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Radio War Nerd EP #476 — Counterpoint, feat. Aamer (Patreon)

Published:
2024-10-09 02:18:52
Imported:
2024-10
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Guest: Aamer

Recorded: October 8, 2024

We're joined by friend of the show Aamer to provide some counterpoint to our recent bummer-ep with Joshua Landis [EP #473] on takeaways and lessons of Israel's ongoing rampage. But first, we get on update on Canada's most venerable Nazis, and we do rhetorical analysis of former eXile editor Matt Taibbi's big Gaza-dodge.

Check out more RWN episodes with Aamer:-Arab Conquests series-Inglorious Qataris' Bustards-Football hooliganism

Total time: 1:13:06

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here

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Subscribe to Radio War Nerd at patreon.com/radiowarnerd

Sound production by Telescope Audio

Check out the Radio War Nerd Merch store here!

Order your print or ebook of John Dolan's new book Erdogan Pizza: Dispatches from a Violent & Grotesque World

Files

Comments

William

What, are we trying to have a balanced and nuanced discussion of the Middle East? In this economy? Get the fuck outta here with this responsible journalistic inquiry

PostmasterFenian

Sir I requested a missile defense expert but I'll settle for Aamer

Isaac Suárez

Hell yes! I was low key afraid Aamer passed away from cancer- I’m glad he’s still around (and contributing great content!)

MoldyTolge

So glad to heard from Aamer again!

Hans Arivdson-Hicks

I always like to joke that the US had operation paperclip and Canada had operation paperweight

Samuel Roberts

Anyone have a spelling (or example album name) for the band Ames was talking about early on (3:30-4:30 ish) — sounded like “Dome”? Unfortunately there are apparently a real surfeit of bands named roughly that…

bg

This response may seem to jump around but it follows the subjects discussed through the podcast. The guest right away expresses the opinion that Canada hasn't considered anything economic to deal with the massive number of immigrants coming in there, and is resorting to limiting the crazy levels of immigration. Ok, what's an example of a country coming up with an economic solution where that amount of immigration was supported by the population? Wouldn't the more fundamental point be that the political class in Canada shouldn't be importing so many immigrants (without much regard to high-skilled) to the point where it's causing massive social friction? So right away I know that he's going to have crap leftist opinions. Also you guys sound like jealous haters of Taibbi, lol. The way you dissected every word he said sounds gossipy and lame. On genocide, I've listened to several of your recent casts where you casually throw it around as what's going on. How are you defining it? Was the October 7th genocidal? Was the Iraq War a genocide? Have you compared civilian casualty rates with it? My definition would be genocide is when you're targeting civilians intentionally in sufficient numbers. Most of the civilian deaths from Israel are collateral damage from attacks targeting terrorists. How many Hamas fighters among them? The situation in west bank settlements like Hebron I agree is apartheid, and apartheid is wrong. I'm against the general approach of the rightists/Netanyahu/messianists who want to keep that going. I support a two or three state solution after the Palestinians mostly give up on thinking they can beat Israel via a combination of terrorism and enabling left wing sympathy after their fighters hide under civilians. Those settlements being wrong doesn't turn the entire conflict into a simple moral equation, any more than "murdering people at music festivals and kidnapping babies is wrong" solves the complexity of the conflict with moralizing. You're correct that people are driven more by liking or hating certain types of people. We're all guilty of it. We still have to get by on arguing principles despite the id underlying all of it. So it goes. Ok now we get to the guest's predictably wrong opinions. "Blowing up all the Hezbollah pagers at once shows that Israel isn't a rational actor". Right, decapitating your enemy who's been shooting missiles at your population continuously isn't rational.. I'd love to hear this guys rational response to Hamas and Hezbollah on Oct 7th and Oct 8th respectively. Let me guess, he just hates his side losing so it must be irrational. The guest doesn't think a two-state solution can exist. So presumably they think a one-state solution can exist? Please explain how. This isn't South Africa where it's 15% whites in the area. The guest claims a two-state solution is antithetical to Zionism. This is incorrect. Multiple views exist within Zionism, even if right wing zionism has been ascendent in the decades since failure of peace talks. The fundamental idea of zionism is that there's a jewish state. Not that Palestinians can't have a neighboring state in the region. That is one POV within Zionism. Why functional nation-state democracies haven't occurred in arab states? The guest: the problem is they're client states! Never mind that our biggest arab client state Saudi Arabia has actually been liberalizing/modernizing. Arab countries will seemingly try every ideology (islamism, communism, pan-arabism, anti-Westism) except liberal democracy. Cousin marriage and clannishness has to play a role. I suspect that having modernizing dictators is the best option for a lot of these countries when you actually see what the arab street is like. For example, look up what happens when a western female reporter tried to report on the arab spring in Egypt. Some of those mofos need a dictator. I'm not saying this is the whole story, just bringing up points I know the guest never would. Thanks for doing the podcasts. I used to read Exile back in the day. Even if I disagree with the political points I still benefit from the realistic look at military tech. Cheers, nerds.

G W

Lol this is one of the stupidest comments I've ever read. From mail bombs are a decapitation strike to Saudi Arabia is a democracy. You have literal A-Z idiocy here. Lmao.

bg

It was pagers, not mail bombs that helped decapitate Hezbollah. Ones that they bought from an Israel shell company. Never said Saudi was a democracy, rather that it is a modernizing dictatorship. Your comment is devoid of content other than those two falsehoods.

T

I found Matt Taibbis patreon account

bg

I take that as a compliment, had to give it a heart. [edit: was in response to comment which said "Think we found Matt Taibbi's Patreon", unclear why it was deleted]

GC

It's the post-punk Dome that's a Wire side-project (with Bruce Gilbert and Graham Lewis). Three eponymous albums--which won't solve the search problem!--and Will You Speak This Word. They're good! This'll get you started: https://editionsmego.bandcamp.com/album/1

GC

That was a sick fuckin' burn, had to give it a heart.

G W

Decapitated group seems to have functioning leadership and is slapping the IDF around. Mailing pagers to a bunch of random doctors and postman sure seems to have helped their invasion!

Caleb Ransom

let the man speak for fucks sake

G

You don't need to offer up your own definition of genocide. The Genocide Convention exists, and it's pretty damn clear Israel is guilty. If you truly believe the civilian deaths are just "collateral damage", then it's evident that you have no regard for human life. Your entire comment is tinged with anti Arab racism.

Hans Anders

I’m not reading all that. Free Palestine!

bg

@G Was Oct 7th genocidal, and was the Iraq War a genocide, according to your reading of the genocide convention? Why or why not? Note that the Iraq War, unlike this one, was a war of choice rather than necessity. Israel is fighting for its existence so cannot afford to lose like the west typically does in these situations. Most of the civilian deaths are collateral from targeting terrorists. This is exacerbated by the deliberate use of human shields as a central tactic of Hamas. Do you disagree this is a stated and enacted strategy of theirs?

Lojban Chauvinist

It's lamentable that this show and its fanbase has become something of an echo chamber. (It's the world we live in, everything is like that now, from legacy media to Substack, and certainly the world of podcasts.) You know what take you're gonna hear on RWN for most politically contentious topics. Although credit is due the hosts for bringing on a guest (the previous) who their audience was disposed to dislike. To your points, they are worthy of consideration. (I am replying as such, because of a strong attachment to "arguing principles" in online discourse.) I disagree most with one of them. I agree that Gaza may not qualify as a genocide and that the term was thrown around since Oct. 8 in an over-emotional way. (I'll add that linguistic atrocity inflation is real, extremely annoying, and most parties in contemporary conflicts are guilty of it, such as Zelensky's government which also used the term "genocide." I also take objection to these neologisms like "domicide" and "scholasticide" – partly because what they describe is nothing new in war, and mostly because they are counterproductive in persuading a Western working-class public to care. That's pure liberal-intelligentsia shit, having a fancy neologism for everything.) However, I'm more than half convinced that Gaza is what a genocide looks like when carried out in the 21st century by a liberal democracy that both (1) contains ruling factions with different strategic aims, many of which fall short of genocide while others reach that threshold and (2) which is extremely, obsessively interested in shaping public opinion in the liberal democracies of the West. But most importantly, you and I and the hosts should not be talking about genocide for even thirty seconds without substantiating the claim by way of the ICC case and its findings so far. While I didn't read it, and admit that makes me a bad interlocutor, I know it documented both genocidal rhetoric by political and military decision-makers accompanying acts causing massive destruction of the conditions of civilian life (beyond the civilian casualties). The civilian casualty rate over the last year has been higher than in any 21st century war, notably also the child casualty rate. Four objections to this are available: First, that the ICC is biased against Israel, or antisemitic. That may be true and it wouldn't necessarily make their case unsound, but I also haven't seen any convincing arguments that it's true. Second, that Israel is following the laws of war and merely conducting extremely difficult urban operations against terrorists. I think that genocidal rhetoric from higher-ups and a pattern of lawless conduct down the chain of command puts the lie to this. (And note the motte/bailey you usually get where no Israel defender can resist adding, that the people of Gaza *did* vote for those Hamas lunatics and *did* participate in the atrocities of Oct. 7, and when polled still supports "Al-Aqsa Flood" – implication: those civilians have it coming.) Third, you might say, well, the civilian casualty rate has been high but this is a limited war, and it'll end soon, leaving the total deaths under 100,000 or whatever. You didn't say this, but if you did, I'd find it very unconvincing given Netanyahu's expansion of the war, the failure to stop Hamas from inflicting casualties in Gaza or achieve the war aims there completely, one year in, and also I believe the total number of primary and secondary deaths from Israeli conduct of the war is higher than 41,000 by far, but who knows. Fourth, you may want to object that even if everyone in Gaza was killed or maimed, it wouldn't be a genocide because "Gazans" aren't an ethnos. And here, although the point would sound almost cruelly pedantic, I think you might be right. I see no evidence of a genocide in the West Bank, only slow ethnic cleansing and a devaluing of Palestinian lives which is not new. But, it's clear that genocide is a term we made up less than a century ago, and perhaps the "geno" part shouldn't matter as much and the international-law guys have a point when they say, "destruction of a [not necessarily ethnic] group, in whole or in part." So I think, after all is said and done, this is either genocide or a comparably grave crime against humanity.

George

Yeah Mark you talked over Aamar way too much. This is especially egregious after you let Landis go on and on like an idiot.

bg

@Lojban Thanks for the substantive response. I'm genuinely interested in seeing where my views are wrong vs right based on principled discussion/argument and evolve them. Also it's my first time commenting here so I had no idea what to expect as far as any responses one way or another. I agree with you that most of the proposed arguments you listed against it being a genocide are faulty. Additionally, I think the strongest argument for it being a genocide would be as you said "genocidal rhetoric by political and military decision-makers accompanying acts causing massive destruction of the conditions of civilian life (beyond the civilian casualties). " I wanted to discuss this point, which I think deserves the most focus. "The civilian casualty rate over the last year has been higher than in any 21st century war." What number of Hamas fighters do you think have been killed? What are the comparable rates in other major 21st century wars, say the Iraq War?

Lojban Chauvinist

They did literally decapitate Hezbollah as an organization, I'm not sure how that could be up for debate. It doesn't mean Hezbollah will lose this war, let alone the "Axis of Resistance," it merely ups the likelihood that they will lose (be pushed North of the Litani river and/or be severely degraded). Pagers were certainly not mailed to a bunch of random doctors and postmen, unless the news I've been reading in Al-Jazeerah and everywhere else is false. Pagers were mass-imported by Hezbollah itself and distributed to cadre; a handful apparently found their way into others' hands, though I haven't seen a single such story seriously investigated. Many exploded in public, with the result that the civil population at large was terrorized, but injuries among those merely in the vicinity of the direct targets are not apparent in the CCTV footage I've seen. Yet, that doesn't make this operation legal by international law or morally sound. Edit: must add that not all Hezbollah cadre are fighters or directly involved in terrorism, and should not have been targets for assassination, but obviously Israel and its defenders don't see it that way – similar to how we treated members of the Iraqi Ba'ath party.

gatito

@bg why the obsession around definitions? it would seem that some people will take any path, no matter how pendantic, in an attempt to justify a horrific atrocity against humanity. you brought up the iraq war, an equal if not greater atrocity against humanity, maybe hoping that you could favorably contrast the ratio of combatant to civilian deaths, and then say “so why wasn’t that a genocide?”. maybe the better question is why are you more concerned about semantics than the ongoing justification of the killing of thousands of women, children, and the attempted destruction of their society and way of life? the alleged blurring of definitions/terms pales in comparison to what is really being discussed here. all love brother

bg

@gatito The focus on definition is because many people feel they can sidestep a discussion by labeling something with a given word. This is seen with "racism", "genocide", and many other claims across many arguments, by people who are convinced their argument is so superior because they have the word at hand. Fundamentally what they have is an emotionally charged argument by association. Forcing people to define their terms allows you to focus on meanings instead of labels and work out what is right or wrong in a given a situation. I'm of course concerned with the ongoing death, and want to see it come to an end not just short term but long term. Long term that would seem to involve the destruction of Hamas's hopes of defeating Israel through terrorism.

Aditya V

India took in 10 million refugees and went to war to stop a genocide... Both these events in turn caused inflation, economic upheavals and exacerbated internal communal tensions in India. Now let us see what Arabs are doing - they have been increasing trade with Israel -"Israel’s trade with Middle Eastern countries including Egypt, Morocco and Bahrain grew in the year to the end of May despite regional tensions and the Gaza war, a think tank report has revealed. " A Palestinian child had this to say - "And you ... you Arabs. I don't know what to say about you. Children are dying under the rubble, their hands are severed, their legs are torn, their heads are crushed. To every Arab and foreigner who sees us, what blood runs in your veins? From what clay are you made? If your own child faced this, would you stay silent?” https://x.com/tastefullysaucy/status/1822240537786667084?

Hans Anders

For someone claiming rigor on definitions, you could do a lot better on the term ‘terrorists’ and ‘terrorism’. You include in it any target bombed by Israel, and you exclude from it anything Israel does. In short, you use it in the same way Israeli propagandists use it, to elicit an emotional response.

Jakob Stenfalk

7 October was obviously not genocidal. Duh. A close to 1:1 military:civilian kill count and most of the civilians being killed by the indiscriminate fire from roving IOF death squads is a cleaner military operation than any Nato country can boast of having achieved in the history of that organization. And it absolutely is a war of choice for the occupiers. Because the occupation is always a choice. The illegal entity could simply capitulate unconditionally. As an occupying force, the illegal entity literally does not have a right to exist or to national self-defense. The only right an occupier has is the right to a fair trial following their capitulation. It is also an outright lie that most of the civilian deaths in Palestine are collateral damage. Most of the over 200 thousand civilian deaths are from destroying or interdicting water, food and medical supplies. The wanton murder is a distinct minority, and the legitimate collateral damage is a rounding error.

Aditya V

Combining with my previous comment - this is something neither Landis nor Aamer talk about - "The oppression of the Palestinian people has been maintained not simply by Israeli violence and military might, but by the treachery of the Arab bourgeoisie. Former US ambassador Ryan Crocker: Nearly every Arab state has long viewed the Palestinians with “fear and loathing”. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/03/17/lqki-m17.html

Kevin Walsh

Jakob is correct. Israel has always intentionally massacred civilians, that is neither new nor per se genocidal. One could argue that the nature of many of Israel's massacres, such as designating free fire zones, instructing the population in those zones to moves to particular areas, and then bombing the areas they told the population to move to, are evidence of genocidal intent, but this is ambiguous. However, Israel's policy of preventing aid from entering the Gaza strip by subjecting all aid to inspection by the IDF, and attacking all aid convoys escorted by Palestinian police (and some that aren't) are prima facie genocidal in themselves, because the effect is to prevent aid entering Gaza, and to prevent aid in Gaza from being distributed, in order to starve the population of Gaza. Then you add on top of that the systematic destruction of medical and sewage facilities. All that's needed is to establish that these genocidal actions are intentional, but multiple Israeli politicians including Cabinet ministers have publicly expressed the view that the entire population of Gaza should be exterminated, which neatly solves that problem. The ICJ are not morons, and they were under considerable US pressure to find Israel not guilty of genocide. They found it plausibly guilty of genocide because nobody with any integrity could look at the facts and find them not guilty.

a clash of purple

"Most of the civilian deaths from Israel are collateral damage from attacks targeting terrorists." According to who? Israel? The United States? Why should anyone take their word for it? "I support a two or three state solution after the Palestinians mostly give up on thinking they can beat Israel via a combination of terrorism and enabling left wing sympathy after their fighters hide under civilians." Well, that's the problem, isn't it. Whatever you think of the Palestinians' tactics, they've demonstrated that they're not going to give up. They will not accept any peace deal that recognizes Israel's claims over their territory. I don't really know or care what percentage of Israelis hate Arabs as a race and want to exterminate them vs. those who just want the Palestinians to submit. Their war against Palestine is tantamount to genocide because, in lieu of a surrender, they are willing to continue killing until every last Palestinian is dead. It's true, that's not exactly the same thing as a deliberate genocide, even though it's the same result. As in any war, aggression is the first and worst war crime. Israel started the killing, and they can stop whenever they want. Their methods of conducting the war will result in a genocide, even if that is not their explicit stated purpose (at this point I think most Israelis have embraced genocide, even if they'd like to weasel out of it in a legalistic sense, which I'm sure matters to lawyers or whatever). Whatever. Your whole post gives no air to the Palestinian side of the equation. It seems as if you're saying that any consideration paid to Israel's victims is "leftist," whatever that means. You acknowledge that at least some Palestinians are "innocent civilians," whatever that means, but apparently it's acceptable for Israel to kill any and all of them to get "the terrorists," whatever that means. I don't know what you think those terms mean, so it's pointless to "debate" with you. My position would be that it is completely unacceptable to ever harm an innocent bystander just to murder someone your country has deemed an acceptable target. Is that "leftist?" For that matter, what's the distinction between an "innocent civilian" and a "terrorist" in this kind of conflict? As far as I know, there is no significant number of Palestinians who don't at least sympathize with Hamas and other resistance groups, if not provide active support in some form or another. Hamas is the legitimate elected government of Gaza, after all. In that sense, while there are plenty of Palestinians who are unarmed noncombatants, all or almost all of them are at least potential supporters of Hamas. The Israelis understand this. It's a similar situation to the American treatment of civilian Vietnamese and Koreans in those imperial wars. The civilian population might have mixed feelings about the liberation movement, but they are always going to be staunch enemies of the foreign occupiers and their collaborators. Given that reality, massacring the civilian population is a military necessity. I think your analysis is blinkered, foolish, and ahistorical. You use a lot of poorly-defined terms and faulty logic. (Israel isn't deliberately killing civilians, they're just killing civilians by deliberately dropping bombs on their targets which they know have civilians around them!) You seem ignorant of basic facts both about this specific conflict and its context and also the larger history of warfare and the internationally-recognized laws of war. You claim that opponents of the war are being too moralistic while excusing Israel's actions based on flimsy and naive moral reasoning. (It's okay to kill civilians if you're also killing people that the Israeli military has targeted, it's not okay to kill civilians if you're also killing people that the Hamas military has targeted. It's okay for Israel to prosecute a war to conquer other people's land, it's not okay for Palestinians to prosecute a war to defend their own land.) You contribute nothing to this discussion.

Jakob Stenfalk

Also, re: Iraq: The Iraq campaign as a whole was... probably? not genocidal, but elements of it certainly were. I definitely think there's a colorable case that mass privatization "deliberately inflict[s] on [a] group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction, in whole or in part." And the Fallujah massacres certainly meet and exceed that definition (Srebrenica and Guernica are relevant points of comparison here). And yes, that means a bunch of US officers would have danced in the air next to Saddam Hussein if there had been any sort of fair reckoning of that war. But international law is at the end of the day a haggling over which of the losing side's officers you get to massacre without it being an outrage, not an actual system of dispute resolution. A good rule of thumb is that any time you have a belligerent blowing up hospitals, water supplies and food or declaring free fire zones (which is what demanding a general civilian evacuation amounts to), it is reasonable to treat it as presumptively genocidal.

Hilary is Pant-suited Syphilis

I think the moment Iran gets a nuke, which I think is a matter of when not if, the whole power balance will shift. Whether Iran uses that new power in a good way is another matter.

Quinn

If youve been listening to these episodes on Palestine and following even semi-honest reporting about the Israeli campaign in Gaza, and still genuinely believe that civilian deaths in Gaza are just "collateral damage", it's unclear what anyone could say to you to change your mind. I mean there is an ongoing ICC case arguing genocide from a fairly conservative definition of the term, at a certain point youre going to have to come up with something better than just insinuating that the rest of us are being hyperbolic.

Ernesto

Glad that we all listen to America this week. The short story section has been really fun. The episodes The death of Ivan Ilich and Onegin were great.

PostmasterFenian

The us's purposeful breaking and dismantling of states in iraq, syria, lebanon, and libya over the last 50 years really reminds me of the period where the British east india company was in charge of the subcontinent. It feels like it's intentional imposed anarchy and instability. I don't know how I was unaware of this but iraqi oil funds are still deposited in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

fw

I aint reading all that genocide apologism if you want to lawyer the definition of genocide to obfuscate that check all the international regulators and genocide scholars and survivors as Mark even says in-ep yourself u dolt

Christopher Small

To be honest, my issue with Landis's commentary was that so much of it felt like it was saying "see, look, the statue's head is gold" which doesn't mean the feet aren't still made of clay. Like, yeah, we know Israel is good at assassinating people, and will flatten whole city blocks to do it. But while we shouldn't be cavalier about that, it doesn't seem to have affected Hezbollah's operations all that much, or improved Israel's strategic purview. All their problems are still there.

bg

@Hans Anders I define terrorism as intentionally targeting civilians. If Hamas had attacked just military targets and happened to get civilians killed, I wouldn't consider it terrorism. Intentionally attacking a music festival would be cut and dry terrorism in my book. @Jakob Stenfalk "7 October..most of the civilians being killed by the indiscriminate fire from roving IOF death squads" This is just factually false, and you have 5 likes on it. It shows the level of stupidity supported here. There was friendly fire on Oct 7th, but it did not account for the majority of the death on that day. Of course it would be very nice for the blame Israel for everything crowd if this were the case, so there is plenty of BS churned out to argue for this online. It has no factual basis and you can't provide numbers to back it up. "It absolutely is a war of choice.. The illegal entity could simply capitulate unconditionally. " So it wasn't really a war of necessity for Israel because they could've just chosen to give up their country to Hamas after 1,200 of their people were killed. Listen to yourself, it's ridiculous. @Kevin Walsh "Israel's policy of preventing aid from entering the Gaza strip by subjecting all aid to inspection by the IDF" Aid is subject to inspection because Hamas uses the aid entry to take in weapons. Israel provides food aid as well as vaccines. Provide a source for how many deaths by hunger you think there have been, my understanding is there is not / has not been a famine. @a clash of purple "Whatever you think of the Palestinians' tactics, they've demonstrated that they're not going to give up. They will not accept any peace deal that recognizes Israel's claims over their territory." This could've been said about the Imperial Japan. People give up when they don't have a hope of winning anymore. You don't get a get out of jail free card by hating people 100% to the point where you wouldn't give up when normal armies would. "Your whole post gives no air to the Palestinian side of the equation. It seems as if you're saying that any consideration paid to Israel's victims is "leftist," " No, I don't think paying consideration to civilian victims of Israel's attacks is "leftist", it's something anyone with a heart should do. What is leftist and delusional is taking the side of Hamas in this, whose explicit strategy is: 1. Do terrorist attack 2. Hide under civillians 3. Rack up martyr count 4. Depend on international left to support your strategy without regard to #1 and #2. “My position would be that it is completely unacceptable to ever harm an innocent bystander just to murder someone your country has deemed an acceptable target.” So your position is that when terrorists attack a country and hide behind civilians, the countries should be totally powerless to do anything when they use this cheat code. That would be death for any country dealing with terrorism, so your whole approach is stupid and wrong. "For that matter, what's the distinction between an "innocent civilian" and a "terrorist" in this kind of conflict? As far as I know, there is no significant number of Palestinians who don't at least sympathize with Hamas and other resistance groups, if not provide active support in some form or another.” It’s correct that in a war like this there is a spectrum from civilian to combatant. This is true on both the Israeli and the Palestinian side. I would think of a Palestinian who voted for Hamas, but is not a member or fighting for them, a civilian. I don’t think it’s necessary to kill such civilians for Hamas and their supporters hopes to be crushed.

NYCM&AHole

Taibbi and Kirn really went out on a limb and took Adam’s side before the indictment was unveiled. Lol fucking dumbasses.

Welfare state

This rules, an actual honest to god dipshit is here.

JJ

Israeli has killed loads of Hezbollah and Hamas leaders before. They have long since shown that they can do it. What was different here was the Israeli-US willingness to escalate for a final confrontation with the Axis of resistance. Insofar as Nasrallah absorbed the Chomsky view of Israeli-US relations, he likely thought that the U.S. would ultimately play a restraining role in this regional war given the objectively much greater logistical needs of the Ukraine war and the prep for the war with China. Instead, we have a U.S. in the state of high Zionism. No matter how battered that ideology is in the younger population, it is more entrenched than ever in the US elite and will likely remain so until at least that generation dies off.

Damnboooi

History did not begin with October 7th. The entire root cause of the conflict is Israel’s denial of sovereignty to Palestinians in Gaza and West Bank. There have been numerous examples of Israel deliberately targeting aid shipments. Prior to October 7 they even restricted the number of calories Gazans were allowed to import to try and starve them. You are running cover for a genocidal ethnic state which either makes you scum or a moron. If there is a God I hope he judges you justly.

big microbe

I thought the MRI machine sounded like EMA's second album

Jeremy

“I don’t wanna call them northern hemisphere supremacists…. (But they are!” - John hahaha

Hans Anders

That’s very well put. *That* reality could lead to the real momentary defeat for Hezbollah: accepting a ceasefire without the Gaza onslaught stopping. Long term it’s still an open game.

bg

@Damnboooi "History did not begin with October 7th. The entire root cause of the conflict is Israel’s denial of sovereignty to Palestinians in Gaza and West Bank." All the Arab states attacked Israel in 1948 when the UN decided it could be a country. This was before Gaza and the West Bank. So clearly those are not the fundamental causes of the conflict. For what its worth, the violence goes back much earlier, for example the 1929 Hebron massacre. The fundamental of the conflict is that the Palestinians won't accept an Israeli state. Your theory also predicts that steps away from occupation, like the withdrawal from Gaza, should help solve the conflict. Instead, what happened is that Hamas used the opportunity to build rockets (out of water pipes) and an NYC metro-sized tunnel system instead of bomb shelters or infrastructure for their people. In other words, your theory predicts in the exact opposite direction of how things have gone. "If there is a God I hope he judges you justly." Me too. If he exists then I hope he sees I was trying to figure this stuff out, hear opposing views, and evolve my opinion towards what was wrong or right. I may be totally wrong, others here may be totally right, and I may regret my mistaken or biased thinking later on. Fortunately I have not killed anyone and just tried to honesty sort through different views. A God that wants to put me in hellfire for being wrong on internet comments would not be a God worth believing in.

Jakob Stenfalk

@bg, the majority of *civilian* fatalities on 7 Oct. were from indiscriminate air strikes. You can tell because we have footage of the aftermath of those air strikes, and that damage wasn't done with small arms. We also know that indiscriminately dropping heavy ordnance on everything that could be used for human habitation is the IOF's artillery and air bombardment doctrine. Because their doctrine presupposes that they will always be shooting at other people's civilians (and because they can't do combined arms warfare for shit, but bombing defenseless people from the air is more their speed). And of course we know that civilians were less than half the israeli fatalities, because the israelis published their casualty lists and were nice enough to include the rank of their military casualties. Which of course doesn't even include paramilitary goon squads and settlers with weapon caches in their basement (which we know to be a number strictly greater than zero, because in the following days there were israelis bragging about how they ran to their local armories and formed up impromptu militia units). Shot: "I support a two or three state solution after the Palestinians mostly give up on thinking they can beat Israel" Chaser: "[israelis] could've just chosen to give up [the] country to Hamas after 1,200 of their people were killed. Listen to yourself, it's ridiculous." Anyway, are there any other genocides you'd like to deny while we're at it? Armenia, maybe? I hear Turkey pays well for that these days.

Jason Thompson

I can only assume the personal terribleness of Biden and now Harris have a lot to do with the US’s current extra insane pro-Israel stance. I’d like to think they are extreme by Democrats’ standards. Biden has such a long paper trail of pro Israel statements, but WTF is up with Harris, honestly. I assume some biographer will figure it out eventually, if anyone survives to write books.

bg

It's unclear why comments have been deleted. For example I immediately responded to GW's false claims about my post where he says it was mail bombs (it was pagers sold directly to Hezbollah by an Israeli shell company), and that I said Saudi was a democracy (no, it's a modernizing dictatorship). Can't really continue a conversation where my comments are being deleted willy nilly.

Jason Thompson

What militant group *doesnt* “hide behind civilians”? The civilians mostly support them ffs! And obviously they have to hide somewhere or there’ll literally be bombed instantly, give me a break, you expect Hamas to have some HQ in a big building out in a field somewhere? Just to pick at one thread in your anti-Palestinian argument.

gatito

Yeah, I guess we have to agree to disagree, I don’t see any sidestepping being done here by anyone but yourself. For someone who clearly fixates in semantics and definitions you certainly didn’t hesitate to throw out “terrorist” rather quickly there. A captive population being brutally murdered by the thousands, not to mentioned tortured and sexually assaulted all in an attempt to destroy their very identity and what little societal cohesion they had left, and you label them as terrorists? I think you may have let the mask slip.

gatito

Nothing you said in any way supports your claim or in any way rebuts what I and others have said. Why should/would the palestinians accept an a violent, “ terroristic” (to borrow from you) Israeli ethnostate that seeks to destroy them and their Arab neighbors? Keep sifting through those facts, it would seem you have a long way to go.

bg

@gatito See above comment where I defined the term: "I define terrorism as intentionally targeting civilians. If Hamas had attacked just military targets and happened to get civilians killed, I wouldn't consider it terrorism. Intentionally attacking a music festival would be cut and dry terrorism in my book." Anyways, I'm probably going to dip, because I was fine arguing with 10 people, but having my comments deleted on top of that so simply false snark (see GW's first and well-liked comment) is left without response doesn't allow for a discussion. I presume this is admins deleting comments rather than a technical error, anyone is welcome to correct that assessment.

Demented Avenger

Taibbi can't even do Greenwaldism. Glenn has been very consistent on this, being pretty opposed to Israel's actions and is a long-time foe of Bari Weiss, even though his audience probably hates Palestinians, too. (It's also probably the same audience.) Greenwald hasn't lost his audience.

Demented Avenger

Alright, everyone: how long before China gets involved in this conflict? If Iran can't deter US/Israel itself (or with Russia's help), then this is a massive opening for China

Jakob Stenfalk

So firing a machine gun into a crowded farmer's market isn't "terorrism" as long as you are not trying to kill anyone? Or is there a level of wanton disregard that equates to wilfulness? (Hint: The laws of war says that the answer is "yes," and the Serbian army's artillery officers were convicted of war crimes for much less indiscriminate bombardments than what the israeli artillery has been doing over the last year.) Oh, and there is no evidence that anybody "intentionally attacked a music festival." The israelis intentionally held a music festival within rifle shot of one of their military bases (but of course Hamas are the ones using "human shields..."), and staffed it with over two dozen assault rifle toting rentagoons. The target of the liberation forces was most likely the military base (we know that was the general targeting priority that day, because they overran a number of military bases and paramilitary armories and clearly prioritized taking those targets by surprise). The party was most likely either a target misidentification or the rentagoons policing it shot first and the liberation forces returned fire. We're unlikely to ever know for certain, because the illegal entity decided to bury all the evidence of what actually happened that day under a year's worth of genocide. But that in itself inclines me to draw a bunch of adverse inferences against the illegal entity.

Matelda

Fwiw Greenwald was the first person i ever heard refer to Israel as an apartheid state. I think his main weakness is an inability to shut up sometimes, not an inability to say what needs to be said.

Matelda

I can agree that the Israel-Palestine conflict is "complicated," but it's no more complicated than any other genocide. They are all like this. It isn't special in its "complexity." It's only special in that it can currently ruin your career to oppose it. If opposing it is too hard for you to do, then you are experiencing the "how" in how every other genocide happens/happened.

Lord-Admiral of the Pyrenees

At the top of the episode, John is pretty spot on about Canada. That's particularly true in the west where he lived and Aamer correct that things are getting worse politically. There are a lot more right-wing yahoos now over the past 5 years as a result of the complete dominance of US culture due to the internet and streaming obliterating whatever tepid Canadian content used to exist. I do have to really push back on Aamer's comments about immigration in Canada though. The current Liberal government, pushed by business interests and libertarian open-borders ideologues, have massively opened up immigration during their tenure and especially since 2020. Aamer presents this issue as if Canada has been having normal levels of immigration and suddenly people are becoming anti-immigrant. Nothing could be further from the truth, due to really loosening immigration laws Canada has had it's highest levels of immigration since the 1950s into a country that today doesn't have nearly enough housing or infrastructure for these newcomers. Added to this is that the majority of these migrants aren't normal immigrants but temporary immigrants brought in under programs such as the Temporary Foreign Worker program or as international students, many of whom simply come to work, the student visa being just a pretext. These programs are basically a form of class warfare as it allows employers to import workers from countries such as India or the Phillipines whenever they claim they can't find a Canadian worker (ie when they can't find a Canadian worker willing to work for what the employer wants to pay). The migrant worker has essentially no rights and can be fully exploited by the employer and cannot switch jobs. There is no path to citizenship or permanent residency and thus these immigrants server as nothing more than a tool of economic warfare of the employer class. Right now something like 5% of the entire population of Canada are simply these temporary foreign workers. The government has essentially lose control of the situtation. No other country in the world would put up with this, not in Europe, certainly not the US. This is a nuanced point but Aamer just chooses to present Canadians are being anti-immigrant Trumpies when there is much more to the story.

Laura Bouchard

So I have to add that most Ukrainian-Canadians are descended from people who emigrated to Canada in the 1890-1930 period. And we were a very important block of the Canadian socialist movement across the prairies. I don’t really understand why this is never mentioned.

Lord-Admiral of the Pyrenees

He did sort of mention that very briefly when he said that the post WWII Ukrainian immigrants were brought in to fight previous generations of Slavic immigrants who were joining Labour unions. But yeah they tend to elide this important point.

Damnboooi

I recently read Russia is going to be providing the Houthis with 10 million dollars worth of weapons. Does anyone have an idea about the state of Russo-Israeli relations? I know Russia and Israel have generally been amiable in the past despite hating each others’ allies but I can’t find much information about how that has changed over the last year.

William

Not reading all this; get well soon I guess

PostmasterFenian

China never gets involved in foreign conflicts or almost never besides selling weapons

Demented Avenger

Israel going apeshit kills China’s overseas markets. China brokered the peace between Iran and Saudi Arabia, which was no small feat. Brokering another peace in the region wrests control of Europe’s oil source into Chinese hands

Doug Cartel

Guys it's just so complicated. Hamas killed over a thousand israelis, so it's right and good to kill 186,000 palestinians, hamas or not. Simple! Wait, no its complicated. Uhhh

Eric George

I think it's valuable when the show features debate.

JJ

Israel and the Zionist lobbies function vis a vis the USA a bit like the church did to a medieval king. They dont have most of the hard power but are very important for conferring legitimacy. While that remains the case every careerist like Harris will be pro Israel to the hilt.

Alex

Keeping this in my back pocket for the next time my dad brings up Matt Taibbi

Paul Foos

For a long time I wanted to think the best of Taibbi and subscribed to his Patreon. I had some respect for him and especially for his critique of Russiagate. But several months ago on his Podcast he said Israel/Palestine was "too complicated" and there were bad vibes on both sides. I immediately canceled my subscription.

chowder_julius

Every RWN must begin with a catalog of its hosts’ ailments (said with love)

William Brame

Love that yall had a response guest on. Keep it up!

Miko

Taibbi's drop off is still kind of shocking. Went from mocking the flat-earth grifters to joining them in record time. It would be like if Hunter Thompson joined the Nixon admin. Expect him to get baptized by Russel Brand soon.

John Hieronymus

Everyone is waiting for China to step into this as though China wasn’t purchasing Israeli military tech and China wasn’t Israel’s 2nd biggest trading partner.

William

The development of the “axis of resistance” IS the Arab world getting its “shit” together. Part of the Arab world, at any rate

William

Matt tabby has always been a dud for me. Never interested in anything he has had to say; too boring

Demented Avenger

I was about to say you had a good point, but Israel is China's 47th largest import source and 36th largest export destination. China exports more to Saudi Arabia and imports more from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iraq, Oman, Kuwait, and Qatar. Israel needs China *far* more than China needs Israel. Going back to 2021, China imported more from *Ukraine*, for Chrissake.

Chubby Justin

Dude, i can't get enough news about the victims of communism

gatito

None of your commentd were deleted, I see all of them. You were absolutely and roundly trounced by everyone who replied to you. This clearly isn’t your league. Rereading your initial comment you said “some of these mofos need a dictator”, which if I had seen, I wouldn’t have even engaged with you in good faith. As someone previously pointed out, you are a true blue dipshit.

bg

"None of your comments were deleted, I see all of them." Ah, must've been a technical issue with Patreon then. Doesn't show for me. "You were absolutely and roundly trounced by everyone who replied to you. " The most liked comment is a guy who thinks it was mail bombs instead of pagers. Honestly there were some good points in here, but most of them were shite. Look at the thread, there's a dude right above you saying "Oh, and there is no evidence that anybody "intentionally attacked a music festival." This is mostly bush-league. And yes, not all societies can magically adopt liberal democracy overnight. It's culturally contingent on high trust, and highly clannish societies don't lend themselves to universalist political institutions. Part of the many lunacies going into the Iraq War is many of the neocons genuinely believed they could create a liberal democracy there. Lastly the mofos I was referring to were rapists who think it's okay to mob an uncovered woman in public, as ~200 of them did to Lara Logan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_sexual_assault_in_Egypt). They need something like a dictator so they don't do that. I went out of my way to specify "some of these mofos", not an entire population group but you've still found a way to offend yourself out of the convo.

Hans Anders

Loved the summary of Hezbollah shitting on the CIA. Absolutely heartwarming

Jakob Stenfalk

You have not presented any evidence that anybody "intentionally attacked a music festival." Some camp followers were hurt within mortar range of a military installation. That's "collateral damage" when Nato does the killing. Unless you are prepared to hang every air force general in every Nato country (which I could totally get on board with, but if that's the standard you're using, the entire officer corps of the illegal entity needs to dance in the air), you need to provide actual evidence of intentional targeting to make your case. Of course the point is moot, because the illegal entity has through its genocide voided any right to exist that it may or may not have had prior to 8 Oct. 2023.

Jakob Stenfalk

Shot: "mofos I was referring to were rapists who think it's okay to mob an uncovered woman in public, as ~200 of them did to Lara Logan" Chaser: 65 % of polled israelis admit to believing that abducting and gang-raping children should not be prosecuted, as long as they are Palestinian children and the rapists are cops. (https://mondoweiss.net/2024/08/65-of-israeli-jews-oppose-criminal-prosecution-for-soldiers-suspected-of-raping-palestinian-detainees/) and 68 % of polled israelis admit to supporting genocide through interdiction of food and medical supplies (ibid.).

bg

[ Edit: Again I’m not sure if there’s a technical issue or if Jakob Stenfalk’s comments are deleted. If others are not seeing them I can quote inline, let me know. ] MondoWeiss is unsurprisingly misrepresenting the poll, which was asking if they should be prosecuted by the civilian court (21%) vs within military system (65%) https://x.com/talhagin/status/1825483226355310663 Those numbers are for Jewish Israelis. For Arab Israelis, 17.5% said within military system, and 54.5% said civilian court. The remaining %'s responded "don't know". And this whole discussion is in the context of what cultural factors get in the way of having a liberal democracy. Israel has one, in which millions of arabs vote and stuff like lgbt rights is protected. The arab world does not. Don't get me wrong, there is plenty of Israeli society that I think is repugnant, namely the religious crazies, and the far right. Fighting with arabs for so long has also imprinted a lot of anti-arab racism on much of the society, though I would suspect that the level of hatred and okayness with rape/murder of the enemy is higher on the opposing side.

Miko

Came in off the top rope.

Jakob Stenfalk

An apartheid state definitionally does not have a liberal democracy. (And the genocide state has a worse performance on LGBT rights than Alabama. Just to put that little bit of apartheid apologia to rest.) I'd ask you to stop lying quite so sloppily. But since you started out with genocide denial, I guess it's my fault for breaking my rule of not engaging with holocaust deniers, libertarians and antivaxxers.

Dill Gherkin

Great episode. Want to focus on the politics of the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada… The comments about how Fascist were imported to Canada to break the left wing Eastern European groups and be strike breakers is true. If you want good accounting of this I suggest Irving Abella’s book None Is Too Many. One of the more famous examples is the INCO strike in Sudbury. Chrystia Freeland is mentioned and I think it’s important to point out her uncle John Paul-Himka is a respected scholar who has dedicated most of he’s work to exposing the fascist element in the Canadian Ukrainian community. He recently published a book on the subject and there are some good videos on youtube of him discussing he’s work. In 1940 the Canadian government expropriate several of the Labour temples owned by the left wing Ukrainians and actually handed them over to the nationalists/fascist UCC. The Ukrainian Farm Labour Temple Association (now AUUC) went to the Supreme court of Canada and won back their property. A few of the Labour temples are still around, the biggest one being in Winnipeg’s north end (I am the rental coordinator for the temple) In the 1950s the Labour temple in Toronto was bombed. Several were injured. The AUUC blamed the UCC for the attack but the UCC denied any involvement.

bg

The apartheid-like conditions are in settlements like Hebron. Within Israel proper, it's a liberal democracy where millions of arabs vote and lgbt rights are better than the rest of the region. Alabama only has gay marriage allowed because of federal rules. They didn't even comply with the federal rules at first. https://www.advocate.com/marriage-equality/2016/1/20/least-11-alabama-counties-refuse-comply-marriage-equality You yourself literally deny a genocidal attack happened at the Nova festival. No one else arguing with me took your atrocity-denial position, you really stood out. You have no reason to be a snob about these subjects.

JoR

I agree. I think with how active all war news is, John and Mark are becoming a bit reactive with their analysis. I completely understand why. But early in the show, they've always preached patience. Especially with these types of wars. It's too early to really say if Israel is winning or losing.

JoR

The fact that Harris is following the same mindset suggests it really is just the standard Democrat policy. I genuinely don't think it's unique to individuals. The entire American political establishment is completely pro-Israel

Bob K Ross

The guy that got Taibbi metoo-d is complaining about his incorrect political views. You're such a cunt

Michael S. Judge

Taibbi's got his own biographically-dependent derangements, of course, but he's also a depressing exemplar of what the self-aware and self-interested "journalist" is incentivized to do now, i.e., become a talk show host, but keep calling yourself a journalist. He's just sleeping soundly in the palm of the good ol' Invisible Hand

Bryan Welch

🤣😂😂. Run along now

Nomad22

Okay, this is driving me crazy, but one of the principle players in this conflict - Iran - isn't "Arab." Am I nuts for it to bother me that everyone on the show seems to throw everyone in the Middle East into the same ethnic group?

Shawn van Leeuwen

I think it's simpler than that: He's a grifter, and there's endless money to be milked on that side of American life.

Nomad22

China seems to be in a vaguely similar position the one in which the US found itself from about 1900 - 1941: A massive economic power with strong isolationist tendencies and an underdeveloped military. In the case of the US, economic growth brought commercial ties that led to political ties which slowly drew the United States into a larger military role in global affairs until it basically replaced the fading British Empire post WWII as the guarantor of global trade (outside the Easter Block at least). I suspect the commercial interests that come with its newly industrialized economy will lead China along a similar path.

Nomad22

That's pretty much what I felt listening to his commentary. Why the surprise? Does anybody really doubt that Israel (with blessing from the US) is capable of leveling a country without an air force? It's what comes after that's problematic both from their perspective and that of the US. I mean, the US won practically every battle in Iraq, Afghanistan, and even Vietnam. It's just that eventually the cost in lives and capital of constantly getting shot at by an entire population in the aftermath isn't sustainable. Let's say that Israel is able to push Hezbollah from the border and create their buffer zone. The rockets continue to fall, and their troops stil get shot at. So then they invade more of Lebanon to ge the people shooting at them, and then they invade Syria to prevent weapons from flowing in, and then they strike at Iran ..... It just never ends, and there is no way that either Israel or the US can bear the cost of indefinitely occupying all of Syria, Lebanon, Iran, and probably large parts of Iraq. The whole enterprise is madness.

Kawaii Leonard

My biggest issue with Landis is that he seems like an academia snob who feels empowered to talk down on Arabs because of his background. He seems like a really bright guy but his tone is that of an overseas imperial administrator

Crosley Querin

Fwiw I thought Landis was a reasonable guest. He's just a bit more of a Star Wars War Nerd as opposed to a Star Trek War Nerd. Still in the same realm, although I disagreed with much of it.

Kevin Walsh

Is it really your contention that agencies like UNWRA or organisations like Oxfam export significant quantities of arms to places like Gaza, and that Israel needs to inspect their aid deliveries for security reasons? As for famine. a quick google search for malnutrition in Gaza shows a note from June 2024 by Save the Children saying "The figures from the IPC—the global scale to classify food and nutrition crises—also show that some 745,000 children and adults in Gaza face emergency conditions of food insecurity (IPC Phase 4), which is characterized by acute malnutrition and an increasing risk of hunger-related death". I don't know about you, but hundreds of thousands of people suffering from acute malnutrition and an increasing risk of hunger-related death sure sounds like a famine to me.

Cory

The most maddening thing about Taibbi is that he isn't ignorant. He hosted that show with Halper for years. She brought on the most informed guests and Matt was engaged and empathetic. He knows what is right and wrong in this situation and he's just pissed all of his credibility away.

CR

Matt Killer also said they never wanted a diplomatic solution with Hamas. I want to know what you guys think of Adam Tooze’s article, which has been a point made by a swath of folks like Arnaud Bertrand on one side and the Croat fascist Niccolo Soldo on the other. As Niccolo calls it, “Turbo America.” The difference between Tooze and these others being that Turbo America was published as an essay two years ago.

CR

No. It’s a huge deal people are fucking up.

Anatoly Kir

…did Aamer just quietly sit on the sidelines while you had your Taibbi tangent?!

Sam Rands

Love the taibbi bashing, it's what brought me here in the first place as a former taibbi fan. But now I'm sold on the actual war content and cancelled my racket subscription. That podcast opening is insufferable by the way, just this high pitched pretentious typewriter clacking. Maybe I'm too young to get it...

Terry Dunk

Precisely. Was kind of maddening that this important point was hardly touched on in that episode or this one.

JoR

He seemed into it, he even had his own input at the end lol. But it was a bit odd order of doing things.

Lojban Chauvinist

Hi bg, thanks for sticking with it, I liked your response to the guy who said he hoped God would punish you. In reply to your question about genocidal intent, I couldn't find much better of a case than that made by South Africa at the International Court of Justice (not the International Criminal Court, that was my bad). Go to Section D (p. 59), "Expressions of Genocidal Intent against the Palestinian People by Israeli State Officials and Others." You could justly argue that there is ambiguity in most of these declarations. But regarding that, it's important to read the earlier parts of the statement which detail the deeds that have accompanied the words: the massive physical destruction, the actual state of starvation and denial of the necessities of life, and the acts of wanton killing. Secondly, you need to look at the context of Israeli society, which largely does not see itself as genocidal. For both domestic and foreign (West-facing) political reasons, it is unlikely for an official at the top of the Israeli state to say publicly, "We intend to kill or expel everyone in Gaza." But what you have are statements that convey such an intent to a vengeful domestic audience through implication or through allusions to Amalek, for example. https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20231228-app-01-00-en.pdf?__cf_chl_tk=M6cE8Kjdyv.VKfltrpeEY3XOsWzAs_1RBG59IP5RZaI-1728781239-1.0.1.1-fBzPmyyj3pZpNM6U0IyL8BEnfMdmmpVBdzMtM9WxVsU I hope that link works.

Lojban Chauvinist

One thing I notice is that your narrative is substantially similar to the narrative of the Israeli state, yet we know that Israel lies, all the time, in ways that are shockingly flagrant since Oct. 7. Israel presented fake evidence that the Rantisi hospital has was a Hamas command center. Israel falsely, knowingly spread a slew of claims about specific atrocities on Oct. 7 that turned out not to be true. It goes without saying that the friendly fire on Oct. 7 (which incontrovertibly did happen) was covered up. Going back to its founding, Israel has been caught lying time after time. “I know what America is. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won’t get in the way.” - Benjamin Netanyahu, 2001

Lojban Chauvinist

To your points about Oct. 7, historians 100 years from will still be debating what happened. Certainly what is known is that Hamas and other militants did commit massacres of Israeli civilians. But it is also clear that the important targets were military. Finally, we know Israel killed a large number of its own citizens due to a mass application of the Hannibal Directive by panicked troops. This is likely to have caused an exaggerated view of Hamas atrocities. Hamas took hostages en masse, as a tactic, but largely treated those hostages humanely (given the circumstances, and in comparison with Israeli detention practices). This is corroborated by hostage testimonies you can watch. This fact is evidence that Hamas's operation was not merely a terror op, but in fact more closely related to Hamas's stated political objectives, which are not (at least overtly) genocidal, and include freeing Palestinian prisoners as well as Palestinian rights and statehood. (Taking civilian hostages is a war crime! But not the type of SS or ISIS war crime Israel tried to depict as the modus operandi of Hamas.) Hamas could have chosen to broadcast torture or execution videos of its hostages like ISIS did; it did not, maintaining instead the posture of a rational actor and a good faith-negotiator. It appears that the two principal tactical goals of the attack were destroying military bases and infrastructure, and taking hostages as bargaining chips. Attacking civilians as part of a pogrom against Jews does not seem to me to be the *intent* of the operation, contrary to what Israel claims. It is now clear that Hamas had no foreknowledge of the Nova festival, which had actually been scheduled with less than two days notice to participants, if my memory serves. In sum, it is not clear if and when atrocities were intentional features of the operation, or whether they were committed by rogue Hamas units or by allied unorganized militants who followed Hamas through the breaches in the fence.

Lojban Chauvinist

That would only give Iran a little more security from invasion. Nukes haven't deterred Israel's enemies – or (best example) Russia's!

Lojban Chauvinist

Yeah but that part is not only continually getting wrecked by imperial wars and sanctions, but is tied to ethnic and sectarian minorities, lacks soft power, and is despised by the regional states with the most power (Saudi, UAE, Turkey).

Lojban Chauvinist

This reminds me of another thing that bothered me. When Landis was talking about Arab states that are fractured, with no national identity he basically meant Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. And this point is wholly true. The Axis of Resistance is identified with Shi'ite/non-Sunni sectional interests, as well as with a non-Arab power, Iran. So to say it has an uphill battle in the Arab world is an understatement. Here's a good article about Hezbollah making one of Landis's points https://jacobin.com/2024/10/hezbollah-lebanon-gaza-netanyahu-nasrallah

bg

@Kevin Walsh I've been hearing the claim of food "risk of hunger-related death" for a long time, but haven't heard any numbers on actual deaths from hunger as occurs in a famine. @Lojban Chauvinist I've really appreciated your answers. I agree with a lot of what you've said and will read through the ICJ case. The central point you and others have made that the combination of the genocidal statements or allusions by decision-makers combined with the disregard for civilian casualties makes a strong case under the genocide convention that they're committing genocide. "It is now clear that Hamas had no foreknowledge of the Nova festival," I have to research this, but I've totally considered it a possibility from the beginning that it was just genocidal footsoldiers giddily murdering at the music festival and not following the plan. The guys who planned the whole thing were really smart and I'm sure they had a lot of different stuff in mind than how it went down -- it would've made a lot more sense PR-wise. They're totally a rational actor, pursuing an aim that seems plausible, have a chance of winning, etc. A big factor here is that Hamas leaders have said "they will do Oct 7 again and again". Anyways, I don't really care about Hamas being convicted by the ICJ or whatever. It was a massive terrorist attack combined with a military attack,. Kind of like how on 9/11 the terrorists also crashed into the Pentagon. Israel has to effectively defeat their hope of winning (e.g. being able to continuously do Oct 7s) to continue to exist. My view is that Israel has gone too far with disregard for civilian life, and Netanyahu and those further right in the cabinet couldn't keep their mouths shut in the early days of their war on Hamas, and wouldn't be surprised if they're found guilty of genocide by ICJ. Vast majority of people who I've seen speak out on anti-Israel side don't think it should've responded to Oct 7th, shouldn't have beepered Hezbollah (possibly the most ethical killing of enemy combatants in a civilian area in terms of ratio), etc. So trying to balance the two ideas in my head. I suppose that makes me anti-Netanyahu but not anti-Israel. Definitely working through it and your responses and a few others have been helpful. It's a separate but interesting question how an effective operation against Hamas would actually look like that preserved civilian life to the maximum extent possible while also sufficiently degrading the organization to the point of strategic loss. Also one thing which you wrote in your initial comment but never followed up on: "The civilian casualty rate over the last year has been higher than in any 21st century war". Can you back this up by comparison to the Iraq War or other modern wars involving opponents embedded in urban centers? Ideally the more analogous to the fight against Hamas the better-- Iraq War is what comes to mind for a comparison.

Lojban Chauvinist

I'm glad my replies haven't come across as performative or overconfident, as I fear they might have. I am not as well informed as I ought to be. I found some others claiming that the civilian casualty rate has been higher than in any other 21st century war, namely (first Google result) Oxfam here: https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/daily-death-rate-gaza-higher-any-other-major-21st-century-conflict-oxfam I guess I have to read more academic sources on this to assess the claim. I know that casualty figures by the Gaza Ministry of Health are disputed as both undercounts and overcounts

Raphael Brieger

It has been said before... but let the guests speak more! For someone as interesting as Aamer to only get like 20% of the time is a real shame.

Jeemar

i lived in western canada for 30 years and was involved in the counter protests against the freedom march guys in 2021/2022 and it was a significantly more dangerous and hostile environment than my current involvement with palestinian solidarity activism in the UK where i live now... canada is a country so desperate for american cultural approval that it has regions that actively select leaders for being right wing dunces that would make a southern MAGA senator blush. quite a spectacle to see the liberals and NDPs trip over themselves to support ultranationalists, zionists and facsists while also shaking hands with the PCs that deny indigenous genocide within canada's own borders

jbwhat

Great episode. Amer is really great. I'm a little surprised, when talking about Landis point 3, he didn't mention how the GCC countries have incredibly nationalistic citizens, and the nationalism, to me, has always been proportional to the oil checks the citizens get. You can see it, too, in the fact that Egyptians are a huge makeup of GCC service workers and service workers get treated like garbage. I've heard GCC Arabs, in fact, derisively refer to Egyptians as Africans. I've heard similar about Jordanians and Lebanese. Maybe its an I can talk bad about my family, but you cant, type of thing, though. Even so, I think this might be important, because we do all our negotiating, about the Palestinian situation, with these same GCC powers. And we seem to rank the seriousness of our negotiating partners proportionally to their oil/natural gas revenue. I guess thats probably to be expected, though. I should probably not be surprised about everyone's cynical motivations in this mess. And it's great hearing people crap on Taiibi. What a disappointment.

gatito

Huge respect for continuing to engage and doubling down on reason, calmly stating facts, and not allowing emotions to stop you from systematically refuting this guy, we could all take a page out of your book. Equally instructive to see the futility, however, as more and more people introduce irrefutable evidence of these crimes, that lies in trying to “reason” with bad faith actors in the first place. BG is, in my reading, a stubburn Zionist who will continue to circle back to the same talking points regardless of how many times they are unanimously defeated.

teh_drewski

Just wanted to say that I thought both this and the Landis episode offered interesting and useful perspectives. Thanks you to RWN and both your guests for their thoughts, it's always great to hear the things you don't get anywhere else.

Tom Warner

America's got one proxy/client state (Ukraine) that's bogged down in a now losing war against a regional rival, another (Isreal) that's just opened a second front against its own regional rival network while the first front grinds on in a bloody stalemate, while meanwhile other regional rivals (China/NK) are getting increasingly provocative towards our dependents in their regions--if this is a new era of American supremacy it must be manifesting in one of those 8D chess ways

Meh

As a more recent RWN listener, I would so appreciate some kind of guides or collections that are, like, focused on geographies or something. I’m sure yall have tons of one off episodes that don’t count as series that would, if gathered, really help with understanding the context of what’s happening in ME or Ukraine or whatever. Might be a tall order? Maybe this exists somewhere online I’m unaware of? Figured I’d put it out there.

Dead Flag Blues

What are the other episodes? Would like co text for the taibbi bashing

Sam Rands

Just search taibbi on their page and the other episodes should show up. I think they're both about the whole twitter files fiasco.

Hans Anders

There is the E-Z guide to RWN episodes. I believe Ames updates it once in a while. It’s pinned if you go to the ‘posts’ tab in the Patreon app

Meh

Woah thanks, here I thought I looked around thoroughly!

CR

The only provocateur is the U.S.

PostmasterFenian

The pla would wreck the us in the east pacific

Shfifty_five

100%. He's sympathetic to Arabs in a way similar to the British administrators in Palistine, Some of which even fought with the Palestinians, but they still have an Imperial mindset.