Ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah has begun

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Updated 7:43 PM PST, November 26, 2024

A ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militants has begun as a region on edge wonders whether it will hold.

The ceasefire began at 4 a.m. Wednesday, a day after Israel carried out its most intense wave of strikes in Beirut and its southern suburbs since the war began. At least 24 people were killed in strikes across the country, according to local authorities.

What’s in the ceasefire deal? The agreement calls for a two-month initial halt in fighting and would require Hezbollah to end its armed presence in a broad swath of southern Lebanon, while Israeli troops would return to their side of the border. But implementation remains a major question mark.

What about fighting in Gaza? The deal does not address the devastating war in Gaza, where Hamas is still holding dozens of hostages. U.S. President Joe Biden, speaking in Washington, said his administration would make a renewed push for a ceasefire in Gaza in the coming days.

What happens if the truce is broken? “If Hezbollah breaks the agreement and tries to rearm, we will attack,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “For every violation, we will attack with might.”

Well, the end of everything is now on hold, until some new shocking development kicks us all into Fear and Loathing over next thing to threaten the End of Civilization as We Know It.

This is the kind of thing I was expecting when this crisis broke open some eight weeks ago:

Submitted by fire with fire on Tue, 10/01/2024 - 10:36am

It is 10:15am on the west coast and NBC and ABC are covering the escalation of violence between Israel and its enemies. In a titanic wave of irony, both networks are referring to Iran's "retaliatory" missile attack, even as they cheerlead for Israel and the Pentagon's defense against it.

If Iran is "retaliating," that means that Israel started the ruckus. That blows up the propaganda about Israel just defending itself from "terrorists."

If one takes all this at face value, we will all be dead or envying those already dead from nuclear war within a few days.

I do not have a scintilla of evidence to support my skepticism about this CRISIS, but I suspect that we are watching another version of the Ukraine-Russia war that sure nuff kills a lot of people, as the fighting drags on toward its third year with nonstop bullshit perpetually claiming that Ukraine is "winning."

The imperative is war. But if somebody actually wins a war, the gravy train stops.

I also suspect that some other mysterious agenda is at work to establish a new world order.

We are by no means out of the Armageddon Woods yet. But this fuels my suspicion that the ongoing insanity is not the product of book smart idiots following an ideological neocon definition of reality, imagining that their cleverness and determination can roll over any obstacle like Russia and/or China. Instead of seeing them as madmen scheming to rule the world, I suspect than an international alliance of Big Bananas is orchestrating the end of the nation state system to be replaced by a new world order that suits their own preferences.

I have no evidence for this assessment of objective reality. It just makes far more sense to me to think through who benefits from the crazy shit going on than to take them seriously about regime change on the far side of the planet. It is of course also correct to condemn the immorality of their whole project of full spectrum dominance. But to assume that all these highly educated smarty-pantses are blind to the impossibility of reaching this immoral goal is, I believe, a major mistake.

I'm not bragging about clairvoyance when I quote myself as being skeptical of the ESCALATION leading to confrontation with Russia. I just hope to spread skepticism about the "news" -- no matter what kind. Fear gets clicks. I hate this century. Typical old man.