October 7th 2023 vs 31st January 1968

Who would have thought it? Not only was the attack by Hamas on October 7th totally unexpected, but the response by Israel has also took most of the world by shock.

The targeting and kidnapping of civilians by Hamas on that day was unforgivable, (even though Israel has routinely done this for years), and no doubt we all expected some sort of harsh Israeli response. But 8 months later, and 36,000 Palestinian deaths later, people around the world are in despair at the sheer brutality of the retribution by the world's only Jewish state. So much so, that Israel has lost a huge amount of goodwill that it has built up in the West over the past two decades.

They say history does not repeat itself but it does rhyme.....and I think this horrific situation in the Middle East is a perfect example of this. Let me explain. As the global backlash against Netanyahu and his ultra right wing gang grows, I can't help but be reminded of a similar event that happened in 1968.

Cast your mind back if you will to January 31st, 1968 in Vietnam. In Vietnamese culture, Tet is a celebration of the lunar new year. It was on this day that the forces of North Vietnam launched a major surprise attack against South Vietnam. The attack caught the United States and her allies totally off guard. The North Vietnamese inflicted heavy losses on the South before eventually being defeated and sustaining even heavier losses on their side.

Despite being an operational failure, tactically it was a huge success, as it inflicted a huge psychological blow against the military campaign aimed at the North. It turned public opinion even further against an already unpopular conflict. It shattered the myth that the United States was in control of the conflict and led to a troop drawdown before the inevitable total withdrawal of allied forces from South Vietnam.

In my mind anyway, the parallels between the Tet Offensive and October 7th are strikingly similar. Before October 7th, Israel had an air of invincibility about it, the country seemed to be almost untouchable as it dominated it's peers in the Middle East. The Palestinian cause seemed to be slipping away from the public consciousness and a major peace deal involving Saudi Arabia and Israel was soon to be finalised.

October 7th changed everything. Hamas, that was deemed to be nothing but an annoying little terrorist resistance movement somehow managed to catch a nuclear armed state completely by surprise and much like Tet, inflict a major psychological blow against the Jewish state.

October 7th, was, as we all know now, was just the start. Hamas will have known that Israel would respond in kind, yet the ferocity of the Israeli response equally took the world by surprise, or should I say despair. Day, after day, week after week, the body count continues to pile up, now 8 months in, accusations of genocide are widely being levelled against the Jewish state. Global public opinion, for the most part, has decisively swung against Israel and the whole concept of Zionism. Courtesy of the internet age, there is no hiding place anymore. When a vast chunk of the internet is focussed on a particular theme, that theme can become magnified hugely.

There are no two ways about it, Israel is facing some major heat at the moment. The infamous Israel lobby is probably facing it's most toughest assignment yet as it tries to spin it's way out of this political, military and moral mess. With each passing day, another outrage happens in Palestine. Whether it's the killing of innocent civilians by the hundreds at a time, or storming hospitals while disguised as doctors, or the killing of aid workers, the Zionist state seems to keep digging itself deeper and deeper into a dark hole.

The reputation of both Israel and the US has took a severe battering over this conflict, it will take years for Israel to regain the moral high ground, that is if it does at all. You see, despite the over 30,000 Palestinians dead, the only good that has come out of this is that it has shone a global spotlight on the disgusting neo colonial superiority complex that is Zionism.

Don't even get me started about the West Bank, where Zionist fanatics regularly kill, harass and drive Palestinians from their land, based on some dubious historical precedent from 2000 years ago. This is absolute and complete madness, yet the USA and UK does nothing to condone these illegal settler incursions into the West Bank.

Who knows how this will end, but for now at least, a fire has been lit under the Palestinian cause. Never before in recent history has Israel been under so much intense political, moral and military pressure than now. Even the 1973 Yom Kippur war which was Israel's last major existential threat lasted "only" for a couple of weeks, before a stalemate was achieved. Not now though, the current conflict is a bloody, protracted conflict that has drawn Netanyahu and his ilk into a nightmare war of attrition that is staining their reputation by the minute.

So next time you think October 7th, remember 31st January 1968, this might give you a clue as to how this unholy mess is going to be resolved.