November 10, 2023
Paris – The great Voltaire wrote ‘show me whom you cannot criticize, and I will show you who rules you.’
So true. Anyone who dares criticize Israel’s Biblical punishment of Palestinians in the Gaza outdoor prison is immediately subject to a storm of calumny and threats.
No matter that this mass punishment violates the 4th Geneva Convention and other international law, nor that it violates the US’s own arms export act, and has bred deep disgust around the globe for the United States and engendered rising anti-Semitism, terrible retribution is falling on Gaza’s Palestinians – who are now being bombed and shelled out of their homes for a second time.
The killing and abduction of 1,600 Israelis has awakened the direst fears in Israel. The rocketing of Tel Aviv airport sent shudders of fear through Israel that the Jewish state might be cut off from American military support. Meanwhile, the US Congress just proposed another $14 billion in new aide plus $4 billion more for an improved air defense system for Israel – despite the runaway US $4 trillion debt. Some Israelis even talk of fleeing to Ukraine, ‘the second Israel.’
The heavily biased western media and well-paid politicians in the US, Canada, Germany, and other members of the European Union have persisted in obscuring the real reason for the Hamas attacks. Hamas is a tiny organization of lightly armed refugees whose parents were driven from their homes in what is now Israel. Calling them ‘terrorists’ explains nothing. It’s not even a ‘war,’ as western media calls the conflict. Rather, It’s a horrifying prison riot. Israel has so far killed over 11,000 Arab Muslims and Christians, following the unwritten Israeli rule of thumb to kill 10 Arabs for every Jewish Israeli killed. More Palestinian deaths are piling up as an enraged Israel rains 1,000 and 2,000 lb bombs and 155mm shells (all US supplied) on apartments and fleeing refugees.
Western media has not explained what sparked the bloody Hamas attack on Jewish settlements around Gaza. I have visited and interviewed some of these Jewish settlers.
The attacks around Gaza were sparked by recent actions of Israel’s new ultra-right wing coalition government. For years, Israel’s rightist politicians and government have been promoting the expansions of legal and illegal settlements on Palestinian land, particularly around the Gaza strip.
These fortified settlements were designed to surround and isolate Gaza and prevent the creation of a contiguous Palestinian state. The settlements and outposts were filled with militant settlers who were heavily armed and hated Palestinians. Many hailed from Brooklyn, New York. There are about 710,000 Jewish settlers now encamped on expropriated Arab land, another clear violation of the Geneva Conventions.
I interviewed numbers of them and found them extreme fanatics who made South Africa’s Boer farmers seem almost moderate by comparison. These armed vigilantes commonly launched attacks on their Arab neighbors and cut down their olive trees, which can take a century to flower.
One of their most important leaders just suggested dropping a nuclear weapon on Gaza, such has hate clouded minds in the region.
Meanwhile, the world hides its eyes from the carnage in Gaza as two million Arabs flee the terror bombings. Israel always knows it can get away with anything as US elections draw close. As Pat Buchanan observed, ‘Capitol Hill is Israeli-occupied territory.’ From the president on down to lowly journalists, failing to support Israel is a career-ending move.
In 1956, Israel colluded with France and Britain to invade Egypt. Its plan was to overthrow nationalist president Nasser, grab the Sinai Peninsula and dominate the Suez Canal. President Dwight Eisenhower ordered Israel to halt its attack and ordered it to get the hell out of Sinai. He was the last US president free to give orders to Israel. After that, Israel’s American supporters made sure they, not the president, had the final say.
Look now at Biden, pleading with Israel’s Netanyahu to lessen the civilian death. Corridors are being set up and Israel will eventually lessen the slaughter, but it will cost Washington bigtime. The entire Muslim world is furious at the United States, wondering why the White House can’t just order its client, Israel, to pull out of Gaza.
The feeble US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, is even pleading for Gaza to be ruled by the totally corrupt, US/Israeli puppet Palestine Liberation Organization. What a bad joke. As bad as the cowardly response by the Arab states. Egypt, which blocks the southern exit from Gaza, is almost as guilty as Israel for the carnage, starvations, and lack of power in Gaza,
Egypt is a brutal dictatorship that fears the democracy-inclined Palestinians. So too the Saudis and rich Gulf states. This is what Washington calls ‘democracy.’ (See my book, ‘American Raj’).
Copyright. Eric S Margolis 2023
Well Mr. Margolis, it looks like your right. We haven’t seen the last of the nasty Nikki Haley. It seems that CNN has chosen her as the new darling of the Republican party out of hand. Guided by their hatred of Trump, CNN still wants to play kingmaker. She is the Republican version/ answer to Hillary Clinton. The Democrats have no one effective to take the field yet, if at all to even challenge a Republican for the presidency. If she gets in , the Doomsday clock may be set to 30 seconds to midnight. Suddenly Trump is looking much better than that deep state war monger. Time to update my iodine pill reserve. Yikes!
Interesting article that helps explain why neighboring Arab countries won’t take the Palestinians in. From what I gather from your article, the Palestinians are inclined toward freedom and democracy and the neighboring Arab countries would regard this as a threat. They run a tight ship and don’t want the Palestinians around to rock the boat.
I am no Tacitus or Voltaire. But I would agree that war creates only barren wilderness, and never brings true peace. And that most of all we fail to question ourselves: quick to criticize, or use “threats” against, our enemies. The war in Gaza, and nexus of international conflicts, shows that humanity has still not learned from history – dooming us to nuclear Armageddon. There is a deep denial about the coming conflagration, so it is important to try and distil the problem down to something very simple – if there is to be any chance of surviving. It can be summed up in the following syllogism: every empire eventually faces the war it is trying to avoid; everyone wants to avoid WW III; therefore, that is the fate that awaits humanity. Paradoxically, accepting that fate is the only way to avoid it.
https://patternofhistory.wordpress.com/
This pretty much sums it up… Canada in league with her Uncle.
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https://www.instagram.com/p/Cy1H91cucf8/?hl=en&img_index=1
I should have clarified that… For years, due to the ineffectiveness of the UN, I cannot imagine it was created by the superpowers, at the time, for betterment of the world in general.
Canada should withdraw from the UN. It has failed. What is happening is exactly what the UN was created for.
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The Pallesitinians are no more responsible for Hamas than the Afghanis are responsible for the Taliban.
Want to know how the Nazis were able to get people behind the holocaust?
Just look at what Israel and their supporters are saying.
Well said Eric! Thank goodness we have at least some commentators who have the historical perspective and aren’t afraid to tell it like it is.
Keep it up!
Cal
Well, Sir, time for some perspective. The woes of the Gazans cannot be laid wholly at the feet of Israel. The brother Arabs of the Palestinians haven’t exactly been hospitable to the refugees, have they? They’ve been treating them more like radioactive waste, in fact. And I’ve heard that the gross mismanagement of Gaza by Hamas is a major factor in the economic underdevelopment of the place. It’s said that a few decades ago the place had the potential to become one of the Mediterranean’s tourism centres, something the sour dour Islamists of Hamas killed quicktime.
This “enemy of my enemy is my friend” stuff does not wash in the real world. Whatever legitimate complaints the Palestinians may have does not excuse the insane barbarity of the likes of Hamas. Picture the absurdity of it with a thought experiment. Imagine an individual incensed at the raw deal Germany got under the Treaty of Versailles feeling morally obliged to support Adolf Hitler as a consequence. Not the sharpest mental gymnastics there.