Excerpt

. . . Disraeli’s Russophobia, to which he converted Queen Victoria, and his defense of the Turks, whose massacres of the Serbs and Bulgarians were well known, gave rise to theories of a Jewish conspiracy. William Ewart Gladstone, a longtime opponent to Disraeli and himself prime minister several times (1868–1874, 1880–1885, 1886, and 1892–1894), declared that Disraeli “was holding British foreign policy hostage to his Jewish sympathies, and that he was more interested in relieving the anguish of Jews in Russia and Turkey than in any British interests.” The newspaper The Truth of November 22, 1877, alluding to the intimacy of Disraeli with the Rothschilds suspected “a tacit conspiracy … on the part of a considerable number of Anglo-Hebrews, to drag us into a war on behalf of the Turks.” It was remembered, moreover, that in a speech to the House of Commons in 1847, Disraeli had demanded the admission of Jews to eligible functions, on the grounds that “the Jewish mind exercises a vast influence on the affairs of Europe.”[9]

The Queen, like much of the British aristocracy, was already under the spell of a fashionable theory assigning an Israelite origin to the Anglo-Saxons. This theory had first appeared around Oliver Cromwell’s time, was revamped in 1840 by Pastor John Wilson with his Lectures on Ancient Israel and the Israelitish Origin of the Modern Nations of Europe, and again in 1870 by Edward Hine in The English Nation Identified with the Lost Israel, in which we learn that the word “Saxon” is derived from “Isaac’s sons.” This ludicrous theory offered cheap biblical justification to British colonialism, and even to the genocide of colonized peoples (new Canaanites) by the British Empire (new Israel).[10] Queen Victoria was happy to believe that her noble lineage descended from King David, and had her sons circumcised, a custom that has continued to this day. There may be some truth in the British elite’s sense of their Jewishness, for during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, many marriages had united rich Jewish families with the old destitute landed aristocracy, to the extent that, according to Hilaire Belloc’s estimate, “with the opening of the twentieth century those of the great territorial English families in which there was no Jewish blood were the exception.”[11] But the Queen’s infatuation with Jewishness had also much to do with the influence of Disraeli, who once bragged about it to a friend in these terms: “Everyone likes flattery, and when it comes to Royalty you should lay it on with a trowel.”[12]

The Disraeli case is illuminating because the question it raises is the same as the question that divides geopolitical analysts today on the relationship between the United States and Israel: which one wags the other? Is Israel the bridgehead of the United States in the Middle East, or is the United States, as Zbigniew Brzezinski once said, the “stupid mule” of Israel? Answering this question for the century preceding the Second World War (when “Israel” meant International Jewry), helps answer the same question today, when the symbiotic relationship between Israel and the empire has grown considerably.

Disraeli’s Russophobia, to which he converted Queen Victoria, and his defense of the Turks, whose massacres of the Serbs and Bulgarians were well known, gave rise to theories of a Jewish conspiracy. William Ewart Gladstone, a longtime opponent to Disraeli and himself prime minister several times (1868–1874, 1880–1885, 1886, and 1892–1894), declared that Disraeli “was holding British foreign policy hostage to his Jewish sympathies, and that he was more interested in relieving the anguish of Jews in Russia and Turkey than in any British interests.” The newspaper The Truth of November 22, 1877, alluding to the intimacy of Disraeli with the Rothschilds suspected “a tacit conspiracy … on the part of a considerable number of Anglo-Hebrews, to drag us into a war on behalf of the Turks.” It was remembered, moreover, that in a speech to the House of Commons in 1847, Disraeli had demanded the admission of Jews to eligible functions, on the grounds that “the Jewish mind exercises a vast influence on the affairs of Europe.”[9]

The Queen, like much of the British aristocracy, was already under the spell of a fashionable theory assigning an Israelite origin to the Anglo-Saxons. This theory had first appeared around Oliver Cromwell’s time, was revamped in 1840 by Pastor John Wilson with his Lectures on Ancient Israel and the Israelitish Origin of the Modern Nations of Europe, and again in 1870 by Edward Hine in The English Nation Identified with the Lost Israel, in which we learn that the word “Saxon” is derived from “Isaac’s sons.” This ludicrous theory offered cheap biblical justification to British colonialism, and even to the genocide of colonized peoples (new Canaanites) by the British Empire (new Israel).[10] Queen Victoria was happy to believe that her noble lineage descended from King David, and had her sons circumcised, a custom that has continued to this day. There may be some truth in the British elite’s sense of their Jewishness, for during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, many marriages had united rich Jewish families with the old destitute landed aristocracy, to the extent that, according to Hilaire Belloc’s estimate, “with the opening of the twentieth century those of the great territorial English families in which there was no Jewish blood were the exception.”[11] But the Queen’s infatuation with Jewishness had also much to do with the influence of Disraeli, who once bragged about it to a friend in these terms: “Everyone likes flattery, and when it comes to Royalty you should lay it on with a trowel.”[12]

The Disraeli case is illuminating because the question it raises is the same as the question that divides geopolitical analysts today on the relationship between the United States and Israel: which one wags the other? Is Israel the bridgehead of the United States in the Middle East, or is the United States, as Zbigniew Brzezinski once said, the “stupid mule” of Israel? Answering this question for the century preceding the Second World War (when “Israel” meant International Jewry), helps answer the same question today, when the symbiotic relationship between Israel and the empire has grown considerably.

The answer depends on one’s point of view. The Zionists naturally have an interest in promoting the view that Israel serves Anglo-American interests, rather than the reverse. Disraeli argued in front of the British Parliament that a Jewish Palestine would be in the interest of British colonialism. But Jewish Zionists have always seen things from the other end of the telescope, and one can hardly believe that Disraeli did not secretly share their view. When the hero of his novel Tancred (1847), a Jew who has been promoted Lord just like Disraeli, glorifies the British Empire in these words: “We wish to conquer the world, led by angels, in order to bring man to happiness, under divine sovereignty,” who lies behind this ambiguous “we”? Is it the same double-meaning “we” as PNAC neocons used for drawing America into wars for the benefit of Israel?

When a British Jew such as Disraeli said “we” to the British, there was a strategic ambiguity. He stroke a patriotic chord with the Anglo-Saxon elite, who shared a common belief in the British Empire’s mission to civilize the world — people like Lord Salisbury, member of Cecil Rhodes’s Round Table that worked for a world government by the “British race.”[13] British imperialism and Zionist nationalism were born around the same time, as the twins Esau and Jacob, and have been intimately intertwined from their birth. But two considerations help understand their true relationship. First, the ideological roots of the British Empire do not go back beyond the seventeenth century, whereas those of Zionism go back more than two millennia. Secondly, the British Empire died after WWI, whereas Zionism took off. For these two reasons, the theory that Zionism is a by-product of British imperialism (let’s call it the Chomsky-theory) is unsustainable.

Understanding the true relationship between Zion and Albion in Disraeli’s time requires a correct appraisal of the power of the Rothschild dynasty over British policy. Without the Rothschilds, Great Britain would never have gained control of the Suez Canal, which was the cornerstone of the British Empire in the Middle East. The Rothschilds didn’t run for political office themselves, although they sometimes married into it: Lord Archibald Primrose, secretary of state for foreign affairs in 1886 and from 1892 to 1894, and prime minister in 1894-1895, was Mayer Amschel de Rothschild’s son-in-law.

It is noteworthy that Theodor Herzl envisioned the future Jewish state as an “aristocratic republic” with, at its head, “the first Prince Rothschild.” In a long tirade in his diary he exhorted the Rothschilds to redeem their evil souls by financing Zionism instead of wars:

I don’t know whether all governments already realize what an international menace your World House constitutes. Without you no wars can be waged, and if peace is to be concluded, people are all the more dependent on you. For the year 1895 the military expenses of the five Great Powers have been estimated at four billion francs, and their actual peacetime military strength at 2,800,000 men. And these military forces, which are unparalleled in history, you command financially, regardless of the conflicting desires of the nations. … And your accursed wealth is still growing. … But if you do go with us, … we shall take our first elected ruler from your House. That is the shining beacon which we shall place atop the finished Eiffel Tower of your fortune. In history it will seem as though that had been the object of the entire edifice.[14]

However, as Richard Wagner once said (Judaism in Music, 1850), the Rothschilds preferred to remain “the Jews of the Kings” rather than “the Kings of the Jews.”

If the time was not yet ripe for the creation of the Jewish state in Disraeli’s day, it was mostly because the Jews of Russia were no more attracted to Palestine than the Jews of Europe; they hardly knew where it was. Just recently emancipated by Tsar Alexander II, they aspired only to emigrate to Europe or the United States. It was only after the assassination of Alexander II in 1881 (one month before Disraeli’s death) that the pogroms made some of them sensitive to Leon Pinsker’s proto-Zionist appeal, published in 1882: “We must reconcile ourselves once and for all to the idea that the other nations, by reason of their inherent natural antagonIsm will forever reject us.”[15] It was also in 1881 that Baron Edmond de Rothschild, of the Paris branch, began buying land in Palestine and financing the installation of Jewish settlers, notably in Tel Aviv, under the auspices of his Palestine Jewish Colonization Association (PICA). But most existing international Jewish organizations, such as B’nai B’rith (founded in New York in 1843) or the Alliance Israélite Universelle (founded in Paris in 1860), felt that Israel was doing just fine as a dispersed nation, and had no designs on Palestine.

This changed during the First World War, when an extremely efficient network was set up linking both sides of the Atlantic.[16] Theodor Herlz first concentrated his diplomatic efforts on Germany, but it was in England that things started to look promising (“The center of gravity has shifted to England,” he wrote in his diary in 1895), thanks in part to the recruiting of Israel Zangwill, who, according to Benzion Netanyahu, “was the first to speak in a direct manner about Zionism to the upper circles of British politics,” and to Lloyd George in particular, “a close acquaintance of Zangwill’s from the start of his Zionist activity to the end of his days.”[17] Recall that Zangwill was the successful author of The Melting Pot, a play extolling mixed marriages for Americans. No contradiction here, for “the mixed persecuting races disappear, the pure persecuted race remains”, as said Sidonia.

Notes:

[10] André Pichot, Aux origines des théories raciales, de la Bible à Darwin, Flammarion, 2008, pp. 124–143, 319.

[11] Hilaire Belloc, The Jews, Constable & Co., 1922 (archive.org), p. 223.

[12] Stanley Weintraub, Disraeli: A Biography, Hamish Hamilton, 1993, pp. 579, 547.

[13] Carroll Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, From Rhodes to Cliveden (1949), Books In Focus, 1981.

[14] The Complete Diaries of Theodor Herzl, edited by Raphael Patai, Herzl Press & Thomas Yoseloff, 1960, vol. 1 , pp. 163–170.

[15] Benzion Netanyahu, The Founding Fathers of Zionism, Balfour Books, 2012 ,kindle l. 761-775.

[16] Alison Weir, Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel, 2014, kindle l. 387-475.

[17] Netanyahu, The Founding Fathers of Zionism, l. 2536-59.

Read more; Unz Review

by Mike Whitney via Unz Review

No one is more responsible for the attacks of October 7 than Donald Trump. It was Trump who initiated the Abraham Accords that were designed to “disappear” the Palestinian issue and drive a stake into the heart of the two-state solution. By seducing Arab leaders into bilateral agreements that shrugged off earlier commitments to the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state, Trump moved to crush Palestinian aspirations and eliminate the issue forever. Facing deepening isolation and irrelevance, Hamas lashed out hoping that the international community would take notice and come to its aid. In short, the primary cause of October 7 was Trump’s Abraham Accords, the fake peace initiative that paved the way for genocide.

It’s worth noting, that Joe Biden confirmed much of this analysis when he opined on October 25:

“I’m convinced one of the reasons Hamas attacked when they did… is because of the progress we were making towards regional integration for Israel and regional integration overall… ”

By “regional integration”, Biden is referring to the Abraham Accords which were promoted as a way for Arab countries to “normalize” relations with Israel and “to advance the peace process in the Middle East”. But don’t be fooled by the hype. The Accords were merely Phase 2 of Trump’s lopsided giveaway to Israel. As some readers might recall, Phase 1 of Trump’s so called Middle East Peace Plan “provided for a unified Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and the principal Jewish settlements in the West Bank, amounting to annexation of roughly 30% of the territory. The Palestinians were given some desert areas near the Egyptian border, limited sovereignty, and a non-contiguous state with numerous Israeli enclaves…. ”

So, with a wave of his hand, Trump broke with all of his presidential predecessors, all the applicable UN Resolutions, and with traditional US foreign policy dating back five decades. And this was just the beginning because—as we know now—the Abraham Accords set the dominoes in motion leading inexorably to the flattening of Gaza and the displacement of two million civilians. As author of the Accords, Trump is largely responsible for the unfolding catastrophe.

Keep in mind, the Accords really had nothing to do with peace or normalization. As senior fellow at the Arab Center Dana El Kurd said, “to frame the Abraham Accords as a “peace”(agreement) that increased stability between signatories is deliberately misleading….To be sure, Arab-Israeli normalization cannot be considered “peace,” but should rather be understood as authoritarian conflict management. Through this lens, it is possible to understand more clearly how the accords have changed the landscape of the region, and why pursuing such a policy makes for an unsustainable future…

“Authoritarian conflict management”?? What does that mean?

It means that the inducements for participation in the Accords had more to do with strengthening domestic repression than promoting regional peace. Here’s more:

For example, the UAE has expanded the scope of its engagement with Israeli companies specializing in repressive technologies and has invested in the Israeli defense industry. The Moroccan government has similarly taken advantage of normalization to acquire similar capacities. The impact was felt very directly in some cases, with journalists, activists, and intellectuals targeted and often imprisoned.This is a win-win for Israel and the signatory countries. Arab regimes can crack down on any remaining vestiges of dissent in the region and Israel can facilitate investment in its defense and cybersecurity industries while helping to minimize spaces critical of its role in the region and its ongoing oppression of the Palestinians.

To be clear…. Israel is not the only source of surveillance or other repressive technologies, and Arab governments have certainly sought out other sources. Nevertheless, Arab-Israeli normalization exacerbates these dynamics and increases the capacities of these regimes by diversifying their sources of support….Assessing the Abraham Accords, Three Years On, The Arab Center

So, the Abraham Accords are not an attempt to “advance the peace process in the Middle East” but a plan to reinforce the tyrannical dictatorships the US and Israel need to promote their regional agenda, which means that the only normalization that is going on, is the normalizing of the 75-year-long occupation and the ongoing slaughter of Palestinian women and children. Here’s more:

Labeling Arab-Israeli normalization as a form of “peace” is therefore inaccurate. Rather, it is a process that rejects genuine negotiations and deeper reflections on the reasons for conflict, instead using state-level coercion and power to achieve various aims. In other words, the Abraham Accords and everything that has followed since can only be seen as authoritarian conflict management….(because) any normalization of ties with Israel entails repression, as regimes begin to proactively crack down on those who would oppose this development… Assessing the Abraham Accords, Three Years On, The Arab Center

And who would oppose the normalization of relations with Israel?

Just about every Arab in the Middle East, that’s who.

And that brings us to our next point…

As everyone who has followed developments in the region knows, Israel never had any intention of implementing UN Resolution 242 or allowing the establishment of a Palestinian state. The Abraham Accords were conjured up by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who wanted to sidestep UN resolutions while vanishing the Palestinian issue once and for all This was Trump’s basic strategy and it forced Hamas to take drastic action to disrupt the normalization process while refocusing attention on Palestine.

We’ve already mentioned that Trump’s cynically named “The Deal of the Century” convinced Hamas that the Palestinian people faced an existential crisis that could only be averted by launching a massive attack that would force other countries to get directly involved. That was the rationale that drove the October 7 attacks. Even so, few analysts have seen through the ruse and revealed the truth of what has actually transpired. Branko Marcetic is one such journalist who revealed the details of Trump’s fraud in a riveting article at Responsible Statecraft. Here’s an excerpt from his piece:

… the U.S. Department of Homeland Security under Donald Trump warned in October 2020 that terrorist violence was set to be imminently inflamed…. (DHS) pointed to the Abraham Accords: the U.S.-led effort to normalize relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors… The resulting Abraham Accords were, at least in the neoconservative world, considered a stroke of “genius.” Rather than finding a solution to the seemingly intractable question of Palestinian statehood, it simply sidelined it….

The signers dropped this long-standing precondition as they re-established diplomatic relations and deepened security and economic cooperation with Israel, while Trump lavished them with rewards, like an arms deal for the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and U.S. recognition of the annexation of West Sahara for Morocco. It effectively supplanted the Saudi government’s Arab Peace Initiative, which since its 2002 introduction had been the foundation of the Arab world’s program for resolving the conflict, placing the Palestinians front and center.

The new normalization agreements’ foundational and cynical assumption was that the plight of the Palestinians could and would be safely ignored and forgotten about by both the region’s governments and the broader international community… As Arab states began gradually deepening ties with Israel, they increasingly backed away from their historic positions…

the normalization process continued despite what would earlier have been viewed as an unacceptable provocation against both Palestinians and Islam itself was celebrated by the accords’ supporters, as proof that ongoing repression of Palestinians could indeed be safely ignored. But the Palestinian issue could not simply be wished away, and the signing of the pacts created a set of contradictions that fueled the tensions that erupted October 7.

Palestinians themselves, across opinion surveys, with both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas calling it a “betrayal,” a “treacherous stab,” and “grave harm.” Hamas also called for “an integrated plan to bring down normalization.” …….

while Hamas had reportedly planned this operation for two years, and claimed it was motivated by years of violence at Al-Aqsa, its attack also can’t be understood without the bipartisan push for Israeli-Arab normalization at the Palestinians’ expense, and the outrage, anger, and despair it has inspired.

What is clear — from Hamas’s extraordinary violence, the wider regional war it threatens to spark, as well as the major pro-Palestinian protests across Arab countries in response to Israel’s bombing campaign — is that almost every assumption that undergirded the Abraham Accords was disastrously wrong, not least the idea that dismissing the Palestinians would make for a more peaceful Middle East. Forget ‘peace,’ did Abraham Accords set stage for Israel-Gaza conflict?, Responsible Statecraft

Excellent summary, but let’s recap:

1. Officials at the Department of Homeland Security warned Trump that trouble was brewing because the Abraham Accords were inciting “terrorist violence”. (So, October 7 was not unexpected. It was predicted.)
2. Homeland Security expressed their concerns that instead of “finding a solution to the… question of Palestinian statehood, (the Accords) simply sidelined it…. (Once again, the proximate cause of October 7 was identified but ignored.)
3. Instead of dealing with the Palestinian issue fairly and rationally, “Trump lavished the (Arab leaders) with rewards” with the clear intention of coercing their support. (Sounds like bribery)
4. “As Arab states began gradually deepening ties with Israel, they increasingly backed away from their historic positions,” which refers to the Arab Peace Proposal of 2002 that required all Arab states to oppose normalization with Israel until Israel agrees to the establishment of a Palestinian state on land occupied since 1967.
5. Hamas also called for “an integrated plan to bring down normalization.” (Very important.) Hamas identified “normalization” (The Abraham Accords) as an existential threat that had to be countered.
6. Hamas’s “attack also can’t be understood without the bipartisan push for Israeli-Arab normalization at the Palestinians’ expense, and the outrage, anger, and despair it has inspired.” In short, the Abraham Accords precipitated the October 7 attacks.

One Last Thought:

There is another intriguing aspect of the October attacks that has been largely ignored by mainstream pundits, and it is linked to this one short question: What was the strategic objective of the October 7 attacks?

What was Hamas trying to achieve?

The media would like us to believe that Hamas had no strategic objective at all, that they simply wanted to “kill or capture Jews” to satisfy some deeply racist urge. But that’s nonsense. We’ve already shown that Trump had approved the seizure of more Palestinian land while—at the same time—he was actively sabotaging Palestinian relations with its Arab neighbors. What that proves is that it was Hamas’s ‘back that was against the wall’, not Israel’s. Palestinian statehood faced certain obliteration if steps were not taken to reverse the course of events and prevent the Palestinians from being further isolated, marginalized and “disappeared”.

But how could a small, poorly-armed militia do anything that could significantly change the outcome sought by both Israel and its superpower friend?

That was the conundrum Hamas faced, and that is why they settled on a desperate strategy that involved goading Israel into an overreaction that would allow the rest of the world to see the inhumanity and viciousness of the Zionist state. That was the goal, and we know it was the goal because the plan was presented in great detail by Hamas’s political and military leader, Yahya Sinwar, who released the following statement in a short video on Twitter. Here’s what he said:

“Within a limited period of months—which I estimate will not exceed one year—we will force the occupation to face two options: Either we force it to implement international law, respect international resolutions, withdraw from the West Bank and Jerusalem, dismantle the settlements, release the prisoners, and ensure the return of refugees, achieving the establishment of a Palestinian state on the lands occupied in 1967, including Jerusalem; or we place this occupation in a state of contradiction and collision with the entire international order, isolate it in an extreme and powerful manner, and end its integration in the region and the entire world, addressing the state of collapse that has occurred on all fronts of resistance over the past years.” SuppressedNews

The statement above lays out Sinwar’s strategy in lucid, unambiguous prose. October 7 was a clear provocation aimed at taking advantage of Israel’s insatiable appetite for violence and bloodshed. Sinwar not only knew that Israel would overreact; he was counting on it. He expected that they would do precisely what they have been doing for the last 15 months; destroying everything in their path, killing tens of thousands of civilians, and reducing the entire Gaza Strip to rubble. Israel’s overreaction was the only way that Hamas could breathe new life into the Palestinian cause, because it was the only way they could attract the sympathy and support of the international community. That was Sinwar’s strategy in a nutshell; provoke Israel and hope that other nations would feel a moral obligation to intervene and stop the slaughter. It was a risky gambit, but it was the only option available.

As it happens, Sinwar’s strategy has largely succeeded except for the fact that Washington has blocked all efforts by the international community to resolve the crisis, deploy peacekeepers, or implement the relevant UN Resolutions. Even so, Israel remains (as Sinwar predicted) “in a state of contradiction and collision with the entire international order, (and) isolated in an extreme and powerful manner.” Recent surveys indicate a significant decline in global support for Israel…. (A Morning Consult poll showed that favorable views of Israel decreased in 42 out of 43 countries polled since the war.) and the reputational damage (to Israel) gets worse by the day. If there is an attempt to “clean out” Gaza (as Trump put it), then Israel will be branded as a global pariah for decades to come, perhaps, forever. And while that designation may not bother Israelis today, eventually they will see how it undermines their broader interests and their collective sense of self-esteem. Eventually, Israel will either comply with international resolutions and humanitarian law or face a painful future of hardship, isolation and disgrace.

In any event, Sinwar clearly pursued the only strategy that had any chance of succeeding, in fact, he might have pulled it off had Washington withheld its voluminous provision of 2,000 lb. bombs and other lethal weaponry. But now that the US has become a party to the genocide, the struggle for statehood is bound to take longer. It will require the same grit and determination the Palestinian people have shown since the conflict began 76 years ago. Eventually, they will prevail.