Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his close ally President Joe Biden are both playing for time, pretending to be opposed to what’s going on while not changing anything. As Biden sends Netanyahu more money and more weapons, day by day the Gaza Strip is being ethnically cleansed. Even now, it’s probably too late for a ceasefire to do much good.
Ceasefire…NOW.
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
2 Comments. Leave new
Netanyahu’s “close ally President Joe Biden.”
Close ally. Willing dupe. Clueless fall guy. The democratic version of Donald Trump fixer Michael Cohen. Pohtayto, pohtahto.
The election is six months out. And so far, Biden has firmly come down on not making any real moves of any kind concerning his controller, Mr. Netanyahu. (“Sir” when Biden takes his calls before the phone rings twice.) And that’s what’s going to doom Good Ol’ Smilin’ Joe on this one, the wishy-washy hypocrisy.
My gosh, isn’t Election Night going to be interesting? I plan to bake a cake. “Best of luck in your retirement, American Democracy.”
Ted’s cartoon is “too mainstream” for me ;-). This must be a first.
The cartoon and caption presuppose a military edge that hasn’t existed for at least two decades.
Certainly artillery and bombing from the air against defense-less hospitals, bakeries, and apartment buildings may have reduced the population by 5-10%, and hunger may reduce it much further over time (and will also progressively kill the hostages). However gruesome, this has not so far translated into control of the territory.
While Western legacy media devote lots of space to the “Israel-Hamas” (sic) war I have never read a single report that includes any military terms at all. [While military analysis of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine, etc. certainly was not stellar, reporters at least went through the motions to mention battles, and discuss losses and military vs political goals (or lack thereof).]
This is quite bizarre as there is probably a record number of primary sources available in real time: Palestinian resistance factions go to great lengths of filming and publishing video of their guerilla attacks. At the same time, the IDF the rank-and-file flood social-media with war porn even though their generals keep a somewhat unprecedented media silence especially on losses.
Justin Podur is doing regular “sitreps” to provide that missing military analysis, often co-hosted with Jon Elmer (from EI). Whenever they discuss anything Israeli or US politicians say about the future of Gaza, they always repeat the refrain “But they are going to have to win the war first” – with the implication that they are not. Far from being able to do break the operational control of the resistance factions, the IDF does not even seem capable of holding ground in the face of mounting attrition of conscripts and armor.