After 7 October 2023, Seymour Hersch’s reporting conveyed a belief in the Israel cause and Israel’s eventual victory. Hersch’s point of view has evolved over the course of the slaughter. This essay must have been difficult for him to write, but it is a mark of the great reporter he is that he can change strongly held opinions.
Killings by Israel in Lebanon and Iran may drag the US and the Middle East into a regional war — which seems to be what the DNC/Biden regime/NATO want.
From Hersch at seymourhersch.substack.com:
Vice President Kamala Harris and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrive for a meeting in the vice president’s ceremonial office at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington on July 25. / Photo by Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images.
The United States and the Middle East are now enduring a crisis that can in part be traced to the failed foreign policies of President Joe Biden, who will be in office, barring unforeseen events, for six more months. The core issue has been Biden’s inability to understand the recklessness and depravity of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose hatred of Palestinians has now brought the Middle East and America to the brink of a war that is neither desired nor necessary. Biden also has failed to seek a negotiated settlement to the war Russia, led by Vladimir Putin, is now in the process of winning against Ukraine.
Biden’s failures will soon fall to Vice President Kamala Harris, who now has a clear path to be nominated by acclaim at the Democratic convention later this month. She has yet to indicate any disagreement with the peril the Biden policies have created, although if ever there was a time for her speaking out this is it.
The fault is not only Biden’s. The majority of Democrats and Republicans in Congress routinely vote to send billions of dollars to support a corrupt and failing government in Ukraine and similarly approve the bombs and tank shells supplied to Israel for use in Gaza. Hamas, which was financed for years by Qatar, at Netanyahu’s behest, is far from defeated and it is now clear that Netanyahu has been the one resisting a ceasefire there, despite pressure—or rather, pleading—from the Biden White House.
“Netanyahu,… hatred of Palestinians…. has now brought the Middle East and America to the brink of a war… that is neither desired nor necessary.”
This statement contains a number of the writer’s assumptions –
Netanyahu is managing Israel’s response to a full frontal attack by Hamas – in response to an act of war.
Hatred – has Netanyahu stated his hatred of Palestinians, or of Hamas, or of anyone?
Did Netanyahu bring the ME&A to the brink of war, or did Hamas, the attacker and perpetrator of the conflict?
War – neither desired nor necessary…. War was not desired by Israel, yet war is necessary in response to an act of war perpetrated by Hamas, and the relentless firing of rockets from Gaza (read Hamas) and Lebanon (read Hezbollah), and more recently added to by Yemen (read Houthies), and Iran (read Islamic State of Iran). Israel did not go to war with anyone other than Hamas in order to recover the hostages and deal with the terror tunnels that enable the arming for conflict and for holding hostages.
I find this article unbalanced, provocative and totally lacking in some basic truths, and shouldn’t be on Waikanae Watch.
An old adage? A tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye, Hama’s started this whole debacle and got thumped in the nose for doing so. Israel folk have had the shit pocked at them from Hitler’s second world war regime and will fuel the fire if now provoked. Middle east has always been a tinder fire waiting to be ignited.
We have repeatedly said we consider Hamas and the Netanyahu government to be as bad as each other, We have no time for Islamists, but none for the mass killing of innocents either.