You might think that writing a daily blog is difficult, or tiresome, or sometimes just a slog. None of this is true for me. As long as I have the 15-30 minutes I need to scribble something out, I don’t find it at all an imposition. On the contrary, my problem is that, throughout the day, as I see something, hear something, think of something, or do something, I want to write it down and send it out. I could keep someone busy all day just reading what I write. But I couldn’t afford to pay the salary such a reader would demand.

At any event, I spent a fair amount of time yesterday with my radio on C-Span, when I was driving between various errands. Let me start with what I think is a diversion – Yesterday morning, I spent about 30 minutes listening to the morning C-Span call in show, and it was one of those half hours where they have “open phones” and people can call in and say whatever they want.

Now free speech is a wonderful thing, I know. But spreading disinformation is not so wonderful. And the majority of C-Span open phone callers spread a great deal of disinformation. You should hear the things most of them say about our completely open border – about all those people from China coming into our country. Or about how we treat those who cross the border – do you know that we kick veterans out on the street to make room in luxury hotels in New York City for illegal aliens? Do you know that the reason we had so much COVID in this country is that Joe Biden let everyone in the country and then bused them around to all sorts of places, spreading COVID as they went – that Joe Biden was the biggest COVID spreader in the world? The fact that he wasn’t even president yet seems irrelevant. On the other hand, do you know that the reason there are cartels in Mexico is that Ronald Reagan wanted to stop the Contras from immigrating into our country, so they formed cartels instead? Or that the first prime minister of Israel spent his time sinking ships and bombing hotels?

It goes on and on. I think either C-Span should stop their open phone segments, or they should have a fact checker there who can simply say “no”, or “I don’t think so”, or “I never heard that; better check it out”.

Onward:

During the afternoon, I listened to parts of a panel discussing the war in Gaza, and then the Foreign Minister of Egypt being interviewed by a Wall Street Journal reporter. The panel also was made of high ranking Arab political leaders – from Egypt, from Jordan, from Qatar and from Saudi Arabia. Both were in front of live audiences – I do not who or where. And in neither case did I hear the entire conversation.

I thought some interesting things were said that should be noted. First, everyone condemned what happened on October 7. Second, no one was standing up for Hamas. Third, everyone condemned the Israeli reaction, the displacement, illness, injury and the loss of life, the destruction of the Gazan infrastructure. Fourth, everyone begged for a ceasefire, and claimed not to understand why the United States was opposing it, since trying to arrange a ceasefire when two sides are fighting is what other countries always do; that Israel is getting special treatment.

OK, those are the obvious things. But there is more.

First, the representatives of each of these countries kept saying that the only solution was a two state solution and all of the current problems exist because of the occupation. No one said “from the river to the sea”, no one said Israel has no right to exist. If anyone addressed the failure of Hamas to recognize the legitimacy of Israel, or the slogan “from the river to the sea”, I didn’t hear it. But clearly no one was endorsing this position.

Second, the representatives of each country blamed Israel, not the Palestinians, for the failure so far of a two state solution, that Israel always wanted conditions that would limit the sovereignty of the Palestinian state. What they said was interesting, and I think sincere – I guess there are two sides to this question.

And they made it clear that Israel’s position on Palestinian statehood has gotten worse as time as passed, with Netanyahu publicly opposing a two state solution, with Ben Gvir and Smotrich talking about genocide, and with another Knesset member (whose name I did not hear) recently saying that all of Gaza should simply have been leveled. And of course, they said that the occupation of the West Bank has been made more difficult by the increase in the number and size of Jewish settlements, and support from some ministers of Israeli absorption of all of the West Bank.

Third, no country said it would not work with Israel – they were critical of Israel today, but supported both continued diplomatic relations and the Abraham Accords.

When they talked about the “occupation”, they included Gaza as an occupied land. Just because Israel pulled its military and its citizens outside of Gaza, they implicitly contended that Gaza remained occupied, by virtue of the limitations placed upon its residents. They also maintained that Israel, as the occupying power, has the responsibility to ensure the safety of its population, and the rebuilding of its infrastructure.

I learned some things. For example, I didn’t know that the US calls Hamas, but not the Muslim Brotherhood, a terrorist organization, while Egypt calls the Brotherhood, but not Hamas, by that designation. The Foreign Minister claimed that Egypt condemns all radical Islamic movements, actually all radical religious movements. Why doesn’t this include Hamas? He said it was because Israel and the US wanted Egypt to remain in communication with Hamas, as it share a Gaza border, so it could act as a mediator when necessary. I had not heard this before.

The Qatar representative was interesting. He said that Qatar’s biggest concern was the remaining hostages, saying that all should be released now without conditions, and that the Qatari government was working as hard as it can on this question. He obviously didn’t have to say this – it was interesting that he did.

And of course, both Egypt and Jordan said they would not take in any refugees from Gaza (and in the process said, unsurprisingly, that Palestinians all wanted to remain in Gaza). The Egyptian foreign minister was asked if they wouldn’t take in some families on a temporary basis until residential buildings could be rebuilt. The answer was a simple “no”.

There’s a lot to think about. And for those of us who sympathize strongly with Israel, and who detest everything about Hamas, there is one question that we aren’t asking ourselves. If the October attack had happened when a different Israeli government was in power, would the Israeli response, both on October 8 and today, have been the same? Would 17,000 Gazans have been killed? Would there be so much damage to the Gazan infrastructure? Would more, or fewer, of the hostages been released by now?

Are we blindly supporting Israel’s actions which are being led by a government with whom we disagree on so many other points?

Maybe.