i'm so sick of my fellow iranians being cringe as fuck on social media and simping for the state of israel out of some insane the enemy of my enemy is my friend mentality like i know this is crazy but you can hate the iranian government without deciding to go full monarchist and act like israelis are liberators of literally anything or anyone

like i'm sorry if the best you can envision for iran is trading one authoritarian for the son of the previous authoritarian (who was literally overthrown bc he was an authoritarian puppet of the united states) solely bc of his name then you hate the iranian people more than i can image

Idk if it's okay to ask, but I thought that I'd better ask someone with a Palestinian perspective. How many months passed, I still cannot grasp why it's either hamas/houthis/whoever fights Israel and the West are either unexcusable terrorists who are completely evil, who don't have any rational reasoning behind their actions and anyone they're fighting is a poor attacked victim, OR they're picture perfect innocent noble fighters that have never done nothing wrong and any kind of criticism or questioning their methods or ideology means you're a zionist no matter how much you support Palestine and the military resistance of it's people. Or you're an antisemite just because you think that wanton murdering or thousands of people and erasing them from existance with all methods possible is unacceptable regardless of who commits it even if they're Jewish. Why? That doesn't make any sense.

i mean i can answer for hamas part specifically since i can't say much about houthis (i would check out bloglikeanegyptian's posts about them) but — hamas are rarely talked about as a legitimate government or resistance movement and instead portrayed as violent barbarians. its a blatant fact that hamas will never, under the current circumstances, inflict the same amount of systematic and constant damage on israelis as israel does on palestinians. just as a basic fact.

so people are so used to hamas's just... blatant dehumanization, and by extension the dehumanization of palestinian resistance in any form (see: bds criticisms, protests, march of return) that they are resistant to publicly criticizing hamas. there are definitely criticisms of hamas in palestinian society, obviously. we have diverse political opinions. but we usually won't air them out for everyone to see because israel is intent on erasing palestinians first and foremost.

and also— hamas is not like other islamist movements because it doesn't use religion as the main reason for it's efforts. their movement is rooted in liberating palestine first and thats really its only concern atm and it uses islam as a framework for that liberation. so when people call hamas a "terrorist org," they're usually thinking of like... alqaeda and isis for comparisons when they're pretty different ideologies. people tend to equate islam=bad in western politics without really examining what that means.

to be frank, palestinians will be called terrorists no matter what they do. people have been calling us antisemitic for refusing to buy from companies that either directly funded the idf or publicly supported it lol. so people aren't really going to trust those who criticize hamas right now because they aren't sure if this is coming from a genuine place or a place of looking down on palestinians.

Why do I post so much about antisemitism?

I post about it exactly as often as I experience it

People think antisemitism isn’t real

People think antisemitism isn’t that bad

People think antisemitism is justifiable as long as it is directed toward “bad” Jews. Like any other form of bigotry, it is always bad. Candace Owens has terrible anti-Black, extremely racist opinions. It’s still not OK to hurl racist insults at her. Isis and Hamas are terrorist organizatjons committing terrible crimes against humanity while invoking Islam . It’s still not ok to insult Islam while talking about them or to be racist and Islamophobic toward Muslims or Arabs. Netanyahu is an actual monster whose actions are destroying lives in Palestine, Israel, and worldwide. Jewish West Bank settlers are being extremely hostile, racist, and terrible. It’s still not ok to use antisemitic conspiracies, tropes, or insults against them. Ever. And it’s certainly not ok to use them against ordinary civilians who happen to share a race or religion with the worst people who share those identities.

I want to show all the ways antisemitism hurts.

I want to show how the damage from antisemitism lingers long after the first moment its experienced

I want people to understand that even if I don’t support Netanyahu or the Likud government or the broad actions of the IDF or the indiscriminate bombing of Palestine or the subjugation of Palestinians (and to be very clear—I do not support these things) I’m still allowed to be upset about the global hatred toward Israel right now based solely on the fact that I am Jewish. To say that makes me a supporter of colonialism or genocide is antisemitic. Why? Because half of the Jews in the entire world live in Israel. If half the Muslims in the entire world lived in America or half the Christians in the entire world lived in Japan, then everyone started calling all Christians or Muslims in that country evil/colonizers/oppressors and saying that they should lose protection and citizenship from those places, then it would make sense for all Muslims or Christians around the world to be very upset by that. Not because the Muslims or Christians in those nations are always perfect. But because, hey, seeing that people are perfectly ok condemning half everyone with whom you share a religion will cause you to be sad. And empathetic. And because obviously condemning that many people for anything as if they are all equally responsible is fundamentally wrong. Especially if your only basis for that condemnation is someone’s religion and where they live.

My trauma response is to fawn. To be aggressively kind and complimentary to show I’m not a threat. That I don’t deserve to be hated. That I promise I’m not worth your aggression. This is unhealthy for me personally. This is a bad way to live. This is a disservice to my fellow Jews who don’t deserve to experience antisemitism, regardless of any of their other actions. Instead, I am laying my pain bare for you all to see. I am using my pain to educate you. I am using my desire to help you to keep me patient while I try to educate you while experiencing an endless barrage of hatred all day every day. That hatred is not all violent or aggressive. Very often that hatred is neglect, erasure, and the revocation of societal privileges until I behave in an acceptable manner. But sometimes it is aggressive and violent as well.

People say that I am making a genocide “all about me,” but I’m not. You are. Why do your actions in preventing and fighting an ethnic cleansing on the other side of the world involve causing me emotional pain, social isolation, and ethnoreligous erasure? The problem isn’t that I’m speaking up. It’s that you’re too busy speaking over me to listen to what I’m saying and to stop being harmful.

Because I have the emotional capacity to be patient and to engage when many of my Jewish peers do not. I have the position of relative safety where I can post about these things without facing actual physical harm. Many of my Jewish peers do not. While I would never speak on behalf of other Jews’ opinions, I will certainly speak FOR my fellow Jews. For the dignity, respect, safety, love, and community they all deserve.

Because when this conflict is over or even just calmed down enough to not be at the top of the zeitgeist anymore, I don’t want any of you to have the excuse of saying you didn’t know what you were doing or the harm you were causing. You know. I’m telling you. Repeatedly.

Because despite everything I’ve just written, I know most of you won’t even listen until I confirm that I do support Palestinian self determination, citizenship, equality, and indigeneity. Which I do. I support all those things. I shouldn’t have to in order to avoid antisemitism though.

Because most people in my life have pulled away in this time and if I don’t share my pain here I’ll explode.

Because I have nobody else non-Jewish to share this with. You’ve isolated me. I’m alone. You did this. I could have been marching with you. But you hate me too much to let me fight for a cause we both believe in alongside you. And you aren’t even aware you hate me at all, because it’s so ingrained in you.

Transcribed Twitter thread by Mouin Rabbani about why Israel has suddenly stopped equating Hamas with ISIS.

About a week ago the US and Israeli suddenly stopped comparing Hamas to ISIS. The term “Hamas-ISIS” had become de rigueur among Israeli officials in their public statements, and along with their partners-in-crime in Washington they often insisted Hamas is worse – much worse even – than ISIS. It’s a familiar playbook. In 2001 the Twin Towers had barely collapsed and Ariel Sharon immediately began insisting the PLO was no different than Al-Qaeda and that Yassir Arafat was worse than Usama Bin Laden. Israel’s flunkies and apologists immediately and dutifully followed suit.

But “Hamas-ISIS” is no longer. Israel’s acolytes have for the most part yet to receive the message, and continue parroting a line that has gone out of style with their leaders, but will probably follow suit at some point within the next 24 months.

So, what happened? Most obviously, the US and Israel have been negotiating, concluding, and implementing a series of agreements with “Hamas-ISIS”. It’s not a particularly good look to be in intensive discussions with, and make one concession after the other to, a movement that is purportedly more vicious and brutal than an organization that not only the West but also the international community considers entirely beyond the pale. Especially at a time when a broader agreement, extending beyond an exchange of captives, is reportedly being discussed in Doha by the CIA and Mossad chiefs – the city where not only the Qatari mediators but also Hamas’s current and former political leaders, Ismail Haniyyeh and Khalid Mashal, also reside.

The fact that Hamas is negotiating exchanges of captives and releasing not only foreign but also Israeli Jewish civilians, rather than slitting their throats in gruesome snuff videos also doesn’t help the cause. Nor do testimonies by released captives that, the violence and abuse of their initial seizure notwithstanding, they have generally been treated humanely. Of course, no civilian deserves to be held captive unless convicted of a specific crime by legitimate authority, yet the contrast between the testimonies of released Israeli and Palestinian civilian captives is enormous. Released Palestinian women and children speak of constant physical and verbal abuse, particularly since 7 October; all manner of deprivation; and an escalation of abuse once it became apparent they would be released. Furious at Palestinian joy at the release of their own captives, rampaging Israeli forces have also shot and killed several Palestinian well-wishers, enveloped most others in clouds of tear gas, and raided the homes of receiving families to evict journalists and warn against celebrations or even “expressions of joy”.

Palestinians are not ruled by the Israeli government in the same sense that Israelis within the pre-1967 boundaries are. Rather, they are subject to military government, effectively an Israeli military dictatorship whose rule is best described as totalitarian. It has for example banned flags, even particular color combinations (in clothing and painting for example), and in 2023 also “expressions of joy”.

Hamas videos of the release of their captives, in which they assist the elderly, provide water bottles, and wave goodbye (not quite ISIS-friendly optics) have been criticized as political theatre and propaganda. Fair enough. But it is still quite the contrast with the scenes outside Ofer Prison where Israel releases Palestinian captives. There, the best that Israeli propaganda can achieve is clouds of tear gas, intimidation of journalists, live ammunition, and bullet-ridden corpses. (And, for good measure, arresting more civilians than it releases.)

So not only did the US and Israel want to avoid the accusation they were negotiating with ISIS, the available imagery is also unconducive to the narrative. Joe Biden will go to his grave insisting he has seen videos of infants beheaded by Hamas, but it’s gotten to the point where even poor Jill rolls her eyes. Other Israeli and US claims have also drawn the short end of the stick. For example, the Israeli authorities recently reduced their tally of Israelis killed on 7 October from 1400 to 1200. The reason is that 200 corpses, burned beyond recognition, belonged to Palestinians rather than Israelis. This suggests Hamas was not systematically setting fire to live humans. Similarly, Israeli intelligence (or what’s left of it) has now concluded that Hamas did not have prior knowledge of the rave organized close to the boundary between Israel and the Gaza concentration camp. Therefore this could not have been a premeditated atrocity. I am of course not claiming no atrocities were committed on 7 October, but rather that as more facts become available the “Hamas-ISIS” propaganda line becomes increasingly untenable.

If we put aside Biden’s hallucinations and take Netanyahu off endless repetition for a moment, the ideological, organizational, and political relationship between Hamas and ISIS remains a legitimate field of inquiry. It’s also pretty conclusive. Hamas and ISIS are indeed both Islamist movements. But that’s pretty much where the comparison ends. To suggest they are equivalent or identical is akin to claiming there is no difference between constitutional and absolute monarchies because their heads of state acquire office in the same manner. Hamas is the Palestinian chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood, a regional Islamist movement formed almost a century ago. Its various national branches have sought to achieve political power through mass mobilization, and as such have formed political parties; provided social services; participated in elections, coups, and uprisings; engaged in armed campaigns against domestic autocracy and foreign domination; and in a number of cases formed internationally-recognized governments. It’s a fundamentally different template than that pursued by ISIS.

Hamas was established in the cauldron of the Israeli occupation, and like other Palestinian organizations actively participated in the struggle to end Israeli rule. In 2006 it participated in Palestinian legislative elections, fully certified by the Carter Center, which it won. In 2007 Hamas seized power in the Gaza Strip after a year during which its various domestic and foreign adversaries, to put it politely, actively worked to undermine it. In the intervening years it has in addition to attacks which have garnered global headlines developed relations with states as diverse as Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Russia, and Qatar; negotiated prisoner exchanges and ceasefires with Israel; freed and released foreign hostages (including BBC journalist Alan Johnston) abducted by rivals and criminal gangs; endorsed a two-state settlement with Israel; and cooperated with a variety of UN agencies and international organisations. Its governance of the Gaza Strip years has, to varying degrees, been hegemonic and repressive, but like its politics and policies defies any comparison to that experienced under ISIS’s self-styled caliphate in Syria and Iraq.

ISIS has in fact been bitterly critical of Hamas, and considers the group in its entirety, as well as its individual members, “apostates” and “polytheists” – its most serious transgressions of all. This is on account of, among other mortal sins, Hamas’s participation in democratic elections, its failure to govern solely in accordance with shari’a (Islamic law), relations with Iran and other regional states, and prioritization of Palestinian liberation. Perhaps for this reason Hamas made short shrift of attempts by the Islamic State movement to establish a foothold in the Gaza Strip, primarily in Rafah, during 2015-2016.

END. Postscript: @rao2of has kindly pointed out a significant oversight on my part: that in its efforts to normalise relations with Egypt after initial post-Sisi coup hostility, Hamas began cooperating with Egypt's anti-ISIS campaign in Sinai, drawing even greater fury from it.

Israel’s military strategy follows precisely the parameters its war planners proclaimed: total war. This would not be mowing the grass. This was a fight all the way to the end of the line. To eradicate Hamas, yes. But far beyond that.

US leaders have telegraphed their acceptance of this approach by floating the notion of “what comes after Hamas is defeated.”  In other words, after Hamas is totally dismantled and destroyed as a viable entity.  They may be thinking of how the west and its regional allies attacked and largely eliminated ISIS as a viable force.

But as this article points out–the proper insurgency analogy for Hamas is not ISIS, but the Vietcong.  A people’s army rooted in every home and village.  With disciplined political and military cadres operating covertly and overtly everywhere and anywhere.  Even when the Vietcong faced the most severe US-Vietnamese attacks, they never wavered.  It was their country after all. They could never be defeated in any real sense.  And events proved them right. They outlasted the invaders: a Vietcong version of summud.

Gaza, of course, is a much smaller area than Vietnam. So targeting Hamas would be an easier feat.  But among 2-million people, you cannot eradicate a movement the people embrace.  You would have to eliminate all the people to do that.  Which brings me to my next point.

It is very likely, I believe, Israel intends to expel all Gazans.  This isn’t just a war to destroy tunnels, or to eliminate Hamas fighters.  It wasn’t even exclusively a war to eliminate Hamas.  It was a war to make Gaza entirely unlivable.  It is total war in an urban setting.

By total war, I mean one that destroys everything. Everything and everyone.  Leaving the living to bury the dead…or die trying.  The goal is to make Gaza so uninhabitable, that the world will find this version of the Final Solution perhaps unpalatable, but in the end unavoidable.

I can’t think of any modern version of total war comparable to this one.  In every similar attack on a major city, the attacker did not intend to render the place permanently unlivable for survivors.  Even in the case of the atomic bomb attacks in Japan, the US formed an Occupation government which entirely rebuilt the country, including Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while also creating a new democratic political system. After murdering 500,000 during the infamous Dresden bombing, the city was rebuilt. Only the ruins of the bombed cathedral remained, as a testament to the cruelty and suffering of the War.

There are ancient versions of this, all revolving on conquerors sowing the earth of the vanquished state with salt, so it would be unable to produce anything that could sustain life. In fact, this ancient version of a scorched earth-total war strategy, may originate in the ancient Middle East.

This may Israel’s Total War 2.0: a military strategy “updated” for the modern age.  Preferably, it would be studied in military academies more for its horror than for the innovation of tactics or long-term success in achieving political goals.

The first stage of this process is the one we are in now–genocide by degrees. Eliminate neighborhoods, infrastructure, institutions. Render hospitals, schools, businesses either destroyed or inoperable.  The latest is they’re even bombing water tanks and solar panels.  Because I presume they’re major weapons of war.

People will then die not only from the bombs, but from their untended wounds, starvation, disease, etc.  Despite the savagery of Israeli tactics in this stage, eventually the world slowly becomes acclimatized to it.  What was once horrifying and downright uncivilized, is now the new normal.

That leads to what may be the next stage: Israel declaring, Gaza is now unlivable. It’s a sad tragic fact of war. We had to do it. They gave us no choice, etc. But guess what, the Israelis could say. Let’s start over. Let’s reconceive what Gaza is.

They might have a hybrid approach to how the post-war landscape will look: perhaps Israeli Jewish settlements, interlaced with Gazans carefully screened by the security apparatus, who are permitted to remain.  Or perhaps it would be Palestine-rein (though that might be a bridge too far for a finicky global audience).

Gaza: Nakba 2.0

Israel has already published two separate plans, one produced by a whack job analyst, Amir Weitmann, arguing it would only cost $5-8-billion to resettle Gaza Palestinians in existing or newly built housing stock on the outskirts of Cairo.

In the video below, he tries to tear an RT reporter a new asshole. Pulling an Israeli Rambo, he threatens to personally destroy Russia. Or something.

A mentally deranged genocidal Nazi threatens Russia… 🤷🏽‍♀️#GenocideinGaza #ShutElbitDown STOP THE #GENOCIDE NOW! pic.twitter.com/GrMWMmbc4A — 🗣️📢 𝕗𝕣𝕖𝕖 𓂆 𝕡𝕒𝕝𝕖𝕤𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕖 (@ronnie_barkan) October 20, 2023

The other proposal came from the intelligence ministry.  It was similar in some respects to the other plan.  But it did not offer the newly expelled refugees anything other than tents in the Sinai. As far as this proposal was concerned, Israel dumped them there. It was now someone else’s problem.

Which wasn’t much different than what Israel did after the 1948 War.  It expelled a million indigenous Palestinians and foisted them on neighboring Arab countries: your problem, Israel said.  These countries now have 5-million Palestinian “problems.”

Media reporting on these two documents noted they weren’t produced by the country’s highest level security think tanks and that the intelligence ministry is really an insignificant backwater as far as government ministries go.

But a different strategy may be involved.  These plans may be part of a broader plan.  After they are leaked, the government gives them time to be absorbed by Israelis and the world.  Then the genocide continues. The body count continues to rise.  Savagery even escalates. Pressure builds up.  Then Israel says: hey, we have a plan to end all this. No more killing. No more terrorism. No more Palestinian Gaza.  Are you interested, world?  It is quite possible that so many nations and world leaders will be so outraged by this Israel will pack it in and return to killing business as usual.

But…if Israel preps enough allies, if it gets Biden and Blinken on board. If they lobby the European allies, then Israel may be able to pursue a diabolical plan to its “logical” criminal conclusion. At least that’s what Israel hopes.

Gaza as colony. Israel, US, and European and Arab allies as colonial powers

The US and Israel have cooked up a real stew. They propose that after Hamas is eliminated (a dubious proposition to begin with–but more on that later), an occupation force consisting of American troops would administer Gaza:

The US and Israel are exploring options for the future of the Gaza Strip, including the possibility of a multinational force that may involve American troop…

Plan B involves an Arab multilateral force that would administer Gaza. It has even designated who that could be–none other than the next-up in the Abraham Accords sweepstakes, Saudi Arabia.  Yes, those Saudis did such a bang-up job in Yemen, where they not only murdered 80,000 Yemenis, they also slaughtered hundreds of Ethiopian refugees fleeing from Yemen. We want these humanitarians to work their magic in Gaza.

Secretary of State Blinken summed up the (stupid) thinking behind the plan:

“We can’t have a reversion to the status quo with Hamas running Gaza,” Blinken, who will travel to Israel on Friday, told the Senate Appropriations Committee. “We also can’t have — and the Israelis start with this proposition themselves — Israel running or controlling Gaza.” “Between those shoals are a variety of possible permutations that we’re looking at very closely now, as are other countries,” he said.

So you can’t have Hamas running the show. And Israel wants nothing to do with the job itself because, guess what? It tried it and didn’t work well for them: one of the reasons Sharon so unceremoniously withdrew in 2005. A decision which led–you guessed it–to Hamas’ takeover of Gaza. Israel, of course, wants to foist the unwelcome job on someone, anyone else.  Smart move for them. But not for the sucker left holding the bag.

But look at the language of Blinken’s statement. Who’s missing from consideration?  Gazans themselves. They are an after thought.  Or a non-thought.

The only thing colonial powers understand is who will run things. Not who lives there or what they want. But who’s on top. The problem with that approach is it ends up as all colonizing schemes do–the natives reject the guy running things because they want to run them for themselves.  This is precisely the disaster the US is heading for under any of these schemes.

For once in his professional life as a pro-Israel US diplomat, Aaron David Miller is right when he warns:

“The idea of bringing Arab states in to do counter insurgency in Gaza in the wake of the death and destruction that the Israelis have visited is going to be extremely problematic because it would involve Arabs killing Palestinians,” said Aaron David Miller…

You bet.  Not only that. It will involve Gazans killing Israel’s Arab stooge occupiers. That’s a message that would resonate with any Gazan.

Oh and here’s another Biden humdinger:

…One option would grant temporary oversight to Gaza to countries from the region, backed by troops from the US, UK, Germany and France. Ideally, it would also include representation from Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates,

Consider all the vague meaningless unquantifiable terms in this passage: “temporary,” “oversight,” “representation.”  These words mean nothing: tissue paper floating on the breeze. What European country in their right mind would want to station troops in a Gaza tinder keg?

It was bad enough for them when they joined multinational forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.  At least there was some international consensus behind the US invasion (as wrong as it was).  There is no such consensus how to deal with Gaza.  They would be walking into a building already on fire.

Which Arab nations would be foolish enough to join this shit show? Of course, those buddy-movie heroes, MBS and MBZ.  They’ll go anywhere, do anything: Starve Yemen? Check. Murder Shiite clerics? Check. Fund ISIS? Check. Fund anti-Iran terror? Check. Dissolve dissident journalists in vats of acid? Check.

Israel’s friends at the Washington Institute came up with their own plan. It has as much merit as my last Amazon packing slip:

[It] called for a Palestinian-run interim administration, with the UN Relief and Works Agency continuing to provide food, heath and education. “Public safety and law enforcement could be directed by a consortium of the five Arab states who have reached peace agreements with Israel—Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco,” Washington Institute scholars wrote in an Oct. 17 note. “Only those Arab states would have Israel’s confidence, which is essential for this effort to succeed.”

So in other words, some Palestinian stooges, presumably the PA since they’re perfect casting for such characters, and UNWRA, will respectively, feed Gazans and administer traffic tickets (if there any cars left); while Abraham Accord stooges do all the heavy-lifting on behalf of Israel. I couldn’t have come with anything better myself (and I didn’t!).

As if reading my mind, Blinken offered fond hopes for PA’s future stooge role. Just not quite yet:

…What would make the most sense would be for an effective and revitalized Palestinian Authority to have governance and ultimately security responsibility for Gaza..

If those aren’t a few choice euphemisms concealing his admission that the PA is a bunch of corrupt aged incompetent grifters.

Media reporting on the various plans say Democratic senators were receptive. I wonder: do they have eyes in their head? Do they read the news? Do they remember when we imposed our own version of “democracy” on captive nations in Afghanistan and Iraq?  How well did that end?  If any of these harebrained schemes sees the light of day they should all have their heads examined.

But hey, it’s their own party. Let them make the rules. But remember the Pottery Barn rule, which Tom Friedman so infamously and erroneously attributed to Colin Powell: you break it, you buy it.  The beauty of the these plans, especially for Israel, is that after they break it, they don’t buy it or fix it. They pawn it off on the Saudis and they “fix” it, as only the Saudis do (cf. Yemen). If Biden thinks that a joint military occupation by European or Arab allies will absolve him of responsibility for the inevitable disaster, he should think again. It won’t.  Republicans will see to that.  And for once in their lives, they would be right.

Hamas will last

Whatever happens to Hamas during this war, no matter how decisively it has been defeated (which is by no means certain), it will not disappear. It will not be eliminated. You can kill 100,000 Gazans and you will not eradicate it. Like the Vietcong, it is so part of the people the two cannot be separated.

No matter how much propaganda Israel tries to peddle. For example: Whispered in Gaza, a dog and pony show “hosted” by pro-Israel front-man, Dennis Ross, with his Foundation for the Defense of Democracies sidekick, Jonathan Schanzer.  I tell you: there’s nothing that validates Israeli genocide more than offering Israelis and the west the delusion that they’re actually helping Gazans.  One question? How did they obtain these purported statements from Gazans?  Under what guise or pretense?  Because even if these statements are genuine (not necessarily established), I guarantee that interviewees were deceived as to the purpose for which their statements would eventually be used.  This is plain and simple information warfare. Ross has moved on from US diplomat to propaganda warrior.

That doesn’t mean all Gazans love Hamas. Not all Vietnamese loved the Vietcong.  Not all colonial Americans loved the patriots.  But Hamas fights. It resists.  There is no other force in Palestinian society that fights for its rights against occupiers and oppressors. So until something better comes along, Gazans say this will have to do.

In whatever bright new future the colonial powers have in mind for Gaza, Hamas will not just fade into the mist never to be seen again.  It will be there. It will assert itself and its presence. It will resist whoever calls himself a colonial Lord Jim. Doesn’t matter whether its a GI Joe, Saudi commander, or a Jedi knight.  They’re all foreign occupiers. All unwelcome. It will be the undying mission of Hamas to rid Gaza of them.  And eventually, if it takes a decade or five, it will.  My money is riding on it.  Colonial powers don’t have a very good, or long track record.

Something better could come along if these powers deciding Gaza’s fate recognized a Gazan voice, and compelled Israel to recognize a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, including free, full and fair elections.  Never happen. I know. But I wanted to put out the real and only solution that works. Not the one that these colonial douchebags are sticking together with rubber bands and wood glue.

Gaza: the Biggest Loser

The Biggest Loser–and they always are–are the Gazans.  At least one can say that in the Saudi scenario, they aren’t expelled and turned into refugees twice in 75 years. But they would now be under the boot heel of a hated, corrupt, despotic monarchy.  If Hamas resonated with Palestinians before–it will even more in this scenario.

The Saudis failed to quell the Yemeni Houthis. In Gaza the conditions would be even less favorable.  Despite their Israel-induced deprivation, Gazans are worldly, technologically-adept, politically engaged, etc.  They are not tribal kinsman from the mountains.  Gazans have as much in common with Saudis as Gigi Hadid has with Tokyo Rose. The Saudis will be as unwelcome occupiers as Israelis.

//The Wire//1930Z April 9, 2024//

//ROUTINE//

//BLUF: TENSIONS REMAIN IN THE MIDDLE EAST FOLLOWING MULTIPLE INCIDENTS.//

-----BEGIN TEARLINE-----

-International Events-

Middle East: Following the events surrounding the targeting of the Iranian Embassy compound in Damascus, tensions remain throughout the region in many respects. Tensions in Gaza remain elevated as Israeli strikes continue and the invasion of Rafah enters the final planning steps. Of note, Israeli forces have withdrawn from Gaza substantially, possibly to allocate forces for the invasion of Rafah, and possibly to prevent becoming overstretched in the North as an additional front opens up in the South. Conversely, as Ramadan draws to an end, an increase in targeting is expected (and has been announced) by Hamas and Hezbollah, with uncertain levels of confidence in their ability to make good on their threats. AC: Most American pundits have also threatened an increased likelihood that Iran will directly attack the United States in response to the Iranian Embassy strike. Though U.S. bases in Syria will almost certainly receive increased levels of indirect fire attacks, diplomatically, a larger more direct attack on the U.S. makes little sense in this specific instance. From the Iranian perspective, Israel is the nation that directly attacked them, so Israel shall be the target, purely out of the desire to save face in the international community. As to what the Iranian response will be, ballistic missile attacks are the most logical attack vector, but anything goes at this point.

-HomeFront-

Idaho: Saturday afternoon the FBI arrested Alexander Mercurio at his parent’s house after he allegedly planned to provide materiel support to ISIS. He had allegedly been a part of various online communities supportive of ISIS, and had allegedly been planning to conduct an attack at a church.

-----END TEARLINE-----

Analyst Comments: In the raid on Mercurio’s home, no evidence indicating an imminent threat was found. However, several of his father’s firearms (which were stored in a locked closet) were seized. According to the criminal complaint, Mercurio had been under surveillance for almost two years. As he is currently 18 years old, this means that he was under federal surveillance since he was a minor. As a result, it is difficult to determine if this case was a legitimate case of potential terrorism. Considering the current trends involving similar cases, much discernment is called for when examining the particulars of this case, and how the entire situation began in the first place. It is remarkable how many cases arise when an underage individual (usually with some sort of mental disability, though that is not clear in this specific case), attempts to engage in illegal activity online, and on their very first try always end up communicating directly with a federal informant.

Analyst: S2A1

//END REPORT//

I'm not one for cancel culture, as I do think it's kind of ... counterproductive (? not sure if it's the right word here). Yes, sure, call out people, including celebrities, who have done actions that are harmful and will cause active harm to those affected by those actions. But canceling someone over it instead of simply calling it out and educating them about it seems just like ... not the answer.

But ... BUT, with what has come out about Noah Schnapp, I am above appalled. If you don't know what has happened, Noah, amongst some of his friends (I think?) have been seen (on VIDEO!!) with stickers that say 'Hamas is ISIS' and 'Zionism is sexy'. I want make this very clear, I am aware that Noah is Jewish and I am not condemning him for that. I am condemning him for making his actions of these stickers public. While an active genocide is going on.

'He's nineteen (19)'. So?? At nineteen (19), I knew the war between Ukraine and Russia has been going on a lot longer than the news portrayed it to be (its been going on since 2014, it escalated in 2022).

No action comes without consequences, especially in this day and age. Regardless if you like it or not, your actions will constantly have a consequence attached to it, and that includes the positive actions. Example, you donate to an animal rescue shelter (positive action), you have just ensured that those animals get food, water, and the proper care that those animals need in order to survive (positive consequence). Of course, not everyone needs to donate to an animal shelter, that was just the first example that came to mind.

I have seen this numerous times and it makes me more appalled, that models and such are losing gigs/their INCOME for simply standing with Palestine/speaking up about it, but Noah is allowed to keep his role as Will Byers? Contradictory much? Of course, everyone is allowed to have a job in order to earn income. But if a model can lose their job for standing/speaking up against genocide, an actor can lose his job for supporting genocide.

Yes, Stranger Things is getting its final season and won't be renewed, but how about stop production and make sure to not start it again until the actor apologizes? Make it make sense.

Ok, rant over. Please let me know if I am wrong and I will delete this or edit it.

What do you think is a specific aspect of trans activism that makes people so much more accepting of violence considering they are supposed to be “the good guys”? Like I’ve never seen them have this energy regarding any other form of bigotry ( any legitimate form at least) but instead it’s like they see themselves as baby lambs getting slaughtered or something. Kind of like the way people get more outraged at seeing animal abuse in front of their faces but being more apathetic when it comes to violence from one human to another. Like I do understand that they victimize themselves but it’s till hard to grasp given how other oppressed groups have an actual long history of violence against them for something that they can’t identify out of but here TRAs are starting to resemble right wing men in their embracing on physical violence.

well, you do see this with other groups that have majority males, all over the world. as i mentioned in the other post, i referenced chechnya, whom are the most oppressed, unstable, and low income state within russia, and have wished for independence for years, and a majority of domestic terrorist incidents in russia are by chechens. you have hamas against israel, you have/had the communist fighters in south america. it appears that under the prevalence of oppression (or PERCEIVED oppression), combined with the othering the other group (which makes dehumanisation, and therefore violence, easier), demographic/ideological segregation (allowing for echo chambers and hiveminds, that egg each other on), fear of loss of one's identity or way of life, and the majority of the group feeling attacked being male, who are used to and desire power, you wind up with these terroristic behaviours, regardless of political affiliation. all one needs is the justification, the support, and the will. it's the same recipe for everything from ISIS, the taliban, white supremacists, dictatorships, and even cult attacks. it is more likely to be from the right due to the believe of demographic superiority combined with a penchant for authoritarianism and/or fascism, but any side can have it form.

at least, these are just my thoughts as i'm writing this, it's just more me mentally reasoning out your question. i hope this makes sense.

Marco Rubio Leaves Jonathan Karl Spluttering As He Lays Out Successes of Trump Versus Failures of Biden

With all the chaos in the world at present, it makes sense for the Sunday news shows to feature congressional leaders as guests. As reported earlier, ABC News' "This Week" aired a segment on Sunday morning with Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) discussing the horrific attack by ISIS-K in Moscow. Rubio serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as well as Vice Chair of the Select Committee on Intelligence. 

READ MORE: 

'They'll Do It Here in the Homeland': Rubio on Moscow Attack and ISIS-K

That exchange was fairly cordial and even-keeled. The two also discussed the potential for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, which, Rubio noted, could happen tomorrow if Hamas would simply surrender. 

Then their discussion turned to the recent rumors that former President Donald Trump may be eyeing Rubio as a potential running mate. 

READ MORE: 

REPORT: Sen. Marco Rubio in Serious Contention For Trump's VP

That's when things took a somewhat humorous (albeit darkly humorous) turn, with Karl expressing utter disbelief that Rubio would want to associate himself in any way with the Bad Orange Man or could possibly lay blame at the feet of President Joe Biden for much of the chaos we're seeing at present. 

Watch as Karl splutters in the face of Rubio's deft portrayal of the stunning contrast between the two administrations:  

From their exchange: 

KARL: I want to turn to politics — there was some reporting this week that you are possibly under consideration to be Donald Trump's running mate. I don't put a lot of stock in this reporting right now — we're early. But you said it would be an honor to be offered a spot on this ticket — really?! RUBIO: Yeah. I think anyone who's offered the opportunity to serve this country as vice president should be honored by the opportunity to do it — if you're in public service. I'm in the Senate because I want to serve the country. Being vice president is an important way to serve the country. But I've also been clear: I've never talked to Donald Trump — I've never talked to anybody on his team or family or inner circle — about vice president. That's a decision he's going to make. He has plenty of really good people to pick from. 

Karl couldn't contain his horror: 

KARL: But, I mean, the reason why I ask is because...I mean, look what happened to the last guy. I mean, a mob stormed the Capitol, literally calling to hang Mike Pence, and Trump defended those chants of 'Hang Mike Pence.'  RUBIO: I will tell you this — that, when Donald Trump was president of the United States, this country was safer; it was more prosperous; we had relations, for example, in a part of the world that I care about called the Western Hemisphere that were very strong — we got a lot of good things done there. I think the country — and the world — was a better place when he was president. And I would love to see him return to the White House in comparison to the guy who's there now, Joe Biden, who's been a disaster...economically. Look at the world. Every single day, we wake to a new crisis, to a new conflict, everything has gone on fire. Since the time Joe Biden took over, Afghanistan's gone down, Ukraine has been invaded. Now, the Philippines and the Chinese are on the verge of something bad happening every single day, not to mention the threats to Taiwan. We have this blow-up in Haiti going on in our very own hemisphere. We wake up every single day — terrorist attacks and nine million people across the border. That's what matters to me. 

Nor could Karl contain his wonderment at the idea that Joe Biden owns any of the current disarray. 

KARL: But, I mean, you're not suggesting that's all happening because of Biden? I mean, look — RUBIO: Absolutely I am — absolutely I'm suggesting it's happening because of Biden. He's president, and his weakness and his —  KARL: It's because of Biden that Russia invaded Ukraine? RUBIO: Absolutely. KARL: It's because of Biden that, that Haiti. Okay, let's — RUBIO: Absolutely. I mean, Putin is sitting there saying, 'These guys can't even stand up to the Taliban, and they have to fly people hanging off the wings of these airplanes — now's the time to go.' And — KARL: I mean, Trump's the one saying, suggesting that there should be a deal that effectively gives Putin what he wants in Ukraine. But look...can we take a quick — RUBIO: Well, that's not true. He's said he wants the conflict to end — which, it's striking to me that people...why wouldn't people want peace? What I've said is there is going to be a negotiated — Russia's not going to take all of Ukraine. And Ukraine's not going to push Russia back to where it was in 2014. I want Ukraine to have the upper hand in any negotiation.

None of this is funny. But I couldn't help but chuckle at Karl's utter incredulity that the narratives he apparently hews to with such fervor could be challenged in such fashion. 

this is totes random sorry pls feel free to ignore but is there a 'STATE' that's completely independent from like elected government, heads of state, partisan politics etc.. like what's this state that some ppl talk abt that doesn't include the elected president? e.g."korea and france have greater deference to state." is there polisci literature/concept on this? what is this STATE that doesn't include the president or CDC head nominated by said president? im sorry im just so ignorant of polisci

This is not at all an ignorant question! This is a huge issue people argue about--maybe less in poli sci than in other social sciences, because poli sci has gone so completely up its own quantitative ass that it has abandoned what should be its obvious theoretical domain and so other disciplines have kind of taken over this kind of question. There are full professors who cannot answer this question (I know because some of them are on my listservs).

So: what is the state. Seriously, really, there is no one widely accepted answer to this. So I’ll go through a few of them under the cut for you. This ended up being really long because it’s something I’ve been thinking about lately, so the simplest, shortest answer to your question is the first one.

1. Institutions

In this view, “the state” means the institutions and bureaucracy that stay on when political leadership changes. The political leadership is called either “the regime” when we want to imply it’s evil or “the administration” or “the government” when we don’t. (I think this terminology is silly and “the regime” should mean the whole arrangement plus some other things--as in a regime of power--without negative or positive implications, but I don’t make the rules.)

Obviously these two things are not firewalled apart. Elected officials can alter the state through policy and/or direct reforms (creating, merging, or eliminating existing state organizations), and the existing state can constrain what elected officials can do through anything from ethics laws to bureaucratic foot-dragging. (In the US context, when we talk about “political appointees,” we mean high-level officials in “the state” that get appointed by elected leaders, but they take over organizations generally staffed by people who have come up through the bureaucracy and are supposed to be “apolitical,” i.e. just there to do a technical/bureaucratic job. So that’s another way that the two blur.) A great example of this would be what happened with the US’s Syria policy under Trump. Trump (”the administration”) wanted to pull out of Syria. The Pentagon, The State Department, various diplomatic branches, etc. (”the state”) did not. The state succeeded in putting him off executing his desired policy for years, even though as the Commander In Chief Trump in theory had really extensive authority to do whatever he wanted. Eventually he exercised that authority and state officials found themselves scrambling madly to try and salvage something of their preferred policy, which is how the US military ended up with this ridiculous non-presence in NE Syria. Another example would be the attempt to take down the USPS.

That’s why partisan politics and elected leaders are excluded from “the state” in this view; “the state” forms the organizational containers that those movements and individuals fill, and the structures they seek to act on or act from. You can think of it like the ground they stand on. This doesn’t have to mean it is itself “apolitical,” since the terrain has implications for everyone standing on it, but it is the object or delivery channel of politics, not politics itself. (Again I don’t agree with this, but it’s what you’re seeing reflected in the discourse you’re talking about.)

When people go on about “the deep state” they’re espousing a conspiratorial version of this view, where they think the ~real behind-the-scenes power lies in these institutions and the long-term bureaucrats who (sometimes) staff and run them. Definitely some power does lie there, but the conspiracists overweigh this into an Elders of Zion type thing.

2. A sovereign entity.

This is more about distinguishing states from other kinds of political entities, and as a result it’s less concerned with fine distinctions about what is and isn’t “political.” The idea is that there are lots of political structures and systems in the world (anything from tribal law to international associations like NATO) but not all of them are states. States are distinguished from other things by virtue of sovereignty. The classic definition (from Max Weber) of sovereignty is “a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence within a clearly bounded territory.” In other words, a state’s police, military, national guard, security forces, etc. have a license to use violence within its borders that no one else has--anyone else engaging in violence is a criminal. It is these groups’ status as “agents of the state” that grants them this license. The bordered, yes/no territorial nature of this status--Turkish security forces have no mandate to act in Greece and vice versa--is also distinctive; fixed, defined, cartographic borders are not necessarily a given. In this view, all power and indeed all law is ultimately founded in violence (enforcement), so what matters is who/what can use force with impunity. (When the state’s monopoly on force is challenged in its territory--e.g., Hizballah making war on Israel without the Lebanese army, the original Zapatistas forming a breakaway region during the Mexican Civil War, or any occupation by a foreign force--then the state’s sovereignty is “weakened” or “under attack,” etc.)

Lots of people have criticized and elaborated on this definition. I don’t want to go on forever about all the critiques that exist, but basically in reality, sovereignty is not a yes/no binary where either you have it completely or you don’t have it at all. Things tend to be more mixed and blurry. It also has more dimensions: two important examples are 1) controlling and disposing of the territory itself (exploiting natural resources, moving people around, etc.), and 2) recognition. In many cases, the difference between a state and a non-state is whether other states recognize it as such, i.e. act like it is one. So for example, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus exercises sovereignty and has a state bureaucracy, elections, etc., but because it is not recognized by ~the international community~ it isn’t “a state.” (This isn’t just semantics; it may seem arbitrary when you just think about what goes on inside the TRNC, but when its citizens try to emigrate, for example, they encounter very specific, concrete problems on this basis--e.g., their passports will not be recognized as valid.)

I find this more useful personally, especially because it doesn’t assume a liberal democratic state--it can apply to a dictatorship or a monarchy or whatever you like. But in practice, i.e. how people use it, I still think this approach is frequently too worried about pinning down differences that aren’t always useful. On the one hand, I wrote my BA thesis about how Hamas and Hizballah aren’t states (it was common for a while to refer to them as “states within states”) while also not just being political parties, terrorist organizations, service providers, or any of the other things they get tagged with, precisely because of the way they relate to the Palestinian and Lebanese states. This is worth understanding because it helps explain their political projects and their successes. On the other hand, I don’t think it’s very helpful to go around arguing that, say, ISIS was a state (or state-like) and the Houthis are not because of some detail of how they think/thought about territory, or courts, or bureaucracy. Like what do you get out of making that distinction. If you want to argue that a tribal council somewhere is “the state” for its context I think that’s fine depending on what you’re trying to get at. It all depends on what kind of question you want to answer, and on what scale.

3. There’s no such thing.

This view recognizes that the state is a salad bowl full of different organizations, individuals, ideologies, etc. that do not actually all work in lockstep together or have the same goals. To talk about “the state” is to reinforce the fallacy of unified power and cooperation. Instead, we should recognize that actors within states have their own agendas, institutional cultures, power struggles, etc., and that whatever the state does is the outcome of 1) these internal dynamics, 2) the ability of different external actors (from citizens to foreign governments) to play on/appeal to/push back against different pieces of the state, and 3) the interactions of 1 and 2.

This to me is common sense. You just have to be careful not to take it too far. We can acknowledge that the state is internally differentiated/not any one single thing without going so far away from what most people understand about their worlds. There’s no point saying “there’s no such thing as a state” when people still have to pay taxes.

4. "The state effect,” or: there both is and is not any such thing

This idea, put forward by Tim Mitchell, is my favorite. It is also the subtlest, and a little tricky to explain, but I think it’s the most useful.

This view steps back and looks at all the endless, elaborate debates about every possible nicety of “stateness” and says: perhaps we are asking the wrong question here. Maybe it doesn’t matter what the state is. Maybe it matters what the state seems to be; how it seems to be that; and what “resources of power” are generated by these impressions.

This is the tricky explanation part, so bear with me for a few paragraphs.

Where exactly do we draw the line between “the state” and “civil society”? Are NGOs and nonprofits part of the state? What if they get government funding? Especially in a neoliberal context, when so much policymaking is done through contractors, consultants, tax breaks, etc., are these kinds of organizations not carrying out the state’s agenda, consciously or otherwise? Okay, that’s tough, let’s try something easier: individual people and families aren’t the state. But if a household depends on an income from state employment, does that not affect their politics and their actions in society? Is a person “part of the state” in one building and not in another? How do we account for the way off-duty cops behave, for example, then? You can do this same exercise for “the economy” or any of the other things that are supposedly separate things/domains that the state manages. How can, e.g., the American economy be separate from the state when the state prints and guarantees the currency, sets interest rates, enforces contracts, and generally sets the terms on which the economy can exist? (Going back to your original question, you could probably also do this same exercise re: political parties, or partisanship.)

The point here is not that absolutely everything is actually the state. The point is also not that there is no state. It’s that there are not firm lines. Amazon may be the state when it builds systems for the Pentagon even though it is also, clearly, a private company and not part of the state’s institutions or subject to the same kinds of political controls that state institutions are. Similarly, the state itself is not one smooth solid object (as in #3). But it seems obvious, common sense, that “the economy” is a thing, just as “public health” is a thing, etc., and both of these things are objects of state management/governance/power.

This makes it easy for political leadership to make claims on the basis of these other things as separate “objects.” I.e., “we need to take drastic action to save the economy.” So the impression of these divisions can be used to justify or legitimate state action. You can see this super clearly in the current coronavirus situation. How many times have we been told the US has to “reopen” for “the economy,” and how many times has it been pointed out that the government could just take its own economic measures to allow people to stay home--because “the economy” is not some separate object that works by itself. (I myself had to explain to a friend that the government couldn’t just switch the economy back on by “reopening.” I think we underestimate how powerful these conceptual divisions really are in people’s understanding of how the world works.)

So, therefore, “the state” is the effect of ideas and practices that make things that political leaders and institutions do seem like they form a freestanding, separate structure, a thing, that we call “the state.” It is the ensemble of all these pieces (as noted in #3), and said pieces often include things that are generally thought of as not the state; these lines between state/nonstate shift all the time. What matters is not where the line is at any given moment but what the particular configuration allows state power (including the consideration of force from #2 and the structural concerns from #1) to do.

The problem I have with this is that it doesn’t really account for state capacity very well, but that’s for another day because I haven’t figured it out via paper-writing yet.

Rate That Apology, Part 9: AIPAC!

A few days ago, it emerged that AIPAC had ran some rather ... aggressive ads targeting Democrats. "The radicals in the Democratic Party," the ad text read, "are pushing their anti-Semitic and anti-Israel policies down the throats of the American people." Whoof. The ads also linked to a petition which said that "It’s critical that we protect our Israeli allies especially as they face threats from Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah ISIS and — maybe more sinister — right here in the U.S. Congress." Double whoof. When I first saw these ads, they were so out-of-character for AIPAC (which -- reputation notwithstanding -- generally tries to avoid wading into partisan frays) that I assumed they were fake. But they were not, and AIPAC has apologized for running them. So let's rate that apology, shall we? The apology is four paragraphs long, and it is interesting while it starts off pretty good, each paragraph is worse than the one which comes before it. Let's take them one at a time:

We offer our unequivocal apology to the overwhelming majority of Democrats in Congress who are rightfully offended by the inaccurate assertion that the poorly worded, inflammatory advertisement implied.

That's not bad! What I like most about this is the phrase "rightfully offended". Not "those who were offended", not "if you were offended", not "read it as offensive". The apology owns up that the ad was, objectively, offensive. It also agrees that the ad was inaccurate and inflammatory. "Poorly worded" is a bit of a hedge, but in the context of the rest of the paragraph I don't think it detracts from the message.

We appreciate the broad and reliable support that Democrats in Congress have consistently demonstrated for Israel. The bipartisan consensus that Democrats and Republicans have established on this issue forms the foundation of the U.S.-Israel relationship.

This is also generally fine. It's less "apologetic" than the first paragraph, to be sure. But had these been the only two paragraphs, I think this would have been an overall pretty decent, unequivocal apology. Alas....

The ad, which is no longer running, alluded to a genuine concern of many pro-Israel Democrats about a small but growing group, in and out of Congress, that is deliberately working to erode the bipartisan consensus on this issue and undermine the U.S.-Israel relationship.

I understand the temptation to try to explain, in one's apology, why you said the thing you're apologizing for. I'm not going to say one should never do that, but it's a high-risk proposition and it rarely pays off. Mostly, that's because it comes off as an effort to dodge responsibility and to rehabilitate what actually matters, which is the underlying cause. But here we see pitfall of a different and more ironic sort. The purpose of the ad was to express concern about the erosion of a bipartisan consensus around Israel? Well gosh golly, what do they think this ad did if not contribute to that erosion? It'd be like writing an apology for cursing out prominent entertainer and then saying you did it only to draw attention about diminishing civility in public life.

We regret that the ad's imprecise wording distorted our message and offended many who are deeply committed to this cause. We look forward to continuing our work with friends in Congress to strengthen the U.S.-Israel relationship and oppose any efforts to undermine its deep, bipartisan support.

Oh how far we've fallen from the first paragraph. At the start, "poor wording" was contextualized in language that straightforwardly accepted responsibility. Here, it stands alone, suggesting that the only problem with the advertisement was in its choice in rhetoric and that it was expressing an important point poorly. Nooope. The advertisement called Democrats antisemites who were ramming anti-Israel politics down the throats of the American people in a fashion potentially more sinister than ISIS. We're a well ways past the point of poor wording here. AIPAC needs to actually reckon with what it did here, and why it was wrong. If the beginning of the apology seemed to gesture in that direction, it's gone by the end. I'll add one more note. For the most part in this series we've rated the apology of individuals, not organizations. And there are certain additional elements of an institutional apology that don't make a lot of sense for an individual. An individual can't "discipline" or "fire" the person responsible, nor can they really implement processes to "guard against this happening again". But an institution can, and maybe should be expected to. I don't think AIPAC has said anything on either of these fronts -- who was responsible, what actions (if any) were taken to discipline them, and what guardrails have been put up to ensure we don't see a repeat. That's worrisome, and knocks them down a grade. In general, my view of AIPAC differs substantially from the conventional wisdom. The latter sees AIPAC as this titan of Washington politics that brutally crushes even the slightest deviation from Likudnik policy. I see AIPAC as a paper tiger that generally seeks to cultivate relationships more than enforce dogma and has largely struggled to flex any concrete muscle in circumstances where there is significant political energy pushing against it. This truth is masked because for many years there rarely was any political energy pushing against -- but you see it in the case of, e.g., the Iran Deal, where AIPAC really did go all out to sink it and made pretty much zero headway. The problem AIPAC is running into is twofold. First, it wants to be bipartisan in an era of increased polarization. And second, it has a staff which I suspect actually is mostly left-of-center paired with a donor base that is increasingly right-wing. As much as folks like me see AIPAC as engaging in partisan attacks against Democrats (for all its talk about how it "supports a two-state solution", one never sees it drop $40 million to attack Republicans for abandoning it), it's also under a lot of pressure from its right flank which wants to see it really take the gloves off and explicitly come out as an anti-Democratic actor. They are tired of what they see as AIPAC coddling Democrats and want it to announce what they already know: Democrats are the anti-Israel party. These ads almost certainly came either from actors within AIPAC who agree with that sentiment, or as a result of pressure from external donors who are pushing that narrative. Hyperpolarization cuts both ways: Republicans, too, have little use for even a politically-friendly organization if it continues to gesture at straddling the middle. They don't want earnest efforts at cultivating bipartisanship; they want an attack dog. AIPAC isn't paying me for advice, but I'll offer some anyway: this would be a very short-sighted strategy. It's not just because explicitly aligning with the right would be perhaps a boon for the Republican Party but a disaster for pro-Israel politics. It's also that the right-wing actors AIPAC would embolden are ones whom AIPAC has surprisingly little influence over. Even as its reputation has drifted right-ward over the past few years, AIPAC has progressively lost influence among Republican elected officials who prefer to take their cues from more explicitly partisan outlets like ZOA or CUFI. AIPAC might rule the roost of "bipartisan" Israel talk, but it's hard to see what their niche is as just one explicitly right-wing group among many. For better or for worse, though, I doubt AIPAC is going to be able to right ship. It's just too big, and archaic, and creaky, and doesn't have the institutional adroitness to adjust to the new era its finding itself in. Unfortunately for people like me, these sorts of transitions are difficult, and there will be adjustment pains. Is it fun watching AIPAC get used as a punching bag, accused of forming an "unholy alliance" with Islamophobes and White Nationalists while prominent Democratic candidates nod along? Not for me -- but then again, perhaps AIPAC should have thought of that before handing out money to Frank Gaffney or putting Adam Milstein on its national board. More broadly, to the extent the pro-Israel movement aligns itself with Trump, that ipso facto represents allying with an Islamophobe and White Nationalist of the highest order. The sad truth is that AIPAC is mostly reaping what it has sown here. We can wince at intemperate rhetoric all we want, but the fact is the claim that AIPAC has aligned itself with -- has supported and is supported by -- at least some Islamophobes and White Nationalists is just as strong as the case that Bernie Sanders has aligned himself with antisemites, and the folks getting themselves up in high dudgeon over Elizabeth Warren not rushing to AIPAC's defense hardly would blink at similar accusations being leveled at Sanders (the idea that, if a rally-goer prefaced a question by saying Sanders is "forming an alliance with antisemites and Communists", Donald Trump would do anything but cheer him on is almost as fanciful as the idea that the national media would view it as an unspeakable slander if Trump did nothing more than ignore it). Anyway, I've digressed a bit from rating that apology. So: A good start is undermined, albeit not wholly erased, by a mediocre ending. 5.5/10 via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/2Sbr3us

“A Jihadism Anti-Primer,” Darryl Li, Middle East Research and Information Project, Fall 2015

Discussions of jihad today are like a secularized form of demonology. They stem from a place of horror that shuts down serious thinking about politics. Perhaps the most striking example of this orientation is a summer 2015 analysis in the New York Review of Books—like much of its ilk, widely circulated but quickly forgotten—declaring ISIS simply too horrific to be analyzed. [1] Indeed, the magazine’s unexplained decision to grant anonymity to the author (described only as a “former official of a NATO country”), despite the lack of any sensitive information in the article, seemed only to reinforce this sense of radical cataclysmic difference.

The problem with all demonologies, however, is that they all too easily give rise to witch hunts. By positing jihadism as a problem about Islam, the debate is nearly always framed around questions of authenticity: How much do groups like al-Qaeda or ISIS represent something inherent to Islam and Islam only—or, in other words, how afraid should “we” be of Muslims? In this framing, ordinary Muslims are ritualistically called upon to condemn the acts committed by jihadis, something that is never demanded of Christians and Jews for acts of co-religionists who may also seek to justify their actions in scriptural terms. But no matter how sincere or thorough such self-flagellations may be, the demand for condemnation will never be completely sated. For the suspicion will persist that as infinitesimally small as groups like ISIS may be, they nevertheless make claims to Islamic authority that are compelling enough to some number of people to both give and take life in an organized fashion. As a result, “Muslims are presented with a brutal logic in which the only way to truly disassociate from ISIS and escape suspicion is to renounce Islam altogether.” [2]

Aside from its tendencies toward racism, the problem with demonology as starting point is that it sets a low bar for analysis and makes for a lot of boring writing. As a result, the engine of much commentary on jihad runs on the shock of discovery that “jihadis” are organized, may not be very religious, care about money, have fun, know how to use computers, fall in love, drink alcohol, use drugs and so on. These writings reveal far more about their presumed audiences than about the jihadi groups themselves. [3] This banalizing narrative serves both the state—which seeks to discredit the jihadis’ self-presentation as superhuman idealists—and liberal critics, who point to impiety or lack of religious learning as proving that Islam as such is not the issue.

The rediscovery that inhumane acts are committed by human beings is often paired with some kind of disclaimer that the writer is not an apologist or a proponent of “moral equivalence” between state violence and jihad but someone who seeks to understand the enemy in order to better combat it. This skittishness about “humanizing” the enemy is a kind of boundary maintenance reinforcing the false idea that the only choices on hand are apology for jihad or joining the fight against it.

Against this discourse on monsters who are actually human but whose monstrousness must nevertheless be reasserted, there are two main forms of pushback: The first insists that jihadi groups do not represent Muslims or Islam in any meaningful sense. The second holds the US or other governments directly or indirectly responsible for the emergence of such groups. Both arguments are generally correct, necessary and important. But insofar as they engage in debates over who is the “real” enemy, these arguments do not move debates about jihad outside the circle of demonology.

There is an enormous body of scholarship in Middle Eastern and Islamic studies demolishing the myth that Muslims are inherently or irrationally violent. Some of it also shows that political groups fashioning themselves in Islamic terms, such as the Society of Muslim Brothers in Egypt or the Justice and Development Party in Turkey (usually known by the Turkish acronym, AKP), should not be conflated with jihadis, whatever else their flaws may be. There is also scholarship showing that even groups engaging in violence under the banner of jihad cannot all be lumped together—nationalist organizations such as Hamas and Hizballah are distinguished from transnational groups like al-Qaeda. In other words, not all Muslims are pious, not all pious Muslims are Islamists, not all Islamists are violent and not all violent Islamists are at war with the West (or other Muslims they dislike).

There is, however, one significant limitation to this approach when it comes to the question of jihadism: Telling us who is not a jihadi is not particularly helpful for understanding jihadism on its own terms. In a sense, we are back in the condemnation trap, except using more analytical language. Moreover, the “not all Muslims” argument can all too easily play into the distinction between “good” and “bad” Muslims that states have long employed as an instrument of rule. It is much better at telling the state which Muslims not to torture or bomb than it is at arguing against those practices in the first place.

There is a corollary to this political argument, namely “not all terrorists are Muslim,” frequently trotted out to ask why violence perpetrated by right-wing or white supremacist groups is not treated as terrorism. If the question is posed rhetorically to draw attention to the continuities and complicities between state and extra-state forms of racial terror, it is helpful. But when couched instead as a plea for the state to be simply more judicious in the distribution of its violence, then it is at naïve at best.

The other most common pushback against anti-Muslim demonization is to highlight the role that the United States played in creating the conditions that gave rise to jihadism. Indeed, a critical understanding of imperial practices and the US role in particular is absolutely indispensable. But it is equally true that reducing jihadi groups to mere epiphenomena of US actions is a dead end for analysis. Such approaches give rise to a kind of Frankenstein theory of jihad, which insists that the US can manufacture such groups but then somehow always loses control over them without ever really explaining how (an even more conspiratorial argument is that the US continues to control such groups, which at least enjoys the virtue of consistency). Moreover, the political logic of the complicity charge can be all too easily appropriated by warmongers...

A more sophisticated variant of this argument is to highlight the role of US proxies like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan in stirring up jihadi energies. Again, there is much truth to this account: The House of Saud’s role as a leading exporter of counterrevolution and the Pakistani military establishment’s ruthlessness in pursuit of domestic and foreign policy goals are a matter of well-established record. But when the influence that these regimes exercise over jihadi groups is overplayed or commentators suggest that Riyadh and Islamabad are somehow directing overseas attacks against their most powerful patron in Washington, the argument loses its footing. And politically, this narrative can bizarrely turn into a redirection of militarism rather than a rejection of it...More extreme versions of the argument include conspiracy theories blaming the House of Saud for the September 11 hijackings, which conveniently ignore its long-standing mutual enmity with Osama bin Laden as well as al-Qaeda’s bloody attacks on the Saudi regime.

Arguments over who is the real enemy—whether emphasizing that the enemy is not all Muslims or declaring that there is no enemy as such, only the blowback from imperial policies—ultimately do not challenge jihad talk as demonology. The fundamental problem is not only how Islam is discussed; it is how politics is understood in general. The statist discourse and its liberal opposition present a choice between demonizing the enemy and banalizing him. But there is a third option: taking radicalism seriously as a political orientation, whether its idiom is Islamic, communist or anarchist. The challenge is how to understand the distinctiveness of jihadi groups without lapsing into an all-too-often racialized exceptionalism. Letting racist flat-earthers and their more respectable counterparts set the terms of debate with questions like whether jihadis represent Islam or why they are so horrible only obscures this important task. Jihadi groups may have very different ideas of the good and may operate in forms unfamiliar to those who can only think of politics in terms of the state and its categories. But that does not render any less concrete the ideas and interests at stake in their antagonisms, nor does it make thinking clearly about them any less urgent.

Palestinians Won’t Be Ignored

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, long a stand-in for the challenges of the entire Middle East, has increasingly come to be viewed as a local problem. The brutal scenes along the Israel-Gaza border this past month were the culmination of six weeks of demonstrations leading up to the 70th anniversary of Israel’s founding, in which scores have been killed and thousands injured. They were also a deliberate reminder of an era when the fate of the Palestinians was seen as central to the region—a time when Palestinian suffering was among the first issues raised by officials from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, or Egypt visiting Washington.

The strategic shifts over the past several years have marginalised the Palestinians. The Arab uprisings that began in Tunisia in late 2010 pushed into the open long-suppressed anti-authoritarian yearnings. Since President Donald Trump took office, concerns over the ambitions of Iran, a majority Shia Muslim nation, drew the Sunni Muslim kingdoms, headed by Saudi Arabia, into a de facto alliance with the Trump administration. And corrosive splits within the Palestinian national movement left its leadership in chaos.

Israeli attacks against Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah targets in Syria in recent weeks hint at the possibility of a much larger conflict to come, one that would overshadow the Palestinian issue. The Palestinian people, especially in the battered Gaza Strip, are saying they won’t be ignored. So miserable have the conditions in Gaza become—sewage-filled drinking water, constant power blackouts, intense overcrowding, shuttered ­borders—that there are young people there who say they see little difference between life and death. As the U.S. moved its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a show of support for Israeli sovereignty over the disputed city timed to the 70th anniversary, Palestinians rushed the border fence with Israel, vowing to “return” to the land of their grandparents.

Most of the demonstrators have been unarmed, if not entirely nonviolent. Israeli soldiers have been instructed to use live fire, a move widely criticised abroad, although defended by Washington. The protesters have been a mix of civilians and Hamas militants; Hamas acknowledged that 50 of 62 people killed in demonstrations on May 16 were its members.

“The Palestinians have been feeling alone and abandoned as many other dramatic issues have been attracting the world’s attention,” says Ghassan Khatib, a Palestinian political scientist at Birzeit University and former spokesman for the Palestinian Authority. “Right now this move toward unarmed resistance—a reflection of a sense of desperation—represents a big change.”

The embassy move was a gift from Trump to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and not the only one. On May 8 he pulled the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear deal and began the process of reimposing sanctions on Tehran, a move Israel has long sought. The Palestinian dispute has always been a minor irritation to Netanyahu compared with the existential challenge he sees from Iran. Trump considers the Obama administration’s efforts to tame Iran through diplomacy and economic cooperation to be a naive failure. And yet the man who thinks of himself as a master dealmaker and a friend of the Jews also says he’s eager to broker a Palestinian-Israeli peace deal. He put his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in charge of drafting a plan almost as soon as he entered the White House.

Middle East experts, including Dennis Ross of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and Aaron David Miller of the Wilson Center, say Kushner has been in touch in the course of designing his proposal and that he seems dead serious about presenting it in the coming months. “It’s apparently a 30-page plan, but I can’t tell if they understand the Palestinian side of the story,” Miller says. “It could be the sound of one hand clapping.” An official of the Palestine Liberation Organization, reached by phone while taking part in an anti-­Israel street demonstration in Ramallah, says he and the leadership have no expectations from the Kushner plan and have all but written it off.

Trump’s recent moves may increase his ability to get Netanyahu to endorse a peace plan, according to Ross. “They have enormous leverage over Bibi now,” says Ross, calling Netanyahu by his widely used nickname. “It will be very hard for him to say no to any plan they present.”

At the same time, the Trump administration has made clear it wants the Saudis and other Arab states to play a significant role in any agreement. In particular, Ross says, the hope is that the Arab leaders will embrace what the Palestinians themselves find difficult to accept: perhaps reduced land swaps, no right of return for Palestinians to lands inside Israel, and far more limited sharing of Jerusalem. “If they’re sustained,” Ross says, referring to the violent confrontations, “it may make the issue more prominent but make the Arabs less willing to be outside the Palestinian consensus. The key is that when the Americans put the plan on the table, the Arab leaders must be able to say there are elements here that are credible, and the Palestinians have to step up.”

Recent events notwithstanding, Palestinians’ ability to attract the world’s attention may still be limited. Although there have been modest attempts to spread demonstrations to the West Bank, where the suffering is less severe, it’s not clear whether there’s enough organisational energy there for a movement to take hold. “Despite the deaths and the violence, I’m not sure how much anybody really cares,” says Miller of global attention. “You have ISIS and North Korea and Iran. We’re trapped between the facts that a two-state solution is too important not to pursue and too difficult to implement.” Ethan Bronner

The post Palestinians Won’t Be Ignored appeared first on Bloomberg Businessweek Middle East.

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Report from Israel:  After Bibi

What cognitive disconnect can explain Israeli voting behavior? With Netanyahu’s name connected to no less than five corruption investigations and two long time Bibi confidants turmed state’s witness, polls show Netanyahu winning the next election hands down.   The man is literally up to his neck in the detritus of his own corruption.  Has he devised some new, hi-tech moral teflon?  

To his credit, Bibi has deftly navigated the jungle of Mideast bloodshed.  As Iran digs in on the charred rubble of Syria under the wing of Russian jets, with 50,000 Hezbollah rockets in Lebanon trained on Israeli cities, when Egyptian troops on the southern border are regularly slaughtered by the world’s last successful ISIS franchise, Israelis feel surprisingly safe.   Much safer than under the Rabin, Peres, Barak and Olmert governments, when bus bombs and ballistic missiles forged a Pavlovian association between terror and the peace process in the public mind.  

But that is not all.  Israelis today feel prosperous.  Despite rampant inequality, soaring real estate prices in this tiny country have given most families equity of unprecedented value, while the hi-tech driven economy has kept unemployment at frictional levels.  The Thomas Pickety effect of capital, Israeli style.  Those on the bottom of the rung, meanwhile – guest workers, Arab Israelis and the ultra-Orthodox -- either cannot vote or go for narrow sectarian lists that only help maintain the status quo.   There is, to be sure, an underlying sense of economic insecurity, and folks in deindustrializing communities on the nation’s periphery must know that asset prices are no alternative to a good job.  But, as with Trumpism in the US, a sense of foreboding inevitably serves those who appeal to people’s basest instincts.

Strangely enough, the same polls that show Netanyahu in the lead reveal that a majority want him to step down in face of ubiquitous corruption. On the face of it, this is good news for the rule of law.  Bibi, it appears, already has one foot out the door.  His coalition allies smell blood, each of them waiting to be second in line to unsheathe his dagger – perhaps when the Attorney General decides to press charges.  Bibi’s replacement, however, will not come from the left.  Labor’s new chief, former telecom exec Avi Gabbi, is a political irrelevance, selected, I can only explain, in a suicidal fit of temporary insanity.  If elections were held today, Labor’s Knesset representation would crash to unprecedented lows.  The lightweight Yair Lapid leads the opposition pack, but trails Netanyahu by a wide margin.  Pundits identify the latest coalition crisis surrounding ultra-orthodox military conscription as a Machiavellian maneuver on Bibi’s part to move up elections.  No better time to hit the hustings – on the heels of well-orchestrated Independence Day celebrations featuring Trump’s’ theatrical embassy relocation, before the Attorney General makes his move.

Elections may delay justice, but the bell will eventually toll. Bibi’s lasting political legacy, aside from his own, Trumpian efforts to delegitimize the country’s legal system, will be to have destroyed the Likud’s own leadership cadres, reducing its front bench to a gaggle of amateur sycophants.  Long gone, sidelined or AWOL are the likes of Benny Begin, Dan Merridor or Tzipi Livni who, in better times, would have provided effective national leadership. When Bibi goes down, an unpredictable realignment fight will engulf the right.  Those vying for control will include Defense Minister Lieberman, an Arab-baiter who got his present job by attacking the military courts during the trial of a soldier convicted of shooting a Palestinian attacker in the head as he lay, bleeding helplessly on the street; and Education Minister Naftali Bennet – an apparently decent fellow who heads a settler annexationist party that contains some of the most extreme, clerico-fascist elements in Israeli politics. Both lead sectorial, third party lists, and both are hard at work rebranding themselves as the responsible voice of national defense, poised to move in on the rotting carcass of the post Bibi Likud.

The greatest tragedy of Israeli politics, however, is the capitulation of otherwise intelligent people to mythologies of their own creation. The center left continues sell the line that Israeli security depends on interminable peace talks, something that has proven empirically false.  The right, meanwhile, insists it is a function of settlements, as if kindergartens and red roofed houses on the hills of the West Bank could stop advancing Arab tank columns or intercept ballistic missiles.  Security, few people seem to remember, is a function of, well, security. Settlements must go because apartheid has no place in a democratic society, not because dismantling them will cause Palestinians to embrace the Zionist ethos.  And the peace process, in and of itself, cannot neutralize the danger of Hamas rockets in Gaza or, potentially, the hills of Ramallah. The left has chosen the worst position on both matters.  Avi Gabbai has actually embraced settlements in the hope of demonstrating Labor’s security mettle, while declaring his ongoing fealty to the peace process.  A pale and irrelevant policy alternative, most Israelis might rightly conclude, to the status quo.  

Full Palestinian statehood, to be sure, is a desideratum for those who aspire to a democratic Israel, at peace with its neighbors.  It may not, however, be a sin qua non. Rabin, it should be remembered, only reluctantly embraced the two-state Oslo process after his predecessor, Yitzhak Shamir, buried Labor’s historic preference, the Jordanian option.  Both were simply different means, easily exchanged, to extricate Israel from the cancerous trap of settling populated regions in the occupied territories.  In the age of Trumpian newspeak, egged on by America’s pro-settlement ambassador to Israel, Likud pols have begun to think what was hitherto inconceivable and utter the unspeakable – annexation.  Let there be no mistake about it.  I have no problem with the phrase Netanyahu currently bandys about – “a state minus” for the Palestinians.  There are many options short of statehood in an imperfect world.  These include self-governing or non-self governing territories, protectorates and the like.  But what Netanyahu means by the term is nothing other than continued settlement in a region where the civilian population enjoys – or is denied -- civil and human rights based on ethnicity.  In short, he’s talking about a system of bantustans.  

Netanyahu and Trump, the most cynical pair of leaders postwar democracy has known, will eventually go down.  Israel’s hope – and America’s – is not more spin.  The left cannot brand itself out of irrelevance.  What we need, above all else, is a determined, uncompromising, clear-sighted defense of the democracy.  

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Syraq SITREP 27: Saudi Power Play and War Drums in Lebanon

In addition to the Saudis' threatening to strike back against Iran at the time and place of their choosing (something that they never seem to have the balls to do directly against Iranian territory), the death of a prince in a helicopter crash in Asir province, which borders Yemen, could be an internal hit. Yet as ZeroHedge notes, the proximity to Yemen means that Houthi infiltrators with MANPADs could be blamed for public consumption in the Kingdom and in the region. Both are distinct possibilities which cannot be ruled out, particularly since the Houthis lack high performance new generation surface to air missiles but have plenty of pissed off fighters willing to risk torture and death if captured to infiltrate the Saudi Kingdom with MANPADs and shoot down government choppers or ambush security forces. 

"Irony alert: The Lebanese PM (with a Saudi passport) resigns on order of Saudi Arabia, in Saudi Arabia, on Saudi Arabian TV. In his Saudi written resignation statement (excerpts) he accuses Iran of foreign meddling in Lebanese politics. (Hariri also suddenly claims that there was an assassination planned against him in Lebanon. This is nonsense. The Lebanese internal security organization says it has no knowledge of such a plot. Hariri needs an excuse to stay away from Lebanon and from the wrath of his followers. Saudi media are trying to create some fantastic story from that assassination claim. But there is nothing evident to back it up.)"  -- http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/11/lebanon-hariris-resignation-the-opening-shot-of-the-saudi-war-on-hizbullah.html

Saudi Arabia's Weak Hand in the Region as Iran Grows Stronger by the Day

Nonetheless, RogueMoney readers are not shocked by these developments, even if the timing seems particularly 'on the nose' in terms of the Saudis stirring up political turmoil in Lebanon at the very moment Hezbollah and its Syrian Arab Army (SAA) allies are finishing off the last ISIS strongholds on the Iraqi border. Furthermore, what appears to be muscle flexing of Saudi Arabia's largest in the region military budget and supposedly potent capabilities is in reality, an admission of weakness. President Trump and his advisers like Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross is angling to have the Aramco IPO listed on U.S. exchanges, cementing Saudi loyalty to the petrodollar rather than selling crude in yuan -- but it isn't clear if it will happen at all.

Much like the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's ambitions to build a megacity on the Red Sea, it may be a castle constructed on sand. But the desperate Saudis, caught between the risks of being denounced as sponsors of 9/11 if not killed if they dump the petrodollar, and the demands of their chief Chinese customer to make peace with Iran and adopt the petroyuan, aren't the only ones with illusions. The Israelis too, have started to admit in their English language press that their leadership may suffer from strategic delusions, of which the overemphasis on technology like the 'stealth' F35 and tactics is a symptom (for observers of the U.S. military's increasing bloat and ineffectiveness, this probably sounds familiar):

Israel's Strategic Myopia and the Debated Risks of Waging Another Lebanon War

"Alex Fishman, the doyen of Israeli defense columnists, has written that Israel simply has failed to adjust to strategic change, and is locked in a narrow “cold war” mentality: “The Syrians fire rockets at open areas: Israel destroys Syrian cannons in response; the Iranians threaten to deploy Shiite forces in Syria: Israel announces ‘red lines’ and threatens a military conflict; Fatah and Hamas hold futile talks on a unity government: the prime minister declares Israel is suspending talks with the Palestinans – and everyone here applauds the security and political echelons: – ‘there, we showed them the meaning of deterrence’, [the Israeli leadership repeats]. “But what we are seeing here is a provincial defense policy, a false representation of a leadership that barely sees beyond the tip of its nose, and is busy putting out fires day and night. “It’s a leadership that sees national security through a narrow regional viewpoint. It’s as if everything beyond Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran doesn’t exist. It’s as if the world around us hasn’t changed in the past decades, and we are stuck in the era of aggressive solutions in the form of reward and punishment as the main political-security activity. The current political-security echelon isn’t solving problems, isn’t dealing with problems, but simply postponing them, passing them on to the next generation” What Fishman is pointing to is profound: Israel has gained some tactical victories in the neighborhood (i.e. over the Palestinians generally, and in weakening Hamas), but it has lost sight of the wider strategic picture. In effect, Israel has lost its ability to dominate the region. It had wanted a weakened and fragmented Syria; it had wanted a Hezbollah mired in the Syrian mud, and an Iran circumscribed by Sunni sectarian antipathy towards the Shi’a generally. It is unlikely to get any of these. Rather, Israel finds itself being deterred (rather than doing the deterring) by the knowledge that it cannot now overturn its strategic weakness (i.e. risk a three-front war) – unless, and only if, America will fully enter into any conflict, in support of Israel. And this is what worries the security and intelligence echelon: Would America now contemplate a decisive intervention on behalf of Israel – unless the latter’s very survival was at risk? In 2006, Israeli officials recall, the U.S. did not enter Israel’s war against Hizbullah in Lebanon, and after 33 days, it was Israel that sought a ceasefire. Fishman is right too that attacking Syrian factories and radar positions “out of old habit” solves nothing. It may be sold to the Israeli public as “deterrence,” but rather it is playing with fire. Syria has started to fire back with aged surface-to-air missiles (S200s) at Israeli aircraft. These missiles may not have hit an Israeli jet yet, and maybe were not even intended so to do. The Syrian message however, is clear: these missiles may be old, but they have a longer range than the newer S300: Potentially, their range is sufficient to reach Ben Gurion Airport outside Tel Aviv. Are the Israelis sure that Syria and Hezbollah don’t have more modern missiles? Are they certain that Iran or Russia will not provide them such? The Russian defense minister was very angry on his visit to Tel Aviv to have been faced with an Israeli retaliatory air attack on a Syrian radar and missile position –as a welcome gift on landing in Israel. To his protests, his Israeli counterpart, Defense Minister Lieberman condescendingly said that Israel needed nobody’s advice in respect to Israel’s security. General Sergey Shoygu reportedly was not amused."  -- https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/11/05/israeli-saudi-tandem-adjusts-syria-loss.html

The Paradise Papers Pushes #TrumpRussia Same Week Saudi Princes Are Arrested: Will Those Opposed to MBS Purge Confess to Funding ISIS Without the King's Knowledge?

All the same, as W the Intelligence Insider has reminded this audience in shows on the Mideast conflict beyond Syria, starting World War One 103 years ago made little sense for any of the great empires involved, and resulted in their destruction. Even the British, whose offshore balancing strategy had played off the various European powers against each other for years, had to accept the junior partner role and eventual mortgaging of their empire to pay for both World Wars.

The Paradise Papers leaks from the usual Soros funded suspects pushing stories on Wilbur Ross alleged tight links with a shipping company owned by Vladimir Putin's son in law and even offshore accounts controlled by the British Royal Family appear to be another strike in the ongoing Rothschild versus Rockefeller mob war, with the latter desperately trying to defend the Clinton crime family from going down before its dark queen-pin occult priestess of Chappaqua expires of 'natural causes'. The fact that the UK Guardian are throwing in exposes of offshore accounts linked to Bono and Madonna is just window dressing to the main course of moving #MuhRussia scandal and Mueller's indictments forward in Washington.

However, as RogueMoney readers know moves beget counter moves and the recently rounded up Saudi princes could suddenly decide to confess the 'shocking' secret that the arms and money they shipped to various 'moderate' Syria jihadists for years actually wound up with Al-Qaeda and ISIS -- with the knowledge and complicity of a certain now ex-CIA director known for his conversion to Islam and affinities to the Saudi royal family. The same CIA director who worked with DNI James Clapper and FBI Director James Comey to launder the partisan Democrat/MI6 dirty dossier into the intelligence community and use it as a basis to fraudulently obtain FISA warrants against Trump's team. Thus the ongoing shake up in the tottering House of Saud has everything to do with the failed wars waged by Riyadh in both Syria and Yemen, as well as the Sauds turn to the Trumps and Kushners for relief. As they used to say in Russia, if only the Tsar knew -- and in Saudi Arabia, it would be 'his royal highness the custodian of the two holy mosques is appalled by the illicit funding of extremism' that has been going on.

For all their ludicrous $85 billion 'defense' budget and bluster, the Saudis know they have almost nothing to gain and everything to lose in a war with Iran, especially if the Shi'a of their oil rich eastern provinces rise up. The Israeli elites too, are divided on whether to act now or bide their time and wait for Hezbollah to make an aggressive move or strike first with overwhelming force. However, it appears this week some globalist players behind the scenes are seeking to force shaky or impetuous regional hands to act. 

PM Modi’s visit is going to herald a new phase of India – Israel relations

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to become the first Indian head of government to visit Israel, as he embarks on a three-day visit to celebrate 25 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries. India’s envoy to Tel Aviv, Ambassador Pavan Kapoor, said this visit shows that India is not “bashful” about Israel anymore, and this trip is the official “coming out” of the India – Israel relationship. Former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was the first Israeli head to visit India in 2003.

The fact that it has taken 25 years for an Indian prime minister to visit Israel has been one of the more significant fallacies of Indian foreign policy, famous for kowtowing obsolete Cold War era ideas in a time when the ‘India story’ is one of the most marketed global economic phenomenon. India’s economic heft and political aptitude in the international arena of the 21st century has demanded a more robust foreign policy structure, with New Delhi’s relations with Jerusalem being one of the most prominent victims of India’s own lack of confidence over its own place in the global order. 

Modi’s visit to Israel was inevitable, with not just the prime minister, but his party, the BJP, and its supporters viewing the Jewish state almost as a premiere example of how a nationalistic, majoritarian and militarised nation should be

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Modi’s visit to Israel was inevitable, with not just the prime minister, but his party, the BJP, and its supporters viewing the Jewish state almost as a premiere example of how a nationalistic, majoritarian and militarised nation should be. “Earlier one heard about Israel doing such a thing, now the country has seen that the Indian Army is no less,” Modi had commented in the aftermath of what we know today as the ‘surgical strike’ against Pakistan in 2016.  The 26/11 attacks in Mumbai, that saw the Jewish Chabad House also attacked, converged India and Israel over the issue of terrorism faster than anything else previously, and Israel capitalized on this fast. 

Despite the overtures, and the well-marketed commonalities between India and Israel led by the narratives of both nations being victims of cross-border terrorism, the development of this “special” bond historically has predominantly been one-way traffic. Israel has not shied away from aiding India even when New Delhi had blocked its own self-interests over more than often unreasonable stance on the issue of Palestine, keeping its domestic politics in mind. For example, during the war of 1971 against Pakistan, India under Indira Gandhi found itself alienated from the international community, and during this phase, Israel’s then-Prime Minister Golda Meir intervened to clandestinely provide much needed ammunition to the Indian Army’s strained reserves (Gary Bass’s book ‘Blood Telegram’ is a recommended read). This was termed as a “surprising minor success”, while in fact it was a glaring testimony of Israel and Meir’s outlook towards a largely ambivalent India. 

While Modi, on the eve of his departure, reiterated India’s backing of a two-state solution via peaceful negotiations, his trip will attempt to correct long-standing fallacies that have plagued India’s approach towards Israel. While counter-terrorism and defense are the topics that command majority of the discussions here, it is imperative to remember that it is in fact, Israel’s all-encompassing advanced technologies sector, which is the most appealing. Mixed with the country’s more than liberal approach to collaborate with India in areas that usually require years long negotiations, often leading to compromises by New Delhi to drive the said deals through, the opportunity is ripe for New Delhi to build ‘tech bridges’ for the future. 

Israel, in general, in the defense sector is becoming India’s premiere choice. From weaponised drones to sourcing critical components for the Indian Air Force’s deal with France for the Dassault Rafale fighter jets, it has become the country’s third largest supplier of military equipment having bagged 10 deals worth $1 billion over the past three years. Beyond military hardware, cooperation on intelligence and counter-terrorism is going to become a pivotal classroom to share with Jerusalem, specifically on issues such as fighting against the influence of ISIS, whose demise in Iraq and Syria is being greatly exaggerated, based only on territorial losses and not ideological ones. 

Other areas such as agriculture, artificial intelligence, IT, health, education and public works need to be given equal amount of importance for a healthy, long-term and mutually beneficial economic front for both states.

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However, the challenge lies in taking the India – Israel dynamics beyond the defense sphere, and not bottling up all the narratives around one sector. With India’s economic growth requiring external technological intervention, and Israel’s own economy dependent on exports of technology, other areas such as agriculture, artificial intelligence, IT, health, education and public works need to be given equal amount of importance for a healthy, long-term and mutually beneficial economic front for both states. Putting all the eggs in one basket of defense can have bilateral repercussions in the future, such as India’s relations with Russia as it stands today, being disproportionately tilted towards the defense sector and in some sense balanced purely on that front. 

Beyond the economic front, the political aspect of this visit is equally, if not more, significant. India’s attempts to de-hyphenate the Israel - Palestine issues is a welcome move (Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas visited New Delhi last month). It also comes on the back of the fact that New Delhi, with its global drive to highlight the narrative of state-sponsored terrorism by Pakistan, is at odds with what Hamas stands for today. This is why we have seen fewer instances of India raising concerns over Israel’s heavy-handedness in Gaza or the West Bank over the past few years. Along with Palestine, India’s economic growth and growing global political footprint allows it for greater cooperation with Israel without being pressured to do otherwise by its Arab allies.

The fact that the compass of demand for oil and gas has now shifted away from the West to the East gives India an edge to control the narrative over its West Asia policies more than ever before, with more advantage over the likes of Riyadh on one side and Tehran on the other. This allows India to make management of the three poles of power in the region; Saudi Arabia, Iran and Israel an easier task as far as its own interests are concerned. 

Modi’s visit is going to herald a new phase of India – Israel relations, one that for the time being will in all likeliness be more transactional than strategic. However, it places both the countries on a more level playing field, finally bearing fruit for Israel’s relentless and patient pursuit to court greater attention from New Delhi.

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