Susie's son has been visiting all week from Seattle and we have been spending a lot of time with him. That and the terrible situation in the world have kept me from posting. I have no expertise in the Israeli matters, as I have made clear, but I am so upset that I simply lurk in my study and brood.
I am very excited about the study group I shall be leading at Harvard in the spring and I spend a lot of time in the middle of the night thinking about what I shalll say. Lord knows, the world does not really need a deep dive into volume 1 of Capital at the moment but it is what I do so I shall do it.
I remain hopeful that a combination of the concern about abortion rights and the almost certain conviction of Trump in the DC case before the Republican nominating convention will combine to give the Democrats a win a year from now. Perhaps what is happening in the United States now will put to rest for a while the myth of American exceptionalism.
37 comments:
I don't think anyone with a conscience can sleep easily while a genocide is underway with the full support of their government.
Returning again to the discussion we had a few weeks ago over the possibility that Israel had intentionally attacked a hospital where refugees were sheltering
( https://robertpaulwolff.blogspot.com/2023/10/rolling-my-tub.html )
This piece was published this week by the NYT, referring to attacks on Al-Shifa hospital that occurred a week ago:
"Hours after the final blast, the Israeli military blamed unspecified Palestinian militants, saying a 'misfired projectile' aimed at Israel Defense Forces troops deployed nearby had instead hit the hospital.
But at least three of the projectiles that struck it appear to have been Israeli munitions, according to pictures of weapons fragments collected and verified by The New York Times and analyzed by experts.
... Israel contends it has evidence that the hospital sits on top of an underground Hamas command center and has been warning those still inside to evacuate, even as its troops have been actively working to surround the facility. Hospital officials deny Hamas operates there and have said patients are dying for lack of food, fuel and other supplies.
Israel’s assertion that Al-Shifa was actually hit by a Palestinian projectile echoed similar — and unresolved — claims and counterclaims following munitions that hit the courtyard of another Gaza hospital, Al-Ahli, nearly a month ago....
In addition to the weapons remnants, an analysis of video footage shows that three of the projectiles were fired into the hospital from the north and south, contrary to the western trajectory indicated on a map released by the I.D.F., which it said was based on radar detections. A review of satellite images showed there were I.D.F. positions north and south of the hospital early Friday.
The strikes analyzed by The Times did not appear to be targeting underground infrastructure. Two of the most severe strikes hit upper floors of the maternity ward."
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/14/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-al-shifa-hospital.html
The conduct (and other actions) would appear to be serious violations of the law of armed conflict. Israeli legal advisers to the IDF claim hospitals can lose protection under int'l law but whether that's so when they were still attempting to function as hospitals is dubious, I'd think, albeit w/o having researched the issue. Such violations of the law of armed conflict can cross the threshold of war crimes. Whether "genocide" is the right label here is otoh more debatable.
There's a longish piece today in WaPo by David Ignatius that I've skimmed through. Largely written based on his interviews w IDF officials, so skewed, but interesting. One main takeaway is that Israelis in high positions seem to have no concrete, specific plans for "the day after." Not surprising but means that others have to be thinking about this.
Bad news.
Early results show that Javier Milei, far right, libertarian (will privatize everything),
emotionally unstable, apologist for the Argentinian dictatorship of the 70's and early 80's, the Argentinian Trump, will win the run-off of the Argentinian presidential election. The other candidate, Sergio Massa, peronista, center-left, Economics Minister of the current government, with 140% inflation and increasing poverty, is not doing well.
Final results predicted in two hours.
Milei won. Massa conceded defeat. At present it's 56% Milei, 44% Massa.
Trump is already crowing about Milei.
Very bad news.
ICYMI, there is a philosophy article on the front page of Wikipedia.
"The Quine–Putnam indispensability argument[a] is an argument in the philosophy of mathematics for the existence of abstract mathematical objects such as numbers and sets, a position known as mathematical platonism. It was named after the philosophers Willard Quine and Hilary Putnam, and is one of the most important arguments in the philosophy of mathematics."
@Eric
Sounds like you have a powerful conviction that Israel is commiting a genocide against Gaza
Maybe you should bring the matter up with your Cognitive Therapist your next session.
You are guilty of a litany of cognitive distortions and that is not good for your mental health or the good of any of the parties involved
The battle of the signatories continues: On November 13 Habermas, Rainer Forst et alia release a statement of 'Principles of Solidarity' highlighting Hamas's 'extreme atrocity and Israel's response' and the need and duty to combat anti-Semitism; on November 22 100+ academics (including Samuel Moyn, Nancy Fraser, Quinn Slobodian, and even Bifo!)counter with a statement stressing the need and duty to uphold "international law, which also prohibits war crimes and crimes against humanity such as collective punishment, persecution, and the destruction of civilian infrastructure including schools, hospitals and places of worship". Here's the latter statement, with the former linked within: https://publicseminar.org/2023/11/a-response-to-principles-of-solidarity-a-statement/
pro Eric; anti his anonymous critic:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2023/november/on-non-violent-resistance
which concludes
“Although they seldom make international headlines, Palestinian history is full of episodes of non-violent resistance to Israel’s military occupation. Israel’s response has routinely been disproportionate, and the overwhelming majority of those injured or killed have been on one side – the side that does not matter to Western governments. Between 2009 and September 2023, Israel killed 6407 Palestinians and injured 152,560, compared to 308 Israelis killed and 6307 injured by Palestinians (according to UN figures). On 7 October, Hamas killed 1200 Israelis. Since then, Israel has killed over 11,400 Palestinians, most of them civilians and more than a third children, through indiscriminate bombing campaigns, in collective punishment for crimes they did not commit.”
A propos the discussion of the use non-violent resistance in the Palestinian liberation movement and by its supporters:
Israeli criticisms of Palestinian resistance to its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza would have a lot more credibility if Israel itself and its supporters, such as the vile AIPAC in the US, would stop vilifying such non-violent approaches as the
BDS (Boycott, Divest and Sanctions) movement, which calls (inter alia) for the boycott (etc) of Israeli companies. Some branches of the movement even limit themselves to Israeli companies based in the occupied West Bank. Yet AIPAC and its ilk cry "foul" and try in turn to get the supporters of BDS censored, cancelled, demeaned, even primaried in US elections.
Yet BDS is doing just the sort of thing that the non-violent elements in the civil rights movement in the US did in the 1960s.
One lesson: Cut off all possibility of non-violent protest a la Martin Luther King and Gandhi and see what you get... Oct 7.
And do NOT say that I am blaming Israel for Oct 7.... I am just making the obvious point about how human beings act when their aspirations for liberation are crushed. Israel and its Zionist supporters try to crush all non-violent forms of resistance. Palestinians and their supporters who are attracted to the teachings of MLK and Gandhi lose heart. The vacuum is filled by the only perceived alternative, violence. The Israeli attempts to crush BDS and the like provide yet one more indication that the government and it supporters (such as AIPAC) do not want a two state solution, but are perfectly happy to go on crushing Palestinian asperations.
As long as the political leadership of both sides (including international players) benefit politically and financially, the status quo will be maintained. Everything else is just white noise. The fulcrum now being nuclear weapons, their proliferation likely will now increase. Been nice knowing you...
W/r/t the "Battle of the Signatories", at the end of the first quarter, it looks like team Palestine is up 28 to 3 over team Israel in the third Philistine Bowl (sponsored by Princeton Test Prep—secure your place in the PMC with PTP!).
But don’t count team Israel out! The smart money says they’ll come from behind after lagging in the early stages of the game …
On the failure of Oslo:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/why-did-oslo-fail
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/11/20/magazine/israel-gaza-oslo-accords.html
Plenty of blame to go around (contrary to apologists of Israel).
@ John Rapko
"and even Bifo"
I'm drawing a blank on this - who is Bifo?
Before I am raked over the coals for not joining in this game myself (if only in my mind), let’s consider that neither of the two teams are working from the one source of valid criteria—that is, the actual history of the region, from the Ottoman empire takeover forward—but instead are relying on their ideological distortions.
Quite clearly relying on these, and I’ll submit that in this regard Team Palestine has overtaken Team Israel and is looking for the win by developing a “hurry up offence”. Have they been studying the Buffalo Bills and the University of Oregon along with their F. Fanon and J. Butler?
Why has so-called “left” (which by this point exists only in its redoubts in academia and journalism, but from which in years past we could expect more) succumbed to what we should call the freshmanyearization of intellectual life? I think I know why, but who cares?
I've now read the statement at Public Seminar that J. Rapko linked. (I also see now who Bifo is - I wasn't familiar w the name). The statement is short and what it says I find mostly sensible. I might well have signed it had I been presented w the question.
Bibi and the Israeli Right continue with the decades long heel turn. The "only democracy" claim isn't aging well.
"Israel's Communications Minister Threatens Haaretz, Suggests Penalizing Its Gaza War Coverage."
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-11-23/ty-article/israels-communications-minister-threatens-haaretz-suggests-penalizing-its-war-coverage/0000018b-fd0c-de73-a9bb-ffefb9f10000
Because history is replete with examples of barriers that couldn't be gone over, under, around , or through:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2023/11/17/how-hamas-breached-israel-iron-wall/
Like many others, I've discovered Haaretz as a decent and balanced source of news in the last month or so. They send you two emails daily summarizing what's going on in Gaza.
They are by no means pro-Hamas and they have been very clear in refuting October 7 denialism
on the left. Penalizing them is just plain fascism. I encourage people to sign up for their free coverage.
In other news I see that Geert Wilders did well in this week's elections. He surged in the polls recently. The recent demonstrations in the Netherlands over Gaza probably had nothing to do with that. Would be nice if folks thought strategically - world doesn't need a hat trick.
LFC:
As you now see, 'Bifo' is the commonly used nickname of the Italian autonomist-Marxist philosopher Franco Berardi. I hadn't thought that he was the sort to be signing public statements, and so was mildly surprised to see him among the signatories.--Off topic, but: I first came across Bifo in this amusing and outstandingly interesting piece by David Graeber that reports and reflects upon some of the 'post-work' folks not quite speaking on contemporary art. Graeber's reflections seem to me among the very most penetrating remarks I've read on my, uh, 'field', contemporary art, and are also exceptionally illuminating on the (pseudo?-) concept of immaterial labor: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-the-sadness-of-post-workerism
John Rapko:
Thanks for the link. (Of those four people Graeber writes about, Antonio Negri is the only one with whose name I was familiar; Hardt & Negri's books have been read by certain people in my, uh, 'field', international relations. ;)) I may pass the Graeber piece on, after I've read it, to someone I know who is professionally involved in the art world.
p.s. Is it possible you've mentioned the Graeber piece here before? (I have a sense of déja vu, but that sense of course isn't always reliable.)
Douglas Jehl for The New York Times
June 10, 1994
"Officials Told to Avoid Calling Rwanda Killings 'Genocide'
Trying to avoid the rise of moral pressure to stop the mass killing in Rwanda, the Clinton Administration has instructed its spokesmen not to describe the deaths there as genocide, even though some senior officials believe that is exactly what they represent.
...American officials say that so stark a label could inflame public calls for action the Administration is unwilling to take....
Under the 1948 Genocide Convention, the United States and other signers are supposed to respond to genocide by investigating and punishing those who are responsible. Some critics have suggested that the White House may be seeking to evade the obligations of that accord.
But Administration officials say they believe the treaty does not carry an absolute obligation to act."
https://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/10/world/officials-told-to-avoid-calling-rwanda-killings-genocide.html
Fun fact.
Senator William Proxmire tried to get the US Senate to ratify an act to implement the international convention on the prevention and punishment of genocide for more than 20 years. From 1967, he gave more than 3,000 daily speeches toward that aim.
It finally passed in 1988.
The chief sponsor of the bill then was...Joe Biden.
For Omer Bartov's widely cited NYT column of Nov. 10 on the question of genocide in this context, search on "omer bartov genocide new york times." The column ("What I Believe as a Historian of Genocide") will come up.
Bartov was also on Democracy Now, interviewed by Amy Goodman on the same subject. There's an audio and a transcipt.
Presumably he says the same thing in both places, but I'll give a free link to the column later, when my computer is on.
The Amy Goodman interview is even on the same day as the NYT opinion piece. She must have seen the opinion piece and called Bartov for an interview. Here's the link to Democracy Now.
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/10/bartov_genocide_apartheid
And here's a free link to the op-ed piece:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/10/opinion/israel-gaza-genocide-war.html?unlocked_article_code=1.A00.bya5.InVyw_MJC5n2&smid=url-share
LFC,
Thanks.
If Omer Bartov interests people, I recommend both the op-ed piece and the Amy Goodman interview, where Bartov talks a bit about his own experience and about why neither the two state nor the one state solution is viable and explains, as he does in the NY Times article, why he does not believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, but is afraid that the situation there could degenerate into that.
The Amy Goodman interview has two parts, as you will see if you click on the link I posted above.
I don't see his confederation "solution" as working either. Too many people, too many hardliners on both sides, not enough land or resources.
Bibi invoking Amaleks is irresponsible, deranged, genocidal, and just plain weird.
It's been a week since Professor Wolff has posted here.
I'm a little concerned.
Would someone like to write him personally or should we just wait to see if he answers here?
s.w.
I wouldn't be too concerned. I'm not sure why we should expect him to post more than once every two or three weeks. Plus it's a time of year when, for some people at least, a lot of things are going on. (As a blogger myself, albeit one with a minuscule readership, I know it's not always easy coming up w to things to say, unless one takes the approach of just quoting chunks of a source from elsewhere and appending a few sentences -- and even that takes a certain amount of time.)
Family visits perhaps? T-day and all.
Ok. You guys are most probably more attuned to RPW's lifestyle than I am.
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