October 7, 8

Well, it may be a nice calm early morning here but another bit of shit has hit the fan as Hamas has attacked Israel and Netanyahu has announce Israel is in a state of war.

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Day 2 (or day 27515 perhaps) of the Israeli-Palestinian war. If you are wondering about the number in parentheses, that is the number of days between May 4, 1948 when the state of Israel was born. I could have taken the count back to 1917, the year when the Balfour agreement was established which promised Jews a "homeland." Yes, I do have a point and that is the ubiquitous use of "unprovoked" to describe the latest attack. It is only unprovoked if you only consider the 5 minutes before the rockets went up. History does matter and it needs to be told truthfully and accurately. Caitlin Johnstone, with whom I don't always agree, had a longer bit on the obfuscating use of the term "unprovoked."

Another term that has been over used and misused frequently for some time: Terrorist. Basically our politicians world wide use it to describe groups we disagree with and who don't mind using violent means. But the word is used very selectively. For years our security agencies and police refused to use the word to violent home grown groups. Only since January 6, 2021 have we seen references to white home grown violent groups as terrorist. We do the same with respect to groups opposed to governments we consider friends. Also the two terms, unprovoked and terrorist, are used in conjunction. How often has destruction or appropriation of Palestinian property been presented as a justified response to a provocation by the Palestinians? Again it may have been provoked if you only consider the five minutes before the reprisal.

Bill Astore has a substack post that asserts "Democrats Are Undemocratic." He has often expressed a pet peeve of mine: I don't see much difference between the two major parties. They both are more aligned with the financial/business interests than everyday folk--no matter what Joe Biden's personal sentiments are. But I don't see voting for a third party as a real option right now. A second term for The Former Guy would be a total disaster. A second term for Biden offers the least threat to continued Constitutional order. Our political system developed from the early days when political affiliations were largely informal. But it quickly morphed into a system dominated by two parties: Federalists vs. Jeffersonian Democrats (a.k.a., Democratic Republicans), Whigs vs. Democrats, Republicans vs. Democrats. The last time we had a President of one party and a Vice-President of another was John Adams' term when Jefferson (who garnered the second place number of electoral votes) became Vice President though opposed to Adams' (and Alexander Hamilton's) policies. Not many years after it became normal that the President and Vice President were elected as a package deal. Most European democracies are "parliamentary" systems where the leader of the victorious party becomes head of government or, if there is no majority, the leader of the largest party gets the opportunity to form a government. The winner of our elections becomes President but he (and it has always been a "he") has no guarantee of a unified government--a situation we have now with a Democrat as President and a Democrat majority in the Senate but a Republican majority in the House. And voting for a third party candidate which might ensure the election of a candidate who has already tried to gut the Constitution and plans to do a more thorough job in a second term isn't really on the program.

I have been storing up a number of observations and questions as the new iteration of the violence in Israel continues. 

1) So many have commented on the failure of Israeli and U.S. intelligence and wonder what happened. I can think of something that might explain some of the failure. About a decade ago after Russia successfully attacked the computer systems that controlled the Ukrainian energy sector. In another cyber attack they tied up the governmental and banking computers in Lithuania, I think it was. One of the commentators I read this morning suggested that Hamas wend "old school" and coordinated by way of written encoded messages carried by hand. That would eliminate so called "signal intelligence." As far as satellite surveillance, Hamas has had years to learn to evade the eyes in the sky. The biggest question is what happened to the famous network of "human intelligence" Israel had? Dead, isolated, no longer willing to help? 

 2) The repeated expressions of stunned belief that such "unprecedented " events could happen stuns me. Again the use of that term. But nothing that has happened is beyond historical experience. Even of recent experience. Bucha, the Rohingya, ethnic cleansing in the Balkans. Perhaps we all should recognize that any sense of security can disappear very quickly whether by violence as in Ukraine or Israel or by natural disasters as has happened all over the world with fire, flood, or storm.

3) We seem to think the past is irrelevant but we can't escape it even if we don't learn about it. Or if we learn a highly edited version that soothes our egos. The contest between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh has roots that go further back than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Türkiye government officials still get irate with any mention of the "Armenian genocide." Another bit of history that continues to irritate.

4) Things change; a trite saying but true. When Israel was established the Muslim world was almost completely united in opposition. The reports have noted various wars over Israel's history including 1973 against Egypt and Syria. But over that time the implacable opposition has moderated. Egypt and Jordan have made peace and Saudi Arabia is in talks to normalize relations. Hamas is looking at a time when most of their support will be rhetorical.