Algeria Challenges Imperialism Over Israel's Assault on Gaza

Algerian parliament has authorised the country's president to declare war on Israel over its attacks on Gaza. History Professor Gerald Horne from the the University of Houston, Texas, said Israel had not learnt its lesson from its humiliation on October 7.

The broadening of the Israel-Palestine conflict to encompass North Africa was predictable and Israel should seek peace, a historian says.

Last week the Algerian Parliament voted unanimously to grant President Abdelmadjid Tebboune powers to declare war on Israel in response to its bombing and invasion of the besieged Gaza Strip.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared cthe ountry was “at a war” after the armed wings of Hamas and other movements launched a rocket barrage and a ground incursion into southern Israel on October 7 that left almost 300 Israeli troops and 1,100 civilians dead, with hundreds more taken prisoner.

But the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have already taken heavy casualties before even entering Gaza City.

The US has backed Israel and sent aircraft carriers and a Marine Corps amphibious assault group to the Middle East to threaten other nations in the region against entering the conflict on the Palestinian side.

Historian Gerald Horne told Sputnik that such an escalation did not bode well for "neither settler colonial state, speaking of the one we are now residing in, North America, and historic Palestine."

"Fundamentally, US imperialism faces the contradiction that it is joined with an umbilical cord, in fact joined at the hip with Israel," he added.

He said Israel should heed the writing on the wall and agree to a ceasefire with Hamas.

"Israel has not learned any lessons from October 7th. In fact, it has decided to double down on pursuing a bloodily violent policy," Horne said. "That's the policy that led to 240 hostages and 1,400 Israeli citizens dying. There should have been on October 8th, October 9th, the speedy movement toward some sort of resolution of the crisis and certainly not alienating nations far and wide."

The threat of Algeria, which was recently admitted to the BRICS group of major emerging economies, also entering the fray was unsurprising given recent developments, the historian said.

"This recent manoeuvre by Algeria needs to be taken seriously because we all know that over the decades, Algeria has been willing to put a thumb in the eye of the firm," Horne pointed out. "We all know Algeria, as we speak, is backing Niger, which is under immense pressure from neo-colonial France because of its overthrow of a French favorite in Niamey."

The academic said Algiers had a "trump card" in its hand in the form of its huge natural gas reserves which western European nations need to replace Russian supplies cut off by sanctions and the bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines.

"They thought that they could cut a deal with Algeria. That is not necessarily going very well," Horne said. "And on top of all that, it's the fact that Algeria in some ways is mimicking Yemen. Recall that it was not so long ago, just a few days ago, that the forces in Yemen were supposedly shooting missiles towards Israel, that supposedly Uncle Sam's forces intercepted."

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