Nothing productive will be accomplished as long as Bibi is cutting back-door deals with right-wing extremists to steal more Palestinian land in exchange for keeping his corrupt ass in office. From what I understand, most Israelis have had it. They want him gone.

Apparently it was an open secret that Bibi funneled funds to Hamas whenever an actual peace deal seemed possible. Staying in power was more important, he didn’t give a shit about the fate of his country. (That same tactic was utilized by PLO leader Yassar Arafat, who could not take yes for an answer.)

And he will forever be a reminder of how he didn’t protect them on October 7th.

The many right-wing Israelis made a deal to keep him in office, but mainstream Israelis made their own unofficial deal. (I see it as a Bernie Madoff scam: Namely, when someone promises you’ll get a 12% return with no risk, your greed has made you willfully blind to consequences.)

They believed Palestinians could be kept under control in an open-air prison (like a bunch of occasionally destructive animals kept in a cattle pen) without ever paying a price. Now the light is, I think, beginning to dawn.

Gazans made their own deal with the devil. They allowed Hamas to (literally) tunnel thoughout the region, because those tunnels were also used to bring them food, medicine, and building supplies the Israelis would not allow through. I’m sure many of them took grim satisfaction at watching the Israelis outsmarted. But when that’s the only satisfaction a large group of oppressed people get, the pressure builds and it’s gotta go somewhere. We saw what happened in October.

Josh Marshall wrote:

What we are seeing unfold is a very deliberate political and military strategy on the part of Hamas to use the deaths in the thousands of its own civilians as a weapon against Israel to compensate for its own lack of conventional military power. Both Israel and Hamas have that blood on their hands.

I recently had someone tell me that the Jews had been in Israel for thousands of years, and that’s why the Palestinians have no valid claim to the land.

I refrained from asking which Native American tribe previously lived on his land, and how soon he’d be willing to give it up.

Anyone who says there’s an obvious solution to this is dreaming.