Israel, the Hermit Kingdom

            “The world is kind of deserting Israel right now,” Representative Tim Burchett, Republican of Tennessee, remarked after meeting with members of the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC. “So they’re worried about that.”

            Their concern is warranted. Less than six months after Hamas attacked on October 7th, killing 1,200 people with brutality that sparked widespread sympathy as well as material support for the Jewish state, polls show that popular opinion in the U.S. and internationally has turned against Israel at unprecedented levels. The UN secretary-general is angry, the International Court of Justice is giving serious consideration to the charge that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza, and even President Joe Biden—a self-described Zionist who has repeatedly visited Israel and rushed to send it weapons after October 7th—has warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that continuing his ground offensive into Rafah, the last relatively intact city left in the Strip, would cross his “red line.”

            Israelis and their supporters are confused. Why is Israel rapidly sliding into pariah status now?

            Netanyahu has forgotten that Israel is a U.S. vassal state. They don’t call the shots. We do. Bibi nonetheless has insolently rejected Biden’s ultimatum.

            Israelis’ cluelessness is understandable. They’ve been oppressing the Palestinians for decades. They’ve ignored UN resolutions requiring that they stop occupying Arab territory, they’ve sent nearly a million religious fanatics to colonize the West Bank, and they’ve run the only apartheid state in the world following the end of that system in South Africa—yet nothing bad has ever happened to them. America kept sending them billions of dollars a year, arming them with high-tech weapons and intelligence, and ran interference for them at the UN whenever the world tried to hold them accountable for human rights abuses. Why should the good times come to an end?

            The answer, of course, is two-fold. The systemic decimation of Gaza, caught in high-definition videos on social media in an act of ethnic cleansing obviously intended to be succeeded by annexation, is even more extreme than Israel’s previous crimes. Israel’s war against the innocent civilians of Gaza is the feather that broke the world’s patience and indifference…a one-ton feather.

            That the world would turn away from Israel was easy to see coming tens of thousands of dead Gazans ago.

For everyone but the Israelis, that is.

            Israelis are not stupid people. How did they fail to anticipate that they would soon be shunned and despised for what most of the world sees as a grotesque and opportunistic overreaction to October 7th? As a nation created by the UN, no other country depends as much upon international goodwill for its survival.

            Israel, you’ll notice if you visit, is along with North Korea and the United States one of the most insular countries on earth. Whereas most of the world and its news coverage is omnivorously internationalist, and floods in Myanmar or a coup in Central America makes the top of the news, Israel, like the U.S., obsesses over its own domestic affairs to the exclusion of all else with the exception of events that impact it directly—and it does so from an unabashedly nationalist viewpoint.

            Like the U.S., Israel is a melting pot of immigrants where assimilation is expected to include learning the national language. Unlike us, who have been blessed with seeing our mother tongue spread as the 20th and 21st centuries’ lingua franca, more than 90% of Israelis read and speak one of the most globally useless languages anywhere, an artificially revived form of long-dead Hebrew.  Curious Americans looking for viewpoints outside the MSM echo chamber can access the BBC and the CBC and Al Jazeera English for foreign coverage in the English language. Israelis looking for alternative news and opinions in Hebrew have no options.

            Founded in large part by Holocaust survivors, veterans of numerous wars and beleaguered by countless terrorist attacks, it is completely understandable why Israelis are obsessed with security. But security is a two-edged sword. When you keep other people out, you yourself remain inside. And you are deprived of the insights and different ways of looking at things people get when they interact with others and opinions that differ from their own.

            It’s also not very effective. Israel, a self-declared safe haven for global Jewry, is by far the most dangerous country for Jewish people.

            Consider, for example, the massive “smart” high-tech security walls Israel built to keep out residents of the occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank. They were remarkably effective (until October 7th) at segregating populations that Israelis have come to view as dangerous, if not as inherent enemies. At the same time, Israelis now have no day-to-day interaction with their Arab neighbors. They don’t do business together, they don’t make friends, they don’t date, they don’t talk, they can’t get each other. Walling off Gaza is such an extreme act that it cuts off Israel from the Mediterranean Sea; no country interested in its internal security or military strategy voluntarily relinquishes access to the sea. Even the Arab Israelis who comprise 20% of Israel’s population have found themselves discriminated against, isolated and alienated within their own country.

            It’s the height of irony. It’s not just the people of Gaza who live in a giant open-air concentration camp. Survivors of Germany’s camps have built their own prison camp—for themselves—and it’s the biggest, most effective one of them all.

            No wonder Israelis can’t relate to the rest of the planet. They’ve been living on the inside so long they don’t see the real world anymore. Colonialism, a distinctly 19th and early 20th century project, is an anachronism. Apartheid too. Israelis don’t see that opposing the war against Gaza isn’t the same as anti-Zionism, which itself isn’t the same as anti-Semitism. They don’t understand that, these days, even if you don’t care about the people you are killing to steal their land, you have to pretend that you do (e.g., Biden’s parachute drops of food supplies into the same place his bombs are killing the starving locals).

            A poll by the Israel Democracy Institute found that 75% of Jewish Israelis think the country should ignore pressure from the U.S. to wind down the war in Gaza. A poll by Gallup showed that 65% oppose an independent Palestinian state. “It isn’t fashionable to trust Palestinians, any Palestinians,” former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert observes. That’s how white South Africans felt about Blacks during apartheid. Now, of course, they’re fine. So it would/be in a unified post-apartheid Palestine.

            Now the highest-ranking Jewish politician in the U.S., Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, has formally issued a Biden-approved verbal demand for regime change in Israel, saying that Israel should call new elections, which polls indicate Netanyahu might lose.

            Yet Netanyahu persists. “No international pressure will stop Israel,” the prime minister says, pledging to attack Rafah despite Biden’s warning.

            “Isolated, cloistered, militaristic and more unhinged than ever, Israel is becoming the North Korea of the Middle East,” Uri Misgav writes in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Israelis need to tear down their paranoia-grounded security walls—not just to liberate the Palestinians, though that is way overdue!—but to free themselves.

(Ted Rall (Twitter: @tedrall), the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, co-hosts the left-vs-right DMZ America podcast with fellow cartoonist Scott Stantis. You can support Ted’s hard-hitting political cartoons and columns and see his work first by sponsoring his work on Patreon.)

The Final Countdown – 3/15/24 – Judicial Bombshell: Judge Orders DA Fani Willis or Nathan Wade to Abandon Georgia Election Case

On this episode of The Final Countdown, hosts Angie Wong and Ted Rall discuss breaking current events from around the world, including a Georgia judge giving DA Fani Willis an ultimatum for the Trump election case. 
Melik Abdul – Cohost of Fault Lines
Scott Stantis – Cartoonist for The Chicago Tribune
Steve Gill – Attorney and CEO of Gill Media
Prof. Francis Boyle – Human Rights Lawyer, Professor of Int’l Law 
 
The first hour begins with Cohost of Fault Lines Melik Abdul who weighs in on a Georgia judge’s ultimatum for District Attorney Fani Willis. 
 
Then, Scott Stantis joins the show to discuss Biden and Veep Kamala Harris campaigning in the Midwest. 
 
The second hour starts with attorney Steve Gill calling from Russia to share his perspective on the country’s presidential election. 
 
The show closes with human rights lawyer Prof. Francis Boyle on the latest out of Gaza including Hamas’s ceasefire proposal. 
 
 

Episode 141 | March 14, 2024: TikTok AtToked, Third Parties on the Rise, Crises in Gaza, Haiti and Ukraine

Editorial cartoonists Ted Rall (from the political Left) and Scott Stantis (from the political Right) discuss the week’s biggest stories without the boring yell fests but with force and passion.

First off, the United States House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed legislation that would force the Chinese company that owns TikTok to divest itself of the social media company within six months. President Biden says he will pass the measure if it hits his desk but its future is uncertain in the US Senate. Scott and Ted discuss the cultural, economic, legal and political implications of targeting a company purely based on conjecture and speculation with no proof that it has any plans to act nefariously.

Secondly, third and independent party presidential runs are in the news. Robert F Kennedy Junior is about to announce his choice for his voice presidential running mate. No Labels is about to appoint a committee to determine its options for president and vice president this year. Dr. Jill Stein will almost certainly be the nominee for the Green Party. And Dr. Cornel West is running his so-called jazz campaign.

Finally, five months into Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, it is very clear that Israel has overreached and is dangerously close to becoming an international pariah. Meanwhile, United States considers the possibility of military intervention in Haiti, something that has never gone well in the past. Ukraine, of course, will soon have to accept the difficult truth that it has lost its war against Russia.

 

Watch the Video Version: here.

The Final Countdown – 3/14/24 – Trump’s Legal Team Descends on Florida in Bold Move to Quash Classified Documents Charges

On this episode of The Final Countdown, host Ted Rall covers breaking news from around the globe, including Trump’s legal team heading to Florida to quash his charges. 
Tom Norton – National Director of the America First P.A.C.T. 
Jeremy Kuzmarov – Managing Editor of Covert Action Magazine 
Scott Stantis – Cartoonist, The Chicago Tribune 
Manila Chan-RT Host 
 
The first hour begins with the National Director of the America First P.A.C.T., Tom Norton, discussing Trump’s legal team heading to Florida to quash his charges amid the dismissal of the former president’s Georgia RICO charges.
 
Then, Jeremy Kuzmarov, Managing Editor of Covert Action Magazine weighs in on the latest out of Gaza, including Democratic Senators wanting to enforce a humanitarian act and Israel claiming it has plans to evacuate 1 million Palestinians from the Southern city of Rafah. 
 
The second hour starts with Scott Stantis, who shares his perspective on RFK Jr. ‘s plans to announce his running mate and breaks down how the candidate is appealing to Republicans who are against vaccine mandates.  
 
The show closes with RT Host and veteran Sputnik Host Manila Chan, who talks about the TikTok ban bill and the implications it has on the future of social media censorship.  
 
 
 
 

The Final Countdown – 3/13/24 – Biden-Trump Showdown: America’s Unwanted Rematch Looms in 2024

On this episode of The Final Countdown, hosts Angie Wong and Ted Rall discuss current events from around the world, including Trump and Biden clinching the nominations.  
Scottie Nell Hughes – Veteran Political Commentator, RT Host
Tyler Nixon – Counselor-at-law
Peter Coffin – Journalist, Podcaster, and Author 
Mark Sleboda– International Relations and Security Analyst
 
The first hour begins with Scottie Nell Hughes, a veteran political commentator, joining the show to share her perspective on the results of the Georgia primaries, and the upcoming Trump vs. Biden showdown. 
 
The show is later joined by Tyler Nixon, who talks about special counsel Robert Hur’s testimony on the mishandling of classified documents. 
 
The second hour starts with journalist Peter Coffin, who talks about Canada’s hate speech law, and the U.S. House passing the TikTok ban.  
 
The show closes with International Relations Mark Sleboda talking about Russian President Putin’s recent interview ahead of the country’s presidential elections. 
 

What’s Left 7: Healthcare is a Human Right

           Liberals believe that a compromise that gets us closer to a goal is better than no progress at all. But compromise can lead to the dead end of dilution and a false sense of resolution.

            The early 20th century progressive and presidential Robert “Fighting Bob” LaFollette argued that politics played into different a psychological dynamic. “In legislation no bread is often better than half a loaf,” he observed. “Half a loaf, as a rule, dulls the appetite, and destroys the keenness of interest in attaining the full loaf.”

            Nothing in recent history demonstrates LaFollette’s viewpoint more clearly than the evolution of then healthcare debate. When Obama won the presidential election in 2008, healthcare—particularly its expense—was such a big worry for American voters that the ruling classes came to view the problem as a crisis. The system was expensive, dysfunctional and despised. Despite an economy reeling from a severe Great Recession, the new president quickly moved to address the issue by pushing for passage of his 2009 Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, and even a divided Congress went along.

            Obamacare was a classic political compromise of the variety that moderates adore: it made nobody happy. The healthcare industry—though their concerns soon proved to have been wildly unfounded—worried about losing some of their precious profits. Patient advocates preferred a European-style, fully socialized system in which doctors and nurses are government employees to the ACA, a market-based system originally conceived by the conservative Heritage Foundation. Figuring that the ACA would move the center of gravity closer to socialized medicine, leftists supported it despite their reservations.

            By most accounts, the ACA has failed to fix the problems it was supposed to address. In many American counties (health plans are designed by county) the government “marketplace” has just one or two plans to “choose” from. The only high-income nation without universal health coverage, the U.S. spends more by far on healthcare, both per person and as a share of GDP, than other countries. Yet we still have the lowest life expectancy at birth, the highest death rates for avoidable and treatable conditions, the highest infant mortality and the highest rate of people with multiple chronic conditions and an obesity rate nearly twice the OECD average. Premiums are high but co-pays are low, so we see physicians less often than patients in most other countries. A whopping 650,000 Americans go bankrupt each year due to healthcare bills, accounting for 60% of all personal bankruptcies. Americans are extremely dissatisfied with the cost and access to healthcare.

            A decade and a half later, healthcare ranks near the bottom on the hierarchy of policy priorities articulated by voters. How can this be?

LaFollette’s dictum at work! The half-loaf of ACA dulled the appetite, creating the illusion that the healthcare problem had either been resolved—an opinion common among those with employer-supplied health insurance and/or those who live in one of the big cities where the online marketplace has competition—or had been as fixed as is reasonable to expect from the current system. As a result, there is no indication that politicians of either party are inclined to propose a legislative improvement any time soon.

            Nevertheless the need is acute. People want affordable healthcare (even if they despair of ever getting it). The right to affordable—no, free—healthcare is a basic human right. Without it, after all, people quite literally drop dead.

            According to a 2020 estimate by the nonpartisan Urban Institute, Bernie Sanders’ Medicare For All plan—the most thoroughly thought-out, frictionless plan on the drawing board that salvages as much from the existing network as possible, would cost about $3 trillion per year. However, a Yale study concluded that the government would save about half a trillion each year “by improving access to preventive care, reducing administrative overhead, and empowering Medicare to negotiate prices.” Working net cost: $2.5 trillion per annum.

            Medicare For All would replace our current, highly wasteful system. “We’re already paying as taxpayers for universal basic automatic coverage, we’re just not getting it,” economist Amy Finkelstein says. “We might as well formalize and fund that commitment upfront.” She points to the fact that the federal government currently pays $1.8 trillion a year for Medicare, Medicaid, veterans’ services and other government-funded healthcare costs—all of which would vanish after they were replaced by a holistic Medicare For All scheme. Third-party programs, which are often government-funded, and public health programs eat up an additional $600 billion per year.

Medicare For All would also save the lives of the 45,000 Americans who die annually due to lack of insurance. The IRS would collect an additional $1 billion a year in tax revenues as a result.

            So the net cost of treating everyone who needs medical care is about $100 billion per year, which is just over two percent of the $4.5 trillion we’re currently wasting on wars and other things that make our lives worse.

            Most analyses of Medicare For All focus on how it would save patients money. Even if they had to pay higher taxes, this is indeed true. For liberals, such an improvement might be triumph worth celebrating. The Left, however, must be as ambitious as possible, even under the bourgeois electoral democracy currently in place pending the Revolution for which we are waiting and ought to be working for. Healthcare, a basic human need every bit as essential to life as food and clean water, should be provided by the government, gratis. The good news is, we can afford it. What we require to enact a real First World healthcare system is for the Left to come to power.

            Next: A college education is a right. So is the choice not to attend college, yet still be considered for a job.

(Ted Rall (Twitter: @tedrall), the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, co-hosts the left-vs-right DMZ America podcast with fellow cartoonist Scott Stantis. You can support Ted’s hard-hitting political cartoons and columns and see his work first by sponsoring his work on Patreon.)

The Final Countdown – 3/12/24 – Congress Weighs Loaning Ukraine Funds from Seized Russian Assets

On this episode of The Final Countdown, hosts Angie Wong and Ted Rall discuss topics from around the globe, including Trump trying to purge the RNC. 
Larry Ward – President, Constitutional Rights PAC   
David Tawil – Cofounder, Prochain Capital 
Dan Lazare – Independent journalist 
Armen Kurdian– Retired Navy Captain 
 
The first hour begins with the president of Constitutional Rights PAC Larry Ward, who talks about Trump’s leadership team “purging” officials at the RNC. 
 
The show is later joined by David Tawil, co-founder of Prochain Capital, to weigh in on Biden’s proposed tax hikes and the spikes in inflation. 
 
The second hour starts with independent journalist Dan Lazare, who shares his perspective on Speaker Mike Johnson’s latest budget proposals. 
 
The show closes with Retired Navy Captain Armen Kurdian, who talks about Robert Hur testifying on Biden’s classified documents. 
 
 

The Final Countdown – 3/11/24 – When It Rains, It Pours: Legal Probe Hits Boeing

On this episode of The Final Countdown, hosts Angie Wong and Ted Rall discuss top news from around the globe, including the DOJ investigating Boeing. 
Steve Gill – Attorney  
Dan Kovalik – Human Rights Lawyer 
Mark Sleboda – International Relations and Security Analyst 
 
The first hour begins with Steve Gill who shares his perspective on numerous topics, including Biden’s MSNBC interview, the situation at the Southern Border, Trump’s opposition to banning TikTok, and the DOJ’s investigation into Boeing. 
 
The second hour starts with Dan Kovalik, a human rights lawyer, talking about the unfolding situation in Haiti, including Americans fleeing the country. 
 
In the final segment, The Final Countdown spoke to Mark Sleboda about the recent claim from CNN and The New York Times about the accusation that Russia was on the verge of using nuclear weapons in 2022. 
 
 

The Final Countdown – 3/8/24 – Biden’s State of the Union Address Turns into Reelection Speech

On this episode of The Final Countdown, hosts Angie Wong and Ted Rall discuss current events from around the world, including Biden’s State of the Union speech. 
Steve Gill – Attorney  
Scott Stantis – Cartoonist for The Chicago Tribune 
Jamie Finch – Former NTSB Director 
Professor Francis Boyle – Human Rights Lawyer & Professor 
 
The first hour begins with Steve Gill and Scott Stantis, joining a panel to break down Biden’s State of the Union speech. 
 
The second hour starts with Former NTSB Director Jamie Finch weighing in on the latest Boeing blunders amid nationwide safety issues. 
 
The show closes with Prof. Francis Boyle who shares his expertise on the latest out of Gaza, including the U.S. announcement of a port plan. 
 
 

The Final Countdown – 3/7/24 – State of the Union Preview: Guest List and Topics

On this episode of The Final Countdown, hosts Angie Wong and Ted Rall discuss current events from around the world, including the upcoming State of the Union address. 
Tom Norton  – National Director, America First PAC 
Dr. Wilmer Leon  – Political Scientist, Host of The Critical Hour 
Aquiles Larrea – Finance Expert 
Jeremy Kuzmarov – Managing Editor, Covert Action Magazine 
 
The first hour begins with Tom Norton, the National Director of the America First PAC to break down the upcoming State of the Union.
 
Then, Dr. Wilmer Leon, political scientist and host of The Critical Hour, discusses the National Guard cracking down on crime in the New York City subway. 
 
The second hour begins with finance expert Aquiles Larrea talking about the latest developments out of the Congressional budget debacle. 
 
The show closes with Jeremy Kuzmarov, the Managing Editor of CovertAction Magazine, to talk about the latest out of Gaza including the likelihood of a ceasefire deal. 
 
 
css.php