666

Daniel Miller

Description

The purpose of this augmented lecturing screencast [Miller, D. (2020). 666. Cascade Journal of Knowledge, volume 1 (2), 8:52. https://doi.org/10.46290/cjok000010] is to discuss the concept of the numerical figure “six hundred sixty-six” found in the biblical book of Revelation (13:18). It is said to be “the number of the beast”—a monstrous, multi-headed creature of the apocalypse. In the public imagination, “666” has long been associated with two, supposedly interrelated, entities: “the Antichrist” and the biological son of Satan. In the view of biblical scholars, however, these associations are false. Rather, the number 666 is a numerological reference to a first-century Roman emperor who had harshly persecuted those who would come to be known as Christians.

Hebrew Literature,

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning,

History of Religion,

Biblical Studies,

Ancient Near Eastern culture, Biblical Studies, Archaeology

VIDEO

https://www.academia.edu/video/1qv7Xl?email_video_card=description-read-more&pls=RVP

CHOMSKY: “If Corbyn had been elected, Britain would be pursuing a much more sane course”

The father of modern linguistics speaks exclusively to The London Economic about Donald Trump, Jeremy Corbyn and most pressingly: the climate crisis.

 by Adam Turner
April 24, 2021
in News



Noam Chomsky is among the world’s most eminent political rebels. For decades, his stark criticisms of the United States’ foreign policy have troubled presidents, both Republican and Democrat.

Just last year, the self-proclaimed anarchist called Donald Trump “the worst criminal in history” for his refusals to act on the climate crisis in a controversial interview with the socialist publication Jacobin Magazine.

Former president, Barack Obama, didn’t get off lightly either. He was in Chomsky’s bad books for waging a targeted “global assassination campaign” (Obama is estimated to have carried out 1,878 drone strikes over eight years) during his time as leader.


Even Joe Biden, who only took up office in January this year, was reprimanded early in his presidency for adopting Trump’s policy on Iran with “virtually no change”. Biden’s appointment of Richard Nephew – author of the book The Art of Sanctions – as Iran envoy particularly concerned to the renowned academic who believes the sanctions on Iran were “illegitimate in the first place”.

The father of modern linguistics

You’d think the 92-year-old would be tired of talking politics by now, but if YouTube is anything to go by, that couldn’t be further from the truth. The video sharing website’s recent pages are full of clips of him chatting with university students (he’s still a Laureate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona and Institute Professor Emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology or MIT), debating well-known journalists and looking bewildered as entrepreneurs ask questions about his beard.

After three years’ worth of emails, we sit down to chat on Zoom (his video calling preference). When he appears on the screen from his home in Tucson, Arizona, he looks, with his wispy grey hair and long and unkempt beard, like a modern-day Plato – sat in front of a packed bookshelf, displaying only one photo of him and his wife. Over the course of nearly an hour and a half, we discuss everything from activism and internationalism, Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, to Jeremy Corbyn and Joe Biden, as well as nuclear war and perhaps the most pressing matter of all: the climate crisis.

Born in Philadelphia in 1928, to say the ‘father of modern linguistics’ – a name given to him for his revolutionary theories in the field – has lived a full life would be the understatement of the century. He was brought up by Jewish immigrant parents, William (Ze’ev) Chomsky and Elsie Simonofsky, during the Great Depression – his father fled the Russian Empire to escape conscription in 1913. He listened to Hitler’s Nuremberg rallies over the radio as WW2 unfolded when he was a boy and rose to prominence in his 20s and 30s during the Vietnam War for his anti-war activism, which almost landed him in prison. “I was an unindicted co-conspirator in a federal trial and on track to be the main target of the next.”

The veteran activist also featured on Richard Nixon’s opponents list – an extension of his enemies list derived from prominent public figures (actors, academics, politicians etc.) he thought could be a threat to his presidency. But it was way before all of this that the professor became political.

“When I was four or five years old, I was beginning to think about these things [politics], and it never changed. I grew up in the depression. My early childhood memories were things like miserable people coming to the door trying to sell rags, women’s strikers being attacked by security forces. I was surrounded by things like that.”
Anarchist libertarian

It wasn’t just gloomy lived experiences that influenced his early political beliefs. His family played a big part too. Although his mother and father were centre-left politically, his uncle was more radical and had “been through every political party”. At 12, a young Noam would stay with him and his wife at the weekend. During his visits, he’d go to his uncle’s newsstand and listen to radical activists, some of whom had fled the Spanish Civil War. He’d spend the rest of his time dipping between anarchist bookstores and devouring political literature passed around Union Square – a hive for radical politics at the time.

Since establishing his views as a child, they’ve rarely wavered. He’s an anarchist-libertarian (an anti-authoritarian wing of the socialist movement) and has been since he cares to remember. When I ask him how he’s managed to stave off conservatism or cynicism, he says:

“I didn’t see any reason to be [more conservative]. My early beliefs seemed to be only partially formed; of course, they developed much more afterwards, when I learned more, but they seemed to basically be on the right track.”

When I ask him personal questions such as this, he’s polite and respectful, but his answers are curt. It’s as if he knows that our time in every sense of the word – is limited, and he’d prefer to reserve his energy for important subjects. However, he flows freely from one long, cultivated soliloquy to another discussing things like democracy, activism and the planet’s future. I guess it’s to be expected of a world-renowned linguist that’s dedicated his life to academia.

Chomsky is an exceptional scholar. He went to the University of Pennsylvania at 16 and later became a leading professor in linguistics. The author has also given speeches at events around the world and continues to do so virtually.

More recently, he co-authored a book with economist Robert Pollin, ‘Climate Crisis and the Green New Deal’, examining how to save the world from the climate crisis by laying out practical economic, humanitarian and technical solutions. His position on the topic is both clear and candid.

“We have maybe 20 or 30 years to see if human civilisation can survive, and we’re not doing it now. If we fail, if this generation fails, it’s basically saying, ‘it was nice having humans around for a couple of 100,000 years, but it’s over.”
“Lunacy, outright lunacy”

He’s talking about reducing carbon emissions to prevent a hothouse earth scenario, which would see the world hit its highest global temperature of any time in the past 1.2million years, making it, in his words, “unliveable”. Climate crisis is why the Paris Climate Agreement was set up in 2015. The International Treaty, signed by nearly 200 countries, aims to reduce carbon emissions and keep global temperatures well below 2.0C. However, Chomsky insists, “we’re nowhere meeting the promises.”

I ask him for his thoughts on another topical issue: nuclear weapons. More specifically, Boris Johnson’s plans to lift the cap on Trident (Britain’s nuclear deterrence). If reports are correct, the Prime Minister plans to increase nuclear warheads by 40%, which could break international law. The UK is a signatory of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) – a commitment for the government to gradual nuclear disarmament.

Is it dangerous?

“I wouldn’t say it’s just dangerous; it’s lunacy, outright lunacy. I mean it’s ludicrous for Britain to have a nuclear force altogether. It doesn’t defend Britain. In fact, it makes it a target; it contributes nothing to security. It’s a prestige thing. And along with heating the climate, nuclear war is a comparable threat, it’s a serious threat, very little discussed, but anyone who’s anywhere near the arms control community knows very well this is an extremely serious and growing threat.” he says.

The nonagenarian doesn’t think Johnson’s move will lead to an escalation from other countries because, in his words, “Britain no longer has the global role it once did”. He says the UK is now a “junior partner to the United States” – something he thinks will be accelerated because of Brexit. As his eyes flicker – perhaps as a signal of irritation – he moves on to Trump.

“During the Trump years, one of his great contributions was to tear to shreds the arms control regime, which had been painstakingly built up over 60 years, going back to Eisenhower. Piece after piece was dismantled. Trump was a wrecker,”

Chomsky isn’t a fan of Trump, he says “the most serious crimes he committed is the destruction of the acceleration of the use of fossil fuels and the elimination of regulatory apparatus. There’s nothing in comparison to that fact. And to be honest, and frank, that’s the worst crime in the history of the human race.”

I ask if he thinks Boris Johnson is going down a similar route.

“It’s not identical, it varies, but it’s too similar for comfort. I think developing the nuclear facilities is a case in point.”
“If Corbyn had been elected, Britain would be pursuing a much more sane course”

While we’re on the subject of nuclear deterrence, I can’t help but ask about Jeremy Corbyn, who, depending on political leanings, was either the biggest threat to world peace or the saviour of humankind.

Would the world have been a safer place had Corbyn won the last general election in terms of nuclear threat?

“I think if Corbyn had been elected, Britain would be pursuing a much more sane course. I think his general positions were very reasonable. And I think that’s probably the reason for the extraordinary attack on him pretty much across the spectrum, with mostly fabricated charges of antisemitism. Anything that could be thrown at him was, it was a major assault. Again, pretty much across the spectrum, The Guardian, right-wing press, ‘we got to get rid of this guy’.

“I think that’s a sign, a reflection of the fact that he had very reasonable proposals. He was also doing something dangerous, he was trying to turn the Labour Party into an authentic political party, one that’s based on its constituents, not some bureaucracy somewhere that runs it and tells people how to vote. That’s scary. We don’t want to have authentic, popular based political parties around, they could be out of control.”

Although there is no doubt, the Labour Party has had serious problems with antisemitism. Last year, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) identified “serious failings in leadership and an inadequate process for handling antisemitism complaints across the Labour Party.” The 130-page report went on to conclude that “there were unlawful acts of harassment and discrimination for which the Labour Party is responsible.” The former Labour leader was embroiled in an antisemitism row of his own for appearing to support a graffiti artist whose antisemitic mural was removed from a wall – something he later apologised for.

I bring up the genuine concerns raised regarding the Labour Party’s and antisemitism, which some felt were dismissed by Corbyn.

“If you look at the facts, the Tory party has more antisemitism than the Labour Party. There’s something there, you know, you should deal with it. But it’s not even within shouting distance of the way the issue was presented. By now, there’s pretty careful analyses of it. And I think if you look at them, you find what we know in advance. Yes, there’s antisemitism in England. That’s a bad thing. We should deal with it. But it’s not in the Labour Party any more than anywhere else, probably less.

“But compared with, say, islamophobia, it doesn’t even come close. Okay, that’s acceptable. You’re allowed that. In fact, if you look at the famous international Holocaust Remembrance Association’s statement on antisemitism, which everybody’s supposed to accept, just take its provisions and think about them for a minute. It follows that almost everybody’s a hysterical islamophobe. The charges of what they call indications of antisemitism if you apply that to attitudes towards Islam and Muslims, it cuts a very wide swath.”

The current IHRA statement on antisemitism from its website reads:

‘Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.’

Chomsky, who has previously spoken of being subjected to antisemitism as a child, finishes with “antisemitism shouldn’t be vulgarised and politicised, turned into a weapon. It’s too serious for that.”
“Antisemitism shouldn’t be turned into a weapon”

Keir Starmer, the current Labour leader, declared that tackling antisemitism was his first priority as Labour leader. He followed through with his word when he sacked Rebecca Long-Bailey in summer 2020 for sharing an article that contained antisemitic conspiracy theories. Corbyn was later suspended himself for sharing a statement 30 minutes after the EHRC report claiming the scale of the antisemitism problem had been “overstated for political reasons”.

Starmer has since faced criticism from large swathes of dedicated Corbyn supporters, many of which feel the party is moving to more centre-ground and not acting as serious opposition to the current government. Those more sympathetic to the challenges he’s faced early in his premiership – namely a global pandemic – believe he’s adopting a similar strategy to Joe Biden by waiting until his opponent fails.

Wary that our time has run over by 36 minutes already, I ask if Starmer’s strategy is a good one.

“It’s a good strategy if you want to turn the Labour Party into a junior partner of the Tories. Pretty much like what Tony Blair did, it used to be called Thatcher light. If that’s what you want, fine. If you want a Labour Party that actually represents the working people of England, middle-class people of England, pursue their interests, it’s not the way to do it. It depends on what your goals are. It looks to me that Starmer’s is pretty much dismantling the activist Labour Party that the Corbyn people were trying to develop.”

It’s a statement that will thrill Corbynistas but probably won’t surprise Starmtroopers either. After all, Chomsky himself said he’d back Corbyn during the 2017 election campaign, and he’s hardly someone that’s tempted by moderate politics, although he did endorse Joe Biden.

Though he’s happy about the path he’s going down regarding the climate crisis, he’s not convinced it’s entirely original. “Biden’s programme is much better than any predecessor, not because of a religious conversion, because of very significant activist pressures, which have made a difference.”

After just over one hour 20 minutes, the interview draws to a close. He politely explains he has got to go, more appointments. I steal a second to ask one final question. Where does he see the world in 2050? His answer is unapologetically Chomsky-esque.

“Well, there’s one thing we can say, either we will have reached net-zero emissions by 2050, or we can pretty much say goodbye to each other.”

Noam Chomsky and Robert Pollin’s book, ‘Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal’ is available here.

 

Hamas fires long-range missile at Ramon Airport (+VIDEOS)

TEHRAN, May 13 (MNA) – The spokesman for the Al-Qassam Brigades said the armed wing has for the first time fired a rocket towards Ramon Airport south of the country.

“The Ayyash 250 missile, with a range greater than 250km has been launched at Ramon Airport, about 220km from Gaza,” Abu Obeida said.

The rocket is named after Yahya Ayyash, one of Hamas’s leading operatives before he was assassinated by Israel regime in 1996.

Abu Obeida called the rocket launching part of the Al-Qassam Brigades’ response to the killing of its senior commanders.

Sirens go off warning of rocket attacks at Tel Aviv

The Zionist media reported sirens went off warning of rocket attacks following a large-scale rocket attack by Resistance forces on Tel Aviv. 

Al-Qassam Brigades said it had targeted Tel Aviv, Beersheba and Netivot, as well as Tel Nof and Nevatim airbases.

Israeli TV Channel 12 reports that in the new round of attacks by the Palestinian Resistance, more than 100 rockets were fired at the occupied territories.

It also reported that three people were injured in the town of Kiryat Gat.

Our weapons are for sake of our land, to defend our people: Hamas

The spokesman for Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, warned Israel there are “no red lines if al-Aqsa is violated”.

Abu Obeida said the decision to bomb Dimona, Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities “is easier for us than drinking water”.

“We reassure our people that we have more rockets in our inventory, and our missile strikes have revealed the enemy’s fragility,” he said.

Abu Obedia said the Israeli army will sorely regret carrying out a ground invasion.

“Our weapons are for our land, for the defense of our people and victory for our sanctities,” the military spokesman said,

“What distinguishes this battle is the solidarity of the Palestinians across the country and their unanimous support for resistance.”

Gaza martyrs rise to 83 as Israeli air raids intensify

The number of Palestinians martyred in the Gaza Strip has now risen to 83, including 17 children, the local health ministry has said. 

Israeli fighters jet bomb high-rise buildings and other targets in Gaza while violence also spreads within the occupied territories, Al-Jazeera reported.

Since the Israeli offensive began late on Monday, Gaza’s health ministry says at least 83 people, including 17 children, have been martyred. More than 480 others have been wounded.

Israeli army vehicle hit by rocket

Palestinian news sources reported that a Kornet anti-tank missile hit a military vehicle of the Israeli army in southern Gaza.

Sources say several Zionist forces appear to have been killed in the attack. The exact number of casualties in this attack has not been reported yet.

Yesterday, the Resistance forces fired two Kornet missiles at the Israeli military vehicles, in which four Zionist forces were seriously wounded and one was killed.

Israeli army wounds 35 in occupied West Bank

At least 35 Palestinians were wounded in confrontations with the Israeli army in various locations in the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera reported.

According to Al-Jazeera's correspondent, the majority of people were hit by live ammunition and that most injuries occurred in the southern West Bank city of Hebron.

“It was an exceptionally high number of injuries by live fire which shows us that the situation could be escalating rapidly,” the correspondent added.

Zionists bomb high-rise buildings as Gaza marks Eid al-Fitr

Israeli fighter jets have attacked high-rise buildings and other targets in the Gaza Strip as Palestinians in the besieged enclave woke up on Thursday to mark Eid al-Fitr under relentless aerial bombardment.

At least six Zionists have also been killed. The Israeli army said hundreds of rockets have been fired from Gaza towards various locations in Israel and they have added reinforcements near the enclave’s eastern lands.

There have also been more violent confrontations between Israelis and Palestinian citizens in several cities inside the occupied lands.

Zionist regime shuts Ben Gurion Airport to incoming flights

The Zionist regime's air officials said Thursday that incoming passenger flights would be diverted from Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv to Ramon Airport outside Eilat in the south.

Following Palestinian Resistance rocket attacks on Tel Aviv, the Zionist regime shut Ben Gurion Airport to incoming flights and diverted them from Ben Gurion Airport to Ramon Airport outside Eilat in the south.

It said guidelines were in place for passenger planes to land at Ramon Airport near the southern resort city of Eilat from early on Thursday.

Israeli army says attacked 600 targets in Gaza in 3 days

The Israeli army says it has attacked more than 600 targets in Gaza since the start of the recent fighting against the Palestinians.

According to Al-Jazeera, the Israeli army claimed that 13 missiles were fired from Gaza at Israel from 9 pm last night until this morning, with the Iron Dome intercepting several missiles; But the regime did not release information on the number of missiles that hit the target.

On the other hand, the Joint Operations Room of the Palestinian Resistance Groups announced that on the second day of the clashes with the Zionist enemy, it fired 300 missiles and rockets towards the occupied territories.

Zionist attack on Gaza leaves 72 martyred, incl. 17 children

The Palestinian Ministry of Health announced on Thursday that the number of martyrs in the Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip increased to 72.

The Ministry of Health announced on Thursday morning that the number of martyrs in the brutal Zionist attacks on the Gaza Strip had reached 72, including 17 children and 6 women.

The number of injured has also increased to 390, including 115 children and 50 women.

Palestinian Resistance fires 1,500 rockets at occupied lands

The Israeli army estimates that the number of rockets and missiles fired by resistance groups from the Gaza Strip in the last three days has reached 1,500.

A statement issued by the Israeli army claimed that the regime's fighter jets, helicopters and artillery had targeted more than 600 positions in the Gaza Strip over the past three days.

The Zionist regime claims that these targets belonged to the Islamic Jihad Movements and the Palestinian Islamic Resistance (Hamas).

According to the Times of Israel, the regime's army acknowledged that more than 1,500 rockets and missiles had been fired from the Gaza Strip towards the occupied territories, adding that at least five Zionists had been killed and more than 100 injured.

Zionist regime intensifies attacks on various areas of Gaza

Stating that the Zionist regime's attacks are focused on important infrastructure and roads in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian media reported the regime intensified its attack of various areas of Gaza.

News sources in the Gaza Strip say that the Zionist regime has been carrying out heavy airstrikes and artillery attacks in the north, center and south of the Gaza Strip since the early hours of Thursday morning.

The Palestinian Shehab News Agency reported that the building of the Islamic National Bank and other financial institutions in the Gaza Strip have been targeted by Zionist attacks.

"Israeli enemy planes are targeting various areas in the Gaza Strip, including Jabalia and Sheikh Zayed," Shehab correspondent reported from the Gaza Strip.

"Israeli planes are targeting the main roads connecting the provinces of the Gaza Strip," the news agency said, adding that the Sheikh Zayed region alone has been targeted by Zionists more than 30 times in recent minutes.

The Palestinian Resistance movement Hamas had set a deadline for the Zionist military to leave Al-Aqsa Mosque by 6 o'clock local time Monday and free the Palestinians who have been arrested.

Clashes between the Palestinian resistance and the Zionist regime began on Monday after the deadline expired.

ZZ/FNA14000223000027

News Code 173391

The Delusions Driving Israeli Thinking Have Been Exposed as Never Before

Sooner or later, severe oppression rebounds against the perpetrator. In Israel, when that happens, the answer is always and inevitably to use more violence.


A Palestinian man walks past the remains of a tower building which was destroyed by Israeli air strikes in Gaza City, May 13, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Suhaib Salem

David Shulman

13/MAY/2021

Something important happened in Israel in May 2021. Not just the fact that Hamas in Gaza surprised the army and the intelligence services, not to mention the government, by its ability to take command of a volatile situation, to hit deep into Israel with precision rocketry, and to impose its agenda on an overwhelmingly more powerful enemy. Not only the fact that the government and police have lost control of much of the country, especially mixed Arab-Jewish cities such as Lod, Ramleh, Jaffa, Acre and east Jerusalem, where conditions close to civil war are now in evidence. Not only the acute failure of the Benjamin Netanyahu government to restore some semblance of normalcy, to say nothing of articulating a viable policy for the future.

All these are there for all to see. But the crucial point is that the deeper currents of life in Israel-Palestine, and above all the regnant delusions that have driven Israeli thinking for the past many decades, have been exposed as never before. What we will witness over the coming weeks is a desperate attempt to reestablish these self-destructive axioms as political norms, despite the disaster they have, unsurprisingly, brought about.

It is not difficult to trace the stages through which the current round of violence evolved. One particularly foolish move was the decision by the new police commissioner, Kobi Shabtai, to barricade the wide steps leading into the Damascus Gate of the Old City in Jerusalem. During Ramadan, these steps are a favourite place for families to celebrate the evening iftar meal. There was no apparent logic to closing them off apart from a wish to humiliate Muslim Palestinians at a particularly sensitive moment. Fiery protests erupted. Eventually, the police removed the barriers. By then other processes had been set in motion.

Also read: Palestine Is Witnessing the Daily Brutalities of an Occupying Power

In the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of east Jerusalem, the Israeli courts have recently declared the impending eviction of several Palestinian families from their homes to be legal. I know those families well. For many years Israeli human rights activists have accompanied their struggle to save their homes and their lives, and we have had some success in at least delaying the evictions, often for years. Parts of Sheikh Jarrah were once – before the State of Israel came into being – owned by Jews; Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war were settled there by the Jordanian government in the 1950s, and they have been living there ever since. But Israeli settlers from the extreme nationalist right have been trying to reclaim these lands for the Jews, and the courts have sadly, and cruelly, gone along with them. I won’t go into the legal niceties here. Let me just note that easily a third of the properties in Israeli west Jerusalem belong to Palestinian families who lived there before 1948; under Israeli law, Palestinians have no hope of recovering their lost homes.


With the evictions in Sheikh Jarrah, which affect some 300 people, about to happen – unless the Supreme Court steps in to stop them, an unlikely move – the protests in the neighbourhood came back to life. Young Palestinians, including some from Arab villages in the north of Israel, joined in. Wild-eyed Jewish settler thugs, who now have their own party in the Knesset since Netanyahu brought them back from the limbo to which they had been consigned by law in 1988, descended upon Sheikh Jarrah in order to terrorise the Palestinian residents. Night after night, the neighbourhood turned into a battle ground, the police often siding with and protecting the settlers, as I saw with my own eyes. As so often, the attempt to violently suppress peaceful protest has boomeranged. Sheikh Jarrah is now a rallying cry for Palestinians everywhere in Israel and the West Bank, also for the Arab world beyond Palestine.

The height of madness was reached in the Haram al-Sharif during the final days of Ramadan, when tens of thousands of worshippers come to the Al-Aqsa mosque. Some of them threw stones at the police, who responded with extraordinary brutality. Hundreds of Palestinians were wounded, along with some 20 policemen. The Al-Aqsa mosque, mentioned in the Qur’an, is sacred to over a billion Muslims. It takes truly unusual degrees of imbecility to send policemen throwing stun grenades and tear gas at worshippers inside the mosque during Ramadan. Moreover, since the very beginning of the conflict in the early 20th century, Palestinian Muslims have seen the Zionist enterprise as aimed, first and foremost, at destroying the Haram so the Jews could rebuild their temple there. For many Palestinians, the Israeli police have now, not for the first time, substantiated this false notion.


A Palestinian man runs for cover during an Israeli air strike near the ruins of a tower building which was destroyed in earlier strikes in Gaza City, May 13, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Suhaib Salem

There were other factors in play. Elections were supposed to take place in Palestine this spring; the Palestinian Authority cancelled them, fearing they would lose ground to Hamas. It’s a reasonable fear; the PA has failed miserably to deliver anything of lasting value to the Palestinian national movement. Hamas, furious at President Abu Mazen’s decision, eagerly took over the role of defending Jerusalem, the Haram, Sheikh Jarrah and the West Bank, the latter languishing for the last 74 years under a regime of state terror and institutionalised theft of Palestinian land for Israeli settlement.

And there is one more far from negligible element. It cannot be by chance that this crisis developed, to the point of war, just as the Israeli opposition parties seemed to be close to establishing a government in the wake of the last Israeli elections. Netanyahu, who has driven the country through four indecisive elections in the last two years for the sole purpose of evading the criminal charges pending against him in court, was likely to lose power. The new government-that-almost-was is now on hold, possibly ruled out. The reader can draw her own conclusions about Netanyahu’s role in running this politically useful catastrophe.

All of this story has been told by others. For most Israelis, the causal chain is either invisible or forgotten, as the war unfolds. And Hamas has its own lethal actions to account for. But the core of the matter lies in the axioms I mentioned in the opening paragraph. It isn’t possible to enslave forever a population of millions, to deny them all basic human rights, to steal their lands, to humiliate them in a thousand ways, to hurt them, even kill them, with impunity, to create a regime meant to ensure permanent supremacy of one population over another, and all this by the exercise of massive military force. In fact, “forever” is an overstatement. A tiny state like Israel can apparently get away with such a policy for some decades, using, actually mis-using, the memory of the Holocaust as its moral capital. Sooner or later, severe oppression rebounds against the perpetrator. In Israel, when that happens, the answer is always and inevitably to use more violence. Most of the country, and especially its elected leadership, suffers from a chronic learning disability.

Also read: Jerusalem Is Ablaze Again – and Israel’s Growing Settler Movement Was the Trigger

During these dark days and nights, one can hear a host of Israeli generals speaking, ad nauseam, about “deterrence,” the alleged goal of this war, a goal they think can be achieved by inflicting vast destruction on Hamas in Gaza. It is, I think, fair to say that this fantasy of deterrence has never worked. Only a nation haunted by a fundamental sense of impotence could cultivate such a delusion, even turning it into the cornerstone of its worldview and the guiding compass of its policies toward others, including the intimate Palestinian other who shares this land with the Jews.


In the midst of so much mindless destruction, one searches desperately for some tattered scraps of hope. I used to think I would live to see the change that must happen here – to see the elementary principle of equality for all, enshrined in Israel’s Declaration of Independence, begin to take root in Israeli minds; to see Israelis and Palestinians embrace the many ties that bind them. I’m no longer so sure I’ll get to see that day.

David Shulman is an Indologist and an authority on the languages of India. A Professor Emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he is an activist in Ta’ayush, Arab-Jewish Partnership.

How Hamas pierced Israel's famous Iron Dome shield
Campbell MacDiarmid and James Rothwell1

 May 13 2021

Death toll in Gaza and Israel mounts amid violence between Palestinian militants and Israel’s military

The international community is urging both sides to end the escalation.

Israel's military was facing questions on Wednesday (local time) as to whether its Iron Dome missile defence system needed an upgrade, after five Israeli civilians were killed by rocket strikes.

The system, which Israeli officials say has a 90 per cent interception rate, has already avoided heavy loss of life in Tel Aviv, Ashkelon and other cities which became a focal point for Hamas as it sought to overwhelm air defences.

But on Wednesday, Israeli analysts said that for some time intelligence sources had been warning that Hamas had significantly improved its weaponry, to the extent that it could “pierce the Iron Dome shield”.

In Gaza, the police headquarters has been destroyed by Israeli bombardments as the violence escalates and casualties rise on both sides

Bob stressed that this did not mean the Iron Dome was no longer effective.

“If Hamas has more of those longer-range rockets, this could impact Israel’s plans for this round of violence and especially the question of how long it wants it to last,” he added.

The scale of this week’s rocket barrages have been unprecedented, with about a thousand missiles fired at longer ranges to challenge the capabilities of the Iron Dome system.

“Ten per cent of the time, you have to take into consideration that it won’t do the job,” retired Israeli Brigadier General Amir Avivi said of the Iron Dome.

But Avivi, who founded a group of retired military officers called Habithonistim to advocate for Israel’s security, insisted it was operating as intended.

“The system was designed for much bigger events,” he said. “Iron Dome can cope with a huge volume of rockets.”

Introduced into service 10 years ago, the Iron Dome system was developed by two Israeli defence firms with financial and technical assistance from the United States.

Designed to intercept short-range rockets and mortars, the system uses radar to detect inbound threats and deploys interceptor rockets to detonate in the air to destroy incoming missiles.

ARIEL SCHALIT/AP
An Israeli soldier takes cover as an Iron Dome air defence system launches to intercept a rocket from the Gaza Strip, in Ashkelon, southern Israel on May 11, 2021.

The Israeli military has deployed 10 batteries of the Iron Dome system across the country and credits the system with greatly reducing casualties from rocket attacks.

“The number of Israelis killed and wounded would be far higher were it not for the Israeli Iron Dome system, which has been a lifesaver,” Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus said on Wednesday, speaking on a call with reporters from outside a rocket-damaged home in Yehud, on the eastern outskirts of Tel Aviv.

The house, 64 kilometres north of Gaza where the rocket was fired, was one of about 20 sites struck by Hamas and other militant factions in Gaza.

The unprecedented intensity of the rocket fire, which in some cases was trained deliberately on individual towns and cities, marks a new tactic by Hamas and Islamic Jihad to try to overwhelm the Iron Dome system.

Since the last major conflict in 2014, the militants have been increasing both the size of their arsenal and the capabilities of their rockets. “According to our estimates we’re talking about between 20,000 and 30,000 rockets in Gaza today, rockets and mortars,” Conricus said.

“We’ve seen a constant expansion in terms of range and also in terms of the size of the warheads,” he said. “They have an advanced arsenal of rockets – I think it’s on par with the fire capabilities of a few small European countries.”

Produced using pipe and fertiliser with designs provided by Iranian military engineers, Israel has few options for disrupting the manufacture of rockets in Gaza, though weapons workshops are among several hundred sites the Israeli military says it has struck in densely populated Gaza this week.

“Israel’s aerial bombardment of Gaza – the sixth one in my adult life at least – is unlikely to produce a new outcome,” said Steven Wagner, a lecturer in international security at Brunel University London.

“Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence, while mesmerising, should also be a stark reminder of the asymmetry of this conflict,” he said. “Hamas ordnance is simple, cheap, and can still occasionally break through the multimillion-dollar defence system funded by the United States.”

ARIEL SCHALIT/AP
Israelis run to shelters as air attack sirens goes off during a Jerusalem Day march, in Jerusalem.

The sheer number of rockets in militant hands, produced at a cost of just a few hundred dollars each, could pose a costly threat for Iron Dome to address, with each interceptor rocket costing an estimated US$50,000 (NZ$69,800), according to Israeli military.

However, Israel says that its costly defence system is worth every penny. “The rockets are not outsmarting the Iron Dome – the Iron Dome is outstanding in its capacity to adapt to new techniques and to new methods by the enemies,” Conricus said.

And while the rockets have terrified Israeli civilians, Conricus said their destructive power was limited: “The rockets definitely terrorise but are they capable of causing significant military damage? Not quite.”


The Telegraph

1 Swiss, 1 American die on Everest in year's 1st fatalities

A Swiss climber and an American have died on Mount Everest in the season's first casualties on the world’s highest mountain

By BINAJ GURUBACHARYA 

Associated Press
13 May 2021,



KATHMANDU, Nepal -- A Swiss climber and an American have died on Mount Everest in the season's first casualties on the world's highest mountain, expedition organizers said Thursday.

The Swiss climber, Abdul Waraich, 41, reached the peak before having difficulties, said Chhang Dawa of the expedition organizer, Seven Summit Treks in Nepal.


“Abdul successfully reached the summit but began experiencing issues during his descent," he said. “We sent two additional Sherpas with oxygen and food. Unfortunately, the Sherpas couldn’t save him."

U.S. national Puwei Liu, 55, also died at the highest camp on the mountain at South Col. He had reached the climbing feature named the Hillary Step, located between South Col and the summit, but had to return because of snow blindness and exhaustion.

With the help of support team members and additional oxygen, he was brought back to the camp at South Col but died on Wednesday evening, the organizers said.

No other details were given on the dead climbers and when their bodies would be brought down. Bad weather conditions have forced climbers to descend to lower altitudes for now.

Carrying bodies down the icy and slippery slopes from the highest altitudes is a difficult task that takes lots of time, requires several Sherpa workers and is generally very costly.

Nepal and China both canceled climbing seasons last year on the 8,849-meter (29,032-foot) -high mountain, which is divided between them. China is allowing only Chinese climbers on the north side of the mountain this year.


Nepal allowed foreigners to return this year and the government issued permits to 408 climbers to attempt to scale the peak during the popular spring climbing season.

The month of May usually has the best weather for climbing Everest. Scores reached the summit this week and more are expected to make their attempts later this month once the weather improves.