Max Blumenthal is a Left wing radical not a journalist. Just look at who he writes for. The oppressor / oppressed view which is endemic on the Left today will make it very hard for anyone who is a Leftist to produce unbiased or accurate analysis on this subject.
"It is also now clear that a significant number of Israeli casualties were victims of the IDF (Israel Defense Force) in its counter-response to the invasion."
This just echoes talking points from Hezvollah's Nisrallah. There is simply no evidence that this is the case. The IDF wasn't wandering around a music festival killing civilians.
You (and Max) lose me completely when you state "they have been accused of things like beheading babies and mass rape, but no credible evidence has emerged that these actually took place."
There is body camera video from the terrorists. Journalists who have seen it needed counseling. There are eyewitnesses (multiple) who were playing dead under a stack of bodies and watched girls at the music festival being raped and executed. Forensically, an oddly high frequency of 16-25 year old women have been found with cracked or broken pelvises. There are survivors of the kibitzes who saw their neighbors being burned alive.
You are simply justifying an attempted genocide. Please stop. You can think what Israel is doing today is wrong without becoming an anti-semite and an apologist for terrorism and mass murder.
Brian, I disagree with your assessment about the IDF: it's quite clear that they were shooting any and everyone in sight, killing a significant number of their own civilians in the process. As far as the atrocities committed, here's where things become murky. No doubt some of them took place, but it's not clear that everything they were accused of that day happened. I'm not saying that to defend them or paint them as good guys, but to get at something deeper: the US and Israeli Deep States not only knew about the operation and "let it happen", but were also ready from the get-go with a propaganda campaign to paint the invasion in the worst possible light and sell their planned counter-response to it, which was to flatten Gaza and set the stage for restructuring of the geopolitical chessboard in the Middle East. That was the real goal, and it's playing out in real time.
I concur that the fog of war is very real. Haven't we seen that in Ukraine so many times, when the first reports get walked back? But the first reports in this case have never really been walked back or contradicted with any real evidence. The broken pelvises of 17 year old girls are real. Accounts of survivors are real. Body camera footage of blood soaked baby nurseries are real. And (in one of the most colossal tactical errors is Israeli history) the IDF wasn't anywhere near that music festival. Once he finishes the war itself, that blunder is probably going to cost Netanyahu his job.
It is certainly possible that the Israeli / American deep states "let this happen", just as you've had people for decades claiming that Bush "let 9/11 happen". Short of a "smoking email" from Bibi saying "why don't you guys pull back from that music festival that's just 3 km from the Gaza border and see what happens", there is no way to argue this point.
However, I think we should always keep Hanlon's razor in mind: "do not attribute to malice or conspiracy that which simple incompetence can explain." Also something that has been on full display in Ukraine.
It's not necessary to choose sides. In fact choosing sides makes you a judge which is wasted negative energy. All anyone has to do is acknowledge that violence against another is wrong. What you choose to give your attention to is what you continue to create.
The Law of Atrraction is the Law of the Universe . What you send out is what you get back. How do you interpret what I wrote as not choosing against evil?
Leslie, I appreciate the response. There's a lot of propaganda swirling around on both sides so it's hard to parse fact from fiction. No one I follow has given any credibility to the mass rape accusations. I'm open to it being true, but I'm also suspicious that there's propaganda involved: this kind of accusation seems tailor-made to infuriate and radicalize the Israeli public and the pro-Israel international community for supporting their campaign to flatten Gaza. It also works to dehumanize the Gazan people and make it seem like there was no point to the raid other than to cause terror. But as I discuss in the article, there were clear military objectives to the main aspects of the raid and performing senseless atrocities goes against these aims.
Here's where the nuance needs to come in:
There were clear atrocities and senseless killings that happened alongside the Hamas mission's main objectives. There were also many different groups who came streaming in. Who can say who did what and why? So if something like rape did happen, it doesn't make sense it would be done by trained members of the Hamas brigade but rather by one of these unaffiliated militant groups or by deliberately rogue actors planted into the situation by Israeli/US intelligence agents. In the latter case, the goal would be to deliberately commit atrocities for the purpose of ensuring public outrage and justifying Israel's counter-response (which I believe they had planned all along and is why they "let the attack happen"). I discuss this in the article and give a previous example of this type of thing happening.
The main point of the article is to show that Hamas did have strategic objectives to their campaign. But a lot of other groups came in as well and did all kinds of things that were not in alignment with the goals of the inital Hamas mission. And it also seems that Israel knew the invasion was coming, let it happen, performed many of the killings of Israelis themselves in their chaotic counter-response. It also seems that they had a ready-made propaganda campaign waiting in place to paint the invasion in the worst possible light because the goal they really wanted all along was to cleanse Gaza and set the stage for the New Middle East.
For the record, I'm not a fan of Hamas or militant Islam and don't see them as the good guys. And I have no problem condemning them for the atrocities they have committed. But I also don't view them as a natural evolution of the Islamic faith or the natural product of Islamic peoples. They have been artificially propped up (like many similar militant sects) by outside interests for strategic geopolitical reasons. It's now clear that Netanyahu has been one of these forces propping up Hamas.
The next article I'm doing goes into the history of how the CIA has used these groups for many decades as an asset to sow chaos in the Middle East as part of a larger divide-and-conquer strategy. In the same vein, I'm not a fan of Zionism or "militant Judaism" and I also see Israel as an asset of the US empire used for the same purposes. The issues around the Al Aqsa mosque have to be understood in this light: it's a perfect poison pill that's ready to be activated to spark regional war whenever the Deep State interests are ready to use it.
There's more to say but I'll stop here. I do appreciate the thoughtful comment.
“ So while the murder of innocent Israeli citizens did happen on 10/7 and should rightfully be condoned and condemned,”.
Great analysis, but you may want to remove “condoned” from this sentence. I don’t think that’s what you meant to say here.
You’re right I removed it thanks
Max Blumenthal is a Left wing radical not a journalist. Just look at who he writes for. The oppressor / oppressed view which is endemic on the Left today will make it very hard for anyone who is a Leftist to produce unbiased or accurate analysis on this subject.
"It is also now clear that a significant number of Israeli casualties were victims of the IDF (Israel Defense Force) in its counter-response to the invasion."
This just echoes talking points from Hezvollah's Nisrallah. There is simply no evidence that this is the case. The IDF wasn't wandering around a music festival killing civilians.
You (and Max) lose me completely when you state "they have been accused of things like beheading babies and mass rape, but no credible evidence has emerged that these actually took place."
There is body camera video from the terrorists. Journalists who have seen it needed counseling. There are eyewitnesses (multiple) who were playing dead under a stack of bodies and watched girls at the music festival being raped and executed. Forensically, an oddly high frequency of 16-25 year old women have been found with cracked or broken pelvises. There are survivors of the kibitzes who saw their neighbors being burned alive.
You are simply justifying an attempted genocide. Please stop. You can think what Israel is doing today is wrong without becoming an anti-semite and an apologist for terrorism and mass murder.
Brian, I disagree with your assessment about the IDF: it's quite clear that they were shooting any and everyone in sight, killing a significant number of their own civilians in the process. As far as the atrocities committed, here's where things become murky. No doubt some of them took place, but it's not clear that everything they were accused of that day happened. I'm not saying that to defend them or paint them as good guys, but to get at something deeper: the US and Israeli Deep States not only knew about the operation and "let it happen", but were also ready from the get-go with a propaganda campaign to paint the invasion in the worst possible light and sell their planned counter-response to it, which was to flatten Gaza and set the stage for restructuring of the geopolitical chessboard in the Middle East. That was the real goal, and it's playing out in real time.
I concur that the fog of war is very real. Haven't we seen that in Ukraine so many times, when the first reports get walked back? But the first reports in this case have never really been walked back or contradicted with any real evidence. The broken pelvises of 17 year old girls are real. Accounts of survivors are real. Body camera footage of blood soaked baby nurseries are real. And (in one of the most colossal tactical errors is Israeli history) the IDF wasn't anywhere near that music festival. Once he finishes the war itself, that blunder is probably going to cost Netanyahu his job.
It is certainly possible that the Israeli / American deep states "let this happen", just as you've had people for decades claiming that Bush "let 9/11 happen". Short of a "smoking email" from Bibi saying "why don't you guys pull back from that music festival that's just 3 km from the Gaza border and see what happens", there is no way to argue this point.
However, I think we should always keep Hanlon's razor in mind: "do not attribute to malice or conspiracy that which simple incompetence can explain." Also something that has been on full display in Ukraine.
It's not necessary to choose sides. In fact choosing sides makes you a judge which is wasted negative energy. All anyone has to do is acknowledge that violence against another is wrong. What you choose to give your attention to is what you continue to create.
The Law of Atrraction is the Law of the Universe . What you send out is what you get back. How do you interpret what I wrote as not choosing against evil?
Leslie, I appreciate the response. There's a lot of propaganda swirling around on both sides so it's hard to parse fact from fiction. No one I follow has given any credibility to the mass rape accusations. I'm open to it being true, but I'm also suspicious that there's propaganda involved: this kind of accusation seems tailor-made to infuriate and radicalize the Israeli public and the pro-Israel international community for supporting their campaign to flatten Gaza. It also works to dehumanize the Gazan people and make it seem like there was no point to the raid other than to cause terror. But as I discuss in the article, there were clear military objectives to the main aspects of the raid and performing senseless atrocities goes against these aims.
Here's where the nuance needs to come in:
There were clear atrocities and senseless killings that happened alongside the Hamas mission's main objectives. There were also many different groups who came streaming in. Who can say who did what and why? So if something like rape did happen, it doesn't make sense it would be done by trained members of the Hamas brigade but rather by one of these unaffiliated militant groups or by deliberately rogue actors planted into the situation by Israeli/US intelligence agents. In the latter case, the goal would be to deliberately commit atrocities for the purpose of ensuring public outrage and justifying Israel's counter-response (which I believe they had planned all along and is why they "let the attack happen"). I discuss this in the article and give a previous example of this type of thing happening.
The main point of the article is to show that Hamas did have strategic objectives to their campaign. But a lot of other groups came in as well and did all kinds of things that were not in alignment with the goals of the inital Hamas mission. And it also seems that Israel knew the invasion was coming, let it happen, performed many of the killings of Israelis themselves in their chaotic counter-response. It also seems that they had a ready-made propaganda campaign waiting in place to paint the invasion in the worst possible light because the goal they really wanted all along was to cleanse Gaza and set the stage for the New Middle East.
For the record, I'm not a fan of Hamas or militant Islam and don't see them as the good guys. And I have no problem condemning them for the atrocities they have committed. But I also don't view them as a natural evolution of the Islamic faith or the natural product of Islamic peoples. They have been artificially propped up (like many similar militant sects) by outside interests for strategic geopolitical reasons. It's now clear that Netanyahu has been one of these forces propping up Hamas.
The next article I'm doing goes into the history of how the CIA has used these groups for many decades as an asset to sow chaos in the Middle East as part of a larger divide-and-conquer strategy. In the same vein, I'm not a fan of Zionism or "militant Judaism" and I also see Israel as an asset of the US empire used for the same purposes. The issues around the Al Aqsa mosque have to be understood in this light: it's a perfect poison pill that's ready to be activated to spark regional war whenever the Deep State interests are ready to use it.
There's more to say but I'll stop here. I do appreciate the thoughtful comment.