Smokescreens to distract from the real causes of a bloody conflict
While people in the media, especially on social media, engage in rhetorical battles over Hamas’ attack on Israel and what some see as Israel’s self-defense and others see as genocide, a thick fog has descended over the underlying crucial issues, namely the true motives and goals of the conflict.
The point here is not that the news that Israeli babies allegedly killed by Hamas is of dubious origin, or that the mass rape of Israeli hostages by Hamas has now been exposed as a horror story even in the Israeli media, or that probably most of the Hamas hostages were killed by the Israeli military, or that Israel is even waging war against hospitals even though there are no Hamas fighters there or the fact that Hamas has been supported and promoted by Israel for many years in order to weaken the moderate, non-Islamist Palestinians.
However, I would like to add that it is nothing new under the sun that terrorist organizations develop thanks to generous benefactors and later turn against them. The Americans set an example in Afghanistan when they financed Islamist jihadists and Taliban against the secular regime in Kabul, which was supported by the Soviet Union. When they seized power with American help, they abolished the rights of women and girls and closed the schools for girls.
Terrorists groomed by the USA and Israel to be useful idiots
And as long as ISIS (Islamic State) was useful, it was also supported by the US, as were other terrorists instrumentalized by the US and to a lesser extent by Israel in the fight against the more secular and moderate Alawite regime in Syria. This also includes Uyghur terrorists who support Washington’s regime change war in Syria. They too need to be financed, because battle-hardened they will be useful again later to harass rival China with even more intense terrorist attacks than in the past.
The Asia Times reported that “Washington threw its full weight behind the so-called Arab Spring, and the CIA-trained jihadists in Syria to overthrow the Assad regime in Damascus.” The CIA’s “Operation Timber Sycamore” to arm and train terrorists who destroyed Syria starting in 2012 cost American taxpayers billions of dollars. Ironically, the US and Israel armed and funded jihadists labeled “moderate Syrian rebels” in their fight against President Assad, who protected religious minorities from Islamist fanatics.
The incredibly gas-rich Gaza Strip: 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas
A startling finding that could lift an entire nation out of poverty was made in 1999 off the coast of the Gaza Strip in Palestinian-controlled ocean waters. The Palestinian Authority (PA) was “granted” the right to exercise sovereignty over its own maritime territory by the Oslo Accords in 1995. Although much remains unexplored to this day, by far the greatest discoveries have been made so far in the Palestinian Gaza Strip and the West Bank. In addition to gas, there are also oil deposits in these Palestinian territories.
In 2002, the Palestinian Authority approved British Gas’ plans to build a pipeline connected to a processing plant in the Gaza Strip. However, the Israeli government prevented this on the grounds that the pipeline would have to end at a port under Israeli jurisdiction and that the Palestinians would have to supply Israel with gas at well below the market price.
Following Hamas’ victory in the 2007 Palestinian legislative elections in Gaza, Israel imposed a naval blockade that was militarized and prevented any additional offshore construction. The procedure was further delayed at about the same time that British Gas was awarded the contract by an Israeli gas group called Yam Thetis.
Israel proclaimed its sovereignty over the Gaza Marine area in December 2008, completely breaking international law, and British Gas closed its Tel Aviv offices.
Now take a look at what the oil findings did to Norway in the 1960s, when it transformed from a fishing country into the world’s most developed economy. Thanks to oil, Norway leads in every important area, including security, income, life expectancy, and health care. It also sells the oil and keeps the earnings. Just think of how much this may help Gaza and the Palestinians—or Israel, if it prevents the Palestinians from benefiting.
Given that Europe has severed its links with Russia, a major provider of inexpensive gas, and that the US most certainly destroyed the Nordstream gas pipeline, which is a vital source of energy for European industry, the violence in Gaza occurs at a moment when the European continent is in dire need of gas. Israel, as the potential main supplier, wants to benefit from this.
As Russia’s gas sales have plummeted and Iran and Syria are under sanctions, Israel wants to become a hub and make a lot of money. This is an excellent opportunity to steal Palestinian resources. Besides, no one will be able to stop them.
Killing several birds with one stone
How can the controversial Prime Minister Netanyahu achieve this goal and remain in power at the same time?
Zionists like Netanyahu have never wanted a two-state solution, they only wanted one state, and only for Jews. And a one-state solution in which Jews, Christians, and Arabs would have equal rights is unacceptable to them because they fear the loss of power and control. With the constant expansion of settlements at the expense of the Palestinians and the Gaza Strip as a barely livable open-air prison, they have tried to wear down the Palestinians and persuade them to “voluntarily” leave Palestine. At the same time, they have also thwarted the possibility of a two-state solution, as a Palestinian rump state on the remaining land would no longer be viable. However, in order to get rid of the Palestinians completely and seize their vast resources, a major event was needed to forcibly expel the people, as during the Nakba, when thousands of Palestinians were killed or driven from their homes and communities uprooted by Jewish paramilitary groups.
Unsurprisingly, a “secret” memorandum authored by Israel’s Ministry of Intelligence recommended “the forcible and permanent transfer of the Gaza Strip’s 2.2 million Palestinian residents to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.”
Netanyahu was also concerned about his political survival as he faced strong domestic opposition. The best tactic for Netanyahu to defeat his opponents inside Israel, after the judiciary was changed in his favor to keep him out of jail, was to create a greater threat from the outside that would unite the people and make them forget about all other domestic issues. As we see, Netanyahu and Zelensky, both highly corrupt but unconditionally supported by the collective West, can and do survive politically thanks to the wars.
To a wider Israeli and Western public, Netanyahu sells the cleansing of Gaza from the Palestinians and the confiscation of their vast wealth as God’s will, as he presents the crisis as a conflict between God’s chosen people, the Jews, and the non-Jews.
This goes down well with Jewish Israelis and Christians in the West who see Israel’s borders defined by the Bible, despite it being a canonical collection of scriptures with fantastic origins and no evidential value that serves as a religious construct of faith.
Recently, Netanyahu referred to the Amalekites, the adversaries of the Israelites, of whom the Bible says the following in 1 Samuel 15:3, which sounds like a justification for the genocide of the Palestinians:
“Do not spare them; kill men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.”
The useful attack of the useful idiots
There are also strong indications that the Hamas attack was not a surprise, but a welcome template for the cleansing war. About 3,000 Hamas fighters practiced the attack long before it took place, which Israel could not have missed, since Gaza is under thorough surveillance by satellites and Israeli drones. In addition, the most modern Israeli surveillance and espionage technology is deployed in Gaza, as well as many Palestinian spies recruited by Israel.
Netanyahu considers his most important task (and achievement) to be preventing harm to Israelis. In an Israeli talk show, he explained: “The ability to spot danger in advance and prepare for it is the test of a body’s functioning.”
Even Egypt knew about the planned attack and warned Israel a few days in advance. The fact that every Palestinian in the Gaza Strip who enters Israeli land without permission immediately raises the alarm is a further indication that the attack was not to be stopped. So when a significant number of Hamas fighters entered Israel, it took many hours for the army to respond. And when it finally intervened, the result was a bloodbath and the justification for a relentless war in Gaza and its destruction.
Déjà vu: The 9/11 pretext for war and the realization of a Greater Israel without Palestinians
And just as the US used the 9/11 massacre as a pretext to launch a war ostensibly against the terrorists (called “war on terror”) they helped create and sponsor, but in reality against Arab regimes that were more secular and clearly anti-Islamist (but not collaborating with the US), Netanyahu compares the Hamas attack on November 7 as Israel’s 9/11 moment, enabling him and his regime to wage war against Gaza.
It is clear that America’s “war on terror” after September 11, which did not put an end to terrorism but actually fueled it, was not about terrorism but about control over important resources: oil in Iraq, Libya and Syria. The “terrorism” was a perfect cover for the Western powers to seize control of vast gas and oil reserves and seabeds so they could build ports. There is a reason why the US doesn’t give a damn about landlocked Afghanistan but is building a second military base in Iraq, right next to Iraq’s oil fields, and despite official claims that the US is not interested in keeping its occupation forces there.
In Gaza, it is not about Hamas and terrorism either, but again about the abundance of resources. Though Israel did fund Hamas to be a terrorist group and commit terrorism it is used as a justification for Israel to take over all of Palestine with the 9/11 argument. The Palestinians stand in the way of the appropriation of enormous natural wealth and land for Greater Israel, which is why a great opportunity had to come along to get rid of them once and for all.