World War 3 Has Started #402

When your death and rape is the trophy for your enemy in his victory, your victory cannot stop short of his annihilation.

For, you aren't looking at a just battle. You are staring at an existential war. Even a day of existence for one who demands your death as a right is the insurance of your end.

It may be far better to live under robber barons rather than those whose divine commandment is to butcher you. A robber baron's cruelty may at some point be satiated or stopped but those who want to kill us for the happiness of their god, will never rest. They will torment and target us without end. For their cruelty has the divine stamp! (paraphrasing CS Lewis).

We had shared the odds that Israel faced and the hatred that was reserved for it amongst the Arabs.

Many since the Hamas attack on Israel have committed spectacular acts of whataboutery and false equivalence. As if there is no difference between Israel and their enemies.

There is.

Listen to Sam Harris defining it clearly.

Harris' arguments and logic are compelling and thought provoking. The way current players in media and activism have obfuscated reality is sobering.

On October 6th, 1973 the  Egyptian military set in motion an operation called the Battle of Badr. Its forces crossed the Suez Canal in order to seize the Bar Lev Line of Israeli fortifications. That started the Yom Kippur War.

Exactly 50 years later - to the day - another attack has been unleashed on Israel. Let us talk about it.

The Harbinger: An Attack on Israel

Early Saturday morning (October 7th, 2023) in the Israel-Palestine area, the Palestinian armed terror group Hamas launched "Operation Al-Aqsa Flood" against Israel. It is by far the largest outbreak since the 11-day battles between Israel and Palestine that started on May 10, 2021, and ended with a ceasefire on May 21.

By their own admission, Hamas has fired 5,000 rockets. The attack started at 6:30 a.m. local time. Israelis were celebrating Simchat Torah, the holiday at the end of a weeklong Jewish festival of Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles).

Israel has now started "Operation Iron Swords".

As per the Israeli media reports, scenes of gunmen opening fire on innocent passers-by in the town of Sderot were being reported. The video footage circulating specifically on X clearly showed intense clashes taking place in the city streets.

Also one can clearly see armed individuals in jeeps roaming the surrounding countryside.

In fact, in one report, it was shown that Hamas terrorists had managed to gain control over several Israeli civilian population centers. The residents of these areas were reportedly pleading for assistance and support from their government in this dire situation.

The towns of Kfar Aza, Sderot, Sufa, Nahal Oz, Magen, Be’eri, and the Re’im military base have seen a Hamas takeover!

To have a better sense of perspective, here is a map of the major infiltrations. You can see how comprehensive the entire attack was!

As per a report in the Times of Israel, 250 Israelis have been killed and over 1450 injured.

The Israeli Prime Minister came on air and declared unequivocally that what Hamas was doing was not an "Operation" but an act of War.

"We are at War," Netanyahu said clearly!

Yes, Israel is at war!

Eerie recall of 26-11 Mumbai attacks

For most Indians, the eerie similarities between this attack on Israel and the 26-11 attacks on Mumbai are not lost.

What we never realized was the betrayal of the then-Indian establishment by normalizing and worse supporting those attacks. Indian government never called it an "Act of War". It was always termed a "Terror attack".

And, that is where India got the damning consequences and significance of the 26-11 attacks completely wrong!

In fact, there may be reasons to believe that the Hamas attackers and terrorists may have benefitted from the "best practices" used by the Pakistani attackers in Mumbai.

Why? Because there is a strong link!

In June 2021, Pakistan Senator Raja Zafar-ul-Haq openly boasted that the Pakistani army - the original trainers of the 26/11 terrorists - were training the Hamas terrorists.

Now back to the attack in Israel.

How the attacks unfolded

The worst part of the action was the hostage-taking and desecration of human life.

Dozens of civilians as well as IDF soldiers are believed to have been abducted and brought into Gaza; the IDF has confirmed that soldiers and civilians have been taken hostage, but has not specified a number. (Source: Times of Israel Live Blog)

Here are some of the very disturbing scenes.

The attack was not just from the ground and the air (rockets and paragliders) but also via water.

During these raids by the Hamas, one prominent Twitter handle has suggested that even the Israeli Commander Nimrod Aloni has been captured by Hamas.

The Israeli soldiers were like sitting ducks in their own barracks. They were killed mercilessly. The massacre was videographed by Hamas!

One of the things that is most heartbreaking is that most of the "missing Israelis" (most probably abducted and held hostage) are females.

Israeli women were being abducted by Hamas. Check her pants from behind - it is obvious that she is bleeding probably from rape or assault.

And, the rapes are being confirmed! Not only were naked bodies of dead women paraded but the Hamas terrorists also committed rapes of young girls.

The attacks were devastating and the assaults on women and girls as a tool of war is in line with the practice that Islamists have used as a playbook.

The Anti-Jewish Nazi-Hamas Collaboration and Western Patronization

In 2015, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu suggested that it was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem who had convinced Hitler to "exterminate" the Jews. He had by then, Netanyahu said, only wanted to expel Jews from Europe.

During an address Tuesday to delegates at the World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem, Netanyahu posited that the Nazi fuehrer did not initially intend to annihilate the Jews, but rather sought to expel them from Europe. According to the prime minister’s version of the events, Hitler changed his mind after meeting with Husseini — who was grand mufti of Jerusalem from 1921 to 1948, and president of the Supreme Muslim Council from 1922 to 1937 — in Berlin near the end of 1941. (Source: Times of Israel)

This started a big hue and cry and criticism from many quarters. They accused Netanyahu of “absolving” Hitler of responsibility for the Holocaust.

Netanyahu clarified that he did not want to "absolve Hitler". That he had “no intention to absolve Hitler of responsibility for his diabolical destruction of European Jewry” but he made it clear that it was “equally absurd to ignore the role played by the Mufti” in urging Nazi leaders “to exterminate European Jewry.”

To get a handle on the basis of this story, one needs to understand the historical facts behind it.

On November 28, 1941, Adolf Hitler and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, had a meeting at the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. See the picture from that meeting below.

The mufti had an important message to convey to Hitler:

Hitler responded to the Mufti with the following plan for the "total destruction of the Judeo-Communist empire."

Needless to say, there was an obvious bonhomie between the Grand Mufti and Hitler.

The common enemy singled out for "Total Destruction" - the Jews.

We did see in our last week's newsletter how the Nazi template for using Islamists as a tool was coopted and further enhanced by the CIA, MI-6, and German intelligence to create havoc and terror around the world.

The information from the previous newsletter and this information on the Hamas-Hitler alignment brings forth a very important question, doesn't it?

It is an obvious question. Let us poke into the circumstances and the background a little bit.

The Abraham Accords and anti-Trump US Establishment

The question that will be in everyone's mind is why the heck did Hamas even attack Israelis in such an outrageously daring manner? This excerpt from the article by Zack Beauchamp in Vox captures the most likely reason the best.

The main target is the Abraham Accord Agreements!

There are also geopolitical concerns at work. Israel is currently in the midst of a US-brokered negotiation to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia, a major follow-up to the Abraham Accord agreements struck with several Arab countries during the Trump administration. Normalization is widely seen among Palestinians as the Arab world giving up on them, agreeing to treat Israel like a normal country even as the occupation deepens. Hamas could well be trying to torpedo the Saudi deal and even try undo the existing Abraham Accords. Indeed, a Hamas spokesperson said that the attack was “a message” to Arab countries, calling on them to cut on ties with Israel. Rising tension in Jerusalem and the West Bank, weaker border security, an Arab political situation turning more and more unfavorable to the Palestinians — these are all conditions in which it makes more strategic sense for Hamas to take a such a huge risk. (Source: "Why did Hamas invade Israel?" / Vox)

On December 4th, 2016, John Kerry (former unsuccessful Presidential candidate and then Secretary of State) spoke at the Saban Conference. This is what he said then.

And just four years later, Israel on one side and the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain on the other signed the Abraham Accords! The initial Arab countries were later joined by Morocco and Sudan.

As Donald Trump came in, the then US ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro had resigned. He did understand the obvious alignment of interests between Israel and the Arab states (Saudis and UAE specifically) but kept the rhetoric of Arab-Israeli peace being contingent upon the Israeli-Palestine issue resolution.

It is not a coincidence, therefore, that the Abraham Accords became a reality when the greatest anti-establishment US President Donald Trump was at the helm.

They happened not because the US did something special. But they happened because the US could not do anything!

In July 2023, Dan Shapiro made another appearance in the Israeli world.

He was appointed Senior Advisor for Regional Integration in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs on July 2, 2023. He previously served as Senior Advisor to the Special Envoy for Iran. Senior Advisor Shapiro served as U.S. ambassador to Israel from 2011 to 2017. (Source: US Department of State)

Fresh from an Iranian envoy stint he became the champion of the Abraham Accords for the Biden administration. Interesting coincidence?

For an administration that was pathologically opposed to the Abraham Accords but with the coming elections found the need to back them a political imperative.

So this was the Public Support for the Abraham Accords by the Biden administration.

One wonders if this was also reflected in private views and behind-the-scenes or covert maneuvers.

If the overt was different from the covert world, then one needs to analyze the backers, sponsors, and executors of "Operation Al-Aqsa Flood" more carefully.

So, we need to critically examine Biden administration's role of omission or commission when it comes to this attack.

That is one thread that we will have to evaluate in post-mortem. And now the immediate questions facing us.

It was a "System-of-Systems Collapse"

There is one thread that is the most significant - by Abhijit Iyer-Mitra. He asks the questions that need to be asked. The first statement puts the situation starkly in terms of its significance.

If you have to read something on this attack that is sane, read this one thread by Abhijit. Extremely thought-provoking and hits you from various angles.

Hamas has released a video of how it prepared the paragliding terrorists. It is just unbelievable that such an extensive preparation was being carried out and videographed and no one had a clue!

The sheer collapse of every system is not just suspicious but highly unlikely. Here is a considered and analytical view by an Israeli Indie Journalist named Efrat Fenigson. She had served some 25 years back in IDF within the intelligence unit. For her, the scale and the extent of failure were especially hard to take. (Source: Efrat Fenigson X account and you can also follow her Substack account (You're the Voice) where she has published this detailed post - Israel-Hamas War - An Update)

Some interesting points:

• “How come border crossings were wide open?? Something is VERY WRONG HERE.”
• … this surprise attack seems like a planned attack on all fronts..”
• “It feels like the people of Israel and the people of Palestine have been sold once again by the higher powers that be..”

While Abhijit makes this a failure amongst the Israelis, what Israelis will also need to evaluate is what about Western intelligence.

OTOH, Efrat's pointer that it could have had internal connivance cannot be ruled out. After all, we know that 26-11 could not have been executed had it not been facilitated by internal - and governmental - forces.

In all of this, what is specifically unnerving is that Israelis knew that a multifront attack was imminent!

The callouts by the Israeli experts and the highest in the government were absolutely on point when you look at the current attack!

Global failure?

There is another set of questions that we all need to ask. While the "system-of-systems collapse", in Mitra's characterization, from the Israeli perspective is obvious, what is shocking is the complete dropping of the ball by EVERY Western intelligence agency!

It is not the attack that is disturbing. It is its scale that has left one shocked. The failure was so spectacular that it must have sent jitters down everyone's spine in Indian, American, British, and Russian intelligence units.

What happened in Israel can happen anywhere. With the right amount of preparation and enough level of internal betrayal.

The level and scale of betrayal also underscores the options and direction that Israel has for itself.

They are in it alone.

Internally, they will need to sort out who is with Israel anymore and who has been compromised by the woke propaganda that is being unleashed on its citizens as well.

On the geopolitical side, the questions that would be facing Israel are even tougher - except for maybe India, they have no one alongside them really. No one!

The Counter-Offensive

Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu has come out with the resolve to hit back. "Mighty vengeance"!

The resolve within the Israeli establishment to take the battle to its "logical conclusion" is coming out clearly.

This is Israeli Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant. This is what he is saying.

The political shackles on Israeli forces may be lifting.

War room deliberations are happening.

In fact, the counter-offensive from Israel has started. 80,000 IDF reservists have been activated for the war against Hamas. Even the former Prime Minister has come back out for the reserve duty.

Earlier, Israeli tanks were seen going towards Gaza.

Deployments have been made for air and naval strikes.

The attack will need to be multi-front, ruthless and terminal - if it has to be effective. This is something that Netanyahu has acknowledged earlier.

“The reality in our region is changing rapidly. We are not stagnating. We are adapting our combat doctrine and our possibilities for action in keeping with these changes,” Netanyahu said at the meeting, which was held at an underground military bunker in Tel Aviv. “We are committed to acting against the Iranian nuclear program, against missile attacks … and against … what we call a multifront campaign.” (Source: On the brink: Unpacking Israel’s unilateral strike threat against Iran / The Jerusalem Post)

And, if that is the case, then their offensive will not longer be restricted to Hamas and its territories in Gaza. Iran will be a fair target as well.

But it will most likely without the US and probably against its counsel.

How will it target Iran?

One is by air.

Israel's attack options on Iran are limited. However, the rapprochement with Saudi Arabia opens up the Southern route.

But is the Saudi route a viable one? We saw how Iran's use of Yemeni proxies in attacks on Saudi oil facilities impacted the Saudi kingdom.

Billions of dollars spent by Saudi Arabia on cutting edge Western military hardware mainly designed to deter high altitude attacks has proved no match for low-cost drones and cruise missiles used in a strike that crippled its giant oil industry. Saturday’s assault on Saudi oil facilities that halved production has exposed how ill-prepared the Gulf state is to defend itself despite repeated attacks on vital assets during its four-and-a-half year foray into the war in neighboring Yemen. (Source: "Costly Saudi defenses prove no match for drones, cruise missiles" / Reuters)

So what are the options? Via Iraq maybe.

However, attacking Iran will open Israel up for another front - from Hezbollah in Lebanon.

So, the attack from Israel will need to have several components.

Woke Attack Lays Groundwork for Actual Attack

The kind of attack that happened in Israel does not happen in isolation. First, the society is prepared. Even when society is hounded daily by the hate and bigotry of the other side, they lose the ability to be conscious of a real attack.

Here is one such example.

A rave party (Nova Festival event) was going on near the Gaza-Israel border. They all were celebrating the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. Even when paragliders started to descend on the crowd, the partygoers kept dancing. Until they started shooting and attacking!

See how oblivious the people are to the existential threat looming literally over their heads!

The disease of Wokeism is subsuming Israeli society and overshadowing its position (and consequently its narrative) overall. You see, the entire Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been posited in terms of racial power dynamics. In that worldview, Israel is "infinitely powerful" while the Palestinians as "completely without agency". The victim card is hoisted and a binary maximalist view is now becoming mainstream.

The discussions on social media clearly demonstrate it.

It certainly makes for worse Instagram posts. "Israelis are the OPPRESSORS and Palestinians are the OPPRESSED," one viral Instagram post reads. "There is no 'fighting', there is only Israeli colonisation, ethnic cleansing, military occupation, and apartheid." This rhetoric is hardly new to the conflict, but it's become absolutely ubiquitous thanks to the binary of wokeness at play here: There is no "fighting" happening because one side, the Palestinian side, is subsumed by its victim status at the hands of Israeli "colonization." No weapon in the hands of a Palestinian is thus ever real—even, apparently, rockets that have killed Israelis—because Palestinians are the OPPRESSED in the situation, as the drawing would have it, and oppressed people cannot fight, apparently. It's wokeness 101: The oppressor has all the power, all the agency, and the Israelis are the oppressors. Case closed. (Source: When Wokeness Comes for Israel / Newsweek)

What is finding echo inside Israel, is being fashioned from outside. There is already a major break between the American and European perspectives of the Israeli-Palestine conflict. The new crop of American activists is setting up Israel as an "apartheid state".

All these woke-inspired internal debilitating stances will get a rude awakening. Maybe not. If Israel as a state has to exist and Jews as people have to survive, then this ideological subversion of Israel will need to be reversed.

Geopolitical conundrum: who is with whom?

Nothing explains this better than the relationship between the trio of the United States, Israel, and Russia.

The Ukraine War has brought out the entire web very clearly.

So, let us put it all together.

So can you figure out who is with Israel? And whom Israel is really with?

Here are some of the stances which are out in the public.

Russia and Iran: "Russia-Iran ties have reached new level, Russian defence minister says" / Reuters

Russia and Israel: "We call on the Palestinian and Israeli sides to immediately ceasefire, renounce violence, show the necessary restraint." / The Moscow Times

US and Iran: "Biden admin clears the way for prisoner swap deal with Iran, lifts freeze on $6 billion in Iranian funds" / NBC

US and Israel: "Biden "emphasized that the U.S. stands alongside Israel" and "fully supports" the country's right to self-defense." / CBS news

The stances of other forces and players should also be reviewed.

Turkey: They have been instrumental in supporting Azerbaijan to defeat Armenia. Also, they are backing Hamas. Very recently, Turkish President Erdogan hosted Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

With such multipolarity entanglements, is it crazy to say that we are moving towards a World War?

Is this World War yet?

These days it doesn't take long for many pundits to call the latest conflict as the beginning of the next World War. Specifically in the US, it has become a fad.

So we have to evaluate if the World War is really upon us.

Interestingly, the idea that another World War is upon us has permeated even into the United Nation's speech and its International Security Committee is already warning the world about the imminent conflict!

The world is “on the brink of a third world war”, the Chairman of the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) said today upon conclusion of the body’s work for the session, reminding diplomats that they are, first and foremost, men and women of peace and pleading with them to “reignite the torch”. The global order is at risk of rupture with international security at a low point in history, Committee Chair, Peter Mohan Maithri Pieris of Sri Lanka said.  (Source: United Nations 77th session)

The fact is that if Israel opens up the war theater beyond just its neighborhood (Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine) to Iran it will set into motion many forces and events.

We have seen how Biden and his establishment is behaving extremely irresponsibly as they threaten Putin and Russia. And, Putin isn't the one to back down, has been raising the ante further.

In this equation, we haven't yet thrown in the China factor. China and its obsession with Taiwan - the home of global semiconductors production - is a serious trigger for a global conflict!

We saw how the de-platforming of Russia from SWIFT set into motion the forces and events pushing for de-dollarization in the world.

Lack of options and restrictions to freedom of space are the greatest triggers for nations to start hitting above their weight.

And, in the conflict with Iran, it seems that Iran has all the cards that it uses with impunity via its proxies in Yemen, Lebanon, and Gaza, while Israel is in a perpetual defensive mode.

The defense may be water-tight, but it can see lapses. Sometimes devastating ones that lead to total destruction.

Unless you go into the territory of your enemy and completely exterminate it, there is no way to defend yourself for very long.

The establishment and people of Israel will come to this conclusion before long.

As will others.

A Multipolar World has Multipolar Decision-making

When the world was between two poles you had a choice. Throw your lot into any of the two camps and ride the wave to its logical conclusion. Your decisions were decided. And, with that, the world's decision-making was fixed.

It was all calibrated and worked out by a few for the rest.

When one pole went away, it became even more simple.

"Either you are with us, or against us." That is how George Bush Jr laid it out.

You were either with the US or against it.

But soon the world saw the emergence of China and its rather quick stumble. The US was not far behind. It's internal political rift through the middle has made it extremely weak.

We are now - specifically after the G20 - in a multipolar world.

There are many camps. Each camp has its own agenda and triggers for action.

The worst thing is that no one knows the variables and the calculations being considered by each pole. Where the different powers behave like swingers on steroids. No one knows who is bedding whom and when!

In such a world, one calculation going counter could lead to a larger conflict that can set off multiple events because of the entanglement of interests.

Just check these possible chain events.

We will be seeing a nightmare unfolding right in front of us.

If, however, Israel does not retaliate directly against Iran, the retribution against its proxies will push it to plan an even more daring as attack. This time against the Saudis as well. You cannot stop Iran now. You will need to completely simply stymie its power decisively.

Doing that sets into motion other reactions.

Just the uncertainty and the opening up of the optimization problem within the geopolitical power play will soon lead the world to a global unrestricted conflict!

The Third World War.

Video Corner: Sahebs Who Never Left

This is a two-part documentary that needs to be watched a rewatched.

The first part is a movie that ties together Ideological Subversion (as explained by KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov in the 1970s) to the History of India. How Islamic invaders like Sher Shah Suri initiated a domino effect of creating subservient operators, who were later adopted by East India Company, becoming the cream of the society. Then the film draws a parallel that how the Freedom Movement of India was also hijacked by these Brown Sahibs, and ultimately led to what every subversion leads to - The Partition of India, in a bloody Civil War.

Here is an extended preview of the second part. Sahebs 2 exposes the unthinkable covert colonization of Bharat post-independence. It throws light on the lesser-discussed aspects of cultural, academic, historical, and even dietary colonization.

You can watch the complete Saheb 2 on Prachyam's website directly.