Join me in trying to make sense of a complicated world.
…blaming Israel and the United States is far more convenient, some analysts and opponents of the government say, than admitting that the state cannot protect its people from terrorism. The attack punctures the image of Iran as capable of flexing its might in wars around the region without suffering such large-scale retaliation at home.…
www.nytimes.com/2024/01/05/world/middleeast/iran-terrorism-isis-israel.html
FRIDAY 5 JANUARY 2024
Life with Cats:
Little Carmine showed up for breakfast while the other cats were out for their morning walk. He is so camouflaged and moves so slowly, he just seems to appear out of nowhere. Mike was sitting on the steps just outside the screened in porch and looked up to see Carmine only a few feet away.
For some reason, Eddie flew out of the screened in porch and went after Carmine, something that has never happened before. Carmine turned tail and ran. Flynn then raced after the two of them, told Eddie he would take care of it, and chased Carmine out of the yard. Eddie immediately stopped the chase as soon as Flynn intervened and came back to the screened in porch. We thought that was the end of it.
Carmine then finally showed back up in the front yard and had his breakfast. “Jeeeze,” he must have thought. “All I wanted was a little breakfast.”
Then, we came home from physical therapy and an ice cream (which took almost as long as getting physical therapy) Flynn was not feeling well. Sure enough, he had what looked like some dried blood on his shoulder and he was groaning when we tried to see if he had a wound.
He didn’t come to supper when I went down and is now laying in the breakfast room. We made an appointment for him for tomorrow at the vet. Oh, boy. Life with cats, male cats.
NEWS NOTES: Monday night
TRUMP
I am not at all sure I cam going to survive another election year. Trump is all over the television, saying dreadful things. His moronic “lawyer” Christina Bobb is threatening Kavanaugh, saying Trump did a lot of favors for him (Kavanaugh) now let’s see if he returns the favor. You couldn’t make it much more apparent than that. The Supreme Court (which should already have been expanded) has decided to take up the Trump/Colorado ballot case in early February. Pundits on TV are still acting as if this was a real court.
Democratic lawmakers wrote a letter asking Clarence Thomas to recuse himself. Resign would be a much better suggestion. He will, of course, not do either.
ISRAEL
There is a video on Twitter in which Netanyahu is bragging about standing off the Clinton administration and Clinton himself. It looks like a group of family members sitting around watching him and listening to him play the big man. He is saying that the US is easy to manipulate and that he manipulated to violate international agreements. I have no idea whether the video is real.
UKRAINE
The Kyiv Independent is reporting that a Russian company associated with Oleg Deripaska imported a new jet via Kazakhstan. The sanctions are a joke.
We must not abandon Ukraine. It would be like abandoning ourselves.
The Kyiv Independent is also reporting that there was a cross-border raid on Russian positions in Belgorod, and that Armed forces struck Russian arsenals in occupied Crimea
Kyiv Independent:
The British Foreign Office says that Russia is using North Korean missiles in strikes on Kharkiv.
The Telegraph is reporting:
US
The NRA’s longtime chief, Wayne LaPierre, resigned. He has led the NRA for some thirty years He is on the eve of a corruption trial in Manhattan. The NY Attorney General, Letitia James, said that the resignation was not part of a plea deal.
The NY investigations came amid reports of “runaway spending practices.” The NRA had previously tried to argue with the government that it had reigned in its spending practices. James is seeking financial penalties for LaPierre and three other defendants.
In the past few years, membership has plummeted, legal costs soared, LaPierre spent nearly $40,000 in a single day at a ritzy boutique, “billing it through an N.R.A. contractor.”
EPSTEIN
I cannot read about this case. Just looking at photographs of Epstein and his buddies turns my stomach.
Denying what is in front of our eyes will not bring glory to the Palestinian people, and accepting what has clearly transpired will not make the deaths of innocent Gazans less appalling. You can pick apart every witness’ testimony, handwave every video of stripped bodies and tell everyone who’ll listen that Hamas just wouldn’t do that. But it won’t erase what the victims endured in their last moments, nor will it free Palestine.
This is the most destructive and unsuccessful government in Israel’s history, from every possible standpoint. Even a significant portion of its supporters would agree with that.
Morning News Notes
Thursday 4 January 2024
Israel:
• No one has taken credit for the two bomb blasts that accompanied the funeral of Soleimani in Iran. The MO (one bomb blast and then another delayed to catch the people who came in to rescue the victims of the first) is not Israel’s, but who knows.
• Two Hamas leaders were assassinated by Israel in Lebanon. There were protests about this assassination in Gaza and elsewhere.
• Hezbollah leaders were killed in Israeli strikes on Wednesday.
• Regional conflict is feared because of the expansion with Hezbollah.
• Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah Leader, said in a speech that the Hezbollah leaders were “martyred”
• There have been various actions in the US to support a ceasefire.
• Houthi forces in Yemen are targeting shipping vessels in the Red Sea. (Note: The alliance of countries put together by the US to protect shipping in the Red Sea is fracturing or failing to even come together. Several of the countries said to be part of the effort have backtracked and announced that they would be patrolling the area independently, outside the alliance.)
• “The Shadow Commander: Soleimani…” Book. (Note: Order) “What Iranians Want.” By Arash Azizi, interviewed on Democracy Now about the significance of the two-bomb attack in Iran.
o The most likely candidate is a regional group based in Afghanistan. Because it was a mass civilian killing where they put the bombs in briefcases, and this makes them the most likely culprit.
o This was the fourth anniversary of Soleimani’s killing, itself an extraordinary act by the Trump administration.
o The attack in Iran might have been planned long ago and not have anything directly related to the particular date. One regional group in Afghanistan, an opponent of the Taliban, have tried to gain power.
o This group regards Soleimani as the leader of the Shia force they consider their enemy. They haven’t claimed responsibility and they most likely would.
o The double blast is more of a signature of Isis.
o 2020 Soleimani was killed on order of Trump. Bush had avoided killing Soleimani, considered the most powerful military figure in Iran.
o The rationale of the Trump administration was that he had orchestrated attacks against US forces. IRGC put on terror list as well.
11:18 ISLAMIC STATE HAS CLAIMED RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE BOMBING.
Ukraine: Report by Democracy Now (1/4/24)
o Prisoner swap between Ukraine and Russia.
o 500 Russian missiles fired in five days according to Zelensky.
o (Continued reports of Putin wanting to negotiate a ceasefire).
o Nina Khrushcheva (In Putin’s Footsteps, book)
o Khrushcheva wrote an article: The West Must face reality in Ukraine.
o Increased attacks by Russia but the NYT is saying that Putin is signaling a ceasefire. And, there was a large prisoner exchange.
o But, this is not how Khrushcheva sees it (Putin asking for ceasefire). Putin has been clear that Russia will achieve its goals in Ukraine. He always gives these signals about negotiating.
o Regular Russians are unhappy about the use of prisoners as soldiers because they return to Russia, free and cause problems. But, these prisoners also mean les of a demand on the civilian population to join the troops. .
o (Note: Frozen money)
o There is a rural/urban divide in attitudes toward the war. In cities people try to pretend the war isn’t happening. In Siberian cities, rural areas, little villages, there are businesses popping up because of money families have received for sending somebody into the war. It is improving their lives.
o Western sanctions are not visible except in prices and inflation.
o The reality the West must face? Khrushchevs argues that Russia has figured out how to withstand the war. She doesn’t see how they can be defeated in this war. There has to be a scaling back of ambitions by the West and Ukraine. End the war, but go on punishing Russia.
(Note: This line of reasoning always seems arrogant and morally corrupt to me.)
Georgia
(Note: Georgia election information)
There is a lawsuit starting in Georgia about voting machines and breaches of the voting machinery in the 2020 election.
apple.news/AaxYvXALhQtufQjgO92zjHA
The ruling, released on New Year’s Day, annulled the single biggest piece of legislation passed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition. The Court’s reasoning fundamentally changes the balance of power in Israel’s democracy — so fundamentally, in fact, that some members of the elected government have vowed not to abide by it. If that happens, Israel will be thrown into a full-blown constitutional crisis.
About a year ago, Netanyahu proposed a sweeping overhaul to Israel’s judiciary — one that would, in effect, put it under his personal thumb. Mass protests succeeded in blocking most of the overhaul. Only one plank — curtailing the power of the courts to overturn government policy — actually became law, an amendment to Israel’s “Basic Laws,” the closest thing the country has to a constitution. This is the law that was just overturned by the Supreme Court.
In doing so, the Court came to two key conclusions. First, that it has the general power to overturn Basic Laws — a power it had never deployed before. Second, that this new Basic Law was threatening enough to Israeli democracy that the court was justified in overruling it.
Friends of the IDF has invited controversial commentator Eliyahu Yossian to speak before a group of beneficiaries. He has previously claimed that Israel should have killed 50,000 Gazans in its immediate response to the October 7 massacre
Iranian-born Eliyahu Yossian, a virtual unknown until the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, has in recent months become a mainstay on Channel 14 – a right-wing pro-Netanyahu Israeli television station often likened to Fox News. The station is owned by Russian businessman Yitzchak Mirilashvili, the son of Georgian-born billionaire Mikhael Mirilashvili.
A self-described expert on the Iranian regime, Yossian has also appeared on programs on other stations hosted by journalists with close ties to the right.
www.nytimes.com/2024/01/03/world/middleeast/iran-explosion-qassim-suleimani-ceremony.html
A pair of explosions on Wednesday at a commemoration for Iran’s former top military general Qassim Suleimani killed at least 103 people and wounded another 171, according to Iranian officials. The blasts sowed fear and grief in Iran and heightened tensions in the broader region even further a day after an explosion killed several Hamas officials in a suburb of Beirut, Lebanon.
Iranian officials told state media that a pair of bombs placed in bags along the road toward the cemetery in Kerman, Iran, had exploded as a procession of people was on its way there to commemorate the four-year anniversary of General Suleimani’s assassination by the United States. The officials said the bags appeared to have been detonated via remote control, leaving bodies in pieces on the ground.
Given the sheer scale of the blasts, which state media described as a terrorist attack, the death toll was likely to rise.
General Suleimani had been hailed in Iran and in parts of the wider region as a hero for building and arming a Tehran-led network of regional proxy militias that countered the United States and Israel across the Middle East, and he continues to enjoy near-mythic status among pro-government Iranians. His funeral in 2020 drew more than a million mourners, according to official estimates. Every year, on the anniversary of his assassination, some Iranians hold processions and ceremonies in his honor.
The regional allies General Suleimani armed and funded also included Hamas, the military and political group that controls Gaza, as well as Hezbollah, the armed political party that dominates much of Lebanon. Hezbollah has been clashing with Israeli forces on Lebanon’s southern border even as Hamas battles Israel in Gaza.
The identities of those who died in Iran on Wednesday were not yet known.
Some Iranians on social media were blaming the government and local security officials for failing to secure such a high-profile event, given the tensions in the region. During the funeral ceremony for General Suleimani in 2020, a stampede along the same road as Wednesday’s explosions killed 60 people.
apple.news/A2TnadmjRREGvAvb2PWzgkA
Bibi looks set to accept the court’s decision for the time-being, signaling just how far his political star has fallen since Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7. Only 15% of Israelis want Bibi to remain in power once the war against Hamas ends, according to a new poll, and a whopping 70% want him to resign now. So the embattled leader – who also faces an ongoing corruption trial – has no room for political error.
Most Israelis support the war against Hamas. The court’s decision came on the same day Israel announced its withdrawal of several thousand troops from Gaza. While it said the drawdown was aimed at preparing for “prolonged fighting,” it could also be aimed at relieving economic pressures. Roughly a fifth of Israel’s workforce is missing from the labor market due to the war, which means the economy has been slowing.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military has turned its gaze to Lebanon amid ongoing exchanges of cross-border fire with Hezbollah. On Tuesday, a senior Hamas leader was killed in a drone strike in Beirut that Hamas blamed on Israel. While the Jewish State has denied responsibility, the victim was reportedly an Israeli target over the past year.
The U.S. State Department said in a statement that the United States rejects recent statements from Israeli Ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir advocating for the resettlement of Palestinians outside of Gaza.
Spokesperson Mathew Miller wrote in the statement that “this rhetoric is inflammatory and irresponsible. We have been told repeatedly and consistently by the Government of Israel, including by the Prime Minister, that such statements do not reflect the policy of the Israeli government. They should stop immediately.”
Senior Hamas official Salah al-Arouri was killed in Beirut alongside two top Hamas military leaders ■ Hezbollah says killing ‘won’t go unanswered,’ fires missiles towards Israeli border town ■ Israeli soldier killed in north Gaza fighting ■ At least 1,300 civilians and soldiers killed in Israel since Oct. 7; at least 133 hostages held in Gaza ■ Hamas-run Health Ministry: 21,978 killed, 57,697 wounded in Gaza
RECAP: Deputy leader of Hamas’ Political Bureau Saleh al-Arouri killed in blast attributed to Israel; Israeli soldier killed in Gaza combat
Two top Hamas military wing leaders Samir Findi Abu Amer and Azzam al-Aqraa Abu Ammar also killed in Beirut blast
Reports in Lebanon: Six killed,
Law, Power, and Justice 