10/9/23

 Monday, October 9, 2023

In bed at 9:40, up at 7:15 after two spells on the brr, Lilly woke me up to let her out.  40°, high of 54°, mostly sunn, AQI=15, wind WNW at 11 mph, 7-15/24,  The sun rose at 6:59 and will set at 6:19, 11+21.   

Treadmill:  20; 0.45

Lilly at her post, never losing sight of Geri.

Yesterday evening: The tiny figures in the upper right quadrant are Geri and her walking partners Shirley and Tom.  Geri is on the left, next to Shirley in red in the middle, and Tom on the right.  They are barely visible in the photo, but Lilly is locked onto them like a radar beam.  Lilly will maintain her post until Geri returns.

Lilly's General Orders.  

1. To take charge of this post and all Clausen property in view.

    2. To dog my post in a military manner, keeping always on the alert and observing everything that takes place within sight or hearing.

. . .

    5. To quit my post only when properly relieved once Geri is home and sound.

. . .

    7. To talk to no one except in the line of duty.

    8. To give the alarm in case of fire or disorder.

. . .

    11. To be especially watchful at night, and during the time for challenging, to challenge all persons on or near my post, and to allow no one to pass without proper authority.

Thinking of Israel.

1.  Will Netanyahu's government overreact and make things worse?

2.  What were they thinking: why would anyone stage a Jewish music festival drawing thousands of young Israeli Jews to a site only 3 miles from the Gaza border, within mortar and artillery range of Hamas?

3.  Itamar Ben-Gvir is Netanyahu's Minister of National Security.  To what extent is he responsible for the epic failure of intelligence?  To what extent will he be responsible for the reprisals within Gaza?

4.  How will the situation affect relations within Netanyahu's cabinet of secular Likud members, and ultra-nationalists Ben-Gvir and Shostrich, and ultra-orthodox religious party members?

5.  How will the situation affect relations between Netanyahu's government and the secular military and intelligence components of the government?

6.  The first victim in any war is Truth.

7.  Chickens come home to roost.

8.  All the focus now is on the savagery of the actions by Hamas and we oughtn't to lose that focus, but it is a mistake to think that there is not plenty of blame to spread around for hatred of Israel and its supporters by Hamas and other Palestinians.   Israel has become an apartheid, racist state.  There are historical reasons for that, not that made it inevitable, but that explains its development.  Nevertheless, there is some real truth to the proposition that Israel has been at war with the Palestinians for the last 75 years and though Israel has suffered terrible losses during that period, the Palestinians have suffered much more.

9.   Western TV coverage of the situation is almost entirely pro-Israel in the sense of focusing on the terrible suffering endured by the Israeli victims of the invasion, especially the families of the hostages.  But we  ought not, in our humane sympathy for them, become oblivious to the long-term suffering of the Palestinians, in Gaza, the West Bank, and in East Jerusalem.  

10.  I can't help wondering whether we have been watching all the suffering in Israel and Palestine for 75 years because Zionism, at least as played out after the Holocaust, was a bad idea, an impossible dream, an original sin.  Hitler and the Nazis, with the active support of many other Europeans, were guilty of near-extermination of the European Jews and the Palestinians paid the price.  What's wrong with this picture?  If ethnic cleansing was wrong in the Balkans in the 90s and is wrong in Myanmar with the Rohingya, and elsewhere, why wasn't it wrong in Palestine in the 1940s?  If apartheid was wrong in South Africa, why isn't it wrong in the West Bank?

11.  The United Nations Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP issued its report  just last month on the Israel's occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, both formerly parts of the Kingdom of Jordan.  It found Israel's 57 year long occupation illegal.

Following a finding of illegality, the study concludes that, according to international law,  the consequences should be the immediate, unconditional and total withdrawal of Israel’s military forces; the withdrawal of colonial settlers; and the dismantling of the military administrative regime, with clear instructions that withdrawal of breach of an internationally wrongful act is not subject to negotiation. Full and commensurate reparations should be accorded to the affected Palestinian individuals, corporations and entities for the generational harm caused by Israel’s land and property appropriations, house demolitions, pillage of natural resources, denial of return, and other war crimes against humanity orchestrated for the colonialist, annexationists aims of an illegal occupant.

12.  I just watched a snippet of Netanyahu's speech to the Israeli public: "What we will do to our enemy in the next few days will echo for generations."

13.  With 130 hostages held in Gaza, I am thinking of Waco and the Branch Davidians.