Pro-Palestinian Demonstration 7Oct2024

 

 

Palestinian-led demonstration on one-year anniversary of the Hamas attack in Israel.

A piece in Mondoweiss acknowledges the attack by Hamas that killed around 1,200 Israelis on October 7th of last year but states flatly that Israel, in retaliation, is engaged in genocide,

...leveling entire residential blocks, destroying education and health institutions, eliminating the basic infrastructure needed to sustain a society, and burying entire families under the rubble.

The West Bank has not been spared from Israeli  attacks, either.

Israeli settlers set out to forcibly expel Palestinian rural communities and steal the lands of Palestinian towns and villages. The Israeli army ramped up its spree of raids on refugee camps, destroying their infrastructure, and systematically forcing inhabitants to live in a situation similar to the one lived in Gaza.

Palestinians refer to their original 1948 expulsion from their ancestral lands the "Nakba," the Catastrophe. 

In the terms of the Vietnam War, the Northern Gaza town of Jabalia should have long since been "pacified." Of course back then the US didn't really understand what motivated the Vietnamese to keep on fighting against what Americans considered to be impossible odds, but we're supposed to have figured out from several low-level conflicts since then that insurgencies have to be defeated by political means. Israelis should have learned that from Americans, but Israeli intelligence indicated that "Hamas was attempting to 'rebuild its operational capabilities in the area.'” Had Israel made a political deal with the Palestinians of Jabalia, Hamas would not have been able to regain a foothold in the area. 

 

Video of demonstration

Going onto Xitter, I see lots of people blaming the Biden Administration for Israel's genocidal conduct. But Biden and the Democrats in general demonstrated a distinct lack of enthusiasm back in May.

The Israel Security Assistance Support Act was approved 224 to 187, largely along party lines. Sixteen Democrats joined most Republicans in voting yes, and three Republicans joined most Democrats in opposing the measure.

Yes, Democrats are still voting to send aid to Israel, but Democrats also have constituents that they are listening to who oppose such aid and Republicans largely don't. If I were consulting for either the Israelis or Palestinians, I'd say that, at the moment, the two parties are six of one, half-dozen of the other. They're both anti-Palestinian. So the question becomes one of which party is more persuadable. 

According to a Jerusalem Post article, VP Harris has been pro-Israel for her entire career. As for Trump:

Trump’s voter pool, along with his misogynistic and racist worldview and his personal narcissism, make for a dangerous combination of an untrustworthy and unpredictable leader. 

Also, Evangelicals, a large constituency in the Republican Party, don't support Israel for rational, secular reasons, but because Israel plays a role in Christian prophecy. Bottom line is that there's a reasonable chance that Democrats can be persuaded to support Palestinians, there's zero chance that Republicans can be persuaded. 

 

Would it make any sense for a pro-Palestinian person to vote third party? Jill Stein of the Green Party, for instance, has taken a strong pro-Palestinian position. And well, in an English-style Parliamentary democracy, that would be an immediate "Yes!" Stein could then ally her party with whichever major party promised to support her position. But in the US binary, winner-take-all system, voting third party and tossing your ballot down into the sewer are essentially the same thing. It may make you feel better to cast a third party vote, but the practical effect of such a vote is nil. 

 

Trump's lying and distorting have really gone into overdrive. Obama aasks: "When did this become okay?" Trump talks about Aurora CO and how a migrant gang has "taken over" the city (Aurora has a problem with migrant gangs, but they haven't "taken over"). The pained response of Aurora's mayor.

"Is Donald Trump a fascist? A fascism scholar says he certainly sounds like one"

Ruth Ben-Ghiat is a history professor at New York University, scholar on authoritarian leaders and the author of the book, “Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present.” She says the kind of rhetoric Trump is using on the campaign trail is not a surprise.

 

This is rather concerning. Trump's campaign isn't taking any steps to ensure that there's a smooth transition of power in the event he wins the election. One of the big items in the transition is to get security clearances for people who need them in order to deal with classified information. One of the alleged problems with failing to detect al Qaeda activity in 2001 was the delayed transition that meant the younger George Bush didn't have a fully staffed team in time to be aware of the threat. Trump doesn't care. He wanted his son-in-law Jared Kushner to have a top security clearance even though the national security establishment felt he was completely ineligible. Trump just wants his cronies given security clearances whether they're tied to Russia or Saudi Arabia or whoever. 

Drone warfare is fundamentally different from "artillery, mortar, tank assaults, missile and aerial bomb strikes" as drones are small and quiet and can hover without people on the ground being aware of them. By august 2024, drone strikes on Kherson has reached 100 per day.

In September, there were over 3,000 drone attacks on civilians. Since the beginning of September, the total number of drone victims has reached 140, with 10 fatalities, said Olexandr Tolokonnikov, the spokesperson for the Kherson Regional Military Administration, in an interview with Kyiv Post.
The new mode of warfare affects everyday life and safety in Kherson. Drones deliberately target civilian areas rather than military objects.

These attacks of course violate the Geneva Conventions, but Russians don't care about that. 

RLGardner.net

 

One year mark since attack that started Gaza War

We've been protesting at Senator Fetterman's office for a year now (4 October 2024), as he took a very hard-line stance against Palestinians in Gaza. We have felt that simply committing acts of violence against citizens of Gaza is insufficient to reach any sort of long-term settlement. 

One important factor to consider: Is Israel's military offensive just against Gaza or is it broadly anti-Palestinian? Mondoweiss documents a strike on the West Bank. Israelis claimed to have targeted "Zahi Oufi, described as a local 'Hamas commander' who was killed in the strike." Israelis have done this frequently throughout the war in Gaza, hit civilian buildings and alleged "safe areas" in order to eliminate militarily important Hamas personnel. 

Which means that while this statement by Lew sounds great, the above story makes it clear that it's meaningless. 

Ambassador Jack Lew urged Washington to give thousands more bombs to the Israelis because they have a “decades-long proven track record” of avoiding killing civilians.

Israel very clearly has zero qualms about killing civilians if it means taking out important enemy personnel.   

Gathering beforehand.

Whew! Finally!  After years of soft-pedaling and BothSidesing Trump's obvious unfitness for office, the NY Times, as a worst most cynical case scenario, is apparently covering its bets and putting out a journalistically sound piece concerning Trump's mental fitness at his advanced age.

President of Finland presents excellent peace plan for Ukraine. Basic idea is that Russia will re-start the war unless Ukraine regains all of the territory that it's lost since 1991, that Western powers should grant security guarantees to Ukraine and Russia should take serious measures of reparations. 

Video of presentation.

First Hurricane Helene hit,

Helene blew ashore in Florida’s Big Bend region as a Category 4 hurricane late Thursday and then quickly moved through Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee, uprooting trees, splintering homes and sending creeks and rivers over their banks and straining dams.

The areas that were hit don't normally suffer hurricane damage, then Hurricane Milton is threatening Florida, starting with Tampa. Conspiracy theories abound!  It's not of any particular interest that NOAA makes plane flights around the Gulf of Mexico. They do so to gather data about storms that may be forming during, y'know, storm season. But right-wingers are trying to make these flights sound sinister and mysterious to boost the idea that the NOAA is creating these storms!

This is causing all manner of extra work and time and effort on the part of federal agencies to swat down misinformation. North Carolina's Department of Public Safety has had to open up a web page "Hurricane Helene: Fact vs. Rumor" The story on USA Today:

Falsehoods and conspiracy theories about the Federal Emergency Management Agency have spread widely online, continuing to circulate even as Hurricane Milton now bears down on Florida. Deanne Criswell, the agency’s administrator, said misinformation has harmed people affected by the storm and volunteers on the ground to help rebuild.

Of course, the reason for the misinformation is rather obvious, the former President Trump is using it to boost his reelection campaign. 

RLGardner.net