POTUS Late Night Chirping

2026 Presidential Easter Address to the Nation

 

April 6 UPDATE: Trump held a 90 minute Pentagon Presser today. An incoherent ramble of obscene self-glorification I will not abet it with a YouTube link. Suffice to give you this 2x mp3 sudio excerpt.

The Oaf of Office, March 31st Update

 

"Completely obliterating." Wafts of War Crlmes, anyone?

“To be honest with you, my favorite thing is to take the oil in Iran, but some stupid people back in the U.S. say: ‘Why are you doing that?’ But they’re stupid people.” —Donald Trump, to The Financial Times of London

39 years ago, during a 1987 televised ABC 20/20 interview with Barbara Walters, Donald Trump advocating invading Iran to "take the oil."

 

Today...

Israel strikes Iran's South Pars gas field

This complex accounts for 70% of Iran's natural gas output.
Iranian retaliation news reports are mounting by the hour.
U.S. stock markets cratered in reaction.

 

ERRATUM: "IMMINENT THREAT"

A bit of pedantic irascibility. The phrase "Imminent Threat" as being cavalierly bandied about of late per the Iran attack, if not all the way to "oxymoronic," is clearly an unhelpfully vague cliche. "Imminent?" How soon? Minutes? Hours? Days? Weeks, Months?...

 

The big gripe goes to "threat" in the context of expressing the possibility of an adverse event. To the stats analyst, "threat" means a "risk" of harm that cannot be quantified into numerical data appropriate for rank-ordering useful for estimating "expected (loss) value." A necessary adjunct of that is "vulnerability" to the risk posed. Moreover, it’s fundamental to acknowledge that risk assessment is quite often multifaceted. We properly have to burn a lot of mental calories, assessing the relative costs and benefits of our actions. Sadly, infuriatingly, a reality lost on our current president.

 

I'm having a bit of dubiety that our DNI Tulsi Gabbard is a clueless naif in the foregoing empirical basics. Perhaps, but she's likely just bullshitting the congressional committees and the press in the panic over perhaps being fired by Trump.

 

He, (bankrupter of multiple casinos and other resorts) who, in her SMH/WTAF? testimony, is the only federal executive With the acumen and authority to assess what constitutes an "imminent threat." 

 

Yeah. Sure. Right. We can all sleep better now.

UPDATES

 

First, Tom Nichols, "Trump had no Plan B for Iran. And it shows"

Next...

 

I encourage y'all to watch / listen to this carefully in light of current events.

Dire Strait? Pottery Barn Rule update.

"Trump says U.S. doesn't need help defending Strait of Hormuz after allies refuse."

 

I guess we will see. Sooner rather than later, one would think.

Understanding Iran under attack

Understanding Iran vs the Arab States. A 2018 Frontline documentary.

Visionary Donald J. Trump, 2026

Citation

Monday March 9th. President Trump holds a Presser at his Doral FL resort. A tour de force of incoherent, repetitive contradictions taken to new mumbling depths.

 

@SecWar

Will he be tried as an adult?

  

Pete Hegseth’s Troubled Soul 

   

Certain moments are worth paying attention to because they reveal something essential about a person. They act as windows into an individual’s psychological state, their ethics, the orders of their loves and their hates. Such occasions are crystallizing.

That’s been true of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon briefings since the war against Iran began. We haven’t learned anything we didn’t already know about Hegseth in these briefings. But the press conferences have reminded the world why he is exactly the wrong person to hold the position he does.

Wednesday’s briefing, for example, featured the usual Hegseth hubris, strutting, and cockiness. “I stand before you today with one unmistakable message about Operation Epic Fury: America is winning decisively, devastatingly, and without mercy,” he said. He declared that, four days into the mission, Iran is “toast, and they know it. Or at least soon enough they will know it.” He compared the Persian nation’s predicament to that of a football team: “They don’t know what plays to call, let alone how to get in the huddle and call those plays.” There was not even a hint of the challenges that might lie ahead in the conflict with Iran, a nation of 90 million people that borders seven countries—challenges that might include internal fragmentation and chaos, a dangerous insurgency, humanitarian crises, regional destabilization, and global economic disruption.

Now, it may be that none of this comes to pass. The joint American-Israeli air campaign has been stunningly effective. A peaceful, enlightened, democratic, pro-American regime may emerge. And even if Iran turns out to fall far short of that ideal, it could still be that the next regime is better than the previous, wicked one. So the world may be better off as a result of this war. Or it may not. It’s simply too early to tell. Wars that begin well don’t always end well, and they often produce unintended consequences.

Hegseth displayed the prickliness and defensiveness we’ve come to expect, along with his resentment against “fake news.” Hegseth complained that the war-related deaths of six Americans were front-page news. The press, he claimed, “only wants to make the president look bad.” There were also the requisite shots at Democrats, who he said are “rooting against the country

But what was most striking about Hegseth’s press conference was his emotional affect, his delight in celebrating mercilessness, his talk of death and destruction raining down from the skies, his glee in “punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be.”

We have seen this manosphere affect before from the defense secretary. At a press briefing on Monday, he mocked “our traditional allies who wring their hands and clutch their pearls, hemming and hawing about the use of force.” In this war, there would be “no stupid rules of engagement, no nation-building quagmire, no democracy-building exercise, no politically correct wars,” he vowed. “We fight to win.” He added, “We are not defenders anymore. We are warriors, trained to kill the enemy and break their will. History is watching. Be the force you swore an oath to be—focused, disciplined, lethal, and unbreakable.”…

What an embarrassment. He is egregiously unqualified.

 

Sorry, that was irascibly funny. Found it online.

That foregoing lead-in article excerpt is from The Atlantic. They have recently published a raft of excellent pieces on the Trump Administration's attack on Iran. I've been a reader and subscriber for decades. (The photo above is one I Photoshopped using a pic found elsewhere on the internet.)

 

_______

 
"1979?" HOW ABOUT 1953? 

 

I really tire of pundits going no further back than 1979 and the Iranian revolution and hostage debacle that ousted the dictatorial Shah. to wit:

 

 

1953? I was 7. I am now 80.

 

Below: Some quick pertinent documentary history (~40 minutes total). 

 

 

There are relatively few clean hands among all of these geopolitical players.

UPDATE 

 

CODA

 

FYI, an inexpensive ($3.99), relatively quick, well-regarded read on the history of Iran/Persia.

March Madness 2026

 Stock markets will surely be “fun“ this coming week.
The Middle East will surely not be.

 

Donald J. Trump Bored of Peace

 

Woke up this morning, turned on my iPad, and saw this...

 

 

DONALD TRUMP, OCT. 2019 TWEET

The United States has spent EIGHT TRILLION DOLLARS fighting and policing in the Middle East. Thousands of our Great Soldiers have died or been badly wounded. Millions of people have died on the other side. GOING INTO THE MIDDLE EAST IS THE WORST DECISION EVER MADE.....

Trump 2013 tweet.

 

UPDATE, 6 PM EST    

• Per CNN, Iranian leader Khamenei is dead, according to Israeli sources and Trump.

  Also, WaPo reports that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu together goaded Trump into attacking Iran. I smell a Jared.

  

Donald Trump, Two weeks' Notice on Iran.

OK, shall we rewind the news clips back 4 years?

 

 

 

 

JUST ANNOUNCED, NATIONWIDE THEATRICAL RELEASE IN TWO WEEKS!

 

I  coulda done better with that one. Whatever; a 5 minute Photoshop quickie.

Ambassador Mike Huckabee to Donald Trump:

"It is my honor to serve you!"

Mr President, God spared you in Butler, PA to be the most consequential President in a century-maybe ever.

The decisions on your shoulders I would not want to be made by anyone else. You have many voices speaking to you Sir, but there is only ONE voice that matters. HIS voice. I am your appointed servant in this land and am available for you but I do not try to get in your presence often because I trust your instincts. No President in my lifetime has been in a position like yours. Not since Truman in 1945. I don't reach out to persuade you. Only to encourage you. I believe you will hear from heaven and that voice is far more important than mine or ANYONE else's. You sent me to Israel to be your eyes, ears and voice and to make sure our flag flies above our embassy. My job is to be the last one to leave.

I will not abandon this post. Our flag will NOT come down! You did not seek this moment. This moment sought YOU! It is my honor to serve you!

Mike Huckabee

The foregoing is the full text of a Truth Social post of Mike's (which Trump re-posted). Note he did not say "an honor to serve the American people."

 

THINGS ARE MOVING QUICKLY

 

Congress didn't get The Article I
Declaration of War Memo, one presumes.

 

UPDATE

Trump’s Gilded Gut Instinct

Wall Street analysts recently began joking that the best way to predict the behavior of President Trump — and make money in the process — was by practicing the “TACO trade,” which stands for “Trump always chickens out.” You can always bet on Trump rolling back a reckless tariff.

This mocking of Trump’s inconsistency, which drives him nuts — “Don’t ever say what you said,” he told a reporter who asked him about it — not only is accurate but also deserves to be more widely applied.

One day he is pushing Ukraine away; the next day he is shaking Ukraine down for its minerals; the next day Ukraine is back in the fold. One day Vladimir Putin is Trump’s friend; the next day he’s “crazy.” One day Canada will be the 51st state; the next day it is the target of tariffs. One day he brags that he hires only “the best” people; the next day more than 100 experts at the National Security Council are pushed out just weeks after many were hired. One day the president hosts a gala at his Virginia golf club for the biggest buyers of his memecoin, who spent a combined $148 million for the chance to hear him give a talk standing behind the presidential seal, and the White House spokeswoman suggests it’s not corruption because the president was “attending it in his personal time.”

Trump is governing by unchecked gut impulses, with little or no homework or coordination among agencies. He respects no real lines of authority, has his golfing buddy (Steve Witkoff) act as secretary of state and his secretary of state (Marco Rubio) act as his ambassador to Panama. He compels anyone who wants to stop him to take him to court, while blurring all lines between his legal duties and personal enrichment.

What is this telling us? We are not being governed anymore by a traditional American administration. We are being governed by the Trump Organization Inc…
 [ Thomas Friedman ]

ARTICLE EXCERPT FROM FOREIGN AFFAIRS

...To avoid a total surrender, Khamenei could also keep the fight going. That might include going for a nuclear breakout. Assuming Iran still possesses its stockpile of highly enriched uranium and retains the know-how, the regime could still try to test a nuclear device, hoping that becoming a nuclear state will restore a measure of its lost deterrence. Tehran could also continue to wage war, aiming to either exhaust Israel’s will to fight or increase support for the regime among the Iranian people. The regime may even hope that Israel expands its strikes, or aim to draw in the United States, believing that if more Iranian civilians are killed, Iranian society will become more sympathetic toward the country’s only defenders: the regime. That “rally around the flag” effect is, at this point, the regime’s last remaining hope to get Iranians on its side.

But increased aggression is a very dicey bet and could leave the regime isolated and broke. The longer the war continues, the greater the destruction the country will face, which would reduce the regime’s capacity to simply operate. If there is no rally around the flag effect, or if it eventually passes, the Islamic Republic’s citizens could ultimately turn on the regime. And if the government secures a nuclear weapon in order to safeguard its hold on power, Iran could end up looking quite a lot like North Korea—a scenario no Iranian would want.

Whatever happens, the Iranian regime has doubtless lost its decades-long conflict with Israel. It will either have to give up its foundational political ideology and seek integration with the rest of the region through diplomatic and economic engagement, or it will need to double down on its beliefs, drawing further into itself. Ali Khamenei and the IRGC have lost; the regional status quo they established is finished.


 More to come...

The Israeli-Palestinian Perplex

Back to exigent concerns (in the wake of my prior transient dumbass reactive diversion).

   

  
Is hope for a real, durable, amicable, broad Middle-East peace naive?

One of my favorite conflict resolution experts:

Crisis, Contradiction, Certainty, and Contempt

A Professor’s Statement on the Current Situation at Columbia University
Peter T. Coleman

As a member of the Columbia University community for over 30 years, Director of the Morton Deutsch International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution, current member of the University’s Task Force on Antisemitism, and a student of intractable conflict and sustainable peace, I felt it incumbent on me to share my take on the extraordinary challenges facing our community today.

For context, I have studied, written and wondered about the many conflicts related to Israel and the Palestinian territories for decades. I have visited and conducted research on peacebuilding in the region on several occasions, written about how the conflicts there have manifested at Columbia University in the past, and have traveled through the West Bank, including Hebron, Bethlehem, Ramallah, and Nablus. I have not been to Gaza to date, although one of my top students, Naira Musallam, a Palestinian-Israeli, conducted her dissertation research there in 2010. I was last in Israel in May 2023 working with Israeli, Palestinian and international students through the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at Hebrew University (I later posted this blog on my experiences), and hope to return there this summer to continue this crucial work.

When I first visited the West Bank, I had a revelation. Some UN colleagues and I were traveling South out of Bethlehem towards Hebron on a dusty road, when we began to pass countless miles of a dilapidated refugee camp on our left (I believe it was Dheisha). This was one of the many camps where Palestinians who had fled Israel in 1948 had settled, and who still today refuse most support from the Israeli government as an active act of protest against the normalization of their ouster and a political statement signifying their struggle.

After passing by several miles of the ramshackle camp, I noticed on the right side of the road that a new, well-constructed municipality had been built, which in comparison to the camp looked like a nice suburb outside Cleveland. When I asked my colleagues about these structures, they explained to me that they had been built and were supported by the Israeli government, with running water, electricity, and sanitation. They also explained that at some point, many families from the refugee camp, desperate from the conditions they had lived in, chose to cross the road and set up home in the new buildings. However, doing so was typically seen as an unforgivable betrayal of the struggle by members of their family and community that stayed behind, who often disparaged them or cut ties with them altogether. This was just another glimpse into the complex web of multiple intertwined conflicts and moral dilemmas which constitute what many of us call the “Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”…

A fairly long read. Study it all carefully.

 

I've cited Dr. Coleman before (The Way Out).

 

 

More current Peter Coleman:

First, we are in a crisis. The current firestorm at Columbia is real, painful and deeply concerning. It was triggered most recently by the horrific combination of the slaughter, rape and kidnapping of Israeli civilians by Hamas militants on October 7, 2023, and by the Israeli government’s violent, punishing and unrelenting response to Palestinians and its deadly effects on humanitarian workers, journalists and many others in Gaza.

But the crisis at Columbia is also playing out in the context of dramatic spikes in antisemitism and anti-Muslim hate across the U.S., which preceded but were exacerbated by the current war, by the politicization and weaponization of these trends by members of the U.S. Congress who seek to delegitimize “elite” institutions of higher education like Columbia for political gain, and in the wake of 60 years of pernicious political polarization in the U.S. where we are seeing increasing tolerance for acts of political violence — as we head into what is likely to be the most contested elections in our nation’s history.

Further out, our crisis is also fueled daily by the atrocious violence playing out in the Middle East — by the dogged intransigence of Hamas and its supporters during “negotiations” over a ceasefire, their depraved willingness to sacrifice the lives of Gazan’s for their cause, and proud declarations by Hamas’ leaders of their ultimate goal to destroy the nation of Israel “from the river to the sea.” Of course, to some degree, these actions are both reactions to and justifications for the violent, aggressive, militant, expansionist policies of the far-Right Netanyahu government in Israel who for decades have shown scant interest in securing a genuine Israeli-Palestinian peace and whose support amongst the Israeli population at home has plummeted…

 

OK, “wicked problem,” anyone?

As campus protests proliferate across the U.S. and the world, people of goodwill everywhere are flummoxed. Read Coleman carefully.

 

 

"SCREAMS BEFORE SILENCE"

Age-restricted, viewable only on YouTube.

Produced by Sheryl Sandberg. I'm sure she'll get "Jew Bitch" death threats.

 

MORE

Charge Palestine With Genocide, Too
The case for having the International Court of Justice hear two cases at once
By Graeme Wood

Israel has been convicted of genocide by protesters at Columbia and UCLA, but its genocide case before the International Court of Justice is still pending. Israel remains officially aghast that it, and only it, is subject to judicial proceedings for the crime of genocide—and that the ICJ’s rulings so far have implied that the judges think Israel might be guilty of the crime of crimes. According to reports this weekend, the International Criminal Court—a separate body that hears cases against individuals—is preparing arrest warrants for Israeli officials and possibly Hamas leaders. In the ICJ, Israel stands alone…

OK, WHILE WE'RE AT IT WITH THE SERIOUS STUFF

 

Kapish?

 

189 days to Election Day. Or, as Trump called yesterday, "Christian Visibility Day."

 

SPEAKING OF TRUMP

   

 

Of course.

UPDATE ERRATUM: MUCKING AROUND IN PHOTOSHOP

(And, yeah, I erased his flagrantly unearned flag lapel pin.) Highly recommend you read the new Time Magazine interview with Trump. "How Far Would Trump Go?"

The 26 minute article contains a link to the entire 83 minute transcript of the reporter's one-on-one interview. ~Six months, peeps, You ought know what we're all likely facing. I could scarcely be more irritated.

More to come...

_________

   

“It is not every day that snuff films of Jews are shown at an IDF screening hall.”

“At a military base north of Tel Aviv, the Israel Defense Forces held a grisly matinee screening of 43 minutes of raw footage from Hamas’s October 7 attack. Members of the press were invited, but cameras were not allowed. Hamas had the opposite policy on cameras during the attack, which it documented gleefully with its fighters’ body cams and mobile phones. Some of the clips had been circulating already on social media in truncated or expurgated form, with the footage decorously stopped just before beheadings and moments of death. After having seen them both in raw and trimmed forms, I can endorse the decision to trim those clips. I certainly hope I never see any of the extra footage again.”—Graeme Wood

  

“What’s already happened has been horrible beyond belief, and what’s coming next will probably be worse.”

“Predestined?”

__________

 

As bad as the passing week has been,

things appear to be about to get much worse.

  

 

Below: This bit of mindless savagery happened right at the outset.

 

Humanity is going increasingly insane.

 

ISRAEL BECAME A NATION WHEN I WAS A YEAR OLD

1947: Thousands of European Jewish emigrants, many of them Holocaust survivors, board a ship – which came to be called Exodus 1947 – bound for then British-controlled Palestine. Heading for the “promised land”, they are intercepted by British naval ships and sent back to Europe. Widely covered by the media, the incident sparks international outrage and plays a critical role in convincing the UK that a UN-brokered solution is necessary to solve the Palestine crisis.

A UN special committee proposes a partition plan giving 56.47 percent of Palestine for a Jewish state and 44.53 percent for an Arab state. Palestinian representatives reject the plan, but their Jewish counterparts accept it.

On November 29, the UN General Assembly approves the plan, with 33 countries voting for partition, 13 voting against it and 10 abstentions.

1948-49: On May 14, David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, publicly reads the Proclamation of Independence. The declaration, which would go into effect the next day, comes a day ahead of the expiration of the British Mandate on Palestine. The Jewish state takes control of 77 percent of the territory of Mandate Palestine, according to the UN.

For Palestinians, this date marks the “Nakba”, the catastrophe that heralds their subsequent displacement and dispossession.

As hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, hearing word of massacres in villages such as Dir Yassin, flee towards Egypt, Lebanon, and Jordanian territory, the armies of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq attack Israel, launching the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

The Arab armies are repelled, a ceasefire is declared and new borders – more favorable to Israel – are drawn. Jordan takes control of the West Bank and East Jerusalem while Egypt controls the Gaza Strip.

1956: The Second Arab-Israeli War, or the Suez Crisis, takes place after Egypt nationalizes the Suez Canal. In response Israel, the United Kingdom and France form an alliance and Israel occupies the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula. The Israeli army eventually withdraws its troops, under pressure from the US and the USSR.
1959: Yasser Arafat sets up the Palestinian organization Fatah in Gaza and Kuwait. It later becomes the main component of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).

1964: The PLO is created.

1967: The Third Arab-Israeli War, or the Six-Day War, between Israel and its Arab neighbors, results in a dramatic redrawing of the Middle East map. Israel seizes the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights.

1973: On October 6, during the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, Egyptian and Syrian armies launch offensives against Israel, marking the start of a new regional war. The Yom Kippur War, which ends 19 days later with Israel repelling the Arab armies, results in heavy casualties on all sides – at least several thousand deaths.

1979: An Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement is sealed in Washington following the Camp David Accords signed in 1978 by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. According to the terms of this agreement, Egypt regains the Sinai Peninsula, which it had lost after the Six-Day War. Sadat becomes the first Arab leader to recognise the State of Israel.

1982: Under Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, Israeli troops storm into neighbouring Lebanon in a controversial military mission called “Operation Peace of Galilee”. The aim of the operation is to wipe out Palestinian guerrilla bases in southern Lebanon. But Israeli troops push all the way to the Lebanese capital of Beirut.

The subsequent routing of the PLO under Arafat leaves the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon essentially defenceless. From September 16 to 18, Lebanese Christian Phalangist militiamen – with ties to Israel – enter the camps of Sabra and Shatilla in Beirut, unleashing a brutal massacre that shocks the international community. The massacres, the subject of an Israeli inquiry popularly called the Kahane Commission, would subsequently cost Sharon his job as defence minister.

1987: Uprisings in Palestinian refugee camps in Gaza spread to the West Bank marking the start of the First Palestinian Intifada ("uprising" in Arabic). Nicknamed the "war of stones", the First Intifada lasts until 1993, costing more than 1,000 Palestinian lives. The image of the stone-throwing Palestinian demonstrators pitched against Israel’s military might comes to symbolise the Palestinian struggle.

It was also during this uprising that Hamas, influenced by the ideology of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, was born. From the outset, the Islamist movement favours armed struggle and rejects outright any legitimacy of an Israeli state.

1993: After months of frenetic secret negotiations, Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin sign the Oslo Accords. The accords see the creation of the Palestinian Authority, which gets administrative control of the West Bank and Gaza. On September 13 on the White House lawn, Arafat and Rabin exchange a historic handshake in the presence of US President Bill Clinton. The event is watched by over 400 million TV viewers across the world.

1995: On November 4, Rabin is assassinated by a Jewish right-wing extremist at a peace rally in Tel Aviv.

1996: Benjamin Netanyahu is elected prime minister for the first time.

2000: On September 28, Sharon provokes Palestinians by making a tour of Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa/Temple Mount site as leader of the right-wing Likud party, sparking the Second Intifada, also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada. It lasted until 2005, with 3,000 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis killed over five years.

2001: Sharon is elected prime minister of Israel and breaks off contact with Arafat, who is subsequently confined to his compound in Ramallah.

2002: The Israeli government begins Operation Defensive Shield – the construction of a wall to separate Israel from the West Bank. The UN Security Council speaks for the first time of a coexistence between the two states of Israel and Palestine. The Israeli army lifts the siege on Ramallah.

2004: On March 22, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the paraplegic co-founder and spiritual leader of Hamas, is killed in an Israeli helicopter strike. Eight months later, on November 11, PLO chairman Arafat dies at a Paris hospital following a prolonged illness. Arafat's death has been the subject of controversy. Some experts believe he died of natural causes, while others are open to the possibility he was poisoned using polonium 210.

2005: Mahmoud Abbas is elected president of the Palestinian Authority. After a 38-year occupation, Israel pulls out of Gaza.

2006: On January 4, Prime Minister Sharon suffers a stroke and falls into a coma that he stays in until his death in 2014. Ehud Olmert takes over as prime minister and head of Sharon’s newly founded centrist party, Kadima.

Hamas sweeps the legislative elections in the Palestinian Territories, causing the US and EU to freeze direct aid to the Palestinian government.

Lebanese Islamic fundamentalist group Hezbollah launches rocket attacks on Israel and takes two Israeli soldiers captive. Israel retaliates with force and many civilians, mainly Lebanese, are killed. The war, widely viewed as a failure in Israel, led to mounting calls for Olmert to resign.

2007: Following months of internecine military fighting between Hamas and Fatah forces, Hamas seizes control of Gaza.

2008: On December 27, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launch a surprise offensive on Gaza, killing more than 200 people in one day. Shortly after, the IDF follows up with a two-week-long ground invasion of Gaza. A UN report concluded that both Israel and Hamas committed war crimes during the conflict.

2009: On January 18, Israel and Hamas declare unilateral ceasefires, ending the 22-day battle which killed more than 1,300 Palestinians as well as 13 Israelis.

2011: On March 27, Israel deploys an anti-rocket missile defense system called Iron Dome, which allows the country to intercept short-range rockets regularly fired from Gaza.

2012: Israeli forces kill top Hamas commander Ahmed al-Jaabari in an air strike on November 14 and follow with more strikes over an eight-day campaign during which Hamas retaliates by firing rockets at Jerusalem for the first time. More than 130 Palestinians as well as five Israelis are killed.

2014: In June, three Israeli teenagers are abducted and murdered near the West Bank city of Hebron. Israeli authorities blame Hamas for the incident and on July 8, launch multiple air strikes on Gaza, prompting an exchange of rocket fire with Hamas over a seven-week period. The Israeli missile strikes result in the deaths of more than 2,200 Palestinians in Gaza.

2018: On March 30, tens of thousands of Palestinians rally near the Israeli border in the Gaza Strip to protest Israel’s blockade of the enclave. Demonstrations continue for several months. At least 189 Palestinians were killed and more than 6,000 injured during these protests between the end of March and the end of December 2018, according to the Independent International Commission of Inquiry mandated by the UN Human Rights Council.

2021: Palestinian worshippers clash with Israeli police in May at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque compound following weeks of mounting tension. Hamas unleashes a barrage of rockets into Israel after demanding Israeli forces withdraw from the compound. Israel responds with air strikes on Gaza, setting off an 11-day conflict resulting in the deaths of more than 200 people.

2022: Israel pounds Gaza with air strikes on August 5, killing a senior militant of the Islamic Jihad group and triggering retaliatory rocket fire from the Palestinian enclave. At least 40 Palestinians are killed in the three days of fighting that follow.

2023: Israeli forces kill nine Palestinian Islamic Jihad gunmen and civilians on January 26 in a raid on a flashpoint town in the occupied West Bank. Palestinian militants hit back by firing two rockets, triggering retaliation from Israel. No further casualties are reported.

On October 7, Hamas mounts an unprecedented, multipronged surprise attack on Israel with fighters infiltrating the heavily fortified Gaza border in several locations by air, land and sea. Israeli forces respond with air strikes on Gaza and military reinforcements to the border.

And, yeah, I know the historical / cultural roots of Arab-Israeli-Persian conflicts way predate 1947.

 

UPDATE

[HuffPo] As Israel escalates its attacks on Gaza, the State Department is discouraging diplomats working on Middle East issues from making public statements suggesting the U.S. wants to see less violence, according to internal emails viewed by HuffPost.

In messages circulated on Friday, State Department staff wrote that high-level officials do not want press materials to include three specific phrases: “de-escalation/ceasefire,” “end to violence/bloodshed” and “restoring calm.”

The revelation provides a stunning signal about the Biden administration’s reluctance to push for Israeli restraint as the close U.S. partner expands the offensive it launched after Hamas ―which rules Gaza ― attacked Israeli communities on Oct. 7.

Bad portent. Update below:

Israeli President Says There Are No Innocent Civilians In Gaza
“It is an entire nation out there that is responsible,” Isaac Herzog said as Israel ordered 1.1 million Palestinians to evacuate their homes.

...When a reporter asked Herzog to clarify whether he meant to say that since Gazans did not remove Hamas from power “that makes them, by implication, legitimate targets,” the Israeli president claimed, “No, I didn’t say that.”

Wink, wink. Equally bad, if not worse.

 

 

MORE...

Rumors of a ‘Global Day of Jihad’ Have Unleashed a Dangerous Wave of Disinformation
The rapid spread of violent videos and photos, combined with a toxic stew of mis- and disinformation, now threatens to spill over into real-world violence.

FAR-RIGHT FIGURES IN the United States are making violent threats against Muslims in response to what they believe is a planned “global day of jihad” today.

The violent rhetoric comes in response to comments made in a statement by Khaled Meshaal, the founder and former leader of Hamas, to Reuters on Wednesday. Meshaal called for protests on October 13 across the Arab world in support of the Palestinians before adding: “To all scholars who teach jihad ... to all who teach and learn, this is a moment for the application [of theories].”

While Meshaal very specifically made the calls for protests in “the Arab and Islamic worlds,” his comments were quickly mistranslated online to become a “global day of jihad,” a phrase he did not use.

In the toxic stew of misinformation and disinformation that has circulated online in the days since Hamas’ attack on Israel, those misinterpreted comments have been weaponized by right-wing lawmakers and influencers to suggest that Hamas is planning attacks on non-Muslims. This latest round of online disinformation now threatens to spill over into real-world violence.

Users of pro-Trump message boards and extremist channels on Telegram, as well as mainstream platforms like X, formerly Twitter, repeatedly claimed that they would be carrying firearms today; some claimed they would be prepared to use those weapons if or when they encountered Muslims. In many cases, people referred to Muslims using racial slurs.

In response, some police authorities in US cities, including New York and Los Angeles, announced that they plan to boost officer numbers to counter any potential violence. Some schools in the US and in the UK have closed due to concerns about “an international day of rage ” or “out of an abundance of caution.”…

#LIKEWAR

 

UPDATE

[via NBC News] Hamas created detailed plans to target elementary schools and a youth center in the Israeli kibbutz of Kfar Sa'ad, to "kill as many people as possible," seize hostages and quickly move them into the Gaza Strip.

The attack plans, which are labeled "top secret" in Arabic, appear to be orders for two highly trained Hamas units to surround and infiltrate villages and target places where civilians, including children, gather. Israeli authorities are still determining the death toll in Kfar Sa'ad.

The documents were found on the bodies of Hamas terrorists by Israeli first responders and shared with NBC News. They include detailed maps and show that Hamas intended to kill or take hostage civilians and school children…

OFF-TOPIC ERRATUM

 

apropos of some of my prior posts.

 

__________