'Who Deserves Our Support?'

"Whenever I begin to debate certain issues such as the war in Iran or the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, I am confronted with the fact that the side I support has done some pretty stupid (sometimes evil) things. America supported the Shah, who was an oppressive dictator. Israel enabled the rise of Hamas by supporting Islamist social and charitable organizations within Gaza in order to create a counterweight to the secular Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). And then there allegations of even more sinister actions, ranging from the plausible to the ridiculous. It is easy to see why so many people retreat to a kind of neutrality. They shrug and say both sides have some valid points. Who can know which is worth supporting?

"Without a well-grounded philosophical framework, there really IS no way to know. ... if you’re not thinking conceptually, it might be hard to make a distinction between this group dropping bombs and that group dropping bombs.

"You might be tempted to view the conflict in terms of who is the underdog. Who is the David fighting Goliath? Of course, even on these terms, it’s pretty bizarre to view a nation of about 10 million (Israel) as the Goliath when they are facing down Iran (a nation of about 90 million) or the entire Arab world (around 500 million) or the entire Islamic world (perhaps as many as 2 billion).

"But regardless, this is the wrong way to look at the conflict. Instead, we should be thinking in terms of what kind of civilisation does each side represent? What values would we like a society to uphold — and which of these 'sides' [if any] better represents those values? ... it does mean understanding the fundamental distinction between [semi] free and unfree societies — between good societies that sometimes makes mistakes, and fundamentally bad societies that (like all societies) have many good people in them who are just trying to live their lives.

"Once you understand the distinction, you might come to understand that the only way to 'Free Palestine' or to truly support any of the “underdogs” in the world is to free them from the ideological chains of their terrible belief systems. Fundamentally, these people are not angry at the West because they have (sometimes legitimate) grievances about particular actions, but because they resent the example that even a semi-free society presents. While we can’t force people to be free or even to believe in freedom as an ideal, we can (and should) show them the utter futility of continuing to support the death cult of Islamism. It was only utter defeat that discredited Nazism in Germany and emperor-worship in imperial Japan — and allowed them to develop into much happier, freer, and more prosperous societies. That is what I wish for Palestine, Iran, and all the oppressed people of the world."

~ Stewart Margolis from his post 'Who Deserves Our Support?'

"Israel surrendered"

 

"If you've seen my 'Why I Stand With Israel' video, you would know that I really wasn't interested in talking about things outside of the US when I first started making content. But that changed on October 7th. ... 

"So last week was the 2-year anniversary of October 7th. And it's crazy to think that 2 years have gone by because I don't feel really any better about the state of the world right now. Hamas killed so many of the hostages and hundreds of Israeli soldiers have died in battle since that day. And Hamas is still using innocent people, using children as human shields. They are publicly executing dissenters and promising that they're going to continue attacking Israel. 

"And then there's the West Bank. People talk about the West Bank as if it's any better than Gaza. As if the Palestinian Authority hasn't allowed so many terrorist groups to just flourish under their control. ... 

"And still, with all of this going on, people are pretending that Israel is the villain in this conflict. ...

"So, all this being said, I was very, very disappointed to see that ... President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu proposed another ceasefire deal to Hamas. People are trying to negotiate with jihadists again. Like they haven't tried to do that so many times during this conflict. I mean, we in America keep saying that we don't negotiate with terrorists, but apparently we do. 

"This plan that Trump and Netanyahu proposed has 20 points.... I think this is a very terrible plan. To even contemplate granting amnesty to the people responsible for October 7th is disgusting. It is such an insult to the victims of that day. It is an insult to the soldiers who died in this battle. It is an insult to justice. 

"I mean, this is essentially a surrender. Offering Gaza and the West Bank an independent state is admitting defeat because everyone knows that that is not actually going to solve this problem. 

"[I]t baffles me how many people are still pretending that this conflict is about land. I don't understand why there is still this fantasy that if Israel just gave up enough territory, if they formally recognised a Palestinian state, if they loosened their military presence at their borders, there would just be peace and this conflict would end. Because the two-state solution is not a new idea.  ... 

"Despite decades of negotiations, concessions, and proposals, every offer for a Palestinian state has been rejected and met with violence because they do not want a state. ... 

"This is not a dispute over borders or state recognition. This is a matter of ideology. What Israel is fighting against is the idea that they shouldn't exist as a state at all.... 

"Again, all we have to do is look at Gaza post-2005. They were essentially their own state. They had their own government. Israel was gone. And instead of building infrastructure and being productive, they decided to build rockets and commit October 7th. 

"And it's not like Hamas hid their intentions before October 7th. Their founding charter openly talks about how much they want to kill the Jews in Israel. After they started this war, Hamas paraded the bodies of innocent, murdered Israelis through the streets as people cheered. And their leaders promised to repeat the attack of October 7th over and over again until Israel is destroyed. 

"Now, let me be very clear here because a lot of people think that the issue is just Hamas and that if Israel was to get rid of Hamas that would end everything. But Hamas won the election for a reason. These ideas about destroying Israel are not fringe. They are mainstream culture in Gaza. In Gaza, the anti-Israeli indoctrination is so embedded in daily life. Children's television shows teach kids that they need to slaughter Jews. School curricula completely deny the existence of Israel and glorify martyrdom. Military-style youth camps train young boys to kill Jews from a young age. And public rallies they hold in the streets celebrate martyrs who blew up buses or stabbed Israeli civilians. 

"Yes, Hamas is one of the main issues and one of the main obstacles to peace, but there's not going to be peace if Israel gets rid of Hamas and the citizens of Gaza just rally around another terrorist group to take their place once they're gone. 

"Right now, Gaza is not very happy with Hamas. And a lot of people see this as this really great positive thing that we should be celebrating. But being angry at Hamas because they messed up Gaza is not the same thing as being angry at Hamas because they slaughtered innocent people and attacked a peaceful neighbour that they realise they shouldn't be attacking anymore. 

"So, we'll see exactly what happens because right now it's kind of unclear where the Gazans stand. But most likely the reason that the Gazans are not happy with Hamas is because Hamas was not as effective at destroying Israel as they would have wanted. ...

"[And] support for Hamas skyrocketed in the West Bank after October 7th because the people of the West Bank don't see the Palestinian Authority as effective enough at destroying Israel. So all of this to say there is absolutely no way that Israel can give full independence to Gaza and the West Bank and expect there to be peace. It will lead to more slaughter. It will be a repeat of what happened when Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005....

"A lot of people have pushed back and have said, 'Look, all we want are the hostages back, and if Hamas breaks any of their agreements, then Israel will just continue to defend itself and they'll have the full support of the US. So what's the problem here?" Here's the thing. If I thought that this was true, if I thought that the plan was to get the hostages out, and then all bets are off, Israel is going to finish what it started, finish getting rid of jihadism in the area. I would be so on board with this plan. I am so for lying to Hamas to get the hostages back and then attacking them again. But I am almost 100% certain that that is not what is going to happen. And the issue here, like the real issue is that Trump is involved in this deal. ...

"Trump does not care about Israel. I mean, Trump really doesn't care about most things. The thing that Trump cares about is feeling good in the moment. ... his policy decisions are entirely based on who's going to make him feel good in the moment. Right now, Trump likes Israel because Netanyahu is being very nice to him. ... [But] He would drop Israel in a heartbeat. ...

"Trump's whole thing isn't about doing what's right. It's not about recognising the facts and acting accordingly. Trump cares about who's going to suck up to him the most. 

"Having someone like that who is so unpredictable as part of this deal means that his support for Israel is unpredictable. He might say that he supports Israel one day and then full support the next. I mean even when it's come to Israel he has gone so back and forth with his support. When he was elected into office, he said that by his inauguration, all of the hostages needed to be released or else he was going to let all hell break loose on the Middle East. And that did not happen. Then in February, he made a similar threat saying all of the hostages needed to be released by a certain day or else he was going to just let Israel do what they needed to do and support them fully in destroying Hamas. And again, that did not happen. Even with this deal now, Trump threatened this 72-hour deadline on Hamas and they just blew right through it and nothing happened. ... 

"He bullied Netanyahu into accepting this deal. Like Netanyahu has been so public with the fact that he does not want to allow the Palestinian Authority anywhere near this new Palestinian government. 

"So long story short, people are pretending. They are pretending that if Gaza or West Bank attacks Israel, Trump is going to be there to help them and Israel cannot rely on Trump. .... 

"I so understand wanting to get the hostages back, especially because we know that some of them are alive. 

"I know that their families and their friends and just normal Israeli civilians want them back. 

"I know that their loved ones and their friends and really just the average Israeli civilian or even just people with a heart want them back because we value human life. 

"And I cannot imagine what they have had to experience being tortured for 2 years in captivity in Gaza. 

"This is not how you do that. This is not how you get them back. 

"We've seen what happens with these 'hostage exchanges,' right? We've seen what happens when hostages are exchanged for prisoners. They're going to release 2,000 prisoners from Israeli prisons. Just a reminder, Sinwar, one of the masterminds behind October 7th, was released in a hostage exchange. 

"And let's be real about what happened. pulling out of Gaza, participating in this exchange, relying on these other countries to support and defend Israel, like that's just going to cause more deaths. It's going to cause more October 7ths like Hamas has promised. And unfortunately, when that happens, I keep saying this, but the world is not going to stand by Israel.... 

"So for Israel to survive, they are going to have to go it alone right now and for the foreseeable future. Which means they are probably going to have to abandon all of these deals that they have made with the US, with these UN, European countries and with all of these Arab countries because they are not going to stand by Israel when, not even if, when Gaza and the West Bank attack again. 

"But I think Israeli leadership has shown that they are not willing to do that. ... it seems right now like Netanyahu and the Israeli government are more worried about international approval than they are about saving the lives of their citizens. So, Israel really just needs to find the strength to do what needs to be done to destroy this terrorist threat, to destroy the infrastructure in Gaza and the West Bank that allows for these attacks to happen and to destroy the bloodthirsty anti-semitic culture that is thriving there. But they cannot do that if they are still pretending that the two-state solution is going to solve this problem. 

"They can't do that if they are still pretending that Hamas will willingly demilitarise and accept Israel as a state. They cannot do that if they are pretending that they have allies in countries that do not care about Israeli safety. But that is what needs to happen here. 

"So I really just don't think this conflict is going to end anytime soon."

~ Kiyah Willis [hat tip Craig Biddle]

15 YEARS AGO: Two sentences that sum up the Israeli-Gaza conflict

Here's a NOT PC post from 15 years ago, quoting the great Thomas Sowell, that could have been written yesterday ...

Two sentences that sum up the Israeli-Gaza conflict

If two sentences could sum up the Israeli-Gaza conflict, it would be these from Thomas Sowell:

"Since everybody seems to be criticising Israel for its military response to the rockets being fired into their country from the Gaza strip, let me add my criticisms as well. The Israelis traded land for peace, but they have never gotten the peace, so they should take back the land....
    "Those who think 'negotiations' are a magic answer seem not to understand that when A wants to annihilate B, this is not an 'issue' that can be resolved amicably around a conference table."

Read Israel vs. Hamas: Pretty Talk and Ugly Realities. THOMAS SOWELL

AND another post from 20 years ago talking about that 'land-for-peace' deal ... 

Rewarding terror

Israeli settlers are being forcibly removed from their homes. And Hamas leaders view the forced removal of Israeli citizens from their own property as a Hamas victory, and as an endorsement of their tactics of terror.

Says an ebullient Ahmed al-Bahar, a leading Hamas thug in Gaza, 

"Israel has never been in such a state of retreat and weakness as it is today following more than four years of the intifada. Hamas's heroic attacks exposed the weakness and volatility of the impotent Zionist security establishment. The withdrawal marks the end of the Zionist dream, and is a sign of the moral and psychological decline of the Jewish state."

Another spokesman for Hamas terror says of the property eviction that it is "due to the Palestinian resistance operations. … and we will continue our resistance." Talk about rewarding terrorists. 

And you'll be as pleased as Cox and Forkum to note that the evictions have brought Hamas leaders together and out of hiding in a bid for control of the Gaza Strip, which puts them in direct conflict with the Palestinian Authority, who have recently been making moves of moderation.

Israel is playing into the hands of Hamas, and in the process is betraying the property rights of its own people and the moderates in the Palestinian Authority. Shame.

"Starvation and death serve the Hamas plan. That means that Israel must decide how far it wants to push—and when to stop."

"News consumers worldwide were galvanised over the weekend by disturbing photos like those of the Gazan child Muhammad al-Matouq, who appeared on the front page of Britain’s 'Daily Express' and then on that of 'The New York Times' and elsewhere as the symbol of Israel’s cruel starvation of innocents. After the photographs were seen around the world it became clear that the child in fact suffers from cerebral palsy and other conditions unrelated to starvation. The suffering child ended up being less the intended symbol of Israeli evil than of how genuine misery can be put to use by practitioners of narrative war. ...

"[This is not new.] A few weeks into the Gaza war that began on October 7, 2023, we Israelis learned from every major press outlet in the West that we’d just bombed a hospital and killed hundreds of people. The devastated Al-Ahli hospital was on front pages around the world, with a New York Times headline reporting 'at least 500 dead.' Furious protests erupted, and a mob burned a synagogue in Tunisia.

"The story was fake. A misfired Palestinian rocket had landed near the hospital, which was intact.

Around the same time, we started reading that Israel’s response to the October 7 terror attack—a war that Palestinians started, and which had barely begun at the time—was actually a 'genocide,' an ideological slur thrown at Israel by Soviet propagandists, Arab dictators, and the Western left beginning in the 1970s. ...

"Reports of impending hunger engineered by Israel in Gaza have been commonplace not just since the beginning of this war but for at least a decade and a half, since Hamas seized the territory and Israel and Egypt imposed a blockade that supposedly turned Gaza into an 'open-air prison.' The famine never materialised. Now we hear claims that this same period of supposedly extreme deprivation was actually a Gazan idyll that Israel has cruelly destroyed in this war.

"Very little of what is reported here, in other words, is what it seems. This is nothing new. Over the years, Israelis have been accused of fake massacres and rapes. The country’s actions are lied about almost daily by people describing themselves as journalists, analysts, and representatives of the United Nations, often using statistics that are themselves untrue. ...

"But one of the most awful prices [ of being unmoored from objective reality] was made clear this past week, with reports of acute hunger in Gaza.

"In a blizzard of ideological fiction, how are sane citizens in Israel, or anywhere else, supposed to know what’s true and to do the right thing? It’s not an exaggeration to say, as we’re seeing right now, that the answer to this question can be a matter of life and death. ...

"[O]ur plight as journalists is only marginally better than that of the average citizen. ... [T]here [are] nearly no trustworthy sources regarding reality in Gaza—certainly not the “Gaza Health Ministry,” which answers to Hamas; or Palestinian reporters intimidated by Hamas; or the international organisations, like the UN refugee agency UNRWA, embroiled in various forms of collaboration with Hamas. All of the above are engaged in a successful information campaign that uses Palestinian suffering, real and imagined, to catalyse international anger and tie Israel’s hands.

"The international press isn’t the answer. During my years as a reporter and editor for the Associated Press, I saw coverage altered by Hamas threats to our staff, while this fact was concealed from readers. I know firsthand that nearly no information coming from Gaza can be taken at face value.

"But neither can ... Israelis trust [their] own government, which has regularly misled the public ....

"And we can’t trust much of the information from the army, which regularly spins information overtly or by omission. ...

"When I asked ... a senior government official, with connections at the highest levels here and abroad—if people are starving in Gaza, he answered honestly, 'I don’t know.' ...

"Ohad Hemo, the Palestinian affairs reporter for [Israel's] Channel 12 News, the country’s most widely watched news programme ... report[ed] last Wednesday [that f]ood warehouses serving Hamas fighters are still full, ... and the crisis wasn’t only Israel’s fault. However ..."there is hunger in Gaza, and we need to state this loud and clear.” ... [A] senior figure in the Israeli military told one of my colleagues at the end of last week that while there isn’t mass starvation as claimed by pro-Hamas propaganda, Gaza really is on the brink this time.

"This explains why Israel, in panic mode, began air-dropping aid this weekend, along with Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, and has declared 'humanitarian pauses' to let food reach civilians—essentially unilateral ceasefires without any reciprocation from Hamas. There are now indications that food prices are dropping and that some of the scarcity is being addressed, but the situation for many civilians remains dire.

"Israel says Hamas bears the responsibility, as the group has diverted aid both to hoard for its fighters and to sell to finance the war—and then cynically uses Palestinian suffering as a propaganda tool. ... [Earlier this year] Israel began trying to conclusively break Hamas’s control of food by providing it through a new organisation, American-run and Israeli-affiliated, called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

"Because the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is an acute threat to its power, Hamas has been doing what it can to foment unrest around its distribution sites, kill its workers, and intimidate people accepting its food. ... —[which] has often meant chaotic scenes of thousands of men descending on the distribution sites and picking them clean, coming into dangerous and sometimes fatal contact with Israeli soldiers who are understandably scared of disguised Hamas fighters and unprepared for the kind of mass chaos they’re expected to control.

"It’s impossible to know how many Palestinians have been killed in these incidents, because Hamas numbers are part of the group’s information war. ...

"An experienced Israeli civilian involved in the aid efforts, from an organization that works both with international aid groups and the Israeli military, said on Friday that mass starvation is not yet the reality but could be in the near future. ...

"You might have thought that hunger in Gaza would work against Hamas, forcing the group to have mercy on its own civilians and accept the ceasefire desired by Israel and the U.S. and currently under discussion in Qatar. But Hamas knows that the opposite is true: The disaster they’ve engineered in Gaza fuels the global campaign against Israel. ...

"One of the terrible facts of this war is that the Palestinians who started the war, and who constructed the twisted battlefield on which it has been fought, won’t act to save their own people. Starvation and death serve the Hamas plan. That means that Israel must decide how far it wants to push—and when to stop."

~ Jerusalem-based columnist Matti Friedman from his post 'Is Gaza Starving? Searching for the Truth in an Information War.'

“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster… "

“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster… 

for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you."

~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Nietzsche's quote seems an apt one to memorialise today's ceasefire in Gaza. 

Hamas was empowered by Netanyahu's Israel in order (said Netanyahu) to divide Palestinian power. On October 7 a Hamas mob overran slipshod Israeli barriers to rape, butcher and burn 1200 innocent souls and kidnap another 250. And then Netanyahu's Israel began what it said was a battle to eliminate Hamas.

With more signing up daily to join Hamas than can possibly have been eliminated — and Hamas's leader promising ever more atrocities to replicate the "miracle" (his word) of October 7— it seems that the battle to eliminate, or even subdue, Hamas is lost. But in those 471 days of bombings, air strikes and savagery, so too might be the battle for Israel's own soul.

As the Middle East's even remotely individualistic liberal democracy, that could be the biggest loss.

Remembering October 7

"The first anniversary of the October 7 attacks by Hamas against Israel is approaching. Not a day since has passed when the consequences and after-shocks of that terrible day have not been felt around the world. More than any other event in living memory, it has polarised and divided people everywhere.
    "Eight weeks after the attacks, I was invited to the Israeli Embassy in Wellington to watch the 47 minutes of footage compiled by the Israeli Government called 'Bearing Witness.' ... Did watching 'Bearing Witness' alter any of my opinions? Yes, it did.
    "I expected to see men, women and children slaughtered but the level of hatred and barbarity was incomprehensible. Often the mutilation continued after the victim was killed as if that were only one stage in a process that would continue until what was left was unrecognizable. We saw 139 killings or bodies but in many cases the bodies were so disfigured or burned that they ceased to look human. ...
    "It does, I think, at least partially explain Israel’s ferocious response in the year that has followed the attacks. In my view, anyone in the Israeli government or military who viewed that footage would conclude that they face an immediate existential threat. Their enemies do not simply wish to take territory or wage a war – killing was not enough. Their enemies that day wished for the elimination of every Jewish man, woman and child until nothing remained but dust. That was the point that I did not fully appreciate until I saw this footage. ...
    "October 7 and Israel’s response will undoubtedly be debated for a lifetime. Hopefully we will live to see a peaceful resolution to this most intractable of conflicts."

~ Philip Crump from his post 'Bearing Witness to October 7'

"If you have a set of views that you can’t question, and a group of friends who’ll disown you if you do, you’re not a political activist – you’re in a cult."

Pic from The Spectator

"I have in the past admired twentysomethings for their interest in politics at an age when I was mostly clueless. I still do. But if you have a set of views that you can’t question, and a group of friends who’ll disown you if you do, you’re not a political activist – you’re in a cult."

~ Mary Wakefield, from her post 'No one will change their mind about Hamas'

"It is fear that drives them to seek the warmth, the protection, the 'safety' of a herd.
    "When they speak of merging their selves into a 'greater whole,' it is their fear that they hope to drown in the undemanding waves of unfastidious human bodies. And what they hope to fish out of that pool is the momentary illusion of an unearned personal significance."

~ Ayn Rand, from her essay 'Apollo and Dionysus' [hat tip Hilton H.]

It's the age of the Neotoddler protestor

Young men riot in Sunderland (Drik/Getty Images)

"Across the West, protests are getting larger, more frequent and more disruptive. Over the weekend, the UK saw nationwide anti-immigration riots in which mosques and other buildings were set aflame. A few days before that, Just Stop Oil activists sprayed orange paint in the world’s second-busiest airport, Heathrow. The week before, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the US Congress, pro-Palestine activists rioted in Columbus Square, vandalising memorials and releasing a swarm of maggots and worms in his Washington hotel.
    "These are just the latest examples of a growing trend of shock-activism that combines political protest and public nuisance. Ostensibly, they are carried out by distinct groups motivated by a particular cause, such as immigration, the environment, or Palestine. In reality, however, all are animated by the same, self-destructive ideology: neotoddlerism....
    
"[T]he ease with which theatrical behaviour goes viral online has convinced many that a better world doesn’t require years of patient work, only a sufficient quantity of theatrics. Many activists — on both the Left and Right — now hope to bring about their ideal world in the same way a spoiled brat acquires a toy they’ve been denied: by being as loud and hysterical as possible. This is neotoddlerism: the view that utopia can be achieved by acting like a three-year-old....

"Instead of trying to produce the best arguments, neotoddlers try to produce the most shocking video clips, which typically involve vandalism, desecration, or some other kind of public meltdown. Thus, they outrage others by embracing their own outrage and lashing out at the world. ...

"Not only do neotoddlers lack impulse-control, they also mistake their lack of impulse-control for morality, and mistake the impulse-control of others for callousness. 'Where is the outrage?' they commonly yell, demanding everyone be as irrational as them. For the neotoddler, impatience is a virtue. ...

"They therefore don’t have the means to create, only to disrupt.
    "And so they disrupt, with the goal of spreading awareness. Yet ... for all the issues they protest about — from immigration to climate change — the problem is not a lack of awareness; it’s a lack of solutions. We don’t need to be told that war, injustice, and pollution are bad, because we learned these lessons in primary school. What we need are realistic plans of action — but the neotoddlers have none. A 'ceasefire now!' would quickly be broken by Hamas. To 'just stop oil!' would be to cause Western civilisation to regress technologically into an age of famine, war and superstition. On immigration, the Government can’t just 'get them out'. ...

"But if nuisance-protests are counterproductive, why are they spreading? Because protests are usually motivated more by emotion than reason. Take the recent Southport riots. These have been driven not by any rational plan but by the frustrations of Right-wingers and ordinary working-class people about their concerns over immigration not being taken seriously by politicians. These frustrations, stoked by fake news, have led them to engage in infantile — and dangerous — actions like vandalising mosques and setting fire to police cars, which will hurt their cause more than help it. But it does make them feel good for the moment, and they live mostly for the moment.
    "As for Left-wing neotoddlers, their motivations tend to be more complex (but no less childish) than those of their Right-wing counterparts, because, instead of being impoverished and alienated, they tend to be privileged and popular. For instance ... Gaza campus protests were largely confined to the most expensive and elite colleges. And Just Stop Oil members are themselves quick to admit that their movement is 'privileged' and living in a white middle-class 'student bubble.' ...

"Unsurprisingly, the harm neotoddlers cause to liberal democracies has endeared them to foreign dictators. The Ayatollah developed a soft spot for the Ivy League campus protesters, cheerleading them on X, and even writing them a letter of support. It also recently transpired that Iran has been funding and directing activists across the US, and that they even masterminded an anti-Israel protest at McGill University in Canada. Closer to home [in the UK], the misinformation that caused the Southport riots was amplified by a fake news website linked to the Russian government. ...

"There is a way out. The solution to neotoddlers is the same as the one to regular spoiled brats: to ignore their outbursts and deny them attention. If someone sets fire to a car or makes a mess with orange paint, it shouldn’t make global or even national news. The media will stop reporting on these stories when we stop engaging with them. ... So we should learn to react more slowly to news, to pay attention to what we pay attention to, and to give more of our attention to behaviours we wish to encourage rather than those we disapprove of. It’s not just the neotoddlers who need to be less impulsive, we do too. ...

"Every child begins life throwing tantrums. And every good parent learns to ignore them, because they know that acknowledging attention-seeking behaviours validates them, and prevents their kids from outgrowing them. If we wish to stop seeing good causes ruined by bad actors, we must stop rewarding immaturity. If we wish to usher in an age of post-toddlerism, we must stop making neotoddlers famous."

~ Gurwinder Bhogal from his article 'The scourge of Neotoddler protestors: The Left and Right now rely on shock activism'

"In dangling this dream before Hamas, the three PMs have all but green-lighted its terrorism."

"So now we know what it takes to become a state: the murder of Jews. Rape, kill and kidnap Jews and seven months later, the leaders of Ireland, Spain and Norway will recognise your statehood. That’s the lesson of today’s coordinated spectacle of virtue-signalling in Dublin, Madrid and Oslo: pogroms work. The butchery of civilians gets results. Fascism has its rewards. This is ‘diplomacy’ at its most dangerous. ...
    "[T]he true impact of their imperious intervention will be to exacerbate hostilities. Hamas will feel emboldened. It now knows that a wonderful gift awaits it if it keeps battering Israel: a state of its own. In dangling this dream before Hamas, the three PMs have all but green-lighted its terrorism. ...
    "Perhaps we should not be surprised by the infantile posturing of the three PMs and their dearth of consideration for what might happen if we further isolate Israel and embolden Hamas. Because in a way, such self-involved moral blindness sums up the entirety of ‘Palestinian solidarity’. So much of the supposedly pro-Palestinian sentiment – in politics, on campuses, on the streets – is fundamentally a displacement activity. Politicians and activists bereft of ideas for how to improve their own societies instead seek sanctuary in the moral glow of Palestinianism. ...
    "This is what ‘Palestine’ has become for the cultural elites of the West: a moral balm, a source of fleeting meaning, a soapbox from which they can grandstand on faraway affairs, having zero vision for closer-to-home affairs. "
    "Those same countries have been silent about calling for the release of the hostages; silent instead of condemning outright Hamas. It is disgraceful that they go further and give Hamas a Palestinian state. Obscene."

~ Brendan O'Neill from his post 'Rewarding Fascism' [final paragraph from commenter Lala Holland on the video 'Palestinians Slaughter, Europe Rewards: How Hamas Won a State']

"Hamas is perhaps the first regime in recorded history to fight a war designed to maximise casualties among their own population."

"Hamas is perhaps the first regime in recorded history to fight a war designed to maximise casualties among their own population. And that only works for them if there is a host of outsiders, 'progressives,' who will agonise over and blame Israel for that suffering. ...
    "ISIS and Hamas learned strategy from the same playbooks. ... Hamas ... develop[ed] a jihadist strategy based on ... theological justification for ... 'attention-grabbing' atrocities to attract recruits and sow fear in the enemy's hearts.' ...
    "Westerners clearly misperceive Hamas when they imagine that their actions on October 7 were spontaneous and opportunistic; rather, it appears that the strategy of atrocity was theoretically informed, well designed, and then executed to elicit an overwhelming Israeli response and to put the Gazans at peril."

~ Michael Hochberg & Leonard Hochberg, from their post 'The Strategy of Atrocity in the Gaza War'

"Attempting to defend Israel on ancestral or biblical grounds will not work...."

"The right of Jewish people to establish and maintain the state of Israel between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea is based not on their ancestral roots in the region—nor on the story of God granting the land to Abraham—but on the fact that Israel is essentially a rights-respecting nation. 

    "This is what legitimises Israel’s existence. This is what justifies its use of retaliatory force against those who attack its citizens and residents. This is the principle by which Israel and its supporters are morally good, and Hamas and its supporters are evil. 

    "Attempting to defend Israel on ancestral or biblical grounds will not work. Why? Because collectivism—including racism—is false, and because God doesn’t exist and thus can’t grant anything to anyone. 

    "Why make a big deal of this? Because human lives and the existence of Israel are at stake, and because facts are stronger than falsehoods and fiction."

~ Craig Biddle

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17 questions for those protesting for Palestine, including:

1. Do you think Israel has the right to exist?

3. If so, what is the right response of any sovereign state to being invaded by a group that engages in a sadistic slaughter of your people and takes hostages?

4. If [not], what do you want done to the people in Israel who live within those boundaries?

8. Do you believe Hamas will miraculously abide by the ceasefire you are now calling for, when the last time it was under a ceasefire, it invaded Israel and slaughtered over 1,000 civilians? If so, why?

9. When Hamas next breaks a ceasefire, what should Israel do in response?

10. When Hamas shelters underneath hospitals, schools and homes, and uses those shelters to prepare munitions, to plan further attacks and hold hostages, what should be the right response to it?

11. If Israel withdrew (again) from Gaza, and opened the sea and airspace to Hamas, do you think it would build Gaza into a city of peace and prosperity where Palestinians could thrive, or would it use it as a staging post to wage war against Israel? What has history taught about this since 2007?

                                                    >>READ MORE

 

"Does that mean the annhilation of Israel?" "Yes, of course." [updated]

 

Hamas's "useful idiots" were out in Auckland's Domain over the weekend. In a month or so, they will be in Parliament. 

"Useful fool" was Lenin's phrase for his western dupes -- those shallow thinkers in the West whom the Communists manipulated.

On the weekend's evidence, the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand is officially Hamas's useful fools.

Let me give you some context.

On Saturday's pro-Palestine rally, Labour's Phil Twyford was granted a speaking spot by organisers, the NZ Palestine Solidarity Network. He condemned the violence. But he made the mistake of condemning Hamas's violence as well as the IDF's. The crowd turned on him, organisers asked him to leave, he was booed off, and without a police guard his escape from the grounds would not have been guaranteed.

Immediately after -- immediately -- the increasingly shrill Chloe Swarbrick got up to speak. She began by making "absolutely clear," in front of a gaggle of cheering new Green MPs and co-leader Marama Davidson, that "just after what we've witnessed, I want to say strongly, clearly and vehemently, the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand stands for a free Palestine.... From the river to the sea, Palestine" she chanted, "will be free."

"Free free Palestine!" they shouted. "Free free Palestine!" they chanted. But I have a question: Free Palestine? From what? for what? of what? of whom? 

"It's not complicated," shouted Swarbrick.

And it's actually not.

In the end, what really matters is what matters to Hamas, who rule the geographically-western strip of Palestine, their launchpad for their attacks on October 7th. And all the fools, tools and useful idiots should be absolutely clear what Hamas's own "Leader Abroad" Khaled Mashal means by "freeing" Palestine, about with he is abundantly clear. For him, it is not at all complicated. Speaking from the safety of his multi-million dollar apartment in Qatar, he makes it absolutely plain of whom he wants Palestine to be freed:

" ... We will repeat the October 7 massacre time and again, one-million times if we need to, until we end the occupation. 

Q: "Occupation where, of the Gaza strip?"

No, I am talking about all the Palestinian lands.

Q: "Does that mean the annihilation of Israel? 

"Yes, of course."

Annihilation.

All the way from the river -- that's the whole Jordan Valley on the east-- right down to the Mediterranean Sea on the west.

Annhilation.

From the river to the sea.

UPDATE: 

Just to be absolutely, pellucidly clear here .. it cannot be Gaza of which they say "the Israeli occupation" must end. Because rightly or wrongly Israel stopped occupying Gaza 18 years ago,

"Hamas and its partners ... are getting the military response they clearly hoped for. and ... have galvanised virulent antisemitism across the world."

 

"'Terrorist attacks are, first and foremost, psychological operations designed to alter behaviour amongst the terrorised in a way that the actors believe will serve them'."
    "Hamas and its partners have now set the bar for this strategy. Not only are they getting the military response they clearly hoped for, but in less than a month they have galvanised virulent antisemitism across the world. 

    "How could we be so stupid as to give these monsters such a gift?"

~ Bret Weinstein

Gaza lecture "not in any way rewarding if you hoped for a real history lesson"

"Canterbury University lecturer Josephine Varghese’s recent piece on Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza presents the plight of Palestinians as – to use her words – a ‘textbook example of institutional Western racism and colonial violence.’ ... Coloniser is just the latest in a long chain of accusations made against the Jew. ... Coloniser is simply our latest ‘shape.’ ...
    "Varghese’s case, as written, would be compelling to excitable students, a chapter or two deep in their first Chomsky, but not in any way rewarding if they had hoped for a real history lesson. In her brief and highly selective retelling of the conflict, there is no mention that Israel/ Palestine was liberated by the West after 400 years of Turkish rule. The collapse of any empire inevitably leads to competing ethnic groups seeking statehood – the bullet of a Serbian nationalist was the opening shot of the Great War. In the case of the Levant, and after offering autonomy to Arabs in the wider region, partition was decided upon by the UN. Varghese doesn’t mention that the Arabs rejected partition and instantly started a multi-front war against Israel that they lost or that Jordan and Egypt occupied the West Bank and Gaza respectively as a result and didn’t create out of these territories an independent Palestinian state. Varghese says that the 'Palestinian experience is one of human suffering, dispossession, and subjugation' but, along with leaving out the self-inflicted wounds listed above, fails to mention a chosen path of terror over subsequent decades, nor that their leaders rejected multiple peace deals, some of which even offers displaced Arabs a ‘right of return’. Even as recently as the Trump presidency, Mahmoud Abbas, the ‘moderate’ leader of the PLO, rejected a peace deal before he had even seen it. Is this the action of a leader who wants to end an occupation? Why would Varghese leave all this out, one wonders? ...
    "Why would a self-declared Marxist stoop so low to distract from the crimes of Hamas – a Hard-Right fascist terror army? A self-confessed death cult? Shouldn’t her worldview be anathema to anyone on the Left? Shouldn’t she be the very first person to challenge murderous theocratic fascism?
    "An autopsy on Varghese’s piece is as much an autopsy on socialism itself – which for all practical purposes is dead as a viable political movement. What remains is a post-truth Zombie animated by the parasite of regressive bourgeois identitarianism that is now shambling mindlessly toward the reactionary’s eternal target."

~ Dane Giraud, from his post 'Socialism is dead and the Jews are battling its corpse'

 

Proportionality in self-defence

I rarely cite a Lord here, and just as rarely a KC. But here we go, below, with a lengthy opinion by one Lord Verdirame, KC, on how Isreal's legitimate defensive goals against Hamas may be met -- as delivered to the UK House of Lords two days ago. 

There has been a lot of talk about proportionality in the law on self-defence. I refer to the words that the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, used a few days ago on the test of proportionality. It does not mean that the defensive force has to be equal to the force used in the armed attack. Proportionality means that you can use force that is proportionate to the defensive objective, which is to stop, to repel and to prevent further attacks.

Israel has described its war aims as the destruction of Hamas’s capability. From a legal perspective, these war aims are consistent with proportionality in the law of self-defence, given what Hamas says it does and what Hamas has done and continues to do.

Asking a state that is acting in self-defence to agree to a ceasefire before its lawful defensive objectives have been met is, in effect, asking that state to stop defending itself. For such calls to be reasonable and credible, they must be accompanied by a concrete proposal setting out how Israel’s legitimate defensive goals against Hamas will be met through other means. It is not an answer to say that Israel has to conclude a peace treaty, because Hamas is not interested in a peace treaty.

Proportionality also applies in the law that governs the conduct of hostilities, not only in self-defence. The law of armed conflict requires that in every attack posing a risk to civilian life, that risk must not be excessive in relation to the military advantage that is anticipated. That rule does not mean, even when scrupulously observed, that civilians will not tragically lose their lives in an armed conflict. The law of armed conflict, at its best, can mitigate the horrors of war but it cannot eliminate them. The great challenge in this conflict is that Hamas is the kind of belligerent that cynically exploits these rules by putting civilians under its control at risk and even using them to seek immunity for its military operations, military equipment and military personnel. An analysis of the application of the rules on proportionality in targeting in this conflict must always begin with this fact.

There has also been some discussion about siege warfare. The UK manual of the law of armed conflict, reflecting the Government’s official legal position—it is a Ministry of Defence document—says:

“Siege is a legitimate method of warfare … It would be unlawful to besiege an undefended town since it could be occupied without resistance”.

Gaza is not an undefended town. It is true that obligations apply to the besieging forces when civilians are caught within the area that is being encircled, and those obligations include agreeing to the passage of humanitarian relief by third parties. But it is not correct to say that encircling an area with civilians in it is not permitted by the laws of war.

A further point that concerns the laws of war is also of particular relevance to the British Government’s practice. It has already been mentioned that the Government have taken the view that Gaza remains under Israeli occupation, even though Israel pulled out in 2005. The traditional view until 2005 was that occupation required physical presence in the territory. That view is consistent with Article 42 of the Hague regulations of 1907, which states that a territory is occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the occupying power. Again, it is also the view taken by the UK manual of the law of armed conflict, which reflects the UK’s official legal position and states that occupation ceases as soon as the occupying power evacuates the area. The European Court of Human Rights, in its jurisprudence, has also adopted a similar approach to occupation. So I have always been rather baffled by the British Government’s position on this issue, which, as far as I know, has not changed. Yes, it is true that Israel has exercised significant control over the airspace and in the maritime areas, but even as a matter of plain geography it takes two—Israel and Egypt —to control the land access points to Gaza.

More fundamentally, it is Hamas that has been responsible for the government and administration of Gaza. I appreciate that this is a legal matter on which the Minister may not want to respond immediately but it is an important one, because the legal fiction that Israel was still the occupying power under the laws of armed conflict has been relentlessly exploited by Hamas to blame Israel for everything, while using the effective control that it has over the territory, the people and the resources to wage war.

On a final note, I would like to say something briefly on the way in which the war is being reported. When a serious allegation is made, particularly one that could constitute a war crime, the immediate response of the law-abiding belligerent will be to say, “We are investigating”. The non-law-abiding belligerent, by contrast, will forthwith blame the other side and even provide surprisingly precise casualty figures. The duty to investigate is one of the most important ones in armed conflict. What happened in the way in which the strike on the hospital was reported is that the side that professes no interest whatever in complying with the laws of armed conflict was rewarded with the headlines that it was seeking.

[Hat tip A Halfling's View. Link added. Emphases mine.]

How does an open society cope with the reality that some of its members do not believe in an open society?

Russ Roberts has posted a great Twitter/X thread on the aftermath of October 7, which he sees as "a test for the West and for all open societies—societies that purport to tolerate and even embrace diversity of opinion, culture, and political opinion. Societies that nominally believe in freedom of speech and the press." Such societies, he suggests, "are now at a crossroads ..."

For context, Russ is -- and has been for some while --- the host of the thoughtful and wide-ranging podcast EconTalk (one of the few to which I listen), and a long-time advocate of free speech, reflected on the many folk invited on to his show, including intellectual opponents. He recently moved from the US to Israel to take up the role of President of Shalem College, Jerusalem.

It's worth reading some of the replies too ...

The aftermath of October 7 is a test for the West and for all open societies—societies that purport to tolerate and even embrace diversity of opinion, culture, and political opinion. Societies that nominally believe in freedom of speech and the press. Such societies are now at a crossroads and must think about the direction they wish to head. Reasonable people can disagree about who is responsible and in what amounts for the quality of civilian life in Gaza before October 7. Reasonable people can disagree about whether pressure should be put on Israel to temper its military response to the pogrom of October 7.

Debates over these questions happen here in Israel and they happen in other open societies around the world.

But what do you do about Jew-hatred? What do you do when anti-Zionism is clearly not merely a disagreement with Israeli policy but comes in a flavor that is about Jews and not just Israelis? An open society believes in freedom of assembly and freedom of speech. But how does an open society like Australia’s deal with a crowd of hundreds if not thousands who chant not just “F**k the Jews” but “Gas the Jews” on the steps of the Sydney Opera House? The police discouraged Jews from coming to that rally. Is that the right response? Is there an alternative? How does an open society like England’s deal with 100,000 people marching in the streets chanting “Free Palestine” and “From the river to the sea” in the aftermath of the October 7th pogrom? Those two slogans are a demand for ethnic cleansing—an Israel without Jews. People at that rally waved flags of Jihad—religious war. The police struggled to respond and ultimately did nothing in the moment to the flag waver. Should they have?

A friend of mine told me last night that an identifiably Jewish man—he was dressed in traditional Hasidic clothing—was assaulted in Heathrow Airport. He didn’t die. I don’t know how badly he was hurt. Open societies typically call this a “hate crime.” Is that enough? The man who was hurt went to the police but there is little they offered to be able to do. One answer is to stop being identifiably Jewish, and many Jews, fearful of violence, have lowered their profile.

On the Global Day of Rage that Hamas proclaimed in the aftermath of the October 7 pogrom, Jewish children attending Jewish schools were told not to wear their school uniforms. Some schools cancelled classes on that Friday. Is that the right way for an open society to respond--fo Jews to avoid being publicly Jewish—an inversion of sorts of requiring Jews to wear a yellow star in Nazi Germany?

Last night, at George Washington University, someone projected giant signs on the sides of buildings saying “Glory to the Martyrs” and “From the river to the sea.” Should celebrating the murder of Jews be protected speech in an open society?
And then there are the people tearing down the posters about the kidnapped adults and children in Gaza. Such actions are at least a tacit endorsement of child abduction. Is that free speech? Hate speech? Or a legitimate political protest?
Political disagreement is at the heart of an open society. Celebrating the deaths of your political opponents seems like something different. I don’t think an open society can survive if some of its members use violence or the threat of violence to silence their opponents.
How does an open society cope with the reality that some of its members do not believe in an open society?  

I recently read Stefan Zweig’s memoir, 'The World of Yesterday.' It’s a masterpiece [agree - Ed.] describing Zweig’s intellectual and cultural world in Vienna and the rest of Europe before and after World War I. He struggles to explain the rise of Hitler but ex post, he understands that part of Hitler’s success was due to how his supporters used violence and intimidation to silence his opponents and to raise the cost of their meeting and gathering publicly. We’re getting a small taste of that now in America and elsewhere. Two nights ago in Skokie Illinois there was a pro-Israel rally and some Jews gathered for an impromptu evening prayer service. Nearby, maybe twenty yards away, a crowd of dozens, held back by barriers, screamed “Allahu Akbar” at them. Police were there, too, restraining them. But what if such disrupters come into the synagogues and elsewhere, with disruptive tactics and implicit threat of violence? Who will stop them? Will the Jews fight back or lower their profile? 

There are lots of videos online of people gleefully pulling down those posters of kidnapped children and adults. Sometimes people watching nearby ask them not to do it. They beg those tearing down the posters for an explanation. No one steps in their way, though. No one fights them or tries to keep the despoilers from hiding the victims. I get it. We’re all afraid of people who seem willing to do violence to us. But how can an open society tolerate this? What does an open society do when some of its members are happy to use violence or the threat of violence to curtail the freedom of other members of that society? Tom Palmer of the Cato Institute once told me that there should be free speech for everyone except those who hold ideologies that do not believe in free speech. I was offended. Free speech should have no exceptions based on political grounds, I argued. I’ve since changed my mind. Tom was right.  Someone who hates Jews or any other group and supports their murder or abuse and who uses violence or the threat of violence to silence those who disagree cannot be tolerated in an open society. But how to implement that intolerance of intolerance? 

We now have the unbearable audio of one of the murderers on October 7th calling his parents and proudly declaring that he killed 10 Jews. Not ten Israelis. Not ten Zionists. Not ten white colonialists. Not 10 settlers. Ten Jews. Here in Israel, we have no illusions about what we’re up against. We know there are people who don’t just want our land. They want to kill us along the way. And they seem to enjoy it.  

There’s a genuine debate here in Israel about whether a ground offensive in Gaza will be worth the lives of the soldiers and the Gazan civilians who will die. But no one is debating whether it’s a good idea to kidnap children or kill their parents in front of them before abducting them. We know what we’re up against. Old-fashioned Jew-hatred. And we’re not going to hope it goes away. We’re going to fight. 

The open societies in the West elsewhere are going to have to come to terms with the reality that some of its citizens want to live in a very different kind of kind of society and are willing to use violence and the threat of violence to intimidate and harm people they disagree with. There is no simple answer to coping with this reality. It is easy to say that you’re against it—all the right people have said all the right things. But soon the West and the open societies may have to do the right thing. Deciding what that is and how to implement that decision is the terrible dilemma facing the West right now.

"Westsplaining" Palestine

"'Westplaining' seeks to explain away what many Palestinians 

clearly say, so as to avoid having to deal with the consequences."

"[T]he Palestinian 'cause,' despite continuing to enjoy global support and attention, seems to have gone nowhere. The reason is that the 'cause' has never been the one so many Westerners created in their minds....

    "It is understandable that the West wants to believe that many Palestinians engage in violence because they seek 'freedom from occupation,' or are 'angered by settlements,' or 'want to improve conditions in Gaza.' Those are rational, limited, and understandable goals that Westerners can feel good about supporting. But they are projected goals, inventions of a Western mind.The vaunted Palestinian 'cause,' of which Abu Daoud spoke [i.e., the man who planned the 1972 massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, who remained unrepentant to his dying day], and which Hamas has dutifully pursued, has never been about any of those goals. Its followers have made it clear, for more than a century, in words, actions, and strategic decisions, that their 'cause' was always one: the prevention, and then the destruction of a Jewish state in any part of the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Hence 'Free Palestine' and 'From the River to the Sea.' ...
    "[T]he Palestinian 'cause' was always singularly and consistently about nothing less than ensuring that the Jews have no state in any part of the land. This western tendency, which I have come to call 'westplaining,' seeks to explain away what many Palestinians clearly say, so as to avoid having to deal with the consequences. ...
    "'Westplaining' rests above all on an inversion of cause and effect. Israel’s extended military presence in the West Bank becomes the cause of Palestinian violence – 'occupation' – rather than the outcome of an ideology that refuses any agreement that would end Israel’s military presence ... if it means accepting the legitimacy and permanence of free Jews living in their own state in the remaining part of the land. ...
    "Today only those truly determined to deny the largest, most brutal, massacre of Jews since the Holocaust will look away from the slaughter of October 7. It turns out that, indeed, when given the chance, when Israel’s military fails to stop them in time, many Palestinians do mean to carry out, literally and gruesomely, 'Itbah al-Yahud – the slaughter of the Jews. 

    "It is time to stop looking away. It is time to end appeasement. For too long, Palestinian groups have been nourished, indulged and sustained by their enablers to keep fighting for an annihilationist cause, rather than moving on, and creating prosperous lives for themselves. 

    "If anything is to emerge from this hellscape, it should be a true reckoning with what the Palestinian 'cause' has been for over a century. Nothing less than its complete defeat, and the reprogramming of its ethos away from destruction and towards construction will do."

~ Dr Einat Wilf, from her column 'There can be no peace so long as Palestinians want to annihilate Israel'

“How is Israel supposed to do it?” [updated]

"As the days pass ... the world’s sympathy for Israel and its residents butchered by Hamas is morphing into sympathy for the Palestinians. And indeed, Palestinian civilians deserve sympathy for being the victims of Hamas as well. But as most people agreed—and many still do—after the attack Israel had little choice but to uproot Hamas once and for all.
    "The question I’m asking is this “How are they supposed to do it?” ...
    "Israel will not survive unless it can defend itself. Yet when it tries, it gets harshly criticised. NONE of the strategies listed above ... will [avert the death of civilians as a byproduct, particularly because Hamas uses its citizens as human shields and isn’t really concerned whether they die]; nor [will any] avoid criticism of Israel, mainly because many, at least on the Left, despise Israel: not just the government, but the country’s mere existence. I have reluctantly concluded that those who criticise Israel for any method it uses to defend itself, no matter what that method may be, share the Palestinian view that Israel needs to be erased. These people give lip service to the view that Hamas needs to be erased, but they’re lying about the object."

~ Jerry Coyne, from his post 'A few thoughts on the war'

"As Arabs, our message to the world cannot be restricted to eliciting global sympathy for the children of Gaza. We cannot depict ourselves as helpless children, behind whom we hide our failure to control our Hamas thugs who massacred 1300 non-combatant Israelis. This is a moral failure ...
    "The Palestine disaster (nakba) is not a disaster of land loss or military defeat. It is a disaster of absence of leadership that can articulate the Arab alternative to war and death. We ask the world to stop the Israeli war on Hamas, but what do we offer as an alternative to stopping the war? Just let those Hamas thugs who massacred 1300 Israelis get away with their crime (because there is a history of dispute)? Ask Israel to go back to October 6? Knowing that Hamas can break out of the Gaza fence and repeat its massacre any minute? Hamas must go. We Arabs must help get rid of it, and most importantly, we must show that we have a plan for the day after Hamas."

~ Hussain Abdul-Hussain

RELATED READING:

* "Following a litany of failures, Israel must now contemplate a menu of bad options."
    The Gazan Gordian knot - Shmuel Bar, QUILLETTE

"The moral difference between Israel & her enemies comes down to understanding the answer to this question: what would each side do if they had the power to do it?"

"For nearly twenty years neither Jordan nor Egypt (which held the Arab lands of Palestine) enabled the creation of a Palestinian state. Indeed the very concept of a 'Palestinian homeland' was only invented after 1967 -- after the Six Day War when Jordan, Egypt and Syria tried to wipe Israel off the map --- and each ended up losing territory to Israel.
    "It has all come a long way, in that Israel has since accepted Palestinian sovereignty over Gaza ... withdrawing completely in 2005. This gave the Palestinian Authority a chance to choose peace ... However Palestinians in Gaza did not choose peace, they chose to break away from the Palestinian Authority and give power to Hamas - an Islamist death cult...
    "Hamas wants an Islamist theocracy, with no tolerance for other or no religion, no tolerance for political plurality. It promotes martyrdom to children, it promotes traditional submissive roles for women, it promotes death to homosexuals and lesbians and it promotes death to Jews. Its ideal is a totalitarian state of obedience to radical Islamism. It is a death cult, that celebrates the death of innocent people. ... nihilists who are antithetical to any sense of life, to any belief that individuals exist to pursue their own purposes, their own lives, their loves, passions, interests and joy....
    "Hamas are enemies of Palestinians, they don't want peace for Palestinians and certainly don't want peace [with] Israel, they want it destroyed....
    "There is plenty of room for criticism of Israel's treatment of the Palestinian occupied territories. Ultimately, it will be right only when the Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza can govern themselves (in secular states, with liberal democracy, and no ability to wage war against their neighbours) and when Israel respects their right to do so. However, there will be no peace whilst Hamas thinks it is better to kill Israelis than to build an economy and society based on Palestinians producing, trading, living and thriving...
    "If you sympathise with Palestinians you will oppose Hamas. If you believe in individual freedom and human rights you'll oppose Hamas. However ... I have yet to see any semblance of an organisation set up by Palestinians supporting a relatively free open liberal democracy; nothing remotely resembling anything like what exists either in Israel, or even other former dictatorships like Bulgaria or Georgia.
    "It would be wonderful for Palestine to be free, for there to be a Palestinian Arab state alongside Israel, that shares trade, investment, employment and lives in peace side by side. Some Israelis don't want that, they do want the Greater Israel of the full occupation. A lot more Palestinians don't want that all: they want the Jews pushed into the sea.
    "Golda Meir once said 'We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.' Unfortunately, too many of them want their children to be martyrs, and too many useful idiots in the West are happy to support them doing it."

~ Liberty Scott, from his post 'The Islamofascist death cult of Hamas'

Sam Harris on the moral difference between Israel and her enemies: 

"The moral difference [between Israel and her enemies] comes down to understanding the answer to this question: what would each side do if they had the power to do it?"

"First, the horror.... Then, the sewer."

"First, the horror. No sooner had Hamas rolled into Israel on Saturday, murdering and kidnapping those they came across, than images of their depraved exploits were plastered across social media. Innocent people executed on the streets. A pensioner kidnapped and driven into Gaza on a golf buggy. A young woman’s lifeless body, stripped almost naked, paraded on the back of a pick-up truck as men spat on her and chanted ‘Allahu Akbar’. Ordinary people slaughtered and taken for no other crime than being Israeli, than being Jewish. Then, the sewer. Just as social media had confronted us with such unspeakable evil, it then confronted us with those in the West who looked upon these barbaric, blood-thirsty scenes – from the comfort of safe homes 2,000 miles away – and thought to themselves: Good."

~ Tom Slater, from his column 'Cheerleaders for Hamas'