Israel plays a cynical game. It makes phased agreements with the Palestinians that ensure it immediately gets what it wants. It then violates every subsequent phase and reignites its military assault.
And right on cue, all of a sudden Israel has “issues” with the deal and will try and blame Hamas to end the deal. Who could have ever seen this coming? And they would have violated it in any case. Why does this remind me of the treaties that the USA made with Native Americans. Israel and the USA are two pathological peas in a pod committing genocide for fun and profit.
The similarity with what the US did to its Indigenous population -- taking their land by force or treaty, confining them in non-contiguous plots of land, mass killings, erasure of their cultures -- and what Israel has done since 1948 is striking. Good point. I wish more Americans recognized it.
US & Canada were merely more sophisticated about how they killed the children -- letting most of them live but stealing their minds through force-fed Christianity. Not sure whether that makes it a kinder or a scummier ethnic cleansing.
Well, even as a kid I was always rooting for the Indians and knew they were telling me a lie when they said Indians bad, cowboys good, and used that lie to justify stealing the Indian's land. In terms of Israel I suspect this will fall apart early on in the Trump administration, but not because of him, but I think this was no more then giving Biden a win as he leaves, and something for the democrats to blame on Trump when it is once again implemented. It's absurd to think the Palestinians can recover from Israel's brutal assault, well genocide, which has destroyed all that made life possible.
Trust is the foundation of Society. With out trust, nothing is possible. The end game, when there is no trust is paralysis.
One of the 10 Commandments is "thou shalt not lie" and telling the truth is the foundation of our civilization. When everyone knows that a deal will not be kept, no deal is possible. The purpose of the law & the courts is supposed to be to enforce the agreed to laws of the land, and make the price of deception very high. Who is going to enforce any deal made between Israel and the Palestinians? If it is not enforced who will believe anything that our governments do going forward?
I do not believe that our ruling elites understand that if no one believes them, they have no authority other than brute force.
I have no answer to that. I remember something an algebra teacher told our class many years ago. He simply stated that sometimes there are no answers to a problem, and it was clear that he was talking about more than math. People like to believe that there’s always a solution to a problem, but that’s not how reality works. Now that the billionaire class have inserted themselves directly into Trump’s administration in addition to all their bought and paid for politicians I see no solution. It will likely play out with all of them killing off most if not all life on earth in the end. Who is going to stop them now? You might try asking the German’s under Hitler’s rise to power how they stopped him. Oh right, they didn’t stop him. The world came together eventually to fight the Nazi regime. This time around there are no countries coming together to stop the genocide at the hands of the US and Israel. And when it comes to the ongoing ecocide, it’s full speed ahead. I see no ways to change humanity’s path of self destruction with all the psychopaths in their positions of power.
The power that comes with a thousand million, a hundred-thousand million, two-hundred-thousand million dollars, etc. is vast and generally underappreciated by most folks, I find in the shrugs I get when trying to get people to understand just how much money/power that is. Hence, sadly, I am compelled to agree with you.
Exactly S Cat and spot on. Yes sometimes be it math or reality there are no solutions.
The entrenchment of the oligarchs and the billionaire class is solidified in every aspect of our time like never before in history. Humanity has become negotiable, and it is now the subject of debate. Israel is in a transaction with Trump. There are no ceasefires in a genocide, no matter what phase it is in at any moment. America proved it and it continues in its subtle colonial expansionist way with the indigenous people.
It seems to me that the US is the author of modern era genocide. The history of the US government negotiating treaties with the indigenous people of this continent, and the subsequent reneging on 100% of those treaties, is a template for our closest friend and partner, Israel. The US has provided a complete "how-to" kit for exterminating a population, including weapons, cash, and unending propaganda support for this crime. It's time the people of the US faced their complicity in the crimes of this country.
The cruelest part of these "ceasefire" agreements I announcing that there is one. To see the overjoyed faces of the Palestinians who have suffered for so long, only to be attacked more and more. Who are these people?
Although, I would not call the announcement of a ceasefire, whether it happens or not, the 'cruelest" part. It's certainly ugly, but as the article points out, there's plenty of cruelty in the later failure of Israel to permit any forward movement towards creating independence and justice for the Palestinians. The long delays have tended to encourage forgetfulness on the part of the western public, allowing whatever outrage that might exist to dissipate. Often, quite successfully, blaming the Palestinians for any and all failures, whilst leaving the Palestinians even more isolated.
I don’t think it is. The Israelis in charge certainly want to possess the land. And more than just Gaza and the West Bank for ‘Greater Israel’ is more than just a dream. But what they also want - and what makes people like Netanyahu particularly evil - is to ‘possess’ the Palestinians - the Amalek - so that they can completely destroy them. They want to ‘relive’ the holocaust but with the (Israeli) Jews doing the killing this time. As they are currently doing.
So reneging on this ‘deal’ is inevitable just like the Israelis have reneged on all the previous deals going back to Camp David.
Of course we want to believe -- spitting against the winds of history -- that the slaughter will stop. But one doesn't reform minds so bent, so distorted by the sociopathology of extremist exceptionalism, by ubermensch-ism; because that condition is by necessity a pathology of continual unabated mendacity -- as Chris details. These devils lie, offhandedly, deliberately with cold entendre, and even unknowingly, reflexively, as a result of the automaticity of their disease.
Regardless of whether this ceasefire occurs, and I think the Palestinians in Gaza want it to happen, we must push forward with bringing Israel to justice. The Hind Rajab Foundation has, among other things, filed a case with the ICC against 1,000 Israeli soldiers for war crimes in Gaza.
They have taken further steps in recent days, and vacations are becoming a lot more difficult for IDF soldiers, worldwide. The Foundation can use our help. Please join me in making a contribution. https://buy.stripe.com/cN228hbY5g7jaM84gg
You might find the recent interview that Glenn Greenwald did with the head of this organisation very informative.
I liked the news that two Israeli soldiers, one in Sweden, one in Brazil, on holiday, had to leave the country ahead of arrest warrants for war crimes. The Israelis have been chasing down Nazi war criminals for 80 years. Let us follow this example and be equally tenacious in bringing to justice every war criminal of Israel.
As a relentless sponsor of state terrorism, Israel’s actions should no longer surprise anyone. Previous claims of an imminent cease-fire ultimately led to continuing massacres.
One hopes this time will prove different, but there’s no particular reason to believe that hope will translate into reality.
Let's remember the ceasefire that coincided with Obama's inauguration. Cynical playacting. So many jumping up and down that Trump is less evil than Biden. What a joke.
I don’t think people are evil. We are all products of our conditioning. However, yes, Biden was as just as much an emotionally damaged, self-interested, political tool as Trump.
The very idea that the two sides can "negotiate" is itself laughable. Israel holds all the cards and is backed by the US, the Palestinians have been betrayed by the PLO, the PA, and Hamas, not to mention most of the Arab states. As Chris Hedges points out, this is rinse and repeat, the same sorry spectacle that has played for decades. Hubris, cynicism, mendacity.
I don’t think the Americans are as passive as they wish to appear. At the risk of appearing to call American politicians not-stupid, I don’t think they believe the lies. I think they’re just envious that they didn’t think of them first.
This genocide is an American genocide. Its use of Israel as the instrument of killing is because Israelis, like mob hit men, have the one quality necessary for this slaughter: complete lack of conscience. There are no moral brakes to their killing machines, no self doubt, and their actions are fueled by the conviction that they are the chosen people. Otherwise known as the master race. Choose your synonymous slogan.
That's a bit like saying that Trump is stupid and ill-informed because he says that the climate crisis is a hoax. He, or at least his handlers, know full well that it isn't. This is evidenced by their desires on Canada and Greenland for access to, or control of, resources and trade routes once the ice melts, which they know it will.
What people say, or are allowed to say, and what they know, are very different things.
That's not to say that some are not stupid and ill-informed.
Only an idiot would make a deal that allows themselves to be slaughtered after they release the hostages, the only thing that is keeping them alive. The Palestinians may be a hapless people [thanks to us Gringos] but they are not idiots. 81 killed in last last 24 hrs. Not one drop of mercy. I'll bet that the 6 million Jews Hitler murdered in Europe have turned over in their graves out of shame what their people have done to the Palestinians since 1948.
I don't hear about it these days but It is my understanding that Hamas sought to give back their civilian hostages taken on Oct.7. Their aim was to take Israeli soldiers for prisoner swaps.
We shouldn't forget that Gaza has always been a testing ground for Israeli war tech. and this genocide is being produced by AI generated targeting and drone infantry. The whole world is watching.
Here is a very unpopular truth: the invasion of the western world is being orchestrated by the occupational Israeli government which is the synagogue of satan (the poor Israeli people were the guinea pigs of pfizer’s covid killshot).
“I think there is a resurgence of anti-Semitism because at this point in time Europe has not yet learned how to be multicultural. And I think we are going to be part of the throes of that transformation, which must take place. Europe is not going to be the monolithic societies they once were in the last century. Jews are going to be at the centre of that. It’s a huge transformation for Europe to make. They are now going into a multicultural mode and Jews will be resented because of our leading role. But without that leading role and without that transformation, Europe will not survive." — Barbara Lerner Spectre
That demonic government that every US congressman and senator swears allegiance to through AIPAC, HAS to go. Israeli official: [the word anti-sematism] is a trick we always use it:
She said it not me. The synagogue of satan runs the Israeli government at this moment. They even admit they created and fund Hamas, so effectively, Hamas is also the Israeli government. Making the war a false flag against both sides:
Both the Israeli and Palenstinian people are paying the price of their government’s war agenda (they ordered Hamas to slaughter their own citizens to kick off this deceitful war and stood down while it happened$.
Additionally, Netanyahu was recorded in 1990 saying: "America is a Golden Calf and we will suck it dry, chop it up, and sell it off piece by piece until there is nothing left but the World’s biggest welfare state that we will create and control."
This is EXACTLY what is happening all over the western world. Cloward-Piven in full swing—being overrun by impoverished third worlders who hate us because the US government - at Israel’s direction - bombed their countries into oblivion without our consent. It’s a perfect circle of destruction, all seeping like a pestilence straight from Tel Aviv
As always, nothing changes. This ceasefire won't last, and we all know it. Just like the recent one with Lebanon, which Israel violated over and over again. Trump isn't going to do anything nor will his supporters until they can figure out how to monetize it or not. Until the Israelis decide to stop it of their own accord, (which we know they won't in this generation anyway), nothing will change, and the Palestinians will remain in their hopeless situation for many years to come. The International Court is useless, and the U.N. is on its way out. Which means no more U.N. peacekeepers someday soon.
It's all about the US maintaining energy dominance in West Asia (formerly the Middle East). Trump is big chums with the vassal states there as well with Israel. There's gas off the coast of Gaza. Trump wants to repeat one of his favourite phrases 'We stole the oil. We stole the oil. We stole the oil."
And right on cue, all of a sudden Israel has “issues” with the deal and will try and blame Hamas to end the deal. Who could have ever seen this coming? And they would have violated it in any case. Why does this remind me of the treaties that the USA made with Native Americans. Israel and the USA are two pathological peas in a pod committing genocide for fun and profit.
The similarity with what the US did to its Indigenous population -- taking their land by force or treaty, confining them in non-contiguous plots of land, mass killings, erasure of their cultures -- and what Israel has done since 1948 is striking. Good point. I wish more Americans recognized it.
US & Canada were merely more sophisticated about how they killed the children -- letting most of them live but stealing their minds through force-fed Christianity. Not sure whether that makes it a kinder or a scummier ethnic cleansing.
Well, even as a kid I was always rooting for the Indians and knew they were telling me a lie when they said Indians bad, cowboys good, and used that lie to justify stealing the Indian's land. In terms of Israel I suspect this will fall apart early on in the Trump administration, but not because of him, but I think this was no more then giving Biden a win as he leaves, and something for the democrats to blame on Trump when it is once again implemented. It's absurd to think the Palestinians can recover from Israel's brutal assault, well genocide, which has destroyed all that made life possible.
Trust is the foundation of Society. With out trust, nothing is possible. The end game, when there is no trust is paralysis.
One of the 10 Commandments is "thou shalt not lie" and telling the truth is the foundation of our civilization. When everyone knows that a deal will not be kept, no deal is possible. The purpose of the law & the courts is supposed to be to enforce the agreed to laws of the land, and make the price of deception very high. Who is going to enforce any deal made between Israel and the Palestinians? If it is not enforced who will believe anything that our governments do going forward?
I do not believe that our ruling elites understand that if no one believes them, they have no authority other than brute force.
So S Cat, how do we - you and I, change this human-made state of criminal affairs?
I have no answer to that. I remember something an algebra teacher told our class many years ago. He simply stated that sometimes there are no answers to a problem, and it was clear that he was talking about more than math. People like to believe that there’s always a solution to a problem, but that’s not how reality works. Now that the billionaire class have inserted themselves directly into Trump’s administration in addition to all their bought and paid for politicians I see no solution. It will likely play out with all of them killing off most if not all life on earth in the end. Who is going to stop them now? You might try asking the German’s under Hitler’s rise to power how they stopped him. Oh right, they didn’t stop him. The world came together eventually to fight the Nazi regime. This time around there are no countries coming together to stop the genocide at the hands of the US and Israel. And when it comes to the ongoing ecocide, it’s full speed ahead. I see no ways to change humanity’s path of self destruction with all the psychopaths in their positions of power.
The power that comes with a thousand million, a hundred-thousand million, two-hundred-thousand million dollars, etc. is vast and generally underappreciated by most folks, I find in the shrugs I get when trying to get people to understand just how much money/power that is. Hence, sadly, I am compelled to agree with you.
Exactly S Cat and spot on. Yes sometimes be it math or reality there are no solutions.
The entrenchment of the oligarchs and the billionaire class is solidified in every aspect of our time like never before in history. Humanity has become negotiable, and it is now the subject of debate. Israel is in a transaction with Trump. There are no ceasefires in a genocide, no matter what phase it is in at any moment. America proved it and it continues in its subtle colonial expansionist way with the indigenous people.
It seems to me that the US is the author of modern era genocide. The history of the US government negotiating treaties with the indigenous people of this continent, and the subsequent reneging on 100% of those treaties, is a template for our closest friend and partner, Israel. The US has provided a complete "how-to" kit for exterminating a population, including weapons, cash, and unending propaganda support for this crime. It's time the people of the US faced their complicity in the crimes of this country.
The cruelest part of these "ceasefire" agreements I announcing that there is one. To see the overjoyed faces of the Palestinians who have suffered for so long, only to be attacked more and more. Who are these people?
Although, I would not call the announcement of a ceasefire, whether it happens or not, the 'cruelest" part. It's certainly ugly, but as the article points out, there's plenty of cruelty in the later failure of Israel to permit any forward movement towards creating independence and justice for the Palestinians. The long delays have tended to encourage forgetfulness on the part of the western public, allowing whatever outrage that might exist to dissipate. Often, quite successfully, blaming the Palestinians for any and all failures, whilst leaving the Palestinians even more isolated.
They want the land. Every inch of it. That's all there is to it.
I don’t think it is. The Israelis in charge certainly want to possess the land. And more than just Gaza and the West Bank for ‘Greater Israel’ is more than just a dream. But what they also want - and what makes people like Netanyahu particularly evil - is to ‘possess’ the Palestinians - the Amalek - so that they can completely destroy them. They want to ‘relive’ the holocaust but with the (Israeli) Jews doing the killing this time. As they are currently doing.
So reneging on this ‘deal’ is inevitable just like the Israelis have reneged on all the previous deals going back to Camp David.
Of course we want to believe -- spitting against the winds of history -- that the slaughter will stop. But one doesn't reform minds so bent, so distorted by the sociopathology of extremist exceptionalism, by ubermensch-ism; because that condition is by necessity a pathology of continual unabated mendacity -- as Chris details. These devils lie, offhandedly, deliberately with cold entendre, and even unknowingly, reflexively, as a result of the automaticity of their disease.
Regardless of whether this ceasefire occurs, and I think the Palestinians in Gaza want it to happen, we must push forward with bringing Israel to justice. The Hind Rajab Foundation has, among other things, filed a case with the ICC against 1,000 Israeli soldiers for war crimes in Gaza.
https://www.hindrajabfoundation.org/perpetrators/hind-rajab-foundation-files-historic-icc-complaint-against-1000-israeli-soldiers-for-war-crimes-in-gaza
They have taken further steps in recent days, and vacations are becoming a lot more difficult for IDF soldiers, worldwide. The Foundation can use our help. Please join me in making a contribution. https://buy.stripe.com/cN228hbY5g7jaM84gg
You might find the recent interview that Glenn Greenwald did with the head of this organisation very informative.
I liked the news that two Israeli soldiers, one in Sweden, one in Brazil, on holiday, had to leave the country ahead of arrest warrants for war crimes. The Israelis have been chasing down Nazi war criminals for 80 years. Let us follow this example and be equally tenacious in bringing to justice every war criminal of Israel.
I did find it informative and everyone should hear it.
As a relentless sponsor of state terrorism, Israel’s actions should no longer surprise anyone. Previous claims of an imminent cease-fire ultimately led to continuing massacres.
One hopes this time will prove different, but there’s no particular reason to believe that hope will translate into reality.
I’ve written at some length about the pattern of unaccountability and lies that have enabled the ongoing genocide to continue. https://shahidbuttar.substack.com/p/netanyahu-embraces-terrorism
Let's remember the ceasefire that coincided with Obama's inauguration. Cynical playacting. So many jumping up and down that Trump is less evil than Biden. What a joke.
While understanding that Biden was/is evil. No joke!
I don’t think people are evil. We are all products of our conditioning. However, yes, Biden was as just as much an emotionally damaged, self-interested, political tool as Trump.
The very idea that the two sides can "negotiate" is itself laughable. Israel holds all the cards and is backed by the US, the Palestinians have been betrayed by the PLO, the PA, and Hamas, not to mention most of the Arab states. As Chris Hedges points out, this is rinse and repeat, the same sorry spectacle that has played for decades. Hubris, cynicism, mendacity.
The US government and our news media fall for the Israeli lies every time.
I don’t think the Americans are as passive as they wish to appear. At the risk of appearing to call American politicians not-stupid, I don’t think they believe the lies. I think they’re just envious that they didn’t think of them first.
This genocide is an American genocide. Its use of Israel as the instrument of killing is because Israelis, like mob hit men, have the one quality necessary for this slaughter: complete lack of conscience. There are no moral brakes to their killing machines, no self doubt, and their actions are fueled by the conviction that they are the chosen people. Otherwise known as the master race. Choose your synonymous slogan.
The government and MSM know full well that this is a charade.
A lot of journalists in MSM are impressively stupid and ill-informed.
They may be ill-informed BUT they know exactly what they are doing.
Well said. Also, terrifying.
That's a bit like saying that Trump is stupid and ill-informed because he says that the climate crisis is a hoax. He, or at least his handlers, know full well that it isn't. This is evidenced by their desires on Canada and Greenland for access to, or control of, resources and trade routes once the ice melts, which they know it will.
What people say, or are allowed to say, and what they know, are very different things.
That's not to say that some are not stupid and ill-informed.
I don’t know if fall is the right term. Complicit comes to mind
I don’t think what they do can be called “falling”. It’s disingenuous collusion. It surely looks like the Israel Lobby has pocketed the MSMedia.
We have failed as a society if Mr. Fish does not get a Pulitzer for his political cartoons. Mr. Hedges as well.
So much more cutting and incisive than the happy tribalist horseshit we see in the MSM.
Only an idiot would make a deal that allows themselves to be slaughtered after they release the hostages, the only thing that is keeping them alive. The Palestinians may be a hapless people [thanks to us Gringos] but they are not idiots. 81 killed in last last 24 hrs. Not one drop of mercy. I'll bet that the 6 million Jews Hitler murdered in Europe have turned over in their graves out of shame what their people have done to the Palestinians since 1948.
Great analysis Chris, thank you!
I don't hear about it these days but It is my understanding that Hamas sought to give back their civilian hostages taken on Oct.7. Their aim was to take Israeli soldiers for prisoner swaps.
We shouldn't forget that Gaza has always been a testing ground for Israeli war tech. and this genocide is being produced by AI generated targeting and drone infantry. The whole world is watching.
Here is a very unpopular truth: the invasion of the western world is being orchestrated by the occupational Israeli government which is the synagogue of satan (the poor Israeli people were the guinea pigs of pfizer’s covid killshot).
“I think there is a resurgence of anti-Semitism because at this point in time Europe has not yet learned how to be multicultural. And I think we are going to be part of the throes of that transformation, which must take place. Europe is not going to be the monolithic societies they once were in the last century. Jews are going to be at the centre of that. It’s a huge transformation for Europe to make. They are now going into a multicultural mode and Jews will be resented because of our leading role. But without that leading role and without that transformation, Europe will not survive." — Barbara Lerner Spectre
https://tritorch.com/degradation/!EuropeWillNotSurvive.mp4
That demonic government that every US congressman and senator swears allegiance to through AIPAC, HAS to go. Israeli official: [the word anti-sematism] is a trick we always use it:
https://tritorch.com/degradation/IsraeliOfficialAntiSemiteSematisismIsATrickWeAlwaysUseIsrael.mp4
She said it not me. The synagogue of satan runs the Israeli government at this moment. They even admit they created and fund Hamas, so effectively, Hamas is also the Israeli government. Making the war a false flag against both sides:
https://old.bitchute.com/video/3XKnSWnxhH6I [30secs]
https://archive.is/Ou12q
Both the Israeli and Palenstinian people are paying the price of their government’s war agenda (they ordered Hamas to slaughter their own citizens to kick off this deceitful war and stood down while it happened$.
Additionally, Netanyahu was recorded in 1990 saying: "America is a Golden Calf and we will suck it dry, chop it up, and sell it off piece by piece until there is nothing left but the World’s biggest welfare state that we will create and control."
This is EXACTLY what is happening all over the western world. Cloward-Piven in full swing—being overrun by impoverished third worlders who hate us because the US government - at Israel’s direction - bombed their countries into oblivion without our consent. It’s a perfect circle of destruction, all seeping like a pestilence straight from Tel Aviv
The tail is wagging the dog! Ugh. As if.
Bait and switch. Those who want to believe, or who have no chouice but to go along, fall for it over and over again.
As always, nothing changes. This ceasefire won't last, and we all know it. Just like the recent one with Lebanon, which Israel violated over and over again. Trump isn't going to do anything nor will his supporters until they can figure out how to monetize it or not. Until the Israelis decide to stop it of their own accord, (which we know they won't in this generation anyway), nothing will change, and the Palestinians will remain in their hopeless situation for many years to come. The International Court is useless, and the U.N. is on its way out. Which means no more U.N. peacekeepers someday soon.
It's all about the US maintaining energy dominance in West Asia (formerly the Middle East). Trump is big chums with the vassal states there as well with Israel. There's gas off the coast of Gaza. Trump wants to repeat one of his favourite phrases 'We stole the oil. We stole the oil. We stole the oil."
The ceasefire is PR. The mission is the gas.
Israel lies the world dies
As per usual