StocktonAfterClass

Two years ago we learned that the Supreme Court would reverse Roe v Wade. I worked through the leaked draft and tried to extract the logic of the decision. It was painful to see such tortured analysis. Some of those Trump justices had actually said that Roe was "settled law" during their hearings. That is a phrase that means, everyone agrees and it is not subject to reversal. Now, in May of 2024, Trump is running on the fact that his justices were the ones that tipped the balance on the Court. And Biden is running as champion of women's rights, promising to pass a national law once again making this a decision of a woman and her doctor. In case you missed this podcast the first time around (or want to refresh your memory) here it is once again.

Back in February of 1990 Nelson Mandela was freed from 27 years in prison. When he walked out of prison that Sunday morning, the whole world was watching. At least everyone in our house was watching. Mandela quickly became the world's greatest statesman. This is my assessment of his life and contribution. And of the two times Jane and I crossed paths with him.

I prepared this podcast last year (2023) but did not get around to posting it until now (2024). It focuses upon the time a few years ago when I was asked to speak to the graduating class. The students were there and their parents. Plus the Chancellor and Deans and other luminaries. It was a really nice event. I did make one mistake. When I came to the campus in 1973 the state of Michigan funded over 80% of our budget. Today it is well under the 25% I mentioned, maybe closer to 15%. An event such as this was not a time to ask for money, but I thought I would plant the seed.

This summarizes the main findings of a book on this topic. The Ottomans had experts in Zionism who monitored writings and developments very carefully. This podcast has surprising findings. Note: This was recorded during covid times as a class lecture (when we were not allowed to go live).

Evangeline was a standard assignment in the 8th grade when I was a kid. It was long and had big words but we read it because it made us better people. This is the story of this poem, and of my experience with it. It is also the story of Longfellow, the most popular poet of his age, and of his poems. The Village Smith, Paul Revere's Ride, Haiwatha, and the powerful Christmas poem/song, "I heard the Bells on Christmas Day." Longfellow had a painful life, but he kept writing those wonderful poems. Have you ever read a single poem by Longfellow? This is your chance to encounter his creativity.

In January, 2024 Hamas published a paper called "Our Narrative . . . Operation Al -Aqsa Flood." It is an 18 page document discussing their perspective on the events of October 7. I had not read any Hamas explanations, beyond short statements quoted by people not friendly to their side, so I immediately printed this out and read it. More than once. As I read this document, I realized I was not the only person who had never heard the Hamas perspective on those events. I knew immediately that it was something I should turn into a podcast. So here it is. I did make a mistake in the podcast. The Israeli representative to the UN tore up a document in 2021, which I reported as 2001. Then he got elected as Vice President of the organization in 2022, which I reported as 2002. There is a word Nakba which many of you will recognize but some may not. The word means Catastrophe. It is the Palestinian term for the events of 1948 when Palestine ceased to exist and the Palestinian people lost most of their land and mostly ended up in exile. March 3 update: Regarding whether there were sexual assaults during the attack of October 7, there was a New York Times story with the rather inflammatory headline about the "weaponization of rape." Then there was an expose of that story alleging that one of the authors had a bad history involving racist references to Palestinians. Then the NYT began an investigation of who had leaked such information (and more specifics) to the media. Arab-Americans claimed they were being singled out in this investigation. The NYT "guild" has filed a grievance against the Times leadership. Second update: the UN issued a report saying there had been incidents of rape. I have not read either of these stories.

This is a summary of the main points in the ICJ ruling. Below is a summary of other International Humanitarian Laws. These definine various crimes that occur within the context of war. They are distinct from genocide but could be a part of genocide. They would be heard by the International Criminal Court rather than by the High Court of Justice. The three most commonly discussed offenses are Ethnic Cleansing, Crimes Against Humanity, and War Crimes. Ethnic Cleansing "rendering an area ethnically homogeneous by using force or intimidation to remove from a given area persons of another ethnic or religious group." Crimes Against Humanity Unlike other human rights violations, war crimes do not engage State responsibility but individual criminal responsibility. This means that individuals can be tried and found personally responsible for these crimes. Prohibited acts include: War Crimes: Elements of the Crime War crimes are those violations of international humanitarian law (treaty or customary law) that incur individual criminal responsibility under international law. As a result, and in contrast to the crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity, war crimes must always take place in the context of an armed conflict, either international or non-international. Some examples of prohibited acts include: murder; mutilation, cruel treatment and torture; taking of hostages; intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population; intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes, historical monuments or hospitals; pillaging; rape, sexual slavery, forced pregnancy or any other form of sexual violence; conscripting or enlisting children under the age of 15 years into armed forces or groups or using them to participate actively in hostilities. War crimes contain two main elements: A contextual element: “the conduct took place in the context of and was associated with an international/non-international armed conflict”; and A mental element: intent and knowledge both with regards to the individual act and the contextual element. In contrast to genocide and crimes against humanity, war crimes can be committed against a diversity of victims, either combatants or non-combatants, depending on the type of crime. In international armed conflicts, victims include wounded and sick members of armed forces in the field and at sea, prisoners of war and civilian persons. In the case of non-international armed conflicts, protection is afforded to persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed ‘hors de combat’ by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause. In both types of conflicts protection is also afforded to medical and religious personnel, humanitarian workers and civil defence staff.

In December, 2023 South Africa filed a document before the High Court of Justice in the Hague accusing Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinians of Gaza. This was for its actions against Gaza in the wake of the blood-chilling Hamas attack on Israeli military positions, towns, and a music festival on October 7. Those attacks killed nearly 1200 people. There are three recent developments worth noting. First, Mexico and Chile are preparing to charge Israel in the International Criminal Court with War Crimes. This has a much lower standard of evidence for conviction than genocide. Also various parties have raised the issue of "complicity in genocide." What does this mean from a legal perspective? I am not entirely sure but the U. S. and Britain may well be charged by a group of South African attorneys. Finally, the President of Israel, Herzog, has just been accused of war crimes in the international criminal court. This was just announced a few hours ago and there are no details about who filed the complaint, but he is now in Switzerland and could possibly be detained or arrested. You will probably know more by the time you read this. For those interested, I have a talk delivered to a class during a unit focusing mostly on the Armenian and Rwanda genocides. I also have two earlier podcasts on the Attacks of October 7. One was posted three days after the attacks, one three weeks later. Note: There is a section in the document that discusses Israeli policy on the West Bank. It discusses these policies as "apartheid." Note that I have a podcast on this topic. This is a complex podcast. If you find it painful, then you are not alone.

The Israeli election of November, 2022 brought into the Knesset some of the most extreme individuals in that country's history. To bring himself back into office, Netanyahu brought them into his cabinet. (Smotrich and Bin Gvir get the most attention, but there are others). These were people who had been brought up in the shadow of Rabbi Meir Kahane. Kahane had been banned from office and Netanyahu's new allies had also seen their party banned. But they had reconstituted themselves into a new configuration and evaded the ban. With the horrendous attacks of October 7 and the brutal Gaza war that followed, suddenly the thinking of those religio-nationalists has moved closer to the center of the political system. (Note: 1200 Israelis and Israeli-linked workers were killed on October 7. 22,000 Palestinians are dead as of early January, 2024, 70% being women and children). This is a reposting of an earlier podcast outlining the ideology of Rabbi Kahane. Kahane was born in Brooklyn but moved to Israel and was elected to the Knesset. He was later assassinated. At the time, his views were considered shockingly extreme. He was widely renounced by American Jews and by Israelis. (Note that someone of his thinking had conducted the Ibrahimi Mosque Massacre in Hebron in February, 1994. 29 Muslims had been killed on the first day of Ramadan, plus ten more sot by Israeli soldiers in the aftermath). And someone of this mind-set also assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin). I heard Kahane speak twice in the Detroit area in the early 1980s. I also read two of his books, Time to Go Home [a call for Americans Jews to escape to Israel before the American holocaust] and They Must Go! [ A call to expel all Palestinians so that Israel can become a Jews-only state]. Those books were chilling I also read quite a few essays by him, and one biography. As far as I can tell, those who today embrace his name and his ideas are not fundamentally different from what I heard in the 1980s. Kahane believed that anything is justified to bring the new age and to save the Jews. I thought of the accusations by radical Iraqi Jews that the 1952 bombings of synagogues were done by Zionist commandos in an effort to panic them into fleeing to Israel. I have no way to know if those accusations are correct but such a thing would surely be justified by Kahane. He was filled with hatred of Arabs, Americans and secular Jews. He believed in his cause and would do anything to achieve it. He had a definite support base in the American Jewish community, although certainly not nearly as big as the vast proportion who were hostile to him. I don’t want to be inflammatory but I wrote in my notes back in the 1980s that I felt I was in a Munich beer hall in 1924 listening to Hitler polish up a speech. I have never heard anyone quite like him. Note that in the Knesset, there are religious parties connected to the rabbis. Two are United Torah Judaism (Ashkenazi) and Shas (Sephardic). These are NOT Kahanist. If you are interested in how a similar logic works out in American culture you might listen to my podcast on the Replacement Wars.

To destroy "in whole or in part" the ability of a people to function. I delivered this talk in 2020 for a unit on Armenia. It was well before the fall of 2023 and the horrible Gaza War. As I am writing (December 2023) 20,000 Palestinians have been killed. The Israelis say the number of Hamas combatants killed is around 1700+ Gaza is no longer functioning. There have been several scholarly essays and discussions of whether this meets the standard for genocide. Here is my original introduction: On April 24, 2021 President Biden used the word “genocide” to describe what happened to the Armenians of Turkey. The use of this word had been a matter of debate since the 1970s. In 1915 the Ottoman government, fearing that the Armenians in eastern Turkey would align with the Russians, decided to evacuate the whole Armenian population of Eastern Turkey by marching them across the desert to the Arab provinces of Lebanon and Syria. They also massacred large numbers of Armenians. Many young women were forced to marry Turks, and there were many forced conversions. No one is certain how many people were lost. Most scholars say a million or 1.5 million. The Biden announcement had a softening provision, but two provocations. Biden referred to events during Ottoman times, the previous, discredited regime. This seems to spare the Turkish Republic of direct responsibility. But a State Department press release referred to the capital of Turkey as Constantinople, a Christian name not used since 1453. The State Department also used the highest estimate of fatalities, a million and a half. One controversy over the the word genocide has to do with the official definition. It requires intent. The Turks insist that while there were massive losses among the Armenians, there was no “intent” to exterminate the Armenians as a people or to commit mass murder. They also say the word draws a comparison with the Holocaust. The Armenian deaths were a by-product of war, they insist, a war in which Turks and others also died. Two points about the Armenian genocide. First, after the war, the Turks put several officials on trial for war crimes. (The word genocide did not exist at the time). Many observers wonder why the current leaders do not say, “we disagree with the word genocide but agree that some of those leaders committed crimes against some of our people, as we showed by putting them on trial and finding them guilty.” But those trials were carried out by the old regime, not seen as legitimate today. Second, the national hero of Turkey, Mustapha Kemal Ataturk, was fighting the British at the time and was not involved in these events. My lecture was recorded on my computer, not with a fancy microphone, and shared with students. I wish I could provide you with the written definitions of genocide made available to students. please listen carefully as I read definitions or as I discuss the model to predict future genocides. Three points. First, the statement that 90% of the Kosovo Albanians were displaced was an inflammatory over-statement by some world leaders. Second, Leo Kuper in his book Genocide uses the term “genocidal massacre” to describe targeted killings short of a full genocide. An example might be killing a whole village or perhaps widespread massacres to intimidate a targeted population. Third, regarding “war crimes,” there is a concept of “disproportionate response.” It consists of “extensive destruction not justified by military necessity.” . Welcome to class.

In December, 2023 House Republicans summoned the Presidents of Harvard, MIT and University of Pennsylvania to a hearing about Anti-Semitism on their campuses. They were asked if calling for Genocide against Jews would be an offense. Knowing that Republicans consider the word “intifada” (“shaking off”) and the phrase “from the river to the sea” to be genocidal, not to mention that Israel should be a state for all its people rather than a “Jewish” state, there was no way to win with that question. Nor can you expel students for saying stupid things. Plus that hearing was really about trolling for votes and donations. And the Presidents fell into the trap. The President of Pennsylvania was told that a billionaire donor was cancelling a $100 million donation. She had to resign. This was a class lecture in November, 2020. It is not an easy topic. It focuses upon how difficult it is to engage in serious discussion of the conflict and of how there are organized efforts to disrupt or silence debate. One issue is that there are groups trying to define the word anti-Semitism in a way to weaponize it forpolitical use. That will require a different podcast. However, if you are interested, see an article by Nathan Thrall in the NY Times, March 28, 2019, “How the Battle over Israel and anti-Semitism is Fracturing American Politics.” I wrote three articles in Middle East Policy on the Presbyterian debates on whether to sell their shares in five companies that cooperated with the Israeli occupation. Those can be found in the University of Michigan virtual archive called Deep Blue. I mentioned a Task Force that wrote a policy on faculty being required to write letters that raised moral issues. Here is that policy: Point I. Faculty Obligation to Support Students: Faculty should endeavor to support their students in the pursuit of their aspirations. This includes writing letters of recommendation whenever possible. Point II. The Case of a Faculty Member Declining to Write a Letter of Support. Given the right to acts of conscience as a part of academic freedom, faculty members are not obligated to write letters of recommendation for participation in programs if they judge that doing so would compromise their moral principles. Point III. Working with the Student: In the event that a faculty member declines to write a letter covered by this policy, the faculty member should consider meeting with the student to discuss the reasons for that decision. Such a discussion can be beneficial and educational for those students who may not understand the issues involved. Point IV. Due Process in the Event of a Formal Complaint: If there is a complaint under this policy against a faculty member, that matter should be referred to the department grievance committee. In such an event, there should be an initial assumption that the faculty member behaved appropriately. There should be strict adherence to due process for the faculty member, including a right to appeal an adverse finding. In the event of an adverse finding, the matter should be referred to the appropriate promotion and tenure or other review committee for consideration during their assessment of the individual’s performance of duties. There should be no sanction beyond whatever comment the committee chooses to include in their review letter. Point V. Letters for Undeserving Students: This policy affirms the established right of faculty to refuse a letter for an individual student who is academically or otherwise undeserving. Note: I was Faculty Ombudsman for 17 years. Free expression is important to me.

Are you getting frustrated with argumentation? Does it irritate you that so many people just seem to repeat tired old arguments that any reasonable person can see are not true? Well, maybe you need to listen to this podcast. Each of us carries around a narrative of logical and irrefutable arguments on this topic. Except for the fact that people outside of our group have trouble accepting it. I like this podcast. My students also liked it. I would pass it out at the beginnig of the semester. It helped them put themselves into a tradition. Here is what I wrote when I first posted this podcast: "It is often helpful to understand how we think before we approach new material. In American discourse, there are three dominant narratives on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, the Jewish Narrative, the Arab Narrative, and the Evangelical Narrative. Each of these has a way of integrating and interpreting material that creates a coherent explanation of the nature of the conflict and how the various parties interact. Many people deny they have a pre-existing narrative. Their perspectives are objective and rooted in facts. So they say. " Happy listening.

For those of you watching the mass killings in Gaza (nearly 14,000 dead in seven weeks, over 2/3 of them women and children) you might find it helpful to think back to an earlier time when Israel was once again implicated in a mass killing. This was what happened in September, 1982 during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. The Israelis are quick to point out that they did not themseslves do the killing, but neither were they free of responsibility. This podcast has two purposes: to describe what happened in those terrible three days, and to tell you what the Israeli Kahan Commission subsequently concluded. It is very clear that there will be a post-war commission to study why the Israeli security system failed to detect the extensive planning for this attack. What is less clear is whether there will be an Israeli commission to study the response. We can be certain that international bodies will conduct such investigations. Notice: This is not easy listening. (Below is my original introduction) In September, 1982, during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the Israeli army took control of West Beirut and the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Chatillah. Bashir Gemayel, the leader of the Phalangist movement (Kataeb in Arabic), had just been assassinated. He had supported the Israelis in their invasion, hoping to free his land of the PLO and of Syrian domination. The individual convicted of the assassination was a Christian. He claimed he had acted because of Gemayel’s support of Israel. Many people think Syria was behind the attack. Gemayel’s followers were bent on revenge. The visible target was the Palestinian refugee camps. The PLO forces had been evacuated to Tunis by an American-brokered agreement. Part of that agreement was that the U. S. agreed to protect the Palestinian civilians who would be left without security. President Reagan’s personal representative, Ambassador Phillip Habib, had negotiated the withdrawal of Palestinian forces and had guaranteed the security of the civilian refugees left behind in the camps. But there was extremely bad blood between the Phalangists and the PLO and this was an opportunity to get revenge for past offenses. The Israelis controlled access to those camps and allowed military units to enter. The killing went on for three days. There was a story in the Jerusalem Post as the massacres were going on. The sun was setting and a military rabbi was leading an outdoor religious service. There were sounds of shooting and screams in the distance. The Jerusalem Post said this will go down in history as the “Rosh Hashana of Shame.” Under domestic and international (i.e., U.S.) pressure, the Israelis set up a three-person commission headed by a very respected member of their high court, Justice Kahan. This is the story of that report. There are two award-winning films that might be of interest. One is an Israeli film called Waltz With Bashir, a graphic-novel type film. An officer is having nightmares of wild dogs. He starts talking to others in his unit. They are also having nightmares. It turns out they were all present during the massacres but they have suppressed what happened on their watch. The other film is The Insult, a Lebanese film. It starts with a simple confrontation between two men in which one calls the other a name. This happens many times every day without consequence so why does this incident escalate? It turns out the two parties are connected personally to these massacres. Even though this is decades later, the wounds are still there. People: Bashir Gemayel, Amin Gemayel, Raphael Eitan, Shimon Peres, Menachem Begin

Would anyone out there like to have a chat on Zoom? It is now the end of November, 2023 and I just passed 50,000 total downloads so I am thinking I should do something to honor that event. What beter thing than to talk to those of you who helped make that number possible. And I almost never get feedback from you so I really don't know who you are. We could talk about whatever you want. The War in Gaza, American Politics, Politics in your country, podcasts that you particularly liked, or didn't. Questions that you have, your favorite book, how your life is going, or how your cat is doing. You get to set the agenda. How about 2:00 Eastern Standard Time on Saturday December 2. That will be the evening for anyone in Europe or morning for anyone on the West Coast. For those of you in Asia or the Pacific, you may have to scramble a bit but you are very welcome if you can make it. Please send me an email at my university account: Rstock@Umich.edu. I will send you a link later this week. I hope to see you. Rstock@Umich.edu

What happened after the armistice in January of 1949? Of course, the major consequence was the Palestinian refugees. Thinking only of what we consider the internationally recognized boundaries of Israel, probably 80% or more of all the Palestinians inside of that area on January 1, 1948 were gone by December 31, 1948. This is the real “catastrophe,” or nakhba, as the Palestinians call it. The Israelis were insistent that none of these refugees would be allowed to return. I am very sorry I can’t deliver an hour-long talk on the refugee situation. I am just not sure how to make it work. Still, I have tried to incorporate key points into this talk and into the previous talk on the Palestine War of 1948. And again, I invite you to go to Deep Blue (see that previous podcast if you are unclear) where I have posted my briefing document on The Palestinian Refugees of 1948. As of April, 2021 this document has nearly 13,000 downloads from around the world. It is a very thorough summary of the data on the refugees, of the recent research on the topic, of the personal stories of what happened, and of the argumentation. For those interested in this subject, it is a valuable source. If you would like to read a short novel consider Khirbet Khizeh by S. Yizhar. The author was a noted literary figure (Yizhar Smilansky) who concealed his true identity so he could tell what happened when his unit took control of a Palestinian village in 1948. It was translated into English in 2008. It shocked many Israelis to realize that a person of such literary stature had experienced these things. I mentioned the mayor of El Bireh, a Palestinian town just 10 miles north of Jerusalem. His name was Abdul Jawad Saleh. I met him in Amman in 1987. He was one of the most respected of the Palestinian leaders and was later put in charge of the PLO treasury because everyone trusted him. He told me that one evening he had a knock at the door and two soldiers told him the governor wanted to talk to him. This was not unusual so he went without resistance. But they took him to the Jordan border (I think in the southern desert) and pushed him into Jordan. They then announced on the radio that he had been expelled. The Jordanians rushed units into the area to find him before he died of thirst. I met him in his apartment. His daughter was visiting and his grandson. He was the person who made the map of the dead cities and villages of Palestine. I asked him why they had expelled him (which is a violation of international law, by the way). He said they never tell you why they are expelling you or detaining you but he thought it had to do with the fact that the city was erecting a “mother statue.” It depicts a mother lifting her child to reach for a goal. It is obviously a metaphor for the Palestinian situation. He thought it was just too symbolically powerful for the Israelis. When the archives were opened by Menachem Begin in the late 1970s, Israeli scholars plunged in. By the late 1980s, they produced a new wave of histories that went beyond wartime hero narratives but relied heavily upon primary source materials: diaries and journals and memos. They were called the New Historians. Their research exploded myths about how the Palestinians had fled of their own will, for example or that the military maintained a “purity of arms.” Ilan Pappe and Avi Shlaim and Simcha Flappan were three of these. Tom Segev’s book, The First Israelis, focusing upon 1949, after the fighting was over, brings surprising new perspectives to the issues. These historians are hated by those on the Israeli right.

It has occurred to me that there is great interest in the background to the current conflict. Here is a discussion of the Palestinian Refugees of 1948. This is an extremely important topic surrounded by false narratives and inflammatory rhetoric. I have put off preparing a podcast for some time, but not because it is sensitive. I deal with quite a few sensitive topics. It goes with the territory. But in this case, a reason for my hesitation is that I have a written briefing document that is the basis of this podcast. It is very thorough and is fully available to anyone through Deep Blue. (See the separate podcast on how to access Deep Blue). It has the same title as this podcast. But I have thought for some time that transferring that written document to a podcast would be a good thing. My hesitation is that I will be reading and improvising from a printed text into the spoken word. I am worried about jumps and stops and stumbles along the way. I hope those who listen to this will find it useful. It will certainly introduce some information that is new to most of you. And if you also want to download the document from Deep Blue that is good given that it has additional information in it. https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/110670 Note that there are previous podcasts on The Palestine War of 1948, and The Palestinians After 1948. Some People in order of being mentioned: Menachem Begin, Simha Flappan, Benny Morris, Ilan Pappe, Avi Shlaim, Tom Segev, Joseph Weitz, Herbert Hoover, David Ben-Gurion, Abba Eban, Samuel Katz, Meir Pa-el, Mordechai Ra’anan, Yigael Allon, Yitzhak Rabin, Gold Meir, Abu Iyad, Aharon Cizling, Moshe Sharrett, Nahum Goldman, Walid Khalidi. Some terms, places, organizations in order of being mentioned: The Partition Plan of 1947 (181), Haganah, Irgun, Stern Gang, Plan D/Plan Dalet, Peel Commission of 1937, Deir Yassin, Haifa/Jaffa, Absentee property and the Present Absentees law, “transfer.”

This is the second podcast on this war. I have posted it a second time because Buzzsprout had technical problems andthe first posting may not have reached everyone. It was written November 1. It is written in the early stages of the Israeli invasion. Much of it has to do with implications and reactions. As I post this update on November 5, there are close to 10,000 Palestinian fatalities. Perhaps 40% of them are children.

This was written November 1. Much of it deals with the reaction to the war and the implications of the war. Note: There are approximatley 10,000 casualties. 40% are children.

On October 7, 2023, the anniversary of the 1973 War, Hamas began a massive missile barrage at key Israeli cities. Hamas soldiers crashed through the barriers that enclosed Gaza and struck at 22 different Israeli cities. They also attacked a Music Festival going on just near the Gaza border. By the time they were driven back, over a thousand Israelis had been killed. Perhaps a hundred and fifty were taken into Gaza as captives. This was the sixth Hamas-Israel combat. Most had left large numbers of dead Palestinians, many civilians, and few dead Israelis, mostly soldiers. This was different. It Was a deep psychological trauma for Israelis. How did this happen? Why did our intelligence agencies not anticipate this? After two days, I am offering my thoughts on the issues involved. On an almost hourly basis more information is being revealed so by the time you listen to this it may be dated. But I have tried to focus on some issues that are more long-term. I hope you find it of use. Thanks for listening. Glitch: The Easter Rising was 1916, not 1915. (I knew that. Why did I say 15?)

1973 October War, 50th anniversary October 6. October 6, 2023 is the 50th anniversary of the 1973 October War. This war lasted three long weeks and took the great powers (the US and the USSR) to the brink of nuclear war. It also cleared the sinuses, so to speak. Nixon and Kissinger realized that unless there was progress in working out some kind of resolution of the 1967 war, the US was going to get dragged into a major war. Let me clarify the term “The Year of Decision.” My lecture got a bit distracted on that. In 1972 Sadat spoke to his parliament and said “This is the Year of Decision.” The Egyptians knew what that meant. They cheered hysterically. The Israelis also knew what that meant. They mobilized their reserves and prepared for the attack. That mobilization cost a lot of money. But as the joke goes, what if you gave a war and nobody came? In fact, there was no war in 1972. Then in 1973, Sadat delivered another speech. “This is the Year of Decision.” Again, the Egyptians were hysterical with excitement. But Golda Meir decided she had been snookered once and would not be snookered a second time. Alas, for her, this time the war came. And Israel was not prepared. This decision wrecked Golda Meir’s credibility. She was driven from office and replaced by Yitzhak Rabin (who was elected a second time in 1992). The Israelis still argue over who was responsible for that decision not to mobilize. Let me also note that the Israelis thought it was a bit of dirty pool that the attack came on Yom Kippur Eve when many Israeli soldiers had been given home leave. Of course it also came during Ramadan so it was a religious holiday for both sides. We Americans also remember that George Washington attacked the British at Trenton on Christmas Eve when he knew the British army would be drunk. As Harvey unwisely said in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, “there are no rules in a knife fight.” Or a war. This was a class lecture and there were a few glitches along the way: paper rattling, the zoom fading. And also the laptop microphone not as good as the quality one I now hae. I hope that is not too distracting.