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!