Israeli Forces Invade Southern Lebanon - The Tuesday AM Quickie 10/1/24

By Jacob Silverman — Oct 1, 2024

Happy 100th birthday to former President Jimmy Carter, who can one day ease off this mortal coil with a cleaner moral slate than any of his contemporaries. -Jacob

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10/1: It's News Day Tuesday!

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Today you'll read about Israel's ground invasion of Lebanon, Democrats' electoral dangers in Michigan, ever more examples of corruption under New York City Mayor Eric Adams, and a major labor strike.

With a Blank Check From Biden, Israel Invades Lebanon

Israel officially invaded Lebanon yesterday, sending in ground troops for what it called – not very believably – "limited, localized, and targeted ground raids." The proper term for that is an invasion, yet many media outlets adopted the Israeli framing and called the incursion a "ground offensive" or something equally euphemistic. (Last week, remember, Israel was "escalating to de-escalate" by blowing up off-duty Hezbollah foot soldiers in supermarkets.)

Hezbollah and the IDF have been trading missile and artillery fire for a year, with Hezbollah claiming that it was harassing Israeli positions in support of militants in Gaza. Through that period, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been threatening an invasion of southern Lebanon. More recently, Israeli ministers and politicians have been clamoring to do to Lebanon what they've done to Gaza.

Despite private grousing, President Joe Biden has nothing to restrain Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who enjoys a pretty much uninterrupted flow of weapons, intelligence, logistical support, and diplomatic cover from the United States. His administration may have even encouraged Israel's belligerence toward Lebanon. "Senior White House figures privately told Israel that the U.S. would support its decision to ramp up military pressure against Hezbollah — even as the Biden administration publicly urged the Israeli government in recent weeks to curtail its strikes," according to Politico.

Israel recently blew up thousands of pagers and communications devices in Lebanon, which for much of the world represented a dangerously escalatory act of terrorism. For the Biden administration, it was an audacious blow against a shared enemy. Israel was then free to launch a massive bombing attack on a Beirut suburb in order to kill Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah, with hundreds of Lebanese people rendered as collateral damage. They've since bombed targets in Yemen and Syria.

It's unclear how long this invasion will last. Netanyahu's government has talked of destroying Hezbollah – which is effectively impossible – and creating conditions for Israelis to return to northern communities that have been under rocket attack – which can only happen via diplomatic negotiations that Israel refuses to pursue. The Israeli attacks have already created hundreds of thousands of refugees and Lebanon's worst humanitarian crisis since its civil war. Half the Lebanese population has been rated as "food insecure."

Rather than sending aid, the Biden administration will be deploying "a few thousand additional U.S. troops and more fighter jets to the Middle East," according to WaPo. The US State Department has said it will not evacuate Americans from Lebanon but is now offering an online form people can fill out to request "assistance." The cheapest one-way flight from Beirut to New York is currently more than $4,500 on Google Flights. Americans stranded in a US-backed war have a few options.

"There is nowhere in the Middle East Israel cannot reach," Netanyahu said in a recent video. For a man bent on waging perpetual warfare to maintain his political career, that's a problem.

QUICKEST QUICKIES

NYC Investigators Search Sheriff's Office for "Unvouchered Cash" New York City investigators searched a sheriff's office looking for cash that had been seized in raids on unlicensed cannabis shops but hadn't been entered into evidence. Sheriff Anthony Miranda, who was appointed by recently indicted Mayor Eric Adams, is reportedly under investigation for soliciting bribes. The sheriff's office has participated in raids on hundreds of so-called weed bodegas and has been accused of illegally taking cash. via Gothamist.
Longshoremen Prepare For Major Strike Today, thousands of workers at Gulf Coast and East Coast ports are starting a strike after the International Longshoreman's Association was unable to reach an agreement with the United States Maritime Alliance, which represents major ports. President Biden could intervene to force ports to stay open but (refreshingly, actually) said he "doesn't believe in Taft-Hartley." via WaPo, AP, and Jeff Stein/X.
Georgia Judge Rules Against Abortion Ban A Georgia Superior Court judge ruled against a state law that banned abortions after six weeks. Judge Robert C.I. McBurney wrote that the law was unconstitutional because it violated a woman's "liberty" to "control her own body, to decide what happens to it and in it, and to reject state interference with her health care choices." The ruling will likely be appealed to Georgia's state supreme court. via NYT and CNN.
Another Eric Adams Loyalist Resigns In yet another marker of NYC's descent into pennyante corruption, Timothy Pearson, a close advisor to Mayor Eric Adams, resigned yesterday. FBI agents seized Pearson's phone on Sept. 4. He's also been accused of sexual harassment in four separate lawsuits. via NYT.

SOME NUMBER

82,000

That's how many Lebanese Americans live in Michigan, according to the 2020 census, making it the most populous state for people of Lebanese descent. As USA Today recently noted, "most of the Lebanese American population in Dearborn and Dearborn Heights are Shias with ties to the southern part of Lebanon, which has faced a number of [Israeli] attacks over the past year."

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PARTING WORDS

"We've never wanted to see a diplomatic resolution with Hamas."

-- State Department spokesman Matthew Miller speaking at a daily briefing with journalists. Miller then claimed that the US government always wanted a negotiated ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and the destruction of Hamas.

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