War between Hamas and Israel

[N.E. Brigand]

There is a tendency among some on the American left to view this conflict with Western ideas about race and colonialism, but it doesn't really work:



In some ways, Israel itself could be classified as part of the "global south."

[N.E. Brigand]

In USA Today, Aviva Klompas writes that:

"The UN has not passed a single resolution to condemn Hamas' savagery, even though terrorists wore GoPros to document themselves slaughtering, raping and torturing civilians. Similarly, the U.N. has not called for the release of more than 200 hostages, including babies, children and the elderly."

That caught my attention because I know that by contrast, various UN bodies have passed, or tried to pass, many resolutions condemning Israel's partial occupation of Gaza and the West Bank over the years by the United Nations Human Rights Council (nearly half the 45 resolutions the UNHRC issued between 2006 and 2013 about human rights violations anywhere in the world were condemnations of Israel), General Assembly, and Security Council. However, in the case of the Security Council, all such proposed resolutions were vetoed by the United States (dating back to at least the early 1980s and during both Republican and Democratic administrations). That was until December 2016, when President Barack Obama decided the U.S. would not veto a resolution critical of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. That resolution passed by a 14-0 vote with the U.S. abstaining.

The resolution initially had been drafted and submitted for consideration by Egypt. In order to prevent it from passing, President-elect Donald Trump secretly and successfully pressured Egypt to withdraw their submission. But after Egypt pulled it, it was resubmitted by Venezuela, Senegal, New Zealand, and Malaysia. The Trump-Egypt connection is notable because Special Counsel Robert Mueller tried and failed to determine Egypt's connectin to a $10 million donation that helped Donald Trump's 2016 campaign at a critical moment.

The Trump administration would return to the regular U.S. practice of vetoing Security Council measures critical of Israel. The Biden administration has also done so.

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Elsewhere, Klompas shares what appears to be video of a Hamas fighter in the entrance to a Gaza City hospital firing a grenade launcher at Israeli troops.

Later today a U.S. State Department spokesman said, "We would love see Hamas vacate the hospitals it's using as command posts immediately. We'd love to see all people that are calling for Israel to take steps to protect hospitals [also] call for Hamas to vacate the hospitals."

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Hamilton Nolan, a self-described leftist, argues that this crisis marks the end of Sen. Bernie Sanders' importance for the American left:

Bernie has effectively been the leader of the Left for the past eight years. That is not a judgment of who the purest purist in America is. It’s just a basic reading of the facts of the world. But now, I think, that time is over. What is happening in Palestine has killed it. History is a long procession of moral tests, and not everyone passed this one. And this one is too important to overlook. After the immediate intensity of this issue recedes, the Left is going to be different. The leaders who could not bring themselves to call for a ceasefire when justice demanded it are not going to be the leaders any more. This is one of those times when a dividing line rushes up from the ground, and the Left gets to clarify who really understood what the point of all this was.

Sanders, says Nolan, has fallen off the path of rightousness.

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"The White House says a 3-year-old American citizen toddler is being held hostage by Hamas." The child's parents were murdered by Hamas in the Oct. 7th attack.

[N.E. Brigand]

The Times of Israel argues that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's de facto support for Hamas rather than the Palestinian Authority in Gaza was one key factor that led to yesterday's horrors.
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I've seen a couple reports that among those abducted by Hamas is a Canadian-Israeli peace activist named Vivan Silver. Talk about hurting your cause. What is Hamas thinking? (More thoughts on that below.)
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Andrew Tate, the American expatriate in Romania and alleged sexual kidnapper who is a hero to some on the U.S. right, yesterday announced his support for Hamas over Israel because Israel mandated Covid-19 vaccinations.
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U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has announced that the U.S. is sending an emergency military aid package to Israel. The current disarray in the U.S. House may delay further support. It also doesn't help that the Senate has yet to confirm President Biden's nominee to be U.S. ambassador to Israel. Why? Because Rand Paul believes the U.S. State Dept. is covering up information on the origins of Covid-19. So basically we have an Andrew Tate in the Senate.
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Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelenskyy yesterday announced his nation's full support for Israel against this attack.
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This morning I saw an Israeli colonel interviewed on U.S. television say that proportionate to the two nations' populations, yesterday's attack was equivalent to the Pearl Harbor and 9/11 attacks combined. Obviously there are lessons to be learned from both. I would say that Osama bin Laden killed far more Americans than those who died on 9/11 by goading the U.S. into launching two 20-year wars. Hamas may have similar hopes about Israel's response.

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Josh Marshall recommends this curated list of social media accounts for credible commentary on these events.

It turns out that peace activist Vivian Silver was killed in Hamas' initial attack; it just took five weeks to identify her body.

[N.E. Brigand]

The Geneva Conventions do include rules about when military forces may raid a hospital, as the Israeli army is doing now at Al Shifa hospital in Gaza.

[N.E. Brigand]

The Geneva Conventions do include rules about when military forces may raid a hospital, as the Israeli army is doing now at Al Shifa hospital in Gaza.

Photos and videos released thus far by the IDF do not appear to show that the hospital was a major command center for Hamas (although some Hamas members were certainly holed up there). Tora Bora all over again?

[N.E. Brigand]

The Los Angeles Times has issued an editorial demanding a ceasefire.

My opinion is that Israel should agree to a temporary ceasefire as soon as the hostages are returned and then to a permanent ceasefire as soon as all Hamas personnel involved in the Oct. 7th massacre are captured or killed.

I also think the people of Gaza have a responsibility to help Israel find the hostages and stop the terrorists. Doing so would only help themselves. If there are terrorists hiding in my neighborhood, and an army is coming to kill those terrorists, I am absolutely helping that army to finish the task quickly. Why would I help the terrorists hold out longer?

[N.E. Brigand]

The Los Angeles Times has issued an editorial demanding a ceasefire.

My opinion is that Israel should agree to a temporary ceasefire as soon as the hostages are returned and then to a permanent ceasefire as soon as all Hamas personnel involved in the Oct. 7th massacre are captured or killed.

I also think the people of Gaza have a responsibility to help Israel find the hostages and stop the terrorists. Doing so would only help themselves. If there are terrorists hiding in my neighborhood, and an army is coming to kill those terrorists, I am absolutely helping that army to finish the task quickly. Why would I help the terrorists hold out longer?

A new poll conducted in Gaza and the West Bank finds that 59% of Palestinians support what Hamas did on Oct. 7th and 73% believe Israel will lose.

I can absolutely believe that Israel's response has increased support for Hamas (which was Hamas's goal).

[Alatar]

I also think the people of Gaza have a responsibility to help Israel find the hostages and stop the terrorists. Doing so would only help themselves. If there are terrorists hiding in my neighborhood, and an army is coming to kill those terrorists, I am absolutely helping that army to finish the task quickly. Why would I help the terrorists hold out longer?

Again, as one familiar (albeit second hand) with the troubles in Northern Ireland, I can tell you thats never gonna happen. First off, I'm sure most Palestinians consider Hamas to be Freedom Fighters, not terrorists. Secondly, many of those who might not agree with their methods, would still support them as "better than the alternative". Finally, those who are completely anti-Hamas would be afraid of the reprisals to them or their families if they were seen to "collaborate" with the Israelis. If this were not the case the IRA would have been crushed in a matter of months, instead of forcing the UK to the table after decades.

[N.E. Brigand]

In this clip, NBC reporter Medhi Hasan rightly gives a hard time to Netanyahu advisor Mark Regev about Israel putting out false information about the conflict. That said, if you look at the replies, you'll notice that Hasan himself is omitting some notable information about a calendar found at the hospital raided over the past week. Israel was wrong to say the hospital had terrorists' names on it, but Hasan is wrong not to note that the top of the calendar refers to the Oct. 7th attack.

Now Israel officials say that they have determined that Hamas's "real headquarters" in Gaza are not in that hospital but elsewhere in Gaza. I get the ridicule that has followed. And yet, the fact is that we know Hamas is based in Gaza. The terrorists and the people they kidnapped are there somewhere and must be found.

[N.E. Brigand]

News about one of Hamas's Oct. 7th victims:

[N.E. Brigand]

A big analysis in the Washington Post: "How Hamas exploited Israel’s reliance on tech to breach barrier on Oct. 7."

The Post reconstructed the attack by analyzing hundreds of videos and photos posted online, including visuals filmed on Oct. 7 and during preparations by Hamas fighters. We reviewed videos and audio recorded on body cameras worn by militants, scoured footage from Israeli security cameras and spoke to witnesses. We also examined maps and planning documents recovered from slain Hamas fighters.

There is explanatory video at the link.

[N.E. Brigand]

The Los Angeles Times has issued an editorial demanding a ceasefire.

My opinion is that Israel should agree to a temporary ceasefire as soon as the hostages are returned and then to a permanent ceasefire as soon as all Hamas personnel involved in the Oct. 7th massacre are captured or killed.

Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota, a Democrat who is campaigning to replace President Biden as his party's 2024 nominee for president, today called for something along the lines of the first half of my suggestion: "Upon the safe release of hostages, an immediate and mutual ceasefire of large-scale military operations and indiscriminate terror must be initiated and upheld by both parties."

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(And on the subject of Dean Phillips: one of his more prominent supporters is Sam Altman. Three weeks ago, Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, praised Phillips on the grounds that Phillips is "a reasonable centrist candidate running on 1) a message of a strong economy and increasing affordability, 2) a focus on safety, and 3) generational change." Today Phillips Altmann* was fired by OpenAI's board of directors because he was "not consistently candid" with them.)

*Edited to correct the name, as per V's note.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I think you mean that Altman was fired by OpenAI.

[N.E. Brigand]

I'm waiting for more analysis before commenting on the various video footage and other reporting on Al Shifa Hospital that was released yesterday.

In the meantime, Sen. Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, generally ranked among the five most left-leaning senators, has called for "a ceasefire--a cessation of hostilities by both sides." Merkely lists as preconditions of the ceasefire that (1) all hostages held by Hamas must be released, (2) Hamas lays down its arms, and (3) Hamas relinquish control of Gaza.

I think that's reasonable.

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Edited to add: looking again at Merkley's statement, he says that no ceasefire will last without those three conditions being met. So I think I mischaracterized him by referringn to those as "precondidtions."

[N.E. Brigand]

Blake Masters, one of two Peter Thiel acolytes who ran for Senate as Republicans in 2022, proved to be too weird for Arizona voters and lost to the incumbent Sen. Mark Kelly. (The other Thielite, J.D. Vance, presented as a relatively normal albeit super Trumpy and nauseatingly hypocritical, had the advantage of having published a popular memoir in 2016, and won here in Ohio.) Today, Masters posted on Twitter calling for "a stop to all the anti-Jewish, pro-Jihadi bullshit." As noted here, a significant percentage of top responses to Masters' tweet -- which by Twitter default are replies by people who pay Elon Musk for a blue checkmark -- are Antisemitic.

[N.E. Brigand]

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said yesterday that in Gaza, "We are witnessing a killing of civilians that is unparalleled and unprecedented in any conflict since I have been Secretary General."

I do not wish to downplay the civilian deaths in Gaza, and I think Israel needs to work a lot harder to reduce Palestinian casualties, but as noted at the link, this is wildly untrue. Guterres has been Secretary General since 2017. The latest estimates are that 1,300 Israelis and 13,300 Gazans have been killed in this war, including the victims on Oct. 7th. (The difference between those two numbers may or may not indicate excessive use of force by Israel. I don't know how to measure that. In World War II, there were 12,000 U.S. civilian deaths and 1.5 million German civilian deaths.) In those first six years of Guterres's term, more than two times as many civilians were killed in Afghanistan, at least five times as many civilians were killed in Congo, and more than ten times as many civilians were killed in each of Syria, Yemen, and Ethiopia. The civilian deaths in this war total less than 3% of the civilian deaths in those five war zones since 2017.

(The total dead in Syria is 400,000-500,000, but much of that predates Guterres.)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

How many civilians have been killed in Ukraine?

[RoseMorninStar]

It makes my stomach roil to respond to this but I was curious. The phrase to look up would be: Civilian Casualty Ratio. There are a lot of statistics and I'm not a numbers person.

Statistics for Ukraine from the UN website as of Sept. 25, 2023.

UN statement on Gaza, Nov.20,2023

Latest reports from health authorities indicate that more than 13,000 civilians in total have died in the enclave since the 7 October terror attacks by Hamas, and subsequent Israeli offensive.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Thanks, Rose.

[N.E. Brigand]

How many civilians have been killed in Ukraine?

It makes my stomach roil to respond to this but I was curious. The phrase to look up would be: Civilian Casualty Ratio. There are a lot of statistics and I'm not a numbers person.
-Statistics for Ukraine from the UN website as of Sept. 25, 2023.
-UN statement on Gaza, Nov.20,2023

Per Wikipedia, casualty "reports vary widely," but apparently not that widely as regards Ukrainian civilians: the range I'm seeing is 9,700-10,700 killed.

But some 9 million Ukrainian civilians have been displaced. That's more than four times the entire population of Gaza. A reminder that there's nowhere for Gazans to go.