We've got to talk about Gaza
For everyone's sake
Readers,
The headlines are full of Gaza reports again and as has become the norm during the Trump/ MAGA GOP era, misinformation is running wild. The problem is, the fallout from false narratives is very dangerous to a world currently awash with predator nations and movements, hungrily waiting to seek geo-political advantage from both winners and losers. Earlier subscribers may recall 18 or more essays I wrote over the first year and a half or so, of the war in Gaza. In a couple of those essays, you will be able to see the big picture, the players, motivations and histories. The links to some of those essays will appear occasionally throughout this essay.
What prompted today’s essay and partial history lesson, is that the current set of Gaza narratives in US politics, could easily be the ones that keeps the Trump administration in power. It is a critically volatile issue that has been allowed to create a seismic rift in Democratic Party politics, hence resistance politics. Today is a talk about some reality, in order to build a foundation for healing the rift.
Introduction:
The short answer to the question as to whether Gaza matters to America’s overall future security is yes, it absolutely does. Some of the globe’s most powerful nations, alliances or otherwise, are deeply invested in the eastern Mediterranean for strategic power reasons. With so much riding on the outcome of settling the Gaza conflict, we must be far better informed before buying into existing political narratives, often nothing more than thinly veiled conspiracy theories. The predominant and enduring narratives in western media, are harmful to the resistance, and could be fatal to far more Palestinians and Israelis. They were intended to be, by foreign and domestic influence operations by the likes of Iran, some Gulf states, Russia and as yet to be fully determined, Chinese interests. At home, both parties have their own Middle East narratives, mostly skewed for political purposes.
This is the logic train; We can’t help Gaza or Israel, without getting control of our own government. Reacquiring control the House of Representatives is the a critical piece of capturing the House. To take control of the House, we must unify the resistance and here’s the kicker, we can’t do this so long as Gaza rips apart the Party and other supporters. None of this is possible if there isn’t some unity over a way forward for Gaza.
If we are to unite the resistance, the Gaza issue must be put back on the track of relative truthfulness, and no party’s political narrative. In fact, we need a brand new narrative that tells the whole truth fairly, not the agendized narratives of Republican, Russian, Iranian or other influence operators. To make matters worse, most western reporting since October 7th, 2023, has been heavily biased against Israel. For example, I used to recommend both the BBC and Reuters when asked, “what news is credible?” By the end of the first year of the war, I removed them from my recommendations list. To this day, I will not read the BBC and rarely, Reuters.
Some previous essays on the issue of media dishonesty about Gaza.
Has all media, good and bad, forgotten how to report with facts and context? (truthaboutthreats.com)
What the hell is wrong with almost all media reporting on the conflict in Gaza and ignoring the brutality in Ukraine and other nations? (truthaboutthreats.com)
“If it bleeds, it leads” - by Paul Cobaugh (truthaboutthreats.com)
I derive no satisfaction from this, "I told you so." (truthaboutthreats.com)
Mainstream news outlets are borderline antisemitic in their reporting about the war in Gaza. (truthaboutthreats.com)
Freedom of the Press is our right but we should expect truth, not agendas that kill human beings. (truthaboutthreats.com)
Most importantly, if we don’t demand truth instead of political narratives, long-suffering Palestinians and Israelis, will endure decades more preventable suffering, death and destruction. Unfortunately, the truth runs afoul of nearly everyone’s existing narratives about Gaza, Israel, the region, foreign pot-stirring etc., regardless of nation, politics, religion or any other point of reference.
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Telling the truth will have plenty of its own pitfalls, because challenging someone’s existing narratives, is to quite literally challenge who they are as a person. This often makes then a bit angry and emotionally charged. That shuts down any communication and hence, all ability to unify. Only truth supported by an agreement to move forward together and based on that truth, will bridge the chasms between different factions of the resistance. Yes, this is a tough assignment but that doesn’t diminish the need for getting it done.
So, this explains why we must, “talk about Gaza.”
The “Palestinian” issue, as we now know it, has been intentionally cultivated for decades by propagandists, supported by superpowers with agendas. This issue was a core reason for laconic Democratic turnout and protest votes away from the ticket, in the 2024 election. With no opposition from a leaderless DNC, those narratives, false and true, have grown roots and will be extremely difficult to dislodge. In the case of Gaza, it is the left that primarily suffers from their Gazan false narratives. The perpetual vacuum of DNC leadership, has allowed those narratives to fester for decades and never once saw the potential for it balkanizing the party. It is the feverish pitch of the Gaza above all other issues crowd, that keep those old false narratives, firmly wedged between different factions of the left, independents and even principled conservatives.
One problem of deep concern is the deep bias of most mainstream media on certain topics. Gaza and all things Israel, are such topics. There are many reasons. What most mainstream media normally reports, is often the perspective of the owners, investors, board members etc. Their reporting, often sounds “black or white, good guys vs. bad guys or the typical yes or no.” Nothing in the Middle East is this simple… not even close. When one domino falls, the effects are often far-reaching. In the case of Gaza, truth is a commodity and the truth about the war in Gaza is fairly far from what is captured in western media. So, first a very short overview of the war in Gaza.
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Reality
Most of the world doesn’t realize that Israel is under attack, most of the year, every year and has been since the very first minute of statehood, in 1948. Only once has Israel struck first. That was a preemptive strike to open the “Six Day War.” This preemptive strike was born of Israeli intelligence’s possession of intelligence, that an allied attack by Egypt, Jordan and Syria, was imminent. The overwhelming majority of the time, Israel has been the defender, not the aggressor. They are literally fighting against their own genocide. The tragedy is, Palestinians in Gaza, feel the same.
When teaching or talking with folks about this topic, I usually ask students or listeners a question and I will ask it here for all of you. “How long would Americans living in Texas, N. Mexico, Arizona and California put up with a thousand or so rocket attacks yearly, regular terror attacks, etc., before citizens would demand that we put a stop to it?” This is what Israel deals with every day and night, since May 14th of 1948.
The question then becomes, how does Israel protect herself? Don’t be foolish enough to think that either Hamas or Hezbollah, are anything but bloody, genocidal zealots. They are anything but so-called, “Freedom Fighters,” Neither believe that Israel nor her citizens, have a right to exist and they can abuse their own people, to achieve their goals. Both Hezbollah and Hamas have charters and doctrine that demands the complete annihilation of Israel as a state. They will not stop under any circumstances.
Don’t get me wrong, I do not condone all that Israel is undertaking in Gaza, especially their use of 2,000 lbs. bombs earlier in the conflict, but the situation is quite different than what our headlines scream here in the West. Things like: the false claims of occupation, genocide, the intentional murder of civilians and that Israel is willfully starving people, are the dishonest headlines screaming at us every day.
Those casualty figures quoted by the Hamas Health Ministry, historically a propaganda arm of Hamas are unverified. Still, the casualties are staggering, regardless of whether they are accurate or not. This is to be expected in Urban conflict against a determined enemy. Just ask the Marines that fought at Fallujah in Iraq. Yes, the deaths, regardless of the actual statistics are tragically high, but we don’t know how many of these deaths are combatants. I’ve been trained and trained others on how Hamas wields visual propaganda as a tool of power. This includes everything from leaflets to fully staged video productions. A fair percentage of what we see, hear and read, comes from such sources. Here are a few things that we know with relative certainty;
Tens of thousands of Gazans are dead
The humanitarian situation is dire
Hamas is partially reconstituting as a fighting force
Aid distribution inside Gaza is a primary factor
Netanyahu is committed to this war for personal and political reasons
Hamas entered the war with an estimated, official troop strength, estimated to be as low as 35,000 up to 85,000. Then there are several other armed, extremist organizations operating within Gaza.
Serviceable public infrastructure is largely nonfunctional
The people in Gaza are in fact suffering horribly and it is unconscionable how little media attention is paid to who does and does not provide aid. Too bad that they don’t run down why aid makes it to Gaza, but not into the bellies of children. It’s not all Israel’s fault and this is where the progressive wing of the left, gets into trouble. Those folks may be well-meaning, but are actually preventing any shot at a lasting or sustainable peace agreement, by perpetuating false narratives.
The lies by Russia, Iran and Hamas that they repeat, only perpetuate the martyrdom of more Palestinian and Israeli children. Maybe folks should think about this when they perpetuate false narratives about genocide, civilian casualties and the alleged, “occupation.” Many of these narratives are Iranian and terrorist organization derived.
Most critics have no way to understand urban warfare and the costs to both sides of a conflict. According to John Spencer, chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute (MWI) at West Point, Israel has actually set a new gold standard for operating within LOAC, the Law of Armed Conflict. I may disagree slightly with the, “gold standard” label, but I was not on the ground observing as John was.
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Gaza must be fully rebuilt and this time, without Hamas in charge. Massive amounts of aid have been flowing into GAZA for decades and mostly from the West. There has been little to show that anyone but Hamas benefited. Some was used by Hamas to build a few hundred kilometers of tunnels and military infrastructure, beneath Gaza. Israel has not occupied Gaza since 2005 but the conspiracy theory of occupation still exists. Israel has literally been feeding and providing infrastructure to those seeking to murder them, to a person. Still, the world blames Israel for travesties, exclusively."
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Now, don’t think that Israel will escape my criticism as well. Bibi, PM Netanyahu is no different from Trump, dishonest, a conman and will do anything to stay in power. Most, including me believe the war continues at this level, merely to keep him in office. He is heading a coalition, heavily dominated by the far-right extremist, mostly religious/ ultra-orthodox Jews, whose extremism is often related to issues regarding the West Bank. When I wrote an early, detailed essay explaining who was to blame for the October 7th attack, there were six boxes on the graphic. Bibi and his administration were one of them.
As for the Israeli military, the IDF observes the international rules of war and under observation by experts from West Point’s Urban Warfare Center, routinely meets or exceeds standards set by international law. This is absolutely not to say that there are not occasionally horrific incidents and occasionally a coverup. All armies experience the same under such conditions. Could the IDF do better? All militaries can do better. It is after all… war and in a supremely challenging, densely urban area. So long as we’re on the topic though, who has been holding the Hamas barbarians accountable? Certainly not the media.
The geo-political ramifications of
There are Gaza narratives on both sides of US politics and both are less than truthful. Based on my career in CT/ Counterterrorism, I not only know the region, its terrorist/ extremist movements but also, the nations involved and their histories. As the name of this publication implies, I will tell everyone the truth, and not for the sake of a party. For full transparency, I also have a daughter living in Israel’s north and have a very long, close association with the nation representing three of the world’s largest religions. What brought my attention to this issue now, is that a friend recommended that I revisit, Project Esther, another full-throated conspiracy theory from The Heritage Foundation that seeks to create and instill in the US right, a conspiracy theory so insane, that if it were a person, it would be permanently institutionalized.
Today’s GOP’s ideology creators have created a false crusade against something called the HSN, Hamas Support Network. They falsely claim that this project is about fighting anti-Semitism but buried in the fine print are legal authorities to censor anyone. This also allows the administration to wield the power of the Justice Department against Americans, simply for voicing their opinions. This is just the latest in the administration’s relentless attack on our First Amendment Rights.
On the left, especially the progressive wing of the party, They are just as committed to their false narratives of occupation and genocide, as the MAGA Republican Party is to their Russia hoax nonsense, and their beliefs in people eating dogs and cats in my old hometown of Springfield, Ohio. America must get back to reality, not the utterly crazy nonsense streaming from politicians, especially on the right.
Media
As most of you know, I am fond of adding political cartoons in my essays. I do this because often, the proverbial old saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words,” is exactly true. As I look for these clever and insightful graphics, we can easily see how biased most mainstream media is biased against Israel. Israel is the “bad guy” in roughly 90% of all political cartoons about Gaza. As I wrote a couple of times right after the war in Gaza began, media is extremely biased and this is largely due to most global media being owned by six primary multinational media conglomerates.
Those boardrooms, have deep pockets and they act in favor of their bottom lines, not necessarily truth. In terms I learned growing up in the rural Midwest, they publish the rough equivalent of, what comes out of the south end of a northbound, bull.
They use innocent Arabs, now called Palestinians as a tool of influence when they choose sides dishonestly. In the long run, masking the blame of one side or the other, more innocent people on both sides die. Many would logically say that this is tacit support Hamas and Hezbollah. Any relief of Hamas’ culpability ensures that Hamas will live on to terrorize Gazans and invite more defensive wrath from Israel. The only marketed solution for innocent Palestinians is a patently ridiculous, “from the River to the Sea” solution, a genocidal concept. Until the folks that own more than 99 per cent of the region agree to Israel’s right to exist, there will be no peace in the region and increasingly, this affects all of us as well.
Summary
This has been a bit of a long and meandering essay but equally as important to get out into the open. The topic is as complex as it gets and today only scratched the surface but at least it is a start. The bottom line is simple to those that care about lasting solutions to warfare; tell the truth and find solutions built on that truth. So long as the false narratives continue to dominate all news about Gaza, Israel, the region etc., the longer that the immense suffering in Israel and Gaza, continues without hope.
I realize that people on both sides will be disappointed by a truthful discussion about this latest war with Hamas. The Palestinian crowd will be furious that I didn’t take Israel more to task than I did and the Israeli crowd, will likely be disappointed by a less than full-throated assessment of the Israeli side. One thing to remember on the Israeli side is that the demonstrations against Netanyahu have begun again, in support of ending the war, recovering hostages and finding a way forward. It would be nice to see the same on the other side, rather than Hamas’ crude and dishonest rejections to reasonable offers.
We may not be able to achieve peace in the region soon, but we most certainly can start by replacing the old false narratives currently underpinning death and destruction, with a solid foundation of truth.
My very best to begin your week,
Paul