#TheGrayzone Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate meticulously debunk a New York Times article purporting to demonstrate that Hamas carried out a policy of sexual assault against Israelis on October 7 and demonstrate that the Times’ Jeffrey Gettleman is guilty of journalistic malpractice and serving as a willing tool for the serially mendacious Israeli government.
“…Israel has not been able to convincingly display the “underground command center” that it has been for weeks claiming justified its siege and eventual attack on that hospital.”
“…US policy throughout its whole series of unrelenting wars over the nearly eight decades since the end of WWII: Go in big, do your bloody mass destruction and killing thing, or in the case of Vietnam, your brutal attacks on peasant villages and your search-and-destroy missions and relocation of populations into fenced-in “strategic hamlets” guarded by troops, your My Lai massacres and your “secret” and B-52 bombings of Cambodia, as quickly as you can, and hope you can win before losing the support of the American people.”
The US is backpedalling its support for Israel’s brutal invasion of Gaza; destruction of the entire northern half (or third) of the walled-off and blockaded territory that is home and prison for 2.3 million trapped Palestinians is occurring now that the IDF has achieved its objective of gaining control of the Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. The reason is that Israel has not been able to convincingly display the “underground command center” that it has been for weeks claiming justified its siege and eventual attack on that hospital.
The pointed declarations that Israeli and US “intelligence” had made both governments, in Jerusalem and Washington, “confident” that there was a Hamas “command and control center” operating in a Hamas-constructed bunker under the hospital connected to a network of reinforced tunnels leading into and out of the hospital, have not been borne out. Instead, what the so-called Israel Defense Force (IDF) has offered up is a cellar constructed 40 years ago under Israeli supervision in a “Building 2” addition, according to a Newsweek report and a report in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. This basement, put in place well before the founding of Hamas, was long known as it was included in the hospital addition plan and meant to serve as a laundry room.
No Hamas-constructed access and escape tunnels have been reported as found so far; only an above-ground room in one of the main hospital buildings that allegedly was found to contain a small cache of arms such as 15 automatic weapons and grenades, and a computer allegedly containing images of Israeli hostages on its hard drive — both find said to be evidence that Hamas fighters were using the hospital, or at least to store weapons, and possibly to hold some hostages at some point, but hardly evidence of the hospital’s hiding the Hamas “command and control center” which Israel had been claiming, with certainty, to be the justification for its attack and takeover of the hospital and for the “collateral” deaths of hundreds of patients, medical personnel, and even premie babies on incubators that failed once deprived of electricity.
Further contributing to the growing skepticism of some news organizations in the US and Britain regarding Israeli claims are indications that the IDF was careful not to allow the few journalists permitted to enter the hospital with its troops yesterday to look in the boxes labelled “baby food” which they claimed to have found in the “bunker.” Instead, the weapons were presented and laid out on a tarp as an exhibit.
This has led many US news outlets to start using qualifiers like “the IDF claimed to have found” the weapons in the hospital, and even, in the case of the alleged Hamas computer, “claimed to have images of hostages on them.” Some journalists and editors, perhaps having adopted this change of wording after being offered it by Israeli sources, are now referring to the IDF as having found a command and control “node” rather than a command and control “center,” the latter term implying something like a buried Hamas “Pentagon” while the former sounds more like a minor link in a network of local command headquarters.
Now, it’s certainly possible that the IDF did “find” a longstanding basement that Hamas fighters had appropriated before being emptied in the days before the Israeli troops entered the hospital. But even if that is were the case, news reports are speculating (perhaps also at the suggestion of ISF or Israeli government sources), that since no tunnels have yet been found, perhaps Hamas control center personnel purportedly in the basement may have escaped by ‘blending in” with the staff and refugees who were allowed to leave at the end of the siege of the hospital facility. In any case, as Israel had the plans for the hospital complex, they didn’t “find” that basement. They knew where it was and went to it.
But one would think, given the growing global outrage, including among a growing number of US citizens, including many young Jewish Americans, and among some Israelis too, over the IDF’s massive bombardment of Gaza, now being described as the largest in this century, including the US bombardments of Iraq’s cities, and the collective punishment visited upon all Gazans with the cutoff of food, water, electricity and medicine that is still ongoing, that the Netanyahu government and the IDF, would have wanted reporters to accompany them in finding that bunker and any weapons and computers that might turn up, and would have wanted them to watch as those computers were checked out to find out what was on them, to prevent the kind of skeptical coverage that is now dogging them.
All of this is critically important because the Israeli blitzkrieg on Gaza, which has killed over 12,000 people (a quarter of them children), with an unknown number buried and impossible to rescue under the rubble of the IDF’s levelling of Gaza City and other population centers, was launched explicitly in response to the Hamas break-out attack on Oct. 7. That was when some thousand or more Israeli civilians and troops living and working in settlements and bases outside of the wall surrounding Gaza were killed, including children, and when some 200 were kidnapped and brought back to Gaza as hostages.
To be sure, the deliberate killing of civilians in Israel by Hamas fighters that day was, by definition, a war crime, but under the laws of war, a crime by one side in a conflict does not justify a war crime in response by the other side. To make matters worse, Israeli’s invasion and blockade are much more severe war crimes, both in the scale of the killing and injuring of civilians and because its leaders have openly called for collective “punishment” of all Palestinians in Gaza, and in practice have been doing precisely that. So the seeming imperative for Israel to come up with some kind of evidence to justify its indiscriminate violence against the residents of Gaza and its attacks on hospitals ought to have led them to offer up incontrovertible proof of Hamas perfidy.
If what the IDF has come up with so far at the Al Shifa Hospital is all it has to show for the epic violence and death it has wrought, it has come up short.
This failure thus far for Israel and its vaunted “humanitarian” military to come up with evidence of a Hamas underground army and hospital-based command and control center or network of command and control “nodes” has led to the frankly infuriating behind-the-scenes spectacle of US emissaries like Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and other top Biden administration cheerleaders for Israel’s war on Gaza now begging the Netanyahu government to realize that, as a CNN report puts it, “There is limited time for Israel to try to accomplish its stated objective of taking out Hamas in its current operation before uproar over the humanitarian suffering and civilian casualties – and calls for a ceasefire – reaches a tipping point.”
I say infuriating because this has been classic (and usually failed) US policy throughout its whole series of unrelenting wars over the nearly eight decades since the end of WWII: Go in big, do your bloody mass destruction and killing thing, or in the case of Vietnam, your brutal attacks on peasant villages and your search-and-destroy missions and relocation of populations into fenced-in “strategic hamlets” guarded by troops, your My Lai massacres and your “secret” and B-52 bombings of Cambodia, as quickly as you can, and hope you can win before losing the support of the American people.
It is a strategy that in practice has not worked very well for the US, as Nixon learned with his Christmas B-52 carpet bombing of North Vietnam, or as George Bush learned with his “Shock and Awe” attack on Iraq. But hope springs eternal for US leaders with their imperialist, ‘exceptional nation” chutzpah., so we’ve had the disastrous Obama-backed overthrow of Muammar Gaddafy in Libya and, more recently, Biden’s propping up of Ukraine’s attempt to reclaim majority ethnic Russian parts of that former Soviet “state” including Crimea. These are examples of US military adventures that went in big and have turned into dragged-out failures that Americans gradually turned against in large numbers.
In Israel’s case, this bloody calculus is slightly different: Netanyahu and/or his Likud party coalition might well be able to rely on continued support from their hard-core zionist supporters (for whom no amount of violence against Palestinians is too much to stomach) to cling to power. But in the US, upon which Israel relies for $3.8 billion a year in free military weapons and ammunition, and diplomatic support in the UN, where the US reliably blocks any Security Council actions that target Israel, the public is becoming increasingly disenchanted with Israel’s brutal treatment of Palestinians under its control, whether in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, or within the original borders of pre-’67 War Israel.
That is to say, President Biden, who has called himself a “Zionist” and solid backer of Israel but who is facing an increasingly tough-looking re-election campaign in less than a year, is beginning to wonder if his support of a long, bloody Israeli war on and occupation of Gaza, not to mention the continuing and increasingly violent occupation of the West Bank by the IDF and the continued expansion of violent land-grabbing settlers in that region, is such a great idea.
CounterPunch contributor DAVE LINDORFF is a producer along with MARK MITTEN on a forthcoming feature-length documentary film on the life of Ted Hall and his wife of 51 years, Joan Hall. A Participant Film, “A Compassionate Spy” is directed by STEVE JAMES and will be released in theatres this coming summer. Lindorff has finished a book on Ted Hall titled “A Spy for No Country,” to be published this Fall by Prometheus Press.
The lawsuit also calls for an end to the $3.8bn in annual military support the US sends to Israel.
A federal complaint (PDF), filed on Monday against President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, accuses them of “failure to prevent and complicity in the Israeli government’s unfolding genocide”.
Israel’s US-sponsored massacre in Gaza is much bigger than a mere “war between Israel and Hamas”.
Apartheid Israel’s genocidal ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is part of a larger US-led Western neocolonialist war against the indigenous resistance in multiple countries in West Asia.
Israel is also bombing Syria and Lebanon. The US just bombed Syria too. Resistance forces are attacking the US military occupiers in Syria and Iraq. Yemen’s real government (in Sana’a, not the US puppets in Aden) has vowed military support for Palestine. Iran and the Lebanese resistance will defend their sovereignty and the Palestinian people against Western neocolonial aggression. Times have changed. The days of imperialism’s chokehold on the region are numbered.
Putin says innocent people must not pay for crimes committed by others
“The goal, in my opinion, of all these actions is obvious – to multiply instability in the world, to divide cultures, peoples, world religions, to provoke a conflict of civilizations – all according to the well-known principle of ‘divide and rule.’”
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that the situation in the Gaza Strip is a “humanitarian catastrophe.”
Speaking at a meeting in Moscow with representatives of different religions, Putin said, “Innocent people must not pay for crimes committed by others.”
The president opposed the principle of “collective responsibility,” saying in this case, the elderly, women, children and entire families die.
Putin reiterated Russia’s position on a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, arguing that “this is the key to a long-term and fundamental settlement and peace in the Middle East.”
“The main task is to stop the bloodshed and violence. Otherwise, a further expansion of the crisis is fraught with grave and extremely dangerous, destructive consequences, and not only for the Middle East region. This could spill far beyond the borders of the Middle East,” he warned.
He decried attempts by “some forces” to play on religious and national feelings to create instability and chaos for their “venal interests.”
“Muslims are incited against Jews…Shia are incited against Sunnis, Orthodox – against Catholics. In Europe, they turn a blind eye to blasphemy and vandalism against what is sacred for Muslims. In a number of countries, Nazi criminals…are openly glorified at the official level,” he said.
Ukraine is taking steps to ban the canonical Orthodox Church and deepen the church schism, he noted.
“The goal, in my opinion, of all these actions is obvious – to multiply instability in the world, to divide cultures, peoples, world religions, to provoke a conflict of civilizations – all according to the well-known principle of ‘divide and rule.’”
“There is talk about a ‘new world order,’ the essence of which is actually the same — hypocrisy, double standards, claims to exclusivity, to global dominance, to preserve the essentially neocolonial system,” he added.
Meanwhile, financial historian Ray Dalio said he believes it is now essentially a coin toss as to whether we are about to see a world war break out encompassing the U.S. and China. On LinkedIn, he explained that he thinks there is a high risk the current situation will spur other conflicts in different places and will ultimately extend beyond Gaza and Israel.
One cybersecurity expert is predicting that World War 3 could start as soon as this weekend amid escalating fighting between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas.
Speaking to the UK’s Express, Guy Golan explained how such a war, which he thinks could kick off by Sunday, would encompass not only Israel but also Ukraine, Taiwan and even South Africa.
Moreover, he believes that China would be a major player given its desire to “devalue the dollar and shift the global economy towards the Yuan.”
China has recently been capitalizing on the Ukraine conflict and financial sanctions against Russia to bolster its currency, and Golan feels their ultimate aim is to gain economic domination rather than additional territories and finally shift the world’s economy away from the U.S. dollar in favor of the Yuan.
As for how Ukraine fits into the situation, he thinks it will drain American and European resources and that once the world no longer has confidence in the American dollar, it is “game over” for the West.
The role of South Africa, he says, would be to serve as a cyber bridge between the West and East, and that China’s savviness when it comes to cyber attacks could make it a force to be reckoned with in a cyber war.
Golan said: “Right now, I get massive levels of information. The area of Israel is boiling in the sense that there are both cyber activities from different groups that just started. Iranians apparently mobilised troops from the east of Syria to the west of Syria. They are looking at Israel as cannon fodder.”
He added that he believes we are “on the cusp of something quite cataclysmic” and that Iran has been preparing for this for many years.
Fears around the world that World War 3 could be imminent
Golan isn’t the only one who thinks we could be on the verge of a major war. Former U.S. President Donald Trump echoed this belief at a recent campaign stop in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He said: “We are closer to World War III than we’ve ever been. And I’m the only one that will prevent World War III.”
Meanwhile, financial historian Ray Dalio said he believes it is now essentially a coin toss as to whether we are about to see a world war break out encompassing the U.S. and China. On LinkedIn, he explained that he thinks there is a high risk the current situation will spur other conflicts in different places and will ultimately extend beyond Gaza and Israel.
He noted: “Primarily for those reasons, it appears to me that the odds of transitioning from the contained conflicts to a more uncontained hot world war that includes the major powers have risen from 35% to about 50% over the last two years.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently urged world leaders to show their solidarity with the Israeli people by visiting the country. He said: “Sometimes we are thinking how to prevail or how to stop the war, how to manage something, dialogue with Iran or Russia and et cetera. We have to think opposite — we have to not give the possibility for aggressors even to think about the third world war, the new wave of aggression, the new big tragedy.”
UK Defense Analyst and columnist Lt. Col. Stuart Crawford said in commentary for Express that should the U.S. end up getting drawn into the war further – for example, if part of the fleet we’ve sent to the region is attacked – the situation would only spiral further. He added that if Israel does not destroy Hamas, we could well be looking at another world war.
“The IDF was given stand down orders – both the army and the Air Force – seven hours to stand down while those attacks took place,” says Jewish charity leader.
Maybe Hamas’ terror attack really was Israel’s 9/11 — another inside job to justify full-scale war.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered Israel’s military to stand down for 7 hours during Hamas’ assault on the Jewish nation last week, according to reports.
Jewish Pro-Life Foundation leader Cecily Routman, citing government sources, claimed Netanyahu ordered the stand down to allow Hamas to launch its attack in order to justify Israeli retaliation against Gaza meant to ultimately wipe the Palestinian enclave off the map.
“Israel as the most sophisticated intelligence in the world. There is no way the government didn’t know that that was going to happen,” Routman told conservative activist Lauren Witzke in an interview released Saturday.
Routman explained that Rabbi Chananya Weissman, who’s connected with top officials in the Israeli government, “sent out a missive that, indeed, the IDF was given stand down orders – both the army and the air force – seven hours to stand down while those attacks took place.”
“And this allowed the terrorists to come in and begin slaughtering and torturing the citizens,” she said.
“Personally, I think that this situation is akin to a family keeping a rabid dog in their home and then blaming the dog when their baby gets bitten.”
“I look at the government of Israel and they really needed to make sure these people did not proliferate on their borders. And so they are held partially accountable for having to kill God’s creations in order to secure their border. This should never have happened,” Routman added.
Her claims corroborate reports from Oct. 7, in the first hours of Hamas’ attack on Israel, that the Israeli military was largely absent as Hamas invaded the border.
However, ABC News reported that Israel’s air force began shelling Gaza about 4 hours after Hamas began its assault, and its government activated its reserves about two hours after the attack began.
But that doesn’t adequately explain Israel’s inexplicable intelligence failure that gave Hamas the opportunity to launch its attack in the first place.
Perhaps Hamas’ terror attack really was Israel’s 9/11 — another inside job to justify full-scale war, that is.
I am starting to believe that the Mossad knew about this Hamas attack. Israel let this happen in order to exterminate Gaza and Palestine once and for all.
This text was revised and expanded on October 9, 2023
Below is an Update (October 14, 2023, Scroll Down for Main Article)
Update (October 14, 2023)
It’s Genocide, An Absolute Slaughter. They are “Wiping Gaza Off the Map”
‘[Israel’s military] said it would soon begin launching a widespread offensive in northern Gaza – a warning that comes about a day after Israel ordered roughly a million civilians to flee the area.
The sealed-off territory ruled by Hamas was in turmoil on Saturday amid the sweeping evacuation order that covered about half of Gaza’s population. Gaza also faces a growing water crisis as Palestinians were struggling to evacuate northern Gaza by foot, car and donkey cart.
Humanitarian groups said the evacuees had nowhere to go.The other way of leaving Gaza, into Egypt, appeared to be sealed as well, amid confusion over whether the neighboring country would allow anyone to exit Gaza.
An offensive even more powerful than Israel’s previous shelling of Gaza appeared imminent. “We are going to attack Gaza City very broadly soon,” Israel’s chief military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said in a nationally broadcast address, without giving a timetable for the attack.” (AOL.com, October 14, 2023)
Introduction
Early Saturday October 7, 2023, Hamas launched “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm” led by Hamas’ Military Chief Mohammed Deif. On that same day, Netanyahu confirmed a so-called “State of Readiness For War”.
Military operations are invariably planned well in advance (See Netanyahu’s January 2023 statement below). Was “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm” a “surprise attack”?
U.S. intelligence says they weren’t aware of an impending Hamas attack.
“One would have to be almost hopelessly naïve to buy the corporate state media line that the Hamas invasion was an Israeli “intelligence failure”. Mossad is one of, if not the, most powerful intelligence agencies on the planet.”
Did Netanyahu and his vast military and intelligence apparatus (Mossad et al) have foreknowledge of the Hamas attack which has resulted in countless deaths of Israelis and Palestinians.
Was a carefully formulated Israeli plan to wage an all-out war against Palestinians envisaged prior to the launching by Hamas of “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm”? This was not a failure of Israeli Intelligence, as conveyed by the media. Quite the opposite.
Evidence and testimonies suggest that the Netanyahu government had foreknowledge of the actions of Hamas which have resulted in hundreds of Israeli and Palestinian deaths. And “They Let it Happen”:
“Hamas fired between 2-5 thousand rockets at Israel and hundreds of Israelis are dead, while dozens of Israelis were captured as prisoners of war. In the ensuing air response by Israel, hundreds of Palestinians were killed in Gaza.” (Stephen Sahiounie)
Following the Al Aqsa Storm Operation on October 7, Israel‘s defence minister described Palestinians as “human animals” and vowed to “act accordingly,” as fighter jets unleashed a massive bombing of the Gaza Strip home of 2.3 million Palestinians…” (Middle East Eye). A complete blockade on the Gaza Strip was initiated on October 9, 2023, consisting in blocking and obstructing the importation of food, water, fuel, and essential commodities to 2.3 Million Palestinians. It’s an outright crime against humanity. It’s genocide.
It is worth noting, that Netanyahu’s military actions are not targeting HAMAS, quite the opposite: he is targeting 2.3 million innocent Palestinian civilians, in blatant violation of the Four Basic Principles of The Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC):
“….respect for and protection of the civilian population and civilian objects [schools, hospitals and residential areas], the Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives.” [Additional Protocol 1, Article 48]
“I served in the IDF 25 years ago, in the intelligence forces. There’s no way Israel did not know of what was coming.
A cat moving alongside the fence is triggering all forces. So this??
What happened to the “strongest army in the world”?
How come border crossings were wide open?? Something is VERY WRONG HERE, something is very strange, this chain of events is very unusual and not typical for the Israeli defense system.
To me, this surprise attack seems like a planned operation. On all fronts.
If I was a conspiracy theorist I would say that this feels like the work of the Deep State.
It feels like the people of Israel and the people of Palestine have been sold, once again, to the higher powers that be.
History: The Relationship between Mossad and Hamas
What is the relationship between Mossad and Hamas? Is Hamas an “intelligence asset”? There is a long history.
Hamas (Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya) (Islamic Resistance Movement), was founded in 1987 by Sheik Ahmed Yassin. It was supported at the outset by Israeli intelligence as a means to weaken the Palestinian Authority:
“Thanks to Mossad, (Israel’s “Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks”), Hamas was allowed to reinforce its presence in the occupied territories. Meanwhile, Arafat’s Fatah Movement for National Liberation as well as the Palestinian Left were subjected to the most brutal form of repression and intimidation.
Let us not forget that it was Israel, which in fact created Hamas. According to Zeev Sternell, a historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, “Israel thought that it was a smart ploy to push the Islamists against the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO)”. (L’Humanité, translated from French)
The links of Hamas to Mossad and US intelligence have been acknowledged by Rep. Ron Paul in a statement to the U.S Congress: “Hamas Was Started by Israel”?
“You know Hamas, if you look at the history, you’ll find out that Hamas was encouraged and really started by Israel because they wanted Hamas to counteract Yasser Arafat… (Rep. Ron Paul, 2011)
What this statement entails is that Hamas is and remains “an intelligence asset”, namely “an “asset” to intelligence agencies”
Instead of trying to curb Gaza’s Islamists from the outset, says Mr. Cohen, Israel for years tolerated and, in some cases, encouraged them as a counterweight to the secular nationalists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its dominant faction, Yasser Arafat’s Fatah. (WSJ, emphasis added)
The Hamas Partnership is confirmed by Netanyahu
“The Cat is Out of the Bag”
“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” he [Netanyahu] told a meeting of his Likud party’s Knesset members in March 2019. “This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.” (Haaretz, October 9, 2023, emphasis added)
Does this statement not suggest that Netanyahu and his military intelligence apparatus are responsible for the killings of innocent Israeli civilians?
“Support” and “Money” for Hamas.
“Transferring Money to Hamas” on behalf of Netanyahu is confirmed by a Times of Israel October 8, 2023, Report:
“Hamas was treated as a partner to the detriment of the Palestinian Authority to prevent Abbas from moving towards creating a Palestinian State. Hamas was promoted from a terrorist group to an organization with which Israel conducted negotiations through Egypt, and which was allowed to receive suitcases containing millions of dollars from Qatar through the Gaza crossings.” (emphasis added)
The Dangers of Military Escalation?
Let us be under no illusions, this “false flag” operation is a complex military-intelligence undertaking, carefully planned over several years, in liaison and coordination with US intelligence, the Pentagon and NATO.
In turn, this action against Palestine is already conducive to a process of military escalation which potentially could engulf a large part of the Middle East.
Israel has been a de facto member of NATO (with a special status) since 2004, involving active military and intelligence coordination as well as consultations pertaining to the occupied territories.
Military cooperation with both the Pentagon and NATO is viewed by Israel’s Defence Force (IDF) as a means to “enhance Israel’s deterrence capability regarding potential enemies threatening it, mainly Iran and Syria.”
The premise of NATO-Israel military cooperation is that “Israel is under attack”. Does Israel’s agreement with the Atlantic Alliance “obligate” NATO “to come to the rescue of Israel” under the doctrine of “collective security” (Article 5 of the Washington treaty)?
In recent developments, U.S. military deployments in the Middle East are ongoing allegedly to avoid escalation.
According to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg:
There is always the risk that nations and/or organisations hostile to Israel will take try to take advantage. And that includes, for instance, organisations like Hezbollah or a country like Iran. So this is a message to countries and organisations hostile to Israel that they should not try to utilise the situation. And the United States has deployed, or has deployed more military forces in the region, not least to deter any escalation or prevent any escalation of the situation. (NATO Press Conference, Brussels, October 12, 2023, emphasis added)
Netanyahu’s “New Stage”
“The Long War” against Palestine
Netanyahu’s stated objective, which constitutes a new stage in the 75-year-old war (since Nakba, 1948) against the people of Palestine is no longer predicated on “Apartheid” or “Separation”. This new stage –which is also directed against Israelis who want peace— consists in “total appropriation” as well as the outright exclusion of the Palestinian people from their homeland:
“These are the basic lines of the national government headed by me [Netanyahu]: The Jewish people have an exclusive and unquestionable right to all areas of the Land of Israel. The government will promote and develop settlement in all parts of the Land of Israel — in the Galilee, the Negev, the Golan, Judea and Samaria.” (Netanyahu January 2023. emphasis added)
We bring to the attention of our readers the incisive analysis of Dr. Philip Giraldi pointing to the likelihood of a “False Flag’”.
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, October 8, 2023, Above text updated on October 12, 2023
Read below the incisive analysis by Dr. Philip Giraldi.
Is the Gaza-Israel Fighting “A False Flag”?
They Let it Happen?
Their Objective Is “to Wipe Gaza Off the Map”?
by Dr. Philip Giraldi
October 8, 2023
Am I the only one who read about a speech given by Netanyahu or someone in his cabinet about a week ago in which he/they in passing referred to a “developing security situation” which rather suggests (to me) that they might have known about developments in Gaza and chose to let it happen so they can wipe Gaza off the map in retaliation and, possibly relying on the US pledge to have Israel’s “back,” then implicating Iran and attacking that country.
I cannot find a link to it but have a fairly strong recollection of what I read as I thought at the time it would serve as a pretext for another massacre of Palestinians.
As a former intelligence officer, I find it impossible to believe that Israel did not have multiple informants inside Gaza as well as electronic listening devices all along the border wall which would have picked up movements of groups and vehicles.
In other words, the whole thing might be a tissue of lies as is often the case.
And as is also ALWAYS the case Joe Biden is preparing to send some billions of dollars to poor little Israel to pay for “defending” itself.
*
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
The original source of this article is Global Research
“If the Zionist entity [Israel] decides to enter Gaza, the resistance leaders will turn it into a graveyard of the occupation soldiers,” he added, referring to Hamas.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has warned that if diplomatic efforts to stop Israeli airstrikes and prevent a ground offensive on Gaza are unsuccessful, there is a risk of the conflict escalating uncontrollably, with multiple regional players joining the fight.
“If the measures aimed at immediately stopping the Israeli attacks that are killing children in the Gaza Strip end in a deadlock, it is highly probable that many other fronts will be opened,” Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told Al Jazeera on Sunday, reiterating a warning Iran had voiced repeatedly over the past week.
“If the Zionist entity [Israel] decides to enter Gaza, the resistance leaders will turn it into a graveyard of the occupation soldiers,” he added, referring to Hamas.
On his diplomatic tour of the region, the Iranian minister met with a political leader of Hamas, Ismail Hanieyh, in Qatar, where he rallied other Islamic countries to support Palestine, and assured that Iran will continue its efforts to stop the “war crimes committed by the Zionists.”
“The Islamic Republic of Iran will never back down on its principles and values in support of the Palestinian nation,” he stressed.
In an effort to resolve the Gaza crisis, Amir-Abdollahian also discussed “the sensitive situation in the region” with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. He asked China to use its voice in the United Nations Security Council to stop the deaths and suffering of Gaza residents, emphasizing the need for a humanitarian corridor.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi initiated phone calls with multiple Muslim leaders on Sunday, raising the alarm about the situation in Gaza and calling for “decisive and immediate” action by the Arab League and other international bodies to stop the Israeli “killing machine.”
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameni has also addressed Muslim countries, urging them to come to the aid of Palestinians. “With God’s grace, this movement that has started in Palestine will advance and result in a complete victory for the Palestinians,” he said in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Saturday.
The United States has dispatched a second aircraft carrier group to the Eastern Mediterranean, seeking to put pressure on Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and other pro-Palestinian forces to stay out of the Israel-Gaza war.
Despite US media speculating about Iran’s possible involvement in the deadly raid on Israel carried out by Hamas militants, President Joe Biden has acknowledged that “at this point” there is “no clear evidence” that Tehran helped Hamas plan the attack.
A man carries a wounded child into Al Shifa hospital following Israeli strikes in Gaza City on October 10, 2023.
(Photo: Mohammed Abed/AFP via Getty Images)
Seventy-five years of global inaction and Israeli impunity have led to this moment in which one of the most vulnerable populations on earth is pummeled by one of the world’s strongest military powers on a genocidal warpath.
Israel is planning on carrying out a genocide in Gaza.
The motions have been underway for days, as Israel has relentlessly bombed the Gaza Strip, one of the most densely populated places on earth.
In six days, Israel has dropped 6,000 bombs on the besieged coastal enclave, which is home to 2.3 million Palestinians. Half of them are children. This falls just short of the highest number of bombs dropped by the US in a year in the war on Afghanistan.
Palestinians have been screaming at the top of their lungs for days that Israel is carrying out a genocide on them. Israeli leaders have only supported those fears, calling Gazans “human animals” and pledging to “wipe Hamas off the face of the earth.”
Today, everyone’s worst fears were confirmed.
On Friday, October 13, Palestinians in Gaza woke up to the news that the Israeli army was demanding that the more than 1.1 million Palestinians who live in the northern Gaza Strip “evacuate” to the southern part of the strip in the span of 24 hours.
Palestinians have been screaming at the top of their lungs for days that Israel is carrying out a genocide on them. Israeli leaders have only supported those fears, calling Gazans “human animals” and pledging to “wipe Hamas off the face of the earth.” Today, everyone’s worst fears were confirmed.
Let that sink in. This is half of Gaza’s population. The northern part of Gaza includes Gaza City – the most densely populated area within the Gaza Strip. It also includes two of Gaza’s eight refugee camps, the Jabalia and al-Shati refugee camps. Both have been bombed over the past few days. Both are home to hundreds of thousands of refugees. They were made refugees by Israel, 75 years ago.
But the United Nations said it received a different, much broader order, saying Israel was given 1.1 million civilians in northern Gaza 24 hours to flee south. A UN spokesman called the order “impossible” to achieve “without devastating humanitarian consequences.”
The Israeli army reportedly ordered Gazans not to return to the north until the army says they are allowed to go back.
But will they ever be allowed to go back? And will there even be a Gaza left to go back to?
No one knows what Israel’s plans are when the 24-hour deadline expires. Will they launch a ground invasion? Or will they simply pummel Gaza from the skies, as they have been doing for the past 16 years?
Israel, with the support of the United States, is committing genocide right before our eyes. It has been ongoing, a slow genocide and ethnic cleansing, for 75 years.
Whichever way Israel decides to go about it does not matter.
What matters is that Israel, with the support of the United States, is committing genocide right before our eyes. It has been ongoing, a slow genocide and ethnic cleansing, for 75 years.
75 years of global inaction and Israeli impunity have led to this moment. The moment where we see one of the most vulnerable populations on earth, 77% of whom are already refugees, being displaced as one of the world’s strongest military powers goes on a genocidal warpath.
Many Gazans are vowing to remain, saying they refuse to be displaced yet again. Many Palestinians are saying it’s psychological warfare, akin to the Zionist radio broadcasts of 75 years ago, that spread fear amongst the population and caused many to flee their homes out of fear of the Zionist atrocities that would await them if they stayed.
But the images are already flooding in as people in Gaza begin to flee their homes in fear of what comes.
Men, women, and children, walking through the rubble of their destroyed land, holding onto whatever bags and belongings they can carry. A march to the south, not knowing if tomorrow, the south will be next.
A death march.
Palestinians have said for 75 years, that the Nakba of 1948 never ended. It has continued for 75 years, every single day. In the crowded refugee camps of Gaza, the alleyways of Jerusalem, the hills of Haifa, and the corners of Jenin.
But today feels different. As millions of Palestinians in the West Bank, Jerusalem, ‘48, and across the diaspora watch their people in Gaza be expelled en masse while Israel destroys their homes and slaughters those who remain, the only words that people can muster, is “it’s happening again.”
U.S. news networks have dispatched correspondents to Israel to cover the violence, but there are few Palestinians being interviewed, or Israeli peace activists or reporters who oppose the occupation. Reports that Hamas beheaded babies are widely circulated on major news channels, by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and by President Biden. When questioned, the White House walked back the claim, saying they “could not confirm” the reports.
Palestinian women and children flee with their belongings after an Israeli airstrike in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
As Israel intensifies its brutal response to Hamas’ brutal October 7th attack, it is important to hear from those at the target end of the weapons – from both sides of the conflict. The mainstream media in the United States consistently brings us the voices of Israelis who have suffered violence at the hands of Hamas gunmen. Let that be a model for coverage of Palestinian grief. We rarely hear from Palestinian civilians. Hearing people speak for themselves is the first step to breaking down barriers, to fostering understanding that can lead to a just peace.
Not long after the Hamas attack, Israel began its latest intense bombardment of the Gaza Strip. Bearing the full force of that retaliation are the 2.4 million Palestinians who Israel has blockaded in Gaza, almost half of whom are children. The Gaza Strip, roughly four miles wide and 25 miles long, is one of the most densely populated places on earth and has long been described as the world’s largest open-air prison. Under “normal” conditions, Gazans live under a severe military occupation. No one gets in or out without Israel’s permission. Israel controls Gaza’s water, food and fuel. Now, in the wake of the Hamas attack, the Israeli siege and bombardment of Gaza has become cataclysmic.
“We are imposing a complete siege in Gaza. There will be no food, no water, no fuel; everything will be closed. We are fighting against human animals,” Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant announced.
As of the time of this writing, 1,300 Israelis been confirmed killed and thousands injured, with an estimated 150 people kidnapped. More than 1,350 Palestinians have been killed and 6,000 wounded as Israel devastates Gaza in an act of collective punishment that is illegal under international law.
We rarely hear from Palestinian civilians. Hearing people speak for themselves is the first step to breaking down barriers, to fostering understanding that can lead to a just peace.
“There is no single place you can call a safe haven in Gaza, airplane fighters, drones ruling all over the sky…whether it’s an apartment, whether it’s a tower with hundreds of apartments, whether it’s a house, whether it’s a hospital, whether it’s a school, a shelter used by UNRWA [the UN’s Palestinian relief agency],” Raji Sourani, director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza and winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, said on the Democracy Now! news hour. As he spoke, his house shook from an explosion. “Netanyahu says Gazans should leave Gaza. Where to? We don’t have safe passage. …it’s genocidal.”
Ofer Cassif, an Israeli Jewish member of the Knesset, or parliament, said on Democracy Now!:
“I got a WhatsApp message from a very good friend of mine who was hiding with her husband in the kibbutz. She told me she was very afraid and she could hear the Hamas fighters outside. Unfortunately, those were probably the last words she ever wrote, because she was murdered with her husband just after she sent me that message — a very good friend of mine who was also against the occupation, a voter with our party. Innocent people, innocent civilians on both sides, Israelis and Palestinians, pay the price of the arrogant, criminal, ongoing occupation that Israel refuses to end.”
U.S. news networks have dispatched correspondents to Israel to cover the violence, but there are few Palestinians being interviewed, or Israeli peace activists or reporters who oppose the occupation. Reports that Hamas beheaded babies are widely circulated on major news channels, by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and by President Biden. When questioned, the White House walked back the claim, saying they “could not confirm” the reports.
The actual violence is horrible enough: 260 young people were massacred at a music festival dedicated to “unity and love.” A kibbutz described by one resident as home to Israeli “peaceniks” was destroyed, with over 100 killed and many kidnapped by Hamas. In Gaza, entire families, entire neighborhoods, are being erased by Israeli bombs. Hospitals and ambulances are being attacked. At least six journalists have been killed in Gaza attempting to report on the Israeli assault that is only expected to worsen.
“The idea that you can coop up 5 million people, put them behind walls, tighten the siege on them, use an eyedropper to allow them some food, some water, some electricity, that idea has exploded as a result of the horrific events…This cannot continue,” Rashid Khalidi, renowned Palestinian American scholar and the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University, said on Democracy Now!
“The United States should be trying to defuse the situation…We finance this occupation. We finance this violence. There are American weapons that are being used today, right now, in Gaza to kill innocent civilians in violation of U.S. law.”
The United States has the power to pressure Israel to end its occupation of Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem. First, the media must allow the American public to hear the voices of victims from all sides of this conflict.
Amy Goodman is the host and executive producer of Democracy Now!, a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program airing on over 1,400 public television and radio stations worldwide.
Denis Moynihan has worked with Democracy Now! since 2000. He is a bestselling author and a syndicated columnist with King Features. He lives in Colorado, where he founded community radio station KFFR 88.3 FM in the town of Winter Park.
It’s interesting how last week Israel had no idea what Hamas was up to, and yet this week they know every mosque, school and hospital that Hamas is hiding in.
It’s interesting how last week Israel had no idea what Hamas was up to, and yet this week they know every mosque, school and hospital that Hamas is hiding in.
When you live under an empire of lies you’ll be asked to believe a lot of very stupid things. The dumbest thing we’re being asked to believe this week is that Israel’s intelligence services are simultaneously so incompetent that Saturday’s Hamas attack took them completely by surprise, but also so competent that all the buildings they’re destroying with their relentless bombing campaign on Gaza are directed solely at Hamas.
The phrase “Hamas targets” has been all over the news media the last few days in reference to the ongoing attacks on Gaza, which have as of this writing killed over 1,500 Palestinians, a third of them children.
“Israel conducts large-scale strikes on Hamas targets,” reads a CNN headline.
“Israel conducts ‘large-scale strike’ on Hamas targets,” reads the title of a segment for ABC News.
“Israel says it dropped 6,000 bombs so far against Hamas targets,” reads a report by The Washington Post.
Gosh, Israel must have really great visibility into Gaza to know that each of those 6,000 bombs was aimed at “Hamas targets” and not just civilian buildings.
Where was this 20/20 vision when Hamas was preparing for an attack using motorized paragliders, drones and motorboats in an enclosed strip of land the size of Philadelphia? How did Israeli intelligence fail to detect preparations for this attack even after Egyptian intelligence warned them that it was coming? How did they fail so spectacularly that even Hamas was reportedly surprised by the scale of their operation’s success? Is it really reasonable to believe they were blind as moles to Hamas activity last week but have the eye of the eagle this week?
President Biden made some noises on Wednesday about how important it is that Israel “operate by the rules of war”, which sounded like empty cover-your-ass narrative fluff even before we heard US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan dismiss any notion of “red lines” that Israel must not cross in Gaza.
Not even mainstream empire apologists are buying it. Politico’s Andrew Ward, in an article sponsored by Lockheed Martin in which he writes that “Israel’s ferocious counterattack is easy to understand” given the severity of the Hamas attack, writes that “The Biden administration wants Israel to abide by the laws of war as it responds to Hamas’ barbaric attack, but Jerusalem doesn’t appear to be listening.”
Of course, Israel isn’t abiding by the rules of war. They’re not even pretending to. Human Rights Watch has just issued a statement decrying Israel’s “unlawfully indiscriminate” use of white phosphorus in Gaza and in Lebanon, and an Israeli security official told the Israeli press that the IDF’s plan is to turn Gaza into “a city of tents” with “no buildings”.
This is all publicly available information, yet the Western press has the gall to use the phrase “Hamas targets” when describing Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza? I’m sorry, but that’s demented. The only reason to do something like that would be to administer propaganda.
The claim that Israel is targeting Hamas when it destroys buildings in Gaza is further undermined by the fact that Hamas would be taking shelter underground during this bombing campaign. As journalist Sharmine Narwani explained on Twitter, “Hamas cadres live underground in Gaza, which they have learned to do after countless Israeli bombing campaigns. The ONLY people being massacred in Gaza by Israeli terror planes right now are Palestinian civilians and Israeli POWs.”
In reality, both the claims that Israeli intelligence was taken by surprise by the Hamas attack and that Israel is solely targeting Hamas with its Gaza strikes are highly suspect and worthy of intense scrutiny. Israel has never been averse to killing Palestinian civilians, and there’s no reason to feel confident Israeli intelligence didn’t let the attack through in order to justify longstanding agendas like the elimination of Gaza as a Palestinian territory. Both claims can be false, but from where I’m sitting it looks highly unlikely that they’re both true.
If you want to support Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza then go ahead, and if you want to uncritically accept the official narrative about Saturday’s attack then you do you. But don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining.
I am taking any side on this one but the Western media is ignoring its duty to report the news objectively, so here’s Ben Norton’s latest report on this apocalyptic mess.
Lou
12 Oct 2023
Israel is indiscriminately bombing civilians in Gaza, after imposing a “complete siege” on 2.3 million Palestinians, cutting off electricity, water, food, and fuel. Meanwhile, the Western media has spread false stories that were quickly debunked.
Thousands of Pro-Palestinian/Hamas Supporters are Clashing tonight with French Riot Police in Paris after the French Government announced earlier today that moving forward any kind of Pro-Palestinian Demonstration was Banned and that anybody who Participates in these Events will be Arrested.
People are going insane, in the same way they went insane after 9/11. In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, there was this shrieking emotional intensity which saw critical thinking go out the window and saw people’s minds consumed with a rabid lust for Muslim blood.
The Hamas attack on Israel was an “inside job” by the globalist elite working in tandem with the Biden administration and the Israeli government as part of the great masterplan for World War 3 – which has been in the works since the state of Israel was created after World War 2.
Look, I don’t know if this is true but it would not surprise me if it is. Deep inside I believe this is what is happening. We’ll need history to verify the facts. Just like 9/11.
According to an insider, the terrorists were funded and armed by the Biden administration in the build-up to the attack, and Israeli defence and intelligence services agreed to stand down and look the other way when the attack was launched.
According to the official, the Israeli “false flag” will light the fuse to ignite a “holy war” that will spiral out of control and lay the groundwork for the elite to usher in a “one world government” and “one world religion.”
But there is just one problem for the globalist elite and their plans to enslave the human race. Their plans rely on the people of the world remaining ignorant – and we are not going to let that happen.
Every year Israel receives billions of dollars in US military aid and they recently installed a new “David’s Sling” interceptor to supplement several other already active and high tech defense systems – Iron Dome, David Sling, Arrow 2 and Arrow 3.
No expense was spared installing the latest and greatest military hardware in their skies. And yet we are expected to believe that these high tech defense systems could not protect against …. motorized para-gliders?
Israel also upgraded and bolstered their border wall with advanced technologies and censors, calling it the Iron Wall. The Israelis have the most advanced and invasive surveillance system in the world, there are censors literally everywhere, even deep in the ground so the Palestinians can’t build tunnels. The Israelis literally boasted that a cockroach cannot get across the border without the military knowing.
Now we know that despite their denials, Netanyahu and Israel were aware of the attack before it happened.
The Times of Israel, Associated Press and Al-Jazeera are reporting that Egypt warned Israel of a major attack coming from Gaza 10 days before the events on the weekend, but Israeli officials ignored it.
Is this another globalist psy-op?
According to a former Israeli intelligence agent, the Hamas attack does not make any sense and the bears all the hallmarks of planned operation:
She’s not wrong. Something is very wrong here. We could start with Joe Biden, handmaiden of the elite, who recently sent billions of dollars to Iran, who directly fund Hamas. Just days ago, Biden sent an irregular payment of $75 million directly to Palestine, and then days later, after the Hamas attack, sent a whopping 8 billion dollars to Israel in emergency military aid.
In the great tradition of the globalist elite, the Biden administration is funding both sides of the war. The Rothschilds funded both sides of the Napoleonic wars and this proved so profitable for them, they funded both sides of every war since, including the two world wars.
The Bush family also have history in this regard, with Prescott Bush, grandfather of George W., funding both sides of the Second World War.
The globalist elite just want to see the world burn. And get rich while it happens.
The useful idiots on mainstream media are determined to call the attack “Israel’s 9/11” – and they are closer to the truth than they realize.
Just like the 9/11 attacks, the attack on Israel is not what it seems and the official narratives surrounding both events can be dismissed out of hand as obvious propaganda.
Most concerning of all, every prominent influencer, pundit, and politician immediately condemned the attacks, despite their numerous oddities, without asking any questions about the numerous security failures of the Israeli military.
Fact checkers, employed by the globalist elite including Bill Gates and George Soros, immediately declared the attack was not an inside job.
They still haven’t explained why we are expected to believe anything they say considering they are untrained, unqualified, and write their fact checks from the comfort of their sofas in California, or in some cases, while they are lying in bed smoking weed.
CNN has already been caught spreading fake news about the attack, retreading old footage from 2021 to spread the globalist war agenda.
MSNBC wasted no time in reminding Americans of where they stand in the globalist pecking order. According to the elite, 20 Israeli lives are worth 1,000 American lives.
Just like the 9/11 attacks, the globalist elite are rubbing their hands together at the prospect of launching more forever wars in the Middle East, more devaluation of currencies, more neglect of the people in favor of war, death, and the globalist agenda.
Violence begets more violence. The elite are determined to send humanity on a race to the bottom, while they get richer, tighten the noose around humanity’s neck, and enact their long-planned agenda for World War 3 and a one world government.
Rothschild admitted his family created Israel as part of the great masterplan for World War 3 – and now their agenda is playing out before our very eyes.
Here at the People’s Voice we are determined to continue exposing the crimes of the globalist elite but we need your help. Subscribe to the channel, spread this video far and wide, and join the People’s Voice Locals community for exclusive and uncensored content. I hope to see you there.
Baxter Dmitry is a writer at The People’s Voice. He covers politics, business and entertainment. Speaking truth to power since he learned to talk, Baxter has travelled in over 80 countries and won arguments in every single one. Live without fear. Email: baxter@thepeoplesvoice.tv
“Our citizens should know the urgent facts…but they don’t because our media serves imperial, not popular interests. They lie, deceive, connive and suppress what everyone needs to know, substituting managed news misinformation and rubbish for hard truths…”—Oliver Stone