November 13, 1974: Yassir Arafat's Speech to the United Nations

November 13, 1974: Yassir Arafat, Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, having been invited by the United Nations to do so, addresses its General Assembly in New York.

It was the most disgusting speech that Assembly has ever heard, and the most dishonest.

He was born in Cairo, Egypt, with the name Mohammed Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini, in August 1929, although the exact date is in dispute: Sources disagree as to whether it was August 4 or August 24. His family were Arabs from Jerusalem, and when Israel declared independence in 1948, he aided Arab rebels against them by smuggling weapons. He adopted the name Yassir Arafat, after Ammar ibn Yasir, an early companion of Muhammad; and Mount Arafat, near Mecca, a site associated with Muhammad.

He became a civil engineer, and aided both the Egyptian Army coup of 1952, which overthrew King Farouk and installed Gamal Abdel Nasser as dictator; and the Egyptian cause in the Suez Crisis of 1956. That year, he began wearing a solid white keffiyeh, different from the fishnet-patterned one he adopted later, which became his personal trademark.

Arafat was elected chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) on February 4, 1969. The 39-year-old Egyptian turned the third-rate advocacy group into a first-rate terrorist organization, feared all over the world. They hijacked airliners, and killed 9 Israeli athletes and 2 of their coaches at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, West Germany.

On November 13, 1974, as the closest thing the movement for a Palestinian nation had to a head of state, he addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations. He congratulated 3 new nations on their independence and their admittance to the UN: The Caribbean island nation of Grenada, the Africa nation of Guinea-Bissau, and the South Asian nation of Bangladesh. He addressed the deteriorating situations in "Indo-China" (not just Vietnam, but also Cambodia) and Cyprus. He denounced the worldwide arms race.

And he compared his cause to those of other "liberation movements":

The question of Palestine belongs in this perspective of emergence and struggle. Palestine is crucial amongst those just causes fought for unstintingly by masses laboring under imperialism and aggression. It cannot be, and is not, lost on me today, as I stand here before the General Assembly, that if I have been given the opportunity to address the General Assembly, so too must the opportunity be given to all liberation movements fighting against racism and imperialism.

In their names, in the name of every human being struggling for freedom and self-determination, I call upon the General Assembly urgently to give their just causes the same full attention the General Assembly has so rightly given to our cause.

He addressed Americans, invoking some of their national heroes:

I cannot now forgo this opportunity to appeal from this rostrum directly to the American people, asking it to give its support to our heroic and fighting people. I ask it whole-heartedly to endorse right and justice, to recall George Washington to mind, heroic Washington, whose purpose was his nation's freedom and independence; Abraham Lincoln, champion of the destitute and the wretched; and also Woodrow Wilson whose doctrine of Fourteen Points remains subscribed to and venerated by our people.

These comparisons were completely ridiculous. Neither George Washington nor Woodrow Wilson committed, nor advocated committing, acts of terrorism against their enemies. Nor did Abraham Lincoln, though his General William Tecumseh Sherman was accused of it in his "March to the Sea" across Georgia.

Arafat spread lies about Israel, and Jews in general:

Just as colonialism heedlessly used the wretched, the poor, the exploited as mere inert matter with which to build and to carry out settler colonialism, so too were destitute, oppressed European Jews employed on behalf of world imperialism and of the Zionist leaders. European Jews were transformed into the instruments of aggression. They became the elements of settler colonialism intimately allied to racial discrimination.

Zionist theology was utilized against our Palestinian people. The purpose was not only the establishment of Western-style settler colonialism, but also the severing of Jews from their various homelands, and subsequently their estrangement from their nations. Zionism is an ideology that is imperialist, colonialist, racist. It is profoundly reactionary and discriminatory. It is united with anti-Semitism in its retrograde tenets; and is, when all is said and done, another side of the same base coin.

This is complete bullshit. "Their various homelands"? The Jews have only ever had one homeland, in what became the State of Israel, and the Arabs had occupied it from AD 638 until 1948, including "the British Mandate of Palestine" that was in place from 1920 to 1948. And calling Zionism "racist" is a lie: In Israel, Arabs can vote. Here are the nations generally considered to be both ethnically Arab and democratic, as of 2022: Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, and, at least officially, Egypt. That's it.

Arafat said, "The Jewish invasion of Palestine began in 1881." That was 1,243 years after the Arab invasion of Israel. The Jews did not "invade" "Palestine." They returned to their historic homeland. He denounced the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which was the first step toward re-establishing a nation for Jews; and the 1947 offer of a partition of the Mandate, knowing it would run out on May 14, 1948, offering it as a compromise. The Jews were willing to be reasonable and accept it; the Arabs were not.

Arafat also accused Israel of being an aggressor nation: "In addition to the many instances of aggression committed by this entity against the Arab States, it has launched two large-scale wars, in 1956 and 1967, thus endangering world peace and security." It was Israel's Arab neighbors -- Egypt, Jordan and Syria -- that started the war in 1956. And in 1967, they already had troops massed on their side of Israel's border when Israel struck first, so Israel cannot be called the aggressor in that one, either.

And just the year before this speech, on October 6, 1973, on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur, Egypt, Jordan and Syria invaded again. Again, Israel won, and Egypt's President Anwar Sadat and Jordan's King Hussein I both finally got the message, both beginning a peace process. Syria and the Palestinians did not, and continued to threaten Israel, including infiltrating Lebanon and attacking over its border with Israel.

Arafat continued to lie through the speech, accusing Israel of "acts of,barbarism and terrorism. And yet, the Zionist racists and colonialists have the temerity to describe the just struggle of our people as terror. Could there be a more flagrant distortion of truth than this?" Yes, this very speech was one, because of the Munich Massacre at the 1972 Olympics and other acts of terrorism by Arabs against Jews over the last few years.

He called Israel "those who usurped our land, who are committing murderous acts of terrorism against our people and are practicing racial discrimination more extensively than the racists of South Africa." And for nearly half a century, people all over the world have lapped these lies up.

He cited the PLO having "earned its legitimacy because of the sacrifice inherent in its pioneering role"; and repeatedly called the land of the State of Israel "our homeland." This was a lie. The people of the West Bank are ethnically Jordanians. Jordan didn't want them, and still doesn't. The people of the Gaza Strip are Egyptians. Egypt didn't want them, and still doesn't. Why? Because Jordan and Egypt know these people, and of what they are guilty.

He said, "I am a rebel, and freedom is my cause." This was a lie: The PLO did not believe in democracy, at least not until after their defeat in the 1987-91 Intifadeh, which ultimately led to the Oslo Accord with Israel in 1993.

He closed by saying, "Today, I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom-fighter's gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand. I repeat: Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand."

The United Nations could not stop Arafat himself from letting the olive branch fall from his hand.

*

November 13, 1974 was a Wednesday. This was also the day of the "Amityville Horror" murders, and the death under mysterious circumstances of Karen Silkwood. I have separate entries for those events.

Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. There were 4 games in the NBA:

* The Washington Bullets beat the Kansas City-Omaha Kings, 118-81 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.

* The Detroit Pistons beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 98-91 at Cobo Hall (now Huntington Place) in Detroit. Bob Lanier had 40 points and 24 rebounds.

* The Phoenix Suns beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 105-100 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix. Charlie Scott scored 41 for the Suns.

* And the Seattle SuperSonics beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 108-103 at the Seattle Center Coliseum.

There were 4 games played in the American Basketball Association:

* The New York Nets lost to the Kentucky Colonels, 132-129 in double overtime at Freedom Hall in Louisville, Kentucky. Julius "Doctor J" Erving scored 44 points and grabbed 18 rebounds. But it wasn't enough, as Louie Dampier led the Colonels with 32.

* The Spirits of St. Louis beat the Memphis Sounds, 97-92 at the St. Louis Arena. Marvin "Bad News" Barnes scored 31.

* The Utah Stars beat the Indiana Pacers, 114-103 at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City, Utah.

* And the Denver Nuggets beat the San Diego Conquistadors, 132-108. Travis Grant scored 35 in defeat.

There were 8 games in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Philadelphia Flyers, 3-2 at Madison Square Garden.

* The New York Islanders lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins, 8-2 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.

* The Buffalo Sabres beat the Montreal Canadiens, 8-6 at the Montreal Forum. René Robert scored 3 goals and an assist. Guy Lapointe had 3 goals and 2 assists for the Canadiens.

* The Atlanta Flames beat the Washington Capitals, 4-3 at The Omni in Atlanta.

* The Minnesota North Stars beat the Detroit Red Wings, 7-4 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* The Kansas City Scouts beat the team that was meant to be their arch-rivals, the St. Louis Blues, 5-3 at the Kemper Arena (now the Hy-Vee Arena) in Kansas City. But the Scouts went just 2-8 against the Blues, failed after just 2 seasons, and the Blues' arch-rivals remained the Chicago Black Hawks. The Scouts became the Colorado Rockies in 1976, and the New Jersey Devils in 1982.

* The Los Angeles Kings beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 4-0 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

* The California Golden Seals beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 2-0 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.

* And the Boston Bruins and the Vancouver Canucks were not scheduled.

And there were 4 games in the World Hockey Association:

* The Quebec Nordiques beat the Indianapolis Racers, 10-3 at the Colisée de Québec.

* The Houston Aeros beat the Minnesota Fighting Saints, 8-5 at the St. Paul Civic Center in St. Paul, Minnesota.

* The Edmonton Oilers beat the Winnipeg Jets, 5-3 at the Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton. This was only the 2nd game the Oilers played there, following their November 10 opener, a 4-1 win over the Cleveland Crusaders. They had played their 1st 2 seasons, and the start of this, their 3rd, at the Edmonton Gardens.

* And the Toronto Toros beat the Vancouver Blazers, 5-3 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver.

November 6, 1989: An "Honor Killing" On American Soil

November 6, 1989: She called herself Tina Isa. "Tina" was short for the name her father gave her, "Palestina." That should have been the first sign that her story was going to come to a horrible end.

She was born in Brazil in 1972. Her mother, Maria, was a Brazilian Catholic; her father, Zein Isa, a Jordanian Muslim who called himself a "Palestinian." They moved to St. Louis, and she became an American citizen. Like most children who had no say in becoming immigrants, she wanted to fit in with her new country, and so got good grades, and made the honor roll. But she also listened to hip-hop, and liked talking about boys with her girl friends.

Her parents didn't like that. They wouldn't let her go out for school sports teams. They wouldn't let her go on school trips. They wouldn't let her get a job. They wouldn't let her date. Her father decided that he would choose a husband for her, and that he would be a man like himself: A "Palestinian" from the West Bank.

She disobeyed. She started dating a non-Muslim boy, and got a job at a nearby Wendy's. On November 6, 1989, this 17-year-old girl, on the surface like so many other 17-year-old girls in America, walked into her house, and her father called her a "bitch" and a "she-devil." He accused her of "fornication." He said, "You are going to die tonight." And he pulled a knife on her.

She begged her mother for help. Her mother did help -- her father, that is. The mother held her down, and the father stabbed her in the chest, over and over again, saying, "Die! Die quickly!" Which, having no choice in the matter, she did.

In his culture, it was called an "honor killing." In our culture, it is called "cold-blooded murder." In our law, it is called "murder in the first degree." And there is no honor in murdering your own child. Especially when her only provable "crimes" involved acting her age.

What Zein Isa did not know was that the FBI had bugged the house, because he was part of a jihadist terrorist cell they were investigating. The parents were both arrested the next day. They were convicted of murder, and, on December 20, 1991, they were sentenced to death. Zein died in prison from diabetes in 1997, before his sentence could be carried out. Maria's sentence was commuted to life in prison. She died in 2014, at age 70, still in prison where she belonged.

*

November 6, 1989 was a Monday. Baseball was out of season. On ABC Monday Night Football, the San Francisco 49ers beat the New Orleans Saints, 31-13 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. This NFC Western Division game had originally been scheduled for New Orleans, but when the San Francisco Giants reached the National League Championship Series, it was switched with the October 8 game between the teams, to avoid a scheduling conflict.

This was also the Niners' 1st game at Candlestick since October 1, due to 2 intended road games, the switch, and the earthquake that struck during the World Series, forcing a home game to be moved from Candlestick to Stanford Stadium in nearby Palo Alto, California.

There was 1 game in the NBA: The New York Knicks lost to the Orlando Magic, 118-110 at the Orlando Arena. This was only the 2nd regular-season game ever for the expansion Magic: Two days earlier, on November 4, they beat the New Jersey Nets at home, 111-106.

And there were 4 games in the NHL:

* In an "Original Six" matchup, the New York Rangers beat the Detroit Red Wings, 6-1 at Madison Square Garden.

* The Montreal Canadiens and the St. Louis Blues played to a tie, 3-3 at the Montreal Forum.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Minnesota North Stars, 2-1 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

* And the Calgary Flames beat their arch-rivals, the Edmonton Oilers, 5-1 at the Saddledome in Calgary.

November 5, 2024: Donald Trump Is Returned to the Presidency

NOTE: While these entries are dated 2022, I decided to backdate the posting dates of events from 2023 onward to the same date in 2022.

November 5, 2024: On his 3rd try, Donald Trump finally gets what he really wants: The Presidential election, winning the popular vote, an actual majority of it, and, thanks to a ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States, immunity from criminal prosecution for the next 4 years.

I had hoped that women would come through and save us. But, as is so often the case, "It's the economy, stupid." Too many women put the price of supermarket eggs over the price of their own "eggs." The Democrats did very little to point out that Trump has a record on the economy, and it was horrible.

The Hispanic men who decided they couldn't vote for a woman? Wait until they discover that the Republicans don't consider them "white."

The young, first-time-voting Arab-Americans who couldn't vote for Harris because she was a part of the Biden Administration that supported Israel over Gaza? Many of them were too young to have paid attention to the news in 2016 and 2017, and don't remember the Muslim ban, and haven't considered that Trump is a lot closer in policy to Netanyahu than Biden is. If they expected me to have sympathy for their people and their plight before, they can forget it now. Because of their votes, or non-votes as the case may be, more Americans will die than Gazans who have already died.

Trump and his Vice Presidential nominee, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, won 31 States for 312 Electoral Votes. The Democratic Party nominees, Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota, won 19 States, plus the District of Columbia, for 229 Electoral Votes.

But that popular vote? Trump got 77.3 million votes, for 49.74 percent. It's his best performance, but, for the 3rd time, he did not get a majority of the popular vote. Harris had 75.0 million, for 48.27 percent. Harris' total was 6.2 million short of Joe Biden's total in 2020. Trump's total was 3.1 million more than 4 years earlier.

The Green Party candidate, Jill Stein, got 861,000, for 0.55 percent, a gain of 452,000 over her 2020 total. The Libertarian candidate, Chase Oliver, got 650,000, for 0.42 percent, a loss of 1.3 million for his party. (In 2016, Stein got 1,457,000, for 1.07 percent; and Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson got 4,489,000, for 3.3 percent. This was enough to cost Hillary Clinton some States.)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., still on the ballot despite dropping out and endorsing Trump, got 756,000, for 0.49 percent. Other candidates got 834,000, for 0.54 percent.

Put it all together, and about 155.1 million people voted, compared to about 158.4 million in the COVID-affected election of 2020. That's about 3.3 million people who voted last time, but not this time. Where did they go? Why haven't we heard from them?

Something isn't right here. Above and beyond the result. If anything, population growth, alone, should have given both Parties more votes than they got in 2020. It's happened many times before, including a few times where the nominee of the party finishing 2nd got more votes than any previous winning nominee.

Where was this "record turnout" we kept hearing about, all year long? Where are all these "newly registered voters" we kept hearing about? Where are all these "people who've never voted for a Democrat before"?

Where were all these millions of young women that Taylor Swift supposedly registered to vote at her concerts? Did they decide that their false perception that the economy was bad -- or their equally false perception of their white privilege being enough to overcome their status as women, and thus as second-class citizens in a Trump society -- was more important than any of the many reasons not to vote for Trump? Did they betray their beloved Tay-Tay, who was very open about her feelings about Trump, and her endorsement of Harris?

Maybe a lot of them went to Trump. If he did get them, it wasn't a big chunk of them, which might well have been too suspicious.

Did they register, or maintain their registration, and simply not vote, because they didn't like either candidate? If that was the case, they should have sucked it up and voted for Harris, anyway, because she's not a Fascist, a rapist, a felon, and an idiot, who sent terrorists to try to sabotage the last election, while Trump is all five of those.

Harris conceded at 4:22 PM the next day. In a speech lasting 12 minutes, outside Frederick Douglass Hall at her Alma Mater, Howard University in Washington, she told her supporters to accept the result, but to not give up the fight.

In the Congressional elections, the Democrats gained 2 seats in the House of Representatives, not quite enough to take control. The Republicans gained a net 3 seats in the Senate, to take control. Trump now controls all 3 branches of the federal government.

Three Democratic incumbents fell: Jon Tester lost to Tim Sheehy in Montana, Sherrod Brown lost to Bernie Moreno in Ohio, and Bob Casey Jr. lost to David McCormick in Pennsylvania. The Democrats got a little good news in the Senate, as promoted from the House were Adam Schiff of California, Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware, Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Andy Kim of New Jersey. Blunt Rochester and Angela Alsobrooks of adjoining Maryland, defeating former Governor Larry Hogan, gave the Senate 2 black women for the 1st time.

Small gains for the Democrats aside, Trump and his fans got what they wanted. They own it all now. Whatever happens over the next four years, it is all on them.

They have bet their lives, and they have bet everybody else's lives, on Trump having a successful second term. Even though his first term was, by any rational measure, a complete disaster. The day he left office the first time, the country's economy was in tatters, it was causing the inflation you blamed on Joe Biden. Over 1 million people died from COVID, when he could have saved the vast majority of those had he taken it seriously. The crime problem had gotten worse. And he hadn't come close to solving the border problem you care so damned much about.

They decided that his first term, his various failures, his various crimes including impeachable offenses, his various bigotries, and the other evidence of his low character don't matter. They also decided that, whatever virtues Harris has, they don't matter, either. Whatever I might think of such an attitude, it is their right.

But he is now 78 years old, older than Biden was when he was elected, and he is morbidly obese. And even though that they also know that, if, for whatever reason, he can't complete this term, the Presidency will fall to J.D. Vance. I'm sure that not one of them was undecided, heard that Vance was the choice, and chose Trump on that basis. They're so ignorant that, aside from those actually from Ohio, most of them had probably never even heard of Vance before that.

But it's all on him Trump, and it's all on his voters. Whatever happens over the next four years, it's because they chose this guy.

If it works out in their favor, they are well within their rights to gloat.

If it doesn't -- if Trump crashes the economy a second time, if crime gets worse, if the immigration problem is not fixed, if there is a foreign-policy disaster, if there is another pandemic -- I am well within my rights to tell you that I told them so.

Given history, we know that a President needs to avoid a "Depression," a "Vietnam," a "Watergate," an "Iran Hostage Crisis," and a "COVID." Trump already had a "Depression," a "Watergate," and introduced "a COVID" into the discussion, all in his first term. Now, he has to avoid all of them in his second term. He could, if he had learned things.

Donald Trump is not the kind of person who learns things. Did you choose him?

Whatever happens, as was said in the first Joker film, you get what you fucking deserve.

Right before the election, the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History featured "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist playing Trump, and actress Kimberly Michelle Vaughn playing Harris.

As they usually do with the winner of the Presidential election, Time magazine named Trump its Person of the Year for 2024, as they had for 2016. They had named Swift Person of the Year for 2023, largely for her voter registration efforts. If those efforts had been successful, she would have been a legitimate candidate for Person of the Year, although it still should have been Harris. But Trump's win makes her selection for 2023 look dubious.

*

November 5, 2024 was a Tuesday. Baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. The NBA purposely scheduled no games for the day, to promote voting. There were 11 games in the NHL:

* The New York Islanders beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 4-3 in a shootout at the UBS Arena in Elmont, Long Island, New York.

* The Calgary Flames beat the Montreal Canadiens, 3-2 in overtime at the Bell Centre in Montreal. Matthew Coronato scored the winning goal, just 7 seconds into overtime.

* The Carolina Hurricanes beat the Philadelphia Flyers, 6-4 at the Lenovo Center in Raleigh, North Carolina.

* In an "Original Six" matchup, the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Boston Bruins, 4-0 at the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto.

* The Buffalo Sabres beat the Ottawa Senators, 5-1 at the KeyBank Center in Buffalo.

* The Los Angeles Kings beat the Minnesota Wild, 5-1 at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota.

* The St. Louis Blues beat the Tampa Bay Lightning, 3-2 at the Enterprise Center in St. Louis.

* The Winnipeg Jets beat the Utah Hockey Club, 3-0 at the Canada Life Centre in Winnipeg.

* The Colorado Avalanche, 6-4 at the Ball Arena in Denver.

* The Vancouver Canucks beat the Anaheim Ducks, 5-1 at the Honda Center in Anaheim.

* And the San Jose Sharks beat the Columbus Blue Jackets, 2-1 in overtime a the SAP Center in San Jose. Alexander Wenberg scored the winning goal, 1:49 into overtime.

October 7, 2023: Hamas Starts a War With Israel

October 7, 2023: Palestinian militant groups, led by Hamas, launch a large-scale invasion of Israel from the Gaza Strip.

NOTE: While these entries are dated 2022, I decided to backdate the posting dates of events from 2023 onward to the same date in 2022.

It began with an early-morning rocket barrage of over 3,000 missiles, killing at least 1,200 people in one day. It was the largest murder of Jewish people in a single day since the end of the Holocaust, 78 years earlier. It included a massacre at the Re'im Music Festival, 6 miles in from the border with Gaza, in which over 260 people were killed.

To put this in perspective: As of 2023, Israel is home to 9.8 million people, about 1/34th that of the U.S. Proportionally, 1,200 times 34 = 40,800. Not only is that proportionally equivalent to over 13 "9/11s," but it's about 2/3rds of what the U.S. lost over 8 years in Vietnam -- in one day.

The Gaza Strip is about 25 miles long, and about 4 miles wide. Not that Israel is a large nation: They are about 300 miles north-to-south, and 43 miles east-to-west from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. Jerusalem traffic is notoriously bad, but, theoretically, a driver can cross Israel in less than an hour.

Because Israel has limited the Palestinians to Gaza, and to parts of the West Bank, people all over the world accuse Israel of being an "apartheid state." This is a lie. Arabs living in Israel have more rights there than they do in countries where they are the overwhelming majority.

But the Arabs living in Gaza, which Israel willingly gave up in 2005, elected Hamas to lead them the following year. The Arabs living in the West Bank subsequently elected a Palestinian government without Hamas.

"Hamas" is an Arabic word meaning "zeal," "strength" or "bravery." It is also an acronym of the Arabic phrase "Harakah al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyyah," meaning "Islamic Resistance Movement." The terrorist organization with the name was founded in 1987, with the First Intifada. They are Islamic fundamentalists, and have no interest in the freedom of anyone: Not the Palestinians, and certainly not the Israelis.

It has long been said that if the Arabs laid down their arms, the would be no more war; but if the Israelis laid down their arms, there would be no more Israel. Hamas, and their affiliated groups like the Iranian-backed Hezbollah (meaning "Army of God"), have long wanted to "drive them into the sea." Which is ironic, because, if Israel really wanted to, it could do that to the people of Gaza.

With the war that began on October 7, 2023, it became clear: The Israeli position is, "This is our land, and as soon as you begin to leave us alone, we will do the same to you": while the Hamas position is, "This is our land, and we are going to kill you all until those of you who are left leave it." Hamas has released videos showing what the BBC called "ISIS-level savagery."

Why did Hamas act now? It has been suggested that it was because Israel was moving closer to a diplomatic agreement with Saudi Arabia, the capital of the Islamic world, and Hamas couldn't handle that.

Benjamin Netanyahu, in his 3rd go-round as Prime Minister, and the longest-serving -- and most corrupt -- holder of that post, had made Israel's security his reason for staying in office. He failed in a spectacular way. Yet he had the country convinced that only he could protect the country from then on. Americans had seen this before, with George W. Bush after the 9/11 attacks.

The Saudis stayed quiet. The only nation openly on Hamas' side was Iran -- the government, that is. The people of Iran, as they demonstrated at a soccer game, were not. Most of the world has sided with Israel. Even the Federal Republic of Germany, the successor state to the perpetrator of the Holocaust, has expressed support, putting a hologram of the Israeli flag on the Brandenburg Gate in the capital of Berlin.

Israel, of course, retaliated. For the 1st time since the Yom Kippur War, 50 years to the week earlier, the nation declared war on an enemy. At the time of this writing, the war was in its early stages.

UPDATE: Eventually, the propaganda campaign launched by Hamas convinced much of the world that the Palestinians were innocent victims of acts of genocide -- not the guilty perpetrators of them, as they were on October 7, 2023.

The world turned against Israel, and a wave of anti-Semitism swept over America. Millions of people refused to support first Joe Biden, then Kamala Harris, in the 2024 Presidential election, because they "supported genocide," which was a pernicious and stupid lie. It probably cost Kamala the election, and led to the re-installation of Donald Trump.

Back in office, Trump announced plans for the redevelopment of Gaza, to do to it what he couldn't do to Atlantic City: Turn it into a personal fiefdom. Netanyahu was not willing to go along with this. But Netanyahu wanted to launch a war against Iran, and Trump was willing to go along with this, to distract Americans from the declining economy and the Epstein Files scandal.

On February 28, 2026, with most but not all of the hostages having been returned -- some alive, some dead -- and the Gaza War having no end in sight, Trump and Netanyahu started a war with Iran. Over its 1st month, it had done neither country any good.

It has never occurred to the people who refused to vote for Harris that they bear some responsibility for this. They loved the Palestinians more than they loved their fellow Americans, but Trump was far worse for both peoples than Harris would have been.

*

October 7, 2023 was a Saturday. Baseball began all 4 of its Division Series. In the American League, the Texas Rangers beat the Baltimore Orioles, 3-2 at Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore; 

and the Houston Astros beat the Minnesota Twins, 6-4 at Minute Maid Park (now Daikin Park) in Houston. In the National League, the Philadelphia Phillies beat the Atlanta Braves, 3-0 at Truist Park in the Atlanta suburb of Cumberland, Georgia; and the Arizona Diamondbacks beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 11-2 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

Some of the notable college football games that were played that day:

* Number 1 Georgia beat Number 20 Kentucky, 51-13 at Sanford Stadium in Athens, Georgia.

* In the rivalry known as, with a trophy named, the Little Brown Jug, Number 2 Michigan beat Minnesota, 52-10 at Huntington Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.

* In the Red River Rivalry, Number 3 Texas were upset by Number 12 Oklahoma, 34-30 at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas.

* Number 4 Ohio State beat Maryland, 37-17 at Ohio Stadium in Columbus.

* Number 5 Florida State beat Virginia Tech, 39-17 at Doak Campbell Stadium in Tallahassee, Florida.

* Number 9 University of Southern California (USC) needed overtime to beat Arizona, 43-41 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

* Number 10 Notre Dame were upset by Number 25 Louisville, 33-7 at L&N Federal Credit Union Stadium in Louisville.

* Number 11 Alabama won a hard-fought contest against nearly-ranked Texas A&M, 26-20 at Kyle Field in College Station, Texas. As good as Nick Saban's Crimson Tide have been the last few years, the Aggies are one of the few teams to regularly give them trouble.

* Number 13 Washington State were upset by the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), 25-17 at the Rose Bowl in the Los Angeles suburb of Pasadena, California.

* Number 17 Miami were upset by Georgia Tech, 23-20 at Hard Rock Stadium in suburban Miami Gardens, Florida.

* Number 21 Missouri were mildly upset by Number 23 Louisiana State University (LSU), 49-39 at Faurot Field in Columbia, Missouri.

* And Rutgers lost to Wisconsin, 24-13 at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison, Wisconsin.

October 7, 1985: The Hijacking of the Achille Lauro

October 7, 1985: The Italian cruise ship MS Achille Lauro is hijacked by 4 members of the Palestine Liberation Front, as she was sailing from Alexandria to Port Said, Egypt, a stopover on its way from its home port of Naples, Italy to Ashdod, Israel.

Holding the passengers and crew hostage, they directed the vessel to sail to Tartus, Syria, and demanded the release of 50 Palestinians then in Israeli prisons. After being refused permission to dock at Tartus, the hijackers killed 69-year-old disabled Jewish-American passenger Leon Klinghoffer, and then threw his body overboard. He turned out to be the only person who died in the story.

The ship then headed back towards Port Said, and after two days of negotiations, the hijackers agreed to abandon the liner in exchange for safe conduct, and were flown towards Tunisia aboard an Egyptian commercial airliner. This plane, however, was intercepted by U.S. fighter aircraft and directed to land in Sicily, where the hijackers were arrested and later tried for murder. All 4 were imprisoned, but all lived long enough to be released

* Ahmad Marrouf al-Assadi, 22 years old at the time of the hijacking, disappeared in 1991 while on parole. In 1994, Spanish authorities believed him to be in their country.

* Bassam al-Asker, 16, was granted parole in 1991. He was last heard from in 2007, in Lebanon, training Palestinian militiamen to fight the U.S. Army alongside Iraqi rebels.

* Ibrahim Fatayer Abdelatif, 19, served 20 years. On July 7, 2008, he was expelled from an illegal immigrant detention center in Rome. He has not been heard from since.

* Youssef Majed al-Molqi, 22, convicted of killing Leon Klinghoffer. He was sentenced to 30 years. He left the Rebibbia prison in Rome on February 16, 1996, on a 12-day furlough, and fled to Spain, where he was recaptured and extradited back to Italy. On April 29, 2009, Italian officials released him from prison early, for good behavior, and then deported to Syria. That's the most recently the West has heard about any of the hijackers.

The ship was stricken by bad luck throughout its history. It was launched in 1947, as the Dutch passenger liner MS Willem Ruys. It had a collison in 1953. In 1965, it was bought by Achille Lauro, a Mayor of Naples, and a member of Italy's national legislature, the Chamber of Deputies. He was an opportunist, a fascist in the Mussolini years and a social democrat afterward. He named the ship for himself, but before he could complete its renovation, there was an onboard explosion. Lauro died in 1982, before the hijacking. A fire off the coast of Somalia finally sank the ship in 1994.

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October 7, 1985 was a Monday. Baseball player Evan Longoria was born. This was the day after Major League Baseball's regular season ended, and the Playoffs had not yet begun. Therefore, the only score on this history day was on ABC Monday Night Football: The Washington Redskins beat the football version of the St. Louis Cardinals, 27-10 at Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in Washington.

September 13, 1993: The Oslo Accord

September 13, 1993: The Oslo Accord is signed on the White House lawn, with President Bill Clinton having overseen the negotiations. For the first time, Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat recognized the right of the state of Israel to exist. He and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shook hands on the deal. For one brief, shining moment, it looked like there might be a chance for genuine peace in the Middle East.

The big handshake on the White House lawn. It got Rabin and Arafat, and also South African leaders Nelson Mandela and Frederik W. deKlerk, named "The Peacemakers" and "Men of the Year" by Time magazine.

We thought this was the start of a new era of peace in the Middle East. At first, it was: In 1994, with Clinton on hand, Rabin shook hands with King Hussein of Jordan, and that peace still holds.

But in 1995, Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli, from a faction that considered any concession, no matter how small, to be tantamount to treason.

In 2000, a new Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, offered Arafat pretty much everything he wanted, including building him a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem (not the Old City). And Arafat refused it, demanding something that he was never going to get, the "right of return": "Palestinians" being allowed to return to the land they had before Israel's independence in 1948. That would lead to a massive influx of Arabs that would overwhelm the Israelis, and end the nation.

That was when we knew he couldn't be trusted. And it was the beginning of "the Second Intifada." And that was also the end of Labor Party government in Israel: Ever since, they’ve trusted the right-wing Likud Party, first with Ariel Sharon, and then with a 2nd go-round for the already-dumped, corrupt, warmongering Benjamin Netanyahu. And we're no closer to a solution than we were in 1993.

In the end, the Accord helped almost nobody -- except maybe Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu, hardliners who would never have been Prime Minister of Israel had the Accord succeeded.

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September 13, 1993 was a Monday. One Direction singer Niall Horan was born.

And these Major League Baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 3-1 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Jimmy Key outpitched Jaime Navarro. Randy Velarde went 3-for-3 with a walk. Don Mattingly went 0-for-5. Robin Yount, in his final full month as an active player, went 1-for-3 with a walk.

* The New York Mets lost to the Philadelphia Phillies, 5-0 at Shea Stadium. Tommy Greene pitched a 6-hit shutout.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Baltimore Orioles, 6-4 at Fenway Park in Boston. Cal Ripken went 1-for-4.

* The Oakland Athletics beat the Minnesota Twins, 7-2 at the Metrodome in Minneapolis.

* The Kansas City Royals beat the Chicago White Sox, 9-0 at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City. Kevin Appier (2 over 7 innings) and Mark Gubicza (2 over 4) combined on a 4-hit shutout. George Brett, in his final full month as an active player, went 1-for-4.

* The Texas Rangers beat the Cleveland Indians, 12-1 at Arlington Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas. Both teams were moving into new ballparks the next season.

* The San Diego Padres beat their arch-rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers, 4-3 at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego. Phil Plantier hit a home run to win it in the bottom of the 11th inning. Tony Gwynn did not play.

* The Seattle Mariners beat the California Angels, 10-1 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). Ken Griffey Jr., Bret Boone and Dave Valle hit home runs for the M's.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the San Francisco Giants, 6-5 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. José Vizcaíno and Rick Wilkins hit home runs. For the Giants, Robby Thompson hit 2 home runs, and Barry Bonds went 2-for-4.

* The Colorado Rockies and the Houston Astros had their game at Mile High Stadium in Denver postponed. Due to snow. In mid-September. The Rocky Mountains. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader the next day. The Rockies swept, 9-4 and 6-5. Eric Young Sr. singled Nelson Liriano home to win the 2nd game in the 10th inning.

* And the Detroit Tigers, the Toronto Blue Jays, the Atlanta Braves, the Cincinnati Reds, the Florida Marlins, the Montreal Expos, the Pittsburgh Pirates and the St. Louis Cardinals were not scheduled.

And on ABC Monday Night Football, the Cleveland Browns beat the San Francisco 49ers, 23-13 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

September 5, 1972: The Munich Massacre

September 5, 1972: The Munich Massacre takes place, bringing terrorism into the modern era.

The Olympic Games were being held in Munich, in the Federal Republic of Germany -- a.k.a. West Germany. It was the 1st time the Games were held on German soil since 1936, when Germany was controlled by the Nazi Party and Chancellor Adolf Hitler.

But all signs pointed toward the host nation, a democratic and capitalist nation, handling things properly. There were no incidents between German officials, or Olympic officials, and the athletes, coaches and support staff from Israel, which had founded itself as a nation in 1948, after the defeat of the Nazis in World War II.

But that founding resulted in great bitterness with the people calling themselves "Palestinians." With the support of Egypt, Jordan and Syria, they launched a war against Israel, but when it became clear that the war was a stalemate, a settlement was reached. Another war was launched in 1967, and, this time, there was a clear result: Israel won it in 6 days.

King Hussein I of Jordan decided that further wars against Israel were not worth it. On September 16, 1970, he responded to an Islamic fundamentalist group called the Fedayeen and its attempt at a coup by declaring martial law. Thousands of Palestinians were expelled from the country, and some were killed.

In response, a new terrorist group was formed, named Black September for this event. They waited for their chance to make a big statement. They decided that the 1972 Olympics were it, as the whole world would be watching.

At 4:30 AM, Central European Time -- 10:30 PM, September 4, U.S. Eastern Time -- eight Black September operatives snuck into the Olympic Village, wearing tracksuits so as to blend in. They found the Israeli team's quarters at Connollystraße 31. They broke in. Yossef Gutfreund, an Israeli but an official, a referee for the wrestling matches rather than an athlete or a coach, tried to distract the operatives so that others could escape. Only one did, weightlifting coach Tuvia Sokolovsky. Gutfreund was knocked out and taken prisoner. Weightlifter Yossef Romano and wrestling coach Moshe Weinberg tried to fight them off, but were killed.

The gunmen took and bound 9 hostages: Gutfreund, wrestlers Eliezer Halfin and Mark Slavin, weightlifters David Berger and Ze'ev Friedman, track and field coach Amituzur Shapira, fencing coach Andre Spitzer, sharpshooting coach Kehat Shorr, and weightlifting judge Yakov Springer.

One Israeli athlete who managed to get away before being seen by the gunmen was racewalker Shaul Ladany, a survivor of the Nazis' concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen. He got word to American officials.

Prime Minister Golda Meir of Israel asked for help from other countries: "If we should give in, then no Israeli anywhere in the world shall feel that his life is safe... It's blackmail of the worst kind." King Hussein called it a "savage crime against civilization, perpetrated by sick minds." But he was the only Arab, and the only Muslim, public figure to denounce the action which had already left 2 men dead. President Richard Nixon did not take any direct action, but asked the United Nations to do so.

Black September demanded the release of 234 Palestinians jailed in Israel, and also those of the founders of the infamous West German terrorist group Red Army Faction, Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof. Meir refused to negotiate.

The hours dragged on. ABC, covering the Olympics for the United States, kept going back and forth between Jim McKay, their Olympic anchor, and Peter Jennings, who headed their international news desk in London, and who was in Munich because, even before the terrorists struck, that was where the news was for the moment. McKay would receive a special Emmy Award for his coverage, and his coverage Munich is often given as a reason why Jennings ended up as the anchor of ABC World News Tonight after the death of Frank Reynolds.

By 4:30 PM (10:30 AM, U.S. Eastern), Munich police had the complex surrounded. At 6:00 PM (12:00 noon, U.S. Eastern), the terrorists demanded transportation to Cairo, the capital of Egypt, a country they believed would be friendly to them.

The West German authorities reached Prime Minister Aziz Sedki of Egypt (not President Anwar Sadat), and he told them that his country did not want to get involved. So the West German authorities lied to the terrorists, saying that the demand had been accepted.

A bus transported the terrorists and their hostages to Fürstenfeldbruck Airport. A Boeing 727 jet was waiting, but the flight crew were actually Munich police. The terrorists tried to board the plane, but realized they had been lured into a trap, and ran back. At 12:04 AM on September 6 (6:04 PM on September 5, U.S. Eastern), the terrorists' leader shot the hostages with an AK-47. The police started firing, and most of the terrorists were killed within minutes. The ones who got away were all captured by sunrise.

At 3:24 AM on the 6th -- 9:24 PM on the 5th, U.S. Eastern -- Jim McKay gave America the tragic news:

You know, when I was a kid, my father used to say, "Our greatest hopes and our worst fears are seldom realized." Our worst fears have been realized tonight. They've now said that there were eleven hostages. Two were killed in their rooms yesterday morning. Nine were killed at the airport tonight. They're all gone.

There were demands that the rest of the Games be canceled. Instead, the International Olympic Committee postponed all events set for September 6, and hosted a memorial service in the Olympiastadion, attended by 80,000 people. The callous reaction of IOC President Avery Brundage, a known anti-Semite from his days as U.S. Olympic Committee President in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, led to his being fired.

The remaining members of the Israeli team withdrew from the Games and went home. Mark Spitz, the Jewish American swimmer who had already completed his remarkable feat of winning 7 Gold Medals, also left. So did the Egyptian team, fearing reprisals, since it was now known that they weren't helping Black September. So did the teams of Algeria and the Philippines.

During the 1972 World Series, pitcher Ken Holtzman and 1st baseman Mike Epstein, Jewish players for the Oakland Athletics, wore black armbands in memory of the 11 Israelis killed at the Olympics. Reggie Jackson, a black man who had grown up in a mostly-Jewish neighborhood, also wore a black armband, although he was injured and unable to play. Major League Baseball officials, so often behind the times when it came to social issues, allowed it.

One more note: The Olympiastadion in Munich is 1 of 3 stadiums to have hosted an Olympic Games, a World Cup Final and a UEFA European Cup/Champions League Final. The others are the Olympiastadion in Berlin and the old Wembley Stadium in London. In 2024, the Stade de France outside Paris will make it 4.

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September 5, 1972 was a Tuesday. It was a little early for the NFL, and a bit earlier for the NBA, the ABA, the NHL and the WHA. But Major League Baseball played 10 games that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the Baltimore Orioles, 7-6 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. In a weird turn of events, neither starting pitcher got out of the 1st inning, which ended 5-2 in the Yankees' favor. It wasn't due to injury: George "Doc" Medich of the Yanks was making his major league debut, and admitted he'd been nervous; while Dave McNally of the O's simply didn't have it. Neither team hit a home run, but Roy White went 3-for-5 with an RBI for the Yankees.

* The New York Mets lost to the Chicago Cubs, 3-0 at Shea Stadium. Rick Reuschel outpitched Tom Seaver. Willie Mays did not play.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Cleveland Indians, 4-2 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Al Kaline went 1-for-3.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Minnesota Twins, 5-2 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Harmon Killebrew hit a home run, and Rod Carew went 2-for-4, but it wasn't enough.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 5-3 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Carl Yastrzemski went 1-for-5.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Montreal Expos, 5-3 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis.

* The Kansas City Royals beat the Texas Rangers, 7-2 at Arlington Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Houston Astros, 5-3 at the Astrodome in Houston. Hank Aaron went 1-for-4.

* The San Francisco Giants beat the San Diego Padres, 4-3 at San Diego Stadium.

* And the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Cincinnati Reds, 9-4 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Pete Rose went 2-for-5 with a solo home run, Johnny Bench went 1-for-3, and Joe Morgan went 0-for-4.

* The California Angels, Oakland Athletics, Philadelphia Phillies and Pittsburgh Pirates were not scheduled.