There is a danger that as the war against the Zionist occupation of Palestine spirals out of control, we will lose sight of why and how it started. In the heat of battle it may seem trivial to ask 'who started this' rather than focus on how to stop it. Some of course will say that it takes two to start a war, but I would contend that in all the wars we might think of, one party was the aggressor and provoker while the other was the victim and resister. It is also probably true that in most cases the aggressor claims to be the victim, or at least only guilty of reacting to provocation and aggression from the other party. As this will always be the reasonable claim of the actual victim, 'both-sidesism' will dominate any discussion and suppress the attribution of blame. But almost by definition it will be the stronger party who is the aggressor, and which must resort to some sort of stratagem or pretext to justify violent action against the weaker party. No impartial observer of Israel's war on Gaza - a true "shooting fish in a barrel" war - could argue that Hamas is the aggressor after 10 months of defensive fighting against overwhelming force. As Caitlin Johnstone notes, Israel could have responded differently, conceding to Hamas' demands and loosening the stranglehold on Gaza. Given the majority of deaths and destruction in Gaza have been the result of missiles and bombs delivered at night by aircraft, or from artillery well outside the enclave, and against which there is no defence, only the blind defenders of 'Israel' could pretend its naked aggression is in self-defence. That would be the case even if Israel's claims about what happened on October 7th were true - but of course they are anything but. The bizarre and completely fabricated claims about Hamas beheading and roasting babies, and engaging in mass rape of women, have actually now become a parody, as the extraordinary and bestial brutality of Israel's soldiers against thousands of mostly civilian men kidnapped from Gaza exceeds those stories a hundred-fold, and with graphic evidence dutifully recorded by the perpetrators. All this is now background to 'October 7th 2.0' - or July 27th, when Israel's leaders once again pleaded self-defence to legitimise a lethal attack against a defenceless civilian target. Even accepting the false pretext for this attack - the alleged targeting by Hezbollah of a group of civilians in Israeli-occupied Syrian territory - Israel's missile strike on a residential building in South Beirut, which killed and injured dozens of civilians other than the targeted individual, was hardly legitimate. A lethal strike carried out at no risk to the attacking aircraft, by surprise and after dark, is the strategy only of terrorists and cowards, though even terrorists must risk their lives or heroically sacrifice them in pursuit of their goals. As pointed out by Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, speaking to his followers and soldiers at the funeral ceremony for veteran military leader Fouad Shukr, Israel's missile strike on the building in which Shukr was found crossed several of Hezbollah's red lines. It killed several innocent people and wounded scores of others - being close to a hospital in the Beirut suburb. Hezbollah was further angered by a dirty trick played on it by the US envoy Amos Hochstein, who assured Lebanese government officials that Israel's 'response' against Hezbollah would not target South Beirut or civilians, likely leaving them more exposed to the attack. (this information was revealed by Alastair Crooke in an excellent discussion with Judge Napolitano) In the same speech - an unusually fiery speech appropriate to this occasion, Nasrallah also forcefully rejected Israel's accusations over the targeting of Majdal Shams, and denounced those countries who had gone along with Israel's account, and who will now consider Hezbollah's legitimate reaction to the killing as 'new aggression' towards Israel. No-one in Lebanon or the wider region would doubt Hezbollah's denials of any responsibility for such a heinous act - something that could hardly be excused even if it were an accident. So while Israelis and foreign media might see Daniel Haggari as a forceful defender of Israel's policies, his claims in this video clip from which the still frame above is taken, look distinctly hollow next to Nasrallah's disavowals.
In fact, as military analysts examine the details of the missile strike on Majdal Shams, Haggari is exposed as a liar and propagandist to rival that most notorious spokesperson for the Third Reich, Joseph Goebbels. A resemblance in substance as well as style it seems:
So let’s examine the substance of the missile attack in detail, following terrific research by specialists such as Michael Kobs, who examined the Doppler profile of the missile as caught in this short video clip, posted below. Without going into too much detail on the analytical science, the fall in pitch as the missile passes and hits its target may be compared to a jet aircraft passing at high speed. Kobs compares this with the sound that would be heard as a longer distance ballistic missile – such as the Iranian Falaq-1 – would make as it falls to earth from several thousand metres and at a far higher speed.
In fact the Doppler imprint of the missile is just one part of the evidence which demonstrates it could not have been a Hezbollah Falaq-1 missile, carrying a 53Kg warhead – as Haggari claims. While the Israelis rapidly removed all the missile fragments from the site – for obvious reasons – the minimal damage and insignificant crater show that such a large explosive charge simply couldn’t have caused so little damage – except to the unfortunate kids gathered there. From numbers of videos taken at the scene the angle and direction of travel of the missile can also be estimated. The photo below shows the tiny crater where the missile struck, and minimal damage to a fence close by.
By chance it happens that we have video today of a misfired Iron Dome rocket hitting a road in Northern Israel, following a volley of Hezbollah’s rockets targeting military posts. Israel acknowledges that it was responsible for this blast, which we may believe given Hezbollah would not be aiming at and hitting such an insignificant civilian site. Video showing the damage to the road was also strikingly similar to that on the football field in Majdal Shams.
All these factors demonstrate the projectile's Israeli origin, if not proving its intent. Others have suggested that this looks very like a 'Gulf of Tonkin' incident, where false claims were made alleging a North Vietnamese attack on US ships which was then used as a pretext to start the Vietnam war. The attack that didn't happen was by chance exactly 60 years ago this week, but was not publicly revealed until after the US launched into another war based on a lie - in Iraq in 2003. In what seems like another strange historical resonance, the Vietnam war was launched following the assassination of JFK in November 1963. The intended assassination of Donald Trump could well now be seen as part of the deep state planning for this impending 'civilisational war' between the US-Israel and Russia-Iran, given Trump's general resistance to US foreign expansionism and pragmatic willingness to change direction. But perhaps this is just a conspiracy theory... In all these considerations however we must not lose sight of the single most significant action for which the consequences will soon be felt - the assassination by Israel of the Palestinian leader while he was visiting Iran for the inauguration of their new President. This has appropriately been compared with the assassination of a European leader while attending the inauguration of a US President by some Iranian agents in Washington. The failure of Western leaders to condemn Israel for this war crime, or even express regret at Haniyeh's death, is a profound insult to the whole Palestinian diaspora, as well as diminishing any respect the whole Islamic world may have left for the Western 'democracies' and their supposed 'human rights and freedoms' values.
DM 6th August 2024