Op-Ed: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict - Yet Another Endless War for the Enrichment of Corrupt Politicians
As the Palestinian Arab population centers in the Judea and Samaria region (also known as the West Bank) explode with instability and violence, I have been deployed with my Israel Defense Force special forces reserve unit.
Encountering Palestinian Arab locals, I have taken note of the negative responses and attitudes toward me and my fellow soldiers. In some cases it is hatred, and in others it is a crippling and even bizarrely irrational fear and panic.
The hatred and fear stem from an aggressive policy of slanderous propaganda designed to induce the Palestinian Arab population to submit to corrupt, tyrannical and often violent leadership against a supposedly greater external enemy — the Israeli “Zionist war machine.”
This method of control has been a classic tool used by tyrants and despots throughout history. For instance, Adolf Hitler and the Nazis turned European Jewry into the scapegoats for all things bad and dangerous to the German people and in particular the ostensibly superior “Aryan race.”
And it’s no surprise that Democratic politicians, with the help of the legacy media, have denounced their political opponents as dangerous enemies of the state, including former President Donald J. Trump and his band of “insurrectionists” and “ultra-MAGA violent extremists,” as described by President Joe Biden and his Department of Homeland Security.
Palestinian Arab children are especially targeted for indoctrination.
In a children’s television special called “The Pioneers of Tomorrow” produced by the Gazan terrorist organization Hamas, a shameless Mickey Mouse rip-off named Farfour is told by his grandfather to safeguard his Palestinian homeland now “occupied” by “the filth of the criminal, plundering Jews.” Later, Farfour is arrested and interrogated by Israeli security forces decried as “despicable terrorists,” and then the faux-Mickey Mouse is beaten to death in prison. (And you thought the ending of “Old Yeller” was traumatic!)
Palestinian Arab children grow up with this type of indoctrination, and then they become adults. And whether acting out of uncontrollable hate or irrational fear, the majority of the Palestinian Arab population submits to corrupt and violent leadership and cheers on the murderous terrorist attacks that strike Israeli military and civilian targets alike.
But what’s the real reason that the Palestinian Arab leadership — ranging from overt terrorist organizations like Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad to the tyrannical Palestinian Authority — invest so much time and effort into maintaining this conflict? Obviously, they want to kill Jews — it really is that simple. But there is another motivation that many are not aware of:
Money and power.
George Orwell noted in his famous novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four” that despotic and corrupt regimes crave war, and often frame that war in the context of a fiction made digestible to the masses. Constant war keeps the citizens working feverishly, blindly creating a flow of wealth that the common people never benefit from — but that the ruling class shamelessly consumes.
This is the reality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Palestinian Arab leadership seeks to maintain power and line their pockets.
After all, the only way to receive international assistance and aid is by having a humanitarian crisis. And when one doesn’t exist, the Palestinian Arab leadership — Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria — must create one. They must induce Israel to conduct military operations against terrorist threats and destroy Palestinian infrastructure in the process. (Those terrorists frequently commit the war crime of embedding themselves in civilian areas among schools and hospitals.)
Then, when the money begins to flow into the Gaza Strip or the West Bank from the United Nations, the U.S., the European Union, Qatar, etc., Hamas and/or the Palestinian Authority grease their palms with the clear majority of it. The local population is left in sickening squalor and fear of war, and they become totally reliant on these armed groups and/or corrupt pseudo-government bodies to provide for them and protect them.
Accordingly, Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, has remained in power for nearly two decades despite only being elected to a single four-year term in 2005, and it is estimated that his net worth is over $100 million (some estimates are much higher). Meanwhile, Abbas’ population lives in fear and poverty.
Trump was well aware of the corrupt realities of both American and international politics. He immediately sought to end the “endless wars” and was wildly successful in this ambition.
He quickly destroyed ISIS, de-escalated tensions with North Korea, prevented war between Turkey and the Kurds, kept Vladimir Putin and Russia at bay, decimated the Taliban, left Iran shuddering in fear, and initiated historic peace agreements between Israel and key Muslim Arab nations.
In contrast, before Trump assumed the presidency, America had been involved in over 15 years of inexplicably unresolved wars. And almost immediately after Trump left the White House, the U.S. once again found itself muddied up in conflicts that have decimated its military and economic resources, ranging from the shameful withdrawal from Afghanistan to the prolonging of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Trump has emphasized that if he were still in the White House, he could and would have ended the conflict in a day (and we all know that Putin wouldn’t have dared to invade Ukraine while Trump was in power). In contrast, President Joe Biden practically invited Putin into Ukraine by stating publicly that his administration would tolerate a “minor incursion.”
Trump ran on the ticket of boosting economic prosperity for all Americans and thereby “Making America Great Again.” In contrast, I think it’s clear that Biden & Co. are more than happy to use Orwellian means to line their pockets with the flow of money and weapons to endless wars, to the detriment of the American people. And they openly loathe Trump’s policies to help the American people achieve independent financial success.
The ongoing conflict in Israel with the Palestinian Arabs isn’t much different.
Trump cut off the hundreds of millions of dollars in annual aid to the Palestinian Authority. Biden almost immediately reinstated it. Similarly, $3 billion in aid goes to Israel for military and security purposes. But many are not aware that the vast majority of this aid is actually in the form of a “gift certificate” of sorts that must be spent by Israel within the U.S. defense sector.
In other words, whether the locale is Eastern Europe or the Middle East, the corrupt methodology of the American political “swamp” is the same.
The U.S. uses taxpayer dollars to perpetuate a conflict or even fund both sides. And then, one way or another, those politicians line their pockets as the money flows back and forth in and out of the government coffers. And while the swamp monsters bask in their corruption and wealth, innocent people all over the world die.
The communities in the land of Israel — both Jewish and Arab — are no exception.
The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owners of this website. If you are interested in contributing an Op-Ed to The Western Journal, you can learn about our submission guidelines and process here.
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