When the first announcements came that Israel had experienced its own 9/11 on October 7 with Hamas breaking out of the Gaza concentration camp to attack its jailers, I was skeptical of the analogy. 

First, bulldozing a fence and launching a ground attack from an open air prison seemed to me quite different from flying passenger jets into buildings mysteriously causing total demolition of modern skyscrapers. 

Second, around 3,000 people died on September 11, 2001 while about one-third that many were killed in the Al-Aqsa Flood event. Many Israelis were killed by their own military, and the subsequent death of hostages not yet released by Hamas has been ignored as Israeli bombs rained down on Gaza.

But when we examine the uses that were made of both events, similarities do emerge.

9/11 was used as the pretext for the U.S. invading Afghanistan where roughly a quarter of a million Afghans perished over the course of 20 years, invading Iraq where a million people died, invading Syria to occupy their oil fields (ongoing), invading Libya to topple the Gaddafi regime, and drone bombing all over the Middle East and Africa.

Also to push through the Patriot Act which destroyed many of the constitutional protections previously enjoyed by white people in the U.S. who were not too poor to afford some justice.

The Al-Aqsa Flood is being used right now as the pretext for carpet bombing and invading Gaza, an Egyptian territory once illegally occupied by Israel and then illegally blockaded after Israel withdrew its military and settlers in 2005.

How many millions will die as a result? Check your sources because the best the doddering President of the U.S. has got is to send more weapons quickly while casting doubt on the accuracy of casualties reported by the Gaza Ministry of Health. It’s clear my government would like to minimize the evidence of its complicity in genocide.

The Al-Aqsa Flood is also being used to ram through laws criminalizing dissent, both in Israel itself and across Europe where U.S. vassal states have lit up their public monuments with the colors of Israel’s flag while arresting protesters for the crime of holding Palestine’s flag.

Also, it’s quite likely that both the Al-Aqsa Flood and 9/11 were on national security radar but were allowed to proceed anyway. Put another way, both Israel and the U.S. appear to accept mass murder of their own people in a spectacular way in order to make what was already planned to follow look like a reasonable response to “terror.” 

For Gaza what was planned already was genocide, now well underway. Last night (October 27) Gaza was plunged into darkness without electricity, internet, water, food, fuel, or a functioning media to report on events. The worst bombing thus far aimed at the southern part of Gaza where internally displaced people from northern Gaza had been deliberately herded by Israel to be massacred.

But here’s the thing: with every bombing sortie, Israel creates the next generation of resistance fighters. Much like the U.S. did in Afghanistan and Iraq, where it was never able to prevail against insurgents fighting to rid hated occupiers from their homeland.

But the biggest contrast between the two events as I see it is that 9/11 worked to gin up pubic support for the so-called War on Terror. The genocide of Gaza is doing no such thing.

Former UK Ambassador Craig Murray in Consortium News on October 25 “The Chances of a Regional War“:

The gap between the western political and media elites and their people on this issue is simply enormous.

While Western governments and their compliant media rush to defend Israel’s brutality, people all over the world are rising up in the millions to demand a ceasefire in the short term and a free Palestine in the long term.

Analyst Pepe Escobar in The Cradle October 27, “Iran-Russia set a western trap in Palestine“:

The White House’s wishful thinking that the Forever Wars in Ukraine and Israel are inscribed in the same lofty “democracy” drive and essential to US national interests, has already backfired – even among American public opinion.. 

Both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) went to Lebanon to visit Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah in person this week. That spells out unity of purpose – or what the region’s Axis of Resistance calls the “Unity of Fronts.”    

Even more eye-opening was Hamas’ visit to Moscow this week, which was met with impotent Israeli fury. The Hamas delegation was headed by a member of its Politburo, Abu Marzouk. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri came especially from Tehran and met two of Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov’s key deputies, Sergei Ryabkov and Mikhail Galuzin.

That spells out Hamas, Iran, and Russia negotiating at the same table.  

Hamas has called on the millions of Palestinians in the diaspora, as well as the whole Arab world and all lands of Islam, to unite. Slowly but surely, a pattern may be discerned: could the Arab world – and great swathes of Islam – be on the verge of significantly uniting to avenge their own “century of humiliation” – much as the Chinese did after WWII with Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping? 

To round out my analogy, I believe 9/11 will be viewed by historians (if humankind survives nuclear war, that is) as the actual kick-off of WW3. In contrast, the genocide of Gazans will be viewed as the event that solidified effective mass resistance to colonial rule by Western nations and Israel as they use their dwindling military might in a futile attempt to hold onto power.

However, don’t expect the U.S. and its lackeys to understand that. At least, not the old people.