Israel-Gaza VI: Finding Criteria For A Just Resolution

Thıs ıs a long post in which I try to link different ideas together.  Since I'm not posting every day nowadays, you can come back and finish this one over a few days. :) 


[OVERVIEW:  This post looks at the question:  What criteria would you use to determine the legitimacy of the Palestinian and Israel claims to Palestine?  Then it uses information from the previous five posts, as well as additional information, on Israel and Gaza to show why this is not the black and white issue both sides claim it to be.  Sounds pretty simple, but I started this back in early March and I've been trying to tease out the key points since.  Not sure it will get any better so posting it now. Have fun.]

Map from https://www.quora.com/What-does-from-the-river-to-the-sea-mean

Parts I-IV of this series of posts briefly discussed a number of subjects to show how complicated the Israeli-Gaza war is and why ıt ıs hard to speak intelligently and knowledgeably about the topic. 

 Part V outlined a few observations I came to while researching and writing the first four posts.  

In this post, I want to give an example of how those complexities make simple answers to any of this an easy, perhaps, but uninformed response. I'll refer to a number of the issues I identified in the earlier posts. I get that people grasp for some easy answer, especially in response to the unconscionable killing of Palestinians in Gaza.  But as comforting as that might be, slogans based on ignorance lead to even more confusion and anger.   

Let's look at the question of who has the best claim to the land between the river and the sea.  This refers to the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.  On the map you can see that would cover all of modern day Israel as well as the Palestinian areas - Gaza and the West Bank.  

I include the map here because it's been said that many people shouting the motto "From the river to the sea" supposedly didn't know which river and which sea were meant.  [But are these claims true or just made to discredit demonstrators?  The link talks about hiring a polling company to ask students - but it didn't say that they were specifically students demonstrating and shouting the phrase.  There is so much spin going on over this topic we need to take everything with a grain of salt. We need to ask people what they mean before we attack them.]

While the Hamas declaration of 1988 (highlighted in Part IV) clearly says Hamas wants an Islamic state controlling all of historic Palestine (the British Mandate), this NPR article says many students chanting the slogan mean they want peace and freedom for all people living between the river and the sea. 

Hamas originally claimed all the land (see the section on the Hamas declaration in Part IV) which would mean the elimination of Israel, on the grounds that Palestinians have lived there for generations.  They claim that Israel is a colonial state taken from the local Palestinians by Europeans and Americans.   Israelis claim that Jews have lived there for thousands of years.  

That's very different from wanting peace and freedom for everyone living from the river to the sea.  

Basically, the current Israeli government led by Netanyahu wants Israel to exist and to have control over the Palestinian areas, because, as I understand it, they do not trust Arabs to peacefully live in their own country adjacent to Israel. 

And Hamas wants an Islamic State to control the whole area.  At least that's what the 1988 declaration says.  Yesterday (April 25, 2024) AP said.

"A top Hamas political official told The Associated Press the Islamic militant group is willing to agree to a truce of five years or more with Israel and that it would lay down its weapons and convert into a political party if an independent Palestinian state is established along pre-1967 borders."

But the AP article goes on to say:

"Over the years, Hamas has sometimes moderated its public position with respect to the possibility of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. But its political program still officially “rejects any alternative to the full liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea” — referring to the area reaching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, which includes lands that now make up Israel."

So one of the issues that both sides seem to totally disagree about is who has the right to live in this territory between the river and the sea.  Both groups?  One group? or the other?  How can this disagreement be resolved?  Let's just look at this one question to get a sense of how NOT easy this all is.  

Who has the most legitimate claims to the territory Israel occupies?

I would ask people to step back now and contemplate how one would evaluate those claims?  How should an impartial judge answer that question?  What criteria would such an objective observer use to determine who had the most legitimate claim to that land?  Must it be all or nothing?

Even coming up with criteria is fraught with problems.  Philosopher John Rawls has proposed a way to create rules for a just society - it would have to be done collectively, before anyone knows what role they will be assigned in that society.  Otherwise you give your role favorable conditions.  

",,,everyone decides principles of justice from behind a veil of ignorance. This "veil" is one that essentially blinds people to all facts about themselves so they cannot tailor principles to their own advantage:

"[N]o one knows his place in society, his class position or social status, nor does anyone know his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence, strength, and the like. I shall even assume that the parties do not know their conceptions of the good or their special psychological propensities. The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance."

The same problems are true about setting up the criteria for evaluating the claims to this land.  People will favor those criteria that they know will lead to the outcome they prefer.  But in the world we live in, that veil of ignorance is not possible.  

So which criteria to use?

1. Who's been there the longest?  
1. How would you measure this? 
1. Jews have lived in and around Jerusalem and other parts of Israel for about 3000 years.  
2. Christianity is 2000 years old, and 
3. Mohamed didn't found Islam until 610 AD.  
2. Whose traditions are connected to the land?     
1. Jerusalem holds major holy sites for all three religions. Plus others like Bahá'ì.
3. What group's culture has no other homeland where the majority of the population share their language, religion, and customs other than in this disputed land?  
4. What group has the most people?
5. Who will make the best use of the land? 
6. Flip a coin?

Below are some thoughts on intricacies of answering the questions above (particularly 1-3)

1.  National borders change constantly over time.  Hong Kong was under British rule from 1898- 1997.  India was a British colony for nearly two hundred years. After India became independent,  Pakistan split from India in 1947.  Bangladesh split from Pakistan in 1971. Russia colonized parts of Alaska from the 1830s until they sold all of Alaska to the United States in 1867. Though they only had colonized  relatively small portion of Alaska and the indigenous population had no say in any of this. Alaska became a US state in 1959.  Hawaii became an internationally recognized kingdom in 1808 but then was conquered by the US in 1898.  

Today's African nations' boundaries were dictated mostly by European colonial rulers, focused on exploiting natural resources, not which groups of people lived where.  

The Ottoman empire controlled Palestine for 400 years until the British took over and eventually, through the Balfour Declaration created Israel.  After the creation of Israel in 1948, the West Bank was basically controlled by Jordan and Gaza was controlled by Egypt until the 1967 war.  

2. Colonization

The Hamas Charter talks about Israel as a colonial power.  But let's look at that a little more carefully.  Here's a generally common definition much like this one from dictionary.com

"-a country or territory claimed and forcibly taken control of by a foreign power which sends its own people to settle there:

-a group of people who leave their native country to form a settlement in a territory that their own government has claimed and forcibly taken control of:"

European nations set up colonies in the Western Hemisphere, South America, Asia, Australia.  In all cases the colony was controlled by a mother country elsewhere.

Israel is a special case.  There is no mother country.  Instead we have a people scattered around in many other countries - always a small religious minority, often reviled and with fewer rights than other citizens.  And then, of course, there was the Holocaust.  

So Jews had no homeland where their religion and culture was protected and where they weren't a minority.  From Wikipedia:

"According to the Hebrew Bible, the First Temple was built in the 10th century BCE, during the reign of Solomon over the United Kingdom of Israel. It stood until c. 587 BCE, when it was destroyed during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem.[1] Almost a century later, the First Temple was replaced by the Second Temple, which was built after the Neo-Babylonian Empire was conquered by the Achaemenid Persian Empire. While the Second Temple stood for a longer period of time than the First Temple, it was likewise destroyed during the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE."

My sense is that Hamas knows there is no Jewish mother country (in the US where Jews have their largest population, they make up less than 3% of the total population.)  Hamas seems to be using 'colonial' to imply that Western nations, in some sense, are the 'White" mother nations of Israel.  And Britain was the last European nation to have control over Palestine and agreed to the creation of Israel.  

But if the State of Israel were to be dissolved, there really is no 'home' country for Jews to go to.  Though Caryn Aviv and David Shneer, in their 2005 book New Jews argue that the idea of diaspora may be out of date, that there are vibrant Jewish communities around the world where Jews feel rooted and do not long to return Israel.  They argue for exchanging fear - and Israel as the safe home for Jews - for hope based on all the new ways Jews are redefining themselves.  But this is a tiny minority opinion.

On the other hand, Palestinian Muslims speak Arabic and follow Islam.  There are many Islamic countries in the world, where Arabic is spoken.  Yet their argument that being Palestinian makes them different from other Arab cultures is partially confirmed by the fact that neither Egypt nor Jordan - both close neighbors of Israel - do not want a large influx of Palestinians.  

But the Islamic State that Hamas declares (in their declaration) is mandated for Palestine, would be radically different from the culture that Palestinians have developed in Palestine.  

"The Islamic Resistance Movement [firmly] believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf [Trust] upon all Muslim generations till the day of Resurrection." 

Such an Islamic state would be more different from current Palestinian culture than if Palestinians moved to most other Arab countries.  Or even non Arab countries. And how does this accommodate the Christian Arabs who live in Palestine?   

3.  Countries where Indigenous Populations regained control have been former colonies

Most former colonies that are now independent countries  are former European colonies.  The  borders imposed by the foreign conquerors often didn't match the local indigenous boundaries and led to countries that have different ethnic groups competing for power.  Israel and Palestine is such an example.  

So while it's accurate to say that England left behind the seeds of conflict in the former Palestine Mandate as it did in other former colonies, the Jews of Israel are different from the colonialists who exploited other European colonies.   While many, if not most, came from Europe, they can trace their historical connection to the land back 3000 years.  And others have come from Arabic countries in North Africa and the Middle East.  These are people who spoke Arabic as well as ancient biblical languages into the 20th Century.

In other cases - say the US and much of South America  - the European settlers simply attempted to Christianize the indigenous populations, move them,  and if that didn't work, annihilate them.  

When the Soviet Union collapsed, former member states, such as the Yugoslavia, broke up, not peacefully,  into smaller states based on ethnicity.  East Germany, more peacefully, joined West Germany.  

Is there a solution both sides would agree to?

To the extent that Hamas and Netanyahu's government are negotiating, probably not.   

The parties' demands are mutually exclusive 

The Israeli government under Netanyahu says elimination of Hamas and Israeli control of Gaza is what they will accept.  [But note, the wording changes regularly, but the basics seem to stay the same.] While Hamas has pulled back, at least on paper, from demanding that they will not be satisfied until the Jewish state no longer exists, they still believe that all of Palestine is rightfully an Islamic State whose laws should be based on the Koran.  

Could other nations get Hamas and and the current Israeli government to come to an agreement?

The world leaders have been trying since the creation of Israel with no lasting success.

What leverage do outside players have on Israel and Palestinians?

Both parties get their weapons from foreign countries, though Israel itself has a formidable arms industry of its own.  

The outside supporters could tell Israel and Hamas that they will cut off all weapons until there is a peace treaty.  Let's look at the key countries involved.

Middle East Eye says that while the US is by far the biggest arms supplier to Israel, they also get weapons from Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, and Canada, 

The American Friends Service Committee has put out a list of companies that profit from the Israeli attacks on Gaza.  Go to the link to see the list.  Besides major players like Boeing and Lockheed, there are many others.  

This AP article identifies sources of Palestinian weapons:

“'The majority of their arms are of Russian, Chinese or Iranian origin, but North Korean weapons and those produced in former Warsaw Pact countries are also present in the arsenal,' said N.R. Jenzen-Jones, an expert in military arms who is director of the Australian-based Armament Research Services. "

 There are Israeli Jews and Palestinians who would like a two state solution with peace and cooperation between the two

My conclusion is that both parties have legitimate claims to independent states in the land between the river and the sea.  I don't see an easy path to that option.  In fact the only paths I see now are in people's imaginations.  Here are visions of peaceful coexistence, one Israeli, one Palestinian.  : 

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib     https://twitter.com/afalkhatib/status/1782241783843553568

Haggai Matar   https://www.972mag.com/lament-israelis-gaza-october-7/

Whether the voices of fear and anger will continue to dominate or whether some versions along the lines these two call for is possible, only time will tell.  

Finally, are students wrong to protest against the killings in Gaza?  Absolutely not.  Are they protesting perfectly?  Of course not.  Protest organizers often lose control of the protests they've organized.  Let's not get distracted from the issue they are protesting - the slaughter of almost 40,000 civilians, mostly women and children.  And administrators and police groups are reacting to them the same way administrators and police groups reacted to the anti-war demonstrations in the US in the 1960s and 70s.  Four students were shot by National Guard troops at Kent State University on May 4, 1970.  From the pictures I'm seeing of current demonstrations, Kent State might well be repeated soon.  Let's hope not.  

Alaska Press Club Friday - Judy Woodruff, Climate, Saving Local News

The Alaska Press Club annual conference gives this lone blogger an opportunity to connect with other journalists and learn something.  This really should be several posts, but I'm going to cover today pretty fast, just to give you a sense of things, but not too much detail.  

First session I went to was  Covering Climate Change in Rural Alaska.  

The room was pretty full for this panel of journalists who have worked in rural Alaska.  Issues covered how to get stories, particularly as outsiders;  how to write them so the local folks feel they've been fairly represented.  

Jackie Qataliña Schaeffer

The panelist I got the most from wasn't a journalist  (well that's not completely clear, she may have once been) who is now the Director, Climate Initiatives, at the Alaska Native Tribal Consortium, Jackie Qataliña Schaeffer.  

I've spent a lot of time learning about cross-cultural translation by spending a year or more in several cultures outside of my own.  I've paid close attention to Alaska Native issues and people in the years I've lived in Alaska.  But Jackie said things that captured wisdoms I'd never heard articulated like that before.  (Yes, I know I owe you a couple of examples, but my notes aren't good enough to write them here in a way that would due justice to she said. But trust me, she's comfortable and culturally fluent in the world of Alaska Native cultures and the more recently arrived Euro-American culture.  

                          Two of the other panelists who had a lot to contribute:  Rachel Waldholz and Tom Kizzia.

Keynote:  Judy Woodruff, PBS Newshour

The room was packed when I got there and I ended up in a seat right in front of the podium and it was clear I was barely going to see more than the speaker's forehead, so I took this shot while she was being introduced.  

Her theme was the two or three year tour of the US she's making trying to learn more about the extreme political divide that now exists in the US.  She started with Pugh Research (where she visited) polling data that shows the divide far greater than ever in any of their polls over the years.  She talked about Republicans who thought Democrats were immoral and Democrats who thought the same of Republicans.  About families that don't celebrate Thanksgiving together any more.  There used to be married couples who managed to stay together even though they were of different political parties.  Today, she said, that was down to 2-3% of married couples.  

She talked about the causes of the divide and they were all the usual suspects.  When she got to the media she emphasized the importance of local news and how the loss of some 2500 local newspapers was a blow to democracy.  That those local papers were raw glue that kept communities together, where people saw themselves and their neighbors mentioned in print whether it was local sports pages or stories about community arts, non-profits, local businesses.  And that local reporters were crucial to informing local communities about the local officials and keeping them accountable.  

John Palfrey,MacArthur Foundation

This all led into the next sessions (not accidentally) which dealt with an initiative Press Forward co-founded by the MacArthur Foundation (which supports the PBS Newshour) and the Knight Foundation.  When I looked at their website just now, there are lots of other foundations listed, but from the discussion it seems the two speakers in the next sessions - John Palfrey, CEO of the MacArthur Foundation and Jim Brady, Vice President for Journalism at the Knight Foundation - went out and encouraged the others to join this initiative.  

John and then Jim talked about Press Forward as one effort to save democracy by helping make local journalism sustainable as technology and online media are eroding traditional revenue sources for local newspapers.

They've raised half a billion dollars (!) so far and now are working on the other half.  

Jim Brady and Lori Townsend

Above is Jim Brady of the Knight Foundation being interviewed by Alaska Public Media News Director Lori Townsend.  While Palfrey talked more about the creation and vision of Press Forward and raising money, Brady spoke more to the kinds of things they are funding.  Sustainability was a word that was used often.  

Press Forward Alaska came to be with the help of the Rasmuson and Atwood Foundations and the strong public broadcasting network here which has already been working on the kinds of alliances among different media outlets Press Forward is encouraging.  There were other local Press Forward projects, but Alaska is the first State Project.  

The last part of this Press Forward Initiative presentation was a panel of Alaskan journalists involved in cooperative projects.  And as I write this, I'm guessing that somehow they have been touched by Press Forward assistance, though I didn't catch that link at the time. 

Here are David Hulen (with the mic), editor of the Anchorage Daily News, Amy Bushatz, Mat-Su Sentinel, Joaqlin Estus, Indian Country Today, and moderator Wesley Early, Anchorage reporter at Alaska Public Media.

Finally, I wrapped the day up talking in the lobby with Ed Ulman, CEO of Alaska Public Media and John McKay, an Anchorage First Amendment attorney who represents most local media.  (I realize the sentence says 'an', but John probably is 'the' key attorney in this field.)

I'd never met Ed (center) before and as a blogger, I often find myself having to convince people I'm not a flake.  John showed up at the right time.  John was an early supporter of my blogging work and when he worked out a deal for media covering the political corruption trials back in 2007 and 2008, to share the audio/vidoe evidence in the trials and to take cell phones and computers past the court security, he (unbeknownst to me) included my name on the list of journalists getting these privileges.  He later helped me out when I was threatened with a law suit for questioning the legitimacy of the Alaska International Film Festival whose only presence in Alaska was a post office box and which had no actual festival.  While we were talking Lori Townsend joined us briefly as she was leaving because she had a program to host at 5pm.  

That's it.  An incomplete view of the Alaska Press Club conference today.  But despite the fact that the conference is made up of journalists, not many of us actually cover what happens.  

As Trump's Jury Gets Chosen, I Get Summons ForJury Duty

 It was an email from the Alaska Court System.

The time I've been summoned for is in June.  So I'm guessing the folks who ended up as potential jurors in the Trump case in New York were probably summoned much earlier as well.

I was wondering why it came to my email.  In the past it's always come via the post office.  In Alaska, people who have requested a Permanent Fund Check are on the list.  

Next I had to fill out an online questionnaire to insure I was eligible - an Alaska resident, a US citizen, over 18, etc.  

Here's a link to the instructions jurors get.  Most of it is routine FAQs - will I get paid?  how much?  what about food?  parking?  how long will I serve?  etc.  

But given the attention to picking the jury in New York, I thought the section picking jurors for a particular trial might be of interest to people.  Of course, these are Alaska rules not New York rules so there may be some differences.  This is the voir dir - the choosing and removing of jurors by the attorneys.  

How are jurors chosen to sit on a jury?

There are several methods a judge may use to select a jury. The following paragraphs describe the most common methods.

When a trial is ready to begin, a group of potential jurors will be called into the courtroom. The clerk will ask the potential jurors to swear or affirm that they will truthfully answer the questions about to be asked of them.

Trials begin with jury selection. Names are randomly selected from those on jury service to form a panel from which the trial jury will be selected. The judge excuses those on the panel whose knowledge of the people or the circumstances would affect their impartiality.

    J-180 (7/22) 10

You will be told the names of the parties and their attorneys and the nature of the case. You will be asked such things as whether you know or are related to anyone involved in the case, have any financial or other interest in the outcome of the case, have formed or expressed an opinion, or have any personal bias or prejudice that might affect how you decide the case.

Depending on your court location, one of two methods will be used to select the first group of potential jurors to take seats in the jury box:

Method #1: The names of all potential jurors will be placed on slips of paper in a small box. The clerk will then draw a certain number of names from the box and ask those persons to take seats in the jury box. Method #2: A computer will produce a list of potential jurors in random order and the clerk will ask the first group of persons on that list to take seats in the jury box.

The judge and the lawyers for each side will ask you some questions. If you are reluctant to answer a particular question in public, you may ask the judge to be examined privately on that topic.

The lawyers will be allowed to ask that certain potential jurors be excused “for cause." The lawyer must explain why the lawyer believes the juror would not be a fair and impartial juror in the case. The judge may or may not grant these requests. After all seated jurors have been “passed for cause," the lawyers will be allowed to “peremptorily disqualify” a certain number of jurors (this means to disqualify them without stating the reason why). The number of peremptory disqualifications allowed depends on the type of case.

After the required number of jurors has been accepted, the jurors take an oath swearing or affirming that they will hear the case and give a verdict based solely on the evidence introduced and the instructions of the court. The trial is then ready to begin.

I see jury duty as one of the responsibilities US citizens have in exchange for the freedom and opportunities we have.  It's a less frequent responsibility than voting, but maybe even more important.  I also know that jurors are required to be impartial and that many if not most jurors struggle to overcome biases they have that could lead them to an erroneous decision.   

The Street - A 1946 Primer On Structural Racism

 My bookclub is reading The Street by Ann Petry this month.  

It was first published in 1946.  Remember that date.  It says on the cover of the 1976 edition that it has sold over a million copies.  

It's a story of an attractive young Black woman living in Harlem at the end of WW II, struggling to find a path to a better life.  It shifts here and there to the stories of other characters she deals with, but it's basically Lutie Johnso's story.

What I find of most interest is that 

• this book got published in 1946
• that many copies were sold
• that the message seems to have little impact on White understanding

I'm guessing about the last point.  Perhaps it caused a number of White folks to adjust their assessment of Black folk in the United States an to better understand the enormous obstacles they faced.  And maybe I'm just frustrated that it has taken so long to change White thinking,  After all, it was 1953 when James Baldwin's first book - Go Tell It On The Mountain - was published.  But Richard Wright's Native Son was published in 1940.  

A 1992 NYTimes article about the republication of The Street gives us more background about the author and how the book got published and that it was a big hit right away.  

Scattered throughout the book, Lutie Johnson reflects on al the obstacles Black women (and men) faced.  How impossible it was to get ahead, to escape poverty.  How the housing was terrible, paying the rent difficult.  Black men had trouble getting jobs, so the women worked and quickly became single mothers whose kids had no safe, healthy places to go after school until their mom's got home from work.  

Here are a couple of pages to give an example of Lutie's reflections.  This first one is when her husband was laid off and in desperation, Lutie takes a job in Connecticut as a maid.  This leaves her husband home to raise their young son.  

The facing page tells us that her boss' mother has come to visit over Christmas.  The sentence begins on the previous page:  "A tall think woman with ... cold gray eyes..."

And this second passage is much later.  While Lutie was out of Harlem most of the month working for White people in a large house, her husband took up with another woman.  Lutie has quit her job and is back in Harlem in a depressing, small apartment with her son.  

On the previous page she had, walking home,  encountered a woman whose head was bleeding.  

"Yes, she thought, she and Bub [her eight year old son] had to get out of ... 116th Street.  

In the 1992 New York Times article we learn that Ann Petry grew up comfortably in a small town in Connecticut.  

"Mrs. Petry's grandfather was a chemist and her father a pharmacist who owned his own drugstore in town. Her mother was a barber, then a chiropodist and finally started her own linen business. Mrs. Petry graduated from the College of Pharmacy of the University of Connecticut and worked for a time in the family shop. A Comfortable Childhood

Theirs was one of the few black families in this old Connecticut town then, and still is today, but the incidents of prejudice, said Mrs. Petry, have been few. Hers was a childhood of privilege, especially for a black child of those days. Two working parents, family all about, enough money for hair ribbons, new shoes, warm meals and college. Mrs. Petry came to known firsthand the traumas of the street only after she married in 1938 and moved to Harlem."

I'm still puzzled about the impact this book had.  Over a million copies had been sold by the time the 1992 paperback version was published.  Who were those people?  How did they react?  How many did anything to make the lives of Black folks easier?  How many were White?  Black?  

This book wasn't talking about the suffering of Black people in the South.  It was about people in New York City.

The original review of the book, says it was published in February 1946.  A bit of context - Donald Trump was born June 14, 1946.  I'm guessing neither of his parents read this book.  

One other thought:  As I read this book and imagined who might have read the book, I got this image of all the people who had ever read it gathered together for a week to talk about the book and what actions they could take to change things.  To a degree, social media moves us in that direction.  Not all the readers of a book, but a significant number can share the experience.  

Odds & Ends: Eclipses, Spring, Printer Cartridges, Private Concerts

 I was in sunny Anchorage yesterday, not in the path of the eclipse.  But in 2019 my daughter invited us to meet her and her family to see an eclipse in San Juan, Argentina.   It was a memorable experience out in the desert.  But at the time I was a bit disappointed that it didn't get really dark, just dusk-like.  My image of an eclipse was that day turned to night for a minute or so.  

My daughter went to Texas to see yesterday's eclipse.  It was cloudy, but the sun poked out through the clouds so they could see the moon covering over the sun, part of the time.  But because it was cloudy, it also got much darker than it was in Argentina.  

So, two things about eclipses: 

1.  Watching the sun covered by the moon.  You can only do that if you have special glasses or other way to darken the image.  Otherwise the brightness of the sun makes it impossible to see the eclipsing moon.  

2.  Experience the change from full daylight to night.  As you can see in the picture (sort of, since the camera's auto lighting affects things a bit) it got twilight in Argentina but not so dark you needed lights if you were driving - as my daughter reported happened yesterday.  So clouds don't completely ruin an eclipse.  You experience more darkness than without clouds.  

SPRING

Anchorage had near record snow for the year - about three inches less than the snowiest winter - so there's still a lot of snow.  But we're seeing larger areas of snowless ground - under the bigger trees in the back yard and along the edges of the snow piles.  Here's Campbell Creek on March 28

And here it is on April 7, ten days later.  Somewhat disappointing that there is now a large piece of trash in the creek.  The trails along the main streets are clear of snow, but the trails along the creeks through the woods still covered.  

The two days of sunshine reminded me that April has often been a wonderful month, but today we have a heavy cloud cover again.  [I just looked up.  It's snowing out.  I really don't need enough snow to set the record.]

PRINTER CARTRIDGES

Lots of people have complained about the printer cartridge scam.  You buy an inexpensive printer, only to be stuck for buying ink cartridges for outrageous prices.  

At Office Depot, to get all four colors for my printer costs $166!!!  

To buy a whole new printer costs $4 more - $170.  They're considerably cheaper online. And then there are kits to refill the old cartridges yourself.  But HP and the others know consumers are too lazy to fill their own cartridges or in too much of a rush to shop around.  Presumably, the market would work if people balked at these prices and didn't buy the new cartridges.  Or is this just a ploy to get people to buy a new printer.  Either way this contributes to waste for the earth and profit for HP.  

What is the cost of a whole printer and packaging compared to four cartridges?  

From Stock Analysis:

"Financial Performance

In 2023, HP Inc.'s revenue was $53.72 billion, a decrease of -14.61% compared to the previous year's $62.91 billion. Earnings were $3.26 billion, an increase of 4.18%."

So they took in almost 15% less total revenue in 2023 than 2022, but increased their profit by 4%.  How much of that profit was from printer cartridges?  

PRIVATE CONCERTS

Before the pandemic, someone invited us to a home nearby to hear a concert.  Since then we've been to four or five such concerts.  Usually it's a $20 donation plus a dish for the buffet to attend.  Sunday we went to a jazz performance there - the first one for us that wasn't classical. 

Here's John Damberg on the vibes and Mark Manners on the guitar.  Bob Andrews hand can be seen on the bass, and drummer Eiden Pospisil is hidden in the background.  The second half connected much better for me - I'm not a big vibes fan and Damberg spent more time on the piano and the guitar had a bigger role.  

But it was a wonderful evening with lots of very friendly people - maybe about 40 or so.  [While I called it a 'private' concert, it was noted in the Anchorage Daily News, so anyone could have come, though there obviously has to be a limit on how many could attend.]

Cooper Bates - Takes Me Back To The Many Amazing Artistic Finds Out North Brought to Anchorage

 Here's Cooper after the performance.  

One man for a bit over an hour.  Telling the story of a black man who grew up on a farm in Kansas, where all the other families were white.  

After high school, he heads for Dallas to enroll in acting school.  

Every now and then there's a black out for - not really sure, maybe five or ten seconds - and then the story continues.  

On the one hand, this is the kind of story we rarely used to get to hear - a first hand account of growing up Black.  On the other hand, it's the kind of story people are working hard to suppress in various states.  While Anchorage pushed back against the Mom's For Liberty School Board candidates at Tuesday's election, comfortably reelecting the incumbents, MatSu has set up its own book review committee.  

Out North, for years, brought up relatively obscure, but brilliant acts, that challenged my brain to think bigger and different, many if not most with an LGBTQ (there was no + on the list back then) flavor.  This performance tonight reminded me of those stimulating evenings.  And with Cyrano's having moved into what used to be the Out North theater, my brain is still confused.  It's like two good friends having merged into one person.  

But let's get some basic information up for those who might want to see Cooper perform - and everyone reading this should.  

The performance is called Black Out.  It plays this weekend and next at Cyrano's Playhouse - the old Out North Theater, the Old Airport Heights library building, 3600 Debarr, kitty corner, almost, from Costco.  

I hope people share this post, or at least this event, widely.  This is great story telling.  Tonight's audience was pitifullysmall - about 10 people who hardly reflected the diversity of Anchorage.  At one point in the story telling, the aspiring actor has concerns about only playing Black characters, mostly white stereotypes of Black criminality.  But he even has doubts about being cast as Jackie Robinson because he's Black.  His acting mentor tells him about how the kids who watch him act will be inspired by watching him in that role.  None of those kids were in the audience to be inspired tonight.  [The program says for 14+.  The ticketing website says 16+.  Rape and suicide are covered in the play, but I think parents can judge whether their 15 year olds can deal with that.  But they weren't there.]  

Below is the stage just before the performance began.  

The playwright (also Cooper Bates) writes in the program

"For two decades, I've poured my hart and should into these productions.  They're not just performances;  they're a testament to my journey of self-discovery and purpose.  From witnessing racial bullying on the playground in first grade to grappling with my authenticity in my twenties, this play encapsulates the evolution of my existence."

I guess that can sound a bit self-centered, but the performance isn't.  He began talking to a few audience members and shaking hands with them.  He played not only his own part, but also some of the key people who influenced him along the way.  Throughout, he was relating a story directly to the audience.  

I had told my wife to poke me if I fell asleep during the performance.  That wasn't an issue.  I was listening and watching intently the whole way.  

My one frustration with the production was my inability as an audience member to let the actor know how much he had pulled me in.  I wanted to applaud at the blackouts, like you might do after a a musician does a particularly exciting riff, but by the time I was ready to applaud, the lights were back on and he had picked up the (one-way) conversation.  Could he read our faces? (We were both wearing masks which made it harder for him.)  Our body language?  We were close, but I'm not sure how much light was on us.  And no one else seemed ready to clap.  Maybe it would interrupt his rhythm.  And so, by the third or fourth black out, the audience silence was the norm.  And the blackout at the end, well the audience didn't know for sure if it was the end or not and didn't start applauding until the lights came back on and Cooper bowed.  

Or maybe the rest of the audience wasn't as into it was we were.  I thought the applause at the end was meagre for such a powerful performance. Maybe a bigger audience would have made some noise.  

I also want to mention that he projected his voice really well.  I wear hearing aids and when we watch Netflix, say, I usually have the subtitles on so I can 'hear' everything.  (But I hate reading the lines before the actors say them.)  But I heard every single syllable tonight.  Cooper didn't have a mic, and didn't speak particularly loud, he just projected well.  

You can get tickets at this link.  I'm hoping to see it again.  With the bigger audience it deserves.  

Why Making Real Time Sense Of Israeli-Gaza War Is So Difficult -Part V

This is Part V on this topic.  Previously:

Preview:  GUERRILLA WARFARE - A brief discussion of guerrilla warfare, then you can watch the classic film on the Algerian war for independence from France:  The Battle Of Algiers.

Part I of this series is here.  It identifies and briefly discusses the following topics I think important to be aware of when confronting the Israeli-Gaza war.

1.  PROPAGANDA, MISINFORMATION, OBLITERATION OF TRUTH

2.  THE PROBLEM OF NETANYAHU 

3A.  HISTORIC ANTI-SEMITISM

3B.  THE HOLOCAUST

Part II is here.  It looks at:

4. GENOCIDE

5. ZIONISM

6. ISRAELI MISTREATMENT OF PALESTINIANS 

7.  TEACH YOUR CHILDREN WELL - PALESTINIAN AND ISRAELI EDUCATION

Part III is here.  It covers

8.  RUSSIAN IMMIGRANTS AND ISRAEL'S RIGHT WING TILT 

9.  IGNORANCE

10.  GUERRILLA WARFARE]

11.  FACTORING IN WHAT'S HAPPENING BEHIND THE SCENES

Part IV is here.  It focuses on Hamas.  Particularly the Hamas Declaration of 1988 and the update in 2017

PART V:  Is there any resolution?

The point of these posts was for me to get a better understanding of the context of the Israeli-Gaza war - more depth about the history, the players, the truth.  Posting what I found would share what I was learning with readers.  I wasn't looking for conclusions.   But I think I can at least make some observations, that could be thought of as tentative conclusions as of now.

Observation 1:  Resolution of the Israel-Gaza war will not come from the parties themselves

The parties here means Hamas and the Netanyahu government of Israel.  

Hamas wants to remove Israel from the land it now controls - West Bank, Gaza, and Israel itself.  They want to install an Islamic State with the laws coming directly from the Koran.  See previous post that looks at the Hamas Declaration.  

Netanyahu has been truculently anti-terrorist most of his life and sees all Palestinians as either complicit with Hamas, or potential Hamas members.  In addition, prolonging the war delays his removal from office and potentially facing the consequences of his corruption trials.

Observation 2.  Killing every last member of Hamas Won't Solve Israel's problems

Netanyahu has said he has to root out every member of Hamas.  It's his justification for the killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza.  But the deaths and destruction the Israelis have wrought in Gaza is only sowing the seeds of future terrorism.  

The children who are experiencing this war are not going to say, "It's terrible, but we understand Israel needs to destroy Hamas."  There may well be many Palestinians who resent Hamas and who would feel oppressed in a Hamas controlled Palestine.  Some may even blame Hamas for the retaliation against Gaza.  But all will hold generational hatred for the people who have killed so many of their family members and destroyed their communities.  

Netanyahu's war may wipe out all the pre-war members of Hamas, but it ensures that every Palestinian has a lifelong animosity toward Israel and probably Jews as well. The survivors may not join Hamas, but they will support organizations that resist Israel's power over them.  They will never trust Israelis.  'Nakba' is still a rallying cry for Palestinians.  It refers to the forced expulsions of Palestinians in 1948.  The destruction of Gaza will be added to the generational hatred.  

Observation 3:  Netanyahu's war has used up any moral capital Jews may have still had as survivors of the Holocaust.  

Need I say more?  Netanyahu and his far right supporters in Israel have become morally equal to those who exterminated Jews in WW II.   

Observation 4:  Any lasting peace is now only possible post-Netanyahu and post-Hamas

And given Observation 2 there will be no easy path.  Israelis will have to radically change how they feel and think about Palestinians.  That will be very difficult.  Harder yet will be for Palestinians to trust Israelis.  

But there were reports of tens of thousands of Israelis in the streets calling for new elections and a cease fire.  

Mahmoud Abbas has formed a new cabinet in the West Bank.  I don't know the politics of the West Bank well enough, but he's been the leader for 20 years.  Probably new leaders need to take over before there is any meaningful change.  

Observation 5:  There has been conflict between Palestinians and Israelis since even before the State of Israel was created.  People have been trying to make peace for 70 years.  I'm not holding my breath for anything more than a temporary period of relative quiet until the next explosion.  

I have more observations on at least one more issue still being debated by people who range from totally ignorant to understandably biased to intentionally polluting the truth.  Those trying to bring more clarity to the issue are drowned out, attacked even, by those whose passions are amplified over social media, by Russian and Iranian trolls, by true believers of all stripes, and those using the destruction of Gaza as a righteous outlet of their own personal demons.  I agree that the war against Gaza that Israel is waging is horrific and should end, but then what?  

The topic I've begun working on, and which will probably be my next piece in this series, will look at the criteria for how to judge the claims of people to a section of geography in the world.  It's worth looking at, but my observations here suggest it's more an academic exercise than anything that will have any influence on anyone.  

My Bike Season Has Begun

This is no April Fool's post.  While the bike trails through the greenbelts still have a decent amount of snow and ice, the sidewalks/bike trails along the major roads in Anchorage are pretty much clear. 

Here I am on Providence headed toward Elmore (formerly known as Bragaw).  No snow, but lots of post-snow debris.  And riding along the streets still means watching out for cars hitting puddles and splashing anyone on the sidewalk at that point.  

Here's were the Elmore bike trail dips down to let folks use the tunnel to get over the the UAA dorms.  Still clear, but the retreating snow leaves a much narrower path.  

And here I'm up from the dip looking back at the snow my tires couldn't get a grip on.  But it was all clear except for this stretch.

I've now completed the first 5.6 km of my Anchorage summer biking expedition.  

In previous summers I've imagined routes in other places as I plied the Anchorage bike trails.  I've gone from Santiago, Chile south to  Conception; Chiangmai to Bangkok;  and from Istanbul to Cappadocia.  Last  summer I didn't pick a foreign route.  But this year I've decided I'm going from Kyiv to Mariupol.  

That's 868.9 km according to Bikemap.com.  That's not quite as far as I hope to go.  Last summer I did about 1200 kms total.  Sorry the map isn't quite clear enough to read the details, but you get the point.

I'm hoping this will give me a better sense of the geography of Ukraine.  I was thinking I could go another 300 or 400 kilometers past Mariupol.  But maybe I should start in Mariupol and after Kyiv I can head west toward Poland or south toward Moldova.  .