Tony Cartalucci, Contributor

Activist Post

Israel exists in a perpetual “besieged” mentality. The Israeli people have been conditioned to view themselves as an island amidst a violent sea. However, the constant belligerent posture of their government in fact drives the winds that churn that sea, and as the face of modern warfare shifts, and the more they use their armor and air power against their perceived enemies, the higher the waves become.

Video: Dr. Webster Tarpley explains the reckless untenable nature of Israel’s current foreign policy, and the need for an immediate ceasefire to be reached – both for the sake of preserving innocent life in Palestine, and for the very survival and stability of Israel.

Historian and geopolitical expert Dr. Webster Tarpley noted in a recent PressTV interview that the paradigm has shifted in terms of modern warfare, and that tactics involving armor and air superiority cannot guarantee Israel its defense any longer. Operations such as the abortive invasion of southern Lebanon in 2006, the brutal but ultimately unsuccessful “Operation Cast Lead” in late 2008-early 2009, and now this most recent conflict in Gaza, show that while Israel still possesses an immense capacity to inflict suffering and death in a tactical dimension, it has become all but impotent at achieving any meaningful strategic objectives.

The leadership in Israel must surely understand this, and that the more overtly belligerent they become, the more they endanger the state of Israel and its people. Then why, one must ask, do they continue on an obviously self-destructive path?

The answer is simple – while the people of Israel have a vested interest in their own self-preservation, their leadership, though they play the role well of Israel’s defenders, do not.

Israel’s compromised corporate-financier driven leadership seems to be positioning the nation for a significant fall, to what degree is still not clear. It could range from a catastrophic defeat, to another humiliating ceasefire after an exercise in impotent, self-incriminating brutality. The purpose of this appears to be to grant their regional partners, mainly the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the necessary clout, legitimacy and unity needed to carry out the next stage of reordering the Middle East.

With a decisive defeat of Israel by what the Washington Post calls “a changed Middle East,” the Saudi-Qatari-Egyptian axis, a united front of sectarian-hardliners long-sought by Wall Street and London to fight its regional enemies, will be prepared to confront Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah in Lebanon – to accomplish what the US and Israel have themselves already tried but failed to achieve.

The Washington Post, easily recognized as a “right-wing” Neo-Conservative clearinghouse, and proponent of Israel, almost seemed to celebrate the united front lining up behind Hamas in Gaza, against Israel. In their article, “Hamas finds greater support in a changed Middle East,” they state:

Fenced in by an Israeli blockade and by the tacit consent of authoritarian Arab regimes that disdained Hamas’s Islamist politics, the group long relied on two international pariahs — Iran and Syria — for support.

But the outbreak of a revolt in Syria shattered ties between Hamas and the government of President Bashar al-Assad and forced a rift between Hamas and Shiite Iran. Hamas has since repositioned itself, gaining a new set of regional partners at a critical time. Newly democratic Egypt and Tunisia, along with regionally influential Qatar and Turkey, have increasingly assumed the roles of Hamas’s new allies.

It must be remembered, however, who was behind the creation of the “newly democratic Egypt and Tunisia,” and who is currently partnered with Qatar and Turkey in various regional objectives, not the least of which is the subversion and destruction of Syria.

Hamas’ New Friends – Israel’s Semi-Covert Allies

The 2011 “Arab Spring” was far from the spontaneous uprising it was portrayed as being. While the US government feigned surprise, it had been quietly preparing both hardliners and “pro-democracy” protesters years in advance – at least as early as 2007.

The newly elected Tunisian president’s first order of business was in fact to toe the line of US foreign policy, and withdraw recognition of the Syrian government. This was not surprising, considering President Moncef Marzouki had spent years coddled by the West in Paris, France, his NGO funded by the US government. Marzouki’s organization, the Tunisian League for Human Rights, was a US National Endowment for Democracy and George Soros Open Society-funded International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) member.

The government of Egypt, likewise, had been the creation of Western meddling. Muslim Brotherhood mobs had augmented crowds led by the more presentable Mohammed ElBaradei, a long time functionary of US foreign policy. Eventually, ElBaradei was exposed as a Western proxy, and made way for the accession to power of the Muslim Brotherhood. While the Brotherhood postures as both anti-Israeli and anti-American, it is in fact, on record, funded by the United States and Israel, with money and even weapons laundered through Saudi Arabia, and now Qatar, and then sent to its various regional branches.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker, published in 2007 a report titled, “The Redirection,” based on US, Saudi, and Lebanese representatives, exposing US, Israeli, and Saudi backing of sectarian extremists tied to Al Qaeda, as well as the Muslim Brotherhood itself.

Hersh reports that a supporter of the Lebanese Hariri faction had met Dick Cheney in Washington and relayed personally the importance of using the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria in any move against the ruling government:

[Walid] Jumblatt then told me that he had met with Vice-President Cheney in Washington last fall to discuss, among other issues, the possibility of undermining Assad. He and his colleagues advised Cheney that, if the United States does try to move against Syria, members of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood would be ‘the ones to talk to,’ Jumblatt said. –The Redirection, Seymour Hersh (2007)

The article would continue by explaining how already in 2007 US and Saudi backing had begun benefiting the Brotherhood:

There is evidence that the Administration’s redirection strategy has already benefitted the Brotherhood. The Syrian National Salvation Front is a coalition of opposition groups whose principal members are a faction led by Abdul Halim Khaddam, a former Syrian Vice-President who defected in 2005, and the Brotherhood. A former high-ranking C.I.A. officer told me, “The Americans have provided both political and financial support. The Saudis are taking the lead with financial support, but there is American involvement.” He said that Khaddam, who now lives in Paris, was getting money from Saudi Arabia, with the knowledge of the White House. (In 2005, a delegation of the Front’s members met with officials from the National Security Council, according to press reports.) A former White House official told me that the Saudis had provided members of the Front with travel documents. –The Redirection, Seymour Hersh (2007)

It was warned that such backing would benefit the Brotherhood as a whole, not just in Syria, and could effect public opinion even as far as in Egypt where a long battle against the hardliners was fought in order to keep Egyptian governance secular.

Clearly this “new Middle East” the Washington Post describes as lining up behind Hamas, and against Israel, is a monster of Western policy’s own purposeful creation. It seems as if Henry Kissinger may have had something much more specific in mind when he stated, “In 10 years, there will be no more Israel.”

While it may seem unfathomable that the corporate-financier interests of Wall Street and London would jeopardize the safety, security, and even existence of Israel – a long time beachhead for Western geopolitical interests across the Middle East – this is only because people severely overestimate the importance placed on Israel by the corporate-financier elite.

Image: (Wikipedia) The Destruction of Jerusalem, 70 AD by the Roman Empire. The price Israelis will pay for enterprising with empire today will be no different than it was 2,000 years ago. Perpetual belligerence didn’t save them then, and it will not save them now.

To the West’s corporate-financiers, Israel is another plot of land – its people another demographic to be targeted, manipulated, and exploited, its resources to be expended, its role and existence to be assessed and reassessed based on utility. Like the Roman Empire nearly 2,000 years ago, when Israel outlives its usefulness as a proxy, it will be overrun, looted, destroyed, and its people scattered to the four corners of the globe, if and when necessary. As has been stated many times before, the greatest existential threat to Israel as a state, and to its people, is their own compromised ruling government. In reality, the Israeli people and their perceived mortal enemies share a common foe – who has pitted them both purposefully against each other for over a generation.

Netanyahu’s over-the-top, cartoonish warmongering, the IDF’s purposeful provocations, and a continuous campaign of self-vilification seems designed to make what appears to be an engineered fall all the more satisfying and uniting for the “new Middle East” Wall Street and London (with the ruling Israeli government’s help) has assembled over the past 2 years. For the Israeli people, stepping back seems impossible – but continuing forward is almost certainly suicidal.

The Israelis have the military might, the political sway, and the economic means to prevail against any true enemy. Rooting out warmongers like Netanyahu will not leave the nation defenseless, but better footed to explore other paths toward regional co-existence, peace, and prosperity. It will not be easy, but no more difficult than fighting perpetual war.

Tony Cartalucci’s articles have appeared on many alternative media websites, including his own at

Land Destroyer Report. Read other contributed articles by Tony Cartalucci here.