Damascus International Airport was badly damaged in early June by missiles launched from occupied Syrian territory, the Golan Heights. Runways were disabled, navigation lights were destroyed, and a passenger hall is currently out of use for being badly damaged. This is a civilian airport, yet the media in the ‘western’ world hardly turned a hair. By comparison, were missiles to strike an airport in the Zionist settler state, the shock and outrage would be front page news for days. Russia reacted angrily to the Damascus airport attack. It has warned the settler state many times before over its attacks on Syria but the sharpness of the tone in the latest condemnation was clearly influenced by anger at Zionist double-dealing over Ukraine. Otherwise, the indifference of ‘western’ governments and media was no more than an example of the hypocrisy that has characterized their attitudes since their first open commitment in 1917 to the establishment of a colonial settler state in Palestine, right at the heart of the Middle East.   

The attack on Damascus airport came at the end of a month-long series of military exercises by the Zionist settler state, ‘Chariots of Fire’. No doubt the link is not coincidental. The Zionist military wanted all the troops home safe and sound from Cyprus before attacking again. Cyprus? What were thousands of Zionist regular and reserve forces doing in Cyprus, one might ask? Well, for those who have not been looking closely enough in recent years, Greece, the Greek government of southern Cyprus, and the Zionist settler state have been steadily building a new strategic alliance in the eastern Mediterranean involving close military collaboration, as well as the joint exploitation of undersea gas and oil reserves.  

The UAE is also a partner. In 2016 and 2017, it held joint air exercises with "Israel", and in 2020, it signed a ‘’mutual defense’’ pact with Greece involving military coordination and intelligence sharing, as well as trade and energy. In April 2021, UAE and Israeli pilots took part in aerial exercises over Greece, along with contingents from the US, Canada, France, Spain, and Cyprus. This new vector of operations adds to the strategic and tactical possibilities opened up for "Israel" through economic, military, and intelligence collaboration with the UAE and other Gulf states.   

‘Beyond the Horizon’, the last phase of ‘Chariots of Fire’, was held in southern Cyprus because the mountainous terrain there closely resembles southern Lebanon. The exercise involved ground, air, and naval forces as well as close cooperation with the Cyprus National Guard, which has also been trained in "Israel", strengthening the relationship between the two, as the Zionist media reported. Widespread political and public opposition to the use of the island for military training by the Zionist state was reported by the Cypriot media.

The focus of the Cyprus exercise was preparation for deep strikes into Lebanon, where the ‘’target bank’’ is said to be 20 times greater than what it was in 2006, when Hezbollah inflicted a humiliating defeat on invading Zionist forces. Reports say the Zionist state’s ‘northern command’ has thousands of targets ready to be attacked in Gaza and Lebanon, which over the years, Zionist military figures have threatened to send back to the Stone Age in the next war. Knowing this, as it certainly should, how is it possible that the government of southern Cyprus can allow the forces that will carry out this destruction to be trained on Cypriot territory?  

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‘Chariots of Fire’ was conceived to deal with a multi-front war against Iran, Hezbollah, Gaza, and the northern region of occupied Palestine, but given the massively destructive scope of what is being planned, other states could quickly be drawn in. The first week of the exercise focused on the development of a ‘’multidimensional defense strategy." The second was concerned with naval and aerial preparedness, logistics, cyber and spectrum warfare, and battles on the ‘’home front’’, where Hezbollah has warned the next war will be fought. 

The third week was again concerned with the ‘’home front’’, as well as war across the armistice line with Lebanon. The fourth involved ground forces backed by plane and helicopter support maneuvering in Cyprus. Simulated attacks on Iran during the month were enhanced by the reported modification of the Israeli F-35 ‘stealth’ aircraft so that they can attack and return without needing aerial refueling.   

Although it was the US that wrecked the nuclear agreement with Iran by unilaterally withdrawing in 2015, "Israel" has warned that unless the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) intervenes to stop Iranian nuclear development, it will attack. There is no reason to think it is bluffing. It has tried everything short of an open military attack, including the sabotage of its nuclear program and the murder of its scientists. The US has imposed crippling sanctions, but Iran has stood firm, so only a full-scale military attack is left. The prime targets would be nuclear installations and Iran’s capacity to defend itself. The human and environmental consequences of an attack on live nuclear reactors would be catastrophic.   

The first lesson to be learned from the last seven decades of mayhem in the Middle East is that the settler state in Palestine is capable of committing any crime. An extreme state built on an extreme ideology has simply become more extreme year after year: the more it gets with, the more it tries to get away, and as it always gets away with what it tries, the cycle is repeated endlessly. Club members that do not obey the rules are eventually thrown out. The Zionist settler state has broken every rule of every club yet remains a member of them all. It is never warned and never thrown out. ‘Western’ guilt seems to have granted it permanent immunity however heinous the crime.     

The second lesson that should have sunk in is that real peace with the Zionist settler state is a chimera. Its ‘peace’ is based on surrender and the elimination of Palestine and its people from history to the point where it will not be known they ever existed. What will take their place will be rewritten ‘histories’ and wide-eyed American tourists gazing up at the temple built on the Haram Al-Sharif as a guide explains how this land has been Jewish since time immemorial. The Muslim or Christian "intruders" will have their place but only in footnotes. 

Peace does not fall out of the sky: it has to be built, yet year after year, the states and blocs (principally the US, the UK, and the EU) that could prevent the momentum toward the next war, by stopping economic and military aid to the apartheid state in Palestine, do nothing. "Israel" lives permanently in breach of international law, morally and legally, this is something they should have done decades ago, but of course, they only respect the ‘rules-based international order’ when it suits them. Their commitments to peace in the Middle East are not worth the paper they are written on or the time they take up in the news cycle. 

A missile attack has just been launched against a civilian airport, and they have done nothing. Teenagers and middle-aged women are murdered in the West Bank, and they do nothing. Hospitals are bombed in Gaza and families are massacred, and they do nothing. Zionist fascists run riot in occupied Al-Quds, and they do nothing. The Zionist state threatens an open military attack on Iran, and they do nothing. Clearly, they are going to do nothing until it is too late to do anything.