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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Israel-Hamas War Update: Shrodinger’s Ceasefire

Israel-Hamas War Update: Shrodinger’s Ceasefire

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Last night I put up a comment in my Ukraine war update thread indicating that the ceasefire had been pushed back (at least) a day:

As of this morning there appears to be forward movement:

We appear to be moving to implementation of the ceasefire and exchanges of Hamas and PIJ held hostages for Palestinian prisoners, fuel, and humanitarian supplies sometime tomorrow – Friday – AM.

Of course things keep changing:

Barak Ravid’s reporting from last night at Axios after the jump: (emphasis mine)

The four-day pause in fighting between Hamas and Israel in Gaza will begin at 7 am local time on Friday, with the first group of hostages set to be released later that day, a Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Thursday.

Driving the news: The announcement of the timeline for the Qatar-mediated deal came after a brief delay in the implementation of the agreement, which will see Hamas free at least 50 Israeli women and children in exchange for a multi-day pause in the fighting in Gaza and the release of 150 Palestinian women and children held in Israeli prisons.

  • But Qatar received the lists of the first groups of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners who will be released, paving the way for the implementation of the deal to begin on Friday. The first group of hostages is expected to be released at 4 pm local time.
  • Hamas’ military wing also confirmed the pause in fighting is set to begin on Friday at 7 am local time.
  • The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office confirmed that Israel has received a list of hostages who will be released on Friday. “The list is being verified and the families are being notified,” the office said.

Details: The initial 50 hostages are expected to be released in four groups over the four-day pause in what has been described as the first phase of the deal, according to Israeli officials who briefed reporters.

  • The Israeli officials also expressed cautious optimism that Hamas will agree to release additional hostages in exchange for Israel extending the pause in fighting. Under the agreement, Israel will extend the pause for every 10 additional hostages released.
  • “We know Hamas are holding at least 70-80 women and children and that we can get all of them,” one of the officials said.

According to Israeli estimates, 40 children under the age of 19 and 13 mothers were abducted and brought to Gaza during the Oct. 7 terrorist attack.

  • The Israeli officials said they believe other factions in Gaza are holding at least some of the children, but they are ready to give Hamas incentives to locate all of them.

There is more at the link!

I want to emphasize, again, that Sinwar/Hamas DO NOT know where all the hostages are, let alone the women and children. As such, Sinwar does not know if they’re alive or dead. And as we get into the second, third, and fourth day of this ceasefire this reality is going to become a major problem. Especially as Sinwar is getting far more from this temporary ceasefire than Bibi is. Sinwar has agreed to exchange at last 50 and up to 70 women and children hostages, which may not be possible because Hamas is not holding all of them. In exchange, Sinwar gets at least a four day stop in Israeli combat operations, three Palestinian prisoners – Palestinian women and children – currently incarcerated in Israel prisons on terrorism convictions for each Israeli hostage, fuel, and humanitarian supplies.

Just a note: the Palestinian prisoners are not really terrorists. These are largely women and children charged and convicted on nuisance charges, such as throwing rocks at IDF armored vehicles in east Jerusalem or the occupied West Bank or otherwise resisting the way that Israel’s security forces treat the Palestinians. For instance, under orders from/with the approval of convicted terrorist Ben Gvir, last week the Israelis demolished the house of a 13 year old Palestinian boy convicted as a terrorist for attacking an Israeli police officer. The actual details are that a child angry at being mistreated tried to stab an Israeli cop in east Jerusalem. He was disarmed, but another officer in the attempt to shoot and kill the boy missed and shot and killed the first cop. So the Israelis charged the 13 year old with terrorism and murder. I don’t know if he’ll be part of this prisoner exchange, but if he is, he has no home to go back to.

Quote tweet:

Please note that Qatar in its statement emphasizes its intention that this ceasefire will lead to the end of the war – and this is exactly the number one goal of Hamas

Quoted tweet:

I have said this a lot in the last two weeks, but it is important to emphasize again: the prisoners who will be released as part of a deal with Israel (who are far from the definition of serious prisoners) are not of interest to Hamas.

What is critical for Hamas is this: a cease-fire as long as possible through which it will try to manipulate that will lead to an end to the war and to saving its leadership and rule in the Strip

There are a lot of moving pieces here and it appears the details are changing on the fly.

Hamas keeps changing its terms/requirements. The International Committee of the Red Cross is still saying it hasn’t been contacted to facilitate the exchanges. And Bibi decided to dial the rhetoric back up in his press conference last night.

This was in response to Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Meshal apparently not understanding the gravity of the situation that the 7 October attack has created for them:

Here’s the reporting by Elior Levy that Noga Tarnopolsky is referring too:

Quote tweet:

Extraordinary quotes from the closed rooms of two by their full names (neither Hamas officials nor senior Hamas officials): Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Mashal.

These are the testimonies that have reached me about what the Hamas leadership thinks about the war and the future of the Gaza Strip, and what they are conveying to those who have sat in the same rooms with them for the past two weeks. And it is nothing less than amazing:

Quoted tweet:

“It’s clear that they didn’t get the message and they don’t really understand what’s happening in the Gaza Strip”: how does the Hamas leadership treat the war?

@eliorlevy with the exclusive testimonies of sources who recently met with Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Mashal
#חדשותהערב

While all of this is going on, Bibi and his extremist coalition partners are continuing to overturn Israel’s constitutional order by fiat using the state of emergency as cover for their actions. What they could not achieve legislatively in the spring, they are going to force into place under cover of the war.

First tweet:

First publication: At the height of the fighting, Justice Minister Yariv Levin continues to delay the election of a permanent president of the Supreme Court: He set a hearing of the committee for the selection of judges on December 14, which is intended for a discussion on the election of supreme judges, but without a discussion on a supreme president. It is simply inconceivable that Levin still believes that the legal coup laws should be promoted

Second tweet:

In response, people around Levin say that the issue of appointing a president to the Supreme Court will also be discussed at the meeting on December 14, without a vote on the appointment. They add that this is a “semantic” mistake and that under the title of Supreme Courts’ discussion, it is also meant to be a discussion about a Supreme President. We will wait and see

And it isn’t just the judiciary, he’s going full Putin, Orban, Erdogan, and Trump:

In light of the consistent distribution of “defeatist and false propaganda, and incitement against the State of Israel during the war” in the Haaretz newspaper, I have now submitted to the government, a resolution proposal to stop the funding of the Haaretz newspaper, including the cessation of publication and the subscription fees of all users of the state service, including the IDF, police, SHBS, government offices and any government company.

 

Israeli propaganda to the world: “There is a struggle here between a murderous terrorist organization and the only democracy in the Middle East”

The Israeli Minister of Communications to the world: “Look how I am trying to eliminate the Israeli newspaper that is best known abroad, in order to gain likes from the base”

Haiyat, ministers of the Israeli government. It’s true that you’re not helping anything, but at least don’t get in the way

Never go full Putin, Orban, Erdogan, and Trump!

The notifications of who is being released are going well:

This is already a shit show. And it is going to get worse. Especially when families find out Sinwar can’t locate their family members or that they have died while being held by the PIJ or the Gazan criminal gangs that took them!

Finally, Princess asked this question in the comments to my Ukraine war update last night:

On Israel — so we have been told that the Hamas assault was intended to grab hostages that could be used in a big prisoner swap. Makes sense from events. But after six weeks Sinwar still doesn’t know where they are? Knows so little he can’t even cobble together fifty women and children to hand over out of 200+? Something isn’t holding together. Is it a sign of conflict among the jihadists? Is he lying? Are most of them already dead?

The answer is that Sinwar’s Hamas fighters were not the only hostage takers. Nor does he actually care about them. What he wants is to keep the consensus of the war – its causes, how it is being prosecuted by both sides – firmly focused on Israel. He wants people who know better – like Martin Griffiths – to make stupid statements like this:

Sinwar wants the discussion to be that the IDF found no evidence that Hamas was using al Shifa Hospital as cover for its operations, despite facts indicating otherwise:

When you consider the sourcing, remember that Israel’s government, as indicated above, is now going after Haaretz for not being suitably sycophantic and jingoistic in its reporting.

Finally, he also wants to be able to protect his assets. Via the Internet archive, here’s The Economist‘s accounting of Hamas’s war chest, which you’ll notice they’re not using to improve the lives of anyone in Gaza:

Viewed from one of Istanbul’s glitziest restaurants, the Bosphorus looks sublime. The venue is a favoured haunt of mandarins, businessmen, minor celebrities—and Hamas’s financiers. A man on whom America has imposed sanctions for funding the Islamist group describes his various board seats. “It’s ridiculous,” he says, of America’s accusation, but eventually admits, “now, if you’re asking what our employees do with their own money, why would I know?”

Hamas has three sources of power: its physical force inside Gaza, the reach of its ideas and its income. Since Hamas’s attacks on October 7th, Israel has killed more than 12,000 Palestinians in Gaza in seeking to wreck the first. But Israel’s declared goal of destroying Hamas for good requires its financial base to be dismantled, too. Very little of this sits in Gaza at all. Instead, it is overseas in friendly countries. Furnished with money-launderers, mining companies and much else, Hamas’s financial empire is reckoned to bring in more than $1bn a year. Having been painstakingly crafted to avoid Western sanctions, it may be out of reach for Israel and its allies.

Hamas’s income pays for everything from schoolteachers’ salaries to missiles. Around $360m each year comes from import taxes on goods brought into Gaza from the West Bank or Egypt. This is the easiest source of cash for Israel to strangle. After withdrawing from the strip in 2005, it strictly limited the movement of goods and people across the border. Now it stops even most basic necessities from getting in.

A much larger income stream, though, comes from abroad. Israeli officials reckon this amounts to around $750m per year, making it the main source of funding for Hamas’s current stockpile of arms and fuel. Some comes from friendly governments, the biggest of which is Iran. America reckons that the ayatollahs provide $100m to Palestinian Islamist groups, mainly in military aid. The task for Hamas’s financiers is to move this money around without falling prey to America’s sanctions. In the past month alone, American officials have imposed three rounds of restrictions on people and companies for funding Hamas.

Dodging American sanctions requires some ingenuity. Millions of dollars flow to Hamas through crypto markets. “You’d be surprised how much of the market’s activity comes back to [Hamas],” says Firuze Segzin, an economist at Bilkent University. America’s treasury department says Hamas has smuggled more than $20m through Redin, a currency exchange crammed among tourist shops deep in Istanbul’s run-down Fatih neighbourhood.

But the lion’s share of Hamas’s money—at least $500m a year, say Israeli officials—comes from its investments, some of which are firms registered in countries across the Middle East. These are run by professionals from Hamas’s investment office and employ its members. American officials say the firms donate to charities which in turn funnel funds to Hamas; Turkish officials say profits are sometimes taken directly. Untangling these revenue streams is tricky for Western regulators. One such firm built the Afra Mall, Sudan’s first shopping mall, while another mines near Khartoum, its capital. A third built skyscrapers in Sharjah, in the United Arab Emirates (uae). Many of these companies boast of their business deals, but deny affiliation with Hamas.

Can any revenue streams remaining to Hamas be choked off? That depends on the countries through which they flow. Since 1989, when Israel arrested a handful of Hamas’s top brass in Gaza and the West Bank, its bankers have lived abroad. Over time, though, geopolitical shifts have forced them to keep moving. Hamas abandoned its first financial hub, Amman, after Jordan’s ties to America grew too close.

Today, while Hamas’s politicians favour Doha, the capital of Qatar, and its companies range from Algeria and Sudan to the uae, its financiers live in Istanbul. Zaher Jabarin, accused by Israel of running Hamas’s finances (which he denies), is based there, as are several other individuals under sanctions by America for funding the organisation. Eager to gain regional influence by supporting the Palestinian cause, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president, offers shelter. Israel says that the Turkish government hands out passports (which it denies) and lets Hamas keep an office in the country.

Meanwhile, Turkey’s banking system helps Hamas dodge American sanctions by conducting complex transactions across the world. A booming, lightly regulated crypto market helps. Many of Turkey’s biggest banks, including Kuveyt Turk, have been accused by Israel and America of knowingly storing Hamas’s cash. Some murmur that Mr Erdogan quietly approves. In 2021 the Financial Action Task Force, a g7 watchdog, placed Turkey on its “grey list” of countries doing too little to freeze terrorists’ assets.

No one benefits more than Hamas’s businessmen. The Turkish government’s tacit approval “opens doors and makes things smooth in business”, says one of the group’s finance employees. Trend gyo, an Istanbul-listed firm that has been placed under sanctions by America for funnelling funds to Hamas, won an official contract to build Istanbul Commerce University. Construction companies, which feature heavily in Hamas’s portfolio, can quietly swallow huge lumps of cash, and regularly receive large loans. All this allows Turkish officials to say that they are not directly lining Hamas’s pockets.

So far, Hamas seems financially bulletproof. Israel has inflicted little harm on either its income or savings; Turkey’s banks have been unco-operative. America’s numerous sanctions are less effective if their targets can keep cash outside its banking system. And Hamas hides its companies well. “Every time you think you’ve got a big fish, it changes its name,” despairs one ex-Treasury official.

In fact, the risk is that Hamas’s finances will improve. As Israel steps up its attacks on Gaza, Western governments may blanch at the humanitarian horror. Countries with pro-Palestinian populations may make it even easier for Hamas to earn money. For months, rumours have circulated that some civil servants in Mr Erdogan’s economic ministry are co-ordinating with Hamas’s finance office.

For Israel, Hamas growing richer despite the war would be a disaster. With its wealth and financial roots intact, it—or a similar organisation—may well flourish after the destruction. Gazans, meanwhile, have been plunged into tragedy so that Israel can destroy a group whose money and power are safely ensconced elsewhere. Compare their plight to the picture in Istanbul: eating lobster and gazing at the Bosphorus.

That’s enough for today.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

51Comments

  1. 1.

    Raoul Paste

    Thanks for this dose of  reality.  I had always wondered about the sources of Hamas, funding.    There is so much corruption in this world.

  4. 4.

    Matt Smith

    Adam, thanks for this, as always.

    You said a couple weeks ago that a multi-front war would be an existential threat to Israel. Can you explain this analysis? I’m trying to make sense of those who feel Hamas poses no real military threat and those who feel any attack is potentially an existential threat. I’ve always believed the former without thinking much about it. Thanks.

  6. 6.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Adam L Silverman: i thought even going back to the Mueller report there was clear evidence that GRU Operatives we’re using cryptocurrency to transfer money to the United States to fund their efforts to fix the 2016 election.  I remember specifically allegations that cryptocurrency was used to rent servers and pay for incidental living expenses for agents.

  7. 7.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Matt Smith: You’re most welcome.

    A multi-front war will pull in Iran. Israel versus Hamas in Gaza, Hezbullah in Lebanon, Hezbullah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps & the Quds Force in Syria. There’s only so many resources that can be put in so many places at once.  Especially as I’d expect a 3rd intifadeh in the West Bank. That’s not counting that Israel is currently facing a large internally displaces persons (IDP) problem from the Negev emptying out because of the 7 OCT attack. Now imagine what happens with the north and the east also empty as Israelis flee to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in an attempt to get away from the fighting.

    Israel as it existed prior to 7 OCT is gone. What may emerge when this war is over is unknown. But I expect it will not be what anyone wants to see.

  9. 9.

    Bill Arnold

    Does Shlomo Karhi get all huffy when he is called the Minister of Propaganda?
    Whatever. From scanning the last year’s news, he is an authoritarian asshole. (And an enemy of Israel, IMO.)

  11. 11.

    Martin

    I would argue that ‘worst ever’ still applies in Gaza. I’m pretty sure the UN had a different sense of their ability to influence Syria vs Israel. Waking up one day to these kinds of civilian casualties from a nation that you thought were receptive to international norms, diplomacy, and the like makes you wonder what other nations are ready to flip the script.

    We had a mass shooting near my wife’s church a little bit ago. But it was a targeted thing so people didn’t really change their day to day. But if I woke up tomorrow to learn one of my very normal, boring neighbors had gotten an AR-15 and shot up a place at random, I would think that’s worse – because it changes what I thought was possible and likely, and would have a greater knock-on effect to everyone else’s behavior.

  12. 12.

    Martin

    @Adam L Silverman: Well, that’s not really what it really means (it also really means something other than what the people who use it intend) but that is collateral damage that they are entirely okay with. Effective altruism keeps tipping into this category of ‘we shall have no moral obligation today so long as we pretend we will have a moral obligation in the future’.

    Keep an eye on AI to operate as a substitute for crypto as a means to flow money to bad actors. Basically being run by people with similar views and lack of concern for near term consequences like funding of terrorists, etc.

  13. 13.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Villago Delenda Est: I’m most likely having scrambled eggs for dinner. I can’t eat anything with refined sugar or carbohydrates, though I’m allowed oatmeal/oat flour and limited amounts of rice. I’ve got an apple walnut cake I adapted using monk fruit crystals and oat flour, so will likely have a piece of that after my eggs.

  15. 15.

    Carlo Graziani

    Good update, Adam.

    Up-to-date information and forecasts on USG thinking, and on its movements in public and behind the scenes, would be helpful to gathering a “how does this end” picture, in my opinion.

  16. 16.

    marklar

    Gaza as the worst ever?

    Equating war crimes resulting in tens of thousands of causalities with war crimes resulting in hundreds of thousands of casualties or genocide with millions of casualties lead me to three hypotheses.

    1- Disingenuously holding Israel to a higher standard (which seems to come fairly easily when one holds implicit Anti-Semitic beliefs, although that isn’t always the case)

    2- Holding ‘non-Western’ countries to a lower standard than Western countries (which seems to come fairly easily when one holds implicitly racist beliefs)

    3- Innumeracy

    4- An added sense of responsibility since American tax dollars support Israel.  Then again, Martin Griffiths isn’t American.

  17. 17.

    Jackie

    Adam: Thank you for all your work keeping us informed and updated on this – in addition to your valuable Ukraine updates!

    Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family!

  18. 18.

    Matt Smith

    @Adam L Silverman: I haven’t been to Israel in 25 years, when I lived there for a year. Largely stopped paying attention from the Second Intifada till now. The more attention I pay now, the more I see Israelis unconcerned with Palestinians, with zero understanding of Palestinian perspectives or sympathy for legitimate concerns. And vice versa. I used to pay attention to the Israeli peace movement, so I wasn’t expecting this level of polarization. I find it very discouraging. Like you, I’m not hopeful that this is going anywhere anyone would like.

  19. 19.

    Nukular Biskits

    Thanks for the update, Adam, particularly the info regarding Hamas’s funding.

    Which begs the question as to what the Israeli gov’t really thinks it’s going to accomplish by invading Gaza.

    Beyond the political machinations/motivations of Israeli hardliners like Netanyahu, of course.

  20. 20.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Carlo Graziani: I have no idea what they’re thinking. Ravid seems to have the best reporting in Axios in English and in Walla News in Hebrew on what they’re doing.

  23. 23.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Nukular Biskits: You’re welcome.

    The declared strategic objectives are:

    1. To degrade Hamas by destroying its capability – in personnel, material, infrastructure, and killing its leadership.
    2. To recover the hostages.

    Whether what they’re doing would or could achieve these stated objectives is another question entirely.

  25. 25.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Martin:

    @Adam L Silverman:

    While I think Martin Griffith’s comments were tone deaf, 1 out of every 200 of the 2+M Gazans have been killed by Israeli strikes in a matter of weeks. Proportional to the US population that would be 1.7M Americans. That is a rate comparable to the Killing Fields of Cambodia. Then there is the matter of utter destruction of infrastructure that is foundamental to survival. & the high intensity portion of the War in Gaza is set to continue for months, even after this ceasefire, & may well extend to the southern part of the Strip that Israel had told the Gazans to flee to.

  26. 26.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Adam L Silverman: Sinwar probably knew where the hostages taken by Hamas were on Oct. 8, but he probably does not know now. Northern Gaza has been utterly pulverized, surely many Hamas operatives and possibly hostages have fled south, & Hamas’ own C&C degraded by the Israeli assaults.

  27. 27.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Adam L Silverman: I do want to join the chorus & thank you for the informative update on a Thanksgiving weekend. Doesn’t feel like this holiday season will be a cheerful one.

  28. 28.

    Adam L Silverman

    @YY_Sima Qian: It isn’t the ones being held by Hamas that are the issue. It’s the one being held by PIJ and the Gazan criminal gangs that he can’t account for.

  32. 32.

    Captain C

    @Nukular Biskits:

    Which begs the question as to what the Israeli gov’t really thinks it’s going to accomplish by invading Gaza.

    Beyond the political machinations/motivations of Israeli hardliners like Netanyahu, of course.

    I suspect Netanyahu thinks he’ll stay out of jail and distract from his attempted co-optation of the entire Israeli justice system, and his hardline cabinet members think they’ll be able to take the whole West Bank without anyone noticing.  I’m not sure they’ve thought beyond that at all.  Hopefully they all turn out to be completely delusional.

  33. 33.

    Adam L Silverman

    Oh goody, now Dublin is out of control. The Guardian:

    Violent protests have flared in Dublin after a stabbing attack outside a school left three children injured.

    A crowd chanting anti-immigrant slogans set a police car on fire and attacked several officers on Thursday night hours after a man stabbed a woman and three young children, leaving one in critical condition.

    Police detained a man in his 50s, who was also being treated for injuries, and said they were not seeking other suspects.

    Authorities did not identify the man but anti-immigrant groups said he was a foreigner and gathered near the scene of the attack in Parnell Square in the north of Ireland’s capital.

    Sections of the crowd clashed with police, reportedly injuring several officers. Authorities suspended bus and tram services in parts of Dublin and called for calm.

    The stabbing incident happened at about 1.30pm on Thursday outside Gaelscoil Choláiste Mhuire, a school at Parnell Square East, a bustling part of Ireland’s capital.

    Police said a five-year-old girl, a woman in her 30s and a man in his 50s sustained serious injuries. The girl was receiving emergency medical treatment. A five-year-old boy and six-year-old girl were treated for less severe injuries. The boy was discharged from hospital.

    Supt Liam Geraghty told a press conference at Mountjoy garda station, which set up an incident room, that a man in his 50s who was detained was a “person of interest” and police were not looking for anyone else at this time. Geraghty appealed to anyone with information about the incident, including mobile phone footage of the attack and its aftermath, to come forward.

    He praised the bystanders who intervened in what he said was a traumatic and dangerous incident.

    The garda commissioner, Drew Harris, said it was too early to ascribe a motive. “An individual has been arrested, we’re not seeking anyone else in respect of this incident itself at this moment in time but the investigation will obviously unfold.”

    Violent scenes broke out near the site of the attack on Thursday night as crowds of protesters gathered. A police car and a tram were set on fire and some protesters were involved in scuffles with gardai, while others threw bottles at officers.

    Harris called for “calm heads” and warned against “misinformation” as he condemned the “disgraceful scenes” in Dublin. He said a “complete lunatic faction driven by far-right ideology” was behind the disorder and a number of garda vehicles had been damaged.

    “We are drafting in resources to deal with that and that will be dealt with properly. I’ve given full direction to our resources here in respect of making arrests and bringing offenders to justice,” he said.

    “It’s our responsibility to make sure that we police the streets, and part of that is we ask people to act responsibly and not to listen to the misinformation and rumour that is circulating on social media.

    “The facts are being established, but the facts are still not clear on a lot of the rumour and the innuendo is being spread for malevolent purposes.”

    In a statement, the Irish justice minister, Helen McEntee, said: “The horrific attack today in Dublin city centre was an appalling crime that has shocked us all.

    “However, the scenes we are witnessing this evening in our city centre cannot and will not be tolerated. A thuggish and manipulative element must not be allowed to use an appalling tragedy to wreak havoc.”

    Gaelscoil Choláiste Mhuire is an Irish-medium primary school with 172 pupils based in a four-storey Georgian building on Parnell Square, a busy thoroughfare in Dublin’s north inner city.

    The attack reportedly happened as pupils emerged from the school. Bystanders disarmed the suspect and pinned him to the ground, with several kicking him, one witness, Siobhan Kearney, told RTÉ. “People were trying to attack the man. So me and an American lady formed a ring around him saying we’d wait on the garda.”

    Another man safeguarded the knife for police to retrieve, said Kearney. “Two children and the woman were taken back into the school where they were coming from. It was absolutely bedlam.”

    Ambulances and other emergency services arrived within minutes. Streets were sealed off and the area was declared a crime scene.

    Leo Varadkar expressed shock. The taoiseach said in a statement: “A number of people have been injured, some of them children. Our thoughts and our prayers go out to them and their families.”

    Varadkar thanked emergency services for what he said was a speedy response. “Gardaí have detained a suspect and are following a definite line of inquiry.”

    As you can imagine, the worst people in the world are on Twitter exploiting this insanity.

    I’m good, but I can’t do 3 wars at the same time.

  35. 35.

    Dan B

    Years ago I rented a room in my house to a guy from Gaza.  Guess who he worked for.  Price Waterhouse Coopers.

    We, a gay couple, were the only people who would rent to him.  After six months he relocated to Vancouver B.C.  The only people who would rent to him were gay guys.

    So, was he helping launder money?  Probably.

    Was he telling other Palestinians that he was rooming with gay guys.  Probably not.

  37. 37.

    Miss Bianca

    @Martin: Just had a mass shooting down the road at a neighbor’s – even made the national news. Maybe because people have such a hard time believing that “it could happen here.”

    One of my FB friends was lamenting, “isn’t there anywhere safe anymore?” to which I could only say, “you expect to to feel SAFE in a rural American county chock full o’ guns and nutter-butters?”

  39. 39.

    YY_Sima Qian

    On the subject of Israel detaining thousands of Palestinians w/o trial for nuisance crimes, Vox has more details:

    Why Israel imprisons so many Palestinians
    150 Palestinian prisoners are being released as part of Israel and Hamas’s recent hostage deal. But thousands more remain behind bars.

    The way successive Israeli governments going back decades have used administrative detention to silence, intimidate & punish any Palestinian deemed at all critical of the Occupation & Israel mistreatment, is quite reminiscent of how the CPC regime in the PRC does the same against anyone remotely deemed susceptible to separatism, militancy & religious fundamentalism in Xinjiang. The way Israel officials argue that they do not need to follow Israeli laws in their treatment of the Palestinians of the WB (because it is not part of Israel) sure is reminiscent of the GWB administration’s tendentious claims wrt Guantanamo Bay.

    Here is Isaac Chotiner’s interview w/ Senatore Ben Cardin in the New Yorker covering a range of topics, but note how incongruous Cardin’s stance wrt Israel is w/ that toward the ROW:

    Should U.S. Aid to Israel Be Contingent on Human Rights?
    Senator Ben Cardin, the head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, argues that humanitarian concerns should not hold up funding for Israel’s war effort.

    I have seen on Twitter a steady stream of European academics (especially in Germany) being censured, having events canceled, or outright fired for expressing views that the Haaretz publishes on a regular basis. Harvard Law Review just decided to cancel of the publication of a Palestinian doctoral candidate’s essay arguing there is a genocide ongoing in Gaza (after it had been edited, fact-checked & approved), in an obvious act of self-censorship. Perhaps the students that run the HLR are afraid of jeopardizing potentially lucrative offers from top law firms or prestigious clerkships? The Palestinian scholar’s arguments could be wrong, but what happened to encouraging diversity of views in scholarship?

    It’s like large number of North Americans & Europeans, even self-proclaimed liberals, lose their moorings when it comes to Israel.

    Here is an article in Foreign Affairs written by Amos Yadlin & Udi Evental on possible endgame for Israel:

    Why Israel Slept
    The War in Gaza and the Search for Security

    They acknowledge that the end game has to include a political settlement w/ the Palestinians, & keeping the hope of a Two State Solution alive (but not so far as its realization). Absent is acknowledgement that Israeli defenses around Gaza was denuded because IDF units were diverted to the WB to support the extremist settlers in their slow motion ethnic cleansing. Their proposals for moving toward a political settlement w/ the PA does not include any mentions of stopping the settlement activity or reining in settler violence, or grapple w/ the fact that the PA is weak, corrupt & seen as illegitimate at least partly the result Israeli strategy over 2 decades destroy the former’s credibility as potential partners in peace. Their section claiming supposed efforts by the IDF to follow international law & minimize civilian casualties in its prosecution of the war in Gaza is laughable on its face, & worthy of RT propaganda.

    There are also delusional aspects to their proposals. They advocate a shift to preventive wars to destroy any potential threats. Such unrestrained militarism will crater support (at least among the populations) of both the Global North & the Global South, & make it more difficult for the Sunni Arab states to follow through on normalization of ties. The latter may want to partner w/ Israel to contain Iran, but not at the cost of completely losing domestic legitimacy. Yadlin & Evental advocates closer alignment w/ India to help move views in the Global South, failing to recognize that Modi government’s pro-Israel rhetoric has already undermined India’s credibility in the Global South. The Global South countries (& non-BJP voices in India) perceive it as a meeting of the minds of two increasingly illiberal religio-/ethno-nationalist regimes that share a hostility toward Muslims. I am sure India is happy to soak up whatever civilian & military technology Israel is willing to share in such a partnership, but I highly doubt even Modi is really willing to stick his neck out for Israel’s sake if the balloon really goes up. The PRC may be motivated to try to convince Iran to avoid a wider regional war in the interest of keeping oil supplies stable. However, if Israel completely aligns w/ the US (including in the geopolitical rivalry w/ the PRC), & Israeli actions further solidify Global South opinions against Israel & its Western supporters, then the PRC will be happy to be seen as coming down on the side of the consensus Global South opinion. As it is, the current PRC stance on the War in Gaza is a rhetorically pro-Palestinian neutrality, reminiscent of its rhetorically pro-Russian neutrality on the War in Ukraine. (At the same time, Chinese companies are happy to supply the surge in Israel demand for consumer drones & body armor for its war effort.)

    Remember, these are the hard nosed & “reality based” part of the Israeli elite. I think it has been very helpful that Adam has repeated reminded us that Yoav Gallant & Benny Gantz are extremely hawkish when it comes to the Palestinians, & their comments since joining the emergency war cabinet support that. Perhaps they are more susceptible to US pressure & can stop the IDF from committing even worse war crimes. One can only hope that they have an epiphany like Menachim Begin after the Yom Kippur War. The problem is that there is no Palestinian state united under a legitimate ruler to negotiate w/, like Saddat, because Israel had spent decades making sure there isn’t one.

  40. 40.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Doug R: 3 years of COVID compressed into 6 weeks, + the physical destruction in Northern Gaza reminiscent of WW II bombing of cities.

  41. 41.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Adam L Silverman:

    It’s the tone deafness feeding the already toxic narratives and discussions that is the problem.

    I don’t disagree, but UN agency heads are probably frustrated at their own powerlessness, & angry at how many of their local staff have been killed in Gaza.

  44. 44.

    Martin

    I have seen on Twitter a steady stream of European academics (especially in Germany) being censured, having events canceled, or outright fired for expressing views that the Haaretzpublishes on a regular basis. Harvard Law Review just decided to cancel of the publication of a Palestinian doctoral candidate’s essay arguing there is a genocide ongoing in Gaza (after it had been edited, fact-checked & approved), in an obvious act of self-censorship. Perhaps the students that run the HLR are afraid of jeopardizing potentially lucrative offers from top law firms or prestigious clerkships? The Palestinian scholar’s arguments could be wrong, but what happened to encouraging diversity of views in scholarship?

    This is the sort of thing that I wrote about a week or two back regarding how pretty solid debates about policy and rights on our campus between Jewish and Palestinian/Muslim students were constantly being cast as being antisemitic or antimuslim by outsiders because they had an agenda, even when we were directly monitoring these events and were intervening every time that sort of rhetoric would show up – and it pretty rarely did. AIPACs almost entire reason d’être is to conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism. There are all sorts of groups motivated to do this from every corner. It is exhausting.

    Any time I see a claim of antisemitism or anti-muslim rhetoric in an academic setting I immediately assume that it’s not unless they are willing to give full details and context of exactly what is being said. Not because I don’t think that there are antisemitic or antimuslim attitudes and expressions there – there definitely are – but because the number of misreported cases of this, from my academic experience – vastly outnumbered the actual reported cases (and the way they are reported is also different). And the unreported cases outnumbered the reported ones.

  45. 45.

    Adam L Silverman

    One point of clarification, this will be a truce, not a ceasefire despite everyone from government officials in the US, Israel, Qatar, and journalists calling it a ceasefire.

    From the ICRC casebook:

    Agreement between belligerents to interrupt for a stated period the use of means of warfare in a specific locality or sector.

    A truce should enable work to be done that is unrelated to the general conduct of war (e.g. removal of the wounded, burial of the dead, exchange of prisoners) or give military commanders time to ask for instructions regarding negotiations.

    For so long as the suspension of hostilities remains in force, and failing agreement to the contrary, there must be no change in the positions of the opposing forces.

    The effects of the suspension are limited to the territory stated in the relevant convention. Suspension of hostilities does not entail suspension of the application of international humanitarian law or put an end to the state of war, which subsists with all its legal consequences.

  49. 49.

    Soprano2

    @Martin: I really resent how some people cast any criticism of Israel as being antisemitic regardless of what it is. What Mr. Griffith said might be tone deaf, but I don’t see it as antisemitic unless you think anything critical of Israel automatically is.

  50. 50.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Martin: First, the MSM reported this stuff.  They can’t be trusted to cover anything with nuance, with detail, with complication, because they’re too fucking lazy to do so.  Secondly, AIPAC is just fucking evil.

  51. 51.

    Fall in queue

    How long did these other conflicts last? The Gaza war is only six weeks old. And what percentage of the population was affected? Even if the total death toll is not “worst ever” the insensity is plausibly up there.

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