And Nothing but the Truce

Ten minutes. That's how much time was left on the truce before it was extended (into Friday). Ten minutes.

Going into this, the last word from Israel was that they were ready to restart the war machine, but even more aggressively this time. That in response to Biden saying that what happened in northern Gaza could not happen in the south, Netanyahu said that bombing the south was "necessary". It did not look like a second extension was going to happen.

But it did, and I have to believe that Antony Blinken landing in Israel a few short hours before the deadline made the difference. So kudos to the Biden team - for adjusting position and finally putting limits on what is acceptable, and then forcing it by sending the Secretary of State to visit at the critical juncture.

That said - the truce only lasts until Friday. The hostages for prisoners agreement that has been reached is only for women and children, and this batch is the last of Hamas' hostages in that category. And there seem to be irreconcilable differences in where the two sides have staked their positions. With just the one day to finalize things, it's hard to see how this truce gets extended into the weekend. UNLESS - unless, there is enough pressure for Israel to hold off on mass slaughter without hostages being released.

Israel's position on this has already been taken apart. Their argument that the ONLY possible way towards peace is the complete and utter destruction of Hamas has just been proven to be pure bullshit. Hostages were returned via negotiation and a cessation of bombing. Israelis got their loved ones back only after Israel stopped dropping bombs - because Israel sat down at the negotiation table. That was productive - the previous seven weeks of indiscriminate bombing and raiding hospitals? All that produced was global resentment towards Israel and the US. And tens of thousands of Gazan casualties.

It does bring me some hope to see the US moving on this. Even if it is long overdue. They were working on a deal that ended up looking exactly like the truce we got at the end of October! So it is weeks overdue. 10,000 deaths overdue. Being late here as Biden was - morally reprehensible. Disgusting. But even though that is true, it is still better late than never. There are still people trying to survive in horrific conditions and anything that prevents them from being bombed even more is good.

Which brings us to the next critical juncture. These truce extensions have been kicking the can down the road. And now that we've reached the point where there is no longer an agreement on the hostage exchange, we've run out of road. It's now finally clear that Biden wants the war to stop - and it is also equally clear that Israel finds the very notion of this to be unacceptable and deeply antisemitic. Yes, Israel's position on this is that not allowing them to bomb tens of thousands more Palestinians to death is the same as hating Jews. So we are running the test. We are going to see if the US does have influence over Israel. And if they don't - we will see if Joe has the appetite to do anything about it.

From the River to the Sea, Palestine has a Right to Defend Itself

There's a dynamic that is so pervasive that even when we are looking for it, wee still miss it a lot. What I'm talking about is how only certain groups are expected to exhibit empathy and other groups are always expected to be the benefactors. We're usually aware of it on the left-right spectrum, where latte sipping coastal elites are constantly chided for not considering the feelings of "Real Americans" in the flyover country of the Heartland. Really? The primary feeling of those "Real Americans" is sheer and utter contempt for the coastal elites - and yet we never see admonitions to rural voters to think about how the SJWs might see things.

I want to note an article about the phrase "from the river to the sea". Let me point out that the author, a political science professor at a Canadian university, isn't denying reality. This article is way less pure bullshit than the usual tripe we get fed from major media. Here's a quote - using active voice and attributing actions to those responsible. For example:

The trouble is, in Israel-Palestine it’s Israeli Jews who hold the lion’s share of the power. Between the river and the sea, which is to say to varying degrees in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel within the Green Line, it’s Palestinians, not Jews (Jewish Israelis), who are structurally oppressed, mainly by Israel (I say mainly because Hamas’s and the PA’s authoritarian rule limits Palestinian freedoms to some extent).

Yes, there's an unnecessary qualification there - almost as if any criticism of Israel must come with the requisite condemnation of Hamas. But it's an accurate statement - all of the groups mentioned have treated Palestinians very badly - but it is mainly Israel that does the bulk of it. I dare say that the mandatory Hamas condemning actually reinforces the point - which is almost never allowed to be spoken - that even relative to the autocratic rule of a terrorist group, Israel treatment of Palestinians is still worse.

Anyways - here again is the argument. It's framed as "intent versus impact" but what it actually is - it's a lecture to supporters of a Free Palestine to consider the feelings of Jews. 

There's something else I need to get out of the way before getting to my point. The other arguments in support of "From the River to the Sea" are strong ones. Professor Sucharov notes the biggest one in her article - context. The context of the situation in Israel-Palestine really do highlight how bonkers it is. The context is that Palestinians between the river and the sea are in fact not free - and they are being told that asking for basic human dignity is offensive to the people who are denying it to them. This alone should settle the argument handily. It's the "every accusation is a confession" crux of the situation. The people who see "from the River to the Sea" as calling for genocide are projecting - they think it means genocide because Israel is committing genocide from the River to the Sea. It means that to them because they are doing it. And this point is often bolstered by noting that it is not only Hamas that has "from the river to the sea" in its charter, but also Likud, the default ruling party of Israel, does as well (the main difference is that it's of course not calling for Palestinian freedom - but for Israeli sovereignty instead).

Also an important point here is to call out Genocide Joe's pure fucking bullshit "two state solution" talk. Hey Genocide Joe - the government of Israel is adamantly opposed to a Palestinian state. Netanyahu is on record explaining why he funds Hamas - specifically to marginalize the PA and sabotage any attempt to establish a Palestinian state. And he's the moderate in his government - with the other unity government party being an extremist far-right proponent of settler terrorism.

Okay, that out of the way - let me get back to my point. Let's agree that it is worthwhile to consider impacts over intent. I mean, actual real world impacts are important, aren't they? Jewish people are also people and they have feelings that shouldn't be ignored. In the words of a deeply antisemitic play - if you cut them, do they not bleed? Sure, the feelings they have are irrational and in fact actually quite offensive if you consider the context. But that actually is understandable - antisemitism is a very real threat. Jews have good reason to be on constant high alert for threats of genocide. So even though their position now is gross and disgusting, it is also very understandable.

BUT - here we see it again. Empathy is ALWAYS a one way street. Pro-Palestinian activists are being forced to consider the feelings of others, especially the people they are protesting against. The people currently engaged in genocide and their supporters around the world. And it is NEVER the other way around.

Here's a statement that's almost as mandatory as the condemnation of Hamas. "Israel has a right to defend itself." It's a statement that's hard to refute if you ignore context. Self-defense should always be acceptable, shouldn't it? But look at what's going on in Gaza. That is not self-defense. It so clearly isn't that again, we are into the range of offensive statements when people suggest it. A few weeks ago, the IDF bombed a refugee camp, killing a couple hundred people. They knew those people were there. But they suspected that one of those people might have been a Hamas commander. How can anyone call that "self-defense"?

So what is the impact of invoking Israel's right to self-defense? It's being used as an excuse for genocide. It's pretty fucking reasonable for Palestinians and their supporters to see this statement as a call to wipe out all Palestinians. It's way more rational a connection than the spurious claims of "from the River to the Sea" are. So when do we start seeing this? When do people start getting lectured or even fired from their jobs for asserting that Israel has a right to defend itself?

Never. It will never happen. Because having to consider "impact over intent" is something that only one side has to do.

Gotta Give Credit to Genocide Joe

There's a contingent of folks out there who are pissed that Genovide Joe is not being given credit for brokering the humanitarian pause deal. And this is true - the US is absolutely not getting credit for anything except from RAH RAH USA #1 people. But you know what? This is actually better treatment than Biden deserves.

What did the US do here? Other than unconditionally support Israel in all of its depravities? Consider the following story about the negotiations for a hostage deal. There were talks where Hamas would agree to release 50 hostages - the same deal that we got. The one hang up that Israel would not allow? Fuel and humanitarian aid into northern Gaza. An item they gave up on in the actual deal that was made - and then did not honor, resulting in the delay in hostage release on Day 2. Did you note the date on that article? October 24.

Four fucking weeks. Biden's genocide supporting asswipes stalled and delayed a truce for four weels and managed to get sweet fuck all out of it. IOW - all they did was allow Israel more time to slaughter Palestinians. The actual efforts by Genocide Joe's team in securing this truce was in delaying it so that Israel could genocide longer.

It's part of the pattern. UN Security Council Resolution 2712 was passed on November 15. Here is the text of that resolution: http://www.undocs.org/en/S/RES/2712(2023)

On October 25, three weeks earlier, the US vetoed the Brazilian drafted resolution. The text of which is here: https://undocs.org/en/S/2023/773

Did you notice the difference? Well the resolution that the US vetoed had a condemnation of the Hamas attack of October 7.  The resolution they were forced to take did not. And what did they get out of making that concession?  Three weeks of bombing that wasn't in contravention  of the Security Council. All they got was a longer period of bombing that wasn't expressly condemned by the UNSC.

Because that's where we are at. The role of the US is to give Israel cover while Palestinians are mass slaughtered. The "negotiations" were just a stalling tactic to hold off global condemnation of Israel's continued campaign of genocide.

But here is the good news (fingers crossed and knocking on wood) - the pressure which forced the US and Israel to accept the truce are still very strong. Obviously the "truce" was so insufficient that Gaza is still in a state of humanitarian disaster. Did the needle move at all? Maybe - Gazans have now had three nights in a row where they could be moderately sure they weren't going to die in an airstrike. Some Palestinians may have had t heir first few nights of sleep in seven weeks. Word is now that an additional two days is being forced on Israel, although they are resisting this tooth and nail. We'll see how this goes.

Blogging Never Changes Part Ten - Pause Abilities

They managed to negotiate and implement a "pause". And while the cessation of hostilities, even if only temporary, is better than not having that - I want to remind us about what I thought about this when it first starting looking like a possibility.

So that's the future then. We're possibly getting a break in hostilities - long enough for more reporting about the conditions in Gaza to get out. We'll see how dire the situation is. And then we will be told to support a return to bombing. And the brain geniuses running this show will support the return to bombing.

They are going to break our hearts and then let us know that it is time for more. It's like scuttling the landing boats before advancing. There's a remote possibility that the outrage of starting the bombs again might make them think twice. This is my hope - that the public will demand a stop to the war. But sadly, the fucking ghoulish monsters in charge are the stupidest fucking morons. As I have been saying for a month now, while I wish with all my heart that I am wrong - it's going to get worse, and stay worse for a long time.

I still think that the return to violence is going to be the worst part of it all. The psychological damage is going to be immense. That said, let me admit my errors here and try to correct them now that I know better.

I had thought that the pause would allow media to bring us more stories about how bad things are. It did. The images coming out of Al Shifa are terrible. But, this is not changing anyone's mind. The stories we were getting from before the pause were also bad enough that we did have a good idea of how terrible things were. OTOH, the only international reporters in Gaza were embedded with the IDF - maybe the pause opened up these stories to more audiences - exposing more people to the truth of the suffering Israel is inflicting upon 2 million people. Lol. I guess I still am naive and innocent. This clearly did not happen - the lack of honest and fair reporting from the mainstream media of the conditions in Gaza was not due to lack of reporters on the ground. It is a choice made by the people running those media firms. The only movement that I am aware of in how this was getting covered is the NY Times piece comparing the Gaza death rate to other conflicts. So my bad. Mea culpa. I got that wrong.

Speaking of naive and innocent - here's the other part I got wrong. That the bombing would start again. And no, this isn't just me trying to manifest a ceasefire. The pause isn't over yet, and there are some reports of the truce being extended - but that is not what I was referring to. I was talking about the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria. The bombing has not stopped.

Which finally brings me to the point of this post. Israel is still doing their level best to confirm many of the worst beliefs about them. I really cannot make it more clear than this:

My instructions are clear: there are to be no expressions of joy

Also, so that we have some context here - sometimes the released Palestinian prisoners are 85% minors. This in addition to the increased aggression at the West Bank and towards the neighbouring states. Also, Israel is already trying to implement checkpoints in Gaza, collecting data and shooting people (because that's what humanitarian pauses are supposed to look like I guess?). It's a testament to how horrific the war campaign was that shooting at civilians trying to return to their homes is considered as being consistent with a "truce".

On the other side, Hamas delayed the release of some prisoners by several hours, claiming that Israel was not abiding by the conditions by refusing passage of aid trucks to the north. Which was the case, but apparently was "technical in nature" - which allowed the exchange to go off as normal. Under the deal, 50 hostages were supposed to be released in the four day span. They released 24 hostages on Day 1. Day 2 was the delayed release and consisted of 17 hostages. The third batch was another group of 17. That's 48 58 (/edit). Reports from Israel are that the hostages are in "good" shape. There have been no tales of torture or mistreatment. OTOH, you can probably guess how Israel treats Palestinian prisoners. And it would be beyond surprising if their treatment improved after October 7.

To be clear - Hamas is still a terrorist organization. They should not be given "credit" for meeting the bare minimum standards or care for hostages - innocent hostages that they kidnapped during a terrorist attack that killed hundreds. Hamas is not the good guys here. BUT - and this is the point that the world seems intent on ignoring - the government of Israel has failed to meet this standard.

So that's where we're headed - one side making best efforts to meet the conditions of the temporary truce, and the other side - not that. And then the truce runs out - and Israel will have no excuse to resume bombing. Hamas will have held up their end of the bargain - even though it is clear that Israel has not. The pressure to extend the truce has got to be enormous now - so great that I'm starting to wonder if it will get pushed into something more permanent. But that's probably just me being naive and innocent again.

Blogging Never Changes Part Nine - Hospitals Are Legitimate Targets

Just a bit of a timeline.

October 7 - Hamas conducts a horrific terrorist attack on Israel. Israel so badly fumbles the response that the extent of the destruction is enormous. ~1,200 Israelis killed - mostly by Hamas, but certainly some by trigger happy IDF goons and Apache helicopter pilots. ~200 Hamas gunmen killed - these will bolster the official Israeli death count for a month, with no questions asked. Some will still cite 1400 as the Israeli death toll from October 7. Also do note - the deaths on October 7 were because Hamas killed people (even though clearly, so did the IDF) - but any deaths in Gaza that happened after that, well they just happened. No attributable cause  - air strikes apparently are an unpreventable Act of Nature.

Early October:

Israel warns hospitals in northern Gaza, including Al Ahli, to evacuate.

Israel hits Al Ahli hospital with shells.

October 17 - a fiery explosion in the courtyard of Al Ahli hospital kills hundreds. The Gaza Health Ministry claims at least 500 dead but later revises this down to 471 identified corpses. The IDF denies that they bombed the site as they claim they were not bombing anything anywhere near Al Ahli - and then blames it on a misfiring Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket.

October 18 - in the light of the morning, it is clear that the destruction of the hospital courtyard was not caused by one of the IDF's larger JDAM missiles. The crater is too small and the damage is inconsistent with what should result from a thousand pounds of conventional high explosives going off in the area. That said, the IDF has a very wide range of munitions.

Late October:

Video evidence is cited showing a rocket barrage being launched towards Israel and one rocket spiraling out of control a few seconds before the hospital explosion goes off. There is only the primary hospital explosion - no secondary explosions as would be expected if the damage was caused by munitions stored at the hospital. The IDF releases an obviously fake tape of intercepted communications where Hamas agents say that Israel is great and they are evil and also that they were responsible for the hospital explosion. The US and Biden explicitly endorses this "anything bad could not have been done by Israel" theory. Multiple media outlets like CNN also endorse it. None of the parties supporting this view provide any evidence other than what has been described. No analysis is shown either. Neither the IDF nor the US agree to any independent investigation of the incident, saying that it would not be appropriate.

The NYTimes Visual Investigations Team analyzes the out-of-control rocket video and four other related videos. They conclude that the out-of-control rocket was launched from inside Israel and provide the details of their analysis. They also conclude that this rocket could not have caused the hospital explosion unless it was travelling at ludicrously high speeds even for a rocket. They also note that you can see two other explosions near the hospital in the lead up to the deadly explosion including before the rocket barrage is launched - almost as if the active airstrike campaign was in fact servicing targets near the hospital.

The IDF releases an animation showing underground rooms and a network of tunnels they claim is beneath Al Shifa hospital. Al Shifa has been an obsession of the IDF for years - they are positive beyond all reason that Hamas is using a vast underground network as a command and control centre and that this is where the hostages are being kept.

More evacuation notices are delivered to hospitals again.

November thus far: 

Al Rantisi hospital is raided by the IDF. This is a children's hospital which has multiple premature babies on incubators. They find zero hostages and zero Hamas fighters - but they do find an improvised hastily built underground shelter. Since Israeli bombs cannot hurt anyone but Hamas, obviously this shelter could only have been used to hold hostages. There could be no other explanation why a territory undergoing the most aggressive bombing campaign in decades could possibly build shelters underground other than to hold hostages.

They also find a calendar. A Hamas calendar with the names of the Hamas terrorist guards that were watching over the hostages, These guards are named things like "Monday" and "Saturday".

The IDF posts and then deletes a tweet where they explicitly state that hospitals and ambulances are legitimate targets. Note that the reasoning used in this tweet "they are used by Hamas, we don't have to show you any evidence of it because it is so obviously true" is one that IDF spokesmen have been repeating for weeks.

The IDF begins operations to raid Al Shifa. The Israeli government's official Twitter posts a video from "an Al Shifa nurse" claiming that the hospital is overrun with Hamas that are constantly stealing all the hospital supplies. People actually in Al Shifa hospital all say they do not recognize this nurse - and no wonder, she is later revealed to be an Israeli actress originally from Mexico. The Israeli government deletes their post with the video.

The IDF raids Al Shifa. There is zero armed resistance from within the hospital - the Hamas command and control centre has zero armed guards. No underground command and control structures are found. No hostages are found. No Hamas fighters are found. The IDF delivers "medical supplies" to Al Shifa shortly before they release a video showing that there was "a lot" of military hardware at Al Shifa. Multiple grab bags with live grenades and assault rifles are stashed behind MRI machines. Yes, this is insane - MRI machines have immensely powerful electromagnets inside them - so stashing the grab bag here renders the MRI machine unusable. Alternately, someone lazily planting evidence might have just picked that spot because it was convenient.  In one of the shots of these grab bags, a box almost identical to the "medical supplies" boxes can be seen in the background. A few hours later when the embedded BBC reporters are toured around the facility, the grab bag behind the MRI machine mysteriously has different gear in it. This IDF video introduces a new meme to the world - Hamas dates. Apparently among the evil terrorist contraband at Al Shifa is a box of dates.

After holding Al Shifa for over a week, the IDF find a tunnel.  55 metres long - but apparently not actually going anywhere. With zero Hamas fighters or hostages inside. Also, no one is allowed to go inside of it.

Former Israeli PM Ehud Omert says that the actual command and control centre for Hamas is in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, where Israel has been telling Gazan internally displaced people to move to.

Israel tells people in Khan Younis, especially those at hospitals, to evacuate.

Indonesian Hospital (which is in northern Gaza and where Emily Callahan was volunteering for MSF) is surrounded by tanks. Airstrikes in southern Gaza intensify. The IDF raids Ibn Sina hospital in the West Bank.

The Landslide Brought Me Down

Time for a break from doom and war. I can post about things other than doom and war - just because I haven't for almost a decade doesn't mean I can't.

I'm a pretty basic guy. Landslide is my favourite Fleetwood Mac song. It's catchy, it's fun - and everyone loves to sing along with "in the SNOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooow ... covered ... hiiIIIIIiiiIILs". It's a great song. So I kinda expected that there would be some awesome covers of it. Sure Stevie Nicks is a force of nature with a unique voice that owns the songs she sings, but covers aren't about pretending that you're the original artist. They are about making the song your own. So I set about finding covers of Landslide.

They all sucked. Every single one of them I listened to. Just garbage. No, that's too harsh  - some of them were not painful to listen to. The Dixie Chicks version is solidly "meh". And a lot of those musicians were clearly talented and they knew what they were doing and many of them knew who they were as artists - but nothing could hold a candle to the original. Just an endless stream of one failed cover after then next.

Until I discovered the existence of Ashley Slim Stevenson. And. Holy. Fucking. Shit. That song about strumming my face with his fingers? I finally understand. This artist sang through me like tornadoes go through a trailer park.

So I ended up binging her YouTube channel and just about everything on it is out-of-the-park monster performances. Here's a seasonal one:

I bought her album. It's good and you should get it. Anyways, like a junkie, I trolled the internet for more. She's a subway busker, so of course there's more - great songs punctuated by trains arriving in the station. There's a few other things as well - this is the earliest thing I found:

A List of Antisemitic Terrorists and Sympathizers

1. The media
2. The UNRWA
3. Jewish student groups on college campuses
4. Jews that criticize Israel
5. Labour Unions
6. Literally, every Palestinian in Gaza (don't call what Israel is doing "genocide" - you need proof of intent for that)
7. Calendars EDIT - not just Calendars in general, but also dates /EDIT

Blogging Never Changes - Part Eight - It's Worse

For over a month I have been saying that things are goin g to get worse and then stay worse for a long time. Well, I think we're there. This is it - this is the "worse" I have been dreading. Not to give any false hope about this being as bad as it gets - it's going to get more bad than this for sure. But this is the "worse" conditions I feared.

No hospitals are operational in Gaza right now. None. They are all shut down.

The UNRWA has less than 48 hours of fuel themselves, so after that point in time, there will be essentially no one co-ordinating the distribution of the meagre relief supplies.

The IDF has boots on the ground. The land invasion has completely encircled Gaza City and also controls a swath of Gaza across the middle, separating the north from the south.

Bombs are in fact still dropping from the sky in incredible numbers. They have now been joined by tank and artillery shells as well as machine gun fire.

Food and water are incredibly scarce. The trickle of aid trucks - even if they were full to the brim with water - would be grossly inadequate to meet the needs. Dehydration must be rampant across the entire enclave.

Sanitation has fallen apart. There is no functional sewer system. Gaza was crowded before, and now they have been confined to much smaller and more crowded spaces. And infectious diseases are now spreading rampantly. And both the Health Ministry and the UNRWA have been crippled and will be unable to provide public health services at all.

Israel has shown zero indications that they are even close to being finished. Weeks of cajoling, including from Biden and Blinken resulted in four hour "humanitarian pauses" - which appears to be the exact same as what Israel was already doing - designating a four hour period for people to use to flee the north. Also consistent with Israel's action s on that four hour window - people following those instructions have still been shot dead. Which is why no one has noticed that these "humanitarian pauses" are supposed to be in place. Because they are completely meaningless, and that is as much as Israel is willing to concede.

And on top of it all - the collapse of Health Ministry services means that the death toll won't be updated meaningfully. So we won't see the impact of this for a while. The death toll was a severe undercount before - now it's just not meaningful at all.  The number injured in Gaza before everything shutdown was around 25K. It's possible some of these people will survive without hospital care even under the nightmarish conditions they are living under. I have no clue how much longer that Joe Biden will continue in his assistance and unwavering support of genocide. But even if Biden changes tune now, there is still a massive amount of death that will happen. Frankly, it will be a miracle if the final count at the end of it all is under 50,000. And it will of course be a lot higher than even that if the West allows Netanyahu to deliver on his promised long and drawn out war.

Where Does Blogging Go From Here Part Three - When You Stare Into the Abyss

There's noise about a temporary pause in exchange for hostages. Something like a three day pause is being discussed. While this will save a lot of lives in the short term - I don't know if it's a good idea.

What is going to happen in three days? It's not going to stop being a humanitarian disaster with three days respite from the bombs. BUT what will happen is that we'll get more stories out of Gaza. The tragedy and loss and suffering will be documented and those stories will make the rounds. The curtain will begin to be pulled back from the sheer scope and scale of this disaster.

And then - three days is up. And Israel will begin bombing again. Of course they will - the government of Israel has shown that it is deeply committed to the genocidal plan. But this will only be possible with continued support from the US and the Western states.

So that's the future then. We're possibly getting a break in hostilities - long enough for more reporting about the conditions in Gaza to get out. We'll see how dire the situation is. And then we will be told to support a return to bombing. And the brain geniuses running this show will support the return to bombing.

They are going to break our hearts and then let us know that it is time for more. It's like scuttling the landing boats before advancing. There's a remote possibility that the outrage of starting the bombs again might make them think twice. This is my hope - that the public will demand a stop to the war. But sadly, the fucking ghoulish monsters in charge are the stupidest fucking morons. As I have been saying for a month now, while I wish with all my heart that I am wrong - it's going to get worse, and stay worse for a long time.

Victims and Villains

 Since the beginning of this thing, there have been only two acceptable lenses to view Palestinians. Either they are victims in all of this or they are part of Hamas and therefore villains. Thousands of children dead - victims. The monsters that carried out the October 7th attacks - villains. That's it. There is no other option.

That's not what we see in the video and images coming out of Gaza. The thing which made me realize this framing was Biden dismissing the Gaza Health Ministry as a bunch of liars. They are villains because they are "Hamas controlled". Maybe some progressives can see them as victims for being thrust into this situation. But they are neither. They are people who find themselves facing worse conditions than we can even imagine and doing their best to meet it. When those people aren't Palestinians, we call them heroes. Is that controversial? That the Palestinian health care workers struggling to save lives in Gaza's hospitals this past month are heroes? But it's not just the doctors and nurse and medics. People trying to dig survivors out of the rubble with their hands. Running through the streets to transport the wounded because there is no fuel for ambulances. We see people under a vicious siege, with modern military might brought to bear on a population that is majority refugees - and still they rally together to support each other. There's little other option for them. Journalists who have lost their families and friends, and a disgustingly large number of colleagues - they still go out every day to report, to bring us the stories - so the rest of us can bear witness to the tragedy as it unfolds. The conditions right now are such that merely saying the word is considered antisemitic and support for terrorism. Despite the countless words I've spewed about this, I have yet to use it myself. But how else can this be described? The resilience, the defiance, the continued effort at going on in the face of overwhelming disaster - this is resistance. What else can we call the response to an occupying state committing the war of aggression. It is resistance. The Gazans aren't just victims or villains here - they are resisting the aggression of an apartheid state. They are resisting the violence of the force occupying their lands. The world did not begin existing on October 7th - nor did history stop that same day. Things happened before that attack and things continued to happen after it. And they are still happening now. But the stories we get in the West are still stories of victims and villains - when it is clear to anyone willing to look that this is a story of resistance.

Where Does Blogging Go From Here? Part Two - Don't Ceasefire Until You See the Whites of Their Eyes

We outlined what the demand was in Part One. Ceasefire, humanitarian aid, and a hostages for prisoners "All for All" swap. I also noted that this is what the demand has been for two weeks - possibly longer. So what will it take to get to a ceasefire? Well, two sides need to agree for an agreement to happen - and the terms outlined here are basically the terms that Hamas wants exactly. So the impediment is Israel. Maybe you think this is unfair - I've outlined the Hamas position and said that's what should be in the ceasefire. What about he Israeli position? This is the Israeli position:

• Hamas is utterly destroyed.
• All hostages released. 
• No prisoners are released except to the sweet embrace of death.
• Gaza is depopulated and converted into a demilitarized buffer zone protecting Israel from the Sinai peninsula where all the remaining Gazans will be forced to relocate.

The crazy first requirement of Hamas being destroyed doesn't even make any sense. Hamas leadership is not in Gaza  - they are in many cities around the world. The military wing of the Al Qassam Brigades has secret leadership - so eliminating them is basically impossible. It operates sort of as a federation of independent cells. Worse still - even if by magic they managed to get "all of Hamas leadership" (whatever that means) targeted and neutralized - new leaders will step up and replace them. Really all they need is a connection with a funding source like Iran - and the ability to recruit fanatics - made a lot easier by Israel committing genocide. But that (even though it is impossible), along with securing the hostage release, are Israel's primary goals.

This is just one of many reasons I believe there will not be a ceasefire agreement in two weeks (although again - I really do wish that I am dead wrong about this). Israel has set unobtainable goals. Their demands cannot be met and certainly not in the manner in which they are pursuing it. Accepting a ceasefire would be a massive stepdown. Netanyahu framed it this way himself - claiming that accepting a ceasefire is the same thing as surrender. As stupid as that sounds - who is Israel surrendering to? - it is essentially correct. Israel isn't really fighting Hamas - this campaign of violence is absolutely not weakening Hamas at all. Hamas leadership is safe in other countries, Hamas funding is probably at all-time highs given global sentiment on the situation. Israel is fighting global opinion - they are trying to do as much genocide as they can before they world cuts them off by forcing a ceasefire.

And that forcing will have to come from US pressure - and that US pressure will only come from public pressure - which the US is all too often happy to ignore. Consider universal background checks - a gun control measure with something like 90% public support, and an issue that comes up after every major mass shooting - so pretty frequently. This is still not a law. So public pressure - while necessary - is going to have to be overwhelming in order to have any effect.

Currently, it is only a tiny handful of electeds have voiced support for a ceasefire - instead there is overwhelming support for MOAR BOMBS. The amount of shifting that has to occur just to get Democrats on side with a ceasefire is massive. So it's going to take time. And lives. Lots of them.

That said, there are some more points to consider. Right now, there's a massive amount of pussy-footing around "humanitarian pauses" instead of a ceasefire. But consider what the difference is. The scope and scale of destruction in Gaza means that no mere "pause" will be enough to stave off massive disaster. The feared disease outbreak in the overcrowded hospitals with no clean water or sanitation are starting to appear. Searching the rubble for survivors is such a massive task that it will take as long as people can con themselves into believing that someone is still holding out. Given a break in the aggression, Gaza will be able to take stock and present to the world a better picture of how horrific the situation is - and it is worse than you think. If there was pressure enough to force Israel into accepting a pause, there will be pressure enough to prevent the war from restarting. A pause would effectively be a ceasefire.

Here's an example. Remember the 20 aid trucks? Israel was forced to allow aid in, so they did their best to make it as paltry and ineffectual as possible. Before October 7th, Gaza was getting 500 trucks per day of humanitarian aid and commercial goods - so allowing 4% of a day's worth of supplies after two weeks of bombing was basically doing nothing. And initially - this was a one-off.  It was a single delivery of 20 trucks worth of aid (no fuel allowed!). But once they allowed any trucks in - they had no excuse to let them in again and now they are moving to allowing 100 trucks per day in. It is still woefully inadequate (and no fuel allowed!) but this demonstrates the point. The current murderous campaign of genocide is fuelled almost entirely by rage. If it loses momentum, it is done. If Israel concedes any basic human dignity to the Gazans, they will not be able to take it back.

Reporting now is that Israel is asking for details on how this "pause" will work. Any "pause" must be ineffectual enough that news of how bad things are on the ground in Gaza can not get out. Any "pause" that Israel agrees to must leave open the option to return to hostilities - which is only possible if sympathy for Gazans does not increase in the brief respite period. Any such "pause" will be outright rejected by the world as being a farce and the demands for a ceasefire would only continue.

For this reason, I had initially had a vey dim view of the "humanitarian pause" efforts. Israel will not accept a pause - it is the same to them as a ceasefire. A pause ends the game unless a new terror attack from Hamas or something similar happens - which would also end a ceasefire. The only difference between a pause and a ceasefire is in how it is administered. With a ceasefire, there are official observers and a guarantor nation. There are rules to how those work. A pause is a new made-up thing and it's not clear how they would work. So the devil is in the details. But here is why it might be helpful - it's possible that Israel's attempt to neuter the "pause" enough to have zero effect on the genocide campaign might be poorly executed. It's possible that negotiating the "pause" might result in something that still forces Israel into a ceasefire. It's even conceivable that this happens before two weeks are up - making me absolutely wrong. That's something that I would be more than happy to be wrong about.

Where Does Blogging Go From Here? Part One - What Even Is "Here"?

This isn't Part 8 because it would be weird to have three or four Part 8's.

So what's your solution?

The rallying cry of centrist dipshits. Pointing out that the incredibly harmful systems in place are not fixing the problems they are meant to fix, but are instead creating a lot of new extra problems - this is forbidden unless you have a perfect solution to replace it. It's a very familiar tactic to criminal justice reform activists, who are constantly told that reducing police budgets cannot be done unless you have a proven plan to eradicate all crime anywhere ever. Mere mountains of data showing that community support programs and social services like supportive housing do a much better job at reducing crime - that doesn't count. You need to prove that it will 100% work in the specific municipality it is proposed for and that the results aren't impacted by any other potential variables and remain robust for decades and also you'll never be allowed to test it anywhere ever. That sort of thing.

So it's a dumb criticism. No, I don't have a magical plan with a 100% guarantee of peace in the Middle East - and even if I did, there is no plan so compelling and easy to implement that it obviously will go forward with zero resistance or pushback from anyone. I mean - no one even gets this as answer to "where do you want to go for lunch?" And this level of justification is never required for plans like "give Israel $14 billion in weapons - also remove any Congressional oversight or even any knowledge or awareness of how that money is spent".

That said - it is a good question that warrants some consideration. What is our solution? What is even our ask other than "stop killing civilians". I mean - "stop killing civilians" is valid enough ask by itself, but it is reasonable  to think about what this means. Also, "stop killing civilians" should always be acceptable and it is frankly bonkers that there's a push to silence these calls by equating them with supporting terrorists. It is literally the opposite of terrorism!

It's a huge question, so let's tackle it in steps. Step one is the immediate request. So what is the ask? We already know the outlines of the immediate demands:

• A ceasefire. A real official ceasefire with observers and a guarantor nation.
• Unimpeded access for international humanitarian aid - including fuel for hospital generators.
• Release of all the hostages taken on October 7th. And any other hostages Hamas is holding.
• Release of the thousands of Gazans imprisoned by Israel.

Articulable defined items that directly address the issues. The hostage/prisoner exchange is the most complicated - obviously some Israeli hostages have been killed in the past four weeks. Israel has been bombing the hell out of Gaza this entire time. While it certain it looks like Israel's assault has been indiscriminate, they had to have known about at least some Hamas facilities and resources. Places where Hamas could imprison their hostages - and also high priority air strike targets for Israel. As for the prisoner release - not every Palestinian taken by Israel is a political prisoner. Palestinians can also be criminals, and maybe some of them do actually belong in  jail. Still - these types of exchanges have occurred before - although never on this scale. And the other two demands are clear and understandable. These are what the demands were two weeks ago and they will be what the demands are two weeks from now.

Two weeks from now? Well, I wanted to ensure you got the usual dosage of doom that characterizes this new fever fountain of blogging. Blogging never changes after all - including the doom.

Yes, I believe that we'll still be in the current status quo (except with much higher death rates and way more doom ) in two weeks. A ceasefire will only occur when Israel agrees to it and they have indicated that they think this war is going to be long and difficult. So any ceasefire will have to be pushed by the international community - and specifically, by the US. Israel appears to not give a shit what other nations think (other than possibly for purposes of petty revenge - such as denying Irish and Brazilian passport holders access to leave via the Rafah Crossing like they allowed for other foreign nationals) - but the US does have power here. Specifically, billions of dollars of power. I certainly hope to be wrong about this - but I think two weeks before seeing any real movement on a ceasefire is super optimistic.

Blogging Never Changes Part Seven - Context Strikes Back

While very often the stupid insane shit t hat we see happening is totally incomprehensible - sometimes, some of it makes sense, even if it is still fundamentally fucked up bullshit that is so very very wrong. Right now, calling for peace - asking that people stop shooting and bombing each other - is not considered acceptable discourse. It's seen as possibly naive and ignorant, or in some cases it's called antisemitic and sympathetic to terrorists. Calling for peace is now considered terrorism. And with the current campaign of mass killing violence ongoing - fucking bonkers.

But people don't do things "because they are evil". Even the people you think are evil - they aren't waking up in the morning cackling supervillain laughs while rubbing their hands together and pondering how they can advance the Forces of Darkness. They have their reasons - and maybe we strongly disagree with their reasons or maybe there's a huge disconnect between their plans and their objectives, but generally speaking they are not doing it "to be evil".

Criticism of Israel is fraught. While most people recognize that criticism of Israel is not criticism of all Jews - that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism, the fact remains that criticism of Israel is actually criticism  of at least some Jews. There is definitely potential for confusion and there is also a lot of overlap. It's a very rare antisemite who isn't also anti-Zionist. But this isn't the entirety of it. There is also the looming shadow of the fact that antisemitism is a very serious and very dangerous thing. 

Antisemitism exists and it is pervasive and deadly. It's much more pervasive than most people acknowledge. Here's one way of considering it - the one thing that white supremacist groups have in common more frequently than white supremacist ideology is antisemitism. For example, the leader of the Proud Boys is Enrique Tarrio. Or how about figuring out where to place Kanye on this spectrum. A big thing in white supremacist ideology, despite all their obsessing over the purity of bloodlines - is submissive Asian wives. White supremacists are way more racially diverse than people would expect. So despite the fact that they are characterized by a belief in the superiority of the white race, this is less unifying for them than their hatred of Jews. They hate Jews more than they believe in white supremacy. That's how significant antisemitism is.

So that's context too. When politicians shy away from criticism of Israel, it is driven in part by the knowledge that antisemitism is deadly serious. Knowing that any criticism they espouse could very well end up as recruitment propaganda for hate groups. But sometimes - and right now is one of those times - criticism of Israel is necessary. So there's this fraught push and pull of figuring out what to say - which results in some truly crazy shit as well. And here's the thing - this now obvious language policing where there is massive self-censorship in discussions of anything to do with Israel - that in itself is a massive propaganda tool for antisemites. Hate groups will often talk about globalist Jewish conspiracies where world leaders are just mere puppets of some shadowy cabal of uber wealthy hook nosed demons - truly ludicrous and insane shit. And then you play the tapes of world leaders trying to talk about Israel. I mean obviously this was just Justin being a useless piece of shit - quite clearly he's not acting like the puppet of an Illuminati group - I mean shouldn't the One World Government be able to find better puppets? Anyways, I think we ought to be able to agree that seeing this shit every day might be useful propaganda for spreading the law that Jews control the world. That the self-censorship and the aggressive policing of anti-Israel sentiment is counterproductive.

It's counterproductive in other ways too. Specifically in the same ways that the US' protection of Israel from any consequences for its crimes leads to Israeli governments committing more crimes. If Israel is never held to account for wrong doing - and in fact, that merely identifying Israeli misconduct is enough to "cancel" someone - then Israeli governments are going to drift in the direction of more misconduct. This magical shield which protects Israeli politics from accountability - the US veto on the Security Council and the self-censoring of valid criticism - this means that there is no external pressure for accountability for misdeeds.

Netanyahu and his Likud party is fascist. They spent most of 2023 having to deal with protests against laws placing the government outside of the ambit of judicial review. They passed a law giving operational control of the police to a cabinet minister. They've developed and fostered a private army of violent terrorist which they have unleashed upon the Occupied West Bank - a group so extreme that the Israeli intelligence agency said was a threat to Israel's security. And this is to be expected. Israel is an apartheid state - anti-Palestinian racism is formally and explicitly part of Israel's identity, and their democratic processes go on with this embedded deep within it. New police state laws or new racist measures get no real scrutiny - it's all stuff that they were already doing to some extent, stuff that never gets criticized. And so the country just drifts rightwards continuously because there is no penalty for moving to the right.

Blogging Never Changes Part Six - Context Matters

The Gaza Strip is 365 square kilometers and has a population of over 2 million. For comparison, LEAFS SUCK is 630 square kilometers with 2.9 million residents and Chicago is 600 square kilometers with 2.7 million residents. This is the area that Israel is bombing and now invading with tanks and soldiers. The first week of the campaign, Israel was dropping a thousand bombs a day. And they have only picked up the pace since then. And - an important reminder - they have not stopped.

There was a statistic running around a short while ago - that the number of children killed in Gaza in just three weeks had surpassed the number of children killed across all other conflict zones across the world since 2019. And - an important reminder - it is still going on right now, only at a faster pace.

The current death count is over 9,000. Sadly, this isn't a Dragonball reference - that's the number of people that have been confirmed dead, people whose corpses the Gaza Health Ministry has identified by name. Adding to this sadness is the scope of the undercount. There are hundreds if not thousands buried under the rubble. The deaths in Gaza City over the past two days is almost certainly undercounted as information getting out of there is unlikely with Israeli tanks surrounding the place. The actual death toll is certainly way over 10K now. You might recall that I used the UNRWA Gaza Field Office size to scale things - there are 10K UNRWA workers at that office. This works out to one per 200 Gazans. Now basically the same as the number of dead.

One in 200 dead. In Canada this would mean 190,000 dead. In the US, this would be 1.65 million dead. In less than a month. 

Using only the official verified count of 9,000 over 27 days - this is 1,000 deaths every 3 days - 14 people per hour - one person dying from violence every 260 seconds. Non-stop for almost four weeks. And - an important reminder - it has not stopped, but in fact only picked up speed.

One in 200 dead. The US Civil War saw a million people die out of a population of 31 million. 1 in 31 - staggeringly horrific. But it took 4 years - 50 times longer than the bombing campaign in Gaza has lasted. The rate of death in Gaza right now is seven times higher than the scaled proportional deaths from the Civil War. Add to that, roughly 2/3 of US Civil War deaths were from disease. It's hard to maintain hygiene when you're restricted to 1800's technology. The Gaza Strip is now largely without power or medical supplies. Or clean water. While it was already overcrowded before, people have fled to seek protection near buildings that they believe Israel wouldn't target - hospitals and UN schools. Before the bombing, Gaza was substantially denser than the cities I cited earlier - it has only gotten even more crowded as the situation deteriorates. The death toll in Gaza is likely almost all violent deaths and people succumbing to injuries from bombing - the plague deaths have not kicked in yet. And - an important reminder - there is no respite, the overcrowding gets worse as more residential areas are bombed to rubble - because the bombing continues at this very moment.

And yet - people still invoke Israel's right to self-defense. They can look at the carnage and destruction being laid in Gaza and then imply that this is somehow "self-defense". Context matters. Just waiting for the first reporter willing to lose their job in  order to ask whatever US spokesidiot whether they honestly believe that what is happening in Gaza right now is Israel defending itself.

Blogging Never Changes Part Five - Four is Unlucky

One of the foundational aspects of this blog, such as it was, was being late to things. It was envisaged as not-quite-timely observations. Things would happen, people would comment on it, some time would pass, and then I'd get my lick in, snarking at some weird bit of commentary. In part because it was a pressure relief valve - an outlet for me to say shit without alienating people IRL - and thus some time was required for the pressure to build up. So it feels weird to be doing this thing about what's coming next - but that thing that's next has been bearing down on us like a slow motion train crash - it feels like it has been happening for weeks already.

When the Al Ahli hospital was hit - it seemed like something entirely different. Sure the air raids were already very deadly - hundreds of people were dying every day and had been for several days running by that point. What was it that made the hospital disaster so very bad? It was the number of dead. Dozens being killed in a strike was unfortunate, but acceptable. Hundreds is not. That's it - and it is incredibly sad that we value Palestinian lives so little that it takes hundreds of them to raise a response. Killing dozens is okay, killing hundreds is not.

The death toll from the Jabalia air strike is still ticking up, but it has already gone into the hundreds. Maybe the IDF misunderstood how many civilians were going to be caught in this attack or maybe they've adjusted their marker upwards now that we are in the new phase of the war. Regardless, it is a change in scale, from dozens to hundreds, and it provoked responses. It has brought us closer still to that regional war we are supposed to be trying to avoid.

The Gaza hospitals are on the brink now. We were warned about this just over two weeks ago - that fuel and medical supplies were running out. They were running out, but it looks like what happened was that Gazans banded together and scavenged and scrounged resources to keep things going. Some of what they scrounged was from hospitals that shut down due to damage from air strikes. As of yesterday, half of the hospitals in Gaza had already closed. But now, the vinegar they've used as a replacement for antiseptic and the fuel they've siphoned out of vehicles in order to keep power going to dialysis machines - that's running out now too. So this will be another shift - people who are dying in Gaza hospitals because of a lack of supplies, because of the failing ability to provide medical services - that's going to tick up as well. And maybe it'll take a few days for these deaths to fully hit, maybe some patients will hold out for a bit without care. But they will die and their numbers will go from dozens to hundreds.

So what will be the response? Already there are world-wide protests against the genocide. Daily people march for Palestine. The Arab countries who had signed on to the normalization plan are being pushed out of it. As much as the rulers would love to reap the rewards of achieving peace in the Middle East without doing anything to achieve peace in the Middle East - their people will not allow it. Not when the killing is by the hundreds, not merely by the dozens. So the pressure for them to act will increase just as the killing has increased. And maybe they'll be able to buy some time by doing things other than escalating the conflict to war, but there is zero indication that the pressure build up will slow at all. And so war is on the doorstep.

I can see this coming, way out here in my comfortable suburban Canadian home. Everybody sees it coming. So the people who are actually involved and getting reports directly from people on the ground - they must have known it has been coming for ages now. 

Maybe they were hoping it wasn't going to happen - maybe they were hoping that Israel would allow fuel into Gaza to keep the hospitals going. They did start allowing food and water last week, so maybe the desperately needed fuel will come too. But it is not coming. 

Maybe the people who saw this happening were hoping that Israel wouldn't escalate her attacks in ways that results in hundreds, not dozens of civilian casualties. After all, the IDF clearly recognized that the scope of death at Al Ahli hospital was too much and had to be avoided. But that did not happen - the IDF was happy to claim responsibility for the Jabalia missile strikes.

So what was their plan? If we are to avoid escalation into a wider regional conflict - what is being done about it? These people know it is coming, and they know it is coming soon. And what are they doing?

Biden's administration is adamantly against a ceasefire. The Security Council was supposed to be working on another resolution, this one from the UAE and developed with the backing of all of the elected members. That meeting was Monday but we do not have a Security Council resolution. A UNSC resolution is binding - it would serve notice to Israel that the world can and will take action to end this mindless bloodthirsty rampage. But we don't have a UNSC resolution.

The only answer is that a wider regional war is expected. Maybe the US thinks that this is the preferable outcome - a wider regional war. I cannot for the life of me imagine a scenario where peace is the less preferred alternative, but that seems to be what the decisions are pointing to.

And it is coming. I have been saying for weeks that this situation is going to get worse, and then stay worse for a long time. This is what Israel has promised us. And while it has been getting worse this entire time, the actual serious getting worse part was yet to come. When the numbers killed tick up from dozens to hundreds. Well, that time is at hand. It's already started and there seems to be nothing holding it back.

Blogging Never Changes Intermission - Listening to the People

 We take a break from obsessing about the unfolding disaster in the Middle East to look at some stuff closer to home. The Premier of Ontario is Doug Ford, older brother to LEAFS SUCK's most famous citizen Rob the Crack Mayor Ford. Not much of a break - another way-too-long post ending in an angry rant, but at least it's about garden variety corruption instead of thousands of people dying violent deaths.

The current scandal that's plaguing the government is one that's been brewing now for over a year. The precipitating incident that set it all off was when Doug removed environmental protections for a bunch of properties in what we refer to as the Greenbelt. Doug has always been suspected of being on the take for land developers - in fact, this wasn't even the first time the whole Greenbelt thing was brought up. In the campaign for his first term, there was a leaked video of Doug addressing a group of developers telling them that he was totally going to open up the Greenbelt to development. Response was swift and decisive - this idea was so unpopular that he reversed his position. <a href="https://ontariopc.ca/ontario-pc-leader-doug-ford-promises-not-to-touch-the-greenbelt/">This is still posted on his political party's website</a>:

“The people have spoken – we won’t touch the greenbelt. Very simple. That’s it, the people have spoken. I’m going to listen to them, they don’t want me to touch the greenbelt, we won’t touch the greenbelt. Simple as that.”

Anyways, last year his government passed a law removing 7,400 acres of land from the Greenbelt. Unsurprisingly, the reaction was swift and strong. People were outraged again. But Ford, fresh from an electoral victory that saw his majority in the legislature increase - pushed forward. And this is where the democracy thing happened. Journalists at the Toronto Star and the Narwhal conducted an investigation - a very simple one, guided by one of the founding principles of investigative journalism - "follow the money". Turns out that the overwhelming majority of land being opened up belonged to a small handful of developers. All of whom were coincidentally max donors to the governing party. Well, the news stories provided an opening for the Opposition to accused the government of corruption and push for investigations by our Auditor-General and Ethics Commissioner. And the media investigating the story did not let up either. So we had a year of revelations, eventually leading to a pair of reports in August from the government excoriating the process.

Ford's government of course pretended like the reports were unimportant and continued to push forward with the scheme. But the writing was on the wall for it and a series of reversals and concessions followed with a handful of resignations and the eventual surrender of returning the removed lands to Greenbelt protection. It's a fun story with crazy details. $8.3 billion in property value, thick manilla envelopes getting handed from developers to political staff, a trip to Vegas and a meeting during a massage session, some dude named "Phoenix Kiss" - who ends up being the chief henchman to Mr. X. I encourage people to look into it themselves. It's really mind blowing how brazen a lot of this stuff was - and how utterly ridiculous too,

So what is it about this story that's bugging me? I mean aside from the fact that my stupid fucking fellow Ontarians would happily re-elect this corrupt piece of shit again in a heartbeat (despite the fact that this Greenbelt thing has now progressed to the criminal investigation stage)? It's sort of related to that faith my neighbours have in the governing party. It's this - media have been playing this policy reversal as a good thing - as proof that Doug Ford listens to the people. When quite clearly and obviously - it is the opposite that is true. Again, let me note that this is not the first time Doug has tried to open up the Greenbelt - and when caught, he said that he listened to people and then promised to leave the Greenbelt alone. He didn't.

Ford's government has backtracked on a lot of things. During the pandemic, he was going to empower police to just lock people up for shits and giggles. Then the police forces across the province simply said that this law was bullshit and they simply weren't going to enforce it. Doug reversed on that. Doug redesigned our license plates and launched new ones basically on a whim. Turns out that the plates were not legible after sundown as they reflected so much light that they simply could not be read if there were headlights on them. He reversed on that. There are plenty of other items too. The main thing seems to be that Doug is full of ideas - mostly stupid pig-ignorant moronic ideas. Ideas that everyone he talks to about them tell him he's a fucking idiot for having. Well, he now has the power to make those ideas a reality and he keeps learning that the meanies who told him he was a fucking idiot are 100% right.

So this is the thing about it all which pisses me off most. If Doug "listened" or "learned" from these fiascoes, you might expect a bit of humility when having to reverse his position - and in this case for the third time in six years on one very specific issue. But no - all of this is actually examples of how he's great and his critics, who were right, are bad people.

Blogging Never Changes Part Three - How is That Supposed to Work?

None of it ever makes sense. None of it.

How does one "destroy Hamas"? What does this even mean? 

Let's think about what Hamas is. It's a terror organization - motivated by antisemitism and a desire to wipe Israel off the map. Also it is the administrative body of what used to be Gaza - but let's put that part aside for the moment. That's not the problematic part of it - the problematic part is the terrorists. And how does the terror part work? 

There's the leadership - the people who plan and co-ordinate terror attacks, who craft the hateful recruiting messages and misinformation to sustain the manpower they need. Those people, for the large part, aren't in Gaza. They are in Qatar and Lebanon  and elsewhere in the region. Some of them may well be in Western nations even,  the leadership of the Qassam Brigades is kept secret. Bombing Gaza will not impact them. Even if it did, there is likely no shortage of people ready to step in to replace any of these guys.

There's the money. The powers that be say it's coming from Iran. Undoubtedly a lot of money does come from Iran. But also, some of this money comes from various people all around the world - even though it is literally illegal to support Hamas in many nations. Invading Gaza does nothing to hinder this aspect of Hamas. In fact, one might suggest that the invasion of Gaza will engender more sympathy for Hamas which may in turn translate to more funding.

Then there are the footsoldiers. These guys certainly will be impacted by the ground invasion. Israel certainly ought to be able to kill a very large fraction of these guys. But what isn't being acknowledged is that this does not lower the number of Hamas fighters. The notion that this is going to work is kind of like that last line of You'll Be Back from Hamilton - "I will kill your friends and family to remind you of my love." 

At this point, even if - magically - Israel were to kill every single Hamas fighter that participated in the October 7th attacks and no one else - there would still be a much larger number of Hamas fighters then there were on October 6th. Half of the homes in Gaza are destroyed. Thousands of people have been killed - a great many of them children. There are people who will have very extreme grievances that they will want to act upon. And what's to stop them? Moreover, what do they have to lose? Their membership in a deeply oppressed territory that has rightly been called an open-air prison? They have nothing to lose, and more and more reasons to act every hour that passes.

The plan is broken on a fundamental level. Neither Hamas leadership nor Hamas funding is being effectively targeted - and the civilian death toll is already unimaginable after just three weeks, with the full scale offensive only getting rolling now. This is supposed to "destroy Hamas"? It's beyond stupid and doomed to failure.

On the plus side, failing to destroy Hamas is actually the better outcome. That grievance the Gazans rightfully feel? It's not going to just go away. Israel isn't going to be able to declare victory and then suddenly there's "no hard feelings". And without Hamas - where does that anger and resentment go? At least with Hamas, the guys running the show have a sense of self-preservation. They want to keep their positions of power. But into the power vacuum left among a people swirling with rage and an understandable sense of injustice levied on them?

The "destruction" of Al Qaeda is what gave rise to ISIS. The hate is already there - eliminating the self-interested schemers running the show allows for the truly extremist nutjobs to grab power. That's what "destroying Hamas" means - rolling the dice and betting that half a century of apartheid followed by the most brutal assault on civilians seen in a generation or more - that this will somehow result in the sieged public feeling all warm and rosy towards their oppressor. It is fucking insane.