 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. We are discussing the issue of Gaza and how it's going to impact the larger West Asia picture. You had said in the earlier discussion that this has implications for the larger Middle East, West Asia, particularly with the three other countries which have been complicit in what's happening in Syria with Israel and the NATO forces. Egypt, Turkey and also involving Jordan now because we have Qatar. The immediate issue is Egypt. How do you see Egypt because it shares a border with the Gaza? How do you see Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood in leadership reacting to this? All right. Look, I mean, first of all, we have to talk about Muslim Brotherhood. Muslim Brotherhood is an extremely flexible organization of which the Egyptian Brotherhood is one expression. Hamas is another. Islamic Jihad is another. As is the Tunisian government and so on. So there are many phases of the Muslim Brotherhood. There has been revelations of some secret deliberations of the Muslim Brotherhood which suggest that what Muslim Brotherhood wants to do is to spend the next five, ten years stabilizing itself, taking over governments, stabilizing itself as the party of rule in as much of the Muslim Brotherhood. The fear of world is possible and generally create alliances with the Islamist forces of various kinds and Islamists take over, all over the region, not confronting the West or Israel during this whole period. The rhetoric is once we are stronger, we just don't have the strength right now to get into this. We have to strengthen ourselves first. That's one. That's the most important issue here. At the same time, Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, which you were mentioning, is very much under pressure from the right by the Salafists who did very well during the elections and by the array of leftist and nasirist forces to the left. And parliamentary elections are coming up. At this point, what does Mr. Morsi do? Calling the Arab League into session, fine. That's what Mubarak would have done. Calling for a security council session, fine. That's what Mubarak would have done. Recalling your ambassador a little more than Mubarak might have done. But Mubarak really got a big demonstration in Tehrir Square. He might have done that as well. What do you do? Especially if the Israelis really go in for a really big-scale invasion of the 2008 type. If you do that, you lose a lot of your own solid base within the Brotherhood, which may affect elections in Egypt. So there are elections not only in Israel but also in Egypt. Mr. Morsi has to deliver one way or another and he has been put on this spot by the Israelis. Do the Israelis really want to put him on this spot in that way? I don't know. Probably they don't care. If he really feels in a tight spot, I mean the logic of it, what their constituency would be asking to at least supply the Hamas, etc. So that's one sort of second issue. Qatar. The Emir of Qatar visits Gaza just three or four weeks ago. First head of state ever to visit at Gaza. Qatar is now the main sponsor of the jihadis. The jihadi phase of what is Muslim Brotherhood. Muslim Brotherhood split among what we now know as Muslim Brotherhood and the jihadis. Today's Muslim Brotherhood, what we know as Muslim Brotherhood is a party of millionaires and billionaires. Very much like Christian democracy in Germany or something like that. And then there are the jihadis. They are two phases of what used to be the same organization. So the Arabia has become the sponsor of these mild, moderate, NATO-allied Muslims, Muslim Brotherhood phase, and Qatar has become sponsors of that. Emir of Qatar goes to Gaza. Hamas is that and the other. Erdogan, not to be left behind, the Turkish Prime Minister announces that he will also go to Gaza, etc. They're all on the spot. If you really go and invade Gaza and if the logic of it actually is a short-term occupation. If you do all that, you put all of them on the spot. Why would you want to do that? They're your allies. They're doing your dirty work in Syria and they will do that dirty work for you everywhere. This is the great dream that moderate Islamists will run the Middle East in association with NATO in the United States. You won't undermine them. That is the one aspect of this preparation for an invasion that I really don't understand. Israelis are now on a suicidal path. Their extremism is now so extreme that they may actually be doing suicidal things. But if they really go for a full-scale invasion, it will have very dire strategic consequences for them. If you look at what's happening, even if they do limited attacks by aerial bombardment for seven days, which is what they did last time, limited invasion, not trying to take control by at least entering, which will lead to a lot of loss of life. That actually puts all these three players, as you put it, in trouble. Again Jordan is boiling. Let's not forget that Jordan is boiling and Jordan has a lot of Palestinian population. In a sense, all of this weakens the NATO Islamist axis, which has been building up on Syria and this is a major fissure. Then therefore you want to ask how is Mr. Obama really reacting? The U.S. Senate has passed that resolution 100% behind Israel. Mr. Obama has made statements of that kind. His ambassadors have made statements of that kind. Fine. That is playing to the galleries. Which galleries? I really don't understand. At least to the Zionists. Why he has to play to the Zionist right-wing gallery? We don't know. 85% of the American Jews are not Zionists. So what gallery is playing to now that he is elected? Yeah, these are liberal anti-Zionist Jews who voted for him. And all the Zionists funded Metromly. So what gallery is playing to now? I don't know. Maybe it's just a reflex now with him. But behind all of that rhetoric, this is really offending Obama. You really think so? Yes, because in partly daring that now you think that now that you're getting re-elected, you will now start the peace process. We'll wreck it before you even lift your head. So if they really go through with this, they will weaken their strategic position, I believe, in the long term and of the liberal Jewish opinion. You see, one of the stakes in all this long-term stakes in terms of the Palestine-Israel issue is the liberal Jewish view across the world. The more you alienate that lobby, that population of Jews abroad, the more isolated you are. And it also makes it possible for an opposition to Zionist madness of this kind to emerge with the Jewish voice. That's what I mean. That's what I mean. Gradually, gradually what happens, I'm not talking in the perspective of the next 10, 15 years. Yes, let's say some 35 to 40% of young Jewish Americans between the ages of 20 and 35 are saying that the fate of Israel is not their concern. So one-third of these young people, you do something of this kind, that number will increase. And this will keep increasing the more this madness comes. That is one thing. The other thing, you know, I really think that as this becomes this kind of a far-right garrison, militaristic, detestable kind of enclave, a lot of the liberal Jews will leave Israel, which will then make it more and more right-wing. You know, it's a very strange scenario getting played out. Last point, Iran, the focus on Iran have taken eyes of Palestine. This has actually brought back the eyes back to what the original issue in West Asia has been. Absolutely. How long this will last again? Is this what the Israelis want? But you know, Israelis are caught because one of the things, I think one of the things, this one of the temptations to prolong this Gaza crisis is in the perspective of the upcoming Palestinian application in the United Nations for an upgraded status. It's not a recognition of Israeli. Palestine is a state or something, but that upgraded status then gives Palestinians at least the legal opportunity to try and bring Israel to international court of justice, things like that. So that thing is coming up, and if there is a full-scale invasion, that becomes a nonsiccator. So the eyes are off that. So each instance how to move the eyes off what could be the modern publish of Palestine. That's right. That's right. At the cost of Palestinian bodies. But regionally I think that this timing is, Israel will have to pay. You know, top Israeli general is under trial in absentia in Turkey. And they have already threatened that at the end of that trial, they may ask for international license to arrest him. Arrest him inside Israel. There will be more such actions if they go through with this. So increasingly a longer term isolation for Israelis, what they're building? If Egypt withdraws, it has already withdrawn. What is the next? Suspending the treaty? Well, very unlikely because all this money that they get from the Americans is thanks to that treaty. IMF is just about to meet to consider a 4.5 billion dollar loan to Egypt. Is Egypt going to risk that? Is Mr. Morsi going to risk his own constituency and have a parliament on his hands in which he does not have a majority? So it's a high stakes game and I think in all, Israel may not have fully calculated what the consequences are. That is to say that Netanyahu, Lieberman crowd may not have quite calculated what the consequences might be for them. The only thing going for them, I think, the only thing that will rescue them is the scenario that I was outlining for you in our previous discussion. Egypt brokering the ceasefire and at the same time giving them enough for them to destroy many of these rocket batteries and claim that they're now. Now they have done it. Let us see how it plays out. Thank you Ajaz. We'll come back as the Gaza issues also play out. Thank you very much.