Coop Scoop: Update on Bibi Prefers War

Update: IDF Storm and Enter Al-Shiva hospital

***UPDATE 5:30 PM: TheIsraeli military announced early Wednesday that its troops entered the interior of the Gaza Al-Shiva hospital that has been under constant siege for a week. Doctors inside the hospital news agencies that heavily armed troops “stormed” the interior of the facility. With power and water cut off for days and with Israeli troops firing on anybody trying to enter or leave the buildings, hospital officials declared Al-Shiva earlier in the day to be a “hospital cemetery.” Some 180 decomposing bodies creating a health hazard were buried in a mass gave inside the hospital walls as Israeli gunfire made it impossible to go outside. At last count there were still some 600 patients inside who needed to be evacuated. Some 8000 civilians were reported to be sheltering on the grounds of the complex. CNN Reports: The Israeli military is carrying out a “precise and targeted operation” in Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital, according to a statement by the Israel Defense Forces, where thousands of displaced people are sheltering and doctors are fighting to keep premature babies alive.

The operation is taking place in a “specified area” of Gaza’s largest hospital against Hamas, who Israel accuses of “continued military use of the Shifa hospital,” the IDF statement said. A doctor inside Al-Shifa told CNN they were given 30 minutes’ warning before the Israeli operation on the complex began.

My Two Cents on this: Al-Shiva hospital has been indelibly etched into the global public consciousness as the primary symbol of Israeli hubris and arrogance much as Abu Ghraib became for the US invasion of Iraq.

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November 14

By Marc Cooper

While his military forces escalate his scorched earth policy laying waste to Gaza, turning once was described as an “open air prison” into a ghastly, depopulated,  dirt parking lot pocked with bomb craters and bombed out hospitals, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week has opted for a policy of permanent conflict and war.  We’ll unpack that in a moment.

But first let’s also note that he is actively immolating Israel’s good standing in the world community, he is alienating both his domestic and foreign allies, and he is set Israel on a collision course with the Biden Administration by waging this war in the most aggressive manner possible and stacking up enormous numbers of civilian casualties.  It’s starting to get embarrassing for the superpower that provides Israel with arms and bombs.

If you are a supporter or sympathizer of Israel, you better start figuring out how to get rid of Bibi as soon as this horrific blood bath comes to an end.  If it ever does.  And you might call for a cease fire as well. As Netanyahu has announced, with some deviously ambiguous language, Israel now intends to exert “indefinite security control over Gaza” if and when the fighting stops.  I use the word “if” quite intentionally because what Bibi is actually saying is that Israel will effectively re-occupy Gaza after the fighting stops and if that is the case, who says the violence will ever end?  The occupied West Bank on the other side of Israel, not under Hamas control, has seen stepped up violence from extremist Israeli settlers backed up by the IDF and, of course, the Palestinians there are attempting to fight back. And for the last 56 years, as soon as Israel first occupied the West Bank and Gaza, there has been a permanent cycle of violence. More than a half century of occupation has done nothing except generate more conflict.

What on earth makes anyone think that Israel once again putting Gaza under its direct control is somehow going to calm the waters? I would suggest a coming reaping of the whirlwinds instead.

Since Netanyahu’s sulphuric statement, his flacks have been furiously trying to spin his words, claiming it’s not really going to be a re-occupation but rather Israel will permit a Palestinian civil administration but military control remains in the hands of the Israeli forces who, without a doubt, plan to insert some IDF bases in Gaza.  Spin as it you please, the Israelis are clearly telling the world that they have absolutely no intention of seeking any sort of political settlement that –once Hamas is incapacitated—will lead to self-government in Gaza or, even more out of the question, some sort of united Palestinian state  that includes the West Bank and Gaza.

I have little doubt, actually, I have no doubt, that Netanyahu understands all this at least at some basic level.  Indeed, Bibi wants a prolonged war…and I mean prolonged.  And it’s a simple formula at play here that has nothing to do with resolving the underlying conflict.  The longer the war lasts, the safter his political standing as Prime Minister.  Once the war ends, he faces the raging ire of much of the Israeli population who hold him responsible for the monumental intelligence and strategic failures that led to October 7, who are stridently opposed to his overtly racist and extreme right wing cabinet, and for what will most likely be his failure to rescue most of the hostages. 

Just as for Donald Trump, his possible re-election has nothing to do with any serious political vision. It’s either get re-elected or go to jail.  For Benjamin Netanyahu, it’s either keep Israel mobilized and engaged in a bloody war or face political defenestration and his own stint in jail as Bibi is also facing a full deck of criminal corruption charges.  And Israel’s welfare, and certainly that of the sub-human Palestinians, be damned.

I am getting really tired of having to go through the ritual denunciation of Hamas as monstrous terrorists, which they are, as prelude to any criticism of Israel.  So I do. Firmly. OK. Barring any interruptions from the ADL I will now continue.

You can, in part, thank not only Bibi, much of the US Congress and the somewhat slippery Anti-Defamation League for popularizing the accusation that anybody who dares speak up against any aspect of Israel’s current policies is an anti-Semite. This is to be expected from a shameless demagogue like Netanyahu.  It should not be expected from the ADL which lays claim to  being the leading “Jewish civil rights organization”—which it is.  Unfortunately, throughout the decades, and now more than ever,  the ADL also leads the world in conflating any critique of Israel with Jew-hating.  The ADL is as much a lobby for the state of Israel as it is anything else. And defending Jewish civil rights and defending unbridled Israeli aggression, occupation and war crimes are hardly the same thing.  More than half of Israelis have a more critical view of Israel than do the bullies at the ADL.

What is going on currently in Gaza is devastating not only to the bedeviled 2.5 million Arabs who live there, but also to the image of Israel as a democratic member of the global community. The collective punishment campaign underway is not only stacking civilians (and children) like so much firewood, it is turning what was already an impoverished hellhole into something indescribably worse. And supporters of Israel, please note, the world is watching very closely and it does not like what it sees. And there will be a high cost eventually.

Coming from an apolitical, non-observant Jewish family, and having skipped my own Bar Mitzvah, I still claim to have some insight into the thinking of my fellow Jews. Some actually relish the thought of Israel being politically isolated and it makes Israel in their minds that much more of a heroic martyr standing up to universal global scorn.  The more Jews are hated, they figure, the stronger and more righteous Jews –and Israelis—must be. That’s an OK position to have sitting on your couch on the Westside of Los Angeles. It ain’t the same if you are an Israeli and you’d like to one day stop ducking rockets and you’d prefer your sons and daughters not get mobilized every three years or so to “mow the lawn” and take some casualties while doing so.  Israel can certainly stand alone, say its most ardent supporters, we don’t need your opinions or your help or your support.

Poppycock. Pure suicidal bullshit.  If you are a supporter of Israel and if you want it to prosper and if you want its younger generations to one day live in peace you better get a couple of basic facts into your head:

n There is no military solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  Six decades of military occupation prove that in spades.  There will be an absence of war only when the Palestinians cease to be treated as prisoners and when a regional and international agreement can be had to grant statehood to them.

n Israel very much needs allies to survive and there is absolutely nothing heroic or romantic in defying world opinion by continuing to flatten Gaza.  As defenders of Israel will often note, it’s a country of 9 million Jews in a sea of more than 100 million Arabs. Even internally, the Israeli Arab population is growing much faster than the Jewish population, and maintaining Israel as a Jewish theocratic state does not have a future in the long run.  The sooner that Israel and its supporters digest this fact, the easier it will be to reach a viable settlement.

n Israeli arrogance reached new heights in the past year when Bibi thought –somehow—he could make peace with the gulf dictatorships in Saudi Arabia and the UAE while simply ignoring any forward movement on a Palestinian settlement. Hard to believe, but the Israeli leadership apparently believed they could just ignore the pressure cooker under Hamas control in Gaza and just shine the whole Palestinian question on.  For Netanyahu, his actions over the last year, strongly suggested that in his warped mind, the issue just no longer existed.  The Israeli army and its armed settler outposts would keep the lid on the West Bank, the Hamas one-party dictatorship would distract the bottled up Gazans, and life in Israel would go forward with lucrative trade deals with the part-time butcher and Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.  Think again, boychick.

n I have no idea to what degree Hamas used hospitals as hide outs and command posts. Nor do I know much about the underground tunnels that allegedly run underneath them. I do know this much: Official Israeli announcements about the war have no more credibility than those of Hamas.  Just the other day the IDF web site listed hospitals as legitimate targets and then that statement magically disappeared.  What materialized instead were columns of Israeli tanks, artillery and infantry encircling every major hospital in northern Gaza and shelling their grounds.  Water and electricity were cut off days ago.  Three dozen preemies at Al-Shiva who lost their incubators are now on the verge of death and need immediate evacuation but no one is being allowed to leave the Al-Shifa hospital that Gaza officials now say is in a “circle of death.”  Evacuation from another hospital, Al-Quds, has been stopped by military action.

n It would not surprise me in the least if hospitals really are a strategic base for Hamas.  Hamas values Palestinian lives as little as Israel does as Hamas knew very well that its October 7 murder spree would certainly provoke the sort of reprisals and mass death now being inflicted by Israel.  I claim no expertise in urban warfare especially in sub terranean combat but given the economic, military and technological development of Israel there has to be many batter and more humane ways to tackle the hospital issue rather than laying siege, shelling them and killing the patients inside. Not to speak of just how destroying what experts say is a full half of Gaza’s residential structures is going to bring Hamas to its knees or move at all toward a final settlement.

n This round of conflict was touched off by the inhumane and barbaric attack of the religious zealots who make up Hamas.  They need to be shut down.  That does not mean they can or will be.  The war did not start on October 7. But rather in 1948 when 700,000 Palestinians were forced off their homes and land when the creation of Israel gobbled up much of what was Palestine.  Until that basic rift is addressed, there will be no peace. Also. dear friends of Israel, please keep in mind that Israel played a key role in the initial creation and funding of Hamas, hoping it would undermine the secular and much more rational PLO.

Make no mistake.  Israel may or may not be destroying Hamas but it’s doing a great job of destroying the entire Gaza strip.  Writing in the Washington Post, the commissioner-general of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palesltinian Refugees paints a dark picture of life in Gaza:

 “Because of the ongoing siege, there is no food, water, medicine or fuel. The markets are almost empty. The trickle of aid that arrives by truck through Rafah is much less than is needed. Municipal services are crumbling. Sewage water is filling the streets. People are queuing for hours at bakeries. Soon, winter will arrive, and many could face starvation. With Gaza City surrounded, Israel Defense Forces are instructing those civilians who still remain to move to the southern parts of the Gaza Strip. But they are not safe there, either. More than 700,000 people now live in some 150 UNRWA buildings across the Gaza Strip. As I write, nearly 50 of these buildings have sustained damage, and some have been directly hit. Ninety-nine UNRWA colleagues have been killed.”

“For many Palestinians, this exodus is reminiscent of the original displacement of more than 700,000 people from their towns and villages in 1948, also known as the Nakba (“catastrophe” in Arabic). They read stories of a leaked Israeli government white paper suggesting they be expelled into Sinai. Their fears are compounded when they hear Israeli politicians and others referring to people in Gaza as “human animals” and “terrorists,” or calling for “erasing Gaza and its people” — dehumanizing language I did not think I would hear in the 21st century.”

THE ABOVE VIDEO IS FROM INSIDE AL-SHIFA. CLICK ON WATCH ON YOUTUBE TO VIEW

The whole world is now watching the hellish humanitarian crisis that has engulfed the largest of the Gaza hospitals…Al-Shifa.  There has been no water, electricity or fuel now for several days.  Medical officials claim the hospital has ceased to function, that patients are quickly dying, and with no way to break the siege, the rooms and halls are full of decomposing bodies.  Officials say there are still some 650 patients inside Al-Shifa .  They say three down intensive care patients died in the last few days as power was lost. Israel giddily announced two days ago that it generously delivered 300 liters of fuel to Al-Shiva but claims Hamas blocked it getting. Maybe. Maybe not.  But Al-Shiva requires 10,000 liters daily to operate so the eye dropper quantity Israel claims it delivered might be as much a mockery as anything else.

World leaders are calling upon Israel to lift the siege of the hospital while other calls for a cease fire, that Bibi has, of course, rejected.  French President Macron made an explicit call on Bibi to “stop killing babies.”  Some 300,000 Brits marched in favor of a cease fire earlier this week.

On the international front, the real shit show is now developing between Washington and Tel Aviv. Since its creation, Israel for better and for worse, has been a client state of the U.S.   Israel  has long been the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid to the tune of a whopping $4b a year. And now Biden is asking for an additional $14b in “emergency” war funding for Israel.  In cold geopolitical terms, you would think this would make Israel the junior partner in this relationship.  But not anymore. Netanyahu frankly doesn’t seem to give AF what the US says or thinks as he believes, probably correctly, that it would be  politically difficult domestically for the US to spurn Israel.

It’s more of a verbal skirmish than a full-blown war of words, but U.S. Secretary of State Blinken made it clear that U.S. opposes re-occupation of Gaza and demands that the secular Palestinian Authority, that has negotiated with Israel in the past, and is the (weak) civilian government on the West Bank should be allowed a role in the future governance of Gaza.  Blinken also said the US would oppose any attempt to depopulate the north of Gaza nor would it support any “forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza. Not now, not after the war.” Bibi’s response was thanks for such thoughtful suggestions, now go fuck yourself.  Blinken did forget, however, to call for a cease fire.

It’s U.S. tax dollars that are funding the bulk of the military campaign in Gaza, accruing a great responsibility for Washington to do something constructive to end the war.  But Biden –and most of the US congress—are avid supporters of Israel.  Like Blinken, President Biden is very clearly uncomfortable with the bloody mess Israel is making and wishes it could all be done a bit neater. Not bothering to take what seemed like a batch of oatmeal out of his mouth, Biden yesterday worked up the courage to mumble "My hope and expectation is that there will be less intrusive action relative to hospitals and we remain in contact with the Israelis," Biden told reporters at the White House. "Also there is an effort to get this pause to deal with the release of prisoners and that's being negotiated, as well, with the Qataris ... being engaged," he added. "So I remain somewhat hopeful but hospitals must be protected."

It’s striking just how cheap most words are.  Yes. Mr. Biden, hospitals should be protected. What you gonna do about it?

And The Pause. The much-called for humanitarian pause. A very cheap and insufficient alternative to a cease fire and international diplomacy.  The US keeps calling for the pause. Now Hamas has answered and said it would release 70 hostages in exchange for a 5 day pause. No word from Israel yet.  But in a war like this, a brief humanitarian pause would mean not much more than providing the people of Hiroshima with some Ray-Bans a few days before The Big One was dropped on their heads.  Now, we’ve descended into a rather pointless debate whether the still-to-be agreed upon pause should be one of hours or days.

As soon as Hamas launched its attack I knew, as did so many others, that a cataclysm would soon follow. And here it is.  But also from the first day I harbored a secret hope, a possible silver lining.  There are many historic examples of how when long term conflicts reach their peak and after they hit Maximum War, there can actually appear some positive solutions…precisely because all-out war was already exhausted.  Look no further than WWII.  No war in history was ended so dramatically as when the U.S. char broiled a couple hundred thousand Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And this came just a few months after the fire-bombing of Tokyo a few months earlier that killed 80,000 civilians.  Add in another 2 million or so German civilians barbecued in the allied fire bombings of Dresden and a dozen other German cities.

And yet, in spite of this mountain of death, destruction and hatred, both Japan and German were firm US allies within a few years. If killing on that humungous scale can be peacefully reconciled, why not with a much smaller universe of Israelis and Palestinians?

 So, as this war initially developed I figured Israel would go all in this time, would in fact  go over the top as it has, and I also figured it would fail to eradicate Hamas, which I think will still be the case.  Or at a minimum, this invasion will only increase not tamp down Palestinian resistance.  In my gross naivete, I figured that when the smoke cleared and it was evident that the war did not work, we would finally get to some sort of rational settlement.  Maybe the Israelis would agree to some sort of international force controlling Gaza in the immediate wake of the war and that free and fair elections would be held to elect a Palestinian administration in Gaza.

I no longer cling to that hope. Though, I do know that millions of Israelis harbor at least similar thoughts.  But it is Netanyahu calling the shots. And for him it’s either war or jail.

One final thought; the coming 2024 elections might force Biden to take a tougher stand on Bibi (but that does not mean Bibi will comply.  Biden’s full support of the war is costing him deeply,  Some younger Democratic congressional aides staged a walk out against their bosses and called for a cease fire.  “For a lot of people, this is a real red line,” said Jeremy Slevin, a senior adviser to Representative Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat who is among the few members of Congress in her party to have called for a cease-fire. “It’s so horrific what’s happening, and it’s so elemental to be able to oppose the bombing of a refugee camp, for example. And it feels like the conversation up here on Capitol Hill, it’s totally divorced from reality — from the reality on the ground in Israel and Gaza, but also from the reality of the views of their own constituents and staffers.”

Biden, I am sure, has also noticed that his stand on Israel has deflated his balloon of support among younger voters. From a favorability rating in the high 50’s among those under 25, Biden is now approaching the 20% mark.  With RFK Jr now running as a third party candidate along with Jill Stein, Cornel West and quite possibly Joe Manchin, Biden is gonna need every vote he can get to block a re-election of an unhinged Donald Trump. 

Netanyahu refuses to put Israel’s long term interests above his own petty and personal ones.  Biden has the chance to put both his interests and those of the U.S. and, by the way, those of Israel and the Palestinians as a priority, so long as he does not continue to put Netanyahu’s interests above them all. If he continues down this current path, expect the worst. ++

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