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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year

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SVB bailouts for everyone - except affordable housing projects

For the apologists, the SVB bailout was merely prudent: a bunch of innocent bystanders stood in harm’s way — from the rank-and-file employees at startups to the scholarship kids at elite private schools that trusted their endowment to Silicon Valley Bank — and so the government made an exception, improvising measures that made everyone whole without costing the public a dime. What’s not to like?

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/15/socialism-for-the-rich/#rugged-individualism-for-the-poor

But that account doesn’t hold up to even the most cursory scrutiny. Everything about it is untrue. Take the idea that this wasn’t a “bailout” because it was the depositors who got rescued, not the shareholders. That’s just factually untrue: guess where the shareholders kept their money? That’s right, SVB. The shareholders of SVB will get billions in public money thanks to the bailout. Billions:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/18/2-billion-here-2-billion-there/#socialism-for-the-rich

But is it really public money? After all, the FDIC payouts come from a pool of funds raised from all of America’s banks. The billions the public put into SVB will be recouped through hikes on the premiums paid by every bank. Well, sure — but who do you think the banks are going to gouge to cover those additional expenses? Hint: it’s not going to be the millionaires who get white-glove treatment and below-cost loans. It’ll be the working people whom the banks steal billions from every year in overdraft fees — 78% of these are paid by 9.2% of customers, the very poorest, and they amortize to a 3,500% loan:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/22/ihor-kolomoisky/#usurers

As Adam Levitin put it on Credit Slips:

They will pass those premiums through to customers because the market for banking services is less competitive than the market for capital. In particular, the higher costs for increased insurance premiums are likely to flow to the least price-sensitive and most “sticky” customers: less wealthy individuals. So average Joes are going to be facing things like higher account fees or lower APYs, without gaining any benefit. Instead, the benefit of removing the cap would flow entirely to wealthy individuals and businesses. This is one massive, regressive cross-subsidy. It’s not determinative of whether raising the cap is the right policy move in the end, but this is something that should be considered.

https://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/2023/03/the-regressive-cross-subsidy-of-uncapping-deposit-insurance.html

The SVB apologists display the most curious and bizarre imaginative leaps…and imaginative failings. For them, imagining that regulators will just wing it to the tune of hundreds of billions in public money is simplicity itself. Meanwhile, imagining that those same regulators would say, “Not one penny unless every shareholder agrees to sign away their deposits” is literally impossible.

This bizarrely inconstant imagination carries over into all of the claims used to justify the SVB bailout — like, say, the claim that if SVB wasn’t bailed out, everyone would pile into too big to fail banks like Jpmorgan. This is undoubtably true — unless (and hear me out here!), regulators were to use this failure as a launchpad for public banks, and breakups of Jpmorgan, Wells Fargo, Citi, et al.

This is a very weird imaginative failure. America operated public banks. It had broken up too big to fail banks. These weren’t the deeds of a fallen civilization whose techniques were lost to the mists of time. There are literally people alive today who were around when America operated nationwide public banks — a practice that only ended in 1966! We’re not talking about recovering the lost praxis of the druids who built Stonehenge without power-tools, here.

The most telling imaginative failure of SVB apologists, though, is this: they think that people are angry that the government saved the janitors at startups and the scholarship kids at private schools, and can’t imagine that people are angry that America didn’t save anyone else. If you’re a low-income student at an elite private school, there’s billions on hand to save you — but not because the government gives a damn about you — saving you is a side effect of saving all the rich kids you go to school with.

Likewise, the startup janitors aren’t the target of the bailout — they’re overspill from the billions mobilized to rescue the personal fortunes of tech billionaires who supply VCs’ investment capital. If there was a way to bail out the startups without bailing out the janitors, that’s exactly what would happen.

How do I know this? Well, first of all, the “investors” who demanded — and received — a bailout are on record as hating workers and wanting to fire as many of them as possible. As one of the loudest voices for the bailout said of Twitter employees, in a private message to Elon Musk following the takeover: “Day zero: Sharpen your blades boys 🔪”:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/21/tech-workers/#sharpen-your-blades-boys

But there’s even better evidence that the bailout’s intended target was wealthy, powerful people, and every chance to carve out working people was seized upon. When regulators engineered the sale of SVB to First Citizens Bank, they did not require First Citizens to honor SVB’s community development obligations, killing thousands of affordable housing units that had been previously greenlit:

https://calreinvest.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Community-Benefits-Plan-SVB-CRC-GLI.pdf

Tens of thousands of people wrote to regulators, urging them to transfer SVB’s Community Benefits Plan obligation to First Citizens:

https://www.dailykos.com/campaigns/petitions/sign-the-petition-save-affordable-housing-keep-the-promises-silicon-valley-bank-made

As did Rep Maxine Waters, the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee:

https://democrats-financialservices.house.gov/uploadedfiles/318_cwm_ltr_fdic.pdf

But First Citizens — a bank whose slot in America’s top-20 banks was secured through a string of exceptions, exemptions and waivers — was not required to take on SVB’s obligations to carry out loans to build thousands of affordable housing units in the Bay Area and Boston, including a 112-unit building for people with disabilities planned for a plum spot across from San Francisco City Hall:

https://www.levernews.com/regulators-stiffed-low-income-communities-in-silicon-valley-bank-bailout/

All those people who wanted SVB’s community development obligations to carry forward vastly outnumbered the people calling for billionaires portfolio companies to be saved — but they merely spoke on behalf of people who sought the most basic of human rights — shelter. No one listened to them. Instead, it was the hyperventilating all-caps “investors” who spent SVB’s no-good weekend shouting on Twitter about the fall of civilization who got what they wanted, with a bow on top, and a glass of publicly funded warm milk before bed.

The US finance sector is reckless to the point of being criminally negligent. It constitutes an existential risk to the nation. And yet, every time it gets into trouble, regulators are able to imagine anything and everything to shift their risks to the public’s shoulders.

Meanwhile, everyday people are frozen out. School lunches? Unaffordable. Student debt cancellation? Inconceivable. Help for the hundreds of thousands of NYC schoolchildren whose schools are facing a $469m hack-and-slash attack? That’s clearly impossible:

https://council.nyc.gov/joseph-borelli/2022/09/06/nyc-council-calls-for-mayor-adams-doe-to-fully-restore-469m-in-school-funding/

When it comes to helping everyday people, American elites and their captured champions in the US government have minds that are so rigid and inflexible that it’s a wonder they can even dress themselves. But when the fortunes and wellbeing of the wealthy and powerful are on the line, their minds are so open that some of their brains actually leak out of their ears and nostrils:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/15/mon-dieu-les-guillotines/#ceci-nes-pas-une-bailout

Every bank merger is supposed to come with a “public interest analysis.” But these analyses are “perfunctory.” They needn’t be:

https://openyls.law.yale.edu/bitstream/handle/20.500.13051/8305/Kress_Article._Publication__1_.pdf

First Citizens got a hell of a bargain: it paid zero dollars for SVB’s assets, its deposits and its loans. Any losses it incurs from its commercial loans over the next five years will be paid by the FDIC, no questions asked. The inability of regulators to convince First Citizens to assume SVB’s community obligations along with those billions in public largesse speaks volumes.

Meanwhile, SVB’s shareholders continue to claim that their headquarters are a relatively unimportant office in Manhattan, and not their glittering, massive corporate offices in San Jose, as part of their bid to shift their bankruptcy proceeding to the Southern District of New York, where corporate criminals like the Sackler opioid family have found such a warm reception that they were able to escape “bankruptcy” with billions in the bank, while their victims were left in the cold:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/18/2-billion-here-2-billion-there/#socialism-for-the-rich

Contrary to what SVB’s apologists think, the case against them isn’t driven by spite — it’s driven by fury. America’s “socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the poor” has been with us for generations, but rarely is it so plain as it is in this case.

There’s only two days left in the Kickstarter campaign for the audiobook of my next novel, a post-cyberpunk anti-finance finance thriller about Silicon Valley scams called Red Team Blues. Amazon’s Audible refuses to carry my audiobooks because they’re DRM free, but crowdfunding makes them possible.

[Image ID: A glass-and-steel, high-tech office building. Atop it is a cartoon figure of Humpty Dumpty, whose fall has been arrested by masses of top-hatted financiers, who hold fast to a rope that keeps him in place. At the foot of the office tower is heaped rubble. On top of the rubble is another Humpty Dumpty figure, this one shattered and dripping yolk. Protruding from the rubble are modest multi-family housing units.]

Image:

Lydia (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vicroft_Court_Starley_Housing_Co-operative_%282996695836%29.jpg

Oatsy40 (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/oatsy40/21647688003

Håkan Dahlström (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/93755244@N00/4140459965

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

#pluralistic #housing crisis #svb #silicon valley bank #plutocracy #bailouts #affording housing #socialism for the rich #rugged individualism for the poor #regional banking #community development banks #housing

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ennovance · 5 months

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Largest US banks set to log sharp rise in bad loans

Earnings are expected to have shrunk in last quarter of 2023 due to unpaid debts and impact of high interest rates

https://www.ft.com/content/e7361b25-1082-4b18-852a-dea85ccef7d4 via @ft

#bank #regional banking #investor #privateequity #ennovance

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sayruq · 2 months

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#yemen #jerusalem #tel aviv #current events #palestine #free palestine #gaza #free gaza #news on gaza #palestine news #news update #war news #war on gaza #nablus #west bank #iran #axis of resistance #regional war

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baeshijima · 4 months

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if anyone asks

tell them ive ascended to heaven

#WHAT THE FUCKSVSHISBSKD #OFFICIAL HSR MV ??????? STOP IM ACTUALLY CRYING WHY DID THIS MAKE ME EMOTIONAL #OURGH ROBIN AND SUNDAY MY BELOVEDS !!!!! AVENTURINE YOU !!!! SPARKLE LOML !!!!! BLACK SWAN ?!??!? GALLAGHER !!!!! ACHERON MY LOVE !!!!!#AND SAMPO MY LOVE YOU AAAAA #DONT EVEN GET ME STARTED ON FIREFLY AND MC ?????? LIKE STOP THEIR SCENES ARE SO SO PRETTY AND THE WAY THE SONG SOFTENED WHEN WE SAW THEM #THE MUSIC IS SO !!!!!! AND THE FACT ITS IN ALL 4 LANGUAGES TOO LIKE HELLO WHAT THEY ALL SOUND DIVINE ????#AMVS WHO FR 😭😭#stop im not ready for penacony i cant believe 2.0 is in a little under 2 weeks like how am i supposed to cope until then ???#all the qol updates and the free 20 pulls…. sobbing hsr my love my life my destiny ……. i will give u my bank whenever u want …….#they have it out on spotify and u can bet ur ass im already looping it and will continue to do so for the next 6 months #AT LEAST #god the vocals …. the cinematography …… the vibes …… i cabt everything is so perfect …….#interstellar journey 2.0 and my god im so glad theyve done it again and will most likely do it for new worlds/regions in the future 😩🫶#may the stars guide you <3

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oldshowbiz · 3 months

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the exhilaration

#regional commercial #bank

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workersolidarity · 2 months

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[ 📹 Footage from the Al-Nuseirat Refugee Camp, in the central Gaza Strip, where the Israeli occupation army targeted and destroyed two residential buildings in the Camp earlier this morning, killing and wounding several Palestinian civilians.]

🇮🇱⚔️🇵🇸 🚀🏘️💥🚑 🚨

ISRAELI SETTLERS LAUNCH POGROMS ON WEST BANK VILLAGES, IRAN SEIZES ISRAELI VESSEL, DESTRUCTION OF AL-ZAHRAA IN GAZA COMPLETE AS CONFLICTS SPIRAL OUT OF CONTROL

On the 190th day of "Israel's" special genocide operation in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation forces committed a total of 5 new massacres of Palestinian families, resulting in the deaths of no less than 52 Palestinians, the majority being women and children, while another 95 others were wounded over the previous 24-hours.

In response to constant Israeli aggression, and the recent Zionist attack on the Consulate section of the Iranian embassy in Damascus, Syria, the Iranian military, known as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), hijacked an Israeli commercial vessel from the Straight of Hormuz on Saturday, which was covered in a news piece published by Iran's Tasnim news agency.

According to Tasnim, the IRGC seized the MSC Aries, which flies the Portuguese flag, a container ship linked with the London-based Zodiac Maritime, a subsidiary of the Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer's Zodiac Group.

Tasnim says the vessel was in the waters off the coast of Dubai, heading through the Straight of Hormuz with its transponder turned off at the time it was seized, apparently a common tactic of Israeli-owned or operated ships.

Meanwhile, hundreds of Israeli colonial settlers and their organized militias launched a pogrom against several Palestinian towns and villages across the occupied West Bank of Palestine.

According to reports, armed Zionist colonial settlers, backed by the Israeli occupation forces, launched several large-scale assaults on Palestinians and their property, including the firing of live bullets towards Palestinians civilians and their vehicles, as well as burning Palestinian homes and cars.

The raid began on Friday with attacks on the town of Al-Mughayir and Abu Falah, northeast of Ramallah, which saw violent assaults on Palestinian families, including gunfire directed at Palestinian homes and vehicles, as well as the burning of several homes and cars, and was soon followed by attacks on the village of Duma, southeast of Nablus, in the northern occupied West Bank, with similar results.

At least one Palestinian, by the name of Jihad Afif Abu Alia, was killed in the assault, while at least 25 others were wounded by the colonists, who were actively being protected by IOF soldiers.

Attacks also occured on the villages and towns of Turmus Ayya, Abu Falah, Silwad, and several villages east of Ramallah, while attacks also occured on multiple villages north of Nablus, specifically the towns of Bitlo, Kafr Ni'ma, as well as several other areas west of Nablus.

In response the pogroms, the largest of their kind since the October 7th attacks by Hamas, the National and Islamic Forces of Ramallah and al-Bireh called for confronting the settler militias and activating the Popular Guard committees.

Calling the attacks "terrorism and brutality," the defensive organization said Israeli settlers were attempting to force Palestinian citizens to leave their homes in the hope of seizing their lands.

In a statement issued by the defense forces, the group urged Palestinian residents to maintain a state of alertness, calling for "constant and continuous vigilance" to "thwart malicious plans aimed at uprooting our people from their land, and to work with all channels of cooperation, coordination, and epic internal solidarity of our people."

The group emphasized the need to activate the popular guard and protection committees, calling on the defensive militias to burn tires at the entrances to villages adjacent to colonies, bypass streets, and to use mosque loudspeakers to to call on neighboring villages, for any area being attacked, and for everyone to come together in one field unit to prevent the implementation of massacres against the Palestinian people.

The group also emphasized the need for taking measures to provide towns and villages with the necessary means of survival and resilience, to support farmers and marginalized groups, work on campaigns at the international level, and to take immediate action to stop Israeli crimes and aggressive actions against Palestinians.

Meanwhile, as Israeli colonial settlers stormed Palestinian towns in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli occupation army continued its constant destruction of what remains of the Gaza Strip after six months of Zionist aggression.

Israeli occupation warplanes focused intensive bombings and missile strikes targeting the outskirts of Beit Hanoun, in the northern Gaza Strip, while also bombarding the neighborhoods of Al-Zaytoun and Al-Daraj in Gaza City, and also bombing and shelling the Al-Fukhari neighborhood, southeast of Khan Yunis.

Occupation forces also completed their destruction of Al-Zahra and Al-Assra in the central Gaza Strip, destroying the remaining dozens of buildings and hundreds of units of residential apartments.

At the same time, occupation forces renewed its airstrikes on the Al-Nuseirat Refugee Camp, in the central Gaza Strip, targeting anyone or anything that moves in the camp, resulting in a number of casualties.

In one example, occupation warplanes bombed the Thabet family home in the Nuseirat Camp, martyring two civilians, while two other Palestinian civilians were killed after IOF fighter jets bombed the Kahil building in the Al-Samer area in central Gaza City.

Similarly, Zionist warplanes bombed a residential neighborhood in the al-Zarqa area of central Gaza City, targeting the home of the Al-Issa family, resulting in the deaths of at least five civilians and wounding more than 30 others, while at the same time, occupation aircraft bombed and completely destroyed the nearby Al-Asi Mosque.

In another atrocity, Zionist forces bombarded the Tabatabi family home on Friday night, located in the Al-Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City, resulting in at least 28 civilian casualties, while IOF raids were also launched against the Al-Shati Refugee Camp, as well as the Al-Zaytoun and Al-Shujaiya neighborhoods of the city.

Elsewhere, the Israeli occupation army bombed in the vicinity of Sheikh Zayed City, killing two Palestinians from Beit Hanoun.

Local civil defense crews from the Khan Yunis governate also said they recovered the decomposing corpses of 10 Palestinians from under the rubble of the Al-Amal neighborhood of Khan Yunis, in the south of Gaza.

Later, the Israeli occupation air forces bombarded the Al-Fokhari area, southeast of Khan Yunis, while an Israeli reconnaissance drone fired a missile at a Palestinian pedestrian as he walked in the street, severely wounding the man, who eventually died from his injuries after being transported to Al-Najjar Hospital in the southern city of Rafah.

At least two Palestinian citizens were also killed, and several others wounded, after Zionist artillery forces shelled the Nuseirat Camp, in the central Gaza Strip, while the IOF also heavily shelled the Jabalia Refugee Camp in the northern Gaza Strip.

As a result of "Israel's" ongoing special genocide operation in the Gaza Strip, the death toll among the Palestinian population has again risen, now exceeding 33'686 citizens killed, including over 14'500 children and 9'500 women, while another 76'309 others have been wounded since the start of the current round of Zionist aggression, beginning with the events of October 7th, 2023.

April 13th, 2024

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@WorkerSolidarityNews

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sugimoriedits · 2 years

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Paldean Bronzor concept propaganda

#i just thought it was cute #and small #REALLY SMALL #also bank vault Bronzong moment #gimmieghoul #bronzor #bronzong #fakemon #pokemon scarlet and violet #regional variant #pokemon art #my art #i haven't looked at the new pokemon leaks so if this turns out to already exist then guess I'm a smarty

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empirearchives · 4 months

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I like to think of Napoleon walking around sounding like a medieval Italian

#idk why this reminds me of those random regions in the Outer Banks that still speak Shakespearean English #but the Italian version of it #Napoleon #Corsican #Tuscan #Corsica #Italian #napoleonic era #napoleonic #napoleon bonaparte #Wikipedia

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nerdylilpeebee · 3 months

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Okay serious question, I just want yes or no answer, not a 3 page essay.

Do you want all Palestinians dead?

Again, yes or no.

No.

#ludicrous question #unlike y'all I'm not wanting to “drive them into the sea” for daring to do something bad #palestinians and israeli's should have 2-states (or in this case 3 I guess since Gaza and the West Bank are seperate) and live together #in the region #without harming eachother #but that can't happen with the PA and Hamas in charge since both want to kill jews #tvp discourse #israel #arab israeli conflict #hamas #gaza

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ennovance · 9 months

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Regional Banks Are Stuck in No Man’s Land

Along with deposit losses and higher funding costs, they face the prospect of tough new capital rules.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-24/regional-banks-reckon-with-their-size-after-svb-s-collapse

#regional banking

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canichangemyblogname · 7 months

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Israel ignoring Egypt's warnings, Israel's chaotic "recovery" (a.k.a. their explicit non-recovery and bombing of hostages), and the IOF's chaotic engagement with Hamas fighters on Oct. 7th and 8th that caught hostages and civilians in crossfire should be proof enough that Israel cannot and will consistently fail to provide for the security and welfare of Jewish people. It should also be proof enough that Netanyahu's government doesn't give a shit about Israeli lives unless they can be weaponized to serve his political and regional goals.

The argument that the only way for Jewish people to have safety and comfort is through a Jewish ethnostate ignores how the violence necessary to establish an ethnostate breeds extremism and a cycle of violence. It ignores how Israel consistently fails to protect and provide for its citizens, how vulnerable the Israeli state would be without US support, and how politically and numerically insecure settler-colonial populations are without ethnic and genocidal violence to reproduce their position in the social hierarchy. This argument also allows countries in the Global North to wipe their hands of their own country's antisemitism. For them, Israel is the solution to their country's "Jewish Question."

Some of Zionism's basic assumptions about Jewish people and the need for a Jewish state come from antisemitic assumptions. Advocates for a Jewish state frequently invoke antisemitic stereotypes to make their case. Like... literal fucking fascists in the US support Zionism because they want to empty their country of Jewish people and then watch them die in Israel.

The largest group of Zionists in the US are Evangelical Christians. Not just in sheer numbers, but as a percentage of their population. And you know what they believe? They believe that all Jews need to return to the Holy Land to be massacred and raptured so Jesus can return. The majority of Zionists in the US are Zonists because they're antisemitic. Their antisemitism informs their support for Zionism, and their belief in Zionism informs their antisemitism.

It boggles me how the US government, literal fascists, and Evangelicals have so many of you legitimately believing that critiquing a man and a government that throws their lot in with Holocaust deniers is antisemitic.

There are experts out there who attest that Zionism encourages and spreads antisemitism around the globe and that it is a contributing factor to increases in antisemitism in the Global North. Some have gone so far as to say it is a literal threat to the well-being of Jews worldwide and a roadblock in the fight against antisemitism.

#israel #zionism #in college the professor who taught me about authoritarianism and right-wing violence stressed that Zionism would get Jewish people killed #he is a Jewish man himself #he spoke about how few in the region actually support extremist groups in the area #and about how Zionism and the violence in the West Bank was poking a great bear #he talked about how if the radicalization from violence mobilized. it could mean the blood of Jews worldwide #especially as the Zionism popular in the Global North encouraged and reproduced common antisemitic tropes #he explained that if the Israeli state does not agree to two people of equal rights under one democratic & pluralistic state #they would be faced with both Jews and Palestinians living under the authoritarian and reactionary rule of an extremist govt.#i remember him talking about the (at the time) regional insecurity of the position of the Israeli state #he was more concerned about the exportation of extremism from Saudi Arabia or Iran than a group like Hamas or Islamic Jihad #he was firm about Hezbollah being more of an existential threat than any of the reactionary groups in Palestine

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