This is the politics sideblog for @phoenixyfriend. Call your elected officials!
All my posts WILL still go up on my main page, but they'll be reblogged here for anyone who wants a page to have push notifications on, or doesn't rant to see my star wars nonsense or fashion blogging, but does have an interest in my political takes and news dissemination.
To support my blogging so I can move out of my parents' house, I do have a ko-fi.
Other than that, please direct money to an accredited charity, like:
Palestinian Children's Relief Fund
UNRWA
UNICEF
Save the Children Sudan
American Civil Liberties Union
Center for Reproductive Rights
GLAAD
ActBlue (political, NOT a charity, but can help you find candidates who support your causes)
My main sources for news are GovTrack and a spectrum of podcasts (most of which are radio broadcasts repackaged for non-live streaming)
If we're lucky, it'll get struck down in the Senate, or will reach Biden's desk before Trump is sworn in.
But it's time to batten down the hatches. They'll go after Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and Palestinian (or more generally Islamic) charities first, but anything on the left is in the crosshairs for the incoming administration.
In this episode, three student protestors are interviewed: a half-Palestinian student from Texas who has regularly visited family in the West Bank, a self-described Zionist of orthodox background, and a Jewish pro-Palestine student of Ashkenazi background. I genuinely think this should be required listening for anyone who is trying to figure out how anyone on a given side could think the way they do. The way the episode is structured is very conducive to that, as well; the Zionist student expresses disbelief that any Jewish person could be pro-Palestine without being a 'self-hating Jew,' and the episode segues into the interviewer asking pretty much that exact question to the pro-Palestine Jewish student.
This episode contains rather explicit discussion of the death of children, in both Gaza and the Holocaust.
Source Bias Disclaimer: The New York Times is a left-leaning journal, with a history of bias towards Israel's side of the story. The podcast has proven to fact-check those Israeli biases and has refused to move forward with certain pro-Israel stories due to a lack of proof.
(Also available on the Al Jazeera website.)
This episode reports on the Israelis, Americans, and Israeli-Americans who populate and colonize the West Bank against international law. This is funded by money from, among other places, America itself, as donations to 'The One Israel Fund' are tax-deductible in the US. The settlements and American involvement in the process are rarely covered, and this explores some of the processes that power this process.
Source Bias Disclaimer: Al Jazeera is an independent news organization, but they do receive a lot of their funding from the Qatari government. As such, we can assume that they are to some degree influenced by Qatari interests, which are at best complicated with regards to Hamas and Israel.
The first result when searching for a full transcript of today's speech by Biden for Holocaust Memorial Day is the NYT, which is behind a paywall. However, a (slightly less readable; you may need to enter accessibility mode) copy is available on the white house website.
Here it is.
I am not a fan. We're seeing a repeat of the sexual violence allegations in a way that is plausibly accurate, as it does not expressly refer to to it as systemic or widespread, but certainly implies that interpretation. He also states:
They’re already forgetting that Hamas unleashed this terror, that it was Hamas that brutalized Israelis, that it was Hamas who took and continues to hold hostages.
Which, again, is very misleading: Hamas accepted a ceasefire deal this morning that included the release of all hostages, which Israel rejected within hours and immediately started dropping evacuation orders on Rafah. People are also not forgetting that Hamas 'unleashed this terror,' but rather taking issue with the lack of proportionality in Israel's response. 1,200 people died on Oct. 7th, but nearly 35,000 have died of direct physical trauma since then, and that is just confirmed deaths, not counting those hidden under rubble or dying of proximate causes like starvation, infection, or lack of medication for chronic issues.
And my commitment to the safety of the Jewish people, the security of Israel, and its right to exist as an independent Jewish state is ironclad, even when we disagree.
This is just. I know a Holocaust remembrance speech is theoretically not really the place to go in on Israel as Jewish state, but it is a place for, say, going in on Israel for doing things in Holocaust survivors' names. "Even when we disagree" is not enough.
My administration, with our Second Gentleman’s leadership, has launched our nation’s first National Sec- — Strategy to Counter Antisemitism that’s mobilizing the full force of the federal government to protect Jewish communities.
Are you doing the same for Muslims, who are and have been targeted for over 20 years? Polices are confiscating hijabs from arrested students. Pro-Israel counter-protestors threw fireworks into the UCLA camp. There is violence occurring against Jewish individuals, yes, but to acknowledge and combat that without doing the same for the incredible violence being suffered over decades by the American Muslim population is disingenuous at best.
The White House website offers several ways to contact them. Please consider reaching out to let the administration know of how you feel regarding this speech and the liberties it has taken with the situation, both domestically and abroad.
Pro-Palestine music as protest has been a thing for ages but nothing prepared me for "Hind's Hall" by Macklemore, which has both some great lyrics, some great commentary on protests at Columbia, and for which ALL PROCEEDS GO TO UNRWA.
You don't gotta like his music, but damn. Gotta admit Macklemore has been putting his money where his mouth is for months on this issue.
You can donate directly to UNRWA on their website.
It's not yet on streaming platforms but I heard a snippet in Democracy Now, and he posted part of it to Twitter/X.
I will disclaim that I disagree with the "not voting for Biden" thing, due to the fact that I personally believe that the American political system forces a Lesser Evil approach. I understand the intent, but I do disagree on a personal and political level.
Hmm, does anyone have a good resource for checking against the claims of Senator Cotton? Some of these I already know are lies (e.g. "from the river to the sea" is labeled a call for the destruction of Israel, but AFAIK has a range of meanings, some significantly more extreme than others, depending on who is saying it), and I'm suspicious of a few others, like the 'Hamas Headbands' thing, where he might just be referring to keffiyeh?
Yeah, just, does anyone have a good, quick fact check resource on this? I first heard an excerpt in this episode of the BBC Global News podcast, second segment.
These criminals are chanting eliminationist slogans, like from "the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free" and "globalize the Intifada." At Stanford, they wore Hamas headbands. At Princeton, they flew the Hezbollah flag. At Harvard, they ripped down the stars and stripes and replaced it with the Palestinian flag. At George Washington University, they called for the "final solution" and posted sign saying they wouldn't leave until Jews go back to their "real homes.
(Source, which I'm not sure about the bias of, but it's the only one I've found with a transcript of the relevant section.)
Today, and yesterday, you are likely to have been hearing about how protests at UCLA have turned violent. The media has overall been reporting that pro-Israel and pro-Palestine groups "have clashed," erupting into violence, and that there was also later a police presence with flashbangs.
Please note that the majority of coverage has not been addressing the (alleged) fact that the pro-Israel group was not made up of students, and initiated the aggression by attacking the peaceful protest student encampment by the pro-Palestine group.
There is coverage from Democracy Now! interviewing both a professor at the University and one of the student journalists that has been providing coverage of the ongoing situation.
Available at this link, or on Spotify:
Here is a text version of this portion of yesterday's (May 1st) episode, which covered the April 30th evening event.
A fascinating listen from the NYT podcast "The Daily" about the federal government's push to combat some of the most extreme abortion bans using a 1980s federal law called EMTALA. I will note that this is not the ONLY attempt to combat the restrictions, but that a greater pushback is still reliant on tipping the House and Senate left by enough to pass abortion protections. In the meantime, this partial fix is intended to address the issue of dangerous medical complications that are routinely going unaddressed or directed out of state due to the fear of repercussions for "not being truly life-threatening."
This coverage includes audio recordings of Supreme Court questions during the period on which they heard arguments.
For an explanation on how "life of the mother" is inadequate and vague, may I suggest Mama Doctor Jones (a registered ob/gyn from Texas who is currently practicing in New Zealand.) She has a number of videos on this topic, but this one addresses one of the extreme situations that are brought up in the arguments and questioning:
Pro-Israel counter-protestors have also been attacking the protests at UCLA.
Police are deploying pepper spray against student protestors in Richmond.
A SWAT team raided an encampment in Louisiana.
A history professor filming a protest in Missouri was hospitalized.
Meanwhile, an encampment in Rhode Island was disbanded because admin agreed to hold a vote about divesting from Israel.
This information came from the "today's headlines" opening portion of the May 1st, 2024, episode of Democracy Now!, though multiple sources are reporting on the Columbia arrests and UCLA attack.
Continue to press the US government about cutting funding Israel. Do not lose sight of the goal to help Palestinians by the ever-present police brutality of the US. It is something we all must be aware of, but we cannot lose sight of supporting Palestine.
While I'm sure there are bail funds set up, may I direct you to one of these:
Palestinian Children's Relief Fund
UNRWA
UNICEF
MSF
Anera
World Food Program
World Central Kitchen
To support my blogging so I can move out of my parents’ house, I do have a ko-fi.
Suggested Listening: Columbia Protests (as of 4/25/24)
Alright, folks, I've seen a couple different approaches to this situation, and I think there's something to be learned from each of the below. I know some of them have a contested reputation, but all media sources have a bias and I will be including some context on those biases.
The podcasts I'm sharing are:
The Daily (New York Times)
The Take (Al Jazeera)
Democracy Now! (independent radio broadcast)
Global News Podcast (BBC Radio)
It's come up a few times on NPR as well, but not in enough detail for me to include. I will be linking Spotify, but these are all available elsewhere, though official transcripts can take several days.
The Daily - April 25th, 2024: This podcast is a production of The New York Times. The paper is left-leaning, but has a noted bias towards Israel, and has run into trouble on trans issues in the recent past. The podcast is further left, though still more cautiously moderate than something like Democracy Now; the podcast has previously been responsible for fact checks against the more biased NYT opinion pieces.*
Why you should listen to it: This episode provides the most comprehensive timeline to what has happened, in what order, and why certain actions have been taken. It is notably more sympathetic to Columbia University President Shafik than other coverage, though that may just be the natural result of explaining the current political pressures. It is still more sympathetic to the protesters than to her, but I do think this is helpful for establishing a timeline of events. It is not the only one, and I will share another below.
* That infamous article about the alleged systemic sexual violence that Hamas committed on Oct. 7th was put through a fact checker by the podcast team when it came time to do an episode about it, and the inability to substantiate it led to not only the episode being cancelled, but the article itself being (quietly) edited to note that it was not substantiated. The NYT did not handle it well, but I want to make it clear that the podcast team is independent in many respects, and while I've taken issue with some of their episodes, they often have more comprehensive coverage of certain matters.
The Take - April 25th, 2024: This is a podcast from the English-speaking branch of Al Jazeera, a Qatari news organization that, while independent, does receive a certain amount of funding from the Qatari government. By that measure, I do hesitate to place it on a left-right scale due to existing outside the Western political spectrum. As a Middle Eastern, Arab news org, Al Jazeera provides a perspective much closer to the action than others, and one that is generally much more sympathetic to Muslim and Arab voices. It is also, like the others on this list, an award-winning journal. At this time, Al Jazeera is considered one of the most reliable news sources for information on what is happening in Gaza, through their Palestinian correspondents; they have also been banned in Israel as antisemitic propaganda.
I need to make it very clear that I am not in any way denigrating it for having Qatari government funding; the BBC shares many of those factors, just British.
Why you should listen to it: Al Jazeera got a reporter into the student protest encampment in Columbia, and got more direct interviews with some of the students on the ground. This is part two of their coverage of the protests; Part One (April 24th, 2024)provides another perspective of the timeline, which focuses on different factors, generally closer to the events in Columbia than the national factors.
Democracy Now! - April 23rd, 2024: This is a far left/progressive radio broadcast (repackaged for podcast streaming) that has been running since 1996. They often have interviews with people that I haven't necessarily seen other podcasts bring in, and while I would not consider them extreme, I do sometimes find that certain details get left out in pursuit of a more black-and-white narrative.
Why you should listen to it: Cohost Juan González has been in the field of progressive journalism for a very long time, but it's more relevant than ever for this episode: González was one of the original organizers for the 1968 Columbia protests that resulted in one of the largest mass arrests in NYPD history. The 1968 protests were massive, and deeply impactful on a national scale. González's perspective on how this current protest compares to the one he helped organize nearly sixty years ago is a fascinating way to think about the current events.
Global News Podcast - April 25th, 2024: BBC is a very centrist source for journalism, funded primarily by the UK government and advertising. As such, their coverage tends to lean in favor of the current party, though they do not 'toe the party line' as such. They do regularly platform right-wing activists, but they also have correspondents in the Middle East with a more progressive perspective. I would compare them to CNN in the US; ineffective in terms of opinion, and comparatively milquetoast on that front, but capable of getting access to high-level events that smaller networks aren't.
Why you should listen to it: ...honestly, this is just a 'round it out' kind of suggestion, to get an idea of what the international community is thinking of the events at Columbia. I don't think they necessarily contribute much in terms of factual discovery, but it helps with getting the lay of the land.
Suggested Listening: Columbia Protests (as of 4/25/24)
Alright, folks, I've seen a couple different approaches to this situation, and I think there's something to be learned from each of the below. I know some of them have a contested reputation, but all media sources have a bias and I will be including some context on those biases.
The podcasts I'm sharing are:
The Daily (New York Times)
The Take (Al Jazeera)
Democracy Now! (independent radio broadcast)
Global News Podcast (BBC Radio)
It's come up a few times on NPR as well, but not in enough detail for me to include. I will be linking Spotify, but these are all available elsewhere, though official transcripts can take several days.
The Daily - April 25th, 2024: This podcast is a production of The New York Times. The paper is left-leaning, but has a noted bias towards Israel, and has run into trouble on trans issues in the recent past. The podcast is further left, though still more cautiously moderate than something like Democracy Now; the podcast has previously been responsible for fact checks against the more biased NYT opinion pieces.*
Why you should listen to it: This episode provides the most comprehensive timeline to what has happened, in what order, and why certain actions have been taken. It is notably more sympathetic to Columbia University President Shafik than other coverage, though that may just be the natural result of explaining the current political pressures. It is still more sympathetic to the protesters than to her, but I do think this is helpful for establishing a timeline of events. It is not the only one, and I will share another below.
* That infamous article about the alleged systemic sexual violence that Hamas committed on Oct. 7th was put through a fact checker by the podcast team when it came time to do an episode about it, and the inability to substantiate it led to not only the episode being cancelled, but the article itself being (quietly) edited to note that it was not substantiated. The NYT did not handle it well, but I want to make it clear that the podcast team is independent in many respects, and while I've taken issue with some of their episodes, they often have more comprehensive coverage of certain matters.
The Take - April 25th, 2024: This is a podcast from the English-speaking branch of Al Jazeera, a Qatari news organization that, while independent, does receive a certain amount of funding from the Qatari government. By that measure, I do hesitate to place it on a left-right scale due to existing outside the Western political spectrum. As a Middle Eastern, Arab news org, Al Jazeera provides a perspective much closer to the action than others, and one that is generally much more sympathetic to Muslim and Arab voices. It is also, like the others on this list, an award-winning journal. At this time, Al Jazeera is considered one of the most reliable news sources for information on what is happening in Gaza, through their Palestinian correspondents; they have also been banned in Israel as antisemitic propaganda.
I need to make it very clear that I am not in any way denigrating it for having Qatari government funding; the BBC shares many of those factors, just British.
Why you should listen to it: Al Jazeera got a reporter into the student protest encampment in Columbia, and got more direct interviews with some of the students on the ground. This is part two of their coverage of the protests; Part One (April 24th, 2024)provides another perspective of the timeline, which focuses on different factors, generally closer to the events in Columbia than the national factors.
Democracy Now! - April 23rd, 2024: This is a far left/progressive radio broadcast (repackaged for podcast streaming) that has been running since 1996. They often have interviews with people that I haven't necessarily seen other podcasts bring in, and while I would not consider them extreme, I do sometimes find that certain details get left out in pursuit of a more black-and-white narrative.
Why you should listen to it: Cohost Juan González has been in the field of progressive journalism for a very long time, but it's more relevant than ever for this episode: González was one of the original organizers for the 1968 Columbia protests that resulted in one of the largest mass arrests in NYPD history. The 1968 protests were massive, and deeply impactful on a national scale. González's perspective on how this current protest compares to the one he helped organize nearly sixty years ago is a fascinating way to think about the current events.
Global News Podcast - April 25th, 2024: BBC is a very centrist source for journalism, funded primarily by the UK government and advertising. As such, their coverage tends to lean in favor of the current party, though they do not 'toe the party line' as such. They do regularly platform right-wing activists, but they also have correspondents in the Middle East with a more progressive perspective. I would compare them to CNN in the US; ineffective in terms of opinion, and comparatively milquetoast on that front, but capable of getting access to high-level events that smaller networks aren't.
Why you should listen to it: ...honestly, this is just a 'round it out' kind of suggestion, to get an idea of what the international community is thinking of the events at Columbia. I don't think they necessarily contribute much in terms of factual discovery, but it helps with getting the lay of the land.
Alright, let's get to it. Please note that I'm writing this on mobile during my lunch break, so I can't include reference/source links as much as I'd like. Thankfully, most of what I'm going to be telling you should be easily located by searching for an article on one of the following: APNews, Reuters, BBC Global News Podcast, Democracy Now!, NPR, or The New York Times. Long-term background is probably best found in videos by the YouTube channels Real Life Lore or tldr global news, or on wikipedia if you prefer text.
The short version: Israel attacked Iran's consulate in Syria to get at some of the military commanders that were there, which is legally equivalent to attacking Iran itself. Iran responded by sending about 300 bombs at Israel, most of which were shot down in transit. Given that they still called it a success, even though it seems only one person was even hurt, my understanding is that it's very likely that they only intended the rockets to be a show of force, rather than an actual escalation, because Iran can't afford a war right now.
To support my blogging so I can move out of my parents’ house, I do have a ko-fi. Alternately, you can donate to one of the charities I list in this post OR this post.
The long version:
Okay, let's start with some background on Israel, then Iran. This is... a lot, so if you already know the broad strokes skip down to 2023.
Israel was established following WWII by the English and French, following borders the two countries had secretly drawn up decades earlier in the Sykes-Picot agreement. The intent was to give the Jewish people a place to go... or, depending on who you ask, a place to send them. Their ancestral homeland was viewed as the best choice, sort of like a deportation millennia after a diaspora. Given that WWII had just ended by the time Sykes-Picot was actually put into effect, 'getting out of Europe' was something a lot of Jews were given to agree with.
The Arab world was not happy, as that land had belonged to the Ottomans for centuries, and had long since 'naturalized' to being Arab. I'm not going to pretend to know the nuances to when people do or do not consider Palestine to have been its own nation; it was an Ottoman state until WWI, at which point it came under British control for just under three decades, and that period is known as the British Mandate of Palestine; it ended after WWII, with the creation of Israel. Palestine's land and peoplie have sort of just been punted around from one colonizer to another for centuries.
Iran is the current form of what was once Persia. They were an empire for a very long time, and were a unitary monarchy up until the early 20th century; in 1925, Iran ellected a Prime Minister who was then declared the monarch. The following several decades had Iran's monarchy slowly weakened, and occasionally beset by foreign interventions, including a covert coup by the US and UK in 1953. The country also became more corrupt throughout the 1970s due to economic policy failing to control inflation in the face of rising oil prices.
In 1979, there was a revolution that overthrew the monarchy and the elected government, replacing the system with a theocracy and declaring Iran to be an Islamic Republic, with the head of state being a religious authority, rather than an elected one. This was not popular with... most countries. 1980 saw the closure of all universities (reopened in 1983 with governmen-tapproved curriculums), as well as the taking of over fifty American hostages from the US Embassy in Iran. You may have heard about that in the context of Ronald Reagan encouraging Iran to keep the hostages until the end of Carter's term in order to force the election.
So, the West didn't like having an Islamic state because it claims to like democracy, and also because the Islamic state was explicitly anti-American and this has some Bad Effects on oil prices. The Soviets didn't like having an Islamic State because a theocracy goes directly against a lot of communist values (or at least the values they claim to have), and weakened any influence their supposedly secular union could have on Iran and the wider middle east. The other countries in the Arab world, many of them still monarchies, didn't like the Islamic republic because if the revolution spread, then it was possible their monarchies would be overthrown as well.
(Except Oman, which is not worried, but that's the exception, not the rule.)
This is not a baseless worry, because Iran has stated that this is its goal for the Arab world. Overthrow the monarchies, overthrow the elected governments, Islamic Rule for everyone. That is the purpose of its proxies, like Hezbollah (Lebanon), the Houthis (Yemen), and Hamas (Palestine), along with less well-known groups like the Salafi Jihadists in Mali, who are formally under the umbrella of al-Quaeda, which Iran denies having any relation to but is suspected of funding. In areas where these proxy groups have gained power, they are liable to enact hard Shari'a law such as has happened in Northern Mali and other parts of the Sahel region.
While other conflicts have occurred in these countries, I think the above is most relevant.
Israel has repeatedly attacked or been attacked by other nations in the middle east, viewed as having taken over land that is not theirs, and being a puppet of the US government. The biggest conflicts have been 1947-1948, 1968/1973, and 2014.
And then, of course, 2023.
Now, Iran, more than any other nation in the Middle East, hates Israel. They have for a very long time, viewing them as an afront to the goal of spreading Islam across the whole of the middle east, and as being a front and a staging ground for the United States and other Western powers. Two common refrains in the slogans of Iran and its proxies are "Death to America" and "Death to Israel."
Due to Iran's military power and virulence towards Israel, the United States has been funneling money to Israel for decades. It has more generally been to defend itself against the Arab world at large, but it has narrowed over the decades to being about Iran and its proxies as relations have normalized with other nations like Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Cue October 7th, 2023. Hamas invades Israeli towns, kills some people, and takes others as hostage. Israel retaliates, and the conflict ramps up into what is by now tens of thousands of dead, some half of which are children.
In this time, Hamas's allies are, by definition, Iran and the other proxy forces. Hezbollah, being in Lebanon, share a border with Israel's north. They have been trading rocket fire across the border in waves for most of the past six months. The Houthis, down in Yemen, claim to be attacking the passing cargo ships in order to support Palestine. Given that the attacks often seem indiscriminate, and that the Houthi's control over their portion of Yemen is waning in the face of their poor governance, this is... debatable. It's their official reason, but given that "let's attack passing ships, claiming that we only attack Israeli or American ships and that it is to support Palestine" is rallying support domestically for their regime, it does seem to be more of a political move to garner support at home than about supporting Palestine.
Iran, however, has not attacked Israel. They've spoken out about it, yes, but they haven't done anything because nobody wants a regional war. Nobody can afford it right now. Iran is dealing with a domestic crisis due to oil subsidies bleeding the states' coffers dry, and the aging Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the leader of Iran, refusing to pick a successor. They are looking at both an economic crisis and succession crisis, and a regional war would fuck up both situations further. Iran funds most of its proxies, and they can't do that, and fight a war on top of it, while their economy is in its current state. Pure self preservation says they don't want a war, especially with the ongoing unrest that's been going on for... well, basically since the revolution, but especially since the death of Mahsa Amini.
Meanwhile, in Israel, Netanyahu has been looking at corruption charges and legal issues since before the Hamas attack. It's generally agreed that if Israel were to hold new elections right now, he would lose and be replaced, and also immediately taken to court. Netanyahu wants to stay in power, and as long as the war on Hamas lasts, he is unlikely to get voted out. A change in leadership in the middle of a war is rarely a good idea for any country, and he's banking on that.
However, the war on Hamas rests on the shoulders of American money and supplies. Without that military support, Israel cannot fight this war, and America... is losing patience.
Officially, America and most of the western world have been telling Israel to not fucking escalate for the majority of the war.
There have been implied threats, more or less since Schumer's big speech about how Israel needs a new election, of American legislators putting conditions on any future aid. There have even been rumblings of aid being retracted entirely if Israel follows through on invading Raffah.
So...
American aid to Israel has, for a very long time, been given in the name of defending Israel against Iran and its proxies.
Israel has been fighting this war against Hamas for six months, killing what is by now innumerable civilians, on the power of US military aid.
Netanyahu benefits from the continued war due to domestic troubles.
Iran does not want a regional war, or really any big war, due to its own domestic troubles.
The US is, in theory, losing patience with Israel and threatening to pull the plug on unconditional support. It's very "we gave you this to fight Iran. Stop attacking civilians. If you keep attacking civilians, then you're going to have to rely on what we already gave you to fight off Iran so that you won't keep wasting it on civilians."
Israel... attacks Iran, prompting a response, and is now talking about escalating with Iran.
I am not explicitly saying that it looks to me like Israel, which is already fighting a war on two physical fronts and even more political/economic ones, has picked a fight with Iran so that America feels less like it is able to withdraw support.
I just... am finding it hard to understand why Israel, which is in fact fighting both Hamas and Hezbollah, would attack the Iranian consulate in Syria otherwise. They can't actually afford to fight this war, escalating to a full regional conflict, on a third front.
Not without pressuring American into keeping the faucet of military funding open at full blast.
To support my blogging so I can move out of my parents’ house, I do have a ko-fi. Alternately, you can donate to one of the charities I list in this post OR this post.
Israel has fired back at Iran. Iran shot down the drone, but claims that it is not looking to follow up.
Iran's President, Ebrahim Raisi, speaking during a visit on Friday to the city of Damghan, east of Tehran and hundreds of miles north of Isfahan, didn't even reference the Israeli strike. Instead, he spoke of Iran's assault a week earlier against Israel, which he called "necessary, obligatory" and a "sign of the power of the Islamic republic and its armed forces."
A senior Israeli official told The Washington Post the Israeli counterattack "was intended to signal to Iran that Israel can attack its territory."Â
The Reuters news agency cited an unnamed Iranian official as saying there were no plans in Tehran to respond to the Israeli retaliation.Â
"I think it's a measured response," Efraim Halevi, an Israeli intelligence expert and former director of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, told CBS News on Friday. "It is in no way proportionate to the attack we had to deal with a couple of days ago, but it is enough to send the message to the leadership in Iran."
- CBS News, April 19, 2024 (accessed 9:44 PM EST)
I am... hesitantly going to say that this supports my earlier claims that Iran really does not want a wider war, if they brush off the Israeli follow-up. Less certain about Israel's take here, with the comments from Halevi, but we'll see.
This is USA-specific, as that is the place I live and know.
Find your elected officials. Remember, emails are good, but calls make the most impact. Suggested verbiage and strategies for calling your elected officials. We’ve recently seen politicians, including Biden, start to pivot towards the “Israel is increasing danger to itself” argument in public statements.
There's a LOT on the floor this week, but this is what I'm going to encourage:
Call your senators. Aid to Israel has already passed the house, but has not yet been voted on by the Senate. Call TODAY.
Use this script:
Israel has been engaging in human rights violations, as confirmed by US State investigations, even prior to Oct. 7th. In that regard, it is a violation of the Leahy (lay-hee) law for the US to provide funding to the battalions and units accused credibly of these violations. With commentary from Netanyahu and his government opposing the threat of sanctions against SPECIFIC units and ongoing refusal to cooperate with United States demands to increase aid and reduce civilian casualties in Gaza, it is unlikely that they will be discretionary with the $26 billion in aid that the House passed.
As a constituent, I strongly oppose the passing of aid to Israel until strong, practical conditions are placed on that aid, as the existing process has proven ineffective. It is unreasonable to continue providing aid to Israel while sanctioning Iran when we have seen Israel instigating this third front in what appears to be a bid by Netanyahu to secure US funding through endangering his own people by attacking the Iranian consulate in Syria.
To support my blogging so I can move out of my parents’ house, I do have a ko-fi. Alternately, you can donate to one of the charities I list in this post.
Alright, let's get to it. Please note that I'm writing this on mobile during my lunch break, so I can't include reference/source links as much as I'd like. Thankfully, most of what I'm going to be telling you should be easily located by searching for an article on one of the following: APNews, Reuters, BBC Global News Podcast, Democracy Now!, NPR, or The New York Times. Long-term background is probably best found in videos by the YouTube channels Real Life Lore or tldr global news, or on wikipedia if you prefer text.
The short version: Israel attacked Iran's consulate in Syria to get at some of the military commanders that were there, which is legally equivalent to attacking Iran itself. Iran responded by sending about 300 bombs at Israel, most of which were shot down in transit. Given that they still called it a success, even though it seems only one person was even hurt, my understanding is that it's very likely that they only intended the rockets to be a show of force, rather than an actual escalation, because Iran can't afford a war right now.
To support my blogging so I can move out of my parents’ house, I do have a ko-fi. Alternately, you can donate to one of the charities I list in this post OR this post.
The long version:
Okay, let's start with some background on Israel, then Iran. This is... a lot, so if you already know the broad strokes skip down to 2023.
Israel was established following WWII by the English and French, following borders the two countries had secretly drawn up decades earlier in the Sykes-Picot agreement. The intent was to give the Jewish people a place to go... or, depending on who you ask, a place to send them. Their ancestral homeland was viewed as the best choice, sort of like a deportation millennia after a diaspora. Given that WWII had just ended by the time Sykes-Picot was actually put into effect, 'getting out of Europe' was something a lot of Jews were given to agree with.
The Arab world was not happy, as that land had belonged to the Ottomans for centuries, and had long since 'naturalized' to being Arab. I'm not going to pretend to know the nuances to when people do or do not consider Palestine to have been its own nation; it was an Ottoman state until WWI, at which point it came under British control for just under three decades, and that period is known as the British Mandate of Palestine; it ended after WWII, with the creation of Israel. Palestine's land and peoplie have sort of just been punted around from one colonizer to another for centuries.
Iran is the current form of what was once Persia. They were an empire for a very long time, and were a unitary monarchy up until the early 20th century; in 1925, Iran ellected a Prime Minister who was then declared the monarch. The following several decades had Iran's monarchy slowly weakened, and occasionally beset by foreign interventions, including a covert coup by the US and UK in 1953. The country also became more corrupt throughout the 1970s due to economic policy failing to control inflation in the face of rising oil prices.
In 1979, there was a revolution that overthrew the monarchy and the elected government, replacing the system with a theocracy and declaring Iran to be an Islamic Republic, with the head of state being a religious authority, rather than an elected one. This was not popular with... most countries. 1980 saw the closure of all universities (reopened in 1983 with governmen-tapproved curriculums), as well as the taking of over fifty American hostages from the US Embassy in Iran. You may have heard about that in the context of Ronald Reagan encouraging Iran to keep the hostages until the end of Carter's term in order to force the election.
So, the West didn't like having an Islamic state because it claims to like democracy, and also because the Islamic state was explicitly anti-American and this has some Bad Effects on oil prices. The Soviets didn't like having an Islamic State because a theocracy goes directly against a lot of communist values (or at least the values they claim to have), and weakened any influence their supposedly secular union could have on Iran and the wider middle east. The other countries in the Arab world, many of them still monarchies, didn't like the Islamic republic because if the revolution spread, then it was possible their monarchies would be overthrown as well.
(Except Oman, which is not worried, but that's the exception, not the rule.)
This is not a baseless worry, because Iran has stated that this is its goal for the Arab world. Overthrow the monarchies, overthrow the elected governments, Islamic Rule for everyone. That is the purpose of its proxies, like Hezbollah (Lebanon), the Houthis (Yemen), and Hamas (Palestine), along with less well-known groups like the Salafi Jihadists in Mali, who are formally under the umbrella of al-Quaeda, which Iran denies having any relation to but is suspected of funding. In areas where these proxy groups have gained power, they are liable to enact hard Shari'a law such as has happened in Northern Mali and other parts of the Sahel region.
While other conflicts have occurred in these countries, I think the above is most relevant.
Israel has repeatedly attacked or been attacked by other nations in the middle east, viewed as having taken over land that is not theirs, and being a puppet of the US government. The biggest conflicts have been 1947-1948, 1968/1973, and 2014.
And then, of course, 2023.
Now, Iran, more than any other nation in the Middle East, hates Israel. They have for a very long time, viewing them as an afront to the goal of spreading Islam across the whole of the middle east, and as being a front and a staging ground for the United States and other Western powers. Two common refrains in the slogans of Iran and its proxies are "Death to America" and "Death to Israel."
Due to Iran's military power and virulence towards Israel, the United States has been funneling money to Israel for decades. It has more generally been to defend itself against the Arab world at large, but it has narrowed over the decades to being about Iran and its proxies as relations have normalized with other nations like Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Cue October 7th, 2023. Hamas invades Israeli towns, kills some people, and takes others as hostage. Israel retaliates, and the conflict ramps up into what is by now tens of thousands of dead, some half of which are children.
In this time, Hamas's allies are, by definition, Iran and the other proxy forces. Hezbollah, being in Lebanon, share a border with Israel's north. They have been trading rocket fire across the border in waves for most of the past six months. The Houthis, down in Yemen, claim to be attacking the passing cargo ships in order to support Palestine. Given that the attacks often seem indiscriminate, and that the Houthi's control over their portion of Yemen is waning in the face of their poor governance, this is... debatable. It's their official reason, but given that "let's attack passing ships, claiming that we only attack Israeli or American ships and that it is to support Palestine" is rallying support domestically for their regime, it does seem to be more of a political move to garner support at home than about supporting Palestine.
Iran, however, has not attacked Israel. They've spoken out about it, yes, but they haven't done anything because nobody wants a regional war. Nobody can afford it right now. Iran is dealing with a domestic crisis due to oil subsidies bleeding the states' coffers dry, and the aging Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the leader of Iran, refusing to pick a successor. They are looking at both an economic crisis and succession crisis, and a regional war would fuck up both situations further. Iran funds most of its proxies, and they can't do that, and fight a war on top of it, while their economy is in its current state. Pure self preservation says they don't want a war, especially with the ongoing unrest that's been going on for... well, basically since the revolution, but especially since the death of Mahsa Amini.
Meanwhile, in Israel, Netanyahu has been looking at corruption charges and legal issues since before the Hamas attack. It's generally agreed that if Israel were to hold new elections right now, he would lose and be replaced, and also immediately taken to court. Netanyahu wants to stay in power, and as long as the war on Hamas lasts, he is unlikely to get voted out. A change in leadership in the middle of a war is rarely a good idea for any country, and he's banking on that.
However, the war on Hamas rests on the shoulders of American money and supplies. Without that military support, Israel cannot fight this war, and America... is losing patience.
Officially, America and most of the western world have been telling Israel to not fucking escalate for the majority of the war.
There have been implied threats, more or less since Schumer's big speech about how Israel needs a new election, of American legislators putting conditions on any future aid. There have even been rumblings of aid being retracted entirely if Israel follows through on invading Raffah.
So...
American aid to Israel has, for a very long time, been given in the name of defending Israel against Iran and its proxies.
Israel has been fighting this war against Hamas for six months, killing what is by now innumerable civilians, on the power of US military aid.
Netanyahu benefits from the continued war due to domestic troubles.
Iran does not want a regional war, or really any big war, due to its own domestic troubles.
The US is, in theory, losing patience with Israel and threatening to pull the plug on unconditional support. It's very "we gave you this to fight Iran. Stop attacking civilians. If you keep attacking civilians, then you're going to have to rely on what we already gave you to fight off Iran so that you won't keep wasting it on civilians."
Israel... attacks Iran, prompting a response, and is now talking about escalating with Iran.
I am not explicitly saying that it looks to me like Israel, which is already fighting a war on two physical fronts and even more political/economic ones, has picked a fight with Iran so that America feels less like it is able to withdraw support.
I just... am finding it hard to understand why Israel, which is in fact fighting both Hamas and Hezbollah, would attack the Iranian consulate in Syria otherwise. They can't actually afford to fight this war, escalating to a full regional conflict, on a third front.
Not without pressuring American into keeping the faucet of military funding open at full blast.
To support my blogging so I can move out of my parents’ house, I do have a ko-fi. Alternately, you can donate to one of the charities I list in this post OR this post.
Bunch of stuff happening today! Here's the stuff unrelated to Gaza:
Google is admitting that incognito mode is NOT incognito, settling a class action lawsuit about how they hoarded user data from people who thought they were protected. (Good coverage at Morning Brew)
Florida's Supreme Court has approved the inclusion of a ballot measure to add abortion to the state constitution in November. (Up First from NPR, second story at about 6:20)
In response to a new law in Scotland criminalizing hate speech meant to incite violence against certain protected classes including transgender and sexual minorities, JKR is basically telling the police "come at me bro" and literally asking to be arrested. (New York Post article) The police have since confirmed that she will NOT be arrested. (The Guardian)
So. We all know by now that the US has passed legislation banning any funding to UNRWA for the next year.
We have also recently learned that Israel is now banning ALL UNRWA convoys from Gaza, regardless of security investigations of the trucks.
The timing is a bit curious, so...
Is there any chance that the reason the US left wing put up so little resistance to "ban UNRWA funding for the next year" is not just the seeming impossibility of passing actual aid funding in a split Congress, but that they were aware of the coming blanket ban that Israel would place on UNRWA convoys, had already failed to convince them to not do that, and decided that "not donating to a charity that would soon be banned from the area it operates in" was a fair compromise with plans to put funding into UNICEF or WFP instead? A reshuffling of funds and grants, planning to get other countries to increase funding to UNRWA while the US picks up the slack with the other, non-banned orgs?
It's possibly just wishful thinking, but... maybe.
At any rate, call your reps and urge them to increase funding to UNICEF and the WFP, maybe phrase it as 'rerouting funds previously earmarked for UNRWA into alternate programs that Congress feels are more secure."
I've heard a few distinct takes on the UN vote and the comparison of the US and Israeli actions in light of it. I don't fully understand everything about the politics around this vote, because it's a complicated dance and trying to understand what people are thinking is close to impossible when we don't know what's going on behind the scenes and what's just political theater... but I think listening to multiple perspectives might get us closer to understanding than just listening to one.
I have provided approximate bias/political spectrum position for each, as well as giving my reasoning or summary of why I think it's a useful listen.
This post includes The NPR Politics Podcast, Democracy Now!, Al Jazeera: The Take, and the BBC Global News Podcast.
The NPR Politics Podcast - March 27, 2024 - Left-leaning, though not as far as some of the others. This contextualizes the relationship between Netanyahu and Biden among the history between Netanyahu and multiple past presidents, including Trump, Obama, and Clinton. It focuses in part on the domestic political dynamics and ramifications that Biden is facing, the question of funding, and the apparent self-contradiction of the US government when it comes to the possibility of conditions, sanctions, or other reprisal if Israel continues to disregard US concerns about the ground invasion of Rafah.
Democracy Now! - Several parts of the March 26, 2024 episode were focused on the UN vote and results - This is a far-left radio broadcast show that gets repackaged for online video and podcast dissemination. This coverage is much more critical, without 'well, maybe they're trying to [action]' as we see in some others, of the United States and its handling of the UN vote and subsequent fallout. The interview with Craig Mokhiber gets into some nitty-gritty details of something called the "General Assembly under the Uniting for Peace," which I didn't really understand. I can't speak to supporting that we take that part at his word, because it's not something I understand enough to endorse. He also refers to the United States as not only Israel's principal sponsor, but also its co-belligerent.
Short section: U.N.-Commissioned Report Lays Out Evidence of Israeli Genocide in Gaza
Short section: UNSC Approves Its First Gaza Ceasefire Resolution Ater U.S. Abstains
Full story: Ex-U.N. Official Craig Mokhiber: Israel Must Be Held Accountable for Violating Ceasefire Resolution
Full story: Jeremy Corbyn Applauds U.N. Ceasefire Resolution, Says World Must Prevent “Another Nakba”
Al Jazeera - March 26/27, 2024 (timezone-dependent, it was the 26th for EST) - I hesitate to place Al Jazeera on the standard left-right scale since it's outside the Western framework, as an independent Qatari news organization with some degree of funding from the government of Qatar. What I will say is that Al Jazeera provides a vital non-Western lens, even if some of the reporters are Western, when viewing politics in the Middle East. In this particular case, it also appears that they had a reporter much closer to the action in the UN than the others, as Al Jazeera has an office in the UN headquarters in NYC.
They also address a few curious things about last-minute negotiations on the floor of the UN, the immediate consequences of the US ambassador referring to the resolution as 'non-binding,' and asserts that the US warned Israel that they would be abstaining this time, which is why the US is seemingly confused at how upset Israel is about it. I'm not sure how intentional it is, but the message I got is that Israel tried to call the US's bluff and was then upset when the US followed through, because the US... wasn't bluffing. And did in fact abstain.
BBC Global News Podcast - March 27, 2024 - Dead center, variably left or right depending on the issue - This is a twice-daily podcast and generally contains three or four separate stories. Their coverage of Netanyahu walking back the cancellation of his officials' trip to the US is first, however, and I'm not sure how much it adds to analysis of the vote, but it is the most recent and has the latest of the updates.
