Crisis Update: Israel-Gaza Clash Is More Than Bad Neighbours

Security failure points to bigger agenda; a 9/11 pretext to strike further afield

Oct 08, 2023

∙ Paid

Gaza’s Hamas launches ‘surprise’ attack on surrounding region
No-one believes Israel’s Shin Bet and Mossad were caught unawares
Pretext for something that most Israelis don’t want: a Saudi deal or Iran war
Israel levels homes in Gaza; 'taps' with drone to warn residents: 'leave, if you can'
Isolates Gaza from electricity, fuel and goods. Tells people to flee. Where to?
U.S. weapons that were sent to Afghanistan and Ukraine end up in Gaza
West media focuses on Hamas; leaves Iran-Lebanese Hezbollah for round two
War against multipolarity and rival trade routes that challenge vested interests
Trade which flows East-West, is to be redirected to South-North
In short, restricting the development of Russia and Iran; to control technology
The mercantile, imperial game of the British empire suppressing the colonies
The 'manufactories' add value not in America, Britain or Germany, but in China

(About 2,900 words or 14 minutes of your company.)

Oct 8, 2023

Those cheering on either side in this war are missing the point.

The barbarity inflicted upon the innocent is abhorrent. The truth behind the sabbath attack in the Gaza environs has yet to emerge.

The events are not the end but the beginning, however decisive the Israeli response.

There are many threads to our agenda-driven world. And a media which ticks only the boxes of selected issues, will never tell you the news, let alone those first three letters.

Journalist and podcaster Efrat Fenigson, who did her military service in Israeli intelligence, said on the evening of the attacks: “There is no way, in my view, that Israeli intelligence did not know of what was coming... Something is very wrong; something is strange. This chain of events is very unusual.”

She is not the only person with military service to come forward and say that to approach the border without detection was near impossible.

Most of the Israeli Defence Force who patrol the “Gaza envelope” had been moved to the West Bank. The high-tech sensors near the fences that separate the Palestinian territory failed to work. The bunkers that watch from afar saw nothing. Israeli media failed to report events in real time, leaving people dependent on word-of-mouth. And the famous Iron Dome was overwhelmed.

Residents of Lahaina on Maui, Hawaii, would recognise the systematic failure. So would those 22 years ago in New York. Unwelcome déjà vu.

Hamas were able to simply drive, boat and paraglide into Israel without any intervention, and start shooting on the streets of Israeli towns before anyone knew they had arrived. Israel’s army found itself fighting in at least 22 locations. Hundreds were killed; dozens of civilians and some soldiers were taken hostage.

By evening, few of the legacy media in Israel and abroad asked how such an attack, planned over months if not years, had bypassed the formidable Shin Bet and Mossad without their picking up a hint... despite the approach of the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur war (Oct 6, 1973).

Asking such a question is taking the side of Hamas, apparently.

Ignore then chant

As to the perpetrators: the media insisted it could only be Gaza-based Hamas, not Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. A distinction that is not pertinent, it seems… until war is launched on Iran, when they will in unison chant, Ayatollah, just as they once chanted Bin Laden.

Is the failure of Israel’s vaunted firmament perhaps an orchestrated humiliation, like that which Americans today suffer?

It is not — or should not be — verboten to ask why an attack was allowed to happen; and what are the consequences beyond the toll on Israeli families, and the immediate bombardment of Gazans. War always has consequences for the citizens that the government claims to protect.

What might be these consequences? Even if military intel was honestly caught unawares, the government and military will not let such a crisis go to waste.

Incoming: perhaps some deal that the Israeli people don’t like. Because governments tend to drive through unpopular measures while the people are distracted, using fear and outrage as the whip.

Besides there will be consequences that are not intended. War is never as clinical or effective as its promoters claim and there are at least two things the media is paid to ignore: that wars are launched on a pretext that is almost never the real objective; and the iron law of Murphy: the outcome that no one wants.

But the world is in play. The old rules not longer apply.

Thankfully, prominent people gave us a clue.

“We are at war,” said prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu — the same words that president George W. Bush used on September 11th 2001 after the bombing of the World Trade Center.

Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Gilad Erdan called Hamas’s attack on Israel “unprecedented.” On Fox News Live he compared the events to 9/11.

“This is a Pearl Harbor type of moment for Israel,” former Israel Defence Forces international spokesperson Jonathan Conricus told CNN.

Such words are not chosen at random; they resound with the lingo of the War on Terror. They underline the point that happenings, combined with symbolic references and linguistic programming, herald consequences that go far beyond the military response in Gaza.

Pretext and consequence

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, in 1941, which brought the U.S. into WW2, was preceded by military and political decisions to ignore warnings from admirals, and even to remove them from command.

The “day of infamy” was cited in a document, entitled Rebuilding America’s Defences, written in September 2000 by the neoconservative think tank, Project for the New American Century (PNAC).

William Kristol and Robert Kagan said that the transformation of American armed forces through “new technologies and operational concepts” was likely to be a long one, “absent some catastrophic and catalysing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.”

Bush and the state corporate media immediately dubbed the explosions of Nine Eleven, “a new Pearl Harbor.”

The result was a string of wars abroad — in countries that the government would later admit had no connection to the September 11th bombings — and a war at home on a domestic population now viewed as latent terrorists.

The passing of the Patriot Act focused U.S. law enforcement on pre-crime, made all citizens suspects, turned travel from freedom to drudgery, increased the surveillance state, militarized the police, and curtailed liberties that would be further reduced in the Covid response.

See ‘Climate Emergency’ Would Be Step Closer To Dictatorship (Sep 21, 2023)

Netanyahu would go on to say the 9/11 attacks benefited Israel as it “swung American public opinion.” [1]

Now there is war

General Wesley Clark in 2003 revealed after 9/11 that the U.S. had decided to go to war with seven countries in five years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and finishing off with Iran.

What connects those countries? Most of them have oil and gas. Two of them border the Red Sea. Saudi Arabia fought a six year war on the other side of the Sea in Yemen against Houthi allies of Iran.

The others are north of Israel, between Turkey to the west, and Afghanistan to the east. They are the countries in the Mid-East region that are not regarded as being in the U.S. camp.

Whomsoever's camp, there is a realignment of Eurasia, from East-West, in which Russia played a dominant role, and in which China sees its Belt and Road proceeding; to South-North, in which for example Mediterranean gas producers including Israel claim a greater role.

This is simplistic, but that does not disqualify it in the eyes of neoconservatives and Pentagon policy planners.

Some of that business is unfinished. Hillary Clinton said in 2016: if I am elected president, i will go to war with Iran.

Making it happen

Hamas is claiming Ukraine sold them the weapons (originally US-funded) that they used in the attack against Israel. The U.S. also left behind weapons in Afghanistan, which was effectively a gift to the Taliban. A high-ranking Israel Defense Forces (IDF) commander said US weapons left in Afghanistan by the Biden administration were found in the hands of Palestinian groups active in the Gaza Strip.

War also drives innovation. Turkey and Iran have perfected their drone technology, integrating it with other targeting and missile systems.

Objectives and consequences

Saudi Arabia is no longer locked in Washington’s embrace: it is trading in other currencies, accepting China’s yuan, despite the long standing agreement to sell oil only in USD in exchange for military protection.

The Biden administration called for forging “new partnerships,” and suggested a rival to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, one that would compete by connecting India and Saudi Arabia to Europe via Jordan and Israel.

Is it truly an alternative? Israel is already deeply involved in BRI. having opened a Chinese-run port at Haifa on the Mediterranean coast.

While Israel pushes its plan to become a regional trade hub, it seems that U.S. and Saudi officials are discussing a “mutual defence treaty” like that between the U.S. and Japan, according to the NYT.

“Under such an agreement, the United States and Saudi Arabia would generally pledge to provide military support if the other country is attacked in the region or on Saudi territory,” the NYT reports.

What would be the price?

The Biden administration was quoted as saying the Saudis agreed in exchange to “Israel’s greater normalization and economic connection with its neighbours delivering positive and practical impacts even as we continue to work tirelessly for just and lasting peace, for Israelis and Palestinians, two states for two peoples.”

Normalisation is the word

Saudi diplomats insisted any solution to the Palestinian issue “must be based on the two-state solution and the establishment of the Palestinian state in accordance with international resolutions” - according to the country’s top diplomat speaking on the sidelines of the 78th UN General Assembly last month.

Might such a deal involve the release of Palestinians from Israel’s jails? What purpose will Israeli hostages serve in the peace negotiations with Saudi Arabia” How else could Israel justify releasing Palestinian fighters without something in exchange?

Politicians need pretexts. They no longer have the confidence or honour to act because something is right. They always manipulate and manoeuvre, using the media, to claim that they never had any choice.

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