the DON JONES INDEX…

 

GAINS POSTED in GREEN

LOSSES POSTED in RED

 

  10/14/24...     14,804.46

    10/7/24...     14,758.85

     6/27/13…    15,000.00

 

(THE DOW JONES INDEX:  10/14/24... 42,863.86; 10/7/24... 42,352.75; 6/27/13… 15,000.00)

 

LESSON for OCTOBER FOURTEENTH, 2024

5785!”

 

The world... like it or don’t... is amidist the Jewish holiday season – Rosh Hashanah last week, Yom Kippur on Friday and Sukkot, lasting for a whole week beginning Wednesday.  (Time, Attachment One)

The three major holidays for this, year 5785 are also derived from the Book of Leviticus. (along with many, many sins to be atoned for – Attachment Two)

As there are Orthodox and Reform Jews, as well as other identity points sorted out through skin color, belief in or avoidance of certain passages from the whole of the Old Testament, Islam (which validates the first five books therein  - aka the Pentateuch) is also divided with most of Saudi Arabia, the other Gulf States,  Egypt, Jordan and points south belonging to the Sunni branch, Iran and some of its satellites following the Shiites.  (NPR, Attachment Three)

 

ONE YEAR AFTER...

Time’s October 7th report by Melanie Lidman and Tia Goldberg covered the “vigils and somber ceremonies” marking a year since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack, “the deadliest in the country’s history, which sparked the war in Gaza and scarred Israelis indelibly... caught Israel unprepared on a major Jewish holiday, shattered Israelis’ sense of security and shook their faith in their leaders and their military.  (Attachment Three)

“Its aftershocks still ripple one year later.”

A New York Times report that the attacks, which “killed more than 1,100 people and took hundreds more hostage,” was the proximate cause of three “main changes”.  (Attachment Four)  The Hamas offensive and Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) response and retaliation have: First: weakened Israel’s enemies; Second: devastated Gaza and its people, and Third: brought the Middle East to the “precipice of a regional war.

1. A weakened axis

Israel’s incursion into Gaza has devastated (although not destroyed) Hamas. Israel has killed thousands of its fighters and destroyed much of its weapons stockpiles. Israel has also killed many of Hamas’s leaders, including the head of its political wing, Ismail Haniyeh, as has its offensive against Hezbollah.

 

2. A humanitarian crisis

Second, the war has caused a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Israeli attacks have killed more than 41,500 Palestinians, including both civilians and militants.  (This figure, from Hamas-controlled sources, may be exaggerated.)

Despite this latter and the Israeli contention that the civilians were “human shields” for Hamas and, thus, subject to attack, “survivors have lost family and friends to fighting; food, water and medical supplies remain scarce, leading to starvation and untreated illness (and) entire neighborhoods are now rubble, leaving people without housing and other important infrastructure.

3. A wider war

“What began as an Israeli campaign into Gaza has turned into a multifront conflict between Israel and Iran, which has financed and advised both Hamas and Hezbollah. Israel has also invaded Lebanon, where Hezbollah controls territory, forcing thousands of Lebanese civilians to flee. And Iran has twice fired a barrage of missiles at Israel. Israel promised to retaliate for the second attack, which took place last week.”

 

What the offensive has not done has been to free most the hostages.  Some few were recaptured and 117  more were release in cease-fire deals now obliterated.  Families as continue protesting face violent attacks from “rightwing activists” and, as the focus “has shifted from the Israeli operation against Gaza to the conflict with Hezbollah in the north, with no movement on those still held by Hamas” hopes raised for further deals has dissipated, with more dead hostages than alive being found during Israeli operations.

“The grim news over the fate of hostages found killed has punctuated the glacial pace of negotiations for a ceasefire-for-hostages deal that critics say Netanyahu has been in no hurry to advance.” (Guardian U.K., Attachment Five)

Families have detected subtle changes in attitude as “(s)upport remains still strong, but momentum has faded as other considerations have crept in.

Noam Peri, whose father, Chaim, a veteran peace activist, was kidnapped in Nir Oz aged 79, “recently heard the news she hoped her family would be spared, that he had died in a cramped tunnel 20 metres underground.”

Describing meetings with diplomats and officials, including with Netanyahu, Noam told GUK that: “(t)he only person I haven’t met is [the Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar. If I am mad at the Israeli side, it is because it is the only side I can have expectations of.”

Sinwar, for his part, is said to be “holding out for a bigger war,” according to unnamed U.S. officials speaking to the New York Times.  (Attachment Six)

Mr. Sinwar has long believed he will not survive the war, a view that has hindered negotiations to secure the release of hostages seized by his group in the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, according to U.S. intelligence assessments.

“His attitude has hardened in recent weeks, U.S. officials say, and American negotiators now believe that Hamas has no intention of reaching a deal with Israel.

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has also rejected proposals in the negotiations and added positions that have complicated the talks. U.S. officials assess that he is mainly concerned about his political survival and might not think a cease-fire in Gaza is in his interests.”

Hezbollah also began carrying out strikes in northern Israel in a show of solidarity with Hamas but Hamas criticized this support as inadequate and Hezbollah’s leaders did not want to start a wider war with Israel, U.S. officials assessed at the time – a situation that has only changed within the past week.  An Iranian series of missile strikes has failed to do “any real damage” and this failure of Hezbollah or Iran to meaningfully damage Israel, at least so far, is a telling sign of Mr. Sinwar’s miscalculation, other unnamed American officials said.  (Attachment Seven)

For months, American and Israeli intelligence agencies have assessed that Mr. Sinwar “has a fatalistic attitude and cares more about inflicting pain on Israelis than helping Palestinians”; which position stiffened this summer after Israel assassinated Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas based in Qatar and one of the chief negotiators. “Mr. Haniyeh was a more conciliatory negotiator who was interested in making a deal,” according to the Times, and U.S. officials said he was “willing to push back against Mr. Sinwar’s more extreme demands.” Despite this, his murder infuriated Mr. Sinwar, according to U.S. officials.

“American officials are waiting to see whether the conflict between Iran and Israel escalates further. They do not believe that Iran wants a full-scale war with Israel or to directly intervene to help Hamas. But they also publicly support a planned Israeli strike against Iran in retaliation for the ballistic missile attack this week.”

As to what has happened to Al Qaeda, the original face of Islamist insurgency, the Times also reported – and almost two decades ago – that they were sitting on the sidelines, watching movements “antithetical to its philosophy steal its thunder.”  (2006, Attachment Seven.A)

“Al Qaeda’s Sunni ideology regards Shiites as heretics and profoundly distrusts Shiite groups like Hezbollah,” The Times reported two decads ago. “It was Al Qaeda that is reported to have given Sunni extremists in Iraq the green light to attack Shiite civilians and holy sites. A Qaeda recruiter I met in Yemen described the Shiites as “dogs and a thorn in the throat of Islam from the beginning of time.”

Perhaps Hezbollah’s ascendancy among Sunnis will make it possible for Shiites and Sunnis to stop the bloodletting in Iraq — and to focus instead on their “real” enemies, namely the United States and Israel.

That may be good news for Iraqis, but it marks “a dangerous turn for the West,” the Times concluded. And there are darker implications still. Al Qaeda, after all, is unlikely to take a loss of status lying down. Indeed, the rise of Hezbollah makes it all the more likely that Al Qaeda will soon seek to reassert itself through increased attacks on Shiites in Iraq and on Westerners all over the world — whatever it needs to do in order to regain the title of true defender of Islam.

ABC News dated back the Israel-Hezbollah-Iran conflict to October 8, 2023, the day after the Hamas invasion on which Hezbollah began renewed attacks on Israel in opposition to the Gaza invasion, and since then, “the two sides have been trading attacks with increased intensity in recent months.”

The conflict intensified with the detonation of Hezbollah communication devices in Lebanon and Syria. Thousands of people were injured and dozens were killed across Lebanon and Syria by remotely detonated pagers on Sept. 17, according to Lebanese officials. ABC News sources confirmed it was an Israeli covert operation.  (Attachment Eight)

On Sept. 30, the IDF announced it had begun a ground incursion into Lebanon. The IDF described the operations as "limited, localized, and targeted ground raids based on precise intelligence against Hezbollah terrorist targets and infrastructure in southern Lebanon."

On Oct. 1, Iran launched missiles into Israel.

Sam Heller of the Century Foundation opined in Time (October 5th, Attachment Nine) that Hezbollah seems “discombobulated... unable to deter Israel’s sharp escalation.

The “simmering” Hezbollah – Israel conflict blew wide open when, unable to deter Israel’s sharp escalation with elderly technology and a perceived weakness of will, Israel exploded thousands of booby-trapped pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to Hezbollah members and launched a devastating campaign of bombing on Beirut’s southern suburbs and Lebanon’s south and east. In targeted strikes, Israel also took out much of the group’s leadership, including Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. Now the Israeli military has launched a ground offensive into southern Lebanon.

In an address following Nasrallah’s death, deputy leader Naim Qassem insisted Hezbollah will not cease fire or abandon Gaza. He also emphasized the group still possesses its arsenal of medium- and long-range missiles. Yet Hezbollah seems to have only employed these weapons sparingly, if at all according to Mr. Heller.

“Israel has been pressing since for a solution that would push Hezbollah back from the “Blue Line,” the de facto Lebanese-Israeli border, and allow tens of thousands of Israelis evacuated from northern communities to return home safely. Hezbollah said it would end its rocket fire only once a ceasefire in Gaza was reached.

By dragging Lebanon into regional conflicts – often at the behest of its backer, Iran –  Hezbollah damaged its popularity at home and deepened its rift with rival sectarian factions, according to Al Jazeera, below.

A perverse scenario is unfolding – courtesy of Cornell University positing that, as fears of a regional war in the Middle East continue to escalate, “the reality of a severely diminished Hezbollah in Lebanon may provide an opportunity for a path toward peace.

Uriel Abulof, a visiting professor in Cornell University’s government department and a professor of politics at Tel-Aviv University, says that a coalition of moderate Arab leaders “has never been so ripe as now, having realized the mortal dangers inherent in the Iranian Axis of Resistance... a nuclear Iran means a third world war and most Israelis and Palestinians want, or at least need: To eradicate the radicals via force, finance, and a two-state solution.

 “The U.S. has the right carrots (helping to axe the Axis) and sticks (funding, armament, and UNSC veto) to make Netanyahu say yes.”

Of course, the Palestinians, Iranians, Netanyahu and terrorists say an emphatic “No!”

But, could rival Lebanese factions exploit a weakened Hezbollah?

Al Jazeera’s Mat Nashed (Sep. 30, Attachment Ten) thinks it possible.

“Hezbollah is very vulnerable. As an organisation that has been decimated, it is difficult to see them spring back to normal anytime soon,” says Mohanad Hage Ali, an expert on Lebanon and a senior fellow with the Carnegie Middle East Center.

But their hegemony over Lebanon is in question – and has been since accusations of involvement in the killing of its rivals dogged Hezbollah, “including the killing of Sunni leader Rafik Hariri in 2005.”

“The demolition of Hezbollah’s capabilities will likely embolden its opponents and anti-Iranian forces within Lebanon,” said Imad Salamey, an expert on Lebanon and a political scientist at the Lebanese American University.

“Political factions that have long opposed Hezbollah’s dominance, particularly those aligned with Western interests, may see this as an opportunity to push for more radical changes, including greater alignment with the West,” Salamey told Al Jazeera with the potential power vacuum leading to civil strife and a breakdown in social order – and tempting global players to exploit the chaos for their own interests. 

Like the United States?

While Hezbollah appears weak, Christian and Sunni factions likely won’t be able to exploit Hezbollah’s weakness unless they align with Israel, argues Salamey.

He believes that Israel will become the new dominant force in Lebanon via its aerial supremacy and that Israel could channel material and financial support to factions looking to isolate Hezbollah.

And, as Nicholas Blanford, an expert on Hezbollah with the Atlantic Council think tank predicted: Israel “may conclude that an incursion into south Lebanon is necessary to achieve its objectives.”

Hage Ali, from Carnegie, is even less optimistic that Hezbollah will survive in its current form.

He stressed that Israel is decimating Hezbollah’s senior leadership through disproportionate strikes that are devastating and uprooting the Shia community.

“It’s like blast or dynamite fishing,” he told Al Jazeera. “[Israel] kills a hundred fish, just to get the few that it wants.”

But if its leadership and, even, its organization should disappear, Ali believes it will recover – or something else, probably worse, will arise and take its place.

“Hezbollah is more than just an organisation,” he added. “It’s an identity project that brings together Islam and resistance, both of which are intertwined with broader community thinking and [Shia community] narratives.”

As for Hamas, Eve Sampson of the New York Times (October 8th, Attachment Eleven) opines that, even as Israel says it has killed many Hamas fighters (unverified stats say 17,000 of the group’s 25,000 fighters) and commanders among the thousands murdered in Gaza, the group, while weakened, is continuing to wage a guerrilla war.

On Monday, to coincide with the first anniversary of its Oct. 7, 2023, attack, Hamas fired several rockets at Israel, showing that at least some of its more sophisticated military capabilities are still intact. A spokesman for Hamas’s military wing vowed to “continue a long and painful war of attrition” against Israel.

While this was occurring, the IDF was escalating its airstrikes against Hezbollah in Beirut, leaving two neighborhoods smoldering, killing 22 people and wounding dozens.  (Time, Attachment Twelve). 

The attack came the same day Israeli forces fired on United Nations peacekeepers in southern Lebanon and wounded two of them, “drawing widespread condemnation and prompting Italy's Defense Ministry to summon Israel’s ambassador in protest.”

Iran launched some 180 ballistic missiles at Israel last week in retaliation for the killing of top Hamas and Hezbollah militants.

Asked about the latest airstrikes in Lebanon, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris told reporters in Las Vegas, “We have got to reach a cease-fire, both as it relates to what’s happening in Lebanon, and of course Gaza. We are working around the clock in that regard, but we need these wars to end and we’ve got to definitely de-escalate what is happening in the region.”

But, as noted above, Hamas leader Sinwa explicitly stated he wants a wider war.  And while Hezbollah’s leadership has been decapitated, Israel’s “repeated” attacks on U.N. peacekeepers (known as UNIFIL) has drawn denunciation from France, Spain and Jordan, as well as the Italians – who said the attacks  “could constitute war crimes.”

Earlier on Thursday, an Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced people in central Gaza killed at least 27 people, Palestinian medical officials said. The Israeli military said it targeted Palestinian militants, but people sheltering there said the strike hit a meeting of aid workers.

“The dead included a child and seven women, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where the bodies were brought. An Associated Press reporter saw ambulances streaming into the hospital and counted the bodies, many of which arrived in pieces.

“We headed to tents. They bombed the tents ... In the streets, they bombed us. In the markets, they bombed us. In the schools, they bombed us,” said Iftikhar Hamouda, who had fled from northern Gaza earlier in the war. “Where should we go?”

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, this week made what he called a direct appeal to ordinary Iranians to rise up and overthrow their leadership. “He said that if the regime truly cared about their future it would stop wasting billions of dollars on futile wars across the Middle East and spend more on public services.

Linking the fate of Iran so closely with the Palestinian resistance carries risks given Iran’s economy remains racked by 31% inflation, low growth and reduced living standards. Iranian defence spending is about 2.9% of GDP.

At a meeting on Thursday in Doha, Gulf state leaders insisted they would not support a US attack on Iran but would remain neutral.

Encouraged or indifferent to the wiles of the Sunnis, Khamenei, has vowed that Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza will re-emerge strongly with new leaders.  (GUK, October 4, Attachment Thirteen)  In a rare public sermon in front of tens of thousands in Tehran on Friday, Khamenei defended the “legal and legitimate” ballistic missile attack on Israel this week that Iran has said “was in retaliation for the deaths of the Hezbollah secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, and the Hamas political leader, Ismail Haniyeh.

As evening fell on Friday in the region, the media in Yemen reported a new round of airstrikes, including on the capital, Sana’a, and near the airport at the port of Hodeidah, and Israeli strikes continued in Gaza and Lebanon.

With what GUK called “minimal prospect of an end to the escalating violence that has displaced well over 2 million people and killed tens of thousands”, Khamenei, speaking predominantly in Arabic but also in Farsi, urged Muslims from “Afghanistan to Yemen, and from Iran to Gaza” to be ready to take action, and praised those who had died doing so.

"After the Iranian missile attack against Israel there is no questioning anymore the basic understanding that Iran is the greatest generator of terror and death in the Middle East. Until now, Israel has been playing a whack-a-mole game with Iran’s proxies – fighting Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and others," Yaakov Katz, the author of "Shadow Strike: Inside Israel’s Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power," told Fox News Digital.  (Attachment Fourten)

“The Islamic republic has been recognized as the center of Mideast volatility, terrorism and jingoism for decades. In 2010, Saudi Arabian King Abdullah told the United States to "cut off the head of the snake" by launching military strikes to eradicate Iran’s reported nuclear weapons facilities.

Critics, especially on the Republican side of the aisle, decried the Biden-Harris adminstration’s release of administration billions in sanctions relief to Iran that will flow into its proxies' war machines, according to experts. 

The topic of funneling billions to Iran’s regime surfaced during the vice presidential debate on Tuesday. Republican Sen. JD Vance said, "Iran, which launched this attack, has received over $100 billion in unfrozen assets thanks to the Kamala Harris administration.

"What do they use that money for? They use it to buy weapons that they're now launching against our allies. And God forbid, launching against the United States as well."

Lisa Daftari, whom Fox calls “an expert on Iran”, dated conflicts with Israel and the West to the 1979 overthrow of Shah Reza Pahlevi, an American ally.

"Over the past 45 years, the Iran regime has persistently targeted American and Israeli interests, orchestrating terror proxies to execute its strategic objectives against both nations. More recently, U.S. policies that have enriched the mullahs have facilitated billions of dollars on establishing a formidable encirclement around Israel, via the regime's various proxies in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Gaza and the West Bank."

She noted that it historically has engaged in tit-for-tat-like responses but noted, "Israel is now poised to take decisive measures aimed at neutralizing this looming risk, with its focus now entirely on the regime in Tehran."

David Wurmser, a former senior adviser for nonproliferation and Middle East strategy for former Vice President Dick Cheney, told Fox News Digital, "This is a war between Israel and Iran which began as a direct war on April 14. The war is a twilight struggle between a nation run by a tyranny that seeks to extinguish the other. Either Iran or Israel, but not both, will emerge from this war not only as victor but survivor."

Two months after the Hamas attack, NPR predicted that the war in Gaza would “push together” Shiite and Sunni factions who “differ in religious ideology but are united by opposition to Israel and the United States.  (December 11, 2023, Attachment Fifteen)

Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East program at Chatham House research center says many militant groups have mostly domestic aims in the countries where they operate and there is not yet a transnational axis of militant organization.

But, earlier this year, China brokered a historic agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia in which the two rivals agreed to resume diplomatic relations.

A bleaker prospect unfolded in the Hindustan Times on Tuesday, based on reports from geologists that a 4.5-magnitude seismic event was reported from Iran's Semnan province on Oct 5. The epicentre of the quake was reportedly around 10 kilometres beneath the surface and close to an Iranian nuclear power plant... earthquake's depth and proximity to a nuclear facility leading to concerns in South Asia that the cause was “a possible nuclear event.”  (Attachment Sixteen)

But in the West, support for Hamas, distrust (or outright hatred) of the Jews and the “virtue signaling” by wealthy college students at elite colleges and universities remains vigorous and is expanding to the sort of “woke” personal shaming previously limited to hamburgers and Confederate statues.

The hyper-liberals at ultra-liberal GUK discovered more instances of intrusion of the war into the personal lives of the “nice” people... purging former friends insufficiently committed to Hamas from their social media friendatorium and making anti-Semitism the, if not only a critical component that determines who or who not a believer can date (and presumably have sex with).

The Guardians interviewed several Jewish students including some who said the debates and protests of the last year had made them feel “really judged by and uncomfortable around anti-Zionists”, including other Jews, with one confessing “anxiety” about facing that judgment in his romantic life. “I don’t want to have to defend the most core parts of my identity in my most intimate relationships,” he said.

Another, a patron of online sex and dating sites, said he now finds him self “swiping past” people he might have otherwise found attractive, because he assumes they won’t  his stance. “I can feel that I’m being less nuanced [in my thinking], and I still am unable to lift myself out of this hole because I’m in pain,” he said.

Israeli soldiers, Palestinian civilians or United Nations aid workers rising life and limb in Lebanon and Gaza might understand.  Or not.

The pain is worse for Islamic-Americans, with cases of domestic violence and divorce becoming endemic.  GUK added that the MidEast war is even straining relationships among crossword puzzle addicts, foodies and persons of either the same or different ethnic and racial backgrounds as long as... one told GUK: “Let’s make sure we’re on the same page about Israel being a terrorist state.”

Not that any of these soft, otherwise polite people would actually do something about the war, like going to Tel Aviv to enlist in the military or bombing a kosher deli while screaming: “God is great!” but they do have values, and do care about expressing them.

And the dilemma is even worse for celebrities, especially in the arts where the wrong political position may... cost money!

Or, in the case of politicians, support from the rank and file.

Thus the modest donning of an “Artists for Ceasefire” pin on the red carpet by Bridgerton actor Nicola Coughlan at the Time 100 Next gala in Manhattan  (Time, October 8, Attachment Eighteen)

“It's a call for peace. It's a call for everybody to try and find peace within that region,” Coughlan said. 

 

The vehemence of anti-Israel protests began to fade with the ending of the 2024 spring semester... although some schools like the University of Southern California cancelled commencement exercises over ‘security concerns’ according to the Times of Israel (May 13th, Attachment Nineteen)

A heroic ambush by juvenile Jihadists at Duke University did manage to shut down Jewish comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s commencement speech with screams and chants of “Free Palestine” while waving the red, green, black and white Palestinian flag.

The standup comic-turned-actor, who stars in the new Netflix movie “Unfrosted,” has publicly supported Israel since it invaded Gaza to dismantle Hamas after the terror group attacked the country on October 7.

Pro-Palestinian protesters also blocked access to Sunday evening’s commencement for Southern California’s Pomona College until police arrived to escort gradutes’ families into the commencement.

Students at other institutions were donning Arabic-style keffiyehs and obtaining tattoos of (or, for the lukewarm, simply painting) watermelons... the symbol of the season for the Palestinian national movement. 

European diplomats, many of whom had been on the fence, careful not to antagonize Washington, expressed “outrage” after Israel bombed the U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon.

These attacks were “unjustifiable” and constitute a “serious violation of the obligations of Israel” under humanitarian international law, said a statement released by the leaders of France, Italy and Spain... the largest European financiers of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) peacekeepers in Lebanon.  (GUK, October 11th, Attachment Twenty)

In the joint statement, they called for an immediate ceasefire and said they counted on “Israel’s commitment to the security of UN and bilateral peacekeeping missions in Lebanon as well as international organisations active in the region”.

Other protests were registered from Downing Street, which said that the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, was “appalled” to hear reports that Israel deliberately fired on peacekeepers in Lebanon and from President Joe, who said he was asking Israel to not hit UN peacekeepers in its conflict with Hezbollah. 

From the UN itself came words from secretary general, António Guterres, who told Israel that attacks on the peacekeeping force were intolerable. “I have never seen in my time as secretary general any example of death and destruction as dramatic as what we are witnessing here,” Guterres said on Friday. The Israeli foreign minister, Israel Katz, declared Guterres persona non grata earlier this month, accusing him of “lending support to terrorists” after the secretary general’s calls for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières has said that thousands of Palestinians are trapped in Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, including five of its staff who are “fearing for their lives”.

Israeli forces issued evacuation orders for Jabalia camp on earlier this week “while carrying out attacks at the same time, preventing people from leaving the area safely,” the medical charity said on Friday.

“Nobody is allowed to get in or out – anyone who tries is getting shot,” MSF project coordinator Sarah Vuylsteke said.

Another UN tentacle, the Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), has 13,000 staff working in Gaza and more than 30,000 in the region providing health and educational facilities to Palestinian refugees.

In July, the Israeli parliament gave preliminary approval to a bill that would declare Unrwa a “terrorist organisation”. Israeli leaders have accused Unrwa staff of collaborating with Hamas in Gaza, leading to many western donors to suspend funding.

See more here...

In many Western nations, October 7th was an opportunity to celebrate Hamas, not Israel.

Police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse violent demonstrators in Rome as tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters took to the streets in major European cities and around the globe Saturday to call for a cease-fire as the first anniversary of the Hamas attacks on Israel approached.

Some protesters, dressed in black and with their faces covered threw stones, bottles and paper bombs at the police, who responded with tear gas and water cannons, eventually dispersing the crowd. At least 30 law enforcement officers and three demonstrators were injured in the clashes, local media reported.  (Associated Press, Attachment Twenty One)

In London, thousands marched through the capital to Downing Street amid a heavy police presence. The atmosphere was tense as pro-Palestinian protesters and counterdemonstrators, some holding Israeli flags, passed one another. Scuffles broke out as police officers pushed back activists trying to get past a cordon. At least 17 people were arrested on suspicion of public order offenses, supporting a proscribed organization and assault, London's Metropolitan Police said.

Other raucous demonstrations occurred in Hamburg, Germany, Paris and New York and other parts of the world, while Pro-Israeli demonstrations are also expected to be held Sunday because Jews across the world are still observing Rosh Hashana, or the Jewish new year.

Washington’s protesters carried signs criticizing the Biden-Harris administration’s handling of the issue. One read: “Abandon Harris ’24.”

“Law student Annette Tunstall said she considered voting Democratic after Biden stepped down and Harris became the candidate. But she lost faith after pro-Palestinian voices were muzzled at the Democratic National Convention, she said.

“I really wanted to feel like I could vote for her in good conscience,” Tunstall said. “I don’t think it would have taken a lot for thousands of pro-Palestinian people to hold their nose and vote for Harris.”

Instead, they’re voting for Trump.

For some such as Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and his Middle East adviser during Trump’s first term, this is suddenly a moment of infinite possibility. “The Middle East is too often a solid where little changes. Today, it is a liquid and the ability to reshape is unlimited. Do not squander this moment,” he wrote on X.

The pro-Palestinian GUKsters... Malak A. Tantesh in Gaza and Emma Graham-Harrison... d stories of Gaza’s victims... one who was killed at 101 years, the other at just two hours.

Ahmed al-Tahrawi was born in 1922 in al-Masmiyya, which today exists only as a handful of ruins, fading memory and the name of an Israeli road junction about half an hour’s drive from Gaza’s northern border.

Its residents fled during the Nakba, or catastrophe, of 1948, in which about 700,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homeland after the creation of Israel and both of Tahrawi’s children did not survive the flight into exile.

Settling in Bureij, a refugee camp in Gaza, he worked as a cook and a tailor, raised another family and lived long enough to meet his great-great-grandchildren before Israeli airstrikes bombed his daughter’s house.  He died a week later.

“My grandfather did not belong to any military organisation, and he wasn’t guilty of any crime,” his grandson said. “He was just an old man who couldn’t harm anybody.”

Nor could Waad, whose mother, Salam al-Sabah, nine months pregnant was buried under rubble in another Israeli airstrike and taken to the Kamal Adwan where her uncle by marriage Eid Sabah, the director of nursing, recognized her under the dust and soot from the explosion.

It was too late for his niece, but the unborn baby in her womb was still fighting for life, so doctors performed an emergency caesarian and rushed Waad to intensive care. She survived for two hours.”

GUK also reported that 120 Palestinian academics have been killed since October 8th.  One who escaped, Amani Ahmed... now studying for her Ph.D. in Edinburgh... returns again and again to Gaza, in her mind, everytime she learns of another friend or family member killed by Israelis.

“I feel that I am physically here, but mentally there in Gaza,” she told GUK’s Rachel Hall (October 10, Attachment Tenty Three).

While she received support from the nearly hundred year old Council for At Risk Academics (Cara), which rescues academics who are at risk from persecution, violence and conflict.

Cara helped Ahmed arrange for her family members to obtain student dependent visas, covering the exorbitant costs that Ahmed estimated at more than £10,000, along with their living expenses.

Her sisters, brother and mother are now staying in tents in al-Nuseirat camp, where there are regular bombings and evacuation orders as continues to work for the university, helping displaced students secure exchange opportunities in other countries. “I’m still engaged and I hope I will be able to support further after getting my PhD,” she said.

 

Another Gazan in exile is Palestinian poet and essayist Mosab Abu Toha, who left his native Gaza 10 months ago, but (like Ahmed) “is still very much there—mentally and emotionally, that is.”  He also worries about family members left behind in Gaza and poems in Forest of Noise, his new book, were written both before and since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel and Israel’s punishing response.

Chosen as one of a “next generation of leaders”, he was interviewed by Time on the anniversary of October 7th, telling reporter Yasmeen Serhan that every day brings another piece of breaking news: my family has to leave their house, my family has to leave their school, my family doesn’t have food, my teacher was killed. My student just two days ago was killed while he was looking for firewood to help his family not to live, but to survive. So I’ve been trying for one year to just relax and sit and remember the people who I lost….I couldn’t.

Even though we were under Israeli occupation and under siege.We had a good life: We had trees, we had cars, we had the sea.”  (Time, October 11th, Attachment Twenty Four)

In his last poem, Abu Toha wrote “only cemeteries welcome us.”  It’s no longer the case, he told Time.  “At least 16 cemeteries have been damaged by the Israeli bulldozers and tanks. So even cemeteries don’t welcome our bodies because we are kicked out of the cemeteries, kicked out of our graves.

“A lot of poems could be rewritten based on the way Israel is wiping out not only houses, but neighborhoods and streets and cemeteries and cities. They are not killing people. They are killing cities.”

In his poem “For a Moment,” written after he watched a video of a young man carrying the unmoving body of a girl and running to the hospital, “(s)he was dead. I thought, why are you running? Are you trying to rescue her from death? So I was trying to understand, I was trying to make sense of my feelings. Because this is really mysterious to me. Why is a young man, why would I, run with someone who is dead? Why am I in a hurry? Am I going to an emergency room with the body of a girl who is dead?

I thought that this guy was trying to give life to this girl when he was running, because when someone who is alive runs with the body of someone who is not, they are trying to give them some life, that they are moving. They are not on the floor, they are not in a cot, they are not in the morgue. So that’s one way I tried to face my trauma, face my pain.”

“There are two kinds of survivors,” he says, “... (a) person and a story, and they have the responsibility to  this story and to let it survive, not during his lifetime, but forever.”

Not only people, but policies are being killed in the latest escalation, not the least of which was DJI board member, former Congressman and independent candidate for President Jack “Catfish” Parnell who outlined his take on the MidEast in the April 8th and April 15th Lessons, “States of Stasis” – rejecting both the One State (essentially, genocide) and Two State (Biden and other concerned outside world leaders) solutions...

So spaketh the Catfish

“(I)f elected to the highest office, I will strongly support and will endeavor to effect, if elected, a three state solution to what advocates of three great and powerful religions call the Holy Land... but there will have to be a few twerks applicable.

“The 1947 division of the British Colonial Mandate into independent states of Israel and Jordan was well-intentioned, but, practically speaking, a disaster.

“As past Don Jones Index Lessons (and the sources they admittedly borrow from) have pointed out, the establishment of a state comprising the Gaza Strip and West Bank, with Jerusalem as its capitol and with or without a land bridge would squeeze Israel between pincers that, at its narrowest point, amount to variously nine or twelve miles.  Given the plethora of fanatical Muslims... their determination to cleanse the entire MidEast of Jews (and Christians)... facing off against fanatical Israeli settlers fighting for a far vaster Jewish homeland (with or without a Mohammedan population living under slavery, at best, or facing genocide, at worst) such solution would seem nothing so much as sending off a drunk into some permanent eclipse with a can of gasoline and a lighted candle.

“Since Jerusalem is the Number One principality of Hebrews, but only Number Three to Islam, any partition would have to leave it intact – perhaps as the new capital of Israel – with the boundary following the crest of the Judean Mountains on the West Bank, west of the Jordan River.  Arrangements for Palestinians to travel to Israeli sites would be contingent on behaviour.

Therefore – since it is agreed upon that any territorial concession to an independent Palestinian state will inherently be at the expense of the already geographically narrow and therefore strategically weak Israel, the Catfish three state remedy would not be Israel, an independent Palestine on the West Bank and a ruined, but retributional Gaza on the other side but, rather, Israel, Jordan and Egypt.

Amman would gain that broad slice of the West Bank, as above, not as an independent state, but as a state within Jordan.  Jewish settlers would have to choose between their (pilfered) homes and transfer back over the mountain to Israel proper – Palestinians from East Jerusalem and environs would, likewise, choose between remaining in a validated Israel, with or without humanitarian recognition, or moving east to occupy such settlements as are abandoned by the Jews.  Substantial property trading would, of course, take place – as well as substantial policing by Jews and Jordanians.

The “third state” would be Egypt itself... absorbing, for better or for worse, the badlands Gaza has become.  There would, of course, be humanitarian and economic relief from America, the Sunni Gulf States and others (suck it up, Speaker Mike!) and a perhaps temporary resettlement in the under-occupied but much under-devastated Sinai – and perhaps a regimen of hard work and patriotic and religious resolution will facilitate the rebuilding.

Will the hard cases among Gazans support absorption into Egypt?  Will West Bankers surrender their dream of an independent state and, instead, become a component of the Kingdom? 

They will not.

Will Israel’s religious right support the “escape” of Muslims from the slavery (or genocide) as God has intended for them – as well as a strengthening of old enemies?

They will not.

Will Jordan accept the eastern half of the West Bank as opposed to the whole falafel or, more pointedly, will Egypt take in the starving masses from Gaza and grant them the citizenship and rights of native Egyptians.

Hell no!

And that is why this version of the three-state solution is the only solution that is loathsome to all but, eventually, less of an abomination than the failed one and two state states, merely continuing the wars for years, decades, centuries.  With the shadow of Iran diminished, there is now a window of opportunity for such persons of good will as survive in the afflicted territories to disabuse themselves of their dominionist and imperal fantasies and return to the real world – there to enjoy and endure an uncertain but promising peace. Eventually, all but the most maniacal zealots will come to realize… if not embrace… the fact that, in stasis is peace and prosperity.

And if they can’t deal with that, the Israeli, Jordanian and Egyptian police and military will deal with them.

Mr. Parnell now rejects even the three state solution given the entrance of Lebanon (and Hezbollah), as well as Iran, Syria and portions of Iraq, even Yemen into what is now, the wider war.

Perhaps the laughable four-stater proposed by Michael Rubin in the extreme-right Washington Examiner may be a starting point.  That solution affixes part or all of the Golan Heights back to Syria... it does not deal with Lebanon... but perhaps a five state plan (perhaps sending that entire country back to... well... Turkey?) or a six-state – the possibilities in today’s unreal climate are  numerous.

 

“Where is the state,” Israelis asked on the ten seven anniversary, “any state?”

October 7 is, in a phrase that’s taken root in the country, “the day that never ends.” After “365 iterations of that interminable day,” contended Noga Tarnopolsky in New York Magazine (Attachment Twenty Six), life in Israel is unrecognizable from that of a year earlier, “reduced to a sort of survival mode.”

Numbering the differences and dissonances... the wail of air-raid sirens, empty streets, banners with the faces of murdered or missing Israelis, airlines grounded, restaurants closed... and the missile strikes, an almost daily occurrence.

“Day 365 of October 7 opened with an early-morning terror attack at a McDonald’s in Beer Sheva, the capital of Israel’s south, continued with funerals for nine soldiers killed in action fighting Hezbollah, as well as the burials of most of the nine civilians killed in a Wednesday-night shooting attack in Jaffa, almost all young women. For this attack,” Tarnolsky noted, “Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad issued competing claims of responsibility.

Nearly lost in the torrent of news was a crushing revelation: In a Sunday meeting with hostages’ families, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant confirmed their worst fears: Netanyahu’s cabinet, he said, hasn’t even discussed the captives’ plight in two weeks. “The army, he assured the families, probably meaninglessly, would still prioritize the matter.

If Israelis are trapped in an endless loop, they are virtually blinded to the suffering this war has brought Palestinians. Shayke Shaked, a farmer whose land borders Gaza... enjoying and employing cheap Palestinian labor to get  his crops in... told Kann News television with a wave of his hand that the brutality of Hamas’ attack “took away my compassion.”

Protests contine, within and without the state (where the writer contends Netanyahu pretends Ten Seven never happened.  I am ashamed of what we’ve done,” says Tom Segev, one of the country’s most prominent historians, highlighting the thousands of Gazan children killed. “Our reaction has been completely disproportional. Shame!

“A fundamental assumption was that we (could) count on the state. We get pissed off at it, we complain, but we trust it’s there.” Marauding Hamas guerrillas strutting for hours on manicured lawns, posting extensive videos of themselves committing atrocities, shattered “all our basic assumptions that we are safe here,” Segev says. “That the state fucks up, okay, but it exists. To that extent, this is just a completely different thing.”

Finally, Netanyahu convened a meeting... but the hostages were not discussed.  Instead, he proposed renaming the war, originally termed “Swords of Iron,” a name that never caught on, “the War of Resurrection.”

Israelis will just keep calling it October 7.

And isolation from the rest of a finger-wagging world has, say psychiatrists, has meant “about 70 percent of Israelis” feeling sad.

Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, famously said: “Our future does not depend on what the gentiles will say, but on what the Jews will do.” His argument was that the Jewish people could no longer be dependent on others as they had been for 2,000 years. Instead they were independent, self-reliant and creators of their own destiny.

Today, faced by mounting diplomatic isolation over its war in Gaza – “to the extent that Israel is now seen by some nations as a pariah state,” according to Patrick Wintour of GUK, the instinct within its military has always been to rely upon itself, and not to wrestle for world opinion in that the IDF “has always played hardball, relied on escalation dominance and never seen war as a popularity contest.”

Unpopular as is Israel (and to a growing majority, Jews in toto), defenders from Netanyahu, to Trump Team’s Jared Kushner (above) to President Joe and like-minded heads of state in and about NATO with Olaf Scholz saying “Germany has only one place and that is by Israel’s side,” and French president, Emmanuel Macron echoing: “The unspeakable has emerged from the depths of history.”

The condemnation has come from condemnors within the United States... Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York and the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in the US... and without (the United Nations has passed numerous anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic resolutions, to no avail) and has spanned the gamut from the trivial (heckling of Israeli singer Eden Golan at Eurovision, Italian disrespect for Israel’s national anthem at the World Cup) to the diplomatic (Indonesia and the Maldives barring Israeli passport holders, Turkey cutting trade links) to the economic... the Bank of Israel revising its growth predictions down to 1.5% for 2024, from its earlier 2.8% prediction” while Moody’s rating agency “downgraded Israel’s credit rating by two notches.”

The polls are trending negative, too.

The antipathy is mutual. The more international organisations criticise Israel, the more Israelis reject their legitimacy. According to Pew, three-quarters of Israelis have an unfavourable view of the UN.

“Our leaders do not understand that when we fight a war against a terror – ideological, theological, radical terror organisation, we are fighting in two dimensions,” Ami Ayalon, a former head of Israel’s domestic security service, told GUK.  “One is a battlefield, but in order to defeat Hamas we have to win the war of ideas. And we cannot do it by the use of military power. The only way to do it is to create or to present a better idea.”

GUK also convened a panel of “experts” on October fifth (Attachment Twenty Eight), asking that same old question: “(W)hat next for the Middle East?”

An anti-American, Fawaz Gerges, a Professor at the London School of Economics, hailed the coming great rupture in international relations, and “the accelerated decline of the US-led international liberal capitalist order that has prevailed since the end of the second world war,” having, by supporting Israel, negated its commitment to the Nuremberg principles.

Leila Seurat, a researcher at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies in Paris, said that drawing Hezbollah (and perhaps Iran) into the war fulfilled Yahya Sinwar’s dream of a “regional and global explosion.”

“The enemy wants to turn the war into a religious battle. We would prefer this not to happen. But if the Zionist extremists absolutely want it, then we will accept the challenge,” Sinwar said.

“Expanding the war is also a way to obscure the colonial nature of the conflict against the Palestinians, by turning it into a civilisational or religious confrontation against Iran.

For Jason Burke, the Guardian’s international security correspondent, Netanyahu’s escalation into Lebanon “is a gamble that might not pay off,” raising the prospect that... despite President Joe’s latest “red line” for a weapons cutoff... possibilities ranging “from a spectacular attack against oil facilities, potentially destroying Iran’s most vital economic lifeline”, to a less likely but still tempting “strike against Iran’s nuclear programme (which) would need US involvement, (and) is unlikely to be forthcoming.

Israel’s already limited democracy is decaying under the fog of war,” noted Orly Noy (a journalist and editor at the Hebrew-language news magazine Local Call) who predicted that Israeli society “will emerge from this last year more nationalistic, more violent and much more uninhibited” and that, even when Netanyahu’s rule eventually comes to an end, “his legacy of destruction and hatred will remain for many more years, if not generations.”

Dr. Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa programme at Chatham House blamed the failed cease-fire for hostages negotiations in Egypt, Qatar and the U.S. on the “maximalist goals of Netanyahu and Sinwar – two men whose leadership has been damaged by the 7 October attacks and subsequent war.

“With Israel now repeating the same model of warfare against Hezbollah and with the prospect of a wider regional conflict with Iran growing, it can only be hoped that the Biden administration will urgently return the focus to a ceasefire and negotiations, despite the pending November presidential elections.

 

Of course, if Donald Trump recaptures the White House, ANYTHING might happen.

Just as some Americans are making plans to emigrate rather than serve under MAGA, the year of war has accelerated a ‘silent departure’ of Israel’s elite... many working in the hi-tech sector critical to the nation’s economic and military advancements.

This summer, the Nobel laureate Prof Aaron Ciechanover joined a group of prominent Israelis gathered in the ruins of the Nir Oz kibbutz to demand a hostage release and ceasefire deal.  Nir Oz was the worst hit of all the communities targeted by Hamas on 7 October, with a quarter of its residents kidnapped or killed. Twenty-nine are still in Gaza.

GUK’s Emma Graham-Harrison (October 6th, Attachment Twenty Nine) reported on his contention that an accelerating “brain drain” of doctors and other professionals (is) “a worrying sign that some of Israel’s elite already feel they no longer have a future in the country. And without them, Israel itself might struggle to have a future.

Ciechanover is a long-time enemy of Netanyahu, but  Bibi’s former chair of the National Economic Council, Eugene Kandel, joined forces with the administrative expert Ron Tzur to issue a paper warning that Israel faces an existential threat.

Among the threats they highlighted were rising emigration, particularly among the people who have built up Israel’s hi-tech sector and the schools and hospitals vital to attracting the global elite. “Israel’s locomotive of growth is innovation, and that is driven by a small group of several tens of thousands of people in a country of 10 million,” their paper warned. “The weight of their departure from the country is immense in comparison to their number.”

Wealthy parents are looking into European schools for their children, afraid not only of the Arabs, but of a growing number of ultra-orthodox young people not qualified for professional jobs because they do not study maths or science, or speak English with some holding avowed extreme far-right religious views (tho’ not right enough to seek service in the IDF).

“If you ask me what we are headed for, you can look at the Iranian model, where religion plays a major role in daily life,” said a worried parent who runs a cannabis pharmacy.

“Even without the enemies we have all around [the region], that’s a good enough reason for any child loving parent to take his children away from harm.”

And, finally, GUK published an appeal by Raja Shehadeh, a Palestinian lawyer and writer, and founder of the human rights organisation Al-Haq, that Israelis, one day, “will grasp that endless war against Palestinians doesn’t work.” (Attachment Thirty)

Asking “how will we Palestinians live with the Israelis after this?” he dodges the obvious answer... “you can’t and you won’t.”

 

Time (October 7th, Attachment Thirty One) also asked what lies ahead for the Middle East, and reporter Yasmeen Serhan, citing analysts, and recent history, states that the answer, for Gaza, is “an indefinite Israeli military presence.”

For the West Bank, dramatic deterioration and murders by both the IDF and others to violent Israeli settlers, “whose efforts to displace Palestinians from their land—already spiking under Netanyahu’s extremist, pro-settler government—grew all the more brazen during the Gaza war.”

For Lebanon, a message to Iran

Israel said the invasion, its fourth, is “limited, localized and targeted.” But the 1982 incursion became an occupation that lasted 18 years. “We know from experience, and we know from the specific history of Israel-Lebanon, that they don’t ever intend to stay. They don’t intend to occupy, but that’s what happens,” says Mairev Zonszein a senior Israel analyst at the International Crisis Group, based in Tel Aviv. “Unfortunately, I don’t think there is one right now.”

For the United States, a choice.

“Outside the Middle East, perhaps the single biggest variable that stands to influence where things go next is the U.S. presidential election. Should Kamala Harris succeed Joe Biden, the expectation is that she will likely continue her predecessor’s supportive posture towards Israel, albeit perhaps with more sensitivity to the growing public uproar over the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, as well as Washington’s own role in perpetuating it,” wrote Shaheen.  But, should Donald Trump be elected, “the former president is widely expected to resume his unambiguous backing of Israel, which he said should be allowed to “finish the job” in Gaza.”

A separate Time dispatch, by Mary Robinson... a former President of Ireland and Chair of The Elders, the group of independent global leaders founded by Nelson Mandela... and Juan Manuel Santos... a former President of Colombia, a Nobel Peace Laureate, and another member of The Elders checked in for their solution to Shaheen’s whole shebang... the elderly two-stater.

A sovereign, independent State of Palestine alongside the State of Israel, with borders along pre-1967 lines, remains the internationally agreed way forward. This solution has lost popular support among both Israelis and Palestinians in the three decades since the Oslo Accords due to the deepening occupation and conflict, and above all a lack of political leadership. But there is no better alternative.

Since Israel would categorically reject any “pincer plan” squeezing it between the West Bank and Gaza halves of the Palestinian state, the two Elders descend into wishing and hoping... their box of magic including a lasting political solution to “guarantee the security of the State of Israel alongside the security of a fully sovereign State of Palestine”, disarming of all “non-state armed groups and civilian militias” including not only Hamas, Hezbollah and whatever succeeds them, but violent Israeli settlers as noted above... UN membership for the new state, a “responsible” Iran and “respect for international law and gender equality.”

And a pony.

Further, “all international actors, particularly the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, have a d responsibility to respect all relevant resolutions and decisions of the ICJ and International Criminal Court (ICC). ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan’s decision to apply for arrest warrants for leaders of Israel and Hamas is a principled, even-handed approach in pursuit of accountability and justice for atrocity crimes.”

All this, anda panda!

“All of this requires bold, principled leadership by political leaders commensurate with the daunting challenge ahead,” the two Elders say.  The words are brave, the intentions noble, but the scheme is fanciful.

With Mr. Parnell’s three state solution in ruins due to the entry of Hezbollah, and its proximate puppet master Iran into the war, the path to a solution becomes simple.

Hamas chief Sinwa and the persons or people who next control Hezbollah have to be killed.  That’s all.  Netanyahu must be deposed and defeated, and the 88 year old Khameini dispatched to Paradise by disease or revolution.

Or maybe a multinational UN police force can invade the whole MidEast, fight through the Islamist and Israeli military and drag both Sinwar and Bibi to some nice prison in some nice country... Switzerland, or Sweden, somewhere.

They could be cellies.  And then they could argue about real issues, like who gets to empty the slops bucket or whether the daily baloney sandwich contains pork – things that matter.

Concerned Americans... Jewish, Gentile or ungentlemanly... may ask: Who, then, takes charge in Tel Aviv.  Our answer, an interim one pending restoration of a democratic electoral process, might be... oh... Jerry Seinfeld?  After all, a comedian in high office is working well for Ukraine, and under the most difficult circumstances.

And another sticking point... who gets to pay for rebuilding Gaza, not to mention Lebanon, northern Israel and... why not... the West Bank and Golan.

What would Speaker Mike have to say regarding that?

 

And, from Yahoo News, this holiday blessing…

May this Yom Kippur be not only a day of solemn reflection but also a starting point for renewed hope and unity. May we emerge from our fasting and from our prayers for the release of the hostages and for the swift recovery of all those injured, with the resolve to stand together, to heal, and to create a world where light overcomes darkness, where good overcomes evil. Together, we will honor the memory of the victims and our brave soldiers by building a future worthy of their sacrifice.

 

 

 

 

Our Lesson: October Seventh through October Fourteenth, 2024

 

Monday, October 7, 2024

Dow:  41,954.24

It’s the first anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel (above).

   Families of hostages say hostage release must be prioritized as a new front opens with Hezbollah firing more rockets at Tel Aviv.  “We don’t have the privilege of not remaining strong,” one says.

   Millions evacuating Florida in fear of Hurricane Milton, expected to strike the Tampa Bay area while first responders, residents and government agencies are still cleaning up after Helene.  Donald Trump accuses FEMA of spending money earmarked for Helene relief on illegal aliens and conspiracy theorists spread rumors to deter aid seekers whose homes were destroyed without flood insurance.

   SCOTUS returns from vacation to start the fall term as polls say only 43% of American approve of the Trump Court’s job.  First up – fighting “ghost guns” over the objections of Second Amendment advocates.  Most of their agenda will involve guns, gays or porn.

   After a weekend of upsets, Texas returns to #1 in NCAA football.  Lebron and Bronny James become the first father/son duo to appear in NBA playoffs.

 

Tuesday, October 8, 2024

Dow:  42,080.31

Tampa residents evacuate in long traffic jams as gas runs out and residents ask: “How can this be, again?”  FEMA sends money for rescue and relief, housing them in cots at the Raymond James Buccaneers Stadium, preparing 20M meals and 40M liters of water for those who can’t or won’t escape.  A ten to fifteen foot storm surge is predicted, which would make Milton the worst storm to hit Tampa since 1921.

   Harris calls Trump irresponsible for spreading mis- and dis-information about FEMA and says that he “lacks empathy”.  So does his former DefSec, Mark Esper, who appears in a Democratic commercial with others from the first administration who no longer support Djonald DisEndorsed.  Even the mustache guy (Bolton) jumps ship.

   After Hezbollah honcho Hassan Nasrallah is killed by the IDF, its new leaders “taunt” Israel, which starts killing them, too.  As the Hamas-affiliated health agency for Gaza says 41K civilians have been killed (which Israel disputes), CBS producer Marwen al-Ghoul documents the killing of children, saying: “There is no safe place in Gaza.  No place at all.”  Domestically, the FBI arrests an Afghan immigrant in Oklahoma for joining ISIS and plotting terror on Election Day.

   Lottery officials will raise the price of Mega Millions from $2 to $5 per ticket.  They promise that more money will go into prize jackpots, not their own pockets...

 

Wednesday, October 9, 2024

Dow:  42,512.00

   TV Sheriffs in Florida proclaim a Last Call for evacuations, saying: “You might be uncomfortable, but you will still be alive.  You can’t run from water.”  Milton expected to blow Helene debris around, break things and kill people – its past shifts southwards towards Sarasota as twenty tornadoes spin off in advance of the deluge.  As repair scammers proliferate, President Joe calls Trump’s lies about FEMA “un-American”.

   For his part, Djonald UnAshamed reiterates that FEMA gave its money to illegals, not Americans.  He also denies a report by Nixon-slayer Bob Woodward that he gave Vladimir Putin life-saving COVID vaccines while Americans were dying while even Ron DeSanctimonius denounces “online crap” posted by crooks.

   The iconic Tropicana Hotel in Vegas ends its Rat Pack days, dynamited to build a new stadium for the runaway A’s as Oakland seethes and weeps.  Angry mama Grazer gets revenge... sort of... winning the Fat Bear contest over defending champ Chunk, who had just killed her cub.  Four other bears in Colorado die in retaliation for a home invasion and murder of 74 year old human.

 

Thursday, October 10, 2024

Dow:  42,454.12

Milton makes overnight landfall at Siesta Key near Tampa as a Cat. 3 with 120 mph winds, causing flooding and spawning 3 tornadoes.  3M are powerless, 9K National Guardsmen and 50K line workers begin work but one of the casualties is the Tampa Bay Tropicana Stadium, whose destruction means that emergency workers will have to find other shelter. 

   TV weatherpeople say the damage to Tampa Bay was less than it could have been because there was an offshore wind that blew the storm surge back out to sea so that tornadoes kill more than flooding.  Pets and children are “restless”, alligators are “agitated”.  Survivors tell tales of terror (the dead do not).

   President Joe tells Congress to come back from their paid vacations and authorize more help for the victims of Helene and Milton.  Congress says “Nah,” but Taylor Swift donates $5M to hurricane relief.

   There’s other news, too.  Donald Trump warns that Biden and Harris have so ruined the United States economy that, if Harris and Walz are elected, the whole country will look like Detroit.  In Detroit!

 

Friday, October 11, 2024

Dow:  42,863.86

Milton death toll up to 12, but still far below Helene.  A fisherman, rescued from the deep, says Helene had clean floodwaters, but Milton’s was dirty, perhaps sewage.  It’s cost to taxpayers will be $50M in “insurance losses” as denials and scams further bedevil survivors, leaving behind happy lawyers.  Premiums, already up 50 – 90% over four years expected to rise again.

  Liberal critics say some states “are changing the ballot counting rules to manipulate elections.  Local and county Boards of Election are suing states for changes such as those requiring hand counting ballots.

   Partisans parse the hurricanes and economy.  On the left, Ex-Pres. Obama says we can’t afford four more years of arrogance and bumbling; talkster Jimmy Kimmel denies MTG claim of the government controlling the weather, saying only Beyonce can.  J. D. Vance denies claims MAGA called FEMA corrupt, saying that it’s merely incompetent.

   Falling inflation rate causing rising Dow and joy to Harris campaign, but Seven Eleven will be closing hundreds of stores while Boeing cuts thousands of jobs to punish striking machinists, scuttling settlement.

 

Saturday, October 12, 2024

Dow:  Closed

It’s Yom Kippur (above).  Also the real Columbus Day, tho’ pushed back to Monday, and National Chess Day. 

   Florida floodwaters rise from six to twenty feet in some areas with two millon Milton powerless, but death toll still only 17.  The bad news is that FEMA is running out money, gas stations out of gas and destruction of the company manufacturing 60% of IV fluid apparatus means that hospitals nationwide are having to triage treatment with many more deaths arising – not counted in hurricane tolls.

   Crime news finds mobs of looters attacking greight trains in Chicago, fatal shootout in Oklahoma City Halloween party,

  

   The hurricans are gone, so weather woes return to plain old rain and heat in the Midwest and West... Little Rock hits 94° and Phoenix “celebrates” 20th straight day of 100°+.

 

 

Sunday, October 13, 2024

Dow: Closed

Bean counters doing their job estimate that Milton’s costs are $70B, so far.  Only 250K file for FEMA aid, many more deterred by dis-information.  Rescues continue as recovery begins in Florida and N. Carolina as new storm goblins emerge... house gobblin’ sinkholes, massive gas outages and piles of rubble.  And more Good Samaritans, including a roaming laundry truck cleaning the dirty Milton clothes of victims and first responders.

   The death toll in Lebanon, however, is up to 2,255 as Israel and Hezbollah trade rocket attacks, with both firing at UN peacekeepers who Netanyahu orders to leave.  They don’t.

   Sunday talksters include J.D. who denies that Trump will appoint an Attorney General to seek vengeance upon Democratic politicians and civilians, but also denies to reply when asked who won 2020 election.  Also on The Week, Gov. Andy Beshear (D-Ky) says the race is close because race war tops class war on agenda of many angry Americans who just believe that Harris is Biden’s surrogate and, says Obana, blacks and white working class men are misogynistic.

   The Round Table’s Rachel Burke (Politico) agrees, saying Trump is perceived as a Strong Man strongman, while perennial Donna Brazile says it will boil down to the “ground game” and Susan Glasser (New Yorker) asks who voters think the election is about.  Token Republican Reince Priebus proclaims the “Harris joy” gone after a disastrous interview on The View, adding that people are “tired of being told they are wrong”, leading to a “leak in the Harris balloon.”

   On Face the Nation, DHS chief Mayorkas says FEMA needs more money because the hurricane season lasts longer (another forming in Caribbean) while Speaker Mike says Congress will cut off any aid for future disasters, endorsing belief that FEMA money was filched by Dems to encourage more migrants to cross the border and vote for Harris.

 

Soaring tech stock prices send the Dow soaring and bring back some of the joy leaking out of Kamala’s popularity balloon.  A reduction in gas prices overwhelms slight increases in other costs and there don’t seem to be any hurricanes around for at least two weeks to come.  There was a sharp uptick in the trade balance as America heeded the call to buy American and even a slight dip in debt (personal) as Don Jones paid off some of his credit card bill.  (But Christmas is coming!)

 

 

 

THE DON JONES INDEX

 

CHART of CATEGORIES w/VALUE ADDED to EQUAL BASELINE of 15,000

(REFLECTING… approximately… DOW JONES INDEX of June 27, 2013)

 

Gains in indices as improved are noted in GREEN.  Negative/harmful indices in RED as are their designation.  (Note – some of the indices where the total went up created a realm where their value went down... and vice versa.) See a further explanation of categories here

 

ECONOMIC INDICES 

 

(60%)

 

CATEGORY

VALUE

BASE

RESULTS by PERCENTAGE

SCORE

OUR SOURCES and COMMENTS

 

INCOME

(24%)

6/17/13 revised 1/1/22

LAST

CHANGE

NEXT

LAST WEEK

THIS WEEK

THE WEEK’S CLOSING STATS...

 

Wages (hrly. Per cap)

9%

1350 points

9/24

  +0.43%

11/24

1,534.33

1,534.33

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/wages   30.27

 

Median Inc. (yearly)

4%

600

10/7/24

  +0.028%

10/21/24

674.70

674.89

http://www.usdebtclock.org/   39,740 751

 

Unempl. (BLS – in mi)

4%

600

9/24

    -2.44%

11/24

556.38

556.38

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000   4.1

 

Official (DC – in mi)

2%

300

10/7/24

    +0.21%

10/21/24

222.09

221.63

http://www.usdebtclock.org/      7,263 278

 

Unofficl. (DC – in mi)

2%

300

10/7/24

    +0.25%

10/21/24

231.75

231.18

http://www.usdebtclock.org/      13,815 849

 

Workforce Participation

   Number

   Percent

2%

300

10/7/24

 

   -0.0006%

   -0.0065%

10/21/24

299.82

299.80

In 161,421 420 Out 100,502 Total: 261,633

61.633 61.629 

 

WP %  (ycharts)*

1%

150

9/24

    +0.16%

11/24

151.43

151.43

https://ycharts.com/indicators/labor_force_participation_rate  62.70

 

OUTGO

(15%)

 

Total Inflation

7%

1050

9/24

   +0.2%

11/24

956.70

954.79

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm     +0.2 .2

 

Food

2%

300

9/24

   +0.4%

11/24

272.16

271.07

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm     +0.1 .4

 

Gasoline

2%

300

9/24

    -4.1%

11/24

239.49

249.31

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm      -0.6 -4.1

 

Medical Costs

2%

300

9/24

    -0.7%

11/24

288.45

286.34

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm     +0.1 0.7

 

Shelter

2%

300

9/24

   +0.2%

11/24

259.72

259.22

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm     +0.5 0.2

 

WEALTH

 

Dow Jones Index

2%

300

10/7/24

  +1.21%

10/21/24

332.89

336.91

https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/index/  42,863.86

 

Home (Sales)

(Valuation)

1%

1%

150

150

10/7/24

 -2.28%

 -1.44%

11/24

124.95

292.49

124.95

292.49

https://www.nar.realtor/research-and-statistics

Sales (M):  3.86 Valuations (K):  416.7

 

Debt (Personal)

2%

300

10/7/24

  +0.04%

10/21/24

264.24

264.14

http://www.usdebtclock.org/    75,943 973

 

GOVERNMENT

(10%)

 

Revenue (trilns.)

2%

300

10/7/24

   +0.18%

10/21/24

419.27

420.04

debtclock.org/       4,932 941

 

Expenditures (tr.)

2%

300

10/7/24

  +0.23%

10/21/24

295.48

294.81

debtclock.org/       6,990 7,006

 

National Debt tr.)

3%

450

10/7/24

  +0.05%

10/21/24

377.05

376.85

http://www.usdebtclock.org/    35,684 703