"The Pearl Harbour of our generation"
The escalating Israel-Gaza conflict, Iran, and echoes from the War on Terror's propaganda
This very phrase was a predominant theme of the media narratives around 9/11, quickly established mere hours after the event, and it’s still heavily featured in the collective cultural mythmaking and identity formation connected to this significant deep event.
Now, the weekend’s events in Israel are rapidly being cast in the same sense, as “Israel’s 9/11”, the “Pearl Harbor” of this subsequent generation, with literally hundreds of thousands of articles and editorials using this exact phrase during these last couple of days.
The implications of this are even more ominous in connection to how Iran now is being painted as a target by the West due to the associations between the Palestinian militants and the Iranian security apparatus now advertised in the media, in connection to promises of an “expanded violence”:
Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif called on Palestinians everywhere to join the group's operation.
"We have decided to put an end to these Israeli offences with God's help, so the enemy understands that the time of wreaking havoc without being held accountable is over," he said.
Ismail Haniyeh, the leader-in-exile of Hamas, claimed that Palestinian factions intended to expand the violence to the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem.
Ghazi Hamad, a Hamas spokesman, meanwhile told the BBC that the group had direct backing for the attack from Iran.
(“Israel faces ‘long, difficult war’”. BBC.)
It’s clear that the situation is being cast as a grave and serious event on par with those fateful moments in history that prompted those courageous few to make a stand and defend civilization from evil, i.e. the events are being thoroughly shaped and modelled through the lens of agitation propaganda.
Netanyahu’s statements this morning very clearly echoes George Bush’s juxtapositions of “civilization” and “barbarism” in the wake of 9/11, and the clear and unambiguous tone of righteous vengeance:
"Hamas will understand that by attacking us, they have made a mistake of historic proportions. We will exact a price that will be remembered by them and Israel's other enemies for decades to come," said Netanyahu.
He also highlighted the plight of those taken hostage, saying, "The savage attacks that Hamas perpetrated against innocent Israelis are mindboggling: slaughtering families in their homes, massacring hundreds of young people at an outdoor festival, and kidnapping scores of women, children and elderly, even Holocaust survivors. Hamas terrorists bound, burned and executed children. They are savages."
Branding Hamas as ISIS, he called on the "forces of civilisation" to unite against the Hamas and defeat it.
"Hamas is ISIS. And just as the forces of civilization united to defeat ISIS, the forces of civilization must support Israel in defeating Hamas,"
"In fighting Hamas, Israel is not only fighting for its own people. It is fighting for every country that stands against barbarism. Israel will win this war, and when Israel wins, the entire civilized world will win," Netanyahu said towards the conclusion of his speech.
We can very clearly see Neil Postman’s analyses and predictions being vindicated in real time here. The conflict is being recast in terms of impoverished myth through the lens and discursive methods of entertainment.
This youtube video is a perfect example.
The spectacular title looks like exactly the splash intro screen of some TV movie or netflix show, accompanied by dramatic and somber music that’s conducting our emotions. It’s produced and designed as entertainment, and it’s accordingly directed to the appetites and the emotions rather than the intellect.
The lines between entertainment, war and mass media are not just blurred. They practically don’t exist anymore.
The intro is followed by what’s most aptly described as a snuff movie, showing the dramatic, serious but oh-so-necessary Israeli retaliations on targets in Gaza, with the narration explaining the legitimate pretext while more somber and weepy music tugs at your heartstrings.
We then actually get to listen to almost all of Netanyahu’s agitprop speech, naturally set to more sentimental music, which effectively serves to legitimize not only the Israeli response, but its stated intentions towards expanded retaliation.
This connects further to the next segment.
At the end of this theatre production, everything’s namely summed up with an interview with a representative from an Israeli security think tank, where Iran is being explicitly and strongly implicated as the true adversary behind the scenes.
No matter which “side” you take in this situation, this is what propaganda looks like. This video segment should be used as the perfect representation in educational literature on the subject.
Pivot to Iran?
So to summarize, the direction of the media narrative gives the distinct impression that powerful forces in the Western political culture and apparatus are poised to take advantage of this situation to strike against Iran in some way, literally or more indirectly.
Iran has been a recurrent target of Western ire during the last few years, but that these tensions would be brought to a head at this very moment is not surprising if we look at the situation more closely.
First, we have the energy angle. The West is currently in a really bad position. Since the Ukrainian debacle, Europe cannot source much petroleum from Russia which used to be its key gas supplier. The North American shale miracle is faltering, with the US set to once again become a net importer of petroleum in the short term.
Moreover, Saudi Arabia is actually set to join the BRICS, which in reality means that the West’s single most important source of energy is to join a hostile trade alliance within a few months.
Iran is also joining the BRICS in January 2024, and this geostrategically important state, not least in terms of the ongoing conflict with Russia and China, will thus become firmly entrenched in their sphere of influence - where it’s already quite entangled through the Belt & Road initiative and other important agreements.
Iran, incidentally, is also the seventh-largest oil producer in the world, with significant undeveloped reserves.
Iran, of course, is well-positioned to take advantage of a weakening West in the context of its ongoing proxy conflict with Israel, especially since the Iranian state can be more certain of direct or indirect support from its major associates, the relations to which have been significantly strengthened.
There are many local and domestic issues within Israel that play a role here as well.
The controversial Saudi-Israeli deal which could have normalized relations between the two countries for the first time since the founding of the modern state of Israel had significant domestic opponents, since the deal most likely would have included significant concessions to the Palestinians. If the Gaza-Israel conflict doesn’t entirely eliminate the prospects for such an agreement, it can certainly be used by Israeli hardliners to limit any concessions to the Palestinians.
In light of the current state of the US economy, the energy situation, the limited political cohesion of Western society, and the rapidly shrinking time window before Iran is a de jure part of the BRICS collective, there’s probably no better time to try to dislodge this polity from the grasp of the emerging Eastern powers.
And the Gaza-Israel conflict, with hostages executed on live television and “love and peace” festivals, yea, with civilization itself being attacked by “murderous barbarians”, is really the best conceivable pretext for such actions.
Keep your heads cool kids.
It’s hard to tell if I’m watching war propaganda these days, or programs on nature and “science” channels. The production techniques are the same, the intentions the same
So it's sounding like the supergeniuses here in America took a look at the map, and decided that our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan went -so fucking good- and so we should start another intractable land war with the heavily armed nation that sits right between them.
A nation that's on good terms with Russia and China, and is surrounded on all sides by people who view hating America as a competitive sport.