I managed to avoid even knowing this was happening thanks to my superpower โ unbreachable obtusality. My in-law walked down there (Metro was so jammed she could not get on) and had much the same sort of vibe you did.
The 'from the river to the sea' phrase looks to have been weaponized the way swastikas were back in 1920. So it is in my view hard to say "just a phrase" without also saying 'that has been hijacked".
I admit to vast ignorance (ongoing) and likely incoherence (side effect of cancelled Daylight Savings Time โ the nasty program by which gummint controls our minds and our bodies ...) Seriously, THE GUMMINT IS CONTROLLING TIME ITSELF!!!!!).
Without Daylight Savings Time, our nation's local news reporters would be cast adrift, no longer able to go to the mall to ask people what they plan to do with their extra hour, invariably receiving the tired response, "Um... sleep more?" And who knows what mischief they might get into then! (Greater coverage of charity fun runs, I'm guessing.)
Gaza's on the Mediterranean, and the Palestinian West Bank is well, you know, so I'm gonna read "from the river to the sea" as "The two major remaining centers of Palestinian population should be part of one contiguous state." Yeah, it's a little harder to chant.
I have never taken to mean anything other than 'A single state comprising what used to be Mandate Palestine.', that is the lands that became Israel and the ones occupied by Egypt and Jordan in 1948.
Except Israel reneged on its pledge to allow free travel between Gaza and the West Bank, and even the West Bank has been split into tiny Palestinian areas surrounded by Israeli territory they're not allowed to enter. That's why the 1990 Oslo plan fell through - you can't have a country if it's unconnected pieces someone else can control movement between.
But, nah, this is just the latest event in, by some measurement, a shit show of imperial and similar failures going back over a hundred of years so. Thanks to the Abraham accords (IYKYK), 10/7 may well have been the beginning of the last act of this historic tragedy. Thanks to same, the Palestinians have no global backers with much ability (if that much) to give any support of any kind of any good or help towards a resolution...
Meanwhile, for decades I've been a little amazed that the same people opposed to the founding of Israel -- the Hasids -- at some point after Likud (founded by ex-terrorists) became dominant decided to become dominant themselves. The irony is that they were opposed on religious grounds and the only thing that changed after 48 was their desire to gain some control in the state the opposed. Maybe it's me, maybe I just have some intellectual blockage or blindness preventing me from the reconciling the two positions.
But in the greater scheme of things, even I don't care what I think...
โfor decades I've been a little amazed that the same people opposed to the founding of Israel -- the Hasids -- at some point after Likud (founded by ex-terrorists) became dominant decided to become dominant themselves.โ
I feel the same way about how the Confederates spawn have sold themselves as the Real Americans while still muttering and enabling treason.
Living among Evangelicals who canโt tell Likud from the Biblical Children of Israel, I expect hatred of the Palestinians from the brethren, as an impediment to imminentizing the Eschaton...
Iโve had Israeli and some American Jews tell me the Palestinians were animals, to be driven out, often in the same terms the Good Ol Boy racists talk about the black, the brown, the immigrants and โsandn*gg*rsโ...I also know a few Palestinian Christians who talk bout Israelis and Jews the same way.
The Good Christians who arenโt so bigoted have always assumed Israel was righteous, if compromised...and an ally.
Itโs not a good time to be clinically depressed.
The Xians hoping for war so as to make Jesusโ return sooner rather than later, please. With allies like that, no wonder peace there is nigh impossible. If peace means a delay in Jesusโ return, then, you know, fuck peace.
As for the ex-Confederates, not quite the same. The orthodox were opposed to a state of Israel til there was a state and then it was time to forget why there shouldnโt have been a state and instead grab all possible power. As for the ex-Confederates, losing the war they have worked hard and successfully to win the peace.
Possibly it also has to do with the line from Revelations about the Antichrist being a "peacemaker". Apparently it's preferable that a lot of people Who Aren't Us die for nothing than risk the rise of The Beast 666.
Yes, I knew it was an imprecise, nay, probably lousy analogy.
One of the things Iโve struggled to understand about post Civil War history is how the Southern Unionists (like some of my and my kidโs ancestors) got 1) written out of the official history as taught as โSouthern Heritage โ, and 2) how the heavily Unionist mountains and areas like East Tennessee, never quite Confederate, became so rabidly racist and invested in the Confederate myth, to the point of denying itโs history, in the Jim Crow era.
I met a man yesterday who recounted how he had been in a taxi in Tel Aviv in the 1960s, and an Israeli enthusiastically told him that they liked and sympathized with Americans because the U.S. and Israel had the same problem: Negroes and Arabs. *sigh* Anne Frank did not die for this.
The Biden administration is proposing $14 billion in aid while the article reports Israel has $170 billion in reserves and a debt-to-gdp ratio much lower than ours (60% vs. nearly 100%) so borrowing would be easy to do.
So maybe this aid isn't as urgently needed as we've been led to believe?
There is something--some immense defect--in people that makes them think that killing someone's family is the sure-fire way to get them to stop hating you. Nowhere is this displayed more frequently or consistently than in this conflict.
Funny how nobody questions why we are giving tons of money to a country with a higher standard of living than us with a military that is one of the more fearsome on earth, I bet our aid pretty much pays for their single payer health system.
Not certain I can heart this yet. But I have little doubt that Uncle Joe is deeply worried about much larger knock-on issue, that being WW3 avoidance, and acting appropriately as he can to that point via the somewhat muted powers of the gummint. That sort of action being what one expects a president to do, after all.
Yes, I think he's got a grip on it, to the extent that anyone could. There are very big WWIII-avoidance reasons why he has to make a public show of no light between us and Israel -- warn off regional actors who might consider jumping in, signal to NATO allies and foes that we don't ditch when the TikToks make us look bad, alert terrorists and those who'd take hostages that we are still not about to negotiate with them and thereby incentivize plenty more terrorism and hostage-taking... It bums me out how many people in my twitter feed do not pause to consider any of this but go straight into an emotional lather at every photo of a dead child, calling Biden an EVIL OLD MAN COMPLICIT IN GENOCIDE who could easily stop the killing but is VETOING A CEASEFIRE. Like come on, it's upsetting, but you guys really oughta consider the shit sandwiches we have to very slowly chew because of nuclear bombs and how desperately we do not want them to go off anywhere at all ever.
But they'd be wrong to call Biden complicit in genocide, is my point, although... I can see how perhaps my wording relies on an audience inclined to react to it cautiously.
Maybe people use the word "genocide" inappropriately. Was what Hamas did on Oct. 7 genocide? If someone from Israel wants to call it that, I'm not going to argue with them.
But setting aside the "too soon" factor... They'd definitely be wrong to call it genocide. I don't think bombing Gaza is either. And "genocide" is a word we really should not turn to mush, the way social media turned "gaslighting" into simply lying, and the way the rightwing turned "woke" into "anything I don't like." You use a word imprecisely too often and suddenly its concept doesn't exist anymore. "Genocide" as a concept needs to exist in the starkest terms.
Just wait'll you see the infrastructure bill he's preparing for Palestine, it includes an Acela that runs from Gaza City to Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. People brought together through the healing power of commuter rail.
I have no answer for what the United States can do to change the calculus in the Middle East. I donโt share the nationalism or religiosity of the players and canโt imagine what can be done to move them away from those motivations. But, both our politicians and media have decided that itโs up to us to do something about it. We protested the Vietnam War to demand our government stop its own actions. What are yesterdayโs protesters doing, if not demanding our government stop others from committing war crimes? How exactly is it supposed to do that? Sure, stop sending weapons to anyone in the Middle East. Beyond that, what? Words, diplomacy, jaw-jaw while the actors engage in war-war. Anyway, when the fascists take over our government in 2024, Iโm sure those protesters will find their demands ignored and themselves branded as enemies. The future doesnโt look good for the Middle East or us. Maybe we should focus on the threat at home.
OK, now I'm wondering if I really should be going around saying "If Trump wins it's the end of democracy." Sure, it's a good way to scare the crap out of people, but it doesn't leave much room for a Plan B, does it?
Many Americans attitudes toward Palestine has evolved over the decades, and mostly for the better. What I've come to realize in my own transition can be summed in a more or less simple statement:
Your attitude towards whiteness is your attitude towards the Palestinians.
We can say it's not our fight, and of course if your neighbors aren't dying it's not. But our neighbors ARE dying โ and from the same settler-colonialist attitudes that tells some group that white phosphorus is good crowd control against another. And by some WEIRD coincidence, the IDF trains US prison guards & police departments in their brutal tactics.
Another thing I always wondered about: there was an US initiative to "re-patriate" Black Americans to Liberia after emancipation. It kind of fizzled out, but the result could have very been an early sort of Israel.
"Another thing I always wondered about: there was an US initiative to "re-patriate" Black Americans to Liberia after emancipation. It kind of fizzled out, but the result could have very been an early sort of Israel."
Note: *Before* emancipation, which is why the capital of Liberia is "Monroeville". The idea that Black Americans couldn't coexist with White Americans is as old as America itself. There was even a proposal from Santo Domingo (now the Dominican Republic) to sell itself to America during the Grant administration as a "two-state solution" for Black Americans; the Grant administration balked at the price so the deal never went down.
All of which to say I for one am not surprised that Americans are confused by a minority's struggle for freedom behind the scenes.
Yes, today's pro-Palestinian movement is clearly benefiting from the edumacation many of us got through the George Floyd/BLM movement. As I've said before, this empathy thing, once it gets started, is hard to stop.
I would agree with Tlaib's version of "from the river to the sea," which Mark Tessler links to the PLO's proposal for a "secular democratic state" in all of what's now Israel and the occupied territories. Aaron David Miller, the former diplomat and foreign policy wonk who knows way more about this issue than I ever will, still argues that the nationalist feelings on both the Israeli-Zionist side and the Palestinian side are so strong that they could not make a single state function. But it is also hard to see how the massive settlement policy in the West Bank could be unwound in a two-state solution.
Still, the options for a stable peace are pretty much limited to three: two states, a single democratic secular state, or a single undemocratic apartheid Jewish state with a soon-to-be-Palestinian majority. For the US to seriously push for its own current official position, a two-state solution, looks like the most likely way to get some real movement on a substantive solution going.
I was once fairly optimistic about the chances for a single secular state, optimism shared by many of the lefties I hung with at the time. Obvious comparisons were made to South Africa, and we all know how that turned out, right? I think it was linked to a naive belief in "demographic change" as an unstoppable historical force, that Palestinians would eventually outnumber Israelis, and then Israel's apartheid system would be doomed.
You know, kinda like the people in this country who thought demographic change would deliver us a permanent Democratic majority. Harumph.
At this point, there's pretty much no way I see Israel accepting a two-state "solution", as it's from their perspective just moving the problem someplace else.
The question I have is whether there was ever a time when Israel was serious about accepting a two-state solution? Judging by their actions, continually annexing and settling Palestinian land, making any viable Palestinian state impossible, I'd say they never took this seriously as a possibility.
There's a quote from an Israeli Prime Minister (Rabin?) who once quipped "I love the peace process so much it should go on a thousand years." Everything they've done is about extending control and buying time and dealing with the consequences later.
Just about this "from the river to the sea" slogan supposedly meaning THE OBILITERATION OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL, a two-state solution has been official US policy since at least the days of Kissinger, so OK, here's a map of Israel and here's a black Sharpie, draw me a Palestinian state that doesn't touch both the banks of the Jordan and the Mediterranean. Unless you're the kinda guy who'd use the Sharpie to put a single dot in the middle of the Sinai desert, can't be done.
Hell, even if you read it as "Return to the '67 borders", that clearly can't mean the destruction of the state of Israel, because I'm fairly sure there was a state of Israel prior to '67.
A Palestinian state does not need to be contiguous. The Kaliningrad Oblast is part of Russia but is distant by a 6-hour, 280-mile drive across two NATO states. Parts of Spain are across the Mediterranean in Africa. Greece is pretty spread out. We've got Hawaii waaaay out there. In comparison, Gaza and the West Bank are a cozy 58 miles apart. They will remain 58 miles apart in every likely scenario -- but hire Japan to build a train and you can make that trip quicker than my 12-mile commute.
OK, but if they were contiguous, would that require the Palestinians to take Tel Aviv or Haifa? Could we construct a Palestinian state all joined-together that leaves some land for the Israelis too? Call me a pie-eyed optimist, but I think we could.
I don't know what the Palestinians want. They are great at posting slogans and videos of dead children, not great at stating a specific set of criteria that if met would satisfy them. They are like the Middle East's "Defund the Police" movement.
I'm pretty sure "Return to the '67 borders" was put on the table at some point, the Israelis wouldn't agree to that for obvious reasons, and now here we are. The now-dead "peace process" did go on for decades, I never followed the details of it but I don't think the Palestinians kept going to all those meetings with no demands.
My understanding is that in 2000, Israel did agree to a return to 67 borders, or close enough, and the PLO walked away because they demanded a more expansive Right of Return inside those borders rather than the carefully administered one that Israel could realistically agree to. At that point, the PLO was essentially saying if Israel gets to be a state, then we would rather remain stateless; although -- worth noting! -- a friend of mine with family in Israel characterizes it less as a real policy choice, more as Arafat's realization that if he signed the deal, he'd have to stop being the revolutionary and start being the guy who figures out how the trash gets picked up every week, and he had no idea how to become that guy.
So the Palestinians, having been given a state, wanted to be able to decide who would be given admittance to that state. Seems reasonable to me. That's generally how states work.
Also, we should talk sometime about how the Palestinians got so good at posting pictures of dead children. Nobody comes by this skill naturally, it requires a lot of practice, and a steady supply of dead children.
I will preface and say that I despise Netanyahu and his right-wing government: most of the true religious Israeliโs didnโt even believe in the state of Israel when the UN partitioned Palestine into a two state solution. Now these same religious groups are with the settlers; another messianic religious cult of fascists and religious psychopaths and zealots.
Secondly, part of the blame goes to Trump by putting an unqualified, biased amateur in charge of Middle East policy (Kushner). Trump moved the US embassy to Jerusalem; he allowed Israel to annex the Golan Heights and Trump enabled Netanyahu and his right-wing fascist whack-jobs to continue building illegal settlements in the West Bank, as well as restrict movements of the people in Gaza. All this without Israel having to make any concessions to the Palestinians or Syrians for that matter.
That said, a ceasefire with Hamas isnโt the answer. They are a terrorist organization who originated in the early 90โs as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt; the same people who assassinated Sadat for making peace with Israel.
Hamasโs charter calls for the destruction of Israel and they executed terrorist attacks in the 90โs during the Oslo Accords. These peopleโs owe their very existence to destroying any opportunity for peace. Yet, ironically, so many want the two parties to form a ceasefire.
Hamas does not want peace. They care little for the Palestinian people. Instead of building bomb shelters for the Palestinians, they built a tunnel system to attack Israel. Are the Hamas leaders so obtuse that they donโt think Israel would retaliate after being attacked?
Furthermore, instead of investing the billions they received in foreign aid from the Arab and western world, they built rockets to attack Israel with. They use the Palestinians as human shields and a ceasefire only helps them rebuild and attack again.
Additionally, the absence of war is not peace; itโs the status quo. And since Gaza was granted self-rule in 2005, Hamas has used Gaza as Staging ground to destroy Israel.
Admittedly, Netanyahu and the right-wing settlers donโt want peace either. Netanyahu for decades has weakened the Palestinian Authority and played them against Hamas, to keep the Palestinian people at war with each other.
Bottom line: we had a ceasefire before. In fact, we end up with a ceasefire every two to three years or so: Hamas attacks, Israel bombs and invades, then a ceasefire is declared, and two to three years later itโs rinse, lather repeat.
Except each time Israel tightens their restrictions on the Palestinianโs and each invasion gets more deadly due to technological advances, Hamas increased capabilities, and its ability to recruit more cannon fodder as suicide psychos.
For peace to take hold, two parties need to be committed to making a deal that neither side may love, but both sides can live with. Right now, both sides are devoid of any true leadership committed to peace.
Therefore, America and the rest of the world needs to force both sides to the table, or let the two fend for themselves without any foreign military or humanitarian assistance.
As Einstein once said, โthe definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result.โ
Iโm done supporting insanity on either side!
Just some thoughts!...:)
FYI: I find it ironic that these college students find the need to support Hamas in this war given its atrocities against Jews. Where are the same people calling for Russia to withdraw from Ukraine, or the Saudiโs and UAE from Yemen?
I guess when it comes to defending oneโs nation, or waging war on innocents, Israel is always held to a higher standard than the rest of the world.
Nov 6, 2023ยทedited Nov 6, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso
I read "ceasefire" as "Israel stops bombing the shit out of Gaza", which would have the short-term benefit of fewer dead people, plus the chance to get more humanitarian aid to the not-dead-yet inhabitants of Gaza. Do I expect Hamas to honor the ceasefire? Nah, probably not, but Palestinian rockets from Gaza don't have the ability to kill ten thousand Israelis in a matter of a couple of weeks, while Israel has already demonstrated that capacity with their bombs. But that's me, I'm a Math Guy, I count the dead and I'm generally for stuff that makes the total come out smaller.
Is a ceasefire a "solution" to the problem, short-term or long-term? Of course it's not, but does anyone seriously think that what Israel is doing now is a "solution"? Seems a little unfair to hold the ceasefire to a higher standard than the war.
I agree, but a ceasefire always results in the same. Two years of an absence of war, and then its rinse, lather repeat.
Calling for a humanitarian pause is a better solution as long as the West and Arab nations force both sides to the table. Unfortunately, Israel can only negotiate with the PA, not Hamas. And the world needs to recognize the PA as the only legitimate Palestinian authority, and stop funding Hamas, period.
I donโt like the death and casualties on either side. And Netanyahu needs to go which is exactly what will happen when Hamas is no longer a threat.
That said, nothing will be easy, and the world needs to be engaged more than ever before.
Just sayin' - Ukraine already has majority support (except for right-wing Putin chasers and lefty "NATO *made* Russia invade!" folks), and Yemen is essentially invisible in Western media, partially because "where?" and partially because the US government apparently is willing to look away while the Saudis bomb Yemen because they're afraid of gas prices going up.
I agree, both governments and people are hypocritical. Yet, where are the republicans in Congress when it comes to Ukraine aid? They have bent a knee to the know-nothing fascist who continues to lick Putinโs boots.
And my point was about college campuses where they study Ukraine, Russia and Yemen in history and current affairs. Iโm just shocked the justice warriors arenโt more involved with boycotts against Russia and some Arab nations.
About campus protesters, people tend to protest when they think their government is doing something wrong and they want it changed. No need to protest against what Russia is doing in Ukraine, the government's already got that covered.
SNL once had a Weekend Update bit under the headline "Yemen/Urine" that went something like this: "More Americans know that if you put a sleeping person's hand in warm water they will urinate on themselves than know which side of the Yemen civil war the United States is supporting."
Had a friend who spent time decades ago studying in Yemen ("studying" being a term of art in the espionage biz) who said they'd never encountered a place as f'ed-up as the Yemens North and South.
I think the US general public is being ground down by "Israel/hamas fatigue" via the media and is conveniently kept from news about Ukraine, russia, or their own (American) country's many troubles. Not that the Middle East conflict isn't important, but it's also a useful "SQUIRRELL!!" for those who don't want reporting on other things.
I was glad to see that Zelensky was given some time on Sunday and tied russia (along with iran and n korea) to hamas.
Tsrangely, that is not specified. But the (un)adopted black one is an adult now so -um - that would be even weirder.
By the way I saw another article somewhere that made a passing refeence to the johnsons having "many" children of all ages. Not sure why his family size at least is never reported. Just like his "non-existent" finances. Because none of us working stiffs have bank accounts, right?
"accountability partner" sounds like they're running on of those porn monitor programs I mentioned the other day. The ones you can set to identify lingerie and swimsuits as "porn" because OH LORDY LORDY WOMEN PARTS.
Yoicks! For that kinda money, there must be, say, 100 surveils/day...? Because how much would it cost to do auto-screen-saves? 10ths of a cent? In any case, $16.99 is essentially pure profit.
Additional source of profit: For a member of Congress, there must be plenty of people who'd be willing to pay for his browser history, not just the Russians and the Chinese, but also anyone hoping to pick up some hot stock tips.
"You're going to have to do something with these people besides continue to obliterate them"
Who, What, Where, When, and most importantly, Why? Whether it's Palestinians in the M.E. or MAGA in America, those questions are just about impossible to answer (well, the Why is the avoidance of mindless violence and bloodshed, but that's exactly what significant portions of those populations want). Whether one of these groups is justified in their anger and the other not is a rathole that offers no clarity, moral or otherwise. They're here, they're angry, and they're not going away. The government of Israel seems fine with a policy of slow obliteration, even after the failure of its eternal vigilance policy as a way of managing blowback from it. It's up to the people of Israel to decide if it is worth it, if it is making them more or less secure, and they're willing to accept where it leads them. Condemning American complicity is jake with me, but thinking America can dictate terms to Israel is just colonialism wrapped in goo-goo liberal idealism. The grownups in the War Room are still playing the Great Game because there's no better option on offer to avoid WW III, and Israel and Palestinians are trapped in a tar pit given as a parting gift from the British Empire and wrapped with a bow by the UN, the tar kept bubbling by resentful nations surrounding Israel and other actors playing the Great Game. It's in the Interest of the Palestinians and Israeli citizens to do almost anything else, but just like with MAGA in America, there are plenty of actors with plenty of incentive to keep the tar bubbling, so bubble it will.
That slow obliteration is quickening. Latest outta the West Bank is more Palestinians killed in the last 3 weeks than all of last year. The 'settlers' are unleashed, and the army is with them. It's just slow mass murder there right now, and if the Palestinians arise against that, the boil-over will be really brutal and could easily jump borders.
The way the 'settlers' (that is, land thieves and mass murderers) are going right now is reminiscent of the Civil War 1.5* on offer here. Mass killings/week is the new measure, and in almost all cases we know which side does the killing and which is killed. And in both places there is no one stopping it, nor likely to.
*I would accept an alternate numbering system depending on if you think CW2 has got here already.
Nov 7, 2023ยทedited Nov 7, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso
Yeah, the current plan seems to consist of "the beatings will continue until morale improves". It's all insane, but insanity seems to be "in" this year.
I don't think we get full-blown CW 2.0 until the military gets involved. My bet is on the Republicans going all in on some "who's gonna stop me" election nullification, and them asking the military to "restore order". At that point, we're in choose your own adventure territory. Next year is gonna suck so hard. Stock up on toilet paper and booze or edibles now.
I don't demand or expect that Rep. Mike Johnson (R.-Civitas Dei) begin every public statement with 'I donสผt endorse a Day Of The Rope, in fact I think it an evil idea.' but I'd like him to be on-record with that and some indication that he means it.
The crowds at the demos included both Jews (lefty, and of at least one of the most oppressive Chasidic sects) and people who'd be happy to see all Jews die, as well as what I'll wish (I never understood 'hope', it seems to indicate that my wishes could affect probabilities) were a large majority who just don't want their relatives maimed and killed and I don't demand that the latter continually denounce the murders that set-off this round, but I'd be happier knowing that they knew that Hamas are at best only slightly more concerned with keeping their loved ones whole than are the Israelis.
And, frankly, I think everyone does know what 'from the river to the sea' means, the differences are between those who support a secular, egalitarian, probably-at-least-social-democratic, single-state solution and those who want various levels of religiously-controlled state and various degrees of Judenreinschaft achieved with various degrees of murder, expulsion, and retention-with-oppressionโฆand the same for secularists and disagreeing Islamists.
If I want to know what Rashida Tlaib means by some words she says, I think my first step would be to check with Rashida Tlaib. And sure, people aren't always 100% honest when talking about their goals, but people are also not 100% honest when attributing meaning to the words other people say.
Considering she's been a conservative punching bag ever since she took her seat, I'd assume anything the "Russia did nothing wrong" GOP says should be taken with all the seriousness it deserves, i.e. nada.
Nov 6, 2023ยทedited Nov 6, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso
My apologies ,I wasn't thinking of what she meant because I had not heard of that Trumpogenic mess, though I had started to guess at it after Our Gracious Host's mention.
Of course words can mean different things, but as a professional politician she should be expected to know what they have come to mean. Perhaps my construal is _not_ anything like the general such, in which case her expectation of its general construal were very different, but I don't believe that.
EDIT: I consider taking what she said to be an endorsement of genocide to be bullshit, but I think she should have been careful when using a slogan also used by some people who do. It's not using 'White Power' to mean rural electrification, but it's on the order of saying 'I support the police .' without qualification when it is known that there are people out there who _do_ support the police without qualification, except extra support when they kill black men.
I managed to avoid even knowing this was happening thanks to my superpower โ unbreachable obtusality. My in-law walked down there (Metro was so jammed she could not get on) and had much the same sort of vibe you did.
The 'from the river to the sea' phrase looks to have been weaponized the way swastikas were back in 1920. So it is in my view hard to say "just a phrase" without also saying 'that has been hijacked".
I admit to vast ignorance (ongoing) and likely incoherence (side effect of cancelled Daylight Savings Time โ the nasty program by which gummint controls our minds and our bodies ...) Seriously, THE GUMMINT IS CONTROLLING TIME ITSELF!!!!!).
ALL HAIL DAYLIGHT SQUANDERINGS TIME!
Without Daylight Savings Time, our nation's local news reporters would be cast adrift, no longer able to go to the mall to ask people what they plan to do with their extra hour, invariably receiving the tired response, "Um... sleep more?" And who knows what mischief they might get into then! (Greater coverage of charity fun runs, I'm guessing.)
I tells ya, they're taking all those hours they're saving and DOIN' SOMETHING with them!
They're being kept with the still-very-much-alive survivors of Flight 93!
Obtusality is good!
Sometimes I wonder how people who are really tuned in ever get anything done.*
*This is not to say that my superpower promotes getting anything done by my own personal self.
My superpower is fealty, to Roy and his opinions, a.k.a. wimpiness. Seriously, I do agree with pretty much everything in this article. What a mess!
Gaza's on the Mediterranean, and the Palestinian West Bank is well, you know, so I'm gonna read "from the river to the sea" as "The two major remaining centers of Palestinian population should be part of one contiguous state." Yeah, it's a little harder to chant.
That's not what it means. 'White Power' does not mean support for rural electrification.
Help me out here: What does it mean, based on what?
I have never taken to mean anything other than 'A single state comprising what used to be Mandate Palestine.', that is the lands that became Israel and the ones occupied by Egypt and Jordan in 1948.
Except Israel reneged on its pledge to allow free travel between Gaza and the West Bank, and even the West Bank has been split into tiny Palestinian areas surrounded by Israeli territory they're not allowed to enter. That's why the 1990 Oslo plan fell through - you can't have a country if it's unconnected pieces someone else can control movement between.
Just a couple of worthless thoughts...
But, nah, this is just the latest event in, by some measurement, a shit show of imperial and similar failures going back over a hundred of years so. Thanks to the Abraham accords (IYKYK), 10/7 may well have been the beginning of the last act of this historic tragedy. Thanks to same, the Palestinians have no global backers with much ability (if that much) to give any support of any kind of any good or help towards a resolution...
Meanwhile, for decades I've been a little amazed that the same people opposed to the founding of Israel -- the Hasids -- at some point after Likud (founded by ex-terrorists) became dominant decided to become dominant themselves. The irony is that they were opposed on religious grounds and the only thing that changed after 48 was their desire to gain some control in the state the opposed. Maybe it's me, maybe I just have some intellectual blockage or blindness preventing me from the reconciling the two positions.
But in the greater scheme of things, even I don't care what I think...
Hearted for pith, Helmut.
โfor decades I've been a little amazed that the same people opposed to the founding of Israel -- the Hasids -- at some point after Likud (founded by ex-terrorists) became dominant decided to become dominant themselves.โ
I feel the same way about how the Confederates spawn have sold themselves as the Real Americans while still muttering and enabling treason.
Living among Evangelicals who canโt tell Likud from the Biblical Children of Israel, I expect hatred of the Palestinians from the brethren, as an impediment to imminentizing the Eschaton...
Iโve had Israeli and some American Jews tell me the Palestinians were animals, to be driven out, often in the same terms the Good Ol Boy racists talk about the black, the brown, the immigrants and โsandn*gg*rsโ...I also know a few Palestinian Christians who talk bout Israelis and Jews the same way.
The Good Christians who arenโt so bigoted have always assumed Israel was righteous, if compromised...and an ally.
Itโs not a good time to be clinically depressed.
The Xians hoping for war so as to make Jesusโ return sooner rather than later, please. With allies like that, no wonder peace there is nigh impossible. If peace means a delay in Jesusโ return, then, you know, fuck peace.
As for the ex-Confederates, not quite the same. The orthodox were opposed to a state of Israel til there was a state and then it was time to forget why there shouldnโt have been a state and instead grab all possible power. As for the ex-Confederates, losing the war they have worked hard and successfully to win the peace.
Possibly it also has to do with the line from Revelations about the Antichrist being a "peacemaker". Apparently it's preferable that a lot of people Who Aren't Us die for nothing than risk the rise of The Beast 666.
Yes, I knew it was an imprecise, nay, probably lousy analogy.
One of the things Iโve struggled to understand about post Civil War history is how the Southern Unionists (like some of my and my kidโs ancestors) got 1) written out of the official history as taught as โSouthern Heritage โ, and 2) how the heavily Unionist mountains and areas like East Tennessee, never quite Confederate, became so rabidly racist and invested in the Confederate myth, to the point of denying itโs history, in the Jim Crow era.
I met a man yesterday who recounted how he had been in a taxi in Tel Aviv in the 1960s, and an Israeli enthusiastically told him that they liked and sympathized with Americans because the U.S. and Israel had the same problem: Negroes and Arabs. *sigh* Anne Frank did not die for this.
NOW UPDATED!!
Contra to my brand, the situation is actually somewhat worse than I knew. Prof. Tooze explains:
https://open.substack.com/pub/adamtooze/p/chartbook-251-israels-national-security?r=hdnf&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
The Biden administration is proposing $14 billion in aid while the article reports Israel has $170 billion in reserves and a debt-to-gdp ratio much lower than ours (60% vs. nearly 100%) so borrowing would be easy to do.
So maybe this aid isn't as urgently needed as we've been led to believe?
Come on, our leaders have political reasons to give it whether or not itโs needed.
But don't you know EVERY MINUTE THIS VITAL AID IS DELAYED THREATENS ISRAEL'S EXISTENCE.
We've been giving Israel $3.8 billion per year in military aid since 2016. Maybe the Israelis could tap some of that
There is something--some immense defect--in people that makes them think that killing someone's family is the sure-fire way to get them to stop hating you. Nowhere is this displayed more frequently or consistently than in this conflict.
"Also Iโm always interested in history, especially when Iโm living in it,"
Who was it who observed that the AmEng idiom "you're history" is ... really revealing?
History. So, just old news then?
Or from the viewpoint of young Mr. Daedalus, that nightmare from which we are struggling to awake.
In your history, youโre history?
Yikes. Histories of turtles all the way down!
Or a historical ouroboros!
That statement, and Art Spiegelman observing, "My father bleeds history," are eternal verities.
Funny how nobody questions why we are giving tons of money to a country with a higher standard of living than us with a military that is one of the more fearsome on earth, I bet our aid pretty much pays for their single payer health system.
Maybe it's just a proof-of-concept project and they'll roll out universal health care back here at home pretty soon...
"Look they've got that single-payer over in Israel, and over 1400 Israelis died a couple weeks ago of not-natural causes, you really want that HERE?"
[Assume deadpan humorous response that is probly too soon to post]
Probably not too soon for the Xitter conspiracists to start hinting they all died of complications from the vaccine.
When I do politics I mostly hang out with Union guys and that's a pretty common thing over there.
I've been learning to trust Uncle Joe's instincts pretty far. Maybe he's got a plan for this.too.
Not certain I can heart this yet. But I have little doubt that Uncle Joe is deeply worried about much larger knock-on issue, that being WW3 avoidance, and acting appropriately as he can to that point via the somewhat muted powers of the gummint. That sort of action being what one expects a president to do, after all.
Yes, I think he's got a grip on it, to the extent that anyone could. There are very big WWIII-avoidance reasons why he has to make a public show of no light between us and Israel -- warn off regional actors who might consider jumping in, signal to NATO allies and foes that we don't ditch when the TikToks make us look bad, alert terrorists and those who'd take hostages that we are still not about to negotiate with them and thereby incentivize plenty more terrorism and hostage-taking... It bums me out how many people in my twitter feed do not pause to consider any of this but go straight into an emotional lather at every photo of a dead child, calling Biden an EVIL OLD MAN COMPLICIT IN GENOCIDE who could easily stop the killing but is VETOING A CEASEFIRE. Like come on, it's upsetting, but you guys really oughta consider the shit sandwiches we have to very slowly chew because of nuclear bombs and how desperately we do not want them to go off anywhere at all ever.
"go straight into an emotional lather at every photo of a dead child"
Believe me, the children don't like this any more than you do.
But they'd be wrong to call Biden complicit in genocide, is my point, although... I can see how perhaps my wording relies on an audience inclined to react to it cautiously.
Maybe people use the word "genocide" inappropriately. Was what Hamas did on Oct. 7 genocide? If someone from Israel wants to call it that, I'm not going to argue with them.
But setting aside the "too soon" factor... They'd definitely be wrong to call it genocide. I don't think bombing Gaza is either. And "genocide" is a word we really should not turn to mush, the way social media turned "gaslighting" into simply lying, and the way the rightwing turned "woke" into "anything I don't like." You use a word imprecisely too often and suddenly its concept doesn't exist anymore. "Genocide" as a concept needs to exist in the starkest terms.
Just wait'll you see the infrastructure bill he's preparing for Palestine, it includes an Acela that runs from Gaza City to Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. People brought together through the healing power of commuter rail.
I think heโs made the best of a bad situation so far.
Unless optics is your preferred gauge...
I have no answer for what the United States can do to change the calculus in the Middle East. I donโt share the nationalism or religiosity of the players and canโt imagine what can be done to move them away from those motivations. But, both our politicians and media have decided that itโs up to us to do something about it. We protested the Vietnam War to demand our government stop its own actions. What are yesterdayโs protesters doing, if not demanding our government stop others from committing war crimes? How exactly is it supposed to do that? Sure, stop sending weapons to anyone in the Middle East. Beyond that, what? Words, diplomacy, jaw-jaw while the actors engage in war-war. Anyway, when the fascists take over our government in 2024, Iโm sure those protesters will find their demands ignored and themselves branded as enemies. The future doesnโt look good for the Middle East or us. Maybe we should focus on the threat at home.
A little shocked to see "if" is now "when."
It's never to soon to be cynical these days.
Fair enough but it would actually require getting to 2025 alive, first.
OK, now I'm wondering if I really should be going around saying "If Trump wins it's the end of democracy." Sure, it's a good way to scare the crap out of people, but it doesn't leave much room for a Plan B, does it?
Many Americans attitudes toward Palestine has evolved over the decades, and mostly for the better. What I've come to realize in my own transition can be summed in a more or less simple statement:
Your attitude towards whiteness is your attitude towards the Palestinians.
We can say it's not our fight, and of course if your neighbors aren't dying it's not. But our neighbors ARE dying โ and from the same settler-colonialist attitudes that tells some group that white phosphorus is good crowd control against another. And by some WEIRD coincidence, the IDF trains US prison guards & police departments in their brutal tactics.
Another thing I always wondered about: there was an US initiative to "re-patriate" Black Americans to Liberia after emancipation. It kind of fizzled out, but the result could have very been an early sort of Israel.
"Another thing I always wondered about: there was an US initiative to "re-patriate" Black Americans to Liberia after emancipation. It kind of fizzled out, but the result could have very been an early sort of Israel."
Note: *Before* emancipation, which is why the capital of Liberia is "Monroeville". The idea that Black Americans couldn't coexist with White Americans is as old as America itself. There was even a proposal from Santo Domingo (now the Dominican Republic) to sell itself to America during the Grant administration as a "two-state solution" for Black Americans; the Grant administration balked at the price so the deal never went down.
All of which to say I for one am not surprised that Americans are confused by a minority's struggle for freedom behind the scenes.
Thank u for the clarification/correction โ & yep even ol' "Honest Abe" was quite honest about his disbelief in Black/white co-existence... ugh
Yes, today's pro-Palestinian movement is clearly benefiting from the edumacation many of us got through the George Floyd/BLM movement. As I've said before, this empathy thing, once it gets started, is hard to stop.
I would agree with Tlaib's version of "from the river to the sea," which Mark Tessler links to the PLO's proposal for a "secular democratic state" in all of what's now Israel and the occupied territories. Aaron David Miller, the former diplomat and foreign policy wonk who knows way more about this issue than I ever will, still argues that the nationalist feelings on both the Israeli-Zionist side and the Palestinian side are so strong that they could not make a single state function. But it is also hard to see how the massive settlement policy in the West Bank could be unwound in a two-state solution.
Still, the options for a stable peace are pretty much limited to three: two states, a single democratic secular state, or a single undemocratic apartheid Jewish state with a soon-to-be-Palestinian majority. For the US to seriously push for its own current official position, a two-state solution, looks like the most likely way to get some real movement on a substantive solution going.
I was once fairly optimistic about the chances for a single secular state, optimism shared by many of the lefties I hung with at the time. Obvious comparisons were made to South Africa, and we all know how that turned out, right? I think it was linked to a naive belief in "demographic change" as an unstoppable historical force, that Palestinians would eventually outnumber Israelis, and then Israel's apartheid system would be doomed.
You know, kinda like the people in this country who thought demographic change would deliver us a permanent Democratic majority. Harumph.
At this point, there's pretty much no way I see Israel accepting a two-state "solution", as it's from their perspective just moving the problem someplace else.
The question I have is whether there was ever a time when Israel was serious about accepting a two-state solution? Judging by their actions, continually annexing and settling Palestinian land, making any viable Palestinian state impossible, I'd say they never took this seriously as a possibility.
There's a quote from an Israeli Prime Minister (Rabin?) who once quipped "I love the peace process so much it should go on a thousand years." Everything they've done is about extending control and buying time and dealing with the consequences later.
Yup. At least that is precisely what it looks like from here.
I think Israel, at this point, will only accept a single undemocratic apartheid Jewish state
Just about this "from the river to the sea" slogan supposedly meaning THE OBILITERATION OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL, a two-state solution has been official US policy since at least the days of Kissinger, so OK, here's a map of Israel and here's a black Sharpie, draw me a Palestinian state that doesn't touch both the banks of the Jordan and the Mediterranean. Unless you're the kinda guy who'd use the Sharpie to put a single dot in the middle of the Sinai desert, can't be done.
Hell, even if you read it as "Return to the '67 borders", that clearly can't mean the destruction of the state of Israel, because I'm fairly sure there was a state of Israel prior to '67.
Yeah, but it was without the stuff G-d promised them! The STUFF!
A Palestinian state does not need to be contiguous. The Kaliningrad Oblast is part of Russia but is distant by a 6-hour, 280-mile drive across two NATO states. Parts of Spain are across the Mediterranean in Africa. Greece is pretty spread out. We've got Hawaii waaaay out there. In comparison, Gaza and the West Bank are a cozy 58 miles apart. They will remain 58 miles apart in every likely scenario -- but hire Japan to build a train and you can make that trip quicker than my 12-mile commute.
OK, but if they were contiguous, would that require the Palestinians to take Tel Aviv or Haifa? Could we construct a Palestinian state all joined-together that leaves some land for the Israelis too? Call me a pie-eyed optimist, but I think we could.
I don't know what the Palestinians want. They are great at posting slogans and videos of dead children, not great at stating a specific set of criteria that if met would satisfy them. They are like the Middle East's "Defund the Police" movement.
I'm pretty sure "Return to the '67 borders" was put on the table at some point, the Israelis wouldn't agree to that for obvious reasons, and now here we are. The now-dead "peace process" did go on for decades, I never followed the details of it but I don't think the Palestinians kept going to all those meetings with no demands.
My understanding is that in 2000, Israel did agree to a return to 67 borders, or close enough, and the PLO walked away because they demanded a more expansive Right of Return inside those borders rather than the carefully administered one that Israel could realistically agree to. At that point, the PLO was essentially saying if Israel gets to be a state, then we would rather remain stateless; although -- worth noting! -- a friend of mine with family in Israel characterizes it less as a real policy choice, more as Arafat's realization that if he signed the deal, he'd have to stop being the revolutionary and start being the guy who figures out how the trash gets picked up every week, and he had no idea how to become that guy.
"inside those borders"
So the Palestinians, having been given a state, wanted to be able to decide who would be given admittance to that state. Seems reasonable to me. That's generally how states work.
Also, we should talk sometime about how the Palestinians got so good at posting pictures of dead children. Nobody comes by this skill naturally, it requires a lot of practice, and a steady supply of dead children.
Historically you get to do it if your HOA harbors terrorists.
Depends on which Palestinians, maybe.
I will preface and say that I despise Netanyahu and his right-wing government: most of the true religious Israeliโs didnโt even believe in the state of Israel when the UN partitioned Palestine into a two state solution. Now these same religious groups are with the settlers; another messianic religious cult of fascists and religious psychopaths and zealots.
Secondly, part of the blame goes to Trump by putting an unqualified, biased amateur in charge of Middle East policy (Kushner). Trump moved the US embassy to Jerusalem; he allowed Israel to annex the Golan Heights and Trump enabled Netanyahu and his right-wing fascist whack-jobs to continue building illegal settlements in the West Bank, as well as restrict movements of the people in Gaza. All this without Israel having to make any concessions to the Palestinians or Syrians for that matter.
That said, a ceasefire with Hamas isnโt the answer. They are a terrorist organization who originated in the early 90โs as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt; the same people who assassinated Sadat for making peace with Israel.
Hamasโs charter calls for the destruction of Israel and they executed terrorist attacks in the 90โs during the Oslo Accords. These peopleโs owe their very existence to destroying any opportunity for peace. Yet, ironically, so many want the two parties to form a ceasefire.
Hamas does not want peace. They care little for the Palestinian people. Instead of building bomb shelters for the Palestinians, they built a tunnel system to attack Israel. Are the Hamas leaders so obtuse that they donโt think Israel would retaliate after being attacked?
Furthermore, instead of investing the billions they received in foreign aid from the Arab and western world, they built rockets to attack Israel with. They use the Palestinians as human shields and a ceasefire only helps them rebuild and attack again.
Additionally, the absence of war is not peace; itโs the status quo. And since Gaza was granted self-rule in 2005, Hamas has used Gaza as Staging ground to destroy Israel.
Admittedly, Netanyahu and the right-wing settlers donโt want peace either. Netanyahu for decades has weakened the Palestinian Authority and played them against Hamas, to keep the Palestinian people at war with each other.
Bottom line: we had a ceasefire before. In fact, we end up with a ceasefire every two to three years or so: Hamas attacks, Israel bombs and invades, then a ceasefire is declared, and two to three years later itโs rinse, lather repeat.
Except each time Israel tightens their restrictions on the Palestinianโs and each invasion gets more deadly due to technological advances, Hamas increased capabilities, and its ability to recruit more cannon fodder as suicide psychos.
For peace to take hold, two parties need to be committed to making a deal that neither side may love, but both sides can live with. Right now, both sides are devoid of any true leadership committed to peace.
Therefore, America and the rest of the world needs to force both sides to the table, or let the two fend for themselves without any foreign military or humanitarian assistance.
As Einstein once said, โthe definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result.โ
Iโm done supporting insanity on either side!
Just some thoughts!...:)
FYI: I find it ironic that these college students find the need to support Hamas in this war given its atrocities against Jews. Where are the same people calling for Russia to withdraw from Ukraine, or the Saudiโs and UAE from Yemen?
I guess when it comes to defending oneโs nation, or waging war on innocents, Israel is always held to a higher standard than the rest of the world.
I read "ceasefire" as "Israel stops bombing the shit out of Gaza", which would have the short-term benefit of fewer dead people, plus the chance to get more humanitarian aid to the not-dead-yet inhabitants of Gaza. Do I expect Hamas to honor the ceasefire? Nah, probably not, but Palestinian rockets from Gaza don't have the ability to kill ten thousand Israelis in a matter of a couple of weeks, while Israel has already demonstrated that capacity with their bombs. But that's me, I'm a Math Guy, I count the dead and I'm generally for stuff that makes the total come out smaller.
Is a ceasefire a "solution" to the problem, short-term or long-term? Of course it's not, but does anyone seriously think that what Israel is doing now is a "solution"? Seems a little unfair to hold the ceasefire to a higher standard than the war.
I agree, but a ceasefire always results in the same. Two years of an absence of war, and then its rinse, lather repeat.
Calling for a humanitarian pause is a better solution as long as the West and Arab nations force both sides to the table. Unfortunately, Israel can only negotiate with the PA, not Hamas. And the world needs to recognize the PA as the only legitimate Palestinian authority, and stop funding Hamas, period.
I donโt like the death and casualties on either side. And Netanyahu needs to go which is exactly what will happen when Hamas is no longer a threat.
That said, nothing will be easy, and the world needs to be engaged more than ever before.
Just sayin' - Ukraine already has majority support (except for right-wing Putin chasers and lefty "NATO *made* Russia invade!" folks), and Yemen is essentially invisible in Western media, partially because "where?" and partially because the US government apparently is willing to look away while the Saudis bomb Yemen because they're afraid of gas prices going up.
I agree, both governments and people are hypocritical. Yet, where are the republicans in Congress when it comes to Ukraine aid? They have bent a knee to the know-nothing fascist who continues to lick Putinโs boots.
And my point was about college campuses where they study Ukraine, Russia and Yemen in history and current affairs. Iโm just shocked the justice warriors arenโt more involved with boycotts against Russia and some Arab nations.
About campus protesters, people tend to protest when they think their government is doing something wrong and they want it changed. No need to protest against what Russia is doing in Ukraine, the government's already got that covered.
And, like I said, Yemen protests are unfortunately likely to be met with either "huh?" or "kids these days are enraged about ANYTHING".
SNL once had a Weekend Update bit under the headline "Yemen/Urine" that went something like this: "More Americans know that if you put a sleeping person's hand in warm water they will urinate on themselves than know which side of the Yemen civil war the United States is supporting."
Had a friend who spent time decades ago studying in Yemen ("studying" being a term of art in the espionage biz) who said they'd never encountered a place as f'ed-up as the Yemens North and South.
A few people were protesting at the Raytheon facility down the road. I'm thinking of maybe a sign that says: Arm Ukraine , Not Israel..
I think the US general public is being ground down by "Israel/hamas fatigue" via the media and is conveniently kept from news about Ukraine, russia, or their own (American) country's many troubles. Not that the Middle East conflict isn't important, but it's also a useful "SQUIRRELL!!" for those who don't want reporting on other things.
I was glad to see that Zelensky was given some time on Sunday and tied russia (along with iran and n korea) to hamas.
By the way, Roy - not to be off-topic, but this story looks like something in your wheelhouse:
"Mike Johnson Admits He and His Son Monitor Each Otherโs Porn Intake in Resurfaced Video
'Iโm proud to tell ya, my son has got a clean slate," Speaker of the House says of his "accountability partner'"
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/mike-johnson-son-monitor-porn-intake-covenant-eyes-1234870634/
Which son? The adopted Black one?
Tsrangely, that is not specified. But the (un)adopted black one is an adult now so -um - that would be even weirder.
By the way I saw another article somewhere that made a passing refeence to the johnsons having "many" children of all ages. Not sure why his family size at least is never reported. Just like his "non-existent" finances. Because none of us working stiffs have bank accounts, right?
Maybe Mrs. Johnson's quiver is so full they lost count?
Oof.
I mean, yeah, I get the analogy, tho I never heard that term used that way before (and gotta say, not bad) but still, oof.
"accountability partner" sounds like they're running on of those porn monitor programs I mentioned the other day. The ones you can set to identify lingerie and swimsuits as "porn" because OH LORDY LORDY WOMEN PARTS.
Third in line for the Presidency, you say?
Closer than that, when you consider that the lady in front of him only counts for 3/5.
Careful now. My Oofs are not infinite.
Save the Endangered Oof!
and the President is patient 0
And who's checking the dirty pictures Mike has in his Little Tin Box?
Also, $16.99 a month? And we just gave this schmuck control of the Federal budget?
Yoicks! For that kinda money, there must be, say, 100 surveils/day...? Because how much would it cost to do auto-screen-saves? 10ths of a cent? In any case, $16.99 is essentially pure profit.
Additional source of profit: For a member of Congress, there must be plenty of people who'd be willing to pay for his browser history, not just the Russians and the Chinese, but also anyone hoping to pick up some hot stock tips.
I bet he would use the excuse "Hey! I was only browsing!"
"You're going to have to do something with these people besides continue to obliterate them"
Who, What, Where, When, and most importantly, Why? Whether it's Palestinians in the M.E. or MAGA in America, those questions are just about impossible to answer (well, the Why is the avoidance of mindless violence and bloodshed, but that's exactly what significant portions of those populations want). Whether one of these groups is justified in their anger and the other not is a rathole that offers no clarity, moral or otherwise. They're here, they're angry, and they're not going away. The government of Israel seems fine with a policy of slow obliteration, even after the failure of its eternal vigilance policy as a way of managing blowback from it. It's up to the people of Israel to decide if it is worth it, if it is making them more or less secure, and they're willing to accept where it leads them. Condemning American complicity is jake with me, but thinking America can dictate terms to Israel is just colonialism wrapped in goo-goo liberal idealism. The grownups in the War Room are still playing the Great Game because there's no better option on offer to avoid WW III, and Israel and Palestinians are trapped in a tar pit given as a parting gift from the British Empire and wrapped with a bow by the UN, the tar kept bubbling by resentful nations surrounding Israel and other actors playing the Great Game. It's in the Interest of the Palestinians and Israeli citizens to do almost anything else, but just like with MAGA in America, there are plenty of actors with plenty of incentive to keep the tar bubbling, so bubble it will.
That slow obliteration is quickening. Latest outta the West Bank is more Palestinians killed in the last 3 weeks than all of last year. The 'settlers' are unleashed, and the army is with them. It's just slow mass murder there right now, and if the Palestinians arise against that, the boil-over will be really brutal and could easily jump borders.
The way the 'settlers' (that is, land thieves and mass murderers) are going right now is reminiscent of the Civil War 1.5* on offer here. Mass killings/week is the new measure, and in almost all cases we know which side does the killing and which is killed. And in both places there is no one stopping it, nor likely to.
*I would accept an alternate numbering system depending on if you think CW2 has got here already.
Yeah, the current plan seems to consist of "the beatings will continue until morale improves". It's all insane, but insanity seems to be "in" this year.
I don't think we get full-blown CW 2.0 until the military gets involved. My bet is on the Republicans going all in on some "who's gonna stop me" election nullification, and them asking the military to "restore order". At that point, we're in choose your own adventure territory. Next year is gonna suck so hard. Stock up on toilet paper and booze or edibles now.
I'm gonna Oof this even tho I'm about Oofed out today.
I don't demand or expect that Rep. Mike Johnson (R.-Civitas Dei) begin every public statement with 'I donสผt endorse a Day Of The Rope, in fact I think it an evil idea.' but I'd like him to be on-record with that and some indication that he means it.
The crowds at the demos included both Jews (lefty, and of at least one of the most oppressive Chasidic sects) and people who'd be happy to see all Jews die, as well as what I'll wish (I never understood 'hope', it seems to indicate that my wishes could affect probabilities) were a large majority who just don't want their relatives maimed and killed and I don't demand that the latter continually denounce the murders that set-off this round, but I'd be happier knowing that they knew that Hamas are at best only slightly more concerned with keeping their loved ones whole than are the Israelis.
And, frankly, I think everyone does know what 'from the river to the sea' means, the differences are between those who support a secular, egalitarian, probably-at-least-social-democratic, single-state solution and those who want various levels of religiously-controlled state and various degrees of Judenreinschaft achieved with various degrees of murder, expulsion, and retention-with-oppressionโฆand the same for secularists and disagreeing Islamists.
If I want to know what Rashida Tlaib means by some words she says, I think my first step would be to check with Rashida Tlaib. And sure, people aren't always 100% honest when talking about their goals, but people are also not 100% honest when attributing meaning to the words other people say.
Considering she's been a conservative punching bag ever since she took her seat, I'd assume anything the "Russia did nothing wrong" GOP says should be taken with all the seriousness it deserves, i.e. nada.
My apologies ,I wasn't thinking of what she meant because I had not heard of that Trumpogenic mess, though I had started to guess at it after Our Gracious Host's mention.
Of course words can mean different things, but as a professional politician she should be expected to know what they have come to mean. Perhaps my construal is _not_ anything like the general such, in which case her expectation of its general construal were very different, but I don't believe that.
EDIT: I consider taking what she said to be an endorsement of genocide to be bullshit, but I think she should have been careful when using a slogan also used by some people who do. It's not using 'White Power' to mean rural electrification, but it's on the order of saying 'I support the police .' without qualification when it is known that there are people out there who _do_ support the police without qualification, except extra support when they kill black men.
Hearted for the precision of the edit.