The Year of Elections Has Been Good for Democracy.....

 

But the Biggest Test Will Come in America

By Francis Fukuyama

September 4, 2024

Liberals have engaged in a lot of catastrophic thinking during this “year of elections.” Many feared that authoritarian and populist politicians, from Hungary’s Viktor Orban to India’s Narendra Modi, would consolidate their gains by increasing their shares of the vote. According to Freedom House’s February 2024 Freedom in the World analysis, the world has been in a phase of democratic backsliding for nearly two decades, exacerbated by the rise of authoritarian great powers such as China and Russia, hot wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and the ascendance or advancement of populist nationalists in countries that seemed to be securely democratic—Germany, Hungary, India, and Italy.

For liberals who want to preserve a world safe for democracies, perhaps the most alarming point came in mid-July, when Republicans confirmed former President Donald Trump as their party’s presidential nominee and ultra-MAGA JD Vance as his running mate. Although Trump tried to overturn the 2020 U.S. election, he was nonetheless the enthusiastic choice of his party. He had just survived an assassination attempt; his raised fists and call to “fight, fight, fight” drew a sharp contrast with the elderly sitting president, Joe Biden, whose debate performance the previous month made him a clear underdog.

But liberals’ fears that this year would reflect the global triumph of illiberal populism have so far been proved wrong. Although authoritarian ideologies have made clear gains in several countries, democracy in many parts of the world has shown surprising resilience and may yet prevail in the United States. Their belief in the trend of democratic decline has led many liberals to wring their hands and ask despairingly whether they can do anything to reverse it. The answers to this question are simple and boring: go out with your fellow citizens and vote or, if you are more actively inclined, work hard to mobilize like-minded people to help democratic politicians win elections. Liberal democracy is all about personal agency, and there is little evidence that traditional political engagement no longer works.

THE YEAR OF ELECTIONS

The year of elections is so named because an all-time-high number of citizens worldwide went to the polls; nearly 30 countries are holding elections that are both defining and competitive. This pivotal year really began in late 2023, most critically with the Polish election on October 15 that dethroned the populist Law and Justice party (PiS) and replaced it with a coalition of liberal parties. Law and Justice had been following a path blazed by Hungary’s right-wing Fidesz party, but the strong cooperation between Poland’s Civic Platform and other left-of-center parties—whose members worked hard to overcome their past differences and held massive rallies to get out the vote—drove a 41-seat loss for PiS, which also lost its majority in Poland’s lower house of parliament, the Sejm. This represented a major setback for populism in Europe, depriving Hungary of a major ally within the EU. The only other country in eastern Europe to move in a populist direction was Slovakia, as Robert Fico returned as prime minister in October and vowed to end his country’s strong support for Ukraine. Slovakia’s pro-Western president, Zuzana Caputova, declined to run for a second term and was succeeded this June by Fico’s ally Peter Pellegrini, who, like Fico, is more sympathetic to Russia. Although populists made gains, Slovakia remains a deeply polarized nation; in May, a would-be assassin shot Fico because of the prime minister’s opposition to military aid for Ukraine.

In November 2023, Javier Milei defeated Sergio Massa in the second-round presidential vote in Argentina. Many in the United States understood Milei to be an Argentine Trump, given his antiestablishment personal style and embrace of the former U.S. president. But Milei was riding a wave of popular disgust with the ruling Peronists, who had led the country into deep economic stagnation. Although many populists embrace a strong state bent on enforcing conservative cultural values, Milei is a genuine libertarian. The early success of his economic stabilization program allowed him to retain his popularity despite having a weak base in the Argentine National Congress. The chief danger Milei poses is not that he will move in an authoritarian direction but that he will go too far in weakening the Argentine state.

Liberals’ fears that this year would reflect the global triumph of illiberal populism have so far been proved wrong.

Early 2024 saw mixed results for democracy. In January, Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party defeated the pro-Chinese Kuomintang, and Finland remained in a solidly democratic camp. In both cases, the winning parties had worked quietly but vigorously to build their legislative majorities. On the other hand, the following month, El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele was reelected president with a remarkable 85 percent of the vote—a reward for having dramatically decreased crime by using extrajudicial means to incarcerate a large part of the country’s gang leadership. In running for a second term, Bukele flouted the Salvadoran constitutional prohibition against consecutive reelection; he may well remain in power for years to come. The trend toward rewarding strongmen continued with the election of Prabowo Subianto to the Indonesian presidency. Human rights groups have accused Prabowo, a former special forces commander, of committing war crimes during Indonesia’s occupation of Timor-Leste in the 1980s and 1990s; he had been banned from traveling to the United States from 2000 until 2020, when Trump’s State Department granted him a visa. But his victory may not have reflected anything more than the enormous popularity of his predecessor, Joko Widodo, whose legacy Prabowo has claimed he will perpetuate.

In Bangladesh, the corrupt Awami League party led by Sheikh Hasina held on to power in January amid countrywide protests against her rule. Her success, however, would prove to be transitory, as renewed protests after the election led Hasina to flee the country in early August. Whether Bangladesh can reclaim a democratic mantle is not certain, but it is clear that a huge number of citizens were fed up with a ruler who had been in power for 20 of the last 28 years.

POPULIST REMEDIES REJECTED

The middle of the year brought two important elections, in South Africa and Mexico, that did not fit easily into the populist-versus-liberal framework. In South Africa, the African National Congress, which had dominated the country’s politics since it transitioned to democracy in 1994, lost 71 seats and its majority in the National Assembly. The rise of a new party, uMkhonto weSizwe (MK), associated with the country’s corrupt former president Jacob Zuma, was troubling, but in the aftermath of the election, the ANC went into a coalition not with MK but with the Democratic Alliance, a party that tends to represent white and so-called colored, or mixed race, voters. The DA gained three parliamentary seats, and the radical left-wing Economic Freedom Fighters party lost five. For all the corruption scandals and economic decline that South Africa has experienced in the past decade, the 2024 election was in some ways reassuring. Voters held the ANC accountable for its corrupt stewardship of the country and did not turn wholeheartedly to populist remedies.

Mexico similarly demonstrated the strength of its democratic culture. Liberal analysts have characterized the country’s sitting president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, as a Latin American populist, but he was popular against the backdrop of a corrupt and ineffective establishment. In daily speeches, he railed against the corrupt oligarchy that had ruled Mexico for decades. He dialed back the war against narcotraffickers, which brought a momentary reduction of violence while failing to solve an underlying problem that will plague Mexico for years to come. And he initiated a number of pro-poor policies while largely maintaining fiscal discipline. As the country’s first decidedly left-wing president since the 1920 Mexican Revolution, he became extremely popular, and his successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, won the presidency in June by more than 30 points over her conservative rival. Sheinbaum’s party, Morena, also won a supermajority in the Mexican Congress, giving it the option of changing the constitution after she takes office. López Obrador displayed many illiberal tendencies during his presidency, and his parting gift to the country will be a so-called reform of Mexico’s judiciary that, in fact, will severely weaken the institution’s independence. But it is not clear how Sheinbaum will use her substantial power once she comes into office. She does not seem to have inherited any of López Obrador’s zealotry. Barring any surprises, she is better thought of as a left-of-center Latin American politician than a left-wing populist.

Another pivotal election was in India, where the vote occurred in stages between mid-April and early June. Prime Minister Modi—a charter member of the populist-nationalist club who had weakened his country’s media, courts, and civil liberties—was expected to increase the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party’s majority in India’s lower house, the Lok Sabha. Instead, the BJP lost its majority and was forced to enter into a coalition with other parties. Its losses were particularly great in its former northern Indian heartland, where it shed 49 seats, including 29 in the poor state of Uttar Pradesh.

Less globally influential but still significant was the election in Mongolia at the end of June. Wedged between Russia and China, the country has been the only state in central Eurasia to realize and maintain a democracy after exiting Moscow’s orbit following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. But the ruling Mongolian People’s Party, the successor to the Soviet-era Communist Party, turned in an increasingly authoritarian and pro-Russian direction between 2022 and 2024. The election, however, saw the opposition Democratic Party more than double its seat count as voters rejected a system pervaded by corruption. This outcome did not make headlines in the West, but it demonstrated the power ordinary voters can wield to defend democracy.

UNSETTLING SHIFTS

Elections to the European Parliament took place in early June. Populist parties such as the Freedom Party in Austria, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) in France, the Alternative for Germany, the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, and Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy all made gains. Across the 27-member bloc, the biggest losers were the Socialists and the Greens. This shift was unsettling but did not amount to the earthquake that some had predicted. Center and center-right parties such as Germany’s Christian Democratic Union and Poland’s Civic Platform hung onto or even increased their vote shares. Poland’s Law and Justice party lost seats, as did Fidesz in Hungary, where a dissident party member, Peter Magyar, split the vote by forming his own party following a corruption scandal in Fidesz.

The European Parliament election’s two most disturbing results came in France and Italy. Le Pen’s RN party swamped French President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist coalition, winning more than twice the vote share. This caused Macron to declare a snap national election at the end of June. The RN gained 37 seats, and the leftist alliance, the New Popular Front, added 32; for a moment, it looked as if the RN’s young standard-bearer, Jordan Bardella, was headed toward the prime minister’s office. But in the second round of voting in early July, the center and left parties withdrew their weaker candidates, and the RN was once again locked out of power. This happened only because the left-wing parties’ cooperated to streamline their candidates—the boring but necessary work of politics that previous coalitions had failed to do.

In Italy, the situation is less promising. In the European Parliament elections, Meloni’s populist Brothers of Italy increased its vote share substantially, and her right-wing coalition holds a comfortable majority in the Italian parliament. Meloni, who became prime minister in late 2022, initially portrayed herself as a centrist. Early in her tenure, she broke with pro-Russian populists such as Orban and Fico by expressing strong support for Ukraine, and many commentators speculated that she would back European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s bid for a second term. But after the EU parliament vote, she shifted to the right, and her party voted for only conditional support for Ukraine and opposed von der Leyen’s reelection.

The one large European country to hold an election without the threat that a rising populist party would gain power was the United Kingdom, where in early July, the Labour Party achieved a decisive victory over the Conservatives. The Tories had been in power for 14 years under five prime ministers and had led the country into prolonged economic stagnation by, among other things, supporting Brexit. When the Labour Party replaced its far-left leader, Jeremy Corbyn, with the more moderate Keir Starmer, voters responded favorably. Populist firebrands such as Nigel Farage were still around; his right-wing Reform UK party won 14 percent of the vote, more than the Liberal Democrats, who secured 12 percent. But Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system kept him far from power.

DEMOCRATIC RESISTANCE

There are still a number of important elections to come: in Moldova, where the liberal President Maia Sandu is likely to win reelection, and in Georgia, where the pro-Russian Georgian Dream party has a good chance of retaining power. But the most important election by far is the one occurring on November 5 in the United States between Trump and the Democratic candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris. At the time of the Republican National Convention in mid-July, a Trump victory against an aging Biden looked likely, but with Biden’s decision to step aside, the Democrats have been suddenly energized. Numerous polls, both nationally and in many of the critical swing states, now show Harris ahead of her opponent.

The outcome of the American election will have huge implications both for American institutions and for the world. Trump has expressed strong admiration for authoritarian leaders such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping, and at home, he has promised to weaken checks on executive power. He will almost certainly end U.S. support for Ukraine and has expressed great skepticism about the value of alliances such as NATO. He has vowed to end trade relations with China and to impose a ten percent across-the-board tariff on all foreign-produced goods. The Republican Party has decidedly abandoned the libertarian policies of the Ronald Reagan years and pledges to wield state power in the service of conservative ends.

But thus far, the year of elections has not been a terrible one for democracy worldwide. Populist and authoritarian parties and leaders have made gains in some countries, but they have lost in others. Citizens have expressed their opposition to authoritarian governance in other ways, as well. In July, Venezuelans voted overwhelmingly in favor of the opposition candidate Edmundo González, leading the regime of Nicolás Maduro to commit massive fraud in declaring him the winner. Maduro’s regime can survive only by turning openly authoritarian and abandoning any shred of democratic legitimacy. And in Myanmar, where a military junta abolished elections following a coup in 2021, an armed insurgency that allies the junta’s democratic opposition to a number of ethnic militias is making substantial territorial gains.

The outcome of the American election will have huge implications both for American institutions and for the world.

Elections by themselves do not guarantee good policies or outcomes. What they provide is the opportunity to hold leaders accountable for policy failures and to reward them for perceived successes. Elections become dangerous when they elevate leaders who do not just seek to impose questionable policies but also hope to weaken or undermine basic liberal and democratic institutions. In this respect, the United States has become something of an outlier. In no European or Asian democracy has a leader recently arisen who has blatantly refused to accept the outcome of an election or provoked popular violence to avoid stepping down from power. The willingness of many Republican voters to normalize the events of January 6, 2021, is a symptom of weakening democratic norms in the world’s leading democracy—a signal that will be picked up by like-minded populists (such as the supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who imitated the January 6 rioters when they stormed their Congress in 2023) if Trump returns to the White House in November.

The lesson to be drawn from the year of elections so far is that the rise of populist and authoritarian politicians is not inevitable. Democratic backsliding can and has been resisted in many countries that hold elections. But democratic norms cannot be secured with violence, judicial remedies (for example, the use of the 14th Amendment to disqualify Trump), the rise of a new charismatic leader, or any other quick fix. What remains effective is the steady, often boring work of democratic politics: making arguments, convincing and mobilizing voters, adjusting policies, building coalitions, and, if necessary, making compromises where the best gives way to the possible. Even in a dispiriting time for global democracy, citizens still have agency to move toward better futures.

WOW !!! An impressive compilation and deep analysis of the world's state of democracy and regime change. Thank you Mr. Fukuyama, for this well done study. 

As always my profound thanks to my readers, I felt this article could help us all better understand our actual world.  

Help Lebanon.....

 

International Conference for Lebanon organized in Paris
The summit, initiated by Emmanuel Macron, opened on Thursday with France announcing a 100 million aid package for the country. Seventy countries and 15 international organizations are participating in the event.

Article written by franceinfo with AFP
France Televisions

A crucial summit to help Lebanon. An international conference for the country opened on Thursday, October 24 in Paris. This French initiative should help advance several burning issues, such as aid for displaced people and negotiations for a ceasefire. The needs have been colossal since Israel launched a ground offensive in the south of the country at the end of September, which has already left at least 1,552 dead and more than 800,000 displaced. "Lebanon is in danger of death and dislocation," Jean-Yves Le Drian, Emmanuel Macron's personal envoy to Beirut, told AFP. Franceinfo answers four questions about this conference.

What is the aim of this conference?
The international conference on Lebanon should mark a step forward on the diplomatic front. "The objective is first to reaffirm the need for a ceasefire, a diplomatic resolution and an end to hostilities, to mobilize humanitarian aid from as many countries as possible and to support Lebanese institutions, first and foremost the Lebanese armed forces," explained French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot on RTL on Wednesday.

Concretely, the priority will already be to respond to the UN appeal for funds, launched on October 1, for aid of more than 400 million dollars (370 million euros) for displaced persons. The objective of the conference is even to raise some 500 million euros. French President Emmanuel Macron announced Thursday morning that France would release 100 million euros for Lebanon.

The meeting should also help advance negotiations to end the war. "The war must end as soon as possible," Emmanuel Macron added on Thursday, specifying that the objective is to "affirm Lebanon's sovereignty" and "demonstrate that the worst is not written and allow the Lebanese to regain control of their destiny."

Paris and Washington have already initiated last month, during the United Nations General Assembly in New York, a proposal for a temporary ceasefire for Lebanon. France wants to enforce UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which had ended the previous war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006. It establishes that only the Blue Helmets and the Lebanese army should be deployed in the south of Lebanon bordering Israel.

This resolution "enables us to guarantee, on the one hand, the sovereignty and unity of Lebanon and, on the other, to give security guarantees to Israel so that the 60,000 people who had to leave their homes after October 7 in northern Israel can return there," assured Jean-Noël Barrot on RTL. "Today, it is the diplomatic solution that must prevail," insisted the minister.

Who should participate?
The conference "will see the participation of 70 countries and 15 international organizations," recalled Jean-Noël Barrot. "All those we invited have responded," he said. However, the minister did not specify the level of representation of these countries. Will they be heads of state, ministers, or diplomats? On the United States side, neither President Joe Biden nor Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is traveling to the Middle East, will be in Paris.

The Prime Minister is present at the conference. He was received on Wednesday at the Elysée. Najib Mikati also thanked Emmanuel Macron, in a statement, "for his constant support for Lebanon" and for the "efforts" made by France towards a ceasefire. He is accompanied by the head of Lebanese diplomacy, Abdallah Bou Habib.
Why is it organized in Paris?

The organization of this conference is an initiative of Emmanuel Macron. The relationship between Paris and Beirut is special. Formerly a mandatory power, France has some 23,000 nationals in Lebanon, several thousand of whom have recently fled the country because of the war. The Lebanese diaspora is also strongly established in France.

Since the end of President Michel Aoun's term in office at the end of October 2022, the French president has been trying to play a facilitating role in Lebanon in order to find a successor, while the country is also facing an unprecedented economic crisis. Emmanuel Macron has repeatedly called on "Lebanese officials to take responsibility" so that they can resolve "the presidential equation, the governmental equation", the Elysée Palace stressed on Wednesday. In less than a year and a half, his personal envoy to Lebanon, former Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, has visited Beirut six times to try to convince the various influential parties. Without success.
What is the situation in Lebanon?

Heavy bombardments continue to hit Lebanon. The southern suburbs of Beirut, a stronghold of Hezbollah, were targeted Wednesday evening by 17 Israeli strikes that destroyed several buildings and caused a huge explosion. According to the Lebanese news agency Ani, these are the most significant bombardments in this area since the start of the war between Israel and the pro-Iranian Islamist movement a month ago.

For its part, Hezbollah said on Wednesday it had fired rockets at a military base and a military industrial site near Tel Aviv, the major city in the center of the country, and targeted two other military bases near Haifa, in the north. At least 1,552 people have been killed in Lebanon since the start of the Israeli airstrike campaign on September 23, according to an AFP count based on official data. The UN has also counted some 800,000 displaced.

France and its President called for a conference to help and save Lebanon from an expanding war waged by Israel, not against Hizballah as they claim, but against Lebanon as a country, more so against its southern parts, population and wealth. It clearly wants its lands its waters and eventually aggrandize Israel with more settlers in its conquered new territories. Lebanon always represented by definition; the anti model to the Israeli model of existence, with its multi ethnic amalgam and cohesion, its peace and its prosperity, for many decades now Israel tried to destroy this model of integration and equality that they couldn't achieve themselves, they are still trying. 

All my thanks to all.     

SAD REALITIES......

 

THE CROSS

Gaza: In the North, Civilians Under a Deluge of Fire from the Israeli Army
Narrative
Under fire from a third Israeli army operation, residents of northern Gaza are cut off from the rest of the enclave. While no food or medical aid is reaching them, NGOs are warning of the ongoing "erasure of the Palestinian presence."
• Cécile Lemoine, correspondent in Jerusalem, LA CROIX
• 10/16/2024 at 6:08 p.m.

• It was the head that was hit. A precise shot. The frail bodies of three children lie in a pool of blood on the asphalt of the Al-Fallujah neighborhood in Jabaliya, in the northern Gaza Strip. The video, published on October 15, lingers a little further on, on the body of a man, his flesh torn to pieces.
• “There are no words to describe the horror of what we see in Jabaliya,” says Mohammed Abu Loay, a young recruit in the Gaza Civil Defense Forces who documents his work as a rescuer on social media. “The reality on the ground is much worse than what I am posting. There are dead bodies everywhere in the streets. People are trapped, no one knows where to go.”

For nearly ten days, the northern Gaza Strip has been under fire from an operation of unprecedented intensity by the Israeli army. After claiming that "Hamas was rebuilding its operational capabilities in the Jabaliya camp," the army ordered the 60,000 residents of Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahiya and Jabaliya to evacuate to the already overcrowded humanitarian zone of Al-Mawasi, before surrounding the north.
"No one dares to leave their homes anymore"

Ismail, a resident of Jabaliya who was displaced to Beit Lahiya, has decided to stay, like many others. “We have experienced all the horror of the war and now we would let them win by forcing us to leave? Of course not! We will never allow them to steal the North!” protests the 33-year-old former teacher.
Trapped, he describes a daily life of explosions, gunfire and incessant shelling: "People are being killed while they are in their homes. At the slightest movement, quadcopters spot you and shoot you down. The army also uses suicide tank robots that explode in the middle of neighborhoods, causing buildings to collapse. Evacuation routes are being bombed... No one dares to leave their homes anymore."

Due to the lack of journalists, both Gazan and international, images from northern Gaza are rare. Some residents share their daily lives on social media, to warn of the “genocide” they say they are experiencing: “No vegetables, no meat, no fruit, and even some legumes are exhausted,” Ezzideen Shehab, a doctor in Jabaliya, reports on X. “The internet is cut off in most areas, the telecommunications network is extremely poor, the only bakery that supplied the camp has been set on fire, and water wells are systematically targeted.”

"More than 300 critically ill patients trapped"
The besieged northern Gaza Strip has not received any food or medical aid since the beginning of the month. The three hospitals in the area have been ordered to evacuate critically ill patients and medical staff, but the lack of safe evacuation routes has made the process impossible.

“More than 300 critically ill patients are trapped in hospitals, which are running out of fuel and medical supplies, while the number of wounded is rising,” warns Fikr Shalltoot, director of Medical Aid for Palestinians in Gaza. The NGO wants to warn against the “erasure of the Palestinian presence” underway in the north of the enclave: “The world must act before Gaza is completely razed.”

In the same movement, Israeli human rights NGOs have denounced "alarming signals" indicating "the discreet implementation of the 'generals' plan'". This military project, defended before the war cabinet by retired generals, aims to eradicate Hamas, pushed to "surrender or die of hunger", with disregard for the lives of civilians who would have remained in the North: "The entire territory of the northern Gaza Strip will become a military territory, and this military territory, as far as we are concerned, will receive no aid", explains Giora Eiland, retired major general of the Israeli army, in a video.

"If the continued wait-and-see attitude of states allows Israel to liquidate northern Gaza, they will be complicit," protested Israeli NGOs in a statement. Threatening to limit their arms supply, the United States gave Israel 30 days to resolve the humanitarian crisis.

An article from the French publication La Croix, describing the Gaza situation, most details are rarely or never mentioned in most Western media, especially American major media, it's worth talking about it sometimes.... 

On the contrary, with the situation in Lebanon escalating barbarically every day, and totally out of control, more so as the American side refuses to demand/order Israel to stop its second genocide and crazy blind bombardments of civilian buildings in densely populated areas of Beirut and the entire country. 

The same exact tactics, excuses and brutality against a dislodged civilian population is taking place in Lebanon as described above for Gaza. While the entire world sits by silent and helpless.

My profound thanks to all my good readers. 

Sinwar’s Death Is A Disaster For Bibi

 

It wasn’t ‘coincidental;’ it was accidental. Israel just killed its favorite bête noire

Thomas Greene

The clearly unintentional martyrdom of Yahya Sinwar is a major headache for Bibi Netanyahu, who has accused the late Hamas leader of undermining peace negotiations and obstructing a hostage deal. It is of course Nethanyahu who has been scuppering progress on these fronts, as I discussed in a previous article. Sinwar has been providing handy cover for Israeli intransigence by being stubborn and hardcore himself, and therefore easy to blame.

It’s beyond doubt that Bibi is very much inconvenienced by Sinwar’s death, as he has just lost an important excuse for his own refusal to secure a ceasefire or a hostage deal, neither of which he wants, but both of which he is obliged to pretend to want.

The Israelis murdered Ismail Haniyeh because he was a politician, and flexible, and because he kept saying “Yes” to American proposals for a ceasefire and hostage exchange which Netanyahu would have to sabotage at the last minute — behavior that repeatedly exposed him as the bloodthirsty bad guy. Yahya Sinwar was preferred, even protected, because Bibi thought he could make Sinwar look like the worse of two bad guys. So Israel took out a relatively reasonable Hamas leader and installed the man who planned the 7 October 2023 ghetto uprising in his place — so that they could hate him, and Hamas, and the rest of Gaza that much more.

The IDF would no doubt have been under standing orders to avoid attacking any place where Sinwar was likely to be found. To cover the embarrassing fact of actually protecting someone they’re supposed to hate, the government had to explain why Sinwar hadn’t been killed or caught, so they put it about that he would be hiding deep in the tunnel network, keeping safe. The circumstances of his death reveal that he was, in fact, going about fairly openly, and probably could have been taken quite some time ago if anyone had actually wanted him.

A couple of 19 year old IDF sergeants no doubt got a little trigger happy, only to discover minutes later, and much to their dismay, that they’d unknowingly killed the only Palestinian whose violent death was not authorized.

US President Joe Biden crystallized Netanyahu’s predicament, calling Sinwar a significant obstacle to peace which has now been removed. Kamala Harris made similar remarks. And an editorial in Haaretz by Amos Harel clearly expressed the demand that Bibi has been dreading: “After Sinwar’s death, Israel must press ahead with a hostage deal,” he wrote. A hostage deal would necessarily mean a ceasefire and the end to his excuse for exterminating the Palestinians, so it’s the absolute last thing Netanyahu wants. [1]

No wonder the Israelis have been protecting Sinwar. He was the ideal bête noire; but now he’s been martyred accidentally and they’re fresh out of excuses. The pressure to pursue a ceasefire and hostage deal will be mounting relentlessly from all quarters — while at least one hapless IDF stooge is headed for a very swift and certain demotion. If not a fatal accident.

____________
[1] Update 18 October: It’s been less than 24 hours and the American pressure chorus has begun to sing, for all the good it’s likely to do.

US President Joe Biden: “Now is the time to move on — move towards a ceasefire in Gaza […] It’s time for this war to end and bring these hostages home.”

US Vice President Kamala Harris: Sinwar’s death “offers an opportunity to finally end the war in Gaza.”

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin: Sinwar’s death “provides an extraordinary opportunity to achieve a lasting ceasefire, to end this awful war, and to rush humanitarian aid into Gaza.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “Today, evil suffered a heavy blow, but our mission is not yet completed […] the war, the war, my dear ones, is not yet finished. It is harsh and it takes a heavy price from us.”

So that would be another “Fuck you, Joe” to add to the pile.

A very good article by prof. Thomas Greene, depicting and illustrating many people's views, again I got it through the Medium daily digest, and I help in not sending these articles into oblivion, so I copy, print and publish them under my blog,   Thanks to all my good readers for continuous following up. 

The Jordanian dilemma after the war

         

Marwan Muasher

A whole year has passed since the Israeli war on Gaza, during which Israel has crossed all humanitarian, political and military boundaries.
The Israeli Prime Minister does not seem to have any clear strategy other than staying in power for as long as possible. After Israel's assassination of Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, Netanyahu's popularity seems to be on the rise, which strengthens his ability to remain in power today. It is also not unlikely that he will seek to prolong the war for another reason, which is his unwillingness to give Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris any positive role in stopping the war and his preference to wait for the results of the US elections over Trump. If he wins, he will deal with him better than the Democrats, even with Biden's blatant support for Israel and providing it with all the weapons it needs to perpetuate the war.
But the war will end one way or another at some point. Post-war Jordan will face a major dilemma in terms of its approach to the future relationship with Israel. Official Jordan used a previously convincing justification in its promotion of signing a peace treaty with Israel to its citizens. This justification was that signing the treaty forced Israel to recognize the Jordanian state and Jordanian borders, which would bury the notion of an alternative homeland, which in practice meant emptying the Palestinian land of its population and claiming the existence of a Palestinian state in Jordan and not on Palestinian soil. Jordan even insisted on including in the treaty an explicit text against any attempt at mass displacement of the population (i.e. from the Palestinian territories to Jordan).
In addition, after Netanyahu and the extreme right came to power, the official Jordanian position was that Israel's stubborn position on the peace process did not represent the end of the road, and that Netanyahu would leave power at some point, and that Jordan should wait until a more flexible and balanced Israeli prime minister comes, which would allow for the resumption of talks with Israel about ways to end the occupation and establish a Palestinian state.

The crossroads that Jordan will face is of great importance, which calls for a serious national dialogue about the future of the Jordanian-Israeli relationship.

The Israeli war on Gaza has greatly weakened both of these justifications. It has become clear that one of Israel’s main goals in the war is to get rid of as many Palestinians as possible in Gaza, either by direct killing or by making Gaza uninhabitable after Israel has destroyed all the necessities of life in the Strip, from road networks, electricity and water to schools, hospitals and places of worship. In addition, Israeli settlers in the West Bank continue to attack Palestinian population centers, with the support of the Israeli army, in blatant attempts to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians, in preparation for creating or taking advantage of conditions that allow for displacement.
The second argument, which was hoping for the arrival of an Israeli prime minister with whom Jordan could reach an understanding regarding the establishment of a Palestinian state, also fell, especially after the Israeli Knesset passed a law last July, with the approval of all the main Israeli parties, both pro- and anti-Israel, against the establishment of a Palestinian state.
The current division in Israel is only between those who support Netanyahu and those who oppose Netanyahu. As for the Palestinian issue, there is a near-unanimous Israeli rejection of a Palestinian state. This stubborn Israeli popular and official position is not expected to change. Israeli society has been increasingly radicalized for more than twenty years, and there is no significant Israeli popular critical mass calling for peace, neither now nor in the foreseeable future.
Accordingly, Jordan faces a real dilemma in the post-war period. Resuming economic and security cooperation with Israel would expose the government to a direct confrontation with an angry and hostile public opinion, and would give Israel the impression that Jordan is not serious in its opposition to Israeli policies. Continuing Jordan’s current position, which is ahead of other Arab countries in terms of its harsh criticism of Israel, would expose it to serious pressure from the United States and others.
Hence, the outcome of the Jordanian elections is extremely important. Instead of being a stark expression of where Jordanian public opinion stands, the Jordanian decision-maker can use this outcome to resist any external pressures that Jordan may be exposed to.
The crossroads that Jordan will face is of great importance, which calls for a serious national dialogue on the future of the Jordanian-Israeli relationship. While the cancellation of the peace treaty may not be on the table for several reasons, studying the remaining options and choosing the best of them is a national necessity, because it is clear that returning to the status quo between Jordan and Israel before October 7 of last year is neither possible nor acceptable.

Former Jordanian Foreign Minister

A good and factual article by Mr. Muasher, it could as well transcribe to other Arab countries of the region.....           As usual, my many thanks to all for following and reading.    

HISTORY DIDN"T BEGIN OR END ON OCTOBER 7th

 
Dr. James J. Zogby ©
President
Arab American Institute

On October 7th, the continuing genocide in Gaza and the massive bombings in Lebanon will likely be ignored by US officials and media outlets as they solemnly commemorate the anniversary of Hamas’ attack on Israel.  What they’ll ignore is that the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict didn’t begin on October 7th, nor did the suffering end on that day. Nor did the ugly conflict in Lebanon and its blind mass killing and destructions start on Oct. 8th. 

October 7th was a horrific day, to be sure, of condemnable acts committed by Hamas against innocents. It is important that the stories of those who were murdered and those taken as hostages be told and that we hear their cries and mourn their loss. And it’s right that Hamas be condemned for the crimes they committed. But history didn’t start on that nightmarish day, and it certainly didn’t end there either. 

Since then, from what we know for certain, more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed, 97,000 wounded, with upwards of 20,000 missing. Entire Palestinian families have been wiped out, neighborhoods leveled, most housing in Gaza has been destroyed along with its schools, hospitals, and infrastructure. Aid has been restricted, resulting in deaths from disease, starvation, and malnutrition. And all kinds of psychological disorders have taken hold resulting from prolonged trauma. What Israel has done we are told by respected international agencies is genocide—the destruction of a society, its culture, and well-being. And now the devastation and trauma are being extended to Lebanon. 

When America’s political leaders and media commemorate the horror of October 7th, what happened after that day will not be considered. What began on October 8th and continues until now will be ignored. Worse still, those who dare to speak of the tragedy that followed will be denounced for their insensitivity to Jewish suffering. It will be as if the cries of the Israeli victims will drown out those of the Palestinians. One people’s pain will be prioritized over another’s. It’s something that Arabs have come to expect: They are not seen as equal human beings.

 
To be crude, this is not making a case for Palestinians winning the Victimhood Olympics. Rather it is merely a reminder that Palestinian lives matter as much as Israeli lives and that history didn’t begin or end on October 7th. But this is not the story that will be told on that day, in the US media or in Congress or by the White House. And it’s not the way this story will enter our history books. 

It’s often noted that history, as it’s taught in a society, is written by the dominant group. The story that is told is a function of the perspective of the person who’s relating it. It’s how they see it from where they stand, and its meaning is determined by where they choose to start their narrative. 

When I was in school, the American history we learned began with Columbus’ “discovery” of what was termed “the New World.” “Indians” were savages and the “3/5ths compromise” was presented as a logical answer to how to count slaves in the census. 

The world history we studied was Eurocentric. Islam was a barbaric threat; China was a mere footnote “discovered by Marco Polo”; Genghis Khan was a marauder. And the British and French, we were told, brought civilization to the primitive people of the south and east. 
In reality, of course, the “New World” was populated with ancient civilizations that had built magnificent cultures, slavery was a barbaric institution, Islamic civilization taught the West a great deal, Genghis Khan was one of the great conveyors of culture from East to West, and colonialism was an evil that subjugated and exploited and distorted the economic and political development of the conquered nations. But that’s not the story that was taught, because those who wrote the history we learned in school began their story in 1492 and told it from the perspective of Americans or Europeans looking out at the world.

Back to October 7th. Palestinians have a tragic story to tell of dispossession, displacement, and horrific oppression that began a century ago. But here in the US, their story is not the dominant narrative. The nightmare they’ve lived isn’t understood or is outright rejected. 
In mid-October 2023 I had an encounter with a senior Biden administration official. After he spoke passionately about October 7th and the trauma it evoked for Jews everywhere, I told him I understood. I noted how my uncle, a US soldier in WWII, told me about what he saw on entering the concentration camps in Nazi Germany. His stories and The Diary of Anne Frank, which I read in high school, helped me understand Jewish trauma and be understanding of their fears. I cautioned him, however, that there was another people who also had a history of trauma and that what Palestinians were seeing play out evoked for them the nightmare of the Nakba. We must, I insisted, be sensitive to the horror and trauma of both peoples. He angrily shot back, dismissing my observation saying that it smacked of “whataboutism.” I was stunned and angry. It was one thing for Israelis to feel that only their suffering matters and that anyone who attempts to distract from that one-sided view is either dismissive of Jewish pain or is defending those who inflict it. It’s quite another for US officials and major media figures to share this view. 

Public opinion in the US is changing with more Americans understanding the Palestinian story and empathizing with their pain. This broader view, however, has not taken hold in official political and media circles. They still see history through the eyes of only one side. For them, only Israeli lives and suffering matters and the story of the current tragedy began and ended on October 7th.

 
Yes, another factual and so very true article by Dr. J. Zogby, describing the actual horrific situation a full year down the line...... And now widening to brutally engulf Lebanon and possibly the entire region and the world. 

 
As always, my many thanks to all my good readers. 

DEBUNKING AND EXPOSING A FASCIST COLONIAL IDEOLOGY.....

This may be of interest, opinion of an Israeli jew turned anti Zionist.

 Alon Mizrahi

 Many times in the past months I've been asked, by so many people, what I thought was going to happen, or where things were going. My answer has always been the same: a bigger war was inevitable. Israel was going to launch a major offensive against Lebanon, then Iran.

 I even added a timeframe for that war: it was to happen in the fall of this year (2024), or by next year's spring at the latest. 

 Things have zigzagged in terms of a sense of an imminent conflagration, but now I think this view has become prevalent, if not dominant. Even Haaretz military analysts, traditionally critical of Netanyahu's government (to a degree) and Israel's security apparatus (to a much smaller degree) seem now to agree that 'Israel has no choice' but to start 'a limited war' against Hezbollah (hope you're laughing bitterly at this as I do).

 

 Two potentially related incidents from the last couple of days add to this growing feeling of imminent war: Iran's launch of a new satellite into orbit, and the Houthis' successful use of maneuvering and therefore uninterceptable hypersonic missile against Israel. 

 Iran and the Axis of Resistance it heads have access to high-quality, real-time intelligence on Israel, and a [proven ability to hit basically anywhere in it within minutes. These two developments alone shatter any previous balance of power (but they are not alone: Israel reaches this point weakened in so many different ways it needs a separate mega-post). 

 My assessment of the inevitability of a major war, though, did not and does not rely on an analysis of military capabilities. It is based on my intimate and extensive reading of Israel's psychology, and that of its messianic right wing (which only differ in degree, not in essence).

 You see, Netanyahu, Israel's government and establishments and the whole Zionist infrastructure don't live in the present moment, or the present place.

 They are not bluffing or pretending: for them, life is really and authentically made of holocaust speeches, imagined ancient kingdom bygone glories, and a future filled with domination and unshakable supremacy - the views that would get you forcibly institutionalized as an individual, but are somehow made to appear tolerable when an entire major Western political movement expresses them.

 Netanyahu grew up in a family of utter psychos and has been escorted by state security almost every minute of his adult life. He doesn't even know what normal life is. He's never been exposed to that. Every aspect of normalcy (marriage, children) in his life is a carefully cultivated insane lie. Netanyahu hasn't even seen a normal person his entire life; he's 100% a deluded sociopath with unlimited power over Israel and near unlimited power over US political and defense establishments.

 (By the way, and I don't want to expand on this now, but this metaphysical view of life, which irrevocably blurs one's judgment, is one of Judaism's biggest failures, or dangers; I will expand on that, as on other major themes mentioned here, separately.) 

 Politically in every sense of the word, but also as supported by religious and Zionist beliefs, Netanyahu and Israel have nowhere to go but over the cliff, in the hope that god (which is one with his holy spirit, the US) (the father being 'King David' and the son being Netanyahu in this Zionism Catholicism) intervenes and brings about their astronomically unlikely salvation and final triumph over global historic antisemitism (incarnated in poor Palestinian babies).

 

 In a more grounded political way, things are so fucked in Israel, these bunch of psychotic losers can't even imagine how to amend them. Netanyahu is entangled in a series of high corruption crimes; the settlements movement is unsustainable and globally furiously (deservedly) hated; the ultra-religious won't let any serious liberalization of Israel's Judaism come about but also won't partake fully in the Zionist holy ritual of military service; the Palestinian cause is drawing more sympathy by the day; Israel's entire military and expansionist philosophy is fully exposed and at a dead end: how can this group of depraved idiots even begin to cope with any of this? their safest and easiest bet is a big war, a US miraculous rescue, and a strategic reshuffle of everything. 

 That's exactly what's going to happen, but just not like they imagine it. Israel is going to lose a big conventional war and become politically, socially, and economically broken, guaranteed by US and Western 'support'.

 I am not sure Israel has more than a year or two to survive as a single recognizable political entity. The big war that its nature and leadership push toward is going to finally break it, after having completely and historically destroyed the reputation of everyone who had anything to do with it, from Balfour onward.

 

 The main victims of Zionism, the Palestinians, are going through a period of heightened pain and loss. In the long run, I think that it will be understood that this tragic option was better for them than an eternal unnoticed grind that would have sent them to their collective grave unknown and forgotten by humanity. After this catastrophe, I see a real chance of a new Palestine emerging from this - one that is not constantly wrecked by its internationally supported belligerent neighbor.

I've copied previously an article by Alon Mizrahi, this one would be my second, although it's couple months old, but it's predictions about Lebanon's involvement and expanding the war against all its neighbors, including Lebanon and Iran is obvious. More so after the devastating bombardments of central civilian areas of Beirut. It's very perceptive and describes very well the psych of the present Israeli regime, I'm very appreciative of his acute analysis.

My profound many thanks to all.