Hamas & the PLO's second Saturn return

This builds on the material presented in Wade Caves' recent article on the events of October 7, 2023 (Astrology of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood), and his subsequent webinar on the topic, now available on YouTube:

Saturn in Pisces and the formation of the PLO

The Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) formed as a national coalition in May 1964 as the internationally recognised official representative of the Palestinian people. Its lunation features Saturn in Pisces as a proxy for the PLO’s future political opponents. As the PLO’s second Saturn return ends, Hamas has appeared as one face of Saturn in Pisces.[1]

In this specific context, Saturn is an apt signature for Hamas. ‘Hamas’ is an acronym that translates as the ‘Islamic Resistance Movement.’ Resistance as a defiant ‘no’ is a clear expression of a core Saturnian principle. Saturn is also a symbol of authority. Hamas’ role as the governing organisation of the Gaza Strip has dissolved under Israel’s sustained annihilation of the Palestinian territories it occupies. In liquid Pisces, Saturn struggles to maintain a firm foothold.

The opposite directions faced by the two Piscean fish are not easily reconciled, as with the dual dimensions of all the double-bodied signs. Hamas is commonly designated as a terrorist organisation.[2] Yet, in 2006, Gazans overwhelmingly voted for Hamas over the PLO faction Fatah, mandating Hamas to build vital infrastructure and public services.[3] Hamas did so more successfully than the PLO had previously managed and offered some respite to their electorate from the torment of living under occupation.[4]

Saturn in Pisces also delineates form in undifferentiated mass. For many watching from afar, Hamas are simply one of the world's many fanatical terrorist groups. Yet lumping them with, say, al-Qaeda would be misplaced. Al-Qaeda have no time for Hamas: liberating Gaza from Israeli control is too meagre an aspiration. The pan-Islamist militants are on a mission to establish a supra-national Islamic caliphate.[5] While standing for election rendered Hamas a more credible force vis-a-vis the PLO, their participation in the democratic process diminished their status in al-Qaeda’s eyes, for whom secular elections are illegitimate. A primarily political and military outfit, Hamas are seen by various groups as too vicious, too secular, or too disorganised. Saturn in multi-faceted Pisces does not lend itself to clear-cut labels.

Hamas’ incursion initiated a brutal new chapter in a long-running conflict when it fired rockets at Israel after September 2023’s Aries full Moon. This lunation was ruled by an afflicted Mars at 21° Libra, the exact degree of the following month’s solar eclipse. Its tight conjunction to Israel’s ascendant at 23° Libra reflects how the people were engulfed in terror.[6]

Solar eclipses are anciently reliable indicators of turning points in world events. Here, the impact of Hamas’ actions for wider geopolitical relations was also astrologically underpinned by Pluto’s direct station on 11 October 2023. Hamas launched their rockets just as Pluto was resuming forward motion, prior even to the Libran eclipse perfecting. This was never just a regional dispute. Many wider interests presume to have a stake in what’s going on.

With Pluto yet to fully settle into Aquarius and Saturn in elusive Pisces for the rest of the year, uncertainty as to what happens next pervades everything, everywhere. For the first three weeks of 2024, and again from mid-October to mid-November 2024, Pluto stands at the final degree of Capricorn. The true precariousness of international relations is mostly invisible at these times, despite 24-hour news. As in myth, Pluto operates with a low profile.

Under the darkness of the current Capricorn new Moon, the US and UK jointly fired at Iranian-backed Houthi positions in Yemen to secure the shipping routes upon which Western commerce depends.[7] Saturn in Pisces promises difficulty at sea. The day after the Sun entered Capricorn in December 2023, an oil tanker en route from Saudi Arabia to India (called Chem Pluto!) was hit by a drone fired from Iran.[8] It was one of the first public signals that discord near the Red Sea was spreading further afield.

Capricorn stands for proper, proportionate behaviour. It makes astrological sense therefore that South Africa’s genocide claim against Israel in Gaza began being heard at the International Court of Justice on the day the current new Moon formed.[9] Capricorn also reflects the grim irony that this is the first time that Israel is being tried under the United Nations’ Genocide Convention, which was drawn up after the Second World War in response to the Holocaust.

On the very same day, UNRWA, the UN relief and works agency for Palestinian refugees in the near east, reported:

And the following day:

Significant developments in this ongoing tragedy appear to be looming. On 5 February, transiting Mars will conjoin Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Jupiter, the ruler of his ascendant. Mars is a general significator for aggression, and war is the setting. This is also the last time that Mars passes through the sign it rules by exaltation before Pluto wraps up in Capricorn, injecting extra punch to all Mars transits in this sign.

It has been widely reported that Netanyahu and his Israeli military leaders nonchalantly ignored warnings of an imminent major assault:[10] they could not believe that Hamas posed any serious risk to their territory. Mistakenly assuming that the Gaza Strip was sufficiently fenced in, the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) was preoccupied with managing resistance in the West Bank.

A closer look at the 1917 Balfour Declaration lunation supports the notion that while Hamas’ attack was a shock, it was not a surprise. The Balfour Declaration was a public expression of British support for a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine (which at the time was home to a minority Jewish population), and paved the path to the 1948 Nakba (Arabic for "catastrophe"), in which Palestinian society was ethnically cleansed and almost totally destroyed.[11]

Venus stationed direct at 12° Leo, on the lunation's midheaven, on 4 September 2023. This ended her retrograde in Leo since late July earlier that year. Poised at the midheaven, Venus is drawing attention to the Balfour Declaration as a root cause of the current violence and its consequences. Culminating Venus’ station is a siren call for justice.

Young female conscripts on grinding surveillance watch at the Israel-Gaza border were also among the first Israeli army personnel to warn of impending, ominous trouble.[12] Venus ruled October’s Libran solar eclipse, as did Saturn by exaltation.

Leonine Venus’ elevation in the 1917 chart shines a light on Palestine, and the need for what is now happening there, and what has gone before, to be seen and heard. Images of the unimaginable horrors of life in Gaza continue to be witnessed across the world.

As a general significator for compromise, Venus’ marked presence in a fixed sign conjunct enduring Saturn can be read as a reminder that only a solution which recognises and honours the dignity of the Palestinian people has any chance of creating lasting peace.

Key people in the region

Who might come to the table? Below are highlights from a handful of world leaders’ charts activated by the Libran eclipse.

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu is already at the table. His natal Moon at 19° Libra relies on an uncertain 10:30am birth time. The 2022 Israel Aries ingress also acts as his accession chart.

The exact opposition to the eclipse degree by the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei’s Saturn at 21° Aries indicates that he can choose to play a critical leadership role.

UN official, Palestinian diplomat, academic, and economist Husam Zomlot has a Moon-Uranus conjunction at 19°-20° Libra (in a noon chart). He is being heard more widely since news of Hamas’ attack broke.

Born with Venus at 23° Libra and to Palestinian parents, the stunningly beautiful Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan has spoken eloquently of the desperate plight of her people, and of the ‘glaring double standard’ in how the world treats Palestinians.[13]

Some precise contacts open the door to the Russian President’s involvement. Vladimir Putin’s natal Mercury at 23° Libra mirrors Israel’s ascendant, and he has Neptune at 21° Libra 

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Moon-Pluto opposition is at 24° Aries-19° Libra (another noon chart). With Uranus making its final conjunction to his natal Mercury-Sun aspect at 20°-21° Taurus, it gets harder to anticipate what he might do over the coming months.

References

[1] Wade gave his presentation live on 3 November 2023, the eve of Saturn’s direct station in Pisces, and this article starts with a chart featuring a Saturn in Pisces return.

[2] https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-hamas

[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/24/gaza-election-hamas-2006-palestine-israel/

 [4] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-mar-02-fg-charity2-story.html

[5] J. Tompkins, Crossett, Paul, Chuck; Spitaletta, Marshal, Jason, Shana (2012). "19- Al-Qaeda: 1988-2001". Casebook on Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare Volume II: 1962-2009. Fort Liberty, North Carolina, US: United States Army Special Operations Command. pp. 533, 544.

[6] I am using the 4pm statement of independence chart whereas Wade used the 4.32pm chart with 29° Libra rising when Israel’s first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion declared "Israel is born."

[7] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/12/us-uk-air-strikes-yemen-houthi-rebels-red-sea-crisis

[8] https://news.sky.com/story/iranian-drone-behind-attack-on-chemical-tanker-in-indian-ocean-pentagon-says-13037116

[9] https://apnews.com/article/un-court-south-africa-israel-gaza-genocide-71be2ce7f09bfee05a7cae26689ee262

[10] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67958260

[11] https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2018/11/2/more-than-a-century-on-the-balfour-declaration-explained

[12] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67958260

[13] https://youtu.be/OlOdM-qPCUI