Correction: The Gaza hospital named in the text yesterday was incorrectly noted as Shifa. This has been corrected. The footage is actually about Rantisi hospital. (The videos internally used the right names.) (Thank you M.T.)
Yesterday had a mix of weather, including nice, windy, rainy, drizzle, downpour and thunder. At 5:11PM yesterday there was a red alert in my part of Tel Aviv. Ran to the building across the street. While the incoming rockets were intercepted, two were wounded, one seriously, by falling shrapnel.
In the evening it was nice. The beach scene quite quiet after the rain. Looking south (toward Gaza) there were many flashes of lightning. Far enough away that the thunder wasn't audible. The sand had been pounded by the rain. There were few tracks.
Today (Wednesday) is nice and sunny. Perfect, actually.
Want Newsy News?
Watching a world of grass roots reporting is... crazy? I just discovered a 3-4 minute daily clip put out by the National Council of Jewish Women of Australia. It is straight news from the ground.
If you want something that looks like news, is terse, and is (from what I have seen) reflective, take a look.
Asymmetry
Terminology
Data: For whatever reason, we don't call Hamas an army and we don't call its fighters soldiers. Because there is no “country of Gaza?” Hamas has controlled all aspects of life in Gaza for 10+ years. It’s their domain. Their “country.” From Raf’s chair, they are a governing entity with a military wing. Israelis, however, are sensitive to how a Palestinian with a Kalashnikov is labelled. The options seem to include: Terrorist; Militant; Gunman and (Raf suggests) Soldier.
A Hamasnik who blows up a bus of grandmas: Terrorist
An organization of Hamasnikim who divvy up zones of Gaza and are separated into military functions is also Terrorist?
What changes if we say: The Hamas army maintains its headquarters under a hospital and has 200 miles of tunnels under Gaza, a city under a city?
The internet says:
terrorist
/'tɛrərɪst/
noun
a radical who employs terror as a political weapon; usually organizes with other terrorists in small cells; often uses religion as a cover for terrorist activities
That does not seem to capture today's Hamas or Hezbollah.
The delta(?): A “soldier’s” primary mission is to protect civilians and hunt combatants who either threaten Soldier or the civilians under protection. A “terrorist’s” primary goals include, by design, harming civilians, either directly (by attacking them) or indirectly (by prompting attacks on them and/or by using civilians and their institutions as physical barriers).
Is that why it is inappropriate to call Hamasnikim Soldiers?
Is this infographic the definitional boundary?
Data
I mentioned earlier: The death counts released by Gazan officialdom are problematic. They don't indicate how many of the dead are militants. The Gaza death toll is always presented as a count of civilians. Based on reading and conversations, 1,500-3,500 of the dead are members of the Hamas military (the Israeli Army isn't in Gaza to swim). The Western press seems not to demand detail on the Gaza statistics nor to caveat or question the provided information.
Language
A Soviet era joke:
The mouse heard the meow of a cat and quietly hid. Then she heard the barking of a dog. The mouse thought:
If there is a dog nearby, then the cat must have run away. I can get out!
The cat caught the mouse and, having swallowed it, said with a burp:
Murrr! Knowing a foreign language is so good!
The Arabic feeds I watch (via an interpreter) are full of a few things:
Popular anger at Hamas and Arab State leadership for being dishonest. (For example, leadership denying that that the Israeli Army is in the center of Gaza.)
Acknowledgement that Hamas has been actively preventing civilians from leaving the north of Gaza [to the point that the Israeli Army set up an Arabic language hot line for such reports]
This behavior by Hamas started weeks ago
Raf has seen social media footage by a Gaza resident cycling south past other residents mowed down by Hamas “freedom fighters” who were trying to prevent migration south. The cyclist is howling with tears.
Al Jezeera has broadcast, multiple times, from inside hospitals: -- Inadvertently showing Hamasnikim with guns in the hospital -- Interviews going sideways (patients saying Hamas should go to hell)
A similar aspect is surfacing in the many clips on social media where pro Palestine demonstrators are asked “Which river?” I don’t have data on the level of ignorance, but it appears material.
Intersection
Amer, a Beduin man passing through Sderot on October 7 who saved two girls, under fire. Interview with a neighbor of the girls and Amer’s father. 8 min (some violence) English subtitles
Relief Area
Make up for the lack yesterday!
Alef
Bet
Eretz Nehederet (this wonderful land, an SNL style Israeli show). 3.5 minutes. In English.
Gimmel
The “fog of war:” Tied down in Jerusalem the first couple weeks, Raf orders a couple yoga mats from a Tel Aviv store for delivery to Jerusalem. The mats come. They aren’t the ones ordered (they are a lower end, “economy” model). They get used (‘cause they are needed!). Word is: Hey, this isn’t America. The store won’t take used stuff back…
As luck would have it, the store sent a follow up email, and their “logo picture” is the mat I ordered. So I send a note saying “Hey, this picture? That is what I ordered but not what I got.” They send out the correct mats right away! But no one was home to give them the incorrect mats.
Now I have forgotten to deal with it multiple times. The mats-to-return have traveled to Tel Aviv and back to Jerusalem. And the shop is miffed with me.
First world problems….
Stay well,
Raf
(Thank you A.K., M.T., M.N. for content and A.K. for engagement, feedback and encouragement.)