This week’s thoughts
Gaza Ceasefire
I’m writing this on Friday; the ceasefire is scheduled to take effect on Sunday, when this newsletter is published. Can we breathe a temporary sigh of relief? I hope with all my heart. But I am not optimistic, because the U.S. and Israel are not entering into this ceasefire for the most important reason — to stop their slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza.
Some analysts across the political spectrum credit Donald Trump with forcing Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to bend his knee. Maybe. Not because he cares about Palestinians (or Jews for that matter), but because he wants to expand his business empire with the Arab monarchies and because he likes to stroke his own ego. He has surrounded himself with pro-Israel warhawks and Christian Zionist zealots who have two objectives: helping Israel annex occupied territory and starting a war with Iran. Florida Rep. Mike Waltz, whom Trump nominated to become his national security advisor, told Fox News,
“We’ve made it very clear to the Israelis, and I want the people of Israel to hear me on this: If they need to go back in [to Gaza], we’re with them,” he said. “If Hamas doesn’t live up to the terms of this agreement, we are with them.”
This is Netanyahu talking through Trump’s MAGA puppets. The current ceasefire agreement is essentially the same one that President Biden proclaimed and that the U.N. Security Council approved in the spring, and which Netanyahu sabotaged, with Biden’s help, claiming that Hamas was the obstacle.
A ceasefire that leads to full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza would jeopardize the advances Israel has made in advancing its project to Judaize Palestinian land. Israel has killed and injured more Palestinians and turned more Palestinians into displaced persons and refugees since October 7 than in the previous 100 years.
On Friday, The Times of Israel reported that fascist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich of the Religious Zionism party and Netanyahu “reached an agreement over the far-right minister’s demand that the [Israeli Defense Forces] return to fighting Hamas in Gaza after a temporary ceasefire...” In return, Smotrich pledged not to bring down Netanyahu’s government. I have a hard time believing that, if Netanyahu decides to send the military back into Gaza, Trump will not bless him with billions more in weapons of mass destruction.
I have been wrong before. (I think the last time was two years ago on a Tuesday.) I hope I am wrong this time.
“Jewish, minor, not dangerous”
The headline in Haaretz said “Israeli Teen Mistakenly Jailed for Espionage Recounts ‘Harshest of Conditions.’”
An Israeli teen who was jailed for espionage and released after it was revealed that he had been involved in a Military Intelligence operation which was approved by a brigadier general, recounted his experience on Tuesday, saying he had been placed in an “extremely cold” cell “used for enemy captives.”
Ori Elmakayes was 17 years old when, at the behest of two Israeli army officers, he agreed to post “minor classified documents” that they supplied him, as part of a disinformation campaign. Because one hand doesn’t know what the other one is doing, another state agency, the Shin Bet — Israel’s FBI — arrested Elmakayes for “publishing classified information on social media.”
“It was extremely cold, and there were Arabic inscriptions on the wall. The only thing that was there was a hole in the ground to use as a toilet. It was a cell for enemy captives for all intents and purposes,” he said.
“I realized where I'd been brought, that it was not a regular facility and that I was the only Jew there. I was the only one with a magnetic strip on my cell saying ‘Jewish, minor, not dangerous.’”
And there it is: In Israel’s apartheid legal system, the most important difference between prisoners is their nationality. The magnetic strip was there to remind prison guards not to treat Elmakayes as if he were a Palestinian, some of whom are minors but all of whom are dangerous.
“The Rise of Big Potato”
I love that headline. In an investigation published earlier this month in The Lever, Katya Schwenk reported that four companies “now control at least 97 percent of the $68 billion frozen potato market” — Lamb Weston, the J.R. Simplot Company, McCain Foods, and Cavendish Farms — and that antitrust lawsuits against the companies claim that “the companies were in fact colluding when they all hiked their prices at the same time in 2022.”
The cost of fries at McDonald’s has increased by 138 percent since 2014, and hash brown prices have more than doubled in recent years at fast food joints including Jack in the Box and Hardee’s. At local dives and mom-and-pop joints — like Saltzman’s bar, Ivy and Coney — the cost of fries is going up, too.
Between July 2022 and July 2024, the price of frozen potato products increased by 47 percent across the board, according to court documents. This rise was initially tied to a jump in operating costs among the companies that peaked in 2022 — but even as these expenses have declined over the last two years, product prices have remained high.
Move over, Big Oil and Big Pharma.
And it’s not just potatoes.
In all corners of the food industry, similar developments have occurred: Industries consolidate, and prices jump. Even niche markets like almond milk and microwave popcorn are increasingly controlled by just a few firms, driving higher prices for consumers and uncertainty for farmers and suppliers — and helping to fund lucrative stock buyback programs and payouts for executives and top shareholders.
This consolidation affects not only consumers, but also mom-and-pop stores who don’t buy in volume and therefore can’t get discounts, and potato farmers who can’t shop their produce to the highest bidder. It is one of the reasons why, even when the rate of inflation decreases, our food bill does not.
Greenland preparing for Trump
Thanks to Sally Chaffee.