Thoughts on the situation in Israel/Gaza

There is an expression attributed to Saul Alinsky, the author of ‘Rules for Radicals’, that ‘the real action is the enemy’s reaction.’  As we witness, in horror, the sickening barbarity of what occurred in Israel a few days ago and the corresponding barbarity of what has only just begun in the Gaza, we would be wise to ponder that short sentence. 

The objective of Hamas was obviously not to simply avenge the Palestinians by brutally murdering hundreds of innocent Israeli’s along the border, neat and simple though such an explanation may be. Rather, the objective (the action) was to commit acts so horrific as to trigger a massive Israeli response. Any cursory observer of the situation in Israel/Palestine knows what comes next. Israel will go into Gaza with little, if any, regard for the innocent civilians there, many of whom are children, and extract a sickening and brutal retribution. They will show no Mercy. Schools, churches, mosques and hospitals will all be considered ‘legitimate’ military targets. In response to the unforgivable massacre of their civilians, their own war crimes will mount, the western media will work hard to hide or justify each new atrocity, and countless innocent civilians will lose their lives, limbs and loved ones in the carnage that ensues. If previous attacks in Gaza are any guide, 10 to 20 Palestinians will lose their lives for every Israeli loss. I fear that the ratio may be far worse this time. 

All…. Completely….. Predictable. 

So I say again, ‘the real action, or rather objective, is the enemy’s reaction’. 

So why would Hamas do this when they knew the hell that would inevitably rain down upon them in the weeks that follow? Who ultimately benefits from such bloodshed and gut-wrenching barbarity. Is the objective to provoke such a brutal reaction from Israel that neighbouring countries will be drawn in, creating a wider war? Is Iran pulling the strings behind the scenes with a similar objective? Or perhaps the objective is to justify the long promised war on Iran, with its vast oil and gas reserves long coveted by Western interests? Conversely, what about other ascendant global powers who may wish to see the US tied up in conflicts on one or even two fronts? These are all perfectly legitimate questions to ask, but there are other questions that require answers too. How is it possible that the most heavily surveilled and guarded border in the world could have been breached at over 15 locations by thousands of well armed men? What about spies and informants within Gaza or the hi-tech surveillance equipment trained on the area? And when the border was breached, where was the immediate and decisive security response? It seems inconceivable to me and many others, including ex-IDF members and intelligence personnel, that the security services could have been taken by surprise in the way that has been reported. To add to this, the Egyptian government is now saying they had been warning the Israeli government that ‘something big’ was coming but, as appears evident now, no measures were taken. The idea that this was an ‘intelligence failure’ (now where have I heard that before) is highly improbable to say the very least. To add a personal anecdote to this picture, an Israeli friend of mine, who now lives overseas, returned from a visit to Israel about 6 weeks ago and said to me, over a convivial beer, that “Israel is on the brink of civil war”. That is a direct quote! Yet a few weeks later the nation is once again united and in lockstep behind Netanyahu. Something here is very, very fishy. Now if the idea that political leaders would sacrifice their own people to further broader objectives seems crazy to you I would humbly suggest that you study a little more history. The psychopaths who rise to power around the world, today and throughout history, think nothing of such heinous deeds. That much really should be self evident. Today, Israel stands poised to launch a brutal war against the Palestinians in an event that the Israelis themselves say will be remembered for generations. Did the Hamas ‘action’ give the Israeli leadership, and Netanyahu in particular, the justification it desired to ‘flatten Gaza’ and ‘finish the job’, whilst simultaneously eliminating political challenges at home? Was it allowed to happen? Maybe. It’s certainly a possibility worthy of consideration. But perhaps it goes deeper, further and darker than even that. 

As I have argued, it seems clear that the real action here was the enemy’s reaction, but as common sense and the history of the region shows us, one action tends to beget a reaction which begets further reactions, on into a dizzying spiral of violence which, I hesitate to say, may engulf us all this time. So we really need to ask ourselves what is the ultimate reaction that was sought, the ultimate objective that lays at the end of the horrifying sequence that has just been set in motion? Is it the first order effect of Israel’s predictable response? Is it the second order reaction of other states in the region joining the maelstrom? Is it third order effects of the US coming to Israel’s aid or the realisation of the neocons feverish dreams to attack Iran? Or perhaps, unthinkably, the fourth order effects of other global powers being drawn into a global conflagration? Once we shift our thinking beyond the neatly packaged good vs evil narratives on the evening news, it seems probable that beneath the surface there is a complex and toxic witches brew of contradictory, aligned and intersecting incentives, objectives and agendas playing out before our deliberately blinkered eyes. Precisely who are the men behind the curtain pulling the strings and what their ultimate ends are remains unclear but you can be certain that it’s not what you are being told by the talking heads on the mainstream media.

Civilians, be they Palestinian or Israeli, and for that matter, you and I, are all mere pawns in this game to be sacrificed without a seconds consideration, as are the men and women who do the fighting and have to live with the trauma of the horrors they’ve inflicted on their fellow human beings. But whole peoples and even nation states can be pawns in the grand chess game too. 

If you’ve been paying attention you may already realise that major moves are in play on the global stage. The US dollar’s days as the global reserve currency are clearly numbered and if the dollar collapses, as is mathematically certain to do, the US’s position as the world predominant military and economic power will come to an end. The BRICS nations are forging alliances and signing deals to trade their oil and raw materials in non-dollar denominated assets, such as the Yuan and gold, positioning themselves for the post-dollar, post US-dominated world. A major global war may literally be the only thing large enough to kick the ‘dollar-collapse can’ down the road far enough to forestall the demise of the US empire. With US weapons finding their way to the conflict zone via Ukraine and Afghanistan, this is another possible move to consider. 

And beyond these geopolitical grand moves there are those whose ambitions are yet grander still. With no allegiance to race or state, they are explicit in their desire to transform our world, ushering in a completely new type of global system with programable digital currencies replacing today’s money and carbon credits, digital IDs, ubiquitous surveillance and social credit scores deployed to keep all the new techno-feudal serfs in line. National wars reshape nations but global wars reshape the world and there is no faster way to usher in a new societal paradigm than to build it on the ashes of the old. This is a very high stakes game that is being played and whether we like it or not we are all, collectively, at the table. 

So where will the events in Israel lead? I don’t know, no mere mortal does, but sadly, sickeningly, horrifyingly, the best we can hope for at this stage is for the carnage to stay localised and mutual exhaustion to quickly lead to an uneasy cessation of hostilities. However, my gut tells me these events have an Archduke Franz Ferdinand feel about them and we may be about the enter the next phase of a multigenerational plan to utterly transform the world into a global techno-feudal surveillance state, the horrors and iniquity of which we can barely begin to imagine. We simply cannot allow this plan to come to fruition so we all need to be vigilant, we all need to stay firmly grounded, we all need to look behind the headlines and through the propaganda to tease out the truth from a sea of lies. But more importantly than all that, we all need to hold on tightly, extremely tightly, to our shared common humanity for that may be the only thing that has the power to save us, preserve our freedoms and prolong our civilisation. To paraphrase a recent tweet from Neil Oliver, we must not hate on command. 

Peace and love to you all.