10/07/24
Good morning! It’s Monday, October 7th.
International Day of Peaceful Communication
Ya hear that Elon? Today, we’re all going to be nice to each other. So go touch grass and don’t go on your annoying website, because you will ruin it.
And now, the news.
Update: Middle East
-via AP News, CBS News, Al Jazeera, Vox, and CNN
Today marks one year since Hamas, the militant group that governs the Gaza Strip, surprised Israel, and the rest of the world, when they attacked Southern Israel. In their ground attack, nearly 1,200 people were killed and more than 200 others were taken hostage.
In the year since, Israel has declared war on Hamas and, in doing so, has killed more than 40,000 people in the Gaza Strip. More than 92,000 others have been injured. Health officials actually believe the number may be significantly higher, but bodies are still buried in the rubble of demolished buildings.
About 85% of Palestinians in the 141 square miles of Gaza, home to 2.3 million people before Israel’s attack, have been displaced. And now, those that has survived so far are at risk of disease and famine as food deliveries have been dangerous and not incredibly effective and destroyed sanitation systems have left garbage and sewage to pile up in tent camps that house those that have been displaced.
Hamas is backed by Iran, as is a group called Hezbollah, which operates out of Lebanon and has been an ally of Hamas for the last year.
In the past few weeks, Israel has focused more heavily on Hezbollah, as the two sides launch a series of attacks against each other.
On Sunday, Lebanon announced that the number dead is over 2,000 since the fighting ramped up. This number includes 127 children and 261 women.
Now, just before the one-year mark, the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and National Counterterrorism Center have co-authored a bulletin that noted that today may bring further escalations in the conflict in the Middle East. Both abroad and at home. It specifically notes the Sept. 6 arrest of a Pakistani national by Canadian authorities. He’s accused of planning a mass shooting at a Jewish center in New York City.
In fact, over the past year, there have been more than 10,000 antisemitic incidents since October 7th. That’s up from the 3,325 incidents the year before and marks the most recorded incidents since the Anti-Defamation League began tracking threats in 1979.
So today, on this genuinely solemn day, I’m going to repeat something I’ve said many times before. But it’s important, and it’s difficult, and so it bears repeating.
We need to hold two things in our heads at once.
Hamas, Hezbollah, and the government of Israel are all in the wrong here. Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu has led the fight in Gaza that led to the death of more than 40,000.
We need to be against what’s happening and also, at the same time, understand that antisemitism is wrong. Casual antisemitism, outright and violent antisemitism – it’s all wrong.
Two thoughts, two different things, that we need to keep in mind.
Because sometimes you hear big numbers – 40,000. 10,000. 2,000. And you hear the number but forget that those are real people who have died. We don’t know their names. We may never know their names – in Gaza, whole families have been killed.
But they are real people.
In Israel, about 70% of Israelis believe Netanyahu should resign.
Today, as we remember the 1,200 Israelis killed, the 200 hostages taken, and the resulting more than 40,000 deaths in Gaza and 2,000 in Lebanon, let’s think not in numbers, but in terms of real people. Who were here, with us. At the same time as us. And now, because of a simple and incredibly complicated geography… aren’t.
Those deaths are tragic and wrong.
As is the resulting antisemitism.
And that’s it. That’s the news.
There are 29 days until the Election.
Go to raisingvoters.org/increaseturnout and let’s go get this done!
I’m proud of people into peaceful communication. Today, of all days, let’s just be like 5% nicer. 5%.
To others. To ourselves.
And because I know you’re capable of even 7% or 8%... I’m proud of you.