Who Burned California?

The answer to this question changes depending on where one stands, and the type of response given reveals a great deal about the person answering it. In other words, apart from the correctness of the response, it provides significant insight into the individual’s way of thinking. So, what accounts for this diversity of answers?

The Southern California fires, also known as the Palisades Fires due to the devastating blazes in the Pacific Palisades area, represent the final link in a long and complex chain of corruption. The source of these fires, which also affected the Los Angeles region, has been a subject of widespread speculation in the U.S. public discourse from the very beginning. According to one conspiracy theory, the fires were the result of a meticulously planned act of sabotage—a preparatory step to transform large swathes of real estate and land in the area to fit the needs of a new mega-urban development project. The timing of these fires, occurring just before a congress focused on the city’s restructuring and infrastructure planning, lends further credibility to such theories.

According to a similar perspective, villa owners aimed to both claim insurance money and benefit from the appreciation of their land under the forthcoming development plans. Thus, even if no sabotage occurred, there was at least a deliberate and calculated negligence. Affluent property owners stood to gain in either scenario, developers and investment firms were positioned for profitable ventures, and in the end, only ordinary people affected by the disaster bore the consequences. A significant issue with this conspiracy theory, however, lies in the skepticism surrounding the ability of insurance companies to compensate for astronomical losses after such a large-scale fire. Many insurers already refuse to cover homes in the region. A tacit government bailout for insurance companies, facilitated by the connections of stakeholders—especially property owners—might be plausible. However, the likelihood of such a plan materializing, as well as the ultimate fate of the proposed mega-city projects, remains highly uncertain. Consequently, this is a highly risky plan for the elite residents of a prestigious neighborhood.

For a Muslim, the situation is quite clear: it was, of course, Allah who burned it. The cries of the Palestinian people turned California to ashes. However, the fact that Allah is both the will and the agent does not devalue the nature of the act or its processes and details; rather, it makes them even more instructive. This is because every situation connected to Allah’s power and will can essentially be understood in two categories: tashri’i (pertaining to human and social life) and takwini (related to the creation of the universe and natural life). In Islamic thought, the former is referred to as sunnatullah, and the latter as adatullah. While not every aspect of adatullah may reveal itself or become comprehensible to us, it is possible to understand sunnatullah. Unlike cosmic phenomena, social phenomena—endowed with understandable processes as a blessing of divine will—are unique treasures in terms of rationality. This is significant both for drawing lessons and for creating laws based on divine order. Thus, setting aside uncertainties and speculative aspects, the tangible data available reveals an intriguing situation.

Explaining a large-scale and complex phenomenon like this with a single human factor would be overly simplistic. However, the chain of negligence and corruption leading to the fire can be categorized into two main areas. The first is a malignancy that has been growing in the U.S. for years and has permeated all aspects of life: the appointment of individuals to positions without consideration of merit under the guise of affirmative action. This moral decay, widespread across all fields, is rooted in the belief that certain social classes and identities are disadvantaged in hiring and promotion processes, and thus mechanisms should be established to compensate for this imbalance. This approach gained momentum during Obama’s second term and reached its peak under the Biden administration, often referred to as the “third Obama term.” It is now rapidly spreading worldwide. At its core, it serves as a covert mechanism to make deviant sexual identities more visible in professional life and to promote “gender diversity,” commonly associated with what is known as Woke culture.

This mechanism, which particularly highlights deviant sexual identities and, at times, racial and religious identities, lacks measurable criteria or a numerical framework. It operates on the principle of “diversity matters, not target numbers,” with no rational or clearly defined statistical basis. Consequently, these structures—whose exact numbers and demographic equivalents remain ambiguous—become the easiest way to bypass merit and competence standards. When this occurs, collapse and decay become inevitable. For instance, the head of the Los Angeles Fire Department, Kristina Crowley, is herself a member of the LGBT community and has openly declared that one of her goals is to increase diversity within the department. An LGBT activist, she has repeatedly stated her aim to raise the number of female firefighters, currently around 150 out of approximately 3,500 personnel. Deputy Mayor Kristina Kepner is another prominent LGBT activist. Kristine Larson, another key executive, heads the “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) bureau, which essentially functions as an LGBT office. Remarkably, Larson earns an even higher salary than the deputy mayor. Together, these three individuals have a combined annual salary exceeding $1.2 million.

For the average white American, this trio symbolizes incompetence, favoritism, and systemic corruption. It is clear that the city’s fire department, which struggled with fires last year, was similarly unprepared for this fire, both structurally and operationally incapacitated. While the LGBT lobby is not the sole cause, it is evident that some of the department’s energy and resources are being diverted in this direction. Another problem stemming from this situation is the lack of motivation and skilled personnel caused by perceived injustices in promotions based on “diversity.” Adding to this is the almost non-existent number of firefighting aircraft, resulting in a terrible chain of negligence under an ineffective administration.

Another major issue lies in the scarcity of water resources and their mismanagement. Janisse Quiñones, head of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, announced that the city’s water reserves allocated for firefighting were depleted within hours. Despite managing an organization with 11,000 employees and earning an annual salary of $750,000, Quiñones faced heavy criticism for failing to provide water to fire hydrants shortly after the crisis began. But what is the root cause of this water shortage? At this point, an industrial giant enters the picture: The Wonderful Company.

Founded by Lynda and Steward Resnick, whose personal wealth is estimated at around $8 billion, this massive agricultural company controls land four times the size of San Francisco (approximately 2,400 km²). A portion of their fruit orchards alone spans 70,000 hectares (700 km²). One out of every two households in America uses at least one product from this company. Their portfolio includes the famous Fiji bottled water, POM-branded orange and pomegranate juices, Halos-brand mandarins, Wonderful-brand pistachios, and Teleflora, a giant in the floral industry. Naturally, an agricultural enterprise of this scale demands an enormous amount of water.

How has the company managed to meet this need for years? This is where a troubling tale of corruption and the siphoning of public resources through legal loopholes emerges.

California’s water reserves are highly unpredictable, shaped by the amount of rainfall the state receives. In some years, heavy rainfall results in a surplus of water, while in drier years, the state suffers from severe water shortages. To address this issue, the state has constructed large reservoirs in the form of ponds to store water. This system, which had functioned with relative efficiency up to that point, underwent a significant transformation in 1994.

In that year, representatives from private sector companies and officials from the California Municipal Water Authority held secretive meetings, resulting in a document publicly known as the Monterey Plus Agreement (TMPA). Prior to this agreement, existing laws had allowed natural water resources to be nationalized during droughts or times of need, making them accessible to the public, while irrigation of agricultural lands was a secondary priority. The new regulation, however, required water resources tied to land ownership to be purchased from the private sector and sold to the public.

As a result, private entities owning water resources gained the right to withhold water sales or, if they chose to sell, to set the price at their discretion. Moreover, the water being sold did not need to physically exist—it could be theoretically accounted for on paper and still be sold for profit. Consequently, resources that were once publicly owned were transferred to private companies’ ownership and control through this regulation.

The issue becomes even more intriguing in the next stage. Westside Mutual, a subsidiary of The Wonderful Company, holds a significant share in the sale of water resources. The company’s director, William Phillimore, also serves as the top executive of the Kern County Water Resources Authority, one of the state’s most critical water sources. Through this and similar subsidiaries, the Resnick family controls nearly 60% of California’s water resources.

However, in recent years, California residents have only been able to access 5% of the water they requested to purchase from the Resnicks. Interestingly, while agriculture accounts for just 2% of California’s GDP—a state whose revenues are predominantly driven by high-tech industries such as Silicon Valley—agricultural enterprises control nearly 80% of the state’s natural water resources.

Of course, the Resnicks’ actions have been the subject of numerous lawsuits and legal disputes. However, these challenges have not altered the status quo. The couple has maintained a positive public image, thanks to their philanthropy and various public relations campaigns. Yet, their true influence stems from the politicians they generously support through substantial campaign donations. For instance, Senator Dianne Feinstein (whose birth name is Dianne Emiel Goldman), chair of the Energy and Water Subcommittee, is a close ally of the Resnick family.

The couple has also made significant donations to the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), funding the preparation of technical reports on water resource management. Their latest pet project involves diverting Northern California’s water supplies to Central California via tunnels. Coincidentally, The Wonderful Company owns major agricultural lands in this very region.

It’s worth opening a Hollywood parenthesis here. Two prominent Hollywood productions offer a detailed portrayal of the absurdities surrounding this situation. One is the 1974 film Chinatown, and the other is the third season of the series Goliath. The latter is particularly striking as it depicts corruption and societal decay almost identically (albeit under a more plausible drought scenario rather than fires). Goliath vividly and intricately portrays the growing entanglements of corruption and issues within California’s valley.

One of the show’s screenwriters, Jonathan Shapiro, is a well-known prosecutor and attorney of Jewish descent. The other, David E. Kelly, although raised in a Protestant family, frequently incorporates strong Jewish characters into his scripts. It’s a landscape that warrants detailed analysis in its own right.

So, what unites the significant figures mentioned? The Resnick family and Senator Feinstein, like many of the city’s prominent individuals, are of Jewish descent and Zionist affiliation. After New York, California is the most critical region where the Jewish community wields immense political and economic power despite being small in number compared to the overall population. There is no need to elaborate on the strategic and technological importance of a state where they hold near-absolute sway over political and economic decision-making mechanisms.

In summary, sunnatullah (divine order) continues to operate in California as it does everywhere else: the destruction brought about by political corruption—symbolizing institutional decay—marches hand in hand with the most visible face of moral corruption, Woke culture. California, as the epicenter of advanced technology and media campaigns against Palestine and the Islamic world, is being consumed by Zionism—the very force driving its corruption—like a parasite devouring the host it inhabits.

Thus, it is undeniable: Palestine’s anguish burned California to ashes. However, the mechanisms and dynamics of this process are equally illustrative. By the time the West realizes that the parasite it nurtured is now consuming its own structure, it may already be too late. Indeed, over the last two centuries, the West has depleted the moral superiority and institutional legitimacy underpinning its cultural hegemony. Remarkably, this decline was expedited within just 18 months through its defense of Zionism. As the Arabs say: sometimes, the magic ends up controlling the magician.