Israel is not so much ‘in the eye of the Middle East storm’ as it is the eye of the storm.

The wave of terrorism that struck the world in 2001 has many causes, among them poverty and foreign exploitation of mineral wealth, which can easily be exploited by religious extremists. However, the Western media’s decades-long near silence on the Israeli occupation of land attributed by the United Nations to the Palestinians, removes from the public perception of the ‘war on terror’ a vital element that can be added to any grievance on the part of Muslim populations: the unlawful subjugation of one member of that community.

As I write this, Peter Lavelle’s ‘Crosstalk’ on RT discusses the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, and its shocking insistence on continuing to build settlements on land that was intended by the international community to be part of a Palestinian state, while accusing the Palestinians of refusing to restart negotiations.

Given its geographic position, surrounded by Muslim countries in the throes of revolt against their respective governments, the Jewish state would appear to be in existential danger, not from Iran, but from its neighbors on all sides. The fact that life goes on as usual suggests that Israel will feel invulnerable as long as it can count on unconditional American support.

Opponents of that support need to realize that the American government’s decades-long policy is not so much about saving Israel from its neighbors as it is about keeping those neighbors’ governments in the hands friendly to us for as long as possible. Israel’s prowess in IT, weaponry and spying (a word I prefer to the euphemistic ‘intelligence’) is never mentioned by the press, yet as Andrew Bacevich pointed out in a recent op-ed piece: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/how-we-became-israel/, Israel and the United States share not only know-how but fundamental attitudes toward war.

It is truly astonishing that activists continue to indict Israel’s supposed ‘hold’ on American foreign policy, when the relationship between this giant and its David is clearly one of mutual benefit, and for that reason not about to end any time soon.  Washington evidently feels that the value Israel brings to its ability to destabilize, attack and occupy countries of economic interest out weights the inconvenience that Israel’s behavior toward those countries represents, certain of the ability of the two countries joint strategic resources to overcome any foe.

> A Palestinian leader being warmly received in Moscow.

> China deciding to provide better social services.

> Latin American guerrillas educating peasants.

These are three stories that are in the news today.  The first and third are covered by RT, and I came across the second on a CNN web page devoted to China.

Predictably, the CNN story has a business focus;   however unlike the attitude of American business toward health benefits, which it tacitly approves (“The country can’t afford them”), the story on China emphasizes the benefit better health coverage will bring to the Chinese economy: people will spend more on consumer goods instead of saving for health needs. True to the basic tenet of American journalism, which often enables subliminal messages, CNN does not comment on the difference between the American and Chinese views on the economic advantages of subsidized health care.

The third story, featured on RT, is about the complex relations between independent gold miners in Columbia, the FARC guerrillas, and foreign mineral companies.  With the price of gold soaring, the long-standing tradition of small-scale mining – now carried out with the help of cell phones – has entered into conflict with large companies. The documentary moves from detailed coverage of the mining process and its health hazards, to political education and adjudication of village squabbles by modern day versions of Cuba’s guerrilla fighters, assisted by laptops.

As for the first story, you have to be old enough to remember the Cold War to appreciate its irony: During that period, Moscow and Washington vied for influence in the Third World, and each had its client states and allies. Since then, most third world countries have come to see Washington as an adversary that is either out for its resources or raining bombs. These countries are once again looking to Moscow, no longer to emulate its centralized economic system, but because Russia opposes Washington’s aggressive stance. The presence of Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian head of the Israeli occupied West Bank reflects Russia’s support for the Palestinians, in direct opposition to America’s support for Israel, even as it relentlessly pursues its goal of ridding Palestine of its historical inhabitants in defiance of international law.

Broadly speaking, unlike the Cold War period, when Peking’s Communist party looked to Moscow as a Big Brother, the twenty-first century finds the two countries allied against Washington – even though one is still under Communist rule, while the other seeks to tame capitalism. Neither ideological nor cultural differences now prevent Peking and Moscow from forming a common front against Washington and backing the demands of the 120 Third World countries newly organized under the banner of the fifty year old Non-Aligned Movement.

The deja vu is stunning – but not nearly as much so as the planetary transformation it reflects and its implications for an American foreign policy focused on domination rather than cooperation.

That’s what I heard this morning on RT, the Russian English language news channel available in many parts of the U.S. on public stations.  Though not mentioned on either RTs website or those of CNN or the BBC, this is very big news.

According to the Brotherhood’s website /www.ikhwanweb.com/article.php?id=29843, delegates held talks starting Monday of this week with U.S. news media and think tanks.  Today they are holding a conference on Islamist movements in power at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace.

The delegation will also participate in other public events at Georgetown University, the US Chamber of Commerce as well as meeting with the Egyptian community and US officials.

Meanwhile, Brotherhood leader and founder of the “Egyptian Business Development Association” (EBDA), Hassan Malik has been reassuring investors that their money will be safe in Egypt.  (On March 24 he organized an international conference ‘to support Egypt’s economy through business’).

The Brotherhood’s new Freedom and Justice Party won a plurality in the recent post-Mubarak parliamentary elections, and yesterday it announced that it would run a candidate for president, reversing a previous decision. In other news from the website:

(The Chairman of the Egyptian Muslim brotherhood), ‘Dr. Morsi asserted that the FJP puts the Palestinian issue at the forefront of its interests, because it is an issue linked to the national security of Egypt and the Arab and Muslim world. He highlighted the importance of overcoming the differences between Palestinian factions, working to complete national reconciliation efforts, and ending the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip. These, he added, are key stepping stones on the way of defending Al-Aqsa Mosque and liberating the Holy City of Jerusalem.

‘Further, the FJP Chairman said that the Palestinian issue and the siege of Gaza were two key factors in sparking Egypt’s January 25 Revolution, which confirms the great importance of the Palestinian cause to the Egyptian Government and all the Egyptian people. Dr. Morsi added that this prompted FJP members in the People’s Assembly and Shura Council to push for lifting the siege on the Gaza Strip, and the visit by the Egyptian parliament’s Arab Affairs Committee to Gaza….noting the party’s support for providing the people of Gaza with electricity and diesel fuel and other necessities. Dr. Morsi also pointed that members of Egyptian People’s Assembly have engaged many parliamentary mechanisms to warn of the danger of Judaization operations carried out in the Holy City of Jerusalem.’

In other words what is probably the Muslim world’s largest and oldest organization (founded in 1928), wants to reassure the Egyptian street of its support for the Palestinian cause, while attracting economic support from the American business community.  An undertaking that will be worth watching.

This morning Fareed Zakaria interviewed the CEO of General Electric, tapped by President Obama to help fix the jobs crisis.  For a while Jeffrey Immelt sounded like a reasonable, old school Republican, only to find himself embarrassed by the fact that GE’s customers span the globe – and GE jobs follow.

But his worst moment came at the end (beware long interviews, even if you head one of the biggest companies in the world).  Bragging about his business relations with China, Immelt said he ordered his managers to study China’s Five Years Plans because, unlike legislation that keeps U.S. business uncertain about the future, with China, business knows what to expect. The Chinese Politburo does not have to reckon with an organized opposition, either political or industrial, hence its decisions are implemented.

With the world financial crisis felt mainly in the West, China is also all that stands in the way of a U.S. default, as the BRICs and other developing countries see consistently high growth rates. Referring to the Euro Zone crisis, Immelt warned that Greece was not the biggest problem: “It’s a tiny economy”, he said, “while Italy’s is the seventh largest in the world, and if it goes belly up, the rest of the Euro zone will not be able to save it.” According to Fareed, Christine Lagarde will probably be the last non-Asian head of the IMF.

Before moving on to an inconclusive debate about next Tuesday’s Palestinian request for statehood at the Security Council,  Fareed gave a no-holds barred critique of Obama’s Cuba policy. Our Caribbean nemesis turns out to have one of the biggest undersea reserves of petroleum in the world. Cuba watchers have known exploration was under way, but this probably wasn’t taken seriously by the White House. Otherwise why, just days ago, would Obama have declared that Cuba has not democratized enough to merit a lifting of our embargo? As oil companies from every corner of the globe rush to be part of the action off Cuba’s shores, we can only sit and watch. Worse, if there is an incident like last year’s BP disaster off the coast of Louisiana, Florida will be the most affected, and we would be hoisted by our own petard, our embargo forbidding us from sending men or machines to minimize the damage.