Afternoon music
Battles past
Saturday quiz
Well, this week I beat political journalist John Rentoul again. He scored 4 and two-thirds out of 10; I scored 6 and two-thirds. I suspect we both knew only (the same) two out of the three jazzmen in question 5. I did not know the answers to questions 4, 6, and 8 (though I came close on question 8).
Tweets seen
Why does some American patriot not do what has to be done?
At first, the rockets sent by the Palestinian resistance were little more than fireworks, but over the years and decades the technology has improved. It seems that now at least some of those rockets are quite powerful.
Israel, for all its military might, and for all its money, and its control/influence in other countries, is doomed in the long run. Demographics alone, in the region as a whole, would seem to indicate that.
Israel may have powerful weapons, including nuclear ones, but those weapons may not be enough to save it, in the end.
Perhaps a foretaste of what will eventually happen on a far bigger scale.
Cleverly, with all the erudition and wisdom of his “McDegree” in Hospitality Management, explains that firing rockets etc at civilian habitations is “terrorism”. Unless, of course, the shooters are British or American (or Israeli), and the civilians Palestinian Arabs, Iraqis, Afghans, Serbs or (in WW2) Germans etc…
I have to admit that I would never have guessed that the Arabs would be able both to co-ordinate such attacks and also keep the date and time of them secret. Presumably, the Israelis were also not expecting this.
Quelle surprise…
Again, quelle surprise— Israel almost always hits civilian targets.
In one or two decades, something a hundred times greater will probably happen, whatever Israel now does. Israel is doomed.
If the Palestinian Arabs were to create very deep tunnels, coming to the surface somewhere in Central Israel, it might be a gamechanger.
I seem to recall that the KGB had a directorate mainly tasked with digging tunnels. I wonder where those people are now.
Maybe the 15th? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KGB#Directorates.
Possible/plausible “conspiracy theory”: the Israeli ruling circles knew of the Hamas plan, but allowed it to happen, “throwing under a bus” their own Jewish inhabitants, in order to be able invade Gaza as a form of “self-defence”. That is what, mutatis mutandis, Roosevelt did before and after Pearl Harbor.
More music
More tweets seen
The Israeli population must be panic-stricken.
If the term “war criminal” means anything, here it is. Untermensch.
Look at the Old Testament. They started ethnic cleansing that long ago.
What is important about the events of the past 24 hours is not the statistical rate of attrition, not the damage done, and not even which side eventually “wins” in the short term (bearing in mind Israel’s huge military superiority, that can hardly be in doubt), but the fact that an incursion like that seen has happened at all.
Hamas has broken something now— the sense of effortless Israeli military might, and the idea that any invasions or incursions into Israeli territory will be slight, only in one area, and easily repulsed.
In the longer term (i.e. after 2023), that may prove to be the most significant fact about these events. The Palestinian Arabs now know what is or might be possible, no matter what Israeli/Jewish repression follows the current events.
This may just be the beginning of the end for Israel.
Late music
Ian Robert Millard 