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Cake day: June 21st, 2023

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  • Back in 1994, the IDF granted Itamar Ben-Gvir an exemption from mandatory military service due to his right wing views. He has since been convicted (in Israeli courts) of supporting a terrorist organization, and is currently serving as Israel’s minister of national security; and is a key figure in maintaining the current governing coalition.

    The governing coalition has been in constant tension with senior IDF leadership, which has long argued that all achievable military objectives in Gaza have been achieved, and that continued operation is counter productive.




  • Israeli prime ministers.

    David Ben Gurion 1948 - 1953. Born in Poland Moshe Sharett 1953-1955. Born in the Russian Empire (modern day Ukraine) David Ben Gurion 1955 - 1963. Born in Poland Levi Eshkol 1963 - 1969. Born in Russian Empire (modern day Ukraine) Yigal Allon 1969 (interim PM). Born in Palestine. Father born in Belarus. Maternal grandfather born in Ukraine. Golda Meir 1969 - 1974. Born in Russia. Yitzhak Rabin - 1992 - 1995. Born in Palestine. Father born in Ukraine. Mother born in Belarus. Shimon Peres - 1995 - 1996. Born in Poland. Benjamin Netanyahu 1996 - 1999. Born in Israel. Father born in Poland. Mother born in Palestine, but was a US citizen. Parents migrated from Lithuania to the US Ehud Barak 1999 - 2001 . Born in Palestine. Mother born in Poland. Father born in Lithuania. Ariel Sharon 2001 - 2006. Born in Palestine. Parents born in Russia. Ehud Olmert 2006 - 2009. Born in Palestine. Parents born in Ukraine and Russia. Benjamin Netanyahu - 2009 - 2021 Naftali Bennett 2021 - 2022. Born in Israel. Parents from the US Yair Lapid 2022. Born in Israel. Father born in Yugaslovia. Mother born in Israel. Maternal grandfather born in Transylvania. Benjamin Netanyahu 2022 - present

    It is true that much of the Israeli population is middle eastern. However the political of Israel has been European from it’s founding until today.


  • Under current law, you would need to kill 22 people before replacements can be appointed. Possibly less if some of them are not constitutionally eligible to be president; but if it ever got to that point, I suspect we would ignore that provision.

    Pulling this off is made even more difficult by both the heightened security given to everyone in the line of succession; and the fact that under our continuity of government plans, those people are deliberately never all in the same place at the same time.

    Anything that could accomplish a full decapitation strike would likely require marshall law anyway, and would likely make the conditions for an election difficult.




  • The problem in Gaza is not a lack of money; or even a lack of food. It is the regional superpower using its overwhelming military support to block food entry and distribution. While explicitly blocking all organizations with a history and track record of successful aid provisioning in challenging war zones. Then replacing it with their own potenkin aid agency as members of their senior leadership talk openly about using starvation as a weapon of war.

    Even in the most charitable reading, donations like this do nothing to help on net. Assuming it is not an outright scam, you are just giving this one family some of the limited supply of food in Gaza. That means that you are depriving someone else in Gaza that food; because you did not actually introduce more food; and, one way or another, that food was going to get eaten.

    Adding more money to the equation does help fund the gangs running the food black market. I don’t mean to imply that such gangs are responsible for the crisis (they are not), or even that they are inherently bad (in a well run system, profit oriented local groups providing last mile distribution can be helpful). But, in this case, they are at best neutral.



  • Russia’s invasion didn’t help, but hasn’t seemed to trigger major proliferation concerns. In particular, Ukraine has no given any indication of pursuing nuclear development as a result. Indeed, doing so would put their much needed military aid at risk. All indications is that other countries that feel threatened by Russia are making similar calculations.

    In contrast, Iran pursuing a nuclear strategy is very much on the table. We’ve established that their ability for conventional self defense is woefully inadequate; their proxy network has been severely degraded; and their prospect for a diplomatic solution has been repeatedly undermined.

    If Iran does get nukes, that could be a catalyst for others in the region to do so as well.