commentary editorials

By Caitlin Johnstone
October 10, 2023
5 minutes
gaza, hamas, israel, palestine, war
Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

Israel apologists get mad at me for criticizing Israel, but Israeli officials are saying much worse things with their own mouths about what Israel is than I ever have. editorials

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant has announced a “complete siege” of all of Gaza in response to the Hamas attack on Saturday, justifying the deliberate targeting of civilians with siege warfare by the claim that Israel is at war with “human animals”.

“I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed,” Gallant said Monday, adding, “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”

So there you have it, folks: they’re attacking civilians, which is fine, because they’re not actually attacking human beings.

There it is. The true face of Israel, naked and unadorned in the cold light of day. The mask is completely off now.

Israel apologists get mad at me for criticizing Israel, but Israeli officials are saying much worse things with their own mouths about what Israel is than I ever have.

A lot of evidence has come out casting doubt on the Wall Street Journal claim that Iran coordinated the Hamas attack along with Hezbollah. Moon of Alabama has a nice write-up of the glaring plot holes in the story, including the former employer of its main reporter saying he fired her from Reuters in 2008 because she “has a history of dishonesty and inventing stories.” Israel has also said it has no evidence Iran was involved.

Suspicions that the Saturday attack was allowed to happen have been given more weight by an Associated Press report which cites an anonymous Egyptian intelligence official saying Egypt had warned Israel “something big” was in the works in advance of the attacks.

commentary editorials

“We have warned them an explosion of the situation is coming, and very soon, and it would be big. But they underestimated such warnings,” the official said.

Egypt Says Israel Ignored Warning That ‘Something Big’ Was Coming
An Egyptian official says Israel downplayed threats from Gaza, Netanyahu’s office says the claim is ‘fake news’
by Dave DeCamp@DecampDave #Israel #Palestine #Palestinians #Gaza #Egypt https://t.co/t2Ouosr9NC pic.twitter.com/BDjE29SZqF
Antiwar.com (@Antiwarcom) October 9, 2023

Multiple US officials have deleted tweets calling for ceasefire negotiations to end the conflict. Secretary of State Tony Blinken and the Twitter account for the US Office of Palestinian Affairs both removed posts from the platform, the former calling for ceasefire mediation from Türkiye and the latter urging “all sides to refrain from violence and retaliatory attacks.” The exact reasons for the deletion are unknown, but the general reasons are politically obvious.

Prominent figures have been referring to the Saturday attacks as “Israel’s 9/11”, which should set off immediate alarm bells in everyone’s head. The most significant thing that happened on September 11th 2001 was not the three thousand deaths from the attacks themselves, but the dawn of a new age of western interventionism and military expansionism that would go on to kill orders of magnitude more people than died on 9/11.

commetnary editorials

That’s what you should think about when people begin comparing a new event to 9/11: not to the event itself, but to the mountains of unwise decisions of far greater consequence that were made in its wake. That should be an automatic association in our minds. We should become more skeptical and oppositional toward the warmongering agendas of our government and its allies when we hear things compared to 9/11, not less.

Today’s Murdoch Australian newspaper.
We know how the US responded post 9/11, indiscriminately and futilely.
Israel is being encouraged to act similarly. pic.twitter.com/T412mBpEe7
Antony Loewenstein (@antloewenstein) October 9, 2023

It’s hilarious that it’s 2023 and people still think calling you a terrorist defender and an anti-semite will stop you from criticizing the abuses of a nation which all leading human rights organizations have now labeled an apartheid state.

I built a new house. There were people living where I wanted to build it so I just started building it on top of them. They tried to stop me so I had to kill them for being terrorists. If you disagree with my actions you’re basically a Nazi. I have a right to defend my house.

Following the discourse on all this has been a good reminder of why you shouldn’t take the “anti-war” posturing of MAGA Republicans seriously. They’re fully on-board with a ton of warmongering agendas against Palestinians, Iran, China, and socialist governments in Latin America; they’re just anti Democrat wars.

A nation that cannot exist without nonstop war is not a nation at all — it’s an ongoing military operation.

A nation that can’t exist without nonstop war is like a house that can’t stand without nonstop construction. If I lived in a house that was constantly full of construction workers and the sounds of construction equipment 24/7/365 because if they stopped working on it it would collapse, eventually I’d figure I need to either (A) change the kind of house I’m trying to build, or (B) build somewhere else.

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The opinions & views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of APS Radio News or of its affiliate, APS Radio.