“I did not conclude that the President committed a crime, but I also did not exonerate him,” said special counsel Robert Mueller, citing the results of his investigation into President Trump, which lasted two years and covers more than 400 pages. Mueller was forced to clarify his position after US Secretary of Justice William Barr interpreted the Mueller report as a total acquittal of the president, and Trump himself saw in the report confirmation of the mantra he recites daily: no collusion, no obstruction.
Yet the subject is not so easily concluded. Mueller called on Congress to “handle” the issue without explicitly mentioning the word “impeachment”. While the Republican Party, which controls the Senate, is trying to move on to other issues, the Democratic-controlled Congress is not letting Trump off. Democrats are confident that their candidate for the presidency in the last elections fell victim of a plot between Trump’s team and Putin’s Russia. They are relying on the content of Mueller’s special report, which explicitly determined that Russian intelligence had intervened in the elections and clearly preferred Trump over Hillary Clinton.
Interference in the internal affairs and election results of the United States is not limited to the Russian cyber war. It also includes the Gulf states, Saudi Arabia and the United Emirates, whose petrodollars greased Trump’s election campaign in strange and various ways, creating an odd alliance between the Russians and Saudis, who are working hard to keep Trump in power. Putin sees Trump as an ally in his struggle to weaken the EU and dismantle it, while for the Saudis Trump is the person who combats its sworn enemy, Iran. Trump and Putin also support Brexit and the separatist and nationalist parties in Europe, while the US withdrawal from the nuclear agreement with Iran was undoubtedly a valuable gift for the Saudi kingdom.
If speaking about gifts and blatant intervention in election campaigns, it is impossible not to mention the deep interference of Trump, and his partner Putin, in the Israeli elections. The gifts Trump gave to his friend Netanyahu helped the latter win the last campaign, and will certainly aid in the one that follows. To Trump’s recognition of the annexation of the Golan Heights and Netanyahu’s promise to establish a town in Trump’s name there was added Netanyahu’s well-publicized visit to Moscow on the eve of the elections, during which he received from the Russians the body of Zechariah Baumel, who was missing since the first Lebanon war in 1982. Therefore, in Netanyahu’s election campaign, he didn’t stop bragging about his wonderful friendship with Putin, as well as his tremendous political achievements thanks to his deep friendship with Trump. Even when he failed miserably to form a government, Netanyahu received a condolence gift from Trump through emissary and son-in-law Jared Kushner, who visited Jerusalem: a map signed by Trump, with an arrow pointing to the Golan and the inscription “nice”.
The White House is trying not to interfere in the internal affairs of Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, which are promoting the economic interests of Trump and his family. The persecution, imprisonment and torture of women, mass capital punishments (including a boy who was accused of sedition when he was 11 years old) and the jewel in the crown, the cruel murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi embassy in Istanbul – none of this stopped Trump from announcing a huge arms deal with Saudi Arabia. This deal stands in stark contrast to the ban imposed by Congress on arms sales to the Saudis because of their brutal war in Yemen. Trump’s blunt behaviour is not limited to his relations with dubious leaders like Putin, Mohammed Bin Salman and Bibi Netanyahu. He stands against all his critics, especially the liberal press in America such as the New York Times and CNN. While admiring and promoting tyrants like Putin and Kim Jong-un, he blames the liberal press for spreading fake news and accuses it of treason.
That is why the American press has decided to take off its gloves and fight back against the unholy alliance that includes Putin, Mohammed Bin Salman and Bibi Netanyahu. American liberals see the Saudi regime as being ideologically responsible for the Twin Towers attack in New York on September 11, 2001. They also accuse Saudi Arabia of being directly responsible for the humanitarian disaster in Yemen and the main factor supporting the dictatorships in the Arab world. The Saudi intervention in Egypt, Libya and Sudan is obvious, and the free American press does not stop settling accounts with those tyrants like Abdel al-Fattah Sisi or General Khalifa Haftar in Libya, who is imposing a siege on Tripoli in coordination with Trump to overthrow the official government. Today it spares no criticism of the military junta in Sudan which is supressing with an iron fist the democratic movement that led to the overthrow of dictator Omar al-Bashir.
The Arab Spring, the struggle for democracy in Egypt, Sudan and Algeria, is not an internal affair or an external plot, but a struggle between, on the one hand, nations that demand democracy and an egalitarian economy, and, on the other hand, the dark regimes led by Saudi Arabia. In light of the internal struggle in the US between Trump’s reactionary right and the liberal, democratic forces, it is clear that any victory of democracy in the Arab world will constitute a mortal blow to Saudi Arabia and Trump. Without a doubt, the democratic movement in the United States is dealing with external intervention by Russia and Saudi Arabia, which aspire to destroy American democracy itself.
This is a war of survival between the democratic camp and the oppressive, right-wing, reactionary forces. In this war Netanyahu did not remain passive. For example, his 2015 speech before Congress, which was under Republican control during the presidency of Obama, was an example of blatant interference in the internal affairs of the United States, which with the help of Putin and the Saudis achieved its goal. Netanyahu and his friend Trump feel persecuted by the press and the judiciary, and Trump will therefore do all he can to get Netanyahu elected again. The truth is it won’t take much because unlike in the United States, Bibi has no real opposition. The liberal opposition in Israel likes to attack Bibi for his corruption, his attacks on the Supreme Court, his courtship of the religious and his hatred of the Arabs, but when it comes to Trump, it is silent.
How can you oppose gifts such as moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, recognising the annexation of the Golan Heights, or ending support for the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA? How can one oppose the strategic alliance with the Egyptian regime and the Saudi kingdom, which is a friendly Sunni axis that views Iran as a strategic threat and Israel as a basic ally in its war against the Iranian regime? Apparently, what is bad for the peoples of America, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Sudan is actually good for Israel. The opposition in Israel speaks eloquently about preserving the rule of law and defending democracy, but it cares nothing about the fighters for American, Russian, Saudi, or Egyptian democracy. Thus, the spineless Israeli opposition remains without true allies, and its aspirations have been reduced to replacing Netanyahu in order to continue carrying out his “successful” policy.
This article cannot be concluded without mentioning Ambassador David Friedman’s statement to the New York Times that Israel has the right to annex parts of the West Bank. This is no longer a diplomatic slip of the tongue, but part of Trump’s Deal of the Century, which is actually being carried out even before its details are known, and it is doubtful whether it will ever be published. To accept Trump is to annex parts of the West Bank, in accordance with his assumption that the two-state solution has ceased to exist. The Israeli opposition can thus continue to natter to itself about religion and state, the rule of law and liberal values, while under its very nose an apartheid regime is forming in the West Bank.