Fearing airstrikes and crowded shelters, Palestinians in north Gaza defy Israeli evacuation orders
By SAMY MAGDY and WAFAA SHURAFA
Today
DEIR AL BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Mahmoud Shalabi did not evacuate his home in northern Gaza despite the frightful Israeli warnings of a looming, far more brutal assault to come as it presses ahead with its war against the Hamas militant group.
The Palestinian aid worker is among hundreds of thousands who have remained. Others who initially heeded the Israeli warnings to head south have returned to the territory's north, where Israel says it considers all those who stay possible “accomplices” of Hamas.
Shalabi said leaving his home in Beit Lahia didn’t make sense considering the relentless bombardment of southern Gaza, where Israel has repeatedly urged the more than 1 million northern residents like him to seek refuge. The overcrowded shelters and shortages of water and food in the south played a part in their decisions, said Shalabi and others who remained.
Risk death at home, or elsewhere in Gaza, they said.
Leaving would be reasonable only if Israel stopped targeting the south, said Shalabi, who works for Medical Aid for Palestinians, a U.K.-based charity providing health services. “It doesn’t make sense to me that I should leave my home to go and get killed in a tent in the south of Gaza,” he said.
The risks for those staying in the north are likely to rise exponentially in the event of an expected Israeli ground offensive, after two-and-a-half weeks of heavy bombardments have already claimed more than 6,500 lives in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.
With tens of thousands of troops massed along Israel's border with Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday Israel was preparing for a ground incursion. He refused to say when it would begin.
Israeli military officials have said they are determined to crush Hamas in response to its brutal Oct. 7 attack on Israeli border communities, and the focus will be on the north, including Gaza City, where Israel says key Hamas assets, tunnels and bunkers are located.
Some 350,000 Palestinians are still in northern Gaza, according to Israeli estimates. Military officials have repeatedly exhorted Palestinians to move south, but have not said whether the presence of a large number of civilians would be a factor in deciding whether to send in tanks and ground troops.
Israel says it seeks to strike Hamas and doesn't target civilians, but Gaza health officials say many of those killed have been women and children. Those numbers are expected to climb with a ground offensive, which would likely see fierce fighting inside crowded urban areas.
International rights groups have sharply criticized the Israeli evacuation orders, saying they cannot be considered effective warning to civilians, under the rules of international law, because of a lack of realistic options for those fleeing.
“When the evacuation routes are bombed, when people north as well as south are caught up in hostilities, when the essentials for survival are lacking, and when there are no assurances for return, people are left with nothing but impossible choices,” said Lynn Hastings, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories. “Nowhere is safe in Gaza.”
Those staying put in the north are bracing for worse to come. They live among the ruins of once bustling neighborhoods while facing dire shortages of fuel, food and water amid looming hospital shutdowns.
Services in the north have deteriorated since Israel’s evacuation order prompted at least 700,000 Palestinians to flee south. Most homes have no electricity, water or fuel.
More than 1.4 million Gaza residents are now displaced across the narrow strip, out of a population of 2.3 million, and U.N. shelters are packed at triple their capacity, U.N. agencies say.
In the north, entire neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble.
"Everywhere there is debris, there are destroyed cars, there are destroyed houses. And it’s really difficult to get from one location to the other because there is no fuel,” Shalabi said.
He said he walked for two hours to find a bakery still selling bread to feed his family of 10. Shop shelves are empty; residents are living on canned beans, pineapple, corn.
The little fuel still available, often from private stockpiles, is sold for exorbitant prices. Some rent out small water pump motors, demanding 50 shekels ($12) an hour, a huge amount for the average Gaza resident.
This week Shalabi ran out of cash, and scoured the blocks of dilapidated streets to find a functioning ATM. There were none.
About 50,000 people are sheltering on the grounds of Shifa Hospital, Gaza's largest, in Gaza City. It is overwhelmed by a steady stream of wounded from airstrikes amid warnings that severe shortages of fuel, needed to power generators, could trigger a shutdown. No new fuel has been allowed into Gaza since the Oct. 7 raid.
Still, many Palestinians are choosing to return north, tired of moving from place-to-place under Israeli fire as shelters become overcrowded and unlivable. U.N. monitors estimate 30,000 have returned.
Ekhlas Ahmed, 24 and eight-months pregnant, was among them.
A week ago, she fled Gaza City after repeated Israeli warnings to move south. She returned after the home she was sheltering in along with 14 other family members in the south was hit by an Israeli airstrike.
“It was a residential building and they bombed it,” she said.
Ahmed, who has a 4-year-old son, is hoping for a ceasefire.
“I am very frightened. All of us are frightened,” she said.
___
Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Jack Jeffrey in Cairo contributed to this report.
Because Hamas of course didn’t follow the civilians to hide with them and under them.
Keep it up, you must really want president trump back next year.
is that the best ya got? threatening a return of president trump? lol.
I wouldn’t laugh, he’s got yer electoral votes no problem. You really think Biden can take the swing states with liberals running around supporting the most extreme of Arab people? So extreme Egypt and Jordan don’t want their refugees? Keep laughing.
news flash. trump will never be president again. wake up.
He will if people like Lerxst vote for him to continue the unwavering support of wholesale slaughter of Gazans.
Part of me thinks there is no way Trump will get elected as president again and part of me is concerned that it might happen, but as hard as it is to fathom, he is, after all, leading the GOP pack at this early stage. I hope gimme is right- I'd really really really like to be confident that he is right
trump cannot win the popular vote, so he has to win the electoral vote in a small number of states. he will not have the popular turnout to swing those elections because he has not gained voters. he has lost millions of supporters. his hardcore supporters are old people that are dying off. the gop is not raising younger generations of voters, the younger voters are more liberal, so they would never vote gop. the gop is a dying party. they gave their party to trump, and he has driven it into the ground, like every single facet of all of his businesses. unless there is huge electoral interference, trump will never be president again. he cannot win it legitimately.
All sounds good to me, thanks. I guess I have to stop reading things that get me paranoid else-wise!
That younger voter argument was first made with Obama in 2008. Voters 20 years old then will be 36 for this election. That’s a huge swath of the electorate, yet trump is polling as good as anyone else. He can’t win it legitimately? I wish the pollsters agreed
Don’t like national polls? Hers a bunch of swing state polls with Biden ahead in one
20 house Dems now support cease fire, Keep supporting Hamas, like somehow that will end the horrible killing of civilians. No, supporting Hamas will split the Dems and get trump elected. Why isn’t the world demanding hamas to immediate surrender?
If the world community wanted peace and to spare lives, everyone would demand the immediate surrender of Hamas. They started this war.
Funny have 20 dems come out in support of Hamas? has anyone come out in support of Hamas or is this another delusion?
Cmon, it is well known Hamas will use ANY pause to restock its weapons, often using humanitarian aid to improve its ability to murder civilians.
to refer to my comment as “another delusion” is borderline outside the rules here.
Give me some credit. I’m probably the only liberal here supporting Israel’s right to defend itself, and in the face of a very strong pro Palestine slant on this forum, this topic has remained open since the horrific start to this war Oct seven
Edit, the guardian,
“Pressure is building in Congress, where 18 House Democrats – all progressive lawmakers of color – joined a resolution calling for the White House to support “an immediate de-escalation and ceasefire in Israel and occupied Palestine”.
Show me where they said they support Hamas and I will take back that the comment was a delusion. Sure Israel has the right to defend itself and I don't think anyone disputes that, but for many the current actions of the IDF and Israeli government are crossing a line with collective punishment. Kind of like what the us Government did in Iraq and Afghanistan which was wrong then. Supporting a cease fire and humanitarian aid in the face of the slaughter of civilians en mass in pursuit of some kind of blood debt does not equate supporting Hamas, that's hyperbole in the finest if you aren't with us you're against us vein.
I appreciate your knowledge of the history of the region and the perspective you bring to the discussion. Calling people that believe in protecting the lives of Palestinian children supporters of Hamas, however, is fiction.
The idea that the unarmed citizens of Palestine can just rise up against a well funded and well armed terrorist group is also outside the realm of reality.
A pause gives Hamas a chance to rearm itself to attack unarmed civilians, which is the only reason this war currently exists. Supporting a pause is supporting Hamas’ ability to wage war. Supporting a pause will lead to more fatalities. Those that support peace should instead be insisting Hamas surrender. If hamas can’t keep their people safe in the wake of their aggressions, that is evidence they are a failed leadership. They need to surrender to save lives.
The battle of Mosul was very similar to this conflict, that was a bad idea? We should have let ISIL thrive there?
Speaking of polls, good luck with that. Everyday indignities + an open air prison + illegal settlements + walling off and restricting movement in the West Bank = terrorism. But because Israel's is US taxpayer funded, its morally superior.
OpinionReducing Hamas’s terrorism to a problem of ‘evil’ is a mistake
Terrorism doesn’t fall from the sky. Terror is a tactic. It is a choice. Hamas’s grisly assault on Israel must be analyzed with this in mind. If we ignore this, we make it more likely that other violent organizations will take Hamas’s place even if the group is neutralized or somehow eliminated.
This is already happening. In the West Bank, the stronghold of Hamas’s opponents, support for militancy appears to be deepening, including among Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s “moderate” Fatah faction. This shouldn’t come as a surprise. While the world looked away, something frightening was building. According to one July poll, 60 to 75 percent of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank had positive views of Islamic Jihad and the Lions’ Den — groups just as or even more radical than Hamas. And in a more recent September survey, 54 percent of Palestinians said they supported armed attacks against Israeli civilians.
There are two ways to look at this. One is to say that something is inherently wrong with Palestinians — a view oftenexpressed by both the Israeli and American right — or even that Palestinians, by supporting groups that are evil, are complicit in that evil. This perspective has dangerous implications: It means downplaying distinctions between combatants and civilians (as many Israeli officials have repeatedlydone) and seeing all Palestinians as enemies to be destroyed.
The other way to interpret the survey results is to acknowledge a truth about all people: They’re complicated. In the July poll, half of Gazans agreed that “Hamas should stop calling for Israel’s destruction and instead accept a permanent two-state solution based on the 1967 borders.” But it is possible for Palestinians to support a two-state solution that would allow Israel to exist as a Jewish state while also supporting armed attacks against and inside Israel.
It’s more useful to ask how Palestinian attitudes toward violence have evolved. As journalist Peter Beinart recently noted, at the height of the Oslo accords in 1996 — when a settlement seemed possible — Palestinian support for the peace process reached 80 percent while support for violence dropped to around 20 percent. Clearly, Palestinians, like any group, are capable of supporting both violence and nonviolence, depending on the circumstances.
Unfortunately, officials in the United States and Israel, and in European capitals, have either not been paying attention or simply haven’t cared enough. For instance, in the original version of a new Foreign Affairs article, published after Hamas’s attacks but written before them, Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser, wrote, “In the face of serious frictions, we have de-escalated crises in Gaza and restored direct diplomacy between the parties after years of its absence.” The Biden administration was effectively ignoring Gaza. But it was also ignoring the West Bank, doubling down instead on the Trump administration-brokered Abraham Accords between Israel and “pro-American” Arab dictators. Palestinians were not part of the equation.
The United States and Europe treated the plight of Gazans as a tragedy, while acting as if nothing could be done about it. Meanwhile, successive Israeli governments expanded settlements deep into what was meant to be a future Palestinian state. As a matter of policy, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu worked to prevent reconciliation efforts between the dueling authorities in Gaza and the West Bank. According to this “separation policy,” Netanyahu used Hamas’s dominance in Gaza to justify the claim that Israel had no “partner for peace.”
In 2018, as Gaza’s plight became frozen in place, Palestinian activists launched the Great Return March along the border with Israel — one of the largest unarmed mass mobilizations since the Gaza blockade began in 2007. Israeli forces responded with violence, including the firing of live ammunition and use of snipers. Over the course of the months-long protests, about 150 Palestinians were killed. The lesson that many Palestinians took from this — and from the apparent futility of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement — was that nonviolence doesn’t work.
This is not to say that Hamas wouldn’t have committed its gruesome killings had political circumstances turned out differently. There is no way of knowing. But it would also be a mistake to dismiss Hamas’s terrorism as mere “evil.” As the philosopher John Gray notes, “A campaign of mass murder is never simply an expression of psychopathic aggression.” To describe the things we can’t comprehend as evil is a cop-out. It allows us to believe something is wrong with “them” but not with us. And, paradoxically, it exposes an unwillingness to take terrorists seriously, reducing them to “crazy” or “irrational” adversaries. They usually aren’t.
As has been the case with groups as seemingly unhinged as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, there has been a method to the madness, one that we ignore at our peril. As my Post colleague Damir Marusic recently wrote of Hamas, “Creating a catastrophe … was an act of breathtaking cynicism. It was a hijacking of the Palestinian cause.” Through spectacular violence and brutality, Hamas seized the initiative and demonstrated its own relevance. In a context of dramatic upheaval — think of the French or Russian revolutions — moderation, proportion and restraint never win the day. It’s unclear why anyone would expect them to win the day in Palestine.
The good news is that evil, however banal, can be fought. Hamas does not equal the Palestinian people. To believe that would be to accept Hamas’s claims at face value. Palestinians have diverse and often conflicting perspectives, and they have agency. As powerful as they are, the United States and Israel have agency, too. Millions of Palestinians can and must be incentivized away from violence. They once believed in a two-state solution, and for good reason: They could see progress, however halting, in their own lives. In recent years, however, they have seen only a series of dead ends.
That same alarming September poll contained notes of hope. A plurality in both Gaza and the West Bank said Palestinians’ first goal should be “Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders and the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital.” Right now, a growing number of Palestinians see revolutionary violence as the best way to achieve that goal — and they’re probably wrong about this.
When the fighting stops, the United States, Israel and the international community must give Palestinians reasons to think otherwise. A nonviolent path to an independent Palestinian state must be made unmistakably clear. If such a path doesn’t appear, then defeat of Hamas on the battlefield will be a Pyrrhic victory. Because its ideas — and its belief in the power of violence — will remain, perhaps more alive than ever.
Shadi Hamid is a Post columnist and member of the Editorial Board. He is also a research professor of Islamic studies at Fuller Seminary and the author of several books, including "The Problem of Democracy" and "Islamic Exceptionalism." Twitter
Fearing airstrikes and crowded shelters, Palestinians in north Gaza defy Israeli evacuation orders
By SAMY MAGDY and WAFAA SHURAFA
Today
DEIR AL BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Mahmoud Shalabi did not evacuate his home in northern Gaza despite the frightful Israeli warnings of a looming, far more brutal assault to come as it presses ahead with its war against the Hamas militant group.
The Palestinian aid worker is among hundreds of thousands who have remained. Others who initially heeded the Israeli warnings to head south have returned to the territory's north, where Israel says it considers all those who stay possible “accomplices” of Hamas.
Shalabi said leaving his home in Beit Lahia didn’t make sense considering the relentless bombardment of southern Gaza, where Israel has repeatedly urged the more than 1 million northern residents like him to seek refuge. The overcrowded shelters and shortages of water and food in the south played a part in their decisions, said Shalabi and others who remained.
Risk death at home, or elsewhere in Gaza, they said.
Leaving would be reasonable only if Israel stopped targeting the south, said Shalabi, who works for Medical Aid for Palestinians, a U.K.-based charity providing health services. “It doesn’t make sense to me that I should leave my home to go and get killed in a tent in the south of Gaza,” he said.
The risks for those staying in the north are likely to rise exponentially in the event of an expected Israeli ground offensive, after two-and-a-half weeks of heavy bombardments have already claimed more than 6,500 lives in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.
With tens of thousands of troops massed along Israel's border with Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday Israel was preparing for a ground incursion. He refused to say when it would begin.
Israeli military officials have said they are determined to crush Hamas in response to its brutal Oct. 7 attack on Israeli border communities, and the focus will be on the north, including Gaza City, where Israel says key Hamas assets, tunnels and bunkers are located.
Some 350,000 Palestinians are still in northern Gaza, according to Israeli estimates. Military officials have repeatedly exhorted Palestinians to move south, but have not said whether the presence of a large number of civilians would be a factor in deciding whether to send in tanks and ground troops.
Israel says it seeks to strike Hamas and doesn't target civilians, but Gaza health officials say many of those killed have been women and children. Those numbers are expected to climb with a ground offensive, which would likely see fierce fighting inside crowded urban areas.
International rights groups have sharply criticized the Israeli evacuation orders, saying they cannot be considered effective warning to civilians, under the rules of international law, because of a lack of realistic options for those fleeing.
“When the evacuation routes are bombed, when people north as well as south are caught up in hostilities, when the essentials for survival are lacking, and when there are no assurances for return, people are left with nothing but impossible choices,” said Lynn Hastings, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories. “Nowhere is safe in Gaza.”
Those staying put in the north are bracing for worse to come. They live among the ruins of once bustling neighborhoods while facing dire shortages of fuel, food and water amid looming hospital shutdowns.
Services in the north have deteriorated since Israel’s evacuation order prompted at least 700,000 Palestinians to flee south. Most homes have no electricity, water or fuel.
More than 1.4 million Gaza residents are now displaced across the narrow strip, out of a population of 2.3 million, and U.N. shelters are packed at triple their capacity, U.N. agencies say.
In the north, entire neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble.
"Everywhere there is debris, there are destroyed cars, there are destroyed houses. And it’s really difficult to get from one location to the other because there is no fuel,” Shalabi said.
He said he walked for two hours to find a bakery still selling bread to feed his family of 10. Shop shelves are empty; residents are living on canned beans, pineapple, corn.
The little fuel still available, often from private stockpiles, is sold for exorbitant prices. Some rent out small water pump motors, demanding 50 shekels ($12) an hour, a huge amount for the average Gaza resident.
This week Shalabi ran out of cash, and scoured the blocks of dilapidated streets to find a functioning ATM. There were none.
About 50,000 people are sheltering on the grounds of Shifa Hospital, Gaza's largest, in Gaza City. It is overwhelmed by a steady stream of wounded from airstrikes amid warnings that severe shortages of fuel, needed to power generators, could trigger a shutdown. No new fuel has been allowed into Gaza since the Oct. 7 raid.
Still, many Palestinians are choosing to return north, tired of moving from place-to-place under Israeli fire as shelters become overcrowded and unlivable. U.N. monitors estimate 30,000 have returned.
Ekhlas Ahmed, 24 and eight-months pregnant, was among them.
A week ago, she fled Gaza City after repeated Israeli warnings to move south. She returned after the home she was sheltering in along with 14 other family members in the south was hit by an Israeli airstrike.
“It was a residential building and they bombed it,” she said.
Ahmed, who has a 4-year-old son, is hoping for a ceasefire.
“I am very frightened. All of us are frightened,” she said.
___
Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Jack Jeffrey in Cairo contributed to this report.
Because Hamas of course didn’t follow the civilians to hide with them and under them.
Keep it up, you must really want president trump back next year.
is that the best ya got? threatening a return of president trump? lol.
I wouldn’t laugh, he’s got yer electoral votes no problem. You really think Biden can take the swing states with liberals running around supporting the most extreme of Arab people? So extreme Egypt and Jordan don’t want their refugees? Keep laughing.
news flash. trump will never be president again. wake up.
He will if people like Lerxst vote for him to continue the unwavering support of wholesale slaughter of Gazans.
Part of me thinks there is no way Trump will get elected as president again and part of me is concerned that it might happen, but as hard as it is to fathom, he is, after all, leading the GOP pack at this early stage. I hope gimme is right- I'd really really really like to be confident that he is right
trump cannot win the popular vote, so he has to win the electoral vote in a small number of states. he will not have the popular turnout to swing those elections because he has not gained voters. he has lost millions of supporters. his hardcore supporters are old people that are dying off. the gop is not raising younger generations of voters, the younger voters are more liberal, so they would never vote gop. the gop is a dying party. they gave their party to trump, and he has driven it into the ground, like every single facet of all of his businesses. unless there is huge electoral interference, trump will never be president again. he cannot win it legitimately.
All sounds good to me, thanks. I guess I have to stop reading things that get me paranoid else-wise!
That younger voter argument was first made with Obama in 2008. Voters 20 years old then will be 36 for this election. That’s a huge swath of the electorate, yet trump is polling as good as anyone else. He can’t win it legitimately? I wish the pollsters agreed
Don’t like national polls? Hers a bunch of swing state polls with Biden ahead in one
20 house Dems now support cease fire, Keep supporting Hamas, like somehow that will end the horrible killing of civilians. No, supporting Hamas will split the Dems and get trump elected. Why isn’t the world demanding hamas to immediate surrender?
If the world community wanted peace and to spare lives, everyone would demand the immediate surrender of Hamas. They started this war.
Funny have 20 dems come out in support of Hamas? has anyone come out in support of Hamas or is this another delusion?
Cmon, it is well known Hamas will use ANY pause to restock its weapons, often using humanitarian aid to improve its ability to murder civilians.
to refer to my comment as “another delusion” is borderline outside the rules here.
Give me some credit. I’m probably the only liberal here supporting Israel’s right to defend itself, and in the face of a very strong pro Palestine slant on this forum, this topic has remained open since the horrific start to this war Oct seven
Edit, the guardian,
“Pressure is building in Congress, where 18 House Democrats – all progressive lawmakers of color – joined a resolution calling for the White House to support “an immediate de-escalation and ceasefire in Israel and occupied Palestine”.
Show me where they said they support Hamas and I will take back that the comment was a delusion. Sure Israel has the right to defend itself and I don't think anyone disputes that, but for many the current actions of the IDF and Israeli government are crossing a line with collective punishment. Kind of like what the us Government did in Iraq and Afghanistan which was wrong then. Supporting a cease fire and humanitarian aid in the face of the slaughter of civilians en mass in pursuit of some kind of blood debt does not equate supporting Hamas, that's hyperbole in the finest if you aren't with us you're against us vein.
I appreciate your knowledge of the history of the region and the perspective you bring to the discussion. Calling people that believe in protecting the lives of Palestinian children supporters of Hamas, however, is fiction.
The idea that the unarmed citizens of Palestine can just rise up against a well funded and well armed terrorist group is also outside the realm of reality.
A pause gives Hamas a chance to rearm itself to attack unarmed civilians, which is the only reason this war currently exists. Supporting a pause is supporting Hamas’ ability to wage war. Supporting a pause will lead to more fatalities. Those that support peace should instead be insisting Hamas surrender. If hamas can’t keep their people safe in the wake of their aggressions, that is evidence they are a failed leadership. They need to surrender to save lives.
The battle of Mosul was very similar to this conflict, that was a bad idea? We should have let ISIL thrive there?
Speaking of polls, good luck with that. Everyday indignities + an open air prison + illegal settlements + walling off and restricting movement in the West Bank = terrorism. But because Israel's is US taxpayer funded, its morally superior.
Opinion
Reducing Hamas’s terrorism to a problem of ‘evil’ is a mistake Terrorism doesn’t fall from the sky. Terror is a tactic. It is a choice. Hamas’s grisly assault on Israel must be analyzed with this in mind. If we ignore this, we make it more likely that other violent organizations will take Hamas’s place even if the group is neutralized or somehow eliminated.
This is already happening. In the West Bank, the stronghold of Hamas’s opponents, support for militancy appears to be deepening, including among Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s “moderate” Fatah faction. This shouldn’t come as a surprise. While the world looked away, something frightening was building. According to one July poll, 60 to 75 percent of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank had positive views of Islamic Jihad and the Lions’ Den — groups just as or even more radical than Hamas. And in a more recent September survey, 54 percent of Palestinians said they supported armed attacks against Israeli civilians.
There are two ways to look at this. One is to say that something is inherently wrong with Palestinians — a view oftenexpressed by both the Israeli and American right — or even that Palestinians, by supporting groups that are evil, are complicit in that evil. This perspective has dangerous implications: It means downplaying distinctions between combatants and civilians (as many Israeli officials have repeatedlydone) and seeing all Palestinians as enemies to be destroyed.
The other way to interpret the survey results is to acknowledge a truth about all people: They’re complicated. In the July poll, half of Gazans agreed that “Hamas should stop calling for Israel’s destruction and instead accept a permanent two-state solution based on the 1967 borders.” But it is possible for Palestinians to support a two-state solution that would allow Israel to exist as a Jewish state while also supporting armed attacks against and inside Israel.
It’s more useful to ask how Palestinian attitudes toward violence have evolved. As journalist Peter Beinart recently noted, at the height of the Oslo accords in 1996 — when a settlement seemed possible — Palestinian support for the peace process reached 80 percent while support for violence dropped to around 20 percent. Clearly, Palestinians, like any group, are capable of supporting both violence and nonviolence, depending on the circumstances.
Unfortunately, officials in the United States and Israel, and in European capitals, have either not been paying attention or simply haven’t cared enough. For instance, in the original version of a new Foreign Affairs article, published after Hamas’s attacks but written before them, Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser, wrote, “In the face of serious frictions, we have de-escalated crises in Gaza and restored direct diplomacy between the parties after years of its absence.” The Biden administration was effectively ignoring Gaza. But it was also ignoring the West Bank, doubling down instead on the Trump administration-brokered Abraham Accords between Israel and “pro-American” Arab dictators. Palestinians were not part of the equation.
The United States and Europe treated the plight of Gazans as a tragedy, while acting as if nothing could be done about it. Meanwhile, successive Israeli governments expanded settlements deep into what was meant to be a future Palestinian state. As a matter of policy, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu worked to prevent reconciliation efforts between the dueling authorities in Gaza and the West Bank. According to this “separation policy,” Netanyahu used Hamas’s dominance in Gaza to justify the claim that Israel had no “partner for peace.”
In 2018, as Gaza’s plight became frozen in place, Palestinian activists launched the Great Return March along the border with Israel — one of the largest unarmed mass mobilizations since the Gaza blockade began in 2007. Israeli forces responded with violence, including the firing of live ammunition and use of snipers. Over the course of the months-long protests, about 150 Palestinians were killed. The lesson that many Palestinians took from this — and from the apparent futility of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement — was that nonviolence doesn’t work.
This is not to say that Hamas wouldn’t have committed its gruesome killings had political circumstances turned out differently. There is no way of knowing. But it would also be a mistake to dismiss Hamas’s terrorism as mere “evil.” As the philosopher John Gray notes, “A campaign of mass murder is never simply an expression of psychopathic aggression.” To describe the things we can’t comprehend as evil is a cop-out. It allows us to believe something is wrong with “them” but not with us. And, paradoxically, it exposes an unwillingness to take terrorists seriously, reducing them to “crazy” or “irrational” adversaries. They usually aren’t.
As has been the case with groups as seemingly unhinged as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, there has been a method to the madness, one that we ignore at our peril. As my Post colleague Damir Marusic recently wrote of Hamas, “Creating a catastrophe … was an act of breathtaking cynicism. It was a hijacking of the Palestinian cause.” Through spectacular violence and brutality, Hamas seized the initiative and demonstrated its own relevance. In a context of dramatic upheaval — think of the French or Russian revolutions — moderation, proportion and restraint never win the day. It’s unclear why anyone would expect them to win the day in Palestine.
The good news is that evil, however banal, can be fought. Hamas does not equal the Palestinian people. To believe that would be to accept Hamas’s claims at face value. Palestinians have diverse and often conflicting perspectives, and they have agency. As powerful as they are, the United States and Israel have agency, too. Millions of Palestinians can and must be incentivized away from violence. They once believed in a two-state solution, and for good reason: They could see progress, however halting, in their own lives. In recent years, however, they have seen only a series of dead ends.
That same alarming September poll contained notes of hope. A plurality in both Gaza and the West Bank said Palestinians’ first goal should be “Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders and the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital.” Right now, a growing number of Palestinians see revolutionary violence as the best way to achieve that goal — and they’re probably wrong about this.
When the fighting stops, the United States, Israel and the international community must give Palestinians reasons to think otherwise. A nonviolent path to an independent Palestinian state must be made unmistakably clear. If such a path doesn’t appear, then defeat of Hamas on the battlefield will be a Pyrrhic victory. Because its ideas — and its belief in the power of violence — will remain, perhaps more alive than ever.
Shadi Hamid is a Post columnist and member of the Editorial Board. He is also a research professor of Islamic studies at Fuller Seminary and the author of several books, including "The Problem of Democracy" and "Islamic Exceptionalism." Twitter
with the settlements, israel cannot go back to 1967 borders, so it is a moot point. unless they abandon the settlements, which they never will, that option is not really an option.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Hemingway
Fearing airstrikes and crowded shelters, Palestinians in north Gaza defy Israeli evacuation orders
By SAMY MAGDY and WAFAA SHURAFA
Today
DEIR AL BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Mahmoud Shalabi did not evacuate his home in northern Gaza despite the frightful Israeli warnings of a looming, far more brutal assault to come as it presses ahead with its war against the Hamas militant group.
The Palestinian aid worker is among hundreds of thousands who have remained. Others who initially heeded the Israeli warnings to head south have returned to the territory's north, where Israel says it considers all those who stay possible “accomplices” of Hamas.
Shalabi said leaving his home in Beit Lahia didn’t make sense considering the relentless bombardment of southern Gaza, where Israel has repeatedly urged the more than 1 million northern residents like him to seek refuge. The overcrowded shelters and shortages of water and food in the south played a part in their decisions, said Shalabi and others who remained.
Risk death at home, or elsewhere in Gaza, they said.
Leaving would be reasonable only if Israel stopped targeting the south, said Shalabi, who works for Medical Aid for Palestinians, a U.K.-based charity providing health services. “It doesn’t make sense to me that I should leave my home to go and get killed in a tent in the south of Gaza,” he said.
The risks for those staying in the north are likely to rise exponentially in the event of an expected Israeli ground offensive, after two-and-a-half weeks of heavy bombardments have already claimed more than 6,500 lives in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.
With tens of thousands of troops massed along Israel's border with Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday Israel was preparing for a ground incursion. He refused to say when it would begin.
Israeli military officials have said they are determined to crush Hamas in response to its brutal Oct. 7 attack on Israeli border communities, and the focus will be on the north, including Gaza City, where Israel says key Hamas assets, tunnels and bunkers are located.
Some 350,000 Palestinians are still in northern Gaza, according to Israeli estimates. Military officials have repeatedly exhorted Palestinians to move south, but have not said whether the presence of a large number of civilians would be a factor in deciding whether to send in tanks and ground troops.
Israel says it seeks to strike Hamas and doesn't target civilians, but Gaza health officials say many of those killed have been women and children. Those numbers are expected to climb with a ground offensive, which would likely see fierce fighting inside crowded urban areas.
International rights groups have sharply criticized the Israeli evacuation orders, saying they cannot be considered effective warning to civilians, under the rules of international law, because of a lack of realistic options for those fleeing.
“When the evacuation routes are bombed, when people north as well as south are caught up in hostilities, when the essentials for survival are lacking, and when there are no assurances for return, people are left with nothing but impossible choices,” said Lynn Hastings, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories. “Nowhere is safe in Gaza.”
Those staying put in the north are bracing for worse to come. They live among the ruins of once bustling neighborhoods while facing dire shortages of fuel, food and water amid looming hospital shutdowns.
Services in the north have deteriorated since Israel’s evacuation order prompted at least 700,000 Palestinians to flee south. Most homes have no electricity, water or fuel.
More than 1.4 million Gaza residents are now displaced across the narrow strip, out of a population of 2.3 million, and U.N. shelters are packed at triple their capacity, U.N. agencies say.
In the north, entire neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble.
"Everywhere there is debris, there are destroyed cars, there are destroyed houses. And it’s really difficult to get from one location to the other because there is no fuel,” Shalabi said.
He said he walked for two hours to find a bakery still selling bread to feed his family of 10. Shop shelves are empty; residents are living on canned beans, pineapple, corn.
The little fuel still available, often from private stockpiles, is sold for exorbitant prices. Some rent out small water pump motors, demanding 50 shekels ($12) an hour, a huge amount for the average Gaza resident.
This week Shalabi ran out of cash, and scoured the blocks of dilapidated streets to find a functioning ATM. There were none.
About 50,000 people are sheltering on the grounds of Shifa Hospital, Gaza's largest, in Gaza City. It is overwhelmed by a steady stream of wounded from airstrikes amid warnings that severe shortages of fuel, needed to power generators, could trigger a shutdown. No new fuel has been allowed into Gaza since the Oct. 7 raid.
Still, many Palestinians are choosing to return north, tired of moving from place-to-place under Israeli fire as shelters become overcrowded and unlivable. U.N. monitors estimate 30,000 have returned.
Ekhlas Ahmed, 24 and eight-months pregnant, was among them.
A week ago, she fled Gaza City after repeated Israeli warnings to move south. She returned after the home she was sheltering in along with 14 other family members in the south was hit by an Israeli airstrike.
“It was a residential building and they bombed it,” she said.
Ahmed, who has a 4-year-old son, is hoping for a ceasefire.
“I am very frightened. All of us are frightened,” she said.
___
Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Jack Jeffrey in Cairo contributed to this report.
Because Hamas of course didn’t follow the civilians to hide with them and under them.
Keep it up, you must really want president trump back next year.
is that the best ya got? threatening a return of president trump? lol.
I wouldn’t laugh, he’s got yer electoral votes no problem. You really think Biden can take the swing states with liberals running around supporting the most extreme of Arab people? So extreme Egypt and Jordan don’t want their refugees? Keep laughing.
news flash. trump will never be president again. wake up.
He will if people like Lerxst vote for him to continue the unwavering support of wholesale slaughter of Gazans.
Part of me thinks there is no way Trump will get elected as president again and part of me is concerned that it might happen, but as hard as it is to fathom, he is, after all, leading the GOP pack at this early stage. I hope gimme is right- I'd really really really like to be confident that he is right
trump cannot win the popular vote, so he has to win the electoral vote in a small number of states. he will not have the popular turnout to swing those elections because he has not gained voters. he has lost millions of supporters. his hardcore supporters are old people that are dying off. the gop is not raising younger generations of voters, the younger voters are more liberal, so they would never vote gop. the gop is a dying party. they gave their party to trump, and he has driven it into the ground, like every single facet of all of his businesses. unless there is huge electoral interference, trump will never be president again. he cannot win it legitimately.
All sounds good to me, thanks. I guess I have to stop reading things that get me paranoid else-wise!
That younger voter argument was first made with Obama in 2008. Voters 20 years old then will be 36 for this election. That’s a huge swath of the electorate, yet trump is polling as good as anyone else. He can’t win it legitimately? I wish the pollsters agreed
Don’t like national polls? Hers a bunch of swing state polls with Biden ahead in one
20 house Dems now support cease fire, Keep supporting Hamas, like somehow that will end the horrible killing of civilians. No, supporting Hamas will split the Dems and get trump elected. Why isn’t the world demanding hamas to immediate surrender?
If the world community wanted peace and to spare lives, everyone would demand the immediate surrender of Hamas. They started this war.
Funny have 20 dems come out in support of Hamas? has anyone come out in support of Hamas or is this another delusion?
Cmon, it is well known Hamas will use ANY pause to restock its weapons, often using humanitarian aid to improve its ability to murder civilians.
to refer to my comment as “another delusion” is borderline outside the rules here.
Give me some credit. I’m probably the only liberal here supporting Israel’s right to defend itself, and in the face of a very strong pro Palestine slant on this forum, this topic has remained open since the horrific start to this war Oct seven
Edit, the guardian,
“Pressure is building in Congress, where 18 House Democrats – all progressive lawmakers of color – joined a resolution calling for the White House to support “an immediate de-escalation and ceasefire in Israel and occupied Palestine”.
Show me where they said they support Hamas and I will take back that the comment was a delusion. Sure Israel has the right to defend itself and I don't think anyone disputes that, but for many the current actions of the IDF and Israeli government are crossing a line with collective punishment. Kind of like what the us Government did in Iraq and Afghanistan which was wrong then. Supporting a cease fire and humanitarian aid in the face of the slaughter of civilians en mass in pursuit of some kind of blood debt does not equate supporting Hamas, that's hyperbole in the finest if you aren't with us you're against us vein.
I appreciate your knowledge of the history of the region and the perspective you bring to the discussion. Calling people that believe in protecting the lives of Palestinian children supporters of Hamas, however, is fiction.
The idea that the unarmed citizens of Palestine can just rise up against a well funded and well armed terrorist group is also outside the realm of reality.
A pause gives Hamas a chance to rearm itself to attack unarmed civilians, which is the only reason this war currently exists. Supporting a pause is supporting Hamas’ ability to wage war. Supporting a pause will lead to more fatalities. Those that support peace should instead be insisting Hamas surrender. If hamas can’t keep their people safe in the wake of their aggressions, that is evidence they are a failed leadership. They need to surrender to save lives.
The battle of Mosul was very similar to this conflict, that was a bad idea? We should have let ISIL thrive there?
Speaking of polls, good luck with that. Everyday indignities + an open air prison + illegal settlements + walling off and restricting movement in the West Bank = terrorism. But because Israel's is US taxpayer funded, its morally superior.
Opinion
Reducing Hamas’s terrorism to a problem of ‘evil’ is a mistake Terrorism doesn’t fall from the sky. Terror is a tactic. It is a choice. Hamas’s grisly assault on Israel must be analyzed with this in mind. If we ignore this, we make it more likely that other violent organizations will take Hamas’s place even if the group is neutralized or somehow eliminated.
This is already happening. In the West Bank, the stronghold of Hamas’s opponents, support for militancy appears to be deepening, including among Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s “moderate” Fatah faction. This shouldn’t come as a surprise. While the world looked away, something frightening was building. According to one July poll, 60 to 75 percent of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank had positive views of Islamic Jihad and the Lions’ Den — groups just as or even more radical than Hamas. And in a more recent September survey, 54 percent of Palestinians said they supported armed attacks against Israeli civilians.
There are two ways to look at this. One is to say that something is inherently wrong with Palestinians — a view oftenexpressed by both the Israeli and American right — or even that Palestinians, by supporting groups that are evil, are complicit in that evil. This perspective has dangerous implications: It means downplaying distinctions between combatants and civilians (as many Israeli officials have repeatedlydone) and seeing all Palestinians as enemies to be destroyed.
The other way to interpret the survey results is to acknowledge a truth about all people: They’re complicated. In the July poll, half of Gazans agreed that “Hamas should stop calling for Israel’s destruction and instead accept a permanent two-state solution based on the 1967 borders.” But it is possible for Palestinians to support a two-state solution that would allow Israel to exist as a Jewish state while also supporting armed attacks against and inside Israel.
It’s more useful to ask how Palestinian attitudes toward violence have evolved. As journalist Peter Beinart recently noted, at the height of the Oslo accords in 1996 — when a settlement seemed possible — Palestinian support for the peace process reached 80 percent while support for violence dropped to around 20 percent. Clearly, Palestinians, like any group, are capable of supporting both violence and nonviolence, depending on the circumstances.
Unfortunately, officials in the United States and Israel, and in European capitals, have either not been paying attention or simply haven’t cared enough. For instance, in the original version of a new Foreign Affairs article, published after Hamas’s attacks but written before them, Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser, wrote, “In the face of serious frictions, we have de-escalated crises in Gaza and restored direct diplomacy between the parties after years of its absence.” The Biden administration was effectively ignoring Gaza. But it was also ignoring the West Bank, doubling down instead on the Trump administration-brokered Abraham Accords between Israel and “pro-American” Arab dictators. Palestinians were not part of the equation.
The United States and Europe treated the plight of Gazans as a tragedy, while acting as if nothing could be done about it. Meanwhile, successive Israeli governments expanded settlements deep into what was meant to be a future Palestinian state. As a matter of policy, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu worked to prevent reconciliation efforts between the dueling authorities in Gaza and the West Bank. According to this “separation policy,” Netanyahu used Hamas’s dominance in Gaza to justify the claim that Israel had no “partner for peace.”
In 2018, as Gaza’s plight became frozen in place, Palestinian activists launched the Great Return March along the border with Israel — one of the largest unarmed mass mobilizations since the Gaza blockade began in 2007. Israeli forces responded with violence, including the firing of live ammunition and use of snipers. Over the course of the months-long protests, about 150 Palestinians were killed. The lesson that many Palestinians took from this — and from the apparent futility of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement — was that nonviolence doesn’t work.
This is not to say that Hamas wouldn’t have committed its gruesome killings had political circumstances turned out differently. There is no way of knowing. But it would also be a mistake to dismiss Hamas’s terrorism as mere “evil.” As the philosopher John Gray notes, “A campaign of mass murder is never simply an expression of psychopathic aggression.” To describe the things we can’t comprehend as evil is a cop-out. It allows us to believe something is wrong with “them” but not with us. And, paradoxically, it exposes an unwillingness to take terrorists seriously, reducing them to “crazy” or “irrational” adversaries. They usually aren’t.
As has been the case with groups as seemingly unhinged as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, there has been a method to the madness, one that we ignore at our peril. As my Post colleague Damir Marusic recently wrote of Hamas, “Creating a catastrophe … was an act of breathtaking cynicism. It was a hijacking of the Palestinian cause.” Through spectacular violence and brutality, Hamas seized the initiative and demonstrated its own relevance. In a context of dramatic upheaval — think of the French or Russian revolutions — moderation, proportion and restraint never win the day. It’s unclear why anyone would expect them to win the day in Palestine.
The good news is that evil, however banal, can be fought. Hamas does not equal the Palestinian people. To believe that would be to accept Hamas’s claims at face value. Palestinians have diverse and often conflicting perspectives, and they have agency. As powerful as they are, the United States and Israel have agency, too. Millions of Palestinians can and must be incentivized away from violence. They once believed in a two-state solution, and for good reason: They could see progress, however halting, in their own lives. In recent years, however, they have seen only a series of dead ends.
That same alarming September poll contained notes of hope. A plurality in both Gaza and the West Bank said Palestinians’ first goal should be “Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders and the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital.” Right now, a growing number of Palestinians see revolutionary violence as the best way to achieve that goal — and they’re probably wrong about this.
When the fighting stops, the United States, Israel and the international community must give Palestinians reasons to think otherwise. A nonviolent path to an independent Palestinian state must be made unmistakably clear. If such a path doesn’t appear, then defeat of Hamas on the battlefield will be a Pyrrhic victory. Because its ideas — and its belief in the power of violence — will remain, perhaps more alive than ever.
Shadi Hamid is a Post columnist and member of the Editorial Board. He is also a research professor of Islamic studies at Fuller Seminary and the author of several books, including "The Problem of Democracy" and "Islamic Exceptionalism." Twitter
with the settlements, israel cannot go back to 1967 borders, so it is a moot point. unless they abandon the settlements, which they never will, that option is not really an option.
So much for peace.
Fearing airstrikes and crowded shelters, Palestinians in north Gaza defy Israeli evacuation orders
By SAMY MAGDY and WAFAA SHURAFA
Today
DEIR AL BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Mahmoud Shalabi did not evacuate his home in northern Gaza despite the frightful Israeli warnings of a looming, far more brutal assault to come as it presses ahead with its war against the Hamas militant group.
The Palestinian aid worker is among hundreds of thousands who have remained. Others who initially heeded the Israeli warnings to head south have returned to the territory's north, where Israel says it considers all those who stay possible “accomplices” of Hamas.
Shalabi said leaving his home in Beit Lahia didn’t make sense considering the relentless bombardment of southern Gaza, where Israel has repeatedly urged the more than 1 million northern residents like him to seek refuge. The overcrowded shelters and shortages of water and food in the south played a part in their decisions, said Shalabi and others who remained.
Risk death at home, or elsewhere in Gaza, they said.
Leaving would be reasonable only if Israel stopped targeting the south, said Shalabi, who works for Medical Aid for Palestinians, a U.K.-based charity providing health services. “It doesn’t make sense to me that I should leave my home to go and get killed in a tent in the south of Gaza,” he said.
The risks for those staying in the north are likely to rise exponentially in the event of an expected Israeli ground offensive, after two-and-a-half weeks of heavy bombardments have already claimed more than 6,500 lives in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.
With tens of thousands of troops massed along Israel's border with Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday Israel was preparing for a ground incursion. He refused to say when it would begin.
Israeli military officials have said they are determined to crush Hamas in response to its brutal Oct. 7 attack on Israeli border communities, and the focus will be on the north, including Gaza City, where Israel says key Hamas assets, tunnels and bunkers are located.
Some 350,000 Palestinians are still in northern Gaza, according to Israeli estimates. Military officials have repeatedly exhorted Palestinians to move south, but have not said whether the presence of a large number of civilians would be a factor in deciding whether to send in tanks and ground troops.
Israel says it seeks to strike Hamas and doesn't target civilians, but Gaza health officials say many of those killed have been women and children. Those numbers are expected to climb with a ground offensive, which would likely see fierce fighting inside crowded urban areas.
International rights groups have sharply criticized the Israeli evacuation orders, saying they cannot be considered effective warning to civilians, under the rules of international law, because of a lack of realistic options for those fleeing.
“When the evacuation routes are bombed, when people north as well as south are caught up in hostilities, when the essentials for survival are lacking, and when there are no assurances for return, people are left with nothing but impossible choices,” said Lynn Hastings, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories. “Nowhere is safe in Gaza.”
Those staying put in the north are bracing for worse to come. They live among the ruins of once bustling neighborhoods while facing dire shortages of fuel, food and water amid looming hospital shutdowns.
Services in the north have deteriorated since Israel’s evacuation order prompted at least 700,000 Palestinians to flee south. Most homes have no electricity, water or fuel.
More than 1.4 million Gaza residents are now displaced across the narrow strip, out of a population of 2.3 million, and U.N. shelters are packed at triple their capacity, U.N. agencies say.
In the north, entire neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble.
"Everywhere there is debris, there are destroyed cars, there are destroyed houses. And it’s really difficult to get from one location to the other because there is no fuel,” Shalabi said.
He said he walked for two hours to find a bakery still selling bread to feed his family of 10. Shop shelves are empty; residents are living on canned beans, pineapple, corn.
The little fuel still available, often from private stockpiles, is sold for exorbitant prices. Some rent out small water pump motors, demanding 50 shekels ($12) an hour, a huge amount for the average Gaza resident.
This week Shalabi ran out of cash, and scoured the blocks of dilapidated streets to find a functioning ATM. There were none.
About 50,000 people are sheltering on the grounds of Shifa Hospital, Gaza's largest, in Gaza City. It is overwhelmed by a steady stream of wounded from airstrikes amid warnings that severe shortages of fuel, needed to power generators, could trigger a shutdown. No new fuel has been allowed into Gaza since the Oct. 7 raid.
Still, many Palestinians are choosing to return north, tired of moving from place-to-place under Israeli fire as shelters become overcrowded and unlivable. U.N. monitors estimate 30,000 have returned.
Ekhlas Ahmed, 24 and eight-months pregnant, was among them.
A week ago, she fled Gaza City after repeated Israeli warnings to move south. She returned after the home she was sheltering in along with 14 other family members in the south was hit by an Israeli airstrike.
“It was a residential building and they bombed it,” she said.
Ahmed, who has a 4-year-old son, is hoping for a ceasefire.
“I am very frightened. All of us are frightened,” she said.
___
Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Jack Jeffrey in Cairo contributed to this report.
Because Hamas of course didn’t follow the civilians to hide with them and under them.
Keep it up, you must really want president trump back next year.
is that the best ya got? threatening a return of president trump? lol.
I wouldn’t laugh, he’s got yer electoral votes no problem. You really think Biden can take the swing states with liberals running around supporting the most extreme of Arab people? So extreme Egypt and Jordan don’t want their refugees? Keep laughing.
news flash. trump will never be president again. wake up.
He will if people like Lerxst vote for him to continue the unwavering support of wholesale slaughter of Gazans.
Part of me thinks there is no way Trump will get elected as president again and part of me is concerned that it might happen, but as hard as it is to fathom, he is, after all, leading the GOP pack at this early stage. I hope gimme is right- I'd really really really like to be confident that he is right
trump cannot win the popular vote, so he has to win the electoral vote in a small number of states. he will not have the popular turnout to swing those elections because he has not gained voters. he has lost millions of supporters. his hardcore supporters are old people that are dying off. the gop is not raising younger generations of voters, the younger voters are more liberal, so they would never vote gop. the gop is a dying party. they gave their party to trump, and he has driven it into the ground, like every single facet of all of his businesses. unless there is huge electoral interference, trump will never be president again. he cannot win it legitimately.
Don't most polls show a tight race, and many giving Trump a slight lead?
again polls 52 weeks from the election. trump could be in jail in a year.
Maybe. But the fact trump could be in jail doesn't equate to a comment of "news flash trump can never be president again, wake up." It can very well be a tight race and he may win if something drastic, like him being in jail, doesn't change.
That’s a lot of words. Should the US not have supported the battle of Mosul to defeat ISIL?
That’s few words. Should Israel purposely target civilians to defeat Hamas?
Of course not. It’s well documented hamas uses civilians to shield itself. There are two steps needed for peace, terrorist organizations like hamas need to be defeated (or surrender), just as ISIL was, and the Palestinians need to recognize Israel’s right to exist in peace. Supporting anything else is supporting the continuation of horrors of the mid east in perpetuity.
That’s a lot of words. Should the US not have supported the battle of Mosul to defeat ISIL?
That’s few words. Should Israel purposely target civilians to defeat Hamas?
Of course not. It’s well documented hamas uses civilians to shield itself. There are two steps needed for peace, terrorist organizations like hamas need to be defeated (or surrender), just as ISIL was, and the Palestinians need to recognize Israel’s right to exist in peace. Supporting anything else is supporting the continuation of horrors of the mid east in perpetuity.
That’s a lot of words. Should the US not have supported the battle of Mosul to defeat ISIL?
That’s few words. Should Israel purposely target civilians to defeat Hamas?
Of course not. It’s well documented hamas uses civilians to shield itself. There are two steps needed for peace, terrorist organizations like hamas need to be defeated (or surrender), just as ISIL was, and the Palestinians need to recognize Israel’s right to exist in peace. Supporting anything else is supporting the continuation of horrors of the mid east in perpetuity.
You post as if “all things being equal,” and clearly they are not. Illegal settlements in the West Bank have no bearing? A complete blockade of Gaza has no bearing? Treating Palestinians worse than animals in Israel, East Jerusalem and the West Bank have no bearing? The $3B+ in direct US subsidies to Israel has no bearing? Let them have crumbs, right?
That’s a lot of words. Should the US not have supported the battle of Mosul to defeat ISIL?
That’s few words. Should Israel purposely target civilians to defeat Hamas?
Of course not. It’s well documented hamas uses civilians to shield itself. There are two steps needed for peace, terrorist organizations like hamas need to be defeated (or surrender), just as ISIL was, and the Palestinians need to recognize Israel’s right to exist in peace. Supporting anything else is supporting the continuation of horrors of the mid east in perpetuity.
And what is Israel’s responsibility for peace?
Once the Palestinians recognize their right to exist in peace, and are willing to enforce that among their territory, the pressure will be on Israel to accept a solution such as a two state
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
That’s a lot of words. Should the US not have supported the battle of Mosul to defeat ISIL?
Had the US not illegally invaded Iraq the battle of Mosul would never have happened.
There’s a problem with always deflecting, that’s problems can never be solved, whether it’s blaming the horrendous conditions in Gaza on the Hamas Oct 7 invasion, or that really isn’t Hamas fault because it’s Israel’s fault due to their “occupation” of contested lands.
to specifically counter your point, we will validate the battle of Mosul because Saddam tried to kill Bush’s daddy in 1993. We all have opinions on the cause for the terrible Iraq war, that’s mine. Glad we agree on Mosul. Battle of Gaza is very similar to Mosul, will I find similar outrage about Mosul if I go back to 2016 on this forum, or is HFD correct that I am seeing things that aren’t there?
That’s a lot of words. Should the US not have supported the battle of Mosul to defeat ISIL?
Had the US not illegally invaded Iraq the battle of Mosul would never have happened.
There’s a problem with always deflecting, that’s problems can never be solved, whether it’s blaming the horrendous conditions in Gaza on the Hamas Oct 7 invasion, or that really isn’t Hamas fault because it’s Israel’s fault due to their “occupation” of contested lands.
to specifically counter your point, we will validate the battle of Mosul because Saddam tried to kill Bush’s daddy in 1993. We all have opinions on the cause for the terrible Iraq war, that’s mine. Glad we agree on Mosul. Battle of Gaza is very similar to Mosul, will I find similar outrage about Mosul if I go back to 2016 on this forum, or is HFD correct that I am seeing things that aren’t there?
I didn't start participating in the forum until about 2019, so I doubt you will see anything from me. I can assure you that I was against Iraq and Afghanistan invasions from the start and that pretty much set the stage for my anti interventionist anti imperialist beliefs. I still believe we had zero business being in Iraq in 2016 let alone from the start of our invasion.
I wasn't deflecting, I was just stating that had we not destabilized the region there would be no battle of Mosul. I also do not believe there are any long term successes that resulted from the Battle of Mosul, or any of our militaristic intervention in the region.
That’s a lot of words. Should the US not have supported the battle of Mosul to defeat ISIL?
That’s few words. Should Israel purposely target civilians to defeat Hamas?
Of course not. It’s well documented hamas uses civilians to shield itself. There are two steps needed for peace, terrorist organizations like hamas need to be defeated (or surrender), just as ISIL was, and the Palestinians need to recognize Israel’s right to exist in peace. Supporting anything else is supporting the continuation of horrors of the mid east in perpetuity.
also, stop building new settlements. jfc.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Hemingway
That’s a lot of words. Should the US not have supported the battle of Mosul to defeat ISIL?
That’s few words. Should Israel purposely target civilians to defeat Hamas?
Of course not. It’s well documented hamas uses civilians to shield itself. There are two steps needed for peace, terrorist organizations like hamas need to be defeated (or surrender), just as ISIL was, and the Palestinians need to recognize Israel’s right to exist in peace. Supporting anything else is supporting the continuation of horrors of the mid east in perpetuity.
And what is Israel’s responsibility for peace?
for starters, stop stealing land and building more illegal settlements.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Hemingway
That’s a lot of words. Should the US not have supported the battle of Mosul to defeat ISIL?
That’s few words. Should Israel purposely target civilians to defeat Hamas?
Of course not. It’s well documented hamas uses civilians to shield itself. There are two steps needed for peace, terrorist organizations like hamas need to be defeated (or surrender), just as ISIL was, and the Palestinians need to recognize Israel’s right to exist in peace. Supporting anything else is supporting the continuation of horrors of the mid east in perpetuity.
And what is Israel’s responsibility for peace?
Once the Palestinians recognize their right to exist in peace, and are willing to enforce that among their territory, the pressure will be on Israel to accept a solution such as a two state
2 state will not happen under bibi. he has said it numerous times. will not happen with likud party in power either.
why does all of the concessions for peace have to be done by the palestinians in your view? what you are saying is the palestinians have to do all the movement for peace, when israel refuses to do anything other than drop bombs on civilians.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Hemingway
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
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mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 36,357
That’s a lot of words. Should the US not have supported the battle of Mosul to defeat ISIL?
That’s few words. Should Israel purposely target civilians to defeat Hamas?
Of course not. It’s well documented hamas uses civilians to shield itself. There are two steps needed for peace, terrorist organizations like hamas need to be defeated (or surrender), just as ISIL was, and the Palestinians need to recognize Israel’s right to exist in peace. Supporting anything else is supporting the continuation of horrors of the mid east in perpetuity.
And what is Israel’s responsibility for peace?
Once the Palestinians recognize their right to exist in peace, and are willing to enforce that among their territory, the pressure will be on Israel to accept a solution such as a two state
2 state will not happen under bibi. he has said it numerous times. will not happen with likud party in power either.
why does all of the concessions for peace have to be done by the palestinians in your view? what you are saying is the palestinians have to do all the movement for peace, when israel refuses to do anything other than drop bombs on civilians.
fatah dropped the idea that Israel shouldnt exist long ago...
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
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mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 36,357
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
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Options
mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 36,357
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
@JB128716 the Leon Cooperman discussion maybe should be here and not the GOP thread. Interestingly, what set Leon off was…
Columbia University professor describes Hamas terrorist attacks as 'indigenous Palestinian resistance'
It is difficult to prove who exactly was indigenous to these lands, or who “was there first” but of significant interest is the exact origin of the word Palestinian which is Philistine, per Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philistines
“Most scholars agree that the Philistines were of Greek origin, and that they came from Crete and the rest of the Aegean Islands or, more generally, from the area of modern-day Greece.”
The reality is it’s difficult to prove who was indigenous to the region, despite what this professor said that caused these kids to cost Cornell potentially $50 million, but they must love this professor to keep him.
I wonder if the indigenous police of AMT will chime in on this. Good job by that professor expert costing his ivy league employer millions, and misleading these kids for no good reasom
@JB128716 the Leon Cooperman discussion maybe should be here and not the GOP thread. Interestingly, what set Leon off was…
Columbia University professor describes Hamas terrorist attacks as 'indigenous Palestinian resistance'
It is difficult to prove who exactly was indigenous to these lands, or who “was there first” but of significant interest is the exact origin of the word Palestinian which is Philistine, per Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philistines
“Most scholars agree that the Philistines were of Greek origin, and that they came from Crete and the rest of the Aegean Islands or, more generally, from the area of modern-day Greece.”
The reality is it’s difficult to prove who was indigenous to the region, despite what this professor said that caused these kids to cost Cornell potentially $50 million, but they must love this professor to keep him.
I wonder if the indigenous police of AMT will chime in on this. Good job by that professor expert costing his ivy league employer millions, and misleading these kids for no good reasom
Just more effort to eradicate Palestinians from history or an oversight? From that open source source, wiki:
The term biblical archaeology is used by Israeli archaeologists for popular media or an English speaking audience, in reference to what is known in Hebrew as "Israeli archaeology", and to avoid using the term Palestinian archaeology.[1]
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mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 36,357
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
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mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 36,357
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
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mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 36,357
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
In other words they don’t give two f’s if any or all civilians get slaughtered! Great guys these Hamas leaders are
and to a certain extent this also applies to Arab leaders in the region, Israeli hardliners(in government and outside of it) Western Governments and a select few posters here.....
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Comments
Opinion Reducing Hamas’s terrorism to a problem of ‘evil’ is a mistake
Terrorism doesn’t fall from the sky. Terror is a tactic. It is a choice. Hamas’s grisly assault on Israel must be analyzed with this in mind. If we ignore this, we make it more likely that other violent organizations will take Hamas’s place even if the group is neutralized or somehow eliminated.
This is already happening. In the West Bank, the stronghold of Hamas’s opponents, support for militancy appears to be deepening, including among Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s “moderate” Fatah faction. This shouldn’t come as a surprise. While the world looked away, something frightening was building. According to one July poll, 60 to 75 percent of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank had positive views of Islamic Jihad and the Lions’ Den — groups just as or even more radical than Hamas. And in a more recent September survey, 54 percent of Palestinians said they supported armed attacks against Israeli civilians.
There are two ways to look at this. One is to say that something is inherently wrong with Palestinians — a view often expressed by both the Israeli and American right — or even that Palestinians, by supporting groups that are evil, are complicit in that evil. This perspective has dangerous implications: It means downplaying distinctions between combatants and civilians (as many Israeli officials have repeatedly done) and seeing all Palestinians as enemies to be destroyed.
The other way to interpret the survey results is to acknowledge a truth about all people: They’re complicated. In the July poll, half of Gazans agreed that “Hamas should stop calling for Israel’s destruction and instead accept a permanent two-state solution based on the 1967 borders.” But it is possible for Palestinians to support a two-state solution that would allow Israel to exist as a Jewish state while also supporting armed attacks against and inside Israel.
It’s more useful to ask how Palestinian attitudes toward violence have evolved. As journalist Peter Beinart recently noted, at the height of the Oslo accords in 1996 — when a settlement seemed possible — Palestinian support for the peace process reached 80 percent while support for violence dropped to around 20 percent. Clearly, Palestinians, like any group, are capable of supporting both violence and nonviolence, depending on the circumstances.
Unfortunately, officials in the United States and Israel, and in European capitals, have either not been paying attention or simply haven’t cared enough. For instance, in the original version of a new Foreign Affairs article, published after Hamas’s attacks but written before them, Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser, wrote, “In the face of serious frictions, we have de-escalated crises in Gaza and restored direct diplomacy between the parties after years of its absence.” The Biden administration was effectively ignoring Gaza. But it was also ignoring the West Bank, doubling down instead on the Trump administration-brokered Abraham Accords between Israel and “pro-American” Arab dictators. Palestinians were not part of the equation.
The United States and Europe treated the plight of Gazans as a tragedy, while acting as if nothing could be done about it. Meanwhile, successive Israeli governments expanded settlements deep into what was meant to be a future Palestinian state. As a matter of policy, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu worked to prevent reconciliation efforts between the dueling authorities in Gaza and the West Bank. According to this “separation policy,” Netanyahu used Hamas’s dominance in Gaza to justify the claim that Israel had no “partner for peace.”
In 2018, as Gaza’s plight became frozen in place, Palestinian activists launched the Great Return March along the border with Israel — one of the largest unarmed mass mobilizations since the Gaza blockade began in 2007. Israeli forces responded with violence, including the firing of live ammunition and use of snipers. Over the course of the months-long protests, about 150 Palestinians were killed. The lesson that many Palestinians took from this — and from the apparent futility of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement — was that nonviolence doesn’t work.
This is not to say that Hamas wouldn’t have committed its gruesome killings had political circumstances turned out differently. There is no way of knowing. But it would also be a mistake to dismiss Hamas’s terrorism as mere “evil.” As the philosopher John Gray notes, “A campaign of mass murder is never simply an expression of psychopathic aggression.” To describe the things we can’t comprehend as evil is a cop-out. It allows us to believe something is wrong with “them” but not with us. And, paradoxically, it exposes an unwillingness to take terrorists seriously, reducing them to “crazy” or “irrational” adversaries. They usually aren’t.
As has been the case with groups as seemingly unhinged as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, there has been a method to the madness, one that we ignore at our peril. As my Post colleague Damir Marusic recently wrote of Hamas, “Creating a catastrophe … was an act of breathtaking cynicism. It was a hijacking of the Palestinian cause.” Through spectacular violence and brutality, Hamas seized the initiative and demonstrated its own relevance. In a context of dramatic upheaval — think of the French or Russian revolutions — moderation, proportion and restraint never win the day. It’s unclear why anyone would expect them to win the day in Palestine.
The good news is that evil, however banal, can be fought. Hamas does not equal the Palestinian people. To believe that would be to accept Hamas’s claims at face value. Palestinians have diverse and often conflicting perspectives, and they have agency. As powerful as they are, the United States and Israel have agency, too. Millions of Palestinians can and must be incentivized away from violence. They once believed in a two-state solution, and for good reason: They could see progress, however halting, in their own lives. In recent years, however, they have seen only a series of dead ends.
That same alarming September poll contained notes of hope. A plurality in both Gaza and the West Bank said Palestinians’ first goal should be “Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders and the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital.” Right now, a growing number of Palestinians see revolutionary violence as the best way to achieve that goal — and they’re probably wrong about this.
When the fighting stops, the United States, Israel and the international community must give Palestinians reasons to think otherwise. A nonviolent path to an independent Palestinian state must be made unmistakably clear. If such a path doesn’t appear, then defeat of Hamas on the battlefield will be a Pyrrhic victory. Because its ideas — and its belief in the power of violence — will remain, perhaps more alive than ever.
Opinion | Hamas and the problem of ‘evil’ - The Washington Post
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"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
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There are no kings inside the gates of eden
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
There are no kings inside the gates of eden
to specifically counter your point, we will validate the battle of Mosul because Saddam tried to kill Bush’s daddy in 1993. We all have opinions on the cause for the terrible Iraq war, that’s mine. Glad we agree on Mosul. Battle of Gaza is very similar to Mosul, will I find similar outrage about Mosul if I go back to 2016 on this forum, or is HFD correct that I am seeing things that aren’t there?
I wasn't deflecting, I was just stating that had we not destabilized the region there would be no battle of Mosul. I also do not believe there are any long term successes that resulted from the Battle of Mosul, or any of our militaristic intervention in the region.
There are no kings inside the gates of eden
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
why does all of the concessions for peace have to be done by the palestinians in your view? what you are saying is the palestinians have to do all the movement for peace, when israel refuses to do anything other than drop bombs on civilians.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Columbia University professor describes Hamas terrorist attacks as 'indigenous Palestinian resistance'
“Most scholars agree that the Philistines were of Greek origin, and that they came from Crete and the rest of the Aegean Islands or, more generally, from the area of modern-day Greece.”
The reality is it’s difficult to prove who was indigenous to the region, despite what this professor said that caused these kids to cost Cornell potentially $50 million, but they must love this professor to keep him.
the irony is many believe the canaanites to be of both Jewish and Arab
After examining the DNA of 93 bodies recovered from archaeological sites around the southern Levant, the land of Canaan in the Bible. Most modern Jewish groups and the Arabic-speaking groups from the region show at least half of their ancestry as Canaanite. https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/ancient-near-eastern-world/jews-and-arabs-descended-from-canaanites/
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The term biblical archaeology is used by Israeli archaeologists for popular media or an English speaking audience, in reference to what is known in Hebrew as "Israeli archaeology", and to avoid using the term Palestinian archaeology.[1]
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Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
and to a certain extent this also applies to Arab leaders in the region, Israeli hardliners(in government and outside of it) Western Governments and a select few posters here.....
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14