Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

Bark louder, little dog.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

ha ha ha! Nice try weird people.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Elections aren’t won by handwringing, cowering, and/or bashing your own candidates.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Nothing worth doing is easy.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

“Joe Biden deserved better than he got from some folks in his own party.”

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

…and a burning sense of injustice to juice the soul.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

White supremacy is terrorism.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War for Ukraine Day 625: The Night Hetman?

War for Ukraine Day 625: The Night Hetman?

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(Crest of the Security Service of Ukraine)

The Night Scotsman is, of course, the name for the famous train that left London in the evening and arrives in Scotland at the next dawn. Perhaps the Kyiv-Kherson line should be named the Night Hetman?

Honestly, I couldn’t think of anything Ukrainian related I could stick “man” on for the symmetry with Scotsman. It’s been a long week, I’ll see myself out.

The Security Service of Ukraine has been busy!

Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.

We will do everything to bolster Ukraine’s strength – address by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

10 November 2023 – 19:06

Dear Ukrainians, I wish you good health!

Report for the day.

I held a Staff meeting – special, focusing specifically on strategic issues. On preparations for our future defensive and offensive operations.

Several important reports were presented at the Staff meeting today. The first one was about the defense budget for the next year, specific capabilities. The second report covered ammunition and equipment for ongoing operations. The third one – Kherson, the details of strengthening the defense of the city against Russian terror.

Intelligence reported on the evacuation of our citizens from the Gaza sector, we are continuing our ongoing efforts. We also assist citizens of other countries, our partners whenever possible. I thank everyone involved in this work: the General Staff, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, embassies. Well done! By the way, thankful to the Defense Intelligence units performing combat missions on the front lines – on land and at sea.

Of course, there were front-line reports from commanders today. I thank every unit, every brigade carrying out tasks in Kharkiv region, Donetsk region, and the south of our country. Warriors, I thank you! To all those in battle, at combat posts, and those providing assistance.

Artillerymen of the 55th Brigade – as always, I am proud of you! Mariyinka direction – soldiers of the 79th Separate Airborne Assault Brigade, thank you! Avdiyivka – the 53rd and 110th Separate Mechanized Brigades, thank you! Kupiansk – the 14th Separate Mechanized Brigade, the 57th Separate Motorized Infantry Brigade, the 13th Battalion of the 95th Airborne Assault Brigade, the 3rd Battalion of the 54th Separate Mechanized Brigade, the 2nd Battalion of the 30th Separate Mechanized Brigade, and the 40th Separate Artillery Brigade – I thank all of you, soldiers!

Today, I addressed the participants of the important forum in France – the Paris Peace Forum. The forum brought together leaders from Europe and other continents. It is crucial that all existing challenges, especially security challenges, receive global responses from the majority of the world. The more the world is united, the more lines of cooperation we have, the fewer chances there are for those who do not value human life to dominate. I am grateful to President Macron for organizing such international platforms.

In recent days, the First Lady of Ukraine visited France as part of our cultural diplomacy. Olena took part in the opening of the representation of the Ukrainian Institute in Paris – an institution that promotes Ukrainian culture worldwide, unites our people, and people around the world based on culture. There is a memorandum of cooperation between the Ukrainian Institute and the University of Sorbonne. Olena also participated in the UNESCO conference – this organization helps us unite the world to protect Ukrainian cultural heritage from Russian attacks. There was a meeting between the First Lady of Ukraine and Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron. The highest level of attention to Ukraine. Thank you.

A visit to France of First Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Svyrydenko also took place. She discussed the establishment of a fund for the restoration of our critical infrastructure. The initiation of collaboration with the French Development Agency for Ukraine is also in progress.

Today, I had a meeting with the Minister of National Defence of Lithuania – a good conversation. I expressed gratitude for the support already provided to Ukraine – it is significant. This includes weapons, political support, and the sincere support of Lithuanian society for Ukraine and Ukrainians. Our alliance is truly felt. I requested to convey our Ukrainian gratitude to President Nausėda. We also discussed further defense cooperation between Ukraine and Lithuania. We are working on the supply of armored medical evacuation vehicles for the troops on the front lines.

We are preparing for other international communications and events – we will do everything to bolster Ukraine’s strength.

Thank you to everyone who supports!

Glory to our people!

Glory to Ukraine!

And here is his brief presentation to the Paris Peace Forum. Video remarks in English followed by the English transcript.

The cooperation and unity of all who truly value peace that can prevent catastrophes and stop the suffering of peoples – address of the President of Ukraine to the participants of the Paris Peace Forum

10 November 2023 – 21:10

Dear leaders! Ladies and gentlemen!

I am pleased to have the opportunity to address you and am grateful that in such difficult,

turbulent times, the Paris Peace Forum remains active and contributes to global cooperation. And what is really important for global stability – it adds to the cooperation between Europe and Africa, Asia, Latin America…

Now, in our time, the world is at a crossroads. Local wars can provoke a global collapse. The suffering in which a particular nation is thrown can drag neighboring nations into the abyss. But the world is not doomed to disasters and suffering…

We are capable of making the right turn!

It is precisely the cooperation and unity of all who truly value peace that can prevent catastrophes and stop the suffering of peoples. In this, every nation matters! It’s important to remember this. There are no few “great” ones who supposedly can decide something in the world for everyone… All nations are equal, and every nation deserves respect. Only such an approach can realize the right of every child of every nation to a world in which there are more examples of achieving peace than stories of its destruction.

So, when I proposed the Ukrainian Peace Formula to protect our people and to create a globally significant precedent for the restoration of honest peace, I counted on global efforts, on the unification of the world’s majority, on cooperation that unites all continents. And gradually, we are achieving this.

I am grateful to each of you who supports these efforts! And I call on you to multiply unity and joint work for the sake of providing the world with the necessary answers to existing global issues… Complex issues. But there are no difficulties that cannot be overcome by the unity of people.

I thank France and President Macron personally for the unwavering belief in global cooperation, for new formats of such cooperation, and for their relentless energy in working towards uniting the world. Emmanuel, thank you for your vision of a safer world turning into real actions. Charles, Mr. President, thank you for your leadership and for directing Europe’s strength for the global good. And I thank all the leaders who are here at the Forum, and our colleagues who likewise value unity and consolidated work…

May our joint efforts be fruitful!

Thank you for your attention!

Слава Україні!

The reason:

Lithuania steps up again!

#Lithuania has transferred two launchers for NASAMS anti-aircraft missile systems to #Ukraine.
The NASAMS air defense systems have already been put on combat duty.

I had the opportunity to thank the Minister of Defense of Lithuania, Arvydas Anušauskas @a_anusauskas, for this during his visit to Kyiv.

My colleague and I visited the command post of the Air Command “Center” division of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

I also invited Lithuanian defense companies to cooperate in the joint production of arms and ammunition in Ukraine.

I am grateful to Minister Anušauskas and the Lithuanian people for the unprecedented support of Ukraine in the fight against the russian aggressor.

Germany attempts to get the stick out:

Machine translation of the CDU’s foreign policy chairman’s tweet:

Delivering #Taurus is not just about a single weapon system, but about the goal of restoring Ukraine’s sovereignty & territorial integrity. Therefore, as @cducsubt we are submitting a request for immediate delivery of Taurus next week.

Off the coast of Russian occupied Crimea:

Machine translation:

🌊 The Russian landing craft hit in the Crimea went to the bottom

☑️ After an attack by surface attack drones, small amphibious ships of the Russian Federation were destroyed.

🔗 https://gur.gov.ua/content/urazheni-v-krymu-desantni-katery-rosiian-pishly-na-dno.html

Here’s the full details from Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR):

As a result of night operation in the territory of the temporarily occupied Crimea, small-sized landing ships of the russian black sea fleet were hit.

These are ships of the 11770 project (‘serna’ class).

Crew and loaded armored vehicles, including BTR-82, were on the ships.

The special operation was carried out thanks to the support of the United24 platform.

The small-sized landing crafts of the ‘serna’ class were actively used by the aggressor state russia during the occupation of Zmiinyi Island to transfer military equipment and paratroopers.

In addition, the russians deployed Tor-M2 AD GM sys on board of the ships to provide mobile cover for their group on the Island and in our Black Sea.

The small-sized amphibious warfare ship of the ‘serna’ class has a high speed, can carry up to 45 tons of cargo and 92 armed paratroopers.

The occupiers use these ships to land advanced marine groups or to evacuate.

And in the context of the actual absence of russian naval air defence equipment after a series of attacks by the Security and Defence Forces of Ukraine, such ships with air defence guided missile system on board served for the invaders as a cover on the russia’s black sea fleet raids.

Avdiivka:

Bryansk Oblast:

As Denys points, “someone” fired at a vehicle in the Bryansk People’s Republic and killed a FSB Lt. Colonel yesterday 😁. Meanwhile, the following cryptic message appeared on the RDK (Russian Volunteer Corps) channel, along with the photos:

“While a charity auction was going on in Vilnius, the RDK sabotage and reconnaissance group was moving towards its goal and successfully ambushed enemy transport in the Bryansk region.

A video of objective control will be posted later.

Glory to RDK! Glory to Rus’!

https://t.me/russvolcorps/771

 

Hladkivka, Kherson Oblast:

Skadovsk, Russian occupied Kherson Oblast:

Regarding yesterday’s attack on the Russian base in Skadovsk, names and ranks of victims:

“Regarding the strike on the building of the 126th military investigative department of the Russian Investigative Committee.

Yesterday (11/09/2023) at 9:55, the building of the 126th military investigative department of the Russian Investigative Committee, which was located in the city of Skadovsk, Kherson region, on Lenin Street, 59, was struck.

The strike was carried out using the HIMARS MLRS. Two rockets hit the building.

At this moment, a morning meeting of the staff of the 126th military investigative unit was being held.

According to available information, 8 people – 200, 10 – 300 (probably the number of 200 is 10 people, the bodies are mutilated and cannot be identified).

Among the dead is the acting head of the 126th military investigative unit – Dmitry Aleksandrovich Katsuba, as well as officers Dmitry Alekseevich Kataykin and Nikita Sergeevich Krivtsov.

Among the wounded are employees of the 126th military investigative unit, military police and law enforcement agencies of the Republic of Dagestan.”
https://t.me/dosye_shpiona/433

Kotovsk and Kolomna, Russia:

For you drone enthusiasts:

Ukrainian-Czech company UAC presented new reconnaissance UAV Leleka LR:
Working altitude — 1200-1500m
Max altitude – 2000m
Max speed – 32m/s
Cruising speed — 22m/s
Wingspan — 3m
Take-off weight — 8.7kg
Payload weight — 600g
Flight radius – 90km
Flight time – 4hours
https://mil.in.ua/uk/news/v-ukrayini-predstavyly-novyj-bezpilotnyk-leleka-lr/

Somebody splurged for the upgrade package:

Ukrinform did an interview with Peter Pomerantsev, the author of Nothing Is True and Everything is Possible regarding Russian information warfare and its effects. Here’s the video, which is in English:

And here’s excerpts from the transcript:

CLEAR AND EFFECTIVE PROPAGANDA IS WHEN “YOU’RE NOT THERE”

– Given your main field of knowledge, we should of course talk about Russian propaganda and the fight against it. We see how Russia skillfully adapts its propaganda guidebooks and tools to react to the latest developments and to tailor its messages to fit concrete audiences, to make sure theses messages get through. And we now see the conflict in Israel and Gaza developing and how Russia uses it to undermine Western assistance to Ukraine by trying to switch the international public focus away from Ukraine. Do you think we in Ukraine are doing enough not to lose the attention of Western partners and to fight this malign propaganda?

– When Russia advocates openly and obviously for what you just said: “Forget about Ukraine, think about the Middle East”, nobody listens to them. That is not a winning narrative because it’s Russia, and everyone can see it. That’s not the clever bit of their propaganda. What they’re doing is much more nefarious. It’s effective when it’s indirect. Direct propaganda can work if your cause is just and people support you. But everybody knows now in Western countries that Russia is not a partner or anybody you can ever believe.

What they’re doing in Europe is much more. What they’re doing in Europe is much more cunning and risky to our interests. They are simultaneously stoking anti-Western, anti-Israel, and anti-Semitic feeling among huge Muslim populations in Europe. We see very large protests against the actions of Israel and the West in places like Germany. At the same time, they’re stoking anti-immigrant – in this case, anti-Muslim immigrant, but also general anti-immigrant – feeling among the right wing, again, in countries like Germany. And Russia is not even in that fight. What they’re doing is they’re strengthening those contradictions, probably thinking about creating a maximally anti-refugee sentiment. Especially in Germany where they’re very invested.

And probably they’re calculating that when their bombardment of Ukraine starts, there’ll be another wave of refugees from Ukraine, which will be coming into a country that is already super anti-refugee. That’s the game they’re playing. Clever and effective propaganda is when “you’re not there”. So when Russia is directly staying stuff, maybe that works for some audiences but not for those that matter very much. No, they’re playing a much more potentially effective game.

THERE IS A HUGE GAP IN THE U.S. BETWEEN REALITY AND GROTESQUE POLARIZATION IN POLITICS

– What about the United States? We see that the MAGA wing is getting stronger and the messages Ukraine is trying to convey to their voters seem to not be getting through. That’s including that the American money does not actually go to Ukraine but stays on American soil and creates new jobs – that’s just one example. We see religious propaganda gaming momentum, those religious conservatives manipulating the topic of Ukraine arresting some priests of the Moscow Patriarchate. Some of those reports could sound ridiculous here in Ukraine but they do find feedback somewhere in rural America. Do you think our civic sector, journalists, diplomats, and politicians are able to win the hearts of more radical Republicans?

– I’m doing a lot of research about public opinions towards Ukraine in America, And the first thing I would say is support for Ukraine is still very, very strong. So i think in America, we see a bigger crisis, which is American politics no longer represents American people. There is a huge divide between the grotesque polarization in American politics and the reality of America. The vast majority of Americans have the right instincts and the right ideas about Ukraine, the right instincts and the right priorities about Putin.

We’re just in a very weird place where five extremist politicians can hold the whole of the Republican Party hostage. Just a tiny amount of extremist politicians are playing to a very specific cohorts of society, which is around 15 percent, who they need to stay in power in their states. So they have a very messed up system so please don’t get it confused with the American public opinion, which is vastly in favor of Ukraine and vastly against Russia.

If we’re talking about the MAGA vote, it’s around maybe half of Republicans. And again, they’re not pro-Russia. The thing is they really hate Biden, more than they hate Putin. And they are anti-Ukraine because they’re anti-Biden. Once you’re anti-Biden, you will look for any evidence to be anti-Biden: corruption, “Nazis” in Ukraine – it doesn’t matter. But it’s that motivational response. So if you want to appeal to this segment of society, which is maybe 15 to 20 percent of Americans, you have to understand what they really care about. I know this sounds really hard but they don’t care about Russia or Ukraine. They care about America and they care about their version of America.

And here’s the interesting thing about these people. They’re the people who more than anybody else in America think America needs to be the strongest country in the world and show its strength. So, if you want to engage these people, you have to talk to them about American strength, you have to talk to them about how Russia is a force in the world that wants to undermine American strength, which it is. You have to talk to them how Russia works with countries like Iran to hurt and humiliate America. And you have to explain that to them and show them how Russia does it. Because while it’s “support Ukraine!” it’s something very, very far away but when it’s something that threatens the primacy of American strength, then it’s something they can get very engaged in.

It’s worth recalling that it was Trump who bombed Assad in Syria, not Obama, not Biden. So, even to these audiences, there’s a way to reach them, but you have to understand what motivates them and I wouldn’t get too distracted by this disinformation stuff. People will choose whatever disinformation they want when they want to. And if you give people a stronger reason to be on your side, they’ll leave it aside. Sadly, as for the audiences for which truth doesn’t matter very much, you’ve really got to get to their values and their emotional core. And there is a way of reaching. You just have to understand what they care about, and everybody in America hates Putin. You just got to make it clear that it’s their cause as well.

– So would it be best to say that Putin is preventing you from “making America great again”?

– Yes. Exactly. You’re off to a good start.

As for the church thing, I would be spending a lot of time in American churches. I think it’s a very strong moral case to make about why it’s necessary to fight Russia. So again, these are all audiences that can be reached. The only audiences which i think are completely lost are on the kind of weird left. The truly isolationist audiences who truly don’t want America involved. They’re not actually the right-wing audiences. It’s paradoxical. Once you get into the data, you start seeing a lot of these cliches float away.

What MAGA audiences don’t care about is stuff like the rules-based international order or NATO. They don’t care about any of that, they’re ready for America to leave NATO. They really are. So those arguments won’t work – when you’re talking about the international architecture or the world order. They claim they hate the world order so don’t do that argument.

IN PROPAGANDA, A RACE TO BETTER UNDERSTAND HUMAN MOTIVATIONS HAS BEEN GOING ON FOREVER

– We know a lot of work is being done to try to collect evidence to bring to justice those who spread that propaganda, foment enmity, and contribute to the genocidal operations run by the Russian army. What is the best way to gather such an evidence base and perhaps make sure those propaganda pundits and hosts are aware that they will eventually be held accountable?

– It’s more complicated than it sounds because Russian propagandists obviously use genocidal speech. The call to wipe out Ukrainian statehood, wipe out Ukrainian identity, they call for indiscriminate bombardment of civilian populations. And and that is important already. That could already be a crime in itself. Different types of speech can be crimes. But for it to be a really strong case, you’ve got to tie it to effects, to things that actually happened. So if you’re going for genocidal speech, you want to tie it with genocide, and genocide is very hard to prove. I’m thinking there’s a very strong case against Russia but it’s hard. So, i think we’re going to focus on specific war crimes and their relationship with propaganda.

What’s changed with the digital era is that you can do a lot more research showing how propaganda is combined with military actions. If before, it was just a guy on the radio and then something happened, now, you can start following the digital traces, whether there was an increase in digital activity that helped aid and abet a specific war crime in the lead up to that crime. It’s much easier to do that.

Now we live in a new media age. And no one’s really tried to hold propagandists legally accountable at this age. It’s happened before. At Nuremberg some Nazi propagandists were held accountable, and in Yugoslavia. Frankly, propagandists usually get away with it. There’s a few cases where they were found guilty – in Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Nazi Germany… But overall, the problem is they usually walk away. They say “it was just words” and “words don’t kill anyone”. And they say “we didn’t know, we’re just little propagandists we’re just guys we are given a piece of paper, we don’t know what’s going to happen”. The job is to prove that they’re actually integrated into the machine of war crimes.

– So, their actions must be proven to be deliberate and there has to be cause and effect.

– Cause and effect can be many different things. So it’s not like you say something, someone picks up a gun, someone shoots something. It can be much, much more loose than that. It can be around aiding and abetting, it can be around incitement, it can be about legitimization… It’s not like, “I heard (one of Russia’s senior propaganda media figures Margarita – ed.) Simonyan, I picked up a gun and I killed someone.” So cause and effect is much more diffuse than that. Nobody’s looking for that sort of linear cause and effect but you do want to tie it to things on the ground. What I mean is hate speech can be a crime, propaganda for war is a crime in some jurisdictions. Just the speech itself can be a crime that could already be something to get them on but the more you tie it to real crimes on the ground and real harms, the bigger the charge will be.

– You’ve been talking about the digital era and the tools that you now have as an expert to trace things online – how this propaganda spreads and how the links work. But on the other end, we have those propagandists who use the same technology to work with big data and to tailor the messages to address certain audiences. What do you think will be their next level? Do you have any vision of how things will develop in the short term?

– Technology’s always developing and propaganda develops with technology. It always has done so. Whatever Chat GPT will come next, or Deep Fake… So in that sense, propaganda is always reinventing itself. But the more I look at it, and I’ve been looking at historically a lot as well for my new book, the more also stays the same. It is about a race of who can understand people better, understand their motivations better, and who’s going to win that race – the propagandists or those who want to communicate democratic values. And it’s about tapping into people’s anger and hatred, and making that hatred normal, and creating environment where you can commit different types of crimes. So none of that changes. That stays the same from century to century. And from technology to technology. It comes down to something very old and human. And about good and evil.

THE WEST MUST EMBRACE NEW TECH AS TOOLS OF THEIR POLICIES TO DEFEND DEMOCRACY

– We see that the West is desperately trying to to seize back the initiative in the public space worldwide as we see the anti-Semitic statements spreading dramatically, including in Europe and also in the United States where we see all those protests. Do you believe the West was simply not ready for this level of escalation?

– Yes, it’s a paradox because so many of the technologies, including social research tech, are developed in the West. But they’re developed around things like elections or advertising. And what we have stopped doing in the West is thinking about – whatever you want to call it – political warfare, information war – this reality that Russia, China, Iran, terrorists have embraced. They’ve embraced these new technologies and made them a tool of their policy and information warfare.

We kind of haven’t. It’s more an institutional thing – we just don’t who’s job it is. There’s no one whose job it is to do it. This is not public diplomacy, or PR, or anything like that. This is really understanding how you use informational tools for, in our case, the survival of democracy and the victory of democracies over dictatorships. And we stopped doing it. We did it in the Second World War, we did it in the Cold War, and then we stopped. For many reasons. And the question is, will we be able to start again?

– What do you think?

– I think, if we want to survive, we’ll have to. I mean, we’ll have to come up with our own version. We know how the other side works. They work through disinformation campaigns, conspiratorial TV channels, seeding doubts, cynicism. We have to embrace the modern technology and its possibilities, embrace the modern research and its possibilities in order to stand up for democracy. And if we don’t do it, we’ll just lose.

– So would it be right to suggest that those people who are ready and trying to defend democracy but they’re doing it the old way, are not ready to embrace the role of a “bad guy” to actually fight real bad guys effectively?

– I think we’re kidding ourselves we didn’t do it. We did it. In the Second World War, the British had something called a Political Warfare Executive which fought Nazi propaganda. We did it in the Cold War when the Americans had something called the U.S Information Agency. It’s not about good or bad. I don’t think good or  bad is the right language for any of this. It’s about are we going to compete? And at the moment we’re just not.

It’s not the job of journalism to do. Journalism does something else and it’s having its own crisis by the way. It’s the job of what I think will have to be a new generation of information warriors who fight to support democracy. And, it’ll involve understanding audiences, it’ll involve thinking about effects and impacts in really concrete ways. Not in diffuse ways, nothing like we do good stuff but what are we trying to achieve? With which audiences and why? So it’ll involve all those kind of thinkings which we all have but they were just never used for geopolitical aims or for foreign policies. I mean, we use them all the time in election. We use them all the time in campaigns if you want a good example.

The people who’ve been terrific at it has been the Green movement, Greenpeace. They’ve been fantastic at understanding audiences, doing campaigns, pushing their agenda, politicizing it. They’ve done fantastic work. So this is not about getting bad. The cause is good or bad. But, somebody has to invest in it and somebody has to do it, and so far, it’s unclear whose job it is, there’s no department to do this. There are no institutions to do this. I think slowly we’re getting there, but we’re way behind the dictators.

– Do you see any parallels between modern-day information warfare and World War Two, something you’ve been writing about in your new book that’s coming?

– Yeah, in a new book that’s going to come out next year I look at British attempts to undermine Nazi propaganda in Germany. So it’s ways to reach German people, and it was a real mixed experience. There was obviously the BBC and then there was another side British activity. It was called many different things, and that did much more playful and cunning things. Some which worked, and some which didn’t work. And I’m going to tell about that experience in an upcoming book, but we have experience from the Cold War as well, which is much more recent. But it does mean fighting. You know, there’s many different tricks and many different methodologies you can use. There’s many different ways you can engage audiences, but somebody has to do it. And someone has to compete.

To pivot slightly to the war in the Levant, last night way2blue asked this question just as I was racking out and I promised to (try to) answer it tonight:

Adam.  Thank you for tonight’s analysis of Israel’s ill-fated approach to resolving the crisis.  Do you envision any course change as long as Netanyahu is in charge?  (Along with the more extreme members of his coalition.)   Are there any national / regional leaders with the ‘stones’ to persuade Israel’s leaders to temper their actions and focus on the goals you outlined above?

First, you’re, like everyone else, is most welcome. Second, if we’re talking Israeli leaders there is no one that is going to persuade Bibi and his coalition to change course. The next Israeli election will not take place for three more years, so unless a no confidence motion was submitted to the Knesset (parliament) and it passed, Bibi and his coalition aren’t going anywhere. Basically the majority coalition would be bringing itself down. Every member of that is more extreme than Bibi and this was the only real shot to get into a majority coalition and use it to achieve their own objectives of looting the treasury on behalf of the ultra-devout Jewish Israelis (Smotrich) and empowering the worst elements of the settler movement whether ultra-devout, ultra-nationalist, or those who are both, which is most of them at this point (Ben Gvir and Smotrich). Believe it or not, there are actual more extreme members of the governing coalition than Smotrich, who was a protege of Kahane, and Ben Gvir, who is a convicted terrorist.

Even worse, the two members of the Emergency Executive, or whatever they’re calling the troika running the war, are Benny Gantz and Yoav Gallant. Gallant, the Minister of Defense, is farther right than Bibi. Gantz, supposedly, represents the Israeli military and security services leadership, but he is exceedingly hawkish. When people refer to him as a moderate or more moderate that is an incorrect description. He believes in a maximally strong Israeli military and security services and believes in using them as a primary tool of Israel statecraft to deal with both domestic and foreign problems. You’ll notice that Bennet, Lapid, Zandberg (Meretz leader) and other members of the center right to center left to left opposition have not joined the emergency government coalition overlaid on top of Bibi’s Likud led coalition. At this point the only way for Israelis to change their government would be to violently overthrow it in the midst of a war. While this is not that unusual – often interstate wars include within them revolutions, rebellions, civil wars, domestic insurgencies – I highly doubt this would happen or work. Those that would lead it are now activated reserves. While the heads of the Israeli military and its branches, as well as the security services are all appointed by Bibi. He picked those men, and they are all men, because they are ideologically aligned with him

There is also no external way to influence Bibi and his coalitions whether emergency and Likud led. The US gives Israel $4 billion a year and provides it top cover in the UN and other international organizations and the Biden administration has recently admitted  have ZERO  leverage over Bibi and the Israelis. Technically we have 4 billion pieces of leverage, but that would require political will that is not now in evidence.

As for other regional actors, we need to be really honest, none of the Arab states nor Iran really cares about the Palestinians except to use for their own political purposes. The only way they could influence Israel is to band together and attack it. This won’t happen for several reasons. The first being the two US carrier strike groups parked in the Med. The second being that they couldn’t agree among themselves who would actually lead the coalition. All of these leaders despise each other. All of them see their states as the regional hegemon and themselves as the region’s most powerful leader.

That’s enough for tonight.

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  3. 3.

    rekoob

    Just in case you didn’t see it, in the “Lurkers” thread above, several people noted that they are faithful readers of your postings, even though they may not comment directly. While many of us would wish that you had a reserved parking space in Arlington (not the overflow lot on Boundary Channel Drive), we are all grateful for your compilations and insights. You offer us a unique perspective, and we are the better for it.

  4. 4.

    Gin & Tonic

    No issue from me on using the word “Hetman” there.

    Overnight inter-city trains are very common in Ukraine, and have been for decades. If you get a 1st or even 2nd class ticket, they can be restful. If you’re ever tempted to travel in 3rd class, called platzkart, change your plans.

  7. 7.

    Fair Economist

    I am seeing a lot of push to use the excesses of Hamas and the Israeli government to attack Palestinians and Jews in general, respectively. Even on Mastodon, which I’ve found by far the nicest of the social media sites. It does smell like an op to me.

  12. 12.

    Alison Rose

    Germany attempts to get the stick out:

    I needed that chuckle. But still, always glad to see new updates about other countries sending aid and weapons, even if part of the reason why I’m glad about it is that ticking clock I hear constantly regarding US aid.

    Zelenskyy posted a video on FB of his meeting with the Lithuanian Minister of Defense Arvidas Anushauskas. I liked that the guy showed up in cargos and a fleece jacket, and even if it wasn’t meant this way, I prefer to think of it as a sartorial allying with Zelenskyy after Ramascummy’s snide little comment about his clothes at the debate the other night.

    Thank you as always, Adam. Bibi sux.

  13. 13.

    EngIn of creation

    @Beavis C Dawg: Perennial lurker here: I have signed up for this program & have been tutoring a Ukrainian student for several weeks now. Seems legit, and a good way to help – English proficiency is an important part of warfighting and general West/Euro integration, and not enough Ukrainians have achieved it yet. Also, they have recently announced that they have a lack of volunteers.

  21. 21.

    Mike in DC

    Taurus missiles have a range of 500+ km and a 1000lb warhead.  That, once they’re mounted on F-16s, is a serious threat upgrade.

    It might also help nudge the US into releasing the 300km range ATACMS at last.

  22. 22.

    Yutsano

    @Gin & Tonic: ​I was having a small heart attack at the price, but then I saw the currency symbol. Now I don’t know whether to relax or still be in panic.

  23. 23.

    Lyrebird

    @Beavis C Dawg: FWIW I recently started volunteering with them.  Can only speak from the new volunteer perspective, but the two people I’ve worked with have been very goal-oriented (in a good way), very focused…  pleasure to work with & feel like I might be doing a little bit of good.

  24. 24.

    Geminid

    @Mike in DC: I read that the Taurus warhead is especially well suited to taking down heavy structures like the Kerch Bridge, and that may be the reason Prime Minister Scholz is reluctant to supply them.

  28. 28.

    frosty

    @Gin & Tonic: Oh my, that takes me back! I had a tradition in college of a Last Day of Class Fifth of Cheap Wine. Thunderbird was as low as I went; never took the next step to Night Train.

  29. 29.

    Martin

    If $4B and countless UNSC vetos buys you zero leverage, maybe we should stop paying…

    Given that Israel has no nuclear counter in the region, I suspect the US is trapped in this relationship.

  31. 31.

    Another Scott

    @Martin:

    Made me look… JPost.com (from 2016):

    “With America’s help, Israel has grown to be a powerful, modern state. I believe that we can now say that Israel has reached childhood’s end, that it has matured enough to begin approaching a state of self-reliance.”

    Who said this? It was Benjamin Netanyahu, in an address to a joint session of the US Congress in his first term as prime minister in 1996. What Netanyahu announced was essentially the end of American economic aid to Israel, which had been about $1.2 billion since the Camp David Accords were signed in 1979.

    Israel weaned itself off that aid within 10 years, but at the same time it increased the military aid received from Washington, eventually settling on approximately $3b. annually since 2007.
    Continuation of that aid, and the new amount Israel will receive, is currently at the heart of the drawn out aid talks between the Prime Minister’s Office and the White House.

    Much/most of the military aid Israel was getting before October 7 was related to a 10 year MOU agreement signed in 2016 (under Obama) for $38B in total from FY19-FY28 (58 page .PDF).

    (2015-2016 was when Bibi was feuding with Obama on us going to war with Iran over their nuclear program and demanding that the JCPOA be dropped, among other things.)

    tl;dr – The current $4B/y has nothing to do with Camp David (which was my understanding) but has to do with ongoing military aid (including Iron Dome stuff).

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  32. 32.

    wjca

    @Martin: If $4B and countless UNSC vetos buys you zero leverage, maybe we should stop paying…

    Given that Israel has no nuclear counter in the region, I suspect the US is trapped in this relationship.

    Israel is aware that we are in this primarily for domestic political reasons.  (Having Israel be far closer to a Western style democracy than its neighbors makes it an easier sell, but isn’t actually critical.)  So we have no real leverage until the day the voters decide that they no longer want to spend the money.  Until then, yeah we’re trapped . . . by ourselves.

  34. 34.

    Carlo Graziani

    As to what could change the direction of Israeli policy: internally, nothing, as Adam says. But externally, we have the historical example of GHWB and James Baker putting the screws on Yitzhak Shamir by threatening to withhold US loan guarantees if West Bank settlements were not curtailed. That set of US policy choices brought about regime changes and negotiation frameworks that appeared, for a while, to tend to some kind of satisfactory final outcome.

    The cowardice of Yasir Arafat, who walked away from the hard-won settlement on the eve of W’s accession and the Iraq war calamity that reprogrammed US foreign policy away from any Israel-Palestinian settlement, doomed the peace process for almost a quarter-century. But ironically, the Hamas onslaught may be bringing about the last thing that Hamas imagined it was fighting for: a long-delayed US re-engagement in that moribund peace process. There is actual evidence that US foreign policy and NatSec institutions are finally reading the riot act to Likud, at a time when Likud’s hold on power appears as tenuous as it has ever been. Blinken appears to actually be channelling James Baker these days.

    And make no mistake: the US remains, to this day, the only conceivable midwife, agent, and guarantor of an Israeli-Palestinian settlement, which must necessarily be a peace between enemies.

    Nothing has changed in this regard since AD 2000. I believe that “Abraham Accord”-type initiatives, together with their reframing of Mideast security as a matter of collective defense against Iran, are finally and definitively bankrupted. The core issue is now exposed to be what it always was: Israel’s coexistence with its annexed Arab population. The US policy enterprise appears to finally be resuming the reins of its manifest responsibilities. It’s been a long time coming.

  36. 36.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Carlo Graziani:

    The cowardice of Yasir Arafat, who walked away from the hard-won settlement

    With respect, it wasn’t a viable settlement: the areas left to the PA were fragmented and there was no way for the PA to actually govern as a state.  Israel took the best land and the PA’s areas were riven thru with Israel-controlled transit corridors, as well as (IIRC) Israeli control of the Jordan River Valley.  It was anything but a fair settlement.  I leave out of this (of course) any hint of a “right of return” — I think that that’s never going to happen, and as a supporter of the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state, I agree with that position.  But the idea that somehow Israel actually bargained in good faith in 2000 is ludicrous.  Even under Barak, Israel continued to build new settlements, after all

    ETA: there was a long article about all  this in the NYRB, back in the early noughties.  It explained all this in excruciating detail.

  37. 37.

    way2blue

    @Gin & Tonic: Oh.  Citrus wine?  I don’t even know what that means.  And Modesto?  Pass.  Although it might be just the thing for sleeping on a night train…

  38. 38.

    Carlo Graziani

    Pomerantsev’s take is not wrong in its own terms, but it makes me deeply uneasy.

    We are a democracy. In the end, our founding ideology is based on the primacy of reason-based truth. The idea of government entering the lists of truth-manipulation to condition the beliefs of our own citizens, even in self-defense, strikes me as deeply wrong, and as antithetical to the principles that make our nation worth defending in the first place.

    There has to be some point at which pragmatic logic goes too far in prescribing how we ought to defend ourselves. This is it, for me.

  39. 39.

    Carlo Graziani

    @Chetan Murthy: 

    With respect, it wasn’t a viable settlement: the areas left to the PA were fragmented and there was no way for the PA to actually govern as a state.

    Respect assumed implicitly, Chetan. There are many reads on this history, I certainly don’t think mine is dispositive.

  40. 40.

    way2blue

    thank you Adam for delving into the political dynamic that holds Netanyahu in power.  Bleak is the word that comes to mind.

  44. 44.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Carlo Graziani: As Another Scott posted in comment 31, the $3 to $4 billion we give Israel every year are not the same types of funding as the loan guarantees when Begin and Shamir were the PM. These are a 10 year statutory requirement.

    We do actually have leverage. We could threaten to pull the carrier groups out of the Med and the Arleigh Burke class out of the Red Sea. Tell Israel they’re on their own at the UN. Threaten to veto a supplemental for them. Unless they straighten up and fly right. It won’t happen. None of Biden’s senior natsec people would advise this and Biden wouldn’t go along with it. The only good news is Biden is president not Trump. Trump would’ve nuked Gaza by close of business on 7 OCT.

  45. 45.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Carlo Graziani:

    @Chetan Murthy:

    A lot of people have made the case that the deal Arafat got from Ehud Barak was the best he was going to get from any Israeli government. That might have been true. However, as Chetan Murthy said, it wasn’t remotely a fair or just (& thus, sustainable) deal. If Arafat accepted that deal, he probably would have been assassinated, & Fatah overthrown by Hamas or another extremist alternative. Suggesting that Israel should be able to unilaterally set the terms of settlement & the Palestinian has to take them as they are is the height of arrogance & myopia. If a competitor/rival/adversary of the West tried to “negotiate” in this manner, I don’t think anyone in the West would be as charitable as they have been to Israel.

    Of course, Arafat could have chosen another path than the 2nd Intifata, which was ultimately counterproductive & self-defeating. Fatah could have chosen a path of peaceful protest & non-collaboration.

    A 3rd Intifada would have been fully justified now, given Israeli policies & conduct in the WB & Gaza over the past decade, but not the barbarity of Hamas’ 10/7 assault.

  46. 46.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Adam L Silverman: Why did the US stop using its immense leverage to coerce Israel into modifying its behavior in ways suitable to US (& arguable Israel’s own) interests? Did the US evangelicals not make the connection between Israel & Rapture until the 90s?

    The lack of political will in the US to use its leverage w/ Israel, when it is more than willing to do so w/ allies/partners/competitors/rivals, actually undermines US position & credibility w/ the same allies/partners/competitors/rivals.

  47. 47.

    Argiope

    @Adam L Silverman: Ha! I prefer to think of you as a chef who understands how to make Brussels sprouts truly palatable.  We will eat it, and we will like it!  Thanks for putting it all together for us, day after day, and adding enough Patron-adjacent cream cheese to the caca & cream cheese sandwich, making it all a little easier to take in.

  48. 48.

    Carlo Graziani

    @YY_Sima Qian: Likud in effect made itself the foreign policy arm of the Republican party during the Clinton Administration, through the coterie of neocons who eventually acceeded to power with W’s election. They had no interest in coercing Israel into doing anything, but rather felt that what the Middle East needed was a forceful Democracy Enema, which they flattered themselves they were supplying to the region when the opportunity arose to go after Hussein in Iraq.

    At that point, many things changed very quickly for the worse. One of them is that Arab Nationalism was finally definitively discredited as a vehicle for conveying the Arab world to a state of dignified modernity, leaving only the Islamist lunatics as the only remaining pan-Arab political movement capable of agency in the face of the old and new colonialisms. Arafat and the Palestinian leadership had always styled themselve Nationalists, following the likes of Nasser, Hussein, Qaddafi, etc., which made them at least Western in their sources of ideology. But now their authority could be effectively challenged by the Islamists who rejected the idea of any sort of settlement with Israel under any circumstances. When Hamas took over Gaza, the Palestinians looked too weak, helpless and divided to be reckoned by Israel as an enemy worth treating with.

    Another thing that happened was the long, bleeding wound in Iraq, the collapse of Syria, the rise of a consensus in the region that the strategic challenge from Iran far outweighed the importance of a just settlement in the Territories, the decisive turn by Israeli voters against peace negotiations and the concomitant dominance by Likud over Israeli politics. So many new facts on the ground had cemented themselves in this new shape that the Obama administration largely accepted this new landscape, for all that they loathed Likud and their Neocon allies.

    And the Democratic foreign policy establishment never got around to even talking seriously about shifting back to brokering Israeli-Palestinian talks until last month’s events demonstrated how fragile the new Middle East architecture really is. Now Blinken is saying what was until recently considered unsayable (or at least not worth saying), to wit that the Israeli West Bank settlements are a problem, and that some kind of peace effort needs to be restarted.

    The reason I think that this is worth taking seriously is that this conflict has clear domestic political dangers imperilling the Democratic coalition at the worst possible time. And it remains the case that every Democratic official loathes Likud. Now, for the first time in nearly a quarter-century, they have the means and motives to do something about it.

  49. 49.

    Carlo Graziani

    @Argiope: Brussel sprouts are delicious! Try halving them, tossing them with oil and salt, then placing them face down in a pan, and turning the heat on to “weld” until they char. You can then toss in some almonds, let them start to roast and pop, then turn the heat down, add some garlic and white wine, salt, and pepper, and stir. When the wine is mostly gone they’ll be ready to be moved to a serving dish and drizzled with good-quality olive oil.

    Or, try shaving them with the slicing disk in a food processor, and using them in a salad of your own design.

  50. 50.

    Argiope

    @Carlo Graziani: ​
      Oh, I totally agree–and I’ve learned to make them in ways I like (and will try yours, too!). But they are worlds away from mushy boiled ones. Skill really matters with Brussels sprouts. Adam’s carefully curated posts remind me of that.

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