War between Hamas and Israel

[N.E. Brigand]

This could be a glimmer of hope for the long-term situation in Israel and Palestine. Speaking at a conference in Saudi Arabia, Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, which is the governing party in the West Bank, said that "Israel has the right to complete security, and Palestine has the right to self-determination and an independent state."

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(Edited to add: Since this is a new page, I want to note that I did see your reply, V, and I respect the argument you make there.)

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(Edited much later (Apr. 30) to note: I don't want to add a new post just about the U.S. protests, but I laughed out loud at a reporter's interaction with a student, who represents those who took over a building at Columbia U., demanding that the university now provide them food and drink lest they die of starvation or dehydration.)

(Edited a little later to add: Columbia's president called in the NYPD, who breached the occupied building with tear-gas and arrested the students. Fortunately, so far I haven't seen any reports of the protesters being injured. But I think it was a boneheaded move by Columbia, who could have just waited them out a few days. They would have come out when they got hungry.)

(Edited on May 1 to add that some "law and order" types are very much lying about what happened, as for example when New York's police department and mayor's office falsely claims that a bike lock and chain that Columbia University itself sells to students is the illicit tool of outside agitators.)

(Edited yet again to note Matt Yglesias's observation that arrests at Columbia in 1968 apparently involved ten times as many police officers as were deployed last night.)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I thought that this was both succinct and on-point.

[N.E. Brigand]

Haaretz reports's that Israel's Finance Ministers, Bezalel Smotrich, yesterday called for the "total annihilation" of Gaza.

[N.E. Brigand]

Donald Trump said last night that "We have to let Israel complete their war on terror," adding, "You have to get the job done. It's a horrible job to do, but they have to respond. When they do, when there's an attack, a sneak attack, like on October 7th, that's so violent, and such hatred, you have to clean it out, and you have to clean out the cancer. But let them do their job. ... I think Biden is not on the side of Israel, and he's making a tremendous mistake. You have to clean up the terror that we witnessed on October 7th." Trump also boasted about having made what was seen as the provocative step of moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and about ending the nuclear deal with

Donald Trump said today that the U.S. cannot admit "refugees from Hamas-controlled terrorist areas like Gaza".

President Biden has repeatedly declared himself a Zionist, signed a bill funding weapons for Israel, and ordered the U.S. to defend Israel against a major Iranian drone and missile strike (and getting Arab nations to partner with the U.S. in that effort). At the same time, from the very start, he publicly urged Israel to respond to October 7th with restraint (pointing out the mistakes the U.S. made following the 9/11 attacks in 2001), he has called for a ceasefire, he has let his displeasure with Benjamin Netanyahu's fecklessness be known, he has the U.S. Navy building a pier for the delivery of aid to Gaza, and now he is considering letting Palestinian refugees come to the U.S.

Donald Trump by contrast, as shown by the statements above and other comments he's made, has taken Israel side entirely in this conflict. His only complaint has been that Israel isn't moving fast enough. Plus his son-in-law would love to have Israel take over parts of Gaza so he can build luxury apartments there.

And unfortunately, Trump may be in the better position than Biden on these issues with most of the U.S. electorate. College kids are referring to the president as "Genocide Joe," and I'm sure that's a matter of concern to President Biden, who needs the support of young people on the left. But Donald Trump doesn't care if they call him "Genocide Don." His base loves Israel. Or at least: they love the idea of Israel because they believe the existence of Jewish state presages Christ's second coming, when apparently all the Jews either will be converted to Christianity during the post-Rapture tribulations or damned to Hell. And the swing voters that both Trump and Biden need, while not holding those views, do have a taste for "law and order" and may prefer Trump's tough guy rhetoric to Biden's actual accomplishments. I do see an echo in the tenor of the current campus protests and the Ferguson protests in 2015 and George Floyd protests in 2020.

See also the letter from a law-and-order Democrat that former Republican Congressman Joe Walsh -- who prefers Biden to Trump -- cites here.

Edited one more time to note Trump said the police raid on the Columbia U. protesters was "beautiful to watch."

[N.E. Brigand]

The Daily Mail today says that Israel fears that the International Criminal Court is going to issue an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for Israel's actions in Gaza.

More on this:

[N.E. Brigand]

I did not know that the Holocaust Museum in D.C., in its Arabic language translations, refers to the Warsaw Ghetto uprising against the Nazis as the "Warsaw Intifada."

[N.E. Brigand]

While I certainly see your point, on the whole I think the analogy does not hold.
[... various interesting arguments undercutting my Dresden/Poland analogy ...]

Let me try a different analogy. If Jack stabs five of his neighbors to death, including the husband and kids of Sally who lives across the street, and Sally comes home just after, realizes what's going on, pulls out her machine gun, and fires it indiscriminately across the street, hitting not only Jack's house but those several adjacent homes, and killing 25 people, both Jack (who somehow survived) and Sally deserve to go to jail! But it would be a travesty of justice if the police only arrest Sally.

(And if that arrest leads to a riot in which the whole neighborhood is burned to the ground, and the police have good reason to think that's likely to happen, I'd like them to exercise some discretion and not act precipitously. It sucks that Israel can hold the world hostage right now -- because the wrong move will lead to Donald Trump defeating Joe Biden in this year's presidential election and then turning the U.S. into a dictatorship and maybe Trump starts World War III -- but that's what we have to consider.)

[N.E. Brigand]

Some levity from South America:



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I agree with this: "It’s weird to organize protests and then complain that they are getting covered."

[Voronwë the Faithful]

While I certainly see your point, on the whole I think the analogy does not hold.
[... various interesting arguments undercutting my Dresden/Poland analogy ...]

Let me try a different analogy. If Jack stabs five of his neighbors to death, including the husband and kids of Sally who lives across the street, and Sally comes home just after, realizes what's going on, pulls out her machine gun, and fires it indiscriminately across the street, hitting not only Jack's house but those several adjacent homes, and killing 25 people, both Jack (who somehow survived) and Sally deserve to go to jail! But it would be a travesty of justice if the police only arrest Sally.

But the decision as to whether to charge Sally would still be independent of the decision as to whether to charge Jack.

[N.E. Brigand]

But the decision as to whether to charge Sally would still be independent of the decision as to whether to charge Jack.

One would hope so, but I think one would often be wrong.

Edited to add: international bodies don't have the best track record here: "Since the UNHRC's creation in 2006, it has resolved almost as many resolutions condemning Israel alone than on issues for the rest of the world combined. The 45 resolutions comprised almost half (45.9%) of all country-specific resolutions passed by the UNHRC, not counting those under Agenda Item 10 (countries requiring technical assistance)." Maybe the ICC is better?

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Edited to add tangentially: Horseshoe theory strikes again. (Underpants gnomes, too.) Anti-war protesters calling for the University of Alabama to disinvest from Lockheed Martin team up with Trump supporters to collectively chant "F*** Joe Biden."

Edited again to note a new column by Nate Silver titled "For most people, politics is about fitting in." While not sure all the parts hang together, a number of Silver's ideas are at least interesting to think about.

Edited again (why not?) to note that there is indeed irony in the fact that UCLA pro-Palestinian protesters are complaining that the police didn't protect them from violent pro-Israel counter-protesters in light of the fact that one of the pro-Palestinian protesters' published goals is to "abolish policing" and for the university to "sever all ties" with the Los Angeles police department. That's a sword that cuts two ways, though: the fact that the cops did nothing for hours while the protesters were attacked arguably proves the protesters were right to disdain them.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Edited to add: international bodies don't have the best track record here: "Since the UNHRC's creation in 2006, it has resolved almost as many resolutions condemning Israel alone than on issues for the rest of the world combined. The 45 resolutions comprised almost half (45.9%) of all country-specific resolutions comprised almost half (45.9%) of all country-specific resolutions passed by the UNHRC, not counting those under Agenda Item 10 (countries requiring technical assistance)." Maybe the ICC is better?

Sadly, I don't think it is.

[N.E. Brigand]

I had no idea that Samuel L. Jackson, probably the most financially successful actor ever, kidnapped Martin Luther King Sr. in 1969.

(That's the father of the famous civil rights activist, who had been killed in a year before that.)

I think this piece is very good as it urges the public to redirect their focus from the "decadent" questions about the details of campus protests back to this question: "Why are these people so upset that we're waging a brutal war that's killed 13,000 children?"



That said, some numbers that Hayes mention about past military campaigns that were rightly protested in the U.S. remind us that what is happening in Gaza almost certainly can't be categorized as genocide: more than 400,000 people were killed in the War on Terror and more than 1,000,000 people were killed in Vietnam. In both cases, most of the dead were civilians. And neither horrible figure is generally understood to mean that the U.S. engaged in genocide.

[RoseMorninStar]

I don't know enough about this subject to discuss at length, but I would imagine genocide is not determined by sheer numbers alone. I would think the percentage of the population would be more descriptive. In WWII, by number, more Jewish people were killed than Roma peoples, but by percentage, because there were fewer Roma people, it took a devastating toll on their community and culture. Intentionally wiping out a tribe of 10 could be genocide.

[N.E. Brigand]

I don't know enough about this subject to discuss at length, but I would imagine genocide is not determined by sheer numbers alone. I would think the percentage of the population would be more descriptive. In WWII, by number, more Jewish people were killed than Roma peoples, but by percentage, because there were fewer Roma people, it took a devastating toll on their community and culture. Intentionally wiping out a tribe of 10 could be genocide.

That's a fair point. The population of Vietnam in 1965 was about 40 million, so 1 million dead would be about 2.5%. The population of Gaza is about 2 million, so 35,000 dead is about 1.75%. Although I'm not sure what counts as a people for this discussion. Theoretically Gaza and the West Bank are to become one state with two disjunct parts. There are another 3 million people in the West Bank, and if they're included, the Palestinian death toll from the current war is about 0.7%. On the other hand, Vietnam lost those one million over the course of more than a decade. If this war were to continue that long, presumably the number of dead will rise much higher as a percentage. On the other other hand, if this war somehow concludes quickly -- say, in less than a year -- both the percentage of the dead and the overall trauma of the war could be much less. (And yes, I get that its gross to reduce so many lives ended to mere numbers, which was also a point Chris Hayes makes in that video.)

[River]

Genocide is defined as the intentional destruction of a particular chunk of the human population. The actual number is immaterial. No one's accusing the US of genocide in Vietnam because our goal there was not to destroy the Vietnamese people. In fact, the belief was we were there to save them. The stated aim of Hamas, however, is to destroy the Israeli people. Israel is working hard to stay on the other side of the messy line between defending themselves from an existential threat (see Hamas's stated aim) and intentionally destroying the Palestinian people. Their actions aren't necessarily aligning with their mouths on this, but, when it comes to throwing around accusations of genocide, one really needs to keep the meaning of the word in mind.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Exactly, River.

[N.E. Brigand]

There were more protests in Israel tonight. One group marching around the military headquarters in Tel Aviv was chanting "Replace him! Save them!"

"Him" of course means Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. There were reports over the past 24 hours that Hamas is now willing to release the hostages without an Israeli guarantee to permanently end hostilities, and that Israel was seriously considering this option, and that the U.S. has informed Hamas that following a 40-day-truce, the war would be over (because the U.S. will cut off Israeli aid?), but two behind-the-scenes statements by Netanyahu were leaked today in what is seen as a deliberate attempt to throw cold water on these talks. (In a very unusual development, several Israeli reporters have flatly said that Netanyahu himself is the "senior political source" being credited with the leaks.) In one of the leaked comments, Netanyahu insists Israel is going to move forward with the pending invasion of Rafah, the only large city in Gaza not yet under Israel's control.

Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak says those statements "and the fact that Gantz and Eizenkot were barred from the phone call in which the decision was made not to send the Israeli delegation to Cairo reflect panic. Netanyahu is trying to thwart a deal to free the hostages. Together with operation in Rafah, this is a recipe for 'total loss' not 'total victory'. The government leads only to abyss. Gantz and Eisenkot! Get out of there! Only shutting down the country will stop the disaster!"

Benny Gantz and Gadi Eizenkot are members of opposition parties who joined Netanyahu in a national unity government following the attack on Oct. 6th.

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Meanwhile the situation in Gaza grows ever more dire. Cindy McCain (the widow of John McCain) heads the U.N.'s World Food Programme and said yesterday that there is "full-blown famine" in the north of Gaza.

But apparently it's not going to be enough to ship food into Gaza (via the new U.S. pier that will open next week -- plans to finish it this week have been delayed by bad weather at sea). You also have to send cash as well. Why? Because Hamas controls the distribution of food to Gazans, and they won't just give it away for free. (I gather this is not really news: Hamas has long operated that way.)

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I'm seeing some attempt from the right and the left to conflate the White House reaction to two different incidents. Yesterday at the University of Mississippi, a bunch of white male students directed racist taunts (including hooting like a monkey) at a black pro-Palestinian protester. Rep. Mike Collins, a Republican from 1860s Georgia, tweeted approvingly that these idiot frat boys were "taking care of business." President Biden and the White House have not (yet) been asked to comment on this incident.

But earlier yesterday, a reporter asked White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre whether President Biden would donate to a fundraising campaign -- which so far has raised nearly $500,000 -- to throw a party for fraternity members at the University of North Carolina who recovered a U.S. flag that had been taken down and replaced with the Palestinian flag by protesters there. After Jean-Pierre explained that President Biden believed in the importance both of free speech and of non-violence, the reporter pressed her again for an answer, and she replied simply, "Look, protecting the American flag is admirable. I'll leave it there".

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Edited again (why not?) to note that there is indeed irony in the fact that UCLA pro-Palestinian protesters are complaining that the police didn't protect them from violent pro-Israel counter-protesters in light of the fact that one of the pro-Palestinian protesters' published goals is to "abolish policing" and for the university to "sever all ties" with the Los Angeles police department. That's a sword that cuts two ways, though: the fact that the cops did nothing for hours while the protesters were attacked arguably proves the protesters were right to disdain them.

One frustrating thing about much social media commentary on the campus protests is that those on each side of the debate tend to ignore facts provided by the other. Very few people on the right acknowledge the violent attack by pro-Israel counter-protesters that lasted some three hours Tuesday night. But very few people on the left acknowledge that pro-Palestinian protesters had injured a pro-Israel counter-protester on Sunday. I'm not saying that the first incident justifies the second, but it problem inflamed tensions. The injured woman is actually Iranian-Israeli, and she was interviewed here by NBC.

[Frelga]

That was not the first violent incident coming from this movement. In my own hometown a counterprotestor was attacked and pushed to the ground. Across the different protest sites we've seen signs calling for genocide of the Jewish people and spouting Nazi slogans. Swastikas have been drawn on the walls.

It is not surprising that Jewish communities are waking up to the fact that no one is going to protect us but ourselves.

[N.E. Brigand]

Israel's Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu and the entire cabinet unanimously made the awful decision today to shut down Al Jazeera offices in Israel, and the government has already seized the company's broadcasting equipment.

[Frelga]

Hamas bombed border crossing from Israel to prevent aid from reaching Gaza.

MSN

Meanwhile, Israel closed the Kerem Shalom border crossing to humanitarian trucks after it was hit by at least 10 rockets on Sunday morning, according to the IDF.

The crossing has been central to getting aid into Gaza.

It wasn’t immediately clear where exactly the rockets had landed in the area or if there were any injuries or fatalities. The Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, said it had targeted the crossing with rockets.