via Moon of Alabama

What is the reason for the ‘Al-Aqsa Deluge’, as Hamas had named its terror operation against the Zionists?

On October 8 Alastair Crooke, one of most experienced Middle East hands, wrote in AlMahadeen:

“Israel” has shattered into two equally weighted factions holding to two irreconcilable visions of “Israel’s” future; two mutually opposing readings of history and of what it means to be Jewish.The fissure could not be more complete. Except it is. One faction, which holds a majority in parliament, is broadly Mizrahi — a former underclass in Israeli society; and the other, largely well-to-do liberal Ashkenazi.

Mizrahi are mostly the original Middle Eastern Jews and often on the religious far right, Ashkenazi are mostly liberal European ones. The current Netanyahoo government is the first which includes far-right Mizrahi ministers.

Most Mizrahi follow the Sephardi religious rites. They want an religious state based on Jewish law. They are as radial as ISIS.

The high court of Israel has 14 Ashkenazi judges and one Mizrahi one. It is one of the reasons why the Netanyahoo government wants the parliament to be able to vote down high court judgements. There have been large, U.S. sponsored ‘regime change’ protests in Israel against that move. The leaders of the military and security services, mostly Ashkenazi, have also opposed the government move against the court.

I therefore think that it is quite possible that there was intelligence pointing to the Hamas attack, but that it was not revealed to let Netanyahoo fall into a trap. We have however no evidence that there were reasonably precise intelligence warnings, or that they were held up.

There are already demands for Netanyahoo to go. If only for his long term sponsoring of Hamas as a counterweight to the more secular Fatah Palestinians. Should he no longer be prime minister the courts will take up the three bribe cases against him which are currently pending. He would likely end up in jail.

Another reason for Hamas’ success was the fact that three of the four infantry battalions, with 800 soldiers each, that usually guard the Gaza strip, had been moved to the West Bank to protect right-wing Zionist settlers during a religious holiday. This allowed for Hamas’ easy breach of the fence.

Back to Alastair Crooke on the real motive of the Al-Aqsa flood:

Well, the Right in Netanyahu’s government has two long-standing commitments. One is to rebuild the (Jewish) Temple on ‘Temple Mount’ (Haram al-Shariff).Just to be clear, that would entail demolishing Al-Aqsa.

The second overriding commitment is to the founding of “Israel”, on the “Land of Israel”. And again, to be clear, this (in their view) would entail clearing Palestinians from the West Bank. Indeed, the settlers have been cleansing Palestinians from swaths of the West Bank over the past year (notably between Ramallah and Jericho).

On Thursday morning (two days preceding Al-Aqsa Flood), more than 800 settlers stormed the Mosque Compound, under the full protection of Israeli forces. The drumbeat of such provocations is rising.

This is nothing new. The First Intifada was triggered by (then) PM Sharon making a provocative visit into the mosque. I was a part of Senator George Mitchell’s Presidential Committee investigating that incident. Even then, it was clear that Sharon intended the visit to fuel the fire of religious nationalism. At that time, the Temple Mount Movement was a minnow; today it has ministers in Cabinet and in key security positions — and has promised its followers to build the ‘Third Temple’.

So, the threat to Al-Aqsa has been building for two decades, and today is reaching an apex. And yet US and Israeli intelligence didn’t see resistance coming, and nor did they see the settler violence building in the West Bank?

What happened on Saturday was widely expected and clearly extensively planned.

There is by the way no archaeologic evidence, none, that a Jewish ‘Temple’ ever existed in Jerusalem. If it did, it was most likely not on the hill of Al-Aqsa but one of the six other ones.

Al-Aqsa is holy to all Muslims, Shia and Sunni alike. Its destruction would inevitably lead to war. The West is clearly underestimating what forces calls like this one can rise:

Khalid Aljabri, MD د.خالد الجبري @JabriMD – 11:52 UTC · Oct 13, 2023Friday sermon from the Grand Mosque in Mecca prays for the “liberation of Al-Aqsa Mosque” in Jerusalem.

This is significant for two reasons:
• Audience of 2 billion Muslims.
• Such sermons have been significantly censored under MBS. Today’s sermon was likely pre-approved.
Video

Israel has used White Phosphorus on the people in Gaza, another war crime. Israel has given all people in north Gaza, 1.1 million human beings, 24 hours to move to south Gaza. That is impossible and will not happen. It is an attempt of ethnic cleansing.

Caitlin Johnstone @caitoz – 10:52 UTC · Oct 13, 2023If there were two million Jewish people trapped by Christians in a giant open-air prison and placed under total siege, being told that half of them had 24 hours to relocate into the other half or be killed, nobody would have any confusion about what they were witnessing.

If Israel makes, as announced, a ground attack on Gaza, Hizbullah in Lebanon is likely to attack Israel. The U.S. has allegedly let Syria know (via France) that Damascus, and President Assad personally, would be attacked if that were to happen. This is a miscalculation. It is far from certain that Assad, or even Iran, has the means to hold Hizbullah back.

A U.S. attack on the government of Syria would bring Russia into the war. Iran would also respond which is exactly what some of the neocons want.

The war could easily escalate further from there.