Warmongers Are Using Gaza Violence as a Pretext for War with Iran. YES, that was ALWAYS the PLAN.

The response in the United States to the surge of violence between Palestinians and Israelis holds no surprises whatsoever.  The usual bipartisan contingent of pro-war figures in the political arena, the policy community, and the corporate news media presented a predictable narrative from the outset that quickly became dominant.  Proponents parroted familiar clichés that portrayed a complex struggle as a stark morality play with nothing but innocent victims on one side and monstrous villains on the other.  Typically, President Biden labelled the Hamas attacks as “pure, unadulterated evil.”

Such “logic” leads to the inescapable conclusion that the United States must support Israel enthusiastically and without reservation.  The New York Times established the tone in an October 9, 2023, editorial.  Members of the editorial board stated that “President Biden is right to express America’s full support for Israel at this painful moment. The United States, as its closest ally, has a critical role to play.”

It is the same script that America’s pro-war elites used with respect to the conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo, the two wars with Iraq, and the disastrous meddling by the United States and its allies in Libya, Syria, and Ukraine.  The motive is the same as well – to whip-up public support for the client that the U.S. government is backing and visceral hatred for the “aggressor.” Such imagery also is designed to create sentiment in favor of a possible direct U.S. military intervention.

Two dominant themes have emerged from the latest propaganda offensive.  One is that the Palestinians are entirely to blame for the bloodshed.  To be sure, Hamas contains nasty terrorist elements. Some of the organization’s tactics in the new offensive (especially the taking of civilian hostages, and credible reports of gruesome murders) are reprehensible.  However, there is a pervasive unwillingness among Israel’s supporters in the West to concede that the country’s appalling behavior toward Palestinians (especially in Gaza) contributed to the latest outbreak of violence.  Yet Human rights advocates have aptly described Gaza as the world’s largest open-air prison.