Phase Two - All of the Hostages

Hamas has put in their opening bid for Phase Two of the ceasefire - they will release all of the remaining hostages in one go in exchange for Israel complying with their requirements of Phase Two also being done in one go. This is the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli custody and the complete withdrawal of IDF troops from Gaza. Essentially, a permanent end to the "war". Just something to keep in mind when the entirety of media insists that it is Hamas that's holding up the peace process or when genocide defenders say that Hamas could end the war simply be freeing all of the hostages. Hamas is saying "we will free all of the hostages to end the war" - a position I might note that they offered in October 2023. 

This in spite of the last news of the ceasefire being that Phase One was fragile and precarious. Well, Hamas did release the hostages they were scheduled to as per the deal. Supposedly because Israel had allowed some of the pre-fab homes into the territory. Since that update I've learned that Hamas did have a point about Israel not complying with the terms of the deal with respect to the surge of aid that was supposed to be getting into Gaza.  Apparently during Phase One, Israel must allow at least 60,000 temporary homes and 200,000 tents into Gaza - the actual amount that had entered by the point Hamas threatened to withhold hostages? Zero of the 60,000 temporary homes and 20,000 of the 200,000 tents. I don't know if that has actually improved - there are still a lot of new reports that Israel is blocking this aid.

There is one interesting takeaway from this offer that likely won't be noticed. It's about Hamas' capabilities and their continued coherence as a group - despite the assassinations of their leaders. The specifics of this current ceasefire deal were in place as early as May 2024 - and one of the reasons given as to why Hamas needed the two six week periods to return the hostages was because they did not have adequate control of all of the hostages in order to return them. This makes sense - the hostages were taken by not just Hamas, but various other resistance groups such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Hamas would need to coordinate with allied but not controlled groups in order to agree. Furthermore - one of the characteristics of these groups is that they are decentralized. Basically, numerous cells of agents acting with very little direct control. It's likely that Hamas did not know exactly how many hostages they had in custody for a significant fraction of the war - with various agents holed up all across the enclave.

But now they are saying they will return all of the remaining hostages - meaning they have control over the people holding the hostages, possibly for the first time since October 7th. IOW, they've not only refilled their ranks with new recruits, but they've established communication and control with everyone that was holding hostages. Something they did not have back in May. This is bad for the Israelis. It means that they've not only strengthened Hamas in terms of their influence and support - but also, the killing of the old leaders has resulted in a more efficient and effective control system over the resistance fighters.

The Fetus Must Have Been Hamas

Our corporate media is getting sloppy. ABC News has posted this wire service story from AP. I mean I guess they thought that if AP was covering it, it would be pre-sanitized of anything critical of the IDF. That's actually a decent assumption given the deference AP has shown to Israel and their obviously false statements. But somehow this story slipped through.

The Red Crescent said that the International Committee of the Red Cross had secured approval from the Israeli military to allow medics inside the camp. But the paramedics were detained twice, for a half-hour each time, as they made their way toward the battered car, it said.

The Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment on why soldiers had blocked ambulances.

It wasn't until after 8:00 a.m. that medics finally reached the young couple, and were detained a third time while rushing the husband out of the camp to the hospital, the Red Crescent said.

Yazan Shula was unconscious and in critical condition, and, as of Tuesday, remains on life support at a hospital. Shalabi was found dead. Her fetus also did not survive the shooting.

It doesn't seem to be getting much pick-up from other mainstream outlets. MSNBC had a piece yesterday, where they could gloss over things with a "details of the deaths were not immediately clear". Maybe they'll be able to disappear this story - there are hundreds if not thousands of similar stories that have gone quietly. But just the simple act of questioning why these victims just bled out instead of just assuming that the IDF was morally justified in the killing of an 8 month pregnant woman is a pretty bug shift in the tone of coverage.

The Ceasefire is at Risk

Ceasefire deal is in danger of collapse. Hamas is delaying hostage release because it claims that Israel has been in violation of the ceasefire terms by impeding aid delivery and killing people in Northern Gaza. There was an incident a few days ago where the IDF said they "fired warning shots" and killed three people. There's also video from Ceasefire Day One of a teenaged boy being killed by a sniper and a second Palestinian is shot and injured trying to recover the body. That's not the only incident - there are reports of multiple Gazans being killed by the IDF during this ceasefire.

I've been trying to find information about the truck volumes.  There's this story from the first week of the ceasefire, which says 4,200 trucks entered in six days - and that's including a drastic drop in volume on the sixth day down to 339 trucks. On average this is 700 trucks per day, above the minimum of 600 required under the deal - although it's not clear to me if an average is acceptable or if it has to be at least 600 every day. 

I also found this update saying it's "over 10,000" on February 6th. Meaning 5,800 trucks entered between January 25 and Feb. 6 - or over the span of 12 days - which is below 500 averaged over that time frame. And finally, there are stories like this one claiming "over 12,600 trucks" as of Feb. 9. This last one seems dodgy to me,  Feb. 9 marked 21 days of ceasefire - so if we assume the deal is for the average number of trucks, 12,600 is literally the bare minimum requirements. 

We do have a statement from Euro-Med Monitor that the amount of aid being allowed is insufficient and falling short of the agreed upon volumes.

Is it possible that the actual bare minimum number of trucks (using the assumption that it is 600 trucks averaged out over time) have been delivered and Hamas is lying about impeded aid? Yes. I do believe the possibility that Hamas is lying. Is it also possible that truck volume surged in the first five days of ceasefire while everyone's attention was being drawn and has since tailed off to below the required minimums? Also yes - this is definitely a distinct possibility.

Still, the fact remains that Israel is still shooting Gazan civilians to death under the "ceasefire" and judging by how the "ceasefire" in Lebanon has been going, it's entirely reasonable to believe that they are not abiding by the terms - and also that the "guarantors" are letting them get away with it.

The situation though - still vastly improved over what it was like at any point in 2024. But those improvements might not be durable at all. And now we are facing the challenge of trying to keep the fragile peace intact all while Trump continues to insist on ethnic cleansing and mainstream media keeps sanewashing the proposal.

What About a One State Solution?

Two states has been the de-facto solution, supported by basically every nation in the world - even notionally Israel. But a lot of people, now including the Israeli Knesset, have deemed this answer to be unworkable. It's an interesting point - the idea of two states peacefully co-existing beside one another - with the current levels of animosity between them - this sounds like it will never work. But of course, this is nonsense - Germany and France co-existed and shared a border through both World Wars and are now close allies. India and Pakistan were given arbitrarily drawn borders by the British and religiously segregated into unfriendly sides, and they co-exist with only low level belligerence between them - despite both being controlled by highly nationalistic fascist or near-fascist governing bodies. It certainly can work - it's only opposed because Israel sees this as a massive loss of power and influence.

So what is the alternative? It's a one-state solution. Israel - from the river to the sea. Technically the status quo. We can see the obvious problems with that - mostly deriving from the denial of the right to self-determination for the Palestinians. This manifests itself in problematic ways - whether you call it "resistance" or "terrorism" - it is the obvious response to oppressing a large mass of people. This is the point that the Abraham Accords dipshits refuse to acknowledge - "oh, let's just pretend that the Palestinians just don't exist and maybe they will go away". It is born of deep ignorance and stupidity and a whole lot of racism.

The other problem with that is legitimacy. This would not be seen as a legitimate solution by a large part of the world - it would be what it is now, an apartheid state. Fundamentally, it is being denied the right to vote but being subject to the laws and rules forced upon you. It's like the American Founding Fathers with their "no taxation without representation" - only "taxation" in this case means dehumanizing oppression in every single aspect of your life. It's kind of wild that the denial of the resistance of the oppressed is so strong in America, born from revolution and maniacally fixated on the notion of Freedom - but I guess racism is a helluva strong drug.

Apartheid regimes are limited in their legitimacy - much of the world will not recognize it as valid. While it is possible to have an apartheid regime in the modern world, don't expect to be a member in good standing of the global community. This is the story of Apartheid South Africa and the birth of the Boycott Divest Sanction movement. Even if the elites love the racism and want to support the racist state, the public won't accept it and will force change. And while Israel had many advantages in avoiding BDS given that the state was born out of the singular horror that was the Holocaust, the genocidal campaign in Gaza has burned much of that forbearance.

Israel cannot withstand BDS. It's not a major economic power like China or Russia, that can just ride it out. It's network of allies that will support it despite the apartheid is ever shrinking and support from those allies becomes more tenuous with every bomb the IDF drops. The only thing keeping Israel as an existing state right now is the unconditional support of the USA - which explains the ludicrous efforts and resources being expended by AIPAC. You don't even need a pro-BDS president, just one that's not a hardcore Zionist. This would basically undermine the entire existence of Israel as a sovereign state.

So that is the alternative. A one-state solution, Israel from the river to the sea. And believe it or not, this is what a lot of pro-Palestine activists want too - a one-state solution, only without the apartheid. Some Palestinians want to return to the lands their parents and grand-parents were expelled from during the Nakba. I imagine that there might even be some Nakba survivors remaining today. And adding some 5 million Arab voters to the Israeli electorate would certainly change the way Israel does anything - but also, is a scenario that much of the Israeli elite would despise even more than a two state solution.

The denial of a Palestinian state is thus a doubling down on what is now seen as a lost bet. Israel and the US put a bet down on Palestine suddenly not being a problem any more - because reasons. And the past sixteen months have shown that this was an incredibly stupid bet. I mean - what is the prize if they won this bet? A strip of land polluted with unexploded ordnance and still holding thousands of bodies buried under the rubble? Did they think that opening a US-Israel theme park in Gaza was going to be met with world-wide acceptance? Where do they think "terrorism" comes from?

But there's more in how badly they lost this bet. What they did not expect (and still refuse to acknowledge) is that Palestinians are fucking unbelievably amazing. The resilience and solidarity of the people of Palestine is mind blowing. As I have gotten older, I have become more jaded and cynical about human nature, but the spirit of the people of Palestine has shown me that I'm an idiot. It was back in December of 2023 that I thought their spirit might be broken - that would have been more than enough to have broken me. But time and again, even as the entirety of the Gaza Strip was completely destroyed and they suffered pain and losses unimaginable - they kept going. And they keep going. And they kept right on going. And I may never understand where they find the strength but they do. The amount of denial of reality that's required to look at what Gaza has been through and the people still standing tall despite it all and thinking that they can still be defeated? It would require a truly breathtaking amount of delusional stupidity and intense racism - but here too I guess I have underestimated the scope of human nature.

The Hostages

The ceasefire is holding - knock on wood. There was just an exchange of 3 Israelis for 183 Palestinians, and one aspect of the Palestinians released caught my attention. You might have missed it - I get caught up on some of the weirdest things. Let me quote it below:

Detained in Gaza on suspicion of militancy, the 111 Palestinians released Saturday have been held without trial since the day after the Oct. 7 attack.

Something I have been saying for a while is that the IDF is worse than Hamas. By every conceivable measure. One of these was hostages kidnapped - Hamas took a few hundred hostages on October 7th and these hostages are the only hostages that are referred to when the word hostages is used.  But as I said - the IDF is worse.

111 people in Gaza were taken by the IDF on October 8. "Detained", And now released. Not Hamas terrorists - as noted in the article, no prisoners that participated in the October 7th attack would be released. IOW, the IDF rounded up 111 Gazans on October 8th and just fucking held them in custody even after determining that they had nothing to do with October 7th. No charges let alone convictions - just held and now released, they have been in custody for 1 day less than the hostages that everyone is so concerned about.

To be clear - I am not defending Hamas. They attacked civilians, killed many of them, and kidnapped others. These are criminal acts - even given that they are resisting occupation and siege. They are a terrorist organization. But they are practically angels and boy scouts compared to the Israeli state and the IDF. Even going by the unbelievably biased standard of starting the clock on October 7th, Israel and the IDF are so much worse than Hamas. Fully an order of magnitude worse - likely much more than that.

Anyways - 3 hostages taken on October 7th were released, as well as 111 hostages taken on October 8.

Democracy is the Worst Form of Government Except for All of the Other Ones

One thing about gangs of thieves is that betrayal is a feature, not a bug. The buzz right now is that Trump is expanding Witkoff's mandate based on his securing the Gaza ceasefire. Specifically, the speculation is about getting Witkoff to do a deal with Iran. Traditional establishment types, the kind who loved McCain's Bomb Iran song, are getting booted and I'm pretty curious about how AIPAC is taking it.

It shouldn't be surprising - all of Trump's owners are making moves with Iran. Putin just finalized a military co-operation deal with Iran, and Saudi Arabia is moving forward with settling their long standing rivalry. There's definitely a current of bringing Iran into the club - it is one of the expansion nations in BRICS. While Trump does count on the Israel lobby to back him at every step, apparently he feels like he owes them nothing in return. They need him more than he needs them and he knows it.  

Am I noting this because I think it'll be good for Gaza (because it is obviously bad for Israel)? Maybe? It's complicated. 

I don't think this is good for Gaza. Acting in opposition to Israel specifically with regards to the generations of occupation and apartheid and now this recent stage of full blown genocide? That is good - but it does not excuse the horrible shit that came with it. Hamas is a terrorist organization that specifically targeted civilians for violence and harm. More over, they were not and are not a responsive and fair governing authority. Violating human rights in the Gaza Strip is not a practice unique to the occupying IDF forces. Hamas, well they're no angels.  

Additionally, Iran is a far-right theocracy - not the type of people I want to see becoming more influential in our already broken world. So this is bad in many ways. That said - my objections are pretty high minded relative to the fact that it is a fucking genocide going on. I'm going off that Ben Franklin quote - " those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." But the fact is, Palestinians (especially those in Gaza) already have neither liberty nor safety. Worrying about the spread of far right religious extremists is a luxury that is pretty alien to a devastated territory that has been essentially bombed out of existence. These concerns are well into "let them eat cake" levels of out-of-touch.  

Here's where I am - the US has lost a fuckton of standing in the world, and the new Commander-in-Chief is absolutely not going to reverse that trend. And as terrible as US foreign policy has been, I still see this as a very bad thing. The West built up an international order, which had a lot of very real problems, but also too delivered a lot of real benefits. Maybe I can say this because I am not a citizen of the Global South, but I do believe that the "international rules based order" has been a net positive, and by a pretty significant margin. But the whole thing has been severely damaged by the ridiculous antics of the Biden Administration - just absolutely shredded and left with little to no legitimacy whatsoever.  

And it wasn't just Biden, although clearly he was the driving force behind it all. The whole lot of us -Canada, the EU, our allies like Japan and Australia - we all went along with it. Maybe some of us put up some resistance eventually, but certainly not enough. We are at this point because Western democracy has failed so spectacularly and now the consequences are starting to show themselves.  There are other games in town - and as much as we tell ourselves that "democracy is the worst form of government except for all of the other ones" - well maybe we have been rating it too highly. 

Screams Without Words

I got a lot of pushback when I suggested that the accounts of Hamas using rape as a weapon of war might be lies. Hamas is a terrorist organization! Of course they were systemically raping people in their October 7th attack! Except of course, now we know that there was an active effort to lie about this. Basically every story that was exploded into the front pages was discredited. The big one - which this post is named after - was written by someone who approvingly liked some outright genocidal posts on social media. Where multiple people she interviewed said that they were misrepresented and interviewed under false pretenses.

The Israeli prosecutor who had charge of investigating these cases eventually conceded "we don’t have any complainants. What was presented in the media compared to what will eventually come together will be entirely different…"

As far as I know, there are zero substantiated cases of rape committed by Hamas on October 7th. Zero.

That's not necessarily evidence that Hamas terrorists did not commit rapes in the attack - but it is absolutely evidence that the accusations widespread use of rape and sexual violence as weapons of war were bullshit. Also I would like to note - it is immensely more evidence than should be required. If we go by past behaviour, the assumption should be that the IDF is lying. They are shameless in their lying - they make Republican politicians look like an honest men. No really, they are that bad. Just awful, terrible purveyors of bullshit. 

Also too - it actually is believable that the Hamas fighters did not commit any rapes or sexual assaults. Now I said the IDF lies all the time, but that does not mean that Hamas is strictly honest. They are a terrorist organization, they deliberately targeted civilians, it is completely unsurprising that they too would lie and peddle bullshit stories to cover up their war crimes. Only thing is - the explanation for why their fighters didn't rape anyone actually makes Hamas look worse. And that was why I felt it was believable.

Hamas noted two items. First, their fighters are religious nutjob "holy warriors" on what was likely going to be a suicide mission. This was the blaze of glory they were going to go down in - and they are religious fundamentalist extremists - so they wouldn't sin by committing haram acts at that moment. This is hardly a flattering description - so it does ring true. Now it is also true that a lot of people claiming to be deeply religious also do a lot of systemic sexual abuse - but very few of them are the kind so committed to the cause that they go on suicide missions to slaughter civilians. Regardless, this is the less strong explanation for why Hamas did not rape on October 7th.

The second thing the Hamas spokesperson said was that their fighters knew they were on a clock - that the overwhelming response from the Israeli military was on its way and that they only had a short window to kill as many Israelis as they could. So they didn't commit rape because that would take away from their murdering time. Which, holy shit - this "excuse" kinda makes them seem even worse.

Anyways, this is still not complete exoneration. The explanations as to why Hamas would not have raped during their terror attack are believable and match the evidence so far - which is that there is no credible evidence of rape. But it still remains possible - perhaps the only rape victims were also murdered. A lot of people were murdered that day. But really, this is the extent we have to go to in order to substantiate a belief that Hamas committed rape.

OTOH, we do have criminal charges about rape and the use of sexual assault as torture on Palestinian prisoners held by Israel at Sde Teiman. IOW, if we use as a standard - the number of criminal charges for rape laid by the Israeli criminal justice system - the IDF is still worse than Hamas.