You can measure how dangerous it is to live in both Israel and Lebanon in miles. You can drive from Tel Aviv to Nahariya, the northernmost city on Israel’s coast, just a few miles from the Lebanese border, in just over an hour. Metula, the Israeli town furthest away from Tel Aviv on the border with Lebanon is just two hours away by car, about 120 miles. The distance from Tel Aviv to the largest city in southern Lebanon, Tyre, is 85 miles, just ten minutes away from Nahariya if you could drive there, which you can’t.
I hit the like button Lucian but I didn’t like reading this. Some of my Special Forces buddies and I were offered a big payout and an exit from the US Army if we went to Israel to train the IDF in what we had learned in SF, in the late 60’s. None of us took them up on it, but I always wondered about it. Democracies have their weaknesses, the rule of law has a double edged sword. The Jewish people of Israel who want nothing to do with the killings in Gaza, and only want the hostages freed, are captives of their system of government, just like we may be if the insipid orange turd is re-elected. The long history of bloodletting in that part of the world is indeed horrifying, it was bad when it was spears and swords, modern weapons remove a lot, but not all, of the personal involvement in the killing with psychological ramifications that will play out for decades, just like it has for our generation and all of the generations of warriors that preceded us. To my mind one of the saddest things about the 7 October attack was that the people at the concert and most of the communities were people that believed in peace, they wanted nothing to do with Netanyahu and his ilk, so he left them vulnerable, he was more concerned with the radical settlers (many American) in the West Bank and helping them take more Palestinian land. It’s like 3 dimensional chess is being played by all of these actors, while the pawns are the people who live there and just want to live in peace. I could go on but you get my point 🙏
Chess is one of my favorite games and it's already 3 dimensional, it's the four dimensional variant or another favorite, "Cylindrical Chess," where the border is a cylinder, such that for example a Bishop on g2 can end up attacking a4 (i.e., a Bishop posted on the kingside, emerge on the queenside files if no pawns or pieces block it) that is a the meta-level, so to speak.
Cylinder chess (or cylindrical chess) is a chess variant. The game is played as if the board were a cylinder, with the left side of the board joined to the right side. Cylinder chess is one of six chess variants described by the Arabic historian Ali al-Masudi in 947.[1][a]
The cylindrical board is used in some chess problems.
This article uses algebraic notation to describe chess moves.
Rules and gameplay
a b c d e f g h
The game is played as if the left and right sides of the board are connected. When a piece goes off one edge of the board, it reappears from the other edge.[2] For example, it is legal to move a rook from a3 to h3, even if there is a piece on b3, since the rook can move left from a3; a bishop on c1 can move to h4 by going from c1 to a3, and then going up and left from a3 to h4; if White has a pawn on a5, Black has a pawn on h7 and Black plays 1...h7–h5, White can capture the black pawn en passant with 2.axh6; and so on.
******* You can bet Ali al-Masudi would endorse this column, he had to survive in the region! To devote himself to historical research and writing, and playing chess, if for no other reason!
I agree. One can be as argumentative and split as many hairs as you like about who "started" this whole mess. The blame is squarely on Netanyahu and his "manifest destiny" supporters propping up his rule. He KNEW about the imminent Hamas attack and moved soldiers to the West Bank to protect settlers anyway. He allowed Qatar to send funds to Hamas for years --where did they get the funding to build those tunnels? That was before Iran got involved in funding. He lies constantly and accuses anyone who dares criticize him as antisemitic, a card he just played at the UN.
Brilliant and exceedingly important, Lucian. I'm forwarding to many. You just explained in one column the history of the last 3,000 years. No one else that I'm aware of has done it as effectively. So what's the way, or many ways, forward?
Hi Sara, please just note the factual error on the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem: done in 70 CE by the Roman troops of Titus (not Alexander 300 years earlier).
I can never forget how I was just a few seconds as the missile flies from the Golan Heights when war broke out against Israel on 10/6/73, in that geographical crux where Asia, Africa and Europe meet, and, yes, as Lucian points out, conflict has raged since almost when history began. But I prefer to recall the sweet beauty of Israel after it had been reforested and renewed agriculturally by the Jewish settlers. And the balmy, oh-so-comfotable climate. And the ancient origins of mankind and our myths resonated.
This new war of horror pursued by a different Israel from the one I lived within through a different war shatters my heart and soul into a thousand pieces.
So well said Rob Patterson. Thank you. your last sentences in the first paragraph catch up so much---and your second is so so so true, although I have never visited.
Thank you for this explanation. Madness and death associated with all of the religious groups who have occupied this sliver of land. What a Goddam waste.
Thanks LTK for a little clearing of the muddy waters here, what a conundrum. I'm still confused though about the analysis of when off-duty Hezbollah militants become a legitimate target for the IDF, I think you're saying they always are. But then you're also saying that a U.S. army soldier is still a soldier when shopping at Target or McDonalds, so a soldier anywhere is a legitimate target for an enemy combatant at all times? Or just when deployed to a war zone? That's a difficult standard to apply to Palestinians or Lebanese soldiers when that's where they live. Soldiering sounds like an impossible life, we should pay them much much more and take care of our veterans. Or better yet resolve these conflicts and stop killing both soldiers and innocents.
(1) The Geneva Conventions and Treaties and Rule 80* are clear as day on booby traps, lethal or otherwise. Israel is a signatory. So is the US.
(2) Electronic devices can be rendered inoperable w/o explosives. E-detonators would do so w/o killing and maiming. Niithah pagers or comm radios can be repaired when they are fried and boards/etc melted. Including explosives was an intentional choice because disabling the device wasn't the only order of effect that was sought. Killing and maiming was. Since pagers and comm radios are not exclusive to the mil, especially in places around the globe where other means of comm are not available (cell-internet). Pagers and comm radios are widely used by first responders and by hospital personnel globally.
Pagers are NOT meant to worn 24hrs a day. One cannot keep a comm radio in one's hands for 24hrs. Both devices are removed from the body. They can be placed anywhere and picked up by anyone including children or a spouse. Then KABOOM.
(3) Disabling (sizzle and fizzle) of the devices woulda' got deep into Hezbollah's heads w/o spilling blood. That is a primary objective in armed conflicts. Killing is easy. Mind-fucking your adversary creates doubt in their minds that they can prevail and at the same time lose trust in the cause and leadership. Once you kill and maim, including family members the result is rage and revenge. Was a stoopid op and more likely than not a war crime.
*Summary Rule 80. The use of booby-traps which are in any way attached to or associated with objects or persons entitled to special protection under international humanitarian law or with objects that are likely to attract civilians is prohibited.
Yeah and a terrible of sign of why we need to see ceasefires, negotiiations and hostage releases as soon as humanly possible, it will only get worse and worse.
Agree. Escalation is rarely a ladder, it's closer to an escalator or elevator. That is to say has its own upward momentum that pulls people up whereas a ladder does not.
Am a person who steers clear of people's motivations so whatever Bibi and his right-wing government are up to doesn't comport with your words
Whatever anyone thinks about the pager-comm radio op it clearly was the precursor that followed. Within days (predictably after burials) Hezbollah did need to communicate. And targeted strikes honed in on their signals. Even the IDF chatter of getting prepared for a ground incursion was to encourage Hezbollah to use whatever comm they had left to issue warnings/orders and to have them acknowledged. All that said, Israel did NOT need to kill and maim to accomplish what they intended, to force Hezbollah to take predictable risks.
Enough is enough. If these people--and by that I mean all of them--can't see that by now, then humanity is a failed species. What has all this killing ever accomplished? Right. I didn't think so: nothing. How stupid can people be not to see that?
"Humanity is a failed species" because a big part of this is one side claiming it's the Will of Allah [Hezbollah = Party of Allah] and another section of their Israeli opponents claiming it's the Will of Yahweh [that they claim land rights that have little or no legal standing]?
That's my complex question, or in more simple form: the conceptual blunders of religious fanatics can only be blamed on them, not anyone else. Ditto the fanatical violence connected to their sincerely held but severely mistaken beliefs.
"How stupid can people be not to see that?" Look at the Trump cult.
Humanity isn't a "failed species" on that basis, assuming the claim has any clear meaning at all - as opposed to being a dyspeptic bleat. I can't even tell if you reconsidered the sweeping claim or not, lol.
People do get testy when a new group moves onto your land, buying some of the property but taking over the rest. When you lose land your family has held for over 500 years and your only recourse is in an Israeli court, well, yes, there is resentment.
It's fun to invent your own version of history, leaving out the the UN establishment of the territory of the State of Israel in 1947, and the five invading Arab armies in 1948, right?
You need to cite the precise case of some hypothetical family-owned plot of land that was lost so we can see what the wider context was - you're going back into the days of the Ottoman Empire, with its notoriously sloppy property records, for one thing.
And "getting testy" hardly justfies terrorism, does it/
Thank you. I do wonder, though not much, if people who take in info that they think is actually informative and no matter how slanted, might be encouraged to be more curious to find out what the fuller story is.
Read "A Day in the Life of Abed Salama" by Nathan Thrall for examples in East Jerusalem. Read Haaretz or even the NYT for example in the West Bank. Neither of those places was "established" by the UN to be Israel's. Same goes for the Golan Heights and the Shebaa farms area.
Yeah those are EXACTLY the sort of issues that need to be negotiated as part of a permanent peace settlement - and the Golan Heights was seized precisely because it was being used as a military site, lobbing rockets into Israel - very distinct from disputed land titles in East Jerusalem.
Yeah, the star example on here of misleading BS is the citation that "93 %" of the Palestine Mandate in 1917 was held by "Non-Jews," LOL, that Mandate territory was huge, including the entirety of what is now Jordan, as well as the Sinai peninsula, and plenty of desert - all of which was never part of what became the current State of Israel.
Vastly more salient is that Israel WAS established by the United Nations within about 17% of the total Palestine Mandate, with 83% remaining for the Palestinians, but that wasn't acceptable to them, they wanted it all. Despite there being a continuous Jewish presence in what is now Israel for thousands of years. Despite the illegal land seizures led by Islamic Arab-led invasions, etc.
I would only add that if the Arab states had not attacked the state of Israel right after it declared independence, the Arabs living in Israel could have stayed put. Some were resistance fighters and Israel would have had to address that, but most could have remained. Even with the 1948 war, about 150,000 Arabs remained and the current Arab population in Israel is about 2 million out of a total of nearly 10 million.
Buying the land was the exception, simply confiscating it was the rule, it still is. Christians are also scapegoated. It has been ever thus since 1948.
Wrong, the usual process was buying the land - until the 1948 multiple Arab invasions, when properties that were used as military installations illegally were seized, duh.
Please try harder - most basic texts on the Israeli War of Independence cover these issues in the first few chapters, they are fundamental to the entire problem.
Don't "duh" me. I hope you are registered as a foreign agent for Israel because you read like a paid shill. You are so wrong.......so, so wrong, but I bet you get the suite at the Jerusalem Hilton. You don't know what the hell you are talking about, but you sure are persistent in your ignorance.
If we were to go back to the start of it all, it would be the bombing of the King David Hotel, July 22, 1946. That was the beginning of the end of Palestine.
That was the work of the Irgun and the Stern Gang, who were Jewish extremists. Menachem Begin, a future Prime Minister of Israel, was the mastermind of this attack.
Applying the word "war" or the words "special operation" to an armed conflict makes such an act of aggression by one side or the other sound legitimate, not a crime until civilians who probably wanted no part of the violence are deliberately targeted. But if as individuals we kill another person that is considered murder. So in the case or Russia attacking Ukraine isn't that just wholesale murder? Just as Hamas attacking Israeli citizens on Oct, 7 was murder.
Any nation that attacks another with no provocation are nothing less than murderers, no matter the status of their victims. They must know as in the case of Hamas and Hezbollah, that their initial aggression would result in retaliation and death to not only their ranks but their civilian populations. So they are indirectly responsible for all their own civilian deaths and injuries, especially when they either launch attacks from heavily populated areas and/or store weapons and ammunition in private homkes as well as rocket launchers.
Or the IDF attacking and slaughtering the citizens of the encampment/semi-prison known as Gaza. Starvation, mass bombing, disease sounds like a by gone era when ghettos were the rule. As for it's all one sides fault? Baloney.
It's farcical to try to vicariously legitimize the Hamas strategy of using their own civilians as human shields, aka "human sacrifices."
And the sheer absurdity of claiming that IDF's policy is to "attack and slaughter the civilians" does exactly that.
Of some 40,000 Gazan dead, about 17,000 were Hamas terrorists. No telling how many of the latter were child soldiers recruited and armed by Hamas, yet another war crime.
Again, thank you. Way too many people appear to be strongly 'guided' by half-assed news that is actually put forth in a way to elicit more emotion than thought. The details are very important in context especially.
You're quite right. Too many people are guided by half-assed news. Especially those who play running dog for those who find nothing wrong with killing and maiming civilians (familiar with that term "civilians"?) who have been evicted from THEIR ancestral land at gun point with the threat of death and then forced to live under the thumb of those who stole that land in what can only be called a ghetto or, I should I call it Mila 18?
Some of us have actually been there, worked there, seen what has been done to humiliate and degrade these people. Yes, the details are very important, especially when the context includes the entire scenario.
Ah, assuming the figures are correct, the ratio of civilians killed by Israel as opposed to those killed by Hamas is only 23 to one. Justifies the whole thing, doesn't it???? That doesn't count the bodies still hidden in the rubble. Or those starving.
What an absurd argument, and one that proves the general point about Hamas not caring about protecting its civilian population, while Israel goes to extraordinary lengths to protect their civilians!
According to that kind of paralogical reasoning, if Israel was less successful and had roughly similar numbers of dead civilians, you would be in the position of having to abandon the ghoulish argument altogether. "Oh, there aren't enough dead Israelis, that's not fair." But you people never, ever admit your reasoning is based on a fallacious approach to these disputes.
And I note proleptically that I don't therefore feel obligated to endorse the usual nonsense published by The Daily Caller. Shoshana Bryen's article and arguments stand on their own merits.
I've thought long and hard about whether to respond to this malarky that could have been written by Bibi's press secretary or just ignore it and pity your lack of empathy and lack of knowledge of the facts. I thought better of that. Your response is worthy of the "פרס ישראל; pras israél." Israel's highest civilian award. It is shocking in its naiveté and cruel in its callousness. Your "facts" smack of a Government Press Office release.
That's not a substantive rebuttal, it's merely a paradigm case of the ad hominem fallacy, and I think it's you who is "cruel and callous," inter alia, so we're even.
I can't quite figure it out. I'm not attacking you, I'm just pointing out a rather naive and sycophantic response echoing a malicious and cruel leader who must keep "Mein Kampf" on his bed side table. He and his cabal are taking Palestinian land and incarcerating the rightful owners in what can only be called internments or gulags; denying them food, education and freedom of movement, that's just fine? My disgust if for the Zionists, not the people of the Jewish faith. Zionists are closer to Nazis than any other political organization. This acceptable? Cruel and callous is what it shall remain. All this slaughter and mayhem so a thief and grifting monster can stay out of prison. Sound familiar? It should. They are best friends. 43 thousand and counting Palestinians have been killed. No argument you can make can justify wholesale murder. Oh, one more thing - an organization that can commit an act of war on a sovereign nation with electronic hoopla, can't trace a small cadre of fighters who attacked the settlers? Oh? Funny, the most sophisticated and state sanctioned group of assassins aka the Mossad, who had been Bibi's errand boys with cash for Hamas, couldn't keep track of Hamas and their where abouts? Huh. Or didn't you "research" give you that information? Walked a mile in Palestinian shoes? Had you land confiscated? Had your children murdered by carpet bombing? Had members of your family held in prison for years with no charges brought? Seen your baby die for lack of oxygen in an incubator? Sound like something out of a Warsaw ghetto? It is. At one point 20% of Palestinians were Christians. But only the Muslims could protect them, so they converted. Now it is less than 2%. Israel has been at this for a very long time. This is just the latest chapter.
It seems to me that lines must be drawn and respected, and those living within those spaces must co-exist exhibiting tolerance. But,it also seems to me that this conflict is so much larger and considerably more complex than what the attached map from the featured article provides. Aren’t the bigger and indeed badder countries playing on the deeply imbedded prejudices of the smaller but directly involved people and places..?
Neither acts of terror nor taking land are acceptable. At some point, lines must be drawn and respected with those living within doing so in a spirit of tolerance and mutual benefit — stairways to heaven are individual constructs (deserving of respect but not morphing political).
All that written, this issue is bigger than merely Israel and its next door neighbors, etc. it is IMO Important to view all this from the larger more international perspective — the bigger picture if you will.
During his recent address, Bibi held up two maps: (1) was titled “The Blessing”; and, the other (2) “The Curse.”
The Curse showed Syria, Iraq and Iran in black as a blocking coalition between the Middle East and Europe. The second map, The Blessing, showed the Middle East with Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Sudan in green and a red two-way arrow going across them, as a bridge connecting the world of inclusion in Asia with the world of inclusion in Europe.
But, if you looked closely at Bibi’s “Curse” map, it showed Israel — but no borders with Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank (as if it had already been annexed — the goal of this Israeli government).
And that is the rub. The story Bibi wants to tell the world is that Iran and its proxies are the main obstacle to the world of inclusion stretching from Europe, through the Middle East over to the Asian-Pacific.
I beg to differ. The keystone to this whole alliance is a Saudi-Israel normalization based on reconciliation between Israel and moderate Palestinians.
If Israel now moved ahead and opened a dialogue on two states for two peoples with a reformed Palestinian Authority, which has already accepted the Oslo peace treaty, it would be the diplomatic knockout blow that would accompany and solidify the military knockout blow Israel just delivered to Hezbollah and Hamas.
It would totally isolate the forces of “resistance” in the region and take away their phony shield — that they are the defenders of the Palestinian cause. Nothing would rattle Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and Russia — even China — more.
But to do that Netanyahu would have to take a political risk even greater than the military risk he just took in killing the leadership of Hezbollah, a.k.a. “The Party of God.”
Netanyahu would have to break with the Israeli “Party of God" — the coalition of far-right Jewish settler supremacists and messianists who want Israel to permanently control all the territory from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean, with no border lines in between — just like on Bibi’s U.N. map. Those parties keep Bibi in power, so he would need to replace them with Israeli centrist parties, which I know would collaborate with him on such a move.
So there you have the big challenge of the day: The struggle between the world of inclusion and the world of resistance comes down to many things, but none more — today — than Netanyahu’s willingness to follow up his blow to the “Party of God” in Lebanon by dealing a similar political blow to the “Party of God” in Israel.
Other than provoked act of violence should, IMO, expect and for that matter deserve retaliation — don’t you think, whether firing rockets or stealing another’s land…?
When such acts are conducted using human shields (literally hiding behind what appear to be helpless civilians, when rocket launchers are mounted in hospitals, when weapons and bad sorts are hiding in schools, etc.), things become considerably more complicated. But, such bad cowardly acts cannot be allowed to continue unabated — can they? Should they? In such circumstances, if those cowardly acts of aggression are to be remedied, then there will unfortunately be civilian casualties.
— won’t there?
Prisoners of war are distinguished from hostages — aren’t they? A terrorist arrested and held as a prisoner is not at all the same thing as an innocent person taken hostage. The idea of swapping one for the other strikes me as apples and elephants.
It seems to me that all hostages (both dead and/or alive) should be released and returned, and that the terrorists should lay down their arms if there is to be any hope of peace.
Relatedly, the local population must reject the terrorists lest they be seen as more or less complicit — shouldn’t they?
On the other hand, land seizures are IMO also bad acts (ex. Russia attacking Ukraine; or, any other person, government, entity doing similarly to another) — don't you think?
It seems to me that lines must be drawn and respected, and those living within those spaces must co-exist exhibiting tolerance.
Religious intolerance (those thinking they have found the one and only stairway to heaven and those playing on such nonsense for power purposes (think our own fraudulent felonious self- admitted pussy-grabbing past perfidious potus) are the sources of most unrest — arne’t they?
IMO, our American dual complimenting concepts that are presently arguably under attack [(1) individual religious where we all have the right to believe, etc. or not as we so please so long as our outward manifestations of same do not intolerantly and/or injuriously injure another; (2) enforced by our entirely neutral government there to squelch any such injury] work together as the great keeper of the peace.
Neither acts of terror nor taking land are acceptable. At some point, lines must be drawn and respected with those living within doing so in a spirit of tolerance and mutual benefit — stairways to heaven are individual constructs (deserving of respect but not morphing political).
Isn’t that where the answers lie (tolerance)..?
In any case , this issue is bigger than merely Israel and its next door neighbors, etc. It seems to me Important to view all this from the larger more international perspective — the bigger picture.
During his recent address, Bibi held up two maps: (1) was titled “The Blessing”; and, the other (2) “The Curse.”
The Curse showed Syria, Iraq and Iran in black as a blocking coalition between the Middle East and Europe. The second map, The Blessing, showed the Middle East with Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Sudan in green and a red two-way arrow going across them, as a bridge connecting the world of inclusion in Asia with the world of inclusion in Europe.
But, if you looked closely at Bibi’s “Curse” map, it showed Israel — but no borders with Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank (as if it had already been annexed — the goal of this Israeli government).
And that is the rub. The story Bibi wants to tell the world is that Iran and its proxies are the main obstacle to the world of inclusion stretching from Europe, through the Middle East over to the Asian-Pacific.
Isn’t the keystone to this whole alliance a Saudi-Israel normalization based on reconciliation between Israel and moderate Palestinians.
If Israel now moved ahead and opened a dialogue on two states for two peoples with a reformed Palestinian Authority, which has already accepted the Oslo peace treaty, it would be the diplomatic knockout blow that would accompany and solidify the military knockout blow Israel just delivered to Hezbollah and Hamas.
It would totally isolate the forces of “resistance” in the region and take away their phony shield — that they are the defenders of the Palestinian cause. Nothing would rattle Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and Russia — even China — more.
But to do that Netanyahu would have to take a political risk even greater than the military risk he just took in killing the leadership of Hezbollah, a.k.a. “The Party of God.”
Netanyahu would have to break with the Israeli “Party of God" — the coalition of far-right Jewish settler supremacists and messianists who want Israel to permanently control all the territory from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean, with no border lines in between — just like on Bibi’s U.N. map. Those parties keep Bibi in power, so he would need to replace them with Israeli centrist parties, which I know would collaborate with him on such a move.
So there you have the big challenge of the day: The struggle between the world of inclusion and the world of resistance comes down to many things, but none more — today — than Netanyahu’s willingness to follow up his blow to the “Party of God” in Lebanon by dealing a similar political blow to the “Party of God” in Israel.
The MSM so-called balanced news is not at all that way. If one wants to really be informed with context it's necessary to read more and differing sources of which there are plenty. It's work and it's worth it if truth is what you like.
Absolutely brilliant, Lucian! What you wrote about Netanyahu is very true and your last paragraph says it all. My dad went to Israel twice, in the 70’s. Many of his friends he grew up with in Poland lived there. He also went to commemorate the building of Yad Vashem to honor those who died (he lost many relatives) in WWII. It is important to trace Israel’s history so that people can visualize the close proximity of the countries to Israel. Bibi is maniacal and a convict, much like the ex-prez. And he too, is a murderer, like the ex-prez and Putin. May they all receive prison sentences sooner than later. Religion and greed are the roots of all evil.
That’s a poignant statement and unfortunately all too true. We as a species have always been hell bent on killing one another for domination. I don’t know if that will ever change even if God would reappear and command a stop to it.
Keep in mind all 3Abrahamics insist they have G-D, God, or Allah on their side when they go to war against another Abrahamic. All3 have incorporated some version of their SkyGuy into their war whoop. Heck, German Army had it on their belt buckles in WW2 while rounding up Jews.
"Gott mit uns" - At the time of the completion of German unification in 1871, the imperial standard bore the motto Gott mit uns on the arms of an Iron Cross.[4] Imperial German 3 and 5 mark silver and 20 mark gold coins had Gott mit uns inscribed on their edge.
German soldiers had Gott mit uns inscribed on their belt buckles in the First World War.[5] The slogan entered the mindset on both sides; in 1916 a cartoon was printed in the New-York Tribune captioned "Gott Mit Uns!", showing "a German officer in spiked helmet holding a smoking revolver as he stood over the bleeding form of a nurse. It symbolized the rising popular demand that the United States shed its neutrality".[6]
In June 1920, George Grosz produced a lithographic collection in three editions entitled Gott mit uns. A satire on German society and the counter-revolution, the collection was swiftly banned. Grosz was charged with insulting the Reichswehr, which resulted in a 300 Papiermark fine and the destruction of the collection.[7]
During the Second World War, Nazi Germany's Wehrmacht soldiers wore this slogan on their belt buckles.[8] as opposed to members of the Waffen-SS, who wore the motto Meine Ehre heißt Treue ('My honour is loyalty').[9] After the war, the Bundeswehr abandoned the motto Gott mit uns, but the West German police continued to use it until the 1970s. For ideological reasons, however, this motto was not used in the East German armed forces, as the Nationale Volksarmee did not shy away from Prussian military traditions.
Since 1962, the Bundeswehr soldiers wear on their belt buckles the motto Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit ('Unity and Justice and Freedom'), which is the first line of the third stanza of the West German national anthem, the only one actually sung (now the only stanza of the national anthem of unified Germany).
Being ~indigenous~ do have an issue with how the word tribalism became a pejorative. Tribal people live by a philosophy premised on the natural laws.
Since the late 1800s tribalism has been associated with different groups of hoomans who insist their beliefs are superior to both the natural laws and to other groups of hoomans. The operative words are superior and [the] other. Linguistically, a pejoration. Globally aboriginal and ~indigenous~ had many of their words stolen, or as Roger Williams claimed, loaned, same with cultural antiquities including bones "loaned" to museums after being stolen and most of all the land they were the stewards, "loaned", stolen or taken by force. So when see how the word tribe has been misappropriated and then turned into a pejorative (does have holy book roots in the Old Testament and the teachings of "The Prophet") we can only shake our noggins in disbelief.
Although this is somewhat off-track am mentioning it due to Kamala Harris's invocation of the word tenets which went to her governing philosophy inc in economic matters. Tenets are also referred to in religion but like our words, religion stole it from philosophy. Philosophy deals with truth, religion and other ideologies that are premised into having faith in certain beliefs. Nitthah have anything to do w/truth or epistemology.
I dunno. Which God's on sale today? There are more than 2500 Gods or deities on this ball of mud and water where we dwell. And they all have dues to pay. Excuse me, Tithes. Imperative to support those who explain the fine print to you, so you know who to hate. I've always liked the old South Pacific song, "You've Got To Be Carefully Taught".
As a long time student of history, it is fact that we are looking at tribal groups whose hatred of each other, for millennia, is so deeply embedded that, frankly, the nail cannot be removed. Then add in the hammering on that nail of religious prejudice and the situation has no solution. A two state is possible but not as long as Bibi rules Israel. Any of Lucian's readers who know what happened in 1947-48 as Israel became a nation also knows the ugliness that happened to many Palestinians as centuries old land and homes were taken from them. Please understand that I am not taking sides but I want readers to understand that horrible wrongs have been done to each tribal group. Hence all feel they are justified in their hatred. And the silliness of "the promised land given by God" is just that- silliness. The Hebrews stole that land through violence in the time of Moses and then a few hundred years later totally lost that little piece of land to Rome when they rebelled against "their masters" and were dispersed. That was two thousand years ago.
How is this hatred changed? Not in our life time or the next generation for sure. All we can hope for is a two state solution and the various combatants are stalemated fearing each other.
The US could broker a peace but the powers now present in America are not willing to do that. Just our military/industrial complex makes too much money supplying weapons to want peace. If either political party abandons Israel the loss of votes would doom them.
This morning, the headline in my local newspaper, owned by the New York Times, read “Biden: all out war possible” . In a panic I read the article which was actually very reassuring because it talked about how important the negotiations were between Biden and world leaders regarding a cease-fire between Lebanon and Israel. I have heard often about “Clickbait “headlines and this morning I experienced it. Journalism needs a complete overhaul because what they are doing is disgusting.
The one person who has studied and documented print headlines and story placement longer and keener than anyone is not a media critic but rather the preeminent authority on Republican politics and is a political scientist, Norm Ornstein.
Mr. Ornstein was way ahead of his contemporaries in identifying the delta in Republicanism and conservatism as well as the insidious ways major print publications and cable news frame headlines and leads. Like most visionaries, he was dismissed as overreacting.
In reality, what he put together flew far over the heads of those dismissing him. Not because it was overly complex or filled with magniloquent speech, but because those he addressed were in a deep hole of their own making. How else could they compete in the race to the bottom?
Many thanks for this. Unfortunately, after reading all of the comments here, I wonder how intractable and insoluble the situation is. Would Netanyahu’s ouster, possibly, finally create a 2-state solution? Or merely cause the “actors on this stage” to dig their heels in even more? I only know how to pray and my prayer chain is growing really long.
As Lucian points out and you suggest, "We are in the era of Benjamin Netanyahu and Hassan Nasrallah and Yahya Sinwar...", this is not solely a BN/Israeli leadership problem. He/They are surrounded by like-minded desperate people, none of whom (the sum of Middle Eastern post-WWII "leadership") care now or ever have cared one wit about Palestinians. Something that I think our campus actors need to be made aware of and alter their focus to encompass the broad mess that is the oil-drenched Middle East.
The number one currency in the region is not oil, not money, not weapons, not gold. It's treachery. Unless and until that changes no peace is possible.
In the US a change of leadership/power comes with significant changes. Not so in the Middle East because changing one doesn't change the others in the region. While am being intentionally hyperbolic a Mother Teresa , a MLJ, and a Gandhi as heads of states in the region would still leave too many mofos to overcome.
The region has long operated on minority rule with an iron fist. Keep in mind the definition of minority includes societal and economic class etc, not just population or political party. Minority rule changes all traditional governing rules and behaviors. It centers on holding on to power by any means. Hence, my use of treachery.
I hit the like button Lucian but I didn’t like reading this. Some of my Special Forces buddies and I were offered a big payout and an exit from the US Army if we went to Israel to train the IDF in what we had learned in SF, in the late 60’s. None of us took them up on it, but I always wondered about it. Democracies have their weaknesses, the rule of law has a double edged sword. The Jewish people of Israel who want nothing to do with the killings in Gaza, and only want the hostages freed, are captives of their system of government, just like we may be if the insipid orange turd is re-elected. The long history of bloodletting in that part of the world is indeed horrifying, it was bad when it was spears and swords, modern weapons remove a lot, but not all, of the personal involvement in the killing with psychological ramifications that will play out for decades, just like it has for our generation and all of the generations of warriors that preceded us. To my mind one of the saddest things about the 7 October attack was that the people at the concert and most of the communities were people that believed in peace, they wanted nothing to do with Netanyahu and his ilk, so he left them vulnerable, he was more concerned with the radical settlers (many American) in the West Bank and helping them take more Palestinian land. It’s like 3 dimensional chess is being played by all of these actors, while the pawns are the people who live there and just want to live in peace. I could go on but you get my point 🙏
Chess is one of my favorite games and it's already 3 dimensional, it's the four dimensional variant or another favorite, "Cylindrical Chess," where the border is a cylinder, such that for example a Bishop on g2 can end up attacking a4 (i.e., a Bishop posted on the kingside, emerge on the queenside files if no pawns or pieces block it) that is a the meta-level, so to speak.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cylinder_chess
Cylinder chess (or cylindrical chess) is a chess variant. The game is played as if the board were a cylinder, with the left side of the board joined to the right side. Cylinder chess is one of six chess variants described by the Arabic historian Ali al-Masudi in 947.[1][a]
The cylindrical board is used in some chess problems.
This article uses algebraic notation to describe chess moves.
Rules and gameplay
a b c d e f g h
The game is played as if the left and right sides of the board are connected. When a piece goes off one edge of the board, it reappears from the other edge.[2] For example, it is legal to move a rook from a3 to h3, even if there is a piece on b3, since the rook can move left from a3; a bishop on c1 can move to h4 by going from c1 to a3, and then going up and left from a3 to h4; if White has a pawn on a5, Black has a pawn on h7 and Black plays 1...h7–h5, White can capture the black pawn en passant with 2.axh6; and so on.
******* You can bet Ali al-Masudi would endorse this column, he had to survive in the region! To devote himself to historical research and writing, and playing chess, if for no other reason!
I agree. One can be as argumentative and split as many hairs as you like about who "started" this whole mess. The blame is squarely on Netanyahu and his "manifest destiny" supporters propping up his rule. He KNEW about the imminent Hamas attack and moved soldiers to the West Bank to protect settlers anyway. He allowed Qatar to send funds to Hamas for years --where did they get the funding to build those tunnels? That was before Iran got involved in funding. He lies constantly and accuses anyone who dares criticize him as antisemitic, a card he just played at the UN.
Brilliant and exceedingly important, Lucian. I'm forwarding to many. You just explained in one column the history of the last 3,000 years. No one else that I'm aware of has done it as effectively. So what's the way, or many ways, forward?
Kedima- the Hebrew word for “forward.”
I don’t know the word in Arabic, I presume it means “two steps backward.”
www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVxfgisGjkw
Max Romeo and the Upsetters...
Hi Sara, please just note the factual error on the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem: done in 70 CE by the Roman troops of Titus (not Alexander 300 years earlier).
I can never forget how I was just a few seconds as the missile flies from the Golan Heights when war broke out against Israel on 10/6/73, in that geographical crux where Asia, Africa and Europe meet, and, yes, as Lucian points out, conflict has raged since almost when history began. But I prefer to recall the sweet beauty of Israel after it had been reforested and renewed agriculturally by the Jewish settlers. And the balmy, oh-so-comfotable climate. And the ancient origins of mankind and our myths resonated.
This new war of horror pursued by a different Israel from the one I lived within through a different war shatters my heart and soul into a thousand pieces.
Shattered.
So well said Rob Patterson. Thank you. your last sentences in the first paragraph catch up so much---and your second is so so so true, although I have never visited.
Pray – or whatever invocation you prefer – that someday, somehow you can visit the region in peace, Grover. It is magical.
I always loved listening to Carrol King’s song Been to Canaan!
Thank you for this explanation. Madness and death associated with all of the religious groups who have occupied this sliver of land. What a Goddam waste.
Essay: Excellent.
Summation: Hopeless.
Thanks LTK for a little clearing of the muddy waters here, what a conundrum. I'm still confused though about the analysis of when off-duty Hezbollah militants become a legitimate target for the IDF, I think you're saying they always are. But then you're also saying that a U.S. army soldier is still a soldier when shopping at Target or McDonalds, so a soldier anywhere is a legitimate target for an enemy combatant at all times? Or just when deployed to a war zone? That's a difficult standard to apply to Palestinians or Lebanese soldiers when that's where they live. Soldiering sounds like an impossible life, we should pay them much much more and take care of our veterans. Or better yet resolve these conflicts and stop killing both soldiers and innocents.
Adding w/o substracting.
(1) The Geneva Conventions and Treaties and Rule 80* are clear as day on booby traps, lethal or otherwise. Israel is a signatory. So is the US.
(2) Electronic devices can be rendered inoperable w/o explosives. E-detonators would do so w/o killing and maiming. Niithah pagers or comm radios can be repaired when they are fried and boards/etc melted. Including explosives was an intentional choice because disabling the device wasn't the only order of effect that was sought. Killing and maiming was. Since pagers and comm radios are not exclusive to the mil, especially in places around the globe where other means of comm are not available (cell-internet). Pagers and comm radios are widely used by first responders and by hospital personnel globally.
Pagers are NOT meant to worn 24hrs a day. One cannot keep a comm radio in one's hands for 24hrs. Both devices are removed from the body. They can be placed anywhere and picked up by anyone including children or a spouse. Then KABOOM.
(3) Disabling (sizzle and fizzle) of the devices woulda' got deep into Hezbollah's heads w/o spilling blood. That is a primary objective in armed conflicts. Killing is easy. Mind-fucking your adversary creates doubt in their minds that they can prevail and at the same time lose trust in the cause and leadership. Once you kill and maim, including family members the result is rage and revenge. Was a stoopid op and more likely than not a war crime.
*Summary Rule 80. The use of booby-traps which are in any way attached to or associated with objects or persons entitled to special protection under international humanitarian law or with objects that are likely to attract civilians is prohibited.
Yeah and a terrible of sign of why we need to see ceasefires, negotiiations and hostage releases as soon as humanly possible, it will only get worse and worse.
Agree. Escalation is rarely a ladder, it's closer to an escalator or elevator. That is to say has its own upward momentum that pulls people up whereas a ladder does not.
Am a person who steers clear of people's motivations so whatever Bibi and his right-wing government are up to doesn't comport with your words
thanks for the Geneva Convention reference. I sort of thought this sort of attack might be sanctioned.
YW
Whatever anyone thinks about the pager-comm radio op it clearly was the precursor that followed. Within days (predictably after burials) Hezbollah did need to communicate. And targeted strikes honed in on their signals. Even the IDF chatter of getting prepared for a ground incursion was to encourage Hezbollah to use whatever comm they had left to issue warnings/orders and to have them acknowledged. All that said, Israel did NOT need to kill and maim to accomplish what they intended, to force Hezbollah to take predictable risks.
Enough is enough. If these people--and by that I mean all of them--can't see that by now, then humanity is a failed species. What has all this killing ever accomplished? Right. I didn't think so: nothing. How stupid can people be not to see that?
"Humanity is a failed species" because a big part of this is one side claiming it's the Will of Allah [Hezbollah = Party of Allah] and another section of their Israeli opponents claiming it's the Will of Yahweh [that they claim land rights that have little or no legal standing]?
That's my complex question, or in more simple form: the conceptual blunders of religious fanatics can only be blamed on them, not anyone else. Ditto the fanatical violence connected to their sincerely held but severely mistaken beliefs.
"How stupid can people be not to see that?" Look at the Trump cult.
Yep.
Humanity isn't a "failed species" on that basis, assuming the claim has any clear meaning at all - as opposed to being a dyspeptic bleat. I can't even tell if you reconsidered the sweeping claim or not, lol.
People do get testy when a new group moves onto your land, buying some of the property but taking over the rest. When you lose land your family has held for over 500 years and your only recourse is in an Israeli court, well, yes, there is resentment.
It's fun to invent your own version of history, leaving out the the UN establishment of the territory of the State of Israel in 1947, and the five invading Arab armies in 1948, right?
You need to cite the precise case of some hypothetical family-owned plot of land that was lost so we can see what the wider context was - you're going back into the days of the Ottoman Empire, with its notoriously sloppy property records, for one thing.
And "getting testy" hardly justfies terrorism, does it/
Thank you. I do wonder, though not much, if people who take in info that they think is actually informative and no matter how slanted, might be encouraged to be more curious to find out what the fuller story is.
Read "A Day in the Life of Abed Salama" by Nathan Thrall for examples in East Jerusalem. Read Haaretz or even the NYT for example in the West Bank. Neither of those places was "established" by the UN to be Israel's. Same goes for the Golan Heights and the Shebaa farms area.
Yeah those are EXACTLY the sort of issues that need to be negotiated as part of a permanent peace settlement - and the Golan Heights was seized precisely because it was being used as a military site, lobbing rockets into Israel - very distinct from disputed land titles in East Jerusalem.
One pound of BS = five pounds of feathers?
Yeah, the star example on here of misleading BS is the citation that "93 %" of the Palestine Mandate in 1917 was held by "Non-Jews," LOL, that Mandate territory was huge, including the entirety of what is now Jordan, as well as the Sinai peninsula, and plenty of desert - all of which was never part of what became the current State of Israel.
Vastly more salient is that Israel WAS established by the United Nations within about 17% of the total Palestine Mandate, with 83% remaining for the Palestinians, but that wasn't acceptable to them, they wanted it all. Despite there being a continuous Jewish presence in what is now Israel for thousands of years. Despite the illegal land seizures led by Islamic Arab-led invasions, etc.
I would only add that if the Arab states had not attacked the state of Israel right after it declared independence, the Arabs living in Israel could have stayed put. Some were resistance fighters and Israel would have had to address that, but most could have remained. Even with the 1948 war, about 150,000 Arabs remained and the current Arab population in Israel is about 2 million out of a total of nearly 10 million.
Ah, you and your pesky facts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amin_al-Husseini
^^^^^ This is a LONG article about not just "The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem," but pre-WW2 and other struggles in the ME and Europe.
Buying the land was the exception, simply confiscating it was the rule, it still is. Christians are also scapegoated. It has been ever thus since 1948.
Wrong, the usual process was buying the land - until the 1948 multiple Arab invasions, when properties that were used as military installations illegally were seized, duh.
Please try harder - most basic texts on the Israeli War of Independence cover these issues in the first few chapters, they are fundamental to the entire problem.
Don't "duh" me. I hope you are registered as a foreign agent for Israel because you read like a paid shill. You are so wrong.......so, so wrong, but I bet you get the suite at the Jerusalem Hilton. You don't know what the hell you are talking about, but you sure are persistent in your ignorance.
Tone it down, both of you.
We have blocked each other, so that's over already.
That's not a substantive rebuttal, and I am blocking you.
It actually started in 1947, but otherwise -- yes.
If we were to go back to the start of it all, it would be the bombing of the King David Hotel, July 22, 1946. That was the beginning of the end of Palestine.
Or to the anti-Jewish pogroms in the 1920s and 1930s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amin_al-Husseini
^^^^^^ Nazi ally and Palestinian leader, another problem for your Manichean version of events.
That was the work of the Irgun and the Stern Gang, who were Jewish extremists. Menachem Begin, a future Prime Minister of Israel, was the mastermind of this attack.
Applying the word "war" or the words "special operation" to an armed conflict makes such an act of aggression by one side or the other sound legitimate, not a crime until civilians who probably wanted no part of the violence are deliberately targeted. But if as individuals we kill another person that is considered murder. So in the case or Russia attacking Ukraine isn't that just wholesale murder? Just as Hamas attacking Israeli citizens on Oct, 7 was murder.
Any nation that attacks another with no provocation are nothing less than murderers, no matter the status of their victims. They must know as in the case of Hamas and Hezbollah, that their initial aggression would result in retaliation and death to not only their ranks but their civilian populations. So they are indirectly responsible for all their own civilian deaths and injuries, especially when they either launch attacks from heavily populated areas and/or store weapons and ammunition in private homkes as well as rocket launchers.
Or the IDF attacking and slaughtering the citizens of the encampment/semi-prison known as Gaza. Starvation, mass bombing, disease sounds like a by gone era when ghettos were the rule. As for it's all one sides fault? Baloney.
It's farcical to try to vicariously legitimize the Hamas strategy of using their own civilians as human shields, aka "human sacrifices."
And the sheer absurdity of claiming that IDF's policy is to "attack and slaughter the civilians" does exactly that.
Of some 40,000 Gazan dead, about 17,000 were Hamas terrorists. No telling how many of the latter were child soldiers recruited and armed by Hamas, yet another war crime.
Again, thank you. Way too many people appear to be strongly 'guided' by half-assed news that is actually put forth in a way to elicit more emotion than thought. The details are very important in context especially.
You're quite right. Too many people are guided by half-assed news. Especially those who play running dog for those who find nothing wrong with killing and maiming civilians (familiar with that term "civilians"?) who have been evicted from THEIR ancestral land at gun point with the threat of death and then forced to live under the thumb of those who stole that land in what can only be called a ghetto or, I should I call it Mila 18?
Some of us have actually been there, worked there, seen what has been done to humiliate and degrade these people. Yes, the details are very important, especially when the context includes the entire scenario.
Ah, assuming the figures are correct, the ratio of civilians killed by Israel as opposed to those killed by Hamas is only 23 to one. Justifies the whole thing, doesn't it???? That doesn't count the bodies still hidden in the rubble. Or those starving.
What an absurd argument, and one that proves the general point about Hamas not caring about protecting its civilian population, while Israel goes to extraordinary lengths to protect their civilians!
According to that kind of paralogical reasoning, if Israel was less successful and had roughly similar numbers of dead civilians, you would be in the position of having to abandon the ghoulish argument altogether. "Oh, there aren't enough dead Israelis, that's not fair." But you people never, ever admit your reasoning is based on a fallacious approach to these disputes.
That fallacy and others are refuted here:
https://dailycaller.com/2023/10/28/opinion-dont-lecture-israel-about-proportionality-shoshana-bryen/
And I note proleptically that I don't therefore feel obligated to endorse the usual nonsense published by The Daily Caller. Shoshana Bryen's article and arguments stand on their own merits.
I've thought long and hard about whether to respond to this malarky that could have been written by Bibi's press secretary or just ignore it and pity your lack of empathy and lack of knowledge of the facts. I thought better of that. Your response is worthy of the "פרס ישראל; pras israél." Israel's highest civilian award. It is shocking in its naiveté and cruel in its callousness. Your "facts" smack of a Government Press Office release.
That's not a substantive rebuttal, it's merely a paradigm case of the ad hominem fallacy, and I think it's you who is "cruel and callous," inter alia, so we're even.
I can't quite figure it out. I'm not attacking you, I'm just pointing out a rather naive and sycophantic response echoing a malicious and cruel leader who must keep "Mein Kampf" on his bed side table. He and his cabal are taking Palestinian land and incarcerating the rightful owners in what can only be called internments or gulags; denying them food, education and freedom of movement, that's just fine? My disgust if for the Zionists, not the people of the Jewish faith. Zionists are closer to Nazis than any other political organization. This acceptable? Cruel and callous is what it shall remain. All this slaughter and mayhem so a thief and grifting monster can stay out of prison. Sound familiar? It should. They are best friends. 43 thousand and counting Palestinians have been killed. No argument you can make can justify wholesale murder. Oh, one more thing - an organization that can commit an act of war on a sovereign nation with electronic hoopla, can't trace a small cadre of fighters who attacked the settlers? Oh? Funny, the most sophisticated and state sanctioned group of assassins aka the Mossad, who had been Bibi's errand boys with cash for Hamas, couldn't keep track of Hamas and their where abouts? Huh. Or didn't you "research" give you that information? Walked a mile in Palestinian shoes? Had you land confiscated? Had your children murdered by carpet bombing? Had members of your family held in prison for years with no charges brought? Seen your baby die for lack of oxygen in an incubator? Sound like something out of a Warsaw ghetto? It is. At one point 20% of Palestinians were Christians. But only the Muslims could protect them, so they converted. Now it is less than 2%. Israel has been at this for a very long time. This is just the latest chapter.
It seems to me that lines must be drawn and respected, and those living within those spaces must co-exist exhibiting tolerance. But,it also seems to me that this conflict is so much larger and considerably more complex than what the attached map from the featured article provides. Aren’t the bigger and indeed badder countries playing on the deeply imbedded prejudices of the smaller but directly involved people and places..?
Neither acts of terror nor taking land are acceptable. At some point, lines must be drawn and respected with those living within doing so in a spirit of tolerance and mutual benefit — stairways to heaven are individual constructs (deserving of respect but not morphing political).
All that written, this issue is bigger than merely Israel and its next door neighbors, etc. it is IMO Important to view all this from the larger more international perspective — the bigger picture if you will.
During his recent address, Bibi held up two maps: (1) was titled “The Blessing”; and, the other (2) “The Curse.”
The Curse showed Syria, Iraq and Iran in black as a blocking coalition between the Middle East and Europe. The second map, The Blessing, showed the Middle East with Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Sudan in green and a red two-way arrow going across them, as a bridge connecting the world of inclusion in Asia with the world of inclusion in Europe.
But, if you looked closely at Bibi’s “Curse” map, it showed Israel — but no borders with Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank (as if it had already been annexed — the goal of this Israeli government).
And that is the rub. The story Bibi wants to tell the world is that Iran and its proxies are the main obstacle to the world of inclusion stretching from Europe, through the Middle East over to the Asian-Pacific.
I beg to differ. The keystone to this whole alliance is a Saudi-Israel normalization based on reconciliation between Israel and moderate Palestinians.
If Israel now moved ahead and opened a dialogue on two states for two peoples with a reformed Palestinian Authority, which has already accepted the Oslo peace treaty, it would be the diplomatic knockout blow that would accompany and solidify the military knockout blow Israel just delivered to Hezbollah and Hamas.
It would totally isolate the forces of “resistance” in the region and take away their phony shield — that they are the defenders of the Palestinian cause. Nothing would rattle Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and Russia — even China — more.
But to do that Netanyahu would have to take a political risk even greater than the military risk he just took in killing the leadership of Hezbollah, a.k.a. “The Party of God.”
Netanyahu would have to break with the Israeli “Party of God" — the coalition of far-right Jewish settler supremacists and messianists who want Israel to permanently control all the territory from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean, with no border lines in between — just like on Bibi’s U.N. map. Those parties keep Bibi in power, so he would need to replace them with Israeli centrist parties, which I know would collaborate with him on such a move.
So there you have the big challenge of the day: The struggle between the world of inclusion and the world of resistance comes down to many things, but none more — today — than Netanyahu’s willingness to follow up his blow to the “Party of God” in Lebanon by dealing a similar political blow to the “Party of God” in Israel.
Thoughts…
Other than provoked act of violence should, IMO, expect and for that matter deserve retaliation — don’t you think, whether firing rockets or stealing another’s land…?
When such acts are conducted using human shields (literally hiding behind what appear to be helpless civilians, when rocket launchers are mounted in hospitals, when weapons and bad sorts are hiding in schools, etc.), things become considerably more complicated. But, such bad cowardly acts cannot be allowed to continue unabated — can they? Should they? In such circumstances, if those cowardly acts of aggression are to be remedied, then there will unfortunately be civilian casualties.
— won’t there?
Prisoners of war are distinguished from hostages — aren’t they? A terrorist arrested and held as a prisoner is not at all the same thing as an innocent person taken hostage. The idea of swapping one for the other strikes me as apples and elephants.
It seems to me that all hostages (both dead and/or alive) should be released and returned, and that the terrorists should lay down their arms if there is to be any hope of peace.
Relatedly, the local population must reject the terrorists lest they be seen as more or less complicit — shouldn’t they?
On the other hand, land seizures are IMO also bad acts (ex. Russia attacking Ukraine; or, any other person, government, entity doing similarly to another) — don't you think?
It seems to me that lines must be drawn and respected, and those living within those spaces must co-exist exhibiting tolerance.
Religious intolerance (those thinking they have found the one and only stairway to heaven and those playing on such nonsense for power purposes (think our own fraudulent felonious self- admitted pussy-grabbing past perfidious potus) are the sources of most unrest — arne’t they?
IMO, our American dual complimenting concepts that are presently arguably under attack [(1) individual religious where we all have the right to believe, etc. or not as we so please so long as our outward manifestations of same do not intolerantly and/or injuriously injure another; (2) enforced by our entirely neutral government there to squelch any such injury] work together as the great keeper of the peace.
Neither acts of terror nor taking land are acceptable. At some point, lines must be drawn and respected with those living within doing so in a spirit of tolerance and mutual benefit — stairways to heaven are individual constructs (deserving of respect but not morphing political).
Isn’t that where the answers lie (tolerance)..?
In any case , this issue is bigger than merely Israel and its next door neighbors, etc. It seems to me Important to view all this from the larger more international perspective — the bigger picture.
During his recent address, Bibi held up two maps: (1) was titled “The Blessing”; and, the other (2) “The Curse.”
The Curse showed Syria, Iraq and Iran in black as a blocking coalition between the Middle East and Europe. The second map, The Blessing, showed the Middle East with Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Sudan in green and a red two-way arrow going across them, as a bridge connecting the world of inclusion in Asia with the world of inclusion in Europe.
But, if you looked closely at Bibi’s “Curse” map, it showed Israel — but no borders with Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank (as if it had already been annexed — the goal of this Israeli government).
And that is the rub. The story Bibi wants to tell the world is that Iran and its proxies are the main obstacle to the world of inclusion stretching from Europe, through the Middle East over to the Asian-Pacific.
Isn’t the keystone to this whole alliance a Saudi-Israel normalization based on reconciliation between Israel and moderate Palestinians.
If Israel now moved ahead and opened a dialogue on two states for two peoples with a reformed Palestinian Authority, which has already accepted the Oslo peace treaty, it would be the diplomatic knockout blow that would accompany and solidify the military knockout blow Israel just delivered to Hezbollah and Hamas.
It would totally isolate the forces of “resistance” in the region and take away their phony shield — that they are the defenders of the Palestinian cause. Nothing would rattle Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and Russia — even China — more.
But to do that Netanyahu would have to take a political risk even greater than the military risk he just took in killing the leadership of Hezbollah, a.k.a. “The Party of God.”
Netanyahu would have to break with the Israeli “Party of God" — the coalition of far-right Jewish settler supremacists and messianists who want Israel to permanently control all the territory from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean, with no border lines in between — just like on Bibi’s U.N. map. Those parties keep Bibi in power, so he would need to replace them with Israeli centrist parties, which I know would collaborate with him on such a move.
So there you have the big challenge of the day: The struggle between the world of inclusion and the world of resistance comes down to many things, but none more — today — than Netanyahu’s willingness to follow up his blow to the “Party of God” in Lebanon by dealing a similar political blow to the “Party of God” in Israel.
Thoughts…
Just a dumb question: does access to drinking water have anything to do with this? Many thanks
It has to be a factor 🤷♂️
It is. It has been for 3000 years.
Let’s face it the reality of the 30 centuries of war and hate ..boils down to which groups version of God is the most peace loving !
Absolutely. Israel controls something like 90% of the water (which is used for irrigation, etc., as well as drinking) in the West Bank.
Since they're allegedly engaged in "genocide," why have the Israelis sent tons of food to feed Gazans? And why not stop the water supplies?
The MSM so-called balanced news is not at all that way. If one wants to really be informed with context it's necessary to read more and differing sources of which there are plenty. It's work and it's worth it if truth is what you like.
Absolutely brilliant, Lucian! What you wrote about Netanyahu is very true and your last paragraph says it all. My dad went to Israel twice, in the 70’s. Many of his friends he grew up with in Poland lived there. He also went to commemorate the building of Yad Vashem to honor those who died (he lost many relatives) in WWII. It is important to trace Israel’s history so that people can visualize the close proximity of the countries to Israel. Bibi is maniacal and a convict, much like the ex-prez. And he too, is a murderer, like the ex-prez and Putin. May they all receive prison sentences sooner than later. Religion and greed are the roots of all evil.
Thank god for it all
That’s a poignant statement and unfortunately all too true. We as a species have always been hell bent on killing one another for domination. I don’t know if that will ever change even if God would reappear and command a stop to it.
Keep in mind all 3Abrahamics insist they have G-D, God, or Allah on their side when they go to war against another Abrahamic. All3 have incorporated some version of their SkyGuy into their war whoop. Heck, German Army had it on their belt buckles in WW2 while rounding up Jews.
"Gott mit uns" - At the time of the completion of German unification in 1871, the imperial standard bore the motto Gott mit uns on the arms of an Iron Cross.[4] Imperial German 3 and 5 mark silver and 20 mark gold coins had Gott mit uns inscribed on their edge.
German soldiers had Gott mit uns inscribed on their belt buckles in the First World War.[5] The slogan entered the mindset on both sides; in 1916 a cartoon was printed in the New-York Tribune captioned "Gott Mit Uns!", showing "a German officer in spiked helmet holding a smoking revolver as he stood over the bleeding form of a nurse. It symbolized the rising popular demand that the United States shed its neutrality".[6]
In June 1920, George Grosz produced a lithographic collection in three editions entitled Gott mit uns. A satire on German society and the counter-revolution, the collection was swiftly banned. Grosz was charged with insulting the Reichswehr, which resulted in a 300 Papiermark fine and the destruction of the collection.[7]
During the Second World War, Nazi Germany's Wehrmacht soldiers wore this slogan on their belt buckles.[8] as opposed to members of the Waffen-SS, who wore the motto Meine Ehre heißt Treue ('My honour is loyalty').[9] After the war, the Bundeswehr abandoned the motto Gott mit uns, but the West German police continued to use it until the 1970s. For ideological reasons, however, this motto was not used in the East German armed forces, as the Nationale Volksarmee did not shy away from Prussian military traditions.
Since 1962, the Bundeswehr soldiers wear on their belt buckles the motto Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit ('Unity and Justice and Freedom'), which is the first line of the third stanza of the West German national anthem, the only one actually sung (now the only stanza of the national anthem of unified Germany).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gott_mit_uns
Religion, tribalism, testosterone. The most dangerous, destructive, dumb, drugs.
Agree with the sentiment.
Being ~indigenous~ do have an issue with how the word tribalism became a pejorative. Tribal people live by a philosophy premised on the natural laws.
Since the late 1800s tribalism has been associated with different groups of hoomans who insist their beliefs are superior to both the natural laws and to other groups of hoomans. The operative words are superior and [the] other. Linguistically, a pejoration. Globally aboriginal and ~indigenous~ had many of their words stolen, or as Roger Williams claimed, loaned, same with cultural antiquities including bones "loaned" to museums after being stolen and most of all the land they were the stewards, "loaned", stolen or taken by force. So when see how the word tribe has been misappropriated and then turned into a pejorative (does have holy book roots in the Old Testament and the teachings of "The Prophet") we can only shake our noggins in disbelief.
Although this is somewhat off-track am mentioning it due to Kamala Harris's invocation of the word tenets which went to her governing philosophy inc in economic matters. Tenets are also referred to in religion but like our words, religion stole it from philosophy. Philosophy deals with truth, religion and other ideologies that are premised into having faith in certain beliefs. Nitthah have anything to do w/truth or epistemology.
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Which god
I dunno. Which God's on sale today? There are more than 2500 Gods or deities on this ball of mud and water where we dwell. And they all have dues to pay. Excuse me, Tithes. Imperative to support those who explain the fine print to you, so you know who to hate. I've always liked the old South Pacific song, "You've Got To Be Carefully Taught".
See current news on Federal Court caseds on LDS GOLD AND ROCKS.
In
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As a long time student of history, it is fact that we are looking at tribal groups whose hatred of each other, for millennia, is so deeply embedded that, frankly, the nail cannot be removed. Then add in the hammering on that nail of religious prejudice and the situation has no solution. A two state is possible but not as long as Bibi rules Israel. Any of Lucian's readers who know what happened in 1947-48 as Israel became a nation also knows the ugliness that happened to many Palestinians as centuries old land and homes were taken from them. Please understand that I am not taking sides but I want readers to understand that horrible wrongs have been done to each tribal group. Hence all feel they are justified in their hatred. And the silliness of "the promised land given by God" is just that- silliness. The Hebrews stole that land through violence in the time of Moses and then a few hundred years later totally lost that little piece of land to Rome when they rebelled against "their masters" and were dispersed. That was two thousand years ago.
How is this hatred changed? Not in our life time or the next generation for sure. All we can hope for is a two state solution and the various combatants are stalemated fearing each other.
The US could broker a peace but the powers now present in America are not willing to do that. Just our military/industrial complex makes too much money supplying weapons to want peace. If either political party abandons Israel the loss of votes would doom them.
Sad.
Great piece, Lucian. Many do not understand the historical roots of the Middle East conflict. It's as old as civilization itself.
This morning, the headline in my local newspaper, owned by the New York Times, read “Biden: all out war possible” . In a panic I read the article which was actually very reassuring because it talked about how important the negotiations were between Biden and world leaders regarding a cease-fire between Lebanon and Israel. I have heard often about “Clickbait “headlines and this morning I experienced it. Journalism needs a complete overhaul because what they are doing is disgusting.
The one person who has studied and documented print headlines and story placement longer and keener than anyone is not a media critic but rather the preeminent authority on Republican politics and is a political scientist, Norm Ornstein.
Mr. Ornstein was way ahead of his contemporaries in identifying the delta in Republicanism and conservatism as well as the insidious ways major print publications and cable news frame headlines and leads. Like most visionaries, he was dismissed as overreacting.
In reality, what he put together flew far over the heads of those dismissing him. Not because it was overly complex or filled with magniloquent speech, but because those he addressed were in a deep hole of their own making. How else could they compete in the race to the bottom?
Many thanks for this. Unfortunately, after reading all of the comments here, I wonder how intractable and insoluble the situation is. Would Netanyahu’s ouster, possibly, finally create a 2-state solution? Or merely cause the “actors on this stage” to dig their heels in even more? I only know how to pray and my prayer chain is growing really long.
As Lucian points out and you suggest, "We are in the era of Benjamin Netanyahu and Hassan Nasrallah and Yahya Sinwar...", this is not solely a BN/Israeli leadership problem. He/They are surrounded by like-minded desperate people, none of whom (the sum of Middle Eastern post-WWII "leadership") care now or ever have cared one wit about Palestinians. Something that I think our campus actors need to be made aware of and alter their focus to encompass the broad mess that is the oil-drenched Middle East.
The number one currency in the region is not oil, not money, not weapons, not gold. It's treachery. Unless and until that changes no peace is possible.
In the US a change of leadership/power comes with significant changes. Not so in the Middle East because changing one doesn't change the others in the region. While am being intentionally hyperbolic a Mother Teresa , a MLJ, and a Gandhi as heads of states in the region would still leave too many mofos to overcome.
The region has long operated on minority rule with an iron fist. Keep in mind the definition of minority includes societal and economic class etc, not just population or political party. Minority rule changes all traditional governing rules and behaviors. It centers on holding on to power by any means. Hence, my use of treachery.