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Six months on from the horrific terrorist attack on October 7th , we can increasingly say it marked not only the beginning of a war with Hamas but also an increasingly decisive turn towards a war with Iran.
Hamas, a Sunni jihadist terrorist organization, governs approximately 2 million people in the territory of the Gaza Strip and is best known for what the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) describes as its “commitment to armed resistance against Israel.”
How did this Sunni-based jihadist group achieve an armed invasion of Israel – killing more than1200 people and taking more than 240-people hostage?
The answer: Iran.
Iran, a Shia-led theocracy, has “funded, armed, trained, and provided intelligence to Hamas for decades,” according to Matthew Levitt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Why would a Shia-led sovereign country support a Sunni-based jihadist group?
Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar of the Harvard Kennedy School and Texas A&M argues in Foreign Affairs that Iran pursued such a strategy to achieve five strategic objectives:
Bring the fight to Israeli soil: “Already, Hamas has succeeded in bringing the proxy war between Iran and Israel—typically fought in Lebanon and Syria—to Israeli soil.”
Deter Israel: “As Tehran sees it, the conflict could help Hamas permanently deter Israel from attacking Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by teaching Israel that the costs of invading the territory are prohibitively high.”
Unite Iran’s axis of resistance: “The conflict could further unite Tehran and its allied militias into a lethal and highly coordinated fighting machine.”
Increase Iran’s standing in the region: “It could give the Islamic Republic a new claim to moral leadership among states outside the West and restore Tehran’s credibility in the Arab world.”
Justify completing a nuclear weapon: “…should the war expand into a regional conflict, it could create a window of opportunity for Iran to finally build a nuclear weapon.”
Tabaar goes on to argue: “As Israeli forces advance through Gaza, the war could escalate to the point where Iran’s ‘axis of resistance’—Hezbollah and other Tehran-backed militias in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, and elsewhere—become direct combatants. Such developments could, in turn, drag the United States into the fighting.”
It appears Tabaar’s prediction in November of 2023 may be coming to fruition.
The United States and Israel are bracing for an attack by Iran against not only US forces in the region but also Israel itself – an attack that senior US officials describe as “inevitable.”
A direct attack on Israel represents a dire scenario. Even if Iran selects military targets they believe represent a re-establishment of deterrence in response to Israel’s recent strike in Damascus, Israel may not view such an attack by Iran in the same way.
There has been a fundamental shift in Israel’s perspective in the wake of the October 7th attack. Israel views October 7th as an invasion of its territory not only by Hamas but also a nation-state: Iran. Israeli leaders believe October 7th represents an on-going existential threat to Israel’s ability to continue as a sovereign state. Accordingly, Israeli leaders would likely view any direct attack by Iran as a further confirmation of an existential threat to Israel, its people, and Jews across the world. There is only one country that can step in to both deter Iran and de-escalate the situation.
The United States.
But even if the United States deters Iran from conducting such an attack and/or influences Israel’s response to an escalation by Iran, the implications of Iran’s attacks against Israel (by proxy on October 7th and perhaps directly in the coming days) have now extended beyond Gaza – and even the region – to a larger, global dimension that takes on more of the guise of great power competition than terrorism in Gaza and the region.
The on-going war in Gaza has not only catalyzed empathetic sentiment in the “global South” (a part of the world increasingly exploited by the likes of China and Russia) but also the West. As Tabaar further explains in his analysis in Foreign Affairs: “Last year, the streets of Berlin, London, Washington, and other cities across the world were filled with people protesting the
Islamic Republic’s violence against women. Now, those same streets are occupied by people protesting Israel’s attacks on Gaza.”
By both aligning itself with and directly supporting the Palestinian cause through Hamas, Iran believes it may be positioning itself as part of a larger “resistance” against what it describes as US and Western “hypocrisy” and “oppression” – notably a narrative that China and Russia also employ to attempt to expand their influence across the globe. Iran may well view the sentiment among the “global South” and parts of the West as what Tabaar describes as a “broad, once-in- a-generation shift…[in which] the United States is in decline and that new global and regional powers are upending the order that emerged after World War I and World War II.”
Indeed, October 7th unleashed forces that are less akin to what we are immediately witnessing in Gaza and increasingly more akin to great power competition – a new fight for the long-term primacy of the global order in the second half of the 21st century – and beyond.
The United States’ actions and decisions in response to this apparent and “inevitable” Iranian attack over the coming weeks may well influence this long-term future. Israel’s security is, therefore, global security.
Sources:
https://www.dni.gov/nctc/ftos/hamas_fto.html
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/hamas-hostages-israel-gaza-41432124
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/middle-east/why-iran-gambling-hamas?check_logged_in=1
https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/05/politics/us-israel-iran-retaliation-strike/index.html
https://apnews.com/article/syria-iran-israel-hezbollah-lebanon-consulate-amirabdollahian-
68c7a652c5434d80fbff47e0ddbdd483
Dr. Alex Gallo is the author of “Vetspective,” a RallyPoint series that discusses national security, foreign policy, politics, and society and highlights the analysis of thought-leaders, policy analysts, and scholars. Alex also serves as a fellow with George Mason University’s National Security Institute, an adjunct professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University, and a US Army Veteran. Follow him on Twitter at @AlexGalloUSA.
Hamas, a Sunni jihadist terrorist organization, governs approximately 2 million people in the territory of the Gaza Strip and is best known for what the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) describes as its “commitment to armed resistance against Israel.”
How did this Sunni-based jihadist group achieve an armed invasion of Israel – killing more than1200 people and taking more than 240-people hostage?
The answer: Iran.
Iran, a Shia-led theocracy, has “funded, armed, trained, and provided intelligence to Hamas for decades,” according to Matthew Levitt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Why would a Shia-led sovereign country support a Sunni-based jihadist group?
Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar of the Harvard Kennedy School and Texas A&M argues in Foreign Affairs that Iran pursued such a strategy to achieve five strategic objectives:
Bring the fight to Israeli soil: “Already, Hamas has succeeded in bringing the proxy war between Iran and Israel—typically fought in Lebanon and Syria—to Israeli soil.”
Deter Israel: “As Tehran sees it, the conflict could help Hamas permanently deter Israel from attacking Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by teaching Israel that the costs of invading the territory are prohibitively high.”
Unite Iran’s axis of resistance: “The conflict could further unite Tehran and its allied militias into a lethal and highly coordinated fighting machine.”
Increase Iran’s standing in the region: “It could give the Islamic Republic a new claim to moral leadership among states outside the West and restore Tehran’s credibility in the Arab world.”
Justify completing a nuclear weapon: “…should the war expand into a regional conflict, it could create a window of opportunity for Iran to finally build a nuclear weapon.”
Tabaar goes on to argue: “As Israeli forces advance through Gaza, the war could escalate to the point where Iran’s ‘axis of resistance’—Hezbollah and other Tehran-backed militias in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, and elsewhere—become direct combatants. Such developments could, in turn, drag the United States into the fighting.”
It appears Tabaar’s prediction in November of 2023 may be coming to fruition.
The United States and Israel are bracing for an attack by Iran against not only US forces in the region but also Israel itself – an attack that senior US officials describe as “inevitable.”
A direct attack on Israel represents a dire scenario. Even if Iran selects military targets they believe represent a re-establishment of deterrence in response to Israel’s recent strike in Damascus, Israel may not view such an attack by Iran in the same way.
There has been a fundamental shift in Israel’s perspective in the wake of the October 7th attack. Israel views October 7th as an invasion of its territory not only by Hamas but also a nation-state: Iran. Israeli leaders believe October 7th represents an on-going existential threat to Israel’s ability to continue as a sovereign state. Accordingly, Israeli leaders would likely view any direct attack by Iran as a further confirmation of an existential threat to Israel, its people, and Jews across the world. There is only one country that can step in to both deter Iran and de-escalate the situation.
The United States.
But even if the United States deters Iran from conducting such an attack and/or influences Israel’s response to an escalation by Iran, the implications of Iran’s attacks against Israel (by proxy on October 7th and perhaps directly in the coming days) have now extended beyond Gaza – and even the region – to a larger, global dimension that takes on more of the guise of great power competition than terrorism in Gaza and the region.
The on-going war in Gaza has not only catalyzed empathetic sentiment in the “global South” (a part of the world increasingly exploited by the likes of China and Russia) but also the West. As Tabaar further explains in his analysis in Foreign Affairs: “Last year, the streets of Berlin, London, Washington, and other cities across the world were filled with people protesting the
Islamic Republic’s violence against women. Now, those same streets are occupied by people protesting Israel’s attacks on Gaza.”
By both aligning itself with and directly supporting the Palestinian cause through Hamas, Iran believes it may be positioning itself as part of a larger “resistance” against what it describes as US and Western “hypocrisy” and “oppression” – notably a narrative that China and Russia also employ to attempt to expand their influence across the globe. Iran may well view the sentiment among the “global South” and parts of the West as what Tabaar describes as a “broad, once-in- a-generation shift…[in which] the United States is in decline and that new global and regional powers are upending the order that emerged after World War I and World War II.”
Indeed, October 7th unleashed forces that are less akin to what we are immediately witnessing in Gaza and increasingly more akin to great power competition – a new fight for the long-term primacy of the global order in the second half of the 21st century – and beyond.
The United States’ actions and decisions in response to this apparent and “inevitable” Iranian attack over the coming weeks may well influence this long-term future. Israel’s security is, therefore, global security.
Sources:
https://www.dni.gov/nctc/ftos/hamas_fto.html
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/hamas-hostages-israel-gaza-41432124
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/middle-east/why-iran-gambling-hamas?check_logged_in=1
https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/05/politics/us-israel-iran-retaliation-strike/index.html
https://apnews.com/article/syria-iran-israel-hezbollah-lebanon-consulate-amirabdollahian-
68c7a652c5434d80fbff47e0ddbdd483
Dr. Alex Gallo is the author of “Vetspective,” a RallyPoint series that discusses national security, foreign policy, politics, and society and highlights the analysis of thought-leaders, policy analysts, and scholars. Alex also serves as a fellow with George Mason University’s National Security Institute, an adjunct professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University, and a US Army Veteran. Follow him on Twitter at @AlexGalloUSA.
Foreign Affairs
VetSpective
Middle East
Israel
Edited 2 mo ago
Posted 2 mo ago
Responses: 19
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I disagree with the headline on this article. The war in that region started over 2000 years ago and never settled.
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CPT (Join to see)
MAJ Byron Oyler - It is in the location of the historical Israel. Jordan was there before that.
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MAJ Byron Oyler
CPT (Join to see) - You are 100% correct and if I was a Jew in 1948 I would not have moved to an area where people all around want to kill me.
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SFC (Join to see)
MAJ Byron Oyler 3 d
I understand the historical reason Jews settled there in 1948 but will never understand why a group of people would want to live in an area surrounded by people wanting to kill them. If I was a Jew at the end of WWII, I would have been like, "can we get some land in Montana or Idaho?" The Mormons have been pretty happy in Utah
--- Why they settled there? No one else would take them in their land. Not anyone in Europe. Not the US. And "surrounded by people who wanted to kill them?" Really? Seems like Israelis are the ones committing ethnic cleansing since 1948. " The creation of Israel was a violent process that entailed the forced expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homeland to establish a Jewish-majority state, as per the aspirations of the Zionist movement.
Between 1947 and 1949, at least 750,000 Palestinians from a 1.9 million population were made refugees beyond the borders of the state. Zionist forces had taken more than 78 percent of historic Palestine, ethnically cleansed and destroyed about 530 villages and cities, and killed about 15,000 Palestinians in a series of mass atrocities, including more than 70 massacres."
I understand the historical reason Jews settled there in 1948 but will never understand why a group of people would want to live in an area surrounded by people wanting to kill them. If I was a Jew at the end of WWII, I would have been like, "can we get some land in Montana or Idaho?" The Mormons have been pretty happy in Utah
--- Why they settled there? No one else would take them in their land. Not anyone in Europe. Not the US. And "surrounded by people who wanted to kill them?" Really? Seems like Israelis are the ones committing ethnic cleansing since 1948. " The creation of Israel was a violent process that entailed the forced expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homeland to establish a Jewish-majority state, as per the aspirations of the Zionist movement.
Between 1947 and 1949, at least 750,000 Palestinians from a 1.9 million population were made refugees beyond the borders of the state. Zionist forces had taken more than 78 percent of historic Palestine, ethnically cleansed and destroyed about 530 villages and cities, and killed about 15,000 Palestinians in a series of mass atrocities, including more than 70 massacres."
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Excellent article. ANY U.S. administration which allows Iran to achieve a nuclear weapon on their watch will go down in history as an epic failure. A nuclear Iran, is a destabilizing rogue nation that the world cannot allow.
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CPL LaForest Gray
“What’s good for the goose.”
The USA is the ONLY COUNTRY to purposely use and drop ATOMIC NUCLEAR WEAPONS on other human beings. The ONLY country from : December 7th, 1941 up until 2024 … the only single country to push nuclear war.
Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb
SOURCE : https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/education/presidential-inquiries/decision-drop-atomic-bomb
2.) Discover the facts about the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan during World War
The atomic bombing of Nagasaki occurred on August 9, 1945, at 11:02 AM. In the early 20th century the city became a major shipbuilding centre; it was this industry that led to Nagasaki’s being chosen as a target for the second atomic bomb dropped on Japan by the United States in World War II. The bomb destroyed the innermost portion of Nagasaki.
The second atomic bomb to be detonated over a populated area was named Fat Man. It was an implosion fission bomb. It was deployed by a B-29 bomber named Bockscar. It was airburst at 500 metres (1,650 feet) above the city with a TNT equivalent of 21,000 tons (estimated).
The population of Nagasaki in July 1945 was 195,290. Approximately 40,000 people, or 20% of the total population, were killed outright or shortly after the blast. Approximately 70,000 people, or 36% of the total population, were dead by year’s end.
Approximately 40% of the buildings were completely destroyed or severely damaged.
SOURCE : https://www.britannica.com/study/atomic-bombing-of-nagasaki
The USA is the ONLY COUNTRY to purposely use and drop ATOMIC NUCLEAR WEAPONS on other human beings. The ONLY country from : December 7th, 1941 up until 2024 … the only single country to push nuclear war.
Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb
SOURCE : https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/education/presidential-inquiries/decision-drop-atomic-bomb
2.) Discover the facts about the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan during World War
The atomic bombing of Nagasaki occurred on August 9, 1945, at 11:02 AM. In the early 20th century the city became a major shipbuilding centre; it was this industry that led to Nagasaki’s being chosen as a target for the second atomic bomb dropped on Japan by the United States in World War II. The bomb destroyed the innermost portion of Nagasaki.
The second atomic bomb to be detonated over a populated area was named Fat Man. It was an implosion fission bomb. It was deployed by a B-29 bomber named Bockscar. It was airburst at 500 metres (1,650 feet) above the city with a TNT equivalent of 21,000 tons (estimated).
The population of Nagasaki in July 1945 was 195,290. Approximately 40,000 people, or 20% of the total population, were killed outright or shortly after the blast. Approximately 70,000 people, or 36% of the total population, were dead by year’s end.
Approximately 40% of the buildings were completely destroyed or severely damaged.
SOURCE : https://www.britannica.com/study/atomic-bombing-of-nagasaki
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“Liar!” Norm Finkelstein DISMANTLES Hillary Israel Spin
This is a teaser clip! Make sure to stay tuned for the entire interview this weekend. Krystal and Norm Finkelstein discuss Hillary Clinton’s take on Israel a...
Frank-stein’s Creation and Monster :
V1 : https://youtu.be/H4PckPdApIY?si=3vrhl6oBjUSgubPc
1.) How Israel went from helping 'create' Hamas to bombing it
HAMAS-ISRAEL WAR
TBS Report
14 October, 2023, 03:50 pm
Last modified: 14 October, 2023, 05:30 pm
Hamas has roots watered by Israeli funding, former military governor of Gaza admits
Hamas would not exist in its current form without Israeli involvement, highlights a recent piece published by The Intercept.
The article by Mehdi Hasan, a British-American broadcaster and Dina Sayedahmed, a multimedia journalist based in New York suggests that Hamas, an acronym for the "Islamic Resistance Movement," creation was largely influenced by resources provided by Israel.
"This isn't a conspiracy theory," the Intercept article reads.
The article refers to comments from Israeli officials, such as Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev, a former military governor in Gaza.
Segev reportedly stated his part in financially aiding the Palestinian Islamist movement, viewing it as a "counterweight" to the secularist Palestine Liberation Organization and the Fatah party, led by Yasser Arafat (who himself referred to Hamas as "a creature of Israel.")
"The Israeli government gave me a budget," Segev confessed to a New York Times reporter, "and the military government gives to the mosques."
In a startling revelation, Avner Cohen, a former Israeli official who worked in religious affairs in Gaza for over twenty years, told the Wall Street Journal, "Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel's creation."
According to The Intercept article, during the mid-1980s, Cohen even wrote an official report to his superiors warning them not to play divide-and-rule in the Occupied Territories, by backing Palestinian Islamists against Palestinian secularists.
"I … suggest focusing our efforts on finding ways to break up this monster before this reality jumps in our face," he wrote.
Over the past decade -during 2009, 2012, and 2014- Israel has engaged in military conflict with Hamas at least three times, resulting in about 2,500 Palestinian civilian casualties in Gaza.
Hamas has been accused of killing more Israeli civilians than any secular Palestinian fighter group, mentions the article.
Reflecting on the chain of events, David Hacham, a former Arab affairs expert in the Israeli military based in Gaza, admitted, "When I look back, I think we made a mistake."
SOURCE : https://www.tbsnews.net/hamas-israel-war/how-israel-went-helping-create-hamas-bombing-it-718378?amp
2.) “Divide and Rule”: How Israel Helped Start Hamas to Weaken Palestinian Hopes for Statehood
STORYOCTOBER 20, 2023
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is urging Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, where the death toll from Israel’s two-week bombardment has topped 4,100. Israel says a ground invasion may be imminent.
“This isn’t an effort to try to quell, to destroy Hamas specifically,” says Tareq Baconi, Palestinian analyst and author of Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance.
“This is an effort to pursue an ethnic cleansing campaign in the Gaza Strip and beyond the Gaza Strip, as we see the violence rising in the West Bank.”
Baconi lays out Israel’s history of enabling Hamas while designating them as terrorists in order to maintain tight control over Gaza. After the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel that killed 1,400, Baconi says, “that equilibrium has now shattered.”
SOURCE : https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/20/divide_and_rule_how_israel_helped
3.) HISTORY
* MADE BY HISTORY
What the World Can Learn From the History of Hamas
The massacre by Hamas, which killed more than 1,000 men, women, and children, was an example of how that can happen. The terrorist group’s roots and strength date back to a Palestinian uprising that began in 1987—known as the first Intifada—when Israel turned a blind eye to the rise of Hamas so it could focus on what Israeli leaders saw as an even greater threat at the time: secular Palestinian groups, such as the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) led by Yasser Arafat.
This move proved to be a disastrous miscalculation. The Israeli campaign against the PLO in the 1980s ended up enabling the rise of both Hamas and the Lebanese Hizballah (Party of God), two non-state actors that currently threaten Israeli security. Israel’s military campaign might weaken Hamas. Yet, Israel is unlikely to destroy the terrorist group—just as it never destroyed the PLO—and may instead encourage the rise of a group far more threatening than Hamas.
Beginning with the foundation of Israel in 1948, the PLO provided the de-facto leadership for Palestinians, many of whom had been displaced by the Arab-Israeli wars first in 1948, and then again in 1967. Palestinians turned to the group once they realized they could no longer rely on nearby Arab states like Egypt and Syria to liberate what they saw as their land.
First from Jordan and then from Lebanon—after the PLO was expelled from Jordan in 1970—the group conducted military strikes against Israeli targets. In 1982 and 1983, an Israeli military operation chased the PLO from Lebanon to Tunis—far from Israel’s borders. Israel’s military campaign, however, spawned the creation of a Shi’a resistance group in Lebanon called Hizballah, which later inspired the creation of Hamas.
In 1987, the first Intifada erupted as a spontaneous, homegrown protest movement. Some of the Intifada’s leaders, disillusioned with the secular PLO, formed Hamas (“Courage”)—a more hardline, religiously-motivated group.
Israel imprisoned Hamas’ leader, Ahmad Yassin, in 1989, but otherwise turned a blind eye to the group’s spread because it was a relatively minor threat to Israeli security, and Israeli leaders were focused on Arafat and the threat posed by the PLO.
In 1993, the first Intifada finally ended in a historic peace agreement signed by Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Known as the Oslo Accords, the agreement that President Bill Clinton helped broker promised to eventually lead to Palestinian statehood.
Yet, almost immediately, this “two-state solution” began unraveling.
In 1994, an American-Jewish settler living in the West Bank walked into a Hebron mosque and killed 29 Muslim worshipers, inflaming tensions. Then in 1995, another Jewish settler opposed to the Oslo Accords assassinated Rabin, just after he had addressed a peace rally. The loss of the prime minister removed a champion of peace from the top of Israeli politics. Finally, in 1996, an Israeli tunnel built under what Muslims know as the Noble Sanctuary or Haram al-Sharif, and Jews know as the Temple Mount, sparked Palestinian protests.
These events prompted a dramatic change in strategy for Hamas. The group became the first Muslim organization to embrace the use of suicide bombers. Its leaders had tired of waiting for a Palestinian state and understood that Israel had a superior military. They also recognized that the shock of the tactic would guarantee media coverage, sow fear, and push Israel to lash out.
Hamas’ decision ignited a spiraling cycle that destroyed the peace process and thwarted any attempt to create a two-state solution.
Israeli voters reacted to Hamas’ first two suicide attacks by replacing the incumbent, pro-peace Labor government with a more hawkish, Likud-led government helmed by Benjamin Netanyahu.
Initially, although Likud distrusted the deal with the PLO, Netanyahu promised to fulfill Israel’s commitments. The prime minister even agreed to withdraw Israeli troops from most of Hebron in January 1997.
SOURCE : https://time.com/6324221/hamas-origins-history/
——
* BONUS READ :
The Origins of Hamas: Militant Legacy or Israeli Tool?
Jean-Pierre Filiu
Journal of Palestine Studies
Vol. 41, No. 3 (Spring 2012), pp. 54-70 (17 pages)
Published By: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
SOURCE : https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/jps.2012.xli.3.54
V2 : https://youtu.be/BoIgloYGSTs?si=fDIpj15Yh51PGgmg
V1 : https://youtu.be/H4PckPdApIY?si=3vrhl6oBjUSgubPc
1.) How Israel went from helping 'create' Hamas to bombing it
HAMAS-ISRAEL WAR
TBS Report
14 October, 2023, 03:50 pm
Last modified: 14 October, 2023, 05:30 pm
Hamas has roots watered by Israeli funding, former military governor of Gaza admits
Hamas would not exist in its current form without Israeli involvement, highlights a recent piece published by The Intercept.
The article by Mehdi Hasan, a British-American broadcaster and Dina Sayedahmed, a multimedia journalist based in New York suggests that Hamas, an acronym for the "Islamic Resistance Movement," creation was largely influenced by resources provided by Israel.
"This isn't a conspiracy theory," the Intercept article reads.
The article refers to comments from Israeli officials, such as Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev, a former military governor in Gaza.
Segev reportedly stated his part in financially aiding the Palestinian Islamist movement, viewing it as a "counterweight" to the secularist Palestine Liberation Organization and the Fatah party, led by Yasser Arafat (who himself referred to Hamas as "a creature of Israel.")
"The Israeli government gave me a budget," Segev confessed to a New York Times reporter, "and the military government gives to the mosques."
In a startling revelation, Avner Cohen, a former Israeli official who worked in religious affairs in Gaza for over twenty years, told the Wall Street Journal, "Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel's creation."
According to The Intercept article, during the mid-1980s, Cohen even wrote an official report to his superiors warning them not to play divide-and-rule in the Occupied Territories, by backing Palestinian Islamists against Palestinian secularists.
"I … suggest focusing our efforts on finding ways to break up this monster before this reality jumps in our face," he wrote.
Over the past decade -during 2009, 2012, and 2014- Israel has engaged in military conflict with Hamas at least three times, resulting in about 2,500 Palestinian civilian casualties in Gaza.
Hamas has been accused of killing more Israeli civilians than any secular Palestinian fighter group, mentions the article.
Reflecting on the chain of events, David Hacham, a former Arab affairs expert in the Israeli military based in Gaza, admitted, "When I look back, I think we made a mistake."
SOURCE : https://www.tbsnews.net/hamas-israel-war/how-israel-went-helping-create-hamas-bombing-it-718378?amp
2.) “Divide and Rule”: How Israel Helped Start Hamas to Weaken Palestinian Hopes for Statehood
STORYOCTOBER 20, 2023
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is urging Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, where the death toll from Israel’s two-week bombardment has topped 4,100. Israel says a ground invasion may be imminent.
“This isn’t an effort to try to quell, to destroy Hamas specifically,” says Tareq Baconi, Palestinian analyst and author of Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance.
“This is an effort to pursue an ethnic cleansing campaign in the Gaza Strip and beyond the Gaza Strip, as we see the violence rising in the West Bank.”
Baconi lays out Israel’s history of enabling Hamas while designating them as terrorists in order to maintain tight control over Gaza. After the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel that killed 1,400, Baconi says, “that equilibrium has now shattered.”
SOURCE : https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/20/divide_and_rule_how_israel_helped
3.) HISTORY
* MADE BY HISTORY
What the World Can Learn From the History of Hamas
The massacre by Hamas, which killed more than 1,000 men, women, and children, was an example of how that can happen. The terrorist group’s roots and strength date back to a Palestinian uprising that began in 1987—known as the first Intifada—when Israel turned a blind eye to the rise of Hamas so it could focus on what Israeli leaders saw as an even greater threat at the time: secular Palestinian groups, such as the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) led by Yasser Arafat.
This move proved to be a disastrous miscalculation. The Israeli campaign against the PLO in the 1980s ended up enabling the rise of both Hamas and the Lebanese Hizballah (Party of God), two non-state actors that currently threaten Israeli security. Israel’s military campaign might weaken Hamas. Yet, Israel is unlikely to destroy the terrorist group—just as it never destroyed the PLO—and may instead encourage the rise of a group far more threatening than Hamas.
Beginning with the foundation of Israel in 1948, the PLO provided the de-facto leadership for Palestinians, many of whom had been displaced by the Arab-Israeli wars first in 1948, and then again in 1967. Palestinians turned to the group once they realized they could no longer rely on nearby Arab states like Egypt and Syria to liberate what they saw as their land.
First from Jordan and then from Lebanon—after the PLO was expelled from Jordan in 1970—the group conducted military strikes against Israeli targets. In 1982 and 1983, an Israeli military operation chased the PLO from Lebanon to Tunis—far from Israel’s borders. Israel’s military campaign, however, spawned the creation of a Shi’a resistance group in Lebanon called Hizballah, which later inspired the creation of Hamas.
In 1987, the first Intifada erupted as a spontaneous, homegrown protest movement. Some of the Intifada’s leaders, disillusioned with the secular PLO, formed Hamas (“Courage”)—a more hardline, religiously-motivated group.
Israel imprisoned Hamas’ leader, Ahmad Yassin, in 1989, but otherwise turned a blind eye to the group’s spread because it was a relatively minor threat to Israeli security, and Israeli leaders were focused on Arafat and the threat posed by the PLO.
In 1993, the first Intifada finally ended in a historic peace agreement signed by Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Known as the Oslo Accords, the agreement that President Bill Clinton helped broker promised to eventually lead to Palestinian statehood.
Yet, almost immediately, this “two-state solution” began unraveling.
In 1994, an American-Jewish settler living in the West Bank walked into a Hebron mosque and killed 29 Muslim worshipers, inflaming tensions. Then in 1995, another Jewish settler opposed to the Oslo Accords assassinated Rabin, just after he had addressed a peace rally. The loss of the prime minister removed a champion of peace from the top of Israeli politics. Finally, in 1996, an Israeli tunnel built under what Muslims know as the Noble Sanctuary or Haram al-Sharif, and Jews know as the Temple Mount, sparked Palestinian protests.
These events prompted a dramatic change in strategy for Hamas. The group became the first Muslim organization to embrace the use of suicide bombers. Its leaders had tired of waiting for a Palestinian state and understood that Israel had a superior military. They also recognized that the shock of the tactic would guarantee media coverage, sow fear, and push Israel to lash out.
Hamas’ decision ignited a spiraling cycle that destroyed the peace process and thwarted any attempt to create a two-state solution.
Israeli voters reacted to Hamas’ first two suicide attacks by replacing the incumbent, pro-peace Labor government with a more hawkish, Likud-led government helmed by Benjamin Netanyahu.
Initially, although Likud distrusted the deal with the PLO, Netanyahu promised to fulfill Israel’s commitments. The prime minister even agreed to withdraw Israeli troops from most of Hebron in January 1997.
SOURCE : https://time.com/6324221/hamas-origins-history/
——
* BONUS READ :
The Origins of Hamas: Militant Legacy or Israeli Tool?
Jean-Pierre Filiu
Journal of Palestine Studies
Vol. 41, No. 3 (Spring 2012), pp. 54-70 (17 pages)
Published By: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
SOURCE : https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/jps.2012.xli.3.54
V2 : https://youtu.be/BoIgloYGSTs?si=fDIpj15Yh51PGgmg
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~~ "October 7th – The Day War with Iran Began"~~
And FAR Past Time To End It, No Matter Who Does It.
I Prefer It Be US ~~ We CAN Stop It, We Just Need To Get
Off Ouraz And DO It. ... Sometimes It TAKES Violence, To END Violence.
And THIS Is One Of Those "Times".....
And FAR Past Time To End It, No Matter Who Does It.
I Prefer It Be US ~~ We CAN Stop It, We Just Need To Get
Off Ouraz And DO It. ... Sometimes It TAKES Violence, To END Violence.
And THIS Is One Of Those "Times".....
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Blowback: How Israel Helped Create Hamas
Did you also know that Hamas — which is an Arabic acronym for “Islamic Resistance Movement” — would probably not exist today were it not for the Jewish state...
The conflict was FACTUAL long before October 7th, 2023. Israel Leadership are responsible for the attack.
V1 : https://youtu.be/o7grSsuFSS0?si=9-mT2yeRfzMQsZDb
1.) How and why Israel helped create Hamas?
Not many people are aware of the fact that it was Israel which had helped the creation of Hamas as a counter to PLO
The acronym "Hamas" first appeared in 1987 in a leaflet that accused the Israeli intelligence services of undermining the moral fiber of Palestinian youth as part of Mossad's recruitment of what Hamas termed "collaborators."
How and why Israel helped create Hamas?
Not many people are aware of the fact that it was Israel which had helped the creation of Hamas as a counter to PLO.
Why Israel helped the creation of Hamas and how it utilised its resources for the purpose? Has Israel by taking brutal action in Gaza strengthened Hamas and how the Palestinian struggle got divided and weakened when Hamas challenged PLO, a secular and nationalist organisation?
Formed in 1964, PLO had a clause, in its charter, calling for the destruction of Israel. But when the Oslo process was launched for peace between Israel and PLO, that clause was removed from the Palestinian charter, granting recognition to the Jewish state. Likewise, the Israeli government in late 1980s and early 1990s lifted ban on maintaining contacts with PLO and recognised it when the historic PLO-Israeli accord, mediated by then US President Bill Clinton, signed on September 13, 1993. If PLO recognised Israel, Hamas opposed peace process with the Jewish state and called for the destruction of Israel.
Gaza, which was occupied by Israel as a result of June 1967 Arab-Israeli war, patronised Mujama al-Islamiya which was formed by a Palestinian cleric Sheikh Ahmed Yasin and viewed it as a harmless organisation involved in charity and welfare work for the Palestinian community of Gaza. Mujama al-Islamiya later became Hamas before Intifada-I was launched in December 1987. Israel considered Mujama al-Islamiya and its successor organisation Hamas a lesser evil as compared to PLO and thought that dividing Palestinians will serve the interest of Jewish state.
If Israel termed PLO a terrorist organisation and a major threat to its interests, Hamas was also against PLO because of its secular and nationalist outlook. That is how both Hamas and Israel were viewed as natural allies against PLO. But, later on when Hamas in 1988 killed two Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) personnel in Gaza, Israel turned against Hamas but it was too late. Hamas, which earlier labelled itself as a welfare and charity organisation in Gaza and got favors from Israel, changed is tactics and exploited PLO’s peace process with Israel to gain popular support of those Palestinians who were disillusioned with Yasser Arafat’s mending of fences with the Jewish state despite the killing of hundreds of Palestinians in Intifada-I.
Regrets among those Israeli officials who helped the creation of Hamas are well documented. For instance, Avner Cohen, a Tunisia-born Jew who was an Israeli official in Gaza dealing with religious affairs during 1970s and 1980s, lamented that “Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel’s creation”.
He observed the Islamist movement take shape, muscle aside secular Palestinian rivals and then evolved into what is today Hamas — a militant group that now calls for Israel’s destruction. Cohen argued that “instead of trying to curb Gaza’s Islamists from the outset, Israel for years tolerated and, in some cases, encouraged them as a counterweight to the secular nationalists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its dominant faction, Yasser Arafat’s Fatah.
Israel cooperated with a crippled, half-blind cleric named Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, even as he was laying the foundations for what would become Hamas”. Does it mean that Hamas was clever enough to dodge shrewd Israeli intelligence service by portraying itself as a welfare and charity organisation in order to get itself establish in Gaza and then confront Israel?
Between June 1967 and 2005, Gaza was administered by the Israeli military. In 2005 Israel withdrew from Gaza but when Hamas gained control of that Palestinian enclave in 2007 it imposed land, air and sea blockade of that territory. How Israel helped the creation of Hamas is narrated by Andrew Higgins, an Israeli official who had worked in Gaza in the 1980s.
SOURCE : https://tribune.com.pk/story/2302309/how-and-why-israel-helped-create-hamas?amp=1
2.) What is Hamas? What to know about its origins, leaders and funding
SOURCE : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/world/what-is-hamas-what-to-know-about-its-origins-leaders-and-funding
* A.) Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001
Author Steve Coll, managing editor of The Washington Post, discusses the findings of his latest book on the CIA's involvement in the covert wars in Afghanistan that fueled Islamic militancy and gave rise to bin Laden's al Qaeda. To view the video feed of the discussion, please click on the "Event Summary" link below.
SOURCE : https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/ghost-wars-the-secret-history-the-cia-afghanistan-and-bin-laden-the-soviet-invasion-to
* B.) Yet the US government refuses to admit its central role in creating the vicious movement that spawned bin Laden, the Taliban and Islamic fundamentalist terrorists that plague Algeria and Egypt — and perhaps the disaster that befell New York.
* The mass media has also downplayed the origins of bin Laden and his toxic brand of Islamic fundamentalism.
Mujaheddin
* In April 1978, the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) seized power in Afghanistan in reaction to a crackdown against the party by that country's repressive government.
Washington, fearing the spread of Soviet influence (and worse the new government's radical example) to its allies in Pakistan, Iran and the Gulf states, immediately offered support to the Afghan mujaheddin, as the "contra" force was known.
Following an internal PDPA power struggle in December 1979 which toppled Afghanistan's leader, thousands of Soviet troops entered the country to prevent the new government's fall. This only galvanised the disparate fundamentalist factions. Their reactionary jihad now gained legitimacy as a "national liberation" struggle in the eyes of many Afghans.
The Soviet Union was eventually to withdraw from Afghanistan in 1989 and the mujaheddin captured the capital, Kabul, in 1992.
Between 1978 and 1992, the US government poured at least US$6 billion (some estimates range as high as $20 billion) worth of arms, training and funds to prop up the mujaheddin factions. Other Western governments, as well as oil-rich Saudi Arabia, kicked in as much again. Wealthy Arab fanatics, like Osama bin Laden, provided millions more.
Washington's policy in Afghanistan was shaped by US President Jimmy Carter's national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and was continued by his successors. His plan went far beyond simply forcing Soviet troops to withdraw; rather it aimed to foster an international movement to spread Islamic fanaticism into the Muslim Central Asian Soviet republics to destabilise the Soviet Union.
Brzezinski's grand plan coincided with Pakistan military dictator General Zia ul-Haq's own ambitions to dominate the region. US-run Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe beamed Islamic fundamentalist tirades across Central Asia (while paradoxically denouncing the "Islamic revolution" that toppled the pro-US Shah of Iran in 1979).
Washington's favoured mujaheddin faction was one of the most extreme, led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The West's distaste for terrorism did not apply to this unsavoury "freedom fighter". Hekmatyar was notorious in the 1970s for throwing acid in the faces of women who refused to wear the veil.
After the mujaheddin took Kabul in 1992, Hekmatyar's forces rained US-supplied missiles and rockets on that city — killing at least 2000 civilians — until the new government agreed to give him the post of prime minister. Osama bin Laden was a close associate of Hekmatyar and his faction.
Hekmatyar was also infamous for his side trade in the cultivation and trafficking in opium. Backing of the mujaheddin from the CIA coincided with a boom in the drug business. Within two years, the Afghanistan-Pakistan border was the world's single largest source of heroin, supplying 60% of US drug users.
In 1995, the former director of the CIA's operation in Afghanistan was unrepentant about the explosion in the flow of drugs: "Our main mission was to do as much damage as possible to the Soviets... There was a fallout in terms of drugs, yes. But the main objective was accomplished. The Soviets left Afghanistan."
* Made in the USA
According to Ahmed Rashid, a correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review, in 1986 CIA chief William Casey committed CIA support to a long-standing ISI proposal to recruit from around the world to join the Afghan jihad. At least 100,000 Islamic militants flocked to Pakistan between 1982 and 1992 (some 60,000 attended fundamentalist schools in Pakistan without necessarily taking part in the fighting).
John Cooley, a former journalist with the US ABC television network and author of Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism, has revealed that Muslims recruited in the US for the mujaheddin were sent to Camp Peary, the CIA's spy training camp in Virginia, where young Afghans, Arabs from Egypt and Jordan, and even some African-American "black Muslims" were taught "sabotage skills".
The November 1, 1998, British Independent reported that one of those charged with the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, Ali Mohammed, had trained "bin Laden's operatives" in 1989.
These "operatives" were recruited at the al Kifah Refugee Centre in Brooklyn, New York, given paramilitary training in the New York area and then sent to Afghanistan with US assistance to join Hekmatyar's forces. Mohammed was a member of the US army's elite Green Berets.
The program, reported the Independent, was part of a Washington-approved plan called "Operation Cyclone".
In Pakistan, recruits, money and equipment were distributed to the mujaheddin factions by an organisation known as Maktab al Khidamar (Office of Services — MAK).
MAK was a front for Pakistan's CIA, the Inter-Service Intelligence Directorate. The ISI was the first recipient of the vast bulk of CIA and Saudi Arabian covert assistance for the Afghan contras. Bin Laden was one of three people who ran MAK. In 1989, he took overall charge of MAK.
Among those trained by Mohammed were El Sayyid Nosair, who was jailed in 1995 for killing Israeli rightist Rabbi Meir Kahane and plotting with others to bomb New York landmarks, including the World Trade Center in 1993.
The Independent also suggested that Shiekh Omar Abdel-Rahman, an Egyptian religious leader also jailed for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, was also part of Operation Cyclone. He entered the US in 1990 with the CIA's approval. A confidential CIA report concluded that the agency was "partly culpable" for the 1993 World Trade Center blast, the Independent reported.
* Bin Laden
Osama bin Laden
Osama's military and business adventures in Afghanistan had the blessing of the bin Laden dynasty and the reactionary Saudi Arabian regime. His close working relationship with MAK also meant that the CIA was fully aware of his activities.
Milt Bearden, the CIA's station chief in Pakistan from 1986 to 1989, admitted to the January 24, 2000, New Yorker that while he never personally met bin Laden, "Did I know that he was out there? Yes, I did ... [Guys like] bin Laden were bringing $20-$25 million a month from other Saudis and Gulf Arabs to underwrite the war. And that is a lot of money. It's an extra $200-$300 million a year.
And this is what bin Laden did."
In 1986, bin Laden brought heavy construction equipment from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan. Using his extensive knowledge of construction techniques (he has a degree in civil engineering), he built "training camps", some dug deep into the sides of mountains, and built roads to reach them.
These camps, now dubbed "terrorist universities" by Washington, were built in collaboration with the ISI and the CIA. The Afghan contra fighters, including the tens of thousands of mercenaries recruited and paid for by bin Laden, were armed by the CIA. Pakistan, the US and Britain provided military trainers.
SOURCE : https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/how-cia-created-osama-bin-laden
* BONUS :
HOW MANY PEOPLE DID THE NAZIS MURDER?
Nazi Germany committed mass murder on an unprecedented scale. The Nazis and their allies and collaborators killed six million Jewish people. This systematic, state-sponsored genocide is now known as the Holocaust. The Nazis and their allies and collaborators also committed other mass atrocities. They persecuted and killed millions of non-Jewish people during World War II.
The Nazi German regime systematically murdered Jewish people in gas chambers; mass shooting operations; and through deliberate privation, disease, and brutal treatment. The Nazi German regime systematically murdered Jewish people in gas chambers; mass shooting operations; and through deliberate privation, disease, and brutal treatment.
SOURCE : https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/documenting-numbers-of-victims-of-the-holocaust-and-nazi-persecution
V1 : https://youtu.be/o7grSsuFSS0?si=9-mT2yeRfzMQsZDb
1.) How and why Israel helped create Hamas?
Not many people are aware of the fact that it was Israel which had helped the creation of Hamas as a counter to PLO
The acronym "Hamas" first appeared in 1987 in a leaflet that accused the Israeli intelligence services of undermining the moral fiber of Palestinian youth as part of Mossad's recruitment of what Hamas termed "collaborators."
How and why Israel helped create Hamas?
Not many people are aware of the fact that it was Israel which had helped the creation of Hamas as a counter to PLO.
Why Israel helped the creation of Hamas and how it utilised its resources for the purpose? Has Israel by taking brutal action in Gaza strengthened Hamas and how the Palestinian struggle got divided and weakened when Hamas challenged PLO, a secular and nationalist organisation?
Formed in 1964, PLO had a clause, in its charter, calling for the destruction of Israel. But when the Oslo process was launched for peace between Israel and PLO, that clause was removed from the Palestinian charter, granting recognition to the Jewish state. Likewise, the Israeli government in late 1980s and early 1990s lifted ban on maintaining contacts with PLO and recognised it when the historic PLO-Israeli accord, mediated by then US President Bill Clinton, signed on September 13, 1993. If PLO recognised Israel, Hamas opposed peace process with the Jewish state and called for the destruction of Israel.
Gaza, which was occupied by Israel as a result of June 1967 Arab-Israeli war, patronised Mujama al-Islamiya which was formed by a Palestinian cleric Sheikh Ahmed Yasin and viewed it as a harmless organisation involved in charity and welfare work for the Palestinian community of Gaza. Mujama al-Islamiya later became Hamas before Intifada-I was launched in December 1987. Israel considered Mujama al-Islamiya and its successor organisation Hamas a lesser evil as compared to PLO and thought that dividing Palestinians will serve the interest of Jewish state.
If Israel termed PLO a terrorist organisation and a major threat to its interests, Hamas was also against PLO because of its secular and nationalist outlook. That is how both Hamas and Israel were viewed as natural allies against PLO. But, later on when Hamas in 1988 killed two Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) personnel in Gaza, Israel turned against Hamas but it was too late. Hamas, which earlier labelled itself as a welfare and charity organisation in Gaza and got favors from Israel, changed is tactics and exploited PLO’s peace process with Israel to gain popular support of those Palestinians who were disillusioned with Yasser Arafat’s mending of fences with the Jewish state despite the killing of hundreds of Palestinians in Intifada-I.
Regrets among those Israeli officials who helped the creation of Hamas are well documented. For instance, Avner Cohen, a Tunisia-born Jew who was an Israeli official in Gaza dealing with religious affairs during 1970s and 1980s, lamented that “Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel’s creation”.
He observed the Islamist movement take shape, muscle aside secular Palestinian rivals and then evolved into what is today Hamas — a militant group that now calls for Israel’s destruction. Cohen argued that “instead of trying to curb Gaza’s Islamists from the outset, Israel for years tolerated and, in some cases, encouraged them as a counterweight to the secular nationalists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its dominant faction, Yasser Arafat’s Fatah.
Israel cooperated with a crippled, half-blind cleric named Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, even as he was laying the foundations for what would become Hamas”. Does it mean that Hamas was clever enough to dodge shrewd Israeli intelligence service by portraying itself as a welfare and charity organisation in order to get itself establish in Gaza and then confront Israel?
Between June 1967 and 2005, Gaza was administered by the Israeli military. In 2005 Israel withdrew from Gaza but when Hamas gained control of that Palestinian enclave in 2007 it imposed land, air and sea blockade of that territory. How Israel helped the creation of Hamas is narrated by Andrew Higgins, an Israeli official who had worked in Gaza in the 1980s.
SOURCE : https://tribune.com.pk/story/2302309/how-and-why-israel-helped-create-hamas?amp=1
2.) What is Hamas? What to know about its origins, leaders and funding
SOURCE : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/world/what-is-hamas-what-to-know-about-its-origins-leaders-and-funding
* A.) Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001
Author Steve Coll, managing editor of The Washington Post, discusses the findings of his latest book on the CIA's involvement in the covert wars in Afghanistan that fueled Islamic militancy and gave rise to bin Laden's al Qaeda. To view the video feed of the discussion, please click on the "Event Summary" link below.
SOURCE : https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/ghost-wars-the-secret-history-the-cia-afghanistan-and-bin-laden-the-soviet-invasion-to
* B.) Yet the US government refuses to admit its central role in creating the vicious movement that spawned bin Laden, the Taliban and Islamic fundamentalist terrorists that plague Algeria and Egypt — and perhaps the disaster that befell New York.
* The mass media has also downplayed the origins of bin Laden and his toxic brand of Islamic fundamentalism.
Mujaheddin
* In April 1978, the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) seized power in Afghanistan in reaction to a crackdown against the party by that country's repressive government.
Washington, fearing the spread of Soviet influence (and worse the new government's radical example) to its allies in Pakistan, Iran and the Gulf states, immediately offered support to the Afghan mujaheddin, as the "contra" force was known.
Following an internal PDPA power struggle in December 1979 which toppled Afghanistan's leader, thousands of Soviet troops entered the country to prevent the new government's fall. This only galvanised the disparate fundamentalist factions. Their reactionary jihad now gained legitimacy as a "national liberation" struggle in the eyes of many Afghans.
The Soviet Union was eventually to withdraw from Afghanistan in 1989 and the mujaheddin captured the capital, Kabul, in 1992.
Between 1978 and 1992, the US government poured at least US$6 billion (some estimates range as high as $20 billion) worth of arms, training and funds to prop up the mujaheddin factions. Other Western governments, as well as oil-rich Saudi Arabia, kicked in as much again. Wealthy Arab fanatics, like Osama bin Laden, provided millions more.
Washington's policy in Afghanistan was shaped by US President Jimmy Carter's national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and was continued by his successors. His plan went far beyond simply forcing Soviet troops to withdraw; rather it aimed to foster an international movement to spread Islamic fanaticism into the Muslim Central Asian Soviet republics to destabilise the Soviet Union.
Brzezinski's grand plan coincided with Pakistan military dictator General Zia ul-Haq's own ambitions to dominate the region. US-run Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe beamed Islamic fundamentalist tirades across Central Asia (while paradoxically denouncing the "Islamic revolution" that toppled the pro-US Shah of Iran in 1979).
Washington's favoured mujaheddin faction was one of the most extreme, led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The West's distaste for terrorism did not apply to this unsavoury "freedom fighter". Hekmatyar was notorious in the 1970s for throwing acid in the faces of women who refused to wear the veil.
After the mujaheddin took Kabul in 1992, Hekmatyar's forces rained US-supplied missiles and rockets on that city — killing at least 2000 civilians — until the new government agreed to give him the post of prime minister. Osama bin Laden was a close associate of Hekmatyar and his faction.
Hekmatyar was also infamous for his side trade in the cultivation and trafficking in opium. Backing of the mujaheddin from the CIA coincided with a boom in the drug business. Within two years, the Afghanistan-Pakistan border was the world's single largest source of heroin, supplying 60% of US drug users.
In 1995, the former director of the CIA's operation in Afghanistan was unrepentant about the explosion in the flow of drugs: "Our main mission was to do as much damage as possible to the Soviets... There was a fallout in terms of drugs, yes. But the main objective was accomplished. The Soviets left Afghanistan."
* Made in the USA
According to Ahmed Rashid, a correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review, in 1986 CIA chief William Casey committed CIA support to a long-standing ISI proposal to recruit from around the world to join the Afghan jihad. At least 100,000 Islamic militants flocked to Pakistan between 1982 and 1992 (some 60,000 attended fundamentalist schools in Pakistan without necessarily taking part in the fighting).
John Cooley, a former journalist with the US ABC television network and author of Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism, has revealed that Muslims recruited in the US for the mujaheddin were sent to Camp Peary, the CIA's spy training camp in Virginia, where young Afghans, Arabs from Egypt and Jordan, and even some African-American "black Muslims" were taught "sabotage skills".
The November 1, 1998, British Independent reported that one of those charged with the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, Ali Mohammed, had trained "bin Laden's operatives" in 1989.
These "operatives" were recruited at the al Kifah Refugee Centre in Brooklyn, New York, given paramilitary training in the New York area and then sent to Afghanistan with US assistance to join Hekmatyar's forces. Mohammed was a member of the US army's elite Green Berets.
The program, reported the Independent, was part of a Washington-approved plan called "Operation Cyclone".
In Pakistan, recruits, money and equipment were distributed to the mujaheddin factions by an organisation known as Maktab al Khidamar (Office of Services — MAK).
MAK was a front for Pakistan's CIA, the Inter-Service Intelligence Directorate. The ISI was the first recipient of the vast bulk of CIA and Saudi Arabian covert assistance for the Afghan contras. Bin Laden was one of three people who ran MAK. In 1989, he took overall charge of MAK.
Among those trained by Mohammed were El Sayyid Nosair, who was jailed in 1995 for killing Israeli rightist Rabbi Meir Kahane and plotting with others to bomb New York landmarks, including the World Trade Center in 1993.
The Independent also suggested that Shiekh Omar Abdel-Rahman, an Egyptian religious leader also jailed for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, was also part of Operation Cyclone. He entered the US in 1990 with the CIA's approval. A confidential CIA report concluded that the agency was "partly culpable" for the 1993 World Trade Center blast, the Independent reported.
* Bin Laden
Osama bin Laden
Osama's military and business adventures in Afghanistan had the blessing of the bin Laden dynasty and the reactionary Saudi Arabian regime. His close working relationship with MAK also meant that the CIA was fully aware of his activities.
Milt Bearden, the CIA's station chief in Pakistan from 1986 to 1989, admitted to the January 24, 2000, New Yorker that while he never personally met bin Laden, "Did I know that he was out there? Yes, I did ... [Guys like] bin Laden were bringing $20-$25 million a month from other Saudis and Gulf Arabs to underwrite the war. And that is a lot of money. It's an extra $200-$300 million a year.
And this is what bin Laden did."
In 1986, bin Laden brought heavy construction equipment from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan. Using his extensive knowledge of construction techniques (he has a degree in civil engineering), he built "training camps", some dug deep into the sides of mountains, and built roads to reach them.
These camps, now dubbed "terrorist universities" by Washington, were built in collaboration with the ISI and the CIA. The Afghan contra fighters, including the tens of thousands of mercenaries recruited and paid for by bin Laden, were armed by the CIA. Pakistan, the US and Britain provided military trainers.
SOURCE : https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/how-cia-created-osama-bin-laden
* BONUS :
HOW MANY PEOPLE DID THE NAZIS MURDER?
Nazi Germany committed mass murder on an unprecedented scale. The Nazis and their allies and collaborators killed six million Jewish people. This systematic, state-sponsored genocide is now known as the Holocaust. The Nazis and their allies and collaborators also committed other mass atrocities. They persecuted and killed millions of non-Jewish people during World War II.
The Nazi German regime systematically murdered Jewish people in gas chambers; mass shooting operations; and through deliberate privation, disease, and brutal treatment. The Nazi German regime systematically murdered Jewish people in gas chambers; mass shooting operations; and through deliberate privation, disease, and brutal treatment.
SOURCE : https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/documenting-numbers-of-victims-of-the-holocaust-and-nazi-persecution
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Lt Col Scott Shuttleworth
Responsible???? They were sucker punched with mutilations, raped, murders, and kidnapping. What were they supposed to do...sit back and play tiddlywinks?
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I rarely comment on anything remotely political - but this is such a thoughtful analysis of the challenges and History (and to think back in my Day- the Shah of Iran was the one that fed our Navy Oil during the 73 War.) that I just had to say this was a well written piece. Kudos to you and your analytical skills.
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"“Last year, the streets of Berlin, London, Washington, and other cities across the world were filled with people protesting the
Islamic Republic’s violence against women. Now, those same streets are occupied by people protesting Israel’s attacks on Gaza.”"
People who opposed the Islamic Republic's violence against women are ALSO outraged about Israel bombing women and children who speak a funny language and have somewhat darker skin than the average Jewish person?
Hmmm. What a surprise.
Maybe people who are opposed to far-right Muslim-majority states committing or permitting violence against women aren't JUST opposed to far-right Muslim-majority states doing so.
Despite what many on the right think, people killing Muslim and/or Arab women and children isn't acceptable simply because the savages doing the killing are Israelis.
Side note: the only way that the US and the world are going to be rid of the Israeli-MENA conflict is if the world gets off of oil as source of energy or if the MENA states eliminate Israel as a state before the MENA states lose their main revenue source and, with it, the political power that comes from it. The US isn't going to stop backing Israel, which is no friend to the US, because the US needs stable oil prices, which are largely dictated by people's sentiments about what MIGHT happen as a result of conflict in the Middle East.
And in the US, the primary group of people who want to keep the US and the world addicted to oil as an energy source come mostly from one party.
Islamic Republic’s violence against women. Now, those same streets are occupied by people protesting Israel’s attacks on Gaza.”"
People who opposed the Islamic Republic's violence against women are ALSO outraged about Israel bombing women and children who speak a funny language and have somewhat darker skin than the average Jewish person?
Hmmm. What a surprise.
Maybe people who are opposed to far-right Muslim-majority states committing or permitting violence against women aren't JUST opposed to far-right Muslim-majority states doing so.
Despite what many on the right think, people killing Muslim and/or Arab women and children isn't acceptable simply because the savages doing the killing are Israelis.
Side note: the only way that the US and the world are going to be rid of the Israeli-MENA conflict is if the world gets off of oil as source of energy or if the MENA states eliminate Israel as a state before the MENA states lose their main revenue source and, with it, the political power that comes from it. The US isn't going to stop backing Israel, which is no friend to the US, because the US needs stable oil prices, which are largely dictated by people's sentiments about what MIGHT happen as a result of conflict in the Middle East.
And in the US, the primary group of people who want to keep the US and the world addicted to oil as an energy source come mostly from one party.
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We should also be alert domestically. I am certain a large number of terrorist cells infiltrated the US during the unmonitored Southern mass migration.
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CPL LaForest Gray
On a February night in 1939, the Nazi-supporting German-American Bund, held a 20,000-strong rally at Madison Square Garden. We revisit the night that occurre...
You’re right about terror cells entering the USA.
https://youtu.be/O2-E5DHQMbY
1.). American Nazism and Madison Square Garden
Before World War II, the German-American Bund was one of the most successful pro-Nazi organizations in the United States.
On February 20, 1939, American Nazis gathered at Madison Square Garden for a mass rally for “true Americanism.”
April 14, 2021
SOURCE : https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/american-nazism-and-madison-square-garden
2.) When Nazis Took Manhattan
February 20, 20191:00 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered
“In the 1930s, the Bund was one of several organizations in the United States that were openly supportive of Adolf Hitler and the rise of fascism in Europe.
They had parades, bookstores and summer camps for youth. Their vision for America was a cocktail of white supremacy, fascist ideology and American patriotism.”
SOURCE : https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/02/20/695941323/when-nazis-took-manhattan
https://youtu.be/O2-E5DHQMbY
1.). American Nazism and Madison Square Garden
Before World War II, the German-American Bund was one of the most successful pro-Nazi organizations in the United States.
On February 20, 1939, American Nazis gathered at Madison Square Garden for a mass rally for “true Americanism.”
April 14, 2021
SOURCE : https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/american-nazism-and-madison-square-garden
2.) When Nazis Took Manhattan
February 20, 20191:00 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered
“In the 1930s, the Bund was one of several organizations in the United States that were openly supportive of Adolf Hitler and the rise of fascism in Europe.
They had parades, bookstores and summer camps for youth. Their vision for America was a cocktail of white supremacy, fascist ideology and American patriotism.”
SOURCE : https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/02/20/695941323/when-nazis-took-manhattan
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CPL LaForest Gray
The Top 10 White Terrorists Of All-Time
https://www.google.com/amp/s/newsone.com/1417755/top-10-white-christian-terrorists/amp/
Terror From the Right
“The following is a detailed listing of major terrorist plots and racist rampages that have emerged from the American radical right in the years since the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.”
SOURCE : https://www.splcenter.org/20151101/terror-right
Here are 10 of the worst domestic terror attacks by extreme Christians and right-wing white
SOURCE : https://www.rawstory.com/amp/here-are-10-of-the-worst-domestic-terror-attacks-by-extreme-christians-and-right-wing-white-men [login to see]
White Terrorism Shows ‘Stunning’ Parallels to Islamic State’s Rise
SOURCE : https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/05/world/americas/terrorism-white-nationalist-supremacy-isis.html
*** Disclaimer : This a repost from myself, because people are tooooo comfortable with the status quo. ***
“I will not apologize for telling the FACTS, in a world that worship the lies”.
* Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing
Written by: Artemus Ward, Northern Illinois University
By the end of this section, you will:
* Explain the causes and effects of the domestic and international challenges the United States has faced in the 21st century
Suggested Sequencing
Use this narrative with the Rodney King and the Los Angeles Race Riots Narrative; the Tech Giants: Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Narrative; the Is Affirmative Action Justified? Point-Counterpoint; and the AIDS Memorial Quilt, 1987 Primary Source to discuss domestic issues between 1980 and the present day.
But a 1992 federal government siege at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, had also resulted in civilian deaths. That confrontation began with federal marshals pursuing a fugitive, Randy Weaver, who had agreed to illegally modify weapons for white nationalist groups and failed to appear in court on firearms charges. Weaver and his family were confronted by armed officers at his home, and a firefight ensued that took the lives of a federal agent and Weaver’s 14-year-old son. The next day, hundreds of law enforcement officials under the command of the FBI arrived at the property and a sniper wounded Weaver, killed his wife, and wounded their dead son’s friend.
White nationalists such as Weaver commonly echoed these anti-government concerns. They also espoused white supremacist ideologies that viewed non-whites as inferior. They even thought government policies should be informed by race and, therefore, opposed both racial integration and immigration. They wanted to return to a time before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 ushered in an era in which, they say, white people and white culture were being systematically replaced and destroyed.
McVeigh said he was motivated to bomb the federal building in Oklahoma City by the events at Waco and Ruby Ridge, the prime examples of what he saw as a government at war with its citizens. In open court he explained: “I wish to use the words of Justice Brandeis dissenting in Olmstead [v. United States (1928)] to speak for me. He wrote, ‘Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or ill, it teaches the whole people by its example.'”
He considered the federal government a bully that perpetrated atrocities abroad and at home, abandoning and attacking its own people. He began associating with white nationalists and people who held radical views of gun rights. He had traveled to Waco to sell pro-gun rights bumper stickers and witnessed the siege first-hand.
SOURCE : https://billofrightsinstitute.org/essays/timothy-mcveigh-and-the-oklahoma-city-bombing
https://www.google.com/amp/s/newsone.com/1417755/top-10-white-christian-terrorists/amp/
Terror From the Right
“The following is a detailed listing of major terrorist plots and racist rampages that have emerged from the American radical right in the years since the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.”
SOURCE : https://www.splcenter.org/20151101/terror-right
Here are 10 of the worst domestic terror attacks by extreme Christians and right-wing white
SOURCE : https://www.rawstory.com/amp/here-are-10-of-the-worst-domestic-terror-attacks-by-extreme-christians-and-right-wing-white-men [login to see]
White Terrorism Shows ‘Stunning’ Parallels to Islamic State’s Rise
SOURCE : https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/05/world/americas/terrorism-white-nationalist-supremacy-isis.html
*** Disclaimer : This a repost from myself, because people are tooooo comfortable with the status quo. ***
“I will not apologize for telling the FACTS, in a world that worship the lies”.
* Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing
Written by: Artemus Ward, Northern Illinois University
By the end of this section, you will:
* Explain the causes and effects of the domestic and international challenges the United States has faced in the 21st century
Suggested Sequencing
Use this narrative with the Rodney King and the Los Angeles Race Riots Narrative; the Tech Giants: Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Narrative; the Is Affirmative Action Justified? Point-Counterpoint; and the AIDS Memorial Quilt, 1987 Primary Source to discuss domestic issues between 1980 and the present day.
But a 1992 federal government siege at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, had also resulted in civilian deaths. That confrontation began with federal marshals pursuing a fugitive, Randy Weaver, who had agreed to illegally modify weapons for white nationalist groups and failed to appear in court on firearms charges. Weaver and his family were confronted by armed officers at his home, and a firefight ensued that took the lives of a federal agent and Weaver’s 14-year-old son. The next day, hundreds of law enforcement officials under the command of the FBI arrived at the property and a sniper wounded Weaver, killed his wife, and wounded their dead son’s friend.
White nationalists such as Weaver commonly echoed these anti-government concerns. They also espoused white supremacist ideologies that viewed non-whites as inferior. They even thought government policies should be informed by race and, therefore, opposed both racial integration and immigration. They wanted to return to a time before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 ushered in an era in which, they say, white people and white culture were being systematically replaced and destroyed.
McVeigh said he was motivated to bomb the federal building in Oklahoma City by the events at Waco and Ruby Ridge, the prime examples of what he saw as a government at war with its citizens. In open court he explained: “I wish to use the words of Justice Brandeis dissenting in Olmstead [v. United States (1928)] to speak for me. He wrote, ‘Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or ill, it teaches the whole people by its example.'”
He considered the federal government a bully that perpetrated atrocities abroad and at home, abandoning and attacking its own people. He began associating with white nationalists and people who held radical views of gun rights. He had traveled to Waco to sell pro-gun rights bumper stickers and witnessed the siege first-hand.
SOURCE : https://billofrightsinstitute.org/essays/timothy-mcveigh-and-the-oklahoma-city-bombing
The Top 10 White Terrorists Of All-Time
With the recent bombing and killing of close to 100 people in Oslo, we decided to compile a list of the top 10 white terrorists of all-time
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