I went into the Army believing that if you want peace you must prepare for war. I now believe that if you prepare thoroughly for war you will get it. – Sir John Frederick Maurice, Military leader
Israel is, without doubt, an exceptionally aggressive militarised society. They have been, since their illegitimate inception in 1948, not out of an authentic desire to protect against malicious enemies, but out of manufactured necessity.
The initial impetus for the foundation of a “homeland” for the Jewish nation, as concluded in a study by İbrahim Karataş, an Assistant Professor of International Relations at İstinye University, was provided by competing Western political interests, Christian religious ideology, and a pressing need to escape rampant anti-Jewish hatred and antisemitism. However, the eventual foundation of the Jewish (Zionist) ethnonationalist state of Israel was violently paved in Palestinian blood and subsequently nearly eight decades of continuous misery and oppression for the incumbents, who were tossed aside like yesterday’s garbage.
This study attempted to ascertain whether Israel was a Western or Zionist project
and has concluded that it was founded by the British Empire, backed by other
Western powers. The West wished to keep Jewish wealth closer and Jews farther
from themselves. The British Empire, France and even Germany tried to benefit
from Jewish money in return for a permanent home for Jews in Palestine. In
addition, they used Jews against each other due to clashing interests in the
‘Middle East’. While the French failed against the British in terms of exploiting
Jews, Soviet leader Stalin tried the same tactic by supporting the independence
of Israel in 1948 so as to break British power in the region. On the other hand,
Americans supported a Jewish homeland due to their sympathy towards Judaism and trust in Biblical claims about Palestine. Another factor that made Europeans
support Israeli state was to purify society from Jews. Anti-Semitism was at its peak
level in the 19th and the 20th century, sometimes culminating in pogroms.
Therefore, in line with this study’s theory that a nation-state can be founded by
its adversaries, they welcomed a national home for Jews, to which they could
emigrate. Overall, a Jewish state was a strategic tool for the West rather than
being a Western branch in the ‘Middle East’, at least before its independence.
On the other hand, the Jewish diaspora under the leadership of Zionists tried
to found their own state in the lands from where they were expelled 2000 years
earlier. While not all Jews supported the idea, rising anti-Semitism and the
Holocaust convinced them of the necessity of a state. Zionists used all their assets
to persuade the British Empire for a Jewish national home and to obtain the
support of other countries for legitimacy. Eventually, by spending an enormous
amount of money, lobbying, organising migration, forming militant groups and
putting pressure on Western politicians, the State of Israel was founded.
Therefore, their role in creating Israel should not be underestimated. However,
their soft power was not adequate to found a state without the support of
Western powers. Consequently, this study argues that Israel was founded in
Palestine with the help and permission of Western powers.
Since 1948, Israel has been in a constant antagonistic relationship with its Arab neighbours, particularly Iran, which it repeatedly reminds everyone is its biggest existential threat. While it has managed to hang onto a tenuous peace with some of its closest neighbours, Israel has frequently resorted to initiating warfare with others like Lebanon, Syria and even Yemen, which is not in immediate proximity. On other fronts, Israel has been compelled to maintain a vast propaganda network, including lobbying and paying off politicians from other countries, notably the U.S., in order to counter (legitimately) damaging narratives around its brutal founding, ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population, settler colonial land grabs, and apartheid policies.
Israel’s most shameless attribute, however, is its hyper-intense readiness for war and to strike without provocation, frequently using contentious surveillance technology, assassination of political opponents, and the mass killing of civilians through carpet bombing of densely populated urban areas. The Israeli Defence Force (IDF), which has its roots in Zionist terrorist organisations like the Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi or Stern Gang, has no qualms about who they kill or maim. The IDF is renowned for targeting children with the same zeal as humanitarian aid organisations and the media.
The Israeli government projects every prolonged military campaign as self-defence, invariably long after the immediate threat has been neutralised. Often, as in the case with the current war with Iran, Israel defends their initiating agression as preemptive strikes. No doubt the irony of using that cowardly justification is lost on them because former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower coldly dismissed it as unmitigated rubbish. It’s not out of place, however, since their conduct since 1948 has been strangely very much like that of the Nazis.
Preventive war was an invention of Hitler. Frankly, I would not even listen to anyone seriously that came and talked about such a thing.
In contrast, incumbent Donald Trump is very receptive to such rubbish. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has successfully convinced the President to jointly strike against Iran at the end of February after more than three decades of trying to twist the arms of his predecessors. While these former Presidents didn’t try to engage Iran in war, they all did try to uphold the glorious American imperialist tradition in other ways, like economic sabotage.
However, Iran has been preparing assiduously for the eventuality of Netanyahu finding a willing partner in war crimes with someone as unhinged as he is vindictive. After the first salvos in which America, in competition with Israel for covering itself in ignominy, bombed an elementary school for girls in Minab, killing more than 160 children. While Trump vainly tried to put the blame on Iran, there is mounting evidence of U.S. culpability.
Unfortunately, Netanyahu’s spiteful zealotry deceived him into underestimating both Iran’s capacity to defend itself and its skill in combat. Meanwhile, Trump did not help matters by plunging his country into another war they were certainly not prepared for.
Iran has surprised everyone with its defensive response, which over the last week or so has been a masterclass in tactical warfare. While Trump and his Secretary of War (sic), Pete Hegseth, a thoroughly unlikable former television personality and frequently alleged alcoholic, have been playing Cowboys and Indians like 5-year-olds with their maliciously conceived Department of War, Iran has been teaching them a lesson in warfare. I have written in a previous blog about how epically stupid their strategy has been.
While both Israel and the U.S. have the undeniable technological superiority and outmatch Iran in terms of sheer numbers, all this power is completely wasted in the hands of a vindictive war criminal, an egotistical conman, and an incompetent drunk who wets himself thinking about making war. I have little doubt that these three bigots are incapable of empathy, and would vigorously defy the conventional wisdom of the activist Ellen Kay, who observed that:
Everything, everything in war is barbaric. But the worst barbarity of war is that it forces men collectively to commit acts against which individually they would revolt with their whole being.
Iran has been pummelling many of the U.S. military bases located in the Gulf states and targets inside Israel. Meanwhile, Israel has placed strict censorship restrictions on the media and its own citizens, preventing them from releasing footage of the destruction being wreaked by Iranian missiles and drones. While the West continuously claims that its ally is the only democracy in the Middle East, this is not really revealing behaviour because Israel has pulled out all stops over nearly eight decades to conceal its true nature.
The censorship makes it hard to determine the exact nature of the destruction, but from the images that do manage to sneak through on social media, which are proven not to be AI-generated, it would appear as though some Israeli neighbourhoods are starting to resemble those of Gaza, which were flattened by more than two years of Israeli carpet bombing. It’s almost as if Netanyahu inadvertently ordered a remodelling of his beloved skyline by Iranian contractors.
While it gives me little pleasure to admit that this may be one of the most satisfying instances of the proverbial fuck around and find out, I make no apology for contemplating it. Indeed, there is very little justice in the world, and Iran’s revenge may very well be a little slice of it.
lenny unencumbered 