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Iain Davis on Al-Aqsa Flood + Nova Festival

Middle East
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#1

While it’s a lengthy read, and there is still a Part II to come, I really recommend Iain Davis’s article here:

According to Propaganda 101, any headline phrased as a question can always be answered “no”. In this case I think the answer is significantly more nuanced. Clearly, many many hours of research went into this, and there are so many links to sources that it would take many hours to explore fully.

Just at the point where I was wondering when Iain would mention the Nova Festival, he does exactly that.

As has become quite well-known, this rave did not have a settled venue until quite near the time it was to start, or it may have been moved from one site to another with little forewarning: I’ve heard both versions. I hadn’t realised before that the festival was due to have ended on the evening of Friday 6 October but was extended into Saturday with little prior notice. That would explain the reasonably authentic-looking footage of tired partygoers gathered in a tent looking a bit wrecked but otherwise unharmed.

What seems very clear is that any Hamas assault on this event was opportunistic, at best . . . and yet surprisingly disciplined in execution by many accounts.

DD_Geopolitics (formerly Donbass Devushka) devotes a very recent blog post solely to the festival; this is also quite worthwhile. It’s much shorter but includes some interesting links/video clips. It focuses quite heavily on the implausibility of some of the reportage - those destroyed cars especially - in the light of the restricted capabilities of the Hamas fighters. Debunking what is supposed to have happened may not be the same as asserting what actually happened, of course.

… and if you haven’t seen Simon Elmer’s two-part ‘Ten questions about Gaza’, reproduced at OffG, well… there’s another hour or two of your day to set aside :wink:

#2

Simon Elmer’s piece is poor overall. His understanding of the COVID scam, fascism, Great Reset etc. is terrific, we think, (except for still believing in ‘viruses’) but his understanding of Israel/Palestine is poor by comparison and he consequently incorporates at least two hasbara points into his text - unthinkingly we hope.

Anyway, well anyway, Discussions about whether or not 7 Oct (10/7?) was a ‘false flag’ attack are pointless and diversionary, rather like the ballyhoo about the vaccines. There are events and there are outcomes - the outcome is the thing to look at because that was the plan, whatever the occasion for it.

#3

While I see your point, demonstrating that an outcome has been engineered in some way, is a definite service to rooting out where power is shaping reality. If the overall ‘programme’ is to demonstrate that nation states are violent and corrupt beyond redemption, in order to usher in some overriding global governance, which does look a possibility, I’d prefer to see how the trap is baited at the very least.

I’ve no doubt Simon’s piece would fail all kinds of purity tests. Which hasbara talking points are you referring to? One possibility is that the term ‘semite’ and derivatives thereof are Trojan Horses for something else, and not worth dwelling upon. Quite possibly for the same reason as above.

#4

I reckon there are probably so many layers on most political onions you wouldn’t know where to stop so I’m not sure exposing one more is necessarily useful. I tend to take it for granted that each layer tastes sharper than the previous and that we could actually dispense with a lot of pointless toing and froing by just scrutinising the whole onion from every conceivable angle to see what it is.

As for Simon Elmer, I thought of challenging him on his website but after the thrashing he’s had from Rusere Shoniwa in respect of his UKC contribution I don’t feel I want to kick him when he’s down.

‘Before lending our voices to this Zionist discourse. . .’ he writes, followed by loads of rational - and non-Zionist - argumentation, then this:

. . .Benjamin Netanyahu. . .is as ready as Yahya Sinwar, the Qatar-residing leader of Hamas, to appeal to fundamentalist religious dogma to justify his genocidal policies.

You could argue that SE’s wording is clumsy, that he didn’t really mean to suggest that Yahya Sinwar, Hamas, also have a genocidal policy. Its still a hasbara point.

In actual fact, while Likud’s “Between the sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.” appears to mean “death to Arabs”. Meanwhile the Hamas charter says

16. Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine.

17. Hamas rejects the persecution of any human being or the undermining of his or her rights on nationalist, religious or sectarian grounds. Hamas is of the view that the Jewish problem, anti-Semitism and the persecution of the Jews are phenomena fundamentally linked to European history and not to the history of the Arabs and the Muslims or to their heritage.

. . .which has more nuance at least.

I’d also take issue with the notion, which he pushes, of ‘Christian guilt’ for the Holocaust (capital H, only one holocaust, one careful owner) which serves two purposes, both predicated on the successful weaponisation of said Hword by the Zionists. First, if the guilt is genuine it hobbles anyone who might otherwise wish to tread the path of criticising Israel (so, great idea to mention it, not). Elmer doesn’t qualify his reference to ‘Christian guilt’, he appears to believe in it and, therefore, to endorse it.

The idea of ‘Christian guilt’ for the big H is a brilliant piece of reverse engineering of the Jews’ supposed guilt for killing Jesus for which, according to the Christians’ book, the Jews took responsibility (“His blood be on us and on our children”). Christians have not said the same in respect of the Zionists’ BigH but the blame has nevertheless been pinned on them, at least SE seems to think they have taken it on. And, of course, that absolves any Christian, any ‘Christian nation’ from any action that threatens the security of Jews (read state of Israel) by, say, intervening to stop the genocide of Israel’s enemies. This is the whole object of ‘Christian guilt for the Holocaust’ hasbara and SE is promoting the bloody thing.

He later quotes Gerald Kaufman putting it in its true perspective but wouldn’t you think SE could have already done that?

I’d also criticise his characterisation of Jews and, especially, Judaism but I’ve done enough for now.

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#5

A pleasure to see some details, always preferable for exploring nuanced discussions than one liners.

I don’t think you ought to hold back on these (or any other) criticisms on SE’s WordPress, having said that I haven’t seen any recent articles by Rushere (I’ll go look). Using Kaufman as a proxy may well have been prompted by K being a well-known figure whose religion is equally well-known. (Whether he has been dismissed as a self-hating Jew I don’t know, but wouldn’t be surprised).

Any further news re ‘your flag’ or was that bit of harassment an isolated incident?

All the best

#6

Thanks for this. Karen. Will try to make time to read it. Everyone may already know this but the Electronic Inifada’s coverage is excellent, especially their podcasts. Really in depth reporting.

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