HAMAS IS WINNING THE (PROPAGANDA) WAR

Hamas is winning the propaganda war and that is what this war was all about. (See Blog: “The Consequences of Hamas’s Barbarism And The Genesis Of The Conflict, October 15, 2023)………. Abandoned are the Palestinians. What Hamas didn’t realize was that they were going to be ditched as well.  Israel’s carnage and world anti semitism are “The Resistance’s” big prizes. And of course Bibi Netanyahu can live another day till this tragedy ends and Israel returns to its founding fathers vision of justice, the rule of law and chesed, (kindness). But for NOW, for the Israelis. it is “Never Again”.

Once again our television screens are filled with the dystopian scene of sickening grey jagged blocks, fragments of grey cement, half destroyed grey buildings dotted with color, which, when the camera pans in, are pathetic Palestinians digging with their bare hands for bodies of loved ones dead or alive. The ragged children, some bloodied, some covered in white shrouds, some lying in makeshift hospital beds with fluid dripping into their veins are the visuals night after night. The immediate response of the world is revulsion. 

The Palestinians are despondent and angry. Those that didn’t listen to Israel’s initial warning are clinging with their heartbreaking possessions to the South. Hamas defiantly claims that their citizenry’s safety is Israel’s and UNO’s responsibility. And the world is agreeing to a greater and greater extent. The Secretary General of UNO claims that absolutely nothing can justify this counter attack.

The Israelis are still in fury at the blatant butchery from Hamas who had proudly and gleefully disseminated their savagery  on social media. Their babies were intentionally, and not as human shields, beheaded and kidnapped, and their grandparents were beaten and sped away on motorbikes. Empathy for the Palestinians’ plight is no longer front and center of the liberal Israelis world view. Blackened bomb shelters, punctuated by the dark red stain of stale blood, garish colorful remnants of a Peace Festival with the green of the Jewish agricultural settlements are still part of the never ending nightmare. A ghostly silence reigns over the Kibbutzim with mangled remnants of a normal day scattered around -  a broken world frozen in time.

In addition, there is the ugly unleashing of aggression by zealous Zionist extremists against Palestinians living on the West Bank. Although the latter is a sideshow compared to the black October 7 and the grey Gaza war, it doesn’t help the perception that Israel are the aggressors.. 

 The new morality is not whose right and and who is wrong. The more powerful are the victimizers and the weaker are the victims.  The world, too, has confabulated this crisis with the fact that the Palestinians have not as yet reached statehood. The complicated history of this tortured region is forgotten. Israel are the genocidal colonialists. (See Blog: “The Consequences of Hamas’s Barbarism And The Genesis Of The Conflict, October 15, 2023).

 

The world has accepted that the rising civilian mortality In Gaza is Israel’s responsibility, and daily demand a cease fire in massive anti semitic mob demonstrations. (See Blog: Gaza’s Civilian Crisis - Whose Responsibility), October 23, 2023). Netanyahu has countered he will give a full cease fire if all hostages are released. In addition the Israeli Defense Force has opened corridors to the South of Gaza for several hours. Eight hundred thousand Palestinians have left North Gaza but those that remain are bombed with the rocket launchers and the tunnels.

THE WORLD'S CURRENT PERCEPTION  OF THE PALESTINIAN CRISIS 

The wall to wall coverage no longer seeks to create even equivalency between the two warring parties. The CNN anchor asks the Israeli spokesperson. “How many civilian deaths are acceptable. How many were killed. What number do you believe were killed….?”. An MSNBC anchor argues that, “ …. the equivalent of 400,000 American children have been killed in Gaza….”..Anchors from both stations challenge the Israeli spokespeople as to Israeli intelligence that led them to believe, for example. that Hamas’s headquarters were in the Jabalaya refugee camp after they had missed the Hamas attack of October 7. Antonio Guiterras Secretary General of Uno weighing in that Israel had probably committed war crimes. Israel are held responsible for Hamas’s genocide of the Palestinians.

 The picture is chaotic with contradictory narratives flooding  perceptions. Israel's Prime Minister, to put it at its kindest, has a credibility problem. There are the dramatic poignant scenes, not so long ago, of hundreds of thousands of Israelis coming out, week after week, in protest to Netanyahu’s attempt to turn Israel, from an oasis of democracy in the Middle East, to an autocracy.

THE ISRAELIS AND THIS WAR 

Who can believe Netanyahu? Certainly not the Israelis, 80 percent of whom want any Premier other than him. He was warned time and again by the military and intelligence establishment that Israel was weakened by his totalitarian attempt to change the way the country has been governed for the past 75 years. Reluctantly however the Israelis accept that it is what it is. They are reassured of the role that war hero and former defense minister Benny Gantz obviously plays.

But there are other reasons why the Israelis accept this war unconditionally, including all those who turned out to protest Netanyahu’s obscene regime. 

First and foremost is that the Israeli Prime Minister didn’t initiate this war. What precipitated it, lest it is forgotten, is the most repugnant brutal savage cold blooded murders, the type of which, was hidden from view from the public in Assad’s and Putin’s annihilation of the opposition in Syria and beyond even the evil of Russian and Wagner group’s atrocities in Ukraine. 

Israel is a small country and everyone knows someone of the 1400 sadistically butchered, the 240 hostages languishing in Hamas’s underworld and are fearful of the names of at least a 130 unidentified persons whose body parts are so fragmentary that it is taking a team of forensic experts weeks and weeks to identify who they are. The fact that thousands of Israelis are praying that their missing loved ones may be hostages illustrates where the Israeli society is at. Lest anyone escape knowledge of any victim they are caught up in the mobilization of 300,00, Israelis, 30 of whom are already dead

Another reason for the unification of the recently divided populace is the background to this tragedy. Hamas has been at war with Israel for over a two decades.The iron dome first intercepted a missile from Gaza in 2011. Since then there have been literally tens of thousands of rockets, so much so that this had became a part of Israeli life. There have been suicide bombings and other attacks as well as Israeli counter offenses. So the Israelis see Hamas as a bow in Iran’s arsenal together with Hezbollah and the Jihadists in the region as a clear and present existential danger to their existence, all of whom have vowed to wipe Israel of the map and have no love for jews generally. 

Then there was Biden, the President of the most powerful country in the world, together with a phalanx of allies in the free world that validated the right of Israel to respond.

Biden’s validity didn’t only have its genesis in USA power. His support of the Israeli Prime Minister was all that more convincing because for personal and political animus. Biden had every reason to tell him to go to hell. They go way back. Not to mention, recently, when Biden gently told Bibi what he thought go his “judicial reforms”. In reply BIBI told him, not so gently, to mind his own business. Yet here was Biden explaining to the Israelis that their cause was right. He had come into a war zone and resuscitated Netanyahu, who hugged him, and united the country behind him.

So war it was.This was not about proportionately. The incredible opposition was mobilized for the fight as the Prime Minister marshaled the citizenry for a monumental war time effort.Those that had threatened non participation in the military signed up and more. The ultra orthodox who needed “judicial reform” to draft dodge, donned uniform.

There is no way that Netanyahu could call it quits this moment even if he wanted to. The dye has been cast. They are almost willing the most powerful arrow in the Iranian led “Resistance”, Hezbollah to bring it on. Once and for all they would fight for what they had hoped after 75 years - an Israel free from constant attacks.

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WHERE IS HAMAS IN ALL THIS?

At the time of writing Hamas has been abandoned by “The Resistance”. The much awaited announcement by the leader of Hezbollah produced nought for their comfort. Even if they came in at this late stage Hamas has been unmercifully smashed. Just as they had ditched the Palestinians in the struggle against Israel and democracy so too were they jilted. 

 Hamas has played, in the media, the role of victim and have the grey rubble and white shrouded corpses to prove it. When challenged for not protecting their citizens, a top Hamas official, Abu Marzouk, in an interview on Russian radio, brazenly countered that it was Israel’s and the  UNO’s “obligation”. In another communication the bland justification was to keep the Palestinian issue alive. Marzouk argued that under the Geneva Convention, Israel had to protect non combatants.The spokesperson claimed they had built the 310 miles of tunnels for the fighters, not for the civilians.

However, Hamas periodically attempted to mitigate its position in the world’s eyes. To that effect they released 4 of 240 hostages. Finally, they opened the Rafah border post into Egypt promising to allow all dual citizens an exit. Obviously the feverish behind scenes negotiations between Israel, the armchair Hamas “freedom fighters”, the USA, Israel and Qatar had brokered a deal. 

Hamas in the next breath threatened more black October the 7ths. They admit that if there is a cease fire they would do it again and again.

So Hamas’s position is, “sucks to morality”. And the world, out of sheer helplessness, buys in to a cease - fire and their unashamed savagery. They agree with Hamas that the blame  is Israel's.

THE ISRAELI ANSWER TO THE ANGRY WORLD

The Israeli spokespeople have a counter narrative. They had warned the citizenry for weeks to move South where they were least likely to be in harms way, via pamphlets, text messages and the like. They argued that their intelligence was corroborated on the ground. In fact everyone in Jaybalaya knew that Hamas operated in the tunnels beneath them. Their third attack near the hospital, targeting ambulances, was because it was loaded with Hamas soldiers and armaments on the way to the South. They reported that evidence is forthcoming. They needed to provide proof because they are seen to be inherently wrong. 

Again and again they elaborated on their protocol before bombing where civilians could be involved - phone calls, text messages and in the case of a house a gentle explosion on the roof. They contested the term "refugee camp" in an an area built up since 1947. As for the Geneva Convention, Article 13, places the onus on any military facility not to endanger civilians. Israeli military lawyers actually travel with them.

The humongous challenge to the Israelis are the network of tunnels which they need to destroy. However they have to be mindful that the hostages are probably there. 

The Axios Foreign Correspondent maintains that there have been humanitarian pauses. reinforcing Israel’s claim that they opened the border from the North for brief pauses. There is no way that 80 ambulances could cross Gaza to Egypt, a 100 trucks enter daily with provisions in return for allowing the foreign nationals out if Israel weren’t allowing this to happen as well is the flood to the South. It is obvious that deals were cut in Qatar. 

The Jews are once again THE eternal scapegoats. The rationalization just changes.....

MEANWHILE BACK IN THE WORLD AND THE USA

Incidents of anti semitism through out the world are up 1,150 percent since October 7.  France have experienced an exponential rise. Vienna the birthplace of Nazism has been particularly afflicted. South Africa is of deep pain to Jay H. Ell. Gone is the ethos and philosophy of Nelson Mandela who gave testimony of the overwhelming Jewish involvement in every level of opposition to apartheid.  The Rabbis in the EU have told the governing body that the situation on the ground is dangerously bad. Armed security are present in every Jewish facility across the world.

The USA situation where the Jews represent 2.4 percent of the population have received 60 percent of religious attacks. Christopher Wray, head of the FBI, issued a historic stark warning saying that the country was at risk for terrorist attacks from outside and inside. In regard to the latter it was the right wing extremist groups that were the potentially the most dangerous. Already a 5 year old Palestinian boy has been murdered and a Cornell student arrested for murderous threats to jews on the campus. The gun shops are reporting gun sales at a rate 7 times more than usual. Jewish groups have admitted that members are buying them.

The overall mood in the USA has not quite swung as reflected by the almost unanimous support for the Israelis in Congress. On the ground there is revolt from the hard left, the coastal campuses are aflame with bile as well as Trump’s extreme base.Trump promises withdrawal from all wars. Biden was challenged by a Rabbi at a meeting where she demanded a cease fire. He was at pains to explain to her why this would help Hamas regroup.

The most aggrieved demographic are the Muslim Americans. They feel they are being sacrificed by Biden in his initial unconditional support for Israel. He invited their leaders to the WhiteHouse to discuss their grievances but they appeared unconvinced. Biden has announced a specific strategy for Islamophobia.  There has been a disgusting counter culture reaction where legitimate Palestinian academics and authors have been deplatformed. 

The Muslims have a similar population to the jews in the USA and have also seen a 240 percent rise in the number of untoward hate attacks. The  vast difference between the hate crimes between the two has to be indicative that the right wing groups prioritize the jews. 

To add to the Biden’s woes is that he is also antagonizing the progressive wing of the party as well as the youth who have long ago taken sides. These are key constituencies and their defection could encourage support for third party candidates and hand the race to the twice impeached, four times criminally indicted, found guilty in civil trials for sexually molestation and for property fraud - only his penalty in doubt. However, as the November election results indicate, when push comes to shove, they will choose Biden over Trump.

All this adds fuel to the argument Blinken will pose to the war cabinet. This cannot go on for ever and Netanyahu cannot occupy Gaza. 

 AT THE END OF THE DAY

Biden, who faces challenges at home as a result of his international endeavors to maintain democracy in the world, has the most credibility with the Israeli population of any politician within or without the Jewish State. He has made his position quite clear for Israel not to act in “rage and make the same mistakes as the USA perpetrated after 9/11”. Biden has a seat in the War Cabinet. Bibi is in no position to tell him to mind his own business. USA’S warships and rhetoric have allowed over a month to pass before “The Resistance” could even think of meaningfully intervening.

Netanyahu’s dream of a totalitarian state is dead as is his desire for his legacy to have been, “I made Israel secure”.. His narcissistic attempts to save himself rather than the country are a permanent stain on whatever positive legacy he might have achieved.

A word of caution. Israel and jews generally are not spared from having racists among their number. Just look around.

There is little doubt in Jay H. Ell’s mind that whenever this war is over there will be a reorientation of the Middle East. So when the dust settles, and all the Israeli dead are identified, and the hostages released and the grey Gaza and black Kibbutzim rebuilt and the zealot Settlers on the West Bank are reigned in and the Palestinian Authority is re-established, a two state solution can emerge. 

But as matters stand, however this is sliced and diced, Israel is losing the Propaganda War and the bigots have found a new account for their anti semitism.