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Fri, 25 Sep 2026 04:28:38 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 From: Chas Freeman Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2026 07:28:21 -0400 X-Gm-Features: AclHuK9MsDMq16vQa61qKfpTLVkdY7HvW2M-rEnsHOfT3hjYs9Ey8U4h5SEPdHo Message-ID: To: "salon@listserve.com" Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="00000000000088b018065c4d04bd" Subject: [Salon] =?utf-8?q?Trump=E2=80=99s_diesel_export_ban_under_siege?= X-BeenThere: salon@listserve.com X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.33 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussion List for the Committee For The Republic List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2026 11:28:41 -0000 --00000000000088b018065c4d04bd Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Trump=E2=80=99s diesel export ban under siege [image: Chart showing global diesel price, by country] *The diesel export ban Trump is mulling to bring down record-high prices would backfire in two ways , further dividing Hill Republicans while risking even pricier gasoline, *Semafor=E2= =80=99s Eleanor Mueller and Nicholas Wu report. If his administration does push ahead, its main cheerleaders will be GOP candidates in tight races this fall. But most congressional Republicans want nothing to do with the idea, no matter how close they are with the administration. =E2=80=9CThe better p= olicy would be for states like California to lift the restrictions that they=E2= =80=99re imposing on the exploitation and the refining of diesel,=E2=80=9D Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., told Semafor. Oil-state lawmakers were harsher: Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, derided it as =E2=80=9Ca gimmick=E2=80=9D that =E2=80=9Cwo= n=E2=80=99t work.=E2=80=9D The frosty response from Trump=E2=80=99s own party is particularly notable after a yea= r that began with Republicans stiff-arming his earliest ideas to lower the cost of living. --00000000000088b018065c4d04bd Content-Type: text/html; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Trump=E2=80=99s diesel export= ban under siege

3D"Chart

The diesel export ban Trump is mulling to bring down recor= d-high prices would backf= ire in two ways, further dividing Hill Republicans while risking even p= ricier gasoline, Semafor=E2=80=99s Eleanor Mueller and Nicholas Wu= report. If his administration does push ahead, its main c= heerleaders will be GOP candidates in tight races this fall. But most congr= essional Republicans want nothing to do with the idea, no matter how close = they are with the administration. =E2=80=9CThe better policy would be for s= tates like California to lift the restrictions that they=E2=80=99re imposin= g on the exploitation and the refining of diesel,=E2=80=9D Sen. Bill Hagert= y, R-Tenn., told Semafor. Oil-state lawmakers were harsher: Sen. John Corny= n, R-Texas, derided it as =E2=80=9Ca gimmick=E2=80=9D that =E2=80=9Cwon=E2= =80=99t work.=E2=80=9D The frosty response from Trump=E2=80=99s own party i= s particularly notable after a year that began with Republicans stiff-arming his earliest ideas = to lower the cost of living.

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Fri, 25 Sep 2026 04:37:14 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 From: Chas Freeman Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2026 07:36:57 -0400 X-Gm-Features: AclHuK-nzrkGYaE2CP82W2IlxJUAgBcHo3LLf1gO98LDs7Vteknxehf9SjM7jLU Message-ID: To: "salon@listserve.com" Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="00000000000045a351065c4d23ee" Subject: [Salon] Israel Rocked by a War Crimes Documentary X-BeenThere: salon@listserve.com X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.33 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussion List for the Committee For The Republic List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2026 11:37:15 -0000 --00000000000045a351065c4d23ee Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable https://share.google/4IpymM6s1KZS2bKe9 Israel Rocked by a War Crimes Documentary=E2=80=9DCollateral Damage,=E2=80= =9D featuring testimony by Gaza veterans, spurs outrage, investigation by Israeli Defense Force chief Yossi Melman Sep 23, 2026 Directors Yuval Avraham and Rachel Szor drew a 25-minute long standing ovation from the Venice Film Festival audience on Sept. 12, 2026 after being awarded a Special Jury Prize. (Uncredited Jerusalem Post photo)) As if Israel did not already have to contend with war on several fronts, and as it struggles=E2=80=94and apparently does not want to end those confl= icts and other military confrontations=E2=80=94the Israeli government and its milita= ry chief have decided to open yet another front. This time, though, the targets aren=E2=80=99t Iran or its Islamic proxies. = Its enemies are two young Israeli filmmakers, Yuval Avraham and Rachel Szor, co-directors of a controversial documentary called =E2=80=9CNAZA=E2=80=9D= =E2=80=94 the Hebrew acronym for =E2=80=9Ccollateral damage.=E2=80=9D The film, which last week = won a Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival and received a 25-minute standing ovation from the audience, portrays alleged war crimes committed by the Israeli Defense Force during the war in Gaza. The film features some two dozen soldiers and officers from the elite military electronic intelligence Unit 8200, appearing in shadow and speaking anonymously. They describe the IDF=E2=80=99s use of an artificial-intelligence system known as =E2=80=9CLavender=E2=80=9D to ident= ify and kill Hamas operatives at various levels of the organization, while causing the deaths of thousands=E2=80=94perhaps tens of thousands=E2=80=94of innocent c= ivilians as collateral damage. Lavender, according to the film and an April, 2024 story in The Guardian that cited Avraham as the first journalist to reveal it, is an AI-powered database that at one stage identified 37,000 potential targets in Gaza, based on their apparent links to Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. However, it was not a =E2=80=9Ckiller robot=E2=80=9D that independently dec= ided who to bomb. According to the investigation, Lavender generated or flagged lists of people considered suspects, while the operational decision to strike was supposed to remain in human hands. It=E2=80=99s not clear, however, that it= did. The screening of the film, produced by The Guardian, which has not yet been released to the public worldwide and will probably not be screened in Israel, has caused an enormous uproar back home. IDF Chief of Staff Lt. General Eyal Zamir has ordered an investigation into the two filmmakers on suspicion of defamation. He=E2=80=99s also making eff= orts to track down the interviewees and prosecute them for violating the military= =E2=80=99s secrecy laws. Zamir himself has not seen the film. According to the IDF spokesman, the filmmakers did not agree to his request that they allow him to view it in advance of its release. According to the spokesman=E2=80=99s statement, =E2= =80=9Cthe Chief of Staff determined that this was a deliberate attempt to directly harm the legitimacy of the IDF and the State of Israel, despite the IDF=E2=80=99s as= sertion that it operates in accordance with international law and its own ethical code and is making efforts to minimize harm to civilians.=E2=80=9D IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir claimed victory over Hamas in Oct 2025. (IDF public affairs photo) *Uproar* Large sections of the Israeli public share the IDF=E2=80=99s anger, which s= till enjoys the status of a sacred cow in Israeli public opinion. Culture Minister Miki Zohar called for the citizenship of the two filmmakers to be revoked. He claimed that the film was reinforcing a rampant international sentiment in which many, particularly in so-called progressive circles, embrace and praise Israelis whose work reinforces their hostility toward Israel. The backlash from Israeli conservative sectors has been furious. Demonstrators identified with the far right, associated with National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, marched in a procession reminiscent of storm troopers near the home of Rachel Szor=E2=80=99s parents. Even centris= t pundits i raged against the film on Israeli TV, calling the filmmakers traitors. There were even voices suggesting that they should be shot like rabid dogs. And with Israel just five weeks away from general elections=E2=80=94perhaps= the most consequential in the history of its fragile democracy=E2=80=94even opp= onents of Netanyahu=E2=80=99s corrupt government have joined the angry chorus. A girl walks in Gaza during the Gaza=E2=80=93Israel war with a pot to get foo= d. (Jaber Jehad Badwan via Wikimedia Commons) At Haaretz, the beacon of Israeli liberal media, military affairs commentator Amos Harel wrote that NAZA could be interpreted as an allusion to years-long radical commentary which has compared Israel=E2=80=99s action= s to those of the Nazis during World War II. NAZA, Harel said, could well be understood as an amalgamation of =E2=80=9CNazis=E2=80=9D and =E2=80=9CGaza.= =E2=80=9D The atmosphere of near lynching was somewhat tempered by a petition signed by a thousand Israeli filmmakers expressing support for and solidarity with the two creators on the basis of defending freedom of expression and their artistic rights. A handful of journalists as well, some of them military affairs correspondents identified with a liberal agenda (including myself), wrote that the allegations of war crimes should be thoroughly investigated and that the witch hunt=E2=80=94characteristic of undemocratic, authoritari= an societies=E2=80=94should stop. *Fear of Violence* Amid all this, Yuval Avraham wrote to me from somewhere in Europe, saying that he valued my opinion as a military veteran and experienced national security journalist. But he also admitted that he was shaken and frightened about the ramifications of the campaign of vilification and threats against him=E2=80=94whether his personal safety was in danger. Much of what was hap= pening in Israel was =E2=80=9Cinsane and extraordinary,=E2=80=9D he said, adding, = =E2=80=9CI hope we can return to Israel. I don=E2=80=99t want to let them win.=E2=80=9D In an interview with Israeli Channel 13, Avraham was questioned about his ability to verify the claims made to him by soldiers and officers who spoke to him on condition of anonymity. He responded that their claims had been thoroughly investigated and verified, and that The Guardian also had access to the raw footage from the Gaza war. According to Avraham, both the identities of the interviewees and the incidents they described had been fact-checked. It is doubtful that Chief of Staff Zamir=E2=80=99s campaign of retribution = will produce the results he hopes for. At most, the IDF might sue the filmmakers for defamation under Israel=E2=80=99s libel laws. Such a lawsuit, however, = could result in years of testimonies for and against the IDF being aired and examined in court, long after the controversy over film itself has faded from the news. Identifying the leakers who were interviewed for the film could be even harder. They appear with their faces obscured and do not identify themselves by name. By the time all the investigations and legal proceedings have run their course, the filmmakers, producers and distributors will have enjoyed enormous free publicity. The controversy will only amplify the film=E2=80= =99s exposure and bring it to the attention of a much larger audience. In the end, Zamir and his advisers may end up becoming the film=E2=80=99s most eff= ective publicists and marketing team. If Zamir were acting wisely, rather than being driven by a desire to prove that he is right, he would have simply ignored the film and the hype surrounding it and allowed the storm to pass. But the chief of staff is a captive of the Israeli zeitgeist, particularly its sense of victimhood, a fervent belief in Israel=E2=80=99s righteousness= , a desire for revenge against its enemies, an unwillingness to examine facts and to apologize when necessary, and, of course, the inflammatory atmosphere of social media. In this maelstrom, Zamir has decided that he must satisfy the mob in the streets, in social media and, perhaps most critically, the far-right backers of Netanyahu=E2=80=99s fragile government coalition. *Hit Piece* I have not seen the film yet because Avraham and The Guardian want to control its release. But the impression I=E2=80=99ve gotten from talking wi= th several people who have seen it is that the personal testimonies in it are indeed shocking, while the film itself is rather simplistic and largely devoid of historical context. It says very little, for example, about the circumstances that formed the IDF=E2=80=99s furious response in Gaza following Hamas=E2=80=99s Oct. 7, 20= 03 massacre of 1,200 Israelis, its kidnapping of 251 more, its rapes of countless Israeli women and its looting and burning of Jewish homes in the communities surrounding Gaza. According to my confidants, the film also lacks a rigorous examination of the concept of collateral damage, a term associated with the American economist and strategic thinker Thomas C. Schelling, who defined it in a 1961 paper as the unintended harm to civilians or non=E2=80=91targeted asse= ts*.* Civilian casualties in wartime are, of course, as old as war itself. But during the Vietnam War =E2=80=9Ccollateral damage=E2=80=9D became a careful= ly sanitized phrase that obscured the careless, and sometimes even deliberate, killing of civilians. It=E2=80=99s become entrenched in the vocabulary of the U.S. = armed forces ever since. In some ways, Israel, too, has adopted it. During the 21st century wars of Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States military used numerical thresholds for anticipated non-combatant casualties when evaluating certain strikes. These thresholds could determine whether a commander in the field could authorize an attack or whether approval from higher political or military authorities was required. The thresholds varied substantially between theaters of war and at different stages of the conflicts, depending on American political and strategic considerations. At the beginning of the Iraq war, for example, the threshold for anticipated civilian casualties in certain operations was reported to have been as high as 30. The implication was that if an assessment indicated that a strike against a senior Iraqi target might kill fewer than 30 civilians, approval could be given at a lower level of command. If the anticipated number was higher, the decision required authorization from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. In Afghanistan, the threshold was reportedly reduced dramatically, in some circumstances to a single civilian casualty. Yet in both theaters there were exceptional cases in which many dozens of civilians were killed. The IDF has adopted the general concept, but it does not disclose its own thresholds for anticipated civilian casualties. This lack of transparency gives the military considerable room for factual flexibility and for justifying civilian casualties after the fact. Chief of Staff Zamir=E2=80=99s decision=E2=80=94and his call for government= ministries to push back against the film through =E2=80=9Cproper public diplomacy=E2=80= =9D=E2=80=94is rather pathetic. *Appalling Numbers* Even if you are fighting what=E2=80=99s deemed a just war, as against Hamas= war criminals in Gaza, it becomes extraordinarily difficult to defend your conduct after your forces have killed approximately 70,000 people=E2=80=94a= round three percent of the population=E2=80=94including tens of thousands of wome= n and children, while destroying or seriously damaging roughly 70 percent of the buildings where people lived. And then there=E2=80=99s the soldiers and off= icers, including some very senior ones, who have taken the law into their own hands in Gaza, as reported and revealed even in the Israeli media. It didn=E2=80=99t take NAZA, of course, to damage Israel=E2=80=99s reputati= on as an embattled, noble democracy repeatedly forced to fight for its survival. That=E2=80=99s been happening for years now. But when senior Israeli minist= ers, members of the Knesset and former generals such as Giora Eiland call for Gaza to be flattened, or for nuclear weapons to dropped on it, or for its population to be starved to death, they themselves accelerate international sentiment that Israel is guilty of war crimes, or, in some quarters, genocide. Israel has traveled a long road during its 75 years of existence, from a nation that saw itself as part of the democratic-liberal camp, championed human rights, and regarded itself as a light unto the nations. During its first decades, it pretty much successfully cultivated culture and science and presented itself to the world as a nation of pioneers and avatars of social justice =E2=80=94i.e., it used the tools of what=E2=80=99s known in = diplomatic, military and intelligence circles as =E2=80=9Csoft power.=E2=80=9D The foun= dation of its moral authority, of course, came from a people born from the ashes of the Holocaust, and their successful repulsion of repeated, if not constant, Arab or Iranian-backed assaults designed to remove them =E2=80=9Cfrom the r= iver to the sea.=E2=80=9D or to be =E2=80=9Cwiped off the map,=E2=80=9D as Iranian = president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad put it in a 2005 speech. If the two IDF chiefs of staff who have run the Gaza war, Herzi Halevi and Eyal Zamir, had devoted even a fraction of the energy they have invested in denouncing the rest of the world to policing their own troops, investigating allegations of soldiers and officers suspected of violating orders and the laws of war, and punishing those who were judged responsible for war crimes against humanity, Israel=E2=80=99s standing in world public = opinion might well be far, far better. But, no. Today, no public-relations campaign=E2=80=94and certainly no punis= hment of journalists or documentary filmmakers=E2=80=94will erase the mark that has = been stamped on Israel=E2=80=99s forehead for generations to come. ### --00000000000045a351065c4d23ee Content-Type: text/html; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
https:/= /share.google/4IpymM6s1KZS2bKe9

Israel Rocked by a War Crimes Documentary

=E2=80=9DCollatera= l Damage,=E2=80=9D featuring testimony by Gaza veterans, spurs outrage, inv= estigation by Israeli Defense Force chief

Yossi Melman
Sep 23, 2026
=
<= /div>
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<= div class=3D"gmail-image-link-expand" style=3D"display:flex;height:32px;opa= city:0">
Directors Yuval Avraham and Rachel Szor drew a 25-minute long s= tanding ovation from the Venice Film Festival audience on Sept. 12, 2026 af= ter being awarded a Special Jury Prize. (Uncredited Jerusalem Post photo))<= /div>

As if Israel did not already have to contend with war on sever= al fronts, and as it struggles=E2=80=94and apparently does not want to end = those conflicts and other military confrontations=E2=80=94the Israeli gover= nment and its military chief have decided to open yet another front.

This time, though, the targ= ets aren=E2=80=99t Iran or its Islamic proxies. Its enemies are two young I= sraeli filmmakers, Yuval Avraham and Rachel Szor, co-directors of a controv= ersial documentary called =E2=80=9CNAZA=E2=80=9D=E2=80=94 the Hebrew acrony= m for =E2=80=9Ccollateral damage.=E2=80=9D The film, which last week won a = Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival and receive= d a 25-minute standing ovation from the audience, portrays alleged war crim= es committed by the Israeli Defense Force during the war in Gaza.

The film features some two doz= en soldiers and officers from the elite military electronic intelligence Un= it 8200, appearing in shadow and speaking anonymously. They describe the ID= F=E2=80=99s use of an artificial-intelligence system known as =E2=80=9CLave= nder=E2=80=9D to identify and kill Hamas operatives at various levels of th= e organization, while causing the deaths of thousands=E2=80=94perhaps tens = of thousands=E2=80=94of innocent civilians as collateral damage.

Lavender, according to the film= and an April, 2024 story in The Guardian that ci= ted Avraham as the first journalist to reveal it, is an AI-powered database= that at one stage identified 37,000 potential targets in Gaza, based on th= eir apparent links to Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

However, it was not a =E2=80=9Ck= iller robot=E2=80=9D that independently decided who to bomb. According to t= he investigation, Lavender generated or flagged lists of people considered = suspects, while the operational decision to strike was supposed to remain i= n human hands. It=E2=80=99s not clear, however, that it did.

The screening of the film, produced= by The Guardian, which has not yet been released to the public worldwide a= nd will probably not be screened in Israel, has caused an enormous uproar b= ack home.

IDF Chief o= f Staff Lt. General Eyal Zamir has ordered an investigation into the two fi= lmmakers on suspicion of defamation. He=E2=80=99s also making efforts to tr= ack down the interviewees and prosecute them for violating the military=E2= =80=99s secrecy laws.

Zamir himself has not seen the film. According to the IDF spokesman, the f= ilmmakers did not agree to his request that they allow him to view it in ad= vance of its release. According to the spokesman=E2=80=99s statement, =E2= =80=9Cthe Chief of Staff determined that this was a deliberate attempt to d= irectly harm the legitimacy of the IDF and the State of Israel, despite the= IDF=E2=80=99s assertion that it operates in accordance with international = law and its own ethical code and is making efforts to minimize harm to civi= lians.=E2=80=9D

3D""<= div class=3D"gmail-image-link-expand" style=3D"display:flex;height:32px;opa= city:0">
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir claimed victory over Ham= as in Oct 2025. (IDF public affairs photo)

Uproar

Large sections of the Israeli public share the I= DF=E2=80=99s anger, which still enjoys the status of a sacred cow in Israel= i public opinion.

Cul= ture Minister Miki Zohar called for the citizenship of the two filmmakers t= o be revoked. He claimed that the film was reinforcing a rampant internatio= nal sentiment in which many, particularly in so-called progressive circles,= embrace and praise Israelis whose work reinforces their hostility toward I= srael.

The backlash f= rom Israeli conservative sectors has been furious. Demonstrators identified= with the far right, associated with National Security Minister Itamar Ben-= Gvir, marched in a procession reminiscent of storm troopers near the home o= f Rachel Szor=E2=80=99s parents. Even centrist pundits i raged against the = film on Israeli TV, calling the filmmakers traitors. There were even voices= suggesting that they should be shot like rabid dogs.

And with Israel just five weeks away from = general elections=E2=80=94perhaps the most consequential in the history of = its fragile democracy=E2=80=94even opponents of Netanyahu=E2=80=99s corrupt= government have joined the angry chorus.

3D""
A girl walks in Gaza during the Gaza= =E2=80=93Israel war with a pot to get food. (Jaber Jehad Badwan via Wikimed= ia Commons)

At Haar= etz, the beacon of Israeli liberal media, military affairs commentator Amos= Harel wrote that NAZA could be interpreted as an allusion to years-long ra= dical commentary which has compared Israel=E2=80=99s actions to those of th= e Nazis during World War II. NAZA, Harel said, could well be understood as = an amalgamation of =E2=80=9CNazis=E2=80=9D and =E2=80=9CGaza.=E2=80=9D

<= p style=3D"line-height:1.6em;margin:0px 0px 20px">The atmosphere of near ly= nching was somewhat tempered by a petition signed by a thousand Israeli fil= mmakers expressing support for and solidarity with the two creators on the = basis of defending freedom of expression and their artistic rights. A handf= ul of journalists as well, some of them military affairs correspondents ide= ntified with a liberal agenda (including myself), wrote that the allegation= s of war crimes should be thoroughly investigated and that the witch hunt= =E2=80=94characteristic of undemocratic, authoritarian societies=E2=80=94sh= ould stop.

Fe= ar of Violence

Amid all this, Yuval Avraham wrote to me from somewhere= in Europe, saying that he valued my opinion as a military veteran and expe= rienced national security journalist. But he also admitted that he was shak= en and frightened about the ramifications of the campaign of vilification a= nd threats against him=E2=80=94whether his personal safety was in danger. M= uch of what was happening in Israel was =E2=80=9Cinsane and extraordinary,= =E2=80=9D he said, adding, =E2=80=9CI hope we can return to Israel. I don= =E2=80=99t want to let them win.=E2=80=9D

In an interview with Israeli Channel 13, Avraham was q= uestioned about his ability to verify the claims made to him by soldiers an= d officers who spoke to him on condition of anonymity. He responded that th= eir claims had been thoroughly investigated and verified, and that The Guar= dian also had access to the raw footage from the Gaza war. According to Avr= aham, both the identities of the interviewees and the incidents they descri= bed had been fact-checked.

It is doubtful that Chief of Staff Zamir=E2=80=99s campaign of retrib= ution will produce the results he hopes for. At most, the IDF might sue the= filmmakers for defamation under Israel=E2=80=99s libel laws. Such a lawsui= t, however, could result in years of testimonies for and against the IDF be= ing aired and examined in court, long after the controversy over film itsel= f has faded from the news.

Identifying the leakers who were interviewed for the film could be ev= en harder. They appear with their faces obscured and do not identify themse= lves by name.

By the = time all the investigations and legal proceedings have run their course, th= e filmmakers, producers and distributors will have enjoyed enormous free pu= blicity. The controversy will only amplify the film=E2=80=99s exposure and = bring it to the attention of a much larger audience. In the end, Zamir and = his advisers may end up becoming the film=E2=80=99s most effective publicis= ts and marketing team.

But the chief of staff is a captive of the Israeli zei= tgeist, particularly its sense of victimhood, a fervent belief in Israel=E2= =80=99s righteousness, a desire for revenge against its enemies, an unwilli= ngness to examine facts and to apologize when necessary, and, of course, th= e inflammatory atmosphere of social media. In this maelstrom, Zamir has dec= ided that he must satisfy the mob in the streets, in social media and, perh= aps most critically, the far-right backers of Netanyahu=E2=80=99s fragile g= overnment coalition.

= Hit Piece

I have not seen the film yet because Avraham and The Guardian want to= control its release. But the impression I=E2=80=99ve gotten from talking w= ith several people who have seen it is that the personal testimonies in it = are indeed shocking, while the film itself is rather simplistic and largely= devoid of historical context.

It says very little, for example, about the circumstances that fo= rmed the IDF=E2=80=99s furious response in Gaza following Hamas=E2=80=99s O= ct. 7, 2003 massacre of 1,200 Israelis, its kidnapping of 251 more, its rap= es of countless Israeli women and its looting and burning of Jewish homes i= n the communities surrounding Gaza.

According to my confidants, the film also lacks a rigorous e= xamination of the concept of collateral damage, a term associated with the = American economist and strategic thinker Thomas C. Schelling, who defined i= t in a 1961 paper as the unintended harm to civilians or n= on=E2=80=91targeted assets.

Civilian casualties in wartime are, of course, as o= ld as war itself. But during the Vietnam War =E2=80=9Ccollateral damage=E2= =80=9D became a carefully sanitized phrase that obscured the careless, and = sometimes even deliberate, killing of civilians. It=E2=80=99s become entren= ched in the vocabulary of the U.S. armed forces ever since. In some ways, I= srael, too, has adopted it.

During the 21st = century wars of Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States military used numer= ical thresholds for anticipated non-combatant casualties when evaluating ce= rtain strikes. These thresholds could determine whether a commander in the = field could authorize an attack or whether approval from higher political o= r military authorities was required.

The thresholds varied substantially between theaters of war= and at different stages of the conflicts, depending on American political = and strategic considerations. At the beginning of the Iraq war, for example= , the threshold for anticipated civilian casualties in certain operations w= as reported to have been as high as 30.

The implication was that if an assessment indicated that= a strike against a senior Iraqi target might kill fewer than 30 civilians,= approval could be given at a lower level of command. If the anticipated nu= mber was higher, the decision required authorization from Defense Secretary= Donald Rumsfeld.

In = Afghanistan, the threshold was reportedly reduced dramatically, in some cir= cumstances to a single civilian casualty. Yet in both theaters there were e= xceptional cases in which many dozens of civilians were killed.

The IDF has adopted the general = concept, but it does not disclose its own thresholds for anticipated civili= an casualties. This lack of transparency gives the military considerable ro= om for factual flexibility and for justifying civilian casualties after the= fact.

Chief of Staff= Zamir=E2=80=99s decision=E2=80=94and his call for government ministries to= push back against the film through =E2=80=9Cproper public diplomacy=E2=80= =9D=E2=80=94is rather pathetic.

Appalling Numbers

Even if you are fighting what=E2=80=99s deemed= a just war, as against Hamas war criminals in Gaza, it becomes extraordina= rily difficult to defend your conduct after your forces have killed approxi= mately 70,000 people=E2=80=94around three percent of the population=E2=80= =94including tens of thousands of women and children, while destroying or s= eriously damaging roughly 70 percent of the buildings where people lived. A= nd then there=E2=80=99s the soldiers and officers, including some very seni= or ones, who have taken the law into their own hands in Gaza, as reported a= nd revealed even in the Israeli media.

It didn=E2=80=99t take NAZA, of course, to damage Israel= =E2=80=99s reputation as an embattled, noble democracy repeatedly forced to= fight for its survival. That=E2=80=99s been happening for years now. But w= hen senior Israeli ministers, members of the Knesset and former generals su= ch as Giora Eiland call for Gaza to be flattened, or for nuclear weapons to= dropped on it, or for its population to be starved to death, they themselv= es accelerate international sentiment that Israel is guilty of war crimes, = or, in some quarters, genocide.

Israel has traveled a long road during its 75 years of existence= , from a nation that saw itself as part of the democratic-liberal camp, cha= mpioned human rights, and regarded itself as a light unto the nations. Duri= ng its first decades, it pretty much successfully cultivated culture and sc= ience and presented itself to the world as a nation of pioneers and avatars= of social justice =E2=80=94i.e., it used the tools of what=E2=80=99s known= in diplomatic, military and intelligence circles as =E2=80=9Csoft power.= =E2=80=9D The foundation of its moral authority, of course, came from a peo= ple born from the ashes of the Holocaust, and their successful repulsion of= repeated, if not constant, Arab or Iranian-backed assaults designed to rem= ove them =E2=80=9Cfrom the river to the sea.=E2=80=9D or to be =E2=80=9Cwip= ed off the map,=E2=80=9D as Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad put it in= a 2005 speech.

If th= e two IDF chiefs of staff who have run the Gaza war, Herzi Halevi and Eyal = Zamir, had devoted even a fraction of the energy they have invested in deno= uncing the rest of the world to policing their own troops, investigating al= legations of soldiers and officers suspected of violating orders and the la= ws of war, and punishing those who were judged responsible for war crimes a= gainst humanity, Israel=E2=80=99s standing in world public opinion might we= ll be far, far better.

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Fri, 25 Sep 2026 04:40:13 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: In-Reply-To: From: Chas Freeman Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2026 07:39:56 -0400 X-Gm-Features: AclHuK8sspe045I7kTFPjZGDlj5iHykFPIvgmW_Ra4Hbfdofxfsb3M8EFHJjhGw Message-ID: To: "salon@listserve.com" Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="000000000000fb4a91065c4d2df4" Subject: [Salon] =?utf-8?q?Mogged_by_the_Dragon=3A_Xi_Unmoved_by_Trump?= =?utf-8?q?=E2=80=99s_Boisterous_Bravura_in_Tepid_State_Visit?= X-BeenThere: salon@listserve.com X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.33 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussion List for the Committee For The Republic List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2026 11:40:22 -0000 --000000000000fb4a91065c4d2df4 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable *Mogged by the Dragon: Xi Unmoved by Trump=E2=80=99s Boisterous Bravura in = Tepid State Visit* https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/mogged-by-the-dragon-xi-unmoved-by?utm_= source=3Dpost-email-title&publication_id=3D1351274&post_id=3D217320374&utm_= campaign=3Demail-post-title&isFreemail=3Dfalse&r=3D210kv&triedRedirect=3Dtr= ue&utm_medium=3Demail *President Xi touched down in the US for a major state visit yesterday, wherein Trump rolled out the usual bombast and theatrics in an attempt to impress his ascendant guest. * *The most notable from his gauche bag of tricks was the attempt to =E2=80= =9Cmog=E2=80=9D Xi with an ear-deafening fly-over by a B1 supersonic bomber, which did not quite go the way Trump had planned. Trump=E2=80=99s nerves unexpectedly bet= rayed him, and instead of conveying puissance, he conveyed=E2=80=A6.something of = a less flattering but similar sounding nature:* *Someone check his diaper.* *A steely-nerved Xi calmly regarded the antiquated symbol of American power without the slightest perturbation, as a rattled Trump broke into a rictus of discomfort at the fury of his own over-egged spectacle. * *Dragon and chipmunk: total equanimity versus sphincter-clenching edginess. It is now being hailed as a generational loss of =E2=80=98aura=E2=80=99.* *The remainder of the first day went well, however, with Trump parading a consummately humble Xi around the White House premises, gleefully showing off his most eccentric little curios and =E2=80=98home improvements=E2=80= =99 like a kid displaying his toy collection, not least of which being the replacement of Biden=E2=80=99s state portrait with an autopen in the stately West Wing col= onnade. * *The tour culminated in Trump presenting his gracious guest with a special gift of an American eagle proudly clutching a serpent in its talons=E2=80= =94a piece of artwork Trump claims to have collaborated in creating: * *What do you think the symbolism here is meant to convey, particularly given that Trump had a hand in its design? * *We know like the serpent, the Chinese dragon is related to the reptile=E2= =80=94is there anything to read into it beyond this? It happened to come on the same day that slack-jawed senator John Kennedy characterized the Iranians, Chinese, North Koreans, and Russians as =E2=80=9Creptiles=E2=80=9D on Fox N= ews. And who is the =E2=80=9Cchief reptile=E2=80=9D among them, according to the drawling b= umpkin? Why, of course, China=E2=80=99s Xi:* *I took the liberty of creating a little meme for the occasion: * *Western politicians come off as snot-nosed schoolchildren, snickering like bullies who haven=E2=80=99t yet had their noses bloodied. Dehumanizing thei= r victims with epithets like =E2=80=98reptile=E2=80=99, which happened to be = thematic today as globally reviled villain Netanyahu took the stage at the UN shortly after this. The entire hall emptied in protestation, amidst a hail of jeers and boos before Netanyahu even had a chance to loosen his fly-flecked maw: = * *And when he did open it, truly incredible things poured from his unctuous lips. * *Listen for yourself: * *Like the cretinous Louisiana senator before him, the Israeli ambassador even had the chutzpah to openly bully the Iranian delegate, taunting him with a Starlink terminal in an unprofessionally hostile display that would seem to break every protocol of decorum in a place of diplomatic =E2=80=98s= anctity=E2=80=99 like the UN: * *Israel=E2=80=99s Ambassador to the UN approached a member of the Iranian delegation, offering him a Starlink device and praying for =E2=80=98regime = change=E2=80=99 in IranThe Iranian diplomat ignored the Israeli and did not acknowledge his existence.* *Truly baleful people.* *Trump likewise adopted a hateful mien in his speech condemning Iran, wherein he again threatened to destroy the entire country after long championing its =E2=80=9Cpeople=E2=80=9D which he professed to care so much= about: * *Last year: =E2=80=9CPeople of Iran, we are coming to help and save you.=E2= =80=9D* *Now: =E2=80=9CDo I annihilate Iran and give it no chance of survival, driv= ing it into Hell?=E2=80=9D* *It is banal to say at this point, but the West is truly drowning in a blood-red pool of its own moral bankruptcy and misanthropy. * *Contrast this with the politesse witnessed in Xi=E2=80=99s magisterial add= ress at the White House, wherein he called for peaceful cooperation and again urged to avoid the dangers of the Thucydides trap: * *Ultimately, not much of a concrete nature came of Xi=E2=80=99s visit, othe= r than some flowery PR and hopeful overtures of future cooperation. It was a statedly benign trip with Trump eking out every opportunity to put the US in the best light possible next to its greatest rival, and indirectly conveying the message that the US continues to hold all the cards in international matters. * *On that note, a pithy Youtube comment captured the spirit of things best:* ------------------------------ *Your support is invaluable. If you enjoyed the read, I would greatly appreciate if you subscribed to a monthly/yearly pledge to support my work, so that I may continue providing you with detailed, incisive reports like this one.* *Alternatively, you can tip here: buymeacoffee.com/Simplicius * --000000000000fb4a91065c4d2df4 Content-Type: text/html; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Mogged by the Dr= agon: Xi Unmoved by Trump=E2=80=99s Boisterous Bravura in Tepid State Visit=
<= a href=3D"https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/mogged-by-the-dragon-xi-unmov= ed-by?utm_source=3Dpost-email-title&publication_id=3D1351274&post_i= d=3D217320374&utm_campaign=3Demail-post-title&isFreemail=3Dfalse&am= p;r=3D210kv&triedRedirect=3Dtrue&utm_medium=3Demail" target=3D"_bla= nk">https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/mogged-by-the-dragon-xi-unmoved-by?= utm_source=3Dpost-email-title&publication_id=3D1351274&post_id=3D21= 7320374&utm_campaign=3Demail-post-title&isFreemail=3Dfalse&r=3D= 210kv&triedRedirect=3Dtrue&utm_medium=3Demail

President Xi touched down in the = US for a major state visit yesterday, wherein Trump rolled out the usual bo= mbast and theatrics in an attempt to impress his ascendant guest.=C2= =A0

The most nota= ble from his gauche bag of tricks was the attempt to =E2=80=9Cmog=E2=80=9D = Xi with an ear-deafening fly-over by a B1 supersonic bomber, which did not = quite go the way Trump had planned. Trump=E2=80=99s nerves unexpectedly bet= rayed him, and instead of conveying=C2=A0puissance, he convey= ed=E2=80=A6.something of a less flattering but similar sounding nature:

Someone check his diaper.

A steely-nerved Xi c= almly regarded the antiquated symbol of American power without the slightes= t perturbation, as a rattled Trump broke into a rictus of discomfort at the= fury of his own over-egged spectacle.=C2=A0

= Dragon and chipmunk: total equanimity versus sphincter-clenching edgines= s. It is now being hailed as a generational loss of =E2=80=98aura=E2=80=99.=

The remainder of the first day went well, however, w= ith Trump parading a consummately humble Xi around the White House premises= , gleefully showing off his most eccentric little curios and =E2=80=98home = improvements=E2=80=99 like a kid displaying his toy collection, not least o= f which being the replacement of Biden=E2=80=99s state portrait with an aut= open in the stately West Wing colonnade.=C2=A0

<= p style=3D"max-width:100%;color:rgb(27,27,27)">The tour culminated in Trump presenting= his gracious guest with a special gift of an American eagle proudly clutch= ing a serpent in its talons=E2=80=94a piece of artwork Trump claims to have= =C2=A0collaborated=C2=A0in creating:=C2=A0=

What do you think the symbolism here is = meant to convey, particularly given that Trump had a hand in its design?=C2=A0

We know= like the serpent, the Chinese dragon is related to the reptile=E2=80=94is = there anything to read into it beyond this? It happened to come on the same= day that slack-jawed senator John Kennedy characterized the Iranians, Chin= ese, North Koreans, and Russians as =E2=80=9Creptiles=E2=80=9D on Fox News.= And who is the =E2=80=9Cchief reptile=E2=80=9D among them, according to th= e drawling bumpkin? Why, of course,=C2=A0China=E2=80=99s Xi:<= /span>

I took the liberty of creating a little meme for= the occasion:=C2=A0

3D""

Western politici= ans come off as snot-nosed schoolchildren, snickering like bullies who have= n=E2=80=99t yet had their noses bloodied. Dehumanizing their victims with e= pithets like =E2=80=98reptile=E2=80=99, which happened to be thematic today= as globally reviled villain Netanyahu took the stage at the UN shortly aft= er this. The entire hall emptied in protestation, amidst a hail of jeers an= d boos before Netanyahu even had a chance to loosen his fly-flecked maw:=C2=A0

And when he did open it, truly incredi= ble things poured from his unctuous lips.=C2=A0

=

Listen for yourself:=C2=A0

Like the = cretinous Louisiana senator before him, the Israeli ambassador even had the= chutzpah to openly bully the Iranian delegate, taunting him with a Starlin= k terminal in an unprofessionally hostile display that would seem to break = every protocol of decorum in a place of diplomatic =E2=80=98sanctity=E2=80= =99 like the UN:=C2=A0

= Israel=E2= =80=99s Ambassador to the UN approached a member of the Iranian delegation,= offering him a Starlink device and praying for =E2=80=98regime change=E2= =80=99 in Iran

The Iranian diplomat ignored the Israeli= and did not acknowledge his existence.

Truly baleful people.

Trump likewise adopte= d a hateful mien in his speech condemning Iran, wherein he again threatened= to destroy the entire country after long championing its =E2=80=9Cpeople= =E2=80=9D which he professed to care so much about:=C2=A0<= /font>

Last ye= ar: =E2=80=9CPeople of Iran, we are coming to help and save you.=E2=80=9D

Now: =E2=80=9CDo I annihilate Iran and= give it no chance of survival, driving it into Hell?=E2=80=9D

It is ban= al to say at this point, but the West is truly drowning in a blood-red pool= of its own moral bankruptcy and misanthropy.=C2=A0=

Contrast this with the politesse witnessed in Xi=E2=80=99s magist= erial address at the White House, wherein he called for peaceful cooperatio= n and again urged to avoid the dangers of the Thucydides trap:=C2=A0<= /span>

Ultimately, not much of a concrete nature came o= f Xi=E2=80=99s visit, other than some flowery PR and hopeful overtures of f= uture cooperation. It was a statedly benign trip with Trump eking out every= opportunity to put the US in the best light possible next to its greatest = rival, and indirectly conveying the message that the US continues to hold a= ll the cards in international matters.=C2=A0

= On that note, a pithy Youtube comment captured the spirit of things best= :

<= span style=3D"max-width:100%">Your support is invaluable. If you enjoyed the read, I = would greatly appreciate if you subscribed to a=C2=A0monthly/yearly pledge=C2=A0to support my work, so that I may continue = providing you with detailed, incisive reports like this one.

Alternatively, you can tip here:=C2=A0buymeacoffee.com/Simplicius

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Fri, 25 Sep 2026 06:17:10 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 From: Chas Freeman Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2026 09:16:54 -0400 X-Gm-Features: AclHuK9peY6yqJbNeiP1Ama3ohyWEOUbO-hp5AJE6rcD2ZxFe0xGapNyHHndfMc Message-ID: To: "salon@listserve.com" Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="000000000000b24935065c4e886f" Subject: [Salon] =?utf-8?q?Trump=E2=80=99s_U=2EN=2E_threat_to_Annihilate_?= =?utf-8?q?Iran_Causes_Barely_a_Ripple=3B_That_Should_Frighten_Us_A?= =?utf-8?q?ll?= X-BeenThere: salon@listserve.com X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.33 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussion List for the Committee For The Republic List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2026 13:17:13 -0000 --000000000000b24935065c4e886f Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Trump=E2=80=99s U.N. threat to Annihilate Iran Causes Barely a Ripple; That= Should Frighten Us All Instead of condemnation world leaders said nothing, while others sought to diminish his threat of annihilation __ a war crime __ as mere =E2=80=9Cwar talk=E2= =80=9D Kathy Gannon Sep 25 READ IN APP [image: A large, angry donald trump head sculpture on a wall] Rage, weapons and fear define America=E2=80=99s contribution to the world today. Photo by Diogo Lemos on Unsplash If one=E2=80=99s survival depends on the annihilation of another, there is = no survival __ just the next war waiting to happen. The President of the United States this week stood before the U.N. General Assembly and threatened annihilation and it caused barely a ripple. Meetings continued. Agreements were signed. Handshakes were exchanged, even the occasional pat on the back. Instead of condemning the U.S. President for standing up at the U.N. *a body created following the Second world war to prevent another catastrophic war *many world leaders chose to say nothing, others made excuses. Canada= =E2=80=99s Prime Minster Mark Carney dismissed it as =E2=80=9Cwar talk=E2=80=9D . What does that mean? Is it that today a threat of annihilation *a war crime according to any international law, *is now acceptable as =E2=80=9Cwar talk= =E2=80=9D? Would Carney have dismissed it so readily had the Iranian or the Russian President stood before the General Assembly and threatened annihilation. Trump=E2=80=99s words, regardless of at whom they were directed, were chill= ing. =E2=80=9CDo I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never givi= ng them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again? Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations?=E2=80=9D he asked. Trump openly threatened genocide, yet Carney dismissed it as mere talk, this despite the Canadian prime minister=E2=80=99s warning earlier this yea= r at Davos of a fading rules-based society, where the strong can do as they please and the weak must suffer. =E2=80=9CWe knew the story of the international rules-based order was parti= ally false. That the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient. . . And we knew that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim,=E2=80=9D said Carney at Davos, in a = speech that seemed at the time to offer hope. Trita Parsi, co-founder and executive director of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, spoke of both his hope following Carney=E2=80=99s D= avos speech and his disappointment with Carney=E2=80=99s remarks following Trump= =E2=80=99s threats of annihilation.. =E2=80=9CWhen Carney gave his now-famous speech in Davos, many of us - perh= aps naively - were excited that Canada would emerge as a global leader to reinforce international law and its principles,=E2=80=9D Parsi wrote in a S= ubstack posting. =E2=80=9CDeep inside, I knew he would disappoint. Just not this fa= st and not this embarrassingly.=E2=80=9D The suggestion that annihilation is mere =E2=80=9Cwar talk=E2=80=9D also re= flects a growing trend that is removing nuclear weapons use from the unmentionable to the increasingly mentionable. The introduction of tactical nuclear weapons and the suggestion by both Russia and the United States of circumstances where they may be used would seem to be today=E2=80=99s new reality. =E2=80=9CThe most consequential change in the nuclear order may be taking p= lace without a weapon being detonated. Nuclear threats have become more frequent, while low-yield or =E2=80=9Ctactical=E2=80=9D weapons are increas= ingly discussed as instruments for managing conventional conflicts. Intended to strengthen deterrence, such references are nevertheless changing how nuclear use is imagined,=E2=80=9D says an essay this month in the Jerusalem Strategic Trib= une. The Tribune is a journal that examines Israeli and U.S. shared interests, started by Ahmed Charai , CEO of Global Media Holding, an expert on Morocco and the Middle East, as well as a Mideast Policy advisor in Washington. The Tribune essay warned that the rhetoric and doctrines of both Russia and the United States is increasingly =E2=80=9Cblurring the line between deterr= ing nuclear war and preparing to fight one.=E2=80=9D To dismiss Trump=E2=80=99s threat of annihilations as mere =E2=80=9Ctalk=E2= =80=9D or by his detractors as Trump=E2=80=99s usual inflammatory rhetoric is to diminishes = today=E2=80=99s reality.. Trump=E2=80=99s words spoken so openly reflect our world today, where genoc= ide has been allowed in the guise of self defence, an unabashed and democratically elected bully was unleashed into our midst and he did not repulse, but rather he emboldened fellow bullies and cowed the others to promise to buy more weapons, build bigger militaries, believing they will be safe, because they have more guns. But the bully on the block is not offering safety, instead he offers fear and hate to propel those within his orbit to buy more weapons, to believe as he does that strength is in the guns you possess and the belligerence you bring to the negotiation table. It has created a world easily intimidated, fearful of the =E2=80=9Cother=E2=80=99, led by leaders lacking= the intellectual bandwidth to find a path to negotiations. Denmark and Greenland signed a security pact with Trump, hours after he threatened annihilation. Greenland may indeed need a greater security umbrella, but that Trump and the U.S. military *which btw has lost most of the wars it often started *is a solution, reflects the dearth of quality leadership, a leadership that possess the courage, the intellectual bandwidth and innovative thinking to seek alternatives. Israel=E2=80=99s government, whose massive weapons=E2=80=99 stockpile, is p= rovided by the West, has shown what fear and hate brings to a war. It results in genocide disguised as self-defense. But it is not self-defense. It is a policy that seeks the annihilation of another. It leaves no room for peace, only death. That is the world that Trump, his fellow global bullies, including Russia, as well as those leaders cowed into frightened submission are creating __ a world that sees answers only in building bigger, better guns to scare, and beat the other into submission and fewer and fewer opportunities for a shared peace despite our differences. =C2=A9 2026 Kathy Gannon --000000000000b24935065c4e886f Content-Type: text/html; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable



Trump=E2=80=99s U.N. threat to Annihilate= Iran Causes Barely a Ripple; That Should Frighten Us All

Instead of condemnation world l= eaders said nothing, while others sought to diminish his threat of annihila= tion __ a war crime __ as mere =E2=80=9Cwar talk=E2=80=9D

=
Sep 25
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Rage, weapons and fear define America=E2=80=99s contribution t= o the world today. Photo by Diogo= Lemos on Unsplash
<= p style=3D"margin:0px 0px 20px;color:rgb(54,55,55);line-height:26px">If one= =E2=80=99s survival depends on the annihilation of another, there is no sur= vival __ just the next war waiting to happen.

The President of the United Sta= tes this week stood before the U.N. General Assembly and threatened annihil= ation and it caused barely a ripple. Meetings continued. Agreements were si= gned. Handshakes were exchanged, even the occasional pat on the back.

Instead of= condemning the U.S. President for standing up at the U.N. a body c= reated following the Second world war to prevent another catastrophic war <= /strong>many world leaders chose to say nothing, others made excuses. Canad= a=E2=80=99s Prime Minster Mark Carney dismissed it as =E2=80=9Cwar talk=E2= =80=9D .

What does that mean? Is it that today a threat of annihilation a war crime according to any international law, is now acceptab= le as =E2=80=9Cwar talk=E2=80=9D?

Would Carney have dismissed it so readily h= ad the Iranian or the Russian President stood before the General Assembly a= nd threatened annihilation.

Trump=E2=80=99s words, regardless of at whom they= were directed, were chilling.

=E2=80=9CDo I annihilate the Islamic Republic = and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people an= d countries again? Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and= no hope of future greatness or generations?=E2=80=9D he asked.

Trump openly = threatened genocide, yet Carney dismissed it as mere talk, this despite the= Canadian prime minister=E2=80=99s warning earlier this year at Davos of a = fading rules-based society, where the strong can do as they please and the = weak must suffer.

=E2=80=9CWe knew the story of the international rules-based= order was partially false. That the strongest would exempt themselves when= convenient. . . And we knew that international law applied with varying ri= gour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim,=E2=80=9D said = Carney at Davos, in a speech that seemed at the time to offer hope.

Trita Par= si, co-founder and executive director of the Quincy Institute for Responsib= le Statecraft, spoke of both his hope following Carney=E2=80=99s Davos spee= ch and his disappointment with Carney=E2=80=99s remarks following Trump=E2= =80=99s threats of annihilation..

=E2=80=9CWhen Carney gave his now-famous sp= eech in Davos, many of us - perhaps naively - were excited that Canada woul= d emerge as a global leader to reinforce international law and its principl= es,=E2=80=9D Parsi wrote in a Substack posting. =E2=80=9CDeep inside, I kne= w he would disappoint. Just not this fast and not this embarrassingly.=E2= =80=9D

The suggestion that annihilation is mere =E2=80=9Cwar talk=E2=80=9D al= so reflects a growing trend that is removing nuclear weapons use from the u= nmentionable to the increasingly mentionable. The introduction of tactical = nuclear weapons and the suggestion by both Russia and the United States of = circumstances where they may be used would seem to be today=E2=80=99s new r= eality.

=E2=80=9CThe most consequential change in the nuclear order may be ta= king place without a weapon being detonated. Nuclear threats have become mo= re frequent, while low-yield or =E2=80=9Ctactical=E2=80=9D weapons are incr= easingly discussed as instruments for managing conventional conflicts. Inte= nded to strengthen deterrence, such references are nevertheless changing ho= w nuclear use is imagined,=E2=80=9D says an essay this month in the Jerusalem = Strategic Tribune.

The Tribune is a journal that examines Israeli and U.S= . shared interests, started by Ahmed Charai, CEO of Global Media Holding, = an expert on Morocco and the Middle East, as well as a Mideast Policy advis= or in Washington.

The Tribune essay warned that the rhetoric and doctrines of= both Russia and the United States is increasingly =E2=80=9Cblurring the li= ne between deterring nuclear war and preparing to fight one.=E2=80=9D

To dism= iss Trump=E2=80=99s threat of annihilations as mere =E2=80=9Ctalk=E2=80=9D = or by his detractors as Trump=E2=80=99s usual inflammatory rhetoric is to d= iminishes today=E2=80=99s reality..

Trump=E2=80=99s words spoken so openly re= flect our world today, where genocide has been allowed in the guise of self= defence, an unabashed and democratically elected bully was unleashed into = our midst and he did not repulse, but rather he emboldened fellow bullies a= nd cowed the others to promise to buy more weapons, build bigger militaries= , believing they will be safe, because they have more guns.

But the bully on = the block is not offering safety, instead he offers fear and hate to propel= those within his orbit to buy more weapons, to believe as he does that str= ength is in the guns you possess and the belligerence you bring to the nego= tiation table. It has created a world easily intimidated, fearful of the = =E2=80=9Cother=E2=80=99, led by leaders lacking the intellectual bandwidth = to find a path to negotiations.

Denmark and Greenland signed a security pact = with Trump, hours after he threatened annihilation. Greenland may indeed ne= ed a greater security umbrella, but that Trump and the U.S. military which btw has lost most of the wars it often started is a soluti= on, reflects the dearth of quality leadership, a leadership that possess th= e courage, the intellectual bandwidth and innovative thinking to seek alter= natives.

Israel=E2=80=99s government, whose massive weapons=E2=80=99 stockpil= e, is provided by the West, has shown what fear and hate brings to a war. I= t results in genocide disguised as self-defense. But it is not self-defense= . It is a policy that seeks the annihilation of another. It leaves no room = for peace, only death.

That is the world that Trump, his fellow global bullie= s, including Russia, as well as those leaders cowed into frightened submiss= ion are creating __ a world that sees answers only in building bigger, bett= er guns to scare, and beat the other into submission and fewer and fewer op= portunities for a shared peace despite our differences.

=C2=A9 20= 26 Kathy Ganno= n

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Fri, 25 Sep 2026 13:30:21 +0000 Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2026 13:30:17 +0000 (UTC) From: Mayraj Fahim To: salon@listserve.com, Chas Freeman Message-ID: <679895086.866224.1790343017993@mail.yahoo.com> In-Reply-To: References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----=_Part_866223_220930787.1790343017989" X-Mailer: WebService/1.1.26577 YMailNodin Subject: Re: [Salon] =?utf-8?q?Trump=E2=80=99s_U=2EN=2E_threat_to_Annihilate_?= =?utf-8?q?Iran_Causes_Barely_a_Ripple=3B_That_Should_Frighten_Us_All?= X-BeenThere: salon@listserve.com X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.33 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussion List for the Committee For The Republic List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2026 13:30:22 -0000 ------=_Part_866223_220930787.1790343017989 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable She missed how they ignored him. They think he is a buffoon and wish US ge= ts a better leader next. On Friday, September 25, 2026 at 06:17:21 PM GMT+5, Chas Freeman via S= alon wrote: =20 =20 =20 |=20 |=20 | Trump=E2=80=99s U.N. threat to Annihilate Iran Causes Barely a Ripple; That= Should Frighten Us All Instead of condemnation world leaders said nothing, while others sought to = diminish his threat of annihilation __ a war crime __ as mere =E2=80=9Cwar = talk=E2=80=9D |=20 |=20 | Kathy Gannon | | |=20 | Sep 25 | | |=20 | | | | =C2=A0 | |=20 |=20 |=20 | | | |=20 | | | |=20 | | | |=20 | | | |=20 |=20 | READ IN APP | | | | | =C2=A0 | | | | | Rage, weapons and fear define America=E2=80=99s contribution to the world t= oday. Photo by Diogo Lemos on Unsplash If one=E2=80=99s survival depends on the annihilation of another, there is = no survival __ just the next war waiting to happen. The President of the United States this week stood before the U.N. General = Assembly and threatened annihilation and it caused barely a ripple. Meeting= s continued. Agreements were signed. Handshakes were exchanged, even the oc= casional pat on the back. Instead of condemning the U.S. President for standing up at the U.N. a body= created following the Second world war to prevent another catastrophic war= many world leaders chose to say nothing, others made excuses. Canada=E2=80= =99s Prime Minster Mark Carney dismissed it as =E2=80=9Cwar talk=E2=80=9D . What does that mean? Is it that today a threat of annihilation a war crime = according to any international law, is now acceptable as =E2=80=9Cwar talk= =E2=80=9D? Would Carney have dismissed it so readily had the Iranian or the Russian Pr= esident stood before the General Assembly and threatened annihilation. Trump=E2=80=99s words, regardless of at whom they were directed, were chill= ing. =E2=80=9CDo I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never givi= ng them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again? Do I drive= them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness = or generations?=E2=80=9D he asked. Trump openly threatened genocide, yet Carney dismissed it as mere talk, thi= s despite the Canadian prime minister=E2=80=99s warning earlier this year a= t Davos of a fading rules-based society, where the strong can do as they pl= ease and the weak must suffer. =E2=80=9CWe knew the story of the international rules-based order was parti= ally false. That the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient. . .= And we knew that international law applied with varying rigour depending o= n the identity of the accused or the victim,=E2=80=9D said Carney at Davos,= in a speech that seemed at the time to offer hope. Trita Parsi, co-founder and executive director of the Quincy Institute for = Responsible Statecraft, spoke of both his hope following Carney=E2=80=99s D= avos speech and his disappointment with Carney=E2=80=99s remarks following = Trump=E2=80=99s threats of annihilation.. =E2=80=9CWhen Carney gave his now-famous speech in Davos, many of us - perh= aps naively - were excited that Canada would emerge as a global leader to r= einforce international law and its principles,=E2=80=9D Parsi wrote in a Su= bstack posting. =E2=80=9CDeep inside, I knew he would disappoint. Just not = this fast and not this embarrassingly.=E2=80=9D The suggestion that annihilation is mere =E2=80=9Cwar talk=E2=80=9D also re= flects a growing trend that is removing nuclear weapons use from the unment= ionable to the increasingly mentionable. The introduction of tactical nucle= ar weapons and the suggestion by both Russia and the United States of circu= mstances where they may be used would seem to be today=E2=80=99s new realit= y. =E2=80=9CThe most consequential change in the nuclear order may be taking p= lace without a weapon being detonated. Nuclear threats have become more fre= quent, while low-yield or =E2=80=9Ctactical=E2=80=9D weapons are increasing= ly discussed as instruments for managing conventional conflicts. Intended t= o strengthen deterrence, such references are nevertheless changing how nucl= ear use is imagined,=E2=80=9D says an essay this month in the Jerusalem Str= ategic Tribune. The Tribune is a journal that examines Israeli and U.S. shared interests, s= tarted by Ahmed Charai, CEO of Global Media Holding, an expert on Morocco a= nd the Middle East, as well as a Mideast Policy advisor in Washington. The Tribune essay warned that the rhetoric and doctrines of both Russia and= the United States is increasingly =E2=80=9Cblurring the line between deter= ring nuclear war and preparing to fight one.=E2=80=9D To dismiss Trump=E2=80=99s threat of annihilations as mere =E2=80=9Ctalk=E2= =80=9D or by his detractors as Trump=E2=80=99s usual inflammatory rhetoric = is to diminishes today=E2=80=99s reality.. Trump=E2=80=99s words spoken so openly reflect our world today, where genoc= ide has been allowed in the guise of self defence, an unabashed and democra= tically elected bully was unleashed into our midst and he did not repulse, = but rather he emboldened fellow bullies and cowed the others to promise to = buy more weapons, build bigger militaries, believing they will be safe, bec= ause they have more guns. But the bully on the block is not offering safety, instead he offers fear a= nd hate to propel those within his orbit to buy more weapons, to believe as= he does that strength is in the guns you possess and the belligerence you = bring to the negotiation table. It has created a world easily intimidated, = fearful of the =E2=80=9Cother=E2=80=99, led by leaders lacking the intellec= tual bandwidth to find a path to negotiations. Denmark and Greenland signed a security pact with Trump, hours after he thr= eatened annihilation. Greenland may indeed need a greater security umbrella= , but that Trump and the U.S. military which btw has lost most of the wars = it often started is a solution, reflects the dearth of quality leadership, = a leadership that possess the courage, the intellectual bandwidth and innov= ative thinking to seek alternatives. Israel=E2=80=99s government, whose massive weapons=E2=80=99 stockpile, is p= rovided by the West, has shown what fear and hate brings to a war. It resul= ts in genocide disguised as self-defense. But it is not self-defense. It is= a policy that seeks the annihilation of another. It leaves no room for pea= ce, only death. That is the world that Trump, his fellow global bullies, including Russia, = as well as those leaders cowed into frightened submission are creating __ a= world that sees answers only in building bigger, better guns to scare, and= beat the other into submission and fewer and fewer opportunities for a sha= red peace despite our differences. =C2=A9 2026 Kathy Gannon | --=20 Salon mailing list Salon@listserve.com https://mlm2.listserve.net/mailman/listinfo/salon =20 ------=_Part_866223_220930787.1790343017989 Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
She missed how they ignored him. They think he is a bu= ffoon and wish US gets a better leader next.
=
= On Friday, September 25, 2026 at 06:17:21 PM GMT+5, Chas Freeman via Salon= <salon@listserve.com> wrote:
=


=



Trump=E2=80=99s U.N.= threat to Annihilate Iran Causes Barely a Ripple; That Should Frighten Us = All

Instead of condemnation world leaders said = nothing, while others sought to diminish his threat of annihilation __ a wa= r crime __ as mere =E2=80=9Cwar talk=E2=80=9D

Sep 25
 
=
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<= table width=3D"38" border=3D"0" cellspacing=3D"0" cellpadding=3D"0">
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READ IN APP3D""
 
3D"A
Rage, weapons and = fear define America=E2=80=99s contribution to the world today. Photo by Diogo Lemos on Unsplash

If one=E2=80=99s survival depends o= n the annihilation of another, there is no survival __ just the next war wa= iting to happen.

The President of the United States this week stood before t= he U.N. General Assembly and threatened annihilation and it caused barely a= ripple. Meetings continued. Agreements were signed. Handshakes were exchan= ged, even the occasional pat on the back.

Instead of condemning the U.S. President for s= tanding up at the U.N. a body created following the Second world wa= r to prevent another catastrophic war many world leaders chose to = say nothing, others made excuses. Canada=E2=80=99s Prime Minster Mark Carne= y dismissed it as =E2=80=9Cwar talk=E2=80=9D .

What does that mean? Is it th= at today a threat of annihilation a war crime according to any inte= rnational law, is now acceptable as =E2=80=9Cwar talk=E2=80=9D?

Wou= ld Carney have dismissed it so readily had the Iranian or the Russian Presi= dent stood before the General Assembly and threatened annihilation.

Trump=E2= =80=99s words, regardless of at whom they were directed, were chilling.

=

=E2= =80=9CDo I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving = them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again? Do I drive th= em into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or = generations?=E2=80=9D he asked.

Trump openly threatened genocide, yet Carney= dismissed it as mere talk, this despite the Canadian prime minister=E2=80= =99s warning earlier this year at Davos of a fading rules-based society, wh= ere the strong can do as they please and the weak must suffer.

=E2=80=9CWe = knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false. = That the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient. . . And we knew= that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identi= ty of the accused or the victim,=E2=80=9D said Carney at Davos, in a speech= that seemed at the time to offer hope.

Trita Parsi, co-founder and executiv= e director of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, spoke of bot= h his hope following Carney=E2=80=99s Davos speech and his disappointment w= ith Carney=E2=80=99s remarks following Trump=E2=80=99s threats of annihilat= ion..

=E2=80=9CWhen Carney gave his now-famous speech in Davos, many of us -= perhaps naively - were excited that Canada would emerge as a global leader= to reinforce international law and its principles,=E2=80=9D Parsi wrote in= a Substack posting. =E2=80=9CDeep inside, I knew he would disappoint. Just= not this fast and not this embarrassingly.=E2=80=9D

The suggestion that ann= ihilation is mere =E2=80=9Cwar talk=E2=80=9D also reflects a growing trend = that is removing nuclear weapons use from the unmentionable to the increasi= ngly mentionable. The introduction of tactical nuclear weapons and the sugg= estion by both Russia and the United States of circumstances where they may= be used would seem to be today=E2=80=99s new reality.

=E2=80=9CThe most con= sequential change in the nuclear order may be taking place without a weapon= being detonated. Nuclear threats have become more frequent, while low-yiel= d or =E2=80=9Ctactical=E2=80=9D weapons are increasingly discussed as instr= uments for managing conventional conflicts. Intended to strengthen deterren= ce, such references are nevertheless changing how nuclear use is imagined,= =E2=80=9D says an essay this month in the Jerusalem Strategic Tribune.

The= Tribune is a journal that examines Israeli and U.S. shared interests, star= ted by Ahmed Charai, CEO of Global Media Holding, an expert on Morocco an= d the Middle East, as well as a Mideast Policy advisor in Washington.

The Tr= ibune essay warned that the rhetoric and doctrines of both Russia and the U= nited States is increasingly =E2=80=9Cblurring the line between deterring n= uclear war and preparing to fight one.=E2=80=9D

To dismiss Trump=E2=80=99s t= hreat of annihilations as mere =E2=80=9Ctalk=E2=80=9D or by his detractors = as Trump=E2=80=99s usual inflammatory rhetoric is to diminishes today=E2=80= =99s reality..

Trump=E2=80=99s words spoken so openly reflect our world toda= y, where genocide has been allowed in the guise of self defence, an unabash= ed and democratically elected bully was unleashed into our midst and he did= not repulse, but rather he emboldened fellow bullies and cowed the others = to promise to buy more weapons, build bigger militaries, believing they wil= l be safe, because they have more guns.

But the bully on the block is not of= fering safety, instead he offers fear and hate to propel those within his o= rbit to buy more weapons, to believe as he does that strength is in the gun= s you possess and the belligerence you bring to the negotiation table. It h= as created a world easily intimidated, fearful of the =E2=80=9Cother=E2=80= =99, led by leaders lacking the intellectual bandwidth to find a path to ne= gotiations.

Denmark and Greenland signed a security pact with Trump, hours a= fter he threatened annihilation. Greenland may indeed need a greater securi= ty umbrella, but that Trump and the U.S. military which btw has los= t most of the wars it often started is a solution, reflects the de= arth of quality leadership, a leadership that possess the courage, the inte= llectual bandwidth and innovative thinking to seek alternatives.

Israel=E2= =80=99s government, whose massive weapons=E2=80=99 stockpile, is provided b= y the West, has shown what fear and hate brings to a war. It results in gen= ocide disguised as self-defense. But it is not self-defense. It is a policy= that seeks the annihilation of another. It leaves no room for peace, only = death.

That is the world that Trump, his fellow global bullies, including Ru= ssia, as well as those leaders cowed into frightened submission are creatin= g __ a world that sees answers only in building bigger, better guns to scar= e, and beat the other into submission and fewer and fewer opportunities for= a shared peace despite our differences.

=C2=A9 2026 Kathy Gannon

-- Salon mailing list
Sal= on@listserve.com
https://mlm2.lists= erve.net/mailman/listinfo/salon
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Fri, 25 Sep 2026 06:44:25 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: In-Reply-To: From: Chas Freeman Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2026 09:44:07 -0400 X-Gm-Features: AclHuK996NR8g6rMM3OcCBQ5mbXb6cmnpeQa-mxB-jSyYqISEtrxfroZ9ntjNg0 Message-ID: To: "salon@listserve.com" Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="00000000000025e3ee065c4eea68" Subject: [Salon] =?utf-8?q?Fwd=3A_Leon_Hadar=3A_=22The_Worst-Case_Scenari?= =?utf-8?b?byBmb3IgSXNyYWVsIElzbuKAmXQgVGVocmFuIC4gLiAuIEl04oCZcyB0?= =?utf-8?q?he_American_Electorate=2E=22_=28925/26=29?= X-BeenThere: salon@listserve.com X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.33 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussion List for the Committee For The Republic List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2026 13:44:27 -0000 --00000000000025e3ee065c4eea68 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable *https://leonhadar.substack.com/p/the-worst-case-scenario-for-israel?utm_so= urce=3Dpost-email-title&publication_id=3D315684&post_id=3D217381428&utm_cam= paign=3Demail-post-title&isFreemail=3Dtrue&r=3D210kv&triedRedirect=3Dtrue&u= tm_medium=3Demail * 9/25/26 *The Worst-Case Scenario for Israel Isn=E2=80=99t Tehran**It=E2=80=99s the = American Electorate* *Leon Hadar * *For eight decades, the Israeli political and security establishment has operated on a premise so deeply embedded that it is rarely stated as a premise at all: that American support is not a policy but a condition of nature, as fixed as the Mediterranean coastline. Administrations would come and go, presidents would hector and cajole, but the underlying architecture, congressional majorities, public sympathy, the annual aid package renewed on autopilot, would hold. This was never quite true even in 1973, when Washington resupplied a faltering IDF only after extracting, in the following months, a set of diplomatic concessions Jerusalem did not want to make. But it was true enough, for long enough, that Israeli planners could treat American backing as a structural fact rather than a political variable.* *That premise is now the thing actually at risk. Not a battlefield reversal, not an Iranian breakout, not even the next round with Hezbollah. The worst case Israel is facing is demographic, and it is already visible in the numbers.* *Start with Gallup, which has tracked American sympathies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since 2001. Every year of that survey, Israelis led =E2=80=94 often by margins above 40 points. In 2026, for the f= irst time, they did not: 41 percent of Americans now sympathize more with Palestinians, 36 percent with Israelis, a gap inside the margin of error. Pew=E2=80=99s numbers tell the same story from a different angle: 60 percen= t of U.S. adults now hold an unfavorable view of Israel, up from 42 percent in 2022, nearly a doubling in four years, and 59 percent lack confidence in Netanyahu on world affairs. Among Democrats, unfavorable views of Israel have reached 80 percent.* *The good news, if there is any, is that this is not yet a bipartisan collapse. Republicans still favor Israelis over Palestinians 70 to 13. The bad news is where the erosion is concentrated: among the young, in both parties. Gallup=E2=80=99s 18-to-34 cohort now sympathizes with Palestinians= by a majority, 53 percent, a record. Pew finds Republicans under 30 offer only 52 percent confidence in Trump=E2=80=99s handling of U.S.-Israel relations,= against 93 percent among Republicans over 65.* *A Yale youth survey last year measured the generational gap directly and found it larger than any other divide in American political life: Baby Boomers score +34 on a composite pro-Israel index; Gen Z scores -22. A 56-point swing in one generation is not noise. It is not correctable by a better hasbara campaign, a slicker influencer strategy, or another congressional delegation trip to the Golan. It is what happens when one generation=E2=80=99s formative memory is the Six-Day War and the next gener= ation=E2=80=99s formative memory is a live-streamed war in Gaza.* *Here the Israeli establishment tends to reach for a familiar analogy, Pearl Harbor, or October 1973 itself, the idea that a shock reliably produces a rally effect, and that opinion, having drifted, will snap back. October 7 was tested against exactly this expectation, and it did not hold beyond a matter of months. * *The reason is structural, not sentimental: American sympathy for Israel was never a free-floating cultural attachment. It was underwritten by a specific set of postwar and Cold War circumstances, Holocaust memory in living generational reach, a Soviet-backed Arab bloc, an Israel that read, to American eyes, as embattled and democratic rather than as the regional power with the fourth-strongest air force on earth. Those circumstances are not returning. Cohort replacement does not reverse; it accumulates. Every year, an electorate slightly more shaped by Gaza and slightly less shaped by 1967 replaces one slightly more shaped by 1967.* *Run the arithmetic forward and the worst case is not hard to sketch. The $3.8 billion annual military aid package under the current memorandum runs through 2028; the negotiation for what follows it will be conducted by a Congress with more members who came of political age after October 7 than before it. Automatic UN Security Council cover, unconditional arms sales, the reflexive =E2=80=9Cironclad=E2=80=9D language recited by every administ= ration since Clinton, these are not laws of physics. They are political outputs, sustained by an electoral coalition that is visibly aging out of the electorate on one side and, on the other, being replaced by voters for whom =E2=80=9Cironclad=E2=80=9D is not a description but a demand awaiting justi= fication. * *Within a decade, on current trend, the debate in Washington will not be whether to support Israel but on what terms, and Israeli governments accustomed to treating American backing as unconditional will find themselves negotiating from a position they have never had to occupy before.* *None of this is fate. Public opinion is not a glacier; it responds to events, and a genuine diplomatic settlement, a change in Israeli governance, or a shift in the character of the next crisis could all bend the curve. But the assumption that time itself is on Israel=E2=80=99s side = with the American public, that the relationship is a fixed asset rather than a renewable, and increasingly contested, political arrangement =E2=80=94 is t= he one assumption Israeli strategy can no longer afford to make.* --00000000000025e3ee065c4eea68 Content-Type: text/html; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

9/25/26

The Worst-Case Scenario for Israel Isn=E2= =80=99t Tehran

It=E2=80=99= s the American Electorate

For eight decades, the Israeli political and security establishmen= t has operated on a premise so deeply embedded that it is rarely stated as = a premise at all: that American support is not a policy but a condition of = nature, as fixed as the Mediterranean coastline. Administrations would come= and go, presidents would hector and cajole, but the underlying architectur= e, congressional majorities, public sympathy, the annual aid package renewe= d on autopilot, would hold. This was never quite true even in 1973, when Wa= shington resupplied a faltering IDF only after extracting, in the following= months, a set of diplomatic concessions Jerusalem did not want to make. Bu= t it was true enough, for long enough, that Israeli planners could treat Am= erican backing as a structural fact rather than a political variable.

Th= at premise is now the thing actually at risk. Not a battlefield reversal, n= ot an Iranian breakout, not even the next round with Hezbollah. The worst c= ase Israel is facing is demographic, and it is already visible in the numbe= rs.

Start with Gallup, which has tracked American sympathies in the Isra= eli-Palestinian conflict since 2001. Every year of that survey, Israelis le= d =E2=80=94 often by margins above 40 points. In 2026, for the first time, = they did not: 41 percent of Americans now sympathize more with Palestinians= , 36 percent with Israelis, a gap inside the margin of error. Pew=E2=80=99s= numbers tell the same story from a different angle: 60 percent of U.S. adu= lts now hold an unfavorable view of Israel, up from 42 percent in 2022, nea= rly a doubling in four years, and 59 percent lack confidence in Netanyahu o= n world affairs. Among Democrats, unfavorable views of Israel have reached = 80 percent.

The good news, if there is any, is that this is not yet a bi= partisan collapse. Republicans still favor Israelis over Palestinians 70 to= 13. The bad news is where the erosion is concentrated: among the young, in= both parties. Gallup=E2=80=99s 18-to-34 cohort now sympathizes with Palest= inians by a majority, 53 percent, a record. Pew finds Republicans under 30 = offer only 52 percent confidence in Trump=E2=80=99s handling of U.S.-Israel= relations, against 93 percent among Republicans over 65.

A Yale youth= survey last year measured the generational gap directly and found it large= r than any other divide in American political life: Baby Boomers score +34 = on a composite pro-Israel index; Gen Z scores -22. A 56-point swing in one = generation is not noise. It is not correctable by a better hasbara campaign= , a slicker influencer strategy, or another congressional delegation trip t= o the Golan. It is what happens when one generation=E2=80=99s formative mem= ory is the Six-Day War and the next generation=E2=80=99s formative memory i= s a live-streamed war in Gaza.

Here the Israeli establishment tends to r= each for a familiar analogy, Pearl Harbor, or October 1973 itself, the idea= that a shock reliably produces a rally effect, and that opinion, having dr= ifted, will snap back. October 7 was tested against exactly this expectatio= n, and it did not hold beyond a matter of months.=C2=A0

The= reason is structural, not sentimental: American sympathy for Israel was ne= ver a free-floating cultural attachment. It was underwritten by a specific = set of postwar and Cold War circumstances, Holocaust memory in living gener= ational reach, a Soviet-backed Arab bloc, an Israel that read, to American = eyes, as embattled and democratic rather than as the regional power with th= e fourth-strongest air force on earth. Those circumstances are not returnin= g. Cohort replacement does not reverse; it accumulates. Every year, an elec= torate slightly more shaped by Gaza and slightly less shaped by 1967 replac= es one slightly more shaped by 1967.

Run the arithmetic forward and the = worst case is not hard to sketch. The $3.8 billion annual military aid pack= age under the current memorandum runs through 2028; the negotiation for wha= t follows it will be conducted by a Congress with more members who came of = political age after October 7 than before it. Automatic UN Security Council= cover, unconditional arms sales, the reflexive =E2=80=9Cironclad=E2=80=9D = language recited by every administration since Clinton, these are not laws = of physics. They are political outputs, sustained by an electoral coalition= that is visibly aging out of the electorate on one side and, on the other,= being replaced by voters for whom =E2=80=9Cironclad=E2=80=9D is not a desc= ription but a demand awaiting justification.=C2=A0

Within a= decade, on current trend, the debate in Washington will not be whether to = support Israel but on what terms, and Israeli governments accustomed to tre= ating American backing as unconditional will find themselves negotiating fr= om a position they have never had to occupy before.

None of this is fate= . Public opinion is not a glacier; it responds to events, and a genuine dip= lomatic settlement, a change in Israeli governance, or a shift in the chara= cter of the next crisis could all bend the curve. But the assumption that t= ime itself is on Israel=E2=80=99s side with the American public, that the r= elationship is a fixed asset rather than a renewable, and increasingly cont= ested, political arrangement =E2=80=94 is the one assumption Israeli strate= gy can no longer afford to make.

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Fri, 25 Sep 2026 07:16:27 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: In-Reply-To: From: Chas Freeman Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2026 10:16:10 -0400 X-Gm-Features: AclHuK_b3s8qUkV4iOnNG1JzqNC--YAu13obj_tC7FCkUa6L2SdC1jSij6m_XG8 Message-ID: To: "salon@listserve.com" Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="000000000000af06e4065c4f5c05" Subject: [Salon] Fwd: Juan Cole: "The Holocaust and the Gaza Genocide: A Forbidden Comparison?" (9/25/26). X-BeenThere: salon@listserve.com X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.33 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussion List for the Committee For The Republic List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2026 14:16:28 -0000 --000000000000af06e4065c4f5c05 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable *https://www.juancole.com/2026/09/holocaust-forbidden-comparison.html * *The Holocaust and the Gaza Genocide: A Forbidden Comparison?* *Anne-Ruth Wertheim 09/25/2026* *(A shorter, Dutch version of this essay appeared on September 24 in De Groene Amsterdammer )* *People who draw comparisons between the Holocaust and what Israel is doing to the Palestinians are often quick to be accused of antisemitism. But comparing is not the same as equating. There are certainly important differences, but there are similarities as well. In this article, I examine the similarities between Israel=E2=80=99s treatment of the Palestinians tod= ay and the Nazis=E2=80=99 treatment of the Jews at the time.* *Amsterdam (Dispatch to Informed Comment; Feature) =E2=80=93 How oppressed = people are constantly forced to choose between a new situation that limits their options and an alternative that is even more disadvantageous to them.* *And how, in this way, they are made partly responsible for whatever unknown fate ultimately awaits them.* *Is what Israel is doing to the Palestinians comparable to what the Nazis did to the Jews?* *There has been considerable debate about this question, most recently after Frans Timmermans made a remark to that effect. He was immediately accused of antisemitism, as was the entire PRO party (the socialdemocratic/green party of the Netherlands), of which he is a prominent member. But I will argue that he was right: what Israel is doing to the Palestinians can indeed be compared to what the Nazis did to the Jews.* *Comparing is not the same as equating. When we compare events, or sequences of events =E2=80=93 that is, historical processes =E2=80=93 we co= nsider not only their similarities but also their differences. And there are indeed important differences between what the Nazis did to the Jews and what Israel is doing to the Palestinians. There are, for example, no gas chambers in Gaza or on the West Bank. But the Jews did not simply end up in the gas chambers of Eastern Europe overnight. That outcome was preceded by a long and protracted process, the outcome of which remained shrouded in mystery for much of the time.* *Let me take my great-aunt Phine Asbacher-van Gelder as an example. She was one of the sisters of my grandmother, Heintje Wertheim-van Gelder. Phine and her husband lived in a lovely little house with a garden in Aerdenhout. In 1942, however, they were forced to move to a flat in the Transvaal neighbourhood of Amsterdam East, ostensibly for their own safety. The Nazis concentrated the whole Dutch Jewish population in this area, and over time around 80 per cent of its residents were Jewish. Because the neighbourhood was geographically hemmed in by the Ringvaart canal and an elevated railway line, it could easily be sealed off completely. My great-aunt and her husband were then transported via the Muiderpoort trainstation to Camp Westerbork, once again supposedly for their own good. Before long, they were deported from there to Sobibor, where her husband was murdered on 7 May 1943. Phine herself was murdered a few months later, on 23 July 1943. They were 61 and 59 years old, respectively. My grandmother escaped that fate by taking her own life on 14 May 1940, the day the Netherlands capitulated to Nazi Germany, together with my grandfather, Jonas Mozeszoon Wertheim. They had foreseen what lay ahead for the Jews.* *The step-by-step process by which the Jews were driven ever deeper into a trap made up of successive compartments was described with great clarity by the Polish Jewish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman. In his influential 1989 book Modernity and the Holocaust, Bauman shows how this mechanism worked: at each successive stage, Jews were confronted with a choice between bad and worse. They were forced to make that choice themselves, and in this way the devious system made them complicit in the process that ultimately led to their own destruction. All the while, the final outcome of that process remained shrouded in darkness.* *This same step-by-step process, in which people are forced to choose between bad and worse as as they enter each successive compartment of the trap, can also be seen in what is happening to the Palestinians in Gaza and, to some extent, on the West Bank. Here, too, the ultimate outcome remains hidden from those caught up in the process. It began when Palestinians were forcibly driven from their homes and villages around the time the State of Israel was established. They were fired upon by Israeli forces from the hills, their villages were razed to the ground, and it gradually became clear that their only chance of survival was to seek refuge in refugee camps. There they were crowded together, first in tents and later in permanent buildings, under increasingly difficult conditions. At first, they were still able to leave the camps, for example to work in Israel. But step by step, their freedom of movement was restricted.* *In Gaza, this enclosure was enforced by an electrified fence surrounding the entire territory, with watchtowers at regular intervals from which the population was kept under armed surveillance day and night. On the West Bank, the process unfolded somewhat differently. Israeli settlers established themselves in an ever-growing number of locations throughout the territory, taking over Palestinian land and building settlements from which Palestinians were excluded. These settlements were connected by an extensive network of roads, while Palestinians faced a complex system of checkpoints that increasingly restricted their freedom of movement.* *Over the years, various forms of resistance emerged in Gaza. One example was the largely non-violent protests of 2018=E2=80=932019, when groups of u= narmed Palestinians repeatedly approached the fence from inside Gaza. Gazans learned first-hand how Israel responded to such actions: protesters were shot in the knees. As early as 2006, there had also been recurring periods in which entire areas were bombarded, invariably presented as punishment for particular acts of resistance. Following the 7 October 2023 outbreak from Gaza into Israeli territory, these bombardments became more or less continuous. Before each bombardment, residents were given a choice: they could leave for another part of Gaza, where they were told they would be safe. That was the lesser of the two evils, and most complied and fled. Yet once they reached the designated area, they often discovered that they were being bombed there as well. They had effectively been forced to choose between the bad =E2=80=93 abandoning their homes =E2=80=93 and the worse = =E2=80=93 being bombed. In recent months, this process has gone a step further. The total area within which Gazans are permitted to move has been progressively reduced through the so-called Yellow Line. Here, too, the process has unfolded incrementally, step by step.* *The bombardments not only kept people constantly on the move, but also deprived them of the few remaining opportunities to provide for themselves. Initially, for example, Gazans were still able to grow some of their own food. By now, however, they have become almost entirely dependent on whatever food and medicine Israel allows into the territory. Moreover, since 7 October 2023, Gazans have no longer been permitted to work in Israel, outside the fence. Until then, around 20,000 people =E2=80=93 rough= ly 1 per cent of Gaza=E2=80=99s population =E2=80=93 had done so. These workers had = to endure humiliating procedures every morning before being allowed to cross the fence to go to work and again in the evening on their return. Since then, however, virtually no one has been allowed to enter or leave the Gaza Strip. Once again, this has been justified as being for their own protection: outside Gaza, Palestinians would supposedly be at risk because of the anger among Israelis over the events of 7 October 2023.* *As a child, I experienced a similar step-by-step process myself, in which each successive stage confronted you with a choice between bad and worse. During the Second World War, my family believed that, far away in Indonesia, then still a Dutch colony, we would be safe from the Nazis. But we were soon to discover that the long arm of the Holocaust would reach us there as well. In 1942, when I was seven years old, Japan invaded and occupied the vast Indonesian archipelago. At the time, some sixty million Indonesians lived there, while the Dutch, who until then had ruled the colony, numbered only around 300,000. For the Japanese occupying forces it was relatively easy to strip this small Dutch minority of its power by confining them in camps. And that was precisely what they began to do during the first months of the occupation. They established around three hundred camps across the archipelago, each holding approximately a thousand prisoners, with separate camps for men and for women and children. Conditions varied from camp to camp, but everywhere people were crowded together behind fences, given far too little food and almost no medicine, and subjected to brutal punishment for any form of resistance. And they were kept at gunpoint day and night from high bamboo towers.* *My father was imprisoned on the very day the colonial authorities surrendered. My mother, however, was able to remain in our house by the duck pond in Batavia =E2=80=93 now Jakarta =E2=80=93 for some time with my = sister, my little brother and me. This was possible because, on my father=E2=80=99s ad= vice, she had withdrawn all their money from the bank on the first day of the occupation. After all, salaries had stopped being paid. Many Dutch people made the mistake of doing the opposite: they deposited their money in the bank and soon found themselves without the means to support themselves, leaving them with little choice but to enter the internment camps.* *But one day we too were told that we would be better off being interned in a women=E2=80=99s camp, euphemistically referred to as a =E2=80=98protected= district.=E2=80=99 At first, internees were still allowed to leave these quarters during the day, but before long they were completely sealed off. The prospect of entering the camp was deeply distressing. Although very little information had emerged since it had been closed off, we had gathered that conditions inside were steadily deteriorating. Yet we were told that outside the camp we risked being attacked by the Indonesian population, which would be even worse. Faced with that choice, we decided to enter the camp. After we had been there for a year, my mother was once again confronted with a choice that would have far-reaching consequences.* *On 24 September 1944, we received an order from the Japanese camp authorities stating that anyone with even a single drop of Jewish blood in their veins would be transferred to a separate camp. Japan, of course, was allied with Nazi Germany, and after the war it became clear how, at this stage of the occupation, the Nazis had succeeded in persuading the Japanese to segregate Jewish internees from the others.* *My mother was not Jewish herself, but we, as the children of our Jewish father, were half-Jewish. She lay awake at night wondering whether she should register us as such, knowing that this might mean we would be sent to the Jewish camp while she would have to remain behind. She reasoned that the Japanese probably did not know that Wertheim was recognised as a Jewish name. Our fellow Dutch prisoners, however, knew that perfectly well, so all it would take was for one of them to betray us. And everyone knew what could happen if you disobeyed an order from the Japanese. My mother could not consult my father. He was far away in a men=E2=80=99s camp, and we did = not even know whether he was still alive. After the war, however, we learned that he had faced the same dilemma and, after much deliberation, had decided to take the risk and not register as Jewish.* *In the end, my mother decided to avoid the worse outcome =E2=80=93 the pos= sibility of being separated from us =E2=80=93 and chose what seemed the lesser evil.= She registered herself as Jewish, which meant that we were no longer classified as half-Jewish but as fully Jewish. And so we accompanied her to the Jewish women=E2=80=99s camp Tangerang. From there, together with the other Jewish = women and children, we were transferred to the Adek camp, where we remained until the end of the war.* *In the days before our transfer, I encountered antisemitism for the first time. I can still picture one of my little brother=E2=80=99s friends standi= ng a short distance away from us and chanting: =E2=80=98You have to go to Tanger= ang, because you=E2=80=99re Klojoden!=E2=80=99* *For us, Tangerang =E2=80=93 and later Adek as well =E2=80=93 was far worse= than the camp we had come from. It was even filthier, disease was even more widespread, medicines were almost non-existent, even more people died, including children, and we suffered even greater hunger. And here we were also forced to watch as Indonesian guards under Japanese command, who had tried to escape, were beaten until they bled =E2=80=93 a brutal warning intended = to keep us in line. Yet from our fellow Jewish prisoners, who had been transferred to Tangerang from other women=E2=80=99s camps across West Java, we learned = that, for some of them, conditions in our camp were actually an improvement.* *So, looking at the broader picture and comparing the segregation of Jews by the Japanese with the persecution of Jews by the Nazis in Europe, one can identify quite a number of similarities. A fundamental difference, however, was that the Japanese, as far as I have been able to establish since the war, had no intention of killing us.* *Photo of Gaza by Hosny salah: https://www.pexels.com/photo/child-in-gaza-camp-working-in-muddy-conditions= -35934179/ * *Let us return briefly to what is happening on the West Bank. The Palestinians are not being bombed there, but they too are gradually being confined to ever-smaller areas, while their living conditions are getting worse by the day. They, too, are repeatedly confronted with choices between bad and worse and are thus made personally complicit in the deterioration of their circumstances, without knowing where that process will ultimately lead. When a new Israeli settlement is about to be established =E2=80=93 of= ten first signalled by the appearance of a temporary mobile home on Palestinian land =E2=80=93 the local residents know what may happen if they resist. The= y risk being attacked, often by armed force, and people may be killed, with the assistance of the Israeli army or, at the very least, under its watchful eye. So what is worse: risking death or giving up your land?* *Zygmunt Bauman identified another aspect of the Holocaust that can also be seen in the way Israel treats the Palestinians. This concerns the intervals between the successive orders through which the Nazis sought to drive the Jews ever deeper into the trap. These intervals could not be too short, because the Jews had often chosen the lesser of two evils precisely in the hope of buying themselves more time. If the next measure followed too quickly, the Nazis risked losing the cooperation of their potential victims. A similar pattern can be seen in the way Israel operates in the Palestinian territories, where a certain amount of time tends to pass between one measure and the next.* *A final aspect of Bauman=E2=80=99s work that I want to highlight =E2=80=93= and one that can also be applied to what is being done to the Palestinians =E2=80=93 is = the effort by Israel to conceal its actions from the outside world. The Nazis went to extraordinary lengths to keep their gas chambers hidden from public view, and they were remarkably successful in doing so. A similar effort to restrict outside scrutiny can certainly be seen in Gaza, where access for journalists has been severely limited and where, as is well known, many journalists have been killed.* *In short, comparing is not the same as equating. There are certainly differences between the way the Nazis treated the Jews back then and the way Israel treats the Palestinians today, but there are similarities as well. It must be possible to identify and discuss those similarities without those who do so being vilified for making the comparison.* --000000000000af06e4065c4f5c05 Content-Type: text/html; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
https://www.juancole.com/202= 6/09/holocaust-forbidden-comparison.html

The Holocaust and the Gaza Genocide: A Forb= idden Comparison?

Anne-Ruth Wertheim= =C2=A009/25/2026

3D""

(A shorter, Dutch version of this essay a= ppeared on September 24 in=C2=A0De Groene Amsterdammer=C2=A0)

People who draw comparisons between the Holocaust and w= hat Israel is doing to the Palestinians are often quick to be accused of an= tisemitism. But comparing is not the same as equating. There are certainly = important differences, but there are similarities as well. In this article,= I examine the similarities between Israel=E2=80=99s treatment of the Pales= tinians today and the Nazis=E2=80=99 treatment of the Jews at the time.=

Amsterdam (Dispatch to Informed Comment; Feature) =E2=80=93 How oppress= ed people are constantly forced to choose between a new situation that limi= ts their options and an alternative that is even more disadvantageous to th= em.

And how, in this way, they are made partly responsible for whatever = unknown fate ultimately awaits them.

Is what Israel is doing to the Pale= stinians comparable to what the Nazis did to the Jews?

There has been co= nsiderable debate about this question, most recently after Frans Timmermans= made a remark to that effect. He was immediately accused of antisemitism, = as was the entire PRO party (the socialdemocratic/green party of the Nether= lands), of which he is a prominent member. But I will argue that he was rig= ht: what Israel is doing to the Palestinians can indeed be compared to what= the Nazis did to the Jews.

Comparing is not the same as equating. When = we compare events, or sequences of events =E2=80=93 that is, historical pro= cesses =E2=80=93 we consider not only their similarities but also their dif= ferences. And there are indeed important differences between what the Nazis= did to the Jews and what Israel is doing to the Palestinians. There are, f= or example, no gas chambers in Gaza or on the West Bank. But the Jews did n= ot simply end up in the gas chambers of Eastern Europe overnight. That outc= ome was preceded by a long and protracted process, the outcome of which rem= ained shrouded in mystery for much of the time.

Let me take my great-aun= t Phine Asbacher-van Gelder as an example. She was one of the sisters of my= grandmother, Heintje Wertheim-van Gelder. Phine and her husband lived in a= lovely little house with a garden in Aerdenhout. In 1942, however, they we= re forced to move to a flat in the Transvaal neighbourhood of Amsterdam Eas= t, ostensibly for their own safety. The Nazis concentrated the whole Dutch = Jewish population in this area, and over time around 80 per cent of its res= idents were Jewish. Because the neighbourhood was geographically hemmed in = by the Ringvaart canal and an elevated railway line, it could easily be sea= led off completely. My great-aunt and her husband were then transported via= the Muiderpoort trainstation to Camp Westerbork, once again supposedly for= their own good. Before long, they were deported from there to Sobibor, whe= re her husband was murdered on 7 May 1943. Phine herself was murdered a few= months later, on 23 July 1943. They were 61 and 59 years old, respectively= . My grandmother escaped that fate by taking her own life on 14 May 1940, t= he day the Netherlands capitulated to Nazi Germany, together with my grandf= ather, Jonas Mozeszoon Wertheim. They had foreseen what lay ahead for the J= ews.

The step-by-step process by which the Jews were driven ever deeper = into a trap made up of successive compartments was described with great cla= rity by the Polish Jewish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman. In his influential 19= 89 book=C2=A0Modernity and the Ho= locaust, Bauman shows how this mechanism worked: at each successive st= age, Jews were confronted with a choice between bad and worse. They were fo= rced to make that choice themselves, and in this way the devious system mad= e them complicit in the process that ultimately led to their own destructio= n. All the while, the final outcome of that process remained shrouded in da= rkness.

This same step-by-step process, in which people are forced to ch= oose between bad and worse as as they enter each successive compartment of = the trap, can also be seen in what is happening to the Palestinians in Gaza= and, to some extent, on the West Bank. Here, too, the ultimate outcome rem= ains hidden from those caught up in the process. It began when Palestinians= were forcibly driven from their homes and villages around the time the Sta= te of Israel was established. They were fired upon by Israeli forces from t= he hills, their villages were razed to the ground, and it gradually became = clear that their only chance of survival was to seek refuge in refugee camp= s. There they were crowded together, first in tents and later in permanent = buildings, under increasingly difficult conditions. At first, they were sti= ll able to leave the camps, for example to work in Israel. But step by step= , their freedom of movement was restricted.

In Gaza, this enclosure was = enforced by an electrified fence surrounding the entire territory, with wat= chtowers at regular intervals from which the population was kept under arme= d surveillance day and night. On the West Bank, the process unfolded somewh= at differently. Israeli settlers established themselves in an ever-growing = number of locations throughout the territory, taking over Palestinian land = and building settlements from which Palestinians were excluded. These settl= ements were connected by an extensive network of roads, while Palestinians = faced a complex system of checkpoints that increasingly restricted their fr= eedom of movement.

Over the years, various forms of resistance emerged i= n Gaza. One example was the largely non-violent protests of 2018=E2=80=9320= 19, when groups of unarmed Palestinians repeatedly approached the fence fro= m inside Gaza. Gazans learned first-hand how Israel responded to such actio= ns: protesters were shot in the knees. As early as 2006, there had also bee= n recurring periods in which entire areas were bombarded, invariably presen= ted as punishment for particular acts of resistance. Following the 7 Octobe= r 2023 outbreak from Gaza into Israeli territory, these bombardments became= more or less continuous. Before each bombardment, residents were given a c= hoice: they could leave for another part of Gaza, where they were told they= would be safe. That was the lesser of the two evils, and most complied and= fled. Yet once they reached the designated area, they often discovered tha= t they were being bombed there as well. They had effectively been forced to= choose between the bad =E2=80=93 abandoning their homes =E2=80=93 and the = worse =E2=80=93 being bombed. In recent months, this process has gone a ste= p further. The total area within which Gazans are permitted to move has bee= n progressively reduced through the so-called Yellow Line. Here, too, the p= rocess has unfolded incrementally, step by step.

The bombardments not on= ly kept people constantly on the move, but also deprived them of the few re= maining opportunities to provide for themselves. Initially, for example, Ga= zans were still able to grow some of their own food. By now, however, they = have become almost entirely dependent on whatever food and medicine Israel = allows into the territory. Moreover, since 7 October 2023, Gazans have no l= onger been permitted to work in Israel, outside the fence. Until then, arou= nd 20,000 people =E2=80=93 roughly 1 per cent of Gaza=E2=80=99s population = =E2=80=93 had done so. These workers had to endure humiliating procedures e= very morning before being allowed to cross the fence to go to work and agai= n in the evening on their return. Since then, however, virtually no one has= been allowed to enter or leave the Gaza Strip. Once again, this has been j= ustified as being for their own protection: outside Gaza, Palestinians woul= d supposedly be at risk because of the anger among Israelis over the events= of 7 October 2023.

As a child, I experienced a similar step-by-step pro= cess myself, in which each successive stage confronted you with a choice be= tween bad and worse. During the Second World War, my family believed that, = far away in Indonesia, then still a Dutch colony, we would be safe from the= Nazis. But we were soon to discover that the long arm of the Holocaust wou= ld reach us there as well. In 1942, when I was seven years old, Japan invad= ed and occupied the vast Indonesian archipelago. At the time, some sixty mi= llion Indonesians lived there, while the Dutch, who until then had ruled th= e colony, numbered only around 300,000. For the Japanese occupying forces i= t was relatively easy to strip this small Dutch minority of its power by co= nfining them in camps. And that was precisely what they began to do during = the first months of the occupation. They established around three hundred c= amps across the archipelago, each holding approximately a thousand prisoner= s, with separate camps for men and for women and children. Conditions varie= d from camp to camp, but everywhere people were crowded together behind fen= ces, given far too little food and almost no medicine, and subjected to bru= tal punishment for any form of resistance. And they were kept at gunpoint d= ay and night from high bamboo towers.

My father was imprisoned on the ve= ry day the colonial authorities surrendered. My mother, however, was able t= o remain in our house by the duck pond in Batavia =E2=80=93 now Jakarta =E2= =80=93 for some time with my sister, my little brother and me. This was pos= sible because, on my father=E2=80=99s advice, she had withdrawn all their m= oney from the bank on the first day of the occupation. After all, salaries = had stopped being paid. Many Dutch people made the mistake of doing the opp= osite: they deposited their money in the bank and soon found themselves wit= hout the means to support themselves, leaving them with little choice but t= o enter the internment camps.

But one day we too were told that we would= be better off being interned in a women=E2=80=99s camp, euphemistically re= ferred to as a =E2=80=98protected district.=E2=80=99 At first, internees we= re still allowed to leave these quarters during the day, but before long th= ey were completely sealed off. The prospect of entering the camp was deeply= distressing. Although very little information had emerged since it had bee= n closed off, we had gathered that conditions inside were steadily deterior= ating. Yet we were told that outside the camp we risked being attacked by t= he Indonesian population, which would be even worse. Faced with that choice= , we decided to enter the camp. After we had been there for a year, my moth= er was once again confronted with a choice that would have far-reaching con= sequences.

On 24 September 1944, we received an order from the Japanese = camp authorities stating that anyone with even a single drop of Jewish bloo= d in their veins would be transferred to a separate camp. Japan, of course,= was allied with Nazi Germany, and after the war it became clear how, at th= is stage of the occupation, the Nazis had succeeded in persuading the Japan= ese to segregate Jewish internees from the others.

My mother was not Jew= ish herself, but we, as the children of our Jewish father, were half-Jewish= . She lay awake at night wondering whether she should register us as such, = knowing that this might mean we would be sent to the Jewish camp while she = would have to remain behind. She reasoned that the Japanese probably did no= t know that Wertheim was recognised as a Jewish name. Our fellow Dutch pris= oners, however, knew that perfectly well, so all it would take was for one = of them to betray us. And everyone knew what could happen if you disobeyed = an order from the Japanese. My mother could not consult my father. He was f= ar away in a men=E2=80=99s camp, and we did not even know whether he was st= ill alive. After the war, however, we learned that he had faced the same di= lemma and, after much deliberation, had decided to take the risk and not re= gister as Jewish.

In the end, my mother decided to avoid the worse outco= me =E2=80=93 the possibility of being separated from us =E2=80=93 and chose= what seemed the lesser evil. She registered herself as Jewish, which meant= that we were no longer classified as half-Jewish but as fully Jewish. And = so we accompanied her to the Jewish women=E2=80=99s camp Tangerang. From th= ere, together with the other Jewish women and children, we were transferred= to the Adek camp, where we remained until the end of the war.

In the da= ys before our transfer, I encountered antisemitism for the first time. I ca= n still picture one of my little brother=E2=80=99s friends standing a short= distance away from us and chanting: =E2=80=98You have to go to Tangerang, = because you=E2=80=99re Klojoden!=E2=80=99

For us, Tangerang =E2=80=93 an= d later Adek as well =E2=80=93 was far worse than the camp we had come from= . It was even filthier, disease was even more widespread, medicines were al= most non-existent, even more people died, including children, and we suffer= ed even greater hunger.=C2=A0 And here we were also forced to watch as Indo= nesian guards under Japanese command, who had tried to escape, were beaten = until they bled =E2=80=93 a brutal warning intended to keep us in line. Yet= from our fellow Jewish prisoners, who had been transferred to Tangerang fr= om other women=E2=80=99s camps across West Java, we learned that, for some = of them, conditions in our camp were actually an improvement.

So, lookin= g at the broader picture and comparing the segregation of Jews by the Japan= ese with the persecution of Jews by the Nazis in Europe, one can identify q= uite a number of similarities. A fundamental difference, however, was that = the Japanese, as far as I have been able to establish since the war, had no= intention of killing us.

Photo of Gaza by Hosny salah: https://www.pexels.com/photo/child-in-gaza-camp-working-in-mudd= y-conditions-35934179/

Let us return briefly to what is = happening on the West Bank. The Palestinians are not being bombed there, bu= t they too are gradually being confined to ever-smaller areas, while their = living conditions are getting worse by the day. They, too, are repeatedly c= onfronted with choices between bad and worse and are thus made personally c= omplicit in the deterioration of their circumstances, without knowing where= that process will ultimately lead. When a new Israeli settlement is about = to be established =E2=80=93 often first signalled by the appearance of a te= mporary mobile home on Palestinian land =E2=80=93 the local residents know = what may happen if they resist. They risk being attacked, often by armed fo= rce, and people may be killed, with the assistance of the Israeli army or, = at the very least, under its watchful eye. So what is worse: risking death = or giving up your land?

Zygmunt Bauman identified another aspect of the = Holocaust that can also be seen in the way Israel treats the Palestinians. = This concerns the intervals between the successive orders through which the= Nazis sought to drive the Jews ever deeper into the trap. These intervals = could not be too short, because the Jews had often chosen the lesser of two= evils precisely in the hope of buying themselves more time. If the next me= asure followed too quickly, the Nazis risked losing the cooperation of thei= r potential victims. A similar pattern can be seen in the way Israel operat= es in the Palestinian territories, where a certain amount of time tends to = pass between one measure and the next.

A final aspect of Bauman=E2=80=99= s work that I want to highlight =E2=80=93 and one that can also be applied = to what is being done to the Palestinians =E2=80=93 is the effort by Israel= to conceal its actions from the outside world. The Nazis went to extraordi= nary lengths to keep their gas chambers hidden from public view, and they w= ere remarkably successful in doing so. A similar effort to restrict outside= scrutiny can certainly be seen in Gaza, where access for journalists has b= een severely limited and where, as is well known, many journalists have bee= n killed.

In short, comparing is not the same as equating. There are cer= tainly differences between the way the Nazis treated the Jews back then and= the way Israel treats the Palestinians today, but there are similarities a= s well. It must be possible to identify and discuss those similarities with= out those who do so being vilified for making the comparison.

=
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Fri, 25 Sep 2026 13:14:38 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 From: Chas Freeman Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2026 16:14:20 -0400 X-Gm-Features: AclHuK9x-ULnDynOsp1lJKmtxjq78tihoboL8NJuCtutRCQWlsFTzZ6EcSrDBhk Message-ID: To: "salon@listserve.com" Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="000000000000a06f4f065c545df0" Subject: [Salon] Trump is checking out of his presidency X-BeenThere: salon@listserve.com X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.33 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussion List for the Committee For The Republic List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2026 20:14:39 -0000 --000000000000a06f4f065c545df0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Trump is checking out of his presidency*With no way out of his war with Iran, he is increasingly obsessed with monuments to himself* *September 22nd, 2026* *Financial Times* *Edward Luce* =E2=80=9CConstructive strategic stability=E2=80=9D is China and America=E2= =80=99s unpoetic bilateral goal. It must be getting harder by the day for the Chinese to recite it with a straight face. Confronting a midterm electoral defeat amid intractable wars, Donald Trump announced on Sunday that his planned Washington triumphal arch would also be a =E2=80=9Ctop grade military compl= ex=E2=80=9D. This monument to himself will stock drones, snipers and a big ammunition depot. Trump did not say against whom this firepower would be directed. Nor have we been told which win his =E2=80=9Carc de Trump=E2=80=9D will commemo= rate. We do know that he nowadays talks of little else. To say that Trump has checked out of the business of governing is an understatement. It would also imply that he had previously checked in. Yet in his first year, Trump had a plan and executed a lot of it. This included the big beautiful bill of tax cuts, a trade war against the world, ICE deportation round-ups, Elon Musk=E2=80=99s assault on the administrative st= ate and a government-wide DEI purge. The phrase =E2=80=9CTrump=E2=80=99s war on . .= . (universities, science, law firms, fill in the blank)=E2=80=9D became a med= ia clich=C3=A9. Whatever you thought of his choice of targets, Trump had them = in his sights. In his second year, however, the president=E2=80=99s mind has increasingly = been colonised by monuments to himself. Aside from ego, few can credit the depth of Trump=E2=80=99s obsession with these kitsch monstrosities. Richard Paint= er, who was ethics chief in George W Bush=E2=80=99s White House, said that Trump=E2= =80=99s arch should be dedicated to the US constitution=E2=80=99s 25th Amendment, by whi= ch a president can be removed for incapacity, including insanity. He meant it as a joke. There is less chance of the US vice-president, JD Vance, invoking the 25th against his boss than of Trump converting to Buddhism. That said, Trump appears serenely indifferent to his party=E2=80=99s likely= midterm defeat. In spite of promising to bring prices down, his actions have only fuelled inflation. This stems from his kaleidoscopic tariff rates, the now seven-month-old Operation Epic Fury war on Iran and the rapidly growing US budget deficit about which he has said nothing. US public debt topped $40tn last month, which is double what it was when Trump first took office in 2017. On AI, Trump seems to be going out of his way to inflame voter fears. Though Republican voters are just as worried about data centres as Democrats, Trump last month said =E2=80=9Clet data reign=E2=80=9D. He added= that any parts of America that refused such investments were condemning themselves to poverty. His response to public fears about AI threatening humanity was to hold a push poll on Truth Social last weekend on people=E2=80=99s preferred substitute term for =E2=80=9Cartificial=E2=80=9D intelligence, which he sai= d was inaccurate. =E2=80=9CSupreme=E2=80=9D intelligence, which was Trump=E2=80= =99s first choice, did not win the poll (=E2=80=9Csuperior=E2=80=9D did). There are hints that Trump may be acknowledging the AI blowback =E2=80=94 m= uch of which has been coming from his Maga allies, including Steve Bannon. On Saturday, he announced plans to create an =E2=80=9CAI force=E2=80=9D and ap= point a new AI tsar. In the same post, however, he dismissed AI fears as a =E2=80=9Choax= =E2=80=9D and vowed that he will not =E2=80=9Cin any way hinder or stifle=E2=80=9D the se= ctor=E2=80=99s breakneck expansion. With regulation such as this, who needs free-for-all? It=E2=80= =99s little wonder that swing-state Republican candidates are not agitating for Trump to join them on the campaign trail. Recommended US-China relations Will Bessent=E2=80=99s =E2=80=98economic D-D= ay=E2=80=99 break Iran? The term =E2=80=9Clame duck=E2=80=9D would be haunting any other president= =E2=80=99s sleep. But the concept is alien to Trump. He spends more of his time telling people about his architectural plans than he devotes to Iran, AI or the economy. Insoluble problems hold little interest. Simple projects, such as the new White House ballroom, which will also include a =E2=80=9Cmassive=E2=80=9D m= ilitary complex beneath it, are his main object of fascination. To wit, Trump last week said he would halt renovation of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts after courts undid his decision to rename it after himself. The centre, which was thriving 18 months ago, now faces the threat of dilapidation. There is no foreseeable off-ramp from Trump=E2=80=99s war in Iran. Trump=E2= =80=99s critics should remember that there is also no off-ramp from Trump until 2029. I can think of no example of a US president losing interest in their job with two-and-a-half years still to run. This includes Trump in his first term and Joe Biden=E2=80=99s progressively more lacklustre single term. This pre= sents America and the world with an unusual spectre. At a time of careening global instability, America=E2=80=99s president is simultaneously stoking i= t and uninterested in doing anything about it. --000000000000a06f4f065c545df0 Content-Type: text/html; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Trump is checking = out of his presidency

With no way ou= t of his war with Iran, he is increasingly obsessed with monuments to himse= lf


September 22nd, 2026
Financial Times
Edward L= uce

=E2=80=9CConstructive strategic s= tability=E2=80=9D is China and America=E2=80=99s unpoetic bilateral goal. I= t must be getting harder by the day for the Chinese to recite it with a str= aight face. Confronting a midterm electoral defeat amid intractable wars, D= onald Trump announced on Sunday that his planned Washington triumphal arch = would also be a =E2=80=9Ctop grade military complex=E2=80=9D. This monument= to himself will stock drones, snipers and a big ammunition depot. Trump di= d not say against whom this firepower would be directed. Nor have we been t= old which win his =E2=80=9Carc de Trump=E2=80=9D will commemorate. We do kn= ow that he nowadays talks of little else.=C2=A0

To say that Trump has checked out of the = business of governing is an understatement. It would also imply that he had= previously checked in. Yet in his first year, Trump had a plan and execute= d a lot of it. This included the big beautiful bill of tax cuts, a trade wa= r against the world, ICE deportation round-ups, Elon Musk=E2=80=99s assault= on the administrative state and a government-wide DEI purge. The phrase = =E2=80=9CTrump=E2=80=99s war on=E2=80=89.=E2=80=89.=E2=80=89.=E2=80=89(univ= ersities, science, law firms, fill in the blank)=E2=80=9D became a media cl= ich=C3=A9. Whatever you thought of his choice of targets, Trump had them in= his sights. =C2=A0=C2=A0

In his second year, however, the president=E2=80=99s mind has i= ncreasingly been colonised by monuments to himself. Aside from ego, few can= credit the depth of Trump=E2=80=99s obsession with these kitsch monstrosit= ies. Richard Painter, who was ethics chief in George W Bush=E2=80=99s White= House, said that Trump=E2=80=99s arch should be dedicated to the US consti= tution=E2=80=99s 25th Amendment, by which a president can be removed for in= capacity, including insanity. He meant it as a joke. There is less chance o= f the US vice-president, JD Vance, invoking the 25th against his boss than = of Trump converting to Buddhism.=C2=A0
That said, Trump appears serenely indifferent to h= is party=E2=80=99s likely midterm defeat. In spite of promising to bring pr= ices down, his actions have only fuelled inflation. This stems from his kal= eidoscopic tariff rates, the now seven-month-old Operation Epic Fury war on= Iran and the rapidly growing US budget deficit about which he has said not= hing. US public debt topped $40tn last month, which is double what it was w= hen Trump first took office in 2017.=C2=A0
On AI, Trump seems to be going out of his way = to inflame voter fears. Though Republican voters are just as worried about = data centres as Democrats, Trump last month said =E2=80=9Clet data reign=E2= =80=9D. He added that any parts of America that refused such investments we= re condemning themselves to poverty. His response to public fears about AI = threatening humanity was to hold a push poll on Truth Social last weekend o= n people=E2=80=99s preferred substitute term for =E2=80=9Cartificial=E2=80= =9D intelligence, which he said was inaccurate. =E2=80=9CSupreme=E2=80=9D i= ntelligence, which was Trump=E2=80=99s first choice, did not win the poll (= =E2=80=9Csuperior=E2=80=9D did).=C2=A0
There are hints that Trump may be acknowledging th= e AI blowback =E2=80=94 much of which has been coming from his Maga allies,= including Steve Bannon. On Saturday, he announced plans to create an =E2= =80=9CAI force=E2=80=9D and appoint a new AI tsar. In the same post, howeve= r, he dismissed AI fears as a =E2=80=9Choax=E2=80=9D and vowed that he will= not =E2=80=9Cin any way hinder or stifle=E2=80=9D the sector=E2=80=99s bre= akneck expansion. With regulation such as this, who needs free-for-all? It= =E2=80=99s little wonder that swing-state Republican candidates are not agi= tating for Trump to join them on the campaign trail.=C2=A0

Recommended US-China relations= Will Bessent=E2=80=99s =E2=80=98economic D-Day=E2=80=99 break Iran? The te= rm =E2=80=9Clame duck=E2=80=9D would be haunting any other president=E2=80= =99s sleep. But the concept is alien to Trump. He spends more of his time t= elling people about his architectural plans than he devotes to Iran, AI or = the economy. Insoluble problems hold little interest. Simple projects, such= as the new White House ballroom, which will also include a =E2=80=9Cmassiv= e=E2=80=9D military complex beneath it, are his main object of fascination.= To wit, Trump last week said he would halt renovation of the Kennedy Cente= r for the Performing Arts after courts undid his decision to rename it afte= r himself. The centre, which was thriving 18 months ago, now faces the thre= at of dilapidation.=C2=A0

There is no foreseeable off-ramp from Trump=E2=80=99s war in Ir= an. Trump=E2=80=99s critics should remember that there is also no off-ramp = from Trump until 2029. I can think of no example of a US president losing i= nterest in their job with two-and-a-half years still to run. This includes = Trump in his first term and Joe Biden=E2=80=99s progressively more lacklust= re single term. This presents America and the world with an unusual spectre= . At a time of careening global instability, America=E2=80=99s president is= simultaneously stoking it and uninterested in doing anything about it.
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Fri, 25 Sep 2026 13:17:28 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 From: Chas Freeman Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2026 16:17:12 -0400 X-Gm-Features: AclHuK_Fm1aac6LAvZ0F3fXBHdtfcqPHV43Jq6GFvPyaWVtotrpePexyHNZSH64 Message-ID: To: "salon@listserve.com" Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="000000000000cb1f90065c5467d5" Subject: [Salon] =?utf-8?q?Trump=E2=80=99s_lavish_welcome_of_Xi_shows_tec?= =?utf-8?q?tonic_shift?= X-BeenThere: salon@listserve.com X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.33 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussion List for the Committee For The Republic List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2026 20:17:29 -0000 --000000000000cb1f90065c5467d5 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Trump=E2=80=99s lavish welcome of Xi shows tectonic shift [image: President Donald Trump and Xi Jinping shake hands] Kylie Cooper/Reuters *In rolling out the red carpet for Xi this week, Trump underscored how rapidly the balance of power in the US-China relationship has shifted, Semafor=E2=80=99s Andy Browne writes.* The turning point came last= year, when China made the ultimate power move, threatening to choke off rare earths =E2=80=94 and turn US factories dark =E2=80=94 after Trump ramped up= tariffs on Chinese goods to more than 140%. Trump backed down, and at the time, Rush Doshi, a Georgetown University professor and former Biden administration official, wrote that China had proved itself to be a =E2=80=9Ctrue peer =E2=80=9D = of the US, unafraid to push back. Dolshi=E2=80=99s take on this week=E2=80=99s arrival= ceremony, which also included a 21-gun salute and a flyover by B-1B bombers =E2=80=94 far e= xceeding courtesies extended to Trump in Beijing in May =E2=80=94 has been that Chin= a believes =E2=80=9Cthey=E2=80=99ve basically tamed the United States.=E2=80= =9D --000000000000cb1f90065c5467d5 Content-Type: text/html; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Trump=E2=80=99s lavish welcom= e of Xi shows tectonic shift

3D"PresidentKylie Cooper/Reuters

In rolling out the red c= arpet for Xi this week, Trump underscored how rapidly the balance of power = in the US-China relations= hip has shifted, Semafor=E2=80=99s Andy Browne writes. The tur= ning point came last year, when China made the ultimate power move, threate= ning to choke off rare earths =E2=80=94 and turn US factories dark =E2=80= =94 after Trump ramped up tariffs on Chinese goods to more than 140%. Trump= backed down, and at the time, Rush Doshi, a Georgetown University professo= r and former Biden administration official, wrote that China had proved its= elf to be a =E2=80=9Ctrue= peer=E2=80=9D of the US, unafraid to push back. Dolshi=E2=80=99s take = on this week=E2=80=99s arrival ceremony, which also included a 21-gun salut= e and a flyover by B-1B bombers =E2=80=94 far exceeding courtesies extended= to Trump in Beijing in May =E2=80=94 has been that China believes =E2=80= =9Cthey=E2=80=99ve basically tamed the United States.=E2=80=9D

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Fri, 25 Sep 2026 13:32:57 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 From: Chas Freeman Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2026 16:32:41 -0400 X-Gm-Features: AclHuK84cykM2UlNWCNptCTyRF3pQ2yIIPmjkdck0y6znm7fYAcV4rNfPFTMjyw Message-ID: To: "salon@listserve.com" Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="0000000000002d770c065c549fab" Subject: [Salon] =?utf-8?b?4oCc4oCYVGVycm9yaXNtLOKAmSB0aGlzIGluc2lkaW91?= =?utf-8?b?cyB3b3JkLuKAnQ==?= X-BeenThere: salon@listserve.com X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.33 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussion List for the Committee For The Republic List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2026 20:33:00 -0000 --0000000000002d770c065c549fab Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more =E2=80=9C=E2=80=98Terrorism,=E2=80=99 this insidious word.=E2=80=9D = John Whitbeck on power and the manipulation of language. Sep 25 READ IN APP *The very face of terrorism. Soon-to-be-president Masoud Pezeshkian, July 2024.* (Mehr News Agency, cc by 4.0/ Wikimedia Commons *Summer Readings.* *25 September=E2=80=94Of all the epithets power deploys to condemn, demoniz= e, or ostracize those who question or oppose its late-imperial hegemony, a couple have been prominently in vogue for some years now. Term a line of argument =E2=80=9Cconspiracy theory,=E2=80=9D for instance, and there is no further = need to consider its merits=E2=80=94this as if any thought that the exercise of power is oft= en conspiratorial is nothing more than frivolity or paranoia.* *=E2=80=9CTerrorism=E2=80=9D and =E2=80=9Cterrorist=E2=80=9D are other term= s of this kind, and they work similarly. Hamas is officially classified as a terrorist organization, in the United States and elsewhere, and, so, nothing more need be understood about Hamas.* *President Trump, in his shocking display of solipsism at the U.N. General Assembly this week , continued making the tiresomely stupid case that Iran is nothing more than a terrorist state. =E2=80=9CFor 51 years,=E2=80=9D Trump said (adding four = years to the history of the Islamic Republic), =E2=80=9Cthe fanatical Iranian regime has= ruled by bloodshed and mass murder, spreading death and carnage and chaos across the entire Middle East and beyond.=E2=80=9D Etc.* *That was Tuesday. On Wednesday Masoud Pezeshkian gave better than he got when he took the podium at the U.N.G.A. =E2=80=9CThe United States presiden= t decribed us as terrorists,=E2=80=9D the Iranian president said with uncharacteristic vehemence. =E2=80=9CWe are the victims of terrorism.=E2=80= =9D I attach some significance to this statement: A world leader takes the podium at the U.N. to identify the true source of terrorism in our world.* *We take this occasion to republish a superb piece on this topic by John Whitbeck, the American attorney, writer, and blogger living in Paris. John is as attentive as anyone we know to how power uses language to poison public discourse and turn reality hourglass upside-down. His piece, written in response to the Bush II regime=E2=80=99s declaration of a global =E2=80= =9Cwar on terror=E2=80=9D after the events of 11 September 2001, first appeared in the Spring 2002 number of *Global Dialogue*, a quarterly journal published in Nicosia. It also came out in *Politica Exterior*, a Madrid publication, and in the Viennese journal *International*.* *John=E2=80=99s erudite observations on what is and is not =E2=80=9Cterrori= sm=E2=80=9D remained pertinent when his piece appeared in these* *pages in January 2024, and they seem yet more so now.* *This concludes *The Floutist*=E2=80=99s Summer Readings.* *=E2=80=94P. L.* *John V. Whitbeck.* PARIS=E2=80=94The greatest threat to world peace and civil society today is= clearly =E2=80=9Cterrorism=E2=80=9D=E2=80=94not the behavior to which the word is a= pplied but the word itself. Since the word =E2=80=9Cterrorism=E2=80=9D (like the behavior to wh= ich the word is applied) can never be eradicated, it is imperative to expose it for what it is=E2=80=94a word. For years, people have recited (often with a wry smile) the truisms that =E2=80=9COne man=E2=80=99s terrorist is another man=E2=80=99s freedom fight= er=E2=80=9D and that =E2=80=9CTerrorism, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.=E2=80=9D However, with the worl= d=E2=80=99s sole superpower declaring an open-ended, worldwide =E2=80=9Cwar on terrorism,=E2= =80=9D proclaiming that this =E2=80=9Cwar=E2=80=9D has only just begun and promisi= ng to persevere until =E2=80=9Cvictory,=E2=80=9D the notorious subjectivity of this word is= no longer a joke. It is no accident that there is no agreed definition of =E2=80=9Cterrorism,= =E2=80=9D since the word is so subjective as to be devoid of any inherent meaning. At the same time, the word is extremely dangerous, because many people tend to believe that it does have meaning, and many others use and abuse the word by applying it to whatever they hate as a way of avoiding and discouraging rational thought and discussion and, frequently, excusing their own illegal and immoral behavior. There is no shortage of precise verbal formulations for the diverse acts to which the word =E2=80=9Cterrorism=E2=80=9D is often applied. =E2=80=9CMass = murder,=E2=80=9D =E2=80=9Cassassination,=E2=80=9D =E2=80=9Carson,=E2=80=9D and =E2=80=9Csabo= tage=E2=80=9D are available (to all of which the phrase =E2=80=9Cpolitically motivated=E2=80=9D can be added if appropriate)= . However, such precise formulations do not carry the overwhelming, demonizing and thought-deadening impact of the word =E2=80=9Cterrorism,=E2=80=9D which is,= of course, precisely the charm of the word for its more cynical and unprincipled users and abusers. If someone commits =E2=80=9Cpolitically motivated mass murder,= =E2=80=9D people might be curious as to the cause or grievances which inspired such a crime, but no cause or grievance can justify (or even explain) =E2=80=9Cterrorism,= =E2=80=9D which, all right-thinking people must agree, is the ultimate evil. Crimes such as =E2=80=9Cmurder,=E2=80=9D =E2=80=9Carson,=E2=80=9D and =E2= =80=9Csabotage,=E2=80=9D as well as assorted gradations of them, are already on the statute books, rendering specific criminal legislation for =E2=80=9Cterrorism=E2=80=9D as such both unnecessa= ry and undesirable. Creating distinct crimes and punishments for =E2=80=9Cterroris= t=E2=80=9D offenses injects a wholly subjective element into criminal law, which, to be fair and to be seen to be fair, should be based rigorously on *what* a person has done, not *why* he did it (let alone who he is or to whom he did it). A crime labeled =E2=80=9Cterrorism=E2=80=9D is almost always punished more = severely than the same act to which the label =E2=80=9Cterrorism=E2=80=9D is not attached= . Thus, killing to advance a cause in which one deeply believes is deemed more reprehensible than killing because one dislikes the victim or wants to steal his property. One can understand why those in power might consider the former motivation more dangerous. The moral and ethical balance between the two motivations is less clear. =E2=96=A0 Any dispassionate analysis of the use of the word =E2=80=9Cterrorism=E2=80= =9D also reveals that the choice to use or not to use the word is frequently based not on the act itself but on who is doing it to whom. Prior to Israel=E2=80=99s wi= thdrawal of its occupation forces from southern Lebanon, French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, on a visit to the region, used a press conference to publicly denounce as =E2=80=9Cterrorist acts=E2=80=9D attacks by Hezbollah = fighters against Israeli occupation forces within Lebanon. Mr. Jospin seemed genuinely surprised when, the next day, Palestinians showered him with stones as he left a meeting with President Yasser Arafat in Ramallah. He should not have been surprised. Mr. Jospin would never have dreamed of characterizing as =E2=80=9Cterrorist= acts=E2=80=9D attacks by French resistance fighters against German occupation forces in France during the Second World War. Such fighters are France=E2=80=99s grea= test heroes. Yet, objectively, there is no distinction between the two resistance struggles. The only distinction is who is resisting whom=E2=80= =94a distinction blindingly clear to an Arab or Muslim audience. Mr. Jospin, a fundamentally decent man, surely did not intend to give a demonstration of racism and bigotry at his press conference. For someone raised in the West, where anti-Arab racism is the only socially acceptable form of racism (indeed, where it is almost obligatory at the highest levels of society), where Islamophobia is a deeply entrenched historical and social phenomenon and where anti-Arab and anti-Muslim propaganda is relentless and rarely questioned, it just came naturally. Arabs and Muslims are acutely aware of the widespread Western (and particularly American) tendency to view them as less than fully human=E2=80= =94or at least not as human beings entitled to basic human rights. Enthusiastic Western (and particularly American) approval of the transformation of the Arab land of Palestine into the Jewish state of Israel (necessarily requiring the dispossession and dispersal of the indigenous Palestinian population) and Western (and particularly American) indifference to the sanctions-induced premature deaths of more than half a million Iraqi children under the age of five (characterized by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, without eliciting any discernible outrage in the United States, as a =E2=80=9Cprice worth paying=E2=80=9D for America=E2=80=99s Ira= q policy) cannot otherwise be explained. No one who believes that Arabs are human beings could approve of the former or be indifferent to the latter. Holding both views simultaneously is logically and intellectually impossible. Share The Floutist Arab and Muslim awareness of their dehumanization in Western eyes, an obvious factor in inflaming the deep sense of humiliation and the white-hot hatred which produced both the September 11 attacks and the discreet but pervasive sense of satisfaction among Arabs and Muslims that someone had finally hit back, can only be further inflamed by the West=E2=80=99s almost exclusive use of the demonizing term =E2=80=9Cterrorism,=E2=80=9D particula= rly since September 11, to refer to causes deemed just by most Arabs and Muslims. Even when the adjective =E2=80=9CIslamic=E2=80=9D is omitted, it seems to b= e implied and understood. Americans, in particular, should not fool themselves about the true Arab and Muslim reaction to the September 11 attacks and the reason for that reaction. On January 30, 2002, the *Arab News*, Saudi Arabia=E2=80=99s lead= ing English-language newspaper, published the following report on an interview given to *The* *New York Times* by Saudi Arabia=E2=80=99s Director of Intel= ligence, Prince Nawaf bin Abdul-Aziz Al-Saud: Prince Nawaf acknowledged that the vast majority of Saudi young adults felt sympathy for the cause of Osama bin Laden after September 11. . . . A classified U.S. report taken from a survey of educated Saudis between the ages of 25 and 41 in mid-October concluded that 95 percent of them supported bin Laden=E2=80=99s cause. . . . He attributed the support to peo= ple=E2=80=99s feelings against the U.S., largely because of its unflinching support of Israel. Wars are waged against countries and people, not against religions or subjective epithets, but a =E2=80=9Cwar on terrorism=E2=80=9D whose targets= are almost exclusively Muslim can readily be perceived by those so targeted and demonized, with potentially catastrophic results, as not simply a war against Muslims but a =E2=80=9Cwar against Islam.=E2=80=9D A =E2=80=9Cwar o= n terrorism=E2=80=9D which brands virtually all efforts by Arabs and Muslims to right deeply felt wrongs as not just illegitimate but criminal, and which treats Arabs and Muslims generally as inherently suspect of =E2=80=9Cterrorist=E2=80=9D inte= nt and as unworthy of basic human rights, is virtually guaranteed to produce more and worse instances of precisely what this =E2=80=9Cwar=E2=80=9D is ostensibly = intended to eradicate. =E2=96=A0 Most acts to which the word =E2=80=9Cterrorism=E2=80=9D is applied (at leas= t in the West) are tactics of the weak, usually (although not always) against the strong. Such acts are not a tactic of choice but of last resort. To cite one prominent example, the Palestinians would certainly prefer to be able to fight for their freedom from a never-ending occupation by =E2=80=9Crespecta= ble=E2=80=9D means, using F-16s, Apache attack helicopters, and laser-guided missiles such as those the United States provides to Israel. If the United States provided such weapons to Palestine as well, the problem of suicide bombers would be solved. Until it does, or at least until the Palestinians can see some genuine and credible hope for a decent future, no one should be surprised or shocked that Palestinians use the =E2=80=9Cdelivery systems=E2=80=9D available to them=E2=80=94their own bodi= es. Genuine hope for something better than a life worse than death is the only cure for the despair which inspires such gruesome violence. In this regard, it is worth noting that the poor, the weak, and the oppressed rarely complain about =E2=80=9Cterrorism.=E2=80=9D The rich, the = strong, and the oppressors constantly do. While most of mankind has more reason to fear the high-technology violence of the strong than the low-technology violence of the weak, the fundamental mind-trick employed by the abusers of the epithet =E2=80=9Cterrorism=E2=80=9D (no doubt, in some cases, unconsciously) is ess= entially this: The low-technology violence of the weak is such an abomination that there are no limits on the high-technology violence of the strong which can be deployed against it. Not surprisingly, since September 11, virtually every recognized state confronting an insurgency or separatist movement has eagerly jumped on the =E2=80=9Cwar on terrorism=E2=80=9D bandwagon, branding its domestic opponen= ts (if it had not already done so) =E2=80=9Cterrorists=E2=80=9D and, at least implicitly,= taking the position that, since no one dares to criticize the United States for doing whatever it deems necessary in *its *=E2=80=9Cwar on terrorism,=E2=80=9D no= one should criticize whatever they now do to suppress their own =E2=80=9Cterrorists.= =E2=80=9D Even while accepting that many people labeled =E2=80=9Cterrorists=E2=80=9D = are genuinely reprehensible, it should be recognized that many others are idealists motivated by thoroughly legitimate grievances not susceptible to remedy by nonviolent means and that neither respect for human rights nor the human condition is likely to be enhanced by this apparent *carte blanche* seized by the strong, in a sort of =E2=80=9Cunholy alliance=E2=80=9D of all establ= ished regimes, to crush the weak as they see fit. Writing in *The Washington Post* on October 15, 2001, Deputy Editor Jackson Diehl cited two prominent examples of the abuse of the epithet =E2=80=9Cter= rorism=E2=80=9D: With their handshake in the Kremlin, Sharon [Ariel Sharon, at this time Israel=E2=80=99s immigration minister] and [Russian President Vladimir] Put= in exchanged a common falsehood about the wars their armies are fighting against rebels in Chechnya and the West Bank and Gaza. In both cases, the underlying conflict is about national self-determination: statehood for the Palestinians, self-rule for Chechnya. The world is inclined to believe that both causes are just. . . . Sharon and Putin both have tried to convince the world that all their opponents are terrorists, which implies that the solution need not involve political concessions but merely a vigorous counter-terrorism campaign. Perhaps the only intellectually honest and globally workable definition of =E2=80=9Cterrorism=E2=80=9D is an explicitly subjective one=E2=80=94=E2=80= =9Cviolence which I don=E2=80=99t support.=E2=80=9D This definition would explain the universal condemnation = of =E2=80=9Cterrorism=E2=80=9D in a world which, apparently, is full of it. By= definition, you cannot support what you don=E2=80=99t support, while, as a matter of usage,= if *you* support it, it cannot be =E2=80=9Cterrorism.=E2=80=9D Indeed, anyone exposed to both Western and Arab media and public discourse cannot help noticing that Western media and public discourse routinely characterize as =E2=80=9Cterrorism=E2=80=9D virtually all Palestinian viole= nce against Israelis (even against Israeli occupation forces within Palestine), while Arab media and public discourse routinely characterize as =E2=80=9Cterroris= m=E2=80=9D virtually all Israeli violence against Palestinians. Only such an explicitly subjective formulation would accommodate both characterizations, as well as most others. However, the word has been so devalued that even violence is no longer an essential prerequisite for its use. In December 2001, a Saudi Arabian lawyer told the press while announcing a multibillion-dollar lawsuit against ten international tobacco companies: =E2=80=9CWe will demand that t= obacco firms be included on the lists of terrorists and those financing and sponsoring terrorism because of the large number of victims that smoking has claimed the world over.=E2=80=9D (On the level of relative moral culpab= ility, this is not an absurd concept. More Americans are killed by cigarettes in an average three-day period than were killed in the September 11 attacks. Moreover, the tobacco industry kills for financial gain, not, like more traditional =E2=80=9Cterrorists,=E2=80=9D in the hope of making the world, = at least by their own subjective standards, a better place.) If everyone recognized that the word =E2=80=9Cterrorism=E2=80=9D is fundame= ntally an epithet and a term of abuse, with no intrinsic meaning, there would be no more reason to worry about the word now than prior to September 11. However, with the United States relying on the word to assert, apparently, an absolute right to attack any country it dislikes (for the most part, countries Israel dislikes) and with President Bush repeatedly menacing that =E2=80=9Ceither you=E2=80=99re with us or you=E2=80=99re with the terrorist= s=E2=80=9D (which effectively means, =E2=80=9Ceither you make our enemies your enemies or you=E2=80=99ll = be our enemy=E2=80=94and you know what we do to our enemies=E2=80=9D), many people around the world = must feel a genuine sense of terror (dictionary definition: =E2=80=9Ca state of = intense fear=E2=80=9D) as to where the United States is taking the rest of the worl= d. Meanwhile, in America itself, the Bush administration appears to be feeding the U.S. Constitution and America=E2=80=99s traditions of civil liberties, = due process, the rule of law, and fundamental fairness (the finest aspects of American life and the principal reasons the country used to be respected out of admiration and not simply out of fear) into a shredder=E2=80=94mostl= y to domestic applause or acquiescence. Centuries-old civil liberties have suffered a similar fate in the United Kingdom, for no apparent reason other than an irresistible inclination to follow the United States blindly in everything it does. Who would have imagined that 19 angry men armed only with knives could accomplish so much, provoking a response, beyond their wildest dreams, which threatens to be vastly more damaging to their enemies even than their own appalling acts? The transformation of the Taliban, in American terminology and consciousness, from a particularly backward and repressive government (so regarded by most Muslims as well) to a regime =E2=80=9Charboring terrorists= =E2=80=9D and, finally, to =E2=80=9Cterrorists=E2=80=9D of the worst sort is a dramatic ex= ample of the threats to international law, common sense, and enlightened national self-interest inherent in the casual, even sloppy, use of the word =E2=80=9Cterrorist.=E2=80=9D =E2=96=A0 It should be recalled that, soon after September 11, the United States demanded that Afghanistan hand over Osama bin Laden. This ultimatum came not only with a stick (the promise of attack and overthrow in the absence of compliance) but also, at least implicitly, with a carrot (the promise of not being attacked in the event of compliance). Had bin Laden been handed over, one must assume that the Taliban would still be going about their business of governing Afghanistan rather loosely and badly. Afghanistan asked for evidence, none was forthcoming, and the United States attacked. Prior to the attack, although the United States has long had very inclusive lists of =E2=80=9Cterrorist organizations=E2=80=9D and =E2=80=9Cs= tates supporting terrorism,=E2=80=9D neither the Taliban nor Afghanistan had figured on thos= e lists. Yet, imperceptibly but rapidly, and without it even being alleged that a single Afghan citizen had prior knowledge of the September 11 attacks, anyone associated in any way with the Taliban=E2=80=94politically, administratively, as a simple soldier, and even as Ambassador to Pakistan=E2=80=94became a =E2=80=9Cterrorist,=E2=80=9D to be =E2=80=9Csmoke= d out,=E2=80=9D =E2=80=9Crun to ground,=E2=80=9D and killed if possible and =E2=80=9Cbrought to justice=E2=80=9D if, unfortunate= ly, he surrendered before he could be killed. The United States stated publicly that it was not interested in taking prisoners or in having its hastily recruited Afghan allies do so, a stance which itself constitutes a war crime. On December 5, 2001, the *Arab News* published a letter to the editor from this writer which read: U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is reported to be demanding =E2=80=9Cphysical custody=E2=80=9D of all Taliban leaders and as saying =E2= =80=9Chis legal staff was studying the question of how to try the Taliban chief, Mulla Muhammad Omar . . . and other senior figures=E2=80=99 from the Taliban. Perhaps =E2= =80=98=E2=80=98What for?=E2=80=99=E2=80=99 would be a more relevant question than =E2=80=9CHow?= =E2=80=99=E2=80=99 It is not difficult to imagine criminal charges being leveled against Al-Qaeda leaders, although there seems to be no confidence in the Bush administration that such charges would hold up in an open court with normal due process protections for defendants. But what is the =E2=80=9Ccrime=E2=80=9D of the = Taliban leaders? Refusing to extradite a resident to a country with which their country had no extradition treaty? Resisting (ineffectively) an American attack against their country? Conspiracy to murder the CIA agent caught up in the Qalai Janghi prison massacre? Is this the sort of =E2=80=9Cjustice=E2=80=9D for w= hich the whole world is supposed to rally unquestioningly behind the United States? Well into 2002, the question =E2=80=9CHow?=E2=80=9D was still being asked, = though principally about simple soldiers, since few Taliban leaders had been captured. Are they to be tried by a secret American military tribunal? By a conventional American court martial? By an American civilian court? By a court in Afghanistan or the Taliban soldiers=E2=80=99 country of origin? Th= e question =E2=80=9C=E2=80=99What for?=E2=80=99=E2=80=9D was still not being = asked. Presumably, were it to be asked, the answer would be obvious: =E2=80=9CTerrorism.=E2=80=9D Since these miserable soldiers are now deemed =E2=80=9Cterrorists,=E2=80=9D= it is apparently irrelevant that the United States attacked Afghanistan, not the other way around, and that they never had even a chance to fight back, simply being subjected to massive aerial bombardments until they either were killed or surrendered. As =E2=80=9Cterrorists,=E2=80=9D they must sure= ly be guilty of *some* heinous crime and surely have no claim to any rights whatsoever. Upgrade to paid In this context, there is something almost psychedelic about the case of John Walker Lindh, the 20-year-old =E2=80=9CAmerican Taliban=E2=80=9D whose= conversion to Islam and search for some greater meaning in life than that offered by the self-centered consumerism of the =E2=80=9CAmerican dream=E2=80=9D led him t= o the wrong place at the wrong time, to being bombed by American military forces, barely surviving the Qalai Janghi prison massacre after surrendering, being returned to the United States in chains and being indicted (potentially subject to life imprisonment although not, despite considerable public support for it, to the death penalty) for (believe it or not) =E2=80=9Ccons= piracy to kill Americans.=E2=80=9D (=E2=80=9CConspiracy=E2=80=9D is, of course, th= e charge traditionally leveled in the United States against people who didn=E2=80=99t actually *do= * anything but whom prosecutors are determined, for whatever reason, to convict.) On January 23, 2002, the *International Herald Tribune* published a letter to the editor from this writer which read: The United States contends that the Taliban fighters it is holding in open-air cages at its Cuban naval enclave are not =E2=80=9Cprisoners of war= =E2=80=9D entitled to the rights and protections of the Geneva Conventions, but merely =E2=80=9Cunlawful combatants=E2=80=9D entitled to no rights at all i= n a place specifically selected because no law applies there. If the United States is justified in this contention, it follows logically that the world=E2=80=99s= only superpower has attacked a country which was one of the poorest on earth and whose regime possessed no military forces, making the U.S. =E2=80=9Cvictory= =E2=80=9D in Afghanistan more worthy of ethical embarrassment than patriotic pride. Seemingly intoxicated by the concept of waging a worldwide war against =E2=80=9Cterrorists=E2=80=9D and culturally programmed to view Arabs and Mu= slims as less than fully human, the United States, by its treatment of those captured in Afghanistan, has managed to restoke the fires of resentment and hatred in Arab and Muslim countries to levels even higher than prior to September 11, to sacrifice the moral high ground in countries neither natural allies nor natural enemies and to cause public opinion even in countries as fervently pro-American as the United Kingdom to publicly question what sort of country the United States has become. As Robert Fisk wrote in *The Independent* in late-January 2002: Congratulations, America. You have made Osama bin Laden a happy man. . . . We are turning ourselves into the kind of deceitful, ruthless people whom bin Laden imagines us to be. We are now the very model of the enemies bin Laden wants to fight. He must be a happy man. Such assistance as other countries may continue to offer to the United States in its =E2=80=9Cwar on terrorism=E2=80=9D will increasingly be offer= ed out of fear or cynical self-interest rather than out of any genuine conviction. If the world is to avoid a descent into anarchy, in which the only rule is =E2=80=9Cmight makes right,=E2=80=9D every =E2=80=9Cretaliation=E2=80=9D pr= ovokes a =E2=80=9Ccounter-retaliation,=E2=80=9D and a genuine =E2=80=9Cwar of civilizations=E2=80=9D is ignited, the world= =E2=80=94and particularly the United States=E2=80=94must recognize that =E2=80=9Cterrorism=E2=80=9D i= s simply a word, a subjective epithet, not an objective reality and certainly not an excuse to suspend all the rules of international law, domestic civil liberties, and fundamental fairness which have, until now, made at least some parts of our planet decent places to live. The world=E2=80=94and particularly the United States=E2=80=94must also reco= gnize that, in a world filled with injustice, violent outbursts by those hoping desperately for a better life, or simply seeking to strike a blow against injustice or their tormentors before they die, can never be eradicated. At best, the frequency and gravity of such outbursts can be diminished by seeking to alleviate (rather than to aggravate) the injustices and humiliations that give rise to them, by more consistent and universal application of the fundamental religious principle to =E2=80=9Cdo unto others as you would hav= e others do unto you,=E2=80=9D and of the fundamental principle of the founding fath= ers of American democracy that all men are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights, by treating *all* people (even one=E2=80=99s enemies) a= s human beings entitled to basic human rights, and by striving to offer hope and human dignity to the miserable millions who have neither. A single-minded focus on increased military =E2=80=9Csecurity=E2=80=9D and =E2=80=9Ccounter-terrorism=E2=80=9D programs and spending will almost certa= inly prove counterproductive to its declared objective, diminishing security and the quality of life not only for the poor, the weak, and the oppressed but also for the rich, the strong, and the oppressors. The trend since September 11 has been to aggravate, rather than to alleviate, the very problems which fueled the sense of humiliation and hatred behind that day=E2=80=99s attacks. However, it is not inevitable tha= t this trend must continue=E2=80=94unless, of course, men and women of good will, compassion and ethical values, who share a well-founded fear as to where the world is heading and can see clearly that there must be, and is, a better way, permit themselves to be terrorized into silence. =E2=96=A0 *John Whitbeck is an international lawyer and an energetic commentator, living in Paris. He has published widely on Middle Eastern affairs since the late-1980s, his work appearing in many Western, Arab, and Israeli publications. As an attorney he has advised the Palestinians on numerous occasions. A collection of his essays, *The World According to Whitbeck* (Five and Ten Press), appeared in 2005.* ------------------------------ The Floutist *publishes this piece without a paywall. We ask those who are not paid subscribers to consider becoming one: We can use the support of all those who see worth in the work. A subscription is $5/month or $50/year. Every dollar is appreciated and helps keep us going. You can also support us by sharing this article.* *For those readers who are already subscribed, our usual and sincerest thanks.* Share Upgrade to paid Leave a comment You're currently a free subscriber to The Floutist . For the full experience, upgrade your subscription. 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=E2=80=9C=E2=80=98Terrorism,=E2=80=99 this i= nsidious word.=E2=80=9D

John Whitbeck on power and the man= ipulation of language.

Sep 25
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The very face of terrorism. S= oon-to-be-president Masoud Pezeshkian, July 2024. (Mehr News Agency, c= c by 4.0/ Wikimedia Commons

Summer Readings.

25 September=E2=80=94Of all the epithets power deploys to condemn, d= emonize, or ostracize those who question or oppose its late-imperial hegemo= ny, a couple have been prominently in vogue for some years now. Term a line= of argument =E2=80=9Cconspiracy theory,=E2=80=9D for instance, and there i= s no further need to consider its merits=E2=80=94this as if any thought tha= t the exercise of power is often conspiratorial is nothing more than frivol= ity or paranoia.

=E2=80=9CTerrorism=E2=80=9D and =E2=80=9Cterrorist= =E2=80=9D are other terms of this kind, and they work similarly. Hamas is o= fficially classified as a terrorist organization, in the United States and = elsewhere, and, so, nothing more need be understood about Hamas.

Pre= sident Trump, in his shocking d= isplay of solipsism at the U.N. General Assembly this week, continued m= aking the tiresomely stupid case that Iran is nothing more than a terrorist= state. =E2=80=9CFor 51 years,=E2=80=9D Trump said (adding four years to th= e history of the Islamic Republic), =E2=80=9Cthe fanatical Iranian regime h= as ruled by bloodshed and mass murder, spreading death and carnage and chao= s across the entire Middle East and beyond.=E2=80=9D Etc.

That was = Tuesday. On Wednesday Masoud Pezeshkian gave better than he got when he took the podium at the U.N.G.A= . =E2=80=9CThe United States president decribed us as terrorists,=E2=80=9D = the Iranian president said with uncharacteristic vehemence. =E2=80=9CWe are= the victims of terrorism.=E2=80=9D I attach some significance to this stat= ement: A world leader takes the podium at the U.N. to identify the true sou= rce of terrorism in our world.

We take this occasion to republish a = superb piece on this topic by John Whitbeck, the American attorney, writer,= and blogger living in Paris. John is as attentive as anyone we know to how= power uses language to poison public discourse and turn reality hourglass = upside-down. His piece, written in response to the Bush II regime=E2=80=99s= declaration of a global =E2=80=9Cwar on terror=E2=80=9D after the events o= f 11 September 2001, first appeared in the Spring 2002 number of Globa= l Dialogue, a quarterly journal published in Nicosia. It also came out = in Politica Exterior, a Madrid publication, and in the Viennese jo= urnal International.

John=E2=80=99s erudite observations on= what is and is not =E2=80=9Cterrorism=E2=80=9D remained pertinent when his= piece appeared in these pages in January 2024, and they seem yet = more so now.

This concludes The Floutist=E2=80=99s Summer R= eadings.

=E2=80=94P. L.

John V. Whitbeck.

PARIS=E2=80=94The greatest threat to w= orld peace and civil society today is clearly =E2=80=9Cterrorism=E2=80=9D= =E2=80=94not the behavior to which the word is applied but the word itself.= Since the word =E2=80=9Cterrorism=E2=80=9D (like the behavior to which the= word is applied) can never be eradicated, it is imperative to expose it fo= r what it is=E2=80=94a word.

For years, people have recited (often with a wry= smile) the truisms that =E2=80=9COne man=E2=80=99s terrorist is another ma= n=E2=80=99s freedom fighter=E2=80=9D and that =E2=80=9CTerrorism, like beau= ty, is in the eye of the beholder.=E2=80=9D However, with the world=E2=80= =99s sole superpower declaring an open-ended, worldwide =E2=80=9Cwar on ter= rorism,=E2=80=9D proclaiming that this =E2=80=9Cwar=E2=80=9D has only just = begun and promising to persevere until =E2=80=9Cvictory,=E2=80=9D the notor= ious subjectivity of this word is no longer a joke.

It is no accident that th= ere is no agreed definition of =E2=80=9Cterrorism,=E2=80=9D since the word = is so subjective as to be devoid of any inherent meaning. At the same time,= the word is extremely dangerous, because many people tend to believe that = it does have meaning, and many others use and abuse the word by applying it= to whatever they hate as a way of avoiding and discouraging rational thoug= ht and discussion and, frequently, excusing their own illegal and immoral b= ehavior.

There is no shortage of precise verbal formulations for the diverse = acts to which the word =E2=80=9Cterrorism=E2=80=9D is often applied. =E2=80= =9CMass murder,=E2=80=9D =E2=80=9Cassassination,=E2=80=9D =E2=80=9Carson,= =E2=80=9D and =E2=80=9Csabotage=E2=80=9D are available (to all of which the= phrase =E2=80=9Cpolitically motivated=E2=80=9D can be added if appropriate= ). However, such precise formulations do not carry the overwhelming, demoni= zing and thought-deadening impact of the word =E2=80=9Cterrorism,=E2=80=9D = which is, of course, precisely the charm of the word for its more cynical a= nd unprincipled users and abusers. If someone commits =E2=80=9Cpolitically = motivated mass murder,=E2=80=9D people might be curious as to the cause or = grievances which inspired such a crime, but no cause or grievance can justi= fy (or even explain) =E2=80=9Cterrorism,=E2=80=9D which, all right-thinking= people must agree, is the ultimate evil.

Crimes such as =E2=80=9Cmurder,=E2= =80=9D =E2=80=9Carson,=E2=80=9D and =E2=80=9Csabotage,=E2=80=9D as well as = assorted gradations of them, are already on the statute books, rendering sp= ecific criminal legislation for =E2=80=9Cterrorism=E2=80=9D as such both un= necessary and undesirable. Creating distinct crimes and punishments for =E2= =80=9Cterrorist=E2=80=9D offenses injects a wholly subjective element into = criminal law, which, to be fair and to be seen to be fair, should be based = rigorously on what a person has done, not why he did it (= let alone who he is or to whom he did it).

A crime labeled =E2=80=9Cterrorism= =E2=80=9D is almost always punished more severely than the same act to whic= h the label =E2=80=9Cterrorism=E2=80=9D is not attached. Thus, killing to a= dvance a cause in which one deeply believes is deemed more reprehensible th= an killing because one dislikes the victim or wants to steal his property. = One can understand why those in power might consider the former motivation = more dangerous. The moral and ethical balance between the two motivations i= s less clear.

=E2=96=A0

Any dispassionate analysis of the use of the word =E2= =80=9Cterrorism=E2=80=9D also reveals that the choice to use or not to use = the word is frequently based not on the act itself but on who is doing it t= o whom. Prior to Israel=E2=80=99s withdrawal of its occupation forces from = southern Lebanon, French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, on a visit to the re= gion, used a press conference to publicly denounce as =E2=80=9Cterrorist ac= ts=E2=80=9D attacks by Hezbollah fighters against Israeli occupation forces= within Lebanon. Mr. Jospin seemed genuinely surprised when, the next day, = Palestinians showered him with stones as he left a meeting with President Y= asser Arafat in Ramallah. He should not have been surprised.

Mr. Jospin would= never have dreamed of characterizing as =E2=80=9Cterrorist acts=E2=80=9D a= ttacks by French resistance fighters against German occupation forces in Fr= ance during the Second World War. Such fighters are France=E2=80=99s greate= st heroes. Yet, objectively, there is no distinction between the two resist= ance struggles. The only distinction is who is resisting whom=E2=80=94a dis= tinction blindingly clear to an Arab or Muslim audience.

Mr. Jospin, a fundam= entally decent man, surely did not intend to give a demonstration of racism= and bigotry at his press conference. For someone raised in the West, where= anti-Arab racism is the only socially acceptable form of racism (indeed, w= here it is almost obligatory at the highest levels of society), where Islam= ophobia is a deeply entrenched historical and social phenomenon and where a= nti-Arab and anti-Muslim propaganda is relentless and rarely questioned, it= just came naturally.

Arabs and Muslims are acutely aware of the widespread W= estern (and particularly American) tendency to view them as less than fully= human=E2=80=94or at least not as human beings entitled to basic human righ= ts. Enthusiastic Western (and particularly American) approval of the transf= ormation of the Arab land of Palestine into the Jewish state of Israel (nec= essarily requiring the dispossession and dispersal of the indigenous Palest= inian population) and Western (and particularly American) indifference to t= he sanctions-induced premature deaths of more than half a million Iraqi chi= ldren under the age of five (characterized by former Secretary of State Mad= eleine Albright, without eliciting any discernible outrage in the United St= ates, as a =E2=80=9Cprice worth paying=E2=80=9D for America=E2=80=99s Iraq = policy) cannot otherwise be explained. No one who believes that Arabs are h= uman beings could approve of the former or be indifferent to the latter. Ho= lding both views simultaneously is logically and intellectually impossible.=

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Arab and Muslim awareness of their dehumanization in Western eyes, an = obvious factor in inflaming the deep sense of humiliation and the white-hot= hatred which produced both the September 11 attacks and the discreet but p= ervasive sense of satisfaction among Arabs and Muslims that someone had fin= ally hit back, can only be further inflamed by the West=E2=80=99s almost ex= clusive use of the demonizing term =E2=80=9Cterrorism,=E2=80=9D particularl= y since September 11, to refer to causes deemed just by most Arabs and Musl= ims. Even when the adjective =E2=80=9CIslamic=E2=80=9D is omitted, it seems= to be implied and understood.

Americans, in particular, should not fool them= selves about the true Arab and Muslim reaction to the September 11 attacks = and the reason for that reaction. On January 30, 2002, the Arab News, Saudi Arabia=E2=80=99s leading English-language newspaper, published th= e following report on an interview given to The New York Times= by Saudi Arabia=E2=80=99s Director of Intelligence, Prince Nawaf bin = Abdul-Aziz Al-Saud:

Prince Nawaf acknowledged that the vast ma= jority of Saudi young adults felt sympathy for the cause of Osama bin Laden= after September 11. . . . A classified U.S. report taken from a survey of = educated Saudis between the ages of 25 and 41 in mid-October concluded that= 95 percent of them supported bin Laden=E2=80=99s cause. . . . He attribute= d the support to people=E2=80=99s feelings against the U.S., largely becaus= e of its unflinching support of Israel.

Wars are waged against c= ountries and people, not against religions or subjective epithets, but a = =E2=80=9Cwar on terrorism=E2=80=9D whose targets are almost exclusively Mus= lim can readily be perceived by those so targeted and demonized, with poten= tially catastrophic results, as not simply a war against Muslims but a =E2= =80=9Cwar against Islam.=E2=80=9D A =E2=80=9Cwar on terrorism=E2=80=9D whic= h brands virtually all efforts by Arabs and Muslims to right deeply felt wr= ongs as not just illegitimate but criminal, and which treats Arabs and Musl= ims generally as inherently suspect of =E2=80=9Cterrorist=E2=80=9D intent a= nd as unworthy of basic human rights, is virtually guaranteed to produce mo= re and worse instances of precisely what this =E2=80=9Cwar=E2=80=9D is oste= nsibly intended to eradicate.

=E2=96=A0

Most acts to which the word =E2=80=9Cte= rrorism=E2=80=9D is applied (at least in the West) are tactics of the weak,= usually (although not always) against the strong. Such acts are not a tact= ic of choice but of last resort. To cite one prominent example, the Palesti= nians would certainly prefer to be able to fight for their freedom from a n= ever-ending occupation by =E2=80=9Crespectable=E2=80=9D means, using F-16s,= Apache attack helicopters, and laser-guided missiles such as those the Uni= ted States provides to Israel.

If the United States provided such weapons to = Palestine as well, the problem of suicide bombers would be solved. Until it= does, or at least until the Palestinians can see some genuine and credible= hope for a decent future, no one should be surprised or shocked that Pales= tinians use the =E2=80=9Cdelivery systems=E2=80=9D available to them=E2=80= =94their own bodies. Genuine hope for something better than a life worse th= an death is the only cure for the despair which inspires such gruesome viol= ence.

In this regard, it is worth noting that the poor, the weak, and the opp= ressed rarely complain about =E2=80=9Cterrorism.=E2=80=9D The rich, the str= ong, and the oppressors constantly do. While most of mankind has more reaso= n to fear the high-technology violence of the strong than the low-technolog= y violence of the weak, the fundamental mind-trick employed by the abusers = of the epithet =E2=80=9Cterrorism=E2=80=9D (no doubt, in some cases, uncons= ciously) is essentially this: The low-technology violence of the weak is su= ch an abomination that there are no limits on the high-technology violence = of the strong which can be deployed against it.

Not surprisingly, since Septe= mber 11, virtually every recognized state confronting an insurgency or sepa= ratist movement has eagerly jumped on the =E2=80=9Cwar on terrorism=E2=80= =9D bandwagon, branding its domestic opponents (if it had not already done = so) =E2=80=9Cterrorists=E2=80=9D and, at least implicitly, taking the posit= ion that, since no one dares to criticize the United States for doing whate= ver it deems necessary in its =E2=80=9Cwar on terrorism,=E2=80=9D = no one should criticize whatever they now do to suppress their own =E2=80= =9Cterrorists.=E2=80=9D

Even while accepting that many people labeled =E2=80= =9Cterrorists=E2=80=9D are genuinely reprehensible, it should be recognized= that many others are idealists motivated by thoroughly legitimate grievanc= es not susceptible to remedy by nonviolent means and that neither respect f= or human rights nor the human condition is likely to be enhanced by this ap= parent carte blanche seized by the strong, in a sort of =E2=80=9Cu= nholy alliance=E2=80=9D of all established regimes, to crush the weak as th= ey see fit.

Writing in The Washington Post on October 15, 2001, = Deputy Editor Jackson Diehl cited two prominent examples of the abuse = of the epithet =E2=80=9Cterrorism=E2=80=9D:

With their handsha= ke in the Kremlin, Sharon [Ariel Sharon, at this time Israel=E2=80=99s immi= gration minister] and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin exchanged a common= falsehood about the wars their armies are fighting against rebels in Chech= nya and the West Bank and Gaza. In both cases, the underlying conflict is a= bout national self-determination: statehood for the Palestinians, self-rule= for Chechnya. The world is inclined to believe that both causes are just. = . . . Sharon and Putin both have tried to convince the world that all their= opponents are terrorists, which implies that the solution need not involve= political concessions but merely a vigorous counter-terrorism campaign.

Perhaps the only intellectually honest and globally workable defin= ition of =E2=80=9Cterrorism=E2=80=9D is an explicitly subjective one=E2=80= =94=E2=80=9Cviolence which I don=E2=80=99t support.=E2=80=9D This definitio= n would explain the universal condemnation of =E2=80=9Cterrorism=E2=80=9D i= n a world which, apparently, is full of it. By definition, you cannot suppo= rt what you don=E2=80=99t support, while, as a matter of usage, if you<= /em> support it, it cannot be =E2=80=9Cterrorism.=E2=80=9D

Indeed, anyone exp= osed to both Western and Arab media and public discourse cannot help notici= ng that Western media and public discourse routinely characterize as =E2=80= =9Cterrorism=E2=80=9D virtually all Palestinian violence against Israelis (= even against Israeli occupation forces within Palestine), while Arab media = and public discourse routinely characterize as =E2=80=9Cterrorism=E2=80=9D = virtually all Israeli violence against Palestinians. Only such an explicitl= y subjective formulation would accommodate both characterizations, as well = as most others.

However, the word has been so devalued that even violence is = no longer an essential prerequisite for its use. In December 2001, a Saudi = Arabian lawyer told the press while announcing a multibillion-dollar lawsui= t against ten international tobacco companies: =E2=80=9CWe will demand that= tobacco firms be included on the lists of terrorists and those financing a= nd sponsoring terrorism because of the large number of victims that smoking= has claimed the world over.=E2=80=9D (On the level of relative moral culpa= bility, this is not an absurd concept. More Americans are killed by cigaret= tes in an average three-day period than were killed in the September 11 att= acks. Moreover, the tobacco industry kills for financial gain, not, like mo= re traditional =E2=80=9Cterrorists,=E2=80=9D in the hope of making the worl= d, at least by their own subjective standards, a better place.)

If everyone r= ecognized that the word =E2=80=9Cterrorism=E2=80=9D is fundamentally an epi= thet and a term of abuse, with no intrinsic meaning, there would be no more= reason to worry about the word now than prior to September 11. However, wi= th the United States relying on the word to assert, apparently, an absolute= right to attack any country it dislikes (for the most part, countries Isra= el dislikes) and with President Bush repeatedly menacing that =E2=80=9Ceith= er you=E2=80=99re with us or you=E2=80=99re with the terrorists=E2=80=9D (w= hich effectively means, =E2=80=9Ceither you make our enemies your enemies o= r you=E2=80=99ll be our enemy=E2=80=94and you know what we do to our enemie= s=E2=80=9D), many people around the world must feel a genuine sense of terr= or (dictionary definition: =E2=80=9Ca state of intense fear=E2=80=9D) as to= where the United States is taking the rest of the world.

Meanwhile, in Ameri= ca itself, the Bush administration appears to be feeding the U.S. Constitut= ion and America=E2=80=99s traditions of civil liberties, due process, the r= ule of law, and fundamental fairness (the finest aspects of American life a= nd the principal reasons the country used to be respected out of admiration= and not simply out of fear) into a shredder=E2=80=94mostly to domestic app= lause or acquiescence.

Centuries-old civil liberties have suffered a similar = fate in the United Kingdom, for no apparent reason other than an irresistib= le inclination to follow the United States blindly in everything it does. W= ho would have imagined that 19 angry men armed only with knives could accom= plish so much, provoking a response, beyond their wildest dreams, which thr= eatens to be vastly more damaging to their enemies even than their own appa= lling acts?

The transformation of the Taliban, in American terminology and co= nsciousness, from a particularly backward and repressive government (so reg= arded by most Muslims as well) to a regime =E2=80=9Charboring terrorists=E2= =80=9D and, finally, to =E2=80=9Cterrorists=E2=80=9D of the worst sort is a= dramatic example of the threats to international law, common sense, and en= lightened national self-interest inherent in the casual, even sloppy, use o= f the word =E2=80=9Cterrorist.=E2=80=9D

=E2=96=A0

It should be recalled that, s= oon after September 11, the United States demanded that Afghanistan hand ov= er Osama bin Laden. This ultimatum came not only with a stick (the promise = of attack and overthrow in the absence of compliance) but also, at least im= plicitly, with a carrot (the promise of not being attacked in the event of = compliance). Had bin Laden been handed over, one must assume that the Talib= an would still be going about their business of governing Afghanistan rathe= r loosely and badly.

Afghanistan asked for evidence, none was forthcoming, an= d the United States attacked. Prior to the attack, although the United Stat= es has long had very inclusive lists of =E2=80=9Cterrorist organizations=E2= =80=9D and =E2=80=9Cstates supporting terrorism,=E2=80=9D neither the Talib= an nor Afghanistan had figured on those lists. Yet, imperceptibly but rapid= ly, and without it even being alleged that a single Afghan citizen had prio= r knowledge of the September 11 attacks, anyone associated in any way with = the Taliban=E2=80=94politically, administratively, as a simple soldier, and= even as Ambassador to Pakistan=E2=80=94became a =E2=80=9Cterrorist,=E2=80= =9D to be =E2=80=9Csmoked out,=E2=80=9D =E2=80=9Crun to ground,=E2=80=9D an= d killed if possible and =E2=80=9Cbrought to justice=E2=80=9D if, unfortuna= tely, he surrendered before he could be killed. The United States stated pu= blicly that it was not interested in taking prisoners or in having its hast= ily recruited Afghan allies do so, a stance which itself constitutes a war = crime.

On December 5, 2001, the Arab News published a letter to the = editor from this writer which read:

U.S. Defense Secretary Don= ald Rumsfeld is reported to be demanding =E2=80=9Cphysical custody=E2=80=9D= of all Taliban leaders and as saying =E2=80=9Chis legal staff was studying= the question of how to try the Taliban chief, Mulla Muhammad Omar . . . an= d other senior figures=E2=80=99 from the Taliban. Perhaps =E2=80=98=E2=80= =98What for?=E2=80=99=E2=80=99 would be a more relevant question than =E2= =80=9CHow?=E2=80=99=E2=80=99 It is not difficult to imagine criminal charge= s being leveled against Al-Qaeda leaders, although there seems to be no con= fidence in the Bush administration that such charges would hold up in an op= en court with normal due process protections for defendants. But what is th= e =E2=80=9Ccrime=E2=80=9D of the Taliban leaders? Refusing to extradite a r= esident to a country with which their country had no extradition treaty? Re= sisting (ineffectively) an American attack against their country? Conspirac= y to murder the CIA agent caught up in the Qalai Janghi prison massacre? Is= this the sort of =E2=80=9Cjustice=E2=80=9D for which the whole world is su= pposed to rally unquestioningly behind the United States?

<= p style=3D"margin:0px 0px 20px;color:rgb(54,55,55);line-height:26px">Well i= nto 2002, the question =E2=80=9CHow?=E2=80=9D was still being asked, though= principally about simple soldiers, since few Taliban leaders had been capt= ured. Are they to be tried by a secret American military tribunal? By a con= ventional American court martial? By an American civilian court? By a court= in Afghanistan or the Taliban soldiers=E2=80=99 country of origin? The que= stion =E2=80=9C=E2=80=99What for?=E2=80=99=E2=80=9D was still not being ask= ed. Presumably, were it to be asked, the answer would be obvious: =E2=80=9C= Terrorism.=E2=80=9D

Since these miserable soldiers are now deemed =E2=80=9Cte= rrorists,=E2=80=9D it is apparently irrelevant that the United States attac= ked Afghanistan, not the other way around, and that they never had even a c= hance to fight back, simply being subjected to massive aerial bombardments = until they either were killed or surrendered. As =E2=80=9Cterrorists,=E2=80= =9D they must surely be guilty of some heinous crime and surely ha= ve no claim to any rights whatsoever.

In this context, there is something almost psyche= delic about the case of John Walker Lindh, the 20-year-old =E2=80=9CAmerica= n Taliban=E2=80=9D whose conversion to Islam and search for some greater me= aning in life than that offered by the self-centered consumerism of the =E2= =80=9CAmerican dream=E2=80=9D led him to the wrong place at the wrong time,= to being bombed by American military forces, barely surviving the Qalai Ja= nghi prison massacre after surrendering, being returned to the United State= s in chains and being indicted (potentially subject to life imprisonment al= though not, despite considerable public support for it, to the death penalt= y) for (believe it or not) =E2=80=9Cconspiracy to kill Americans.=E2=80=9D = (=E2=80=9CConspiracy=E2=80=9D is, of course, the charge traditionally level= ed in the United States against people who didn=E2=80=99t actually do anything but whom prosecutors are determined, for whatever reason, to c= onvict.)

On January 23, 2002, the International Herald Tribune publi= shed a letter to the editor from this writer which read:

The U= nited States contends that the Taliban fighters it is holding in open-air c= ages at its Cuban naval enclave are not =E2=80=9Cprisoners of war=E2=80=9D = entitled to the rights and protections of the Geneva Conventions, but merel= y =E2=80=9Cunlawful combatants=E2=80=9D entitled to no rights at all in a p= lace specifically selected because no law applies there. If the United Stat= es is justified in this contention, it follows logically that the world=E2= =80=99s only superpower has attacked a country which was one of the poorest= on earth and whose regime possessed no military forces, making the U.S. = =E2=80=9Cvictory=E2=80=9D in Afghanistan more worthy of ethical embarrassme= nt than patriotic pride.

Seemingly intoxicated by the concept of= waging a worldwide war against =E2=80=9Cterrorists=E2=80=9D and culturally= programmed to view Arabs and Muslims as less than fully human, the United = States, by its treatment of those captured in Afghanistan, has managed to r= estoke the fires of resentment and hatred in Arab and Muslim countries to l= evels even higher than prior to September 11, to sacrifice the moral high g= round in countries neither natural allies nor natural enemies and to cause = public opinion even in countries as fervently pro-American as the United Ki= ngdom to publicly question what sort of country the United States has becom= e.

As Robert Fisk wrote in The Independent in late-January 2002:

=

Congratulations, America. You have made Osama bin Laden a happy m= an. . . . We are turning ourselves into the kind of deceitful, ruthless peo= ple whom bin Laden imagines us to be. We are now the very model of the enem= ies bin Laden wants to fight. He must be a happy man.

Such assis= tance as other countries may continue to offer to the United States in its = =E2=80=9Cwar on terrorism=E2=80=9D will increasingly be offered out of fear= or cynical self-interest rather than out of any genuine conviction.

If the w= orld is to avoid a descent into anarchy, in which the only rule is =E2=80= =9Cmight makes right,=E2=80=9D every =E2=80=9Cretaliation=E2=80=9D provokes= a =E2=80=9Ccounter-retaliation,=E2=80=9D and a genuine =E2=80=9Cwar of civ= ilizations=E2=80=9D is ignited, the world=E2=80=94and particularly the Unit= ed States=E2=80=94must recognize that =E2=80=9Cterrorism=E2=80=9D is simply= a word, a subjective epithet, not an objective reality and certainly not a= n excuse to suspend all the rules of international law, domestic civil libe= rties, and fundamental fairness which have, until now, made at least some p= arts of our planet decent places to live.

The world=E2=80=94and particularly = the United States=E2=80=94must also recognize that, in a world filled with = injustice, violent outbursts by those hoping desperately for a better life,= or simply seeking to strike a blow against injustice or their tormentors b= efore they die, can never be eradicated. At best, the frequency and gravity= of such outbursts can be diminished by seeking to alleviate (rather than t= o aggravate) the injustices and humiliations that give rise to them, by mor= e consistent and universal application of the fundamental religious princip= le to =E2=80=9Cdo unto others as you would have others do unto you,=E2=80= =9D and of the fundamental principle of the founding fathers of American de= mocracy that all men are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights,= by treating all people (even one=E2=80=99s enemies) as human bein= gs entitled to basic human rights, and by striving to offer hope and human = dignity to the miserable millions who have neither.

A single-minded focus on = increased military =E2=80=9Csecurity=E2=80=9D and =E2=80=9Ccounter-terroris= m=E2=80=9D programs and spending will almost certainly prove counterproduct= ive to its declared objective, diminishing security and the quality of life= not only for the poor, the weak, and the oppressed but also for the rich, = the strong, and the oppressors.

The trend since September 11 has been to aggr= avate, rather than to alleviate, the very problems which fueled the sense o= f humiliation and hatred behind that day=E2=80=99s attacks. However, it is = not inevitable that this trend must continue=E2=80=94unless, of course, men= and women of good will, compassion and ethical values, who share a well-fo= unded fear as to where the world is heading and can see clearly that there = must be, and is, a better way, permit themselves to be terrorized into sile= nce.

=E2=96=A0

John Whitbeck is an international lawyer and an energetic co= mmentator, living in Paris. He has published widely on Middle Eastern affai= rs since the late-1980s, his work appearing in many Western, Arab, and Isra= eli publications. As an attorney he has advised the Palestinians on numerou= s occasions. A collection of his essays, The World According to Whitbe= ck (Five and Ten Press), appeared in 2005.

The Floutist publishes this piece without a paywall. We ask thos= e who are not paid subscribers to consider becoming one: We can use the sup= port of all those who see worth in the work. A subscription is $5/month or = $50/year. Every dollar is appreciated and helps keep us going. You can also= support us by sharing this article.

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Fri, 25 Sep 2026 14:38:16 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 From: Chas Freeman Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2026 17:37:59 -0400 X-Gm-Features: AclHuK_a-dyP4a7WC0tg9N1nmTAu1VMoUK5ABwJnhJk33PJLh7nyiQCE0iL7Dg8 Message-ID: To: "salon@listserve.com" Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="000000000000c21b91065c558893" Subject: [Salon] Three Wars, One Bill: How Hormuz, Ukraine and Sanctions Are Squeezing the Express Giants and Pushing Up Global Prices X-BeenThere: salon@listserve.com X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.33 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussion List for the Committee For The Republic List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2026 21:38:18 -0000 --000000000000c21b91065c558893 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Three Wars, One Bill: How Hormuz, Ukraine and Sanctions Are Squeezing the Express Giants and Pushing Up Global Prices 24 September 2026 by Larry C. Johnson https://sonar21.com/three-wars-one-bill-how-hormuz-ukraine-and-sanctions-ar= e-squeezing-the-express-giants-and-pushing-up-global-prices/ This article is the result of my conversation earlier today during my flight from Istanbul to London. I was sitting next to a FEDEX pilot who was on his way to Paris via London. I asked him about aviation fuel prices and the effect on FEDEX and I got more than I bargained for. The world=E2=80=99= s express carriers like to present themselves as barometers of the global economy. In 2026 they are also measuring something else: what it costs to run a global air network when two of the three main east-west air corridors are effectively closed. The answer so far is that FedEx and UPS are surviving the shock largely by passing it on to their customers. That cost doesn=E2=80=99t disappear. It moves down the supply chain and into the infl= ation numbers central banks are now fighting. The fuel shock The trigger was the Iran war. The International Energy Agency has described the near-total closure of the Strait of Hormuz as the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market. Brent peaked near $118 in late March, fell to about $70 by July 1, rebounded above $100 in late July, and climbed back to $109 in early September after renewed attacks on shipping and energy infrastructure. It has since eased to around $99 on hopes from US-Iran talks, but it is still up roughly 60% for the year. Jet fuel has moved further than crude because refining margins widened. IATA=E2=80=99s latest weekly reading put the global average at $194.90 a ba= rrel, up 7.4% in a single week. U.S. Gulf Coast kerosene-type jet fuel averaged $4.341 a gallon in September. The ground networks are exposed too: the national diesel average has hit a record $6.31 a gallon. For FedEx, the world=E2=80=99s largest cargo airline by fleet count, this l= ands directly on the cost line. In the quarter ended May 31, its fuel bill rose 66%, from $864 million to $1.43 billion. The airspace squeeze: Russia plus the Gulf The Ukraine war and Western sanctions had already closed Russian airspace to U.S. and European carriers after 2022. That added hours and fuel burn to Europe-Asia routes and handed a lasting advantage to carriers that still fly over Russia. Chinese, Turkish, Indian and Gulf carriers keep Russian access and can offer faster, cheaper Europe-Asia flights. Then the Gulf closed as well. Eight Middle Eastern states closed or restricted their airspace in late February, leaving traffic squeezed through the Caucasus corridor between the Black and Caspian Seas, about 100 miles wide at its narrowest. Xeneta estimated that 16-18% of global air cargo capacity disappeared with almost no warning. Freightos data showed rates from South Asia to North America and Europe up about 50% early in the war. By mid-July, Gulf carriers had restored 75-96% of schedules by routing south over Saudi Arabia and Egypt, adding 30-60 minutes to Europe-Asia services. Longer flights mean more fuel, lower payloads, more crew hours and less aircraft utilization. DHL Global Forwarding reported that rerouting around the Gulf hubs was reducing schedule reliability and raising operating costs. Air freight to and from the region itself also fell hard: Middle East and Africa exports were down 24% year on year. How the integrators have held up Here the story gets less straightforward than the headlines suggest. Surcharges have protected FedEx and UPS far better than airlines or asset-light truckers. FedEx=E2=80=99s chief customer officer said in March = that the fuel surcharge was =E2=80=9Cdoing its job=E2=80=9D and would keep the compa= ny profitable. The revenue numbers bear that out. In the March-May quarter, FedEx revenue rose 13% to $25 billion, with Iran-war fuel surcharges adding 5 percentage points of revenue. FedEx=E2=80=99s U.S. ground fuel surcharge stood at 26% = in the week of August 17. UPS raised its full-year 2026 guidance to $91.2 billion in revenue and about $7.22 in adjusted EPS. The pressure shows up in margins. FedEx beat estimates last quarter, but its operating income fell nearly 22% year over year. The mechanism is simple. The surcharge resets on a lag, and when fuel spikes, revenue and costs rise by similar dollar amounts, which dilutes the margin percentage. FedEx shares are down 6.6% over 30 days and 7.6% over 90 days, although still up 65.5% over one year. The freight sector=E2=80=99s warning light went on this month. J.B. Hunt sa= id Q3 earnings would fall 5-10% from the prior quarter, citing at least $10 million in extra fuel costs and $25 million in driver recruiting and bonus costs, which dragged down package-delivery stocks along with truckers. Who pays: from shippers to consumers On the evidence so far, shippers are bearing most of the cost. UPS=E2=80=99= s CFO described the net profit impact of surcharges as =E2=80=9Cmodest,=E2=80=9D = and FedEx said they were not a material driver of adjusted operating income. Critics have noted that neither company explained why surcharge percentages rose so sharply. For comparison, the U.S. Postal Service imposed its first surcharge on April 26, at 8% on most packages. One fact-check found no evidence of industry-wide gouging, but did find that some transport companies are collecting more in surcharges than they spend on fuel. >From shippers, the cost flows into prices. That is where the carriers=E2=80= =99 problem becomes everyone=E2=80=99s problem. The inflation picture The OECD=E2=80=99s interim outlook, published today, projects G20 headline inflation rising to 4.1% in 2026 and easing to 3.6% in 2027, while advanced-economy core inflation moderates from 2.7% to 2.5%. That split matters. This is mainly an energy shock that pushes up headline inflation, not yet a broad wage-price spiral. The OECD credits government support, input substitution, non-Gulf supply and oil reserve drawdowns with limiting the damage. In the U.S., August CPI was 3.4% year on year, while core was 2.4%, the lowest since March 2021. Gasoline alone accounted for more than a third of the monthly increase. The Fed still took no chances. It raised rates to 3.75-4.00% on September 16, its first hike since 2023, citing the Iran energy shock, and most officials expect at least one more hike this year. How freight costs reach the checkout The express surcharges are a real but secondary channel. Shipping is usually a small share of a finished good=E2=80=99s retail price, so parcel surcharges add friction at the margin rather than driving CPI. The same jet fuel shows up much more clearly in passenger airfares, up more than 23% since August 2025. Food is the more important channel. Diesel, packaging and fertilizer matter more than parcel rates, and a lot of fertilizer moves through Hormuz, which threatens global food prices. One inflation analyst who normally dismisses food and energy as mean-reverting now says he=E2=80=99s less confident abou= t food, because energy is feeding into trucking and packaging costs. The spillover into core inflation is what central banks fear. Economists warn that renewed rises in oil, gasoline and diesel could spread to other prices and to inflation expectations. So far median CPI looks relatively tame, and part of the rise in services inflation is airfares, which is really energy. The pain is not evenly spread. Energy- and food-importing emerging economies are far more exposed than the U.S. In the Philippines, diesel went above =E2=82=B1140 a liter, about $10.75 a gallon. Weak currencies and= heavier weights for food and fuel in consumer price indexes amplify the shock there= . Duration decides everything The OECD=E2=80=99s June scenarios frame the stakes. If Gulf supply recovers= from Q3 2026, the shock fades in 2027. If disruption lasts into late 2027, the result is much weaker growth and much higher inflation, adding about 0.4 points in 2026 and 1.3 points in 2027. The OECD=E2=80=99s baseline assumes = energy prices fall in 2027, but it lists prolonged Middle East export disruptions and a very strong El Ni=C3=B1o as key downside risks. With Brent near $99 a= nd the Saudi East-West pipeline shut since September 11, that baseline looks optimistic. A long disruption would also change the carriers=E2=80=99 position. Their pass-through model works only as long as customers accept it. The longer surcharges stay above 25%, the more small and mid-size shippers will downgrade from express to ground, from air to ocean, or simply ship less. FedEx=E2=80=99s own outlook assumed no further geopolitical disruptions and acknowledged that soaring fuel costs could weigh on results if customers pull back. The Russia-overflight disadvantage doesn=E2=80=99t go away when = oil falls. And the gap between surcharge revenue and actual fuel cost could become a political and legal target. The wars and sanctions have made running a global express network structurally more expensive: longer routes, fewer usable hubs, and fuel that stays high and swings unpredictably. So far FedEx and UPS have converted most of that cost into surcharge revenue, and their pain shows up as margin compression rather than losses. The cost has been passed downstream, where it adds to the energy-led inflation that has already pushed the Fed back into hiking. For both the carriers and the inflation outlook, the deciding factor is how long the Hormuz disruption lasts. If jet fuel stays near $190 a barrel through peak season, the question stops being whether FedEx and UPS can pass costs on. It becomes whether their customers, and the consumers behind them, can keep absorbing them. The next markers are September CPI on October 14, and FedEx=E2=80=99s commentary on surcharge recovery and volume= s in its fiscal Q1 2027 report. ------------------------------ Here=E2=80=99s my appearance with Soloviev live: https://disk.yandex.ru/i/0GLBKQSSG3S1cQ] --000000000000c21b91065c558893 Content-Type: text/html; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Three Wars, One Bill: How Hormuz, Ukraine= and Sanctions Are Squeezing the Express Giants and Pushing Up Global Price= s

24 September 2026 by Larry C. = Johnson=C2=A0 =C2=A0https://sonar21.com/three-wars-one-bill= -how-hormuz-ukraine-and-sanctions-are-squeezing-the-express-giants-and-push= ing-up-global-prices/

3D""

This article i= s the result of my conversation earlier today during my flight from Istanbu= l to London. I was sitting next to a FEDEX pilot who was on his way to Pari= s via London. I asked him about aviation fuel prices and the effect on FEDE= X and I got more than I bargained for. The world=E2=80=99s express carriers= like to present themselves as barometers of the global economy. In 2026 th= ey are also measuring something else: what it costs to run a global air net= work when two of the three main east-west air corridors are effectively clo= sed. The answer so far is that FedEx and UPS are surviving the shock largel= y by passing it on to their customers. That cost doesn=E2=80=99t disappear.= It moves down the supply chain and into the inflation numbers central bank= s are now fighting.

The fuel shock

The trigger was the Iran war. The In= ternational Energy Agency has described the near-total closure of the Strai= t of Hormuz as the largest supply disruption in the history of the global o= il market. Brent peaked near $118 in late March, fell to about $70 by July = 1, rebounded above $100 in late July, and climbed back to $109 in early Sep= tember after renewed attacks on shipping and energy infrastructure. It has = since eased to around $99 on hopes from US-Iran talks, but it is still up r= oughly 60% for the year.

Jet f= uel has moved further than crude because refining margins widened. IATA=E2= =80=99s latest weekly reading put the global average at $194.90 a barrel, u= p 7.4% in a single week. U.S. Gulf Coast kerosene-type jet fuel averaged $4= .341 a gallon in September. The ground networks are exposed too: the nation= al diesel average has hit a record $6.31 a gallon.

For FedEx, the world=E2=80=99s largest cargo airline b= y fleet count, this lands directly on the cost line. In the quarter ended M= ay 31, its fuel bill rose 66%, from $864 million to $1.43 billion.

The airspace squeeze: Russia plus the Gulf

The Ukraine war and Western sanction= s had already closed Russian airspace to U.S. and European carriers after 2= 022. That added hours and fuel burn to Europe-Asia routes and handed a last= ing advantage to carriers that still fly over Russia. Chinese, Turkish, Ind= ian and Gulf carriers keep Russian access and can offer faster, cheaper Eur= ope-Asia flights.

Then the Gul= f closed as well. Eight Middle Eastern states closed or restricted their ai= rspace in late February, leaving traffic squeezed through the Caucasus corr= idor between the Black and Caspian Seas, about 100 miles wide at its narrow= est. Xeneta estimated that 16-18% of global air cargo capacity disappeared = with almost no warning. Freightos data showed rates from South Asia to Nort= h America and Europe up about 50% early in the war.

By mid-July, Gulf carriers had restored 75-96% of sch= edules by routing south over Saudi Arabia and Egypt, adding 30-60 minutes t= o Europe-Asia services. Longer flights mean more fuel, lower payloads, more= crew hours and less aircraft utilization. DHL Global Forwarding reported t= hat rerouting around the Gulf hubs was reducing schedule reliability and ra= ising operating costs. Air freight to and from the region itself also fell = hard: Middle East and Africa exports were down 24% year on year.

How the integrators have held up

Here the story gets less straightforward than th= e headlines suggest. Surcharges have protected FedEx and UPS far better tha= n airlines or asset-light truckers. FedEx=E2=80=99s chief customer officer = said in March that the fuel surcharge was =E2=80=9Cdoing its job=E2=80=9D a= nd would keep the company profitable.

The revenue numbers bear that out. In the March-May quarter, FedEx = revenue rose 13% to $25 billion, with Iran-war fuel surcharges adding 5 per= centage points of revenue. FedEx=E2=80=99s U.S. ground fuel surcharge stood= at 26% in the week of August 17. UPS raised its full-year 2026 guidance to= $91.2 billion in revenue and about $7.22 in adjusted EPS.

The pressure shows up in margins. FedEx beat e= stimates last quarter, but its operating income fell nearly 22% year over y= ear. The mechanism is simple. The surcharge resets on a lag, and when fuel = spikes, revenue and costs rise by similar dollar amounts, which dilutes the= margin percentage. FedEx shares are down 6.6% over 30 days and 7.6% over 9= 0 days, although still up 65.5% over one year.

The freight sector=E2=80=99s warning light went on this mo= nth. J.B. Hunt said Q3 earnings would fall 5-10% from the prior quarter, ci= ting at least $10 million in extra fuel costs and $25 million in driver rec= ruiting and bonus costs, which dragged down package-delivery stocks along w= ith truckers.

Who pays: from shippers to c= onsumers

On the evidence so f= ar, shippers are bearing most of the cost. UPS=E2=80=99s CFO described the = net profit impact of surcharges as =E2=80=9Cmodest,=E2=80=9D and FedEx said= they were not a material driver of adjusted operating income. Critics have= noted that neither company explained why surcharge percentages rose so sha= rply. For comparison, the U.S. Postal Service imposed its first surcharge o= n April 26, at 8% on most packages. One fact-check found no evidence of ind= ustry-wide gouging, but did find that some transport companies are collecti= ng more in surcharges than they spend on fuel.

From shippers, the cost flows into prices. That is where t= he carriers=E2=80=99 problem becomes everyone=E2=80=99s problem.

The inflation picture

The OECD=E2=80=99s interim outlook, published today, projec= ts G20 headline inflation rising to 4.1% in 2026 and easing to 3.6% in 2027= , while advanced-economy core inflation moderates from 2.7% to 2.5%. That s= plit matters. This is mainly an energy shock that pushes up headline inflat= ion, not yet a broad wage-price spiral. The OECD credits government support= , input substitution, non-Gulf supply and oil reserve drawdowns with limiti= ng the damage.

In the U.S., Au= gust CPI was 3.4% year on year, while core was 2.4%, the lowest since March= 2021. Gasoline alone accounted for more than a third of the monthly increa= se. The Fed still took no chances. It raised rates to 3.75-4.00% on Septemb= er 16, its first hike since 2023, citing the Iran energy shock, and most of= ficials expect at least one more hike this year.

How freight costs reach the checkout

The express surcharges are a real but secondary channel. Shi= pping is usually a small share of a finished good=E2=80=99s retail price, s= o parcel surcharges add friction at the margin rather than driving CPI. The= same jet fuel shows up much more clearly in passenger airfares, up more th= an 23% since August 2025.

Food= is the more important channel. Diesel, packaging and fertilizer matter mor= e than parcel rates, and a lot of fertilizer moves through Hormuz, which th= reatens global food prices. One inflation analyst who normally dismisses fo= od and energy as mean-reverting now says he=E2=80=99s less confident about = food, because energy is feeding into trucking and packaging costs.

The spillover into core inflation is w= hat central banks fear. Economists warn that renewed rises in oil, gasoline= and diesel could spread to other prices and to inflation expectations. So = far median CPI looks relatively tame, and part of the rise in services infl= ation is airfares, which is really energy.

The pain is not evenly spread. Energy- and food-importing emer= ging economies are far more exposed than the U.S. In the Philippines, diese= l went above =E2=82=B1140 a liter, about $10.75 a gallon. Weak currencies a= nd heavier weights for food and fuel in consumer price indexes amplify the = shock there.

Duration decides everything

The OECD=E2=80=99s June scenar= ios frame the stakes. If Gulf supply recovers from Q3 2026, the shock fades= in 2027. If disruption lasts into late 2027, the result is much weaker gro= wth and much higher inflation, adding about 0.4 points in 2026 and 1.3 poin= ts in 2027. The OECD=E2=80=99s baseline assumes energy prices fall in 2027,= but it lists prolonged Middle East export disruptions and a very strong El= Ni=C3=B1o as key downside risks. With Brent near $99 and the Saudi East-We= st pipeline shut since September 11, that baseline looks optimistic.

A long disruption would also change = the carriers=E2=80=99 position. Their pass-through model works only as long= as customers accept it. The longer surcharges stay above 25%, the more sma= ll and mid-size shippers will downgrade from express to ground, from air to= ocean, or simply ship less. FedEx=E2=80=99s own outlook assumed no further= geopolitical disruptions and acknowledged that soaring fuel costs could we= igh on results if customers pull back. The Russia-overflight disadvantage d= oesn=E2=80=99t go away when oil falls. And the gap between surcharge revenu= e and actual fuel cost could become a political and legal target.

The wars and sanctions have made runnin= g a global express network structurally more expensive: longer routes, fewe= r usable hubs, and fuel that stays high and swings unpredictably. So far Fe= dEx and UPS have converted most of that cost into surcharge revenue, and th= eir pain shows up as margin compression rather than losses. The cost has be= en passed downstream, where it adds to the energy-led inflation that has al= ready pushed the Fed back into hiking.

For both the carriers and the inflation outlook, the deciding fact= or is how long the Hormuz disruption lasts. If jet fuel stays near $190 a b= arrel through peak season, the question stops being whether FedEx and UPS c= an pass costs on. It becomes whether their customers, and the consumers beh= ind them, can keep absorbing them. The next markers are September CPI on Oc= tober 14, and FedEx=E2=80=99s commentary on surcharge recovery and volumes = in its fiscal Q1 2027 report.

Here=E2=80=99s my appearance with Soloviev live:

https://disk.yandex.ru/i/0GLBKQSSG3S1cQ]

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