Blogging Without Pier

 

source: https://stephensemler.substack.com/p/three-times-more-food-aid-reached

EDIT: Let's put some context to this. 93,442 pallets of food sounds like a lot - but how much is it really? Well, the densest you can pack these things is probably MREs. Here's a prepper site link to buy a pallet of MREs. They can fit 720 meals on to one pallet. So 93,442 pallets is roughly 67 million MREs over a month - or roughly 1 MRE per Gazan per day. 1 MRE is 1,200 to 1,400 calories - woefully inadequate.  We're now at less than a third of that. And these are best case scenarios.

If you click through to Stephen Semler's Responsible Statecraft article, you'll see that April was actually a high watermark level of aid delivered, With March being pretty high as well (relatively speaking - even the highest amount of food delivered is less than half of normal requirements). The context of this arc is the ICJ issued orders for Israel to facilitate aid back in January, and Israel responded by cutting off aid (41,878 pallets in February) culminating in the murderous hunting of the WCK workers on Leap Day. Global outrage that Israel was also killing non-Palestinians forced a change resulting in 75,917 pallets in March and the 93K we see in April. So these ridiculously inadequate levels of aid delivery have been the case since at least January (68,914 pallets) which is the data shown in the RS article. Likely the starvation has been going on since October - and some may argue that it has been going since 2006. Anyways, now that Israel controls the Rafah crossing completely - we're at a new high score for starvation. Just in time for summer in the Middle East.

Give Them an Inch and They Blog for Miles

Here's the pattern. The IDF commits some ludicrously atrocious war crime - there is near universal outrage, but apparently not enough to shift Biden in his support of the ongoing genocide. Israel pretends to have some sort of regret over the "mistake" - and then the IDF repeats the war crime over and over and over again.

The latest thing that follows the pattern is the Tent Massacre. A "mistake" where dozens of people were horrifically burned to death in their refugee tents - burned by a US-made and Biden supplied GBU-39. In the four days following the Tent Massacre, at least 66 more people were killed by Israel in "safe zones" in Gaza. The IDF is still bombing refugee tents in Rafah. The Tent Massacre was really just the first of a series.

And it is a pattern.  Remember the Flour Massacre on February 29? Well, it too was the start of a series. This is a list of incidents in March at the same roundabout.

The general progress of the genocidal rampage is yet another example. The incursion into Rafah was opposed by basically every country other than Israel. Even Biden said that Israel should not go into Rafah - although his racist asshole psychopaths noted that this was with the caveat of "without a credible plan to evacuate and protect civilians". Incidentally - this is just basic international humanitarian law - no military actions without a credible plan to protect civilians. And what happened? The IDF moved into Rafah without an evacuation plan - the US put their goalposts onto a moving truck and had to repack them multiple times after trying to set them up again. That moving truck is likely set on fire now - Rafah is essentially evacuated with who knows how many casualties that entailed - and the US still does not believe their red line was crossed.

Or - consider the Al-Ahli Hospital massacre way back on October 17. This was before the world picked up on the massive degree of dishonesty that Israel and the IDF is capable of. Israel pitched a story of a "misfiring PIJ rocket". Literally the exact same lie they used just over a year prior when they slaughtered five children. The Tent Massacre should have brought some more attention to Al Ahli - basically the same incident - a firestorm that killed many people sheltering in tents. The same sized explosion, the same primary cause of death, the same degree of physical damage to the surroundings. Al Ahli was almost certainly caused by an Israeli fired, US made, and Biden supplied GBU-39. But even if it wasn't - the fact that Israel was allowed to continue their military operation, not merely unabated but in ever escalating intensity - ensured that the Al-Ahli Hospital Explosion merely the first of a series. We all saw what happened afterwards - the IDF was gripped in a hospital destroying mania. Delusions of a "Hamas Pentagon" underneath Al Shifa turned up tons of planted evidence (live ammo and grenades stored behind an MRI machine), closed off tunnels they had to dig eight feet down to find, and a box of dates. And that was not the only hospital that the IDF sieged relentlessly. In fact, the IDF sieged all of Gaza's hospitals relentlessly.

It's not always thus. There have been things that have forced the IDF to actually change their behaviour. The WCK attack which killed seven aid workers in a humanitarian aid convoy - where Israel used drones to hunt these people down over the span of a mile and a half before murdering them. Not to say that the IDF has not engaged in a campaign targeting aid workers - they absolutely have. But six of the WCK victims were foreign nationals - and Israel seems not to have slaughtered many more foreign aid workers since then.

But otherwise - it is just a matter of doing the most outrageous thing possible and daring people to oppose them. And when that opposition is shown to be insufficient to slow down the slaughter, because people like Joe Biden do not believe Palestinian life has any value at all, that specific war crime becomes normal operating procedure.

Which brings us to the scary part. The last outrage was disguising IDF special forces as civilians in order to massacre 274 Palestinians and wound some 700 more in order to rescue 4 hostages. Is this the next standard operation for Israel? To be clear - they've committed this specific war crime before - there's video evidence of Israeli special forces raiding a hospital disguised as doctors and patients. But this latest incident was close to a thousand casualties. Also, the previous examples of the pattern all had historical precedents. Israel has long been obsessed with Gaza hospitals, they've bombed refugee camps many times before October 7 - even shooting aid seekers is not that much different than their actions throughout the Great March of Return. The pattern is having one extreme example of atrociously bad behaviour - and when that doesn't lead to actual repercussions, incorporating that bad behaviour into the military operations in a much bigger way.

Summertime Blogging

Just finished day three under the Heat Dome. Yesterday here in LEAFS SUCK, we got to 30 Celsius with the humidity making it feel like 39. Which is a break from the previous two days where the humidex reading broke 40.

It’s a bit disjointing to hear the radio stations harp on about the high temperatures. Yes, it is really hot - for here. Not outside of our experience, it regularly gets that hot in Toronto - just never while it is still officially spring. And we certainly do have issues with it too. We have a lot of rental buildings from the 70s and earlier - without AC. Towers where temperatures are even higher than the surroundings and with no reasonable means to cool them. It’s bad. We also have a not insignificant homeless population that is increasing in size. These people are undoubtedly facing real challenges. 

But - this level of heat is basically what Gaza has had for the past month. Less humid, sure - but also without any rain at all. Or much in the way of fresh water supplies. Or any air condition at all. Instead, they have air strikes and widespread starvation. Toronto might have a sizable homeless population numbering in the thousands - but Gaza’s ranks of homeless is well over a million. Fortunately, there hasn’t been a heat wave there yet. But we’re at the start of it now - summer in the Middle East. With water scarcity, no security, the constant threat of military action, no electricity, very little food or medical supplies, and the only shelter being tents or the bombed out remains of the city.

It’s going to get worse. 

Biden is Not Supplying the Blogging for Rafah Red Lines

Forty days and forty nights ago Joe Biden said the following:

I made it clear that if they go into Rafah – they haven’t gone in Rafah yet – if they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities – that deal with that problem

The IDF said that they now control 70% of Rafah. The Tent Massacre which burned dozens of Gazans to death in their refugee tents in the "safe zone" was committed with a US-made and Biden supplied GBU-39. Three weeks ago Israel promised an investigation into how this horrendous mistake was not their fault and no one needs to be punished except Hamas. That investigation is "ongoing" but out of the limelight after the rescue mission where IDF special forces disguised themselves as civilians, massacred 274 people, and wounded around 700 more, in order to rescue 4 hostages.

Yesterday, Biden managed to successfully pressure a couple Democratic holdouts into approving $18 billion in arms sales to Israel. 

72 Blogs Uncensored

Here's an interesting question. IDF soldiers have been uploading videos and pictures of themselves committing all sorts of horrible acts - clear war crimes, documented by the perpetrators, published to social media channels. Quite obviously, they are news and provide important context into the biggest story since October. Additionally - there are no international journalists in Gaza, so on the ground reporting of what's happening there is extremely limited. And yet there's been no coverage. Why?

The kneejerk answer is that mainstream media is too in the tank for genocide and they refuse to cover anything that puts Israel in a bad light. Now to be clear - this is definitely part of it. The ludicrous bias in coverage has been thoroughly documented. But - even with that bias in place - some stories get through. Some coverage happens. Even the New York Times with their obvious propaganda pieces have published stories that are quite damning of Israel (and also their own coverage of the conflict). And yet no one talks about the IDF videos.

Here's my theory - it's because it's a can of worms they really do not want to open. The videos of soldiers riding children's tricycles or dressing in women's clothing - knowing that the owners of that stuff have been either killed or displaced - that's pretty bad. The videos of soldiers whooping it up as they level entire neighbourhoods with planted explosives (meaning that the buildings were already clear enough for demo crews to go in and wire them to go boom) - pretty bad. The videos of soldiers forcing hundreds of men to engage in some kabuki theatre of surrendering while stripped to their skivvies? Also bad. And there are now thousands of these videos and pictures online. But these only represent the tip of the genocide iceberg. This video evidence of rampant and disgusting dehumanization of Palestinians is actually some of the least offensive shit IDF soldiers have done.

Those garden variety war crimes media are nothing compared to the worst of the what these genocidal monsters are celebrating. The IDF was running a snuff channel (as alluded to in this post's title) - hosting literally hundreds of videos of Palestinians being murdered and having their deaths mocked by Israeli soldiers. There are a lot of those videos - and reporting on the much milder generic war crimes captured on film opens up the question about the rest of the social media posts. It's kind of like reporting on a car accident and noting the damage to the vehicles while not mentioning how many people were killed.

So they don't want to go down that road. They know that it leads to some super dark shit that they really want memory-holed as badly as possible. Or maybe they just have not figured out a way of actually covering it without the Biden Administration declaring them terrorists and shipping them off to Gitmo. Regardless - they are being super careful about IDF social media posts because they know that reporting on that issue is way worse than it initially seems.

Sitting on the Humanitarian Dock of the Blog

So the humanitarian pier built to deliver aid to Gaza, that was destroyed by waves, was rebuilt about a week ago. Well, it looks like it will have to be taken down again. I guess there's no quick fix for "we designed this pier without considering that it might have to deal with waves".

Anyways, check out this in the replies. On June 8, CENTCOM announced the pier had been rebuilt and was ready to start delivering aid again. In the photo for that announcement is a truck with aid loaded on the flatbed. That truck, with those exact same loads of aid, was on the pier when the Israeli helicopter that evacuated the hostages took off.

IOW, the "hostage rescue mission" appears to have been the very first thing the humanitarian pier was used for. A rescue mission so horrific in its blatant violation of international law that the US is distancing itself from it. 274 dead Palestinians and something like 700 more wounded. The IDF disguising themselves as civilians, possibly as humanitarian aid delivery, in order to gain access and be better positioned when they started shooting. And it looks like the US was not only fully on board with these war crimes, but also participated in them by providing a staging area, evacuation point, and additional credibility for the "humanitarian aid truck" full of IDF special forces gunmen.

I guess the good news is that waves will prevent the IDF from using the aid pier for more genocidal missions and they might have to go back to indiscriminate air strikes.

The Blogging is Sometimes Quite Demoralizing

 I mean what can you even say about this?

Israel on Friday released the names of 17 militants it said were killed in Thursday’s strike. However, only nine of those names matched with records of the dead from the hospital morgue. One of the alleged militants was an 8-year-old boy, according to hospital records.

A Deal You Cannot Refuse to Blog

So I got taken in by the "ceasefire deal". I had believed that this was an actual shift on the part of the US to call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, but I was mistaken. US policy is unchanged - the actual ceasefire is dependent on Hamas ceasing to exist. That's how they can call it an Israeli proposal - this is also Israel's position - the war must continue until Hamas is destroyed.

What this really is? An even more extreme version of what the US has been trying to do for quite some time now. First it was framing a temporary pause in bombing that would absolutely be followed up with more war as a "ceasefire". This was when they were trotting out the line "an immediate ceasefire... for up to six weeks" /eyeroll

But now - it's "an immediate ceasefire (for up to six weeks!) followed by a permanent ceasefire (if Hamas agrees to dismantle itself completely)".

Just so that we understand how unbelievably fucking stupid this is - who are the parties to this ceasefire deal? Israel and ...? No one. Hamas is required to cease existing for the "ceasefire" to take place. And they expect Hamas to agree to this. It's not a ceasefire deal - it's yet another demand for complete and total surrender.

Here's the even more ludicrous part of it all - even if their wildest dreams come true and Hamas decides to retire the AK-47s and homemade rockets - what does that leave us with? I mean maybe the Biden plan is to just bribe Hamas with trucks full of money and a private island or a superyacht for them to retire to or whatever. I dunno - it just seems like such a nonsense idea. Still, let's give it to them - Hamas decides to fold and close up shop for a permanent ceasefire. What happens next?

I'm going to put this in the kindest and gentlest way possible for the stupid fucking paste eating psychopaths that think this is a desirable outcome. Look at Gaza right now. There are people living there who have legitimate and justified grievances against Israel. Even the fucking asshole Netanyahu supporters in the Biden Administration - including the smug ass condescending shitbags that they put on the podium at pressers - have agreed that Israel's conduct of the war has been problematic. What's going to happen with these people? Are Palestinian grievances going to be even remotely close to being adequately addressed? Yeah, and then pigs will fly out of my ass.

So where does that leave us? Thousands and thousands of parents who have lost children. A generation of orphans. Millions who have had their homes and communities turned to rubble. And then watching from refugee tents while the people responsible for the destruction celebrate their victory. I guess in magical State Department land this ends all hatred and animosity towards Israel and everything is all sunshine and roses next. How could terrorist ideology take hold with such amazingly wonderful conditions for Gaza? It's just so fucking stupid - an idea so moronic that it borders on causing actual physical pain with its stupidity.

And what of Israel? A little bit of light genocide resulting in the end of Hamas - that's bound to take the wind out of the messianic fascist extremists dreaming of a Greater Israel. FFS. Gantz may have left Netanyahu's ruling coalition but Bibi still holds 64 out of 120 seats. Of that coalition, it's Likud - and then a collection of ultra-conservative religious supremacy parties. If this delusional dream of Biden's happens - how does Israel find its way back to being not a fascist theocratic pariah state that love committing war crimes? Will this lower the stature of the Ben-Gvirs and Smotrichs in Israel? 

Really - this is just mind-blowingly awful shit. I've said for a long while that things are going to get worse, but it is starting to look like I may have been way too optimistic.

Update on How the Blogging is Going

 As with previous updates - it's going as we predicted. Fucking terrible, and getting worse.

The big news I guess is that Israel managed to rescue 4 hostages. And while this should be good news, it was really only welcomed by the handful of racist sociopathic monsters who have been cheerleading the genocide from day one - like the Biden Administration. And why is that? Over 270 Gazans killed and several hundred more injured. Reports that the high risk IDF mission involved disguising themselves as humanitarian aid workers and then using the joke of a pier to escape. IOW, a death toll so disproportionate that only the most racist fuckheads could celebrate the mission - one filled with war crimes and US complicity.

Incidentally - this occurred at Nuseirat Refugee Camp - in central Gaza, about halfway between Khan Younis and Gaza City. An area the IDF said they cleared months ago. And that pier? Still not operational. It's going to take a bit of effort to "repair" the pier since that sucker was not designed to withstand waves (FFS) and they will need to make fundamental changes to it before trying to use it again.

As per the Institute for the Study of War, Hamas is still attacking IDF positions in the Netzarim corridor. Rockets have been launched at IDF positions inside Gaza as well as Israeli communities near Sderot. So Hamas has clearly not been destroyed. We're getting leaks about how some in the US genocide support machine are worried that maybe tens of thousands of civilian casualties might be helping Hamas with recruiting new fighters. That kind of genius, 8 months in, is why they get paid the big bucks. That said, the people getting paid even bigger bucks are intent on ignoring this obvious truth. Such is life when your job is enabling genocide.

The US is still pushing their "Israeli ceasefire deal" - a deal that Israel has now repeatedly said they do not support. I had originally believed that this deal was basically the same as the one Hamas offered a month ago - but it looks like I missed something. The US position isn't for a permanent ceasefire, like they have been claiming. The permanent ceasefire would only occur if Hamas is destroyed. How you can have a "ceasefire" with something that no longer exists is an exercise left to the imaginations of the racist genocidal ghouls at the US State Department. Anyways, even this glimmer of hope that the genocide might end sometime soon has been snuffed out.

Now you may be asking why Israeli would oppose a deal that gives them what they want - continued violence until Hamas is destroyed. I believe that it is the framing - it's how it is being pitched. The US has been adding in "constructive ambiguity" to imply that it is a permanent ceasefire deal (when they intend nothing of the sort). The issue is that if it takes, then the six week "negotiation" period with the expectation of a ceasefire deal will prevent it from restarting. The earlier "humanitarian pause" was always framed as temporary and played on our desperate optimism for an end to the violence. But it was always going to end with more bombing to come. This deal is not being framed as temporary. Restarting the genocide will be met with a steep high barrier. Imagine - after six weeks where Hamas abides by the ceasefire but refuses to stop existing, what is the excuse for the bombs to start falling again? It might end up being a "trap" where the impetus for additional slaughter of civilians has been sapped of all urgency - and the current genocidal monsters running this show cannot allow that to happen.

That rescue mission was so fucking bad that it managed to buy only one single day. Benny Gantz had provided a June 8 deadline for a Gaza plan or else he would leave the Israeli War Cabinet. He delayed his decision on news of the rescue - a delay of one day. He's now out. The War Cabinet is now only Netanyahu and Gallant, two people with current ICC warrant requests due to the commission of war crimes.

Israel also now has the dubious honour of being listed as a country that harms children. Israel joins an rogue's gallery that includes the Congo, Myanmar, Somalia, and Syria and groups such as Al-Qaeda and Boko Haram. I'm sure this listing is going to help them loads as the genocide case works it way through the International Court of Justice. South Africa's case which has had other countries joining - Nicaragua in February; Belgium in March; Colombia in April; Turkey, Libya, Egypt, the Maldives, Mexico, and Ireland on May; and Chile, Spain and Palestine this past week. 

So - it's not going well. In fact, it is going quite badly. But also too - there's no signs of it coming to close anytime soon. So I guess Israel's silver lining is that it could be much worse - a fact they seme intent on proving to be true.

US Policy on Hamas Blogging

 Hamas could end this tomorrow. Hamas could say (unintelligible) and done period.

It's funny because it just sums up Biden's position perfectly. It is always Hamas' fault - because they refuse to (unintelligible).

It would be funny if this wasn't being used to enable genocide.

EDIT: Here's the thing - Biden needs that to be (unintelligible) for a reason. If he actually laid out what Hamas needs to do to end this - it would either be ridiculous (all Hamas has to do is cease existing) or it would be something that Hamas could do and thus prove (again) that Biden is full of shit.

Cops. They Are Tough on Crime.

I know I have this meme backwards, but this is how I encountered it - and the implication that karma is fake and bad shit goes unpunished is fitting.

How it's going.

This person is identified as Peter Henschel, a #Swiss national. He was arrested & spent the night at police station. It appears cops brought him a mattress & apologised to him for being arrested & saying he didn’t deserve it, after having punched a young woman in the head

How it started.