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"Psychology keeps trying to vindicate human nature. History keeps undermining the effort."

-- Mason Cooley

News and Opinion

Finally Seeing Movement Toward A Gaza Ceasefire As Biden Moves Out Of The Way

It looks like we’re closer to a Gaza ceasefire deal than ever before. There are still a lot of things that could go wrong at numerous steps along the way, but it’s something, which is more than we’ve seen for the last 15 months.

As Antiwar’s Dave Decamp has noted, both AP and CBS News are reporting that Hamas and Israel have agreed “in principle” to the terms of a ceasefire, set to be rolled out in multiple tentative phases the details of which have yet to be fully nailed down. According to AP, the current deal would allow Israel the option of resuming its onslaught after a 42-day pause rather than moving on to the second phase of peace deals.

So it’s very, very far from perfect. But it’s something.

Report: Israel and Hamas Agree ‘in Principle’ to Ceasefire and Hostage Deal
According to media reports, the deal on the table doesn't commit Israel to a permanent ceasefire
by Dave DeCamp@DecampDave #Israel #Gaza #Palestinians #Hamas #GazaCeasefireNow https://t.co/61oAU5RrF9

— Antiwar.com (@Antiwarcom) January 14, 2025

Though Biden and the Democrats are of course trying to take credit for these developments, according to Israeli media this sudden rush of movement after 15 months of stasis has been the result of pressures and negotiations from the incoming Trump administration.

According to the Israeli outlet Haaretz, president-elect Trump’s middle east envoy Steven Witkoff called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office on Friday to tell him he was coming to Israel to discuss ceasefire negotiations. Netanyahu’s people tried to tell Witkoff that it was the middle of the Sabbath so any meeting would need to be postponed, but Witkoff replied that the Sabbath was of no interest to him and demanded the meeting anyway. Haaretz reports that Netanyahu’s aides were taken aback by the bluntness of Witkoff’s response.

According to a report from the Israeli outlet YNet, Trump was able to persuade Netanyahu to agree to the deal by assuring him that he could back out of it at any time, along with pledging to remove sanctions on extremist Israeli settlers and the Israeli spyware firm Pegasus. So it’s not as though Trump has taken a strong position against Israel; he’s just doing something instead of nothing.

The deal that’s in the works is reportedly almost the same as the one Hamas agreed to all the way back in May of last year, which Netanyahu sabotaged with the complicity of the Biden regime. Biden could have ended this nightmare back in May, or indeed at any time since it began in October 2023.

It's not a surprise to anyone honest or clear-eyed, but it will make left-liberals utterly confused and lost:

Israeli media and Netanyahu's closest allies are adamant that Trump forced them into a cease-fire deal for Gaza they didn't want, something Biden never even tried: https://t.co/Q7XgEk1330

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 14, 2025

Ever since the genocide in Gaza began it’s been an open question whether the Biden administration’s facilitation of the slaughter has just been standard US empire depravity, or an evil that would only have occurred under Biden. The fact that we’re now closer to a ceasefire than ever before, reportedly due to pressures exerted by Trump, suggests that the latter could be the case. It suggests that these 15 months of human butchery could only have occurred under a dementia-addled lifelong Zionist surrounded by Zionist puppeteers.

Trita Parsi wrote months ago that Biden’s completely unconditional facilitation of every Israeli demand is historically the exception rather than the norm under US presidencies. If Trump does in fact wind up presiding over a de-escalation in the genocidal atrocities in Gaza, this will have been officially confirmed. It will be a proven fact that a Biden presidency was the worst thing that could possibly have happened for the Palestinian people. That for 15 months a psychopathic apartheid state was essentially left unsupervised to do what it has always wanted to do to the Palestinians in ways it never could have under any other circumstances, resulting in unfathomable horrors we’ll still be learning details of for years to come.

I am still not sold on the idea that Trump will bring even a relative amount of peace to Gaza. I will need to see this reflected by the facts on the ground throughout his term. But if those facts prove what it seems they might prove, it means that Biden was an even bigger monster than anyone realized, and that anyone who supported his election was indisputably wrong to do so.

Just something to be aware of.

Biden HUMILIATED By Trump’s Ceasefire Deal

Gaza ceasefire negotiations ‘right on the brink’ as mediators meet in Qatar

Negotiators met in Doha on Tuesday in an effort to hammer out the final details of a ceasefire in Gaza, as the warring sides were reported to be closing in on a deal and the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said the negotiations were “right on the brink”. ...

The US president-elect, Donald Trump, said negotiators were “very close” to finalising a deal that could halt the fighting which has claimed at least 45,000 Palestinian lives and left Gaza’s 2.3 million residents facing catastrophic conditions.

“I understand that there has been a handshake and they are getting it finished – maybe by the end of the week,” Trump told Newsmax on Monday night, as his envoy Steve Witkoff participated in the negotiations in Doha.

“The truth of the matter is that this ceasefire and peace deal is being driven by Trump’s team,” one Pentagon official told the Guardian. “And Biden, Blinken and the whole administration secured its legacy as enablers.”

Kevork Almassian : Trump Pushes Peace: Netanyahu to Accept a Gaza Plan

‘I hope peace will prevail’: joy and fear in Gaza amid reports ceasefire is near

Hopes rose across Gaza on Tuesday that the war that has devastated the territory, killing more than 46,000 and displacing millions, was finally over. Amid widespread reports that Hamas and Israel were in the “final stages” of agreeing a ceasefire agreement, residents of the embattled territory expressed mixed emotions: hope and fear for the future but pain and grief for the past 15 months. ...

Since the war began after the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, there has been only one pause in the 15 month conflict – a 10 day truce in November 2023 – and previous reports that a ceasefire deal was close have repeatedly proved premature.

Israel’s offensive in Gaza has reduced large areas of the territory to rubble and displaced about 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, many of whom are at risk of famine. Around two-thirds of of the people killed were civilians, according to local health authorities and the UN. Tented camps now stretch across what were once beaches and fields. Almost all the territory’s infrastructure – power cables, sewers, water pipes – has been destroyed along with much of its health care system. Aid workers describe some former busy cities as “moonscapes”. ...

It is still unclear who will run Gaza after the end of the war, and who might pay for the reconstruction. Just clearing rubble would take a fleet of 100 lorries 15 years to clear Gaza and cost between $500m (£394m) and $600m, a UN assessment earlier this year found.

Israel admits soldiers used ambulance in raid on refugee camp

The ambulance pulls up on a narrow street at the Balata Palestinian refugee camp in Nablus in the West Bank, seemingly no different from one of the many emergency vehicles that drive in the area every day. But then five armed Israeli soldiers emerge from the vehicle, going on to take part in a raid that results in the death of two civilians, including an 80-year-old woman, in an incident that Israel’s army admitted constituted “a serious offence … [and] violation of existing orders and procedures”.

The Guardian has reviewed video captured by a surveillance camera, spoken with witnesses and a survivor of the military operation, conducted by the IDF on 19 December 2024 using a hospital vehicle with Palestinian licence plates. It was described by rights groups as a “flagrant violation” of international humanitarian law, which prohibits the use of medical vehicles to carry out military attacks that result in injury or death of people.

“Israel is no longer trying to hide its war crimes and is acting as though the norms and rules of international law do not apply,’’ said the prominent Israeli rights group B’Tselem, which investigated the incident. ...

It remains unclear if the Israeli special forces, who emerged from the ambulance, fired one of the final shots that killed the woman. According to some witnesses, they opened fire on civilians, wounding at least six. Military sources suggest that the operation aimed to arrest or eliminate six members of the Balata local militia linked to Fatah fighters. However, the mission apparently failed, with none of the targets captured or killed. Nevertheless, two Palestinian residents, Halimah, and Ahmad Qusai ‘Issa Sarouji, 25, died in the attack.

The Israeli army admitted that “during the operation in Nablus, an ambulance-like vehicle was used for operational purposes, without authorisation and without the relevant commanders’ approval”.

“Reports were received about harm to civilians during the exchanges of fire and the circumstances of the incident are being examined,” the IDF said in the statement. “The use of the ambulance-like vehicle during the operation was a serious offence, exceeding authority, and a violation of existing orders and procedures. The use of civilian and medical means for military purposes is prohibited, and any deviation from this does not reflect the conduct of the IDF.”

[Much more detail at the link. -js]

US-Israel Rift Deepens; Trump Gaza Pressure Shocks Bibi; Patrushev: No More Ukraine Post 2025

Israeli Assault on Gaza, West Bank Continues in 'Final Stage' of Cease-Fire Talks

As negotiators in Qatar navigated the "final stage" of a cease-fire agreement to end the U.S.-backed Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip, Israel's forces on Tuesday continued to kill Palestinians in the besieged coastal enclave and the illegally occupied West Bank.

Since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have killed at least 46,645 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded 110,012, with over 10,000 others missing, health officials said Tuesday. The true death toll could be much higher. A peer-reviewed analysis published last week in The Lancetfound that the official tally through last June was likely a 41% undercount.

The Palestinian National Authority's news agency WAFA reported Tuesday that IDF shelling killed at least two civilians at the Nuseirat refugee camp and a correspondent in Gaza City "said that Israeli warplanes fired missiles at a house in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, north of Gaza City, and another house in the Manara neighborhood, south of Khan Younis City, killing several civilians and injuring others."

According to multiple media outlets, Israeli forces also killed at least 13 people in an attack on a home in Deir al-Balah. ...

In addition to waging war on Gaza over the past 15 months, Israel has stepped up its military activity in the West Bank—where a Tuesday strike on the Jenin refugee camp killed at least six Palestinians and wounded several others. The Times of Israelreported that "the IDF said it carried out the strike in a joint operation with the Shin Bet, without immediately providing further information."

The Israeli newspaper also noted that "on Tuesday evening, as on many previous Tuesday nights, thousands gather for a unity rally of prayer and song held in Tel Aviv's Hostages Square," while hundreds of right-wing demonstrators blocked "an intersection in central Jerusalem, in protest of the ongoing hostage negotiations between Israel and Hamas."

STUN POLL: Gaza COST Kamala Election

South Korea’s Yoon Suk Yeol arrested, investigators say, after hours-long standoff at residence

South Korea’s impeached president, Yoon Suk Yeol, has been arrested and is to undergo questioning over his ill-fated declaration of martial law last month, anti-corruption investigators said on Wednesday, bringing to an end an early-morning standoff outside his official residence in Seoul.

Yoon remained defiant, however, saying he had agreed to cooperate with anti-corruption authorities to “avoid bloodshed” after the latest chapter in a saga that has rocked South Korean politics and triggered concern among its allies. Yoon said the rule of law had “completely collapsed” after his detention.

“President Yoon has decided to personally appear at the Corruption Investigation Office (CIO) today,” his lawyer Seok Dong-hyeon said on Facebook, adding that the impeached leader would also make a speech. Reports said a convoy of vehicles, one of which was presumably carrying Yoon, had left the presidential residence.

Investigators had entered Yoon’s residence early on Wednesday in a fresh attempt to execute a warrant for his arrest over allegations that his declaration of martial law amounted to insurrection – a crime that can come with life imprisonment or even the death penalty.

Yoon has been holed up inside his residence protected by an armed security detail since his impeachment in mid-December.

Biden to remove Cuba from list of state sponsors of terrorism

The Biden administration has notified Congress that it will remove Cuba from its list of state sponsors of terrorism in a deal the country’s communist government said would involve the “gradual” release of 553 political prisoners.

The deal, which administration officials said was negotiated through the Catholic church, was announced on Tuesday, just five days before Biden exits the White House and Donald Trump is inaugurated as the country’s 47th president.

“An assessment has been completed and we do not have information that supports Cuba’s designation as being a state sponsor of terrorism,” a senior administration official briefed reporters on Tuesday.

“The Catholic church is significantly advancing an agreement with Cuba to undertake a set of actions that will allow for the humanitarian release of a significant number of political prisoners in Cuba and those who have been detained unjustly.”

Trump says he will create ‘external revenue service’ to collect tariff income

Donald Trump has said he will create an “external revenue service” as soon as he returns to the White House next week, adding further substance to his campaign vow to establish a new regime of tariffs on foreign imports. “I am today announcing that I will create the EXTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE to collect our Tariffs, Duties, and all Revenue that come from Foreign sources,” the president-elect posted on his Truth Social network on Tuesday.

“We will begin charging those that make money off of us with Trade, and they will start paying, FINALLY, their fair share.” He said the “birth date” of the new service would be 20 January 2025, the day of his presidential inauguration – suggesting that its creation would be one of a flurry of executive orders that are anticipated in his first day in office.

It is unclear if it would have the status of a federal government agency, although Trump’s post implied it would be the equivalent of the existing Internal Revenue Service, the US’s domestic taxation authority.

“For far too long, we have relied on taxing our great people using the Internal Revenue Service (IRS),” he wrote. “Through soft and pathetically weak Trade agreements, the American Economy has delivered growth and prosperity to the World, while taxing ourselves. It is time for that to change.”

US sues Elon Musk for allegedly failing to disclose early Twitter stock purchase

A US financial regulator has sued Elon Musk for allegedly failing to disclose his ownership of Twitter stock and later acquiring shares in the company at “artificially low prices”, stiffing other shareholders.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed suit against Musk late on Tuesday in federal court in Washington DC for alleged securities violations. According to the suit, Musk did not disclose that he had acquired a 5% stake in the company in a timely manner, which allowed him “to underpay by at least $150m for shares he purchased after his financial beneficial ownership report was due”.

Musk bought Twitter in 2022 for $44bn and later renamed it X. Before the purchase, Musk bought the 5% stake in the company, which typically requires a public disclosure. The SEC alleges that it wasn’t until 11 days after the report was due that Musk disclosed his ownership in Twitter.

Alex Spiro, a lawyer for Musk, said in an emailed statement that the SEC’s case amounted to “an admission” that the agency had no case. Musk, Spiro said, “has done nothing wrong and everyone sees this sham for what it is”. ...

Spiro said the SEC lawsuit was the result of an alleged administrative failure to “file a single form”. He added that “the SEC’s multi-year campaign of harassment against Mr Musk culminated in the filing of a single-count ticky-tack complaint against Mr Musk”.

Marianne Williamson On Rising: Working People Feel BETRAYED By Dem Elites

Chemicals in sewage sludge fertilizer used on farms pose cancer risk, EPA says

Harmful chemicals in sewage sludge spread on pasture as fertilizer pose a risk to people who regularly consume milk, beef and other products from those farms, in some cases raising cancer risk “several orders of magnitude” above what the Environmental Protection Agency considers acceptable, federal officials announced on Tuesday.

When cities and towns treat sewage, they separate the liquids from the solids and treat the liquid. The solids need to be disposed of and can make a nutrient-rich sludge often spread on farm fields. The agency now says those solids often contain toxic, lasting PFAS that treatment plants cannot effectively remove. When people eat or drink foods containing these “forever” chemicals, the compounds accumulate in the body and can cause kidney, prostate and testicular cancer. They harm the immune system and childhood development.

Most at risk are people who drink one quart of milk a day from dairy cows raised on pasture with the biosolids, eat one or two servings of fish a week from a lake contaminated by runoff, or drink PFAS-laden water, the draft risk assessment said. The EPA looked only at farmers and those living nearby who regularly consumed these products over years – not the broader general public. Organic farms are not allowed to use the sludge, so the findings should not apply to consumers who purchase organic grass-fed beef.

‘Assume the worst’: fears rise that LA drinking water could be contaminated

As fires continue to burn across Los Angeles, several utilities have declared their drinking water unsafe until extensive testing can prove otherwise. A warmer, drier climate means wildfires are getting worse, and encroaching on cities – with devastating impact. Toxic chemicals from those burns can get into damaged drinking water systems, and even filtering or boiling won’t help, experts say.

Last week, Pasadena Water and Power issued a “do not drink” notice to about a third of its customers for the first time since it began distributing water more than a century ago. With at least one burned pump, several damaged storage tanks, and burned homes, they knew there was a chance toxic chemicals had entered their pipes. “Out of the abundance of caution, you kind of have to assume the worst,” said Stacie Takeguchi, chief assistant general manager for the utility. This week, they lifted the notice for most of the area after testing.

When large fires burn in towns and cities, rather than forests and grasslands, infrastructure can be heavily damaged. When drinking water systems are damaged in a fire, “we can have ash, smoke, soot, other debris and gases get sucked into the water piping network”, said Andrew Whelton, a Purdue University engineering professor who researches water contamination in communities hit by fire.

Those elements can be particularly toxic because chemically engineered synthetics in building materials and households are heating, burning and releasing particles and gases, he said. Some of those chemicals are harmful even at low concentrations, experts say. Water systems typically are under enough internal pressure to keep harmful elements out. But that critical pressure can be lost in many ways during a fire, which means toxins can get in.

Insurance firms are sending firefighters to defend homes amid LA wildfires

When a wildfire started spreading through the Pacific Palisades last Tuesday morning, employees of Wildfire Defense Systems, which provides “loss intervention services” to insurance companies, were already nearby, Dave Torgerson, the company’s founder, said.

Once they arrived at the scene, the private company’s workers stood back for a while, waiting for the government firefighters to complete the most urgent life-saving efforts. When they got clearance from public fire officials, they started their job, which focuses on protecting insured homes and businesses, Torgerson said.

Wildfire Defense Systems, founded in 2008, works with three dozen insurance carriers to help prevent the costly wildfire damage to homes and businesses that insurance companies will ultimately be responsible for paying. It’s an increasingly high-stakes issue for the insurance industry as the climate crisis fuels more frequent and intense fires: insurance losses for the various wildfires encircling Los Angeles are already estimated at $20bn.

As of Friday, Torgerson said, his Montana-based company had employees at every fire across the Los Angeles area, working to “break the cycle of ignition”, by stopping individual buildings from catching on fire. While his company uses a wide variety of fireblocking gels, flame retardants and other equipment to protect at-risk buildings, “the biggest component of making a structure survive a wildfire incident is labor”, he said.

His company was not the only one providing boots on the ground in Los Angeles for major insurance companies. Capstone, a California-based private fire service company, said in a statement that as of Friday it was “operating over 30 wildfire engines deployed throughout southern California”. Capstone works for utility companies, property owners and insurance companies, including helping to staff the “wildfire response program” for USAA, a major company providing insurance and other financial services to military families across the US.

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

AS`AD AbuKHALIL: A History of Foreign Intrigue in Lebanon

Craig Murray: US Pet Now President of Lebanon

The dark case of Flight 8243, a trap for Moscow?

Blinken Says Hamas Has Recruited as Many New Fighters as It Has Lost

Trump's Action Demonstrates Biden's Failure In Stopping The Genocide

Russia’s Difficult Ukraine End Game Choices and the Issue of “Imposing Terms”

Pepe Escobar : I’m gonna MAGA you, baby!

A Little Night Music

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The Greatest Solo of All Time