Rane, Soufan and Zeihan Analysis Plus Numerous News Articles and Commentaries

Video

Nov 22

There is a lot for you to process in the edition of the distribution list, so let's get started.

HCR had an informative take on the APEC conference in San Francisco this week regarding US-China relations and I've included a portion of her Nov. 17 offering below. Peter Zeihan's coverage of the same event is included below as well.

I've also read and included an excellent WaPo article that continues to flesh out answers to the questions about intelligence failures vs Hamas planning, training, OPSEC, execution, and successes on Oct. 7. The article is titled "How Hamas exploited Israel’s reliance on tech to breach barrier on Oct. 7." WaPo has done an excellent job of analyzing and combining graphics and video evidence into an 11-minute video of the months-long Hamas operation. I recommend you give it a look. It is compelling!

There are also several articles analyzing the hostage/prisoner exchange including one by al Jazeera you may find of interest.

I've attached both the written transcript and the link to the Ezra Klein podcast of a very complete, but necessarily longish, look at the history of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in the NY Times: "The Best Primer I’ve Heard on the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Efforts."

I've also attached the full article but excerpted my "Cliff Notes" version just below from the Monday NY Times "Between Israelis and Palestinians, a Lethal Psychological Chasm Grows." It speaks to the intractability of the positions on both sides and how unlikely there will ever be a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

"The relentless weaponization of history goes all the way back to biblical times and the divergent fates of the estranged sons of Abraham — Isaac, the patriarch of the Israelites, and Ishmael, a prophet of Islam. (Muslims regard all three as prophets.)
In the intervening decades, Hamas and the ultranationalist religious Israeli right have each extended their influence. The conflict now involves fundamentalist religious ideologies, distinct in critical regards but equally convinced that all the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River has been deeded to them by God.

Mahmoud al-Zahar, a co-founder of Hamas, whose charter calls for Israel’s destruction, told me in an interview that year: “Israel will be eliminated because it is a foreign body.” Referring to Israeli Jews, he said, “Why should they come from Ethiopia, or Poland or America? There are six million in Palestine. OK, take them. America is very wide. You can make a new district for Jews.”

Neither people, Israeli nor Palestinian, present in roughly equal numbers on the land to which they are fiercely attached, is going away. But increasingly each has denied even the identity of the other. West Bank Palestinians seldom refer to “Israelis,” almost always to “Jews.” Israel resists calling its Arab minority, more than 20 percent of the population, “Palestinians,” which is what they are.

“You are dealing with two traumatized peoples,” said Gershom Gorenberg, a historian and author. “The trauma of the present is linked to multigenerational trauma. People can’t even agree on events, let alone what the events mean.”

In a video of a Hamas gunman involved in the Oct. 7 massacre, the gunman phones his father back in Gaza and says: “I am on the other side killing Jews. They cannot live happily when we live the way we live.”

The Palestinian hatred Moshe Dayan perceived and vowed to resist by being “prepared and armed, strong and determined,” grows still, fed by Israeli oppression, fencing-off and control, as well as chronic Palestinian misgovernment. Palestinians in Gaza, whose dead number more than 12,000 according to the health ministry in Gaza, fear annihilation.

These fears are met by the “Never Again” of a Jewish people who know the meaning of genocide in the form of the Holocaust and seek through the foundation of their own state to put an end to millennial persecution. The defeat on Oct. 7 was a shattering blow to this aspiration.

This war in Gaza, triggered by Hamas’s ruthless application of its charter, is existential in that sense for an Israel that suddenly feels smaller and more vulnerable."

Heather Cox Richardson - November 17

Between Israelis and Palestinians, a Lethal Psychological Chasm Grows

Cornell, Columbia and UPenn Among 7 Schools Facing Education Dept. Probe Over Allegations of Antisemitism and Islamophobia

How Hamas Exploited Israel’s Reliance on Tech to Breach Barrier on Oct. 7

Moorpark Professor Arrested in Death of Jewish Protester Paul Kessler in Thousand Oaks

Pageantry vs. Progress: Reviewing the Biden-Xi Meeting

The Threat of Russian Influence Operations in Serbia and Kosovo

What to Make of Hamas and Israel's Pending Cease-Fire