Tragedy or Scandal?

Which is worse?

The Israel-Gaza debacle is the modern iteration of the chicken or the egg, the ultimate cul-de-sac argument with no conclusion, no exit. Fact, history, objective, subjective, political, religious, all thrown into the crucible that defines today's debate. The only way to win is to not play the game.

The tragedy and the scandal remain.

The tragedy of October 7 is without dispute. The slaughter of innocents needs no debate to be condemned. There is no justifiable motive to kill babies. The value of the tragedy belongs to the government media complex, the former confidently relying on the latter to provide the concentrated distraction of human loss in order to serve the public posturing propaganda of righteous military reaction. Typical media wall-to-wall coverage with constant emphasis on the tragedy of death and suffering serves more than political goals and stoking nationalism. It provides the perfect fog of war for the scandal that birthed the tragedy.

Up to October 6th, few would dispute the assessment Israel's Mossad was the most expert, efficient, experienced, and effective intelligence collection, covert operations, and counterterrorism agency in the world. America's CIA might claim second place. Up to October 6th, the national security of Israel was equally legendary. Nothing affected Israel on any front, from public relations to suspicious incursions went without notice. Considering the combined security assets and resources of Israel and America, from boots on the ground monitoring local activity, to surveillance satellites, drones, and cameras capable of finding and following a single individual's activity, stating the tragedy of the attacks on October 7th came as a surprise, is an unvarnished scandal requiring an incalculable depth of blind ignorance and naivete beyond description. That investigative coverage outside Israel has been treated with a shrug, ignored by the usual scandal-mongering media, offers additional proof of complicity to distract the public from a political scandal of inconceivable proportions.

Is it in the interest of national security to ignore a clear and explicit warning from a neighbor?

The Times of Israel reports, "...mounting questions over Israel's massive intelligence failure to anticipate and prepare for a surprise Hamas assault were compounded Monday when an Egyptian intelligence official said that Jerusalem had ignored repeated warnings that the Gaza-based terror group was planning, quote, something big, unquote, which included an apparent direct notice from Cairo's intelligence minister to the prime minister...
Netanyahu denied receiving any such advance warning, saying in the course of an address to The Nation on Monday night that the story was, quote, fake news."

Of course.

In a zero-hedge piece, ignoring warnings went beyond the Egyptian phone call:

"In interviews, Israel's own IDF Combat Intelligence Corps, Yale Rottenberg stated, "It's infuriating. We saw what was happening, we told them about it, and we were the ones who were murdered."

Something sure to light the fuse of cognizant dissonance are reports that the far-right Netanyahu government was actually in favor of a Hamas invasion sufficiently horrific to unite the nation of Israel and ignite the entire world in order to justify retaliation sufficient to wipe out Hamas and, by extension, sufficient number of Palestinians to eliminate any further discussion of a two-state solution. Leaked information contradicting the official Netanyahu administration is receiving coverage in alternative outlets, even mentioning the little-known Hannibal Directive and Dahiya Doctrine.

On Substack, CJ Hopkins writes, "Israel is a nation state doing what a lot of nation states have done throughout the history of nation states. It's wiping out or otherwise removing the indigenous population of the territory it has conquered. It's been doing this for 75 years. The indigenous population, that would be the Palestinians, have been trying not to get completely wiped out or otherwise removed from their indigenous territory and lashing out at Israel in a variety of ways. From throwing stones to committing mass murder."

The torture and slaughter of innocent civilians cannot be sufficiently condemned. Such action imminently qualifies for the very definition of tragedy. The closer one comes to personal involvement from the loss of an innocent life to the death of a family member, the pain of the tragedy increases exponentially.

Any government that willfully ignores credible warnings and intelligence reports that for political purposes exposes its citizens to danger and death goes beyond some inconvenient systems failure or human error or official apologies and political vows of revenge.

Such a heinous slaughter with advanced knowledge is beyond tragedy or scandal. 
It enters the arena of unspeakable evil.