We are, pardon it being trite to say it this way, on pins and needles each day about our election.
The polls are all over the place. We probably ought to have a poll about the polls. Are they credible anymore? Why do we believe some, not others?
But this is not about that except to observe again that the United States of America is balanced on the knife’s edge of its politics (at times the trite is useful, isn’t it?)
No, this is about the possibility of an October surprise, that event, unforeseen and probably unwanted in the moment, that can change the direction of an election. Obviously, either attempt on Trump would have been an early October surprise had one succeeded. Let us be greatful they did not for his sake, yes even for his sake, and for the change of turmoil and who knows what in the alternative.
What no one in the media constellation it seems has considered is that there are the seeds of an October surprise in OUR election. Those seeds, planted over 70 years ago, have grown into a forest of conflict on the Israeli/Lebanese border. If they are harvested now, what will it mean here in American election politics?
The rest here assumes the reader is well acquinted with the Middle East, its conflicts, and above all events the past year in Gaza and 120 miles away on Isreael’s northern border with Lebanon (nations formally at war since 1947).
If as it seems, Israel’s aim is a regional war in its north with Americans and the two presidential candidates left to decide how they respond then in an instant moment, it could, it would create a wedge in our politics with possible unintended consequences for us – but intended consequences both in Lebanon and in the American election for Netanyahu and the Israeli right wing.
The timing is what? Perhaps blatant?
First, it says Israel knows it cannot achieve by force of arms its proclaimed aims in Gaza to free the hostages, who seemingly it cannot find but by accident, and to destroy Hamas. So it is slow walking away from that without admitting so.
Notice how the news feed from there has changed the past two weeks from events in Gaza, which have become secondary, to those in Lebanon and on the border, which have become primary.
Second, it says Israel is pulling back from Gaza, but gathering its forces on the Lebanese border for a much larger conflict in Lebanon. We don’t have to surmise that. It has been declared by the defense minister, Mr.
Galant, among others, who, by doing so perhaps improves his strained relations with Netanyahu.
Are Israelis still in the streets demanding a Gaza cease fire to obtain release of the remaining hostages? They may be but if they are, we are not hearing, seeing or reading about it. Has Netanyahu made one of his speeches on the Gaza campaign since making the 100 yards between Gaza and Egypt, the Philadelphi Corridor, a red line? No, he has not.
Third, it says this diverts attention, especially American attention, from the limits, turmoil and civilians’ catastrophe in Gaza and redirects them to the north.
That is the nearly entire focus in that part of the world now of American TV news, including the non-stop, chaos-sowing cable news networks, and the major American newspapers and agencies like the New York Times, Washington Past and Associated Press.
You are not seeing reports from Gaza. You are seeing them from the border area and from Beirut.
Fourth, it says both for its own strategic purposes but also to affect our election only a few weeks later, the Netanyahu government is very possibly timing that full campaign to the Oct. 7 anniversary while it heightens American attention on its part of the world.
It is no mystery that Israel’s duplicitous prime minister wants to see Trump back in the White House, a place where he can whittle his wiles to get what he wants from America. He did it once. He counts on doing it again even as he knows that he, pardon one more trite, bare allusion, has the U.S.A. by the proverbials.
No administration – meaning no Democratic administration, meaning the present administration that includes Vice President Harris – dares to interrupt, reduce or, in the unthinkable here, halt the flow of American armaments.
It is that military supply line supplemented by Israeli ingenuity and home grown munitions that gives tiny Israel military (about the size of New Jersey with 7 million Jews and 2 million Arabs- the latter including Circasians, Christian Arabs and Druse) such unlikely dominance in a part of the world where it counts more than 400 million Arabs and Iranians who would destroy it or at least have it go away if they could.
It is late September, the leaves are turning and so are events. Is it a time from which you can see this October surprise coming, clearly taking the shape of war?
Be aware – and beware the 7th of October.
Peeling the Onion 