By defining your adversary as "evil," there is only one solution. There is no need to understand their plight, their history, or their legitimate grievances in order to reach a mutually beneficial and peaceful solution. There is no need for diplomacy or give and take negotiations based upon mutual respect and understanding. None of that is applicable. When confronting evil, there is only one option---it must be eradicated, stamped out, defeated. So, is it any wonder that every day this world is filled with more and more death, destruction and grotesque carnage?
The irony of both the US and Israel "leaders" accusing others, in this instance - Hamas - of being a terrorist organization is that both the US and Israel were founded by those who would have been called terrorists (in both instances - by the British).
Certainly, the "founding fathers", including George Washington would have been hanged if captured. Menachem Begin, sixth prime minister of Israel, was the head of Irgun in 1946 when it attacked the King David hotel in Jerusalem. He would have suffered a similar fate if captured.
And, to be clear, I abhor the Hamas atrocity of last weekend; my only point is that it existed. The US refused to deal with it; Israel saw it only as counter force to the PLO.
None of that history is relevant when everything becomes a morality tale of the good guys versus the bad guys.
Oct 12, 2023·edited Oct 12, 2023Liked by Bill Astore
Excellent points. The Scriptural quotation is appropriate,and especially good to keep in mind when dealing with Christianistas who tell you the Bible means we have to go all in on Israel. It is also good to remind these types that when Jesus literally said "love your enemies" it means at a bare minimum that you do not get to kill them.
As for destroying history you are sadly correct. People will tell you that seeking context and understanding is justifying the violence of a group like Hamas or Al Qaeda. I suspect that what they are afraid of is that understanding what motivates a group might point the way to a possible solution, and that is no way to propitiate the god of war.
Yes, indeed. I didn’t grasp it the first couple of times I heard references to 9/11 this week, but now I do: “9/11-ing” the current situation means again demanding this be Year Zero. There’s never been violence in the world until this act of violence, except for 9/11 itself. There is no history behind it that makes it comprehensible (which is different from justifiable), and which can be used to shape a less brutal future.
Also, a sidebar on Barbara Lee: she’s had all these years to progress beyond just being “the one who votes no on these things,” to develop into someone who really rocks the boat on the permanent warfare state, and she hasn’t; she basically plays along. I understand her not wanting to pay the personal and political price of being a dissident, but at this point I have to say she’s been a disappointment.
Bill, love your work as always, just have to defend the Palestinians here.
If we backtrack to one week ago and think about how we and others dealt with this issue... How many years had Palestinians lived in poverty and ruin? Note I'm not asking you to look up the answers, this is just my writing style.
One week ago, how many bombs and missiles had been shot into Gaza and the West Bank?
How many times have Palestinians pleaded with the world to care about them? How many times did they go to the U.N. in desperation, only to be ignored?
I can't remember who just wrote this. But someone recently wrote about nonviolent resistance and violent resistance, and they argued that nonviolent resistance only works when the spotlight is aimed at the nonviolent resistors.
We can all agree that, one week ago, very very very few people paid attention to Palestine. Nobody can get elected in the US if they do. (Due to money in politics more than the opinions of the electorate.)
Frederick Douglass said, "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."
I know this is a scary opinion, one that would get a public figure crucified. But I don't think disadvantaged groups can win power without using some amount of violence. Because the media is so corrupt, no matter what non-violent tactics are employed, the media will ignore them.
Nonviolence doesn't deter Israel from stealing more houses. It didn't stop them from murdering children.
It's really simple if you look at it with the ever-popular WW2 good vs evil, Nazis vs Allied framework. Imagine if the Jewish prisoners in Dachau managed to act like the Palestinian fighters just did. Imagine if those Jewish prisoners busted out of the camp, killed the guards, and killed German civilians surrounding the camp. Do you really think history would look down at those Jewish fighters and call them terrorists? No way in hell. Those fighters would be heroes.
I don't think it's fair to call an oppressed person a terrorist, especially one who is fighting their oppressor.
I suppose Americans would argue violence worked in 1776 and the American War for Independence. The problem is that violent revolutions unleash the most elemental barbarism, and the results are unpredictable and often lead to worse atrocities than existed before the revolution, e.g. the French Revolution produced Napoleon.
Terror is a tactic, and Hamas is using terror (the slaying of innocents at a music festival; the kidnapping of civilians and holding them for ransom), hence it's accurate to call them terrorists. It's also true that Palestinians are suppressed and oppressed. Hamas is using terror; Palestinians are oppressed--both are true.
Jewish fighters did resist the Nazis in many places, e.g. the Warsaw ghetto uprising, and they are indeed seen as heroes.
Speaking in general terms, violence as a tactic must be used very carefully by the oppressed, because you're almost guaranteed to provoke a far more violent response from the oppressor. That may indeed be the goal, in the sense of generating backlash and even more opposition, but who is prepared (at least here in America) to lay down their lives first in battle?
I understand the mentality of those with no hope who basically say: I'd rather die resisting than submit to a life of oppression. But if that resistance leads to mass extermination by those with the power, what have you won? The "pleasures" of martyrdom and mass death?
Again, these are difficult questions. Those who offer easy answers know nothing of the complexity of history or of human behavior.
One last note on this, something I just learned, and please correct me if I'm wrong- I heard it on Ben Norton's Geopolitical Economy Report. Ben said that international law permits occupied people to use violence against their occupiers. Side note too, I oppose the death penalty. So do understand, I don't say this lightly, when I say I support Hamas, or that I support violence in this case.
One other thing, if I had any kind of public personality, I'd be more careful with my words. I've said some things here in comments that would laugh me out of the room in many circles. I guess I don't plan to ever make a living off of politics or my political opinions. So I feel freer to be blunt. Solidarity!
i'm drowning in a swamp of despair and mental desuetde here in the philippines, rachel, but your discursives, scripts and screeds have given me the optative uplift that has helped pull me out of the doldrums this morning. thank you for your astute, knowledgeable, and compassionate comments on behalf of the dismissed, derogated, and unjustifiably disdained palestinians. whose lives have been decimated by the atrocities of israeli zionists, their US/UK myrmidons, and other western sycophantic gadarenes who lovingly embrace the war gods of yore.
Rachel, I agree with the other commentators - you've raised a number of troubling issues that should be discussed.
What I fear is that once again the legitimate issues of the Palestinians will disappear even as their innocents are annihilated as Gaza turns into a replay of Bakhmut or Stalingrad, if as seems inevitable Israel invades Gaza. Both sides will suffer horrendous casualties.
From there, only further escalation seems likely. This could lead into a major confrontation involving regional and global powers. As Ukraine has disappeared, so will the plight of the Palestinians.
We should all pray for peace - it's far too easy to conceive how bad this could become for everyone.
Also, I'd say Palestine has been invisible for 70 years. Israel and the West CONSTANTLY bombs them. Israel CONSTANTLY kills infants. Children. Israel purposely kills civilians.
And nobody cares. Palestinians pleaded with the UN multiple times. Nobody cared.
In fact, Israel has continued to expand settlements. I just don't understand what Westerners expect Palestinians to do. Roll over and die slowly, or take a risk they'll die a little faster? If I were a Palestinian in the occupied territories, I would choose to fight. Since I have literally no hope of anything if I don't.
Thanks. I was focused on the present, but you're absolutely correct. The Palestinians were tossed aside after 1948. The indifference to their deaths from massacres during the. 1948 war, Sabra and Shatila, continues to today. I fear the intent of some (e..g., Lindsey Graham and others in Congress) is they join the long list of inconvenient peoples who stood "in the way" and had to be removed.
I agree with you on several points, Rachel, including the Palestinians' horrific oppression and their need to achieve global visibility.
That said, their copying the tactics of the Israelis was a misguided way to gain such visibility. Deliberate, calculated executions of civilians is NEVER the answer; it brings one down to the level of the oppressors. In tactical terms, it was suicidal, aside from being terminally counterproductive.
Additionally, it's my feeling that Hamas' speaking for and supposedly acting on behalf of all Palestinians is the equivalent of the extreme right-wingnuts claiming to represent all Americans---just not true. The same as declaring that Netanyahu represents all Israelis; he doesn't. He merely heads up the most extreme faction, but, like the Freedumb Caucus in the U.S., he has disproportionate power and the biggest microphone.
Well, we're learning that a lot of those horrific reports were untrue. Re civilian executions and beheaded infants. So, there is that. I'd also take issue with the phrase, "calculated executions". If you have solid evidence of that, link it. I was under the impression that Hamas murdered Israeli soldiers, and yes, that they burned down some settler houses. There is that rave story, but I don't know what is true. I've heard a woman who said she was an attendee there and that Hamas was actually very kind to her. I've heard others say it was a mass execution. To me, it seems like Hamas fighters ran into the rave and shot some but allowed most to flee.
Listen, I understand what you're saying. I don't know if I've ever found myself affirming violence, ever. I just find it so grating when Palestinian death cannot be considered alone. Like, "it's horrifying what Israel does but this Hamas seige was horrible and murder is always horrible." I'm not sure I totally agree.
I am majorally anti-death penalty. But it's because our justice system is a joke. It's so unfair, and there's so many people who are innocent and on death row. Rich people walk free.
However, if I found myself in a more primitive society, a small group that lived communally, and we had a member that killed people, I would consider arguments to kill the murderer. Now I'd rather force the guilty person (who we would be 100% sure WAS the killer because it's a small, interdependent collective) into forced labor, or banish them. But if I couldn't be certain anymore of the safety of my community, I'd consider arguments for killing the guilty person.
All that to say, I hear you. I would condemn summary executions. But I can also imagine how I'd feel as a Palestinian. A permanent prisoner, and I see these Israelis who stole my homeland, and even worse, who deprive me of LIFE- I mean can you even imagine living in Gaza?? So yeah, I just can't blanket-condemn the violence committed against Israeli citizens, because I can imagine the helpless rage of the Palestinians, and no amount of peaceful protesting has helped their cause (in fact Israel bombed them the last time they had a huge protest...)
Re the executions, I was depending on the word of Tom Friedman, who knows something about the Middle East. I'd imagine he wouldn't report without solid sources, but I can't prove he's right.
As for imagining living in Gaza, I have a friend who spent several weeks in July and August in a refugee camp there. She reported on conditions almost daily, and was finally forced to flee (yes, because of Canadian citizenship, she could get out), literally for her life, because of Israeli attacks. So, while I haven't personally experienced it, I did get a first-hand account. She told of the horrific conditions, the lives of hopelessness, the despair. Truly pitiable.
Still doesn't justify what Hamas did, imo. They made themselves as bad as their oppressors.
Denise, I'd take with large spoonfuls of salt anything Friedman has to say. For example, he wrote, of Ukraine, "Bringing Ukraine Into NATO and the E.U. Is the Key to Peace." AS IF! He often rests hard upon the NATO / west's claims about current affairs.
And re. Israel/Palestine, he wrote, " I hope Biden is telling Netanyahu that America will do everything it can to help democratic Israel defend itself from the theocratic fascists of Hamas — and their soul brothers of Hezbollah in Lebanon, should they enter the fight." How, when Netanyahu represents and pushes Jewish (theocratic) supremacy, and is pushing fascistic changes in government, can he fairly single out Hamas for such a designation?
That said, I also agree with the general take that the attacks on Jewish settlers, etc. constitutes at least unjustifiable homicide / atrocity. (It's easy for me to say such a thing when I haven't had to live with what the Palestinians have been forced to bear since the Nakba.
That said, and however bad they were, Hamas' attacks pale in comparison to what the Palestinians have experienced at Israel's hands, with respect to deprivation/denial of civil rights, violence and death. The count of Palestinian civilian deaths from just the most documented incidents is very many thousands; but the toll is much larger. And that is even before Israel completes its ethnic cleansing of the region.
As with many others, I find it distressing that the only time the MSM sees fit to cover the violence and injustices of this longstanding conflict, it is to portray the Muslim Palestinians (and 'our other enemy, Iran') as savages. All the historically documented crimes against humanity by Israel against Palestinians disappears down the memory hole, even though they dwarf even Hamas' action here.
The aim of those who most loudly cry out against Hamas seems not to be a cry for justice nor for peace; but rather, like cries to bolster Ukraine's weaponry, one-sided support for the furtherance of a war- in Palestine's case, one that dates back to the Nakba of 1948.
I agree with your take on Israel and the Palestinians, Roger. The Palestinians have endured beyond-abysmal conditions for decades, as you say.
One point about Friedman: he did say that the U.S. should support Israel, but he also said that, privately, Netanyahu needs to be taken to the wood shed, in so many words. At least he's correct about that.
the MSM, the zionist israelis, the gods of war and their myrmidons, persist in subreptive dissemblings and blatant prevarications. they are masters at manipulating the internet, divulgating altered, duplicitous videos across cyberspace, in order to insure the dumbed-down hoi polloi hops aboard their train full of sycophants, screaming for blood and exculpating the zionist israelis of their near-8 decades of atrocities against the palestinians who, until hamas had lost all hope for a better future, ANY FUTURE, for their besieged, beleaguered, maimed, and imprisoned children. please know, until you have witnessed w/ your own eyes and experiences what the palestinians have endured since 1947~'48, as i have, you have no right to exculpate the zionist isrealis. period! as declared on this website several days ago, i have recently returned from 3 months as a volunteer teacher in 4 different palestinian refugee camps surrounding nablus in the west bank. the israelis were bombing us, shooting us, and dropping ordnance of every variety on our protest marchers, on ambulances, hospitals, and apt. complexes... all w/ impunity and the tacit approval of the western MSM, the US, and the UK. shame on any of you who defend the horrors perpetually unleashed by the israeli military on thousands of defenceless palestinian civilians throughout gaza and the west bank. i know of what i speak; i was just there. i beseech you who read and listen to the western MSM to see and hear my pleas. [posted by jeanie mceachern].
Poll: Majority of Israelis Blame Government for Hamas Attack
by Dave DeCamp October 12, 2023
A new poll found that the vast majority of Israelis say the Hamas attack on southern Israel was caused by a failure in the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and a smaller majority want Netanyahu to resign once the conflict is over.
In the poll released by the Dialog Center, 86% of the people asked, including 79% of supporters of Netanyahu’s governing coalition, said the surprise attack from Gaza was a failure of the country’s leadership.
The poll also found that 56% of respondents want Netanyahu to resign at the end of the conflict, and 52% also want to see the resignation of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
The Hamas attack on October 7 has raised questions about how the Israeli government could not be aware that such a large operation was about to be launched from Gaza, which has been under Israeli blockade since 2007 and is under heavy surveillance. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) on Wednesday confirmed reports that said Egypt warned Israel before the attack that something big was coming.
Netanyahu has also come under criticism for his strategy of propping up Hamas to divide Gaza from Palestinian leadership in the West Bank. “Those who want to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state should support the strengthening of Hamas and the transfer of money to Hamas,” Netanyahu said at a Likud party meeting in 2019. “This is part of our strategy, to differentiate between the Palestinians in Gaza and the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank).”
Considering the huge amount of lies and propaganda in the U. S. media, it does make me wonder a little what actually happened in that incursion--though there isn't any doubt civilians were killed and captured. There were reports of Palestinian casualties in the incursion also.
<<If you’re working for establishment media covering an official enemy of the United States, your main job is to convey to your audience that such places are dystopias, where everyone is miserable and whatever economic punishment Washington imposes on them can’t make things any worse.
The problem is that many of these enemies are tropical countries that often have sunny weather and lush greenery. If you run a realistic photo of such places, people might get the idea that things don’t look so bad there, and could even start wondering whether the living hell described in your text is a completely accurate portrayal.
That’s why corporate media have hit on a simple trick: If you want people to think that a country resistant to US leadership is a festering doomscape, just underexpose the hell out of your photographs.>>
For those interested, I found the text of UN Resolution 35/35 from 1980. Note the link below takes you to a download of the resolution. If you're wary, you can find the text yourself on the UN web page for the 1980 session, just scroll down until you see 35/35, then click on the hyperlink. Here's the relevant part. Point 2, the General Assembly...
<<Reaffirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples
for independence, territorial integrity, national unity
and liberation from colonial and foreign domination
and foreign occupation by all available means, including
armed struggle>>
Ergo, it is legal under international law for Palestinians to use violence in their struggle for liberation.
I watched the highly acclaimed British journalist Alistair Crooke, on the Duran yesterday.
He was discussing the amount of support Netanyahu has in Israel. He was going as far as saying that he thought there could be a Coup d'etat in Israel. Any BV commentors thoughts on that?
Also, I'm trying to get my arms around how representative Hamas is in Palestine? Were they "elected"? And do they have a majority support in Gaza? And who is the PLO? Does Gaza have a representative government of its own? A democracy?
Too many questions. Is Iran financing and arming Hamas you think?
Thanks, Dennis
EDIT: Scott Ritter yesterday "Here’s The ONLY WAY This Conflict Ends!"
I would say it is basically impossible for us to know how much support Hamas has from the people. Unless you have a VPN and a trustworthy English language source in the mideast, to me it's just unknowable.
I think that Israel is making a huge mistake. Right now people are willing to view Israel as under siege, even though Israel is largely the one throwing the bombs now.
For resources, I would go to this post by Norman Finkelstein. You can either read or watch it. It doesn't answer your questions about the current political situation but you may find nuggets or jumping off points for more exploration:
I have some ideas for other sources but I'm reluctant to give them out because they are explicitly anti-Israeli. I don't know how trustworthy they are so don't want to link them in case they're not giving an accurate viewpoint.
Thank you, Rachel. Norman Finkelstein has been on the Jimmy Dore Show a couple of times in the last few days.
It's so sad that you are reluctant to post anti-Israel links - even in an alt media site like this one. It tells you a lot about America eh? Do you think the 1,000's of anti-Palestine hit job and smear sites give a shit whether their frothing at mouth is accurate?
That Hamas beheaded babies is 100% bovine excrement. But this lie is told over and over again on MSM. Repeated by Joe Biden in a major US speech to the Nation. Same with the lie that 250-people were killed by Hamas at a rock concert. Its bullshit.
It's called Atrocity Propaganda. Will anti-Israel commentaries like these debunking this bullshit ever be shown on CNN or MSNBC, or on the BBC? Not a chance. I'm surprised they are on YouTube®!
And it's the same in New Zealand Rachel. My pro-Palestinian comments on NZ sites last about 5-minutes before they disappear. And of course, now I am banned from commenting because I'm spreading disinformation. It sucks. And my NZ neighbors reckon that the evil Allah worshipping, throat cutting, Hamas guy Asama Bin Laden is still chopping off Christian's head's. Thats how fucked up their understanding of what's going on is. They are fed anti-Palestine hate speech every night on the 6oclock News by our state-owned TV station. I have given up trying to talk to Kiwi's in the street. It's very bad for my self-esteem.
But you know what, if Netanyahu continues this bombing for a few more days; 6,000 bombs in 2-days now; even Al Jazeera TV will not be able hide these atrocious war crimes and genocide. Surely this is going to make Israel a pariah on the World stage. Surely this time their "mowing the lawn" will finally revolt the whole world to where the apartheid nation is reeled in like South Africa was? When will Palestine get its "Nelson Mandela" eh?
EDIT: Caitlin Johnstone today:
"It’s interesting how last week Israel had no idea what Hamas was up to, and yet this week they know every mosque, school and hospital that Hamas is hiding in.
When you live under an empire of lies you’ll be asked to believe a lot of very stupid things. The dumbest thing we’re being asked to believe this week is that Israel’s intelligence services are simultaneously so incompetent that Saturday’s Hamas attack took them completely by surprise, but also so competent that all the buildings they’re destroying with their relentless bombing campaign on Gaza are directed solely at Hamas."
And of course, Israel always gives warnings before they bomb! Yeah Right! Fuckin liars. So that makes dropping bombs on civilian area's OK. Vermin!
what a poignant voice for an honourable and honest defence of our beleaguered palestinian victims of israeli apartheid you are dennis! i erumpently applaud you. having recently returned from 3 months as a volunteer teacher in the israeli-catalyzed horrors unleashed on the west bank and its refugee camps, i am in your debt for your truth-telling, and i can confirm the veracity of your declaratives.
Caitlin concludes today's posting “Israeli Intelligence Suddenly Knows Exactly Where Hamas Is” as follows:
“In reality, both the claims that Israeli intelligence was taken by surprise by the Hamas attack and that Israel is solely targeting Hamas with its Gaza strikes are highly suspect and worthy of intense scrutiny. Israel has never been averse to killing Palestinian civilians, and there’s no reason to feel confident Israeli intelligence didn’t let the attack through in order to justify longstanding agendas like the elimination of Gaza as a Palestinian territory. Both claims can be false, but from where I’m sitting it looks highly unlikely that they’re both true.
“If you want to support Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza then go ahead, and if you want to uncritically accept the official narrative about Saturday’s attack then you do you. But don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining.”
Here's a good news source for the mideast. Forgot to say in my other comment, the PLO is b.s. It is completely bought off. They don't represent Palestinians. Just like our government doesn't represent us.
Thank you again Rachel my dear for that middleeasteye link, and all your carefully researched links. Your excellent efforts are much appreciated here.
Here is a couple off paragraphs from an article on that site... "The Nakba that Israel has started will Backfire" by David Hearst on 13 October 2023. Just 3hours ago.
A MUST READ for any person who has a moral conscience!
"Reoccupying Gaza and finishing off just one Palestinian armed group will not change the strategic reality of the Middle East, as the Israeli government has vowed to do.
There is a massacre taking place almost every night in Gaza. Whole families have been wiped out by precision bombs. Palestinians in Gaza have been told to evacuate their whole district, only to run into the path of bombs. Districts are not just being bombed once; they are being systemically levelled.
In previous campaigns, Palestinians in Gaza fled to Rimal, a relatively wealthy middle-class area by the sea. It was regarded as a safe haven because in previous campaigns, Israel had no reason to bomb it. Now, Rimal is being levelled.
This nightly slaughter is not taking place accidentally by undisciplined pilots taking revenge for alleged war crimes committed by Hamas in southern Israel. It is taking place by design. The aim of cutting off electricity, water and food to more than two million people, and subjecting them to this nightly bombardment, is to get them to flee.......
.....Does an unplanned regional war in the Middle East, created entirely by an unhinged ally, make any sense for the US? I don’t think it does. Biden has given Netanyahu the brightest of green lights in offering Israel its unequivocal backing, but I do not think the US has war-gamed the possible devastating outcomes of what is taking place in Gaza right now."
And just for shits and grins lets attach to that - the last paragraph from our inestimable friend James Howard Kunstler's todays blog...
"Yet to play out is America’s crisis of leadership. As supply lines break, and the flash mobs loot the luxury shops, and the illegal alien's stream in, and the price of everything goes up-up-up, and the truth about the Covid vaccines is finally grokked, even the dazed-and-confused American public might notice that the White House has become a zombie palace. Politics hates a vacuum and “Joe Biden” begins to look like a black hole that will suck the execrable deep state blob that surrounds him across the event horizon that opens to oblivion. I’d go so far to predict that well before the 2024 election, America will have a new chief executive and that it won’t be Kamala Harris. It could be someone in a uniform, though. Just sayin’. Everything is in flux."
What the Israelis are doing as we type here has worldwide consequences and is fuckin disgusting. Arguably as bad as, or worse than, anything the Nazi's did in WW2. That this is being supported by the US ,UK and other Western nations is unconscionable. And of course, could spiral out of control to a huge unimaginable regional war. Like Benito Mussolini, the sooner BB Netanyahu, the leader of the shitty little fascist nation of Israel, is found hanging by his neck from a lamp post the better for everyone.
“To all scholars who teach jihad… to all who teach and learn, this is a moment for the application of theories.” —Khaled Meshaal, former Hamas leader
The U. S. really does like to meddle in all things foreign, doesn't It? And not in a positive way to make things better either. Biden and his crew really seem not to know what the heck they are doing. I'm afraid we are going to find out just how wrong Biden's militaristic approach to the world is.
how do we address, neutralize, and vitiate these orwellian vaticinations of the power-elites' subreptitions, dennis? i'm a clueless, etiolated donnard in a state of defeasance. the bastards always win and they always have. as biden declared at the outset of his devious administration, "nothing will fundamentally change!" how prevenient, eh?
By defining your adversary as "evil," there is only one solution. There is no need to understand their plight, their history, or their legitimate grievances in order to reach a mutually beneficial and peaceful solution. There is no need for diplomacy or give and take negotiations based upon mutual respect and understanding. None of that is applicable. When confronting evil, there is only one option---it must be eradicated, stamped out, defeated. So, is it any wonder that every day this world is filled with more and more death, destruction and grotesque carnage?
The irony of both the US and Israel "leaders" accusing others, in this instance - Hamas - of being a terrorist organization is that both the US and Israel were founded by those who would have been called terrorists (in both instances - by the British).
Certainly, the "founding fathers", including George Washington would have been hanged if captured. Menachem Begin, sixth prime minister of Israel, was the head of Irgun in 1946 when it attacked the King David hotel in Jerusalem. He would have suffered a similar fate if captured.
And, to be clear, I abhor the Hamas atrocity of last weekend; my only point is that it existed. The US refused to deal with it; Israel saw it only as counter force to the PLO.
None of that history is relevant when everything becomes a morality tale of the good guys versus the bad guys.
Excellent points. The Scriptural quotation is appropriate,and especially good to keep in mind when dealing with Christianistas who tell you the Bible means we have to go all in on Israel. It is also good to remind these types that when Jesus literally said "love your enemies" it means at a bare minimum that you do not get to kill them.
As for destroying history you are sadly correct. People will tell you that seeking context and understanding is justifying the violence of a group like Hamas or Al Qaeda. I suspect that what they are afraid of is that understanding what motivates a group might point the way to a possible solution, and that is no way to propitiate the god of war.
Yes, indeed. I didn’t grasp it the first couple of times I heard references to 9/11 this week, but now I do: “9/11-ing” the current situation means again demanding this be Year Zero. There’s never been violence in the world until this act of violence, except for 9/11 itself. There is no history behind it that makes it comprehensible (which is different from justifiable), and which can be used to shape a less brutal future.
Also, a sidebar on Barbara Lee: she’s had all these years to progress beyond just being “the one who votes no on these things,” to develop into someone who really rocks the boat on the permanent warfare state, and she hasn’t; she basically plays along. I understand her not wanting to pay the personal and political price of being a dissident, but at this point I have to say she’s been a disappointment.
Bill, love your work as always, just have to defend the Palestinians here.
If we backtrack to one week ago and think about how we and others dealt with this issue... How many years had Palestinians lived in poverty and ruin? Note I'm not asking you to look up the answers, this is just my writing style.
One week ago, how many bombs and missiles had been shot into Gaza and the West Bank?
How many times have Palestinians pleaded with the world to care about them? How many times did they go to the U.N. in desperation, only to be ignored?
I can't remember who just wrote this. But someone recently wrote about nonviolent resistance and violent resistance, and they argued that nonviolent resistance only works when the spotlight is aimed at the nonviolent resistors.
We can all agree that, one week ago, very very very few people paid attention to Palestine. Nobody can get elected in the US if they do. (Due to money in politics more than the opinions of the electorate.)
Frederick Douglass said, "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."
I know this is a scary opinion, one that would get a public figure crucified. But I don't think disadvantaged groups can win power without using some amount of violence. Because the media is so corrupt, no matter what non-violent tactics are employed, the media will ignore them.
Nonviolence doesn't deter Israel from stealing more houses. It didn't stop them from murdering children.
It's really simple if you look at it with the ever-popular WW2 good vs evil, Nazis vs Allied framework. Imagine if the Jewish prisoners in Dachau managed to act like the Palestinian fighters just did. Imagine if those Jewish prisoners busted out of the camp, killed the guards, and killed German civilians surrounding the camp. Do you really think history would look down at those Jewish fighters and call them terrorists? No way in hell. Those fighters would be heroes.
I don't think it's fair to call an oppressed person a terrorist, especially one who is fighting their oppressor.
Rachel, you touch on difficult issues.
I suppose Americans would argue violence worked in 1776 and the American War for Independence. The problem is that violent revolutions unleash the most elemental barbarism, and the results are unpredictable and often lead to worse atrocities than existed before the revolution, e.g. the French Revolution produced Napoleon.
Terror is a tactic, and Hamas is using terror (the slaying of innocents at a music festival; the kidnapping of civilians and holding them for ransom), hence it's accurate to call them terrorists. It's also true that Palestinians are suppressed and oppressed. Hamas is using terror; Palestinians are oppressed--both are true.
Jewish fighters did resist the Nazis in many places, e.g. the Warsaw ghetto uprising, and they are indeed seen as heroes.
Speaking in general terms, violence as a tactic must be used very carefully by the oppressed, because you're almost guaranteed to provoke a far more violent response from the oppressor. That may indeed be the goal, in the sense of generating backlash and even more opposition, but who is prepared (at least here in America) to lay down their lives first in battle?
I understand the mentality of those with no hope who basically say: I'd rather die resisting than submit to a life of oppression. But if that resistance leads to mass extermination by those with the power, what have you won? The "pleasures" of martyrdom and mass death?
Again, these are difficult questions. Those who offer easy answers know nothing of the complexity of history or of human behavior.
One last note on this, something I just learned, and please correct me if I'm wrong- I heard it on Ben Norton's Geopolitical Economy Report. Ben said that international law permits occupied people to use violence against their occupiers. Side note too, I oppose the death penalty. So do understand, I don't say this lightly, when I say I support Hamas, or that I support violence in this case.
One other thing, if I had any kind of public personality, I'd be more careful with my words. I've said some things here in comments that would laugh me out of the room in many circles. I guess I don't plan to ever make a living off of politics or my political opinions. So I feel freer to be blunt. Solidarity!
i'm drowning in a swamp of despair and mental desuetde here in the philippines, rachel, but your discursives, scripts and screeds have given me the optative uplift that has helped pull me out of the doldrums this morning. thank you for your astute, knowledgeable, and compassionate comments on behalf of the dismissed, derogated, and unjustifiably disdained palestinians. whose lives have been decimated by the atrocities of israeli zionists, their US/UK myrmidons, and other western sycophantic gadarenes who lovingly embrace the war gods of yore.
This made me smile. Thank you! Solidarity!
Rachel, I agree with the other commentators - you've raised a number of troubling issues that should be discussed.
What I fear is that once again the legitimate issues of the Palestinians will disappear even as their innocents are annihilated as Gaza turns into a replay of Bakhmut or Stalingrad, if as seems inevitable Israel invades Gaza. Both sides will suffer horrendous casualties.
From there, only further escalation seems likely. This could lead into a major confrontation involving regional and global powers. As Ukraine has disappeared, so will the plight of the Palestinians.
We should all pray for peace - it's far too easy to conceive how bad this could become for everyone.
Hey Tom, check out my reply to Denise above.
Also, I'd say Palestine has been invisible for 70 years. Israel and the West CONSTANTLY bombs them. Israel CONSTANTLY kills infants. Children. Israel purposely kills civilians.
And nobody cares. Palestinians pleaded with the UN multiple times. Nobody cared.
In fact, Israel has continued to expand settlements. I just don't understand what Westerners expect Palestinians to do. Roll over and die slowly, or take a risk they'll die a little faster? If I were a Palestinian in the occupied territories, I would choose to fight. Since I have literally no hope of anything if I don't.
Rachel,
Thanks. I was focused on the present, but you're absolutely correct. The Palestinians were tossed aside after 1948. The indifference to their deaths from massacres during the. 1948 war, Sabra and Shatila, continues to today. I fear the intent of some (e..g., Lindsey Graham and others in Congress) is they join the long list of inconvenient peoples who stood "in the way" and had to be removed.
I agree with you on several points, Rachel, including the Palestinians' horrific oppression and their need to achieve global visibility.
That said, their copying the tactics of the Israelis was a misguided way to gain such visibility. Deliberate, calculated executions of civilians is NEVER the answer; it brings one down to the level of the oppressors. In tactical terms, it was suicidal, aside from being terminally counterproductive.
Additionally, it's my feeling that Hamas' speaking for and supposedly acting on behalf of all Palestinians is the equivalent of the extreme right-wingnuts claiming to represent all Americans---just not true. The same as declaring that Netanyahu represents all Israelis; he doesn't. He merely heads up the most extreme faction, but, like the Freedumb Caucus in the U.S., he has disproportionate power and the biggest microphone.
Well, we're learning that a lot of those horrific reports were untrue. Re civilian executions and beheaded infants. So, there is that. I'd also take issue with the phrase, "calculated executions". If you have solid evidence of that, link it. I was under the impression that Hamas murdered Israeli soldiers, and yes, that they burned down some settler houses. There is that rave story, but I don't know what is true. I've heard a woman who said she was an attendee there and that Hamas was actually very kind to her. I've heard others say it was a mass execution. To me, it seems like Hamas fighters ran into the rave and shot some but allowed most to flee.
Listen, I understand what you're saying. I don't know if I've ever found myself affirming violence, ever. I just find it so grating when Palestinian death cannot be considered alone. Like, "it's horrifying what Israel does but this Hamas seige was horrible and murder is always horrible." I'm not sure I totally agree.
I am majorally anti-death penalty. But it's because our justice system is a joke. It's so unfair, and there's so many people who are innocent and on death row. Rich people walk free.
However, if I found myself in a more primitive society, a small group that lived communally, and we had a member that killed people, I would consider arguments to kill the murderer. Now I'd rather force the guilty person (who we would be 100% sure WAS the killer because it's a small, interdependent collective) into forced labor, or banish them. But if I couldn't be certain anymore of the safety of my community, I'd consider arguments for killing the guilty person.
All that to say, I hear you. I would condemn summary executions. But I can also imagine how I'd feel as a Palestinian. A permanent prisoner, and I see these Israelis who stole my homeland, and even worse, who deprive me of LIFE- I mean can you even imagine living in Gaza?? So yeah, I just can't blanket-condemn the violence committed against Israeli citizens, because I can imagine the helpless rage of the Palestinians, and no amount of peaceful protesting has helped their cause (in fact Israel bombed them the last time they had a huge protest...)
Re the executions, I was depending on the word of Tom Friedman, who knows something about the Middle East. I'd imagine he wouldn't report without solid sources, but I can't prove he's right.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/10/opinion/israel-hamas-.html?unlocked_article_code=avh7qQbqhyJ8lg_dWl3SVTifJcmJZQHwuJ2qxHSCSs_vfiIj6pP-iBoBortBQwVc6USLsdiQ03xqz4b6xSDnGmPg6LF6oivo7BNWbMjInuceMnAffsGMrHyAc_6mD10PcEDX_SrkyL0D5i13D341xDWo0e8rG9YBZyA30gxErKRfTFIDlqEx_x2tKjhw6vOhC2IkGVd4sAPTz9RYSTKN84Ve-mFdz1PIIrej9gytU9YTpDT_A9wQu30ufHVnThiodXLgBGtOigspnRK2uQw0lq9rs5BwUrZGocmSWZ5CBZ2eUwW1siO35ZaXSBJjVYb3Jr7Iw8ZS1A
As for imagining living in Gaza, I have a friend who spent several weeks in July and August in a refugee camp there. She reported on conditions almost daily, and was finally forced to flee (yes, because of Canadian citizenship, she could get out), literally for her life, because of Israeli attacks. So, while I haven't personally experienced it, I did get a first-hand account. She told of the horrific conditions, the lives of hopelessness, the despair. Truly pitiable.
Still doesn't justify what Hamas did, imo. They made themselves as bad as their oppressors.
Denise, I'd take with large spoonfuls of salt anything Friedman has to say. For example, he wrote, of Ukraine, "Bringing Ukraine Into NATO and the E.U. Is the Key to Peace." AS IF! He often rests hard upon the NATO / west's claims about current affairs.
And re. Israel/Palestine, he wrote, " I hope Biden is telling Netanyahu that America will do everything it can to help democratic Israel defend itself from the theocratic fascists of Hamas — and their soul brothers of Hezbollah in Lebanon, should they enter the fight." How, when Netanyahu represents and pushes Jewish (theocratic) supremacy, and is pushing fascistic changes in government, can he fairly single out Hamas for such a designation?
That said, I also agree with the general take that the attacks on Jewish settlers, etc. constitutes at least unjustifiable homicide / atrocity. (It's easy for me to say such a thing when I haven't had to live with what the Palestinians have been forced to bear since the Nakba.
That said, and however bad they were, Hamas' attacks pale in comparison to what the Palestinians have experienced at Israel's hands, with respect to deprivation/denial of civil rights, violence and death. The count of Palestinian civilian deaths from just the most documented incidents is very many thousands; but the toll is much larger. And that is even before Israel completes its ethnic cleansing of the region.
As with many others, I find it distressing that the only time the MSM sees fit to cover the violence and injustices of this longstanding conflict, it is to portray the Muslim Palestinians (and 'our other enemy, Iran') as savages. All the historically documented crimes against humanity by Israel against Palestinians disappears down the memory hole, even though they dwarf even Hamas' action here.
The aim of those who most loudly cry out against Hamas seems not to be a cry for justice nor for peace; but rather, like cries to bolster Ukraine's weaponry, one-sided support for the furtherance of a war- in Palestine's case, one that dates back to the Nakba of 1948.
I agree with your take on Israel and the Palestinians, Roger. The Palestinians have endured beyond-abysmal conditions for decades, as you say.
One point about Friedman: he did say that the U.S. should support Israel, but he also said that, privately, Netanyahu needs to be taken to the wood shed, in so many words. At least he's correct about that.
the MSM, the zionist israelis, the gods of war and their myrmidons, persist in subreptive dissemblings and blatant prevarications. they are masters at manipulating the internet, divulgating altered, duplicitous videos across cyberspace, in order to insure the dumbed-down hoi polloi hops aboard their train full of sycophants, screaming for blood and exculpating the zionist israelis of their near-8 decades of atrocities against the palestinians who, until hamas had lost all hope for a better future, ANY FUTURE, for their besieged, beleaguered, maimed, and imprisoned children. please know, until you have witnessed w/ your own eyes and experiences what the palestinians have endured since 1947~'48, as i have, you have no right to exculpate the zionist isrealis. period! as declared on this website several days ago, i have recently returned from 3 months as a volunteer teacher in 4 different palestinian refugee camps surrounding nablus in the west bank. the israelis were bombing us, shooting us, and dropping ordnance of every variety on our protest marchers, on ambulances, hospitals, and apt. complexes... all w/ impunity and the tacit approval of the western MSM, the US, and the UK. shame on any of you who defend the horrors perpetually unleashed by the israeli military on thousands of defenceless palestinian civilians throughout gaza and the west bank. i know of what i speak; i was just there. i beseech you who read and listen to the western MSM to see and hear my pleas. [posted by jeanie mceachern].
https://news.antiwar.com/2023/10/12/poll-majority-of-israelis-blame-government-for-hamas-attack/
Poll: Majority of Israelis Blame Government for Hamas Attack
by Dave DeCamp October 12, 2023
A new poll found that the vast majority of Israelis say the Hamas attack on southern Israel was caused by a failure in the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and a smaller majority want Netanyahu to resign once the conflict is over.
In the poll released by the Dialog Center, 86% of the people asked, including 79% of supporters of Netanyahu’s governing coalition, said the surprise attack from Gaza was a failure of the country’s leadership.
The poll also found that 56% of respondents want Netanyahu to resign at the end of the conflict, and 52% also want to see the resignation of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
The Hamas attack on October 7 has raised questions about how the Israeli government could not be aware that such a large operation was about to be launched from Gaza, which has been under Israeli blockade since 2007 and is under heavy surveillance. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) on Wednesday confirmed reports that said Egypt warned Israel before the attack that something big was coming.
Netanyahu has also come under criticism for his strategy of propping up Hamas to divide Gaza from Palestinian leadership in the West Bank. “Those who want to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state should support the strengthening of Hamas and the transfer of money to Hamas,” Netanyahu said at a Likud party meeting in 2019. “This is part of our strategy, to differentiate between the Palestinians in Gaza and the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank).”
To the New York Times the Palestinians are "gunmen", not like an organized group in other words.
YES. Did you see that piece about how images are manipulated to elicit certain emotions? I'll try to find it. It's exactly like what you say.
Like they were not satisfied that the papers were filled with propaganda in words and sentences. Oh no, they've got to manipulate images as well!
Considering the huge amount of lies and propaganda in the U. S. media, it does make me wonder a little what actually happened in that incursion--though there isn't any doubt civilians were killed and captured. There were reports of Palestinian casualties in the incursion also.
<<If you’re working for establishment media covering an official enemy of the United States, your main job is to convey to your audience that such places are dystopias, where everyone is miserable and whatever economic punishment Washington imposes on them can’t make things any worse.
The problem is that many of these enemies are tropical countries that often have sunny weather and lush greenery. If you run a realistic photo of such places, people might get the idea that things don’t look so bad there, and could even start wondering whether the living hell described in your text is a completely accurate portrayal.
That’s why corporate media have hit on a simple trick: If you want people to think that a country resistant to US leadership is a festering doomscape, just underexpose the hell out of your photographs.>>
https://fair.org/home/underexposure-exposed/
For those interested, I found the text of UN Resolution 35/35 from 1980. Note the link below takes you to a download of the resolution. If you're wary, you can find the text yourself on the UN web page for the 1980 session, just scroll down until you see 35/35, then click on the hyperlink. Here's the relevant part. Point 2, the General Assembly...
<<Reaffirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples
for independence, territorial integrity, national unity
and liberation from colonial and foreign domination
and foreign occupation by all available means, including
armed struggle>>
Ergo, it is legal under international law for Palestinians to use violence in their struggle for liberation.
https://daccess-ods.un.org/tmp/8540799.61776733.html
I watched the highly acclaimed British journalist Alistair Crooke, on the Duran yesterday.
He was discussing the amount of support Netanyahu has in Israel. He was going as far as saying that he thought there could be a Coup d'etat in Israel. Any BV commentors thoughts on that?
Also, I'm trying to get my arms around how representative Hamas is in Palestine? Were they "elected"? And do they have a majority support in Gaza? And who is the PLO? Does Gaza have a representative government of its own? A democracy?
Too many questions. Is Iran financing and arming Hamas you think?
Thanks, Dennis
EDIT: Scott Ritter yesterday "Here’s The ONLY WAY This Conflict Ends!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFa2PRTZ1SM
I would say it is basically impossible for us to know how much support Hamas has from the people. Unless you have a VPN and a trustworthy English language source in the mideast, to me it's just unknowable.
I think that Israel is making a huge mistake. Right now people are willing to view Israel as under siege, even though Israel is largely the one throwing the bombs now.
For resources, I would go to this post by Norman Finkelstein. You can either read or watch it. It doesn't answer your questions about the current political situation but you may find nuggets or jumping off points for more exploration:
https://open.substack.com/pub/normanfinkelstein/p/video-recording-and-transcript-special?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=247do4
I have some ideas for other sources but I'm reluctant to give them out because they are explicitly anti-Israeli. I don't know how trustworthy they are so don't want to link them in case they're not giving an accurate viewpoint.
Thank you, Rachel. Norman Finkelstein has been on the Jimmy Dore Show a couple of times in the last few days.
It's so sad that you are reluctant to post anti-Israel links - even in an alt media site like this one. It tells you a lot about America eh? Do you think the 1,000's of anti-Palestine hit job and smear sites give a shit whether their frothing at mouth is accurate?
That Hamas beheaded babies is 100% bovine excrement. But this lie is told over and over again on MSM. Repeated by Joe Biden in a major US speech to the Nation. Same with the lie that 250-people were killed by Hamas at a rock concert. Its bullshit.
It's called Atrocity Propaganda. Will anti-Israel commentaries like these debunking this bullshit ever be shown on CNN or MSNBC, or on the BBC? Not a chance. I'm surprised they are on YouTube®!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWvyFxjug3s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX-GhMxuVi0
And it's the same in New Zealand Rachel. My pro-Palestinian comments on NZ sites last about 5-minutes before they disappear. And of course, now I am banned from commenting because I'm spreading disinformation. It sucks. And my NZ neighbors reckon that the evil Allah worshipping, throat cutting, Hamas guy Asama Bin Laden is still chopping off Christian's head's. Thats how fucked up their understanding of what's going on is. They are fed anti-Palestine hate speech every night on the 6oclock News by our state-owned TV station. I have given up trying to talk to Kiwi's in the street. It's very bad for my self-esteem.
But you know what, if Netanyahu continues this bombing for a few more days; 6,000 bombs in 2-days now; even Al Jazeera TV will not be able hide these atrocious war crimes and genocide. Surely this is going to make Israel a pariah on the World stage. Surely this time their "mowing the lawn" will finally revolt the whole world to where the apartheid nation is reeled in like South Africa was? When will Palestine get its "Nelson Mandela" eh?
EDIT: Caitlin Johnstone today:
"It’s interesting how last week Israel had no idea what Hamas was up to, and yet this week they know every mosque, school and hospital that Hamas is hiding in.
When you live under an empire of lies you’ll be asked to believe a lot of very stupid things. The dumbest thing we’re being asked to believe this week is that Israel’s intelligence services are simultaneously so incompetent that Saturday’s Hamas attack took them completely by surprise, but also so competent that all the buildings they’re destroying with their relentless bombing campaign on Gaza are directed solely at Hamas."
And of course, Israel always gives warnings before they bomb! Yeah Right! Fuckin liars. So that makes dropping bombs on civilian area's OK. Vermin!
what a poignant voice for an honourable and honest defence of our beleaguered palestinian victims of israeli apartheid you are dennis! i erumpently applaud you. having recently returned from 3 months as a volunteer teacher in the israeli-catalyzed horrors unleashed on the west bank and its refugee camps, i am in your debt for your truth-telling, and i can confirm the veracity of your declaratives.
Caitlin concludes today's posting “Israeli Intelligence Suddenly Knows Exactly Where Hamas Is” as follows:
“In reality, both the claims that Israeli intelligence was taken by surprise by the Hamas attack and that Israel is solely targeting Hamas with its Gaza strikes are highly suspect and worthy of intense scrutiny. Israel has never been averse to killing Palestinian civilians, and there’s no reason to feel confident Israeli intelligence didn’t let the attack through in order to justify longstanding agendas like the elimination of Gaza as a Palestinian territory. Both claims can be false, but from where I’m sitting it looks highly unlikely that they’re both true.
“If you want to support Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza then go ahead, and if you want to uncritically accept the official narrative about Saturday’s attack then you do you. But don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining.”
The full article is at https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/israeli-intelligence-suddenly-knows.
Here's a good news source for the mideast. Forgot to say in my other comment, the PLO is b.s. It is completely bought off. They don't represent Palestinians. Just like our government doesn't represent us.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/home
Thank you again Rachel my dear for that middleeasteye link, and all your carefully researched links. Your excellent efforts are much appreciated here.
Here is a couple off paragraphs from an article on that site... "The Nakba that Israel has started will Backfire" by David Hearst on 13 October 2023. Just 3hours ago.
A MUST READ for any person who has a moral conscience!
"Reoccupying Gaza and finishing off just one Palestinian armed group will not change the strategic reality of the Middle East, as the Israeli government has vowed to do.
There is a massacre taking place almost every night in Gaza. Whole families have been wiped out by precision bombs. Palestinians in Gaza have been told to evacuate their whole district, only to run into the path of bombs. Districts are not just being bombed once; they are being systemically levelled.
In previous campaigns, Palestinians in Gaza fled to Rimal, a relatively wealthy middle-class area by the sea. It was regarded as a safe haven because in previous campaigns, Israel had no reason to bomb it. Now, Rimal is being levelled.
This nightly slaughter is not taking place accidentally by undisciplined pilots taking revenge for alleged war crimes committed by Hamas in southern Israel. It is taking place by design. The aim of cutting off electricity, water and food to more than two million people, and subjecting them to this nightly bombardment, is to get them to flee.......
.....Does an unplanned regional war in the Middle East, created entirely by an unhinged ally, make any sense for the US? I don’t think it does. Biden has given Netanyahu the brightest of green lights in offering Israel its unequivocal backing, but I do not think the US has war-gamed the possible devastating outcomes of what is taking place in Gaza right now."
And just for shits and grins lets attach to that - the last paragraph from our inestimable friend James Howard Kunstler's todays blog...
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/all-this-and-world-war-too-3/
"Yet to play out is America’s crisis of leadership. As supply lines break, and the flash mobs loot the luxury shops, and the illegal alien's stream in, and the price of everything goes up-up-up, and the truth about the Covid vaccines is finally grokked, even the dazed-and-confused American public might notice that the White House has become a zombie palace. Politics hates a vacuum and “Joe Biden” begins to look like a black hole that will suck the execrable deep state blob that surrounds him across the event horizon that opens to oblivion. I’d go so far to predict that well before the 2024 election, America will have a new chief executive and that it won’t be Kamala Harris. It could be someone in a uniform, though. Just sayin’. Everything is in flux."
What the Israelis are doing as we type here has worldwide consequences and is fuckin disgusting. Arguably as bad as, or worse than, anything the Nazi's did in WW2. That this is being supported by the US ,UK and other Western nations is unconscionable. And of course, could spiral out of control to a huge unimaginable regional war. Like Benito Mussolini, the sooner BB Netanyahu, the leader of the shitty little fascist nation of Israel, is found hanging by his neck from a lamp post the better for everyone.
“To all scholars who teach jihad… to all who teach and learn, this is a moment for the application of theories.” —Khaled Meshaal, former Hamas leader
Amen, Dennis.
The U. S. really does like to meddle in all things foreign, doesn't It? And not in a positive way to make things better either. Biden and his crew really seem not to know what the heck they are doing. I'm afraid we are going to find out just how wrong Biden's militaristic approach to the world is.
Good read once again, Bill. Making it my lead link in the NEWS category today @https://nothingnewunderthesun2016.com/
how do we address, neutralize, and vitiate these orwellian vaticinations of the power-elites' subreptitions, dennis? i'm a clueless, etiolated donnard in a state of defeasance. the bastards always win and they always have. as biden declared at the outset of his devious administration, "nothing will fundamentally change!" how prevenient, eh?
my gratitude, dennis, and humble apologies for my pertinacious, perfervid, near-OCD pro-palestinian excurses.