Hostages have been Israel’s Achilles’ heel ... ( and why go into Rafah)

Last week, there were (and probably still are) protests in Israel over the fate of the 132 hostages still held by Hamas.

Israel’s strategic weakness has been its approach to hostages. If some poor Israeli is taken; they are traded for assets way more valuable than themselves. Israel places a higher value on human life than her enemies. And, Hamas has benefitted from this ... over and over and over again. In 2011, a huge mistake was made in releasing 1027 prisoners for 1 kidnapped soldier (Gilad Shalit): 450 were Hamas terrorists, 280 serving life sentences. And half returned to terror activities and murdered more Israelis. The trade was a weakness to be exploited. And that is precisely why Hamas was focused so heavily on hostage taking on Oct 7. Engaging in this war, as if the hostages didn’t exist, as much as possible, is the right call. 

Hamas has absolutely no intention of meaningfully returning the hostages. They would only “return” the hostages by placing them in the way of Israeli fire.

As such, the focus should be on preventing this from happening again — i.e. completely obliterating Hamas. Half measures will only lead to more future bloodshed. It’s time to root them out of Rafah. I feel v. sorry for the civilians, but that’s on Hamas as the “representative” of Gaza. This is war, and wars suck.

Israel cannot compromise its national security. Israel doesn’t have the might of the US military. The Afghans discovered the hard way that President Biden, and other Western leaders, could stand back and permit a fascist regime to take over. Israel was created by those who understood that such a Holocaust could happen. Israel is surrounded by states and peoples who openly declare their desire to “kill the Jews”. Unlike the Palestinians, Israelis have nowhere else to go. Israel must act to maintain and preserve its security.

And, as a liberal democracy, Israel will observe international law and the rules of war. This was made clear when they dispersed notice recently for people to evacuate temporarily to prevent further bloodshed in the ensuing bombing campaign. In law, intent matters — not numbers. And, the ICJ have already declared that there is no genocide. Not even a plausible case of genocide.

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Israel has no option against an enemy that doesn’t “answer” to anyone

Israel needed to go into Rafah.

In earlier rounds of negotiations and in Cairo, Israel has faced considerable pressure from the international community to reach a negotiated settlement and cease their operations in Gaza. 

On the other hand, the only pressure on Hamas to compromise has been the threat of further military action. There is no other real pressure on Hamas. They hold the hostages and they don’t care about Gazan suffering. How can there be pressure on someone who doesn’t care about their own citizens. Hamas doesn’t have to answer to anybody. 

There is no middle path for Israel between either continuing full force with their military action until Hamas are obliterated, or sitting down at some negotiating table and giving Hamas more or everything they want.

Salmon risotto

So delicious. 😀

Salmon, peas, lemon, pepper & salt, mascarpone, veg stock.

Finally, some rocket on top.

Holocaust Remembrance Day

Last week, I went to the Imperial War Museum London’s “Holocaust Galleries”.

It is a dedicated gallery to conserving the memory of the lives and devastation wrought by the Third Reich.

It’s very moving. There were lots of photos of so many families and children caught in the web of WW2 and antisemitism. Including life in the ghettos which were overcrowded and miserable, with limited food, sanitation, warmth, and medicine. 

I realise how outrageous it is that urban city centres in America are somehow called “ghettos”. The original ghettos were designed to isolate and control millions of Jews during the Holocaust.

There is a tendency to think that we know enough or too much about the Holocaust. In my view, if anything, we don’t learn about it enough. It’s the sheer scale of what happened that still shocks me. It’s a state-wide industrial scale. Like an Orwellian fiction. 

Before the Nazis, there were 3 million Jews in Poland. After they left, there were under 200,000 left. The Auschwitz gas chambers were capable of “processing” 2000 lives per hour.

On more than one occasion, the guards ran out of Zyklon-B and fed little Jewish children to the furnaces while they were still alive.

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Oct 7 and the Holocaust: the rising antisemitism

Today, posters of Israelis taken hostage by Hamas is very striking. Although there are some parallels, it must be said that there is nothing in similarity between the Holocaust and what’s going on in Israel-Gaza today. 

Oct 7 was the worst atrocities to Jews since the Holocaust. Eradicating Hamas is thus a just cause. Not out of vengeance, but the necessity of keeping Israelis safe in their homes.

Nevertheless, the attack by Islamist terrorists against the only Jewish state has been accompanied by a rise around the world in antisemitism. 

These recent “protests” (with “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” or “Intifada revolution” etc.) give implicit succor to the pro-Hamas fanatics who attack the Jewish identity, and the right to exist. Anti-zionism is anti-semitism. 

They should be demanding that Hamas release the hostages of Oct 7. They should not be equivocating Oct 7 with wartime civilian deaths in Gaza. They should be rebelling against hate. 

If people retort by saying only a few bad apples were making those chants; then, at what point, do these protests containing rotten apples become bad protesta? If you’re at a protest and people around start chanting something you don’t support, you need to remove them or remove yourself. Otherwise, standing side-by-side, people will assume they are together.

My favourite Eurovision 2024 song by Portugal — “​Grito” by Iolanda

This is my favourite Eurovision song. I’ve been playing this song for days now!

This singer blew me away. She has an absolutely euphonious gorgeous voice. Elegant, with passionate words (lyrics translation here).

At first, I didn’t “understand” the dancers and found them a bit distracting. But, then I realised that they are translating her fears and after her scream; they vanish from the scene as she is “cured”.

I don’t think she will win ... as quality is not appreciated at the Eurovision. They like “freaky” stuff.

I also found a beautiful acoustic version on Youtube. 

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Our own UK’s eurovision song was by Olly Alexander (“Dizzy”). It’s embarrassing 😒. Underwhelming and utterly generic.

The music was repetitive and boring with no climax. I also don’t really get what all those male dancers add to anything ... generic.

What are the “pro-Palestinian” protesters actually fighting for?

From University of Michigan to Columbia, protests over the war Israel-Hamas conflict continue to rock campuses across the US. And now, it’s moving to England & the University of Cambridge.

But this is not their war. Where are the demands for the return of the remaining hostages? What about demanding that the perpetrators of Oct 7 atrocities be brought to justice? Nope ... didn’t think so. 

There has been a huge outpouring of antisemitism amid these protests — Jewish students being barred from their own campus by pro-Palestinian activist thugs, told to go back to Poland and to the gas chambers, a Jewish student being beaten unconscious in UCLA, Jews told they were the next target for terrorists. When they shout ‘globalise the intifada’, it reminds me of the Brownshirts.

Today’s Cambridge pro-Palestine camp’s spokesman refused to condemn Hamas or describe them as a terror group when questioned by The Telegraph (reported at 3:26pm).

All civilian deaths are abhorrent; but we shouldn’t lose sight of the basic proposition: Hamas’s declared intention is to annihilate Israel and its population – whilst Israel is fighting against a fanatical fascist enemy who prop their own citizens as human shields and then cynically and gleefully propagandise the inevitable collateral casualties. 

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So what are they fighting for?

1. A narcissistic game of pretending to be a revolutionary and pretending to be part of something bigger than oneself. Protesters in the 60s were fighting for CND, Vietnam, gay rights, animal rights, environmentalism etc. Today’s protesters are positioning themselves against the progress made in the 60s onwards. I.e. with Hamas.
2. Antisemitism — Where were these protesters when Syria was wiping out its citizens? Where were they when Iraqi women were protesting against the killing or girls and women? There are no protests against the War in Yemen with over 150k+ direct casualties in that conflict. They only can be bothered to protest against the Jews. 
3. To isolate Israel from the global economy. They want the West to adopt the old “Arab boycott” against Israel in which any kind of business with Israel/Jews is banned. No oil, no gas, no electricity, no food. Essentially, they want to turn Israel into North Korea. This is ironic as they claim that Israel banning of trade with Gaza amounts to “genocide”.
4. They don’t want ceasefire. They want intifada. “Students for Justice” in Columbia — and people like Norman Finkelstein — have endorsed Hamas on October 7 arguing their “resistance” was justified. There is enough toxicity among this “underbelly” that a non-insignificant pro-Hamas sentiment can be easily found. Some are no better than their Holocaust-denying fellow travellers.
5. Decolonisation “settler-colonial” dialectical narratives — At recent protests, they were shouting that Israel are white colonialists oppressing brown people. This offshoot of Marxian traditional class-conflict presents itself in the post-modern “identity-politics” “decolonization” framework which leading universities (whose academics are overwhelmingly left-wing) have been pushing for years now. This shows a serious lack of understanding about Middle Eastern demographics. There are Lebanese & Palestinians who are the whitest people you can see. Meanwhile, there are Israelis who are black, and every shade in between. Essentially, projecting US racial dynamics onto this conflict. 
6. And some are genuinely well-meaning students, albeit mistaken, about the conflict; and have imbibed the media tropes about “genocide” etc. They are decent and would probably be shocked if they knew enough about their comrades. I suspect that most pro-Palestine supporters probably didn’t even know where the Gaza strip was before Oct 7. 

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Some interesting articles:

Michael Powell, in “The Unreality of Columbia’s ‘Liberated Zone’” (The Atlantic). He writes, about the protests at Columbia University:

As the war has raged on and the death toll has grown, protest rallies on American campuses have morphed into a campaign of ever grander and more elaborate ambitions: From “Cease-fire now” to the categorical claim that Israel is guilty of genocide and war crimes to demands that Columbia divest from Israeli companies and any American company selling arms to the Jewish state.

Many protesters argue that, from the river to the sea, the settler-colonialist state must simply disappear. To inquire, as I did at Columbia, what would happen to Israelis living under a theocratic fascist movement such as Hamas is to ask the wrong question. A young female protester, who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution, responded: “Maybe Israelis need to check their privilege.”

 John McWhorter, in “The Columbia Protests Made the Same Mistake the Civil Rights Movement Did” (NYT), also writes:

What happened this week was not just a rise in the temperature. The protests took a wrong turn, of a kind I have seen too many other activist movements take. It’s the same wrong turn that the civil rights movement took in the late 1960s.

Beyond a certain point, however, we must ask whether the escalating protests are helping to change those circumstances. Columbia’s administration agreed to review proposals about divestment, shareholder activism and other issues and to create health and education programs in Gaza and the West Bank. But the protesters were unmoved and a subgroup of them, apparently, further enraged … Who among the protesters really thought that Columbia’s president, Minouche Shafik, and the board of trustees would view the occupation of Hamilton Hall — and the visible destruction of property — and say, “Oh, if the students feel that strongly, then let’s divest from Israel immediately”? The point seemed less to make change than to manifest anger for its own sake, with the encampment having become old news.

JMW Turner at the National Gallery

Below is a write-up of paintings of Turner’s at the National Gallery. 

If asked about my desert island paintings — Turner would be included. I really love his work, and he’s so important in the history of art. 

Why? Because the sublime 19th century romantic landscapes have the psychological depth and emotion that leave you with a sense of awe. Nature on a grand scale — massive skies, crashing waters, etc., and the sublime.

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The Fighting Temeraire

A beautiful & moving elegy. Slightly mournful but leavened with glory. Turner’s sunsets are so intense. 

A grand old navy sail-ship being scuttled by the new steam-age. The steam-propelled tug tows the old “Temeraire” up the River Thames to a ship-breaker’s yard in Rotherhithe, South London. There is also a white flag on the mast of the tug. 

This painting depicts the final journey of the “Temeraire”, a famous warship sold by the Royal Navy in 1838. So, this was a real ship but probably not as Turner depicted it. The “Fighting” probably refers to her combat in the Napoleonic Wars and at the Battle of Trafalgar. Like us, in our obsolescence, when we too get old and are scuttled off.

Turner wonderfully contrasts the veteran ship against the blissful & radiant setting sun. Water seems to have no life other than to emphasis the sky, clouds, and smoke. Reflections in the water slow down the energy of the painting. The “Temeraire” also seems ghostly and ethereal while the tug boat is dark and powerful.

The sunset is on the same horizontal level as the Temeraire suggesting an approximation — and slightly obscured by the thick orange-smoke of that tugboat.

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Sun Rising through Vapour

Idyllic, charming.

A warm, reposeful and quiet afternoon by the coast for a fishing community at the fore. 

The calm is accentuated by the stillness of the sea.

Fish on the floor, a man pulling up his trousers.

Rembrandt at the National Gallery

This blog post is a write up of Room 44 at the National Gallery which is an intimate space with some really exquisite & captivating portraits by Rembrandt. Feel free to see my other write ups. I love going to galleries and writing about art.

Rembrandt van Rijn is one of the great masters. His visual art is utterly moving and captivating. I also love his family name “Van Rijn” refers to the river Rhine which flowed through his birthplace Leiden. Beautiful name.

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Rembrandt’s Self Portrait (aged 34) — 1640

Beautiful. Partially-lit in a darkened alcove makes for a very captivating and fascinating portrait.

I believe this was influenced by Titian — or perhaps, the other way round?

There is a certain dignified gravity in his manner. Rembrandt is here clearly wealthy, successful and confident. His use of light reminds me of Caravaggio and the Italian Baroque paintings.

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Portrait of Aechje Claesdr

Wow.

I think this was Rembrandt’s grandmother. It is so lovingly done and moving.

The subject evokes a fragile and tender feeling. Her elegant and delicately-pleated white ruffs balance her compelling face.

I think her unmet gaze, furrowed eyebrows, pursed lips, heavy eyes, bulbous nose create a melancholic face, even forlorn. Makes me feel protective and, as though, I want to embrace her warmly.

Rembrandt paints the deeper character of his subjects, and skillfully depicts the effects of age with some tenderness. 

Middle Temple Library

I’m taking a break from blogging for a few weeks.

More photos:

Sir Horace Avery — very famous judge.

The world wants a ceasefire, but Hamas doesn’t want it

Political theater this week in the United Nations.

I wonder if the UN is aware that there was a ceasefire in place already. And, guess who broke it?

The Biden Administration has thrown a bone to the progressives and China and Russia while burnishing their reputation among the global south to save face. But, I think this has hurt Israel and bolstered Hamas. I don’t think it amounts to a serious shift from America per se; but it’s noteworthy.

From Julian Borger & Lorenzo Tondo, in “Israel isolated as UN security council demands immediate ceasefire in Gaza” (The Guardian):

The UN security council has voted to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza for the first time since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, after the US dropped a threat to veto, bringing Israel to near total isolation on the world stage.

The vote result sets up the strongest public clash between the US president, Joe Biden, and the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, since the war began.

The US abstained and the 14 other council members all voted in favour of the security council ceasefire resolution, put forward by the 10 elected council members who voiced their frustration with more than five months of deadlock between the major powers. Applause broke out in the chamber after the vote.

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Hamas doesn’t want a ceasefire, even if the rest of the world does

Last week, a hostage deal was agreed with Hamas in which they would release 40 Israelis against 800 Palestinian prisoners. (Yes, a joke; but that’s a tangent). Israeli negotiators agreed to it via an American-brokered compromise. But, then, on Monday, the UN General Security Council passed a resolution submitted by Russia and China demanding a ceasefire without stipulating the release of hostages.

Then, Hamas rejected the hostage deal. And just yesterday, Hamas fired rockets into Israel — for the first time in 2 months. They clearly don’t want a ceasefire; but the rest of the world still maintains Hamas somehow wants “peace”.

This resolution has done nothing but to bolster Hamas. The Biden Administration’s abstention has isolated Israel diplomatically; and has shown Hamas that the international community will pivot their pressure against Israel demanding a ceasefire which mentions but doesn’t condition the ceasefire on the release of the hostages. (Mind you, when the US proposed a resolution for a temporary ceasefire with the condition that hostages be released, Russia and China shot it down swiftly). 

The resolution tells Israel that it needs to ceasefire until the end of Ramadan, whether or not the hostages are released. And separately, it also tells Hamas that they need to unconditionally release the hostages. This subtle American shift against Israel is also a message to Hamas that they will get a ceasefire without having to pay anything. And hence, as I have mentioned, Hamas have derailed the negotiations. Afterall, why ‘negotiate’ if you’re already going to get what you want via the UNSC. Namely, their original demands of a permanent ceasefire, troop withdrawal and hostages-for-all-prisoners exchange.

Moreover, there already was a ceasefire in place on Oct 6 which Hamas broke. It was agreed after rocket attacks on 21 May 2021. We’ve always had ceasefires which Hamas keeps on breaking.

There’ll be calls for another ceasefire next week, and probably pressure on Israel to release much more prisoners and accept even worse terms.

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The Yasser Arafat romantic projection

Secular liberals in the West keep projecting onto Islamic terrorist organisations some kind of anti-colonial/imperial rationality which we are more familiar with. There are ‘good guys’ against the ‘bad guys’. We tend to think about this conflict as if we are dealing with charming Yasser Arafat … like an alternate reality. Mind you, Yasser Arafat was anything but charming. As such, big-strong westerners sweep in, rescue the “oppressed”, reverse centuries of resentment and hatred, and put the jewel back in the crown.

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Failure to understand Hamas’ support

A real problem in the West — and particularly among the Left — is to look at the Hamas-Israel war and think it’s just some innocent Palestinians that are getting killed here; and that Hamas is a separate conceptual entity. However, almost every single poll on the issue shows overwhelming support for Hamas among the Palestinians (e.g. “57% of respondents in Gaza and 82% in the West Bank believe Hamas was correct in launching the October attack, the poll indicated”). 

With respect to Hamas, or a majority of the general Palestinian population in greater Israel; when asked in interviews about peoples’ solutions — the average answer was not coexistence. That is the problem. The desire for political autonomy is understandable; but when you see the exultation of ‘martyrdom’, you know you are dealing with a very dangerous and warped outlook.

Palestinians have been lectured, preached, and taught that Israel is only a week or a month away from non-existence. “If you resist a little longer, the Jews will leave ...”. This fascistic guerilla-warfare psychology is not just totally delusional, but presents no clear military path to any kind of victory. Afterall, what was the military object of Oct 7 – besides a bloodletting? They don’t want a two-state solution.

Every peace negotiation begins with Israel asking: “are you prepared to recognise the sovereignty of Israel?” Israel’s non-negotiable demand is the precise negation of Palestine’s non-negotiable demand. Once Palestinians stop seeing the Jews of Israel through the prism of French rule in Algeria, and drop the ridiculous ‘right of return’ nonsense, then negotiations can finally happen.

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The principle of negotiating with terrorists

Something I’ve been thinking about is what happens once a liberal democracy starts “negotiating” with terrorists? I think you invariably incentivise terrorist activities. You make it profitable. It suddenly becomes attractive to kidnap citizens of a government and hold them ransom. So, while the Israeli government thinks it may be saving lives in the immediate negotiation, that government is putting future Israeli lives at greater risk. As soon as you pay the ransom for one person, it gives an inherent legitimacy to the transaction.  

On the other hand, Ronald Reagan traded arms for hostages in the Iran-Contra affair. Also, the United States has been negotiating with Iran on their development of their nuclear weapons programme? Also, there were negotiations with the IRA. 

So, what is the answer? Should Israel be negotiating the hostages?

In the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange, Israel negotiated the soldier’s release in exchange for 1027 prisoners held in Israeli custody. According to wikipedia, of which “two hundred and eighty of these had been sentenced to life in prison for planning and perpetrating various attacks against Israeli targets”. So v. dangerous people were released. Among the prisoners released was Hamas Chief Yehiya Sinwar who is one of the architects of Oct 7.

I think Israel has to ignore international pressures, keep plowing through and get the job done of eliminating Hamas. Israel has a duty to guard its borders and the rest of its Israeli civilians. 

At least, with these new missile launches, Hamas can’t use the excuse of Ramadan anymore.

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Corrigendum (28.03.2024): Above, it said rockets were fired for first time in 2 months. Thanks to Yael, rockets have been fired from Gaza repeatedly.

Princess of Wales undergoing cancer treatment

Poor woman. A young mother faces much more than just her own suffering; and having to go through this publically must be brutal for her and the family. I hope the press give her some privacy which she deserves.

I understand some horrid and unscrupulous type had accessed her medical records in order to sell it to the tabloids. 

It’s pretty awful that she had to release the announcement of her surgery earlier than, I think, she would have wanted because some idiot wanted to make a quick buck.

Must be awful for William too. He lost his own mum at a young age. This has to be heartbreaking for him as well. He finds out his dad has cancer; then, almost immediately, finds out his wife does too. He recently lost his granny, and his brother is an estranged idiot. Poor guy.

Wishing her all the best.