A reader sent a note saying that I did not fully credit Rebecca Solnit for her saying, "A vote is a chess move, not a Valentine." Although I included a hyperlink to my previous discussion of Ms. Solnit's quote and the original source, the reader felt I should have credited Ms. Solnit in the text of the newsletter (as required by the MLA style guide).
Robert, you have a diligent group of readers that let nothing get by. And you march on with the grace of a saint. As one who had pestered you this holiday weekend, it occurred to me that you must take care of yourself as you have advised us.
Your devotion to a better future is impressive. Stay strong and healthy- both physically and mentally.
The criticism of President Biden's handling of the Israeli-Hamas-Palestinian disaster highlights the stark reality of communication that moves faster than events: there's much more that we don't know than what we know, and what we don't know, we assume. I have much more confidence in President Biden's judgment in global matters than my own, so I'm not going to second guess him.
Nov 27 p.s. I just read Joyce Vance's piece about the upcoming week, and was pleased to read a piece she cited by Jorge Ramos of Univision voicing criticism of his employer's coverage of the Defendant. In addition to his claim that journalists should be asking the hard questions, I'd add that the questions should be of equal importance. Hard questions about unimportant matters are not helpful. Here's Jorge's piece: https://jorgeramos.com/en/the-danger-of-not-confronting-trump-2/
The president has such incredible restraint to keep his head down and do the work and not feel obliged to respond to every knee-jerk in the press. I wish more people followed the longer news cycle to see what he's getting done while they are thinking they know his job better than he does. Too often by then people have lost interest.
Whoa there, Nelly, do you mean you're going to suggest to the collection of dolts known as The Great American Public that they actually turn what is left of their brains on and do all the things they slept through learning in school, like how the government works and how to do critical thinking and reading, to make intelligent and informed decisions? That would be a first in the history of the world's oldest democracy. :-)
Due respect, I think you are leaving out of your assessment (name calling) the hundreds of thousands (millions?) of us who have begun doing the grass roots work (post cards, texts, phone calls, door knocking and more) that has resulted in more and more Democratic wins since 2018.
In my first response to Susan's comment, before I read yours, I acknowledged my own instinct to turn to snarkiness - it feels good in the moment. But it really doesn't help to change anything....and in the long-run, that is what I care about more. Blessings,
Telling those you regard as "The Great Unwashed" that they are, in fact, unwashed, accomplishes very little-except to cause many of them to ape TFG and plug their ears, whilst going "Nya,nya, can't hear you", and voting for Trump-or DeSantis, or by extension, Wilders, Milei, Bolsonaro, Duterte, Fico, Bukele and God knows who is coming down the pike.
What is the alternative? Actually listening to the more sincere among the conservatives-as I do out of both sincerity and necessity. Two of my siblings, and a good many people in the town where I live, are either principled conservatives or those whose questions and concerns have been routinely dismissed as "that old, shopworn babbling", by those who "know so much more". Poison and pus need to be lanced and cleaned out, not dismissed and allowed to fester.
TC, I am finding your endless cynicism about the American voter tiresome. The voters you love to disdain chose Jefferson and Madison, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, FDR and Truman, JFK and LBJ (perhaps our most unfairly maligned president), not to mention Barack Obama and Joe Biden. They elected Democrats to dominate our politics from 1932 to 1968, and Congress even longer. They elected Democrats to congressional majorities most of the last dozen years, and that would have been more pronounced without gerrymandering. It’s easy to be critical, but in this instance not helpful. So, to use an expression with which I know you are familiar from your younger days, pipe down.
Having grown up around them and gotten away from them as soon as possible, I normally don't talk to them. But the ones I am talking about very certainly do exist. I grew up with them.
They may have chosen them, but probably not because they knew *why* they were choosing them.
I have to go with TC on this. I think of being a chaperone on a high school bus trip, in about 2009. Two students (in an advanced business class for seniors) behind me were having a discussion and one of them said, “Wait, who is Hillary Clinton? Is she the vice president?“ Neither of them knew.
I don't usually give in to my baser instinct to name-call, but I couldn't help it. I think you meant content when you called out "every knee-jerk in the press." But for just a brief moment, I think it's a great label for the publishers of said content. Ok, letting go of my left-over instinct to snarkiness and back to maturity!
PS I wrote this before I read comments about the label "great unwashed," so I will add my thoughts on that in another comment.
The vociferous critics of Israel’s response to October 7th need to come forward with clear statements about how they think Israel should have responded differently *and* clear statements about the likely outcomes of their proposed policies.
In addition: People should pay attention to Jennifer Rubin’s latest WaPo article, which details the sexual atrocities Hamas fighters committed on October 7. Also, Jake Tapper’s reports for CNN (print and video are available). They are grisly, but important.
Michael, In response to your call for critics to come forward, I would note groups, engaged for decades in the Israeli/ Palestinian peace process, Jewish Voices for Peace Action among them, increasingly, over the past couple of weeks, have voiced their recognition that the only way Hamas ultimately will be weakened and made an irrelevant political force is if Palestinians have a path to freedom and can see that an ethical resistance, not what happened on October 7th, but an ethical fight for its rights, is working.
Considering U.S. leadership regularly underscores its hopes that Israel not repeat our mistakes after 9/11, said groups, as we speak, are using every means to urge enough of those at the top to be receptive to the advantages of viewing the situation their way.
Barbara, what you are saying is as if, in 1940, someone had said that the way the Nazis would be rendered irrelevant was if Germany could be offered an alternative. As we know, that was not the case. And while some might argue that it would have been better to choose such a course, I don’t think you’ll find a single reputable historian to agree. Sometimes, the way to eliminate evil is to go at it. (Now, after Hamas is made irrelevant, then a path to a two-state answer will be imperative.)
Jon, Considering U.S. leadership regularly underscores its hopes that Israel not repeat our mistakes of 9/11, wherein our reaction, starting from the several 100 or so Jihadists in the world, created generations of Jihadists, I believe our 9/11 is the more apt comparison. In that regard, I fear that the senseless slaughter of the innocent in Gaza will produce a comparable outcome to our senseless slaughter of the innocent in Afghanistan and, particularly, in Iraq.
Accordingly, in my view, contrary to the military front, it will be the successful prosecution of a second front that I think more likely will determine the outcome of the Israeli/ Palestinian conflict. It will be a war for justice, but a war I trust not for retributive justice but for distributive, or perhaps redistributive, justice for Israelis and Palestinians.
Repurposing an earlier comment, I believe that Palestinians and Israelis jointly seeing that an ethical fight for their rights is working is Hamas’s worst nightmare because both people, if given a path to freedom and secure borders rob Hamas of their relevance.
I go back and forth on which comparison is more apt.
There is a strong argument for comparing Hamas's control over Palestine with the Nazis' control over Germany and, similarly, with Imperial Japan.
In both instances, the Allies were shocked by the ferocity of the resistance, especially in late 1944/early 1945, when the war was clearly lost.
They were convinced that the defeat of both nations would give rise to guerrilla groups that would continue the fight for years to come. The Nazis had actually planned for this—the Werewolves—and there was some resistance and guerrilla activity, but it never became widespread and quickly died out upon Germany's surrender.
But here's where it gets tricky—historians are as much in agreement as they can be that the world's revulsion at revelations like the concentration camps and the atrocities committed by the Japanese in China helped create a national sense of shame in Germany and Japan. This, coupled with denazification and the Marshall Plan, helped ensure that there was no revival of Nazism.
As long as much of the Progressive Left and most of the Arab world continue to feel that Hamas's actions were justified, there will be no national sense of shame, not for the October 7th pogrom or for leading their citizens into a suicidal war.
Without acknowledging that Hamas's actions are evil, and distinguishing that while Hamas may be evil, the Palestinian people are not, it is easy to see how a de-Hamasification program and massive Marshall Plan-style aid might ultimately fail if there is no national sense of shame over Hamas and a desire to do better, a desire we still see in Germany and Japan almost 80 years later.
I would like to add, the things that are said about Israel and Jews are just horrible.
The people who are coming out being called "Pro-Palestinian" in this country and around the world are violent and dangerous. They have brought a war to the streets of Great Britain, Canada, France, the US and other places. These so called "Pro-Palestinians" are genocidal. I do not know where they learn their virulence and are taking it to the streets.
Stephen, While, for me, the perspective is more than just interesting, I would note, because it didn’t originate from me, I can’t take credit. That said, I would add that I am part of a team pursuing this argument with our district’s U. S. House Rep to nudge him towards signing onto the ceasefire agreement circulating within the House.
What would a cease-fire *at this time* accomplish? Sure, in the short run, it will save lives. But by saving the lives of Hamas fighters and leaders, it will guarantee that Hamas will regroup, continue to oppress Gazans, and again attempt to kill Israelis. Remember: Hamas is pledged to wipe out all Jews.
Is that what you want?
Whether or not they understand it, people calling for an immediate “peace”, or cease-fire, in reality are calling for renewed oppression in Gaza, attempts to murder Israelis, and, ultimately, yet another war. Please convey that to Senator Markey.
What’s required, now, is thorough defeat of Hamas, followed by an enlightened Occupation and de-Hamasization (compare to deNazification of Germany after World War II), coupled with economic rebuilding.
I agree, but only if it *were* possible to get rid of Hamas completely. I don’t think that’s any more possible than to get rid of all Nazis, or the KKK. Recently there were raids in Germany where they arrested dozens of Hamas supporters, people who were giving money to the cause. And Hamas is not alone. There is no cut and dry answer
John, Thank you for writing. Admittedly, be in my or someone else’s post, I delight in the potential of the statements we make to send ripples of influence.
I live in Massachusetts. Given Senator Markey has been petitioning for a ceasefire, we’re focused solely on our district’s House Rep. Admittedly, progress is slow.
And Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch of the very leftist, very liberal Reform Stephen Wise Free Synagogue on the Upper West Side had this to say about them to The Guardian: "We’ve always had in our community Jews who have forcefully disagreed with one another,” he continued. Of Jewish Voice for Peace, he said: “Many of them aren’t Jewish, by the way, and they certainly aren’t for peace.”
Alan, While, based on your comment, I will make inquiries, I would note, though I find the ADL indispensable for combatting antisemitism and, by extension, bigotry overall, I do take issue with the organization’s discussion of Israel/ Palestine, wherein the group views the conflict unilaterally from a single perspective—Israel’s. As for your other reference that is unfamiliar to me, I will create time to read your links. I am grateful for the heads-up and will reserve judgment until, as stated, I’ve had time to make further inquiries.
@DW, While I plan to do independent research, my most trusted source is the person who leads our coalition. Given her busy schedule, I will wait to talk with her when I see her on December 8th, at which point I will report back.
Exactly Bob. The complexity of these negotiations is mind-boggling given the parties involved and I suspect it will be a while before we hear the real magic of how Biden and his "secret cell" worked to make this happen--it's not as if details can be revealed where this is ongoing.
Anyone interested in the story of these peace negotiations and why they failed over the years, should listen to the latest Ezra Klein podcast with Aaron Miller, a former State Department employee who worked in the Reagan, Clinton and both Bush administations and was at the table for many of the talks: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/21/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-aaron-david-miller.html
Suri Crowe, who resigned from a Sinclair "news" outlet, described how she was not allowed to report on stories about climate change or do a detailed report on white supremacy before Charlottesville. Democracy and our country's political institutions are being sold to the highest bidder. Think about Fox, and how they didn't want to tell their viewers about the truth of the election.
Much of the anti-Biden outrage and far right support is being stoked by disinformation and active measures. Our many adversaries seek to divide us and discourage voting. The low turnout by Dutch voters resulting in a far-right win is no accident.
I expect that Russia led the way, but we are also facing propaganda and influence campaigns from China, other nations, and within our borders the MAGA movement and its wealthy donors.
TikTok, for instance, is a Chinese company with outsized influence on young voters who go there for news delivered by influencers. Influencers there have huge audiences — often hundreds of thousands of followers. There’s the outrage against Biden for ignoring the plight of Palestinians because people don’t know that he is doing complex and subtle negotiating and getting good results. Many young voters also believe we are in a terrible economy, even though the Biden Administration is doing much to help them.
Disinformation gains traction when there’s a grain of truth to exploit, like the high cost of housing or the recent inflation that hits those hardest who are trying to get a start in life. Influencers are generally hip young people who deliver nitty gritty messages. It’s condescending to think of those who are influenced as dumb. Someone may be working a minimum wage job, living on the edge of homelessness, and entertaining themselves with Tiktok. Here’s a gifted New York Times article on the issue.
What do Democrats do in return? The administration quotes statistics. What would John Fetterman do? We need to counter with something like that.
The Reagan Administration set a new standard by always campaigning and driving the media agenda, just as -rump does with his cyclone of outrageousness. Democrats still don’t get this, and it’s a major reason that we’re struggling to hold back a disinformation juggernaut.
The clearest voice I’ve seen about disinformation is Alexander Vindman, the whistleblower and hero behind -rump’s first impeachment. Dr. Vindman has now started a SubStack blog that I’m supporting, called “Why It Matters.” Here’s his terrific and brief write-up on “Active Measures and Influence Operations.”
I just finished writing my weekly allotment of postcards for getting out the vote in 2024, a discipline I have committed to for the duration. I may not have the time or bandwidth or money for postcards and postage to churn them out by the dozens every week, but I have set goals for every week. A friend who makes blank note cards with her photographs gave me 100 that had been slightly misprinted, and I sliced off the misaligned edge and added them to my stash. Even the small things that we do contribute to the greater cause, as the travesty in the Netherlands illustrates. We must encourage each other in this way.
Excellent Susan. My wife and I had a short notice opportunity with TonytheDemocrat to get cards out for a Florida vote for a State House seat. I had stocked up on postcards and stamps when postage went up In July. We got 50 out even while navigating Thanksgiving. It’s a small effort but we are convinced every effort can make a difference like the Ohio votes in August and November.
Nov 25, 2023·edited Nov 25, 2023Liked by Robert B. Hubbell
The political situation situation in the Netherlands is nowhere near as cut and dried as it has been portrayed here. I have some Dutch friends who have explained things to me, so I will take this opportunity and explain them to you all.
Yes, as the party that won the most votes, Wilders would ordinarily be given the opportunity to form the new government. However, the Center-Left party and the Center-right party - the normal "governing parties" - which came in second and third respectively in the votes, have already stated they will refuse to serve in a coalition government with Wilder's party. That leaves only a very small majority that Wilders could form a coalition with, and the three parties that came in fourth, fifth and sixth, have said they will not serve in a coalition in which Wilders is the leader, though they did not close off entirely being part of such a coalition as the two larger parties did.
Right now, the only way a government could be formed that included Wilders would be a coalition in which he was not the leader. The Swedes did this earlier, when their far right party came in the largest by vote - their current governing coalition is "supported" by the far right party, which provides the votes to make a majority, but it does not lead and is not officially a memember of the governing coalition though they have to be "listened to" regarding priorities and plans and bills submitted. (that according to a Swedish friend of mine.)
The main point to be drawn from the Dutch vote is that 51% of voters didn't vote. This cost the two normal "governing" parties their usual positions as either first or second.
Obviously the lesson to be learned for us is - turn out as many voters as possible and convince the halfwits not to vote like idiots for the so-called "third parties" the fools and nitwits are promoting.
Excellent point about getting out the vote and "educating" voters about 3rd party options. We also don't need a replay of 2016 where "I just couldn't vote for Hillary so I didn't vote at all"...maybe we could carry both houses and the Presidency and get rid of the Electoral College while we're at it - I'm getting tired of depending on the voting in states where I don't live to decide my president.
Helpful post, TCinLA. Get out the vote is incredibly important. I only wish someone could buttonhole the real nitwits - the third party candidates - to get them to use their brains, critical thinking and common sense. They need to step down.
TC, can you help me understand turnout in the Netherlands election? I have seen widely reported numbers that turnout was approx. 50% (as you note above). But the link in the newsletter to the Wikipedia entry (below) about the 2023 election in the Netherlands shows 10.7 million people voted--out of 13 million eligible--or 78% turnout. Color me confused. In the Wikipedia article, the 2023 results table is near the bottom, AFTER the 2021 results table (which is not clearly labeled).
The 78% figure is correct for the entire country but some large cities had much lower turnout. That makes a big difference when there are so many parties. I do wonder if Ranked Choice Voting would be a better way.
“Voting is a chess move, not a Valentine’s Day card.” That's a keeper, Robert! May many millions of all generations and demographics, and especially of the 4 million who become old enough to vote every year, understand and act on some version of this powerful statement.
I think the quote comes from Rebecca Solnit's op-ed in The Nation in 2016. Google it for the full read; everything she writes is pretty much pure gold...
When a country is blatantly attacked by an army in a horrendous manner that provokes retaliation, and puts the country’s very survival at risk, it is appalling that other countries, including allies, pressure the attacked country to initiate a cease fire that will benefit the aggressor.
Yes there are innocent hostages that must be considered and innocent civilians that are being used as shields by the aggressor, but the country fighting for its very survival must be permitted to fight its own battles as it sees fit. It must make the difficult and heart-wrenching decisions that will enable it to defeat the terrorist aggressive enemy in the most effective way possible, while trying to retrieve hostages and save civilians that are being exploited by the enemy.
Unlike the fictitious stories from the mass media, Israel was not an occupier of Gaza. In fact people from Gaza came to work in Israel and received medical care in Israel. Israel provided fuel, food, medical supplies and water to Gaza.
After Russia blatantly attacked Ukraine, would anyone, in their right mind, have suggested that Ukraine declare a cease fire after less than two months? Did anyone take steps to negotiate with Putin to declare a cease fire? This is what war is all about.
Completely agree. This is an existential crisis for Israel. It must do what it has to assure that this the threat is neutralized. Where is the condemnation of Russia for destroying hospitals and killing innocent civilians?
Great comment, Dick. I also commented on someone else’s post above about how the word “genocide,” with regard to the Palestinians, is being thrown around, without paying careful attention to its actual definition(s).
I couldn’t understand why the majority of Palestinians in northern Gaza didn’t move south when they were told that Gaza was going to be bombed three days hence (although I realize the south ultimately wasn’t safe either)
The whole of Gaza is about the length of Manhattan (which I have walked in the day) and I know that if I were told my children’s lives were in danger I would have walked the 12 miles.
"[Joe Biden]makes a point that deserves serious consideration. If he had demanded an immediate cease-fire, Israel’s willingness to agree to a temporary humanitarian pause might have been different." Qatar gets a lot of credit for brokering the cease fire or pause in the war. Their influence is with the Palestinians. Who influenced Israel to pause when it was not in their military interest? The families of the hostages. And Joe Biden. Does the Main Stream Media even notice his role? Do those who vow to vote for third parties have a clue about Biden's influence in obtaining a pause?
I’m not certain the Washington Post is trying very hard. They just came out with an article about Hamas’s rapes, beheadings, and other atrocities of October 7 – eighteen days later.
I wish Martin Baron were still in charge at WaPo. They’ve fallen far and fast.
Well, like I said, there are times when they’ve been spot on, like making the recent comparison of Trump’s language to Hitler’s, and their long article on the physical and emotional devastation caused by gun violence, but there are other times when they really miss the boat.
Robert, Thank you for understanding how difficult, in fact excruciating, it was to watch Biden, who I support and will vote for, not support a ceasefire while we witnessed a genocide in Gaza. Thank you for clarifying Wilders' "victory" ... that he in fact got only 24% of the vote...a real wake-up call for third and fourth party candidates in our next election. And that in fact a Trump win would be much worse for Palestine supporters. Your newsletter brings me knowledge, clarification, perspective, and often hope for our most trying times.
With all due respect, Angela, many people are throwing around the word “genocide” without actually having complete knowledge of how the term is defined by the United Nations and international communities. Israel is responding to a gruesome terrorist attack on its people. It did not enter Gaza with the intention of wiping out the Palestinian people or any other ethnic group. It entered Gaza with the intent to root out the initial aggressors, Hamas.
Biden's comment reminded me of some advice I was given years ago when I was learning to ride a horse. I had a particularly stubborn horse who wanted to go one way, when I was trying to rein him toward the other. The teacher said: "When you have a very stubborn horse who is determined to go his own way, go ahead and rein him in that direction so he'll think that's the direction you wanted him to go." That seems to be Biden's approach to Israel's actions.
In some respect that may be apropos to Biden's approach, but your teacher's advice begs the question: What if the direction your horse wants to go leads to the edge of a very steep cliff?
Of course, horses and nation states are two different things. But the best advice I ever got about handling a stubborn horse (and I've had to deal with more than a few) was to make the right thing easier to do than the wrong thing. (There are a lot of different ways to accomplish this without being "hard" on the horse, which is nearly always counterproductive.) If done correctly and consistently, pretty soon the horse will ultimately decide it's in its own interest to go in the direction you want it to go, and I suspect there's no small amount of that in how Biden has dealt with Israel.
The actual meaning of "Eye for an Eye" has been lost in translation and practice. Jesus, being a Jew, would have understood the original meaning to be monetary compensation. Hammurabi's Code talks about an "eye for eye". It comes down to intent and monetary compensation. The Torah, and expounded upon in the Talmud, talks about monetary compensation. E.G. if the act of blinding someone was intentional or by accident. Also, how much sight did the person lose? The same happens in our courts today. And if you were a fan of Ruth Bader Ginsburg (RBG) she had a sign in her office "justice, justice shall thou pursue." This is also Torah. It means that one should really delve into the facts and the circumstances. True justice is not blind.
“An eye for an eye … ” is constantly (and by some, intentionally) misinterpreted. It is a *metaphor*, intended to tell people that punishment or retribution should be *proportionate*.
In ancient times, retribution sometimes would take extremely violent forms, including murder and revenge. “An eye for an eye …” was intended to curb such excesses.
Hi Michael, I'm just looking through these today. Thanks for your note. I replied to Linda's remark a bit more extensively than yours before reading what you had to say.
It gives me such comfort to daily read the posts of Robert, Joyce Vance, Heather Cox Richardson, and so many others, as well as the hundreds of comments that follow. I enjoy commenting, too, but I am now concluding each comment with a note to my fellow Texans. It’s harder to register and vote here, but every one of us can take some action(s) to register more voters, and NOW is the time to do that. In this document, there are suggestions for every person to register voters. https://docs.google.com/file/d/1VcHgVEw__Yh_7j-FWoUt3jpWe4TsJl0V/edit?usp=docslist_api&filetype=msword. Texans, please spread the word. Thank you.
While we have no choice but to play the board in front of us, it's essential that we remember games previously played so that we can reuse successful strategies and avoid repeating the mistakes. President Biden has done a masterful job of using his accumulated memories and natural reticence to muddle through both the political mess at home and the wars in Ukraine and Israel. God grant he will stay the course and persuade Congress and the bureaucracy to support him.
The ignorance of fellow citizens is what worries me. That, and the lemming tendency of ignorant people. Combined with polls that commercialized media love to tag with worrisome headlines, it's no wonder I stick with Substack writers for my news.
I think it was only appropriate that some hostages were released on the week end we in the US were celebrating Thanksgiving. For that I am thankful. If you have a chance I recommend watching Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes discussion together around the Maddow book Prequel and how she got the idea about the book and how it relates to today. It feels in part that today is a rerun of a previous time in our history. Rachel made a comment which I believe sums up where we need to be. “ Calibrate your level of political involvement, to match exactly your anxiety about the polls and other disturbing events. Turn the anxiety into positive energy. Think about it.
If the Palestinians would have had a leader like Sadat and had they used Gandhi’s tactics of resistance rather than jihad, there would already be a Palestinian state.
Brant, In my view, the conflict, dating back to 1948, when Israel’s right to a homeland was met with Palestinian’s justifiable resistance to dispossession, is best characterized as the quintessential conflict between right and right. In the ensuing years, leadership on both sides has committed acts for which neither has atoned. My point is that both sides bear responsibility for decades of unending cycles of violence.
We can go back even further: in 1950, after the War for Indepenence, King Abdullah of Jordan annexed the West Bank and East Jerusalem and granted the people who lived there Jordanian citizenship. At the time, the population on the West Bank significantly outnumbered the population on the East Bank and thus would have dominated the new nation. But it was rejected by the Palestinian leadership (most of them anyway) and, more importantly, the other Arab states, save Pakistan.
The reason why is complicated.
Partly, the Palestinians still believed that the Egyptians, Syrians, Lebanese, et al would try to drive the Jews into the sea one more time and, given their vastly superior numbers would succeed, or at least make a better showing than in the last war.
But mostly, they did not want to give Abdullah a "W" and control of Jerusalem, home to Al Aqsa, the third holiest site in Islam.
The reason for their dislike of Abdullah was two-fold:
(a) Abdullah was a member of the Hashemite family, Saudis, whose support for the British during World War I led the British to promise to reward them after the war. So Abdullah was given the East Bank of Palestine or Transjordan, and his cousin Faisal was given Iraq. The other Arabs considered them imposters who were, worse still, British collaborators and not to be trusted;
(b) Abdullah was an old school monarch at a time when the neighboring states were run by young socialists who espoused a pan-Arabist platform that most definitley did not include old school monarchs.
Finally, there was suspicion of Abdullah's real motives since he had (not so) secret talks with Golda Meir during the Palestine Civil War in 1947-48 to propose that the soon-to-be-Israelis let him take over the West Bank and Jerusalem, in return for which he would not engage his troops in the upcoming war. Meir and Ben Gurion rejected this as they did not want to give up Jerusalem which had significant symbolic and emotional value, not to mention a sizable Jewish community that had lived there for centuries.
Will, Respectfully, and because facts matter, I offer the following: 1) Bill Clinton, in July 2000, sponsored PLO Leader Arafat and Israeli PM Barak at a Camp David Summit. To deduce the talks hinged on agreement about right of return is an oversimplification. The Summit collapsed largely because the offer of a so-called Palestinian state was non-contiguous, meaning the state would comprise a cluster of enclaves, each one surrounded by areas controlled by Israel. 2) In January 2001 Barak, who, in December 2000, had resigned as PM, met with a Palestinian delegation in Taba in the Sinai. This group of former officials came close to reaching agreements largely rooted in pre-1967 borders before adjourning just prior to an Israeli election, wherein Ariel Sharon was voted PM and the Taba Summit agreements were scrapped.
Setting aside a meeting, in April 2008, between former President Carter and Hamas leaders (a discussion for another time) the Israeli/ Palestinian peace process went pretty much dormant until October7th when talk of a two-state solution was resuscitated.
I would urge you to listen to the podcast episode I linked to above: where the NYT's Ezra Klein interviews the State Department official Aaron Miller who was actually there during the various negotiations.
The key point I would make is that there are no "facts" as you assert, but rather various conflicting and often self-serving interpretations of what happened at Camp David and beyond.
What you have presented as a "fact" is, in reality, one of many Palestinian interpretations of what happened. Then there's all the Israeli interpretations and then there's Miller's own take, as one of the American negotiators, which was that the biggest stumbling bloc was Arafat's failure to present any sort of counterproposal.
Alan, I would note that I count as fact the actual map that shows the non-contiguous Palestinian state that was offered up in 2000. As for Aaron Miller, whom I hear regularly on MSNBC and CNN, while I don’t expect to find anything new in the Klein interview, I will read the link you posted.
That the map is as you describe is not in question.
Was it the reason that Arafat walked away?
That is something we will never know.
My only caveat on the podcast is that it is long-- at least an hour. But I think you will find it well worth it-- Miller has anecdotes that go back to Carter and Kissinger.
Alan, Considering my investment in the conflict dates back, particularly to Carter, I most certainly will set aside time to listen to the podcast. The one insight, from a trusted source, I can offer to explain Arafat’s dynamics is that he would have been assassinated had he returned home having signed an agreement. I regret, these many years later, that I didn’t press my source for details.
A reader sent a note saying that I did not fully credit Rebecca Solnit for her saying, "A vote is a chess move, not a Valentine." Although I included a hyperlink to my previous discussion of Ms. Solnit's quote and the original source, the reader felt I should have credited Ms. Solnit in the text of the newsletter (as required by the MLA style guide).
So, just in case anyone was confused, here is the original source of Ms. Solnit's quote: https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/the-2000-election-unleashed-disaster-on-the-world-we-cant-let-that-happen-again-in-2016/
Robert, you have a diligent group of readers that let nothing get by. And you march on with the grace of a saint. As one who had pestered you this holiday weekend, it occurred to me that you must take care of yourself as you have advised us.
Your devotion to a better future is impressive. Stay strong and healthy- both physically and mentally.
The criticism of President Biden's handling of the Israeli-Hamas-Palestinian disaster highlights the stark reality of communication that moves faster than events: there's much more that we don't know than what we know, and what we don't know, we assume. I have much more confidence in President Biden's judgment in global matters than my own, so I'm not going to second guess him.
Nov 27 p.s. I just read Joyce Vance's piece about the upcoming week, and was pleased to read a piece she cited by Jorge Ramos of Univision voicing criticism of his employer's coverage of the Defendant. In addition to his claim that journalists should be asking the hard questions, I'd add that the questions should be of equal importance. Hard questions about unimportant matters are not helpful. Here's Jorge's piece: https://jorgeramos.com/en/the-danger-of-not-confronting-trump-2/
The president has such incredible restraint to keep his head down and do the work and not feel obliged to respond to every knee-jerk in the press. I wish more people followed the longer news cycle to see what he's getting done while they are thinking they know his job better than he does. Too often by then people have lost interest.
Whoa there, Nelly, do you mean you're going to suggest to the collection of dolts known as The Great American Public that they actually turn what is left of their brains on and do all the things they slept through learning in school, like how the government works and how to do critical thinking and reading, to make intelligent and informed decisions? That would be a first in the history of the world's oldest democracy. :-)
Due respect, I think you are leaving out of your assessment (name calling) the hundreds of thousands (millions?) of us who have begun doing the grass roots work (post cards, texts, phone calls, door knocking and more) that has resulted in more and more Democratic wins since 2018.
In my first response to Susan's comment, before I read yours, I acknowledged my own instinct to turn to snarkiness - it feels good in the moment. But it really doesn't help to change anything....and in the long-run, that is what I care about more. Blessings,
I say the following, as a principled progressive.
Telling those you regard as "The Great Unwashed" that they are, in fact, unwashed, accomplishes very little-except to cause many of them to ape TFG and plug their ears, whilst going "Nya,nya, can't hear you", and voting for Trump-or DeSantis, or by extension, Wilders, Milei, Bolsonaro, Duterte, Fico, Bukele and God knows who is coming down the pike.
What is the alternative? Actually listening to the more sincere among the conservatives-as I do out of both sincerity and necessity. Two of my siblings, and a good many people in the town where I live, are either principled conservatives or those whose questions and concerns have been routinely dismissed as "that old, shopworn babbling", by those who "know so much more". Poison and pus need to be lanced and cleaned out, not dismissed and allowed to fester.
Good points. I normally keep m,y mouth shut around them, having discovered that whatever the secret is to turning them around, I don't possess it.
I hear you TC. Your snark is so much better than my incoherent outbursts.
TC, I am finding your endless cynicism about the American voter tiresome. The voters you love to disdain chose Jefferson and Madison, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, FDR and Truman, JFK and LBJ (perhaps our most unfairly maligned president), not to mention Barack Obama and Joe Biden. They elected Democrats to dominate our politics from 1932 to 1968, and Congress even longer. They elected Democrats to congressional majorities most of the last dozen years, and that would have been more pronounced without gerrymandering. It’s easy to be critical, but in this instance not helpful. So, to use an expression with which I know you are familiar from your younger days, pipe down.
Jimmy Carter as well.
Having grown up around them and gotten away from them as soon as possible, I normally don't talk to them. But the ones I am talking about very certainly do exist. I grew up with them.
Knowledge of history is so very comforting, thank you!
They may have chosen them, but probably not because they knew *why* they were choosing them.
I have to go with TC on this. I think of being a chaperone on a high school bus trip, in about 2009. Two students (in an advanced business class for seniors) behind me were having a discussion and one of them said, “Wait, who is Hillary Clinton? Is she the vice president?“ Neither of them knew.
I don't usually give in to my baser instinct to name-call, but I couldn't help it. I think you meant content when you called out "every knee-jerk in the press." But for just a brief moment, I think it's a great label for the publishers of said content. Ok, letting go of my left-over instinct to snarkiness and back to maturity!
PS I wrote this before I read comments about the label "great unwashed," so I will add my thoughts on that in another comment.
The vociferous critics of Israel’s response to October 7th need to come forward with clear statements about how they think Israel should have responded differently *and* clear statements about the likely outcomes of their proposed policies.
In addition: People should pay attention to Jennifer Rubin’s latest WaPo article, which details the sexual atrocities Hamas fighters committed on October 7. Also, Jake Tapper’s reports for CNN (print and video are available). They are grisly, but important.
MSM mainly didn’t choose to report those events.
Michael, In response to your call for critics to come forward, I would note groups, engaged for decades in the Israeli/ Palestinian peace process, Jewish Voices for Peace Action among them, increasingly, over the past couple of weeks, have voiced their recognition that the only way Hamas ultimately will be weakened and made an irrelevant political force is if Palestinians have a path to freedom and can see that an ethical resistance, not what happened on October 7th, but an ethical fight for its rights, is working.
Considering U.S. leadership regularly underscores its hopes that Israel not repeat our mistakes after 9/11, said groups, as we speak, are using every means to urge enough of those at the top to be receptive to the advantages of viewing the situation their way.
Barbara, what you are saying is as if, in 1940, someone had said that the way the Nazis would be rendered irrelevant was if Germany could be offered an alternative. As we know, that was not the case. And while some might argue that it would have been better to choose such a course, I don’t think you’ll find a single reputable historian to agree. Sometimes, the way to eliminate evil is to go at it. (Now, after Hamas is made irrelevant, then a path to a two-state answer will be imperative.)
Jon, Considering U.S. leadership regularly underscores its hopes that Israel not repeat our mistakes of 9/11, wherein our reaction, starting from the several 100 or so Jihadists in the world, created generations of Jihadists, I believe our 9/11 is the more apt comparison. In that regard, I fear that the senseless slaughter of the innocent in Gaza will produce a comparable outcome to our senseless slaughter of the innocent in Afghanistan and, particularly, in Iraq.
Accordingly, in my view, contrary to the military front, it will be the successful prosecution of a second front that I think more likely will determine the outcome of the Israeli/ Palestinian conflict. It will be a war for justice, but a war I trust not for retributive justice but for distributive, or perhaps redistributive, justice for Israelis and Palestinians.
Repurposing an earlier comment, I believe that Palestinians and Israelis jointly seeing that an ethical fight for their rights is working is Hamas’s worst nightmare because both people, if given a path to freedom and secure borders rob Hamas of their relevance.
I go back and forth on which comparison is more apt.
There is a strong argument for comparing Hamas's control over Palestine with the Nazis' control over Germany and, similarly, with Imperial Japan.
In both instances, the Allies were shocked by the ferocity of the resistance, especially in late 1944/early 1945, when the war was clearly lost.
They were convinced that the defeat of both nations would give rise to guerrilla groups that would continue the fight for years to come. The Nazis had actually planned for this—the Werewolves—and there was some resistance and guerrilla activity, but it never became widespread and quickly died out upon Germany's surrender.
But here's where it gets tricky—historians are as much in agreement as they can be that the world's revulsion at revelations like the concentration camps and the atrocities committed by the Japanese in China helped create a national sense of shame in Germany and Japan. This, coupled with denazification and the Marshall Plan, helped ensure that there was no revival of Nazism.
As long as much of the Progressive Left and most of the Arab world continue to feel that Hamas's actions were justified, there will be no national sense of shame, not for the October 7th pogrom or for leading their citizens into a suicidal war.
Without acknowledging that Hamas's actions are evil, and distinguishing that while Hamas may be evil, the Palestinian people are not, it is easy to see how a de-Hamasification program and massive Marshall Plan-style aid might ultimately fail if there is no national sense of shame over Hamas and a desire to do better, a desire we still see in Germany and Japan almost 80 years later.
I would like to add, the things that are said about Israel and Jews are just horrible.
The people who are coming out being called "Pro-Palestinian" in this country and around the world are violent and dangerous. They have brought a war to the streets of Great Britain, Canada, France, the US and other places. These so called "Pro-Palestinians" are genocidal. I do not know where they learn their virulence and are taking it to the streets.
I never tied managing or eliminating Hamas to an ethical right to exist for Palestinians. Interesting perspective.
Stephen, While, for me, the perspective is more than just interesting, I would note, because it didn’t originate from me, I can’t take credit. That said, I would add that I am part of a team pursuing this argument with our district’s U. S. House Rep to nudge him towards signing onto the ceasefire agreement circulating within the House.
Barbara,
What would a cease-fire *at this time* accomplish? Sure, in the short run, it will save lives. But by saving the lives of Hamas fighters and leaders, it will guarantee that Hamas will regroup, continue to oppress Gazans, and again attempt to kill Israelis. Remember: Hamas is pledged to wipe out all Jews.
Is that what you want?
Whether or not they understand it, people calling for an immediate “peace”, or cease-fire, in reality are calling for renewed oppression in Gaza, attempts to murder Israelis, and, ultimately, yet another war. Please convey that to Senator Markey.
What’s required, now, is thorough defeat of Hamas, followed by an enlightened Occupation and de-Hamasization (compare to deNazification of Germany after World War II), coupled with economic rebuilding.
I agree, but only if it *were* possible to get rid of Hamas completely. I don’t think that’s any more possible than to get rid of all Nazis, or the KKK. Recently there were raids in Germany where they arrested dozens of Hamas supporters, people who were giving money to the cause. And Hamas is not alone. There is no cut and dry answer
Way to go, Barbara Jo. We need more teams like your local group pressing these points with House members. Thank you.
John, Thank you for writing. Admittedly, be in my or someone else’s post, I delight in the potential of the statements we make to send ripples of influence.
I understand but you gave it light. What state do you live in?
I live in Massachusetts. Given Senator Markey has been petitioning for a ceasefire, we’re focused solely on our district’s House Rep. Admittedly, progress is slow.
I am not sure if you are aware Barbara, that JVP is a somewhat fringe group in the greater Jewish community and quite controversial.
The ADL are not fans: https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/jewish-voice-peace
And Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch of the very leftist, very liberal Reform Stephen Wise Free Synagogue on the Upper West Side had this to say about them to The Guardian: "We’ve always had in our community Jews who have forcefully disagreed with one another,” he continued. Of Jewish Voice for Peace, he said: “Many of them aren’t Jewish, by the way, and they certainly aren’t for peace.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/04/us-jews-rift-gaza-israel-crisis
So if a guy who was a leading voice of the anti-Netanyahu movement in the US is saying this, I'm going to wonder if he is not on to something.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/leading-ny-rabbi-israeli-government-speeding-headlong-toward-abyss-with-overhaul/
Alan, While, based on your comment, I will make inquiries, I would note, though I find the ADL indispensable for combatting antisemitism and, by extension, bigotry overall, I do take issue with the organization’s discussion of Israel/ Palestine, wherein the group views the conflict unilaterally from a single perspective—Israel’s. As for your other reference that is unfamiliar to me, I will create time to read your links. I am grateful for the heads-up and will reserve judgment until, as stated, I’ve had time to make further inquiries.
I would like to hear more about this, and what you learn
@DW, While I plan to do independent research, my most trusted source is the person who leads our coalition. Given her busy schedule, I will wait to talk with her when I see her on December 8th, at which point I will report back.
Because the owners of the MSM are part of the enemy - eiter consciously or because they are idiots who can't figure out reality.
The atrocities seemed to be incidental to their discussions and quickly forgotten
Exactly Bob. The complexity of these negotiations is mind-boggling given the parties involved and I suspect it will be a while before we hear the real magic of how Biden and his "secret cell" worked to make this happen--it's not as if details can be revealed where this is ongoing.
Anyone interested in the story of these peace negotiations and why they failed over the years, should listen to the latest Ezra Klein podcast with Aaron Miller, a former State Department employee who worked in the Reagan, Clinton and both Bush administations and was at the table for many of the talks: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/21/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-aaron-david-miller.html
(I'd also recommenend an episode from a few weeks back with Yossi Klein Halevi - https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/10/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-yossi-klein-halevi.html )
Thank you for that link. I’m going to listen to it
Ezra really has offered some good, deeper insights.
True but it also again proves how the media is looking for clicks and viewers not facts.
Suri Crowe, who resigned from a Sinclair "news" outlet, described how she was not allowed to report on stories about climate change or do a detailed report on white supremacy before Charlottesville. Democracy and our country's political institutions are being sold to the highest bidder. Think about Fox, and how they didn't want to tell their viewers about the truth of the election.
I agree. Biden has vastly more experience in foreign relations than any news reporter or GOP congress person.
… and, apparently, a smaller ego.
Much of the anti-Biden outrage and far right support is being stoked by disinformation and active measures. Our many adversaries seek to divide us and discourage voting. The low turnout by Dutch voters resulting in a far-right win is no accident.
I expect that Russia led the way, but we are also facing propaganda and influence campaigns from China, other nations, and within our borders the MAGA movement and its wealthy donors.
TikTok, for instance, is a Chinese company with outsized influence on young voters who go there for news delivered by influencers. Influencers there have huge audiences — often hundreds of thousands of followers. There’s the outrage against Biden for ignoring the plight of Palestinians because people don’t know that he is doing complex and subtle negotiating and getting good results. Many young voters also believe we are in a terrible economy, even though the Biden Administration is doing much to help them.
Disinformation gains traction when there’s a grain of truth to exploit, like the high cost of housing or the recent inflation that hits those hardest who are trying to get a start in life. Influencers are generally hip young people who deliver nitty gritty messages. It’s condescending to think of those who are influenced as dumb. Someone may be working a minimum wage job, living on the edge of homelessness, and entertaining themselves with Tiktok. Here’s a gifted New York Times article on the issue.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/17/business/economy/tiktok-biden-economy.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Ak0.1iqt.WqcMy4Pyjus_&smid=url-share
What do Democrats do in return? The administration quotes statistics. What would John Fetterman do? We need to counter with something like that.
The Reagan Administration set a new standard by always campaigning and driving the media agenda, just as -rump does with his cyclone of outrageousness. Democrats still don’t get this, and it’s a major reason that we’re struggling to hold back a disinformation juggernaut.
The clearest voice I’ve seen about disinformation is Alexander Vindman, the whistleblower and hero behind -rump’s first impeachment. Dr. Vindman has now started a SubStack blog that I’m supporting, called “Why It Matters.” Here’s his terrific and brief write-up on “Active Measures and Influence Operations.”
https://alexandervindman.substack.com/p/active-measures-and-influence-operations
He is inviting questions from his paid subscribers in a Zoom meeting tomorrow, November 26, where he writes, “ask me anything.”
https://alexandervindman.substack.com/p/ask-me-anything
I will ask how he counters disinformation. And, many of you already know and can respond with other resources to guide us.
I just finished writing my weekly allotment of postcards for getting out the vote in 2024, a discipline I have committed to for the duration. I may not have the time or bandwidth or money for postcards and postage to churn them out by the dozens every week, but I have set goals for every week. A friend who makes blank note cards with her photographs gave me 100 that had been slightly misprinted, and I sliced off the misaligned edge and added them to my stash. Even the small things that we do contribute to the greater cause, as the travesty in the Netherlands illustrates. We must encourage each other in this way.
Excellent Susan. My wife and I had a short notice opportunity with TonytheDemocrat to get cards out for a Florida vote for a State House seat. I had stocked up on postcards and stamps when postage went up In July. We got 50 out even while navigating Thanksgiving. It’s a small effort but we are convinced every effort can make a difference like the Ohio votes in August and November.
Every effort counts. Way to go.
Yes, my little postcard-writing cohort just got out 50 cards for the Florida guy (Johnny Farias)
Great idea for reusing the 'seconds' postcards.
Where are you postcarding "off-season" - email if you have ideas bpteutsch@comcast.net
Thanks!
Someone resigned abruptly and this was a last-minute election, happening on December 5.
The political situation situation in the Netherlands is nowhere near as cut and dried as it has been portrayed here. I have some Dutch friends who have explained things to me, so I will take this opportunity and explain them to you all.
Yes, as the party that won the most votes, Wilders would ordinarily be given the opportunity to form the new government. However, the Center-Left party and the Center-right party - the normal "governing parties" - which came in second and third respectively in the votes, have already stated they will refuse to serve in a coalition government with Wilder's party. That leaves only a very small majority that Wilders could form a coalition with, and the three parties that came in fourth, fifth and sixth, have said they will not serve in a coalition in which Wilders is the leader, though they did not close off entirely being part of such a coalition as the two larger parties did.
Right now, the only way a government could be formed that included Wilders would be a coalition in which he was not the leader. The Swedes did this earlier, when their far right party came in the largest by vote - their current governing coalition is "supported" by the far right party, which provides the votes to make a majority, but it does not lead and is not officially a memember of the governing coalition though they have to be "listened to" regarding priorities and plans and bills submitted. (that according to a Swedish friend of mine.)
The main point to be drawn from the Dutch vote is that 51% of voters didn't vote. This cost the two normal "governing" parties their usual positions as either first or second.
Obviously the lesson to be learned for us is - turn out as many voters as possible and convince the halfwits not to vote like idiots for the so-called "third parties" the fools and nitwits are promoting.
Excellent point about getting out the vote and "educating" voters about 3rd party options. We also don't need a replay of 2016 where "I just couldn't vote for Hillary so I didn't vote at all"...maybe we could carry both houses and the Presidency and get rid of the Electoral College while we're at it - I'm getting tired of depending on the voting in states where I don't live to decide my president.
Helpful post, TCinLA. Get out the vote is incredibly important. I only wish someone could buttonhole the real nitwits - the third party candidates - to get them to use their brains, critical thinking and common sense. They need to step down.
TC, can you help me understand turnout in the Netherlands election? I have seen widely reported numbers that turnout was approx. 50% (as you note above). But the link in the newsletter to the Wikipedia entry (below) about the 2023 election in the Netherlands shows 10.7 million people voted--out of 13 million eligible--or 78% turnout. Color me confused. In the Wikipedia article, the 2023 results table is near the bottom, AFTER the 2021 results table (which is not clearly labeled).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Dutch_general_election
All I know is, the reports are a 49-50% turnout.
The NL Times is a website that publishes Dutch news in English. They have an article about the election turnout here: https://nltimes.nl/2023/11/22/dutch-election-turnout-projected-782-percent-low-turnout-large-cities
The 78% figure is correct for the entire country but some large cities had much lower turnout. That makes a big difference when there are so many parties. I do wonder if Ranked Choice Voting would be a better way.
“Voting is a chess move, not a Valentine’s Day card.” That's a keeper, Robert! May many millions of all generations and demographics, and especially of the 4 million who become old enough to vote every year, understand and act on some version of this powerful statement.
I think the quote comes from Rebecca Solnit's op-ed in The Nation in 2016. Google it for the full read; everything she writes is pretty much pure gold...
OMG. Rebecca Solnit!!! She IS pure gold!
I see a bumper sticker or a yard sign here!
When a country is blatantly attacked by an army in a horrendous manner that provokes retaliation, and puts the country’s very survival at risk, it is appalling that other countries, including allies, pressure the attacked country to initiate a cease fire that will benefit the aggressor.
Yes there are innocent hostages that must be considered and innocent civilians that are being used as shields by the aggressor, but the country fighting for its very survival must be permitted to fight its own battles as it sees fit. It must make the difficult and heart-wrenching decisions that will enable it to defeat the terrorist aggressive enemy in the most effective way possible, while trying to retrieve hostages and save civilians that are being exploited by the enemy.
Unlike the fictitious stories from the mass media, Israel was not an occupier of Gaza. In fact people from Gaza came to work in Israel and received medical care in Israel. Israel provided fuel, food, medical supplies and water to Gaza.
After Russia blatantly attacked Ukraine, would anyone, in their right mind, have suggested that Ukraine declare a cease fire after less than two months? Did anyone take steps to negotiate with Putin to declare a cease fire? This is what war is all about.
Completely agree. This is an existential crisis for Israel. It must do what it has to assure that this the threat is neutralized. Where is the condemnation of Russia for destroying hospitals and killing innocent civilians?
To see Russia's brutality against civilians in Mariupol, watch the Frontline documentary just broadcast on November 21. Here's the trailer:
https://20daysinmariupol.com/
Thank you Mim. I will watch it.
It is horrifying. Be warned.
Thanks Mim. I will watch this when I have a stronger stomach for it.
Great comment, Dick. I also commented on someone else’s post above about how the word “genocide,” with regard to the Palestinians, is being thrown around, without paying careful attention to its actual definition(s).
Unfortunately, “Genocide” is not merely being thrown around. It has intentionally been exploited as a piece of anti-Israel propaganda.
You tell'em
I couldn’t understand why the majority of Palestinians in northern Gaza didn’t move south when they were told that Gaza was going to be bombed three days hence (although I realize the south ultimately wasn’t safe either)
The whole of Gaza is about the length of Manhattan (which I have walked in the day) and I know that if I were told my children’s lives were in danger I would have walked the 12 miles.
"[Joe Biden]makes a point that deserves serious consideration. If he had demanded an immediate cease-fire, Israel’s willingness to agree to a temporary humanitarian pause might have been different." Qatar gets a lot of credit for brokering the cease fire or pause in the war. Their influence is with the Palestinians. Who influenced Israel to pause when it was not in their military interest? The families of the hostages. And Joe Biden. Does the Main Stream Media even notice his role? Do those who vow to vote for third parties have a clue about Biden's influence in obtaining a pause?
We really can’t count on the mainstream media anymore to report in depth on anything. The Washington Post is still trying, but not always succeeding.
I’m not certain the Washington Post is trying very hard. They just came out with an article about Hamas’s rapes, beheadings, and other atrocities of October 7 – eighteen days later.
I wish Martin Baron were still in charge at WaPo. They’ve fallen far and fast.
Well, like I said, there are times when they’ve been spot on, like making the recent comparison of Trump’s language to Hitler’s, and their long article on the physical and emotional devastation caused by gun violence, but there are other times when they really miss the boat.
Robert, Thank you for understanding how difficult, in fact excruciating, it was to watch Biden, who I support and will vote for, not support a ceasefire while we witnessed a genocide in Gaza. Thank you for clarifying Wilders' "victory" ... that he in fact got only 24% of the vote...a real wake-up call for third and fourth party candidates in our next election. And that in fact a Trump win would be much worse for Palestine supporters. Your newsletter brings me knowledge, clarification, perspective, and often hope for our most trying times.
With all due respect, Angela, many people are throwing around the word “genocide” without actually having complete knowledge of how the term is defined by the United Nations and international communities. Israel is responding to a gruesome terrorist attack on its people. It did not enter Gaza with the intention of wiping out the Palestinian people or any other ethnic group. It entered Gaza with the intent to root out the initial aggressors, Hamas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_definitions
Biden's comment reminded me of some advice I was given years ago when I was learning to ride a horse. I had a particularly stubborn horse who wanted to go one way, when I was trying to rein him toward the other. The teacher said: "When you have a very stubborn horse who is determined to go his own way, go ahead and rein him in that direction so he'll think that's the direction you wanted him to go." That seems to be Biden's approach to Israel's actions.
In some respect that may be apropos to Biden's approach, but your teacher's advice begs the question: What if the direction your horse wants to go leads to the edge of a very steep cliff?
Of course, horses and nation states are two different things. But the best advice I ever got about handling a stubborn horse (and I've had to deal with more than a few) was to make the right thing easier to do than the wrong thing. (There are a lot of different ways to accomplish this without being "hard" on the horse, which is nearly always counterproductive.) If done correctly and consistently, pretty soon the horse will ultimately decide it's in its own interest to go in the direction you want it to go, and I suspect there's no small amount of that in how Biden has dealt with Israel.
"An Eye for an Eye makes the whole world blind." Gandhi and Christ would have agreed on that one!
Don't you think they would have agreed on most things?
Yes! What a different world we would see. As a "Christian" nation I am disappointed.
The actual meaning of "Eye for an Eye" has been lost in translation and practice. Jesus, being a Jew, would have understood the original meaning to be monetary compensation. Hammurabi's Code talks about an "eye for eye". It comes down to intent and monetary compensation. The Torah, and expounded upon in the Talmud, talks about monetary compensation. E.G. if the act of blinding someone was intentional or by accident. Also, how much sight did the person lose? The same happens in our courts today. And if you were a fan of Ruth Bader Ginsburg (RBG) she had a sign in her office "justice, justice shall thou pursue." This is also Torah. It means that one should really delve into the facts and the circumstances. True justice is not blind.
“An eye for an eye … ” is constantly (and by some, intentionally) misinterpreted. It is a *metaphor*, intended to tell people that punishment or retribution should be *proportionate*.
In ancient times, retribution sometimes would take extremely violent forms, including murder and revenge. “An eye for an eye …” was intended to curb such excesses.
Hi Michael, I'm just looking through these today. Thanks for your note. I replied to Linda's remark a bit more extensively than yours before reading what you had to say.
It gives me such comfort to daily read the posts of Robert, Joyce Vance, Heather Cox Richardson, and so many others, as well as the hundreds of comments that follow. I enjoy commenting, too, but I am now concluding each comment with a note to my fellow Texans. It’s harder to register and vote here, but every one of us can take some action(s) to register more voters, and NOW is the time to do that. In this document, there are suggestions for every person to register voters. https://docs.google.com/file/d/1VcHgVEw__Yh_7j-FWoUt3jpWe4TsJl0V/edit?usp=docslist_api&filetype=msword. Texans, please spread the word. Thank you.
As in all things Biden:
The work behind the curtain is not the work of an Ozian Wizzard.
It's real work by a top-level staff, headed by a man of this moment,
A man with a lifetime of dedication to making life better, fairer, more decent,
more inclusive for all of us.
And in a world that needs a sane and stable America?
Joe Biden stands very tall.
Well stated. Thank you,
Perfect! Thank you!
While we have no choice but to play the board in front of us, it's essential that we remember games previously played so that we can reuse successful strategies and avoid repeating the mistakes. President Biden has done a masterful job of using his accumulated memories and natural reticence to muddle through both the political mess at home and the wars in Ukraine and Israel. God grant he will stay the course and persuade Congress and the bureaucracy to support him.
The ignorance of fellow citizens is what worries me. That, and the lemming tendency of ignorant people. Combined with polls that commercialized media love to tag with worrisome headlines, it's no wonder I stick with Substack writers for my news.
Hope everyone enjoyed a happy Thanksgiving!
I think it was only appropriate that some hostages were released on the week end we in the US were celebrating Thanksgiving. For that I am thankful. If you have a chance I recommend watching Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes discussion together around the Maddow book Prequel and how she got the idea about the book and how it relates to today. It feels in part that today is a rerun of a previous time in our history. Rachel made a comment which I believe sums up where we need to be. “ Calibrate your level of political involvement, to match exactly your anxiety about the polls and other disturbing events. Turn the anxiety into positive energy. Think about it.
If the Palestinians would have had a leader like Sadat and had they used Gandhi’s tactics of resistance rather than jihad, there would already be a Palestinian state.
Brant, In my view, the conflict, dating back to 1948, when Israel’s right to a homeland was met with Palestinian’s justifiable resistance to dispossession, is best characterized as the quintessential conflict between right and right. In the ensuing years, leadership on both sides has committed acts for which neither has atoned. My point is that both sides bear responsibility for decades of unending cycles of violence.
We can go back even further: in 1950, after the War for Indepenence, King Abdullah of Jordan annexed the West Bank and East Jerusalem and granted the people who lived there Jordanian citizenship. At the time, the population on the West Bank significantly outnumbered the population on the East Bank and thus would have dominated the new nation. But it was rejected by the Palestinian leadership (most of them anyway) and, more importantly, the other Arab states, save Pakistan.
The reason why is complicated.
Partly, the Palestinians still believed that the Egyptians, Syrians, Lebanese, et al would try to drive the Jews into the sea one more time and, given their vastly superior numbers would succeed, or at least make a better showing than in the last war.
But mostly, they did not want to give Abdullah a "W" and control of Jerusalem, home to Al Aqsa, the third holiest site in Islam.
The reason for their dislike of Abdullah was two-fold:
(a) Abdullah was a member of the Hashemite family, Saudis, whose support for the British during World War I led the British to promise to reward them after the war. So Abdullah was given the East Bank of Palestine or Transjordan, and his cousin Faisal was given Iraq. The other Arabs considered them imposters who were, worse still, British collaborators and not to be trusted;
(b) Abdullah was an old school monarch at a time when the neighboring states were run by young socialists who espoused a pan-Arabist platform that most definitley did not include old school monarchs.
Finally, there was suspicion of Abdullah's real motives since he had (not so) secret talks with Golda Meir during the Palestine Civil War in 1947-48 to propose that the soon-to-be-Israelis let him take over the West Bank and Jerusalem, in return for which he would not engage his troops in the upcoming war. Meir and Ben Gurion rejected this as they did not want to give up Jerusalem which had significant symbolic and emotional value, not to mention a sizable Jewish community that had lived there for centuries.
Excellent historical summary, Alan.
Thank you.
Very few people understand the incredibly complex history of the period between the UN Partition Vote in November 1947 and the mid-1950s.
Will, Respectfully, and because facts matter, I offer the following: 1) Bill Clinton, in July 2000, sponsored PLO Leader Arafat and Israeli PM Barak at a Camp David Summit. To deduce the talks hinged on agreement about right of return is an oversimplification. The Summit collapsed largely because the offer of a so-called Palestinian state was non-contiguous, meaning the state would comprise a cluster of enclaves, each one surrounded by areas controlled by Israel. 2) In January 2001 Barak, who, in December 2000, had resigned as PM, met with a Palestinian delegation in Taba in the Sinai. This group of former officials came close to reaching agreements largely rooted in pre-1967 borders before adjourning just prior to an Israeli election, wherein Ariel Sharon was voted PM and the Taba Summit agreements were scrapped.
Setting aside a meeting, in April 2008, between former President Carter and Hamas leaders (a discussion for another time) the Israeli/ Palestinian peace process went pretty much dormant until October7th when talk of a two-state solution was resuscitated.
I would urge you to listen to the podcast episode I linked to above: where the NYT's Ezra Klein interviews the State Department official Aaron Miller who was actually there during the various negotiations.
The key point I would make is that there are no "facts" as you assert, but rather various conflicting and often self-serving interpretations of what happened at Camp David and beyond.
What you have presented as a "fact" is, in reality, one of many Palestinian interpretations of what happened. Then there's all the Israeli interpretations and then there's Miller's own take, as one of the American negotiators, which was that the biggest stumbling bloc was Arafat's failure to present any sort of counterproposal.
As per Miller,
[𝘛]𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦’𝘴 𝘯𝘰 𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘢 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘢𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘊𝘢𝘮𝘱 𝘋𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘥, 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘊𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰𝘯 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴, 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘛𝘢𝘣𝘢 𝘯𝘦𝘨𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴, 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘌𝘩𝘶𝘥 𝘖𝘭𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘵 / 𝘈𝘣𝘣𝘢𝘴 𝘯𝘦𝘨𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴, 𝘪𝘯 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘖𝘭𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘵 𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘴 6.5 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘹𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘗𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘴 5.9 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘴𝘦𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘮𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘒𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘺 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘢𝘭𝘴 𝘰𝘧 2013, 2014, 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦’𝘴 𝘯𝘰 𝘥𝘰𝘶𝘣𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺 𝘷𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘥𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘴 — 𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘢 𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘰𝘳 𝘸𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘔𝘢𝘳𝘴 𝘥𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘰𝘣𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯--𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘭𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘦, 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘴𝘺𝘮𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘳𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘱𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳, 𝘩𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘗𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘢𝘯 𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 22 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘧𝘢𝘤𝘵, 𝘸𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘩𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘤 𝘗𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘦. 𝘚𝘰 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘥𝘦𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 22 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘸𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘦𝘱𝘵.
𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘯𝘰 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳, 𝘦𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘵 𝘊𝘢𝘮𝘱 𝘋𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘥, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘊𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰𝘯 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴. 𝘈𝘣𝘣𝘢𝘴 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘖𝘭𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘵. 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘦𝘧𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘒𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘺 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘢𝘭𝘴 2013, 2014 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦. 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦’𝘴 𝘯𝘰 𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤 𝘰𝘧 𝘐𝘴𝘳𝘢𝘦𝘭’𝘴 𝘰𝘤𝘤𝘶𝘱𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘉𝘢𝘯𝘬 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘭𝘦𝘥𝘨𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵, 𝘪𝘯 𝘦𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘤𝘵, 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘮𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘯𝘦𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘯𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥.
𝘚𝘰 𝘐 𝘨𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘐 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘢𝘳𝘨𝘶𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵, 𝘰𝘯 𝘣𝘢𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦, 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘳 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘗𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘴 𝘱𝘶𝘵 𝘢 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘢𝘭 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘐𝘴𝘳𝘢𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴, 𝘮𝘢𝘺𝘣𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘶𝘵𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘥𝘪𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/21/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-aaron-david-miller.html?showTranscript=1
Alan, I would note that I count as fact the actual map that shows the non-contiguous Palestinian state that was offered up in 2000. As for Aaron Miller, whom I hear regularly on MSNBC and CNN, while I don’t expect to find anything new in the Klein interview, I will read the link you posted.
That the map is as you describe is not in question.
Was it the reason that Arafat walked away?
That is something we will never know.
My only caveat on the podcast is that it is long-- at least an hour. But I think you will find it well worth it-- Miller has anecdotes that go back to Carter and Kissinger.
Alan, Considering my investment in the conflict dates back, particularly to Carter, I most certainly will set aside time to listen to the podcast. The one insight, from a trusted source, I can offer to explain Arafat’s dynamics is that he would have been assassinated had he returned home having signed an agreement. I regret, these many years later, that I didn’t press my source for details.