Join me in trying to make sense of a complicated world.
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Announcing the unprecedented decision on Monday, the prime minister, Petteri Orpo, said Finland had gathered intelligence indicating that Russian authorities were helping asylum seekers reach the border.
“This is Russia’s influence operation and we do not accept it,” he said. The interior minister, Mari Rantanen, was equally clear: “Finland is the target of a Russian hybrid operation. This is a matter of national security.”
apple.news/AsBmYBZ8cQlSOM-58NH0orQ
It’s one of several cases this term where the conservatives on the court are expected to take a hard look at the structure of government out of a belief that independent agencies unaccountable to the public have become too powerful, in violation of the separation of powers.
One aspect of the case – that will be decided by July in the heat of the presidential election – concerns the tenure of administrative law judges who can only be removed for cause, and not at the whim of the president. It comes as former President Donald Trump has suggested if he were reelected that he would want the authority to fire anyone who he believed was not following his direction.
A prominent Israeli human rights organization is calling on the International Criminal Court to investigate whether the accounts and reports of sexual abuse committed against Israeli women by Hamas terrorists on October 7 constitute crimes against humanity.
“Based on the currently available information and the accounts indicating that sexual and gender-based violence occurred across several locations, an inquiry must be conducted to examine whether their scope and manifestations amount to crimes against humanity under international humanitarian law,” wrote Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, in an English-language position paper published on Monday.
The paper also calls for the immediate release of the hostages still being held by Hamas, noting that they face on “ongoing threat” of sexual violence, based on “accumulated experience from armed conflicts in other regions and scientific literature on the vulnerability of hostages.”
Israel signals to Hamas no rush to resume Gaza fighting if more hostages freed
For Israelis, the Hamas hostage releases are a necessary nightly psychological torture
Israel’s bid to stop celebration of prisoners’ release reveals real aim of war
“The increased danger to their well-being compels us to utilize all available means to promote their release from captivity and safe return,” the authors write.
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Even after the release of three batches of hostages in recent days, dozens of women, including female soldiers abducted from their bases, remain in captivity.
Titled “Sexual & Gender-Based Violence as a Weapon of War,” the paper provides a detailed list of the sexual and gender-based crimes committed by Hamas that have already been documented and shared publicly. Based on what is already known, PHR concludes, such atrocities were “widespread.”
Founded 35 years ago by a group of Israel doctors, PHRI’s main focus is advocating for the healthcare right of patients with little-to-no access to the Israeli healthcare system, among them migrants, refugees and Palestinian residents of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The purpose of devoting a position paper to the sexual crimes committed by Hamas, the authors note, is to encourage their further documentation, bring the perpetrators to justice, and provide financial and medical support to the survivors.
Women’s organizations around the world have tended to downplay – and in certain circumstances, even deny – the sexual crimes committed by Hamas against Israeli women, including accounts of gang rape and genital mutilation. To mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, a group of Israeli and Jewish women planned to hold a demonstration outside the United Nations on Monday morning to protest this silence.
The accounts of rape of other sexual crimes included in the PHRI paper were collected from mainstream media reports, videos posted online by Hamas (some later removed), and interviews with representatives of professional organizations. They include incidents of violence against women at the Nova music festival, at private homes on kibbutzim along the Gaza border and at an Israeli military base where female soldiers were on duty. The victims, according to various accounts, included young girls and elderly women.
The paper, however, does not rely on videos shared by Israel’s Shin Bet security service, in which terrorists under interrogation confessed to participating in sexual crimes, “due to severe concern that the interrogations included the use of torture.”
The paper cites testimony its own representatives were able to obtain independently from a senior medical official with knowledge of the state of the corpses gathered at the Shura military base – where most of the bodies and remains from the massacre were brought – who “shared with us that incidents of broken pelvises and other physical signs indicating sexual violence had been documented.”
This same official also shared with PHRI officials information obtained from medical personnel at various hospitals “who told him they had observed clear signs of sexual violence, including vaginal tears.”
The paper notes that the true extent of the sexual crimes committed by Hamas may never be known. “The information published to date is only partial, both due to a lack of systematic analysis of the findings for forensic evidence of sexual abuse and due to the conditions of some of the victims’ bodies, their quantity, and the urgency of identifying and evacuating them – sometimes under fire,” the authors write. “It is also likely that much of the documentation has not been officially published for additional reasons, including privacy concerns.”
Saturday 25 November 2023
MSNBC 9 PM
Sunday 26 November 2023
News Notes
Israel: Biden’s Relationship with Netanyahu
Donna Edwards is on MSNBC arguing that Biden needs to “put distance” between himself and Netanyahu. The loss of civilian life is causing division not only in this country but internationally. Edwards is a former House member from Maryland.
Israel: Settlers
Northern Israeli kibbutz residents prevent Palestinians from harvesting olives.
For years, Palestinians have been allowed to cross the border to harvest their olives. This year, however, residents of a nearby kibbutz staged a protest to prevent this harvesting. The Israeli army granted the Palestinians’ right to harvest but refused to remove the protesters.
Not all residents of Meirav (north of the West Bank) agreed with the protest. “This is privately owned Palestinian land, one said to Haaretz (an Israeli newspaper), “and they only enter it twice a year…It’s their livelihood.”
The Christian Nationalist Right: AMVO and the Military
Over on AMVO (Steve Bannon’s channel) a young women is arguing that the military is having trouble recruiting new members because Milley (former head of the Joint Chiefs) is such a “woke” person. The only definition of “woke” that was given was that Milley testified he wanted to understand “white rage.” So, I guess the right wants a military that doesn’t understand “white rage” or anything else for that matter.
The military has worked for decades to produce a sane, reasonably literate, reasonably educated, well-behaved force. The right wants to destroy that and go back to the era when we had military members mutilating the bodies of captives and posing for photographs with the parts. Trump pardoned just such a military member when he left office.
If you want to understand just how crazy these people are, watch AMVO for a few minutes a day. Bannon usually is filmed in front of paintings of Jesus.
From what I have read, the military has trouble recruiting because most of the young people who come to them are drug addicts, obese, stupid or have Nazi tattoos.
Life
What I do to maintain my sanity.
I do a Novel to Classic Movie series for the Public Library every few months. In this series we look at classic movies on a particular theme chosen by the participants, read the novel on which the movie was based and then talk about the two. It must be the nicest collection of people I have ever dealt with. We live in an island community where the average age is about 70.
The residents are largely retired, smart, and curious about everything. We have even had participants who were experts in classic films. They all have so much to offer in the discussions and I enjoy it immensely.
The research on the novels and the movies is fascinating. We talk about the actors (and all the gossip associated with them), the technical aspects of the film, the differences and similarities between the novel and the movie, the social issues raised by the story, casting choices, other versions of the novel adapted.
The Fall series was “Crime and the Movies of Gene Tierney.” We watched “Laura,” “Leave Her to Heaven,” “The Razor’s Edge,” and “Dragonwyck.” As it turned out one of our participants grew up in the upstate New York area where Dragonwyck was set. She had even visited an inn that is mentioned in the 1940s novel. The inn is still operating.
In the film, Vincent Price plays the main male character, Nicholas. A large part of the plot involves a class dispute between the feudal owner of the land, the Patroon, and the people with no right to the land who work for the Patroon and give him tribute. There is even a celebration, or ritual every year where the Patroon sits in a chair imported from the Netherlands generations before and receives the tribute of the landless workers.
Our participant’s high school yearbook was called “The Patroon,” but she never knew what a Patroon was.
The Dutch West India Company granted the lands in the New Netherlands to wealthy men who would in return for the land agree to settle 40 men or families on the land. This feudal system was right in the middle of a country that had fought for and won independence for itself. The political battles described in the book were actual events, conflicts between this feudal system and the capitalism that characterized the rest of the country.
There are several free books on Kindle Unlimited about the Dutch West India Company, the first multi-national corporation.
Finally, the Patroon system was not generally successful. Resistance of the settlers, opposition of the Native American population, and problems within the Dutch West India Company contributed to this failure.
We are not sure about the subject of the next series. My partner has recommended “Revolutionary Ireland” with movies like “Parnell” with Clark Gable, and a movie about the IRA starring James Mason.
One of the stories I love about James Mason is about his ex-wife, Pamela. When I was growing up there was a popular talk show “The Merv Griffin Show.” When Pamela Mason divorced James, she did the rounds of this and similar talk shows talking freely, and expansively about what a SOB James Mason was. At the time, it was not the thing that people did. It was hilarious and I suspect most of what she said was true.
Another of the participants has suggested “Bogart and Bacall.” Bogart was married several times before Bacall. In one of these marriages, he fought loudly and publicly with his wife for years. They fought so much he was able to just walk across the street and sleep on the couch any time he wanted to.
OK. If you would like to talk old movies or be on the mailing list for the Novel to Classic Movie series, email me at christinajjohns@icloud.com
Netanyahu Knows That the IDF Will Get Credit for Crushing Gaza, Just as He Understands That the Hostage Deal Will Help Him Climb Out of the Political Abyss. Meanwhile, Far-rightist Itamar Ben-Gvir Is Crafting a Strategy to Leave the Governing Coalition
— Read on www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-11-24/ty-article/.premium/as-israel-heads-into-gaza-truce-netanyahu-keeps-waging-war-on-the-defense-establishment/0000018b-fdd8-de73-a9bb-ffff98840000
Netanyahu may climb a little in the polls. It’s hard to go down any further from where he is now. But anyone giving him credit should remember that every day in which Netanyahu does not hang his head in shame and humbly submit a future letter of resignation – valid at the end point of the first stage of the war – he will continue to be an illegitimate prime minister, someone who dismantled the state from the inside and abandoned it.
“I Knew Right Away That Sexual Violence Was Part of the Events of October 7, but Obviously, I Could Not Have Known the Extent of the Cruelty That Hamas Engaged
— Read on www.haaretz.com/israel-news/podcasts/2023-11-14/ty-article-podcast/why-is-the-cruel-sexual-violence-of-the-october-7-hamas-attack-being-ignored/0000018b-cdbe-d423-affb-ffbfe0d20000
The Group Began Preparing Its Onslaught From Gaza Years Ago, but Israel’s Analysis Remained Faulty. Two Months Before the Assault, an NCO Warned That the Nightmare Scenario Could Now Happen, but She Was Ignored
— Read on www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-11-24/ty-article-magazine/.premium/over-a-year-before-october-7-israels-army-had-insight-into-hamas-attack-plan/0000018c-02a2-de3d-af9e-0bf7901b0000
www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/11/25/west-bank-israel-spies-executed/
Two men accused of spying for Israel were executed in the West Bank, with their bodies dragged through alleys before being hung from a pylon by a cheering mob.
The two men were shot dead in the West Bank city of Tulkarm on Friday by members of Palestinian armed groups.
A Palestinian journalist in the camp, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, said the men were beaten and stomped on by residents before being hung up from an electrical tower and then dumped in a skip.
Videos show hundreds of Palestinians crowding around the entrance of the camp and filming the violence with their phones.
The two men were accused of helping Israeli security forces target Hamas in a raid that killed three key terrorists earlier this month, a Palestinian security officer said.
Law, Power, and Justice 