RANT: FROM THE RUINS, WHAT WILL COME?

 

“The humanitarian initiatives that you have that you and others have taken…they are not what is needed to take the Palestinians out of the genocide, out of the apartheid, out of the unlawful occupation. Many of you continue to treat Palestine as a humanitarian crisis to manage in perpetuity and I stand firmly against it in name of the name of justice and humanity” (Francesca Albanese: United Nations Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories)*

 

IT'S BEEN A BUSY FEW WEEKS on the current events calendar in West Asia (Middle East), hasn’t it? The shaky ceasefire in Gaza is holding—if you don’t count the 242 Palestinians killed by IDF forces (including 85 children) since the Trump-brokered ‘ceasefire’ began between Israel and Hamas on October10. It’s hardly a ceasefire when the Israelis repeatedly bomb and shell Gazans and continue demolishing housing and infrastructure in Gaza City, which had been left relatively intact since the start of the war. Israel can say, “Oops, my bad” only so often before everyone realizes they have no intention of stopping their goal of clearing Palestine of Palestinians, by whatever means necessary. Since October 10:

"An average of eight Palestinians are killed daily under the ongoing comprehensive blockade on the Gaza Strip, alongside a policy of deliberate starvation ... denial of medical treatment for the wounded and sick, and the deliberate hindrance of humanitarian aid." (Anadolu)

 

ISRAEL'S Satan spawn PM, Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, along with his BFF Donald Trump have been busy devising plans for what some are calling “New Gaza”. The U.S. announced earlier in the week that a contingent of American soldiers would be stationed in Kiryat Gat, southern Israel, ostensively tasked with “coordinating and overseeing humanitarian aid into Gaza,” and replacing Israel’s Civil-Military Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) agency that did such a bang-up job earlier. I say “ostensively” because what appears to be happening is the recolonizing of the Gaza Strip, with the United States acting as the senior partner in the deal.

 

I’M NOT SURE if Bibi was forced to swallow this American initiative or if it is part of a long-term plan the two concocted to manage Gaza and leverage the maximum advantage for each country (to the detriment of the Palestinian people, of course). There have been recent discussions around watercoolers in the White House and Foggy Bottom about the United States establishing a military base beyond the “yellow line” of contact, as part of the U.S. president’s “Twenty-Point Peace Plan, that is to house up to ten-thousand non-NATO troops made up of cohorts from yet another “coalition of the willing” tasked with supervising the local authorities and keeping the peace in the occupied Palestinian enclave. The temporary force is to eventually cede their authority to a Palestinian police force free from any influence by Hamas. Overall authority in Gaza, under the Trump plan, is given to a temporary, transitions governance:

 

“…of a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee, responsible for delivering the day-to-day running of public services and municipalities for the people in Gaza, supervised by a "Board of Peace," which will be headed and chaired by Trump, with other members and heads of state to be announced, including Former Prime Minister Tony Blair.” [The same Tony Blair, British PM from 1997-2007, that promoted the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) hoax that kicked off the Iraq conflict in 2003.] The “board” will remain in place until such time the Palestinian Authority can take control. If ever.(BBC)

 

👉FUN FACT: To destabilize Gaza and keep its population fragmented and powerless, Israel funds local criminal gangs and jihadi terrorists. The al-Quwat al-Shaabiya (“Popular Forces”) is a criminal gang in Rafah that is responsible for dozens of hijackings of humanitarian aid entering Gaza, selling food to starving Palestinians at exorbitant black market prices. Other gangs and criminals are supported by Israel including ISIS-linked militia fighters from Syria and Egypt. The more damage Israel can inflict upon Gazan civil society, the more disorder it promotes keeping Gaza dysfunctional and dependant, the easier it will be to control the population and shape its fate to their will.

 

👉FUN FACT: I just had to put in this story from the West Bank. A couple of weeks ago, Israeli settlers raided a Palestinian farm where they tortured and butchered lambs. Some had their eyes gouged out or were crushed by heavy rocks or beaten with sticks. And all this was captured by security cameras. Blogger extraordinaire Catlin Johnstone says it best here. That such disgusting behaviour is condoned, even applauded as just another tool used to intimidate West Bank Palestinians into giving up their farms and orchards, their homes, and to move is emblematic of a deeply troubled and psychological ill society. Killing Lambs!? Baaaad!

  

IT IS TOO SOON to tell how all this will shake out. Will Trump and Netanyahu achieve their aim of expelling (or exterminating) the Palestinian population of Gaza?¹ (Will settlers in the West Bank likewise evict Palestinians from their homeland?) Will the Trump/Netanyahu plan succeed in creating a dysfunctional Gazan ‘colony’, dependent on foreign elites for governance, like Trump’s Orwellian “Board of Peace”, and serviced by corrupt and compromised humanitarian aid agencies, like the Gazan Humanitarian Foundation, whose failings I posted about, here and here.

 

THE QUOTE by Francesca Albanese at the start of this post is instructive. She asks what kind of Gaza do we want to see at the end of all the bloodshed and pain—is it to be a colony of the West, with a permanent underclass and people living in a state of constant crisis, “managed in perpetuity”, as objects to be forever pitied, or, rather, do we want to see the people of the Occupied Palestinian lands (especially those living in the moonscape that is Gaza) as subjects in their own right, as independent actors free to form their own administrative structures, their own economies and social institutions, expressive of their own culture?² I think most of us who have watched this horror show for the last two years would want the later status for the Palestinian people. What choice do we have?

 

CHEERS, JAKE.

_______________________________________________________

 

* RECALL that in early July, Ms. Albanese had sanctions put on her by the U.S. government, displeased as it was by her muckraking efforts to expose crimes against humanity committed by Israel against the Palestinian people, and the shameful complicity many in the international community find themselves, especially the United States. In her July report, “From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide”, Albanese rebukes in the strongest terms the international community for its commercial and highly lucrative ties to the genocidal, apartheid state. Her report seems to have gotten under the skin of U.S. elites in government and business because she was denied a visa to attend the opening session of the United Nations in New York this past September. (She is a member of the UN’s Human Rights Council and has just begun her second, three-year mandate as a Special Rapporteur) However, she attended virtually and gave a further, equally blistering, report: “Gaza Genocide: A Collective Crime”.  

AS ONE human rights group said of Albanese’s ban from travelling to New York to deliver her latest Gaza missive:

 

“Following the recent sanctions against the International Criminal Court, the measures announced today [Albanese’s visa ban] are a continuation of the Trump administration’s assault on international law and its efforts to protect the Israeli government from accountability at all costs. They are the latest in a series of Trump administration policies seeking to intimidate and silence those that dare speak out for Palestinians’ human rights. Instead of attacking the Special Rapporteur and further undermining the rule-based order, the US government should focus on putting an end to its unconditional support to Israel, enabling total impunity for its crimes in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.” (Amnesty International)

 

1. And don’t forget the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In the WB, in the last twenty years 1001 Palestinians have been killed in settler attacks, including one-hundred and seventy seven children. Killings since October 2023, represent over 40% of that total. Palestinians have been killed by fanatical Israeli settlers, aided and abbeted by state actors, such as right-wing, nut-bar extraordinaire Itmar Ben-Gviv who, as Israel’s security minister, provided arms to the settlers. There are 3.4 million Palestinians living in the West Bank along with six-hundred-and-seventy-thousand Israeli settlers illegally occupying Palestinian territory.

 

2. I personally feel the “two-state” solution is dead on arrival. The West Bank has been so divided by illegal Israeli settlements over the years that the chance of a viable Palestinian state is hard to imagine. And Gaza, for the last two decades until 7 October 2023, known as the “world’s largest open-air prison”³, is now a moonscape of rubble, destroyed  by a fuselage of Israelis shells and missiles, with tens of thousands killed and still more wounded and maimed for life. A single state of Palestine-Israel, SECULAR, with equal rights under the law for all its citizens, with reparations and justice meted out to genocidaires, could grow and thrive like a normal country. [I know. Jake’s being naïve, of course. How can Palestine-Israel become a ‘normal’ country after all this? Especially when there's nuclear weapons on the premises that allow Israel to act with impunity, ignoring the constraints (moral, ethical, legal, political) that most countries live with in dealing with their neighbours. Ed.]

 

3. The label is from David Cameron, former British PM, upon his visit to the Palestinian enclave in 2010.

 

                                   Since the ceasefire on October 10, Israel has killed at least 242 Palestinians, wounding 622. 

 

 

SAY IT AIN'T SO, JOE!

 

  

“All this underscores an important lesson that America has apparently managed to unlearn, something that we once knew quite well: that marginal behavior belongs on the margins, not in the center of our national life. The celebration of vulgarity for its own sake is arguably not the highest aspirational ideal for the best-and-the-brightest of our society, however amusing it might be in their hours of leisure, when people are free to pursue whatever lights their imaginations.” (James Howard Kunstler, Clusterfuck Nation.

 

—JHK writes in his blog about Harvard University’s recent hiring of a Boston-area drag queen to teach a course next Spring based on the TV show: “Ru Paul’s Drag Race”.  Truly, the End Times are nigh.…

 

RANT: BLOWING SMOKE

 

THIS PAST SEPTEMBER, Canada, Britain, France, Portugal, and Australia are the latest Johnny-come-latelies countries to formally recognize Palestinian statehood, i.e. a Palestine of the post-Six-Day War, 1967 borders of which the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem (as its capital) are its constituent parts, and are roughly 24% of the total landmass Israel stole from the Palestinians in of Israel in 1948. 

The United Nations recognizes those borders however diminished they were--and are even more so for the Palestinians--since the end of WWII. The 1967 borders are the basis for a “two state” solution, but the failure of the world body to enforce its own mandate has been the root cause for much of the turmoil in West Asia (Middle East) ever since.

 

 “A total of 157 out of 193 UN nations currently recognize the Palestinian state. Two UN Security Council members, France  and the UK, joined ten other members in August to recognize Palestine during the opening session of the United Nations’ …. (RT) 

 

 And though nothing substantial will come from the UN recognition by these several countries, it is a marker, an addition to the consensus that Israel is on the wrong side of history, that its apartheid regime whereby Palestinians are second class citizens at best and victims of genocide at worst (in Gaza and soon perhaps in the West Bank). As UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine, Francesca Albanese points out what is critically important for the world community to accomplish:

 

 "States must secure a permanent ceasefire in Gaza... suspend all military trade and diplomatic ties with Israel, until it ends and remedies its genocide, unlawful occupation, and apartheid."

  

👉IF the we fail in this regard, then the clock is ticking for the start of the next genocide^* coming soon to a future near you. Other than that, everything is just tickety-boo.                                                                                                                                                             ❂                           

💀 WELL,WELL. I must say, the place is looking more like Shangri-La with each passing day, apart from all the rubble and decaying bodies buried underneath. Today, researchers calculate there are fifty-million tonnes of rubble to be excavated and crushed before rebuilding of the Palestinian enclave can begin. And it will take decades before reconstruction will be complete. And meanwhile, thousands of Palestinian bodies lay disinterred among the ruins. The story of one Palestinian returning to his home in northern Gaza after the ceasefire was announced on October 10 tells the tale:

 

“On Sunday, two days after the ceasefire was announced, Ghali Khadr returned to search through the ruins of his parents’ home. He spent the day sifting through shattered concrete and twisted metal for any sign of them. All he managed to find were some shards of their skulls and parts of their hands. Khadr took the remains of his parents to the graveyard, but found that it too had been destroyed. He decided to bury them next to the few graves that were still intact....Gaza’s civil defence agency estimates that the bodies of about 10,000 people [probably a significant under-count] are trapped under the debris and collapsed buildings. The halt in the fighting has given the ambulance service the chance to finally start the search for the dead and give their families a chance at closure." (The Guardian) 

 

BUT, NOT TO WORRY. Earlier this month, American president Donald Trump brokered a ceasefire and humanitarian relief regime as phase one of his plan to stop the murderous rampage by the IDF killing in Gaza. It’s a rocky road, to be sure, with the IDF almost daily shooting someone or bombing something or other, but Israel says it is keeping to the agreement. Except when it’s not. On Tuesday an IDF soldier was killed by Hamas. That evening Israel launched a particularly brutal reprisal bombing campaign that killed over one-hundred Gazans. One hundred to one! That’s not a bad ratio of how much more valuable an IDF soldier’s life is worth when compared to Palestinian men, women and children who are, don’t forget, civilians, non-combatants. Capishe? Since Trump’s ceasefire went into effect on October 12, over 200 Gazans have been killed by Israeli forces and nearly 600 injured by the IDF’s bombs, missiles and gunfire. 

 

YES, the genocide is taking a bit of a breather. Daily murders of Gazans are indeed down (except for Tuesday). But fans of this reality show can rest assured that the numbers will soon go up as Israel chafes under the strictures Trump¹  is apparently imposing on its lean, mean killing machine. When you look at the ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel you see that the plan:

 

“…remains largely undeveloped. It offers no clear timeline, verification process or credible means of enforcement…and the complete Israeli withdrawal, the formation of a technocratic administration in Gaza and the deployment of an international stabilization mission – have yet been agreed. With no clear sequencing or third-party oversight, the plan risks entrenching instability rather than resolving it.” (The Guardian)

 

 

NETANYAHU, if truth be told, will likely keep to the ceasefire until every last fragment of bone and tooth enamel from every last Israeli hostage that died in Hamas custody is unearthed and returned. 

AND he will take every opportunity to cry “foul!” and make reprisals at what he claims is Hamas’ foot-dragging²  in returning the remains of the dead Israelis, even if the bombing and destruction have made retrieval of the bodies a daunting task. But make no mistake, "Bibi” will return to his genocidal ways of emptying Palestine of Palestinians. By hook or by crook he will test the bonds Trump has imposed while he continues to attrit and attrit the population in Gaza and the West Bank and East Jerusalem until they are all gone or dead. That’s the plan, anyway. And along the way he may take much of southern Lebanon and Syria.

👉OF COURSE, Iran remains Netanyahu’s Bête noire and I don’t think we’ve seen the last of his efforts in ginning up a war with the Persians and dragging the United States into the fray. It’s really about who will be the regional hegemon, Israel or Iran, in the lands that birthed the first great cities of the world. Whatever which way you look, Israel is fighting or threatening just about everyone in West Asia (Middle East) that it can, which goes against that “Love thy Neighbour” thingy popularized by an earlier citizen from the Levant.

TIME'S RUNNING OUT and the Israeli PM cannot afford to let things get too peaceful, else he be summoned to appear in court on corruption charges and facing a stiff prison sentence. He can slow the wheels of justice with the excuse that it would be dangerous if he were to be taken out of commission while the country is at war. 😒 So, we'll see.

 

👉Riddle me this: Why is it that a lot of world leaders are border-line sociopaths? Is it a self-selecting process that sociopaths naturally gravitate to such positions? Or do the positions in question create sociopaths? Questions, questions…. OH, did I mention Israel has nuclear weapons?

 

CHEERS, JAKE.  ____________________________________

  

* Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, a few weeks ago, suggested the on-going, live-streamed genocide in Gaza, and the failure of the world community to do anything  concrete to stop it, suggests to him that, as a culture, "we have become inured to beastiality." And the question needs asking: Have we become accustomed to mass deaths and criminality as well? Our feckless leaders in Europe and the West, with a few exceptions,  are still gung-ho on funding the Ukraine war and are okay, it seems, with the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians. 

👉As mind-numbingly awful as Gaza is, most governments continue to have diplomatic and trading links with Israel that include weapons sales (the U.S. most notably). It's changing though. Props to Spain and Ireland who are not on-board for the genocide and are ending trading contracts, including weapons sales, with the rogue state. 

Props also to the Spanish and Italian dockworkers who refused to load shipments bound for Israel. Even the EU has begun raising concerns. [Canada, too, but with caveats that Jake will mention in a future post. If he remembers! Ed.] 

FOLKS, this genocide has been going on for over two years! Where the hell have our political leaders and the MSM (main-stream media) been while tens of thousands of men, women and children have been slaughtered? Did they just wake up one morning and say: "Hey! Look what Israel's doing over there. That can't be good, can it?" Even CNN has begun to use the "G"-word! 😆

BTW, it's not a war. It's mass murder. They call it "genocide" for a reason. 

 

1. Trump really wants to bring peace to Israel-Palestine conflict that’s been going on since 1948 when the “Nakba” (“catastrophe”) occurred and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were disenfranchised and made homeless in their homeland and abroad. The Donald is still hankering for a Nobel Peace Prize. It eluded him this year, but he could well be a contender for next year. After all, he says he’s brokered peace in “six or seven” conflicts. Wowsers! I’m not sure if everyone got the memo but, if he gets his way in Gaza, it will indeed be a feather in his hat and put him in the running for the NPP. Hell, if he succeeds in bringing peace to Gaza, I’ll give him the damn prize. Then he can fuck off and go gentle into the good night.

 

FUN FACT: This year's NPP went to Venezuelan María Corina Machado a former member of the Venezuelan. She attempted to run for president in 2024 against the sitting president, Nicolas Maduro, but was blocked from running. She went into hiding, apparently fearing reprisals from Maduro. She's a dyed-in-the-wool globalist and U.S. bottom-feeder that some commentators suggest was given the Nobel Peace Prize as a sop to Donald Trump who would gain a reliable ally the United States could use to access to the country's rich deposits of oil and minerals. In other words, she is a lackey-in-waiting and can't wait for President Trump to invade her country so she could be installed as its president.  Machado has publicly asked for the United States to invade, which may have something to do with her hiding out.  Also, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and yet she's advocating for an invasion of her own country! She's a real sweetheart, that one!

 

2. I may have mentioned in an earlier post that Israel recruits jihadi terrorists from outside the country as well as local Palestinian gangs in Gaza to rob food aid shipments and perform other disruptive actions.  Dig the cynicism: A Jewish PM utilizes muslim jihadis who are, by definition, antisemitic in order to sow chaos where they may in Palestine. It’s a testament to the power of filthy lucre that such strange bedfellows are made!