Gaza War - Aggregation & Commentary

Yehya Sinwar in subterranean hospital compound.

Priestess of Jewish anti-Israelism Perhaps the most hard working, skilled, and well-funded anti-Israel Jewish voice on X is @LaraFriedmanDC, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace @FMEP. @FMEP, in its various incarnations, has since the 1980s been instrumental in working to debilitate Jewish support for Israel among American Jews. You’d be surprised who has been in and out of their doors and coffers. While Friedman also plays a role with the U.S. wing of Peace Now, most of its supporters have no clue about the real work of @FMEP and how the two instruments are linked.

What would Engels do? Bernie Sanders -  I saw a young socialist holding up a pro-Hamas sign at some protest in Washington, lamenting how Bernie was standing with Israel against a ceasefire in Gaza. Against a ceasefire in return for nothing. Against a ceasefire that would save Hamas without releasing the captives taken on October 7. I had no idea what she was talking about until I came across this interview. The woke socialists look set to excommunicate Bernie. But I welcome his late-in-life epiphany. Let’s see if it is lasting.

Congratulations The great genda philosopher Judith Butler, an expert in ethix “third-wave feminism” and “queer theory,” has been awarded the “Sheik Yassen Chair in LBGTQRA-T” studies at the Islamic University of Gaza الجامعة الإسلامية بغزة It is expected to be a brief tenure. Writing in the anti-Zionist London Review of Books, Butler, an “AsAJew,” engages in tedious woke bothsiderism and doublespeak. But let me try to summarize her position. Israel=bad. Hamas=not ideal. Hamas= hideous Hamas=do not deserve to be blacklisted or threatened.Israel=settler-colonial Hamas= terrifying and appalling answer to Israel=racist framing of contemporary violence Israel=recapitulates the colonial opposition between the ‘civilised ones’ and the ‘animals’ who must be routed or destroyed  Solution= an end to the state of Israel that was itself founded in violence no future can be imagined Peace= a euphemism for normalisation which means keeping structures of inequality, rightlessness, and racism in place. Got all that? And, yes, she makes a nice living from teaching and writing this stuff.

Let’s keep Detroit’s Samantha Woll in mind as we await a determination if her murder was related to the antisemitism and anti-Israelism sweeping America and Europe. Mass rallies against Israel that often devolve into orgies of antisemitism have been held in London (on the Tube and in the street), NYC, and Washington, DC. In Sweden, “bomb Israel” rallies are staged outside synagogues.

The Washington Post hones the art of the micro-aggressive headline. “As Gaza death toll soars, secrecy shrouds Israel’s targeting process. Experts say Israel’s rules of engagement in Gaza, which are classified, appear to include a higher threshold for civilian casualties than in past wars.”  So, IDF operations have not been signaled to the Post in advance, and the Post disapproves of the unwillingness of the IDF to sacrifice its soldiers to protect the human shields Hamas has taken. Thousands of willing human shields sat on plastic chairs outside a hospital for a screening of the “best jihadist attacks on occupation soldiers,” cheering the explosions.

Senator Chris Van Hollen (J Street) – is what you need to understand in parsing The New York Times complaint that “U.S. Officials Fear American Guns Ordered by Israel Could Fuel West Bank [Settler] Violence” J Street planting stories in the more than willing NYT.

‘UNRWA, the U.N. agency that aids Palestinians’ – What you need to know if you are just joining us is that UNRWA is the only refugee agency whose mandate is NOT to resettle refugees permanently. It is tasked to keep Palestinian refugees, whether in Palestine or abroad, refugees in perpetuity. Almost all its employees are Palestinian Arabs. Its schools teach the Palestinian curriculum of political agitprop: no to permanent resettlement or even permanent housing in "refugee camps." Its buildings have sometimes been used to store weapons and to shoot at Israelis.

Summarizing This war will not be quick. Israelis are paying a heavy price—soldier funerals. Air raids sirens over metro Tel Aviv. Hezbollah attacks in the north, and Hamas and Islamic Jihad launches from the south. Jerusalem is comparatively quiet of sirens. This is a war of “no choice”. It is either us or them. People who want a ceasefire without getting our hostages out and the removal of Hamas are, in effect, siding with Hamas. There is no room for both-sider-ism.

 

Want me to beg you to side with Israel? Fuggedaboutit

This is what 'Never Again' means. Get over it.

There is not enough Instagram, TikTok, X, Facebook, email, or WhatsApp to change one mind about which side to support in the Gaza War.

Those who identify with the Islamist cause, the Palestinian Arabs, global socialism, the woke of various hues, and their strange bedfellows, white supremacists – and a not insignificant number of Jewish apostates and quislings – will do everything in their power to save Hamas from destruction.

They will send around dead baby pictures but not a single image of an Islamist launching a rocket or shooting an automatic weapon. They do not want to end Gaza’s suffering by calling on Hamas leaders to crawl out of their million-dollar sewers. Do the honorable thing and give up. Hands up. White flag. Save their people from further suffering. Face the firing squad. Collect their 72 virgins. 

They will not blame Hamas for the humanitarian plight in the Strip. For placing command centers below hospitals, weapons stockpiles in mosques, and only Allah knows what they have hidden in UNWRA buildings. 

In the pro-Hamas narrative, this war began when we hit them back. 

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And then there is us. Much fewer in number. 

Israelis from across the political and religious spectrum, pro-Israel Diaspora Jews, and neo-Jews -unaffiliated types, like liberals and the woke mugged by the reality of the past several weeks. Some folks who never saw themselves as Israel-centric.

Plus, non-Jewish Philo-semites of various hues. And Christian Zionists.

That more or less covers our side. Did I forget somebody?

We need to keep telling each other our message. Because we are swimming in an overwhelmingly anti-Israel, let’s face it, anti-Jewish sea. Our safety is threatened. Attempted pogroms at airports and in business districts. Marchers outside our windows with blood in their eyes and venom in their throats.

We hunker down, awaiting terrorist attacks against our institutions.

In that context, we must remind ourselves that we are in a zero-sum conflict. It is either Israel or Hamas. It is either Israel or Islamic Jihad. Both Islamist groups exist not to build on Palestinian Arab autonomy but to destroy the Jewish state. There is no compromise with Hamas, with Islamic Jihad, with ISIS, with militant Islamism.

Hamas is responsible for the safety of its citizens – Israel is not.

Hamas hides behind Arab civilians. Al Jazeera covers for it. Qatar is the paymaster of both. Both discourage the innocents from leaving danger zones. Hamas controls Gaza’s health authority and hospitals. No one speaks publicly to the media in Gaza without the tacit approval of Hamas.

Hamas carried over 200 Israelis and others into captivity – men, women, and children. 

Hamas butchered hundreds of innocent civilians and first responders.

Since day one of the war, Hamas has never stopped launching rockets at our civilian population, forcing the evacuation of Israeli towns and villages. The upheaval they unleashed has caused terrible internal dislocation in Israel.

Hamas has destroyed our tourism and is intent on devastating our economy, including the high-tech sector.

Behind Hamas stands Iran. Then Russia, China, Turkey, and North Korea. Plus, Pakistan and most of the Muslim and Arab world. Did I mention Qatar?

Western countries are wobbly at best in their support for Israel. Most are hypocritical. They say we have a right to defend ourselves. Yet they know the constraints they place on us make overcoming Hamas impossible. 

Most EU countries either abstained or voted against us at the UN General Assembly this past Saturday. I get it. They don't want the streets of Berlin, London, and Paris to explode.

Under the guise of humanitarian intervention, they want to see Hamas fight another day. Under the guise of a ceasefire, they want to see Hamas fight another day.

During WWII, no one held a stopwatch to Churchill and Roosevelt. No one told them to be mindful that only card-carrying Nazis get hurt. No one warned them not to be disproportionate. Because everyone understood they had to win or the world would be benighted. Collateral damage is unavoidable since the enemy uses its own population as human shields. 

No. At this point, I will not try to convince anyone to side with us. People have made their moral beds. Let them be known forever by which side they chose. 

You are either part of the solution or part of the problem.

“Stop the killing on both sides” is a dribble you say to cover your ass. It's bullshit.

There ain’t no neutral here. There ain’t no crawling into a hole and waiting for the unpleasantness to pass. 

It’s judgment time in the adult leagues.

Meantime, all we can do is give each other strength, support one another, and maybe cut each other a bit of slack.

And we must – each in our way – fight on. Fight on until Hamas and Islamic Jihad are wiped out.

This is what Never Again means.

 

Sunday - October 29 - Gaza War - Aggregation & Commentary

Netanyahu: No Apology. No Responsibility

 

Better baptism.

Ida Bae Wells @nhannahjones, chief woke officer at The New York Times, has been positively kvelling on X (formerly Twitter) over the number of marchers for “Palestine” in London and New York City who are of Jewish ancestry.  Ms. Wells, let me explain. When baptism isn’t an option, and neither is embracing Islam, the next best thing for apostate Jews and quislings is marching for “Palestine.” You can think of them as queers for conversion therapy or chickens for Colonel Sanders or Jewish Voice for Peace @jvplive or @IfNotNowOrg. 

While on the subject of the Times, I can report that the paper’s op-ed pages, at least in the international edition, are back to being Palestinian-occupied territory. There is a comfort in the familiar, I suppose. 

Londonstan 2023

Ramallah beckons

Hamas director of ecumenical and interfaith relations Ismail Haniyeh has a special message to his Jewish supporters concerned about the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Here is the link (or copy and paste) 

https://x.com/IsraelinUSA/status/1718021899056210213?s=20

For all the talk of solidarity and high-level visits right after Black Saturday by Germany’s Olaf Scholz, the UK’s Rishi Sunak, and France’s Emmanuel Macron, when push comes to shove, Germany and the UK ‘abstained’ from backing Israel at the UN GA. France voted outright against Israel. So, let's do the math: 120 countries are maliciously anti-Israel; 14 stood with Israel, including the US, and 45 have no backbone and abstained... like people who see and hear a street mugging but roll down their Venetian blinds.

UK and Germany Abstain. France against Israel.

"I'm with them."

Last night saw the first news conference since Binyamin Netanyahu took office in December 2022. As anticipated, he changed the subject in response to the six or seven questions from Israeli reporters in Hebrew. In perhaps his only direct reply, he falsely asserted that it had never been his policy to boost Hamas to the detriment of the PLO. And he refused to apologize or take direct responsibility for Black Saturday. The wizard of bollocks had hoped that appearing with his nemesis DM Yoav Gallant and the well-meaning Blue and White Party leader Benny Gantz would inure him from looking guilty. It didn't. Meanwhile, Gallant and Ganz looked desperate for the entire charade to be over.

Portentously, Bibi glossed over the fact that he had freed practically the entire current Hamas leadership in Gaza, Turkey, and Qatar (link to list) in the Schalit deal. 

Now, I fear that under comparable public pressure, our weakest ever prime minister, encouraged by his overbearing wife, appears to be mulling freeing every Palestinian Arab convict in Israeli prisons with blood on their hands – up to and including the butchers who carried out the Black Saturday massacres - in return for most of the captives Hamas took. 

That would be a mistake of catastrophic proportions. 

Yet Bibi might try to ascribe the original Schalit deal to Ahad Ha'am, Ben-Gurion, or Yair Lapid, and say their mistakes forced him to do the latest prisoner exchange. 

You never know what a spineless serial liar will say. But you can be sure many of his bespelled followers will believe him.

Erev Shabbat, 27 October - Gaza War - Aggregation & Commentary

Netanyahu believes he can blame the IDF and Shin Bet for Black Saturday.

Senior Saudi Journalist Tariq Al-Homayed In Message To Yahyah Sinwar: 'Would You Leave Gaza To Prevent Further Bloodshed[?]'

Want to help Gaza? Gaza does not need fuel which will only wind up in the hands of Islamic Jihad and Hamas. 

Get this message out from a leading Saudi journalist: 

Tell Hamas leaders to leave the Strip now.  

Recall that it was the Reagan administration that saved Arafat’s life when he fled Lebanon, but once Sinwar was out, he’d be a walking dead. There is always time to kill him and the rest of his politburo. 

The Be’eri Printing Press: Israel’s Print Shop

Last night Hamas Gaza launched rockets at Be’eri.

 

Can the Palestinian Authority control Gaza if Hamas is ousted?

It may be lucky to keep control of the West Bank by the end of this war

The Palestinian Arabs are incapable of running their own affairs. They need the help of the UN Trusteeship Council to help them develop political institutions and a political culture that would make self-government viable.

 

What Palestinians Really Think of Hamas

Before the War, Gaza’s Leaders Were Deeply Unpopular—but an Israeli Crackdown Could Change That

Methinks this is a misleading and tendentious use of polling. For one, it obscures what the 2 state solution connotes for Palestinians educated in UNWRA schools dedicated to the right of return.

 

Iran's foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said the Mullahs are "willing" to Take Custody of the Israeli Captives in Gaza

Hossein Amir-Abdollahian is off his meds.

 

Al-Monitor/Premise poll: 82% of Americans wary of US intervention in Israel-Hamas war

As the Israel-Hamas war rages on and threatens to spill into a wider regional conflict, Americans are either unsure of or reject a US military intervention in the region, according to a new Al-Monitor/Premise poll.

Like anything else from this anti-Zionist publication, this poll needs to be parsed with care. But Al-Monitor, like The Economist and The New York Times, is worth reading – if you know how to read between the lines and are “woke” to their agenda.

UN chief’s Brownnosing of Hamas ‘didn’t happen in a vacuum’

¿Quién paga mi salario? ¿Quién cuidará de mí cuando me jubile?

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s offered some "context" to explain the beheadings, butchery, raping, pillaging, and kidnapping of Israeli civilians and foreign workers such as those from Nepal and Thailand:

 “It is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum. The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation. They have seen their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence; their economy stifled; their people displaced and their homes demolished. Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been vanishing.”

Guterres’ brownnosing of Hamas “didn’t happen in a vacuum.”  

He’s done his arithmetic. 

Fifty-six (of the 57) members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation are also UN members. Of these, 22 are correspondingly member states of the Arab League. 

Add in assorted shithole countries like North Korea. Then factor in Russia, China, and their satellites. 

Further, consider the wobbly serial abstainers or appeasers of Western Europe, those with a wildly fluctuating moral compass, such as France and the UK. 

Yes, Emmanuel Macron and Rishi Sunak talk the talk. 

And I am glad that the UK delegate did not join in Arab efforts on October 24 at the UN/SC to save Hamas by calling for an immediate ceasefire. Let's see how long that lasts and how Sunak instructs his ambassador to vote at the UN when the time comes (there was no vote yesterday).

Despite Macron's solidarity visit to Israel, France's Catherine Colonna made clangors about championing a truce "leading to" a ceasefire. Whatever.

Anyway, Guterres can count how many anti-Zionist countries there are at the UN, and those who when push comes to shove, will look the other way as Israel is pilloried.

He knows there's always been an automatic UN General Assembly majority for any and every anti-Israel resolution.

Guterres well knows where his lachuch is buttered. He also knows there is no way he's gonna win the Oberleutnant Kurt Waldheim Award for International Service if he sides with the lone Jewish state at the world body. 

He's done the math. 

So, Guterres’s brownnosing of Hamas “didn’t happen in a vacuum.”