Chef Jose Andres told Reuters today that his World Central Kitchen workers were targeted by Israel and killed, systematically, car by car.
“This was not just a bad luck situation where ‘oops’ we dropped the bomb in the wrong place,” Andres said.
“This was over a 1.5, 1.8 kilometers, with a very defined humanitarian convoy that had signs in the top, in the roof, a very colorful logo that we are obviously very proud of,” he said. It’s “very clear who we are and what we do.”
I believe him. From everything I’ve read the destuction of that food convoy had to be deliberate. See also José Andrés: Let People Eat at the New York Times (no paywall).
I’m reading that while President Biden is very angry, there are no immediate plans to change policy. A shame; this incident would have been the time to make a change.
I wrote a couple of days ago that Israel’s ultra-orthodox faction would be drafted into the military for the first time. Today Fred Kaplan in Slate expands on this a bit.
Netanyahu’s coalition, which put him back in power early last year, consists entirely of factions to the right of his own quite right-wing Likud party. If Netanyahu lets this draft exemption expire, he will alienate the ultra-Orthodox factions that support him; if he extends it, he will alienate the secular Jews that support him. Either way, he could be in trouble. His coalition’s majority in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, is narrow. If just five of his partners were to resign, as some are threatening to do over the exemption issue, he would lose his majority. New elections, which otherwise aren’t scheduled to take place until 2026, would be held. Polls indicate that he would lose.
It’s not clear to me whether this draftng has begun. There were reports that some Haredi have received draft notices, but other reports say the military is still preparing to send draft notices and that there are some number of days to work out a compromise. But the end of the Haredi draft exemption has been called “an earthquake” in Israel.
It’s obvious Netanyahu would prefer Trump to win the election, with the assumption that Trump will give him everything he wants without having to apologize for killing civilians.
In other news:
David Kurtz at Talking Points Memo wants you to know that Special Counsel Jack Smith Is Done With Judge Aileen Cannon And Lets It Show.
Jack Smith takes a new tone of incredulousness and disdain for her mishandling of the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case.
The issue at hand is her failure to have yet ruled on Donald Trump’s motion to dismiss based on his inane, unprecedented, and counterfactual reading of the Presidential Records Act. Instead of rejecting the argument out of hand, Cannon not only is entertaining it but ordered the two sides to propose jury instructions based on two different deeply flawed interpretations of the PRA.
That set up an nearly impossible challenge for Smith: How do you draft jury instructions that are so wrong on the law without looking like an idiot, undermining your own case, and pissing of the judge?
The answer: You can’t.
So Smith went all in, no longer trying to placate, educate, or hand-hold Cannon.
Smith ripped her interpretations of the PRA: “both of the Court’s scenarios are fundamentally flawed and any jury instructions that reflect those scenarios would be error.” He said her “legal premise is wrong” and her requested jury instructions “would distort the trial.”
Smith all but threatened to take Cannon up on appeal, urging her to rule promptly and not wait until a jury has been seated and thereby deprive the government of the opportunity to appeal. At this point, Smith would prefer an adverse ruling to no ruling at all: “Whatever the Court decides, it must resolve these crucial threshold legal questions promptly. The failure to do so would improperly jeopardize the Government’s right to a fair trial.”
Just read the whole thing.