Huffpo: Biden's Israel-Gaza Approach Sidelines State Department, And Officials Fear The Worst

A task force on preventing atrocities did not meet until two weeks into the war, and officials say department leaders are telling them their expertise won't affect policy.

Longish read with surprisingly decent journalism Here are the first few paragraphs:

Nearly one month into Israel’s U.S.-backed military assault on the Gaza Strip, some State Department officials say their agency is being sidelined in a way that risks hurting American foreign policy, demoralizing valuable personnel and worsening the humanitarian toll of the war.

Many diplomats are alarmed by Washington’s largely unrestricted approval of Israel’s conduct in the war against Hamas, which began on Oct. 7 after the Gaza-based militant group launched a brutal shock attack. So far, more than 9,000 Gazans and more than 1,400 Israelis have been killed, according to officials.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken acknowledged the broad discontent within his department in a message to staff on Oct. 19, and some of his lieutenants have since held listening sessions and town hall meetings to discuss the war with department officials at both State’s headquarters in Washington and its facilities worldwide.

But during some of those conversations, managers have told staffers they should not expect to influence U.S. policy on Israel-Palestine regardless of their national security chops, according to five current and one recently departed State Department officials who talked to HuffPost.

To the best of our knowledge, what did Hamas actually do? What was the timeline of events?

I just want to be informed and not get blindsided when people bring stuff up, and I think knowing what actually happened helps you spot when things don't add up.

Not trying to feed into the :international-community: thing where westerners laser focus on Hamas bloodshed while ignoring what led to it.

Hospital treating Jabalia patients warns it’s running out of fuel

The Jabalia refugee camp, a residential neighbourhood as everybody knows, was levelled to the ground by the Israeli strikes. This attack claimed the lives of Palestinians and wounded hundreds of others who are now receiving treatment at the Indonesian Hospital in the north of the Gaza Strip. This hospital has been overwhelmed by patients and displaced people who evacuated from their houses. The Indonesian Hospital also announced today that they will be running out of fuel within the coming hours if there are no fuel shipments delivered.

-Al Jazeera

Anyone know where I can watch 's speech with english translation? I remember there being somewhere where I watched them during the qana gas field thing but I don't remember the name

For anyone else doomscrolling Twitter, if you do a search or click a trending topic, you can add -filter:images -filter:videos -filter:quote to the search to filter out images and video (like death and gore).

For example, "400 Palestinians" is trending right now, and of course most of the top results include images of death. If you just want the discussion you'd search
"400 Palestinians" -filter:images -filter:videos -filter:quote

https://archive.ph/61te7

United States to poison its service members in Japan with radiation to own China

REUTERS Exclusive: US military begins Japan seafood purchases to counter China ban. By John Geddie and Yukiko Toyoda

TOKYO, Oct 30 (Reuters) - The United States has for the first time begun buying Japanese seafood to supply its military there, a response to China's ban on such products imposed after Tokyo released treated water from its crippled Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea.

Unveiling the initiative in a Reuters interview on Monday, U.S. ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel said Washington should also look more broadly into how it could help offset China's ban that he said was part of its "economic wars".

China, which had been the biggest buyer of Japanese seafood, says its ban is due to food safety fears.

The U.N.'s nuclear watchdog vouched for the safety of the water release that began in August from the plant wrecked by a 2011 tsunami. G7 trade ministers on Sunday called for the immediate repeal of bans on Japanese food.

"It's going to be a long-term contract between the U.S. armed forces and the fisheries and co-ops here in Japan," Emanuel said.

"The best way we have proven in all the instances to kind of wear out China's economic coercion is come to the aid and assistance of the targeted country or industry," he said.

The first purchase involves just shy of a metric ton of scallops, a tiny fraction of more than 100,000 tons of scallops that Japan exported to mainland China last year.

Emanuel said the purchases - which will feed soldiers in messes and aboard vessels as well as being sold in shops and restaurants on military bases - will increase over time to all types of seafood. The U.S. military had not previously bought local seafood in Japan, he said.

'NOT A CHINA HAWK'

Says a China hawk

Emanuel, who was former U.S. President Barack Obama's White House chief of staff, has in recent months made a series of blunt statements on China, taking aim at various issues including its economic policies, opaque decision-making and treatment of foreign firms.

That has come as top U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, have visited Beijing in an effort to draw a line under strained ties.

Asked if he considered himself hawkish on China, Emanuel rejected the term and said he was a "realist".

"I don't consider it hawkish but just consider it realist and honest. Maybe the honesty is painful, but it's honest," he said.

"I'm all for stability, understanding. That doesn't mean you're not honest. They're not contradictory. One of the ways you establish stability, is that you're able to be honest with each other."

He said China faced major economic challenges exacerbated by a leadership intent on turning their backs on international systems.

"The kind of loser in this is the youth of China. You now have a situation where 30% of the Chinese youth, one out of three, are unemployed. You have major cities with unfinished housing ... you have major municipalities not able to pay city workers. Why? Because China made a political decision to turn their back on a system in which they were benefiting."

The most recent official youth unemployment data from China, published in July before Beijing said it was suspending publication of the numbers, showed it jumping to a record high of 21.3%.

Emanuel said he was also keeping a close watch on how China's leadership responds to the recent death of former Premier Li Keqiang, a reformist who was sidelined by President Xi Jinping.

"What's ... interesting to me, that I think is telltale, is how they will be treating his funeral and how they'll be treating comments about him," he said.

"I do think that there's kind of a section of China that sees what kind of policies he was pursuing as kind of the best of China. But that's up for China to decide."

UN Human Rights Office concerned Israeli strikes on refugee camp "could amount to war crimes"

From CNN’s Richard Roth in New York and Amy Cassidy in London

The United Nation's Human Rights Office expressed concern that Israeli airstrikes on the Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza "could amount to war crimes."

“Given the high number of civilian casualties and the scale of destruction following Israeli airstrikes on Jabalya refugee camp, we have serious concerns that these are disproportionate attacks that could amount to war crimes," the office said in a social media post Wednesday.

The UN's statement comes after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed that a blast in the Falluja neighborhood of the Jabalya refugee camp Wednesday was due to an airstrike, following an initial airstrike on Tuesday. Both airstrikes targeted Hamas, according to the IDF.

The IDF said in a statement Wednesday that its jets "struck a Hamas command and control complex in Jabalya," adding that "Hamas terrorists were eliminated in the strike."

https://www.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news-11-01-23/h_5d50d42b49a0993028ca21b6a7333a66

There are a few good articles posted on today's MoA roundup

On the political economy of Israel and their war

https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-251-israels-national-security

On the media's instant acceptance of Israel's story of October 7 and the Hannibal doctrine

https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2023-11-02/bbc-october-7/

On the fiction of imagining "the day after the war"

https://carnegieendowment.org/2023/11/03/there-might-be-no-day-after-in-gaza-pub-90920

On Israel's role in American geopolitical plans for the middle East and vice versa

https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/imperial-designs

This regional blueprint always suffered from serious problems. First, if its raison d’être was Great Power politics – stepping back from the Middle East to sharpen the focus on China – it proved partly counterproductive. For in signalling its diminished appetite for interference in the region, the US conveyed to its allies that they would not have to make a zero-sum choice between American and Chinese partnership; hence the PRC’s increasingly warm welcome in the Arab world: its construction of a military base in the UAE, its brokering of the Iran–Saudi rapprochement and its network of technology and infrastructure investments.

The kind of fascist theory and tutorials I see circulating on telegram regularly: https://archive.ph/DtUnv

CW: Racism, sexism, lgbtphobia, etc etc. But some here will find it interesting how they're communicating and teaching.

~6m ago

Israeli attack kills 14 fleeing south: Gaza health officials

The health ministry in Gaza says an Israeli attack killed at least 14 Palestinians who were fleeing from the bombarded territory’s north to its south.

Witnesses said the strike hit al-Rashid road, Gaza’s coastal road which the Israeli military has previously told civilians to take to travel south.

“The occupation committed a new massacre against displaced civilians and killed 14 citizens, children and women,” ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said in a statement.

We’ll bring you more about this shortly.

-Al Jazeera

Because of my insomnia's influence on my war doomscrolling - I feel like I've been awake ~10 hours but in reality I woke up very early, I've only been awake ~3 hours and noon is still hours away.

Happy Hexbollah day everyone!

Genocide by JohntheDuncan.

Good video, outlining that Israel is indeed committing genocide.

folks who know military stuff better than I do: i had a funny idea the other day where a guerilla force that made extensive use of tunnels could place vertical pipes leading up to the surface which one could secure a mortar to and launch it to the surface. is something like this possible?

Please consider donating toward Palestinian aid if you're able. It would make a huge difference to these various groups that are providing aid assistance in Gaza.

https://hexbear.net/post/816379

If anyone has any other Palestinian causes to donate to, please let me know and I'll add them to the list