While I was away on holiday, lots of things happened that would have warranted a closer look on this part of my blog. The 'Gaza-Thing' exploded to the 'Next Level', while Ukraine is now widely recognised as a 'basket case', draining the economy of Europe and the US. Bleeding them 'white', as Lloyd Austin envisioned the West would do to Russia, is now happening to them. Yet, the sirens singing the praise of NATO insist that the alliance is winning, and that the economy in the NATO countries is benefitting from all the money being printed and borrowed from future generations going to the weapons manufacturers and their corrupt circle of 'go-betweens'.
Various articles in previously supportive media outlets are now preparing to throw Zelensky under the bus, and it does look like he is aware of the fact that he is living on borrowed time, as he is claiming that now is not the right moment to organise elections, clinging to the power he has left, but his days are numbered. It would be unfair to state it is all his own fault. But he misread the messages coming from NATO countries, which he trusted, despite their abysmal track-record. When this 'Gaza-Thing' hit, they lost interest in Ukraine almost overnight, save for some die-hard Russofobes who want NATO to declare war with Russia, and take it from there. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the predecessor of banker/politician Jens Stoltenberg as NATO's 'face', comes to mind, where he called on NATO to absorb Ukraine into NATO now, to free the remaining Ukrainian forces to go to the front, as Ukraine itself would be protected by 'Article 5', and launch a new attempt to take back the territory lost.
The Dutch state media published a 'line' on its text-service about some Ukrainian officer who had been in charge as his team blew up 'Northstream', based on 'reporting' in the 'Washington Post', which gets its 'reporting' from the CIA, which is still looking for a way to counter the damning report written by Seymour Hersh, in which he revealed how the US did it. The officer is vehemently denying involvement, instead of accepting the credit handed to him. The Dutch 'service' added, for the benefit of the totally ignorant, that previously Russia had been the prime suspect of blowing up its own pipeline, and its access to wealth through gas deliveries to Europe. I have no idea how many 'Dumb F.cks' believe that, but I'm afraid there are far more truly 'Stupid' people within the framework of Carlo Cipolla's book 'The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity' than even he realised. Or maybe it became worse in recent years?
Attention shifted to this 'Gaza Thing', and all of a sudden people in Europe start to realise that this massive immigration brought us truckloads of people who will not 'Stand with Israel', no matter what. London was crammed with demonstrators waving Palestinian flags, and elsewhere in Europe the situation is critical. Left-wing politicians are in a bend to stick their heads into their own ass as they try, desperately, to toe the line of solidarity with Israel after the October 7 massacre, which left 1200 Israelis dead, an unknown number of them killed by Israeli forces as they were trying to prevent even more hostages being taken to Gaza.
With the massive number of civilian deaths in Gaza, and the horrible situation for the people of that 'prison', as even John Mearsheimer labeled it, already isolated from the rest of the world for decades through Israeli blockades, condemned by the UN on numerous occasions, more people are turning against Israel. Everybody with some understanding of the situation is aware of cynical plans to create a 'Larger Israel' at the expense of the Palestinian people, supported by 'Right Wing' politics in Israel itself. Clearly there are Israelis too who despair that all will be lost if this backfires, and who would rather see a peaceful settlement. But under the circumstances that possibility appears to be remote at best.
In the days of the 'Lavon-Affaire', and when Israel nearly sunk the USS Liberty, blaming Egypt, cynical plans clearly existed, and as we all know (I hope), Mossad agents were caught dancing as the Twin Towers were hit on '9/11', though the Bush Administration ignored the 'incident' and put them on a plane back to Tel Aviv, where they appeared on a talk-show to 'explain' that they were merely observing and recording, and not involved directly. As if that was a reassuring message. With Bibi explaining that aiding Hamas was the best way to prevent a Palestinian State from being realised, and Richard Perle's 'Clean Break' policy proposal which framed Netanyahu's mind back in the last days of the previous century, there is no lack of accusations inside Israel, as well as elsewhere, that this was yet another cynical attempt to set the stage for expanding Israel. Although it is unlikely, in my mind, that any forces in the top of the political, religious and military hierarchy in Israel knew about what October 7th would entail, they must have had this sense that colonists occupying Palestinian land on the 'Westbank' storming the Al Aqsa mosque, supervised and protected by the Israeli Army, days before October 7th, was likely to trigger a fierce response.
If they only underestimated the success of the Hamas operation, that is comparable to NATO miscalculating the capabilities of the Russians, and it is not unlikely there will be more surprises in the not too distant future. As one observer said on 'Twitter', GDP is no measure for military-industrial capacity. We're close to this famous Shakespeare quote: 'My Kingdom for a Horse!'