F**king Mondays: Iran's President Dies. Blame The Jews!

Also: a two state solution could be close, Netanyahu's predicament, and Brexit regrets!

Ebrahim Raisi, dead at 63. Image source: Twitter

Welcome to another edition of “F**king Mondays!” In the roundup today:

Iran’s president dies. Blame the Jews!

I try to make a point of not talking ill about the dead, but the death of Iran’s hardline president Ebrahim Raisi isn’t exactly a tragedy. Killed in a helicopter crash over the weekend, Raisi, was known as the “Butcher of Tehran” for his role in the execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988. Raisi helped set up “death committees” that oversaw mock trials run by religious clerics. More recently, Raisi oversaw a severe clamp down on women’s dress, strictly enforcing Iran's “hijab and chastity law” that led to nationwide protests in 2022. Raisi also helped orchestrate severe crackdowns in the protests that resulted in hundreds of deaths.

Raisi was widely regarded as the man to succeed Iran’s 85 year-old Supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. There is of course a lot of chatter about who killed him — was it an accident, or did Khamenei have him killed? Given Raisi was a loyalist to the regime, this is an unlikely explanation.

The most popular theory, at least on Twitter, is that the Israelis had something to do with it (when in doubt, always blame the Jews!). There is no evidence thus far indicating them, or any reasonable motivation. As Peter Zeihan writes, the Israelis don’t “have a lot to gain right now by shooting down the sitting president of a regional adversary. The aftermath would be incredibly ugly and would do little to change Israel’s current risk profile: love him or hate him (most people probably hated him), Raisi is not the center of power inside Iran.”

The most likely explanation is the one the Iranian state media is reporting, that it was an accident. Either way, many Iranians are openly celebrating his death indicating more protests against the Islamic fascist state might be on the way.

A two state solution might be closer than we think

Highly respected Israeli peace activist and former negotiator Gershon Baskin tweeted this today:

Baskin is known to have very high level contacts in Hamas, so this is definitely credible. Hamas’s new tone on a two state solution is a clear sign that the organization is running out of options. The Israelis are continuing their onslaught, pushing into Rafah and methodically destroying Hamas’s infrastructure. Regardless of whether you agree with Israel’s invasion, it does appear to be putting real pressure on Hamas.

Netanyahu’s dilemma

In another positive development, Benjamin Netanyahu is facing new threats to his leadership. Benny Gantz, the leader of the National Unity Party and member of the war cabinet threatened to leave the government over Netanyahu’s unwillingness to adopt a plan to end the war in Gaza. Gantz told the media that “personal and political considerations have begun to penetrate into the holy of holies of Israel’s security.”

“If you [Netanyahu] choose to lead the nation into the abyss, we will withdraw from the government, turn to the people, and form a government that can bring about a real victory,” he said.

CNN reported that Gantz:

….demanded by June 8 the adoption of a six-point plan. That plan would secure the return of Israeli hostages, the demobilization of Hamas and the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip.

It would also lead to the creation of an alternative government for Gaza, “an American-European-Arab-Palestinian administration” that would “lay the foundation for a future alternative that is not Hamas or [Mahmoud] Abbas,” the President of the Palestinian Authority.

Why is this so dangerous for Netanyahu? The CNN report continues:

Over the next three weeks, compromise may yet keep the war cabinet intact. And Gantz is not part of the broader coalition government, which means his potential withdrawal from the war cabinet would not automatically trigger a collapse of Netanyahu’s government.

It would, however, leave the prime minister more exposed to the demands of far-right- members of his cabinet.

All this comes at a time of daily protests in Israel, from those calling for immediate elections to those demanding that securing the hostages’ release should be the absolute priority, and those wanting an end to further humanitarian aid being allowed into Gaza.

Netanyahu is in an increasingly impossible situation. The more he tries to placate the hardliners, the more the Israeli public turns against him. If he doesn’t placate the hardliners, he loses their protection and his coalition falls apart.

There can be no peace with Netanyahu at the helm, so fingers crossed the pressure continues to mount.

Brexit regrets

I was caught completely off guard by Britain’s vote to leave the European Union in June of 2016. I regarded the referendum as a gimmick set into motion by prime minister David Cameron to appease the hardliners in his party. There was no chance, I thought, that Brits would be idiotic enough leave a union that took 50% of their exports and conferred massive economic benefits to them over decades.

Unfortunately, they were. Britain has paid an enormous price for the promises made to them by grifters like Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings, Nigel Farage and a group of ideological billionaires including James Dyson and Jim Ratcliffe. Instead of flourishing outside of the EU, Brexit, as Foreign Policy reporter Liz Cookman writes, has only “delivered recession, gloom, and despair”.

For several years, the architects of Brexit have denied the reality of Britain’s shrinking economy and hugely diminished role in the global market. But things have gotten so bad, some are now finally accepting Brexit was a complete and utter disaster. From the Independent:

Brexit-backing billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe has said the UK’s exit from the EU “didn’t turn out how people anticipated”.

Sir Jim was a prominent backer of the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union in 2016, but now says the referendum hasn’t delivered what was promised.

He said the referendum “was largely about immigration”, as “vast numbers of people” coming into the country had overburdened the NHS and police. He told Sky News: “That’s what Brexit was all about, and nobody’s implemented that. They just keep talking about it. But nothing’s been done, which is why I think we’ll finish up with the change of government.”

What Sir Jim neglected to say of course is that the “vast number of people” coming into the country were the ones staffing the NHS in the first place. Also, the current government can’t implement stringent quotas on immigration, because huge labor shortages means Britain needs immigrants to keep the economy afloat. While great Ratcliffe has accepted Brexit has been a giant failure, his explanation for his change of heart is typical of militant ideologues: if only we’d been more extreme, the results would have been different.

See you next week!

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