Al Jazeera's October 7 documentary undermines the conspiracy theory that Israeli leaders allowed the Hamas attack to justify the ethnic cleansing of Gaza – a plan Israel has been actively working on since at least 2007, when it appears to have received US approval. True, Israeli intelligence officials involved in the surveillance of Gaza had been warning that Hamas was preparing a major operation. But those warnings were discounted not because of a conspiracy. After all, none of the senior echelons in Israel stood to benefit from what unfolded on 7 October. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is finished politically as a result of the Hamas attack, and will likely end up in jail after the current carnage in Gaza ends. Israel’s genocidal response to 7 October has made Israel’s brand so toxic internationally, and more so with Arab publics in the region, that Saudi Arabia has had to break off plans for a normalisation agreement, which had been Israel and Washington’s ultimate hope. And the Hamas operation has crushed the worldwide reputation of the Israeli military for invincibility. It has inspired Yemen's Houthis to attack vessels in the Red Sea. It is emboldening Israel’s arch-enemy, Hezbollah, in neighbouring Lebanon. It has reinvigorated the idea that resistance is possible across the much-oppressed Middle East. No, it was not a conspiracy that opened the door to Hamas’ attack. It was colonial arrogance, based on a dehumanising view shared by the vast majority of Israelis that they were the masters and that the Palestinians – their slaves – were far too primitive to strike a meaningful blow. The attacks of 7 October should have forced Israelis to reassess their dismissive attitude towards the Palestinians and address the question of whether Israel’s decades-long regime of apartheid and brutal subjugation could – and should – continue indefinitely. Predictably, Israelis ignored the message of Hamas’ attack and dug deeper into their colonial mindset. The supposed primitivism that, it was assumed, made the Palestinians too feeble an opponent to take on Israel’s sophisticated military machine has now been reframed as proof of a Palestinian barbarousness that makes Gaza’s entire population so dangerous, so threatening, that they have to be wiped out. The Palestinians who, most Israelis had concluded, could be caged like battery chickens indefinitely, and in ever-shrinking pens, are now viewed as monsters that have to be culled. That impulse was the genesis of Israel’s current genocidal plan for Gaza. More from my new article We were lied into the Gaza genocide. Al Jazeera has shown us how can be read here: middleeasteye.net/big-story/gaza…
@Jonathan_K_Cook I think you are underestimating how useful 7/10 was to Netanyahu and how continuing the fighting continues his hold on power. He was doomed before 7/10.
@Jonathan_K_Cook It's possibly too late for Israel to step back from genocide. Israeli's are too immersed in the concept of Palestine belongs to them and is one State. It took total devastation and humiliation to demolish Nazism in the German people. I can't see Israeli's or arabs stopping.
@Jonathan_K_Cook There is definite merit in this analysis of Israeli/Zionist arrogance/supremacism. Maybe 7 Oct just fell into their lap, rather than it being a conspiracy. The ethnic-cleansing aspiration was probably always there though.
@Jonathan_K_Cook It's important that they've made this. And is also important to know that the picture presented is not set in stone as fact.
@Jonathan_K_Cook @CordeliaAppleb1 "No, it was not a conspiracy that opened the door to Hamas’ attack. It was colonial arrogance, based on a dehumanising view shared by the vast majority of Israelis that they were the masters & that the Palestinians, their slaves, were far too primitive to strike a meaningful blow
@Jonathan_K_Cook I agree in general, although we don't know enough to make a final determination on Israel's culpability for the 10/7 attacks. Certainly the incredibly slow IDF response is unexplained - every Israeli with a gun should have been in the fight in an hour, but didn't happen.
@Jonathan_K_Cook Watch THIS!
@Jonathan_K_Cook Israel : Above The Law? youtu.be/ueXEXjqXNvk?si…
@Jonathan_K_Cook The line is getting blurred as to exactly who's seeking and who's giving approval . It looks like the tail is wagging the dog !