Tom Engelhardt, bless his heart, is even older than I am, also still alive, and old enough for the perspective to realize just how extraordinary and unprecedented are the current states of affairs, both nationally and internationally. In all of his posts, he is overcome with astonishment that such goings on could be possible in a world which was never like this in the old days (when we were young). That a man like Donald Trump could rise from the swamp, and even get elected President of the United States is totally unimaginable (vide: It Can’t Happen Here), but when the other shoe drops, and the man gets elected President for a second time ~ well, that just throws the whole thing out of the ball park, outside the range of any conceivable reality.
Now and then there was Israel. At the end of the First World War, the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which basically established a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine, may have been done with good intentions, (although no consideration of any kind was ever given about what to do with the people already living in Palestine), but the circumstances on the ground have been moving in a decidedly alarming direction ever since. The initial founding of Israel, under this Balfour Declaration, was explicitly declared to be in the furtherance of the program of Zionism.
The problem with giving the land of Palestine to the Jews, so they could make a Zionist Homeland (never mind “Greater Israel”), was that there has never been any other idea about the Palestinian people except to treat them the way the American colonists treated the indigenous people who were already living on “their” land ~ just get rid of them ~ they are just in our way (This is our land ~ we just found it ~ finders keepers; losers weepers.) The Israelis have ratcheted up the screws on this diabolical scheme until finally the fully blown intentional genocide is not only laid bare, but proudly announced by the leaders of Israel.
The Palestinian people are being systematically expunged from the living planet. Their homes are destroyed; their olive groves are destroyed; their hospitals and schools are destroyed; their oppressors deliberately prevent food, water, or aid of any kind from being brought in to help them, and whenever they drop a bomb on some Palestinian people, they wait ten minutes until the scene is covered with people trying to rescue the wounded, and then they drop a second bomb, to finish the job.
This agenda of literal genocide is not only publicly admitted by the Israeli government ~ it is proudly announced, and videos of their atrocities are gleefully published on YouTube. Have they posted any videos yet of the dogs raping Palestinians, women and men ?
I am trying to be objective here, but I am sure that the sharp reader will be able to detect my bias ~ yes, what has been going on in Palestine seems to me to be unimaginable and unforgivable. I have already surmised that the actions of the Jewish people are undergoing an unconscious karmic regurgitation of the Holocaust under Nazi Germany, but that doesn’t excuse their behavior. If they are helpless in the grip of a Vortex of negative energy (cf: the whirlpool image of Red and Purple flushing down and out), there must be some outside intervention to help them get back to a rational center again. To put it in terms of my Aura colors, both the Red and the Purple karmic energies have to be released so that they can rise to the Blue level, Peace. Let Go, as the Zen Buddhist says.
The Middle East Vortex
But, to get back to the current problem ~ the United States, so far from making any positive intervention into the madness of Israel, is engulfed in its own seemingly insurmountable problem with an insane, bewildered, or criminal (take your pick) Donald Trump at the helm of the Ship of State [I think “bewildered” nails it. Poor Donald ~ he hasn’t any idea of what’s going on]. Not only was the Donald so vacuous and clueless that he was unable to realize when he was being duped into fighting Israel’s wars of aggression against Iran in pursuit of their dream of Greater Israel, but it just goes downhill from there. Today’s news is that Trump is going to formally swear fealty to Bibi Netanyahu, giving up American sovereignty to be held forevermore by the State of Isreal (read: “the merger of United States and Israeli military and weapons systems.”)
To say that The United States and Israel are “joined at the hip” is a very unfortunate metaphor, in the light of Israel’s ongoing campaign of genocide, but now our dear Donald wants to strengthen that joint, so that the opprobrium felt towards Israel by a large and growing majority of the human race must forevermore be shared by the United States, the two most hated countries in the world. Is Donald Trump such a narcissist that he can’t bear to see Netanyahu basking alone in the limelight as the World’s Most Hated Villain, so that he has to stand up and demand to be recognized as being just as culpable as Netanyahu for the genocide? Me, me ! I did it !
I think, on the other hand, that it is time for the United States to begin a process of uncoupling from Israel. At first I thought it was a deliberately thought out scheme, when Trump had that angry blow-out with Netanyahu. Here is a possible Playbook ~ Donald Trump, having fallen through the hole in the outhouse, and currently flailing about in the puddles of shit, is trying to escape. Solution ~ he needs a “fall guy.” None of this fiasco with Iran can be the Donald’s fault, of course, so there must be someone else who can take the blame. All Trump has to do is throw Netanyahu under the bus, and declare that Netanyahu has been the Obstacle to Peace all along. Trump has to agree that Iran has been on the Moral High Ground all this time, coming to the defense of the Palestinians when just about no one else, anywhere, were willing to speak up in defense of them, or to denounce the crimes of the Israelis (with a polite nod here to the governments of Spain, Ireland, and Norway, and a Bronx cheer for the United States). So Trump just cozies up with the Iranians in opposition to the rogue Israelis, who must be forced to stop all warfare against everyone ~ Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, Hezbollah, Houthis, Iranians, Syrians, Jordanians, and anyone else who looks at them funny. We will take their bombs away, and store them in some neutral country, like the United States.
Meanwhile (the Playbook continues), the Strait of Hormuz is open again, sanctions are lifted, frozen assets released, the Oil is flowing again, along with the wine (even in Muslim Iran and Palestine), and everyone is living happily ever after ~ except, of course, for the Israelis, who are left gnashing their teeth in chagrin and despair at their loss, but that’s why you need a Fall Guy, or some picked on minority, so that everyone else can feel united in solidarity against the other. Someone has to take the blame. No Social Hierarchy can be stable without having a scapegoat to line the bottom of the barrel, upon whom anyone can dump. And Trump can get yet another Nobel Peace Prize for having solved the war with Iran (he really won the last one, you know, but he was fraudulently denied the award).
Now we need to solve the war between Russia and Ukraine. Then we need to deal with the Trees, the climate, ocean necrosis, and microplastics. Let’s try to get it all done before lunch. Tomorrow we can begin the process of a transition from a planetary Law of the Jungle to the establishment of a Gardener Who will cultivate the earth and its people as a Garden. (vide: The Church of the Living Tree, New Solutions, 1992).
A Corner of the Garden with Dahlias (1873) by Claude Monet
Curriculum Vitae ~ links about the Author and his work.
