[ZeroHedge] Via The New York Times (emphasis added):
“On the morning after the election, I walked up the staircase of my school. A preteen was crying into the shoulders of her braces-clad peer. Her friend was rubbing circles on her back.
I continued up the stairs to the lounge, where upperclassmen linger before classes. There I saw two tables: One was filled with my girlfriends, many of them with hollows under their eyes. There was a blanket of despair over the young women in the room. I looked over to the other table of teenage boys and saw Minecraft on their computers. While we were gasping for a breath, it seemed they were breathing freely.
We girls woke up to a country that would rather elect a man found liable for sexual abuse than a woman. Where the kind of man my mother instructs me to cross the street to avoid will be addressed as Mr. President. Where the body I haven’t fully grown into may no longer be under my control. The boys, it seemed to me, just woke up on a Wednesday.”
Of all the misogynistic hatecrimes, imagine the banal evil of playing Minecraft the day after the brave and stunning first-historic-whatever corporate robot-whore has literal violence committed against her by Deplorable voters!
Continuing:
“I am scared that the Trump administration will take away or restrict birth control and Plan B — the same way it did abortion. I am scared that the boys I know will see in a triumphant, boastful Mr. Trump the epitome of a manly man and model themselves after him. I was 8 years old the first time he was elected. Now I am 16. I am still unable to vote, but I am so much more aware of what I have to lose…
Eight years ago, I was too young to feel the full force of Hillary Clinton’s loss. Now at 16, I’ve had the wind knocked out of me. On Wednesday, I was flush with anger — but it was diluted by an even stronger feeling: defeat. I saw it in the eyes of women in my subway car that morning. I saw it in the barista at the coffee shop on the corner, the female security guard at my school and in the face of my history teacher.
In a terrible way, I’ve never felt more part of a sisterhood or more certain that pain is shared within that family. I wish the consequences of this moment for young women punctured the apparent indifference of so many men and boys I saw that day. I wish they could breathe in what the women and girls I know have been inhaling since Nov. 5.”
Looking back at the 1950s, would it be possible to have imagined a teenage girl getting paid by The Newspaper of Record to have an emotional meltdown disguised as a thought-provoking essay after, say, Dwight Eisenhower won the election?
Is this the bounty of feminism we were all promised?
Surely we can find some middle ground here.
Yeah, sure; the ideal isn’t Taliban rule with women de-personed, never to be seen or heard in public — women who, by the way, have real problems that extend beyond insurance companies covering their Plan B abortions after a night of boozing and wanton sex.
Via The Guardian (emphasis added):
“New Taliban laws that prohibit women from speaking or showing their faces outside their homes have been condemned by the UN and met with horror by human rights groups.
The Taliban published a host of new “vice and virtue” laws last week, approved by their supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, which state that women must completely veil their bodies – including their faces – in thick clothing at all times in public to avoid leading men into temptation and vice.
Women’s voices are also deemed to be potential instruments of vice and so will not be allowed to be heard in public under the new restrictions. Women must also not be heard singing or reading aloud, even from inside their houses…
From now on, Afghan women are also not allowed to look directly at men they are not related to by blood or marriage, and taxi drivers will be punished if they agree to drive a woman who is without a suitable male escort.”
[Townhall] America and the United Kingdom have long had a special relationship, working closely as allies to protect the West from oppressive dictatorships that suppress their own people, arbitrarily jailing them and persecuting them for exercising their God-given right of free speech. Here’s the problem. The UK has become one of those oppressive dictatorships that suppress their own people, arbitrarily jailing them and persecuting them for exercising their God-given right of free speech. And I’m not particularly interested in having a special relationship with a country like that. Nor are many other Americans.
Great Britain has always had a fraught relationship with freedom, at least regarding people who aren’t British. In its glorious imperialist era, when its colonialism brought the light of civilization to a huge swath of the world, it presumed to tell us Americans what we could and could not do. At Lexington and Concord, 250 years ago this spring, a bunch of redcoats tried to take our guns. We shot them. And we kept shooting them until they went home. But no hard feelings — they even burned down much of Washington, DC, during the War of 1812 as a gesture of friendship to the American people.
Still, our special relationship was built upon a shared reverence for the basic tenets of freedom that the British themselves pioneered. From the Magna Carta to the rise of Parliament and the restraining of their inbred royal rulers, the British set the template for freedom, and we Americans took it to the next level. We wrote our Constitution with a Bill of Rights that addressed some of the presumptuous impositions the British had tried to inflict upon us Americans. The First Amendment was one of the key rights. So was the Second. The Brits had been jerks to us until we shot them and they went crying back to their godforsaken moist and frigid island, but they largely treated their own people well. You could speak freely. You could say things that offended the elite. The idea that you might be tossed into the stony lonesome for sounding off was completely alien to them. And that unique reverence for individual rights was why we could have a special relationship with people who have terrible teeth and food and insist on calling a car’s trunk a "boot."
Continued on Page 47
#4
Diego Garcia was last straw. Second look at the Malvinas?
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
11/22/2024 9:19 Comments ||
Top||
#5
^^
Was in The Falklands last year. Most British place I have ever been, only with nice people, decent food and good beer. And they are still pist about the invasion.
#6
Seems the standing government in London is summoning Elon Musk for what gets posted on X. Elon replied that those members of Parliament need to be summoned to the US to face US laws about Americans rights. I believe Parliament is about to get 'Trumped'.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Denis Davydov
[REGNUM] The tenth anniversary of Euromaidan coincided with an important date in the difficult history of Russian-Ukrainian partnership - the liquidation of the Hetmanate, an autonomy within the empire that included the territory of the Zaporizhian Host. 260 years ago, on November 21, 1764, Catherine II ordered the publication of the imperial decree "On the creation of the hetmanate rank by Count Razumovsky and his release from all Little Russian affairs and on the granting of monetary sums and villages to him for life and hereditary possession."
At the same time, a decree was issued on the introduction of the Little Russian Collegium under the leadership of Count Pyotr Rumyantsev, and a little later (in 1782) the regimental military-administrative structure was liquidated. In the Ukrainian vision, all this, of course, is understood as the destruction of statehood, identity, with subsequent cruel enslavement. And in a simplified understanding, the unification of the system of state administration with the abolition of autonomy (and the subsequent destruction of the Zaporizhian Sich) looks like monarchical tyranny, the strangulation of the original Cossack "privileges".
Reflecting on the fate of Little Russia, as well as Livonia and Finland, the empress noted: "These provinces, including Smolensk, must be brought to the point where they become Russified by the easiest means and stop looking like wolves in the forest." And when there is no hetman in Little Russia, Catherine wrote to the prosecutor general Alexander Vyazemsky, "then we must try to ensure that the name of the hetman disappears, not just that some person is created."
But we have gathered here, of course, not to repeat stuffy cliches, but to once again delve into the reasons for the political decisions of the 18th century, which, of course, did not have such amazing simplicity as “hatred of everything Ukrainian.”
POLISH DIRECTOR
First of all, it is worth explaining where the Hetmanate came from and who ruled it. There were four hetmans in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - two crown hetmans in Poland, one in Lithuania, and one who led the Zaporozhian Host.
It appeared (if we do not count the legendary period of Dmitry Baida-Vishnevetsky ) after the Union of Lublin in 1569, when the newly created Polish-Lithuanian state, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, began to think about stable protection of the “eastern outskirts”, the border of the Wild Field, from Tatar raids. On June 2, 1572, King Sigismund II Augustus signed the corresponding universal, according to which Crown Hetman Jerzy Jazlowiecki hired the first three hundred Cossacks for service.
They took an oath of allegiance to the king and were required, in full combat readiness, to repel the invasions of wild Tatars, participate in campaigns (including Moscow) and generally maintain order. They were entered into a special list - a register that confirmed the rights and privileges associated with state service. In the future, almost all "Cossack-peasant uprisings", presented in Soviet and early Ukrainian historiography as a pure struggle for justice, required an expansion of the register.
Nikolay Samokish. Attack of Zaporozhian Cossacks on a convoy. 1900s.
That is, they fought for wages. And the constantly growing registered army spread its regimental and hundred system over an ever larger territory, starting with the town of Trakhtemyriv on the Dnieper, south of Kyiv, where the Polish king transferred the kleinods, the main military symbols - the banner, the bunchuk, the hetman's mace and the seal.
Officially, it was called "His Royal Grace's Zaporozhian Army". Accordingly, having sworn allegiance to the Moscow Tsar in 1654, it became known as "His Royal Majesty's Zaporozhian Army". "Our great sovereign, against his sovereign enemies, has a large and countless army, and its structure is different:... the Don, Terek, and Yaik Cossacks fight with fire; and the Zaporozhian Circassians - with both fire and archery," reported the ambassador to Venice, steward Ivan Chemodanov, in his description of the Russian army.
In addition to the registered people, there were also the "lower class" who lived, in fact, in the Zaporizhian Sich, which periodically moved to a new location. Free lawless people who lived from robberies, fishing and simple farming in the farmsteads. The instigators of those very various rebellions for getting into the state, who were also free to choose their hetman. In fact, the nobleman Bohdan Khmelnytsky, who suffered from the Polish power, went to them. And the very concept of "Hetmanate", that is, a quasi-state formation under the hand of a military leader, appeared during the war of the "separatist and traitor" against his state.
On November 22, 1649, at the six-week Warsaw Sejm, the Zboriv Peace Treaty was ratified between Khmelnytsky and King Jan Kazimierz, following the victory of the Cossack-Tatar army in the Battle of Zboriv. Incidentally, another fact of treason in the eyes of the Poles: the Commonwealth should have been protected from the Tatars, and not attracted to war and plunder.
Naturally, here too, one of the main demands was to increase the register to 40 thousand Cossacks, and a separate point was made to record the ownership of the southern border town of Chigirin personally by Khmelnitsky, who expanded his holdings and increased the number of serfs.
But most importantly, the territory of the Zaporozhian Host was actually (albeit briefly) officially recognized as an autonomy with broad rights. Its borders included three voivodeships - Bratslav, Kiev and Chernigov. Cossacks were forbidden to be outside these delineated lands, and accordingly, crown troops were not allowed to be stationed on Cossack territory, nor were Jews allowed to conduct any economic activity.
As a result, the "Zaporozhian Host with cities and lands" went into service of the Russian Tsardom, and the territory under the control of the hetman (from some point on, two hetmans, right-bank and left-bank) became the Hetmanate. "Ukraine" was a nomadic name, and the more the Ruin devoured the "Ukrainian lands", the more often it was used to refer to the territory of Slobozhanshchina with its center in Kharkov, which was under the control of Moscow.
UNNECESSARY LIBERTIES
Trust in the politicians of Little Russia and personally in the hetman was seriously undermined by the ugly act of Ivan Mazepa, who became a natural oligarch in the service of Tsar Peter I. And it was not yet widely known that Bohdan himself entered into secret negotiations with the Swedes, who in the middle of the century began to devour Poland, almost immediately after concluding an alliance with Moscow. All the negativity went to his successor Ivan Vyhovsky, who in 1658 concluded the Gadyach Union with the Poles, which crossed out the Pereyaslav Treaty. And Bohdan's son, the weak Yurko, generally placed his bets on Turkey.
Catherine's expression "like wolves in the forest" seemed to generalize many similar events.
And the tension between the Hetmanate and Moscow had the same basis as in the case of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: according to the concepts of the Cossack elders, they were supposed to receive financing from the overlord, and rule their territory and, in fact, the serfs independently. “Give us as much money as we ask for, and don’t interfere” - approximately the same political tradition has been preserved in Ukraine to this day.
For Russian boyars, voivodes and clerks, citizenship meant unconditional obedience, and the cities of the Hetmanate were administered by sent Moscow chiefs who did not take into account either local laws and traditions or the powers of the Hetman administration. Russia has accordingly retained this approach to this day. And in the 17th century, the unbridled behavior of the Cossacks, accustomed to looting and outrages against the civilian population over the long years of war, terribly irritated both the military men and the authorities in St. Petersburg.
So the "autonomy", which brought constant problems due to the lack of a sense of proportion, was gradually reduced one way or another. In general, the position of hetman, alien to Peter's Table of Ranks, was already presented to Count Kirill Razumovsky as a favor, and was not a real elective position. The Empress was in a love relationship with his older brother Alexei, and Kirill Grigorievich himself took an active part in preparing the coup d'etat that brought Catherine to the throne. In connection with this, he was promoted to senator and adjutant general.
Louis Tocquet. Kirill Grigorievich Razumovsky with the hetman's mace. 1758
The real reduction of the hetman's power actually began under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, continued under his son Peter, and continued, primarily concerning financial issues. The first was the cost of maintaining the army and the Russian military administration, which the central government wanted to at least partially shift to the Ukrainian elite. The second was the collection of taxes locally and the movement of "excisable goods" across the customs border, which existed, imagine, even under Elizabeth Petrovna, the youngest daughter of Peter I.
The Hetmanate made good money from trading salt, Crimean tobacco and vodka. "Cherkasy wine" of poor purification was popular in the Moscow state due to its cheapness, and from the middle of the 18th century it began to be progressively made from potatoes (or with the addition of potato alcohol), which became a distinctive feature of Ukrainian "gorilka".
"In 1754, the empress asked about the abolition of Ukraine's customs immunity. Salt and tobacco were transported through Ukraine in unlimited quantities. Russian customs at other borders controlled these flows, but there was no such control at the border with Ukraine. Tobacco and salt were two items that took away significant revenue items from the empire," notes Kiev historian and researcher of the Cossacks Vladislav Gribovsky.
So those who sat on the streams perceived “oppression by Moscow” as a personal insult and a blow to the pocket, and not an attack on statehood.
When Catherine II confirmed all the rights and liberties of the Zaporozhian Host, all affairs began to be conducted by the Council of Elders under the actual leadership of the General of the Bagration Semyon Kochubey. Managing, as stated in the universal of Razumovsky, "all military and civil affairs on the basis of Military Laws, former customs and established points in... Little Russian Laws, confirmed by decrees to the Little Russian people."
This status provided incredible earnings, interesting information about the property owned by the Kochubey family in the house in Dikanka in 1753 has been preserved. The list of things recorded a huge amount of men's, women's and children's clothing, some of which was decorated with gold, jewelry (rings, beads, earrings), shoes, dishes, weapons, money and other things. The general baggage collector collected all the income from the taverns, and, having barely taken office, submitted a report to the hetman, where he asked to transfer all the income of the regimental artillery to his subordination and to order the artillery servants "to be in my full disposition and to obey my orders in everything."
The young hetman sat in St. Petersburg, distributing Ukrainian lands from there "into eternal and hereditary possession," which suited the businessmen completely. Their plan fell apart only after an attempt to implement a project of a constitutional monarchy with the capital in Baturin, where the hereditary dynasty of Razumovskys would reign, limited by a strong parliament. The openly insolent Ukrainian activists who decided to implement the Polish model inside Russia were dispersed, but not offended.
In exchange for the lost title of hetman, Razumovsky became a field marshal general, Kochubey received the rank of major general and joined the Collegium, retaining control over artillery and huge land holdings. According to his rank, he was entitled to 400 households, but there were fewer. Therefore, the "infringed Ukrainian" appealed to the empress for justice, and it was restored - soon he owned 477 households in different places.
If we talk about the Ukrainian people, then for them all this "destruction of statehood" was perceived rather as a plus - since the time of Bohdan, the gentry thought only about themselves and their incomes, and not about the rights of the rabble and the townspeople. But Catherine, along with the Little Russian Collegium, came up with a Commission in which ordinary Little Russians themselves, without the oligarchs, would express their wishes and needs, how they should live in the new conditions.
The Empress's manifesto was brought to the chanceries of all regiments, and was also published in cities, villages and farmsteads. And it must be said that it caused a positive reaction from the population, in contrast to the elite.
In a legal sense, the Hetmanate ceased to exist after the decree of 1764, but in fact everything dragged on for several years. The final act was the abolition of the Little Russian Collegium in 1786, during which time Little Russia merged with Great Russia administratively and politically, the Ukrainian gentry became the Russian nobility. By and large, nothing changed for it.
But at the national level, the cultural identity that developed during the Polish-Lithuanian period remained. And, by the way, it is very interesting that the liquidation of Malorossiya as an autonomous state in the Cossack-Hetman form also put an end to the name: it was increasingly replaced by "Ukraine".
[Townhall] We are witnessing a historic counterrevolution after Trump's victory, far different from his first election in 2016.
The orthodox and the supposed scripted future are now suspect. And they are likely to be dethroned -- from the trivial to the existential.
Critics claim Trump has no mandate to stage such a counterrevolution. They argue that he did not win 51 percent of the popular vote or achieve a Reaganesque landslide in the Electoral College.
Yet all the initiatives he advanced and won on polled landslide public approval.
Despite being the target of Democrat lawfare for years, a defiant Trump promised to end an open border, massive illegal immigration, rising crime, and soaring prices. He pledged to slash government and its administrative state, terminate racial and gender identity politics, and restore deterrence abroad.
The people overwhelmingly wanted those messages but were waiting for an unorthodox messenger who would actually deliver them.
The Trump messenger reassured weary citizens that they were not crazy.
Instead, they had good cause to be sick of being talked down to by a media, academic, bureaucratic, and political elite that never earned nor deserved such self-appointed status.
The FBI, the CIA, and the DOJ, not the massive crowds at rallies, were the ones truly out of control.
President Joe Biden was really suffering from dementia, not those who said he was.
Continued on Page 47
[ZeroHedge] “Personnel is policy.” That aphorism about the realities of US presidential government was coined by Scot Faulkner, who was director of personnel for Ronald Reagan’s triumphant election campaign in 1980. What he meant was that, while US presidents can do almost anything, they can’t do everything. The day-to-day business of the administration is carried on by appointed officials. And if presidents want to make real progress towards their policy objectives, they need to make sure that their officials are as committed to those goals as they are.
That is why President-elect Donald Trump’s first two picks to be his senior energy officials are particularly significant. There is still a great deal of uncertainty around exactly how energy policy will play out in his second administration. But the announcements he has made give a clear sense of the direction he wants to set and the objectives he wants to achieve during his four-year term.
Last week, President-elect Trump named >Chris Wright, the chief executive of oilfield services company Liberty Energy, to be his energy secretary, and Doug Burgum, governor of North Dakota, to be the interior secretary and head of a new National Energy Council at the White House.
The common thread in the thinking on energy expressed by both Wright and Burgum is that they want to boost production of all types of energy, including fossil fuels. They do not deny that human-caused climate change is a real threat that needs to be addressed. But they argue that there are other priorities for policy that are more important and more urgent, and that oil and gas can continue to play the central role in the global energy system into the indefinite future.
If they get to take the reins of energy policy-making under the Trump administration, they will undoubtedly aim to help the oil and gas industry in every way possible. But several low-carbon sectors could also benefit, or at least not be hit as hard as they might have feared.
MEET CHRIS WRIGHT AND GOVERNOR DOUG BURGUM
Announcing their nominations, President-elect Trump said that Wright and Burgum would be working on cutting red tape, enhancing private sector investment and focusing on innovation, with the aim of boosting energy production to cut prices and “win the AI arms race with China (and others)”.
Chris Wright has become one of the highest-profile CEOs in the industry thanks to his tireless advocacy for American energy in general, and oil and gas in particular. He has made his case in a variety of public forums, including YouTube videos and in a 180-page report titled ‘Bettering human lives’.
That report makes its argument in 10 key points, which include: “Global demand for oil, natural gas, and coal are all at record levels and rising — no energy transition has begun” and “Zero Energy Poverty by 2050 is a superior goal compared to Net Zero [emissions] 2050.”
Wright summarises his position on climate change like this:
“Climate change is a real and global challenge that we should and can address. However, representing it as the most urgent threat to humanity today displaces concerns about more pressing threats of malnutrition, access to clean water, air pollution, endemic diseases, and human rights, among others.”
Tackling those other more pressing problems, he argues, would be helped by the strongest possible growth in US oil and gas production. This would displace supplies from authoritarian regimes and geopolitical rivals of the US and substitute for dirtier fuels, including coal and traditional biomass.
On policy, Wright warns that the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which extended and expanded tax credits for a range of low-carbon energy technologies, “appears poised to drive the U.S. electricity grid along the European path [to] higher prices and more grid stability problems”.
He is not opposed to all forms of low-carbon energy, but says the world needs a massive increase in research and innovation, as opposed to subsidies for existing technologies. His company has worked on low-carbon energy sources, including advanced geothermal, small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) and sodium-ion batteries. The world needs more and better energy, which means contributions from “all viable energy technologies,” Wright says.
One of the peculiarities of the US system of government is that the energy secretary – the job that Chris Wright is being proposed for – does not have primary responsibility for many of the decisions most relevant to the energy industry. A US energy secretary does have responsibility for overseeing energy policy, but the most vital part of the job relates to nuclear weapons. The secretary is tasked with “maintaining a safe, secure and effective nuclear deterrent” for the US, and reducing the threat of nuclear proliferation.
Many of the key decisions related to energy, such as oil and gas leasing programmes, lie with the Department of the Interior. So the proposal that Governor Burgum of North Dakota should head that department, as well as the new White House energy council, is also highly significant for the industry.
Governor Burgum, like Wright, has a record of recognising the need to act on climate change while also aiming to boost oil and gas production. In 2021, he set a goal of reaching net zero emissions for North Dakota – described as “carbon neutral status” – by 2030. That is a much more ambitious schedule than California’s – the Golden State is aiming for net zero by 2045.
Another crucial difference is that Governor Burgum has envisaged his state reaching net zero largely through carbon capture and storage (CCS). As he has pointed out, North Dakota hit the “geologic jackpot” in its potential for sub-surface storage of carbon dioxide. Its estimated capacity of 250 billion tons could take all of the US’s carbon dioxide emissions from energy for almost 50 years.
In a sign of North Dakota’s enthusiasm for CCS, the state’s Public Service Commission last week voted unanimously to approve the route permit for Summit Carbon Solutions’ proposed US$8 billion carbon dioxide pipeline system, which would take captured emissions from ethanol plants for storage.
But despite his support for decarbonisation, Governor Burgum has also been a strong critic of the Biden administration’s energy policies. He signed up to a joint statement with other Republican governors in June, arguing that the president’s “rhetorical and regulatory hostility towards traditional energy” was holding back US oil and gas production.
One sector that could be particularly favoured under the new administration is gas-fired power generation. President-elect Trump said in the statement announcing Governor Burgum’s nomination that he wanted to “undo the damage done by the Democrats to our Nation's Electrical Grid, by dramatically increasing baseload power”. That will certainly mean acting on his pledge to scrap President Biden’s emissions rules for power plants, which could potentially have ended up forcing gas-fired generation to shut down. But he could go further. A national version of the Texas system that subsidises gas-fired power plants is possible.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Leonid Tsukanov
[REGNUM] The IDF recently reported the elimination of another high-ranking Hezbollah official. The target was Mohammed Afif, the head of the information service and a close associate of several secretaries general of the movement, also known by the informal nickname "The Voice of Hezbollah."
Despite the fact that Afif's killing has seriously complicated the search for a compromise between Israel and Hezbollah, the US continues to rush them to cease fire. However, such haste may eventually lead to even greater problems for Washington.
There’s not much longer to rush — President Trump’s priorities are very different than those of the current team.
THE MOST VALUABLE FUNCTIONARY
Mohammed Afif belonged to the generation of the “founding fathers” of Lebanese Hezbollah; at the time of its liquidation, he had been in the movement for more than 40 years, more than half of which were spent in the information block.
He received his nickname "The Voice of Hezbollah" for his significant contribution to the formation and development of the movement's information strategy. It was Afif who brought the information coverage of Hezbollah's activities beyond the "party" media.
Official comments from the movement's functionaries began to appear in authoritative regional and international publications. Under his leadership, representatives of the Hezbollah press service began to hold full-fledged press conferences.
In addition, over the past decade, Afif has consistently served as a liaison between Hezbollah and the Lebanese population, providing detailed explanations of the movement's policies and goals.
“Here’s what you need to shut up about and accept from the Master Branch of the Master Religion, guys. Off you go and practice that while we attack the Zionist Entity to protect you from them.”
With the start of the IDF's limited operation in southern Lebanon, this part of its authority has acquired critical importance, especially in the context of responding to the increasing frequency of Israeli attacks on Lebanese population centers.
"You don't win your war by air superiority, bombing, or killing civilians, including women and children," he said.
That’s standard doctrine. And why the IDF has entered southern Lebanon on foot and in tanks.
It should be noted that Afif often acted not only as one of the key spokesmen for Hezbollah, but also as the Secretary General's envoy for special assignments. Active interaction with Lebanese and Syrian politicians, as well as with representatives of other groups of the pro-Iranian "Axis of Resistance" took place through him.
All this made Afif one of Hezbollah's most valuable functionaries.
ISRAEL IS LOOKING FOR FRIENDS
The elimination of Afif opened a new page in the confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah.
For the first time in a long time, the Israelis chose as a target not a field commander or a top official, but a representative of a “related” structure not directly involved in military operations. Although the IDF Spokesperson’s Service tried to gloss over this point, indicating that the liquidated Hezbollah spokesman, due to his closeness to the movement’s top leadership, “made a significant contribution” to the planning and organization of operations against Israel.
Such actions are intended not only to decapitate key Hezbollah structures, but also to disrupt its interaction with other loyal forces in Lebanon. In particular, with the Shiite Amal party, which joined the “united front” against Israel in December 2023, but has lost its enthusiasm over the past year.
Israel is also trying to take advantage of Hezbollah's temporary absence of a new spokesman to sow distrust between the movement and other forces in Lebanon and beyond.
Thus, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar regularly calls on “oppressed minorities in the Middle East” to come closer to Israel in order to jointly confront Iran and its proxy groups. And the most convenient way to test such a strategy is within the framework of the current limited ground operation against Hezbollah, since Israel has sufficient resources to conduct such experiments without compromising the overall effectiveness of the campaign.
Among Tel Aviv's potential allies in the Lebanese direction, they see the Druze (more than 280 thousand of them live in Lebanon). The Israeli side is unobtrusively trying to win over the leader of the Lebanese Druze, Walid "Wally" Jumblatt, to its side, appealing, among other things, to the negative precedent of a Hezbollah rocket hitting the Druze village of Majd al-Shams in July 2024.
Although there has been little progress in the dialogue so far, tensions between Hezbollah and Jumblatt's supporters continue to mount.
EVERYONE IS STALLING FOR TIME
Despite the general complication of the negotiating environment caused by Afif’s death, the United States – as the key mediator in the dialogue between Hezbollah and Israel – continues to adhere to the previous settlement strategy.
US President Joe Biden's special envoy to the Middle East, Amos Hochstein, who is overseeing these negotiations, believes that a ceasefire agreement is "within reach" and that new rounds of escalation of the conflict do not affect the parties' intention to reach an agreement.
He keeps saying that, and technically it’s true — a small distance contains infinite points inside it.
He visited Lebanon the day before, and then met with Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel on November 21.
This conviction is dictated by the need for the Biden administration to obtain at least one successful example of a Middle East settlement before leaving office in January 2025.
Need and get are not necessarily the same. Oh well.
It is possible that, in pursuit of this goal, Washington will try to force both parties to conclude a formal agreement. This is indicated, in particular, by the White House's readiness to include in the draft treaty a clause on the parties' right to self-defense. Just a couple of months ago, this was considered an unacceptable step.
It still is unacceptable to Hezbollah, no matter what the Lebanese politicians and people might be willing to accept.
On the other hand, the question of the sustainability of the security guarantees offered by Washington remains open - especially in light of the imminent change of administration in the White House. Both Israel and Hezbollah understand this well, and therefore they are in no hurry to agree to the conditions put forward, although they do not reject them completely.
Each side is stalling for time as much as possible.
At the same time, Hezbollah still intends to respond proportionately to the death of its press secretary, as its high-ranking officials regularly remind us. As Secretary General Naim Qassem previously stated, a “blow to the heart of Beirut” will be followed by a counterblow “to the heart of Tel Aviv.”
Uh huh. But who will bell the Israeli cat?
And although Hezbollah does not disclose the details of the planned operation, the revenge action (given Afif's weight in the apparatus) will hardly be of a smaller scale than in memory of the previously liquidated Hassan Nasrallah. And this, in turn, threatens a new round of escalation between Israel and Hezbollah, with a rejection of previous agreements and guarantees.
However, the Democrats in the US are not too worried about this: it will most likely be Donald Trump’s team that will have to deal with the crisis.
It’ll be the Israelis regardless, if any of Hezbollah’s efforts actually get beyond the annoyance level.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
