Sean Combs – Diddy – the billionaire rapper and record producer, has settled out of court for an unnamed sum a slew of sexual assault allegations from a former girlfriend singer Cassie Ventura with no admission of guilt.
His wide ranging career, drenched with music awards, including founding a clothes retailer, being a brand ambassador for a vodka outlet, and co-founding the television network and news website Revolt in 2013.
He was born 4 November 1969 New York, with a father (former Air Force and and an associate of a convicted New York drug dealer) who was shot dead when Sean was two years old.
His chart was rattled up by recent eclipses with his Mercury in Scorpio opposition Saturn in Taurus in line with the recent Lunar Eclipse; and his Venus Jupiter in Libra catching the Solar eclipse. He does have an intense chart with a Scorpio Sun and Neptune in Scorpio on the focal point of a mini Grand Trine of Mars in Capricorn trine Pluto. The Mars Pluto Neptune a legacy no doubt from his military father with drug connections.
His get-it-together 5th harmonic is exceptionally strong giving him the ability and drive to craft a solid life for himself. His 18H is also ominously notable with overtones of too much pleasure seeking not always from admirable diversions.
Cassie Ventura, 26 August 1986, Connecticut, was in her late teens when she met him and he in his mid thirties and they were together for more than ten years.
She is a Sun Virgo trine Neptune and sextile Pluto giving her an ambitious streak with her Sun square Saturn hinting her determination to be successful was fuelled by low self esteem.
Her Jupiter in Pisces is conjunct his North Node which would bring them together to promote popular trends and her Sun is probably conjunct his Virgo Moon. But her Mars in Capricorn squares his Uranus for a clash of conflicting needs; and her Pluto conjunct his Mercury and opposition his Saturn would lead to no-win discussions and trapped situations.
All of which is repeated in their relationship chart with a controlling composite Sun square Pluto; a power-struggling, resentful and emotionally unhealthy and fraught Venus Pluto square Mars and trine Saturn; a chained together Pluto trine Saturn and an ever hopeful Sun square Jupiter.
He is not moving into an easy few years with tr Pluto conjunct his Mars till late 2024 and then tr Pluto moves onto a discouraging square to his Saturn and Mercury in 2025/26 – which will be trapped, frustrating and scary. The fates doling out a taste of his own medicine perhaps. There are various other allegations from several women which may now be pushed into further action.
Hillary Clinton dropped into Swansea University in Wales along with husband Bill en route to Iceland to promote her co-written novel State of Terror. Bill talks of heartbreak over Israel-Palestine given his years of trying to broker a peace. Hillary has been warning of Trumps’s Hitlerian tendencies and pointing out that Hitler was first elected before he went on his authoritarian spree. She says she genuinely fears for her country.
What is marginally worrisome is that her Mars Pluto conjunction will have moved by Solar Arc to exactly conjunct her Sun come the election in late 2024 and just beyond. That is acutely frustrating, scary and blocked. She will not be a happy lady. It may not be a political disaster she is angsting about – there could be other reasons. Her Solar Return from October 2024 has Mars in the 8th opposition Pluto which could be financial or even health related for someone close to her. She also has tr Neptune conjunct her Pisces Moon in the weeks running into the election and in February 2025 which will be debilitating.
Early in 2024 tr Pluto will square her Sun and oppose her Neptune/North Node midpoint both of which will be acutely pressured and will return in early 2025.
Bill Clinton is being tossed hither and thither at the moment with tr Uranus conjunct his 8th house Taurus Moon exactly now to mid December and again in April 2024. Plus a stuck Solar Arc Sun square his Pluto as he laments the Israel deadlock. That is followed by tr Uranus square his Leo Sun from July 2024 on and off into 2025. That is the same period as the other Middle Eastern charts are on high alert – and the GOP Convention makes their choice.
Wrestling with the mysteries of the 8th house with two headline examples at the moment to chew over in Israel and Prince Harry, Martin Moritz’s book Pandora’s Box offers some perceptive insights.
“The eighth house is associated with entanglements, power games, boundary crossings, or dealing with taboos.”
“It is almost impossible to differentiate between good and evil, black and white, hero and villain. Things are muddled and mixed up.”
The book gives chart interpretations of historical characters from Elizabethan astrologer John Dee, Queen Victoria, through the Third Reich to Elzabeth Kubler Ross and Jane Goodall. He illuminates the different facets of 8th house experience from energy exchange, emptiness and vampiric sucking of energy, money and jealousy, sex and seduction through to resilience and transformation.
He remarks that the clients he sees who have 8th house planets are often ‘unhappy with the present, traumatized by the past, daunted by the future.’ Which fairly sums up Israel’s 8th house Taurus Sun and Prince Harry’s 8th house Virgo Sun.
‘Transformation only happens if there is a considerable shift in an individual’s thought and behaviour patterns.’ The inner saboteur is an 8th house issue along with fixation. Ideas on how things ought to be are stubbornly held onto despite the 8th house being the one which should encompass the values of others.
The 8th is about being possessed where the 2nd is having one’s own possessions. Everything is defined by others. Committing to a partnership requires letting go individual values in order to create new shared ones. What is yours becomes mine and vice versa. A loss of control. The 8th is where we are confronted with our own issues.
The title of the book refers to the 8th house gateway into another world, which like Pandora’s Box, contains evil, vice, sickness and death after it is opened but after all that has been experienced what remains is hope.
Searching around elsewhere for additional clues what seems crucial to an understanding of the 8th house experience is an acceptance that something other than the separate self influences and shapes experiences, development and destiny.
The eighth house is home of Typhon, the volcano god. If the second house has to do with control, then the eighth house has to do with lack of control which tends to lead to an attempt to hang tightly. There is a sense of permanence with the eighth house but only due to the monumentality of change. The individual has ancestral wounds that take not one generation but several to even begin to understand. Planets in the eighth house tend to work in super slow ways.
The 8th house represents that which we fear within ourselves or around us, and seek to restrain, something that is strong enough to take us over if it erupts. Finding a way to distance from the intensity of the full focus is a natural reaction when the centre space is in the “control of the monsters”. The core issue with Typhon seems to be the tension between the independent free expression of individuality and the need to be limited in action by the expectations and agreements of society, with the resulting necessity to control and/or repress aspects of one’s self.
The 8th is the house of “others” when intimate relationships hand over power to a partner whether financial or emotional. It brings a painful awareness of forces beyond individual manipulation and control.
A few celebrity examples with planets in the 8th. Dynastic families in particular seem to figure where the weight of the ancestors looms large.
JFK – Mars, Mercury, Jupiter in Taurus and Gemini Sun.
Actress Glenn Close – Pisces Sun and Mars Mercury.
Farah Fawcett – Sun, Mars, Mercury Aquarius.
Geraldine Chaplin – Moon Sagittarius
Lisa Marie Presley – Mars Moon Chiron in Pisces
Goldie Hawn – Mars Pluto in Leo and Saturn in Cancer on cusp.
Priscilla Presley – Pluto
Marlon Brando Pluto
Ryan O’Neal – Mars
Riley Keogh – Mars
Greta Garbo – Uranus
Gwyneth Paltrow – Uranus
Donald Sutherland – Uranus
Kiefer Sutherland – Uranus Pluto
Prince Frederik of Denmark – Uranus Pluto
Prince Andrew – Mercury
Robert Kennedy – Mercury
Cheyenne Brando – Mercury
Angelica Huston – Mercury and Pluto
Bobbi Christina Brown – Uranus Neptune
Whitney Houston – Neptune
Linda McCartney – Jupiter
Robert Downey Jnr – Saturn
This is a follow on from the October 4 2023 post on Princess Martha Louise where there were many generous and helpful comments from personal experience. Below for ease of finding and also under Princess Martha Louise in search.
33 thoughts on “Princess Martha Louise – a truly 8th house entanglement”
Marjorie
7th October 2023 at 10:30 am | Reply
Sandra, It surely does help and also to others who have shared. I am letting it bubble for a while since I don’t want to read too much into my own close encounters with 8th house family members.
What is churning about in my mind is a Liz Greene comment in her Psychopathology book which I will review shortly. (It is profoundly useful book for ‘ordinary types’ despite its lurid title.) She talks about one women with an 8th house Moon being a ‘channel for inherited conflicts and disturbances’ – in her case Holocaust parents. So what she feels really isn’t hers in a personal sense – it belongs through her parents to a collective turmoil.
The 8th house is blithely talked about as the house of the deeper unconscious and being driven by forces the individual does not understand or can always control. But reframing that as the house that lies beyond the ego and the separate self – it therefore takes down boundaries between I and ?? – what lies beyond. What Jung called the collective unconscious. Which is a churning mass of impulses, good and bad, belonging to all humankind.
So it may be the ‘monster’ which 8th house individuals feel resides within them is not ‘them’ at all. They are too identified with/flooded by the bubbling cauldron of the seven deadly sins (and virtues) which afflict all humankind. I am struggling to articulate it but it is beginning to formulate. It is one of the problems of the deeper unconscious that it lies far beyond the rational world and is therefore difficult/impossible to encapsulate in words.
Maybe it is why the other 8th house astrology book, which also needs reviewed is called Pandora’s Box. Best to keep the lid firmly snapped shut may be some 8th house individual’s defence against what might be let loose if they opened up. Almost like piling sandbags on the sea wall to keep the ocean at bay.
Again many thanks.
Sandra
7th October 2023 at 3:28 pm | Reply
🙂
I am smiling!
Yes, yes and more yes!!…..
Even as a child, I KNEW that what I was feeling inside was somehow more than just me, more than even just my parents and their story. But I had no words or knowledge of how to explain that.
In the early 90’s I attended a Process Oriented Psychology Intensive with Arnie Mindell. POP is based on Jungian psychology, Daoism and Physics!!… well THAT appealed to me. A psychology that covered everything, allowed everything (with a kind of fluidly held container) and respected everything as valuable in some way. This was a profound gift.
“piling sandbags on the sea wall to keep the ocean at bay”….. oh my.
My husband has often said that me doing that just makes it all worse!!!
Now THAT is funny, isn’t it?
I wanted to say that this isn’t all doom and gloom. The 8th house journey is fascinating, rich, and revealing! There is plenty of humour in all of this!
And…I also see it as a deep responsibility to explore and integrate this energy because it matters to the World. As I just read in your post about Israel and the Hamas… violence begets violence. Those of us with a strong 8th house.. we each can send out a different, healing Plutonian ripple.
At least, that’s one way to do it!!
Thanks so much Marjorie…. this has been a drop in my own Plutonian healing.
I, too, will pause and ponder… and read Pandora’s Box!!
You do offer such a gift to us all.
Marjorie
7th October 2023 at 4:22 pm | Reply
Have you any clue as to why you explored the depths of your 8th house and others don’t? Stupid question I know since it happens not just with 8th house issues.
Sandra
11th October 2023 at 4:55 am | Reply Hello dear Marjorie,
I am sorry for the delay in replying… might be moot by now!
The pre and post Thanksgiving comings and goings took up some time. Plus… this IS a $64,000 question and tracking an answer took me down many paths!
It’s so hard NOT to think of my astrology in answering… my chart perfectly describes my hard wiring for sure. All roads lead to my final dispositor of Mars in Aries in 3rd, which is the point of a kite for an air grand trine… directly opp. Jupiter in Libra in 9th. A seeker. A lot of courage.. often reckless with that!… but gets me going “fearward” for sure. SO many blessings with the right people or course at the right time. So my 8th House collection has had a lot of help.
To NOT use astrology? What then?? hmmm…..
The Nature Nurture question maybe?
My Dad would often say, “I just want to live long enough to know that my two girls can survive anything”. He regularly spoke of how HE had survived in the War… he did some awful things. I was not raised to get a good education. I was raised to be strong, to survive.. to think and to be responsible…. from a young age. We did play as kids, but work and responsibilities came very young.
And lastly… even with all this, by age 24 I was overweight, deeply depressed and having suicidal thoughts. I worked night shift with an older woman and one night I shared this with her. She leaned in close, looked me in the eyes, and said,
“That’s GREAT!! Great that you are depressed!!! NOW it gets interesting!! NOW you can go deep and discover who you are!!!”
She said it with so much joy and acceptance and PERMISSION that it stunned me.
Who says that about despair and suicide?
It worked because that exchange confirmed what my instinct knew… that ALL of this is important and meaningful and not to be judged bad or good. As Arnie Mindell would say… “teleological”… it all has a purpose…
even the darkest corners of who we are.
THAT set me on this path, Marjorie.
A path of freedom and a discovery of Truth….. truly the Mystery.
I’m reading a novel now… The Secrets Between Us.
On the back cover is this quote,
“It isn’t the words we speak
that make us who we are.
Or even the deeds we do.
It is the secrets buried
in our hearts.”
I think that’s what really in the Pandora’s Box of the 8th House!!! surprise!
but now?…. we are deep in the Israel / Hamas horror…. Pluto opens it’s doors again.
all the best,
thanks again
Curious
11th October 2023 at 11:27 am
Wow, Sandra, what a gift that older woman gave you.
I agree that depression can be a great gift if we tend to it with wisdom and patience.
So different from the mainstream tendency to try to medicalise it away.
Marjorie
11th October 2023 at 11:55 am
Thank you so much for this. What a wonderful story – it can be such a chance encounter that opens up a life and yet others maybe never have them or they do have them and ignore.
My head is scrambled with Israel at the moment but I will pull all the comments together and do another piece when my brain settles back down. Who’d have thought an odd Norwegian princess would spark all this off.
Again thank you and all power to you.
Marjorie
12th October 2023 at 9:42 am
Sandra, Pondering on depression it reminded me of psychoanalyst Melanie Klein’s writings on the depressive position. She thought it was central to the child’s development, first experienced early on in the first year of life and repeatedly revisited intermittently throughout life.
Maturity, she thought was closely linked to facing up to and accepting loss and mourning. Working through, embracing and eventually overcoming/emerging from the depressive position should be regarded as a significant achievement. ‘Feel the pain and work through it.’ Not all are capable of it and many put up a bulwark of defences against it – which is presumably why they shut off any possibility of insight or the capacity for change.
It will affect non-8th housers as well but it may be more prevalent given the depths of the 8th house which it takes real courage and resilience to descend to the depths and re-emerge.
The ones I know well with 8th houses who put up a blank exterior are defensively cheerful and get distinctly snappy if pushed to look at any negatives.
Thank you again.
Lizzie
7th October 2023 at 3:53 pm | Reply
I want to thank you for this. I’m going to sit with it for a while. Very helpful for me, for all the times I’ve seen Death coming and couldn’t stop it. The guilt. The most high profile was John Lennon — I was at the Dakota the day before he died, saw the Angel of Death on the rooftop, tried to get to Lennon to warn him. Years later, in a book, I discovered I was standing next to his killer while talking to the security guard. My guilt went on for decades. I couldn’t save him! Neptune in the 8th, I’ve got to SAVE everyone. But maybe it wasn’t me at all, maybe I’m just picking up a signal, I didn’t have to save him. Well I’m never going to believe that, but this idea that I’m just a channel for the collective and it isn’t “me” at all….I appreciate that.
Gnarly Dude
8th October 2023 at 8:20 pm | Reply
Marjorie you wrote “– it therefore takes down boundaries between I and ?? –” … I don’t know if you intended this as a question but while 8th house is often labelled as “House of other people’s values” which makes sense because once you’ve decided in the 7th house that the person superficially meets your requirements (nice house, job, looks, appearance, polite); it is what happens next when you want to progress the relationship. So the big question is “do we share the same values?” or even “will you consider changing yours to match mine?” (or vice versa). I’d say It’s fairly clear most people never really think that deeply about their compatibility beyond the 7th house level and then wonder why their marriage fails. Even if they don’t divorce, it can be the old couple where they grow apart, argue or he goes off fishing or washes the car every weekend to get out of the house rather than spend time together.
But I’ll add that for me 8th house is also about “give and take”. How the two people in a relationship balance those things. My Neptune wants to give and give and give, and especially when I was younger it didn’t want to take because on some level it knows there is a cost when you accept from others i.e. a debt. And once you’re indebted, you have less freedom by being tied to the relationship whereas Neptune wants to remain free. So it gives selflessly and while there is no expectation of being paid back, it always gives the native the “get out” clause especially if they want to see themself as the victim … “after all I’ve done for you”.
Many relationships revolve around one partner doing all the giving and the other doing all the taking. Eventually, one day twenty years down the road, the giver realises they’re being taken for granted and leaves. The taker is then left bereft for obvious reasons. This is particularly demonstrated by individuals with Saturn in 8th. If they give anything to to the relationship, it’s only material and there is a careful mental note and balancing of the books. If they start to perceive too much being asked of them, they withdraw and just do what is expected, ticking the box without making any deeper commitment or effort. They volunteer no more to the relationship than they have to. There is no emotional communication or respect being given and to use the classic Saturn in 8th metaphor, the partner then stops wanting to have sex with them.
Anyway – not sure if that is helpful or all old news to you. Just thought I’d mention it in case.
Marjorie
9th October 2023 at 10:12 am | Reply
Thanks that makes a great deal of sense – I’ll come back to it later. Far too much going on at the moment.
Marjorie
11th October 2023 at 11:58 am | Reply
Sorry still distracted – I will tie this in when I find time to review Pandora’s Box which suggests that energy exchange is a key 8th house ability/necessity.
Crabby Old Leo.
5th October 2023 at 7:11 pm | Reply
A friend’s husband has an 8th house Neptune in Scorpio. He also has BML in Scorpio there.
I thought an 8th house Neptune was supposed to be deep and mystical and a sexual healer and all that, but no, apparently, definitely not. Reading the comments here, I never realised being “all on the surface” was typical of 8th house people, but that’s exactly what he’s like!
Sadly, she exploits him financially but he doesn’t seem to notice, or care. Typical apparently for an 8th house Neptune.
I have an 8th house Chiron in pisces opposite my Pluto in Virgo, and also widely opposite my Leo Sun. It’s a very, very difficult placement in ways I don’t want to elaborate on.
Gnarly Dude
5th October 2023 at 5:47 pm | Reply
I’ve got Scorpio 7th / Sag 8th with Jupiter-Neptune on the cusp of the 8th. I have always been fascinated by other people – their ideas, their likes, their interests etc. I have always wanted a deep and meaningful relationship. I can get absorbed in other people if they have something interesting to share. I didn’t really have many of my own ideas when I was younger – so maybe that’s some of the shallowness/opaqueness Marjorie mentions.
Recently though I’ve come to realise, and this is probably an age thing, I get very bored of other people very quickly. They tell me their stuff and then on subsequent meetings they just repeat the same stuff over and over. If I’m not learning from them, I lose interest. I wonder if Princess Martha has something like this going on with Durek – all his 9th /10th house energy having much to tell but blinding her to his real nature.
Trouble is while I’m a great listener, I notice they’re not interested in knowing about me or what I have to teach them – Jupiter-Neptune Sag. People never seem to ask me anything about me, what I do, who I am etc. I can start telling them stuff and I see the shutters coming down.
I’ve begun to suspect my listening skills and knowledge retention scare people off. If you’ve told me a story or a detail about you, I’ll remember it. I synthesise what they tell me and I think the reformatted version breaks through their awareness level and panics them. 8th house Sag foot in mouth even though it’s not taboo subjects, just stuff they’re uncomfortable with.
There is much more with the 8th house planets being in a t-square. The empty leg is being hit by transiting Saturn in Pisces at the moment and I notice I am becoming much more selective in what I say, ask and reveal about myself. Drawing up better boundaries to stop wasting my energy on people who will ultimately not give me what matters to me. That’s the trouble with 8th house neptune, it does a lot of giving but doesn’t expect or ask for much in return. It absorbs other people’s values – I have had to work at figuring my own out.
When Saturn went through seven years ago, I realised money and material stuff is much more important to other people in relationships, whereas for me it has always been about the intangible quality of the relationship. I stopped making the effort when buying presents to get the best possible gift that they would appreciate and be meaningful to them. No-one seemed to mind and buying presents went from anxiety about making the perfect selection to just grab something off the shelf or send the godchildren money. Huge weight off my shoulders! I guess that’s where my idealism lay.
Lizzie
5th October 2023 at 5:10 pm | Reply
Moon/Neptune in Scorp in the 8th, ruler of the chart. Near-death experience as a teenager left me with the ability to see Death coming. It’s not a psychic ability that makes a person particularly popular. I would tell you more about my life, but I can’t bear to reveal myself. LOL. I bought the book, BTW. Very interesting and one of the charts in the book is the French impressionist Gustave Caillebotte, my absolute favorite painter of all time. Everything was in the 8th house with him, I didn’t know. Consciously.
Trish
5th October 2023 at 6:12 pm | Reply
Pluto in Leo in the 8th- like a lot of my generation, although square mars in scorpio. Not easy. I have always been drawn to situations/ careers involving death/ people’s emotional pain probably due to my own personal experiences and have had to learn to control some intense emotional feelings, not always succesfully. Whatever I go through people always say that I will win through- and I do eventually seem to.
I understand that this placement can offer considerable hidden power. Having watched a close relative, with most probably pluto in the 8th house, also, I have seen how destructive uncontrolled aggression can be. I am not usually seen as controlling but have often found myself trapped in situations- until something( probably jupiter) rescues me. The challenge for this placement I think is to be able to harness the knowledge gained through personal experience- and rejuvenation from it- to help other people, rather than to harm them.
Sandra
6th October 2023 at 5:59 pm | Reply
Hello Trish. Ah yes.. Pluto in the 8th… it’s something isn’t it? I think of it as The Fox in the Henhouse. In Placidus, my 8th house is huge from early Leo to the end of Virgo. Pluto in the 8th at 0 Virgo, preceded by a Merc/Uran conj. in early Leo, just in the 8th. Thank goodness my Pluto is trine my Moon and has no challenging aspects! Still, it’s bee quite a ride… a life of many, many crises! I am happy to have a lot of Fire, Sag rising and a strong Jupiter.. whew!!
Marjorie… when I read your observation, “a living on the surface opaqueness”, I immediately had a picture of Princess Diana in my mind! It got me thinking…
A heavy 8th house means a direct relationship with the Taboo… direct. It’s IN you and you KNOW it from a very young age. Certainly my family history of war and displacement and deep suffering describes something of that Pluto in the 8th. I honestly felt like I had been in the war… viscerally felt that.
When young, I knew I had both Good and a kind of Evil in me. I felt like I had a Hitler in me and, if I did, then everyone did! So there is a deep suspicion and wariness of other people… that they are hiding this part of themselves and that that is dangerous.
However, it is also that I knew I was dangerous to others! That my Plutonian access to raw, unfiltered emotion was direct and sudden…. huge anger, huge desire to lash out in a destructive way.,, even to kill! Of course, this is completely unacceptable in a civilized society, so it MUST be controlled, kept hidden… managed. Thank God for the bloodiest of Grimm’s fairy tales. I read them obsessively as a child… they presented a kind of answer to my struggle with Good and Evil in me. Not logically but in some deeper way. I am soooo grateful I did not grow up with pink and purple and cute Disney characters!!
If I really let this part of me show, I scare the hell out of people. I have only one friend who I can share this with since she, too, is the same. VERY few people can accept this Plutonian energy… it is dangerous. Even my husband is too tender hearted to really take this part of me in.
So that opaqueness you see? For me it is likely for at least 2 important reasons. Most importantly… To protect the other person. And, two. To protect myself. Because this energy is so taboo, it is often projected ONTO a person with a strong 8th house… on to me. Many people will have planets that, by synastry, will sit in my 8th house. That seems to open an uncomfortable at best, and dangerous, at worst door in the other person. They will think and say and do things that reveal THEIR shadow.. often very suddenly… and they cannot hold that in themselves. So it must then be projected onto the Other.
In Nature?…. this raw, instinctual energy simply exists. It’s not judged. Humans dance at the edges of this… BDSM, etc. But we cannot let it just express as it might want to!!
I think this is why a strong 8th house person MUST go deep into their own darkest corners, resolve or integrate them.. so THEY can hold a taproot in these circumstances. It’s also a good idea to find healthy avenues of expression for this energy…. a career in psychology, martial arts, etc.
Still… I almost never feel free to simply BE the total of who I am.
And so, I can appear distant.
Marjorie
6th October 2023 at 7:01 pm | Reply
Sandra, That is very helpful. Thank you for sharing. I will mull over and revert maybe tomorrow. It is beginning to make some sense. The ones I was thinking about that I know seem fixedly almost desperately determined to keep everything light, bright and superficial. Push to go deeper and you (the outsider) meet a wall of hostile resistance which may be fear of as you say exposing what lies down in the darkness.
Sandra
7th October 2023 at 2:13 am
You are welcome, Marjorie.
Certainly I have always had a feeling that if people REALLY got to know me more deeply, they would see that Shadow in me… and turn away and even be repelled. That I am a monster! I was most certainly a sweet and nice child/adult…a people pleaser. Seeking love but terrified of rejection.
That hostile resistance, the opaqueness… yes… I’ll bet it’s Fear. Fear of that coming out of them, or coming AT them. It is also, ultimately, a fear of BEING powerful.. what that would really take in me? The vulnerability of being exposed TO GETTING KILLED if I step up to a place of power. That is incredibly real.. again… deep in the lower chakras!
I work one on one as a health professional. I also am an astrologer. Both those jobs… my 10th house… offer me a safe place to let that 8th house depth and honesty connect with my heart and offer a safe place for my client. There is a freedom in that context for Pluto to be freer!!
thanks for listening,
this has truly been my Life’s Work, I’d say.
hope it helps some
Trish
7th October 2023 at 7:19 pm | Reply
That’s really interesting and fascinating Sandra. Thank you.I have pluto tri my moon , lots of fire, Sagittarius ascendant and a strong Jupiter too!!! Mars in Scorpio in my 10th house and a strong fascination with psychology. Also an awareness that astrological knowledge and insight has to be used carefully and benignly as the power it gives over someone vulnerable can be used to damage them emotionally if a reading is not given with the best of intentions.
Marjorie
5th October 2023 at 9:36 am | Reply
Thank you to all who shared. I will return to it when I review Pandora’s Box soon.
What has always puzzled me since I have family members and several friends with significant 8th house planets is that their ‘secrecy’, not surprising from 8th house, comes across as a living-on-the-surface opaqueness. Almost as if they did not have an interior life, which clearly can’t be true, but the reluctance to share does project a blankness which is unsettling. In certain cases I wonder if the interior life is closed off altogether because of an acute fear of what inner exploration and insight might bring.
The 8th house is always written up as the place of transformation and regeneration but the ones I can think of have an unchangingess, which may be partly the dislike of letting go – but it can last a lifetime. There is no sense of evolution.
Being a highly Uranian, Mercurial, endlessly curious jitterbug it has always puzzled me.
“A” Fan
5th October 2023 at 12:11 am | Reply
I like the reader quiz survey – maybe a fruitful periodic thing to feature ( said the 8th house Sun occupant and lover of secrets and investigation)
Geraldine
4th October 2023 at 8:24 pm | Reply
Thank you Marjorie, 8th House with Sun 28° Pisces plus North Node Chiron Moon between 0° and 3°Aries: it is just one slice of the pudding, Lady and it is not always a piece of cake! As of today, I am still grateful for ALL I have experienced (in 18 countries) from the forceps eclipse birth up to now, currently very much through life transition, staying with family members and praying for another dwelling solution as early as possible == I’ve paid extra attention to what others did not notice, from an early age, I am mesmerized by the Emptiness of It all during exceptional visible & invisible encounters who remind me of Grace exactly here on Earth. So perfect! I may act/speak/write/draw too much in hover mode though…but I do cook/clean precisely carefully minutely (Virgo rising!)
Kim
4th October 2023 at 7:48 pm | Reply
Using Placidus, six planets in the 8th house. Sun Virgo (1°) conjunct Venus Virgo (0°) Mars Leo (29°) with Pluto Leo (26°) and Jupiter Leo (15°). Mercury Virgo (19°). Came out of the womb asking why. Existentialist. Intense. Serious. Hate being controlled which can be that Venus/Mars conjunction. Fiercely independent. Very honest. Always seeking more information. Fascinated with occult. Made money not through inheritance as Pluto would suggest but from working very hard (Saturn in 10th) and through corporations. Gifted with written word. I’ve tried to study this stellium in the 8th and quizzed many a professional astrologer. After six decades of living with it, my conclusion is that the journey is not an easy one, but the destination always works out.
“A” Fan
5th October 2023 at 1:21 am | Reply
“… the journey is not an easy one, but the destination always works out.”
~ and then ya die! says this 8th House Sun+Jup resident. I too love a good info dig, but Nope on freely sharing my honest takes (kudos to u -unproudly I admit omission is my most common form of lying). Hiding and social escape hatches feel like survival to me ( tho isolation is no friend ). Sunset to dawn are my favorite hours. Death plus a side of sex routinely infiltrates my thoughts. And h a n g i n g on is my unwanted superpower (romantically hellish when it ends, and carrying resentment gets heavy).
I love depth and a good mystical plunge. And I cackle when mistaken for a Scorpio (ha!). But I feel for ze princess. How rare to feel comfy enough to open the door and not fear banishment for the intensity! To have a hand to reach for while peering through the darkness.
I suspect the mess that churns up when diving deep is what scares “non residents” away – and feels lonesome/rejecting for us occupants to witness – but it’s the light beyond that draws ….like there is a secret tunnel of light at the very bottom of the ocean if I just f u l l y dive thru. How rare to feel one can share that oxygen with another. I imagine the tall dark foreigner feels like her potent and sacred ally.
To the mystical rich 8th house – may the wealth of rejuvenating regeneration visit us all.
Leagee October 2023 at 7:34 pm | Reply
You’ve described an 8th house person perfectly, Marjorie, especially my granddaughter (22/11/89 Lincoln, UK, 16:25) She has a stellium in her 8th house in Capricorn with Uranus at 3°, Neptune and Saturn at 10 and 11° opp her Jupiter at 9° Cancer, then Venus at 16° Capricorn opp her Chiron at 16° Cancer. She is indeed ‘exceedingly stubborn and impervious to either advice, argument or evidence’ which has cost her many friendships and some partnerships, but she is unable to see this herself as she always believes she is right. She is also a rather unlucky person with unfortunate things happening in her life over which she has no control. We, her family love her dearly, of course, but she’s hard work.
Jed
4th October 2023 at 5:16 pm | Reply
Using the Koch system I have Sun ( Virgo 16) conjunct North node/mercury(Virgo 23)/Pluto (virgo 6) and Venus( Libra 7) in 8th house, I would describe myself as intense, open-minded, and a truth seeker but perhaps gullible. I hang on too long to things but am grateful when finally I let go.
(8/9/60 5.25pm Rochford Essex, England)
MK
4th October 2023 at 3:16 pm | Reply
You have done my chart before. I have Saturn in 8th house Gemini, born 5 Dec 71 at 1:45 am, Rio de Janeiro. In my case I think I struggle with communication. I grew up with grandparents and I feel that I have intimacy issues, I am afraid of losing myself in relationships. I have worked in Financial Services and have looked after “other people’s money”. My father was a Scorpio, obstetrician and I only met him a few times. My Saturn in Gemini opposes my Neptune in Sagittarius and I always meet people who hit this aspect, mainly making a conjunction with their planets such as Moon, Venus, Mercury and Mars to my Neptune. I always struggle with debts as well due to overspending. My Cancer (ex-) partner never has a proper job and I have to rely on myself. I tend to have a lot of connections with Gemini people and my son is Gemini too. Saturn in 8th: I have experienced sexual assault in adulthood and other similar issues during my childhood. I have close relationships with Sun Pluto opposition people, such as my aunt and son.
Iceland is on tenterhooks as volcanic activity has been shaking the coastal town of Grindavik, tearing homes and roads apart. Iceland’s Met Office has said that the ‘likelihood of a volcanic eruption is high’ and could happen at anytime in the coming days. The region has been rattled by more than 800 new earthquakes since midnight, with experts warning that magma is rising ever closer to the earth’s surface fueling fears of an imminent volcanic eruption. According to scientists it could be the beginning after 800 years inactivity of a new era of volcanic eruptions that will last for centuries. The seismic swarm started on October 25. There is not absolute certainty since certain indicators do not point to an eruption but the presence of sulphur dioxide is usually strongly suggestive.
If it erupts it is expected to result in a lava flow so won’t be a repeat of the chaotic aftermath of the 2010 Eyjafjallajokull eruption, which produced a huge ash cloud and led to the biggest shutdown of global aviation since the Second World War, with 50,000 flights cancelled and eight million passengers affected.
Iceland proclaimed independence from Denmark on June 17, 1944 at 2:00 pm and has a cool, chatty Gemini stellium of Sun, Venus Saturn conjunct in the last decan and Uranus Mercury in the first. There’s a determined Mars Pluto in Leo and a confident Jupiter Mars – so plenty of grit, self-assurance and courage. The 11th house Jupiter Mars square an 8th house Taurus Moon – emotionally secretive and friendly at the same time.
There is not much showing immediately though what is upcoming is tr Pluto trine Neptune on the Ascendant which in hard aspect is a classic natural disaster signature, picking up from late February 2024 running off and on till late 2025. Alongside that is an uncertain, worrisome tr Neptune square the Sun and then Saturn which picked up this September and runs off and on until January 2026. Which may or may not be volcano connected.
When the Eyjafjallajokull eruption took place ion 20 March 2010 tr Saturn was exactly conjunct the Iceland Neptune with Sun Uranus in opposition and tr Mars conjunct the Pluto in the days following.
Neither of the recent Lunar and Solar Eclipse had planets close to the axis which is usually the case for major incidents. But a thought struck me about the powerful 1999 August Solar Eclipse which triggered events two years later when Mars returned to its same position in Scorpio for the first time. Its return coincided with the devastating Gujarat earthquake in 2001 and the outbreak of foot and mouth disease in the UK. Half a cycle of Mars later in Taurus a major earthquake in Afghanistan erupted. (details below). So Eclipse charts appear to have a validity on into the future – which is irksome for astrologers since you end up drowning in charts and would need to take up astro-quakes as a full time study.
Back to Iceland. The 19 November 2021 Lunar Eclipse set for Iceland had the explosive Mars in Scorpio opposition Uranus sitting on the Ascendant/Descendant axis with Neptune conjunct the IC. Mars has now come full circle back into Scorpio to oppose Uranus for this recent Lunar Eclipse. So it does appear to indicate heightened activity now.
Details: 1999 Solar Eclipse.
The path of the August 1999 total solar eclipse in the 1 North Saros cycle series (see below) which rose in the Eastern seaboard of the USA, then crossed the UK, curving down across Afghanistan, Pakistan to finish in southern India. It may seem too far back to connect this eclipse to events in 2001 OR 2002. Except there were major aspects to that 1999 Leo eclipse from Saturn in Taurus, Mars in Scorpio, Uranus & Neptune in Aquarius. At the time there was little outward sign of the kind of events such a powerhouse of influences might have suggested. But in January 2001 the same aspects recurred with Mars returning for the first time since 1999 to Scorpio, and along with the Aquarian Sun picking up the tale end of the waning, disruptive Saturn Uranus square.
At precisely the time those aspects repeated the devastating Gujarat earthquake in central western India on January 26 2001 – exactly on the 1999 eclipse path – occurred as these aspects all came together again. The catastrophic national foot & mouth epidemic in the UK, also started around this time. Both UK and India have very fixed charts with major planetary configurations in Taurus, Leo, Scorpio or Aquarius, which were especially triggered off by the eclipse and these transitting planets in fixed signs. Even later still in late March 2002, when Mars again in a fixed sign – Taurus – running into the square to Uranus, coincided with a major earthquake in Afghanistan, also on that 1999 eclipse
Barry Manilow, a blast from the past who never went away, is back on Broadway with a passion project about a singing male sextet, the Harmonists formed in Germany and popular throughout Europe in the early to mid-1930s. Their run was ended by the Nazis because some of the singers were Jewish. The Washington Post describes it as ‘overly earnest’ and the Guardian ‘an over worked tizzy.’ He may be disappointed that his pet project is not being better received but he is still working at 80, in the 14th year of a Las Vegas residency with concert dates through December 2024.
Despite the contemptuous put downs by music critics, Manilow has had a sterling career over a half-century, with 50 plus albums, 15 number one singles and more than 85m records sold. Amongst his hits – “Could It Be Magic”, “Looks Like We Made It”, “Mandy”, “I Write the Songs”, “Can’t Smile Without You”, “Weekend in New England” and “Copacabana.”
He was born 17 June 1943 9am New York, with his parents divorcing when he was two and his stepfather later introducing him to music.
He has a stellium in Gemini – a sign much populated by popular singers – his Sun is conjunct Saturn and his Mercury conjunct Uranus. He has a Fire Grand Trine of an ever optimistic Sagittarius Moon in his performing 5th house trine a charming though secretive Venus Pluto in Leo on his Ascendant trine Mars in Aries. Despite his downbeat Saturn, a Fire Grand Trine will give him self-belief and confidence, the faith that he will succeed and attract attention. His Moon opposition Saturn is the driving rod of a Kite funnelling the inspirational Grand Trine energy, giving him endurance and a way of coping with inner loneliness. His Sun is square a musical Neptune. His 12th house Jupiter in Cancer sits relatively close to his Pluto Venus, sextile his Neptune and square his Midheaven emphasizing his schmaltzy qualities.
His chart is predominantly Air and Fire with only one Water and one Earth planet (Neptune) – idealistic, positive, not always realistic.
He does have tr Neptune square his Sun now and for a few weeks ahead as well as SA Neptune conjunct his Moon so he may be less than delirious about the reception his Broadway show is getting. But tr Jupiter is moving through his 10th until mid 2024 which will bring success and a boost for his image, maybe elsewhere.
Tony Blair, never one to duck an opportunity to stick his head above the parapet, has let it be known that he is available if needed to help end the crisis in Israel and Palestine.
He did work as a special envoy for the Quartet – the UN, the US, the EU and Russia – after leaving Downing Street in 2007, trying to increase humanitarian aid, strengthen the Palestinian economy, and bolster governance in the occupied territories. ‘Ultimately the scale of the Israeli blockade, born out of Israel’s security fears, made the job untenable since without political coexistence, there was little chance of economic progress on the West Bank.’ Given the Iraq debacle for which he has never expressed remorse his appointment to the Middle East envoy job was regarded as a bleak joke.
It is unlikely Blair would take on a role unless there was a shift from the Israeli belief that this was a conflict that could only be won militarily.
Born 6 May 1953 6.10am Edinburgh, Scotland, he has a 12th house Sun square a controlling Pluto and a 10th house Aquarius Moon (conjunct North Node) – inordinately stubborn and enduring. His upbeat Jupiter in late Taurus conjunct Mars in Gemini are conjunct his Ascendant giving him a can-do image. He has a hope-for-a-better society Neptune Saturn in Libra in his 5th opposition Mercury Venus square a trailblazing Uranus.
There is nothing in his astrocartography suggesting Israel/Gaza would be in any way noteworthy for him. His success lines run through China/Beijing, Singapore region.
He is not at such a low ebb as he was for the Iraq invasion in 2003 when tr Saturn was abseiling in a downward direction through his less successful First Quadrant and his Solar Arc Mars was in a panicky-failure square to his Neptune, getting worse in the following two years. But his Secondary Progressed Mars is about to square his Neptune in 2025 and his Saturn in 2026 which will see a run of considerable setbacks and acute frustration.
Tr Jupiter into his 1st from the middle of 2024 for a year will give him a boost and tr Uranus following suit in 2026 will see him rebranding his image and setting out on a changed path. But Progressed Mars will continually trip up his best laid plans until it clears in 2027.
David Cameron springs back into the public arena as UK Foreign Secretary as Rishi Sunak pulls to the centre, facing up to the far-right and averting his eyes from Cameron’s past misdeeds – Brexit, Greensill financial scandal, cosying up to China, crashing into Libya. Cameron for all his flaws does have international standing which will help with the two major foreign policy crises of the moment – Ukraine and Gaza.
In 2010, Cameron sparked fury from Israel after saying its blockade had turned Gaza into a “prison camp”. In 2015, he sent British troops into Ukraine to help train its military after Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014. He will be in charge of Britain’s aid budget, having criticised the recent decision to cut spending.
He was born 9 October 1966 6 am London, from memory, though I have 5.30am which I think made sense of events in his life back then.
Either time gives him a charming, diplomatic 1st house Sun Venus in Libra with a friendly, showy and laid-back 11th house Moon Jupiter in Leo square Mercury. His Mars in late Leo is in a publicity-attracting square to Neptune. What cuts across his chart and sits awkwardly with his smarm and charm superficiality is Saturn in Pisces on his Descendant opposition a 12th house Pluto Uranus in Virgo – determined, obstinate, chaotic.
He won’t have much of a honeymoon running into his new job with an uncertain, panicky tr Neptune conjunct his Saturn from late this week to late December. Though at the same time with tr Pluto trine his SA Jupiter he will push ahead with vigour. 2024 sees him with tr Pluto opposition his Jupiter for a self-assured push running into 2025; with patches of good luck even through that tricky mid year patch from June 2024 onwards (affecting many Middle East and US charts). Although August 2024 will be less sanguine for him with a shock and insecurity from tr Uranus square his Mars – and those plus and minus influences run on in tandem into 2025.
Uranus moving into his 9th house now suggests ‘adventurous’ travel and with Jupiter and Saturn heading in the right direction in his chart he’s likely to regain credibility. A commentator remarked that accepting the position would help Cameron “rehabilitate” his political reputation and put him “back in the game” for senior roles at multinational organisations in future. A win win.
His astrocartography does suggest a high profile role for him with both Ukraine and Israel – so he may do a smidgeon of good. His relationship chart with Netanyahu has a hostile Mars Pluto conjunction which tr Uranus is severely rattling come next August.
That mid year 2024 patch looks ominously unsettled across a range of charts including Anthony Blinken’s.
Napoleon – “lover, tyrant, legend” – is the most famous Frenchman in history though in reality he was Italian. He was known as a great military commander with ambitions to conquer Europe though he lost millions of men and ended a failure in exile. He was renowned for his passionate marriage to Josephine who cuckolded him constantly with other men. All in all a conundrum who is about to feature in yet another movie, this time a Ridley Scott blockbuster starring Joaquin Phoenix.
Known as the little corporal, he was born in Corsica on 15 August 1769 at 11am Ajaccio, came to prominence during the French Revolution and led successful campaigns during the Revolutionary Wars. He rose from being First Consul from 1799 then Emperor of France. He initiated reforms that have persisted through the years, but has been criticized for his authoritarian rule. The Napoleonic Wars led to the deaths of between three and six million people. He was forced to abdicate in 1814 after a catastrophic military invasion of Russia ended in defeat with one million soldiers and civilians killed. He was exiled to the island of Elba, escaped and his army was again defeated at the Battle of Waterloo. He died on Saint Helena in the Atlantic where he had been exiled for a second time.
His unlikely wife Josephine was six years older, a widow with two children, blackened stumps for teeth and not attractive but he was obsessed. She cheated on him within weeks of their wedding, yet he refused to give her up.
He had a 10th house Leo Sun square Jupiter in his 1st house so not short of showmanship or confidence. But what cemented his military capabilities was an Earth Grand Trine of Mars in Virgo trine Pluto in Capricorn trine a 7th house Uranus, formed into two talented Kites – one with Uranus opposition Jupiter, giving him bountiful luck and self-assurance. The other was Pluto opposition Venus which would fuel his obsessive romantic passions.
His accentuated Mars Pluto trine would make him ruthless, courageous and ultra-determined with an inventive streak as Uranus joined in. His Jupiter may have been his Achilles Heel with over-confidence bringing him down.
Josephine, 23 June 1763, whose first husband died at the guillotine, was a fearsomely determined Sun Mars in Cancer opposition Pluto. Her Neptune in Leo was conjunct Napoleon’s Sun so she would mesmerise him, with her Venus Jupiter falling in his 8th house of money and sex. She overspent wildly as well as being unfaithful but he was hooked. Her Mars Sun and Pluto were tied into his emphasised Venus but it was hardly a match of soulmates. Their relationship chart has a composite Sun square Uranus and Uranus tied into a Grand Trine to Neptune and Moon Pluto – a highly-strung mix of defiant independence and possessiveness. There is also a Venus Saturn conjunction which is hardly emotionally warm but may have contributed to the highly sexualised nature of their relationship.
Joaquin Phoenix, 28 October 1974 does not echo much of Napoleon’s chart though his Mars, Venus, Sun in Scorpio do fall on Napoleon’s Ascendant (on this birth time).
Reviews: ‘Joaquin Phoenix makes a magnificent emperor in thrilling biopic.’
‘Phoenix is the key to it all: a performance as robust as the glass of burgundy he knocks back: preening, brooding, seething and triumphing.’
Demands for a humanitarian, political response in Gaza are falling on deaf ears as two determined adversaries refuse to cease hostilities.
Benjamin Netanyahu with his ruthless, do-or-die determined Pluto Mars in Leo is well matched by Hamas’s Mars Pluto in Scorpio and their leader Yahya Sinwar’s Mars in Leo opposition Saturn square a Scorpio Sun. A recipe for deadlock. Curiously, or maybe not, Sinwar, 29 October 1962 (wiki), has a relationship chart with Netanyahu with an almost certainly composite New Moon = more whole when together, conjunct Neptune and square Uranus. In some twisted way, with opposing agendas, they need each other.
David Steel, former Liberal leader and ex-President of Medical Aid for Palestinians writes in today’s Times: “ Peace can only be reached in the region by a new effort that should include the de-militarisation of Jerusalem, possibly with a permanent UN peacekeeping force.”
“Netanyahu has failed and should go, along with the lacklustre Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, to be replaced by negotiators who are willing to revive the idea of a corridor between Gaza and the West Bank, backed firmly by the US, UK and others, including the Arab states led by Saudi Arabia.”
There is precious little in the astrology to back up any hopes of a cessation of antagonism any time soon.
Netanyahu’s lacklustre Term chart from 2022 appears to be limping along with a revival of confidence running alongside failed plans in 2024. Where there is an indication of major shocks is from mid 2024 onward into 2025. Uranus at 26 Taurus from July 2024 into 2025 – comes up in various related charts in the region – Israel, Netanyahu, MBS etc so that could be when another bonfire is lit.
The Israel/Netanyahu relationship chart also indicates mid 2024 and just after for major disruption and aggravation with tr Uranus square the composite Mars, before it moves on to square the composite Saturn in 2025. Neither of which necessarily suggest a parting of the ways.
The Israel/Hamas relationship chart which at the best of times is fraught and hostile with a composite Uranus opposition Pluto Mars is nerve-stretched over the next few months and on and on for several years.
All the indications from the Israel chart is that they are into the riskiest phase of their existence extending on into the 2030s. Tr Uranus is conjunct their 8th house Taurus this year on and off till early 2025, presumably trying against the odds to uproot them from old attitudes. Their Solar Arc Mars is in a depressing square to the Moon/Saturn midpoint at the moment; then moves to a destructive, potentially deadhalt square to the Pluto in 2025; when there is also an explosive tr Uranus square the Mars. Nothing that looks remotely like peace or even a reversion to the status quo ante. Constant turmoil and danger ahead.
Hamas, equally, or on a similar trajectory with successes and failures over the next year and more – with 2025/26 looking like the end of the road when their Solar Arc Mars Pluto cross their Sun.
Emmanuel Macron has been one of the few voices up to now calling for a ceasefire, which may be motivated by France having the largest Muslim population of any European country because of its historical Algeria and North Africa connection. On his astrocartography, Gaza sits on his Sun Mercury Midheaven, so it could be an area where he takes the lead and comes to prominence. Ireland and Brazil have also demanded a ceasefire.
Tony Blair has also volunteered his services though there’s nothing on his ACG to suggest it is a success region for him.
David Cameron, on the other hand, may come into his own since Gaza puts his Jupiter and Moon close to his midheaven. He is a former UK prime minister who steps up as a surprise Foreign Secretary with Braverman gone and Cleverly moved to the Home Office.
A new documentary now on show made by two Jewish filmmakers is trying to put the record straight as they recall their early indoctrination into a one-sided story of the creation of Israel. The film argues that some American Jews are told a story – about Jews escaping persecution and genocide to return to their ancestral homeland – that almost entirely erases the existence of Palestinians. It’s a narrative that has been incredibly influential in shaping global attitudes about the Israeli state and US alliances in the Middle East.
They say the process reminded them of what they’d learned in school about the history of the US, “in terms of a people who came to a new country that were refugees or immigrants and created a city on a hill, a beacon of light and a democracy. That narrative is incredibly empowering until you hear about the Native Americans and you realize it lacks some really basic points.”
Chaim Silberstein, a Jewish settler, can see only one response to the Hamas attack of October 7 — expanding the settlements and solidifying Israel’s already tight grip on the occupied West Bank. He is one of 500,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank, which has had a huge upsurge in violence in the weeks since the rampage by Hamas militants through southern Israel sparked war in Gaza. 167 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank since the war broke out, a further eight had died at the hands of settlers. Nearly 1,000 people have been forced from their villages, the UN said.
Some settlers consider the West Bank to be part of the Land of Israel. “The battle isn’t just about territory — it’s a religious conflict between Judaism and Islam.”
Some settlers now feel so emboldened that they even envisage expanding into Gaza, from which Israel withdrew in 2005. Daniella Weiss, head of the radical settler organisation Nachala, spoke recently of “our movement’s efforts to return to Gaza, the entire Gaza, and build settlements”. Weiss’s dream is not widely shared. But in the West Bank, the settlements which most of the international community consider illegal have been gradually expanding, which Palestinians say is destroying all hope of a two-state solution.
The recent violence is down to an expanded IDF presence and to militant settlers. One western diplomat said, “We’re seeing a blurring of the division between the IDF and the settlers, who are often accompanied by soldiers in IDF uniform when they go on the rampage.” They have also been buoyed by the presence of settlers in the Israeli government, widely seen as the most rightwing in Israeli history. These include finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has said the Palestinian people do not exist.
The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has reported incidents recently of settlers attacking Palestinian residents, “in some cases threatening them at gunpoint or firing at them”, as well as damaging property, stealing livestock, felling trees and vandalising water tanks.
Add On: November 18
‘Too many taking sides in this conflict miss the true nature of Hamas – and Netanyahu.’
‘Both those calling for a ceasefire and those opposing it are making assumptions that don’t stack up.’
A sensibly nuanced piece on the Gaza mess by Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian.
‘Biden and co are overlooking the fact that Netanyahu and his coalition are utterly opposed to the very arrangement (a political solution) Israel’s western allies advocate. This is the most rightwing government in Israel’s history. It includes junior ministers who fantasise about flattening Gaza with a nuclear bomb or repopulating it with the Jewish settlements that were uprooted in 2005, and senior ministers who are, even now, wrecking any chance of cooperation with the only body that could plausibly fill the vacuum in a post-Hamas Gaza: the Palestinian Authority.’
‘Washington, Brussels and London currently back Israel because they agree that no peace is possible without the removal of Hamas. They are much less clear that no peace is possible without the removal of Netanyahu and his henchmen. Yet both can be true.’
Background piece in today’s Sunday Times (paywall). Does rather back up my gloomy astro thought that there is no solution.
Two state solution: There are nearly half a million Jewish settlers in the West Bank, 60 per cent of which is directly run by Israel, another 200,000 settlers live in east Jerusalem. The settlers believe they have a biblical imperative to live on the land between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean Sea. They are unlikely to move.
One state solution, peaceful coexistence. It could call into question the Jewish identity of Israel and is not supported by Israeli government.
Goes back to James Cameron’s thought that ‘the aspirations of the Jews and Arabs are irreconcilable’ – ‘no compromise any mortal man can devise is going to —–’
