Yesterday on War Room Steve Bannon dropped a big one.  Bannon said about the Hamas attack on Israel, “I can’t imagine the CIA, the NSA, Mossad and IDF intelligence missed this. I just don’t believe it. Sorry, I don’t.”  Mr. Bannon’s belief that the Israeli government knew about the Hamas attack and let it happen to set the stage for a larger Mideast war has been echoed in other corners, to varying degrees of certainty.

The theory behind the Hamas attacks that Mr. Bannon, along with WarRoom International Editor Ben Harnwell and others, have put forward is nothing short of chilling.  Given that Israeli Prime Minister, Netanyahu said that his government will respond to the attacks in ways that “will change the Middle East,” it indeed seems that what Mr. Bannon put forward is, most horrifically, an entirely logical statement.

My hope is that the American people will not only sharpen their minds on the existential folly of aligning our national security and national destiny with an extremist religious/ideological cult that shapes the directives of the Israeli government but that we as Americans will deepen our empathy for the ordinary Israeli people of goodwill who are caught up in this wicked mess, as well as the millions of Palestinian civilians caught in the crossfire.

Every time there is an outburst of Israeli-Arab violence my mind hearkens back to an experience I had as a student in Israel nearly thirty years ago.  I had broken away from my student group to explore Tel Aviv on my own, wandering around the streets, taking it all in, as was my custom when I explored foreign cities at that period in my life.  This time, however, I got completely lost in Tel Aviv.  Unlike European cities which had distinct landmarks that enabled me to navigate — this was way before smartphones and the internet — I unfortunately found myself in an industrial-looking section of Tel Aviv with totally nondescript buildings. I had been walking in circles trying to find my way.  I was already an hour late for a conference at Tel Aviv University that my U.S. student group was having with Israeli students and faculty about the “Mideast peace process.”

I must have been visibly lost and confused in that industrial section of Tel Aviv when two Israeli soldiers, in full uniform, came up to me and asked if I needed help.  These two young men, my own age at the time, walked with me to the nearest bus station. Instead of just giving me directions on what buses to take to the university, they decided to go with me, bus connections and all, to get me safely to my destination.  I’m still overcome when I think about this experience.  For about twenty to thirty minutes, on two buses, at two bus stops, I sat between these two Israeli soldiers, rifles slung over their shoulders, both of whom spoke English with thick Israeli accents.  They were kind, they were tender, and they were masculine and beautiful as all get-out.  They had no reason to go that extra mile — literally several miles — to make sure that I, the lost American student, got to my destination.  No reason, that is, other than the basic impulse of kindness, and for the sake of fraternity.  We chatted the whole time about life, their wish to visit America, and what to do and see in Israel.

Having studied the trauma experienced by the Palestinian people under occupation, I knew that the feelings of brotherly warmth and intimacy that I felt sitting between those two caring, tender Israeli soldiers was the polar opposite of what Palestinians experience at the mere sight of IDF soldiers in uniform.  In real life, or even just a picture.

As Gaza is now under bombardment from an Israeli government that has openly stated that food, water, and electricity will be cut off — all of it open, brazen declarations of war crimes – I am grieving for our Palestinian brothers and sisters.  When I contemplate the suggestion from Mr. Bannon and other perceptive minds that the Israeli government knew full well this attack would happen – and that Israeli soldiers and civilians would be killed – I find myself grieving for those two Israeli soldiers, beautiful inside and out, and for all of our Israeli brothers and sisters, soldier and civilian, killed and betrayed by this entirely plausible, and diabolical, plot.

 

We may never know the full truth about the attack launched on October 7th, 2023.  But this much we do know: Innocent Jewish men, women, and children were killed in cold blood, massacred in ways reminiscent of the Einsatzgruppen of the Third Reich.  The next day, in Times Square, in Lafayette Square, and in cities around the country and world, there were pro-Palestinian rallies held, and not a tear shed for the slaughtered Israelis.