First Time Here? Readers suggest starting with #120.
Tags: 7 Minute Read; Relief! Iran context
Updates: The section below “The North of Israel Just Now” was accidentally published without the intended photo gallery. Fixed on 2024-07-08; Small updates were made to #125
Stumbled on a food truck festival in Jerusalem. Stayed to dance. 3 Min:
At the shuk (farmers' market) near my apartment, I buy vegetables from African guys (staffing the register) while African American rap music blasts from the speakers. Surreal.
Umbilicus
In Jerusalem, a new exhibit, Umbilicus, is opening in the Kishle, part of the Tower of David Museum. I got to see some of the installation in progress. It was really cool! The team doing the installation (and the pool of artists) is a mix of Arabs and Jews. One of the "old city locals" on the crew told me where to pick up lunch in the Old City. I walked in the Jaffa gate and pretty deep into the Old City to Hummus Lina.
Highly recommended.
The Old City is empty. Shopkeepers (who are predominantly Arab) sit in front of their stores, scrolling on their phones. It was early afternoon on a weekday and I was nearly alone in the streets. A few merchants said hello--I guess my hat advertises "not local."
One tidbit from the Umbilicus exhibit:
Hannan Abu-Hussein — Body Memory
Mail
#125 & "Stop Crying!"
My mother wrote:
When I was first pregnant with [Raf], I began paying attention to how parents treated their kids in public. I don't think I had paid much attention to that until I was on the verge of being a parent. And what I noticed most often was how many parents smacked their crying kids to make them stop crying. And I also noticed that it was NEVER effective...at least not in the time I had to observe. It isn't parenting at all...it is simply on-the-spot-in-public response behavior.
World: A Quiet World is a Peaceful World?
In Europe, automated systems send speeding tickets. In the U.S. there are few automated systems. (In Seattle, if the automated system catches you running a red light it is issued as a kind of parking ticket and is easily challenged.)
Israel doesn't use automated systems to enforce speed limits (that I know of), but automated systems heavily enforce red lights and other traffic rules (such as illegal u-turns and driving in bus lanes).
And now... hurry up honking will be detected... via microphone... Tel Aviv is to start issuing fines of over US$100 for "hurry up" honking....
Seen
Jerusalem
Children sleep here. Please keep it QUIET
(This is next to the street where the Prime Minister lives... there are a lot of noisy demonstrations [calling for elections, calling for a hostage deal].)
One People vs. Zero Government
At the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem
Who are we if they are still there?
On the Train
Read
Upcoming Book: Mr. Abandonment
Families of hostages placed ads in Israeli newspapers for a book about PM Netanyahu they plan to publish soon, entitled "Mr. Abandonment – The legacy of the deserter of the hostages." The book was written by the Choosing Life organization, whose members include family members of hostages. "We recognized that Netanyahu's vulnerability is his legacy," said a source involved in the book's advertising, which was financed through donations.
(from Haaretz)
Hamas Surrender: How Close?
(What follows is a militarist's perspective. It isn't an angle that gets discussed much. I include it as a counterpoint more than anything else.)
Hamas Math (Drawn from a long form post by Abu Ali Express)
October 6, 2023: Total armed men in the Strip (including police forces) - 60,000-70,000 people
June 2024: Ministry of Health in Gaza: ~38,000 Gazans have been killed.
Israeli Prime Minister's Office estimates that %42 of Gaza casualties are terrorists.
June 2024:
There are reportedly 1,300 Gazan terrorists currently imprisoned in Israel.
Hamas claims there are 10,000 missing persons (in the rubble of buildings). At the %42 "Hamas ratio", that is 4,200 terrorists.
About a thousand terrorists were killed inside Israel on October 7th. [Side note: Those mass graves in Gaza? Several of them were repositories for these bodies, delivered to Gaza by the truckload in the weeks after October 7.]
From the above, it can be estimated that about 22,000 out of about 70,000 Gazans who carry weapons have left the "circle of combat."
Conclusion: We are left with nearly 50,000 armed Hamas members still alive. (Still needing to subtract those wounded who cannot return to combat, and others who fled abroad [Approximately %5 of the Gaza population paid its way to Egypt before Egypt closed its side of the Rafah crossing.]). The result: There are still tens of thousands of trained terrorists carrying weapons that allow, at this stage, the continuation of Hamas' rule and the thwarting of any governing alternative to Hamas.
The author of the above (who is anonymous) suggests that the main issue is that Hamas members wear civilian clothing and move about with the population. This is possible because when a neighborhood relocates within Gaza, Israel does not "filter" the people to identify Hamas members. With an ongoing effort of months or years, along with anti-militant "filtering" when the populace moves, the author believes room can be created for alternative governance to arise.
The author contrasts the structure of Hamas with that of Islamic Jihad. In the past, Islamic Jihad has been severely degraded when its head was killed. The author believes that Hamas has a more robust structure, and that while the elimination of Sinwar might hasten surrender, it will not cause capitulation.
Postmark
Gaza
Repair Work
Goes on in many many places. Below are Electric Company personnel repairing power line number 11 so that they can operate the water desalination plant and the sewage systems in Deir al-Balah in the center of the Gaza Strip.
Fizzy Drinks & Smokes
A Gazan journalist: We call on the international organizations to negotiate with Netanyahu so that he will bring cleaning materials, fizzy drinks and cigarettes into Gaza.
There are two aspects to this: 1) There is a list of what qualifies as Humanitarian Aid. It seems to exclude soda pop and tobacco products; 2) This strikes Raf as low hanging, peace-building fruit: Israel could allow the import of free (or tax free) "luxury" items of these kinds, with pro-peace [or anti-Hamas] branding and win hearts and minds. You heard it here first.
Lebanon
Lebanese Parliament Member Ghada Ayoub, of the Lebanese Forces (Christian) party, calls on Hezbollah to take full responsibility for the war from an economic standpoint and to pay Lebanon's taxes in the coming decade. Taking the position that Hezbollah should pay instead of all the Lebanese citizens who did (and do) not want war.
The North of Israel Just Now
The work of Hezbollah…
Pre-Relief....
Dakahlia in Egypt (north-east of Cairo)
Parents of examinees taking the matriculation exam in chemistry this morning are shouting the correct answers to the questions in the exam to their children...
Nothing like mom and dad...
The Egyptian Ministry of Education canceled the exam following the video.
Relief Area
Alef
(This really occurred, afaik)
Bet: As the saying goes...
Two Jews go to a bar: One Zionist and one anti Zionist. The bartender says: “We don’t serve Jews here.”
Gimmel: If the Israeli Flag were modeled on the Saudi Flag
Dalet
Hey
Cartoon of the Iranian opposition following the second round of today's presidential elections in Iran:
Two clowns (contenders in the elections) dance to the music produced by Iran's supreme leader. (As we now know, the reformist candidate, Masoud Pezeshkian defeated the conservative candidate Saeed Jalili. What that means in practice... time will tell.)The President of Azerbaijan has already congratulated Masoud Pezeshkian, the elected President of Iran, and invited him to visit Azerbaijan.
(Will he arrive by helicopter?)
About the new Iranian President:
Pezeshkian, born in Habad (1954), a cardiologist. His father is of Azeri origin and his mother is of Kurdish origin.
Pazeshkian belongs to the reformist movement in Iran.
He served in medical positions in the Iranian army during the Iran-Iraq war.
In 1997 he was appointed the Deputy Minister of Health in Khatami's government and in 2001 he was appointed the Iranian Minister of Health (also under President Khatami).
He was elected to the Iranian parliament 5 times on behalf of Tabriz district (where there is a distinct Azeri majority). Served as Deputy Speaker of the Iranian Parliament in 2016-2020.
Ran as a presidential candidate in 2013 but withdrew his candidacy. He ran again in 2021 (against Raisi) but his candidacy was disqualified (at the direction of Iran's supreme leader) and as mentioned now, in the elections following Raisi's death, Pezeshkian won.
Pazeshkian came out against the regime's attitude towards the Iranian protesters in the protests of 2009, 2018 and 2022 - "It was a mistake, we should have behaved differently", he said.
Pezeshkian is a member of the Turkish-Iranian Friendship Association. It can be assumed that the Turkish President Erdoğan and the President of Azerbaijan are especially happy about his election.
He supports the renewal of the nuclear agreement with the West in order to bring about the lifting of economic sanctions on Iran....
Sources associated with the Iranian opposition claim: the non-Persian peoples in Iran are the ones who brought about the victory of Masoud Pezeshkian in the presidential elections.
According to these sources, if Saeed Jalili [the losing conservative candidate] had competed against another Persian candidate (Pezeshkian is of Azeri-Kurdish origin), then Jalili would have won.
The non-Persian voters rallied in favor of Pezeshkian (this is also evident in the dramatic increase in the percentage of votes in the second round compared to the first round) thinking that he would take care of them. The non-Persian voters in Iran have shown that they are a significant force, according to these sources.
File under: The world ain’t monochrome.
In recent weeks, I have started articulating the current Gaza war as an installment in the violence that has consumed Gaza since at least 2005. One thing that caught my eye is that many Israelis forget that the 2005 pullout from Gaza was unilateral, disconnected from Oslo. It triggered a cascade of violence: First among Gazans (the Gaza civil war between Hamas and Fatah) and then Hamas violence (both against Gazans and Israelis on an ongoing basis ever since).
The current war can be seen as simply a chapter in the book of Gaza violence. It is one of the reasons there are stickers all over with pictures of IDF soldiers killed that say, "Until Victory [over Hamas]." There is a popular worry that if Israel stops too soon, Hamas will persist and the cycle will continue.
A Tel Aviv bench a few blocks from my apartment:
"No Excuses" -- In memory of First Sergeant Tomer Barak [The subtext: Finish off Hamas all the way, no excuses…]
"Say Little - Do Much" In memory of First Sergeant Sahar Sudai
"Sometimes you sacrifice yourself for the team/community" -- In memory of First Sergeant Guy Samchi
"We will always follow your way - The righteous way" -- In memory of Lieutenant colonel Tomer Greenberg
The bench to the left:
Stay well,
Raf
(Thank you A.K., M.T., B.F.Z.)