Our latest at Substack: "In the closing days of 2006, the Ethiopian army launched a lightening quick offensive against the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), a Somali version of the infamous Taliban. The Ethiopians were not fighting alone but with the covert assistance of American intelligence and Special Forces. That assistance later became overt as the United States navy and air force joined the fighting. Somalia’s neighbors helped too, closing their borders to fleeing Islamist fighters. Through these combined efforts, by the second week of January, 2007, the ICU had been crushed and the internationally recognized Transitional Government (TG) restored to power." Head on over to the Horn of Africa.
That piece was fun to do. We set aside an article on William the Bastard conquering England to write it. We remember reading about the campaign, 'Ethiopian tanks defend western civilization' said the headline at Strategy Page. We remember the flash of inspiration. We remember writing at night at Borders after the first born went to bed. We actually used Somali news sources to put the narrative together.
The Times of Israel's latest poll shows nothing in Israeli politics has changed: "The Channel 13 survey gave Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud 28 seats, followed by Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid, which received 20. Naftali Bennett’s Yamina remains steady at third with 11 seats, while Gideon Sa’ar’s New Hope sees another poll predicting a single-digit result with just nine seats. The majority-Arab Joint List received eight seats followed by the secular, right-wing Yisrael Beytenu party, which received seven, similar to the ultra-Orthodox Ashkenazi United Torah Judaism party. The Haredi Mizrahi party Shas was predicted to receive just six seats in the next Knesset compared to its current nine." For those keeping score the lead is establishment right, center, right and right, then the Arabs, then the nationalists, then the Haredi parties. Labour, once Israel's natural governing party, is relegated to the fringe with 6 seats. The Blue and Whites are even registering. Yesh Atid is the great centrist hope.
Convergence: There are a couple of hundred thousand Ethiopian Jews living in Israel now. In fact they just brought over another batch. Authorities have done the DNA test, and sure enough, these people carry Jewish identifiers. Ethiopian Jews are the literal descendants of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Here's Yityish "Titi" Aynaw, Miss Israel 2013. You're welcome.
Hell Time Man: Bob Dylan's forgotten classic, the theme song to another forgotten classic, Band of the Hand, which we re-watched this weekend for the first time since 1999. Dylan is just a bad-ass blues man here. The video conveys the theme, feel and chaos of the movie. Lot's of 1980's era MTV cool. Listen to that climbing and descending riff, the slashing licks at the end, and the organs which underpin the whole thing. This video and film (we're bringing back What Will's Watching this week) are what 80's weekend late night felt like. What a romp. It's hell time maaaaaaan...it's band of the haaaaaaaand:
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