A healthy person can survive forty to sixty days without food, depending on how fat they were to begin with. Women last longer than men (women are better at all extreme endurance feats I am aware of).
It’s been about two months since Israel cut off all food and water to Gaza. There were storehouses and some food, and it took about 30-40 days to exhaust the stores, but even before that, there wasn’t enough.
And even before this cut-off there wasn’t enough. There was a brief period after Trump took power with supplies moving in large amounts, but since the start of the crisis, Israel has been choking off food, medicine, and everything else, and Israeli citizens have stopped and hijacked aid trucks.
So, there aren’t any fat people in Gaza, except for some Zionist genociders who cosplay as soldiers. Most people in Gaza haven’t had enough food for well over a year.
Palestinians are going to start dying in massive numbers right about now, and the deaths will accelerate.
This is the first live-streamed genocide. Everyone knows it’s happening, and no one except the Ansar-Allah is doing shit, though credit to Hezbollah for trying until Mossad ripped them apart. (I do maintain Hezbollah’s strategy was awful, but that’s water under the bridge. At least they tried.)
I include Iran in this general indictment. It has enough missiles to really hurt Israel and proved that it could get thru the “Iron” Dome.
But, again, they’ve done more than pretty much every other country in the world.
I will note, for the record, though that it’s unlikely to matter much, that for the rest of my life I will judge people based on whether they were against the Palestinian genocide at the time. In a few years almost everyone will pretend they were against it, but we have receipts. And even if you are good to puppies and children, give lots of money to charities and are perfectly aligned with my politics on everything else, I will regard you as evil and a piece of human garbage, who could only improve the world by committing suicide, if you were OK with this.
This genocide could be stopped tomorrow by the US simply halting all shipments and aid to Israel. Even Europe, were it to act similarly, might be able to stop it.
But no one with the power to do anything decisive, is. Which means they’re all monsters.
And if you are depraved enough to think “who cares, it doesn’t affect me?”, let me assure you that on top of being human filth, you are also stupid and a fool. If they’ll do it to Palestinians, they’d do it to you and yours if they thought it was in their interest and they could get away with it.
Which, so far, they have every reason to believe they could.
Certain actions, like genocide, rape, torture and deliberate child murder have to be off the table entirely for the protection of everyone. You never want to normalize them, even if you are an evil piece of shit, because once something becomes routine, who knows who is next on the table?
Welcome to Hell.
Ventzu
“ I will note, for the record, though that it’s unlikely to matter much, that for the rest of my life I will judge people based on whether they were against the Palestinian genocide at the time. In a few years almost everyone will pretend they were against it, but we have receipts. And even if you are good to puppies and children, give lots of money to charities and are perfectly aligned with my politics on everything else, I will regard you as evil and a piece of human garbage, who could only improve the world by committing suicide, if you were OK with this.”
Yup.
jrs
Meanwhile they say the gutting of USAID (no it wasn’t just doing good, it was diplomacy, but it did help people) will kill even more than the genocide in Gaza.
someofparts
In my personal circle of people, I’m seeing a correlation between how devoted a person is/is not to a political party and their position on the genocide. No surprise I guess that ardent supporters of either party accept war crimes.
ventzu
I saw a comment on Twitter, that the release of the last US / Israeli soldier by Hamas, was negotiated by Witkoff, who committed to lift the blockade and allow humanitarian aid in.
This is the full article
https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/witkoff-hamas-trump-deal-edan-alexander-lift-blockade-israel
Level of duplicity and evil is just beyond words. No point in negotiating with the US on anything then.
cc
Our Western media feed us “bread & circuses” (ex. the Stanley Cup play-off hockey games in our modern-day coliseums) to keep the masses entertained, divided, distracted, and uncaring, while our Anglo Empire slaughters and starves yet more indigenous peoples in order to acquire their lands.
(I am surprised that the indigenous people in Canada, the US, Australia, NZ have not strongly condemned this ongoing genocide that essentially repeats what happened to them. The Palestinian towns and enclaves being increasingly divided and isolated are just like what happened via “Indian reservations” here in North America, where slaughter and starvation were also part of the process. Or were there perhaps some feeble isolated statements but our Western/Anglo media never reported on them?
If the indigenous people of Canada, the US, Australia, NZ were to join forces and coordinate, they might have a more powerful voice to call out and condemn what the Anglo-American Empire is doing in its latest colonial project in Palestine. If they draw the parallels to what was done to them, it could make it harder for the controlled Western/Anglo media to ignore.)
mago
The opinion shapers, more commonly known as the media are equally complicit in this savagery, if not more so than governments, states and institutions.
From the beginning they’ve lied, obfuscated and provided cover. (Hareetz provides more honest reportage than their western counterparts.)
Now there are a few cracks here and there because the Zionists are so bold and blatant in word and actions that it’s becoming almost impossible to talk about Hamas or hostages with a serious demeanor.
Despite the deliberate cover up, anyone with even a vestigial knowledge of history knows the Zionist project was evil top to bottom from the get go, and that includes Balfour and the Brits. Churchill, too. Stalin, monster that he was had nothing on that bunch.
So here we are. Starvation death and destruction with more promised and some even rubbing their palms in anticipation while others look away, asking what’s for dinner?
Sure, down the line it’s going to be, hey man, don’t blame me, wasn’t my fault it happened. Besides, that’s history now.
What’s for dinner?
Feral Finster
Remember this, the next time a Trump, a Starmer, a Merz or a Carney weeps such piteous tears over Ukrainian children or whatever.
They care nothing for those innocents, but solely for power. Because, yes, as you correctly point out, a Trump or even a Kallas could stop this with a single phone call.
Reid M.
Competition as the raison d’etre for social organisation insists on the elimination of the competition as the highest virtue. It commands the highest reward.
If people got along with one another, what would happen? A debacle.
In all the many meetings, marches, on-line and off-line events in support of the Palestinian cause I’ve been to, everyone – all colours, creeds, backgrounds and whatever, Jews, Muslims, Christians, Pagans, Buddhists, Animists, whatever – got along very well.
That’s why there’s been such a big effort to suppress and silence any support for Gaza. If everyone got along with one another, peace would break out like a plague, and all the billionaires would be bankrupt.
We’d have no choice but to agree with Candide, and devote ourselves henceforth to cultivating our garden. Instead of tooling up for another useless war.
Daniil Adamov
mago, it’s funny you should mention Stalin, since after all he supported Israel in the crucial first months of its existence, as is occasionally remembered here. The USSR officially called for the establishment of the Jewish state, was the first to recognise it de jure when it was established, provided diplomatic support and permitted or actively encouraged weapon sales from Czechoslovakia.
And why not? They weren’t doing anything the Bolsheviks hadn’t done, and more importantly Stalin figured a Jewish state with clear leftist ideological influences (as it was then) would be pro-Soviet, especially if aided in time. Of course that didn’t work out and so we sided with Arabs instead, but that was our second choice. I sometimes wonder if we and the Israelis are going to review this if the West were to turn on Israel… but of course, the official West is not going to turn on Israel any time soon, genocide or not.
alex
Well, Hamas can stop the whole thing very easily if they follow in the PKK footsteps
Daniil Adamov
alex, maybe and maybe not, that’s hard to tell (Israel isn’t Turkey, Netanyahu isn’t Erdogan, and anyway, we don’t know how that story ends yet – they only just gave up, after all). What’s certainly true is that Israel can stop it in an instant and won’t.
Astrid
Daniil Adamov,
Stalin supported establishment of Israel under a very circumstance before he understood the nature of the Zionist state and threat of nuclear annihilation by the US. He ” betrayed” the Greek Communists, the French Communists, and the Korean Communists South of the 38th parallel by that standard. Perhaps it was foolish to ever trust the US that much or ever give an inch, but unfortunately we won’t know the counterfactuals because the Soviets didn’t get atomic weapons until 1949 and Khrushchev, however he got in after Stalin’s death, radically shifted the Soviet attitude on Western imperialism.
Whatever “support” of “Israel”, the USSR withdrew that support almost immediately once they saw what the Zionist Jews did to the indigenous population and that they exceeded the UN mandate, such as it is. The USSR supported Arab nationalists against Western imperialists. Israel supported Fascist global South dictators who killed Communists and leftists. Israel ran a smear campaign against the USSR to force them to allow emigration of Jews to occupied Palestine to keep their demographic control.
As Ian said, people who apologize for genocide are disgusting. I will say that people who distort history to obscure the massive crimes happening right now are not just bystanders, but perpetrators. I won’t go as far as Ian in my wishes, but I will say in the future that I care about the fate of such people as much as they cared about Palestinians of Gaza. I hope you will live long enough to see a more just world (as I see it), whatever that will means for you personally.
Astrid
Alex,
That’s absolutely nonsensical. Palestinians are the majority on their own land and the only ones they’re fighting is against genocidal Zionists backed by the West. What would Courtney outsider backing (already happening from two faced Qataris, and look what that got them) get them. Even a thoroughly corrupt collaborationist Abbas is deemed untrustworthy by USreal.
Besides, Hamas already offered to disband. They just wouldn’t agree to disarm the population of Gaza to make USreal’s genocide against them easier.
Astrid
Ian,
I share your outrage against people, especially people in the imperialist core countries, who either actively cheered the genocide on, or made excuses for it, or pretend like it didn’t exist, or didn’t do enough. So that’s 99.99 percent of us, including me. Other than a couple honorable mentions like SJP and Code Pink and a few others who actually put their own safety on the line, the rest of us all failed the test and it’s just a matter of degrees of failure.
For the rest of my life, I will remember the wall of silence around me when this was happening, under the excuse that it’s not polite to talk about politics (though that never stopped anyone else from putting in jabs against the “other side” in American WWF politics) and tell myself that I will care about a person or a collective’s fate as much as they cared about Gaza.
Having said that, I really don’t feel comfortable being in the privileged West, of saying any Global South country didn’t do enough. Sure there are cases of obvious evil governments like Qatar, UAE, Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, HTS, and the Palestinian Authority, but who am I to second guess the difficult decisions being made by Hezbollah, Assadist Syria, or Iran? They’re working against the entire power and cruelty of the US empire, they live with casual deployment of mass assassinations with no consequences, they suffer blockage and sanctions just for existing, who are Westoids to tell them what is “enough” when nobody posting here has bothered to even join Code Pink, nevermind something actually equivalent to the kind of sacrifices that you’re asking of Iranians or Shi’a Lebanese.
Ultimately this is what the “left” in the West amounts to. Utterly useless and marginal, utterly stupid with no knowledge of revolutionary histories or theory, nevermind practice, and utterly full of ourselves and occupying all our time lecturing other people on what they should do with their lives. We’re the end product of 90+ years of anti-Communism. Hopefully we all get taken out as trash like all the other flavors of end stage capitalism and gets replaced by something at least a little bit less pathetic.
Feral Finster
Astrid wrote: “Ultimately this is what the “left” in the West amounts to. Utterly useless and marginal, utterly stupid with no knowledge of revolutionary histories or theory, nevermind practice, and utterly full of ourselves and occupying all our time lecturing other people on what they should do with their lives.”
Yea, verily. The left in the West doesn’t even want power, because that would mean having to actually do things and cut deals, sometimes even work with icky people who have bad taste and who misgender people, sometimes even on purpose.
Far more satisfying to carp from the sidelines and focus on the burning issues of the day, like casting Melvin into outer darkness as Literal Hitler because Melvin once said that there are only 26 genders and not at least 28, plus genders not discovered yet.
Contrast Fred Hampton, who was happy to ally with the Young Patriots Party, a bunch of hillbillies who sported unironic Confederate flags.
Revelo
I’ve been on the record at my personal website of accusing Israel of war crimes since day 1 of the Hamas uprising. I published my short position paper so I could link to it when responding to emails from annoying relatives I can’t cut communication with, to let them know my views without engaging in tiresome and acrimonious arguments, because of course they just echo the mainstream media like sheep.
I do not think that Israel is exceptionally evil. Genocide is unfortunately common and, if anything, the Gaza genocide is a mild case (so far). There is another genocide in progress in Sudan supported by Dubai, there was genocide in the same area back before South Sudan became independent, there was a genocide in nearby Ethiopia (vs Tigray ethnic group), there are pretty much nonstop genocides or war crimes in Democratic Republic Congo. rebels in Sierra Leone were once famed for cutting off the forearms of women and children resulting in a generation of armless cripples, there is or was some sort of genocide in Myanmar, there was the famous Rwanda genocide, there was the even more famous Pol Pot in Cambodia, and you’ll have to forgive me if I missed anyone’s favorite example of genocide because I have other things in life to do than keep up with the endless news of human atrocities on this planet we call home.
What separates Israel is that western bloc countries are all not merely tolerating the Gaza genocide, the way they tolerated or tolerate the other genocides listed above, but cheering it and supporting it. Obviously, these same countries were up to their elbows in blood in the past (replacement of Native Americans by Europeans and descendants of African slaves, colonial atrocities which are behind a lot of the more modern African atrocities), but you’d think we’d left all that behind, given all the noisy talk of”never again” regarding the Nazi Holocaust, the tearing down of monuments to racists of the past, etc. Alas, this Gaza genocide and western complicity shows there has been no real improvement.
Realist argument against tolerating and being complicit in atrocities like Gaza is that this undermines western claims to deserve to lead the world because of superior culture compared to genocidal Africans, Cambodians, etc. Leadership has valuable privileges, and the USA and other countries in the western bloc will lose those valuable privileges in the near future, because they can no longer credibly claim any superiority in culture. Those claims to superiority were aiways dubious, at least to those of us who study history, but after Gaza those claims are simply laughable.
Ian Welsh
People are judged on what they do by the position they are in and how much power they have.
Many people, especially students, put themselves on the line. They’ve been imprisoned, deported and lost their degrees as a result. Some people protested by burning themselves to death.
Palestinians, Hamas, Iran and Ansar-Allah have all praised these people and others in the West who support the Palestinian cause, and urged them to continue. They believe it makes a difference.
Self flagellation is of little use.
John
If the technofeudal bro fantasy of AI and robots comes to pass ( I don’t think it will), Gaza will be seen by them as the model to deal with all the low IQ useless eaters. Of course, this is completely evil and amoral. I do puzzle that humans allow such people to have such power. This always comes home.
Astrid
Ian,
What have YOU done other than write your sermons critiquing other people? Are you at risk of getting a nuke dropped on you or blackouts for the foreseeable future? Getting your checking account cut off? Getting dragged off to prison for nothing like Yves Engler? Maybe you do that in secret and didn’t tell us. What do you know about Iran or Lebanon or Yemen beyond a few English language sources?
I am not self flagellating, I’m being realistic about what I have done and realize that I can do more, but deciding that my likely effectiveness isn’t worth blowing up my life. But it was still my choice and I didn’t do it.
So who am I, so privileged and removed from people on the frontlines, to lecture anybody else on why they should do more?
There are a few brave students and others who do more but don’t flatter yourself. How many voted for Jill Stein, Claudia de la Cruz, and Cornel West combined? And that’s just voting, which is a zero risk activity. The number of people in the West who put themselves on the line is shamefully tiny. Whether people in other countries are doing enough isn’t really something we Westoids have any right to even comment on.
Astrid
Lecturing people in other countries on coulda/shoulda/woulda when your country nothing (the recent Canadian election and the non-genocide view count in the US, for an activity with no personal risk) not just little use. It’s insulting. Focus on what we Westoids did and didn’t do individually and stop lecturing people living under brutal Western sanctions and terror.
Ian Welsh
I’ll do what I goddamn please and if you don’t like it, don’t read me. I’ve been in this game far longer than you and sacrificed far more than you have, I won’t be lectured by you and yeah, I’ve actually done shit like be involved in primaries, fund raising, strategy sessions that led to actual action and so on. Have you?
Ironically, since I was actually in the game for a while I’m more to blame for America’s actions than you are even though you’re a citizen of the US and I’m not. I tried, along with others, to change things for the better–we raised millions, we primaried candidates, we supported good candidates, we pushed good policy, we even ran ads. I failed. We failed. But we were in the game.
Not that any of that is necessary for someone to write. Ideological production is part of the struggle and so are suggestions for useful actions.
Goddamn good thing the Chinese and Russians didn’t think they couldn’t learn anything from a German who lived in England most of his adult life or the Japanese that they couldn’t learn from Germans, Americans and Brits.
You’re banned. Go tell people what they can and can’t write somewhere else.
miss jennings
Would it really kill China to drop some aid packages? I know they have to look out for number one first and foremost, but my god.
Even Russia, ‘tied up’ with Ukraine as it is, could nevertheless drop some aid packages for the Palestinians. I am merely talking about food aid here, not military aid.
But they don’t. Why not?
You know, the WWII imperialist genocide was met with fierce resistance from other imperial powers. Eventually much of the world had to drop whatever they were doing to join the good fight in saving the Jews.
Why is the genocide being committed by the Jews being treated differently?
I don’t expect the Israeli-occupied US or west to do anything for the Palestinians.
I ask again: Why don’t Russia or China? It would kill them to drop some food right now?
How come during WWII it was the world’s business to stop the genocide of the Jews but now that the Jews are the genociders the world powers like China and Russia are politely excused for minding their own interests and acting like Buchananite isolationists?
And for the last time: Why do they not at bare minimum – RIGHT NOW – drop food aid into Gaza?
Who will mind if China and Russia drop food aid into Gaza? Good publicity is in their interest, no? After all, the vast majority of the world public doesn’t support the genocide.
dmorte
During one of the previous atrocities (2014 IIRC) I called a person’s opinions on the conflict a “human being litmus test”, and so many people failed that at the time. Was able to donate a few hundred bucks to a campaign to cover all the Gaza hospitals with solar panels, which they did. But I knew then they’d only be good until such time as Israel destroyed the hospitals. I was never in doubt that one day they would.
I feel like I’m living in a Nightmare, as ‘nice, sensible people’ act like all is normal, watching the Eurovision Genocide Song Contest “It doesn’t matter if you’re good or brutal”, you may have seen that piece of ‘art’.
Salvation won’t come from the West, in any form. This rotten imperial power has to be brought to its knees, more likely from its own internal incompetence, as it collides with external powers (be it China, Turkey, Iran, Russia, etc etc etc )
I hope to live long enough to see some sort of justice, but that would involve a Nuremberg style trial, somewhere in Beijing or Central Asia, with thousands of our ‘leaders’ being marched to the gallows.
Not likely, but we can dream.
GM
@miss jennings
I would have gone much further. A combined force of China, Iran, Russia, North Korea, South Africa, etc., could be place in Gaza to prevent Israeli invasion and aggression, build a port to ferry supplies, and dare Israel to fight them.
But as you said they didn’t even air drop some aid.
Of course, the same applies to the immediate neighbors — what are they thinking? They are next on the menu and it is not even hidden anymore as a plan.
Also, which is rarely noticed by anyone, with every expansion Israel gains strategic depth. While Syria still existed, you could do a disabling counterforce+countervalue first strike on Israel from point blank range in a couple minutes, before they could fire their strategic weapons. Now with the whole space all the way to Iran neutered, that is likely no longer possible, unless Hezbollah still has some serious missiles safely stashed deep in the mountains.
Where does this go next?
Some decades from now Israel will have expanded from the Nile to the Euphrates as shown on their maps and its population will be in the tens of millions.
Does that stop there? Of course not. You will eventually have a Nazi Germany-sized entity with the exact same ideology of racial superiority, but even worse, because there there is a literal mandate from heavens to rule over the whole world (the “chosen people” are following the Old Testament with none of the moderating legacy of the New Testament).
And Nazi Germany certainly felt strong enough to go on a campaign for world conquest and extermination of the lower races without having infiltrated most of the major powers.
So once you get Greater Israel as you see on those maps, that will be only a stepping stone towards much worse. Iran is next on the menu because of the oil, then Turkey and an expansion towards Europe for the agricultural land. Europe will likely have been torn apart internally by the effects of migration (the conspiracy theory about that being pushed by the Jews with such longer-term plans in mind might have legs), if it has not been nuked by the Russians by then already, so it will be easy pickings. But eventually the whole planet will be on the menu.
Do the idiots in Moscow, Tehran, Beijing etc. not see where this is going and that it has to be stopped before it is even more out of control? Why did they drop Syria so easily when it was such a crucial piece for keeping Israel in check physically? Go back to my point about strategic depth above.
There should be no place for supremacy movements of any kind in a civilized world. Zero tolerance. It’s an absolutely existential issue for the survival of humanity as a whole.
Daniil Adamov
“You know, the WWII imperialist genocide was met with fierce resistance from other imperial powers. Eventually much of the world had to drop whatever they were doing to join the good fight in saving the Jews.”
miss jennings, I was honestly perplexed to read this. I see no reason to believe that any of the imperial powers were fighting to save the Jews. (And if they were, they did a pretty bad job of it, don’t you think – to the tune of millions of dead “hostages”…) Actually, I think the only ones who believed that back then were the Nazis and their sympathisers, such as Oswald Mosley. In actuality, the Allied imperial powers were all fighting to save themselves from actual or potential attack, and also to carve up Axis-held territories between themselves. No one in power gave a damn about the genocide, even if they believed in it, as many on our side did not until rather late.
“After all, the vast majority of the world public doesn’t support the genocide.”
And how many divisions does this “vast majority of the world public” have? (I’m also not sure that the “vast majority of the world public” really cares one way or the other, but that’s another topic; let’s suppose they don’t just not support it – why would they, it brings no profit to them – but would actually think better of someone for doing something to counter it.)
Don’t get me wrong, personally I’d be all for it if we did send food for whatever reason. But the obvious answer to why our government and the Chinese government wouldn’t do it is that they don’t care. It’s not even a low priority. It’s something that isn’t worth any amount of bother or money, from their perspective, even if a opinion bump from “the world public” was involved. And in contrast to the WW2 example, I don’t think they believe Israel is going to invade Russia or China any time soon. Does anyone seriously think that’s likely? Perhaps the Americans will? But the Americans are collapsing as an imperial power, I’ve read. So one doesn’t need to worry about them either, pragmatically speaking – just outwait them.
That said, there may also be another consideration: Gazans starving to death may be seen as beneficial to those governments, and also Iran’s, because it makes the US and its allies look bad and further undercuts their human rights and democracy rhetoric. So why interfere with what they would see as a good thing? For moral reasons? It is not generally impossible for moral reasons to operate at the level of national governments. I don’t see any evidence for them working today or during WW2, certainly not on the foreign mass slaughter issues.
GM
Daniil Adamov:
There is some logic to this and Gaza also isn’t strategically important as a territory.
Syria, however, very much is, and it too was not defended and was given up without a fight. Even though it is the most critically vital strategically country.
So when it is Gaza genocide plus losing Lebanon plus losing Syria all at the same time, it doesn’t look like strategic multidimensional chess games being played, it looks like total defeat. Largely without a fight too, which is the most worrying aspect of it. Hezbollah kept all its serious powder dry, then was destroyed before it could fire it. Assad just disappeared silently and the vast Syrian arsenal was then destroyed by Israeli or even worse, sent to Ukraine to fight Russia. Then there is Iran — the Israelis are assassinating Iranian high officials, all the way to the level of the previous president and foreign minister, and causing tactical nuke-level explosions in key Iranian ports, and all Iran did was some pantomime missile strikes that made sure not to hit anything important. Etc.
bruce wilder
Daniil Adamov makes a valuable point about real politik and its relation to common morality. Popular moral imperatives and religious scruples are always among the tools of statesmen, but never their motivation. The anarchy of sovereign states does not permit it.
Statesmen who want to invade Afghanistan may well say that they feel a responsibility to protect the rights of women, but it seems unlikely to be true. And, sure, Western propaganda will righteously decry Russia’s “unprovoked” invasion of Ukraine. Hollywood made documentaries about Syria’s white helmets bravely helping in a bombed hospital. Dastardly chemical weapons attacks “on his own people” will be documented/doctored to order. Israel produced October 7 porn with above average production values and screeched moralistically as only a pathological narcissist can.
FDR conveniently had no need for Central Casting to send an Imperial Japanese fleet to attack Pearl Harbor, but LBJ got his Gulf of Tonkin Incident faster than he could get a cheeseburger from the White House kitchen and with less effort. Cheney & Co. simply lied to get their invasion and occupation of Iraq.
The Dog wags his tail as suits his purpose. We moralists are simply part of the crew in the apparatus of that tail. We are not anywhere near heart or head, I am afraid. It may serve our betters for us to believe in their good intentions and wag on their cue, as we normally do.
I do not think it serves us for our betters to believe in their own good intentions. They are method actors, our sociopathic leaders are. They are self-deceived, casting themselves as heroes in the morality plays they present as foreign policy follies.
These reflections are a long preface to a consideration of what means we hoi polloi in the tail section have to affect the dog’s behavior. Can we do anything to prevent predation? To calm growling? Stop rabid biting? And, what is the theory of political power that explains how the tail might wag the dog?
Even a theory of political power that would let we hoi polloi to detach ourselves sufficiently to stop being a reliable means and object of cynical manipulation?
Daniil Adamov
Syria is a defeat, yes. How big a one remains to be seen, as our bases are still there, but of course keeping Assad would’ve been preferable. The explanation there is simpler, though – we couldn’t afford to put in the kind of military presence it would take to keep Syria from disintegrating when it has already rotted through while already fully engaged in Ukraine.
As for Iran, it is a puzzle. I agree that it’s showing was pathetic, especially under the circumstances you describe. Either it’s much weaker than many of America’s and Israel’s well-wishers assume (do they really have more missiles in good working order?), or it is simply much more timid, afraid of causing a decisive confrontation (of course the first option would make this more explicable), or wildly incompetent, delusional and/or corrupt in such a way that makes confrontation unprofitable for important peoples in its elite (always an option with any regime, I’m afraid). I don’t know enough to pick.
Daniil Adamov
(I meant ill-wishers, but read well-wishers above sarcastically.)
Bob
I am surrounded by Jewish people including Israelis. I used to be one. They all support genocide. The few who don’t are advertising it. I have disowned my entire family pretty much and won’t deal with people who support the genocide. Outside of that group, the apathy of the general population is astonishing.
I wish that at least the people openly supporting this holocaust would be ostracised.
mago
One reason for a milquetoast response from Iran (and other players) is that the rabid dog in the ME has nuclear weapons and you don’t want to fuck with a rabies case unless you can take it out totally and completely with one strike.
Yeah, there’s a whole lotta suffering going on, but if you’re playing the long game, better to let your adversary self destruct, which is what the Zionist entity is doing—a viper eating its own tail.
Z
It’s a clearly drawn line for all that care to look and see: on one side humanity and on the other inhumanity.
Never forget?! Those of us on this side of the line won’t. And those on the other side think that it won’t matter, but it will.
Z
GM
@mago
Once again, the military-technical means to make sure you can take the rabid dog out were largely lost with the fall of Syria.
You could shoot at point blank range at the military bases and the ICBM silos from Syria, and you could also sink the submarines from the Lebanese and Syrian coasts.
Now all that is gone as possibilities and Israel has strategic depth, which it didn’t previously.
Iran already had the means to disable Israel’s response — it is some 50 ICBM silos, several dozen air bases, and four subs to be sunk (but those aren’t even that big of a problem, as they are not SSBNs and they only have a handful of cruise missiles and those missiles can be shot down as Iran has good air defense).
It takes a salvo of a few hundred missiles, and Iran has plenty, but preferably you fire them from around Damascus, not from 1500 km away, so that there is no time to react. No longer possible.
miss jennings
I return to this thread to revisit that ‘untouchable’ that both GM and I dared touch upon. I want to share a brief comment thread from today’s NC begun by regular Alice X:
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/05/links-5-27-2025.html#comment-4221157
vaos’ comment in response to Alice X and Kouros is enlightening:
Alice X:
“The history will not be kind to the perpetrators and it is being written in the minds of many.”
vao:
‘I am not at all sure about that. There are precedents:
“Wer redet heute noch von der Vernichtung der Armenier?” (Who nowadays still talks about the annihilation of the Armenians?) A.Hit*er, 1939.
Is Turkey a pariah nowadays? Was it ever? Apart from Armenians, who cares about a genocide that ended a century ago?
I agree, Gaza will be crushed first. What could not be achieved by bombs in 18 months is now being attempted by starvation. And the “international community” will only express some dismay long after it is too late.’
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/05/links-5-27-2025.html#comment-4221254
There is an obvious exception to this the world over. Not just in ‘the west’ but certainly in Russia and seemingly almost everywhere: The genocide (alleged?)* of Jews during WWII.
Why is this the case?
*I say alleged because the 6 million number was spread by the largely Jewish press during WWI and 600,000 was common in relation to the pogroms in Russia. The word pogrom itself seems reserved simply for Jews even though the Jewish power collective** has certainly pogrommed countless people (goyim) over the years.
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pogrom /pə-grŏm′, pō′grəm/
noun
An organized, often officially encouraged massacre or persecution of a minority group, especially one conducted against Jews. A riot aimed at persecution or massacre of a particular ethnic or religious group, usually Jews. Organized persecution of an ethnic group (especially Jews).
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
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**Jewish power collective: You’re not supposed to believe that such a thing exists. As one wit put it:
‘This is what you are dealing with: They (“the Jews”) say in one breath that there is no such thing as collective Jewish power. Then in the next breath they tell you in no uncertain terms that if you continue to entertain such blasphemous thoughts they will crush you. And then they go about doing so.’
Michael Hudson recently penned another of his long-winded treatises blaming all ususry on Catholics / the Vatican when in fact the Catholic Church – which I have absolutely no love for – was at various times dead-set against usury.
I wonder if Michael has it in him to do a treatise on Jewish banking families and their insular interests. One can spend days reading about the Rothschilds and Warburgs etc etc etc but for some reason their usurious loans are given a pass.
Why are ‘the Jews’ the exception?
shagggz
miss jennings, great question regarding Hudson. Even though I’ve seen him speak much real talk on Zionazi atrocities in videos on current events such as on Dialogue Works, I would guess the reason he would withhold writing academic treatises on such a historical topic in his wheelhouse would be a prudent consideration of timing. The world is rapidly catching on to the nature of Isnotreal, but its deathgrip on the West is not quite yet slackened enough for him to safely risk setting his painstakingly-earned reputation for academic integrity alight.