I realize this video goes on for five agonizing minutes, an eternity, but he is impressively succinct. However, I don't know if, even now, the problem in any area of this conflict is lack of analysis. As you say, it's been there for decades... but there's always room for quibbling and always room for taking out a dozen or so civilians while the quibbling goes on. Or 12,000, or 120,000.
Ogged, who has the best take on Iran's position in the conflict these days? I'm not sure I could give a good summary of what has changed there since 2002 (beyond listing a bunch of things everyone knows), and it's never clear what really goes on behind the scenes with Iran and Israel.
Remember when some people in government thought our invasion and reconstitution of Iraq would make it an ally of Israel, reducing the 'outside agitators' preventing peace?
I didn't listen to the end, so maybe this was covered by Zb, but it's pretty obvious this (current Israeli policy) isn't going to work, right? I mean in the long term. You're a small minority in the region and you both chip away at international norms/institutions that protect weaker groups while at the same alienating a good majority of the youth in the country that has protected you? I'm pretty sure it will be past my time before this happens at least.
🙏🙏
The Bible prophesied 7-year Tribulation is at humanity's doorstep & the time to escape is very short. To read more, pls visit https://bibleprophecyinaction.blogspot.com/
3 More than twice, at the time, I heard people on TV saying that 'the road to Jerusalem runs through Baghdad.' To which I would respond, yelling at the TV, 'yeah if you're in Tehran.' The smart people, though, were too busy listening to Chalabi tell the same lies Philip Skene had told 225 years before, which Machiavelli says all exiles tell: greeted as liberators.
We decided, apparently, that our double bankshot with Iraq was a better bet than trying to get Israel to make some kind of deal that the Palestinians would accept, and since that ran its course, we're really just trying to pretend the whole thing away.
I don't watch TV news either.
2: Heh, remember when Iraq was gonna be our "aircraft carrier in the MidEast" ? So we could vacate KSA, settle down all those Wahhabis and shit. Boy that worked out fine, fine, fine.
it's pretty obvious this (current Israeli policy) isn't going to work, right? I mean in the long term.
I don't think this is obvious at all. Maybe it depends on your measure of success. Israel has been able to suppress Palestinians for decades while continuing to expand in the West Bank.
Of course, you're not talking about the short-term, but "current Israeli policy" has been current for, what, 50 years? More? And people have said all along that current Israeli policy isn't viable in the long term.
It's like the inevitable collapse of Social Security and Medicare. I've been hearing about that since I started paying into the system. It never seems to happen.
I think Israel would be very vulnerable to an economic boycott of the sort that doing war crimes will eventually trigger if the United States were to allow it.
8.2 I think maybe you can reasonably divide Israeli policy pre-2008 and post-2008. Or divide it at the death of Rabin. But I don't think one can fairly say it's just been one policy since the end of the Yom Kippur war.
The death toll of the current struggle is pretty different from the previous ones in the last 50 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza%E2%80%93Israel_conflict
9, 11: If by "current policy" we mean mass killings in Gaza over a short period of time, then that policy can't and won't continue, and it therefore won't constitute a long-term threat to (at a minimum) maintaining the Israeli status quo.
10: It's certainly possible to make different choices in discussing periods in Israeli policy. I was thinking broadly about the initiation of West Bank settlements, their subsequent growth, and the ongoing suppression of Palestinian self-determination. Is that 50-year trajectory unsustainable? That's not at all clear to me.
Anyway, Moby and I agree that this question isn't likely to be settled in our lifetimes.
I'm not sure of the exact dates for changes, but my opinion of Israel is very different than it was in 2008.
12.1: I mean, at this rate they're going to run out of Palestinians in a couple of years.
The living ones will be somewhere else, but probably no longer carving Nativity figures out of olive wood.
14: I realize that's a kind of grim joke, but the Palestinians are being killed and more land is stolen all the time, and the Palestinian population keeps growing faster than Israeli growth. Killing 34,000 is an impressive feat, and you have to believe that's an undercount because it fails to account for various types of collateral damage, but the population in Gaza is someting like 2.4 million, and the killing has already slowed.
13: My opinion has also changed markedly in that period, but the change has been in my own reading of Israel's history.
I dunno. The horror of it all sure feels like it ought to be unsustainable, but it has been sustained for a long time.
Maybe a difference of opinion here is that I don't see the current Gaza situation as being a break with the past, despite the facts that CC cites in 11. I mean, we all pretty well knew on Oct. 8 how this was all going to shake out, and I think Hamas had a pretty good idea on Oct. 6.
Israel won't defeat Palestinian terrorism and will improve its internal security, and we won't see another situation this extreme for a few more decades. And in the meantime, the settlements on the West Bank will continue to grow.
I assume the settlements in the West Bank are accelerating, because with everyone looking at Gaza it's a good time to do it.
Anyway, I think Hamas was trying to provoke a reaction strong enough that Israel would lose substantial international support.
I guess I think the question isn't whether Israel can sustain its policy of driving Palestinians out, either bit by bit in the WB, or, some are hoping, with a coup-de-main in Gaza. The question is how long near blank-check levels of US support can be sustained. In this, I wonder if the current struggle may end up having a generational effect.
I have a number of contemporaries in my FB feed, no surprise there. Many of those who are Jewish identifying are buying a narrative about what is happening on US college campuses that a great number of people involved, and a whole lot of other people under 40, think is MAGA-level delusional. (I thought the recent Pearlstein article was really good on that.) I'm hoping this doesn't impact Biden's re-election, and I think it probably won't (although margins are going to be so tight in swing states that pretty much anything can be a but-for) but 20 years from now, as far as we are from the OP video, I wouldn't be shocked, if I was still alive, if US domestic Democratic politics regarding support for Israel was pretty different. Maybe that makes the ethnic cleansers right: do it now while the US will look the other way.
Anyway, I just read somewhere that we're entering a 7 year tribulation, so I think things will get worse for a while.
I think making it harder for Biden to win is one of Netanyahu's goals in this and I'm completely prepared to try to fuck over any and all people in Israel and America who helped.
Ok, here's another thought. Our State Dept would apparently like to see a Fatah government in Gaza so they can basically do a Marshall Plan.
This isn't close to happening, but is it possible that Israel could end up eliminating enough of the ontheground support and networks that Hamas expat leadership counts on which could shuffle the cards, post cease fire?
No, we'll probably invade Yemen instead. Al Qaeda will surely greet us as liberators.
Agree with 21. Unlike basically all other foreign leaders, Netanyahu is American citizen who grew up in the US (or was until he dropped his citizenship to become PM), and he's not just a conservative he's a partisan Republican.
Of course beating Biden is by far secondary to his main goals of staying in power and out of jail.
I have not seen an actual rat eating garbage for a while now. Murray Avenue has its issues.
The rat was eating the trash outside of what used to be my old neighbor's store. My new neighbor is pretty boring in terms of causing Supreme Court cases, but he is goyer than me.
I realize that's a kind of grim joke, but the Palestinians are being killed and more land is stolen all the time, and the Palestinian population keeps growing faster than Israeli growth. Killing 34,000 is an impressive feat, and you have to believe that's an undercount because it fails to account for various types of collateral damage, but the population in Gaza is someting like 2.4 million, and the killing has already slowed.
Yeah, this is the thing. I know the "genocide" designation is controversial, but assuming it arguendo, if literally killing every living Palestinian is Israel's goal it is not possible for them to succeed. Absolute ruthlessness, which they clearly have, is not enough. Killing literal millions of people is actually quite difficult in the absence of some sort of biological/epidemiological advantage, which doesn't apply in this case. (This gets into the strengths and weaknesses of the "settler colonialism" framework as well as the "genocide" one. Personally I think both are useful ways to understand the situation even though they have their limitations.)
"The death toll of the current struggle is pretty different from the previous ones in the last 50 years."
Hugely. On both sides, in terms of civilian deaths, it is greater than *all* the conflicts of the last 50 years *put together*. In fact greater than all the conflicts since 1948 (not including 1948).
For the Palestinians, also in terms of total deaths.
Difficult to see how that doesn't alter the politics fundamentally.
24: Yeah, I've said that in a slightly different world, Bibi is a long-serving Republican Congressman from Bucks County.
I prefer the slightly more different world where Deng Xiaoping, Senator from Formosa, joined Ronald Reagan on the Republican presidential ticket in 1976.
That was a really good synopsis.
But I'm sure his daughter is carrying on a similar level of discourse on Morning Joe these days.
Killing literal millions of people is actually quite difficult in the absence of some sort of biological/epidemiological advantage
There was a time when Graham was one of the more reasonable member of the Republican caucus, right? I didn't just dream that?
Always worth reading the article, not just the headline. The story "Lindsay Graham Suggests Nuking Gaza" makes clear that Lidnsay Graham did not in fact suggest nuking Gaza.
Watching videos like that one of ZB is a reminder of a prelapsarian world. There's almost zero chance of a contemporary political figure or commentator giving such a clear and cogent analysis of anything, and even less chance of them being allowed to do it.
37 it's worth more listening to what he said, while he didn't outright call for it he did endorse it.
yeah, he tiptoes right up to the line of plausible deniability.
Good God, finally past 40. In the war that actually matters: Kharkhiv front reopened.
I appreciate your adherence to important norms.
Hence your stink-eye for Vovo.
38: if it's from 2002, Brzezinzki wasn't a current politician.
it's worth more listening to what he said, while he didn't outright call for it he did endorse it.
I did listen to what he said, and I don't think there is any way that you could read it as an endorsement of a nuclear attack on Gaza. He certainly didn't suggest it, which is what the headline said. It's a bizarre outburst sure enough, from a repellent individual, but it's dishonest to say "ah yes, in this video Lindsey Graham suggests nuking Gaza".
Killing literal millions of people is actually quite difficult in the absence of some sort of biological/epidemiological advantage, which doesn't apply in this case.
This doesn't seem quite accurate. The Israelis are turning Gaza into a de facto concentration camp by closing the exits and cutting off all supplies. Starvation and disease will kill 10s to 100s of thousands or more quite quickly if something doesn't change very soon.
On that point I also quibble with the 34,000 figure. That is from months ago, back when the ability to somewhat track casualties was possible. My guess is the actual figure is minimally 2-3x higher and we will only have a true accounting afterwards when we dig up the mass graves and count the stacks of bodies.
Isaac Chotiner article on how much aid is getting into Gaza (from earlier this month):
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-much-aid-is-actually-reaching-gazans
"Do whatever the hell you have to do to defend yourself. Level the place." Graham Oct 11
I can't find a full transcript but this is how MSN excerpted it:
"So when we were faced with destruction as a nation after Pearl Harbor fighting the Germans and the Japanese, we decided to end the war by bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nuclear weapons...
That was the right decision. Give Israel the bombs they need to end the war. They can't afford to lose, and work with them to minimize casualties...
Why is it OK for America to drop two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end their existential threat war? Why was it OK for us to do that? I thought it was OK.
To Israel, do whatever you have to do to survive as a Jewish state."
So he's on record saying "level the place", then says when the US was faced with an existential threat it was ok to use nukes, then says Israel is faced with an existential threat and should do whatever is necessary. Maybe he's advocating for convention firebombing to "level the place", maybe a nuke, but he's the one that brought up the nuclear comparison to WWII being necessary in the face of an existential threat. Maybe we can be fair to Lindsay and say he didn't call for Israel to nuke Gaza but he clearly wouldn't have a problem with it if they did.
Graham is playing with language the way that all fascists (and many others) do. And most of the media is getting played for suckers, as they do, because of a mistaken desire to interpret people like Graham in the most charitable possible way.
After Graham talks about the merits of nuking Japan, he offers:
"To Israel: Do whatever you have to do to survive as a Jewish state. Whatever you have to do."
Note the repetition for emphasis. And Graham put extra emphasis on the second "whatever." To say that Graham "suggests nuking Gaza" is a headline-shortened summary of what he actually did suggest, which was nuking Gaza if necessary.
Poor ol' Lindsey Graham. Boo fucking hoo.
You saw the same thing when Trump recently promised a "bloodbath" if Biden is re-elected. In context, he starts out talking about the threat to American car manufacturing if China builds plants in Mexico:
[W]e're going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you're not going to be able to sell those cars if I get elected. Now, if I don't get elected, it's going to be a bloodbath for the country. That's going to be the least of it. It's going to be a bloodbath for the country. That'll be the least of it. But they're not going to sell those cars. They're building massive factories.
Again the repetition: "That'll be the least of it." If you listen literally, he's talking about the bloodbath above and beyond what will happen with cars.
Removed from all context, you can take this as a threat to the economy or whatever. But in the same speech, he refers to the Jan. 6 insurrectionists as "great patriots" and "hostages." And if you go beyond that speech, it's clear that Trump is advocating violence after his next defeat, just as he did before the last one.
It was nice to see the media report those remarks in a sensible fashion.
Some of the idiots who get played by Trump are actually very smart, literal thinkers who struggle with placing events in any kind of context. It's a Republican superpower that Trump has perfected -- being so vile that nobody can actually believe it.
Brian Schatz was more succinct than me:
Headline writers: Don't outsmart yourself. Just do "Trump Promises Bloodbath if he Doesn't Win Election."
"Poor ol' Lindsey Graham. Boo fucking hoo."
See, this is how they get you. You think it's OK to exaggerate and maybe even lie a little bit about people, of they're bad people. Because then anyone who points out what you're doing is clearly an idiot, or a fascist, or a genocide supporter, or all three.
But it isn't OK. Sooner or later it becomes really obvious that you're willing to exaggerate and even lie a little bit about people who you dont like, and then it becomes obvious that nothing you say is worth trusting, because you think it's all right to talk crap if it helps you.
If Lindsay Graham doesn't like the interpretation that he's calling for Israel to nuke Gaza, he can walk back his inflammatory statement. I notice he's not doing that.
anyone who points out what you're doing is clearly an idiot, or a fascist, or a genocide supporter, or all three
I can see that you are a careful, literal reader of the responses you have received in this thread.
But I'll stand by this: While I generally agree that the Daily Beast headline was inelegant, I'm not going to get upset about the distinction between "Lindsey Graham suggests nuking Gaza" and the admittedly more complete "Lindsey Graham suggests nuking Gaza could be appropriate." The text of the story cleared up any confusion, and if we allow for the fact that Graham has been quite explicit on this subject, we don't need to wonder what he's going for here. Certainly the headline was within the normal bounds of reasonable partisan news analysis.
This was Graham last October: "We are in a religious war here. I am with Israel. Whatever the hell you have to do to defend yourselves. Level the place."
Trump tried to deny the import of his "bloodbath" prediction. Graham has been consistent, clear and unapologetic. What is the upper limit of the violence that Graham would find acceptable? There is no upper limit. We know that because he says so, repeatedly. "Whatever you have to do."
It's probably a bad idea to nuke a county that's
150 square miles and shares a border with you.
But I haven't seen Oppenheimer yet, so I'm not sure.
I can see that you are a careful, literal reader of the responses you have received in this thread.
An elegant and cutting riposte! Well done, that was very impressive.
Here's the full interview, not just the clip that the Daily Beast excerpted. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0ei3myqgBk
Graham says at 6.25: "Give Israel the bombs they need to end the war they can't afford to lose, and work with them to minimise casualties." That's his conclusion - that's what he think the US should do. The whole conversation up to that point is about US supplying bombs to Israel (or not).
There's no way to read that as an endorsement of nuking Gaza. The interviewer gets confused because she isn't very bright, and she doesn't ask the followup question ("wait, are you saying that Israel should nuke Gaza?") because she's not a very good journalist. But if you listen to the entire interview, it's pretty clear.
You'll now argue, I suppose, that when he says "give Israel the bombs they need to end the war they can't afford to lose" he means "the US should give Israel nuclear weapons to drop on Israel".
But it isn't OK. Sooner or later it becomes really obvious that you're willing to exaggerate and even lie a little bit about people who you dont like, and then it becomes obvious that nothing you say is worth trusting, because you think it's all right to talk crap if it helps you.
This is both exactly true and exactly what Ajay has done to himself on this subject. He's always had a habit of misrepresenting positions, but something about this war (Some deep loathing for "Arabs"?) has sent him all the way over the edge. Which is a pity.
Ajay would love it if the people who think he is an insane anti-Arab racist could get together with the people who think he is a rabid antisemite and really thrash the issue out once and for all, because he would love to know which brand of hummus he's supposed to be buying. (This sentence in the third person because apparently that is the way we talk now.)
Here is the sentence you provided, along with the sentence immediately prior:
We decided to end the war by the bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nuclear weapons. That was the right decision. Give Israel the bombs they need to end the war they can't afford to lose.
Here's another unfair headline, this one from Rolling Stone:
Graham: Israel Should Do 'Whatever' They Want to Palestinians Like When U.S. Nuked Japan
Of course, this isn't what Graham said at all. He said that Israel should do whatever it needs to do, like when the US nuked Japan.
I await Lindsey's protestations that he is being misrepresented.
Is this argument entirely about the scope of the word "endorses"? Because I usually try to be pretty far over on the side of not saying untrue things even about terrible people, but I don't think the headline is unjust to Graham.
Ajay-- you are correct that the interview isn't about any concrete plan for nuking Gaza that Graham is advocating for. He's advocating for leveling the place with conventional bombs. On the other hand, he brought up Hiroshima and Nagasaki for a reason, and the reason seems clearly to be to define the outer limits of what's acceptable for a country to do when under a threat like (according to Graham) the US was in WW II and Israel is now as including the use of nuclear weapons.
If you think "endorses" is strictly limited to "advocates for a concrete plan with the intent of moving it forward", then the headline is unfair. If you think it can include "identifies a course of action as justifiable even if it's presently unlikely", then the headline is perfectly reasonable.
Myself, I find the second usage of endorsement fairly normal, but I suppose if it's completely outside how you would ever use the word, the headline would look misleading.
The operative word in the Daily Beast headline is "suggests" rather than "endorses," which I don't think changes your point.
Ajay-- you are correct that the interview isn't about any concrete plan for nuking Gaza that Graham is advocating for. He's advocating for leveling the place with conventional bombs.
I think this is a reasonable and correct interpretation of Graham's words, but it's not what he said in actual context. If you look at 62 with the kind of hyper-literal eye that ajay advocates, he's saying the US needs to be supplying Israel with nukes if Israel needs them to do the job. We recoil from that interpretation in part because it's so monstrous, but Graham's unambiguous intent is monstrous.
I ask again: What is the upper limit of the violence that Graham would find acceptable? And I answer: There is no upper limit.
Graham speaks for himself, and it's clear that he's saying that any level of violence is acceptable -- again, if we're adopting ajay's standard of hyper-literalism. But how ought we interpret this in the real world? Do we believe Graham literally when he says "Level the place" and "whatever* it takes," or is he just engaging in hyperbole?
I think he's being literal, and if Israel engaged in a program of genocide,** Graham wouldn't meaningfully object.
* You can hear the italics in Grahams' second "whatever it takes."
** We have discussed the meaning of the word "genocide." My inclination is to not use that word to describe Israel's current behavior.
Because they don't have the geno region of France involved.
This piece by Amos Goldberg, a professor of Holocaust studies at Hebrew University, on the genocide question is very good
https://thepalestineproject.medium.com/yes-it-is-genocide-634a07ea27d4
It's only genocide if it comes from the Wannsee region of Germany. Otherwise it's just sparkling ethnic cleansing.
I haven't yet had the time to read this yet
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2024/06/06/is-israel-committing-genocide-aryeh-neier/
Ajay would prefer the headline, "Senator Graham would be ok with Israel nuking Gaza if they think it's necessary." Gotta be literal with these things apparently.
I have an opinion on the genocide debate, but that is not a hill that I and the rest of the people of my ethnicity are willing to die on.
I don't even know that the legal definition is.
41 etc.: I guess I'm starting to see where the "Ukraine is too boring and depressing for Unfogged" take comes from.
(FWIW, I sat out this thread, after 1, due to a pretty serious family emergency. Everyone is okay now aside from trauma, unlike Ukraine, but I may need a day week or two to catch up.)
Same. Hopefully the trauma will settle out with time.
Take care of yourself, and lots of sympathy.
Thanks, everybody.
To the OP, I got this Nakba commemoration post from a charity I have supported. Now, today, the NYT published its huge investigation of how settler extremism became mainstream, and there's a ton of stuff there (maybe worth a post), but the thing that stood out most to me was a single line, my itals:
"When we realized that Gush Emunim had the backing of so many politicians, we knew we shouldn't touch them," he said in his first interview for this article in 2016.
There's another whole story there, surely.
Yes. Like this article has been suppressed for 8 years?
Around 2016/2017 a co-worker at MFPOW who recently returned from visiting Israel* said that the whole settlement issue didn't seem like a big deal to people anymore. So probably the NYT just didn't think readers would be interested. Simple explanation!
*I think, but can't remember for sure, the trip was sponsored by an organization based in Israel.
I'm thinking of starting a charity where you can have a really ugly tree planted in your name in a very inconvenient spot.
Starting in Israel, of course. But I want to go global.