October 12, 2023
It’s not a real war. The bloody carnage in Israel and Palestine that we now witness is a large prison uprising being crushed by Israel’s military might.
M-16 lightweight rifles against Merkava tanks; home-made rockets (little more than flying pipe bombs) versus US-state of the art F-15 and F-16 fighter bombers; a few thousand Hamas fighters versus 600,000 or more Israeli soldiers and police backed by drones and heavy artillery.
American-made bombs and rockets are now shattering what’s left of Gaza, one of the world’s most densely populated places. Israel, which suffered over 1,200 dead innocent civilians from a Hamas-led attack on a music festival and waves of rocket barrages, vows Biblical revenge on the Palestinians.
Interestingly, the US supplied warplanes, bombs and rockets pounding Palestinian fighters and civilians are being used in contravention of the US Arms Control Act which forbids use of American arms against civilian targets.
Heedless of US law, the Biden administration is in full pro-war hysteria over Gaza. The next US elections are getting closer. The US state-guided media is also in full war mode, portraying events in Gaza as an attack on the United States.
The war party in Washington is baying for war against Iran which, as far as we know now, had no primary role in the Gaza attacks. One will likely be found or manufactured by Israel’s right-wing militants and Fox News.
I have been watching and writing about the agony of Palestine for some 70 years. I’ve watched what was to have been a small Jewish enclave grow into a powerful Sparta with some 200 nuclear weapons and unprecedented control of the US Congress and media.
Gaza, this miserable, squalid human garbage dump, is a giant open-air prison packed with 2.2 million Palestinian refugees driven from the newly created state of Israel in 1948. Israel and its close ally Egypt keep Gaza bottled up on its land and sea borders. Palestinians are only allowed to fish along the shore. Coastal gas and oil reserves have been expropriated by Israel and Egypt.
The United States, Israel’s patron and financier, reveled in the move of its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a move seen by Bible Belt religious fundamentalists as a key step to the return of the Christian Messiah and Armageddon in which the rest of us, Jews included, are fated to be burned alive. The American Republicans, who have become a far-right theocratic party, cheered this good news.
Gaza’s two million people subsist on the edge of starvation. Israel openly boasts that it allows just enough food into the enclave to prevent outright starvation. Chemicals to treat water are banned. Electricity runs only a few hours daily because the power plant was bombed by Israel’s US-supplied air force. Hospitals have almost no medicines. In short, wartime conditions in the open-air prison. Even the wretched animals in Gaza Zoo are starving. Hamas fighters have reportedly even killed cats and dogs.
The intensive punishment of Gaza, a crime under international law, began after its people voted in a free election for the Hamas movement over the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) which is more or less run by Israel and the United States. Israel helped found Hamas in 1987 to split the PLO, but then sought, with the US, to destroy the organization, branding it ‘terrorist.’
Israel has extensively used US-supplied arms and money to fight Hamas in Gaza, a clear violation of the Arms Export Control Act of 1976 that bars the use of American weapons against civilian populations.
The question remains, where did all the Palestinians come from? Israel long claimed there were no such people, or a made-up nationality. This was a pretty rich claim coming from Israelis, many of whom hailed from Russia, Poland and Eastern Europe and who had assumed biblical identities and asserted a direct link to the Hebrews who had lived two thousand years earlier in the Levant.
When Israel was created by the US and UN (with Soviet support) in 1948, from 750,000 to one million native Palestinians were driven from their ancestral home at gunpoint or panicked to flight by massacres and ethnic cleansing. Their villages were bulldozed.
When Israel conquered and annexed the West Bank and the Old City of Jerusalem in 1967, another 500,000 Palestinians were made refugees. Some 50,000-250,000 Syrians were driven by Israel from the strategic Golan Heights. Bedouins were driven from Israel’s Negev Desert.
There are only two ways out of this bloody mess. Either drive millions of Palestinians into the desert in an act of genocide or create a long-delayed Palestinian state mandated by the United Nations but which has been long blocked by US vetoes and Israel resistance.
Copyright. Eric S. Margolis 2023
Dear Mr. Margolis….I received some negative comments when I posted your article of Twitter. However I received numerous likes as well. No one ever reputes facts, they say they are all wrong and Palestinian propaganda. We need the truth now more than ever. Blessings, Patrick
Just ask the detractors to stipulate where the error is. It’s possible that they can not.
Sadly, another accurate post. It does look like another prison uprising. Both CNN and Fox with their faux outrage sounds more rediculous every day. Listening to Lindsey Graham go on about attacking Iran sort of reminds me of a twisted verson of Cato The Elder warning constantly that Carthage must be destroyed. Its understood that the US will always by after Iran for kicking them and their puppet Shaw out back in 1979. But this is a different Iran today. A reckless bombing campaign there will trash most of the western economy. It may also result in threatening the very existance of Israel. Unfortunately the US arms control and war crimes apply only to those the US doesnt like. Both Democrats and Republicans are united in their foolishness in the middle east. They had their chance and now they may be pushed aside. Maybe Russia and or China can offer some lasting relief for the suffering Palestinians and Israels. Otherwise, it will be the former of your two ways out of this mess. Followed by more war of course. Remember, the next election is in 2024 and Trump casts a long shadow! Where will our world be in two years?
The UN is ‘broken’. The UN charter has to be re-written to reflect a new world. I think there should be a security council of 20 or so countries, and there should be no ‘veto powers’. The security council can take their proposal to the general council members for a vote. The members of the security council should be seen as independent. It’s not likely completely possible, but members of the security council have to be independent.
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I recall Canada losing it’s position on the security council to Ireland, if I recall correctly. Our politicians were a tad upset, as much as politicians can be upset. It was a good move by the UN. Canada and the US, with few exceptions, are in ‘lockstep’.
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Earle Birney’s poem, “Canada: a Case History”, comes to mind. This is from about 50 years ago, and it still hasn’t changed. The line, “His Uncle spoils him with candy of course. but shouts him down when he talks at the table” is appropriate. Canada’s Uncle being the US.
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Due to the present ‘makeup’ of the UN, it is very unlikely that those in power are willing to relinquish this ‘veto’ provision. To reiterate, the UN is ‘broken’.
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The UN should have acted to address the Palestinian problem decades ago. Hamas’ attack on Israel may not have occurred. They should have provided a ‘country’ for these people, in the same manner as they provided a country for the Israelis. Further to that, they should not have permitted the Israelis to expand the borders they were given. Any attempt to provide a resolution to this has been thwarted by the veto power of certain countries on the security council.
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One has to question at what point does retribution become genocide.
I’ve followed this site for a while but only recently created an account. I’d like to share this and other posts on different social media platforms. However, I am surprised that I don’t see other people sharing these posts. Is that because mainstream social media restricts them? Is there a preferred platform to share these posts?
Whether or not certain groups see this conflict as “the return of the Christian Messiah and Armageddon” will not in itself bring it about. The pattern of history is what’ll bring mankind to nuclear destruction. The war is connected to interwoven and competing global rivalries.
https://patternofhistory.wordpress.com/
The monster was created and brought to life by Dr. Frankenstein in his laboratory, and over many years was slowly and gradually made stronger and stronger by the doctor himself. The monster eventually became strong enough to break down the lab door, emerge from the lab, and become the co-master of the castle, along with the doctor, who was by then too intimidated by his own creation, and could not get it to return to the lab. As time went on, the monster continued to gain strength year by year, and eventually forced the doctor into the dungeon, and told him to stay there. The dungeon door was not locked, but the doctor was too frightened to leave the dungeon, or even complain, because of what the
the new master implied it might do to him. After several more years, the monster tired of the castle confines. It broke down the castle door, and descended to the village below, ruling by terrorizing the local villagers, who were too frightened to rebel, because of what the monster implied it might do them. Even the King was cowed and intimidated, though his army could have defeated the monster. Meanwhile, the monster continued to get stronger and stronger, year in and year out.
And this is how it is, even to this day.
Truth is stranger than fiction … great analogy
Not even Mary Shelley would recognize her monster today . What REALLY scares me is the talk of Armageddon and the return of the Messiah and what ALL THAT entails , and thats the aim that American Evangelicals really want ARNAGEDDON .
Even when he is wearing his lets talk peace costune , we still know it’s Bibi with his talk of we want peace but we also want to expand settlements .
The Frankenstein analogy is in the realm of as we say , “truth is stranger than fiction ” . This skirmish will end for a few days in a while , but settlement expansion will continue because Frankenstein never tires of needing fresh Palestine land to occupy .
With every day Frankenstein gets stronger and America keeps getting deeper and deeper into the mess that will destroy America / all over 3% of the population being Evagelical , wagging the American dog s tail .
Once Hamas is most deservedly destroyed … who will supply the remainng Palestinians with a country to to call their own ? BIBI ? … He’s busy too busy expanding settlements to make sure that
T H A T never happens . ‘Israel has no exit strategy … only EXPANSION plans .
In short , nobody cares about a Palestinian homeland … the world is too petrified of Frankenstein … and settlers need new settlements … so carry on Frankie … nobodys watching .
Without a Palestinian Homeland , Hamas will continue to survive with their continuous ( right or wrong ) made up reasons to attack what is surely squatters on Palestinian land .
BUT … the world continous to look the other way as Frankenstein does whaever the hell it wants
Sorry, but this article has neglected some major details. By what are likely sound accounts the Hamas assault involved sickening atrocities that would be worthy of Genghis Khan. As Sam Harris has pointed out in several podcasts it is stupidity squared to claim moral equivalence in practical actions between the two sides here. Harris uses as a touchstone of this argument the issue of human shields. Hamas and their ilk use their own people as human shields, firing rockets from civilian sites for instance, in the cynical expectation that the Israelis may have qualms about striking back. If the roles were reversed Hamas would hardly be deterred under such circumstances, but would rather rejoice and chuckle. Never forget that Hamas’ pronouncements are explicitly genocidal in regards to Israel. They are hardly credible as civilized players. Better for Gaza if they were replaced by a leadership that actually put the economic development of that territory first, over Jihadi fever dreams.
As I noted, “One has to question at what point does retribution become genocide.”
As a Canadian I am horrified to see our prime minister throwing himself on his face before Israel and pledging his aligence to his masters.
Horrified, but not surprised.