If Israel does not stop cosplaying the Waffen SS in Warsaw, they will lose all moral authority in the world, and that will lead to an exodus by Israeli citizens who cannot abide what this government is doing. And that has nothing to do whatever with whatever plans other Palestinian groups may be planning for the future. Casting aside and repressing the national aspirations of the Palestinians will lead only to further wars - and Israel has to lose only once.....
I hate war and I hate greedy men with greedy ambitions. I'm fed up with all of this. Netanyahu has no interest in negotiating and our Supreme Court just gave him ammunition to hold on to November to complete his wretched agenda at the expense of civilian Palestinians. Here we go again. And again. And again. How gut-wrenchingly sad for anyone who wants peace.
If we really want to understand what Pol Potbelly would be like in a second shot at the White House, we could do worse than study his brother from another mother, Bibi.
"allegations Israel rejects as an attack on its legitimacy" No allegations are needed to destroy Israel's legitimacy when the Netanyahu government is acting as it is.
And let’s not forget Jared Kushner calling on Israel to “remove all civilians” from that “valuable waterfront property” know as Gaza. They are all in it together.
"Between the sea and the Jordan there will only be [our] sovereignty." Is that a Palestinian talking? Nope: it is the platform of Likud in 1977. [our] is "Israeli."
"But of COURSE, it was the land of our forefathers. The well from which we sprang. For a while we were excluded, but our leaders fought a war and got it back. Then we lost it again and now by God we are going to take it back again from those who don't even speak our language. "
Is that an Israeli speaking? Nope: it is pretty much what Putin says about Ukraine, more or less accurately, in fact. Catherine the Great was the leader who "got it back." It had been in in the "heartland" of the Kievan Rus' and then for almost a thousand years in the hands of (in part) Poland, the Khanate, and the Cossack Hetmanate.
Looking at a map of Israel, Tom, it is easy to see why the Israeli's consider the 'West Bank' to be Israeli territory. I do not understand why Britain and the UN cut up Israel the ways they did and divided Palestinians from each other. Nor do I understand why that narrow triangular region was given to Israel so the could reach the Red Sea.
If I could rule the world for one week I'd draw a line from Gaza City to Masada leaving Beersheba in Israel so it would be more like a gentle curve and give all that land to Palestine with a written promise that the UN, United States, Europe AND Israel would help the Palestinians settle there, build the essential roads, schools, and hospitals and arrange a loan from he world bank, In exchange the new Palestinian leaders would have to promise to concentrate their efforts on creating a livable economy for all Palestinians NOT the wealthier ones, And all politicians in both Israel and Palestine would have to sign a binding peace treaty between Israel and Palestine and signed by all the nations in that region (including Iran) under threat of military interference by United States, NATO and the United Nations against any Country or group that broke the agreement in the next 200 years. That would give Palestine access to both the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. To the rest of the world a breathing space
Historically speaking, starting from British control of the area taken from the Ottoman Empire as part of WW One - the British declared they would divide "Mandatory Palestine" between the Jews and the Arabs. In 1921 they used 2/3 of it to create "the emirate of Transjordan", which in 1946 became "the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan." The remaining third was divided in 1948 by the UN along lines that did not last, as 5 neighboring Arab countries invaded Israel as soon as it declared its independence. Borders settled temporarily according to the results of that war, and changed over time with each war (there were many) and peace treaty (few). Instead of the Palestinian state envisioned by the UN, by 1949 the area intended for it was controlled by those Arab countries who kept it until the war of 1967, at which point Israel gained control.
As for the future, the biggest problem is how to empower leaders of all relevant groups who want to create a world in which all can live their lives without attacking or otherwise harming each other. If that happens, the practical part will be discovered. The Irish figured it out, proving it can be done.
Thank you, so much, Joan for your well informed analysis. I just wish the truly involved parties would hold a conference instead of perpetual war, and settle for the best situation possible. I admit I am more sympathetic to the Jews than the Arabs, but I would truly like to see a map in which each factor could live in contiguous areas in harmony with each other and avoid the ME FIRST crap.
The whole business about contiguous areas is based on a garbage premise, which is that you can have a viable Palestinian state next to Israel in which it would be unsafe or otherwise impossible for Jews to live. Once you insist that both Palestinians and Jews must be able to live good lives whether in Israel or Palestine, the states can have compact boundaries. That's the easy part. Getting leaders to aim for that goal is the hard part.
Before October 7, there were organizations working to bring young Israelis and Palestinians together, socially, to know each other as people. There were budding economic ties between Israel and the Arabic nations. Those are some of the reasons for the attack, in fact. They couldn't stand to see peaceful ties and nascent friendships.
Netanyahu has a long dark history of at least fairly covert machinations which set up the conditions for October 7, and had just recently begun to stage a take over of the full reins of power much as is happening in our country, but with alterations in accordance with the differences in our governmental structures. He clearly knew the judiciary was key.
I seem to have gotten myself "in trouble" and ignored by one of the prime newsletter authors by opining shortly after October 7 that we should provide all the defense Israel required, and offense that could be used in a carefully applied manner, but nothing used to indiscriminately flatten Gaza and civilians. Interestingly, my best friend since early childhood who is an American practicing Jew finds no real airspace between our opinions. That's just one person, but one I know would feel entirely free to enlighten me as needed. They feel closely aligned with pro-peace Israelis, have quite a bit of anger against West Bank "colonizers" and feel strongly that Netanyahu has badly damaged Israel's legitimacy in the world's eyes and must go. They viewed him in much the same way they view Trump... as do I.
Which brings me to the point that although I utterly deplore the violence and "accidental" loss of civilian life in Gaza, believe the behavior of the IDF in Gaza reveals a degree of "attitude education" poisoning too many who have been forced to participate in the violence as part of the IDF, and am disgusted by those Israeli citizens who force Palestinians off generational land, kill their flocks which are their livelihood in a harsh land, and take what is not legally or rightfully theirs, I try hard to remember there are Israeli citizens who are as horrified by all this as I am. I try very hard (and often enough probably fail) to remember to distinguish between Netanyahu and Israel or Israelis as a whole, where fairness calls for it. Probably I relate because of four regrettable years of seeing the world revise their opinion of America due to Trump. I do think, sadly, Netanyahu is discrediting the whole nation of Israel in the world's eyes, and that like America under Trump a nation's leadership can taint the morals and worldview of some subset of the population. They need to get rid of Netanyahu and we need to finally rid ourselves of Trump.
As an American practicing Jew myself, and a strong supporter of Israel at its best and its middling, I agree with every word you wrote.
Many of the people murdered on October 7 were peace activists who had continued to work for peace with their friends in Gaza despite the many obstacles. Vivian Silver, a friend of friends of mine, was at first thought captured; then discovered to have been burned to death in her home. Killing peace activists may have been one of Hamas' goals in the attack.
Friends of mine in Tel Aviv spent most of their Saturday nights for half a year at the anti-right-wing protests, which drew hundreds of thousands of Israelis. Now the protests are on behalf of bringing the hostages home and ending the war in Gaza.
Oh, I am so sorry. I remember her in video and remember how they found her, and that was horrible beyond words, beyond imagination... an enormous loss to the better world we could be.
Correction. That should be Satish, not Salish, Kumar. I can't recommend Resurgence and the Ecologist highly enough. It is a beautiful, provocative publication with short, thought-provoking articles, poems, and artwork focused on nature and our role as humans in working with and not against nature.
When I was in seventh grade, my teacher told us that Israel had "Most-favored nation" status. Meaning they got their money before Britain, (West) Germany, Taiwan (aka Nationalist China, Formosa) or any other country got theirs. I don't know if that's still true 50+ years later, but if it is, it's our fault.
My heart breaks not only for the dead, injured, and displaced Palestinians, but also for the young Israelis, most of whom signaled in the streets well before the Hamas attack that they were done with the power and land-grabbing elders running the country. Now they are being forced to risk their lives to provide land, comfort, and a supposed glory for the Likud wingers whom they were railing against. Netanyahu is the key obstruction to peace, which is why Benny Gantz withdrew. Bibi is driven by his own corruption and a need to find the glory that his hero brother earned through bravery and valor and that has eluded Bibi all his miserable life. His legacy will not be one of heroism; it will be his feeding and reinvigorating the Three H's, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Houthi. He's done a lot of recruiting for them.
If Israel does not stop cosplaying the Waffen SS in Warsaw, they will lose all moral authority in the world, and that will lead to an exodus by Israeli citizens who cannot abide what this government is doing. And that has nothing to do whatever with whatever plans other Palestinian groups may be planning for the future. Casting aside and repressing the national aspirations of the Palestinians will lead only to further wars - and Israel has to lose only once.....
I hate war and I hate greedy men with greedy ambitions. I'm fed up with all of this. Netanyahu has no interest in negotiating and our Supreme Court just gave him ammunition to hold on to November to complete his wretched agenda at the expense of civilian Palestinians. Here we go again. And again. And again. How gut-wrenchingly sad for anyone who wants peace.
Of the Seven Deadlies that GREED one seems to tower above the rest everywhere around the world. Enough is never enough, as the little children say.
Greed will do us in.
On a different note, I went into my ActBlue account today and paused the donations to all those rats
in the democratic party
named in different areas
calling for Biden to step down. It felt good and is
my little statement.
Good for you!
That's a great idea and worth repeating on other forums.
We need a list of those who no longer need our donations and who do need our letters.
If we really want to understand what Pol Potbelly would be like in a second shot at the White House, we could do worse than study his brother from another mother, Bibi.
"allegations Israel rejects as an attack on its legitimacy" No allegations are needed to destroy Israel's legitimacy when the Netanyahu government is acting as it is.
The Israeli state certainly learned well from the Nazi state …
And let’s not forget Jared Kushner calling on Israel to “remove all civilians” from that “valuable waterfront property” know as Gaza. They are all in it together.
It was hard to like this report
Tom. From the river to the
sea, eh? Seems that
Netanyahu has taken that as
his own mantra now. There
won't be a 2 state solution
in my lifetime. The
reprehensible, intentional
starvation and treatment of
a people who have lived
across the country and
beside the Jews for centuries
is chiming with the history of
Hitler and his "solution".
And we have Trump.😱
"Between the sea and the Jordan there will only be [our] sovereignty." Is that a Palestinian talking? Nope: it is the platform of Likud in 1977. [our] is "Israeli."
"But of COURSE, it was the land of our forefathers. The well from which we sprang. For a while we were excluded, but our leaders fought a war and got it back. Then we lost it again and now by God we are going to take it back again from those who don't even speak our language. "
Is that an Israeli speaking? Nope: it is pretty much what Putin says about Ukraine, more or less accurately, in fact. Catherine the Great was the leader who "got it back." It had been in in the "heartland" of the Kievan Rus' and then for almost a thousand years in the hands of (in part) Poland, the Khanate, and the Cossack Hetmanate.
Looking at a map of Israel, Tom, it is easy to see why the Israeli's consider the 'West Bank' to be Israeli territory. I do not understand why Britain and the UN cut up Israel the ways they did and divided Palestinians from each other. Nor do I understand why that narrow triangular region was given to Israel so the could reach the Red Sea.
If I could rule the world for one week I'd draw a line from Gaza City to Masada leaving Beersheba in Israel so it would be more like a gentle curve and give all that land to Palestine with a written promise that the UN, United States, Europe AND Israel would help the Palestinians settle there, build the essential roads, schools, and hospitals and arrange a loan from he world bank, In exchange the new Palestinian leaders would have to promise to concentrate their efforts on creating a livable economy for all Palestinians NOT the wealthier ones, And all politicians in both Israel and Palestine would have to sign a binding peace treaty between Israel and Palestine and signed by all the nations in that region (including Iran) under threat of military interference by United States, NATO and the United Nations against any Country or group that broke the agreement in the next 200 years. That would give Palestine access to both the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. To the rest of the world a breathing space
Historically speaking, starting from British control of the area taken from the Ottoman Empire as part of WW One - the British declared they would divide "Mandatory Palestine" between the Jews and the Arabs. In 1921 they used 2/3 of it to create "the emirate of Transjordan", which in 1946 became "the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan." The remaining third was divided in 1948 by the UN along lines that did not last, as 5 neighboring Arab countries invaded Israel as soon as it declared its independence. Borders settled temporarily according to the results of that war, and changed over time with each war (there were many) and peace treaty (few). Instead of the Palestinian state envisioned by the UN, by 1949 the area intended for it was controlled by those Arab countries who kept it until the war of 1967, at which point Israel gained control.
As for the future, the biggest problem is how to empower leaders of all relevant groups who want to create a world in which all can live their lives without attacking or otherwise harming each other. If that happens, the practical part will be discovered. The Irish figured it out, proving it can be done.
Thank you, so much, Joan for your well informed analysis. I just wish the truly involved parties would hold a conference instead of perpetual war, and settle for the best situation possible. I admit I am more sympathetic to the Jews than the Arabs, but I would truly like to see a map in which each factor could live in contiguous areas in harmony with each other and avoid the ME FIRST crap.
The whole business about contiguous areas is based on a garbage premise, which is that you can have a viable Palestinian state next to Israel in which it would be unsafe or otherwise impossible for Jews to live. Once you insist that both Palestinians and Jews must be able to live good lives whether in Israel or Palestine, the states can have compact boundaries. That's the easy part. Getting leaders to aim for that goal is the hard part.
Before October 7, there were organizations working to bring young Israelis and Palestinians together, socially, to know each other as people. There were budding economic ties between Israel and the Arabic nations. Those are some of the reasons for the attack, in fact. They couldn't stand to see peaceful ties and nascent friendships.
Netanyahu has a long dark history of at least fairly covert machinations which set up the conditions for October 7, and had just recently begun to stage a take over of the full reins of power much as is happening in our country, but with alterations in accordance with the differences in our governmental structures. He clearly knew the judiciary was key.
I seem to have gotten myself "in trouble" and ignored by one of the prime newsletter authors by opining shortly after October 7 that we should provide all the defense Israel required, and offense that could be used in a carefully applied manner, but nothing used to indiscriminately flatten Gaza and civilians. Interestingly, my best friend since early childhood who is an American practicing Jew finds no real airspace between our opinions. That's just one person, but one I know would feel entirely free to enlighten me as needed. They feel closely aligned with pro-peace Israelis, have quite a bit of anger against West Bank "colonizers" and feel strongly that Netanyahu has badly damaged Israel's legitimacy in the world's eyes and must go. They viewed him in much the same way they view Trump... as do I.
Which brings me to the point that although I utterly deplore the violence and "accidental" loss of civilian life in Gaza, believe the behavior of the IDF in Gaza reveals a degree of "attitude education" poisoning too many who have been forced to participate in the violence as part of the IDF, and am disgusted by those Israeli citizens who force Palestinians off generational land, kill their flocks which are their livelihood in a harsh land, and take what is not legally or rightfully theirs, I try hard to remember there are Israeli citizens who are as horrified by all this as I am. I try very hard (and often enough probably fail) to remember to distinguish between Netanyahu and Israel or Israelis as a whole, where fairness calls for it. Probably I relate because of four regrettable years of seeing the world revise their opinion of America due to Trump. I do think, sadly, Netanyahu is discrediting the whole nation of Israel in the world's eyes, and that like America under Trump a nation's leadership can taint the morals and worldview of some subset of the population. They need to get rid of Netanyahu and we need to finally rid ourselves of Trump.
As an American practicing Jew myself, and a strong supporter of Israel at its best and its middling, I agree with every word you wrote.
Many of the people murdered on October 7 were peace activists who had continued to work for peace with their friends in Gaza despite the many obstacles. Vivian Silver, a friend of friends of mine, was at first thought captured; then discovered to have been burned to death in her home. Killing peace activists may have been one of Hamas' goals in the attack.
Friends of mine in Tel Aviv spent most of their Saturday nights for half a year at the anti-right-wing protests, which drew hundreds of thousands of Israelis. Now the protests are on behalf of bringing the hostages home and ending the war in Gaza.
Oh, I am so sorry. I remember her in video and remember how they found her, and that was horrible beyond words, beyond imagination... an enormous loss to the better world we could be.
thank you
Salish Kumar, former editor of Resurgence and the Ecologist, said it best, “There is enough for everyone’s need but not everyone’s greed.”
Correction. That should be Satish, not Salish, Kumar. I can't recommend Resurgence and the Ecologist highly enough. It is a beautiful, provocative publication with short, thought-provoking articles, poems, and artwork focused on nature and our role as humans in working with and not against nature.
I’ve been caught in a really scary movie, right?
I wish. Movies end.
What? A war with Lebanon? Who could have seen that coming? Israel needs BiBi now to keep it safe, that's the ticket.
When I was in seventh grade, my teacher told us that Israel had "Most-favored nation" status. Meaning they got their money before Britain, (West) Germany, Taiwan (aka Nationalist China, Formosa) or any other country got theirs. I don't know if that's still true 50+ years later, but if it is, it's our fault.
My heart breaks not only for the dead, injured, and displaced Palestinians, but also for the young Israelis, most of whom signaled in the streets well before the Hamas attack that they were done with the power and land-grabbing elders running the country. Now they are being forced to risk their lives to provide land, comfort, and a supposed glory for the Likud wingers whom they were railing against. Netanyahu is the key obstruction to peace, which is why Benny Gantz withdrew. Bibi is driven by his own corruption and a need to find the glory that his hero brother earned through bravery and valor and that has eluded Bibi all his miserable life. His legacy will not be one of heroism; it will be his feeding and reinvigorating the Three H's, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Houthi. He's done a lot of recruiting for them.