St. Misbehaving is darn grateful he doesn't live in the so-callled Holy Land

    This being the day of rest in my childhood religious sects (Southern Baptist, then Episcopal), perhaps I should share what my tech buddy Bob at The Redneck Mystic Podcast (YouTube), The Redneck Mystic Lawyer Podcast (Torrent), told me on the phone the other day.

    He was having a revelation that the Vatican will make me a saint called "Saint Misbehaving". I asked if he was shown it will happen before, or after, the Vatican has me killed, which happened to some people in the past? Bob said he didn't know. 

    This morning, I saw something wonderful in my email, which I could not resist.

Poetic Outlaws | Substack

“Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”

—Kurt Vonnegut

Sloan’s Newsletter | Sloan Bashinsky 

One of my favorites, God only knows what marvelous planet Kurt came from, how he survived in a very strange land and kept his wit and his wits about him.,, 

 

In the main, humanity looks really fucked up to this 81-year-old mystic, poet and culture jammer, who wonders if there are any poets living today, whose verses might stand a chance of saving humanity from itself?

    Perhaps in answer, a dumpling from Hell arrived in my email account, and I waded through it and responded.

CAITLIN’S NEWSLETTER
Israel Doesn't Have A Gen-Z Problem, It Has A Morality Problem
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
NOV 18, 2023

________________________________

Nobody starts out as the sort of person who would support a genocidal bombing campaign that murders children by the thousands. It’s something you come into gradually over the years, one moral compromise at a time.

Again and again over the course of their lifetime, a supporter of Israel is given the choice to either kill off a piece of their conscience or abandon their support for Israel. They are presented with this choice any time they see Palestinians being treated in a way they’d never want themselves or their loved ones to be treated — whether it’s bombs, protesters shot by snipers, people being driven out of their homes, human rights organizations ruling one after the other that Israel is an apartheid state, tales of the racism and abuse suffered by Palestinians in the West Bank, or testimony about how horrific life in Gaza had been made for the people who live there, long before this latest round of killing began.
This information is unavoidable in modern times. You can avert your gaze, you can try to insulate yourself from it in an ideological echo chamber, but it will inevitably find its way into your field of perception once in a while. And every time you are confronted with it, you have to make a choice whether to compromise your personal sense of morality a bit further than it was already compromised, or abandon your support for Israel.
You carve off pieces of your own morality one at a time, mostly in order to avoid the psychological discomfort known as cognitive dissonance which necessarily goes along with any drastic change in worldview. Then before you know it you find yourself opposing a ceasefire to a murderous onslaught that has killed thousands of children.

Deep down you know you’re on the wrong path. You know this isn’t how you started out, isn’t how you’re meant to be living your life. But you drown out that small voice inside with the much louder voices of life in a modern industrialized society, many of whom are paid millions of dollars a year to tell you your worldview is the correct one.

This is why there’s such a massive generation gap on the Israel-Palestine issue; young people haven’t spent a long time gradually eroding their moral compass into a worthless trinket, and they don’t consume enough mass media to have been convinced that doing so would be worthwhile. They have not been sufficiently indoctrinated into depraved indifference toward the suffering of others.
In a recent statement rejecting right wing claims that its algorithms are stacked to favor Palestine and promote anti-Israel sentiment, TikTok says the real reason pro-Palestine sentiments are so popular on the platform is because young people just statistically oppose Israel a lot more than older generations.
TikTok writes the following:

 “Support for Israel (as compared to sympathy for Palestine) has been lower among younger Americans for some time. This is evidenced by looking at Gallup polling data of millennials dating as far back as 2010, long before TikTok even existed. A March 2023 Gallup poll, before the war, shows young adults have rapidly shifting attitudes towards the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.”

In a leaked audio clip obtained by Tehran Times, Anti-Defamation League director Jonathan Greenblatt is heard bemoaning the loss of Gen-Z to pro-Palestinian sentiment.
“But I also wanna point out that we have a major, major, majorgenerational problem,” Greenblatt complains to his cohorts. “All the polling that I’ve seen — ADL’s polling, ICC’s polling, independent polling — suggests this is not a left or right gap, folks. The issue in the United States’ support for Israel is not left and right, it is young and old.”
“We really have a Tik-Tok problem, a Gen-Z problem,” Greenblatt adds.

In reality, what Greenblatt and his associates have is a morality problem. They have a large group of people who have not been indoctrinated into accepting madness and amputating parts of their own conscience over the years, and so are able to look at the mass murder of civilians in Gaza with clear eyes.

And really that’s all you need to see the ongoing Gaza massacre for what it is: a look with clear eyes. Just one swift glance, unmolested by propaganda distortion or cognitive biases. That’s all it takes. 
Israel’s problem is not that people are being propagandized into hating it, it’s that people are not being successfully propagandized into supporting it. Their problem is not malign influence but a lack thereof. Because the fact of the matter is there’s only so many ways you can spin the murder of thousands of children, and now all the media obfuscation in the world is not enough to pull the wool over fresh eyes that are ready to see.

Soan Bashinsky

Writes Sloan’s Newsletter

Perhaps young people do not resonate with, nor can they even imagine just how deeply rooted in three religions descended from Abraham the horrific mess in Palestine is. Perhaps it might help young people to look at Donald Trump and his MAGA evangelists to grasp just how impossible it is to change the minds and behavior of religious zealots, or, if you wish, religious fanatics. 

I don't know any Christians or Jews in my part of America, Alabama, who are willing to die for their religious beliefs. I have known very few Muslims, but the ones I did know did not seem willing to die for Allah.

In other parts of the world, where Islam is dominant, many of its adherents seem quite willing to die for Allah.They view it as a quick ticket to Paradise, and, if they are men, being with 70 virgins. 

HAMAS claims to be an Islamic resistance organization, but its behavior indicates it also is a terrorist organization. The October massacre in israel was a terrorist attack, just as a school massacre in America is a terrorist attack. 

Based on what I have read online and seen in the news, HAMAS has no concern for the people in Gaza being killed by IDF. Hamas views those dead Palestinians as martyrs, who now are in Paradise. 

I am not in any way defending Israel. It has done plenty to cause trouble with its neighbors. I think it was a catastrophic mistake for the state of Israel to come to exist. Maybe it would not have happened if WWI allied countries, including America, had welcomed WWII Jewish refugees into their countries. It looks to me that the only solution for what is going on in Palestine is for Israel to move to America. 

Meanwhile, It looks to me that HAMAS and its Islamic allies spent a long time figuring out and preparing how to cause Israel the greatest possible amount of trouble, and we are seeing it play out in Gaza, mostly, but it very well might spread to the West Bank, Lebanon, etc.

It looks to me that the October 7 attack was part of a much larger scheme to provoke Israel to invade Gaza and kill a whole lot of Palestinian civilians of all ages, attack and disrupt Gaza hospitals, level Gaza cities and infrastructure, and force Gaza people to stay and die or flee to Egypt or wherever, and make Israel look like Nazi Germany. 

It also looks to me that the Bible thumpers in America and elsewhere are so blinded by their Old Testament Scriptures, and by Jesus being crucified in the New Testament at the best of Jewish leaders in Palestine, that they are frenetic to have Israel defend what they view as THEIR Holy Land, and they are frenetic that America give Israel all the weapons and money it needs to do that, while they are just as frenetic that they do not risk their lives and souls to defend THEIR Holy Land.

It also looks to me that the Bible Thumpers in America and elsewhere, and their national governments, and HAMAS and its Islamic allies cannot imagine, if Israel feels sufficiently threatened, it will detonate its nuclear weapons where it deems best for Israel,

God, by any name, has nothing to do with any of this, and the Devil, by any name, has to be immensely pleased.

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com 

Law School Exam Question: Discuss the relevance, if any, of Amendment 14, Section 3 today

Blind Justice

    On November 19, 2023, this old former United States District Court Law clerk and retired practicing attorney read in Politico: 

 

Colorado judge rules Trump ‘engaged in an insurrection’ — but can still run for president 
 
The ruling came in a case brought by progressive activists who sued the state, arguing that Trump was barred from returning to the office.
A Colorado judge has turned away a challenge looking to disqualify former President Donald Trump from running for president under an interpretation of the 14th Amendment that argued he engaged in an insurrection against the United States on Jan. 6, 2021.
The ruling came in a case brought by progressive activists who sued the state, arguing that Trump was barred from returning to the office. A handful of courts in other states turned away similar challenges.
The case in Colorado was brought by the liberal government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. CREW argued that Trump is ineligible to run because of a clause in the 14th Amendment, which reads that those who took an oath to defend the Constitution and then have “engaged in an insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof” are ineligible to serve.
CREW said the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 disqualified Trump under a reading of the Civil War-era amendment.
The judge found that Trump did engage in an insurrection on January 6, 2021 “through incitement, and that the First Amendment does not protect Trump’s speech.” But she also found that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment doesn’t apply to Trump.
“The Court holds there is scant direct evidence regarding whether the Presidency is one of the positions subject to disqualification,” she wrote.

    I wondered how the Colorado judge ignored the plain English in Amendment 14, Section 3? I added the bold emphasis:

U.S. Constitution Amendment 14, Section 3
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

    The Presidency is a civil office of the United States, and the President is the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces.

    I fiddled with an Amendment 14, Section 3 Complaint, which addressed the Colorado decision and earlier court decisions in which Amendment 14, Section 3 plaintiffs were ruled not to have standing to bring the cases.

    Then, I decided to made it a law school exam question:

Discuss the relevance, if any, of Amendment 14, Section 3 today

    Consider all of the above and what follows as my answer.

28 U.S. Code § 1361 - 
Action to compel an officer of the United States 
to perform his duty
The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any action in the nature of mandamus to compel an officer or employee of the United States or any agency thereof to perform a duty owed to the plaintiff.

    Donald Trump and Joe Biden made the oath below when they were sworn into office as President of the United States:

United States Constitution Article II, Section 1, Clause 8
Before he enters on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:–I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

    Their oath was made to the Constitution of the United States for the benefit of the United States and every citizen thereof.

    On January 6, 2021, a huge mob incited by outgoing President Trump, gathered in Washington, D.C. to "stop the steal", by preventing Congress from counting the electoral votes and outgoing Vice-President Mike Pence from certifying the electoral votes, pursuant to Article 2, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, Amendment 12 of the U.S. Constitution, and 3 U.S. Code § 15 ~ Counting electoral votes in Congress 3. 

        Trump then revved up the insurrectionists and sent them to the Capitol, but he did not go with them. On television, he watched them storm through Capitol Police and break into the Capitol. Although Trump was urged by family and close associates and federal officials to ask the insurrectionists to stand down and leave, he did not do that. When Trump heard the insurrectionists chanting, "Hang Pence," he chanted it, too. Only later did Trump ask the insurrectionists to stand down and leave. Trump's lawyers told him the election was not stolen, as did his Attorney General Bill Barr. Trump continues to this day to claim the election was stolen, even though he never produced a shred of evidence that it was stolen.

    Trump never showed any remorse for the January 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol and the physical injuries and post traumatic shock suffered by Capitol police. Trump said, if elected in 2024, he will pardon the insurrectionists and anyone prosecuted for aiding and abetting the insurrection. Trump said, if they came for him, he would come for them. Trump said, if he is elected president, he will get even. 

 

   Amendment 14, section 3  was passed after the Civil War to block people, such as Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, and Robert E. Lee, Commander of the Confederate Army, from holding public office. Donald Trump did not try to secede from the United States of America and its Constitution - he incited insurrection to try to take them over.

    WhenTrump and his father owned apartment buildings in New York City, they were prosecuted for racial discrimination against people of color. Before Donald Trump ran for President in 2015, it was reported in "Vanity Fair" magazine that Ivana Trump said, when she and Donald were married, he kept a book of Adolph Hitler's speeches in a cabinet on his side of their bed, and sometimes he read it at night. When later asked about that, Trump said, if he ever had such a book, he didn't read it. When former Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon and Imperial Wizard David Duke endorsed Trump for president in 2015, Trump did not denounce Duke and say he did not want the Klan's votes. After Vladimir Putin was elected President for Life of Russia, newly-elected President Trump said on national television that he liked the idea of president for life.

  Media photos and videos of MAGA rallies in 2015, and since, revealed oceans of white people. Media photos and videos of the 2017 Charlottesville, Virginia protest against removing Confederate monuments revealed oceans of white people, and there were Confederate and Swastika flags. Media photos and videos of the January 6, 2021 insurrection in The Capitol revealed oceans of white people, and a Confederate flag. When Trump kept saying before and after the 2020 election that it was stolen, his Aryan armies knew he meant it was stolen by people of color.

    Res Ipsa loquitur (the thing speaks for itself) is evidentiary, and a picture is worth a thousand words.

MAGA rally 

Charlottesville

January 6, 2021  

    In plain view, Trump violated his oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution by inciting the January 6, 2021 Aryan insurrection outside and inside the national Capitol. Trump loved, and still loves, the January 6, 2021 Aryan insurrection. Trump still wants to be president for life and is a clear and present Aryan threat to the United States Constitution and to the Nation. 

    After Trump announced in 2021 that he would run for president again, President Biden, pursuant to his oath of office, to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, could have brought an Amendment 14, Section 3 action in the United States District Court, in Washington, D.C., to disqualify Trump from running for president again.

    Private citizens filed an Amendment 14, Section 3 Declaratory Judgment action in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida to disqualify Donald Trump from running for president. 

CASE NO. 23-CV-61628-ROSENBERG

LAWRENCE A. CAPLAN, BARRY BUTIN, and MICHAEL STRIANESE,

Plaintiffs, v.

DONALD J. TRUMP, Defendant.

    After that action was dismissed for lack of standing by the plaintiff to bring the action, thus lack of jurisdiction of the court, President Biden did not honor his oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution by filing an Amendment 14, Section 3 action to disqualify Trump from running for president again.

   After Amendment 14, Section 3 actions filed by other private citizens in state courts to disqualify Trump from holding public office, were dismissed by state court judges, President Biden did not honor his oath of office and file a federal Amendment 14, Section 3 action against Trump.

    In all of that context, why would not an American citizen and registered voter have standing to bring a mandamus action asking a United States District Court to Order President Biden to uphold his oath of office, by asking the Court to enforce Amendment 14, Section 3 and bar Donald Trump from holding public office, including President of the United States?  

    Alternatively, why would not an American citizen and registered voter have standing to ask a United States District Court to rule President Biden breached his Presidential oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and thus a U.S. citizen and registered voter can bring an Amendment 14, Section 3 citizen's derivative action in President Biden's stead against Donald Trump? Cf shareholder derivative action in corporate law.

Sloan Bashinsky, J.D., LLM in Taxation

The only solution in Palestine is for Israel to move to America

    Recently, an American tried to convince me online that HAMAS is not a terrorist organization. Maybe I should have fainted? Yesterday, he told me that Hamas is fighting for liberation, not for Islam. Maybe I should have fainted again?

    Quoting me from yesterday's post, he wrote - emphasis added by me.

Julio 

"I see no way the religious war in Palestine will ever resolve as long as the state of Israel exists." 

The state of Israel surely can have the right to exist, but a sane Israel that conforms to the international rules of human rights. I do wish and believe that that country can silence or expulse their fanatic theocracy and will return to the not long-ago ways where in the "Holy Land" normal members of the three Abrahamic religions lived peacefully. Here in America, we also have to commit to stop the Christian right which is increasingly making our country a theocracy too. Hamas is fighting for liberation, not for Islam. The problem is and has always been fundamentalist religion. 

Sloan Bashinsky

HAMAS is an acronym. Look it up.

HAMAS–the acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya (Islamic Resistance Movement)—is the largest and most capable militant group in the Palestinian territories and one of the territories' two major political parties. 

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-hamas

Excerpts:

Hamas, an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya (“Islamic Resistance Movement”), was founded by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a Palestinian cleric who became an activist in local branches of the Muslim Brotherhood after dedicating his early life to Islamic scholarship in Cairo. Beginning in the late 1960s, Yassin preached and performed charitable work in the West Bank and Gaza, both of which Israel occupied following the 1967 Six-Day War.

Yassin established Hamas as the Brotherhood’s political arm in Gaza in December 1987, following the outbreak of the first intifada, a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. At the time, Hamas’s purpose was to counter Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), another organization whose commitment to violently resisting Israel threatened to draw Palestinians’ support away from the Brotherhood. In 1988, Hamas published its charter, calling for the destruction of Israel and the establishment of an Islamic society in historic Palestine. In what observers called an attempt to moderate its image, Hamas presented a new document [PDF] in 2017 that accepted an interim Palestinian state along the “Green Line” border established before the Six-Day War but that still refused to recognize Israel.

Sloan Bashinsky

I think this is what Israel bases its right to exist in Palestine. Good luck getting religious fanatics on either side to get along and live and let live. 

Old Testament 

Amos 9 

I saw the Lord standing by the altar, and he said:

“Strike the tops of the pillars

so that the thresholds shake.

Bring them down on the heads of all the people;

those who are left I will kill with the sword.

Not one will get away,

none will escape.

2 Though they dig down to the depths below,

from there my hand will take them.

Though they climb up to the heavens above,

from there I will bring them down.

3 Though they hide themselves on the top of Carmel

there I will hunt them down and seize them.

Though they hide from my eyes at the bottom of the sea,

there I will command the serpent to bite them.

4 Though they are driven into exile by their enemies,

there I will command the sword to slay them.

“I will keep my eye on them

for harm and not for good.”

5 The Lord, the Lord Almighty—

he touches the earth and it melts,

and all who live in it mourn;

the whole land rises like the Nile,

then sinks like the river of Egypt;

6 he builds his lofty palace[a] in the heavens

and sets its foundation[b] on the earth;

he calls for the waters of the sea

and pours them out over the face of the land—

the Lord is his name.

7 “Are not you Israelites

the same to me as the Cushites[c]?”

declares the Lord.

“Did I not bring Israel up from Egypt,

the Philistines from Caphtor[d]

and the Arameans from Kir?

8 “Surely the eyes of the Sovereign Lord

are on the sinful kingdom.

I will destroy it

from the face of the earth.

Yet I will not totally destroy

the descendants of Jacob,”

declares the Lord.

9 “For I will give the command,

and I will shake the people of Israel

among all the nations

as grain is shaken in a sieve,

and not a pebble will reach the ground.

10 All the sinners among my people

will die by the sword,

all those who say,

‘Disaster will not overtake or meet us.’

Israel’s Restoration

11 “In that day

“I will restore David’s fallen shelter—

I will repair its broken walls

and restore its ruins—

and will rebuild it as it used to be,

12 so that they may possess the remnant of Edom

and all the nations that bear my name,[e]”

declares the Lord, who will do these things.

13 “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, 

Julio

True, but the West Bank recognized Israel and chose not to fight and yet they have suffered torture from the Israelis. Until the Palestinians are given their lands the Israelis occupied in 1967 there cannot be peace.

Sloan Bashinsky

There cannot be peace in that region as long as the state of Israel exists there and Islam exists there. You erase your credibility by arguing HAMAS is not an Islamic terrorist organization. That's exactly what it is. On October 7 of this year, which was my birthday, Hamas launched a terrorist attack inside Israel, to bait Israel to do precisely what it now is doing. Hamas knew a lot of Palestinian civilians would die. Hamas didn't and doesn't give a shit about Palestinian civilians being killed. Taking the Hamas side or the Israel side is insane. America should have abandoned Israel a long time ago, but that would have wreaked havoc at the polls for members of Congress or a president, who did it. The American Bible thumpers would have voted them out of office, and maybe worse than that. America needs to offer Israel sanctuary in America. Israel probably will decline. America then cuts Israel loose. That's what I would ask Congress to do, if I were president. 

 

Julio

I believe you are forgetting that when Islam was the ruler of Palestine most of the time the three religions lived in peace with the exceptions when the Christian zealots arrived with the crusades, or when the mad Fatimid caliph of Cairo who, believed himself to be God, started persecuting Christians and Jews in the Levant, and now when those crazy Kahanist Jews took control of the region. When Europe expulsed the Jews, the Islamic states received them. Don't forget the Great Maimonides found refuge in Cairo where he became the physician of Saladin after whose death, he remained a physician to the Ayyubid dynasty. Again, the problem is the religious fundamentalists of the world, take them out and stop help from America and you will keep a sane and just Israel for everybody. HAMAS like any liberation movement that faces a much powerful opponent has to resort to terrorism. It happened in Vietnam and everywhere else. I imagine the Brits labeled George Washington a terrorist. It all depends on the point of view, but no one can deny the aftermath of October 7th. helped the world to understand the brutality of the Israeli regime. And for me that is a great success in the advancing of the Palestinian independence. I don't have contacts with celestial beings so I will leave to the more fortunate ones to ask them why the Almighty God permitted or sanctioned the holocaust of the Jews and the Palestinians. You have your well-funded opinions and I have mine and not being a missionary or preacher let's leave it this way. It was good to talk to you.

Sloan Bashinsky

"Again, the problem is the religious fundamentalists of the world, take them out and stop help from America and you will keep a sane and just Israel for everybody."
I don't see any of that happening. 

I think I told you this before, that a few days after 9/11, Archangel Michael told me as I walked out of a U.S. Post Office, that America should get out the the Middle East altogether and let Israel and Islam work it out or fight in out, and in that way learn, which, if either, is God's chosen people. 

Are HAMAS and its benefactor Iran and radical Islam generally so blinded by zealotry that they do not believe Israel will use its nukes if it feels sufficiently threatened? I don't think President Biden understands that, nor the American right, but I think Vladimir Putin does.
Godspeed, Julio 

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com

As long as the state of Israel exists, there will be war in Palestine- it's in the three Abrahamic religions' Scriptures and genes

    In 2002, I got involved in a Christian Science Monitor online discussion of whether America should invade Iraq, which was alleged by the second President George Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Colin Powell to have weapons of mass destruction. People who participated in the discussion used a fake name (avatar). Mine was Resist Not Evil.

    I pissed off a lot of Christians in that forum, who were ignoring what Jesus said in the Gospels: resist not one who does evil and turn the other cheek. I pissed off a lot of American war veterans by saying Iraq was a trap, which was not worth one killed, wounded or battle-shocked (PTS) American soldier. 

    A coalition of America and other nations' troops invaded Iraq, won a quick victory, and the trap was sprung by Islamic insurgents. Hell was in session. No weapons of mass destruction were found. Iraq had been an American ally against Iran. America's only ally over there today is Israel, which has nuclear weapons.

    As long as the state of Israel exists, there will be war in Palestine- it's in the three Abrahamic religions' Scriptures and genes. It looks to me that American Christians, who want America to keep sending Israel money and weapons, do it because Jesus was crucified in Palestine at the behest of Jewish religious leaders, and they want Israel to protect the Christendom's Holy Land. Yet, I don't see those American Christians dropping everything to rush over to Israel and take up arms to help Israel fight adversaries who are not afraid to die, because they believe they are going straight to Paradise. It looks to me the only solution is for America to offer every Israeli sanctuary in America, in exchange for the state of Israel ceasing to exist.

    This below was is my email account this morning from the highly respected American war correspondent Chris Hedges, who risked his life many times on the front lines. I joined in the discussion and selected several jolting remarks from other readers.

The War According to Hamas

The Palestinian resistance understands its enemy. It has learned through experience how to fight it. This is not good news for Israel.

CHRIS HEDGES

NOV 12, 2023 

CAIRO, Egypt: Basel al-Araj, a Palestinian resistance leader, shortly before Israel’s 2014 invasion of Gaza, laid down the fundamental rules for warfare against the Israel. 

The rules by al-Araj, not a member of Hamas, provide the Palestinian lens for the incursion by Israeli forces in Gaza. While Israel’s superior firepower — its air force, missiles, tanks, armored personnel carriers, drones, naval forces, mechanized units and artillery — make it possible to inflict huge numbers of Palestinian casualties, most of them civilians, while Israel can level whole neighborhoods and turn hospitals, schools, power stations, water treatment plants, bakeries, mosques and churches into piles of concrete, this does not translate into a defeat of the Palestinian resistance groups. 

Al-Araj argued that the fight with Israel cannot be measured with body counts. The Israelis will be able to kill far greater numbers of Palestinians. Resistant movements, he wrote, always suffer disproportionate losses. In the independence war in Algeria, between 1954 and 1962, upwards of 1.5 million Algerians —  or around 10 percent of the population —  were  killed by the French.  In the airport in Algiers, the country’s capital, is a huge sign that reads: “Welcome to Algeria. Land of a million Martyrs.”

“We are far more capable of bearing the costs, so there is no need to compare or be alarmed by the magnitude of the numbers,” he wrote.

Al-Araj, who led hunger strikes while in Palestine Authority prisons, was long a target for Israel. Israel’s counter-terrorism unit, Yamam, pursued him for months before raiding his home on March 6, 2017 in el-Bireh. After a two-hour gun battle, Israeli forces, which fired rockets into the building, burst inside and executed him at close range. He was 31.   

The fight with Israel, al-Araj reminded Palestinians, must “follow the logic of guerrilla warfare or hybrid warfare, which Arabs and Muslims have become masters of through our experiences in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Gaza.” Never defend “fixed points and borders.” Draw the enemy into an ambush, accomplished by light resistance and tactical withdrawals. Strike the flanks and the rear. The calculus of asymmetric warfare is very different from conventional war. And what Israel defines as success, including the seizing of territory, numerous deaths and the destruction of infrastructure and buildings, matters little to the resistance fighter.The goal of Palestinian fighters is to remain elusive, to carry out lightning strikes and recede back into the rubble or the vast tunnel network under Gaza. 

The Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, says it partially destroyed more than 160 Israeli military targets in Gaza, including more than 27 tanks and vehicles in the past two days. On Nov. 11, the Al-Qassam Brigade says it lured Israeli soldiers to a burning car in the West Bank and blew up their vehicles with an IED. On Nov. 10 the Al-Qassam Brigades, Saraya Al-Quds, and Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, say they allowed the Israelis to advance without significant opposition during the day. In the evening they ambushed the Israeli forces west of Tal al-Hawa, in the areas around Al-Shifa Hospital, west of the Al-Shati refugee camp and west of Beit Lahia in the northern part of the Gaza strip. Israel unleashed a heavy bombardment, the Palestinian fighters said, in an attempt to rescue its soldiers. Israel reportedly suffered high numbers of casualties. On Nov. 9, Al-Qassam Brigades say they ambushed Israeli soldiers in Juhr al-Dik, targeting them with an anti-personnel rocket. The Israeli soldiers were killed, they said, at “point blank range.” On Nov. 6, the Al-Qassam Brigades say they destroyed five Israeli tanks with Yassin 105 rockets in northwest Gaza City. On Nov. 2 Al-Qassam Brigades claimed they destroyed six tanks and two military vehicles in one hour northwest of Gaza City.  “The number of casualties is significantly higher than what the enemy’s leadership has announced,” said Abu Obeida, the spokesperson for the Al Qassam Brigades. 

Israel has banned the foreign press from reporting from Gaza. It has killed over 40 Palestinian journalists and media workers. It also has instituted prolonged blockages of the internet and cell phone service. No doubt, this heavy handed censorship is done to limit the horrific images of civilian casualties. But I suspect it is also intended to block images of a ground offensive that is tougher, more protracted and more costly than Israel anticipated.

Israel invests tremendous resources in its propaganda campaign, getting networks such as CNN to repeat back its talking points. Jake Tapper should be an honorary Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman. 

Al-Araj warned about the attempt by Israel to demoralize fighters by posting photos and videos of Israelis occupying landmarks and public spaces. 

A video being shared on social media shows the raising of the Israeli flag on a beach in Gaza. A group of soldiers surround the flag and sing the Israeli national anthem. 

In October last year, Jewish settlers occupied the Ibrahimi mosque in the West Bank town of Hebron, where a Jewish settler, Barach Goldstein, gunned down 29 Palestinians in 1994 as they prayed. The settlers held a music festival and dance party in the mosque. They hung an Israeli flag from the roof. Videos have circulated that denigrate and ridicule Palestinians.

Al-Araj wrote that Israel’s propaganda is designed to instill panic, demonize Palestinians and spread defeatism.

“We are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba,” said Israeli security cabinet member and Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter, referring to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their land in 1948, facilitated by massacres, the raping of Palestinian women and girls, and the razing of entire villages by Zionist militias.  “From an operational point of view, there is no way to wage a war — as the IDF seeks to do in Gaza — with masses between the tanks and the soldiers.” “Gaza Nakba 2023. That’s how it’ll end,” he concluded.

Israel equates the Palestinians with the Nazis. Naftali Bennett, Israel’s former Prime Minister, in an interview on Sky News on Oct. 12 said, “We’re fighting Nazis.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described Hamas in a press conference with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, as “the new Nazis.” 

The IDF posted a tweet that read: “Never again is NOW. IDF forces discovered a copy of Hitler’s infamous book ‘Mein Kampf’ — translated into Arabic — in a child’s bedroom used as a Hamas terrorist base in Gaza. The book was discovered among the personal belongings of one of the terrorists, featuring annotations and highlights. Hamas embraces the ideology of Hitler, the one responsible for the annihilation of the Jewish people.”

The message is clear. Palestinians embody absolute evil.

Israel releases images that show Palestinians and Palestinian prisoners being denigrated and abused by Israelis. At the same time, Israel presents itself as compassionate.

A video titled “IDF Soldiers Give Gazan Civilians Water After Hamas Refused,” was recently circulated. The video, clearly staged, reminded me of the footage of the Bosnian Serb commander Gen. Ratko Mladic who handed out candy to children in Srebrenica in 1995 before overseeing the execution of 8,000 men and boys.

“The enemy will carry out tactical, qualitative operations to assassinate some symbols [of resistance], and all of this is part of psychological warfare,” al-Araj wrote. “Those who have died and those who will die will never affect the resistance’s system and cohesion because the structure and formations of the resistance are not centralized but horizontal and widespread. Their goal is to influence the resistance’s support base and the families of the resistance fighters, as they are the only ones who can affect the men of the resistance.”

In every war, information is weaponized. But to rely exclusively on the Israeli narrative is to be deceived, not only about the war crimes Israel carries out but the nature of the war itself. The Palestinians understand their foe. They have had a lot of experience. They knew this was coming. I suspect the fighting in Gaza will continue for a long time. Israel paid a high price on Oct. 7 when Palestinian fighters breached its borders. It will pay an even higher price in Gaza.

 

Sloan Bashinsky

I subscribed to your newsletter, Chris, maybe two weeks ago, because of your reputation as a war correspondent, who goes where the bullets, grenades, rockets and bombs are flying and colliding with human beings.

You clearly do not like Israel. I don't care for Israel, either. Yet, I disagree that Hamas is a resistance organization. It is a terrorist organization, because it burrows in and hides behind and underneath civilians. And it kills civilians in Israel.

Hamas knew what would happen after the October 7 attack, which, oddly, is my birthday. Hamas knew many civilians in Gaza would be killed. Hamas views the dead civilians as martyrs, who went straight to paradise and Allah.

While you, and many, view the dead civilians as victims of Israeli genocide. 

Hamas loves you for taking their side against Israel.

Both sides are led by religious zealots, and God only knows, or maybe God has no clue, how it will progress from here.

It's a crying shame that America did not welcome the WWII European Jewish refugees into America. Perhaps it's time America offers sanctuary to every Jew living in Israel today, in exchange for Israel standing down, packing up, and leaving Palestine.

I can't imagine why former President Trump and the Republicans in the U.S. Congress, and the Christian right ministers in America are not already making that America's top priority. The American Christian right believes in Armageddon and that it will come out of Palestine. Even though they believe they will be taken up in the Rapture, they sure as hell don't have any interest in doing it that way.  

J C7

Sloan: You make some good points. I find that making enemies creates a hate-filled future. The revenge factor is constantly perpetuated. I feel sad for ALL the innocents that are and will pay because these power and money hungry humans refuse to STOP THE KILLING! We were taught to use our words as children.

We do need to separate these parties by enacting true human rights for all. 

Violence and global capitalism will never support such a peace. 

Sloan Bashinsky

How can Hamas (Islam) and Israel be separated, unless all the Jews in Israel are taken in by America, or by some country not dominated by Islam, and the state of Israel ceases to exist? 

Israel has nuclear weapons, and if Israel feels sufficiently threatened, it will detonate its nukes where it thinks best for Israel. 

I think America made a grave mistake supporting Israel with money and weapons, and I think it happened because American Christians view Palestine as Christianity's Holy Land, and how better to defend it, than to arm Israel to the teeth. 

In olden times, at the Vatican's behest, Western European countries sent mercenaries called crusaders to defend the Holy Land from Islam. I see no way the religious war in Palestine will ever resolve as long as the state of Israel exists.

Paul

A revolting excuse for the butchery of 850 Israeli civilians. Yes, the fury and blood lust of Hamas was actually cultivated by the Netanyahu fascist regime in his desperate but losing effort to hold power. But the slaughter of 10,000 Gazan civilians apparently means as little to Hamas as to Israel's zionists. Moreover, the concept that it doesn't matter if millions of Palestinian civilians are killed while your guerilla force kills off 50 is idiotic. The first rule of guerilla warfare is the unity and material support of the much larger mass of oppressed civilians. The only military hope for a free Palestine lies in the military commitment of its middle east supposed allies. US imperialism has made clear that it will attack from Iran to Yemen against any such attack. The demand for a lasting ceasefire and the renewal of the two independent states are the only demands that stands a real chance of being effected. 

Sloan Bashinsky

Do you think Hamas is concerned about the American fleet, or with Israel, which Hamas baited into doing exactly what it is doing? Do you see any possible resolution short of Israel being relocated to America, or somewhere far from Islamic countries? 

Jim

You had better read a book, Paul. Your diatribe lacks historical fact. The 2 State solution is no more than an INSIDE JOKE in Israel, the UN and the US. Blaming the enemy for Israeli deaths and their own deaths is ridiculous! The use by MSM time and time again of THE UNPROVOKED ATTACK is the biggest lie of all since Oct7. As Chomsky said, when leaders call anything an UNPROVOKED ATTACK MEANS IT WAS DEFINITETLY PROVOKED! Read Ilan Pappes "Ten Myths about Israel" or Chomsky's "Fateful Triangle" for a true history of Palestine/Israel.

    

Debsisdead  

I wish I could be as sanguine about this as you Mr Hedges but I fear that the fact Palestinians have released a piece on the rules their fighters should adopt kinda says it all. Palestinians have rules about what they do but as we have seen with the recent and entirely unsurprising revelations that the bulk of the so-called atrocities on zionist civilians were committed by the idf to prevent hostage taking says it all. the zionists have no rules, the nonsense pushed out by zionists as revealed in Israel Shahak's tell all Jewish History, Jewish Religion (see Jewish History, Jewish Religion The Weight Of Three Thousand Years By Israel Shahak 126pgs : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive ) shows that as far as recreating 'greater israel' zionists have no rules. Any amount of killing, rape, desecration is A OK as long as the jew doing it is doing so to bring about the seizure of all lands zionists believe was 'gifted' to them by their particularly cruel & asinine god.

Jewish History, Jewish Religion The Weight of Three Thousand Years by Israel Shahak 126pgs   

eg:

“…various rabbinical commentators in the past drew the logical conclusion that in wartime all Gentiles belonging to a hostile population may, or even should be killed. Since 1973 this doctrine is being publicly propagated for the guidance of religious Israeli soldiers. The first such official exhortation was included in a booklet published by the Central Region Command of the Israeli Army, whose area includes the West Bank. In this booklet the Command's Chief Chaplain writes:

When our forces come across civilians during a war or in hot pursuit or in a raid, so long as there is no certainty that those civilians are incapable of harming our forces, then according to the Halakhah they may and even should be killed ... Under no circumstances should an Arab be trusted, even if he makes an impression of being civilised ... In war, when our forces storm the enemy, they are allowed and even enjoined by the Halakhah to kill even good civilians, that is, civilians who are ostensibly good.’” 

No wonder these people seek to drag up Hitler on any occasion, zionists' beliefs are even worse than anything that mob of nazi thugs ever dreamed up.

Jon 

Far far more innocent people have lost their lives because of the Jewish God than for any other historical reason. Abrahamism is the killingest set of ideas ever invented. 

Sloan Bashinsky

Er, Mohammed descended from Abraham's son, Ishmael, who was called a wild donkey of a man, who didn't get along well with other people. In Genesis, God told Abraham that Ishmael's seed would become a great nation and would cause Isaac's seed trouble. Looks like islam took that to heart. Moses descended from Issac, and much later came Jesus. Today's Christians often behave a lot more like Moses, Joshua, etc., than Jesus.

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com