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.