region, and offer deterrence and assurance."

The vessels are the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) Argus, a Littoral Strike Ship fitted out with a 100-bed medical complex to receive casualties, and the RFA Lyme Bay, an amphibious assault ship.

The ships are reportedly carrying a detachment of Royal Marine Commandos and three Merlin medium-lift transport helicopters — strongly suggesting planning for an operation to rescue some of the British citizens believed to have been taken hostage in the coastal enclave of Gaza.

"Alongside our allies, the deployment of our world-class military will support efforts to ensure regional stability and prevent further escalation," Sunak said. "Our military and diplomatic teams across the region will also support international partners to re-establish security and ensure humanitarian aid reaches the thousands of innocent victims of this barbaric attack from Hamas terrorists."

The move contradicted assurances by Sunak's spokesman earlier in the week that there were "no plans to redeploy UK military assets to Israel."

US Deployment

The British move follows the US deployment of a the USS Gerald Ford aircraft carrier and its supporting battlegroup, along with other military units to the Mediterranean and Middle East to threaten Hamas' allies Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah.

Two US Air Force B-1B strategic bombers redeployed to RAF Fairford in the south-west of England on Thursday, with another pair expected to arrive on Saturday.

Germany

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Defence Minister Boris Pistorius also offered military aid to Israel on Thursday.

Two Israeli-made IAI Eitan armed drones — designated Heron TP for export — sold to the Bundeswehr armed forces will be lent back to Israel for use in the conflict. German personnel were already in Israel, training to use the systems.

"There is only one place for Germany — that place is at Israel’s side," Scholz told the Buundestag parliament on Thursday morning, adding that his government would "immediately examine and also grant" any further requests from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"Israel’s security is Germany’s national interest," Scholz declared.

Speaking during a visit to the Belgian capital Brussels, some to the NATO headquarters, Pistorius said the German government would also consider an Israeli request for ammunition for its naval fleet.

The chancellor also warned Hezbollah, the Lebanese Islamic resistance movement that saw off Israel's 2006 invasion of its northern neighbour, against opening a sceond front.

"Hezbollah must not intervene in the fighting," Scholz said. "There would then be the threat of a devastating conflagration — with possible repercussions as far as north Africa and Yemen. Together with our partners, we are using all channels to prevent such an apocalyptic scenario."

Gaza War as Indicator of West's Crumbling Dominance

The Gaza crisis serves as a reflection of the crumbling unipolar rules as the world is embracing multipolarity and seeking new approaches to simmering conflicts.

Neither Israeli nor American intelligence seemed to be aware about the preparations for Hamas' surprise assault on Israel last Saturday.

©AP Photo / Hatem Ali / Palestinian militants celebrate by an Israeli tank at the border fence of the Gaza Strip

"The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades," US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan claimed at the Atlantiс Festival on September 29, suggesting that Washington could now shift its focus on the Ukraine conflict and containing China's rise in the Asia Pacific.

As it turned out later, the night before the Hamas attack the Israeli intelligence agencies spotted signs of irregular militant activity in Gaza but IDF and Shin Bet's top brass decided not to put the Israeli military patrolling the border on high alert, according to the US press. Apparently, the Israeli security leadership also believed that the situation was largely under control.

The Hamas brutal rocket strike and sudden infiltration of Hamas militants in Israel's territories where the group met little if any resistance became a wake-up call for both Washington and Tel Aviv.

However, the erupted conflict is the result of a string of mistakes made by the international community and the US, in particular, during its unipolar moment, according to Alexander Asafov, political scientist, member of the Russian Association of Political Consultants.

"It was [the US] who sowed the seeds of these mistakes, which have led to these smoldering conflicts," Asafov told Sputnik. "And, of course, we see a clear manifestation. [The current crisis] in the Middle East, this is the result of just such a conflict. After all, it was [US President Donald] Trump who moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem. The Americans did a lot of things to prevent pacification in this area, not to mention the implementation of the 1947 UN Security Council decision on the creation of an Arab state in Palestine. Therefore, of course, this is a clear manifestation of the fact that there is no longer any Pax Americana, no unipolar world. And now the world is entering a new transition period, towards multipolarity, including through pain, blood and awakening conflicts."

According to Asafov, the US and its Western allies did not seek ways to resolve the contradictions once and for all: they capitalized on festering wounds of local crises in the Middle East, Africa, Central Asia and elsewhere.

"The world's hegemon [the US] has kept many conflicts smoldering through manipulation, forceful pressure and various other tools that they call 'soft' or 'smart' power," the political scientist continued. "And [Washington] did this deliberately, because it helped both earn money and, among other things, ensure a certain influence and control through dormant conflicts."

The bombing and fragmentation of Yugoslavia, the invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria by the US and its NATO allies led to rewriting maps, dragging countries into chaos and looting their national wealth. However, the US' Iraqi war created a power vacuum leading to the emergence of Daesh (ISIS/ISIL)* and other Islamist groups, while the Washington-backed Afghanistan government collapsed in just hours after the Taliban takeover of Kabul.

Likewise, the US administration's manipulation of the Israeli-Palestinian issue led to unintended consequences in the Gaza Strip, which dealt a third blow to the Biden administration after the botched Afghanistan withdrawal and the failed Ukrainian counteroffensive. "The Palestinian question is unresolved and, as recent events demonstrate, it is still smoldering," noted Dr. Marco Marsili, associate fellow at the Centre for Strategic Research and Analysis, who holds research positions in major civil and military institutions in Portugal, the UK and Italy.

Earlier, Sputnik's interlocutors warned that the US and UK's naval deployments near the region could fan the flames of the crisis even further instead of calming it down since Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah might consider the Western military buildup as a provocation and a direct threat.

Per Asafov, old rules of show of force and intimidation don't work, and international players need to tread carefully to avoid bigger conflicts. Thus, the irresponsible militarization of Ukraine, Taiwan and Israel will make the world less safe and more turbulent.

"The fact is that only this way they could show that their old rules, bloc rules – not civilizational ones based on values, but colonial rules based on financial gain, and pumping out resources from other countries – still work and can defend themselves. This could only be demonstrated in this way. This is what they do," said the political scientist. However, these colonial rules no longer work, per the academic, meaning that global and regional players would have to sit at the negotiating table as equals and find the solutions to the urgent crisis including the unfolding conflict in the Gaza strip.