The US has a prodigious shipwreck on its hands: The very principles underpinning Zionism were shattered on 7 October 2023. It has resulted in a mass formation psychosis in "Israel" of fear, anger -- and even blood-lust. 

Many writers, but notably James Hillman in his book, A Terrible Love of War, have attempted to address blood-lust: an impulse so terrible, yet one that ignites a Mars-like fury that bonds men in battle. “I felt like a god”, says General Patton (in the eponymous film). The General walks the field after a battle. Churned earth, burned tanks, dead men. He takes up a dying officer, kisses him, surveys the havoc and says: “I love it. God help me, I do love it so. I love it more than my life”.  Simply said, societies have found -- and continue to find -- meaning in Life through war.

"Israel" is doing this; somehow seeking ‘Meaning’ to its Biblical roots in the churned desolation that it has visited on Gaza; a passion fuelled further by the encircling regional ‘walls’ closing on its Zion ‘Project’.

At the same time, a storied civilisation -- the ‘civilisation of Islam’ that infused the European Renaissance with its science, medicine, astronomy, philosophy and mysticism -- is stirred to Life by half-forgotten memories of a thousand-year history,  and  espies the ‘loosening bolts’ to the prevailing weltanschauung.  

Even post-modern Arab states can feel the winds of history stirring; and wonder on whose side History ultimately will fall.  Indeed, we occupy the quicksands of Time.

Two currents of history are colliding, and the reason for it is clear: The Western world is fading; falling deep into a slow, declining burnout phase.  

This fact is evident to all, except the denizens of power in Washington. For the team in the White House, there is no ‘collision’; no fundamental ‘challenge’ facing "Israel"; nor, indeed, to the domestic power structures in America, whose ‘Beltway Reach’ is contingent on a particular mode of Zionist power-projection (as bequeathed by Jabotinsky) surviving. 

So what does ‘Biden’ do?

The Team plays ‘stupid’. Team Biden pretends the big challenge really is not what it ‘is’, but is instead something that can be ‘stroked and caressed away’ through absurd palliative theatrics -- if only we hold firm to our US narrative. 

Tom Friedman of the New York Times (who reportedly has a direct line into the White House) tells us the wheeze: “One track would be a strong and resolute stand on Iran …” (hmm that one ‘didn’t fly’ very far); “The second track would be an unprecedented US diplomatic initiative to promote a Palestinian state — NOW. It would involve some form of U.S. recognition of a demilitarized Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that would come into being only once Palestinians had developed a set of defined, credible institutions and security capabilities to ensure that this state was viable and that it could never threaten Israel”. (Emphasis added)

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And the third ‘leg’ would hang on the perpetual US chimaera of Saudi normalisation with Netanyahu  – which the Beltway has come to believe would change ‘everything’.  (In 2002, with the Arab Initiative, it just might have had some effect. But fast forward to today -- the Islamic world is not what it was).

Martin Indyk said the ‘thinking’ behind the approach of ‘a Palestinian deal’ is the old mafia maxim: “Biden wants to make Bibi swallow the frog (and do the deal), or to gag on the frog (and make way for another government). Either way, the United States hopes the impasse will be broken”. i.e. make an offer (as the mafia say) that can’t be refused -- except awkwardly Netanyahu can and does refuse because he has an overwhelming majority of his public standing behind him that remain sceptical of any ‘Palestinian State’.

It gets worse: David Ignatius in The Washington Post  tells us that the big snag with the big Palestinian State idea is stopping settler violence and relocating as many as 200,000 Israelis from a future Palestinian state. Really? 

This is doing ‘stupid’. There are not 200,000 settlers in the West Bank -- but some 700,000. Who exactly will “relocate” these zealots …? (Not the IOF for sure; many are themselves settlers)

Will Netanyahu swallow the frog of a Palestinian State established in the West Bank and Gaza? Ignatius postulates: “If he [the PM] refuses, his government might be toppled by rivals who embrace the US formula for ending the war”. It likely would be the beginning of the end of Zionism too.

And would MbS swallow ‘the frog’ by the Kingdom legitimising a ‘Bantustan’ of parcelled fragments posing as “a State”? As Ignatius notes:

“U.S. officials hope that Israel will eventually recognize that the only sound plan is a U.S.-backed mission to train security forces of a “revitalized” Palestinian Authority — which officials are beginning to describe as the "RPA"”.

Oh yes -- that formula of training a collaborationist security force worked so well in Afghanistan, didn’t it just?

So, in the end, what is left of this initiative? An ‘information drive’ by Qatar and Egypt to push Hamas to accept the US proposals for a hostage deal when they know that 96% of Israelis oppose a deal that includes freeing all of the captives in exchange for: pausing the fighting, an IOF withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and guarantees for immunity for Hamas’ leaders. (34% of the Israeli public do not agree with any ‘deal’ - Matan Wasserman in Ma’ariv, 1 Feb 2024 (Hebrew)):

“The Israeli public is torn between wanting to see the hostages come home and the recognition that the prices that will have to be paid are very high. If the Achilles heel of the deal is a non-negotiable condition by Hamas demanding immunity for its leaders, it will be very hard for the government to agree … The poll leaves no room for doubt — the fact that there is almost nobody in the Israeli public who is willing to grant immunity to Hamas leaders, even at the price of a deal to free the hostages …”.

It seems that Washington just cannot get past the singular repetitive beat of the narrative music. The status quo ante is always available -- if only we can make the meta-narrative stick.  Stick with the beat’s thump-thump monotony. There is no creativity here; no novelty around which the music can swirl.

‘Stupidity’ (and ignorance) reign. This might be an object of passing curiosity as to its precise psychological causes, were it not so consequential. Is it not visible that, to a large extent, how today’s ‘events’ unfold will be the pole around which the global future will revolve?