I’d share with you the observations made Qanta A. Ahmed in in op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. She is a physician and a Muslim and has been visiting morgues in Israel to, as she puts it, “bear witness”:

I arrived on Oct. 19 to spend 10 days as a human-rights observer with the permission of the nation’s Foreign Affairs Ministry and help from Israel Defense Forces officer Kobi Valer. As an observant Muslim, I felt a duty to come and bear witness. What I saw will remain with me forever.

Hamas waged its attacks in the nation’s south, but hundreds of its victims have since been moved north. I encountered many of them at the morgues at the Shura military base near Ramle, some 15 miles southeast of Tel Aviv. I toured the Sammy Ofer Fortified Underground Emergency Hospital in Haifa, visiting the neonatal units whose tiny patients had recently been relocated in anticipation of further conflict. I examined bodies and ashes, incinerated teeth and bones. I saw toddlers, teens and adults, young and old, many of them bound, tortured and burned alive.

and

The Oct. 7 genocide was different, more barbaric than anything before it. The attacks were cloaked in the language and metaphors of Islam, yet corrupted with cosmic enmity for the Jewish people, Judaism, global Jewry and the Jewish state. They revealed again that Islamism is a virulent impostor of Islam with intentions anathema to the faith. And there was no doubt of Islamism’s guilt: I saw real-time footage generated by the Hamas commandos’ own GoPro cameras. I heard phone calls exclaiming the Shahadah—the Islamic declaration of faith—as they murdered, executed, burned, pillaged and then broadcast their crimes.

To me this was the key passage:

This wasn’t like the pogroms of the 1880s, a frenzy of killing with rabid emotion. This was a methodically planned genocide. No such circumstances apply to Israel’s operation in Gaza, and so the description must not be the same. The sovereign state of Israel is destroying Hamas because Hamas is threatening Israel, which is working to mitigate civilian losses. The country has a duty to prevent further genocide against its people. Saying so doesn’t detract from the suffering of Palestinians who are captives of Hamas.

Two weeks after the attack, Queen Rania of Jordan suggested that the butchering of children had yet to be “independently verified” as I examined images of their remains in Ramle. The deceit felt as barbaric as the atrocities. There is no context, no nuance, that justifies genocide. Its intention is the same throughout the ages: the destruction of a people.

She concludes by imploring Muslims to “respond with the necessary moral clarity”. I infer from the tone and content of his op-ed that she does not mean standing in solidarity with Palestinians by that.

Most of Tom Friedman’s most recent column is devoted to variations on the idea that Israel today bears little resemblance to the Israel he’s visited before. Having people with whom you are acquainted slaughtered in their beds has a way of doing that.

His conclusion is what I want to focus on:

The sooner Israel replaces Netanyahu and his far-right allies with a true center-left-center-right national unity government, the better chance it has to hold together during what is going to be a hellish war and aftermath. And the better chance that President Biden — who may be down in the polls in America but could get elected here in a landslide for the empathy and steel he showed at Israel’s hour of need — will not have hitched his credibility and ours to a Netanyahu Israel that will never be able to fully help us to help it.

This society is so much better than its leader. It is too bad it took a war to drive that home. Ron Scherf is a retired member of Israel’s most elite special forces unit and a founder of Brothers in Arms — the Israeli activist coalition that mobilized veterans and reservists to oppose Netanyahu’s judicial coup. Immediately after the Hamas invasion, Brothers in Arms pivoted to organizing reservists and aid workers to get to the front — left, right, religious, secular, it didn’t matter — many hours before this incompetent government did.

When in the history of the world has an attack resulted in more moderation? I can’t recall any such instance in U. S. history. The hundreds of attacks by Hezbollah and Hamas against Israel have had the opposite effect if anything. The Netanyahu government didn’t just sneak up on a quiet, moderate unware Israeli population. It was the result of endless attacks by people on the West Bank and Gaza on the one hand and the conviction by ultra-conservative Israelis that they were bound by their religion to expand Israel into the West Bank and Gaza on the other.

Quite to the contrary when the United States was attacked by Japan it had the effect of silencing isolationists and people calling for moderation in favor of those who had wanted to make war on Germany for years. The world in which an attack had the outcome of moderating the population might be a better one than our present world but I don’t think it is our present world and I would expect the Israelis to be no different.

At USA Today Medora Lee provides an example of how cost increases, particularly increases in the cost of health care, eat up the recently announced cost of living adjustment in Social Security and then some:

Social Security checks will increase next year, but for retired staffing company executive Lou Scrivani, 76, the bump won’t even be enough to cover increases in his health care costs, much less the inflated prices of everything else over the past year.

Starting in January, more than 66 million beneficiaries of the program will receive a cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, of 3.2%, averaging out to more than $50 extra each month.

COLA is meant to help Americans keep up with inflation so they can maintain their standard of living year to year. But the hikes are falling short, many seniors say. The cost of items older adults spend most of their money on consistently outpaces COLA, according to The Senior Citizens League, a nonprofit advocate for older adults. The biggest expense is health care.

She does the math. The Scrivanis are in the red.

I think this is a real public service on the part of Ms. Lee.

Although I am the oldest in my family nonetheless I am not retired. I keep toiling away. It’s galling to me that the steepest increases in prices in forty years are making it harder to save every year.

Yet I’m in a pretty good place compared to most people my age or older.

There are all sorts of things that go unmentioned in the conflict between Israel and Hamas. I’ll list a few.

Hamas is composed primarily of irregulars and as such they are not protected by the laws of war.

Hamas’s tunnels are themselves a war crime. Attacking them is not a war crime or, more precisely, civilian deaths that result from such attacks are Hamas’s war crimes.

The same is true of placing military headquarters, ammunition dumps, etc. under or within hospitals, schools, or mosques—those are war crimes. Civilian deaths that result from attacking them are Hamas’s war crimes.

The laws of war were fashioned for Western societies. Western societies have made distinctions between combatants and non-combatants that simply don’t exist in any other culture and those distinctions go back thousands of years. Arab societies do not make such distinctions. Neither do Jewish societies except to the extent that they’ve been Westernized.

I’ve posted about this before but I have long thought that Israel has erred in not granting the West Bank + Gaza statehood. Then, when the inevitable attack against Israel occurs, they should declare war against that Palestinian state and seize some of its territory as a buffer. Lather, rinse, repeat. Eventually there would be no Palestinian state. I don’t support or approve of the Israelis’ (or the Palestinians’) goals. I merely point this out in passing.

I’m going to begin this post with the conclusion: I think that the very notion of a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict is a fantasy. In his Washington Post column Shadi Hamid provides his proposal for a ceasefire and the reasons he does not think such a thing is a fantasy:

What might a plausible cease-fire look like in practice? The specifics matter. Any proposal must take seriously Israel’s legitimate security needs. First, Hamas must agree to release hostages and commit to halting rocket fire into Israel. In exchange, Israel would agree to stop its bombardment of Gaza as well as any ground incursions into Gazan territory.

Once this first step is taken, a cease-fire would allow for further negotiations on what comes next. These talks should be led by the United States, with the active support of governments in communication with Hamas — namely Qatar and Turkey. These countries should demand that Hamas offload its governing responsibilities in Gaza to the Palestinian Authority.

While it will be challenging to iron out the specifics of such an arrangement, some rough outlines can be sketched. Just as it is unrealistic to ask Israel to accept an unconditional cease-fire, so, too, is the notion that Hamas can be “eradicated.” Unlike al-Qaeda or the Islamic State, both of which often relied on foreign fighters, Hamas members and their families are Palestinian. Truly eliminating the organization — one with hundreds of thousands of supporters and sympathizers — would require mass killing on an unprecedented scale.

But if Hamas members won’t disappear, what happens to them? Any intra-Palestinian negotiations should include a path for low- and mid-level Hamas cadres, as well as members of the group’s political leadership, to be incorporated within any future governing structure. Without one, the Palestinian Authority will continue to suffer from a major legitimacy deficit. Under any such “reconciliation” agreement between Palestinian factions, armed groups would need to demobilize and integrate their military forces within those of the Palestinian Authority. Elections would need to be held within a reasonable time and, in order to participate, members of Hamas and other militants would need to commit to pursuing any political aims through the ballot box.

His justification is terribly weak. He argues from precedent but the precedents he cites, in 2014 and 2017, are self-refuting. The last seven years are an indication of their failure not of their success.

To his credit Mr. Hamid recognizes that any ceasefire must not be limited to the Israeli Defense Force—Hamas must end hostilities as well.

My reasons for believing a ceasefire is a fantasy include:

What about Palestinian Islamic Jihad?

In the unlikely event that Hamas would end hostilities, there is another terrorist group operating in Gaza and firing rockets into Israel: Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). As long as that’s the case any ceasefire would be hollow.. Hamas would blame any attack onm PIJ and vice versa. A ceasefire would need to a complete end to all attacks on Israel emanating from Gaza.

That won’t happen.

Hamas’s very reason for existence is to make war against the Jews in Israel. It’s right in the organization’s charter.

Precedent is against it.

There have been multiple rocket attacks directed against Israel every month this year except September which might have given us a clue that something was in the wind. That’s not an aberration. It’s typical—it has been true every year for the last ten years. Under present circumstances I doubt that giving Gaza-based terrorist organizations a few free shots every month would be popular in Israel.

What’s in it for the Hamas leadership?

Hamas is not a benevolent society or fraternal organization. It’s more like an organized crime syndicate. Like all such organizations it’s a Ponzi scheme. The leadership has been siphoning off billions in donated money for more than a decade. Some has gone to making war against Israel but a lot has gone to letting the leadership live the high life in other Gulf Arab countries. I have little doubt that more is sitting in nice, secure Swiss bank accounts. I don’t believe the leadership will give that up.

If there isn’t a ceasefire, what will happen? I honestly have no idea. I don’t see a stable endpoint to this conflict. It’s a zero-sum game.

I couldn’t bring myself to watch the Republican presidential candidates’ debate. Did I miss anything.

My own view is that it doesn’t make a great deal of difference. Judging by the midterm and mid-midterm election results the Democrats have found a winning formula and I strongly suspect they will continue with that formula in the general election. That suggest that whatever his failings we are likely to see a second Biden term which I also interpret as as a Harris presidency at some point in that term. I doubt that President Biden will make it until 2028. He’ll either die or be removed on 25th Amendment grounds.

I don’t know whether this Wall Street Journal column by Walter Russell Mead is equally a free flight of fancy, either. I don’t know what the Iranian mullahs are thinking. I doubt that Dr. Mead does, either.

His thesis is that Iran has been trying to halt the rapprochement between Israel and its neighbors going on for the last few years and has miscalculated:

We don’t yet know how closely Iran was involved in the planning and timing of last month’s attacks, but it’s clearer what the mullahs hoped the attacks would accomplish. At one level, Iran wanted to remind everyone how savage and powerful the country and its proxies have become. Terror serves Iranian state interests.

Beyond that, Tehran hoped to disrupt the emerging anti-Iran bloc in the Middle East. The idea was that Hamas’s dramatic attacks would electrify public opinion in the region against Israel, the U.S. and the Arab rulers willing to work with them. This, Tehran hoped, would drive a wedge between the Arabs and Israelis as Arab rulers sought to placate their angry publics by abandoning any plans to work closely with Israel.

So far, this plan has failed. Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt have all signaled that they intend, once the storm has passed, to go on working with Jerusalem for a safer, more stable Middle East. Worse from Iran’s point of view, the Arabs are committing to a revived form of Palestinian governance that can exclude Iran’s proxies from both the West Bank and Gaza.

I find it incredible that the Iranians should make such an error. The Iranians are Shi’ites; the Gulf Arabs are predominantly Sunni. The Sunni-Shi’a schism goes back to the earliest days of Islam.

Clearly, Hamas will accept money from anyone willing to fund their cause. That doesn’t mean they are becoming Shi’ites. It means they aren’t particularly scrupulous.

Iran has been trying to impose its will on its neighbors for three millennia (at least). Support of Hamas, Hezbollah, and other revolutionary groups are merely today’s version of that.

And Iran isn’t the only Middle Eastern country vying for influence within the greater world of Islam—for the Saud family retaining such influence is a matter of survival. They maintain that influence through control of the Muslim holy places. None of this is a secret from the rulers of Iran and I doubt they think they can unseat the Sauds from their present position. On the contrary I think their goal is more likely to maintain the tension.

If that’s Iran’s goal, it looks like they’re succeeding to me.

I honestly don’t know where some people get their ideas. I hope that the viewpoints expressed by Nadia Schadlow in her op-ed in the Wall Street Journal spring from attending too many cocktail parties with German and French diplomats. Otherwise it’s completely detached from reality. Here’s the nub:

Chaos is spreading throughout the world as a direct consequence of America’s failure to deter Russia, Iran and China. The balance of power in key regions is faltering, leading to instability and global disorder. Like it or not, the U.S. is the only force that can restore equilibrium.

and

The challenge for the U.S. now is to restore balance in the world. The Biden administration’s management of the Israeli response in Gaza and the continuing war in Ukraine are crucial. America’s adversaries are watching.

The U.S. can’t be passive in its support for allies. It isn’t enough to be the arsenal of democracy. America has unique military and intelligence capabilities that can help Israel and Ukraine defeat existential threats to their sovereignty. American diplomats must convince the Arab world—particularly the Gulf states—that a region dominated by Iran and roiled in conflict will doom their growing economies. If the U.S. succeeds, it will send a clear message to China about the perils of messing with America’s friends.

Practically nothing in those passages has any referent, i.e. they doesn’t refer to anything real. In the actual, material real world there is no such thing as a “rules-based order”. There are countries that pursue their own secular national interests, bending or breaking the rules of the rules-based order to the degree that furthers those objectives and that they can. For a brief period, the merest flick of an eye in terms of world history, from 1992 to 2007 (at the very latest), the United States could impose its will on a less than willing world largely unimpeded. That was the period of American hegemony. It’s been over now for fifteen years.

There is also no “arsenal of democracy”. We and our NATO allies gave Ukraine a bunch of stuff we weren’t using and have been struggling to restock our shelves ever since. Not only are we unable to supply Israel and Ukraine at the same time, we can’t supply Ukraine by itself.

In time given the will we might be able to but it would take years for us to catch up. Add another conflict. Or imagine that Israel’s campaign against Hamas (with occasional punctuation by Hezbollah) were to spread into a regional conflict. What would we do then?

Two more points. First, Dr. Schadlow mentions the risks in Central Europe, the Middle East, and Asia but there’s a significant omission from that list. Latin America is presently being “destabilized” or, as Dr. Schadlow would put it, falling into chaos as the result of China’s efforts in the region, at least according to this statement (PDF) made to the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere last year by Dr. R. Evan Ellis.

My last point is that there’s some evidence that Germany is being roused from its multi-decade fugue into fantasy. I hope to get to that in another post. I think that we and Germany would have been better off if they hadn’t been kidding themselves for the last forty years or so.

I’m inclined to agree with Tasha Kheiriddin’s argument at GZero:

As the Israel-Hamas war intensifies, there’s talk that Ukraine is being pressured to seek a settlement in its war with Russia, now in its 20th month.

On Saturday, a current and a former U.S. official, both anonymous, claimed US and European officials have spoken to Kyiv about possible peace negotiations. The speculation follows an Economist interview with Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny who said the conflict has hit a stalemate, and that unless Ukraine acquires more advanced weaponry and information technology, “(t)here will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough.”

She’s arguing that neither the Ukrainians nor the Russians are prepared to negotiate and, consequently, pressing for such negotiations is premature.

Sad to say, I think that’s probably right. The Ukrainians who’ve voted with their feet don’t count and by the time those who’ve chosen to remain are ready to negotiate, what state will the country be in?