Yes, Israel’s failure to foresee and mitigate Operation al-Aqsa Flood was a monumental intelligence failure. But did elements of Israel’s government deliberately stand down their defense of the Gaza border wall? That’s the clear insinuation of David Ignatius’s new Washington Post article, which compares al-Aqsa Flood to the 9/11 false flag.
Ignatius, widely viewed as the CIA’s unofficial scribe, calls October 7 “Israel’s 9/11.” Ignatius asserts that the same “strange blindness” that afflicted the US national security apparatus during the run-up to 9/11 also struck Israel on October 7.
Ignatius undoubtedly knows that 9/11 was a false flag. He presumably understands that pro-Israel elements in the US high command deliberately blinded US defenses during the summer of 2001 so that Israel could manufacture a “new Pearl Harbor” blamed on Muslims. And he hints broadly that the same forces may be behind Israel’s October 7 debacle.
Is Ignatius right?
I don’t think so. Here’s why.
First, Hamas is a real, highly competent military organization enjoying the passive support of virtually everyone in the MENA region, and the active support of many governments. (It’s open in the case of Iran, and deniable in other instances.) Hamas is entirely capable of pulling off a shocking military success like the October 7 operation. In 2014, led by legendary commander Mohammed Deif “the Lion of Palestine,” Hamas defeated Israel but was later deprived of the fruits of victory by crooked Western diplomacy.
By contrast, “al-Qaeda” was always just a catspaw for US-allied intelligence agencies. Founded as the CIA database of anti-Soviet mujahideen, AQ never existed as an independent organization with actual military capabilities, much less a strategy.
Mohammed Heikal, longtime Egyptian journalist, former government spokesman, and the “Arab world’s foremost political commentator,” explained:
“Bin Laden has been under surveillance for years: every telephone call was monitored and al-Qaeda has been penetrated by American intelligence, Pakistani intelligence, Saudi intelligence, Egyptian intelligence. They could not have kept secret an operation that required such a degree of organization and sophistication.” [Guardian, 10/10/2001]
Second, Hamas’s big October 7 victory does not help Israel strategically, as 9/11 did. In recent years, Israel’s strength has been its phony normalization campaign and its ability to conceal its ever-growing extremism and accelerating genocide of Palestine. That’s all toast now, thanks to October 7th. As I recently explained in an email to Josh Mitteldorf:
A LIHOP scenario is possible. But which Israeli faction would do it? The Mossad old guard has no use for Netanyahu and his coalition of lunatics. Would they do this to get rid of Bibi and his even crazier associates? Probably not, because it will just enrage the extremist lunatics and put them even more firmly in charge.
So was it the extremist lunatics seizing full control, sidelining the Mossad old guard, and preparing the “horrific crackdown”? Possibly. But I doubt the extremists could pull off a Gaza border stand-down and coordinate it with Hamas without the old guard catching them.
In any case, since Israel is doomed by the rise of its loonie extremists, and Operation al-Aqsa Storm will make the loonies even loonier, it’s a long-run strategic win for Palestine. Like Hezbollah’s 2006 victory, it shows the Zios can be beaten and serves as a huge morale booster. Crucially, it will destroy “normalization,” force the whole Islamic world to defend al-Aqsa, call attention to Israel’s falling into the hands of genocidal maniacs, and generally set the stage for the liberation of Palestine.
So since it’s strategically detrimental to Zionism, I don’t see it as a likely false flag. Like “al-Qaeda” with respect to 9/11, the perps would have to be both brilliant enough to pull it off, and idiotic enough to want to.
Let’s give the Palestinian fighters credit for their creativity, competence, and courage.
My Written Interview Submitted Last Night to Press TV (full preview for paid subscribers only)
What pushed Palestinians to stage this unprecedented operation? What’s behind its success?
The Palestinians have been massacred, blockaded and starved, penned up in de facto concentration camps like the Gaza Strip, and subjected to endless indignities. Their children are shot for sport by IDF soldiers. Their neighborhoods are broken up with Orwellian checkpoints, and illegal settlers steal more and more of their land. Their homes are invaded and demolished. Their women are assaulted, their holy places defiled, their olive trees uprooted, their water, sewage and electricity systems destroyed. Their schools and ambulances are bombed, their teenagers are mowed down from aircraft while they play soccer on the beach, and their bodies are burned away with white phosphorus. Experimental weaponry is tested on them. Their bravest leaders are targeted and killed. And anyone caught resisting who isn’t killed is imprisoned and tortured.
As a people living under occupation, the Palestinians have the right, under international law, to use military force to try to remove the occupation. Considering the horrific treatment they continue to recieve, it is not surprising that they are willing to avail themselves of that right.
So the ongoing slow-motion genocide of Palestine set the stage for Operation Al-Aqsa Storm. But the proximate cause was the Zionist regime’s escalating series of desecrations of the al-Aqsa mosque, the Islamic world’s oldest and greatest architectural monument.