Word “But” Stunned To Find Itself Appearing In Sentence That Began “The Killing of Children Is Never Acceptable” https://t.co/3LRKfnazmx
— Alexandra Petri (@petridishes) October 13, 2023
Alexandra Petri, national treasure, at the Washington Post — “The word ‘But’ asks that it not appear in these sentences”:
… After finding itself in yet another Instagram comment, preceded by the phrases “I am devastated to read about the loss of life” and “I deplore the killing of civilians, especially children,” the word “But” described itself as “horrified” to be included. Although it did not specify what sentiment came after it — possibilities included the phrases “should have had different parents,” and a reference to making omelets and breaking eggs — “But” took to social media to beseech other posters to avoid making this mistake.
The coordinating conjunction begged that those phrases be added to the list of sentences in which it would not appear under any circumstances, a list that already includes: “You never have to compliment Stalin for any reason”; “I don’t want to suggest that slavery wasn’t an unmitigated evil”; and “Genocide is always bad.” The words “Nevertheless,” “Still” and “However” jointly concurred in “But’s” statement, though “Nevertheless” looked visibly tired and strained.
“‘I am against the killing of children, regardless of who their parents are or where they live,’ is a set of words that never should be accompanied by any of us,” their statement read. “If you notice that you are putting us in, please, we beg you, reconsider.”…
In a separate statement, the noun “Collateral Damage” and the adjective “Inevitable” asked to stop being forced to appear together.
“But” concluded its statement by saying it would return to anxiously watching someone compose a post that began “There is no excuse for antisemitism” and praying not to be called into service.
It's been hard to see some of the responses to Hamas's attack, to see the erasure of Jewish history and the devaluing of Jewish life, so I wrote something. Because you don't have to erase one people to empower another.
My latest.https://t.co/t8EoEcJz09
— Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) October 11, 2023
Julia Ioffe, who emigrated from Russia as a child due to religious persecution, at Puck — “Tragedy in Israel”:
… I want to start by saying that, like for so many Jews in the world, this is deeply, deeply personal for me. This isn’t just because I have friends and relatives in Israel, though I do. (Ironically, many of them are from Moscow: they just fled the war there 18 months ago.) Like so many modern Jews, I am alive because so many of my grandparents, great-grandparents, and so on up the chain, managed to escape annihilation just in time. Scores and scores didn’t. They haunt my family. And I’m not just talking about the Holocaust, but pogroms, the Crusades, the Khmelnitsky revolt in Ukraine, the antisemitic violence launched against Jewish communities all across Europe because someone owed money to a Jew or it was a Christian holiday or because hey, someone was just in the mood to lock some Jews in a synagogue and set it on fire.
We’ve been driven to near extinction in Europe many times, and the Holocaust was just the latest salvo. Most Ashkenazi Jews are descended from just 350 people because of a population bottleneck that occurred about a thousand years ago, and it wasn’t for happy reasons. And by the way, the reason we were in Christian Europe to begin with—where every country and kingdom would take turns expelling us—is because, in the first and second centuries A.D., the Romans slaughtered us and kicked us out of the place we were originally from, Judea, and then renamed it Palaestina. After the slaughter, the Romans brought 100,000 Jewish slaves from there to ancient Rome, where they were forced to build some of the monuments tourists flock to see today. And still, there was a small but continuous presence in what is now Israel-Palestine from then until now.
I say all this not because I don’t also value Palestinian life—I do—or because I don’t think this place is also Palestinians’ home—I do—but because so many people who are not Jewish do not understand the urgent feeling of scarcity that so many Jews feel about their community. After everything, and especially after the Holocaust killed most European Jews, there is not just a sense of fear that something like this can happen again—after all, it always has—but also that we’re always balancing on the precipice of extinction. So when 1,000 Jews are killed in a single day—the single deadliest day for Jews since the end of the Holocaust—it strikes at something very, very deep in me and, I’m sure, most Jews…
My point here is not to relitigate history or to excuse the actions of the Israeli government, which has pursued an increasingly horrific and dehumanizing policy toward the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, especially under Bibi Netanyahu. (In fact, Bibi has always played with violence, provoking it and ratcheting it up in the occupied territories so that he can come down hard and show Israelis, See? Only I can protect you.) My point is these incomplete narratives—if I’m to put it diplomatically—erase the Jewish connection to the place. They also erase the value of Jewish life.
We see that kind of erasure, unfortunately, on both sides. Right-wing Israelis claim that Palestinians aren’t a real people and that they don’t have a right to the land. Left-wing Westerners, often with no ties to the region, say that Jews are white colonizers, oppressors who are getting what they deserve…
I don’t know what will happen or what can happen to solve this. Those who talk about a two-state solution are living in a world that hasn’t existed for a decade. Neither Israelis nor Palestinians seem to want one anymore. They each want a state of their own, a state without the other, and the ethno-nationalism that built Israel—born as it was out of slaughter and oppression—has fueled the ethno-nationalism of the Palestinians, born out of the exact same elements. Both sides have hardened to an exclusionary extreme that precludes compromise or coexistence, and the events of the last week will ensure that even the embers of those hopes are doused cold. Before Saturday, the plan seemed to have been to wait each other out—or, if they were Israelis, ignore the problem and their complicity in it. Now, it is to fight to the death…
I don’t know exactly how this ends, nor do I have any hope that it ends well. It had always been hard for people to hold two contradictory truths simultaneously, that these two deeply traumatized peoples both have a real and legitimate claim to the land, claims that each side has at times acknowledged about the other, claims that have been warped in both camps by emotion and trauma and religion and nationalism into dehumanization and heartlessness, into forgetting that Israeli children and Palestinian children both deserve to live and thrive. Now, it will be impossible, at least for the foreseeable future, though, my god, do I wish it weren’t so.
eclare
Really good essay by Ioffe, thank you Anne Laurie.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
OzarkHillbilly
To restate the obvious, violence begets violence, hatred begets hatred. I have nothing more to say because it’s all been said before and none of it ever did any good.
NorthLeft
Thanks Anne, that was an excellent read. This brings up the whole subject of collective guilt.
As a Canadian I am struggling to understand and respond to our horrific treatment of the Indigenous peoples. But even today large segments of Canadians are still in denial over our crimes and continue to harbour hatred and resentments against Indigenous peoples and those others who want to deal fairly with their grievances and move forward in reconciliation.
Those large segments continue to vote for political parties that are still in denial or minimalize any efforts to change our historical relationship. I used to work with those people, I still socialize with those people, but changing their hearts and minds is frankly beyond me. I considered it a huge victory when I educated and helped to open my father’s eyes to his own prejudices against the indigenous people….with a lot of help and support from many other family members.
So, what responsibility do I have over my fellow Canadians who have chosen to ignore or worse, actively support continued discrimination against the Indigenous and other minorities?
BlueGuitarist
@rikyrah: good morning!
Dorothy A. Winsor
I’m listening to the You Don’t Know Jack podcast about the special counsel cases, and it’s a sign of the times that it feels soothing.
Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride
As Gloucester says at one of the bleakest moments in King Lear: “And that’s true too.” Everyone has their truths, which are usually bound up inextricably with their blind spots and falsehoods. Ioffe’s essay seems unanswerable to me as a Jew, but I know the answer already because I’ve read it many times before: the equally heartrending story of the suffering and oppression of the Palestinians at the hands of the Jews of Israel (who, of course, are white settler colonists claiming someone else’s land, etc.). And that’s true too.
JPL
Betty Cracker’s governor is now preaching that all Palestinians are anti-Semitic and refugees should not be allowed in our country. First the governor attacked the blacks, then the trans and then all gays and now the Palestinians. Who’s next?
prostratedragon
“Ode to Life,” Don Pullen and the African-Brazilian Connection
Geminid
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer plus Senators Romney, Rozen, Cassidy and Kelly met wth Israeli President Isaac Herzog* this morning in Jerusalem. They will also meet with PM Netanyahu and National Unity party leader Benny Gantz, who is now a member of the 3-man “War Cabinet.” The other two members are Netanyahu and Defense Minister Gallant.
Senator Schumer had a well-publicized phone call with Gantz on Tuesday. Last Sunday Gantz offered to join a national unity government, and Netanyahu accepted his offer. But then Netanyahu dragged his feet, and Schumer’s phone call was part of a pressure campaign to make the PM do the right thing. A former Defense Minister and IDF Chief of Staff, Gantz is trusted and respected by US officials, unlike the lying snd self-serving Prime Minister.
*Fun Isaac Herzog Fact: before emigrating to what is now Israel around 1930, Herzog’s grandfather was Chief Rabbi of Northern Ireland. Herzog’s father, Chaim Herzog, was well-known as a soldier and diplomat.
geg6
Thanks for posting the Ioffe piece. Truly excellent writing and her anguish comes through very clearly. I don’t know how this is ever resolved. But they must try to find a way or be resigned to no future for either side’s children..
Betty Cracker
@JPL: Who’s next? Whoever is vulnerable, because DeSantis is a bully. (CNN)
This is true because he is not and never will be president. So it is true: he is not going to do that.
To their credit, CNN points out that a July poll found that half of Gazans wanted Hamas to stop calling for Israel’s destruction and supported a two state solution.
FelonyGovt
Thank you for this. She expresses how I am feeling as well.
DFH
This post has ding-ding-dinged a memory from the Bush Jr years. Julia Ioffe’s description of the fears of future annihilation delved so far back in time…I was reminded again of the role religion plays in creating and sustaining intractable conflict.
With W, as now, there is the non-zero chance of radical Christians of egging on their Apocalypse.
JPL
@Betty Cracker: If the race is close when the republican primary is held in GA, I plan on voting for trump. I might have to drink a bottle of wine after, but so be it.
DeSantis has no qualms about shooting people at the border and he deserves to lose and lose by a lot.
prostratedragon
DFH@14: For what it’s worth, I doubt the Romans Ioffe wrote of needed the cloak of religion over their imposition of power over the Judeans that some religious fascists now are donning.
p.a.
Who’s next? We’re seeing it in the House. THERE, they’ve come close to accomplishing demographically what they want to accomplish in the U.S., and the answer has always been obvious: they’ll turn on each other.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: There was some interesting polling regarding public opinion in Arab countries about the recent normalization of relations between Israel and Bahrain, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates. Residents of Arab countries panned normalization, with approval percentages in the low 20s. Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank were the most favorable. Over 40% of Palestinians approved of normalization, despict the fact that their “leaders” denounced normalization as a betrayal of Palestinian interests.
DFH
@prostratedragon: You’re right, that’s the hole in my argument. Some people are religious assholes and some people are just assholes.
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: You are old school! Just 2 or 3 weeks in, they changed it to just Jack.
I usually listen to that if I wake in the wee hours of the morning on Sundays, but today I did not wake up. Looking forward to that tonight.
Even when the news is distressing, I find Andy McCabe’s voice very soothing, so there’s that!
Mai Naem mobile
@Betty Cracker: i wonder if idiot DeShithead realizes Palestinians are technically Semites so I guess they’re against themselves since they’re anti-semites.
WaterGirl
@JPL: You might have to think about mainlining something! :-)
But I understand why you might make that choice!
Betty Cracker
@JPL: I’ve thought about switching parties temporarily for the primary because in my county, no Democrat can get elected, so the Repub primary determines whether the office will be occupied by someone on the far right or a MAGA extremist. But I can’t bring myself to do it.
I’d love to see DeSantis suffer a humiliating defeat in the GOP primary in Florida if he’s still in the race then. The last poll I saw, Trump had something like a 20-point lead in the state. I want him to get beaten so badly he never runs for president again.
Jeffro
@JPL: our current politics continues to take us to some strange places, doesn’t it? “Hon, I’m off to help save the country by voting for trump in the primary, be right back!”
If I were in your shoes, I’d do the exact same thing.
sab
@Betty Cracker: I have thought of doing the same thing, but the problem is that any person who has aspirations for higher office as a Republican must abandon any morals that they might ever have had. There really are no lesser of two evils on their side. They have to sell out to lunacy to survive.
Geminid
@Jeffro: You and I don’t even have to switch parties to do some “strategic voting” next year. Virginia has no party registration, so all primaries are open.
Not that many people seem to do this though. I remember how in 2020, radio host Hew Hewitt kept urging Republicans in Virginia and South Carolina to vote for Bernie Sanders. “So we’ll have a clear choice in November,” he lied. But I saw no evidence that Hewitt’s sly suggestions moved the needle in those primaries.
Betty Cracker
@sab: I mostly agree there are no lesser of two evils, but in some races, like for schoolboard seats, there are Moms for Liberty nutbags vs. right-wingers who have experience as educators. They both suck, but I’d rather have the latter in charge.
Steve in the ATL
@Mai Naem mobile: I was about to post this as well. And I believe Christianity is a Semitic religion as well.
@JPL: just to be safe, I plan to drink a bottle of wine that day regardless of whom I vote for or whether I vote at all.
Kathleen
@Dorothy A. Winsor: That’s how I felt while watching Criminal Minds during TFG’s years in office. My friends looked askance at me, like when I said in 2009 that Republicans wanted to kill all of us.
Kathleen
@JPL: Anyone else his donors don’t like.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: I did that to vote against Daddy Bush in the primary because he scared the hell out of me.
Suzanne
Peter Beinart wrote a really good piece in the FTFNYT.
I think Ioffe points out the thing that upsets me the most about this whole situation: that it’s just going to be another continuation of the cycle. Nothing good will come of it. Because “we tell ourselves stories in order to live”, there can be a conception that enduring terrible things can be redemptive. But that’s not going to happen here. The political status won’t change, and there will just be more suffering and still no resolution, for no purpose.
Nukular Biskits
Good mornin’, y’all!
Cool outside today. Sitting here in the office with my cup o’ Joe contemplating my plans (or lack thereof) for the rest of the day.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
I’m just surprised that Netanyahu and the cowards in his cabinet and his pathetic war council that are afraid to challenge his leadership (Gantz, I’m looking at you) haven’t recognized or voiced what happens when you perform the precise action that the terrorists/opposition forces in an asymmetric war want the militarily strong state to do after a brutal attack. They’re doing exactly what the Hamas planners wanted; they took a tragic and violent episode that didn’t threaten the structure and cohesiveness of the nation as a whole, and are escalating it into an existential threat via a major regional war.
I see the online bits where keyboard warriors gloat over potential Iranian involvement as having the potential to “destroy Iran” – as if Iran doesn’t have 8 times the population, a larger military, and lower population density in a larger territory 2500 miles away. Once the IDF is fully committed by ground, the West Bank becomes a powderkeg while Hezbollah patiently awaits its moment from southern Lebanon.
Our “bestest friend and greatest ally ever” (at least insofar as they need our diplomatic muscle and aid to keep sucking us in to fights they deliberately foment through policy, but on nothing else) is a one way street, and is going to push everything too far. IDF ROE have always seemed sloppy to me, as well, granting way too much leeway with a lot of excusemaking.
Nukular Biskits
@OzarkHillbilly:
The conflation of innocent Palestinians with Hamas (and, likewise, Israeli citizens with the hardline policies of the Israeli government) reminded me of a Star Trek Voyager episode “Nemesis” where people were programmed to see others as “beasts” to be eliminated.
Alison Rose
Thank you for posting this.
I’d like to share some words from a friend of mine, who is Black and Jewish, because much of the talk from the leftist, anti-Israel side has had a specific focus that is simply not the right way to view this situation.
As a white Jew, it has been difficult for me to see people framing this as “Brown people standing up to white colonizers” because I know that’s inaccurately oversimplifying things, but I also feel uncomfortable arguing against them because I don’t want to come across like I’m dismissing the general concerns of POC vis-a-vis white people. So I appreciated my friend’s commentary here, and especially their note that white Jews in America have “conditional access to white privilege”, because that is indeed what it feels like. I know that I benefit massively from my white skin, but I also know that, in certain situations and with certain people, the moment they find out I’m Jewish, that benefit and privilege disappears, and my life is immediately at risk.
Betty Cracker
@Suzanne: I saw Beinart on one of MSNBC shows the other day and was surprised by his take. He used to be a lot more hawkish, IIRC.
Nukular Biskits
@NorthLeft:
As a native Southerner of almost 60 years of age, I see a similar thing down here with respect to white conservative views of “other”; minorities, POC, LGBTQ+, etc.
And, similarly, with respect to their views/attitudes regarding doing something, ANYTHING, about climate change.
IMHO, it boils down to an innate need to maintain/perpetuate white (mostly male) privilege. Anything that threatens “the natural order” most be denied and/or actively opposed.
tobie
As the daughter of Holocaust survivors, I know exactly how Julia Ioffe feels. Living with the memory and threat of extinction does things to your psyche. That’s all I have to say.
JPL
Nothing good is going to come out of flattening Gaza as Ozark said. It will just create more hatred and violence.
Geminid
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: Why do you think that Benny Gantz is not willing to challenge Netanyahu’s leadership?
Matt McIrvin
I remember all the complaints after 9/11 about “But…” being used in the exact opposite way, to qualify anything short of a declaration of ultimate carte blanche for America to kill anyone it wanted.
Another Scott
@Suzanne:
(Another Scott – Gently, cautiously, entering the waters…)
Yes, it’s horrible. Yes, Hamas’s tactic are abhorrent. Yes, innocents are dying because of the monstrous policies of politicians.
I’m reminded of a popular science book I read a few decades ago (can’t remember the title or author though). An anthill was having a pleasant conversation with an anteater. The anteater remarked that he was hungry, and the anthill said, go ahead, have a snack, he went ahead and had his fill, leaving most of it alone. The narration explained that most of the ants were clones, and that the life of the hill mattered much, much more than the life of particular individuals.
That stuck with me.
I’m also reminded (as I’ve commented several times) that the Camp David accords would not have happened without Sadat attacking Israel in the 1973 war. He had to get the Israeli government’s attention and demonstrate that the status-quo was not sustainable. Too often horrible things have happened which suddenly changed the dynamic between nation states that ultimately enabled a lasting peace.
Who knows what will happen in this case – not me.
Post October 7, 2023, there are many futures possible. Here’s hoping that leaders and peoples pick a better one.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Damien
As in all instances where it gains power, the right-wing authoritarian virus is destroying Israel from within. Strongman leaders like Netenyahu and Sharon need threats to stay in power, so it’s unsurprising that things have only ever gotten worse under their leadership. There is no common ground to find between the powerful and the powerless when that power is the former’s entire reason for existence.
Of course, the same can be said for Hamas; they have no reason to work for a solution, because they exist for violence. They feed off the money that flows illegally from outside, they feed off Palestinian anger, Arab anger, and Israel’s own untenable actions.
I tend to believe that a two-state solution is long dead, and regardless of whose fault that is, I think it died so long ago that the slow decay of what would have been Palestine was already irreversible before Hamas revealed what they’d do to Jews if given half a chance. Beyond whatever role Israel has played in turning Gaza into an open air prison, Hamas has ensured that I don’t think there’s going to be a Palestine in Gaza, and sadly I question whether there’s going to be a Gaza at all anymore.
Where it goes from there I genuinely don’t know, but it seems down this path lies darkness
Betty Cracker
@Alison Rose: Lots of Americans, irrespective of cultural and political ties, have an annoying tendency to view events in other countries through the American lens. It’s understandable — we’re all trying to make sense of things as best we can. I do it too, though I try to be aware of it. But yeah, it leads to confusion and mistakes. Thanks for sharing your friend’s perspective.
OzarkHillbilly
@Nukular Biskits: Dehumanizing the enemy is what nations do in every war. It’s easier to kill a dangerous animal than a man who just happens to have different thoughts/values than one’s own.
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: My experience is that the kind of “Operation Chaos” crossover troll voting that people like Rush Limbaugh used to chortle about, where you vote for the candidate you hate the most in the other party’s primary with the theory that you’re sabotaging the general election, mostly doesn’t happen. It’s too much game-playing for the normie voter.
It’s much more common for crossover votes to be for the candidate the voter perceives as least-bad in the other party, because there’s someone running who they really hate and they want an early shot at defeating them.
Suzanne
@Betty Cracker: Beinart has gotten much smarter as he ages, I think.
Jeffro
@Geminid: yup – good point about voting in the (GOP) primaries here.
I would think that it would be hard to tease out how many folks in any given state are voting in the other party’s primary to screw them over with a bad candidate.
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly:
Truth, elegantly stated.
Nukular Biskits
@OzarkHillbilly:
Unfortunately, yup. And not to be cynical, but there are a lot of folks who are more than eager to use dehumanization as a means to further their own interests and hold on power.
Going full Godwin here, Hitler would be a prime example of that; convincing others to see his targets as being less than human.
Matt McIrvin
@Jeffro: I remember a fair number of Democratic-leaning people in Massachusetts crossing over to the Republican primary in 2000 to vote for McCain. It wasn’t to saddle the Republicans with a bad candidate; it was just because they liked McCain, or preferred him to George W. Bush in a relative sense.
Kathleen
@Another Scott: That is an illuminating and helpful perspective. Thank you.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@Geminid:
I think he’s far too eager to be portrayed as having the illusory power that Netanyahu offers to pose a significant counterweight to Netanyahu’s awful decisionmaking habits.
Meanwhile, Hamas is calling not only their own plays, but Netanyahu is so relentlessly, pathetically predictable that they’re calling his, too.
Princess
Thank you AnneLaurie.
Geminid
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: I think you know very little about Gantz’s posture in this mattter and are reacting to commentary on western news sites.
Matt McIrvin
@Nukular Biskits: It happens without people even trying to induce it. Look at Adam’s threads about the Ukraine war. For the most part, they’re a litany of atrocities committed by Russia against Ukrainian civilians (the reverse has happened relatively little, in part because of lopsided capabilities). And you get some people down in the threads responding to all this horror by going full eliminationist and calling for the extermination of Russians, and Adam has to tell them to cool it, repeatedly. He doesn’t even want them to do that. But it’s the effect of this kind of narrative on the human brain. It is all too natural.
Geminid
@Damien: Ariel Sharon broke from Likud twenty some years ago, and formed the Kadima psrty because Likud was categorically against a two party solution and Sharon knew that it was a neccessity. We’ll never know if Sharon’s government would have succeeded in settling the Palestinian question because he suffered a massive stroke. Sharon’s successors lacked his prestige among Israelis and eventually Kadima broke up.
Nukular Biskits
@Matt McIrvin:
Yeah, I concur. As humans, probably most, if not all, of us are predisposed to going down that dark path when exposed to such horrific violence, particularly when it’s visited upon innocent people.
I suppose it’s an evolutionary thing.
H.E.Wolf
Thanks to all who are sharing various thoughtful and nuanced perspectives on the situation in the Middle East. Much appreciated.
I’ve made what peace I can with the intractable problems ever-present in the world by focusing on what small, concrete actions I can take to help elect Democrats to the US Congress.
When Democrats regain the majority, it’s possible that more humane, timely, and effective legislation – including foreign aid – will be passed and signed into law than when Republicans were in charge.
…Although it isn’t enough, it’s not nothing.
sab
@Betty Cracker: I agree.
Fortunately in Ohio school boards are still non-partisan. And the decent Republicams on them are doing it out of civic duty rather than ambition.
We had one who was a good guy (excellent on gay and trans issues) who came in last when he ran for the state school board because the other Republicans shunned him since he refused to jump on the anti-trans/amti-gay bandwagon. So some Democrats won instead. Then the governor decided to ignore the state constitution and take almost all authority away from the state school board and bring it into his own office.
Matt McIrvin
@Nukular Biskits: Chimpanzees have genocidal wars between rival bands. Seems to be there in the great-ape lineage. The other tribe is coming to kill us all, better get them first.
I worry a lot about the current US political divide devolving into this. But worrying about it too much, and deciding to act on it in a certain way, can actually make it happen.
Damien
@Geminid: While I’m willing to grant him credit for the unilateral Gaza disengagement, and lament whether Kadima would have been able to orchestrate the same kind of action in the West Bank, let’s not overlook the almost 30 years of explicit work that Sharon did pushing for settlements, and the construction of the West Bank Wall that also occurred under his administration.
Plus the whole helping to kick off Intifada II and the slaughter of innocents thing from the 50s.
I grant your point that he may have, at the end of his life, been aware of the necessity of a 2-state solution, and who knows what would have happened without his stroke, but let’s also not pretend that Ariel Sharon didn’t play a pretty good strongman role up until then.
Geminid
@Damien: I never said that Ariel Sharon was a good man. I just said he was a realist, and that is why he broke with Likud to form a new party. Likud was unalterably opposed to a Palestinian state and Sharon knew it had to happen.
way2blue
@Betty Cracker:
If it were me—I’d write in someone who has an ounce of decency. (Done this before.)
Geminid
@Geminid:
@Damien: I thought Sharon and Netanyahu did not belong in the same category, at least in a practical sense (which is what matters to me).
Sharon may have been near the end of his life when he broke with Likud and formed Kadima, but he did not know that. I think he was PM for at least two years before his stroke.
Damien
@Geminid: I think that’s the fairest assessment that could be made: monster, but a clear-eyed monster at the end. An extra shonda on Netenyahu for not even living up to the the example of Ariel Sharon.
In some ways Sharon working for a 2-state solution has echoes of “Only Nixon could go to China;” I’m sure there were people in Israel who complained at the time of the Gaza disengagement that Sharon was going soft, but I think that you’re right that he saw through the fog of ethno-nationalism and realized there was only one way to ensure any kind of lasting peace.
No matter what Netenyahu does, and his actions so far don’t inspire much confidence in any kind of judicious exercise of power, I don’t think he even has the capacity to reach for peace in general. Like I said in my first comment, Netenyahu is a symptom of the authoritarian virus, for which all paths of power must lead to further power; this mindset has no room for nuance, no ability to modulate, compromise, or consider before acting. I’m sure that he and many (perhaps most) of his supporters firmly believe that leveling Gaza to grass would solve the ongoing conflict, and I dearly wish that I could share an article or a paper that describes a realistic solution to wiping out Hamas while leaving the innocent untouched, because I worry that the stumbling wounded Israel will follow this mindset into the pits.
lowtechcyclist
@Geminid:
I voted in the GOP primary in 1994 so I could vote against Oliver North when he was running for Senator, back when I was still living in Virginia.
That data point aside, you’re right, it doesn’t seem to happen often enough to make a difference.
Comrade Misfit
Every time something happens, the prevailing sentiment in much of the West is that “the Jews should be reasonable”. But after over a thousand unarmed civilians were killed, not by collateral damage in combat operations, but by face-to-face murder; by beheadings, by point-blank range shooting, by locking people in buildings and setting the building alight, I think that the world will learn that Jews are done with being reasonable.
I have no information to support this, but I suspect that Mossad will be tasked with a global campaign to find Hamas leaders, wherever they are, and kill every one that they can.
Geminid
@Alison Rose: As an American, I live in the biggest and most successful colonizer project in world history. I think of this when I see other Americans point the finger at Israel and condemn it as a “Colonizer State.”
Your friend’s comments about Israel’s large Mizrachi population reminds me of the trope that Israel was run by a WASP elite. That would be White Ashkenazi Sabra Paratroopers.
The Ashkenazi tend to be lighter-skinned, the Sabra are are the native-born Israelis who took their name from a cactus native to the area, and the Paratroopers were the military elite which held prominent posts in the military and often in civic institutions as well.
Gabi Eisenkot, the Gantz ally who serves in the new “War Cabinet” as an Observer, became the first Mizrachi IDF Chief of Staff ever just a few years ago.
Menachim Begin’s Likud party rose to power in 1977 on the strength of votes from Mizrachis who resented their second class status under the Ashkenazi Sabra elite that ran the Labor party.
Uncle Cosmo
Many years ago I went to a reading by the poet William Stafford and he tossed off a little ditty that might’ve been called “History of Religion” and went something like this:
I wonder how much religious arrogance comes from the absolute certainty that one can do whatever the fuck they want to whomever the fuck they want to and then go running back to hide behind big mean Daddy (& stick their head out from behind his trouser leg & stick their tongue out at whomever has a problem with whatever they did). It sure does seem at times that much of fundanasty Christianism** is soaked in the assurance that all-powerful and always-pissed-off Daddy may beat the hell out of you with the buckle of His belt***, but He can always be counted on to protect you as one of His chosen peeps when you need it (and if He doesn’t, well crap, you must have deserved it…).
** In contrast with the belief system I presume most all Christians among us profess…
*** One of my elementary-school classmates told me his dad not only did this but held the buckle in a burner on the stove to heat it to blister level beforehand. I hope he was kidding…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
He was a loud “liberal hawk” in the run-up to the Iraq War. I don’t know recall exactly when he had his moment of conversion, but he’s to the left (to the extent the left-right thing works on this issue ) of the J Street crowd (if they’re even still a thing)
Geminid
@Damien: Netanyahu will never help bring about a two state solution, and will never have another chance to even try, I think. His time as Prime Minister will not last long beyond the end of this war.
He has been thoroughly dicredited. A recent poll showed that 80% of Israelis want him gone as soon as the war ends. If Netanyahu tries to drag it out, he’ll probably be kicked out mid war.
NorthLeft
@Nukular Biskits: Thanks, I did not mention climate change, but yes, they are exactly the same way in their attitude towards that issue.
Damien
@Geminid: I’d like to think you’re right, but the guy’s like Mikael Meyers (and yes I did); unless Likud gets the boot I find it staggeringly unlikely that he’s going anywhere.
Prove me wrong, Israel, please!
PaulWartenberg
This is me venting, and asking for help.
The worst thing about putting a book together based on the blog articles I’ve written over the years is “what the hell do I TITLE the damn thing?” You need something eye-catching and unique, but not so obscure as to confuse potential readers.
Just calling it “Bits And Blogs” isn’t going to cut it. Anyone got better suggestions?
Damien
@PaulWartenberg: “A Little of My Blah Blah Blogs”
Josie
@H.E.Wolf: Thanks for this. I know there is absolutely nothing I can do to change the trajectory of the horrible things that have happened and will happen in Israel and Gaza.
I thought about the idea of making a difference in the small world where I exist. Then I went to ActBlue and donated $10.00 to Colin Allred, who will probably run against Ted Cruz. I feel a little better already.
Timill
@PaulWartenberg: “Sex, Nudity, and the Internet”. May not be accurate, but it’ll sell…
Geminid
@Damien: Netanyahu’s Likud colleagues were poised to vote him out as leader if he lost the last election (as was expected). And my understanding is that Likud MKs were among those pressuring him him last week to bring Gantz and his National unity party in to form a “unity government.”
Arguing against were his National Religious partners Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, and Mrs. Netanyahu also. Sara Netanyahu is known to have an inordinate influence over her husband. There is a rumor that years ago, she caught him in an infidelity and made him sign an onerous contract giving her a say in his decision making. Supposedly, one of Netanyahu’s cousin has seen this contract and described it to others.
taumaturgo
https://jewishcurrents.org/a-textbook-case-of-genocide
Bill Arnold
@Comrade Misfit:
When this particular war is completed, the Palestinian civilian casualties will be, with history as a guide, about 5-10X the Israeli civilian and military casualties. Including (civilian) Palestinian children. (Then the Israeli propaganda apparatus (which includes scholars) will diligently work to justify all this as allowed by international humanitarian law, including accusations of double standards and antisemitism.)
Artillery and aerial bombardments are stochastic killing methods (a bit less so with precision guided munitions, but still messy), and casualties caused by them are intentional, and the victims are every bit as dead or maimed as those victims of face to face killings and maimings. The people who do such stochastic killing and maiming of civilians are soul-deadened too, just emotionally insulated from the never-seen faces of those innocents that they kill or maim.
How many Israelis approve of the approach used by Russia in the siege of Gronzy?
Battle of Grozny (1999–2000)
Tehanu
Exactly right. If only they would just destroy themselves and it would stop there…
Our dad was a non-observant Jew and our mom an ex-Congregationalist from Texas. My sister’s ex-husband once told her that if he had known she was half-Jewish, he wouldn’t have married her.
evodevo
@prostratedragon:
Yep…the Romans cracked down equally on ANY group who dared to rebel, anywhere in the empire. Didn’t matter who you were or what your motivation. They quickly squelched any signs of disorder or organized rebellion, especially among slaves. That’s where the New Testament got it wrong…Pilate was a petty dictator who was perfectly fine with executing anyone who exhibited interest in elevating an unapproved Jewish popular candidate for king. If the Jewish Sanhedrin had wanted to execute Jesus for doctrinal reasons, they had the right to do so via stoning. But only the Roman authorities could execute via crucifixion, and that was reserved for rebels. The “thieves” were probably members of a rebel band, many of which were operating in the wilderness areas for most of the Roman occupation. And all this Xtian hatred through the years is based on lies and propaganda.
Geminid
@Tehanu: Overt anti-Semitism became more socially unacceptable here after the Second World War
You could say that Hitler gave anti-Semitism too bad a name. But anti-Semitism did not go away, it just went underground.
Another Scott
@PaulWartenberg: The Lost Autobiography of Jesus of Nazareth*
[tiny] And other things I did not write, but some things I did. [/tiny]
;-)
Good luck!
Cheers,
Scott.