Is Bibi Planning False Flag Provocation to Bust Up Peace Deal?

Oct. 19—For over a week, intelligence sources have warned that the Butcher of Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu, is likely to deploy a false flag provocation using actual Hamas fighters or people posing as Hamas to stage a bloody incident against Gazans. The goal, they say, is to dupe President Donald Trump into allowing him to re-ignite his slaughter of Palestinians and potentially derail the process initiated by the implementation of the first phases of the Trump Peace Plan this week.

Concerns Over Hamas and Netanyahu’s Intentions

These sources say that with Hamas reasserting its policing control over parts of Gaza from which the Israel Defense Force (IDF) has withdrawn—with the apparent approval of Trump—Bibi has expressed fears that Trump might eventually allow a disarmed Hamas, which might foreswear revolutionary violence, to participate in a future Palestinian government in the Strip. The messianic Netanyahu wants to continue his genocide against the Palestinians and to exterminate Hamas and all other forces that support a Palestinian state.

"Bibi realizes that he may have a limited time to act," said one source, "because his political future is no longer secure. Restarting the war will buy him more time, although he realizes that the Israeli population would need some major incident to support such action, as this week demonstrated Netanyahu's enormous unpopularity among broad segments of the population, as no one believed his claims that he had played the decisive role in securing the release of the hostages. The boos that greeted the mention of his name by the half-million people that gathered in Hostage Square in Tel Aviv last week to celebrate the imminent return of the hostages proved that point. He resents that Trump and [Special Envoy Steve] Witkoff are far more popular in Israel than he is. In fact, one could say that as popular as they are, so is Bibi hated."

Trump’s Pushback and the Role of Intelligence

This and other sources say that Netanyahu had hoped to use the failure of Hamas to rapidly return the bodies of deceased hostages as an excuse to restart his war, but Trump made it clear that this would not happen. Wrote columnist Amir Tibon in Haaretz yesterday: "Restarting the war and risking soldiers' lives for the return of those bodies would also be a difficult sell in Israel, where an enormous sense of relief has been felt this week. Tens of thousands of reservists have been sent home, the parents of young soldiers are breathing easier knowing that their kids aren't at risk of dying in Gaza's rubble, and communities along the Gaza border can finally focus on their recovery from October 7 without the daily sounds of explosions and gunfire."

So, these sources report, Bibi needs a major incident—one that kills a lot of people and could be blamed on Hamas. After Trump initially said he was okay with Hamas taking out some "nasty gangs" and wasn't even upset by the videos of public executions, he seemed to backtrack later in the week, urging that the killings stop and threatening to unleash the Israelis if they didn't. The sources report that this shift was the result of intelligence passed to the White House from the Shin Bet, which is, at least for now, under the control of a Netanyahu crony, that predicted a mass assault on Gazans by Hamas.

"I would be suspect of anything that comes from Shin Bet or its friends in U.S. intelligence," said one source. "They are playing Bibi's game." This and other sources say that the Israelis have assets on the ground inside the Hamas leadership in Gaza, and they certainly have enough other assets that can be made to look like Hamas on the ground.

State Department Warning Raises Alarm

These same sources rang alarm bells yesterday when the State Department issued a warning that an alleged mass Hamas attack on Gazans could be imminent. The report was immediately picked up by the pro-Bibi, neo-con flagship paper of Sir Rupert Murdoch's media empire, the New York Post: "The State Department warned Saturday of 'credible reports' that Hamas might violate its cease-fire with Israel by launching an 'imminent' attack on Palestinian civilians in Gaza—warning that any such violence on innocent civilians would trigger a rapid response.

'The United States has informed the guarantor nations of the Gaza peace agreement of credible reports indicating an imminent ceasefire violation by Hamas against the people of Gaza,' the State Department posted on social media late Saturday.

'This planned attack against Palestinian civilians would constitute a direct and grave violation of the ceasefire agreement and undermine the significant progress achieved through mediation efforts. The guarantors demand Hamas uphold its obligations under the ceasefire terms.'"

"This report tends to confirm that something is up, and that it is being orchestrated by Bibi," said the source. "The 'credible intelligence' no doubt comes from the Israeli. If I were Trump, I would get on top of this immediately, and perhaps bypass the usual process, and have someone get in touch with Hamas directly. Don't go to war over anything that Bibi says or does, and don't allow him to start killing again."