A Must Read for People Interested in Israel and Palestine:
Thierry Meyssan interview with Monika Berchvok
Thierry Meyssan, who grants interviews to anyone who asks for them without discrimination, explained to Monika Berchvok his analysis of the confrontation in Gaza.
Published February 12, 2024
Monika Berchvok: You find the theory of a surprise attack on October 7 hard to believe.
What are the inconsistencies that make you think of a "September 11" scenario?
Thierry Meyssan: Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government had been alerted by an Intelligence services report a year earlier, as reported in the New York Times. It did not react. When, this summer, his Minister of Defense called him to order in the Council of Ministers, he dismissed him, as Haaretz revealed. However, under pressure from his party, he reinstated him shortly afterwards.
Subsequently, reports piled up on his desk. Among them was one from Intelligence, which he returned to its author as implausible, and which was credible, and which was sent back to him twice more with introductions from different officers.
Or again two CIA reports. And yet another approach from one of his friends, the director of Memri. And as if that weren’t enough. a phone call from the Egyptian Minister of Intelligence.
Not only did the Prime Minister do nothing, he acted to make the attack easier: he took it upon himself to demobilize the border guards so that no one could intervene when the attack began.
Please note that I have the same reading of events as Pope Francis: in his Christmas message, the Holy Father twice described the war in Gaza as "inexcusable madness". However, shortly thereafter he referred to the "odious attack of October 7", meaning that he did not think the war was a response to that attack. He then called for a halt to the fighting and a resolution of the Palestinian question.
MB: So, within the Israeli government, is there such a major rift? What is the Netanyahu clan’s aim in this operation?
TM: In the months leading up to the attack by the Palestinian Resistance, Israel was the scene of a coup d’état. This country doesn’t have a constitution, but it does have fundamental laws. They manage a balance of power by entrusting the judiciary with the ability to neutralize rivalries between the government and the Knesset.
Under the impetus of the Law and Liberty Forum, funded by the by the US-Israeli Straussian Elliott Abrams, the Knesset Law Committee chaired by Simtcha Rothman, also president of the Law and Liberty Forum, unravelled Israel’s institutions. During the summer, monster demonstrations multiplied. But nothing helped.
The Netanyahu team changed the rules for passing laws, eliminated the "reasonableness" clause in judicial decisions, strengthened the Prime Minister’s power of appointment, and weakened the role of legal advisors in the ministries. In the final analysis, the Fundamental Law on Human Dignity and Liberty became a mere regulation. Racism became an opinion like any other. And the ultra-Orthodox were able to gorge themselves on subsidies and privileges.
Israel today is not at all the same country it was six months ago.
MB: Israeli civil society is divided and seems to be on its last legs. Do you think the Zionist model is dead?
TM: Zionism is an ideology from another century. It’s Jewish nationalism in the service of the British Empire. For centuries, Jews were opposed to it, until Theodor Hertzl made it the ideal of some Jews.
MB: The situation in Gaza is turning into ethnic cleansing. Is the Tsahal capable of taking complete control of this territory and empty it of its population?
TM: The idea of ethnic cleansing is not new. It is rooted in the positions of the Ukrainian Vladimir Jabotinsky, whose views were echoed in Israel by Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir and the Netanyahu family and in the United States, Leo Strauss and Elliott Abrams. This Jewish supremacist group asserts that Palestine is "A land without a people, for a people without a land". Under these conditions, the indigenous Palestinians do not exist. They must leave or be massacred.
As far as I know, this is the only group in the world today publicly advocating genocide.
MB: On the Palestinian side, Hamas also seems to be divided between two antagonistic tendencies?
TM: Hamas is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Its name is an acronym for "Islamic Resistance Movement", which corresponds to the Arabic word for "zeal". Its ideology has nothing to do with the liberation of Palestine, but with the establishment of a Caliphate. Its slogan is: "God is its goal, the Prophet is its model, the Koran its constitution: jihad is its path and death for the love of God its greatest wish." Since its creation, it has enjoyed the full support of the Netanyahu family, who saw in it an alternative to Yasser Arafat’s secular Fatah. The Prince of Wales, now Charles III, was one of the Brotherhood’s protectors. Barack Obama placed a Brotherhood liaison in the US National Security Council. A Brotherhood leader even visited the White House in June 2013.
However, in view of the Muslim Brotherhood’s failure during the so-called "Arab Spring", a faction of Hamas has distanced itself from the Brotherhood. So there is no longer one Hamas, but two. The historic Hamas is governed by Mahmoud Al-Zahar, Guide of the Brotherhood in Gaza. Under his orders: the billionaire Khaled Mechaal in Qatar and Yahya Sinwar in Gaza. In contrast, the branch of Hamas that has joined the Palestinian Resistance is headed by Khalil Hayya.
This division of Hamas is not covered by the Western media but only by certain Arab media. President Bashar el-Assad reconciled, in October 2022, with Khalil Hayya while refusing to receive Khaled Mechaal. In his eyes, and in mine, the Prime Minister of Gaza, Ismail Haniyyeh, organized the attack on the Syrian Palestinian refugee town of Yarmouk in 2012. At the time, Hamas and al-Qaeda fighters had entered the town to eliminate the "enemies of God". They were accompanied by Israeli Mossad officers, and headed for the homes of PFLP cadres, whom they murdered. Among them was a friend of mine. A few days ago, President Bashar el-Assad made a speech against the historic Hamas and in favour those who have joined the Palestinian Resistance.
MB: What does genuine Palestinian resistance mean to you?
TM: The Palestinian Resistance has nothing to do with the obscurantism of the Muslim Brotherhood, nor with the opportunism of the billionaires of Hamas. It’s a movement for national liberation in the face of the colonialism of the Jewish supremacists.
MB: Could you go back over the history of the Muslim Brotherhood. Is this secret society trying to get back into the game after its defeats in Syria and Egypt?
TM: The Brotherhood was founded in 1928 by Hassan el-Banna in Egypt. I devoted part of my last book to its international history. However, I haven’t managed to shed any light on the support it received in its early days. The fact remains that, after the Second World War, it became a tool in the service of MI6 and soon the US CIA. It is a "Secret Service" that specialized in political assassinations in Egypt. An Egyptian Freemason, Sayyed Qutob, became its jihad theorist. The Brotherhood’s organization was copied from that of the United Grand Lodge of England. The Brotherhood expanded into Pakistan with Al-Banna’s son-in-law, Saïd Ramadan, father of Tariq Ramadan, and the philosopher Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi.
Later, Ramadan went to Munich to work for the CIA, at Radio Free Europe, alongside the Ukrainian Stepan Bandera, the great mass murderer of Jews.
The Brotherhood began its military action in the North Yemen war in the 60s, against Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Arab nationalists. But it was with Zbigniew Brzezinski that it became an indispensable player in the US strategy in Afghanistan. This brought General Zia-ul-Haq’s Brotherist dictatorship to power in Pakistan and launched the fighters of Saudi Arabian billionaire Osama Bin Laden.
During this period, Saudi Arabia used the Islamic World League to arm the Brotherhood with a larger budget than that devoted to its own national army.
The Brotherhood made unsuccessful attempts to seize power in several states, notably in Syria with the Hama operation. It was involved in the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where it created the Arab Legion. Osama Bin Laden became military advisor to President Alija Izetbegovic, with US Straussian Richard Perle as his diplomatic adviser and Frenchman Bernard-Henri Lévy became his communications advisor.
But the Brotherhood’s great work only came with Al-Qaeda and Daesh. These jihadist organizations, comparable in every way to the historic Hamas, were used by the CIA and the Pentagon, mainly in Algeria, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Egypt and Tunisia, to destroy the capacity for resistance in Arab countries.
France, which had given asylum to their leaders during the Cold War, fought them with the alliance between François Mitterrand and Charles Pasqua. She realized that the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) was nothing more than a British manoeuvre to exclude her from the Maghreb.
Today, however, nobody understands that the Brotherhood is nothing more than a tool for manipulating the masses. Our leaders, from Emmanuel Macron to Jean-Luc Mélenchon, have been fooled by the Brotherhood’s rhetoric, which they take to the letter. They treat it like a religious organization, which it is not at all.
MB: Qatar’s role is more than a little murky. What is its place in the conspiracy?
TM: In the beginning, Qatar positioned itself as a neutral power, providing its good offices. But many people were worried about the fact that it is home to the political wing of Hamas, that some were personal friends of the Emir and that it pays Hamas officials in Gaza.
Qatar replied that it was doing all this at the request of the United States, just as it had done for the Taliban.
In reality, after Abdel Fattah al-Sissi overthrew Mohamed Morsi’s dictatorship, at the request of the Egyptian people, whose 40 million citizens marched, he informed Saudi Arabia that the Brotherhood was preparing a coup against King Salman. Suddenly the Brotherhood, which had been pampered for years, became the enemy of the Kingdom. Qatar then publicly assumed its role as sponsor of Islamism, while Crown Prince MBS tried to open up his country.
When Donald Trump delivered his anti-terrorism speech in Riyadh in 2017, Saudi Arabia warned Qatar to immediately cease its relations with the Brotherhood and its militias, Al-Qaeda and Daesh. That was the Gulf crisis.
Things have become clearer in recent days: Emir Al-Thani has sent one of his ministers, Lolwah Al-Khater, to Tel Aviv. She took part in the Israeli war council to iron out difficulties in the agreement for the release of the hostages. But she failed to realize that the war cabinet included opponents of Benjamin Netanyahu’s dictatorship, including General Benny Gantz. She showed herself for what she is: not a neutral negotiator, but an authority capable of making decisions on behalf of Hamas. This is why, at the end of this meeting, Joshua Zarka, Deputy Director General for Strategic Affairs, said that Israel would "settle its accounts with Qatar" as soon as its role as mediator is over.
Within the war cabinet, Netanyahu’s opposition has begun to wonder whether all this - the coup d’état this summer and the attack on October 7 - was a staged operation by the Biden administration.
MB: So the United States is behind it. What would Biden’s strategy be in the region?
TM: Joe Biden is not at his best. In the United States, there’s even a weekly television program about his health problems and intellectual absences. In his shadow, a small group has revived the strategy of George W. Bush and Barack Obama: to destroy all political structures in the "wider Middle East", with the exception of Israel.
This is what is happening in Libya, Sudan and Gaza, and is being pursued in Yemen.
The Biden administration says it wants to stop the massacre in Gaza but continues to deliver shells and bombs to keep it going. It claims to want to maintain freedom of movement in the Red Sea but forms an international coalition against Ansar Allah, which it wrongly calls anti-Semitic and dubs "Houthis". (i.e. "the al-Houthis family gang"). Washington has just cancelled the signing of the peace treaty under the auspices of the United Nations. It is re-launching a war that had already ended.
MB: In the light of all this chaos, what is Trump’s track record in the geopolitics of the Middle East? Could his return bring another way out of this conflict?
TM: Donald Trump is a political UFO. He claims to affinity with former President Andrew Jackson (1829-1837) and has no connection with either Republican or Democratic ideologies. His first
decision when he arrived at the White House was to deprive the CIA director of his seat on the National Security Council. This led to his first troubles and the forced resignation of General Mike Flynn.
Donald Trump wanted to solve international problems through trade not through arms. This may be seen as illusory, but he is the only US president who has never started a war. He has brutally interrupted Washington’s use of terrorist proxies, notably Al-Qaeda and Daesh. He questioned the role of NATO, a military alliance that aims, in the words of its first Secretary General to "keep the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans under tutelage".
If he were in power, he would help the majority of Israeli citizens to get rid of the "revisionist Zionists", that is, Benjamin Netanyahu’s group; he would continue to implement the Abraham Accords and end Western support for the Muslim Brotherhood; it would help the majority of Ukrainians to get rid of Volodymyr Zelensky and make peace with Russia. Etc.
However, Donald Trump has not yet been elected, and the team in power is trying to force him to abandon his program in order to gain the White House.
MB: Is the West, embodied by the American-Zionist axis, ultimately doomed to die?
TM: You refer to the group that currently leads the political West. That’s one way of looking at it. But I don’t think it’s linked to a state. It just happens to be in power in the U.S. and Israel, but they could be elsewhere. They happen to claim to be Jewish nationalists, but they’re not nationalists. These people are supremacists. They reject the equality of all human beings and consider the mass slaughter of human beings to be trivial. For them, « you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs".
It was this way of thinking that led to the Second World War and its gigantic massacres of civilians.
Today, many world leaders realize that they are no different from the Nazis and they bring the same horrors. The Third World is now educated and a member of the United Nations. It can no longer support the power of these people. Russia aspires to re-establish the International Law that Tsar Nicholas II had created with the Nobel laureate, Léon Bourgeois at the Hague Conference in 1899. China aspires to Justice and will no longer tolerate "unequal treaties".
It seems to me that this system of governance is already dead. At the United Nations, the annual resolution calling for an end to the blockade of Cuba was adopted by 197 States to 2 (the United States and Israel). 153 States adopted the resolution for an immediate and lasting ceasefire in Gaza. It’s a little less, but the stakes are much higher. Nevertheless we can see that a majority is emerging against the policies of these people. When the dam breaks - and we’re getting close to that moment, the political West will collapse. We absolutely must detach ourselves from this raft before it sinks.
Roger Lagassé
Thierry Meyssan
Political consultant, President-founder of the Réseau Voltaire (Voltaire Network).
Latest work in English – Before Our Very Eyes, Fake Wars and Big Lies: From 9/11 to Donald Trump, Progressive Press, 2019.
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