There Is No Moral Equivalency Here

On November 13th, The U.K. Telegraph reported the following:

The IDF said it attempted to supply 300 litres of fuel for “urgent medical purposes” to Shifa hospital in Gaza City, but that Hamas prevented the hospital from receiving it – a charge which Hamas has denied.

Israeli troops said they placed the jerry cans of fuel close to the hospital, as had been coordinated with Shifa hospital officials.

“The IDF received evidence that Hamas officials prevented the hospitals from receiving the fuel,” the forces said.

Hamas denied it had refused 300 litres and said the offer “belittles the pain and suffering of the patients who are trapped inside without water, food, or electricity.”

It comes after three newborn babies died and dozens more were put at risk from a power outage caused by intense fighting nearby.

Late on Sunday, Al-Shifa and Gaza’s second largest hospital said they were suspending operations.

The article includes the following:

When Hamas decided to put their headquarters in a tunnel network under the hospital, they made the hospital a potential target. the Israeli Defense Forces have done everything they can to spare civilians, but when Hamas blocks fuel from the hospital, Hamas is guilty of war crimes. Civilized nations need to hold them accountable.

A Short History Lesson

On Thursday, The Federalist posted the following headline:

If Palestinians Wanted Peace And Prosperity, They’d Already Have It

The article notes:

In 2005, Palestinian Arabs were given autonomy over the Gaza Strip for the first time in their history. To make it happen, the Israeli government forcibly removed thousands of Israelis from the area. Without military protection, Jews would be murdered by Palestinians, who prefer their land Judenfrei.

As Jews were being evicted from their homes, some began to dismantle the farms and hothouses they’d built, reluctant to hand over years of hard work. In the name of peace, however, American Jewish donors purchased the 3,000 remaining greenhouses that stood over 1,000 acres for $14 million and gave it to the Palestinian Authority, gratis. A large portion of the donations were earmarked for “crucial equipment like computerized irrigation systems” and other modern farming systems for Palestinians.

As soon as the Jews were gone, mobs of Palestinians showed up and broke windows, stole irrigation hoses, water pumps, and everything else they could get their hands on, destroying everything they could, as “police” stood by and watched. This happened before Hamas came to power. Before any blockades.

At that point the mobs destroyed the hope of continuing the prosperity that had just been handed to them.

The article also reports:

By 2007, the unity government between the PLO and Hamas had fallen apart after the latter won a landslide election in 2006 and began defenestrating its political opponents. It was a warning. There has not been a real election in the West Bank since. And it’s a good thing because Islamists would surely grab power there as they had in Gaza. Joe Biden likes to say that Hamas doesn’t speak for Palestinians, but the ugly truth is that Hamas is a far better ambassador of the Palestinian people than the “moderate” Fatah party, which we prop up with billions of dollars.

The article notes that the only way to create a successful society in the Gaza Strip would be for Israel to take it over and set up civic institutions. However, that does take into consideration the children who have been trained almost from birth to hate Jews and to fight them.  In the end, “liberating” the Gaza Strip from Hamas would probably be about as successful as liberating Afghanistan from the Taliban was.

There Seems To Be Some Confusion Here

On Thursday, The Daily Wire reported the following:

UPDATE: Israel Refutes White House Claim About ‘Humanitarian Pauses’

The article reports:

On Thursday morning, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said that starting today Israel will implement daily, four-hour humanitarian pauses in its attack on the terrorist group Hamas in Gaza. However, following the widely reported claim that Israel had agreed to four-hour humanitarian pauses beginning today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office dismissed the White House’s statement.

Kirby said the Israeli government stated they will suspend military operations during the four hours and they will announce three hours before the pause begins when it will start, CBS News reported, adding, “President Biden told reporters Thursday morning that he has asked Netanyahu for a pause even longer than three days for the release of hostages.” Israel has reportedly already been “implementing these pauses since Sunday, opening a daily four-hour humanitarian corridor on Salah a-Din road for Palestinians to evacuate northern Gaza to its south,” The Times of Israel reported.

Following the announcement from the White House, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office issued a statement saying, “The fighting continues and there will be no ceasefire without the release of our hostages. Israel is allowing safe transit corridors from the north of the Gaza Strip to the south, as 50,000 Gazans did just yesterday. We once again call on the civilian population in Gaza to evacuate to the south.”

Israel has been under a tremendous amount of pressure both from the United States and the European Union to declare a ‘pause’ in the fighting in Gaza. Why in the world should Israel declare a ‘pause’ when Gaza has made no effort to release the hostages they are holding or to inform the world of the condition of the hostages?

The article concludes:

On Thursday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant met with the 252nd Sinai Division, which is operating in the northern Gaza Strip and was clear about Israel’s objectives.

“We must remember that in Beit Hanoun (city on the northeast edge of the Gaza Strip) is the battalion from which the terrorists came to murder and kidnap in Kibbutz Erez, Netiv Ha’Asara, and Sderot,” Gallant said, “This battle has meaning beyond the symbolic aspect. We need to ensure that all terrorist infrastructure in Beit Hanoun is destroyed. We will not stop, we will continue with all our might until we eradicate the Hamas organization – we will strike the entire chain of command, military depots, communications channels, tunnels, bunkers, and headquarters, everything.”

Referring to the horrific October 7 massacre executed by Hamas on the Israeli civilian population, he continued, “The answer to these brutal and barbaric acts is to wipe out Hamas. From here we will move on. If we don’t wipe out Hamas in Gaza, we will have ten more of these [massacres] from other places.”

The Israel government is the one who gets to determine how to handle the terrorists on its border. I can’t imagine any other country putting up with the terror attacks that Israel has put up with since it became a nation. Any other nation would have obliterated the Arabs who support terrorism by now.

Don’t Know Or Don’t Care?

On Thursday, The New York Post posted an article about how some of the pro-Hamas protestors in England view recent and current events in the Middle East.

The article includes the following:

Two girls interviewed at one pro-Hamas protest in London were asked what their reaction was when they first learned that Hamas had attacked Israel on October 7.

“I don’t believe they did, did they,” said one.

“Honestly, I think I need to be a bit more clued up on everything that’s going on, so I feel I’m not really qualified to answer that too well,” said the other.

Well, she appeared to feel “qualified” enough to turn up at an anti-Israel demo.

Her friend, holding a banner, actually said, “I mean, I’m not sure I’ve seen anything that shows that that’s actually happened.”

That is frightening.

The article continues:

These two ignoramuses should have come to Israel with me this week.

Specifically, they should have come to the site of the music festival massacre, and seen the remains of that “peace rave” where people their age, and very similar to them, were gunned down and raped just as the party was “coming up.”

Or perhaps they should have come with me to the small community of Nir Oz on the border of Gaza.

I have been to kibbutzim like this many times in the past. The citizens of these small towns and communities are often very left-wing. Often “peaceniks.” They have been accustomed to rockets for years.

Douglas Murray, the author of the article, walked through some of the areas that were attacked on October 7th. The article includes pictures of the destruction. We should not be concerned about the Israeli attack on the military strongholds in Gaza, we need to be concerned about the monsters that attacked innocent civilians and butchered them while celebrating their actions. The people who purposely killed women, young children and babies on October 7th need to be killed themselves. There is no chance of rehabilitation.

A Tweet That Says It All

On November 5th, Hot Air shared the following Tweet:

Has the Department of State not heard the chants of “from the river to the sea”? Do they not understand what those chants are saying? Are they not aware that Hamas wants a one-state solution–a world without Israel?

The article at Hot Air includes the following quote:

[I do believe Hamas has made it very clear they’re on the “one state” team, and that state is NOT Israel. I have never seen such consistently malevolent, ignorant buffoons in such high places before. ~ Beege]

A two-state solution will not work. We also need to remember that before October 7th, there was a truce between Israel and the Gaza Strip. We have seen how well that worked out.

Unfortunately, we are faced with an evil we have not seen since Nazi Germany, and out only option is to destroy it.

In Case You Had Any Doubt

On Friday, Breitbart reported that the current leader of Iran had confirmed in a speech given on Wednesday that the policy of his regime is to destroy America. Remind me again why we are attempting to broker a nuclear treaty with Iran.

The article reports:

The “supreme leader” of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared in an address on Wednesday that the common chant of “Death to America” in his country is “not just a slogan – it is a policy,” one his regime intended to bring to fruition.

Khamenei was reportedly delivering remarks on Iranian regime-controlled television regarding the ongoing conflict between the nation of Israel and the Hamas genocidal terrorist organization, which Iran funds to the tune of tens of millions of dollars a year. The Iranian regime has enthusiastically embraced Hamas following its harrowing October 7 terrorist attack against civilians in Israel, which featured door-to-door slaughters of entire families in their homes, the mass killing, torture, and rape of attendees at a peace music festival, and evidence of gruesome killings of infants as young as newborns. The “al-Aqsa flood,” as Hamas branded its killings that day, took the lives of more than 1,400 people in Israel; another 250 are believed to still be held hostage by Hamas in its stronghold of Gaza.

The article continues:

Khamenei expanded his hateful remarks against Israel on Wednesday by declaring that, given America’s longstanding support for that country, “Death to America” was a core goal of his regime’s foreign policy.

“The situation between America and Iran is this: When you chant ‘Death to America!’ it is not just a slogan – it is a policy,” Khamenei said, according to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). “I have stated the reasons previously. For many years, from the 1940s to the 1970s – that is 30 years – the Americans did everything they could do against the Iranian nation.”

“They hit Iran in any way they could – financially, economically, politically, scientifically, and morally,” the elderly despot continued.

I’m not convinced that you can make peace with people who want to kill you.

Israel Aid?

On Thursday, The Daily Wire posted two articles relating to American aid to Israel.

The first article reported:

Twelve House Democrats joined with Republicans on Thursday to pass a White House-opposed plan offset $14.3 billion in aid for Israel by slashing the same amount of funds meant for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

The GOP measure to provide emergency aid to Israel as it fights Hamas passed by a 226-196 vote, sending the legislation to the Democrat-led Senate where Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has already vowed not to bring it up for consideration.

Instead, Schumer announced earlier in the day, the Senate would “work on our own bipartisan emergency aid package that includes funding for aid to Israel, Ukraine, humanitarian aid including for Gaza, and competition with the Chinese Government.”

But the passage of the GOP House plan has already proven to be bipartisan with a dozen Democrats voting in favor of it: Reps. Angie Craig (D-MN), Don Davis (D-NC), Lois Frankel (D-FL), Jared Golden (D-ME), Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Greg Landsman (D-OH), Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), Darren Soto (D-FL), Haley Stevens (D-MI), Juan Vargas (D-CA), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), and Frederica Wilson (D-FL).

The second article reported on Senator Schumer’s reaction to the bill:

The Democrat-controlled Senate will refuse to consider the House GOP plan to send aid to Israel in its fight against Hamas, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) announced on Thursday, setting up a standoff with the Republican-led lower chamber.

Opting for a different path, Schumer said the Senate will move forward by working on legislation that combines Israel assistance with other national security matters — a strategy rejected by House conservatives, but favored by the Biden administration.

“Let me be clear: The Senate will not take up the House GOP’s deeply flawed proposal,” Schumer said in a post to X. “Instead we will work on our own bipartisan emergency aid package that includes funding for aid to Israel, Ukraine, humanitarian aid including for Gaza, and competition with the Chinese Government.”

The Democrats are allergic to spending cuts. Because of that, it is questionable whether any American aid will reach Israel. However, I suspect the Democrats will find a way to send more money to Ukraine. Maybe it’s not really about the spending cuts.

Standing Strong

On November 3rd, Hot Air posted an article about a recent statement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The article reports:

Benjamin Netanyahu has learned to take Hamas at its word. The United States, and specifically Antony Blinken and Joe Biden, still have not. As Blinken met with the unity government in Jerusalem to push Israel to ‘pause’ operations for aid to flow into northern Gaza, Netanyahu delivered a rather humiliating public rebuke.

The article quotes The Times of Israel:

In a brief televised statement before the start of Shabbat, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he has told visiting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that he rejects any temporary halt to the fight against Hamas that does not include “the release of our hostages. He also says Israel “will not enable the entry of fuel to Gaza.”

Netanyahu begins by promising that victory will be “sharp and clear” and will “resonate for generations.”

He says Israel’s enemies aim to destroy the country and will fail. “We won’t stop until victory,” he says, specifying that this means “to destroy Hamas, [and attain the] return of the hostages and the restoration of security for our citizens and children.”

The article concludes:

No kidding. So why are Biden and Blinken insisting on pauses and negotiations with the monsters of October 7 rather than supporting their effort to eradicate them? Why are we publicly playing into Hamas’ hostaging strategy when our own citizens are at risk rather than ending the incentives of such strategies forcefully and decisively? Incoherent hardly covers it; moral idiocy comes a lot closer to explaining the Biden administration’s pressure.

We need to remember that Israel was at peace when Hamas attacked. Hamas did not attack military targets. They attacked innocent civilians in the most brutal ways possible. If there are no serious consequences for their actions, what is going to stop them from repeating those actions?

Why Are We Just Learning This?

On Tuesday, The Gateway Pundit reported that Hamas is currently blocking about 500 Americans stranded in Gaza from leaving.

The article reports:

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) spoke the plain truth about the nearly 500 Americans in Gaza not being allowed to leave by Hamas: They are being held hostage by the Islamist Palestinian terrorist group. The nearly 500 are in addition to the “less than ten” Americans known to have been taken hostage in the October 7 terror attack by Hamas on Israel. The Biden administration has said Hamas has been making demands for their release that the U.S. is not prepared to meet.

Only two American have been allowed to leave Hamas-controlled Gaza since the October 7 attack that saw 1,400 Israelis and 33 Americans killed. Over 200 Israelis and “less than ten” Americans were taken hostage in the attack and are being held by Hamas. Four hostages have been released: the two Americans referenced above and two Israelis. One Israeli was rescued this week by the IDF and Shin Bet.

…Blackburn followed with a statement calling on National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan to resign, “Hamas is preventing 500 American citizens from being able to leave Gaza. These Americans are considered hostages under federal law. @JakeSullivan46 needs to resign immediately.”

The article also notes:

Blackburn signed on to a letter by a group of Republican senators denouncing Joe Biden’s proposal for $9 billion in “humanitarian assistance” for Gaza that said in part, “there is no way for the U.S. to have proper oversight over the billions of dollars that the administration intends to funnel to Gaza when Gaza is being ruled by a terrorist organization.”

I know that we have Americans working in Gaza–running schools and helping the poor, but 500? It’s time to destroy the people running Gaza. There will be civilian casualties, but the status quo is unacceptable.

Hudna?

In a recent article, I explained the concept of “hudna.” Basically, the principle is “please stop attacking me so that I can re-arm.” Another tenet of Islam is “taqiyya” which says that it’s okay to lie to infidels for the sake of the advancement of Islam. We are seeing both of these concepts at work after the horrific attack on Israel on October 7th.

On Thursday, The American Thinker reported:

Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal published a bombshell report, identifying an arms-trafficking scheme in which “Iran and its allies” have been smuggling heavy weapons and small arms to the jihadi terrorists occupying certain areas of Israel; see the lede below:

Long before Hamas militants burst out of their Gaza stronghold to massacre scores of civilians with handguns and assault rifles, Iran and its allies had accelerated efforts to smuggle weapons into a different part of the Palestinian territories, the West Bank.

What was most explosive though, given current circumstances, is that the arms flowing from the terrorist regimes to the smaller terrorist groups, often comes disguised as aid packages. The authors of the Journal item recount that after the February 2023 earthquake in Turkey and Syria, Iran “began hauling large quantities of weapons to Syria” in shipments disguised as aid; as we see, a “humanitarian crisis” or an “emergency” is a great cover for arming terrorists.

On a separate and totally unrelated note… From a Politico report last week:

The U.S. will send $100 million in aid for humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza and the West Bank, President Joe Biden said on Wednesday.

‘This money will support more than 1 million displaced in conflict affected Palestinians, including emergency needs in Gaza,’ Biden said Wednesday during a speech in Tel Aviv.

We are arming the enemies of Israel while we claim to be supporting them.

 

The War For The Survival Of Israel

This is the link to the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) website. It is a reliable source of what is going on in Israel, Gaza, and Lebanon. Notice that Lebanon has been added,

Today’s summary includes the following:

08:50
Over the past day the IDF struck over 320 military targets in the Gaza Strip

 The terror targets were struck based on IDF and ISA intelligence, and included tunnels containing Hamas terrorists, dozens of operational command centers (some of which concealed Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists) and more. The IDF struck targets that posed a threat to forces in the area surrounding the Gaza Strip who are preparing for ground operations, including dozens of mortar shell and anti-tank missile launch posts.

Overnight, an IDF tank thwarted a number of terrorist cells, including an anti-tank missile cell.

06:15
Overnight, the IDF struck the terrorist cell in Lebanese territory, along with an anti-tank missile launch post. The terrorist cell was planning to carry out an anti-tank missile launch towards the town of Shlomi.

02:07
A short while ago, the IDF struck Hezbollah terrorist targets, including a military compound and an observation post. Furthermore, an IDF aircraft struck a terrorist cell operating near the border along with the weapons in terrorists’ possession.

23:22
The IDF identified two Hezbollah terrorist cells in Lebanese territory. One cell was adjacent to the area of Mattat, and planned to launch anti-tank missiles toward Israeli territory. The other, located in Har Dov, planned to launch rockets. The IDF thwarted the attacks, striking the Hezbollah terrorist cells before they fired.

The article includes the following video:

At some point you have to ask yourself, “What kind of people would do this?”

Please follow the link to the IDF website. Updates are posted on a regular basis.

Sad, But Not Surprising

On Friday, The Conservative Review reported that President Biden is pressuring Israel to scale back its offensive mission in Gaza.

The article reports:

Biden visited Israel, meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reaffirm the United States’ commitment to the Jewish state throughout its war against the terrorist organization Hamas. While the United States agrees Hamas’ military infrastructure needs to be wiped out, the U.S. is reportedly influencing how Israel will conduct its ground invasion, urging the country to limit the number of civilian casualties in Gaza, three anonymous senior Israeli officials told Bloomberg in a Thursday report. 

Because we have been so successful in our ground invasions fighting terrorism? Iraq, Afghanistan?

Before asking Israel to limit its operations in Gaza, maybe he should reconsider the cause of Israel planning a mission into Gaza. If a serial killer lives on your street, do you talk gently to him? At this point, there is no way to consider the ‘soldiers’ of Gaza other than serial killers. The brutality and lack of humanity that they exhibited in their attack on Israel does not call for restraint. There is a reason we execute murderers–it cuts down on the recidivism rate. If the response to Gaza is tempered, it is a safe bet that the terrorists will repeat their actions of October 7th.

The article concludes:

Biden and his officials are continuing to emphasize the importance of limiting casualties in Gaza, according to the outlet. The president is urging Israel to be cautious during its ground invasion and when responding to attacks from Hezbollah, an Iran-supported terrorist organization, Netanyahu’s former ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren, told Bloomberg.

The United States is worried about the Israel-Hamas conflict escalating, with increased concerns about Hezbollah entering the fight, which would pull the U.S. further into the conflict, Bloomberg reported.

Wars need to be fought–not played with. It’s time to go back to General Sherman’s concept of war.

At Least Apologize When You Get It Wrong

Recently a parking lot in the Gaza Strip was hit by a missile. The latest reports say that possibly a few hundred people died. Any death is horrible, but there is a definite difference between hundreds and thousands. It has also been proven that the missile was a misfire of a Hamas missile fired from Gaza. Generally speaking, that is the current reporting of the incident now that the investigation has concluded. However, don’t expect those in the media who initially rushed to judgement claiming hundreds of casualties and blaming Israel to keep up with the actual facts.

On Thursday, PJ Media posted the following Tweet by The Washington Post:

The article at PJ Media reports:

What we’ve known since at least early yesterday is that a Hamas rocket misfired in a parking lot, killing a few unfortunate civilians. But there was no Israeli missile strike, no blown-up hospital, and no 500 dead civilians.

As of this 9 a.m. Eastern on Thursday, WaPo has yet to retract or correct Adam Taylor’s story.

Even Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib — two noted Hamas apologists — have been smart enough to keep their mouths shut in the hours since Hamas’s original claims were debunked. It makes you wonder how some young WaPo reporter, still filled with ideals about reporting the truth at any cost, must feel about their employer. It makes you wonder if young reporters like that still exist.

The first casualty of war is truth. We need to remember that in the coming days.

Some Perspective

History tells us that after terrorists attack Israel, there will be a short period of support for Israel followed by requests for a ‘measured’ response by Israel. Somehow the terrorists are never held accountable for their lack of a ‘measured’ response.

On Tuesday, Breitbart posted an article about some comments made on CNN by the Israeli Defense Forces spokesman.

These are the comments:

…IDF Spokesman Jonathan Conricus noted that by telling Gazan civilians to evacuate to the south, “we have just advertised our intentions” but Israel engaged in this move, even though it’s not generally a smart military strategy, “Because we want civilians out of fighting, and we don’t want them to be killed.

Conricus stated, “It is generally not wise for a military to be advertising its intentions. And we are aware of the fact that we have just advertised our intentions by telling civilians in northern Gaza to go south. Why have we done that? Because we want civilians out of fighting, and we don’t want them to be killed. So, there’s a balance here between achieving a military objective and minimizing civilian damage, and, in this case, which is very evident, and you cannot argue with it, we have chosen to — the sanctity of life and helping Palestinian civilians to go south and not be stuck in an area where there will be significant combat activities. There is a risk and we will have to mitigate this risk with the tactics, the weapons, and the time that we use, when and if we’ll operate. There is tremendous desire in Israel to see Hamas defeated, to see the scourge and the terror gone from Gaza, but Israelis, of course, also want the IDF to operate smartly and in a way that doesn’t expose our troops to undue danger in an environment that already is amongst the most dangerous on any battlefield.”

Unfortunately Hamas will do everything it can to make sure civilians are killed–even to the point of faking news reports and articles. There have already been pictures of victims of a war in Syria circulating as civilian casualties in Gaza. Be aware that propaganda is as much a part of a war in the Middle East as the actual fighting.

Telling Only One Side Of The Story

Yesterday Townhall posted an article about the reporting of the violence on the Israeli border with Gaza. First of all, let’s look at some of the history of Gaza. In 2005, Israel turned over Gaza to Arabs who wanted a Palestinian state. The Arabs immediately destroyed the greenhouses that supported the Gaza economy and began using Gaza as a launching pad for missile attacks against Israel. In June 2007, Hamas took over Gaza. Hamas is designated as a terrorist organization by America. They have definitely lived up to their name.

The article at The Hill shows some of the headlines from the mainstream media about the violence:

CNN: “37 Palestinians killed in Gaza protests ahead of US embassy opening”

ABC News: “Death toll in massive Palestinian protests climbs to at least 41, bloodiest day in Gaza since 2014 war”

Washington Post: “Israelis kill dozens of Palestinians in Gaza protesting U.S. Embassy move to Jerusalem”

Los Angeles Times: “At least 37 Palestinians killed by Israeli army at Gaza border”

Let’s add a few facts to this just to make it interesting. News outlets reported that the ‘protestors’ set tires on fire, sending plumes of black smoke into the air, and hurled firebombs and stones toward Israeli troops across the border. Doesn’t sound like a peaceful protest to me. It was also noted that at least three people were killed because they were about the detonate a bomb. This sounds like self defense to me, but it is not being reported that way.

The article concludes:

The media’s biased reporting on Israel is nothing new. It has been a staple of liberal media reporting. Anti-Israel bias is also rampant amongst Democrat politicians. Even some liberals cannot understand it, calling it a double-standard. Howard Kurtz uses some very appropriate terminology when he discusses the media’s double-standard on Trump reporting in his new book Media Madness, calling the media’s biased reporting a “decimation of original reporting.” “The lines between news and opinion were not just blurred, they were all but obliterated,” Kurtz writes. That exact bias is all too familiar in the reporting of Israeli defense against Palestinian violence. Just as mainstream media has been irresponsibly spreading fake news about Trump, so too have they been spreading lies about Israel – vilifying Israel and victimizing Palestinian aggression.

If you would like unbiased insight into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I suggest you read analysis by self-proclaimed left-wing Arab, Fred Maroun

But until the media stops with the fake news, take heed what you read.

Israel is a small postage stamp in a football field of Arab nations. It is truly sad that the Arab nations will not let them live in peace.

 

Until We End Summer Camps Like This, Jihad Is Going To Be A Problem

John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line yesterday about summer camp in Gaza. The article includes pictures of the camp activities that are going on under the supervision of Hamas’s Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades.

These are the pictures:

Camp1Camp2Camp3The article reports:

According to Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam officials, “the goal of the camps is to stoke the embers of jihad among the generation of liberation, to inculcate Islamic values and to prepare the army of victory for liberating Palestine.”

Look at the age of these children. It should break your heart that they are being robbed of their innocence and taught to hate.

I recently read The Blood of Lambs by Kamal Saleem. Kamal Saleem was recruited by the Muslim Brotherhood in Lebanon at the age of seven and trained as a terrorist. As a child, he was sent on suicide missions that he miraculously survived. He came to America to commit terrorism in America. The book tells the story of his training and his mission, and explains why he is no longer involved with the Muslim Brotherhood or in terrorism. The book illustrates the problem and gives the answer to the problem. However, until we stop funding children’s camps in Gaza and other places that train young jihadists, we will not see peace in the Middle East.

Things That Make Middle East Peace Difficult

John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article yesterday about the collapse of an underground tunnel going into Israel that was being repaired. The article reminds us that in the last Israeli war, Israel destroyed thirty or more tunnels built by Hamas for terror attacks into Israel. The collapse of the tunnel as it was being repaired killed seven Hamas members.

The article reports what was said at the funeral of these Hamas members. Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s deputy chief, said:

There are heroes east of Gaza City, digging the rocks and building tunnels. And west of Gaza, heroes are testing rockets every morning and every day and it is all preparations.

Under the ground and above the ground, in tunnels and above the ground and into the sky, with rockets and in the sea and everywhere, it is the permanent preparation for the sake of Jerusalem and Palestine, and for the sake of the intifada of Jerusalem and the sake of our people.

If the people who are supposed to negotiate peace are celebrating people who were killed repairing a tunnel to be used for terrorism, the chances of actually negotiating anything that would result in peace are slim to none.

Just as a side note, the crowds for the funeral of the Hamas members were so large that people were standing on a roof to see the funeral procession. The roof collapsed.

Until Hamas terrorists are no longer celebrated, there is no reason Israel should even consider making peace with the ‘Palestinians.’ Thus far, giving up land for peace has only provided Hamas with more places to launch rockets against Israel and build terrorist tunnels. Why in the world should they be given more land in the name of peace?

The Pictures Tell The Story

The map below shows the land originally given for the State of Israel in 1920:

The map below shows the changes made to that land in 1922:

As you can see, land was taken away from the land originally promised to Israel and given to the Arabs to form Trans-Jordan. The Jews were left with 23% of the land they were originally promised. They were willing to accept that–the Arabs were not.

The map below appeared on MSNBC this week:

MSNBC maps

This is totally misleading. There never was a country of Palestine–Palestine was the name given by the British to the Jewish land they occupied after the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

The Washington Free Beacon posted a story yesterday about the MSNBC map.

The article states:

MSNBC has admitted that highly controversial graphics aired on the network that depicted Israel as stealing land from the Palestinians were “factually wrong” and that the broadcast would be corrected on Monday, according to a network spokesperson.

The cable news network has been fighting off criticism after it aired the graphics and analysis, including a map linked to conspiracy groups branded as anti-Semitic, that portrayed Israel as existing on territory expropriated from Palestine.

The graphics garnered criticism from pro-Israel advocates and has now prompted the network to acknowledge that the graphics were highly misleading.

“In an attempt to shed light on the geographic context of the Israeli-Palestinian issue, we aired a map that was factually wrong,” the spokesperson said on Sunday.

Two MSNBC broadcasters, Kate Snow and Martin Fletcher, “will address the map in a segmentMonday about agendas and disinformation on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” the spokesperson said.

Fletcher, a Middle East analyst, said on Sunday that the map and analyses were “dead wrong.”

If you don’t understand the history of Israel, it is easy to conclude that Israel is in some way responsible for the current wave of violence against Israel. Nothing is further from the truth. The violence is being agitated from the Gaza Strip and probably rooted in orders from Iran. Right now, Iran is pulling the strings in the Arab world. They are quite capable of causing all sorts of distractions from the nuclear agreement that is in the process of going into effect. The nuclear agreement Iran agreed to is not the same nuclear agreement that was signed in Vienna (rightwinggranny). It is quite possible that what is happening in Israel is being done to create a military response from Israel in order to give the Arab world an excuse to attack Israel. Remember, wars in the Middle East are as much about propaganda as they are about the military. That is what makes the showing of the erroneous map by MSNBC so egregious.

This Isn’t Anything New

From the time of the Iranian revolution in 1978, the goal of Iran has been to restore the Islamic caliphate that vanished with the end of the Turkish Empire. We need to remember that the caliphate existed about a hundred years ago–it is not ancient history. Therefore, the book that has been published by Iran on how to outsmart the United States and destroy Israel should not come as a surprise to anyone. What should come as a surprise is why would the United States negotiate with a country whose goal is to destroy one of our allies and eventually destroy us.

Meanwhile, yesterday The New York Post posted a story about a book called “Palestine,” published by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This charming masterpiece is described in the article:

Khamenei makes his position clear from the start: Israel has no right to exist as a state.

He uses three words. One is “nabudi” which means “annihilation.” The other is “imha” which means “fading out,” and, finally, there is “zaval” meaning “effacement.”

Khamenei claims that his strategy for the destruction of Israel is not based on anti-Semitism, which he describes as a European phenomenon. His position is instead based on “well-established Islamic principles.”

One such principle is that a land that falls under Muslim rule, even briefly, can never again be ceded to non-Muslims. What matters in Islam is ownership of a land’s government, even if the majority of inhabitants are non-Muslims.

Khomeinists are not alone in this belief.

Dozens of maps circulate in the Muslim world showing the extent of Muslim territories lost to the Infidel that must be recovered.

There is a tenet in Islam that says all land controlled by Muslims at any time must be regained to form the caliphate. That tenet has a lot to do with Iran’s desire to have a nuclear bomb.

The article also reminds us that Khamenei plans to eliminate Israel through making life so unpleasant there that the Jews leave and the land goes to the Arabs as a result of demographics.

The article concludes:

Khamenei boasts about the success of his plans to make life impossible for Israelis through terror attacks from Lebanon and Gaza. His latest scheme is to recruit “fighters” in the West Bank to set up Hezbollah-style units.

“We have intervened in anti-Israel matters, and it brought victory in the 33-day war by Hezbollah against Israel in 2006 and in the 22-day war between Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Strip,” he boasts.

Khamenei describes Israel as “a cancerous tumor” whose elimination would mean that “the West’s hegemony and threats will be discredited” in the Middle East. In its place, he boasts, “the hegemony of Iran will be promoted.”

Khamenei’s book also deals with the Holocaust which he regards either as “a propaganda ploy” or a disputed claim. “If there was such a thing,” he writes, “we don’t know why it happened and how.”

This is what Iran’s leaders are preaching to their people and their allies in the Middle East. Do we really want to give succor?

In looking at the nuclear agreement with Iran, one has to consider the Islamic principle of taqiyya, loosely explained as “lying for the sake of Islam.” Taqiyya allows Muslims to issue two statements on any one issue–one to Muslims and one to non-Muslims. I have no doubt that what Iran is telling America about the nuclear deal is very different from what is being told to the Iranians. I pray that the Senate has the courage to turn down the nuclear deal with Iran.

If You Get All Your News From The Mainstream Media…

CBN News posted a story today about an article written by Associated Press reporter Matti Friedman. After the war last summer between Hamas and Israel, Mr. Friedman wrote an article entitled, “An Insider’s Guide to the Most Important Story on Earth.” The article is his account of how the press covered that war.

CBN News reports:

“I decided at the end of the summer to write an essay looking at what has gone wrong through the lens of my own experiences,” Friedman told CBN News. 
 
For seven years, Friedman reported for the Associated Press, a giant news organization that provides information to many other media outlets worldwide. He says the AP and the mainstream press suffer from two malfunctions. One, Israel gets a disproportionate amount of coverage and two, the press has taken sides.

“The mainstream press corps here [in Israel] has largely adopted an advocacy role. They’ve decided to play a political role in the conflict,” he explained. “They’ve decided to lobby for the side that they think is right and political decisions are disguised as journalistic decisions.”
 
Friedman says Hamas took advantage of the bias.    

Friedman described the strategy of Hamas as provoking Israel by attacking civilians with rockets and then using civilians to shield weapons and soldiers. Then Hamas would show the news media the civilian casualties without mentioning that they were being used as human shields. Unfortunately, the news media either did not see through the strategy or were taking sides.

The CBN News story concludes:

Friedman maintains the world is getting a skewed version of what’s actually happening here in Israel.

“The story is — if you read between the lines and through the lines of the stories themselves — is that Israel is faced with a clear moral choice and is making the wrong choice.  Israel could have peace but it chooses war. That story is false. But everything is done to maintain it. Even in the face of contradictory evidence.”

Meanwhile, Hamas is attempting to use the United Nations to establish a terrorist state right next to Israel. This is not a good time to be on the wrong side of history, particularly where Israel is concerned.

Why We Need To Abolish Hamas And All The People Who Support It

Arutz Sheva posted a story today quoting Hamas Spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri as to the actual goals of Hamas. Some of us have been led to believe that all Hamas wanted was to end the blockade of Gaza (we saw how much good that blockade has done in keeping weapons and tunnel-building material out of Gaza). It seems that we have been lied to.

This is the quote from the article:

“The time has come for us to say that the true war is not aimed at opening border crossings,” Sami Abu Zuhri said. “Our true war is aimed at the liberation of Jerusalem, Allah willing.” His words were translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute, or MEMRI. 

He then chanted “Khaybar, Khaybar al Yahood,” an Arabic phrase meaning that Allah will return to expel (or kill) the Jews. Khaybar was a Jewish village north of Medina, Saudi Arabia, which was conquered by Islamists in 629 CE. Crowds waving Hamas flags cheered him on. 

“The army of Mohammed has begun its return,” he continued. “Resistance, resistance. . .we are all with the resistance.”

“The war will continue,” Abu Zuhri affirmed. “However, it is not only the blockade which is rejected by our people. Our people refuses to accept the defiling of the land by the occupier.” 

“Therefore, as of today, the resistance is not preparing for the opening of a border crossing here or there, but rather, for the liberation of our Palestinian land,” he continued. “This is the truth that Netanyahu should understand.”

“We have become more resolute to wage the war of liberation, in order to end the settlements and Judaization, and in order to liberate our land and holy places.”

Israel is not ‘an occupier.’ Israel left Gaza in 2005, turning it over to the Arabs. There were greenhouses there and the structure to form a prosperous society. The Arabs promptly destroyed the greenhouses there, and turned Gaza into a terrorist haven and training camp. They showed a total disregard for the people who lived there–destroying their means to make a living. The majority of the people who lived in Gaza before 2005 were better off under Israeli rule than they have been under Arab rule. Hamas turned a place where people prospered and lived in peace into a war zone. That will also happen in areas where ISIS takes over. Both organizations need to be destroyed.

There Are Relationships And There Are Relationships

I24 News posted a story today about the deteriorating relationship between Israel and the Obama Administration.

The article reports:

Relations between Israel and the US are so bad now that the Obama administration has seen fit to tighten its control over wartime weapons shipments, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday morning. According to the report, citing unnamed senior officials, the White house had requested that the Pentagon put on hold a shipment of ‘Hellfire’ missiles Israel had requested and instructed them to “consult with policy makers at the White House and the State Department before approving any additional requests.”

The change in policy was related to the fact that a UN school was struck by an IDF missile.

This is a bit one-way. We are continuing aid to Hamas as they use human shields and deliberately target civilians. Secretary of State Kerry wanted the blockade of Gaza lifted so that Hamas could receive more concrete to build tunnels to attack Israel. And there has been no decrease in American aid to Hamas even after it became obvious that the aid was being used for weapons and tunnels–not to build hospitals, schools, and homes for the people of Gaza.

The article further reports:

US policymakers, were apparently fine with equipping the IDF with defensive equipment, especially the jointly funded and widely touted Iron Dome, but were concerned about the transfer of weapons of a more offensive nature. They were reportedly particularly worried by the IDF’s widespread use of artillery that provided cover for Israel’s ground incursion into Gaza, because of its less precise nature and higher risk of hurting innocent civilians.

The report quoted a senior Obama administration official saying that the weapons transfers shouldn’t have been a routine “check-the-box approval” process, given the context. “The official said the decision to scrutinize future transfers at the highest levels amounted to the United States saying ‘The buck stops here. Wait a second…It’s not OK anymore.’ “

“They decided to require White House and State Department approval for even routine munitions requests by Israel,” the article reads, citing officials. “Instead of being handled as a military-to-military matter, each case is now subject to review—slowing the approval process and signaling to Israel that military assistance once taken for granted is now under closer scrutiny.”

The Wall Street Journal report paints the weapons issue as part of a widening gulf between the Netanayahu and Obama administrations, which has reached “the lowest point” since Obama took office.

Note to White House–Hamas is a terrorist organization. Sending them money is supporting terrorism. Their charter includes the destruction of Israel. They are not the good guys. If Palestinians want their own state, they should not elect terrorists to run it.

A Hospital, A Mosque, A University, and An UNRWA Ambulance

What do a hospital, a mosque, a university and an UNRWA (UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees) ambulance have in common? According to Breitbart.com, they were all part of the killing of IDF Officer LT Hadar Goldin, 23.

The article reports:

An unnamed Israeli military source spoke to Breitbart News about the story of how Hamas used an UNRWA ambulance, a mosque, and the Islamic University to carry out the attack that killed the three IDF soldiers.

The officer explained how, after the suicide bombing that killed Lt. Goldin, a second kidnapping team of Hamas terrorists grabbed parts of his body and ran back into the tunnel from which the terrorists emerged. The tunnel led back into a mosque. From the mosque, they escaped in a clearly marked UNRWA ambulance. The terrorists then made contact with high-ranking Hamas officials hiding in the Islamic University. 

As a result Abu Marzook, a senior member of Hamas, announced in Cairo that Hamas had kidnapped an Israeli soldier. Israeli intelligence intercepted a conversation between the kidnappers and the Hamas officials at the Islamic University and thus got all the particulars regarding the hiding place of the kidnappers. Within minutes, the IAF attacked both the kidnappers’ location and the Islamic University.

So what can we learn from this? Hamas has no problem using hospitals, universities and mosques to hide its activities and its tunnel network. Hamas has no problem using a clearly-marked UNRWA ambulance as part of a battle plan. I think it is time we stopped giving money to the United Nations to fund UNRWA. They seem to have forgotten their mission (as has the United Nations–we should stop funding them also).

The war in Gaza began with the constant rocket attacks on Israel and the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli students. We need to keep that in mind as the Palestinian propaganda machine ramps up its charges of crimes against humanity against Israel. War is actually supposed to conducted according to rules. Hamas and its cousin ISIS have broken every rule of civilized warfare in their attacks on Israel and on non-Muslims in other countries. There needs to be some outrage by the World Court, the United Nations, and other organizations that are always blaming Israel for war crimes. These organizations need to either speak out against what ISIS and Hamas or doing or they need to disband as useless. There really is no other option.

There Are Numbers And There Are Numbers

This graph is from an article in Tuesday’s New York Times. It has to do with the reporting of civilian casualties in Gaza.

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The New York Times reminds us that all civilian casualties reported in Gaza are not civilians:

But the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, the Israeli group that analyzed the first Palestinian deaths, accused the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry of “concealment and deception” in order “to create an ostensibly factual infrastructure for a political, propaganda and legal campaign against Israel.”

The Times analysis, looking at 1,431 names, shows that the population most likely to be militants, men ages 20 to 29, is also the most overrepresented in the death toll: They are 9 percent of Gaza’s 1.7 million residents, but 34 percent of those killed whose ages were provided. At the same time, women and children under 15, the least likely to be legitimate targets, were the most underrepresented, making up 71 percent of the population and 33 percent of the known-age casualties.

We need to remember that Hamas soldiers do not always wear uniforms. Those infiltrating Israel through the tunnels wore IDF uniforms. As has been previously stated, Hamas routinely puts rocket launchers in heavily populated civilian areas. That is part of their strategy in the propaganda war. Now that the journalists are leaving Gaza, they are reporting rockets being fired from directly under their hotel rooms and in civilians areas. The world needs to understand the propaganda war being waged by Hamas and not fall prey to the misinformation that is being reported.

A website called Israellycool reports:

Tyler Hicks, the New York Times photographer, begins by telling us that Hamas fighters are hiding in civilian areas, embedded within the civilian population and firing rockets from residential neighborhoods:

I was stationed in Gaza, and covered the Palestinian side of the war where you saw most of the casualties.  One of the reasons for that is because the Hamas fighters are living among the civilian population. . . .  This is a situation where the fighters fire rockets from all over the Gaza Strip, from neighborhoods to cemeteries, from parking lots, from any number of places.

And no, the reason they do this is not because “Gaza is pretty small.”  Hicks next tells us that the fighters seek safety at the expense of the civilian population:

Hamas fighters are not able to expose themselves.  If they were to even step a foot on the street they would be spotted by an Israeli drone and immediately blown up.  We don’t see those fighters.  They are operating out of buildings and homes and at night.

Israel is fighting a terrorist neighbor. The world has a choice. They need to understand that this is a fight against terrorism and for democracy. They can choose to help Israel or they can ignore what is going on. The problem with ignoring what is going on is that the terrorists in Gaza are not a unique entity. They are linked (at least in philosophy) with Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, ISIS in Iraq and Syria, etc. We allow them to continue ruling Gaza at our own peril.

Strange Alliances Caused By Bad Behavior

I have posted a lot of articles about the bad behavior of Hamas. The American media has ignored a lot of that bad behavior, but countries in the Middle East have been taking notes.

CBN News is reporting today that the war between Israel and Hamas has caused some of the alliances in the Middle East to shift dramatically.

The article reports:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a new level of regional cooperation he said would surprise many. It would be a very important asset for the State of Israel, he said, and would open new possibilities when the campaign against Hamas ends.

It’s a move that may indicate a major shift in the Middle East.

“It’s probably the first time in its history it [Israel] finds itself in a kind of de facto member of one regional camp against another,” Middle East expert Jonathan Spyer told CBN News.

Spyer said this unprecedented alliance unites Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and Israel to face their common enemy — Iran.

“So the sense in which this emergent alliance is an alliance of countries associated or allied with the U.S. but which are nevertheless deeply disappointed or dismayed at the direction that U.S. policy has taken on a number of Middle East files and perhaps most importantly on Iranian nuclear ambitions,” he said.

This alliance is probably the only positive result of President Obama’s Middle East policy–these nations realize that the United States is willing to allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons. The Obama Administration is so short-sighted that they do not realize that those weapons will eventually be aimed at America. Meanwhile, the nations of the Middle East understand how those weapons will change the balance of power in the region. They also understand that Iran is run by the ayatollahs–not the president of Iran. The ayatollahs believe in a version of Islam that says that chaos will usher in the coming of the Islamic messiah. They have no problem creating chaos. Their neighbors, many of whom are prosperous at this time, have no desire for chaos.

This alliance is the result of both the war in Gaza and American foreign policy in the Middle East. Both are horrible, but the result is positive.

Meanwhile, in February of this year, Jews News reported that Sheikh Admed Aladoan of Amman, a member of Jordan’s well-known Adwan tribe, posted to Facebook this week that there is no such place as “Palestine,” and provided references from the Koran to back up his assertion.

The article states:

One of the Koranic verses provided states that Allah gave the Holy Land to the sons of Israel until the Day of Judgment (Surah Al-Ma’ida, verse 21), and the other (Surah Al-Shara’a, verse 59) says that the land was bequeathed to the Jews.

The sheikh turned to those who “distort the words of the Koran,” whom he labeled as liars, and questioned where they had even come up with the name “Palestine.” He insisted their claims to the Land of Israel were forfeit because “Allah is the protector of the Children of Israel.”

And if that wasn’t enough, the sheikh went on to turn the tables on the anti-Israel propaganda machine by accusing the Palestinians of killing children, the elderly and women, of using human shields, and of having not an ounce of mercy for even their own children.

Stay tuned.