The Telegraph, October 9
As one obliged to eat his words on the events of 9/11/2001 (see this recent post for why) I can’t rule out the October 7 attacks in Israel being a false flag operation.
It should not be forgotten that Hamas was Made in Israel as a weapon against the PLO, nor that footage of Hamas commandos sailing in, 007 style, on paragliders …
… provided just the kind of theatrical touch required – 2023 equivalents of those airliners which had sailed with eerie grace and full tanks across the New York skyline – to galvanise a “public opinion” as malleable as playdough in our corrupt media saturated times.
Nor should it be forgotten that multiple breaches real or alleged, in the world’s most advanced intel and early warning systems, are common to both.
A consideration more weighty with me, however, will be how quickly and effectively the whole thing can be pinned on Tehran.
Two days on from the most barbaric and deliberate attack on Jews since the Holocaust, there is a growing understanding that while Hamas terrorists were responsible for the actual acts of butchery, Iran is the power behind the group.
Iran funds Hamas, supplies it and directs it. Hamas does not act without Iran’s involvement, and an operation as widescale as that seen on Saturday can only have been planned with Iran’s active support – and more likely at Iran’s instruction.
Iran is the world’s leading funder of terror ….
Stephen Pollard, Mail Online, October 9
Simplicius the Thinker, often cited here for his “sit-reps” on Ukraine, today makes a prima facie case for Saturday’s attacks as a false flag operation. I lack the depth of detailed knowledge to endorse or dismiss it but the tone is sober, the arguments logically consistent and the author a man I take seriously, though I do edit his written English to weed out repetition.
On the ground details will emerge slowly, selectively and, it goes without saying, be of suspect provenance. Meanwhile Simplicius adopts the time-honoured approach of asking, cui bono?
Israeli Flashpoint – Localized Skirmish? Or the Beginning of Major Global Black Swan?
The irruption in Israel caught many off guard but was a long-expected flashpoint escalation, meant to begin the denouement of the Ukrainian conflict by taking heat off from it.
There are many accounts of all the things that seem “off” about Hamas’ attack. I won’t recount every single point here as most of you have likely read of the implausible breach of Israel’s high tech gates and defenses, the unprecedented failures of Mossad and Shin Bet, and Netanyahu’s invocation of ‘Pearl Harbor’, which is telling when Pearl Harbor was also a false flag attack to bring the U.S. into WW2. 1
Hamas was partly or entirely created by Israel as confessed by high ranking Israeli officials – as a counterweight to the PLO, then dominant. A group so created may still be under their control, or infiltrated to the extent of being ‘steered’ into creating false-flags to benefit Israel. This is supported by evidence reportedly coming out that Hamas used Ukrainian-supplied weaponry, which would indicate a fairly standard Western intel weapons pipeline a la the Contras, et al.
My guiding principle is that almost no global event is pure happenstance, particularly when it’s in a related geopolitical sphere. The Middle East is tied in many ways to Russia, the Ukrainian war, and multipolarity in general.
Let’s go through some of the potential reasons for igniting such a conflict now.
As a corollary to nothing being happenstance in great power politics, what does happen is related to, or happens as a direct or indirect by-product of, the leading superpower; very little can happen under their purview without their go-ahead of some kind.
In this case we’re referring to the U.S., chief Hegemon of the world. But since the U.S. is no longer the only big kid on the block so we’ll look at why both sides might want this flare up.
So what possible reasons could U.S. have for inflaming the Middle East?
Recently, major strides toward multipolarity and the fracture of the Atlanticist world empire have been made. In parallel, Israel was moving toward normalization with Saudi Arabia but this is now “on indefinite hold” since KSA required Israeli concessions to Palestinians – now a dead issue.
Reconciliations, rapprochements, normalizations, etc. are dangerous for the Hegemon. War and conflict are its most effective tools in creating favorable conditions for domination, allowing the creation of division, the weakening of intransigent countries, ousting of their leaders, etc.
Netanyahu was facing increased unpopularity at home, with rumors that even the Mossad was helping to stage protests against him (revealed in the Pentagon leaks early this year).
One of the most utilized methods for a ‘strong man’ leader to assert strength, win back support, and consolidate power is to foment conflict and so create “emergency” restrictions on opponents, suppression of political speech, etc. This is a widely used tactic, most recently by Zelensky, and needs little explanation.
Imagine how an embattled Netanyahu might stir up a conflict to redirect patriotism and wrap himself in “glory” by destroying Hamas once and for all, securing his legacy for all time.
There could be a convergence of mutually beneficial incentives. Knowing Netanyahu’s situation, the U.S./UK may have cut a deal by which multiple birds are killed with one stone. Netanyahu gets his power consolidation and glory; U.S./UK get to wage war on a rapidly ascendant Iran.
This isn’t mere speculation, but is openly hinted at in a variety of ways by the West. Firstly the new bombshell that “Iran helped plan” this attack:
The West has been chafing to clip Iran’s wings for the past year. Iran is increasingly dominant in the region, following recent rapprochements, and has been instrumental in the energy wars and geopolitically—helping Russia in Ukraine, etc. Iran’s stock has risen enormously, and it was becoming far too large a threat.
Furthermore, recall the Syria theater has slowly begun activating lately, partly due to Ukraine, as a U.S. vector to weaken Russian efforts. But also because Iran has been making headway there as well, with Israeli strikes less effective and less frequent, while U.S. troops and bases have been under increased attack from Iranian proxies.
Assad, meanwhile, has likewise been growing in strength, jet-setting around the globe, making new deals. He met the Saudi minister for the first time since 2011, visited China for the first time since 2004, and other such feats.
We can infer then that the U.S. hegemon may want to mire the Middle East in a large conflict to weaken such adversaries, while claiming to be peacemakers ‘blindsided’ by events and seeking to curtail escalations:
In fact the U.S. just announced the dispatching of the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier group to the eastern Med. You don’t send that much firepower to make peace and de-escalate! And U.S. military C17 cargo planes are already landing in Israel, likely transporting new arms.
It’s easy to see how they might link Iran’s involvement in the Hamas attacks to a perceived ‘growing Iranian threat’ in Syria, and call for a wider offensive where joint Israeli-US squadrons bomb and weaken Assad’s forces, to keep Syria down. Martyanov covers this at length in his new video, including the military-specific prospects of a hypothetical attack on Iran.
But this could be taken much further. They may have a war to cripple Iran planned, at least its oil refineries, to cripple Iran’s economy and gut its influence. Pepe Escobar discusses this in a new post:
Yet there’s WAY more.
The dead giveaway is the Israeli rhetoric of a ‘Pearl Harbor’. Everyone knows what it means. Project Ukraine is dead. So the Masters of the Universe need a new war (“on terror”) to set West Asia on fire.
Peaceful West Asia means reconstruction for Syria, redevelopment for Iraq and Lebanon, Iran and Saudi Arabia as part of BRICS 11, the Russia-China strategic partnership respected and engaged all across West Asia.
The Northern Sea Route is already in effect, directly undermining the Suez Canal. One of the key themes discussed at Valdai at the highest level was de-dollarization. All of the above is anathema for the usual suspects.
Mossad and IDF caught by surprise is childish fantasy. They knew it was coming. The question now is whether Hezbollah will be coming to town.
The projects he mentions, the collapse of the Western dominated system, is key. Refamiliarize yourself with my article on the Heartland, and why this ‘middle passage’ through Iran is absolutely critical for the Hegemon to win the world. 2
Now that the West is on the brink, they may be going ‘all out’ to try and neuter Iran, which would have a domino effect on the region. Iran cut down would mean Syria’s fall, with Russia booted out and its bases closed, nullifying any Russian power projection in that region when northern routes are NATO dominated, with Finland and potentially Sweden joining.
Ultimately that would serve a much larger purpose—there are always designs within designs.
The ultimate grand scheme revolves around the Ukraine war, which itself revolves around the future China-Taiwan conflict.
There could be a variety of reasons to spark this conflict now, vis a vis Ukraine. One is a massive smokescreen to divert coverage of the Ukrainian conflict while the Biden administration quietly enacts its plan— discussed in the last report—to put Zelensky on ice and freeze the war.
Several recent articles show how little media coverage Ukraine is now getting, charts showing the slow decline given the failed counter-offensive. Now it’s bound to disappear from the news, replaced by a growing Israeli conflict and shrieks of one-sided outrage at atrocities—you know the kind carried out daily by the AFU on Donbass, which somehow fail to get media attention.
How, I was recently asked, do I envision the Ukrainian conflict being swept under the rug?. I gave several potential methods, one being to spark a new global flashpoint to divert attention. I gave examples, like pushing the Azerbaijan-Armenia situation into something bigger, working up the Serbia-Kosovo hostilities, simmering for some time now; but one I did not foresee.
Yet it’s the most brilliant one of all. Nothing buys media outrage like attacks on Israel. Since the media don’t care about murdered Armenians, if your goal is a media smokescreen to divert the West’s eye away from Ukraine, this is the way.
But is Israel does a fast clean up job on Hamas, won’t all attention swing back to Ukraine? Yes. For this theory to work, a wider conflict has to be sparked, perhaps involving Iran. The U.S. gets an excuse to dump Ukraine that would satisfy the most rabid pro-Ukrainian members of Congress. No one in U.S.-Israeli-owned Congress would hand-wring about U.S. blowing its Ukrainian ear-marked cash on Israel instead.
Keep in mind, I’m not yet fully supporting this theory as the main motivation for the current conflict; just offering it as a potential one. I’m still gathering data and waiting for more events to transpire to furnish us with clues …
* * *
- As with 9/11, corporate media on the one hand, ‘fact checker’ sites on the other, are big on ‘debunking’ talk of Pearl Harbour as a false flag but to my eye the only thing debunked is the credibility and funding of the ‘debunkers’. Who checks the fact-checkers?
- A ‘middle passage’ through Iran can be seen in the context, discussed here, of 500 years of the West fearing a Eurasia united east and west. For his part Andrew Korybko, though scathing of ‘conspiracy theories re the Hamas attacks, sites his own assessments of the current Azeri-Armenia conflict in this wider setting.
While I remained ignorant of the details of the attack against Israel, I accepted as given the attack was carried out by Hamas.
Thanks to your articles, both previous and this one, I am thinking that the whole escapade was indeed very sophisticated for Hamas – not impossible, but a little more improbable.
Rather than rush to judgement then, I reserve my opinion on where the truth lies and hope that you will continue your observations and present them, as you do, in your usual stoic and reasoned posts.
BTW, the chap that Jams referred me to is a good read which I enjoyed(see your previous post comments)
Me too, Susan. It’s The only sensible position for now. Anyone who says they know, one way or the other, is IMO a fool.
Good stuff Phil. I heard Brian Beletic suggesting that Netanyahu may be feeling that the window of opportunity to crush Hamas maybe closing as the US’s ability to continue to provide military hardware support in the medium / longer term is being called into question.
I haven’t yet checked out Brian B. Has he written on this?
Meantime, like Susan I’m agnostic. But whether or not the attacks are to be taken at face value, Simplicius the T, who sensibly leaves room for what we can’t yet know, sketches out useful geostrategic aspects in his cui bono? arguments.
a) It is unlikely that this war will extend to Syria. Russia would have to get involved, and even if they are concentrated on the Ukraine, they would still easily be able to deal with anything which could arise against Syria i.e. very little of any real importance, unless the instigator wants to be wiped off the map. A two pronged assault on Russias interests could easily mean WWIII.
b) Anyone (even the US) attacking Iran would get much much more than they bargained for. See Andrei Martyanov’s latest video which describes the vast extent of Iran’s missile capability.
c) Whether or not Hamas’s timing is convenient for anyone else, it is very much convenient for them, as it puts any Saudi/Israeli rapprochement very much on the back burner.
d) As Freud said, ‘Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar’.
Hi Jams. As I say, I don’t know either way. Other than those at the heart of the plot, if plot it be, nobody does. Meanwhile and FWIW, here are my top of head responses to your points:
(a) WWIII? Indeed, but we’ve ample evidence of the US elite’s recklessness.
(b) I’ve written myself on Iran’s well honed capacity to wage deadly asymmetric war. But that capacity is rising not diminishing, so regimes as reckless as Washington and Tel Aviv might think now or never.
(c) Agreed – but as an argument against a false flag op it’s a double edge thing. This bloody century has seen no shortage of devil’s pact/strange bedfellows.
(d) Was he responding to Magritte? Anyway, the operative word is “sometimes” …
Yes, there’s been an unseemly rush in some quarters to insist it’s a false flag. That’s no reason for others to rush – not your bag, I know; I’m speaking to a wider audience – to the mirror opposite conclusion. I can’t but feel that Andrew Korybko, cited in footnote 2, has done just that.
Egypt knew:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67082047
“Israel was warned by Egypt of potential violence three days before Hamas’ deadly cross-border raid, a US congressional panel chairman has said.
House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee head Michael McCaul told reporters of the alleged warning.
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu described the reports as “absolutely false”.
….
An Egyptian intelligence official told the Associated Press news agency this week that Cairo had REPEATEDLY warned the Israelis “something big” was being planned from Gaza.”
(Emphasis added)