By Amir Nour

[…]

Israel/Palestine: One State, or Two States?

So, if the two-state solution proposed by the Oslo Accords has failed and seems more remote than ever, if not definitely dead 30 years on, isn’t it about time to consider alternatives to the prevailing untenable status quo, or even worse, to endless war? All the more so since the illusion that the conflict can be ignored or “managed” has been shattered in a resounding manner in October 2023. The current bout of fighting is forcing the U.S., the EU and regional powers to reassess their old approaches and reappraise the wrong and costly assumption that they can safely ignore the conflict.

Nowadays, it appears that the old/new idea of a “one-state” between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River – a democratic state, with full and equal rights for the populations residing in Israel, East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, as citizens – is the best workable option and, most importantly, the only durable solution to an intractable conflict that has lasted too long and cost too much blood and treasure.

After all, if we properly take stock of past experiences, can’t we justifiably ask what if self-determination for both Palestinians and Israelis is not necessarily based on territory but on citizen’s rights?

This idea of a single state is not new. Back in 1930 already, rabbi, scholar and political activist Judah Leon Magnes wrote an essay[11] in which, in contradistinction to the then Zionist leadership, he expressed his strong preference for the establishment of a bi-national, Jewish and Arab state through an agreement with Palestine’s Arab population[12]. And when the Peel Commission made its 1937 recommendations about partition and population transfer for Palestine, Magnes sounded the alarm by saying:

“With the permission of the Arabs we will be able to receive hundreds of thousands of persecuted Jews in Arab lands […] Without the permission of the Arabs even the four hundred thousand [Jews] that now are in Palestine will remain in danger, in spite of the temporary protection of British bayonets. With partition a new Balkan is made”[13].

And in an article in Foreign Affairs magazine in January 1942, he suggested a joint British-American initiative to prevent the division of mandatory Palestine. This move was followed, pursuant to the Biltmore Conference[14], by the foundation – with Henrietta Szold[15] – of a small bi-nationalist party called “Ihud” (Unity).

In 1946, Magnes again opposed the partition plan before the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry in Jerusalem and submitted 11 objections to partition to the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine[16]. Finally, by mid-1948, when the conflict between the Jews and Arabs of Palestine was in full swing, Magnes expressed the hope that if a Jewish state were declared, the United States would impose economic sanctions; and also supported a 1948 U.S. trusteeship proposal, in which the UN would freeze the partition decision and force both sides into a trusteeship with a temporary government ruling Palestine, until conditions suited another arrangement. During the 1948 War, he lobbied for an armistice, and proposed a plan for a federation between Israel and a Palestinian state which he called the “United States of Palestine”, under which the two states would be which he called the “United States of Palestine”, under which the two states would be independent, but operate joint foreign and defense policies, with Jerusalem as the shared capital. Magnes predicted that even if a Jewish state was established and defeated the Arabs, it would experience a never-ending series of wars with the Arabs[17].

The notion of a one state in all of historic Palestine was espoused by Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in its original charter[18] in 1964, which called for the establishment of a single, democratic, and secular state for Jews, Muslims and Christians. The PLO only abandoned the idea in the context of the diplomatic negotiations within the framework of the Oslo Accords; hence fundamentally swinging its ideological compass and reorienting its political struggle and efforts toward the realization of the two-state path to peace.

With the benefit of hindsight, one can say that the PLO’s historic choice was a huge sacrifice, incommensurate with the petty initial “rewards” of a peace process which eventually led nowhere but to an equally historic, and furthermore tragic, impasse.

As the peace process started to show signs of fraying at the edges in the late 1990s, an increasing number of analysts started to suggest acknowledging a “one-state reality”[19] – an ambiguous reference to the continued entanglement of Israelis and Palestinians on the ground – as the starting point for negotiating a workable solution.

[…]

Making or Breaking Hope for Peace in the City of Peace

It is against this bleak backdrop that, on 1 March 2018, a new initiative based on the old idea emerged when the “One-State Foundation” was launched.[26] The initiative holds:

“first, that the current situation in Palestine and Israel is untenable; second, that the negotiating process that emanated from the Madrid Peace Conference and Oslo Accords on the basis of a two-state solution has reached a dead end as the final status issues degraded to become effectively non-negotiable; third, that this obstructs the realization of the hopes and aspirations of the Palestinian and Israeli peoples; fourth, that the time has come to rethink the question in its entirety; and, fifth, that any new thinking has to reflect realities on the ground and, above all, the reality that more than fifty years after the Israeli occupation of the whole of Palestine, a form of unity over political, economic, and security matters already exists.”[27]

In recent years, and particularly since the resurgence of the polemical issue of annexation, beginning in the fall of 2019, a substantial debate over the One-State reality has raged between proponents of the two-state “international consensus” and those of the one-state “alternative”, both among and between Palestinians and Israelis, and on the global stage. In the West, the one-state alternative has been boosted over the years by quite knowledgeable academics and militants such as Edward Said, Tony Judt, John Mearsheimer, Ian Lustick, Virginia Tilley, Ilan Pappé, Avi Shlaim, Shlomo Sand, and Ali Abunimah, the Palestinian-American co-founder of Electronic Intifada.

A significant milestone in this regard was registered when four well-known professors published an article in Foreign Affairs magazine entitled “Israel’s One-State Reality.”[28] In this essay, the authors argue that the two-state solution is dead because there is already a one-state reality, no matter what anyone thinks. In other words, between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, only one state, namely Israel, controls the entry and exit of people and goods, oversees security, and has the capacity to impose its decisions, laws, and policies on millions of people without their consent. A one-state reality, the academics go on to say, could, in principle, be based on democratic rule and equal citizenship, but such an arrangement is not on offer at the moment.

Forced to choose between Israel’s Jewish identity and liberal democracy, Israel has chosen the former; it has locked in a system of Jewish supremacy, wherein non-Jews are structurally discriminated against or excluded in a tiered scheme: some non-Jews have most of, but not all, the rights that Jews have, while most non-Jews live under severe segregation, separation, and domination. They, therefore, see no real prospect of negotiating a Palestinian state, and are of the opinion that the United States should acknowledge this reality, denounce it, impose sanctions on Israel, while putting an end to its efforts against BDS movement and refraining from leading those aiming at normalization of relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

[…]

On the other hand, Israeli opponents, who are more numerous, hold that the Zionist project was and remains the establishment of a state with a Jewish majority – something that could not be sustained given current Palestinian population growth rates, which would reduce Jewish Israelis in the future to a minority status.

As a matter of fact, the feeling that another day of conflict will ultimately bring victory continues to prevail on both sides. Still, the many objections do not diminish the fact that the status quo and ongoing occupation create a volatile situation with all the conditions for uprisings, resistance, and at times full-scale war.

On account of the above, if the two-state alternative to the status quo is unreachable, then the one-state alternative could be laid out with solutions for the different objectors on both sides. This would involve a broad restructuring of the existing political system, whether beginning with the Israeli government’s conferral of citizenship on Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip or beginning with the creation of a new state altogether. Moreover, mechanisms such as subjecting legislation on vital or constitutional issues to a two-thirds majority vote, or to a minority veto, or some combinations thereof, have been floated to prevent a majoritarian state in which the demographic majority, whether Jewish or Arab, would govern unilaterally.

[…]

While confederation reflects the existing realities of a multifaceted interdependence between the two sides, it also resolves the citizenship crux of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: the Israelis would always have majority status in their own state and its security, and the Palestinians would have their state with a legitimate place in the Council of Jerusalem, which would be the capital of the confederation. Both the Israeli and Palestinian states would be in a position to interact with their Arab neighbors without animosity for Israel or dependency for the Palestinians. Both would have all symbols of the state from the flag to the seat in the UN, and above all their chosen identities along with the privileges of peace and space throughout historic Palestine.[32]

In the conclusion of her powerfully argued recent book[33], Palestinian-born Academic Ghada Karmi says that the tremendous obstacles facing the “one democratic state solution” may be daunting to some of those who support it in theory, but the fact that something is difficult to realize does not make it any less the right thing to do; nor does the attainment of this solution hinge solely on the wishes of Israel and its supporters.

Other factors, she believes, “though now unforeseen or thought improbable”, could intervene and alter the situation dramatically. If and when they do, such events “will merely dictate the pace and timing of the one democratic state solution. But the concept itself must have been established long before, not as an immediately attainable goal perhaps, but as a vision, an aspiration and a belief in the ultimate humanity of Palestinians and Jews and all who wish them to prosper”.

[…]

All in all, if History is any guide – and it is indeed – we must retain its most overarching principle, which is highlighted in the epigraph: “Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it.” And if we do remember history – and we must indeed – then the following key considerations should always be duly taken into account in any reflection or negotiation about peace in the Middle East. They all stand in opposition to partition and division of the Holy Land, and point in the direction of the one democratic state from the river to the sea as the only genuinely durable solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

[…]

Via https://www.globalresearch.ca/war-gaza-only-durable-solution-one-democratic-state-river-sea/5869536

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (L) met with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Tehran, July 19, 2022

By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR

Israel has apparently shelved its planned attack on Iran. A combination of circumstances can be attributed to this retreat, which rubbishes Israel’s own high-pitched rhetoric that it was raring to go.

Despite Israel’s brilliant media management, reports have surfaced  that the Iranian missile attack on October 1 was a spectacular success. It was a display of Iran’s deterrence capability to crush Israel, if need arises. The failure of the US to intercept Iranian hypersonic missiles carried its own message. Iran claims that 90 percent of its missiles penetrated Israel’s air defence system.

Will Schryver, a technical engineer and security commentator, wrote on X: “I don’t understand how anyone who has seen the many video clips of the Iranian missile strikes on Israel cannot recognise and acknowledge that it was a stunning demonstration of Iranian capabilities. Iran’s ballistic missiles smashed through US/Israeli air defences and delivered several large-warhead strikes to Israeli military targets.”

Evidently, in the ensuing panic situation in Israel, as the US president Joe Biden put it, as of October 4, there had been no decision yet on what type of response Israel should mount against Iran. “If I were in their [Israeli] shoes, I’d be thinking about other alternatives than striking oil fields,” Biden said in a rare appearance in the White House briefing room a day after Israeli officials were saying that a “significant retaliation” was imminent.

Biden added that Israelis “have not concluded how they’re — what they’re going to do” in retaliation. Biden also told reporters that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should remember US support for Israel when deciding on next steps. He claimed that he was trying to rally the world to avoid all-out war in West Asia.

In this pantomime, it is safer to believe Biden, as the honest truth is that without US inputs and practical help, and money — and direct intervention — Israel simply lacks the stamina to take on Iran. Israel’s regional dominance narrows down to executing assassination plots and attacking unarmed civilians.

But here too, it is debatable how self-sufficient Israel is vis-a-vis Iran. Reports have appeared that the US’ new technological intel  pinpointed Hezbollah leader Sayyed Nasrallah’s whereabouts, which were passed on to Israel, leading to his assassination.

Interestingly, CIA Director William Burns stepped in to refute the rumours that Iran conducted a nuclear test on Saturday. Speaking at a security conference on Monday, Burns stated that the US has closely monitored Iran’s nuclear activity for any sign of rushing toward a nuclear bomb.

“We don’t see evidence today that such a decision has been made. We watch it very carefully,” he said. Burns gently erased another alibi to attack Iran.

One critical factor that has compelled Israel / US to defer any attack on Iran is the stern warning by Tehran that any attack on its infrastructure by Israel will be met with an even harsher response. “In responding, we neither hesitate nor rush,” to quote Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, who, by the way, made a trip to Lebanon and Syria over the weekend by way of giving Israel a defiant “message” — as he put it — that “Iran has strongly backed the resistance and will always support it.”

Earlier on October 4, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had used a rare public sermon to defend Iran’s missile attack against Israel, saying it was “legitimate and legal” and that “if needed,” Tehran will do it again. Speaking in both Persian and Arabic during Friday Prayers in Tehran, Khamenei said Iran and the Axis of Resistance won’t back down from Israel. Iran will not “procrastinate nor act hastily to carry out its duty” in confronting Israel, Khamenei declared.

However, what deters the Israelis and causes uneasiness in the American mind is something else — Russia’s lengthening shadows on the West Asian tapestry.

American military analysts have disclosed that certain highly advanced Russian weaponry have been transferred to Iran in the recent weeks backed up by the deployment of Russian military personnel to operate these systems, including S-400 missiles. There is speculation that the secretary of Russia’s Security Council (former Defence Minister) Sergei Shoigu paid two secret visits to Iran in the recent period.

Apparently, Moscow also responded to the Iranian request for satellite data on Israeli targets for its missile strike on October 1. Russia also supplied Iran with the long-range electronic warfare system “Murmansk-BN”.

The “Murmansk-BN” system is a powerful EW system, which can jam and intercept enemy radio signals, GPS, communications, satellites, and other electronic systems up to 5,000 kms away and  neutralise “smart” munitions and drone systems — and is capable of disrupting high-frequency satellite communication systems owned by the US and NATO.

To be sure, the Russian involvement in Iran’s standoff with Israel is potentially a game changer. From the US perspective, it raises the worrisome spectre of a direct confrontation with Russia, which it doesn’t want.

It is in this scenario that official Russian news agencies have quoted presidential aide Yury Ushakov on Sunday that Putin plans to meet with his Iranian counterpart, Masud Pezeshkian in the Turkmen capital, Ashgabat, on October 11.

Ushakov did not elaborate on the meeting. Indeed, this comes as a surprise since the two leaders are scheduled to meet again at the BRICS summit in the Russian city of Kazan that runs on October 22-24.

Of course, Iranians are also playing coy. Both Moscow and Tehran announced that their presidents were visiting Ashgabat on October 11 to attend a ceremony marking the 300th birth anniversary of the Turkmen poet and thinker Magtymguly Pyragy. Smoke and mirrors! (here and here) 

It is entirely conceivable that amidst the cascading regional tensions, Moscow and Tehran may have thought of bringing forward the formal signing of the Russian-Iranian defence pact, which was originally scheduled to take place in Kazan.

If so, the event on Thursday will be reminiscent of the unscheduled visit by the then Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko to New Delhi for the signing of the historic Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation Between India and the USSR on 9th August 1971.

Interestingly, Ushakov added that Putin has no plans to meet Netanyahu. Putin is yet to respond to a request by Netanyahu for a phone conversation, made five days ago. A legend that Netanyahu created, typically, in the recent years to impress his domestic audience (and confuse the Arab street) — that he had a special relationship with Putin — is falling apart.

On the other hand, by chalking up an urgent meeting in Ashgabat — in fact, Turkmen president Serdar Berdimuhamedov was in Moscow only on Monday/Tuesday on a working visit — Kremlin is making it clear to Washington and Tel Aviv that Moscow is irrevocably aligned with Tehran and will help the latter no matter what it takes. (See my blog West Asian crisis prompts Biden to break ice with Putin, Indian Punchline, October 5, 2024)

[…]

Via https://www.indianpunchline.com/russia-aligns-with-iran-war-clouds-scatter/

By Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Abubaker Abed

The director of the besieged Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza is refusing Israeli orders to shut the hospital down and evacuate. “As long as there are patients, I won’t leave,” Dr. Hossam Abu Safia told Drop Site News. “I’ve been here since the genocide started, and I am determined to continue helping my people.”

The attack on the hospital comes amid a wider, vicious assault, with Israeli forces issuing new displacement orders for nearly all of northern Gaza on Sunday, where at least 400,000 people remain. Last month, reports emerged that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was considering a plan to lay siege to northern Gaza and ethnically cleanse the entire area of Palestinians. The plan, known as the “General’s Plan,” was launched in an Israeli television campaign in September. Over the past week, Israeli forces have moved into areas of northern Gaza, conducting heavy airstrikes and shelling, and besieging the Jabaliya refugee camp.

Shortly after Drop Site spoke with Abu Safia, there were reports that the hospital received 16 bodies and 17 injured in an Israeli attack on Al-Yaman Al-Saeed Hospital in Jabaliya.

The Kamal Adwan Hospital is one of three hospitals in northern Gaza, including the Indonesian and Al-Awda hospitals, to receive evacuation orders on Tuesday by the Israeli military to clear out all their staff and patients within 24 hours, threatening that if they didn’t, they would face “the same fate as al-Shifa hospital, with destruction, killing and arrest,” according to a statement by the ministry of health in Gaza. The statement also said Israeli forces had surrounded the Kamal Adwan hospital and opened fire on its administration office. Israeli forces raided Al-Shifa hospital — Gaza’s largest — for a second time in March, setting buildings alight and destroying much of the complex. Mass graves with hundreds of bodies were found in and around the hospital after Israeli troops withdrew from the area in early April.

Kamal Adwan is the only partially functioning hospital in northern Gaza that specializes in treating babies and providing dialysis. There are some sixty patients remaining in the hospital from newborns to the elderly. “They are mostly war-wounded,” Abu Safia said. “We also handle other types of patients and treat viral diseases, but Israeli forces are encircling the hospital and we lack everything here, we are unable to continue doing our work properly.”

“Patients are still receiving medical care in the hospital. People are forced to walk the streets under the bombs to try and come for treatment,” Abu Safia said. “But we are operating at a very minimum capacity. There is not enough medical equipment and supplies and not enough fuel to run the hospital. This place is just devoid of everything.

On the one-year anniversary of the launch of Israel’s assault, the health ministry issued a series of reports on the attack on the health care system over the past 12 months, including a total of 23 out of 36 hospitals being destroyed or ceasing to function, 130 ambulances destroyed or rendered inoperational, 986 people in the health care sector killed, and more than 300 medical staff imprisoned.

“Israel needs to cease its attacks on medical facilities,” Abu Safia said. “To keep our people safe and enable us to carry on offering healthcare services, it must adhere to the law. It cannot continue to harm us and target hospitals when there are just one or two hospitals treating thousands of patients. Dialysis, pediatric care, and numerous other treatments are offered here. The hospital serves as a major medical hub in this area. We call out the world to stop them.”

Israeli tanks and troops have encircled and invaded the Jabaliya refugee camp, laying siege to the area for days with reports of house demolitions, artillery shelling, and dead bodies in the streets. On Wednesday, the health ministry said 45 people were confirmed killed and 130 wounded over the previous 24 hours across Gaza.

Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif today reported: “Since the beginning of the war, attempts to displace the residents of the north have not stopped, but what is happening today in terms of a stifling siege on Jabaliya camp and a complete disruption of the medical system due to the intensive bombing of homes, hospitals and shelters represents the most dangerous stage.”

Meanwhile, the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA has been forced to shut down lifesaving services in the north with seven schools sheltering displaced people being evacuated. Only 2 out of 8 water wells are now operational in Jabaliya and Israeli troops also shelled the al-Shulufa bakery, in al-Fallujah, setting it alight and destroying the only bakery in northern Gaza.

“These forced mass evacuations of homes and bombing of neighborhoods by the Israeli forces are turning the north of Gaza into an unlivable wasteland, effectively emptying out the whole north of the Strip of Palestinian life. To make matters worse, no humanitarian supplies have been allowed to enter the area since 1 October,” Sarah Vuylsteke, Médecins Sans Frontières project coordinator in Gaza, said in a statement.

[…]

Via https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/northern-gaza-kamal-adwan-hospital-director-defies-israeli-order

Alejandro Mayorkas Secretary of Homeland Security

Dave Hodges

MUST LISTEN 

Kamala Harris Admin ARRESTED a man for bringing helicopter full of supplies to Hurricane Helene victims.

“There was a man that took off yesterday in his helicopter to go up in the mountains to drop off food. He landed and got arrested and said he was interfering with a government operation, but there’s no operations going on. I’m currently in Asheville, North Carolina with my company doing disaster security for a dialysis company, and we’re also doing search and rescue for patients to bring them to dialysis so they don’t die. This place is a war zone people and the military is not here. And the reason I’m pissed because I was part of the operation during hurricane Katrina. I was stationed in San Diego and within 96 hours we were in Louisiana. And these bastards are not sending the military here.

There’s so much destruction. There’s no news crews here. That’s why you’re not seeing it. The American people should be angry at what our government is doing to this town. There are people hurting here.

There are so many people dying. I drove past young kids about 5 to 7 years old. They were brother and sister, and they were looking for their parents. We got them to a church. These young kids don’t know where their mom and dad are.

And the military is being f*cking hamstrained by these goddamn DOD f*cking executives. If you’re not angry, you should be. Because this is what our government thinks about us. They’re not here to help us. We have to take care of ourselves.

There’s towns here that are self policing. We drove into towns where the the town folk came up to us and said, what are you doing here? So we’re looking for patients. We’re trying to get them help, and they welcome us with open arms.

This is bad, people. You’re not here. It is very bad. We need water. We need food. We need clothes. I’m in a budget motel, and I’m very grateful, and I feel somewhat guilty that I have a roof over my head and a shower. And it’s right across from the airport. There was a man that took off yesterday in his helicopter to go up in the mountains to drop off food. He landed and got arrested and said he was interfering with the government, a government operation, but there’s no operations going on. I’m sick to my stomach that our government treats our American people this way. And then when they get slapped in the face, oh, here’s $750. After we sent over $200,000,000,000 overseas. Alejandro Mayorkas, you’re a traitor to your country.

[…]

Via https://thecommonsenseshow.com/agenda-21-conspiracy-economics/kamala-harris-admin-arrested-man-bringing-helicopter-full-supplies-hurricane-helene-victims

Michael Snyder

This normally doesn’t happen.  During regular times, a hurricane is not supposed to go from Category 1 to Category 5 in less than a day.  At this moment, the roads out of the Tampa Bay area are absolutely jammed with vehicles as local residents attempt to get out of the path of the coming storm.  We literally just witnessed one of the most destructive hurricanes in U.S. history, and now we are being told that Hurricane Milton could also be one of the most destructive hurricanes in U.S. history.  So what in the world is going on here?

When I woke up on Monday morning, I was shocked to learn that Hurricane Milton had developed into a Category 5 storm with sustained wins of 160 mph…

With winds of 160 mph, Milton has strengthened into the second Category 5 hurricane of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season. Hurricane Beryl was the first storm to reach Category 5 status, doing so while it was traversing the Caribbean Sea in early July.

Milton was only a tropical storm on Sunday morning, but winds ramped up at a tremendous pace, spiking from 60 mph to 160 mph in just 28 hours. Additionally, an abundance of lighting has been flashing around the eye of Milton, an indication that it could still be strengthening.

But that wasn’t the end of it.

Just a few hours later, it was being reported that Hurricane Milton had sustained winds of 175 mph…

Hurricane Milton has grown into an explosive Category 5 storm with sustained winds of 175 miles per hour, just two days after it developed in the Gulf of Mexico, forecasters said Monday.

The hurricane was expanding and intensifying quickly Monday while tracking eastward over warm Gulf waters, with the latest growth happening much faster than forecasts suggested. Milton is expected to bring life-threatening conditions to parts of Florida, potentially as early as Tuesday.

Milton’s winds surged to 175 mph Monday, exceeding the threshold for Category 5 by a significant margin, according to the latest update from the National Hurricane Center. The storm’s wind speeds more than doubled in the last 48 hours.

Of course that wasn’t the peak either.

Just a little while ago, we were told that Hurricane Milton now had sustained winds of 180 mph…

Hurricane Milton strengthened to a Category 5 powerhouse Monday, driving sustained winds of 180 mph as it rolled across the Gulf of Mexico bound for what could be a devastating crash Wednesday along Florida’s already storm-battered western coast.

The National Hurricane Center said on its 5 p.m. advisory that Milton had reached those rare wind speeds, three hours after warning the hurricane had “explosively” intensified to 175 mph.

Come on now.

This isn’t supposed to happen.

Especially in October.

On Monday alone, the storm’s winds increased by 90 mph.

That is nuts!

One meteorologist was literally “on the verge of tears” as he discussed how powerful this storm was becoming…

Meteorology expert John Morales was on the verge of tears as he reported on what is to come for Florida live on NBC6.

‘It’s just an incredible, incredible, incredible hurricane. It has dropped– ‘ Morales said before pausing, visibly emotional.

‘It has dropped 50 millibars in 10 hours,’ he continued. ‘I apologize. This is just horrific.’

A lot of people have been searching for “Category 6 hurricane” on Google, and USA Today published an entire article that speculated that a “hypothetical Category 6” could soon be added to the scale that we use to measure storms…

The rapidly developing hurricane that shows no signs of stopping won’t technically become a Category 6 because the category doesn’t exist at the moment. But it could soon reach the level of a hypothetical Category 6 experts have discussed and stir up arguments about whether the National Hurricane Center’s long-used scale for classifying hurricane wind speeds from Category 1 to 5 might need an overhaul.

This is a “once in a century” storm, but of course we just witnessed a “once in a century” storm.

It is so difficult to project exactly where large hurricanes will go, but right now forecasters are telling us that Hurricane Milton is heading straight toward the Tampa Bay area…

Milton is aiming directly for the Tampa Bay area—one of the state’s largest metro areas and home to more than 3 million people.

The Tampa Bay area has seen its fair share of hurricanes, but the storms typically do not strike the region directly from the west from the Gulf of Mexico, instead traveling north along the coast, as seen in the paths of Hurricane Ian in 2022.

AccuWeather’s chief meteorologist Jonathan Porter called Milton’s trajectory “unusual and extremely concerning.”

This is the kind of storm that can rip the roof right off a home and send trees hurtling through the air like missiles.

If Tampa takes a direct hit, the damage could be absolutely catastrophic.

According to one local meteorologist, this storm has the potential to be “the worst natural disaster in modern history for Florida”…

Hurricane Milton will be the worst disaster that Florida has ever seen, a longstanding weatherman has warned.

David Hartman, who works for WAPT in neighboring Mississippi, wrote: ‘Sadly, this is shaping up to the worst natural disaster in modern history for Florida.’

If you live in the Tampa Bay area, please leave.

At a press conference on Monday, one Florida official was literally begging people to evacuate…

Speaking at a press conference Monday alongside Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the state’s director of emergency management, Kevin Guthrie, urged those in the Tampa Bay area to evacuate.

“I beg you. I implore you,” Guthrie said. “Drowning deaths due to storm surge are 100% preventable if you leave.”

This storm was not supposed to become this powerful.

So what happened?

There are some people that are placing the blame on our changing climate, but others are pointing out that man-made tools can cause apocalyptic weather events as well.

For example, earlier this year “cloud-seeding” was being blamed for producing “the heaviest rain ever recorded” in the United Arab Emirates…

The United Arab Emirates is today attempting to dry out after the heaviest rain ever recorded in the desert nation caused utter chaos – but there are suspicions the horrific flooding in Dubai and elsewhere may have been self-inflicted.

The typically scorching UAE heavily relies on cloud-seeding – a technique which sees aircraft fire salt flares into clouds to speed up condensation and induce rainfall – to provide its groundwater.

Flight-tracking data analysed by the Associated Press showed one aircraft affiliated with the UAE’s cloud-seeding efforts flew around the country on Sunday.

This technique has been used all over the world for decades, and in my opinion it should be completely banned.

According to CBS News, scientists have also been working on a way “to aim a high-energy laser beam into clouds to make it rain or trigger lightning”…

For many Americans who wished they could change the weather — whether it be in the Northeast during this past winter or in drought-stricken California — researchers may have found a way to aim a high-energy laser beam into clouds to make it rain or trigger lightning.

The existence of condensation, storms and lightning are all due to the presence of large amounts of static electricity in the clouds. Researchers from the University of Central Florida and the University of Arizona say that a laser beam could activate those large amounts of static electricity and create storms on demand.

By surrounding a beam with another beam that will act as an energy reservoir, the central beam will be sustained for greater distances than previously possible. The secondary beam will refuel and help to prevent the dissipation of the primary beam, which would break down quickly on its own.

Ultimately, there are lots of ways that the weather can be manipulated.

At this stage, we just don’t know what has caused Hurricane Milton to experience “explosive” growth.

But what we do know is that this storm is extremely dangerous, and it is anticipated that it will make landfall some time on Wednesday…

Time is running out for Floridians to prepare for Hurricane Milton, which is expected to make landfall as a major hurricane on Wednesday evening. Stores across central Florida, including those in Orlando, are already running out of bottled water and other essential supplies.

“We are preparing … for the largest evacuation that we have seen, most likely since 2017, Hurricane Irma,” Kevin Guthrie, executive director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, said, according to The Associated Press. In addition to all of Fort Myers Beach, mandatory evacuations have been issued for all mobile and manufactured homes in areas near Tampa Bay. AccuWeather is predicting storm surge will reach 10 to 15 feet along a long area of the Florida coast surrounding Tampa Bay.

Needless to say, the Tampa Bay area is not the only area that is being threatened.

So far, a state of emergency has been imposed in 51 of Florida’s 67 counties by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis…

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis already placed 51 of the state’s 67 counties under a State of Emergency, and on Monday, President Joe Biden approved the state’s pre-landfall emergency declaration request, which now authorizes the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to coordinate all disaster relief efforts and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures.

A lot of people will attempt to ride this storm out.

Some will survive, and others will not.

We have never had two storms of such destructive power hit us so close together.

But what we are going through now is nothing compared to what is coming.

As I have been warning for years, historic natural disasters are going to be happening one after another.

We set a record for “billion dollar disasters” last year, and I am sure that we will set another record this year.

This is our “new normal”, and things are only going to get even more crazy from this point forward.

[…]

Via https://endoftheamericandream.com/did-hurricane-milton-have-help-in-suddenly-becoming-one-of-the-most-powerful-storms-in-history/

Peggy Hall

Yesterday I spoke with Dane Wiggington, a returning guest and founder of Geoengineering Watch. Many of you may already follow him on Instagram and YouTube, where he provides insightful analysis on climate manipulation and its impacts. In this interview, we’re taking a closer look at Hurricane Helene and discussing whether its formation and path were natural or intentionally manipulated. We’ll dive into what Dane refers to as toxic interventions in our skies, and he will break down some of the most alarming signs that this storm may not have been purely nature’s doing.

[…]

For now, here are some key points from Dane’s video ‘Hurricane Helene And Frequency Transmissions, 90 Second Alert:’

• Circular blue flashes seen in the video are believed to be frequency transmissions
• Evidence suggests that atmospheric frequency transmissions can repel air masses, especially when they contain electrically conductive nanoparticles.
• Brighter blue flashes indicate stronger transmissions, leading to a more pronounced repelling effect on storms in the vicinity.
• In areas without blue flashes, there is no transmission, and storms can move freely in those directions.

So this raises the question: Was Hurricane Helen’s path and behavior simply the result of natural climate processes, or was it engineered through intentional atmospheric manipulation?

Friends, this information is best listened to, so here you go:

[…]

https://peggyhall.substack.com/p/hurricane-helene-frequency-transmission

Ed Note: Excellent discussion on Badlands Daily on atypical path of both Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton: https://rumble.com/v5hrthx-badlands-daily-monday-october-7-2024.html

Eleanor of Aquitaine

Episode 15 Life in Medieval Palaces

The Middle Ages Around the World

Dr Joyce E Salisbury

Film Review

Europe

In the high Middle Ages (12th-13th) noble women, including Eleanor of Aquitaine, ran their kingdoms and feudal estates when their husbands were away at war. Keeping up with the latest fashions was a sign of wealth, and they wore silks, exotic furs, low cut dresses that revealed their breasts, make up. They curled their hair with hot irons and replaced their scarves with hats. By the 14th century men were wearing short tunics and revealingly tight pants.

Many medieval forests were clear cut for the scaffolding used to construct European castles and city walls. Servants slept in the same room as the king/queen, who had curtains around their bed mainly for warmth. Prior to to the 13th century, when the first fireplaces were installed, the smoke-filled rooms of castles were heated by open hearths vented by small glass-less windows in the outer walls..

Meals – Medieval European nobles ate more meat per capita than any other culture on Earth. Forbidden to eat carnivores, Catholics ate pork to distinguish themselves from Jews and Arabs and regarded horse meat (associated with pagan Scandinavians as taboo. They used onions, leak, garlic, parsnips, cabbages and turnips as seasonings, and easily accessed apples, pear and berries. Members of the nobility used bread slices as plates and spoons and knives. Peasants boiled their grain because it was more nutritious than making it into bread. They depended more on beans, eggs and cheese for protein and ate more vegetables.

Beverages – the nobility drank wine imported from France, Spain and Greece. Peasants drank ale (less alcoholic than beer), which was unhopped and had to be brewed daily (hops serve as a preservative). They also drank hard cider, mead (made from honey), perry (pear cider) and, contrary to contemporary mythology, water.

Middle East

Only one Muslim palace remains because Muslim rulers tore down their predecessors’ palace. Only one survives, the 14th century Alhambra in Grenada.

Turkish palaces had no fireplaces and were heated by small charcoal braziers.

Persian castles had very narrow fireplaces that required wood to be stacked on end for burning.

In Muslim palaces, men and women were were strictly segregated. Rulers were allowed concubines in addition to four wives.

Outside of Europe people sat cross legged or squatted to eat and used hands, spoons and knives. Under Islam, meat had to be Halal, which meant all the blood had to be removed prior to cooking. Carrion and pork were forbidden, but Muslims could eat all typesseafood, a variety of cheeses and yogurt and lot of spices. Muslim nobility drank snow water from the mountains, near beer other other lightly fermented drinks and mixed fruit juices.

Asia

Indian palaces had no heating. Instead guests were provided with woolen coverings.

In 12th century China, the emperor’s palace, windows were covered with silk, rather than paper, as used in Japan and Korea. Women were secluded as part of Confucian tradition (and were only sent for for sex) and royal women had to be carried because foot binding prevented them from walking.

Meals – During the 7th century, many in the Chinese nobility still sat on the floor to eat, though others began copying nomads who lay on couches. There was no restriction on the animal protein they could eat (pork was most popular, but they also ate camel, bear,  bamboo rat, sea otters, flying cockroaches, elephants, monkeys, snakes). They alao ate fish, horseshoe crab and imported mangoes, figa and citrus. Chopsticks replaced knives and spoon in chopsticks in 400 AD.* Owing to a meat shortage, cooks diced the meat and smothered it in rice. Chopsticks worked better for plucking out minute portions of meat of meat. In northern China, millet was the main staple, in southern China rice.

Beverages – They drank fruit juice flavored water, tea (from 6th century on), and rice wine.

Emperors and nobles slept on cushions surrounded by their servants who slept on the floor

*Confucius, who was a vegetarian, believed there was no place for knives at the table because they reminded him of the slaughter house.

Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/13172786/13172813