Transport Passengers,
My 90 minute bike rides, doing laps around our quiet neighborhood, are a time for reflection and integration of thoughts and ideas. Today's meditation about the current crisis of longstanding injustice in Palestine/Israel brought me to think of a path through this to a 2-state solution, such as was agreed at the Oslo Accords in 1992-1995, which initiated a process working towards a 2-state solution for Israel & Palestine, which was halted by the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin 11/4/1995.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo_Accords https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitzhak_Rabin
Prime Minister Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish nationalist who opposed any agreement to terms with indigenous Palestinians, believing that Jewish Israelis had absolute right to all of the "land of Israel", as ordained by God. That was a stark warning to all Israeli politicians, though broad support remained for this among Jewish Israelis.
A few days ago Seymour Hersh had this to say about Netanyahu's reaction to the Oslo Accords:
How Bibi's Opposition to Two-State Solution Claimed Lives of Jews and Arabs "Tel Aviv accepted the PLO as the representative of the Palestinians, and the PLO recognized Israel’s right to exist in peace. The document stipulated the establishment of the Palestinian Authority (PA), which would assume governing responsibilities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
At the time, Netanyahu was out of office: he served as a prime minister between 1996 and 1999 and won the Israeli prime ministership for the second time in 2009. When Bibi returned to office in 2009, he "chose to support Hamas" as an alternative to the Palestinian Authority, "and gave them money and established them in Gaza,” according to the insider.
Furthermore, an arrangement with Qatar was made under which hundreds of millions of dollars were directed to the Hamas leadership with Israeli approval, per the source." https://sputnikglobe.com/20231012/sy-hersh-how-bibis-opposition-to-two-state-solution-claimed-lives-of-jews-and-arabs-1114146176.html
Israeli settlers in the West Bank required "extraordinary protection" over the upsurge in violence. So, Netanyahu gave a nod to local Israeli military authorities to order two of the three Army battalions that controlled the border with Gaza to shift their focus to the Sukkot festival. Given that each battalion comprised about 800 soldiers, 1,600 were sent to shield the Orthodox Jews.
Thus, unsurprisingly, the diminished IDF contingent was overrun by Hamas militants on October 7, while Israeli civilians were left unprotected.
Israel Fostered the Rise of Hamas, Even After It Turned to Terror . Deliberately undermining the peace process by eliminating acceptable counterparties
At the time, Netanyahu was out of office: he served as a prime minister between 1996 and 1999 and won the Israeli prime ministership for the second time in 2009. When Bibi returned to office in 2009, he "chose to support Hamas" as an alternative to the Palestinian Authority, "and gave them money and established them in Gaza,” according to the insider.
Furthermore, an arrangement with Qatar was made under which hundreds of millions of dollars were directed to the Hamas leadership with Israeli approval, per the source." https://sputnikglobe.com/20231012/sy-hersh-how-bibis-opposition-to-two-state-solution-claimed-lives-of-jews-and-arabs-1114146176.html
Also in that piece is the explanation that P.M. Netanyahu had removed the trained Israeli soldiers, that patrol the border fortifications around Gaza, from their posts.
On October 6 a group of Jewish settlers were reported to have clashed with local Palestinians in Huwara, a village in the northern part of the West Bank, which resulted in the death of a 19-year-old Arab man. Israeli settlers in the West Bank required "extraordinary protection" over the upsurge in violence. So, Netanyahu gave a nod to local Israeli military authorities to order two of the three Army battalions that controlled the border with Gaza to shift their focus to the Sukkot festival. Given that each battalion comprised about 800 soldiers, 1,600 were sent to shield the Orthodox Jews.
Thus, unsurprisingly, the diminished IDF contingent was overrun by Hamas militants on October 7, while Israeli civilians were left unprotected.
In addition to the 2/3 reduction in forces, and coming the morning after a Jewish feast day, there is overwhelming circumstantial evidence that the border-fence monitoring had to have been shut down for this to have happened "without warning".
Section Commander of the Gaza Fence: “The obstacle is built so that even a fox cannot pass it”. They Let It Happen. The Hamas Attack Was Allowed to Close the Book on Palestine. https://www.globalresearch.ca/speculation-mark-hamas-attack-allowed-close-book-palestine/5836029 In the aftermath of Saturday’s terrorist and military attacks on Israel by the Palestinian group Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared,
“The forces of civilization must support Israel in defeating Hamas…In fighting Hamas, Israel is not only fighting for its own people, it is fighting for every country that stands against barbarism.”
Those sentiments are quite different from ones Netanyahu privately shared in 2019.
“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” Netanyahu told Likud Party legislators.
Doing so would help prevent the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA) from ruling Gaza and giving Palestinians a relatively moderate, unified voice at the negotiating table.
“This is part of our strategy — to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.”
“The forces of civilization must support Israel in defeating Hamas…In fighting Hamas, Israel is not only fighting for its own people, it is fighting for every country that stands against barbarism.”
Those sentiments are quite different from ones Netanyahu privately shared in 2019.
“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” Netanyahu told Likud Party legislators.
Doing so would help prevent the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA) from ruling Gaza and giving Palestinians a relatively moderate, unified voice at the negotiating table.
“This is part of our strategy — to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.”
Returning to the opening of Hersh's story, his informant, presumably at a fairly high level in the security complex, had this overall view:
"Benjamin Netanyahu "is finished," as his decision to allow a group of Orthodox settlers to celebrate Sukkot in the West Bank last week was ill-timed, given the growing tensions between Jews and Palestinians in the region, an Israeli source told Seymour Hersh." There is a clear rationale for Netanyahu to "allow" or even to help an "Israeli 9/11" to take place, to unify the country behind him, in the face of over half a year of opposition to his policies, and the ongoing fact of his criminal cases proceeding in the criminal justice system.
The Jewish political factions in Israel are roughly equally divided into Orthodox religious fundamentalists who believe that God gave Jews the land absolutely, and that anything which diverges from that on the ground is against-God's-will, and secular Jews who serve in the IDF (without religious exemptions), work in industry and commerce, and pay taxes.
The fundamentalist faction studies Torah and has large families, and is supported in this by the state. This has been a growing demographic for decades, and is now in political power in the Knesset, and seeks to remove the authority of the Supreme Court of Israel to override the Knesset in "extreme-cases". This has been the source of political division this year. Some divisions are also apparent within the IDF, Shin Bet and Mossad, with rationalist views being prevalent, yet with strong support for the Zionist project.
The Arab neighborhood will not accept the ejection of Palestinians from their remaining homelands, nor will it accept their genocide. The Israeli plans to carry out carpet bombings of Gaza City this weekend, then to follow that with bulldozers and assault forces has been delayed by various events and pressures. The Arab and Persian neighbors are agreeing on their positions and potential contributions to efforts to support Palestinians with aid, and draw red-lines for Israel/US militarily. Russia offers to be the trusted intermediary in negotiations, which the US will balk at, but which is also practical in the new regional realities.
Eleni sends this from Philip Giraldi: It’s another 9/11 or Pearl Harbor but who actually did what to whom?
Netanyahu even stated several years later that “9/11 was a good thing because it made the United States join us in our fight.” That the attacks killed 3,000 Americans did not bother the Israeli government as Israel has a long history of killing Americans when it can benefit from so doing, starting with the attack on the USS Liberty in 1967 which killed 34 sailors.
So too in this case in Gaza Netanyahu may have decided to encourage an unexpected development, making it like 9/11, that would enable him to escalate and “mow the grass” as the Israelis put it, in the remainder of Arab Palestine. And bear in mind that the actual incident that triggered the uprising was a rampage involving at least 800 Israeli settlers in and around the al-Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, beating pilgrims and destroying Palestinian shops, all without any interference from the nearby Israeli security forces. The rioting was clearly allowed and even encouraged by the government.
So too in this case in Gaza Netanyahu may have decided to encourage an unexpected development, making it like 9/11, that would enable him to escalate and “mow the grass” as the Israelis put it, in the remainder of Arab Palestine. And bear in mind that the actual incident that triggered the uprising was a rampage involving at least 800 Israeli settlers in and around the al-Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, beating pilgrims and destroying Palestinian shops, all without any interference from the nearby Israeli security forces. The rioting was clearly allowed and even encouraged by the government.
Here is a 4 minute interview on Israeli broadcast media, with a woman who survived being taken hostage by Hamas in a kibbutz. She survived the Israeli army assault because she went out as a human shield with a Hamas gunman who wanted to surrender, and she shouted the purpose to Israeli soldiers, who could see that he was unarmed and mostly disrobed. She saw many Kibbutz members on the ground, dead "from the heavy crossfire", and specifically and repeatedly stated that they were mainly killed by Israeli fire. She left 11 other hostages and Hamas gunmen in the small house, and all but one woman were killed when an Israeli tank fired two high explosive rounds into the small house, and it fell silent. It was a surprise that one woman raised her head up among the dead bodies. Thanks to Cat and Gilad for this.
Israeli forces shot their own civilians, kibbutz survivor says Further, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari indicted the military does have some information on where they are being held in the Gaza Strip. However, reports from days ago suggest some may have already been killed.
Hamas had earlier claimed that 13 of the hostages were killed in Israeli airstrikes, but the IDF rejected this, saying "we have our own information and do not believe the lies of Hamas."
On Monday the IDF's Hagari sought to assure familes that "We are making valiant efforts to try to understand where the hostages are in Gaza, and we have such information." And he also qualified, "We will not carry out an attack that would endanger our people."
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/idf-notifies-families-199-hostages-held-gaza-vows-avoid-airstrikes-their-believed
Hamas ready to release hostages if Israeli airstrikes stop: Iran
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said Hamas officials “stated that they are ready to take necessary measures to release the citizens and civilians held by resistant groups, but their point was that such measures require preparations that are impossible under daily bombardment by the Zionists against various parts of Gaza.”https://thehill.com/policy/international/4258414-iran-hamas-israel-hostages/
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/biden-warns-iran-over-gaza-israel-forms-emergency-war-cabinet-2023-10-11/
Sy Hersh: Israel Gearing Up to Flatten Gaza, Wants Egypt, Qatar to Handle Refugees
Simplicius has a lot of information about the history and intrigues of Israel & Palestine, which is worth reading. (Note: Palestinians "die", but Israelis "are murdered".)
The only real workable solution that makes any logical sense is to institute the Two State Solution, which is something that’s already been on the UN docket and what every sane world power/leader has called for, including Russia recently. Palestine must be fully legitimized with all attendant rights and privileges.
But allow me to quickly answer why that will never be allowed to happen. It’s very simple: becoming a legitimate state means you are allowed to develop an official armed forces for that state. Recall that the reason Palestine is forced to use guerilla units dubbed “terrorist groups” simply for their hybrid style of fighting, is because Palestine is under illegal military occupation by Israel, and is not allowed to have its own armed forces. Were it to truly be a state, it would necessarily have to be able to develop its own indigenous, regimented military infrastructure. And given everything I just said about Palestinians vastly out-breeding the Israelis, why would Israel want a legitimate state with its own armed forces pressed right up against it, which will vastly outnumber the IDF in the not-so-distant future? In Israel’s eyes, that would mean the end of Israel.
So, of course that will never be allowed to happen.
But allow me to quickly answer why that will never be allowed to happen. It’s very simple: becoming a legitimate state means you are allowed to develop an official armed forces for that state. Recall that the reason Palestine is forced to use guerilla units dubbed “terrorist groups” simply for their hybrid style of fighting, is because Palestine is under illegal military occupation by Israel, and is not allowed to have its own armed forces. Were it to truly be a state, it would necessarily have to be able to develop its own indigenous, regimented military infrastructure. And given everything I just said about Palestinians vastly out-breeding the Israelis, why would Israel want a legitimate state with its own armed forces pressed right up against it, which will vastly outnumber the IDF in the not-so-distant future? In Israel’s eyes, that would mean the end of Israel.
So, of course that will never be allowed to happen.
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/israeli-conflict-takes-eschatological
"Israel's actions have gone beyond self-defense," Mr. Wang claimed, urging the Israeli government to stop what he called “collective punishment of civilians in Gaza,” according to the readout from China's foreign ministry.China Says Israel Has 'Gone Beyond Self-Defense' In Response To Hamas Attack
And in COVID-Strikes-Back news, the Gestapo ambushes and kidnaps Anti-Military-Pharmaceutical-Complex Attorney, Reiner Fuelmich on secret charges about finances.
BREAKING: Reiner Fuellmich Taken From German Embassy In Mexico On Passport Errand, Flown To Frankfurt and Arrested
They related to allegations of Viviane Fischer, a former team member on the Corona Committee, about financial wrongdoing.Three people signed the charges against Reiner.
Perhaps the craziest aspect of the charges is that the money Reiner allegedly took is in the bank account (or anyway, was in the bank account) of one of the 3 people.
https://celiafarber.substack.com/p/breaking-reiner-fuellmich-taken-from
Pedestrian (pictured mowing lawn with eclipse shadows on stairs)
John, cool pic!! It’s Marjorie. Here in South Carolina, we could not see anything cool like you did. I am reading your reportage on the current crisis…. Ugh. I have to say I am always on the underdog’s side as well, though I grieve for the casualties of innocents on both sides. Very much so! Pray for peace.
ReplyDeleteThank You, Marjorie. This seems like it will go on a very long time, so I pray every day for help to reduce the suffering in our world.
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