Two Megalomaniacs Have Pushed Us Over the Edge

I’ve resisted writing about the outbreak of war in Israel. Several times today I thought about it and decided with all the moving parts (which I’ll get to later) and the problem with getting decent amounts of verifiable information on the numbers of dead, injured and kidnapped, not to mention the outright lies being spread by opportunists (including so many Republicans in our own country) there’s too much to unpack. Also, if you are worried about how wide this will spread I firmly believe you are justified in being very worried. Again, I’ll tackle that a bit later but first let’s take a look at what I believe are the two individuals who lit the fuses on this powder keg. Netanyahu and Trump are two toxic peas in a turd pod. Both, as the title states are Megalomaniacs. While Bibi is the main source of where we are this weekend Trump proved to be his biggest enabler.  With that as a preamble let’s dive in.

Megalomania is an obsession with power and wealth, and a passion for grand schemes. Psychologically it manifests as Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Grandiose Delusions.

As I’ve said two world leaders who are prime examples are Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu and Donald Trump. I could write an entire series of articles about the former, but if you’ve followed matters in Israel and the middle east in the past couple of decades he looms large. From where I sit he’s held a messianic vision of himself as the only person who could “save” or “preserve” Israel and whatever he might say in the way of half-assed mumblings about peace he has always striven to drive every last Palestinian out of Israel. He’s ignored all manner of agreements and ruthlessly expanded settlements in the West Bank. Grabbing even more of Jerusalem and convincing Trump (not that it was much of a task) to shift the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem certainly inflamed things even more.

What matters is that Netanyahu’s vision is that Israel be for Jewish people only. That only he has the will to make it happen and the ability to keep the country, the United States on Israel’s side and force them into publicly taking sides in negotiations. His entire career has been about making the prospect of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem impossible. He is also corrupt. Abusive of his power and has been trying to grab even more, to make himself “ruler for life” in practical terms. That he keeps getting back into power frustrates the hell out of everyone but his attempt to strip the courts of authority, to in effect stave off investigation and prosecution of himself did not go over well at all. Public (and international) outcry was immediate and widespread, and he eventually was forced to back off. But he was in no way done trying. Without attaining that particular goal and remaining PM he’s in deep legal trouble.

Sound like anyone else we know? Trump and Bibi go back to before he was President and I don’t think Trump’s “I alone can fix things” mantra came out of nowhere. I truly believe Netanyahu was his inspiration for it. Not to mention using political power to ward off investigations and if necessary criminal charges.  Netanyahu’s grip on the far right Likud Party in Israel might not be as pervasive as Trump’s over the GOP but it’s in the ballpark and has been for a lot longer. I won’t go down the whole laundry list of Bibi’s actions that have quite intentionally inflamed things between Israelis and Palestinians but he, at least in my opinion has sometimes been willing to publicly relish doing so. Both to please those in Israel (which isn’t everyone, not by a long shot but enough) and to prove he can bring the U.S. to heel whenever he wants. Without the massive backing Israel has had from the U.S. it wouldn’t exist. People have argued all my life about whether our support should be as damned near unconditional as it has and I won’t get into that here. (You can say “whew!”) What matters is that as I write this we are sending a carrier group and who knows what else to help Israel in this brand new war. Make no mistake. It will be a war and as ugly a war as you can imagine and then some.

There has been a fair amount of discussion about the massive intelligence failure prior to yesterdays opening attack. Also that because of it, with most of Israel’s troops positioned over at the West Bank defenses along the Gaza strip were so thin. The point though is this was a large, well-planned (and funded) attack by Hamas and it took months to plan and get all the pieces into place. You know what was happening during that time? Netanyahu’s attempt to shut down investigation and prosecution of him by neutering his judicial system and massive, ongoing protests. Protests that while not as large continued even after he put his plans on hold.

With Israeli’s most crucial ally which happens to be us there has been considerable turmoil in our own politics. We have an ex-President who instigated an insurrection to stay in power to avoid prosecution he knew would be coming without the shield of the Presidency. His candidacy for another term has inflamed things here, and his hold on power in the GOP is such that its members will sell themselves out like street whores to do his bidding when he tells them too. Worse, threats of violence and actual violence have gone up and by a lot. The GOP, which is dependent on “Evangelical” “Christians” who would support Israel if they dusted off the building plans for the concentration camp ovens in WWII and used them to turn every Palestinian to dust would be fine and dandy aren’t just all-in on supporting Israel in this crisis. They are making up baldfaced LIES about how all this came about!

Ronna McDaniel, the in-name only head of the RNC is hardly the only one to be saying the quiet part out loud, that they can use this against President Biden (and Democrats) next year. Do you think for one second that Hamas didn’t factor this in when they were planning their attack and made the decision to initiate it? Oh, and lest we forget we spent weeks barreling towards a govt. shutdown which would have greatly complicated any U.S. assistance to Israel. Still, I’ll bet they held back in part wanting to see whether a last minute deal would get made which of course it was. Then Gaetz and his Gang of Eight went and tossed out McCarthy and until there’s a new Speaker no aid package for Israel can be passed and signed into law. Again, they and their Iranian backers had to have factored in the shiit-show the GOP put on back in January and figured if anything this would be worse.

Conditions for Hamas were perfect. Israel distracted by a Prime Minister who has had his country in an uproar trying to hold on to power so he can avoid prosecution, and its main ally (bigger than everyone else combined) distracted by one of our major Political Parties trying to help a former President get back in power so he too can avoid prosecution. Now we have a war.

My jarhead days are decades in the past but I look at the Gaza Strip, perhaps the mostly densely packed multi-million population anywhere on this earth and all those tall buildings packed together and I shudder.  “MOUT” as we called it back in my day (Military Operations in Urban Terrain) is as difficult and ugly as it gets. Frankly, don’t count on any of the hostages we already think number well into the hundreds and maybe over a thousand will be rescued. At least alive. And while Israel is trying to sound “compassionate” for non-Hamas supporting Palestinians by warning them to leave while forces are moved to go into Gaza they sure as hell won’t be letting ANY of them into Israel. Egypt has closed its border with Gaza and I doubt they will allow all that many refugees to escape what’s coming.

Building after building will be turned to rubble and keep in mind what I said about how densely people, human beings are packed together in that tiny plot of land. The “Butcher’s Bill” for this war will be appalling and the lion’s share will be innocent civilians.

Again I say this was all avoidable. Netanyahu could have and should have walked away from politics long ago. But he had a vision and believe only he was capable of turning it into reality. Just like Trump. Together they have created a not at all perfect storm but huge, destructive storm and it will spread far beyond the middle east.

I’d like to note what I mentioned earlier which is my reluctance to get into this at all so early on due to all the moving parts. There’s Iran without who’s help Hamas would never have been able to pull off such a major attack. There’s Iran’s mutually supporting relationship with Russia too. Why that matters is that Russia is on its heels in Ukraine but international support has been starting to waver. In large part because REPUBLICANS in our own country (especially in the House but some in the Senate too) have for a while now publicly advocated cutting back or even cutting off support for Ukraine. And who is telling them to so do? Putin’s Puppet Donald Trump! In fact, there are those in the House beyond the Gaetz-Gang who are saying their support for the next Speaker will be conditional on no more aid for Ukraine!

So while Ukraine has paid an awful price in destruction, deaths and injuries the free world has shelled out a lot to support them but cracks in the alliance began forming a while back. When they look at the United States without whom there would be no more Ukraine, at least one not under Putin’s iron-fisted control is it any wonder that a world weary of that war, and worried about the possibility of China deciding to take Taiwan by force and having to respond to THAT there’s a political version of global change, political climate so to speak now underway with Hamas attack on Israel being the tipping point? The proverbial point of no return?

Those my friends are only some of the moving parts, some of the tectonic plate sized ones. There are plenty more smaller but significant ones that can grow to become intractable ones.

We are less than 48 hours into all this. How to keep it from escalating into a non-nuclear WWIII will be the challenge of a lifetime for President Biden and other world leaders, especially with some world leaders doing all they can to spin things out of control. But this is what happens when people who should never have any power, much less great power attain it.