Some People Are Never Satisfied

After the indictment of Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey and subsequent calls for his resignation- including from a majority of his colleagues- I recognized that Menendez had no chance of being re-nominated by Democratic primary voters for a new term. The Senator did properly step down as chairperson of the Foreign Relations Committee but resignation from the body would have had little practical effect. I cynically suggested that Democrats instead should have demanded Justice Clarence Thomas' scalp in return for that of Menendez and wrote

Turning the tables on Republican wrongdoing when they can more easily adopt virtue signaling would be against their religion of turning on one of their currently disfavored own. Fingers held in air, they have determined which way the wind blows, just as they did when they gave full-throated support to their colleague in his last re-election bid. Wind direction has shifted, and so have their principles.

While conservatives typically resist calls to resign in response to personal scandal, liberals and progressives typically do the honorable thing and resign. That can backfire. After Claudine Gay resigned as President of Harvard University, her chief inquisitor at the figuratively fatal hearing of the House Education and Workforce Committee, Representative Elise Stefanik (R-NY), responded in a statement

I will always deliver results. The resignation of Harvard’s anti-Semitic plagiarist president is long overdue. Claudine Gay’s morally bankrupt answers to my questions made history as the most viewed Congressional testimony in the history of the U.S. Congress. Her answers were absolutely pathetic and devoid of the moral leadership and academic integrity required of the President of Harvard. This is just the beginning of what will be the greatest scandal of any college or university in history. 

Our robust Congressional investigation will continue to move forward to expose the rot in our most “prestigious” higher education institutions and deliver accountability to the American people.

This was self-congratulatory ("I will always deliver results"), unappreciative ("long overdue"), self-righteous ("morally bankrupt"), grandiose ("the beginning of what will be the greatest scandal of any college or university in history"), and pompous ("to expose the rot in our most 'prestigious' higher education institutions"). It was quintessential Elise Stefanik.  And on Wednesday billionaire hedgefund manager and Harvard alumnus

Bill Ackman wrote in a lengthy post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that members of the Harvard Corporation, the board for the university, should leave if they supported former President Claudine Gay.

“The Corporation Board should not remain in their seats protected by the unusual governance structure which enabled them to obtain their seats,” said Ackman, billionaire and founder of Pershing Square Capital Management.

Ackman specifically called on Penny Pritzker, the board chair, and others on the board who supported Gay before her departure, to resign. 

He said those members “orchestrated the strategy to threaten the media, bypassed the process for evaluating plagiarism, and otherwise greatly contributed to the damage that has been done.”

“Then new Corporation board members should be identified who bring true diversity, viewpoint and otherwise, to the board,” Ackman added. 

Ackman has been vocal in calling for Gay’s removal since her congressional testimony. Gay resigned from her position Tuesday, after her antisemitism testimony and plagiarism controversies. 

In his post, Ackman said he believed diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at Harvard were the cause for its recent troubles, and a new board should reflect differing views on the subject. 

Ackman is very hostile to diversity, equity, and inclusion programs on college campuses and would sincerely like to see them ended, and up to a point he has a point. Ackman, a huge contributor to the college, now is calling on the board of Harvard University to resign. That would be the same board which accepted Gay's resignation and may even have pressured the President to step down. One scalp down, several more to go.

Notwithstanding her thinly veiled glee, Elise Stefanik is a creature of another sort.  When Liz Magill, who with MIT President and Gay failed in the House committee hearing, Stefanik responded "one down, two to go." Representative Jamie Raskin then explained on MSNBC

.... where does Elise Stefanik get off of lecturing anybody about anti-Semitism when she’s the hugest supporter of Donald Trump who traffics in anti-Semitism all the time? She didn’t utter a peep of protest when he had Kanye West and Nick Fuentes over for dinner. Nick Fuentes, who doubts whether October 7th even took place because he thinks it was some kind of suspicious propaganda move by the Israelis.

And the Republican Party is filled with people who are entangled with antisemitism like that.  And yet somehow she gets on her high horse and lectures a Jewish college president from MIT.

It's unlikely that Stefanik, whatever her claims to the contrary, is sensitive to the free speech issues which underlie the DEI movement and practices at many colleges. No doubt she is fund-raising prodigiously and with her behavior pleasuring her man, Donald J. Trump, who sometime later this year will be deciding upon a running mate.

The DEI approach will continue to some extent, perhaps under a different expression or slogan, while in her transcendent opportunism Stefanik will find a different right-wing battle to fight.   And Democrats and liberals will still be bending to pressure, seemingly unaware that it is self-defeating to bow to the will of thugs.

 

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Human Cargo

On the afternoon of December 31, Mayor Brandon Johnson of Chicago issued two tweets which read

This morning just after 1 a.m., a private Boeing 777 originating from San Antonio, Texas landed at the Rockford/Chicago airport carrying 350 asylum seekers. There was no communication from Texas, and the City of Chicago was alerted by authorities in Rockford regarding the flight.

Upon landing, asylum seekers were placed on buses chartered by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and dropped in various surrounding suburbs, left to find their way to the city. This is the second recorded instance of the Texas governor transporting asylum seekers via private plan.

Governor Abbott does have an explanation, however. As seen (beginning at 2:21) in the video below, he contends

The authors of the United States Constitution foresaw a situation when the federal government would be inattentive to states that faced challenges at their borders. In response, they inserted Article 1,Section 10 to the United States Constitution to empower states to take action to defend themselves and that is exactly what Texas is doing.

Article I pertains to the legislative branch of the federal government and Article 10 is clearly designed to limit the power of states. Abbott is referring to the third clause, which reads

No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.

Assuming the Governor is sincere (a real stretch, admittedly), he is interpreting this clause as "No state shall, without the consent of Congress..... engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay.

Texas is not in imminent danger of destruction. Nor has it been "actually invaded."  And if it faces imminent- which it does not- danger from immigrants, refugees, or asylum seekers, it would have police or National Guard soldiers fire upon the ruthless invaders. Instead, the governor's people have given them one-way passage to northern cities. The invaders.

According to the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation

Present-day non-state actors, like cartel-affiliated gangs operating within the territory of a U.S. state, may fall under the category of invaders, provided their criminal activity reaches a scale or degree of organization that deliberately overthrows or curtails the lawful sovereignty of the state.

Abbott did not take action against cartel--affiliated gangs but against individual asylum seekers.  And if the criminal activity of the gangs reached a scale threatening the lawful sovereignty of the state, he hasn't explained how. His is a policy searching for a rationalization.  

This is not to suggest that the come one, come all attitude of Chicago mayor Johnson is good policy or politics, because it is neither.  However, shipping human beings like chattel from one state to another, especially without notification, stokes resentment and fans the flames of division..  The inhumane approach of one politician and the tone-deaf approach of another cry out for much more effective action from the federal government toward immigrants and asylum seekers. That's one thing Brandon Johnson and Greg Abbot can agree on.

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Please Don't Do This

I have a thought  or two.

Former Obama adviser @davidaxelrod says that a court decision to remove Trump from the primary ballot “would rip the country apart”

Thoughts? pic.twitter.com/YVLFcfD8qX

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) December 30, 2023

CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig also has a few thoughts about the effort in Colorado and in Maine to bar Donald J. Trump from the presidential primary ballot pursuant to Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which reads 

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Honig asks, nearly rhetorically, of the judicial process  in the two states "were these hearings fair? Did they comport with due process?"

The Colorado Supreme Court has upheld the decision of the state's Attorney General to block Trump from being on its presidential primary ballot, though the decision has been stayed. Maine's Secretary of State has determined that the ex-presidential shall not be on the primary ballot in a move which will almost certainly be appealed.

As Honig realizes, the issue of due process will give the US Supreme Court an opportunity to overturn the rulings in the two states with the Court choosing to skirt the substantive issues involve, perhaps a win all around unless your name is "Nikki Haley."

In the video attached to the tweet above, former Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod is seen remarking "He's only gained since he got indicted. What we thought would be kryptonite for him turned out to be battery packs."

Not true. Most people (albeit with many exceptions) did not believe that indictment of President 45 would undermine his effort to be nominated by the GOP electorate. Moreover, whether Trump's legal troubles would help, hurt, or have no impact in a general election is very much uncertain, especially because we don't know what the status of the indictments will be come next fall. Nor is it at all clear that the numerous charges actually have aided Trump's bid to be nominated, as Nikki "tell me what you want me to say" Haley has risen in the polls as she (cowardly) argues "I agree with a lot of his policies, but the truth is, rightly or wrongly, chaos follows him."

Yet, Axelrod does understand

And this is a big one for him. Presumably the Supreme Court will deal with that fairly quickly and I expect they will leave him on the ballot and yes, Brianna, I have very strong reservations about all of this. I do think it would rip the country apart if he were actually presented from running because tens of millions of people want to vote for him. I think if you're going to beat Donald Trump, you're probably going to have to do it at the polls.

Of course, it would rip the country apart or, rather, rip it apart more than it already is. There were two instances of impeachment, which polarized an already polarized nation. The charge in the latter case was "incitement of insurrection" and as in the first impeachment, it ended in de facto acquittal, of Donald Trump. Then there was the January 6 Committee, which recommended the Department of Justice level charges of Obstruction of an Official Proceeding, Conspiracy to Defraud the United States, conspiracy to Knowingly Make a False Statement, and Aiding, Assisting, or Comforting an Insurrection.

But Special Counsel Jack Smith decided not to charge the former President with insurrection. Thus, Trump never has been charged with insurrection and obviously never has been found guilty of being involved in an insurrection.

Tens of millions of people want to vote for Trump, as Axelrod maintains, and it's not only likely that he cannot be beaten otherwise, in the absence of any criminal conviction whatsoever- as is the case presently- it probably is the sole manner in which he should be defeated.

Nonetheless, the drive to deprive Trump of any chance of becoming President again is a terrible idea for a reason Axelrod hints at, though omits. The country could survive backlash from barring Trump from the ballot. However, the country might not survive the effort for another reason.

Notwithstanding the political harm to the Republican Party of the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the major reason Democrats avoided a "red wave" in the 2022 election cycle was identification of the GOP with animus to democracy. This included- but was not limited to- the active effort by Trump, and support of his allies in his Party, to overturn an election.

Few Republican politicians have condemned Trump for his obsession and a CNN poll this past summer found "69% of Republicans and Republican leaners say Biden's win was not legitimate."

Tens of millions of Republicans already believed Joe Biden is President only because of a rigged election. In stepped two conservative law professors, later a conservative former federal judge and liberal law professor to prove them right.

Oh, of course without this initiative most Republicans and GOP-leaning independents still would believe that the election was fishy, if not fraudulent. Yet now, oxygen has been added to the fire of their disbelief and anger. 

For nearly three years, Democrats, never Trump Republicans, and some moderates and centrists have been denouncing the specious claims of the ex-President and the Party which emboldens and enables him, and which refuses to accept the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election.   The loser in 2020, who is insistent that he won, has strongly signaled that he won't accept the results of the next presidential election if and when he loses.  Then, and probably during the campaign, he will wail that the process is "rigged."  

If the Trump disqualification drive gains steam, the ex-President won't have to wait to complain about a rigged election. If he is nominated, the claim will drive Republicans and GOP-leaning independents to the polls to vote their displeasure. And if he loses the nomination to another Republican, the claim will drive Republicans and GOP-leaning independents to the polls to vote their displeasure, in presidential balloting and down-ballot. 

Good luck to Democrats asserting that only Republicans are out to savage democracy. Nothing else could facilitate a more effective GOTV nomination and it would make anyone a heavy favorite over the Democratic nominee.

The Democrats behind this drive are encouraging political suicide. For the Never Trump Republicans, it's brilliant strategy.

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Far Beyond Civil War Denial

If a Democratic Super PAC or a Republican opponent wanted a defining moment for Nikki Haley's candidacy- or even for Nikki Haley herself, it may have come Wednesday night at a town hall event in Berlin, New Hampshire.

The former governor and UN ambassador was asked "What do you think was the cause of the Civil War?" At the tail end of the video below, Jennifer Palmieri on Morning Joe can be heard remarking "This could have been a great moment for Nikki Haley for her to say like "I came from the south, this is what have learned,' and instead it is this panic, "what do you want me to say about slavery?"

Willie Geist responded "yeh, it is that line line 'what do you want me to say about slavery,' at worst sort of defiant, that she was going to refuse to say something there." Haley's apparent moment of indecisiveness arose when

“I mean, I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was going to run. The freedoms and what people could and couldn’t do,” Haley had said Wednesday in a visit to Berlin — the first of five events in the Granite State as she attempts to close the gap with Republican front-runner Donald Trump ahead of next month’s primary.

The former South Carolina governor then asked the voter who had asked her about the Civil War what he thought the cause was, to which the voter responded, “I’m not running for president.”

“I think it always comes down to the role of government and what the rights of the people are,” Haley added. “I will always stand by the fact that I think government was intended to secure the rights and freedoms of the people. It was never meant to be all things to all people,” she added.

The voter criticized her for not mentioning slavery in her answer. “In the year 2023, it’s astonishing to me that you answer that question without mentioning the word slavery,” the voter said.

“What do you want me to say about slavery?” Haley asked.

One may be moved to say "whatever it is you actually believe." But she did say something significant, and it was worse: On a local New Hampshire radio show Thursday morning, Haley told host Jack Heath

I  mean, of course the Civil War was about slavery. But what’s the lesson in all of that? That we need to make sure that every person has freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to do and be anything they want to be without anyone or government getting in the way. That was the goal of what that was at. Yes, I know it was about slavery. I’m from the South, of course I know it’s about slavery.

So she knows it was about slavery, with the lesson "that we need to make sure that every person has freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to do and be anything they want to be without anyone or government getting in the way."

The Civil war was not about freedom of speech or of religion unless Haley is equating the right to hold slaves with the First Amendment. More relevantly, the candidate stressed the "freedom to do and be anything they want to be without anyone in government getting in the way."

If the media and politicians can surmount the controversy over the cause of the Civil War, they might notice that Haley was arguing that the war was fought over an individual's desire to act "without anyone in government getting in the way."

Ironically, Haley is right. In an important sense, the Civil War was fought over the privilege of behaving as the slaveholder wished without government getting in the way.  Cotton and tobacco were king in the south and profits for plantation owners would be enhanced if workers were slaves and not employees paid a wage.  Southern states believed the federal government was going to block expansion of slavery into new states and eventually abolish it. That would be the federal government denying "every person" the "freedom to do and be anything they want to be without anyone or government getting in the way."

Southern states were determined not to let northerners and their government curb their freedom to do as they wish. At that time, the freedom was to own other human beings but, as Haley is well aware, that freedom now is less odious and far more subtle. The "freedom" touted by the candidate includes limiting federal employees to five years at their job which, as David Corn recognizes

would seem to cover TSA officials, federal law enforcement officials, intelligence analysts, food and drug safety officials, National Institues of Health research supervisors, counterterrorism experts, counterintelligence officers, workplace safety regulators, financial regulators, public health officials, border security officials, IRS tax collectors, trade officials, climate change negotiators, and you can fill in the rest.

Of course, someone would run the federal government, which very likely would be lobbyists and the interests, especially powerful corporations, which employ them. That would be consistent with Haley's enthusiasm for increasing oil and gas drilling, cutting income taxes for the wealthy and others, and undermining- uh, er, "reforming"- Social Security and Medicare.

 It's no surprise, then, that as Tim Scott's presidential campaign was imploding, Koch-financed Americans for Prosperity threw its endorsement- with all the resources it can muster- behind Haley's presidential effort. Certainly, Americans for Prosperity would not want its presidential choice to "government getting in the way" of it's interest in the wealthy and corporations. That would prove to be a pesky problem, much as the federal government 150+ years ago would not reinforce the institution of slavery.

Nikki Haley's remark about slavery on Wednesday evening was no accident. It may have been a nod and a wink to her corporate donors or it may have reflected sincere views (presuming she has any) about the role of government in society. Either way, she pointed to the likely role of any Haley Administration in shunning the interests of all but the most powerful Americans.

 

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Reality, Acknowledged

It was in June of 2014, during the No Drama Obama period, that the piece "The Case for Reparations" by Ta-Nehisi Coates appeared in The Atlantic. Reparations arose as an issue almost nine years later with a decision by the College Board pertaining to its AP African American studies course. At that time, conservative scholar and author Thomas Sowell presented about reparations an argument which would also prove relevant to the war precipitated by Hamas several months later. In this interview (as seen in at 2:28 of the video below) Sowell contended

Because the number of whites, for example, who were enslaved in north Africa by the Barbary pirates exceeded the number of Africans enslaved in the United states and in the American colonies before that- put together. But nobody is going to north Africa to ask for reparations because nobody is going to be fool enough to give it to them.

Certainly, there were more slaves in the colonies and the USA than taken by the Barbary pirates because the women who became slaves here begat more children, as did their female children. However, as Sowell presumably was maintaining, there appears to have been more white Europeans taken as slaves by North African scoundrels than black Africans taken by whites and sold into slavery in what has been referred to as "America's original sin." 

We learn from a book, described here by an Ohio journalist, that retired Ohio State University history professor Robert Davis 

devised a unique methodology to calculate the number of white Christians who were enslaved along Africa’s Barbary Coast, arriving at much higher slave population estimates than any previous studies had found.

Most other accounts of slavery along the Barbary coast didn’t try to estimate the number of slaves, or only looked at the number of slaves in particular cities, Davis said. Most previously estimated slave counts have thus tended to be in the thousands, or at most in the tens of thousands. Davis, by contrast, has calculated that between 1 million and 1.25 million European Christians were captured and forced to work in North Africa from the 16th to 18th centuries.

According to Henry Louis Gates, there were only about 388,000 black persons "shipped directly to North America." That would be roughly 388,000 too many. Though some individuals were taken because of race, others became victims on the basis of ethnicity or religion as

“Enslavement was a very real possibility for anyone who traveled in the Mediterranean, or who lived along the shores in places like Italy, France, Spain and Portugal, and even as far north as England and Iceland,” he said.

Pirates (called corsairs) from cities along the Barbary Coast in north Africa – cities such as Tunis and Algiers – would raid ships in the Mediterranean and Atlantic, as well as seaside villages to capture men, women and children. The impact of these attacks were devastating – France, England, and Spain each lost thousands of ships, and long stretches of the Spanish and Italian coasts were almost completely abandoned by their inhabitants. At its peak, the destruction and depopulation of some areas probably exceeded what European slavers would later inflict on the African interior.

According to Davis, the slaves in north Africa generally were treated as badly as slaves in the Americas and “slaves were still slaves, whether they are black or white, and whether they suffered in America or North Africa.”

The plight of those unlucky Europeans is rarely taught and often completely ignored. That doesn't suggest that black, or African-American, history should not be part of curricula in secondary schools and colleges across the nation. We could continue in sort of a Balkanization of western history, with the contributions and persecution of blacks, Latinos, and Asians taught, each as a unit. Or instead, we could try something radical: teaching the past completely, fully, and objectively, neither demonizing the West (as is increasingly common) nor ignoring the impact of all ethnic groups. We could call it "history."

Yet, there is another moral to the research of Davis and the (valid) insistence of Sowell that not all evil has been perpetrated by Westerners and/or whites. Note that

Although hundreds of thousands of Christian slaves were taken from Mediterranean countries, Davis noted, the effects of Muslim slave raids was felt much further away: it appears, for example, that through most of the 17th century the English lost at least 400 sailors a year to the slavers (and) between 1530 and 1780 there were almost certainly 1 million and quite possibly as many as 1.25 million white, European Christians enslaved by the Muslims of the Barbary Coast.

The book is called Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast, and Italy, 1500-1800. Had it been written 19-20 years later, "Christian" and "Muslim" likely would have been excised by the publisher. Acknowledgment of the effect of religion has been all but cancelled.

Viewing the full scope of the history of oppression, we should recognize that the problem is not one of Israel vs. Palestine or Israelis vs. Palestinians. It is not primarily ethnic, especially given that Hamas' greatest support is not from the Arab world, but from Persian Iran. Nor is it racial, especially as the racial difference between Arabs born and raised in the land of Palestine is not dramatically different than that of Jews born and raised in the land of Palestine.

Rather, this war and the ongoing unrest in the region is primarily a matter of religion. Israel, in past years often referred to as "the Jewish state of Israel," was established as a haven from oppression for Jews. And although non-Jews enjoy more rights there than do the residents of nearly all (if not all) Arab and Persian nations, it is nevertheless advantageous in Israel to be Jewish. 

Muslims vs. Jews? You don't hear that in the media, traditional or social, in this country and probably not elsewhere. The issues in this conflict and beyond thus get muddled. It becomes less so when we are reminded by the likes of Thomas Sowell that slavery has existed for several hundreds of years and in numerous continents.  It becomes clearer still when we admit that Muslim masters have existed and can be as evil as Christian ones.

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Yet to All Celebrants, a Merry Christmas

In the matter of political ideology, some leaders, political or religious, are principled and others blow with the wind.

Four days after the brutal terrorist attack by Hamas upon Israeli citizens

Pope Francis, in his strongest comments since the start of the conflict in Gaza, on Wednesday called for the release of all hostages taken by Hamas militants and said Israel has a right to defend itself.

Speaking in a somber voice at the end of his weekly general audience to thousands of people in St. Peter's Square, he also expressed grave concern over Israel's siege imposed on Gaza.

"I continue to follow, with pain and apprehension, what is happening in Israel and Palestine. So many people killed, and others wounded. I pray for those families who saw a feast day turn into a day of mourning, and I ask that the hostages be immediately released," he said.

Twenty-two days later, the pontiff again called for the release of the hostages held by Hamas when he

called for a cease-fire in the war between Israel and Hamas and renewed an appeal for the release of hostages held by the Palestinian militant group in Gaza.

"Let no-one abandon the possibility of stopping the weapons," he said at his weekly blessing in St. Peter's Square.

"Cease-fire," he said, mentioning a recent television appeal by Father Ibrahim Faltas, one of the Vatican's representatives in the Holy Land.

He then added in his own words: "We say 'cease-fire, cease-fire.' Brothers and sisters, stop! War is always a defeat, always."

Referring to "the grave situation in Palestine and Israel," he said "in Gaza, in particular, let there be room to guarantee humanitarian aid and may the hostages be freed immediately," he said, speaking about Israeli hostages seized by Hamas on Oct. 7.

So far, so good. However, the tide has turned; public sentiment has shifted dramatically toward Hamas, as- probably not coincidentally- has someone else's.  On November 24, the Hindustan Times reported

The pope met with Jewish families whose relatives were kidnapped by Hamas, and Palestinians whose families were still in Gaza. He said to a crowd in St. Peter’s Square that he saw the suffering of both sides, saying, “This is what wars do. But here we have gone beyond wars. This is not war. This is terrorism.”

However, the Vatican denied that the pope used the word “genocide” to describe the situation, as some Palestinians who met with him claimed.

Actually, the Vatican did not deny it because as the news outlet itself noted, "Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said, 'I am not aware that he used such a word.'”

That's not a denial. A denial would be more like "The pontiff said no such thing" or "that report is inaccurate." Mr. Bruni seems to be admitting that he does not have first-hand knowledge and it's very possible that he had not been told what Pope Francis said. In fact, though a refusal to respond to the accusation would be less forthcoming, it would not as obviously suggested that the Pope had said such a thing.

A couple of pro-Israel organizations were displeased but rather diplomatic. The American Jewish Committee

said in a statement on X (Formerly Twitter) that it appreciated the pope’s meeting with the hostage families but added, “Later in the day, he described the Israel-Hamas war as ‘beyond war,’ as ‘terrorism.’ Hamas’ butchering and kidnapping of civilians is terrorism. Israel’s self-defense is not. Vatican, please clarify.”

The Council of the Assembly of Italian Rabbis seemed to accuse the pope of “publicly accusing both sides of terrorism.”

It said some “Church leaders” did not condemn the Hamas attack and said they were “putting the aggressor and the attacked on the same plane in the name of a supposed impartiality.”

On the same plane? If only. Pope Francis instead had stated "This is what wars do. But here we have gone beyond wars. This is not war. This is terrorism." He wasn't referring to terrorism by both sides; he was contending that Israel alone was committing terrorism.

But at this moment, it is Christmas Eve and it's time to be positive. Early in the war, while opponents of Hamas were largely merely expressing outrage over the brutal, homicidal attack, a US Representative from the Bronx took opponents of Israel head-on:

The notion that Israel is committing genocide or ethnic cleansing is a blood libel.

It is a dangerous lie intended to incite hatred for Israel as a Jewish State.

The kind of hatred that has driven extremists to celebrate, call for, or commit violence against Jews.

Falsely…

— Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorres) November 3, 2023

This was only about four weeks after the incident. However, Torres is still on-target and bold:

I had a simple message for the ‘Free Palestine’ protestors who heckled me at the 92nd Street Y.

We are going to Free Palestine—FROM HAMAS.

Hamas is the greatest oppressor of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.

You can either be pro-Palestinian or pro-Hamas but you… pic.twitter.com/ShQC8k8TAr

— Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorres) December 22, 2023

 

Merry Christmas to the brave Ritchie Torres. And may everyone who celebrates the holiday have a merry Christmas. That goes for believers as well as to atheists and agnostics, the latter evidently including a certain important figure in Vatican City.

 

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All May Not Be Lost

The MSNBC host makes a couple of good points in the end but has no solution to the carnage in Gaza wrought by Hamas.  Failure to make a constructive recommendation is, however, extremely common.

Chris Hayes, with the most eloquent rebuttal to the Israel Defense Forces indiscriminate killing of civilians — including journalists, hostages and innocent Palestinian men, women and children — I have heard by any cable news host.pic.twitter.com/Qnjz1DR9iE

— Bill Madden (@maddenifico) December 20, 2023

Hayes maintains

And an atrocity like October 7th does not, cannot justify whatever comes after it, whatever the response. There is no terrorist attack, no matter how horrific, and truly October 7 was horrific, that can wash clean what we are seeing in Gaza and what we as Americans and our government are abetting. It must end, we must stop it.

He concedes "now, I will be the first to confess- the first to confess- I have no idea what to do about Hamas or about what comes next."  However, the Washington Post's David Ignatius has an idea about what might come next, perhaps the only viable solution.

One problem that hasn’t been solved — indeed, it hasn’t even been discussed in detail — is the composition of the security force that would maintain order in Gaza once Israeli troops begin to pull back. Israeli commandos might stage raids back into the center of Gaza when they receive intelligence about high-value targets. But that wouldn’t protect Palestinian civilians from gangs and looters who are already filling the security vacuum.

The security force, initially, might be composed primarily of Palestinians who aren’t affiliated with Hamas and are willing to cooperate with the Israeli troops still ringing the border. Ideally, this policing force would be bolstered by foreign troops, operating under a U.N. mandate. In the chaos of postwar Gaza, there will be a need for disciplined, experienced troops whose rules of engagement allow them to use military power if needed.

Israel’s initial insistence that it would eliminate Hamas probably is at an inflection point, too. After more than 70 days of hard fighting, Israel estimates that it has killed about 8,500 Hamas fighters. That’s out of an initial force the CIA estimated at 20,000 to 25,000. Whatever the precise numbers, a battered Hamas will likely survive, perhaps in hiding.

If there is eventually to be a Palestinian state, influential Arab countries in the region must step up and assume some responsibility for a just outcome. Ignatius continues

Over the longer term, when “the day after” finally arrives, U.S. and Israeli officials are both hoping that Gulf countries, especially Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, can play a key role — providing money, leadership and legitimacy for the Gaza reconstruction effort.

Both countries have reasons to help midwife a reborn Gaza: Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, often known as MBS, has been seeking an opportunity to show visionary leadership in the Arab world. Normalizing relations with Israel and, at the same time, championing a well-governed Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank would be visionary, indeed. One official hopes MBS will add Gaza to his Vision 2030 agenda.

The UAE would bring special skills to the table, as well. As the earliest Arab country to embrace the Abraham Accords, it’s trusted by Israelis. UAE companies such as Emaar have experience managing vast the construction projects that Gaza will require. And the UAE for more than 10 years has sheltered Muhammad Dahlan, a Palestinian wheeler-dealer who was the dominant political power in Gaza until the PA was displaced by Hamas in 2006.

Or powerful nations such as the USA can throw up their hands and leave the region to sadistic, fundamentalist Islamic terrorists such as Islamic Jihad or Hamas. Israel probably eventually would be destroyed but strife in the region would continue with Palestinian Arabs forever without a homeland.

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