Similar to the article <a href="{app}/view_article.php?id=4834">Cheerleading for the … what’s the opposite of underdog?</a>, the content below appeared in my <a href="{app}/view_article.php?id=4828">Links and Notes for October 13th, 2023</a>, which I managed to publish on October 23rd. I've edited things lightly, but I'm publishing these reactions again to have them in a separate article and because I think my initial take has aged relatively well. The article <a href="https://www.project-syndicate.org/onpoint/israel-goes-to-war" source="Project Syndicate" author="Peter Singer">The Spiral of Violence that Led to Hamas</a> writes, <bq>Hamas reportedly holds roughly 150 hostages, and has said that it will kill one every time Israel bombs a Gazan home without warning. Hamas leaders surely remember that in 2011, Netanyahu, as prime minister, was willing to free over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, some of them terrorists, in exchange for the release of a single captive Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit. <b>Against that background, they may believe that Israel will not be prepared to sacrifice the lives of the hostages in order to achieve its military objectives.</b></bq> They would be wrong, I suppose. It looks like Israel is calling them on it, telling them to put their money where their mouth is. That they hope for a prisoner trade has been the expressed intent of the kidnappings from the very first statement by Hamas, but we can, of course, disregard their actually stated goals and reasoning and instead imbue them with the goals and reasoning we'd like them to have instead. It makes things easier, I suppose. Israel has thus far been quite tight-lipped about the hostages---it seems almost as if they're already treating them as martyrs.<fn> <bq><b>When Hamas attacks Israeli civilians, it knows that this will lead to Israeli counterattacks in Gaza that are bound to kill and injure many civilians.</b> Hamas locates its military sites in residential areas, hoping that this tactic will restrain Israeli attacks, or at least lessen international support for Israel.</bq> <bq><b>How far Israel will go with its declared intention to deny electricity, fuel, food, and water to the two million citizens of Gaza, many of them children, is hard to know.</b> What is certain is that Hamas’s brutal crimes do not entitle Israel to starve children.</bq> We know a bit more about how serious they are. They seem to be deadly, deadly serious about it. The first trucks went in---20 of them for 2.3m people---just yesterday, about 10 days after the shutdown. There were concerns about whether Egypt would try to smuggle weapons to Hamas amid the food and water supplies. These are reasons that sound like they make sense until you realize that the alternative---doing nothing for days on end---probably meant the suffering and/or expiration of thousands of innocents, of children. We have international treaties for a reason, but they're not worth the paper they're written on when signatories ignore the rules to which they'd agreed when it pleases them. They would, of course, like the rules to apply when they are in need, when they are being oppressed, but Israel, like the U.S., can no longer conceive of a world in which they would be on the back foot. They're not on the back foot now, not really, stop blowing smoke up my ass---so they don't have to care if the whole international legal structure collapses. It doesn't benefit them anyway.<fn> Just like for the U.S., these international agreements that what they now perceive as weaker leaders of the past having signed are just getting in the way of their plans, of their empire, of their colonialism.<fn> If they would take a step back, they might be appalled to realize that they are being held back from doing horrific crimes by ethical and moral codes to which they in more clear-headed times agreed. In the current bloodthirsty atmosphere, such concerns are swept away before a sheet of red that obliterates all but vengeance.<fn> <bq>And now what? Restore deterrence? How, exactly? Self-punishment in the form of a renewed occupation of Gaza? <b>A land invasion is difficult to imagine. The atrocious level of destruction and casualties this would entail is one reason, with the many Israeli hostages now in Gaza providing additional insurance.</b> The risk of Hezbollah opening an additional front from Lebanon in the north is another. Hezbollah’s capabilities dwarf those of Hamas, and a two-front war, with Iran possibly backing Israel’s foes, is an apocalyptic scenario. This is exactly why US President Joe Biden warned Israel’s enemies “not to exploit the crisis.” To drive home the point, <b>Biden has ordered the US Navy’s newest and most advanced aircraft carrier to the eastern Mediterranean.</b></bq> Singer's certainty here now seems unwarranted. It's unlikely that Hezbollah will join the battle. Israel is already bombing Syria and Lebanon preemptively, something that they are presumably allowed to do without reprobation by the international community. They haven't dared attack Iran directly yet, but I'm really wondering whether the reaction of Europe would even be negative. After all, Israel is allowed to defend itself, is it not?<fn> They may force the point, by forcing the U.S. to put its money where its mouth is, following up with force on the side of a deranged, reckless, genocidal power that already had overwhelming superiority over its declared foe. <bq>Netanyahu’s machine of poisonous political disinformation is already at work disseminating a conspiracy theory according to which leftist army officers were responsible for the negligence that led to this dirty war. <b>No one should be surprised that Netanyahu would resort to the infamous “stab in the back” narrative</b> – a conspiracy theory also peddled by the Nazis in the 1920s and 1930s. How else could the inciter-in-chief explain his criminal negligence?</bq> <bq>Israelis will question the conceptziyya that they can reap the benefits of a Western nation-state while <b>being inured to the hardships their neighbors seek to inflict on them.</b></bq> The phrase <iq>seek to inflict on them</iq> seems a bit out of place considering the overwhelming power that Israel has. They are the only nuclear power in the region. They have managed to display a deranged, anything-goes approach to foreign policy in which no slight is ever forgiven, no matter how small, in which every slight is answered a dozen-fold. No sane nation-state would attack Israel first, knowing that it is quite likely that a mushroom cloud will rise over their capital city, rising silently to the applause of all European and American leaders. So, no, I don't think the Israeli fear of invasion by its neighbors is to be considered very likely.<fn> Naturally, Israel will take a page from Dick Cheney's book, citing the 1% => 100% doctrine, rounding up a vanishingly small danger to a certainty that warrants preemptive attack---just to be on the safe side. It's balderdash, of course, but it will be sold as a perfectly normal way to reason about things, a perfectly just way of handling the situation. <hr> The next article <a href="https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-insane-idea-that-nations-get" author="Caitlin Johnstone" source="Caitlin's Newsletter">The Insane Idea That Nations Get To Do War Crimes Whenever Something Bad Happens To Them</a> writes, <bq>Dropping military explosives on children is just as wrong now as it was on October 6th. Wars of aggression were just as wrong on September 12th 2001 as they were on September 10th. But <b>there’s this idiotic belief in mainstream culture that a nation experiencing a traumatic event means it gets to go on a murderous rampage until it feels better.</b> As soon as the Hamas attack occurred we were inundated with messaging from the western political/media class which conveyed the idea that because something bad happened to Israel, <b>Israel now gets to do a little genocide, as a treat. This is stupid nonsense, and should be rejected by all thinking people.</b></bq> <bq><b>If you saw your friend stumbling around with his car keys in one hand and a bottle in the other after losing his job, you wouldn’t tell him you stand with him and support whatever it is he’s getting ready to do.</b> You’d understand that people can make unwise decisions after something bad happens to them, and you’d do what you can to help steer them away from it.</bq> <bq>The death toll from Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza has already more than doubled the death toll from the Hamas attack, and <b>we can expect it to keep multiplying because there’s no meaningful opposition to the bloodshed.</b> The United States, who as an indispensable backer of Israel could end all this with a word, has refused to draw a single red line on what Israel may or may not do if it wishes to retain US support — even its indiscriminate use of white phosphorus, which violates international humanitarian law. War crimes are being committed not just openly but announced in advance as <b>Tel Aviv commits itself to the collective punishment of Palestinians with a complete siege of Gaza, and Israel’s allies have no objection to this.</b></bq> There are two points here: Hamas blew its whole load on October 7th. There will be no more meaningful resistance now. Perhaps they will be able to launch some of their rockets (Norman Finkeltstein said he'd read claims that they have 100,000 of them), but they're unlikely to hit useful targets, like chemical factories, that could do real damage to Israel. Gazans are buttoned down and will suffer what Israel sees fit to mete out.<fn> <img src="{att_link}empire_shall_rule.jpg" href="{att_link}empire_shall_rule.jpg" align="right" caption="Empire Shall Rule" scale="40%">The other point is that this is exactly what the major powers want to happen. They don't green-light war crimes because they're confused about what war crimes are. It's because laws against war crimes are only there to be wielded against enemies. They don't apply to anyone inside the circle of trust. If you're useful to empire, then you get to do what you want. Empire will decide which laws apply to you based on your usefulness. If you're useful, you get a free pass to do whatever you like---and you never have to answer for it. If you're not useful, or if you have something useful that Empire wants without paying for it, you are forced to pledge fealty to Empire, to mouth the words that it wants you to say, to "condemn" terrorists. To make nuance-free statements that are nowhere near to expressing your actual beliefs. <hr> The article <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/10/16/international-hypocrisy-the-u-s-once-again-leads-the-way/" author="Robert Fantina" source="CounterPunch">International Hypocrisy: The U.S., Once Again, Leads the Way</a> contains many interesting citations from <iq>Palestinian Ambassador to the U.K., Husam Zumlot</iq> from his interview on BBC News. <bq>How many times have you interviewed Israeli officials (question by Ambassador Zumlot to the interviewer)? How many times? Hundreds of times. <b>How many times has Israel committed war crimes, live, on your own cameras? Do you start by asking them to condemn themselves? Have you? You don’t.</b></bq> <bq>You know why I refuse to answer that question (why he won’t condemn Hamas for its violence of last week)? Because I refuse the premise of it. Because at the very heart of it is misrepresentation of the whole thing. Because <b>it is the Palestinians who are expected to condemn themselves.</b></bq> <bq><b>You bring us here whenever Israelis are killed. Did you bring me here when many Palestinians in the West Bank, more than 200 over the last few months (were killed)?</b> Do you invite me where there are such Israeli provocations in Jerusalem and elsewhere?</bq> The only time you will be given a voice is to say things that Empire wants. Empire cannot learn new things from you because it already knows everything there is to know. It knows that it is Empire and that you are not. What could it possibly learn from you? Your only job is to say the things that Empire wants you to say when it wants you to say them in order to enjoy a slight benefit, to bask in the warm, though oft wan and temporary, beneficence of Empire, to not lose your livelihood, your home, your family, your life. This is the implicit bargain of living with Empire---the implied threat for non-compliance is always destruction of everything you hold dear. Empire doesn't care because it doesn't cost Empire anything, whereas it amuses Empire to throw your pitiful life away for its purposes, for its own enrichment, even if it's a total waste---it still feels good to use its power. And don't go looking for consistency. Superficially, there is none. Bianca Graulau writes, <iq>Filter the propaganda through this lens: the US empire will always choose sides based on its own interests.</iq> That is 100% the correct context through which to process information coming from Empire. More long-windedly, but still worth quoting, Fantina writes, <bq>The U.S. isn’t interested in human rights, international law or self-determination. Certainly it has no interest in peace in the Middle East. It is interested in power over the entire world and the profits that that power will bring them. So what if its hands are dripping with the blood of Palestinian children? <b>Biden cares no more about that than George Bush cared about the blood of Iraqi children.</b> No, the geopolitical goals of the U.S. are always front and center. <b>Human rights and international law are nowhere on the U.S. list of priorities.</b></bq> This has been obvious for the long part of my lifetime during which I've paid attention to international affairs, with a focus on the affairs of Empire. It is of no value to listen to what Empire says; you must watch what Empire actually does. <hr> <ft>Called it. 21/2 months later, the hostages are one of the main things causing protests and resistance inside Israel.</ft> <ft>Called that one too.</ft> <ft>Check.</ft> <ft>Well, well, well. I could write for Ha'aretz.</ft> <ft>This is where we seem to still be headed. Israel just assassinated one of Iran's highest-ranking generals.</ft> <ft>I still stand by this. The fear of invasion is mostly a fairy tale Israel tells its citizens to keep them quiet. Maybe they'll finally piss off the neighbors enough to make them suicidal, but i doubt it---I hope not.</ft> <ft>This is pretty much what has happened. Hamas's rockets have had a <i>relatively</i> negligible effect.</ft>