And a Note on the Gaza War

 

It is very clear that there will not be a truce in the Gaza war, and that neither side is interested in anything less than total victory.

Israel has made clear that any truce will merely be a pause to allow humanitarian supplies in and to allow civilians to leave Rafah before it moves in and finishes Hamas off once and for all.  Regardless of what one thinks of Hamas, one can hardly expect them to agree to such a proposal!

As for Hamas, it has made clear that it considers Israel withdrawing from Gaza and turning the strip back over to Hamas as a precondition for releasing any hostages.  Israel, very understandably, does not trust Hamas to keep its word.

In effect, each side has given the other what has been known as an "If you don't drop dead, I'll kill you," ultimatum.  Unsurprisingly, such ultimatums are never accepted.  

My guess is that there will be no clear, definitive end to this war.  It will gradually wind down to an occupation and manageable insurgency. Eventually -- probably years from now -- Israel will grow tired and withdraw.  But insurgencies can continue for a long time, and are invariably ugly.

One tiny glimmer of hope. Although I can't find the link, there was a rumor that the Hamas leadership was looking for a country that would accept them in exile.  To date, they had not found one.

More on the Pro-Hamas Left

 I must say, the rise of the pro-Hamas Left has been profoundly unsettling for me. Up till now I had assumed that, whatever problems Europe might have with unassimilated Muslims, US Muslims fit well within the larger society and should be seen as faithful Americans.  Some terrorists existed, but they did not represent the entire community.  Stories of Muslims cheering on 9-11 were false. And while there was no doubt that the violent fringes of Islam were altogether too large and too difficult to separate from the mainstream, the fact remained that most Muslims were decent people, most Muslims despised terrorists (who killed many Muslims, after all) and most Muslims condemned 9-11, reacted with appropriate outrage a the murder of Russian school children, and so forth.

But apparently all of that is different when the country in question is Israel.

I also assumed that charities that cared for war refugees were wholly worthy and uncontroversial causes. Now, after seeing the extent to which many (seemingly) worthy organizations have been coopted by Hamas, I have to wonder, does the same thing happen in other wars around the world?

Just to be clear, I still hold to many former beliefs.  I reject the hardcore pro-Israel crowd who insist than any criticism of Israel whatever inevitably leads to Hamas.  I reject the "no daylight" crowd who insist that in the wake Hamas' ghastly slayings, all criticism of Israel must be suspended and that our only acceptable response toward Israel is absolute and unconditional obedience  Some people seem to believe that Israel has no obligation to limit civilian casualties, or that if Israel thinks the best way to put pressure on Hamas is to cut off all supplies and induce mass starvation, who are we to question Israel?  And Israeli setter's abuses of West Bank Palestinians are an outrage.

So, yes, there is much to condemn about Israel. I am not complaining about people who oppose the war on humanitarian grounds. I also agree that it is not hypocritical to focus on a war being fought (largely) with American weapons, financed by American aid over one that does not involve us. We have a lot more leverage to stop a war we are arming and funding than one we are not.  And it is certainly not my place to criticize Palestinians in the US who have had family killed in the war and are outraged.*

Nor am I disputing that there are reasonable pro-Palestinian people.  But that is not what the "pro-Palestinian" movement about.  The "pro-Palestinian" -- I prefer pro-Hamas -- movement starts with the premise that Israel has no right to exist, and that anything -- anything -- dedicated to the destruction of Israel is justified.

Before Israel had fired a single shot -- before Hamas was fully dislodged from territory it had seized -- people were celebrating its action, proclaiming "Resistance is not terrorism," and chanting "From river to sea" -- a call for the destruction of Israel.  The existence of Israel is described as an "occupation," and resistance to the "occupation," i.e., to the existence of Israel, whether in the form of a Hamas rampage of murder, rape and torture; or in the form of the Houthi's indiscriminate blockage of shipping traffic; or in the form of Iran launching over 300 missiles and drones against Israel -- anything goes so long as it is dedicated to the destruction of Israel.  

And, it should be noted, cries of genocide went up against Israel from the very outset of the war.

A little background is in order.

Israel withdrew its occupying forces from Gaza in 2005. Pro-Hamas advocates argue that Gaza was still under occupation pre-October 7 because it was under blockade and had become "the world's largest open air prison."  Not mentioned -- Hamas continued to fire rockets at Israel and occasionally to cross over and commit acts of terrorism. And, yes, Israel did fire back and did inflict vastly more damage than it took. It is certainly fair to condemn this.  So far as I can tell, the position of pro-Hamas advocates is that Israel should have given free access to the people committing these acts because, under the laws of war, resistance to the occupying power is not only allowed, but a positive obligation, and the occupying power has no right of defense. In other words, Israel, as occupying power, was required to allow Hamas to attack at will and do nothing to oppose such attacks. 

Even if that is one's moral position, it seems a bit much to ask Israel -- or anyone else, for that matter -- to agree.**

My view tracks with Jonathan Chait. Israel's actions have been appalling.  There is no theoretical reason why there cannot be a liberal, humanitarian, universalist pro-Palestinian movement.  But the pro-Hamas movement coopted any such prospect before Israel had taken any action whatever:

Many students were attracted to these groups because of the horrendous human toll inflicted by Israel’s counterattack in Gaza. But the groups themselves are very clearly not advocating for “peace.” They are for war. Their objection is not to human suffering but that the wrong humans are suffering.

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*And, just for the record, what is my view on the war?  I generally see eye-to-eye with Kevin Drum.  "Hamas invaded Israel for the express purpose of slaughtering civilians. Israel may be guilty of not caring enough about civilian deaths in Gaza, but they are fundamentally fighting against a terrorist group which has the announced aim of destroying Israel."  And I do not see that as a legitimate goal.

**And it should come as no surprise that the laws of war say no such thing.  The official position of the Red Cross states:

 After effective occupation of territory, members of the territory’s armed forces who have not surrendered, organized resistance movements and genuine national liberation movements may resist the occupation. If they do so, they must distinguish themselves from the civilian population, or on the basis of GP I, at least carry their weapons openly during attacks and deployments. Civilians who take a direct part in such hostilities lose their protection against attack for the time of their direct participation, but not their civilian status. If they do not participate directly in hostilities or no longer do so (for example, if they are hors de combat), they are protected against attacks. You know this from the lesson on the conduct of operations. Indirect support for the resistance movement, such as providing information or non-military supplies, does not constitute taking a direct part in hostilities. Those so engaged are civilians and therefore protected against attack. They may, however, be in contravention of security laws passed by the occupying power. In that case, they can be tried and sentenced or their freedom of movement restricted

And again:

Civilians who take a direct part in hostilities against the occupying power may be prosecuted. Remnants of the occupied country’s armed forces who continue fighting are of course combatants and must be treated as such. If captured, they are entitled to POW status and treatment as laid down in the Third Geneva Convention. In particular, they cannot be tried for the simple fact of taking part in hostilities. If, however, they commit acts in violation of the law of armed conflict, they may be subject to prosecution.

We Have an Authoritarian Left in the US and It is Starting to Take and Interest in Elections

 

It get that it is not exactly news that the US has an authoritarian Left as well as our authoritarian Right.

And just to be clear, I am not talking about past historical instances of an authoritarian Left, such as 19th century anarchists and radical socialists, or the Communist Party, or 1960's terrorists..

I am talking about the authoritarian Left in its current incarnation. Also to clarify, by authoritarian I roughly mean a movement that does not respect the rules of democratic fair play, that does not respect the rights of people who disagree with it, that engages in violence, that is aggressively hostile and punitive, or that dehumanizes groups of people.  And, yes, the term is relative.  Not all authoritarian are equally authoritarian.

When did the current authoritarian Left get its start? Do anti-globalization protests in the 1990's that turned into riots count?  When did Antifa originate?  My understanding is that it began in the Pacific Northwest out of the clash between liberal coastal residents and conservative interior residents, including some genuine neofascists.  Violently breaking up right wing events, smashing windows and the like is certainly authoritarian.  And yes, it goes without saying that right wingers grossly exaggerate the extent and menace of Antifa and project many of their own authoritarian tenancies onto it.  But none of that should excuse Antifa's real authoritarianism, by which I mean not just its violence, but its desire to shut down opponents.

Occupy Wall Street was clearly not authoritarian in the sense that it had no leaders and no structure and required consensus before doing anything.  It was authoritarian in the sense of having a violent fringe, and having an offensive sense of entitlement that rules did not apply to it and it did not have to respect others or care about the disruptions they were causing.  

Black Lives Matter originated in 2014 to protest police brutality.  It clearly had a violent fringe, including cop killers, from the very start. It is not clear to me the entire movement was violent.  Riots broke out in 2014 in Ferguson and Baltimore, but they were short-lived and mild riots, that movement leaders did their best to quell. The 2020 riots were a different matter altogether.  The 2020 riots were widespread and massive (though still not as bad as many right wingers claimed).  Much of the violence was just random lawlessness, best characterized as opportunistic looting by people who were eager to seize any excuse.  But there was a decidedly ideological fringe to the outbreak, and all too many people on the left who were willing to excuse it. And there were also disturbing scene in with Black Lives Matter protesters demanded that random bystanders endorse their cause.

But all these authoritarian Left-wing movements of recent vintage had one notable thing in common.  None of them were much interested in electoral politics.  Like Trump supporters, they believed in the "uniparty" and saw any disputes within it as mere attempts to distract the masses.  Their difference from Trump supporters was that they saw Donald Trump as the very embodiment of the uniparty.

Well, this latest wave of anti-Israel, pro-Hamas protesters is a different matter altogether.  These ones are definitely interested in electoral politics and determined to set the terms of orthodoxy for Democrats.

I can definitely imagine right wingers responding with an impatient snort, and saying I am willing to condone the most violent and coercive behavior so long as it is targeted at regular folks, but get all upset when people in the corridors of power are targets.

And I will concede that I do not expect these pro-Hamas protests to break out into widespread rioting and mass looting of the kind we saw in summer of 2020.  We are unlikely to walk down the streets and see every store window smashed and the contents stolen.  And I agree that is all to the good.  I would also not expect pro-Hamas protests to lead to the sort of crime wave that followed the 2020 riots, again, very much to the good.

But violent (or potentially violent)  movements that target the corridors of power create a different set of problems.  Attempts to intimidate policy makers do affect policy making, after all, and in ways that affect a lot more people than just the policy makers being threatened.  They can also drive responsible people out of office and leave power to dangerous authoritarians.  Such has been the goal of the more violent precincts of MAGA.  

And, in any event, the distinction between targeting regular folks and targeting the corridors of power is not as clear as some people might think.  MAGA members and now pro-Hamas protesters don't just target the powerful in Washington, or even in state houses.  They also threaten and harass city counsel, school boards, and other organizations much closer to regular folks.  MAGA members have harassed and threatened rank and file election workers and volunteers and pulled over an AC repairman on the belief that he was smuggling fake ballots.  Hamas supporters are harassing and threatening Jewish students, random Jews, and businesses like Starbucks and Google that have stood up to them.  

And, of course, team Hamas is threatening to throw the election to Donald Trump.

And there is another, particularly insidious danger, noted by Jonathan Chait that happens when potentially violent authoritarians target the corridors of power.  "Because Democrats perceive some of the protesters as potential Biden voters, they have soft-pedaled their criticism of their tactics. The handful of critics have focused on the political ramifications of the protest movement."

That is, of course, exactly why Republicans are so reluctant to criticize MAGA or come out strongly against Trump -- and why their main criticism of Trump is his general unpopularity and likelihood of losing the election.

Forecast:  Rough sailing ahead.

I Still Don't Take the Hush Money Prosecution Seriously

Look, I know there is a growing consensus that there may actually be something to the prosecution of Donald Trump for paying hush money to Stormy Daniels.  But I still am not convinced.

The basic argument that the hush money prosecution is serious is that it is really an "election interference" prosecution, that the election might have gone the other way if the Stormy Daniels affair had come out, so really this is about unfairly swaying the 2016 election.

Sorry, but I still don't buy it.

Back during 2016 -- and 2017-2019, "election interference" referred to Russia's hack of the DNC and Tony Podesta servers and publication of the contents.  It was clearly illegal, both in the sense that the hack was illegal, and that foreign participation in our electoral process is illegal.  

It also violated certain unwritten rules of etiquette in the world of espionage, which recognizes that hacking sensitive information, though in violation of the domestic laws of the host country, is just what spies do, and therefore not blameworthy.  Publishing the contents in an attempt to sway an election outcome is a different matter altogether.  It is not considered to be just what spies do, and is seen as blameworthy.

Donald Trump and his supporters have attempted to obfuscate the reality of Russian interference in the 2016 by stretching the term beyond recognition to mean basically anything that can sway public opinion.  Really, taken to its logical conclusion, this makes the entire political campaign an exercise in election interference since it is intended to sway the outcome.  Everything becomes election interference, and if everything is election interference, then nothing is election interference.

Let's adopt Trump's terms.

In fact, this reminds me of nothing so much as Republicans back in the 1990's getting into a tizzy about Bill Clinton and acting as if he were our first chronic womanizer President, which he wasn't, by a long shot.  

Neither is Donald Trump our first candidate to attempt to cover up an affair, by a long shot.   If attempting to cover up an affair is "election interference," then the term is being diluted beyond all meaning.

Conclusion of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Volume V

 

The Senate Intelligence Committee finally wraps up Volume V of its report on Russian interference in the 2016 election with recommendations and partisan interpretations.

As for the recommendations (pp 931-938) I can only say, "Oh, isn't that cute!"  The recommendations seem extraordinarily naive today and would be repudiated as "weaponization of government" by Republicans everywhere including (I assume) the Committee members who made them.

The Committee recommends stronger enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), require registered foreign agents (lobbyists and other advocates) to disclose their status when engaged in political activity, foreign media outlets operating in the US to proclaim their affiliation, and US media outlets publishing information from FARA outlets to label them as such.  To which I can only say, ROTFLMAO. Can you imagine how Republicans today would react to any such requirements? They would see any such requirements of disclosure as an outrage against First Amendment rights and heroically stand up for the right of Republicans to accept all the foreign assistance they can get.

They also recommend the FBI giving campaigns briefing on how to recognize attempts at foreign influence and how to defend against it, and give recommendations for how political campaigns can protect themselves against attempts at foreign influence and report it.  To which my reaction is somewhere between a snort and an eye roll. Can anyone imagine a Republican campaign treating such advice with anything other than laughter and derision?*

 They also encouraged the FBI to be more aggressive when the victim of a foreign cyber attack is unwilling to cooperate, and urged legislation to mandate cyber security vendors to report indicators of nation state compromise to the FBI.  Given Republicans' current view of the FBI, and any sort of communications between government and tech companies, one can easily imagine how they would react to such a measure today.  

Finally, the Committee favored giving Congress more power to enforce its subpoenas and overcome claims of executive privilege.  Somehow I think Republicans' support for such a measure would depend on which party controlled which branch of government.

Then there are the additional comments by the parties.  The Committee congratulated itself on its bipartisanship (pp. 5-7) and commented, "Following the interviews, witnesses were unable to identify which staff worked for the majority and which worked for the minority," (p. 7).  And for the actual report, that appears to be true.  The Committee made its report fearlessly and without hesitation to discuss the most alarming circumstances.  

So it is downright jarring to find an epilogue by the Republican members of the Committee (pp. 941-942) declare, "[T]he Committee found no evidence that then-candidate Donald Trump or his campaign colluded with the Russian government in its efforts to meddle in the election. . . . After more than three years of investigation by this Committee, we can now say with no doubt, there was no collusion."  Um, guys, didn't you read your own report?  "No collusion" is not exactly what I would take away from it.

By contrast, the Democrats on the Committee apparently have read the report, because they follow it up with a section of their own (pp. 943-948) pointing out all the collision the Committee uncovered.  They point out that Paul Manafort while he was serving as Chairman of the Trump Campaign, regularly fed campaign polling data and discussed campaign strategy with a Russian intelligence agent.  George Papadopoulos appears to have received advance notice of the hack and leak operation (although he may not have realized the significance of what he was told).  And while there is no evidence that he passed the information on to the campaign, it seems decidedly odd that he would discuss it with foreign diplomats but not his own supervisors.  Trump sought advance information through Roger Stone of what to expect from Wikileaks, knowing that Wikileaks was publishing the fruits of a Russian hack.  And Donald Trump, Jr. eagerly met with Russian agents to learn of derogatory information about Hillary Clinton. Furthermore, Trump was campaigning on a pro-Russia platform while secretly pursuing a lucrative business deal in Russia.  None of this is exactly criminal but it is, as the main body of the report commented, "a grave counterintelligence threat."  

There is a second Democratic epilogue, by Senator Ron Wyden alone (pp. 949-952) saying that too much information was redacted, especially about Manafort and Kilimnik.  He also criticizes the Committee for not adequately investigating Donald Trump's financial ties to Russia.

Finally, the Democrats also make the point that  none of the redacted material is in any way exculpatory.  Instead, "[T]he redacted information makes the already alarming public findings even more granular, explicit, and concerning."  But (presumably) still not as juicy as whatever you are imagining.  

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*I suppose some old-fashioned national security Republicans might, but old-style national security Republicans are unlikely to be targets of foreign influence anyhow

The Most Disturbing Aspect of Lewis -- Life Expectancy

 

So, turning from what CS Lewis puts in the devil's mouth in the Screwtape Letters and what he says in earnest in Mere Christianity, we can make some attempt to understand some of his more potentially disturbing thoughts about Christian living and a Christian society.  He endorses social activism as a means to Christianity and rejects Christianity as a means to social activism.*  He endorses individual hobbies and does not address clubs addressed to hobbies.  He is not opposed to novelty in people's individual lives, only to endlessly chasing after new thrills and never seeing anything through, but does not address novelty in the larger society.  And he appears to endorse flexibility toward time, although this is not well addressed.

But there is an even more disturbing current seen repeatedly in the Screwtape Letters, which he does not address at all in Mere Christianity.  In the section on novelty I said, "[I]f we are to take Letter 25 at its word, really Christians should look and act exactly the same as they did back in Constantine's day . . . and that fact that anything at all has changed since then is the devil's work."  The obvious response to that is that if we still everything the same way we did in Constantine's day, doctors would still put leaches on their patients and there would be no vaccines against childhood illness.

Then again, Lewis -- or at least Screwtape -- might very well see that as altogether a good thing.  At least, that is the impression I get from Letter 5, Letter 28, and Letter 31, all of which distinctly seem to see longevity as a bad thing, and the shorter the life expectancy the better.  Letter 5, at the beginning of WWII, laments that war leads to many people dying young and makes people come face to face with their mortality.  Letter 31, the final one, laments the "patient" being killed by a bomb and going to Heaven, "No gradual misgivings, no doctor's sentence, no nursing home, no operating theatre, no false hopes of life; sheer, instantaneous liberation."  

But Letter 28 is the really creepy one.  Screwtape warns Wormwood not to let the "patient" be killed in the latest air raid or his soul will be lost.  He says that the majority of the human race dies in infancy (presumably before the devil had the opportunity to tempt) and a good many die young.  He also says that the young instinctively crave Heaven and lack attachment to this world.  The best chance of winning a soul, he says, is to keep the "patient" alive as long as possible to wear him down through disappointment and disillusionment -- or, alternately, to tempt him to worldliness by success.  He even says "[Humans], of course, do tend to regard death as the prime evil and survival as the greatest good.  But that is because we have taught them to do so."  

So apparently Lewis does not see the self-preservation instinct as our deepest seated instinct, but as a temptation by the devil that corrupts our natures.  And, indeed, he sees it as something that grows over time, while young people have no real attachment to staying alive at all.  If one takes Lewis at his word here, he sees the shorter the life expectancy the better and dying as young as possible as optimal.  Nor does he address this issue in Mere Christianity.  

He does say that since societies rise and fall but individuals have immortal souls, the individual is more important than the society, and that this is the difference between democracy and totalitarianism as well as between Christianity and atheism.  Presumably he would make an exception here, and say that it is important for some people to live long enough for the species to reproduce itself.  And by reproduce itself, I mean not just give birth to the new generation, but to raise them to adulthood -- at least the minority who live that long.

Still, if one takes Screwtape at his word, it would appear that Lewis's ideal is a society is a return to the good old days when women routinely had ten or twelve babies and saw half of them die in infancy and maybe a quarter die young.  Once the two or three who survive marry and start families of their own, the older generation has done its duty and the sooner it dies off, the better their chances of Heaven.  And yes, I know, the devil should not be taken at his word.  But if that is not Lewis's view, then he really should have clarified it in his more serious work.

What Was Hamas Thinking?

 

Look.  Clearly I will never be able to get into the head of a twisted death cult like Hamas, and it would be a mistake to expect them to be rational as we understand rationality.  But it does seem a safe assumption that the current war is not what Hamas had in mind.  Hamas may not be rational as you or I understand rationality, but I do expect them to be at least rational enough not to start a war unless they seem some possibility of winning.  And they must have understood that their October 7 attack necessarily meant war.

One suggestion has been that Hamas had great confidence in its underground tunnels and expected to wear the Israelis down in tunnel warfare until they gave up and left.  And, indeed, it is entirely possible, not to say probable, that the Israelis will end up deciding that they will never be able to root out Hamas and are facing an endless insurgency and withdraw, leaving devastation behind.  But it is hard to see the point there.  Given the choice between being invaded, having your country laid to waste, and wearing down the invaders until they give up and leave versus not being invaded in the first place, not being invaded in the first place seems like very much the better option, even for Hamas.

A more likely explanation is that Hamas engaged in maximally provocative acts in order to provoke an Israeli over-reaction in hopes of setting off a wider war and (presumably) forcing other countries to come to their rescue and (presumably) destroy Israel while they were at it.  If that was the plan, the result is mixed.  Hezbollah has bombarded northern Israel, but without having any real effect on the war in Gaza. The Houthis are blocking shipping through the Red Sea.  But other than that, most Arab governments seem quite happy to see Hamas destroyed.  

And, in fact, thinking things through a little further, it increasingly appears that Hamas did not think things through.  If the Arab powers were to come to Hamas' rescue, who would that be?  Certainly not Hezbollah. Hezbollah is not unlike Hamas. It is a formidable defensive force, with the ability to wear down Israeli invaders until they give up and leave, but, like Hamas, it has no real offensive capacity.  Like Hamas, it can fire rockets and commit acts of terror and mayhem, but it has no power to seize and hold territory, or to conquer and subjugate. 

Furthermore, as a matter of basic geography, the only country with the proximity to come to Hamas's rescue is Egypt, a longstanding enemy of Hamas.  Jordan is the next best alternative -- it has not border with Gaza, but might come to the rescue if it could cut across Israel, something it shows neither the desire nor the capacity to do.  Syria might be willing to do such a thing, but is either mired in civil war or still recovering from civil war.  Iran is an ally, but is would have to cut through Iraq, Syria, and Israel to come to Hamas' rescue. 

As I understand it, Hamas also did itself no favors by not consulting with any of its allies in advance, and thereby sought to commit them to a larger war without asking first.  Hamas's allies were not amused.

Straits of Tiran

Houthi attacks on shipping are actually interesting.  It is true that in 1956 and again in 1967, Egypt sought to close the Straits of Tiran to Israel, cutting off Israel's sole port in the Red Sea.  In both cases, Israel saw that as an existential threat and went to war with Egypt (highly successfully, both times).  This time, the Houthis are cutting off traffic to the entire Red Sea and Israel appears to be greeting it with a shrug. Of course, the effect is to cut off traffic to the Suez Canal and force it around the African continent.  Presumably this means a significant loss of revenue for Egypt.  Maybe it is intended as a form of pressure on Egypt to come to the aid of Hamas.

More plausibly, Hamas' provocation of Israel to attack and actions to maximize civilian damage may have been intended to incite popular uprising throughout Arab countries and force them to come to Hamas' aid.  So far that has not happened, but Hamas may be hoping that it will if the war continues for long enough.  Certainly that would account for Hamas' insistence on utterly unrealistic conditions to any truce during negotiations ahead of Ramadan.  Ramadan seemed like the best opportunity to set up such a revolt, but so far it has not happened.  Personally, that remains my biggest fear.

The alternate explanation I have heard is that Hamas does not understand the nature of Israel. Hamas regards Israel as a settler-colonial state and hopes that if they keep up the pressure, they can induce Israel to give up and go home, just as the French eventually gave up and went home in Algeria.  If that is Hamas' believe, then they will be disappointed.  The Israelis are home.  They have nowhere to go.