Congressional Democrats are feuding over a Tweet by Rep Josh Gottheimer who blasted colleagues for not condemning Hamas. Rep Carson offered to settle the issue physically.
Rep Josh Gottheimer Calls 15 Colleagues Despicable
Last night, 15 of my Democratic colleagues voted AGAINST standing with our ally Israel and condemning Hamas terrorists who brutally murdered, raped, and kidnapped babies, children, men, women, and elderly, including Americans. They are despicable and do not speak for our party.
Deep Divide Among Democrats
“If he wants to play some kind of tough guy .. we can handle it like gentleman or we can get into something else.”
Public Relations Propaganda War
A battle for public relations and sympathy is underway. That’s Hamas’s Second-Stage Strategy.
“I just want to remind the world, Palestinian mothers love their children just as much as any other mother in the world,” Jordan’s Queen Rania said on CNN last week. Are we being told that it is wrong to kill a family, an entire family, at gunpoint, but it’s OK to shell them to death?”
Suddenly the talk of Israeli grandmothers and babies being butchered by Hamas has given way to reports of Palestinian children killed by the Israel Defense Forces. And so Queen Rania asks: Aren’t Palestinian lives as precious as Israeli ones?
Of course they are. But to focus on death counts alone—without looking to how and why people were killed—is to reduce this war to a grim PR battle of photos and numbers.
But nothing Hamas does is to protect the Palestinian people. Hamas has built a sophisticated tunnel network to protect its members from Israeli bombs and missiles. Has anyone seen a comparable network of shelters to safeguard the Palestinians Hamas claims to be fighting for? Hamas locates its ammunition caches and command centers in these tunnels beneath schools, hospitals and mosques, so that any Israeli fire necessarily will mean more civilian casualties.
The disturbing truth about Hamas’s second stage is this: Palestinian deaths are more useful to Hamas even than Israeli deaths.
The innocent people killed by Allied bombs were incidental to the military objective. To the Nazis, killing innocent people was the objective.
That’s what makes Hamas members war criminals. On Oct. 7, they executed a plan to target, attack and murder innocent Israelis. Now that they have the Israeli counterattack they counted on, they are trying to use the Palestinian dead to claim victimhood.
Israel Hits Hamas Tunnels as Ground Offensive Intensifies
The Wall Street Journal reports Israel Hits Hamas Tunnels as Ground Offensive Intensifies
Israeli ground troops, backed by tanks and jet fighters, are expanding their operations against Hamas in Gaza, carrying out more raids, exchanging fire with militants and calling in strikes on the group’s vast tunnel network, as pressure grows on the remaining civilians in the northern part of the enclave to flee the battlefield.
The war entered a new, delicate stage on Friday, when Israeli ground troops and heavily armored vehicles entered the Gaza Strip with the goal of eradicating Hamas from the enclave following the group’s assault on Israel on Oct. 7.
Israel has said it would be a long war that will gradually expand. One of the early war objectives is to target the Hamas command structure to weaken the group’s ability to resist Israel’s advance into Gaza.
Massive Unprovoked Attack on Israel Seems Geared to Sabotage Peace Accord
On October 8, I commented Massive Unprovoked Attack on Israel Seems Geared to Sabotage Peace Accord
Peace efforts between Saudi Arabia and Israel may have just gone down the drain. If so, that appears to be the goal of Hamas.
Several readers challenged my comment “unprovoked”. My comment stands.
There is no justification, not now, not ever, for war crimes.
Hamas terrorists brutally murdered, raped, and kidnapped babies, children, men, women, and elderly. They tortured kids in front of parents and parents in front of kids.
If You Don’t Openly Condemn Hamas, Then Don’t Complain What Happens Next
On October 14, I commented If You Don’t Openly Condemn Hamas, Then Don’t Complain What Happens Next
One person replied, “If you do not condemn Israel then don’t complain what happens next.”
Sorry, that defense is feeble. Israel’s mission is not to kill civilians. It’s to destroy Hamas. Innocent people will undoubtedly die in the process.
There is a massive difference between unfortunate collateral damage and purposeful war crimes committed by Hamas.
I Am Not Rah Rah Israel
Please bear in mind that I am not rah, rah, Israel. I strongly dislike Israeli prime minister Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Nor do I like the US defense in the UN of any actions Israel takes.
I was a long term believer in a two-state solution and I did not support many actions Netanyahu has taken. Unfortunately, I fail to see how any two-state solution is possible now.
Hamas does not want a two-state solution. It wants a one-state solution will all Jews killed. That is their mission and they were cheering the slaughter of innocent kids.
‘Level the Place,’ Declares Lindsey Graham
Senator Lindsey Graham says ‘Level the Place’
Itching for War, US Bombs Syria, Sends 900 More Troops to the Mideast
On October 27, I commented Itching for War, US Bombs Syria, Sends 900 More Troops to the Mideast
The US strikes on suspected Iranian-supported bases in Syria calling it self defense.
Allegedly, we are only “sending a message”.
But it seems to me that if the US did not have troops in Syria where they don’t belong and were not invited (an act of war by the US), then the troops would not have been attacked, and thus no counterattack message would need to be sent.
I suspect my line of reasoning might be too logical to make any sense, especially when there is plenty of support for starting a war in Iran.
Not Our War
This is not our war. We should not have troops in Syria, Iraq, or Afghanistan. US meddling in all of those places made everything worse.
The US invasion of Iraq led to the formation of ISIS and a major immigration crisis in Europe.
US sanctions on Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua did not cause the surge of economic refugees at the US border, but they do exacerbate our own border problems.
At every crisis, the US solution is to throw more money and expand militarily at every problem. I suggest we stay out of these hotbeds because history shows we have failed every time.
Sending 900 more troops to Syria on grounds of self-defense is ludicrous because our troops have no business being in Syria.
I fear US involvement in another prolonged war. We learned nothing from Afghanistan, Iraq, or Vietnam.
Janet Yellen Says the US Can Afford Two Wars
Yellen Says Higher Yields Reflect Strength of the Economy and IRA Success, Not the Deficit
At last glance US debt climbed to $33.7 trillion dollars.
One might think that the Secretary of Treasury might consider debt and interest on debt, but one would be wrong.
As further proof of how delusional she is, please consider Yellen Says Higher Yields Reflect Strength of the Economy and IRA Success, Not the Deficit
Now Biden wants more funding for Ukraine and Israel. Republicans in general want more military spending.
We not only don’t belong in these messes we cannot afford them.
I condemn Hamas and any Israeli responses that are tantamount to war crimes (so far, none that I am aware of). However, t’s not our war, and I do not want the US drawn into another one.
This balanced view is sure to offend nearly everyone but the handful of isolationists who condemn Hamas and also those like Graham who would like nothing better than the US to bomb Iran as well.
A brief study of the conflict reveals the only “lasting” settlement of the dispute would be one side’s success in forceful removal of “alll of the “others” from the “all” of the “territory” by any means necessary, including genocide.
Any two state solution imposed by third parties will temporarily allow both sides to prepare to to attack the other. 5,000 years of historical hatred not easily solved by good intent of the west.
The topic of a just and unjust war, with marquess of queensberry rules is nonsense. It’s all bad.
Hamas knows that the Saudis are surrounded by unfriendlies everywhere, and Israel was a valuable ally to have. The Houthis are taking over Yemen, and they are Iranian proxies.
Taking away another ally and then losing ports and access to shipping oil is a high probability to Saudis. And Egypt hates the House of Saud as well.
On the flip side, the incursions into West Bank by Israelis is clearly a land grab
I don’t disagree with most of what you wrote–though the piece is so long-winded I may have missed something. But your apparent belief that you can have a war without war crimes is childish. Israel has been practicing kid-gloves retaliation against its lethal enemies for decades. When the gloves come off, of course it’s ugly. If they have the military superiority and light up a dozen Iranian oil fields, the real shrieking will begin.
“Hamas terrorists brutally murdered, raped, and kidnapped babies, children, men, women, and elderly. They tortured kids in front of parents and parents in front of kids.”
Do you actually have any proof of this, or are you just parotting Israeli propaganda without checking?
There is plenty of proof, even videos if you would bother to look for it. Now go do so and report back.
“Hamas terrorists brutally murdered, raped, and kidnapped babies, children, men, women, and elderly. They tortured kids in front of parents and parents in front of kids.”
I’ve no doubt Hamas is a nasty organization but hyperbole doesn’t help your cause. I have no problem with fake news – I’m able to think for myself – but too many, including the MSM, are not. Next thing you know, garbage becomes truth. For example, I don’t believe you have anything solid to back up your repetition of babies being raped.
It was an inside job Remember the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the incubator babies in Kuwait And the Mossad moving company guys sure did an amazing job with the nanothermite prior to 911 didn’t they Go ahead and call me a tin foiler It’s become a compliment frankly
tell me again why amerika is in this fight or in ukraine…………….? very dumb. we are nihilists and that is a suicide philosophy. we are destroying ourselves and will take our pawn israel down the drain with us too. FFS watch trauma zone documentary about how USSR failed and democrcy failed there, 1985 to 99. lots of parallels………….why are we in this idiot fight backing israel?
Hamas reminds me of the Unman in CS Lewis’s Perelandra. As the personification of evil, the Unman thinks in opposite terms, it’s reasoning is rigid and repetitive, refusing to be swayed or moved by any suggestion of a given good, and dwelling only on its preconceived notion of elevated want. The goal of Hamas is to exterminate Jews, and like the Unman, will use any and every means they need in order to make it happen, as with the unyielding determination of evil.
There is a statistical aspect to this. If 1000 Palestinians are killed there’s a reasonable chance that 3 or 4 of the Hamas were killed. Of course that wouldn’t include the Palestinian kids.
Right on!
Maybe, just because, whatever, the western mind and the eastern mind are not wired the same. Worked with Irania Cobol programmers a long time ago. Once they were gone we couldn’t fix anything. Had to rewrite the code so that it made sense to us. It is in the wire.
Sounds like my experiences in the mid 2000’s with the work by contractors from Hyderabad and Bangalore.
What a mess
Just some random thoughts.
People can get along. Governments / religion dont.
Peace with the Saudis would not benefit Iran. Hamas is just a tool.
One mans terrorist is another mans army.
The people of Palestine have a crappy government.
Given the tunnel system Hamas has created, one technology Israel can use is ground penetrating radar. Knowing the exact location might allow pinpoint missile strikes and reduce collateral damage.
This is our war.
Without US support, Israel is more likely to have to use nuclear weapons to keep the Shia world at bay. Iran/Russia/China response would make that our war.
US support on the front end is lower risk.
Yes it’s our war because of our corrupt rotten politicians bribed by AIPAC and other pro-Israel Lobbies.
There would not be a war if Israel didn’t start this war. Israel has the right to defend itself, but, it failed to do so Oct. 7. It could have used this incident to secure it boarder and take it’s time to target and eliminate Hamas leaders. But instead in rushed in guns blazing. It did that at the Kibbutz killing many innocent Israelis and it’s doing it now in Gaza killing many innocent Palestinians. Its behaving like a mad stupid animal that needs put down.
Oh by the way — he who births the most wins. 10 million Israelis dont have a prayer against 8 kids per female.
“Sorry, that defense is feeble. Israel’s mission is not to kill civilians. It’s to destroy Hamas. Innocent people will undoubtedly die in the process.”
As far as I can see, Israel’s mission is to capture every inch of land from the Palestinians. Slowly but surely in the west bank, unknown yet what it will do to Gaza. I don’t believe they want all Palestinians to be dead, more like either dead or cleansed of their land. And if a million of them die, they don’t care, it’s just non-chosen people anyway. In that way killing civilians is not the mission, it’s the means to an end.
Sorry, Israel’s purpose is to create a humanitarian crisis that they hope will force the Palastienians our of Gaza. Then Israel will have full ownership of the gas reserves found off shore from Gaza.
Killing 3000 Palestinian kids is not getting rid of Hamas. Its swelling its ranks. Hamas is “rope a doping” Israel, and the stupid evil Netanyahu fell fight into the trap.
Nonsense troll
For 75 years two tribes have fought over the same land — a story as old as the bible. Whatever they are doing, it isnt working.
Wrong. Before the Zionist movement, the people in Palestine were living in peace. This included Muslims, Christians and Jews. The crap started to happen in earnest after WW1 when the British controlled the region. The following article discuss a newspaper article about the region back in 1924 and gives a good account of seeds that led to what we see today.
https://www.unz.com/article/destination-1922-a-return-to-claims-of-the-arabs-in-palestine/
1. Regarding ‘proportional response’: how many US civilians were killed by the nazis? Barely any. And Germany did not threaten the very existence of the US. Yet, there were hundreds of thousands of German civilians killed by the US army. And we call US soldiers that killed German civilians “the greatest generation”.
2. . FWIW, if we had the modern fake media back then the WWII would still be on.
You are correct in that there are many facts surrounding WW2 that people are totally unaware of. But the US and Britain should have never entered this war.
But if you are trying to argue that evil behavior of the past justifies evil behavior now, sorry two wrongs don’t make a right.
What? So you’d have the USA sit idly by after being attacked at Pearl Harbor?
And what were we supposed to do….sit idly by after Germany declared war on us and began immediately sinking our ships?
Insanity.
Huh? Germany declared war on the US shortly after Pearl Harbor to support Japan.
german subs off us coast by the hundreds. are you joking comparing this bullshit in israeli apartheid state a threat posed by nazis and japans and even italy under mussolini……… for usa people harms wary.
Israel traded their democracy for security and ended up with neither. Bibi’s spoken goal for the past 20 years is to derail the 2 state solution and for Israel to absorb all the lands it gained during the 1967 war. Why should Palestinians or anyone else in the Arab world negotiate with him?
Eventually Biden (or his democratic replacement) is going to have to face the fact that 50% of democrats sympathize with the plight of the Palestinians and don’t like the Israel government at all. Why Biden tethered himself to nutty Bibi is beyond me.
There’s no easy solution to this conflict. It’s going to get messy and innocents (on both sides) are caught in between. The Israeli’s are going to neutralize Hamas. I don’t see them stopping until that mission is accomplished whether people like it or not.
In the long-term, I can only see the end of this “merry go round” when the Palestinian people kick Hamas out for good, if that’s even possible. I am not holding my breath for that tho.
In the long term, I think the most important thing for Israel is the gradual decline in the economic and military power of the West, compared to other powers. A decline such that it will be impossible for Israel to rely solely on aid from the West, and it will be necessary to find something else to survive.
The parasite will have used up its host and look for another Good luck to them They will need it
Wrong. There is an easy solution. The US should stop funding Israel.
Alex,
Cut funding and the conflict would end and their would finally be peace in the region. Such an easy solution, I am sure Hamas/Iran would comply in kind /Sarc.
Here is a similar article talking about the new crack down on the left. While it was OK for Muslim grooming gangs to victimize English girls and for BLM to burn US cities, it is Not OK to criticize Israel. In England they will deport you and in the US you may end up canceled or in jail.
https://www.unz.com/estriker/the-jewish-crackdown-on-the-pro-palestine-left/
What is fascinating is how there is no consideration of the interests of indigenous European people’s interests in all this, whether German, English, or Scandinavian. These folks have been inhabiting their patches of Europe for 10s of thousands of years, and certainly have more claim to Europe than Jews have for the holy land. And yet infinite migration flows from intractable, unassimilable areas are the norm for them, while Israel gets a free pass to ethnically cleanse and have supremacist laws in their patch. It seems these days only jewish lives matter.
Excuse me for pointing out Jews were in that region since biblical days
Biblical times are 3000 – 4000 years old not nearly as long as tribes of celts, slavs, and germans have been evolving and roaming their respective patch of European lands. And yet they have less rights to it than the jews in the holy land. And by the way, we hispanic, white, asian, and black americans are expected to support and now potentially send our kids to fight and die to preserve a jewish ethnostate that would explicitly discriminate against us were we to even live there. Unreal!
Also, a lot of jews in europe are behind driving these migrant flows….the double standard, hypocrisy and audacity is simply awe inspiring.
Mish,
The Palestinians are the Jews of the bible. Ben Gurion the founder of modern Israel said as much.
ben gurion was a terrorist who blew up british in king david hotel. part of reason why UK handed it off to the dumb yanks. the new empire to rule those idiot savage jews and palestinians……….
modern palestine was ruled by empires for most of past 10,000 years, ottomans, romans egyptians arabians….. and before that for 100k years, by africans as a choke point for travel out of africa for human primates…….jews barely ruled anywhere for more than a few little decades…………the rubbish they teach in public schools in amerika. FFS mish.
Stupid arguement using ancient history Mish and you know it
???
There is overwhelming evidence the Jews were in Israel since Biblical days.
Looks like someone needs to dust off their Josephus and Roman history books, written in that day.
Research the Arch of Titus in Rome. Apparently, according to you, Titus carried off the Palestinian menorah, and not the Jewish one, since according to you, the Jews didnt’ live there in Biblical days.
No one, and I mean NO ONE, doubts that the Jews where in Palestine well before the Romans came, except you apparently.
“Excuse me for pointing out Jews were in that region since biblical days”
Isn’t Judaism a religion? Most Israelis are Ashkenazi, originally from Turkey, Judaism is their adopted religion. Ironically, Turkey is threatening to invade Israel. At any rate, these are different people, not descended from the Jews of the Bible and are 21st century additions, no one lives for three thousand years. lol
Everyone on earth is in a holy war, like it or not. Hamas, ISIS, ISIL, Al Queda, M. Brotherhood, Hezbollah, etc. etc. is all one thing.
There is no “moderate” version of it. No more a religion than Stalinism or Nazism. Only invasion, colonization and mass murder without pause for the entirety of its existence.
The “truth” is NOT what we have been spoon fed regarding those created entities Do be so naive
Mish, you wrote,
“Hamas terrorists brutally murdered, raped, and kidnapped babies, children, men, women, and elderly. They tortured kids in front of parents and parents in front of kids.”
Turns out this is nothing but war propganda, much like the debunked beheaded babies. Many of the innocent Israeli civilians killed Oct. 7 were from friendly fire. See for example
https://new.thecradle.co/articles/what-really-happened-on-7th-october
https://www.unz.com/runz/pro-israel-propaganda-lies-vs-reality/#new_comments
Are you surprised the first casualty of war is truth?
The Hamas attack was on legitimate military targets. Unfortunately, the rave concert attendees were at the wrong place, at the wrong time. Also the released hostages have said they were treated well. Of course such thing are not reported on the MSM since they are trying to vilify and cover up for the real war criminal. So far over 7,000 Palestinians have been murdered! Over 3,000 of those are children. Where are our politicians screaming about the brutality and inhumanity? They are over at AIPAC lining their pockets and voting to give $billions of tax payer money to Israel and Zelensky.
Sorry there is documented proof. You are the one who believes BS sources, not me.
Great! Where is the documentation? I provided two links with sources. Who is your source, the IDF? The same people dropping bombs on kids. Heck they would never lie. They are war criminals of the highest moral character.
Here is an article from Larry Johnson an ex-CIA analyst talking about how Hamas is winning the PR war. Col. MacGregor says the US needs to rein in Israel and save it from itself.
https://sonar21.com/why-hamas-is-winning-the-pr-war/#comment-175118
Alex you are spot on as usual and sadly Mish is in denial Wonder why he is taking the side of the psychopaths Is he a Israel first ZioCon warmonger Evangelical Sure appears that way He’s in good company with Fetterman and brain dead grandpa Joe
you are blinded on this topic old sport. apartheid ain’t kosher. israel is brutal pawn of pax dumbfuckistan. israel will pay the ultimate price for setting up an idiotic situation as a theocratic democracy. it’s stupid. when we collapse back inward as all empires do……..israel will be gone. the amerikan jews that are blinded by emotions from ww2 nazi shit, are really being dumb here. there is only one way for israel to survive. they need to tell usa to fuck off and make peace and give up land and treasure and leave west bank and perhaps leave mideast and just be a theocracy on some remote island off alaska or buy out and island in caribbean or have a reservation in usa…… and stop acting. ffs there is just as many jews here in usa and they are safer than israel. i bet mish doesn’t know which country took in unlimited amounts of jews during nazi days. China. buy some reservation in china. they are screwed in current situation. it’s dumb. entire world despises them. and dwindly support here for unlimited funds and protection from us.
No old sport! It is the neocon Jews and the Israeli Lobby that control US foriegn policy. Isn’t it self evident from the response of all the bought and paid for politicians?
No Mish you seem to be the fool on this one Nobody is denying people died but why was it allowed to happen and what was the agenda Much like 911 we are witnessing the answer You are showing your true colors and they are extremely dark sir Have lost all respect for you frankly
No Mish sorry he’s right and you are the fool that believes the MSM and Israeli owned nonsense Are you also a fan of Larry “pull it” Silverstein Do you believe the BBC and CNN Obviously you do sadly
Mike, if you are going to assert this, then you should provide this “proof”.
Videos exist
https://www.wsj.com/articles/israel-hamas-video-screening-gaza-tsach-saar-31ed88ab?st=v17p12oc2v1fiqi&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Videos exist of a lot of things that aren’t what they appear As an intelligent person you should understand that fact Mish Hollyweird works in mysterious ways Ask Stanley Kubrick Oh right he’s dead
The Israeli army is neither an unbiased nor reliable source though. Would you consider videos produced by CCP as evidence?
Would you consider thinking instead of believing absolute nonsense? The massacre is well documented, especially the slaughter of innocnet kids at a concert.
Well documented by who? Israel?
The Truth is always distorted to sway the sheep. Israel has been an occupier and a theif throughout its existence and no amount of Western Propaganda can change the truth.
Try less tinfoil hat conspiracies and a bit more critical thinking. You make Hamas proud.
Ahh yes right Tin foil hat stuff right I’m sick of that lame attack of obvious truth Nobody believes the IDF was just out to lunch anymore than we believe the guards were asleep and the cameras were out of order when Epstein( the Mossad guy) was taken out in that NY prison
Turkey, a NATO member, is threatening to send military into Gaza. If Israel attacks Turkish troops then isn’t every NATO country obligated to defend them against Israel? Could be interesting.
No. Only if Israel attacks Turkey. It’s a defensive alliance.
Tell that to the Libyans, the ex-Yugoslavs and the Russians… “strictly defensive” – LOL
Its not even that. NATO didn’t intervene in the Falklands war despite English islands being invaded by Argentina because the US was buddy buddy with Argentina then. So England went it alone.
NATO is only an alliance against Russia.
Remember the Mavi Marmara ? It was a Turkish aid group attempting to bring supplies to Gaza and was intercepted and taken over by the Israelis People died
That would be a grave mistake on Israel’s part Turkey isn’t Gaza it’s a powerful country with sizable military capabilities Iran and Turkey as Allie’s Yup it would get very interesting I wouldn’t want to be an IDF girl in that situation
– This is not our war. We should not have troops in Syria, Iraq, or Afghanistan. US meddling in all of those places made everything worse.
> I agree, as it is definitely not a U.S. War. I also don’t think we should have Troops in Syria, Iraq, or Afghanistan. In fact, I don’t think we should have Troops in Germany, or Anywhere in the EU either.
– The US invasion of Iraq led to the formation of ISIS and a major immigration crisis in Europe.
> Europes Immigration Crisis is self accomplished. Sad to say, so is the U.S. Immigration Crisis.
– US sanctions on Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua did not cause the surge of economic refugees at the US border, but they do exacerbate our own border problems.
> May not have caused it, but without question, it has added to it in so many ways. None of which is positive.
– At every crisis, the US solution is to throw more money and expand militarily at every problem. I suggest we stay out of these hotbeds because history shows we have failed every time.
> I agree we should stay out of these internal and locally external conflicts. They don’t involve us directly for the most part anyway. They don’t even want us involved.
– Sending 900 more troops to Syria on grounds of self-defense is ludicrous because our troops have no business being in Syria.
> I agree 100%, it is the “War Machine” in action…
– I fear US involvement in another prolonged war. We learned nothing from Afghanistan, Iraq, or Vietnam.
> No, but we’re broke now, so it really isn’t an option at this point. Support where we can, with what we can, but no troops, and nothing that will leave us vulnerable (SPR) please!
– Janet Yellen Says the US Can Afford Two Wars
> Janet Yellen is simply a “Useful Idiot”
Just remember – what’s good for Israel and Ukraine is good for Raytheon and BAE.
Yup and she is incompetent as well Read a story about how some hedge fund guy says she should be removed
Exactly correct Stu We shouldn’t
Two states solution acceptable to both is the answer.
But I don’t see how both sides reach an agreement.
Israel has offered to accept the two state solution many times. They are not the problem.
Israel would happily accept granting the Palestinians their own country. The problem has always been that the Palestinian majority has always wanted nothing less than the complete destruction and death of every Jewish person.
Until the Palestinians accept Israel’s right to exist, Israel will continue to do what they do, justifiably so.
I don’t think Israel really ever wanted a two state solution. My evidence: 1. the offers made under Oslo were not sincere… the west bank to be delivered in four pieces with intersecting Israeli controlled roads, Israeli control over skies, no freedom of movement within the four mini-Palestines. That’s not soverignty. 2. The settlements keep getting built. Israel defends the settlers. They are defacto annexing territory. 2b. Palestinians can’t get building permits or water in the West Bank. They are being pushed out. 3. There is the notion that the Israeli right wing abandoned working with the PLA (who recognized Israel) in favor of Hamas, who would never accept a 2 state solution. This way, Netanyahu/Likud/Ben Gvir/etc.. could claim to have “no one to work with” and would never need to negotiate in good faith. (4. And a one-state solution would negate Jewish sovereignty over greater Israel. So Israelis would never accept that.)
SImply not true.
There is far more history here than the Oslo accords.
1947, Israel accepted ALL of the Palestinian area as completely independent. The Palestinians rejected it, invaded Israel, slaughtered the Jews and were suprisingly defeated, even with the help of surrounding nations.
Since then the Jews have been invaded an additional 2 times by neighboring Arab countries at the encouragement of the Palestinians, recorded phone calls were intercepted by Israel by heads of state calling for the death of every Jew during the invasion, and Israel won again.
I am perfectly fine with ISrael keeping the land won during a crystal clear case of self defense. Every other nation has kept it, including the USA, so why have a double standard for Israel?
What’s crystal clear is the false flag allowed to happen to rationalize this slaughter It’s textbook been used many times in history even as recently as 2001
Sorry Mish, but how much collateral damage is enough to convince you that it’s a deliberate campaign of terror? It’s a replay of the Deir Yassin massacre which caused many Palestinians to flee their homes and enabled Israel to capture 1948 territory. Already leaked papers show an option is to ethnically cleanse all Gaza of Palestinians. Will it take 20k dead, 50k dead, to convince you this is classic terrorism, albeit committed by men in uniform?
Good Lord, stop the nonsense. Please tell me what percent of Israelis lived in Gaza.
Israel took over the West Bank and Gaza after the stupid 6 day war in 1967, not started by Israel
In the wake of the 1948-49 war, Gaza was occupied by Egypt for 19 years. Israel occupied Gaza in the 1967 war and stayed until 2005, during that time building Jewish settlements.
In 2005, 21 Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip were unilaterally dismantled and Israeli settlers and army evacuated from inside the Gaza Strip.
So get your facts straight.
That part is all correct. But Israel still controls Gaza, the skies, the seas. It’s not like Gaza is independent in any way. Mind you, there was never a Jewish presence in several Israeli cities near the south (Ashdod, Ashkelon, Sderot).
Those are ancient Philistine settlements. Israel expelled people from those towns to become the refugees of the Gaza strip. Israel’s controls over the West Bank are even more severe, with daily encroachment of settlements. Mind you, I have zero sympathy for Hamas and condemn what they did without equivocation. But I am empathetic to the Palestinian’s legitimate grievances as well as Israel’s right not to be attacked.
Palestine never was a country and was ruled by the ottomans and Brits. Ultimately Britain handed it over to the UN and a two state solution was proposed. Arabs said no. They started a war. In that war they lost cities. Talking about this now in some attempt to paint Israel as a villain is just inappropriate.. that is history, it is done with. As Mish said, Gaza was evacuated and Hamas chose to spend hundreds of millions on terror tunnels. They started another war. In war people die on both sides. This was will end when Hamas surrenders.
Anything other than is the equivalent of telling Russia in 1944 to cease fire because German citizens are dying. Yeah…too late for that
And don’t forget that the Israelis stole the Palestinians’ Natty Gas. Say it ain’t so Benny…say it ain’t so. With regards to our favorite Republican Closet GloboHomo Senator: if he’s so hung Ho, he can send his Boyfriend to fight- the Cuck.
meanwhile Mishes facts get downvoted
Those are facts. Dispute the facts.
Hamas cannot exist if there is peace. Of course Hamas did this to stop any and all peace agreements with any and all muslim countries
Muslims need to fan jewish hatred as they need someone to blame for the fact that their people do not enjoy the benefits of the modern world like the rest of us. And Israel turned a desert into a productive country that competes with advanced tech and medical fields to start with
Go find a picture of Cairo University in the 1970’s. Other than darker skin and only 1 woman, not covered in a veil, it looks like an American college .
Then the muslim brotherhood gain traction, murdered Anwar Sadat in front of the entire world and set Egypt back 100 years.
Thats what islam and the koran do…..Set the world back. Where is there peace in the muslim world?
How are black christian nigerians doing? Islam is a death cult.
Until it wants to come into the modern world this will spread.
How was the riots in Paris France this summer. Spreading out a little more now huh? I cant wait till the islamic refugees figure out it was the british mandate that legally started their grievance.
Mishes “ facts” are not facts at all He is deluded when it comes to this subject Again here are NOT facts and he should stick to economics Something he understands
I am curious why wikipedia has this wrong? quote “The first and most critical move of the conflict was a surprise Israeli attack on the Egyptian Air Force. Initially, both Egypt and Israel announced that they had been attacked by the other country” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-Day_War
Somehow, that gives the impression that Israel started the war. Maybe you can get them to correct this error.
Because Wikipedia is biased fake news just like CNN or BBC
News out there is natural gas off the coast of Gaza.
Yup Lots of it but Mish will say that’s irrelevant Didnt realize Mish was such a blind Zionist Christian Makes my stomach feel bad
If we gave zero aid to other countries other than for natural disasters none of these wars would have happened. We aren’t spreading democracy either. Both are theocracies. Nothing to do with democracy. Let them duke it out on their own terms. Nothing but a money laundering operation for D.C.
israel is evil. apartheid is NOT KOSHER. isreal is US pawn bitches out of control slapping around their little weak bitch the palestinians………ugly stuff. mish not long ago had a column on whether they should turn off power and water………….twisted stuff by brainwashed zionists. zionism is evil. israel is an apartheid theocracy.
Then why are arabs on the Israeli supreme court?
get back to me when you find that in a muslim country…………
Little house nigge$s
your a moron…..
What is happening in Gaza recalls certain episodes of decolonization. As a Frenchman, this makes me think of what we call here the “Algerian War”. The main movement for decolonization was the FLN (National Liberation Front). It used exactly the same methods as Hamas currently. I don’t think that at the time there was much condemnation of these methods in the United States and other Western countries other than France. In France itself, the moderate left now sees FLN members as heroes, but vigorously condemns Hamas. What logic is in all this?
the documentary “battle of algiers’ filmed by italians and banned in france for long time, has the actual arab bombers as “stars” of film…….amerika is following alll the dumb stuff france andd england did from indochina to arab lands…………..it’s twisted. we love genocide, apartheid and war…………usa and israel today. europe not long ago. i vtoe in italy
Live by the sword; die by the sword/tank/bomb. Go Israel!
I’m sure they’d love to have you come enlist.
You would say that “ JAY”
With you there Jay . By late February we shall all be drawn in . Boy oh boy ,it will be tough to pick sides . A religious war seems to be the theme now . All along I thought it might be the ( in this country alone ) left against the right , the have nots against the haves , red headed left handers against blonde haired right handers …… or the split up of this deeply divided country . I don’t have a bleeding heart so I could care less . Just don’t cross my lawn looking for food or I will provide hospitality lead first . Methinks we have a long way to go before we globally reach bottom . Then to climb out of the hole and rebuild . Cheers
Stolen lands have consequences. Only 5.6% of Palestine was legally purchased.
OK, so if a Native American douses you and your kids with gasoline and sets you on fire that’s ok, right?
Who has been dousing the Palestinians for the past 65 years while the USA votes down every UN resolution against the atrocities committed by Israelites.
Tell me when an Israeli soldier doused a Palestinian family with gasoline and set them on fire?
That’s psychopath behavior.
Gasoline, white phosphorus, napalm- what’s the difference?
https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/12/israel-white-phosphorus-used-gaza-lebanon#:~:text=Human%20Rights%20Watch%20verified%20videos,described%20an%20attack%20in%20Gaza.
Psychopath behavior Yup Havent you read some of the things they do to the kids ? I have and that’s exactly what it is
The difference is the one between shelling an area and physically walking up to a person, dousing them with gasoline, and setting them on fire.
And I dont recall Israel filming the deaths with the victim’s cellphone and uploading it to their SM so their family could watch.
Again, that’s psycopath behavior.
I’m not voting republican again but can’t democratic. you see people’s ugliness in not caring for children of Palestine.
Sabotaging the accord with Saudi Arabia is clearly one of the goals of Hamas. On that front they are going to be successful.
The IDF unfortunately has to walk a very narrow path. Some civilian deaths are unavoidable but too many and it looks like indiscriminate killing by the military. This means IDF casualties will be higher than expected. On the other hand, I believe the IDF should be given a lot of leeway into things like gassing tunnels to kill Hamas operatives hiding in there rather than engage in fighting in tunnels.
Genocide lies at the core of Western imperialism. It is not unique to Israel. It is not unique to the Nazis. It is the building block of Western domination.
A Bird in the Hand – by Mr. Fish.
By Chris Hedges
Original to ScheerPost
During the siege in Sarajevo, when I was reporting for The New York Times, we never endured the level of saturation bombing and near total blockage of food, water, fuel and medicine that Israel has imposed on Gaza.
We never endured hundreds of dead and wounded a day. We never endured the complicity of the international community in the Serbian campaign of genocide. We never endured Washington intervening to block ceasefire resolutions. We never endured massive arms shipments from the U.S. and other Western countries to sustain the siege.
We never endured press reports from Sarajevo that were routinely discredited and dismissed by the international community, although 25 journalists were killed in the war by the besieging Serbian forces.
We never endured Western governments justifying the siege as the right of the Serbs to defend themselves, although the U.N. peacekeepers sent to Bosnia were largely a public relations gesture, ineffective in halting the slaughter until forced to respond following the massacres of 8,000 Bosniak men and boys at Srebrenica.
I don’t mean to minimize the horror of the siege of Sarajevo, which gives me nightmares nearly three decades later. But what we suffered – three to four hundred shells a day, four to five dead a day, and two dozen wounded a day – is a tiny fraction of the wholesale death and destruction in Gaza.
The Israeli siege of Gaza more resembles the Wehrmacht’s assault on Stalingrad, where over 90 percent of the city’s buildings were destroyed, than Sarajevo.
The center of Stalingrad after liberation from the German occupation, February 1943. (RIA Novosti archive, Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY-SA 3.0)
On Friday the Gaza Strip had all its communications severed. No Internet. No phone service. No electricity. [They were restored on Monday.] Israel’s goal is the murder of tens, probably hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and the ethnic cleansing of those who survive into refugee camps in Egypt. It is an attempt by Israel to erase not only a people, but the idea of Palestine.
It is a carbon copy of the massive campaigns of racialized slaughter by other settler colonial projects who believed that indiscriminate and wholesale violence could make the aspirations of an oppressed people, whose land they stole, go away. And like other perpetrators of genocide, Israel intends to keep it hidden.
Israel’s bombing campaign, one of the heaviest of the 21st century, has killed more than 7,300 Palestinians, nearly half of them children, along with 26 journalists, medical workers, teachers and United Nations staff.
Some 1.4 million Palestinians in Gaza have been displaced and an estimated 600,000 are homeless. Mosques, 120 health facilities, ambulances, schools, apartment blocks, supermarkets, water and sewage treatment plants and power plants have been blasted into rubble. Hospitals and clinics, lacking fuel, medicine and electricity, have been bombed or are shutting down.
Clean water is running out. Gaza, by the end of Israel’s scorched earth campaign, will be uninhabitable, a tactic the Nazis regularly employed when facing armed resistance, including in the Warsaw Ghetto and later Warsaw itself. By the time Israel is done, Gaza, or at least Gaza as we knew it, will not exist.
[Related: New Document Leak on Plan to Expel Gaza Population]
Not only are the tactics the same, but so is the rhetoric. Palestinians are referred to as animals, beasts and Nazis. They have no right to exist. Their children have no right to exist. They must be cleansed from the earth.
The ruins of Aklouk Tower on Oct. 8 after it was destroyed in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City. (Naaman Omar, Palestinian News & Information Agency, or Wafa, for APAimages, CC BY-SA 3.0)
The extermination of those whose land we steal, whose resources we plunder and whose labor we exploit is coded within our DNA. Ask Native Americans. Ask Indians. Ask the Congolese. Ask the Kikuyu in Kenya. Ask the Herero in Namibia who, like Palestinians in Gaza, were gunned down and driven into desert concentration camps where they died of starvation and disease. Eighty thousand of them. Ask Iraqis. Ask Afghans. Ask Syrians. Ask Kurds. Ask Libyans. Ask indigenous peoples across the globe. They know who we are.
Israel’s distorted, settler colonial visage is our own. We pretend otherwise. We ascribe to ourselves virtues and civilizing qualities that are, as in Israel, flimsy justifications for stripping an occupied and besieged people of their rights, seizing their land and using prolonged imprisonment, torture, humiliation, enforced poverty and murder to keep them subjugated.
Our past, including our recent past in the Middle East, is built on the idea of subduing or wiping out the “inferior” races of the earth. We give these “inferior” races names that embody evil. ISIS. Al Qaeda. Hezbollah. Hamas.
We use racist slurs to dehumanize them. “Haji” “Sand Nigger” “Camel Jockey” “Ali Baba” “Dung Shoveler” And then, because they embody evil, because they are less than human, we feel licensed, as Nissim Vaturi, a member of the Israeli parliament for the ruling Likud party said, to erase “the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.”
May 2002: “Die Arab Sand-Niggers!” graffiti sprayed on a Palestinian house by Israeli settlers in Hebron, West Bank, Palestine. (CPT-Hebron, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)
Naftali Bennett, Israel’s former prime minister, in an interview on Sky News on Oct. 12 said, “We’re fighting Nazis,” in other words, absolute evil.
Not to be outdone, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described Hamas in a press conference with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, as “the new Nazis.”
Think about that. A people, imprisoned in the world’s largest concentration camp for 16 years, denied food, water, fuel and medicine, lacking an army, air force, navy, mechanized units, artillery, command and control and missile batteries, is being butchered and starved by one of the most advanced militaries on the planet, and they are the Nazis?
Israeli Defense Forces headquarters in Tel Aviv, in 2014, during a visit by U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. (DoD)
There is an historical analogy here. But it is not one that Bennett, Netanyahu or any other Israeli leader wants to acknowledge.
When those who are occupied refuse to submit, when they continue to resist, we drop all pretense of our “civilizing” mission and unleash, as in Gaza, an orgy of slaughter and destruction. We become drunk on violence. This violence makes us insane.
We kill with reckless ferocity. We become the beasts we accuse the oppressed of being. We expose the lie of our vaunted moral superiority.
We expose the fundamental truth about Western civilization — we are the most ruthless and efficient killers on the planet. This alone is why we dominate the “wretched of the earth.” It has nothing to do with democracy or freedom or liberty. These are rights we never intend to grant to the oppressed.
“Honor, justice, compassion and freedom are ideas that have no converts,” Joseph Conrad, who wrote Heart of Darkness, reminds us.
“There are only people, without knowing, understanding or feelings, who intoxicate themselves with words, repeat words, shout them out, imagining they believe them without believing in anything else but profit, personal advantage and their own satisfaction.”
Genocide lies at the core of Western imperialism. It is not unique to Israel. It is not unique to the Nazis. It is the building block of Western domination.
The humanitarian interventionists who insist we should bomb and occupy other nations because we embody goodness — although they promote military intervention only when it is perceived to be in our national interest — are useful idiots of the war machine and global imperialists.
They live in an Alice-in-Wonderland fairytale where the rivers of blood we spawn make the world a happier and better place. They are the smiley faces of genocide. You can watch them on your screens. You can listen to them spout their pseudo-morality in the White House and in Congress. They are always wrong. And they never go away.
Maybe we are fooled by our own lies, but most of the world sees us, and Israel, clearly. They understand our genocidal proclivities, rank hypocrisy and self-righteousness.
They see that Palestinians, largely friendless, without power, forced to live in squalid refugee camps or the diaspora, denied their homeland and eternally persecuted, suffer the kind of fate once reserved for Jews.
This perhaps is the final tragic irony. Those who were once in need of protection from genocide now commit it.
Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for 15 years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East bureau chief and Balkan bureau chief for the paper. He previously worked overseas for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor and NPR. He is the host of show “The Chris Hedges Report.”
NOTE TO READERS: There is now no way left for me to continue to write a weekly column for ScheerPost and produce my weekly television show without your help. The walls are closing in, with startling rapidity, on independent journalism, with the elites, including the Democratic Party elites, clamoring for more and more censorship. Bob Scheer, who runs ScheerPost on a shoestring budget, and I will not waiver in our commitment to independent and honest journalism, and we will never put ScheerPost behind a paywall, charge a subscription for it, sell your data or accept advertising. Please, if you can, sign up at chrishedges.substack.com so I can continue to post my Monday column on ScheerPost and produce my weekly television show, “The Chris Hedges Report.”
This column is from Scheerpost, for which Chris Hedges writes a regular column. Click here to sign up for email alerts.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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Tags: Al-Qaeda Benjamin Netanyahu Chris Hedges Gaza-Israeli War Genocide Hamas Hezbollah ISIS Naftali Bennett settler colonialism Siege of Sarajevo
That’s a awful lot of crap…
Losing a fight automatically makes you the good guy, according to this idiot
Underneath all our sweet talk, humans are savages. It’s in our genes. Hammas and Israel are trying to outdo each other in savagery. Human nature is on display.
Israel brought this savagry on themselves You can’t treat people like that for decades and expect any other result I pity those poor kids being raised in such an environment
Nooooooo. . . The Arabs are bringing this on themselves for all of their savagery over the years, overpopulation, burning school houses down, burkas, and brutal patriarchy.
Allahu Akbar Arabs aren’t all in one bucket? Is it a war cry only? I have no evidence to the contrary, unless they are western educated and living safely in the west. . . Complaining about the west. . . Because the west allows it.
You don’t get to play the victim while having 7 babies per female and shooting the babies like bullets at other cultures for your entire history. What was it? “The womb of the Arab woman is my greatest weapon?”. Disgusting.
You left out “ goat fucker “.
It was an inside job It was allowed to happen like 911 so the decision makers are higher up the food chain Why can’t you see that