Kevin Barrett – The Unz Review Nov 25, 2023
The biggest story in today’s False Flag Weekly News was Scott Ritter’s article “Hamas Winning Battle for Gaza.” Ritter points out that Israel’s much-ballyhooed war aim of completely eradicating Hamas has given the group an easy path to victory: Mere survival is a win—and a humiliating Israeli defeat.
But Hamas isn’t just surviving, Ritter adds, it is prevailing on the battlefield. Israel can massacre 13,000 civilians to no military purpose, and reduce buildings to the kind of rubble that guerrilla fighters thrive in, but it can’t seem to win any actual engagements. All of Hamas’s senior cadre and even mid-level cadre is still alive and fighting, whereas significant numbers of of Israeli officers and soldiers have been killed or captured by Hamas. The only actual evidence we’ve seen of action on the battlefields of Gaza consists of innumerable stirring videos of Hamas commandos destroying Israeli tanks and other vehicles, sometimes by sprinting to them and planting explosive charges from “distance zero,” and inflicting serious losses on Israeli troop concentrations before disappearing back into their tunnels. It was military and political defeat that forced Israel to accept a ceasefire, which it had been resisting and which Hamas had been supporting.
Scott Ritter, a former supporter of Israel, has switched sides, having noticed that ongoing displays of Palestinian skill and bravery contrast starkly with Zionist lies and atrocities. So maybe he’s biased. But it isn’t just pro-Palestine voices like Ritter who have noticed that Israel is losing. One of the Zionist entity’s most frenzied supporters, former Trump advisor John Bolton, says “Hamas Has Just Won a Major Victory Over Israel.”
Ritter and Bolton are part of a growing chorus of nay-sayers who have arisen to contest the conventional wisdom that “Israel can’t lose.” A recent al-Jazeera (Arabic) article surveyed several American experts who agree, to varying degrees, with the prevailing opinion among West Asian analysts that Hamas is on the path to victory. Below is a quick, Google-assisted translation of the article. -KB
American Experts to al-Jazeera: Israel Has Lost, Hamas Has Won. Here’s Why.
By Mohamed al-Menshawi for Al-Jazeera
Washington – Many discussions in the American capital regarding the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip conclude that Israel will prevail in the end. Experts compete to confirm and repeat the fact of its overwhelming material and military superiority over the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in terms of numbers of troops, armed aircraft, missiles, armored vehicles, tanks and artillery. They cannot imagine any result except Israel’s victory, the only question being the time frame and the cost.
In contrast, a growing number of commentators point to the possibility of Hamas’s victory and Israel’s defeat. Some even assert that Hamas has already won…
In a previous interview with Al Jazeera, former US military intelligence officer Scott Ritter confirmed that the Hamas movement has become more than an organization or group in its traditional physical form: “Hamas has become a broader concept of the meaning of resistance, and we must remember that it carried out an act that had only been done before by the Egyptian army, which was able to defeat the Israeli side on the battlefield. Hamas already won on October 7, and that cannot be changed…when Egyptian forces crossed the Suez Canal on October 6, 1973, Egypt won. After that, Israel launched strong counterattacks, but that did not change the fact that Cairo was victorious. The same is true with Hamas today. It was victorious on October 7, despite Israel’s efforts to destry the movement.”
In turn, Professor Avraham Shama from Northwestern University believes that regardless of how the Gaza war unfolds, Israel has already lost and Hamas has won. Shama cites the hundreds of thousands of Israelis leaving their homes in the north and south and moving to relatively safe shelters in the center of the country; the closing of many schools and universities; and the deterioration of the economic situation in general.
Deep and Long-Term Losses
Shama said, “The Israelis suffered another kind of defeat, which is a feeling of deep and long-term loss. This loss fundamentally touched their psyche and their sense of collective self and well-being. You can hear it in their voices, their posts, and their choice of words, and you can see it on their faces.”
He also pointed out that before the Hamas attack, the Israelis were confident, believing that a sudden war like the October 1973 war could not happen again, and that if that happened, their army would crush it as soon as it began. Then the Hamas attack came, (Israel’s first such experience) in 50 years. It was a deep shock.
The academic considered that despite “the loss of more than 13,000 Palestinians, the Hamas movement was able to invade a country with a population of more than 9 million people with a strong army. They succeeded in destroying the Israeli psyche and pushing the renewal of the Palestinian struggle to establish an independent state to the global forefront.”
For his part, Professor Stephen Walt of Harvard University said, “As expected with each side blaming the other, Israel and its supporters portray Hamas as nothing more than a brutal gang of Iranian-backed terrorists who deliberately attacked civilians…While the Palestinians and their supporters acknowledge that attacking civilians is wrong, they blame Israel for imposing an apartheid regime on Palestinians and subjecting Palestinians to systematic and disproportionate violence over many decades. They also point out that international law allows oppressed peoples to resist illegal occupation even if the methods chosen by Hamas are irregular.”
Walt considered that the most striking feature of this latest round of fighting is that Hamas achieved almost complete surprise, just as Egypt and Syria did 50 years ago during the October 1973 war, and demonstrated unexpected combat capabilities. Al Aqsa storm caused more damage to Israel than any other attack.
He added that it is clear that the attack shocked Israeli society, and that the ongoing war may also reveal the limits of power. “War is a continuation of politics by other means, and strong countries sometimes win on the battlefield and still lose politically. The United States won all the major battles in Vietnam and Afghanistan. But in the end it lost both wars.”
In Walt’s opinion, Hamas will never be able to defeat Israel in a direct test of strength. But its attack is a tragic reminder that Israel is not impregnable and the Palestinian desire for self-determination cannot be ignored. He continues, “(Al Aqsa Storm) also shows that the Abraham Accords and recent efforts to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia are not a guarantee of peace. In fact, they may have made this latest conflict more likely.”
For his part, John Alterman, head of the Middle East Unit at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, believes that the Israeli army’s history of avoiding American mistakes has ended.
Alterman, in a report published by the center, says: “The Israeli army has largely avoided the volatile history that has afflicted the United States militarily since the start of the Vietnam War. The US army ended the clashes in Lebanon, Somalia, and Haiti without clear victories….Also, the post-September 11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Syrian-Iraqi border region, despite a vast outlay of resources, years of fighting, billions of dollars, and thousands of American deaths, ended in failure to secure victory.”
Alterman noted that Hamas’ concept of military victory revolves around “achieving long-term political results. Hamas does not expect to achieve victory in one year or five, but by engaging in decades of struggle that increases Palestinian solidarity and increases Israel’s isolation….In this scenario, Hamas angrily rallies the besieged population of Gaza around it and helps the collapse of the Palestinian Authority by ensuring that the Palestinians view it as a helpless assistant to the Israeli military authority.”
Alterman continues, “At the same time, the Arab countries are strongly moving away from normalization, the Global South is strongly siding with the Palestinian issue, Europe is retreating from ignoring the violations of the Israeli army, and an American debate is erupting regarding Israel, destroying the bipartisan support that Israel has enjoyed in Washington since the early 1970s.”
He said that Hamas, “instead of relying on sufficient power to defeat Tel Aviv, is instead seeking to use Israel’s much greater power to defeat it. Israel’s power allows the country to kill Palestinian civilians, destroy Palestinian infrastructure, and defy global calls for restraint. All of these things advance Hamas’ goals…the unexpected successes achieved by the Hamas movement on October 7 will inspire future generations of Palestinians who cherish even small victories despite impossible difficulties.”
The zionists are winning, this is not a war , it is a genocide of the Palestinian people using the Mossad front Hamas in a false flag attack wrapped in a psyop, Barrett and all , have bought into the psyop, Hamas is and always was an arm of the Mossad.
Quote: “They also point out that international law allows oppressed peoples to resist illegal occupation even if the methods chosen by Hamas are irregular.”
Entire Resistance Axis acts based on doctrines of Qassem Suelimani’s asymmetric school. He was a master in asymmetric response, because he knew how to define and create new fields of confrontation or how to play by his own choice of rules inside enemy fields. Suleimani had a multi dimensional character, you should not see him as just a military field marshal. As you may know number of Generals with their own doctrines in the past 150 years is less than 10, the rest of the generals and admirals are followers even though they may be decorated with lots of colorful medals! Before Germany become a slave nation and hand over 80% of their military budget to US for protection, they had 2 generals with their own doctrines:
The Germans had:
General Heinz Guderian – defined tactics with effective use of tanks for the first time.
General Erwin Rommel – titled as Desert Fox with his innovative tactics in Africa.
The British had:
Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery – he was actually facing Desert Fox.
The French had:
General Charles de Gaulle – resistance to Germans and architect of the Fifth Republic.
The Russians had:
General Vasily Sokolovsky – he wrote Soviet military doctrines in 1960.
Admiral Sergey Gorshkov – transformed Soviet small fleet into a world sea power.
The Americans had:
Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan – he coined “Middle East” for the first time. (Whose Middle East!?) It has been 120 years that Naval warfare is under the influence of Mahan’s doctrines; but when you compare US generals of today, none of them have any doctrine of their own.
The Chinese ever since Mao have not even one notable general, in fact their last war was 70 years ago. Maybe had a couple of days of clashes with Indians (similar!) and that’s it! You can’t just create proper general by attacking virtual enemies all the time! They are losing their great opportunity to invade Taiwan and clash militarily with US.
The Iranians after the revolution had:
General Qassem Suleimani – he was 40 years in the field none stop all over the place however he was a terrorist according to Mass Media, they won’t tell you how easily he defeated US general James Mattis of CENTCOM with all of that 7 trillion dollars they had! Trump landed in Ain Al Assad base and they where told we need to turn off the lights, later he criticized general Mattis that we spent $7000000000000 in the region and we have to go dark for security!? Next day he signed his resignation! This should be enough introduction for Suleimani for westerners, but people of the region including Christians know him as savior. Other than military dimension Qassem Suleimani wad a revolutionary dimension to help empower oppressed people or as we call it Jihadi. (جهادی). For this revolutionary dimension we can name a few people like Che Guevara, Vietnamese general Giap and some others around the world which would make this very long, but Qassem Suleimani could live within different cultures and guide people with different religions, in short he was capable in Nation Building and State Building to secure the region by empowering the indigenous people. This is the main reason he was so hated by his enemies.
General Alireza Tangsiri – He is taking the IRGCs unique Speedboat naval doctrine to a whole new level. The subject is vast and out of scope now, suffice to say legacy navies relying on large slow moving ships are a thing of the past and things like aircraft carriers are completely obsolete, yet China or India still waste money making them because they are copy cats in military doctrines.
General Amir Ali Hajizadeh – IRGC’s missile and drone commander. To understand him better, I provide two points:
1- A video from two years before Ukraine war of Hajizadeh meeting with Russian general Sergey Surovikin known as general Armageddon explaining potential of drones and then offering him drone-command for space-command in return, then they shake hand! (https://youtu.be/EmzQ5J75G1Y)
2- What former head of CENTCOM general McKenzie said. (https://youtu.be/lGe0Pyabwa0).
Note instead of the word General we use Sardar سردار.
Now let us talk about “irregular” or more accurately asymmetric, a little.
You may all have heard of the story: The Fox & The Stork; there are various version of it out there, many in animation form. The story is about a fox inviting a stork to his place and offering him soup on a shallow dish, fox can eat but the stork with his long beak could not; so one day stork also invites the fox and offers him fish in a tall jar with a narrow neck, he could eat but fox could not… then they derive some shallow moral conclusion for kids that: “Do not play tricks on your neighbors unless you can stand the same treatment yourself.” based on you background or culture you may come up with different conclusions, however, the most important conclusion that you should derive from this story is “asymmetric response”! And if you pay attention next time you won’t question Hamas receiving so much money form here and there…and instead you will ask how much of it Hamas or more accurately AlQassam can actually use! Why Hamas is still in power? Why Bashar Assad is still in power? Why Yemen has been transformed like this over just a decade? What about Hezbollah? The answer is clear, there has been a Nation and State building with deep civilizational knowledge at work.
And the elementary basic level of understanding any of this is the following:
We have 4 types of response/action:
1- Negative Symmetric
You play by enemy rules within your own field/land.
2- Positive Symmetric
You play by your own rules within your own field/land.
3- Negative Asymmetric
You play by enemy rules within enemy land.
4- Positive Asymmetric
You play by your own rules within enemy land.
Look how far we got out of that “irregular” word!
We can expand on this later.
my two tomans
“Hamas is winning” More information bullshit.
There was no ‘Hamas’ attack. IDF/Mossad dressed up as ‘Hamas members’ & staged their false flag paragliding ‘attack/kidnappings’. There are no ‘hostages’ except for the crisis actors appearing in this choreographed agitprop skit–conniving with the IDF masquerading as ‘Hamas’.
LOL! Are these the same “experts” who pushed the covid scamdemic? or believe that a couple of aluminum cans can bring down massive steel structures?
It’s all juvenile wishful thinking. Regrettably, Isra-hell cannot and will not be defeated militarily. It’s just a fact of life. “But they’re scum of the earth!” comes the shouting. Yes. Yes, they are.
But let’s not delude ourselves into thinking they’re weaklings. I can give countless examples, but just go back to summer 2006, when Beirut was turned into rubble, thousands of Lebanese dead, at a cost of only 120 IDF soldiers. A ratio of 50 to 1 in favor of Isra-hell. That stat has been consistent in all the conflicts Isra-hell, or “Israel”, has been involved in. This Gaza one is obviously no different: at least 20,000 Palestinians dead (ie with those under rubble still) with only a handful of “Israelis” killed (i.e. vast majority of the alleged 1200 deaths on their side was by the hands of the IDF in panic mode … not necessarily deliberate killing of their own civilians, but by their own hands nonetheless).
Hamas has won because you have to compare their stated objectives with those of Zion. They never had some fantasy space objectives. Even so they have gained so much more than they imagined.
Hamas has king status in the Sunni Muslim world. Issue of Palestine has become top priority. All pathetic Zionist Arab or Muslim governments such as Turkey have to cut their deals and trades with Zion and listen to their people. SInce Turkey owes Zion, they can’t stop oil! This is a saw situation, they can go forward or backward! The global sentiment is such that the wave moves them against their will and if they don’t comply there could be revolutions or civil unrest in their countries. Turkey appears to be escaping forward, showing itself as very anti-Zion suddenly, Erdogan speaks bold and US/NATO and Zion intentionally show weakness, this way they can redirect some of the Muslim sentiments in favor of Turkey. We have to see how it develops.
In contrast Zion’s image is decimated more than ever. They have lost their invincibility status and many countries are now seeing resistance to Zion is actually possible. They were threatening Iran and now they need months more just to capture a couple of kilometers of Gaza and yet they these few kilometers are contested and they can be taken back quickly.
During the ceasefire you see people of Gaza just walk back to their destroyed homes. They are not only resilient but they are assured of their victory, this while AnsarAllah still attacks Eilot and Zionist cargo ships as they are exempt from ceasefire (only between Hamas and Zion). Look up how much Zionist economy depends on red sea. Zionists are seeking to go back to their own countries, reverse immigration is accelerating; over $600 million damage to Zionist businesses every day and add way more cost of war.
And yet Gazans just walk back to their own rubble with the assurance that soon they will have their land back and will rebuild it.
The other winner is the Resistance Axis and in particular Iran because, two of the anti-Iran corridors they were working on were thrown out of the window on October 7th.
In the end 13K martyrs for a good plan is not comparable to ~24K dead in some earthquake.
The fox and the crow yes it starts with a dove. The fox used to visit the dove in the tree, and he would say “throw me one of your children”. The dove would flap about and get scared. The fox then says “throw one of your children or I will rap my tail around this tree and pull it down, the I will eat all your children. The dove throw one child to the fox. The next day the fox did and said the same thing however this time a crow was on a branch close to the dove. The crow said to the dove “don’t throw him any of your children” the dove was like but but….the then said tell him to wrap his tale around the tree and pull it down. So the fox got angry and did that but his tail ripped off his butt. The the fox thought to himself ahhh a need get the crow back for this. The he invites the crow to a meal. As kid this was my favourite story the story is pretty long it continues for a while between the crow and the fox.
Two tomans–it is a general error of the Americans that they think “the money hose” solves everything when it solves nothing. A lot of the talent is not looking for tons of money like JewSA is
every Hamas success will be always under the
jewish damocles sword of their mininuke like
germany were threatened by several rabbis +
generals . in fact if germans were able to throw
out all jews (impossible) they would send nukes
on every german city !
Even John Bolton, diehard supporter of Israel confessed that Hamas just had big winning.