First Time Here? Readers suggest starting with the expanded Gaza Explainer in #133 and #120.
Tags: 9 Min Read; Long Raf Analysis; Pics of Daily Life
Update, Nov 17, 2024: The Hamas Taxes section was expanded.
I went into the Puppy Yoga place today. No, I am not getting a dog. One of my kids suggested that it might be like Goat Yoga--e.g. they supply the puppies.
That could work!
But no one was there!
Just a puppy!
He didn’t answer my question.
It waits for another day.
Mail
Dept of The Invisible
Items invisible in the Western media.
"27 Dead in Israeli Strike in ____, Lebanon"
What the U.S. news does not follow on to say: How many of them were buried in Hezbollah flags?
In the recent attack (appx November 10) on a house in the Almaat area of northern Lebanon, more than 20 of the 27 victims were buried in Hezbollah flags. (Non Hezbollah members are buried in Lebanese flags.)
There is a message in there...
(I will spare you the photo.)
For the past months, this has been the same math in Gaza and Lebanon. Strikes without warning are done when there are known Hamas/Hezbollah people at the location. Hamas in Gaza continues to hide its casualties. Hezbollah no longer keeps an inventory on its web site, but the information surfaces on social media.
Extracting Value from Misery
An effect of a drawn out, contentious, conversation is the opportunity to see what themes are persistent and which are forgotten.
In the extreme "Israel is committing genocide" camp is a shrillness that ignores simple facts. For example, until the War started, the population of Gaza (and Palestinians generally) was increasing every year. How does the concept of "genocide" square with that fact? Accusing Israel of genocide is old: Decades old. It started in the 1970's. (A lone activist at Santa Rosa Junior College shouted about this in the early 1980's.) Even now, after a year of war, any population decline in Gaza is due to emigration, not war deaths. (If deaths of Hamas terrorists and emigration is excluded, Gaza's population continued to grow during the war.) (Emigration was estimated as around a quarter of a million prior to October 7 (PDF here), and another 115,000+ since October 7--per the Palestinian Embassy in Cairo. (PDF here) This was before Egypt closed its side of the Rafah crossing in May 2024, which closed Gaza's only exit. (Except for medical treatment exits, which have been facilitated by Israel since May.) [FWIW, Egypt has closed its side of Gaza some number of times over the years, including in late 2020-- for 2+ months; early 2015; 2013; 2011 and other times, often for months.]
And so we arrive at the first, and perhaps most important, dimension that is forgotten. Forgotten so consistently that active repression must be at hand: Who cut off emigration from Gaza?
The answer is Egypt. But this is only one side of the border.
Borders have two sides. Country A on one side. Country B on the other. Either can unilaterally stop traffic. Gaza, as has been forgotten, has two sets of borders: One with Israel, one with Egypt. So on the non-Gaza side there are Israelis or Egyptians. And on the other side... Hamas.
So as we enter the zone of "Who Controls the Entry and Exit of Goods and People to Gaza" Actor Number One is: Egypt.
Actor Number Two is: Hamas.
Actor Number Three is Israel.
We could invert One and Two, as Hamas has full control of all sides. Hamas also has a history of tunneling into Egypt and "doing its own thing" RE import, export and people-moving (over the course of years). Hamas also breaks down the fence (or tunnels) into Egypt or Israel when it wants and runs amok. (Egypt in 2014, Israel in 2023.)
I put Egypt in pole position because other than Hamas, Egypt calls the shots when it comes to Gaza:
Gaza was part of Egypt until June of 1967
In the 1978 Camp David Peace Accords, Egypt insisted on the return of all of Sinai except for Gaza. Egypt refused to take back Gaza or to administer it.
Since then, various segments of Egypt have profited (madly) from Gaza. Before the current war, a prominent Sinai business clan was profiting from both "official" and smuggled goods and people.
With the outbreak of war, a shady part of the Cairo power structure (either Egyptian intelligence directly or an entity paying a big fee to Egyptian intelligence) made over a hundred million dollars charging Gazans (PDF here) for exit permits and temporary residence in Egypt.
Where Does Gaza's Money Come From?
I mean, for starters, between October 2023 and May 2024, how did over 100,000 Gazans come up with thousands of dollars per person (or per family) to get exit permits?
Remittances and Aid
The Arab world, and the world at large, direct large amounts of aid to Gaza. Gazans also receive remittances (money sent by family and friends abroad) that amount to 19% of the local GDP. (Source 1. Source 2.)
Many data sources make Gaza's economy opaque, because it is often lumped with the West Bank. Hamas, 10 years ago, claimed to run a budget of about half a billion dollars. The PA directly funds Gaza with a quarter to half a billion dollars, and Gulf countries have shoveled hundreds of millions at Gaza for construction, hospitals, and other projects. The CIA factbook says Gaza has a GDP of US$27 Billion and a per capita GDP over $5,000. (The CIA uses a PPP [Purchasing Power Parity] model for Gaza because it receives so much aid to be given away "free" that “regular” measurements are misleading.)
Hamas Taxes
Since taking power 15+ years ago, Hamas imposed taxes on everything: Entry & exit, cigarettes, car registrations, and they steal humanitarian aid, stockpile it and sell it (pure profit). (Just in the past week, Hamas has been summarily executing Gazans who were taking aid from humanitarian aid convoys, as Hamas insists, at the muzzle of a gun, on being the only channel for food distribution.) Iran, we discover during the war, was shoveling money at Hamas for armaments and tunnels.
The Extraction Economy
Hamas leaders in Qatar have personal fortunes in the billions, stolen from aid streams intended for Gazans. Hamas leaders in Gaza lived in Beverly Hills style neighborhoods of nice houses with pools.
Where is the list of those benefitting from all this extraction?
Hamas leadership.
Qatar (as the pipeline of money to Gaza and host to Hamas’ billionaire leadership).
Various Egyptian officials and business owners ("coordination fees" to leave Gaza, aid going in to Gaza, trade with Gaza).
Possibly the Egyptian intelligence service itself. (Do they milk money from Gaza and pipe it into U.S. politics?)
All the scammers who run GoFundMe and similar campaigns and pocket the funds. (These skyrocketed during the war, but have been going on for many years.)
That is a hefty, and certainly incomplete, list of entities that profit from Gaza’s misery.
Back in #81 I discussed the Shirky Principle vis-a-vis UNRWA. But Gaza is more than a "problem that is preserved." Gaza, its suffering and its complexity is a huge source of income for a variety of individuals and institutions.
We can forget abstractions and principles like Shirky's, no matter how clearly articulated:
The Shirky principle is the adage that “institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution”. More broadly, it can also be characterized as the adage that “every entity tends to prolong the problem it is solving”.
Gaza is at the center of an "extraction economy" that generates huge profits from misery, disempowerment and political gridlock.
It ain't "just" UNRWA (which, to be fair, doesn't qualify for the Shirky Principle because they explicitly exist to maintain a problem unlike the UNHCR.)
Who, in this world, would dismantle a profitable extraction enterprise? The “extractors” will fight efforts to undo their cash cow.
The obvious candidate is Israel (since it suffers from Gazan misery). But I don't see anyone here talking about that.
Complexity
The Bronfman Fellowship publishes the essays of past fellows. One of these, by Yarden Menelson, resonates: "How much longer can we sanctify complexity?" An excerpt (her full essay is here.):
The Price
I look at the horrors happening in Gaza. I’m a "bleeding heart leftist," but I’m also one of those leftists who won’t apologize for our existence. The tens of thousands of casualties in Gaza — I'm not taking responsibility for most of them. That is, I think terrible things are happening there, and I have no doubt that there are specific instances of war crimes. In something this big and intense, it’s clear to me that there are failures along the way. Still, I have a lot of faith in the IDF and in the righteousness of the way it operates. So for the most part, I don’t apologize. Those we’ve killed because Hamas used them as human shields — that's not on me, that’s on Hamas. It doesn’t change the fact that it’s horrific. Horrific.
In the days leading up to the U.S. election, Israeli television, across the board (not just the local Fox News equivalent) trumpeted that Trump was better for Israel.
I think that misses the point.
Israel should be, from the inside, better for Israel. Without dependence on which party controls the White House or Downing Street or anything else. For long term viability, there needs to be pressure--and progress--to reduce complexity. From this perspective, U.S. leadership that is "good" for Israel is a liability, not a blessing.
Yarden is right: Complexity is a burden. Some degree is appropriate and necessary. Artificial complexity that creates ongoing misery is more than a military liability. It is an existential one, because people crave simplicity and run from complexity.
Israel is currently on a course to keep its army in Gaza indefinitely. There is a cost to this in dollars and lives. Until 2005 (the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza) some number were killed every year. The only “improved” way forward is to reduce complexity (and magical thinking, but that is for another day).
Keep it simple....
Paradox of Tolerance
(Credit: E.C.)
Postmark
Palestinian Social Media (Gaza, Fatah and more)
Within the past week, the IDF published 40+ minutes of video footage captured from a Hamas laptop in Gaza. The footage all takes place in a few offices, and is all of Hamas "security" officers torturing Gazans.
Some of the victims have been identified as Fatah activists. Recently one of the torturers was identified. Apparently, the content is generating a lot of buzz in the Palestinian community.
Relief Area
Alef: The "Avichay Adraee Phenomenon" in Lebanon.
The IDF spokesperson in Arabic has become a prominent social media figure in Lebanon, an integral part of daily life there, appearing everywhere online.
Bet
Opening the Winter session of the Knesset [Israeli parliament] — (Bibi and his crowd...)
Translation: “A picture is worth a thousand words.”
Gimmel
The man who has time to do anything that isn't related to accusations of bribery, fraud and breach of trust related to the the case 67104-01-20 is asking to delay giving his testimony.
The truth is: He is a vile, cowardly man.
Breaking: People vote for criminals. Convicted and otherwise.
Is the joke on “us”? (Those who think such things couldn’t/wouldn’t happen?)
Dalet
This relates to the Paradox of Tolerance, above. Islam, as practiced in many places, includes the death penalty for leaving Islam. E.g. It isn’t just a French school teacher who is at risk of being murdered.
I went to Tel Aviv's Havana Club last night. There was a dance class and I wanted to try it. Talk about organized! Five groups spread around the room, each is a level. I missed the beginning of the intro. I just went with the group I was standing with. Part way through someone asked how many times I had been there. First time! Oh, this is Level Four... go over there to Level One...
I did that.
(Even though I thought I was doing fine...)
I noticed that along with their cool Cuba themes, the screens had Bring Them Home Now banners.
It wasn't until this morning at the gym that I read the hand stamp they gave me:
Walking home from the gym, this caught my eye:
Read all the signs… It’s like a cereal box…
To Peace,
Raf
(Thank you A.K., M.T., R.G., E.C.)