I'm mostly working on the Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll this week, and probably every week until the first of January, so this weekly exercise is being demoted to a part-time, background project, making it even more cryptic and scattered than usual.
Still, let me say a few words up top -- or reiterate, as I've said pretty much the same thing in recent weeks. The main story is, again, Israel's war, which is no longer just against Gaza, but has extended to the West Bank and the border with Lebanon. Israel's leaders have always understood themselves to be at war with the Palestinian people and the broader Arab neighborhood, the purpose of which is to utterly dominate the region, reducing Palestinians to an "utterly defeated people," out of sight and out of mind, effectively dead. You can date their war back to 1948, or earlier. You can find seeds in Herzl's 1896 The Jewish State, which started growing in 1920 when Britain set up its "Jewish homeland," playing its typical divide-and-conquer game. But the idea is older still: at least since 1492, Europeans have moved to new lands and immediately started plotting to subjugate, or better still eliminate, the people they found there. So this first point, that the war did not start on October 7, should be too obvious to have to dwell on. Still, we may treat it as a new phase or level, as the shock of the Oct. 7 revolt gave Israel an excuse to implement the genocide that Zionism always implied.
The second point is that the Oct. 7 revolt, and the subsequent retaliation and escalation by Israel, was not necessary, and could easily have been prevented, at least by Israel's current and recent leaders. (Most obviously Netanyahu, but it's hard to discern any fundamental differences going back to, well, Ben-Gurion, with only Sharett and Rabin offering vague and conflicted gestures that might have pointed toward some form of peaceful co-existence.)
Israel -- by which I mean its political leaders, a group that could have fit within a meeting room and/or a conference call, and not the whole nation -- could simply have decided to contain the damage of Oct. 7, and not to compound the damage by retaliating. They didn't do so because they've locked themselves into a logic that tries to solve all problems by asserting their power. They may argue that their policies have worked well enough so far, so will work well enough in the future, but they are wrong: they've only appeared to have worked because they've never seriously assayed the costs.
The revolt itself could have been prevented in either of two ways. The specific people who organized and led the revolt -- for lack of more precise names, we might as well follow everyone else and call them Hamas, but we're talking about a small and isolated subset of people affiliated with Hamas, and quite probably others not in any way part of Hamas -- presumably had enough free will (but do we really know this?) to have decided not to act. That they did revolt suggests not malice so much as desperation, and mere luck in the outcome.
The other way to prevent revolt is to create conditions where Palestinians would have no compelling reason to revolt. There are lots of things that can be done in this regard (and Israel has even, on rare occasions, tried some, which worked as well as they could, as long as they were in place). Almost all internal conflicts end, or simply fade into oblivion, with some kind of accommodation. Israel is peculiarly, but not inevitably, resistant to the idea, but it's the only real path out of their quandry.
Given these percepts, I've laid out a fairly simple way to end the war in Gaza, which gives Israel a free hand to implement when they are ready, which is favorable enough to Israeli interests they should be happy to accept, and which accords Palestinians in Gaza a fair hope for respect and recovery. It does not attempt to solve any issues beyond the Gaza front, so does not require Israel to address its abuses of Palestinians within Israel and its other occupied territories, or its border issues with other countries. Very briefly, the steps are:
Israel withdraws its forces from Gaza, and ceases fire on Gaza, except for reserving the right to retaliate within a limited period of time (say, 12 hours) for any subsequent attack launched from Gaza. The sooner the better, but no one can/will force Israel to withdraw, so they can destroy as much as they can stomach, until they tire and/or become too embarrassed to continue.
Israel cedes its claim to Gaza, its air space, and adjacent sea, to the United Nations. The UN accepts, and sets up a temporary governing authority. (Israel may continue to conduct air and sea recognizance and interception until other arrangements are in place.) The UN authority will control the dispensation of aid, which will be allowed in only if all hostages are released and no resistance is offered.
There will be blanket amnesty for all Gazans, for all Israelis engaged with Gaza, and for the government of Israel, for all acts up to the cease fire date. Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and any other armed groups within Gaza, will cease to exist as organizations, and be banned from reforming. Individual members of those groups will be covered by the blanket amnesty. It is not necessary to disarm people, but a buy back program for arms and munitions would be a good idea.
The UN will issue passports for Gaza, which will allow residents to leave and return at any later date.
The UN will organize several levels of advisory councils, and operate subject to their agreement. The easiest way to organize these councils would be to select members at random, allowing anyone thus selected to select another person in their place. This will lead to elections in a year or two. In the meantime the UN will organize competent administration, police, and courts, primarily employing locals.
After a couple years, Gaza will be recognized as an independent country, with normal full sovereignty, and will be able to renegotiate its relations with the UN, and with any other countries. It should be understood that its borders are permanently defined, and that it cannot call itself Palestine (as that might imply extraterritorial ambitions).
Note that nothing here requires Israel to dismantle its apartheid regime elsewhere, nor does it protect Israel from war crime and human rights charges (except for Gaza up to the hand off). Nothing here keeps world from showing its reservations over Israel, especially through BDS programs. Israel will remain, for the time anyway, racist and militarist. It just won't have Gaza to kick around any more. Given how much kicking they've done, especially since 2006, that in itself should reduce the conflict, and make other aspects of it easier to deal with, but that ultimately depends on Israelis growing up and becoming responsible citizens of the world, as opposed to their current preference as tyrants over one small patch of it.
I'm pretty certain that, given the chance, a democratic Gaza will not tolerate any attacks on Israel. Some Gazans may still decide to join ISIS or other extremist groups, but they will have to go into exile to do so, and will no longer be Gaza's responsibility. Plus, there will be far fewer of them once Israel stops "mowing the grass."
Other topics could be added to this, but why complicate things? I believe that there should be a right to exile, which would allow Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails to leave the country. That would be a better solution than simply trading hostages/prisoners.
My guiding rule for negotiations is to try to get to the right answer, one that works for all sides, with a minimum of impacts, and measure to increase trust and transparency. That may not always be possible, in which case you should look for other ways to compensate for perceived losses. (Gaza, in particular, is going to need a lot of aid.)
Let's put this part in bold:
Once you get to peace and justice, lots of things become possible. But it all starts with an Israeli cease-fire. That's all it takes to stop the killing, to halt the destruction. And that will at least slow down Israel's presently inexorable moral decay of into genocide -- and that of America, seeing as our leaders are currently in lockstep with Israel. So demand it! For once, it's obvious what's best for everyone!
Israel:
Mondoweiss: I'm not up to dredging through the daily New York Times reports on the war, but this heroic website gives you a better accounting of the tragic consequences of senseless war, and a lot less propaganda spin.
[11-15] Day 40: Israeli forces storm Al-Shifa Hospital, strip-naked and arrest people inside.
[11-16] Day 41: Israel ignores legally binding UNSC resolution, saying 'it will not happen.
[11-17] Day 42: Communications blackout obscures full picture of Israel's devastation in Gaza.
[11-18] Day 43: Israeli forces order evacuation of Al-Shifa' hospital, bomb schools in Gaza.
Spencer Ackerman: [11-17] Gaza shows the difference between international law and the "rules-based international order": "Adherence to US hegemony determines who does -- and does not -- get to violate the architecture restraining state violence."
Hugo Albuquerque: [11-17] Israeli Communist leader: The Netanyahu government has no answers: Interview with Eli Gozansky.
Michael Arria: [11-16] March for Israel: "Thousands gathered in Washington this week to support Israel. The Israeli Consulate announced 290,000 people attended, while estimates show they were off by about 265,000. Still, support for Israel from elected officials was clear." Is there anything less meaningful than organizing a public showing of support for the powers that be?
M Reza Benham: [11-15] The catastrophic roots of Zionism in Palestine: History back to Herzl, plus a suggestion that "it is time for the Arab world to use its formidable oil weapon to end the carnage." I don't see that happening: the "weapon" is less formidable now than in the 1970s, the political will is lacking (maybe the "Arab street" identifies with Palestinians, but the sheiks don't), and it's only been used of late to prop up sagging prices.
Nader Durgham: [11-16] Do you want to understand the Gaza war? Look at the Beirut siege of 1982?
Malay Firoz: [11-17] The unforgivable hypocrisy of the American liberal.
Lev Grinberg: [11-15] For all its military might, Israel succumbed to its most fatal weakness: "The illusion that Israel could control Gaza endlessly is rooted in a dysfunctional political system that is incapable of imagining an alternative future."
Jonathan Guyer: [11-18] Most of Israel's weapons imports come from the US. Now Biden is rushing even more arms.
Yoav Haifawi: [11-18] First Tel Aviv anti-war demonstration reveals the limits on protest in today's Israel.
Tareq S Hajjaj: [11-16] Rainfall on a destroyed Gaza could spell disaster.
Jeet Heer: [11-17] Israel's ludicrous propaganda wins over the only audience that counts: "Why make an effort to be credible if you're going to be uncritically echoed by the White House and the Western press?"
Marc Owen Jones: [11-15] Israel's comically bad disinfo proves they're losing the PR war.
Rashid Khalidi: [11-18] A paradigm shift in the hundred years' war on Palestine?
Talia Lavin: [11-17] These evangelicals are cheering the Gaza war as the end of the world: "Some far-right Christian leaders believe the bloodshed portends the second coming of Christ."
Eric Levitz: [11-16] Sam Harris's fairy-tale account of the Israel-Hamas conflict: Harris first gained attention as a rare guy who was evangelical about atheism, which seemed like a refreshing twist, but turned out to be just another bigoted bore. So no surprise that "on questions of foreign policy, Harris's thinking can become nearly as dogmatic and blinkered as that of the religious zealots he's dedicated himself to discrediting."
Branko Marcetic:
[11-15] US will take massive hit in global standing over Israel: "Washington's seeming refusal to use its leverage to stop civilian carnage may do more damage than even the Iraq War, experts say."
[11-16] US critics of Israel's war are being slandered for making the same criticisms as Israelis.
Ruth Michaelson/Kaamil Ahmed: [11-19] 'It's basically hell on earth': Gaza City left totally bereft of healthcare.
Mahmoud Mushtaha: [11-14] Palestinians fear 'slow death' as hunger and thirst spread in Gaza.
Nicole Narea/Sigal Samuel: [11-13] How to think through allegations of genocide in Gaza: This is a long trawl through arguments I've dealt with extensively in recent weeks. I don't have time to rehash them here, but my considered take is pretty straightforward: the intent of Israel's leaders is clearly genocidal; Israel's actions (bombing, armed incursions, blockades) are indiscriminate, effectively aimed at the whole population; until Israel halts those operations, they merit the charge of genocide; if/when Israel ceases fire, withdraws, and allows third parties to provide aid, we might consider reducing the charge, as only such a end to hostilities can counter the charge. And, needless to say, the longer they take, the less credible their excuses.
James North:
Jonathan Ofir/Yonathan Shapira/Ofer Neiman: [11-09] Do not dismiss the Gaza genocide allegations: Starts by noting an article by Eitay Mack in Harretz which tries to do just that.
Gareth Porter: [11-17] Israeli deceit and the battle of Shifa Hospital: Also links to updates, including: [11-16] Israel searches for traces of Hamas in read of key Gaza hospital, finding "no command centre, hostages, Hamas fighters."
Ali Rizk: [11-17] How US, Hezbollah interests align amid Gaza war: "Both worry about being dragged into a wider regional conflict." But both have funny ways of showing that, because Israel is locked into warring on Hezbollah, and the US is locked into blind support of Israel.
Richard Silverstein:
[11-16] Israel's state of perpetual war and death: "Plans to wipe out 'hundreds' of Gaza families in revenge for Hamas attack."
[11-18] There's nothing Jewish about genocide: "We must not permit Israel to implicate us as Jews in its crimes."
Aidan Simardone: [11-17] Israeli weapons are common to the displacement in Nagorno-Karabakh and Gaza.
Reis Thebault: [11-18] Palestinian Americans face fear, violence amid Israel's war in Gaza.
Philip Weiss: [11-19] Washington's approval of unending massacre is a 'stain upon our souls'. I haven't been citing Weiss's "Weekly Briefing" posts, but also see:
Robert Wright: [11-17] The truth about Hamas: This pretty much matches my understanding, at least from 2006. Israelis often complain about "not having a partner for peace," but there's little evidence that they ever wanted peace, and there's frequent evidence that they've pushed Palestinians into more radical stands so they'd have an excuse not to negotiate with them.
Li Zhou: [11-15] The dire medical crisis in Gaza, explained.
Trump, and other Republicans:
Mark Alfred: [11-17] Trump engaged in insurrection but can stay on Colorado's ballot anyway, court rules.
Zack Beauchamp: [11-14] When Trump tells you he's an authoritarian, believe him: "He's talking like a fascist. He's planning fascist policies. He's staffing up with fascists."
Ben Beckett: [11-16] Donald Trump has serious plans for the mass violations of civil rights.
Bob Bishop: [11-17] Nikki Strangelove: 'How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb.'
Ryan Cooper:
[11-13] 'Moms for Liberty' fanatics lose out big-time: "It turns out that most parents are repelled by howling red-faced bigots threatening teachers and trying to ban books."
[11-15] House Republicans circle their own budget ouroboros once more
Jarod Facundo: [11-15] Oklahoma Senator driven to violent frenzy by Teamsters president.
Margaret Hartmann: [11-17] Trump's most unhinged plans for his second term.
Zachary Petrizzo: [11-16] Trumpworld is already at war over staffing a new Trump White House.
Luke Savage: [11-16] Rick Santorum just came out and said what conservatives really think of democracy.
Matt Stieb: [11-17] The end looks near for George Santos.
Biden and/or the Democrats:
Joe Biden: [11-18] The U.S. won't back down from the challenge of Putin and Hamas: But will the U.S. even recognize the challenge of Netanyahu and Zelensky? Like the proverbial hammer seeing everything else as a nail, the most heavily armed nation in the world hardly requires conscious thought to "stand up and fight."
Kyle Anzalone: [11-16] Biden has 'productive discussion' with Xi, then slams Chinese leader as 'dictator'. Speaking "truth to power" may be overrated, given that power is rarely open to truth, but going behind power's back just makes you look petty.
Mark Murray: [11-19] Poll: Biden's standing hits new lows amid Israel-Hamas war: Washington loves a good war. The American people, not so much so.
Andrew O'Hehir: [11-18] Joe Biden at history's crossroads: Is backing Bibi's Gaza war a fatal mistake?
Nathan J Robinson: [11-15] Does democracy mainly mean voting for Democrats?: "Heather Cox Richardson's narrative of Good Democrats and Bad Republicans lets liberals off the hook for their political failures." I've read two of her books on the Republican Party, and a few of her Substack columns, all of which are well researched and sensibly written, and I've put a lot of thought into writing a book exactly along those lines, so I was a pretty good prospect to pick up her new book, Democracy Awakening. But one thing that stopped me cold was a column (or maybe just a tweet) praising Biden's great accomplishments in foreign policy. I was surprised to find myself being pleasantly surprised by many aspects of the Biden presidency, but foreign policy has not been one of them.
Alexander Sammon: [11-15] The Squad is about to fight for its political life: "AIPAC wants to show progressives that 'no one is safe from their wrath.'"
Jeremy Scahill: [11-14] Biden's legacy should be forever haunted by the names of Gaza's dead children: "Biden's support for the terror bombing of Gaza continues his long history as a steadfast supporter of Israel's greatest crimes."
Legal matters and other crimes:
Bindu Bansinath: [11-17] Ex-cop Brett Hankison again avoids conviction in Breonna Taylor killing.
Ian Millhiser:
Climate and environment:
Scott Dance: [11-19] Earth passed a feared global warming milestone Friday, at least briefly: "Average global temperatures were more than 2 degrees Celsius above a pre-industrial benchmark on Friday, preliminary data show."
Chico Harlan: [11-14] The world is 'woefully off track' on dozens of climate goals, scientists find.
Umair Irgan/Rebecca Leber: [11-14] Biden gives center state to the climate report Trump tried to bury.
Economic matters:
Dean Baker:
[11-16] New York Times publishes hit piece on Bidenomics. The piece is by Karen Petrou [11-16] Bidenomics has a mortal enemy, and it isn't Trump. The Petrou piece has some of the most astonishing "how to lie with statistics" charts I've seen in years.
[11-19] Washington Post does its trash the Biden economy piece of the day. This one is by Abha Bhattarai: [11-19] New college grads are more likely to be unemployed in today's job market. That's 4.4%, vs. 3.6% for all workers.
Ukraine War and American Geopolitics: While the Ukraine quagmire only deepens, other stories pop up that fit into the broader domain of America's arms racket and imperial ambitions.
Blaise Malley: [11-17] Diplomacy Watch: White House acknowledges difficult path ahead on Ukraine aid.
Connor Echols: [11-16] Pentagon fails sixth audit in a row.
Alex Horton/Dan Lamothe/Abigail Hauslohner: [11-19] A split emerges as Biden struggles to deter attacks on U.S. troops: Complaining about "Iranian proxies" in Syria and Iraq. I have three suggestions: leave; normalize relations with Iran; stop irritating everyone with blind support for Israeli genocide. Deterrence is much less likely to work than any of these. Partly because the targets are ill-defined, but mostly because it doesn't work. The first lesson we should learn from Ukraine is that strategies based on deterrence and sanctions are more likely to provoke than to stabilize conflict.
John-Baptiste Oduor: [11-17] How Britain became America's stooge: Cue picture of GW Bush and his "poodle." A review of Tom Stevenson: Someone Else's Empire: British Illusions and American Hegemony.
Nicolai N Petro/Ted Snider: [11-17] What's next for Ukraine: The outlines of a peaceful settlement: First I've heard of this "special status agreement." I've argued that the disputed territories should be given the choice in new elections (preferably with a second referendum in 5-7 years). The authors are certainly right that the only way to end the war is to negotiate something tolerable to both sides.
James A Russell: [11-16] Ukraine challenges conventional wisdom of war on the high seas.
Michael D Swaine: [11-16] The lost opportunity of the Biden-Xi meeting.
Around the world:
Michael Horton: [11-17] Yemen's drone doom loop: A model of instability for fragile states.
Steven Kosiak: [11-15] Is China's military the Goliath it's portrayed to be?
Tom Phillips: [11-19] Argentina presidential election: far-right libertarian Javier Milei wins after rival concedes: I have no time or interest to dig into this, but my previous research suggested that Milei will instantly move to the top of the list of Worst Presidents in the World. Of course, how bad he really turns out to be will depend on how much real control he has over a very confusing political system.
Liza Featherstone: [11-17] Rich people in the US have been allowed to get way too rich.
Paul Rosenberg: [11-19] When a liberal president goes to war: Lessons of the LBJ era are relevant today.
Jeffrey St Clair: [11-17] Roaming Charges: Politics of the lesser exterminators.
Legacy: [11-19] Gerald "Jerry" Paske: Obituary. I'm saddened to note the death of my first philosophy professor, at 90. He taught the 101 intro course at Wichita State University, a big lecture class, and immediately turned us to reading Charles Sanders Peirce, the most interesting of the American pragmatists, and a perhaps unknowing gateway into the Marburg Neokantians. He always seemed like a decent, sensible guy, but the event that most impressed me was when, immediately after the Attica massacre, he put aside his prepared text and talked extemporaneously about the contempt for humanity that stoked the slaughter. After we returned to Wichita, he had retired, but every now and then he would write letters to the Eagle, always insightful, reliably decent. I found out then that he had written a short book, Why the Fundamentalist Right Is So Fundamentally Wrong. I tried to get in touch with him after my nephew Mike Hull finished his movie, Betrayal at Attica, but I never heard back.
[PS: In looking Paske up, I also found out that another of my WSU philosophy professors, Anthony Genova, died in 2010. I took his course on logic, which was mostly symbolic, but the opening section on informal fallacies was eye-opening. There are dozens of examples in the pieces I cite every week.]
I also see that Jonathan David Mott, the author of the blog Zandar Versus the Stupid, has passed away, at 48. I can't say as I've ever read him, but got the tip from No More Mister Nice Blog, who wrote: "He was always one of the most perceptive bloggers out there, and I will miss hearing from him as the world goes to hell."
I'm reminded that Norman G. Finkelstein published a book in 2018 called Gaza: An Inquest Into Its Martyrdom, which seems a bit premature at the moment, but no more so than it would have been to write a book on how alarming you found Nazi anti-semitism after Kristallnacht in 1938 (or after the Nuremberg Laws in 1935, when the die was cast, but still cloaked under the guise of law). Still, the book goes into great detail on Operation Cast Lead, the Goldstone Report, the Mavi Marmara, and Operation Protective Edge. The preface opens:
This book is not about Gaza. It is about what has been done to Gaza. It is fashionable nowadays to speak of a victim's agency. But one must be realistic about the constraints imposed on such agency by objective circumstance. Frederick Douglass could reclaim his manhood by striking back at a slave master who viciously abused him. Nelson Mandela could retain his dignity in jail despite conditions calibrated to humiliate and degrade him. Still, these were exceptional individuals and exceptional circumstances, and anyhow, even if he acquits himself with honor, the elemental decisions affecting the daily life of a man held in bondage and the power to effect these decisions remain outside his control. Gaza, as former British prime minister David Cameron observed, is an "open-air prison." The Israeli warden is in charge.
It's unfortunate that we keep resorting to Nazi Germany, Apartheid South Africa, the Slave Power in the United States, to provide some historical context for what Israel has done to Gaza, but those are by far the most relevant examples we are mostly aware of. But that's pretty much Israel's peer group. And I suppose those examples do offer one small bit of hope: they offer a range of possible endings to the still unfinished story of Israel and Gaza. In South Africa, reason and decency dismantled Apartheid. The other two regimes were destroyed in war, but not before the Nazis killed 6 million Jews, and lost 12 million of their own. The slave states lost their war as badly, but recovered to create a new system of oppression, which took another 100 years to dismantle (and could still use some work).