There is no justification for what Hamas did. Nor was there any justification for 9-11. However, there is a need to understand why such events happened and why people are sympathetic to them. 
When the Goal is Revenge
The other day I wrote about Biden’s goal on Ukraine and Israel. Biden said he wanted to “make Putin pay a price”.
That’s the only goal I could find. We can sum it Biden’s goals in a single word, “revenge”.
The result is “perpetual war”. Arguably, that’s backward. The goal is perpetual war and the excuse is revenge.
What is Benjamin Netanyahu’s Goal?
Eurointelligence discussed that question in AnotThere is no justification for what Hamas did. Nor was there any justification for 9-11. However, there is a need to understand why such events happened and why people are sympathetic to them. her Long War Scenario.
It is not an unlikely scenario that Europe has two long lasting wars at its periphery, in Ukraine and the Middle East. The reason is that neither Vladimir Putin nor Benjamin Netanyahu have an interest for their wars to end. As long as the war goes on, they keep their image as powerful war lords. And they keep their jobs. Their fate once the war ends is more obscure.
International pressure did not deter Putin to continue his war in Ukraine, on the contrary. Will pressure on Israel help to end its war in Gaza? Foreign minister Eli Cohen estimates that they have another two or three weeks before being forced to cease their military operation. But as Alon Pinkas warned in his oped for Haaretz, Netanyahu is gradually setting the scene for a political showdown with the US as he continues to ignore ideas or requests coming from Washington.
Most notably is Netanyahu’s reluctance to specify any post-conflict solution for Gaza except to say that Israel would assume full security responsibility over Gaza for indefinite time. What does this mean? Full occupation of Gaza? Everyone is guessing, but no one knows. Sounds familiar. Remember when everyone was trying to figure out what Putin’s plan for Ukraine was? Last weekend Netanyahu added another condition that once Hamas is out, Israel needs to make sure that Hamas does not happen again. What that means is not clear either, but it sounds much more hands on. Netanyahu dismissed outright US ideas for a post-conflict plan when he said that Israel would oppose any governing role for the Palestinian Authority in Gaza.
So we know what Netanyahu is against but not what he is for in a post-conflict solution. That kicks the can down the road and distracts from all the problems his government had before Hamas attack over the constitutional reform and settlers policies in the West Bank that split the nation. As Pinkas writes about Netanyahu:
“A lengthy war, he believes, will alleviate the criticism and keep him in power. More importantly, it will enable him to acerbically spread the blame, shedding all and any responsibility and accountability from himself.”
Any post-conflict solution will require Israel to distinguish between Hamas and the rights of Palestinian civilians. This lack of distinction between the two is what costs Israel sympathies around the world since Hamas terrorist attack on Oct 7.
We would have been in a different situation if Israel had distinguished between Hamas and Palestinians right from the beginning, and pursued diplomatic avenues alongside the fight against Hamas terrorism. With its unconditional support for Netanyahu, the west now allowed itself to be drawn into another proxy war it cannot win.
Make Hamas Pay a Price
Innocent civilians be damned, Hamas must pa a price. In response, Hamas wants Israel to pay a price.
The actions and responses are radically different (Israel never purposely killed or kidnapped innocent kids and elderly), but the thought process is the same, revenge.
The Hamas Big Fish Who Got Away
On November 16, the Wall Street Journal wrote about The Hamas Big Fish Who Got Away
President Biden warned Israel not to be “consumed by rage,” even as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised “mighty vengeance” against Hamas. But revenge isn’t the only anger at play, or even the most corrosive. The fury that’s eating Israel’s war cabinet is regret. No matter how the military responds, there’s a sense that it’s too late.
“We blew it,” Maj. Gen. Yoav Gallant, now Israel’s defense minister, told me following a Sept. 6, 2003, airstrike on Hamas leadership. (I was a Washington Post reporter.)
“The terrorist dream team” is how Avi Dichter, then head of Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, described the guest list at the time. Mr. Dichter, Gen. Gallant and other Israeli security officials in the 2003 war room plunged into hours of debate about what size bomb to drop in Gaza, weighing the risks of civilian casualties.
But at the last minute, the Israelis had replaced the 1-ton lethal payload with a quarter-ton bomb. They wanted to spare civilians. The smaller bomb, Israeli officials concluded, was a moral and public-opinion imperative. The government’s legitimacy depended on domestic and international support and sympathy. All eight Hamas leaders fled the house, alive.
“We made a mistake,” he said, voice heavy with sorrow.
The Mistake
The “mistake”, Israeli security said, was caring about civilians.
Israel now pretends to care about them. Israel will not make the mistake of caring again.
US Candid Mistakes
“In a candid moment while filming a TV interview, Hillary Clinton, at the time the United States’ Secretary of State, laughingly stated “We came. We saw. He died.” – a variant of a Roman phrase alluding to the swift military victory.
After Gaddafi’s death Libya morphed into an ISIS hell hole. And ISIS in Iraq was a direct result of the US taking out Saddam Hussein.
How many enemies did the US make in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, by not giving a damn (or paying token lies that we do), in our actions?
We never should have been in any of those places to begin with.
What About Bin Laden?
Q: What was Bin Laden’s justification for 9-11?
A: The US had troops on sacred Arab soil.
The irony of it all is the US supported Bin Laden when he was fighting Russians in Afghanistan.
In a 2004 article entitled “Al-Qaeda’s origins and links”, the BBC wrote that “[d]uring the anti-Soviet war Bin Laden and his fighters received American and Saudi funding. Some analysts believe Bin Laden himself had security training from the CIA.
In an article in The Guardian, Robin Cook, the British Foreign Secretary from 1997 to 2001, would state that:
Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies. Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, literally “the database”, was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians.
Blowback
Bin Laden and the 9-11 aftermath is a direct result of asinine US policy “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”
And today, as Eurointelligence notes Netanyahu “raises questions whether Israel’s military operation into Gaza with 40,000 or more civilian dead or injured and tens of thousands currently fleeing to the south, is really about Hamas or about to get Palestinians out of Gaza.“
Again, this is not justification for Hamas, but it does explain the sympathy.
White House Announcement
In a White House Announcement on October 20, here are Remarks by President Biden on the United States’ Response to Hamas’s Terrorist Attacks Against Israel and Russia’s Ongoing Brutal War Against Ukraine
“You know, history has taught us that when terrorists don’t pay a price for their terror, when dictators don’t pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos and death and more destruction. They keep going, and the cost and the threats to America and to the world keep rising. ”
The security package I’m sending to Congress and asking Congress to do is an unprecedented commitment to Israel’s security that will sharpen Israel’s qualitative military edge, which we’ve committed to — the qualitative military edge.
If the US Has a Goal in Ukraine or Israel, What the Hell Is It?
Let’s now review my November 7 article If the US Has a Goal in Ukraine or Israel, What the Hell Is It?
Lovely, But What’s the Goal?
Dear Mr. President, your statement [October 20 Announcement] sounds lovely. But what is the mission? What is the goal? How long are we willing to keep funding Ukraine and Israel to get it?
Biden says he supports a two-state solution. O.K.If that’s the idea, then why are we handing out hundreds of billions of dollars with no strings attached?
Over the years, the US has given Israel about $130 billion. What, if anything, do we have to show for it?
What Price Do We Pay?
The US has no readily discernable mission statement other than Biden’s comments to make terrorists and Putin pay a price.
What price are we willing to pay to make Putin pay a price? $200 billion? $500 billion? A trillion? Unlimited? For what precise goals? When?
We are handing out hundreds of billions of dollars for wars that are essentially none of our business, with no strings attached.
Is a NATO Backing a Negotiated Deal Between Ukraine and Russia?
Yesterday, I asked Is a NATO Backing a Negotiated Deal Between Ukraine and Russia?
A Tweet from NATO appears to back a negotiated peace in Ukraine. That was followed hours later by an official denial. What gives?
US debt is appreciating $34 trillion. Interest on the debt is on a pace to hit a trillion dollars annually. We have already spent $100 billion or so. How much more are we willing to spend?
Don’t Reward Putin
The above questions are sure to bring howls of “We cannot reward Putin.”
But “What the hell are we even doing there?” is a legitimate question. Why is it the US is doing nearly everything from 6,000 miles away while the EU, right on the border does almost nothing?
Do we still want to be the world’s policeman? I don’t and never did. We would not have been in Iraq, Libya, Syria, or Vietnam on my watch.
Here’s one last bonus question.
How much better would US infrastructure be if we spent $2 trillion here instead of wasting it overseas and making more enemies in the process?
We deserve answers. But don’t expect any. The goal is perpetual war via constant revenge.
Any perceived change in perpetual war mongering is just an election-truce illusion.
When is it a religion and when is it a cult? The Romans, as a major world conquorer had to answer this since they allow freedom of religion, but cults were insurection against Ceaser. So, they had a simple answer: “It has to be old.” It has to have been there before the Romans arrived. Judish fit this and was alliwed. Christianity was new and thus, not allowed. Isalm didn’t even exist yet. Thus, it is a cult.
I have a hard time differentiating it from mormonism. It’s mainly the guns, and screaming and killing that set it apart.
People really like those things because there are 2 billion of em.
Anyway the Romans are gone. Didn’t the.Ottomans wrap that one up? LOL.
What was Bin Laden’s justification for 9-11?
A: The US had troops on sacred Arab soil.
He objected the presence of ‘infidels’ in the land of Mecca and Medina. There was bombing of Troops residence in SA prior to 9/11 also.
Now the USA is blindly supporting Israel in the face of resistance and disapproval of the majority of rest of the World. Should we be surprised if there is (are) terrorist acts here, on this issue? I won’t be.
“Qualitative military edge”
LOL! Where & What is that? After over 8 Trillion $ spent since ’03 in the ME, what did we achieve?
6000+ soldiers dead, thousands maimed, 100s of thousands civilians dead/injured. Millions of refugees created and marching towards Europe. More instability in the ME especially Libya. There has hardly been as retrospective discussion or review of these failed policies either by a congressional commission or in the MSM. Means USA is going to repeat the same blunders and still fail to recapture it’s status of global hegemonic uni-polar leader. The collective West is becoming isolated from the rest of the by it’s foolish actions aka military misadventures!
The goal was never about revenge. The goal, and the reason that IL leadership turned a blind eye to the initial attacks, was to remove the terrorist breeding center from close proximity to IL and to move Israeli settlers into Gaza. He martyred a few thousand citizens for the greater good. It was the Israeli version of Thanos Syndrome.
There were no settlers in Gaza. They were removed in 2004.
They moved the settlers outside of Gaza, but the settlers still attack Gaza nearly everyday, dumping sewage and herbicides on Gaza crops under the protection of Israeli troops, your problem is Gaza has cameras and tiktok to display the evil hatred of the settlers…search Gaza and watch the tiktok videos….
Indeed, the West should construct foreign policy via TikTok videos….
Israel is an oasis of relative civilisation in a desert of barbaric religious authoritarian dictatorships….
Make lobbyists illegal. Jail those involved in bribery.
Many of the problems we have endured in the last 3 years stem from the billions of dollars in profit made available to drug companies and the military industrial complex.
The relationship between corporate greed and political payoff is at extremes; one dirty hand washes the other.
Support for Israel is continuing to be very strong among the countries that matter to them for their existence and prosperity. We are also seeing a rooting-out of antisemitism in the schools and organizations that is long overdue. Civilization fights backs.
“Support for Israel is continuing to be very strong among the countries that matter to them for their existence and prosperity.”
In government circles in those countries (literally all of whom are, themselves freefalling of a cliff…). And increasingly only among governments and their closest groupies and leeching beneficiaries.
As for the rest of those countries’ populations; the 95+% who are not regularly invited to Epstein Island orgies where they, as a sideshow, are offered the opportunity to purchase weapons “proven effective” against children, which they can in turn rely on to keep themselves in power by oppressing those closer to home; that support is fading fast.
Strange as this may appear to hopelessly indoctrinated middlebrows attempting to make up for their own patheticness and inadequacies by reliably stomping their boots and cheering for whomever current junta-strongman is flaunting how “tough” he is by “kicking some (tens of thousands of 2-year old’s…) butts” at no risk to himself: It really is hard to engender reliable support for killing kids by the tens of thousands for very long.
Anyone, aside from the most hopelessly indoctrinated and unreflective, quickly learns to see through the ever more contrived and bizarre propaganda employed to justify the insanity: “Hey, moron: You are advocating for mass murdering of kids, dude!”
The Germans attempted the same stunt back then. Employing similarly weird, and obviously nonsensical, arguments and “reasoning” as is currently employed by the Israeli government (some intergenerational, delayed Stockholm syndrome at play, perhaps…..). As did the Romans (along with the Jews, come to think of it, last time they were in something close to a majority down there…) to early Christians. It didn’t work out for very long, for either one.
It’s messed up. There’s no reason why there couldn’t be a thriving Jewish, or at least a Judaism-centric, state in the region. There has always been Jews there, no matter what some crazy mullahs may claim. But Jews will never obtain stable security there, by insisting on just wantonly bombing everyone around them.
In the post WW2 context, Israelis ARE the “invaders.” There may have been lots of jews there 2000 years ago, but as far as current settlements, there were very few left, by the time the Europe-originated zionist project got going: Current Israelis ARE outsiders coming in. In numbers vastly higher than what Americans and Europeans are full-panic freaking out about crossing their respective southern borders. And that’s despite the Mexicans and Africans not even insisting on bombing kids by the tens of thousands.
So it shouldn’t come as some shocking surprise that those who did live there pre jewish immigration, were and are a bit apprehensive. Nothing the immigrants couldn’t solve if they wanted to, given how much wealthier they mostly were/are (People in Switzerland and Monaco don’t seem to mind THAT much, about immigration of various millionaires…). But bombing the locals’ kids, locking them up in ghettos, jailing them, harassing them; and when that don’t work extend the bombing to everyone in the extended neighbourhood as well, is just not the way to go about it. No matter how many bizarre “justifcations” some echo-chamber of skullcap’ed sophists manage to come up with for why things are somehow diiiferent thiiiis tiiiime.
Immigration by perhaps the world’s most notoriously bright, industrious and wealthy population of people, to an industrial backwater like the Middle East; has so many win-wins stacked up, one would almost have to work at it, to not hit upon at least a few. Every Palestinian who had to leave an Israel designated village, could have been compensated to near Dubai-sheik levels for his loss; and it would still have been cheaper than the ever more all-consuming exercises in mass child murder, that Israeli governments have instead chosen to make their focus.
Yet here we are; with Israel ever more marginalised and despised among every country not simultaneously in both economic, industrial and demographic freefall. Again, just as was the case a century ago: More and more of the world’s population, is being treated to the display of jews as little more than a run-amuck freak show of evil, child eating monsters. It’s basically the only thing most of the world ever see or hear about jews: Jews bombing maternity wards, gloating over “killing all of them” etc., etc. While increasingly all of Israels world class exports are becoming military: Supplying one unpopular dictator or another with weapons to oppress other populations around the world as well. So, not only have they become a cancer to those closest to them. But have in addition become the poster child for spyware and terror state weaponry used to harass people across the rest of the world as well.
As above: It really is messed up. There’s no rational reason it had to end up this way. Getting a whole nation of jews dropped on their doorstep, should have been a lottery win for nearly anyone, especially a place like the Middle East. Europe’s loss, Palestine’s win. But instead, the current unsustainable nonsense, is all the world is treated to.
The Arabs fucked it up without question. Will they continue to do so in the future depends on whether they will continue to be seduced by fundamentalist Islam. My money is on that they will continue to fuck up.
What are you talking about?
The Arabs /Palestinians got deceived and betrayed by the collective West including UK & USA in parceling out all of Palestine to 30% of Zionists/Jews and driving out the remaining 70% of Palestinians ( who lived for generations there) in 1948 (Nabka- the Catastrophe)
The Arabs have been deceiving themselves. If you want fault look to the Ottoman Empire who governed the area for centuries playing one group off another. As soon as the Arabs got independence, they immediately started fighting among themselves all the time blaming everyone else but themselves.
“The Arabs fucked it up without question.”
Arab leaders, some religious some secular, did. But the specific Arabs who did and continue to do so, keep getting handed one get-out-of-jail-free card after another, courtesy of American and Israeli buffoon governments. Who can’t help themselves always coming across as even worse than the worst of Arabs, no matter what the Arabs do.
Israel CAN NOT, EVER achieve any kind of lasting “safety”, as long as everyone around her have nothing but hatred for her. And you simply can not bomb nor harass people into loving, nor even stop hating, you. Instead, Israeli governments simply have to swallow their pride and work on being viewed in a more positive light.
Israel has an awful lot to offer their rather backward neighbourhood. Plenty of win-wins ready for the claiming. But none of that potential will be realised, as long as the Israeli government’s knee-jerk reaction to every event and happening, is to go out and bomb and harass some more kids and other civilians.
Diminishing returns guarantee that, at some point, the ability to strike Israel, and/or Israelis, no matter what, becomes increasingly commoditised.
Civilian airliners cannot fly any higher than they already do. While even 17th-tier garage-built missile tech is improving every day. Drones are getting cheaper and more widely available year-in-year-out. It used to be the US, Russia, Israel, China, France and the UK who had “advanced” weaponry. Now, Iran, both Koreas, Turkey and even Ukrainian and Yemeni garage shops increasingly do. It’s cheap and “easy” to “copy” 50 year old designs.
So while the “big guys” are advancing as well, and are no doubt staying comfortably ahead in absolute terms, it matters less and less. Israel will no doubt be able to blow up Palestinians “more” than vice versa, but that doesn’t matter much, if a steady, and increasing, stream of errant drones and missiles are still able to hit Tel Aviv. Or even; if preventing the occasional hit on Tel Aviv becomes so costly that Israelis and Israeli industry have no choice but to leave for more favourable pastures in order to stay competitive.
TLDR
Israel is despised by anyone with a conscience. Furthermore, Americans under 50 support the Palestinian cause. Biden is the last pro-Israel president.
Israel is an oasis of relative civilisation in a desert of barbaric religious authoritarian dictatorships….
If you support, “From the River to the Sea”, presumably you also want to see all non-Aboriginal Australians expelled from Australia because the English arrivals in 1788 never asked permission from the Aborigines who were here first…?
Look at Israel. It has no gas or oil depots to speak of which is the basis for its wealth, yet it has the most prosperous economy in the region, literally built in the desert. That is the case in a hostile environment. All the Arab states around it only have any wealth to speak of if they happen to find an oil or gas field to explore. Israel is a democracy and has a large Muslim population and is a religiously tolerant society, but not the Arab states in the region. Israel does something right in my opinion.
“The actions and responses are radically different (Israel never purposely killed or kidnapped innocent kids and elderly), but the thought process is the same, revenge.”
Dropping bombs with the knowledge that innocent kids and the elderly will be killed is no different. It just seems different because you can always say they weren’t the target. Prior to WWII, the idea of using arial bombardment on civilian buildings was considered to be radically immoral, because there would be the possibility of killing innocent kids and the elderly. We were better than that. But that moral position was abandoned in the desire to create terror within entire populations, with the hope that the terrorized would rise up and overthrow their leaders. Which, of course, never happens. Hamas is just the next step down the ladder of depravity.
If Hamas had Israel’s military power and controlled the living standards in Israel as Israel does in Gaza, Israeli leaders might well be using Hamas’ tactics because that’s all they would have. They cannot show themselves to be any better than Hamas (and they aren’t), which is why they have lost public support.
Finally, revenge is always the first response of the weak-minded. After 9/11, the US could have just required locks and stronger doors be put on US passenger aircraft, followed by barraging Muslim nations with the stories of the good, innocent people who were murdered. That might have lead Muslims world-wide to abandon those who spew hate. Instead we murdered hundreds of thousands to sate the blood lust of the evil and ignorant. Israel is no better. We all live among masses of small people for whom killing and revenge is the first response, and the politicians they elect.
It has less to do with revenge and more with the practical necessity of eliminating mass-murderers who have stated that they will repeat their massacre again and again….
Hamas bears 100% responsibility for the deaths of the Palestinians without which they would have no propaganda leverage….
With regards to Ukraine, the US has been the aggressor by pushing NATO up to Russias border. This is made clear in the following article.
https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2022/02/27/us-nato-expansion-ukraine-russia-intervene/
Putin is no vilian and we are no angels. But, Putin must be made into a vilian if the US is to justify its aggression.
Putin is indeed a villain. He has a long history of being one, of being a thief who supposedly has stolen enough form the Russian people to hold a net worth in the $200 billion range. Then there is the multiple acts of pushing (or having someone do it for him) those who criticize him down stairs and out windows. Certainly not something that would get one the mister nice guy award!
It s plain obvious that you ve been properly CNN brainwashed ! If it is still available somewhere you should read M.S King’s ‘ The War Against Putin’ Quite an eye-opener, to say the least !
US is the aggressor ? What about the Ukrainians, do they have any agency in your mind ? Ukraine does not want to be part of the corrupt dictatorship Russia and looks for security for they own development. But Putin is afraid of democracies in his environment and dreams of a Russian empire. The US promised Ukraine help and security in exchange for them giving up their nuclear weapons to Russia. If Russia behaved peacefully and as a good neighbor, Ukraine unlikely would have seeked NATO-membership. Instead Russia behaved aggressively towards Ukraine for a long time, considering them as kind of their property. Finnland joined NATO basically for the same reasons, which would never havve happened without the aggressive Russian policies.
So Hamas has there cease fire, but what will they do with it? Some say it was a wonderful thing for Israel to do. Some say it was a ridiculous thing to do. I am on the fence myself, but I know what I would do if this goes astray because of the barbarians waiting to strike again, and again, and again, as they have for decades.
I would like to see Hamas act as normal human beings, and let go all of the prisoners, but that won’t happen. I would like to see both sides lay down there arms and work on a peace agreement, but that can’t happen, as the Barbarians have shown in the past, that they want to fight, fight and fight forever (how long this has been going on).
My guess however, is that Hamas uses the cease fire to regroup, rearm, reorganize and attack with even more furor than before. I also think they will try to use more hostage releases, to do the same thing again and again, if allowed.
Let’s hope and pray for the best case scenario, but prepare for the worst case for sure! So let’s see what happens shall we…
There will be NO peace until there is SERIOUS and long term solution to the rights of Palestinian people. who were forced out by violence in 1948.
Would that apply to American Indians also? Or is there a time statue of limitations on “rights”?
Thank you Mish.
I remember digging around in the attic when my mother sold her house; I discovered a bunch of late 40’s Washington Post/Star front pages with middle east stories just like today’s.
It’s the way were were and are and will be.
The Colonial masters and their dastardly deeds in Asia, ME and in Africa.
France still has many Colonies with mines, even now in Africa.
My theory about Ukraine: The US is trying to replcate the scenario that played out in the movie, “Charlie Wilson’s War”. Unfortunately, I’m not sure that the actual cause-and-effect surrounding US policy played out as outlined in that movie. Supposedly, the U.S.S.R.’s outlays in Afghanistan was a key in bankrupting and disolving the U.S.S.R.
Clearly few here know there was no Palestine until the UK came around. The UK divided up the Ottoman empire into countries. Lines were rather arbitrary and designed to keep people fighting one another while the UK quietly left. Many of these countries were pilfered by the UK. You can blame the US but all the wars came long after. The UK is happy to keep control of the system and let others flounder. One day the UK will fall and no one will feel sorry for invading them. The UK is happy when anyone but them gets blamed for something.
Palestinian genetics and traditions are Arab. The internet exists people.
“Many of these countries were pilfered by the UK”
The citizens of former colonies of UK and Europe are now marching incessantly to those countries,to even the score. I suppose. A poetic justice. Same with central and South American citizens, marching north. What you sow you reap aka Karma in the East!
Apparently murdering 4000 children through indiscriminate bombing is unpopular. Who knew?
There’s never been a bombing campaign that discriminated more than the current Israeli one. Can you name any other example where the residents of the building about to be bombed was warned beforehand…?
But hey! – call it “indiscriminate”, call it “murder” – why not not use the “g” word while you’re at it – plenty of other Hamas supporters do….
Whatever you say, “mate”. They’re turning Gaza into a graveyard. Sick idiots like you cheer it on.
“Support for Israel is continuing to be very strong among the countries that matter to them for their existence and prosperity.”
Hiroshima.Then Nagasaki.
Plenty of “we have a superbomb” warnings beforehand.
Problem is: Aerial bombardment, nuclear as well as conventional, of heavily populated areas, is indiscriminate by definition.
If you care one iota about discriminating between militants and civilians, you simply choose an altogether different approach, meaning a vastly more discriminating one, than dropping nukes from orbit onto crowded cities. Period.
Even more ridiculously obviously so, when you simultaneously insist the “bad” guys aren’t even where your bombs could ever hope to reach them. But rather under ground.
Hence why the kill counts speak for themselves: Tens of thousands of civilians killed and injured. Hundreds of thousands, to millions, left homeless and starving.
Yet only a smattering, of tens to perhaps a few hundred, confirmed actual “Hamas warriors” killed by the aerial bombardment. So few, in fact, that Israeli media has had to make due with reports about how this-and-that “Hamas guy’s” HOUSE, never the Hamas guy himself, being “hit”, in order to keep members of the rah-rah audience sated. Omitting to mention that the house was empty, but the “discriminate” “precision munition” also levelled four neighbouring houses with 40 women and children in them, of course…..
Resulting in an civilian to militant casualty ratio of the aerial campaign likely not too far from the one achieved in Hiroshima. And far, far worse, than the ratio of military to civilians killed by Hamas in their attack (1 in 7-10). Which was hardly some showpiece of discrimination between civilian vs military targets.
The “g” word is ‘Genocide’ – it’s more than obvious that Israeli leadership is promoting mass slaughter and reprehensibly practicing Genocide, not ‘self-defense.’ Condemning Israel’s program of Genocide is hardly ‘supporting Hamas,’ it’s simply recognizing who the savage ‘terrorists’ really are. Likud and IDF are now the most ‘antisemitic’ organizations in the world – nearly everyone solidly supported Israel on October 8. Now, after six weeks watching cowardly IDF personnel bomb and attack schools and hospitals – indiscriminately butchering Gaza babies and mothers – nearly everyone despises the people of Israel. Israel supporters are now those deserving scorn and seeming beneath contempt. Sorry you were so wrong, AussiePete, perhaps your dog still respects you – if you have one. (Incidentally, Israel is populated with ‘human shields’ also)
“…indiscriminately butchering Gaza babies and mothers”…
Preposterous emotive BS
Yes, the “g” word is “genocide”… The only proponents of genocide in this conflict is clearly Hamas, who have stated that they want to see all Jews AND their supporters killed….
“Allah, take the Jews and their allies, Allah, take the Americans and their allies… Allah, annihilate them completely and do not leave anyone of them.”
(Sheikh Dr. Ahmad Bahar, acting Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, April 20, 2007; as reported by Palestinian Media Watch, April 23, 2007)
14,000+ slaughtered in three weeks by indiscriminate bombing is hardly ‘preposterous emotive BS, though all of your comments have been BS. The list of quotes from Israeli officials promoting ‘leveling Gaza,’’bombing Gaza to rubble,’ ‘burning all Gazan’s,’ ‘expelling all Palestinians’ is too long for listing on the internet.
There’s never been a more discriminate bombing campaign in history that the “smart-bomb only” campaign waged by Israel. However, the phrase, “indiscriminate bombing” is applicable to the un-guided missiles launched by Hamas against civilian targets in Israel in their thousands. One reason why the retaliation from Israel has been so mild for so long is their preference for defensive tactics like the invention of the “Iron Dome” missile defence shield. Hamas is 100% responsible for the Palestinian deaths, without which they would have no propaganda leverage
Strange comment. The US and its allies kill thousands of children every year and it seems quite popular – at least I never hear anyone high up in the USA complain.
It’s funny that people attack and mutilate several hundred men, women and children and expect that nothing will happen to them in return.
You’re talking about Hamas terrorists who were until quite recently funded by the Israelis. I don’t think any 4 year old Palestinians were involved in what happened in October? Why are you people so content to defend the indefensible?
Except: Nothing has happened to them in return. They’re still partying it up with their newfound hostages in sundry tunnels under Gaza.
Instead, what has happened, is that tens of thousands of civilians; half of them little kids; who have never set foot outside of Gaza, much less attacked anyone out there, have been indiscriminately carpet bombed, killed and maimed. While hundreds of thousands to millions more, have been left homeless and starving.
Furthermore, everyone in the world sees this. And, even worse, this, and similar episodes prior, is virtually ALL they ever see in the news which involves not just Israelis, but even Jews as a whole.
And then, to top it off: When some hostages do get freed; the Israeli ones held by Palestinians, even Islamists like Hamas, generally talk about how they were treated well enough by their captors, given the conditions. While,OTOH, Palestinians in Israeli prisons, are instead being tortured and otherwise abused.
That’s reality. And that’s how, far and away, most people in the world are informed of this “conflict:” Just like Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld post 1911, the Israeli government manages to, almost immediately, throw away all the support they initially had following the nasty, but still in the big scheme of armed conflicts comparatively limited, attack against Israelis/Americans.
From “We are all Americans now,” via Abu Ghraib, to panic-strickenly getting “our” rears kicked out of Afghanistan with nothing “we”could do about it. The Israeli government is following that exact same playbook.
“….indiscriminately carpet bombed”…. More emotive BS
Listen to a Palestinian woman In Gaza talking about her situation…
“Let me tell you for certain: Our people will bear poverty, hunger and thirst as long as Hamas gets out of here….
From the day they arrived we have endured catastrophe….”
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cz2XGtzA-eD/
WAR is ugly, hell and dark. What did you expect?
One’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. The Winner define them.
Read history.
That is ‘funny.’ Imagine the retribution if an invading or occupying army killed thousands. Hilarious?
They’re called smart bombs for a reason.
It is strategically to one’s disadvantage to divulge post-war plans before winning a war. An enemy’s friends may not like the plans and then support one’s enemy. Announcing a plan prior to winning a war implies the war was planned all along. This could result in one’s friends more reluctant to support war, as well as draw the enemy’s friends into war.
Fighting a forever war in one’s backyard is dangerous because voters can get killed. Fighting a forever war in someone else’s back yard desensitizes voters to the atrocities.
Defensive wars are necessary to maintain freedom.
If one’s neighbors are miserable and NOT in peace, they won’t let you live in peace, either.
An old proverbial commonsense!
The Palestinians would probably prefer to live in peace via the “Two-State Solution” but their hyper-aggressive Jew-hating corrupt leaders, from Yasser Arafat onwards, have hijacked them as a means to pursue their genocidal ambitions against Israel
I don’t get how you say there’s no justification without providing a just war theory argument.
We americans and our western allies have directly or helped support the murder of many many millions of people in our wars of aggression and for the interest of US power.
When we invade a place, we can easily commit 100 9/11s or 10,000 hamas attacks…
And all of us will give pretty soft criticism of our homeland at worst, especially if we’re professionals or wel known. at best we say we’re the good guys…
I’m a math guy and philosopher, so I have no problem dealing with arguments and logic…
I hope you see everything i’m implying here.
basically if you think you can murder millions of civilians and still be the good guys, then it’s okay to justify a 9/11 type event.
basically if you think america is grey area, and we can do bad, then again, it’s okay to justify a 9/11 response…
So it seems killing civilians is fine if you’re the big guy on campus, and no one is really saying no, we only freak out when it’s the most powerless.
Isn’t this all a classic primitive power struggle? By default, I’m generally going to put blame with whom holds the power, not the weak.
Where did I say or even hint that killing civilians is OK. I said no such thing and it is not OK.
I explicitly said there is no justification for Hamas or 911.
‘no justification for Hamas or 911″
Agreed. But equally important to understand ‘why’ it happened, in the first place, which you have already explained on 9/11. Dubya falsely told Americans that they hate our freedom and life style!??
My recommendation is to put the blame on the nations and their people that allow themselves to be run by highly aggregated power, dictators, and systems like those based on Sharia law.
They are aggressive and rapacious and require the taking of other nation’s things in order to survive. They do not excel at trade or technology unless they can steal it.
Nuclear weapons will lock them in their territories, and they will try to break out. If they are stopped, they will eat themselves and be forced to evolve. If they break out civilization will likely end.
This is the part where the countries with deaggregated power try to stop those with aggregated power. I hope they do.
Please read some Steve Keen for education about the value of aggregates.
Well. . .you’ve given me good advice in the past, why not this time? OK, I will!
“…put the blame on the nations and their people that allow themselves to be run by highly aggregated power…
Such as the most highly aggregated one of all: Washington?
Conversely: The only place even pretending to be ran by “Sharia” law these days, is Afghanistan. Whose government has the least “highly aggregated power” in existence anywhere. That entire government is, literally, just a very loose hodgepodge of local militias. With every Joe Jihad armed just as well as anyone from the central government. If a Kabul official should dare venture far from home, he’s as likely to be blown up as not. For seemingly no other reason than “why not?”
With the runners up being Somalia: Another “government” which barely even exists outside of the capital. And Yemen, where the government is in exile in Saudi while the “Sharia” set is stuck in the hills fighting.
So much for highly aggregated power among the Sharia set….
In general, it by now seems overwhelmingly obvious, that being ruled by long since dead guys, are far and away the best guarantee against tyranny available anywhere. Whether it’s by Muhammad or by Jefferson: Long since dead guys have one unsurmountable advantage over any of their still living peers: They can’t make up any new laws to benefit themselves and their closest entourage.
You are right, I’m obviously wrong. Living in a world where everyone else is so obviously wrong must be a breeze for you.
I’m talking about power aggregation with a country. Not within the world. Do not tell me that the Taliban in Afghanistan does not want ultimate draconian and repressive rule in the country.
I can’t help that they are bad at it.
“Do not tell me that the Taliban in Afghanistan does not want ultimate draconian and repressive rule in the country.”
They don’t.
The only reason Afghanistan is able to resist every attempt, by every “superpower”, to subdue and enslave them; is specifically because every 12 year old is encouraged to own and bear as much arms has he can afford and carry.
And, as the US Founders recognised back in the civilised era: A genuinely militarily meaningfully armed populace, is specifically _the_ sole; and only; protection against draconian and repressive rule anywhere. Heck, even Americans would enjoy relative freedom, if every homeless dude curled up in a cave somewhere, had access to the same weapons Biden does.
Imagine if the USA didn’t have thousands of miles of warm water ports for its Navy, but instead had only one, in Mexico lets say.
Now imagine there’s a coup in Mexico where a leader friendly to the US is replaced by a leader not friendly to the US. what would be the response in DC, the WH and the Pentagon?
Now imagine that during the protests that led to the coup high ranking Russian politicians and state dept personnel were in Mexico City handing out cookies to the protesters.
Would we just let our only warm port stay in the hands of Mexico, or would we move to secure it and the area around it?
DC knew, or should have known, that tactically Russia was not going to concede the port in Crimea.
Not a good comparison as Mexico was never American whereas Crimea was a part of Russia. Now the Panama Canal Zone might be a better example as it was American and the US interests there were threatened the US did invade and that is no different to what Russia did.
Question of the day, None of the Islamic countries that surround Israel want any refugees from Gaza, why? Looking forward to your answers.
FYI, that exact same question was asked about German Jews, by Hitler.
Which countries did Hitler request take Jews only to be denied?
Study history much? https://www.history.com/news/wwii-jewish-refugee-ship-st-louis-1939
That was one ship and Hitler did not dispatch the ship.
Did you gradate high school?
A ship isn’t a country.
And Hitler didn’t send the ship
Many thousands already in refuge camps in countries surrounding West Bank.
Egypt (where I have a home and relatives) has had to deal with terrorists in the North Sinai who are affiliated with the terrorists in Gaza, both Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Last thing Egypt wants is tens of thousands of fanatics moving to Egypt to destabilise the country just like the refugee camps in Lebanon have helped ruin that country.
Plus Egypt already has severe economic problems and too many people for the limited water supply. Even if the IMF, Israel and the US offered billions in debt relief in exchange for admitting Gazans en masse it would be likely rejected as the burden would be forever.
Thank you my good man for that information. My question to you or anyone that knows that part of the region is:
What does that tell you about the culture of remaining Palestinians?
What Israel is doing is brutal, but what are they up against?
If one’s neighbors are miserable and NOT in peace, they won’t let you live in peace, either.
An old proverbial commonsense!
IT is NOT a long term solution to either parties. The real and true issue is to address the legitimate rights of Palestinians to exist and live on their ‘own’ land. Everything else is a band aid.
They are viewed as troublemakers and lazy, which is why they needed 500 trucks a day of aid shipped into Gaza every day prior to Oct. 7th.
A protester that cannot express the circumstances under which they will stop protesting is merely a complainer.
A military that enters into a conflict without a clear goal and an exit plan is merely a tool for those in power and the industrial military complex.
As Mish says, and I hope there are few detractors, the US has no business entering these Middle East wars. Over the last 70 years, the US track record of successful foreign intervention is horrible.
Democracy must rise from beneath and within. It cannot be foisted on a culture from the top down.
More like 78 years and no successes at all.
A functioning economy comes before a working democracy or the democracy doesn’t work. The US still doesn’t understand that.
Tell me one Country in the World where there is TRUE functioning democracy and or Economy. Thank you.
Kudos to me (and most sane people) for predicting that within 2 weeks the world would forget the carnage of 10/7 and blame it all on Israel. I was a little too conservcative as most of the world had turned on Israel by 10/10 … but I had the right idea.
Are we really to believe israel did not know this was coming? With their military and intelligence. Too hard a pill for me to swallow.
This has been great to keep Israeli government in power. They had been struggling of late with a lot of internal strife and protests.
One way to quiet the populace is to start a war.
Argentine did the same in 1982 when they invaded the Falkland Islands.
Are you saying that Israel started this war?…and not Hamas?
Israel started the war in 1948.
It’s continued for 75 years.
That amusing. In 1948 Israel was established by UN mandate which prompted seven Arab countries to declare war and invade. Israel successfully defended themselves, and they have continued to do so ever since.
It’s called leadership incompetence. People should be imprisoned for this failure.
The medias constant videos and photos of dead and maimed Gazans, especially children and of course premature BABIES tugged on most people’s heart strings.
“It is not an unlikely scenario that Europe has two long lasting wars at its periphery, in Ukraine and the Middle East. The reason is that neither Vladimir Putin nor Benjamin Netanyahu have an interest for their wars to end. As long as the war goes on, they keep their image as powerful war lords.”
There was no war in Ukraine, until Yanukovich was overthrown. It wasn’t Putin that overthrew him. Senator McCain was seen in Maidan Square, promoting the protesters, prior to the coup. As was admitted by Germany, there was no intent for the later Minsk Agreement to be upheld. So who didn’t want an end to the war? Those supporting Kiev. Allegedly, some 14,000 in the Donbas were killed during the time leading up to the current wider war. Interesting that the wider war was repeatedly claimed to be unprovoked.
Well Said!
Mish,
some clarification is needed here.
Bin Laden had NOTHING to do with 9-11, he was just a handy visible scapegoat.
Mossad or ex Mossad operatives IMHO.
Ukraine. Victoria Nuland went to Ukraine for the regime change there in 2014, to get a puppet guy in charge to use the country for the Obama/Biden money laundering operation Send a couple Billion over and get 10-20% sent back to Hunters off shore companies for distribution to the group.
Ukraine, Zelensky. likely with the blessing of the CIA office set up there in 2014, began shelling the Russians in the Donbas to goad Putin to coming in to stop it. Again just IMHO. Obama got his $100 MILLION’s plus for his five MULTI MILLION dollar palace houses from his government salary, or books and speaking gigs?
Israel.
The $130 billion we sent them over the years was recycled or loans forgiven to sell them planes, guns and tanks from our war manufacturing industries. Being quite smart folks they are now manufacturing their own war machines.
There are more M1 Abrams tanks rotting in the fields of Egypt than the Marine corp has.
You are sick. You should consider therapy while there is still time to enjoy your life.
The goal is deterrence, idk how it can be explained any simpler than that.
The goal is increased arms manufacturing and it can’t be explained any simpler.
I understand why wasp build nests near my house but I still kill them before someone gets stung. And it’s not that I hate wasps per say. I don’t care about wasps either way. If they don’t bother me I don’t bother them. But when they become a nuisance they get sprayed.
Apropos analogy!
Waiting for approval. Nice!
“The reason is that neither Vladimir Putin nor Benjamin Netanyahu have an interest for their wars to end.”
It’s absolutely hilarious that this statement doesn’t include radical Islam. At least in the middle east, they’re part of the war, right?
Sure, let’s only blame Bibi / Israel for a war that goes all the way back to 1929 with the Hebron Massacre with 67 dead & 58 injured. Hamas has no interest in seeing this thing end either. They know the more we spend on Israel / Ukraine, the more debt we take one and, in turn, weaken ourselves in the process. They’re in this thing for the long game.
Now, blame FJB all you want, but the Arabs over there, Mish, don’t want peace. You know this. So every time you gurus start acting like this is a one-sided problem, then you’re ignoring history & current reality.
Shame on you & I hope Israel turns Gaza into rubble, making it inhospitable. Jordan is 80% Palestine. Let the residents of Gaza go live there or in the Sinai Peninsula.
Yes! It’s a perpetual war which is exactly what the Arabs also.
Total BS. Everywhere in the world all people want is to have peace, order, food, and shelter so they may get married, raise, and provide for their family.
Palestinians are no different – however they are not able to have a decent existence.
If any American found themselves in the same predicament as Palestinians (both Christian or Muslim Palestinians are in the same boat), they would probably swing out harder than the Gazans at the Israelis.
You’re acting as if the Palestinian people are monolithic, in total agreement, and that’s just obviously not true. Hamas won an election in 2005 with a plurality, mainly over the corrupt Palestinian Authority, who were then crushed, thrown off the tops of buildings and fled to the West Bank. No elections have been held since that time. That’s not universal agreement, it’s a coup post-election. The majority of working people in Israel and Gaza do want peace, but the idea that the “leadership” of Hamas wants anything but the absolute slaughter and “ethnic cleansing” of Israel is just not real.
EXACTLY!
Jack just doesn’t get it. There’s no moral equivalent. Hamas is subhuman just like Nazis were. There’s a world of difference between some poor Palestinian who’s trapped in Gaza and just want to live his / her life with the right to elect their leaders and put aside bloodshed for peace and the subhuman Hamas radiacals.
The 64K question, of course, is how many of the former are there? I’d like to think a good many, but I doubt seriously this is the case.
The number of Christians in Gaza has dropped below 1000 thanks to decades of persecution by groups like Hamas. As for a decent existence that isn’t possible when poor people choose to screw like rabbits causing the Gazan population to increase 15 fold in 75 years and then complain about overcrowding.
If the US had expanded its post war population at the same rate there would be 2 billion in the 48 states
“Everywhere in the world all people want is to have peace”
You’re crazy! That is not what Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, ISIS, Iran, Putin for that matter and a very patient Xi wants. China doesn’t want peace with Tiawan.
ALL people my a$$. My gawd, Jack, get you head out of your you know what, come back to reality and stop spout Hamas apologist propaganda.
Tom wrote “China doesn’t want peace with Taiwan.”
—
I heard Xi yesterday advocating for a two-state solution for Israel/Palestine.
I immediately thought, why not the same for China/Taiwan? I hope some reporter asks him this question in his next news conference!
Um, this started during the Arab conquest of the region in the 600s.
104 genocides and ethnic cleansings of Jews, Christians, Berbers, Hindus, Buddhists, etc later. . . and here we are
If you disagree with me, just go read please. One of Muhammeds earliest acts was a “genocide” of the Jews in Medina for remaining neutral (except those that were willing to be converted by force). There is absolutely no question where the source of aggression has been at the beginning, the middle, and the current state of this story.
You would have to burn the internet down for these facts to go away, books won’t cut it anymore fortunately.
I’m talking about in modern times which is really what matters. All of the crusades that change power are mostly irrelevant. What matters is the current form of thinking within the Arab world. History is bound to repeat itself, so what matters is trying to change the current thought process.
None of this matters, because Hamas & Iran aren’t going to stop trying to kill Jews.
Upvoted you for rightly pointing out the historical facts. But don’t send them to Sinai as the area is already short of water.
Why begin as late as 1929?
Why not 1917 when the ‘Balfour Declaration’ really began to increase tensions?
The British (Rothschild) never had the right to pledge the land of others
I’m talking about modern era armed conflict. Yes, the BD started the tensions by recognizing the 40 year-old Zionism movement as being legitimate & pushing for a Jewish state. Unfortunately, the Arabs aren’t having any of it despite controlling 99.999% of all of the middle east.
The saddest question to be answered in the next decade will be, how far is the US willing to go in warmongering while the nation falls apart – socially, economically and militarily? How many homeless? Drug deaths? uncontrolled debt? decline in life expectancy? Suicide rates? Decaying cities and infrastructure?
Vets will die homeless and sick in the streets while they hire refugees for citizenship through military service. They’ll stop selling Treasuries and simply ‘print money’ outright. Endless war will become……endless.
Have you no compassion for all the unemployed defense workers if wars were to stop? /s
Anyone who believes that kids flew hijacked planes in American airspace for over an hour without being intercepted is just silly.
Anyone who believes that the Israelis didn’t see the recent attack coming in advance is also silly.
You haven’t ever worked with anyone from US “Intelligence” agencies, have you? It ain’t the cold war anymore, when the best and brightest were all in, motivated by the then realistic Soviet threat.
It’s less rotten in Israel. But with the government being what it is…..: It’s a known problem, that stupid people can’t reliably hire non-stupid ones. Since the stupid people are simply too stupid to be able to tell who is stupid and who is not. So: You end up with management, even of esteemed organisations, by morons. Which, over time, inevitably leads to anyone not stupid leaving; throwing their hands up in the air and resigning in disgust.
Israel is a small country in a rough neighbourhood. They do NEED a big stick. But they also need to talk softly, in order to minimise the need for that stick. Pushing every angle as far as you can, chutzpah if you wish, is a celebrated cultural trait among most jews. It no doubt helps explain some of the impressively outsized achievements jews have racked up over the years, for such a small, and often persecuted, population.
But while it may be a trait conducive to success in industry, science, academia and business; things don’t work that way when it comes to political arrangements, when you are five million in a region of a billion who distrusts you. You can’t use every new weapon or intelligence asset as an excuse to grab another pile of land from those around you, while harassing them even harder. You may be able to bomb and blackmail your way out of the hole you are digging yourself for a while. But keep at it, and eventually you will be so universally despised that even your biggest stick can’t keep you from being ran over anymore.
I believe if we had let the Russians cleanse Afghanistan of the radical Islamists 911 would have never happened. What irony that our involvement with islamic terrorists to fight Russia would backfire in such a horrible way.
It had started many years before the USSR invaded Afghanistan.
Wrong Doug, as always- the USA created bin Laden, trained him, then act surprised when it backfired like every other bonehead strategy the US has used in the last 40 years.
End evil, end America, your country is a cancer of humanity
Cell phone technology did it, used to be israel could do any evil it wanted to because it controlled the media, not any more. When zionists spit on Christians making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, it’s on Tiktok 2 minutes later, when zionist settlers beat,and murder Palestinian farmer, it seen in real time, you want to see zionist steal homes from Christians and Muslims in real time…tiktok.
The ME is a jungle. If u bleed in the jungle hyena and crows will get u.
Mish has no clue. Stick to econ.
A jungle created by the US of A you ll mean ? !
ME was always full of strife.
Agree, the econ is great. Every time Israel is on the menu the logic that works for economics (i.e. the current trend) gets used.
This situation has extensive history. Just looking at the trend of the population of places like Gaza scares me. 10x since 1950? US is 2x.China is 3x.
Even that is just crazy, but as Arafat says (in scary paraphrase), “The womb of the Palestinian woman is the strongest weapon against zionism”. With leaders like that we could only end up there.
That’s long term trending, not current trends, that’s Planning for generational war.
So it’s no surprise that economic thinking can’t get this one right.
Look no further than the oil under the West Bank and off the coast of Israel & Syria, much of which is controlled by Genie Energy (yes, that Genie, where Dick Cheney and other WMD beneficiaries reside). The reserves are much bigger than the House of Saud. Oh, and of course there is the Israeli pipeline.
Syria was also all about Russian pipelines and so was Ukraine.
Why are these obvious factors not discussed?
There is only 1.7 billion barrels of oil near the West Bank compared to 267 billion barrels in Saudi Arabia.
Israel also has the third-largest shale oil reserves in the world, with an estimated 250 – 500 billion barrels just west of Jerusalem
Important point there with respect to oil under the west bank. So hamas or the plo or Egypt would have no ownership right of claim to that oil?
Is that correct?
Ukraine: A day ago I remarked that our Pres. Biden expected Ukraine to fold on the first day of the Russian invasion. Therefore he was immoral in the positions he took in the months before the invasion. He apparently was surprised that Ukraine did not fold and fought back hard for their freedom. I asked whether that put Biden in an uncomfortable spot, obliged to do what he hadn’t wanted to do.
George Orwell once said that the fastest way to end a war is to lose it. He certainly witnessed two awful wars, and fought on the losing side of one. Regarding Israel, many people are correct that if we wanted to strongly enough we could rally the UN and impose defeat on Israel, force them to take Palestinian terms “for peace”.
– That would soon lead to another moral decision, whether to accommodate and accept the evacuation of six million Israeli Jewish refugees from the land, or sit back and watch as the Palestinians might (will?) dispossess, decolonize and kill them.
Quite right Mish…what is the US doing spending such treasure abroad, when there are such visible signs of distress at home, and a nightmarish fiscal situation. From here in the UK it looks increasingly like power for its own sake, and then we should ask who benefits in the US? Or is the US preeminence such a house of cards that it requires such expensive cheques to be written, for fear that it could all too easily unravel? No answers from me, but to look at the UK in the early 50s and their relationship with the Arab world is to invite uncomfortable food for thought.
Israel is losing sympathy ….and the US of fc kn A even more !
There’s an odd undertone when you write about the coflict, whereby you implicitly assume Israel is morally superior, like here for example:
“The actions and responses are radically different (Israel never purposely killed or kidnapped innocent kids and elderly), but the thought process is the same, revenge.”
I honestly laughed when I read that. There are thousands of Palestinians in Israeli jails for years without trial. The hostage deal about to be announced, is said to have Hamas release 50 women and children in exchange for 150 Palestinian women and children in jail. Why has Israel jailed those women and children in the first place? Where is the righteous condemnation of their action?
Israel is ultimately another version of white south africa. A mostly Western people imported to another land where they cleansed millions of the natives, and the small number remaining they then blockaded into small disparate chunks of land, which they now seem adamant to also cleanse anyway. I think this is the reason why the world isn’t so sympathetic to Israel, because everyone is seeing this live on their TVs and cellphones.
He had to be joking, the Palestinians live in concentration camps, the entire population is imprisoned….
Well said!
NOV 19, 2023 by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
Israel Propaganda Vs Palestine Propaganda
SNIPPET:
Israel propaganda looks like a music video featuring children singing “we will annihilate everyone” in Gaza.
Palestine propaganda looks like an endless stream of raw video footage featuring children whose bodies have been ripped apart by Israeli military explosives.
Israel propaganda looks like a music video of Israeli women doing yoga on top of images of the Israeli hostages in Gaza.
Palestine propaganda looks like satellite images of entire neighborhoods that have been bombed into rubble by Israeli forces.
Full article with video or Listen to Podcast:
https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/israel-propaganda-vs-palestine-propaganda
I was going to respond to that statement too but you beat me to the punch.
The problems of the Palestinians is the fault of Hamas asshole. Many march around calling Hamas freedom fighters because like you they have absolutely no understanding of truth or evil.
Europeans turned South Africa into by far the richest country in Africa. The blacks were literally breaking down the border fences to try to enter the place to participate in the benefits available. Since they’ve gone “full-democracy” the Zimbabwefication of the country is well underway, with corruption and incompetence on display everywhere….
Moe wrote:
They are in jail because they did something to warrant being put there. Or are you accusing Israel of randomly cruising the streets and arresting Palestinians because they have nothing better to do?
As for the upcoming hostage exchange, I find it interesting that the exchange rate is 3 for 1, which implies that the worth of a Hamas held hostage is 3X that of an Israeli held hostage.
Sympathy or Condemnation? Either way – no, IDGAF.
The word salad spun out by the imperial presidency is for the history books.
Emperor Caligula would have been proud of it.
He who births the most wins. They have manpower and access to resources. Until the Israelis have 8 children per female like the Arabs, Israel and anyone aligned with them is destined to be pushed into the sea by an ever increasing “other army.”
That may actually have been their game plan. 50% of the population in Gaza is under 18. 66% of those 16-24 are unemployed. The Gazan Palestinians can only survive because of unlimited aid trucked into the territory every signal day, 500 trucks DAILY prior to Oct 7th!
But they are containerized in their small territory, so while they currently held the most densely populated area on the planet, like uneducated rats, they continued to birth new babies at an astounding rate. They have no way to expand, no way to gain new territory, so the only logical endgame I can see is that Hamas intends to use the excess population as some sort of cannon fodder when they formally attack Israel.
Gaza is not the most densely populated country in the world. It is not even in the top 100.
Each of Israel’s ten biggest cities has a higher population density than Gaza.
Even if you focus on Gaza City itself, its population density is 13,121 people per square kilometre, roughly the same as Buenos Aires. Two of Israel’s cities have a higher density – Bat Yam has over 15,000, and Bnei Brak has 26,368 people/sq.K.
Manhattan’s density is 28,154/sq.K, Dhaka’s is 29,069 and Manila’s is 43,064.
Also and this might shock you… Hamas has been known to be not entirely truthful in everything they claim. There is a benefit to them to exaggerate their population. In an interview to the New York Times in 1997, Hassan Abu-Libdeh, Head of the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics, dubbed their census “civil Intifada”.
Im sure Japan also has very dense cities but they arent filled with people trying to kill each other.
Yes, I’ve been to Gaza and the place has nowhere near the density of people in say Cairo where I have a home in a city of 25 million where some suburbs have 100,000 plus inhabitants per square km.
I suppose we should look to Ireland which has had the same problem for centuries and how they handled it .. or didnt handle it. 🙂
one of Mish’s best pieces
“ How much better would US infrastructure be if we spent $2 trillion here instead of wasting it overseas and making more enemies in the process?”
– Infrastructure would be significantly better! The Border would be buttoned up, and that means South & North!
– We would have EV Battery Manufacturing in the U.S.
– We would have a total U.S. Highway charging system in place for EV’s
– We would be 100% Oil & Gas Independent.
For Starters…
Sure, keep posing questions that have zero chance of ever coming true. It helps fill time and provides space for ads.
Green energy is a boondoggle. Do you even know what the EROI is for EVs as compared to ICE vehicles? Do you even know what an ICE vehicle is, or are you really THAT ignorant.
America doomed itself with ignorance, and your post is a classical example of that.
Israel has lost sympathy with whom? The US? No. Europe? No and especially not Germany who supports Israel to the hilt. China? They don’t care and never had. Russia? Probably but they are good friend with Iran and Hamas already. India? India supports Israel and has said so. Japan supports Israel publicly. That leaves Africa but who cares and Latin America who hasn’t much an opinion one way or the other. Now we have the Muslim countries who all secretly would love Israel to eliminate Hamas but can’t say so in public. Everyone is expressing sympathy for the Gaza people who by the way supported Hamas but let’s not quibble about facts when we are showing our virtue. In the end no one is going to stop Israel from doing what they see must be done.
Israel has lost support among the bleeding hearts who blithely write that Israel has the right to attack Hamas BUT then they get upset that since Hams uses its citizens as human shields, so-called innocent Gazans, including woman, children and of course “PREMATURE BABIES” are going to wind up being killed or injured to get tot he Hamas fighters.
HOW exactly is Israel supposed to get to he Hamas fighters and take them out, while they hide behind civilians? This is the Hamas strategy. It’s a feature, not a bug and it will never change.
Its logic. If you give Hamas knife and Israel machine gun , Hamas will hide behind civilians not to be shot. If you give Hamas nuclear bomb I’m sure they won’t hide.
Both Israel and Hamas have machine guns and Hamas intentionally hides behind women and children and want thousands of dead Gazans to make the bleeding hearts in the West blame Israel.
It was the Israelis who provided care to those premature babies and ensured that they got safely to Rafah where the Egyptians then moved them to Egyptian hospitals. Hamas would have preferred those babies to die as it makes the Israelis look like monsters.
Which leads to the question: what would have endangered those babies without the Israelis?
But after…?If their plan is to force out the gazans, then the Arab world (whose leaders all have to look over their shoulder at the Arab street) would have to do something…whatever their private feelings.
They won’t be forced out because no one will take them. Israel will destroy Hamas in Gaza and outside and then control the donor rebuilding money to make sure Hamas doesn’t come back.
Cherry picking musings of yours …Maybe Netanyahu and Putin will be playing monopoly one day in a ICC prison , and with Zelensky and Biden there too, they could even play whist…. tss, with Putin winning all of the time it wouldn t be much fun of course….
Well Hrolfr, the cherry-picking season is over for a while now and I must say that this year’s crop was skimpy. We had too much rain. We just broke the record here with more than thirty days of continuous rain. It’s the same up where you live.
6/7ths of the planet. The Golden Billion is not “the consensus”. They are the abusers, the arrogant, the reprobate, and the soon to be defeated.
“No and especially not Germany who supports Israel to the hilt.”
Sure.That’s why they are banning “pro Palestinian” protests. Since noone supports them and all…
Politicians holding their nose and supporting Israel in order to show how good they are at kowtowing to Washington lest “Bogeyman Putin Wins”, is a pretty poor indicator of who “Europeans” support.
To the extent it can even be treated as a football match: Pro Palestinian protests draw at least 20-1 the crowds of the feeble attempts at pro-Israeli ones organised to try to cover that fact up. I’m sure that ratio is skewed by the typical “Palestine” supporter being much more likely to “protest” in the first place, since many tend to be leftists living the “protest” lifestyle more than anything. But that doesn’t explain all of it: Talk to people across Europe, and the initial horror of the Hamas attack has long since been overshadowed by the mass slaughter going on, ever since, in Gaza.
And it’s only going to get more lopsided from here: Hamas is effectively done committing atrocities for awhile. From here on out, the only role left for them, is the one of “resistance fighter.” While the Israeli war machine, OTOH, has only gotten started. Unless they somehow find a way to either back off, or to be massively more precise in their Hamas fighter targeting; while at the same time being visibly “protective” of civilian populations; all they are decomplishing PR wise, is further cementing their image as out-of-control, infinitely self righteous, indiscriminate child killers.
Virtually all the Europeans who are in Gaza now, are there to do humanitarian work. Those guys are not going to view Israel kindly by the look of how things are going. And yet those guys are the ones whose voice will be heard in Europe: MSF doctors bombed out of hospitals they work in, aid workers killed due to bombardment or sniper fire, or who end up watching kids die of causes as preventable as lack of water…. That’s what the Europeans who are in Gaza will be reporting back about. Hence what Europeans will hear about. The cheesy Fox News style agitprop endlessly regurgitated by the vapid “made money in the ‘markets’ like the ‘Muricans” set, will just fade into the background, since it never contains anything even remotely new, insightful nor interesting.
There was a photo of Osama bin Laden showing Reagan’s Secretary of Defense, Caspar Weinberger, a captured Soviet light machine gun in Afghanistan, in the 1980s, when the US was supporting the Mujahedeen. It’s been scrubbed from the internet.
*THIS* – Mish, wish I could take this post and beam it into the brain of every bloodthirsty leader and their sheeple everywhere. .
So much of what you write I don’t agree with but on the subject of the US policy of forever wars I totally agree with. Our other area of agreement is the climate change scam. We need a major change of direction Mish and we’re not going to get it from any democrat or the likes of Nikki Haley, or any other RNC tool. RFK Jr has too much baggage. That only leaves one obvious choice. C’mon Mish, admit it.
2003 Gaza War WTF It was occupied 1967- 2005 by Israel
What you call revenge, others call justice. And let’s be real, without a forceful response, Hamas, Hezbollah, etc would be emboldened to commit further atrocities. Supporting Israel short of American boots on the ground seems like a no brainer. Same with Ukraine. Where we agree is that nation building like was attempted in Iraq and Afghanistan is a fool’s errand.
There is no justice in killing innocent people – Ever!
When your enemy is embedded within a civilian population that is inevitable.
No it’s not.
The fact that there is a murderer embedded within New York, isa rather poor excuse for nuking it from orbit. Even the fact that there is a Fed embedded within New York, may not justify that.
There are no magical place out there, where noone is a civilian. Nor, realistically, one where noone is a bad guy. Everywhere is a mix. Doubly so in a place as dense as Gaza. And triply so, when Israel has long since prevented Hamas from operating dedicated military installations away from civilian areas.
Instead, in all cases, you have the duty to be as massively precise as you possibly can, wrt differentiating between those who are legitimate targets and those who are not. If you ever get to shoot a hostage-rescue scenario, you lose if you shoot the “civilian” that the hostage taker is hiding behind. Doesn’t matter if you manage to hit the perp: If you also hit the hostage, you lose.
And it only gets worse, when you supposedly “know” that the perps are underground in tunnels. Yet you still bomb residential buildings from above……Not even reaching the tunnels the perps, as opposed to civilians, are in.
For reference: The civilian-to-militant kill/maim rate of the Israeli aerial campaign is, by any count, many times worse than the corresponding 1 to 7-10 one of Hamas’ original attack. Considering how indiscriminate the Hamas attack was, that’s utterly atrocious. It’s a nasty hole that saner heads in the IDF and defence department is going to have to waste an enormous amount of capital trying to dig themselves out of. That’s no more about precisely targeting, or even targeting at all, militants, than the Hiroshima bombing was.
The world is full of people killing innocent people. Russia comes to mind.
(We, America, do have the luxury to sit back and watch others do it.)
for the time being ….maybe your lgbtq+ soldiers should lift their too fat, spoilt asses out of their lounge seats for a change and fight for freedom and democracy ……hahahahahahahahaah !
Actually, we haven’t sat back and let others do it. What were the American-imposed death tolls among civilians in Iraq? In Afghanistan? In Vietnam? In Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki and places that have dropped down the memory hole. And those slaughters occurred when the U.S. was not facing existential risk: WWII in the Pacific is generally viewed as having turned at Midway in ’42. Yes, there was horrific bloodshed to come, but U.S. existence wasn’t at risk. Israel’s existence is at risk from Iran (by their declarations), Hamas, the P.A., Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and any other Arab/Muslim player who might join in. Israel is the only liberal democracy in the region. It is the only prosperous liberal economy: half-trillion$ GDP, $50k-plus nominal per capita GDP, higher than most of the EU including the UK and Germany (little points you’d think an economic opinionator would mention). Netanyahu’s purpose is to protect Israel. If that means garrisoning Gaza for the next hundred years, who the hell are you (Mish) to offer an opinion? Does the U.S. have an interest there? Not really. Israel could vanish in fireballs and the U.S. would be no worse off–unless, of course, Israeli subs launch on warning and Gulf oil fields go up in flames. Then Biden and Blinken and the squirming EU would blame Israel for not finding a peaceable middle ground between its destruction and its destruction. If Israel survives the enmity of Islam and the treachery of its friends (states, as De Gaulle said, don’t have friends; they have interests), then it may in ten years have its own ordnance and not be reliant on another generation of “friends”.
Yup, as the American general Curtis LeMay said: “If you kill enough of them eventually they will stop fighting.”
Israel’s response to the Hamas attack of Oct 7th AND the continued lobbing of missiles into Israel territory since then by Hams and Islamic Jihad justifiable. As to so-called “innocents”:
The people of Gaza embraced and accepted the goals of Hamas over the last 17 years that Hamas has been “governing” Gaza. They accepted the support that Hamas distributed to most of them on a daily to monthly basis, from cash stipends to food to medicines to jobs to apartments to cars with the implied understanding that in accepting these handouts, they agreed to become human shields for Hamas terrorism.
The population of Gaza and Hamas have to be considered one and the same. There are no Gazan innocents, only victims of their own choices.
I think Hamas needs to be destroyed but the entire Palestinian population of Gaza is NOT responsible for the actions of Hamas. In that 2005 election Hamas only won by a plurality against the much-hated and thoroughly corrupt PA. Hamas proceeded to take full rule by violence and no more elections have been held. IMO, a large part of the Gaza population want Hamas gone and is more or less captive. In your logic, Jews in WW2 Germany were “one and the same” with the Nazis, and you’re really practicing collective punishment.
But that is how elections work. A large part of the USA voting population didn’t vote for Biden but because of his majority in the electoral college (not to mention the popular vote), they are bound to accept him and his policies. All they can do against him is protest, write critical letters to the editor, post on the internet or mouth off to their friends and co-workers.
Speaking of which, I have yet to see EVEN ONE Gazan stand up on the MSM (disguised if necessary) and point their finger at Hamas as the cause of Gazan problems or to call for Hamas to release the hostages it holds. NOT ONE!
I contend this makes the entire population complicit in what Hamas is and has done.
There are a few…
https://www.instagram.com/p/C0A1RCVg9te/