What The Al-Ahli Gaza Hospital Bombing Really Meant | ArtiFact 49: Alex Sheremet, Keith Jackewicz

The IDF is accused of bombing the al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza. As a result, both Israelis and Palestinians have staked their reputations on the responsible party. Yet this would already be the 35th hospital strike in Gaza since 2008, while fully half of Gaza’s medical infrastructure had been leveled in Cast Lead and again in Protective Edge. In this video, political commentators Alex Sheremet and Keith Jackewicz deal with the fallout of the Hamas attack in Gaza, the Israeli counteroffensive, the meaning of the al-Ahli Baptist Hospital strike, Palestine’s history, and Joe Biden’s increasing lack of credibility in America and abroad. They also discuss Alex’s essay on the topic and Keith’s own essay on “asbestos capitalism”.

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B Side Topics: when Alex forced Keith to carry water gallons home; water-wars & over-stimulation; politics of de-growth; if you want Alex in the Marxist revolution, keep your grubby hands off of his bananas; wastefulness in the healthcare system; Putin’s military vs. social & educational spending; why sanctions have not crippled Russia; Ukraine youth paramilitary camps; Crimea & Russia’s first-use nuclear doctrine; the Supreme Court forced Israel to allow a Gazan to leave for medical treatment; white guilt is counter-productive but points to a positive historical development; Alex’s process of writing his Gaza essay; how skeptics of the War on Terror became Israel apologists; the subtle shift in calling Hamas’s terrorism “war crimes” alongside Israel’s own; most “human shields” allegations are false; why Leftists have a messaging problem; realpolitik in Israel-Palestine; how Joe Biden’s wars might come back to haunt him in 2024; polling problems & unfavourability; Keith’s impressions of the new Ceylan film, “About Dry Grasses”

Alex Sheremet’s essay on the al-Ahli Baptist Hospital bombing: https://www.automachination.com/israel-identity-gaza-hospital-attack/

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Timestamps:

1:54 – framing the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital explosion; analyzing the Hamas attack of October 7; the gradual breakdown of the IDF; does Hamas want a Stalingrad

9:13 – Alex’s essay on the implications of Al-Ahli Hospital; why Israelis (and Palestinians) have hinged so much on the outcome; Keith’s essay on Asbestos Capitalism; Israel prefers to engage via airstrikes than IDF ground incursions; how “impersonal wars” & Israeli airstrikes create plausible deniability for high body counts; Israeli vs. Russian war crimes; Joe Biden is tying his hands with unpopular wars

20:21 – how Gaza & the Ukraine War shows limits of American unity; Israeli propaganda tries to connect Jews & Judaism with unpopular state actions; Jewish anti-Zionism; Keith’s experiences at a pro-Palestine rally; Keith: a dialectical attraction to Judaism; how Judaism has been subsumed by a colonial project

31:06 – Edward Said’s essay on the Oslo Accords: The Morning After; how the media changed from anti-PLO to pro-PLO; signing away Palestinian rights for positive media coverage; Oslo & settlement acceleration; assessing Yasser Arafat; Israel & the Arab world thinks of Palestinians as a millstone around the neck; how Palestinian lives are counted as less worthy

45:41 – Palestine’s ethnic cleansing is no different from 1000s of other groups in history; AIPAC is the NRA for liberals; Netanyahu should have become irrelevant after 2003; Netanyahu’s direct cash transfers to Hamas; how the response to Hamas’s 2006 election destroyed all possibility of democracy in Palestine; Gaza as a testing ground for fascism

59:22 – the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital attack in Gaza; how the attack has become so symbolic for both Palestinians & Israelis; the murder of Shireen Abu Akleh; Israel’s massacre of the 2018 Gaza protesters; no, the pro-Palestinian side does not rest on the culpability for the Al-Ahli outcome; how Netanyahu mouthpiece Hananya Haftali accidentally revealed Israeli’s propaganda machine

01:22:29 – Israel keeps delaying its ground offensive; Israel has nothing else politically except Netanyahu; Ariel Sharon’s cynical reasons for Gaza withdrawal; Ehud Olmert’s pathetic two-state solution peace plan; how Joe Biden continued Trump’s foreign policy

Tags: #gaza #israel #freepalestine #politics