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.
Once upon a time, quite a long time ago, I read a book on terrorism—I have long since lost track of it—that explained why the insurgents in an asymmetric conflict win: Sooner or later, there is an outrage and the quantitatively superior military force is forced—by public opinion—to withdraw. I doubt this is that moment. But it may well be coming:
Local authorities said more than 100 people were killed and more than 700 others injured, accusing Israeli forces of opening fire on a crowd of people in devastated Gaza City waiting for humanitarian aid. An IDF official acknowledged that IDF troops on one end of the convoy fired at members of the crowd who were approaching in, what they called, a threatening manner but said many Palestinians died in a stampede as they sought to reach trucks carrying vital aid. . . .
This week, it emerged that the Biden administration may even be contemplating airdropping aid into Gaza, given the delays and difficulties in supplying vital food and other goods over land crossings. Some analysts couldn’t help but consider the irony of the United States dropping supplies onto a population that’s seeking respite from months of Israeli attacks with U.S.-made munitions. Such measures would “mostly serve to relieve the guilty consciences of senior U.S. officials whose policies are contributing to the ongoing atrocities and risk of famine in Gaza,” said Scott Paul, Oxfam’s humanitarian director, in a statement.
A number of top U.N. officials voiced their alarm Thursday. “I am appalled at the reported killing and injury of hundreds of people during a transfer of aid supplies west of Gaza City today,” Martin Griffiths, the U.N.’s lead humanitarian officer, said. “Life is draining out of Gaza at terrifying speed.”
U.N. Secretary General António Guterres warned of an “unknown number of people” — believed to be in the tens of thousands — lying under the rubble of buildings brought down by Israeli strikes. Volker Turk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said about one in 20 people in Gaza is now dead or wounded in remarks made in Geneva. He also detailed the suffering of the living.
“All people in Gaza are at imminent risk of famine. Almost all are drinking salty and contaminated water. Health care across the territory is barely functioning,” he said. “Just imagine what this means for the wounded, and people suffering infectious-disease outbreaks. In northern Gaza, where the operational space for humanitarian work is now almost zero, many are already believed to be starving. In all other parts of Gaza, humanitarian assistance has become extremely challenging — and this is not only dangerous, but also dehumanizing.”[2]
It appears the plan to airdrop aid will go ahead:[3]
The plan to drop relief supplies into Gaza signals a U.S. recognition that the current efforts to address the humanitarian crisis haven’t been sufficient, U.S. officials said. The announcement came one day after a series of events involving a convoy of aid trucks led to the deaths of Palestinian civilians, in what U.S. officials said pointed to the growing desperation inside Gaza.
[Joe] Biden, speaking to reporters Friday in the Oval Office, called the incident a “tragic and alarming event,” and said that the U.S. military would join Jordan and others in airdropping humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip.[4]
As for Scott Paul’s comment,
Some U.S. officials said they thought airdrops weren’t an effective way to address the humanitarian crisis, because each drop amounts to only one to four truckloads of supplies, while Gaza could receive in excess of 250 trucks a day. But other officials said that any aid delivery effort by the U.S. was better than nothing.[5]
[Nihad Awad] doesn’t only want [Joe] Biden to be politically corrected; he wants him politically crushed.
Of the president, Awad says, “I don’t think he can continue to lead our country.” When I asked if there is anything Biden can do to change his mind, Awad said, “He can retire.”
Earlier, I had put the same question to Dawud Walid, the executive director of CAIR’s Michigan chapter, who said that for most Muslims, anything short of Biden “resurrecting 29,000 dead Palestinians like Jesus” would mean that they will never vote for him again. . . .
Walid said that in a lesser-of-two-evils debate, Trump was, in some ways, the lesser. As he put it, “As bad as Mr. Trump’s rhetoric was, and him putting a travel ban on five Muslim countries, he wasn’t overseeing and actively arming a genocide.” It’s a view that echoes the sentiment expressed in the headline of an October opinion essay for Al Jazeera by Haidar Eid, an associate professor at Al Aqsa University in Gaza: “In dehumanizing the Palestinians, Biden had surpassed Trump.” . . .
Any notion that the voters now seething over America’s role in Gaza will simply “come home” and vote for Biden in the general election needs serious adjustment.
For some voters, this isn’t just a policy dispute. It’s a moral mission, and the mark of victory is a Biden defeat. The question now is, how large is that constituency?[6]
Ibrahim Dahman, “Palestinian Authority prime minister and government resign,” CNN, February 26, 2024, https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/26/middleeast/palestinian-authority-prime-minister-resigns-intl/index.html
Nina Lakhani, “Israel is deliberately starving Palestinians, UN rights expert says,” Guardian, February 27, 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/27/un-israel-food-starvation-palestinians-war-crime-genocide
Ishaan Tharoor, “Netanyahu’s ‘day after’ plan for Gaza is unviable,” Washington Post, February 27, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com//world/2024/02/27/post-war-gaza-plan-netanyahu-israel-day-after-future-abbas/
Kelsey Ables and Andrew Jeong, “Over 100,000 Michigan primary votes were ‘uncommitted.’ What does that mean?” Washington Post, February 28, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2024/02/28/uncommitted-votes-meaning-michigan/
Aaron Blake, “Four takeaways from the Michigan primary,” Washington Post, February 28, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/27/4-takeaways-michigan-primary/
Charles M. Blow, “Arab American Fury Toward Biden,” Washington Post, February 28, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/28/opinion/voters-michigan-biden-gaza.html
Eric Bradner, “Biden and Trump will easily win Michigan primaries, CNN projects,” CNN, February 28, 2024, https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/27/politics/biden-trump-michigan-primaries/index.html
John Cassidy, “Michigan’s “Uncommitted” Democrats Send a Message to Biden,” New Yorker, February 28, 2024, https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/michigans-uncommitted-democrats-send-a-message-to-biden
Tony Diver, “Michigan primary results: Joe Biden wins but young and Arab Democrats rebel over Israel,” Telegraph, February 28, 2024, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/politics/2024/02/28/michigan-primary-results-polls-vote-republicans-trump-haley/
Caleb Ecarma, “Why Michigan’s Protest Vote Could Change Joe Biden’s Calculus: ‘There Will Be Political Consequences,’” Vanity Fair, February 28, 2024, https://www.vanityfair.com/news/michigan-vote-change-joe-biden-calculus
Lauren Fedor and James Politi, “Joe Biden faces dissent over Gaza as he wins Michigan Democratic primary,” Financial Times, February 28, 2024, https://www.ft.com/content/4dbd9253-5147-4bbd-9e09-276e48e3f799
Ron Kampeas, “‘Uncommitted’ campaign protesting Biden’s Israel support nets 100,000+ votes in Michigan primary,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, February 28, 2024, https://www.jta.org/2024/02/27/politics/campaign-protesting-bidens-support-for-israel-celebrates-as-tens-of-thousands-vote-uncommitted-in-michigan-primary
Jeremy Scahill, Ryan Grim, and Daniel Boguslaw, “The Story Behind the New York Times October 7 Exposé,” Intercept, February 28, 2024, https://theintercept.com/2024/02/28/new-york-times-anat-schwartz-october-7/
Gordon Lubold, Nancy A. Youssef, and Annie Linskey, “U.S. to Deliver Aid to Gaza Through Military Airdrops,” Wall Street Journal, March 1, 2024, https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/u-s-expected-to-deliver-aid-to-gaza-through-military-air-drops-79814c51
Ishaan Tharoor, “Gaza’s spiraling, unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe,” Washington Post, March 1, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com//world/2024/03/01/gaza-humanitarian-catastrophe/
Russia
Fig. 2. Historic Russian empire, from the New York Times, possibly March 6, 2014, fair use.[7]
Even lying ashen-faced in a casket [Alexei Navalny] managed to do what in today’s Russia seems impossible: draw thousands out onto the streets in an act of collective defiance unseen since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale war against Ukraine two years ago.[8]
It’s terribly difficult from my vantage point to judge the significance of this. Yes, we see that protest against Vladimir Putin has not been eradicated.[9] What I don’t see is whether it makes even a whit of difference.
Eva Hartog and Denis Leven, “From the grave, Navalny takes a last jab at Putin,” Politico, March 1, 2024,
Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh
Infrastructure
Fig. 3. Post-collapse scene at the Fern Hollow Bridge, photograph by National Transportation Safety Board, January 29, 2022, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
Rich Cholodofsky, “Westmoreland to consider services similar to Uber and Lyft as public transit options,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, March 1, 2024, https://triblive.com/local/valley-news-dispatch/westmoreland-to-consider-services-similar-to-uber-and-lyft-as-public-transit-options/
- [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]Ishaan Tharoor, “Gaza’s spiraling, unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe,” Washington Post, March 1, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com//world/2024/03/01/gaza-humanitarian-catastrophe/↩
- [3]Gordon Lubold, Nancy A. Youssef, and Annie Linskey, “U.S. to Deliver Aid to Gaza Through Military Airdrops,” Wall Street Journal, March 1, 2024, https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/u-s-expected-to-deliver-aid-to-gaza-through-military-air-drops-79814c51↩
- [4]Gordon Lubold, Nancy A. Youssef, and Annie Linskey, “U.S. to Deliver Aid to Gaza Through Military Airdrops,” Wall Street Journal, March 1, 2024, https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/u-s-expected-to-deliver-aid-to-gaza-through-military-air-drops-79814c51↩
- [5]Gordon Lubold, Nancy A. Youssef, and Annie Linskey, “U.S. to Deliver Aid to Gaza Through Military Airdrops,” Wall Street Journal, March 1, 2024, https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/u-s-expected-to-deliver-aid-to-gaza-through-military-air-drops-79814c51↩
- [6]Charles M. Blow, “Arab American Fury Toward Biden,” Washington Post, February 28, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/28/opinion/voters-michigan-biden-gaza.html↩
- [7]New York Times, “Ukraine Crisis in Maps,” n.d., http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/02/27/world/europe/ukraine-divisions-crimea.html↩
- [8]Eva Hartog and Denis Leven, “From the grave, Navalny takes a last jab at Putin,” Politico, March 1, 2024, ↩
- [9]Eva Hartog and Denis Leven, “From the grave, Navalny takes a last jab at Putin,” Politico, March 1, 2024, ↩