Netanyahu Scrambling to Avoid War-Crimes Warrants
April 19: Israel bombs Iran … Netanyahu sweats warrants … Haitian deportations … Judge gags press …
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Israel Attacks Iran for Attacking Israel for Attacking Iran
Israel bombed a military base in Iran overnight, with Iran claiming to have intercepted three attack drones. The attack appears to be the retaliation promised by Israeli still-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after Iran’s stunning but failed weekend barrage of drones and missiles.
Iran’s dramatic direct attack on Israel was in response to Israel killing top Iranian officials at a consulate in Syria on April 1. Which was in response to nothing at all, and was the exact moment when Mideast tensions began, shattering decades of peace and harmony there.
Israel’s new attack is of a dramatically smaller scale, with minimal damage, suggesting an attempt to avoid further escalation while still honoring Netanyahu’s political domestic imperatives. To wit, National Security Minister Ben Gvir called the Israeli strike “weak” this morning.
More diplomatically, the Wall Street Journal reported that this was “a limited strike aimed at avoiding an escalatory cycle.”
Russia, Iran’s patron, this morning seemed to signal that Iran, too, should avoid escalating. “We continue to advocate restraint,” said Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, who was not referring to Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the AP’s headline on its lead story this morning reads, “Iran fires at suspected Israeli attack drones…” I mean, what kind of belligerent mad dog country fires at innocent, peace-loving attack drones?
(Fun fact/speculation: Remember how Jordan, awkwardly situated between Iran and Israel, said it shot down Iranian drones attacking Israel simply because they had crossed into Jordanian air space? So, did Jordan shoot down any Israeli drones last night? Not so much, I’m gonna guess.)
Netanyahu Scrambling to Avoid War-Crimes Warrants
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is hard at work trying to head off war-crimes charges from the international court investigating Israel’s war crimes. (h/t)
Israeli TV news reported last night — because they haven’t been shut down yet — that Netanyahu has raised the issue with British Foreign Secretary David Cameron and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, seeking international help to block any charges.
And there was an “emergency discussion” of ministers at Netanyahu’s office Tuesday to address possible war-crimes warrants from the International Criminal Court.
Netanyahu’s government reportedly has received messages that warrants could come in the near future. And, yeah, “messages” is pretty damn vague, but that’s what the report says, so.
Of course, the longer Netanyahu keeps committing war crimes, the easier it is to avoid facing those pesky charges of non-war crimes, a dynamic known to mathematicians as The Netanyahu Perpetual Crime Paradox.
U.S. Shoots Down Palestinian Statehood
The U.S. yesterday single-handedly blocked a U.N. vote that would have led to Palestinian statehood.
Twelve members of the 15-nation Security Council voted to send Palestinian statehood for a vote by the full General Assembly, where it has overwhelming support — and where the U.S. has no veto. (Of the General Assembly’s 193 countries, 140 already recognize Palestine individually.)
Britain and Switzerland abstained. The U.S. vetoed it.
U.S. Deputy Ambassador Robert Wood said yesterday that the U.S. veto “does not reflect opposition to Palestinian statehood but instead is an acknowledgment that it will only come from direct negotiations between the parties.” Which is like a judge explaining that a death sentence doesn’t mean they want the convict to die, it’s just an acknowledgment that they will.
Ukraine Update
I’ve been trying (semi-successfully!) to keep tabs on evangelicals rallying ‘round Ukraine now that word is out in evangelical circles that for billions of dollars they can impose at least a few of the Ten Commandments — plus the Leviticus shit and the made-up abortion shit — on future-Ukraine.
Yesterday, it was former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s turn to get on board. Pompeo and former Army Vice Chief of Staff Jack Keane wrote to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), applauding his decision to allow a vote on military aid for Ukraine. Pompeo’s letter is, as far as I can discern, free of evangelical dogwhistles (e.g., “freedoms,” plural).
But Pompeo is about as Jesus-y as you can get. A literal believer in the literal Rapture.
Religious media are paying more and more attention. Here’s The Baptist Paper Wednesday: “Christian leaders continue urging House Speaker to support Ukraine.” And general-audience right-wing media have been joining in. Here’s Newsmax interviewing anti-LGBTQ+, pro-prayer breakfast Ukrainian leader Pavlo Unguryan. And it’s seeping into the mainstream, like this USA Today op-ed headlined “Russia killing and torturing Ukrainian Christians, not 'protecting' them. Ignore MTG.”
Unguryan told Newsmax he’s in Washington this week to tell lawmakers “what Russia is doing against evangelicals in Ukraine." And Newsmax has a teeny little “journalism” tell in how they’re handling him. Their headline refers to him not as “Ukrainian evangelical” but by his full name — the implication being their readers should know who he is. And maybe they’re starting to!
On the flipside, meanwhile, Politico reports that House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) sudden moves to allow a vote this weekend on Ukraine aid came as a result of two things: Intel and politics.
On the intel, Politico says, Johnson’s flip came after “fresh intelligence described the U.S. ally at a true make-or-break moment.” Which I’m a little skeptical about…up until now, was U.S. intel describing the position of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as hunky-doryy?
The other explanation: Pres. Joe Biden carefully managing the relationship, easing Johnson toward stepping up. Discussing the Biden White House, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) told Politico, “they think [Johnson] has the insight and intelligence as well as the temperament to be a listener.”
That seems plausible to me, but it also elides all the evangelical covert diplomacy I’ve been reporting on. Maybejustmaybe the growing narrative of evangelical persecution had something to do with the shifting political winds here?
After all, as I reported, Unguryan met with Johnson back in January. And here, from left to right, is Unguryan last month with Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Blumenthal, and GOP operative Karl Ahlgren.
Biden Resumes Deporting Haitians
Haitians without lawful immigrant status in the U.S. are once again being deported. Back to a country the U.S. says is too dangerous for its own diplomats.
“The security situation in Haiti remains untenable due to the violence caused by gangs,” the State Department said when it airlifted non-essential workers and other U.S. citizens from the embassy last month. Official U.S. travel guidance warns of “kidnapping, crime, civil unrest, and poor health care infrastructure.” So, yesterday, they flew anywhere from 50 to more than 70 Haitians back there.
Armed gangs have effectively dismantled Haitian civil society, attacking and disabling essential services ranging from health care to shipping. More than 1,500 people have been killed this year. An estimated four million Haitians regularly experience hunger and gun violence is commonplace. Gangs yesterday killed eight people in Port-au-Prince and commandeered a police station.
Rep. Yvette Clark (D-NY) called the resumed deportations “unacceptable.” Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) wrote, “we should not be deporting people to Haiti. Period.” But we are.
Campaign Watch
TRUMP Like any bona fide mobster worth someone else’s salt that he stole instead of working for it, D4FRFP1 Donald Trump wants his taste. His cut. His piece.
I speak not of pizza.
According to Salon, as of yesterday, the Trump campaign cartel is taking a 5% cut of any donation any Republican candidate gets by using an ad that displays Trump’s name or image. Any campaigns that don’t fork over the tribute “will be held responsible,” the Trump operation said to any candidates that have a nice little campaign going here, shame if something happened to it.
On the other hand, Don Trump is not a cruel god. The campaign in its benevolence said “any split that is higher than 5% will be seen favorably by the RNC and President Trump's campaign,” adding that someday he might be in a position to do a favor for them, if they came to him with respect on the day of his daughter’s wedding.
Crime Watch
JURORS I’m sorry, truly, but you don’t tell journalists not to report what transpires in open court. That’s not how any of this works, as the kids no longer say.
But that’s what Judge Juan Merchan did yesterday. I’ve been downplaying TFN’s Trump trial coverage because Jesus Pogoing Christ you’re getting firehosed with it everywhere else even though 99% of it is just popcorn entertainment, not news. But I wanted to flag Merchan’s order because this is important.
The order came after Fox shared identifying details about a juror and aired concerns that some were “stealth liberals.”
What Fox did was shitty, but it’s not too far from the shittiness of other outlets spending breathless hours filling that annoying gap between commercials with their own speculation about jurors. But the media speculation is a problem for society at large to fix by not watching “news” that ignores actual news in favor of popcorn.
The real problem with Merchan is that he’s warping our norms to accommodate the gravitational pull of D4FRFP Donald Trump’s norm-warping. And Merchan’s doing that because he’s so far not willing to police those norms every time Trump blurts something about the jury or witnesses by tossing Trump in the clink (which is what the kids call jail…in 1948).
This is the real danger of autocrats, not so much that they batter down our norms, but that we warp them by choice, because at each incremental challenge it’s easier for the norms police to yield just a little bit and shift the pressure load somewhere it’s not supposed to be, violating those norms, too. In this case, the essential right of the media to report what happens in open court. How long do we think it’ll take for the conspiracy theorists to fill the resulting vacuum of information about the jury with made-up shit that potentially poses even greater threats to the jury and the justice process than Trump’s social-media blurts did?
TCB
ME ON THE RADIO There’s a halfway decent chance I’ll be on SiriusXM’s The Michelangelo Signorile Show later today. These things can always get canceled, but I’ve been asked to come on and discuss my reporting about the covert evangelical diplomacy on Ukraine. Reader, I said yes. I’m expecting to be on some time in the 4 o’clock hour, eastern time. You can get more info here.
And, of course, on Monday I’ll be doing my weekly “The Fucking News” segment with Nicole Sandler on her program, so I hope you’ll join us for that, which you can watch and/or listen to live, free, at NicoleSandler.com.
You can also find me any time on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Bluesky, Mastodon, or Spoutible. But if you want to reach my heart the best way to do that is to become a paid subscriber so I don’t have to take a real job and can keep bringing you original reporting and semi-original analysis. Thank you and have a great fucking weekend. Do something new, ffs!
Go get ‘em, kids…!
D4FRFP = Disgraced, quadicted, fraudster, rapist, former President.
Israeli war planes supposedly went over Syria.