History Before the Firehose: Rebooting RTE Podcast with a Discussion on the Israel/Hamas Conflict

The Information Wars Part 29

Find out more about the Information Wars here. Further discussions are common at the Rounding the Earth Locals channel.

The information firehose is at peak blast on the topic of the Israeli-Hamas conflict.

Last week my friend Dr. Madhava Setty (formerly of CHD), whom I always enjoy talking with, and whose adventures I've written a bit about, emailed me and asked if we could have a conversation on the RTE podcast. He recently published a piece about the Hamas attack on Israel, and the notably unusual outcome.

Israel's 9/11

My reason for shelving the RTE podcast was a combination of Liam moving on (he handled the technical details and the grind, and I miss having him to work with) and the unfortunately stacked up health issues I've had this year. But I'm going to see if one show per week does not unreasonably cut into my research, writing, and rest. I'm also going to try out a 9 PM Eastern time slot leaving my sunlight hours open, and now I have the technologically talented Gabe to work with, so I don't have to worry that the podcast will overcrowd my work hours—this Substack is still by far my highest priority in terms of content production.

But I do enjoy having good conversations with interested and motivated people about important topics. And today's geopolitics are…getting interesting.

Can we make a difference?

I'd like to think that my analyses from 2021 showing that the vaccines never worked at all and were associated with a substantial number of deaths, with explanations of statistical illusions contributed to the overall shift in human consciousness that led to a low single-digit uptake of the recent boosters. So, why not?

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An Instant Global Crisis?

Many people are worried that this conflict could spiral into a larger war. Tensions are already high with the Russian invasion of Ukraine dividing many observers, and many nations gathering for a new BRICS currency bloc. The dollar, or perhaps the entire fiat currency era, seems on the brink as the U.S. debt to GDP ratio approaching levels historically associated with some form of economic collapse.

Despite this fact, the rhetoric is shockingly blunt. 

One friend of mine who served in Israeli special forces surprised me by saying that he both believes that Israel allowed the attacks and that Israel should hit back hard.

Unfortunately I believe a faction in the Israeli government must have allowed with foreknowledge and collusion the Hamas terrorists to invade and attack.

It’s possible they couldn’t have imagined how bad the attack would be.

I’ve been fighting against this conclusion the last few days. I don’t want to believe it.

I’m with Gabor Mate and I’m with Ben Shapiro on this issue. I am trusting Israel to be Israel and I will be disappointed if their response is not as effective as their responses in 1967 and 1973 (papers I wrote 33, 34 and 35 years ago, before and after I lived in Israel.)

Israel has always had blood on their hands and has been governed by ruthless, militaristic leaders. It could not survive otherwise. This is the most rational way of being for their situation.

But Israeli someones allowed this attack to take place, precisely so that it would be Israel’s 9-11 or Pearl Harbor.

This future is going to be hard to witness and hard for Israelis to live with.

We cannot expect decency or competence from any of Israel’s neighboring states. That’s why there are 2-3 million Gazans. (What’s the exact number, anyway?)

I hate taking such an unpopular position. But the truth needs to be said.

Also I don’t seem to be objective because my position is violating my own principles. I may swing back to believing that Israel should take only a defensive posture. Though this should include turning off electricity and water to Gaza, and as they have always done in the past, begging the other Arab states to rescue and welcome the Palestinians as refugees.

I want to learn that I’m wrong. But lying well is hard, and they’re going to be telling a whopper of a lie, about how the most effective military and intelligence forces in the modern world were so conveniently caught with their eyes and ears covered and sat on their hands for so long and then lied about the timing of their response.

This particular friend usually espouses libertarian principles, focused on nonaggression. While I'm glad to see that he leaves his mind open to his being wrong about the correct decision, changing your mind about war doesn't change the war that takes place. And the leap past his usual principles suggests a disturbing dehumanization of "the others" in this case. It also matches a lot of principle-shifting I see among many or perhaps most educated people over the past 15 years. It's like the Malthusian mind virus hit everyone after the mortgage bond crisis, and most Westerners with a stake to protect became as narcissistic on a daily basis as the average post-Ivy consultant at their first gig.

Why does this feel like a random sampling in which we discover that a lot more people know that 9/11 was an inside job than actually say so out loud or in surveys?

I'm also disappointed that my friend doesn't realize what a dishonest hack Ben Shapiro is. He's smarter than that. You've gotta be really in love with [the post-Andrew] Breitbart News or the Intellectual Dark Web not to notice Shapiro's fast-talking-to-fool-you new/alt right act leaks clues daily.

The bombing of Gaza has already been historically intense. Few times in history have so many bombs been dropped so quickly by anyone in any location. The Palestinians have no defense, which is to say that the operation cannot be seen as a war, but as a slaughter. At the same time, this is further evidence of the likelihood that Israel sacrificed its own people—asymmetries of power tend to be in proportion, including intelligence and border security correlated with military might.

We might also then note that Hamas showed zero regard for Palestinians. Israeli rhetoric has always been tough, suggesting a dehumanized view of Palestinians by many in authority. Such dehumanization makes it easy to attack people without pushback. So, we have to believe that Hamas both made a lucky guess that Israel would have far far less border security and response on the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War instead of more and that Hamas would feel served by the flattening of Gaza, including the killing of [final total in the thousands?] of Palestinians along the way?

As many have noted, something smells rotten, but I think the rot is beyond the Level 2 psyop thinking at which so many people tend to stop. If we want to get closer to the truth, we need to look back through history for context.

I couldn't resist.

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What's the Deal With Hamas?

Last week approximately 37 million Westerners—mostly graduates of American public schools—learned that (1) hummus is made out of mashed chickpeas blended with tahini, lemon juice, and garlic, and (2) that may have nothing to do with war in the Middle East.

The story of Hamas is itself a tricky one, and a suspicious mind who works out the details might think the meandering historical roots are in fact part of the Grand Ultimate Psyop (GU-P, like "guppy") of the moment. Let's work backward to see what we can discover.

Sorry for the way this starts off, but a story like this needs an ounce of levity.

In 2021…

Back in 2019…

Also, this video:

Before that, in 2016…

Earlier than that, in 2014…

Prior to all that, in 2009…

And in 2002…

Okay, okay, you probably get the point. Israel was doing something that led to the public choice of Hamas among Palestinians. And it's easy enough to recognize that poor reporters could elucidate the point decades ago.

Either that or somebody's intelligence agency fed these stories around as a slow drip.

But what you want to know, whether you read all these articles and watch the video, is what Israel did that forced the move on the chessboard that led to the Hamas gambit.

This is where I'm going to lead you to the work of Matthew Ehret because I have to get back to my own projects.

The Peace of Westphalia as a Lesson in Solving Religious Wars Past Present or Future.

Look into history for evidence of the model that the City of London banking and corporate elite/oligarchs gained so much power that by the 1800s they were seeding the world with their own societal projects, almost like sleeper cells of controlled opposition for the purpose of divide & conquer on an almost invisible level. In particular, I believe that Zionism and the Muslim Brotherhood bear the hallmarks of such influence. And those taking sides should consider the possibility that everyone in the conflict is simply a tool for those who profit from all wars.

Here is my conversation with Madhava.