Israel as the 'sacrificial wolf': Part I

An effort is underway to pin the US deep state's sins on the monster it created

There is a saying in the English language that describes a person who is setup to take the blame for something they were not responsible for as: ‘a sacrificial lamb’.¹ That analogy has strong religious associations, linking back to the biblical notion that Jesus was essentially sacrificed to pay for the sins of humankind:

"Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world."

In this moment it may seem inexplicable to use this analogy for Israel.

Even as a state founded on atrocities, Israel has committed the worst atrocities in its existence in the last few years: massacres, mass destruction and displacement, and human rights abuses at the individual level that now fill hundreds of pages. It may have the most weaponry per capita of any country in the world, including a not-so-secret nuclear arsenal, along with powerful intelligence agencies that assassinate nuclear scientists and develop customised surveillance technologies. It was established as a colonial state in the 20th century, on the back of atrocities committed against the resident Palestinians, at a time when existing colonies of European powers were finally gaining independence. It is the last remaining state that is considered an apartheid state.

Despite all this, I am still going to argue that Israel is indeed being setup as a bearer of sins for which it is only partly responsible. Not to be controversial or countercurrent, but simply because that is what the evidence overwhelmingly suggests. Given how culpable Israel is in actions that can reasonably called genocide, the term ‘lamb’ would obviously be absurd. So instead I will refer to Israel as ‘the sacrificial wolf’.

Who could pull off such an exercise? Only the United States; or more specifically, the US ‘deep state’ that since at least the 1970s has been primarily responsible for turning Israel into the monstrous state it is today. As Joe Biden succinctly put it: if Israel did not exist, the United States would have had to invent an Israel to protect its interests in the Middle East.

Although I tend to avoid more mystical or spiritual considerations in my writing, it is hard not to notice that in a religious context there is a strange symmetry to this. Some interpretations of the Bible attribute responsibility for Jesus’s death to the Jewish authorities of the time. The United States, whose politicians remain predominantly Christian or Catholic, using Israel in this way may also have some additional religious resonance beyond their core geopolitical motives.

When the narrative shifts

For many years Israel and the role of the ‘Israel lobby’ in the United States (and to a lesser extent the United Kingdom) has been a sharp dividing line between progressive and left-wing commentators, on the one hand, and ‘centrist’, conservative and right-wing commentators on the other. To the point that when left-wing critics drew attention to the apparent disproportionate influence of lobby groups like AIPAC, they were often (falsely) accused of anti-Semitism.

A key indicator that something has shifted at a deeper level, is that this is no longer the case. Supposedly independent commentators with huge platforms like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Megyn Kelly, Glenn Greenwald, Mehdi Hassan, Max Blumenthal - along with right-wing politicians like Marjorie Taylor Greene and many other commentators with slightly lower profiles, are now all expounding essentially the same narratives. And many of the claims and criticisms in these new narratives go beyond even some of the most scathing views of past left-wing critics.

Most recently, Donald Trump’s appointee as head of the United States Counterterrorism Centre (Joe Kent) resigned and pointed a finger directly at Israel for the US role in not just the current war with Iran but also the invasion of Iraq. His resignation letter included these statements:

high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that…sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran.

This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States, and that should you strike now, there was clear path to a swift victory.

This was a lie and is the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war that cost our nation the lives of thousands of our best men and women. We cannot make this mistake again.

(Kent’s letter has notable misrepresentations on other topics, but more on those in Part II)

What we are supposed to believe, apparently, is that all these individuals have suddenly ‘seen the light’ and converged on the same truth. On rare occasions such things do happen, but the truth about Israel has been essentially the same for decades. And a number of these commentators have backgrounds that suggest they are part of the Western intelligence establishment - as my previous articles on Carlson, Greenwald and Hasan suggest.

When the truth stays the same and narratives dramatically shift it usually means something else is at play: that interests and agendas have shifted.

What you are supposed to believe

The narrative we are supposed to believe, it seems, includes the following:

1. In the immediate moment, the attack(s) on Iran were due to direct manipulation of the United States by Israel. And, more specifically, the manipulation of Donald Trump by Benjamin Netanyahu.

2. Israel was also behind many other wars and military interventions by US governments, such as the invasion of Iraq. The suggestion, it appears, is that Israel was behind all of the US’s actions in the Middle East.

3. Israel may have been behind the recent assassination of extreme right-wing youth mobiliser Charlie Kirk and the 1960s assassination of John F Kennedy.

And the implication intended by the commentators disseminating this narrative is quite clearly that the United States is not really responsible. According to Joe Kent’s statements, for instance, Trump was ‘tricked’ and ‘misled’. Similarly, George W. Bush was misled by ‘the same tactic’ into invading Iraq.

But in my recent analysis of the reasons for the attack on Iran, Israel’s interests came in fourth. The reasons were:

1. The US has sought full geopolitical control of the Middle East for decades and Iran has been the last major obstacle to doing so since the fall of Syria to US-backed al-Qaeda and ISIS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.

2. Destabilising or gaining control of Iran is a precursor to placing more pressure on Russia and confronting China, which are the deep state’s overriding geopolitical goals.

3. The US is seeking to exert control over global oil supply, but not for the reason it used to. Previously the US sought this for its own energy security and economic benefit, but having become a net exporter of energy [read my post on the importance of that here] its current reason is to exert leverage over China’s oil supply. While China’s supply appears to be diversified, the proportion coming from US ‘allies’ (more accurately characterised as US vassal states on foreign policy) is gradually increasing. With control of Syria and Venezuela, China can only fully rely on Russian and Iranian supply: even that combination is insufficient, but removing Iran would make China extremely vulnerable despite its efforts to move to renewable energy sources.

4. Iran has been the primary counterweight to Israeli influence in the region and was the primary external supporter of the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance: weakening it or achieving ‘regime change’ will likely ensure the complete collapse of those groups, which have already largely been defeated militarily.

In other words, the US has long-standing interests in ‘regime change’ in Iran that go far beyond Israel’s regional interests.

Elements of a psychological operation

The significance of right-wing commentators being in the vanguard of those putting forward these claims cannot be understated.

I previously noted how centrist individuals like Ta-Nehisi Coates and Greta Thunberg suddenly discovered that Israel was doing bad things to Palestinians. They have now been joined by others like Yale academic Jason Stanley and commentator Sarah Kendzior. Earlier this month, Kendzior penned a lengthy article which at its core sought to position the Republican Neoconservative plan exposed by General Wesley Clark to invade countries across the Middle East as actually an Israeli project.² (You can watch the statements by Clark in the video at the beginning of my article explaining the likely reasons for the recent attack on Iran).

Although the American public across the board have been deluged with pro-Israel propaganda and sentiment for generations, voters on the ‘left’ in the United States [i.e. voters for the centre and liberal right Democrats, since there is no actual left in US politics after McCarthyism] have been more ambiguous about Israel’s actions than Republicans. So in order for the US to pivot on Israel, the key group that would need to shift its views are the most right-wing Republican voters. In other words, the traditional audiences of personalities like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Joe Rogan.

So what appears to be happening is a large-scale psychological operation, targeted first-and-foremost at the citizenry of the United States, to shift public attitudes against Israel - of the same people who not long ago were propagandised in the opposite direction.

The deep rationale for sacrificing the wolf

Why would the ‘deep state’ do this? I suggest two reasons.

First, Israel has become more of a liability in the Middle East than an asset. In fact, when I saw the first flickers of this pivot in 2022/2023 I published an article saying exactly that. Much as apartheid South Africa became a liability to the United States after the fall of the Soviet Union, so too has Israel has increasingly become a liability in the Middle East now that the US has been able to form alliances with most countries in the region (or co-opt their leaders).

Second, having decided to make this pivot, the ‘deep state’ has realised it would be doubly beneficial to blame a number of its other illegal or destructive actions on Israel as well.

Israel has been a rapacious wolf that has killed brutally and unnecessarily. But it did so with the support and encouragement of the United States. Now that it has become a liability, the deep state is moving to absolve itself of being the driving force behind what took place. Instead, it wants the US and global public to believe that the wolf was in control of its master all along.

In this way, Israel becomes the ‘sacrificial wolf’: in its sacrifice the intention is that the US deep state that armed and funded it will be absolved.

1. A more recent, colloquial saying refers to someone being a ‘fall guy’. Or, ‘scapegoat’.

2. I don’t link to Kendzior’s article because I don’t really want to encourage readers to engage in depth with someone who I believe is a profoundly manipulative writer. But if you do want to read it, you can easily find it on Substack.