Dialogues on a Tooth for a Tooth: Riding the Downward Spiral

Attribution: Kobi Gideon / Government Press Office of Israel, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Featuring The Fabulous Dadbots: Mark M., Mark O., Dave S., Dennis C., Paul C, and Geoff Carter

“The Democratic Party’s years long unity behind President Biden is beginning to erode over his steadfast support of Israel in its escalating war with the Palestinians, with a left-leaning coalition of young voters and people of color showing more discontent toward him than at any point since he was elected.

From Capitol Hill to Hollywood, in labor unions and liberal activist groups, and on college campuses and in high school cafeterias, a raw emotional divide over the conflict is convulsing liberal America.

While moderate Democrats and critics on the right have applauded Mr. Biden’s backing of Israel, he faces new resistance from an energized faction of his party that views the Palestinian cause as an extension of the racial and social justice movementsthat dominated American politics in the summer of 2020.”

–NYTimes: Democrats Splinter Over Israel as the Young, Diverse Left Rages at Biden, 10/27/23

The lead above is astounding, if you think about it. Terrorists attacked non-combatants in southern Israel and slaughtered 1400 of them. This was a brutal, vicious massacre. Men and women, as well as some children, were shot in cold blood. These murders were celebrated by the killers in the most disgusting manner. The terrorists abducted over 200 hostages and are holding them in undisclosed location. The treatment of the civilians killed in Israel makes it pretty clear that Hamas won’t have any problem executing the hostages. 

Yet, after all that, Israel is struggling with a major image problem. Their reputation among American liberals,as described above, reflects ambivalence at best, and revulsion in large part, at Israel. And worldwide opposition to Israel is even stronger in Europe and the developing world than it is in the US.

Even the goliath United States, with its many enemies and reputation for brute force global power projection, managed to get more sympathy over the 9/11 attacks.  

What a far cry for Israel from the glory days of the ‘60s, when Israel’s triumph in the Six Day War was seen here in the US as a validation of the Zionist project. You may dimly recall the book and movie “Exodus” by Leon Uris. The struggles of the Jews on that boat as they waited to be accepted into the British Mandate that controlled Palestine. Hollywood was four-square behind the Zionists. 

Israel has made its own bed. It cannot overcome its original sin, the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Arabs from their farms and villages. Back in the 90s, statesmen ran the country’s foreign policy. Though they were unsuccessful, they made some attempt to reach a political solution with the Palestinians. But the clownish Netanyahu governments over the past decade and a half have doubled down on more settlements and a de facto apartheid state. This has done their own nation a grave disservice.

Thomas Friedman writes that Israel cannot succeed in its struggle against Hamas and the other Iranian proxies without assembling a global coalition. But its own behavior over the past 20 years has cut its own feet out from under it, making that impossible. Israel has a long struggle ahead of it. And success, without allies, is far from assured.

–Mark M.

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It seems crass to concern oneself over the domestic political impact of the atrocities taking place in Israel/Palestine, but here goes…

The Democratic leadership is way out-of-step with the base of their party on the Israel/Palestine issue. Polls have shown that the divide over who one supports breaks down pretty sharply over age, race and religious affiliation. The 100% with Israel, no ceasefire, no negotiation crowd is predominantly old, white, and Jewish or Evangelical Christian. This does not represent the Democratic electorate, but it does represent the leadership of the Democratic Party. This contradiction has to be resolved, one way or another. It might get resolved by Biden getting trounced in the 2024 election. The Middle East isn’t the top priority of most voters, but it is an emotional one, especially in times like these. And emotion drives electoral participation. If the U.S. gets directly engaged in another Middle East war before the election, well I just can’t imagine the repercussions.

As far as the conflict itself, I’ll put my cards on the table. I believe:

1.  All people on both sides are fully human and have equal human rights.

2.  Everyone has the right to defend themselves.

3.  The war in Palestine has been going on since at least 1948 and war is hell with civilian deaths being inevitable.

4.  Apartheid Israel does not have the right to exist any more than apartheid South Africa or the Islamic State of Iran or any other state that routinely violates internationally recognized human rights.

I can’t claim any moral high ground in that I’ve enjoyed living in a prosperous, technically advanced country with laws and enforcement structures that advantage the ethnic majority that I belong to. Just like Jewish Israelis. And I enjoy the property I live on that was stolen from indigenous people. Just like Jewish Israelis. And I’ll fight to prevent it from going back to those indigenous people. Just like Jewish Israelis.

So, like the average good liberal, I acknowledge my privilege but am keeping my stuff.

MarkO

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Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong. 

Even the most cursory glance at the news hammers the reader/viewer with heartbreaking stories of brutal civilian deaths among both the Palestinians and the Israelis. 

Maybe it all boils down to this question: Does Israel have the right to exist? The UN declared Israel a new nation, a Jewish state, in 1948.  But that totally pissed off the mostly Muslim peoples who were already living in and around the tiny new nation. For the most part, they felt and still feel that Israel does NOT have the right to exist. The countries surrounding Israel would have undoubtedly annihilated the nation long ago if Israel did not so stubbornly defend itself, 

For sure, Israeli leaders have made some dumb-ass moves to add fuel to the bonfire — such as the continued FU push for Jewish settlements in the occupied territories. But many of the harsh measures foisted on the Palestinians people could be seen as survival tactics that have evolved in response to terrorism. Palestinian terrorists planting bombs in Israel lead to segregating walls and barbed-wire and draconian checkpoints. Scud missiles shot from Lebanon lead to more advanced Israeli missiles firing back. Hamas attacks from Gaza on Israeli civilians leads to an Israeli invasion of Gaza. etc, etc. It’s a vicious circle that seems to be spinning out of control. 

As Mams and Marko point out, liberals in the US (many of them Jewish btw) are chagrined by Israel’s cold-blooded retaliation in Gaza. Meanwhile, Biden is doing what every US President has done since Israel’s origination–backing Israel and trying to build support for it while inveighing against its more ferocious tactics. No, it’s not exactly the moral high ground, but if Israel is to continue to exist as a nation that’s pretty much what he needs to do.  

DC

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The biggest fear of the Biden re-election campaign is not that disaffected US liberals will vote Republican. That will happen when pigs fly. But Biden’s rock solid, unflinching support for Israel may lead some liberals and swing voters  to simply stay home in 2024. If that leads to the loss of one or two of the swing states—Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada or Michigan— the results could be fatal to the re-elect.

This would be particularly exacerbated if the Hamas-Israel war blows up into a regional conflict, and tanks the economy. A spike in gas prices between now and next November is the nightmare scenario for Dems.  

Support for Israel is one of the organizing tenets of The Blob, aka the Military-Industrial-Think Tank complex of Very Serious People who see American military power as the answer to every problem. It’s instructive that both parties are starting to get resistance from their bases on overseas involvement. Iraq and Afghanistan cast a long shadow.

Mark O is correct that foreign policy is usually not that important electorally.  But the emotionally charged war could prove the exception.  

Turning to the situation in the “Holy Land”. Whether or not the Jews have a legitimate claim to a state, it is here and it’s not disappearing. The other thing that’s not disappearing is the ideology of Hamas, whether or not Hamas itself survives as an organization. And it is this maximally rejectionist ideology which tells Israelis that they cannot allow a fully functional Palestinian state on their immediate border.  

The only Palestinian state that Israel could accept is an unarmed client state, without a military, and with borders completely sealed off from Israel. If would have to be subservient to Israel, and semi-occupied, because only the Israeli military could ensure that weapons and an attack force were not being assembled. Does this sound like a state of affairs that would be acceptable to Palestinians in general?

I like to slam Israel’s bellicosity. But I have to wonder if there GM has ever been a real chance for the two state solution

Check out Bob Dylan’s take on the situation from 1983):

Bob Dylan – Neighborhood Bully ( Lyrics )

–Mark M.

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Why Can’t We Be Friends by War

…came to mind, ironic the very first image

Amazing Dylan find!  Interesting the “bully” he chose to cast “him” in.  Q:  Why is this song not well known? 

A:  It has no melody, rather a refrain/poem for Bob to speak and speak he does…    But  at least he speaks.

-Dave S.

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I actually saw WAR perform at a Zoo event a few years ago. They were good!   Creators of one of the coolest Top 40 songs of our childhood:

Eric Burdon and War–Spill the Wine

–Mark M.

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Hey bots,

Sorry for my delayed responses……  You know, this is the sort of thing that kills any hope I might ever have for the human condition. These religious conflicts have been going on for what? Twelve centuries now? Racism, anti-semitism, anti-islamism (is this a word?), white supremacy, human trafficking, mayhem, and willful ignorance of our climate problems make me start to think that we’re more or less fucked as a species. We have every opportunity to be better, but we never seem to learn. We know how to be merciful, generous, just, and respectful. Yet we choose not to be. 

We spent a couple days in Mexico City about a week ago and visited the magnificent Metropolitan Catedral, a gigantic Catholic cathedral containing at least twenty separate chapels. It’s beautiful and awe-inspiring. Close to it, almost next door, is the Templo Mayor, a set of Aztec ruins accidentally uncovered during a 1977 construction project. They have since been restored and preserved. 

It killed me that when the conquistadors came in and attempted—pretty successfully—to destroy the Aztec civilization, they did it for their God. They came, slaughtered, subjugated, and enslaved. They buried those Aztec temples. And then they built this beautiful cathedral next door to demonstrate their reverence. This is who we were, and who we still are. 

Geoff C.

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I’ve been working 12 hour shifts to install (2) vanities in Boulder, Co. Expected it to take 2-3 days with plenty of bike rides and what not mixed in. Actual 7 days, one lousy bike ride and one truncated no run.  

I’m thinking about writing a book titled: Work: Why, (exactly why) things take 2-3x longer than anticipated.  Imagine someone anal enuf—(that’s me)—to write down every step that goes into nailing a piece of quarter round floor molding (aka “shoe” if a different shape).  Maybe more on that someday. Bots are eligible—w/ advance purchase—of first prints, signed by the author.

So many thoughts on this fine bit holding forth—I have one question and one nomination for top ten ‘bot lines. Maybe I’ll comment, more, maybe not.

1. When a few of you mention Apartheid are you referring only to Gaza? I assume so, but some of the wording implied Israel and there are some subtle ways to interpret that—I won’t bore you with.
2. Love this line by MO:  So, like the average good liberal, I acknowledge my privilege but am keeping my stuff.

PS: I’m in Boulder Home Depot the other day, getting checked out and the clerk comes out way wide and motions me about 15’ away from her cash register. Turns out the cash register behind me—(they have a couple registers in series, not parallel as the norm for most places) has a woman purchasing a couple mirrors…spectrophobia, I vaguely recall this one, but there you have it.  The clerk—say, a 35ish lady—was kind of nervous and antsy, like I am when on a real tall ladder, cramped into a tight space, seeing too many snakes, spiders, etc. …

…might make the book

–Dave S.

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The West Bank, controlled by Israel since the 1967 Six Day War, is also occupied by Israel. Palestinians are strictly confined there. Since the Second Intifadah (2000-2005 per Wiki), Israel has built walls and constructed checkpoints between Israel proper and the West Bank. This was driven by a spate of suicide bombings.  

Palestinians in the West Bank aren’t considered citizens of Israel and thus have very limited rights. To get anywhere, they have to go through checkpoints and be subjected to harassment and humiliation by Israeli soldiers.  

So, the apartheid nature of the regime applies to Israel’s administration of the West Bank as well, not just Gaza.

To add insult and additional injury, hundreds of thousands of Israeli “settlers” have been allowed to build communities within the West Bank. With the active encouragement of right wing Israeli governments! They are protected by the Israeli military. This is super provocative, because the land under these settlements would be Palestinian under any future two state solution. It’s similar to American “pioneers” pouring into the Black Hills, ignoring the treaties signed between the natives and the Great White Father.  

–Mark M.

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Spectrophobia. That’s a new one on me. Is it a fear of breaking mirrors, having mirrors fall on top of you, seeing reflections of oneself…?  To all this I say, “Only in Boulder!”

If you are mentioning my mentioning of Apartheid Israel, let me assure you I am referring to the entire state project of Israel at this point. It was a dubious state project from the get-go, an ethno-state dedicated to Jewish people, generally described as Zionism. Could it ever really work without devolving into a vulgar apartheid system?  Probably not. It probably should have never been attempted by fringe Jewish groups in the late 19th century and eventually condoned and enabled by the international community. Just a historically bad idea. Very different people need to learn to live together, with equal rights.It can be done, it has been done. Obviously, that concept is a tough sell to many Jews with the long history of anti-semitism around the world.

MarkO

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Good analysis by Rochester on the Zionist project. I have read a lot of Jewish literature— in college I even took a course on Yiddish Lit. Isaac Bashevis Singer was a giant of 20th century letters, and I have read most of his stuff.  He mentioned Zionism, and had characters who would leave Europe for Palestine, but didn’t really treat it as a major topic.  

Other stuff that I’ve read has always been generally positive on Zionism— the plucky Jews making the desert bloom, fighting off multiple armies, etc.  Author Leon Uris, for one, was a stone propagandist.  Mark’s quick analysis is a nice balanced look at the Zionist project. The Allies endorsed the creation of Israel out of a sense of guilt, I think. Plus, the Arabs in the region, in the wake of colonialism, didn’t offer enough of a “legitimate” organized opposition.

Chaim Potok’s novel “The Chosen” relates the fierce opposition among Orthodox Hasidic Jews in New York, in the years  after WWII, to the establishment of the state of Israel. For the ultra Orthodox, the establishment by man of a secular Jewish state was considered against God’s will. That’s ironic, considering the large presence that the Hasidism have assumed in Israeli culture and politics. 

 (Quick recommendation: the series “Shtisel” on Netflix, about a modern Hasidic family In Jerusalem.  Some indelible characters, including the family patriarch, who is the moral flip side of Fiddler on the Roof’s Tevye.)

Anyway, here’s a depressing addendum to the strife in Gaza:

“While the world’s attention has fallen on Gaza, violence in the West Bank, a much bigger and more complex Palestinian-majority area, is hitting its highest levels in years.

… a longstanding problem in the West Bank that has gotten much worse since the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks: Heavily armed settler extremists have operated with impunity for years, many Palestinians say, and now their assaults are becoming bolder, deadlier and nonstop.

Experienced observers believe the spike in violence is part of a broader campaign to scare Palestinians off their land that has been allowed to accelerate amid Israel’s enraged and wounded mood. Since Oct. 7, settler violence has displaced more than 800 Palestinians, including entire herding communities.”

NYTimes: “How a Campaign of Extremist Violence is Pushing the West Bank to the Brink, 11/02/23”

–Mark M.

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Kudos Mark on your genuine study of Jewish/Yiddish culture in college. My studies of Jewish/Yiddish culture in college consisted of dating Jewish girls and smoking Jewish guys’ weed. I suppose I picked up a few tidbits of knowledge but that wasn’t really my objective. I did learn from a pot buddy and IDF veteran (I guess they all were) that Israel is a very small country and especially narrow between the West Bank and the sea. In his opinion Israel needed to control the West Bank so it could not be cut in half where it was narrow like that.  Seemed reasonable to me when I looked at a map.  Kind of like how everything looks beautiful from 30,000 feet up.

I listened to a podcast today and heard the host, a Haitian-American, not Muslim, state something casually about the “so-called October 7 massacre”. I immediately thought, “whoa buddy, you can’t say something like that and disrespect all those Israeli victims!”  Then I thought, well what do I really know about what happened on October 7th? I don’t honestly know shit. Just what I’ve absorbed from mainstream media and that is just regurgitation of press releases from official sources. Nowadays, official sources are just the public relations offices of every country’s intelligence services, whose mandate is to collect information and disseminate disinformation. So I tried to reeducate myself today by searching the internet for independent reporting on the events of 10/7 and found nothing. I thought that certainly there would be scads of citizen videos from the Israeli music festival that was attacked, after all, every attendee would have a video camera in their pocket. But no, all I found was the same one video clip that every news outlet in the world picked up and reposted on their website or social media feed. Am I losing my goddamn mind?

One final nail in my fragile psyche, what’s the deal with the tally of Israeli victims? On October 8th, the news story was that “some 1400” Israelis had been murdered by Hamas in the invasion. Today, the news story is that “some 1400” Israelis were murdered by Hamas in the invasion. Does Israel not actually count their victims?  Is it too much trouble? The Gazans at least attempt to count their victims. Of course, Israel counts their dead. They just don’t want to communicate that with the world. Why is that?

I am counting on the wise dadbot community to answer these questions for me before I truly lose my goddamn mind.

MarkO

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MO:  

Re: Your (shocking…conspiracy, paranoid, jingoistic….but hey, applause for not accepting shit…). Knocking on the wrong door here. The (2) Ms know much more than me.

I’m still trying to understand the Israeli Apartheid thing—just to be open with my ignorance, I’ll ask it in numerator denominator terms. (And I’m not questioning or criticizing…just don’t follow ya).  If all of Israel is Apartheid then:

• A.  Numerator is what? The hard right and the denominator is the greater population of Israel?  (this implies the hard right are in power not via popular vote…or whatever…I know Israel is complex…in terms of the degree of protectionism vs expansion of their plot)
• B.  Numerator is Israel and denominator is greater Palestinian population in the greater area?  In other words drawing a little circle on a map and calling it a country is unfair….(the ultimate gerrymandering)
• C.  Other….(my  density is off the charts)

-D.

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Some random thoughts:

Growing up on the south side of Milwaukee, I simply didn’t encounter Jews.  They don’t live down here!  The only Jew I ever met was when my dad and I would take bundles of newspaper to the junkyard, where we would get some pittance (which my dad would let me keep!). My dad had to point out to me that the junkyard dealer was Jewish. But then, why did we got to the junkyard on Saturdays? Wasn’t that their Sabbath? Very confusing.

Boomer nostalgia: This was back when old newspapers were actually worth something. Remember “paper drives”?  And before the ubiquitous aluminum can was in circulation. (I still save crush and save  aluminum cans and sell them to a junk dealer in Cudahy. This is more or less of an homage to my old man.)

I never really met an actual Jew until college. They seemed pretty much like everybody else there!  I have always had a hard time understanding anti-Semitism in the US. How do people here manage to work themselves up into hatred of people who look and act the same way as they do? It’s like hating people from Illinois.

And one evergreen trope that has popped up again in the light of the Hamas war is the conflation of political opposition to Israeli actions with anti-Semitism.  So tiresome. 

As a point of interest, Milwaukee has a definite Muslim quarter, centered geographically around the large mosque on 13th & Layton. There are a bunch of “Arab” grocery shops, and women in hijab are a common sight in south side stores. Any Uber you order is driven by a Muslim man (some are Palestinians, I asked, but not recently). This Muslim presence definitely was not a thing when I was a kid.

Jean and I work the polls for the City of Milwaukee in the area I described above. There are a number of identifiably Muslim voters who show up.  I always wonder how they vote!  On the one hand, it’s a culturally conservative community. That would tend to push them Republican. But these people aren’t dumb, and they have to be aware of the anti-Muslim fever whipped up by Republicans. So I wonder how that balances out? Unfortunately, nobody tells us how the vote.

Dave, I don’t know what to tell you about apartheid. Here’s a definition from the internet.

Apartheid refers to the implementation and maintenance of a system of legalized racial segregation in which one racial group is deprived of political and civil rights.

–Cornell University: Legal Information Institute

I think the shoe fits!   

–Mark M..

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One last note. Israel was established in 1948 almost as a direct reaction to the Holocaust. The world-wide horror and disgust at the way Jews had been robbed, segregated, dehumanized, and finally systematically and cold-bloodedly murdered by the Nazis led to the establishment of Israel, which would have been politically impossible without the preceding horrors of WWII.

The irony of all this is that Israel is the persecutor. They are killing thousands of innocent civilians in their pursuit of the terrorists who attacked them. And granted, who can blame them? 

But the years of segregation, discrimination, and dehumanization that the Israelis have inflicted upon the citizens of Gaza and the West Bank have come back to haunt them. Hamas wouldn’t exist with this form of Israeli “apartheid”. (Well said, Mark O.!). If the Israelis had worked at creating a fair and equal two-state solution, these attacks probably wouldn’t have happened.

So it seems the persecuted have become the persecutors, the lambs have become the lions, and the victims have become the aggressors. Israel is a small state of persecuted immigrants fighting for survival, surrounded by hostile neighbors. That line sold in 1967, but it doesn’t ring true now–but the reverse does.

G

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I agree with your summary except regarding the origins of the Israel idea.  The formation of a zionist (Jewish) state in Palestine was a project begun in the late 1800’s, generally attributed to Theodor Herzl, a Jewish journalist and activist.  That project was formally recognized as legitimate by the United Nations in 1948.  One interpretation is that this recognition was the result of the West’s collective sympathy, even guilt, over the Nazi holocaust.  Another interpretation is that the West, in particular the US and UK, did not want hordes of Jewish immigrants/refugees settling in their own countries.  In other words, we don’t want them, let Palestine take them.  Because the UK governed Palestine at the time, they could make this happen.

Why is such a cynical explanation even a possibility?  Because the US rejected the immigration requests of thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of European Jews prior to WWII.  It’s true we took in many prominent and well connected Jews, but that was a minority of those who attempted to emigrate here.  It’s useful to remember that the Nazi’s didn’t invent anti-semitism, they just perfected it.

Troubled times we live in for sure.

MarkO

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Israeli forces have reached the Al-Shifra hospital in the Gaza Strip. Their assertions that the hospital is a nerve center for Hamas do not seem to be supported by any evidence that they have presented. The IDF “found” a bunch of weapons in the MRI room. Um, not credible . You cannot store metal anywhere near those machines!

Hey, it may be 20 years late… but it looks like  we are finally on the trail of those darned Weapons of Mass Destruction!

Mark M.

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True, Mark O. I hadn’t known about Herzl; I’ll have to look him up. Ken Burns did another great documentary about the U.S. noninvolvement evacuating Jews from Europe in the 1930s and beyond, The U.S. and the Holocaust. Sad and disturbing. I was appalled at the rampant anti-semitism in both Congress and the State Department. And it’s probably true we supported Israel to keep the huddled masses from our shores—I’m surprised Ted Cruz and the Republicans haven’t come up with a similar solution to our current immigration problem. 

Mark M. I’m not surprised the Israelis are playing catch-up on their global PR disaster. I saw a news clip of them unloading incubators at the same hospital—staged, I’m sure. I gather most Israelis are now opposed to Netanyahu and his draconian policies. Maybe they’ll oust him and start a new reform government. Maybe. 

Finally, the Burns documentary made the point that when the Nazis were figuring out how to take care of the Jewish problem, they used American Jim Crow laws as a reference. And so the circle goes round and round–landing right back on our new restrictive voting laws.

Geoff C.

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‘’’nother notable  line….”the Nazi’s perfected it”.  (notable, not great given the subject matter.)

Re Apartheid, let me put this one to bed. I think we all know what it means and this is semantics, but if Israel rules Israel—and Hamas rules Gaza and Palestine rules Palestine, there is no Apartheid—although if I recall correctly I think MM may have started this by noting that Gaza was essentially Apartheid since Hamas held no elections and the majority had no say….but then MO took it to the greater chunk of Land, put Israel and Gaza…(and Palestine) all under one canopy and called it Apartheid.  Technically—that is in terms of definition of State or Country, I’m still a little confused since Palestine is a Sovereign State—UN recognized…but with an asterisk—“non member observer state”—WTF is that?  Israel is recognized….I think…no sure.  But the practical matter is Israel has the strongest military, thus effectively rules, takes land does all sorts of things with little or zero Palestinian input—therefore is Apartheid.

Whatever for now.  

Question is Puerto Rico  under Wyoming apartheid since they have zero senate seats (and zere EC votes), despite 5x the population? (rhetorical funny…or not funny—reader’s choice)

Other random thoughts:

1. Do bots believe the 11,000 Hamas dead in Gaza? I can only make (2) things of that—horrific over force by Israel, or inflation by Hamas to garner worldwide support/disdain for Israel.
2. IMO—most of the lead terrorists are NOT scurrying about in tunnels—long gone—in various parts of the ME. Maybe Hamas leaders left the young zealots there to die. Guessing Israel feels they can use the op to destroy key Infra and set back Hamas effectiveness 5 – 10 years. True?  I doubt it—the leaders are elsewhere and instrument of death innovation is continuous (drones…chemical….biological…) and provided by deep pockets in Iran and elsewhere.
3. I’ve always had a press informed negative opinion of Netanyahu. This week I heard him speak—maybe for the first time, to NPR (Steve Inskeep) and I have to admit there was strength in his reminders/rejoinders to Inskeep (and all of us) about the “hell bent” nature of Palestine to eradicate Israel.  (2) specifics:  Kids are taught early and often their lifelong mission:  destroy Israel.  People are rewarded financially per Israeli “kills”. Not jumping on his bandwagon, but I do understand someone tasked with watching his chickens with ravenous wolves at the fence line.
4. Myriad of Americans going over there to give it the sniff test. Mary Louise, Ari, Steve, Biden, Blinken, even a rookie Wisco R congressman….many others…  Some good in all of those REI boots on the ground, given the light speed of false news–made me think ‘bout bot MO’s healthy paranoia question recently—did Israel fabricate any of the initial attack?—not his words but something about finding 1 and only 1 video of the atrocity.
5. Which of course brings me to Dolly Parton.  Apparently Dolly turned down a Rock Hall of Fame invite—I’m not a rocker…wouldn’t be right”—some years ago.  Found out it is not solely rock, revisited accepting it, but felt like she had to make a rock album.  So, she did.  Sent out a note to bunch of rock stars, saying want sing with me?….if so give me a call?…here’s my phone number….they all did.  They played a bunch of clips last night.  Let it Be….Stairway to Heaven.  Apparently Dolly’s husband is a died in the wool rocker.  Had a cute line about an earlier Dolly attempt—”stairwell to hell”—which she corrected…a reprieve from the gruesome news in Gaza.

-D.