Gaza destruction. Photo: Israel Defense Forces

By Scott Lucas

With no plan B, what does Netanyahu do to stem the pressure from inside and outside Israel? He plays for time

It was the moment when Israel’s military acknowledged the failure of its eight-and-half month war in Gaza – certainly the failure of the mission set out by the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, when he said after the October 7 Hamas attack that he would destroy the militant group.

On June 19 the spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, told Channel 13 News that the aim of eradicating Gaza’s leadership was unattainable.

This business of destroying Hamas, making Hamas disappear — it’s simply throwing sand in the eyes of the public. Hamas is an idea, Hamas is a party. It’s rooted in the hearts of the people — anyone who thinks we can eliminate Hamas is wrong.

At one level, the IDF spokesperson was merely restating what analysts had cautioned just after Hamas’s killing of 1,143 people, including 767 civilians, and its abduction of around 250 others [some of them killed by the IDF itself, as variously admitted.—Ed]. An all-out military assault, from the air and on the ground, would allow Hamas to present itself as the protector of Gaza’s civilians, even as Israel killed many thousands of them.

But, at another level, this admission was the Israeli military’s challenge to Netanyahu.

Three days earlier during a cabinet meeting Netanyahu had snapped that “to achieve the goal of destroying Hamas’s capabilities I’ve had to make decisions that weren’t always accepted by the military leadership.”

In Hagari’s words: “If the government doesn’t find an alternative” Hamas “will remain in Gaza.”

Netanyahu’s perpetual war

The prime minister’s office refused to give way to the military, responding to Hagari’s interview by doubling down on having “defined as one of the war goals the destruction of Hamas’s military and governance capabilities.”

In a tactical retreat, the IDF issued another statement – that it was committed to stated war goals, including destroying Hamas’s governing and military abilities. Hagari, according to this statement, had merely spoken about “eradicating Hamas as an ideology and an idea.”

But the commanders, and Netanyahu, knew that the warning bell could not be unrung – particularly as, only ten days earlier, former IDF commander Benny Gantz had fired his own shot at the prime minister.

On May 18, Gantz – one of the three members of the war cabinet – gave Netanyahu a three-week ultimatum. In a televised address, he said the prime minister had put his personal and political interests ahead of the existential needs of the state of Israel, allowing “hard-right zealots” to put the country at risk.

Among Gantz’s six strategic demands were putting prioritiy on a return of hostages and installing a new political leadership in Gaza, rather than emphasizing the “destruction” of Hamas.

Netanyahu rejected all the demands, including a timeframe for a path toward a state of Palestine along with Israel’s normalisation with Arab countries. On June 9, Gantz left the war cabinet. A week later, the prime minister dissolved the body.

No plan (either A or B)

This has only prolonged Netanyahu’s dilemma. The day that a Gaza ceasefire is announced, he will be in political and legal jeopardy unless Hamas no longer exists.

Early elections will probably follow in Israel, and he is far behind Gantz and the National Unity Party in polling. Perhaps more importantly, he will face bribery charges which have effectively been suspended by the war.

But there is prospect neither of his promised destruction of Hamas nor that Gaza’s civilians, – facing death, starvation and deprivation each day – will rise up against the leadership.

In a rare enforcement of a “red line,” the US checked any plan for an all-out ground assault on Rafah. To hold off pressure, Netanyahu has made vague statements about a redeployment of the army, while persisting with bombs on Hamas and civilian alike.

So with no plan B, what does Netanyahu do to stem the pressure upon him from inside and outside Israel? He plays for time. In the past week, Netanyahu has said he supports only a “partial” hostage deal with Hamas, so Israel could resume fighting after women, the elderly, and sick were released.

He has picked a fight with the US about the supply of American weapons for Israel’s war. And he has threatened to expand the fighting with Hezbollah across the Lebanese border in the north.

None of these are a Gaza plan B. They are Netanyahu’s personal plan A. Throw out a daily distraction or diversion to avoid media focus on the ceasefire talks, on the carnage in Gaza, or on the failure to “destroy” Hamas.

The IDF’s warning, combined with Gantz’s departure from the war cabinet is a signal that the military is weary of an open-ended assault with no political vision.

But when will that weariness lead to a decisive rejection of Netanyahu’s approach? For now, given that the defense minister, Yoav Gallant, has not indicated he will make a break – and given the pressure from hard-right ministers to ethnically cleanse Gaza in a long-term occupation – that question, like Netanyahu’s options, has no answer.

[…]

Via https://www.greanvillepost.com/2024/07/02/idf-admits-it-cant-win-netanyahu-isnt-listening/

Julie Bindel

The problem isn’t with the number of letters, unwieldy though it may be, but the way the letters don’t all fit together very well, especially the T. Linking transgenderism to the movement for lesbian and gay male liberation obscures how fundamentally different the two movements are.

Lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals have long argued that their sexual orientation is not pathological and that they do not need treatment, but simply need to be left alone, free from violence and discrimination. That’s why the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans) label is confusing—the L, G, and B have little in common with the T. Adding more letters, such as QIA+ (queer/questioning, intersex, asexual, and many other terms) confuses more than clarifies.

Lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals—along with everyone else—can support the transgender movement’s goal of ending violence and discrimination in such things as policing, employment, and housing without endorsing the dominant ideology of the trans movement. That ideology denies the reality of sex (which is binary and biological) and replaces it with an internal subjective experience of gender (rejecting the longstanding feminist analysis of gender as social norms imposed in patriarchy). Progressive politics do not require that anyone support risky medical treatments or claims by males who identify as women to have a right to be in single-sex female spaces, such as changing rooms.

Here’s another way to make this point to people supporting transgender ideology: If you learned that a child you loved was gay or lesbian, how would you react? Is that different than how you would react if you learned that child reported gender dysphoria and wanted medical interventions (puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, surgery) that have not been proven safe or effective? Even strong supporters of the transgender movement’s policy demands are hesitant to equate the two.

Depending on where one lives, children coming out as lesbian or gay might face violence and abuse. Lesbian and gay kids often get bullied, no matter where they live. But the challenges of being lesbian or gay are social. Lesbians and gay men may seek psychotherapy, not (except in rare cases) to change their sexuality but to deal with the pain of being stigmatized and/or the emotional problems that many people experience. Lesbians and gay men don’t need medical treatment because same-sex attraction is not pathological, not the result of disease.

Kids acknowledging same-sex attraction need social support, which progressive people are usually eager to provide. That’s quite different from embracing invasive medical procedures for kids who identify as trans.

That’s the contradiction at the heart of transgender ideology. Medical treatment is appropriate to treat disease and injuries that pose a threat to a person’s health. If trans activists argue that in some cases, drugs, cross-sex hormones, and surgery are medically necessary, that is a recognition that at least in some cases, transgenderism is a pathological condition that requires treatment. Yet the transgender movement also argues that transgenderism should not be pathologized. Proposals for a World Professional Association for Transgender Health language policy include:

Avoid language which has the intention (or likely effect) of stigmatizing or pathologizing gender and bodily diversity (including a diversity of gender expressions and identities, as well as bodily characteristics). Stigmatizing and pathologizing language (e.g., “disordered” or “abnormal” or “malformation”) should be avoided altogether.

When Spain passed a law allowing anyone over 16 to change their gender on legal documents without undergoing psychological and medical evaluations to show gender dysphoria, the minister of equality stated: “Trans people are not ill people. They are people, full stop.” The statement is hard to understand. In the context of other medical conditions, no one suggests that people who are ill are somehow lesser people. These two claims—that trans is merely one aspect of human diversity but yet also is a condition requiring treatment—are contradictory.

Even when acknowledging that, trans activists try to deny it. Masha Gessen, a female journalist who identifies as trans and nonbinary, found it difficult to explain this contradiction in an interview:

Being trans is not a medical condition, but it marries you for life to the medical system. It almost always—not always—involves some kind of medical intervention. … I hate using the word “treatment.” I’m always stumbling over it because it’s not actually treatment, but it is treatment. But it’s not a medical condition.

Given how little we know about the etiology (the cause or set of causes) of gender dysphoria, there’s not much we can say about what transgenderism actually is in definitive terms. But whatever one believes transgenderism is, it can’t be both a routine part of healthy human diversity and a condition requiring medical treatment. If one isn’t ill in some way, why would one need such treatment? Simply saying there are lots of different types of trans people doesn’t get us any closer to understanding what the terms mean.

This issue arose when the American Psychiatric Association revised the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders to eliminate “gender identity disorder” in favor of “gender dysphoria.” One medical news website pointed out the tension:

[W]hile the move is seen as a win by some, others worry about what it could mean. Currently, insurance carriers may pay for sexual reassignment surgery because the procedure is for a medical problem, not for plastic surgery. Having the condition reclassified may cause problems with surgery for an already marginalized group.

A trans scholar who states that “gender identity and gender assigned at birth is increasingly understood as a matter of human diversity rather than as pathology” notes that the DSM and WPATH definitions of gender dysphoria are different, and therefore:

[C]linicians should not routinely diagnose patients who wish to access transition-related interventions with gender dysphoria. A diagnosis of gender dysphoria should be limited to situations in which it is genuinely necessary (such as for insurance coverage) or is done at the express request of the patient.

What responsible physician would consider a diagnosis “genuinely necessary” based on insurance or when the patient requests it? It’s an understatement to conclude, as did one research team, “All physicians included in gender dysphoria treatment are facing great bioethical challenges and dilemmas.”

This contradiction—don’t think of trans identity as a pathological condition but embrace medical treatment to “fix” the bodies of those who identify as trans and want drugs, hormones, and/or surgery—is a feature, not a bug, of the movement’s ideology.

Society should provide people with gender dysphoria psychological support to deal with the distress, just as we should provide such support to anyone experiencing distress of any kind. But in other medical arenas, wariness about solving complex problems with drugs and surgery is common, such as when the American Academy of Pediatrics released guidelines on childhood obesity that advocated intensive therapy for children as young as 6, weight loss drugs for those as young as 12, and surgery for teens as young as 13. A journalist reported that professionals on both sides of the debate “express uneasiness about the potential long-term consequences of putting millions of children on drugs or under the knife, instead of doing more to prevent the condition in the first place” and quoted a leading medical ethicist:

“Turning to surgery and pills is quintessentially American,” said Arthur Caplan, a bioethicist at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine who said he struggles with weight himself. Caplan called obesity “one of the biggest moral challenges” our society faces but described medication and surgery as just “Band-Aids in a society that can’t figure out what to really do to protect the interests of its kids.”

Those comments reflect a concern for the health of children and a wariness about rushing to industrial solutions. A parallel analysis of gender-affirming health care is appropriate but would generate accusations of transphobia. Simply challenging the appropriateness of LGBTQIA+ can make one a target.

Let’s go back to the remaining letters. First, a small portion of the human population is born “intersex,” with what are called disorders of sexual development, although some prefer differences in sexual development. There are important questions about treatment for those conditions, but they are separate from issues involving sexual orientation or transgender ideology.

The other letters raise other issues. I don’t use the term “queer,” either as a synonym for lesbian and gay, or as an all-encompassing term for “something other than heterosexual.” The term can’t be separated from “queer theory,” a postmodern academic fad that’s sometimes anti-feminist and always weighed down by unnecessary jargon. The recent explosion of terms such as asexual (along with pansexual, demisexual, and on and on) describe, if anything, psychological states or personal preferences that typically don’t have public-policy implications.

Many people I know with progressive politics accept the alphabet-soup label out of a desire to not rock the boat, with an unstated plea, “Can’t we all just get along?” There’s no reason we can’t get along while also airing principled disagreements about complex questions.

I continue to support the lesbian, gay, bisexual movement. I also critique the contradictions and confusion in transgender ideology and reject the trans movement’s policy demands that aren’t based on sound medical standards or undermine women’s right to privacy and safety. I support people born intersex in their quest for dignified medical treatment. As for the many other labels that people want to claim, well, I wish them well in their attempts to understand themselves and form communities.

[…]

Via https://www.greanvillepost.com/2024/07/06/the-problem-with-lgbtqia/

Dmitry Orlov

A handy historical rule of thumb: when debt service costs of a mighty empire exceed its defense spending, the mighty empire is at an end. So far, this rule has held for the Ottoman, Russian and British empires; the US empire is testing it now. The Congressional Budget Office found that the federal government has spent more on paying interest on the national debt than on the military in fiscal year 2024. US defense spending is roughly $1 trillion a year — and

According to the CBO, the US federal debt is going to jump yet again, by close to $2 trillion and exceed the truly gargantuan figure of $36 trillion. A steady stream of billions being sent to support failing imperial projects in the former Ukraine, in temporarily Israeli-occupied Palestine and in the Chinese province of Taiwan are helping with this endless debt bloat.

Meanwhile, as the world gradually but steadily turns away from the US dollar, the process of exporting inflation has stopped, meaning that dollar inflation will remain stubbornly above 3%, in turn forcing the US to continue borrowing at higher and higher interest rates. The tipping point for national bankruptcy and into failed state mode is approaching rapidly.

An inflection point will be reached when Asian countries, including China, which hold huge quantities of US debt in the form of US Treasuries, react to a worsening political relationship with the US by dumping these US Treasuries on the open market. Who will precipitate this disaster in the making? Why, the US government itself! Sanctions and tariffs are America’s favorite tools, and it simply doesn’t know how to stop. The negative feedback loop, which should exist between the US imposing sanctions and tariffs and the sanctioned countries selling off its US debt holdings, simply doesn’t exist. Instead, at every turn, the US government responds by digging its own financial grave faster and faster.

Russia was the first to opt out of this game by zeroing out its holdings of US Treasuries. Now, while Russia quietly plots to deliver a coup de grace to the US in some non-financial, kinetic yet plausibly deniable fashion, it is China’s turn: over the past few years, it has reduced its holdings of US debt by a third and shows no signs of slowing down. In addition, the work on isolating the global economy from the US dollar is ongoing, since its toxic nature has become obvious to almost all participants in world trade. The latest example is Việt Nam, which, as a follow-up to Putin’s recent visit, is switching its trade to national currencies. As an additional follow-up to Putin’s visit, Vietnamese Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son met with US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kretinbrink and told him Hanoi views Washington as a strategic partner. In other news, Americans still love the smell of napalm in the morning and words are still cheap.

The willingness of the rest of the world to absorb excess US debt issuance is what has allowed the US to cope with its excessive level of debt. But now the terminal disease of the US dollar is for everyone to behold: everyone is starting to avoid it as if it were a leper. In turn, the death of the US dollar will mean the death of the United States, turning it into the Divided States. Being able to issue checks that don’t bounce is a key function of the US federal government. Once this function becomes impaired — either through hyperinflation or through other, more direct sorts of insolvency, the individual states will inevitably drift apart.

What will happen to each individual state depends on the structure of its economy. Behold the following per capita balance of payments map (for 2019, but these are systemic effects that don’t change too fast).

Kyle Morris

BIDEN’S CONTROVERSIAL DHS ‘EXPERTS’ PANEL SHUTTERED AFTER BEING SLAPPED WITH LAWSUIT

A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) advisory board suggested that supporters of former President Donald Trump – as well as those who served in the military or are religious – have a greater possibility of posing domestic terrorism risks, according to internal files obtained by America First Legal (AFL).

Named the “Homeland Intelligence Experts Group,” the now-disbanded board was created in September 2023 to provide DHS with “expert” analysis on subjects like terrorism and the trafficking of certain controlled substances like fentanyl.

The panel, according to the conservative legal nonprofit’s findings, included former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan, both of whom signed onto an October 2020 letter falsely dismissing Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop as Russian disinformation.

The documents revealed that the board suggested “supporters of the former president” accounted for “most of the Domestic Terrorism threat” in the U.S.

“There is a political backdrop to all of this. It seems that most of the Domestic Terrorism threat now comes from supporters of the former president. It is not like you want a political advantage, but people have attacked the government and its institutions for the last six years,” meeting notes from the board stated.

Citing unnamed “researchers,” the board also claimed that specific traits – like those who served “in the military” or are “religious” – are “indicators of extremists and terrorism” that the U.S. should be “more worried” about.

“If you ask researchers to dive into indicators of extremists and terrorism, they might indicate being in the military or religious,” the board said. “This being identified as an indicator suggests we should be more worried about those. We need the space to talk about it honestly.”

The files were released Friday as the second installment of AFL’s “#DeepStateDiaries,” which was described by the organization as a “multi-part series of releases including newly obtained documents.”

“These shocking records reveal apparent unabashed partisanship on this Deep State committee,” AFL Executive Director Gene Hamilton told Fox News Digital. “All efforts to weaponize the federal government against political opponents of the ruling regime should be stopped. We look forward to exposing more records in the coming days.”

Echoing Hamilton in a statement shared on social media, AFL President Stephen Miller said the documents “reveal a shocking Biden plan to mobilize government power against Trump supporters ahead of the election.”

Asked whether the White House belies Trump supporters, military personnel, or those who are religious pose a significant threat to the U.S., White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates told Fox News Digital, “No.”

Bates referred Fox News to DHS for more information. DHS did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

On Thursday, AFL released documents pertaining to how the board discussed efforts to “get into local communities in a non-threatening way.”

Certain efforts outlined in the files released Thursday showed how the board hoped to enhance its ability to collect information about Americans.

The group of “experts” said the “See Something, Say Something” campaign following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City fell short because “Americans have an ambivalent feeling of telling on each other.”

“We see people who go off the rails. We need people to say something. We need a nationwide campaign to push it to the locals,” the meeting notes stated.

“To get a mother or teacher to come forward, it needs to be a public health catcher’s mitt,” one board member noted.

Following its successful lawsuit on behalf of former Acting Director of the United States National Intelligence Ric Grenell, AFL announced last month that the Biden administration had decided to “disband” the group.

[…]

Via https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-dhs-docs-suggested-trump-supporters-military-religious-people-likely-violent-terror-threats

“I know exactly what amino acids I have to change, because in 2012, against my recommendation, the scientists that did these experiments actually published them. So the recipe for how to make bird flu highly infectious for humans is already out there. All you have to do is look at it.”

Redfield has previously expressed disappointment in Dr. Anthony Fauci’s resistance to investigating whether the Chinese coronavirus pandemic was caused by a leaked gain-of-function virus—possibly because he funded such research.

HIGH FATALITY RATE. 

Dr. Redfield highlighted the high mortality associated with bird flu when it infects humans, estimating a fatality rate between 25 percent and 50 percent. He noted a rise in bird flu among 27 mammalian species including not only poultry animals like chicken, ducks, and turkeys, but also cattle in the United States.

Highlighting the virus’s spread to mammals such as dolphins, seals, bears, and cats, Redfield noted, “As the virus adapts to these new receptors, it inches closer to being able to infect humans.”

The Joe Biden regime is already investing millions in an mRNA vaccine for bird flu.

[…]

Via https://thenationalpulse.com/2024/06/17/ex-cdc-chief-warns-of-high-mortality-bird-flu-pandemic-caused-by-gain-of-function-research/

Caesarion, son of Cleopatra and Julius Caesar

Episode 48 The Grand Finale

The History of Ancient Egypt

Professor Robert Brier

Film Review

This final lecture ends with Cleopatra’s children. I found this somewhat disappointing as it omits roughly 2,000 years of Egyptian history.

Following Cleopatra’s suicide, Octavian (the future Augustus Caesar), had her son Caesarion killed as he was about to sail to India to start a new dynasty. Cleopatra’s other three children were sent to Rome to be raised by Octavia (Mark Anthony’s widow).

Cleopatra Celine, who was 14, eventually married King JubaII of Mauratania. They had a son Ptolemy and a daughter Drusilla, who married Antonius Felix, the governor of Judea.

Cleopatra Celine’s twin brother Ptolemy set up a dye industry making purple dye from Murax shell. When he went to  Rome to visit his cousin Caliguila, who had him killed because his cloak was too purple.

Brier concludes the series by listing gifts modern civilization owes to ancient Egypt, including the 365-day calendar, paper (from papyrus), monotheism, the pope’s mitre (the white crown of Upper Egypt), the bishop’s crook (Egypt’s royal symbols of power), religious trinities, Madonna and child imagery (from Isis suckling Horace) and stone building technology.

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

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/1492791/1492897

Map of areas where mink farms were found to have a bird flu infection

By Luke Andrews Senior Health Reporter For Dailymail.Com

But the country ordered the roll out after an outbreak of the virus on 27 fur farms in the country last year, including those housing mink and foxes.

Although no humans were infected by the virus, the cases did lead to 485,000 animals being culled to stop the disease from spreading.

In its campaign, Finland will offer a vaccine targeting the H5 protein on the virus, which officials say will likely work well against H5N1 infections.

The vaccines will be shipped from the Australian company CSL Seqirus as part of a European Union campaign to procure 40million doses in 15 countries.

The Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) said in a statement: ‘The vaccine will be offered to those aged 18 or over who are at increased risk of contracting avian influenza due to their work or other circumstances.’

This includes those working on fur and poultry farms, as well as lab technicians who handle bird flu samples and veterinarians working in areas with fur farms.

People who work in sanctuaries caring for wild birds, on farms or those who clean slaughterhouses and animal housing will also be offered the vaccine.

If a human infection is detected, the shot would also be administered to the person’s close contacts, officials added.

Health officials say the vaccine is expected to trigger sufficient antibodies to protect against a bird flu infection.

A previous study involving 3,400 people found 90 percent of those under 60 years old and 80 percent of those over 60 years old had antibody levels that ‘would protect them against H5N1’. Studies have also shown the vaccine is safe to use.

In the US, a total of 4.8million doses of a bird flu vaccine are set to be delivered by late summer — although there are currently no plans to distribute them.

America’s department of agriculture reports 118 dairy cow herds across 12 states have confirmed H5N1 cases and the three human cases were in people with direct contact with infected cattle.

They experienced swelling of the eyes and respiratory symptoms.

Despite the spread, the CDC said the risk to humans is low.

The outbreak in cattle is unprecedented, and has raised concerns the virus could be a step closer to spreading to humans.

But H5N1 has been causing a major outbreak in the animal world for months — infecting everything from foxes to raccoons and even dolphins and seals.

Finnish officials said they want to roll out the vaccine as soon as possible to minimize the risk of the bird flu spreading to humans.

They said the country faces a heightened risk because most of its fur farms are outdoors where animals kept in them can come into contact with wild animals — raising their risk of contracting the virus and passing it onto humans.

Minks pose a particular risk because the animals carry similar receptors in their lungs to humans, meaning they could act as ‘mixing vessels’ for spreading the virus to humans.

[…]

Via https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13568101/Finland-roll-vaccines-bird-flu-week-world-first.html