This is an attempt to “break out” memes, links, and my commentary about the situation in Israel / the Middle East so as to not overload the standard meme posts that I do. My last “normal” meme post. And my last Israel-related one. I don’t just have memes in the Israel ones, but lots of informative links as well as hopefully-insightful commentary, so if you didn’t see the last one, please do go look after you’re done with this one. Same thing here: lots and lots of links, info, videos, memes, and my added commentary (that I hope adds perspective and value).
Note that while I will attempt discretion in images that I post, not all are “squeaky clean” in terms of the eyes of the innocent. Be warned here.
WHEN WILL IT END?
Silent Cries Amidst Invasion: Israel Must Eliminate Hamas :: Middle East Forum (meforum.org)
The disarmament of Gaza is not an act of oppression – it is a stride towards peace. Each rocket, every weapon that is wrested from the hands of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, echoes the distant but undeniable drumbeats of a region where children can dream without the nightmare of war shadowing their innocence.
Israel’s consideration to eliminate Hamas’s leadership and disband its organization is born not from a thirst for retribution, but from strategic and legal necessity. It is rooted in the objective to neutralize an existential threat, to silence the guns that leave children orphaned, and to dismantle the ideological edifice that fuels a relentless campaign of terror.
This is not a decision made lightly, but is necessitated by the evolving nature of the threat. There is a detailed case for a comprehensive military intervention against Hamas, reasons that go beyond the need to respond to the despicable invasion launched this morning from Gaza.
Hamas’s charter unequivocally calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. Their acts of aggression are not limited skirmishes or disputes over borders, but pose a fundamental existential threat to Israel and its citizens.
As I said in the last post – when your neighbor’s stated & sworn goal is your utter destruction, there can be no “coexistence”. Nor can there be mercy, because they have demonstrated by deeds they have none for Israel or Jews.
Israel has the right — and the duty — to besiege Gaza (nypost.com) (bolding added):
International pressure demanding Israel provide terrorists with electricity and other goods is absurd and without basis in international law.
As the besieging state, Israel is not required to fund or assist Hamas’ war effort as it attempts to butcher Jews.
Siege law includes a humanitarian aspect: International law requires that Israel facilitate the passage of food and medicine by third parties, but only if such goods can be reliably delivered without diversion to Hamas and without fear the goods will give Hamas an economic and military boost.
Given Hamas’ 16-year exploitation of humanitarian aid and infiltration of human-rights and international organizations in Gaza, diversion is not merely a possibility — it is a certainty.
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So Israel’s bombed Syria’s airport. I had immediately wondered that there could be two possible reasons. Either Israel was doing this to bait Iran into actively joining in as a pretext for going after Iran itself (IMHO a suicidal move if done intentionally), or that there was intelligence that the airport was a landing spot for munitions heading – ultimately – to Israel’s northern territories. The second one:
The Airbus A340 carrying the Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister about to land in Damascus also had several commanders of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps on board and several tons of anti-tank missiles for Hezbollah.
Now I don’t know what level of proof Israel had for this. I also don’t know if this constitutes casus belli with Iran. But Iran is clearly in this, up to its neck. And this risks Syria coming in actively.
OOH, we need to vet this information very carefully. This is WWIII territory. OTOH, remember, in Shia Islam their Messiah cannot come until there’s a world war. To them, all this is a feature, not a bug.
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Per this comment on another Grok post, Hamas doesn’t follow the Geneva Conventions:
Yet listen to these fools demand Israel cease fire, follow the “rules of war” and not hit civilians in Gaza. Hamas isn’t following the rules of war. (Geneva Convention as amended):
– combatants should be wearing uniforms. Hamas does not.
– combatants must not mix military and civilian areas, especially critical facilities like hospitals. Hamas deliberately locates military operations in civilian buildings. Their HQ is under a hospital. A missile factory is under a building labeled as an elementary school. They have tunnel operations & weapons caches in buildings next to the border wall labeled “UN.” They use mosques for weapons storage. Hamas tells civilians to not evacuate then cries for the cameras when civilians are killed.
You want to stop terror attacks? Use their religion against them:
How American Soldiers Used Pig’s Blood and Corpses to Fight Muslim Terrorism | Frontpage Mag
And B”H I pray I’m never involved in a shooting with terrorists, but… if I am, and I’m the victor, I need to start carrying a jar of bacon bits. Just in case. (Doubtless to have “hate crimes” charges filed against me.)
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Another tidbit is this map that was found on dead Hamas terrorists. This is an important detail – maps are critical. From a Telegram channel:
“Hamas Militants Had Detailed Maps of Israeli Towns, Military Bases and Infiltration Routes.
Documents found on Hamas militants show scale of planning behind deadly attack”
Great reporting by the WSJ.“TEL AVIV—Hamas militants who flooded into southern Israel from Gaza last weekend carried detailed maps of the towns and military bases that they targeted. Some also carried tactical guides identifying weak spots on Israeli army armored vehicles.
The documents, written in Arabic, were recovered from the sites of attacks or bodies of dead Hamas fighters by Israeli civilians, soldiers and emergency personnel and seen by The Wall Street Journal. Authorities are examining the trove, Israeli officials said.
Taken together, the documents indicate that Hamas set out from the start to target not just military installations, but to attack civilian population centers and to take hostages, and they offer evidence of the scale of Hamas’s intelligence-gathering and the degree of planning for the assault.
More than 1,300 Israelis were killed in the attacks, which have deeply shaken the country’s sense of security and prompted Israel to declare war on Hamas.
“They knew exactly what the targets were going to be,’” said Michael Milshtein, a former Israeli military intelligence officer and head of Palestinian Studies Forum at Tel Aviv University. “There is nothing close to this level of planning in any steps Hamas had done in the past.””
🔬🧬 @RWMaloneMD
What’s the point? That this was well-planned and for a long time. Years.
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Names of the dead.
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Is a multi-nation assault on Israel nigh? Sure looks like it as Iraqi volunteers go to the Jordan border waiting for permission to cross and attack:
Iran is apparently moving its armor:
Now, I see three dread possibilities here if all these forces are permitted through:
One: They attack, and the US comes in to help Israel. Now it’s all of Islam against not just Israel, but the US, and under Article 5, all of NATO. And things get “spicy” real quick. After all, what do you think all those millions of Muslims in America and Europe will do? Jihad will go global.
Two: The US stands by; the forces there are for show and the US stands. All those warships there being just for show and to lull Israel into believing the US had their back. In the absolute “best case” for Israel, Israel is forced to use nuclear weapons and survives because of that. And is now a world pariah nation despite the clear choice between that and total annihilation. Worst case, Israel is wiped out even with nuclear weapons used.
Three: Iran has practiced attacking mockup carriers and doubtless learned from the exercise. What if those carriers are there, not as support for Israel, but to put them in a position where Iranian forces can get to them to sink them? The US Navy is then crippled, and under either Two or Three, the precedent for every aggressor everywhere is clear: the US is not coming to the rescue. Hello, Taiwan? South Korea? Philippines?
HISTORY
Remember that when Israel was formed, the regular armies of FIVE ARAB NATIONS attacked to wipe out the fledgling state. Part of the result of that attack was the capture of half of Jerusalem, the expulsion of the Jews within, and the illegal occupation and actual – albeit also illegal – annexation of what was renamed the “West Bank” by Jordan.
Everyone talks about The Nakba, the expulsion (mostly) voluntary flight of the Arabs from their homes during the initial war of Israel’s formation. We know this was ordered by the invading armies; there are audio recordings of the residents being told via radio to flee their homes so that the Arabs could have a freer hand in “dealing with” the Jews. Though, to be accurate, there were actual expulsions too. Cry me a river after this:
Nobody discusses the 850,000-odd Jews expelled by Arab nations (excellent book!) in the run up to and subsequent to the formation of the nation of Israel. It’s only the misery – and it was misery – for the Arabs fleeing Israel. But why would their fellow Arabs not help? Because the Arabs held their fellows hostage to create an eternal sore point against Israel, while Israel – with difficulty – slowly absorbed a pulse of Jews greater than actually existed in the land at the time. (From 1948 to 1967 the Egyptians in Gaza and the Jordanians in the “West Bank” had almost two decades to build housing and help their fellow Muslims… why didn’t they? Again, psychologically, understand that the Arabs kept their fellows in squalor because all these poor refugees from Israel were warriors in the eternal jihad against the Jewish state.)
We also keep hearing about “The Occupation” as the source of grievance. What “occupation” was there during the formation of the PLO in 1964? What “Israel” was there in the Nebi Musa riots in 1920, or Hebron Massacre in 1929, or the Farhud pogrom in 1941 in Iraq?
I discussed, in the last post, the Islamic command to reconquer any territory that was once Islamic. Every square inch of the land of Israel falls under that category, formerly being part of the Ottoman empire. Thus, irrespective of anything else, it is a Koranic command to retake it. It would not matter if it were held by Jews, or Christians, or Buddhists, or Shinto practitioners, or anyone else. The Koran says retake it, it must be retaken.
The 1967 Six Day War (excellent book) and other history sources show definitively that the Six Day War was a defensive war. What does international law say about defensive wars? My non-scholarly understanding and research indicate that should the defender gain land, that is their land. Furthermore, Israeli settlements and control of Jerusalem the “West Bank”, and even possibly Gaza are not a violation of international law. (Also here, same author.)
Applied to the case of Israel, uti possidetis juris would dictate that Israel inherit the boundaries of the Mandate of Palestine as they existed in May, 1948. The doctrine would thus support Israeli claims to any or all of the currently hotly disputed areas of Jerusalem (including East Jerusalem), the West Bank, and even potentially the Gaza Strip (though not the Golan Heights).
And here is an analysis of the Golan Heights specifically, though the same arguments apply to Judea and Samaria as well, and Gaza too:
The views of the U.N’s International Law Commission and most scholars in finding defensive conquest as lawful under the U.N. Charter should not be surprising given that it simply reflected broad state practice under the Charter. In the years immediately following the adoption of the Charter, many of the victorious Allies took territory of the defeated nations. All these annexations have been recognized, without controversy by the U.S. and international community. To mention only a few of these instances, Holland unilaterally annexed parts of Germany in 1949; Greece and Yugoslavia took parts of Italy; the U.S.S.R and Poland annexed large parts of Germany. The ILC in its deliberations specifically addressed the legal basis for these annexations: because the underlying use of force was lawful (defensive), the acquisition of territory can be permitted.
People argue that Israel was “illegally” carved out of territory held by others. Well, so was Pakistan. Pakistan was formed by carving away a chunk of India. Hindus fled for India, Muslims fled for Pakistan. Millions. So where is the ongoing international outcry over that? Or is it, again, Israel double-standard time?
But wait, there’s more. There have been many other “disputed territories” – even outright illegal occupations – yet there is an obsession about Israel:
Indeed, many other countries maintain obviously illegal occupations, but are not subject to repeated demonization. Turkey has occupied the northern part of Cyprus for 51 years. China has occupied Tibet for 72 years. Yet China and Turkey are not the victims of constant smear campaigns by the international community.
And while this Law Review article is both thick with legalese and IMHO very narrowly threaded through multiple needles, my take away is that territory acquired from a defensive war is different than territory acquired by an offensive war (echoing my statement above). Another article states that settler populations in such territories are not a violation of the Geneva Convention. Further, Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005; its blockade of that territory only began in 2007. I wonder what happened in those three years that drove the creation of a blockade – no small undertaking.
The double standard reeks again. Israel left Gaza to the Gazans and what did the Gazans do? Fire more missiles. Ramp up production (see below about using water pipes for missile material). Dig tunnels. Look and compare how much territory would be covered by missiles in other countries with similar situations:
Now, given what’s happening in Ukraine, imagine if Zelensky started sending thousands of missiles across 70% of Russia. Would Putin listen to cries of “tolerance” and “coexistence”? In that vein:
One more tidbit on double-standards:
THE ISLAMIC MENTALITY
There is a quote by the late Golda Meir:
There will be peace in the Middle East only when the Arabs love their children more than they hate Israel.
Here’s an interview with the mastermind of the Sbarro Pizzeria bombing. Note that she was undeterred by the fact that while her target was religious Jews, she let the operation go ahead seeing that others – not religious Jews – were there too.
Ahlam Tamimi Chose Sbarro’s ‘Religious Jews’ as Murder Target
No remorse at all for the civilians killed. Because in Islam, again, there are no infidel civilians. Repeat that ten times. Or twenty, until it sinks in. And there was another interview segment when she smiled when she found out more children had been killed than she’d thought.
And now read this:
EU Spent $100M On Pipelines That Hamas Turned Into Rockets. (thenationalpulse.com)
So they had actual water pipelines, which were cannibalized into rocket materials. Water, life-giving water, society-building water… but that’s not as important as their Prime Directive: Kill Jews.
As I said in my last topical post, it doesn’t matter if their kids die of hunger or thirst or lack of medical care or exposure. That’s jihad; those dead children are shahids, i.e., martyrs, getting an instant ticket to paradise. Know the enemy. Know what motivates them.
Consider this article from 2013 about 500 tons – tons! – of concrete used for one tunnel from Gaza into Israel. One tunnel. And that was ten years ago.
A Hamas military spokesman in Gaza, Abu Obeida, was defiant over the tunnel discovery, saying on his official Twitter account that “thousands” more tunnels would be dug out.
There are consequences to this diversion:
From the Telegram channel where I got this:
The Israeli army is distributing leaflets in Gaza urging residents to go to sheltersThe text calls on people to leave their homes “for their own safety” and go to shelters.There are no shelters in Gaza. People took refuge in schools and hospitals.
And WHY are there no shelters in Gaza? Because of that aforementioned concrete diversion. There have been dozens and dozens of tunnels found:
He admitted that the tunnels are used for infiltration of Israel, but said that offensive operations have never caused the death of civilians in Israel, and denied allegations of planned mass attacks on Israeli civilians.
*tweeeeet* Taqiyya alert! Understand something very clearly: to a Muslim engaged in jihad, there is no such thing as an “infidel civilian”. If you are not a Muslim, then definitionally, you are in the house of war. Consider the news that a Hamas terrorist, at the concert – definitionally civilian – was shooting a round into each porta-potty. If this is not intended to kill civilians, what would rise to that level?
But this is not a misinterpretation of Islam. Here’s an example – early on in Mohammed’s career – of how he treated civilians; women and children:
Listen and note well the words of a Hamas official’s son who “woke up” to the reality of his religion (this was an audio but I managed to upload the video):
Audio only:
Note well what the guy says: Mohammed slept with raped the wife of the leader of a massacred Jewish tribe the same day he murdered her husband. The. Same. Day. From the very beginning, terror and brutality. Allah is greater than your god. Another specific example from Mohammed’s time:
Allah’s Sword of Terror (raymondibrahim.com)
For example, only recently I came across a video (video was removed hence no link) of a modern-day Egyptian Salafi explaining how Khalid raped Layla, the wife of Malik bin Nuwayra—but only after he severed her husband’s head, lit it on fire, and cooked his dinner on it.
And in a private email conversation with Political Islam‘s founder, Dr. Bill Warner, he confirmed that not only did Khalid rape the man’s wife… he did it in a pool of her husband’s blood. Like his leader, raping a woman the same day her husband is killed. And remember in the previous post that it’s a Koranic command to strike terror into the hearts of infidels? From the same article:
Of course, all this accords with the Koran’s many commands to “strike terror” into the hearts of disbelievers, be they born infidels or apostates (see Koran 3:151, 8:12, 8:60).
From earlier in that piece:
Khalid was recalled and questioned by the caliph—not because he killed and dined on an apostate’s head and “married” his wife, but because some believed that Malik was still Muslim, not an apostate to be treated so, and that Khalid killed him on the accusation of apostasy only as a pretext to take possession of his wife, whose beauty was renowned.
Note well why he was recalled. Not because of his brutality, but the fact that he might have done it to a fellow Muslim; even then, he remained in Mohammed’s service. He led the Islamic forces against the Byzantines in 636, four years after Mohammed’s death.
Flip it. Imagine if one of Jesus’ disciples had cannibalized a man by cooking his head and raping the widow. Do you believe he’d have remained part of Jesus’ following? Of course not. He’d have been driven out. But Khalid was kept in the fold; they weren’t bothered by the actual deeds, but merely that he might have acted against a fellow Muslim and his desire for the man’s wife. Does that non-expulsion not tell you everything you need to know about Mohammed and the “faith” he spawned? And its supremacist view of Muslims versus infidels?
Slaughter and terror are at the heart of Islam. For example, although Hallel Ariel was living on a “settlement”, what crime did this teenage girl commit?
Like the murder of Hadas Fogel and her family (mentioned in last post), her murderer was celebrated… and his family was eligible for $350 a month from the Palestinian fund for martyrs. Both Hallel, and Hadas, and limitless other victims of terror, their “crime” was that they were Jews and were on formerly Islamic land. Land that, repeating, must be retaken. Except what land was this little girl on? Oh, wait, France. Bolding added in the excerpt.
Mohammed Merah did not chase down a French-Jewish seven year old girl, put a gun to her head and pull the trigger because he came from an economically depressed area or any of the other media spin. He was only doing what Muslims had been doing to non-Muslims for over a thousand years. He didn’t do what he did because he was “radicalized”, he did it because he became a fully committed Muslim.
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Muslims have hated Jews before the telephone, the telegraph, the steam engine, gunpowder, movable type and paper currency. And now surrounded by smartphones, credit cards and jet planes, they still hate them. That simple undeniable fact is denied by every government, and in every university and every center of culture. And every one of those deniers has blood on his hands.
The Toulouse massacre, 2012 (markhumphrys.com) (links and bolding in the original; italics replaced by underlining):
The Islamist way of war:
The jihadist killer at the French school ran after this little Jewish girl, 8 year old Miriam Monsonego, grabbed her, and shot her dead at close range.
He shot dead a 3 year old boy and a 6 year old boy at the gates. “CCTV footage from a camera at the gates reportedly showed that one of the boys was executed as he crawled away on his hands and knees while his father and brother lay dying on the pavement.”
Her crime? Being a Jew. Alive. Alive anywhere. The below permission is nothing new, not new at all.
Terror. Unremitting fear. And as I said in an earlier piece, Fear is the Mind Killer, one of the things the human mind craves is stability. Islam’s attacks are targeted specifically to create uncertainty and fear – with the perpetual offer of “Just submit, convert, and all will return to normal.” Genius – diabolical level genius. Just like the genius of granting paradise to those who die fighting the infidel… especially pertinent when you have rich Muslims taking multiple wives, so the poor Muslims either have to take booty and female captives, an incentive for jihad, or die and get their 72 virgins. Infernal-level genius. Satanic level genius.
Take a look here – this is New York, the Long Island Expressway:
MORE ON INTERSECTIONALITY / LEFTIST SUPPORT
In a hypothetical world, I would actually enjoy it if Islam comes to dominate and this… guy?… is held down and beheaded.
Anti-Semitism unites the Left with Islam:
Thoughts on leftwing support for Hamas and radical Islam | Voice (christianpost.com)
The simple answer is that Hamas is antisemitic, and antisemitism is part of the spirit of the age, the mentality of what the New Testament calls “the world.” Darkness is drawn to darkness.
And this is the primary thing that unites the leftwing supporters of Hamas: latent (or flagrant) antisemitism, often disguised as staunch anti-Zionism. This shared hatred (or, at the least, severely critical, totally unbalanced attitude towards Israel) overrides all the other issues.
As I said in the last post: Israel started out intending to be a Socialist state. They “woke up” and went free market. Like a Muslim who quits the faith, leaving the Socialist fold is apostasy demanding execution.
Students are indoctrinated; PoliMath takes Harvard students who celebrated dead Jews now begging for MERCY APART in BRUTAL thread – Twitchy. Now, of course, they’re weeping that they too might be “canceled”.
And need I bring up Jewish support for Hamas?
Among the event’s key sponsors were three anti-Zionist Jewish groups including Not In Our Name, which is based at the City University of New York, and Judaism On Our Own Terms, which was founded more than a decade ago as Open Hillel.
Whether Leftist or LGBT or non-Muslim POC support, it all translates to one fate if Islam wins.
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Decisions, decisions:
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Stupid liberal Jews. You really thought they’d stand with you?
These Comments From the BLM Founder Are Making People Wake Up – Twitchy
Just who do you think BLM will stand with if things kick off for real in the US?
PALLYWOOD
Hamas terror attack on Israel brought out the worst in media; Drew Holden has the receipts – Twitchy
Because the uber-intellects of the Left / Enemedia complex (same thing really) can’t imagine being fooled. And so they become useful idiots.
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Storing corpses in ice cream trucks… wait, what? Ice cream trucks???
But… but… but open air prison! Concentration camp!
TERROR COMING HERE?
In their own words, with throat-cutting instructions – and note the date on the first segment – 2020. Three years ago they were giving instructions on how to slit throats. They’ve been slaughtering Jews for decades (links in the original):
In 2002, Hamas committed one of its deadliest massacres during the Jewish holiday of Passover in the Israeli city of Netanya. Thirty civilians were murdered and 140 wounded when a Hamas terrorist, disguised as a woman, detonated a suitcase filled with powerful explosives in the dining room of a hotel where Jews were celebrating the Passover holiday. Most of the victims were senior citizens (70 and over). The oldest victim was 90 and the youngest, 20.
Over the past three decades, Hamas officials never concealed their group’s ambition to destroy Israel through Jihad (holy war). Hardly a day has passed without another Hamas statement concerning the need to “liberate all Palestine” (meaning destroy Israel).
And it begins now. Globally. China. France. They’re marching in force in Sydney, Australia.
Consequences of mass migration. And how do you feel now, Tikkun Olam Fetish Jews?
An Open Letter to Pro-Migration / SJW Jews – Urban Scoop
When your synagogues are aflame and surrounded by all those “welcome the stranger” migrants crying out ALLAHU AKHBAR?
See Aesop. Remember, jihad by migration is a Koranic imperative too.
Bill Warner, PhD: Hijra, Islamic Migration
And on Muslim Demographics:
TREADING ON THE POLITICAL
For years now, I’ve had many people asking me a simple question: How is it that Jews keep voting “D”? In particular, after things like this:
Or six billion dollars to #1 terror nation Iran, perhaps? Or worse, How the Biden Administration Helped Iran’s Mullahs Try to Fulfill Their Dream of Annihilating Israel :: Gatestone Institute. Don’t forget about pallets of cash to Iran by Obama. Or Obama’s letting Iran keep a stealth drone to reverse-engineer. And let’s not forget Obama dissing Netanyahu. In times past, wars were started over this level of mistreatment of a head of state.
Do you think that fungible money might get diverted to terror?
Biden Sent Millions of Dollars In Covid Relief Funds to Palestine (townhall.com)
Hamas and Amoral Clarity (townhall.com) (bolding added):
As soon as President Joe Biden took power, he resumed massive subsidies to radical Palestinians, canceled by the prior Trump administration.
He ignored his state Department’s warnings that such fungible money would soon fuel Hamas terrorism.
His administration dropped sanctions against Iran, ensuring that Tehran would enjoy a multi-billion-dollar windfall to be distributed to Israel’s existential enemies — another fact well-known to the Biden administration.
But the allegiance to the Democrats comes from the fact that the vast majority of American Jews are Plopping Jews:
Plopping Jews
The noble idea of repairing the world has been hijacked. And from here, The fraud of American Jews’ “Tikkun Olam” (melaniephillips.com), comes this statement (link in the original, italics replaced by underlining; I’ve bought – but in full disclosure have not had time to read – the book):
The community’s secular religion of tikkun olam, or supposedly Jewish social justice, is a fraud.
As Jonathan Neumann puts it in his excellent book To Heal the World?, American Jews have been led to believe that “the purpose of the Jews in the world is to campaign for higher taxes, sexual permissiveness, reduced military spending, illegal immigration, opposition to fracking, the banishment of religion from the public square and every other liberal cause under the sun — all in the name of God”.
It’s not Jewish, just, or even very social, constituting a mish-mash of Marxism, moral relativism and paganism.
A parallel book: Why Are Jews Liberals?
There will be consequences to this cleaving to the Democrats:
But… but… but Orange Man bad. How’s that likely to work out for Israel, American Jews?
Even as the Democrats see the growing voting Islamic demographic and rush to curry favor:
Talking about demographics? This is NYC:
Massive protests in London. Paris. All around the WESTERN WORLD. Again – if the US, and by extension NATO under Article 5, get sucked in, what’s going to happen globally with millions of Islamic migrants in America and Europe?
GIVING SUPPORT TO ISRAEL
You can’t go wrong with a donation here:
I’ve contributed to them for almost 20 years. And please share this post far and wide. There’s a lot of info here, that many people don’t know.
A CONCLUDING THOUGHT FOR THIS POST
I was talking to my good friend in Israel early this week. He was shocked, as everyone I know there is. “How could we, so strong, have this happen”?
Now, there are many speculations floating around – not without circumstantial evidence, I regretfully add – of a stand-down, or some other withdrawal to enable this as a tool to prop up Netanyahu. If this can be proven, IMHO, Israel needs the death penalty reinstated for this level of treason. IF. PROVEN.
But even without that, it’s clear from new reporting that Hamas had spent two years planning this (see the map, above), including putting Israel to sleep. Also, apparently, there were jamming efforts on Israel’s electronic security. Plus a complete asleep-at-the-switch mentality on drone warfare and its immense impact – a complete underestimation of the enemy. Three articles here (same website, chronological order):
Bayou Renaissance Man: The grim reality of a modern battlefield
Bayou Renaissance Man: Lessons learned from a recent war
Bayou Renaissance Man: Drone warfare in Ukraine, and its lessons for future wars
So in this conversation something very critical came up. I’ve commented on the Great Cycle in my three essays on the biological roots of civilizational collapse:
Civilizational Collapse and Biology (Part 1) – Urban Scoop
Civilizational Collapse and Biology (Part 2) – Urban Scoop
Civilizational Collapse and Biology (Part 3) – Urban Scoop
And, inspired by this scene from the scifi channel movie Dune, I came up with a related progression:
Success breeds confidence
Confidence breeds complacency
Complacency breeds distraction
And when distracted one becomes vulnerable
Critical lessons for Israel… and indeed the entire West. We’ve had it far too good for far too long. And we’ve become complacent. And distracted.
The generals reportedly concluded that the activity in Gaza was probably a drill, and agreed to hold further discussions in the morning. They reportedly chose not to raise an alert or boost forces to the Gaza border area, since the issue was not considered pressing.
Complacency and distraction. Underestimation of the enemy. Letting down your guard because of routine.
Disaster.