MintCast
The United States is trying to shape the Middle East in the image it wants. From pushing through its plan for Gaza at the United Nations, to pulling Syria and Saudi Arabia closer into its orbit, President Trump may soon get the Middle East that he desires.
However, he will not get it all his own way, as forces from Iran, Yemen, and across the region still oppose Trump's plans and fight against it.
All the while, Israel continues to expand its control of its neighbors. This week, it has been stepping up bombing campaigns against targets in Lebanon from its bases in the occupied south of the country.
Joining host Mnar Adley today to talk about the world's most tumultuous place is Sharmine Narwani, a journalist and political analyst who serves as the editor of The Cradle.
Despite a ceasefire on paper, Israel continues to pound Palestine. On November 20 alone, Israeli strikes killed at least 32 people, including a baby girl in the town of Bani Suhalia. Gazan officials are warning that toxic materials from the continued Israeli bombardment may be seeping into the groundwater, further undermining one of the world's most water-scarce areas. Israel has killed 280 Palestinians in Gaza since the ceasefire was enacted.
"Israel is bombing Gaza left, right, and center," Narwani said, concluding that, "What we have learned from all this is that a negotiated ceasefire with Israel is not worth the paper it is printed on."
Nevertheless, Narwani predicted economic difficulties in Israel's future, due to its greatly increased debts. Describing the country as possessing a "zombie economy," she noted that it was issuing increased amounts of government bonds to pay the U.S. back for the weapons it was supplying. But there might come a time when it will not be able to pay back its debts, she warned.
Israel is also striking targets in Lebanon, and extracting a heavy civilian toll. On Monday, a strike on a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon killed at least 13 people, according to a statement from the Lebanese Health Ministry. The IDF even used widely-banned cluster munitions in its attacks on Lebanon, a new study has revealed. This has met with minimal resistance from the region's major powers, including Saudi Arabia, who, Narwani explained, "want the resistance in Lebanon to be disarmed, dismantled, dead."
The primary source of serious resistance to Israeli aggression has come from a somewhat unlikely source: Yemen. The region's poorest nation, and one that has been under attack for over a decade, the Ansar Allah-led movement has offered serious pushback to Israeli actions, with Yemen imposing a blockade of Israeli ships in the Red Sea, forcing the Israeli port of Eilat into bankruptcy.
"One of the reasons that the Yemeni resistance has been so successful is because, by and large, they don't speak English, and they don't read the Western press," Narwani told Adley, explaining that:
They are untouched by the propaganda narrative that has made, in my view, many of the other members of the resistance axis too well-behaved, and too well-mannered... They don't have colonized minds."
Western and Israeli intelligence attempts to infiltrate the country have also proven to be less fruitful than hoped, and the great majority of Yemenis support the continuation of resistance to Israeli expansionism.
Don't miss this episode, where we take a bird's eye view of the political and economic situation across the subcontinent.
Mnar Adley is an award-winning journalist and editor and is the founder and director of MintPress News. She is also president and director of the non-profit media organization Behind the Headlines. Adley also co-hosts the MintCast podcast and is a producer and host of the video series Behind The Headlines. Contact Mnar at email protected or follow her on Twitter at @mnarmuh.