F**king Mondays: Protestors vs Palestinians, Israel's Rafah Threat, And Trump Is Robin Hood!

It's that time of the week again!

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

Israel prepares to invade Rafah?

It appears that ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas have stalled (again), leading to Israel preparing for an assault on Rafah. From the Washington Post:

Israel’s military on Monday ordered about 100,000 civilians in parts of Rafah to evacuate “immediately” to a humanitarian zone, saying it will operate with “extreme force” in those areas. Israel’s determination to invade Rafah remains a sticking point in cease-fire negotiations, which appear to have broken down.

Initial reports indicate Hamas was not willing to budge on a permanent end to the war:

The latest proposal, submitted to Hamas last week, includes an initial 40-day cease-fire, during which Israeli troops would suspend combat operations and withdraw from populated areas. Hamas would begin releasing hostages in exchange for the release of Palestinians in Israeli prisons, at the same time.

Hamas wants a permanent end to the war, a demand that Israel rejects.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed Hamas for holding onto “extreme positions,” saying said that Israel had shown willingness in negotiations. He accused Hamas of “holding up the release of our hostages.”

There is a chance Israel is using the threat of invasion to force Hamas to accept a deal. Because if Israel does fully invade Rafah, we will see suffering on an enormous scale. The Biden administration has made it clear to Netanyahu that it strongly opposes an invasion for those reasons, and Israel can ill afford to lose its major ally.

Israel has already destroyed Gaza and while Hamas is still active, its fighting capability has been severely deteriorated. It is understandable that Israel wants Hamas gone, but at what cost? There is no indication that an invasion of Rafah will change anything — more civilians will die, and the Hamas leadership will remain intact, holed up in Qatar.

The time to make a deal is now, even if it is temporary. The people of Gaza are being annihilated, and at this point, it is hard to see any logic behind Israel’s strategy.

A tactical disaster

Some readers seem to think that I am opposed to the student protests against Israel’s assault on Gaza. I am not. I am opposed to the way in which the protests are being conducted. My primary criticism is that the protests aren’t actually helping the Palestinians. By conflating Zionism with Nazism, harassing Jews on campus, praising Islamic terrorist groups, and electing spokespeople who believe it is fine to murder Jews (sorry, “Zionists”), the public has turned against them.

As Columbia professor John McWhorter writes in the Times, the protests now appear to have little purpose other than to vent rage at the “oppressors”. This echoes the mistakes made during the Civil Rights movement, where “a conflict arose within the movement between those who sought to keep the focus on changing laws and institutions and those who cherished more symbolic confrontations as a chance to speak truth to power.” Mc Whorter continues:

The initial protest was an effective way to show how fervently a great many people oppose the war, but the time had come for another phase: slow, steady suasion. This is not capitulation but a change in tactics, with the goal of making the activists’ work pay off. We recall King most vividly in protests, including being imprisoned for his participation. However, his daily life as head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was about endless and often frustrating negotiations with people in power, which eventually bore fruit. In this, as much as in marches, he and his comrades created the America we know today. Smoking hot orations about Black Power might have instilled some pride but created little beyond that.

My issue with the new generation of activists is that they are trapped in a radical ideology that renders them incapable of nuance, or independent thought. The stultifying language, reverse racism, and fetishization of suffering transforms legitimate issues into narcissistic cosplaying spectacles. Columbia protestors genuinely believe they are “liberating” buildings on campus and battling oppressive administrators who are trying to “starve” them out. This isn’t effective protest — this is a bunch of middle class students coopting the suffering of Palestinians out of boredom.

These same students were silent after the October 7th massacre of 1200 innocent Israelis, have said nothing about the Chinese government’s treatment of Uyghurs, and have apparently forgotten about Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine.

This isn’t to say that there shouldn’t be protests about Israel’s assault on Gaza, but there are very serious concerns about the current movement’s motives.

The New York Times: Donald Trump is like Robin Hood!

We’ve gone after the New York Times pretty hard for “bothsidesing” the 2016, 2020, and 2024 presidential elections, but this article stood out more than others:

The Times inexplicably invited “Deep State” conspiracy theorist and Trump apologist Matthew Schmitz to pen an article comparing the former president to Robin Hood. Why? Because however flawed he might be, he symbolizes the “outlaw” character Americans find appealing. “Outlaws were lawless, yes,” he writes. “But in the name of a higher law. It is no coincidence that Mr. Trump recently described himself as the “public enemy of a rogue regime.””

According to Schmitz, paying off pornstars to subvert elections, blackmailing foreign nations, obstructing justice, stealing classified documents, and organizing violent coups on the Capitol is totally fine, because Trump is running “as an outlaw who will restore law and order.”

Someone pass the sick bucket.

Trump fined, threatened with jail

When you survive multiple impeachment and try to overthrow the US government without consequence, it is easy to see why Donald Trump regards his latest legal battle as a mere inconvenience. Unfortunately for Trump, the judge in his hush money trial appears to be unafraid of punishing him for his insouciance. From CNN:

Judge Juan Merchan has found former President Donald Trump in contempt for violating the gag order in his hush money trial for the 10th time and said he’ll consider jail time going forward.

“Going forward, this court will have to consider a jail sanction,” Merchan said Monday.

“Mr. Trump, it’s important you understand, the last thing I want to do is put you in jail. You are the former president of the United States and possibly the next president as well,” Merchan said.

“The magnitude of this decision is not lost on me but at the end of the day I have a job to do,” the judge added. “So as much as I don’t want to impose a jail sanction … I want you to understand that I will if necessary and appropriate.”

Merchan fined Trump $1,000 for the violation and ordered he pay the fine by close of business Friday. Last week, the judge fined Trump $9,000 for nine previous violations of the judge’s gag order.

One imagines Trump’s behavior isn’t going to play well with the jury either, so as usual, Trump is makes things much worse for Trump.

See you next week!

Please consider supporting The Banter by getting a Banter Membership. You’ll get access to Members Only articles, our locked archive, The Emergency Meeting Podcast, and Member chat threads. You’ll also be supporting truly independent media. Thank you!

Listen to the latest episode of The Banter Roundtable Podcast:

The Path To Dictatorship, Shooting Dogs, And Human Sacrifice

For Banter Members: