The Primary Cause of October 7 was Donald Trump. Here's the Proof, by Mike Whitney - The Unz Review
No one is more responsible for the attacks of October 7 than Donald Trump. It was Trump who initiated the Abraham Accords that were designed to “disappear” the Palestinian issue and drive a stake into the heart of the two-state solution. By seducing Arab leaders into bilateral agreements that shrugged off earlier commitments to the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state, Trump moved to crush Palestinian aspirations and eliminate the issue forever. Facing deepening isolation and irrelevance, Hamas lashed out hoping that the international community would take notice and come to its aid. In short, the primary cause of October 7 was Trump’s Abraham Accords, the fake peace initiative that paved the way for genocide.
It’s worth noting, that Joe Biden confirmed much of this analysis when he opined on October 25:
“I’m convinced one of the reasons Hamas attacked when they did… is because of the progress we were making towards regional integration for Israel and regional integration overall… ”
By “regional integration”, Biden is referring to the Abraham Accords which were promoted as a way for Arab countries to “normalize” relations with Israel and “to advance the peace process in the Middle East”. But don’t be fooled by the hype. The Accords were merely Phase 2 of Trump’s lopsided giveaway to Israel. As some readers might recall, Phase 1 of Trump’s so called Middle East Peace Plan “provided for a unified Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and the principal Jewish settlements in the West Bank, amounting to annexation of roughly 30% of the territory. The Palestinians were given some desert areas near the Egyptian border, limited sovereignty, and a non-contiguous state with numerous Israeli enclaves…. ”
So, with a wave of his hand, Trump broke with all of his presidential predecessors, all the applicable UN Resolutions, and with traditional US foreign policy dating back five decades. And this was just the beginning because—as we know now—the Abraham Accords set the dominoes in motion leading inexorably to the flattening of Gaza and the displacement of two million civilians. As author of the Accords, Trump is largely responsible for the unfolding catastrophe.
Keep in mind, the Accords really had nothing to do with peace or normalization. As senior fellow at the Arab Center Dana El Kurd said, “to frame the Abraham Accords as a “peace”(agreement) that increased stability between signatories is deliberately misleading….To be sure, Arab-Israeli normalization cannot be considered “peace,” but should rather be understood as authoritarian conflict management. Through this lens, it is possible to understand more clearly how the accords have changed the landscape of the region, and why pursuing such a policy makes for an unsustainable future…
“Authoritarian conflict management”?? What does that mean?
It means that the inducements for participation in the Accords had more to do with strengthening domestic repression than promoting regional peace. Here’s more:
For example, the UAE has expanded the scope of its engagement with Israeli companies specializing in repressive technologies and has invested in the Israeli defense industry. The Moroccan government has similarly taken advantage of normalization to acquire similar capacities. The impact was felt very directly in some cases, with journalists, activists, and intellectuals targeted and often imprisoned. This is a win-win for Israel and the signatory countries. Arab regimes can crack down on any remaining vestiges of dissent in the region and Israel can facilitate investment in its defense and cybersecurity industries while helping to minimize spaces critical of its role in the region and its ongoing oppression of the Palestinians.
To be clear…. Israel is not the only source of surveillance or other repressive technologies, and Arab governments have certainly sought out other sources.Nevertheless, Arab-Israeli normalization exacerbates these dynamics and increases the capacities of these regimes by diversifying their sources of support….Assessing the Abraham Accords, Three Years On, The Arab Center
So, the Abraham Accords are not an attempt to “advance the peace process in the Middle East” but a plan to reinforce the tyrannical dictatorships the US and Israel need to promote their regional agenda, which means that the only normalization that is going on, is the normalizing of the 75-year-long occupation and the ongoing slaughter of Palestinian women and children. Here’s more:
Labeling Arab-Israeli normalization as a form of “peace” is therefore inaccurate. Rather, it is a process that rejects genuine negotiations and deeper reflections on the reasons for conflict, instead using state-level coercion and power to achieve various aims. In other words, the Abraham Accords and everything that has followed since can only be seen as authoritarian conflict management….(because) any normalization of ties with Israel entails repression, as regimes begin to proactively crack down on those who would oppose this development… Assessing the Abraham Accords, Three Years On, The Arab Center
And who would oppose the normalization of relations with Israel?
Just about every Arab in the Middle East, that’s who.
And that brings us to our next point…
As everyone who has followed developments in the region knows, Israel never had any intention of implementing UN Resolution 242 or allowing the establishment of a Palestinian state. The Abraham Accords were conjured up by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who wanted to sidestep UN resolutions while vanishing the Palestinian issue once and for all This was Trump’s basic strategy and it forced Hamas to take drastic action to disrupt the normalization process while refocusing attention on Palestine.
We’ve already mentioned that Trump’s cynically named “The Deal of the Century” convinced Hamas that the Palestinian people faced an existential crisis that could only be averted by launching a massive attack that would force other countries to get directly involved. That was the rationale that drove the October 7 attacks. Even so, few analysts have seen through the ruse and revealed the truth of what has actually transpired. Branko Marcetic is one such journalist who revealed the details of Trump’s fraud in a riveting article at Responsible Statecraft. Here’s an excerpt from his piece:
… the U.S. Department of Homeland Security under Donald Trump warned in October 2020 that terrorist violence was set to be imminently inflamed…. (DHS) pointed to the Abraham Accords: the U.S.-led effort to normalize relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors… The resulting Abraham Accords were, at least in the neoconservative world, considered a stroke of “genius.” Rather than finding a solution to the seemingly intractable question of Palestinian statehood, it simply sidelined it….
The signers dropped this long-standing precondition as they re-established diplomatic relations and deepened security and economic cooperation with Israel, while Trump lavished them with rewards, like an arms deal for the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and U.S. recognition of the annexation of West Sahara for Morocco. It effectively supplanted the Saudi government’s Arab Peace Initiative, which since its 2002 introduction had been the foundation of the Arab world’s program for resolving the conflict, placing the Palestinians front and center.
The new normalization agreements’ foundational and cynical assumption was that the plight of the Palestinians could and would be safely ignored and forgotten about by both the region’s governments and the broader international community… As Arab states began gradually deepening ties with Israel, they increasingly backed away from their historic positions…
the normalization process continued despite what would earlier have been viewed as an unacceptable provocation against both Palestinians and Islam itself was celebrated by the accords’ supporters, as proof that ongoing repression of Palestinians could indeed be safely ignored. But the Palestinian issue could not simply be wished away, and the signing of the pacts created a set of contradictions that fueled the tensions that erupted October 7.
Palestinians themselves, across opinion surveys, with both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas calling it a “betrayal,” a “treacherous stab,” and “grave harm.” Hamas also called for “an integrated plan to bring down normalization.” …….
while Hamas had reportedly planned this operation for two years, and claimed it was motivated by years of violence at Al-Aqsa, its attack also can’t be understood without the bipartisan push for Israeli-Arab normalization at the Palestinians’ expense, and the outrage, anger, and despair it has inspired.
What is clear — from Hamas’s extraordinary violence, the wider regional war it threatens to spark, as well as the major pro-Palestinian protests across Arab countries in response to Israel’s bombing campaign — is that almost every assumption that undergirded the Abraham Accords was disastrously wrong, not least the idea that dismissing the Palestinians would make for a more peaceful Middle East. Forget ‘peace,’ did Abraham Accords set stage for Israel-Gaza conflict?, Responsible Statecraft
Excellent summary, but let’s recap:
- Officials at the Department of Homeland Security warned Trump that trouble was brewing because the Abraham Accords were inciting “terrorist violence”. (So, October 7 was not unexpected. It was predicted.)
- Homeland Security expressed their concerns that instead of “finding a solution to the… question of Palestinian statehood, (the Accords) simply sidelined it…. (Once again, the proximate cause of October 7 was identified but ignored.)
- Instead of dealing with the Palestinian issue fairly and rationally, “Trump lavished the (Arab leaders) with rewards” with the clear intention of coercing their support. (Sounds like bribery)
- “As Arab states began gradually deepening ties with Israel, they increasingly backed away from their historic positions,” which refers to the Arab Peace Proposal of 2002 that required all Arab states to oppose normalization with Israel until Israel agrees to the establishment of a Palestinian state on land occupied since 1967.
- Hamas also called for “an integrated plan to bring down normalization.” (Very important.) Hamas identified “normalization” (The Abraham Accords) as an existential threat that had to be countered.
- Hamas’s “attack also can’t be understood without the bipartisan push for Israeli-Arab normalization at the Palestinians’ expense, and the outrage, anger, and despair it has inspired.” In short, the Abraham Accords precipitated the October 7 attacks.
One Last Thought:
There is another intriguing aspect of the October attacks that has been largely ignored by mainstream pundits, and it is linked to this one short question: What was the strategic objective of the October 7 attacks?
What was Hamas trying to achieve?
The media would like us to believe that Hamas had no strategic objective at all, that they simply wanted to “kill or capture Jews” to satisfy some deeply racist urge. But that’s nonsense. We’ve already shown that Trump had approved the seizure of more Palestinian land while—at the same time—he was actively sabotaging Palestinian relations with its Arab neighbors. What that proves is that it was Hamas’s ‘back that was against the wall’, not Israel’s. Palestinian statehood faced certain obliteration if steps were not taken to reverse the course of events and prevent the Palestinians from being further isolated, marginalized and “disappeared”.
But how could a small, poorly-armed militia do anything that could significantly change the outcome sought by both Israel and its superpower friend?
That was the conundrum Hamas faced, and that is why they settled on a desperate strategy that involved goading Israel into an overreaction that would allow the rest of the world to see the inhumanity and viciousness of the Zionist state.That was the goal, and we know it was the goal because the plan was presented in great detail by Hamas’s political and military leader, Yahya Sinwar, who released the following statement in a short video on Twitter. Here’s what he said:
“Within a limited period of months—which I estimate will not exceed one year—we will force the occupation to face two options: Either we force it to implement international law, respect international resolutions, withdraw from the West Bank and Jerusalem, dismantle the settlements, release the prisoners, and ensure the return of refugees, achieving the establishment of a Palestinian state on the lands occupied in 1967, including Jerusalem; or we place this occupation in a state of contradiction and collision with the entire international order, isolate it in an extreme and powerful manner, and end its integration in the region and the entire world, addressing the state of collapse that has occurred on all fronts of resistance over the past years.” SuppressedNews
The statement above lays out Sinwar’s strategy in lucid, unambiguous prose. October 7 was a clear provocation aimed at taking advantage of Israel’s insatiable appetite for violence and bloodshed. Sinwar not only knew that Israel would overreact; he was counting on it. He expected that they would do precisely what they have been doing for the last 15 months; destroying everything in their path, killing tens of thousands of civilians, and reducing the entire Gaza Strip to rubble. Israel’s overreaction was the only way that Hamas could breathe new life into the Palestinian cause, because it was the only way they could attract the sympathy and support of the international community. That was Sinwar’s strategy in a nutshell; provoke Israel and hope that other nations would feel a moral obligation to intervene and stop the slaughter. It was a risky gambit, but it was the only option available.
As it happens, Sinwar’s strategy has largely succeeded except for the fact that Washington has blocked all efforts by the international community to resolve the crisis, deploy peacekeepers, or implement the relevant UN Resolutions. Even so, Israel remains (as Sinwar predicted) “in a state of contradiction and collision with the entire international order, (and) isolated in an extreme and powerful manner.” Recent surveys indicate a significant decline in global support for Israel…. (A Morning Consult poll showed that favorable views of Israel decreased in 42 out of 43 countries polled since the war.) and the reputational damage (to Israel) gets worse by the day. If there is an attempt to “clean out” Gaza (as Trump put it), then Israel will be branded as a global pariah for decades to come, perhaps, forever. And while that designation may not bother Israelis today, eventually they will see how it undermines their broader interests and their collective sense of self-esteem. Eventually, Israel will either comply with international resolutions and humanitarian law or face a painful future of hardship, isolation and disgrace.
In any event, Sinwar clearly pursued the only strategy that had any chance of succeeding, in fact, he might have pulled it off had Washington withheld its voluminous provision of 2,000 lb. bombs and other lethal weaponry. But now that the US has become a party to the genocide, the struggle for statehood is bound to take longer. It will require the same grit and determination the Palestinian people have shown since the conflict began 76 years ago. Eventually, they will prevail.
