Our 'Greatest Ally'

Questioning Israel’s Campaign and Its Relationship With the US

As the situation in the Middle East continues to escalate in a highly predictable way—and as it has become a focal social issue here in the States as well—there are a remarkable number of self-styled “awakened” individuals who are either afraid to acknowledge or are completely ignorant of certain aspects of this conflict.

Garden-variety conservatives, who are apparently just as much victims of identity politics as those on the left, have willingly blinded themselves to even the most glaring of red flags regarding the United States’ relationship with the Israeli government, its intelligence community and its immense lobbying power.

DISCLAIMER

To regard this work as anti-Semitic is reductionist and showcases a lack of understanding of its content and purpose. If being critical of certain actions taken by the State of Israel is anti-Semitic, am I also anti-American for being critical of the United States government?

I love my country, despite its history and current trajectory, and want what's best for it and its people. I feel the same about Israel.

Since the dawn of human civilization, self-serving individuals have had a tendency to gravitate towards the various levers of power in a society, chief among them being the governmental and religious institutions of any given culture.

For example, consider the United States government and the Roman Catholic Church. Both have, at one time or another—and more frequently than not—been manned by corrupt, self serving and even psychotic individuals.

These institutions have perpetrated some of the worst atrocities in human history, but does this mean that all Americans and all Catholics are bad people? Of course it doesn’t, because you cannot judge an entire population for the actions of a few.

The same is true of Israel.

Much like in America, there are many varying attitudes in Israel, and just like in America, there appear to be madmen at the wheel.

While I acknowledge that I don't possess all the answers, I do possess questions that demand a response. There are three questions in particular that weigh on my mind:

1. Is U.S. financial support for Israel’s military operations actually in the best interest of American citizens given the current state of our own nation?

2. Should American Jews be granted unique privileges and protections? And if so, wouldn’t this special treatment further fuel anti-Semitism?

3. How much control does Israel, particularly the MOSSAD, really exert over American politics?

I cannot adequately answer these questions, but I can provide my reasoning for even asking them.

The Great Silencer

For the political commentator, all discussion regarding the nation of Israel; particularly its history, its aims, its funding and its foreign policy, is like navigating a minefield while blindfolded.

The charge of antisemitism, particularly in the United States, has been an effective weapon for dealing with critics of Israel and its immensely powerful lobby, but it has also been used to silence people who aren't even talking about Israel.

For example, criticism of George Soros is always met with the scarlet letter of “anti-Semitism." 

This occurs still to this day despite the irony that the Foundation to Promote Open Society (FPOS), which is a part of the greater Soros network, funds the very same NGOs that are currently conducting a lot of the pro-Palestine, anti-Israel campus protests that are currently a focal point of conservative media.

Additionally, some conservatives who once championed free speech are now effectively being shepherded to endorse censorship, all in the name of protecting Israel from any and all scrutiny.

The charge of anti-Semitism, much like the words “facist,” “Nazi,” or "white-nationalist,"  is more often than not inappropriately used to marginalize critics, rendering them radioactive and causing their criticisms to be surgically removed from the public discourse.

For the last 150 years, people have liberally used the term, originally coined by a genuine anti-Semite named Wilhelm Marr, to describe everything from sincere, virulent Jew-hate to legitimate criticism of Israel and the Israel lobby. There is no attempt made to discern the nuance between bigoted hatred and informed criticism.

Former employees of the Israeli national intelligence agency MOSSAD have publicly acknowledged that they weaponized the term "anti-Semite" on purpose to silence Israel's critics.

The Israeli government not only reserves the label for the non-Semites, but also uses it against other Jews who hold ideas or philosophies that contradict its own.

An Example of Labeling Dissenting Jews Anti-Semitic

This inclination to label critics of Israel and dissenting Jews as anti-Semitic peaked (or reached a new nadir) in early 2007, when the American Jewish Committee published "Progressive Jewish Thought and the New AntiSemitism," a paper by Indiana University English professor Alvin H. Rosenfeld. Rosenfeld characterized a cohort of progressive American Jews who have expressed dissent towards Israel (including historian Tony Judt, playwright Tony Kushner, and Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen) as "alongside" a new anti-Semitism that denies the legitimacy of Israel's existence.

David Harris, the executive director of the committee, stated in the paper's introduction, “The most surprising—and distressing—feature of this new trend is the very public participation of some Jews in the verbal onslaught against Zionism and the Jewish state.”

The individuals who were the subject of Rosenfeld's critical analysis vehemently refuted his numerous allegations, and Rabbi Michael Lerner of Tikkun emphasized the repercussions of making unfounded accusations.

“When we talk to Congressional representatives who are liberal or even extremely progressive on every other issue, they tell us privately that they are afraid to speak out about the way Israeli policies are destructive to the best interests of the United States or the best interests of world peace—lest they too be labeled anti-Semitic and anti-Israel. If it can happen to Jimmy Carter, some of them told me recently, a man with impeccable moral credentials, then no one is really politically safe.”

Another prime target of the Israel machine is political scientist and activist Norman Finkelstein, whose book The Holocaust Industry certainly put a target on his back.

Below is a recent interview with Finkelstein where he very slowly lays out his view of the conflict:

We included the above scenarios, most of which deal with progressive types, not to endorse the beliefs of these ultra-progressive Jews, but to demonstrate how the term "anti-Semite" can and does apply even to Jewish critics.

In 2024, the term has essentially lost all weight and meaning; its unironic use is becoming almost comedic at this point.

Interestingly enough, coinciding with the rise of young protestors who are seeing what’s taking place in Gaza and having emotional reactions, there is a surge in what I would consider genuine anti-Semitism across social media. There were always edge-lords, and obviously there’s still a relatively small contingent of openly anti-Semitic individuals, but in the last couple years, anti-Semitic tropes have become commonplace on the internet.

It does not seem organic.

The spike in these anonymous accounts spamming anti-Semitic memes and sentiments has all the hallmarks of an influence op carried out via what the DoD refers to as “Interactive Internet Activities” (IIA). These accounts are almost always anonymous, or are edgy young female “sh-t posters” who create a sort of “simp-to-anti-Semite pipeline” for weak-willed men.

To me, it feels like an attempt to make the alleged scourge of anti-Semitism seem more real and pervasive than it is. You couldn’t talk about rigged elections, Hunter Biden’s laptop, or COVID origins without being shadow banned into obscurity, so the fact that these overtly vile, anti-Semitic profiles are exploding in number and popularity on Facebook is, to me, a giant red flag. Considering the recent push by Congress for censorship legislation that would penalize criticism of Israel, I believe my intuition is accurate.

Of course, these are just my personal observations.

I want to reiterate that the scope of this piece is not to cast shade on the Jewish people, but to show that the government of Israel is just as vulnerable to and guilty of corruption as any other government.

Some personal heroes of mine were devout Jews, typically Orthodox, and include; To Eliminate the Opiate author Rabbi Marvin Antleman and the late Dr. Zev Zelenko. Both men were deeply spiritual, and fought to spread the truth to the detriment of their own professional reputations, as mainstream Judaism and the Israel machine have thoroughly marked both of these brave men as undesirables.

Trump Breaks His Silence

One of the questions mentioned above is whether or not U.S. financial support for Israel’s military operations is in the best interest of American citizens given the current state of our own nation?

When it comes to foreign policy, especially war, Donald Trump tends to find ways to outmaneuver Congress and the litany of representatives who are beholden to the Military Industrial Complex.

People assumed that Donald Trump, a man who has shown great affection for Israel and whose followers often face false accusations of anti-Semitism, would fully support the Netanyahu government's actions in Gaza. However, entangled in the most intense lawfare campaign this country has ever seen, he remained relatively silent on the topic.

Israel Hayom, the most widely distributed paper in Israel, sent a couple of its journalists out to Mar a Lago in an effort to get a definitive statement from the candidate widely regarded as the favorite to win the 2024 election. The publication is owned by the family of the late philanthropist, casino mogul and political donor Sheldon Adelson, a self-proclaimed Jewish “social liberal” who also happened to be a conservative megadonor. Adelson is often credited with fueling the GOP’s pro-Israel shift.

It’s hard to imagine what these journalists, Hayom’s editor-in-chief Omer Lachmanovitch and Ariel Kahana, expected from the interview. You could try to guess based on the questions asked, but I do not believe they walked away with the answers they were hoping for.

The first question they asked Trump was whether or not he supports the “complete destruction of Hamas.”

Of course, the context of whether or not the systematic decimation of the civilian population in Gaza is going to be part of that endeavor remained omitted. Trump answered the question deftly by focusing on the fact that the conflict would likely never have happened were he still in office.

[…] if I were president, you would have never been attacked because Iran was broke. They had no money. China couldn’t buy oil from them because otherwise China wouldn’t be able to deal with the United States. I said to China. I said to many nations, 47 nations. I spoke to them personally. ‘If you buy oil from Iran, you will not do any business in the United States and we’re going to tariff your products.’ Every single one of them agreed and Iran did almost no oil business, you know that. Nobody would buy oil because of me.

They were broke, they had no money for Hamas, they had no money for Hezbollah, they had no money for anybody. And now they’re sitting with $221 billion in cash and they control Iraq which has $300 billion in cash.

It is like a subsidiary, whether you like it or not, it’s like a subsidiary because stupidly the United States went in and blew everything up. You know, you had two countries that were sort of equal in power and one of them got blown up by the United States. And now Iran has a big advantage in the Middle East over a lot of other countries.

[…] When I saw October 7th, it was one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen because there was no reason for it. They would have never, ever done that for two reasons: Number one, they were broke. And number two, I was the president.

In this masterfully constructed interlude, Trump lays out how his foreign policy actually prevented wars and conflicts like the one we are currently seeing in Gaza. It’s a reminder that, unlike previous presidents who were subservient to the might of the Military Industrial Complex, Trump made it a point to end the endless wars through strategic trade decisions.

He took the opportunity to remind everyone right out of the gate that the only reason this is even happening is because of these "blunders" and "mistakes" on the part of both current and previous administrations—namely the war in Iraq under Bush Jr., and the bolstering of Iran under Biden.

He then goes on to, in so many words, criticize Israel’s handling of the conflict.

[…] that being said, you have to finish up your war… and we have to get to peace. You can’t have this going on. And I will say, Israel has to be very careful because you’re losing a lot of the world, you’re losing a lot of support…

… you have to get on to peace. You have to get on to a normal life for Israel and for everybody else.

Personally, I think he answered these questions as tactfully as he could.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this piece, commenting on Israel’s behavior is like navigating a minefield while blindfolded, and Trump danced around that minefield with the grace of an omniscient ballerina.

The interview went on:

Q: We have seen a major rise in antisemitic attacks since Oct. 7. What are you going to do about it?

"Well, that's because you fought back. And I think Israel made a very big mistake. I wanted to call [Israel] and say don't do it. These photos and shots. I mean, moving shots of bombs being dropped into buildings in Gaza. And I said, Oh, that's a terrible portrait. It's a very bad picture for the world. The world is seeing this … every night, I would watch buildings pour down on people. It would say it was given by the Defense Ministry, and said whoever's providing that, that's a bad image."

Q: But terrorists are hiding in those buildings.

"Go and do what you have to do. But you don't do that. And I think that's one of the reasons that there has been a lot of kickback. If people didn't see that, every single night I'd watch and every single one of those... And I think Israel wanted to show that it's tough, but sometimes you shouldn't be doing that."

Trump was not a president who shied away from conflict when it came, but rather than follow the doctrine of endless war, he tended to end conflicts, typically by cutting the head off of the proverbial snake with surgical precision while minimizing collateral damage. He did this with both Qasem Soleimani and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and it seems as though he is recommending that Israel do the same.

Israel’s approach, however, has been the complete opposite.

Instead of utilizing their highly sophisticated intelligence gathering capabilities to find and eliminate the Hamas leadership, they’re razing Gaza with U.S. weaponry and further radicalizing not only Hamas, but all of Islam against the West.

To revisit the original question of whether or not U.S. support for this war is in the best interest of Americans, I’m inclined to say that it is not. Beyond the obvious financial considerations, most of the world sees the U.S. as directly responsible for the excesses waged against the people of Gaza, which further pushes other nations into the arms of BRICS, and most assuredly puts Americans abroad in greater danger of being targeted by extremists.

I am open to the possibility that there are aspects of this conflict that are unfamiliar to me and may change my current perspective. Should alternative information come to light, I am always willing to expand my understanding of the truth.

Context Omitted

A deeply ingrained fear of the “labelling” one typically incurs upon engaging in these discussions has dampened the public discourse, especially in regard to the events surrounding October 7th and who may or may not have had advanced knowledge RE: Al-Aqsa Flood.

RELATED: Did Israel Possess Foreknowledge of Recent Attacks?

As tempting as it is to look at this conflict as though one side is comprised of the altruistic ‘good guys’ while the other side are bloodthirsty animals, the truth is much more complex than that. The true warmongers, the usual suspects lurking in the shadows, want you to see it in those terms, whether you are promoting the wholesale destruction of Gaza or chanting, “from the river to the sea.” They do not care who you support, so long as you are invested in this war.

I covered this idea of polarizing the population into either the Israel or Palestine camps in a SubStack for Badlands titled War Pigs.

To me, the most likely, yet unutterable possibility is that the invisible enemy has effectively sold out both the people of Israel and Palestine.

Everything about this conflict appears to be surface-level, and for all elements involved, whether it’s the IDF, Hamas, Hezbollah, etc., the common denominator is the intelligence apparatus and, by extension, the Deep State.

U.S. intelligence has claimed that they weren't aware of an impending Hamas attack, and obviously U.S. Intelligence would NEVER lie.

The idea that the Hamas incursion was the result of an Israeli intelligence failure is a rather hard concept to swallow, considering that it would mean MOSSAD, arguably the most sophisticated Intelligence service on earth, AND the entire U.S. intelligence community (CIA, ODNI, DIA, NSA, DoD, MI, etc.) all somehow failed to stop a relatively unsophisticated militant group from carrying out ‘Al-Aqsa Flood.’

The above statement is, of course, speculation; however, there are aspects of the Netanyahu government’s response that really aren’t open for interpretation.

We’re told by mainstream outlets like CNN and Fox, as well as alternative conservative media stand-bys like Just the News and Breitbart, that Netanyahu is only targeting Hamas, though it’s been noted by concerned onlookers and Israel itself that “Israel’s right to protect itself” includes the complete destruction of Gaza, rendering the strip unlivable, and eventually assimilating the land as part of greater Israel.

It’s not completely unfair to call Israel’s current efforts a land grab or a real estate project, and the bombing serves the additional purpose of clearing that land for what will come.

Even though Gaza is currently under siege, there are vultures already salivating over the reconstruction process, a process that the UN appears poised to insert itself into regardless of who inhabits Gaza in the end. Much like the “reconstruction bank” launched by Chase, Blackrock and the Ukrainian Government, the UN and other institutions are already scheming to be heavily involved in the new Gaza, and will undoubtedly rake in billions.

Perhaps the strip would be a prime location for a new Smart City?

Pre-conflict Gaza might not have looked like Dubai, but it was quite technologically sophisticated, just not in a way that actually benefited the Gazans. In fact, it was probably one of the most highly surveilled places in the world.

As per Bloomberg:

[…]the digital network that monitors the city and its residents represents a variation on the data-intensive “smart city” concept — another way Gaza looks ahead to the future.

Since 2014, Gaza’s reconstruction has been managed through an online database called the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism (GRM). Updated in real time, the GRM records all the building material that flows in through its border, along with what it’s to be used for and who will receive it. The mechanism, designed to ensure that resources aren’t being used for military purposes by Hamas, was agreed upon by Israel and Palestine, and was meant to be temporary. But Franceco Sebregondi of Forensic Architecture says it puts Israel in an “ultimate supervisory role” […]

[…] The complex intimacy of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has turned the region into something of a proving ground for purpose-built surveillance technology that could be plugged into a future smart city.

The idea that Hamas was able to sneak around in the shadows seems even more unlikely when you consider the information above.

It is also worth noting that Netanyahu’s military actions have completely and utterly violated the Four Principles of the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC), which include:

(1) Distinction – “In order to ensure respect for and protection of the civilian population and civilian objects, the Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives.” [Additional Protocol 1, Article 48]

The only legitimate object of attack in an armed conflict is military personnel or property. This does not mean that civilians cannot be legally harmed or killed under the law, only that civilians and civilian property should not be the object or the purpose of the attack. **Protects non-combatants **

(2) Proportionality – “Loss of life and damage to property incidental to attacks must not be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage expected to be gained.” [U.S. Army Field Manual FM27-10: Law of Land Warfare]. 

The key here is the word incidental, meaning outside of the military target. This means that when considering a target, the damage to civilians and their property cannot be excessive in relation to the military advantage gained. Proportionality is not a requirement if the target is purely military. This principle brings with it an obligation to consider all options when making targeting decisions: verify the target, timing (is there a time when fewer civilians will be around?), weapons used, warnings and evacuations for civilian populations. **Protects Non-combatants **

(3) Military Necessity – “…[E]very injury done to the enemy, even though permitted by the rules, is excusable only so far as it is absolutely necessary; everything beyond that is criminal.” – Napoleon [Solis, Law of Armed Conflict p 258].

The principal of military necessity prohibits things such as wounding or permanently injuring an opponent except during the fight, torture to exact confessions and other activities simply used to inflict additional damage on the enemy that does not further the military objective. The Liber Code defines the prohibited activity as, “in general, … any act of hostility that make the return to peace unnecessarily difficult. **Protects Combatants**

(4) Unnecessary Suffering – “It is prohibited to employ weapons, projectiles and materials and methods of warfare of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering.” [Additional Protocol I, Article 35.2] **Protects Combatants**

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I still have 2 questions that I’d like to explore and hear the readers perspectives on that I was unable to get to in this article:

1. Should American Jews be granted unique privileges and protections? And if so, would this special treatment further fuel anti-Semitism?

2. How much control does Israel, particularly the MOSSAD, really exert over American politics?

I plan on diving into both of these questions in my next SubStack for Badlands Media. Until then, please feel free to offer supplemental information or criticisms in the comments. I am not trying to prove a point here; I am just trying to make sense of what I am seeing.

From where I’m standing, this current trajectory does not look good for Americans or for the people of Israel.

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