Hamas and Israel’s black year

Following on the Sheikh Jarrah post, we see that the current bombings and air strikes in Israel and Gaza are more than a flash in the pan or an isolated event. This is the end result of interventions in the region of the Levant and the larger region of West Asia that have been ongoing for at least a century, having possibly reached the end of their line in Israel, now in the throes of what just might well be the final showdown between the Palestinians and the Zionists. If events go according to plan – yes, there is a plan – the peoples of West Asia will no longer have the Zionists to meddle in their affairs, which means the Western powers will no longer have their ‘land-based aircraft carrier’. What follows will not be easy to read, as events have gone beyond any reasonable hope of a peaceful resolution to the current crisis, the reason for saying so to be outlined in this post. But in understanding the strategies working out, a door opens to a brighter and peaceful future for the region.

Lest we have any illusions about Gaza, here are a few stats before we begin:

• Of the 2.1 million inhabitants of Gaza, just over half are under 18 years of age
• Around 70% of Gaza’s inhabitants are refugees or descendants of refugees. By international law, the children of refugees are also refugees.
• Under international law, Gaza is still an occupied territory. Its perimeter, air space and territorial waters are sealed. All the infrastructure is controlled by Israel.
• Gaza is by definition the largest open-air prison in the world, a result of the blockade
• 96% of the water in Gaza is unfit for human consumption. 80% of the people of Gaza live on international humanitarian aid. 50% of the population of Gaza is unemployed. About 70% to 75% of the young people are unemployed.

That is Gaza today. Israel is committing crimes against humanity against Gaza, as well as war crimes with its current bombing campaign. For reasons to be outlined below, in no way can Israel’s retaliation and attacks on Gaza be called ‘self-defense’, except in the sense that it is currently in process of attempting put down an armed insurrection in an effort to re-establish dominance.

To begin, there is a curious and telling parallel between what is happening in the region of Israel and what happened in South Africa. Along with the creation of Israel in 1948, the apartheid regime was established in the same year in South Africa. The latter regime came to a violent end, and we are seeing the same sort of chain of events in Israel. South Africa remains segregated for all intents and purposes. Israel is now classified as an apartheid state, much to the objections of the Israeli establishment. This has been a key development, as one of Israel’s human rights organizations is one which has just declared Israel to be an apartheid state. And Israel also contributed to the continuance of the apartheid regime in South Africa during the latter’s existence. We must bear in mind that France, the UK and the US all bear culpability in the creation and continuance of the Israeli state and its continued and violent orientation, which resulted from the breakup of the Ottoman Empire.

Elijah Magnier has posted two analyses of the events of the past few days in Israel thus far, and his comments will be reflected in those below, also confirmed by other observers. It would be useful to read his reports first. There is no paywall, but you do have to subscribe to read a full article. Although the violence in Israel had sharply escalated in the last days, a definite plan behind the conflicts is revealing itself. There was a plan on both sides – Israeli and Palestinian. The liberation of the Palestinians and ousting of the Zionist regime and dismantling of the apartheid state is within sight, even if it takes a year or two yet. In the meantime, there will be suffering on all sides, especially by the Palestinians.

We covered the astrology of the present escalation in the first post, so there will only be bits to add here and there in this one. To get an idea of what is happening and why the violence on the part of Hamas has been deemed necessary on the part of the Palestinian resistance, as disturbing as it is, there is a video by a Canadian expat living in Israel, well documented, which explains how Israel has become the political machine that is currently in place, its policies against all non-Jews in Israel, its plans for the future and why action had to be taken now. The latter point will be explained below. There is also another video by The Grayzone, which tells the story of Gaza and why their missiles are flying into Israel, and why the Palestinians are finally standing united.

The videos just linked are disturbing enough, but should be watched in full to understand the current Israeli state and Gaza. The present make-up of the Knesset is a majority coalition of Nationalist and Supremacist parties, bent on removing the Palestinians from all of historical Palestine. With these points in mind, the political situation in Israel at this time has been the catalyst for the current escalation. The plans on both sides of the conflict are outlined below.

The plan on the Israeli side was based in domestic politics and four failed elections, reflecting political instability in the nation. Something had to be done. The establishment plan was to instigate the conflict in order to give Bibi Netanyahu a victory, in order to shore up his flagging fortunes, delay new elections and keep him from going to jail.

The large show of IDF force with the war games (“Operation Chariots of Fire”) – explained in the previous post – was seen in Lebanon by Hezbollah as preparations for a real war against Hezbollah, and was intended to 1) prepare the Israeli military to go into Lebanon and rid Hezbollah of its thousands of missiles (It is said they can launch 2,000 a day against Israel, and those are high-precision, long range missiles.), and 2) to give the Israeli public the perception that Bibi has everything under control and that he should stay on as PM. It needs to be stated that current Israeli majority leadership is far-right and nationalist. It could be described as a type of Zionist Wahhabism.

The other part of the plan was put in play by the Israeli settlers and far-right leadership in Sheikh Jarrah and later by the military in Al-Aqsa, which by their thinking would be easily put down, order thus being restored and the Palestinians ‘put in their place’. Bibi would have had a small victory with putting down the protests, the public reassured. The Israelis obviously miscalculated.

It is important to note that the war games and the Al-Aqsa incidents were virtually simultaneous, and were more likely than not coordinated, taking place to give maximum impact to the Muslim populations in the region, coming at the last week of Ramadan.

Since the escalation in conflicts in Israel, the war games have been called off, thousands of reservists have been called up, Israel appears to be on the verge of a civil war in its major cities and Hamas has rained missiles down on cities across Israel, panicking the public. The Israeli plan thus far has failed, the government taken aback by the developments.

Now we come to the larger plan, and hints of it were given in Nasrallahs’s (Hezbollah leader and spokesman) speech on al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day on the 7^th. The following stands out:

“…the Axis of Resistance must be even more united and attached to the cause, and it already is, it must increase its readiness (for the final war), it must strengthen itself further, because it is the Axis of Resistance that will shape the future of the Middle East.”

And then this, addressing the Israeli leadership:

“…you know (very well) that this entity (Israel) has no future, that it is on the verge of extinction and that it has little time left to live, very little time. Therefore, in this battle you are wasting your energy, and your young people are wasting their youth and their blood, in vain and to no avail.

Either way, the sound logic that must be imposed on all occupiers and invaders is as follows: give back the land you have occupied to its true owners, and go back to where you came from. Otherwise you will be expelled in one way or another, by force or otherwise. This land belongs to the Palestinian people and the peoples of this region, in the diversity of their religious and doctrinal affiliations, but this land is by no means for Israel or for the colonizers, occupiers and settlers from all over the world.”

Emphases added. Nasrallah is not known for hyperbole or lying. He is always straight-spoken and to the point. His words highlight two truths that must be evident to anyone who has studied the region:

• The Israelis, at least those who are right-leaning, will never willingly share Israel with the Palestinians. The former’s indoctrination and conditioning is complete. They believe themselves to be the rightful owners of the Palestinian lands and they believe themselves to be exceptional, seeing the Palestinians as 2^nd-class citizens or even as a 5^th column. Further, they commonly state, at least in the right-leaning members of Israeli society, that the Palestinians should either leave or be killed. How could there ever be equality in a single or two-state solution given those sentiments?
• The Oslo Accords, the Camp David Summit and the Taba Summit have all been shown to be meaningless, as well as a ruse, evidenced by Israeli settlers continually pushing Palestinians off their lands to the present day. Sheikh Jarrah was the last straw. There will be no two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian struggle. The Abraham Accords were the final statement to the fact. The absolute minimum the Palestinians want is the Israel of the 1948 boundaries, with settlers ejected from the Palestinian regions. They would be happier if the full of Palestine were restored.

The proverbial writing is on Israel’s walls. On the side of the resistance, a rather interesting plan has emerged, which is in its initial stages and has at its heart four purposes, all of which thus far have been fulfilled, so long as the violence does not go on for too long. Those three purposes are:

• To establish escalation dominance, meaning Hamas controls the pace of the conflict.
• To break the prestige of the Zionist regime. We see this in worldwide protests in solidarity with Palestinians and increasing denunciations of Israeli heavy-handedness and its apartheid state.
• It has united all Arab and Palestinian groups in Israel and surrounding regions (there are millions of Palestinian refugees across West Asia) in common cause against Israeli injustices and occupation.
• To demonstrate the increased capabilities of the al-Qassam brigades and to show the ineffectiveness of Israel’s vaunted Iron Dome air defense system against missile barrages.

Addressing the first point, above, Hamas and Gaza are the key to the outcome of the conflict and Nasrallah’s forecast and so long as is possible, will stand on their own against the Israeli military. Hamas is the only armed resistance within the 1948 boundaries. Their actions have served to stir the resistance across Israel back to life. Hamas can continue its barrages for at least six to eight months. To stop those, Israel would have to invade Gaza, fearing what may be in store for them should they proceed, and thus far they are very reticent to do so.

The figure of six to eight months may seem rather fanciful. But there is another video, also worth watching to the end, that shows how and why Hamas can continue the fight for some time. These are very resourceful, dedicated and determined people. And now they have full motivation. They have an extensive underground system of tunnels and they have developed quite an arsenal. They have the ways and means to continue. Hamas would have thousands of missiles stashed safely away. They do not need to import missiles. They are perfectly capable of making them ‘in-house’.

To understand why trying to stop Hamas by simply bombing them will not work, aside from the preceding points, we need only look at past Gaza wars. Israel bombed Gaza for 51 days in the 2014 war. We are only just over a week into this one. That war ended in a ceasefire. However, the damage to Israel at that time was minimal. To this point in the present escalation, a war has not been declared. But since Hamas launched Operation “Sword of al-Quds” on the 11^th, Israel’s economy has taken a big hit from Hamas.

Israel is not in a position to go on like this for 6 – 8 months, given the rate of drain on its economy, the increased destructive power Hamas are bringing to bear on Israel, the widespread protests across Israel’s cities and the rising voices across the world in support of the Palestinians.

It is worth noting the 11^th of this month was the exact Mars activation of the total solar eclipse of 2 Jul 2019, which fell on the Neptune of the 1988 State of Palestine chart, showing the activation of the massed Palestinian idealism and sense of outrage. The only other Mars activation of that eclipse was on 2 Mar 2020, which was an election date in Israel, which Bibi also lost. It was also at the start of the pandemic.

It is also worth noting the 15^th of May marked the commemoration of the Nakba, 73 years ago, which is also known as the Palestinian Catastrophe. The day marked the end of the British Mandate, the destruction of Palestinian society and homeland, the displacement of the majority of the Palestinian population at the time and the instatement of the Israeli state the day before.

But speaking of Hamas brings up a most inconvenient matter, especially for supporters of Israel: Israel was instrumental in the creation of Hamas. What Israelis are experiencing now from the bombardment by Hamas amounts to blow-back, the result of a very wrong-headed policy of divide-and-conquer on the part of the right-wing in Israel’s establishment in the early days of Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation. Hamas was meant as a counter-measure to push back against Yassar Arafat’s Fatah Party. At least that was so from Israeli thinking. And to a larger concern, at least for the US, a socialist movement (represented by Fatah) could not be allowed to take root in Palestine.

What was to become Hamas was put into motion by a small group of men meeting at the house of the cleric Akmed Yassim on 10 Dec 1987, the day following an incident where an Israeli truck crashed into a car full of Palestinians at a checkpoint, killing four Palestinians. On the day of the meeting there was a small stellium in the chart which formed a midpoint, Saturn=Sun/Uranus: “Rebellion against limitation of freedom, inhibitions and difficulties are overcome through extraordinary efforts. – Sudden separation, sudden loss, a separation from another person carried out in haste.”

We don’t have a time of day for the chart, but even a noon chart shows the characteristics of Hamas to a ‘T’ (below, bigger). There was also a Mars/Pluto conjunction on the day, adding to their great tenacity and the inclination to use force at every opportunity.

We won’t cover the chart here, except to add the following: If there is any sense of will and a strong survival instinct, a person or a people who feel they have nothing left to lose will fight, and to the last breath if need be. There are many Palestinians who feel themselves to be in that situation, especially given the events of last year. With the Abraham Accords, they saw themselves about to be thrown under the bus by their Arab neighbors, with the green light being given to the Israelis to make a grab for the remainder of the 1948 borders. This can be seen as having greatly contributed to the present unity among Palestinians and the strength of their responses.

With the violent suppression at Al-Aqsa, Hamas saw their chance, and seeing themselves as the protectors of Jerusalem, they launched ‘Operation Sword of al-Quds’. On the 11^th, transiting Mars was trine the Mars/Pluto conjunction in the Hamas beginnings chart, showing the military aspect and their confidence of success. The directed Sun had been on the Hamas Ceres, showing the turning point in their fortunes and the crossroads in their path. The directed Sun was exact on the Hamas Ceres at the signing of the Abraham Accords. If the preceding chart is true for Hamas (I am still checking sources, et al.), then the path forward was clear to them. Giving up was not an option and the only thing that would turn the tables on the Israelis was military action and a united Palestinian populace. Hamas had been biding their time and planning since the Abraham Accords.

The Israelis enabled the creation of the very movement they see as the terrorist organization which they now want to destroy, and which may instead lead to the destruction of the very factions in Israeli government who funded and supported the creation of Hamas in the first place. With the preceding background in mind, we can begin to parse some of the details of the emerging plan by the Resistance, who are in full support of the Palestinians, which will see some fulfillment in the immediate months ahead.

To the 2^nd bullet point above, Hamas did not enter the fray willy-nilly. Its intervention was well planned and timed to be the most effective. They waited until the Israelis miscalculated and then gave the Israeli forces several hours to stop attacking the civilian population in Jerusalem. The Israelis lit the fuse in Sheikh Jarrah and Al-Aqsa.

In its hubris, and in a show of faulty intelligence about Hamas, the Israelis were shocked to find the al-Qassam brigades in Gaza followed through on their ultimatum, catching the IDF and Bibi completely off guard. Bibi is now reported to be running around with no plan, trying to put out fires as they crop up, figuratively speaking.

The Iron Dome system has not been able to stop all the rockets from Hamas from hitting Israeli targets. Between 10 – 20% of Hamas’ rockets get through the defenses. This has been a critical development. It is also draining the Israeli economy. Aside from commercial and domestic disruption, each Iron Dome interceptor costs $60 – 80 thousand dollars, and thousands have been fired thus far. There is often doubling-up of interceptors against targets. In distinction to the interceptor rockets, those of Hamas cost a mere 1/10^th of the interceptors. And Hamas has not used its best rockets yet. The intensive bombing of Gaza by the IDF is an effort to restore deterrence against Hamas, but thus far it is not working.

There has been speculation of an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza, but that appears to be off the table. The IDF fears too many losses among its troops as well as the traps that would be set for them once they enter Gaza. A ground invasion could also bring some of the outside resistance forces into the fray in Gaza, so the IDF is weighing its options carefully.

The missile attacks have shown a marked decline, as the Israeli side is rumored to be running out of missiles. As a measure, the Iron Dome is intercepting fewer and fewer of Hamas’ missiles, showing the depletion that has eventuated. Israel is now at its most vulnerable from the air. If the rest of the Axis of Resistance wanted to jump in and ‘finish the job’, now would be the opportune time. Why, then, do they sit and watch? They could easily overwhelm the IDF, with the capability of Iran and Hezbollah combined and alone to launch 22,000 missiles a day at Israel. But that is not the plan.

The preceding figure about Hezbollah and Iran’s abilities may be exaggerated, even though the IDF and the US military have acknowledged the claims. At even at half that number, it would still easily overwhelm Israel’s air defenses as well as its air force. As of current estimates, since the 7^th, Hamas has launched over 3,000 missiles. And now they are using drones, one of which just hit a chemical plant. What is going on, then?

The fact that none of the other resistance parties external to Israel are looking at intervening suggests that at this stage the plan so far is to hold a line externally and to internalize the process of ousting the regime and ending the apartheid state. This will take time, but would be in line with Nasrallah’s statements, preceding. If Hezbollah were to intervene then Israel would be cast as the victim and would take the focus away from Gaza and the Palestinians, as well as involving Western powers. The Israeli establishment is already playing the victim, and while there are innocents dying from Hamas missiles on the Israeli side, their losses are dwarfed by those within Gaza.

Hezbollah’s abstention would also avoid a regional war, which no one in the region wants. They have their own problems in Lebanon, besides. There is also something in this plan about showing up the complicity of the political leadership of Hamas (Abbas) in Gaza as having been enabling the apartheid system in Israel.

The Israeli Jewish population is enraged at the violence, which is as much a measure of the shock realization they can be so defenseless, as it is a demonstration and out-picturing of their fears, frustrations and sense of entitlement. For their part, the new generation of Palestinians has found their voice, emboldened by what they are seeing, and they want the return of the occupied territories to Palestinian control.

Hezbollah is the wild card here. Speculation is rife. Will they intervene or not? Reading between the lines, adding my own to other speculations and based in Israel’s astrology and the points in the preceding post, the current bombardments and tensions are a first step in a longer plan, which at this point is to put the Zionist regime on the back foot as Hezbollah has done in Lebanon, wreck its prestige and to destabilize the government further. Bibi may win a pyrrhic political victory in the interim by rallying his right-wing supporters, but it will not help him in the longer term.  

In short, the aim would appear to be to make the Zionists flinch and push for a ceasefire. Thus far, Hamas has rejected any ceasefire proposals. The Israelis have asked the Egyptians to broker a ceasefire. Hamas stands firm in their condition that Israel must stop its hostilities before a ceasefire will eventuate. This is another example of escalation dominance.

And the mood is shifting in the Western establishments, too, beginning a slight shift to the Palestinians. Even The Guardian stated the obvious a few years ago, that the creation of Israel was a mistake, with more independent media beginning to take up the call. Instead of Washington ‘standing with Israel’ and continuously parroting the ‘Israel has a right to defend itself’ line, for instance, Biden is now ‘expressing support for a ceasefire’ to Netanyahu. The battle between Hamas and Israel could end with a phone call.  All Biden would have to do would be to pick up the phone and tell Bibi to call a halt, or lose American funding. Instead, we have ‘support’ for a ceasefire.

This present uprising in Israel is also showing all the hypocrisy of Western governments. The Global South is watching intently. China, who is the current leader of the UN Security Council for May, has made calls at emergency sessions at the UNSC three times for condemnation of Israeli bombings and a UN resolution on a ceasefire, each time vetoed by the US. All other UNSC members support the resolution. Hamas has pierced the prestige of the West, too, along with that of Israel.

There is far more we could add. The IDF has run out of military targets and is now bombing civilian areas. On top of that, the IDF has just been called out for using illegal white phosphorus artillery rounds, while the US had just OK’d $735 million of military aid to the IDF, the bulk of which are JDAM attachments, which turn ‘dumb’ bombs into guided missiles.

This is an important battle, and it is a battle of wills and for hearts and minds more than it is about dominance at the moment. That will come later. A victory by Hamas, by forcing the Israelis to accept a ceasefire, will turn the tables on what has been in place for the past 73 years. Of course, the spin will be the ceasefire will have come about because of Israeli pressure. But in the halls of power in Israel and among the general public, the truth will be apparent – the Palestinians must be equals at the table. And that will cause acute Yom Kippur syndrome among the Israelis.

If we see the overt conflict continue over the next weeks, it would go toward confirming a longer plan in action. This overview is supported in the astrology. We can expect to see at least a slight de-escalation of violence when Mars returns in-bounds on the 25^th of this month.

In July when Uranus contacts the Israeli north node, squaring the Saturn/Pluto midpoint, there will be a crisis in Israel’s relationships, internal and otherwise. In the first part of June transiting Mars aspects Israel’s angles and then its Moon mid-month, wherein we may witness a crisis in leadership. The Mars transit will set the tone for the Uranus transit a month later. Uranus to the nodes often indicates ‘family quarrels’. From now through this northern summer will be a restive period in Israel.

Saturn makes its retrograde station on the 23^rd of May opposite Israel’s Pluto, forming the midpoint Saturn=Node/Pluto, discussed in the previous post. This will mark a turning point in the current crisis, and will come from the general public.

US taxpayers are largely paying for the Israeli military’s actions, while the administration and Congress green-light anything the Israeli state says it must do to ensure its survival. Few are the establishment voices who denounce the Zionist regime and call for it to cease and desist, which Hamas has made as a precondition for their missiles to stop flying. Ilhan Omar stands virtually as a lone voice in support of the Palestinians, and her stance only hardens that of the Republicans, who throw their entire weight in favor of Israel.

But Americans in particular, followed by the British and the French, should be paying close attention to what is being enabled and sanctioned by Bibi and Co., who are calling on their right-wing militias to ‘do what they must’ against Palestinians in Israeli cities. The specter of this was raising its head against people in the US in the Trump years, and the French have outright been banned from protesting in favor of the Palestinians, with violent suppression of those protests across France.

Israel is rapidly losing its support base. The US is withdrawing its focus from West Asia, which was a major reason for the military aid that has been given to Israel over the years. The Saudis, a covert ally with Israel against Iran, are now talking to Iran, seeking to sort out their differences. MbS may not be a likeable sort, but he is pragmatic. So are other Gulf States, lining up for talks with the Iranians. The Kushner/Trump/Bibi ‘Abraham Accords’ are now a shambles and a distant memory, shown to be the scheme they were instead of any sort of solution to ‘the Palestinian problem’.

Washington’s foreign policy, and Israel’s by following suit, has been likened to a boy ‘watching a tree to catch a hare’, from an old Chinese wisdom. In other words, if something worked once in the past, it has to work every time, applied to every situation. It is proving to be a fatal weakness in US foreign policy. The prevailing overwhelming stance in the US toward Israel has been to give unwavering support and ever more weapons, and to believe that the Israelis will control the progress of the crossfire. Washington believes the IDF to have escalation dominance. Times have changed. Policy has not.

Yes, the violence and destruction in Israel and especially Gaza is terrible across the board. It is heartbreaking. But the unfortunate and maddening truth is that nothing else seems to budge the Israeli establishment. They continue to act with impunity and have done so over the years, with the blessings of the West, papered over with double-speak about human rights and the lie of a two-state solution, that latter never intended as a viable option behind closed doors.

If there is to be any justice for the Palestinians, they must establish a platform of strength. That much is clear and it is at the heart of the actions by Hamas and the protests across Israel by massed and united Palestinians. This is the current effort. The Israelis, and the West, must be forced to recognize the Palestinian grievances and begin a true process of restitution. Hamas and the Palestinians have started the process toward the position of strength. The Resistance stands at the ready as insurance.

It is vaguely possible for there to be a single-state solution into the future, but it would mean the ousting of the settlers, a hobbled right wing in Israel and a much-strengthened Palestinian power base. There are many Jews in Palestine who would like to live in peace with the Palestinians and who decry Israeli methods. The Palestinian refugees deserve to be able to return home. There are now possibilities for the Palestinians. Israel lost its sense of normality this month and its sense of impunity is now more and more in question.  Overall, the end-days of the Zionists appear to be upon us.

We close this installment with the following quote from Isaac Deutscher, the non-Jewish Jewish Marxist historian:

“Israel can endlessly defeat the Palestinians, but cannot conquer them. This state cannot offer the vanquished anything but violence – but it is simply impossible to sit on bayonets forever. One day, a black year will come when foreign patrons turn away from Israel, Israeli society will be thrown into chaos, and external opponents will no longer cause disdainful ridicule. And only then will we find out who was the true friend of the Jewish people.”

The man was prescient. That ‘black year’ may well be 2021.

Featured pic from BESA center