Imperialism
Israel
Palestine
Fig. 1. The ruins of a terminal at the Gaza airport. Image by Said Khatib (Agence France-Presse) on September 9, 2018, via the Times of Israel,[1] fair use.
Julia Ioffe and Ishaan Tharoor each take up the question of Binyamin Netanyahu’s end-plan for the Gaza Strip.[2] The problem remains flatly that he doesn’t have one,[3] and it is profoundly difficult to argue with Ioffe’s point that the war is only making matters worse.[4]
Meanwhile, there is an enormous skepticism—perhaps I should say cynicism—about a two-state solution, which Israel has, over decades, made increasingly less tenable with its relentless settler-colonial push. I’ve said before that the two-state solution might not be feasible, but it’s still probably the least infeasible solution to the problem and Tharoor really doesn’t move beyond thinking the process needs to be revived.[5]
Tharoor isn’t wrong. But Israel is captive to its hard-right settlers who, thumping their bibles, insist that their god promised them the entire land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea and promised it to them exclusively and therefore that they have the right to ethnically cleanse that land. Under such circumstances, it remains awfully hard to see how progress is possible.
Yana T. R. Golding, “Tracking lost pro-Palestinian posts,” Columbia Journalism Review, November 27, 2023, https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/excessive-moderation-meta-palestinian-7amleh-nashif.php
Summer Said and Dov Lieber, “Israel, Hamas Agree to Extend Truce by Two Days,” Wall Street Journal, November 27, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/talks-to-extend-israel-hamas-truce-go-down-to-the-wire-8f1cbba9
Ishaan Tharoor, “How Israel keeps hundreds of Palestinians in detention without charge,” Washington Post, November 27, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/11/27/israel-palestine-detention-adminstrative-prisoners-jail/
Washington Post to 5-Minute Fix list, “The 5-Minute Fix: What’s behind Biden’s steadfast support for Israel?” November 27, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/the-fix/
Henry Bodkin, “Inside the Israeli settlement being turned into a battleground by the hard-Right finance minister,” Telegraph, November 28, 2023, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/11/28/settlement-israels-finance-minister-has-made-a-battleground/
Julia Ioffe, “The Day After the War Ends,” Puck, November 28, 2023, https://puck.news/the-day-after-the-war-ends/
Leigh Ann Caldwell and Theodoric Meyer, “Democrats’ Israel dilemma,” Washington Post, November 29, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/11/29/democrats-israel-dilemma/
Ishaan Tharoor, “Why Christmas is canceled in Bethlehem,” Washington Post, November 29, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/11/29/palestinian-christians-christmas-ceasefire-cancel/
Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh
Infrastructure
Fig. 1. Post-collapse scene at the Fern Hollow Bridge, photograph by National Transportation Safety Board, January 29, 2022, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
Paula Reed Ward, “Fight over Fern Hollow Bridge collapse records continues in court,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, November 28, 2023, https://triblive.com/local/fight-over-fern-hollow-bridge-collapse-records-continues-in-court/
Neena Hagen, “Judge orders the release of key documents to victims of Fern Hollow Bridge collapse,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, November 29, 2023, https://www.post-gazette.com/news/transportation/2023/11/28/fern-hollow-bridge-collapse-inspection-pittsburgh/stories/202311280116
Human Science
Inquiry
Quantitative
Artificial intelligence idiocy
Fig. 1. Image credited to David Blaikie from Hampshire, UK, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
Joanna Stern, “Talking to Chatbots Is Now a $200K Job. So I Applied,” Wall Street Journal, November 29, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/talking-to-chatbots-is-now-a-200k-job-so-i-applied-258bd5f0
- [1]Agence France-Presse and Times of Israel, “20 years after its opening, destroyed Gaza airport embodies grounded peace hopes,” Times of Israel, September 12, 2018, https://www.timesofisrael.com/20-years-after-its-opening-destroyed-gaza-airport-embodies-grounded-peace-hopes/↩
- [2]Julia Ioffe, “The Day After the War Ends,” Puck, November 28, 2023, https://puck.news/the-day-after-the-war-ends/; Ishaan Tharoor, “Why Christmas is canceled in Bethlehem,” Washington Post, November 29, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/11/29/palestinian-christians-christmas-ceasefire-cancel/↩
- [3]Hussein Ibish, “Israel’s Dangerous Delusion,” Atlantic, November 1, 2023, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/11/israel-gaza-after-hamas/675856/↩
- [4]Julia Ioffe, “The Day After the War Ends,” Puck, November 28, 2023, https://puck.news/the-day-after-the-war-ends/↩
- [5]Ishaan Tharoor, “Why Christmas is canceled in Bethlehem,” Washington Post, November 29, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/11/29/palestinian-christians-christmas-ceasefire-cancel/↩