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No way can we interpret at face value the violent events inside and outside the breached “GAZA envelope.”

For starters, why should we believe anything that comes out of the mouth of the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, one of the most flagrant liars of our times. I find much more credible the cautious and measured commentary of Efrat Fenigson, a veteran of the Intelligence Division of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF).

To understand Ms. Fenigson’s account, it is important to grasp that the 2 million Palestinian inmates of Gaza are essentially locked up in an open air jail that is periodically bombed by the Israeli Air Force.

The protagonists that engage in these air attacks sometimes flippantly refer to their death missions as “mowing the grass.” Ms. Fenigson finds it inexplicable that the Gaza inmates under the direction of a political organization known as Hamas, were able to approach “unimpeded” the Gaza fence. The Palestinian inmates then broke through the fence at several locations.

Once the fence was repeatedly severed, there was “zero response” from the authorities. Another anomaly was that some border points were left open which basically never happens in Israel.

The commentator concludes that “this surprise attack seems like a planned operation on all fronts.” There was

“a failure to protect the people of Israel for sure, perhaps the biggest failure since the Yom Kippur War of 1973. The people of Israel and the people of Palestine have been sold to the higher power once again… There’s no way in my view that [the government of] Israel did not know what’s coming. Something is very wrong here. Something is very strange.”

The mainstream stream media (MSM) burst into gruesome commentaries chronicling litanies of reported rapes, pillage, hostage-taking, bombings, shootings and such committed mostly by young Palestinian men, some of them travelling for the first time freely cross-country in the land of their ancestors. They seized all manner of motor vehicles, sometimes stopping to express their pent up anger towards the Israeli population.

The Jewish state of Israel employs the jailers who have kept the incarcerated population of Gaza in a foul and overcrowded environment ever since they were born. Following their prison break some of the liberated inmates certainly committed crimes. They also have endured the imposition on their persons of lifelong unpunished crimes inflicted on them for no other reason than being born to their Palestinian parents.

Ms. Fenigson points to fights between the IDF and those engaged in the Gaza prison break. She notes to the contentions between the antagonists at many “outposts,” that is to say, on the most contested lands in the West Bank. Land and water stealing continues to take place and some of the Gaza escapees went to check out the status of the kleptocracy on the ancestral plots of their families.

Ms. Fenigson also points to the military nature of the censorship over news media in Israel, where officers of the IDF are exercising control over what can be seen and heard, both inside and outside Israel. The former IDF intelligence official obviously speaks from a place of deep understanding and the legitimate authority vested in genuine truth seekers.

The bombastic Benjamin Netanyahu was quick to announce that the Israeli government would unleash an unrestrained war of retaliation. He promised to “win,” whatever that means in this lose/lose scenario. Was this war being forced on Netanyahu or was he involved in a plan to give his government an opening into a strategy of extended extremism?

Such extremes might involve a realization of the Israeli Prime Minister’s longterm goal of orchestrating a US war aimed at destroying Iran? Are we presently seeing a major global realignment of military strategies that will cause a new sequence of major conflicts in Western Asia— in the “Middle East”— as well as a downgrading of emphasis on the Ukraine/NATO/Russia conflict?

All kinds of new geopolitical scenarios are being imagined and played out both in the region and globally. Concurrently many new factors are entering the weird dynamics of the sick and decrepit system of presidential politics that continues to be governed in large measure by the New York-Tel Aviv axis.

One of the terrible possibilities I see coming into focus, is that we are witnessing the pieces being put into place for a Middle East version of the “Final Solution.” Will this “Final Solution” be directed at eliminating Arab inhabitants from Israel and the accompanying lands under Israel’s direct control?

Extending the Radical Extremes of Israeli Politics 

To understand the possibility of such a drastic response to the Gaza Prison Break, it is important to realize Israel has never been governed by such a radical anti-Arab coalition in its entire history. By allying himself with the likes of Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotich, Netanyahu has entered the realm of the extreme Jewish Supremacist policies proposed by Rabbi Meir Kahane in the 1980s.

Kahane founded the Jewish Defence League subsequently categorized as a terrorist organization in both the USA and Canada. He sought the removal or elimination of Arabs from Israel and extreme apartheid until the goal of ethnic cleansing was achieved.

Kahane was elected to the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset, in 1984 as the sole sitting member of the Kach Party. He was then expelled from the Knesset whose governing body determined he was too radical to participate in the proceedings of that agency.

Now, however, Netanyahu leads a government that has pretty much embraced the extremes of Kahane’s policies. The huge demonstrations directed for many months by liberal Israelis against the Kahane-style extremists currently in power, suggest the radical nature of Israel’s current government.

On Oct. 7, the very day of the prison break, there was Benjamin Netanyahu, poised and fully prepared to declare full-fledged war on Hamas in order to eliminate the Gaza escapees altogether or get them back into their permanent pens in the Gaza open air jail.

Is it reasonable to draw from Efrat Fenigson’s testimony the inference that the Gaza Prison Break was allowed as a means of preparing public opinion in Israel and beyond for some sort of drastic attempt to implement a Final Solution to the Palestinian Question?

Ever since the Netanyahu family sponsored in 1979 the Jerusalem Conference on International Terrorism, Netanyahu has become something of a master at playing the card of invented or real Arab extremism. In the extravagant theatrics of the Charlie Hebdo event in 2015, the Israeli Prime Minister was strutting around Paris pretty much playing the role of the Napoleon of the Global War on Terror.

Netanyahu makes no bones about it. Israel benefitted significantly from 9/11. Those who imagine that this outcome was nothing more than a fortuitous coincidence for Netanyahu, can be accused of naiveté in the extreme.

On 9/11 a mythology was created of determined Islamic jihadists attacking America because they were said to “hate our freedoms.” This mass deception proved to be a part of the formula for harnessing the power of the US military apparatus as a very effective weapon for waging of wars for Israel’s benefit.

Now Netanyahu is at it again. This time Hamas along with the anti-Arab, anti-Semitic bigotry of the Zionist media is delivering Netanyahu the goods that he will try to parlay into getting the US government to invade and destroy Iran.

As the IDF cracks down on Hamas, the Israeli Armed Forces will also have to deal with Hezbollah whose fighters have already defeated those of Israel in Lebanon in 2006. As the conflict develops, many will want to point out that Mossad and related agencies had a big role in creating both Hamas and Hezbollah.

Around 2004, the Zio-American Empire was seeking ways of undermining the growing resistance swirling around Yasser Arafat, the Fatah Movement and the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

The more secular, nationalist, and and materialist basis of this whirlwind of pro-Palestinian activism was perceived to be vulnerable to the religious incursions of Islam. So the old imperial application of divide-and-conquer was recycled yet again by the inheritors of the Orientalist machinations of the Anglo-American Empire.

In 1947-48 this Empire was the source of much of the energy that coalesced in the creation of the Jewish State of Israel on the land of Palestine. Of course the Palestinian people were excluded from the negotiations and they were mercilessly attacked by those intent on making Palestine into Israel through violence.

Presidential Politics in the United States and Christian Zionism

Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy made an impassioned plea announcing his opinion that Israel should receive US backing for Netanyahu’s war on Hamas. Kennedy tweeted,

“This ignominious, unprovoked, and barbaric attack on Israel must be met with world condemnation and unequivocal support for the Jewish state’s right to self-defense. We must provide Israel with whatever it needs to defend itself — now. As President, I’ll make sure that our policy is unambiguous so that the enemies of Israel will think long and hard before attempting aggression of any kind.

“I applaud the strong statements of support from the Biden White House for Israel in her hour of need. However, the scale of these attacks means it is likely that Israel will need to wage a sustained military campaign to protect its citizens. Statements of support are fine, but we must follow through with unwavering, resolute, and practical action. America must stand by our ally throughout this operation and beyond as it exercises its sovereign right to self-defense.”

Scott Ritter quickly responded to Kennedy’s assertion tweeting,

“I like RFK Jr. I think he’s the best choice for POTUS. He’s positioned himself as the peace candidate. And this is the tweet I fear may have sunk his chances. Israel’s policies regarding Palestine are indefensible. Bobby should be promoting an equitable peace settlement. Not war.”

This ignominious, unprovoked, and barbaric attack on Israel must be met with world condemnation and unequivocal support for the Jewish state’s right to self-defense. We must provide Israel with whatever it needs to defend itself — now. As President, I’ll make sure that our policy…

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) October 7, 2023

I’m inclined to agree with Ritter that Kennedy’s response is not consistent with his message that humanity is doomed unless we can create some basis for reconciling human animosities that stop short of war. This same embrace of war is rippling through the realm of Christian Zionism organized by preachers like Rev. John Hagee. One of Hagee’s early presents from Israel was a shiny new jet.

The large and lucrative business of preaching Christian Zionism has gone far in transforming the imagery of Jesus into that of a proponent of wars for Israel. There is less and less room in evangelical Christianity for depictions of Christ as a champion of peace and reconciliation.

The present crisis is certainly serious enough to prompt some reflections on how to find an exit from the religion of war fuelled by the diabolical economic system that has made a tiny minority stupendously rich at the expense of everyone else. Bankers in close partnerships with war profiteers are prominent among the greatest scourges of our times.

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This article was originally published on the author’s Substack, Looking out at the World from Canada.

Dr. Anthony Hall is currently Professor of Globalization Studies at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta Canada. He has been a teacher in the Canadian university system since 1982. Dr. Hall, has recently finished a big two-volume publishing project at McGill-Queen’s University Press entitled “The Bowl with One Spoon”.

He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).