Map of Syria

Israel’s Revenge: An Interview with Rashid Khalidi

Israel’s Revenge: An Interview with Rashid Khalidi 

I have copied the entire NYRB interview in this thread.  Joshua Landis thread 

The historian Rashid Khalidi has, for many years, been a preeminent Arab-American intellectual and among the most vocal critics of America’s involvement in the conflict between Israel and Palestine. In the aftermath of the armed incursion by Hamas and other militant groups on Israeli territory on October 7 last year, and of the ongoing Israeli military campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon that followed, Khalidi and his work have only increased in relevance. His book The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine (2020), which frames the history of Palestinian dispossession as a settler-colonial project dependent on elite support in the West, has been a fixture on the New York Times best-seller list for much of the past year.

Khalidi was born in New York City, where his Palestinian father was a member of the United Nations Secretariat. While relating the history of Palestine through six major acts of war on its people, his book draws on the archive of his father’s family. It begins, for instance, with an extraordinary correspondence in 1899 between his great-great-great-uncle Yusuf Diya al-Din Pasha al-Khalidi, who had been mayor of Jerusalem, and Theodor Herzl, the progenitor of modern political Zionism.

Khalidi recently retired from Columbia University, where he was Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies in the Department of History. In the past academic year, he was a prominent faculty supporter of the student protests at Columbia. We conducted this conversation, via e-mail and over online video chat, in late October and early November of this year.

—Mark O’Connell

Mark O’Connell: I wanted to begin by asking what your initial reaction was, both as a Palestinian American and as a historian of the Middle East, to the attacks on October 7 of last year.

Rashid Khalidi: I was surprised. I shouldn’t have been surprised, because I’ve always expected that the intensity of Israeli repression would eventually produce a response, but I was certainly surprised by the extent of that response. The overrunning of Israeli military bases and border settlements was something I certainly did not expect.

That was my first reaction. My second reaction, when the reports began to come in of the extent of civilian casualties, was shock. And I was deeply concerned: I knew that it would have an enormous impact here in the US and would lead to an absolutely ferocious Israeli military response.

O’Connell: Has anything about the scale and ferocity of that response, or the reaction to that response in the West, shocked you or surprised you in the course of this past year?

Khalidi: No. The savagery of what Israel has done, its intentional targeting of civilians and of civilian infrastructure, is routine. The level of it was unprecedented, obviously; the Palestinian death toll and now the growing Lebanese death toll are beyond what we’ve seen before. But that they would attack desalination plants and sewage plants and universities and demolish mosques and so on didn’t surprise me in the least.

If there was anything that was unexpected, it was the participation of the US government on every level, and its complete unwillingness to restrain Israel in any significant fashion. And by participation, I mean a repetition of Israeli lies. The idea that Israel was not trying to kill people on purpose; the idea that every time Palestinians were killed, it was because they were being used as human shields; completely ignoring the purposeful destruction of infrastructure in order to make life impossible; the fact that the US government repeated every single Israeli justification for the unjustifiable: I found that over the top, frankly. This administration has done less to restrain Israel than pretty much any administration, except perhaps the previous one, the Trump administration.

In other words, you go back to Eisenhower, or Reagan, or anybody, and they were always complicit. They were always involved. They always supported Israel up to a point. But that point would come after months or weeks. And here we are in month thirteen. That point has not come.

O’Connell: And so at what point do we stop talking about America’s “complicity” in this slaughter, and begin to talk of America as an antagonist, of America being at war with Palestine?

Khalidi: That has always been my view. When we were negotiating with the Israelis in Washington, I realized that actually the Americans and the Israelis were really on the same side, opposed to us.* It was in effect a joint delegation. Now you actually have revelations in the American press of joint targeting, and of intelligence operations to find and kill leaders of Hezbollah and of Hamas. If you look carefully, you’ll see that the United States is actually directly at war. It’s an intense, high-level collaboration in planning and targeting. Not to speak of the fact that virtually every shell, every missile, every bomb is American, and that the Israeli army couldn’t go on for more than three months without those hundreds of airlifted shipments. So it is participation at an active level without, for the most part, boots on the ground.

O’Connell: You gave a very powerful speech earlier this year at one of the student encampments at Columbia University, in which you made a comparison with the Vietnam War, which ended in large part because of people in the streets. It strikes me that the very obvious difference here is precisely to do with, as you put it, boots on the ground. That war ended because of popular outrage, but the outrage arose because young American men were being drafted to fight in that war. I just wonder to what extent the war that America is involved in here can really come home, in that way, if Americans are not fighting and dying?

Khalidi: I think you’re right. The absence of active involvement of large numbers of American troops makes this a very different situation to the Iraq War or the Vietnam War. But on the other hand, I think that the shift has been swifter here. It took years for public opinion to turn against the war in Vietnam. Even with Iraq it took a year or two. There has been an extraordinary shift in public opinion about this war, relatively swiftly.

Needless to say, this has had no impact whatsoever on decision-makers or on the elite. The mainstream media is as blind as it ever was, as willing to shill for any monstrous Israeli lie, to act as stenographers for power, repeating what is said in Washington. That hasn’t changed. But then it didn’t change with Vietnam for quite a while. It didn’t change over Iraq for quite a while. The elites never respond to public opinion unless they’re under much more pressure, I think, than they are right now.

O’Connell: The spe \red of that change in public opinion in the US, and the intensification of it here in Europe, seems to me to be largely to do with the visibility of the violence. People often speak of being witness to “the first live-streamed genocide.” We don’t need Seymour Hersh or whoever to unearth evidence of a massacre. We pick up our phones, and immediately we’re confronted with footage of the most horrific violence and depravity. That has to be a factor.

Khalidi: It is, it’s true. But you have to be very careful in assuming that the entire public is exposed to those images. There is a segment of the public—the older, more conservative element—who wouldn’t know how to use Instagram or TikTok if their lives depended on it. But the lower down you go on the age scale, what you’ve just said is more and more true. Everyone who’s young enough and independent enough from mainstream media sees what you just described and is horrified. They know that the mainstream media is lying through its teeth and that every politician is lying. That’s true of many older people as well. But again: the older, the richer, the whiter you get—in the United States, at least—the less likely people are to see or believe those images.

O’Connell: Whether or not Israel’s actions in Palestine can be considered a genocide, it seems to me to be very difficult to make sense of what they’re doing if you don’t believe that, at the very least, some kind of ethnic cleansing project is underway.

Khalidi: You have to understand a couple of things. One, there is an almost unquenchable desire for revenge for what happened on October 7 of last year: the destruction not just of the Gaza division of the Israeli army but of a large number of settlements along the Gaza border; the killing of the largest number of Israeli civilians since 1948; the abduction of over a hundred civilians and perhaps a hundred soldiers; the destruction of a sense of security, which is the cornerstone of how Israelis see themselves. So the thirst for revenge for what happened seems to be unquenchable. That’s the first thing.

The second thing is that the Israeli security establishment has a plan. Every time Israel is at war, it attacks civilian populations on the pretext that there’s a military target there. It has always done this. There was always an ostensible military target somewhere, but the point was never only that military target. The point was also to punish civilians and force them to turn on insurgents. This is their practice and has always been. It’s taken directly from British military doctrine. Go to British wars in Kenya, go to Malaya, and you’ll see that the British military did the same thing. My point is, therefore, they are purposely killing civilians. They are purposely making life impossible. They are purposely making Gaza uninhabitable, as a means—in the twisted, war-criminal minds of the General Staff—of forcing the population to turn against the insurgents.

And the third thing is that there is a settler-colonial project in northern Gaza: take back a piece of Gaza, empty it of its population, and plant settlers. Now that may or may not happen, but multiple senior ministers have called for new settlements there. All three of those elements, I would say, explain the atrocities that we’re seeing. If that doesn’t fit the description of genocide, just throw out the Genocide Convention. It’s absolutely worthless.

O’Connell: By the same token, it’s very difficult to understand what Hamas’s plan might have been in carrying out the October 7 attacks, unless you consider that they knew some version of this was coming, and that it was therefore part of their plan.

Khalidi: I think you have to assume three things. The first is that Hamas undoubtedly had a set of unrealistic expectations as to what would happen in the region once they unleashed this offensive. They seem to have believed that there would be uprisings all over Palestine, that all their allies would go to war alongside them, and that this would be the war to end all wars. I’m talking here about the people in the tunnels, the military wing of Hamas; I’m not talking about the rest of the Hamas leadership outside of Palestine, who I don’t think necessarily had the same unrealistic expectations. The people who planned this attack didn’t have a very clear understanding of the regional situation, or the situation in the rest of Palestine. And so they did something that did not produce what they expected.

The second thing is that they did not take full control of the battlefield they created, or perhaps of their own forces and those of their allies. They didn’t stop people coming in through the fence openings and doing what they did. In addition, there seems to have been a thirst for revenge on the part of many of the people who carried out this assault. And this led to atrocities, brutalities, attacks on civilians. You cannot say that they didn’t intend to do that. If you go back and listen to the statement by Mohammed Deif, head of Hamas’s military wing, on the morning of the attack, he’s talking about attacks on civilians. There seems to have been a desire for revenge, though obviously with means more limited than those Israel possesses. And I’m not comparing it to this unceasing, seemingly unquenchable desire for revenge on the part of the Israeli military that we see daily, but I do think it’s also an element with Hamas.

Thirdly—and I’m not as sure about this as I am about the first two things that I mentioned—they may not have appreciated the degree to which attacks on civilians would justify and enable Israel’s completely disproportionate response. You can contrast that with the way in which Hezbollah seems to have very carefully tried to target military and industrial installations in its attacks. Now, their attacks have killed many civilians in northern Israel, but a tiny number by comparison to what happened around Gaza on October 7. That reflects an understanding that there may be ways to limit Israel’s retaliation. I’m not sure that that has to do with Hezbollah’s respect for the laws of war, or an understanding of the moral aspect of war; I think it has to do with cold political calculation, which shows a degree of political sophistication that I don’t think Hamas had. You’ll have young people who say, “How can you criticize the resistance?” Well, if you don’t want to accept international law, you don’t want to accept morality, how about politics? How about what is smart? How about what is stupid? I’m not trying to praise Hezbollah. I’m just describing what happened.

O’Connell: You’re planning, I believe, a book about Ireland as a laboratory for the kinds of colonial practices that were later applied in Palestine. As an Irish person, I’m aware that my country is an outlier in Europe, and in the West more generally, in the broad support for Palestine among its population—reflected in a very watered-down form by its government. And one obvious explanation is that we know what Palestine has been through, because we experienced it. Although I often think that’s overstated; Margaret Thatcher never carpet-bombed West Belfast to crush the IRA…

Khalidi: But I’m sorry, it didn’t start with Margaret Thatcher. It’s perfectly clear that everybody in Ireland thinks of the whole 850 years of history, going back to Henry II and Strongbow. They don’t just think of the Troubles.

O’Connell: No, of course. It makes sense that we Irish would, on the basis of that history, instinctively sympathize with the Palestinian struggle. But what I find strange is the idea that you would need that cultural memory of colonization—to be Irish, or Algerian, or Kenyan, or whatever it might be—to understand that what the Palestinians have been made to suffer is wrong.

Khalidi: Well, what can I say? I think Ireland is really a special case, because it’s the first overseas European colony, and no country has had a colonial experience as long as Ireland’s. That partially explains certain Irish sympathies.

That said, I agree with you. I think it’s monstrous that Germans, for instance, can’t say, “We committed genocide against the Herero and Nama in Southwest Africa, and we stood by while our Ottoman allies committed genocide against the Armenians in the First World War, and we committed genocide against the Jews in the Holocaust, so Germany bears an extraordinary responsibility for genocide, for never again allowing it, and genocide is happening in Palestine.” And that just does not happen in Germany, that linkage between the different genocides in which the country was in different ways involved. It never happens. I’m afraid that’s true of all the former colonial powers.

O’Connell: One thing I’ve noticed repeatedly over the past year or so is that whenever the Middle East is spoken of in the European and American media, it is always with an understanding that Israel, to put it in literary terms, is the protagonist.

Khalidi: I put it slightly differently. My objection to organs of opinion like The New York Times is that they see absolutely everything from an Israeli perspective. “How does it affect Israel, how do the Israelis see it?” Israel is at the center of their worldview, and that’s true of our elites generally, all over the West. The Israelis have very shrewdly, by preventing direct reportage from Gaza, further enabled that Israelocentric perspective.

The vantage point for reporting on Gaza is Israel, so Western journalists call from Israel to these poor stringers in Gaza, who are being hunted down by the Israelis one by one. These people are selected to be killed because they are working for Western journalists. And to every Western outlet that refuses to say “Israel does not allow us to report from Gaza,” and that Israel is deliberately killing journalists, the disgrace and the shame that accrues to them should be endless.

O’Connell: In the early weeks of this war there was a relentless focus in the media on university politics. Obviously these campus protests were very important, but there was a definite sense that the focus on them, and on the culture war battle lines around them, functioned as a distraction from the actual violence unfolding in Palestine.

Khalidi: I agree. That became the story, and it completely defeated the purpose of the students, and of those opposing the war, which was to focus attention on the atrocities being perpetrated in Gaza. That represents, again, a success for this media-corporate elite, in swiveling away from what they didn’t want us to see toward alleged antisemitism—which of course is the weapon of choice for people who have no argument. If you don’t have an argument to justify what you’re doing, you prevent other people from arguing by calling them antisemites. It’s a brilliant strategy.

O’Connell: You would hope it’s one that might become less potent through sheer overuse.

Khalidi: It’s getting worse. The collaboration between campus security departments, the involvement of local police departments, the involvement of the FBI, and the Justice Department. The interpenetration between Israeli intelligence and American intelligence, and between Israeli security services and American police departments, and the way in which all universities have coordinated and collaborated and consulted, means that you have a cookie-cutter situation, university after university, college after college: a blanket repression of activities on campus. We have at Columbia what I guess you would call a low-security prison situation, with checkpoints and electronic passage into the campus. The persecution of faculty and staff, the persecution of students, the shutting down of events—one can go on and on, and that’s happening all across American campuses, as a result of quite intense collaboration and coordination and pressure from elected officials, from donors, from boards of trustees, from alumni and parents.

O’Connell: So the anxiety on the part of the universities is not so much that they would be on the wrong side of history, or that they might be complicit in any actual antisemitism. It has to do rather with how these things might affect donations and other revenue sources?

Khalidi: Exactly. It’s money, and the fear of legal liability. The way American antidiscrimination law has been weaponized to shut down dissent is frightening. It’s not the first instance in American history. You had this during the McCarthy era. You had it at different periods of American history. But it’s quite frightening.

O’Connell: The pressures on free speech, the rate at which universities are coming to resemble large corporations: do you think these things have contributed to a diminishing role of the university in society?

Khalidi: The mask has dropped from American universities. They are clearly not institutions where the ideas and views of the faculty, or the welfare of the students, are the first concern. It is very clear that big private universities are primarily financial institutions, huge hedge funds with large real estate portfolios, which have as a secondary purpose making money from students. There is a rhetoric of student welfare, which is used to advance the interest of a minority of students at the expense of a majority of students. But that rhetoric is completely false. As institutions, they have absolutely no respect for, and pay no attention to, the voices of faculty. Last May at Columbia, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences held a vote of no confidence in the president, Baroness Nemat Shafik, over the treatment of student protesters. It was passed two-to-one. You would think this would mean something. It might as well not have happened. Students don’t come to university to see expensively tailored vice presidents and deans. They come to learn from the faculty. The views of the students, you would think, might mean something. But no. “We’re a hedge fund. We’re a real estate empire. And we care primarily about other hedge fund owners who are, in fiduciary terms, our owners.”

O’Connell: I was about to say that, as you’re retiring, this is no longer your problem. But of course this is everyone’s problem.

Khalidi: It’s a problem for American society. And it’s very distressing. I mean, it’s of a piece with the way our politics are completely dominated by money. It’s of a piece with the fact that a Jeff Bezos, who owns The Washington Post, or a Patrick Soon-Shiong, who owns the Los Angeles Times, can completely change the course a newspaper takes, as happened with the recent decisions not to endorse a presidential candidate.

Those are naked examples, but such things are happening all the time, right across corporate media. Which is only one reason why the alternative media, and social media, are going to be a larger and larger share of what people actually pay attention to. Because the corruption of that whole world stinks so badly that it will sooner or later turn people off. The death of the corporate media, which I fervently hope for, has, I think, been hastened. It’s been revealed that it is just money that drives everything.

O’Connell: What effect do you think Trump’s second term is likely to have on academic life in the US?

Khalidi: The situation on campus is appalling, has been getting worse for over a year, and will continue to worsen. The assault by politicians, the media, and donors on free speech, academic freedom, and the independence of the universities has been ferocious. There will be no fundamental difference, except that these same actors will be more overt and less hypocritical in their repression. Virginia Foxx, Elise Stefanik, and their ilk already had the cowards who run universities dancing to their tune, to the universal approval of donors and the media. I expect no fundamental change, simply a deepening and an extension of existing pernicious trends. More faculty and staff will be fired, discouraging others from acting in line with their consciences; more students will be disciplined and tried, more programs and departments will be closed, and more agents of repression will be hired to police the universities and even to “teach” in them. Apocalypse Light will simply become a fuller apocalypse.

O’Connell: Although it’s hard to imagine things being worse for Palestinians than they already are with Biden in the White House, do you foresee a deterioration in the situation of Palestinians with Trump in power?

Khalidi: It is impossible to say what Trump will do in foreign policy. A battle appears to be taking place between hawkish neocons and isolationists for Trump’s ear. How that will affect Palestine is unclear. Things that have been disastrous may get worse, or perhaps not. It is hard to think what Trump could do that would be worse than what Biden-Harris have already done for thirteen months, but as we learned in the 1970s and 1980s during the war in Lebanon, things can always get worse.

I doubt that Trump wants a war with Iran, or indeed wants the war in Gaza and Lebanon to still be raging when he takes office. However, that will not necessarily cause the Netanyahu government to change course. The tail has been wagging the dog very hard for quite a while, and the ability of American policymakers to believe, or pretend to believe, every transparent lie told by their Israeli interlocutors (“human shields,” “every precaution taken to avoid civilian casualties,” “no ethnic cleansing,” “no genocide,” “no intention to resettle Gaza,” etc.) appears limitless. I doubt that will change one bit under Trump.

O’Connell: Usually these kinds of conversations end with the interlocutor asking for some glimmer of hope. But given the current realities, I won’t insult you by even going there.

Khalidi: Well, if you did, I would say that the shifts in public opinion we’ve seen in the West where Israel and Palestine are concerned are a harbinger of change. That won’t be quick. It’ll be harder than Vietnam, harder than Iraq, harder than the change around apartheid in South Africa. The elites will fight tooth and nail to not change anything. But I think that this ongoing change offers a little bit of hope for the future. If you understand how the Israeli project is intimately and integrally linked to the West, then a shift in Western public opinion sooner or later is going to have an impact on Israel.

Israel has always benefited from wall-to-wall support in every Western country, with very few exceptions. It had never lost public opinion. It has now lost public opinion. That may change, and evolution is not inevitable, but if that trend continues, things will have to change for the better, however fiercely the pro-Israel elites resist. Israel cannot go on without the complete support of the West. It’s not possible. The project doesn’t work. We’re in a different world than the world we’ve been in for over a century. And that might be a source of optimism.

Carole Cadwalledr -- Surviving the Broligarchy

How to survive the broligarchy: 20 lessons for the post-truth world

Carole Cadwalladr

1 When someone tells you who they are, believe them. Last week Donald Trump appointed a director of intelligence who spouts Russian propaganda, a Christian nationalist crusader as secretary of defence, and a secretary of health who is a vaccine sceptic. If Trump was seeking to destroy American democracy, the American state and American values, this is how he’d do it.

2 Journalists are first, but everyone else is next. Trump has announced multibillion-dollar lawsuits against “the enemy camp”: newspapers and publishers. His proposed FBI director is on record as wanting to prosecute certain journalists. Journalists, publishers, writers, academics are always in the first wave. Doctors, teachers, accountants will be next. Authoritarianism is as predictable as a Swiss train. It’s already later than you think.

3 To name is to understand. This is McMuskism: it’s McCarthyism on steroids, political persecution + Trump + Musk + Silicon Valley surveillance tools. It’s the dawn of a new age of political witch-hunts, where burning at the stake meets data harvesting and online mobs.

4 If that sounds scary, it’s because that’s the plan.  Trump’s administration will be incompetent and reckless but individuals will be targeted, institutions will cower, organisations will crumble. Fast. The chilling will be real and immediate.

5 You have more power than you think. We’re supposed to feel powerless. That’s the strategy. But we’re not. If you’re a US institution or organisation, form an emergency committee. Bring in experts. Learn from people who have lived under authoritarianism. Ask advice.

6 Do not kiss the ring. Do not bend to power. Power will come to you, anyway. Don’t make it easy. Not everyone can stand and fight. But nobody needs to bend the knee until there’s an actual memo to that effect. WAIT FOR THE MEMO.

7 Know who you are. This list is a homage to Yale historian, Timothy Snyder. His On Tyranny, published in 2017, is the essential guide to the age of authoritarianism. His first command, “Do not obey in advance”, is what has been ringing, like tinnitus, in my ears ever since the Washington Post refused to endorse Kamala Harris. In some weird celestial stroke of luck, he calls me as I’m writing this and I ask for his updated advice: “Know what you stand for and what you think is good.”

8 Protect your private life. The broligarchy doesn’t want you to have one. Read Shoshana Zuboff’s The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: they need to know exactly who you are to sell you more shit. We’re now beyond that. Surveillance Authoritarianism is next. Watch The Lives of Others, the beautifully told film about surveillance in 80s east Berlin. Act as if you are now living in East Germany and Meta/Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp is the Stasi. It is.

9 Throw up the Kool-Aid. You drank it. That’s OK. We all did. But now is the time to stick your fingers down your throat and get that sick tech bro poison out of your system. Phones were – still are – a magic portal into a psychedelic fun house of possibility. They’re also tracking and surveilling you even as you sleep while a Silicon Valley edgelord plots ways to tear up the federal government.

10 Listen to women of colour. Everything bad that happened on the internet happened to them first. The history of technology is that it is only when it affects white men that it’s considered a problem. Look at how technology is already being used to profile and target immigrants. Know that you’re next.

Act as if you are now living in East Germany and 
Meta/Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp
 is the Stasi. 
It is

11 Think of your personal data as nude selfies. A veteran technology journalist told me this in 2017 and it’s never left me. My experience of “discovery” – handing over 40,000 emails, messages, documents to the legal team of the Brexit donor I’d investigated – left me paralysed and terrified. Think what a hostile legal team would make of your message history. This can and will happen.

12 Don’t buy the bullshit. A Securities and Exchange judgment found Facebook had lied to two journalists – one of them was me – and Facebook agreed to pay a $100m penalty. If you are a journalist, refuse off the record briefings. Don’t chat on the phone; email. Refuse access interviews. Bullshit exclusives from Goebbels 2.0 will be a stain on your publication for ever.

13 Even dickheads love their dogs. Find a way to connect to those you disagree with. “The obvious mistakes of those who find themselves in opposition are to break off relations with those who disagree with you,” texts Vera Krichevskaya, the co-founder of TV Rain, Russia’s last independent TV station. “You cannot allow anger and narrow your circle.”

14 Pay in cash. Ask yourself what an international drug trafficker would do, and do that. They’re not going to the dead drop by Uber or putting 20kg of crack cocaine on a credit card. In the broligarchy, every data point is a weapon. Download Signal, the encrypted messaging app. Turn on disappearing messages.

15 Remember. Writer Rebecca Solnit, an essential US liberal voice, emails: “If they try to normalize, let us try to denormalize. Let us hold on to facts, truths, values, norms, arrangements that are going to be under siege. Let us not forget what happened and why.”

16 Find allies in unlikely places. One of my most surprising sources of support during my trial(s) was hard-right Brexiter David Davis. Find threads of connection and work from there.

17 There is such a thing as truth. There are facts and we can know them. From Tamsin Shaw, professor in philosophy at New York University: “‘Can the sceptic resist the tyrant?’ is one of the oldest questions in political philosophy. We can’t even fully recognise what tyranny is if we let the ruling powers get away with lying to us all.”

18 Plan. Silicon Valley doesn’t think in four-year election cycles. Elon Musk isn’t worrying about the midterms. He’s thinking about flying a SpaceX rocket to Mars and raping and pillaging its rare earth minerals before anyone else can get there. We need a 30-year road map out of this.

19 Take the piss. Humour is a weapon. Any man who feels the need to build a rocket is not overconfident about his masculinity. Work with that.

20 They are not gods. Tech billionaires are over-entitled nerds with the extraordinary historical luck of being born at the exact right moment in history. Treat them accordingly.

 Carole Cadwalladr is a reporter and feature writer for the Observer

Jay Rosen Thread

"When in doubt, draw a distinction."

Not sure where he got it, but in grad school one of my teachers told me that. Some of the best advice I ever received.
This THREAD is about some of the key distinctions I draw on to do my work. If you're into that kind of thing.😎

Ready? 

1/ For distinctions to do work, the terms have to be sufficiently close that prying them apart clears space for thought.

If I write, "bending is not the same as breaking," well, who said it was? That one is going nowhere. But "naked is not the same as nude" is an idea with legs.

2/ These notes about some of the distinctions I draw in order to do my work were written under the influence of two masters of the form: the French critic Roland Barthes, and the political philosopher Hannah Arendt, known for her striking distinctions— such as labor vs. work.

3/ For those who don't know me, I'm a J-school professor and press critic who writes about the media and politics, and journalism's struggle for survival in a digital world. I have a PhD in media studies, and 35 years experience in puzzling through problems in press behavor.

4/ Here we go with some key distinctions I use to do my work.

An audience is not a public.
"Audience" = people attending to a common object, typically a performance or spectacle.
A public is people with different interests who live in the same space and share common problems. 

5/ Audience vs. public, cont.
When people share common problems but don't realize it, they are an "inchoate" public. (John Dewey.)
One reason the presidential debates are such a big deal is that they are one of the few occasions when the audience is the public and vice versa. 

6/ Key distinction number two: journalism vs. the media (vs. the press)

~> I think of the media as the attention business, an industry whose product is audiences.
~> Journalism is a social practice, the purpose of which is to keep publics informed and hold power to account.

However— 

7/ Most journalists are employees of the media, and thus part of the attention business. This creates endless problems and compromises, which I hear about nonstop.

The press — to my way of thinking — is the institution that endures over time as journalists come in and out of it. 8/ 

Media, journalism, and the press are not interchangeable terms. Yet they are bound up with one another.
Media is the attention industry
Journalism is a social practice

The press is a key institution in a democracy
Journalists who work in the media carry forward "the press." 

9/ Jay's third key distinction: truth-seeking vs. refuge-seeking behavior in journalism.

Truth-seeking needs no definition. It is finding out what actually happened— and telling us.
Refuge-seeking is telling the story in a way that protects against anticipated attacks...

10/ Seeking truth vs. seeking refuge, cont.
My favorite description of refuge-seeking behavior in journalism comes from a former reporter for the Washington Post, Paul Taylor, in his 1990 book about election coverage. I have quoted it many times. 11/Truth-seeking is what journalists see themselves as always doing.

Refuge-seeking includes such common practices as false balance, "both sides do it," steering the story "down the middle," and the depiction of "dueling realities" in a divided nation. abcnews.go.com/Politics/live-… 

12/ Election 2020: Dueling realities about COVID-19 at Biden, Trump rallies

Thursday brings both President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden to Tampa, Florida, just five days before Election Day and as cases surge in the state.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/live-updates/2020-election-campaign/?id=73886088

What is "political" need not be politicized. This is a point I make again and again in my press criticism.

When TV journalists with Sunday morning shows push back against major party candiates who are floating poisonous charges without evidence, that is a political act.

13/ But — and here comes my distinction — if journalists let an ideology distort their reporting so as not to injure a cause they manifestly believe in, then their work has been unduly politicized.
Journalism is political. It should not be politicized. 

14/ You cannot keep from getting swept up in Trump's agenda without a firm grasp on your own - PressThink

The 2020 campaign is here. Those who are covering it had better figure out what they are for, or they will end up as his enablers— as they were in 2016.

https://pressthink.org/2020/05/you-cannot-keep-from-getting-swept-up-in-trumps-agenda-without-a-firm-grasp-on-your-own/#p7

The great sociologist C. Wright Mills would distinguish between "troubles" and "issues."

My paraphrase: Troubles are the things people are actively worried about in their lives.

Mills: “An issue is a public matter: some value cherished by publics is felt to be threatened.” 

15/ Troubles are a category of experience. Issues emerge from the political system.

Why does this matter? Well, when people's troubles don't connect to what are called the issues, or when issues don't speak to troubles, democracy — and journalism — are working poorly indeed.

16/ If issues don't bear on common troubles, then focusing on "the issues" — as against the horse race — may not be the answer it seems to be.

Also: Great journalism puts a spotlight on troubles and turns them into issues, which is exactly what the movie, "Spotlight" is about.

17/In grad school I learned to distinguish between "ritual" and "transmission" views of human communication, a distinction introduced by James W. Carey.

"Transmission" means the movement of messages across space.

In rituals we produce a shared world and affirm common values. 

18/ When your cable news anchor says of an upcoming press conference, "we'll bring it to you live," that's transmission.

Ritual: When we gather at a memorial service to mourn the dead and co-produce loving memories.

I did a thread about this distinction. 

19/ What can a media critic do with it?

When the thing you're watching on CNN seems to have no value as information — and from it you are learning nothing — you can try to switch frames and see if the news makes sense as ritual: in production of a shared world. 

20/ "I expect what I may not predict."

Eight years ago, I wrote that my work as a press critic is "primarily about about the legitimation of the modern press: the various justifications for it, and how they match up with actual practice— or don’t." pressthink.org/2013/06/a-few-… 

21/ A few principles for how I operate as a critic - PressThink

"What are the proper grounds for criticism of a program like Candy Crowley's State of the Union on CNN, or a news story in the Washington Post, or a blog post at Gawker? The decisions I make about tha…

https://pressthink.org/2013/06/a-few-principles-for-how-i-operate-as-a-critic/

During Trump's second impeachment, I put this distinction to work like so:

22/  Follow me on this: Subscription and membership are not the same thing.

Subscribers buy a product. Members join a cause.

The distinction matters because around the world readers are being asked to pay more of the costs for quality journalism.

23/ Notes on Membership - PressThink

Amid the search for a sustainable path in journalism

https://pressthink.org/2020/09/notes-on-membership/

When you cannot receive the product unless you pay your share of the costs, that’s subscription.

Membership does not imply a paywall. People who have joined the cause often want the journalism to be available to those who are not members. Which is how public radio operates. 24/ 

Other distinctions I thought of including:

Lying vs. bullshitting

Experience vs. expertise

Exit, voice, and loyalty (A.O. Hirschman)

Tame vs. wicked problems

Demos vs. memos (@mattwaite)

Information overload vs. filter failure (@cshirky)

To wrap this thread, let's review...

25/ Some key distinctions I use to do my work:

Public vs. audience

Journalism vs. the media

Truth-seeking vs. refuge-seeking

Political vs. politicized

Issues vs. troubles

Ritual vs. transmission

Expect vs. predict

Subscription vs. membership

"When in doubt, draw a distinction." END 

Note: I see a couple of my outlines don't work and my transcription is a bit off in places, but at this writing the Threadreader link is working. This post is simply to make reading a bit easier.

China's Ghost Cities

Kaynat Kakar ✪ @kaynat_kakar

China's GHOST Cities

$170 BILLION worth of Empty Cities, Abandoned Skyscrapers, and Fake European Towns that nobody lives in:

Here are China's most Haunting Ghost Cities:

1. Ordos 
A $161 billion ghost city built for 1 million people.

• Currently 90% empty

• Built during the coal mining boom

• Looks like a sci-fi movie set

https://x.com/i/status/1850803667974111519• Most apartments are owned by investors who never lived there

2. Jun Ming's Ghost Districts

• Population size of Madrid

• 15 skyscrapers demolished in 2021

• Unfinished since 2013

• Empty kindergartens

• Abandoned hospitals

3. Tianducheng: "Paris of the East"

• Complete with Eiffel Tower, pairs streets and buildings replica

• Empty Champs-Élysées

• Planned for 10,000 residents

• Current population: 1,000

• Too expensive for locals

• Mostly tourist attractions

4. Yujiapu: "China's Manhattan"

• $50 billion investment

• Empty skyscrapers

• No rush hour traffic

• Promotional video mocked NYC

• Ironically, it became more deserted than NYC

5. Thames Town: "Little London"

The Replica of London City

• Red phone boxes ✓

• Fish & chip shops ✓

• English pubs ✓

• Victorian architecture ✓

• People? ×

• Another failed replica city 

6. Chenggong: The Student City

• Failed city turned university hub

• 7 colleges moved in

• Busy during term time

• Ghost town in winter

• Gradual transformation

7. Why Does China Keep Building?

• Property = safe investment

• Chinese can't invest abroad easily

• Real estate drives economic growth

• Middle-class parks money in empty homes

• Construction = GDP growth

8. Why This Matters:

• Shows risks of rapid development

• Property bubble warning

• Environmental impact

• Resource waste

• Economic sustainability questions

9. China's ghost cities represent human history's largest real estate bubble. 

Only time will tell whether they become thriving metropolises or remain empty monuments to excess.

That's a wrap

I hope you enjoyed it and found this thread helpful.  

- Share with your friend for support.

- Follow me @kaynat_kakarfor more useful content.

IDF reports fatigue and morale loss

Tony Karon linked this thread in the wake of Israel's Iran initiative.

Sina Toossi is a senior research analyst at the National Iranian American Council, where he conducts research and writing on U.S.-Iran relations, Iranian politics, and Middle East policy issues. His writings have appeared on Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and Al Monitor, among other outlets. He holds an MA in international affairs from American University’s School of International Service, with a regional concentration in the Middle East. 

 

🧵A very important piece: an Israeli outlet reports severe morale loss and exhaustion among soldiers, with many now refusing to serve.
Based on interviews with soldiers and families across units, it's described as a "suppressed but growing phenomenon."
2/ The piece opens with a striking anecdote:
In September, the Nahal Brigade began its 11th round of combat in Gaza, but out of a platoon of 30 soldiers, only 6 showed up—the rest claimed medical exemptions.
"I call it refusal and rebellion," says the mother of one soldier.
3/ The mother describes the sense of futility the soldiers feel:
"They keep going back to the same buildings they’ve already cleared, only to find them booby-trapped again. In the Zaytoun neighborhood alone, they've been there three times. They understand it’s pointless."
4/ One IDF soldier explains that the growing shortage of manpower means missions are "done halfway."
He adds, "The platoons are empty; those who aren’t dead or physically wounded are mentally broken. Very few come back to fight, and even they aren’t fully okay."
5/ The soldier notes that all of this was happening before the escalation in Lebanon and the current ground incursion.
He says, "I don't know with what army they think they'll enter Lebanon, because there is no army. I'm not going back to the battalion."
6/ The article states that this a suppressed but growing phenomenon of soldiers refusing to fight. The unity and sense of mission that once drove them has faded. "They fought until their last ounce of strength, but reached a point where they just couldn’t continue."
7/ Many parents say the soldiers' morale began to break down in April, as the war dragged on, and their sense of purpose started to fade.
"When they had to return to places we’d already been, like Jabalia, Zeitoun, and Shuja'iyya, it broke them," one parent explained.
8/ "What’s killing them are the conditions and the prolonged fighting without any end in sight," says on parent. "Not to mention the loss and the horrific scenes they witness in Gaza."
9/ One soldier says, "We’re sitting ducks in a shooting range. We don’t understand what we’re doing here...The hostages aren’t coming back, and it just feels never-ending—soldiers are getting injured and dying along the way. It all seems pointless."
10/ The article states that most of these soldiers refusing to serve (under medical exemptions) aren’t being sent to jail, and the whole situation is being kept quiet.
11/ It adds that after 12 straight months of a war that feels directionless, soldiers describe themselves as “black”—military slang for feeling depressed, exhausted, and drained of motivation.
"Today the motivation is zero."
12/ The article describes the situation Israeli soldiers face in Gaza: the only "music" they hear is the sound of air force bombs, and the air reeks of death and decay. They feel abandoned by the army, treated like mere tools on the path to "absolute victory."
13/ One Israeli soldier says: At a certain point, we were all exhausted & couldn’t see the purpose in going back to places we’d already been...Eventually, I stopped feeling anything. I lost faith in the system & no longer believed in what we were doing.
14/ The Israeli soldier recalls, "I was mentally exhausted, having anxiety attacks so severe that when they told us we were done maneuvering, I thought I’d get a break. I broke down, crying on a lawn, saying I couldn’t take it anymore. I was completely finished mentally."
15/ The soldier says his commander accusing him of "abandoning the country" & reprimanding him before the platoon.
But "the day," another "soldier came up to me and asked how I did it. He wanted to, but didn’t have the courage."
The next day, he left too.
16/ The shortage of soldiers has forced those who need mental health treatment to fight.
"My son went to his company commander & said, 'I feel like my alertness has dropped so much that I’m not only putting myself at risk, but also those around me. I’m not as sharp as I was."
17/ One father says, "The only way to stop this downward spiral or get some rest is to say, 'I refuse,' and then you're instantly treated like the most humiliated person on earth...It doesn’t matter what you’ve sacrificed, what you’ve been through, or what you’ve done."
18/ On the other hand, those who do manage to get mental health leave face emotional blackmail.
One soldier’s brother explains that when his sibling returned home, he couldn’t sleep in his room, barely ate, & was in severe mental distress--but still was forced to go back.
19/ Cultural differences among Israeli soldiers from different nationalities also complicate addressing morale issues.
One commander told his subordinates, "I come from a Polish family, where we don’t talk about feelings—that’s how I was raised, and that’s my way."
20/ A similar situation is unfolding with soldiers entering Lebanon. Exhausted, hundreds of paratroopers recently united to fight for "their rights", expressing anger, frustration, and distress over the lack of understanding about their urgent need for rest at home.
21/ Stunningly, these paratroopers entering Lebanon are being threatened with fines for military equipment lost or destroyed on October 7 or during the fighting and are denied new equipment until they sign that they are responsible for the loss.
22/ The piece ends with a powerful statement from an Israeli soldier: "If the treatment doesn’t improve soon, the little wind left in our sails will also disappear."
23/23 This isn’t the only Israeli report highlighting faltering morale and manpower shortages in the country's military.
These reports raise serious questions about the feasibility of Netanyahu prolonging the Gaza war or escalating conflicts with Lebanon and Iran.
/end🧵
10:35 AM · Oct 20, 2024
3,101 Views

Yahya Sinwar Killed

Yahya Sinwar, Leader of Hamas, Is Dead

Yahya Sinwar, the Palestinian militant leader who emerged from two decades of prison in Israel to rise to the helm of Hamas and help plot the deadliest assault on Israel in its history, died on Thursday. He was in his early 60s.

A longtime Hamas leader who assumed its top political office in August, Mr. Sinwar was known among supporters and enemies alike for combining cunning and brutality. He built Hamas’s ability to harm Israel in service of the group’s long-term goal of destroying the Jewish state and building an Islamist, Palestinian nation in its place.

He played a central role in planning the surprise assault on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that killed about 1,200 people, brought 250 others back to Gaza as hostages and put him at the top of Israel’s kill list. Israeli leaders vowed to hunt him down, and the military dropped fliers over Gaza offering a $400,000 reward for information on his whereabouts.

But for more than a year, he remained elusive, surviving in tunnels Hamas had dug beneath Gaza, even as Israel killed many of his fighters and associates.

Laura Rozen thread the first hour after the announcement.

Ghaith al-Omari on Wash. Institute zoom on suspected Sinwar death: It's a very significant strategic blow for Hamas. sinwar was a unique leader in the sense that he had very strong standing, both in the military ring of Hamas and in the political wing of Hamas.

He says Sinwar is likely to be replaced by one of the Hamas leaders who are in Qatar right now. Will be more susceptible to outside pressure

Dennis Ross: You can look at this two different ways. One would be, you could go back to trying to get a hostage deal, because Sinwar, in many ways, was the reason there was no hostage deal.

Ross: …But you can also look at this from the standpoint that, having achieved much of what it was seeking to achieve in Gaza, you could put the prime minister in a position where he could declare success and say, Okay, we're..now ready to end the war.

Ghaith al-Omari says while Hamas center of gravity will move to the diaspora, and they are more susceptable to inducements/pressure, their ability to produce change on the ground is more limited.

Ross and al-Omari see the US use of B-2s to target underground Houthi facilities last night as being intended as a message to Iran. Al-Omari: The bigger message was to Iran. They used the B2s and the munitions that were used is a message to Iran that their deep underground facilities are vulnerable

Vice President Harris speaks to reporter about the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinawar by Israeli Defense Forces in Gaza.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5137239/user-clip-vp-harris-killing-sinwar

Laura Rosen thread later...

Jake Sullivan, asked, with Sinwar death, if thinks could reach ceasefire by end of year: “I’ve long since given up on making predictions or drawing timelines. All I can say is that we see an opportunity now that we want to seize to try to secure the release of the hostages, and we're going to work at that as rapidly” (as possible)

“His removal from the battlefield does present an opportunity to find a way forward that gets the hostages home,… brings us to a day after.

That's something we're going to have to talk about with our Israeli counterparts.”

Sullivan: “We've had very constructive communications with the Israelis about how they're thinking about responding to the attack on October 1. Those conversations will continue.”

Sullivan: “We've had very constructive communications with the Israelis about how they're thinking about responding to the attack on October 1. Those conversations will continue.”

This man's cruelty was legendary.

Arrested by Israel in the late 1980s, he admitted under interrogation to having killed 12 suspected collaborators. He was eventually sentenced to four life terms for offenses that included the abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers.

Michael Koubi, a former director of the investigations department at Israel’s Shin Bet security agency who interrogated Sinwar personally, recalled the confession that stood out to him the most: Sinwar recounted forcing a man to bury his own brother alive because he was suspected of working for Israel.

“His eyes were full of happiness when he told us this story,” Koubi said.

He became the leader of the hundreds of imprisoned Hamas members. He organized strikes to improve conditions. He learned Hebrew and studied Israeli society.

Searching for Hope in the Wake of October 7

The author traveled throughout Israel-Palestine and found a society still reeling with grief

Lisa Goldman  Lisa Goldman is Europe Editor at New Lines magazine    October 7, 2024

For weeks after Oct. 7, I was mute with horror. Quite a few people wanted me to offer a private explainer or do media interviews. I couldn't. But six months later I went to Israel-Palestine and talked to Palestinians and Israelis for this article.

I wasn't interested in talking to politicians or leaders. I wanted to hear from friends, acquaintances, ordinary people on the streets. Those deep personal conversations and chance encounters offer the most revealing insights.

The question of "why can't they feel compassion for the other" is not very interesting. There are no real answers and the few on offer don't bring any insight. What's much more interesting, in my opinion, is to see how people function under extreme stress.

How do people behave toward those closest to them and toward the world when they feel that the social contract they believed in has been shattered by their government's indifference?

How do people behave when they are surrounded by political violence in the only place they feel truly at home?

There are many answers to that question. Here are some that I found:

People become particularly tender and protective toward those closest to them, especially their children.

This was something I saw in Sawsan, the 39 year-old mother of 5 from Gaza, who was able to bring them to Israel because she had Israeli citizenship, though the authorities made her walk through fire. I wrote about her harrowing journey and the effect of the war on her children.

And I'll never forget listening to Shira Albag, mother of 19 year-old Liri, who was taken hostage on Oct. 7, emit that primal scream of heartbreak and loss while addressing a demonstration in Tel Aviv.

And yet, despite the widespread sense of fear and agony I encountered everywhere, the cliche about life going on was spectacularly proven. People went to concerts, the beach, cafes and restaurants. As one friend said, "The whole world is on fire, but the family is lovely."

These are some of the observations I collected while traveling from the north to the south, to the West Bank and Jerusalem, talking to people from as many backgrounds as possible and trying to tell the story of a place through human experience.

Hurricane Misinformation -- Jamie Dupree Twitter Thread

Jamie Dupree  @jamiedupree
Donald Trump and Republicans claim that FEMA doesn't have money for Hurricane Helene relief, because as much as $1 billion or more was transferred out of FEMA's Disaster Relief Fund to deal with illegal immigrant needs.

There is no evidence of that.  🧵 1/ with receipts

FEMA puts out a monthly report on how much is in the Disaster Relief Fund.

It lists all the transfers of money and what's been spent.

You can find them at this link: https://fema.gov/about/reports-and-data/disaster-relief-fund-monthly-reports  2/

The latest report lists several minor transfers in and out of FEMA's Disaster Relief Fund in 2024.  They don't come close to $1 billion, and don't involve aid for illegal immigrants.  

https://fema.gov/sites/default/files/documents/fema_ocfo-september2024disasterrelieffundreport.pdf#page=7
3/

FEMA has now set up a 'Rumor Response Page' to address this specific charge that money was moved out of the Disaster Relief Fund.  

https://fema.gov/disaster/current/hurricane-helene/rumor-response 
4/

Was FEMA money spent on housing for migrants?  Yes.  But it didn't come from the Disaster Relief Fund.  Congress approved a transfer of $650 million from Customs and Border Protection into a special shelter program run by FEMA. 

https://congress.gov/118/bills/hr2882/BILLS-118hr2882enr.pdf#page=139 
5/

Has FEMA ever transferred money from the Disaster Relief Fund to illegal immigration efforts?  YES.  

Donald Trump did that in 2019.  $38 million was transferred from the Disaster Relief Fund to ICE.

 https://fema.gov/sites/default/files/2020-07/disaster-relief-fund-report_9-2019.pdf#page=7  
6/

FEMA will issue another monthly report on the Disaster Relief Fund later this month.  We'll be able to check the details again soon.

At this time, Trump's claims are FALSE.   
/fin

One more tweet.  Does the Disaster Relief Fund need money?  Yes.  The White House asked for $20 billion.  House Republicans did not include any money in the CR.

FEMA has regular resources for disaster work.  But the Disaster Relief Fund needs more to deal with Helene. /fin

Reflections on tip wages and taxes

Reflections on tip wages and taxes

One topic being discussed in the presidential race is the taxation of tip wages. Some of us old-timers remember a time when tips were not taxed at all simply because they were not reported by those who received them. 

In my early years as a food service manager I learned there is an exception to the so-called "minimum wage" which creates a double incentive for both employers and employees to avoid taxes simply by not reporting them. 

The way that works is that employees working for tips must receive a legally mandated minimum hourly wage in case they fail to receive any tips. The so-called "tip wage" varies from state to state, but the arithmetic is basically the same. The illustration above explains how that works. Employers receive a "tip credit" for the difference and the employee is taxed on the rest. At the end of the tax year, the employee's 1099 reflects 100% of earned taxable income to be paid by the employee.

What a deal! The employer gets loads of business from happy customers and the service staff pays taxes on the actual selling price received from the public. 

In the old days smart employees understood the system. Only they knew how much money they were receiving in the form of tips, so it was their responsibility to report that amount so their employer could receive that tip credit for tax purposes. Anything over that amount was also supposed to be reported to the employer so that their W-2 accurately reflected their taxable income. But who in their right mind wants to pay more taxes? What about profits from yard sales? Income from flea markets? Local vendors peddling crafts or snacks on the sidewalk?

You know where this is going.

Comes now Uber, Lyft and a load of other "service" businesses which have always been an important part of the economy. I once read that the word tip was an abbreviation for To Insure Promptness. In any case, as the service industry grew (and yes, it is now an industry) the corporate sector continued to receive the ever-growing so-called "tip credit". The end product in many cases has become a service sold to the public using virtually nothing more than an accounting exercise. The principle "investment" for many so-called "service"businesses is crafting documents outlining a business plan, replete with market surveys, advertising strategy, financing arrangements and legal documents tying the whole package together with the expectation of hitting the jackpot when another IPO hits the market.

The days are long gone when tips were actual currency received by whoever rendered a service. Thanks to the magic of electronic transfers of financial transactions, there is now a paper trail.

 

Back now to "No taxes on tips".

I'm just an old cafeteria manager well into retirement, virtually ignorant about the ramifications of both accounting and legal matters. These reflections are simply my way of thinking out loud. I knew when I retired early I would have to find a job with health insurance and to that end I actually got a CDL in order to become a bus driver for my wife and myself, expecting to be insured by the school system. I was so sheltered during my years of service that I knew nothing about PTO or shift differential, both of which were routine features of the hospital where I became a "team leader" in the dining room of a retirement facility. 

At this point I'm simply waiting to see what becomes of this latest appeal for votes during a presidential election. My guess is that the ignorance of the voting public will simply add this new trope to the list of ignorant discussions already under way so there is no need for me to add anything more.

I just wanted  to get this much on the record for future reference. 

Joshua Landis on the death of Nasrallah

5 takeaways from Israel’s killing of Nasrallah

1. This is a turning point for the region and the axis of resistance. Israel has made a stunning show of its power, intelligence capabilities, and of Western technological and military superiority. If anyone had any doubts about Israeli power after Oct 7, those doubts have been dispelled. Iran turns out to be the paper tiger that many said it was.

2. The root problem of Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians has not been solved, indeed, it will only get worse. There are 7 million Palestinians living in historic Palestine. The 5.5 million living in the occupied territories have no rights, no sovereignty, no hope of self-determination. Netanyahu will come out of his Lebanon gambit a towering hero, who has secured his legacy and life’s work, which is to frustrate the two-state solution, ensure that no Palestinian state emerges in any part of historic Palestine, and that the occupied territories become Israeli territory. It is a great day for the messianic wing of Israel. Israel is likely to lurch to the right, disregard Palestinian hopes, and exacerbate its infractions of international law and norms.

3. The Arab World and Middle Eastern states must engage in self-criticism after the defeat, as Sadiq al-‘Azm so eloquently wrote following the 1967 debacle. The root cause of the weakness of Middle Eastern states is that they are not nation states. By this, I mean that their peoples share little common identity. They are not united around common goals and do not accept shared rules of citizenship, which prevents the rule of law from becoming internalized as it prevents the emergence of viable democracies in the region. Middle Eastern countries will fail to modernize or know stability so long as the victor of the moment is unable to accommodate the aspirations of the vanquished. This is true of Bashar al-Assad and the Alawi community that supports him in Syria, as it is of the rulers of Lebanon, Iraq, etc.

4. The resistance forces completely miscalculated the correlation of power. So many in the region convinced themselves that Israel and the US were in decline. They believed that the technological gap dividing them was narrowing not growing. They thought that the Arab World would help Hamas and the Palestinians, that America would turn away from the atrocities of Gaza, and that the West would isolate Israel.

5. Americans and Israelis, along with many Lebanese, will believe that the moment has come to pry Lebanon from the orbit of Iran, Syria and the resistance front. The search for an alternative Lebanese leadership has begun. The problem will be that the Christian and Sunni leaders of Lebanon will seek to purge the Shi’a from the military and state agencies, rather than to find an accommodation with their Shi’a brethren. They will undoubtedly try to send the Lebanese military to replace and disarm Hezbollah. The Shi’a will resist, and Lebanon’s fragile stability will again be shattered. Each community will close ranks to protect or enlarge its share of the Lebanese pie. The West and Israel tried to pry Lebanon away from its eastern orbit in 1982 and following the US occupation of Iraq in 2003. Both efforts failed. This one is likely to fail as well for the reasons outlined in #3.

Kal File

Thanks to a blogspot feature I just discovered, I came across these notes I collected a few years ago from my old blog. I lost track of Kal after a few years and he deleted his posts, but here are a few copies I kept because I was very impressed with this young man. Perhaps some day he will identify himself and take credit for his impressive posts in the past.

Collected here are copies of posts from my old blog for future reference. I was inspired to collect them by a brief series of Twitter messages posted by Kal a while ago (May 17, 2013). My plan is to keep these in a "draft" folder for safekeeping so not to embarrass Kal by publishing them.

I have been blogging (with a friend or two) since I was 15. I think it is fair to say I no longer identify with anything I wrote before 2007
— Kal (@themoornextdoor) May 17, 2013

There are few things I wrote in my high school blogging days or newspaper days I would still write now if asked an the same issue.
— Kal (@themoornextdoor) May 17, 2013

One thing that was probably also stupid was to start a blog with a friend while sharing a byline. This made for confusion later.
— Kal (@themoornextdoor) May 17, 2013

It was 2 people with 1 voice. After he stopped writing, it was 1 person w a join biography
— Kal (@themoornextdoor) May 17, 2013

Not to mention plenty of clutter on the Internet w parts of a bio we made to hide from relatives
— Kal (@themoornextdoor) May 17, 2013

Since 2007 I would say my blog is really all mine. And that the views there are close to my current ones.
— Kal (@themoornextdoor) May 17, 2013

I started many blogs as a teen. One was dedicated to poetry. This failed.
— Kal (@themoornextdoor) May 17, 2013

I used to share reprehensible indifference ab Palestine w my coblogger circa 2006. When I was 17.
— Kal (@themoornextdoor) May 17, 2013

Unfortunately a lot of that is still out on the internets
— Kal (@themoornextdoor) May 17, 2013

@missyasin yeah I go back before 2007 and it is like reading the heart of darkness
— Kal (@themoornextdoor) May 17, 2013

@westphalianpost I consider myself pro-Palestinian even though I don't write about Palestine.
— Kal (@themoornextdoor) May 17, 2013

Strange to think my political evolution is scattered over the Internet.
— Kal (@themoornextdoor) May 17, 2013

These messages tell me more about Kal than I knew before. I know he changed his screen name from Nouri to Kal (I didn't mark the date) and has since scrubbed and deleted a lot of old material. But these are the gestures of youth. I'm saving here, scrapbook-style, some of the snapshots I kept of those days he now finds embarrassing, which I always appreciated in the way an old man likes to see young people grow and mature.
I'm copying them without reformatting in the hope that since both are google/blogspot properties they will be compatible.

~~~~§§§~~~~

TUESDAY, APRIL 18, 2006

The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East

Read this book review by Nouri Lumendifi. I can't decide if I am more impressed with the book or the reviewer. After reading what appears to be a very scholarly review of an important newly-released book, I looked at the profile of the reviewer.

The profile description of the blogmaster of The Moor Next Door says he is seventeen years old! I have a hard time believing that. Kids that age just don't write like this. But apparently this one does.

Mission Statement of the Moor Next Door

"The Moor Next Door" is a blog whose purpose is to allow me to express myself and to provide a liberal look at Algerian, and Euro-Maghrebi/Middle Eastern affairs, as well as American, Algerian and European foreign policy. In addition, with this blog I seek to explore various theories of history and politics and how they relate to one another. Issues of nationalism, identity, history, religion, and the like as the fit into the previously mentioned contexts are intended to be the primary focus.

I write this blog with Americans, Europeans, North Africans, liberals, conservatives (in the Middle Eastern sense), and just about every other sort of folk in mind. I do not tailor my posts to them however. I'm not writing to please, but to inform. I base my opinions from facts and I formulate them from what I see and know. If you don't like them, you probably know something I do not, so tell me. I am open to different ideas.

You think that's impressive? Go look at his list of "favorite books."

Oh, and before I forget, this post is about the book he reviewed as well. I am struck by the similarity of how the word liberal may not have the same exact meaning in the Arab world as it does in America, but the word seems to carry a similar stigma. Fascinating, since those who advocate a "liberal" agenda there seem to be advancing the same values that American "conservatives" lay claim to. Problem is, laying claim to a value is not the same as practicing it. Catch thislast paragraph:

Far out numbered by Islamist organizations and sympathizers, Arab liberals face incredible odds. Rubin’s conclusion, that the Arabs must realize their faults and shortcomings, while coming up with solutions to the "thousand and one difficulties" facing the region, is not likely to please ideologues from the nationalist or Islamist camps. The Long War for Freedom answers the oft asked questions of "Why don’t Arabs and Muslims speak out against terrorism and aggression?" or "Where are the Arab Democrats?" by providing an abundance of clear and unequivocal examples, and presenting the arguments of Arab liberals in their own words. Prospects are bleak, but campaigners are committed and bold. Rubin’s book offers little hope as to the growth of liberal movements; that isn’t its point. It rather presents profiles in courage of brave Arabs who are working to put back in place the simplest foundations for democratization and liberalization in the Arab world. Rubin’s book is a must read for those concerned with or interested in Middle Eastern politics or history.

Seems like neo-conservatism is a world-wide phenomenon. Passing as patriotism, preserving and protecting traditional values, it seems to me nothing more than old-fashioned fundamentalism. Hmm?

WEDNESDAY, MAY 17, 2006

Nouri Lumendifi's encounter with prejudice

This remarkable high school kid of Middle Eastern extraction has been blogging a year and a half and doing a great job. I'm not sure, but I think his family may have come from Algeria or elsewhere in the Maghreb. Yesterday's post is a study in maturity and constraint in the face of what can only be described as mind-numbing ignorance on the part of a few of his classmates. As a fifth generation American citizen I used to be embarrassed by such behavior, but I have come to realize that their stripe of prejudice is a transnational quality found all over the world. Fortunately Nouri, like so many immigrants from all over the world before him, has learned to stick up for himself. This part of his post reads like a scene from a movie...

...I was chased home multiple times during 7th grade, for about two or three weeks after 9/11 as black and caucasian peers chased after me throwing rocks and bricks and shouted racial slurs (Ay-rab, "Afghan niggaaar," sandmonkey, desert bunny, Hadji, Usama, etc.) at me. I was beaten pretty badly on several occasions, often to the point where I was bleeding or had bruses or black eyes. The last time I did this I stood up for myself, as no other people would help me (not school administrators, not peers, not anyone). I confronted one kid in particular, Aaron, who took great pleasure in calling me "Afghan niggaaaar" and telling me to "go back to the desert". I engaged him in hand to hand combat. He punched me, I punched him, kicked him and eventually got him on the ground. I pulled him over to a telephone pole with many staples on it from different fliers and advertisements from over the years on it. As his posse watched I smacked his head into the telephone pole, and moved it up and down so that he was cut by the staples. I then walked off. They had no idea as to what to do and just sort of stood there. I was never physically assaulted in such a manner again, though I was still called names.

I am reminded of Al Capone's line that you can get further with a kind word and a gun than you can with just a kind word. In a more recent encounter his response is slightly less dramatic, and the sting of being the object of racist attitudes is still apparent. A dedication to non-violence holds me to another standard, but there is nothing in my system forbidding satisfaction if a non-pacifist takes a more forceful course in his own defense.

Last week I was also physically attacked by a group of four guys, none of whom I know or have seen before. These guys asked for my wallet, I said no, they pushed me, and said "Eye-racki, give up the oil money," I again said no. More slurs, "Fuckin' Ay-rab, go home." I told them I am going home if they would just step to the side. "Ay-rab doesn't know his place," I then shouted a profanity at them in Berber. I am not an Arab! They punched me. So I took a cheap shot and knocked one of the bastards in the nads and made off. I kept my wallet, by the way. Don't think I'm some kind of super fighter either; I'm skinny, damn near weightless and don't really know how to fight. I just know how to preserve, and I don't like fighting. I firmly believe the saying that "The ink of the scholar is worth more than the blood of the martyr".

This kid has class.
He's right, too, about the ink of the scholar...
Link here to my first post about Nouri.
Now go read his post from yesterday.

MONDAY, MAY 22, 2006

Nouri Lumendifi -- Fresh, bright voice of the future

Another fine outpouring from an articulate young man. Big heart, big intellect and big mouth. And I don't say that with any hint of malice. Young people don't put up with dishonesty, and this episode illustrates the point. In the end all battles are won or lost when facts are allowed to be known.

Last summer I attended a youth conference on diplomacy that took me to three Western European countries with a host of American youths from all over the United States. The contingent was overwhelmingly white, though there were four or five Arabs (all from Virginia, or New Jersey, with the exception being myself from Connecticut), a Persian (from LA), and perhaps two or three American blacks, each from different states.

At this conference we participated in a United Nations simulation. The couple of hundred odd mass of youths was divided into the various organs and committees of the UN. I was given China's seat on the UN Security Council, which was tasked with dealing with the genocide in Darfur. Before each meeting we were given briefings on debate procedure and resolution writing, as well as the background of the issue we were covering and our countries' backgrounds.

Nouri was assigned to role-play the Chinese delegate and the debate began. Unfortunately (or fortunately for this discussion) the moot debate got out of hand when a black girl from Missouri allowed her identity as an African-American to overcome her assigned role in the exercise. She attacked our hero for his vote, not because of his assigned role as delegate from China, but because he was not "black."

"You're not African," I said. The other kids went silent. "I'm more African than you. I think in Berber. I speak it. I have family living in Africa, and that fought for liberation from colonialism. I have citizenship in the African Union. What do you think you're doing telling me I'm a slave trader?"

"You're not African," she said again. "You're Arab."

"Sure, I'm Arab. And you're English. Being conquered by an Arab doesn't make you Arab."

She had no idea what I meant. I was just a swarthy Arab of uncertain origins to her.

"I'm African because I'm black," she blabbered. "You're not because you aren't black. It's simple, your people didn't come from Africa."

"My people sure as hell did come from Africa. Where do you get off being African because you're black? Is George Bush European because he's white? No, he's American, like I'm African and you're American."

She was mad. "You're only African because you people killed all the black people," this makes sense, huh?

"No, I'm African because my passport is Algerian, my family is from Africa and Berbers are African, not Arab," I told her.

"That's not African. That's white."

Enough of snips. Go read the entire scene for yourself. And remember that you are reading the words of a teen! As you read the start of the post you might forget. But when you get to the dialogue, you will know. For me, this kid is a breath of fresh air. He and his peers will save the country with a clear thinking and a spirit of principled truth-telling that will not be silenced.

TUESDAY, JULY 04, 2006

Algerian Independence Day is July 5

Nouri Lumendifi is the most articulate teen-ager I have found blogging. I continue to be amazed by his maturity, insights and grasp of history. I am not at all surprised at his passion, however. It is the passion of youth which has driven progress from the start of human history and continues to do so now. Those who ignore such passion do so at their peril. I find it inspiring, thrilling.

Today's post is the story of Algerian independence which came in 1962 following an eight-year revolution. Do take a moment to check it out.

The Revolution was a diverse one, claimed by former "assimilationists" fed up with the inability of the colonial system to extend the rights of man to Algerian Muslims, pan-Arab nationalists, socialists, Marxists, communists, Islamists wishing to reinstate the Islamic political order in a Muslim land, Amazigh Berberists wishing to bring equality and prestige to their people, the everyday men and women of Algerian wishing to finally know what equality and opportunity felt like, and many other interest groups. They may have disagreed on the particulars of the Revolution, but all agreed that their aims could not be met under the rule of France, and that the colonial order had to be torn down to achieve the betterment of Algeria and her people.

And yes, it was a jihad, in the best sense of that word. Those who defile the notion with neolgisms such as Islamofascistsand use the word jihad in a pejorative sense only reveal the depth of their own ignorance.

How else to explain how this young man, this all-American kid with deep Algerian roots, can so clearly and openly make political arguments worthy of anyone wanting to advance the case for democracy? The current president of Algeria, like many manipulative leaders, is orchestrating an effort to extend term limits in order to continue past his constitutionally mandated time in office. Nouri finds this scenario reprehensible. The principled voice of youth will not be quiet.

The spirts of 1963 are present in Algeria to this very day, they can be seen everywhere one looks, from border to border in they eyes of Algerians young and old. President Bouteflika should take a lesson from Ferhat Abbas and withdraw his support for this shameful motion. The ramifications of this proposal are too great to ignore. The Algerian democracy is too young and too fragile to allow the egos of powerful men to manipulate the process at such an early stage. Never before has here been such an opportunity for Bouteflika to show his commitment to democracy and the rule of law as this upcoming Independence Day. If he shuns this chance by going ahead with this criminal plan, we will see his truest colors, and they certainly will not be red, green, and white.

On this Fourth of July I celebrate that the voice of freedom, revolution and emancipation from tyranny is alive and well. What better way to mark the significance of this day?

My own Independence Day post was published Saturday.Anyone interested link here.

MONDAY, JULY 31, 2006

Nouri Lumendifi makes my day.

This post by Nouri makes me feel better about the future. If every young person around is as bright, assertive and well-informed as he, any problems my generation leaves will be resolved quickly. It's hard to believe he's still a teen, except that he pours out his feelings all in a rush with little regard for hiding anything. Only young people have that much straightforward honesty.

I say rude things to other Arabs about their governments, or countries I should say, all the time. I tell Moroccans and Jordanians I think that their kings are backward. I told a Moroccan lady that made falafels in New York that I thought King Hassan was an imperialist. She didn't care. "I think he was a dick too. $2.50". When I was in Saudi Arabia I had a conversation with a guy who told he hated life in KSA. "There's nothing to do and we can't even flirt in school", we pretty much agreed the country kind of sucked. I am comfortable talking to Arabs about Arab governments; I don't think anybody honestly believes that "our" [Arab] systems are really all that great. I'm not familiar with Iranians, or "Persians" as some here call themselves. I read Iranian newspapers and websites that seem absolute. Monarchists that don't believe the royal family had anything wrong with it. Nationalistic young people that blame Arabs for anything wrong with the country. They seem touchy. Even arrogant.

This is a fun a read as you will find today. Go have a romp and don't miss this delightful snip:

The current Arab system is like an ugly woman. The Arab system when Iran is the regional superpower will be like an ugly woman on methemphetamines. It is easier to help and ugly woman become beautiful than a drugged out ugly woman.

I love it.
Nouri, you are a ray of sunshine for the future! I wish you were not exceptional, but I think you are.

~~~~§§§~~~~

And here is the link to what remains of his posts at Mideast Youth. 

http://www.mideastyouth.com/author/nouri/

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 26, 2006

Nouri Lumendifi is off to college

Been watching this young man most of this year. Apparently he's leaving home to go to college. His reflections make wonderful reading. In my experience teens simply don't think or write like this. Give him another ten or fifteen years and he will be one of the country's most valuable intellectual assets. New Haven, Connecticut has left a mark on Nouri. He may change, but he will never forget. Good luck, Nouri. The world is your banana.

Item: I am kicking a soccer ball down the street, when it hits the wrong side of my foot and hits the window of a pretty blue house. I hear the rattle and the barking of a large dog. The ball stops rolling back to me half way down the lawn. An “ADT” security sign warms me that should I trespass here I will be prosecuted. I panic. The door opens, and a little old man sticks his neck out the door and shouts “Who’s done it!”
I confess, and the old man grows angry. “Whaddaya goin’ to do that for? What’er you doing around here?” Going home, sir. He is dissatisfied, and waddles over to my ball. “This yours, boy?” I am scared, the old man is wearing an undershirt, swimming trunks, a coat of white fir, and loafers; he is rather unsightly. My ball is in his hands now, and I cannot help but as for it back. I am very sorry for hitting his window. “When did you come here?” I haven’t the slight inclination as to what this buzzard is talking about, and I do not answer. He asks again, if I tell him, I am told he will give me my ball back. “I don’t know.”
This bitter looking, wrinkly buzz-cut old man, puts my soccer ball under his hairy arm and turns around, and goes back into his house, slamming the door behind him. He looks at me from the window and closes the curtains, with the look of “Good riddance!” on his pruney face.

***

My city was my making. The city’s greenery, its Mediterranean restaurants covered in New England snow, its poverty, and its seasons are not easily left behind. In Boston, there are millions. In New York there are millions still. In New Haven, there are perhaps a few hundred thousand, if that. There is pizza the world tells you to like and places that claim to have invented the hamburger. There are probably comparable claims made in other cities, but none of those are my city. I did not read Lenin on the steps of the public libraries of Boston; I did not witness white flight in Brooklyn Heights; and I did not have my first date on the real Broadway. I did all of this in New Haven. Loyalties of citizenship, religion, and ethnicity aside, I am from New Haven. Not genetically, but by an accident of geography.

Posted by Hoots at 6:49 AM