Sunday: Hili dialogue

October 29, 2023 • 6:45 am

Welcome to Sunday, October 29, 2023: sabbath for gentile cats and National Oatmeal Day (not to be spurned if it’s good oatmeal). Here’s a proper bowl of oatmeal I had at Kent Presents (a meeting) on August 17, 2018.  It is prepared properly. (Leslie Stahl and her husband were sitting at the next table). Fruit, nuts, cream, and maple syrup! Of course, that reduces the oatmeal’s medicinal value. . .

It’s also Visit a Cemetery Day, Republic Day in Turkey, World Psoriasis Day, World Stroke Day (oy!) and, best of all, National Cat Day. If you’re an American and have a cat, and are the first to send me its photo and a few words (including said cat’s name), I’ll post it below:

Three cat photos arrived at about the same time.  The first is from Reese, who titles it “More Woodford Reserve cat”. I gather this black mini-panther guards the grain at the Woodford Reserve bourbon distillery. Reese added more: “Woodford Reserve (White) is the cat’s name, out of a liquor litter. And Eddie the dog is hid best friend, though this looks more like a standoff.”

And Thomas gives us a cat named “Columbine,” adding, “Shelter adopted. Softest fur of any cat we’ve had. Protests vet visit by going limp, and with soft fur, is hard to hold! Works better than fighting. Had to travel RIC – LAX when I got too sick to take care of her. Now lives in sunny LA”

Colin sent a lovely Bengal:

Here’s Ayesha (She Who Must Be Obeyed), as a kitten (Bengal, of course). She’s now about three years old, and is destroying a wicker basket as I write this.  She is best friends with our Springer Spaniel Scott, and happily climbs all over him as he tries to sleep.  He is very tolerant of her.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this by consulting the October 29 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*The NYT describes the latest in the escalating war, and there’s an article on Hamas’s tunnels, which are a formidable barrier.

The Israeli military on Sunday signaled a heavier assault on the Gaza Strip, saying it was “expanding its operations” and increasing the “urgency” of its warning for civilians to move south from Hamas strongholds.

The precise number of soldiers who have been sent into Gaza since Friday remains unclear, but Israeli officials have said the war will go through several stages. Israel’s initial response to Hamas’s attack on Oct. 7 was an intense bombing campaign that Palestinians say has killed thousands of people, many of them children.

For more than two weeks, Israel has been calling on Gazans to move closer to the border with Egypt, an evacuation order that has forced hundreds of thousands to leave their homes and is criticized for intensifying a humanitarian crisis. But Israel has also bombed areas in southern Gaza. Late last week, Palestinians said that airstrikes had damaged telecommunications networks, leaving Gazans without phone or internet service.

Connectivity was being restored on Sunday. And, the Israeli military said, without giving details, that humanitarian efforts to send more aid to Gaza — led by Egypt and the United States — would be expanded on Monday.

Here’s what else to know:

  • The Israeli military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, asked Gazans again on Sunday to move south. In a post on social media, he said: “Today, we increase that urgency of that warning: Civilians in northern Gaza and Gaza City should temporarily move south of Wadi Gaza to a safer area, where they can receive water, food and medicine.”

  • Videos released by the Israeli military and geolocated by The New York Times indicate at least three separate places where Israeli troops have crossed the border into Gaza over the past few days.

  • The threat of the conflict spilling into other parts of the region was again on display on Sunday. President Ebrahim Raisi of Iran said Israel had crossed a “red line which may force everyone to take action.”

This is going to be hard fighting, compounded by the very real possibility that the hostages are sequestered in the tunnels along with Hamas fighters. It’s going to be a long, hard fight, and a bloody one, and I hope that the IDF by now has at least a rudimentary map of where the tunnels are, and some information about the hostages After they’re cleared they should all be filled with cement.  And, of course, the money it took to build this elaborate system came from humanitarian aid stolen by Hamas.

*Speaking of tunnels, the Jerusalem Post gives evidence (audio), as well as a simulation, showing how Hamas has put one of its headquarters underneath Gaza’s biggest hospital, the Al-Shifa hospital. This has been well known for years.  Now why do you suppose Hamas does that? (To prevent Israel from bombing the hospital, because Israel doesn’t deliberately bomb hospitals, dummy!)

The IDF revealed how the Hamas terrorist organization uses Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City as a command and control center, in a video played as part of an English briefing on Friday night.

IDF Spokesman Daniel Hagari shared a video that showcased an intricate network of passageways and chambers deep beneath the hospital and other civilian buildings – where innocent Gazan civilians receive medical care and other services – such as mosques, UNRWA centers, and more. Hamas uses these buildings as shields for its own military efforts.

The video:

“Hamas wages war from hospitals,” he stressed, adding that this “not only endangers the lives of Israelis but exploits innocent Gazan civilians as human shields.”

Hagari shared a conversation recorded between two anonymous people, during which Speaker B asks: “Where are the main headquarters of Al-Qasam Brigades?” Speaker A responds: “Under the compound Al-Shifa. Yes, the leadership headquarters are under the Al-Shifa compound. Bathrooms, rooms, headquarters.”

The next day, on Saturday, the IDF and Shin Bet released further documentation of the organization’s use of the hospital, publishing clips from two interrogations of terrorists captured on October 7 after the massacre.

In the video, one of the terrorists openly admits that these tunnels and operation rooms are located under hospitals, including the Al-Shifa Hospital.

The article has two calls between Gazans confirming tunnels beneath the hospital.

Hamas denies this, of course, but listen to the audio form the IDF in the article above (none of the audios released by the IDF so far have been shown to be phony). And here’s some video of interrogations.

And yet you won’t hear the U.S. or U.K. press discussing this. It’s amazing that those in favor of Hamas or of the Palestinians who hate Israel completely ignore these blatant and disgusting use of hospital shields.

If you want to see people in the last week desperately removing evidence for Hamas’s use of the hospital as a shield, go to the “writing history” for the Wikipedia article on the hospital.

*And an op-ed by Dennis Ross, former U.S. envoy to the Middle East, “I might have once favored a cease-fire with Hamas, but not now.”

After Oct. 7, there are many Israelis who believe their survival as a state is at stake. That may sound like an exaggeration, but to them, it’s not. If Hamas persists as a military force and is still running Gaza after this war is over, it will attack Israel again. And whether or not Hezbollah opens a true second front from Lebanon during this conflict, it, too, will attack Israel in the future. The aim of these groups, both of which are backed by Iran, is to make Israel unlivable and drive Israelis to leave: While Iran has denied involvement in the Hamas attack, Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, has long talked about Israel not surviving for another 25 years, and his strategy has been to use these militant proxies to achieve that goal.

Given the strength of Israel’s military — by far the most powerful in the region — the aims of Iran and its collaborators seemed implausible until a few weeks ago. But the events of Oct. 7 changed everything. As one commander in the Israeli military said, “If we do not defeat Hamas, we cannot survive here.”

Israel is not alone in believing it must defeat Hamas. Over the past two weeks, when I talked to Arab officials throughout the region whom I have long known, every single one told me that Hamas must be destroyed in Gaza. They made clear that if Hamas is perceived as winning, it will validate the group’s ideology of rejection, give leverage and momentum to Iran and its collaborators and put their own governments on the defensive.

But they said this in private. Their public postures have been quite different. Only a few Arab states openly condemned the Hamas massacre of more than 1,400 people in Israel. Why? Because Arab leaders understood that as Israel retaliated and Palestinian casualties and suffering grew, their own citizens would be outraged and they needed to be seen as standing up for the Palestinians, at least rhetorically.

. . . As Israel’s aerial bombardment of Gaza picks up in pace and civilian casualties rise, international calls for an immediate cease-fire are mounting. Some are calling for Israel to call off a ground invasion. But ending the war now would mean Hamas would win. At present, its military infrastructure still exists, its leadership remains largely intact, and its political control of Gaza is unchallenged. As Hamas did after conflicts with Israel in 2009, 2012, 2014 and 2021, the group will almost certainly rearm and restore. It will be able to add to its system of tunnels running under the enclave. The strip will remain impoverished, and the next round of war will be inevitable, holding both Gazan civilians and much of the rest of the Middle East hostage to Hamas’s aims.

. . . Israel’s political leaders need to clearly and publicly emphasize they will leave Gaza and lift the siege after Hamas has been militarily defeated and largely disarmed. They must communicate that they understand a political resolution is needed with the Palestinians more generally. That is not a message Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is now conveying, given the shock in Israel and the makeup of his government. But it is one Israel’s partners in the region need to hear — and soon.

Finally, Ross’s, his call for the rebuilding of Gaza includes this:

For Israel to reduce the pressure from its neighbors and the international community to stop its attack, it must demonstrate more convincingly that it is fighting Hamas and is not trying to punish Palestinian civilians. It must create safe corridors for humanitarian assistance, including from Israeli territory through the Kerem Shalom crossing point. To alleviate the suffering, it should allow international groups, such as Doctors Without Borders, to operate safely there and include Israeli doctors who can set up field hospitals — something they have experience doing in Syria and Ukraine.

Malgorzata had a few sharp words for Ross’s favoring post-war aid:

Thanks. Interesting. Still, I prefer Bennet’s idea. Ross, as during his whole career Ross has demanded much more from Israel than from any other nation. A humanitarian corridor through Israel for the likes of the family of the murderer Anjuli Pandavar quoted! Israeli doctors giving loving care to them. Israelis trusting Doctors Without Borders, who are as antisemitic as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and who were caught lying about terrorists being “innocent civilians” so many times. He seems to forget that Israelis are humans and not imaginary Christian angels forgiving their murderers and giving them comfort when they suffer. And, as usual, Ross seems totally disinterested in other suffering refugees (Syrians, Yemenis etc.) Is it because their sufferings were not caused by Jews? He doesn’t demand such massive help for them as he demands for “poor Palestinians”.

Agreed. But after this is over, Netanyahu will be ignominiously thrown out of office, or so I think.

*The killer of 18 in Lewiston, Maine, was finally found, dead. He shot himself after he was identified as a suspect and became the goal of a huge manhunt.

Maine police had twice searched and cleared a recycling center before they found the body of the 40-year-old gunman, who had killed 18 people and triggered an intensive police manhunt that forced thousands of people to shelter in place.

The body was discovered only after the center’s owner called local police to say that 40-year-old Army reservist Robert Card was familiar with the property, urging investigators to check the trailers in an overflow parking lot full of dozens of trailers, across the street from the main facility. Just before 8 p.m. Friday, a state police tactical team discovered the body near the sliding door of an unlocked trailer full of scrap plastic and metal. Card had died of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Law enforcement separately found a letter addressed to a loved one with the passcode to Card’s phone and bank account numbers. Maine Department of Public Safety Commissioner Mike Sauschuck at its “tone and tenor is that the individual is not going to be around,” but it wasn’t an “explicit suicide note.”

The shooter also left behind a legally purchased long gun in a vehicle abandoned near a boat ramp near the Androscoggin River. Police said the ramp is connected to a walking trail along the waterway that leads to the parking lot where Card’s body was found along with two other firearms, also legally obtained. The commissioner rebuffed a question about whether the police should’ve searched that area sooner, saying they didn’t know it was connected to the recycling center.

Authorities said Card had mental health problems and paranoia, and had not yet found evidence of a specific motive. They had found no records of Card being forcibly committed for mental health treatment and are seeking to confirm whether he received any voluntary treatment.

If we had stricter gun regulations, not only might those 18 people still be alive, but so would Card.

*Finally a new Beatles song will soon be released! New! Never released before! From Guitar Player via Mark:

The Beatles have announced that they are to release a new – and reportedly final – single on 2 November, 2023. Yeah, that’s right: The Beatles are releasing a single. Now And Then will be the last Beatles song – written and sung by John Lennon, developed and worked on by Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, and completed by Paul and Ringo over four decades later.

Now And Then will be released as a “double A-side single” that pairs the last Beatles song with the first – Love Me Do, the band’s debut UK single from 1962 – and by doing so they’re about to fix a weird glitch in the band’s back catalogue.

Both songs are mixed in stereo and Dolby Atmos®. Acclaimed pop artist Ed Ruscha has designed the cover for the single which will be available to stream, download and as a 7″ black and colored vinyl record (light blue andclear), on 12-inch black vinyl and as a limited edition Beatles Store-exclusive cassette and 7-inch blue and white marbled vinyl.

Okay, so it wasn’t recorded all at once, and it’s not clear if they’ll use original vocals by John and George. But we Beatles mavens have to take what we can get. Stay tuned!

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is concerned with psychotherapy, which, in its Freudian version, is pure quackery.

Hili: I’m depressed.
A: Why?
Hili: I see an overproduction of psychotherapists.
In Polish:
Hili: Jestem w depresji.
Ja: Z jakiego powodu?
Hili: Widzę nadprodukcję psychoterapeutów.

*******************

From Jesus of the Day (no artist is given):

From Irena:

From The Absurd Sign Project 2.0:

And a humorous/satirical video apparently depicting a Leftist American college student’s views.  As Anna said, who sent this, “I am glad to see some people can keep their sense of humor in this situation…”

From Masih; Iran finally announced that the latest woman beaten into a coma by the morality police (for not wearing the hijab!) has died. Dead for want of a headscarf!

Scientific American has this deeply flawed paper (see my critique) pinned at the top of its Twitter feed. Oy, they’re proud of it!

From Peter, a lovely cat mini-video:

I said keep it open.
byu/Cyber_Being_ inholdmycatnip

Barry says “this is the cutest thing you’ll see today.”  So far he’s right!

From Jez, who says “The BBC is doing their job properly, for once”:

From Frits; big cats knead (I call it “making biscuits”) just like little ones:

From Simon, who shows us that the centerpiece of the all-white “Unite the Right” rally is gone.  Or, to quote the Band,

“Virgil, quick, come see,There goes Robert E. Lee!”

From the Auschwitz Memorial, a Dutch girl, age 7, gassed upon arrival. Had she lived she’d be 86 today.

Matthew graced us with a new tweet today—a cat stamp!

19 thoughts on “Sunday: Hili dialogue”

    1. So did Lebanese prime minister Rafic Hariri, who also worked briefly as a proofreader before concluding that it was no way to make a living. (He was right about that!)

      Reply

  2. On this day:
    1390 – First trial for witchcraft in Paris leading to the death of three people.

    1618 – English adventurer, writer, and courtier Sir Walter Raleigh is beheaded for allegedly conspiring against James I of England.

    1675 – Leibniz makes the first use of the long s (∫) as a symbol of the integral in calculus.

    1787 – Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni receives its first performance in Prague.

    1792 – Mount Hood (Oregon) is named after Samuel Hood, 1st Viscount Hood by Lt. William E. Broughton who sighted the mountain near the mouth of the Willamette River.

    1863 – Eighteen countries meet in Geneva and agree to form the International Red Cross. [The alternative Red Crescent emblem was first used by ICRC volunteers during the armed conflict of 1876–1878 between the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire. The symbol was officially adopted in 1929, and so far 33 states in the Muslim world have recognized it. In common with the official promotion of the red cross symbol as a colour-reversal of the Swiss flag (rather than a religious symbol), the red crescent is similarly presented as being derived from a colour-reversal of the flag of the Ottoman Empire. Nevertheless, the perception of a Christian / Islamic religious element has persisted and in 2005 the Red Crystal symbol (officially the Third Protocol Emblem) was introduced alongside the cross and crescent.]

    1888 – The Convention of Constantinople is signed, guaranteeing free maritime passage through the Suez Canal during war and peace.

    1901 – In Amherst, Massachusetts, nurse Jane Toppan is arrested for murdering the Davis family of Boston with an overdose of morphine.

    1918 – The German High Seas Fleet is incapacitated when sailors mutiny, an action which would trigger the German Revolution of 1918–19.

    1923 – Turkey becomes a republic following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.

    1929 – Black Tuesday: The New York Stock Exchange crashes, ending the Great Bull Market of the 1920s and beginning the Great Depression.

    1941 – The Holocaust: In the Kaunas Ghetto, over 10,000 Jews are shot by German occupiers at the Ninth Fort, a massacre known as the “Great Action”.

    1942 – The Holocaust: In the United Kingdom, leading clergymen and political figures hold a public meeting to register outrage over Nazi Germany’s persecution of Jews.

    1948 – Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Safsaf massacre: Israeli soldiers capture the Palestinian village of Safsaf in the Galilee; afterwards, between 52 and 64 villagers are massacred by the IDF.

    1956 – Suez Crisis begins: Israeli forces invade the Sinai Peninsula and push Egyptian forces back toward the Suez Canal.

    1957 – Israel’s prime minister David Ben-Gurion and five of his ministers are injured when Moshe Dwek throws a grenade into the Knesset.

    1964 – Biggest jewel heist; involving the Star of India (gem) in the American Museum of Natural History in New York City by Murph the Surf and gang.

    1969 – The first-ever computer-to-computer link is established on ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet.

    1972 – The three surviving perpetrators of the Munich massacre are released from prison in exchange for the hostages of the hijacked Lufthansa Flight 615.

    1986 – British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher opens the last stretch of the M25 motorway.

    1991 – The American Galileo spacecraft makes its closest approach to 951 Gaspra, becoming the first probe to visit an asteroid.

    1998 – In South Africa, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission presents its report, which condemns both sides for committing atrocities.

    1998 – Space Shuttle Discovery blasts off on STS-95 with 77-year-old John Glenn on board, making him the oldest person to go into space at that time.

    1998 – ATSC HDTV broadcasting in the United States is inaugurated with the launch of the STS-95 space shuttle mission.

    1998 – Hurricane Mitch, the second deadliest Atlantic hurricane in history, makes landfall in Honduras.

    1998 – The Gothenburg discothèque fire in Sweden kills 63 and injures 200.

    2002 – A fire destroys a luxurious department store in Ho Chi Minh City, where 1,500 people are shopping. More than 60 people die and over 100 are unaccounted for in the deadliest peacetime disaster in Vietnam.

    2004 – The Arabic-language news network Al Jazeera broadcasts an excerpt from a 2004 Osama bin Laden video in which the terrorist leader first admits direct responsibility for the September 11, 2001 attacks and references the 2004 U.S. presidential election.

    2008 – Delta Air Lines merges with Northwest Airlines, creating the world’s largest airline and reducing the number of US legacy carriers to five.

    2012 – Hurricane Sandy hits the east coast of the United States, killing 148 directly and 138 indirectly, while leaving nearly $70 billion in damages and causing major power outages.

    2015 – China announces the end of its one-child policy after 35 years.

    2018 – A Boeing 737 MAX plane crashes after taking off from Jakarta, Indonesia killing 189 people on board.

    2020 – Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour Party and of the Opposition in the United Kingdom is suspended from the Labour Party following his response to findings from the EHRC on the issue of antisemitism within the party.

    2022 – At least 156 die at a crowd crush during a Halloween celebration in Itaewon district, Seoul, South Korea.

    Births:
    1504 – Shin Saimdang, South Korean painter and poet (d. 1551).

    1711 – Laura Bassi, Italian physicist and academic, first woman to have doctorate in science (d. 1778).

    1740 – James Boswell, Scottish lawyer and author (d. 1795).

    1808 – Caterina Scarpellini, Italian astronomer and meteorologist (d. 1873).

    1812 – Louise Granberg, Swedish playwright (d. 1907).

    1837 – Harriet Powers, American folk artist and quilter (d. 1910).

    1856 – Jacques Curie, French physicist and academic (d. 1941).

    1891 – Fanny Brice, American actress and singer (d. 1951).

    1897 – Joseph Goebbels, German lawyer and politician, Chancellor of Nazi Germany (d. 1945).

    1923 – Gerda van der Kade-Koudijs, Dutch runner, hurdler, and long jumper (d. 2015).

    1925 – Robert Hardy, English actor (d. 2017).

    1925 – Zoot Sims, American saxophonist and composer (d. 1985).

    1930 – Natalie Sleeth, American pianist and composer (d. 1992).

    1937 – Sonny Osborne, American bluegrass singer and banjo player (d. 2021).

    1938 – Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian politician, President of Liberia, Nobel Prize laureate.

    1942 – Bob Ross, American painter and television host (d. 1995).

    1944 – Denny Laine, English singer-songwriter and musician.

    1946 – Peter Green, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2020).

    1947 – Richard Dreyfuss, American actor and activist.

    1967 – Rufus Sewell, English actor.

    1971 – Winona Ryder, American actress and producer.

    Death is so kind, so benignant, to whom he loves; but he goes by us others & will not look our way:
    1804 – Sarah Crosby, English Methodist preacher (b. 1729).

    1829 – Maria Anna Mozart, Austrian pianist (b. 1751).

    1892 – William Harnett, American painter (b. 1848).

    1901 – Leon Czolgosz, American assassin of William McKinley (b. 1873).

    1911 – Joseph Pulitzer, Hungarian-American publisher, lawyer, and politician, founded Pulitzer, Inc. (b. 1847).

    1924 – Frances Hodgson Burnett, English-American novelist and playwright (b. 1849).

    1957 – Louis B. Mayer, Belarusian-American production manager and producer (b. 1885).

    1958 – Zoë Akins, American author, poet, and playwright (b. 1886).

    1961 – Astrid Holm, Danish actress (b. 1893).

    1971 – Duane Allman, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1946).

    1987 – Woody Herman, American singer, clarinet player, saxophonist, and bandleader (b. 1913)

    1997 – Anton LaVey, American occultist, founded the Church of Satan (b. 1930).

    2011 – Jimmy Savile, English radio and television host (b. 1926). [His prolific and predatory sex offences only became public knowledge after his death. He is played (brilliantly) by Steve Coogan in the recent BBC series about him, The Reckoning.]

    Reply

    1. Thanks much, Jez, for the quotations that have become my daily memento mori! Love the Twain quote! Here’s another one that I like from the old curmudgeon:
      “All people have had ill luck, but Jairus’s daughter & Lazarus the worst.”

      Reply

  3. I read the article and saw the photos of the clandestine total destruction by melting of the Robert E Lee statue this past week. I do not know why but I felt unease as I read and looked. Maybe it was the destruction itself or maybe that the custodians seemed to take glee in the destruction or maybe because they felt it had to be done and done in secret. I do not know, but something seemed askew in the process.

    Reply

    2. “Charlottesville’s Robert E. Lee”

      Didn’t make it through the struggle session – Unity on a New Basis means either unity or disposal – that’s how “Unity” works. It’s just a mistake that it’s made of metal. The Red Guard did very similar destruction of historical art.

      It’s religion – Marxist hermetic alchemy in our living moments. Literal alchemy, even.

      “Warning to the West” is a book by Alexander Solzhenitsyn – he meant it.

      Impulsive Orwell reference – who controls the past controls the future (need quote source)

      Reply

      1. The quote is from Chapter 3 of Nineteen Eighty-Four:

        And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed -if all records told the same tale — then the lie passed into history and became truth. Who controls the past,’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past. And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. ‘Reality control’, they called it: in Newspeak, ‘doublethink’.

        Reply

    4. Here in Britain, we don’t melt down statues of our own Civil War leaders. Indeed, there’s a statue of Oliver Cromwell right outside the Houses of Parliament. On the other hand, an earlier attempt to overthrow the government with violence, in 1605, is commemorated every 5th of November when we burn the ringleader, Guy Fawkes, in effigy and let off fireworks. Remember, remember, the fifth of November, gunpowder, treason and plot!

      Reply

    5. I assume a team of lawyers argued the statue cannot be sold or otherwise gave it to “the public”, or kept from a museum (which would probably be private but IDK).

      Was there a vote for what to do? I’m not sure I heard of a vote, to keep it in a museum or give it the Red Guard treatment.

      Reply

    6. “Robert E. Lee statue has met its end, in a 2,250-degree furnace […] and will become a new piece of public art. ”

      “Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
      Seven for the dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
      Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
      One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne,
      In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
      One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
      One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
      In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.”

      -J. R. R. Tolkien
      Lord of the Rings
      1954

      Reply

  5. I don’t know how practical this is, but I would like to see the Israeli army take control of Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. Once in control, they can destroy Hamas’s headquarters and tunnels while at the same time either evacuate civilians to another hospital or take over the hospital’s management. (It’s hard to imagine keeping the hospital running in a war zone.) The needle to thread is to destroy Hamas headquarters while limiting civilian deaths. In lieu or the above, what choice does Israel have but to bomb the hospital itself—obviously to universal condemnation? That hospital has become ground zero in this war.

    Reply

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