Profiteering & Propaganda: Israel/Hamas

Middle Nation, Russell Brand, David Rovics & Max Blumenthal

As I’ve said, by the time I publish an episode, it’s only half done. The other half happens in the comment thread with all the great references added. After my last episode on Gaza, I got a wealth of great references. I’m going to review four. The first two were sent by Anders through our mutual friend Ernest—a video by Middle Nation called The Global South is Pro-Palestinian and a David Rovics article in Counterpunch called the Gaza Ghetto Uprising.

Then a Russell Brand on war profiteering by members of US Congress, posted by Mathieu Lumiere on News Detective. And finally, two on Max Blumenthal. A Grayzone article linked by Fritz Freud showing the source for the beheaded babies bunk. And an interview of Max by Tim Pool and his crew sent by yulia. Let’s jump in.

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The Global South is Pro-Palestinian by Middle Nation:

The only way you can make the Israelis look good is by creating this cartoonish fiendish image of Hamas. … the Hamas incursion happened either because the so-called Hardline Netanyahu government was either incompetent or because they betrayed their own people and let it happen—so it was either incompetence or treachery: those are the only two options.

You can't do anything today that more instantly identifies you as an unthinking hypocritical sellout than changing your profile picture to the Israeli flag. I mean if you do that, then I already know that you were one of those people who was probably wearing a covid face mask during a zoom call back in 2020 because you're an automaton.

You think whatever power tells you to think and you have no internal value system of your own, and like I said this approach is not going to enable you to dominate the transition to the global South. It's going to completely discredit you and ruin any chance you have of influencing how the new global economic order is shaped and how it develops.

The Arab world is with the Palestinians, Africa is with the Palestinians, Latin America is with the Palestinians, Asia is with the Palestinians and obviously two billion Muslims in the world—that's a two billion strong Market—is with the Palestinians and truth be told your own public is mostly with the Palestinians.

So if you decide to fight the inevitable then you have decided from the outset to fail. The corporate factions, the business factions, the factions of the owners and controllers of global financialized Capital who will actually prosper in the coming decades will be those factions who reflect and who do not conflict with the opinions and the attitude of the global South and that means being pro Palestinian.

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Songwriter David Rovics, of whom I’ve been a fan for over a decade, wrote an excellent Counterpunch article called The Gaza Ghetto Uprising. He starts with a very clever story about a walled ghetto where people rose up against the occupiers imprisoning them. Only at the end does he reveal that it’s the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943 by the Jewish Fighting Organization. That didn’t end well so we can hope the parallel ends there.

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With all the attention I’ve been paying to the Russell Brand sextroversy, I’d forgotten why I simply love him. This video linked by MATTHIEU LUMIÈRE of News Detective brought it right back. Rather than focusing on the conflict itself, he goes upstream to the war profiteering by members of the US Congress. The contrast between the cold-blooded investments of politicians in defense contractors vs their high moral ground public rhetoric about ‘principles’ couldn’t be more stark.

One of the ideological bonds that I have with Russell is that he approaches problems from a system perspective. Instead of jumping into the maelstrom of Israel and Hamas, he looks at where we should all agree: No one making decisions about whether to go to war should be profiting from it. He writes:

You wouldn't imagine that there will be anyone anywhere in the world looking to exploit such a sensitive and awful situation from which nobody really clearly benefits, if you ask me, to be looking for opportunities to profit—and yet that is precisely what's happening. Military experts are predicting record profits for weapons manufacturers, as always happens in war. That's a brutal reality I suppose but you certainly wouldn't expect members of the United States Congress to be investing in defense related stocks.

Wouldn't that undermine everything they've been telling you about the authenticity of their feelings, however they regard this conflict or claim to regard this conflict, all of the grandstanding and moralizing and the sympathetic ‘I stand with’ or ‘we must be Pro’. How does that look in light of the fact that members of Congress have been investing in military related stocks?

Let's have a look at Joe Biden … pledging support and claiming that this is a simple moral issue: “My Administration and support for Israel's security is Rock Solid and unwavering. Let me say this as clearly as I can … this is not a moment for any party hostile to Israel to exploit these attacks to seek advantage.”

Russell adds that perhaps you could argue that it’s not the moment for anyone to exploit these attacks to seek advantage. This corresponds to my statement in the last episode that any statement of ethics cannot contain any proper nouns. And he adds, particularly not by people who are making decisions with regard to the military aspect of this encounter. He asks:

If Health crises are beneficial to pharmaceutical companies, if energy crisis are beneficial to energy companies—all the while punitive to Ordinary People All Around The World—isn't that an opportunity for systemic analysis, revolution, reformation and change?

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And last, two commenters referred me to Max Blumenthal to debunk the beheaded babies. Here is his article on the Grayzone, Source of dubious ‘beheaded babies’ claim is Israeli settler leader who incited riots to ‘wipe out’ Palestinian village:

The Grayzone has now identified a key source of the claim that Palestinian militants beheaded Israeli babies. He is David Ben Zion, a Deputy Commander of Unit 71 of the Israeli army who also happens to be an extremist settler leader who incited violent riots against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank earlier this year.

In an October 10 interview with reporter Nicole Zedek of the Israeli state-sponsored i24 network, Ben Zion stated, “We walked door to door, we killed a lot of terrorists. They are very bad. They cut heads of children, they cut heads of women. But we are stronger than them.” 

He added, “We know that they are animals,” referring to Palestinians, “but we found that they don’t have any heart.”

So who is David Ben Zion? Max writes:

David Ben Zion in a video from a settlement construction site (left) and hours after he told i24 the IDF had found babies beheaded by Hamas (right)

Calls for Palestinians to be “wiped out,” “no room for mercy”

David Ben Zion, is a leader of the Shomron Regional Council of 35 illegal West Bank settlements who called this year for the Palestinian village of Huwara to be “wiped out.”

“Enough talk about building and strengthening the settlements,” Ben David said in a Twitter post on February 26, 2023. The deterrence that was lost must return now, there’s no room for mercy.”

Ben David was quoted in Israeli media proclaiming soon after, “The village of Huwara should be wiped out, this place is a nest of terror and the punishment should be for everyone,” a clear call for the collective punishment of Palestinians. …

The village of Huwara was at the time the target of violent rioting by settlers operating under Ben David’s watch. Following the settler assault on the town, which resulted in the torching of scores of homes and vehicles, as well as injuries to locals, Hamas characterized the attack as a “declaration of war.”

But Ben David’s call for collective punishment in Huwara was far from his only genocidal imprecation against Palestinians. Indeed, he has used his social media accounts to repeatedly call for war crimes as well as the “deportation of the [Palestinian] masses.”

“The Palestinian people… [are] an enemy,” Ben David wrote in 2016. “We can’t change their barbaric DNA.”

During his failed campaign for the Israeli Knesset in 2021 with the pro-settler Jewish Home party, Ben David described his mission as follows: ”I am committed to the task of restoring the political home of religious Zionism.”

And yulia referred me to this panel interview of Max Blumenthal by Tim Pool and three other idiots, I mean young people. However I recently found that half of my YT audience is 65 or older and 65% male, so I’m sure Tim would have his own choice words for my demographic. The kids are not entirely wrong but I’ve been spoilt by having articulate and well informed readers who are adding to my knowledge, not arguing that Palestine should become the 51st US State.

Although it’s two hours long, the second half is the boys arguing among themselves and can be skipped, imo. Tim suggests that Israel should have cut off food to keep the Palestinians from procreating. Max points out that already happened. And Max does a masterful job of explaining Israel’s demographic problem and why they can’t allow Palestinians to be in Israel without losing their majority. He also mentions the Abraham accords, which is something I need to research.

All in all, this is a joy to see Max talking sense on the playground, bringing in history, logic and facts so their only retort is to talk over him. He’s entirely consistent, gives first-hand accounts of being in both Israel and Gaza when bombs were dropping previously, and is always even-tempered and reasonable. I’m reconsidering my critique of his cornering of David Irving to ask if he was a Holocaust denier. I think I may have misunderstood his intent.

In summary, what’s happening now is not predictable, neither as the annihilation of Gaza nor the eruption of WWIII. The world has changed, as Middle Nation points out and Max confirms. It’s a multipolar shift of power. Fritz Freud points out that Ukraine has failed. He sees this as Plan B. The US and NATO seem to be throwing irons into the fire willy-nilly and starting fires wherever there’s an iron.

There are more great sources my readers have referred me to, so I’ll continue to review them and let you know what I learn. According to ABC News, this day of rage so far looks like massive but peaceful rallies in support of Palestine in Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Jordan and even a few stragglers in Sri Lanka. I’d like to interrupt the day of rage to wish my youngest daughter, Cassandra, a happy 25th birthday. I’d always told her she was born on October Friday the 13th, hence the witchy name. Darn that internet making a liar out of me!

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This is the previous episode: I examine events in Israel using the research of Vanessa Beeley, David Icke and Max Igan, asking whether this is a trap or a jailbreak. I find RFK predictably disappointing. I explore a connection between the Russell Brand media assault and his critique of Israel back in 2009.

To continue into propaganda, here’s one that quotes Lord Ponsonby’s 10 Principles of War Propaganda:

Looks at the new Disinformation Governance Board of Homeland Security and how it turns facts and logic into terrorism, and arbitrary authority into a power that can overrule Presidents and Congress. Its executive director, Nina Jankowicz, has put her philosophy into a jaunty disinfo ditty, which is the only place to find the definition of this terror threat. I analyze her examples and apply the original rules, from the birthplace of democracy in ancient Greece, for discerning when someone's trying to hidealittle hidealittle hidealittle lie, in Nina's words. These rules were called rhetorical fallacies. I end with The 10 Principles of War Propaganda, developed before WWI, and I begin with what logic is.

And although it’s regarding the CovidCon, lessons still apply from one called Are We Being Manipulated?:

On Unherd, Freddie Sayers interviewed philosopher and writer Paul Kingsnorth on "Why I Changed My Mind in the Vaccine Wars." I use his thesis, antithesis, synthesis model but show why it's backwards and it's the orthodox view that rejects science. I quote Robert F. Kennedy's chapter, HIV Heretics, on how science is not a consensus and tell about my realization, after 50 years of futile arguments, that my mother didn't believe in the existence of facts. I cite Dr. Amishi Jha's definition of science as "a pursuit through a process of understanding what is," and how that relates to peer-reviewed studies. I look at the deeper questions of "are we being manipulated?" and "how can this end well?" I conclude that Paul's example of a person changing their mind is one of the most powerful forces on earth, and hope that #IWasWrong goes viral.