And 90% aren’t eating every day.
The US could stop this tomorrow, Israel is a small country completely dependent on America.
The only country really doing anything to help is Yemen. They have been attacking Israeli associated freighters whether Israeli flagged or not (but not any freighter that is not owned or heading to Israel.) The US has been protecting this Israeli freight and has announced a campaign to stop them and keep the Red Sea open with twelve partners, none of whom are on the Red Sea: Britain, France, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, the Seychelles and Bahrain.
As a result of the Yemeni campaign the six largest shipping companies have all decided not to send any ships thru the Red Sea and thus thru the Suez canal. This means they have to go around Africa adding time and cost.
The Yemeni statement on the US threats (it’s really a US operation, the rest of the nations are there to pretend it’s multinational) is sad, in the sense that this is the only truly moral nation in the world in relation to Palestine..
Muhammad Al-Bukhaiti: Even if America succeeds in mobilizing the entire world, our military operations will not stop unless the genocide in Gaza stops and food, medicine, and fuel are allowed to enter its besieged population, no matter the sacrifices it costs us.
As I’ve said before, the only nation really going all out to fight the Israeli and US genocide in Gaza is Yemen. (Honorable mention to Malaysia, who have closed their ports to all Israeli ships. It’s not much, but given their location there’s little they can do and to Hezbollah.)
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Never again, eh?
What’s going on in Palestine is a clear genocide, using starvation and water shortages as a tool. I said day one that the blockade concerned me more than the bombing. Combined with the hospital destruction campaign, I’m surprised there isn’t a plague in Palestine yet, but clearly one is desired by Israel.
Israel has also been mouthing off about invading southern Lebanon. I don’t see how that can work for them, they failed last time they tried and Hezbollah is stronger now and has enough missiles to absolutely devastate Israel. Hezbollah has been clear that if Israel does wholesale civilian bombing in Lebanon the way it has in Gaza, they will retaliate in kind.
But really, there’s a genocide going on, and almost no one is trying to stop it. Starvation, thirst, mass bombing, the deliberate targeting of hospitals and reporters.
Oh, and Edrogan. Shut up. You keep talking, but you never do anything. Turkey has a huge military and could help if it wanted to (for example, by doing air drops of aid, telling Israel that if they try to stop them, it’ll be considered an act of war.)
The Palestinians are on their own. Hezbollah’s helping a little. Yemen as much as they can, and almost everyone else is doing nothing. The US is actively aiding and abetting, and Canada, America’s new poodle, is right there cheering them on.
Never again, eh.
Andre
Blood Money, or in this case children’s blood money:
https://mronline.org/2023/12/21/blood-money/
Daniel Lynch
When Israel says it is going to invade Lebanon, what it really means is that it will stir up a war with Lebanon knowing that the U.S. will get involved (and in fact the U.S. already has boots on the ground in Israel). Ditto for threats against Iran.
Remember, Netanyahoo’s corruption trial was put on hold until the war is over, so he has a huge incentive to keep the war going.
Yes, the Palestinians are being “sacrificed.” But on the whole they see the sacrifice as for their greater good in the long run.
Bill
I wonder when a genocide turns into a holocaust [The Holocaust was the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million European Jews by the Nazi German regime and its allies and collaborators. [encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/introduction-to-the-holocaust]]. In this case by the Israeli government and its supporters especially the USA and Europe. This is because it is the state sponsored persecution and murder of the Palestinian population in Gaza and the West Bank
StewartM
Yep, “never again”.
I see this on LinkedIn all the time, pro-Israeli cheerleaders who eagerly wolf down every press nugget issued by the IDF on their noble troops “helping” Palestinians or screaming how the only civilians dying in Gaza are because evil Hamas is using them as ‘human shields’. Yep, their “never again” is purely tribal—“never again should that happen to *US* who are either of the Jewish faith or were born into Jewish families”, not any “never again” in any larger human context. The irony is that Hitler himself got his ideas on ethnic cleansing and genocide from the US, and its treatment not of Jews, but of Native Americans, so yes, that larger, general, context is very important for Jews and everyone else.
I have been quietly, without fanfare, unfollowing them, including this amateur (?) Holocaust historian who has published a book on Jewish soldiers in the Wehrmacht while he does off on these weird anti-Japanese screeds. (Japan’s leadership did a lot of horrible crimes, for sure, but that doesn’t justify either the USAAF firebombing night campaigns nor the atom bomb drops…someone else doing horrible things doesn’t give you a pass to do similarly). There are some Jewish folks of integrity and courage, one of which posted a video saying he had once considered immigrating to Israel, until he visited there and saw first-hand how Palestinians were being treated, and said “I can’t be part of this.” Another who hailed from South Africa said he was protesting Gaza because, as he put it, “this is the same apartheid system we fought there”.
Meanwhile, while smearing critics of his policy with the charge of “antisemitism!!” Bibi goes around the world making allies with, honest-to-goodness anti-semites. That shouldn’t be surprising, as it was they who thought up and encouraged the very idea of some faraway “Jewish homeland” for all Jews to move to as to get rid of them. And under his rule, the “only democracy in the Middle East” is getting decidedly less democratic.
Tallifer
Hamas could end this now by releasing the hostages.
Bill
Jews did not create the initial anti-semitism and Jews, Christians and Muslims all respect or worship the same God and prophets. My family has Jewish roots or connections. It was the state of Israel [which is not the same as the Jews as such] which created this problem. Only a few days ago an Israeli soldier killed 3 of the Israel hostages and it was reported “Initial IDF probe: Hostages were shirtless, waving white flag when soldiers opened fire.” We need to help the Palestinians, but also reassure Israelis that the two state solution, which the Israel government claimed to be in favour of, is the way to lasting peace if Palestinians can bring themselves to agree to this now after the numerous atrocities committed by the Israeli state.
Feral Finster
Biden could stop this with a single phone call. He not only refuses to do so, the United States is an active and conscious participant in this genocide.
StewartM
Feral Finster
Biden could stop this with a single phone call.
Maybe, but Bibi’s reach into US politics is deep for reasons both obvious and speculated. Bibi has openly bragged how he can ‘manage’ the US and how the Israeli tail always can wag the US dog.
Heck, as the USS Liberty showed, the Israelis can even attack our ships and kill Americans and they’ll be no pushback from Washington. Can you imagine what the response would have happened if Hamas or Hezbollah had done anything close to similar?
Curt Kastens
A two state solution is a euphamism for a country for the Israelis a reservation for the Palestinians.
A one state solution can not be accepted by the Israeli leadership nor the US leadership because it would mean an end to Nazi domination of the area.
(There is no point in calling Netinyahu, or the supporters of Israel, Zionists anymore. The correct term to apply to them is Nazis, which would include US or European supporters of Israel. But even if there was no Israel, supporters of US foriegn policy are Nazis anyways. And the allies of the Americans are Vicky Franks.)
Oakchair
“Never again”
Is the same as
“follow the science”
A statement used to make one feel morally and intellectually superior without actually having to do anything of substance.
The lesson is that people at large will support mass murder and it will happen again, and again. Our institutions, government and society is filled and controlled by those people. Trust and obey them at your own risk.
Cara
I feel sorry for anyone who actually thinks this genocide has anything to do with the hostages being held by Hamas. If Israel cared about the hostages they wouldn’t be bombing Gaza into rubble and they wouldn’t have killed three unarmed Israeli hostages waving a white flag. Anyone who says “Hamas could end this now by releasing the hostages,” is either stupid or a genocide apologist and either way they are on the wrong side of history.
Purple Library Guy
The whole “human shields” thing is moronic. I mean, using something as a “shield” assumes that it will in some manner prevent us from being harmed. We, and certainly Hamas, have known for decades that the IDF will whack as many civilians as they feel like to get one person they want dead. So there has never been a circumstance in which being among civilians would “shield” a member of Hamas.
The ONLY thing that Hamas could possibly get from deliberately sheltering among civilians would be, ah, repeated proof that Israel is ruthless enough to kill masses of civilians. If Israel is willing to demonstrate that for us, well, that’s on them, isn’t it?
mago
Sure. Get down on your knees and plea to the powers that be
we’ll set the hostages free if you just give us freedom, freedom, freedom
And the wrathful gods roar blood and guts no matter what you do, hostages can die just like you.
Tallifer’s mother’s calling him home.
Altandmain
Ultimately, the US “wants” this to happen. Either that or the Israel lobby has absolute control right now over Congress.
Despite the lip service, the US really doesn’t care about the plight of the Palestinian people and continues to send weapons to Israel.. They have aided and abetted in what amounts to a genocide at this point.
China seems to be arguing right now for a Palestinian state. Whether or not this will be a bigger push though, or if this ends up being a legitimate attempt to get a Palestine remains to be seen. If they do, this will be a major advancement for the Palestinians and a loss of prestige for the US.
Militarily, it is looking like the war is not going nearly as well for Israel as you might think. I’ve heard quite a few sources now, including Scott Ritter say that the Israelis have taken much heavier losses than what they are willing to reveal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG4ULsYbf9c
Although the Israelis have destroyed Gaza, it could be that their military has also taken very heavy losses and is a spent force, maybe even an outright defeated force. Certainly, it has also become a pariah on the world stage, with only their nuclear weapons as their defense.
That’s cold comfort for the Palestinians though, whose infrastructure has been destroyed. I’m not sure what the solution is, again, maybe a nation like China moving in and helping rebuild the nation.
Carborundum
Ritter convinces himself of many things that prove not to be true. This plays well with a self-selecting audience, but that’s about the only virtue.
I doubt very much that the IDF is a spent force or is taking dramatically higher casualty levels (higher, yes – enough higher that it makes a material difference to *immediate* combat effectiveness, I doubt it). Even given the existence of the IDF censor, Israel is a *tiny* place. Until you’ve seen it, it’s difficult to understand how potentially powerful RUMINT is there (to be clear, there’s still BS to filter, but the ambient Bacon number [look it up] for military-politico affairs is much lower than in the US). Keeping secrets like that is tough and the political punishment for seeking to do so would be enormous.
The thing I would worry about from their perspective, narrowly focused on the military side, is whether the *strategy* works – militarily, the overt aim is pretty clearly to destroy HAMAS in toto, which basically means being able to sweep water – while also keeping blue force casualties low, doing FIBUA day after day. That’s pretty tough (wild understatement). To add to the worry list, this also completely ignores the larger international political context, which is really significant. Looking at the opinion cuts among US youth (significant fractions essentially saying that Israel should cease to exist), my advice would be that this is what sowing the seeds of one’s own destruction looks like.
Purple Library Guy
The thing about Israeli casualties in Gaza is, they probably aren’t high enough to be a huge military problem in themselves. But, they are probably high enough to make it very unattractive to do various kinds of attack that would actually come to grips with Hamas in serious ways. That is, if they’re being careful and still taking noticeable casualties, they are going to figure that going down into the tunnels after Hamas would cause a LOT of casualties, enough that they really don’t want to do it. But they can’t actually do much to Hamas without doing that kind of thing.
So in that sense, Hamas’ ability to inflict casualties is having a military impact; the IDF can’t just go wherever they want whenever they want. They can bomb whatever building they want, but that isn’t getting them military goals unless they actually manage to ethnically cleanse the whole place.
So it’s kind of a stalemate. More and more Palestinians will die the longer they do this, but populations are hard to wipe out–it’s amazing how many people always seem to survive stuff that you’d expect to kill everyone. I mean, they’ve been doing this for months and killed maybe 20,000 people with armaments. Hunger and disease never seem to kill more than about half a population or so, so that leaves a million to murder with weapons, which is to say fifty lots of 20,000. That would take at least ten years of constant massive bombardment, assuming they don’t run out of bombs and assuming the diminishing numbers of victims stay conveniently bunched together. OK, maybe they can get away with that, but it seems like an overreach.
StewartM
Carborundum
Looking at the opinion cuts among US youth (significant fractions essentially saying that Israel should cease to exist), my advice would be that this is what sowing the seeds of one’s own destruction looks like.
Isn’t that the very essence of rightwing politics? Focus on the ‘winning’ in the short term, to hell with the future? Such as:
Sign away all our tech and industry to China? Check
Siphon away income/wealth from the plebes to the social betters? Check
Increase profits by destroying the planet? Check
Time and again, what passes for “leadership” in the West (including Israel) is all about eschewing solutions that may actually be more “winning” (peaceful, profitable, stable) in the long term but are less “winning” in the short-term–for them. Their decision-making screams Stirling Newberry’s “Death Bet”.
After all, by Randian ethics, what has posterity ever done for me?
NR
I don’t know if Israel is losing in Gaza, but they definitely aren’t winning.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/21/israel-losing-war-against-hamas-netanyahu-idf
Olivier
@Ian I cannot help being struck by the parallel between “our military operations will not stop unless […], no matter the sacrifices it costs us.” and similar statements by western politicians that they’ll support Ukraine no matter the cost to their country and population. The latter were roundly and rightly criticized here and on NC; what makes it better when it comes from a Yemeni official?
Ian Welsh
In one case they could have had an easy peace by remaining neutral. In the other case they’re trying to stop a genocide.
Altandmain
@Carborundum
In the case of Ritter’s analysis, I’ve heard multiple sources saying the same thing – the IDF has taken heavy losses. I totally disagree with your assessment on Mr. Ritter in that regard. They may have a small population, but that doesn’t prevent censorship.
We’re starting to see the impact of the Ukraine War now, and it’s going to become obvious at some point that our media has been lying with to everyone all along and people like Ritter, although imperfect, have been mostly on the money. I think that the same thing is going to happen in Gaza.
In Netanyahu’s case, I’d argue that he’s in a desperate situation, which is why he’s willing to conceal the casualties to the Israeli people and risk that political backlash. Part of the reason why this war is going on is because Netanyahu is trying to avoid jail. Before the event of Oct 7, Israel was already a deeply divided society because of what Netanyahu was trying to do the Israeli Legal System, that was trying to arrest him for corruption.
Agree though with your final paragraph. The Israelis are heavily reliant on the US for funding. They may not even be a viable nation without the US funding. Certainly, they would not have the US veto at the UN Security Council.
Criticism of Israel in the Western world is subject to a neo-McCarthyist level of censorship. Eventually, this was going to lead to people who had far less sympathy for Israel.
There’s also the matter that the Israelis have built a deeply unequal society where Palestinians have been treated as second class citizens and face deep discrimination. Actually, it’s far worse than that – they’ve been subject to crimes against humanity and not just after Oct 7. That was inevitably going to get scrutiny among young people.
Another point – most young people are not calling for the end of Israel, but an end to the fighting along with a Palestinian state. It might end up like the Oslo Accords or something else similar. Netanyahu was bragging about how he prevented the Oslo Accords – I suspect that the end result someday will be on terms less favorable for Israel than had Israel voluntarily agreed to the Oslo Accords. For the first time in 1,000 years, they’ve effectively united the Islamic world.
VietnamVet
This is a very peculiar World War 3 that is being fought on two fronts in Gaza and Ukraine.
Social Media streaming videos give a view that is very manipulated and not close to reality. Clearly the Russo-Ukraine War thanks to drones that quickly identify targets for artillery fire prevent maneuver warfare and forces a rehash of WWI from the soldiers dying in the muddy trenches to incompetent arrogant leaders. Gaza is similar to the Warsaw Ghetto in WWII except it is in the Middle East and the endless holy war on terror is in its 23nd year.
The stories of Ukrainians running out of artillery shells is disturbing. If a Russian winter offensive seizes Odessa and the Black Sea Coast, Ukraine is finished. So is EU and the expanded NATO. Joe Biden won’t be elected dog catcher.
BP, Maersk Line, etc., the whole shipping industry has decided not to run through the rain of missiles in the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait (the Gate of Grief) into the Red Sea. The US doesn’t have the manpower or equipment to encircle Yemen and pacify the Houthis. More shortages and inflation are assured if Gazans keep being bombed by Israel until they are forced to move into the Sinai Peninsula and the Suez Canal becomes empty of ships. Again, the question is which side runs out of combatant males first and how long Westerners will put up with shortages and more inflation.
The underlying dilemma is that the current neo-liberal economic-political system is run to exploit labor and natural resources to enrich the wealthy at the expense of everyone else. The best political system money can buy is simply incapable of ending the endless wars, addressing climate change, or keeping its people safe, healthy and sheltered. The divide and rule neo-colonial corporate-state governments naturally get taken over by religious true believers when secular good government is terminated.
WW3 that is already lost. No one with wealth is willing to pay the taxes to withdraw back to Fortress America or Festung Europa and rebuild governments that serve the people. This, a UN armistice and constructing new DMZs along the edge of Eurasian Axis are the only way to preserve a western civilization that will be poorer but more equal and avoid a human Apocalypse that is becoming inevitable.
Carborundum
@Altandmain
A recent Harvard-Harris poll asked the following:
“Do you think that the long-term answer to the Israel-Palestinian dispute is for Arab states to absorb the Palestinians, for there to be two states, Israel and Palestine, or for Israel to be ended and given to Hamas and the Palestinians?”
51% of those 18 to 24 said their desired outcome was for Israel to be ended and given to HAMAS and Palestine. Now, there’s clearly some funky-wunky mental gymnastics going on in this age group given that that 60% believe Israel is trying to commit genocide while 70% simultaneously believe that the IDF is seeking to minimize civilian casualties and 45% think that if HAMAS is removed from Gaza, Israel should administer the territory (don’t ask me – I don’t understand how one can hold these contradictory opinions, which a significant fraction clearly do given the magnitude of the estimates, and still be able to fog the mirror), but the receptiveness to a question with explicit language like this (i.e., ending Israel and giving it to someone else) is pretty wild. Big picture, based on the pattern of responses to other questions in the survey (e.g., who is and is not an oppressor), I’d say this generation is quite the little powder keg of fact-free emoters. (I look forward to the rhetoric of future election cycles like I look forward to a Cajun style colonoscopy.)
@StewartM
Disturbingly, I actually think this sort of thing isn’t specifically tied to particular political ideologies (my sense is it is probably more likely to rise above our detection thresholds when coming from ideologies we don’t share). From where I am sitting, I see a lot of decision making that trends to what I would call naive short-termism – essentially decisions are being made based on very superficial understandings of phenomena / policy options and the decisions taken are all about being *seen* to do something immediately attractive to some key sub-set of the electorate. My view, given that the pols mostly don’t understand what will and won’t work, they fall back on what got them to their position in the first place: being appealing flexitarian extroverts while keeping enough big donors on side to run future campaigns. That’s subtly different than consciously deciding to choose options known to be good for them but bad for those they represent. I don’t know that that makes a heck of a lot of difference to those of us afflicted by them, but I think it’s more a systemic factor than apparently near-universal moral failing.
Olivier
@Ian Sorry for the late reaction. “In the other case they’re trying to stop a genocide.” That’s neither here nor there. Apart from Arab petrostates (who could impose a new oil embargo) and the US (whose support of Israel is crucial, whatever Israel might defiantly say) nobody has any real purchase on the situation. The only thing the Yemeni government can achieve with its actions is getting Yemen bombed (again). How is that good government?
Adding insult to injury, the disruption caused to shipping lanes is minimal: it adds nine days and some cost to some 15% of shipments, which is eminently manageable. Is it worth getting your population bombed for so little?
Olivier
PS: Unexpectedly (to me) it looks like South Africa’s suit before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) may have an impact. I initially dismissed it because I confused it with the International Criminal Court (ICC). They are easy to confuse since they have similar names are both located in The Hague.