Tags: 4 Min Read; Human Interest Videos
Parties…
While tons of people sat out Independence Day parties, I went, as mentioned, to a dance party in the evening and a BBQ during the day. It was nice. Subdued. Even the folks on the Right are starting, I think, to "get" that squeezing Hamas around Gaza is pointless. (Folks on the Left have been saying this for many months.)
On Independence Day
Allison Kaplan Sommer in Haaretz writes:
If the transition between Israel's Memorial Day and Independence Day has always felt a bit awkward, this year, the ritual is indisputably inappropriate and out of place. Two alternative ceremonies might be a sign that more and more Israelis won't take part in the stately show
... Nobody feels like having a party, particularly one hosted by such an unpopular government. The official ceremony has been dramatically scaled back and will be held without an audience – less out of respect for those whose lives were altered this year, than a desire to avoid heckling and protests over the war and public anger about the hostage crisis.
...
The annual, and usually controversial Joint Israeli-Palestinian Memorial ceremony, created by Combatants for Peace and by the Parents Circle, and held at the beginning of Memorial Day drew 15,000 in-person participants along with 200,000 viewers online in 2023.
But this year, the event was pre-recorded and took place online only – since West Bank Palestinians cannot enter Israel to attend the event, following the cancellation of permits post-October 7. In addition, Carly Rosenthal of Combatants for Peace said on the podcast, the tense atmosphere and "security risks" made it difficult to find a venue in which to hold it.
Despite the inevitable hopelessness, Rosenthal notes, the ceremony offers a "vision of what the day after the war could look like, when Israelis and Palestinians can actually live together, can support each other and can see each other's shared humanity."
Attitudes...
(Cited by the New York Times, 2024-05-13)
A poll conducted this month by the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem-based research group, suggests that a majority of Israelis see a hostage deal as a priority over a military operation in Rafah.
"Free the Hostages" Demonstrations in Israel…
The huge demonstrations, that have been going on weekly for months, all have the same message: Freeing the hostages is job #1. Stop the war. Free the hostages. Figure the rest out later.
"Hamas Only Understands Force"
True. It is also true that Hamas is a Non State Actor. As such, it can't be killed by an army, because there is no capital to surrender. (Capture the Flag models state-vs-state conflict. No game models Non State Actors because ideology and belief doesn't conform to rules.)
This does not mean violence is off the table (because it is true that Hamas...). But it means that driving an army around Gaza is squeezing a balloon: Hamas gets pushed around, but always has someplace to go. (The recent Turkish announcement that 1,000 Hamas terrorists are in Turkey for medical treatment shows the balloon isn't even the borders of the Gaza Strip.)
Phone Calls…
Something I discovered late in the life of ShipRush (my former business): Most of life is the game of Chess not Battleship. What do I mean? It means that both sides can see all the possible moves of all parties. The questions is (essentially) never "What is possible?" rather it's "What will the other party actually do?"
Thinking aloud on a call last week, I said, "Let's be Sinwaar. If I am Sinwaar, what is my most valuable asset? The hostages. OK. Which hostage is most famous? (E.g. most valuable.) I would guess Hersh Goldberg-Polin, because his parents have done an amazing job raising awareness of the hostage crisis. So I am Sinwaar, what do I do? I put Hersh on a six foot leash attached to my belt. Now, is the leash useful if no one knows? No. So make sure the IDF knows what I’ve done."
At shul a few days ago, I bumped into a guy whose reserve duty is working in the Office of the Prime Minister running the "hostage desk." I ran the above by him. The response, "That is exactly how it is."
On a chess board, everyone sees all possible moves. A powerful move is to refuse to play, as I discussed in #104. (Again, that does not mean violence is off the table, but it does mean you don't send in an army.)
Stepping away from the table takes grown up leaders. Anything less lets injured masculinity call the shots, as discussed in #78. Israeli leadership is far from "secure" enough to have perspective on the conflict they engaged with the ground invasion.
Call #2
Similarly, the interview with the 1968 Vietnam War protester Mark Rudd discusses the parallel chess game of U.S. domestic politics. In the interview (linked in #112), Mark says:
"And I'm not going to defend them [U.S. students protesting for Gaza]," [Rudd] adds, "because they're playing into the hands of the right wing in this country. And what terrifies me is that this could end up bringing [Donald] Trump back into power."
Mark was there. It was protests on campuses and at the 1968 Democratic Convention that brought Nixon to power. The Gaza protests in the U.S. create the same dynamic today.
For some years, I was active in the Washington State Democratic party. This past January, I had a 1-1 call with Chair of Washington State Democrats, Shasti Conrad. Shasti is one year into her tenure as Chair, having succeeded veteran Tina Podlodowski in early 2023. My first comment: “I am so sorry you have this mess to deal with.” My first question: “Are Gaza protests the fracture on the Left that enables the rise of American fascism?”
She had no response.
It seems likely she isn’t using the historical perspective Mark Rudd and I think in.
In Fact...
Surfacing in the western press, the Prime Minister is so out of touch with his own Defense Minister that they now converse via the newspaper. From today's Haaretz:
In an unprecedented open challenge to Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said at a press conference he would not agree to Israel establishing military rule in Gaza, and called on PM Netanyahu to publicly declare that Israel will not do so.
Gallant said that he asked the prime minister for an alternative governing body to Hamas to be found and did not receive a response. He said that this effectively means a military regime in Gaza, to which he will not agree.
Why won't he agree? Because he knows such an effort would result in a never ending stream of killed Israelis, and, unlike the Prime Minister, this is the #1 thing he wants to avoid.
Freedom of Speech in Gaza...
During Al-Jazeera's live broadcast from Gaza yesterday, a particular graffiti on the wall was visible in the background. It reads:
Kus Umm Sinwar
(A form of the more popular "Kus Ummak", a well-known insult in Arabic which literally translates to “Your mother's c*nt")
Why Hate Hamas?
Because they control the food warehouses and charge serious money for aid that is intended to be distributed free of charge? Or because they murder anyone with a different opinion? Yesterday the IDF released footage showing armed Hamas members in a U.N. warehouse compound and shooting at civilians to chase them away from the food stockpiles. (On a laptop screen the AK47s are clearly visible.) (This is probably the 50th video I have seen of Hamas shooting at Palestinians—in many of the others people are killed, I usually don’t include those.)
Heroes in white - Arab paramedics working in the Israeli Ambulance Service
6 Min. Arabic w English subs.
Relief Area
Alef: It can only get better... right?
Satirical clip from Eretz Nehederet.
Hebrew w English Subs
Bet
Gimmel
Dalet
(Never imagined this one...)
Hey: Popular Vote Eurovision
Vav
I buy most of my vegetables in the “Arab Quarter” of the farmers’ market near my apartment (I described a Ramadan conversation there in #95). It is a father-son setup: The son sells vegetables and eggs, the father in the next stall sells olives and pickled things. I’ve been buying there for a year or more now. The father has started thanking me profusely.
To peace,
Raf
(Thank you A.K., N.Z., M.Z.)