Ian Welsh

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Month: October 2023 Page 2 of 4

One Relatively Bloodless Way To End The Genocide In Gaza

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On October 21, 2023

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I’ve mentioned before the possibility of military defeat, but there’s a better way.

Simply have OPEC do another oil embargo to the West and its enablers until the situation is resolved, with a two-state or one state solution and significant restitution. Yeah, the US and Canada produce a surplus, but it’s not enough of a surplus to support all their allies.

And if all OPEC members don’t agree, it really doesn’t matter. Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and the Gulf States are enough. Since Russia’s already already under various sanctions…

 

That would, of course, require Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States to do more than cry crocodile tears about the Palestinians, and actually do something, which is unlikely. But it’s worth remembering that it is possible and putting it on the table.

Besides, the lion should show its teeth occasionally anyway.

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Open Thread

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On October 19, 2023

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Use to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts. (aka. no Palestine.)

Understanding the Israeli Project

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On October 18, 2023

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Let’s spell this out in the simplest terms possible.

Israelis came to a land with its own native population. They wanted to live in the land and the land was not very large. (Israel is a small country.)

That required that the people who were already there be removed.

This was done in stages. Some of the early parts were done by buying the land, generally from landlords who didn’t live in Palestine, then evicting the natives. Most of it was done with violence, starting with the Nakba.

The project of Israel is to create a Jewish religious-ethnic state where there hasn’t been one in nearly two thousand years.

The locals people also breed faster than Israelis.

This means they must, again, be removed. There are two ways to do this. You can get them to move away from the land you want, which is known as ethnic cleansing, or you can kill them, which if done in large enough numbers against a specific group is known as genocide.

Israel’s project is intrinsically one of ethnic cleansing, with the possibility of genocide.

That’s how it was designed.

This is why I support a one state solution, in which Israel becomes a secular state with everyone having citizenship. As long as it is a “Jewish” state, ethnic cleansing will always be the goal, at least until it is completed.

Israel cannot be redeemed until the basis for its existence is changed.

This doesn’t make Israel unique, many if not most states were settler states at some point, with more or less ethnic cleansing (sometimes they just made the conquered people the lower castes, as with Normans in England or Aryans in India).

We now believe that ethnic cleansing and genocide is bad and that it shouldn’t be done any more. (Or we say we believe that.)

When Israelis say “you oppose what you yourself did” they aren’t wrong. But that’s like saying “well, you murdered a bunch of people in the past, why can’t I murder people now?”

At the end of the day, however, this will be determined not by what is moral, but by balance of force. For a long time the Israelis had the most force, the question is if they still do.

If they do (with America and Europe’s help) then they will keep moving towards their project.

If they don’t, then the best they can hope for is a single state solution. All other end states for them are worse.

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Palestine and Ukraine Updated Commentary

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On October 17, 2023

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In the Ukraine, Russia is advancing, and while it’s slow, it’s steady and a lot better than Ukraine did in its complete flop of a counter-offensive. Weapons and aid from America are now flowing to Palestine, and most Western countries are reluctant to send more arms and munitions, not least because the shelves are almost bare and production has not been significantly ramped up.

Russia, on the other hand, has vastly increased its ability to produce key munitions, and is importing from North Korea and Iran (though Iran may soon become more reluctant.) The Russians have more artillery, more missiles and more drones, and plenty of artillery shells. Ukraine is so desperate for manpower it is trying to force Ukrainian who fled to other countries to return so they can be conscripted, and it has expanded conscription among women.

The immediate front is highly fortified, and Russian movement into it is slow, though not as slow as Ukraine’s was. Mud is also an issue, but it remains entirely poss that Russia will break thru at some point in the next few months.

Militarily, it would be very much in Russia’s interest if the Israel/Palestine war was to expand, and if the US was to become involved

As for Gaza and Palestine, the Israeli Army keeps coming up with excuses not to invade Gaza. First it was “there are clouds”, now it is “we won’t invade while Biden is in Israel.” Hamas still has at least 40K troops, and Gaza is excellent defensive ground, plus if Hezbollah wants to open a second front, it’s logical for them to wait till Israeli troops are engaged in Gaza.

The US may have indicated (I have some doubts) that if Hezbollah attacks Israel, it will attack Hezbollah. I’m not sure how well this will work out for the US: even Jordan might no longer be willing to base their aircraft, Iraq bases will come under attack immediately, and I suspect Turkey will forbid sorties to fly from there. That means reliance on aircraft carriers, and Hezbollah has anti-ship missiles, with Iran having a lot more.

Part of what is driving Israel to delay the invasion of Gaza (or rethink it entirely) is a desire to make sure that if regional war occurs, the US is actually part of the war. Israel alone against Hezbollah/Syria/Iran/Hamas, is in serious danger of losing.

Water has supposedly been turned back on in Gaza, but it makes little difference, as there isn’t enough power to run pumps and deslanization, and much of that infrastructure was bombed day one by the Israelis.

Leaving aside direct deaths from lack of water, or drinking untreated water and sea-water, it would be surprising if there wasn’t a cholera epidemic soon.

Even leaving aside a ground incursion, actual genocide can occur if the water, food and power situation is not resolved soon.

Negotiations are ongoing to get humanitarian aid in with some commitments made so there’s reason for mild optimism.

Likewise there are negotiations to allow refugees out to Egypt, though Egypt definitely doesn’t want them and it’s going to take some massive bribes to get them to accept anything more than token numbers, if they will at all. (Egypt is in a debt crisis right now, if I were them I’d hold out for actual debt forgiveness, not another crap IMF deal.) Remember that Hamas is ideologically aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood, whom the Egyptian military couped, and violently suppresses in Egypt, where they are the natural ruling party.

It is also true that allowing massive numbers of refugees into Egypt gives Israel the “win”, allowing them to ethnically cleanse another group of Palestinians

Gaza hospitals have been repeatedly hit, and there are reports Gaza is now out of painkillers among many other medicines and medical supplies. Given how bombing tends to produce burn victims, this is especially horrific.

There is still serious danger of escalation of the Israeli/Palestinian war, and if it escalates it could escalate very quickly and widely. If the US starts hitting Iran, well remember that Iran is a serious Russian and Chinese ally. Understand also that the “street” in most Muslim countries is super-majority pro-Palestine.

Frankly, if I were them and could co-ordinate it, I’d just all declare war and finish the problem once and for all. Israeli unconditional surrender, and the creation of a new Palestinian state with equal rights for all, no matter their religion or ethnicity. Then de-Zionize. In other words, give them the Germany/Japan post-WWII treatment. As long as Israel exists as a religious ethnic apartheid state, it will remain a source of massive instability, and remain the possible flare up point for regional or even world war.

We’ll continue to keep an eye on Palestine going forward, but I’ll see if I can weave in articles on other topics.

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Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – October 15, 2023

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On October 15, 2023

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by Tony Wikrent

 

Strategic Political Economy

US science agencies on track to hit 25-year funding low 

[Nature, via Naked Capitalism 10-11-2023]

The Smart Corporate Tax Idea That Might Have Prevented the UAW Strike

Jessica Church, October 9, 2023 [washingtonmonthly]

Targeting out-of-control CEO pay by using the tax code is the right policy for this moment. Here’s how it works….

Indeed, this strike could have been avoided were company profits shared more equitably among workers and management. But despite taxpayer largesse that not only rescued the auto industry during the Great Recession but led it to thrive, that has not been the case. Under the Barack Obama-era bailout, workers and company executives were supposed to make sacrifices. But while unions accepted that two-tier wage system that the UAW is fighting, executive compensation has soared.

A situation where executive compensation shoots up like a missile while workers’ wages flatline was not inevitable. In 2021, Congress debated a measure that might have made the strike unlikely and unnecessary. Both chambers considered versions of the Tax Executive CEO Pay Act, introduced by Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont.

The clever and potentially revolutionary legislation (discussed extensively in Washington Monthly) aimed to rein in excessive executive compensation by levying a tax on companies that pay their CEOs 50 times or more than their median employee earns. The tax came as a surcharge on corporate income tax, meaning that it only applied to profitable companies with federal corporate income tax liability. That surcharge increased as the CEO-to-median worker pay ratio worsened (0.5% for ratios between 50-100:1, 1% for ratios between 100-200:1, 2% for ratios between 200-300:1 and so on, up to 5% for ratios more than 500:1)….

How red-state politics are shaving years off American lives

[Washington Post, via The Big Picture 10-09-2023]

Americans are more likely to die before age 65 than residents of similar nations, despite living in a country that spends substantially more per person on health care than its peers. Many of those early deaths can be traced to decisions made years ago by local and state lawmakers over whether to implement cigarette taxes, invest in public health or tighten seat-belt regulations, among other policies, an examination by The Washington Post found. States’ politics — and their resulting policies — are shaving years off American lives.

Africa’s revolt against Net Zero 

Thomas Fazi [UnHerd, via Naked Capitalism 10-14-2023]

For the past two centuries, human prosperity has correlated with one factor: energy, released through the burning of fossil fuels. This is a self-evident global truth. Europe and North America, the wealthiest regions on the planet, are also those with the highest per capita CO2 emissions (along with the oil-producing Gulf states); Africa, on the other hand, has the world’s lowest levels of per capita energy use — the average African consumes less electricity than a refrigerator and around 600 million people live without access to to electricity. In this sense, it’s the “greenest” continent on the planet. It’s also the poorest, with almost half a billion Africans living in extreme poverty.

More than any other resource, Africa is starved of the energy it needs for economic development. This isn’t for lack of natural endowment. Africa possesses vast reserves of coal, oil and natural gas. But extracting those resources and using them for domestic development requires money, infrastructure, expertise and institutional capacity — which Africa’s poorest nations, especially in the sub-Sahara, sadly lack. One solution is partnering with foreign energy companies — until recently, mostly European and American firms — but that means that much of the domestically produced gas and oil is then exported rather than used for local development….

 

Global power shift

You’re not going to like what comes after Pax Americana 

Noah Smith [Noahpinion, via Naked Capitalism 10-08-2023]

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Open Thread

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On October 14, 2023

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Use to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts. (i.e. no Gaza/Israel stuff.)

Avoiding Mass Ethnic Cleansing Or Genocide In Gaza

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On October 12, 2023

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So, the Israeli government has:

Of course, that number can’t be moved and if they could, it’d be mass murder in its own way.

I’m going to state this very simply.

The way things are going, the only way to stop Israel from committing genocide or a wave of ethnic cleansing that makes the Nakba look mild (and quite possibly both) is if Hezbollah/Syria/Iran and perhaps other Muslim countries declare war and win.

It’s unfortunate, but the Israelis have gone mad with power and demonization of the people who are primarily their victims, the Palestinians.

Kick your victims into a corner, brutalize them for generations, then they lash out with violence that is horrific but not even close to as bad as what you have done to them, use it as justification for more horror.

I again refer you to the actual death/injury card and remind you that Palestinians did not invade someone else’s land and kick them out of their homes, then live in them.

And children, if you think anti-semitism is bad now you haven’t even seen how bad it will be if Israel does what it’s planning to do.

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I Try To Avoid The Word Genocide

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On October 11, 2023

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—because it’s vastly over-used. Most things are not genocide, even some events were believe are (the Holodomar) are not. Genocide is the deliberate killing of mass numbers of specific ethnicity because they are that ethnicity.

Now, I’ve always been very concerned for Palestinians and Israelis because there is no way for Israel to remain a “Jewish” state in the long run without getting rid of the Palestinians. One option is ethnic cleansing. The other is genocide.

The sane solution is to make everyone a citizen and give up on blood citizenship, but that wouldn’t be a “Jewish state”.

Israel has bombed Gaza plenty in the past. It’s sickening and evil and collective punishment and all those bad things. They’ve also engaged in ethnic cleansing repeatedly, that’s part of why so many Palestinians are packed into Gaza.

But they’ve stopped short of genocide.

Now here’s the thing which isn’t being emphasized about the current attack on Gaza: all water has been cut off and the water infrastructure has been bombed. Much of Gaza’s water comes from “Israel”, much comes from desalinization (which requires electricity), and while some comes from wells and there is one stream in Gaza (it doesn’t make it to river) there simply isn’t enough water. Palestinians do have a lot of cisterns, but they will run out soon.

You die fast without water.

And Israel has been attacking any relief convoys trying to come from the Egyptian side.

Israel is mowing the grass — killing as many civilians as they can. That’s the plan and they’ve been open about it. The US, of course, is helping.

Days like these it’s hard to disagree with Iran when it screams about America being the “great Satan”. (For the record, I am not a fan of Iran. I am a believer in secular society with equality between the sexes and so on.)

If there isn’t a climb-down from this monstrous nonsense, we’re in danger of seeing Israel commit a genocide, aided by much of the West.

Much is still in play, including possible entry of Hezbollah, Iran and Syria. Israel’s army is performing pathetically, with Hamas soldiers still able to attack into Israel and running gun battles.

But Israel is on course to lose its soul. You don’t “mow the grass” or commit genocide because about a 1,000 people were killed after you’ve spent over 70 years killing another people at loss ratios of over 10:1, while stealing and living in their homes and on what was their land.

Well, actually, you often do. America certainly did, squealing about Indian atrocities (which definitely happened) even as it committed greater ones.

I do not expect Israel, as a Jewish state, to exist in 50 years, and that is whether or not they genocide Gaza. It may end much, much sooner.

But the end of Jewish Israel will be a lot less violent and bloody if they do not go full Nazi first.

This is not America or Germany, this a tiny country surrounded by the co-religionists of the people they are massacring.

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