While an in-depth update on the situation in Gaza and the broader Israel genocidal campaign against Palestinians seems overdue, any full-bore treatment would quickly become emotionally numbing due to extent and savagery of the killing, maiming, and torture of Palestinians. That is before getting to the destruction of Palestinian society by destroying its institutions: its mosques, universities, schools, and hospitals.
As we’ll also cover briefly, the Biden Administration is trying to have it both ways with voters, pretending to Do Something via verbal wet noodle-love-taps. The latest was a cynical resolution at the UN which pretended to be a ceasefire resolution but a reading of the details showed it to be anything but. However, the US got to play virtuous victim when China and Russia vetoed it.
In the meantime, despite Israel’s continuing success in wiping out weak and defenseless Gazans, with a policy of starvation now doing most of the heavy lifting, the Israeli army continues to look like a paper tiger. As we’ll discuss, it is short on material and is increasingly dependent on a US which has drained its reserves in the Ukraine war. That is separate from the points often made by Scott Ritter, that the IDF is also operationally third-rate, with its air force the one arguable exception.
First, to the continuing horror on the ground. A solid, although therefore grim, sighting comes via the must-read Intercept story, “MAN-MADE HELL ON EARTH”: A CANADIAN DOCTOR ON HIS MEDICAL MISSION TO GAZA. The subject is Dr. Yasser Khan, an ophthalmologist specializing in eyelid and reconstructive facial surgery, who has taught and performed surgery in 45 countries in humanitarian settings. As many other doctors who have served in Gaza attest, he has never seen anything approaching the trauma and horror he witnessed there. A few snippets from Dr. Kahn:
What we’d been seeing livestreamed on Instagram, on social media or whatever, I actually saw myself and it was worse than I can imagine…
Doctors have been kidnapped, and, yes, they have been tortured. They dehumanize the doctors and health care workers when they capture them. We’ve seen pictures of them, so we know this happens, and it does indeed happen. A few of the doctors went through torture, and one doctor that came back, he’s a general surgeon, he came back, I was speaking to his wife, and he’s not the same anymore. He was tortured and he still has torture marks over his body, and he’s a general surgeon….These doctors when they come back, the few that are released, there’s still a lot that are under custody with the Israeli forces, they’re not the same anymore…..
I’m an eye surgeon, an eye plastic surgeon, and so I saw the classic, what I penned “the Gaza shrapnel face,” because in an explosive scenario, you don’t know what’s coming. When there’s an explosion, you don’t go like this [cover your face], you kind of actually, in fact, open your eyes. And so shrapnel’s everywhere. It’s a well-known fact that the Israeli forces are experimenting [with] weapons in Gaza to boost their weapon manufacturing industry. Because if a weapon is battle-tested, it’s more valuable, isn’t it? It’s got a higher value. So basically they’re using these weapons, these missiles that purposely, intently create these large shrapnel fragments that go everywhere. And they cause amputations that are unusual.
Dr. Khan performed surgeries to remove eyes of multiple children wounded in Israeli strikes, calling the injuries “the Gaza shrapnel face.”
Most amputations occur at the weak points, the elbow or the knee, and so they’re better tolerated. But these [shrapnel fragments] are causing mid-thigh, mid-arm amputations that are more difficult, more challenging, and also the rehabilitation afterward is also more challenging. Also these shrapnels [are] unlike a bullet wound. A bullet wound goes in and out; there’s an entry and exit point. Shrapnel stays there. So you gotta take it out. So the injuries I saw were — I mean, I saw people with their eyes blown apart. And when I was there, and this is my experience, I treated all children when I was there the first time. It was kids that [were aged] 2, 6, 9, 10, 13, 15, and 16, and 17 were the ones that I treated. And their eyes unfortunately had to be removed. They had shrapnel in their eye sockets that I had to remove and, of course, remove the eye. There’s many patients, many children who had shrapnel in both their eyes. And you can only do so much because right now, because of the aid blockade and because of the destruction of most of Gaza, there’s no equipment available to take shrapnel that’s in the eye out. And so we just leave them alone and they eventually go blind.And so I saw these facial injuries, I saw limbs of children just kind of hanging off, barely connected. I saw abdominal wounds where you had, of course, the intestines exposed
He also describes how the child amputees, even when not subject to multiple amputations due to infection, can’t be treated so as to be fitted for a prosthetic….charitably assuming they survive and there is money and for that:
The thing is that in any normal amputation, in a normal circumstance, a child who gets amputated goes through about eight or nine operations until they’re adults, to revise the stump and fix the stump. Who is going to do that now? Not only have they lost their supports, their entire family structure, they don’t have the family structure or the infrastructure to do that because it’s all been destroyed.
We had pointed out early on, even while the IDF was bombing Gaza hard, that they had done enough damage to infrastructure, as in destroying shelter and cutting off the electricity for water transport and purification (at that point they had not struck treatment plants…I assume that has happened) that the IDF could let nature run its course and let disease, starvation, and dehydration finish off the Gaza population. Israel now appears to be relying primarily on that approach, even though it is still targeting key facilities like the last remaining pretty functional hospital and also noising up its plan to attack Rafah, as in kill more Palestinians by military means if Egypt, as expected, continues to refuse to enable the ethnic cleansing by letting them enter Egypt.
To underscore that the starvation is intended, in case you harbored any doubt, see the Guardian in Israel will no longer approve Unrwa food aid to northern Gaza, agency says:
The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, said on Sunday that Israel had definitively barred it from making aid deliveries in northern Gaza, where the threat of famine is highest…
Last week a UN-backed food security assessment warned that famine was projected to hit the north of Gaza by May unless there was urgent intervention. Unrwa has not been able to deliver food to the north since 29 January, [Unrwa spokesperson, Juliette] Touma said.
Some representative commentary:
Obvious enough yet?
Just as the IPC – the global authoritative institution for hunger assessment – determined that all of North Gaza is in "catastrophe" famine status (where "starvation, death, destitution and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels are evident"), with… pic.twitter.com/m5437lWiSX
— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) March 25, 2024
And to fill out the picture of Zionist savagery:
There is now overwhelming evidence of rape and sexual assault of Palestinians by Israeli forces in Gaza, and of sexual abuse of Palestinian kids in the West Bank.
Notice the deafening silence on this.
Why?
Because they don’t see Palestinian women and kids as humans. pic.twitter.com/X5yqelgqQm
— Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) March 24, 2024
The latest Judge Napolitano interview of former Colonel Larry Wilkerson prominently featured a fresh example of US cynicism, that of proposing a UN “ceasefire” resolution that was anything but.
Starting at 1:15:
Napolitano: This is quite a turnabout for the United States…The United States of course offered a resolution for an immediate and long-term ceasefire. It included a condemnation of Hamas…The one this morning was vetoed by Russia and China….What kind of a sea-shift in thinking would there be to…for…Joe Biden and Tony Blinken to authorize this resolution in what must have been defiance of the Israeli donor clasa?
Wilkerson: I think it’s a little more sophisticated than that. I don’t mean that term in the positive sense. They didn’t demand a cease fire. What they did was they demanded a determination of a process to get to a ceasefire. If you parse the language really closely, and what you see there, and this is why the Russians vetoed it, particularly the Russians but others too, and I’m not talking about the current five but the big fifteen on the Security Council. What they did following that was define what [it] would mean to determine the process [interrupts self] this is pure Blinkenese, and to a certain extent Bidenese, determine the process to get there, and that process would be orchestrated and demanded and would confine itself to what had happened with the United States’ diplomatic process. Now that’s a convoluted way of saying that Israel and the United States will determine the process that determines the ceasefire.
Napolitano: Well, that’s not a ceasefire!
Wilkerson: No, absolutely not. And there’s another aspect. They backed off their strong statement that they should not go into Rafah with major military force. Just completely nullified that.
There is a wild card here, in that despite overwhelming sympathy among the Muslim “street” for the Palestinians, and frustration that governments have not acted, the reality, as many commentators have pointed out, is that none of these governments want to initiate a war, given that their countries, particularly the one most able to do so, Hezbollah as a part of the government in Lebanon, are in no position to endure the material and economic cost.
But as Alastair Crooke has stressed, the Resistance actually is in a slow boil, attritional conflict, with the Houthis taking the most visible, frontal action and Hezbollah pressuring Israel with its cross-border strikes, imposing costs on Israel by preventing the return of families near the Lebanon border to their homes and communities. Crooke has argued that the Resistance members worked out some time ago that both the US and Israel had organized their affairs so as to conduct short, intense, air-attack driven conflicts, and not to endure a protracted grind. We’ve featured occasional discussions of how the war is inflicting serious, and increasingly, lasting damage on Israel’s economy. Many businesses have shuttered or are operating at reduced levels. If that persists too long, they lose staffers and customers permanently. Similarly, a story last week reported that a large majority of the Israelis that decamped Israel shortly after October 7 planned not to return. That again is a permanent loss of productive and consumption capacity.
But will uprisings force some countries to take a more frontal posture with Israel? If so, what form might that take? See for instance:
BREAKING | Jordanian security forces deploy gas bombs to suppress protesters heading towards the Israeli embassy in condemnation of the kingdom's normalization and complicity in the war on Gaza. pic.twitter.com/v5KGnXrzHp
— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) March 24, 2024
In the meantime, another way the attritional Resistance strategy is exposing Israeli weakness is on the military front. See this story from The New Arab, Israeli army forced to use ‘1970s’ munitions amid shortages at start of Gaza war. Keep in mind that even though the story presents itself as presenting conditions at the outset of the conflict, when Israel had limited and too often old armaments stocks. However, there is no good reason to think the situation has improved much. Even though Israel’s needs are presumably lower than those of Ukraine, we know Ukraine has come close to cleaning out the entire Collective West cupboard.
Note further its mention of 155 mm missile shortages. The article does not mention a point sometimes made by Scott Ritter: the tubes wear out under high use and need to be replace. What are those inventories like? From The New Arab:
Israel’s army was forced to use outdated weapons and arms equipment as the army found itself inadequately prepared at the start of the war in Gaza…
In the first months of the war, the army, ill-prepared to fight, faced a munitions shortage that forced units to deploy 1950s-era shells, causing an “operational nightmare”.
Israeli daily Haaretz spoke to a reservist who described the chaos as Hamas’ incursion into southern Israel on October 7 took the military by surprise.
“There was a crazy shortage of equipment and the canons we had weren’t all in working order. Some worked, some were half dead,” the reservist told the newspaper.
The war has also seen Israel drop an unprecedented number of bombs on Gaza in just five months which has destroyed 35 percent of the territory’s infrastructure and killed 32,000 Palestinians…
Though Israel has a sophisticated arms industry, it also relies on the United States for large portions of its weapons supplies..
Artillery units scrambling to defend themselves against attacks from Hamas battalions were left to use “munitions dating back to the 1950s” which were in poor condition and produced “unusually high quantities of smoke that made it difficult for crews to fire for prolonged periods of time”, the Haaretz article noted.
In keeping with NATO standards, Israel uses “one of the world’s most wanted” 155mm artillery shells for its howitzer guns, a type of long-range artillery weapon which looks like a cannon.
Some of the cannons being used in the war originate from deals made with the US army in the 1970s, according to the Haaretz article.
These shells have seen huge price rises as demand has soared across the world in recent years, and Israel’s defence ministry signed a multi-million-dollar contract with Israeli weapons firm Elbit Systems which has factories in Britain, to produce these shells…
Other soldiers interviewed by Haaretz spoke of shortages of munitions from overfiring, and instances whereby officers told troops to preserve shells in case of flare ups in different areas of Gaza.
The soldier also mentioned that irregular shipments of munitions caused ‘chaos,’ noting an occasion when a unit received munitions marked “for training only” on the shells
We also have this interesting development, from Almayadeen Hezbollah drones deal precise hits to two Iron Dome launchers (hat tip Kevin W):
The Islamic Resistance in Lebanon – Hezbollah announced that its fighters launched two suicide drones at two Iron Dome launchers in the Israeli “Kfar Blum” military site at 12:20 pm (local time), dealing precise hits to the targets…
Earlier today, Hezbollah launched its operations at noon by engaging the Israeli “Ramim” barrack using artillery shells.
The Resistance also targeted the Israeli espionage equipment at al-Radar site in the occupied Lebanese Shebaa Farms at 1:10 pm, using accurate weapons and dealing precise hits to the target.
At 01:15 pm, Hezbollah further targeted the Israeli Bayad Blida post.
In parallel, Israeli occupation forces continued to target villages in south Lebanon as they shelled an area between Alma al-Shaab and al-Dhayrah, in addition to the Wadi al-Saluki and the outskirts of Kfar Kila, Kfar Chouba, and Jabal al-Sadana, according to our correspondent…
Amid Hezbollah’s strike on “Kfar Blum”, Israeli media expressed fear over the absence of deterrence against the operations launched by the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon, stressing that the absence of any warning before these operations is a “real problem”
Before the operation on “Kfar Blum”, the sirens were not activated, which led to a fire in the area as there was no chance to take appropriate emergency measures, Israeli media added.
Israeli media also reported that Israeli circles view the attack on ‘Kfar Blum” with great seriousness and caution, explaining that its results cannot be published.
Alastair Crooke has said that the Hebrew press has often had stories of unfavorable military deveopments, particularly IDF deaths, quickly yanked by the censors. So the lack of confirmation from the Israel side as to the effectiveness of the strikes on the Iron Dome platforms does not mean they did not draw some blood. But the fact that Hezbollah did appear to hit them is serious in and of itself.
The further question is whether these strikes are the most that Hezbollah can do now, or a warning of what might be in store?
We’ll stop here, since this is an overly dynamic situation and dwelling too much on current new information runs the risk of losing sight of bigger patterns. But in light of the above, Israel’s insistence on attacking Rafah and its increasing saber-rattling with Lebanon looks destructively reckless, or at best based on undue faith that the US can bail them out of whatever conflagration they set off.
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Many thanks for this assessment, Yves Smith. Who would have thought that Naked Capitalism, which was founded as a blog about economics and political economy, would now be a leading blog on public health and analysis of war?
Yet as Randolph Bourne wrote, War is the health of the state. At this point, the U S of A is engaged in a single, long, rather successful imperial war. War is the health of the empire. Until it isn’t. For now, though, genocide is just one more technique. Heck, it worked on the Armenians.
The war in Palestine / Israel is a continuation of wars for domination that have gone on for quite some time. In the Mediterranean world, we have recently been treated to Yugoslavia, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine / Israel. The grueling descriptions of the wounded children from the ophthalmologist above are a reminder of Madeleine Albright, who wanted to use that exquisite army, and who didn’t care about the deaths of 500,000 children in Iraq. Note that in the U S of A, the deaths of 300,000 Ukrainian soldiers and the wounding of 500,000 has yet to register with the general population.
Just as Trump is a classic case of management by chaos, U.S. foreign policy is domination by chaos. Until chaos no longer works as a tactic.
I often recommend Kaputt by Curzio Malaparte. We have reached the chapter about the brothel for German soldiers whose inhabitants were enslaved young Jewish women, who were used for a few weeks till they were worn out. Then they were killed.
It isn’t that the situation is “reversed”–it’s that the situation is the same. The depredations of the powerful.
And I will remind you that the last line of the book is: The flies won.
Israel and the West have unleashed the greatest evil in my lifetime. It’s unthinkable that they get away with this.
All over the world, governments are more worried about the business interests of oligarchs.
And all over the world, these same players are seeing what carnage they too will be able to get away with in their own countries.
Yes. Khashoggi murder illustrates what money can buy – impunity for MBS – as the world looks on, then seems to forget. And in Gaza? Kushner’s comments indicate the direction planned – Gaza will be “cleared out” and we’ll all be looking at waterfront condos. And the US supports this? Funds this? It cannot be allowed.
Israel, supported by its lapdog Biden, is unleashing a horror one thought would be unimaginable well into the 21st century. To think my country, and tax dollars, permit this to happen fills me with disgust. We live in a world run by sociopaths, who choose to ignore the threat of nuclear annihilation and out-of-control climate change, as they try to fulfill their needs of infantile aggression at the expense of the rest of us.
The Mosaad, CIA, NSA, MI5, Bundesnachrichtendiens conglomerate comprises a horrendously hellish creature that has taken over the body politic of the West. Expelling that parasitic monster (and sometimes symbiont) would ultimately kill the host state.
Why doesn’t Israel just drop a Neutron bomb off the Gaza coast, thereby killing everyone who will die in agony, but property will not be damaged nor irradiated so that God’s chosen developers can build more seaside resorts without the interference of the human animals in their way?
THAT’S SARCASM in case any bible thumping yokels take it seriously. I’m starting to admore the Jewish religous types who actually are fighting their own government and want to coexist with Palestinians. There are a few.
It’s odd but this former Obama, Bernie voter is going to vote for Trump, the lessor of all evils.
Supporting Trump will all but guarantee the collapse of civilization as Trump reverses every effort by the Biden administration to reduce emissions and slow the extraordinarily unprecedented rapid increases in temperature that will trigger irreversible tipping points throughout the planet as the world crosses the 1.5° threshold.
This will guarant dystopia for every single person on the planet for centuries to come. And that’s not my opinion that’s what the best science says.
Of course there are dozens of other policies that Trump will institute or reverse which will harm the welfare of every person on the planet particularly those in countries like the Middle East. The only country in the Middle East other than Saudi Arabia that will benefit from a Trump presidency will be Israel.
So whose side are you really on by supporting Trump?
I understand. I feel the same way and I HATE the Clintons but let me posit at least one reason why Biden is better. I regularly read Matt Stoller’s newsletter “Big”. In the most recent issue he lists all of the actions the Biden administration has been and is undertaking to tackle monopoly. He specifically lists Lina Khan’s great work at the FCC. You can bet good money that all of this will disappear once Trump comes in. The Israel Lobby is an insidious force in the USA. The support Biden gives them is forcing Progressives to more or less cut off our nose to spite our face. We can throw Biden out because of Gaza but along with him we are throwing out a lot of good that is happening at least in a few areas of the administration. I don’t know how I am going to vote but I am really angry that this kind of a choice is being forced on us by the Democrats.
Trump has made it clear that he supports Israel even more than Biden. So, naturally, does his son-in-law, who has his eye on developing Gaza.
Even RFK, Jr. supports Israel, possibly because his father was killed by a pro-Palestinian radical. I don’t suppose it’s easy to forget that, but on the other hand he’s blind to the reality of what’s happening today.
So none of the major candidates support the Palestinians; they all support Israel. It’s an appalling situation that, like you, I find insupportable.
The result is that I’l vote for RFK in the primary (I’m in New York, so my vote won’t count but may conceivably send a signal of some sort). If I vote at all–again, I’m in New York, so my vote won’t count–I’ll hold my nose, vote for Lina Khan via Biden, and go home shaking with rage.
RFKJr had read Lisa Pease’s book about his father’s assassination, which conclusively showed that the fatal shot came from closely behind RFK, whereas Sirhan Sirhan was about 6 feet in front. I believe he actually wrote letters supporting release of Sirhan Sirhan.
But he cowardly said nothing when Rabbi Schmuley “Kosher Buttplug” Boteach say next to him and accused Sirhan Sirhan of the foul deed. RFKJr’s position on Israel has a lot more to do with his wife’s Hollywood connections and his campaign manager daughter-in-law’s Zionist billionaire stepfather. And maybe Epstein did have something on him after all.
Please consider voting for Stein. She’s not perfect but just listen to her speak for 30 minutes. If your votes won’t matter anyways, at least use it to try and build an alternative.
An earlier alarm came from The Intercept with the increasingly frequent acronym, WCNSF, Wounded Child No Surviving Family.
The independent media that have dared deliver honest accounts MUST be supported if the general public is to have a chance to see beyond the unprecedented, successful blanketing with deadly false narratives. I don’t “do” social media and I hope that avenue is adequate to this crisis.
Even with individual low income situations, as in my case, there are things we can do, are doing, and connections we can share. Many thanks to all who keep this a dynamic and clear channel!
Israel, and by extension the US, is playing with fire with potentially disastrous consequences. What is happening is a massive, inter-generational splintering of American Jewry.
My parents, and their generation, the post-WWII, post holocaust, generation were Jewish-Americans.
My cohort were raised in this shadow. We lost family, knew death camp survivors, watched the 67 and 73 wars (I was at the pro Israel protests at the UN as a teen), heard in temple about the critical need for Israel. We raised money to plant trees. But, we are American-Jews. We began to question. We are more than conflicted by the settlements. We have great difficulty squaring the treatment of Palestinians with the ideals of Judaism.
Our children have assimilated. They are two generations removed from the horrors of the Shoah. They are, or have, turned against Israel as it currently exists. The ultra-orthodox, political government of Israel is a problem.
The era of Israel no matter what is over, no matter what AIPAC thinks and tries to do.
What exactly do you mean by “the ideals of Judaism”?
The Talmud is the basis of Judaism, and the Talmud says: “Even the best of the goyim should all be killed.” (Soferim 15)
Netanyahu has publicly identified his Palestinian adversaries as the tribe of Amalek, whom the Hebrew God had commanded be exterminated down to the last newborn baby.
Moreover, polls show that more than 80% of “israeli” Jews support their government’s extremely harsh military measures, hoping to see all the Palestinians killed or expelled.
So, the way I see this is that the treatment of Palestinians is exactly in line with the ideals of Judaism and with those of the “israeli” Jews.
Torah Judiasm’s Twitter account regularly cites text that contradicts that section, and there seems to be a lot of it.
See some of their tweets:
AFAIK, those Jews belong to the small sect called “Neturei Karta”, and they are indeed against what “israel” is doing. In fact, they are against the existence of “israel” because the state will only be created by Yahweh once their Messiah (Moshiach) comes to Earth.
So, jumping the gun and pushing Yahweh’s timeline, as the Zios have done, is a gross violation of Yaheweh’s will.
The Jews shown in those tweets belong, if I am not mistaken, to the Neturei Karta.
Now if only they would translate their talk into actionable involvement.
Since the Torah/Old Testament is a crudely redacted collection of disparate ancient folk lore, you can quote mine it for support for pretty much any position. You can also quote mine opposing verses to ‘disprove’ other verses. There’s simply no coherent throughline to begin with.
Maybe people shouldn’t use bronze age myths as a moral guide.
“Religion poisons everything.”
— Christopher Hitchens
Not to defend the Israelis in any way, but the Torah is the basis of Judaism; the Talmud is commentary and analysis.
The “Judaism” that we have been taught in movies, cartoons, novels, songs…… was destroyed on August 4, 70 A.D. (1,947 years ago), when the Romans destroyed the Second Temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The genealogical records (who is who?), the sacrificial alter, the Temple scribes, priests, functionaries, libraries, were wiped from the Earth.
The rabbis had to re-invent Judaism via new revelations from god ….. The Oral Law.
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2056/jewish/The-Oral-Law.htm
“The Oral Law includes all that Moses learned from G‑d by heart which he did not write down, but transmitted orally to his successors. This tradition passed on from generation to generation….
….In the 3rd century CE, (300 years after the destruction of the 2nd Temple) Rabbenu Hakadosh realized that because of growing hardships and persecutions the Jews might not be able to retain by memory all these traditional laws, so he decided to record them…..”
All denominations of Judaism believe in the Oral Law, except the Karaites who are strictly Old Testament followers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karaite_Judaism
You inserted “new revelations”. That is not the traditional view. As per your chabad link, the traditional belief is that the oral law was part of the original revelation at Sinai but was not written down until the Talmud.
Doesn’t the Old Testament have that verse where Samuel tells Saul to kill ALL the Amalekites and he disobeys and spares the women and children?
there is a faction of judaism that believes in deplorable stuff. there is also a faction of christianity, islam, hinduism, buddhism,… that believes in deplorable stuff.
That faction in Judaism is rather big.
Lots of stuff in ancient texts is no longer relevant but you cut the sentence in half. It says “kill the best of the heathens when at war”. That’s not great, but it’s very different to randomly killing people. Your quote is disingenuous. Also, this section of the Talmud discusses many controversial teachings of the various rabbis. That is the point of the text. There are arguments against some of these pronouncements. The Talmud is unique in religious literature in that it contains conflicting views and opinions and that is often forgotten by those with no background learning of the Talmud. One Rabbi in this section, for example, claims that most worthy women engage in witchcraft. It’s all a bit bizarre if you don’t understand the context. The conclusion is “happy is he who follows the ways of G-d”. So essentially, despite all these strange teachings from some esteemed rabbis, stick to the law and do what is good and right and codified in religious law.
One hopes. It’s time for “never again” to mean something. And it needs to be prominent Jewish Americans and not just the easily ignored. Bernie for example could go much further but then there’s that generational thing. As for assimilation, one should note that people in Netanyahu’s camp consider assimilation to be another form of extermination since Jewishness is being diluted and therefore Zionism itself–the only thing they really care about, not Jews–is being undermined.
Some of us here have argued that ideas don’t run the world but surely bad ideas do have power since they appeal to the worst in us as social beings. And exceptionalism–as Americans, whites, Jews or whatever–is a bad idea since it negates the scientific reality of our human commonality. The hypocrites who go on about white supremacy and then ignore that very thing when it happens in Israel need to be called out. Perhaps the worst aspect of the whole situation is that it needs a vast amount of propaganda–lying–to sustain it.
Speaking as a Jew living in the USA,
1) I’m uncomfortable raising the issue online, as our “suffering” is vastly less than the actual suffering taking place. I have older relatives complaining about a rise in anti-semitism, that is a very small issue relative to the actual issue, in Gaza.
2) American Jews don’t actually matter. I think that’s a convenient myth. I’ve seen analyses of the importance of the Jewish vote, I think it’s BS. Their votes don’t matter, their opinions don’t matter, the fact younger American Jews might be less zionist doesn’t matter. What does matter is the opinion of some Jewish billionaires (a couple hundred?), largely living in NY, Florida, California, and Illinois. I suspect that 100% of them are zionist. As in the Saban and Adelson families.
I fear irredentism will serve those families nearly as well as Zionism has. Israel’s going to burn and they’ll be fine.
“Jewish votes” cannot possibly matter since there aren’t too many of them and are concentrated largely in non competitive states, not to mention very heterogeneous in their worldviews.
“Jewish lobby,” like other small and dedicated groups with ample monetary and organizational resources (to some cause or another), do punch well above their weight. Not sure if it’s nearly as powerful as people think. I don’t think money is their key strength: they are not the richest lobby out there, after all, and contra what people think, money does not buy votes (unconditionally). They matter in part because of sympathetic inattention by huge numbers of people (which has been at least partially blown off by what’s taking place now–this is where money matters somewhat, but it’d take a lot of money, if at all possible, to repair the reputational damage Israel suffered.) and the presence of a large number of non-Jewish allies with their own agendas: among the voters, the Evangelicals; in gov’t, a lot of military/spook/state dept types. The former bodes ill for a role of “Jewish lobby” in the Dem Party. The “government professionals,” well, that’s probably a different problem that is going to persist for a long time. Still, the incompetence that the Israelis have shown since last October has to make Western gov’t types reevaluate how valuable Israel is to their goals.
Justin and Matteo had a discussion on the Lobby that might be interesting for you. https://youtu.be/xinpmW2zRr4?si=TUDlf9fRos15JQp2
“NY Times Uncovers New Details of Hamas Raping and Mutilating Israeli Women”
is the banner headline of an add posted on this page no less than four times. Quite a stark dichotomy between this and the article.
I went searching thinking some new disinfo was published by the NYT despite the reported internal rebellion in the paper’s news department against such lies pushed by management, then noticed it is an ad thoughtfully placed to deceive us. Bob Dylan in his earlier days declared, “Money doesn’t talk, it swears.” Thanks again, young Bob.
Has the NYT provided any coverage of the intentional assassination of 3 senior Gazan policemen, 2 heads of prominent North Gaza families, and 23 aid distribution workers who had managed the one non-massacre food distribution in northern Gaza in months? Or that multiple credible witnesses have come forth to report summary executive and rape of women in Al Shifa in the last few? In one case a pregnant woman was raped in front her family including her children, who were told that they would be shot if they looked away.
As Professor John Mearsheimer has correctly pointed out, the MSM and the foreign policy establishment are joined at the hip. Has anyone seen Mearsheimer, Jeffery Sachs, Ray McGovern etc. on MSM let alone hear their views. Yet the Sunday “News” programs have Netanyahu on nearly every week along with all the usual supporters of Zionism. Jeffery Sachs has tried to write an op-ed in NYT and they refused to publish it. I wrote a comment to a NYT op-ed saying that to commit the their punishment of the Palestinians they have dehumanized them. The NYT refused to print it. This is the way it works in our “democracy.” People I know who rely solely on MSM have a very different view of reality.
One of the things I have always been puzzled about is, why is there never any analysis of how much wealth in the USA is controlled by dual citizens of Israel living here? What exactly would be wrong about such an analysis especially given the solid proof of the existence and sway of the Lobby? How much of the MSM is owned and controlled by them? We can understand the motivation of the politicians to cravenly support the slaughter in Gaza because of the Lobby money but what motivates the MSM? Advertising dollars? Well then, follow the trail of those dollars. If most of those dollars speak Yiddish then don’t we have a problem in our national body politic?
Thank you very much for this timely article and update. It seems at times this war on civilians is being ignored.
Unfortunately there isn’t a solution offered in mainstream American politics. Trump might be willing to stop the carnage in Ukraine but he would be just as bad in Gaza and perhaps worse. He would surely see the value of developing sea side hotels and resorts. I was shocked by how even Tulsi Gabbert was toeing the extremist Republican party line in her last speech regarding Israel.
I had Democrat friends at one time but if there are any left they just haven’t had their turn to be abused yet. When we marched against the war in Vietnam we thought we were marching against the war. Upon reflection I think we were marching against being drafted and dying there. The rank and file have no problem with genocide as long as they can live well. I see no sign of the “quiet lives of desperation” on their faces.
I also believed with Shrillary’s defeat in 2016 the party had a chance to reform itself much like the tea party radicalized the Republicans. Instead it has doubled down and I expect a repeat of the same playbook this year.
Whatever change we get in US politics has to come from the Dems: I think the two really important assets that Israel has in US are its political allies, the Evangelicals (not important in the Dem Party) and “policy professionals” (very much part of the Dem Party). Take the latter out of the equation, we solve a lot of problems.
No, the change comes from you and me. Neither the dems or republicams will help. Hoping for impossibilities means giving up.
There are other ways to make change than voting and hoping for politicians to keep their promises this time
There are other ways than voting to make change, true. And we should keep making change in all those ways, as best we can . . . both all and some. But that doesn’t mean we should give up voting altogether.
Gallup polls regularly on “Party Affiliation”:
https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx
And for years now, more of those polled say they identify with neither the Democrats nor the Republicans than with either one.
The Green Party is against genocide in Gaza and against the unquiet on the Western front in [the] Ukraine. We want to stop the slaughters. We are on the ballot in over 20 states already — states where we can and do nominate candidates at all levels — and counting. (If you want to see where, see here. Or for the ballot status of GPUS Presidential front-runner Jill Stein’s campaign, see here.)
I urge any and every US voter who recognizes that these horrors mean they cannot give their vote to either Biden or Trump: vote Green.
Doing so will *NOT* help either of those evils be first past the post ahead of the other. It can help show us and all the other voters who want good choices that we are not alone.
If enough of us summon up the courage to vote our tortured, gaslighted (gaslit?) consciences . . . we can elect more Greens.
And who knows? If we keep it up. we could even prove John Lennon right. . . .
Tulsi Gabbard was evicted from the Democratic Party. So she has been auditioning for membership in the MAGApublican Party. I would still be surprised if she were foolish enough to accept any offer from Trump to be his VP running mate. Surely she is smart enough to know that she will be used and discarded just like every other willing tool of the Trumpster.
So she is playing a longer MAGAvangelical game.
Some pundit/Democratic web guru* on Twitter suggested that she’s RFK Jr’s VP pick, based on someone trying to register “kennedygabbard.com” only to find out that it had already been taken.
*While this has been done before, notably by Zach Exley to George W. Bush (leading Bush to declare, “There ought to be limits to freedom”), this guy may not have the guts or principles of Zach Exley. Exley linked to satiric anti-Gore websites in 2000 (as well as anti-Clinton and anti-Guliani for a time in 2000). Further, Exley backed Howard Dean in 2004 and Bernie Sanders in 2016.
I have linked the recent essay by Pankaj Mishra several times in recent days. It is a powerful statement and I will offer it again here. It was delivered as a London Review of Books (LRB) Winter Lecture on February 28, 2024.
The Shoah after Gaza
The youtube video of the address is here.
A podcast interview of Mishra by Adam Shatz is here
It is 7503 words, with not one word wasted, with perhaps a lone exception, in my view, of calling the Ukraine war revanchist. It is a quibble I will set entirely aside.
This powerful essay for me is a landmark of clarity. The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line, Dubois. The problem is still with us. But Mishra’s statement is broad and deep, while my words are feeble, I hope the essay will be shared and read widely.
Yes that is a good article in LRB. The six day war seems to have been a turning point in making Israel a more prominent part of US consciousness and foreign policy. The legacy of LBJ lingers on.
From Pankaj Mishra:
And in the same vein, Caitlin’s latest:
Ghost Town
“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
https://files.libcom.org/files/ursula-k-le-guin-the-ones-who-walk-away-from-omelas.pdf
sidd
Why does everything have to begin with Jewish trauma? Why is everything framed around ‘the Jews’ and their feelings and historical sufferings?
The Jewish State of Israel is overwhelmingly supported by the vast majority of world Jewry and they are genociding a people.
Everything needn’t be compared to WWII and Jews’ feelings about themselves and Israel.
Or does it?
Read the piece and it will answer your question. For sometime after WWII the extermination of 6 million Jews was not separated from the broader horrors of the era. But it was later separated explicitly by a group of actors underscored in the piece, as a means of entitlement for the forces coming into play.
The account is now overdrawn, essentially what Mishra is saying. And he says so much more. In the video, his soft voice and gentle bearing can seem to conceal the power of his words, and the outrage.
In my view, hiding behind a sense moral high ground with the holocaust will backfire.
Because he still wants to be invited to certain parties and speaking engagements. People like Nora Barrows Friedman, Ilan Pappe, and Miko Peled who can speak honestly and fully about Palestinian suffering and lies of Zionist historiography, are non-persons in Western “polite society”.
It is best to read the piece before commenting on another’s incomplete understanding of it.
Then you can decide for yourself.
It’s 7503 words and the address takes more than an hour. It is highly nuanced, but not in favor of the Zionists.
Even the first page should dispel myths of which side Mishra is on.
I skimmed it a couple days ago and just did again. I stand by my assessment. Like the above cited anti-Zionist Jews, I think the Shoah cannot be used to rationalize Zionism in any way. Nuance here is going into blind alleys when the basic facts are very clear. Israel is a genocidal western settler colony that never had any right to exist. The agreements that birthed it were illegal. Its founding was a massive crime. Its continued existence is a massive crime. Its society is tearing itself and Palestinian civilians apart in a final bout of genocidal madness and we can hope that they can exit largely peacefully without the Samson Option.
Spending so many column inches about nuance misses the forests for the trees. For someone like Caitlin Johnstone or Miko Peled, the forest is very clear.
For Mishra, it’s so complicated. It’s much easier to still be accepted by liberals if you talk a lot about how complicated it all is and not say a sentence about UN Resolution 194. I spent too much of my formative years reading articles like this, that flatters me into believing I’m intelligent, rather than actually help me understand the world.
Where was Mishra 5 months ago? Why is he still saying “the massacres and hostage-taking in Israel on 7 October by Hamas and other Palestinian groups” long after Israeli media confirmed that October 7 was a military operation and most civilian (not active member of the IDF, Shin Bet, or settlement security) were killed by indiscriminate IDF firing.
Skimming it doesn’t do. He mentions October 7 in the one sentence you quote. I’m not confident that I know what happened, except to not rely on anything the Israeli state says. And yes there have been substantial revelations countering the official line by Israeli media.
As for Resolution 194, it was by the general assembly, as was Resolution 181. Neither were technically binding. Though of course, the Zionist took the latter as a template for their plan Dalet, and ignored the former.
I’m on my second now very careful reading, there is a lot of good information. And Mishra definitely sees the forest.
Where was he five months ago? I don’t know, but he has read far more than I and I appreciate learning of it.
Where was I on October 7?
Here and here.
Two comments I made then here on NC, the second is a longish excerpt from Samith K. Farsoun / Naseer H. Aruri – Palestine and the Palestinians pages 97-100.
I like to have details in my mind, they help me understand the world.
I read Caitlin regularly and read and listen to others you have mentioned.
I’ve seen too much on the last 170 days that will haunt me for the rest of my life. So for now I focus on Palestinian rights, Palestinian victory, and Palestinian safety.
Whatever it is that drives Zionists to block food convoys, covet Palestinian homes, shoot hungry men trying to get flour for their children, murder doctors in front of their patients and rape women in front of their families… I truly don’t care what they think about an event that happened almost 80 years ago. I don’t need nuanced understanding or a fancy framing device around a long dead French mostly Zionist to know that they need to stop immediately and disgorge their ill gotten gains.
I appreciate your response. I think our first point of departure was whether Mishra would maintain a social standing among certain groups, polite society. I don’t know the full spectrum of Mishra’s social standing, but solely from the three links I first gave, his standing as a coherent interpreter of the facts from 1948 forward in Palestine should be high. It is with me. Perhaps a question was is he demonstrating sufficient outrage. The outrage is there. Mainly I was trying point out that there was more to the piece.
To limit your impression that Mishra only provided a: fancy framing device around a long dead French mostly Zionist to know that they [the Zionists] need to stop immediately and disgorge their ill gotten gains, and thus that the Zionists were the intended audience, suggests that you misread the remaining twelve pages. The Zionists are not his audience though they could do well to be so, and he says much more.
Every credible source can provide information, sometimes much of it. When one puts it together, and it can never be all the information, one has a fuller picture. I try to do that, and I share your rage, I scream every day.
I will leave Mishra aside while in addition to Nora Barrows Friedman (whom I listen to regularly on EI), Ilan Pappe (whom I watch whenever a new video comes along, and Miko Peled (whom I am impressed by), I greatly appreciate Norman Finkelstein, and in the video below, just now released, with Chris Hedges, Finkelstein is at his pinnacle:
Conversation on the Gaza Genocide with Norman Finkelstein and Chris Hedges – Princeton Students for Justice in Palestine
I appreciate your response. I have watched and read everything I could on Palestine, ramping up from some twenty years ago, even more, and completely ramped up the last 170 days, which have been gruesome. I scream and cry every day, and hardly can take much notice of any other event. Except that I think of the Palestinians: murdered, injured without proper facilities for care, driven from their homes and starved.
Mishra covers that with an approach and piece that is more than a fancy framing device around a long dead French mostly Zionist to know that they [the Zionists] need to stop immediately and disgorge their ill gotten gains, and thus that the Zionists were the intended audience, they are not his audience. They could do well to be so, but the Israeli chapter is hellbent on eliminating the Palestinians. The American chapter is firmly behind them, and it is noted.
I understand and share your rage.
Every credible source can provide information, sometimes much of it, but often with slightly different perspectives which also informs. No one is the source of all information. When one puts what one has together, and it can never be all the information, one has a nearer 3 dimensional understanding. I try to do that, as the picture becomes more and more grave.
I will leave Mishra aside. While in addition to Nora Barrows Friedman (whom I listen to regularly on EI), Ilan Pappe (whom I watch whenever a new video comes along), and Miko Peled (whom I am impressed by), I greatly appreciate Norman Finkelstein, and in the video below, just now released, with Chris Hedges, Finkelstein is at his pinnacle:
Conversation on the Gaza Genocide with Norman Finkelstein and Chris Hedges – Princeton Students for Justice in Palestine
Finkelstein knows well of being a non-person in polite circles.
I’ve commented about my thoughts about Finkelstein elsewhere here. I appreciate his role in documenting Israel crimes but he centers his discussions on Jews and Israel. He is dismissive of Hamas and other Palestinian resistance forces. He doesn’t think the Palestinians can win militarily and he’s dismissive of BDS.
The only thing he seems strongly supportive of was the Great March of Return, which was a catastrophe whose only positive outcome was killing the hope that Israeli or Western conscience would ever save the Palestinians. Finkelstein admitted himself that he was completely hopeless about the Palestinian cause after the failure of the Great March of Return.
So I just don’t think he has a very good read on the situation and he focuses too much on the Zionists and doesn’t really understand the Resistance.
Israeli media certainly did not confirm anything of the sort. Some people were killed by the IDF in cross fire etc. No-one with any credibility says ‘most’. The military action was a response to the attack.
They didn’t come out and say it, but the sort of footage of destruction on cars and houses was clearly from IDF weapons and not Hamas actions. Eye witness and IDF testimony are of free-fire zones where the IDF couldn’t tell Israelis and Hamas combatants apart. If the Israeli government would release much more information about the conditions and locations of the victims, it would be possible to have a better count, but instead they decided to bulldoze and bury the physical evidence.
It’s it normal military action to knowingly shoot blindly into cars and buildings with civilians in them? Then blame the other side for all the casualties and bring in a disreputable group like Zaka to not collect evidence but make up wild lies about raped women and 40 beheaded babies? Maybe that’s the quality of the IDF military actions but I sure would not feel safe being “defended” by such people.
Anyone who used the moniker “The Jewish State of Israel” is either a Zionist, an antisemite or both. You sound like an antisemite.
Israel has no claim to the title “Jewish State,” even if many Jews may support their atrocities (it’s far less than overwhelming).
Patrick Lawrence refers to Mishra’s essay in this item from SCHEERPOST.
https://scheerpost.com/2024/03/21/patrick-lawrence-authorized-atrocities/
Thank you!
For 70 year Israel has been able to draw on an enormous bank account – paid for by the lives of 6 million Jews. Whatever they did that was wrong, they could draw on that account and shout ‘What about the Holocaust?’ Year after year, decade after decade it worked. And there were always films from time to time about the Holocaust or TV series or news stories such as the 2023 film “One Life”. But it could not last forever and was due to run out when the last Holocaust survivor died. But with this slaughter and genocide in Gaza, that account is now not only empty but overdrawn. Next time somebody shouts ‘What about the Holocaust?’ somebody may answer ‘What about Gaza?’ By abusing the memory of the Holocaust for crass political gains, fewer and fewer people will care about it and it will be consigned to other memories from that era like the Battle of Britain of the Battle of the Bulge. You may recognize the names but there will be no emotional attachment anymore.
The Holocaust has outlived its usefulness, and what was labeled an Industry by Norman Finkelstein is collapsing. Perhaps it will also allow a fresh look at the Holocaust, what really happened and tot up the real numbers.
Acknowledging the slaughter of eleven million men, women, and children should never, ever outlive its usefulness. The use of these dead as a grotesque waving of the bloody shirt to justify slaughter of other innocents is the actual problem.
“Acknowledging the slaughter of eleven million men, women, and children…”
A perfect response, but collectively there has been too little learned after these 120 years:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/world/africa/germany-genocide-namibia-holocaust.html
December 29, 2016
Germany Grapples With Its Genocide Past in Africa
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
Tens of thousands of Namibians were killed between 1904 and 1908 in events that foreshadowed Nazi ideology and the Holocaust. Germany is finally close to recognizing the killings as genocide.
I can always add the Armenians, which was used as a justification for the Holocaust (who now remembers the Armenians?)
Not until 2008 was there such a visit after the tragedy that began to unfold in 1915:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/world/europe/07turkey.html?ref=world
September 7, 2008
Turkey’s President Visits Armenia
By SEBNEM ARSU
ISTANBUL — Turkey’s president arrived in Armenia on Saturday, the first visit by a Turkish leader in the two nations’ history.
The president, Abdullah Gul, was invited by the Armenian president, Serge Sargsyan, to attend a soccer game in Yerevan, the capital, between the national teams.
The trip was widely seen as a symbolic gesture to normalize relations between the countries, which have recognized each other but have not established diplomatic relations.
The two nations have deeply held disagreements about what is widely referred to as the Armenian genocide, in which more than one million Armenians were killed by the Ottoman Army in the early 1900s…
The only thing unusual about the Shoah is that it happened on the European continent. Aside from the Nakba, remember that only 5 years later the Americans were killing at least 2-3 million Koreans, most of whom were civilians. Then Indonesia and Indochina.
Didn’t deny the Shoah but recognize the many other genocides that happened before and after it.
The horror of the Holocaust was that the deliberate murders of eleven million people of specific religious and ethnic backgrounds from most of Europe was industrialized using trains, electronic tabulators, very large well organized extermination camps, the entire industrial capacity of a modern state with most of the work done in four years and the majority of that was done in two years. Even if you start at 1939, that would be an average of over 1.8 million each year for six years.
As evil as the other mass murders were, they were not quite on the same level of deliberate genocide.
Actually many of the genocides were very deliberate and methodical. They might not have computers, trains, or gas chambers, but there were lists and methodologies created to inflict the maximum amount of suffering and terror in the victim populations. The Jakarta Method goes into this in some detail. There’s a CIA playbook for how to terrorize and exterminate an otherwise resistant population. There are also free fire zones and biowarfare. It’s very nasty business.
And why focus on the 11 million who died in the camps? The USSR lost 27.5 million souls to the Germans and the Chinese lost another 20 million to the Japanese. Are they lesser victims because IBM machines were not involved in tabulating their fates?
My focus is on the methods and the timeline plus the emphasis on the identity in a form of an assumed racial impurity of a majority of the victims. If I wanted to use sheer size, I would use the Mongols’ victims instead.
Out of those 11 million, 6 million were Jews, a figure that most people still accept blindly either through ignorance or out of fear for repercussions.
But here is the thing: until 1990 there was a plaque at Auschwitz saying 4 million people were murdered there. Since the overwhelming majority of them were Jews, how come the 6 million was never revised down when the plaque was replaced by one that now states 1½ million were murdered —odd is it not?
Furthermore, a prominent Jewish Holocaust historian, the late Raul Hilberg, calculated 5.1 million Jews died in the Holocaust, while Jewish historian Gerald Reitlinger calculated 4 million. Are they Holocaust deniers?
> As evil as the other mass murders were, they were not quite on the same level of deliberate genocide.
Really? Why is that? Because Jewish lives are worth more? 1½ million Armenians or 10 million Congolese or etc. are lesser humans?
The methodical, highly technological, and extensive ways of the Holocaust is what sets it apart from the other genocides, not who the eleven million victims were, but it is true that it is a difference of degrees, not kind.
Also, have I used the various identities of the Holocaust’s victims as a justification for my defense of a specialness for the event, or did I use its methods, size, and speed?
Aside from the Jews, political prisoners, homosexuals, the disabled, Roma, and others were all devoured by it.
And a reason for my pushback is this impulse to minimize the event. Details aside, eleven million people were murdered, and it was well documented by the Nazis themselves.
Why do you cling on to the exceptionality of the “Holocaust” when others have pointed out that there were genocides that claimed far more victims, used more cruel methods, claimed a higher proportion of victims, and happened later than 1945.
By claiming that it’s an exceptional event rather than one of many acts of Western barbarity against indigenous populations, this is denying a darkness at the heart of Western civilization. “All the other mass killings were just regrettable accidents done in a moment of absent mindedness, but the Shoah is the only one that *really* matters.”. For reasons.
Anyways, if your criteria is purely based on use of advanced technology, I assume you believe that the current Gaza genocide is the worst and most exceptional mass killing by far. They use signals intelligence and AI to determine their strikes against doctors, journalist, academics, and humanitarian workers. So let’s stop talking about the WWII Holocaust and focus on this most exceptional ever genocide. (I don’t agree with this sentiment btw, what’s happening in Congo and Sudan right now are unbearably horrid, we just didn’t get it livestreamed to our phones).
Leaving aside the non-Jews, above I have shown that the 6 million Jews is an incorrect figure, as shown by prominent Jewish historians (leaving other historians aside), as well as by the Auschwitz museum itself. You cannot ignore those FACTS.
“it was well documented by the Nazis themselves”
Despite my extensive reading about the subject, this is the 1st time I learn that the Nazis documented their murder of 6 million Jews. Can you please point me to a source?
By “outlived its usefulness” I mean that the Jews won’t be able to abuse the 6 million number anymore to justify any crimes they or their”israeli” brethren commit. And that will be a blessing for the world because too much has been perpetrated in the name of their Holocaust.
Careful. We know what “really” happened as well as the “real” numbers. To aid in your understanding you could start with Ian Kershaw’s Hitler, The Germans, and The Final Solution. BTW, I am not Jewish.
@ Michael King: I have read quite a bit so my comment refers to inconsistencies in the official narrative.
I don’t know if the passing of the last Holocaust survivor would allow the “use” of Holocaust to fade. Quite the contrary, it will become an abstract political symbol, detached from reality, that can be applied to anything. People who have no real knowledge of actual facts, but only sanitized legends, are more dangerous than real life memories.
As an example, I’ll start with a confession that I have a soft spot for Ronald Reagan: while I have no idea how sincere they were, he had a knack for saying and doing very human and common sensical things. That was the Reagan who signed arms limitation treaties, ended the Cold War, and pulled out of Lebanon. Republicans today have no idea such a Reagan existed, because the legend of Reagan they subscribe to has excised all such memory.
Zionists don’t care about the Shoah besides using it to beat up on non-compliant Jews and Western dissenters. They openly collaborated with racists like Balfour and the Nazis against diaspora Jews, including Jewish resettlement programs that funded Nazi coffers and working against a global anti-Nazi boycott in the 1930s. They didn’t really focus on the Holocaust industry until after getting pushback on the Suez Crisis and JFK on their stealing of US nuclear secrets. Then it became an easy way to never have to take responsibility for any of their wrong doing.
Finkelstein and Gabor Mate serve a useful role of slowly talking some of the diaspora Jews off the ledge, but they are still privileging the Jewish perspective and Jewish need for safety, over the lived realities of Palestinians since even before the Nakba. Finkelstein blithely talk of Hamas as a terrorist organization when international law gives Palestinians the right to armed resistance and Israel has no such right to visit violence on Palestinians. Once I started to listen to more radical voices such as Pappe, Tarik Cyril Amar, and Ali Abunimah, the framing around Jewish and Western feelings just becomes glaringly racist. Palestinians are not faceless pawns of geopolitics, victim or terrorist, comprador or Iranian agent. They’re amongst the most highly educated and humanist community of people on Earth. They endured so much suffering yet their spirits have not been crushed. They’re still fighting and winning victories against the IDF.
Thank you. You well put into words feelings I’ve had for a while about various personages and the way the overall narrative around Palestine/Israel seems to remain largely controlled. And unfortunately that control is often subtly maintained by information sources I was generally comfortable with in the past.
@EM: very well said ! 👍
Palestinians have the right to statehood and armed resistance against occupiers under UN resolution 194. At the heart of this issue is not Israeli economics or American sentiment, but the Palestinians’ inalienable right to have a state and become a normal people living freely in the land of their ancestors.
That article ‘Hezbollah drones deal precise hits to two Iron Dome launchers’ would be putting the wind up the Israelis if true. They depend on Iron Drome to protect them from missiles but if Hezbollah can neutralize them with drones, then that would strip whole regions of Israel of any top cover. Then nothing could stop a missile bombardment.
Thank you for this post. How long before starvation, already inflicting misery on god know’s how many Gazans, begins climbing up the mortality curve for real. I guess that pier to nowhere is still six weeks away…..
There’s no moral face to the slaughter.
Historically the greatest barbarism and savagery was always committed by those who called themselves “civilized” fighting “savages”. I think it mostly started with the French Revolution and it’s freeing and civilization mission.
Goes back even earlier to the ancient Greeks who regarded themselves as a civilized race and everybody else – including the Persians – as just “barbarians.”
Careful there.
If you read Herodotus, he is admirative of Persia and Egypt, and recommends that if given the chance, anybody should absolutely visit those well-governed places, with large, beautiful cities, huge libraries, and wise men.
The other fascinating (though dangerous) place was the land of the Scythians — today’s Ukraine — those indomitable warriors with strange customs.
On the other hand, Europe? Apart from Sicily, nothing to see there. Brutish savages dressed in animal skins and other coarse garments, living in damp forests.
True. Barbarism was not necessarily a mark of inferiority in ancient times. It was usually a mark of strangeness, but that much is entirely understandable.
In my personal take you’ll find the germ for all this stuff in the Iberian Reconquista, which was notoriously brutal and unforgiving, and its further developments in the Americas, with the requisite slow invention of the idea of “race” due to slavery. Once that ball got rolling, it’s a more or less 400 year process until someone invents biological inferiority and once that’s done, justifications for horrors become easy.
Many years ago I read that “Barbarian” initially referred to all non Greek-speaking peoples, who spoke “Ba-ba,” ie gibberish. According to that author, the word only later developed the connotations we now associate with it. I don’t have the classical scholarly chops to confirm or refute it, but an interesting thought.
whenever you have a self-proclaimed ubermenschen facing off a declared untermenschen, the worst atrocities are bound to happen. here it is the self-proclaimed chosen people against human cockroaches. the outcome is inevitable. in order to dehumanise a population you must first become monsters yourselves.
I am slightly heartened that outside of insane, evil, Israel, polls show most people (not servants of money and the oligarchs) are horrified by what is happening in Gaza. When the same was being perpetrated (without tiktok videos) on Native Americans, it was celebrated by the common folk. Or consider lynchings in the US less than a century ago – they were festivals for family picnics.
I pray that those who are responsible meet their just deserts (all of them) in this life and after. Are you listening, Joe Biden – who claims to be a devout catholic?
UNSC just passed a ceasefire resolution for the month of Ramadan 14-0 with US abstention. Surprisingly.
Let’s see. After the 3 month long “negotiation” to set the terms… Ooops. too late. The last Palestinians in Gaza has died of starvation.
Obama dared to do such empty and fake gesture only once and at the end of his second term, when he was comfortably on the way out. Biden internal polling numbers must be truly horrible.
I think it’s only a matter of time before we again see Iranian style revolutions in the likes of Egypt and Saudi and Jordan, possibly Turkey, Morocco, etc. This would only be a “mistake” in the sense that the US/Israelis might seize opportunities in the midst of the chaos but that may end up being a secondary or tertiary concern. What’s standing in the way of the inevitable? One editorial push by a newspaper/tv-station? One algorithmic slipup by google? One boor headed tweet by an Israeli minister? Are we supposed to think that the geniuses in Washington can keep the sympathies of a billion+ people “contained”?
A few western countries and UK politicians are beginning to crack, or more likely making an effort to distance themselves from what they have wind is coming. Probably the current crop of Arab autocrats is too stupid/arrogant to crack. If we start seeing even US politicians trying to get away at the last minute then you know it’s going to be really bad, and there will be repercussions all around.
At the center of this hurricane-web of calamitous consequences, I see the figure of Netenyahu, knitting furiously and grinning like a hyena.
Israel, supported by its lapdog Biden, is unleashing a horror one thought would be unimaginable well into the 21st century. To think my country, and tax dollars, permit this to happen fills me with disgust. We live in a world run by sociopaths, who choose to ignore the threat of nuclear annihilation and out-of-control climate change, as they try to fulfill their needs of infantile aggression at the expense of the rest of us.
Israel’s actions and the behaviour of its majority of the population is straight out Bronze Age Barbarism. The banality of expressing the desire to kill/eliminate//make “them” go away is dumbfounding. It feels in the observer, and elicits in the observerthe thought that only the Russian FSB treatment of those captured mass murders might make all these people change their minds, and their ways.
And since that has little chance of happening, the impunity will continue. The genocide is being televised. What warms my heart a bit is the fact that the lawfare against Israel has started in earnest. The fact that the Houthis have blockded the port of eliat in the Red Sea warms my heart even more.
The headfakery is a moral figleaf, that is, the Biden administration is trying to have it both ways while fooling nobody as to which side they really are on.
The aspect that befuddles me is this: do they really think they can spin anything and everything in the direction they want?
After vetoing one cease-fire resolution after another, putting forth a hypocritical proposal that is not even the beginning of a solution; after sending daily cargo planes laden with ammunition to Israel, parachuting a few crates of food over Gaza; after standing unflinchingly with Netanyahu, showing concern with what he could (will) do in Raffah.
Or are they just sadistically sneering at the world?
Yes and yes.
Most of the people only read the headings. And listening to the news is also not informative. Here in Canada, CBC is telling us that Russia and China vetoed that proposal for ceasefire in exchange for prisoners, forgetting that the wording didn’t say that and that Algeria also opposed it on its behalf and on the bhalf of all arab states, and didnt reproduce the short and poignant abstention reason of Guyana. So, yeah, I would say people are misinformed and disinformed but at least here in Canada, this campaign is run front, sides, back, and centre, by the government and the public and private mass media.
👍 Well said.
Thank you, Yves. The months since October 7, have been like an increasingly horrific nightmare. After the years of Occupation, I have no trouble believing the ferocity of the Israeli response; they have had lots of practice. But to watch the US leaders’ mostly unwavering support for Israel’s atrocities, as well as their adamant refusal to acknowledge historical facts stretching back to at least the beginning of the 1900’s, is heartbreaking. Like a grown child finally acknowledging the true nature of her abusive and violent parents. You have to rebuild your life. Without those parents.
And, there is an unwanted side-effect, at least for me: I have to stop myself from sliding into a mindless condemnation of all followers of Judaism, and constantly refocus my disapproval on the leaders of the ‘Zionist entity.’
And, as John Mearsheimer has recently remarked, accept the novels of Leon Uris (de rigueur reading for university students of a certain leaning in the 60’s) for the propaganda they are.
Eclair, look into my comment above on Pankaj Mishra, he is bearer of considerable wisdom.
Thank you Yves, for this harrowing but necessary piece. I’ve nothing to add. After so many months of genocide, though I’m not numb, I feel almost bottomless despair and rage. I await the day hubris and ruin will end this heinous entity, and Palestine will finally be free. May it be soon.
Americans have become part of a sick thread running through human history of feeling childishly empowered by the suffering of others. Empathy, kindness, and compassion are the learned behaviors of mature adults.
I fear that as our planet’s carrying capacity becomes ever more strained from the explosive over-population by our species, these learned behaviors will be in ever shorter supply. Our Inverted Totalitarian government appears to select for cruel, churlish, and bullying children as its leaders.
I wish I were wrong, but I am afraid we can’t vote our way out if this mess.
We can’t vote our way out of this mess.
John Titus stated so in one of his videos in the years just after the GFC, and this was based solely on the quiet coup completed by global finance with the GFC. Made possible by Clinton with the Telecommunications Act of 1996. His analysis of the financial elites, especially the WEF crowd and the Fed itself, has been on the mark for a long time. Once the aristocratic class is in complete control of the MSM and the federal government, they always push for wars since the military funding is so profitable. Public be damned. History repeats, again.
Too bad he got snookered on vaccines, but specializing in finance doesn’t provide clear thinking on viral disasters.
I’ve always been predominantly a lurker, no matter where the site. I try to stay balanced on this (as well as Ukraine) but it becomes harder and harder. I make the mistake of reading a politics forum that’s included with my favorite sports-only forum and the vitriol is becoming overwhelming. “Palestinians made this bed themselves when they voted for Hamas; they’ve only ever wanted to destroy the Israelis; other Arab states have always treated Palestinians like trash, so Israel is no different from them; Russia won’t stop with Ukraine and is already starting to arm themselves for their next invasion”. It just keeps getting worse.
If I try to relay some of the findings here (as delicately as possible!), including links to the articles, they are derided as bogus or simply ignored. I’ve never seen it this bad, but I’ll be saying that again next month.
I’m not telling these people to change their mind, I’m just asking them to look objectively at other, very sound angles. The problem is that their sound angles no longer come from just Fox, but CNN, NY Times, and various others.
It’s notably a much larger population of boomers with these views. A boomer myself, I’ve given up trying to get through to them, and have even less hope that either political party, press, or various world organizations will either.
Y’all are the only sane set of commenters I find.
Late to this. Thanks for your kind words. It takes some courage to persuade people who look to be hostile (and then confirm it). Even if it does not work, you are still doing something to try to move people in a better direction.
You may not have read this section, which is originally from the Guardian, in a 2010 post:
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/10/protest-works-just-look-at-the-proof.html
And then the section of the Guardian article by Johann Hari:
The invention of atomic weapons put a limit on the escalation of violence. Unfortunately, the cultural inertia of warfare continues to engender violent conflicts whose expansion can lead to global disaster. I think that only a regional nuclear exchange (e.g., India/Pakistan or Israel/Iran) could put an end to militarism as a political instrument. With luck we will avoid a nuclear world war that kills most of us.
Lex Fridman has a great interview (#420) with Annie Jacobsen about the ramifications of nuclear war.
Jacobsen’s “Surprise, Kill, Vanish: The Secret History of CIA Paramilitary Armies, Operators, and Assassins” is an apologia for spooks. Annie Jacobsen loves the CIA, and I’m surprised she’d be mentioned here, even as someone to disagree with. She ought to be avoided like the plague.
I would recommend Chuck Watson’s talks with Nate Hagens about the ramifications of nuclear war.
Hint: They ain’t pretty.
All nuclear war gaming ends up in full scale nuclear war once the first ‘tactical’ is slung.
Tacticals lead to megatons.
A megaton nuclear weapon is not something a remotely sane person wants to ponder for any significant length of time.
https://www.ianwelsh.net/british-intelligence-says-russian-casualties-up-90-palestine-update/#comment-148460
Does anyone know of a debate/interview with Douglas Murray on Israel’s criminal actions in Gaza, where this arrogant prick gets to have egg on his face? My impression is that he avoids being put face to face with strong, knowledgeable subject matter experts.
It is terrifying to me how much the collective west has devalued human rights of all kinds – that after nearly 6 months of genocide and other atrocities, nothing significant has been done to stop the brutal savagery of the Israelis.
How is it that politicians, like Biden, can fumble such a horrendous and visible issue that has an obvious and unambiguous solution – that is to stop the slaughter and destruction? That’s it – STOP the slaughter. How is it that our supposedly peace-keeping international bodies, like the UN are utterly powerless and can’t even pass a non-binding resolution demanding the slaughter stop?
Biden’s greed, selfishness, depravity and job are more important to him than the tens of thousands of people killed and wounded, and millions displaced. He has the power to stop it but won’t use it – that is a clear indicator of the moral corruption of the west, epitomised by the US’ utter failure to stop it and, to make itr even worse, its efforts to prevent other countries from stopping it.
Are we to believe that the US actually wants Israel to do these things? Yes, because since WWII it has directy killed tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people in its many failed wars around the world. It is in fact far more brutal and savage than Israel – on a scale previously unimagined.
As for Netanyahu, he and his government and military leaders should be put on trial at The Hague for genocide and crimes against humanity, along with Biden, Blinken and other leaders that have directly contributed to the atrocities. They have lost their humanity.
There is absolutely no excuse for the failure to stop these crimes. None. There is no moral high ground, not even for the religious fanatics who believe it is their right to exterminate the Palestinians like vermin and steal their land.
Sometimes I despair of the human race. This is one of those times.
It’s only one of many times. Some people like to say that despair is not an option, but what do they know? Maybe, there’s a time to hope, and a time to despair, and maybe it’s possible to feel each at the same time.
They will be put on trial, but unfortunately, in absentia…
Within the past few days I’m certain that I saw a reference somewhere (I thought it was in NC ‘Links’, or maybe ‘Comments’ but if so I can’t locate it) to the House having just passed by a large majority a bill which affirms continuation of the suspension of US funding of UNWRA until 2025, and which also provides that if the Palestinian Authority should be so bold as in any way to assist a third party to bring charges or complaints against any Israeli persons or institutions relating to the ongoing persecution/dispossession/murders in the West Bank then that too is to automatically be punished with de-funding. The passage I saw also stated that this bill will now be duly rubber-stamped by the Senate and signed into law by the President – in short order.
(Sorry that I can’t quote the exact terms but as far as I recall that was the gist of the original reference).
Meanwhile on March 22 CA posted a link to this X posting:-
rnaud Bertrand
@RnaudBertrand
How can this be allowed to happen in the 21st century? The cruelty of starving an entire people is just unfathomable.
The IPC, which is the global authoritative institution for hunger assessment, on which governments and multilateral organizations rely, now determines that half the population in the Gaza strip is in IPC Phase 5 (Catastrophe/Famine), the worst classification where “starvation, death, destitution and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels are evident”.
Let’s see if I’ve got this right. At more or less the same time as the IPC announced half of Gaza’s population had reached its highest “Catastrophe/Famine” level (and the rest only one category lower?) Congress was falling over itself to tighten the screws from now on and until 2025 – by which time Israel’s objective to have starved to death those Gazans not by then slaughtered can safely be assumed to have been achieved. And remembering that the suspension of aid to UNWRA was imposed by Joe Biden as his (and Blinken’s) unhesitating and unquestioning response to the complicity of UNWRA employees in the 7/10/23 Hamas incursion, alleged by Israel (in the complete absence of impartial corroboration) on the day following announcement by the ICJ of its finding that S.Africa’s complaint that Israel is carrying-out genocide in Gaza is plausible. The juxtaposition being purely coincidental, naturally.
Each time one believes that the US might at last have plumbed the depths of degeneracy, it promptly sinks one step lower still. No doubt this latest descent will soon be surpassed in infamy just as all earlier ones have. One is forced to wonder whether there exists any level to which the US will not sink.
Back in the ‘eighties (I think) Pat Buchanan dubbed Capitol Hill “Israeli-occupied territory”. He wasn’t wrong. The truth is that for all practical purposes the government of the USA is nowadays to be found in Tel Aviv. The entire governing apparatus of the United States of America has subordinated itself and become an accessory of the government of the State of Israel and its population of about seven million (and electorate of – what, four million?) who call all of the shots. US legislators have, almost to a woman/man, sold themselves to AIPAC. What a pathetic spectacle!
Here is one such link. There are others. Maybe even a Google search would find some. I found this via DuckDuckGo.
https://theintercept.com/2024/03/22/gaza-unrwa-funding-congress/
All Gaza’s leaders need to do is surrender and return whichever hostages they have not killed yet. They refuse. The Palestinian Arabs have always counted on being bailed out, by the Arab league, by the UN, by Iran now, and the useful idiots in the West. In WW2, there was no question that Germany and Japan had lost. Those nations are among the wealthiest and most stable on the planet now. Hamas must lose and admit they have lost and Gaza can be reconsitituted. How have the “more humane” wars in Afghanistan and Iraq worked out?
Afghanistan War – > 50,000 civilians, > 70,000 local troops/police, > 50,000 Taliban > 2,300 US troops killed, 20 years, $2 Trillion spent and for what?
All they are being offered is 4-6 weeks of ceasefire. Their ask is a permanent ceasefire. There is not reason to give up the hostages just to push the genocide timeline out 6 weeks or less.
And the previous “humanitarian pause” did not lead to adequate movement of food and medicine into Gaza. Some of the women and children hostages freed by the Israelis were taken after the end of the pause. Snipers shot at people attempting to return home in the north during the pause.
So what would a “temporary” or even a “permanent” ceasefire accomplish except to give the IDF some R&R time and maybe focus on shelling Southern Lebanon more intensely? All the while more people starve and succumb to disease? The only way that a ceasefire could work is to have UN peacekeepers on the ground to ensure Israeli compliance.
Israel didn’t give Palestinians a chance to prosper like Japan or Germany. It started by stealing their land, murdering their children, and raping their women. It stole so much of West Bank that residents must ensure endless waits at checkpoints to go a few miles away. It put Gaza under siege, a state of war, for 17 years.
So what if America committed more atrocities and killed more people? Are you arguing that’s an excuse to let Israel commit its “little” genocide?
If you think Israel is so justified in its actions then I can only wish that you will soon be subject to the same tender mercies that Israel visits on its subject West Bank and Gazan populations.