This article is Part 1 of a series of on the current conflict in Gaza. The opinions are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of Valiant News. Please click here for Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Bonus Round as they are published.
The topic of Israel has a way of turning normally-objective and otherwise-sane people into rabid unthinking animals, for one side or the other (this author included).
This has never been more true since the 10/7 attacks where roughly 1,200 people were raped, shot, burned alive, beheaded and/or had their naked mutilated corpses paraded through the streets as cheering Palestinians spat on them – attacks clearly designed to inflame as much rage as inhumanly possible – as well as Israeli counter-attacks which Hamas’ health ministry claims killed at least 11,100 Gazans.
Due to the abundance of propaganda on both sides of the current conflict, I found while researching this article series that most fairly well-informed people – even experts – were completely misinformed about what’s actually going on. While a few weeks ago I could have easily said that the Israelis have historically been trustworthy roughly 80% of the time while the same could be said for Hamas about 20% of the time, the IDF has jettisoned what credibility they had shortly into this latest eruption of an over century-old conflict.
So this will be an attempt to distill something resembling the truth from the raging torrent of propaganda and blinding fury that has flooded the internet, not to mention practically every mainstream media outlet covering the conflict.
Ultimately, I was inspired to write after I saw viral claims that a squad of just 13 Israeli “lionesses” – a reference to a Hollywood documentary of the first female soldiers in U.S. history to be attached to frontline combat units – had killed 100 hardened Hamas fighters in just one battle on 10/7.
All-female Israeli 'lionesses' combat unit of just 13 soldiers 'killed nearly 100 Hamas gunmen as they helped liberate kibbutz' https://t.co/0omwTPONlC
— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) October 25, 2023
That is false. That is literally incredible. That is such transparent horse manure that whichever blue-haired moron in Israeli public affairs approved it and their entire chain of command should be fired, if not court-martialed. I know for a fact that this story is not true because this is reality, not a Disney Marvel movie.
I am frankly embarrassed for the Israeli people that this flagrant lie was allowed to go to print. It smacks of the trademark “Ghost of Kiev” propaganda that has been uncritically repeated by Western journalists for nearly two years about Ukraine; outrageously fantastic stories that defied reason, let alone corroboration, and continued to circulate well after they were debunked.
Consider then-congressman and leading NeverTrumper Adam Kinzinger, who believed a meme which identified right-wing comedian Sam Hyde as the invincible fighter ace, which Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense later admitted had never actually existed.
The original story, which ran at the Jerusalem Post, is only slightly less fanciful. The only source is IDF Lieutenant Colonel Or Ben-Yehuda, speaking about the bravery under fire of herself and the roughly 70% female battalion she commands. The battalion in total – not the squad of 13 she was personally a part of – is credited with 100 kills in 14 hours. Perhaps the journalists involved didn’t know the difference between a squad (four to 10 soldiers) and a battalion (300 to 1000).
Parsing through the shameless self-promotion, it seems the barebones story is that her battalion surrounded an outpost which had been overrun by Hamas militants to reinforce the survivors, her personal squad got ambushed in turn by Hamas reinforcements coming from outside and all involved bravely held their ground for hours until Navy special forces could arrive to do the heavy fighting.
Ben-Yehuda and her squad may have indeed fought bravely against incredible odds for all I know, but spreading the legend that a pony-tailed Rambo and her squad of a dozen women personally defeated ten times their number in hardened terrorists over a 14-hour firefight is nothing short of cringeworthy.
I will now attempt to apply this same filter of sanity to the biggest questions and myths surrounding the conflict:
- Are we headed to World War III?
- Were the 10/7 attacks an Iranian operation or an inside job?
- Is the U.S. government run by Israel or vice versa? What role does Christian Dispensationalism play?
- Is Israel committing war crimes or crimes against humanity?
- What does this mean for the peace process?
BONUS ROUND: What’s the deal with the USS Liberty, Jonathan Pollard and the Talmud? Also the one anti-Israel conspiracy theory that’s factually true.
1) Are we headed to World War III?
The most important question first. The answer, for now, is no. However, we should all be concerned that – while World War Three is not currently cooking – all of the ingredients are already in the pot.
According to the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the 2023 Doomsday Clock is at 90 seconds to midnight – a “time of unprecedented danger”.
Since the Vietnam War, the United States military has been geared around the “Two-War Construct” or “Two-War Doctrine” – the idea that Americans should be prepared to simultaneously fight two full-scale wars or “major regional conflicts”. The policy objective was ended in 2012 by the Obama Administration, though it’s debatable whether it was ever more than a rhetorical shibboleth; keen observers of military procurement have long remarked that the only constant is more money for less firepower.
Regardless, military force size and readiness has degraded significantly since then, to the point where we are unable to keep up with the ammunition needs of Ukraine, let alone a full-blown war in the Middle East.
“The scale of this war is out of proportion with all of our recent thinking,” U.S. Army General Christopher Cavoli – NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander – admitted to a Swedish Defense conference in January.
The enormity of what he said cannot be overstated: planning is the lifeblood of militaries, but the top general in Europe admitted that – while war machines in the East have been ramping up for years to specifically counter American doctrine and technology – the West remains completely unprepared for 21st Century warfare. Nor is there any indication that Western military leaders, who have been promoted for 20 years based on their ability to lie about the progress they were “achieving” in Afghanistan and Iraq, are at all capable of fixing the mess.
Politician Says He Just Wants One More War and then Won't Ask Again pic.twitter.com/6jeLXOqBf3
— Ryan Long (@ryanlongcomedy) October 26, 2023
Our Mexican Standoff strategy is an awesome deterrent against minor powers in peacetime or during “low-intensity conflict”, but the problem with being prepared for just one or two wars is that we’ll be royally screwed if there’s a third, fourth, fifth etc. With American military units cannibalized of critical equipment to supply Ukraine, stocks of conventional artillery shells completely dry and attempts to boost our military industrial capacity a complete failure so far, American deterrence has not been more tenuous since before the First World War.
If the United States got involved in one more major war, it could trigger a dozen other conflicts across the world as every power large and small with a reason to fight came to realize that the United States would be completely incapable of stopping them. We could witness rapid escalation towards war by Venezuelan, Chinese, Congolese, Moroccan, Azeri or even North Korean actors. In a worst-case scenario, the vacuum of American power could even lead to a nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan.
It is noteworthy as well that one junior Israeli cabinet official was suspended in early November for breaking the taboo of mentioning Israel’s openly-secret nuclear weapons stockpile in a suggestion that they could be used on Gaza (anti-Israel commentators frequently mischaracterized him as a “general”).
Lindsey Graham Calls On The United States To Bomb Every Country In The World https://t.co/pKrbEXfjUj pic.twitter.com/pKxxg5iRe4
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) October 12, 2023
However, practically nobody on the planet is interested in a war between the United States and Iran – a state fully capable, thanks to Barack Obama and Joe Biden, of “breakout” nuclear weapons production; that is, except for Lindsey Graham and Nikki Haley who – thankfully – vanishingly few people are taking seriously.
Though there are many in the Pentagon and Langley who would jump at the chance for regime change in Tehran, the embarrassing truth is American power projection may not be enough to manage a successful invasion (especially if the Russians provide them with air defense technology which is indisputably superior to our own, let alone their unique homegrown tech). Also, even if the Iranians stood a decent chance of holding their own against the Americans, they have plenty of their own reasons to avoid it (see my next article for further details).
World War III isn’t imminent, but it only requires two or three dominoes to fall to make it happen. Fortunately, while the Biden Administration doesn’t seem to be competent enough to carefully manage the diplomatic acrobatics required to defuse tensions, Biden himself still seems resistant to calls for a boots-on-the-ground hot war that could trigger nuclear Armageddon.
A previous version of this article misreported the official Israeli death count for 10/7 attacks. It was originally reported in excess of 1,400, but that figure was revised down to roughly 1,200. There are allegations that this figure downplays the number of IDF casualties suffered on that day.
This article is Part 1 of a series of on the current conflict in Gaza. Please click here for Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Bonus Round as they are published.
