An Unprecedented Crime?

In the pursuit of avoiding a repeat of the October 7^th Hamas atrocities, Israel is shooting and bombing among Palestinians, at close quarters and in an enclosed space. I believe the latter situation is completely new. In the past, for all of history, civilians had the option to get out of the line of fire. Not today, in Gaza. I don’t believe Israel does it on purpose but it is in fact severely restricting the Gazans’ ability to simply get away. This look a lot like collective punishment which is both immoral and, I think, illegal.

After posing for seventy years as the guarantor that Jews everywhere will never be again ill-treated, Israel failed miserably on October 7^th. I think I understand the Israelis’ fury, and even their fear but, corralling Gaza civilians in the zone of severe fighting looks to me like an unprecedented crime. I fear that it will soon make Israel into a pariah state among the civilized nations.

PS There is a solution to this conundrum that I described in a preceding posting.

Tent Cities: Evacuating Gazans

First things first: I believe that the Israeli Defence Force does everything humanely possible to avoid killing Gaza civilians. Yet, using warplanes and tanks in a crowded area such as Gaza is a sure way to create a lot of collateral damage. The fact that the potential victims, perhaps for the first time in history, have no place to run to multiplies again the potential collateral damage. Israel may be in the process of conducting an unprecedented war crime simply by bombing a site from which people cannot escape.

No Arab country wants the Gaza Palestinians, that’s a fact. But Israelis have to stop killing Palestinians; they are getting a bad name. Yet, Netanyahu is still speaking of a long war against Hamas. Conducting war in a congested urban area whose population cannot leave (cannot flee) is a sure way to accumulate unwanted casualties. (I know I am repeating myself.) That’s the road Israel is on right now. As I write, it has produced at least ten deaths for every death of an innocent Israeli on October 7^th. I am counting 22,00 Gaza deaths including, possibly 7,000 Hamas terrorists. That’s ten civilian casualties for every Israeli civilian casualty on October 7^th. But the disproportion will keep mounting: 20 deaths, 30 deaths, 100 deaths, for each pogrom victim. So, and again because no Arab country wants the Gazans, Israel has to think of taking them in itself.

There is not reason why, with the help of the many international organizations that were teeming in Gaza, Israel cannot build a giant tent city (or two or three) in the Negev desert to take in any Gazan who wants out. In this manner, Israel has an opportunity to either search personally, or consider with justified skepticism all current inhabitants of Gaza. Those who don’t want to leave the inferno that Gaza has become are automatic suspects, except for the bed ridden, etc. Special considerations can be given to the latter, again with the help of international organizations.

At the rhythm of five minute per subject, one Israeli soldier can search 10 subjects in an hour, allowing time for rest and substitutions. That’s 10,000 Gazans in one hour for one thousand Israeli soldiers. It would take the same number of Israeli soldiers one hundred hours to search one million Gazans. That’s only two and half weeks, working bank employee hours. It would take five weeks to expedite two million Gazans. There nothing in these figures the powerful and numerous Israeli Defence Force cannot handle: Double the time devoted to each Gazan, multiply the number of soldiers, cut it in halves; it all works out easily.

With Gaza cleared, putatively, free of most or nearly all its population, Israeli forces would have a free field of fire to destroy the remnants of Hamas. They could take all the time necessary while being subjected to much diminished humanitarian pressure. They could even finish to flatten Gaza completely and encounter little disapproval. They could remove from Hamas the ground on which they stand, thus forcing them to live underground. The destruction of the tunnels could then take place methodically, without haste, perhaps with the help of sea water. (I confess that I don’t understand the hesitation in using this method. It would seem to preserve Israeli soldiers lives. Whatever damage it causes, including to Gaza’s water supply, can be remedied once the war is over. That is, if Gaza is ever rebuilt which I now doubt.)

In this scenario, Israel will control Gazans utterly and completely. It’s true that Israel never asked for this privilege but its experience of indirect rule went terribly wrong, it’s time to recognize it and, at any rate, it created the current situation where Gaza is well nigh uninhabitable. Call it the price of victory. Latter, when the war against Hamas is truly over (one way or the other), it will be time to decide what to do with the Negev camp or camp cities.

A Personal Social Ecology of the Beach

My beach is usually ranked the second or third dirtiest in California. Nobody cares because the city rakes it clean-looking every day. Maybe it’s just the water that’s dirty. It would make sense because of the many seabirds, and the many sea lions, and the small harbor seals, that take turn defecating right in there, even with a modest contribution from the occasional sea otter. Nobody cares about that either. In the summer and much of the year, that beach is thronged. Nobody get sick or if they do, they die off quickly, away from where one would take notice.

It’s a straightforward beach. It extends from the Santa Cruz wharf on the left, facing the ocean, to a cliff, 400 or 500 yards, to the right. I should note that the right side of the beach is to the West and so is the cliff. So it gets in the shade first. So everything I am going to describe should be viewed dynamically, with people migrating from right to left during the afternoon to avoid the growing shade.

In the back of the left side of the beach is the pricey Dream Inn. The Inn has a discreet door giving directly on the beach, for members only, leading to a swimming pool and a Jacuzzi. My granddaughter and a few other young girls have perfected the art of slipping themselves in with a guest who possesses the magic card.

The entrance to the beach itself is about 1/4th to the right of the wharf when you face the sea. People arrange themselves in recognizable and remarkably stable segments throughout the years. This goes for people who don’t know each other. I don’t see why but it’s a curious enough phenomenon to report it.

To the extreme left, against the wharf, come Mexican families. Their children don’t know how to swim but they enter the water exactly where the waves are always the roughest. It’s OK; everything is going to be alright. And it is, as far as I know, and I frequent that beach three or four times a week, year around. It’s true that Mexican adults are often in the water with their children though. That would explain the low mortality.

Next, on a very small slice of beach directly in front of to the entrance, lie the very few black families that find their way to this beach. (They may go to the more obvious and more obviously public beach to the left of the wharf known as “Main Beach.” I wouldn’t know; I have never set foot there.) The small black children wade in the water completely unsupervised. No adult or teenager ever goes in. If you see a black man bathing or swimming, you can be completely sure that he is a foreigner. And he sits in a different segment of the beach, among white people.

That segment of the beach, the one with white people, a little to the left of the entrance is frankly a mixed bag. (And, by the way, I don’t mean to say that it has only white people, just mainly white people.) That’s where the lifeguard tower is in the summer, some sort of signal, I imagine. It takes in different kinds of people affiliated and unaffiliated, in small groups and in twos. Most interestingly, this is where the beginners tend to sit. You know the beginners by two things. First, they have everything that might be useful at the beach, including chairs, a tent, a football, several base-balls, and other balls of mysterious destination. Second, everything they have is brand new, right out of the department store. Easy for me to be smirky. I live five minutes from the beach. If I had to drive hundreds of miles to spend a weekend at the beach, I might want to pack in a much as possible, to really enjoy the experience.

A little to the left of this, close to the water, from 2 to 4 there is a blurb of towels and discarded clothing. These belong to the swimmers. I mean, the real swimmers who swim to the buoys and back in the cold, cold, cold Pacific of the central coast of California. I would think that two out of three swimmers are women. Full disclosure: I never join them but I do swim a little bit, ingloriously, parallel to the beach, when both the water and the atmosphere warm up. My relationship to the swimmers is made up of equal part envy and admiration. I salute them cordially, nevertheless. They spend little time on the beach but they play a large part in my beach consciousness.

Near the lifeguard tower many little kids play in the water. Their parents are often close by but almost never in the water with them. That’s true even when the waves are big enough to roll a small child. It’s driving me crazy. Hello, you are going to the beach, can’t you have enough forethought to wear shorts or a skirt you can hike up? Deuh!

To the right of the lifeguard tower lies a vast expense of low density beach. This is where the whitey-white families sit, lie, and stand. You know who they are. They have two or three impeccably blond children. Note that it’s not necessary for both parent to be blond. One is enough because blond hair is dominant in children. Their belongings are neatly stored away on a beach cloth. All the members- except, often the mother – sport real O’Neil wetsuits. The children have boogie-boards and the adults and older children have surfboards. I don’t know how many actually surf. I would think that most but not all of them do. It’s a mystery I will soon elucidate. Still, I am endlessly puzzled by the fact that whitey-white families occupy the very space contiguous with the smallest waves generally available on this beach.

Against the cliff, about one third to one half of the beach, if you pay attention, you will often see a small tent. There is a bicycle parked nearby. That’s a homeless person who set up camp there hoping to occupy too little space, to be too small to be chased away. I don’t know exactly why but I think the gambit might just work. I think nobody cares because the homeless are only bothersome in large numbers and where they colonize important spaces.

The density of occupation goes down as you move right or West, or away from the entrance to the beach. The next spot is occupied, spottily, by surfing schools. There are seldom more than seven or eight members per school. Surfing student are easy to spot because they move in groups and they wear the colored t-shirts of their school over their wetsuits. That’s so the instructors can spot them in the water and try to bring them all back. (But, frankly, win some, lose some.) They never stay long on the beach. They gesticulate for a few minutes under the direction of their instructor. Then, they depart on their surfboards, paddling toward the moderate waves a few hundreds yards a way. But since you seldom see them coming back on the same portion of beach, the worst can easily be imagined. It’s none of my business, I guess.

Finally, at the extreme right of the beach, next to the cliff, there are always, but I mean always, a few pot smokers. This is kind of a mystery. The smoking of recreational marijuana has been legal in California for several years. Why would they seek isolation? I see two possibilities. First, smoking in general is not allowed on the whole beach and these guy are complying though the rule is probably seldom enforced, and certainly not at the far, deserted end of the beach. Second, the pot smokers, in their delicateness want to save the public from the emanations of the stink weed. Pleasant thought; speaks well of them; good people. Groovy, man. Far out!

And then, there is stuff going on across the whole beach. One guy who looks twelve from afar and forty from close on is there every day from 4 to 5 with his slide board. That’s the board you use to slide from the beach into the small waves at the edge. The guy has not visibly improved in four years. Perseverance. That’s what I like.

La Guerre de Gaza (suite)

• Hafid : Le premier pararaphe est accept. Le second est rejeté. Et je vais expliquer pourquoi. 1)Cette attaque dont bibi a eu vent 10 jours avant qu elle n’arrive arrange qui? 2) quand vous parlez de charte du hamas et de ses objectifs vous faites semblant d’oublier que leHafid : premier paragraphe validé. rapport de force est 1000 000 de fois en faveur du colonisateur. Donc leur vœux quand bien même ils seraient réels ne veulent rien dire. Et surtout sont impuissants. 3)en faisant semblant de croire, je dis bien semblant…car vous le savez, que ce groupe propulsé par Bibi fait peur aux colons pour leur survie dans la région vous nous mentez clairement. 4) donc quand vous parlez de Hamas qui dit qu il gagne ou qu il va continuer de lutter, vous savez très bien qui cela arrange et quelle sera l’issue. 5) ne jamais parler du Grand israel qui est le seul projet et le seul objectif de Bibi vous permet de tenir ce discours hollywoodien. 6)ce que je dis de grands sionistes un peu plus respectueux de la vie humaine, le disent aussi. 7)les gazaouis qui souffrant depuis des années et qui se font éclater sont le terreau de la resitance. Plus les colons frapperont tueront et plus les résistants auront de soutien des gazaouis. Ce qui est logique. Ils spolient enferment empoisonnent torturent des enfants et des femmes. Ils privent de nourriture d eau etc etc donc pour former des ennemis ils ne peuvent pas faire mieux. Elon Musk l’explique très bien aussi.  Bref, vous savez que l’injustice est le terreau de la résistance. Vous savez aussi que lorsqu’il n’y a AUCUNE issue que le grand Israël, alors il ne reste que la violence et le soutien des Palestiniens à ceux qui résistent. Car qui dit grand israel dit AUCUN ETAT PALESTINIE
• (Delacroix, suite et fin.) Donc, en general, Israel n’a d’autre choix que d’essayer d’eliminer Hamas. Cette determination me parait completement independante des actes d’empietement des colons israeliens en Cisjordanie, bien sur. Il s’agit la d’une guerre aussi completement autonome qu’on peut l’imaginer. La guerre va ralentir des 9/10 tres prochainement car les Etats-Unis vont faire pression. Biden y sera oblige a cause de l’action simultanee des manifestations mondiales melant activiste Palestiniens aux gauchistes habituels emus du sort de Gazouis, plus l’aile gauche (assez reduite, il est vrai) de son parti. Cela fait simplement trop de monde pour qu’il resiste. Les Israeliens ne seront pas arrive a leurs fins de detruire Hamas. Il lui auront inflige assez de pertes, tant humaines que materielles pour s’acheter quelquechose comme dix ans de paix larvee. Hamas n’aura pas ete suffisamment reduit pour permettre des discussions avec le gouvernment Israelien successeur de Netanayou au sujet d’un veritable etat Palestinien. Je pense, pour mener ces discussions, aux rares cadres a la fois moderes, competents et honnetes que possedent les Palestiniens, peut-etre Barghoutti, en prison en Israel depuis vingt ans. La cote d’Israel aupres des etats arabes qui craignent l’Iran n’aura pas souffert.

La Guerre de Gaza resumee

J’ai ecrit cet essai en deux jours a la suite d’un echange durant plusieurs jours avec un Francais d’origine Marocaine nomme Hafid. J’inclus les remarques d’Hafid survenues pendant que j’ecrivais cet essai. Je m’excuse du manque d’accents et de cedille. Helas, mon logiciel ne permet de ne les former qu’un par un ce qui est trop onereux.

(This essay was written in the course to two days amist an exchange lasting several more days with a Frenchman of Moroccan descent named Hafid. I include the few of Hafid’s comments that arose in the course of writing this essay.)

 Delacroix. Je vais essayer d’expliquer. Le 6 octobre, nous avions un conflit larve dont les Palestiniens etaient les victimes. Il y avait le grignotement la Cisjordanie par des colons soutenus par leur gouvernement (plus ou moins selon le gouvernement). Il y avait des assassinats d’un cote, et des executions sommaires de l’autre. En verite, je doute fortement que la vie en cisjordanie ait ete plus dangereuse pour les uns comme pour les autres que la vie a Chicago, par exemple. Gaza, pour sa part, etait une prison a ciel ouvert, avec l’eau, l’electricite, les vivres et meme souvent, les salaires des fonctionnaires pourvu comme cela leur chantait par les geoliers Israeliens. Cette prison a ciel ouvert etait bouclee d’un cotes, par Israel et de l’autre par l’Egypte.

Soudainement, l’organisation Hamas, qui gouvernait Gaza tant bien que mal (mais qui a toujours dit la verite sur son projet final), Hamas s’est revele de nouveau. Il l’a fait en assassinant dans des conditions atroces a peu pres un millier de civils. Parmi ceux-ci, des vieillards, des bebes, des familles entieres, et des Nepalais et des Thailandais, qui n’ont pourtant pas l’apparence d’Israeliens. Si on ne croit que la moitie des atrocites racontees pas Israel, la moitie soutenue pas des documents photos de Hamas, on a quand meme la pire tuerie en Occident, a peu pres depuis la Deuxieme Guerre Mondiale. Je parle bien sur du (du) bebe mis au four, des familles fusillees, des nombreux individus brules, des femmes violees. J’ajoute, – et c’est presque une arriere pensee tellement le crime principal est odieux – la prises de deux cents-plus otage, tous civils. Cela c’etait le premier point.

Voici le deuxieme point: Depuis le massacre du 7 Octobre, Hamas ne cesse de repeter sa determination d’effacer Israel de la carte. Vers le 9 ou 10 Novembre, Hamas a annonce avec une clarte toute particuliere qu’il continuerait la bataille contre Israel jusque il gagne sur toute la ligne. De plus, ses allies a l’Ouest organisent de grandes manifestations avec des banderoles annoncant: “De la riviere jusqu’ a la mer!” c’est – a -dire un monde sans Israel – ce qui efface le doute qui pourait rester. De plus, Hamas na jamais cesser d’envoyer ses roquettes sur Israel qui sont tellement primitives qu’elles ne peuvent atteindre (et mutiler) que des civils. De plus, Hamas, dans la version courante de sa charte (contrairement a l’ancienne, je crois,) ne dit pas ce qu’il compte faire des millions de civils Israeliens qui lui tomberaient dans les mains s’il gagnait. Toutes les suppositions sont permises, y compris, le genocide.

Devant tant de cruaute alliee a tant de determination, Israel n’a d’autre choix que d’essayer d’aneantir Hamas. (C’est ce que je jugerais moi-meme dans ce cas.) Cette decision des Israeliens de se battre a tous prix, dans leur esprit, revient a sauver 6 a 7 millions de Juifs Israeliens. A cette aune-la les 11,000 Gazaouis tues (selon Hamas, la moitie a mon avis. Hamas ment sans cesse), ces 11,000 ne pesent simplement pas lourd. De plus, le Gazaouis ne sont pas completement innocents. (Ils on elu Hamas, il y a longtemps certes mais quand son objectif d’eliminer Israel etait deja annonce.) Ils ont laisse Hamas sans protester faire des installations militaires parmi eux. Pas un mot de defi. (Mais il y a beaucoup d’espions parmi eux. Comment expliquer autrement la precision frequente des tirs Israeliens.)

Hafid : premier paragraphe validé.

Hamas Fighters Surrender

Suppose all Hamas fighters surrendered en masse to Israel. Israel would then have no choice but to turn around and stop piling misery upon misery on the Gazans. According to the (Hamas) Gaza Ministry of Health, the Israelis offensive, mainly bombardments from the air, have killed about 10,000 Gazans. If the invasion continues, Israel will easily kill another 10,000 people in Gaza. That’s without trying.

Now, there cannot be much more than 5,000 Hamas operatives left after the current Israeli offensive. They can surrender. Even if Israel killed all 5,000 (It wouldn’t; I would send them to jail forever.) even then, the saving of life would be considerable. Do the math: one Hamas operative captured equal two inhabitants of Gaza saved. It seems like a good deal.

Hamas fighters will probably not accept my reasonable proposal though because they want a chance to kill Jews before they die.

Israel, Next?

The massacre of Israeli civilians by Hamas took less than two days. The on-going martyrdom of Gazans has now been going on for two weeks. It will continue indefinitely. The numbers involved (if you believe them) are going to become more and more disparate. The horrible details of the first will soon be half forgotten. The vividness of the second will only increase. Under these conditions, who do you think is going to win the propaganda war, flat out?

I think there is a very good chance that, under the circumstances, Israel will lose its nerve with respect to a full scale invasion of Gaza. I think it may settle for several limited expeditions inside. There is also a good chance that it will spare itself the traumas of an invasion by flattening Gaza city from the air to the point where it become uninhabitable. Hard to tell to from the published documents how severe the destruction is so far but I am pretty sure Israel has the capacity to destroy one third of the city from the air. It would not finish off Hamas but it would make it a hell of a lot more difficult for it to operate.

I have left aside deliberately the subject of the 200+ hostages. They may be the reason Israel is stymied in the promised invasion of Gaza. First, a reminder: It would be completely out of character for Israel to become indifferent to the fate of the hostages. Repeating myself: This the country that exchanged one (1), of its soldiers for one thousand (1,000) Palestinian prisoners many of whom were convicted of crimes. Israel may be held back because it is pursuing a negotiated solution to the problem. Or, it may be preparing daring military attempts to free them. It may even be working on both types of outcomes at once.

The innocence of the people of Gaza is being exaggerated in the worldwide media. It’s true that they are they are – now – the passive victims of Israeli revenge. But, it’s also true that they elected Hamas once – against the Palestinian authority, or the PLO. That is, they voted (overwhelmingly if memory serves) in favor of an organization which had and has, black-on-white, in its charter, the destruction of the neighboring state. (But not the killing of Israeli Jews as is often carelessly asserted.) Since then, through thick and thin, among the periodic launching of thousands of rockets from their territory, they have acquiesced to Hamas rule, paid taxes to it, and generally acted at least submissive to its rule.

One more thing. The formidable explosion of solidarity in the Arab world following the Israeli attack on Gaza does not conceal a stark fact about Gaza Palestinians: Nobody wants them. Let’s remember a simple story: In 1945-46. a devastated Germany absorbed more than 10% of its weight in refugees without a peep. Yet, 450 million Arabs cannot absorb 2.5 million Gaza Palestinians. Egypt alone has a population of 110 million but it cannot accommodate these slim 2.5 million. OK, Egypt is poor. The UAE and Saudi Arabia are not poor and together, they have a population of about 45 millions. The Gaza population relative to their weight is about half the weight of German refugees to a Germany that was, let’s repeat it, devastated. Something does not compute.

Separate question: Gaza has a long coastline. Does anyone know why the Americans trapped in Gaza have not yet been rescued by sea? Pathetic.

House-to-house

All the commentators on TV and on radio appear to be on automatic. Everyone of them evokes the “house to house, door-to-door” fight the Israelis will have to engage in – with stupendous casualties- if they invade the Gaza strip.

I don’t see how that unavoidable. The Israelis can, from the relative comfort of their very large tanks, destroy one dwelling in 10 and all the urban infrastructure of Gaza. I mean such things as water treatment plants and electrical distribution centers. If they do this, Gaza will empty itself as soon as Egypt opens a humanitarian corridor in the south of the Gaza strip. Egypt will do this, under pressure, in the next four or five days.

Worst case scenario: Israel has to open a humanitarian corridor unto its own territory. Disorganized Palestinians, dispossessed, under Israeli vigilance are much less dangerous than the same Palestinians in yesterday’s Gaza.

Note that today, as I write, this seems to be exactly what the Israelis are doing with their order to about half of the inhabitants of Gaza to move south. They don’t seem to be going after Hamas members as promised.

One more word: Predictable, the chorus about the innocence of Gaza Palestinians gathers up unopposed. In fact, they elected Hamas once, and they have been tolerating the organization and allowed it to live among them like a fish in the water. It seems to me the bulk of Palestinians in Gaza are only relatively innocent. They can be complimented only for not seizing a gun and killing Jews.

Israel: What’s Next?

I fear that Israel will be tempted to drain the water in which the Hamas terrorists swim.(I call them terrorists because they killed more than two hundred civilians at a peace concert.) It would not be all that difficult or costly. Israel could simply raze to the grounds about 30,000 lodgings. This can be done from the air fairly cheaply because of the abundance of high rises in Gaza. Requires no direct manhandling of innocent Palestinians. Israel would also keep a tight hand on the blockade of the territory. With no electricity provided, no food and no water, an exodus of 1,000,000 could soon be produced. The best off would leave. This might lead to a fairly quick emptying of Gaza. Israel could help by providing a humanitarian corridor toward Egypt. Egypt and Jordan would have to take in this new wave of refugee. They would have to. New problem for Israel in the future but much breathing space in the meantime.

Israel will be impeded in the massive response that the attack command by the existence of hostages. The only efficacious response if for Israel to take hostages of its own. It will be impeded in this respect by the differential value Palestinians and Israelis place on human life. The last time, Israel proceeded to a prisoner exchange, it was one (1) to a thousand (1,000). Tough.

Always look at what is not taking pace. Not a peep from the West Bank which houses the majority of Palestinians. This may be an indirect measure of the popularity of Hamas in Gaza. Hamas rules the territory with an iron hand. No expression of protest is brooked. Where it does not rule – in the West Bank – no one raised a finger to support its assault on Israel. Food for thought.

Finally, a word about savagery. The massacre of concert goers (hundreds) and the rapes committed by Hamas forces place the organization outside the scope of humanity, of common decency. It means that its enemy can do anything it wants to them. I think Israel will. The fact is that restraints toward Palestinian civilians in Gaza will not be in effect because no one knows how many support Hamas. (But see above.) Anyone is free to believe that the support in 100%. After all, a long time ago, they voted Hamas into power.

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Lawlessness

Lawlessness

I had occasion recently to spend ten times half an hour sitting my car in front of a stop sign. (Don’t ask me why, please.) The sign was situated right in front of City Hall. Couldn’t have been closer.

Number of drivers who came to a full stop: one in ten. The scofflaws included two cops with no sirens on. The vast majority of the offenders were women. But I do not have a count of the drivers who were women so, perhaps, the women violated the rules according to their exact proportion in the relevant population. (I don’t believe it!)

I think the COVID epidemic is responsible for this plague of petty lawlessness. People got used to un-patroled streets. Continued after things got back to near normal.

Why do I blame women. Simple: few men have a conscience and almost no woman has. In the absence of likely punishment, they break the rules. Also, women are always late.

Tell me where I am wrong. I am especially interested in reactions by women, of course.