Going for the Soft Underbelly

Cor blimey, if this Mordechai Kedar chap isn't the love-child of Oded Yinon, then my name isn't Sir Mark Sykes:

"We may see reports of the frictions only occasionally, but Iran is always a nation on the verge of fragmenting - and right now things are particularly fragile. The social makeup of Iran's population is complex because there is no such thing as an Iranian people or Iranian nation. There are, instead, Iranian citizens divided into many ethnic groups [...] There is a deep hatred of the ayatollahs simmering inside large sectors of Iranian society, a hatred that burst into the streets in a series of large demonstrations last November... The cry 'death to the dictator' was shouted by many, including many women who stood on podiums in front of the public, removed their head coverings and hung them on sticks to show their mockery for the Islamic law they are forced to observe... This is the soft underbelly to which anyone concerned about Iran must pay heed. It is the target at which arrows must be aimed, straight at those ethnic groups fighting for independence and the restless youngsters fighting for liberty. The civilised world can and should find those anti-ayatollah forces, support them and empower them to bring Iran to the same end that met the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia by creating homogenous ethnic states on the ruins of the artificial state of Iran." (Iran is hardly a nation and will likely fall apart, Mordechai Kedar, The Australian, 17/7/18)

And note how Trump, in his own deranged way, seems to be reading from the same script:

"Later, Mr Trump said Russia's position on Iran was because of trading benefits between Moscow and Tehran. 'It is not good for us or for the world, but they have riots in all their cities,' Mr Trump told Fox News of Iran's situation. 'The inflation is rampant, going through the roof. And not that you want to hurt anybody, but that regime wouldn't let the people know that we are behind them 100 per cent'." (Backing for Bibi unlikely unifier, Jacquelin Magnay, The Australian, 18/7/18)

The Editorial From Kiryat Arba

"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's rhetoric has become more reasonable since his election victory. He apologised to Arab-Israelis for complaining they were voting in 'droves' on election day. He also claimed to support a Palestinian state, but not under current conditions."

So begins a most peculiar editorial in last Wednesday's Australian, Eight-state solution floated.

How "reasonable" is that:

Netanyahu during the election: 'The f...ing Arabs are voting, man the barricades!'

Netanyahu after the election: 'Sorry about that. I don't know what came after me.'

Netanyahu when asked about a Palestinian state: 'Palestinian state? What, now? Are you serious? The weather's f...ing terrible. Come back and see me when it's cleared up, OK?'

Now here's where it gets seriously weird:

"Within a week of Likud's victory, prominent Israeli academic and commentator Mordechai Kedar, a former Israeli Defence Forces spook, urged Mr Netanyahu to act on what is quietly referred to as the 'eight emirates' plan. In addition to Gaza in the east [!!!???], Dr Kedar and others advocate the creation of seven geographically separate and discrete Palestinian emirates on the West Bank."

"Emirates"?

Impoverished, besieged Palestinian bantustans spun as entities on a par with the wealthy Persian Gulf United Arab Emirates. Nice one!

The United Palestinian Emirates (UPE)?

Except they're not united. They're "separate and discreet."

Remember the good old days of the 'viable, contiguous Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital'? Gone with the wind. Once used to distract the easily distracted from dealing seriously with Jewish State in the Levant (JSIL) while Ziojihadis from around the world flocked to the Zionist Emirate, the formula has served its purpose and can now be safely dispensed with.

"These would be centred in Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarem, Qalqilya, Ramallah, Jericho and the Arab neighbourhoods of the city of Hevron."

Hello... "Hevron"?!!

WTF is writing this shit? Some fanatic in Kiryat Arba?

Now I knew that The Australian had long ago been taken over by Zionist dead-enders but I had no idea they'd set up an IDF-defended enclave in the editor's office and were now writing its editorials.

"Israel would control the rural space between them."

But of course. How could it be otherwise? Maybe the Palestinians in the "emirates" could be supplied by air (when not being bombed from the air that is).

"Nobody, Dr Kedar argues, can guarantee that a single Palestinian state in the West Bank would not fall to Hamas, endangering Israel's future..."

The only one that matters...

"Dr Kedar, known for his extremist views, once claimed the only thing that could deter a suicide bomber was raping his sister or mother."

What a mensch is Dr Strangelove Kedar!

"But regardless of whether his hawkish 'eight emirates' proposal gains traction..."

So caging the indigenous population of the West Bank in 8 urban ghettos emirates is merely "hawkish"?!

"... the prospect of a peaceful and sustainable two-state solution is bleak. Likud's official platform 'flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river' and any division of Jerusalem. It says Palestinians should be 'able to manage their lives freely in the framework of an autonomous regime' but not 'as a sovereign independent state'. The number of settlers in the West Bank is now more than 400,000 and Mr Netanyahu is encouraging more. They occupy 40% of the territory and a Palestinian state would involve massive disruption."

And that's it. Not a hint that anything's amiss here. Not an editorial eyebrow raised anywhere in the piece. Clearing settlers out of the places they've illegally occupied is simply not on. They should, therefore, be given free range and the Palestinians simply confined to ghettos.

I think we can safely conclude, absent a clarification, that that's now Rupert Murdoch's official position on the subject.