ANY MAN'S DEATH

August 1, 2024. Any man's death...

diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.

John Donne (1572-1631)

Message received today from a refugees' camp in Gaza : We buy drinking water but it isn't clean. We strive to remain alive

I could have access to net once each three or four days. Very poor one

Another message from Jerusalem : I send love from the holy land of Jerusalem and especially from my home on Mount of Olives.
I want everyone to pray and ask God to stop the war. I still welcome everyone to come visit me and my family and my door is always open for each and everyone of you.

August 4, 2024. Every day an eternity

Time passes slowly, so slowly. It seems everything is suspended, stalling.

Ask God to stop the war ? Did I really try ?

For all I know, it feels like the answer was : ask your fellowmen, don't ask me. They're the troublemakers in charge. They're free, one way or the other, aren't they ?

Reading Erasmus vs Luther, through Zweig's filters : it seems to be always the same conundrum,of predestination as opposed to free choice

August 5, 2024. Two or three things we know about the Islamic Republic of Iran.

As it's all talk about the IRI (Islamic Republic of Iran) - what will they do now, how, and when - we realize we don't know much about it really, do we.

If you check into the results and victories at the ongoing Olympic Games in France, to this date Iran does not exist. China is leading, with 51 medals (21 gold) before the US with 72 medals (19 gold). Italy strikes gold 9 times, Ireland 3 times, Ukraine, Azerbaidjan, and Serbia, twice. Israel, Georgia, Switzerland, South Africa, Uzbekistan, Algeria, Uganda, once. But no gold for Iran.

What of silver then ? North Korea gets two silver medals; Greece, Kosovo, Turkey, Armenia, Ethiopia, Tunisia, each strike silver once; but still no Iran.

Try bronze at last. India gets three bronze medals, Cuba, Egypt, Portugal get one each. Iran gets none.

This is not a regional, climatic matter. Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, all close neighbours, strike silver and gold. The IRI lags behind, in the same category as its other neighbours, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Jordan, or Palestine.

And it makes you wonder.

If there is one thing these Olympic Games are good at, it's to show us all that no matter where in the world, no matter what the size of the population or the GDP per capita, all people of this planet can achieve and excel, on the peaceful road to body perfection.

So why not the IRI, with its 90 million people and its rather high position in the Human Development Index (involving per capita income, education, life expectancy) ?

What's wrong with the human body in the IRI ?

Apart from assessing a country and its regime in the Olympic light, what else do we know about the IRI ?

In the night of April 13 to April 14, 2024 - that is 113 days ago only - the IRI launched the first space war in the history of mankind, with dozens of ballistic missiles aiming at tiny Israel.

Did we say "tiny"? Israel is less than 10,000 square kilometers, if you take out the vast stretches of Negev desert, as opposed to 1,648,000 for Iran. It is nine times less populated than the IRI.

Actually, to be more precise, the first case in human history of combat in space occured on November 6, 2023, when an Iranian ballistic missile was launched from Yemen, South of Saudi Arabia, at Israel. Lovely little war toys, of sixteen tons, with a warhead of 1200 kg, flying at Mach 9, with a range up to 2,000 km.

You may prefer the Shahab 3 model, with a smaller warhead, and a flight altitude of 400 km.

Or the cute Kheibar Shekan 11-m long 6-ton missile, flying at Mach 5, reaching an altitude of 135 km.

Ballistic : the stratosphere reaches up to 50 km. Higher up you find the mesosphere. And above, the thermosphere, from 85 to 700 km. Our part of the atmosphere, the troposphere, reaches 12 km from the ground.

All these facts can be found free of charge, on the net encyclopedia, courtesy of Mr Jimmy Wales.

So, these guys out there, in Tehran, at AIO (Aerospace Industries Organization) have been aiming at the thermosphere for years now. That's their playground. Lucky for them, they have the backing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, with the Rahbar (the Supreme Leader) at the top of it all, who is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and has the authority to declare war or peace as he pleases.

Certainly, he is a man of God, like you had kings of divine right, way back in the West.

You can always blame it on God then, if things go wrong somewhere down the line ?

What else do we know about the IRI ?

It was founded in 1979. As a revolution against the previously ruling Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

The first notorious act of the new regime was to send 400 "students" to storm the American embassy in Tehran, and keep the 52 diplomats and civilians there hostages for over a year (444 days). Their grief was that these were not diplomats and bureaucrats, but spies. Well, that certainly applies to all embassies in this world : they all have their own "secret" personnel, dealing with intelligence and "classified" missions - including the IRI, the UK, the SAR (Syrian Arab Republic), the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia of course, and what have you.

Could this be reason enough to go storm their embassies, with a mob of "students", "talibans", whatever ?

The other grief these revolutionaries had was that the former ruler of Iran, the Shah, plagued with fast evolving cancer, had been hospitalized in New York, from October 22, 1979.

That certainly looks like another strong, legitimate reason to storm an embassy, and take its personnel hostage for over a year, does it not.

He died in exile in Egypt in July 1980. They say he had kept a bag of Iranian soil under his death bed.

Now, there is another story about the IRI that may be remembered.

It goes back to 1988. All the way from 1988 to 2022 and nowadays.

You have this man, Salman Rushdie, born in 1947 in Bombay, India. A writer of some importance, his second novel, Midnight's children, published in 1981, had won him a prize. It was his fourth novel, The Satanic Verses, that landed a death sentence upon his head, in the name of God - what they call a fatwa in the IRI, issued by the man who was then the Supreme Leader, by the name of Khomeini, in February 1989. There were many attempts to assassinate him, and his book was banned in 20 countries (including India, Pakistan, South Africa, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Somalia, Nigeria, Indonesia...).

35 years later, the fatwa has not been lifted. It was reaffirmed in 2005 by the IRI's present Supreme Leader.

In 2006, the leader of God's( Party (Hizbollah) in Lebanon, declared that there should have been "a Muslim to carry out Imam Khomeini's fatwa against the renegade Salman Rushdie" adding "I am sure there are millions of Muslims who are ready to give their lives" in that prospect, "and we have to be ready to do anything for that."

Salman Rushdie also has been on Al Qaeda's hit list, along with cartoonists Vilks, Westergaard, and Charb (for Charlie Hebdo).

Charb was assassinated in Paris in January 2015, along with his companions Wolinski, 80; Honoré, 73; Cabu, 76; Bernard Maris; Elsa Cayate, Mustapha Ourrad, Tignous...

On August 12, 2022, a citizen of both Lebanon and the US, aged 24, walked up to Salman Rushdie on a stage, in the state of New York, and hit him a dozen times with a knife. Rushdie would have died on the stage in a pool of blood if a doctor had not given him emergency care. He lost an eye and the use of a hand.

The failed murderer later said he had only read a couple of pages.

This is what we know, and remember, about the Islamic Republic of Iran.

What some may call the Persian Octopus, due to its tentacles from Yemen to Gaza and Lebanon, to name but the lands that they flood with weapons, and their ideology.

Easier to kill than to read ?

August 6, 2024. A couple more things....

...about the IRI. It's actually strange how we either forget or ignore genealogies.

Take it back to its birth, in 1979. After barely a few months, the IRI was embarked in an eight-year war with its neighbour. The toll was 700.000 killed to 1,2 million for both, depending upon the deathcounts. On one side you had the IRI, Kurds, and Hizbollah; on the other, Irak, Morocco & Sudan. It is estimated that 100,000 civilians were massacred then. Do you remember any protests in Western capitals ? The IRI had excellent relations with Israeli arms dealers then. To the global tune of 500 billion dollars in arms trades for both Iran and Iraq.

Supporting Iraq, i.e. selling it weapons, you had the usual suspects : the US, China, France.

According to the SIPRI, 52 countries sold weapons either to Iran or to Iraq. 29 sold to both sides.

Bis repetita : In 2014, the IRI embarked upon another war with neighbours. This time in Yemen.

On one side you have the IRI and God's Party in Lebanon, God's Partisans in Yemen; on the other, you have the Republic of Yemen, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Jordan, Senegal even, Egypt, Italy, France, the UK, the US...

The toll has been 400,000 killed in Yemen so far. 4 million people displaced as refugees.

Do you remember any protests in Western capitals ?

It really makes you wonder. Why is there no further information about war today in Yemen ?

August 7, 2024. One more fact about the IRI

It finally struck bronze, in Greco-Roman wrestling.

Where they would strike "gold", if there was a world competition somehow, is in the field of excecutions.

In 2022, 582 persons were executed, 834 in 2023, over 300 since January 2024 - 36 from July 20 to July 31. This can be checked out with Iran Human Rights Organization, Together Against the Death Penalty, Amnesty International.

August 9, 2024. There is no further time to waste.

“It is time to bring immediate relief both to the long-suffering people of Gaza as well as the long-suffering hostages and their families. The time has come to conclude the ceasefire and hostages and detainees release deal,” said the statement signed by US President Joe Biden, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.

“There is no further time to waste nor excuses from any party for further delay. It is time to release the hostages, begin the ceasefire, and implement this agreement,”

August 10,2024. If only they could run

Five hostages from the Nahal Oz base.

What do we see ? Soldiers ?

Or just young, beaten women ?

August 11, 2024. Iran has finally beaten Israel.

With 12 medals, against 7 for israel, at the Olympic Games in Paris.

What's of interest : Iran strikes gold twice in Greco-Roman wrestling and once in taekwondo, silver once in freestyle wrestling.

Their twelve medals all are in these three categories.

Israel strikes gold once only and silver, in sailing. Silver twice and bronze once in judo. Silver in artistic gymnastics, and in rhythmic gymnastics. A different mindset ?

August 15, 2024. Endless night of the finish line. 3 a.m.

"We need to get this over the finish line" has declared the US ambassador to the UN.

If we remember well, Hamas said they'd accepted the proposal for a cease-fire on May 5.

102 days have elapsed since. Over three months, in which the former Palestinian PM Haniyeh, and more local commanders, were slain. What could the cause be for further delay ?

August 16, 2024. May the Khan Yunis angel forgive us all...

"I am not just a number. At 24, I have friends, memories and a lot of pain." Yafa

Killed by a bomb or a missile, in Khan Yunis.

August 18, 2024. Are prayers enough ?

From Doha to Cairo, they keep meeting, bargaining. Slaves' market.

'Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy,

And in the wither'd field where the farmer plows for bread in vain.

It is an easy thing to triumph in the summer's sun
And in the vintage and to sing on the waggon loaded with corn.
It is an easy thing to talk of patience to the afflicted,
To speak the laws of prudence to the houseless wanderer

Then the groan and the dolor are quite forgotten, and the slave grinding at the mill,
And the captive in chains, and the poor in the prison, and the soldier in the field
When the shatter'd bone hath laid him groaning among the happier dead.

It is an easy thing to rejoice in the tents of prosperity:
Thus could I sing and thus rejoice: but it is not so with me.'

William Blake

August 19, 2024. Are hostages treated as collateral damages ?

Naama Levy, 19. Captured in Nahal Oz on October 7, 2023. Along with the other girls left defenceless in their exposed base, to monitor border screens.

Liri Elbag. Agam Berger. Daniella Gilboa. Karina Arlev. Technically, they were "lookouts", but we know that nobody listened to whatever they had to say before October 7, to warn of what they saw coming. The global Hamas rationale is that all Israelis are guilty, all Israelis have been, are, or will be soldiers. Therefore they all are "legitimate" targets, whether they were nine months old in October 23, like Kfir Bibas, in Nir Oz, or 84 like Oded Lifshitz, also detained since October 7.

The essence of collective punishment : "all guilty".

Please listen to Dr Ayelet Levy-Shachar, Naama's mother : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1ZRY5o8f0E

August 20, 2024. A (short) chronology of missed opportunities.

January 25, 2024. After roughly three months of war : "we can say that we have won this war (...) We destroyed the infrastructure, most of the installations of Hamas across Gaza" ex-PM Olmert, who compared the situation to what happened to Israel in Lebanon, from 1982 to 2000 : "We stayed in Lebanon 18 years. The actual war was concluded after maybe two, three months. And then we stayed 18 years. And we lost hundreds of soldiers for nothing."

He insisted it was "time to stop the war" - and get the hostages out. By then, the Nir Oz residents Chaim Peri, Amiram Cooper, Alex Dancyg, Yoram Metzger, were still alive.

February 1, 2024. The U.N. Resolution 2720 was approved by 13 members of the Security Council, with the abstention of Russia and the USA. It was soon forgotten.

February 24, 2024. In Paris, an "outline of an agreement" was reached by the parties (namely the US, Egypt, Israel, Qatar) for a temporary cease-fire, leading to the release of hostages. Nothing else happened.

March 25, 2024. Another U.N. Resolution of the Security Council, 2728 (that was posted here : http://www.peacelines.org/the-never-ending-campaign-spring-2024-c33442179), approved by all 14 members (among them Algeria, China, France, Japan, Russia, Switzerland, the United Kingdom). The US abstained. Followed the path of 2720.

April 26, 2024. 18 countries solemnly called for common sense and humanity. Among them, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Poland, Spain, the UK, the US...). Fell on deaf ears.

May 7, 2024. On the threshold of a deal for a "comprehensive framework". People in Gaza celebrated, danced in the streets.

June 1, 2024. The May talks led to a Proposal for a Cease-Fire, pushed by the US administration.

June 29, 2024. The US officials are in search of a "new language" to make things palatable on both sides of the divide.

August 9, 2024. "The time has come to conclude the cease-fire" A chorus of the US President Joe Biden, the Egyptian Raïs El-Sissi, and Emir Al-Thani for Qatar. "There is no further time to waste nor excuses from any party..." they insisted.

Now, you who are reading these lines shouldn't scoff and laugh it off. Remember how long it took between Ireland and the UK, for bombs and guns to quit the stage.

August 21, 2024. What is it like ?

This unpaid job - thank goodness you don't get paid for it - to keep at it, as some look-out, checking every echo you can get, one way or another, day and night, and it all revolves around these names : Nir Oz, Rafah, Nahal Oz, Khan Yunis, Be'eri, Al Mawasi... living in constant angst, that those you know, in Al Mawasi, will die or get maimed, from some missile or shell, before this thing is over - and they have so scarce connection to the net, they can't really inform you, share with you; daily angst that the others you know, in Nir Oz, who are trapped somewhere in Gaza, will be found dead and rotting in some God-forsaken tunnel, like Haim, Amiram, Yoram...

The Nir Oz prisoners, I had not met them before October, but I have met their friends and families, who all have become so dear to me, and they can hardly speak too. Not because of a lack of facilities, but because the pain is too much.

To me, on both sides of the border, they're all human beings, made of the same components, the same stuff within, the same dreams even, eventually. They all longed for a peaceful, happy, uneventful life, with their mates and kids, neighbours and friends.

Like Yitzik Horn, who was born in Argentina, we can't forget that los desaparecidos - five to six thousand of them between 1975 and 1978 in Argentina - never were found again.

Itzik Horn. 'I would also like to swing by, kiss and hug my son.'

August 22, 2024. The price of face-saving.

All big men want to save face. Be able to say, we didn't die in vain. They didn't die in vain, since the living can't speak for the dead.

Listen to a former Israeli PM, by the end of January : he said the war in Lebanon had been finished in two, three months, in 1982. Then, they stayed 18 years. Until 2000. Hundreds of soldiers died. Did that prevent the growth of God's Party, Hizbollah ?

The stumbling-block, we hear, is the control of two corridors, the Philadelphi corridor, along the Egyptian border, with the Rafah Crossing, and the West to East Netzarim corridor, that cuts the Strip in two.

Concerning the Rafah Crossing, who remembers EUBAM Rafah ? The European Union Border Assistance Mission in Rafah.

Zvi Bar'el making sense for you : Zvi Bar'el, Haaretz, August 22, 2024

Analysis | Netanyahu and Sinwar Lack a Gaza Exit Strategy as Egypt Fights to Keep Cease-fire Talks Alive

August 23, 2024. For the sake of humankind.

111 Word Call, supported by American, British and French Nobel laureates :

For the sake of humankind

Are we not the same blood groups ?

We’re all together, one way or another.

Stop the fighting now

Let them all go home,

All the forsaken survivors,

The hostages, the displaced,

Let the fighters lay down their arms,

let them all recover from the din of war.

The only final victory is to break the endless cycle of retaliations,

To stop the traffic of weapons,

as the Irish and the Basque did, after trying terror.

For a true cessation of hostilities, we call for a permanent end to all attack tunnels

and the lasting reconstruction of Gaza within a peaceful, demilitarized Palestinian state alongside Israel.

August 24, 2024. We're all together,one way or another.

These words come from the Apollo 9 astronaut Russell Schweickart.

https://www.rustyschweickart.com/

To us this is the bottom line to it all.

Sunday, August 25, 2024. What kind of war is it ?

A video war, waged on screens mostly : all drones and rockets from Lebanon intercepted - like April 13, 14, the missiles from Iran. Arab media mock it, as the "only target hit" in Israel was a chicken coop.

August 26, 2024. After the last Sunday of August storm. Take it back.

Airlines have cancelled and rerouted flights, both in Tel Aviv and Beirut but, as far as we know, there were no reports of casualties in Israel, and only three fighters were killed in Lebanon. Leaving both sides satisfied, each claiming that it all has gone according to plan. Wunderbar ?

Still "a very hard night" for people in South Lebanon, through some 40 airstrikes - they count 110,000 people displaced, and an anxious Sunday in Israel, where 60,000 people have been displaced from the North.

The "response equation", also known as "retaliation equation" seems to be holding, with one tiny country in the midst of it all, as viewed from "outer space", exposed to rockets from both neighbours, South and North, with the threat of a more powerful villain to the East, namely the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Does anyone around still seriously think this is all about "occupation" ?

Take it back to 2005, when Israel evacuated all of Gaza, plus four now forgotten settlements in the West Bank.

What was it that fast followed ? A growing rain of rockets from Gaza, first handmade, but soon Iran-made and much longer in range, along with the underground construction of a fantastic military maze of hundreds of kilometers of tunnels, and many more shafts. Thousands of rocket-launchers, possibly.

Hence the fourth proposition of the August 22 Humankind Call : for a permanent end to all attack tunnels.

* * "Constructive" Cairo talks, 'held in good spirits by all parties aiming to reach a final and implementable deal'...

"Burns is not giving up and continues efforts to achieve a breakthrough, despite the difficulties."

Hail Mr Burns !

August 27, 2024. And the war drags on

What's the goal ?

How many miles of tunnels have been destroyed yet ?

How many shafts ?

About how many are left ?

Surely, there are ways to precisely assess what's been achieved.

August 28, 2024. "You have no idea what Gaza looks like"

Farhan al-Qadi, a Bedouin Israeli, rescued from a tunnel in Southern Gaza. Was shot in the leg, on October 7, when he was captured and refused to tell his captors where the 'Yehudi' were. Kept in solitary confinement for nine months, 50 meters underground, not allowed to do anything, except praying.

"He was treated like an Israeli in every respect, barely saw the sun", had lost all sense of time and days. "Constant darkness, did not see the light of day."

Al-Qadi, right, is pictured in an Israeli hospital with one of his brothers on Tuesday.

“The place I was in — I wouldn’t wish on anybody. So do everything — demonstrations, everything — to get the people home,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if they are Arab or Jewish, all have a family waiting for them."

A man lies in a hospital bed, with two men leaning over him. One holds his hand.

“I hope, I pray for an end to this.”

August 29, 2024. "I know that there are negotiations in Cairo" / trust-building

"I wish to God that this is all resolved". Farhan al-Qadi

IDF destroyed 80% of Hamas's tunnels in Rafah, military sources claim

A percentage is foggy. The question is : how many miles of tunnels have been destroyed yet, in the whole Gaza Strip ? Surely, a cartography of the tunnels exists now. Surely, the answers exist. And then, a percentage will make sense. A plain matter of understanding.

August 30, 2024. Take it backwards.

"Negotiators 'bearing down on details' of hostage talks, White House says".

"Gallant urges hostage deal and return of evacuated residents"

In synchronicity with the 111-word Nobel call For the Sake of Humankind, its five propositions.

Starting backwards :

1- The recognition of a Palestinian state, within which to reconstruct Gaza, has been a given for 145 countries out of the 193 member states of the United Nations. The stumbling-block for the 38 remaining objectors is the ongoing pledge of violence and terror by Palestinian factions.

Hence the call for a finally peaceful, demilitarized Palestinian State.

2- There can be no prospects of peace, whatsoever, with the proliferation of attack tunnels in Gaza. The underground strategy has failed. It has failed to provide security to the people of Gaza, for whom there have been no shelters. It has failed in all its objectives. Tunnels have to be dismantled, abandoned.

3- The resort to terror and military operations by Irish and Basque nationalists came to an end in 1994 for the Irish and 2011 for the Basque - as it proved not only inhumane but eventually irrational, counter-productive. The arms race has to stop, with all the traffics involved.

4- After the Majdal Shams massacre of teenagers on a football field (on July 27, 2024), the Druze made it clear that retaliation was not in their conception of life. Such was the drive of our first Nobel Call (2000) supported by 31 laureates : "There must be an end to the blood-smeared logics of talion, and armed forces !"

http://www.peacelines.org/israel-palestine-2000-2014-c24800090

5- Let them all go home, starting with the Israeli hostages of October 7. Let the displaced persons (North and South of Israel, North and South of Gaza) go home, and recover their lives.

This implies the fighting will have stopped then.

The implication of Humankind is clear enough.

"I am not interested in Palestine alone. Our problems are intricately bound up with those of the whole region and no real separation can be made between them.[...] Neither we nor the Arabs will succeed alone. They need us just as much as we need them." Martin Buber, 1954, A land of two peoples

August 31, 2024. First of all, direction.

On August 27, we asked "What's the goal?" Not just 'empty rhetorics' (since 'there is no other side to talk to').

You have to wonder what "goal" really means.

Martin Buber, the most recognized Israeli philosopher of the 20th century, says :

"Politics worthy of its name is not simply a matter of decisions and deeds. First of all, direction - a policy - is needed, a policy from which decisions and deeds, made according to ever changing conditions, emanate."

Buber, A Land of Two Peoples

Buber, the philosopher of dialogical reciprocity. If you think now is not the time to philosophize, you may look into the Olmert-al Qudwa agreement, signed on July 17, 2024, to "work together to promote the achievement of peace in the Middle East"

Yuval Barnea, The Jerusalem Post, August 31, 2024

Ehud Olmert and Arafat's nephew sign agreement to achieve peace, partition Jerusalem - report