Israel, Palestine & the Levant rolling events: Oct 23 on

He is an absolute fucking psychopath. FWIW, he is not a part of the war cabinet and has no decision-making power in the war, but that's of limited comfort in light of some of the other people who are.

Just as an aside - the standard rabbinic interpretation of the story of Amalek was that it applies to...Amalek. In other words, afaik, it is traditionally interpreted as applying only to an ancient people that has long since ceased to exist, and not to have any broader application. But, you know, theology is pretty easily bent to one's purposes.

Rafah is v much going too happen.

BREAKING: Netanyahu told Blinken during their meeting today he won't accept a deal that will include ending the war. He said if Hamas doesn't drop this demand there will be no deal and Israel will invade Rafah, per Israeli and U.S. officials

— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) May 1, 2024

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/gaza-period-product-women-use-birth-control-to-skip-menstruation-1.7179069

Israel briefs US on plan to move Gazans ahead of Rafah invasion
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/03/israel-gazans-rafah-invasion-00156024

Don't do it, says former PM Ehud Olmert in Ha'aretz (sorry, this is paywalled, but the headline gives the gist)

https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2024-05-03/ty-article-opinion/.premium/israelis-must-flood-the-streets-to-keep-the-idf-out-of-rafah/0000018f-3aac-d516-afbf-feeea9ff0000

(Olmert is no left-winger.)

Ben Dror Yemini, writing in Yediot Aharonot, firmly from the right, says too that Israel can't go into Rafah now, arguing that Israel can't afford the worldwide condemnation that would follow the inevitable destruction there. (sorry, this is in Hebrew, but Google Translate will gist you.)

https://www.ynet.co.il/yedioth/article/yokra13898333#!/replace

I was listening to the relatively centrist Israel Policy Pod and they also seemed to think that it's probably time to just wrap up operations in exchange for the hostages and go home. Hard to say whether Bibi really wants to go in or is just holding it as a threat.

TBH I don't really understand the emphasis by the Israeli right on Rafah, as though it's some final boss of Hamas. What do they think they will finally achieve? A "we got him" moment with Sinwar or Daif? I mean that's probably the answer, but I doubt that achieves much other than a PR moment - red meat for the base.

Does anyone feel like they understand what's happening with the ceasefire deal? I'm p confused by what I'm reading

I'm confused too. To some extent it's inevitable: every actor (not just Israel and Hamas but the US and Qatar too) has incentive to leak assertions which they think will push the information environment their way, and which may not reflect reality. We are not going to know what's happening for sure until god willing the bombs stop falling and the hostages start coming home.

otm

a negotiated cease-fire agreement will mean the conflict hasn't ended in surrender by Hamas. Netanyahu made the complete defeat and abolition of Hamas the centerpiece of his rhetoric since day one. He now sees he can't follow through on that without the world dropping a hammer on Israel (and on him). All sides are jockeying like crazy to figure out how to craft the details to make the outcome appear to their own constituency in the most favorable light.

I don't understand it either, but one thing I have learned is that it's almost impossible to understand exactly what's going on in negotiations even as a party, so trying to figure it out from third party news outlets is always fraught.

yeah that makes sense, thanks all. Given the bleak state of the famine in the north and the (related) difficulty of imagining what's going on with the hostages, I'd like to be hopeful but just have to wait and see

Any truce Israel will accept will have to include Hamas out of power, at a minimum. I’m sure they’d demand the surrender of Hamas leaders. Those by themselves are going to be hard to get agreement to, but it’s hard to imagine not just the Israeli govt but the Israeli population accepting anything less.

All sides are jockeying like crazy to figure out how to craft the details to make the outcome appear to their own constituency in the most favorable light.

Which ... is good! If the killing stops and the aid comes through unimpeded and the hostages come home I couldn't give less of a half of a shit about who "gets to say they won." Let everybody say it, if that's what it takes.

I feel the same. But we aren't the ones at the table. Their priorities and calculations are not the same as ours.

Al Jazeera banned from Israel. Valedictory statement prerecorded by an old friend of mine:

https://x.com/ajenglish/status/1787116285912096811?s=46&t=Xety4ZUudTBKt4dxOZMmDw

that’s… not great news

This ban does nothing to protect the people of the state of Israel, but it does conveniently help to protect the current government of the state of Israel.

Depressed, I once again fell for optimistic reports that made a ceasefire sound hours away. The reporting is really weird. Do we just ... not *know* what's in the deal Hamas is rejecting?

If the negotiations are at a delicate stage then if any side leaks details it will probably be apparent who did it and may blow things up. But, really who knows?

This is going to be an unimaginable nightmare. The furtherance and culmination of a Genocide can be stopped and our government has the power to stop it. Their blood will be on all of our hands, but our leaders most of all. https://t.co/jjZ4jK5doG

— Nathan ' FOIA' Tankus (@NathanTankus) May 6, 2024

Depressed, I once again fell for optimistic reports that made a ceasefire sound hours away. The reporting is really weird. Do we just ... not *know* what's in the deal Hamas is rejecting?

There was never going to be a deal. The negotiations always look like outrage management.

RAFAH NOW pic.twitter.com/qyhaC7XbkF

— Muhammad Smiry 🇵🇸 (@MuhammadSmiry) May 6, 2024

BBC:

Hamas official says 'ball in Israel's court'
Hamas official says 'ball now in Israel's court' after group has indicated it would accept the terms of a ceasefire plan.

In a statement published on its official website, Hamas says its leader Ismail Haniyeh conducted a telephone call with the prime minister of Qatar, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, and with the Egyptian intelligence minister, Abbas Kamel, and informed them of Hamas's approval of their proposal regarding a ceasefire agreement

Apparently Hamas approved a 'softened' version that is not acceptable to Israel - mainly over the duration of the ceasefire? I dunno

Israeli officials do not sound like they are going to accept the ceasefire proposal that Hamas has accepted.https://t.co/9WFlbk8UCj

— Séamus Malekafzali (@Seamus_Malek) May 6, 2024

Other reports say Israel are considering it

There's zero downside for Israel in accepting a ceasefire that "permanently ends" the war because that permanent end only lasts until Sinwar violates the ceasefire, unless he doesn't, in which case -- great! But there is a downside *for Netanyahu* and that is the problem.

Yeah, Bibi's right flank will accept nothing less than complete annihilation

I mean Hamas also just fired a bunch of rockets at Israel in between it leaking that they accepted and them officially saying they accepted, so who the fuck knows. I feel like praying for it to be accepted. I think eephus is probably OTM.

The state of things right now, both from @haaretzcom:

Israeli sources: the deal isn't what we agreed to at all, it's a ploy

Foreign diplomatic sources: the deal is basically the same one Israel agreed to, the ball is in Netanyahu's court pic.twitter.com/SBcUnneBZC

— Gregg Carlstrom (@glcarlstrom) May 6, 2024

“we don’t believe them and want to kill them all so we will say they are liars and antisemites” is pretty much Israel’s modus operandi

"I mean Hamas also just fired a bunch of rockets at Israel in between it leaking that they accepted and them officially saying they accepted"

Here is another excuse for you.

An Egyptian official tells @Alhadath_Brk that Hamas attack on Kerem Shalom on Sunday that killed several IDF soldiers sabotaged the hostage deal talks https://t.co/nggj9fs6Q1

— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) May 6, 2024

Israel strikes targets in eastern Rafah as Netanyahu says deal Hamas accepted is "far from meeting demands"
Follow live https://t.co/ubVMztT6rV

— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) May 6, 2024

Netanyahu knows this deal is what Israel needs and what Israelis want — show some spine and if it means the Kahanists bring down your government so be it.

If true and successful, this will allow Israel to have total control on the border with Egypt, facilitate the expulsion of Palestinians and the ground reoccupation and recolonisation of Gaza. pic.twitter.com/QbovSxxMJb

— Nicola Perugini (@PeruginiNic) May 6, 2024

I don’t think that’s accurate. Israel only took control of the Palestinian side of the crossing. That doesn’t give them the ability to expel people without cooperation from Egypt.

Time will, in the end, tell

Interesting thread from Amal on where we go from here.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1787873390805582099.html

Israel demolishes dozens of homes of its Bedouin citizens in the southern part of the state ('Negev'), where they have been part of the landscape for centuries or more. This has been going on extensively since 1948.

Ethnic cleansing of Arabs is going on inside internationally… https://t.co/XO0ZFNpenP

— Alon Mizrahi I without equality there's no freedom (@alon_mizrahi) May 8, 2024

Good god pic.twitter.com/DFMqDaLtNa

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) May 14, 2024

Raids appear to be targeting monetary exchanges by arresting owners and breaking into buildings. Cannot help but feel connected to the moves Israeli officials announced earlier today about forcing the collapse of the Palestinian Authority by depriving it of funds. https://t.co/fE2868xro6

— Séamus Malekafzali (@Seamus_Malek) May 15, 2024

Lucidly detailing an endlessly bleak view, so much I didn't know (worth it despite the chill)--hope he's wrong about some of this worth reading transcript because while listening I tend to think about something I hear and miss subsequent point:
https://www.npr.org/2024/05/15/1251546031/gaza-will-be-one-big-displacement-camp-for-the-foreseeable-future-journalist-say

Thanks, listened to it this AM. Extremely depressing, although kind of reinforcing what I already knew. I think I said something in the other thread shortly after Oct 7 about how I didn't get the sense there was any plan. I'm not even sure what a plan could look like.

I also just recently listened to this: https://tlv1.fm/the-tel-aviv-review/2024/05/13/israel-hamas-war-7-months-on/ and it crystalized some things for me about the situation and Bibi. In particular there is a portion I'm having trouble copying and pasting, but the gist is that the guest says that while he does not normally like to ascribe too much to individual leaders, that Bibi can really be said to have made it his entire life project to ensure that no Palestinian state is ever created, from very early in his political career, whereas even other Likud leaders at the time often grudgingly believed that a two-state solution would have to be reached.

I realized that Bibi is a master of liminal political situations - Gaza was not "occupied" but it was not free, the West Bank was conquered but also not annexed, Palestinians could have "limited autonomy" under the Palestinian Authority, a non-government government. The settlements are Israeli but not in Israel. And now Gaza is again occupied but not occupied in a different way. The IDF is not the responsible occupying power, but there is also no functioning government. No one controls Gaza, which itself has been a kind of liminal territory since 1948.

Landmark piece on settlers here -

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/16/magazine/israel-west-bank-settler-violence-impunity.html

Haven't clicked but I guess its landmark purely bcz its NYT..

This interview...just the levels of violence ans dehumanisation, if you are still breathing..

https://www.thenation.com/article/world/tanya-haj-hassan-interview-gaza-healthcare/

200+ abductions!