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Current Moon Phase
THE SCORPIO FESTIVAL 2023
28 Oct 2023
© Malvin Artley
“We had values once. They meant something once. But then we shit on them. And nobody believes any more.” Patrick Armstrong[1]
Scorpio
Lighting the fire
The occult path to peace
The full moon
Current events
The big issues
Operation Al-Aqsa Flood
The 21st century awakening
The Jewish influence
State of Palestine
A few misconceptions
Battleship Israel
The Abraham Accords
Zionism
The ultra-orthodox settlers
So, who is Hamas
Biden’s speech
Self-defense?
What of Israel, then?
The West’s loss of face
Two-state solution?
The falling penny
In conclusion
Happy Halloween Everyone!
About five kilometres from the military shrine is the Strada degli Artiglieri (the road commemorating the fallen of the artillery regiments who were stationed along that ridge, also from the Great War and wars before.) At the end of that road one can walk a short distance and see fossilized dinosaur footprints embedded in the rock on the side of the mountain. The footprints are from the Jurassic period. At the bottom of that mountain lie the Infernal Ruins described in Dante’s Divine Comedy. There is a plaque commemorating it. The associated verse is as follows:
What we are talking about in the preceding is history (modern and ancient), context, memories, emotions and reverence for warriors who sacrificed their lives for their homeland. You see, the region where I live was an Italian region for most of its history. But it was temporarily occupied and absorbed by Austria after the Napoleonic wars, thereafter to be liberated by the Kingdom of Italy during the Great War. We see precedents in other parts of the world at present – the Donbass and Novorussia, Palestine, Artsakh, Catalonia – there are many such regions, having changed hands many times. Yet, culture remains. While the wealthy and the powerful over the ages have bickered and vied among themselves for influence and for power, the peoples of any region are subjected to their machinations, and often to the very fires of hell. We have often heard the term war is hell. War is also a racket for the rich and the powerful.
We as humanity struggle still, most especially within ourselves as we seek to escape this prison of earthly existence which we so often like to equate to a pleasure grove. In an ironic turn, we struggle to find peace within ourselves. And within our own struggles we externalize and project those struggles onto others. As individuals we struggle within and fight amongst ourselves. And as nations we do the same. We have seen those struggles put before us 24/7 since the internet became ubiquitous in the 1990s. There is an astrological sign most intimately connected with the fires of internal struggle, and that brings us to our present consideration of that sign – Scorpio, the scorpion.
Scorpio: There is a particular aspect of this sign that we want to examine in this letter, aside from the usual associations with sexuality, the darker sides of human nature, and so on. In this letter we won’t be looking at the more orthodox side of Scorpio. Instead we want to examine the idea of the burning ground and what it actually represents. In the Western esoteric literature we read about the burning ground, encompassing a lower and higher aspect. We also read about the Victorious Ones. Orthodox Scorpio is ruled by Mars and Pluto, two planets intimately connected subjectively, both of them associated with warfare, destruction and death. The esoteric motto of the sign reflects this: “Warrior I am, and from the battle I emerge triumphant.” What does that actually mean, though, and what is the mechanism? We start with the following quote regarding the orthodox rulers of Scorpio – Mars and Pluto:
“Two of the other non-sacred planets—Mars and Pluto—function in connection with the sacral centre (Mars) and the solar plexus (Pluto). This latter planet becomes active in the life of the person who is “becoming alive in the higher sense, their lower nature passes into the smoke and darkness of Pluto, who governs the lesser burning ground, in order that the person may live in truth in the higher land of light.”[3]
“Aries, which at different points along the Path of Life forces the soul on to the burning ground and subjects it to a purifying process during incarnation. Through the lesser fire of mind, the “jungles of experience are set on fire and dissolve in flames and then the Path stands clear and unobstructed vision is achieved.” — Old Commentary”[4]
The bolded bit applies particularly to what will be discussed after looking at the full moon. Then, we have the following:
The 3rd point preceding leads to:
“Uranus embodies the energy of the seventh ray and its work is analogous to that of Mercury, for the seventh ray is the ray which relates spirit and matter and brings together electric fire and fire by friction, thus producing manifestation. Uranus leads the soul to the burning ground during the final stages of the Path, when the fire of Aries and the fires engendered through the potency of Uranus produce the flaming heat of the final burning ground. Through this burning ground, the initiate has finally to pass.”
There are two aspects of this we are examining in this letter – the ‘burning ground’ of worldly experience that leads us ‘out of the jungles of experience’ (but certainly not to the ‘garden of Europe’ as was recently expressed), and in the later stages of spiritual development to the conscious utilization of the internal fires of the human subtle energy system – the fire of kundalini/candali/tummo (they are equivalent). The bulk of this letter is dedicated to the former aspect, while at present we will examine the latter aspect, embodied by Uranus.
“Mercury and the centre at the base of the spine in the human being are closely allied. Mercury demonstrates kundalini in intelligent activity, while Mars demonstrates kundalini latent. The truth lies hid in their two astrological symbols. In transmutation and planetary geometrising, the secret may be revealed.”[7]
The Uranian stage of Libra sets the stage for engaging the practices of the conscious utilization of the internal fires in the process of achieving full enlightenment. The stage of contemplation was discussed in the Libra letter (Topic: “Contemplation”). The stage of contemplation must be stable and focused to enter into the utilization of the fires. In addition the breath is utilized in concert with certain meditative work to effect the raising of the fire at the base of the spine, thereafter to be directed through the subtle channels (nadis) in the body to burn away the karmic obstructions to enlightenment. It is a process that can be fraught with danger and should never be attempted alone. A person who attempts these practices alone is literally like a child playing with matches. In Vajrayana practices such meditative work is routine, under the guidance of one’s guru/initiate, where the instructions are given orally. Vajrayogini is one such practice, which was suggested to a colleague and myself to be one of the best such practices for Westerners, partly because it is a shorter practice than many of the other higher tantras.
The occult path to peace: When we look at our now-familiar shamatha diagram the 7th station (Libra phase) on the path to peace shows the elephant leading the monk and the monkey, meaning the mind still directs the meditative process. The situation changes in the 8th station (Scorpio phase), where the monk is leading the elephant (mind) and the monkey (lower mind) is no longer there. The monk is then in full control of the process. Having won over all the lower obstructions the path to the doorway of initiation (the ninth stage, with the monk sitting at the base of the mountain) the path ahead is clear and the soul/higher Self/buddha nature has control. This is perhaps the most important stage on the entire diagram, because it represents the more or less complete victory on the path to full enlightenment and liberation. There are no further obstructions to progress in terms of meditative process. What we have represented in the shamatha diagram is the pathway to peace – inner peace, the bliss of enlightenment, ultimate happiness. In this 2023 Scorpio interval we are also on a path to peace in international affairs. And though the days may seem dark at the moment, at the same time the world is being awakened to the realities of the international order via the fires of combat. But it is for us to keep in mind that as we walk the path of inner peace we bring a contagion for the same within or immediate environment. With these points in mind we move on to our current events and a brief look at the full moon.
As to the full moon, the lunation is exact at 20:24 UT (7:24 am AEDT on the 29th). The full moon axis is at the 6th degree of the Scorpio/Taurus axis, the 6th degree marking the Sabian symbol. The exact degree is just a few minutes past 5° Scorpio/Taurus. This is a powerful figure, with the Sun conjunct Mercury and Mars, opposed by the Moon conjunct Jupiter. The possibility for excessive use of force and for taking risks is thereby indicated. Mars opposite Jupiter is an aspect that shows up with the tendency to take risks and to gamble with fate. This is especially shown in current events with the wars in Ukraine and the Levant. The latter war will take up the bulk of the rest of this letter.
Current events: Here is the roll call of events since the last full moon, not all-inclusive:
The big issues: Now we come to the crux of the remainder of this letter, which is the violence that erupted in Israel on October 7th, Hamas’ Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. It was also Vladimir Putin’s birthday, in case you wanted to know. No, the two events are not connected, though I have seen a few comments to that effect. We will be looking at facts here, as nearly was we can ascertain them, facts that run counter to what we hear in the US especially, and across the West in general. Before we start, though, there is a point I want to address. I have been questioned a few times in the past few years as to why I tend to report on the more positive aspects of nations seen as enemies by the US – we need not name them, do we? – all the while pointing out the more negative aspects of our Western leadership. The reason why is simple: How often do we hear something positive from our politicians and media regarding nations like Russia, China, Iran, et al? There are actually very positive developments going on in those nations. But to the question of hearing good news about them, the answer is, virtually never. Yet these are great nations, in a few cases far older than ours, and with the wisdom of long experience thereby. We are kept in the dark about that.
At the same time, why are we constantly told, with great fanfare and emphasis, and with the notion reinforced, about our greatness, our exceptionalism, our high-minded values of freedom, democracy, human rights and so forth? The answer to that is quite often, and especially when one of said nations stands up to the West or produces a result in some field that rivals or even surpasses our own. I am not against the West or pro-Russian or pro-Chinese, and on and on. I was born and raised in the West, have lived in the West all my life and I like it here. Despite our numerous challenges, we in the West, meaning the average citizen of the West, have sound values and come to good decisions – when we are given all the facts – when the truth behind situations arise, as well as the context and the nuance. We are not given all the facts these days, about much of anything. In fact, the facts are cherry-picked for us to reinforce certain ends, as well as many ‘facts’ being manufactured, all to maintain the status quo in the leadership of our Western nations. We have very little in the way of nuance and context in the present situation and, truth be known, have not had since the end of the Cold War and before. With these points being made, we move on to the main topic that has flooded our news feeds for the past few weeks and take a look at the context, nuance and trajectory of events going forward, all the while we are being flooded with propaganda and misinformation. Yes, we are and that will be addressed shortly.
“I would point out here that the [the Jews, through the planetary solar plexus center] focussed in the Jewish problem, is definitely producing cleavage as a part of the divine plan. The Jews are instruments in the working out of the Plan for the production of certain syntheses and to bring humanity to certain realisations and decisions…However, it only expresses the present situation in this interim period between the old Piscean age which is passing and the new Aquarian age which is coming in. It depicts this present world cycle…As the ploughman turns the soil of his field and harrows it, and so brings that which is underneath to eventual fruition, so a similar process is taking place in the world today…”[8]
Emphases added. There is quite a lot we could unpack in that quote but we will only give a thumbnail sketch here. Firstly, the present cycle mentioned covers a period of roughly two centuries. This is the transition period between the Piscean and Aquarian ages, which is still ongoing. It is no doubt obvious that we have not entered the age of Aquarian values and that the old Piscean religious militancy is still with us. Secondly, related to the present conflict, there is the question of Jewish involvement across many sectors, with many misconceptions resulting. The grossest manifestation of Jewish influence has been the Zionist movement – a minority among Jews – extant since the end of the 19th century, promoted and enabled by the British first and then the Americans. That movement is in process of seeing its last days. But the most important thing to us, most of us being outside observers to the conflict, is what has been evolving since the beginning of this century. A brief outline is in order.
For West Asia this decade started with the assassination of Soleimani during the last year of the Trump administration, an act which galvanized the Muslim world. It especially activated and consolidated what has been called the Axis of Resistance, consisting primarily of Shiite Muslims. Then the pandemic came. That one event especially goes back to the quote above, in that it caused people across the world, especially in the West, to begin to question the policies and motives of the elite class across the West. It was our collective suffered that caused that awakening. Otherwise people had been swallowing the propaganda routinely trotted out across our Western media, particularly in the United States Therein we have the involutionary motto of Scorpio: “Let maya flourish and deception rule.”[9] The pandemic was then followed by the Russian police action in Ukraine. ‘Police action’ is what the West would call it if it had done something similar, like in Korea. The emotional reactions to the Russian intervention were swift and divisive across the world, with most nations supporting the Russian actions. And it gradually caused people across the West to further question Western leadership’s motives and actions. The resulting actions by the Western powers have particularly been harmful to Europe, which since last year has been hit hard especially economically. In the process the wider world has seen NATO increasingly being weakened and becoming insignificant, causing smaller nations to finally rise up and throw off their reliance upon Western economic and military ties.
What we have seen thus far since the start of the century is the swift awakening of the world outside the West of the need for mutual cooperation as well as the need, as Putin mentioned in 2007, for a multipolar order, one which restores sovereignty and mutual prosperity. In the West, due to the heavy censorship of any view that runs counter to the status quo narrative, the West has become increasingly isolated in terms of information from the wider world, but there also a rapid awakening to realities is taking place. That brings us to the present conflict, which has laid bare much of the hypocrisy of our Western leadership.
A few words about the Western leadership regarding this conflict are in order. As soon as the conflict erupted there was a parade of Western leaders making their obligatory pilgrimage to Israel, voicing their support for Israel and condemning in the strongest terms the ‘terrorism by Hamas’. ‘Terrorism’ is a loaded term, and from the perspective of much of the world is misplaced regarding Hamas. Israel, instead, is seen as the terrorist state, which we will cover shortly. The ‘usual suspects’ followed in quick succession – Biden, Sunak, Scholz, Meloni, Macron (who wants to build a coalition against Hamas) – to Tel Aviv denouncing terrorism and giving their full support to Netanyahu. In the meantime the media is becoming increasingly divided the more the conflict drags on and the greater the suffering inflicted on the Palestinians in Gaza. The hypocrisy of the values our Western leaders profess to uphold is on full display. BBC reporters are reportedly crying at work at the images of the bombings of Gaza, all the while they are forced to toe the Israeli line if they want to keep their jobs, for example. Gaza is the main focus in the media, but there is also growing violence in the West Bank, mostly unreported. The self-declared war by Netanyahu would probably quickly end if he and his regime were to be deposed and Bibi put in jail for corruption. But there is nary a mention of that in the media. That brings us to the most sensitive part of this scene, the part the media dare not ever mention.
State of Palestine: There is actually a State of Palestine, in case you didn’t know. The wider picture is that this conflict is really about the United States and the other Western allied powers seeking to maintain their dominance, which we call hegemony, over world affairs, particularly related to energy supplies as they have existed. He who controls energy controls the world, and the US has had very strong control over the region’s energy and pricing since the 1970s and the introduction of the petrodollar. Americans typically pay very little for gasoline and diesel, for instance, compared to other Western nations and the petrodollar is one of the main reasons why. That is about to dramatically change. Diesel fuel, for instance, is essential for all bulk transit, while gas is essential for industry. Without those two, modern society grinds to a halt. America’s reserves are depleted, both in terms of underground resource and strategic reserves and Washington can no longer call the shots. Washington will have to actually bargain for supplies of oil and gas rather than dictating terms. The region of West Asia, along with Venezuela and Russia, is the main supplier of those commodities. We need to also dispel a couple of other misconceptions.
A few misconceptions: The first misconception is that the Israel lobby holds undue influence over the Western powers. In fact, the Israeli lobbies in our various Western governments have been allowed to flourish because they serve certain interests, including the arms industries. It is not Israel that is controlling the United States in this conflict, but instead it is the United States that is in truth behind the Israeli actions. The Israelis, like the Ukrainians, are being used to keep in place the dominance of the Western powers, particularly those of the United States, France and the UK, both within Europe and in the Middle East, now called West Asia (map, scroll to the last map). These three nations oversaw the breakup of the Ottoman Empire in West Asia, primarily, and created the national boundaries we see there today. France had the mandate for Lebanon and Syria, while the British had the mandate for Palestine and Jordan. The British also had the mandate for what was to become Iraq. Looking at the map just linked, we see the Israeli state sits at an opportune location, just beside one of the world’s most important trade routes and adjacent the largest oil-rich region of the world. Perhaps that suggests something important to our investigations here.
Battleship Israel: Israel for the West exists primarily as a military outpost, protecting the trade route of the Suez Canal as well as being what American officials and Netanyahu like to call their land-based aircraft carrier in the oil-rich regions of states in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA region):
“Israel and the US have historically needed each other. Israel clearly has needed US military and financial aid, diplomatic protection, and security agreements. The United States has needed Israel as a military base, as a political justification for US penetration into the Middle East and its resources, and as an ally against their once shared opposition to the Soviet – Arab block. This mutuality and need has heightened the conflation of US and Israeli interests.”[12]
Being a military outpost, Israel ranks 18th in military power, with nuclear weapons (though it is questionable as to whether they could actually field them or not), and we see the effects of it being rained upon the Palestinian people today. But it is a one-dimensional military power, in that its air force is the strongest element of Israeli power. Its land army is relatively weak, though large. But it is largely untrained for the type of conflict needed against Hamas. This brings us to one of the primary reasons why Hamas chose to strike when it did – the Abraham Accords.
The Oslo Accords amounted to the Democrats’ plan for Israel-Palestine, while the Abraham Accords were the Republican side, and both were an extension of the US State Department’s plans for furthering its hegemony in West Asia. The Abraham Accords were a move in realpolitik, rather than being a genuine plan to bring peace to the region. What better way to do that at present than to normalize relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors, thereby shoving the Palestinians out of sight and mind? This is what normalization between the Saudis and Israelis was supposed to accomplish, and a very big reason why the Palestinians finally struck back. The Accords were viewed as a death sentence for the Palestinian cause. Herein we have the first demonstration of why this present conflict is seen as existential for the Palestinians. Since the Accords were signed at the end of Trump’s term in office, they were seized upon by the ultra-orthodox Jewish faction in Israel as a means to finally solve the ‘Palestinian question’. Of course, Trump claimed the Abraham Accords for himself and set his Jewish son-in-law about the task of selling them abroad. But the reasoning behind the Accords began to take shape during the 2nd term of the Obama administration. The Abraham Accords give us yet another example of how, although Presidents come and go, State Department policy remains the same. Presidents just take credit for said policy.
Zionism states that the current land occupied by Israel is the homeland of the Jews. This is false. It is a throwback to ancient times, of tribal genesis, of taboos and in short is an obstruction to human progress – an evil. Jews have their homeland. That homeland happens to be wherever, in whatever nation they happen to be born, therein to live their lives, contribute to that society, to advance humanity, and to add to the culture. All enlightened Jews know this. Zionism, on the other hand, is an abomination of human values. The occult view is that Zionism is a great evil that was allowed to flourish after WWII. Zionism separates the Jews from the rest of the world, proclaims itself to be above its neighbors, declares the Jews to be ‘the chosen ones’ (as in the master race), is based on an ancient text, ignoring that humanity has evolved and times have changed. It was warned against in the Western esoteric literature, and as a retrogressive construct, as such is a blight on human progress.
In terms of the present conflict then, if you asked me do I condemn the acts of violence committed by Hamas, I would answer that question with another question: What choice did the Palestinians actually have? Were they just to throw up their arms, say the Old Testament says this must be the land of the Jews, pack up all their belongings that they could carry and leave the land that some of these families lived on for millennia? No, I didn’t think so. But they were forced to, once at the founding of Israel and thereafter by a process of death by a thousand cuts. In 1948 it was called the Nakba, and it has since been a process that has really been ongoing since the founding of Zionism. Israel was born by the sword, of terrorism and of violence and it may just meet its end that way. It is particularly suggestive that Netanyahu calls the siege and levelling of Gaza ‘Operation Iron Swords’. And it’s not really mentioned, though it is an inconvenient fact that Jews have lived in the land of Palestine for over 2000 years continuously – peacefully alongside other cultures and religions. That was the case in recent history during the Ottoman Empire, when Palestine was a part of that empire. For Palestinian Jews (Yes, there are Palestinian Jews) Palestine is their homeland. But for the Jews who had immigrated to Israel with promises of land and a good life (video, language alert, but we are all adults here), they have left their homelands, for the homeland of someone else. This sort of thing has another, name: colonialism.
The ultra-orthodox settlers who today are pushing Palestinians off their land and who have pushed over 2 million Palestinians into the Gaza prison camp – for that is what Gaza is – give Judaism a bad name. They are the true Jewish Zionists. There is a book that describes them and their beliefs, and it makes for visceral reading. If more people knew the truth about the hard-core Zionists the Israeli project would come to a quick end. These Zionists consider the Palestinians to be less than human and to be their servants. Listening to the Israeli defense minister, one hears that sort of talk, where he calls the Palestinians in Gaza “human animals”. It is reminiscent of the nationalists and neo-Nazis in Ukraine when they speak about the Russians. His comment is not simply his emotions talking. It is a firmly held belief among many Israelis. Now, this is not to say all Israelis are like that, and many in the younger generations especially, the ones born there, are beginning to see it. The settlements are illegal under international law and amount also to a prolonged military occupation. The siege of Gaza is a war crime, as well as what has become a humanitarian disaster. To date over 3,000 children have been killed by the indiscriminate Israeli bombing of Gaza. Vanessa Beeley has been documenting all this since the war started on her Telegram channel. She has been banned from Western platforms, because what she documents is ‘inconvenient’ and doesn’t support the Israeli-Washington narrative.
If you want to know how the wider world views the war in Israel, look no further than Dr. Mahathir Mohammad of Malaysia, one of the world’s oldest statesmen (video):
“…The crux of the matter is that all these atrocities committed by Israel on the Palestinians stems from the American support for Tel Aviv. If the American Government withdraws its support for Israel and stop all military aid to the regime, Israel would not have carried out the genocide and mass murders of Palestinians with impunity. The United States Government needs to come clean and tell the truth. Israel and its IDF are the terrorists. The United States is blatantly supporting terrorists. So what is the United States?”
Well, the Turks have just voiced what most of the world actually feels about Hamas: They are not terrorists. They are mujahedeen – the real freedom-fighters for Palestine. What to do? What to do? We don’t see Biden taking Bibi by the ear and telling him, “Cut it out with the bombing, guys! It’s really not a good look!” Instead, we get the speech…and more weapons for Israel.
Biden’s speech: Biden gave his speech to America in support of Israel and Ukraine on the evening of the 19th of October. He began with this line after the salutary opening: “We’re facing an inflection point in history — one of those moments where the decisions we make today are going to determine the future for decades to come.” It was one of the few lines uttered in that speech that was true. The rest was quite predictable – the terrorists, Putin as dictator, ensuring American security, America as the ‘indispensable nation’, the American values of freedom and democracy (which we as citizens still hold dear but no longer believe our leaders uphold), etc. The speech was full of hypocrisy, hubris and was a textbook exercise in gaslighting. Overall, though, the speech was also stump speech for the arms manufacturers, and he may as well have just come out and said as much. He did so indirectly:
“And let me be clear about something: We send Ukraine equipment sitting in our stockpiles. And when we use the money allocated by Congress, we use it to replenish our own stores — our own stockpiles with new equipment — equipment that defe- — that defends America and is made in America: Patriot missiles for air defense batteries made in Arizona; artillery shells manufactured in 12 states across the country — in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas; and so much more. You know, just as in World War Two, today, patriotic American workers are building the arsenal of democracy and serving the cause of freedom.”
“There’s still a chance that saner heads will prevail and we’ll avert certain fatalistic possibilities. But one way or another, the moral turpitude being witnessed in the Western world is boiling over to a fever pitch now. The world has grown sick of the arrant hypocrisy, double standards, and outright racism of the elitists from Borrell’s “European Garden.”
We’ve now repeatedly seen them dehumanize anyone who doesn’t agree with their narrative. Russians are allowed to be dehumanized as orcs, Syrians, Palestinians, etc., can be killed at will and labeled ‘terrorists’ with nary a tear shed. In Europe, the Quran is allowed to be openly burned as “free speech”, but now anyone protesting Israel with a Palestinian flag is jailed for “violating” some kind of law…”
We used to have values once. They used to mean something once…However, heads outside the West are saner and are working to offset the explosion of the powder keg that is West Asia /Middle East. And there is also a growing mutiny in Washington against Biden’s policies, as well as one in Brussels against von der Leyen and her ill-considered remarks of total support for Israel, whilst never mentioning the Palestinian State. Poor Borrell in the meantime tells the press not to forget Ukraine. Oh, them. We also see massive rallies across the main Atlanticist states in support of Palestine and Palestinians, and protests against Western elitist policies. And lo and behold, there is a revolt in the British Labour Party against Starmer and his knee jerk support for Israel. We might suppose if he supported a ceasefire it would appear to be anti-Semitic.
Self-defense?: We hear the refrain all the time now from our leaders that “Israel has a right to defend itself.” Well that depends upon one’s point of view. According to international law, yes, Israel does have the right to self-defence. But so do the Palestinians. There is a State of Palestine, as a reminder, which the Israelis are stealing bit by bit, daily. Palestinians have rights, too. The attack on October 7th was not ‘unprovoked’. It has been provoked over and over for years, with the latest provocations by the settlers throwing Palestinians off their land at an accelerated rate since Bibi gained office again, and then the storming of al-Aqsa by Israeli settler mobs. The victim-blaming by Israelis is on full display. “Yes, but Hamas…..”
So, for Netanyahu and the Zionist regime, this is an existential fight. Word has it from an Israeli insider that Netanyahu is a ‘dead man walking’ in terms of his stay in office as soon as the fighting stops. Unless the IDF can destroy Hamas completely, the threat of further actions by Hamas will be ever-present, even if the IDF could manage to move the Palestinians out of Gaza. If the IDF were to prosecute its threatened full-scale invasion of Gaza, it would be total war in West Asia. This would be the only thing that would unite all of Israel behind Netanyahu, and he knows it. But the offensive keeps getting pushed back and pushed back. Given the recent attempt by US and Israeli commando forces to free some hostages in Gaza, where the special forces were ambushed and routed, the chances of success of a ground invasion by the inexperienced IDF forces looks very poor, indeed. The situation in Israel under Netanyahu is going from bad to worse. Ofer Cassif, a Jewish member of the Knesset was just suspended for voicing his opposition to Netanyahu, with a dire warning:
“Netanyahu and his thugs use the smokescreen of the war to impose a martial law on Israeli citizens, predominantly Palestinian ones: PROTESTS ARE PROHIBITED AND CAN NOW BE ANSWERED WITH LIVE AMMUNITION, workers and students are suspended and dissidents are persecuted for posts on the social network. I plea to the world – supporting the Israeli government is not supporting Israeli people – it is supporting fascism, death and dictatorship. If you wish to help Israeli people in this dire time – support the peace movement, not the warmongers who waged a war against their own people!”
For their part, Hamas has told Hezbollah and Iran to hold fast, that they want this to be a Palestinian effort, without foreign involvement. In other words, Hamas will keep lobbing its rockets into Israeli territory, inciting resistance in Palestinian territories, further destabilizing Israeli society – in short, the turmoil in Israel will continue until the Israelis either go all-out or sit down and accede to Palestinian demands. And the more the Israeli bombing raids flatten Gaza, the worst Israel looks in the eyes of the world and the worse are the prospects for the destruction of Hamas. The ground invasion would only radicalize the entire Islamic world against Israel. And what goes for Israel also goes for the collective Western world, especially those nations who stand behind the Israeli forces. Sadly, Italy is within that camp, whereas most Italians have traditionally supported the Palestinians. Of course, it is well known the Giorgia Meloni has strong connections with the Republican Party the US. I for one will be very interested to see how the next Italian election turns out. So, with the US refusing a cease-fire, with its dogged support for the Israeli state, the war looks set to drag on. Meanwhile the Islamic world is at full boil and itching to act.
The West’s loss of face: The US is facing defeat in the geopolitical war in Gaza. The reputation of the entire West is being buried in the rubble of Gaza, the piles of that rubble increasing by the day, by the hour. The Israelis have stepped up their bombing of Gaza and now they are beginning to bomb the West Bank. The State of Palestine declared their independence on 15 Nov 1988 at 00:40 CET (for the astrologers reading) in Algiers.[13] The State encompasses the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Since 2012 they have been granted observer status at the UN. So, they are recognized by the UN. If you want a visual, there are 138 nations who recognize the State of Palestine, with some curious omissions. That is correct – the collective West and its minions (South Korea, Japan and Taiwan) do not recognize Palestinian independence, but the bulk of the world’s populace does. And we should qualify this: Most of the people of the West support Palestinian independence. This is why the West (meaning its leadership and elites) is losing its credibility with the wider world as we watch in horror as the Israelis try to bomb Gaza, first into submission, and then to oblivion.
More likely what would happen is that, seeing the security pact is not restored, there will begin a major exodus from Israel of those Israeli citizens holding dual citizenship, which is about 10%. There will be major pain and conflict within Israeli society going forward, even if the fighting were to stop today. But it would also serve a purpose cited in the esoteric writings, in that it is better for the Jews to be assimilated across the world rather than sequestered in a single state. There may in fact exist eventually an Israeli state, but it would likely be a rump state, maybe along the lines suggested by Bernadotte, for example. Bernadotte was assassinated by militant Zionists for his efforts at implementing a truce between the warring Israelis and Arabs in 1948. His plan was a first attempt or plan for a two-state solution. At the time there was little enthusiasm for the plan on either side. We might expect it would be much the same today. On the other side, with the Zionists gone there would be a very significant chance for healing
The falling penny: Going forward from here and looking at the wider picture, out of the mouths of babes and some world leaders, the proverbial penny has finally started falling from the hegemon’s hand. The elitists in the West are in panic mode now, trying everything they can to stifle debate and divert attention away from the challenges facing them. The carrier strike groups sent to the region along with the massive military forces and equipment pouring in to American bases in West Asia look to the wider world very much like a preparation for war with Iran. It may be so. The danger of escalation is very real and neocon factions within the US would be quite happy for war with Iran, thinking somehow Israel would be secured on the one hand, Russia would be evicted from Syria and on the other hand Washington’s control of the region would be ensured. To their minds it would appear to be a very opportune and tidy project. The idea is utter stupidity and dangerous. It is a trait within American think tanks to overestimate their own strength and to underestimate the capabilities and strengths of opposing forces. We see how that has worked out in Ukraine. The Ukrainian fiasco for Washington has only strengthened Russia. The first thing that would happen in a war with Iran would be the immediate destruction of all the regional American military bases along with the major infrastructure of Israel. Yet we have the likes of Lindsey Graham in the US calling the Russia, China, Iran strategic partnerships an axis of evil and calling for the destruction of Iran’s oil facilities. It is the same sort of talk we heard out of Washington post-9/11.
It is quite liberating to realize that one does not have to control everything, indeed that one cannot control everything, that competition is wearing and that the opinions of others are theirs and have no real effect on who we actually are. Biden stated in recent speech that it is American leadership that holds the world together. This is pervasive thinking in the halls of the US State Department and think tanks in Washington:
“This idea, that there is a “place” in the world, which is that of “America as the organizer”, and that without America occupying that place and doing its job, the world will fall apart, or some other power will take America’s place as the organizer, is deep-seated in US policy circle. As a metaphysical proposition it is silly and self-deluding. It is bizarre to imagine that the world needs America to “hold it together”. America itself is hardly in one piece.”
Soon enough the United States will come to the realization that it is no longer the leader of the free world, much less the world at large. And when that realization arises the world will be a much better place. Multipolar does not mean that each pole of the world is headed by some hegemon. Instead it points to world Aquarian values – wherein there is mutual cooperation or what is commonly called win-win policy.
In conclusion, I look forward to the time when the world is governed by common sense, where win-win and mutual cooperation, first among blocs and then worldwide, is the norm rather than the exception. The cornerstones for that world are being laid with each passing day. For myself, I will not see such a world in this life, and probably that is much the same for the majority of readers. But we will all see it, because as the cornerstones and foundations for that world being laid, we are an integral part of that process. Karma and destiny dictate we must come back and finish that work. And we will come back again and again until it is fulfilled. The fires of war and conflict which we see now are the burning ground for the awakening of humanity as we move into a public discourse and consciousness where emotions are not the deciding factor, but instead people decide on their destinies and the destinies of their communities through common sense and thought, based in a rational analysis of facts.
As to the present situation in Palestine, this too shall pass. It will probably not be a long conflict because there are enough people with common sense in leadership outside the West who can exert enough influence to rein it in. There are also enough military leaders in the West who know widening the war is a fool’s errand and that the West would lose. What that means is we (meaning the world’s leaders) will have to sit down at the table and talk, not from a position of strength, but of realities on the ground. It is high time that happened. In the meantime, we hold our consciousness calmly within ourselves as the gathering storm approaches. If the forecast for war is anything like the weather forecasts for Rovereto the wider war will blow over and the light of truth and justice will break through the clouds in West Asia. At that time we can all pray for both sides, for the fallen, for the innocents and for rebuilding. Rest assured that better times are ahead. The conflicts we see today are clearing the way toward a truer sense of values – values our leaders will have to embrace and actually practice. Let us all hold these thoughts in the days ahead.
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